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sakura-83 · 3 years ago

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Things from Anne with an e that I feel like writing down

Season 1 Episode 7: Wherever You Are Is My Home

⚠️WARNING!!!⚠️ this episode not only talks about suicidal thoughts but also a character trying to commit such acts, of you are sensitive to this I suggest you just skip this post or at least skip #75-77

1. Anne calling it comforting that no two snowflakes are alike, as well as calling snow a sign of gods forgiveness as he blankets the dead world in a beautiful frost

2. Josie gossiping about her while she’s RIGHT THERE

3. Her and moody just talking

4. “And I love Christmas, don’t you?” “I don’t know, but I plan to.” “Did you not have Christmas at the orphanage?” “There wasn’t much to it really. I’m not sure why Father Christmas wasn’t able to stop there, maybe the matron scared him off.”

5. “Do you at least know if they’re going to keep you?” “Keep me!?”

6. Anne trying to sing with the others but the other voices quickly fading out as she panics and rushes home

7. “They’re not going to send you back, you’re in the Bible and everything!”

8. Marilla has every right to be angry that Matthew rushed their home without even discussing it

9. “I knew you’d lose your head-“ “Oh, I oughta smack yours right off your shoulders!”

10. Matthew is prone to heart attacks, the very same thing causing his death in the books

11. “He’s had an episode of the heart” just a funny way to say heart attack, sort of long winded

12. Marilla not understanding the complex math because she had to leave school when she was young

13. Anne helping her with it because she’s top of her class

14. “Not keeping you? You’re a Cuthbert, for better or for worse! No getting out of it now.”

15. The awful bank not relenting on the payback schedule despite the fact that Matthew cannot work. Corporations are cruel and ungiving despite the human struggles and needs of its clients and it hurts. I know the bank invested that money and they need it back but Matthew was indisposed by a tragic event and to not only not extent but to SHORTEN the payback schedule is just unfeeling

16. Marilla putting out an ad to the mainland to take in borders

17. The terrifying idea that you must sell everything you have in order to survive

18. Marilla being desperate yet still too prideful to accept charity

19. The fact that it not only effects the family but also Jerry, as they can’t afford to pay him. It puts him out of a job and lowers his families income

20. A reoccurring theme I love in this show is the idea that the characters will give up their belongings, no matter how sentimental, in the name of family. Matthew selling his dead brothers watch, Marilla selling her grandmothers brooch, Anne selling the dress of her dreams, all because no matter how important these items are, they are just things. That family is more important, so even though it pains you to have to give those things up, you do it in the name of love for others

21. “Theyre just things.”

22. Anne feeling sorrow and yet being excited to stay at aunt Josephine’s

23. Despite being told she can keep the dress, Anne insists on selling it back because it’s a family effort

24. Anne being exited for a solo adventure and then getting stuck with jerry

25. Jerry has to be there to get money Anne his family is hungry :(

26. “I don’t actually need your help.” “When’s the last time you drove a sleigh? Auctioned a horse? Let’s go.”

27. Diana giving her things to sell as well

28. Jerry knows how to drive a sleigh?????

29. “It’s not so bad to ask for help sometimes, y’know?” “If I needed help I would say so.” “No you wouldn’t.” “Yes, I would.” “Wouldn’t.” “Would! Times infinity.” “What???”

30. Jerry singing in French

31. “No singing. I mean it. I’m serious, Jerry! This is an important journey! I WILL KILL YOU WITH MY BEAR HANDS!”

32. Jerry grinning as she gets madder

33. Anne bring mystified by the dress shop

34. “I’m here to return a dress.” Is something wrong with it?” “Not a thing.” “Do you not like it?” “It is my very favorite thing that I have ever possessed in life. But I need to return it to help my family.” “You’re Anne, Matthew’s Anne!” “I am! How nice it is to hear it said that way.”

35. Anne being upbeat until Jeannie asks what’s wrong and then ask just breaks down

36. Poor Jerry waiting outside in the snow for her

37. Either Matthew spent some much money on Anne’s dress or Jeannie gave her extra, or both

38. “Did Matthew really spend this much?..” “You’re worth a lot to him.”

39. “I hate to say goodbye…” “😏 I won’t be so long~” “To the HORSE, Jerry. Why are you so annoying.”

40. “You’re a good horse Birdie, try to remember that. Someone will be very lucky to have you.”

41. Birdie really is a beautiful horse though

42. Anne’s little “my parents are spies” act she uses on the pawn broker

43. The pawn broker is so understandable rude because of his profession, it makes him equally annoying and funny

44. “What a piece of work you are.”

45. Anne is so good at making up stories on the spot

46. “If you can’t afford it I completely understand.”

47. I love how snide remarks of “being a good Christian” are frequent and effective insults in the 1800’s

48. Poor Jerry doesn’t just get beaten up and robbed, he gets brutally beaten by two grown men and there’s nothing he can do despite that being… his last paycheck. That was the last income he was going to give his family and he’s so ashamed of himself that he keeps apologizing for it despite most of the money being his. He apologizes to Anne, to Matthew, it bothers him for months to come

49. Gilbert’s back!!

50. “Still seems unreal. Even though I just sold all our… everything.”

51. “He’s a good man.” “I love him with all my heart. I don’t know what if do if…”

52. Them arguing over not arguing

53. Anne apologizing

54. “Anyway…” “Anyway..”

55. I genuinely didn’t realize that the men who beat up Jerry are the same men that took in borders at green gables, I got the same face blindness as Jerry himself

56. “I’ve missed you.” “Yeah?” “At school, theres.. no one to compete with.” “”You want to spell out a few words for old times sake?” “How about… truce?”

57. Jerry thinking Gilbert was going to hurt Anne and take her money and immediately jumping in to stop him despite swaying on his feet

58. When Anne asks him if he’s okay he immediately starts apologizing about the money

59. “I don’t like the city.”

60. “Just take care of yourself, and come home someday.”

61. Anne and Gilbert staring at each other quietly

62. “This is a palace, not a house.”

63. Jerry assuming that they’ll make him sleep in the stable instead of inside the massive house

64. “I’ll look after belle.”

65. “This city is rife with ruffians!”

66. Aunt Josephine insisting on helping

67. Matthew lamenting his own life, talking of how his life insurance will give them a sizable sum and how he drags them down despite them needing him

68. “Anne loves you, you have to remember that.” “But her future…” “Which do you think she would choose, this house or you?”

69. Jerry bring terrified to stay in a room by himself because he’s always had his family around him

70. Anne making room for him only for him to sleep upside down

71. “Don’t worry, I don’t kick like my sisters.” “Yeah, you’d better not.”

72. “Everything will be alright. It’ll be alright..”

73. Aunt Josephine helping by paying for Jerry to work at Green Gables, as well as giving Anne books

74. “We’ve been together all these years, thick or thin, so don’t think I’ll put up with you slipping away now. Anne will be home today, and she’ll be very happy to see you.”

75. Matthew trying to kill himself because the life insurance would pay off the debt he caused

76. Jeannie happening to show up and find Matthew with the gun just in time as he tries to hide what he’s almost done from her, realizing what he’s done

77. The way they stress how his passing would effect Anne the most because of what they mean to each other, that she will suffer without him despite what he’s trying to do

78. “Don’t ever get old…” “Too late for that.”

79. “You would’ve left us that way!? Left me?..”

80. “Give it back. I won’t take charity.” “But.. love isn’t charity.” “I won’t take it.” “Nay I ask why not?” “We will not be pitied! I don’t want people thinking we can’t fend for ourselves.” “Well at the moment we can’t, and I’d sure give my last bit of strength or my last dollar to help a friend. Then I know that friend would feel grateful and loved above all else. And I do. I feel very grateful to have such a dear friend as Miss Barry. Sometimes you just have to let people love you Marilla.”

81. Anne selling her cleaning services to make steady income

82. “We’re rich, aren’t we Matthew?”

83. Jerry carving a star for the Christmas tree!!!!!!

84. Anne’s friends coming to sing carols at their house

85. Anne helping Matthew walk outside

86. Not Nate :(

87. Nathaniel, the bane of my existence

#renew awae #awae #anne shirly cuthbert #jerry baynard #mathew cuthbert #marilla cuthbert #josephine barry

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theparanormalperiodical · 4 years ago

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Top 10 Controversial Horror Films That Are Famous For All The Wrong Reasons *gags* *cries*

At the beating heart of horror is offence.

From that undeniable sense of something not being quite right, to the CGI-blood-spurtin’-adrenaline-fuelled scenes that leave us shaking in our boots, horror pivots on the knife edge of controversy.

It’s used to drive plots. It’s used to drive hype. And at the end of the month, it drives studio executives to the bank.

Horror films can be traumatic enough. But there are some films that bear the cross of controversy more than others. There are some films that have been branded as so damaging to their potential viewers that merely circulating copies of the film is illegal.

And yet their infamy has forged cult viewership. What was once shielded from us has now become ‘must see’.

Today we are going to be counting down horror’s most controversial films and what made them quite so topical.

*I’m going to star the ones that you can actually watch without getting traumatised. Some are controversial not because of their content but because some religious or political groups disagreed with them*

#10 - The Blair Witch Project (1999)*

Let’s ease in with a classic - a classic you can watch without sleeping with the light on.

In this found-footage flick we see a team of film students as they explore a local urban legend. But what they find leads them to unknown and ungodly territory.

The problem with this film is that it was marketed as a true story. No, not based on a true story, a true story. Yep, they claimed what we were seeing was real, found footage of some teens going mad as they forage deeper into mysterious woods.

IMBd went so far as to report that the actors were dead. Then, the movie studio super-charged their efforts to confirm to the public that not only was this film 100% real, the three main actors were still missing. The parents of the actors then started receiving sympathy cards.

There’s even a mocked up website that perpetuates these claims.

#9 - Night Of The Living Dead (1968)*

Time for another not-too-disturbing film.

This is the original zombie apocalypse film saw a group of Americans attempt to survive an incoming attack of the undead while trapped in a rural farmhouse.

But the Motion Picture Association of America wasn’t too happy about it. The film rating system was yet to be in place, allowing children to also show up for an afternoon screening and be greeted by a 97 minute montage of extreme violence.

“The kids in the audience were stunned. There was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying”

#8 - Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

In this psychological film, we watch a random crime spree take place at the hands of a couple serial killers. Loosely based on real murderers Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole, its controversial reputation was founded on the gore ‘n’ guts screened in the movie.

Whilst it didn’t receive much attention from the public, various classification boards across the world ensured new versions edited with certain scenes - often involving sexual assault and necrophilia - removed for viewers.

In 2003, the BBFC (the UK classification board) finally allowed the uncut version to be released and Australia followed suit in 2005.

#7 - I Spit On Your Grave (1978)

It’s the original rape-revenge flick. And it managed to piss everyone off.

Originally titled Day of the Woman, it tells the story of a fiction writer who exacts revenge on a group of four men who gang rape her.

Despite its pro-women claim-to-fame, the 30 minute rape scene begs to differ. Furious debate surrounds its feminist label as a film that forces the audience to endure rape from a female perspective and long-winded violence against men (something which is often reserved for women in horror). Regardless, the graphic violence earned it a steady ban in Ireland, Norway, Iceland, and West Germany.

#6 - Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)*

You don’t get many controversial Christmas films. They typically stick to a cookie-cutter plot ‘n’ purpose every holiday season. But there are no strong women who need to rediscover the meaning of Christmas here.

Instead, we see a child traumatised by seeing his parents murdered on Christmas Eve go on a seasonal rampage as an adult.

A week after its release in the early 80s, it was pulled from theatres due to backlash. Marketing was focused on a Santa Claus killer with adverts often airing during family-friendly TV programmes and meant numerous children developed a phobia of Father Christmas. Large crowds protested cinemas with one notable protest involving angry families singing carols at the Interboro Quad Theater in The Bronx.

It was only in 2009 - 25 years after its original release - that a DVD of the film was first made available for purchase in the UK.

#5 - Psycho (1960)*

This legendary film follows the disappearance of a young woman after her encounter with a strange man called Norman Bates, one of horror’s most iconic figures. The controversy that would engulf this fim lay not in the violent attack on an innocent woman or even the disturbing content of the film.

Oh, no. It was because of what the leading lady was wearing.

In the opening scene of the film, we see Janet Leigh wearing nothing but a bra.

*gasp*

This racy attire was emblazoned across promotional material, meeting Hitchcock’s high standards of creating controversy around the movie. There was a no late admission policy for movie theaters, and the posters told viewers “Do not reveal the surprises!” to maintain a mysterious aura around the plot twist.

#4 - The Human Centipede (2009) (all of ‘em)

I’ve watched a lot of horror films, in case you couldn’t tell.

I’m used to watching a scary movie, shaking off the anxiety, and moving on with my life. But there are some that stayed with me. I only watched the trailer for the first movie, and it legitimately traumatised me. It gave me quite a severe, sudden bout of a depression for a solid month when I was 13.

Throughout horror’s goriest franchise, we see an evil doctor and amateur mad scientist attempt to sow several people together into a centipede-like chain from mouth to anus.

*retches*

At the heart of promoting the franchise was controversy. Tom Six, the director, forced a narrative that claimed from the first film that this was "100% medically accurate". He even alleged a Dutch doctor helped inspire the film, confirming that with an IV drip, this was entirely possible.

Although it didn’t receive furore that amounted to serious censorship or long-term banning, it was infamous for having its viewers vomiting in the cinema aisles.

The second film, however, was subject to much more severe controversy and could not legally be supplied in the UK until 2011 due to its heavy focus on sexual abuse, more graphic violence than the original film, and it’s pretty vile depiction of a murderer that was intellectually disabled.

Audiences were used to the graphic nature of the franchise by the third and final release. As the least-controversial and least-enjoyable film according to critics, it barely made a dent in the horror community.

Good riddance, I guess?

#3 - Faces Of Death (1978)

I’m not sure I’d recommend this one per se - but I will give it credit for being an interesting project.

This documentary-style film is a montage of footage of people dying in different ways. As a result of its very graphic and very real content, it was banned and censored in many countries. Only in 2003 was it released on DVD in the UK after a scene was cut featuring dogs fighting and a monkey being beaten to death.

Germany, Australia, and New Zealand followed suit, reversing their bans and releasing edited versions.

However, 7 years after its release, the media revamped its interest in the film after a maths teacher showed it to his class at a Californian high school. Two of his students claimed they were so traumatised they received a costly settlement to reimburse their emotional distress. Things took a darker turn a year later, when a 14 year old bludgeoned a classmate to death with a baseball bat; he claimed he wanted to see what it would be like to actually kill someone after watching Faces of Death.

#2 - Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

This Italian film’s title alone hints towards two frightening things: flesh-eating humans and genocide. In this found-footage movie we see an anthropologist lead a rescue team into the Amazon rainforest to find a group of filmmakers that went missing.

The rampant graphic content including sexual assault and animal cruelty showcased in the film (7 animals were killed during filming in some pretty horrific ways) led to it being banned in 50 countries.

Some also alleged that a handful of deaths seen in the film were real, as were the missing film crew. In fact, the actors portraying the documentarians signed contracts that stopped them appearing in motion pictures for an entire year to maintain the illusion of reality.

And only 10 days after its premiere, the director was charged with obscenity and the film confiscated. All copies were to be turned over to the authorities. There are currently a range of versions that have been edited to varying degrees and are allowed for circulation.

#1 - A Serbian Film (2010)

No.

Nope.

Don’t do it. Don’t watch this film.

A Serbian Film follows a retired porn star who agrees to feature in an “art film” for some cash. Little does he know this film will include rape, incest, pedophilia, necrophilia…

Just don’t watch it.

It is still banned in South Korea, New Zealand, Australia. It is supposedly a parody of politically correct films made in Serbia that are funded by foreign groups and allegedly speaks openly about post-war society and the struggle for survival.

*shakes head*

Off to have a 3 hour shower, brb.

If you, uhhh, liked this post please like and reblog.

And if you want to hear more about horror and the supernatural every week hit follow!

#horror #Horror Movies #horror films #best horror movies #scary movies #banned films #video nasty #a serbian film #human centipede #the blair witch project #cannibal holocaust #faces of death #banned movies #censorship #night of the living dea #controversy #controversial films

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selchielesbian · 2 years ago

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gideon the ninth, while it broke my heart, was very fun, especially since it activated the professor-layton-poirot-locked-door-mystery loving part of my brain. so here’s my little scorecard of the things I got right and wrong. plus some other random commentary.

-figured out protesilaus was doa, it did NOT occur to me, however, that this would be a problem for everyone else lmao the concept of a necromantic sin is very interesting because where the line is drawn seems to be very arbitrary. like i said before this book has some interesting arguments surrounding the politics of death. i need to chew on it a bit more (and maybe read harrow first) before i come back to it.

-this also led me to assume one of the bodies in the furnace was his--and the other had to be dulcinea...but then of course ‘dulcinea’ was found, so i dismissed that theory and assumed it was one of the priests and something had taken their place

-even though i had an inkling that it was either dulcinea or the third house that killed magnus and abigail, i did not figure out what was going on w ‘dulcinea’ until palamedes confronts her. and i only figured it out before the actual reveal because he said “when i started writing to you, you were fifteen..” and I went. wait a minute. the math isn’t mathing because dulcinea said she was 25 (or i guess, teacher did), but if she was fifteen 12 years ago that would make her 27...somebody lying. much like gideon i’m blinded by hot nice lady :( gideon is stronger than me though cause after everything that happened i probably would have just said ‘yeah okay fuck it’ and went along with cytherea lol. -i have lots of dulcinea and cytherea thoughts but that’ll maybe get its own post.

