#also he was Actually Gay like i am not exaggerating about his crush

[sunnydotjpeg]

king ludwig II of bavaria is the most pathetic little gayboy meow meow of any historical figure i've heard of so far

man lived as a recluse in his castle, ate meals alone and even refused to see his servants, spent his time designing other castles all while surrounded by portraits of his big gay crush king louis XV of france

[travalerray]

please tell me about your chengxian timetravel au

[The Grandmaster of Accidental Time Travel]

Omg, thank you for the ask!!

Okay so. Basically, the AU starts from Jin Guangyao's stab being very fatal and Jiang Cheng dying and returning to when he was ten years old.

Most of his concentration is focused on a) stopping Wei Wuxian b) stopping Wei Wuxian c) stopping Wei Wuxian— you get the idea. Except we all have read the novel and know that Wei Wuxian is real bad at listening to Jiang Cheng. Or anyone really.

So shenanigans follow. Except due to certain things (Jiang Cheng's knowledge of future events, things getting shifted by a little bit, a shift in attitude and a certain case of fever etc etc), things keep getting shifted. Lan Qiren is called to Qinghe earlier, they discover the skeleton of Qingfeng-jun's teacher, fight the Waterborne Abyss muuuuch earlier and somehow also manage to prevent Wei Wuxian from getting sent back to Yunmeng. How? Well, Jiang Cheng kinda gets in the middle of the fight, because he is trying. A little. To avoid. Jin Zixuan fucking dying. And he may or may not have gotten a horrible reaction from the fight. The reaction also may or may not have been exaggerated due to certain reasons.

The engagement is still dissolved. by a letter. All hail the greatest father of all time, Jiang Fengmian.

Now, in the background what did happen is. Lan Wangji manages to develop an unfortunate one sided crush on Jiang Cheng. Lan Xichen thinks it's hilarious and pairs them up for a night hunt. It goes horribly, important things are revealed and Wei Wuxian finally gets to the gay station without reading the name of the station. Everyone suffers.

the real reason for the time travel is a fuzzy thing I have in mind which involves taking a certain element from 2ha (Three Forbidden Techniques) and fusing it with the ghost path invented by Wei Wuxian. I am thinking more specifically that the creature ZhanCheng do encounter on their unfortunate night hunt could give a nod to the two souls residing in Jiang Cheng's body (while he keeps having strange dreams that shouldn't belong to him. Now, I personally think that the idea of some of Wei Wuxian's tendencies to be transmitted onto Jiang Cheng via golden core exchange fucks heavily but like. What if they literally ate each other. What if I didn't know where I began and you ended. What if separating you from me would kill me. What if you doomed us both. What if—) which would fuck him over more. I mean, there's still Wen Qing left who is also trying to change the past to save her side of people, but that would involve another fiasco. Anyways

Jiang Cheng being an actually good sect leader trying to convince his father (who reportedly is like That™) that a war is coming is going to be horrendous. On top of which, Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Yanli are 100% convinced that the fever knocked Jiang Cheng silly in the head and made him worse with auditory problems, while Jiang Cheng is going, "I am acting like a normal 16 year old. Which is totally a normal and possible thing to want to achieve". Wei Wuxian himself isn't normal but even he thinks Jiang Cheng's habits are a little insane at times. Like. Diving into the lake for five hours at a time (tfw you used to cry in the lake while helping people dig out your family relics but can't tell your still alive family that lest they bring every single doctor in the jianghu to Lotus Pier AGAIN). Or other such things. I do think he might be able to convince Yu Ziyuan faster than Jiang Fengmian if he tried hard enough. But that's after the Qishan Wen Conference and after he finally says fuck it and invents evidence to get Yunmeng Jiang moving and contemplates the best way to alert the Gusu Lan Sect about the burning.

Since this is a slowburn, Chengxian do not kiss properly until like the end of the war preparations (before which Jiang Cheng strangles Meng Yao, panics, runs off, has a breakdown, swallows a whole vat of soup, cries and curses random things). Since this is also a slowburn the POV shifting is funny because it is:

JC: A war is coming. I need to make sure people do not die and Wei Wuxian does not give me a golden core and become a demonic cultivator. That's all I want, really, the fact that he's probably going to end up with some other guy is definitely not heartbreaking—

WWX: *trying hard to be normal* Shidi looks hot when talking about array formations. Did talking to Zewu-jun turn me into a cutsleeve.

anyways.

Since Jiang Cheng had managed to gain the trust of Gusu Lan Sect, the Cloud Recesses is mostly saved, which means Qingfeng-jun leads the war effort this time. Which means that the time travel plot which actually had been resting on the back burner kicks up since his backstory is very much connected to the whole schtick going on. Which also means that we get to see Yu Ziyuan yelling people's ears off as per usual, but this time it's not Wei Wuxian.

I do think about the reveal though. since in the original world, Wei Wuxian is dead for the second time and has given up his soul in trying to bring Jiang Cheng back. When Jiang Cheng figures out the whole situation, things are going to Not Go Well. Because that's exactly what he had been trying to prevent! Why can't they ever be happy without one of them being dead like that! What do you mean happiness can't be found without being writ in blood!

.......Wei Wuxian is going to have a stroke learning this.

[forabeatofadrum]

Just Some Guy (2/9)

Notes: Welcome back to Matty's second year at Watford! This year, he and John will meet some new friends and I am happy to introduce them to you. They were all named by @raenestee. Thank you Raen!

AO3

--

Year 2

MATT

It’s time for another year at Watford and I already miss the summer. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind being at Watford, but I am not looking forward to classes, especially Greek.

At least John is here. He couldn’t hang out during the summer due to ‘not existing outside the main story beats’ or something. He said he’d look into it for next summer.

Look, I like John. He’s probably my best mate at the moment, but that’s because he’s my only mate. I don’t mind. I’ve met loads of people last year, but we never became friends. Now it’s time to change that. This is going to be my year!

Sports might not be it for me, though, but according to John there is a Watford Chess Club.

“I’m joining,” he says one day, “You should come along.”

“I don’t know how to play chess,” I say, “I didn’t even know you played chess.”

John shrugs.

“Learnt it over the summer ‘off-screen’,” he uses air quotes when he says that last word. I have no clue what he means. “I can teach you. Come on, it’ll be fun!”

To everyone’s surprise, I am amazing at chess. John teaches me all his tricks but after a week at chess club, I surpass him. Chess club is huge. It’s actually quite nice to be part of something. I recognise some other members from our year. We hang out at chess club, but also outside of it.

Friends. What a concept. I had friends before Watford, but living at an exclusive boarding school does put a damper on those friendships. I saw my mates during the summer, but it’s different.

We’re sitting on the Great Lawn, eating crisps and drinking soda.

“Did you all see Agatha Wellbelove at lacrosse?” Arnold says.

“Don’t start,” John says, “You have no chance.”

“No one does,” I grumble. I admit I like looking at Agatha Wellbelove too. I think every guy in our year does, except Ryan, who is gay.

As a result, Ryan rolls his eyes in an exaggerated way.

“Please, let the poor girl live!”

“That’s because you have a little crush on the Chosen One!” Leslie teases.

“I do not!” Ryan sputters back.

Scott, his roommate, snorts. “Sure, mate.”

“You did seem to be interested during Magic Words,” Sam adds.

“Well, that’s because he was fighting that Pitch guy again!” Ryan says. He has a point. The Chosen One seems to have an ongoing rivalry with the Pitch Heir.

Politics, amirite?

Others agree with Ryan as well. You cannot ignore the Chosen One. If he’s not out there leaking magic, he’s fighting our classmate Tyrannus, or he’s doing some weird shit. The other day, the Humdrum sent counting sheep. I luckily wasn’t affected, but John was. The Chosen One broke the spell on his friend and Agatha Wellbelove and for some reason that broke the entire spell.

I’m glad he saved John, but apart from that, I do not really keep track of the Chosen One’s antics. That’s what I tell my friends when Sam asks me for my opinion on him.

“Honestly, I agree,” Luis says with a shrug, “Simon Snow can do all that saviour stuff. I just want to pass the upcoming Magickal History exam.”

I almost choke on a crisp.

Shit. I completely forgot about it.

--

“Aren’t we breaking the rules?” I whisper to John. The two of us are roaming the grounds past midnight.

“It’s common decency to stay in the dorms after a certain hour,” John answers with a mischievous grin, “But there is no hard rule. Look.”

He holds out his lantern in a certain direction and I see more people sneaking around. I wonder if we’re going to a party or something. John was very vague, or more vague than usual. He just insisted that we had to go outside.

“John, where are we going?”

“Shhhh,” John stops abruptly and he pushes me behind him. I look over his shoulder and I see the Chosen One. He looks like he’s been crying and he’s walking towards Mummers House.

“Do you think he’s okay?” I ask. Unlike Ryan, I do not really pay attention to the Chosen One outside of class, but he looks harrowed. It would be an asshole move to not worry about him.

John shrugs, which is odd. He’s usually so in tune with everyone.

“I think he’s going through some shit,” John answers.

“What could he be going through?” I ask, “He’s our hero.”

John raises an eyebrow, as if I said something stupid.

“He’s still a boy, Matt. I think he’s realising that being the hero is not all fun and games.”

We watch the Chosen One walk away and he does look awful and beat up. John is right. He’s my age. I can’t imagine having the weight of the world on my shoulders and being a twelve year old at the same time.

The Chosen One.

Simon Snow.

Maybe I should stop referring to him by his title and start thinking of him by his name. We will never be friends. We pass each other in the corridor of our rooms and we know each other from classes, but that’s it. Because of that, he’s always been this elusive entity in my life. The Chosen One, the Saviour of the Magickal World, the Mage’s Heir and all that jazz.

But when I see him like this, cheeks wet from the tears, shoulders hunched, I am reminded that he’s just Simon Snow.

I heard that he’s chasing two snakes for the Mage. What kind of snakes must they be? Simon Snow really looks terrible.

When he enters the building, John and I snap out of weird concentration. We look at each other and I shrug.

John shrugs too.

What else can we do?

“Well, let’s keep going,” John says and he starts walking. Really, what else can we do? “The others are waiting.”

“What?”

That distracts me from my Simon Snow sadness.

John and I walk to the drawbridge. My friends from chess club are there as well. Luis is holding ice cream.

“Gentlemen, let’s indulge!” he says.

“What’s the occasion?” I ask.

“My twelfth birthday.”

My eyes widen, but it’s clear I’m not the only one who didn’t know this fact. Leslie throws her arms around him.

“Luis! Oh my God, congrats!”

Luis hands out his treats and the eight of us have an impromptu party. The Chosen One- I mean, Simon Snow is long forgotten. How can I care about him when I have my own life with great friends? I am so glad I joined chess club.

--

I did it!

Well, I had to bitch and moan for it, but I did it! I convinced my parents to gift me one of those fancy smartphones for my birthday. Now I can surf the internet on my phone and send memes to John in the summer. John looked into his situation and he says he exists in the summer as long as I keep messaging him, or whatever that means.

I’m just glad I have an easier way to talk to all my new friends.

