#I apologize in retrospect for rambling and Too Much Detail

[just-cause-3-tourism]

In honor of me being at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh WI this week, I wanted to officially kick off this blog with some aircraft headcanons! Having gotten to sit in the cockpit of an AH-64 Apache (one of the irl inspirations for the Navajo), I’ve decided to start with probably the first helicopter we all went out of our way to steal from the military, the one and only

CS Navajo

Stats:

Length: 12.28 meters (40 feet)

Height: 3.35 meters (11 feet)

Empty weight: 2,000 kg (4,409 lbs)

Maximum weight: 3,600 kg (7,937 lbs)

Rotor diameter: 11.9 meters (5 blades)

Top cruise speed: 243 km/h (151 mph)

Maximum speed (redline): 279 km/h (173 mph)

Maximum rate of climb: 853 meters/minute (2,800 feet/minute)

Service ceiling: 65,616 meters (20,000 feet)

Range: 510 km (320 mi)

Armaments:

• 38 Volcanus missiles

• 8 Vindicator missiles

Powered by two turboshaft engines, each providing roughly 1000 horsepower

Highly angular, narrow fuselage is designed to reduce the helicopter’s profile at certain angles and make it harder to hit, compensating for its relatively light armor

Some of Medici’s Navajo fleet (although not most) are armed with light machine guns. These choppers are generally stationed in larger military bases to provide extra firepower or sent as aerial escorts for others. (these armaments were depicted in the “Kasabian Trailer)

Compared to the Urga Hrom D and the Urga Mstitel, the Navajo is the Medici Military’s favored attack chopper for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, it’s relatively affordable, especially when compared to the former two. Medici was one of the first several nations to place an order when Capstone rolled out production in 2012, purchasing an initial fleet of forty. Di Ravello has since acquired dozens more

Designed to seat two pilots, but due to crew availability the Medici Military usually operates them with the minimum required crew of one. This allows them to have more helicopters flying at a given time—but does see a reduction in performance

Sensors on the nose provide targeting for the aircraft’s missiles and night vision, making the Navajo a threat both day and night. However, it does have limitations. The night vision sensor cannot detect small obstacles such as wires or poles, and I think most of us can agree wouldn’t be the first time if a pilot focused on chasing Rico ended up striking something

Capstone designed the Navajo with versatility in mind. It excels in air-to-ground combat, and is capable of anything from armed reconnaissance, escort, ground attack or support, and anti-tank attacks. Where it does fall a little short is anti-aircraft; while it possesses the firepower to take down other aircraft, its standard-equipped missiles are unguided. A skilled pilot (or a skilled gunner, should the helicopter be fully manned) can sometimes land a good strike, though

Considered a medium attack chopper, the Navajo is designed for quick response times and maneuverability in combat. Its lighter armor makes it quite maneuverable—capable of very brief acrobatic maneuvers—but leaves it more vulnerable to damage (If you don’t believe me that attack choppers can perform acrobatics, watch this. The Apache is a hell of an aircraft)

https://youtu.be/q52KxdjXvJM

Why do you never see these maneuvers performed by Medici Military, you may ask? Simply put barrel rolls and slow loops aren’t very useful in combat. Especially if someone is shooting at you, the last thing you want to do is slow down! These maneuvers simply demonstrate capability and I just think it’s neat :D

The important thing is that the Navajo possesses more than enough agility to be effective. In the hands of a skilled pilot, it can stop or spin on a dime, roll tightly around obstacles, and even outmaneuver ground-to-air or air-to-air attacks

[lettrespromises]

THE FORGOTTEN DAY. - AKAASHI, DAICHI, KUROO, ATSUMU.

@luveranime wrote : ❝Hey Nikki its me again lmao 😂. Could you do one where they actually completely forget your birthday? With Akaashi, daichi, kuroo, and atsumu? Make it angst please🥺❞

A.N: ❝dear reader,

thank you so much for trusting me once more with your request! i always love writing the requests even more so than my own prompts. i sincerely hope you’ll like these hc’s, i tried to make these as angsty as i could but atsumu has two braincells and i could NOT resist the temptation of doing something more lighthearted, i hope you won’t be mad at me! mwah! enjoy your promised letter!

sincerely yours, nikki❞

Genre: Kinda angsty, kinda fluffy. Warnings: Cursing, crying.

Now, Akaashi is not one to forget about dates and birthdays. I’m pretty sure he has a notebook filled with everyone’s birthdays written in a chronological order. Needless to say, he’s someone who is extremely organized. 

He is the kind of boyfriend to remember all the slightest details you mention when you guys have a conversation. We’re talking about small details, pieces of informations that others wouldn’t necessarily pick up on except if your name is Akaashi Keiji. (I.E: he knows that Bokuto-san classifies his underwear according to each day of the week.)

The week leading up to your birthday, he makes sure to leave several notes stuck on your notebooks, laptop, mug, even your jacket to let you know how loved you are and how exceptional of a human being you are.

Unfortunately for you, your birthday has the misfortune of being set right during the revision week leading to the final exams. The latter are extremely important to Akaashi because missing his exams would result in him not being able to go to inter-school volleyball training held during the weekend. 

Even though he’s in a relationship, he can be quite distant when something is bothering him because he refuses categorically to drown you with his problems, revisions being one of them. He’s so driven to study hard (although he’s already an excellent student), that everything else appears as a blur to him- he breathes revisions, eats revisions, lives for revisions.

The latter causes him to inevitably forget about your birthday. At first, you just think he’s playing along with you and he has this huge and sweet surprise in store for you which might explain why he hasn’t left you any love notes or sent you any texts, or even avoid you at school.

The evening of your birthday, you crash down at his place, a bit perplexed at his antics. But, unconsciously, you were still in denial, you knew or at least hoped that he was just purposefully acting as such because he wanted to surprise you for your birthday.

When he opens the door and sees you, he has a quizzical look on his face “Um, hello, Y/N? May I ask what you’re doing here, dove?”

Now, it was your turn to have a quizzical look on your face, “So you really don’t know? Isn’t it, you know, a special day?” 

His mind is so coated by his obsession to study hard that nothing comes to his mind, nothing to answer to your interrogation and eventually, nothing to leave his mouth as a response. He could swear there’s something he has forgotten, it’s somehow on the tip of his tongue but no sound is echoed on his part. 

“You know what, Akaashi, just don’t make promises you can’t keep. I hope these notes you left me will help you.” 

First of all, you called him Akaashi instead of Keiji, meaning that there was something terribly wrong with him or his deeds.

Second of all, he looked carefully enough, there were pearls of tears on the corner of your eyes.

Third of all, he was so taken aback, as if all his memory had resurfaced in the blink of an eye that he still couldn’t find the strength to say something. Instead, his eyes wandered on your figure, his back facing you, already on your way home. The sole reflex he had was to raise his hand in your direction, as if he could catch your silhouette already long gone, hopelessly.

Daichi is already the (unofficial) dad of troublesome children (thank the heavens for mama Sugawara and uncle Asahi), which means not only he has to juggle between his duty as a captain and as a student, but he also must make sure of the stability of your relationship.

It’s really taking a toll on him. Seeing him come home late after late night practice is not even surprising anymore, he just comes to your place and crashes down for the night at unbelievable hours- sometimes ten, sometimes eleven.

His role of captain is so dear to his heart and he’s kind of an all or nothing kind of guy. But when it comes to the volleyball team, he pours every once of passion, patience and energy he has to offer. He knows that the first years have literally gifts when it comes to playing and he wants to exploit their potential at the fullest.

Nonetheless, when it comes to remembering dates, Daichi (being an unofficial dad) has the tendency to remember rather quickly common dates like birthdays, if not, he can always count on Suga to remind him in case he gets too hotheaded into what he’s doing.

On the day of your birthday, he sent you a myriad of texts, mini-novels if you will. All of them were the testimonies of the love he held in your regard, he was so thoughtful, each one of his word was carefully chosen to make you feel like the most loved person on the planet.

Starting the day off with a series of loving texts from your boyfriend is indeed the best way to wake up.

However, after close inspection, the last text he had sent you mentioned a date tonight at your favorite restaurant in town because, and I quote, “you deserve to be treated like the royalty you are.”

Focusing in class was almost impossible, the only thing occupying your mind was tonight’s date with Daichi, just the two of you on your birthday. And truth be told, there was no other way you’d rather spend this ever so special day.

Right after the bell rang, you made a beeline to your place to get ready as Daichi told you he would pick you up at 7, right after practice. Your heart was bursting with joy and impatience, a sweet mix of emotions which made you feel overwhelmed by love.

It was 7 already and your eyes were stuck on the alley of your house, waiting to see Daichi’s car arrive and admire the beautiful, lovestruck grin plastered upon his face. 

Then it was 8, and suspicions started to arise in your mind. Your head was clouded by interrogations : “Does he not love me anymore?”, “Is this is way of telling me we should break up?”

Then 9, then 10 and eventually 11.

You waited four hours to hear a sign from Daichi, and you couldn’t keep up with the countless texts you had sent him, wondering where he was. But, you still had hope. Heart-crushing hope that is, or maybe you were just stuck in pure denial.

You were sitting on a chair, several stains of tears on your cheeks already, facing the window which offered a view outside your house because “You never know, he might show up...”

At 11, your phone rang and Daichi’s number highlighted the screen. You were so quick to pick up the phone, your quickness was almost inhuman. 

“Baby? Hi, it’s me. Are you still awake?” You hummed in response, scared of the way your voice would break if you were to talk. “Listen, practice-...”, you cut him off : “Practice ran late again, I know, Daichi.”

There was a moment of silence on his end of the line, a moment of guilt.

“Baby, you have no idea how sorry I am. It’s just the team and the firs-...” - “I know, the gifted first years.” your voice was barely above a whisper.

“We can reschedule tomorrow if you want, I’ll ask Ennoshita to take care of the training for me.” He sounded desperate, eaten alive by the guilt consuming him and the fragile tone of your voice, you sounded like a broken record.

“Tomorrow won’t be my birthday anymore, Daichi, you know that.” You knew that if you were to hear the sound of his voice again, you were bound to break in tears, and as much as he hurt you, you knew it wasn’t his fault and you didn’t want to make him feel even more guilty than he already was feeling.

Instead, you hung up while he was still rambling about confused apologies and you headed straight to your room, head low, fresh tears crashing on the stains left by the dried tears. Like an eternal circle, if you will.

Kuroo is someone who is extremely observant by nature, just look at the way he behaves around Kenma- he doesn’t need for you to talk to know how you’re feeling and can directly dissect what’s wrong with you.

So when he finds himself having a one-sided discussion with you, (or a double-sided conversation if you deem silence as a worthy response), his brain automatically goes on retrospection mode and he’s trying to reminisce absolutely everything that happened during the last 48 hours.

The science-related puns don’t work, the teasing is a crushing defeat, all his best aces fail to put a smile on your face or make you crack a laugh. You’re still silent, or if he’s lucky enough, he can hear the faint sound of hum leaving your lips.

His last option is to ask Kenma because Kenma appears as an omniscient point of view in your relationship. And although he’s not directly involved in your couple, he always seems to find the responses to the riddles left by the cons of being in a relationship.

Kuroo and Kenma are having lunch outside, as expected of the blonde individual, his eyes are solely focused on the device held between his hands, but Kuroo is used to it. 

“Man, I just don’t get why Y/N is giving me the cold shoulder, it’s really weighing on my mind.”

“Are you sure you don’t know, or do you act as if you don’t know?”

“Ha? What do you mean?”

“Yesterday was Y/N’s birthday, just in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Oh... Oh! It’s time to panic, it’s time to leave his brain on overdrive and find a solution to make up for what he judged an inexcusable behavior. 

What broke his heart even more is when he imagined to put himself into your shoes, how heartbroken you must have felt, how alone you must have felt, he even wondered if you wanted to break up with him.

Sure, Kuroo was observant, but sometimes being a airhead got the best of him. Or perhaps in this case, the worse of him.

He froze, his mouth was set agape and kind of like Akaashi, in moments of panic, he didn’t know what to do. He felt defeatist, he knew that forgetting your birthday was a dealbreaker. He already thought of all the consequences of his actions, and he knew that none of these consequences would turn out good in any way.

He ran through the hallways like a madman, yelling to the other students to step aside as he did so. He knew where you were, and he felt so stupid for knowing your timetable off by heart but not being able to remember such a simple date as your birthday.

You were having lunch in class with your friends, and when a hint of a roster’s head peaked through the door, making hand gestures to silently tell you to come see him, you excused yourself and left the class under the puzzling looks of your friends.

To say that Kuroo was sweating was an understatement, he was absolutely shaking to death and he exuded guilt by every pore of his body. Your gaze landed on his face, and your expression seemed lifeless- where did the usual gleam in your eyes go? The shine in your eyes he loved so much?

“You’re free to insult me for the rest of my days on this planet. I know I messed up, I messed up so bad and I don’t even know how to-... Hey? Oi, Y/N, please, please don’t cry.”

If he needed yet another reason to feel guilty, that was his cue. The tears falling in cascade on your face, the scarlet tones of your eyes, everything about you screamed pure sadness.

Both of your hearts broke in unison, and the motion of his hands to capture you and hold him close to his chest was so experimental, as if he’d never held you in his arms in his entire life. 

“Why did you forget, Tetsu?”

“I swear on my life that it was unintentional. I know you won’t forgive me anytime soon and, kitten, you have every right to do so. I know it’s not an excuse but just believe me when I say that it was unintentional. I’m so sorry, you have no idea.”

“Just wish me a happy birthday instead of rambling.”

“Happy birthday, kitten, I swear I’ll make it up to you.”

As the manager of the volleyball team, you were Inarizaki’s pride and joy. You were a literal ray of sunshine, the embodiment of a gem and you were always cherished by the entire team for helping them so much.

You always made sure they drank enough, prepped several towels in case they sweated too much (they always did), listened to their problems, eased their doubts- you were undeniably perfect to them.

So perfect that Osamu, as well as the rest of the team, always wondered  how and why you ended up with his airhead of a twin, or rather, and I quote, “The useless piss-haired twin.”

To be frank, if it wasn’t for you, Atsumu would probably be dead by now. The cause of his death? Osamu himself? The whole team? His stupidity? We shall never know.

You cannot expect Atsumu to remember any specific dates, he even struggles to remember his own birthday which results in him asking when was his brother born and Osamu letting out a desperate sigh, wondering what on Earth did he do in his previous life to deserve such a twin.

Nonetheless, Osamu’s cooking skills came in handy. The whole team had agreed on celebrating your birthday, a kind of surprise birthday after practice if you will, because you were so good to them.

The divine smell of the cake didn’t go unsmelled (please help is that even a word?? no it’s not but i couldn’t say ‘go unseen’ because a smell can’t be seen like???) by none other than Atsumu himself. “Whatcha’ baking this for?” Osamu didn’t even bother to throw a glance in his twin brother’s direction “You should know, idiot.”

Safe to say that Atsumu got absolutely z e r o information from his brother whatsoever and was thus left in general incomprehension. He then figured that maybe it was someone’s birthday given how well looking the cake was, but whose birthday was it? Once again, z e r o idea.

After practice, the whole team gathered to show you the surprise they had in store for you- Kita had stuck some ‘happy birthday’ posters on the wall, Osamu had brought the cake and Aran had the gift from the whole team in his hands. The preparation was quick and efficient, all while you were changing in your more regular outfit in the locker room. 

Needless to say, Atsumu still had z e r o clue to whose birthday they were going to celebrate but the grin on his face still testified of how happy he was. 

When you exited the locker room to say goodbye to the rest of the team, you were absolutely overwhelmed by joy when you saw them gathered together, a radiant smile plastered upon their face, they were so proud of themselves and most of all, they were proud to be the reason of your happiness. 

Reflex kicked, both of your hands covered your mouth and your vision quickly became blurry from the pearls of tears gathering at the brim of your eyes. To say that you were happy was an understatement, you felt so moved, so touched that this whole surprise was for your birthd-

“Hold up, I thought it was mom’s birthday? Who’s the cake for?”

The look on Osamu’s face screamed “Someone hold me back before I kill this idiot with my bare hands.”

Kita threw a volleyball at the back of Atsumu’s head.

Suna was crying on the inside out of desperation.

Hitoshi was holding Osamu back.

The rest of the team eventually ganged up on Atsumu for even daring to forget their sweet angel’s birthday while you were standing there, dumbfounded to say the least, torn between crying and laughing.

You didn’t even need to make Atsumu pay for his mistake, the team had made sure to make him pay for the next ten years (if I’m being generous.)

So... Happy birthday... I guess?

[killmebutneverinsultme2]

Rules for mobile (Pinned Post)

The Code

Success. I’ve sufficiently pestered the wench to make me a blog, much to the cost of a certain behorned mischief god whose presence I must share. Follow the rules below, and there’ll be smooth sailin’, savvy?

This be an exceptionally selective blog. I was me mun’s first ever muse yonks back and I’ve pestered her into writing me again, BUT, she’s horribly pressed for time. Partners will likely be very few, else ones doubling up with Loki’s. Anyone is welcome to approach and enquire, but she and I will be leaning toward those either from me own universe or crossovers with which she’s highly familiar and characters in whom she’s especially interested. Ye have been warned.

Replies are like to be slow, up to a few weeks at most.

Partners must be 18+. Various themes of an adult nature may be found here. Sexual things will be tagged ‘#filthy pirate’ with whatever level/variety of sin I deem them. More details below.

Behave. There shall be no rudeness, no passive aggression, no hate, no censorship or generally being a twit. Do I make meself clear?

The Code - Extended (below the cut)

Hi, guys. I’m Pirate (oddly known as this long before I made Jack a tumblr). Here are my more detailed rules and guidelines for writing with me on this blog, though the absolute basics are at the top as, honestly, it’s never easy to remember everyone’s requirements.

Jack is a sideblog. If you’re being followed by a benevolentgodloki that means I’m following you back. I don’t need us to be mutuals (both following each other) for us to write together, but there is a greater chance of us having a partnership if we’re letting each other know we’re interested.

How I Roll

I note myself as ‘highly selective’. This isn’t to be an elitist bugger, it’s because we all only have a limited amount of time we can put in. I want to write what I enjoy with people I enjoy. I am married with two attention-seeking cats, two jobs, a slow-brewing intended writing career and a video game addiction.

Asks/Memes - I will usually answer these no matter who they are from but I may or may not turn them into a thread I intend to keep. Some memes are very much designed to be something that continues so context can be key. If you would like to know in advance whether I intend to answer and/or keep something, please do pop me a message and I will be kind and honest.

My Threads - While Jack’s blog is still exciting and new, I’m being a bit all over the place with who and what I reply to depending on which way Jack’s.. compass.. is pointing. I do have a rolling turn order that I adhere to (to the point that I can genuinely tell you who is next at any given moment) but it’s all piled in with Loki’s threads, meaning I can take a few weeks to get round everything. Every partner gets one of their threads answered within that ‘round’ and then I go round again. However, when I’m really into something/finding something easy to pop back, I treat myself to spamming certain threads or partners at my whim. I use rpthreadtracker.com to maintain what I have. 

I will remind partners of threads that have not been replied to for more than three months. If I do not do this, I have either forgotten/lost it myself, I’m not too fussed about keeping it at that stage, or you were absent for a long period of time. 

My Style - I will write in both past or present tense depending on partner preference. My default is past but I like either. Please kick me if I screw up and write the wrong one. I prefer using regular size font but I will make mine small on replies to people who use the smaller so that it looks neat. I will often match partners’ lengths and some formatting details e.g. bolding dialogue, but I struggle with doing novella-length posts for reasons below.

I have a bugbear to admit about role-play. What we call splicing. A good half of my partners write this way so I’m not about to tell everyone to stop but if you’re someone who does this, you will occasionally run into some frustrations when writing with me. ‘Splicing’ is when you retrospectively write dialogue or actions as having previously happened during your partner’s last post. These things are fine when they’re passive i.e. your character muttered them, thought them or you were writing what your character was doing at the time because that’s pretty much essential. The trouble comes usually when my characters talk a lot/ask rhetorical questions and partners choose to answer every single one despite the fact my character carried on talking. I know it’s an ass that I have talkative muses and you really want to respond to every point/get a word in, but putting words and actions into the past effectively godmods my muse into accepting they happened. If you feel your muse would have full-on interjected midway through their ramble, please ask me to edit my post/stop it at that point. Otherwise if you do prefer to splice, my muse will only respond to whatever it is your character did or said last in their post. This is one of the reasons I can’t write novella, because often there is only so much you can write before you’re stepping into the territory of changing what went before and not allowing your partner to do anything about it.

TL;DR don’t ever worry about your post being too short for me. If it’s one sentence long but it’s because something fast-paced is happening, I won’t be miffed.

Shipping! - no not that kind of ship, Jack. I love shipping. Ships all around. Let’s face it, romance can be one of the most exciting reasons we bother writing. I am open to a lot of ships for Jack, practically all of them. Yes, even that one. I will do downright nasty, toxic, horrible stuff, savvy? It’s fiction and Jack is a great indulgence for bad things happening to him as much as good. That said, of course don’t force something on him without prior agreement between us. Well, I mean, your muse can try and accost him and see what he does, just don’t expect him to definitely reciprocate. Jack and I are bi/pansexual. We’re open to everything. I will admit a heavy lean toward m/m but, that said, Jack is extremely fond of the ladies, more so than Loki. I am very into Sparrington especially.

Not Safe For Ye Olde Work

Sliding down from the above topic, I enjoy the occasional smutting. It is not a requirement from my partners. In fact, I’m warming very much to fading to black depending on the context/mood/if things feel a bit repetitive. I do feel a touch more comfortable with partners who don’t need that boundary but as I’ve recently figured ‘if it needs a cut, then it’s smut’ I know when to skip on.

Saucy material will go under cuts/Read More’s and be tagged as mentioned above with ‘filthy pirate’. Additional tags will be based on the citrus scale: ‘lime’ for general grabbing, ‘lemon’ for full on sexual content and ‘grapefruit’ if things get extra kinky. I will tag things such as ‘rape tw’ or ‘noncon tw’ or ‘dubcon tw’ where necessary. Please blacklist any or all of these at your leisure, or search them if you fancy :U I do NOT tag these as ‘ns.fw’ because tumblr just completely hides them from being searchable which is useless for my partners.

OC’s - Due to my time constraints I am extremely picky when it comes to OC’s. This is a good fandom for well-thought-out muses and I know firsthand how hard it is to make headway as an OC in the RP world. However, I also understand that for people like me, I want to dip in on this site to mostly play with the characters and worlds I’m really absorbed in and ship my weaselly black guts out. Some people have more time than others to really give your OCs the time and love they deserve. Unless I’ve played with you a long time and I really like the cut of your and your muse’s jib, it’s very unlikely I’ll bite. Apologies! The same goes for crossover muses from fandoms I’m unfamiliar with, but I will let you know if that’s the case.