-on that note--I assumed Teacher was the lyctor. what was going on with him was MUCH more interesting, however

-after harrow and gideon completed the first challenge in imaging (+ what they uncovered in the lyctor lab) it was pretty clear to me that the process to become a lyctor meant the adept and the cavalier have to merge their life force somehow, I just really didn’t understand the magical theory behind it until the end. also had palamedes’ same reaction of ‘well of course that’s how it works--but also that’s totally against the purpose of creating these extremely emotionally intense bonds between the cavaliers and their necromancers.’ but actually that’s EXACTLY why these relationships exist--the process only works properly if the life force is shared willingly. see ianthe struggling with naberius who is ANGRY at her, vs gideon being able to merge almost immediately with harrow. -on the subject of the twins; it actually would have probably been better for her to take corona’s soul, but ofc it’s supposed to be the cav who makes the sacrifice, and she wants naberius’ skills. poor babs. poor corona. it would have been interesting to see what happened if she absorbed coronoabeth’s vitality, though -my theory that one of the twins is dead was only half right--that ianthe is definitely more sickly/near dead and this is exacerbated by covering for coronabeth’s lack of ability. but in that way it makes her a very powerful necromancer, if we’re subscribing to the theory that being near death gives you a constant source of necromantic power ala what made dulcinea a talented adept. and then she has a constant source of power via corona (energy transference, which explains why they would leave and come back and leave and come back when working) and naberius (through EATING HIM).

-still not 100% sure what’s going on re: gideon’s parentage but I have a theory...obviously many of the adepts and cavs were NOT happy with the realization that becoming a lyctor means the cavalier has to die--the hints harrow and gideon found in the first lyctor lab showed that a few of them may even have been trying to find ways around it. I think it’s possible gideon IS the gideon from the note, or an attempt at putting that gideon’s soul in another body. which would explain why gideon was immune to the neurotoxin as a baby and seems to heal much more quickly than others in general.

#gideonposting #gideon the ninth #the dialogue is still the worst part of this book #and in parts is arguably unforgivable

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runephoenix6769 · 4 years ago

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“What is with the Blake / Yang hate this week? Folks seem particularly fired up.” I asked this question on a forum because of something I’ve noticed the last few days on discussions about Blake and Yang/Bumbleby/shipping in general. I keep seeing the same answers. “It ruins the team’s dynamic.”

Welp, I’m pretty certain none of those people would say that Raven/Tai and Tai/Summer ruined the team’s dynamic. Or that Ren and Nora are currently ruining the team’s dynamic. What is this holy than thou crusading to protect the sanctity of the team dynamic? Rwby has always been first and foremost about interpersonal relationships. It’s what drives the actual plot. Character growth, failing relationships/friendships. How they change over time, either to grow or crumble.

“It’s being shoehorned in, for fanwank.” How? How is it being shoehorned in? Give me a narrative breakdown as to where/how/when this occurs? Compare it to the Sun/Blake narrative and show me the glaring differences between the Yang/Blake narrative to prove that bumbleby was never planned yet blacksun was? (Sidenote. Anyone that has been asked to do this on the forum has yet to do it.)

“Yang showed interest in boys.”“ Yes, yes she passed comment once. In vol 1 episode 1. 8 VOLUMES AGO. She has shown not a lick of interest in guys since. Its almost as if she’s like any normal 17 year old girl who is growing into adulthood and figuring herself out, who might be realising her interest in Blake isn’t strictly platonic and is trying to navigate that whilst also grappling with what that means with regards to their friendship. And dealing with an over arching situation that is, ya know, potentially the end of the world as they know it. It’s about two years in universe, right? Which is about right of an amount of time for what its happening between them to play out. It only feels like longer to the audience because, well, its taken 8/9 years to tell the story up until that point.

“The Fans are too loud/vocal/come on too strong.” Ok, this one I agree with, we are loud and vocal and that might come across as coming on strong (here’s a huge) BUT, there is actually a genuine explanation for why it seems that way. If you really think about it, objectively.

Hear me out. Fans are excited about the potential representation we don't otherwise usually get in media. I mean, if you have 10,000 pieces of media and only ONE of them represents lgbtq people, of course we’re gonna be excited and talk about the ONE quite a bit with others who are like us. This might also be the first time we’ve seen anything like this, or seen ourselves represented in a somewhat positive light. It stands to reason that the other 9999 pieces aren't going to hold our attention as much, esp if its the same hetero romance played out a bajillion times before, right? I mean, if you have a group of people who are constantly represented in the 9999 other shows, their voices are going to spread thinner, right? They aren’t going to be gathered all on one place, talking about the same thing because there are 9999 other choices to connect them to other people. They aren’t going to care as much if their straight ship happens/doesnt happen

“Hey, I can move onto another piece of media that is churned out by the status quo. No big deal.”

Hetero romances are ten a penny. Flick through netflix, hulu, crunchy roll etc. Where as if you have a group of people who are only represented in ONE show out of the 10,000 those people are going to gather in one place to connect with others and its only going to seem like they are louder due to the densely packed space. These same people have been majority silent about the other 9999 pieces of media as their voice isn't usually represented in a positive light - being queer characters are usually brutally murdered or sidelined. (Thankyou Hays Code.)- or not even represented at all. (Bury Your Gays is a trope for a reason, folks.) And we are NEVER the titular characters. We’ve been living on crumbs and subtext for decades! Not to mention showrunners who actively queerbait the hell out of us for ratings and viewership. The almighty Pink Pound as its often referred to in business. “But why do they have to make them gay?” You’re not made gay, you’re born gay. It just takes longer for some people to realise than others. It can be a gradual realisation. And this is quite possibly the case with Yang/Blake, slowly coming to realise their own burgeoning sexualities and attraction to each other.

”Why do they have to be gay?” They don't need a reason to be queer! They just are! Queerness is only a part of a person, not their everything. It’s actually quite refreshing to see Yang/Blake being portrayed as much more than their potential sexuality. Ask yourself, ‘Why does a character have to be straight? And why doesn’t a straight character have to constantly reaffirm their sexuality? Why is ‘straightness’ assumed by default?’ Heteronormativity, is something that has been perpetuated by decades of media. (helped by the Hays Code with its out of date moral code. To be other is to be punished within the narrative.) That straight is the default setting. It’s not! We exist! Everywhere! We always have and we are going to talk to each other about it when we see a glimpse of ourselves represented in what has been a relative Sahara Desert when it comes to queer content were we are not villainised. “The romance is detracting from the plot.” Two seconds ago, people were claiming that the romance was none existent. Which is it? But Nora and Ren’s romance that is being held up as a mirror to bumbleby is fine? That Jaune relentlessly pursuing Weiss was perfectly ok. Neptune openly hitting on female characters is fine.

“I don’t have a problem with LGBT. I just don’t want it forced down my throat.” Again, out of 10,000 pieces of media, this is just ONE show. Nobody is forcing anyone to watch it or participate. Queer people have had to stomach literal 100′s of years of straight media forced upon them. Since the very conception of the written word and narrative storytelling. In plays, theatre, art, music, tv, film, on billboards, advertising, in places of education and learning etc etc. Queer people are bombarded with it whilst also being surrounded by negativity towards queerness.

“They are shoving it down my throat!” part two Is hand holding, compassion and expressing concern for another person and comforting them somehow offensive? Renora kissed, not a problem. Arkos kissed, not a problem. Show me in the sand where the line is drawn. What is the difference? Please explain this to me? Why is the expression of queerness somehow offensive? Is this because decades of media have perpetuated the false idea that all queer people are sex crazed perverts? That you’ve been groomed into thinking that queer sexuality is only based in the act of sex itself? That queer sexuality couldn’t possibly be similar to heterosexuality in its expression?

That it couldn’t possibly be about attraction, emotional, mental and maybe one day blossom into physical between two consenting adults, a pure expression of love the exact same as heterosexuality.

That some how queer love stems from some sort of deviancy or mental health issue. That queer people are some how bad or evil, and therefore their expression of affection is wrong? Oh, I wonder where those beliefs have possibly stemmed from? “Why are they in my face?” part three. 50% of of the titular cast are potentially queer. Blake and Yang. But if you look at the overall cast ensemble that runs at minimum 16 any given volume, that’s a measly 12.5% (prolly a lot smaller if you actually counted the whole cast that appears in rotation each volume) Also, someone did the math. Blake - a titular character- actually has less spoken lines that Jaune. ffs. B&Y spent neatly a whole two volumes of 8 apart. 25% of the narrative as it stands on entirely different continents.

I fail to see how it being in someone’s face could be the case.

“I just don't see it!”

That’s ok and perfectly valid But listen when people who have lived this experience are telling you that their experience is being portrayed on the screen. That they see themselves being represented. OK, This completely got away from me. In conclusion. They are more straight people than queer people and media often reflects that. We are usually the silent minority, we are sick of it but we are used to it and we are very excited that things seem to be finally changing.

It’s two characters in an large cast in ONE show out of 10,000. Its a piece of media that, for a change, hasn’t been 100% curated for straight people. We are often not allowed to play in the sand box and if we are, we’re told to play with the broken toys, be grateful and quiet. So when we are given a sandbox to play in with new unbroken toys, we are gonna dog pile in there and make a ruckas, calling our friends over. What I’m trying to say is, it’s gonna get rowdy. and here’s something to think about. “When you are used to privilege, equality feels like deprivation.”

#rwby #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #bumbleby

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sleepykittypaws · 3 years ago

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Celebrate the Olympic Spirit

Sure, the Olympics aren’t a holiday, per se, but the every-four-year, or two if you count both Summer and Winter editions separately, massive international sporting events sure seems like a reason to celebrate, especially given their recent, unprecedented delay. And what better way to get into the Games mood, than by watching a sports movie?

Here are my favorite motivating, inspirational, and aspirational tales of athletic derring do…

Favorite Sports Movies

The Cutting Edge (1992) - This figure skating romance was released around the 1992 Olympics, and actually name-checks that year's winter host city, Albertville, more than once. It's not good in the traditional sense of great storytelling or athletic veracity, but I loved it so very much I saw it three times in the theater as a teen. Watching it at some point during every Winter Games is a tradition for me so, yeah, I can’t help it, I love this silly sports movie/romance, which also features a bit of holiday feels.

Wimbledon (2004) - It's a rom-com. It's a sports movie. It's a rom-com sports movie that really should be better known. Notting Hill but set at tennis' best-known event. Paul Bettany and Kristen Dunst have surprisingly great chemistry, and there's more sports-related tension than you'd think.

Friday Night Lights (2004) - A football movie for people who don't really like football. a.k.a. 🙋‍♀️. The TV series it spawned is also brilliant (”Clear Eyes, Full Hearts,” indeed), and well worth a watch, but the original movie, starring Billy Bob Thornton, is, honestly, a masterpiece. Definitely Peter Berg's best work and the original book, written by Berg's cousin, Buzz Bissinger, is a great read.

Muriel's Wedding (1994) - You mean you forgot this Australian export, which made Toni Collette a star, was a sports movie? Yep, one of my all-time favorite movies, of any genre, this absolutely brilliant, ABBA-soaked comedy is not only a girls-night go-to, but also a stealth Olympic sport classic.

Remember the Titans (2000) - OK, football isn't in the Olympics, but it sure does make for a good sports movie setting. Even if this early 1970s-set story is most definitely Disney-fied, Denzel Washington, Will Patton, Ryan Gosling and a baby Hayden Panettiere really sell this sort-of true story.

Invictus (2009)-Rugby isn't an Olympic sport, or even one most Americans know much about, but this Matt Damon-led, Clint Eastwood-directed, based-on-a-true-story tale made me care about a sport I'd only tangentially knew even existed before watching.

Hoosiers (1986)-I grew up in Indiana so, by law, I have to include this basketball classic on any "best of" sports movie lists. Also, it actually is really very good.

Rudy (1993)-Ditto the above. But, again, it's hard not to root for Sean Astin (and Jon Favreau!) in this love letter to the Fighting Irish. Plus, there’s no better scavenger hunt task or TikTok challenge than going into a bar and convincing a patron to allow you to put them on your shoulders and march around chanting, 'Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.'

Miracle (2004) - Given how much more popular the Summer Olympics are, it's weird that the Winter Games seem to get all the good movies made about them, but this Kurt Russell-led true tale is another Disney sports movie classic.

McFarland, USA (2015) - Disney, and Kevin Costner, just really know how to make a sports movie, damn it! This movie made me care about cross country for which it, too, could have carried the title Miracle.

A League of Their Own (1992)-The best baseball movie ever. Yeah, I said what I said. Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Lori Petty—even Madonna and Rosie O'Donnell are making it work. 1992 was a weirdly great year for sports movies.

Moneyball (2011) - A movie about baseball, and math, and yet it's also great, I swear. In addition to all of the above, it's also a stealth Christmas movie and maybe Chris Pratt's best non-Marvel, movie role.

Creed (2015) - This surprisingly effective Rocky reboot starring Michael B Jordan as Apollo Creed's illegitimate son has spawned its own movie series which, in many ways, exceeds the original Rocky franchise.

Rocky Balboa (2006) - Maybe it's because I was a toddler when the original Rocky came out, so only saw the ever-worse sequels as a kid, but this mid-aughts return to the character for Sylvester Stallone, as both writer and actor, is a triumph.

Eddie the Eagle (2016) - That Hugh Jackman features in as many movies (spoiler alert) on this list as Kevin Costner surprised me, too. This story of the English ski jumper who became infamous for being, well, less than golden, is one of those non-Olympic triumph stories that really works. If you're going to watch one underdog-at-the-Games movie, I definitely prefer this this to the more ubiquitous Cool Runnings.

Love & Basketball (2000) - Only because I'm an anglophile is this great, chemistry-filled Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps college basketball romance not my favorite sports-movie-meets-rom-com.

I, Tonya (2017) - Margot Robbie and a nearly unrecognizable Sebastian Stan are perfectly cast in this sarcastic, highly stylized look at the Tonya Harding scandal.

Pride (2007) - Apparently I like this swimming movie, which I think almost no one saw, better than critics, but I found this 1970s-set, Terrence Howard-Bernie Mac-starring story of inner city kids excelling in the pool emotional and entertaining.

Field of Dreams (1989) - This Kevin Costner magical realism baseball classic is often goofy and imminently tease-worthy and yet…It also works. Maybe it's no surprise that someone who loves cheesy Christmas movies as much as I do would have a soft spot for Field of Dreams.

42 (2013) - Chadwick Boseman is absolutely fantastic as legend Jackie Robinson. One of those movies that's ostensibly about baseball, but is really about so much more, except not in a pretentious way.

Race (2016) - Before Jason Sudeikis was Ted Lasso, he was famed track coach Larry Synder in this Jesse Owens biopic that is far from perfect, but still important. Plus, I honestly don't think Stephan James got enough credit for his relatively nuanced portrayal of Owens.

Goon (2011) - This overlooked gem starring Sean William Scott as a semi-pro hockey player whose main skill is his ability to take, and dole out, a beating, is surprisingly great.

Real Steel (2011) - This is a robot-boxing movie starring Hugh Jackman that is basically Rocky meets Over the Top—and yet it's actually really good. Yeah, I was surprised, too.

Forget Paris (1995) - OK, so maybe Billy Crystal playing an NBA referee doesn't really make this a sports movie, but it does begin and end (spoiler alert) at real NBA games, and I will die on the hill that this rom-com co-starring Debra Winger is wildly under-rated.

Bend it like Beckham (2002) - This girl-power sports movie has some highly questionable romantic dynamics (the coach is their love interest???) but this Parminder Nagra-Keira Knightley movie is also a heckuva sports movie and an inspiring immigrant story.

Bonus Pick: The Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso is one of the best things I watched in 2020, and I'm sure of that, because I watched it twice since, just to be sure. Jason Sudekis is absolutely perfect as an American college football coach taking over a UK Premier League team. This sweet show with a heart of gold is smart, funny, and absolutely impossible not to love—even for a cynic such as myself.

More Sports Movies Worth Watching

For someone not very into sports, I am, apparently, into watching movies about sports, so while not a comprehensive listing of the entire, vast genre, here are a few more suggestions I personally think are worth watching.

The Miracle Season (2018) - This movie about high school volleyball champs whose star player dies suddenly stars Helen Hunt and is a lot better than you'd think based on its tiny budget and, honestly, fairly small story. Just missed making my Top 25.

The Way Back (2020) - This Ben Affleck as a drunken high school basketball coach movie is a lot better than expected. Released just as the pandemic kicked into high gear, it was overlooked last year, but worth seeking out.

Fighting with My Family (2019) - Does it count if it's a show, not a sport? Either way (but that's why this isn't in my Top 25), this stealth Christmas movie/love letter to the WWE is a lot better than it ever needed to be thanks to some really great performances from Florence Pugh, Lena Headey and directer Stephen Merchant. Even The Rock reins it in.

Warrior (2011) - You couldn't pay me to watch an actual UFC bout, but this Tom Hardy story of (literally) battling brothers is incredibly compelling and well done.

Win Win (2011) - This movie isn't really enough about wrestling, even though its ostensibly centered around the sport, to make it into my Top 25, but it's still really good, and Amy Ryan gives an outstanding performance.

Fever Pitch (2005) - Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon star in this remake of a UK film whose ending they had to shift when the Red Sox unexpectedly won the World Series.

Fever Pitch (1997) - This Colin Firth-starring, Arsenal-centered original is much smaller, more realistic and arguably better than the big budget Barrymore-Fallon redux.

We are Marshall (2006) - A real-life sports tragedy made into a sports-movie tearjerker starring Matthew McConaughy. And my tears were very much jerked by the end.

Coach Carter (2005) - Samuel L Jackson plays real-life basketball coach Ken Carter and, because it's a Disney movie, doesn't use the F-word even once. Now that's a feat worthy of its own sports movie.

Invincible (2006) - Yes, it's Mark Wahlberg, and another based-on-a-true-story, Disney sports movie that hits all the cliches, but dang it, that works on me. It just does.

