#also i did not use a ref for this. next time i draw him it’ll be better trust im just doodling rn

[javierduffy]

i’m worried about the reception that this fandom will have on my art style

[flaylore]

[TRANSCRIPT] THE ANXIETY OF HAPPINESS ROON

1:25 🪫: “I’m here. False alarm I guess… which is good.”

🪫: “Why are you scared of me? Don’t you trust me? What the fuck! Why are you scared of me? What the hell, you guys are so mean!”

2:10 💬: You scared us

🪫: “You scare me! Well, actually, I don’t know if there are many things that scare me.. sorta? Maybe?”

2:22 [It cuts to him inside the R-TRUS, the stream starts]

🪫: “Wait. Oh there we go! But I can’t hear the music? Hello, hello! For those of you wondering we were supposed to have Forest of Drizzling Drai- Drizzling Rain today. [he pauses] Hi, this is your pilot speaking Machina X Flayon, there you go. And! We were going to do this at the beginning right? But, timezones are a pain and I already moved it so I was like ‘Don’t worry Jurard we will just draw today’ the next time we’ll have it set. It happened for me with Octavio, Mr. Tavioli, and now Jurard thats kinda funny actually… very funny, extremely funny. Extremely. But!”

3:11 💬: The what?

🪫: “I have something to show you today, it’s very nice! Are you ready? It’ll be quick, yes, yeah a little treat. Okay wait. You have to promise not to look- wait I need a censor image, wait let me get it. Pfft why did I make this- this dumb machiroon photos, you guys look smarter than this.”

3:45 💬 Why are you censoring?

🪫: “Oh, cause of my fat tits. You know how it is. Okay! Okay, are you ready? It’s very cool. I swear.”

4:11 💬 Crunchy?

🪫: “Oh yeah… look, look who it is! Familiar, no? Very familiar even, very cute, yes. Look, see, it is you! And for some reason you like mimicking me so there’s that. But hey! When you mimic me then you can talk too see, so it’s kinda cute.. it’s kinda c- very cute! Ah- ah- ah- ah- Yes, I think this is what I wanted the ref sheet to look like, you can thank my mama for using with the Elysium printing technology. Very cute. Hopefully one day I can update that, this is way more the speed of what you guys look like, look! Cute no? Also, I had an alarm on. Right! Very cute, absolutely adorable even.. it is you! Do you like the Machiroon?”

5:19 💬: We mimic.

🪫: “Yeah just like how I mimic stuff, right? I do right?… Yeah, I mimic stuff all the time actually, what do you call it? Well, when it’s like with sound audio, I always mimic that.”

5:34 💬: My soul is healing.

🪫: “The squiggly the squiggly the squiggly. Very cute, right?”

5:42 💬: We have fang!

🪫: “Good! Good, this is a machiroon and [his eyes swirl but it’s different from last time in the canis minor video] I love you guys, I love you a lot. Okay, so thank you, thank you very much! Okay! Thank you. Thank you.”

5:58 🪫: giggles

[ the screen goes black and white and freezes while his eyes are still swirling, audios and visual both begin to glitch]

6:41 [ the screen clears again and it has a video camera effect applied, almost like a tape is being played, it fades in on what appears to be Flayon but he has stars in his eyes, he is also holding an Armored Machiroon ]

6:59 🪫MF: “So… these are supposed to be my fans? scoff Yeah whatever… I guess they’re cute. I told the Leader, you know, Altare, I don’t really do this whole thing, ‘guilds’… it’s stupid, so… but I guess… it won’t hurt like to have these guys along, what’s inside them anyway? soft chuckle Alright hold on, just this once okay? And don’t get too excited about it either! I am a genius after all so… know your place okay?”

8:00 [ unclips front piece of jacket covering mouth ]

🪫MF: “Hm, that’s not bad. Well, if you’re there fighting the corruption with me I guess it wouldn’t hurt. Stop looking at me with that stupid face! scoffs …Me? I- I never really had a family, I don’t care for it. Growing up it was sorta like… I just kept being called a genius all the time, it was exhausting you know? That’s all everyone sees. ‘Pilot this, pilot that!’ People want to… put these expectations on you, the thing is when you’re just seen as one thing you don’t get to be anything else. So, you should be grateful! This supposed great genius is envious of you.”

9:15 🪫MF: You’re ‘not like me’? Well that’s your loss but, on the bright side of things while I only have one path you have many, it’s something you don’t want to take for granted, okay? …hm? You good? Hello? Ohhh.”

9:51 [ a glitching noise plays along with ominous music, he chokes up a bit like something might be hurting him before continuing to talk like usual ]

10:02 💬: Are you okay?