Another year has gone by and we’re at our last breakfast for the school year. We’re sat relatively close to Simon Snow, and it’s noticeable. His magic is leaking, as usual, and he’s pushing scones down his throat, it’s almost grotesque. He’s eating as if he’s expecting to go hungry in summer.

Huh.

Where does he go during the summer? He’s famously an orphan. He has no family to go to. But then I see his chatty friend sit down next to him. I assume he’s going to her place in the summer.

I push any thoughts about Simon Snow out of my mind. I don’t have to see him for weeks.

[justsomecookie]

I'm writing a story, but before I publish it I wanna see what you guys think, tell me how it looks please :3

TWs: Death, reanimation, identity issues, [I'm not good at listing TWs sorry]

Living Corpse

I Got Better.

Light. Darkness. Pain. Sleep. I'm trying to remember what just happened, but it's blurry right now. Where am I? I close my eyes again and try to recall the last thing I remember.

Car. I was sitting in the car, we were driving somewhere. I was messaging my boyfriend, or playing games I think. My mom was driving, but we didn't have anything to talk about.

I remember thinking about myself. Who I was. Do I remember who I am? Of course I do. I'm Alex. I'm 15 and happily taken, temporarily long distance. I'm genderfluid and gay, I have friends.

There was something else that I remember... A crash? Broken glass? It feels so blurry, I think... I think I’d rather not think about it right now.

I open my eyes again. Dim LED lights. White walls, maybe a bit dirty. 10 beds. I'm on one of them. People are on the others, covered with blankets like they're...

I wasn't always this pale.

3 years later

"Morning, mom," I greet. My mom's not a terrible person, she cares about her children a lot. She's also hurt us a lot, and I've tried forgiving her, but if she's not willing to accept she's done something wrong then I don't think I can.

"Good morning, Alex," she replied. "I didn't think I'd see you up again so early. It's not even 12 yet, haha."

"Well I actually went to bed on time, I slept like a... like a baby." What's wrong with me? It's been years, yet I still... 'I slept like a corpse.

I'm not 100% sure if I still need to eat, but I do anyways. Honestly, I'm scared of... myself. It'll be fine if I pretend everything's the same though, I don't even need to tell my friends.

I'll heat up some pizza rolls, counting by threes to make sure I have 12 on there, like it says to have on the package. Three, three, three, three.

I'm not sure how to describe it, but everything's off. As if it's dull, yet full flavor. All my senses are like that, and it doesn't make sense. I eat anyways.

I tug on my hoodie strings. Today's going to be one of those days I suppose. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with my life. I feel unable to move on, unable to continue.

I'm not going to dump it all on my boyfriend, I feel like my family wants to cover it up, and my friends don't need to know. And my... 'condition...' is so rare it's impossible to find anyone else to relate too.

All I can think of to do right now is watch my comfort Let's Player. His videos are different. They're not over the top, exaggerated, faked, and they're really comfortable. And he's showed me the best horror I've seen.

Like him, it's not over the top, not even "this scary monster is coming after you." It's a mod of a popular building game. It changes the things you build, it builds its own things, it sometimes shows up and scares you, but it doesn't rely on cheap jumpscares, it relies on driving you insane.

Sometimes, insanity is very difficult to imagine. Other times, I wonder how similiar it is to a 'normal' mind.

-----

As I lie awake at night, my thoughts wander aimlessly. I think about everything that's changed since then. I don't dream. I'm not sure if I need to eat or sleep, or if I even age. My hair is lighter but it's dyed anyways. I'm pale and cold. I have scars and markings from broken glass impaling my stomach, from my legs being crushed under a dislodged car seat. I can't feel pain down there but I can anywhere else.

Some nights, I'm so cold. I feel so alone. So empty. Nobody else, not a single soul, knows what it's like to live on the veil of life and death. Not quite dead, not quite living, but for sure I'm still existing.

Can I ever cross the barrier? To either side, I barely care anymore. Maybe I'll start poetry. What's good symbolism for death? I feel like a skull would be too on-the-nose, maybe a raven?

I drift off to sleep.

-----

The raven calls my name

The one I taught it to speak

Yet I don't respond

I'm far too weak

[moookar]

ghdsgshs I *love* PC/NPC romances in D&D omg I feel exactly like I can fix him!! I can make him worse !!! Except it’s *literal* because I actually have a major say in how his canon life turns out. I’m going to elaborate under the read more (because it’s kind of embarrassing how enthusiastic I am <33) and also if anyone from the Fade is reading this, don’t click the read more! There are spoilers!

So the characters in question are Endt (my PC) and Ennard (the NPC). I might refer to Ennard as Hen here because that’s going to be Endt’s nickname for him <3. (The DM and I unthinkingly gave them similar names 😔)

their whole Thing is a sort of villain/hero rivalry. Endt is a prolific conman and Ennard is a city guard! Endt a flamboyant wizard. He’s loud and silly and kind and has not learnt how to self regulate. From ages 12 to 38 (that’s in Fade elf years, in human years that’s 12 to early 20s) he was the primmest most proper gifted child (an apprentice scribe) who did everything wanted of him with no trouble, always making himself small. He got fed up w that and is *waves hand at him* now like that. And ough i was gonna describe Hen’s personality but the DM did it sooo well that I have to share it here

I’m litteraly in love with the dm (hyperbole). I tell her how cool she is all the time but it’s honestly not enough. Brb i haven’t done it in the past few days i’m gonna do that now

okay i’m back. But basically their whole thing is that Ennard is very obviously watching Endt do something extremely illegal and is like. obviously trying to stop him?? But then Endt pulls the (inserted image) card

and every other member of the holdtian guard force is like Haha classic Hälfte with his stupid gay crush. (I’m exaggerating but not by much; this happened canonically)

And HONESTLY… i’m not normal about them.. They are both people who are so deeply insecure about their flaws and💜💜💜 im always thinking about them.

Endt genuinely admires him so much. Endt is a very confident person, at least on the outside, but he doesn’t like himself. He doesn’t consider himself good. *Ennard*, however, has such strong values and fights for what he believes to be correct so strongly. Endt wants be like him in that regard <33. Endt also finds Hen getting so flustered sooo endearing. Cuteness aggression

anyway i rest my case. They should gay kiss. Thank you

[fishshapedbun]

about Romantic Killer (BIG SPOILERS)

ok i just finished watching Romantic Killer and it's so good wtf????????? the plot developed so much better than i was expecting at first?????? Anzu is such a good character and such a good friend????? so i need to ramble about it bare with me for a moment

the show is hilarious and i love how exaggerated the funny expressions are, but it also has some rly serious part damn im legit impressed (Anzu and Kazuki's first hug kinda got me tearing up ngl)

each of the characters is slowly developed so well. like damn. Kazuki's story is specially detailed and it caught me by surprise when they showed the flashbacks of the first episodes after we found out why he became so distant and conscious of people and everything made so much sense. and he felt so realistic in the way he reacted, his struggle to open up and every single time he started feeling anxious and panicking in public was so well done (and i wanted to take him away from the crowd and pat his head every time ugh T_T). i was just slightly dissapointed that right on the last episode he admited that he started crushing on Anzu bc after the entire season of them just being an amazing duo of friends i was so hopeful we would finally get a 'love interest' turned only best friend (bc lets admit its not like she doesnt already have enough ppl interested in her without Kazuki being one of them too). bc i was enjoying headcanoning him as aroace as i was watching :') oh well. maybe if it ends up not having a s2 i can pretend he realized he wasnt in love and he just loves her platonically a lot! if they dont give me the aroace boy i will rip it from their cold dead hands! :D

and i loved the plot twist on how Junta was actually her true childhood friend all along and she took so long to realize... his feelings were totally real awwwww and he is really a sweetheart, i like the childhood friend trope! buuuut i gotta admit im just living for the huge crush Makoto clearly has on Junta. boyo isn't hiding it very well. that scene when Makoto holds Saki's hand and takes her away from the triggering situation? that was gay x lesbian solidarity right there !

and Saki OH MY GOD SAKI. the episode focused on showing how the two of them became friends and how important Anzu is to her and the way she has always defended her and what Saki went through oh god... her story was so realistic and seeing her reaction seeing that stupid ass ex was such a realistic depiction of a kind of trauma like that. she's such a good character im so happy they developed her so well and didnt make her just an irrelevant school friend character!!! (also she's a lesbian i am not taking criticism- /hj)

i need to mention how Anzu is absolutely bisexual btw. her reaction to meeting Kazuki's sister? she literally straight up said "i'll fall for her" c'mon

and Riri!!! omg!!!! little genderfluid chaos gremlin!!!!!!!! i was so so happy that not only Anzu girbossed her way to getting them out of their punishment but she got them to permanently live on the human world AND officially made them one of the love interests??? ULTIMATE GIRLBOSS MOVE Anzu i love you so much dear. so ngl i lowkey would like seeing Anzu end up with Riri/Rio the most ksjefhskdjf badass girl x genderfluid gremlin??? so much potential cmon they literally were punished for breaking magic rules bc they care too much about Anzu that's so fucking cute skjfhsdf

and Hijiri!!!!! from a little annoying rich bastard to a little just slightly annoying tsundere rich baby!!! i really like that he's interested in her and all but ultimately he's just there working and helping her out a lot like he becomes genuinely a great friend??

so yeah. as one can tell from the immense number of written words here i have liked this anime quite a lot. binged it in a day, all at once, no regrets. i'll be happy if there's a 2nd season if it is as good as this 1st one, bc this was amazing! so glad i decided to give it a chance <3 there's even more things i could talk about here but i dont wanna write a novel chapter of a post so i'll stop here LMAO

but really, if you're into comedy, romance and some nice character development, you won't regret giving Romantic Killer a chance :)

[fraudulent-cheese]

OK SO I'VE WATCHED EPISODES 2 TO 4 OF SEASON 2 OF TOTAL DRAMA 2023

MAJOR SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT!!!!

I think these episodes were... fine. I think the third might've been the best one overall, i liked the challenge and it was pretty fun; especially seeing MK fucking cheating and the team's reactions. i think Ripper not interacting with his team is good actually, because he's funnier on his own or when he's crushing on Axel.

SPEAKING OF WHICH: i didn't expect for Ripaxel to win me over... at all? But i think it's pretty cute actually! I think it's funny seeing Ripper crushing on the girl that spent the entire previous episode trying to commit violence on him. He's ridiculous when trying to impress her in episode 2, their interactions in episode 3 were also fun (they managed to make a fart joke plot relevant! how??) and i really enjoy how in episode 4 the dude went out of his way to make something she'd like (the little poem he made her!). I REALLY don't think Ripper's interested at all in poetry so i think it's cute :D ALSO THEY'RE STILL IN THE GAME SO WE MIGHT SEE MORE FROM THEM. MAYBE IT'LL FULLY CONVINCE ME!! Honestly i think it could've been worse! Could've been a whole lot worse! She could've been kissing Chase. That's all im saying.

What i do know is that Priya x Caleb is NOT gonna convince me. I genuinly do not care it's insane. they are just here to be straight and i don't think they'll convince me. (especially since im pretty sure Caleb just wants an alliance)

Fellas... we might be getting Rajbow divorce. Or at least an actual conflict in their relationship that they'll need to work throughout the season; i really hope they don't split up but also they might just split up over this and i am NOT READY.