Glory Road (2006) - If you're sensing a theme with me and Disney sports movies…Well, you're not wrong. This look at the first all-Black starting lineup at the 1966 NCAA Final Four does, unfortunately, center white coach Don Haskins, played by Josh Lucas (though I always mis-remember it as Josh Charles), making the important story it tells less than what it should be, but it still mostly works.

Million Dollar Arm (2014) - Admittedly one of the lesser Disney sports movie entries, and another that centers a white guy in a film mostly about people of color (not a great look), this Jon Hamm movie about a scout seeking an Indian cricket star who can make it in the Major Leagues still mostly worked for me.

The Mighty Ducks (1992) - One of the few movies on this list aimed directly at kids, this beloved peewee hockey saga actually is cute, and mostly does hold up.

Cool Runnings (1993) - Kind of shocked this movie that is part White Savior-movie and part-wacky kids movie essentially making fun of a real group of athletes of color came out in 1993 and not 1973, but the earnest charm of John Candy and a general Disney gloss keep this from being totally unwatchable and mostly just mildly, rather than extremely, offensive. Not really recommending, but feels like it belongs on an Olympic movie list.

Nadia (1984) - This made-for-TV, mostly true biopic, starring Talia Balsam as Nadia Comaneci, was a Disney Channel staple in that network’s early days.

Munich (2005) - It's a movie with the Olympics very much at its heart—namely the 1972 Israeli athlete hostage tragedy—that isn't really about the Olympics at all, but this Steven Spielberg-directed movie about national revenge is compelling, if problematic if you think about it for too long.

American Anthem (1986) - Is this Mitch Gaylord-Mrs. Wayne Gretzky (a.k.a Janet Jones) starring movie good, realistic and/or well-written? No, no and none of the above. But did I still watch it 8,000 times as a kid on HBO? Yes. Yes, I did.

Men with Brooms (2002) - Once, on a business trip to Canada, my husband was stuck in a hotel that only got three channels, and one of them always seemed to be showing curling, which actually got him weirdly into this obscure sport. This movie wasn't quite as fun as I hoped, but it's still a mostly charming, if slight, Canadian classic.

Unbroken (2014) - The harrowing and incredible real-life story of Louis Zamperini deserved better than this Angelina Jolie-directed movie delivered, but it's still a serviceable version of a worthy tale.

Chariots of Fire (1981) - I remember being bored out of my mind by this movie trying to watch this movie on cable as a kid, but no denying that, if nothing else, the score is iconic and indelibly linked to sports-movie magic.

Without Limits (1998) - Jared Leto’s Prefontaine beat this one to the theaters, but this Billy Crudup-starring film is the better of the two movies about the life of running pioneer Steve Prefontaine. There’s also a 1995 documentary, Fire on the Track: The Steve Prefontaine Story.

Personal Best (1982) - Mariel Hemingway’s story of ambition at odds with love, is a sports and LGTBQ+ classic.

Olympic Dreams (2019) - The story of how this small, meandering movie was made during the 2018 Winter Games is, unfortunately, more interesting than the movie itself, but there is some charm in watching Nick Kroll as an Olympic dentist making his way through the real Village, while interacting with real athletes.

Foxcatcher (2015) - This excellently-acted story is more true crime than sports inspiration, but if you're seeking a look at the dark side of the Games—and don’t want to turn on a doc like Athlete A—this is very dark tale indeed.

Seabiscuit (2003) - Every great athlete deserves to have their story told.

Any Given Sunday (1999) - Oliver Stone and Al Pacino take on pro Football. 'Nuff said.

The Replacements (2000) - I mean, the movie isn't amazing, but Keanu Reeves is super charming and Gene Hackman is always worth a watch.

The Program (1993) - Another bit of a dark-side-of-football take, worth it if only for the fantastic cast: James Caan, Halle Berry, Omar Eps, Joey Lauren Adams.

Everbody’s All-American (1988) - Not a movie I particularly love, but this Dennis Quaid-Jessica Lange football story that spans decades has always stuck in my memory.

Bull Durham (1988) - Just let Kevin Costner play actual baseball already.

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foryouthegays · 4 years ago

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Nothing goes wrong. [Dream SMP] liveblog

ok im not gonna say anythin abt before 20 mins in bc its p standard but i will say that as SOON as phil messages techno chat spams blood for the blood god and it barely stops the entire time, its incredible

kills: 00:37:25, 00:37:40, 00:55:20

i LOVE his ‘if theres no other way, I CHOOSE BLOOD’ line at 00:37:00. its just,,,,,it shows his new justice system where he treats others how they treat him even before he makes that speech i love it so much. also he spams potions like how he does in skywars and it makes me happy. honestly a lot of this stream reminds me of skywars like how he went through quackitys stuff and ran nd stuff. maybe ive been watchin too much techno skywars

also durin that first fight, techno only looses half a heart. against FOUR PEOPLE hes too powerful

does techno saying “bs” count as swearing (00:39:40)

techno insultin his kidnappers is the funniest thing to me like hes outnumbered outgeared and he still makes fun of them and theyre still scared of him asdjkfsdalkfj

00:55:00 I HAVE A PICKAXE, AND I’LL PUT IT THROUGH YOUR TEETH i need some fanart of that right now wljdflkasjf also durin that fight techno looses 2.5 hearts at the end. in iron armor. against a diamond axe. using a netherite pickaxe. with a bad fov. why is he like this.

techno on his horse by the ocean gives me big ‘beating minecraft with tnt falling on me every 10 seconds’ or w/ever vibes. if u havent watched that stream, u should, its great, he has a horse named rocket w diamond horse armor and i love him.

just realized my head hurt bc i was clenchin my jaws so much. whoops

techno literally has a boat in his inventory when hes like “theres a boat!!!! :D” skdfjlksajf (01:02:20)

the whole raccoon innit thing starts at 01:08:20 btw :)

techno gettin distracted w the skeletons killin each other is so funny to me hfdgksal (a min or so after raccoon innit happens)

01:09:45 tommys scream is so funny to me can someone find how many hearts he looses from that bc i am crying ghfdjksla

i think techno has the alphabet memorized. not like, the alphabet song, but like he knows what letter are around each letter without going through the alphabet and idk why but it makes me laugh. i think this bc at 01:16:11 tommys like ‘what, f?’ and techno says, not a second later, ‘no. close to that, though.’ and that is NOT enough time to go through nd find f in the alphabet nd then find where e is compared to it. therefore, he is a nerd. also i love him

01:20:00 this is everything to technoblade: Phil, Carl, and then his items.

im so gay for technos yelling voice. like. hhgnng he

“if we’re being serious, for a millisecond, dickhead,” :LDSFJLKSDJ I LOVE TOMMY 01:22:25

technos ‘join me.’ at 01:23:25 is SO GOOD AHHHHHHHH

vault/welcome home theseus is at 01:27:10 :D i might start calling it theseus’ vault bc that sounds cool to me

ALRIGHT so in the vault techno has 167 skulls on display. thats 56. withers. they r gonna cause SO much chaos i love it. AND thats probably not all of them ahhHHH I LOVE TECHNOBLADE SO MUCH. LMANBURG IS SO SCREWED A;LDKJFALK

also thats only if i did my math right a;lksdfjaslk

i have decided that the best trio is techno, tommy, and ranboo. they all just jump all over the place with topics and i thin the convo at 01:56:25 shows it p well

Tommy: Technoblade, why havent you face revealed yet?

techno: I-I have

Tommy: well, answered that quick

ranboo: *laughs* that answers that question

techno: that was resolved really easily!

tommy: why don’t you do it again?

techno:....what would be the point?

ranboo: yeah, what would be the point??

tommy: because then it would be like -stutters- it would be, you know, easy, good video because there’s so many people who dont know what you look like

techno: ehhhh ill find a good moment at some point

tommy: you could face reveal with me, bro!! we could face reveal together!

techno: ahhh finally, we’ll know what tommyinnit looks like

ranboo: -laughing- thank god! that was one of the unsolved mysteries of the world

techno: unsolved mysteries of minecraft, what does tommyinnit look like

ranboo: what does tommy actually look like?

tommy: hey! speakin of unsolved mysteries, lets talk- lets talk psychology. what- what would be- you know, not the worst one you know, but just the worst word?

ranboo: I’m going to- I- if i hear this question one more time i’m going- i dont know what im going to do. i can’t do anything at this point

techno: ....cactus.

tommy: ????cactus???

ranboo: that is a bad word, i cant believe you said that,

tommy: -unintelligible- it is cacti, my friend, not cactusus

techno: I’m sorry

ranboo: how could you say that on stream?

techno: I’m sorry

tommy: it’s not cactusus, technoblade, its cacti

techno: i- i am aware

ranboo: you- you gotta stop sayin it.

tommy: cacti almost sounds like a terrible, terrible slur right now

techno: please, please stop saying that- please stop sayin that word

tommy: what, cacti?

ranboo: AHHHH cmon, cmon tommy

techno: you cant use that word!

tommy: AYYY IF I SAY IT OFF STREAM I CAN SAY IT ON STREAM

techno: WOAHHHHH WOAH WOAH -laughs-

ranboo: NO THATS NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS

techno: thats just not how this works, tommy!!!

tommy: eyyy man im just me, im just me- OOOH i have a novel to write!

ranboo:....where did that come from???

tommy: HOW TO SEX 3 BABEYYYYY

techno: i thought you were already...done with that?

god theyre so chaotic i love them so much

also yall are WRONG abt eret soundin like techno. ranboo sounds like techno. not in like, a really big way, but when theyre both monotone they sound similar and i love it. this is great

this is actually the most ive laughed at the smp in so long PLEASE go watch the entire techno ranboo tommy interaction its so funny technos just *long, long sigh* ranboos just ???????? and tommys just !!!!!!!! its amazing im crying

technos such a dad to these kids oh my god his voice at 02:12:40 was so disappointed just ‘do not do that.’ he sounded like a parent on a trip to disneyland and his kids r like, hanging out the window of the car or smthing adjfaslkfkadsl techno :handshake: phil [being tommys dad] and also ranboo is bullying him its so funny i love it

AHHHHH HIS VOICE AT 02:20:35 I AM IN LOVE YALL HEAR THAT???? YALL HEAR HIM??????? AHHHHHH

“in the small event that your internet goes off or you get hit by a car,” TOMMY THAT IS NOT A SMALL EVENT WHA T 2:21:30

A;LSKDJFASL RANBOO AND TECHNO HAVE SUCH SIMILAR HUMOR I STG TECHNO LOOKED AT RANBOO WAITING FOR HIM TO SAY ‘enchant?? just a wild guess’ AT 02:23:00 A;DLKJFASLD;JF I LOVE THEM PLEASEEEE KEEP INTERACTING IK I WAS A RANBOO HATER LIKE A WEEK AGO BUT ALSO I WOULD DIE FOR HIM ITS FINE

this is so fuckin funny this end of stream stuff is gonna be a comfort stream

“what does the moon make you think about?” “it makes me think about the moon” ALSFJDSKJFDSL 2:32:10

techno makin fun of ranboos defense of bein peer pressured,,,,,,,m’dude that was the reason u killed tubbo how is that ANY different (2:33:50) (yes i know he mentions it but FHGJKSDL)

TECHNOSWEAR TECHNOSWEAR TECHNOSWEAR TECHNOSWEAR 2:35:25 HE SAY THE CRAP WORD

#stream post

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iampikachuhearmeroar · 4 years ago

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tl;dr political rant post:

it had been my goal from 12 years old to do an arts degree in philosophy (yes what a nerd- thanks to my dad playing a Great Courses philosophy dvd one morning in 2007 and my dad always taking me to the botanic gardens/the uni some weekends).

i graduated from my arts degree in 2018, with a major in english and a minor in philosophy. i was so, so lucky to even get into my communications & media degree (at first i was originally going to do marketing communications, advertising & PR)... but i realised that i was not made for business subjects- despite my mark101 tutor telling me she thought i had knack for marketing- something under this policy that i wouldn’t undertake due to the price hike for commerce/business degrees. nor was i made for a media degree. so i changed to arts & humanities.

although under this atrocious policy, english subjects are made “cheaper”- why on fucking should the rest of someone’s arts/humanities degree be so much more expensive, all depending on the fields they choose???? so you’re telling me, if i was instead to enter undergrad this year to do my english degree... that my english major would be subsidised, but my philosophy minor would be at double the cost (along with the few first year business and communications&media subjects i did), unless i forced myself to pick maths or science subjects that i would most definitely fail, no matter how much work i’d put into them??? or there’s languages- but much like maths/science- there’s the problem with my handwriting that stopped me trying french and even japanese (ironically, since it’s know for its ~painstakingly neat and orderly~ script- but my handwriting is still messy, disorderly and confusing asf).

*please note that most of this next section is just me being highly spurious and cynical. it’d probably work out fine*

but you’re also telling me that under this policy that i’d also probably have to forego my reasonable adjustments in those subjects (yes i still have trouble with my handwriting to this day) mostly because a lot of software still won’t let you write out maths problems properly or i’d have to spend twice as long trying to get a graph to work in excel or idek matlab (please teach me maths nerds)???? and most maths working out is probably better handwritten or whatever??? and that’s besides the point that i still can’t use excel at all 😂.

so with these classes then, would i be battling from day one of first year with professors to let me use a computer during exam periods (unless of course they use online/take home exam methods like philosophy)???? probably (im being very suspicious here because i don’t know how science/maths etc faculties work).

although i did get this once with one particular english professor; who used the excuse that he didn’t know how to set a computer up for exams because he had been on “sabatical for 4 years” or whatever and so “didn’t know the policies anymore”.... so then according to him it was apparently “the students job to do it.... especially since you’re in third year, miss williams”..... however, i was promptly then told by EVERY uni offical that i approached for help to do it for me.... and my other professors across my course that had done it for me, that it was in fact the PROFESSORS job/responsibility to set it up, and not the student’s??? like. help your students fuckwit professor grant??? honestly. anyway. aside from my personal struggles in the english department: let’s proceed. (this was a real incident btw).

would i be at a significant disadvantage to other students by not being able to use a computer during maths exams or science exams because of the drawing of diagrams and graphs and “showing your working”???? hell yes. would i want the professors in that department to probably condescendingly telling me all the time to “present my work neater and more precisely”? FUCK NO. it’s exactly why i avoided every maths and science subject in undergrad- even including the astronomy subject that i wanted to do- because it also meant that fellow students had to read my handwriting for practicals etc as well, that i wasn’t entirely keen on either. but i did not need the harsh reminders of “be more precise and infallible in your work presentation” that i’d had at school constantly for 11 years of maths lessons; affecting my mental health and performance in a subject during a uni semester.

moreover, that’s besides the fact that i’d flat out fail the “year 12 band 4 maths” requirements- unless they want to waive those- for first year maths/science subjects (at least basing it on my local uni).... considering that i actually skipped out on maths completely in year 12 by doing a TVET/tafe/technical college course in live theatre, production and events (which no surprises here, actually included maths anyway 😅).

because, fuck. is ANYONE seeing a trend in my study choices here? hell, i almost did a commerce/business dual degree with a tafe diploma in event management for crying out fucking loud. and you’re telling me that’s also doubled in price?? it’s obvious that i was interested in the arts & humanities and business subjects from the get-go. but under this policy- i’d be charged double for having my interest in event management, instead of say, biology (which is a subject that if it weren’t for mark scaling in my final hsc exam- i would have failed completely)??? utterly ridiculous.

i even contemplated doing a double degree with law at one point (or doing a legal studies major/minor- which is now a course at my local uni, but was not while i was there). however, law course fees have also doubled under this new policy. leaving that out of reach for me, despite that a double degree with law was out of reach for me anyway..... since my mark average was 65% and not at least 75% lol. but as if those marks averages will actually matter under this new policy.

under this bullshit policy, i’d be forced to take science/maths or even teaching (another field i had to avoid, since people can’t read my writing on a whiteboard from a distance half the time either.... besides the fact that i’m not really the ~teacher type~) subjects- all so that my degree price overall will be ”reduced”..... meaning that i would have to trade out my philosophy minor for something in maths/teaching/science (or maybe creative arts- since those fees stayed the same roughly)... instead of sticking to what i was good at: philosophy and other humanities/social science fields like sociology and history????

i understand that many people will snub me with saying “oh why did you even BOTHER going to uni if you were THAT indecisive about what you wanted to do?” which is something i’ve seen many older people saying on posts about this policy. but hell, i was 19 FUCKING YEARS OLD WHEN I STARTED UNI, FOR GODS SAKE. OF COURSE I WAS GOING TO BE FUCKING INDECISIVE ABOUT MY DIRECTION IN LIFE! because, newsflash fuckwits: not everyone has a defined career goal at 19. hell, i still don’t have one at almost 25..... since i’ll admit here, that i flunked out of my postgrad library course.... because i realised that i simply couldn’t cope with learning simple HTML, CSS and javascript coding for website design & user experience design 😂 (again help me computer wiz friends). yes, believe it or not, librarians have to know that today. and most people think that it’s just all about books (okay that was me, but i was wrong). also, if you’re wondering: postgrad library courses aren’t affected, thank god. but my point is, aren’t we meant to fuck up and pick the wrong things in life sometimes??? aren’t we meant to be indecisive about our choices in our late teens up until our mid 20s???

but now you’re telling students that their very first year of uni is practically set out for them, even for arts/humanities degrees (im not counting properly prescribed degrees such as engineering/science/communications & media (they had prescribed majors and prescribed first year subjects, which is why i left it. because i felt trapped in the prescribed marketing et al major etc); all because the government is telling them that “oh to make your first year cheaper: (A.) get good marks.... so that we don’t cancel your HECS place and (B.) pick subjects outside of the arts/humanities like science/maths/tech related subjects so that you don’t pay a whopping $14,500 for your first year of uni and will be more likely to be “job ready”. whatever the actual fuck “job ready” really means. and this all as if there ISN’T enough pressure for a 18/19 year old to succeed in their first year of uni already.

although, the one thing i’ll say is that my one year advanced diploma in marketing that i did in 2014, was $16,500. i still haven’t made any moves to pay it off. but it was constantly in the back of my mind during uni, both undergrad and postgrad. it was there as a reminder to pick cheaper subjects, so as to not greatly increase my combined hecs debt and vet-fee help debt; which is now sitting at $42,500. which under this new policy is the new price of ONE arts & humanities undergrad degree. i’d hate to be going into uni next year at 19 years old (or any age really) with that price tag on my degree.

anyway. that’s the end of my non-sensical rant. morrison and the rest of the libs etc can go fuck themselves.