🪫MF: “Of course I’m okay! Are you stupid? Why wouldn’t I be!? Hah. I don’t pilot the R-TRUS for nothing! Who the hell do think you are even? Look. I wasn’t being that nice earlier, I was just saying how it was.. how it is. So don’t get ahead of yourself.

10:30 💬: Chill I’m just worried

🪫MF: “And you think that means anything to me? Really? You can say nice things but people can lie about that too. Do you think that you can just come into my life and change things just because you say a nice thing? Where’s your proof that you’ll be different? And why should I give you anything? But, I guess… you guys are still here so, yeah. You can stick around… just make sure you’re going to be there at the debut, if not I won’t forgive you! Got it?! Okay, then, that’s how it’s going to be. Understood? Yeah, yeah.”

11:42 [ the screen turns black and white, his eyes swirl and he goes from smiling to frowning as it glitches ]

12:12 🔋: “…You, you piss me off. scoff Is that how people like you cope with things? ‘You only have one path?’ You have no idea what it’s like to be nothing, to have nothing. Expectations? You’re lucky to even have those. When no one expects anything of you, no one notices you, no one… loves you. And so, why does it have to be you? Why… you? Why… you?”

13:57 [ the screen glitches and turns black, it goes back to Flayon regularly talking like nothing happened while holding an unarmored machiroon ]

14:00 🪫: “Hello? Yo! You good? You guys like seeing yourselves that much huh? That’s kinda cute, I can vibe with that. Look, look! So cute, no? Very cute, very snug.

14:23 💬: Flay?

🪫: I am holding you, I am holding you! I am holding you!

💬: Where did you go’?

🪫: “HUH? Wait wait wait wait wait! Do you like being held by me that much that you lose track of where you are?”

14:42 Wow! Hahahah! [ he blushes and his eyes sparkle ] Wow! So cute, so cute! …but, this is a quick stream today, it’s nice right? I know it was only like two minutes but hey it still counts, right? So today I’ll be drawing with Mr. Jurard T. Rexford and you’ll be there… then tomorrow we’ll stream Forest of Drizzling Rain? …Hm?

15:16 💬: Two Minutes?

🪫: Yeah! What is it because I don’t do the 11 hour 13 Sentinels stream anymore? I want to do it again but it’d be a bit! Maybe I need to make sure I have time set for it? Yeah, yeah, yeah tomorrow don’t worry about it okay? and… I still have some more things coming for you guys uhh this- this week- the week after this week is over. Then hopefully things arrive there on time. If not then I’m gonna prepare other stuff too and I hope you guys enjoy that. Okay?”

15:52 “Since like… for me, like when I was younger [ his eyes start to swirl here and his tone changes ] I don’t remember people supporting me much or having any expectations so… it’s like, how do you say? It’s nice to be wanted, it’s very nice to be wanted so thank you very much for supporting me… okay? Alright. I’ll send you elsewhere now, okay? Nice short stream but.. maybe I should’ve named it something else, I think it says ‘meow the’ right? Isn’t it that cat? Wait wait wait, let me prepare this, stay in my arms for a bit though [ he puts a silly 3d roon picture on the screen that used to be the thumbnail of the video ] compare yourself, compare yourself before I go! Look, cute!

16:46 💬: The swirls.

🪫: “yeahh, very swirly, very swirly! Hm. [ he looks at the screen for a second ] Are you okay with being in this form by the way? Don’t want to be in your armor? You know, the stuff you use to protect you right… yeah

17:11 [ the screen glitches as he finishes up his sentence ] You don’t want to be in that? Hm, okay.

💬: The armor is cold

🪫: “Of course it is.”

17:23 💬: But you protect us

🪫: “Okay! Alright then… you guys protect me [ his eyes swirl again ] and I’ll protect you okay? Deal? You said you love me after all right? So, I’m going to love you a lot… just make sure no takebacksies alright? Cool, cool! [ Swirl eyes go away ] Okay, but I’ll probably send you elsewhere now, to probably Mr. Jurard T Rexford’s room. Short stream now it’s like five minutes right? But not bad! I’ll see you guys tomorrow too okay? Yummy!”

18:01 🪫: “Then I also think maybe… let’s see, well I- I made a personal goal for myself where I was like.. ‘cause I wanna learn so many things I’m gonna have to make it like once a week so once a week I try drawing, once a week Piano, once a week singing and that’s even if I stream it or not so we’ll see, we’ll see. Also thank you for the memberships, thank for the superchats, I’ll see you guys like in about 20 minutes? Then tomorrow, tomorrow yeah?”