Limits

Threads - I don’t have a strict limit on how many to have per person but please bear in mind that the more of these you have with me the longer it will take me to get to a particular one (unless I’m spamming it back and forth). This is more a mun/muse context how many I accept.

Exclusives/mains - I don’t do these although I may consider having a maximum of 3 or 4 of one muse depending on activity levels and to ensure plots don’t get mixed up or attention feel unfairly balanced.

Triggers/squicks - I don’t like body horror e.g. graphic detail of squishy bits having bad things happen to them. I’m writing a pirate so there’s absolutely allowed to be elements of torture/violence, just don’t stab him in the eye or chop bits off him. One torture-related thing sends me into a complete freakout which I’ll discuss with partners if we’re doing a thread of that ilk as needed. Kink-wise I’m not into mpreg, A/B/O or infantilism or toilet things. Just ask me/Jack if you’re after something XD

Who I Am/What I Need From You

Being yourself is the most important thing and I promise I am not a scary person (usually). We’re only human and it’s natural that we’ll get along better with some rather than others. This is more to give you a gist of the sort of person I am and who I gel with best.

So I’m a shy hermit at the best of times. I’m trying to be better at engaging and enthusing with partners over our threads because I realise more than ever this does keep things alive and make for a more enjoyable experience. I’m not always great at it. I work best with people who are patient and don’t worry too much on what I think of them and their writing, with people who are happy to keep threads going for the longhaul rather than keep dropping everything before I’ve had the time to get to the next post, and most especially people who accept that fiction =/= reality. I do need a certain level of quality, which doesn’t always mean perfect grammar, but it must be coherent, fun and creative. I like a relaxed approach, sharing mutual enjoyment in silly fantasy world sandboxes as escapism from (and exploration of) this complicated world we live in.

If you managed to read all of this, have a drink (even if it’s water). You’re a diamond. 

Pirate xxx

[real-fakedoors]

Ok so don't be mad buuut ive Literally been going around recommending your fic read between the lines to people~ its just soooooo goooooooood

anon……… i would never be mad at that…… NEVER.

writer!deku says thank you from the very bottom of his heart ಥ﹏ಥ (so much so that he included a preview below the cut!)

[UNPUBLISHED DRAFT: EXCERPT CHAPTER 10]

A one point during his train-induced haze, Shōto realized he had pulled out his phone and was just holding it in his hands. Not typing on it, not actually using it. Just, gripping it. Securely, patiently.

It was pretty silly, but Shōto wondered what Midoriya was doing.

The universe must have been listening, because not five seconds later did a buzz in his hands cause his eyes to blink open again.

Izuku Midoriya (06:50)I hope you’re having a good morning! ^-^ 

[Image attached]

Unconsciously, Shōto smiled at the screen. He was unused to having someone to talk to so early. Or at all, really. Exchanging text messages had started more-or-less by accident, though Shōto had initiated the contact; he texted Midoriya Tuesday afternoon, inquiring as to whether his discharge from Hosu City hospital had gone according to schedule, but instead of receiving a regular message back, Midoriya had mistakenly sent him a picture of a keychain. Evidently, his mother had surprised him with the gift once he was cleared to leave the hospital, and the picture had been meant for Uraraka, who he had also been messaging at the time Shōto had attempted to contact him. 

After a lot of frantic, unnecessary apologizing on Midoriya’s part, Shōto’s assumption about the keychain were quickly corrected. It wasn’t just any keychain, but a limited-edition All Might promotional keychain that was an add-on item to the new Golden Age: Go Beyond! merchandise line debuting in a specialty store for hero collectibles, conveniently located halfway into the next prefecture over. Midoriya spared no details as to why this particular keychain was like a gift from God, down to the grade of plastics and manufacturer’s details. If there was a digital equivalent to rambling, Midoriya had perfected the art.

Anyway. The misunderstanding that led to the conversation had been a little funny, in retrospect, and they talked a few more times that week for… well, for no particular reason. Shōto didn’t mind, really, and it was all punctuated quite nicely, just now, by Midoriya sending a picture of the very special keychain proudly hanging from his backpack.

Shōto Todoroki (06:51)I’m sure All Might would be flattered. And, thank you. You too.

[ivyveil]

Have Yourself a Harry Christmas Part 1

the one where Harry and Y/N don't talk but do, and there's nail polish

A/N: This was my most popular series and I’ve decided to re-upload it! :) Check here for the masterlist.

He was sat out front, on one of the plastic-y black chairs with handles that rounded on the sides. 

His arms were resting against those, his back slouched as he looked at his phone. His right foot bounced as he waited. A newsboy cap covered the majority of his curls, only a sparse few peeking out, and Y/N could see the ends of his sunglasses over his ears. He looked completely ordinary -- another boy waiting outside a coffee shop for his friend, dimples poking against his cheeks as he smiled at something on his phone.

He was wearing a black shirt with the sleeves ending at his elbow, which did little to hide the cluster of tattoos running along his forearm. He had gone with normal jeans this time, foregoing the skinny style (Y/N had texted him for a proper month with articles expressing health concerns for men who wore too tight a fit) with his pair of Vans. Overall, a normal dude enjoying life, it seemed, yet Y/N wondered how no one had stopped by the glow that almost surrounded him, or if they were simply pretending not to see.

The streets were humming with the general commotion of a Saturday morning in LA. Tourists gathered around various street corners that had been captured by cameras so long ago, and business-people, flustered as ever, passed them in the nooks and crannies of empty space. No one took notice that one of the most famous people at that time sat a few feet away, with no security detail or even a remote attempt at hiding himself.

And Harry was looking equally as unimpressed with the situation as the pedestrians were, that he was Harry motherfucking Styles in front of local business Myrtle’s Coffee. Not that Harry ever found himself to be a big deal (when he wasn’t on stage soaking up praise, anyway) but it was still a smidge unnerving for Y/N to see him in person.

The majority of their friendship had been formed over text and phone call. So, when Y/N saw Harry, it was via fan photos, pap shots, or the occasional blurry FaceTime, as he donned a green face mask and black nose strip. Seeing him in person made her stop in her tracks for a second, reminding herself that this was Harry, not Harry Styles, but one of her best friends, and that was all. He could be both, surely, but the Harry Styles title held more expectation than the ordinary man could provide daily, so it was important to Y/N that she not get swept away by his celebrity status.

Harry had told Y/N that he thought disguises made everything more obvious, like he was shrouded with a layer of suspicion in addition to the heavy-set jumper/coat/sunglasses/hat combination. That if he were to stroll up in street clothing, and make no apologies for his fame, everything still had the potential of being calm. She had agreed, especially since the LA population rarely had their attention held by anything that seemed ordinary. Even the tourists’ eyes didn’t stop over him, they skimmed by as they walked back towards their bus.

She broke out in a warm smile as she walked closer, her hand reaching out to steady her purse from thumping against her side, because he was really here and he was dressed comfortably, which also meant he was Harry now and not the Harry Styles that he had become out on stage, all sparkly and shiny.

In the back of her mind, Y/N could recall the night in his kitchen, all that time ago, when Harry had explained his take on himself. His eyes had been so unsure, looking back at her as if worried he had rambled too much, and the awkward hesitation between them was very much prevalent back then, before it had the chance to grow into such a great friendship. It was only now that Y/N could appreciate how honest Harry had been from the start, understanding now that he typically wasn’t so open to a stranger. It just made the night more meaningful to her, in retrospect.

They had come so far since then, pushing past awkward silences to realizing that they could both work together like that, with quiet lulls in-between stupid jokes and deep conversation. Sure, their friendship had almost veered off into dangerous territory, but they had rightened themselves out.

After her movie night, when Harry hadn’t responded to her text and Nick plotted to set Harry up with Marie, Y/N had felt that horrendous seed of regret take root in the pit of her stomach. Like she had done something wrong, like she had lost a dear friend and everything had become awkward and ugly. Exhaustion had taken her away from staring at her phone screen, and the next morning didn’t feel any better.

Thankfully, things did improve eventually. That following night, Harry texted Y/N the name of the wine, with a “sorry love, got distracted. Have fun getting drunk off $90 wine” and she had sent back a “fuck off, that’s way too much” text, and just like that, everything was fine. They spent the next few weeks hanging out as friends, getting to know one another in the setting of clubs, more movie nights, and various other outings.

She had heard, via Nick, that Harry thought Marie was really cute, and had promised that he would take her out on a date soon. Y/N had been a bit heartbroken, held onto her sorrow for a few days, before accepting that she had simply let her feelings attach themselves to an imaginary moment. Which was fine, and over time, she was able to view the situation realistically and move on. Harry was a charming guy, and their personalities clicked well, but they hadn’t known each other well enough for her to dive into puppy-love.

The memories faded and then Spencer came into Y/N’s life. It soon became easier than ever to forget how gentle Harry’s lips were, how good he smelled, how his eyes would darken a shade and a half after he broke away from a kiss, etc. With Spencer in the picture, things were easier when it came to Harry. Especially since Y/N genuinely liked Spencer, really was into him. And in the giddy haze of Spencer’s rumbling laugh and his one-dimple, she soon let go of the fantasy that had been Harry Styles.

Spencer didn’t mind that Y/N was going to see Harry in public that morning, even acknowledged that there was a chance his girlfriend would be papped with another man, and that rumors would generate. He understood that Y/N was best friends with Nick, and that came with the opportunity to meet a lot of celebrities. Spencer just thought that was cool, and the conversation had ended there. A breath of relief for Y/N, since she hated the look of jealousy on people, and wouldn’t give up a friendship for anyone, even a boyfriend.

Spencer had just asked Y/N to try and get Justin Timberlake’s autograph if they crossed paths, which she swore she would. He had waved her off that morning from his perch on the couch, with a muffled, “Tell Haz I liked the fruit song, it’s a vibe” as he continued munching on his cereal.

There was nothing complicated about Spencer, everything was clear and he said pretty much exactly what he felt. That sense of clarity had made the decision to say yes when he asked her out, and of course when he asked if they could be official, so easy for Y/N. She hadn’t realized people could be so straight forward, it was really something else.

“Hey, stranger,” Y/N slid into the chair next to Harry, walking around his shoulder as she spoke. Harry first turned to the right, before whipping around to look to the left, before realizing it was her. He seemed a bit startled, but he broke out into a large smile, turning off his phone and shifting up to slide it into his back pocket.

Harry leaned over to give her a one-armed hug, mumbling an “Almost gave me a heart attack, love” to which she laughed against his neck, hugging him back before settling down into the seat.

They took a few seconds to look at each other, perhaps equally acknowledging that it was a bit weird to see each other in person, that they were usually only hearing the other’s voice or reading texts, not noticing the freckles scattered on the other’s skin, or how their eyes had a fleck of gold in them. Smiles lingered on their lips, small laughs bubbling up the longer the silence lasted, but neither of them could move to speak.

“Did you order yet?” she finally asked, gesturing with a vague hand towards the coffee shop’s door, and Harry shook his head.

“Didn’t want to order yeh the wrong thing. Is it still dark roast, two sugars?” and a hint of a smirk grew on his lips, as if he weren’t sure that Y/N would remember what he was alluding to.

She did, though, scrunching up her face at Harry in disapproval as she stood up from her seat. He followed, his smirk growing wider as he slipped past her to hold open the front door.

Harry had a long history of buying every meal that he, Nick, and Y/N had together. It was meant neither romantically nor as a flashy show of his generosity, but had started when Harry invited the pair to a new restaurant in the area. It had been a very nice place, the type with a dress code and someone outside to check people’s dress, and so Y/N wasn’t entirely sure why she was surprised, but the prices almost made her cry.

“A House Salad, for $32?” she had whisper-stressed to Nick over the side of the small menu, when Harry had gone to the restroom. Nick took a double-take at the list as well, his mouth gaping with similar disbelief, before leaning forward to quickly find the nearest exit. The pair of them had dashed plenty of times on other friends, when the LA crowd got to be too bougie for even Nicholas, but this time was unfortunately not one of those. Harry was already on his way back, so the two of them decided to stay. Maybe not pay their rent for the month, but stay.

Somehow, Nick had alerted Harry to their concerns. Y/N wasn’t sure entirely how, but when Harry casually began to explain that the dinner would be his treat, Nick was suddenly focused purely on his nail-beds, missing Y/N’s questioning glance over.

Y/N had her suspicions confirmed later that week, when Harry offered to pay for her overly-priced coffee and she snapped, asking him if he was trying to get punched. It had been quite out of the blue, if Harry’s shocked face was anything to go by, and his stutter of, “Uh, no? I-I-I just thought tha-it would be nice to-uh...”

She was disgruntled by him spending of money on her, as if she couldn’t afford a $18 burrito or a $12 smoothie every now and again. Sure, the prices were inflated beyond what the restaurant owners needed for a profit, but it was also LA and Y/N had a sturdy job, thanks very much. She could make it work. After all, she wasn’t at the dinner for the food, she was there for Harry and his company.

He had still insisted on paying when they were in a group, but it had been an on going battle between the two of them to pay for Y/N’s food when they were alone. It had been interrupted when Harry left for tour, and even Y/N was a bit surprised he had remembered.

“My order’s still the same,” she acknowledged with a grunt, moving to the side to let some people slip by as Harry held open the door.

The shop wasn’t crowded, but definitely had a cluster of usuals around the bar and against the cloth couches. A bookcase of local poetry and photography magazines was against the dark green wall on the right, as the counter and chalk menu greeted the two on the left. Potted plants adorned the space around them as light acoustic music played overhead.

“But I’m paying for my own, thanks. Got that promotion,” she grinned, and Harry reached out to mess up her hair, grinning as she squealed and ducked away.

“Congratulations, Y/N! Knew yeh’d get it, didn’t I say tha’?” he teased, and with their comfortable silence, they both turned to glance over the menu. It was more for formality’s sake, since their orders were firm in their mind, but the cashier was busy wiping down the counter. So, they took those few seconds to feign interest in the chalky variety of LA coffees. Finally, the cashier smiled gratefully and nodded forward.

“I can take you right here, if you’re ready.”

“I’ll take a dark roast, two sugars,” Y/N stepped up to the counter, smiling kindly at the woman, who nodded and began writing on the recyclable cup. Harry hummed behind Y/N as she held out a handful of bills, clearly a bit peeved that she wouldn’t let him pay. At that, however, Y/N dug through her wallet again and held out another bill.

“I’ll also take whatever this guy wants,” she gestured behind her, ignoring the shocked “No yeh won’t” as the woman giggled, turning to Harry with another cup in her hand.

“What can I get for you today, sir?”

Grumpily, Harry mumbled out his order, which was identical to Y/N’s without the sugars, and glared at Y/N as the woman set out on making the drinks. It was mostly playful, but Y/N remembered how she had been ranting to Harry about her rent two weeks ago, and figured he was still worried about her finances. Not that it was any of his business.

“If I can’t treat yeh, then yeh can’t treat me,” he said decidedly, as the pair of them made their way over to the pick-up counter. A stack of books littered the area around the straws and cup sleeves, a miniature library of take a book, leave a book that consisted mostly of local authors attempting to get their name out there. Y/N picked up one at random, skimming over the back as she blatantly ignored Harry, who was still looking at her, waiting for a response.

“Fine, fine. We each pay for our own now on, yeah?” she rolled her eyes as Harry nodded, satisfied.

She missed how his eyes stayed on her as she reached forward to accept her drink, flashing a smile at the barista. And how he blushed when she groaned after her first sip, her eyes flashing up to the ceiling as if thanking God for coffee. And she missed how he smiled a bit at that, a tiny grin with his eyes unfocused on her, his mind stuck on a night two months ago, when things had just seemed simpler.

“Now, what should we go do?”

Her words broke him out of his reverie, and Harry hurriedly moved to pick up his drink from the counter, snapping himself back to the present. He took a drink from his cup too quickly, trying to fill some time before he gave Y/N an answer, but managed to burn his tongue in the process. Y/N gave him a sympathetic look as he twisted his mouth in slight pain, as the two of them headed back towards the door, moving past LA hipsters and coffee experts along the way.

“I was thinkin’ that we go and get Nick’s Christmas presents? His party’s soon. It’d be a fun time to give them to him.” Harry explained, and Y/N nodded quickly as she practically inhaled more coffee. They seem to be synced up in the motions of their day, with even their steps synchronized.

“I found a London artist that I think he’d like,” she began, pausing to check the street before crossing, “Name’s Tom Cox, he’s a painter. Offered to send a piece out for Nick’s place here.”

Harry pursed his lips, nodding a bit before confessing, “I was just gonna get him a nice dog bed, ‘f I’m honest. Pig and Blob keep him up late nowadays, thought he could use it.”

“Okay, so we’ll hit the pet store out on Lakewood and then on to the studio?” Y/N asked, reaching in her back pocket to check her phone. It was still fairly early in the morning, but she felt confident that most stores would be open, even the more lax LA ones with owners who didn’t believe in store hours.

“Sounds good,” Harry murmured, thinking over the map of the city in his head, before noticing her attention was caught by something on her phone. “What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing,” she mumbled, her thumb moving across the screen as she typed. She took a sip of her coffee with her other hand before she explained, “Spencer didn’t know where the paper towels were.”

They fell quiet as they made their way back to Harry’s car (Y/N gave up driving responsibilities when she could, and Harry had control issues about others driving him places, so it worked).

Harry was unsure of how to approach the topic of Spencer, because he had yet to know the full story. Nick just snorted when he brought Spencer up, with that type of look that read I don’t know what she’s doing, but she’s happy, so…

“Things goin’ well?” he finally spoke up, glancing over at Y/N as she slid her phone back into her purse. She tilted her head at him, clearly not within the same train of thought, so he clarified with a, “With Spencer, I mean.”

“Oh!” And wasn’t it something, how her eyes seemed to sparkle, that type of sappy grin on her face that made Harry’s stomach loop and his smile tighten. “Yeah, things are going great. He’s been so nice to me ‘n stuff.”

“How did...how did yeh two get together?” the question came out somewhat as a lump, although Harry didn’t exactly know why. They both side-stepped a tumble of broken Christmas lights on the sidewalk as they neared his car, his hand going into his pocket to tap his keys.

“Oh, it’s hilarious,” Y/N began, and Harry made a small grunt that meant sure-it-is.

“You know how my office is down the street from a bicycle shop?” Harry shook his head and Y/N huffed, waving her hand to signal that it didn’t really matter and it was down the street from a bicycle shop, so that was that.

Harry’s car beeped off in the distance and her eyes flew to it, a giggle bursting through her lips as it tended to do, when she spotted his insanely expensive and vintage cars. Harry found himself staring at her and quickly looked away, dodging a bump in the sidewalk almost too late. She didn’t notice, though, already in the midst of her story.

“About a month ago, this random guy runs into my office, flowers in one hand, a card in the other, demanding that I give him another chance. I’m just shocked, right, because I don’t know this guy, I don’t know how he made it passed security or anything. And when he takes a proper look around, he realizes that I’m not his ex-girlfriend. But, H, when he blushes, it makes the tip of his nose go a bit pink. It’s one of the first things I remember about him, it’s adorable. Anyway, Spencer starts apologizing profusely. Even gives me the flowers. Turns out, his ex owns the bicycle shop and he was gonna try to stop by, try to win her back.”

She and Harry were settled in the car by this point, Y/N speaking animatedly with her hands to gesture where she and Spencer were located in the general whisk of the air, as she settled her cup of coffee in the cup holder and managed to get her seat belt on.

Harry had been nodding a little, but at that point raised an eyebrow and shook his head.

“How’d he not realize the juicing company wasn’t a bicycle shop?”

“He got the 2 and the 5 mixed up in the address, happens to the best of us. Anyway, he felt really bad about busting into my office. Offered to buy me some lunch, and I didn’t want to be drinking cayenne pepper for a meal again, so I said yes...and here we are, a month later.”

Harry wasn’t sure where to begin with that, or how to process the information, just nodded some more and looked out at the dashboard. His fingers drummed on the wheel as the car started up, some rock song coming through the speakers, which helped his shoulders settle considerably, the stress that had tightened his face loosening somewhat. Y/N was back on her phone again, but finished more quickly this time, tossing it into her purse and reaching out to lower the music a bit.

“How’s Marie?”

“Hm?”

He started working on getting the car out of the parallel spot, twisting around to look behind him and putting his hand on the back of Y/N’s seat. To be fair, he hadn’t paid attention to her question and only registered she had said something when he caught her staring at him.

“Marie? The girl you’ve been seeing?”

“Oh. Yeah, she’s been lovely. Haven’t gotten to see her much, though, with all the travel ‘n whatnot.”

Y/N nodded, her eyes carefully trained on the car in front of them. She felt sure that one of these days, Harry would completely smash another vehicle to pieces with his somewhat reckless driving, but each time he managed to get out of spots without harming anything. Truly a Christmas miracle.

With a brief cheer as Harry swerved out of the lot, congratulating him on another successful ‘pull-out’ (and a giggle insinuating other, dirtier connotations of the word), the pair of them left the awkward conversation behind, opting to turn up the music and sing along to the parts they knew.

As they shopped and drove around through horrible traffic, the pair rotated through Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, before hopping onto a more modern station for Fifth Harmony, Sam Smith, and cranking up the radio as loud as it could go for Niall Horan.

Soon, Harry’s backseat had a large bag with a special-made dog bed (and a cluster of dog toys Harry felt Nick would appreciate, all made organically of course) and Y/N had a small delivery slip in her palm, with a promise from Cox himself that the painting would be delivered two days before Nick’s party. Enough time to figure out where to hang it before the guests arrived, she figured. It was a beautiful painting of Old Compton Street at night, with purples and blues swirled against lively yellows and reds. Harry had agreed it was a nice gift, and Y/N caught his eyes lingering on it even as they were walking out.

Y/N had a brief moment while in the art gallery. With Harry standing next to her, his fingers gently reaching out to touch her elbow to get her attention, pointing out some art piece he wanted her to see, wanted her opinion of. She just had a moment, was really all she could say.

It was hard to describe. Sort of like she finally felt what air tasted like, sort of like the world made more sense in a flash of light. And it was because of Harry’s searching eyes into the art, how his eyebrows would slope the tiniest bit as he tried to focus. It was a second, how she was looking at the side of his face and suddenly felt imaginary ice running down her spine. With a shiver, she had turned back towards the paintings, and the moment had been gone.

It didn’t really have anything to do with her, it was just the side of Harry’s face, so Y/N wasn’t sure why she was so affected. At the end of the day, it was likely that it was the fact that she hadn’t seen Harry much since his tour began.

Those small details were a bit lost on her, like the way he would rub his nose twice when he got distracted. Or how his smile was typically more lop-sided when he was with friends, and his eyes would look for Y/N’s smile before he properly started giggling. Or how he would wait a second after the salesperson stopped talking, as if to make sure they were truly finished, before he began negotiating prices for Y/N (she was notoriously bad at it, and he had said he wasn’t going to watch a robbery take place, so he would do what he could.)

The moment was brief, and then it was over.