#life #about me #shut up ilona #auspol

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srsly-messed-up-fruitloop · 4 years ago

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Supper’s Ready

Word Count: 2,033

Summary: A couple of weeks have passed since Danny’s accident with the portal. Fortunately, so far, he hasn’t experienced any symptoms at all, not even ghostly ones. Until one day, he begins throwing up ectoplasm.

Or, my take on Portal!Danny

Warning: Includes depictions of nausea and vomiting so...read at your own discretion

Read on AO3 or under the cut

Danny awoke with a groan. He clutched his stomach and squeezed his eyes together as a wave of nausea hit him. If he could, he would’ve laid there forever, curled up in a ball fighting the sick feeling in his stomach. But it kept getting worse, and worse, until his instincts drove him to blindly stumble to his bathroom. Kneeling before his toilet, he held his mouth open, wishing for whatever he ate earlier to just come out already. It felt like an eternity before his dinner left him. Panting, he laid his cheek against the toilet seat as he felt the nausea starting to subside.

He doesn’t remember the last time he threw up. Probably when he was a kid. It couldn’t have been mom’s cooking, right? He recalled the glass of milk he had before bed. It did taste a bit funky.

He stood up, sparing a glance at his dinner once again. He was just about to flush it away until something caught his eye. A single translucent drop of something that glowed brightly green. Jazz probably did have a point about not keeping the ecto-weenies in the fridge.

A couple of weeks have passed since Danny’s accident with the portal. Unfortunately, the portal remained unfunctional since the brief moment when he had activated it. At first, Jazz and his friends were extremely concerned for him. After all, he was practically electrocuted. But seeing that there were no lasting effects, over time they’ve let go of the incident. Things resumed back to normal, save for Jazz becoming a lot more protective of her little brother.

Danny flushed and rinsed the foul taste from his mouth. He made a mental note to throw out the milk in the morning as he climbed back into his sheets.

A few days later, Danny was sitting at his desk in his bedroom, struggling to understand why he kept getting this one math question wrong. He swears he’s following the same steps in the textbook example. He was just about to give up and move onto the next question when his mouth suddenly felt dry. No, not again.

Ever since that night he puked, Danny’s stomach really wasn’t having it. More and more often the sick feeling would return, except nothing came out of it. He rested his head on his homework, waiting for the nausea to pass. At this point he just wanted whatever bad food, stomach bug, or whatever to leave him already. Maybe he should ask his parents to take him to the doctor.

At that thought, his gut uncomfortably lurched and he barely grabbed his wastebasket in time. It’s a shame those tater tots from the cafeteria had to go to waste. Just when he thought he was finished, he felt a painful jolt in his abdomen and squeezed his eyes shut. He felt something, with an almost slimy-like texture pour out. The sensation of it running up his throat made him feel even sicker than he was.

He took a moment to breathe before opening his eyes again. He almost dropped the bin at what he saw. It was the same glowing green substance he saw that other night. Except this time, it took up three quarters of his wastebasket! He couldn’t even see his lunch from earlier.

Slightly panicked now, he quickly scrambled up from his desk chair to get rid of it. If Jazz saw him now, she’d never let him hear the end of it.

After flushing it away, he turned to the sink to clean himself up. But, the sight of himself in the mirror made him freeze.

He saw that green fluid, staining his white shirt as it steadily dripped from his chin. He almost gagged when he still felt it present in his mouth. But what truly frightened him was his now green irises, glowing brightly in the same intensity as the fluid.

What was wrong with him?

Ectoplasm. That’s what was inside him.

Over dinner, his dad was excitedly explaining how he had extracted the substance from a ghost. His mom joined in, explaining its scientific properties. And while Jazz expressed her disgust at bringing something like that to the dinner table, the whole conversation was lost to Danny’s ears. All he saw was the small vial his dad was showing off, containing the same substance he had been heaving out daily in the last week.

Danny was in the middle of an English test when he felt it. It wasn’t all that painful anymore, and he’s gotten used to holding it down just long enough until he could get to a washroom. Still, it always was very uncomfortable. And inconvenient, especially at times like now. He raised up his hand and cringed as Lancer stared at him suspiciously.

“Yes, Mr. Fenton?”

“Can I—uh...go to the bathroom?”

Lancer sighed as he glanced at the clock. “Fine. Please hurry back though, you only have 20 minutes left for the test.”

“Thanks Mr. Lancer,” Danny mumbled as he got up from his seat. He fought the feeling of Wes glaring a hole in the back of his head, along with the weird stares from some of his other classmates. Sam and Tucker worriedly watched as their friend left the classroom.

Alone, in the bathroom, Danny used his hands to brace himself against both sides of the stall, as he crouched in front of the toilet, wrinkling his nose at the smell. He hated doing this at school.

He counted to three and then let go, expelling the seemingly endless supply of ectoplasm within him. Every time he did this, there was always that little nagging voice at the back of his head, telling him that he really should tell someone about this. His parents should know what to do, right? But, every time he attempts to do so, he just...he can’t go through with it. Hearing them rant about their pure hatred for ghosts and the inventions they’ve created just to torture them makes his stomach lurch for a whole other reason. He knows they love him...but...what if they try to hurt him?

As for Jazz and his friends, he honestly can’t bring himself to burden them more after the portal accident. After all this time, he still occasionally sees the guilt in Sam’s eyes. Besides, who’s to say this won’t go away on its own...right?

He wiped his chin with the back of his hand after he felt nothing else coming up. However, he was greatly mistaken.

The next moment, sheer agony shot through his abdomen, causing him to lose balance and hit his back against the stall’s door. It never hurt this bad before!

His body went rigid when he felt a frightening chill freeze his insides. A burning green—almost yellow light was all that he could see as he was overwhelmed by the brutal sensation of his insides being ripped apart. His mouth was forced open by an invisible force as something else crept up his painfully inflamed throat. It wasn’t ectoplasm this time.

Panting heavily, all Danny could do was lay there against the door as the blinding light and pain gradually faded away. The first thing he saw after regaining his vision was a spectral tail disappearing into the ceiling.

“Good morning, this is Tiffany Snow reporting Amity Park’s latest breaking news. Recently, we have received several reports of ghost sightings. Witnesses have expressed that these ghosts have been trespassing their homes, destroying property, and terrorizing civillians. The Amity Police Depar…”

“Those no good specters!”

“Jack, honey, do you know what this means?”

“Of course Maddie, the town needs us!”

“But the sudden increase in ghost activity, it must mean something…”

“What are you sayin’ Mads?”

“Where would these ghosts be coming from? Natural portals don’t stay open long enough for any significant entities to escape the Ghost Zone. Unless...maybe something is causing them to stay open longer?”

“You might be onto something, gosh Mads you’re so clever! Well, better get right to sealing up those portals for good. Oh, I got the perfect idea for an invention!” Jack exclaimed as ran downstairs into the lab.

“Danny?”

Danny just realized he’d been holding his breath throughout his parents’ conversation. At the sound of his mom’s voice directed at him, he dropped his spoon. “Y-yea mom?” he stuttered as he anxiously gazed at her.

She was holding a silver-gray thermos with metallic green details. “Today, I’m packing your lunch in the Fenton thermos. We’d be horrible parents let you kids go to school defenseless. Just remember to point and push, okay?”

“Um, okay. Thanks mom,” Danny mumbled.

She kissed his head before he could protest and said, “I’m going to help your father out. Have a great day at school sweetie.”

After his mom disappeared downstairs into the lab, Danny morosely glanced at his half-eaten cereal. He’s probably not gonna keep it down anyways. Fenton thermos in hand, he grabbed his backpack and left to catch the school bus.

Danny could almost say he’s gotten used to being nauseous all the time. Now when he threw up, more often than not an actual ghost would come up. But now, the guilt from causing all the recent ghost activity grew with each passing day. Yet, no matter how much he’d tried stopping himself, all he did was make the pain even more unbearable. Something was seriously wrong with him.

One day, he recovered quickly enough to see an octopus-like ghost escape into the school’s hallways. As he exited the washroom, he saw the ghost hurling textbooks at students and scaring anyone that got near.

This was all his fault. He winced as he saw poor Mikey get his glasses knocked off his face by his own math textbook. He had to do something. Wait. Danny reached into his bag, finding the now empty Fenton thermos.

“Just point and push, right?” he muttered to himself as he took aim at the ectopus. A light blue beam shot out the thermos, enveloping the ghost and pulling it inside. Danny blinked as he noticed the small display on the flask read 25% CAPACITY.

“Huh, that was easy.”

Using the Fenton thermos to capture the ghosts really helped ease some of his guilt. However, all too soon the thermos had hit its capacity and Danny had no idea what to do with it.

He’d secretly borrowed another one from his parents and already that one was full too. He needed to figure out something quick.

“Hey dad?”

“What’s up Danno?”

“Uh...how do you get rid of ghosts?”

“Son, I’m so glad to see you taking an interest in the family business! Me and your mom are still finding out a way to get rid of those spooks for good. For now, we’ve got the Fenton Ghost Weasel and the Fenton thermos to catch them.”

“But, what if you run out of space to keep them?”

Danny’s dad scratched his head in thought. “Never really thought much about that. I guess when the time comes, we just gotta send those suckers back where they came from. Maybe by then, we’ll find those portals that are causing us all this trouble.”

Back where they came from?

By now, Danny knows that the accident with his parents’ portal had to have something to do with his...condition. And considering that all the ghosts are coming from inside him...maybe the portal did end up working after all. Except, not in the way he’d expected. He tried not to think too much about it. How an opening to an entirely different dimension was...inside him.

But, he had a more immediate problem to worry about. And as much as the solution grossed him out, he had no choice.

Currently sat on his bed, Danny stared at the two full flasks in front of him. His dad’s words rang in his ears as he unscrewed the cap off one. His stomach turned uncomfortably as he spared a glance at its contents.

Bringing up the thermos to his lips, he squeezed his eyes shut to brace himself for what he was going to do next.

Here goes nothing.

#danny phantom #PLEASE listen to Supper's Ready by Genesis #even though it has nothing to do with this #Danny Phantom Fanfiction #portal!danny #one shot #nausea tw #vomiting tw #i hope i'm not missing any important tw tags #grooveactuallywrites

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unfortunatelysage · 4 years ago

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Golden (parts 1 and 2)

me writing? actually kinda realistic. ocs from my old story storm since I'm too burnt out to make new characters right now lmao

Winter has a soft spot in my heart. I'm not a fan of the muddy slush that lines the streets, nor the frostbite I inevitably get every year, or the snowstorms, or even really the holiday season. But I love the soft whites and brilliant blues, the calm snowfall, and the traveling. It's probably no secret that I look forward strongly to winter break every year, but I'm just as excited for summer.

My parents have a cottage up north we go to in the summer, I tell my coworkers.

Oh yeah, we usually go on a cruise or something, I tell my classmates.

I just like the beach! I tell my friends. You know me!

As opposed to a week and a half during the winter, I get to stay three or four weeks at Austin's in the summer. Both of us would like me to stay the whole break, but we both work and have school to focus on, and it's difficult as is to get up to a month off.

Breathing in the woodsy air, I feel a rush of joy to my insides, like a swarm of butterflies made its way to my lungs. I exhale again and continue on, admiring the skyscraping trees and massive insects and animals from afar. Everything seems in line until a massive figure crashes through the trees, coming right toward me.

Good God! I jump behind a rock and watch the figure pass. It's a giant- scratch that, a giantess. She runs past me, paying no mind, and through the trees away from Me. What the hell was that? I didn't even get a good look at her, but she was around the same height as Austin I believe.

I check the direction she came to see if anyone else follows, and no one does. No matter, I have a place to be. The rest of the trip goes well, and I arrive on time. He got a buzzer installed for me to press when I show up, so I don't have to find a way up to his doorbell. I push it and wait, rocking on the balls of my feet in anticipation.

The door opens to a crouching Austin, smiling. "It's you!"

"It's me!" I respond, smiling back. "You look great." He sports new glasses and shorter hair on the sides, as well as soft red eyeshadow under his eyes.

"You too!" He replies, raising his eyebrows real quick as he holds out his hand. I nod and step on, and he carefully carries me to the main area. "I see you got your hair done. I like the blue."

We chat for a while and catch up on things as Austin grabs ice tea for us. "Is there anything I need set up right now? Anything I can put in your room or anything?"

"About that..." Austin trails off. " I know you just arrived, but I need to make a trip real quick. Would you rather stay here, or come with?"

"Oh, I can come with. What's the trip for?"

"My friend lost her pet the other day, and I found him." With approval, he carries me to his room, slowly opening the door. "You're not afraid of snakes, are you?"

Just then, my eyes meet the slithery creature's. Little beady eyesstuck in the sides of a titanic, squirming body, a light brown with black curves around him. I noticeably shiver. "Usually, no... but you see the size of him?"

"Understandable for you, I suppose. If it makes you feel better, in general he's quite small. I'd give him 25 zents." I do the math in my head. That's still about ten feet.

"Is he... you know... human-eating?" The snake slithers across the floor a bit.

"His name is Butterscotch. I don't think he's come in contact with any humans, but I would highly doubt he would eat you. No worries anyway, I'll need to keep you in my pocket when I head over to see Carrie. She doesn't know humans exist yet, and I'm not sure if either of us are ready to tell her."

I stare blankly at him.

"She's very nice, I swear. It'll go fine. You just stay where she can't see you, I drop off Butter, we go back on our way. It'll be good. Great, even."

A sigh escapes my body, and I smile. "Fine, I'll do it. Please promise to keep Butterscotch away from me though, that's all I ask."

"Great! Ready to go?" he bends down and grabs Butterscotch with his left hand, keeping me balanced in his right. He brings me to the chest of his dark jacket as he stands again, and I jump inside before the snake can reach me. I hear a soft chuckle escape him, and he mumbles a reassurance as he turns to leave.

The pocket is dark and stuffy, and gives no help to my claustrophobia. But I have to admit it's the lesser of two evils, as I'd rather mildly suffocate in fabric than get swallowed whole by a giant snake. I trace the inside of his jacket pocket's button, noticing the golden plating hasn't rubbed away at all. It's also not too shiny, even when rays of light from outside bounce off.

"Butterscotch is away from you, you know. You haven't any need to lock yourself away completely from sight," the giant tells me.

I push the pocket open at the word and stick my head out. "Okay, genuine question. The gold on your jacket. Is that real? Like all the way pure gold?"

"Yeah, how come?" he asks, raising an eyebrow as he looks down. I crane my neck up and notice his earrings as well, little gold hoops.

"The earrings too?"

"Sure are," he toggles his earring with his free hand. "Is there a reason behind your question?"

"Yeah, where do you work and when are they hiring?"

"Gold's not uncommon, Robin... haven't you seen any gold jewelry where you're from?" He raises his hand to the pocket, slowing his walk. I climb on, wary of the snake fifteen feet away and let him raise me to his shoulder, where I situate myself.

"Yeah, for thousands of dollars!" I reach up and touch his earring, stroking the smooth gold. Small to him, sure, but a rich golden crown to any human.

"I can feel all of this," he whispers after a few minutes. Feeling that blood rush to my cheeks, I shoot my hand down, and I feel him vibrate in a laugh. "Sorry to get your hopes up, but I'm almost there. You'd best be getting back in. He brings his hand back up, and I eye Butterscotch as I'm lowered back into this pocket, diving in.

He rings the doorbell to a house I didn't get to see before hiding, and the sound of a door opening. A voice follows, smooth and sweet like dropping honey, though awfully loud.

"Austin, how good to see you! Is that... oh, wonderful! Please, come in."

I feel Austin's chest vibrate as he replies, also very loudly. I guess I forgot this is how he speaks normally. "Oh, I was actually planning on dropping him offc, since today I-"

"Please, I insist! I'll only be a minute. We haven't properly talked in ages!" The first voice tells him, and I feel him push forward, walking in. What? This wasn't the plan.

The giant sits down slowly, still holding the snake. I hear the other giant- Carrie, was her name? She takes a seat as well across from him, and I hear a clinking sound. Prepared refreshments. Austin always told me how important hospitality is in his culture, though giants tend to fly solo.

The two make small talk, and Austin's still holding the damn snake! I'm trapped in a tiny hell just feet away from a killing machine. I hear him slowly start drinking whatever refreshment the giantess got for him, and I reach back and punch his chest to remind him of the mission at hand.

He starts coughing, setting down the drink. He taps against his chest next to me, regaining himself. "So sorry," he finally gets out. "Swallowed wrong."

"No worries at all. Where did you find Butter? I've been out all day everyday for the last week looking around."

"Right out Back behind my house, would you believe? Halfway up a tree. I nearly missed him, he blended in with the bark! Once I noticed, I brought him in and got ready to go, then came here."

"Give her the snake," I murmur.

"Did you hear something?" Carrie asks.

"Uh, no! Not really," he responds a tad too quickly. "Would you like Butterscotch back? I bet he's been itching to see you." I feel movement, likely his arms holding the snake out.

"Yes, in just a second as I put the glasses away. You're finished, right?"