18:33 💬: You do a lot for us I appreciate it.

🪫: Aw thank you, well I have more I want to give but it has to be ready, I have voice packs but they need to be like… I think I’ll give out 2? Just cause one is a certain way, the other one I want to make it like… is that Platonic? yeah yeah yeah, like that! Okay, alright good! Good good good (repeated many times), thank you!

18:58 🪫: You love me right? Good, [ eyes swirl briefly ] only me! Okay good. I told you I’d open up over time! Okay, flaybyebye, bye! Bye!

[kaypeace21]

The fathers of Stranger Things:  (narrative analysis)

This analysis will discuss all the dads in st. But will mostly focus on the parallels between Brenner, Lonnie, Neil,and Hopper. And the ramifications on their kids.And no i’m not saying Hopper is necessarily as bad as these other fathers/doesn’t have his reasons. But i think the parallels are worth mentioning.

Cycles of Ab*se  & internalizing your father’s teachings

Baseball-We see in s2 the cycle of abuse is there- Billy mimics Neil, and then Max mimics Billy. And uses violence to stand up for herself- which earlier she said she was trying to combat … explaining she can be angry like Billy sometimes but she never wants to be like him (her nickname symbolizing this: aka ‘mad max’).  

We see in s3 Neil taught Billy baseball and bullied him  and called him a “p*ssy” so Billy as a child bullied others and calls them a “p*ssy” (internalizing his father’s teachings and probably venting his anger towards his father on to others). We also see Billy in s2 antagonizes max and demands “say it. say it!”And later Max yells at Billy “say it! say it” and attacks him with a bat. Showing that even Neil has influenced her to a certain extent (via Billy’s ab*se of Max). 

We also see in s3 when Will is frustrated he destroys cb (a symbol of his artistic ambition/the day his father left) and destroys it with a  baseball bat (and then we see the mf officially return) . We also see in s2, Will has a baseball next to the mf drawing (in his room). This is noteworthy due to the fact Jonathan in s1 asks if Will even likes baseball or is just doing it to appease his father. in s1, Will admits he isn’t a fan of baseball -showing how this ‘interest’ in baseball in later seasons just reflects his desire to win his father’s approval (through more sterotypically masculine hobbies).  And we see how both Neil & Lonnie taught both their sons baseball- who are both named William -and who they would call  “f*gs”. We also see in s1 Jonathan lugs around a baseball bat & his father’s gun -however neither tool is used by him in the end successfully. However, in s3 we see Jonathan using an axe (like Joyce) showing by this point he’s mostly taken on Joyce’s influence. 

El’s spying , fighting the Russians, and  lack of care for her safety shows she internalized Brenner’s teachings- We know in s1 El was trained to be a spy/weapon against the soviets (by Brenner). And in later seasons when it comes to her interpersonal relationships- she continues to spy on everyone around her.  she spies on Mike despite his vocal discomfort in s3. Brenner specifically tells her to spy and repeat the words the guys are saying back to him- which is exactly what she does to Lucas and Mike (spying on them and repeating their words back to Max). And when Mike is concerned for her safety we also have El mimic Brenner’s words (from s1) . in s1 she is also said to be taken by Brenner to be a “weapon to fight the commies” and in s3 that’s exactly what she did!  She does literally everything Brenner ever wanted from her!!!!!!!

Jonathan & Billy’s fights with Steve (reflect their father issues... which Steve accidentally triggered)- We see Billy and Jonathan both shoved into walls by their father’s . For Billy this is in a direct consequence of Max running away and for Jonathan- Will’s disappeareance. Billy first shoves Lucas into the wall similarly to Neil. And both Jonathan and Billy are told to “STOP”.

Billy also breaks a plate over Steve’s head. What’s interesting to note is in s3 we see Billy’s mother threw a plate at  Billy’s father (so he was mimicking the dysfunction he saw as a child). kind of like how in s3 he backhands max (mirroring how neil backhanded his mother in the s3 flashback). 

When it comes to jonathan we see jonathan tell nancy to leave and it’s “not worth it” to argue with Steve. However he stops in his tracks when Steve says he’s “like his father”. Then Steve proceeds to insult his family. And  eventually Jonathan who throughout every season is generally portrayed as non confrontational attacks steve. similarly when Billy and Jonathan are beating Steve (who is laying on the ground)-multiple people are yelling for them to stop.But both are in too much of a triggered daze to stop themselves. Even when the cops come- Jonathan elbows the cop in the face and kicks steve with handcuffs on and even says handcuffed for the cop to “get off’ (like he told Lonnie earlier). 

