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buildarocketboys · 4 months ago

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Frankenstein chapters 23&24 @tumbleclub

About a week late for this and it's not gonna be very sophisticated, more just a quotes dump, but better late than never I guess!

Chapter 23:

“Oh! Peace, peace, my love,” replied I; “this night, and all will be safe; but this night is dreadful, very dreadful.”

:( this is how you know she won't survive the night

As I heard it, the whole truth rushed into my mind, my arms dropped, the motion of every muscle and fibre was suspended; I could feel the blood trickling in my veins and tingling in the extremities of my limbs.

Too late, my man

Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.

what I now held in my arms had ceased to be the Elizabeth whom I had loved and cherished.

Not exactly original by any means but I always think it's interesting that dead people are described as "ceasing to be" who they were in life - especially interesting here, since Frankenstein brought life to a patchwork of dead body parts could he not just reanimate her ?

I fell at last in a state of utter exhaustion; a film covered my eyes, and my skin was parched with the heat of fever. In this state I was carried back and placed on a bed, hardly conscious of what had happened; my eyes wandered round the room as if to seek something that I had lost.

I've joked about Frankenstein being a bit of a fainting damsel but honestly I would also pass out and try to die at this point I think

I hired men to row and took an oar myself, for I had always experienced relief from mental torment in bodily exercise. But the overflowing misery I now felt, and the excess of agitation that I endured rendered me incapable of any exertion.

Yeah that shit sucks

Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.

Autism mood

But why should I dwell upon the incidents that followed this last overwhelming event? Mine has been a tale of horrors; I have reached their acme, and what I must now relate can but be tedious to you

I appreciate the refocus/reminder of his audience (Walton), since the next chapter is from his perspective again.

His eyes wandered in vacancy, for they had lost their charm and their delight—his Elizabeth, his more than daughter

Weirdly creepy way of putting it, sorry

I awoke and found myself in a dungeon. Melancholy followed, but by degrees I gained a clear conception of my miseries and situation and was then released from my prison. For they had called me mad, and during many months, as I understood, a solitary cell had been my habitation

Interesting (and sad) that he actually does get put in an asylum, especially considering how little he dwells on/apparently remembers it

He had heard my story with that half kind of belief that is given to a tale of spirits and supernatural events; but when he was called upon to act officially in consequence, the whole tide of his incredulity returned

My rage is unspeakable when I reflect that the murderer, whom I have turned loose upon society, still exists. You refuse my just demand; I have but one resource, and I devote myself, either in my life or death, to his destruction.”

“Man,” I cried, “how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease; you know not what it is you say.”

Rare informal you - Vicky very frustrated to be so rude

Chapter 24

I was hurried away by fury; revenge alone endowed me with strength and composure

He's literally running on rage and vengeance alone now..

I have traversed a vast portion of the earth and have endured all the hardships which travellers in deserts and barbarous countries are wont to meet.

Blistering winds and scorching deserts...

“I am satisfied, miserable wretch! You have determined to live, and I am satisfied.”

Because now Frankenstein must live alone and unloved like the creature

sometimes he himself, who feared that if I lost all trace of him I should despair and die, left some mark to guide me.

yet still a spirit of good followed and directed my steps and when I most murmured would suddenly extricate me from seemingly insurmountable difficulties. Sometimes, when nature, overcome by hunger, sank under the exhaustion, a repast was prepared for me in the desert that restored and inspirited me.

“you live, and my power is complete. Follow me; I seek the everlasting ices of the north, where you will feel the misery of cold and frost, to which I am impassive. You will find near this place, if you follow not too tardily, a dead hare;...”

Kind of heartbreaking that the creature is leaving food for Frankenstein, wanting to keep him alive (even if only to finally fight to the death)...what could have been..

“Come on, my enemy; we have yet to wrestle for our lives, but many hard and miserable hours must you endure until that period shall arrive.”

Ok so sure he's being a little bitch (or a scoffing devil as Frankenstein calls him) here but honestly I think the Creature wants to fight to the death just as much as Frankenstein does. I think probably he wants to die, after all, what does he have to live for, except to taunt his creator who brought him into this misery?

A gigantic monster, they said, had arrived the night before, armed with a gun and many pistols,

Hell yeah, give that creature a gun!

The work was soon finished; in a few minutes a tumultuous sea rolled between me and my enemy, and I was left drifting on a scattered piece of ice that was continually lessening and thus preparing for me a hideous death

Damn, poor guy can't catch a break, even from nature!

swear to me, Walton, that he shall not escape, that you will seek him and satisfy my vengeance in his death

He is eloquent and persuasive, and once his words had even power over my heart; but trust him not. His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery and fiend-like malice.

Despite the monster's crimes, I still don't think this is really fair

His fine and lovely eyes

Sorry but Walton is gay. He just is.

Sometimes I endeavoured to gain from Frankenstein the particulars of his creature’s formation, but on this point he was impenetrable.

BRO.

What a glorious creature must he have been in the days of his prosperity, when he is thus noble and godlike in ruin!

Still a gay thing to say

like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell

More biblical references...not Adam this time but definitely parallels with the Tree of Knowledge

Must I then lose this admirable being? I have longed for a friend; I have sought one who would sympathise with and love me. Behold, on these desert seas I have found such a one, but I fear I have gained him only to know his value and lose him. I would reconcile him to life, but he repulses the idea.

think you that any can replace those who are gone? Can any man be to me as Clerval was, or any woman another Elizabeth?

Ouch...rejected

Yet it is terrible to reflect that the lives of all these men are endangered through me. If we are lost, my mad schemes are the cause.

Mmhmmmm...

Oh! My beloved sister, the sickening failing of your heart-felt expectations is, in prospect, more terrible to me than my own death

Is it though?

This speech troubled me. I had not despaired, nor had I yet conceived the idea of returning if set free. Yet could I, in justice, or even in possibility, refuse this demand? I hesitated before I answered, when Frankenstein, who had at first been silent, and indeed appeared hardly to have force enough to attend, now roused himself; his eyes sparkled, and his cheeks flushed with momentary vigour. Turning towards the men, he said, “What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are you, then, so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? “And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror, because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited, because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking.

Victor? Seriously dude?

you shrink away and are content to be handed down as men who had not strength enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly and returned to their warm firesides

Good for them, actually

In a fit of enthusiastic madness I created a rational creature and was bound towards him to assure, as far as was in my power, his happiness and well-being. This was my duty, but there was another still paramount to that. My duties towards the beings of my own species had greater claims to my attention because they included a greater proportion of happiness or misery.

I mean, sure, but this sounds like an excuse. If you'd committed yourself to his happiness from the start, none of this would have happened bro!

Seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.

Oh you've changed your tune, mate

his eyes closed for ever, while the irradiation of a gentle smile passed away from his lips.

RIP

When he heard the sound of my approach, he ceased to utter exclamations of grief and horror and sprung towards the window.

Actually kind of devastating that the monster is essentially weeping over Frankenstein's body. That's his dad! That's his deadbeat dad!

I called on him to stay.

He paused, looking on me with wonder

Just the thought that, for a moment, the Creature thinks someone is asking him to stay 😭

“In his murder my crimes are consummated;”

Honey you didn't even kill him

His voice seemed suffocated, and my first impulses, which had suggested to me the duty of obeying the dying request of my friend in destroying his enemy, were now suspended by a mixture of curiosity and compassion.

Honestly heartbreaking that Walton does feel compassion for him, right at the end

my heart was poisoned with remorse

I was at first touched by the expressions of his misery; yet, when I called to mind what Frankenstein had said of his powers of eloquence and persuasion, and when I again cast my eyes on the lifeless form of my friend, indignation was rekindled within me.

This makes me sad. Another 'someone almost shows empathy and compassion to the creature but then doesn't'

I am content to suffer alone while my sufferings shall endure; when I die, I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory.

still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me?

that its remains may afford no light to any curious and unhallowed wretch who would create such another as I have been. I shall die. I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me or be the prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched.

Light, feeling, and sense will pass away; and in this condition must I find my happiness.

God that's depressing

My spirit will sleep in peace, or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus.

Goodbye Creature. I would have treated you right babe. 🫡

#tumble club #Frankenstein

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years ago

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Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 12 - ao3 -

The dinner lasted until late, late enough that Lan Qiren had to make his excuses and even then only just barely got back to his room in time to fall asleep at the appropriate hour; he didn’t even have enough time to do more than remove his shoes and outer layer before his eyes had closed.

Surprisingly, unlike most social dinners in Lan Qiren’s memory, it hadn’t been awful. Most of that had been thanks to Lao Nie, whose exuberance, as he’d suspected, could carry just about any social interaction to victory. After exhausting himself in thinking of ever more increasingly ridiculous toasts and forcing Wen Ruohan to drink them – they’d switched to wine at some point, although to Lan Qiren’s relief neither offered him any – Lao Nie had turned the subject to the type of music appropriate to be played at a wedding feast, and his opinions on music were, as always, so horrifically wrong that even Lan Qiren had been lured into arguing with him.

At some point, the conversation had shifted to the subject of marriage and weddings more generally, though to Lan Qiren’s relief both men clearly considered him too young to have thoughts about his own future in that regard the way his teachers might have. Instead, they’d spoken about the origins of various wedding traditions – there were some that Lan Qiren had thought were set in stone and handed down from ancient times which Wen Ruohan could recall having seen invented within his lifetime, which was a fascinating advantage of age that Lan Qiren had not previously considered.

It was equally interesting to see Wen Ruohan at his most charming. It was not a mask that the sect leader bothered putting on very often, as far as Lan Qiren knew, and it was a mask, one that was a little loose around the edges – even Lan Qiren could tell. Wen Ruohan would say the right words a beat too late, with his eyes a little too focused and his smile a little too sharp to be believed; his quips were a little too cutting and his suggestions just a little beyond the boundaries of common decency, his cruelty and indifference leaking out around the edges of even a casual chat with people he considered friends.

But at the same time, it was difficult to deny that he was brilliant. Regardless of whether he’d obtained his superior cultivation through dark and dirty means or not, he’d been the master of his sect and about a third of the cultivation world for at least a generation already, and no one managed that without being extremely clever and more than a little ruthless.

It made for interesting conversation, if one beset with a constant feeling of danger…

“I hope you enjoyed the bed.”

Lan Qiren nearly jumped out of his skin in fright, spinning around to stare at Wen Ruohan standing just within the doorway to Lan Qiren's room – he hadn’t heard him open the door, nor close it behind him. The other man was in his wedding finery, the brilliant fiery red of his sect turned to joyous purpose, and yet there was something sinister in his self-assured smile.

“The – bed?” Lan Qiren repeated blankly, and glanced at it. “It was…fine?”

“You complained, last time,” Wen Ruohan said, continuing to stroll into the room with his hands clasped behind his back. “Too hard, I believe you said…I wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

Lan Qiren vaguely recalled having said something along those lines and blushed in shame. “It’s fine,” he said. “I slept deeply and well. Thank you for your concern.”

“It’s the least I can do,” Wen Ruohan said. “You and I are brothers, are we not? My every thought should be of you.”

That didn’t sound quite right.

Before he could say anything, though, Wen Ruohan clicked his tongue lightly and stood in front of him, looking him up and down. “Your Lan sect’s formal clothing is truly a masterpiece of the embroidered arts,” he said. “A brilliant sight – especially all in white.”

Lan Qiren lowered his head, embarrassed again. If pressed, he would argue that his clothing was a little more silver than pure white, so he wasn’t actually dressed in mourning colors, but it couldn’t be denied that he was much closer than most, making it a little inappropriate for a wedding. Unfortunately, he only owned the one set of formal clothes, and there hadn’t been time to commission another; there was nothing for it.

“I like it,” Wen Ruohan said unexpectedly, his hands settling on Lan Qiren’s shoulders, smoothing out the fabric. Lan Qiren looked up and was caught by that intense red gaze. “My sect colors are red and white, after all – just like the two of us. A matched set.”

His hands burned too hot on Lan Qiren’s shoulders.

“White is a traditional color for the Lan sect as well,” Lan Qiren said, and his voice only quavered a little bit. “Anyway, it’s…mostly grey.”

“White,” Wen Ruohan disagreed. “As pristine as a pearl resting in the palm of your hand.”

His thumbs pressed lightly just by Lan Qiren’s collarbone. There were acupoints there, he thought, although he was having trouble recalling which ones or what they did.

“Yes, a pearl is truly the most apt comparison,” Wen Ruohan mused. “Simple and natural, yet shining with its own luster – I’d thought rubies, to make you fit to my taste, but perhaps pearls will suit you better.”

“I have no need for jewels,” Lan Qiren said, a little alarmed. Had Wen Ruohan really drunk so much the night before that he was still intoxicated, confusing his new sworn brother and his new bride?

“And yet I may wish to give them to you,” Wen Ruohan said. “Surely you won’t deny me – after all, I need to repay you for the charming gift you gave to me.”

Lan Qiren had a sinking feeling.

“Uh,” he said. “You saw it? Already?”

He’d searched the room briefly earlier that morning for the personal gift he’d bought for Wen Ruohan, intending on packaging the bowls away in his return clothing – why hadn’t it occurred to him to simply give it away to one of his fellow disciples, or even to trade or sell it? That way he wouldn’t have embarrassed himself by giving such a simple gift amidst all the opulent luxury of the Nightless City.

It seemed, however, that it was too late for that.

“Oh yes,” Wen Ruohan said, looking amused. “A set of drinking bowls, painted with a flowing border reminiscent of vermilion birds – made by your own hand?”

“I only applied the glaze,” Lan Qiren said hastily. “There was another gift, too –”

“I have dozens of golden crowns of better make and greater utility,” Wen Ruohan said dismissively. “Such a heavy thing. If you told me that you’d picked it yourself, I wouldn’t believe you.”

“No, I did pick –”

“Without constraint? Or from a selection of predetermined choices, each one deemed ‘appropriate’?”

Lan Qiren fell silent.

“Do not tell lies,” Wen Ruohan said, rolling the familiar rule in his mouth as if tasting a wine of fine vintage. “Yes, the guan is a very appropriate gift, neither too distant nor too familiar, too rich or too restrained, perfectly reasonable yet conveying nothing, giving nothing away...I’m quite certain your brother picked it out. But you were the one who picked the bowls, weren’t you? Did you pay for them yourself?”

Lan Qiren felt certain that the conversation was leading to some sort of trap, but he didn’t know what, or how, or how to evade it. “I did,” he admitted. “With my sect allowance.”

“How many months’ worth did it cost you?”

Lan Qiren thought back, calculating. “About three?”

He’d thought to get something nice enough that he wouldn’t lose face in giving it, though naturally he’d underestimated the luxury of the Nightless City. Still, it wasn’t as though he needed the money for much, anyway. The sect supplied him with basic clothing and gear, equipment to tend to his sword and musical instruments, and even access to books; he did not buy himself too many luxuries beyond that. Other than the fees he paid for various sect purposes, it was really only the occasional trinket that caught his eye or rare books on foreign musical techniques that he purchased with his own money.

It wasn’t anything like a sacrifice, not really, but Wen Ruohan still looked pleased about it, smug and satisfied as a cat right after the hunt.

“Three months’ worth,” he murmured, and his hands which were somehow still on Lan Qiren’s shoulders slid inexorably inwards to rest on the sides of his throat. “Even assuming you were extraordinarily parsimonious, little Lan, you could only save a third at a time; that’s nine months of your life that you spent for me. Nearly a twentieth of all the months you’ve lived so far.”

What a strange way to calculate time.

It wasn’t even right, since Lan Qiren had turned seventeen in the interval and that made the interval closer to a twenty-fifth than a twentieth, but also – who thought like that, treating time like a percentage, as if it could be measured and spent like coin? Perhaps it was simply that Wen Ruohan was so old already…and perhaps that, in turn, was why he looked at him so strangely, so unnervingly –

Lan Qiren swallowed, decided he didn’t need his pride more than he needed to get away, and ducked out of Wen Ruohan’s loose grip.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready or something?” he asked, turning and pretending to fuss with his robes to avoid making eye contact. “It’s the morning of your wedding.”

“Indeed it is,” Wen Ruohan said from behind him. He was standing too close: Lan Qiren could feel his breath on the back of his head. “Tell me, little Lan – little brother. What do you think of my marriage?”

Lan Qiren hesitated.

“The truth, if you will,” Wen Ruohan added. “I would hate for the purity of our relationship to be tainted by misdirection, even if you wouldn’t go so far as to lie.”

His voice was mild and even, almost sweet, and Lan Qiren was abruptly convinced that it was far more threatening than any of Lao Nie’s rages or his brother’s ice-cold sarcasms.

“I think you made it up to distract people from swearing brotherhood with me,” he said, turning back to face his fears and sworn brother, and felt his face go red as he realized how self-involved that made him sound. But it was what he thought, and Wen Ruohan had asked him not to lie. “You made a mistake, underestimated people’s reactions, and Lao Nie yelled at you because it was affecting your reputation and mine, so you came up with a better story and made everyone else believe it.”

Wen Ruohan hummed. “What an interesting theory. You don’t think the engagement was merely kept private before being revealed at an appropriate time?”

“No.” Lan Qiren shrugged. “If I’m wrong, of course, I’m wrong. But you asked what I thought.”

“Is that why you got me a gift?” Lan Qiren, surprised, glanced at Wen Ruohan, who was still smiling. “To thank me for clearing up the mess I made of your reputation?”

“I got you a gift because you’re my sworn brother, and you’re getting married,” Lan Qiren said, bemused. “What does my reputation have to do with anything? You’re not the one making everyone gossip, and even if you were, you cleaning up something you did is only what you should do. I don’t see what one has to do with the other.”

This time, Wen Ruohan gave a little huff of amusement, and he sounded almost surprised. “Charmingly blunt.”

“You told me not to lie or misdirect!” Lan Qiren exclaimed, feeling betrayed.

Now Wen Ruohan was chuckling in earnest. “Ah, little Lan,” he said. “Someone is going to get you into trouble one day, and it may very well be me…you’re right, you know.”

“What?”

“About the wedding,” he said lazily, and put a hand on top of Lan Qiren’s head. “Both in terms of motivation and timing. You’re entirely right, except for one part.”

“What part?”

His fingers tightened, the too-sharp nails digging into Lan Qiren’s scalp and pulling at his hair until his head was forced back to look up at Wen Ruohan.

“I didn’t make a mistake,” Wen Ruohan said. His eyes were boring into Lan Qiren’s own, the pressure of his will strong, as insistent as his voice. “You were not a mistake, little Lan. You’re mine.”

“Of course I am,” Lan Qiren said, suddenly irritated for no reason he could tell. “Your sworn brother. Doesn’t the whole world know it by now?”

“Mm. I suppose they do.”

“And on that note,” Lan Qiren said, “what are the terms, anyway? I never got to see them.”

“The – terms?”

“Of our brotherhood! My brother confiscated the paper you gave me before I could look it over, and naturally I don’t remember, so you have to give me another copy. I think I’m entitled to one, since I’m a part of it, and presumably you did the drafting. Was it one of the classical oaths? Which clauses were included? Provisions? Curses? Was there any consideration of – stop laughing!”

Wen Ruohan had released Lan Qiren’s hair in order to brace himself on the wall, he was laughing so hard. Laughing with big laughs that came up from his belly and stuck in his throat, and no matter what Lan Qiren said he didn’t say one single thing in response. Lan Qiren eventually gave up with a huff and stormed out.

Let the irritating bastard be late to his own wedding, for all he cared.

#mdzs #lan qiren #wen ruohan #my fic #my fics #spilled pearls

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extravaguk · 4 years ago

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santa&prada

part of my opposites attract! series.

ksj / knj / myg / jhs / kth / jjk

pairing: rich!jimin x reader

summary: Yeah, Park Jimin most likely didn't even realize he was being a rude and disrespectful son of a bitch.

wordcount: 5k

genre: smut - angst(? - fluff (? idk u tell me

rated: m

warnings: a christmas fic in late november, cursing, a huge misunderstanding lmao, i call jimin ‘park jimin’ too many times bc i felt like it, car sex, oral (f recieving), some good ole spanking, (kinda) rough and unprotected sex, a lil of dirty talk, spit kink. thats about it. just an excuse to write jimin fucking you in a car. jimin is not as bad as oc thinks srsly.

The first time you meet Park Jimin is through mutual friends. On a firday night on December, with white, red and green lights decorating the streets of New York, filled with the typical hustle of the masses doing last minute Christmas shopping, the freezing weather impacting your body temperature, cursing yourself for choosing tights, a skirt and heeled boots that are too pretty but too uncomfortable to wear.

You had never considered yourself a particular enthusiast of Christmas festivities. You guess discovering Santa Claus was, actually, your parents before the rest of the kids in your class was one of the many reasons that made you grow up too soon and therefore, not allowing you to fully enjoy the month of December. Or maybe it had nothing to do with Santa, and more to do with your parents deciding to get a divorce a day before Christmas Eve. A traumatic event for seven year old you, but completely forgotten and overcome by twenty-four year old present you.

Growing up each Christmas suffering the consecuences of a shared custody would have probably had a disastrous effect on anybody else, but not you. Although the separation was a tough reality to accept at first, fortunately your parents were always capable of raising you in an environment full of love and affection, just like any other kid. And you prided yourself on having moved on from those circumstances a long time ago (even if your therapist disagreed and blamed many of your behaviors on it. Whatever.)

To put it simply, December was just not the month for you. It was just another month, like the remaining eleven of the year, except Mariah Carey's voice was heard every five minutes everywhere you'd go and people gave each other presents as if it was only during that time of the year when they remembered their loved ones.

The only thing you could thank Christmas for were the well deserved two weeks of holidays our work allowed until the new year's arrival. Fifteen days of rest, peace and baking those gingerbread cookies that Seokjin died for and that you sincerely denoted as nauseating.

You truly had no idea what exactly you did wrong that night. You don't know if it was something you said, or something you did, but what you did know was that Park Jimin pursued a silent and personal vendetta against you that continued nowadays.

"Here are your disgusting cookies, you filthy animal." it might have been that very first sentence you said when you entered the bar and reunited with your friends that didn't cause a good impression. "Shit, it's cold as fuck. My nipples are harder than my life." or maybe it was your selection of words while you waved every familiar face hello until you stopped to look at the only (pretty. too pretty, as well) one you had never seen before.

"_____, it's Chrismtas! Santa Clause will only bring you a lump of coal if you keep cursing like that!" Lisa laughed while she kissed your cheek and made space for you to sit next to her. "Oh, by the way, this is Jimin. A friend of Namjoon. He's a newbie!"