"Oh, yeah. Thank you." She stands up by my guess, and walks out of the room. His voices hushes to a whisper. "You didn't have to hit me."

"You didn't have to come in!" I retort, "Give her the snake and let's go."

She comes back in. "Did you say something?"

"Oh, no I didn't. Here's Butterscotch." Austin holds the snake out again, but then things move in slow motion.

Since I was in the pocket without sight of the situation, I can't give the most accurate idea of what happens, but here's what I assume and what I know.

What I assume: The snake either sees me move, or smells me, or something like that. He slips quickly between Austin's hands toward the pocket.

What I know: A giant motherfucking snake sticks his giant motherfucking head into the pocket, inches away from me. Naturally, I let out a scream of terror. Perhaps a little less naturally, I dive out of the pocket and grab tightly onto the gold button, hanging on and still screaming. Austin whips the snake away from his pocket and shoves it in Carrie's direction, throwing me off the pocket and into Austin's hand, which he throws into the right place at the right time as I tumble across his skin.

Butterscotch slides around Carrie's shoulders and I finally catch a good look at her. She's the giantess that ran across the woods, who was so quiet in her movements. I can only describe her as golden. Tanned, glowing skin paired with tight, bouncy, honey-colored curls. She wears gold sun and moon earrings and a matching necklace, alongside a flowy yellow shirt. Pure gold. More importantly, her hazel eyes meet mine.

The two of us lock eyes like this for a fair few seconds, and she makes the first move. "Austin, what... what is she?"

He brings his hand closer to himself. "I didn't want you to find out. Her name is Robin, she's a..." he looks down, expecting me to speak, but my vocal chords are fixed in place. "A human. Like us, but smaller."

"She's so pretty... can I see her closer?"

"She can speak, ask her yourself." Austin looks down, noticing me still staring at her. "Well, usually she can. Robin?" He prods me with his index, and I snap out of it.

"You think I'm pretty?" I ask. "You're unbelievably pretty!"

"Aww, thank you!" she replies, lowering her voice after realizing I'm a bit quieter. "Austin, how come you didn't tell me about your friend?"

"I wasn't really sure how you'd take it. I didn't expect you both to be on good terms so fast... she sure wasn't on my side right away," he laughs.

Carrie and I end up not having much in common, but she's real fun to talk to. Eventually she tells us to come back sometime, and we start heading back after saying our goodbyes and Austin hoisting me onto his shoulder.

"Robin, I'm so sorry, that went so horribly, oh my goodness, I hope you're not-"

"I'm fine, Austin," I laugh. "I didn't expect it to go well, but in the end we're all fine! Carrie is nice, Butterscotch didn't eat me and we all got to connect. I think it's a win-win for all of us."

"Oh, well I'm happy you're not upset. I bet you're real tired though, let's settle in a bit once we get back to my place."

"Sounds like a plan," I reply, leaning against his neck.

#g/t #g/t community #giant #giant tiny #giant/tiny #tiny #gt #gt community #loooong post

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letmesaythat · 4 years ago

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Recalculating the route

Twenty-five. Just a regular number. Sweet, calm, sharp. Two plus five equals seven - my lucky number! Well, a number that I like, at least, can’t really say it brings me any luck, maybe ‘cause I've never really payed much attention to this particular matter. But, wow, twenty-five, as an age... it’s a number that hits me. A quarter of a century. Five years until “thirty, flirty and driving”! Three years before the age I’ve set up, as a kid, for me to become a mom. Jesus Christ, remembering this goal is just such a laugh. And it becomes a nervous and kinda desperate laugh when I think about everything I’ve planned back then to have achieved in life at the point of 25. A good job, maybe a master's, a solid romantic relationship, for sure. Yeah, as you can imagine where this is going, that’s not what I quite have here right now (to be honest, it's not even slightly close), and I know I’m not any special youngster in this situation.

Lately, it looks like we’re living in an era where is the norm to say that going through this "is ok", something like a cool and "woke" trend (maybe the first coaching talk we've seen emerging? Something to investigate). We hear that everybody has its own space, rhythm, and time, and we don’t have to worry so much about it or be too hard on ourselves, correct? Well, that's mostly true, definitely, but it's easy to say, not to play. And, believe me, I’m trying to embrace this idea of "respecting my own journey". Until that fully happens, I’m just pretending that I’m fine with that.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that I still have a whole lot of life to live ahead of me, and I am thankful for everything that I have, especially in these chaotic, uncertain times, and I surely don’t take that and all that I have achieved so far for granted. But, God, I had planned so much more for me to have gotten at this point. I wasn’t raised to be regular, common, and even the ideas that I’ve envisioned for me as a child weren't just ordinary. I wanted to be great, to stand out, to do something good for the world, for the people. I was passionate about so many things that I've later decided to ignore, even if subconsciously. Music, writing, drawing, creating. But I was also very good at math. I’m honestly almost convinced that this one is what brought me to this point, ‘cause it made people treat me as a genius in school, solely because of that. I've been driven to think that I should pursue a career that involved math, because of financial safety and all, and, well, “your just so good at it!”, they'd say. It turns out that I'm not that good, I'm just average. And, more importantly, not very passionate about anything around it. And now I have to overcome the kid who believed she was pretty amazing at something she’s not really that amazing at, having to come to the terms that I was fooled by my grades. Damn you, math! Damn you, chemistry and physics! Damn me, who didn’t realize earlier that I should take another direction to be happy!

Ok, I know I’m being a little bit dramatic, but I’m all about the drama lately, so let me do it! Also, my period is coming in the next few days, so you can’t totally blame me, it’s just pure nature. Yes, “it’s never too late to go after your dreams”, I know all about that. I've been saying it to myself for a while, sometimes non-stop, and I’m really trying to take it as a mantra, but I have to admit it’s just not that easy. If you’ve been or are currently in a situation similar to mine, you know that too. To see your friends, cousins, people who went to school with you traveling, being promoted, getting married, living wild love stories… while nothing of that is happening to you. I mean, good for them, they’ve earned it! But... I don’t know, it’s just like I’m being left behind in life, and wasting my youth because of bad decisions and lack of clarity to know what I genuinely wanted. But we can’t really go back on time, can we? Nor have a guarantee of what the future holds for us according to each decision we make. We just have to look within ourselves and believe our instinct to guide the steps we'll take. Well, mine hasn’t helped a lot until now, thank you very much. Instead, it has brought me to this moment, where I’m rambling about life disappointments in a blog at 01:40 am on a Monday, while watching tarot reading videos on YouTube in the hope to find guidance. Sounds promising.

Fine, maybe it’s really just that time of the month that it’s enhancing this feeling in me. Or, perhaps, it’s the realization that this pandemic it’s actually gonna take a much bigger impact in everybody’s lives than I could have ever anticipated, or that everyone could, and that we’re gonna be forced to recalculate the route of our lives. Speaking of such, how incredibly unlucky it is that the biggest pandemic since, I don't know, the Spanish flu had to happen exactly at the peak of my youth, right? Such a doomed generation, we have to admit, losing our most energetic years locked inside the house. Ok, that’s a little too selfish, but it doesn’t make it a lie.

Well, truth be told (and faced), this is the raw, somewhat bitter reality I have to deal with. At least it's already revealed, at least I’ve found out relatively early that the path I was walking wasn’t quite the right one for me. And, let’s be honest, almost nobody has the life all figured out at 25, that's a lie we're induced to believe based on exceptions and modern young adult novels. At the end of the day, I know I have to stop complaining and start doing what is within my reach to change my current scenario, ‘cause I have a huge role in the transformation of my life's script. Of course, I can’t control every single little aspect of it, and there isn't a infallible way of knowing what’s gonna turn out to be the best choice to make, the best road to drive through. But I can do something, a lot of things, I can take action, and even the smallest acts can have a big impact to change the story sometimes. I have to, as I’ve said earlier, embrace the coaching talk about never being too late to change, about accepting living at my own pace. Let’s do that and see where it takes me, shall we? Press play.

#time #personal #reflective #path #route #vent #life #decisions #future #uncertain #change #new beginnings #move on #play #thoughts

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lesbianlovelanguage · 4 years ago

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can I request 25 from the fanfic prompt list? from stranger-steeb 🧡🧡🧡

Of course you can hun! Thank you for it💛💛💛 @stranger-steeb

25. “I could tell it was your favorite book because of all the notes you wrote in the margins.”

—

Steve hated English class.

Not only was the teacher a spawn of Satan himself, but he didn’t get it. At least math had rules. He wasn’t good at following them, but he knew where he went wrong.

In english he never understood what he got wrong, until Billy Hargrove came along.

They had been in the same third-period english class for almost half of a semester when Billy suddenly decided to take an interest in Steve’s academic life.

He sat directly behind Steve, and when Ms. Lillith passed back their book reports on Great Expectations, he peeked over Steve’s shoulder to see the bright red F.

“Damn, Pretty Boy. All looks and no brain huh? How did you fail a paper like this?” He shook his own book report, which proclaimed Billy had earned an A+ in the same red script.

“Like you said Hargrove. I’m a fucking dumbass. Now piss off.” Steve turned around and resolutely ignored Billy’s constant pestering for the rest of the period. When the bell rang, he was the first one out of his seat and out the door.

Robin was home sick, and Steve still couldn’t be around Nancy and Johnathan for too long without feeling a piece of his heart break, so he was sitting alone in the library during lunch, attempting to decode Ms. Satan’s comments on his paper between bites of ham and cheese.

He was so invested in trying to understand the jumble of letters her cursive always turned into that he hadn’t noticed someone else slid into the chair across from him until he felt a boot push against his shin and a whispered voice.

“Stevie. Psst. Stevie.” Billy was terrible at whispering.

“What do you want Hargrove?” Steve snapped, already feeling a headache forming.

“Such venom Pretty Boy! I just wanted to see what King Steve is doing eating lunch by himself. Must be important to drag you away from your adoring fans.” Billy had an innocent smile, but the glint in his eye was teasing as he snatched the paper out of Steve’s hands. “Is this that book report?”

“Yeah, dickhead. It’s also none of your business.” But Billy wasn’t listening to Steve any more, instead reading over his paper and making a face Steve couldn’t read.

“Damn Stevie. You didn’t tell me you had dyslexia. Now I feel like a real asshole,” Billy said, setting the stack of papers down.

“You are a real asshole. And I don’t have some disease, so fuck off.” He expected Billy to finally leave, but he was never one to do what Steve expected.

Instead of walking away, Billy seemed to settle further in his seat, and pulled out a green pen. He looked at Steve with a raised eyebrow and grabbed the paper back.

“Do you even know what dyslexia is Steve?” Thrown off by the use of his actual first name, Steve just shook his head quietly. “It’s a learning disorder. Doesn’t mean your stupid though. Means your brain works differently.”

“Thank you Dr. Phil. Can I have my paper back? I need to figure out what she wrote so I can work on the next one,” Steve made another attempt to grab his paper back, but Billy leaned back in his chair and held it over his head.

“I could help with that. I could be, like your tutor, or some shit.” Steve stopped reaching across the table and stared at Billy, puzzled.

“You, Billy Hargrove, want to be my tutor?”

“Why not? We’re amigos after all. Can’t have you flunking out, where’s the fun in that?”

Steve bit his lip as he thought about his options. Billy was a grade A asshole, but he did have like straight As too.

“Sure. But just tutoring. No funny shit, alright? And I’m not paying you.”

And thus it began. They agreed to meet at Steve’s house twice a week at 7pm, one day to work on Steve’s essay, and one where Billy helped Steve with the assigned reading. Those were the worst days.

No matter how much Steve protested and whined and bitched, Billy insisted on taking turns reading it out loud. He would read a chapter, smooth and easy, and then make Steve read a chapter, where he stumbled over easy words and mispronounced the hard one. By the end of those nights, Steve was lobster-red and as grumpy as a wet cat.

Despite the protests and embarrassment, it was actually working. Steve was able to speak up in more in class discussions, which led to a rising participation grade, and his ‘reading journal’ was actually somewhat legible since Billy could help him put thoughts into words.

They were celebrating the fact that Steve had managed to get his D up to a C with pizza and beers when Billy got a call and had to rush home with a hurried “I forgot to pick up Max.”

He ran out the door and was roaring down the driveway before Steve even noticed that Billy had left a book behind.

It wasn’t the book they were reading for class, but instead a beat-up book with yellowing pages. The cover said that it was a collection of poems by Sylvia Plath.

Steve had never heard of her, but Steve’s interest was peaked purely because Billy didn’t seem like the kind of guy who read poetry unless it was assigned for class. He picked it up gingerly, as if the tattered pages would turn to dust in his hands and then wandered into the kitchen for a glass of water. He put it on the small breakfast table before filling up a glass and returning to sit down and peruse through it.

Inside was absolutely covered in different colors of ink, all in Billy’s handwriting.

Notes, Steve realized. Notes Billy had scribbled along the margins as he read the poems. Most of them were pretty generic, underlining words and thoughts about the metaphors, except one poem.

The titled said that the poem was entitled “Mad Girl’s Love Song” and in the margins, Billy had scribbled two words. Words Steve had come to associate with a mocking tone and crooked smirk.

Pretty Boy.

Steve couldn’t understand what Billy meant, and instead of trying to unravel the mystery, Steve decided to go to bed and return the book to its rightful owner tomorrow.

Steve didn’t get the chance to give it to Billy until after english, where he followed the boy to his locker.

“You forgot this at my place. I could tell it was your favorite book because of all the notes you wrote in the margins.”

“Shit. Thanks Pretty Boy,” Billy said, and Steve couldn’t help but think of the Pretty Boy scrawled next to a poem about a Mad Girl’s Love, wondering if it meant something.

“No worries Billy. Seemed important.”

“Did you look inside?” If Steve hadn’t been spending two days a week with him, he wouldn’t have been able to tell that the white knuckle grip on his locker and the creases in his eyebrows meant Billy was nervous.

“Yeah, just flipped through it really.” Steve was almost certain that Pretty Boy and Billy’s sudden and uncharacteristic nervousness meant one thing, which is what gave Steve the courage to lean forward. “I really liked Mad Woman’s Love Poem, except I have to disagree with the ending. I don’t think she made anything up in her head,” Steve’s voice was low and pitched. Billy’s eyes widened and he dropped his hand from his locker door.

“You sure?”

“Mhm,” but before Steve could lean in more to close the distance, the bell rang for their next period.

They decided to hide in one of the furthest bathrooms and discuss the poem further.

—

They totally made out in that bathroom btw. Also I love Sylvia Plath, please read the poem! It’s like perfect pining Billy.

tag team: @lostnoise @gideongrace @stevefuckingharrington @a-magey @trashmouth-hargrove @catharrington (lmk if you would like to be added/removed from the list!)

#harringrove #billy hargrove #steve harrington #tay writes

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consumedkings-archive · 4 years ago

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All 5s for Miss Arden who is she queen give us the deets xoxo

dove!!! hello!!! thank u for the ask about my girl!! ilu ;-; partially under the cut for mentions infertility, and also for length, because i don’t know how to shut up ♡

detailed oc questions!

5. do they have any siblings? what’s their names? what is their relationship with them? has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults?

arden has multiple siblings, but she has no idea who they are, where they are, what they’re like as people, or even how many she has. she was adopted at two years old by a wealthy couple in new york, and the adoption was such that the parents did not want to be located or found later, so their names and information are unknown to her. not that she’s ever had any desire to find them!

10. do they like children? do children like them? do they have or want any children? what would they be like as a parent? or as a godparent/babysitter/etc?

she loves children. kids are the fucking coolest, man. they ask a lot of questions, and arden is so full of facts and knowledge that she almost always has an answer, but most importantly she really loves how free of the inhibitions of adulthood children are!! they’ll put pretty much anything in their mouths!! they almost all love animals unconditionally!!! that shit rocks!!

she definitely wants to have her own children. in her pre/no cult au i have for her with jacob, they’re together for quite a while before they decide they want to try for kids, which ends up being an incredibly long and arduous process where arden has to go through several instances of ivf--and even then the doctors are still concerned that it would possibly come down to choosing between arden and baby. they do have!! a baby though!! safely and without any further complications, and arden is probably exactly the kind of mother people would expect: loving, patient, doting. she’s much less strict than jacob is but puts a heavy emphasis on being fully and thoroughly educated.

15. are they good at cooking? do they enjoy it? what do others think of their cooking?

arden’s a great cook! or, at least in the sense that her food always tastes good. her brain tends to vibrate at a different frequency most all the time from the people she spends time with, and so it often looks like she’s a hurricane just busting through the kitchen when she’s cooking, always focused on the task at hand rather than keeping things clean and tidy as she cooks. it’s absolute chaos. but the food does end up tasting good, and arden enjoys it--she loves the catharsis of cooking, lol.

20. do they like musicals? music in general? what do they do when they’re favourite song comes?

while she has no particular love for musicals, arden does have a very funny love for music. it’s like, not what most people who like music feel (when you play music, it reinforces the part of your brain that does math, which arden thinks is very cool) and when her favorite song comes on she stops literally everything she’s doing to listen and enjoy it.

(and her favorite song is black hole sun by soundgarden)

25. what do they find funny? do they have a good sense of humour? are they funny themselves?

people. arden finds people funny. she thinks humans are an incredibly funny collection of creatures, diverse and complex and funny, and i think sometimes that makes her humour translate as like...a little more dark? she’s usually pretty matter of fact and almost never says something she doesn’t mean, which means that her humour tends to focus on things that are real and tangible and accurate and then using it to make a point. you know, like “find the thing that you don’t like about you and then make a joke out of it” kind of humour, but without the malicious intent--she’s real big on acknowledging and accepting our personal faults and doesn’t see anything wrong with noticing them in other people too.