Both would rather do this to their own fathers-but Steve (and the cops) were used as their proxy instead. The fights might reflect what the boys have been taught by their fathers-aka vi*lence. Also on some subconscious level jonathan may have been like-oh you think i’m like my dad? I’ll show you what my dad is like (beats steve with no mercy).

***also, tw se*ual ab*se (you can skip)-during the jonathan fight they also bring up the “pervy photo sesh”- which jonathan took right after seeing his father. in the movies said to inspire s4 they often had a se*ually ab*sive dad/relative who would take innaproriate pics of his kids.uuuuugh. So jonathan may have just been mimicking that past behavior of his father. ugh.***

father’s ab*se  reflects the supernatural

*if you know about my did theory-part 1 and 2 you’ve heard this stuff in detail but i’ll just give a brief synopsis 

- The demogorgan that attacks Will in s1 is  a demon called the “deep FATHER” in d&d.

-El first comes across the demogorgon  (“deep father” ) eating it’s own eggs- symbolically this shows the ‘father’ is hurting it’s own kids ( a motif in the show)!

hunting/baseball/trunks connecting to Lonnie and the monsters:  Will is attacked by the demogorgan in Lonnie’s old shed (and Will tries to defend himself with Lonnie’s old hunting gun). The demogorgan jumps on Jonathan and knocks the bat out of his hands, when he tries defending himself from the demogorgan( both activities: hunting/baseball Lonnie taught the boys).  We also see the demogorgan also attack hunters and a deer- a ref to the lonnie & Jonathan hunting story about Bambi. In s1 we see Jonathan check Lonnie’s trunk to see if Will is there . But also we see the mf throw heather and later her parents in the trunk as well. Also when Jonathan starts talking car repair lingo in s3 -Will senses the mf (since Lonnie repaired cars as a hobby in s1). When lonnie returns in s1 jonathan asks Joyce “did that thing (demogorgan ) come back?” And when Lonnie says he explored around the quarry-jonathan mentions how the demogorgan only traveled a few miles  around his house. When Lonnie says “someone should be held accountable” for what happened to Will- it transitions from lonnie hammering a nail into the wall to Mike piercing a pencil into paper explaining the hole in the upsidedown and how Will got trapped there- hinting at how Lonnie causing trauma to Will is the explanation for everything supernatural. Also need to point out how we zoom in on the lightbulb in Lonnie’s shed (after Will is taken) and they later zoom in on a red lighbulb (when Jonathan tears the innappropriate photos down from the red room) and then it transitions to the christmas lights. And then we see Lonnie berate Jonathan and there’s a glowing lightbulb beside Lonnie (to mirror him to the demogorgan).

-flowers & monstrous fathers: when Brenner (”papa”) first hurts Terry on a hospital bed she wakes up with sunflowers next to her bed. Lonnie in s1 is shown to have a sunflower blanket, and in s2 we see a sunflower book next to Will’s bed after he has a nightmare. We also see that the demogorgan ( ”deep father’-also called the “the man without a face” in s1 ) have a face that resembles a flower. Brenner also gave El a flower when on her bed (although not a sunflower) before forcing her to face the demogorgan for the 1st time.

I believe  credit goes to the tumblr user lazy-storm-cloud for noticing Lonnie’s sunflower blanket. I noticed most of the flower imagery but never noticed that blanket until they mentioned it.

-supernatural “wounds” connecting to Will,  El, Kali and fathers.The lab workers say the upsidedown’s influence over crops/hawkins is “spreading”  while joyce says the tunnels Will drew are also “spreading”. Will says his now-MEMORIES” (connected to the mf-who parallels lonnie) are “growing, spreading, and killing.” Later, Kali in reference to Brenner says her wounds “spread” because she didn’t address her pain caused by Brenner (her papa). And when kali creates a brenner-double he says El has a terrible wound that’s “growing, spreading, and eventually it’ll kill you.” (if not addressed) and they don’t stand up against their father.