I'll go over the eliminations + challenges before i go over my favorite aspect of these episodes: Chase getting booted second is amazing. Glad he's not here anymore and im glad Emma got to take her revenge on his dumbass. Im more mixted on Millie being kicked off this early? sure she wasn't gonna last until the end but the conflict between her team just felt! so! forced! Guys, Damien's alive, and he's FINE NEXT EPISODE CAN YOU GUYS CALM THE FUCK DOWN??? I know it was a breach of trust but she did it to win the challenge and it WORKED! And she got booted for it! Emma getting eliminated this early also kinda stings, especially the remarks about her gut feelings being wrong (but then they were right so like,,, what is your point). I do think her not being as good at reading people as she thought is a good conflict but i don't like how it's excecuted.

As for challenges: I think a straight up basketball one would've been cool (take notes, season rewritters!), but the basketball slides was pretty fun too. The sticky sap one is really fun too, it's got plenty of potential. the one in episode 4 is real eh, i would've preferred a straight up would you rather with a lie detector maybe? but oh well!

what i did like tho? MKULIA!!! I LOVE THEM BEING FRIENDS!!! THEY ARE FLERTING SM

THEY'RE JUST BE GAY DO CRIME OMGGGG THEY BETTER FUCKING KISS I SWEAR TO GOD

I WILL SIMPLY COMMIT CRIMES IF THEY DONT END UP BEING CANON

im exaggerating obviously but FR!!! They are canon to me!!! I fucking hope MK doesn't immediatly get eliminated in episode 5 because if she does i will cry

OK! LETS HOPE I DIDNT JINX ANYTHING BY SAYING THESE WORDS!

[therealvinelle]

Hi I love your meta, especially the one about Aro's brain and Aro/Carlisle! What do you think is Carlisle’s draw to Aro?

Glad you like it! And that’s a great question.

(This is the post anon is referring to.)

Alright, so we can all in this fandom agree that Aro is a fan of Carlisle’s, to the point where we just take it for granted. Aro loves Carlisle because he loves Carlisle. (Insert joke here)

However, I haven’t seen any posts addressing why Aro likes Carlisle so much in the first place, so here’s my attempt to explain.

Before I start listing my reasons, though, I should clarify one thing - I do not see Aro as a heterosexual man, nor as someone who sees his marriage to Sulpicia as a monogamous thing. I mean, you have a beautiful man from Mycenaean Greece form a close friendship with another beautiful man, commission artists to immortalize his beautiful friend, they live together for decades- I’m getting ahead of myself. Point is, I think Aro is gay.

(And yes, I know that everyone on this site already knows that, but I am orderly. Also, I’ve seen people post “Aro has a crush on Carlisle” like that’s a hot take)

So, Carlisle. What about him makes Aro think he’s so great?

Carlisle is hot even by vampire standards Frozen in his best age, tall, muscular, exotic eye color and with a hair color that has been considered desirable among many civilizations, the Ancient Greeks among them, Carlisle’s features would be considered ideal to a lot of people. More, he is so ridiculously beautiful that when Bella is awed by his beauty when she wakes up a vampire. The only other vampire to get that kind of reaction is Edward. Not even Rosalie, nor any of the Volturi or the guests who come in BD, get fawned over the way Bella fawns over Carlisle. So, Mr. Hottie walks into Volterra, and I think that even if he’d been a himbo who couldn’t read Aro would still have tapped that. He wouldn’t have been invited to stay for several decades, though.

Carlisle is smart Aro is a scholar who lives for knowledge, but finding someone who shares his interests is easier said than done. And even if he does find someone who likes arts and academics, they could still be an idiot. True intelligence is hard to come by. And then if he does find someone intelligent, what if they’re an ass? What if they’re boring? Carlisle is a very intelligent man, ridiculously charming, and loves the academics so much that his first thought after deciding not to kill himself was “I’m going to study all the things!” Just, Carlisle, you absolute nerd. Aro must have squealed when he saw that brain.

Carlisle is a saint 99.9% of vampires drink human blood, rat blood drinker George is an outlier and should not have been counted. Seriously, though, when Carlisle woke up as a demon, he would have thought his soul to be forsaken already. He had nothing to lose by giving in and quenching his thirst, and yet he defied his newborn instinct to feed and tried to kill himself so he wouldn’t hurt anybody. There’s being a good person, and then there’s being the kind of person who’ll destroy themselves before they hurt others. I’m not going to get into all the ways in which Carlisle is a saint, that’s a post of its own. What I’m getting at is that being beautiful is great, Aro’s tapping that. Being a nerd is also great, now Aro has a BFF. But Carlisle’s more than that. He’s a good person, the kind of good that’s daunting. And Aro can see his mind, see his every virtue and his incorruptibility. I think Carlisle rocked his world. I mean, he’s so impressed that the poor guard has been listening to him go on about how amazing Carlisle is nonstop for the past three hundred years. Jane thought he was exaggerating. Just... Carlisle’s wit and beauty was already great, but the whole saint thing appears to be what made Aro become the hardcore fanboy we meet in canon. (I also think the whole “Stregoni Benefici” thing was at Aro’s behest or at the very least with his hearty approval. It happened in Italy, and on his own Carlisle is actually pretty damn good at keeping the secret. I strongly doubt something like inspiring his own myth could have happened without Aro’s involvement and consent. Caius, of course, cried)

The Didyme Factor This one is really a post of its own, because boy do I have thoughts on Didyme. What I’ll say is this, from what we hear about Didyme she is reminiscent of Carlisle. An absolutely wonderful person, loved by all, her gift was to make everybody happy, she was so precious to Aro that he came back for her. And he ended up killing her. And since I don’t subscribe to Ever So Evil Aro, I think this was an Agamemnon and Ifigenia kind of situation where he sacrificed the thing he loved most for power, and now he has power but no sister. The Didyme Factor isn’t so much one of the things that draws Aro to Carlisle, so much as it is something hanging over Aro and affecting his relationships.

So, these are my five cents on why Carlisle rocked Aro’s world.

[constellaj]

16

Please talk more about your reboot!

16: If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

okay so how i would re-do CANON is completely different from how i would talk abt a reboot so im gonna touch on a couple things in both contexts! the reason for the difference is canon rewrites imply i can go back in time and introduce dp fresh and new, before anyone knows what it is; but for a reboot, id be working with an audience that has a better understanding of the source material, so i dont need to spend as much time explaining, but i also need to keep everything recognizable

Valerie

REWRITE: i would def make it more danny's fault that her dad lost his job, like danny was intentionally being reckless and shattered some security stuff, and he has a whole mini lesson about learning to not just run in guns blazing. i would probably remove the dating stuff with her and danny (and tuckers crush) too, I think them wanting to be good friends is good enough for freshman year

REBOOT: the fandom already knows valerie exists, so i would actually skip the whole shades-of-gray introductory episode and have her be present as the huntress from day 1-- probably even before danny got his powers. cujo is also HER dog, and her backstory-- we'd find out in like, season 1, that a natural ghost portal (maybe one wulf opened) ripped open on her dog and killed him, and since then shes had a vendetta against ghosts cause of how reckless they are and their disregard for life-- of course, cujo isnt actually dead. cujo is a halfa. a puby halfa. anyway instead of a hoverboard she actually rides cujo around cause he can fly and its big and epic. valerie has BEEN amity parks ghost-eradicating superhero for at least a year (tho shes been in the shadows abt it) and her hatred towards danny actually just becomes really petty, like them flying next to each other chasing skulker just going "I got this. no I got this. no I got this" and they just get in each others' way and its a mutual grudge.

BOTH: i am NOT keeping in vlad giving her the suit to watch danny under any circumstances. it was only utilized half assedly in canon (when vlad couldve just had an invisible duplicate watching him instead) anyway, and I dont have any reason to keep it in a reboot either. instead i want her tech to be a combination of half-stolen and half-gerryrigged stuff and she slowly slowly learns how to build her own.

I also dont want anyone knowing her secret identity, except maybe her dad, and sam or tucker. i think it works better if danny isnt privy to this magic info

Freakshow

REWRITE: i would honestly just remove him. the episodes hes in arent particularly interesting, theyre just generic "we need a plot about x" filler and he's not compelling enough a character (at least in writing) to carry a better plot that another antagonist couldnt. i'm serious

REBOOT: unfortunately in a reboot he's gonna have to pop up somewhere or else ppl will be like "where IS HE" so I'm going to stick with running some kind of ghost circus, maybe a few occult things, but cut out a lot of the spooky magical knowledge and mcguffin stuff. maybe i could make him like, someone from vlad/jack/maddies college who always felt pushed around by them and so he has a vendetta? and theyd be the only reason he even learned abt ghosts in the first place. idk in either way I want to force him into being irredeemable but also include LYDIA (the tattoo girl ghost) way more-- I want to give her an arc that ends in her tossing freakshow aside and running off to be a ghost vigilante.

BOTH: dear god the infinity gauntlet is stupid that needs to GO AWAY. especially for the reboot cause it would exist in a post-mcu world and way too many people would complain about it

Vlad

REWRITE: amp him up to a far more sinister and villainous character. the crushing on maddie isnt enough, I want to show him on-screen performing experiments on ghosts and himself, dismissing everyone else cause he thinks hes smarter than them. i want him to be actively sabotaging the fentons at every turn. i would also clarify that he doesnt actually want danny as a son, but as a trophy-- a line where danny says something along the lines of "you don't want a son. you want a slave". i want to make him a character who wants to destroy the entire planet and put it in the ghost zone so he can be the true ghost king and i want to make this all evident from day one. if i'm writing a series villain you can bet i'm going to write a GOOD one. less petty drama here and more actual stakes.

REBOOT: it seems silly but sense with reboot we have the benefit of hindsight and recognizing that vlad wasn't a big series villain, theres no way i'd actually go back and write him to be such. for starters, of course, theres the fact that anything he does would really be an exaggerated part of the original, and it would bore an audience to see the same story again-- theres also the fact that it doesnt seem right to take a character who was treated as a joke half the time and suddenly make them big and important. no, instead for my reboot i want to lean into the petty gay uncle vibe. he had a crush on jack and now just casually insults him. he moves mansions every now and again by just haunting the family who lives in the one he wants, and taking over-- i mean, who is gonna believe that an actual ghost haunted you. he dislikes danny not because he has some concept of 'evil' and 'good' but bc danny is just too damn active. of course he actually does care about danny and his safety deep down, it's just on the surface they have very conflicting motivations-- not to mention that danny has been raised on legends from his parents of the villainous Wisconsin Ghost, who has to be stopped at all costs.