Park Jimin was stunning, you had no trouble admitting that. You weren't blind, you weren't stupid, and you could go as far as theorize that his dark eyes, his light and always immaculate styled hair, his sharp jawline and those plump lips as red as cherries must have been sculpted by Satan himself.

Fuck, you were even sure you'd be on your knees in front of Park Jimin in an alternative universe begging for his dick inside your mouth. But in the universe where you and the real Park Jimin reside, he would never come near you unless somebody was aiming a gun into his skull.

You're not precisely sure what it was, but a brief exchange of glances and an evasive and sligh shake of hands with Park Jimin was enough to make you feel ashamed and withdrawn for the rest of the night.

If Jimin wasn't even able to drop a polite "Nice to meet you", he sure as hell wasn't able to pretend you even existed.

Even the small talk you had tried to engaged with him about his shiny pair of shoes went terribly wrong.

"Oh, are those Dolce and Gabbana?"

"Dolce and Gabbana are homphobic, racist and sexist, so no" the grimace on his face should've been enough to make you regret speaking to him in the first place , but the snarky voice of his made you want to run away and hide from him until next Christmas.

In reality, you swore you didn't care. Seriously. Other's opinions were never something that could easily bother you or keep you awake at night. You had always turned a deaf ear to the cruel children that made fun of you due to your parent's divorce, you had always ignored the amount of men that never considered you "ladylike" enough (what the fuck did that even mean, anyway? what exactly made a lady and what didn't?), and you had always disregarded any envous comment surrounding you.

So, fuck Park Jimin! You had said to yourself. He's just a well mannered rich boy. Somebody who didn't resemble you in any aspect. A stupid, pretentious, spoiled boy who's had everything he's ever wanted in the palm of his hand, unlike you. Who the fuck cares what Park Jimin thinks?

But apparently, you did.

You would have never placed such importance to whatever it was that roamed inside Jimin's head if his appearances in your group of friends hadn't been so recurrent.

Because each time you were forced to see Jimin's face, you were also forced to experience a strange knot of discomfort and humilliation growing in your stomach in his mere presence. It's not like Jimin did anything specific to make you feel that way. He might not even do it on purpose, or his intentions might not be entirely evil. Maybe he simply didn't realize how he always avoided being by your side like the plague, or how his body immediately tensed and he balled his hands into fists everytime you were less than two feet away from him, or how he would look at you from the corner of his eye everytime you decided you speak, almost as if he was waiting for you to shut up to finally let out the air he was containing inside his lungs in relief.

Yeah, Park Jimin most likely didn't even realize he was being a rude and disrespectful son of a bitch.

And with time, you couldn't help but attribute that disdain and hostility that Park Jimin always directed at you to the many undeniable differences that constituted each of you. Park Jimin, with his impeccable and always well ironed Prada shirts, his spotless trousers, jewelry that probably costed more than three of your annual salaries, and always emanating that Givenchy fragance that screamed "wealth!" every rare occasion you could experiment his presence next to you. Exactly two years after that first meeting with Park Jimin, you hadn't been able to avoid reciprocating that feeling of contempt towards him. Not when you were the only victim of his arrogance. Everybody loved Park Jimin, and Park Jimin loved everyone.

Except you.

Clinging to your glass of Don Pérignon and finishing the rest of the liquid in one go, you try to snap out of your own thoughts, reminding yourself to return to the conversation you're currently having with Taehyung about a pretty waitress that he's met during one of his art exhibitions (or at least that's what you think you caught him say) and forcing yourself by all means to stop observing the friendly and kind smiles that Park Jimin was shooting to those present from across the room and that you will never be able to achieve.

"_____? Are you even listening to me, darling?" Taehyung's voice is what makes you finally look away from the dumb blond standing on the opposite side of the room, blinking a few times before clearing your throat.

"Sorry, Tae." letting out a sigh, you try to brush back and put in place the strand of hair that escaped the intricate hairdo you had tried and so miserably failed to do yourself to try to fit in and hopefully impress such environment of preppy and privilaged people (ahem, Park Jimin) falling on your forehead as best as you can. "Just been really stressed this week and I'm on another planet. You know how I feel about Christmas. I think I need a new flute of . Or five."

Taehyung sends you a look full of empathy and places one of his hands in your shoulder, squeezing lightly in a comforting way. "I'll get you another one. I'll be right back." You quickly interrupt him though, to prevent him from standing up before you.

"No, really. I'll go. I need some fresh air anyways, if you don't mind." And of course Taehyung doesn't mind, so you get on your feet as graceously as your tipsy state allowed you to (who told you it was a good idea to drink three glasses in less than thirty minutes of the extremely expensive champagne Taehyung had brought to the Christmas party he had organized and why did it convince you it would appease your anxiey?) and make your way towards the table where the rest of the bottles are. A table dangerously close to the conversation Jimin and that friend of Lisa (whose name you don't remember) were having.

Both are with their backs turned and, honestly, you take a silent moment to thank God or whatever is up there because the last thing you need right now is yet another awkward interaction with Jimin, so you try as best as you can to refill your glass of champagne to get out of there as soon as possible, praying to make your exit going unnoticed.

But no. Because the stars and the universe loved to align to make you suffer! They love to play with your karma and they love making you damn that one day you didn't help that lady cross the street. They love making you regret buying those plastic straws. They love making you feel guilty for hacking your neighbour's Wifi when you run out of money to pay for yours. Because the moment you try to take a hold of the bottle in your hands, it slips out of your grasp, and you're watching in slow motion how the sparkling berverage ends up spilling all over the extremely expensive (or so you assume. Balenciaga maybe) suit pants Park Jimin decided to wear that night.

Everything is kind of blurry and you can't even hear anything. You can only watch as Park Jimin turns around, lips parted and eyebrows furrowed, until his eyes find you, the bane of his existance and immediately recognizing the culprit of his now drenched piece of clothing. And you can watch as, once again, his gaze turns almost black and narrow lightly as to reprimend you for what you've caused. But of course he doesn't say a word. He has nothing to say. He doesn't even look surprised. No. Because obviously, Park Jimin knew that if there was somebody in this room willing to ruin his night, it would be you, and only you.

"Shit!" you're the first one to break the strained silence, but that only makes Jimin flinch. "Shit, shit, shit. I'm so fucking dumb! J-Jimin, I'm so sorry, let me just go grab a paper tow-"

"Don't." his voice cuts through you. Literally cuts through you. Because it's not often that Park Jimin decides to aim his words at you, but everytime he does it holds the same frigid tone. Like knives trying to painfully stab your being. "Just, don't."

In reality, you don't know a lot of things and you don't know what causes what happens next. You don't know if it's the specific time of the year, you don't know if it's your internal stress, or if it's Park Jimin, his voice, or the fact that he will never like you. But it's instant. They way something compresses your chest, and suddenly your eyes are not glaced by the alcohol but by something wet that threatens to flow. You would never admit to anyone they're tears.

So, shutting your mouth and swallowing the uncomfortable feeling of anguish in your throat, leaving your flute forgotten on the table and grabbing the bottle instead. Without saying a word, your feet start moving up the stairs of the ridiculously enourmous house Taehyung owns towards the first free and empty balcony you can find. Free of people and free of Park Jimin.

Closing the large window behind you, you allow yourself to close your eyes and take a deep breath; the icy temperature outside immediately welcoming you. Although the hairs on your arm stand up and you know you're probably going to catch a cold (because the dress you've chosen for the dinner is not at all appropiate for such winter climate), at least the tension in your body seems to disappear while oxygen keeps that ugly feeling in your heart at bay from continuing to choke you.

With shaky hands, you take a big gulp straight from the champagne bottle. Fuck Park Jimin. No man will ever have the power to make you feel what you're feeling right now. Fuck Park Jimin. And fuck his beautiful face and his ability to make you tremble and fear looking like an idiot. Fuck his fancy clothes and his perfect manicured hands and his marvelous but frigthening presence.

Knock knock.

The sound makes you jump back from the window, hand grasping your chest while you turn around, coming face to face with the man in question. Your first instinct is to ignore him. But that thought is already out of the way when it's him the one who struggles with the window lock before opening and taking a step towards you. You step back as he steps in, raising your head up high and puffing your chest. Because your second instinct is to tell Park Jimin to go fuck himself.

"_____, I would like to-"

"You would like to what?" Jimin looks taken aback at your harshness. Alcohol has always been a weapon of mass destruction in your system, provoking words to flow too easily and without filter out of your mouth, more than they already do when you're sober. Especially when it's mixed with the frustration you've been harboring inside of you for two years. That's why when the words start to come out, they won't stop. "To make me feel like shit one more time? To look at me with that fucking conceited face trying to make me feel like you're better than me? Or would you like to ignore me once again as you always do everytime we're in the same fucking room to make sure I know you hate my mere existance, even if it's just the two of us right now?"

The steam leaving your lips due to the accelerated beat of your heart blurs his face for an instant while he looks at you dumbfounded. The silence and his expression makes you scoff, an acidic smile adorning your face while you take another sip of your drink because even with such a stupid face, he still looks delectable with his white shirt and ruined pants. You turn around, removing a tear that you hadn't even realized had fallen during your speech and that, frankly, you were hoping he hadn't either. You would blame it on the cold, anyway.

This time, a gust of wind running through you from head to toe, making you forget of Park Jimin's presence looming behind you, reminding you it's still December and the fabric of your dress is doing nothing to conceal you from the cold.

But before you can do anything about it and blame yourself for being dumb and not taking your coat with you before deciding to step into balcony, Park Jimin surprises you once again, this time by placing his navy blue blazer over the naked skin of your arms.

Your back straightens when you feel his warm breath caressing the back of your neck, at the same time that a voice you have never heard Park Jimin use with you echoes in your ears.

"I really don't hate you, _____. I..." Jimin wets his lips. His body trembles, but it's not due to lacking his own coat, while his brain hurriedly searches for words eloquent and adequate enough to explain voice his thoughts. "I like you very much, _____."

Scoffing again while you shake your head, you push down with all your inner strenght the incipent fluttering of butterflies in your stomach that Jimin has managed to cause in just a matter of seconds. It's probably the longest sentence you've heard from him in two years, and you don't exactly understand why your body is reacting the way it is. But you're also not willing to give Park Jimin the satisfaction of knowing that. He doesn't deserve it anyway. So with all the courage you can muster, you turn around with your hands clenching.

And even though being at such short distance from Jimin is a bit overwhelming and unexpected for you, the irritation still making your blood bubble is enough to not let a man as handsome as him derail you from your current circumstances.

"Well, fuck you Park Jimin. You certainly have a funny fucking way to sh-" his hands cradling your jaw that pull you closer to him and his lips that silent you roughly, but with surprising care. Only for a moment. A moment in which your body betrays you and make you melt into hir warmth. But his voice, low and sinfully husky, murmurs against your lips.

"God, that mouth of yours..." he goes back to attacking your own lips, this time more firm than before, snatching a sigh from you. The sound has his tongue asking for permission into your mouth, and with your body betraying you once again, you part your lips to allow him in. It's him who whimpers this time, while one of his hand moving until it reaches the bottle in your hand and letting it drop carelessly onto the floor, ignoring the sound of glass shattering and the future scolding you'll get from Taehyung. Instead, he sneaks that same hand on your waist, pulling your body flush against his, fingers digging onto your skin. "It's been driving me crazy for two years. Two years, _____."

He mumbles between kisses and swipes his tongue against yours, while he stars walking the both of you until your back meets the nearest concrete wall.

"Two years of having to hear the incessant filthy words that leave your mouth..." his own stop their movements and you catch yourself before begging him to reattaching his lips to yours, enjoying instead the path of wet kisses and bruises his lips traile from your chin to the pulse of your neck "...and trying my best to hide the painful boners I get whenever you're nearby."

With your eyes shut, your hands are back in motion, ignoring the voice in your head reminding you he's still an asshole and finding their way between Jimin's soft golden strands of hair. He hums in appreciation, sending goosebumps all over your body. "So, s-so why not do anything about it sooner?" you say, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe properly.

You feel Jimin's body tensing before you and he ceases the movement of his lips against your neck. Breaking away, your heart stops, afraid you might have ruined the moment. But Jimin's in search of your eyes, eyebrows very lighlty raised, the intensity of his gaze pinning you in place. You don't know for how long you stare at each other until Jimin comes out of the trance, eyes descending over your flushed cheeks, the very same color as your lips and the soft flesh of your neck until they reach your cleavage, the glimmering fabric encasing your breasts, taunting him the same way they had been doing all night long.

"You scare me so much..." and then, one of his hands repeats the same journey his eyes just did, until he touches your shoulder, right under his own blazer. "Everytime I look at you, all I can think of why the hell a girl as real as you like you would even glance my way." he slides the strap of your dress slowly tentatively, just enough for you to stop his advances if you chose so. You don't. "You're smart in ways I could never compare, so funny it makes me jealous, and so pretty it leaves me speechless. You're...You're everything I'm not."

His voice resonates in the atmosphere, and you would love to blame it on the cold again for how your body has reacted, but your body heat has increased so much since he started kissing you that it would be stupid not to admit that it's just the effect that Park Jimin has on you tonight. You're sure he would've had the same effect if it had happened before.

Your now uncovered breast doesn't even has to suffer the consequences of the icy wind, because one of Jimin's arms quickly comes around you to hold your body against his, lifting you ever so slighty until your erect nipple is at the same level as his mouth and his lips are enveloping it in their warmth. You gasp his name, and that encourages his teeth to tug softly before his tongue stars moving in circes.

"My God, you're so perfect." Your head spins while you hold onto his shoulders as tight as you can, the undeniable heat roaming all over your form, hips involuntarily rutting his incipent erection poking your abdomen. "Been thinking about this since that night we first met." Looking for relief, Jimin mirrors your movements without ceasing the administrations on your chest, as one of his hands lifts one of your thighs to wrap around his waist, closing the short gap remaining between the both of you.

"Ohmygod! F-fuck, Jimin," trying to form coherent phrases is almost impossible, not with Jimin finding a slow and tortuous rythm with his hips, his clothed cock rubbing against your core. Something shifts in the air, because Jimin stops abusing your nipple with a loud pop, and shuts you up by pressing his mouth onto yours in an urgent, dirty and desperate kiss. You could almost hear him swearing, while his hand keeps your jaw in place.

"S-stop talking like that, ______." his voice, inaudible, and his face now hiding in the crook of your neck, the thrusting of his hips speeding up, more and more frantic this time. The hand not holding your thigh against his hipbone reveals your other breast, hand covering it and giving it a light squeeze before tugging at your unattended nipple between his forefinger and his thumb while his tongue and teeth mark the skin on your neck.

"Hell, I've been dying to stuff your mouth with my cock to prevent you from such foul language," the soft whimpers leacving your mouth coax him into taking the hem of your dress and bunching the fabric until his fingers easily find the place in your body calling to him the most through the lace. It's immediate, how his fingers dampen at the first touch, surprising the both of you, and how your body jolts and an embarrassing sob escapes your throat. "How-how are you this wet? Holy hell, I could just slide right in..."

And as he says that, one of his fingers pull aside the fabric of your underwear and glide into you, so easy. You insides burning while he fingers you, another finger being added with his thumb rubbing circles on your nub. And fuck, you're not sure if you're just too horny and Park Jimin is a magician with his hands, or maybe it's the way he keeps mouthing at your chest and whispering how soaked you are, but you don't think you've ever been so close to cumming in such a short period of time.

"W-whats stopping you?" you manage with a voice that doesn't even resembles yours, but before your hands can even make work of the zipper of his trousers, he pulls his finger out from your center, causing you to whine in protest.

Jimin licks his lips, eyebrows framing the dark expression that his eyes ooze. Although the desire in his eyes is more than evident, it is also evident the faint hesitation in them. Because Park Jimin doesn't do things this way. Park Jimin was raised in a world of correct manners and conservationism. A world that has taught him when and how to act. And as badly as he is dying to fuck you against the wall of Taehyung's ridiculously inmense house, he also wants to do the right thing.

"Let me take you on a date."

Park Jimin has been spoiled his whole life. Being born in a well-off family has always provided him of everything he had ever wanted and more. From the innecessary number of toys Santa Claus left under his Christmas tree every year since he was a baby, to his fisrt extravagant sports car at the age of eighteen. Park Jimin has never been a greedy or needy man. How could he, when he's had everything he's ever wished in the palm of his hands. He has never missed anything in his entire life. Hasn't missed a roof over his head, warm food on his plate or brand new designers clothes each week.

It has taken him two years to control himself. He still remembers that night he first met you, just like he remembers every single time you both had coincided in the same place at the same time. He remembered your scent, had memorized your figure over your pieces of clothing and had tried as best as he could to keep a distance from you because he knew you would never give him the time of day. How could you? You probably despised everything he was because he was definitely nothing like you, and that thought intimidated the fuck out of him. He was a mess everytime you wear nearby. Never relied on his voice because he knew he would stutter if you ever spoke to him, could never trust his eyes because if he ever looked at you he was afraid he wouldn't be able to look away.

And everytime you spoke, shit, that voice of yours always cursing here and there left him wondering how would you sound in a different setting and if you would still be that badmouthed. More specifically, between his sheets. So he did everything he could to minimize your interactions as much as possible. He just never thought he would come across as such a jerk. It was never his intention to hurt you, and seeing you cry that night (although you denied you did, over and over again) seriously made him realize he wanted to make things right.

He was trying really, really hard to keep it in his pants, to be the same well composed and controled Park Jimin he had mastered himself to be.

But that damn dress.

After seeing that little black dress hugging your figure when you started taking off your coat at the restaurant, the brief flash of thigh tights that you accidentaly (or not so accidentally) had blessed him with by crossing a leg over the other, that exposed collarbone calling his name and those heeled sandals with straps wrapping around your ankles, reminding him of the snake tempting Eve, Park Jimin was sure he needed to dig into that apple more than anything he has ever needed before.

That's why he surprises you right after you both finish the second course meal by telling the waitress you won't be having desert, at which you look at him somewhat indignant. But the look he shoots you is enough to make you understand if somebody was going to have desert tonight, it would be him. In his Mercedes.

"I'm gonna-" you gasp, fingers tugging at the soft strands of his now ruined blond hair, his head between your thighs and your legs thrown over his shoulders. His hands have a grip of the meaty flesh of your ass, holding you firmly againt his mouth as it works wonders on your clit. You're sure it hasn't even been ten minutes since Jimin had opened your legs in the backseat of his car, not even bothering to take your underwear off, simply moving the fabric aside before diving in, and you already feel yourself on the edge of an orgasm.

"I know." voice vibrating right into your core, he slows down his administrations, tongue carefully and delicately lapping at your folds while he enjoys the feeling of your fingers loosening their grip and fondly brushing his hair back. You meet his eyes as he pushes a finger inside your core and your whole body twists in agony.

"N-no!"

Jimin stops immediately, lifting his head and focusing his concerned eyes on you. He's about to ask you if he's done anything wrong, but you're fast to roughly pull him up by his hair until his face is leveled with yours. You answer him by kissing him and he returns the kiss with the same eagerness, and now it's your hands that are looking for his cock, palming him through his pants.

"Your dick. Inside. Right Now." you punctuate each phrase with a kiss and he only stops kissing you to pout.

"But I wanted you to cum on my tongue." but still, he's putty in your hands when you undo the botton and the zipper. "Wouldn't you rather me fucking you in my bed, where we're more comfortable?" you notice the slight quivering of his voice when you slide his trousers and boxers down, just enough to pull him out.

"You can eat me and fuck me as many times as you want tonight, tomorrow and whenever you'd like, but right now..." none of you contain the moan in unision that leaves each of your mouths when just the head of his lenght comes in contact with your entrance. "I really can't wait anymore." brushing your lips over his, you lower your voice. "Wanna get on my hands and knees for you."

Park Jimin has tried to do things the right and appropiate way throughout all his life. He's been a professional from a very young age on how to be in charge of his emotions, his desires and his impulses. Always well mannered and well composed.

But it's in this moment that Jimin comes to the realization that the only thing that has ever made him lose his mind and self control, is you. Seeing you like this, ass up, grinding your drenched and still thong clad cunt all over his precum dripping lenght, he can't control the way his hand bunches the fabrick of that damn dress over your waist, then flies to your right cheek, a sharp sound of skin filling the air, tearing a gasp from your throat.

"God, I'm-I'm sorry. Couldn't help mys-"

"Do it again."

And he does, the palm of his hand now leaving a reddenning print on your flesh, making you jolt back involuntarily, aligning yourself to the head of his cock and like he had hoped, he slides right in. Not all the way, because Jimin is sure he would cream inside you too soon and he wouldn't be able to forgive himself if he did. He wets his lips, clenching his jaw and dropping his palm one more time, hand more steady and purposeful.

"You like it rough?" voice hoarse and a hand beside your head holding himself, your back to his chest, twitching beneath him as he soothes the sting with his free one.

"I like you rough." turning your head slowly to peer at him from the corner of your eye, your hips moving on their own accord trying to take him deeper. Your head is suddenly pulled back harshly, Jimin's fingers tangling in your hair as his own hips close the remaining gap between your bodys in an abrupt thurst. You squeal, Jimin's cock finally filling you up to the hilt just like you wanted him to be, the pleasure making your arms wobble and finding it harder to mantain your balance.

Jimin's breath fawns over your ear, his tongue darting out to suck on your skin sending chills down your spine. "You're such a dream." he groans, torturously sliding out of your core that's gripping around his shaft for dear life. A whine of protest escapes your lips and he tightens the hold on your hair in response, diving right back in. You fall forward, your arms' strenght betraying you as his thrusts find a new rhythm. With your eyes closed shut, you try to muffle the sound of your voice with the back of your hand as Jimin's lips place soft kisses to your exposed shoulder.

"Don't be quiet." he stands straight, the pull on your hair arching your back in such a enticing way it was Jimin look away for a second, cock buried inside of you and his hips faltering. "Been dying to have you like this for so long."

Another clap of his hand against your right cheek, and a particular stroke of his dick that has you mewling as your climax approached again. "S-so good, Jimin. Oh my god."

"You're gonna cum for me?" his fingertips leave bruises on your skin and the windows of his Mercedes are foggy, just like your mind. You can't concentrate on anything that's not Jimin's cock sliding in and out and how much you wished this had happened way sooner. "Gonna cum for me like a good slut?"

Park Jimin always takes his time. Always does things nice and slow to assure the best outcome possible.

But he can't contain the acceleration of his hips against yours as your walls clench impossibly tight around his cock, your orgasm finally taking over . Can't contain himself from falling forward again, hand twisting your head in his direction and his mouth searching for yours in a fiery and messy kiss. And he most definitely can't barely contain himself from cumming when your you ask him to spit in your mouth.