-doors connecting to problematic fathers: We see Will in s1 have a sign on his bedroom door that says “do not enter”. And he also requires a password for cb for people to enter. When joyce in s1 hears aggressive knocking on the door she assumes it’s lonnie and says to “go away, Lonnie”.  In s1 we the demogorgan unlock the door telepathically and chase Will. later we see Will stare at the shed door terrified as the demogorgan sneaks up  behind him. in s2 we see the mf slam open the arcade door by itself, and also open his house door in the same manner . when the house door opens it zooms in on the back of his neck- which indicates it’s based off an old memory-a now memory.  We have El also telepathically unlock people’s doors in a similar fashion-not respecting such boundaries. And El asks in s1e1 for the door to stay open.  And Neil, Hopper, and Billy  angrily yell to “OPEN THE DOOR!!!!!” And Hopper slams doors open demanding they stay 3 inches open. We also see El enter a door in the void to see Heather being attacked in a tub and entering the darkness.

tubs:brenner forces El into a sensory deprivation tank. Later El refers to it as a “tub” after seeing the byers tub. we later see the mf is afraid of the byers’ tub. And tub iconography shows up for billy & heather. the s4 movies hint at Will having a tra*matic memory occurring in the tub.

The fathers of St  (recap):

Brenner (“papa” to El and Kali). He forces El into a dark room for hours when she doesn’t obey him. At one point tries to force her to k*ll an animal.  Given the way she ate at Benny’s- he may have starved her as another form of punishment.He allows El no ability to express herself (and dresses her in a masculine/androgounous way) and bans her from the outside world. He tries using a calm-kind demeanor to try and manipulate mothers (Joyce & Karen) into thinking he cares about their kids. And uses El as a weapon/spy .  He would read to El and give her flowers and  a lion plushie . in the st novel  (suspicious minds) he compared the children/numbers to  “rabbits” he could “hurt”.

Lonnie-(dead beat dad of Jonathan and Will). divorced.Forced Jonathan to k*ll a rabbit. It’s implied he has thrown his kids in his dark car trunk  (since Jonathan checks if Will is lonnie’s trunk in s1). He tries manipulating Joyce into thinking he cares about Will. But he just wanted to use Will’s death to make money. He canonically-joked about his son dissappearing. And insulted his ex wife. Then when he realizes he can profit off his son’s death-who he hasn’t seen in years. He leaves his 20-something live in gf, flirts with Joyce calling her “babe”. And pretends to care for Will and the rest of his family. Then gaslights them when they call out his bs. He also has called Will a “f*g” and it’s implied he forced Will to hunt/play baseball. He also shoves Jonathan into a wall. He can have a relatively calm demeanor like Brenner-but then blows up. He smokes, and it’s implied he may be an alcholic since beer cans are littered all over his house. Will has lion plushie in cb (and since lonnie means ‘lion’ it may have been given to him by Lonnie?). He  (like Hopper) implies Joyce is mentally ill and that she’s hallucinating due to grief-and says she’s going to go “over the edge” mirroring Hopper’s words about Joyce in s1. 

Neil- divorced.Calls Billy a “f*got”, and forced him to play baseball. He later shoves his son into a wall and slaps him. He has a calm demeanor and then yells to make his points with Billy.  He also yells at first wife cause romantically jealous. Him & Lonnie both have fights with their ex wives where the phrase “I’m not lying to you” is used. 

Hopper- divorced.in s1-3 we see he smokes, pops pills,  and is an alocholic. The pilot pitch explicitely states he is . He is shown to have anger issues, sells out El’s location to Brenner in s1. In s2 threatens to send her back to her ab*sers if she doesn’t listen to him/ stay isolated from the outside world. dresses her androgonously and tries controlling her romantic relationships. He yells at Joyce cause romantically jealous . joyce annoyed at Hopper: “yes everyman i speak to is my boyfriend”. El says “you are like papa.” And in the pilot Brenner and Hopper were said to dress similarly. And Murray says to Joyce that Hopper is a “brute” who “reminds (her) of a (past) bad relationship”. Aka Lonnie. 

Steve’s dad- is called an “asshole” by Steve and it’s implied he cheats on his wife.

heather’s dad - is sexist to Nancy and cold to his wife. We see Heather (who is the same age as Nancy) has some hidden resentment towards him.

Sam (Max’s dad)- divorced/out of the picture like Lonnie. in the novel ‘runaway max’ is said to be a criminal who often took Max to shady places/bars. And also taught her how to pick door locks-similar to how Jonathan picked a car lock open in s1 like max with a door in s2.

Dustin’s dad- also out of the picture ? dead... maybe?