BOTH: i want jack and maddie to KNOW he's a half ghost and to actively be hunting him down for it, maybe bc they think hes possessed, or been a ghost tricking them this whole time, or the victim of a tragic lab accident who needs to be put to rest, etc. whatever the case it will give vlad actual tangible reason to despise them and genuinely suspect they dont have dannys best interests at heart. i think it would be neat if vlad was cynical and every time danny hit him with the "I'll expose us both. at least theyll still love ME" vlad could be like in the back of his head "oh god theyre going to kill this child"

Dani

REWRITE: cut her out. we don't need her character at all. maybe replace her with a more ominous shadow duplicate / clone that actually looks like danny himself and doesnt really have a name? you could probably combine her and dark dans characters for their arcs

REBOOT: instead of a clone from vlad, she's a guys in white creation using some of dannys dna after he was captured (and vlad broke him out bc he was like "ugh i guess i have to save this child")

BOTH: vlad actually cares abt her (duh), shes nonbinary (double duh), she gets the funny dissolve into goo powers

i had more i thought i was gonna write but this post is already very long and also im running out of coherency for this LUL

[kidrat]

☕ moash?

so like,,, back when I first got into stormlight I disliked him bc a) I was 15 and didn't always have the best takes I will admit it lol and b) that was the Vibe you know and then a while later like, it was one of those things where you share a fandom opinion but you don't really interact w fandom so then when you do go in tags and see the Takes you're like oh you guys weren't... joking??? lol

like specifically I thought we were all saying 'fuck moash' partially for the meme and partially because he upset kaladin. and to be honest I did/do find Elhokar somewhat interesting!! He's a great case of shit person good character and it was kinda fun to be like 'yeah fuck moash' as shorthand like.. 'I understand and agree with the choice to kill off elhokar but I also wanted to see what Brandon would do with him and if he would grow as a person seeing as the series is based off that kind of arc and Also I am fifteen and it's fun to do the fandom thing of silly exaggerated grief for some rando getting killed off'

and then when I started to see more good and nuanced takes around Moash when I started engaging with the fandom again I did agree w those BUT I can tell you the specific moment I was like 'actually Moash Rights'. which is when someone in the tag was complaining that the moash critical group were referring to moash moving gavinor(?) out the way pre assassination as 'moash kicking a child' and i was like the who are what now. (again I thought we were being HYBERBOLIC and unnuanced FOR THE MEME hello???) and that was just so stupid that I decided to embrace moash apologism.

anyway. speaking of the moash brain rot bc I realise I've mostly talked about my own character development so far lol:

more characters should be involved in failed assassinations. (ik he succeeded but it's so funny it's the Second killing-elhokar-plan after the guy he'd been hyping up as a great killing-elhokar-candidate bailed) more characters who needed a plan b for their murders please. it's so good

I've said this before in notes somewhere but I'm infodumping <3 so <3 in the kaladin isn't a centrist au, I like to imagine it's either kaladin who kills Elhokar, or that Kaladin helps moash or guides his hand to the stabbing. Specifically I crave the moment where kaladin sees moash reconsider or feel apprehensive about the murder and realise moash isn't bloodthirsty or evil, that he has doubts just like Kaladin, and that in fact he is incredibly brave for doing what needs to be done despite not being a cold blooded killer at all. and kaladin just kind of softens. and now I'm just thinking off the top of my head but imagine if killing elhokar was an act of love. imagine if the enduring imagery of elhokar's murder was kaladin's arm on moash's back and an easing of moash' burdens??? imagine if it was beautiful and the sun set over them and elhokar went out quietly.

related. kinda the same point in fact but we needed a paragraph break SO i just reread that scene and it's kinda sexy that moash a) uses a spear to do it when the series has so much symbolism surrounding weapons and has associated spears so much w darkeyes and specifically the oppression of darkeyes! and then that b) he KICKS AWAY ELHOKAR'S SHARDBLADE!!! he really said 'i will take down the bourgeoisie with the symbol of my low status and then reject the symbol of their power, explicitly stating that by removing those in power I do not intend to replace them but to reject the entire system that gave them power' that slapped. and then ofc the bridge four salute which is more of the same

'He looked at Kaladin, then quietly made the Bridge Four salute, wrists tapped together. The spear he held dripped with Elhokar's blood' worm

something something rosharan communist flag but it's a spear instead of a sickle idk what the other thing wld be tho

also going back to that quote, the dynamic of an assassin working For someone in their mind without that person wanting it is kinda cool like to take a break from political commentary... fellas is it gay to dedicate your kills to a man who is horrified by them and renounces you completely despite how you are tied to each other? fellas is it also very outdoor housecat to do that? in conclusion uuuh catboy moash I think? kinda lost the track on that one

to speak on the ship I do think they're both gay idk if Kaladin has a specific crush on Moash (i think he had like a small one on him in WoK/WoR) but Moash definitely is attracted to Kaladin. Like i'm not necessarily invested in the relationship, tbh it takes a lot for me to ship anything But i like the dynamic and the potential attraction involved in the dynamic and the fact it's a Queer Dynamic regardless of if it's a queer *relationship* does that make sense??? it does

I am cutting myself off here for the sake of my remaining dignity send tweet

[probskay]

Playing Defense

A ball landed in my backyard. It was a soccer ball. Kids in this neighborhood usually played football, so a soccer ball was a new sight. It came from the house on the other side of the block. I hadn’t seen a soccer ball besides my own back here in years. I picked it up and walked to my front door, waiting for whomever would eventually ring the doorbell, asking for the ball back. It was clearly a well used one, covered in scuffs and with the leather flaking off on the corners of every stained-white hexagon.

The ring came, eventually. The kid who knocked spent a few minutes just standing in front of the door, maybe trying to psyche themself for it. He stood in front of me. His kneepads were scuffed to hell, and the ends of his shorts were torn, with loose threads flaying out in all directions. His black bowl cut was totally mussed up from the wind, and sweat poured down his cheeks. He was probably 15.

“Your ball?” I asked, holding it up.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Been getting some reps in. Trying to make the team.”

“What have you been running?” I asked.

So we chatted about soccer. He told me about the drills he ran, and I told him about what drills I ran. I wound up inviting him inside, then outside, to practice some drills and watch him play. Gave him some pointers. Once we were done, we sat inside to cool off and drink water. I let him take the first shower.

He came out wearing some slightly less tattered shorts and a tank top that didn’t have straps so thin that his nipples poked out each time he pulled one arm over the other.

We talked a bit after I came out from my shower. His name was Danny Valdez. He’d recently moved to the area, because his dad got a new job out here. No one had really greeted him. Suburbs.

We would meet like that every weekend for a while. We’d practice soccer, run reps and shoot against each other. I was a way better goalie than he was. He was a striker, and I played defensive midfield. Boys liked to show off with their shots a lot, so they like to ignore defense when practicing alone. Though, practicing defense is hard when you do it alone.

Danny started to join me during lunch, too. Me and my friends sort of took him under our wing. He didn’t really like the other boys on the soccer team, because they were far more into machismo than he was. I had a feeling they were probably racist towards him, too. I knew some of them were resentful that he quickly became the best striker on the team, and pushed the previous ace aside. 

I didn’t used to pay much attention to the boys’ team, but after befriending Danny I paid more attention. It was easy to figure out they all acted. Boys are simpler, and teenage boys especially. I never saw them run any trick plays, instead relying solely on raw speed and skill to win. Not like the teams they played against did any better.

Danny asked me to a dance late that semester. I didn’t have any idea he was into me, but he insisted on the way there that he had had a crush on me for a while.

“Danny, I’m 17. You’re too young for me.”

“No, I’m not too young. Besides, I know you wouldn’t take advantage of me.”

“You don’t know that, Danny. I don’t know that either. Dating isn’t the same as being friends.”

“Valentina, don’t worry so much. I like being around you. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, okay? I won’t do anything unless you suggest it first. I won’t even make jokes.”

“That’ll be the day, Danny,”

Danny laughed. “See, and now that I can’t make jokes you’re picking up the slack. Now please let me make jokes again, it’s weird seeing you not serious.”

I sighed and said “Okay. Sure, we’ll try for a little bit. We’ll check in every week and see if things still feel alright. And you can still make jokes.”

So, that’s what we did. We practiced soccer, we sat very close to each other at lunch, and sometimes cuddled at my place. Nothing ever went further than that. Our friends teased us, saying he acted like a little brother more than a boyfriend.

“Cut it out,” I said, once, in response to the teasing.

“No, it’s okay. I don’t mind the teasing, I know they don’t mean it.” Danny smiled at me. 

“Sorry, Valentina,” one friend said. 

“Yeah,” said another, “We were just teasing Danny. Sorry if it made you feel weird.”

Did it make me feel weird? I guess it must have. I hated the implication that I was dating a sibling. 

“Besides,” Danny said, “If I were anyone’s little brother, I’d be Michelle’s.”

She laughed. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I would say ‘Oy Mami, maybe you should let me have some of your milk.” Danny began making suckling noises and exaggerated motions with his face.

Michelle slapped Danny on the chest and said “I am NOT a momma’s girl, I am a daddy’s girl at best.” Everyone laughed. I didn’t.

Eventually, Danny asked me to come over to his place and meet his family. He didn’t seem especially excited about it.

“Danny, do you want me to come meet them? Really? We’ve been dating for a month and haven’t even kissed.” Not that I really wanted to kiss him. I felt strangely comfortable just doing what we did.

“Si, Valentina. I’ve told them about you and they’re excited to meet you.” He halfheartedly passed his ball to me. I caught it and kicked it up to my knee, bouncing it and keeping it airborne.

“When?”

“This Friday. It’s my birthday. They want to make empanadas and tamales.”

I nodded. “Alright, come over on Friday and we’ll head to your place.”

When we did get to his place, Danny was much more forward about our relationship. He seemed hesitant to let go of my hand. He hugged me more often. His parents spoke to him in a deep spanish, one that I could only barely pick up bits and pieces. My parents reprimanded me when I tried to speak spanish at home, so I wound up avoiding it more than I should have. It never really came up again until I had met Danny. It was something we should’ve shared, but we didn’t.

So I didn’t realise that they were calling him slurs. Making fun of him for never having a girlfriend before. I knew what machismo was and I knew that was it, but I didn’t know it was happening until far too late after. After someone called him something especially egregious, he tried to kiss me. It surprised me, but he pulled away too fast for me to push him away. He seemed embarrassed. His family just laughed.

“Danny, I think I need to go.”

“Let me walk you home.”

“No, I can do it myself.”

“Please.”

I sighed. “Okay.”

We walked home, and it was quiet. Danny kept his distance from me, physically. Quite a few times he stepped on the grass next to the sidewalk.

“Lo siento,” he said, after we were finally in the threshold of my home. “Yo no quise hacer eso. Estaba asustado. Soy gay.”

“Sorry, no hablo,” I replied. “I don’t know what you’re saying, or what they were saying either.”

“They were calling me unkind things,” he said. “I don’t want to tell you what they said. They think I’m gay, and they didn’t believe we were really dating.”

Oh. That made sense. “Well. Are you?” I asked, then added “You don’t actually have to tell me. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. I already told you, but it was in Spanish. I’m gay. My family’s right.” Danny laughed, but it was forced.

That made even more sense. Everything added up.

“Are you going to break up with me?” He asked.

“I don’t think we were ever really dating in the first place.”