"You're gonna kill me." he breathes, removing himself off you and quickly maneuvering you on your back, his dick finding its way back inside you. Picking up right where he left off, skin slapping against skin in an obscene melody, he collects a considerate amount of saliva in his mouth before dropping it into your welcoming tongue, watching you swallow with a smile he hopes he'll be the only one to see in the future.

And that's what has the last bit of his self restraint slipping from his fingers. He somehow manages to rip the top of your dress down, fabric tearing until your tits are free and his mouth is attacking your nipples, white strings of his release panting your walls, some of it them oozing out that he fucks back right into you.

It's between ragged breaths, kisses and tender carresses that Jimin promises you more dates in the future and new dresses that he can't promise not to savage apart again.

#jimin #park jimin #jimin smut #park jimin smut #bts smut #bts #pjm #pjm smut #bad bunny is retiring like who the fuck does he think he is to decide when he gets to retire???#nah bb WE decide when you retire

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love-fireflysong · 3 years ago

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yIt's done. It took me waaaay to long to write this piece out but between June and my computer apparently deciding to kick me in the teeth this month, the fact I made it to 5 full squares completed anyways I will gladly take as a victory! And, just fyi, this WILL be the last piece for this month. I know that there is still another four days left of June, but I am sick and tired of dealing with my keyboard so this is the last fic you're gonna see from me until I get a new laptop hopefully fairly soon. (Unless I decide that I'm desperate enough to try and write things out on my tablet of course...)

Anyways, the First Date trope was specifically requested by @jesus-hotsauce-christmas-cake when I let her know that the one she did guess (road trip) was going to be a second chapter of a twoshot. Which you still might get because I'm very likely going to be sharing the short little summary blurbs I had written down for each trope so people can very easily bully me into writing them anyways if people still wanted to read them. And even though it would be like months and months late, still post them under this bingo board because I can and I had a cool idea for what I was doing with the colours and layout before life decided to say 'NO!' in a very firm voice. (Unless of course the three lovely ladies that came up with this idea in the first place say no obviously)

Rambling over though now I promise. Chocolate Covered Confessions can be read over and AO3 of course, with the full fic also under the readmore as well.

Chocolate Covered Confessions

Trope: First Date Fandom: Until Dawn Characters: Ashley Brown, Chris Hartley Words: 8214 Rating: General (though reader beware there is some almost scandalous hand holding and a couple of scandalously public kisses. You have been warned...) Authors Notes: Oh look, more chrashley fluff. Who da thunk it? Pride month? What pride month? This is just me apparently figuring out how many different ways I can get Chris and Ash to confess their feelings. Because you only read like three of them, I still have another two waiting in the wings. Plus at least three others if you count climbing chrash lol.

Something was...weird. It wasn't something that Ashley could put her finger on just yet, but something was definitely off that was for sure. The problem of course was that she didn't even know where to start looking in the first place, because for the most part her day had been extraordinarily ordinary.

She, Chris, and Josh had planned to go and see a movie Saturday morning a few days back and then hang out the rest of the day. But seeing as they were, you know, best friends that certainly wasn't the issue. Not even close. They always made plans to do stuff like that together. And yeah, okay, so maybe Josh had 'coincidentally' texted them just before the movie started to let them know that something unavoidable had come up and he wasn't going to be able to meet up with them. And when her and Chris had brought up just waiting until a later showing when he was free, he had immediately been quick to affirm that nope, he was going to be busy the whole rest of the day actually. So the two of them could continue with their original plans and they could make it up to him another time.

While certainly suspicious, that wasn't what was wrong though. Josh had been flaking out on their plans more and more, especially when it was plans that took up an entire day. Ashley Brown wasn't stupid. No siree Bob she was not! She knew exactly what Josh was trying to do by leaving her to spend the day with Chris. Alone . And she appreciated it (she really did!), but if Chris was going to make a move then he would have done it ages and ages ago, because she sure as hell wasn't going to do it! Ashley Brown wasn't stupid, but she also wasn't exactly what you would call brave either.

Not that Chris had seemed to notice what Josh was pulling though, he had just sighed and rolled his eyes with a grumbled "fucking typical", and then the two of them had entered the theater to watch the movie. And as per their usual shtick when Josh wasn't there with them, Chris paid for the tickets while she paid for the food and drinks. Or, at least, that was how it normally went. Instead, when she had decided to take a run to the bathroom while he held their spot in the long concession line, she had come back to Chris waiting for her with the pop and popcorn already in hand. After brushing off her flustered apologies, he had explained that shortly after she had left, another cashier had popped on till so the line had gone down in half the time either had expected. And it seemed like a dick move to just wait there until she came back so he had just decided to get the food instead.

She still felt a little guilty about it honestly, even after swearing that she would get both the tickets and food next time.

And, to be completely fair to Josh, he hadn't exactly been missing out on a lot by skipping out on the movie. It wasn't a horror flick (he would never even think of skipping out on that after all) so it wasn't one that he would feel the need to make the two of them watch again with him. Which was more than fine honestly, because if she was to describe the movie in a single word, well, that word would definitely have been 'dreadful'. If she was given a few more words, then she would have easily elaborated and stated that it was 'a boring, plot-hole driven mess, with only extremely over-the-top action scenes and explosions every five minutes to carry any semblance of the extremely loosely written plot'. In other words, she had lost interest in the movie barely half an hour in, and considering that Chris had started scrolling through his phone bored, she wasn't alone in this boat either.

Still, Ashley had resolved herself to sit through this over-budgeted explosion fest if only because movie tickets were horribly expensive. Not to mention the fact that Chris had shelled out money for both the movie and the food. But then he had turned to her, asked if she was as bored to tears as he was, and once he got that confirmation, asked if she wanted to just ditch the movie entirely. And she did—she really, really did—but didn't want Chris to waste the money he had spent more. And then yet another explosion...exploded on screen, and she realized that she was wasting precious hours of her life that could be used to do something more fun and less mind-numbingly boring.

Like watching paint dry. That at least had a semi-cohesive plot.

And so the two of them had walked out, continuing to share the extra buttered popcorn between them (the movie may have been awful, but the popcorn certainly wasn't) as they left the movie theater behind and wandered into the nearby mall. That wasn't the strange thing either. The mall and subsequent window shopping had absolutely been part of their day plans after, even if those had been unexpectedly pushed forward a couple of hours.

Admittedly the art show that the mall was running in one of the empty storefronts was unexpected, but it had been simply a nice surprise and a great way to kill time. So after paying the $2 entrance fee, the two of them had continued to share the popcorn as they looked at some of the paintings and sculptures that had been on display, giggling childishly at most of them. And okay, so one of the curators had been glaring at them( or rather, at their greasy, butter-covered fingers) the whole time, but that had just been a little rude and insulting. Not strange. And that had stopped almost the moment they had run out of popcorn, Ashley nudging him in the stomach with her elbow as she licked her fingers clean, and the two of them laughing under their breaths at the curator who had looked exceptionally much more at ease once Chris had crumpled the empty bag into a ball.

The rest of their day in the mall had just been spent following the rest of their day's plan, wandering from shop to shop and browsing at all the things that caught their eyes, and then taking a break after a few hours to have a late lunch in the food court. The two of them checked out another couple of stores, these ones to try and get some ideas for Josh's birthday in another month, before moving onto the small arcade on the top floor. As part of their deal and agreement since it had just been Josh and Chris (Ashey not joining the duo until five years later), Chris bought the tokens needed while she scouted out the various games for an empty console and claimed it until he could join her in another couple of minutes.

They spent the next hour in there, trying to beat each other or work together depending on the game in question. They almost never played a game twice before moving onto the next one, in hopes to both try as many games as possible before their self imposed hour ended and to see if they could beat their previous high scores or make it onto the leaderboard in only a single try. But as the hour came to a close, they both made their way over to their final game: one of the racing simulators scattered around the arcade. And as had been done for ten years now, played to determine which of them would be paying for the tokens next time they came.

And once the race ended, with Ashley winning by photo finish for the third time in a row (and celebrating her winning streak by maturely sticking out her tongue and doing an awkward little shimmy dance in the seat while Chris jokingly sulked and pouted), they had finally left the mall altogether and got into Chris's truck. There, he had surprised Ashley with the novel she had been eyeing in the bookstore (or at least, eyeing closer than all the rest she had picked up) and that he had somehow been able to buy without her noticing. And that certainly hadn't been weird, because it had been so exceptionally sweet of him, sweet enough that Ashley had so badly wished that she could thank him properly. But as mentioned before, Ashley Brown was a coward pure and simple, so she had just clutched the book to her chest and beamed at Chris in heartfelt thanks instead.

He may have said something in reply, but Ashley had already settled into the passenger seat and opened to the first page of the book, so she was already long gone. A fact that Chris had anticipated, if the light chuckle he had let out before starting the truck meant anything. And no, Ashley reading a book while Chris drove them to their usual game store across town was not the strange thing either. If Chris hadn't wanted her to read on the drive over and talk to him, then he never would have given her the book now of all times. He would have waited until he had dropped her off home, or not even bought the book in the first place. After over a half a decade of friendship, if anyone knew what would happen after giving Ashley Brown a new book, it was Chris Hartley.

The drive over is done quicker then she had expected, and even then Chris still hadn't let her know that they had arrived until she had finished her chapter. Yes he had certainly teased her about it the entire time, joking about how she would never find someone as understanding of her reading habits then him (he didn't know how right he was, that she didn't want to find anyone else), but the fact that he had just continued to let the music play in the truck and distracted himself on his phone was so unbearably sweet that she decided to let it lie.

The fact that Ashley and Chris hung around in the game shop comparing dice and looking at new books while wincing over the prices for nearly two hours wasn't what was off either. Hell, if anything the fact that they only spent a couple of hours there before leaving was weird! Her, Chris, and Josh could easily spend almost half a day in there flipping through comics and rolling dice to test them out, only leaving because a tired employee was forced to ask them to leave for making too much noise and taking up a table when they weren't playing anything, especially when there was a group that had been waiting for a table for close to an hour now.

Which brought Ashley to where she was right now, sitting at a sticky plastic table under the shade of a cheap umbrella while Chris had run off to get them some ice cream before dropping her off at home. Her new book was open in front of her, the pages crisp white even in the umbrella's shade, but her mind wasn't on the book anymore. A random line had a character mentioning that something had been feeling off all day ever since they woke up ('like everything had been moved three centimeters to the left, so while it all looked normal, nothing felt right anymore'), and Ashley had also realized that hey, wait a second, her day was also feeling just a little wonky too! But no matter how hard she thought about it, she couldn't put her finger on exactly what it was. Today had just been a normal day hanging out with Chris after all. They went to see (and bailed) a movie, spent hours hanging out in the mall and at the game store, and now they were each going back home. Nothing unusual had happened, so why did it feel like something hugely monumental had been going on all day?

"Oi. Earth to Ash, you okay in there?"

A light flick to the center of Ashley's forehead has her blink in surprise, and she finds herself back into the present once again. Chris is standing next to her, carefully balancing the two cones in his right hand and his left ready to flick again if needed, and a bemused smile on his face.

"Oh, uh, sorry Chris. Got a little too into the book I think." She closes the book, not wanting to get melting ice cream all over its crisp white pages (and she really hasn't absorbed a single word for nearly ten minutes now), but Chris doesn't hand her the cone just yet.

"Yeah, I'm not buying that," Chris says as he snorts in disbelief. "I know your 'praise be to books' look, and that was not it. That was your 'head full, too many thoughts' look."

"Excuse me? What? I do not have a reading look! Or a thinking look for that matter!"

"Oh you do. You really, really do. Trust me. You may have been staring at that book but there was no way that you were reading, I would bet my own ice cream here on it." Chris brandishes his double chocolate cone at her, then seems to reconsider and switches to show off her own dipped soft serve that he still has yet to actually let her eat. "Actually, you know what? I would eat your dipped monstrosity if I'm wrong."

Ashley sighs, but she can't keep the smile from her face. "It's not that bad this time, oh my god. It's chocolate ice cream dipped in blueberry syrup. This is actually a normal combination for people who go out of their way to order more exciting cones then two scoops of chocolate." She leans forward and places her elbows on the table to support her head in her hands. "But I wanna see you do it anyway, so tell me exactly why you're so convinced that I wasn't reading."

Chris opens his mouth, but immediately closes it a second later, as though he didn't realize exactly what he had signed himself up for here until now. Ashley of course takes it as a sign of victory. "I knew it. So let's see this Chris, I wanna see you eat something that isn't—"

"When you read you get, like, super attentive." Chris's face is pink, and not looking at her but at the book on the table as he bashfully continues. "You become so drawn in to whatever you're reading that you ignore everything going on around you, because all of your attention is now on that book. Pretty sure a bomb could go off right next to you and you wouldn't even notice sometimes. And it's always so easy to tell what's happening in the book when you're reading too, cause your face is always so expressive. Like your eyes get big when something exciting or surprising happens, and when you're really enjoying whatever it is you're reading, you start giggling like a loon."

Ashley is too stunned and, quite frankly, her heart is beating too fast for her to even think of a proper response to that . She manages to squeak out a quiet little "oh, um" but Chris doesn't notice. Not when he's still babbling and not looking at her at all.

"But when you get deep in thought, you're not like that at all. All of your attention goes inward, and everything around you disappears cause all the important stuff is going on inside your head right now. Your mouth falls open just a little, sort of like you're gaping at all the information in front of you. And-and sometimes you'll mouth out what's going on inside your head as you try to fit the pieces of everything together so it's neat and tidy like a puzzle. And even though you have the, like, blankest stare imaginable, it's not empty at all if that makes any sense. Cause your eyes narrow and your forehead scrunches just the tiniest amount so you have a small little wrinkle form like right here—" with his unoccupied hand Chris points at the bridge of his nose right between his eyes "—and it's weirdly, insanely cute? But when you finally figure out the puzzle in your head, your face lights up like a kid on christmas morning and...and..." He lets his words trail off and stops awkwardly there, as though finally realizing exactly what he's been saying this entire time.

His face is almost beet red now, and Ashley is pretty sure hers is too. "Oh, uh, wow. I-I didn't realize you paid any attention to me when I was like that..."

Somehow his face only gets redder, and though he mumbles the words under his breath, Ashley can still make them out. "I'm always paying attention to you."

But not close enough attention it seems, she thinks sadly. If you did then you would have noticed something way more obvious than that. But she doesn't want to embarrass him anymore than he already is (then she already is), and she isn't sure what else she could possibly say that wouldn't be her blurting out that she likes him, so instead she pretends that she hadn't heard a single thing and wordlessly accepts the ice cream that he hands to her, accepting her defeat as she takes a small bite of the blueberry covered chocolate soft serve.

...The blueberry covered chocolate soft serve that he had bought for her. Or, you know, the ice cream he had paid for himself. Just like he had paid for everything today. Kind of like it was almost a, uh, date. Like he had taken her on a date.

Oh .

"Oh boy, let me guess: I was right and your ice cream really is a crime against taste buds?"

Ashley comes crashing back down to reality to see Chris, his face still a little red but the playful smile back on his face as he teased her. And yet, that only makes it worse as she can't help but feel the usual gymnastics routine the butterflies in her stomach perform at that particular smile, only they're a thousand times worse now that's she's realized exactly why today had felt so strange. And she can't help thinking how much everyone else would classify what was just a day hanging out with her best friend as a date. And how much she really, really wished it was one.

"Nope," she unfortunately squeaks out, and clears her throat so she can continue in a more normal tone of voice. "Nope, sorry to disappoint Chris, but the ice cream tastes fine." She takes another bite for proof (and to her credit she's not lying, it tastes more than fine). "Just, uh, realized something funny that's all." And the moment the words leave her mouth she realizes just how badly she's screwed everything up, because there is no way in any world that Chris Hartley is just going to let that comment lie.

"Funny? Oho, well now I'm interested. You mind sharing your glorious epiphany with the rest of the class Miss Brown?"

Taking another small taste of her ice cream, Ashley averts her gaze as she gives what she is kicking herself for is obviously an extremely forced laugh. "Did I say funny? I meant boring, just super boring actually."

"Well now I just want to hear it more."

"No, you don't. Trust me, you really, really don't."

Chris's brows furrow in concern. "Ash? You okay?"

She isn't, of course she isn't. She's now realized exactly what a date with Chris would be like, and it would be exactly like this. With them going to all the same place and doing the same things but she's allowed to hold his hand and kiss him when he does stupid sweet things like buying her the book she's been eyeing and talking about all day. She's never wanted something to be so true so badly in her life. And it's likely this thought in her mind that causes her to blurt out "A date." before she even realizes what she's said.

That only makes the confusion on Chris's face go deeper, which is appropriate considering she's sinking deeper and deeper into her chair in a futile effort to hide or escape as well. "What? Are you saying that you just remember what date it is today? Or that you had something you were supposed to do today instead? I'm not really following you right now Ash..."

This is perfect. It's the perfect excuse, she could laugh and say that she totally forgot what day it was and that she had an essay due pretty soon, or that she was supposed to babysit for a neighbour tonight. Anything really, the sky was quite literally the limit. And instead she just bit her lip and stared at the ice cream melting in her hand before weakly admitting "No, a, uh, date. As in, the romantic kind. I realized that today probably looks like a date to anyone else. Funny, huh?"

She's not sure how Chris would react to that. Maybe a startled laugh, and hand wave as he brushes her off. A scoff as he assures her that this definitely isn't a date, cause they're just friends and that's all they'll ever be. Whatever the reaction she expected, it was certainly not the fumbling for his ice cream as he nearly drops it in his shock, and how absolutely flustered he sounds as he trips over his own tongue. "W-what? I-I-I, uh—I mean, th-this obviously isn't—Who would even—? Wh-what would even give you the idea that we could um, possibly be on a date?"

Ashley shrugs weakly. "Isn't it obvious Chris?" She ignores his even more flustered babbling that no, he absolutely did not see what was so obvious as she continued on, still too nervous to look him in the eyes. "You've kind of paid for everything today."

"I wha—? I mean, no I haven't!"

"You kind of have, Chris. The theater?"

"You know I always pay for the tickets, and it would have just been really rude to make the line even longer!"

"The art show?"

"It was just a couple of toonies! And you saw the face of the worker there, they would have kicked us right out if they'd had to break a twenty. It was just easier."

"Lunch?"

"They-they'd had a special on for a two-person meal at that stall in the food court, and they wouldn't let each of us pay half..." he neglected to point out that Ashley could have easily paid for their lunch, and probably should have, but before she had been able to offer he'd already been swiping his debit card.

"The arcade?"

"Okay, that was my turn to buy the tokens, you know that. That one doesn't even count."

Ashley lifted her eyes from the ice cream to the book that sat menacingly and innocently all at one at the center of the table, it's pristine cover mocking her. "The book?"

"T-that was just a gift! You seemed really into it at the store and friends buy each other gifts all the time—"

There was no describing how soft and nervous her voice got as she asked the question that would put the final nail in the coffin. "The ice cream?"

"I, uh, it was just—um..." Chris let out a breath in a weak chuckle. "Shit, I guess I kind of did, huh?"

Ashley doesn't say anything, and neither does Chris, as the table goes silent. She's bracing herself for when Chris inevitably shoots her down and confirms that it doesn't matter. That the two of them will never be anything more then friends and that she never should have hoped for anything more and by revealing this she's ruined their friendship for good—

"Hey, uh, Ash?" He sounds so nervous that it immediately takes Ashley out of her anxiety driven thoughts of doom and gloom, but she can't do anything more than just shakily nod to let him continue. "It's, uh, probably like a really, really, really stupid question but—" he takes a nervous breath "—did you want this to be a date?"

Her head immediately shoots up as she stares at him with wide eyes, her breath caught somewhere in her throat where her heart is currently lodged. She frantically rakes her eyes over Chris's face looking for any hint that he's mocking her, or playing some cruel joke on her and her feelings, but all she sees is just nervousness all over a pale, shaking face with what she thinks ( prays ) is a glimmer of undisguised hope. But it's still too much uncertainty, and she's too scared to risk it all on a mere glimmer that she is likely only imagining because she wants it so badly to be real, so she throws the question back at him instead.

"...would you have been opposed if this was actually a date?"

"Nuh uh, I asked you first."

Ashley realizes that he's just as scared at what the answer might be as she is. She wants to tell him, has wanted to tell him for years and years and years. And maybe this is the chance she's been waiting for her whole life. The two of them sitting at a sticky plastic table under the early evening sun, long forgotten ice cream melting in their hands, and she can finally tell him that she's had such a huge crush on him since she was twelve.

"Yeah." The word is less choked out than it is released. Like it's a breath of fresh air and she feels simultaneously lighter and heavier for it. "I-I think I would have liked that. I would have liked that alot."

Chris snaps his gaze up to meet hers, and the glimmer of hope that she had seen earlier has now nearly taken over his face at the disbelieving smile that's threatening to crack his face in two. "Really? I-I mean, uh, I would have been alright with the idea too. More than alright actually."

She can feel her own smile start to nervously match his, and then the first giggle breaks out. His own ecstatic laughter quickly follows her own until the two of them are both giddily laughing at the table, but too embarrassed and bashful to even look at each other now. The giggling abruptly cuts off when Chris lets out a yelp of surprise when he realizes how much of his ice cream has melted onto his hand and Ashley joins him in trying to finish off their ice cream before it's melted entirely. But there's definitely a change in the atmosphere around them now. The contentness and laid back ease that always formed between them whenever they hung out was still there, but there is a charge that hadn't been there before either. An excited anticipation that only surges higher and higher whenever Ashley shyly glances in Chris's direction to find he's looking at her with the same disbelieving smile beaming on his face.

They never say anything more about it as they both finish off the ice cream, but Ashley knows. With that little agreement, the entire day had changed. This wasn't just them hanging out as friends anymore, this was an actual, factual date now, pure and simple. So when Chris hands her a couple of extra napkins to clean herself off, she may have let her fingers brush against his for just a moment. The resulting blush and dumbstruck smile on his face when he cautiously took his hand back so he could clean up the rest of the mess on the table was oh so worth it. And when he returned from his trip to the garbage can and held out his hand as an offer to help her up from the chair, she accepted it readily.

Once she's back on her feet, the two of them drop their eyes to stare at their still clasped hands, realizing that they could easily hold hands the entire short walk back to Chris's truck if they wanted. And she does want that—horribly in fact—but it seems it's still a little too early for either of them to make that teeny tiny but monumental jump to hand holding so they let go awkwardly and slowly, letting their fingers linger against the others before letting go completely. As though giving themselves a taste of what may yet actually come to pass in the (hopefully) very near future.