They were back in the car, windows rolled down as a jazz song played out on the radio. Y/N had an arm out of the car, her fingers dangling against the sides as her face was partially stuck out. The wind felt nice against the heat of the sun, and her large-framed sunglasses kept her from having to squint too much. With a grunted sigh, Y/N turned to Harry.

“Why can’t we just have a Christmas here in LA? With snow and actual winter weather?”

Harry had on his sunglasses too, although he was keeping his eyes on the road, and only tilted his head towards Y/N to indicate he was listening, against the music and the beat of the wind. He chuckled, shaking his head.

“I’ve got enough snow in London, love, don’t need it here.”

“OH,” Y/N gasped, clapping her hands together and swiveling to look more directly at Harry, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that you were perfectly taken care of. I guess all my snow needs are just – whoosh – gone and solved, because you’ve got snow in London.”

Harry nodded, playing along with the face-value of her words as if they were genuine fact, and Y/N smirked, shaking her head.

“You’re such bullshit, Harry Styles.”

Giggles bursted from his lips as he was able to inch the car forward, incredibly close to their exit yet far enough that he couldn’t pass by the other cars. They held their breath collectively, until the two of them were going comfortably over 10 mph and were coasting along the road towards Harry’s place. It was normal for her to end up at Harry’s, or Nick’s, or any friend’s place after spending the day together, so she texted Spencer an update, letting him know she wouldn’t be back for lunch.  

His flat smelled the same, as Y/N crossed the threshold and set her purse down on a purple-clothed chair by the door. She had only visited his LA apartment a handful of times since they had become friends, mostly because Harry wasn’t known to hold a lot of parties in his own home. He said it was because cleaning up always took so long, and he would be more likely to get it all done if he were at a venue of some sort, or if he had co-hosted with another friend at their house.

It smelled, somehow, like a scent Y/N had begun associating with Harry since the second week of their friendship. It had a depth to it, like the air had steeped in her lungs and made the home seem more earthy. There were elements of cinnamon, Y/N could tell that much, but the rest was a conglomeration of various spices and something that reminded her of men.

She chose to keep these thoughts to herself, as Harry kicked off his shoes, holding onto the doorframe to his laundry-room for support.

“Tea?” he offered, once his shoes finally came all of the way off, and he had pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head.

“Peppermint, if you’ve got it.”

With a quick nod, Harry headed towards the kitchen, not bothering to flick on any lights because his windows had let in so much sun. It was another warm morning, bright and cheerful, and Y/N could tell Harry had a special spring in his step because of it.

Y/N began her walk over to the kitchen, stopping on the way to look over his shelf of photos. The same one that she had seen the first time she was over, as Harry explained he liked to put up pictures of the small moments, the special times in his life with family and friends. There was a new one she hadn’t noticed, tucked behind the one of Nick eating a burger.

It was of Harry and her, done in a selfie-style with Harry’s out-stretched arm along the edge of the shot.

She remembered that night. They were sat out on his balcony, waiting for Nick to bring over the Indian food. All three of them had just gathered back after a night clubbing, and it was one of the rare times that the Crash Pad was Harry’s apartment.

Y/N only barely remembered how she had begged Harry for something to wear, insisting that she wanted to take her bra off, but her shirt would then really not leave much to the imagination. She remembered how, earlier that night, she had insisted that she’d be the one to stay sober, but the night had ended with Harry taking care of her. And how warm that had made her feel, like she was wrapped in a dozen cozy blankets next to a fire.

Harry had sighed, running his fingers through his hair as he looked away towards the glass patio door, before back at Y/N, and amused smile on his face.

“I’ve got a sweatshirt yeh can borrow., but I want ‘t back before I leave,” was all he had said, because he was set to take off the next week and was still sorting through his packing list. Y/N had nodded, holding out her pinky, which Harry tucked his against, curling them up against one another as he got up. He kept his bashful smile to himself as he walked back inside.

So, in the photo, she was wearing Harry’s sweatshirt. One of his merch ones; she could see the faint outline of his name in the crease. In the pic, Y/N had her arms around Harry’s neck, cheeks smushed together as they both smiled widely at the camera.

Their eyes were a bit unfocused, obviously still feeling the effects of the night out, but Y/N clearly remembered how she wanted to kiss his cheek as the photo was taken. She had thought it would be funny, but right before she had moved, Harry had taken the photo and then was waiting for it to show up on the white rectangle. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask for another picture, she had simply cuddled further up against his body and asked him to tell her fairy tales.

“Do you take it with milk or sugar?” Harry called out from the kitchen, and Y/N was brought back to the present, realizing she had picked up the photo to get a better look at it. Her fingertips had curled against the edge of the photo, her thumb moving across the textured picture.

“Neither,” she replied, before setting it back on the shelf. Her eyes quickly scanned over the rest of the photos, noting to herself that there were no other new ones. With a smug sort of grin, Y/N realized that meant that she had made the shelf, and Marie hadn’t.

Her stomach flipped. Similar to how it had the previous night, when she was lost in her feelings about Harry, all throughout Spencer’s TV show and her nightly routine.

Y/N wondered why her mind did this to her. Why random thoughts would form, puncturing through the reality of herself that she was perfectly fine pretending was her actual self. She didn’t need to see Marie as ‘competition’, because 1) it was wrong for women to put each other down and also 2) it was never a competition to begin with. Harry liked Marie, Y/N liked Spencer, Harry was seeing Marie, and Y/N was dating Spencer. There was nothing inherently wrong with any of that.

She was fine with Marie, Y/N reckoned, because Marie seemed like the type of woman who had her life together. Granted, Y/N knew absolutely nothing about Marie except for her existence on this planet, but if Harry liked her – well, fuck, Y/N could learn to like her, too.

“So, you said it’s going well with Marie?” Y/N found the question leaving her lips before her mind could catch up, causing her eyes to widen and her lips to shut tightly together as she entered the kitchen. Thankfully, Harry only heard the question and didn’t see her follow-up face, his back turned towards her as he poured the teas into his mugs. She noticed he had black socks on, tiny anklet ones. She smiled.

“Uh, yeah. Here-” he turned around, holding out a steaming cup with two hands carefully, making sure Y/N had a good grip on it before reaching for his own.

“Yeah? Is that all, is there nothing else to say about it?” she couldn’t stop now, because the rock had started moving down the hill and now it was an avalanche. And why there was a rock to begin with, Y/N didn’t know, but she knew the prickly feeling in the back of her throat very well, and found herself taking a too-large sip of tea to compensate.

Harry’s eyebrows rose, his fingers curling around his mug as he leaned back against his counter, watching her.

“Was there somethin’ yeh wanted to know?” His words were slow, as if carefully chosen. Y/N wondered if he was remembering that night in her kitchen, or if he just thought she was being nosy. Most likely (and very hopefully) the latter.

She shrugged, taking extra care not to look in his eyes as she replied, “Just didn’t know how serious it was, she seems like a lovely girl.”

Harry chuckled at that, one hand reached up to scratch the back of his neck. He leaned off from the counter, glancing towards his kitchen table and looking at Y/N with his head tilted towards the side. She nodded, and he led the way over to the chairs, replying as he walked.

“Yeh and my mum both seem to think that...I dunno, she’s fine-” he set his cup of tea down, pulling one of the chairs back and gesturing for Y/N to sit down in it “-it’s really not tha’ serious. She’s just nice, I guess.”

Y/N sat in the chair, nodding her thanks. She looked down at the swirling steam rising from her cup as she thought his response over. When she glanced up, she saw Harry’s eyes carefully on her face, almost hazy as if he were zoned out, but a thread of concern grounded them, kept him there. And when he noticed she was looking back, he flashed a grin, his eyebrows stopped their furrowing, and he took another sip of tea.

“Hey,” he started, “-as long as you’re here, could yeh paint my nails? Just need some help on my right hand, can’t get it...right,” Harry grinned at his own joke, and despite his sense of humor, Y/N could tell it was meant as an abrupt change of subject.

The kitchen table was small – small to a normal person, even, not a millionaire such as Harry – and Harry had sat right next to her. The wood was a light stain, with darkened knots and lines running along the surface, pink placemats laid down before each seat, and it was on this cloth that Harry put down his hand, showing off his chipped polish.

“Yeah, sure,” she agreed softly, putting her mug to the side.

Just as quickly as Y/N felt she had ruined it, the atmosphere between them was nice again.

Harry had never pressured her to say anything before in their friendship, simply took her as she presented herself to be. She had tried to do him the same justice, but had obviously fallen a bit short that morning, with all her questions. She also appreciated how, when she did choose to speak, he would give her  all his attention to what she had to say, even remembering small details later on.

Of course, Harry did that for all of his friends, so when Y/N was on the journey of Getting Over Styles, Harry (so it spelled GOSH in her head, she felt it was clever) it was crucial to distinguish Harry’s platonic sense of caring from when he had been flirting. The former Y/N knew very well, while the latter still seemed to be indistinguishable from his normal personality.

Frankly, she had only known that he had been flirting when his lips had met hers.

“Alright, love, gonna go get the bottle. Do you want yours done, too?” he offered, rising up to go into his room. Y/N shook her head, letting her smile drop as Harry vanished around the corner.

In a move that was very reflective of the late-night Lifetime films she had found herself watching more and more of recently, Y/N had a mini freak-out at Harry’s table. Mouthing the words “what the fuck” at herself and general hand-waving did nothing to ease her nerves, however, which further cemented in her mind that rom-coms were not realistic in the slightest. She had know solution to exactly why she had been acting so weird, or why Harry was putting up with her odd questions.

In reality, she knew her questions weren’t odd. She had asked Nick all the time about his dates for crying out loud, but it seemed simply different when it came to Harry.

Because she never made out with Nick, never ‘forgot’ to bring his clothing back so she could fall asleep in it for one more night, never worried about double-texting him, never had a miniature heart attack when Nick’s mum liked her Instagram photos.

So, it was different. Some questions felt off-limits, which also made them more enticing to ask. Parts of her wanted to catch him off-guard, prove how okay she was with merely being friends, but being overly-friends. If that made sense, Y/N herself wasn’t entirely sure and often had talked herself into backing off any topic related to dating when it came to Harry, in fear of being too much.

It was just one fucking kiss. One kiss. She clearly needed to get over that fully, or God help her soul.

Sooner than Y/N would’ve hoped, Harry was back. He had been playing with his hair in his room. It was obvious, because his part was different and the curls fell equally against his forehead, a straight part going down the middle for some time before veering off into scattered directions. He seemed younger, softer, when he was just being Harry. A warm pal, with black polish in his hand and a shy look in his eye.

He set the bottle gently on the table, claiming his seat again and laying his hands palms-down upon the pink cloth, waiting patiently for Y/N to start.

It was the first time Y/N ever painted his nails, but it wasn’t really an out-of-the-blue thing for him to ask. They had chatted on the phone plenty of times as Harry retouched his manicure, Y/N listening to him complain about cuticles and how Mitch bought him gel polish that he wasn’t going to use. Because gel made his nails look too shiny, and Harry just wanted it to be more of a matte finish, of course.

“Is this the shade I picked?” Y/N asked, remembering vaguely that he had sent her a list of black polishes, asking for her opinion. Harry furrowed his brow, looking at the bottle as if it would tell him the answer, before nodding slowly.

“Uh, yeah. Yup, think it is.”

“Well, good choice then. It’s the best one, if I picked it.”

The kitchen felt like a church, with a sacred kind of quiet that felt unbreakable as she began painting. It was more quiet than it usually would’ve been, because Harry typically couldn’t stand hearing ‘nothing’ and would opt to have any sort of music filter into his home before he would ever sit in silence.

But Y/N made it ‘quiet’, not silence; it was a more gentle sway of calm, rather than an awkward stilt in conversation. Over time, the two of them had perfected it, established it as their own. Phone calls could mostly be made up of just them breathing, it seemed, and Harry wouldn’t feel robbed in the slightest. They’d talk when they were ready, when they had something to say, he felt.

“So, this promotion…?” Harry began, as Y/N lifted up the brush and ran it along the bottle’s rim, taking off the excess.

She hummed in acknowledgment, reaching her left hand over to the right side of her face to draw back her hair behind her ear, before leaning forward over Harry’s hand. Her fingers steadied his nails, the brush started just below his cuticle.

“You excited?” he prompted, lowering his head a bit to try and catch her eye. She kept focused on his nails, though, moving his pinky a bit to the left in order to get the small strip of nail she missed the first time.

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, you know...things have been a bit rough lately,” she admitted as she turned back to the bottle to get some more, and it was true – she had often talked to Harry about the frustrations of her job, because he was so far away and seemed like a good target to rant to, “’But hopefully things’ll get better.”

“Is there anythin’ else yeh’d wanna be doing?” Harry knew that Y/N had other ambitions, but each time they had managed to approach a talent or interest she had, something that could lead her away from how unhappy she was at her current job, Y/N would suddenly draw back into her uncertainty. Claim that she simply didn’t know where to begin, but that she would look into it when she got home.

Y/N sighed, and Harry hoped she would give him something else to work with, this time. Anything he could do to help, really.

“I dunno. I could use networking events to try and find other businesses that need my help, but I just can’t get stuck in some shit corporation again. I can’t even say the word anymore, I just call it the J-word.”

Harry grinned, muttering the word, “Juice”, which made Y/N recoil slightly and shudder.

“See? Can’t stand it. They’ve been completely ruined for me.”

“Think they were ruined by nature, love. Not very good, are they?” and to that, Y/N shook her head in agreement, before almost seeming to remember that she was in charge of their marketing.

“They’re great and you should buy one,” she gave a fake smile and Harry giggled a bit, peeking down at his nails to see the progress. It was both a check and a distraction, because words had been itching at his throat all day long, and he wasn’t sure how to be so honest without a drink or two in him beforehand. It had been a while since he had been in LA, and while many things felt like home, it had also been a bit intimidating to come back and have to catch up on everything his friends had been up to. Even if he and Y/N spoke often, there were obviously things they forgot, or simply didn’t, discuss.

It was easier to ask a cell phone these sorts of questions, not so much to Y/N’s actual face.

They were quiet, again, each grappling with the situation at hand, perhaps both wondering why life had gone the way it had. Why the other had found someone, how someone else had fulfilled the role of Being Enough that they had failed to do themselves. The weird feeling came over them, yet each was entirely convinced that it was solely them who was dealing with that pain. So, awkwardness prevailed in the short length of their eye contact, and Y/N became all too aware of how she was holding Harry’s fingers, painting each nail so carefully to feign that her focus was entirely on them.

“Who’d yeh spend Thanksgiving with? Don’t think I asked before,” Harry began, figuring this was the best segue into the conversation. He had really meant to ask about Spencer, in hopes of getting Y/N to open up more about what he was like.

Harry knew very well that she had spent Thanksgiving with her boyfriend, because Spencer had posted on Instagram and Harry had found it that night, as he was cyber-stalking Y/N’s new love after getting off the phone with her. She hadn’t mentioned much about “Spence”, but the relationship was still new (according to Nick) and Harry could understand why she wouldn’t tell him.

Especially since he never really talked about Marie to her.

Harry might’ve been okay with Spencer under different circumstances; his dislike for the man didn’t stem from the fact that he was Y/N’s, but rather, the nature of the Instagram left a bad taste in Harry’s mouth. It was like being back in school again, with those types of guys.

Harry tried not to take his celebrity status for granted, but if there was one thing about being around Hollywood people all the time, it was that he had become used to a more progressive type of person. And it didn’t seem like Spencer was quite that type of LA person.

The Instagram photo was of a dining table, clearly not Y/N’s, stuffed full with all types of food, and Harry recognized most of the plates as being meat-based. Turkeys, stuffings, meat plates with small bites of cheese next to them, and other dishes with recognizable bits of bacon (when Harry zoomed in, at least, but he felt pretty sure that’s what they were).

But Y/N was a vegetarian.

Of course, Harry wasn’t there to know if Y/N had been okay with it or not, but he couldn’t help but reflect on how much Y/N had liked his cooking. Said he could make tofu taste like anything in the world (although Harry was hesitant about the soy content, did read his articles about tofu, thank you very much)  and Harry knew damn well he could’ve made Y/N a full feast, the size of three of those tables, without even needing to look at a recipe card.

It was more the caption that bothered Harry, because in small black letters Spencer had consciously typed out “Y/N didn’t step into the kitchen but that’s okay, I still like her. #wcw #makemeasandwich”

It hadn’t even been a Wednesday.

“Spencer.” Y/N’s response was short, clipped.

“Are yeh two serious by now?”

“What constitutes being serious?” Y/N bounced back with another question. It felt like one thing to ignore it to herself, to brush over the question with I really like him and leave it at that, but with Harry - as his eyes bored into hers as she finished the polish on his last pinky – it would be more difficult.

“Yeh only see each other, not dating anyone else, I dunno. Different with everyone.”

Y/N tilted her head to the side, looking over at Harry’s piano against his wall, letting her eyes be distracted briefly from the intensity of the man sitting next to her. It was a smaller piano, with a short bench tucked beneath it, and Y/N wondered if he had written any songs on it yet.

“What do you consider to be serious?” she asked, and it helped ease the small questions bugging her mind, because maybe along the way she could figure out what she had been to him, at least in the beginning.

It was something she couldn’t let go of, even after a few months, and although Harry’s questions were fairly normal, and hers in response seemed casual enough, her heart had picked up in speed, a small bit.

She wanted to know if there was even still a thought or two in his mind about her being his, about how he had kissed her and found a sense of summer in the winter, about how they had danced along the line of seduction for weeks before he had left. She wanted to know what that made her to him.

Harry was quiet.

He was conflicted, silently asking with lifted eyebrows if Y/N had wanted him to answer. As if she would back down or something, as if she would suddenly offer a safer question. But, when the question was out there, it was out there – and he had to answer. This wasn’t a Hollywood interview, he couldn’t dodge this one.

Although, the more Y/N thought about it, she realized he rarely avoided questions when it came to them. He almost always gave her a clear answer, sometimes even expanding on it for a couple minutes. They had spoken about love during late nights before, but never what they had experienced together.

“When I ask her out, I suppose.”

“Were we not serious?” Her response was quick, almost as if she had planned it before his response had crossed his lips, yet her eyes widened similarly to his in shock.

She was asking about their feelings and the potential that had collected like a lake at their feet, but one they had never waded into. In that horrible After-Moment, she realized Harry might have only thought of the one kiss and of nothing more, that perhaps it was only a moment for him, before he reached the conclusion that they were better off as friends. One moment of desire overlapped by reality, a memo titled “Don’t Go For It” that she had missed.

Harry stared at her. His expression was unreadable. His hands had stilled on the table, despite Y/N having bottled up the rest of the polish. The bottle was next to his tea mug, which was going cold.

Y/N found herself waiting, not interrupting the silence that she almost felt compelled to drown in, waiting for the black hole to form on the floor to suck her in. Because, surely, Harry hadn’t thought much about them. Perhaps he had even forgotten the kiss, and he was trying to remember how they had even approached the concept of ‘serious’. He wasn’t the womanizer the media made him out to be, Y/N knew that very well, but he also just came back from a worldwide tour and it was likely that events before had been fudged a bit in his mind.

“You’re Nick’s friend.”

She couldn’t have heard him right. Not possibly. Because two people who talk every day, at least once, and stay on the phone for 5-6 hours when they call – those people are friends within themselves. Not through others, not because of convenience.

Did Harry not even see her as a friend?

“Is that really all I am?” She didn’t want to sound choked up, but the prickles in her throat had come back at full force, waves of salty regret lumping against her throat, near the back of her tongue. Her eyes had managed to stay dry for the time being, still processing exactly what was going on.

Harry was still staring at her, his mouth slightly open.

He had taken their unspoken ‘thing’ for granted, that they could’ve continued on with not mentioning the almost-kiss, the actual kiss, or any of the other moments where he had felt compelled to do something more. What that something was exactly, he wasn’t sure, because he hadn’t really known Y/N well before he left for tour, and now that he did know her better, he couldn’t remember how he had spent his days without texting her, without seeing their bottle of wine in restaurants and thinking of her, without searching through his luggage for his hat before realizing it was still stuck on her gnome.

Harry supposed she was looking for closure, some words he could say to her so they could properly glaze over that period in their lives. Because she was happy with Spencer, because she had helped to set Harry up with another woman, because she didn’t need someone who didn’t know how to trust someone with everything yet, because Harry had a lot of ‘becauses’ and all those reasons piled up in his mental scale, weighing down the side of Deny Everything.

“No, I mean-” his hand moved up to rake through his curls, but Y/N’s arm shot out, her fingers wrapping around his wrist as she looked pointedly at his wet nails.

He froze, perhaps expecting her to say something, before realizing why she had reached out, and nodded, putting his hand back on the table. With his usual habit taken away, he took to moving restlessly, his eyes flickering against all points of the room and his tongue licking his lips as he thought.

“I mean, yeh and I are friends. I-I wasn’t thinking, that night. The kiss, it was...I just thought...I mean, you set me up with Marie. I don’t, I don’t know how I saw you.”

Denying everything was harder than he had thought.

Every word was wracked with confusion, underlying meaning, and dissatisfaction. They were holding back from saying everything on their minds, because their brains were so clouded with overwhelming emotion; there was no way they could muddle through it right then. Harry wasn’t sure how to answer the questions Y/N hadn’t asked, and Y/N wasn’t sure how to interpret Harry’s words that answered nothing.

“Did you see me as...” she trailed off, losing the nerve to speak as the end of the question came nearer.

They both had leaned in slightly at the table during the conversation, their shoulders huddled in a similar manner and their eyes sweeping over the wood on the table, over Harry’s drying nails, coming back to the other’s eyes, before continuing the pattern. Y/N felt less like crying then, as if she had stabilized somewhat, but the mortification of her honesty had begun to creep in. Which had led to her cutting herself off.

“As wha’?” Harry asked. His voice was low, as if they had a reason to be quiet, as if a voice above a whisper would break something more than just their hearts.

“As you see Marie now?”

The thought of that being true would have the potential of breaking Y/N, battering through the dam to let the river crash against the rocks. Harry had seemingly been dismissive of Marie, for whatever reason, and while Y/N acknowledged that all they had genuinely done was kiss once, imagining him being so flippant over their moment with his other friends made her want to crawl under a rock and die.

It felt like more, it had to have meant more.

“I dunno, Y/N,” Harry sighed, his fingers testing the polish and once seeing that it was mostly dry, he ran his fingers through his hair, obviously relieved that he could tug against his roots as a distraction. “I’ve gone on dates with her, y’know? You and I...it was one kiss, love, and you’re Nick’s fri-I mean, we’re friends.”

Y/N nodded, her eyes stuck on the edge of the table. For a woman who hated the After Moments, she was currently drowning in nothing but that draining feeling of having been vulnerable, with nothing to show for it.

“So, we weren’t anything?”

Harry was thinking she needed closure. He would swear up and down that if he knew how she would react, he would’ve never spoken up. But once the word was out there, all he could do was watch everything unravel before him. The feeling that he should know what to say, like the lines had been fed to him by his heart moments ago but his lips forgot how to speak. The confusion clung to his chest, sinking claws into his lungs and he wasn’t sure if he could look her in the eye.