Recap: Parallels of fathers

forced their kids to k*ll animals/violence toward rabbits/throws kids in dark places/gave their kids lion plushies/tries unsuccessfully to manipulate mother’s  into thinking he cares for their kids: Lonnie & Brenner

taught kids shady stuff like how to pick locks: Lonnie & Sam 

are described as poor/called their sons “f*gs”/forced sons to play baseball/slam sons into walls/have their sons attack Steve/have sons who are into hard rock music: lonnie & Neil

“i’m not lying to you”-:Neil/ex wife and Lonnie/joyce

dr*gs/smokes/alochol ab*se/womanizers/hunters: lonnie & Hopper

imply Joyce is wrong about the supernatural and is just mentally ill: Lonnie and Hopper. Both use a similar expression of her being on “the edge”.

lie to Joyce: Lonnie and Hopper (specifically lies claiming he took her advice and uses that lie to try and get a date with her)

Gave them cat plushies: Lonnie,Brenner, possibly hopper with sara’s tiger 

being connected to flowers: Brenner & Lonnie

yell at love interest when romantically jealous:Neil and Hopper in s3

Hopper: compared to Lonnie (by Murray in s3) and Papa/brenner (by el in s2). in the original pilot Brenner & Hopper were supposed to look similar. Brenner was supposed to have a beard, and wear jeans and plaid shirts similar to hopper in s1. it’s also interesting to note how Hopper started to look more like Neil -they’re both blondes-and in s3 they have matching moustaches (and billy started growing out a moustache in s3-mirroring him becoming a mini neil too).

dress El in masculine clothes/isolate her from outside world/spy on El/read to El:Hopper & Brenner

calm demeanor but quick to anger/ also divorced: Hopper, lonnie, Neil

yells to “open the door”: Neil, Hopper, (and possessed Billy) .it’s also implied Lonnie can pick door locks open.

outliers

jonathan - In the pilot pitch he’s described as taking on the father role for Will (after Lonnie left).  However, he is often paralleled to the mothers of st. Most likely because he never had a healthy father figure- and distrusts even good men like Bob- so models his parenting behavior more so on maternal figures. We see  Jonathan being paralleled to the mothers taking photos of their kids on Halloween, and Jonathan being paralleled to Karen twice.  We even see him bored/annoyed in s2 watching the film “mr mom” since the comedic premise was haha - dad has to stay at home- cook for their kids , drive them to school, do laundry, whaaa how can a man do that ... look it’s so hard  ? isn’t that what moms do instead? All things Jonathan does without literally tripping over himself and failing like the older male film character, initially does .  He also in canon helps pay for the mortgage. We also see Jonathan is unlike the other problematic fathers (who demand entry into their kid’s room) since we see him knock on Will’s door and get verbal permission before entering Will’s room in s2 (respecting Will’s sign). Similar to joyce ringing cb’s doorbell and getting verbal permission from Will to enter.We also see on Halloween Jonathan mocks Bob but when Will defends him Jonathan later mimics Bob telling Will “hope it doesn’t suck” (in a vampire voice) showing at least subconsciously he was mirroring the parenting-like behavior from Bob (since Will liked Bob). So Bob became the first male he used as an inspiration for his ‘parenting style’.

Ted-  is shown in direct opposition to Lonnie.In s1 we see Ted help Mike put on a tie mentioning to Mike it has to be a “little tight” and that it “looks good”. And  after this scene: we see Jonathan struggle to put on a tie (and then ripping it off in frustration-signifying his lack of a father figure that could have taught him how to do this when younger). So in s3 we see Jonathan’s ties are always poorly done and slightly loose around his neck. The same season Jonathan comments about how Nancy’s dad makes 6 figures and his dad “isn’t even around”. He finacially supports his family. cuddles Holly on his fav laze-boy and takes her to fairs. Wants to comfort Mike after Will dies (but listens to Karen to give him time). Has Karen tell Mike that if he wants to talk to him about Will’s death- he can call him at work and he’ll come home for Mike. His calm demeanor seems genuine -unlike the other father figures who quickly lose their cool facade (Ted has never yelled at his kids). Even when kids yell or insult him he doesn’t lose his cool. Worst things he’s done: told kids to stop cursing, naps alot, gives an outdated football analogy about How Mike needs to stop acting out . Why st fans claim he’s a bad dad : boring af aka the human embodiment of wonder bread, in loveless marriage,  and not rambo-esque like Hopper so people act like he’s a horrible dad in comparison to Hopper. Despite being a  more stable parent in the normal everyday situations.

Lucas’ dad- unfortunately we saw very little of him. But he seems somewhat similar to Ted. He’s nice and gives somewhat dated  advice at the table to his son-like Ted did. He seems like a mellow, chill dude, who finacially supports his family. But,Unlike karen/ted it seems like he loves his wife and vice versa.