The short walk back to the truck is filled with both anticipation and dread alike, but unusually silent. Ashley knows it's because she's now a buzzing ball of nervous energy, terrified that saying anything at all will shatter this dream that's apparently coming true before her eyes, but Chris is different. He looks more like he's trying to work up the courage to say or ask something, and is spending all his energy on that alone. So when he reaches out to open up the passenger side door for her, Ashley can feel her heart pick up speed when he stops with his hand on the door handle and looks at her nervously. His mouth opens and shuts a couple of times as he tries to work up the courage to say whatever it is he wants to say, and all she can do is stare at him expectantly as she struggles to hold back an excited smile.

"Hey, Ash, ca—nevermind. It's, it's stupid. Don't worry about it." A second later, he has the door opened for her and the moment she can't see his face, she lets her smile fall crestfallen. But only for a second before a polite one replaces it as thanks when he closes the door for her and continues to his side of the truck. It's fine, she supposes as she buckles herself in, while the two of them have been hanging out all day, it's only been an actual date now for barely ten minutes. And once he drops her off home in just another few short minutes it's going to be over. The fact that she even managed to get this far is franky mind blowing, so expecting anything more from her dreams would just be extremely selfish. She can't have everything she wants all at once, no matter how long she's been waiting for it.

The drive back to her place is also quiet, filled with only the droning of the radio playing in the background. Ashley's returned back to her book, but she knows that Chris knows that she's not absorbing a single word, hasn't turned a single page even. She keeps glancing at him out of the corner of her eye as he nervously taps at the steering wheel, and then tightening his grasp when it looks like he's going to say something, only to return to the nervous tapping when he inevitably backs out at the last second and returns to the frantic pep talk he's likely giving himself. The air that fills the vehicle is heavy and thick with anticipation and it's taking almost everything in Ashley to not start shaking the question out of Chris at every red light they stop at.

But, eventually, they pull up in front of her place and Chris stops the truck. There's a moment where the two of them just sit there, not wanting to leave because leaving means the end, and Ashley schools her face into a cheery smile in an effort to hide as much of the disappointment as she can when she turns to face him and bid him farewell, only to have it fall to confusion when he starts fumbling at his own seatbelt.

"Chris? What are you doing?"

He struggles further at it, frustrated that the buckle's apparently decided that now is the perfect time for it to stick once again. "Trying to get this fucking thing off."

"Yeah, I figured that much. But why are you trying to take it off, you're just gonna leave right away again anyway."

He slows his fumbling as cheeks start darkening in embarrassment. "I, uh, I just thought that was something you were supposed to do after a date, walk them to their door to stay goodnight. I mean, at least I think this is a date now? And, and only if you're okay with it! I can stay in here instead if you don't want me to. I was just hoping..."

The once forced cheery smile on her face is certainly not being forced any longer, if anything she's trying not to show how much the idea of Chris walking her to her door thrills her. "N-no!" Well, so much for trying not to show how desperately she wants that. The startled look he gives her at the unexpected outburst had her trying to control her voice into something less desperate, but considering she doesn't think she's ever going tame the frantic butterflies that have been flapping around non-stop in her stomach ever since the ice cream realization, she's probably doing a terrible job of it. "I-I mean if you want to, it's completely up to you after all..."

"Cool. Cool cool cool. Just, just give me a second." He continues to struggle with his seatbelt buckle, letting out more and more agitated curses escape the longer the thing continues to stick, and Ashley is getting the feeling that if he was able, Chris would have ripped the entire thing straight out of the seat by now. Broken safety laws and ensuing repair costs be damned. The moment he finally manages to unstick the traitorous buckle it's with a cry of victory and relief so exuberant that Ashley finds herself laughing in disbelief and awe that he had wanted to walk her the short ten or so feet to her front door that badly. Thankfully, for both of them, her seatbelt unclicks easily and much more quickly in comparison, only taking another couple of seconds to grab her bag from the footwell and joining him.

The far too short walk up to her door is over before either of them realize it. One second the two of them had been standing awkwardly and nervously by the truck as she fought the urge to reach out and grab his hand, and the next they're standing just as awkwardly and nervously (if not moreso) in front of the front door. Both of them waiting for the other to say or do something to break the tension, but cleanly aware that doing so would signal the very final end of the day, and the date. In fact, just knowing that Chris doesn't want this to end just as badly as her, is what gives her the courage to look at him with a surprisingly heartfelt and soft smile.

"Today was fun."

Chris lifts his eyes from where they had been staring at the dried leaves on the doorstep to match her smile. "Yeah. It was."

"And thanks. For the movie, and everything else." Ashley raises her hand to give the new and still shiny paperback a small wave. "And, you know, the book too. Of course."

"Yeah, it was no problem. Anytime." There's something with how he says the last bit—not really emphasizing it but making it clear all the same that he means 'anytime'—that causes her face to flush giddily as she pulls her lower lip in between her teeth in a weak effort to fight back against the ecstatic smile that forms anyway. And when she sees his eyes lower just a smidge to follow the motion and the way his shoulders stiffen in reaction, Ashley very quickly also finds she's trying (much more successfully) to hold herself back from just saying 'to hell with it' and throwing her arms around Chris so she can finally kiss him silly and until they're both breathless. But considering that she's too much of a coward to initiate something as innocent as hand holding apparently, there is absolutely no way that something as...as scandalous as kissing him on her doorstep is ever going to happen. Clearly.

And yet, she gives Chris another few seconds to try and work past that blockade in his throat, but when he still can't muster a single word, she decides to just put the both of them out of their misery. Or further into it. It's probably just the same thing really. "I guess I'll see you next time. I'll talk to you later, okay?" She turns away and puts her hand on the doorknob, and tucks the book under her arm so she can dig into her bag for keys, but is stopped when Chris's hand abruptly snakes out and wraps itself firmly around her wrist before she can reach into the bag. And it works—boy does it ever —turning back to him and the hand wrapped around her wrist as excitement just starts to bubble up inside of her.

A second later though, his brain has apparently caught up with the movement he clearly hadn't intended to make, because his face goes beet-red and he's dropped her hand so he can shove both into the pockets of his jeans. He averts his eyes so he's back to staring at the loose gravel and dried leaves under their feet.

"Oh, uh, sorry about that. I didn't mean to..."

"It's fine, Chris." Ashley tries to smile softly at him in reassurance, but it's considering she's gripping the doorknob in an almost vice-like grip in anticipation, it's likely far more eager than she would like. "What is it?"

Somehow, his face goes even redder and he blurts out the question so fast that it may as well have been one word. "CanIkissyou?!"

Immediately, Ashley's gaping at him wide-eyed and her mouth open in shock as her heart's beating so fast that she's pretty sure it's ready to burst out of her chest at any moment. "Wha—"

"I-I mean goodnight. Can I kiss you goodnight? That's what people are supposed to do on dates, right? A-a-a-and I think we agreed that this is a date now, or at least I really, really hope we did. Cause I've wanted to go on a date with you for the longest time and-and-and I didn't want Saundra or-or-or any of your neighbours to see cause I know that would just really embarrass you and me but I've been trying to ask you for the past thirty minutes now cause I've wanted to kiss you since forever but I was scared about how you would react cause I really, really, really like you Ash and I just wanna to kiss you so fucking bad right now you have no idea and—"

Ashley would like to believe that she's brave enough to throw her arms around Chris and drag him down into that searing kiss she's been dreaming about forever and ever, but she doesn't. Even with a confession that is everything she's ever wanted to hear and more. That's not to say that she doesn't want to do it—god does she want to do it—but she's so frozen in place from shock that she physically can't. So instead she just continues to gape at him as he (adorably) rambles on and on, and giggles out an elated little "okay".

His nervous rambling stops dead in its tracks, and he finally looks back up at her, nervous relief evident all over his face. "Really? I mean, are you sure? I'd understand if you didn't want to—"

" Chris ."

That immediately shifts the relief to a different kind of nervousness entirely, one of excited disbelief, but even then neither move to actually initiate this promised kiss for several seconds. Instead just staring at each other waiting for the other to be the first to move, Chris with his hands still in his jeans pockets and Ashley glued to the doorknob with her other hand frozen as it hovers over her bag. Finally, Chris is the first to slowly bend down to meet her awkwardly half turned body, and she unsteadily tries to rock herself onto the tips of her toes without losing her balance completely and falling over. And still, they both pause about an inch away from each other's faces, though whether to give the other an out if needed or just to work through the logistics of how to do this exactly without their foreheads or noses smashing into each other or Chris's glasses getting in the way is anyone's guess.

But finally, mainly due to the fact that Ashley can't lean forward anymore without falling completely on her face, Chris closes that final bit of distance and kisses her. It's a nervous brush of the lips really—a quick peck at best —but they jolt back from each other so quickly that the single action may as well have activated some hidden magnetic repel function that neither had been aware of until this moment. Both of them are staring at each other wide-eyed and breathless as the magnitude of what they had both finally managed to accomplish hit them. The kinda-sort confession and the almost hand holding meant absolutely nothing in comparison to this. Those she could have (and would most likely have) brushed off as her reading too much into innocent statements and gestures when she thought over everything that had happened today in the safety of her room later tonight. But this? This was physical proof .

Looking back, Ashley's not sure which of them moved first. One second they had been staring at each other in disbelief, stuck in the same awkward bent and leaning stature from before, and the next it's as if the magnetic attraction between them reverses its flow entirely. Chris is cupping her cheek with one hand as he kisses her in the way she always dreamed he would, his other hand slowly skating across the back of her neck so he can pull her up closer to him. The book that had once been clutched protectively under her arm was completely forgotten about—fallen to the ground with a sharp crunch as it crushed the dried leaves beneath their feet—as her arms wrapped possessively around his shoulders as she props herself as high as the tips her toes will allow her. She can still taste a hint of the chocolate from earlier on his lips, and the small part of her that isn't being blown away by all of this is wondering if he can taste the blueberry and chocolate on hers as well.

She's not sure how long the two of them stood there on her doorstep, kissing for all the world to see, but she does know that they still separate much, much too soon for her liking. Not that they fully separate of course. She may be back on the soles of her feet, but neither of them have removed themselves from the embrace itself. And with the way that Chris is lightly brushing his thumb over her cheekbone as he just stares at her with the same stupidly giddy grin she's got, Ashley would be perfectly fine if they could just stay standing like this forever.

"So..." she starts, and stops to take a moment to giggle when Chris bumps his nose into hers. "I think that was a perfectly acceptable first date if you ask me."

Chris doesn't let go of her when he leans back to consider her, the comically raised eyebrows in shock doing nothing to take away from the absolutely thrilled beam of his smile. " First date? Why Miss Brown, are you perhaps asking me out for a second one already?"

"I mean, if it's not too presumptuous of me, I suppose I am. I-if you're not opposed to it of course." She can't help the way her nervousness starts to bleed through with that last sentence, already panicking that she's somehow completely misread everything that's just happened and that maybe that kiss didn't mean as much to him as it did to her after all.

His next words completely derail those fears entirely. "Of course I'm not, I would love nothing more than to go on a second date with you. Followed by a third and fourth and even a fifth if you have the time for it."

"I mean, I'm a pretty busy girl but I think I can open up as many days in my schedule as it takes if I need to."

Before she knows it, the two of them are leaning in for another kiss when the sound of pot being dropped in the nearby kitchen through the open window jarringly brings them back to reality and the two of them let go of each other red faced and embarrassed. Oh no, how much of this had her mother heard? Or worse, saw? She wants to leave the doorstep (which is rapidly becoming her favourite place in the whole entire world) even less now, but the longer she takes the worse the excited interrogation from Saundra will be so she starts digging back into her bag to try and find her keys once again.

"I'll text you later, okay? And, maybe, we can talk some more about that second date...?"

The reply from Chris is flustered but eager. "Yeah, totally. I-I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Cool. And um, the next one's one me. The date that is. It's only fair after all."

"Yeah, right. Only fair. Totally. And, uh, your book..."

She finally finds her keys from where they had sunk to the bottom of her bag, and looks up at him and the paperback book that had fallen during their, uh, intimate embrace. "Oh! Uh, right. Thanks." She could easily leave it at that, but the last few minutes have made her bold so when she reaches out to take the book back from him, Ashley curls her fingers over his and bounces onto the balls of her feet so she can give him one last kiss on his cheek—almost the corner of his mouth really—before finally stepping back with the book and keys in her hand. "I mean it. Thanks . For everything."

"Yeah. No problem. It was my pleasure."

She lets herself have one last glimpse of the stupefied grin on his face just as he turns to walk just a little unsteadily down the path back to his truck. The only sounds being the leaves crushing underfoot and the jangle of metal as she sticks her keys into the door to finally unlock it. A sound that it quickly interrupted by not only the click of the door unlocking, but a muffled shout.

Alarmed, she turns quickly expecting to see Chris having accidentally shut his coat into the door as he is sometimes known to do when the weather gets colder, but instead watches in elated shock as he continues to keep energetically flapping his arms and fist pumping into the air and screaming what she can vaguely make out as 'yesyesyesyesYESYESYES' over and over again.

Suddenly it hits her. Despite the shy confession over ice cream, and then the much more rushed and rambled one only minutes ago, and followed by the kiss(es) that are still sending her heart into rapid fire, Ashley still hadn't believed what all the evidence had been saying. Chris liked her. He really, really liked her. Possibly as much as she liked him even! This wasn't just a one-off event that would now make things awkward between them for the rest of their lives. This was happening. They'd just had a first(!!!!) date and after Chris had kissed her goodbye, she had asked him out for a second one.

And he had accepted .

Ashley fumbled with the door and the moment she was in the house, slammed the door behind her, not even bothering to lock it. She let her bag fall from her shoulder to the floor with a soft thump and slowly slid down the door until she was sitting against it with her eyes wide and breathless. She ignored the surprised clatter coming from the kitchen as Saundra immediately dropped whatever it was she had been doing in and held up the book so she could stare at the once innocuous cover in amazement.

He had bought her this book and the ice cream because he liked her and he had gladly and excitedly accepted to go out on another date with her. And even more if he had been serious about that third date and beyond line.

And not that either would ever know it, Ashley mirrored Chris at that exact moment by placing her head into her hands and screaming as the built up joy and bliss finally exploded out of her.

#pride month prompt challenge #my writing #until dawn #chris hartley #ashley brown #chrashley #take two of trying post this stupid thing!#tumblr deleted the last one >:(#but this one actually copied over the italics so that saves me a shit ton of time if im being honest

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brooklynmuseum · 5 years ago

Photo

Springtime in Brooklyn by Nancy Rosoff, Andrew W. Mellon Senior Curator, Arts of the Americas

As I look out my window at the falling rain, I know that these April showers will soon be followed by May’s flowers. The vibrant colors of budding trees and blossoming flowers give us hope that we will overcome the current crisis, and the world will be rejuvenated, stronger, and more unified. The following works from the Brooklyn Museum’s diverse collection celebrate the arrival of Spring and our hope for a healthy and more peaceful world.

Brightly colored plants and flowers made of faience once decorated the walls of the Great Palace of king Akhenaten at Amarna. Sun light and the disk of the sun itself became the focus of religious worship in the Amarna period (1353-13336 B.C.E.). The floral motifs of these tiles were meant to evoke rebirth of life brought about by the sun. See the artwork in our open collection.

While the Nile was revered as a life-giving place, the desert was also teeming with nature. Here one can see animals breeding in their desert environs. To the right, a feline is showing interest in another feline. At the lower left, a male antelope, mounting his mate, rears his head into the row above. At the lower right, the hindquarters of an antelope giving birth and the emerging head of her calf are partly preserved. The bovine calf at center left completes this depiction of the cycle of life. See the artwork in our open collection.

This detail from a Nasca mantle not only illustrates some of the plants and animals native to Peru’s South Coast, but it also conveys how the society’s spiritual beliefs are connected to agricultural seasons. The blossoming huarango tree seen here represents life and is shown growing out of a human trophy head on the back of a pampas cat. The trophy head symbolizes death but it is also a germinating seed from which life sprouts in a never-ending cycle of life, death, and rebirth. See the artwork in our open collection.

This late-seventeenth-century painting from viceregal Peru shows Saint Joseph standing hand-in-hand with the Christ Child in a field of blooming flora and enclosed within a border of bright carnations and lilies. Saint Joseph’s popularity flourished at this moment in the Spanish Americas as he embodied ideals of fatherhood, marriage, divinity, and masculinity. Here, he holds a stem of white lilies, which symbolize his holiness and purity. See the artwork in our open collection.

This sculpture would have served as a means for people to contact spiritual intermediaries for aid. Its raised arms are said to refer to prayers for rain, crucial to survive and thrive in arid the Mopti Region of Mali. See the artwork in our open collection.

The use of naturalistic floral motifs, such as carnations, tulips, and hyacinths, was a trademark of the design workshop of the Ottoman court in Istanbul in the mid-sixteenth century. This design principle was adopted in central and distant areas of the empire and applied to different media, such as manuscript illuminations made in Istanbul, textiles made in Bursa, and tiles made in Iznik and Damascus. This octagonal tile from Syria brings the beauty of spring indoors permanently. See the artwork in our open collection.

Vibrant greens and blues bring a spring woodland scene inside the Museum, creating an eternal verdant landscape. The effects of changing sunlight or a passing cloud can animate the glass used to depict the stream, tree trunks and leaves. Originally installed in the Universalist Church of Our Father at Classon and Atlantic Avenues in Brooklyn, the windows were purchased by the All Souls Universalist Church on Ocean Avenue and installed in 1945, before coming to the Brooklyn Museum a few years ago. Tiffany Studio was extremely skilled at creating panoramas that open onto lush, brilliantly colored vistas. See the artwork in our open collection.

This elaborately decorated cabinet brought ever-blooming flowers into the owner’s bedroom. Inspired by Japanese precedents, New York’s most important late-19th-century furniture manufacturing firm Herter Brothers employed different colored woods to create the densely packed, abstracted flowers and leaves on this luxurious, yet functional chest-of-drawers. See the artwork in our open collection.

In the Japanese tradition, cherry blossom season is a time for celebration: the world wakes up after a long winter and people head outside to gather under the pink-and-white canopies created by trees that seemed barren only a week or two earlier. This year the picnics were cancelled, but in nature the show goes on whether there’s an audience or not. See the artwork in our open collection.

In this painting, Gustave Caillebotte offers a glimpse of his private garden in Petit Gennevilliers, a small village on the Seine opposite Argenteuil. The apple blossoms are rendered in thick touches of paint, which contrast with the sketchy treatment of the path that leads toward the denser foliage beyond the tree. See the artwork in our open collection.

Nothing celebrates Spring more than this dazzling child’s cap with its delicate beadwork on vibrant rose-colored velvet. It was lovingly made by the mother or female relative of a little girl who would have worn it with pride during special occasions. See the artwork in our open collection.

A table set with bread and coffee in a blooming garden along a sun-dappled path conjures the pleasures of the warmer months to come. Robert Delaunay would become known later in his career for more abstract work, but in this early painting the 19 year old artist was still working under the influence of Impressionism. See the artwork in our open collection.

Redolent with the sweet scent of peonies, American Impressionist Ernest Lawson paints his flowerbeds in a dazzling display of jewel like tones in the Cos Cob art-colony located along the Connecticut shore. See the artwork in our open collection.

This Balinese cover features bright brocade rosettes in purple, blue, red, yellow, and green. The gilded gold overpaint features patra cina designs borrowed from Chinese floral patterns. Together, they create a glittering textile that is awash with color and floral motifs. See the artwork in our open collection.

One of the Brooklyn Museum’s most important Japanese paintings is a folding screen showing a group of urbanites walking together, followed by a musician and a servant with a big box. The only clue that they are heading to a cherry-blossom-viewing picnic comes from a woman who extends a branch of flowering cherry back toward a group of men. Attached to the branch is a long strip of paper of the type used traditionally in Japan for writing poems. What does the poem strip say? We don’t know, but it seems fair to guess that it serves as an invitation to romance. The screen reminds us that the spring tradition of partying beneath the cherry trees wasn’t solely about communing with nature. See the artwork in our open collection.

Inspired by Japanese folding screens or byōbu, Elizabeth Boott Duveneck’s five panels bring the natural world into the interior of the house depicting all four seasons from Autumn Foliage to Apple blossoms throughout the year. See the artwork in our open collection.

Beginning in the early 1930s, Consuelo Kanaga became one of few white photographers to make artistic portraits of Black Americans. This closely cropped and sharply focused image of a girl’s face with a flower was likely included in Group f.64’s inaugural exhibition in 1932, which announced a new realist direction in photography. Considered radical in its time, Frances with a Flower explores powerful ideas about beauty, gender, and race. See the artwork in our open collection.

Mary Wollstonecraft was a renowned women’s rights activist who authored "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman," (1792), a classic of rationalist feminism that is considered the earliest and most important treatise, advocating for equality and education for women. Akin to the nature of Spring, Wollstonecraft's life symbolized the fruition of a legacy—from which infinite linages of women continue to reap the fruits of her labor. See the artwork in our open collection.

With rose-patterned leggings and an elaborate floral armature/headdress, Nick Cave’s Soundsuit transforms the human body into a lush garden. Since the early 1990s, Cave has been fabricating inventive sculptures out of scavenged materials, which he often overlays with beadwork, stitching, and other embellishments. One of the first, crafted from twigs, was made to be worn and created a rustling sound, which led to the eventual name of such works: Soundsuits. Cave’s costumes draw from a variety of sources, including both African and Caribbean traditions of masquerade. See the artwork in our open collection.