But he eventually did, and the word came out.

“No.”

Y/N thought he looked a bit apologetic, as if he were about to say sorry love, and reach out for her hand, blinking those Bambi eyes at her as he watched her deflate into nothingness.

She kept her eyes on the table, letting out a “hm” through pursed lips. They weren’t really pursed though, just pressed together firmly with her teeth clenched to keep herself from crying at his kitchen table. Because Harry never asked for this, he truly never led her on. It was one kiss and one of the best friendships she had ever had – and she felt like she had properly fucked it up by asking exactly what wasn’t supposed to be spoken.

“Did yeh...think...we had been something?” he asked, low, his heart thudding.

Like it had the chance to redeem itself, like all of their words could be swept under the rug if she would confess to what he hadn’t. Forgetting, briefly, of Spencer, and Marie, and Nick, and his tour, and everything that had complicated how he saw her thus far. As if, with a brief word, Y/N could change all that and make their lives easy.

“I don’t...I don’t know,” the words came out like a gasp, and her eyes flooded quickly to the brim, yet hovering over the brink. She coughed slightly to cover up her sniffle, her fingers coming together to play with her nails as a distraction. Y/N felt as though she looked rather pathetic, especially since Harry’s eyes had remained dry and he seemed more confused than anything.

“I just don’t think it meant anything, yeah? Just a kiss between friends, could’ve happened to anyone. And now yeh’re with Spencer, so there’s no reason to worry about this, love,” Harry murmured, a hand reaching out to gently graze over her cheek, catching one of the tears that had slipped out.

It had occurred to Y/N that she might’ve been too emotionally connected to Harry while she was dating Spencer. To her credit, though, this idea hadn’t taken full form until Harry’s email the previous night, with the note that he was coming back to town. Things became a lot more real, then.

Phones had a way of distancing people; Y/N was finding it a lot harder to hold back when she was so close to him. When she could smell his cologne again, when she remembered the sweatshirt nights and the morning they woke up, limbs tangled, feeling that light type of happiness that she hadn’t, yet, with Spencer.

It was the question of whether she was giving Spencer enough of a chance, that lingered in her mind. Whether she saw a possibility in Harry Styles and had clung to that, or if she had genuinely developed feelings over events that Harry obviously hadn’t attributed too much value to.

“It didn’t mean anything to you?” she questioned, turning to look at him.

Harry sighed and glanced away, his hand reaching up to cover his eyes as he took a deep breath. It all seemed very clear, at that moment, how adult they both were. It was strange, how Y/N suddenly realized it, that this was a grown man sitting next to her, and she was a grown woman. It made her a bit sadder, that she felt so out of place and childish, confronting this man when she was dating another.

“Why’re yeh dating Spencer?” Harry turned the question on her, not answering the one she had asked, his face still hidden by his hand so the words came out mumbled. She was unable to tell from where he was coming from with the question, whether it was judgment or an attempt at reflecting the conversation into something more casual.

“I don’t kn-He’s nice. Really nice. And he’s got a good heart, and he listens to me when I talk.”

“Is tha’ all?” and Harry didn’t mean for it to sound rude, he truly didn’t.

Because overstepping the line was something he had tried to avoid all morning, but the words slipped out and they were true. Harry felt he qualified in those areas, as well, and yet Y/N wasn’t with him. He kissed her, and that night, she set him up with another girl. And, yet, there she was, brought to tears at his kitchen table, asking him questions he didn’t know how to answer. Didn’t know what she needed to hear, and he would’ve readily told her anything if he just had an inkling of what she wanted.

“No, that’s not it. I don’t know-” she sniffed again, her fingers reaching up to pat under her eyes, making sure her mascara hadn’t been too ruined.

“Is he who you want to be with?”

The question was loaded, even if Y/N didn’t see it at first. Harry had lowered his hand, staring at Y/N’s profile as she stared ahead, waiting for her to say the words. He needed to hear them, needed to know.

“Yeah. Of course, I m-mean, I’m dating him, aren’t I?” she stuttered, but it sounded more like a question to herself than anything else, and Harry fell silent. She spoke up again, with a syncopated break in the rhythm of her voice.

“Is there something you don’t like about him, am I missing something?” and if there was a slight tilt of offense to the end of her words, it went completely over Harry’s head.

“I just...he doesn’t seem...to be that great, ‘f I’m honest.” Harry’s hands fell into his lap, as his elbows rested on his knees, his eyes not focusing on anything in particular.

“You haven’t even met him, how would you know?”

“I’m just saying, I think yeh could do better.”

“What are you talking about?” Y/N threw her hands in the air, her eyes scrunching together and then glaring at him, “One minute it’s that we weren’t anything, and now you’re telling me my boyfriend isn’t good enough?”

Harry seemed to realize that he might’ve spoken incorrectly, flown past the line he had previously feared putting a toe against. His hands went back up to yank through his hair, causing his curls to fall at random angles. He was blinking, as if trying to get the confusion out of his eyes, as his hands went out in front of him, clasping together.

“As a friend, I’m trying to-”

“Fuckin’ bullshit you’re ‘as a friend’,” Y/N shook her head, shooting a glance at him to say ‘don’t be ridiculous’, “Just tell me what you fucking mean for fucking once.”

She paused. And then,

“At least Spencer can actually use his words.”

The thing that surprised Harry the most, was how she stuck with the last sentence. No regret flashed through her eyes, she seemed as confident going into it as she had at the end.

He responded just the same, a cold look on his face as he stared at her.

“At least I don’t settle for the bare minimum.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Y/N felt her shoulders tighten as she became more defensive; she knew most of her friends didn’t like Spencer, and Y/N herself couldn’t imagine a wedding with him or anything, but he was nice and gave her butterflies, and he was safe to be vulnerable to.

“It means I’m actually doing something with my job. With my life. With who I let in it.” Each word was punctuated, emphasized, his brows set as he scowled at her.

“What, all those cheap supermodels on speed dial? They adding meaning to your life, Styles?”

The silence was going to kill them both.

Harry’s nose flared as he stared at her, an expression she had never seen before set in his eyes. The two of them sat, defenses up and their faces turned down a bit, equally hurt and vexed by the other. Neither of them moved or spoke for a moment, seething with the anger that had built up so quickly.

It was a surprise when Harry shot up, standing up quickly as his chair rattled against the floor. She blinked, jumping at his sudden movements.

His arm pointed towards the door.

“I want yeh out,” he paused, taking a long breath through his nose before adding, “I’ll call the fuckin’ cab.”

He stalked out, leaving Y/N reeling with what just happened. Her veins were still thundering with adrenaline, her heart both breaking and pumping like crazy, as a few tears fought their battles and rolled down her cheeks. She felt like she was waiting for him to come back, so they could talk it out. But, equally, she wanted to go. She wanted to leave, she couldn’t look at his face any longer.

Harry didn’t seem to notice that she was crying when he came back into the kitchen, or he simply chose to ignore her wiping the tears away as he spoke on the phone.

It was a horrendous silence between them, stretching out as Harry muttered his thanks into the phone and put it on the table. It wasn’t an angry motion by any stretch of the imagination, but Y/N still jumped again, wincing slightly at how he refused to look at her.

“It’ll be here in five.” was all he said, directed at the table before his hand let go of his phone, before he walked back towards his room.

The door slammed shut.

In the living room, a few of the photographs fell off the shelf.

“Where to, miss?”

It seemed weird, that the sky outside was still so bright and lively. The warmth felt cold on her skin, and her goosebumps seemed to be permanently on her arms for the time being. The Sun felt like a betrayal on her face. Y/N was still piecing together what had gone on, as she walked out of his house and towards the yellow car. She hadn’t reached a conclusion yet, before the driver had asked for her end location.

She gave the cab driver her address, before pausing, and shaking her head.

“Know what? Never mind,” and then she promptly gave over Nick’s address, toying the idea over in her head more and more. She really needed her best friend right now. Nick had always been there for her, they were each other’s #1. Even had those fancy best friend necklaces.

Despite Nick also being friends with Harry, she knew that he would help her. Take care of her, briefly, because she could see the breakdown on the horizon and really didn’t want Spencer to have to deal with her wracking sobs and incoherent moans.

As Y/N texted Nick, quickly inviting herself over (and smiling against the tears when he readily accepted without a single question), she saw the stack of texts between her and Harry. It was near the top, of course, because they texted each other constantly. It had just been another stable part of her daily life, checking every so often to see if Harry had messaged her, from whatever time zone he had been in at the time.

And now, it turned her stomach to even see his name. It had been so long ago now, it seemed, that she found herself in a group chat with a strange number and Nick. She tapped on his contact info, swallowing against the lump in her throat as the cab driver turned on Despacito on the radio.

‘XXX My Ass’ alongside a photo of Harry, a meme she had dug up from 2013.

A few minutes later, Y/N tossed her phone back in her purse without a second glance. She settled back into the taxi cab seat, watching the mansions pass by her window, feeling the bitterness swell against her throat and root in her stomach.

Against her wallet, in the depths of her purse, her phone glowed with the new contact screen.

‘XXX My Ass’ contact has been renamed to Harry.

Contact photo removed.

[angstmongertina]

Words of Wisdom (minor Ethan Ramsey/MC)

Purposely posting for Father's Day because it seems very appropriate considering how much of a father figure Naveen is to Ethan, and a grandmentor to MC. In other words, I absolutely adore Naveen to bits, and I think he and MC are long overdue for a conversation.

I didn't think I'd have increased inspiration now that the entire book has ended and we have to wait who knows how long until book 2 comes out but hey, in the meantime, I guess I'll keep writing. So enjoy me continuing the spam the fandom? :P

AO3 Link

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She was not entirely surprised to be called into the soon-to-be Chief Banerji’s office after completing her rounds. After all, between his promotion and her return, there was plenty she suspected he had questions about, and the only true surprise was that he had recovered enough to maintain the stamina for such an extended visit to Edenbrook.

In retrospect, it should have been equally expected that Dr. Banerji would not be alone.

At his cheerful invitation, she entered, only to find him sitting at his desk, with an extremely familiar figure standing at his side. Ethan—Dr. Ramsey—froze as she paused in the doorway, his face appearing about as startled and awkward as she felt.

Dr. Banerji seemed entirely oblivious to the sudden tension, or at least would have been if not for the sly grin playing in the corners of his mouth. “Ah, Isabelle. Thank you for coming.”

Carefully avoiding the gaze of her now direct supervisor, she smiled, taking the chair he waved her towards. “Of course…” She hesitated. “Dr. Banerji? Chief Banerji?”

His answering smile was gentle. “I think you, if anyone, has earned the right to call me Naveen, my dear. I have been your patient after all.” She must have made a face; he laughed, warm and strong despite his lingering frailty and tinged with what was almost fatherly affection. “At least consider it outside of official settings?”

Before she could decide on a reply, he pushed himself to his feet and… Dr. Ramsey made a noise of protest, which he shrugged off as easily as he did the restraining hand on his shoulder. “I’m fine, Ethan. Now go on. You’ve been reinstated as well so I’m sure you have more important things to do than to hover over me like a worried hen. After all, thanks to you and Isabelle, I’m no longer on the verge of keeling over.”

His expression as stern as ever, Dr. Ramsey crossed his arms over his chest. “I believe I’ll be the judge of that. But very well.”

She stole a glimpse at him as he made his way around the desk and towards the door, his face oddly relieved, though it smoothed into his usual impassive expression when their eyes met, and she quickly looked away.

“Dr. Wang.”

She nodded, focusing her gaze just to the right of his face. “Dr. Ramsey.”

When the door closed behind him, she turned back to Naveen, who grinned at her, amusement and mischief dancing in his eyes, as he ambled his way to a coffee machine in the corner of the room. “Something to drink?”

She leapt to her feet, following him with outstretched hands. “Here, allow me, Dr—” He raised an eyebrow and she cleared her throat. “Um, Naveen?”

Dark brown eyes twinkled at her, both approving and gently admonishing. “I am well enough to get my own tea. And yours too, if you wish it.”

Somehow, it didn’t surprise her when he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and it wasn’t until she had been settled with her own fragrant cup that he relaxed back into his seat. “Now, where were we?”

“You asked to see me?” The question of whether he’d asked her to stop by knowing full well that he would have company in order to watch the theatrics, she swallowed with some difficulty, instead opting to take a small sip from her tea.

“Ah, yes.” Almost immediately, his casual expression turned serious, though his constant gentleness remained. “As a result of being thoroughly indisposed throughout most of it, I feel I am still a bit… behind on the full story of your trial. Dr. Olsen explained some details, including his involvement, during the drive but I would like to hear your perspective, if you do not mind.”

“Ummm… how much of it?” When he only gave her an encouraging nod, she took a deep breath, tightening her hands around the mug, and laid out everything, from the research to the theft and delivery of the drug. From Mrs. Martinez’s final fate to her friends’ support in the investigation and trial. Dr. Banerji was an attentive listener, exuding calm without judgment and only interrupting with the rare question.

After she finished, a silence fell over the room, one that she couldn’t bring herself to break, especially not to question whether knowing the full facts changed his opinion of her. Instead, she raised her cup, taking a sip of her now lukewarm tea, and resisted the urge to fidget as Dr. Banerji sat forward, expression thoughtful.

“Dr. Olsen mentioned being the one who told the Martinez family about your involvement, among various other… grievances he committed against you. And yet you accepted his help with little ill-will. Even he was surprised.”

Taken aback herself, she shrugged. “Our history didn’t matter when it came to a potential cure for you. Saving lives is far more important. And anything beyond that was his own choice.”

“And that is why he made the choice to support you in the end.” He nodded, seemingly to himself, and relaxed back into his seat. “Thank you. For both telling me everything and for your selflessness when you had far more pressing issues threatening your career than helping an old man. Your future patients are in good hands.”

“I should be thanking you.” She shifted slightly, then… “Do you truly want to leave the diagnostic team?” The words fell out of her mouth before she could snap her mouth shut, but he didn’t seem to mind, only steepling his fingers with a thoughtful expression.

“Would it surprise you if I said yes?” When she said nothing, he chuckled, but it was low, tired. “I loved my time leading the team, make no mistake, and I have no doubt you will find it a most rewarding experience. Being able to witness the trickiest cases, solve the toughest puzzles… It is an honor but…” He sighed, something resembling melancholy filtering into his voice. “I was too involved, too stressed, especially when I put my everything into it. In some ways, the irony is quite humorous.”

Drawing a breath, he sat forward, their eyes meeting, and the intensity of his gaze nearly took her breath away. “I loved it. I still love it. And I never fully realized how far I was until I physically could not maintain that life any longer. Only when I was staring death in the face did I notice how much of life I had missed. Now that you have given me a second chance, I have no intention of squandering that.”

Unsure of what she could even say to that, she only nodded, and he laughed again, more lighthearted this time. “I suppose you weren’t expecting such a heavy answer. My apologies for burdening you with an old man’s rambling.”

“No, it was very insightful to get your perspective. Just…” She hesitated, trailing off as she bit her lip.

He folded his hands around his mug and leaned back into his seat with a warm look. “You no doubt have more questions. Please feel free to ask anything else you wish.” There was something in his eyes, an understanding, as if he knew the doubt already lingering in her mind.

Encouraged, or perhaps emboldened, by his expression, she took a deep breath. “Why me? You already knew about the trial and there are plenty of strong residents who don’t have so much of a… reputation.”

Grinning, he shrugged. “Who else cured the sepsis?”

“That wasn’t just me. Dr. Olsen was the one who gave me the inspiration…”

To her surprise, he smiled wider. “And that is why you will make a brilliant diagnostician. Too many of us rely on only ourselves or those directly involved. And on one hand, it makes sense. Between patient confidentiality and our experience, we truly are the foremost experts in diagnosing tricky cases. But that also makes us incredibly insular. We must learn to branch out and reach out more, to trust others and obtain second and third opinions. I learned that almost too late. And Ethan…”

She straightened instinctively at the name, though she kept her face as impassive as she could. Thankfully, Naveen either didn’t notice or said nothing. “Ethan relies on me too much. There are few who could have achieved what he has done in ten years, but as a consequence, it kept him closed off from the world, from everyone outside of the team.” He sighed, though the sound was more affectionate than distressed. “I suspect Ethan has told you that I never married, never had a family?”

For a moment, she hesitated, but Naveen only chuckled. “It is hardly a secret, really. I decided very early in my career that I would focus all of my energy on my patients and that anything else, everything else, would be secondary. Ethan is the closest thing I have to family left, and while it is a rewarding life, it is also a lonely one. And now, I see him following much the same path. Or, at least, he would have been if not for you.”

“Me?” Her voice was more of a squeak than anything, but to his credit, his laugh was almost passably a cough.

“You. You brought him out of his shell, reminded him what it was to live for himself.” His eyes twinkled. “You called him out on his bullshit when he deserved it, and encouraged him when he needed it. And especially now that I am no longer able to keep an eye on him, now that he will be leading the team, I think he needs that more than anything else.”

For a moment, she hesitated, wondering just how much he knew, but when he said nothing else, she nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all I can ask. Thank you.”

She shook her head, swallowing around a sudden lump in her throat. “No, thank you. For believing in me and giving me this opportunity and also for making Ethan the man, the attending, he is today. I can honestly say that I don’t think I’d be here otherwise, and I’ve already learned so much.”

His answering chuckle filled the room with warmth. “Perhaps, but I have no doubt you’ll have found your way here no matter what. This is your calling, Isabelle, and I don’t think anything could have kept you from it for long… except, it seems, the rambling conversations with an old man. My apologies.”

Grinning, she waved a hand at him. “No worries. It was… enlightening, to say the least, though I really should get back to my patients before Dr. Mirani comes looking for me.”

“I’m glad, and if he gives you any grief, feel free to place the blame solely on me.”

When he winked, she laughed and got to her feet. “And send him your way? I should hope not!”

He chuckled again, and she made her way to the doorway, though she paused when he called out.

“And Isabelle?” She turned to find him watching her with a mix of pride and understanding. “I do hope that you can take my words to heart as well. Please let me know if you ever have any questions, or just need to talk.”

Without thought, she raised an eyebrow. “Or want advice on the patients, no doubt?”

“Old habits die hard.” He grinned, suddenly mischievous, and raised his voice. “Oh, and please tell Ethan that I am still well, but if he must, he can come back in to check for himself, instead of just hovering outside the door attempting to eavesdrop.”

She twisted to find the man in question waiting in the hallway, muttering something that sounded impressively uncomplimentary under his breath, and met his gaze, laughing when he flushed. “Will do.”

It wasn’t until Dr. Mirani found her, nearly a quarter hour later, and commented on the unnecessarily chipper bounce in her step that she realized her face hurt from smiling.

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG122 /o/ (Rambling, pondering, wild mass guessing and probably many stabs in The Dark, as per usual.)

- … actually, relistening and realizing that Georgie and Basira never told Jon that by “a coma” they meant that neither his heart nor his lungs were functioning while his brain was still active for the past six months does… shed another light on their interactions, and on the fact that Jon is probably not as weirded out as he ought to be by the whole thing (or, at least, that he didn’t feel as “not fine” as Georgie would have wanted). Unless he’s been absolutely lying to them throughout the exchange, he… doesn’t really have a clear grasp on the amount of time that passed either:

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: I’m okay– GEORGIE: Jon, you are not okay! You have been in coma. ARCHIVIST: Wait– wait. H–how long? BASIRA: Six months. Give or take. ARCHIVIST: [WHISPERS] Six…

I initially freaked out over the whole episode, feeling that Jon was utterly off, and while there are some bits that are clearly worrisome (the apparently missing memories; the feeling “more real” thing; that ~the Archivist~; the mere concept of Jon saying that he feels all right??? his last explicit good night's sleep was around Halloween 2016!), and the whole basis/state of Jon waking up Means A Few Very Unfortunate Things… at the same time, how would have usual!Jon reacted, if he was waking up after apparently having survived the Unknowing, and suddenly being told that he’s been in a coma for half a year, while he himself didn’t feel like he had been unresponsive for this long (and quite the contrary: feeling like he’s just… waking up after only a night of sleep)? And when all these pieces of information are dropped on him, one after another, from Basira who had all those months to cope with them and to learn to not (totally) drown herself in this new life? The whole premise is wrong but, actually, Jon’s reactions didn’t seem… that much out-of-character, on their own?

- In the list of Jon-related things to get worried over, though, I am *squints squints squints* about the bits that he seems to have forgotten:

(MAG122) BASIRA: How much do you remember? ARCHIVIST: I don’t… Music. Everything was wrong. Gertrude was there, and then… dancing. I think? Then… pain. And I was somewhere else. Dreaming.

The Unknowing was chaos, it messed with their minds, they had been warned about it and we got to hear first-hand how it went. But I find it curious that Jon… didn’t mention Jurgen Leitner, who arrived right after Gertrude, and with a special purpose when Nikola was puppeteering them:

(MAG119) ARCHIVIST: I, I tried, I tried, I almost… GERTRUDE: You almost what? […] You know, it’s probably for the best I’m dead. Can you imagine how much I hate having to watch you fumble around as my replacement? I really cannot express how much of a disappointment you are. ARCHIVIST: I, I’m sorry, I didn’t even– GERTRUDE: […] This is your fault. ARCHIVIST: It is not! It’s not, I didn’t know, it’s not my fault you died! LEITNER: No, I suppose not. Me, on the other hand… […] you left me to get my head bashed in. I understand, of course. You needed a cigarette! I suppose you should have remembered that smoking kills! [LAUGHS]

“Leitner” was specifically brought up to shatter Jon’s defence that he has had no responsibility whatsoever in Gertrude’s death – while his actions had direct consequences in the case of Leitner’s. Jon makes no mention of Tim’s last moments in his summary, either, and those also contained something specific: his assertion that he was not forgiving Jon.

(MAG119) TIM: […] Jon, I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can… ARCHIVIST: Tim…? TIM: I don’t forgive you. But thank you for this.

I wonder if perhaps, there wasn’t some messing around to keep Jon away from the guilt he had felt over some of his actions? (The feeling getting cauterized, or sealed, or the memories getting purposely buried to make him forget about it?) Especially since… it had been very prevalent in him towards the end of season 3.

(MAG098) MARTIN: […] Y’know, I think he thinks that the distance keeps us safe, you know? Like, like, if he just makes sure that we’re not involved, we’re somehow fine. […] He was… Y’know, we know about Sasha now, and… he said he doesn’t want to lose anyone else. Like, y’know, it’s his fault. TIM: Isn’t it? MARTIN: No! No, it isn’t! I mean, you heard Elias… We never really stood a chance. TIM: Yeah. Maybe. But Elias wasn’t actually the one who offered me the job down here.