Danny laughed. “No, I guess not. I think in english I would call you a beard. I don’t know how to say that in spanish. I can’t even grow a moustache.” Another forced laugh.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “A beard. That makes sense.” We had made it to my house at this point, and I stepped inside. Danny followed me, and we stood in the foyer and talked more.

“I didn’t want to make you feel bad,” he said.

“No, no,” I interrupted. I think this is good. Like, no, not like your parents and stuff, but I don’t think dating works for me. I’ve tried it before. It… it didn’t pan out.”

“Danielle?” he asked. “Feels like you have a thing for our name,” he teased. He immediately stepped back on the joke. “Sorry. That’s not a good joke. I don’t need to joke around. I’m still nervous from the party.”

“Yeah. I dated Danielle. How did you know?”

“She told me,” he said. “She also called you a lot of rude names afterwards.”

I sighed and leaned against the wall. “I thought we were still friends.”

“Breakups are hard,” he said. “Makes friendship hard, too. She doesn’t totally hate you, though.”

“Maybe that’s why I don’t want to date.” I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor. Danny sat next to me.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I’m breaking up with you. I can’t do this to you if you’re aromantic.”

“I’m what?” I asked.

“Aromantic. Probably. Maybe asexual, too. You don’t like dating and sex and things. Probably. I can’t tell you what you are or not. It’s just what I think. It made me feel like dating you would be safer. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have used you like this.” Danny’s hand twitched, as if to reach for mine. To comfort me.

I hadn’t heard the terms before. Well, I knew ‘asexual’ from science courses, but I wasn’t a single celled organism.

“This is weird,” I said.

“Yeah,” Danny affirmed. “Very. Our parents hate us for it. At least mine do.”

“Yeah,” I said. I wasn’t sure about my parents, but they hated a lot of things that weren’t normal. “Yeah.”

[timextoxhajima]

Playlist Feels

Member: lee jaehyun aka hyunjae from tbz cause i feel like there are too many jaehyuns around now ;_; my heart can’t take too many perfect men of the same name

Genre: COLLEGE... CRUSH? idk this is probably gonna be my most crack piece (you can already tell by the track)

Word Count: 4.3k

A/N: I wrote this at like 1.30am so please bear with me lol my inspiration always come in the middle of the night because it’s so quiet and conducive 

this will be a one shot cause i’ve got no fucking clue how to make it into a series/short novel without an actual conflict/angst/drama involved :”) if you’re a writer and you see this and you want to make a 2nd part or something, BE MY GUEST

lee hyun jae. 

who was he to me?

oh, i don’t know.

just the prettiest but handsomest man alive. if that’s even a word. 

he’s always surrounded by like, eleven other boys who are also good-looking and talented in some way or another. 

god must’ve invested his entire life into crafting these fine, fine specimens of men to be placed on earth.

maybe there was a mix up somewhere and they were supposed to be angels or demi-gods and god just fucked up. 

but i’ve got no complaints. 

i’m satisfied that i get to feast my eyes on such a gorgeous, rare, one-of-a-kind version of a person i’m sure exists nowhere else in the world. 

he’s known for being one of the most caring ones of the group. he’d make his friends laugh but watch out for them at the same time. he’s so easygoing, i wonder if he’d smile at me if i tripped him over or something. 

you might think i’m exaggerating. 

well,

i’m not.

so who am i to him?

sadly, nobody.

harsh truth.

there was absolutely nothing wrong with the man. there was a lack of flaw, and that was literally the only flaw he had. if it could even be considered as a flaw. i could spend my seconds, minutes, hours, days, just staring at him. it was so unfair that there is NOTHING WRONG WITH HIM.

sometimes it pisses me off.

it kind of pisses me off that he doesn’t have a girlfriend despite half the school simping over him.

i mean, who wouldn’t? just look at him.

there have been rumors flying about that he was gay or something. 

doesn’t matter if he is gay though.

it simply hurts to know he’s not dating anybody.

it’ll be such a waste if such a man ends up living a life alone. a waste indeed.

so what was it that was stopping me from putting that destiny of his to a screeching stop?

well, there was just one problem. 

“hELLO, earth to y/n?” the sudden waving in your face with the heaviest textbook in your curriculum snaps you back into reality. 

“which one of the twelve are you thinking up some magical fantasy over now?” your best friend frowns at you, the vein on her arm popping from the weight of the fat textbook. 

“ah-- it doesn’t matter who i’m daydreaming about, let me have my moment, would you?” you lean back in your seat, disgruntled at her telling you what not to do with your own imagination. sometimes it was difficult to look at her without seeing all the little hints of lee hyunjae in her.

they had the same nose, but that was it. honestly, it was a miracle you just happened to make friends with one of the prettiest girls in school, and good for you, she ended up becoming your friend and stayed in that position for more than a decade. naturally, she was upgraded to the ‘best friend’ title. 

the biggest issue you had with lee hee jae was that she hated her brother getting so much attention, and she has always condemned him about it. 

which was pretty ironic, given the number of love letters that show up in her locker everyday.

but thanks to her cold, a-little-more-than-mean superficial personality, most guys don’t have enough of a pair to talk to her in person. sure, she won’t hesitate to stab a bitch, but you knew her well enough to know that if the love of her life, son young jae, were to suddenly sprout feelings for her and confess, she might just nose bleed and pass out. 

but does she know you have had the biggest, fattest crush on her older brother?

no. 

she’d kidnap you and torture you and brainwash you to unlike him. 

maybe that’s why he hasn’t got any girlfriends.

“you’re zoning out again,” she snaps her finger in your ear and the sharp click jumps you. you bare your teeth in annoyance and feign a hit towards her, but she doesn’t flinch. 

your little high school crush on her brother wasn’t getting any weaker as the years went by. in fact, it’s been getting stronger. now that you’ve seen the way he treats his friends, how kind and considerate he was, not to mention that body-- well--

let’s just say you went from just appreciating his face, to everything in general. it was only a matter of time before she finds out that the one man you were simping over out of the eleven boys was her brother.

of the eleven boys, it just had to be her brother.

“hee jae,” you pull out a pencil and start to randomly doodle in your notebook. “haven’t you ever considered talking to eric?” 

she shoots you a death glare, but you’re used to it. 

“i thought we agreed not to speak of this in school!” she leans into you and hisses, eyes piercing right through your head. if her eyes had lazers, your head would’ve been blasted off completely after years of her angry glaring. 

“no, but eric just seems so... chill, y’know? he’s either cleaning his table and packing his stuff or outside playing baseball, there’s literally nothing stopping you from talking to him.”

she rolls her eyes and snatches your pencil away from you in a bid to piss you off so you’d stop talking.

“give it back--” you snatch the stationery from her and hiss at her like a cat. “you’re literally in the damn baseball team with him. it’s not that difficult to make up a story and start a conversation with him.”

“ha,” she’s finally mastered the art of fake laughter. “easy for you to say. you simp for all eleven of them and can’t choose one for you to worry about it like i do.”

that was fun to hear.

“well, forget eric,” she waves it off. “are we doing anything after school?”

anything but going to your house. i don’t want to be stuck under the same roof as your brother, my heart would get a seizure and i’ll probably die on the spot.

“my mom’s making crepes today, and i know you love that shit,” hee jae snickers, pulling out a baseball from her bag and throwing it into the air and catching it. 

“aw, man... not the crepes,” you pout and side eye her, leaning back into your seat. 

“why are you so uptight about going to my place? you’ve been there a billion fucking times, you literally live there now.”

that’s cause i’m only over when your brother isn’t around!

“ugh, okay fine. but i gotta dash home first to grab some homework. i left some of it at home ‘cause i wasn’t expecting an invitation today.”

she squeals, showing you a part of her that nobody else has the privilege of seeing. “sick,” she gets out of the seat she dragged to yours and brings it back to where she took it from. “call my home number and tell me you’re on your way before you leave your house!”

you nod un-enthusiastically, waving her off before she leaves the classroom and returns to hers. 

you were finally back at home, showered and changed into comfortable clothes while you shoved all your homework into your bag. you leave your parents a text to tell them that you’d spend the afternoon and evening at heejae’s so they don’t have to worry about your dinner, then you dial her home number.

the phone was on it’s eighth ring, and you were already one foot out of the door. usually, it doesn’t take her that long to pick up the phone.

“this little bitch invites me over and doesn’t pick up the damn--”

“hello?”

your grip tightens around your phone and you stumble out of your house, the door swinging shut behind jumps you and you process the voice on the other end of the line. 

“uh--”

“is this y/n?”

“uh... yeah, this is she.”

he knows me?

shut up, of course he knows you. you’ve been friends with his sister for a decade!

“oh, okay, cool. heejae’s in the toilet right now and she said she’ll get it but i couldn’t stand the sound of the phone ringing.”

“ah...” your voice trails off, unsure of how to respond. you were just preoccupied with how soothing his voice was, and just imagining his face with the phone to his ear on the other line was just so--

“hello? y/n? you there?”

“yeah, yeah, sorry i was... crossing a road.” you weren’t even moving; you were just planted into the pavement like a tree. 

“actually, why don’t i go and pick you up? your place is on the way to the shopping mall and my mom just told me to go get some groceries, do you want to tag along? we can head back to my place afterwards and you can get the crepes you like.”

where in the world was he getting all this information from?

“uh--” you stammer into the receiver for the billionth time. he must think you have some kind of speech problem by now.

“you know what? just hang tight for a few minutes. heejae’s still in the bathroom so she doesn’t get a say in what i do if i decide it without her presence,” you hear him walk around on the house and call out for his mom to tell her he was leaving for the shopping mall. “you live on 31st avenue, right? the white house with the blue roof?”

“uH--” you really need to get a grip on yourself.

“i guessed. hang tight, i’ll be there in a sec! see you!”

hyunjae doesn’t bother to wait for you to hang up before he does. the line goes dead and the beep nearly deafens you, but you couldn’t believe your ears. you were about to be in the same vehicle as lee hyun jae. one of the most popular boys in school, the handsomest man alive, the love of your li--

whoa.

too fast.

you shake the nonsensical daydreams out of your head and walk back to the steps of your door. while waiting, you can’t help but to let the quiet crush on him run your mind recklessly. 

what if he was just messing with you and he’s just chilling at home? what if he knows that you have a crush on him and he’s just having fun? what if he thinks you’re weird for hanging out with his sister? what if he’s caught you staring and he thinks you’re a creep? oh my god, what if heejae’s told him embarrassing stories about you and now he’s going to poke fun at you with that? 

you stare blankly at the little weeds in the cracks of the pavement, the thoughts in your head running wild as you slowly convince yourself he’s not going to turn up. 

but the familiar silver family car rolls up at the end of the pavement, and the windows roll down to reveal hyunjae in sunglasses wearing a simple white tee-shirt. 

“did i keep you waiting?” he pushes down his sunglasses and looks at you over the rim, one arm dangling outside the window. 

you shake your head, suddenly losing all ability to speak. 

“alrighty then, get in. we’re heading for the shopping mall.” he nods his head towards the car, retracting his arm back into the vehicle. 

your heart was thumping so aggressively and so loudly you were sure he could hear it. hell, he could probably see it. 