Posted by Nancy Rosoff with contributions from the Curators and Curatorial Assistants of African, American, Ancient Egyptian, Arts of the Americas, Asian, Contemporary, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, and Islamic Art

Photos: Gary Alan Bukovnik (American, born 1947). Rhododendrum, 1980. Lithograph on paper. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the artist, 81.15.2. © Gary Alan Bukovnik(Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Tile with Floral Inlays, ca. 1352-1336 B.C.E. Faience. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Egypt Exploration Society, 35.2001. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Relief with Desert Scene, ca. 2472-2455 B.C.E. Limestone, pigment. Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 64.147. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Nazca. Mantle ("The Paracas Textile"), 100-300 C.E. Cotton, camelid fiber. Brooklyn Museum, John Thomas Underwood Memorial Fund, 38.12; Cuzco School. Saint Joseph and the Christ Child, late 17th-18th century. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum, Museum Expedition 1941, Frank L. Babbott Fund, 41.1275.191 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Dogon. Nommo Figure with Raised Arms, 11th-15th century (possibly). Wood, organic sacrificial material. Brooklyn Museum, The Adolph and Esther D. Gottlieb Collection, 1989.51.39. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Octagonal Tile Depicting Peacock in Prunus Tree, 16th century. Ceramic; fritware, painted in black, cobalt blue, green, and manganese purple under a transparent glaze. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Jack A. Josephson, 1990.21. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Tiffany Studios (1902-1932). Dawn in the Woods in Springtime, 1905. Stained glass window. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of All Souls Bethlehem Church, 2014.17.1. Creative Commons-BY; Herter Brothers (American, 1865-1905). Chest-of-Drawers, ca. 1880. Ebonized cherry, other woods, modern marble top, brass. Brooklyn Museum, Modernism Benefit Fund, 1989.69. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Utagawa Hiroshige (Ando) (Japanese, 1797-1858). Suijin Shrine and Massaki on the Sumida River (Sumidagawa Suijin no Mori Massaki), No. 35 from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 8th month of 1856. Woodblock print. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Anna Ferris, 30.1478.35 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Gustave Caillebotte (French, 1848-1894). Apple Tree in Bloom (Pommier en fleurs), ca. 1885. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of William K. Jacobs, Jr., 1992.107.2 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Woodlands. Child's Cap, ca. 1890s. Velvet, cloth, beads. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Edward J. Guarino Collection in memory of Josephine M. Guarino, 2016.11.2. Creative Commons-BY; Robert Delaunay (French, 1885-1941). In the Garden (Dans le jardin), 1904. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Iris and B. Gerald Cantor, 86.28 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Ernest Lawson (American, 1873-1939). Garden Landscape, ca. 1915. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of Laura L. Barnes, 67.24.10 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Cover, 19th or early 20th century. Silk, pigment. Brooklyn Museum, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 45.183.110. Creative Commons-BY; Cherry Blossom Viewing Picnic, ca. 1624-1644. Ink, color and gold leaf on paper. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Frederic B. Pratt, 39.87. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Elizabeth Boott Duveneck (American, 1846-1888). Apple Blossoms, 1882. Oil on wood panel. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Joan Harmen Brown, Mr. and Mrs. William Slocum Davenport, Mrs. Lewis Francis, Samuel E. Haslett, William H. Herriman, Joseph Jefferson IV, Clifford L. Middleton, the New York City Police Department, Mrs. Charles D. Ruwe, Charles A. Schieren, the University Club, Mrs. Henry Wolf, Austin M. Wolf, and Hamilton A. Wolf, by exchange, Frank Sherman Benson Fund, Museum Collection Fund, Dick S. Ramsay Fund, Carll H. de Silver Fund, John B. Woodward Memorial Fund, and Designated Purchase Fund , 2005.54.3 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Consuelo Kanaga (American, 1894-1978). Frances with a Flower, early 1930s. Gelatin silver photograph. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Wallace B. Putnam from the Estate of Consuelo Kanaga, 82.65.10 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum); Judy Chicago (American, b. 1939). The Dinner Party (Mary Wollstonecraft place setting), 1974–79. Mixed media: ceramic, porcelain, textile. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation, 2002.10. © Judy Chicago. Photograph by Jook Leung Photography; Nick Cave (American, born 1959). Soundsuit, 2008. Mixed media. Brooklyn Museum, Mary Smith Dorward Fund, 2009.44a-b. © Nick Cave (Photo: Image courtesy of Robilant Voena)

#virtualtour #springtime #spring #brooklyn museum #museums #brooklyn #virtual tour #art #art museum #bkmtours #virtual tours

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gossipchii · 3 years ago

Text

Spectrum

FF.net: here / AO3: here

Characters: Tachikawa Mimi and Takenouchi Sora

Pairing: Sorami

Words: 3100+

Notes: There’s no other explanation to this other than I love these two. And I hope to be more than Mimi.

HAPPY PRIDE! LOVE IS LOVE!

Enjoy!!!

To Mimi, love was something she understood from a young age. It had never been the subject to ask any explanation for; she simply had always embraced it. She felt it in the small things, such as the cherry blossoms growing on the trees during spring, or with the rainbows that came after a big rainstorm.

She had had great teachers, too, the best ones, even. The way her parents loved each other, by how her dad always opened the door, of any kind, to her mom, or left a bouquet of flowers every seventh of the month on their dinner table, as if they had just started dating, made her heart ginormous. She loved love and was not afraid to express it.

She had always had many boyfriends, even if they tended to last a couple of months only, but each one of them Mimi could have sworn at some point of their relationship, had to be the love of her life. Her friends tended to roll their eyes at her, Mimi was a hopeless romantic, and she could not deny it, she did not want to.

When she was eleven, her world turned upside down, when her parents told her they would move to New York, the Big Apple, which she had only seen on movies. She was at shock at first, of course, but she was sure she could handle it. She had always been a sucker for adventures, after all.

"Aren't you scared of learning a new language?" her oldest friend, redhead Sora, was helping her packing. Their mothers had introduced them to each other when Mimi was in diapers, and Sora was only a year older than she was. Mimi's mother was passionate for anything luxurious, and she considered flowers a luxury, she always had. Hence why she had to take Ikebana classes, which was how she met Toshiko, Sora's mother.

They had been best friends ever since.

"I have been practicing a little bit! One, two, three!" She counted with her fingers, in English with a thick Japanese accent, which left Sora speechless. Mimi was her own kind.

"I will really miss you." Sora said after closing the last box in the brunette's room. It felt cold, wrong even.

"Don't be silly, daddy promised we will come visit every summer at least," Sora embraced Mimi, and it was the very first time she had felt sad about moving. New York was exciting, of course, but it did not have Sora.

New York was a whole universe apart from Tokyo. Sure, they were both huge cities, but the mentalities from one another, it was hard to believe they were both under the same sky.

Mimi had learned so much more about love during the six long years she had lived there. For starters, contrary to what most of the media she consumed while growing up had wanted her to believe, sexual orientation was a spectrum, which had as many options as humankind would let it. Mimi had remained a love lover, and that also meant she had, well, experimented here and there. And she had enjoyed every piece of it.

When her parents gave her the option to study her junior year of high school in Japan once again, she accepted without hesitation. New York would always be waiting for her, but Japan felt more distant than ever, and she somehow felt a part of her was missing.

She was especially excited to see her childhood friends, especially Sora, whom she had not seen for two years, but had kept in touch via e-mails and text messages. God bless cellphones and the internet. Sora had told her that she was in a relationship during those years they had been apart but had just broken up.

He had other priorities; Sora explained.

Since Mimi´s parents never had the heart to sell their old apartment, Mimi could have it all for herself, which was a dream for someone who loved experimenting with art like she did. She had seen so many cool ideas on design magazines, she could not wait to bring some western into good old Tokyo.

Sora was waiting for her at the airport, with a very tiny, very discrete, but with the most beautiful handwriting WELCOME HOME MIMI sign. She had written it in English, too. Mimi squealed the moment she saw her and ran as if she was in one of her favorite rom coms, to embrace the redhead.

"It has been ages, Sora, you look fantastic!" and she was not lying. Last time they had seen each other, Sora was fifteen and she was fourteen, during the teenage years, each one counted as at least five. Sora had not grown in height, Mimi was still slightly shorter, but it had always been like that, however, she looked grown, almost adult. Perhaps it was being an Ikebana master daughter, but Sora's posture and presence was impeccable.

"Says Tokyo's favorite princess," her and Sora had always had what Mimi liked to think as a spiritual connection. They were so incredibly different, in every single aspect, however, any time their eyes linked, they could communicate in ways Mimi could not dare to try with anyone else. "Did you seriously only bring a couple luggage?"

"Silly little Sora, the rest is being shipped, obviously!"

It had been a month since Mimi had arrived back to Tokyo, she had had enough time to unpack, and get familiar with the language once again. Classes had also started, and as much as she did not want to admit it, she had felt like an outsider. Sure, she was amicable with the rest of the girls in her class, but she could sense the hypocrisy behind their smiles. Mimi was very sensible with people's vibes, after all.

Sora tried her best to be there whenever she needed her, but Mimi understood she was close to be driven insane. Not only was Sora on her senior year of high school, and applying to the best design schools in Tokyo, but she was still managing to be in the tennis team, help her mom with the school and stay as a top-notch student. Mimi's head was in pain by just imagining it. She was grateful Sora had managed to save that Saturday night just for them, for old time's sake.

"Sorry I'm late! My mom had ordered forget-me-nots for the school, but they sent carnations instead! Can you imagine the chaos? We had to make like a million calls in order to get three hundred forget-me-nots in time for the exhibition next week, I almost had a stroke!"

Sora took out of her bag chips and sodas for their movie night. She also brought out skin care products, since she knew Mimi loved them. That was Sora in a nutshell, always going above and beyond for everyone, but especially for those close to her heart.

"You sound so stressed, and remember, stress is not allowed in the Tachikawa household!" Mimi was already in her PJs, she helped Sora with the snacks, and they both proceeded to sit in the living room. "Nu-uh, you must get into your sleepwear, otherwise you would be breaking the most important rule of slumber parties!"

Sora rolled her eyes and got into the bathroom, to get out wearing, not a silk set like Mimi was, but running shorts and an oversized tee. Sora had a unique kind of beauty; while Mimi had a face you could be able to catch on a runway, Sora had a face that made you look. No wonder most of the guys at school were even scared to talk to her, she was mesmerizing, even with no makeup and her short auburn hair all over her face.

"You have no idea how much I needed this evening, it's exactly what kept me going throughout the week!" Sora stole the chips from Mimi and smiled, she felt a punch in her stomach which she decided to ignore. "What are we watching?" Sora asked completely clueless of her anatomic pain.

"One of my favorites, The Notebook, the kind of love story that makes you want to die," Sora raised her eyebrows, not surprised by Mimi's exaggerations.

It was no lie The Notebook was one of Mimi's favorite movies, but she could not focus on the movie even if she were being paid to do so, and not because she had seen it at least fifteen times, but because she could not keep her eyes off Sora, and her reactions on the star-crossed lover's story. Sure, Mimi had experimented with women back in New York, but they had never been her very best friend.

"No way he fixed the house for them!" Sora was slowly cleaning up the tears that were fighting to get out of her eyes, as she caught Mimi staring at her.

Sora, on the other hand, had never experimented anything, of barely any kind. She had lived in Japan her whole life, and the most extreme adventure of her life was missing the train while she was on her way to visit her dad in Kyoto. In her very structured brain, heterosexuality was the only way of loving, the one-way couples existed. Then, why was she feeling magnetic towards Mimi's hazel eyes?

Mimi was the one to make the first move, holding her hand gently, to see what Sora's reaction on it was. She was static, but did not seem against her touch, either, so she slid closer, removing the bare centimeters that were separating them to each other. Her hand moved up Sora's arm, to her collarbone, neck and stopped right at her cheek. Sora's whole body was on fire, she had never been touched with such care, with such kindness.

Words were not necessary when the unspoken language between their gazes was so powerful. Maybe it had been a second, maybe it had been an hour, but Sora's lips were all over Mimi's, as if she had wanted to do it all her life, as if she had needed to do it all her life.

The kiss had started sweet, a peck savoring Mimi's strawberry infused lipstick, but had slowly increased in heat, Sora's body felt sweaty. Their lips had understood each other perfectly, adapting to the other's pace, and need. Sora's thoughts had been emptied for the whole time, and she wanted it to remain like that. Whenever she thought, she tended to overdo it, and she really did not want to ruin the moment.

Until their lips had to be separated, not because they wanted to, but because they needed to catch some air. Mimi's lips seemed swollen, and Sora's hair was messier than before. They were both panting, cheeks flushed.

And then it hit her, the big wave of thoughts entered Sora's brain and she got scared. What had she just done? That was Mimi sitting in front of her, that was Mimi who she had been kissing as if they were the couple in the cheesy Hollywood film they were watching. Tears filled her eyes once again, she was shaking.

"I'm sorry but… I really need to go." She grabbed her backpack and ran as fast as she could. She was not brave enough to face Mimi once again, because she was the reflection of what she had done, and she was not ready to hear it out loud.

Mimi was left alone in her parent's small apartment, because somehow it still did not feel like her's. She hugged herself and tried to force herself into finishing the movie, which was almost impossible, since her tears barely let her see anything.

What had she been thinking? Sora was all she had in Japan, her only sincere friendship, and she had to be stupid enough to let her feelings lead the way and ruin the only thing that was right with her life. Her chest was in so much pain, Sora would probably never speak to her again, and she could not blame her. Mimi was not stupid, and she knew Japan was one of the most homophobic countries in the world, even if it was the 21st century for fucks sake!

In New York things were much more different, and sure, homophobic folks existed here and there, but it was 2005 and her gay friends were allowed to hold hands in public, even show other signs of affection. Yeah, same sex marriage was not allowed just yet, but they were close to getting there! Japan was miles away from any kind of acceptation… God, what had she been thinking? Perhaps she should start looking for planes, to go back to where she belonged.

Sora ran, she ran so fast she felt her legs could detach from her body. She was not sure why she was running so fast, the one thing she wanted to get away from was on top of her shoulders. She was aware she had been the one to make the final move and kiss Mimi, the facts were there, what she wanted to know, to understand, was the reason behind her actions. She had never seen girls in a romantic or sexual way, she barely even had a close relationship with many girls.

But she had not been on drugs, or alcohol, or any other substance she could blame her actions on. She had just been drawn to Mimi's pink lips as if it were the natural thing to do, as she had kissed her ex-boyfriend so many times. She stopped running to catch a breath, she was not even close to her home, because she had been running without a destination in mind. She knew she had acted like a jerk by leaving Mimi's apartment, but she really needed to be alone, clear up her thoughts.

She grabbed her phone and texted Mimi, "can we talk about this tomorrow? I need to clear up my thoughts."

"Sure ," Mimi replied unable to write a dry message. Happy faces tended to relax situations, right?

Mimi and Sora agreed to meet in Sora's apartment to have breakfast. They could have had their conversation in a restaurant, or café, but the mere thought of being heard by anyone, drove Sora insane. No, they needed privacy.

Sora still felt guilty about leaving in such a rude way the night after, so she tried her best to cook an American breakfast, with pancakes and sunny side up eggs. She bought bacon, too! Very early in the morning, considering she had barely even slept.

Mimi knocked Sora's door, with a knot on her stomach. She could smell from the hallway the breakfast she had prepared, and she hated to admit she was hungry. Sora was a great cook, another talent to add to her never-ending list.

"Hi," Sora opened merely a second after she had knocked, making Mimi believe she had been standing behind the door for a few minutes. She seemed nervous, considering she could not stop playing with her hands. Who was she kidding, Mimi was crazy nervous, too.

"I brought flowers, which is probably stupid considering I came to the Japanese kingdom of flowers," it was a single orchid, beautifully sitting in a nice pot. Sora grabbed it and placed it in the middle of the kitchen table. It all had been arranged as a nice brunching spot Mimi would go to on a Saturday evening in the American city, her heart skipped a beat. "You didn't have to go this far with the breakfast, you know?"

"It's nothing," she shrugged her shoulders, which Mimi could see since Sora was wearing a tank top. She had never noticed the amount of freckles Sora had on them. "You know how much I enjoy cooking, please sit or it will get cold."

They ate in silence, making a mundane comment here and there, about anything but the one subject that was burning on both of their chests.

"I want to apologize for leaving like that yesterday, it was rude. No matter how confused I was feeling, that had not been your fault."

"I understand, really. You don't need to apologize, I seriously thought you would never speak to me again."

"Why would you think that?" Sora's voice sounded hurt.

"Well, considering the circumstances… it could get weird. I've been there before."

"But Mimi, before anything we are friends, best friends even. Sure, I am still very confused about my actions last night, but you did not offend me. I can not promise I could see women in a romantic way, I did not even know it was an option until last night but… I would never want to lose you."

"It must have come as a big shocker to you, right? So many of the people I had mentioned in my mails and letters were girls. To me love never had a specific sex attached to it, not even when I was a kid. I have been working with my sexuality for my whole life. I do not expect you to figure it out in a single night."

"So you…?"

"I have fallen for girls before, yes. I believe I do like girls more than I like boys. Girls tend to be more sensible and open with their feelings, you know? Of course, I do not expect my feelings to be reciprocated, there may even be a chance I am just confused because you are the only person who I feel at home with in this country. I am sorry I let myself get controlled by my feelings, I tend to do that a lot."

"Wow Mimi, I had no idea."

"I do not think I have ever said this out loud, I am not the best at speaking."

"Are we sure The United States is in the same planet as Japan?"

"Right? Japan may be advanced in technology, but you guys still live in the 15th century for so many other things."

"In my household I think we live in that century for most of the things, including beds," both Mimi and Sora laughed, cleaning up the air. "You are so brave, Mimi. For never being afraid of being yourself. You are such a blessing to anyone who ever runs into your life, I will never understand how you do it."

"I guess I have been lucky to, for the most part, run into the right people. Thank you, Sora, for not seeing me as a monster."

"Are you kidding? You are way too pretty to be a monster," they held hands, speaking once again everything they could not say out loud with their eyes.

Mimi knew she could not ask Sora to be with her, not in that moment, not the way she wanted her to be. But Sora was still for her, and she knew she would always be. She was grateful she could still be herself with the redhead, no matter the circumstances.

#digimon adventure #tachikawa mimi #takenouchi sora #sorami #mimi tachikawa #sora takenouchi #fanfic #fanfiction #mimi x sora

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ghoulishhusband · 3 years ago

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I just realized I can actually talk here. Like this is my account fuck u

Fucking uhhhhhh, hi ig lemme ramble abt my God ocs yea?

Ignore this part if you don't wanna hear (likely) unedited rambles lol it doesn't matter

CW: neglect/abuse, assholery/narcissism, manipulation, tread lightly!

read the under cut owo

Also don't steal my art I'll fucking?? Fight you????

I have three main gods that I wanna talk abt especially bc they've been on my mind lately.. Less get it, side notes are in (parentheses) and are bolded cause I have perception issues whoo I don't want it to jumble together is my point lol

First up is my asshole,

Giodine

they/them (preferred)

god/godself (i like pronouns that fit my characters, so I'm giving a bunch away for one night only at--)

ID : Giodine is colored with gold-ish yellow skin and ginger hair. Their eyes are a muted purple and they have tiny eyebrows. Their lips are a muted brown and are full looking, their nose is sharp and points down. They have wings for ears and is wearing a blazer with a long-sleeved, collared shirt underneath it. The background is beige with a yellow square and a dark purple square partially encompassing it. It is signed GH (for ghoulish husband), Spork, 21.

(lemme know if that helps at all! I'm sure I can do better so lemme know!)

If they look weird here it's bc I accidentally made their face too long but believe it or not this is in fact just a doodle Ik I'm so fuckin talented babes.

Anyways, they're basically the first God to ever exist on my version of earth (though even that is fickle rn, world-building is hard unless I hyper-focus on it, and haha Guess What I Haven't Been Thinking About) and they're very egotistical and selfish. As I'll probably yap about later is how they're manipulative as well, especially to another God I'll mention, and very neglectful to the other... other one.

Their partner(professionally), or fiend as they call him, is sam who for the first few eons was, unsurprisingly, absolutely terrible to him. A few tender moments are few and far in between in what could only be described as a completely rancid relationship. I'll describe giodine's side and in sam's lil ramble, I'll describe his :]

I have to explain this because it's a big part of the lore and how they can't work together, even when one of them is very much near The Void (technical death for gods) BUT basically, with Sam, giodine created purgatory. The issue here is that they basically seduced sam into doing it. Well, even if they hadn't, sam was in lesbians(happy pride month lmao) with giodine and would've done it anyway. But the ISSUE is that with the creation of purgatory came complications. See, my gods have to take time to develop into their power, and considering giodine was first and sam was around 666th.. you see the issue. Sam wasn't into his complete power yet and thus lost a giant part of it that went into purg.

See, giodine saw no problem with this (until much later, they do get a VERY SLOW BURN redemption arc cause this ain't even the worst of it), they got what they were aching for out of them and thusly had no need for..sam. They laid him in the spot where she was made (fwi it isn't inherently sexual, it can be, but literally, they just merged together-- taking bits and pieces of each other (which sam did not have enough of) and earth and light yadda, yadda I'll post the story I wrote for that later if I'm up to it) and left him there in the grass.

Again, they saw no problem with that, the deed was done, they didn't care anymore. A common issue in their qualms, sam and Giodine. They did find an issue in Sam finding an issue in the lack of aftercare, which resorted to any message going to or coming from sam going straight to his assistant and going back through them for a couple of thousand years. They found that infuriating-- how could he not face them over something so small! and for years?! it was ridiculous. After forcing a face-to-face meeting, a heated proclaim of hurt from sam, and a bitter agreement to meet up every now and again, they got what they wanted from him. Again. It was a business after all, there was no point in making it harder than it needed to be.

Giodine doesn't necessarily like boundaries and tends to overstep sam's frequently. They also don't like his reaction to his boundaries being long jumped over, which thusly ends up in disgruntled messages being sent back and forth between them and his assistant for a month or three. It slowly gets through to them, but they tend to say some stupid shit and if they want sam to stay, they have to try and avoid mentioning how "overly sensitive" he is to something that happened eons ago.

(quick mention, there isn't like. time. here. so in all honesty, giodine probably counted earth days instead of Heaven 'days' to get that) Soon into their arrangements to meet, they seem to get on at least tolerable terms, obviously, a few meetings where neither of them feels like going apeshit and taking proper shapeless (or in sams case, he's got a newfound form for ANGER OO just for giodine 🤗) forms isn't going to fix a grudge that has yet to be apologized for by the way. But it's a start to a very long process down the road. Tolerance.

Giodine as an entity is very fickle and rude and demanding. They tend to have a short temper that no one else is allowed to have or comment on-- They were the first therefore they were the most important!

This is very obviously an issue. But it's mostly directed to purgatory. Almost all of their seething rage is pointed towards the poor entity, she's barely been alive yet and they already seem to hate her for things she doesn't know how to do. Honestly, I don't think Purg will ever fully forgive them for the unnecessary abuse of her character, but just as Sam and Giodine get on better terms, they had barely just begun fixing the hole in their relationship. As of now, Sam/Giodine don't have any minor plot points with purgatory other than the major one so I don't have a lot to say about their relationship right now. Maybe one day.

I'd go into details, seriously, but I just wanna ramble about their relationships with each other and their impact on each other's existence. Hope you don't mind a few secrets 😉

But, now, it's time for a new God, one I think most people take a liking to...