(MAG113) MELANIE: Wasn’t a great time back here, either. ARCHIVIST: Oh, god, Melanie, of course. I’m… I’m sorry. If I’d known that Ivy Meadows was– MELANIE: What?! You’d have told me? Let me learn from one of your statements instead of from Elias? I don’t see that changing anything. ARCHIVIST: Even so, I… am… I’m sorry. MELANIE: I don’t need your apology. Or your pity. ARCHIVIST: Of course. [QUIETER] Of course.

(MAG114) TIM: … You listened to it, then? My statement. ARCHIVIST: I listened to all the tapes. I, I had no idea how much of a… a mess I left this place in, I–I–I’m sorry. […] [SOFTLY] Tim, I… I didn’t realise. I–I didn’t think. I’m sorry.

(MAG117) ARCHIVIST: I’ve listened to the tape, I– I know what they talk about behind my back, how much they’ve… suffered, because of… this place… because of me. God. Poor Melanie.

Jude Perry had highlighted that her choices had made her cast away at least some bits of empathy (MAG089: “Any feelings of pity or mercy I might have had for the poor woman I fed from were cauterised.”), so, I find it suspicious that Jon would forget about “Leitner” and Tim during the Unknowing, when both of them specifically had words that had probably elicited the feeling at the time…? Jon still sounded concerned about the remaining assistants (and he hadn’t forgotten about Tim’s whole existence), so that’s reassuring! But I do wonder whether he will still be able to feel bad/guilty about his own actions, past worrying over future consequences? As usual: wait and ~see~.

- He sounded less anxious than usual!Jon, more philosophical/detached than truly shaking over the idea of being inhuman, but that… could plainly be due to the avalanche of bad news and Jon having trouble processing and readjusting. Technically, there was a lot to assimilate, on all accounts and everywhere. (We can only assume that The Admiral is safe, and that’s it?!)

(MAG122) BASIRA: Jon, is it still… you? ARCHIVIST: Er… Y… yes. Y–yes, I–I think so? I, I don’t know how you’d… prove it, though.

ARCHIVIST: […] They can be hard, though, sometimes, oth–other people… feelings. I’m… I’m… I’m trying to focus. Trying to make sure I’m the same me as before, but… how can anyone really remember that? How do you know… you’re the same person that went to sleep…?

BASIRA: Me first. What are you? ARCHIVIST: … Honestly… I don’t know. I don’t feel… inhuman, or… … I want to say I’m the same. But I don’t… really know if that’s true. I know I’m different. I feel… more real, somehow. BASIRA: So what does that actually mean? ARCHIVIST: Probably nothing good.

^the reassuring thing is that 1°) Jon expressed doubts over the fact he could still be himself, while not being able to pinpoint differences (he’s not taking for granted that he could still be the same/The True Jon Who Was There All Along), 2°) HE EXPRESSED THESE DOUBTS ALONE, TOO!! So he’s not lying to Basira about it. He could be dissimulating some information again, but he’s genuine about these doubts – and doubts are a good thing! … though the word “monster” was quite curiously totally absent from the conversation, and it had been the one Jon had been using to refer to the Avatars before. Also, Jon quite obviously tried to get some Alone Me-Time at the end, when telling Basira that they should get the nurses; on the one hand, Jonathan “don’t tell me what to do” Sims could have tried to just… leave like this, on the other hand, it really sounded like he needed to blank out for a bit before facing all there is to face? (Sob, regarding Jon waiting for that medical check: the last big one had been… with Prentiss? There were apparently a few medical things after his first encounter with Michael, since he got five stitches, but Elias had told him to not “worry about the doctor’s note” back in MAG092, and we don’t even know if he tried to get his arm treated post-handshake with Jude… so yeah, it’s been a while since he got a complete check, probably. ;; I wonder if they’ll find something wrong about him (… O-negative blood…? There had been two statements in which spooks had that one), or if he will be… uncannily normal, still. Neither option would be reassuring given the context.)

- Noticeably: there was no static when he asked Basira questions. There had been no static either back in season 2 even in cases for which we retrospectively learned that he had actually been non/dubconning answers out of an unwilling person (Daisy), but punctual compulsion has steadily made the tape recorders react more reliably. So, unless twist (tape recorder not reacting anymore / Jon has lost that power / etc.): it means that Jon is still able to not compulse someone, and that he… didn’t do it on Basira, when he could have for various reasons (not caring, being too anxious to keep it in check, being unsure whether she would hide things from him, etc.) Which… is kind of good, actually??? (How long will it last.)

-Re: Jon’s memories and the “dreams”… In fact, I’m not sure that he’s currently able to remember their content? Or at least not in details?

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: [WHISPERS] Six… Er, the others. T–Tim? Is he… [SILENCE] Oh… [SILENCE] BASIRA: … Daisy, too. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: … I’m sorry. BASIRA: Yeah. […] ARCHIVIST: Then… pain. And I was somewhere else. Dreaming. BASIRA: Dreaming. ARCHIVIST: Yes. … You’re… sure a–about Tim? BASIRA: Yeah, they, er… They found his remains a few days later. ARCHIVIST: And… Daisy? BASIRA: They still haven’t found her body.

… it sounds like Jon discovered Daisy’s Official Status As Dead at the same level as he did with Tim; but Elias had previously narrated that Jon was searching for Daisy in his dreams (MAG120: “He looks around, his eyes scanning this forever road and the clouds of iron grey, looking for her – but she is not there. The Archivist expects, he hopes, to find the violence in her looking back at him, hungry for pursuit and murder. But the emptiness of the place is complete […]”), while the assistants are apparently excluded from his dreams (so even counting the post-Prentiss statement from MAG040, he’d probably never seen Tim in there). Jon would have pieced the things together, I think, if he remembered his dream about Daisy? Or was the memory of this one in particular robbed from him?

There is also the fact that he almost immediately began to ask about Tim and wasn’t aware that he had been out for six months… as if nothing had really happened between the Unknowing and the moment he woke up. I’m definitely fearing some memory tampering, since we already had Mike mention having no recollection of his own transformation (MAG091: “I don’t remember that night in detail. […] There are echoes of resignation, I think, almost desperation. That can’t be right, though. What reason would I have had not to jump? Not to become as I am now. Perhaps I just didn’t know the true joy of vertigo. It doesn’t matter.”) – memories getting twisted a bit when they don’t fit the ~narrative~ of Avatars willingly deciding to give themselves in wholly, without any hesitation? Or will that come… later. So, really: does Jon even currently know that he ~made a choice~ and apparently became an avatar/a monster/got an upgrade on the spooky-scale? Or was he… made to forget about it? Not banking on it but I can’t help but think that there is a possibility he might not know, given how… the tape recorder with Oliver’s statement on it apparently disappeared between MAG121 and MAG122:

(MAG122) GEORGIE: It was just there! BASIRA: Could he have come back? Moved it? GEORGIE: I guess. BASIRA: […] And you don’t know why this guy would have left a tape recorder? GEORGIE: You’re the detective. BASIRA: And you’re sure it was him who left it? GEORGIE: I mean, the nurses said there were no other visitors so, unless it appeared by magic… … What, seriously? BASIRA: I don’t know. The whole tape thing is… I don’t know. […] Shh. [SHUFFLING] Down here. GEORGIE: I told you. BASIRA: This is the one? GEORGIE: Sure. BASIRA: You don’t sound very sure. GEORGIE: I mean, I don’t know. It might be a different model, maybe? I thought it was plastic. But… yeah.

Tape recorders are still spooky, but in this special instance, it seems like the previous one vanished and that a new one popped up elsewhere. Which might mean that the tape inside is probably not the same. Which would mean… that Jon probably won't be able to listen again to Oliver’s statement? Why did it disappear? (And “how?”, but that’s the tape recorders for you.) Assuming that Jon wouldn’t even remember that he made a choice following Oliver’s statement… he would still be unable to rediscover what happened, so long as he can’t access the tape?

But at the same time, he threw us that (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH) “Jonathan Sims, the Archivist” with a small hesitation (though there were hesitations everywhere in his introduction, he apparently had trouble reading/sorting the words out), so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ As usual: Jon, what the fuck do you know about things around you/yourself, what are you planning, and could you share it with us instead of letting us wonder about it for the next 10 or 20 episodes. If he knows, he didn’t tell Basira, and that part is concerning because uh, Jon, really, if ~you are(/were) still you~, you should give people plenty of warnings about agreeing-to-turn-into-a-monster-for-real in order to allow them to keep you in check. (… but that would also be Typical Jon Behaviour to know that he can be a danger and to assume that he can keep himself in check anyway. If he’s even caring about it.)

(Please, relisten to your old tapes, if you want to make sure that you’re still you ;__; At the same time, I’m fearing that he would also not really recognize or understand that “past Jon”, his worries and his concerns… ;; … and that’s assuming that the old tapes are still in the Archives, since they can now apparently… disappear. And assuming that whatever happened in the Archives didn’t damage some of them.)

- A few things had previously been established already regarding Jon’s powers: that Jon has grown to be dependent on statements (MAG107: “It looks like the recording of statements has now passed over from psychological compulsion into… a more physical dependence. I don’t know whether this is… some sort of classical addiction or something a bit deeper. […] What irritates me most is that Elias was clearly aware of this, hence his sending me this. Which seems to serve no other purpose but as a restorative. [BREATHES] But as usual, he chose to keep this very useful information to himself.”), complete with his voice getting sturdier as he’s reading after a withdrawal (though the process took much longer here compared to MAG107!), and the static happening when Jon quoted the words from spooky creatures (which… is something the tape recorder catches independently from Jon: it did the same things when the assistants were reading statements, and does it too during live-statements when people remember a Spook’s words, cf Georgie’s “The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one.” in MAG094, or Elias describing the “DIG” add in MAG120).

The only new things, as far as I can tell, are that Jon could feel (or see?) the statement in Basira’s bag, complete with static effect, and that he spontaneously changed his introduction to… that (“Recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist. Statement begins.”)… without questioning it… (Did he not realize? Or, as usual: does Jon know way more than what he’s deigning to tell right now, and it is one of the things he has embraced?) It’s quite funny how that new introduction sounded so off-balance to me, compared to the usual one which had its own rhythm and harmony (“Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.”). Comparatively: he’s keeping his name, switching to the spooky title, and not tying himself to a place anymore. Jon, what do you knooooow…

- As usual with the series, characters… clash in bittersweet ways, but leaving you enough clues to feel why they behaved in the way they did – they don’t act as you would want them to, they tend to hurt each other very spontaneously, refuse to open up to others when it could maybe help, but all these reactions also feel like they make sense for who they are and what they've experienced. Martin had already mentioned that Basira was keeping things together, in the trailer, and her presence confirmed that she has been the one in charge for some time: Martin is out of their reach (Basira isn’t even sure that he’s working with Peter!), and Melanie is apparently too worrisome to be allowed to see Georgie-or-Jon at the hospital? And Basira has had her own worrying and grieving over Daisy in the meantime; Daisy who… had been her own anchor until now. She was very dry and steel-like towards Jon, making it obvious that she had to check if Jon waking up wasn’t… something that was making the already bad situation worse: she did not take the concept of “Jon” as an ally for granted, it hurts, but the situation sounds very bad overall so that’s… absolutely understandable.

As for Georgie… ;; I’m heartbroken that she apparently still hoped that Jon could still (want to) (try to) put everything behind him… while it hadn’t been an option for him for a long while. And that’s understandable for Georgie! Her own experience messed her up, took from her, made her lose a precious friend, and she knows it, and she felt it; and she also spent time rebuilding herself and trying to hide it (Jon had never realized that she was literally fearless when he had dated her afterwards!). Comparatively, Jon’s situation was different from the start since he had doomed more people in this mess (he had “trapped” at least Tim in the Archives by choosing him), but as Elias put it in MAG092, he also decided to press on and to seek knowledge (without understanding the repercussions) instead of letting things go. The circumstances preceding Jon’s awakening already had enough elements to give Georgie the impression of being in a hostile and alien territory (someone feeling like death being there; a wild tape recorder in the room, and Georgie was already wary of them before the coma; Basira answered her call instead of Melanie); and then, Jon just woke up after getting a visit from an Avatar of The End, in a medical room, and Jon insisted that he was feeling fine… There was enough to get triggered for multiple reasons, and to project and to get hurt by the differences in the way Jon reacted – I felt that Georgie wanted some normalcy, needed Jon to say that he wasn’t fine and needed time to readjust, just like she had? And indeed, what to think, when Jon presents his whole situation as “normal” while nothing had been normal for the past six months? When Georgie knew first-hand that you don’t (shouln’t) come out of this unscarred?

It’s so sad to think that Jon was easier to handle when he was… unconscious, and that Georgie did more than her share during all these months but that she ultimately reached her breaking point as soon as he woke up – pushing people away from her private life (“Honestly Basira, it’s not your business. … Sorry.”) and being excluded in return (“Georgie, could you give us a minute? There’re some things we should probably discuss.”) – and that she has decided to get out now. It’s good for her, but also so sad because her advice had been the bestest before, and Jon might have attenuated the damages a bit towards the end of season 3 thanks to what she had told him:

(MAG099) GEORGIE: I said I’m fine with it. At least until you’re properly back on your feet. You’re not doing well. You keep apologising and saying you’re changing, but it’s all just the same. If you leave, I think it’s just going to get worse, and I don’t want that. […] ARCHIVIST: Is it… Why are you so insistent on keeping me around? GEORGIE: Because you’re trying to cut yourself off, and that’s… that’s really bad. Look, when’s the last time you spoke to someone who wasn’t me? ARCHIVIST: That’s… I… I–I– talked to Martin a… a, a few weeks ago… GEORGIE: Did you talk to him? Or did he talk to you, while you tried to find a way to escape? Look, you’re worried. I get it. But if you really think you’re turning into something… inhuman, you need people around you. You need anchors. ARCHIVIST: All my “anchors” are just as deep in this as me. GEORGIE: Well, you still need them. ARCHIVIST: [SIGHS] Maybe you’re right. I’ll talk to the others. […]

(MAG0117) ARCHIVIST: […] Georgie was right. If I am… slipping, then I need people I can trust. And I… I don’t think that can happen naturally for me an–anymore, so… I’m making a decision. I trust them. All of them.

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: Georgie, I– GEORGIE: Jon. If this really is a second chance… please, try to take it. But I don’t think that it is. ARCHIVIST: Georgie, I don’t und– GEORGIE: Take care of yourself.

But now, Georgie is quitting, and she has every right to do so ;; Not even… abandoning Jon at his lowest, since Basira is there (Jon might have other anchors, or more or less?), and not even wishing him the worse, but also deciding that she has had enough with all of this. … It’s also the worst of Jon’s dreams (MAG120, Elias: “She simply looks at him sadly, a pity in her face that burns him worse than any flame. More than anything, the Archivist wants to looks away, to turn his Eye from her gentle sadness, from the disappointment for what she sees in him; but he cannot. So he watches her, until she simply fades away.”) happening to him in real life, and AOUCH. I wonder if Georgie remembers her own dreams of him…? I still hope that they might be able to more or less patch things up at some point, their friendship was great, okay TT____TT (AND SO WAS THE ADMIRAL.) … I’m also a bit worried for her, since she met Oliver, and since… she seems to think that she managed to leave behind what happened to her all these years ago, but given that she still lives with the consequences (she’s unable to feel fear), I’m not sure that it won’t catch up with her at some point.

Aaaand in return, Jon had apparently not quite understood what he was coming back from (six months coma with no lungs nor heart working), and is just being told that Tim and Daisy died; that Martin’s plan worked and that Elias is in prison, but that it solved nothing! that Elias had been able to choose his successor beforehand! and that it’s Peter Lukas; that Martin might be collaborating with him; that Melanie is not doing great; that “a lot has happened” while he was out; and Basira is wary towards him; and nobody looks relieved to see him alive… It had every reason to be disorientating for him, too.

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: Honestly, I… I, I think I’m alright? I mean, that’s… good, right? I… GEORGIE: After a six months coma? No. It’s not. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go, Jon. ARCHIVIST: I… What? Y–you, you’d prefer I was… brain-damaged? Dead? Or– […] ARCHIVIST: … What about you? Disappointed to see me alive? … Basira? BASIRA: We can deal with that later.

gODS, the misdirected bitterness towards Basira ;__; (His tone was so insidiously cruel and twisting the knife?! Gods, Jon D: Not out of character, since he tends to snarl/bite when cornered, but still, that one gave me chills.) In the same vein, it was… heartbreaking to see Jon trying to ground himself with familiar elements, and them being perpetually denied. Basira has always been quite direct and often savage, but she was stern and steely here (cautious about what “Jon” was); Georgie has always called out Jon on his bullshit, but got enough and quit. Tim is dead and confirmed dead, Daisy is “officially” dead. Martin isn’t there to fuss over Jon, and might be working for another party than the Institute. Melanie’s overall situation sounds bad. Elias is in prison but chose a replacement who sounds worse in his own way; there is not even that relief. Even materially: Jon’s old clothes from the Archives have been discarded, and Jon asking for a cup of tea (something familiar, associated to comfort: Martin and Georgie had usually been the ones to offer it to him) was cut off and denied. Aouch?!

- I stupidly freaked out at this part:

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: Georgie, is she, er… BASIRA: She’s gone. Didn’t see where. ARCHIVIST: [MUTTERING] (No, I, I wouldn’t have… (?)) [LOUDER] Probably for the best.

Because my brain was flaring “NOP NOP NOP NOP” at this “Probably for the best”, not for itself, but for the wording, and I couldn’t figure out why…? And, right. That’s because I was remembering this one:

(MAG108) PETER: Do I scare you Martin? MARTIN:  Yes…! PETER: Hm. Probably for the best.

Probably absolutely and utterly unrelated, it’s just that the “same phrasing” echo made me flip out. (Still.)

- BASIRA!!! ;___;

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: [WHISPERS] Six… Er, the others. T–Tim? Is he… [SILENCE] Oh… [SILENCE] BASIRA: … Daisy, too. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: … I’m sorry. BASIRA: Yeah. […] ARCHIVIST: And… Daisy? BASIRA: They still haven’t found her body. Probably never will. I thought for a while she might’ve… but. It’s been months. She’s gone.

So yeah, we’ll… see Daisy again at some point, in some form, and we’ll probably regret that she didn’t die orz I’m not sure that Basira finally managed to convince herself that ~Daisy is dead~, it sounds like she’s trying (and failing) to be rational about it. Gdi!! The fact that Jon immediately asked about Tim, got stunned, that Basira had to add about Daisy’s fate (Jon would have probably asked after a while, he kinda liked Daisy, they had that weird friendship/partnership going on?), and that Jon didn’t forget to ask about her the second time ;_; The weird pauses, because obviously, Jon was more concerned/curious about Tim (MAG118: “Tim, contrary to what you think, I did not bring you here to indulge your death wish! […] I am not losing you as well!!”) while Basira… lost her own anchor… (MAG117: “But at least Daisy's coming along. I mean… I know she’s… difficult. Everything they say about her, it’s true, it’s fair. But… she’s solid. She’s a fixed point. And if she’s there, I know exactly where I stand, exactly what I’m doing relative to her. She has no doubts. […] Despite everything she’s done, she’s… she’s still the best partner I ever had.”). She’s had months to try to rationalize that not finding Daisy’s body doesn’t mean that Daisy managed to escape; that Daisy is probably dead and not coming back… And yet, Basira has apparently been the one in charge since then… Due to their respective losses, Jon and Basira interacting was kind of the worst configuration, but at the same time, it was… for the best that Basira was the one to go. I am so impressed by her! She went straight to the point, asked the right questions to assess the current situation, kept in mind that the “Jon” in front of her might very well not be who Jon used to be (Martin would have probably been relieved first, denial&interrogations maybe a bit later). Obviously, there are still valuable questions that should get asked about the past/future (Why is Jon only waking up now and what did he give up to be able to come back? What is he planning, what does he want?), but Basira was focusing about the now and here and said herself that “We can deal with that later”. Though these bits will… have to factor, probably.

- By the way, some potential canon credentials to the fantheory that Basira is religious /o/

(MAG122) BASIRA: … What, capital D “Death”? GEORGIE: Yeah. Y’know, one of your dark gods… BASIRA: They’re not– Look. I’m trying to help.

It proves nothing (they’re not technically gods, though Christopher Meyer had called them “outer cults” in MAG060) but it’s still something I’ll Take And Run With! /o/

- YEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPP things are not great regarding Melanie:

(MAG122) BASIRA: […] Look. I’m trying to help. You came to me. GEORGIE: I came to Melanie. BASIRA: Well, sorry. Right now, I’m it. […] ARCHIVIST: And Melanie? BASIRA: A lot’s happened, while you’ve been gone.

Sounds like Basira didn’t want Melanie to go near Jon orrrr to leave the Archives? It seems that she’s still there, though, since Basira used a plural form (“We don’t see [Martin] around the Archives much these days”). The question is: in which state. It sounds bad anyway.

- Is Melanie related to whatever happened to Jon’s clothes.

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: […] I don’t suppose you brought in any… clothes? […] Right, well, er… I kept some in the Archives, er, in my office. BASIRA: Yes, those got, hum… We had to throw those out. ARCHIVIST: What? BASIRA: Like I said, a lot’s happened. ARCHIVIST: S–since I’ve been… … Fine. BASIRA: I’ll get you some new ones. Better ones.

Fire? Flooding/rusting effects from the Lonely? Spiders infestation? Melanie permanently staying in the Archives? Peter forcing sailors uniforms on the staff? I really hope that this “Better ones.” is once again Basira’s own sense of humour (casually throwing shade at Jon for his style), because it… sounds… so weird… too…

- Did Jon share Gerry’s tape with the assistants, or did he give them a lecture about the entities between MAG111 and MAG117? I had already wondered about it due to Martin’s comment in MAG117 (“I mean, if you’re right, if these things out there are eating our fears […]”), and Basira confirmed that they’re now a bit more informed:

(MAG122) GEORGIE: He, er… He felt like Death. BASIRA: … What, capital D “Death”? […] So Jon told you, then. GEORGIE: Some of it. Not… everything. BASIRA: Right. So how exactly is it that you’re able to identify an Avatar of The End on sight? GEORGIE: Honestly Basira, it’s not your business. … Sorry.

-> Jon didn’t share Georgie’s statement with the others (or maybe even specifically hid it?), since Basira didn’t know about it. That’s… surprisingly thoughtful of him. (He respected her privacy!! Didn’t want to get her involved!! ;;) -> Basira was able to translate Georgie’s description to label it under “The End”, which is a veeeerrrry specific way to allude to it (one would more spontaneously stick to “death”, yes?). Not surprising that she, amongst all the others, did her research (she had some on Peter Lukas even before he began to be relevant, back in MAG108, and had tracked down the things around Maxwell Rayner as well), but I don’t think that she could have understood that its official name was “The End” if it hadn’t come from Gerry’s statement, be it directly or indirectly. So yeah, either Jon made them listen to that specific tape (or bits of it), either Basira found it herself, either Jon gave them all an Official Lecture before The Unknowing.