“how’s school? i haven’t seen you around back in my house after... what, about five years? you were always around when i was out, if i didn’t know better, i’d think you were avoiding me,” his voice was so alluring, you had to constantly remind yourself that he was actually saying something.

“uh-- well....” 

come on, say something. anything.

“i guess god just doesn’t want us to meet.”

no, it’s because you were avoiding him. what the flying fuck was that?

he laughs heartily, his teeth catching the light of the afternoon sun and glistens in your vision. “if that’s the case then god really needs to give me a break.”

your little-crush-on-him morphs into a tiny character in your head and it starts yelling at you. did he just say what you think he just said?

“no, i mean,” he glances at you, hands still on the steering wheel once he notices you’ve gone eerily silent. “i would’ve spoken to you and tried to be actual friends with you sooner, but heejae never wants me talking to her friends. you can imagine how she is with her best friend.”

you sigh heavily, the mention of your best friends’ name loosening some knots in your stomach. “lee hee jae is just something. not sure what, but something.”

“it does baffle me to think about how you put up with her for what, nine years now?”

you were looking out the window, and the idea of being in the same car as hyunjae doesn’t seem as tormenting as it seemed once you realise the best support you’ve had for the last ten years was lee hee jae. 

“eleven, actually,” you say without looking at him, eyes zeroing on a couple walking a dog on the pavement by the road. “yeah i guess she can be a handful sometimes, especially with how cold and mean she is on the outside...”

the car stops at a traffic junction.

“but put her in front of one guy and she’ll pass the fu--”

“‘one guy’?” he interrupts.

your eyes widen and you suck your lips between your teeth, wincing a little to yourself when you realise what you just said. 

“lee hee jae has a crush on someone?” you hear him scoff and a brotherly chuckle rushes out his lips. “do you know who it is?”

you were about to protest and stop him from trying to dig the information that you nearly disclosed, but he interrupts you again.

“y’know what? don’t tell me. i’ll guess. i’ll just watch your reactions while i’m at it.”

you grit your teeth and tighten your temples. you don’t realise how sweaty your palms were until your phone slides out from underneath your skin when the car starts to move. 

“is it kevin? no wait-- doesn’t feel like it.”

is he going to just start talking on his own until he finds someone he thinks suits her and then look at my face to read my expression?

“i don’t think she’s the kind to go for someone older than me or my age. so that takes sangyeon, jacob, younghoon-- is it younghoon? no, it’s not... ah, no matter how i think about it, someone nearer your age pops up. haknyeon, sunwoo, eric. it’s one of the three.”

that wasn’t so hard. hee jae must be easy for her brother to read.

“are you really going to let me play this elimination game alone?” he raises a brow and turns the wheel, driving into the car park of the shopping mall. the little gesture causes your heart to involuntarily skip a beat, and you could see his eyes folding even behind the sunglasses when he turns his head.

“your sister would kill me if she knew i even started this conversation, so i’m just refraining from deepening my grave.”

you hear him laugh through his nose. “relax, i’m not going to tell her you said this. i’ve seen the way she looks at us whenever we’re in school. she gives me a look of disgust but she always reserves a blush on her cheeks for someone. i just can’t put my finger on who it is.”

“you mean you notice the way she looks at you and your friends? that’s a little weird.”

the car starts to reverse into a parking lot and he pulls the gears into parking mode. there was a short silence in the air as he lays his finger on the start up button of the car and he turns to look at you, now without the sunglasses to block your view of his eyes.

“you’d be surprised that i notice a lot of things.”

he flashes you a smile and reaches for the door on his side, pushing himself out as if he didn’t just expose both you and your best friend. 

you were just tailing hyunjae while he told you what was on the grocery list, and you start filling the basket. he doesn’t stop guessing though, but the entire time spent with him only made you feel like he was so comfortable to be around.

besides his pretty face, of course. 

you were waiting for him to pay for the items while you stood outside when heejae’s caller ID showed up on your phone screen.

“where the hell are you?”

“hello to you too,” you roll your eyes. “your brother said he was going to get me and now we’re shopping for groceries before we return to your place. didn’t your mom tell you?”

“what? no, she didn’t. she just told me he went out to get groceries.”

“huh?” you look over your shoulder to see hyunjae paying the cashier. “are you saying that your mom lied about me?”

“now, why would she do that?”

“she’s your mom, not mine. why don’t you ask her instead?” 

hyunjae picks up the grocery bags and walks towards you, looking into them and making sure he didn’t miss out anything. 

“this is so fucking weird. where’s hyunjae? pass the phone to him,”

“we’re done, let’s go.” hyunjae stops by your side, noticing that you were on the phone. 

“don’t you dare hang up on me, pass the phone to him!” hee jae screams into the receiver. you wince and pull it away from your ear, shooting hyunjae a look of slight confusion as you hand him the phone. 

“it’s your sister.”

he sighs and places the bags on the floor, wiping his hands on his pants before taking it. 

you could hear hee jae screaming at him on the other end, but hyunjae’s face doesn’t change one bit besides that sweet smile plastered to his lips while he let his sister berate him. hyunjae got bored extremely quickly, and he was already removing the phone from his ear while he repeated the word ‘bye’ into the receiver. 

he hands the phone back to you and hangs it up for you, picking up the bags and heading back to the car. 

by the time you reach the road right outside their house, heejae was standing on the porch, anxiously tapping her foot on the wooden boards. 

“oh, no,” he groans, looking out the window and observing heejae like she was a lion in the savannah. “well, just another day for us people who have to deal with miss lee.”

he says so coyly, pushing himself out of the car and going to open the door of the backseat. you help yourself out, and heejae storms toward you, fists balled by her side and steam coming out through her ears.

you thought she was going to scream at you for accepting a ride from hyunjae, but she dodges you and opens the backseat door opposite hyunjae to yell at him in the car. 

“what made you think it was a great idea to pick her up? didn’t we have a deal that both our friends were out of bounds to each other?”

wait what--

“yah, lee hyunjae!” she yells at the top of her voice as he ignores her, pulling out of the car and walking towards the house. “we had a deeeeeaaaaaaal!” 

you grab onto heejae and turn her around, trying to peel her attention away from her brother and to you so you could get a grasp on what she just said.

“did you just say what i think you just said?!” you blink in surprise at her, and the thought of hyunjae finding an excuse just to spend time with you melts you into a puddle of hopeless goop. 

“no,” she says with a stern face, lifting a finger and pointing at you in the face. “no.”

“well--” she yanks herself out of your grip and turns to the house. “what’s so bad about dating your siblings’ friends? you like eric.”

she literally screeches to a stop and turns around with eyes that were burning. honestly, it was pretty funny to see her so riled up, knowing that she wasn’t angry at you. she was angry with hyunjae for... whatever he did, and the fact that she just had to fall for someone in hyunjae’s circle of friends. it was a slap in her face, or whoever thought about the no-dating-siblings’-friends pact.

“is that why you don’t want to talk to eric? because of this... deal?” you raise a brow, entertained, completely forgetting that there was the slightest chance that hyunjae might’ve been looking for an excuse to hang out with you, and he had just succeeded.

she had no words, but her silence was enough to let you unpack the situation.

“ah... i see,” you fold your arms across your chest and smirk at her. then you remember you were standing right outside lee hyunjae’s house. this was your chance to dig the information out from her. “so if this deal is stopping you from talking to eric, then is it safe to assume that it’s similar for hyunjae?”

you could see her bottom lip quivering upon your question, as she realises that you’ve finally found out why she was keeping a distance from her own teammate. but her silence also pushes you further into confusion. does that mean--

“look, you can’t date hyunjae, okay? i forbid it. the last time a girl dated someone in that group of friends of his, they broke up because she got bullied by other girls in school. i told hyunjae he wasn’t allowed to date any of my friends so i wouldn’t need to beat the fuck out of any bullies and get myself expelled,” she huffed and hugged her torso. “and i made him agree to that deal by promising him that neither i nor any of my friends would date his.”

you shake your head, fingers pressing into your temples and hair while you let the story unfold from her narration. 

“my mom didn’t tell me about him going to get you because... well... he--”

“i like you!”

your heart stops and you think your blood stopped flowing through you as well. heejae’s head snaps back to look at the house and the source of noise, and she pulls out a shoe to hurl it at hyunjae. 

“ah--!” he starts yelling once she reaches him with the shoe. “let me at least try, god damn it! sunwoo only let his girlfriend get bullied because he’s a dumbass-- ow! but i’m not gonna let her get bullied, i promise!”

you slowly turn your head to see hyunjae trying to dodge every hit, and he starts running away from her and toward you. he pulls you in front of him so you were standing between him and heejae, who was holding onto the shoe so tightly, her knuckles were turning white. 

“y/n, take a chance with me, would you? i’ve always noticed the both of you looking at us but it always bothered me that i have no idea who either of you are looking at--”

he dodges a side swing, and your view of heejae trying to reach him was pretty hilarious, if you weren’t acting as his shield. 

“what makes you think she’ll say yes?! she can’t even choose--”

“i do, heejae,” finally, you’ve decided to shoot your shot. heejae freezes with the shoe in mid-air, and hyunjae’s hold on your shoulders tighten. “i’ve only said i can’t choose only because i didn’t want you to know that it was your brother i liked.”

you couldn’t believe what was coming out of your mouth. all that effort to keep it hidden only to expose yourself infront of both heejae and her brother at once?!

she looked like she wanted to slap you with the shoe now, and you flinch when she shifts, closing your eyes to brace for impact. 

but it doesn’t come. 

you open one eye and look at her, and she looked like she’s completely resigned to fate. she shakes her head like your mother would when you did something stupid, and she squats to get her shoe back on her feet. 

“i give up,” she grunts, shoving her feet into her shoe and tying the laces messily before standing up again. “of all eleven of them, him?” she raises an agitated brow and points to the boy hiding behind you. 

“it wouldn’t have been so annoying if it had been one of his friends, but him?!” 

you turn back to look at hyunjae, who was giving you puppy eyes as if he was already your boyf--

too fast. 

“does it look like i chose to like him?” you pout, hands reaching out to her and trying to play for affection. 

“for fucks’ sake,” she groans, face palming herself. “now i’m going to look like a shitty friend and sister if i don’t let you two date.”

“on the bright side..” you pull her into a hug and tighten your hold, knowing that whatever you were going to say next was going to warrant another violent outburst from her. “if hyunjae and i date, that means the deal’s broken and...”

“you can talk to eric now.”

“AH! SO IT’S ERIC?!”