Sam (Samuel)

He/him

ID: Sam is surrounded by clouds in the light blue, fading to a darker blue sky and the yellow sun. His horns are a darker beige, which is being highlighted by the sun shining down on him, he also has pointed ears. His skin is red which is very prominent in the sun. His eyes are completely yellow, his hair, beard and mustache are also black. He has an orange scar crawling up to his Adams apple. His wings are a darker grey which is also being highlighted by the sun. His nails are painted black and his hand is holding up the black fabric barely covering his shoulders. Around the painting is a gold and red shaded frame with swirls complimenting each side and a crystal at the bottom of it. It is lightly signed GH, for ghoulish husband.

Sam, Sam, Samuel.

If you don't realize right away, Sam is basically Satan, he's the ruler of hell

Like how giodine was the first to appear on earth, as mentioned before sam was 666th for funnie reasons. Sam was made from bugs, dried blood, and sunlight which sounds pretty gross, but he's far from it. He's a silly, yet neat, guy. He wears Hawaiian shirts and khakis (not around giodine lmao) for cryin' out loud! how bad of a person can he be? Apparently to giodine (for a while obviously) he was the most retched entity to exist. This very much hurt him considering the amount of fake care they showed him before. With a mixture of confusing feelings (which wasn't supposed to be a thing but Univerce went "lmao you'll be fine" and left... short explanation, Univerce is the Universe and is the entity who simply builds these planets and gods that'll appear there and leave them to their own devices, xyr not extremely important in this story. Nor would they care.) and feeling used, he decided that no he wasn't going to take that.

If there is one thing Sam knows how to do is to self preserve himself, even if that means getting passive-aggressive notes sent to him every once in a while. While this period, Sam was surprisingly the least productive (unfortunately giodine knew this and eventually mentioned it in one of their meetings which made him hide away cause like hell giodine was going to be critical of /him/) but he managed. It wasn't terrible, but unfortunately, Sam being able to talk it out with someone who does practically the same work as he does and gets newer, more helpful ideas was better in the long run.

Unsurprisingly, Sam was the first to initiate the healing of his and giodine's relationship but it wasn't reciprocated. Who would've figured, aye? Giodine kept pushing it back onto him and ignoring any progress that could've been made before. Which was frustrating.

The painting above was 'painted' by giodine, which is sorta where their relationship gets somewhat on an understanding of each other. Giodine gets to take a deep long look into who Sam is and tries to express it but it never fit him, it makes them realize that they never really-- truly got to know him. And all it does for Sam is make him even more confused about his place in giodine’s mind. He figured it's another fluke to get him to do something, so he ends up distancing himself when they start actually reciprocating his friendship advancements.

Suddenly, like a flash, Sam was forced to stay with giodine which is where the majority. I'll explain.

Sam...isn't actually the ruler of hell. Anymore, anyways depending on the timeline. His and purgatory's relationship has always been complicated, she always avoided him, and when they talked she always seemed scared of him. So in the end, they've never been close. Distant. Sam always wanted to talk to her, he made her, but if she didn't want to talk to him he wouldn't force it. But imagine his surprise as Purg singlehandedly took over hell in a hazed frenzy.

And not only that, had a personal vendetta against him!

Well, that would be the only explanation to Sam considering how he ended up broken and barely 'alive' at the hands of her. Horns broken and in tatters, pain and almost obliterated it felt like a hate crime. He didn't know what to do when he made it to the office, Purgatory was creating chaos outside his door and barely being able to breathe he felt like it was the end. So he called giodine.

Purgatory

She/her

ID: Purgatory is surrounded by flowers that are dark grey and white. The light fades down into a dark green. The light shines down on top of her straight, white hair that has yellow flowers tucked into it. Her skin is a dark brown and has a orange-ish yellow scar on her shoulder trailing up to her neck. Her skin is also highlighted by the sun. In one of her eyes, her sclera is black with an orangey, glowing iris. As for the other eye it it has a white sclera and the same, glowing orange iris. She has wings for ears, one dark grey and one white along with beige horns. She has a white fabric covering her chest. The frame is gold with white accents, but also has vines and moss crawling up the side.

(may have goofed a bit and forgot to color the sclera of her other eye white but ignore that pls)

Purgatory was made by Sam and Giodine, but to her it felt like a mistake. Why make someone that you’re going to be terrible to, she believed. Giodine seemed to hate her and eventually made her section almost obsolete because she simply wasn’t able to keep up with the backlog that she wasn’t taught to deal with. Not only that, she didn’t have any help with any of it, it was almost like she was expected to just do it on her own. Until Death came along to help, but that’s not what we’re going to be talking about right now.

And also, Purgatory is Purgatory yadda, yadda, I wont insult your intelligence.

Giodine’s thought process (other than wanting to be Real Close to Sam and once that thought filtered out, promptly ignored it) was that all the extras that don’t fit in either category of their thought of good and evil they’d go to her. (doesn’t matter cause in Sam's system it filters through ‘levels of assholery’ and depending on how bad you are you either just vibe in the upper city under rule of capitalism and possibly many under paying jobs or being actually tortured for his amusement if you’re just evil. Morally grey. Anyway, it could work p well in heaven if giodine wasn’t such a damn stickler.) But in the end, every day, less and less people ended up in purgatory, leaving her with barely any people and more verbal abuse from giodine who ‘HAS to take them or they would be more dead than they already are’. You see the pain she has to go through, right?

~Idea section, this is probably not canon anyways so dont take it serious~

My thought is that another oc (BA, you may have heard of him idk) takes over simply because Purg took multiple hims from alternative timelines (which isn’t allowed but what’re they gonna do, undead a dead clown? multiple times from multiple timelines???)) because she adored him and they figured ‘well we gotta redo purgatory may as well do it like this’ and make him a demi-dead-god. i think thats a cool idea right? anyhoo

~Idea section over uwu~

Purgatory overall is a fairly timid character, she doesn’t like conflict, is easily overwhelmed, and generally keeps to herself. She doesn’t see the point in being in any drama if she’s just going to be yelled at and scolded even if it’s not about her. The only way i could describe her taking over hell is this:

She was tired. She was angry and after feeling like nothing was in control or in her hands, she snapped. Why doesn’t she get anything or get to be ‘all powerful’ but they do? She knew if she took on Giodine she’d likely get thrown to the void, but sam? He felt fair game. Considering her fear of both of these gods, she planned and got her courage up to take him over. She had considered negotiations but in the end, she ended up going into a haze and ruining everything in sight. She was more powerful than she thought and once she started, she didn't stop until Death restrained her and Sam was already in pieces at God’s doorstep.

The aftermath was fuzzy for her and for everyone really. Godine was planning a take back hell while actually worrying for sam, sam was planning for a retirement, and she was being consoled while trying to get in contact with sam to apologize. Giodine wouldn’t dare let her talk to him, until she just showed up in their office. She didn’t have a problem with Sam, honest, she just was going to take shit over, but it got out of control.

Spoiler, Sam took her apology and they actually became.. somewhat closer after reaching an understanding.

I wanna say that giodine took them being okay and sam retiring as good as sam did about purg running hell, but they didn’t. Giodine and purgatory actually barely got along in the first place, and only begun ‘working’ on their bitterness toward each other because they both had sam to encourage it. I can’t say for certain if they’ll get better, as theyre both undying and have time, but I’ll just say for now its uncertain.

Also, Death is Purgatory’s girlfriend after all of that lmao.

And.. yeah, i hope this makes sense and that you like my drawings and ramblings about my lil story in my head, i guess this is my way to develop it without just keeping it to myself cause god forbid i keep things to myself hshsh. If you made it to the end, thank you for taking the time to read and attempting to process everything, and even if you didnt read and just looked to look at my art thank you to!!

I may post some art over on @ghoulishhusbandart cause.. it was my art account before i completely forgot about it but i might reboot it! But if you wan art NEOWWW follow me on insta (ik cringe lmaoo) by the same name as this account @ghoulishhusband or just click that insta link! also ignore the fact that giodine is the only one without a portrait, maybe I’ll replace it the next time i draw but im graduating on monday and my dad’s coming TOMORROW?? so i won’t have too much time to do it... but i hope you like my art anyways :]

ok!! ty!! ily!!

#ghoulishrambles #ghoulishsporkocs #man this is weird lmaoooooo #THE CUT DIDNT CUT IM SORRY #Man I should've edited this before ppl could see it I'm so sorry if it's a mess shshhs #I keep adding tags bc I have more to say but I wanna pin this but I don't wanna remove that Palestine post just for my ramble so #I'll just reblog it every once in a while

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aenwoedbeannaa · 5 years ago

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Friend of Humanity | A The Witcher Drabble

Prompt: “If you could do me a big solid and not do anything, that would be sublime.”

Summary: You and Geralt go to see Jaskier perform in Novigrad and Geralt becomes incensed when a rowdy theatregoer has the nerve to say something about the Bard’s singing.

Word Count: 1,760

Warnings: None, just some swearing if that offends you. Also, some minor spoilers for The Witcher 3.

A/N: A quick drabble based on one of these writing prompts was just want I needed to get myself out of my head and back in the mindset of enjoying writing and not overthinking it. Hope you all enjoy 😊.

“Can’t believe you’ve willingly volunteered us for a night of poetic nonsense,” Geralt grumbles as the two of you pick your way through the crowd packing The Rosemary and Thyme looking for an empty table. The once derelict former brothel has been restored rather nicely. Long wooden tables occupy the large floorspace in front of the stage, where patrons sit crowding long wooden benches drinking and chattering away while a young bard plucks away at a lute singing what are clearly his first works. No one seems to be paying much attention, but at least no one is shouting or throwing bread at him.

“Oh, come on, Geralt,” you pout, “Don’t you want to support your best friend in the entire world?”

“Doesn’t saving his life on numerous occasions count as supporting him?” he protests, “Looks like there are plenty of supporters here.”

You roll your eyes as the two of you spot a table occupied only by three men who have clearly been making quick work of gulping down tankards of beer judging by their slightly slurred speech and belligerently loud conversation regarding a recent run-in with the guards.

“Would you really send me here all on my own?” You blink up at him through your lashes, giving him that look that you know makes him melt and, like clockwork, his expression softens as he resigns himself to his fate for the evening.

“Well,” he finally says, “I suppose I haven’t heard his latest retelling of our adventures.” A small smile plays on his lips and his eyes flicker with what you know is love. Beneath his exterior, the Witcher really is, as Jaskier once wrote - ‘as simple as a spear shaft, incapable of pretending.’ He could not pretend that he did not care for his friend.

You grin, “I cannot wait to hear how he saved your skin this time, Witcher.”

“I wait with baited breath,” he says with an expression of stone but eyes alight with something akin amusement.

Just then, a barmaid cuts into your conversation to offer the two of you mugs of ale.

“On the house,” she says with a halfhearted grand gesture that, from the looks of it, was clearly demonstrated by Jaskier to be repeated exactly. He was quite proud of the tavern he and Zoltan have been running for the last months. Zoltan, who has no taste for poetry, takes care of the food and drink. (Even the ridiculously priced wine that Jaskier insists upon stocking despite its clear lack in sales.)

Geralt nods politely and immediately drains half the mug. You thank the barmaid as she heads off and then pick up your own mug to take a long draught.

“Would you look at that,” you say as you raise your tankard slightly, smirking at the Witcher, “Guests of honor.” You clink your mug against his. He refrains from any reaction save for a small huff that might be laughter.

As you bring the glass back to your lips, the young bard on the stage shuffles off, making way for none other than Zoltan Chivay himself. The room goes silent at once as patrons turn in their seats to face the stage.

Geralt can’t hold in a chuckle as the dwarf begins speaking in a grand voice and waving his arms about.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, the reason you are here tonight!” A grand gesture. “The fearless bard, the friend of the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, who is here with us tonight!” A gesture toward the place where you sit next to Geralt, who has his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed at his old friend. A soft murmur flows through the crowd as the tavern’s patrons turn in their seats and crane their necks to get a glimpse of the White Wolf.

“Unmatched in talent, a lyrical genius, and a seasoned explorer of the world, the famous bard - Jaskier!” One final grand sweep of his arm sends everyone’s attention back toward the stage, off to the left where Jaskier steps out from behind the curtain, dressed like a peacock and positively beaming with pride as the audience claps.

“Here we go...” Geralt mutters under his breath, looking forlornly at his now empty tankard.

Jaskier, you have to admit, does have a way of commanding a room. The murmers have subsided as the bard begins playing a tune. For many, these songs are the only way they learn of happenings in the world. And, while extremely embellished, Jaskier’s songs ring of truth in a way that official notices and political speeches do not. People want to listen to people like them; people who are not emperors, kings, or queens.

And so Jaskier begins singing. This particular song, of his capture by the thug, Whoreson Jr.’s, men. Apparently, he sat rotting away in a dark dungeon, until one day Jr. showed up quite unexpectedly to carry him off to Oxenfurt, where he was certain he would be able to talk his way out of captivity. After all, he graduated from the University summa cum laude—the song makes sure to mention.

You hear Geralt groan, knowing what part of the story is coming next. You can only shoot him a knowing smile and offer him your still half-full mug of ale, which he takes and drinks deeply from.

And Whoreson’s men,

Those sons of whores,

They escorted me in a hoard,

Thugs and yes-men,

For them I play this unpleasant chord.

Several patrons laugh and cheer as he strikes a chord that would make even the tone-deaf shudder. No doubt most of these men and women had dealt with the man’s thugs. Being one of Novigrad’s four crime bosses had given him immense power and stirred up quite a lot of hatred.

But apparently, not everyone was so inclined to listen to such blatantly rude remarks about their late leader. In particular, the three men sharing the table with you. In your periphery, you can see one of the men with a tightly closed fist. The other two have their lips pressed into tight lines and are shaking their heads.

Of course, Jaskier is blissfully unaware of this as he continues on singing about the evils of the old crime boss and telling of how he’d managed to deceive them.

Just as he is getting to the part of the story where the escort was ambushed by great friend of humanity, Geralt of Rivia, one of the men stands up abruptly, raising a clenched fist at the bard. “You jiggalo bastard!” he yells, drawing the attention of the entire tavern – especially Geralt of Rivia, who looks quite ready to unsheathe his steel sword and start swinging.

And here you were, hoping for a peaceful night of music. How naïve.

But you also know that the man is drunk and unsteady on his feet – unlikely to cause any real harm. Being outspoken as he is, he Bard typically draws reactions like this at his performances, and so far it had not resulted in anything worse than him being pelted with bread, half-full tankards of ale, and whatever else the patrons had readily available for throwing. So, you tug on Geralt’s arm, trying to convince him to sit down.

You give him a pointed stare when he looks down at you, hissing through clenched teeth, “If you could do me a big solid and not do anything, that would be sublime.”

Geralt looks down at you, then back at the enraged man, who appears to have run out of insults and half-eaten food to throw at the stage. The rest of the patrons, save angry drunk’s buddies, are watching with wide-eyed curiosity and excitement. Even Jaskier has stopped singing.

Geralt speaks slowly an evenly, as if slowly unwinding the tight coil of anger inside him – a truly terrifying sight. “Do you wish to say any more?” he asks, glaring at the man who seems to have somehow shrunken at least three inches in height. “Because I would greatly prefer listening to the bard sing, as I came here to do.”

Several of the guests nod emphatically, considering they’d been left off at a true cliffhanger, not knowing how Jaskier managed to escape, and what became of his companions.

“The Witcher’s right!” shouts a woman on the other side of the room. “Shut your trap, or get out!”

The man scowls, clearly not happy about the idea of having been bested by ‘mutant scum’ and a ‘stupid wench.’ Yet, immediately after hurling those newest insults, he cowers, attempting to shrink away from the Witcher, who is now leaning over the table to get closer to the thug. He smiles hideously as he speaks the next words, “Now sir, I highly encourage you to listen to the lady and the mutant, or I’ll throw you out myself. I don’t enjoy when my nights of poetry are interrupted by angry thugs.”

The man grumbles something unntelligible and his two friends stand up with him. For a moment, you are worried that a fight might break out, but thankfully the men seem intent on helping their friend stumble out of the tavern. The three held the attention of the bar’s patrons as the trio sways and stumbles their way to the door and disappears out into the night.

Geralt finally sits back down with a huff, draining the rest of what used to be your ale. Meanwhile, onstage, Jaskier is positively beaming, likely already writing a song about the time the White Wolf chased a terrifying, violent thug out of the tavern.

“Geralt of Rivia, ladies and gentlemen!” the bard exclaims grandly, “Friend of humanity and patron of the arts!”

Before Geralt even has time to react, one of the patrons tosses a coin in his direction, and another follow suit. For a moment, they all seem to have forgotten about the interrupted story, and one even calls out that Jaskier ought to sing the tune that had made Geralt famous.

Geralt looks positively mortified, but you pay him no mind. Instead, you raise a freshly filled tankard of ale in a toast and smile slyly at the Witcher as you join in the song—

Toss a coin to your Witcher,

Oh valley of plenty,

Oh valley of plenty!

And as you sing, you can’t help but think to yourself how lucky you are to have happened upon this relationship with Geralt, the supposedly emotionless mutant, who despite what the rumors say about Witchers and their supposed lack of emotions, is one of the warmest and kindest men you have ever met.

A friend of humanity.

#the witcher #the witcher drabble #writing prompts #geralt fanfiction #geralt of rivia #geralt x reader #jaskier #jaskier fanfiction #jaskier drabble #fluff #fanfiction #geralt x you #geralt jaskier #my writing

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mermadrid96 · 3 years ago

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At 23 I had every reason to feel invincible. I walked out of post secondary already two years in my career field and paid off my debt. I had to keep moving. Get the apartment alone and continue on what I wanted to be my long journey of being someone worth remembering.

I don’t have any extreme addiction issues. Other than pot..that doesn’t count right? It probably does.

I just hold a deep sadness and obsession with suicidal ideation. The first time I tried to kill myself I was nine. I remember resisting the urge to jump in front of the subway long before that, probably 3 or 4 standing with my grandma going to church.

Like most, mental illness runs on both sides of my family. It’s true that you feel a sense of ease about letting yourself be ill when it’s already hereditary.

Distraction is the best way to manage most of my issues. Friends, movies, family. Working. I try to exercise and I’m sure doing that would help a lot more, but my main passion is sleep. Sleep is the closest to death us cowards of suicide can get. I dream a lot more now that I’ve been able to shake the constant weed smoking. I barely remember them and their usually shitty modifications of what’s happening in my world. But I’d take it over exhausted rest anyway.

When I got to Kingston in sept 2019 I was already sceptical. But it was easy to distract that away, new school new job new city to explore and a way to reinvent the version of myself I spent 23 years hating. Obviously, for someone so naturally fucking lazy and obsessed with the idea of being a tragedy headline, it didn’t work out. I went out and met people as usually encouraged by my friends back home. I got a job because I could not come off a lazy (I lasted one whole training shift before my sister let take the cop out I was giving myself) and I did my homework.

I’m not sure why I was so insistent on proving I could do this, when I already knew I couldn’t. Somehow, between touring the school and moving in six months later, I told myself every step of the way it was too late to look back. You’d be letting everyone down when you’ve finally earned a decent family title back.

It’s funny that sitting here at 25, almost finished with the youth therapy I transitioned to, I feel the same type of way.

I’ve gotten every therapist I’ve met with to beam with pride during sessions, something that is obviously more than necessary for me, I’ve been given the “stable label” by each psychiatrist, graduated each group therapy, and regained the family perspective of “she’s doing great now, actually.”

Falling back into needing more help than I did before isn’t an option. Letting small things like a credit card compromise, the death of a family pet or being in the middle of a domestic wasn’t an excuse to let your mental state become as fragile as it was.

The skills are on the papers, the binder is Color coded and you have the self help numbers now. You’re cured and everyone can get onboard with that. No one wants to get onboard with the heartache of watching a family member be shitty again. Or A friend that barely answers and is more selfish than the completely selfless person they chose to stay friends with through a hard time.

I do find a lot of what I’ve done will save me. But mostly, I know killing myself would save me. So where has any of this gotten me? Just in more debt than I ever was at the beginning, and three years behind my timeline, might as well just give in and let myself come to peace.

I’ve read more stories about established people who have gone through the same thoughts-with much worse circumstances- and their endings, while positive, aren’t what I see as happy. I mean- they didn’t kill themselves? And their not on an island alone with zero responsibilities or people to disappoint- so who cares? None these articles have left me satisfied. Just with a sense of reality; life isn’t great. And if you can’t handle your own shit well; you’ll probably have to go through it sober too.

A lot of my false worlds pictures me back in high school- being able to reinvent everything- getting more into the arts and then a college program that would actually make me money and was nothing close to the Hunan services sector; where all bleeding hearts come to die poor and with back problems. Enjoying things truly instead of not realizing 16 would of been the best opportunity I had to off myself. Immortalized before even living- a lazy cowards dream.

I keep hearing how much of my life o have left to figure things out, bc you know, 20s. But that’ll end in 5 years and then I’ll be asking what I’ve done to get where I want. Well I’ve napped and ignored a budget. Contemplated a lot and taken chances I didn’t want and missed ones that might of worked. Basically, always considering what if to the point where it’s wasted.

I feel full when I’m with my family, when I’m able to laugh with friends and when I’m able to think through these harder days. And, as any caring professional would say- when I’m enjoying my job. There is some truth to this being a profession and a passion. I’m proud of what I’ve done, but I can tell you I’d be just as proud of taking more vacations and a new front car bumper.

I also feel full when I can just cry uninterrupted, when I’ve accepted my plans for suicide and can let go of all conscious responsibility, when I’ve hurt myself, and whenever I don’t need to set an alarm to wake up.

#mentally unstable #mental illness #text post #tumblr

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psychosistr · 4 years ago

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FOWL Scientist/Former Agent “Dr.Rose Gold”

Art by @thefriendlyfour , full bio under the cut:

Physical Description: Greater flamingo with extremely light pink (almost white) feathers for most of the body, dark pink tipped feathers on head feathers/hair that give the illusion of reverse-frosted tips, black feathers on fingers with darker pink feathers on hands. Beak has the same standard black tip and line going along the seam of the beak as regular greater flamingos, almost looking like black lipstick. Torso is fairly slim and small, but long legs and REALLY long neck make Rose look taller when fully extended- full extended height puts them about an inch and a half or so taller than Steelbeak. Has beautifully crafted mechanical legs plated in rose gold colored metal, hence the name.