- The fact that Jon has been out for six months might complicate things a bit as to who-knows-what and who had access to the tapes during this time… Elias’s from MAG120 was directly addressed to Jon towards the end, but was probably kept by Peter Lukas since then? Or did it disappear (like the one from MAG121 apparently did) and will reappear only for Jon? It sounded like Elias intended for Jon to listen to it – it was a verrrry Beholding-like move from him indeed (the fear of ~having your deepest secrets exposed~, the ~feeling that something, somewhere, is letting you suffer just so it can watch~), but did it have another purpose? As mentioned above: what about the tape(s) from The Unknowing (MAG118+MAG119): have they been destroyed, will they resurface? What happened to Oliver’s from MAG121? Has Martin hidden his tape from MAG118 (T____T), or will Jon be able to access it? He ~listens to all the tapes~, but that would require getting his hands on this one… though they might get into his hands whether someone wants it to or not.

- I wonder if the assistants have still been recording things while Jon was out, and if he will catch up with that? Or if they… totally stopped in the meantime? Maybe they read statements to comatose!Jon but without the tape recorders on, since Georgie was so offended to find one there? Georgie had called for Melanie, and Basira came instead, but it doesn’t seem like… she had spotted that Jon was breathing, since Basira&Georgie were more concerned about the tape recorder that Georgie had seen before trying to chase Oliver, at the beginning of the episode, and there was no nurse attending to Jon. So apparently they hadn’t noticed that Jon’s body was functional again, and yet, Basira still came with a statement:

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: No, er, the, er, the, the statement. [STATIC] In, in your bag. BASIRA: Oh. Yeah, I, er… [ZIP SOUND] I just grabbed one on the way out. I thought maybe you’d need it. ARCHIVIST: You, you were right. I, I think that’d do me some good. Do you have a tape rec– oh. BASIRA: How did you know I’d brought one? [SILENCE] Right. ARCHIVIST: Thank you, Basira. […] ARCHIVIST: […] … I don’t suppose you brought in any… clothes? BASIRA: No, I just, y’know. Grabbed you a statement on my way out.

Basira didn’t question what she did, so it sounded like a regular thing? OR IS THAT A FUCKING SPIDER THING AGAIN…………… TELLING HER TO TAKE A STATEMENT THAT DAY BECAUSE OF COURSE, IT WAS THE LOGICAL THING TO DO, SHE HAD CLEARLY ALWAYS PLANNED TO TAKE ONE ON HER OWN. Orrr the Archives “gave” her this one? It sounded very fitting for Jon. Not reassuring at all (the world becoming alien and the statement-giver getting convinced that the problem was with everyone else), very disturbing, and also very fitting.

- (I barely mentioned anything about the statement itself, given how so many things happened around it… But yeah, wooowww was this one unsettling. No idea who did it, though? The eerie repeated words made me think of the Anglerfish, and there was something Stranger-like in your whole world turning into something you didn’t recognize; I thought of the Lonely because of the loss of contact and ensuing isolation; and I thought of the Spiral because of the idea of something twisting your mind and making you lose your bearings.)

- Some silly hopeful part of me hopes that there will still be… a way… to remember Tim’s last words… because it would be too sad, gdi!! That Tim died, and that his last moments are also forgotten!! (THAT HIS LAST UNFUNNY JOKE WAS FORGOTTEN…) We already got that with Sasha, not again!! ;_; Not when Tim had been the one to regard what the Institute was doing so gloomily, with his overall defiance and fuck-everything attitude… Maybe they wouldn’t have been caught in the mess if he hadn’t snapped, but he was also the one to ultimately pull the trigger and blow up the ceremony (and partially axing Nikola I think?!), I want them to know that the Unknowing was stopped thanks to him!!! ;_;

I have no idea if the tape from MAG119 survived the explosion (they’re spooky, this one could have just… managed), or if Jon will be able to get some of these memories back somehow through a live-statement, or through other spooks – I… don’t see Elias agreeing to do it with his Carving Truth Into Your Mind, though it could probably fall whithin his theoretical competences (MAG106: “I can see almost anything I care to, weave knowledge from someone’s mind, or place it there, but I just cannot change the nature of a person.”). But it occurs to me that the survivors should absolutely give their own statements about the Unknowing, and to carve it in stone rather than frail perishable tapes, for the next generation who will have to neutralize it in 200-300 years, since they had themselves been helped by a witness account of the previous one? … but at the same time, ~what’s the point, if The Watcher’s Crown is supposed to happen (and succeed!) before that~, right.

- Tim didn’t believe that avatars/monsters could fight against their own urges:

(MAG114) TIM: So, why don’t you ‘Archivist’ me, then? Just pull it straight out. ARCHIVIST: Because I don’t want to! I am not your enemy, Tim. TIM: [DISMISSIVELY] Like that matters! These things aren’t human. It’s… instinct. You can’t not. ARCHIVIST: [SOFTLY] I’m still me, Tim. [TIM HUFFS] I’m still… me.

And we’ll see if that’s the case with Jon, too, but gdi!! I don’t want Tim to have been right on that / to have been right to think that Jon was becoming this ;; There is the weird Agnes case (what was she?), she seemed quite reluctant to get into Business in MAG067 but she wasn’t benevolent either (she… was the one to recruit Jude Perry?); we had the case of “Helen” whose transformation, unless lie, went wrong (MAG115: “I took a man, wandering the halls of an old tenement. He’s dead now, he never even came close to finding me. It was nourishing, but… […] I didn’t like it. […] I feel… wrong. I feel this—”), so I have no idea how Jon will manage/navigate through his new state, since he apparently turned-avatar-for-real, but I have a mix of dread (and eagerness.) thinking about how his next interaction with Elias will go. It will be Terrible but in which ways? (Will Elias switch to calling him “Archivist” all the time, or will he stick to “Jon”? At least there is one (1) person that might be ~happy that Jon chose to not die uwu~ (since Martin is not there), but I don’t want Elias to congratulate him about thiiiiiiiis *cries*) I AM VERY AFRAID that in the end, after the “throw Elias in jail” plan, Jon will have to crawl back to him for help re:Martin and the Peter management ORZ Though I guess the alternative would be “getting Elias out of jail because he’s needed for The Watcher’s Crown and Jon now finds it logical that they would head towards it yeah?” but, at least right now, he’s still seeing Elias as a source of trouble and malevolence; WHICH IS GOOD.

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: What? Oh god, the, their plan, it’s, Martin is– Is he okay, or– … What did Elias do? BASIRA: No, nothing. Elias isn’t the problem. ARCHIVIST: Sor– what? BASIRA: Elias is locked up. ARCHIVIST: … Wait, Martin’s plan worked? BASIRA: Yeah. A bunch of Section’d officers took him in. He made some sort of deal, I think. But… he’s not getting out anytime soon. ARCHIVIST: … Oh. Wow. O… kay, er… Great, s–so… what’s the problem?

That surprise when being told that “Elias isn’t the problem.” dhrfcjn. YEAH, for fucking once, Elias is not The Problem. (Also immediately assuming that Elias would have done something terrible to Martin. Yes, Jon is still aware that they’re not on the greatest of terms.)

- Will Peter Lukas introduce himself to Jon right away (Elias… might have left… instructions… for when archivist!Jon would wake up…), or will he keep avoiding him entirely? So far, he had only appeared when Jon was kidnapped, when Jon was in America, and when Jon was in a coma, so. (Get Martin back!! ;;)

- *WHIMPERS LOUDLY* at Jon!!! Surprised that Martin wasn’t there!! Noticing Martin through his absence!! And also protective/possessive!Jon when it comes to him…

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: What? Oh god, the, their plan, it’s, Martin is– Is he okay, or– … What did Elias do? […] BASIRA: He appointed an “interim” director. Guy named Peter Lukas. ARCHIVIST: … Oh. BASIRA: Yeah. ARCHIVIST: Read about him. BASIRA: Yeah, I’ve… hunted down some of his old statements and… yeah. ARCHIVIST: … What did he do to Martin? BASIRA: Er, I… don’t know. We don’t see him around the Archives much these days. Best I can figure, he’s working on something with Lukas. ARCHIVIST: No, that– No, that, that… that must be something else.

… Jon sounded like he was out for blood, it’s gonna be great/terrible (last one of the original assistants alive! For now). That last line, though: is Jon not believing that Martin could collaborate with someone who is this much Very Bad News, or is something in Jon seeing the whole situation as Martin betraying the Institute/Beholding by working for another cluster…? I kinda hope that we’ll focus on Melanie first, though, since 1°) she’s accessible, 2°) she had blamed her entrapment on Jon (MAG102), 3°) she already had it bad before The Unknowing and the last time we heard her was when she relented after spitting that they should still kill Elias. She only shared her India war ghosts story riiight before Jon left for The Unknowing, they’ll have to… deal with that bullet.

- … I do wonder if Martin is actually leaving the Archives for random missions/working on that thing, or if he’s actually there, in the Archives… but in the Lonely dimension from MAG092’s statement, inaccessible to the others. If Martin sometimes passes by, it could be for recharging, to not end up like Tim? ;; (Though I always wondered if Tim had been a special case, and Elias basically dragged him back to the Institute because he wanted all the assistants to be there when Jon would come back?)

- Cheers, Jon has been in a coma for six months! Which means that his last birthday either happened during the coma, either while he was on the run from the police / kidnapped by Nikola / being sent here and there by Elias to get information to stop the Unknowing (cross out the wrong options). Jon, what’s your life. HE WOKE UP FOR THE INSTITUTE’S BIRTHDAY!! The Magnus Institute is now 200 years old!!! I wonder if they’ll throw a party.

[heartsandmuses]

Code Name: Armour

Universe: MCU-based AU

Rating: T (for language)

Summary: Being friends with benefits with Steve is great. Really, it is. But sometimes Tony wishes they were more than just that. (Or: the modern!no-powers!AU where Tony has a crush, Steve has a secret, and both of them are pining idiots.)

for the @capim-tinybang // inspired by @cat-solari‘s gorgeous art

It only occurred to Tony after he’d knocked on the door that maybe this wasn’t the kind of conversation to have at this time of night, on impulse and while slightly tipsy. But he needed the liquid confidence to even broach the subject, and Happy was already pulling away from the curb, throwing one last wave out the window of the town car as he headed back towards the Brooklyn Bridge.

Well, it was too late to back out now.

Tony tried to go over talking points in his head, tried to remember everything he wanted to say and string them into at least moderately cohesive sentences, but found himself distracted by how strangely, shockingly nervous he was.

It made sense, though — as full as his forty years on Earth had been, this was a pretty much unprecedented event in his life. He’d had fuck buddies before, sure, and he’d gone on more than a few dates… But Tony had never grown this attached to someone, had never actually wanted feelings to be involved.

At least not until he met Steve.

More than once, Tony found himself wondering what it would be like to actually date the guy: holding his hand from across the table at dinner, buying him a new set of expensive paints every time he complained about his old ones running out, discovering all the ways to coax that lovely blush to his cheeks and that bright, lopsided smile to his lips.

They’d only met a couple months ago, and slept together a handful of times since, but Christ, Tony was whipped.

The thing that gave him pause about attempting to ask Steve out sooner, though, was the fact that Steve seemed more than happy to keep things strictly casual between them. He always kept Tony at a distance, no matter how unintentionally; he never stayed the night. If it was a fear of commitment, Tony could definitely understand that, but it seemed like something else. Exactly what, though, he couldn’t quite figure out.

He tried the doorbell this time, then again after a minute had passed and no one answered. Tony had only been here once before, to quickly pick up a painting that he’d commissioned from Steve for Pepper’s birthday, and just when he stepped back to assess the dingy old brownstone, starting to wonder if he’d gotten the wrong one, the door finally opened.

Steve stood on the other side, in that blue button-up that brought out his eyes, and when he saw that it was Tony, blinked in surprise. “Hey,” he said, belatedly, and pulled the door closed ever-so-slightly, so just his face was visible. “Um, listen, now’s not really a good time to—”

“Oh, no,” Tony said, with a small chuckle and a shake of his head. “No, not here for a booty call. I was just, y’know. In the area. Thought I’d drop by, say hello.”

Steve just raised a brow, dubious.

“Okay, yeah, that was a lie,” Tony admitted, mouth suddenly dry. He could play it cool around millionaires and movie stars, but there was something about Steve that just made him melt into a big puddle of mush. “I, um. I actually came down here to ask you to dinner. Not tonight, obviously, it’s— Oh, God, it’s late, but, uh, I was thinking maybe this weekend—”

Thankfully, before he could ramble any more, Tony was effectively cut off by a resounding crash from somewhere deep in the brownstone, as if a piece of furniture had been knocked over. Whatever it was, Steve seemed more exasperated than concerned, and it didn’t take long for Tony to jump to the most logical conclusion.

“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t know you had someone over.” Tony was caught between wanting to take a step back and at the same time wanting to peer behind Steve’s broad frame to locate the source of the noise, and ended up merely swaying on his feet for a moment. “I can come back, if this is a bad time.”

It was stupid, pathetic, to feel so gutted at the thought of Steve fooling around with other people; although, in retrospect, it would shed some light on some of his more mysterious habits. Still, Tony was in no position to judge, not when he’d bedded half of Manhattan himself by the age of thirty.

And anyway, Steve was dismissing the idea entirely, with a simple wave of his hand.

Tony tried not to sigh in relief.

“No, I don’t— It’s not like that,” Steve argued lightly, gaze dropping to the ground as he struggled to find his next words. “Listen, Tony, there’s something I need to tell you.”

But before he even had the chance, there was a quick patter of bare feet over hardwood, and a little boy, probably around five years old, poked his head in the space between the doorframe and Steve’s hip, half-hidden behind Steve’s legs.

They had the same sandy blond hair, the same gentle blue eyes. Hell, they were even wearing matching outfits: those god-awful khakis Steve was so fond of, shirts tucked in and sleeves rolled to their elbows.

It didn’t take a genius to figure it out.

Tony sobered up immediately.

“You have a kid.”

There was just something about saying the words out loud that made everything click into place. Steve’s reluctance to share of some of the finer details of his personal life, the unwillingness to sleep over, the evasive responses to any suggestion of meeting up at his place. Out of all the reasons Tony had considered, this one hadn’t even made the list, and he couldn’t help but let out a relieved breath. Because sure, Steve having a kid was a pretty big deal — but it definitely wasn’t a deal-breaker.

Tony was great with kids.

Steve’s expression flitted through about twenty emotions in the span of five seconds — bashfulness, apology, determination — before settling on something close to surprise, probably by how well Tony was taking the news. “I do, yeah. This is my son, James,” he said, smoothing a hand over the boy’s silken hair. “James, this is my... friend, Tony.”

When Tony held out a hand, James grabbed onto his index finger with a tiny little fist, giving it a few firm shakes. “My daddy talks about you all the time, y’know,” he said, matter-of-fact. “Uncle Bucky says it’s ‘cause he’s got a crush on you.”

Tony smirked, glancing up at Steve, who was blushing a lovely shade of red. “Is that so?” he murmured, teasing.

“I think it’s about time you go to bed, Jamie,” Steve said pointedly.

James pouted. “You said we could play superheroes first,” he argued, turning those baby blue puppy-dog eyes on Tony. “Do you wanna play superheroes with me?”

“You don’t have to,” Steve told him, voice soft.

“Can I?” Tony jutted out his bottom lip, imitating James. “I mean, look at that face. How could I say no to that?”

“Very easily, once you get to know him. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, why not, I love kids. And superheroes, for that matter.”

Sharing one last look with James, Steve finally stepped back, pulling the door open a little wider and gesturing Tony inside. “Well, alright then,” he said, with a small smile. “Come on in.”

— — —

Playing superheroes, as it turned out, consisted mainly of piggybacking James around the house, running from Steve who was apparently playing the part of the villain, and coming up with ridiculous names and equally ridiculous powers on the spot.

Needless to say, Tony was having the time of his life.

“I’ll save you, Iron Man!” James yelled, unprompted, even though Tony was the one holding him protectively. He held his hand out, making tiny little pew-pew-pew sounds under his breath as Steve approached, shooting him with invisible repulsor beams.

Tony couldn’t help the fond laugh that escaped him.

— — —

After about half an hour of tucking James in, complete with a handful of bedtime stories, a thorough search for any monsters in the closet, and an Irish lullaby, Steve finally joined Tony on the couch in the living room, all but collapsing tiredly beside him.

“Munchkin finally asleep?”

“For now, yeah. All that running around must’ve tuckered him out.” Steve looked over at Tony, searching his expression, brows slightly furrowed, lips curled upward, like he was trying to piece together a puzzle, or perhaps read Tony’s thoughts. It took a moment before he found his next words. “I’m sorry. For not being entirely honest with you. I know that we — well, we weren’t serious or anything, but still, I should’ve at least told you about Jamie.”

“Hey,” Tony cut in, and before he knew what he was doing, he raised a hand to cup Steve’s cheek, thumb sweeping gently over the blush that was starting to rise under his palm. “It’s okay. If anything, it’s a relief. I mean, Christ, Steve, I was starting to think you were— I don’t know, a spy or something, the way you never stuck around or told me anything personal. Either that, or you turned into a pumpkin at midnight. Or you’re married.” He paused. “You aren’t married, are you?”

“No,” he said, with a small shake of his head. “Not married. Never have been.”

“Secret agent?”

“Nope, just a regular starving artist.” Steve huffed out a laugh, but his smile faltered somewhat as he admitted, “I don’t usually introduce Jamie to the people I’m… y’know. With. Not at first, at least — in case it doesn’t work out. He gets attached pretty easily.”

“Just James?”

“Well. So do I, sometimes.” Steve averted his gaze from Tony’s, picking at invisible fluff on the back of the worn chesterfield. “Listen, now that you know… I think it goes without saying that we’re a package deal. And kids are… a lot of work. A lot. Even a good kid like Jamie. So I completely understand if, uh, if you want to rescind your offer to dinner—”

Tony shut him up in the only way he knew how — he leaned in and pressed his lips to Steve’s. It wasn’t rushed and heated, like before; this time, the kiss was slower, softer, and when he finally pulled away, it was to rest their foreheads together, breathing each other in for a long moment. “I’ve been half in love with you for the better part of the past couple months. And of course I fell in love with Jamie the minute I met him,” he murmured. “I want this, Steve.”

“I want you too. So much,” Steve replied, smiling against Tony’s lips as he kissed him again. “Stay the night. Please.”

“Your son’s in the next room, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea—”

“Just to sleep,” he interjected gently. “Cuddle, maybe.”

“Well, we do need to make up for lost time.” Tony grinned as he stood from the couch, taking Steve’s hand to help him to his feet as well. He didn’t let go afterwards, just giving it a light squeeze as he nodded in the direction of the stairs. “Alright, sweetheart, lead the way.”

[askmadampresident]

((This is a mild PSA about some recent drama, If you’re honestly sick of it, trying to avoid it or don’t want to hear it go ahead and skim right by this, otherwise I personally don’t want to just ignore this, but after this post, this ask blog shall move on resume as usual, continuing with the latest M!A with Prez getting slapped for every stupid idea :3))

((for those wanting to read on it’s all under the cut, and all of it is ooc))

I’m going to be honest. I’ve thought about this for awhile and I legitimately do not know how to phrase this no matter how much I think about it so, I’m just going to ramble and share my thoughts and hopefully not offend anyone.

Alright, heeere we go, moment of truth, moment I’ve been dreading for two days

alright for those of you going what the hell lemme give you a breif rundown of the situation: As brief as I can put it, this recent thread sparked quite a bit of controversy in the discord under the accusations (none of which I deny, let me make this clear) of unnecessary angst and lack of proper tagging.

I don’t know why but my brain is going into speech and debate mode so I guess i’m formatting this like an LD round argument now, but essentially I’m going to go over my defense, the counterarguments against my defense, and finally a summary to conclude

welp defense time. In my defense, I’ll address unnecessary angst first and foremost, while I do admit that thread was going overboard the way I RP is I am given a situation, or some sort of stimulus essentially, be that an ask, a thread, an M!A, an IM, etc, and what I do is I react as the character to said stimulus. The argument can also be made that I did not need to reply to said thread, that at the sight of it going overboard I could have stopped, BUT you see, the thing is I honestly can’t not reply. I have 4 prominent mental disorders, one of which being OCD, which I was very recently diagnosed with. Whenever there is a thread or a message or something and it doesn’t feel complete and it’s my turn to respond, I HAVE to respond, otherwise it can sometimes bother me for weeks on end. I don’t mean to use my mental disorder as an excuse, since that is just honestly a dick move and because either way I am still at fault, I still made the choice, even if my mental disorder caused my decision to lean toward one side more so than another. The argument could also be made that I did not have to write out that scenario and that I could have had Prez do something else, but you see, doing that would actually bother me more than not replying. Because it really, really rEALLY bothers me when I don’t play a character as accurately as I can, and it just feels so ooc and I just cannot stand that feeling at all, so I suppose yeah I made my decisions, and yeah, in retrospect they were wrong, but I honestly wouldn’t have done anything different now because it would really bother me, call me selfish, but that is how I feel.

Okay I’m just re reading this and whoops looks like I’m doing the counterarguments on the way oh well, it works

As for lack of tagging… I have no excuse, I completely forgot and that’s all there is to it. I mean I have the classic defense of “You could’ve just not read it” But that’s just dickish and shifting the blame on others which I will NOT do after a lot of people have thrown blame around ann it just… it disgusts me, all are at fault in an argument, it’s not just ever one person and if you disagree with me on that then please do not talk to me. We will never see things eye to eye if that is the case, and I would rather not have all that conflict in my life. Anyway, that defense is really just rude and I do not have any excuse to defend myself with so yeah I just outright forgot and I apologize. In the coming days I’ll be getting to work trying to tag what I can but please if you want me to tag you triggers please tell me what they are so I can tag them, otherwise I honestly won’t know.

On that topic please allow me to at least explain why I space about triggers since I believe everyone at least deserves the chance to see a story from both sides, but if you don’t want to hear it just skip over the next paragraph.

I’ve got two things here to address, my lack of triggers and my accidental habit of spacing about tagging things. As for my unfortunate habit, remember how I said I had 4 prominent mental disorders? One of which is bipolarity. I’m currently having a passive manic episode, and for those who aren’t familiar, having bipolar means having episodes of mania or depression that can last months on end, it’s not just a thing that happens and is gone in a day or two. As for why it’s important that I’m in a manic episode, for me this manifests on inability to focus on one thing at once, I have to be doing 10 things at a time or I can’t focus and get extremely bored extremely quickly and make extremely stupid and impulsive decisions, essentially I cope by doing too much at once, and unfortunately, that translates to me missing small details and sometimes large ones, and in this case that translates to forgetting to tag things, then remembering I forgot later, only to get completely distracted before I can, repeat. Then my lack of triggers… yeah this is ‘fun’, and well my manic episodes also come with minor suppression of empathy, so I at the moment cannot understand people who get triggered easily (in my depressive episodes I understand all too well and it affects me greatly then, but during a manic episode all that empathy boils down into sympathy which is something else and not completely synonymous with empathy, especially when talking in psychological terms) as well as a second factor here which is that a third mental disorder I have is severe anxiety. What does that have to do with it? Well you see I’m extremely strong willed by nature and well over the years I got reprimanded so often that I wound up sealing myself off, I made it so that nothing got to me that way I wouldn’t be anxious anymore, and as such the lack of triggers, or at least that’s the theory my therapist has. Nonetheless there are a few things that still make me breakdown in terrible panic attacks, where I can’t think, I can’t breathe, I can’t anything and I get violent if anyone tries to touch me. Such an attack nearly occurred when this discourse initially started, due to one of those few things being reprimanded by not one but many people I respect. I spent the next two days off of social media and trying to not fall apart, and only just succeeding.