30. do they exercise? regularly? or only when forced? what do they act like pre-work out and post-work out?

she does exercise, and regularly! arden is exceptionally fit. she’s pretty much all wiry muscle and leg. she spent a long time in high school and college not taking very good care of her body and then pushing it to its limits to see how far she could go, and that inevitably ended up impacting her ability to have children. now, she takes meticulous care of her body, and that includes regularly working out in healthy ways. pre and post work out arden are pretty much exactly the same as regular arden, except that she might seem a bit more relaxed post-work out.

35. what’s their guilty pleasure? what is their totally unguilty pleasure?

guilty pleasure would be buying notebooks. arden has a vast and unending collection of notebooks (which are empty), and which she insists she’s going to fill one day with all of her thoughts (which are many), and they fill up a solid two shelves on her bookshelf. somewhere deep down i think she knows that she will never have the time nor the ability to sit still long enough to actually write something down in them, beyond using them for scrap paper, and there are plenty of times where jacob has tried to get her to let go of some of them, but you know.

unguilty pleasure would definitely be doing shit at the vet clinic for free. the staff like to refer to her as “doctor write-off” because she just can’t stand to see an animal come in needing help and their people can’t pay for it.

40. do they like energy drinks? coffee? sugary food? or can they naturally stay awake and alert?

arden is that really annoying person who drinks one (1) cup of coffee and then she’s fine. she’s meticulous about her circadian rhythm and sleep cycles, which means she’s almost always rested. because her brain runs at 100 mph, energy drinks/too much coffee/sugary foods can make her feel unbearably jittery--though she does enjoy a good slice of cheesecake now and then.

45. how do other people see them? is it similar to how they see themselves?

arden has almost no filter, and i think that makes it so that people’s impression of her is usually pretty accurate to exactly how she is--and i think most of the time, people think she’s a little odd. she’s quite smart and will often try to pace herself and her thoughts for other people, so that she’s not running ahead of them five or six tangents down the road, but this is a habit that later jacob tries to break her of--because she’s smart, she shouldn’t have to dumb herself down for people--and this usually translates in conversation that she isn’t actually paying attention, which just isn’t true. she is paying attention, she’s just also thinking, and that means her brain is somewhere way past where the conversation is, currently.

but she’s also an exceptionally warm person, in the kind of straightforward, matter-of-fact way. she has almost no tolerance for people making mistakes on her watch, but she’s never vicious about it--not until someone’s really pushed her.

50. if they could only take one bag of stuff somewhere with them: what would they pack? what do they consider their essentials?

books books books! arden will read through books over and over and not get tired of them. endless entertainment. but also, books about subjects she doesn’t know very much about--like architecture, she loves learning about architecture and design. she can’t fit them in the bag but she’d take castor and pollux, the dogs, of course; wherever she goes they go!

#ask games #ash.txt #ch: arden hale #tomexraider #dove ilysm

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vanchlo · 5 years ago

Text

The Assistant /Chapter Twenty-Six, “Old Faces”

Catch up on reading or start from the beginning HERE! :-)

Thanks for reading! c:

SNEAKY PEEK TIMEEEEEEEEE!!!

Something inside of my chest falls and for the first time in weeks, my thoughts are flooded with her. And I’m worrying about her, missing her, and wanting to hear her voice. I’m feeling all of the things and thoughts I’ve done such a great job at suppressing for the last few weeks.

Because before, only the alcohol could, but I couldn’t do that anymore. I knew she’d be disappointed. And once that thought wormed its way into my brain, I couldn’t entertain it for more than a minute. And so I dumped out the bottles and threw them in the bin.

Now, I feel myself fill with regret at that because once again I want to drown the feelings.

Because I’m hurting thinking about all of the hurt and pain she’s feeling.

“Awww, my little baby on her first day of school!”

“Oh, would you stop?” I groan in annoyance. But I can’t get rid of the smile pinching my cheeks.

“You’re looking like a lawyer already, Boops!” Skye comments as I stop in front of her at the island. She sets down her Winnie the Pooh mug and just smiles at me. It’s a rare occurrence. “And don’t you start saying that I can’t call you that. I’d say it’s rather fitting for a day like this.”

“Fine. Only today you can call me that old nickname that’s been dead for decades,” I reply before looking down at my outfit. “I’m not too overdressed, am I?”

“No, I think you look very nice. And you should dress to impress, they say.”

“Mmmmhmm,” I respond, flattening the patterned long-sleeve blouse I wear. Black jeggings cover my lower half.

“Are you excited?” Skye’s question hits me as I reach for a glass from the cupboard. I watch the golden orange juice splash into it.

“Yeah, I really am. I know I’ve already been down this road, but I feel so much more confident and excited this time around.”

“Well that says something,” she replies and I nod at her answer. The slice of bread sinks into the toaster as I set down the jar of jam with my other hand.

I grab a plate and scoop the rest of the scrambled eggs onto it that Skye left for me. “I’m dying a girl’s hair rainbow today, so there’s my big bang,” she comments enthusiastically with her sky-blue eyes twinkling. I smile at the excitement in her voice.

It finally looks like we’ve found our callings, I think to myself. A second later, I almost cringe at myself, but at the same time, I’m grateful for the happy thought.

“So most of your classes are online?”

“Yeah, but I have this one that I have to go on campus for. It’s one of the important ones,” I reply before a bite of scrambled eggs passes my lips.

Ding!

Dragging my phone across the counter, I look at my lit-up screen. A new text appears on my screen to join the others.

Asher:

Good luck on your 1st day back!!! Hoping everything goes well and you get nice teachers!!! Take deep breaths!!! Dont forget to tell me how it went :)

Sophie (Boss):

Wishing you a great first day back, Becky! We’re all so proud of you and we can’t wait to see the great things you do! Good luck!

Robbie:

Proud of u for going back Ree. Keep ur chin up. I cant wait 2 hear all about it. Excited 2 hang out with u and dad this weekend back home. Love u sis.

Daddy:

Happy 1st day of school 2 my big 25 year old! I hope ur 1st day back is gr8 Boops. Good luck! Take ur time & ask ?s. Call when u get home. I want 2 hear how it went. Love u! xoxo

A smile creases my cheeks as I read the words. I hear his familiar voice inside of my head, and warmth radiates through my chest. It makes me ache for one of his hugs and forehead kisses. I swipe right on my Dad’s text and click on the space to enter my own text.

Thanks so much, Dad! I’m really excited, but nervous. I feel like people might know I’m the dropout… But luckily I only have only one face-to-face class, and the rest are online. I hope that you are feeling better. Let me know if you need anything. I can’t wait to see you this weekend! Love you, Daddy! Xoxoxoxo

The lecture hall is smaller than I remember, and less run down. Hmmm, maybe my experience is actually going to help me to not be so afraid and intimidated, I think to myself. After walking up several stairs, I choose an empty table in the middle of the hall. Students mill around talking and checking online course content and Snapchat. Their chatter fills my ears as I set down my violet backpack and sit down. I place my laptop in front of me, along with a fresh notebook, my planner, and my little bag of pens and pencils. As I boot up my new laptop, the seats around me fill up. It’s not long before the professor takes a seat at the table at the front. His graying hair is tied into a short pony at the back of his head. The class quiets down at his arrival, but there aren’t many of us in the cohort. Around 50 or so.

Looking up behind his horn-rimmed glasses, a smile sparks behind his thick gray beard. “Oh, don’t mind me. We still have a couple of minutes until class starts, and I’m sure this bloody computer will take that and longer to start up,” he quips, and my classmates and I reply with laughter. “If everybody’s here, we can at least start with introductions. Shall we?”

“I’m Professor Alcott and I’ll be your guide for Criminal Law this semester. It’s great to see a group of smiling faces eager to dive into the nastier side of law. I practiced full-time for around 25 years until I arrived at this university. I thought I’d like to guide young minds into the law world, and so here I am. I still practice occasionally when I’m not teaching. It fulfills my craving to be back in the courtroom when I’m not in the classroom. Now, who would like to go next?”

Maybe this won’t be so bad.

“It sounds like your first day couldn’t have gone better, Boops.”

“Yeah, I actually think you’re right, Dad,” I reply, sinking lower into the welcoming sheets of my bed.

“You don’t have to say it like I’m not usually right,” my dad jokes back with a weak laugh. My smile falls at that, wondering if I’ve ever heard a hearty chuckle absent from his voice.

“I-I’m not, don’t worry . . Are you feeling any better, or are you still having those um pains you were talking about?” I ask tentatively, worry and care sewn into my words.

“I’m okay. They come and go,” he replies softly with few words.

“Are you going to go to the doctor like I’ve been begging you?”

“Yes, Becky. I have an appointment for tomorrow morning. Just like I promised

you,” he replies with emphasis in his words. I try to find the fear in his words. But either he’s doing a great job of masking it, or it’s simply not there.

“But you cancelled the last one, Dad.”

“I didn’t mean to cancel it, Becky,” he sighs. “I made it and found it got in the way of work. I forgot to reschedule it. I’m sorry.”

“I know, Dad. I just want you to get looked at. I don’t want something to be wrong,” I say quietly, feeling the fear creep up my throat. But I try my hardest to push it back down, because I can’t let it in. I can’t worry about my Dad anymore than I already am. I have school now and my job. I just can’t.

“I know, sweetie, and neither do I. Everything’s going to be fine, my love. You needn’t worry,” my dad tells me in his soothing deep voice. The same voice that lulled me to sleep with bedtime stories, explained maths homework to me whilst I cried in frustration, and told me it was okay when I dropped out of law school. He’s always been there to tell me it’s going to be okay, and now I know I need to be the one telling him it’s going to be okay.

I just hope that I’m telling him the truth.

Madley looks just the same. But it doesn’t.

New shops have opened up. Old ones have closed down. New developments have sprung up. Patches of woods have been cut down. The city park has a new playset instead of the one I grew up on. My former primary school has a new addition. Roads were redone. New ones were made.

I made the drive easily, knowing it like the back of my hand by now.

But at the same time, it’s hard. Because I have this off feeling sitting heavy in the pit of my stomach. And I can’t name it, or make it go away. It’s been there all morning, and I can’t figure out how to get it to go away.

It grows as my footsteps sound on the sidewalk leading to the front door of the house I grew up in. Shoots of grass inch through new cracks in the cement. The daffodils wilt against the steps leading to the front door.

The feeling in my gut flares, making me stop. I take a second to look harder. The cream paint that’s defined my childhood home is peeling in places. The grass hasn’t been cut in a while. I can’t remember the last time I saw it long, and not neatly cut. Patches of prematurely fallen leaves scatter the usually clean walkway. The glass window panes on the top half of the door are smudged and dirty. I don’t get another second to look harder, because the front door opens and a smile waits for me.

Perhaps my favorite one.

“Hi, baby girl,” my dad coos, letting go of the door. It creaks before closing as I watch my dad pad down the steps and wrap me in a hug.

I exhale into my dad’s chest clad in one of his typical Nike jumpers. Letting go of my suitcase, my arms find their way around him by instinct.

“How was your trip?” he asks in his deep voice. His scruffy cheek falls onto the top of my head, and he holds me against his chest.

“Good, thanks. The usual,” I reply. I squeeze him and try not to notice how my arms go around him easier than the last time. I just try to find comfort in his familiar smell of the same laundry detergent he’s used for 30 years.

“Good. Robbie just got here. I’m finishing up lunch right now, it’s almost ready,” he informs me.

“Oh no, don’t leave Robbie around food cooking on an open flame,” I joke, feeling one of his large hands comb through the hair at the top of my head.

He laughs and mine echoes his. But I’m afraid that they’re both forced. Dad releases me from the cocoon-like hug, but not before planting a kiss on my forehead. The same kind of kiss he’s given me since the day I was born. Always the forehead.

“We better hustle then,” he quips, stepping to the side to pick up my violet suitcase. I smile at him and he mirrors it as he holds the door open for me.

“I think something’s burning!” I hear Robbie exclaim in a confused tone.

“How do you even survive on your own?” I answer, toeing off my shoes in the entryway. I push them to the side with my foot to sit on the red rug. Beside Dad’s white Nikes green from mowing the lawn. Robbie’s black vans.

“On microwavable ramen, hot pockets, cereal, and chicken nuggets. Duh,” Robbie replies, garnishing an eye roll from me. But he can’t see it.

The same brown plaid couch stares back at me a few feet away in the living room. My dad sets my suitcase down by the wooden stairs a few steps in front of me.

“You just stir it, you goon!” my dad tells Robbie, padding through the living room in his classic Levi jeans. “Did I teach you nothing when it came to cooking, or did you tune out that day?”

A Chelsea vs. Arsenal game plays softly on the telly. But its only viewer is the In-Fisherman magazine sloppily laid on the couch.

“No, I’m pretty sure I was stoned that day,” Robbie replies softly with a wry chuckle. My dad sighs and clucks his tongue at my brother.

“Any day now, Ree!” Robbie shouts to me. But I hardly hear him, because my thoughts are wound up in the uncharacteristic pill bottles I see on the side table. And the brochures that I can’t make out from this distance. I recognize a few as take-away. One has lots of words that I can’t read, but it makes my heart shrink regardless.

“Hey, everything alright?”

I look up and watch Robbie walk into the room. His pale skin the same shade as mine peeks out from the trendy holes in his blue jeans. He pushes his black button-down aside to pocket his hands. A familiar Marvel shirt peeks out from underneath.

Swallowing, my lips part, “Did Dad tell you what the doctor said?” I ask nervously, keeping my volume low so only he hears.

“No,” Robbie responds quietly. And I hear it in his voice. Because it’s the same thing I just heard in mine.

“Rob,” I mumble, looking him in the eyes. I feel something pass between us, and somehow I know that he’s thinking the same thing as me.

I look up at the ceiling, trying to will the tears away, but it never works. Because I’ve tried it so many times in the last few days as I worried why my dad didn’t tell me what his doctor said on Tuesday.

“Lunch will be ready in a few minutes. Why don’t you lot go and wash up?” my dad announces, and I nod automatically. But I know I can’t go upstairs and wash my hands in the sink that I have for the last 20 years. And that my dad does every day.

Before I know it, the fall sunshine is welcoming me back. I don’t hear the door close with a metallic smack. All I hear are soft footsteps and the sound of sobs leaving my lips. I blink and feel Robbie’s arms go around me.

“I’m scared, too,” he confesses, tears choking his words that echo my silent ones.

“I’m so afraid that he is, too,” I reveal into his neck that soon grows slick with my tears.

“Did you notice how he looks?” Robbie asks into the crown of my head, his lips moving against my hair. I feel his warm tears meet my scalp.

“Mmmhmm. He’s so pale. And he’s lost weight.”

“Yeah, and he tries not to show it, but he’s tired,” Robbie adds in. His chest shakes underneath me and I hear him hiccup from the crying. “I dunno if he’ll even eat. It looks like he hasn’t been recently. There’s like nothing in the fridge, Ree. We need to buy him groceries. It looks like he hasn’t left the house in days.”

All I can do is nod, and I do. Because the tears are too thick, and what am I even supposed to say? How do I put these terrible feelings into words, much less ones that make sense?

“I know, Ree, I know,” Robbie coos soothingly.

But somehow it brings me comfort to know that Robbie is feeling all of the same things and having all of the same thoughts as me. Stupid twin intuition or not, I just know. And at the same time, it makes my heart squeeze harder in pain.

“Kids, come on!” We hear our dad call from inside the house.

I leave Robbie’s arms and find his tear stricken face looking down at the ground. I brush the hair out of his eyes; the hair the same dark chocolate color as mine. His eyes the same ice blue as my own meet mine painfully. I swipe my finger under them to catch the tears. His fingers wrap around my hand and give it a squeeze.

“Let’s go eat lunch with our dad,” he mumbles, his voice still shaky.

I nod and squeeze it back. The same hand I’ve been holding ever since before I was born.

My partner in crime for life.

My twin.

“Go and splash cold water on your face, it’ll help. You can always say that I splashed soap in your eye.”

“Yeah, and how’s that going to sound if that happened to both of us?” he questions, pulling me by the hand into the house with a laugh. I make sure to close the door quietly before following him up the staircase. The sound of our dad’s whistling carries up the stairs and to my ears.

I savor it.

I never want to forget the first music I ever heard, and the one that never fails to calm me. Next to his soothing voice.

My daddy.

The rest of our day was better, but worrying about my dad was always at the back of everything. Silent, yet nagging. It interrupted all of the moments.

The laughing over a plate of home-cooked food.

The jokes and stories that passed the time of washing dishes.

The traditional walk around the block.

Our visit to the local library’s book sale.

Dad’s usual drive around town filling us in on everything we’ve missed.

So and so died.

She had a kid.

They got married.

They’re building this there.

That bloke went to jail.

It disrupted watching reruns of Doctor Who on BBC.

It returned after a cozy mid-day nap at dad’s elbow, strong as before.

It nagged at the back of my head when the phone would ring.

It sat in the circles of Robbie’s eyes when they locked with mine.

It filled the empty spaces between our conversations.

That question sat at the back of my head and in the pit of my stomach all day. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask it. Because I couldn’t confront the possibility of hearing the answer I dreaded most.

“Boy, you make one good pizza, baby girl,” my dad smiles as he stretches his arms to the ceiling.

I nod, slapping an automatic smile on my face. It doesn’t stay long when my eyes carry over to his plate holding the third slice he couldn’t eat. Another detail I noticed that’s unlike him. Because I can’t stop noticing them, and each one hurts more than the last.

Before I can stop it like all of the other times, my vision grows blurry. I feel my throat take after it and I couldn’t swallow if I tried. I lift my eyes over to Robbie across the small kitchen table, and it takes a second. But he feels me looking at him and hesitantly makes eye contact with me. He nods after a second. Watching the tears fill his eyes makes the first one fall from mine.