Outfit: Rose’s general outfit consists of what could be described as a “crop-top lab coat” with a light pink upper half that just barely covers their chest and leaves their midsection exposed, and a split twin-tail style back in vibrant red with a rose emblem on the back. Part of the sleeve and tail on one side have suffered extreme tears and burn damage due to previous experiments gone wrong, but they refuse to throw it out because it “gives the coat more character”, in their opinion.

Gender: Gender fluid/tri-gender, will switch pronouns often (always best to assume gender-neutral pronouns unless told for sure if one of the others is okay).

Sexual Orientation: Polysexual with a preference for men and nonbinary individuals. Is okay with a partner who sometimes presents as female like they do, but not typically interested in regular women.

Age: 31

Nicknames: Rose, Rosey, Ro, Goldy, Dr.Trap, Pinky, Kee, Keekee (the last three are exclusively used by Steelbeak).

Real Name: Keya Datta. (Family is from India, but they never went until they were an adult)

Background:

Coming from a family of FOWL scientists, Keya always had a love of two things: Technology and Villainy. However, instead of taking the route the rest of their family did and jumping straight into the scientist role, Keya wanted to try the exciting life of an agent first.

They were partnered with Steelbeak ten years ago before Steelbeak became chief officer and the two worked surprisingly well together (despite Steelbeak not understanding or remembering their pronouns most of the time), with Keya being one of his longer lasting partners with a record of three months.

Unfortunately, their partnership came to an abrupt end when Keya suffered a rather nasty accident on a mission that resulted in their legs being blown off. The damage was so severe that not even FOWL’s medicine rays could repair their legs. Keya was out of commission for two years for recovery and used that time to design and build their replacement legs.

The joy of fabricating something so sleek and advanced rekindled their love for science and a year later Keya officially became Dr.Rose Gold- FOWL’s top security system designer and elite limb augmentation specialist.

Current Position: Still FOWL’s top scientist when it comes to security systems and traps, Rose has an entire laboratory to themself out in the middle of nowhere in the Nevada desert. This is both so they have the room to build and test elaborate traps and security systems, and because most people (High Command included) prefer to keep Rose as far away as possible. They don’t really have a lot of people working at the facility, either, it’s mostly just them and the occasional assistant or body guard that High Command sends to look after Rose, though most of them don’t stay for long because they get tired of dealing with Rose’s erratic nature while working, the traps they have to navigate on a daily basis, or both.

Personality:

Rose has a generally cheerful disposition, despite what they do for a living. Don’t let the constant cheerfulness fool you, though, they can also be very creepy and intimidating when they smile while talking about things such as “live experiments”.

They have a lot of energy and will talk for hours about anything they’re interested in (mainly technological advancements, traps, and security systems). Unfortunately, this energy isn’t always directed properly into their work as they’ll often get distracted and bounce randomly from one thing to the next depending on what strikes their mood.

Once they’ve formed an attachment to someone, things like personal space go out the window and they’ll be all over that person constantly. They’ll do everything from sitting on the person’s lap while tinkering with something, to draping themselves over their shoulders for a hug, and even preening- regardless if the person’s a bird or not.

Steelbeak’s so desensitized to it by now that he doesn’t even bat an eye or register anything off about the contact. He’ll hold very serious discussions with people while Rose is hugging him from behind and nuzzling him and not even acknowledge it until someone points out their behavior, at which point he’ll just be like “Trust me, gettin’ rid of ‘em’s more trouble than it’s worth- this is the safer option.”

While the physical affection can be a bit much for some people to handle, it’s nothing compared to Rose’s protective streak. Once they’ve gotten attached to someone, they’ll be SUPER protective of them, doing things like abducting people who wronged the person they care about to use for security-system testing later, keeping security cameras in key locations around their home to monitor for possible threats, and even planting trackers on/in them to know where they are in case of an emergency. “Invasion of privacy” is a phrase that definitely comes up around Rose more often than it probably should, but it’s just their way of showing they care.

Interesting Bonus Facts:

Rose’s favorite instrument is the hurdy gurdy, which surprises most people since it’s a 1,000 year old instrument, but they consider it a remarkable breakthrough in musical engineering. They’ll happily bust one out and play it to prove their point, which many people may originally laugh at...but the laughter stops when they start playing it like THIS and they just smirk when everyone’s jaws hit the floor.

Despite what many people’s first gut-reaction of seeing someone as hyper as Rose drinking coffee might be (typically fear), it actually has the reverse effect that most would expect and helps them focus easier. If they have a deadline for something coming up, they’ll practically LIVE off of coffee for several days straight and go into a work-frenzy where they’ll hyper-focus on their assignment until it’s completed.

Their robotic legs are their pride and joy, and they’ll happily talk about them whenever someone shows even the slightest interest. The limbs are sleek, strong, beautiful, durable, and practical- the feet have built in magnets they can activate to walk along metal walls and ceilings with ease.

Good luck getting them to cover up those pretty legs, though, they’ll plot your death if you even SUGGEST wearing pants to them.

For formal events they’ll either wear a really nice top or a dress, but a full suit is completely out of the question.

“Would you cover up Mona Lisa’s smile? No? Then don’t you even DARE suggest I hide these works of art from the world!”

People are often confused by/misinterpret the nature of Rose and Steelbeak’s relationship due to both Rose’s lack of personal boundaries and the two’s general familiarity and behavior with one another.

Many assume the two have dated in the past, but that never actually happened, mostly because Steelbeak was still figuring himself out back when they were partners and thought he was straight/didn’t understand Rose’s gender identity. Steelbeak eventually figured out he was bi later in life and gained a better understanding of different genders, but he’s also demiromantic and doesn’t really experience romantic attraction that often.

Rose definitely had a physical attraction to Steelbeak back when they worked together, but it never really went anywhere, and by now they’re both too comfortable with their current relationship to want to change anything. So, in the end, they have more of a “could have been something at one point, but never really happened and now it’s too late to try” sort of relationship.

Nowadays the two of them are still close despite how little they get to see each other in person. At most, they might be considered queerplatonic, but they don’t really have any sort of label on their relationship and just enjoy it for whatever it is.

#darkwing duck #dwd #dwd oc #my oc #FOWL #fowl scientist Rose Gold #thefriendlyfour

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toxoiddiamond · 4 years ago

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ORLANDO BENJAMIN FORRESTER What smells remind them of their childhood? His mother always wore (and still wears) Emeraude perfume. Every now and then someone will pass by Orli and he’ll catch the scent of Emeraude and be immediately transported back to his childhood. What filler words do they use in everyday speech? Do they have an accent or speech impediment? If someone says something that requires an acknowledgement but not a full-on response, he’ll usually say something like “ah,” or “mm,” just something to make it clear he’s listening. He also begins sentences with “well…” if he’s thinking over his response. He just has a typical American accent, no speech impediments and nothing remarkable about his manner of speaking. Do they make quick decisions and act on them? Do they take time out to think about actions and consequences? Orli isn’t exactly impulsive when it comes to his decision making (unless he has no choice but to act on instinct). If he can, he prefers to take some time to really think things through, to look at things from every angle, before he acts. This is why he’s given so much leeway at work to basically do what he thinks is best– the higher-ups know that Orli never acts on a whim and wouldn’t be doing anything unless he’d considered all the possibilities, all the possible outcomes, etc. How many unread messages are in their phone? None. Orli reads all of his messages as soon as they come in, and responds immediately unless the message doesn’t require a response. He’s not one to leave unread texts, emails, or anything else. Where do they go when they’re angry? Anywhere that will get him away from the source of his anger. If he’s angry at work, he’ll make an excuse to leave the office for whatever reason (whether it’s to do some research or to grab some coffee) and will just hang out in his car for a while until he’s calmed down. Outside of work, he usually takes out any anger or frustration by doing some kickboxing at the gym. On what occasion do they lie? Orli isn’t too much of a liar, he usually tells the truth about things, or tries to give a diplomatic answer if he can’t be as honest as he’d like (this happens a lot when he speaks with the higher-ups at work). Mainly he tells little white lies, harmless lies just for the sake of sparing people’s feelings or keeping the peace. He’s not brutally honest by any means and doesn’t want to make anyone feel needlessly bad about themselves. How would they respond to an apology from somebody they still can’t forgive? He would probably say he accepts the apology if it seems sincere. He still would never forget what they did, but he would at least be civil if it really did seem like they were sorry. But if the apology seemed insincere to him, he wouldn’t accept it and would continue to ignore the person whenever possible. What is the worst thing they did to someone they loved? He cheated on his girlfriend while he was in college. He got wasted at a party after midterms and ended up hooking up with a random guy. He felt absolutely horrible about the situation and confessed to her right away. She was understandably upset and broke up with him on the spot. Although he was heartbroken, since she was his first love, he didn’t fight her on it or try to convince her to stay with him because he knew he’d completely fucked up and ruined any trust they had between them. They sort of made up about a year later and became friends, though of course things were never the same between them. Do they enjoy working out? Do they play any sports? Orli really enjoys doing various types of martial arts– his current interest is kickboxing, and he has been taking classes for a few months. He’s also done kenpo karate, taekwondo, and jiu jitsu. He’s not a black belt or anything, he just enjoys dabbling and likes taking out his anger in a constructive way. He used to do track in high school, but he’s not really into running anymore. Do they believe people who say they have no regrets? Do they have any? If not, why don’t they have any? Orli thinks that anyone who says they don’t regret anything is full of shit. In his mind, if you don’t regret anything, then you haven’t learned anything or bettered yourself. He has plenty of regrets, some more significant than others. Which do they prefer, a lot of attention, or a little appreciation? Appreciation, hands down. Too much attention makes him feel a bit smothered, but any type of appreciation, even a quick thank you or an acknowledgment of his hard work, gives him a lot of satisfaction. Where do they feel the safest? Once Orli and his siblings all started doing well for themselves, they all pitched in to help buy their parents their dream home in Gig Harbor, Washington. It’s a very lovely, slightly secluded home with a gorgeous view. Orli goes to visit them there at least once a year, and just being there is extremely relaxing for him. By far, it’s the place he feels the safest. Are they more likely to ask for permission or forgiveness? Although he’s not the type to just go rogue all the time, he’s also not someone who asks permission for every little thing. If there’s something he wants to do, something he thinks will help a case along, but he thinks the higher-ups might say no, he’ll just do it without asking and tell them about it later. He’s never really gotten in trouble because it’s always worked out well in the end. Do they stay up late or wake up early? Both. If Orli had his way, he’d stay up late and also sleep in– that’s just the way his body clock is. But as it is, he stays up late (both to work and for pleasure), then wakes up fairly early for work. He does sleep in on his days off, and absolutely refuses to do anything that would require him to get up early on those days. Have they ever been bullied or teased? Orli grew up in Springfield, Illinois, which is widely known for being one of the most racist towns in the US. So, yes, he’s been bullied, teased, assaulted, and all manner of things. His parents tried to tell him to keep his head down, to not start anything or fight back because they were always worried that if he tried to fight back it would only make things worse for him. But by the time Orli got to middle school, he was tired of just taking it. He snapped one day when one of his bullies started bothering him and ended up beating the shit out of him. Orli got in huge trouble and was nearly expelled from school, but everyone pretty much backed off after that, so he felt it was worth it. Who was their first best friend? Where did they meet him or her? Do they still see each other? His first best friend was a classmate of his from high school named Robby. He had friends before that, but no one he was super close with or hung out with all the time. It wasn’t until high school when Orli became more social and started making a ton of friends– he was quite popular. Robby was on the track team with him, and they became fast friends. They aren’t really in touch anymore, but Orli will always think of him fondly. What are their weaknesses? Hubris? Pride? Controlling? He is definitely prideful, and has a hard time admitting when he needs help, or when he’s struggling. Those are things he tends to keep to himself. He feels that he needs to be completely self-reliant, and that asking for help shows too much weakness. He also has a hard time saying no to people if they ask him to do something, and as a result, he is always stretched very thin. He takes on far too many projects/requests at a time and just ends up stressing himself out– this is part of the reason why his former partner was such an asset. He always said no for Orli and basically told people to stop asking him/them to do anything more, that they were already busy enough with their own responsibilities. What are their eating habits? Orli is quite a healthy eater. He’s the type to view food purely as fuel, rather than something for enjoyment. He’s a decent cook and usually does meal prep for himself on his days off so he’ll have food he can quickly pop into the microwave without having to think too much. Once in a while he will indulge in something like a slice of cake, or a burger and fries, but the majority of the time he prefers to stick to healthier things. What is the most violent thing they’ve ever done, and the most violent thing done to them? The most violent thing he’s ever done was beating up a bully in middle school. The kid ended up in the hospital, though his injuries weren’t serious enough that he needed to stay overnight or anything– he had a couple of broken bones, a broken nose, and needed some stitches on his face. Orli has shot people in the line of duty, but he would consider that less violent, because he always does his best to remain calm and collected and only shoots to incapacitate rather than kill. He has had a lot of violence directed at him in his life. Fellow classmates used to hit him and push him, he was assaulted by a police officer once (before he became a detective). But the most violent thing done to him was when him and his partner were caught in a firefight in the middle of a drug bust. His partner was killed, and Orli ended up in the ICU with severe injuries. Did they have an easy or difficult childhood? Overall, it was pretty difficult. Growing up where he did was not easy and he had a hard time making friends or living any sort of normal life. But his parents and siblings were a great support system, and he never felt like he was completely alone. Things got much easier for him in high school, when his father got a new job in another state and they moved to a much less backwards town. He ended up loving high school because his classmates weren’t all racist assholes and he made tons of friends.

#character: orlando forrester #ship: orca #questionnaire

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independentartistbuzz · 4 years ago

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7 FROM THE WOMEN: RED FLOWER LAKE

Red Flower Lake is lush, heady electro-pop. Aloe vera for our dried-out hearts. Sweeping melodies and understated yet complex soundscapes. These songs are open doors to a relationship: two people who know each other about as well as two humans can, singing to the other, about each other, offering a brave and heartfelt depiction of the territories they have survived and navigated together. It’s all here: intimacy and distance, heartbreak and ecstasy. Vulnerability, insecurity and courage.

1. What have you been working to promote lately?

It feels like I have been working on promoting a lot lately (internally and externally). Things like honesty, clear communication, empathy, patience, naming emotions, opening my heart, peace in my family, etc, etc.

But that’s not quite what we are talking about. ;)

I have been working alongside my husband to promote our EP Three Truths as well as an exhibit of our multi-media work at the Torosiete museum of contemporary art - a virtual museum unlike any other. Our exhibit just opened at the end of October and will be open for all of time - as long as there is internet.

Our EP Three Truths consists of three songs, Heart is Breaking, Baby Don’t Go, and Brave. The first two were written when we had super young kids (about 8 years ago).

When we were first considering releasing some songs this past May, we weren’t sure which songs to begin with. We were pretty tired of Heart is Breaking and Baby Don’t Go but also felt like they were worth something, belonged together, and like they might be the beginning of a story. We figured we would see what mixing one of them would do and take it from there. We sent out Baby Don’t Go and after trying a couple different mixers, we landed on Mike Pepe through a family friend named Kelly Musgrave at Linear Management. He did his thing and we actually got inspired enough to completely redo the vocals which was pretty satisfying. I had started voice lessons several months earlier and felt like I had more to offer the song. Once the energy was back in Baby Don’t Go it was pretty exciting to see what some mixing would do to Heart is Breaking. Deciding to release those particular songs really felt like the end of a pretty challenging time. It has been nice to have them out in the world where people might be able to relate to them giving voice to an experience that is painful but also real. I don’t know how many emotions we get away with leaving unturned but I appreciate a song that can help me reflect on a feeling.

Heart is Breaking was the kind of song that was so of a moment, it didn’t feel worth it to try and enunciate the words better or change what I was unsatisfied with after hearing it mixed. I am curious whether that choice will actually impact my satisfaction long term but, so far, I have found it both surprising and amusing that putting something out into the world that is a little bit vocally unfinished doesn’t bother me at all.

As for Abel’s vocals though, they are straight from the heart. They are also his original vocals. I remember when I first heard them I felt a lot less significant as part of our musical duo. He just put it all out there and it sounds so good. Heart is Breaking speaks to the experience of wanting love even though it seems to always end in heart break. An experience that, as a young parent, felt very prevalent.

Brave to me is all in the title. My setup is such that if I want to play around on the keyboard with a feeling I’m having, I still need to pull up ProTools and title the session - even though I don’t know what I am going to play which is the case a lot. Often when I am sitting down to play music, it is to explore something in my mind and on my heart and in this case I wanted to be brave about that exploration so I titled the song Brave. Brave is about sticking around and being present to see what is true even if it is scary.

All of the songs I write are deeply personal. In the past, it has sometimes surprised me that Abel would even touch the material, considering how blatant it is but I’ve learned that I’m not the only one in the relationship that sometimes feels paradoxical and complex feelings.

Having made music together for such a long time now without releasing any of it, we are both really excited to share more of the story and more of our music. It feels like an epic tale that is still revealing itself in real time. Three Truths feels like the beginning of a bigger message - this first message being “Damn this is hard but relationship is sort of like that sometimes”.

2. Please tell us about your favorite song written, recorded or produced by another woman and why it’s meaningful to you.

Sade’s Smooth Operator. There are a lot of songs and a lot of reasons why to pick them but this one pulls me right back to a time in my life when not a lot of things were easy but at that moment, the house was warm, the whole family seemed happy and there was an abundance of food. I was maybe 5, my family was living with my great aunt and her daughters who were at least ten years older than us. We were all still getting used to living together and my family was still getting used to living in Va after moving from New Mexico. When Smooth Operator came into my awareness, it was the day after Thanksgiving and there was a bounty of leftover mashed potatoes, peas and onions in cream sauce, and stuffing that needed to be eaten. While we formed those leftovers into little balls and baked them, we were introduced to that song. I think we may have listened to the whole album a couple times through but we named our food creation after Smooth Operator and it is one of the special happy memories I have from an amazing but also pretty heavy childhood. Throughout my childhood from then on, Sade was a voice I leaned into. I remember one night my twin sister and I lay down in the dark of her empty room in middle school and listened in consecutive order through Diamond Life, Promise, Stronger Than Pride, and Love Deluxe on our tape player to the light of a big moon. One of my all time favorite nights.

Smooth Operator felt like a warning. Like watch out girls, they’re everywhere. The first song of their first album. Her voice was always my reference. I wanted my voice to sound like hers. I wanted to make songs like hers - with a point, with heart, and with a voice you want to listen to. Smooth Operator is our family anthem, made so by a moment we all recall fondly - an odd anthem perhaps but my family is as odd and as amazing as they get.

3. What does it mean to you to be a woman making music / in the music business today and do you feel a responsibility to other women to create messages and themes in your music?

Having an opportunity to use my voice as a woman at this time feels very special and important and I hope that I am doing my part in honoring the power of the feminine, and the important work of keeping it real in all my relationships at all levels.

I work to be authentic and express as clearly from my heart as I can. Making music - making art, is a way for me to connect with my emotions, my inner wisdom, a way to express those feelings, ultimately it is a way to communicate something that means something to me. I recognize that this is a potentially self indulgent process and I pray that my purpose of honoring the human experience and reminding us of our power is conveying.

It is important for me to be super honest because there are so many feelings I have felt ashamed of and wouldn’t even admit to in the past that I am now realizing are actually just part of a human experience. Honoring and expressing my truth thus far has been a thousand times more empowering than the results have been of hiding from my truth as a result of believing I should be ashamed of my feelings and for believing in my worth - what I know is true in my heart. Denial of my truth has wreaked havoc in my life and it isn’t worth another moment of time to feed or encourage such disempowering paradigms.

I recognize that we all have a lot to heal from and a lot of healing work to do individually and collectively. I think a large part of that healing work is around being brave enough to honor our feelings, identifying their source, and getting empowered to speak/know/honor our truth - a truth that is both unique and valid.

Perhaps if we are able to honor ourselves in this way, we will be able to hear each others’ truths with compassion, recognizing ourselves in each other's struggles.

A big step for me in my healing journey has been accepting and being willing to hear and honor my own truth. No more wars - internal or external. When I am not fighting myself, I am one less person who is fighting themselves and that is extremely motivating. I think all of my fighting ultimately comes from internal conflicts so I might as well start with that and find some way to work that stuff out. I have been working on not making other people the bad guy but, if I see ‘bad guy’ out there in the world, to note that I see a reflection of parts of myself I still am in a healing process with.

I am not sure what the depths of our world’s healing will entail but I know my responsibility is to my own healing and it is empowering to own that responsibility. I pray we all honor ourselves like the magnificent and unique creations we are and honor ourselves like we are somebody’s child who adores us. Even if we can argue that our parents did not or do not love us, there is still and always will be immense love for each of us in the vast universe and from our mama earth. We are worthy of our best life. In fact. I think it is the only sustainable future.

My responsibility is to honor and stay true to my truth.

4. What is the most personal thing you have shared in your music or in your artist brand as it relates to being female?

All of the songs I write are extremely personal and expose my deep internal struggles. But I am okay with being a voice and a sound. Being an image has not been easy. Learning to embrace my face, my body, my movement, my inner style, etc, feels much more exposing and personally challenging. The entire world of what is sexy, what is beautiful, what is inspiring, what is useful, etc. has been out of reach for me since forever. I find that the more I turn toward my spiritual truth, my spiritual purpose, toward awe and gratitude for the children in my life, the more permission I have and the more energy I have for exposing my physical person on a true and personal level. What feels beautiful, what feels empowering, what feels good and right?

I have in the past, been absolutely disempowered around beauty and sex that I feel like only now am I getting access to any answers internally about what is beautiful, empowering and what feels good for me. I am a mother and it is important to me that the children in my life have examples of real women and men in their lives who are empowered and strong and honest- not because of our physical form but because of our clarity in purpose and our open hearts.

I know the sexiest thing a person can do in my heart/ mind is their inner work, get straight with themselves about what they are doing here and live and breathe their purpose.

On the level of the eye, I think playing with what my spiritual guides have to say to me at any given moment feels the most appropriate and fun. I’d rather be in a conversation with them about physical expression than with old paradigms of sex appeal and survival on this physical plain.

5. What female artists have inspired you and influenced you?

Oh my goodness, So many. I really believe that the unapologetic art of all women throughout time has molded me as part of the collective creative conscience. Art begets art.

I come from a family of bohemian artists and I would be remiss in not honoring them particularly and their absolute influence in my life. Their authentic expressions have absolutely shaped and inspired me and I am so grateful to each of my family members for their conscious participation in living their best lives.

My highschool teacher and friend Zap McConnel reinforced and added to what my family already inspires in me. She was my first real mentor and example outside of my family in living a life of integrity and breaking the molds of our boxed beliefs.