AGAIN the fact that I have mental disorders in NOT to me a valid excuse for my actions! I still chose to do it and I accept full responsibility for any pain I’ve unintentionally inflicted, and I hope to do all I can to prevent it next time. If there is a next time, I do hope not.

All in all, I’ve spent two of my evening writing this, part of me being angry and upset about how this went down and because of the respect that I have now lost for some of the people whom were involved, part of me wishing preventative measures had been taken such as alerting us that we were going wrong beforehand or getting on our case about taggs early on, and part of me, the logical part, is jut ready for this to be over, but also knows that if I don’t publicly address it I’m pretty much digging my own grave, and seeming like I do not care or am a coward for not getting to this, of which I am NOT.

I thank those of you whom have read this far and listened to my little unorthodox part apology part summary part rant, because honestly it means a lot that you’re putting the time in to look at something as long as this since I believe that everyone should be allowed to know the full story before continuing on.

Well that and the fact that this is literally the blog of the biggest politician in gloomverse I’m surprised people actually care so much about it.

So thank you once again, get ready for more content momentarily~!

[agentverbivore]

Prompt! Doctor AU - Jemma is an ER doctor at a hospital and Fitz is brought in after a minor car crash. Turns out they went on one disastrous date their first year of college, never stayed in touch, and Fitz takes it as fate giving them a do-over. Hope specific prompts are okay!

oh yes, specific prompts are great! I changed it a little bit from the above, but I had a lot of fun writing it. thank you! :-)Anniversary Ficlet 1/8.Rated G. FitzSimmons. Hospital AU.

Tuesdays were, without a doubt, cursed. Leo Fitz decided this as he sat in the ER and prayed for the ground to swallow him whole.

Two hours ago, he’d gotten in a small car accident when a little old lady had rear-ended him on his way home from work. Forty-five minutes ago, the hospital had said they wanted him to wait for examination by one of its top neurologists, to make sure that his pre-existing condition hadn’t been exacerbated by the minor head-bump. And ten minutes ago, said top neurologist had strutted into the ER, taken one look at him, and frozen with her lips parted in shock. That was approximately when Fitz began to pray that the hellmouth would just open up beneath him and end his misery.

Dr. Jemma Simmons was without a doubt the most amazing person Fitz had ever met. So, naturally, she hated him.

To be fair, said hatred was also Fitz’s fault. Sort of.

Almost a decade ago, the two of them had gone on one date, the likes of which he was convinced he’d never experience again. Having met at a Doctor Who trivia night in Dupont, they had then spent the following Saturday wandering the pathways of the National Zoo during its winter event, laughing at the monkeys, admiring the lights, and generally having the best night of Fitz’s achingly isolated youth. When they’d parted, he’d been brave enough to lean over and give her a polite but warm peck on the cheek. Simmons had turned her head just enough so that their lips brushed together, her fingers tightening around his and sending tingles of promise through his whole body.

And then Fitz’s entire life had imploded. Or at least, his mobile had, when he’d tripped and dropped it six stories down the center stairwell of his building onto the concrete basement floor. For some godforsaken reason, he had just typed her number into the notes app rather than enter it into his contacts, and when he had managed to wring off any unsynced data from the remnants of his phone, the number had been gone. Googling had been fruitless, as had returning to the trivia bar to see if she might have been a regular. With absolute horror, Fitz had realized that he’d managed to lose his one shot at being with the only woman in whom he had ever truly been interested.

Simmons, having recovered from her surprise at seeing him in her ER so many years later, had informed him that she was running a bit behind but would be back to examine him as quickly as she was able. While he awaited what was sure to be the world’s most awkward doctor’s visit, he tortured himself by recounting the perfect date in vivid detail in his mind, just to remind himself why he was a complete arse before she came back.

“Alright, Mr. Fitz,” Simmons said as she swept back over to his cot, “I’ll try to make this as quick and painless as possible.”

“Right,” Fitz mumbled, ears heating up as he thought about how she probably wanted to be rid of him so she wouldn’t have to think about him having never called her back. Even if he wished fervently that he could have. “And it’s – just Fitz is fine.”

“Let’s see what we have here.” She began to flip through his file, brows furrowing as she studied his unusual medical history. “Acute hypoxia due to near drowning… I can see why Doctor Crawford wanted a consultation.”

“Lucky for me, no water involved tonight,” he returned with a wry smile. “Just a head bump, I feel fine.”

“She was right to call for me.” Simmons tossed him a stern look over her shoulder as she finished her notes and reached for a nearby cart full of supplies. “Do you mind if I –”

“Two years ago, out on a field expedition,” he said, anticipating her question and averting his eyes. He hated telling this story. “I was on the Potomac with my team, testing autonomous aquatic drones. Weather turned sour, and on our way to shore we saw an overturned kayak. A dad and two kids, but one was missing. I saw her, jumped for her, got caught in the current and was pulled under. She was okay. I was in a short coma.”

Fitz chose not to add that making sure his team had the girl first had been when the current had caught him, dragging him so rapidly away that his team said they didn’t even hear him disappear. In retrospect, he thought it made him seem rather foolish, even if his friends and co-workers vehemently disagreed. The fact that he had never been a strong swimmer hadn’t exactly been a secret.

“Oh my,” Simmons breathed, and he chanced a look in her direction. She was staring slack-jawed at him, metal tool held loosely between her fingers. “That’s…” she started, clearing her throat and stepping forward to begin the examination. For a brief second, he thought he saw something akin to admiration in her eyes, but it disappeared immediately. “That’s quite heroic of you.”

A small smile tilted up the corner of his mouth despite his attempt to subdue it, and he shrugged. As much as he generally tried not to think about the act of bravery that had almost taken his life, he found himself feeling rather pleased at Simmons’ compliment.

The rest of the examination was simultaneously perfunctory and pure torture for Fitz. It required her to stand close enough that he could smell her lavender shampoo, that he could see the edge of her clavicle peeking out from beneath the collar of her scrubs, that he could almost taste the memory of her lips. He tried to convince himself to say something, anything, at the very least to apologize for having disappeared from the face of the earth after they’d so enjoyed each others’ company. But the perfect words wouldn’t come, and as she laid the stethoscope on the table and told him he was cleared and free to go, he panicked.

“I didn’t hate you!”

Simmons’ shoulders stiffened, and she glanced around to see that patients, nurses, and doctors were blessedly not in the nearby vicinity. “Pardon?”

Fitz stood next to the ER bed, cringing and twisting the thumb of one hand into the palm of the other, and wished yet again that a hole in the universe would just show up beneath him at any second.

“That didn’t come out right,” he said at last, taking a halting step towards her. “I mean, when I didn’t call you. I wanted to. I tried to find you, I went back to that bar, I spent hours Googling and Facebooking and d’you have any idea how many Jemma Simmonses there are on the East Coast? ‘Cause there are a lot, and I looked through all of them, but not one of them was you. And I’m really, really bloody sorry I didn’t call you, and I’ve regretted it ever since.”

After making it through his entire pathetic, rambled speech, she frowned and tilted her head. “But I – Fitz, I gave you my number.”

“Oh, yeah, no, you did, but I – accidentally destroyed my phone.” He winced, knowing just how ludicrous his story sounded.

Her eyes narrowed. “You accidentally destroyed your phone?”

“By dropping it from the sixth floor. And just….” Cutting himself off, he sighed. “Please believe me. I spent months hating myself when I couldn’t find you.”

Simmons stared at him in silence for a few seconds, and, just as he was about to let his shoulders droop and then escape the hospital as quickly as possible, she let out a low laugh. “You know, I’d thought you’d given me a fake number,” she said, “when it never connected. And I – you couldn’t find me online because I don’t use my last name on Facebook. It’s just Jemma Anne.”

“Jemma Anne,” he repeated, feeling vaguely faint with relief that she hadn’t just shown him the door. “I didn’t know you had a middle name.”

“And you don’t have a Facebook either,” she pointed out, and his eyes widened. Apparently, Simmons had gone looking for him, too.

“I couldn’t,” he explained. “To make it easier to get a security clearance. Any engineering lab I’d wanna work at in D.C. would need a top one, so no Facebook. No online trail at all, if I could help it.”

Something in her face had shifted in the past few seconds, honey-brown eyes now holding a tentative warmth that he remembered vividly from that one night so very long past. “Well,” she said at last, one hand fiddling with the hem of her scrubs shirt, “that really is some rotten luck.”

“I know,” he said ruefully. “I’ve been cursing the bloody cosmos about it for years.”

Nibbling at the inside of her bottom lip, she glanced up at the clock. “Are you busy tonight?”

Fitz’s eyes widened. “No! Wait, shit, um, yes – calling the auto shop about my car. But, um, other than that, no.”

A smile broke across her face. “Okay. I’m still on shift for another hour and a half, but –”

“I can wait,” he blurted out, cheeks reddening, and wondered why he hadn’t managed to achieve any kind of smoothness in the decade since he’d seen her. “I mean, I can call them from the lobby, it’s fine.”

“Okay. I’ll come find you – oh!” Letting out a small tsk, she stepped into his space. “Give me your phone.”

“Right, yeah, good call,” he muttered, digging his Plus out of his pocket, unlocking it, and handing it over. “Don’t trust me with that, I’m clearly hopeless.”

“But in a cute kind of way.” She flitted her gaze up to meet his over the edge of the phone, and he fought off the gormless smile that threatened to take over his whole face. If he wasn’t careful, he was pretty sure he was teetering on the edge of being very-not-cool in his level of interest in her.

“I’ll see you later, then?” he offered when she returned his phone.

“Count on it,” Simmons returned, eyes shining at him with warmth and promise and excitement, before being called away by another doctor.

Resisting the urge to do a small hop and fist-pump, he glanced down at his phone as he navigated through the ER – and then stopped short as he read the beginning of the entry she’d put into his contacts.

Name: Dr. Jemma Anne Simmons, MD-PhDCompany: Yours (if you’ll have me)

With a wide grin, Fitz took a screenshot of the entry and texted it to her number, along with a message: Only if you’ll have me right back.

After a few seconds, he received a one-word reply: Deal.

[Other ficlets.] [AO3.]

[kieranwalker]

buzzfeed unsolved joshler au

i came up with this idea myself so all creds go to me ty xoxo

Josh was so sick of Tyler rambling about ghosts. It was a long flight and car ride from LA to Philadelphia and Tyler had not shut up once about how this was going to be their big break for their YouTube channel, Buzzfeed Unsolved. He was dead set on filming a ghost and becoming famous; Josh just wanted a break from making damn listicles.

Now they were at Eastern State Penitentiary, one of the most haunted sites in the nation, and Tyler can’t stop running his mouth. No wonder Josh didn’t get any sleep each episode. He can’t even enjoy the creepy (but ghost-free) scenery without it being ruined by Tyler’s monologue about energies.

Josh wanted to get this show on the road. He hit record, prompting Tyler to shut up and start talking about the history of the place. For this part, Josh’s job was easy; he got to sit back and just make comments on Tyler’s research. That was mostly his job in general, seeing as this was Tyler’s passion project and just Josh’s assignment, but Tyler would have cried on camera much sooner if it weren’t for Josh.

Josh was really the MVP of this whole thing.

The summary went on for a bit, detailing not only the history of the building but the personal accounts of visitors and even reviews from the tour website. Tyler was fully convinced the building was haunted by the time they’re done and Josh continued to roll his eyes.

When they walked around the place, things started to get interesting. Even if he didn’t believe in ghosts, the Penitentiary was undeniably creepy, with mysterious stains in its cells, the whole bit. At one point he shut Tyler in a cell and left him there as a joke and he nearly cried. Josh had to apologize and the cameraman thought the whole thing was hilarious.

They were exploring one cell, Tyler poking the camera and mic everywhere, when Josh actually did get a shiver up his spine. He kept quiet about it though, not wanting to encourage Tyler’s hysteria. Tyler had just gone into the adjoining bathroom to stand in the dark and “commune with the ghosts” when Josh heard his small voice call out to him.

“Josh, is that you holding my hand?”

Josh burst out laughing at Tyler’s terrified voice, which, in retrospect, was not the nicest thing he could have done. Tyler gave a shriek from the bathroom and came sprinting out, looking like he pissed himself.

Babbling and shaking, he yelled at Josh about how ghosts were real, that they really haunted the Penitentiary, and one of them just tried to flirt with Tyler.

Typical, in Josh’s opinion. Tyler was so gullible he fooled himself.

“I don’t think you’re ghosts’ type,” Josh merely said when Tyler paused for breath.

Tyler’s eyes bulged out in outrage. “That’s your refutation? That I’m not attractive to the ghosts? Holy shit dude…”

He was pacing now and Josh was trying to stifle his laughter. He silently thanked the ghost, or the wind or whatever, for giving him the opportunity to mess with Tyler even more.

“Hello!” He whispered to the empty room. “Hello, would the ghost who just tried to pick up my friend please stop that? He’s shy and you’re moving too fast for him.”

Needless to say, this only made Tyler freak out more. “Goddammit dude! Fuck you, now they’re gonna be angry, you’re making it worse.” He was on the verge of tears.

Josh nodded. “You’re right. They’re going to be angry that you’re not putting out. Tyler, I hate to say this, but you’re going to have to whore yourself for the ghost shot. Do it for the advancement of the field!”

Tyler moaned some more, Josh’s melodramatic taunting aggravating him more than it was any nearby ghosts.

After a few minutes, Josh gave in, clapping Tyler on the shoulder and telling him to buck up. The ghost obviously hadn’t decided to come back for more. “Looks like they’re willing to wait until the second date, bro.”

They continued searching through the nearby rooms, finding the usual dirt, graffiti, and trash. “Spooky,” Josh would always say and point at something like a Coke can left there by teenagers. Tyler just gave him the cold shoulder, his face twisted into a permanent pout.

In the fourth room or so, their flashlights died which sent Tyler spiraling again. He immediately started claiming he was cold and getting shivers up his spine. Josh, per usual, rolled his eyes and took it with a grain of salt.

He was caught by surprise when something cold wrapped itself around Josh’s neck and pulled him into a kiss. It’s lips were clammy and eerily light on his, so Josh began to suspect that this wasn’t Tyler or the cameraman. Still, though, incorporeality aside, this ghost wasn’t that bad of a kisser.

Josh deepened the kiss until they were full-on making out in the prison cell.

Once the kiss broke, Josh grinned like an idiot, excited to tell Tyler that his ghost was a little more promiscuous than they had thought.

“Hey Tyler, I just kissed a ghost! I believe in ghosts now!” He called out like an idiot to wherever Tyler had got to in the maze of nearby rooms.

“Oh, you idiot,” a voice said right in front of him, and when Josh flicked on his flashlight, to his surprise it was Tyler! He had kissed Tyler!

Tyler frowned at him. “Dammit, Josh, I really thought I had evidence there.”

“WHAT, that you made out with a ghost off-camera?”

“Yes, of course.”

Josh didn’t know how to respond to that so he just kissed Tyler again, even though it still felt kind of like kissing a ghost. The guy was just so small and cold.

While they made out, all the ghosts of the Eastern State Penitentiary flitted by and they captured none of them on camera. The end.

[xavierkat]

One of the books I always want to do something “smart” with, but am never quite sure how to integrate it into what I am doing, is Richard Rushton’s amazing “The Reality of Film”. I’ve read it at least three times by now, trying to find a way to make it into a key argument for a long-term project of sorts that has been dominating my life for years now, yet I always struggle with the thought that I never quite understood it, really, and am just using it to try to give some desperately needed backing to my lame unsubstantiated thoughts (that I am not in any sense a film scholar, and am pretty much clueless when it comes to film theory, doesn’t really help). In the book, Rushton asks an incredibly interesting set of questions, roughly reducible to one key idea: that we would benefit significantly if we moved away from the questions about what films are to those what we can do with them / what they can do. And he opens the book with a beautiful (borrowed) example intended to show how films create our reality in ways that are really not that different from anything else that we consider ‘real’, questioning the fact that we normally consider them to be something derivative, a reflection on reality rather than something that is part of it. The reality of film, as if he wants to say, blends so seamlessly with the reality of life, it is hard to understand why films are considered ‘not real’ as opposed to chairs or anything else that we make and consider a part of the tangible reality of the everyday. Films create our memories and fit into our thinking just like anything else.  Why am I rambling about this? I think it is because for me, there is hardly a film or series that blends in with reality as much as Love does. Despite its many attempts to keep the viewer’s critical distance (the meta-elements, the comedic exaggeration, the set decor that is simultaneously authentic and ‘too clean’, and the deliberate exaggeration of certain dimensions of its characters), there are elements to both its ‘grammar’ - like the slowly unfolding events that imitate real (love) time - and its extra-cinematic cues (like the frequent discussions over how much of the character of Gus is based on Rust’s own experience and his relationship to Lesley Arfin, often presented as a reflection of the Mickey-Gus experience; the overlap is emphasised both through script/like both Gus and Rust being from the Midwest, or the homecoming king story/, casting /Gus’s friends in the series are played by Rust’s UCB friends/, visuals/the series frequently utilises Rust’s photographs as snippets from Gus’s life/ and other details, like the fact that Gus wears the glasses Rust actually wears in real life) - that mash the fictional with the ‘real’ or at least blur the boundaries between the two. Most importantly, the writing in the series - again, despite its genre and meta-conventions - often feels very close to the ‘real deal’, clicking so perfectly with the viewers’ experiences of similar things in their own lives, that the series often feels like an extension of what we already know, like it was “real” in the most worldly sense of the word. This makes both disliking and loving the characters simultaneously incredibly easy, and it makes the series a true standout in the sea of “will they-won’t they” TV materials. For me, the first season of Love blended so well with the familiar, it almost became a part of it, which was a huge part of why I loved it so much. While I am not usually known for keeping my distance from what takes place on screen (as this tumblr, with my often over-the-top comments, likely demonstrates), Love was the first experience I can recall where I, having been a long-time fan of Rust’s, at times literally conflated the character and the actor, up to the silly level of developing a slight crush on one, the other or both. That in itself is, of course, slightly crazy and embarrassing to admit (especially for someone who watches a lot of films, and always has to see them for the products that they are). Yet it also testified to the strength of the series, and in retrospect, made me realise a part of why I am not as thrilled with the second season as I was with the first. It is not just that the story seems to be literally a re-take on the first season, the key points repeating themselves almost too clearly (likely in part a result of the announced third season, which meant that there cannot be too many closures just yet). It is also not the fact that, in the light of all the debates about race, gender and representation that have been dominating the public domain for the last year, Love now feels simply forcefully white (even to a white non-American like me), and it cannot seem to find proper place for any of its non-white characters: the one black friend among the guys looks like ‘too little’; the “Korean” director, while meant to be a fun riff on the industry, just feels like a bad joke; the police scene - which reminded me of the discomfort recently caused by seeing another one of my faves, Mike Birbiglia, the quintessential white guy, telling a joke about how police can kill you - feels out of place, like it doesn’t belong to the characters. (The series is also not too great towards women, who all seem to be making some dumb choices.) It is mostly because it skews all its characters into the just slightly overemphasised mode of behaviour that is no longer as genuine as it was, no longer as nuanced. The biggest victim of this, perhaps surprisingly, is Gus himself. What made the character both annoying and irresistible in the first season was how different he was in different social contexts, revealing incredible (and so human) complexity: the hunched, often frowning or insecurely grinning kid from the Witchita set would quickly transform into a still awkward, yet radiant and joyful character among friends (who embraced him with such genuine warmth in scenes that lingered ever so slightly longer than they needed to just to bring the point home: there was genuine warmth and care behind the awkwardness, and it did not go unnoticed by people), then into a full-blown asshole at the slight possibility of social success, only to quickly disappear behind his own fears in every scene with Mickey, turning into a combination of self-hatred and condescending. To Rust’s credit as an actor, he pulled all those off so seamlessly, the viewers always knew this was all one person. Yet in season 2, there is much more of the overplayed, comical Gus: the bored/confused grimacing, the hunched body language that is now omnipresent; the lack of tenderness in the communication with friends, as the camera no longer stays as a presence in the singing rooms (the only conversations are joking), and as the role of the key friend character is taken over by Chris, who we’re never quite sure where to place (the awkward running conversations from season 1 are gone, replaced by more distance, so much that it is never quite clear why Gus invited him to Mickey’s work announcement party); and the lack of any redeeming moments for the character, who now only seems to be valuable for his time with Mickey (he is failing at everything else, in front of everyone else), and even with her, his posture is different, the face less honest about the inner conflict and more confused (underlined by the script’s taking away of his wit, too: the guy who warmly explained ROYGBIV in season 1 now struggles to believe nonsense facts about dr. Phil). The new Gus is somehow less deep, and thus less ‘real’, despite all the meta-moments of blending Rust & Gus into one (one could totally believe Rust was told he looked like Michael Landon with all that hair before). He has a less layered presence in the script, and in how Rust portrays him - perhaps in his own desire to overplay the comedy, but more likely due to the directors’ insistence. Yet there are moments in which the original character still shines through, and those are almost always moments of fear. (The one exception - in the beautiful episode A Day, which humanises Gus in the same way his end monologue in The Date did in season 1 - allows him to be simultaneously charming and playful and slightly obnoxious and beautifully tender, in physical movement more than in words, the feet in the sand and a casual embrace shot from the back revealing much more than grand sentences, and finally freeing the character from the half-interested grimacing.) Despite his often annoying posture and the casual cool he tries to radiate in front of others when it comes to his relationship with Mickey, Gus is - as the script very much recognises, but sadly does little to really take anywhere this time - terrified of being revealed as a fraud by Mickey, an uninteresting dork she really has no business being with. As a result, he apologises in almost all episodes, even when he is not at fault at all: for being too eager, for not being eager enough, for being too attentive or not attentive enough. For failing to be better. For simply being. As a viewer, I often had conflicting feelings about this: from empathy to annoyance (there is a fine line between a sensitive person and an uninteresting doormat who is ‘fake nice’) and back to anger over his inability to recognise that apologies are often warranted, but not for what he is apologising for. But these brief moments of genuine panic were always not only played so touchingly (a credit that again goes to Rust’s ability as an actor), but also served as a gateway to a more complicated Gus from season 1; someone deeply complex and terrified and so much more interesting than season 2 dares to explore, rather focusing on cheaper thrills. The issue is, while these scenes make the series so much more interesting and ‘true’, they also underline how casually emptied out a lot of the rest has become, despite some fantastic moments. The ‘filmic reality’ of Love no longer blends so seamlessly with the ‘real reality’ of offscreen life, which is a shame. In truth tho: if it got me to ramble about it for so much, it cannot be all that bad.      