I sniffle out of habit and see my dad turn to look at me out of the corner of his eye. That parent hearing, that intuition. Heat rises to my cheeks and I hear my name leave his lips. Then he turns to look at Robbie and sighs.

“Dad, I can’t pretend anymore. I’m sorry, but I can’t. We can’t,” I say, my voice breaking at the beginning and staying that way. Tears shadow all of my words, and they only grow worse when I feel Robbie grab my hand under the table. “I can’t keep pretending that everything is okay because we know that it isn’t,” I finish, finally taking the next dreaded step. I look my father in the eyes and find in them the answer I’ve been searching for all day long.

His ice-blue eyes, the same color as mine and Robbie’s, stare back at me. They too are full of unspent tears, but it doesn’t last long. Soon they are falling down his cheeks stubbly with graying hair. His long, tan fingers comb through his hair the same shade as that of the hair on his children’s heads. Gray streaks speckled throughout fall from his fingers when he lets go. He clenches his hand into a fist that hits the table. Dad stares it before he lets it relax.

Looking back up, my heart lurches when his eyes reconnect with mine. Because I know what he’s going to say, and I don’t want to hear it.

“I have prostate cancer . . Stage 2. That’s all they know right now.”

Dropping Robbie’s hand, the kitchen chair moves back with a whine. I put one foot in front of the other before my hand is opening the door. My resolve falls when I reach the last cement step, and my legs can’t go any further. My butt lands on the step and I fall into myself. I feel the tears spill from my eyes and coat the legs of my jeans. Loud sobs leave my lips as my entire body shudders with each one.

No. No. No. No. No

No, not my daddy.

Why my daddy?

Why my daddy who had to put up with an awful wife for years?

Why my daddy who gave his children everything they wanted?

Why my daddy who gave so much to everybody else?

He gave so much and did so much and this happens to him.

No. Not him. It has to be some mistake.

I can’t lose my daddy.

I lost my grandpa and then Harry.

I can’t lose another person I love.

I can’t imagine not hearing his voice on the other side of the phone. Or not getting his hugs that seem to fix everything. Or hearing his whistling or god awful singing.

I can’t live without my dad.

Sniffling, my fingers search blindly for my phone. Finding it in my back pocket, I turn my head slightly to look through blurry eyes. Unlocking it, I press on the app I look for. My fingers race across the screen with each number. Then, the name inside of my head shows up on the screen.

Harry

My thumb wavers over the phone icon. I swallow and feel another tear hit my cheek. How is it that I haven’t heard your voice or seen your face in almost 9 months, and yet it’s the only one I want right now?

I close my eyes and feel my forehead return to my knees. Pressing a button, my phone locks with a clicking sound. My arms wrap around my knees pulled to my chest, and I feel every tear. And every thought.

Until minutes later when a pair of arms wrap around my shoulders and pull me into their chest. I let my head fall onto them as it shakes with a sob. And then another pair of arms wrap around us. I feel a kiss to my forehead before the stubbly cheek tickles the top of my head.

“I’m not going anywhere, kids. I s-still need to see you lot get married. I need to watch you kick ass and become a lawyer. And walk Ree down the aisle, and make sure Bee names his firstborn son after me,” my dad cries, pulling his two children into the confines of his trembling chest. Robbie and I laugh, and our dad’s weak one echoes our own. “I’m gonna fight this. I might need your help, but I’m not giving up that easily. Your old man’s not a woosy.”

Laughs surround our tears as I hold onto my dad and my brother. A large part of my small world.

“I’m not going anywhere, dad,” Robbie gets out with tear-soaked words.

“And neither am I, daddy,” I echo, nuzzling my head into the crook of his neck.

I peek my eyes open and find Robbie on the other side of my knees. His head is lying on dad’s other shoulder. He reaches a hand across and intertwines his free hand with the one not wrapped around our dad. Unspoken words pass between us. After a few seconds, I know that the words we just spoke we promised to not just our dad, but to each other.

We ask questions and he answers. He’s known for only a day or two. The appointment last Tuesday was for a checkup like he said. They were able to do the biopsy later in the day. We cry into each other, feeling the same fear and pain. Uncertainties sit in the air between us as the sun sets behind the oak trees in front of us. The scene in front of me couldn’t look any different from a night of my childhood.

More than anything, I wish I could go back to one of those days. Ice lollies on the front steps sitting on dad’s jiggling knee. Him trying to get me to laugh. By his fingers tickling my ribs. His face contorting into funny faces. Or his imitations of characters I watched on the telly. His wrinkles and gray hairs gone. As well as his cute little beer belly. Mom calling for me to get in the bath with Robbie from inside the house. The Rolling Stones playing on the radio inside. Sounds of neighbor kids mingling with the music, as well as dogs barking. But we stay there and watch the shades of the rainbow paint the sky.

Although I know that I can’t go back, I let myself sit in that safe memory for a moment longer. Because sitting on my dad’s strong, tan knee in that 4-year old moment, everything was okay. And I want to enjoy that for a few minutes longer before I have to return to reality. Before I have to start living in a reality where things won’t be okay for a while, because my daddy isn’t okay. And because of that, neither am I.

I don’t know when I will be again.

My footsteps echo on the tile floor. Each one makes a sound with its own name, like in the Dr. Seuss books my mum would read to me when I was a kid.

Plop.

Klopp.

Dopp.

“Would you bloody leave already? I’m sick of seeing your bleeding face,” a voice quips from behind me.

I turn to find Myles following me. He titters with a smirk covering his stubbly face.

“Oh, would ya shuddup?” I return with a shake of my head, combing my fingers through my hair, but not much hair greets them.

“I thought you were done putting in these late nights,” he comments, his steps echoing my own now.

Pushing open the door to the supply room, I step up to the copier. “Nah, I still have sum stuff t’ finish up. Gotta prep fer my case that starts Monday,” I answer him, punching in my code on the touch screen.

A long ‘ah’ leaves his lips as he rummages in something behind me. Probably knicking some more of the nice pens before they’re gone.

“Well, I’m not a workaholic like you, so I’m leaving work before 5 on a Friday,” he tells me, assuming that I care. I chuckle, shaking my head at his pompous words. The copier sounds back at me, and takes the paper away with a woosh. “Please don’t bloody sleep here again. I don’t wanna have to hear complaints from the cleaning staff. And I don’t wanna have to pay you more than I have to.”

“I pay meself, ya cheeky bastard,” I scoff, turning to find him grinning as he stands with a foot out the door.

But his smile falls and along with it comes a squeeze on the arm from him. “Really, Hare, if you need to sleepover here I don’t mind. I know it wasn’t a nice joke . . I’m glad to see you’re doing better, though. Meaning, not as many empty bottles in your bin,” Myles continues softly. My amused expression falls when the seriousness arrives in his tone. “Yeah, I noticed ‘em, mate. Glad they’re not there anymore. Whatever you’re doing, it’s working. Keep at it.”

All I know to do is nod. He returns it and I watch the back of his blonde head walk away. I sigh, picking up the stack of papers waiting on the tray. I grab the original and rummage in the drawers until I find a binder clip. I fasten the papers together as I take my time walking back to my office. It’s even a little quieter than a few minutes ago. When I glance at my watch, I see why. It’s 5 o’clock on the dot.

Myles is gone.

Amelia is too.

Mick’s office door is dark and closed.

So is Rory’s, to no surprise, because he probably went out for drinks with My.

Rose is still working hard behind her closed door that classical music trickles out of.

Pete nods at me as I pass him in the hallway with an empty mug. Probably on his way for a refill.

But another person is still here. I see him before he sees me, but when he does I follow him to the shiny metal sliding doors.

“Ya aren’t anxious t’ get a start on yer weekend like e’rybody else? Or did somethin’ in IT break an’ ya gotta fix it?” I ask, stepping onto the elevator.

“Not really. It’s supposed to rain all weekend, so what’s the fun in that?” Asher replies, stabbing a random button. By now, I know the drill.

Push a random button and we have that long to talk.

About her.

“Good ol’ Fall rainstorms,” I comment, and he nods silently.

I hum a tune as the elevator dings with each floor we pass. And he doesn’t say a word, and yet neither do I. Because the point of these secret meetings is for him to talk. And for the most part, I just listen. It’s a silent understanding by now, or so I think.

“Yer makin’ me nervous not sayin’ anythin’,” I say, trying to laugh and offset the awkwardness. But it doesn’t help. And neither does the distraught look on his face when he meets my eyes.

“I need to tell you something,” he confesses quietly.

“Well ya, tha’s kinda tha whole point o’ these secret elevator meetin’s,” I smile, trying again to liven up the atmosphere. But he doesn’t smile, or crack a joke.

The smile I was toting around falls, and my mind swarms with thoughts.

Scary ones.

Worrying ones.

Questions.

Worst-case scenarios.

“Asher, i-is Becks okay? Did something happen?” I hurry, the words tumbling from my lips.

“Yeah, she’s okay, Harry. I guess you could say that.”

“Well, ‘s she hurt? Did she get inna accident? Break a bone? What ‘s it?” I ask, question after question spilling out.

“No, none of that,” he answers, shaking his head emphatically. “She’s fine, physically.”

“Then what?!” I continue, prodding him for answers that he won’t give up.

But the last part of what he says gets me. It hints at what he’s about to say, and it doesn’t make me feel any better. It doesn’t pull a relieved sigh from my lips like I wish it could, but it’s not like that.

When the gleaming metal doors slide open on the first floor, nobody is waiting there. Asher doesn’t give me time to look if anybody is coming, because he presses another button. Now, I know it’s serious. Pushed another button for extra time. Something happened.

“Asher-.”

“She called me crying last night,” he begins. His voice is quiet and he sounds like he’s trying to keep the emotions out of it, but they’re heard in every word. “Her dad found out he has prostate cancer, and she’s a mess. I dunno how to help her, or if you could either. But I just hate seeing her in pain and upset,” he reveals, the words loaded and dark.

I feel my back hit the railing on the wall, but I didn’t know that I was backing up into it. Something inside of my chest falls and for the first time in weeks, my thoughts are flooded with her. And I’m worrying about her, missing her, and wanting to hear her voice. I’m feeling all of the things and thoughts I’ve done such a great job at suppressing for the last few weeks.

Now, I feel myself fill with regret at that because once again I want to drown the feelings.

Because I’m hurting thinking about all of the hurt and pain she’s feeling.

“Yeah, I know whatcha mean,” is all I can say, because how the fuck do I put these thoughts into proper words? “Did she say anythin’ else ‘bout his diagnosis? Stages? Surgery? Chemo?”

“It’s still early, she doesn’t know a lot yet. I guess nobody does. He only just told her and Robbie last weekend. She’s trying to figure out how to rearrange her life to help take care of him,” Asher explains. I nod because that’s what you do when you don’t know what to say.

I don’t get a chance to ask any more questions, because the doors slide open again. A red-headed gentleman steps off 17 and I decide to step on. Looking over my shoulder, I meet eyes with Asher. “Thank you, Asher . . I mean it.”

He nods and I return it before turning around and walking back to my office. Goodbyes past between Rose and I, her long blonde curls dancing on her shoulders. Thunder clouds boom overhead and seconds later, I hear the rain begin falling onto the skylights. It makes the sounds from another Dr. Seuss book.

Splatt.

Boom!

Dibble Dibble.

Dopp Dopp.

Country music pours from Pete’s office, bringing a confused smile to my face. But it only stays for a second, because my thoughts return to Becky. I sigh, twisting open my office door. I stop in my tracks when I hear my Fleetwood Mac ringtone filling my office.

But it stops, and only then do my feet awake. Rushing over to my desk, I drop the stack of copies next to my computer. Forgetting them and working on prep work for my case, I shuffle through the mess on my desk. I lift up papers. Move books. Toss pens aside. Rearrange folders and pads of paper. And then I find it. The screen is black as it’s cupped in my hand.

But in a matter of seconds, I awaken it and see who I missed a call from. The breath in my lungs stills and my breathing halts. My ass hits my chair with a sigh, and I wheel around to face the window. Angry storm clouds await me as rain falls hard against the foggy class. Tapping my temple with my finger, my thumb sits inches away from the screen. I debate whether to call the person back or not.

Why would I?

How can I?

Should I?

I don’t have to decide, because the voice of Stevie Nicks spills from my phone’s speakers. And the image of that person’s face fills my screen. Their smile. Their magical eyes. Without hesitation, I slide my thumb across the screen. And press it to my ear.

“Hullo?” I say slowly, barely loud enough to hear myself. Because I can’t believe it.

“Harry?” the voice replies. A question frames their familiar accent, but something else does too. Thick tears.

“Becks . . are ya okay, love?”

#the assistant #pa harry #harry styles #harry styles au #fanfiction #wattpad #fanfic #writing #harry #lawyer harry #lawyer au #harry au #one direction

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mysweetestcreature · 5 years ago

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Tomorrow Never Knows (President!Harry) Chapter 10: Not a Bad Thing

(Banner by the wonderful noblewomankat!)

***

Monday November 24, 2008

It’s been days since they’ve had a normal conversation...or any decent form of communication for the matter. This past week had consisted of multiple attempts (on her part) to talk to him, but each time he’d make up some excuse to cut all dialogue short. “My mum’s waiting for me outside, maybe next time?” or “I’m actually late for practice, but I’ll catch up with you later,” but of course he never did. Beyond her comprehension is how she had managed to mess everything up so badly in so little time.

Eleven minutes.

Harry had arrived eleven minutes after she had accepted Jasper’s invitation. There’s nothing she can say that can justify why she’d done it because even she isn’t so sure. Maybe she was scared. She’d been so hopeful about where this friendship with him would lead them once before, and it had costed her the first heartbreak of her life. The biggest part of her wanted so badly to wait for Harry to ask her, but a small yet seemingly influential nerve had let her insecurities take over.

She wishes she hadn’t cared so much about what other people had thought, and instead used her own judgement. She hadn’t realized just how difficult it would be for their roles to be reversed, and she only has herself to blame for it.

“I wish you’d stop stressing,” Cici tells her as they do their warmup stretches. “I doubt he’ll be able to stay mad at you for much longer.”

“You might be wrong for once,” she smiles sadly, facing down to stare numbly ahead as she reaches for her toes.

Once she and Harry had parted (or more accurately, when Harry had left her standing ashamed in the hallway), Cici had found her sitting on the floor beside her locker, a somber expression painted all over her face.

“I messed up,” is all she had mustered up in that moment of fragility, dejected eyes having fallen into her lap. And Cici –– who had already passed an equally, if not more, crestfallen boy on her way to find Y/n –– was readily equipped with her words of enthusiasm, even if she was quite disappointed in the turnout of the day. “You made one mistake –– it doesn’t make you a bad person.” Doesn’t it, though?

Cici scoffs as she tightens her ponytail. “I am many things, but I am never wrong,” she says in a matter-of-fact tone –– almost arrogantly, if you ask Y/n –– before standing up and brushing the wrinkles from her skirt. “It’s not in my vocabulary.”

“But it’s in mine, apparently,” her lips curve down.

“I didn’t mean it like–”

“I know.” She rises to her feet. “It was a stupid decision and I wish I could redo it, but I can’t now. He can barely stand to be in the same room as me for more than a class period. He hasn’t dropped by the Home Ec. Room in who knows how long, and I haven’t been able to make a decent pumpkin pie since. Me? Screw up a pie? That doesn’t happen! This weekend I typed out twenty-seven texts that I never sent. Twenty-seven, Cici! Who does something like that?! All saying the same thing, that I like him so much that it makes my heart go crazy, and how it hurts that he might think otherwise because I’m going to this stupid dance with someone who’s not Harry and it fucking sucks!”

It leaves her chest to heave heavily, and her lungs to feel completely depleted of any oxygen. With an outburst like that, she’s managed to surprise herself. And while conversations amongst the other cheerleaders continue, it feels like she’s once again in the spotlight as the heat creeps up her neck and settles on her forehead and the apples of her cheeks.

Cici stands in front of her, eyes rounded in astonishment and mouth hung open wide. Her eyes quickly dart down at her arm.

“You’ve never cussed before, I literally just got chills!”

A smile slowly reemerges. “It felt good,” she admits, and she breathes out in relief as her shoulders feel lifted from at least a portion of the weight that had been set upon them. “I’ve been holding that one in.”

“No, that was totally clear.”

A restful silence falls upon them, and Y/n makes it an opportunity to reflect on the upcoming days. She needs to fix this and salvage whatever she can before they permanently fall apart. Hating to sound dramatic, but she has a strong feeling that if they can’t recover from this, then it could be over for good.

And that’s just not in the cards.

“I’m going to tell him.”

***

Tuesday November 25, 2008

“Got any plans for Thanksgiving?” Maxxie asks him.

Harry lets out a heavy sigh, staring down at his jumbled pile of flashcards on his desk. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been thinking about it constantly because it had been toying with his mind for the better part of the weekend. “You could say that, I guess.”

The answer, in all its vague glory brings about an amused grin from the boy across from him. Maxxie leans over the table and goes as far to lift his hips off the chair just invade his personal space. “What was that tone?” he gawks, wiping the cards off the surface of the table.

“Well...” he starts off timidly (a bit of annoyance mixed in because he’s going to have to clean up the mess later), and a small burp erupts from the back of his throat as a sign of his mild discomfort. “I was sort of...maybe...actually invited to...” but the tail of the sentence is nearly undecipherable to the human ear.

Maxxie squints his blue eyes across from him. “What was that? I didn’t quite catch all of it.”

Blowing out the air from his lungs, Harry’s head falls back so all he has to focus on are the dull cracks in the ceiling. Part of him still doesn’t believe it, or rather hadn’t thought it an admissible option given the recent events. He pokes his inner cheek outwards before letting out a tired groan. “We’re spending it with Y/n’s family, okay? There, I said it.”

“You’re bluffing!”