And Beatrice Ost. She has been part of my family for a long time but it really wasn’t until her grandchildren connected with our kids that we became better acquainted and, just as kids tend to do, through our children we have been led into a most beautiful and inspiring relationship of collaboration and inspiration. We wouldn’t be where we are now without her and really everyone in the world. The ripples are real.

6. Do you consider yourself a feminist? If so why and if not why?

I consider myself a feminist because I believe in the unique and essential wisdom of the feminine and its absolute importance in the balance of life. I could also consider myself a divine masculinist but that movement is really in conjunction with the healing of the divine feminine. It is for all of us to heal from this woundedness - not just women.

There is no denying that women have been oppressed for millenia - longer than any other human group except children - and it feels important to me to keep raising the collective awareness to the long lasting effects of oppression that continue to weigh on the lives of everyone. If mama is oppressed, everyone is oppressed because if mama is oppressed she does not have the power she needs to stand up for what she knows in the depths of her heart - to care for the hearts of her family and that kind of pain and injury is passed down a long way.

I have been considering the narrative of our media history around witches - how they have been conveyed so terribly in our social history. I am interested in those stories from the witches’ perspectives. I’d love to hear the backstory of Ursula the deep sea witch in The Little Mermaid. It seems to me that she may have wanted to say something to someone… An easily identifiable sentiment for most human beings at this point. There can be no more pretending how much we have all suffered because of fear and domination. I don’t think we need to gender specify suffering generally but just like with race, it is true that there are some significant stereo types that have been disempowering for a long time.

We are still living in the antiquated world of shame about menstrual cycles for God’s sake! It’s bonkers. I can attest that this particular gift has felt like a burden in this worn out world of 9-5 schedules and limited sick days and - if any - and our basic needs for survival are not cared for enough so that we don't even know this immense gift as an honor. But as we each recognize our person as an immense gift and when we honor ourselves and each other as such, we change the world.

I am a feminist and a masculinist because I strongly believe that each of us as individuals needs to feel empowered as part of something larger than just our individual egos. Each of us is essential and honoring our unique gifts will and does heal our world in deep and profound ways. Each of us knows something, has a purpose here that needs to be respected by everyone. Men and women both would benefit from honoring the feminine in all that is and vice versa. It is a balance and as long as the balance is off there will be a need for feminism. And just as much there is a need for honoring the divine masculine. It truly is a matter of balance - one that needs support internally and externally as individuals and as a collective.

7. What was the most challenging thing you have had to face as a female Artist?

The most challenging thing I have had to face as a creative being is myself. My own pride and jealousy, self doubt, and a need for external approval have kept me from taking risks, whether it is going into action or taking a nap. Everything I did or didn’t do was based on what I thought somebody else might think which gave me very little room for actual self expression. Giving myself permission to exist independently of other people’s approval and trusting the creative flow has been a matter of challenging oppressive systems - both external and the ones and the ones in my head that I have defended as part of a fear based world. As I continue to grow wiser and my body becomes more of an ally for my heart rather than a sculpture project, I find myself in battle with old paradigms around self image.

It is an interesting time to be alive and I have lots of hope for us as a collective as I continue to break my own belief systems because if I can do it, it can be done. Breaking out of old and limiting beliefs, considering new paradigms, recognizing my inner/outer calling and prioritizing that calling beyond all else has been liberating and empowering. My dream is that all our dreams come true. I know my heart is based in love and that all the struggle has been for learning. This knowledge has helped me come to terms with trauma but I would say I think oppression is systemic and the more we can break free of our own excuses and reasoning to defend oppressive systems, the more swiftly and easily we will transition to a new world. I am more than happy to be inviting in a paradigm of inclusivity, kindness, inquiry, compassion, and honesty. An undeniable breath of fresh air from so many oppressive paradigms past and present.

Listen to “Three Truths”

Connect with Red Flower Lake online via:

https://www.redflowerlake.com/

https://www.instagram.com/redflowerlake/

https://www.facebook.com/redflowerlake

https://twitter.com/RedFlowerLake

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forasecondtherewedwon · 5 years ago

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Alright on Paper Pairing: Peter Parker x Michelle Jones (Spideychelle) Rating: T (for now) Word count: 1699 Chapter: 1/?

Spideychelle Week Day 4: Fake Dating

Summary: Reading the newspaper has taught MJ a lot about the Avengers' relationships. Doesn't mean she wants to be in one.

Or, MJ fake-dates Spider-Man, but won't commit because she has a crush on Peter Parker.

MJ reads the paper.

Oh, what, she’s supposed to be above reading the paper because print is dead and the internet offers both more news (stories and outlets) and faster access to it? Tough. She still reads it because her dad still gets it. He’s had a subscription since he graduated college and thought reading the Times―tucking it under his arm and flipping through the pages while he rode the subway―was a more accurate measure of adulthood than owning a car. (They still don’t have a car, by the way. MJ is never going to learn to drive. Ugh.)

The appeal that drew her to it, at the age of four, was the occasional editorial cartoon, utterly beyond her comprehension. These days, she’s a little more interested in the articles on domestic politics, but hey, people are allowed to evolve.

So if you’re her, you’re MJ, you’re living in New York and you’re paying attention, you’re going to notice the Avengers. Notice shit like violent attacks and streets covered in rubble―although, that’s basically the city at rush hour during construction season. She’s noticing other things though, Avengers voicing opinions, reviving a feeling of civic interest, pride, and responsibility. She’s noticing the tide turning; citizens less interested in blaming superheroes for unscheduled demolition in Manhattan and more interested in who does Hawkeye’s tattooing or which karaoke bar Thor can most likely be found at on a Friday night.

And the Avengers’ relationships. New Yorkers are feeding on (super-)human interest stories with their faces so close to the pages they just about rub all the ink off with their noses.

It’s a terrible thing to know this, to be as observant as MJ is, tracking these changing attitudes and becoming an accidental expert on the path to good PR for the biologically, magically, genetically, or otherwise enhanced. Reading the paper is what gets her in trouble―sooner, rather than later―when Spider-Man starts hanging around.

Technically, he’s always hanging (that web shit is strong stuff, by the looks of it), and he’s always around. MJ figured out ages ago that Queens is his home base. Still, their borough’s just big enough and just crowded enough that she’d never encountered him in person until a few months ago. Now she sees him all. The. Time. He says coincidence, she says to-mah-to, and it really is him saying that because they’re officially on speaking terms. It’s an improvement to their interactions, mutually decided upon after Spider-Man scared the bejesus out of her when she was standing on her apartment’s balcony one day, glanced over the edge, and saw him crawling up the wall.

The deal became that if he was going to drop by, he better be obvious about it. This led to a routine MJ is loath to describe with the word ‘charming,’ but which may or may not involve her going out to the balcony or chilling by the open window of her bedroom on Saturday mornings, after her parents have left to run errands, and offering Spider-Man a glass of orange juice while they chat and she shares her paper with him. He likes the arts section. She likes watching him read it, sticking to the wall outside her window, the posters for whatever’s in theatres appearing upside down.

He joked one time about them catching a Saturday matinee together. She’s pretty sure he was joking.

The deal evolves as the weeks go by. MJ’s apartment is less of a rest stop between crime-fighting gigs and more of a superhero counselling centre with only one client. Not that Spider-Man is looking to her, a high school student, to mend whatever trauma led to him donning a formfitting red costume and babysitting an entire city, but she’s sure giving him a lot of advice lately.

It’s just… life stuff, really, and MJ doesn’t know where he sees authority when he looks at her, yawning in her jammies as she passes his juice through the open window, but he seems to listen. Maybe her dad was right about the paper; it’s possible that reading it makes her appear wise.

But it makes her act like a damn idiot in a crisis.

She’s heading to a guidance appointment one Wednesday (it’s junior year and MJ is getting some assistance with scouting out colleges) and the halls are empty; she was given permission to leave class five minutes early. When she turns the corner towards the guidance room, there’s Spider-Man. Just standing there. Middle of the hallway. MJ drops a textbook and it strikes the ground with a deafening slap.

This is her comfortable weekend companion, the hero of Queens. She adjusted to understanding that Spider-Man can be both, but there doesn’t seem to be any room in her mind for him to also exist midmorning at Midtown Tech.

He’s staring back at her (she can tell―the aperture of the white eyes on his mask has expanded in shock), arms held away from his body sort of comically, and MJ’s trying to recall if she’s ever seen him upright before when the jarring old-school bell rings and students flood from the door of every classroom.

Spider-Man bounds towards her, grabs her book from the floor, pushes it to her chest until she grips it, and says, “I know what to do.”

Everyone’s starting to make sounds of surprise, recognizing the Avenger in their midst, but even though MJ knows Spider-Man is kind of a hero of the people, he’s not acknowledging them at all. In fact, he’s wrapping his arms around her, and her eyes―boy oh boy―are wide. There’s just one thing on her mind besides what his suit feels like against the backs of her hands…

She’s praying that Peter isn’t seeing this.

“I’ll swing by your apartment later,” Spider-Man promises, speaking quietly near her ear.

He puts another little squeeze into the hug before stepping back. Reeling, MJ watches him give their audience a polite wave as he walks backwards in the direction of the nearest exit.

“Sorry, guys,” he tells the gathered crowd. “Uh, duty calls. I just wanted to stop by and see my girlfriend.”

Heads are swivelling to stare at MJ even before she drops the book for the second time.

\\\

“How?” she demands of him that evening, pacing tightly on the balcony while her parents laugh along to a sitcom in the living room. “How could that be you ‘knowing what to do’?!”

“I was doing what you said,” Spider-Man says defensively. He’s pacing too, along the balcony’s two-inch-wide railing. (She’s too mad to be worried.)

“Excuse me? We’re putting this on me? When was I an active part of that plan, while I was holding that stupid textbook or while my arms were pinned because you were hugging me? I’d really like to know.”

“W-well, it’s what you said about public perception of the Avengers.”

“Specifics!”

“Like Iron Man,” he argues, lowering his voice after how she snapped. “People like hearing about him and Pepper Potts.”

“And have you always modeled yourself after Tony Stark, or is this sudden, public relationship announcement your first foray?”

They stare at each other for a minute, Spider-Man balancing and MJ looking up at him―which is kind of weird after they hugged today and she realized he’s shorter than she is. She sighs, regretting her harsh words.

“I’m sorry,” she offers. “I know what you did was thoughtless―”

“Well―”

“―ill-advised―”

“Literally your advice.”

“―and, frankly, moronic―”

“Hey.”

“―but I get it, you panicked―”

“I had it under control.”

“―so I forgive you.”

“Oh. Well, thanks.”

“Now, come down here so I don’t have to keep resisting the urge to shove you off that railing.”

Once Spider-Man flips down (she’s already forgiven him―what, does he think he’s getting bonus points for landing the dismount?), MJ crosses her arms and gives that red mask of his a stern look.

“Still not thrilled, huh?”

“Good guess,” she says dryly.

“I might be missing something here, but… why? I mean, I didn’t think I did anything to embarrass you. Did I hurt you somehow?”

MJ shrugs and stares at her slippers.

“People saw.”

There’s a pause.

“…We already knew that.” His tone is almost clueless enough to make her apprehensive that this is the guy she and the rest of Queens have protecting them.

“I don’t know if… if a certain person saw.”

She’s blushing hard to admit even this much of a crush and she’d be mortified if she wasn’t making her confession to this socially illiterate superhero.

“Boyfriend?” Spider-Man asks. MJ glances up to see him leaning extremely un-casually against the wall, arms folded a little less tensely than hers.

“You sound skeptical,” she accuses.

“You’ve never mentioned him.”

MJ glares for a few seconds before backing down.

“No, he’s not my boyfriend. And you didn’t know that either because we only ever talk about you.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Spider-Man immediately offers, like he’s trying to even things up.

Groaning, she lets her shoulders slump.

“You do now.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s pretty unlikely that nobody took a picture.”

“Safe to assume the students of a school called Midtown Tech are tech-savvy enough to work a cellphone camera. By the way,” MJ adds, narrowing her eyes at him, “why were you there?”

“Oh, um, gas leak in one of the Chemistry labs. They dispatch the fire department for that kind of thing and I hate for emergency services to get tied up if I can fix it myself.”

“Huh. I had no idea gas leaks were in your repertoire. Thought muggers and bicycle thieves were more your beat.”

She’s teasing him pretty lightly considering he definitely just lied to her. It’s fine, she’ll wait to crack him until he’s forgotten all about visiting her school.

Spider-Man swings his arms nervously.

“If it’s a community problem, I’m on it. I’m just a friendly―”

“―neighbourhood Spider-Man,” MJ finishes. “Yeah, I’ve heard the tagline. And you’re also my fake boyfriend until we figure out a way for you to tactfully dump me.”

He takes an excited step towards her.

“I know wha―”

She cuts him off with a swiftly raised hand.

“Don’t even say it.”

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purplesurveys · 4 years ago

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988

survey by ashleybayle

Has anyone ever told you that you looked like a celebrity? Yeah. The most popular opinion I get is Anna Akana and a local singer named Kakie, and then more occasionally I’ve also gotten Lucy Hale. Of course, all of these people are absolutely gorgeous though so it’s hard to accept comments like these lol

When was the last time you got something done to your hair? Professionally, late February. But I trimmed my bangs last Saturday.

Do you have any change on you right now? Barely. I only have a few 1-peso coins and a couple of 25-cent coins left.

What color is the pillowcase(s) on your bed? They’re pink with white lines.

Do you have a favorite day of the week? I like Monday mornings because we have weekly video calls for work and it’s really the only time I get to talk to other people anymore. Even if I can’t really count any of my colleagues as my friends, I’m able to get the human connection I’ve been hungry for and it always leaves me feeling good for the rest of the day.

Cutting your hair extremely short, would you do it? Yeah. That’s what I did last February; I’d do it again once my hair gets too long. I’ll probably go even shorter the next time because depression.

Have you ever been in an art show? I’ve been to art exhibits, if you’re referring to the same thing.

Would you considered yourself to be well-exposed to life or sheltered? I was sheltered for most of my life but I’ve been trying to get exposed to more scary life things so that I slowly start to detach from people I used to normally depend on, like my parents.

How high is your pain tolerance? Not high at all. I bruise like a peach and have near-meltdowns over sharp objects especially if I get pricked by one.

Have you ever played the game Halo? I don’t think so. I could have watched others play it in the past, but I’ve never played the game myself.

Are you wearing any jewelry at the moment? No I’m not.

Is there a sport that you love to play? Table tennis! Futsal was also fun the one or two times I played it, and it was in playing that sport that I learned I apparently make a good goalkeeper. In an alternate universe I probably play football, ha.

Has anything made you sad in the past 48 hours? Yes. That’s a constant state of mind now.

Have you ever had to learn lines for a play/skit/movie? Yes. We were required to do so many skits in high school so making scripts and memorizing lines was part of a normal day.

Do you like your nose? I’ve never complained about it. I don’t normally think about my nose either.

Is there a hair color you prefer on the opposite sex? No.

Kissing someone with facial hair, do you mind? I’ve never tried it, so I don’t have a solid opinion.

Would you ever like to be a stunt person? Sounds fun but I’m barely physically fit for such a role and I’d break a bone almost immediately. Even professional stunt people get injured, so...

Are you a pyromaniac? The furthest thing from it. I’m terrified of fire.

How soon is your birthday? Six months and a day.

Are you one of those people who listen to songs on repeat? Isn’t everyone prone to doing that once in a while? But yeah, I guess I’m ‘one of those’ people.

Can any of your friends sing very well? Lots of em. Hannah, Tina, Ed, Andi, Michelle, Nacho, etc.

Would you ever enter any kind of pageant? That does not sound interesting to me.

Do you have piano fingers? No :(

What is your preferred curse word? Fuck.

When someone's drunk, the truth comes spilling out, correct? I guess, for some people. Other people express their drunkenness in other ways. But I for sure lose my filter once I’m drunk; it’s a lot easier to ask me questions once I’ve had a few glasses, ha.

Have you ever shouted something random at someone out a car window? I’m sure I’ve rolled down my windows to cuss out a stupid driver once or twice.

Have you ever slept on a beach? No. I know my mom does, but I personally find it risky/dangerous. When it comes to open spaces like the beach, I find it hard to trust people to not be thieves.

Would you like to be taller? It’s not an active wish of mine. It’d always be cool to be taller, but I’m also okay with my current height.

Are you a fan of piercings on the opposite sex? Not necessarily. I wouldn’t say I’m attracted to them.

Have you ever listened to Celtic music? Nope.

Do you enjoy making up words? I’ve never done that, no.

Have you ever been attacked by an animal? Aside from the time a giant bird kind of charged at me at a safari and getting playbites from Cooper, no. Cats hiss at me all the time, but I get out of their vicinity before they can attack me or whatever.

Who did you dance with last? Rita, Blanch, Mik, Laurice, Jum, a bunch of strangers.

When holding hands, do you intertwine fingers? Yeah. That’s my favorite.

Is there a movie that makes you cry every single time you watch it? This is gonna get some eyerolls but...Titanic. Forever one of my faves no matter how overrated people find it, hahaha. The “Rose Dawson” scene gets me all the time.

Do you ever talk to the TV? I mean if I have comments about the show I’m watching, yeah I guess I’m technically talking to the TV. But I don’t talk to the TV like a camera, if that’s what you mean.

What's your opinion on Johnny Depp? I feel for him and all the shit he’s gone through with Amber Heard. I’ll always feel bad for having sided with Amber in the past. Movie-wise, not really a fan of his repertoire but I respect his craft and abilities nonetheless.

Have you ever watched the Tudors? Nah but I hear of it a lot, so I’ve always been interested.

Can you speak in different accents? No. My dad’s super good at accents though since he travels a lot for his job. He can do American, Indian, Singaporean, Chinese, Australian, etc.

Who was the last person you mocked/mimicked? The annoying person at the BIR who wasted my time.

If you write, isn't writer's block the most horrible thing? I’d say it’s inconvenient, but it’s not the worst of my worries whenever it strikes.

Can you sew or knit? No but I’ve made up my mind about learning how to :) I put some cross-stitch kits on my online shopping cart recently and I can’t wait to get my hands busy.

Do you have a favorite pair of jeans? Yesssss. They’re the only pair of jeans I wear these days, on the rare times I have a reason to go out.

What size shirt do you normally wear? XS.

Are you good with money? I’m good with saving if I absolutely have to, but I’m equally good at spending all my money in one go lol

Has anyone ever aimed a gun at you? No. Don’t know how well I’d fare in that; I tend to freeze up and forget words when I’m terrified.

What is the first letter of the person's name you last kissed? G.

Do you use myspace for following celebrities, and facebook for friends? I never regularly used Myspace, and Facebook is for sharing memes, staying updated on the news, and connecting with family and friends. At least up until I deactivated last month.

Have you ever written a song? Maybe in grade school when it was an assignment for class, but never on my own time.

Do you believe there is life on other planets? Other planets in other galaxies perhaps in other universes, sure.

If you think about the universe long enough, it's baffling isn't it? Doesn’t take long for me, but yes it is.

When was the last time you fell? I haven’t in a while.

Are you a fan of Christian Bale? I wouldn’t say so. I don’t think I’ve seen any of his movies. I’ve been meaning to watch American Psycho for years but just never got around to it.

Do you have any sort of debt? No.

Is there an accent you prefer? I don’t know if prefer is the right word since I don’t have any favorite accents, but hmmm I can listen to Florence Pugh’s accent all day.

Have you spoken to the person you love today? Yep.

Would you ever travel to Los Angeles? If given the chance sure, but I honestly prefer other cities.

Have you ever been through a natural disaster? A lot of them.

Is there a specific time period that interests you? I don’t think I’ve ever been hooked to just one specific era...I’m interested in all of them and read about them an equal amount.

Do any of your friends own an expensive car? JM used to drive a Lexus to school on Fridays.

Have you ever been on a train? Just once. I had to go to Manila for a journalism class but I wasn’t willing to drive all the way there, so I took a train and had Jum keep me company because I didn’t know how commuting worked.

Is there a memory that embarasses you to think about? I mean yeah, there are a lot.

Have you ever used different colored paper clips? Possibly.

Where exactly are you right now? In a corner in my room.

Don't you admire those people who know exactly what they want to do? I admire anyone who’s able to make the best of what they’ve got, no matter what their progress is in life. Life shouldn’t be a contest of who gets their shit figured out the earliest or the best way possible.

Is there a guy you can talk to about anything? No.

Have you ever been in a parade? I know I said in a previous survey that I haven’t been to a parade, but now that I think about it I’ve been to several Pride Marches, which kinda count as parades...so yeah, I have been.

Would you ever consider being a news reporter? My entire family wanted me to end up being one, but it was never an interest of mine. I was just too shy to tell them that that’s not really my goal. I like staying behind the camera for the most part.

Are you, or anyone you know, an atheist? Yes and yes, I know several people who are.

Has anyone ever told you to "get a grip"? I don’t think I’ve ever gotten those exact words before.

Do people say you look your age? Or younger or older? Younger.

Have you ever sent a celebrity fan mail? Kind of. Five years ago my friend Heather and I were at YouTube Fanfest where Joe Sugg, Caspar Lee, and Oli White were part of the line-up, and we didn’t anticipate that so many fans would come with gifts even though there was no guarantee of meeting them. We came up with a little gift of our own, which was really nothing more than a tiny post-it saying that we love them lmao (we went to the venue straight after school, hence Heather having school supplies HAHA). It was such a poor-looking gift. We went to their assistant who was SUPER nice about it and didn’t make us feel like shit for our gift which was pretty much worthless and could easily get lost – it was literally a piece of post-it. I doubt it ever got to them, but we gave it a shot anyway.

Are you ashamed of how you acted when you were younger? Some parts of it, definitely. I grew up in a violent household, so I was violent towards my brother when he was a baby, not knowing how serious my actions were. I was also a pain in the ass while I was going through puberty.

Do you ever have those days where you feel you're the ugliest person ever? Yes.

Beauty is both external and internal, correct? Sure.

Have you ever been in a musical? Yeah, in grade school through high school. Never had a solo role, though.

When was the last time you swam in a pool? July 2019.

Is there a friend's family that makes you feel like you're family too? Angela’s. At one point, Katreen’s too, before we grew apart.

How do you know someone is your best friend? When I don’t feel like filtering my words around them, and when I allow myself to be fully vulnerable with them.

When was the last time you used a highlighter? Sometime in February I’m guessing. Before the lockdown and when I still went to school and had readings.

Has a flashlight ever ran out batteries on you in the dark? I don’t think so.

#survey #surveys

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