[jaelijn]

I was going to just... ramble in the tags. But apparently I have too much to say so I broke the tags and half of my points got swallowed. So let’s try this again up here, with apologies for hijacking the post. Under a cut because this is not really a well-structured meta, more a stream-of-conscious-while-ill splurge of thoughts about my OTP (sorry).

Anyway, even leaving aside my ace!Avon headcanon, I do agree with this. Like, I don’t care if they have sex. Perhaps they do, perhaps they don’t. I don’t see it defining their relationship – perhaps it started out that way, but over time I think it has become more than secondary, it’s become irrelevant. Since they stuck together all the way to Gauda Prime, I cannot see them both surviving and voluntarily parting either, no matter what their “relationship status” is.

Okay, yes, I’m thinking primarily PGP here – I cannot see both Avon and Vila being alive and being separate by choice. I think Vila forgives Avon for worse than killing Blake – in that he forgives him for “Orbit”, if I read the episode “Blake” right. I don’t think there is much time between “Orbit” and “Blake” at all – I think Avon probably learned that Blake was on Gauda Prime soon after “Orbit” (it seems like the kind of thing Orac would reveal when Avon is angry at him for prompting him to kill Vila), and “Warlord” was the last ditch effort to do it without Blake. Avon can’t afford to stop and think anymore, and Vila’s bitterness is still too raw at the start of “Blake”. It seems significant that there is only one episode between the two. Perhaps it would have gone different if the tension between Avon and Vila had continued much longer.

I think Vila is justifiably angry post-”Orbit” – I don’t think he ever is scared of Avon after the immediate moment where he is scared of being killed – and I think that anger is gone after Gauda Prime. After all, Vila was there for Tynus, too. He might not have been there for Anna, but if Avon told anyone any details, it was Vila. Vila knows. Besides, Vila has become bitterer, less trusting himself, not least because of Tarrant and Avon’s increasing harshness – does he trust Blake so far not to jump to the wrong conclusions from his words himself? So yes, if Vila can forgive Avon for “Orbit”, he can forgive him for “Blake” without issues, liking Blake or not (assuming Blake is actually dead, which… PGP, who knows.). So if “Orbit” doesn’t do it retrospectively PGP, I don’t think GP would drive them apart. Besides, where would either of them go? At this point, Avon needs Vila as much as Vila needs him (and a frequent PGP trope for the two of them is that Avon needs Vila more, but let’s leave that aside for the moment).

I also think that Avon’s longest-standing relationship is probably Vila. Let’s be real: Tynus? Maybe they grew up together, maybe it lasted a few years, but it certainly wasn’t much of a friendship in the end, even disregarding Tynus’s final betrayal. Anna? I don’t think that was more than a year, to be honest. The relationship has the flavour of burning too bright for me – even leaving aside that from Anna’s end it might not even have been a relationship at all. Blake? Didn’t stick around. Cally? Even if she hadn’t died on Terminal, Avon knows Vila for longer. So Vila it is.

I also agree that if they are together as couple they don’t think of it as a grand romance. They’ve just… grown together. There’s a reason I like hafren’s PGP Avon&Vila fics, despite their undercurrent of Avon/Blake, and it is precisely that flavour of... having been through too much together to even fathom parting. There’s too much water under the bridge for both of them, together – even at the risk of quoting Dorian, of all people, you don’t go through that and find it easy to walk away from each other, especially not in a universe that is so hostile towards them both.

Besides, even if Vila claims to like Blake, I think there is a point even back when Blake is still around where Vila’s loyalty shifts to Avon. I don’t know where. Perhaps it is “Gambit”. But regardless, I think it happens – and really, who else would Vila be loyal to? Certainly not Tarrant, nor, I think, any of the girls. Yet Vila sticks around, despite Tarrant’s bullying, despite actively *threatening* to leave, even before they lose the Liberator and it gets arguably impossible to leave. If for anyone but Avon, it would be Cally, but Cally dies. And even before but especially after Terminal, they don’t seem to be looking for Blake anymore (even if I think that Vila knew that Avon was still looking), so it’s not even that Vila sticks around for Blake in absentia. Avon, then.

I don’t claim it’s entirely healthy in the end, but what in this universe is? In a way, the show does an excellent job of portraying the effect of that kind of constant fear and stress and pressure on people. I do think Vila does drink unhealthy amounts in S4, regardless of the more frequent instances in which he is pretending, and Avon is burning out. Gauda Prime grinds everything to a halt. I think if any of the characters have a chance of coming to a healthy-ish accord afterward, it’s Avon and Vila. They always seem to have a way of understanding each other, beyond words, even. In the end, I don’t think it is about trust – or it is, but not in the traditional way. Vila isn’t surprised at “Orbit” – in fact, his lack of surprise is striking: He runs without even waiting for Avon to reach for the gun. So his reaction isn’t about betrayed trust. Not in the way that Avon trusted Anna, not in the way Blake trusted Avon (and Avon trusted Blake), the way that in this universe ends in betrayal – Avon and Vila trust each other not for the sake of trusting, but because they know and understand each other so well that they know exactly how and where and how far they can rely on each other. It’s not precisely predictability (or perhaps that is just me, because total predictability implies boredom to me), but it’s something like it, reliability, stability, perhaps, which, arguably, is a far deeper kind of trust (as Avon has it in “City”, “I know his value to us, just as he knows mine”). I think both of them value that – Avon, but Vila, too. They have the shared experiences, the shared opposition, which has a way of forging even the unlikeliest people together, but they also have that understanding that provides them with something they have not experienced elsewhere ever (at least not without it turning out to be an illusion). There is something more here about Vila and stability – both as in representing it and as in desiring it, but I’ll leave it at this.

There was a conversation some time ago about Avon and Vila post-”Orbit,” and I didn’t have anything to say then but now I do, because my brain has never been punctual.

I have a firm headcanon that the time Vila spends on Liberator (I’m calling it at four years and a bit) is the longest he’s ever lived in a single place. The follow-on is that his longest-standing relationship with anyone who isn’t a blood relative is Avon. I honestly can’t imagine a scenario in which they’re both alive but have separated by choice. I don’t not-ship them, but if even they are lovers they don’t consider it a grand romance. It’s more that they have lived and worked together so long that they don’t know how to be without the other. I like to imagine them as Boston-married, sharing a household but not a bed.

So Vila stays, I think, not because he likes Avon but because he knows him inside and out. Avon can no longer be trusted, is no longer worthy of Vila’s trust, but he’s untrustworthy in entirely predictable ways. Better to cling to the devil he knows intimately than to stumble through a galaxy of devils disguised as friends.

[del-co-mrade-blog]

I’m sure at some point I’ll try to morph this blog into something with a theme - maybe communism/activism, maybe aesthetics, I don’t know. Right now I kind of need an outlet, so I guess that’s what it’ll be. I only have two followers, and one of them is my boyfriend, so I guess you two can enjoy the ramblings I’m gonna post here for a while. This tumblr was made because I wasn’t allowed to have one, so I guess I’ll run with the theme of doing things I didn’t think I could do, and actually try to process and be open about my feelings without bombarding one person with them. So, if you’re here for some reason, I guess read on. 

If you’ve made it this far, hi. 

I don’t know what I’m gonna write about in the future but since this is my first post I guess I’ll just go for what’s on my mind.

I’m really sad rn. A bit ago I reconnected with an old friend. Things didn’t end well between us in the past, due to my past relationship and drama in that friend group, but since I’ve grown and some time had passed, we ended up getting along a lot better than I had originally expected. We reconnected to talk about my ex, who was her friend, and who was a really shitty, abusive person, from whom I have plenty of mental and emotional scars (I’m sure I’ll go on about him sometime in the future). We talked about him, and she seemed to agree that he was toxic, and we ended up talking about a lot of other things, and eventually having semi-consistent contact via snapchat/other social media. 

That was so great. I felt like I finally had the friend that I felt I never quite had back in the day, since I think we were both in different places in our lives, and I for one wasn’t able to be honest or genuine with anyone at that point. I had always heard about what an amazing friend she was, especially from my boyfriend, so it was really nice to experience what he was talking about, and be able to connect with someone in the way that we did. 

Fun shit, though, her boyfriend of many years hates me. Not to get into that too much at this point, but there is a mutual disdain between us due to things that happened following my breakup with my ex and the beginning of my relationship with my new boyfriend. He resents me (supposedly) for being shitty to my ex (lmao), ripping my current boyfriend out of his life (which my bf doesn’t regret sooo), and I guess just generally being .... idek to be honest haha. I’m not a huge fan of him for being a horrible friend to me and pretty much anyone else I’ve ever witnessed him be friends with, in my opinion a bad boyfriend, and p much the opposite of someone I’d want to have anything to do with at this point in my life. Oh yeah and sexual assault, but that’s nothing compared to what my ex did I guess. 

Side note, I wanna point out a little lesser known irony. While in a relationship with my ex, I was dead inside to the point of intense suicidal ideation. I was extremely depressed and had endured so much abuse on so many levels, I didn’t know how to get out or what to do. One aspect of our relationship is he had spend over a year convincing me to be okay with “polyamory” (aka he wanted to fuck multiple “flavors” (races) of women while dating me). Eventually, with his knowledge, I started a relationship with a mutual friend (my current bf), which began 3 months of confusion wherein I fell in love with one guy while realizing how horrible my past relationship had been. There was a lot of back and forth, since I was scared of leaving the relationship I had been stuck in for so long, but eventually I left and am now dating my wonderful boyfriend. Here’s where the irony comes in. Both my ex and my friend’s ex (from above) resented me for what happened. Thought I was a cheater, a bad girlfriend, whatever. Here’s the tea. 

My friend’s bf actively pursued me without my ex bf’s permission for a bit. Even while sitting in the same room, he made me feel him up and kissed my neck - not even 6 inches from my bf at the time. When my bf would step out of the room, my friend’s bf came over and tried to kiss me - when I dodged, he turned the lights out and tried again. He liked being physical with me - said it was bc he was on a break with his gf and wanted to touch someone - but did all of that behind my ex’s back. Same ex he was pissed that I “cheated on”, even though that situation was with his permission and much more above ground. It was about a week or so later he sexually assaulted me, jumped on me shirtless and shoved his tongue down my throat after cornering me in the basement alone. (My bf’s takeaway of all of this, after telling him I was kissed and touched against my will? “I wish he would have asked my permission first”.)

Tea #2: After breaking up with my ex, I tried to stay friends with him because I hated myself so much for “hurting him” (no regrets now, tho). I was so apologetic and just wanted him to forgive me, so I was quite a yes man for a while and didn’t want to cause any more waves in our friend group (that didn’t go so well tho haha). To jump to the chase, about 2 or so months after we broke up, he started telling me about who he was interested in. LO AND BEHOLD, it’s this same friend that I just reconnected with, whose bf sexually assaulted me. He talked about how he wanted them to break up, how he thought about her sexually all the time, how he had fantasies about fucking her in an elementary school (how didn’t i see he was a pedo at that point?), all kinds of stuff. He was trying to find out shit about their relationship in the hopes that they’d break up and he could date her. Told me about how he was talking to her at night and trying to find out her kinks and prove to her that he had the same ones so maybe she’d like him. All kind of shit. In retrospect, maybe I should have said something. Ironic that he was actually trying to do what people claimed had happened between the three of us during the breakup. 

The summary of this is: my friend’s bf always had a problem with me since the breakup since I was a “cheater”, and my bf “stole me away” or something. Meanwhile, he was doing the same thing behind my ex boyfriend’s back about 9 months before, AND my ex was doing the SAME THING to him the fuckin second he was single. They’re both shitty, inconsistent people, and I will never have a single good thing to say about either til the day I die.

Getting back on track. My friend’s bf hates me, and since he found out we were talking again, he apparently had a big problem with that. I don’t know many details, but apparently he was v upset with her about it and felt like she was betraying him (I won’t even begin with the levels of irony here). The two of us kept talking for a while, but I knew it bothered her that she was being dishonest with him. One night recently she opened up to me about something going on in their relationship that involved her bf secretly texting his ex behind her back, and one thing led to another and he managed to blame it on her talking to me (fuckin snake). As I have been since we started talking again, I wanted to be supportive of her, and I stand by that because she deserves to know what healthy respect and boundaries look like from someone, but it led to her deciding that she wanted to try to make it work with him, and that we shouldn’t talk anymore.

That’s been it for the most part since then. I’ve checked her social media a few times since (even though we had to disconnect on p much everything) and I’ve refrained from liking any of her posts, even though I’ve wished I could. It sucks because I can tell she’s going through some shit still, or at least was as of a bit ago, but I can’t ask if she’s okay, reach out to her, be a support system - be a fucking friend.

And this is what led me to start typing here as an outlet. We had a tiny bit of contact today, which I felt and feel guilty about since I really don’t want to stress her out or get her into any trouble. I was just reading an article about abusive relationships and “trauma bonding”, which is something that happens in an abuse victim’s brain that makes staying in their abusive relationship almost addicting, making it very hard to leave or see the situation clearly. I read it and very closely identified it, but also read it and saw a lot of things that made me worried for my friend. See, I know her boyfriend. We were friends for a while and I watched him be shitty to other people, and shitty to me, and honestly shitty to her for a long time. He’s not a good person. He reminds me so much of my ex it makes me sick, and especially makes me sick to know that she’s in that relationship and doesn’t feel like she can/should leave. Everyone has known it since high school - she’s better than she thinks, and deserves more. He has never treated her right for longer than it takes to get back into a relationship with her. That’s not to say there aren’t good things he does - all abusers give you something to hold onto so you can rationalize staying. I’m sure he does, my ex did, all shitty boyfriend and abusers do. I read that article and got really sad and really scared for her.

She told me that she doesn’t know how much she’ll let him hurt her. I have the same fear. I let my ex hurt me for so long, and would have let him do it to this day if my current boyfriend hadn’t gotten involved. I know she wants to make it work, but what I don’t think she understands, and I didn’t want to tell her out of respect, and it’s not her problem. 

There is nothing she can do, or should do, to make it work. All she can do is push down how she feels and make excuses in order to maintain an unhealthy relationship. She idealizes who he was in the past, yet admits he wasn’t good to people in the past. She says he wants to get better, yet all I’ve ever heard is that he apologizes and repeats the patterns. She says he is sorry for the things he’s done and wants to make them right, but I know several people he has wronged, and never seen him do anything to make it up to them. He says what he needs to say, and since he’s good at being manipulative, it works. And I don’t blame her. I don’t think she’s stupid. I don’t think a single negative thing of her. I was there, I know how it is. They’re really fucking convincing and can make even the worst things seem okay, turn anything into your fault, or take the blame and yet avoid blame altogether. 

I don’t know what to do. I can’t sit here and watch someone go through what I did. In retrospect I would have wanted someone to get me out, even if it hurt (in fact, my bf did, and I will be forever grateful). I want to help her live her life in a way I bet she doesn’t think is possible. Live truthfully. Surround herself with supportive people. Find someone who truly truly loves her and respects her. Have total control of her body and mind. Be fucking truly happy for more than hours or days at a time. SHE CAN DO IT. I fucking know she can. If she believes that she’s worth it and she wants what’s best for herself, she’ll leave. I wouldn’t say it to her before, but I spend a lot of time studying abusive relationships both because of my past and because of my field of study. She isn’t in a healthy relationship. He’s not good for her. It’s never going to get better. It’s not her fault.

So many people care about her and will be there for her (hopefully) when she decides to leave him. We will all support her and help her be her best self. She won’t be lonely, there’s always someone to talk to, usually someone to hang out with. 

God I wish things weren’t how they were. I want to respect her boundaries, but equally I want to help her get through this and be in a better place.

What the fuck do I do.

[battystumutchildren-blog]

– arborealArthropod [AA] began pesteringcelebrinCervine [CC]  at 9:34 pm – AA: Oh hey um. AA: Are you there I guesssss? AA: I was jusssst wondering. AA: It'ssss been a minute, I guessss. AA: I mean, not that long?  Ssssince it was jussst lasssst week… AA: But you know what I mean. CC: Hello. Orchid. CC: I suppose it has been. A long time. I’d apolgize. But it would feel a bit. CC: Disingenuous. CC: I am glad to hear from you. Though. AA: OH YOU’RE THERE. AA: Okay!!!! AA: What I mean iss, hi.  It'ssss okay. AA: I didn’t expect an apology. AA: … AA: Which is good, I guesssss… AA: We didn’t really talk at the thing. AA: It'ssss not weird I jussst want to check in, is it? AA: I’m trying to be lessssss… AA: Like that. AA: But. AA: I don’t know. AA: I’m ssssort of rambling. AA: What have you been… doing? CC: Do not worry. It’s not weird. CC: Or. If it is it isn’t your fault. That it’s weird. CC: I haven’t been the best. At keeping up with any of my relationships. CC: I have been. Um. AA: Oh, er.  It'sss okay if you’ve gotta take you’re time. AA: I’m jusssst  curiousss, I guessss. AA: You ussssed to have a lot of projectsss and sssstuff. AA: Um. AA: A few yearssss ago I did the girl from that anime. AA: It wass one of the mahoussss… AA: You know, Pretty Cure.  The flower one though. CC: I would have liked. To have seen that. CC: I miss going to cons. And cosplaying. CC: Do you still have. Pictures? AA: 8c8 AA: I can ssssee if I can find one.  It was before I pupated… AA: Now getting dresssssed is like the biggesssst hassssle. AA: Let alone cosssstumes.  8C8 AA: It'ssss a wing thing, I guessss. AA: I didn’t know you ssstopped? CC: I am sure. With the right custom garments. And Velcro… CC: Well. Playing dress up wasn’t. Furthering my career. CC: So I gave it up. To pursue other things. CC: Maybe. A bad move. In retrospect. AA: Oh! AA: Er.  What do you mean? AA: I mean. AA: What sssort of sssstuff did you make? CC: I decided to go into costume design. And. CC: Well. Some of my designs were picked up. For this film franchise. CC: A young adult fantasy novel. AA: Oh? AA: That sssoundsss like a good thing, though! CC: It was. CC: But. For lack of a better term. CC: I screwed it up. CC: So that’s not happening anymore. AA: Ah… AA: I’m ssssorry it didn’t really work out. AA: You are really talented, I mean.  I’ve done ssssome mending and a little bit of, uh, cosssplaying, but not really anything like you’ve done. CC: Well. That’s alright. It does not really seem. CC: I know this is ridiculous. But it seems very un-earned? CC: Anyway. CC: Where are you staying. Currently? CC: I know there has been some. Trouble. On skaia. AA: I’m sssstill on Lauctisss. AA: I’m living with my moirail… AA: I guesssss I haven’t really been going to Sssskaia that much. AA: The riotssss were messssy. CC: Would you mind. Passing along some. Gossip? CC: I am so. Ill informed. CC: Who is your moirail? Why were people. Rioting? AA: Oh um.  Ssssure! AA: I mean… AA: I don’t know for the ssssecond one. AA: Ssssome woman floated up to me and then thingsss jusssst… AA: They jusssst got weird. AA: Like, really… messsed up. AA: My moirail is Lavela. AA: She'ssss an actressss… AA: You can probably look her up. CC: Oh. CC: I do know Lavela. CC: We were good pals. Actually. AA: My condolencesssss. 8w8 AA: I’m kidding.  You can tell her I sssaid that though. CC: I suppose I should. Take the initiative. And try to talk to her. Again. CC: A very late and very sincere. Congratulations. CC: I would plum. For more details..But I feel like that would..Undermine our therapeutic efforts. CC: My ear is available..Should you need it. AA: Ha ha. AA: It'ssss not that bad, I mean… AA: Mine are, too. AA: For you? AA: To talk to. AA: Anywayssss there aren’t really that many detailssss to share.  We jusssst sssort of have thissss big treehousssse and sssssome ssssmaller hivessss in the foresssst. CC: That sounds. Wonderful. CC: :> I am not just. Making a blanket statement. I really would like. CC: To live in a tree. AA: It'sss really good. AA: I can ssssorta fly a little. AA: I’m a little too heavy to keep flying, but I can sssscrape off the bark to eat? AA: Anywayssss!  Um. AA: You can come visit ssssometime too. CC: I would like that. Very much! CC: I haven’t reallly. Been going much of anywhere. Lately. CC: I was stayin on Ozma. With mom. But now I’m back. On skaia.(edited) CC: I have not found. A place to live yet. AA: Aw… AA: Well, I’m pretty ssssure there are SSSOME placesss. AA: Even if it kind of ssssuckssss finding one now????? AA: Ssskaia usssed to be sssso much better for thissss. CC: I chose. An oppurtune moment. Obviously. :> AA: That'ssss pretty much how it alwayssss goessss??? AA: EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE ALL THE TIME. CC: That is. So true. CC: :weary: AA: Are you sssstaying with anyone in the meantime? CC: No… CC: To be honest. I don’t really know anyone. Or. CC: I would feel bad. For showing up out of the blue. CC: Just. Motels for now. AA: Oh, jeeze. AA: I can make up a sssspot in our place if you have room. CC: I may. Take you up on that later. CC: But for now. I need to be here. In the thick of things. AA: Well, okay. AA: Jussst keep me in mind. AA: And be careful???? AA: PLEASSSE DONT GET BEDBUGSSS OR ANYTHING. CC: I hadn’t even. Considered the possbility. CC: Oh deer. CC: Thank you, Orchid. AA: Alsssso roachessss aren’t that bad actually but they usually indicate that there'ssss ssssome unsssanitary ssstuff that people failed to clean up.  Ssssso don’t blame the roachesss for being grossss. AA: Sssso. AA: That'ssss advice too. CC: I am becoming. Less okay. With this motel situation. AA: Jusssst don’t blame the roachesss!!!! CC: Aaa. Ok. I won’t blame. The roaches. AA: okay. Thank you. 8w8 CC:  I am not so much bothered by the bugs. Or the dubous bed covers. Or the pornographic televison ads. CC: But the stomping around outside the door scares me. CC: Someone gets very rowdy. In this parking lot. At 4 am. AA: Oh.  Jeeze. AA: Be careful? AA: Are the lockssss good? CC: Um. I hope so. AA: 8c8 AA: Well, um. AA: I am going to resssspect that you are doing your thing. AA: And you’ll probably be ok. CC: Yes. I appreciate the vote of. Confidence. CC: It is only temporary. AA: Right! Right. AA: That'sss good to remember. CC: It is. In a general sense as well. CC: Well. I will go now. But. I am glad we got to talk. CC: I hope I can. Keep it up. AA: Okay. AA: I’ll ssssee you ssssoon, I hope. CC: Take care, Orchid. -celebrinCervine [CC]  ceased pestering arborealArthopod [AA]–