Harry whistles out a breath. “Not today, mate,” he chortles, rubbing the base of his palm against his left eye. “Jeremy literally asked my mum the day after...well, you know.”

“Are you going to be able to manage it?” there’s a weariness in Maxxie’s voice.

But honestly, Harry doesn’t know. Yes, he’s still broken up about the whole thing. Yet, the hardest part is being next to her and feeling as though he’s missed every chance that he’s had at being hers. Because he’s sure it’ll take him a long time before he’s over her, and that’s what hurts the most.

***

On Day 6, Pattern D finds itself at ten in the morning, the third class of the Tuesday before Thanksgiving break. To Y/n it’ll be the first class she has with Harry, meaning another chance to get things straightened out between them. Now that their positions are reversed, she feels even worse about having treated him so harshly the month before when there had been a hefty cloak of uncertainty to keep things understandably complicated.

Just as Mr. Daughtry’s door comes into sight, her path is intercepted by a body suddenly appearing before her.

“Hey, you!” Jasper greets her with a bright grin. There’s a moment of clumsiness when she predicts his fluid movements based on how his arm extends and fingers point in her direction as they rise to the height of her shoulder. In a slight panic, she twists arounds, pretending to fish for a pencil from the side pouch of her backpack. Luckily (for him) he’s able to stop himself from proceeding, and he shrugs the action off as he stretches that same arm over his head. With a skittish laugh he continues. “I feel like I haven’t seen much of you this week.”

“I’ve just been busy,” she mumbles, hugging her grey math notebook close to her chin. She can’t help but wonder if he isn’t late to some class, or club meeting, or some discussion about hair accessories (the latter causes her to snigger to herself).

Jasper simply nods, pulling slightly on the knot of his tie. “So, I told my mom about the formal and she’s super stoked that we’re going together,” he blushes. “I mean, I’m really happy you said yes.”

Meanwhile, the metallic taste of blood starts to fill her mouth the longer she keeps her tongue trapped between her teeth. “Yeah...” she struggles to find her voice. The right thing to do would be to come clean, to be straightforward with him and give him the honest answer he had deserved from the beginning.

Blowing the air from her nostrils, she parts her lips as they wrap around the words. “Jasper, I actually need to talk to you about that...”

“Karan! What’s up, man?”

She forces an unbothered appearance in front of Jasper’s friend –– Karan –– as they start a whole conversation of their own.

This is something she’s found to dislike very much, how Jasper always seems to forget that his friends aren’t her friends...well, at least none that she particularly like enough to call by such an intimate name. It bothers her because she doesn’t know if she can walk away or if this boy has any intention of including her or even continuing with what they’d started only minutes before.

She taps her foot contempt, not even caring if either find her actions to be tactless. All Jasper does is shoot half a smile before carrying on talking about the latest scandal to hit the tenth grade.

“I should really get to class,” she meddles in the momentary pause between speakers. “See you around.”

Before Jasper can send her off with a proper goodbye, she turns around and keeps en route for the classroom. As soon as she’s about to cross under the arch, she collides with another body, notebook falling from her hands and falling open-faced on the floor.

“’m sorry,” the other rushes out, his voice all too recognizable to her ears. Harry quickly picks up the notebook and holds it out for her to take, but all she notices is how his eyes remain low and unwilling to look at her.

“Thank you,” she whispers. He gives her a nod in response before signaling for her to go enter ahead of him. But she stays in glued in place. “Do you think we can...”

“There might be a pop quiz, I heard,” he interrupts, his hand finding the small of her back to gently prod her into the room. Despite it being nothing more than a graze of his fingers over her sweater, she still feels jolts of electricity run up her spine and tickle the back of neck.

With their arrival being just a minute or so before roll call, the only available seats are towards the very rear, two desks grouped together and pushed in the far-right corner of the room. His hand falls back to his side, the absence of his touch leaving her colder than she had just been. It makes her frown, and as they make their way to the back, the space between them only grows.

For her, this has to be the most difficult consequence to deal with.

“Alright, since everyone is settled in,” Mr. Daughtry starts, uncapping a blue dry erase marker. “Let’s go over last night’s homework.” And he ponders down at the reference notes on the podium, before the shrill squeaks of the marker against the whiteboard slowly begin to reveal an equation.

Beside her, Harry opens up his notebook, each homework problem neatly organized (this includes all the work he’d done to solve them) over two pages. She looks straight ahead, slightly squinting so she can decipher the correct answers on the board. “How is it 43?” she asks under her breath, staring down at problem #5.

“It was a negative two, not positive...which would mean b becomes positive in the expression,” he answers. He orients his notes towards her. “Right there,” he points to it with tip of his pencil. He leans in a little closer, elbow coming to rest on the table as his head tilts in her direction. Her heart goes crazy as he goes on to explain the steps of the equation. It’s the first time in days he’s willingly talked to her, even if it is about schoolwork. But she forces herself to shake off the feeling for the time being, if only to prevent herself from messing this up.

“How’d I even...” And she cross checks with his work, brows curling inward. “Oh, I’m such dummy. I didn’t even notice that!” she shakes her head and rubs her eraser over the page.

He looks at her for the first time today with a prelude of the softest smile. “You’re not.”

She offers him a toothy grin as she settles back down. Every now and again will she sneak an admiring gaze.

***

“Harry!” she calls after him. In the short period of time she’d taken to pack her things, he had already fled the room by the time she looked up. It took squeezing her way through two bulky juniors from their class to quickly find his mop of brown curls in the crowded corridor.

At the sound of his name, he begrudgingly comes to a stop. He sighs and scratches the back of his head, his internal monologue arguing that he should continue forward. The decision is to be outweighed by a greater influence.

“Hi,” Y/n says in a bit of a wheeze.

“Hi,” he returns, nodding. He watches as those around them disperse in their difference directions, until the hallway soon becomes barren during this first lunch period. “What’s going on?” he asks simply.

She absentmindedly goes to mess with a loose strand of hair. “I was just...” she snivels (allergy season can be a real nuisance). “Wanted to say that I’m really looking forward to Thursday.”

“Oh,” his mouth forms an o with his lips. He glances to the floor and wriggles his feet as though pebbles were buried in his shoes. “Yeah, I think my mum’s bringing trifle or some kind of dessert.”

“That’s sweet of her,” she affirms. “Are you excited?”

Harry looks up, noticing the hope embedded in her eyes. “It could be fun,” he says evenly. “Your dad seems pretty keen on watching the Packers game together. Mason, too, I guess.”

“Mason hasn’t stopped talking about it,” she admits shyly, but can’t help but giggle at the thought of her brother. “You know, he told his teacher that you were his best friend.”

It’s Harry’s turn to laugh. “Really?” Y/n nods enthusiastically. “He’s a cool kid. Tell him I’m honored.”

“You can always tell him on Thursday.”

Harry smiles. “I will.”

***

Thursday November 27, 2008

Thanksgiving Day has never been more stressful for Y/n. Not only has she been baking since last night (did someone say four different flavors of pie and three fall-themed cookies, and a carrot cake bigger than her dad’s head?) but she must have changed her outfit at least nine times in the last half hour. The Styles’ are expected to arrive at around 5pm, which means she only has another forty-five minutes to come up with the perfect ensemble. Earlier in the afternoon, it had just occurred to her that she hasn’t met Anne nor Gemma, and she’d be dishonest if she said she wasn’t ultra-nervous about it.

Gosh, how her stomach feels so full of air.

She wishes she could be as carefree as Mason because all he’s been fretting over is which boardgame to play with Harry after dinner and which Disney movie he’s going to have running on the laptop whilst Jeremy slaves away to the television at approximately 8pm.

“Do you think Harry likes Monopoly or Connect Four?” the little boy asks. She tears her attention from her cookie display to look down at her brother who’s holding two boxes up for her to examine.

“But, Mase,” she giggles, wiping her hands on her apron. “You don’t know how to play Monopoly.”

Mason looks at the box in his right hand and eyes it carefully. He gives her a signal of understanding before trotting off back into the living room to set up. Shaking her head, she continues setting up the cookies along the three-tier server. Hopefully, it’ll be enough to impress their guests. “It’ll be fine,” she tells herself.

***

The doorbell rings, and almost instantly does it cause alarm within Y/n.

“Oh my god!” she panics, running around the kitchen to quadruple check that everything is exactly as it should be. “Dad! Dad! Did you–”

“Yes.”

“How about the–”

“Yes.”

“Okay but what about–”

“Y/n,” Jeremy says sternly from the foyer. She closes her eyes as she listens to the bottom rim of the door brush along the mat. “Welcome! Nice to see you again, Anne. Harry, ready for that Packers game? Oh, hello! I don’t think I’ve met you yet?”

Her eyes widen, he must be talking to Gemma! Harry had told her stories about how close they are since Anne’s job requires a lot of traveling. Oh gosh, she must hate her for having done what she did to her brother. She knows this because she would absolutely despise anyone who would ever dare to hurt Mason. “I think I’m going to be sick,” she breathes unevenly and braces herself over the counter.

“Not to validate anything your father says,” Olivia sneaks up from behind, “but you really do need to relax.” She takes a good look at her daughter. “Weren’t you wearing the brown sweater?”

But before Y/n has the chance to answer, three new faces enter from the side, her heart skipping over multiple beats as she becomes tightlipped.

“Hello!” Olivia greets them. “We’re so happy to have you join us! I’m Olivia, by the way.”

Harry’s sister nudges him from behind. “Oh, um...” he looks behind him. “This is my mum Anne, and my sister Gemma.”

“So nice to meet you,” Anne smiles, and she extends a hand to Olivia, Gemma does the same. “You have such beautiful home. Are those chrysanths you have along the walkway? They’re absolutely stunning!”

Olivia covers a hand over her heart. “I like you already,” she sobs playfully. “Finally, someone who gets it! Two kids and neither of them share a love for gardening.”

“You can say that again,” Anne returns. The two share a laugh, and Olivia leads them into the dining room to continue on with their chat.

It leaves Y/n with Harry and Gemma, and she isn’t even sure where Jeremy might have wandered off to now. Harry whispers something into Gemma’s ear, and she rolls her eyes before shoving her elbow into his side. Y/n can’t help but wonder what he’s saying. Is it about her? Has he found something wrong? Stop this! She reaches behind her and pinches herself. Relax.

Taking a bold step forward, she strikes up conversation. “Hi, I’m Y/n.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Gemma replies, a warm aura radiating from her being.

Y/n tilts her head. “Good things, I hope.”

“Well,” the older girl starts, sending a smirk at her brother and sniggering when his eyes widen in realization. “This one never stops talking about you.”

Harry gasps, “Now wait just a minute.” But as soon as he’s about to come up with a rebuttal, he’s immediately attacked from behind with a hug. Short arms lock his legs together, and if it weren’t for his sister standing there for support, he would have most definitely fallen over. “There he is!”

“Harry!” Mason giggles, reaching his arms above his head, a notorious signal for Harry to lift him up. “Did you miss me?”

“Duh!” Harry teases. “How can I not miss my bestest mate?”

***

Dinner goes better than either she or Harry can expect. Their families seem to have taken well with one another, Anne and Olivia having already formed that instant bond over maternal care and green thumbs. Jeremy is shocked to hear that Gemma is interested in programming herself, and he’s even more impressed to learn that she’s in the process of building her own website. As for Mason, well...it’s a little hard not to fall in love this boy when all he pours out into the world is happiness, and maybe a little bit of cupcake frosting.

A seating arrangement had predetermined their positions at the table (thanks to Olivia and her brilliant mind). As it had happened, Y/n and Harry are seated beside each other, their chairs closer than usual with the extra chair on his other side. Although, it became apparent throughout dinner of the gap –– while not visible to the human eye –– that remains between them.

Y/n doesn’t understand why that is, especially since they’d seemed to be on better terms on Tuesday. While they hadn’t eaten lunch together, he did sit next to her during Spanish class so they could work on the conjugation exercise together. Sure, it hadn’t been the most romantic thing they could have done, but it was a start, right? But now she feels bothered that the extent of their communication today has been polite smiles and requests to pass whatever dish the other is closest to.

Deciding she’s had enough of this, she turns to him. “I’m really glad you’re here,” she whispers to him.

“It is the holidays, so...” he keeps his answer elusively.

She has to play it back in her mind to determine if there’s any underlying meaning behind it. Pushing around the remains of her pumpkin pie she speaks up again. “Are you still mad at me?”

He takes his time before answering, mulling over the words carefully. Yet, there’s no intelligible way to organize them to make it sound any better. “It’s not that simple.”

And that manages to stir something within her. “It’s either yes or no.”

“Y/n,” he warns, not wanting to cause a scene in front of their families. “Now’s just not the time to talk about it.”

She scoffs, shaking her head and willing herself not to cry. “It’s never the time with you.” And she excuses herself from the table.

***

Giving himself one last glance in the mirror, he wraps his hand around the copper knob. He takes a long breath as he prepares himself to rejoin everyone and pretend that he doesn’t wish he could be anywhere else today. For majority of the day, he had thought he’d moved on from the rejection. However, the more time he spends with her, the more those feelings regress him back to those open wounds. Despite how much he likes watching football with Jeremy and playing Connect Four with Mason, he can’t help but get distracted whenever she comes over and asks thoughtful questions about the game. And that distraction causes him to remember how difficult it’s been to keep up this charade.

When he opens the door, he’s immediately met with her figure looking up at him with doe-like eyes. His jaw clenches as he tries to ignore how the pout on her plump lips makes a part of him go a little crazy. What’s worse is that he shouldn’t feel this way, not right now at least. Not when he’s trying to stay mad for a little while longer.

“Please,” she starts off faintly, looking all too small as she stands before him. His expression softens only the smallest amount that she isn’t sure if maybe it was just a twitch. “Can we just talk?” She can see it in his eyes, the answer that’s about to roll off his tongue so blatantly obvious. And before he has a chance to decline, she latches onto his hand and starts to walk him towards the stairs. They’re careful not to draw attention to themselves as they practically tiptoe through the dining area where Anne and Olivia continue to share embarrassing stories from when both Harry and Y/n were much younger.

The grip she has on him while she leads him up the steps surprises him. Her soft hand squeezes his so tightly that his palms start to sweat from the sheer pressure (and maybe from a bubbling sense of nervousness that’s brewing inside). “Is this really necessary...” he hears himself muttering out loud, even though he’s expecting no answer in return. Although, he may have just felt just the smallest bit of added compression around his fingers as they round the corner.

Once they’re in her room, she’s sure to close the door this time around. If she’s learned anything from the numerous times they’ve been interrupted, it’s that one can never be too sure around her family –– or anyone really. She debates whether to take it all the way with caution, standing frozen as she stares down at the lock with hesitancy.

“Are you planning on keeping me hostage or something?” he chuckles lightly, plopping down on her bed, having already accepted his defeat. He combs his fingers through his hair a couple times before allowing himself the chance to relax.

She exhales fully and closes her eyes. “If that’s what it takes.” With the lock pinched securely between her fingers, the faintest sound erupts within the space. Click. “Then, yes.” Rotating on her heel, she presses her back up against the door, hand still loosely grasping the handle as she tilts her head back. She keeps her eyes low at first, but as seconds on the clock begin to outnumber them, she has no choice but to have them ascend.

He raises an eyebrow. “Well?”

“I’m so sorry, Harry,” she says shakily, whatever confidence she had absorbed seems to have fizzled out. But she can’t back down now, not when the opportunity is right in front of her. “I knew you were going to ask me, and I swear I was going to wait but then Jasper completely caught me off guard and then everyone was watching and I just...I just didn’t...I just didn’t think. It was stupid and I know that’s not an excuse, but I just want things to go back to normal.” She crosses her arms over her chest, a twinge of embarrassment filling her as her own words repeat through her ears.

He shifts uncomfortably. All the feelings he’d been trying to avoid are being unlocked, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. It’s not even that he’s mad (he’s found it impossible to harvest any ill-feelings for the girl in front him), it’s more that he’s dreading whatever might come out of her mouth because he isn’t sure he can handle another rejection. “We don’t have to talk about it, really. We’re fine,” he says as neutrally as he can.

“No, Harry. We’re not. And you know it.”

He knows she’s right, no matter how much he wants to deny it for the sake of saving his own heart. But now that she’s locked him in, he has no choice but to confront the issue. “Look, whatever might have been between us, I’ll get over it, okay? I’ll be fine. I don’t want you to feel–”

“No!” she almost screams, and she marches right to where his knees bend off the side of the mattress with her lips pursed in a newfound determination. “That’s the complete opposite of what I want to happen.”

His green eyes are fixed on her. “What do you mean?” he whispers. But she shakes her head, as though regretting the words to come out of her mouth. Because now they implicate her of the thing she’s been dying to say, and there’s no coming back once it’s said.

Not even thinking, he places his hands on her waist to bring her closer. She still refuses to look at him, her arms further wrapping around her vulnerable self. There’s something in the way her bottom lip moves in the slightest matter that intrigues him. And now he just needs to know. “Hey, look at me,” and he gently cups her cheek to encourage her. “What?”

She stays quiet as she tries to get her breathing back to a normal pace, but the feeling of his stare causes a sweat to form down her back. “I don’t want you to be over us.”

With that, she finally looks forward.

It’s about time one of them be brave.

“I don’t want you to be over me,” she says in the most delicate manner. “I don’t want you to get over me because...” She uncrosses her arms, only to have them wrap around his neck as she settles between his open legs. “Because I don’t want to have to get over you.”

Their eyes meet, and she lets her forehead fall against his. The tips of their noses nudge against each other. A sigh of pure bliss fights its way out of him. He pulls her even closer, thumbs rubbing small circles into the plush of her hips. Her heart beats erratically, as does his as they bask in the echo of a declaration. Two pairs of lips pull up into benevolent smiles before finally coming together.

Eight letters.

There are eight letters to be remained unsaid (until another time).

***

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