[androgynousblackbox]

that fuckin newest RaM episode is trying so hard to make Daphne an unattractive alien but SOMEONE out there will be into the elbow titties. Also the fact that rick was one acid rain away from taking morty to a suck-and-fuck-a-thlon instead of summer is so There holy shit. Also Morty going SO violent and killing a bunch of people without so much as blinking without like. anything like the 'purgenol' excuse ,is just, he's really embracing the rick way of life huh

lol I have seen actual dick elbow porn so I have no doubt that Daphne wasn't even exaggerating when she said that her elbow was the cause of wars. Also, I hope you don't mind I take your comment as a excuse to dump my thoughts: -Okay, so the whole plot literally being nothing else but "Morty ditches Rick for a girl and Rick rebounds on literally the first available alien who says hello to him" is SO FUCKING GAY. Like, literally, imagine that the age gap and them being related wasn't an issue at all and you saw the two main characters doing this... We would see video essays, twitter threads and long tumblr posts all talking about how this is definitely queerbaiting because NO straight friends act this way. At the very least we would have people talking about how Rick obviously had a one sided crush and the tags would be fucking floded with angsty fics all about ending on Morty reciprocating his feelings. I fucking garanteed it, I promise, because I have seen similar stuff on other fandoms and that is how they always reacted. -The difference is that the ship being baited is a gross problematic one so the only ones who give a fuck about it are the gross problematic people like me. I feel legit curious to see what normies even think about this and if the obvious overtone flew over their heads. -Because, like, Rick just didn't made a whole show of replacing Morty with Summer to go to the end of the world parties in front of Morty, up and including replacing Morty's name with Summer on the almost destroyed shirt. He actually reverts back to his worst habits, drinking until he can barely talk, something he hasn't done IN SO LONG and it reminded me to the pilot episode where he kidnaps Morty for the first time. For a while we see that Rick still drink, just not when around Morty, and this further proof that. Not only that, but instead of just dip into alien orgy to forget everything, he looked for validation on Daphne to have someone care/love for him. He wants to feel wanted and loved, but it's not even enough to have the love of Summer in the end because all he really wanted was to have Morty with him. -A thing to remember about Morty becoming more like Rick is that we haven't had any moment of Rick SEEING him acting that way. He probably doesn't even know about Morty masacrating the Narnia world on his own or killing all the Planetina's childrens, so we can wonder what could his reaction be when he finally sees it with his own eyes and how much it affects him. Rick WANTS Morty to be a better man than himself, he wants it so badly that he was willing to die on it, so seeing Morty just being the same could actually break his heart or make him realize that he was, in fact, a bad influence. -Also! We had already three whole episodes setting Morty's side adventures without Rick. That whole going to buy a customized shirt was the happiest we have see them together in a long while, and I am counting season 4 too, so it seems to me like they are setting up a break up for the two of them that, I hope, will be about Morty realizing that he does misses Rick and wanting him back again. I just feel like the plot wants to go that way because they keep hammering us with the idea that Morty is done with Rick's bullshit (as he should, rightfully so), but the show IS Rick and Morty so obviously they can't get them separated for long nor they can't keep doing the "Morty is pissed, Rick does nothing about it" bit because that will get old very soon. -BUT ALSO, to me the whole episode showed that Morty needs Rick to keep himself in check or he will go on a rampage and feel justified on doing so. He still has his morals, enough to break up with Planetina when she is hurting innocents, but for how long? If his only answer when faced with a problem is violence, what does that say about him? With Rick he could have just stollen the rings, wouldn't have caused Narnia to go after him, could there have been more possibilities than just come in and kill everyone that poses any inconvenience to him. -But on the other hand, Morty is the reason why

Rick tries so hard not to indulge on his own self destructive tendencies. They need each other to balance themselves out and try to be, no matter how many times they fail, the best version of themselves. They both need to realize this and stop looking for validation in other places (Rick his delusions of being more than a man, Morty with all his attempts at girlfriends). They belong with each other, and I don't even mean it on a shippy way because I hold no actual hope that they will make C137cest canon any time soon, but like in general. -I am so sad for Morty, though. His little "nobody send me flowers before" just fucking kills me, like omg, this fucking kid is a incurable fucking romantic at heart that just want someone to appreciate him and he had to be the one to break it off. I was so glad to see Beth being the one to comfort him at least, especially because Beth always prefered Summer or was too fucking drunk to care about either of her children and now she's actually trying to be a mom. -Speaking of Beth, I was so proud of her in general. Like, going from a alcoholic neglectful ass to just a regular ass whine mom that only drinks to relax and not to forget everything? That is fucking progress. Overall I really loved this episode.

[tigerdrop]

i am just itching to talk about this fic now that its finally hitting its stride so here are some “fun facts” about its development over the past 6 months. these are i guess spoilers if u havent read the latest chapter yet so theyre going under a readmore

one of the things i had to wrangle was what exactly benrey was going to look like in this fic. everybodys got their own interpretations of what he looks like in their heads now, even if a lot of them fall into a handful of the same archetypes: the homestuck gremlins, the brick shithouses, the ones that stick as close to the hl1 security guard model as possible, etc. and you all know by now how much i like big boy benrey. but the thing is that i really wanted to appeal to as broad an audience as i could with this fic, and that meant sitting down and figuring out what he was most likely to look like if he was suddenly transplanted into hl2

the obvious thing is that barney and benrey should look alike, since benrey’s just using the barney model from hl1 in the first place. and the first version of this fic actually had gordon recognizing barney in their first encounter, because to gordon, he looked like benrey! (i thought it was gone forever but kogo dug up the draft for me!)

and the gimmick was that gordon would somehow connect barneys new and old models as looking similar, even though, like, they really dont. at all. from the beginning i knew i was gonna have barney and benrey look alike, but it was only like a day or two before posting the first chapter that i realized i didnt like this version very much. it stretches belief too much, and asks the reader to interpret benreys hl1 model in a specific way that might not jive with their own Personal Benrey(tm)

so i figured the option that was most in line with my goal of “having this fic be as close to ‘canon’ as possible” would be to have benrey jack barneys hl2 model as his own, just like in hlvrai. but i also wanted him to be recognizable as benrey. hence him swapping outfits to the security guard uniform he wears in hlvrai, but “upscaled” to fit the new setting. this makes his given appearance easier both on the average reader and on me - i dont actually have to draw him much differently if i wanna do more fic illustrations LMAO

some more fun facts for u:

i had plans to do a small illustration for every chapter of this fic. but then Life Happened and i opted not to do that. thats why the promo image i keep posting with these updates is as loose and rough as it is - i didnt want to commit to a Huge Image every chapter. maybe one of these days i will do a nicer one

i really wanted to get away with brick shithouse benrey in this one. for personal reasons. but the most i allowed myself was there being a noticeable difference in barney and benreys builds due to, yknow, the whole “combine occupation” thing making a steady meal hard to come by. (seriously, barney is so fucking skinny in hl2. you could break his bones in a stiff breeze. i want to give him a sandwich.)

the first draft had barney being a lot more of an asshole to gordon, and gordon in turn being a lot more of a bitch. but the bits that wayne actually did play of hl2 in vr have him hanging off of barney like a lovestruck puppy, and i thought that was insanely cute. so. he gets to be friend barney now :^)

benreys dialogue is by far the hardest to write, and is one of the reasons this chapter took over 3 fucking weeks to finish. just to get things done i like to put in “[something stupid]” or “[something funny]” and come back to it later. (whether the end results are successful is in the eye of the beholder.) figuring out how to write him closer to canon than fanon is one of the sadder things that i am proud of accomplishing in the past year-ish

the “rough draft” for this fic was 24 hrs straight of me and kogo yelling ideas to each other. this is not an exaggeration. and somehow, during this 24 hr time span, neither of us realized we had a big, glaring, gay gay gay homosexual gay crush on the other. we may be stupid

[criscpi]

"There he is, the beloved king of the year, the one who will take anyone to bed as long as they breathe."

I had just arrived. As usual, my friends would gather outside the clubs to complain about being single and resent those who were more successful than them.

But this time I could hear in Moyo an unheard of contempt.

"Hey there! who are you talking about?"

I approach the group.

Moyo doesn't say anything, but points to the most handsome boy on campus.

"What did Sander do to you?"

Moyo looks at me suspiciously

"You know him?"

He's been inhabiting my dreams for a long time.

"Sander? Not in person..."

I just hope I don't show too much of the blush that has suddenly sprung up on my cheeks

"Ah, his half-normal, half-fag fame precedes him..."

Before I could retort to that gigantic nonsense, Moyo walks up to Sander and starts repeating the same things in his face:

The tension is through the roof and they start shoving each other.

"Back off, I'm not interested in your judgments."

"It's not judgments it's the truth."

I approach.

And I get in the way.

"Moyo knock it off. We're here for a party. What's wrong with you tonight?"

"He fucked the girl I liked and then left her for a guy."

"So?"

"So Robbe? That's not normal!"

Enough. I was fed up.

"That's enough, Moyo."

"No, let me vent."

My hand departs without thinking and the punch that lands on Moyo is quite strong and unexpected:

"Now you listen to me: the fact that you couldn't be with that girl has nothing to do with Sander, understand?"

Moyo hits me back:

"You're defending the half-fag and not your friend? Are you from that side too? Or do you go back and forth like him?"

My nose is bleeding but I pretend not to feel the pain.

"I'm defending justice, it has nothing to do with how I feel about him because Moyo...“

I throw myself at him with an anger I've never felt.

"I've been gay all my life, but I've never said it because I have a bunch of obtuse dickheads as friends."

Moyo is clearly stronger than me, and he doesn't stop hitting me until I come out: that's when he seems to wake up, as if having a gay man around is a game changer.

"Robbe."

"You and I are done, I don't want to have friends like that...and now..."

"I've been gay all my life, but I've never said it because I have a bunch of obtuse dickheads as friends."

I stand up but I don't know how long I can keep from passing out.

"Leave Sander al..."

I couldn't. I passed out.

I'm not used to fighting. I wake up and it hurts everywhere. The place where I am I don't know, but I don't care, I just want to sleep.

"Robbe, that's your name right?"

I nod.

"Are you thirsty?"

"I throw up if I drink."

"Do you fight a lot?"

I try to open my eyes and see a blurry Sander.

I try to smile at him

"First time ever...are you Sander?"

"Yes I am...You weren't bad for a newbie...however you didn't have to..."

"No, I did have to. I was sick of hearing their talk out of time. I was sick of having to hide, friends aren't like that..."

"Right, but now it's going to take you a few days to recover. Moyo's a jerk but he's also twice your size."

“Bad start as a fighter right? Where am I?”

"At my house, my mother is a doctor and I thought it best to figure out whether or not I should take you to the hospital... your folks have been notified... I think

you will have to spend the vacations here"

The news hits me but I'm not lucid enough to understand exactly what it entailed.

"I'm sorry you have to take me on for Christmas."

"Don't even joke about that and then Robbe...you stood up for me in front of everyone. Take it as a thank you."

The phone rings:

"Robbe it's Jens... He's been calling you for hours...what do you want to do?"

"I'll answer. He's the only decent friend I have."

"Hello?"

"Robbe, how are you? Where are you?"

"I'm pretty sore but nothing broken. I'm safe."

"I'm... sorry"

"Jens, forget about it, we'll talk about it after the vacations."

"I can't move because of my injuries. And honestly Jens I need time. And I don't know if I'll still feel like seeing or talking to the others."

"I can't move because of my injuries. And honestly Jens I need time. And I don't know if I'll still feel like seeing or talking to the others."

"I understand... “

"Jens, thank you. I'll talk to you in the next few days."

I throw the phone toward my feet. This situation hurts more than the bruises.

"Robbe, why didn't you tell him you were here?"

"And risk them ruining your Christmas? No."

"Stop thinking about me."