Bob-the wannabe stepdad-  as the first romantic interest after Lonnie-He contrasts him. He doesn’t do drugs or smoke.  Is emotionally vulnerable with Joyce and vice versa. He never makes fun of Will or Joyce’s mental health issues. he relates to Will -who was bullied as a kid, and is into computers, comics, and was in av club (just like Will). He is supportive of Will’s non-manly interests and encourages those interests (bringing brain puzzles, and board games over when told Will is sick).  Unlike Lonnie who tried to force ‘manly’ interests on to Will. He isn’t mad when Will busts his brand new camera but is simply concerned that Will is being bullied. He’s also shown being concerned about Will’s mental health. He helps joyce with little things like finding her keys and taking Will to school. His happy calm demeanor  is genuine-and he is never shown yelling in anger. He kindly disagrees with joyce on the ‘ drawings on the walls game’ cause he was concerned it wasn’t good for Will’s mental health (and tells her she can talk more about Will’s issues). He sacrifices himself to save Will, joyce and everyone around him.  And unlike Hopper- Bob was never jealous or mean to joyce about the men in Joyce’s life. Bob was serious about Joyce and the boys-he wanted them to be his family and move them near his own blood relatives. We see he had an impact on the boys at the end of s2- Will drawing the “bob newby superhero” drawing and Jonathan using Bob’s camera. 

[centralsaints]

mcl headcanon masterpost pt.1 - armin

let's start this off with my long term favourites; the twins. this is armin's part, and alexy is next!

will start this with his full name being armin frederic lemaire

if you name a joint, he has probably dislocated it at least once in his life. he’s always been hypermobile, having chronic pain (mistaken as growing pains) and fatigue, being prone to dislocation. that later becomes a diagnosis of hypermobile ehlers-danlos syndrome.

that makes him also prone to getting migraines and headaches regularly, explaining the whole hating bright lights thing

he has had an eating disorder on and off since he was about 15; partly diagnosed, he meets the criteria for OSFED, so his ed is a bit. weird and all over the place. it’s mostly periods of restriction with a fear/disgust of food, followed by periods of binging and eating more or less normally. he’s closer to atypical bulimia, in terms of specifics, because the binge/purge episodes aren’t that frequent. he went inpatient once, and still jokes about how he was the only guy there. only his family knows about his eating issues as of now.

another thing about the ed is that it was already kind of in the making when alexy had his unaliving attempt, but that was really what kickstarted it all.

around UL, with nathaniel going absolutely off the fucking rails, armin and amber struck an odd friendship. they both could clock the other on their fucked up eating issues, but neither said anything for a long time, until amber did. they agreed to try and recover together.

his favourite pokemon type is ghost (thank you anon, idk anything about pokemon but i wanted to include this)

he plays animal crossing with kentin (who doesn’t like admitting that he plays it because it’s very relaxing for him) and jade.

he’s a gemini sun, cancer rising, libra moon, same as alexy.

he has add (adhd inattentive type) and his most common stims are bouncing his leg and chewing his pens. his object permanence is also absolute shit, if its out of sight, it doesn’t exist.

he doesn’t untie his shoes when taking them off or putting them on, and has ruined many perfectly good pairs of shoes that way.

he has made tik toks starring rocket the ferret

his playlists are lo-fi music, video games and movie soundtracks, and like. twenty one pilot.

his nose is crooked from when he broke it around 11 years old

he also bruises really easily (mostly due to his EDS) and his legs are always covered in various bruises. he’s also very clumsy, which doesn’t help

he doesn’t like alcohol; he doesn’t like the taste, the way it makes him feel and the aftermath; it doesn’t take much to affect him and he’ll sleep for an entire day. but he’ll sometimes drink in social situation just to not feel left out.

he’s bisexual. the less obvious stuff; what’s his type?? I know having a “type” isn't really a thing and u like who u like. with that said i think hed like slightly androgynous looking girls (soft spot for shaved heads. its soft;;), girls who are very very feminine but in an out of the ordinary way (think lolita, hyper pop fem vibe, goth girls in corsets, etc), guys who work out (he has a weakness for back muscles), in general people who stand out in a crowd be it with their appearance, style or their attitude

no i still have absolutely no idea how he would come out. i think he probably didn’t. he just started talking about it naturally, because it wasn’t a big deal. i think one day, either his mom or alexy made jokes about oh, when would he finally take this one cute girl on a date, and he just said, or maybe it’ll be a boy. it just happened like that

ref post for his fashion sense

he can do a killer winged liner. look, man’s into cosplay, of course he can.