"I haven't done anything else for months. Now can I rest some more?"

I don't know why, but I think I saw him smile.

"Sure."

Had I really been that stupid? Had I really said that thing that I had been holding in with difficulty for months and now it came out like it was the easiest thing in the world? Give me a shovel. I want to bury myself.

Maybe a couple of hours go by and Sander's mom comes in to check on me:

"Robbe how are you?"

"Sore, but the eyes seem less swollen."

Mrs. Driesen holds my head still and checks with some metal objects.

"It really looks like just bruises.... If you want you can try to get up as soon as Sander gets back."

"Where did he go? No sorry, none of my business."

Sander's mom is silent for a minute, she seems to be smiling. Everyone in this house is smiling and I think it's beautiful.

"He went to retrieve your clothes and finish buying Christmas presents."

"The presents! I had to go in the

Afternoon!"

"Robbe, I'll tell you what: if tomorrow

your eyes and legs respond well Sander will accompany you. They are bruises it's true, but they are important bruises: you almost broke yourself in several places."

"Alright, I get it, no more superheroes stuff..."

"That's right. Now rest, it's important. Then I'll check back in and we'll see if you can come down for dinner."

"Wait a minute, I hadn't thought of that but...has it been a whole night already?"

"A whole night and almost a whole day...I'm sure tomorrow will be better."

Robbe doesn't know what to think. Time has decided to move without asking him for an explanation. To the house of the boy he has had an exaggerated crush on for months.

When he wakes up he feels the urge to get up.

"Do you want to try walking?"

Sander. Was he always here with me?

"Yes...do you think it would be possible to walk all the way to the bathroom and maybe wash up a little?"

"I'll see what my mom thinks."

"Would you at least try to get me to the bathroom? I don't know how I've done it so far and I don't want to know, but I'd like to pee myself now."

Sander laughs.

"Whatever. Let me help you."

Sander helps me sit up then sits behind me and hugs me to help me get to my feet.

"Sander... Try to let go of me."

"What if I don't want to?"

I can't pretend he didn't say anything to me. Does he want to hold onto me? No, he's just afraid I'll fall. Yes he does. Handsome and kind. Practically perfect.

"I have to try to walk or I won't be able to come down for dinner. You can hug me later if you want."

Am I really flirting with him? What has gotten into me?

I try to walk and despite the twinges I manage to make it to the bathroom and do what I wished. But I hadn't reckoned on drying off and getting dressed.

"Sander... are you there?"

"Yeah sure."

"I need a hand..."

Sander helps me out of my bathrobe, dries my legs, and helps me get dressed.

He doesn't make any inappropriate jokes, in fact, he acts like a perfect nurse.

"Thank you."

"Do you want to try to get down and eat at the table?"

"Yes, I think if I don't start moving it will be more and more complicated."

Taking the stairs: what does rib pain have to do with taking the stairs?

"Would you... give me a hand, will you?"

"Tell me what to do"

"Just give me your hand."

Sander's hand in mine. Christmas was an underrated holiday.

"We're almost there."

We finish up the stairs but our hands don't decide to pull away. In fact, my thumb begins to lightly and shyly caress the back of Sander's hand.

Until his mother's voice forces us to break the moment.

"Ready to eat?"

"Yes, my stomach is starting to ask for food...thank you."

"Don't mention it, Sander told me what happened...we owe you."

I blush.

"Actually the stupidity of my friend and

Sander's strength to be himself, gave me the strength I needed, even to say who I really am."

Dinner had been perfect, Sander's eyes on me as I tell them about myself made me lose my train of thought several times; I hope they thought these mental lapses were due to Moyo's punches and not to the fact that I'm totally in love with Sander.

But now fatigue is setting in and Sander walks me to the bedroom.

"Sander, is this your bed?"

"Technically yes. But I sleep anywhere don't worry."

"Where exactly do you sleep?"

"Here, next to you..."

"Sitting?"

Sander looks embarrassed.

"Well last night yes. I was definitely anxious about you. But tonight I'm going to make myself a bed."

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"I won't let you sleep on the floor."

"You can't move from there."

He was right.

"I feel bad."

"You don't have to, I'm telling you I sleep everywhere."

I lie down in Sander's bed.

Sander's bed! I hadn't thought of that before. My dream had come true.

Not exactly how I wanted it to but,... let's think about something else. Christmas presents.

Sander brings a mattress and pulls it closer to the bed, sets it up and after several minutes in the bathroom slips under the covers.

When everything is shrouded in darkness I start talking:

"Would you take me to get the presents tomorrow?"

"Yes"

"Sander..."

"Tell me"

"I'm sorry about Moyo."

"Forget it. He’s hurt you more than me. In every way."

"Yeah...are you going to spend Christmas with your boyfriend?"

"That depends."

"On me?"

"Good night Robbe."

"Night."

[gleekto]

Fic: Even Better Than the Real Thing (1/15)

Summary: College AU/Famous!Blaine and Fanboy!Kurt - Kurt POV 

Kurt really doesn’t have time to figure out the dating world between being a freshman at prestigious theatre school, LAADA,  and his active but secret blogging life in the Sing!Fandom. So what if Sing! ended last year? There are still fics to read and actors to follow. Especially the uber talented heartthrob lead, Blaine Anderson. He can act. He can sing. He can even dance. He’s gay. He’s out. And he’s only 24. Kurt is willing to twiddle his thumbs and click refresh until Blaine Anderson’s next project.

He just didn’t expect the next project to be on his roommate Rachel’s new TV show.

Even Better Than the Real Thing

“Disappointing my female fans hasn’t been a problem. My character’s straight, I’m gay, and they’re cool with that. And also remember that for every female fan who might be disappointed, maybe there’s a gay kid out there who realizes that there’s a place for him in Hollywood.” - Blaine Anderson, Actor on Sing!, age 22

Kurt puts the final edits on his blog post  - “The privileges and pitfalls of playing straight for an out gay actor: Quotes from Blaine Anderson’s interviews”, before hitting post on his tumblr.  

While Kurt appreciates Blaine Anderson’s idealism, he’s pretty sure that Blaine’s gay guy fans are just happy to have some intelligent eye candy that actually plays for their team. One of Kurt’s greatest fandom moments was attending the Comicon panel for the Sing! finale when a fan around his age got up to the mic, so nervous that he just blurted out “I just love you so much, Blaine. You’re so beautiful.” Without missing a beat, Blaine Anderson smiled that charming, warm smile and said, “You’re not so bad yourself. And thank you. Hey, who knows if we were meeting up at a friend’s party in a different time, instead of these circumstances, who knows what might’ve been,” - to the utter delight of the screaming crowd. Everyone knows it’s all tongue in cheek and Blaine’s a flirt, that he knows he’s a heartthrob, but it’s sure nice to have a crushworthy celebrity all out and proud.

The Sing! fandom for Kurt was a welcome escape from Lima, Ohio, right from the comfort of his own living room couch.  For once he was being appreciated for his intelligence and sharp wit, rather than mocked for being the only out gay kid in his high school. He wasn’t going to change his sophisticated and maybe deliberately provocative fashion sense just to appease the football team hamhocks in baggy grey sweatpants. And when he occasionally posted a personal picture of his outfits on his blog, his fandom was always appropriately in awe. Kurt - well, Kurt as LimaBlaineFan that is - has his own little following thanks to his thoughtful, no bullshit analyses of all things Sing!. So of course when he moved to LA he wasn’t going to give all that up. Fandom is the most transportable social life in the world.

...

Now that he’s finally out of Nowheresville, Ohio, accepted to LAADA, his roommate and now new break out actress, Rachel, keeps encouraging him  to finally get himself out there and meet an actual person whom he could really date  - ”Come on, Kurt. I am telling you, those abs need to be appreciated!” to which he quips that she does sufficient appreciating for the entire city of LA. He really doesn’t have time, though, between all his school work and his active but secret fandom life - So what if Sing! ended last year? There are still fics to read and actors to follow.  He’s never had a boyfriend, never had the option, he wouldn’t know where to start. He’s pretty content to learn musical theatre and bide his time until his celebrity crush’s next project. It’s much easier.

Kurt does a final read over his post, hits submit on his tumblr, and watches the likes and reblogs tick up. Within five minutes, the inevitable questions and comments start to roll in.

-Hi LimaBlaineFan - love your post! Don’t forget about the time Blaine said at the GLAAD event that he can’t wait to play a gay character.

-Lol you idiot. Blaine is straight. He’s queerbaiting for brownie points.

-OMG thank you for your post! It just reminds me how brave and amazing our Blaine is! Sending hugs!!!

-Do you think Blaine will ever work again? He took a risk by coming out and we haven’t heard anything since Sing! ended?

Kurt shuts his laptop, mostly amused and mildly irritated with the trolls and the worriers. He sits up, spotting Rachel’s latest script for episode 3 of her new TV show, That’s So Rachel, on the coffee table. Yes, she got a lead role in a show straight out of their high school in Lima, Ohio. Yes, it’s kind of infuriating. But Kurt got into LAADA, one of the most highly coveted theatre schools in the country, so he can’t really complain.  He knows her scripts are super top secret on threat of death (or at least Rachel being fired) but she’s the one who left it out, and besides, he’s her roommate, and it’s right there. No harm in glancing over.   

Episode 3: What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Rachel Cherry - Rachel Berry

Rachel’s moms - Patti Lupone and Barbra Streisand

Colin Red, Love Interest - Blaine Anderson

Mr. Cohen, Rachel’s teacher - Jesse St. James

Kurt freezes. He blinks and looks again. And again. Blaine Anderson. Has been cast in Rachel’s show.

“Rachel?!” Kurt can feel his heart racing as he calls out to his roommate, almost dropping her script on the floor. “Rachel?” He says more quietly, trying to sound reasonable. “Can I ask you something?”

Rachel pokes her head out of her bedroom. Kurt is standing by their green velvet couch in the centre of their apartment, hand on his hip, trying to look as regular as is humanly possible in this potentially crisis level situation. “What is it?” Kurt holds up the script.

“I know, right! Barbra and Patti! I mean the producers told me it would only be an all star cast. But to think they got my literal idols to play my moms- It is above and beyond. I haven’t met them yet, of course, but we’re just starting to film episode three on Tuesday and-”

“Your love interest?” Kurt interrupts as disinterested as possible. 

“Oh. Oh yeah,” Rachel glances at the script in his hand. “Blaine Anderson, right? Supposed to be a good actor. He’s cute, too. I think he was on that Sing! show you loved.”

“Yeah,” Kurt nods casually. “I think he was.” Kurt knows that generally Rachel has no idea about his online fandom life. She knew he loved the show, watched it religiously each week, that he sometimes read an online “forum” with spoilers. Tumblr? What’s a tumblr? She had asked him once. But it is now confirmed just how limited her understanding is. 

Kurt lets out a deep breath. Thank God.

“I’m meeting him Tuesday,” Rachel says as she checks her complexion in the mirror and turns back to Kurt with her usual exaggerated flare. “I’ll let you know if he’s a good kisser,” She winks before grabbing the script out of Kurt’s hand. “And no spoilers! That’s top secret intel.”