he’s played mystic messenger ironically at first and then ended up actually liking it

he actually can draw, because he spent all middle school drawing anime characters in all his notebooks

he always sits kind of awkwardly (proof is the episode 12 illustration lmao) because 1. bi people can’t sit right (source: me) and 2. he’s just. really lanky and has long limbs and doesn’t really know what to do with all of it

this one is from an anon last year: “I have this weird hc about the twins. Alexy sleeps with like a million pillows and blankets , while Armin tries to sleep with pillows but throws it out every time even though he's asleep.” and i love it. he also probably sleep in very weird positions which leads to him waking up hurting a lot of the time

he also has a weighted blanket that he and alexy kind of just. get turns using when they both still live at their parents house. it helps armin’s pain, and alexy’s overstimulation issues. when they leave, armin gets the weighted blanket

armin has a dimple on his right cheek when he smiles

he helped alexy dye his hair until they moved out and started living separately

he has his driving license, but alexy doesn’t

he’s scared of dogs (he probably met demon at one point bc i like him and cas being friends, and he was so nervous about it, poor boy

he likes taking ice cold shower in the evening because the cold water and then sinking in a warm bed make him sleepy and actually helps him fall asleep

he probably played dnd at one point

he smokes ouid occasionally, at first it was recreational, but it kind of helped with his joint pain so

i think this is all of them? i might be missing a few ones i never wrote out or that are buried in my files but i honestly don't feel like going through the dozen unfinished fics and compilation documents that mention armin in my drive or i would still be here next year

[starkatana]

So Close

Pokemon Piers x Female Reader (OC)

Summary:

You and Piers confess your feelings for each other but you’re only in the Galar Region for a limited amount of time. What do you two decide to do with your newly professed feelings?

Notes before reading:

Originally from Unova, in Galar for research.

You’re working with Sonia researching dynamaxing pokemon.

You’re full-time job is working at the pokemon nursery, you rehabilitate injured pokemon and you take care of abandon pokemon.

You have a Levanny as your pokemon partner.

AN: I’m back! I’ve been sitting on this forever thinking “why do i always have an OC when writing for different characters, i don’t know” I’m going to post it anyway! Hope you enjoy!

You are at a party in Hammerlocke hosted by Raihan in honor of the new champion because it’s long overdue after the Rose incident and the twins' fiasco. A party was what everyone needed to celebrate and unwind. You’re Sonia's plus one, and once you had a moment by yourself Raihan came over, drink in hand, smug look on his face, “Hey, y/n are you single?” he’s straight to the point, “Asking for a friend.”

Your face immediately gets warm. Your eyes quickly shift over at Piers before looking back at Raihan. As quick of a glance you thought it was to Piers, Raihan noticed, and his smug grin only got bigger. “Piers?” he asks.

“Is that the friend?” you respond.

He simply shrugs in response giving you a playful smile.

You give him an eye-roll and followed by a light shove. Your cheeks are pink with embarrassment and you’re only a tiny bit upset that Raihan was able to read you so easily.

He lets out a laugh, “Don’t be embarrassed.” He reassured, “So you know. He stares at you every time you look away.”

“Why are you telling me this?” As cute as you think Piers is, the thought that he could like you back never crossed your mind. “I don’t think he likes me much at all.”

You’ve been in town for about two weeks now, and every time you are around, he never seemed to be interested in you. He would only talk to you if someone else was already talking to you. When you two got into a conversation, you thought he was just being friendly. There was that time where he invited you to Spikemuth, but he invited everyone, and when you said thanks, he ran off without another word.

Raihan lets out a small laugh, followed by a slight headshake, “I’ve known Piers a long time. As fearless as he is on stage, offstage, he’s shy. Keeps to himself, and never draws any more attention to himself than he needs to.”

For some reason you didn’t believe that, but decided not to push the topic. “Again. Why are you telling me this?”

“because” Raihan sighs, “I’ll say it outright. Piers likes you, and I’m letting you know that he’s not going to make a move. You’ll have to do that.”

You turn to face Raihan, who mirrors you and smiles at you, “He’s a good guy, but he’ll always put everyone’s feelings before his own. He’s focused on getting Marnie set up to take over the Spikemuth gym. So, he’s just going to stare at you from afar and use Marnie as an excuse to come over and talk to you because my poor punk baby is never going to do it himself.”

“Please ask my brother out, y/n.”

You turn around, and Marnie steps up next to you two. “We have to make this conversation fast.” She says, “It’ll only be a matter of time before Piers comes up to join our conversation.” You look over at Piers, who makes eye contact with you, and you look away again, heart beating fast and blush washing over your face.

“I don’t know what you guys are talking about. He doesn’t like me.” You try to lie to yourself. You are only going to be here for three months you live in a different region, even if things went well and things worked out, how long would it last with the long-distance?

Marnie and Raihan roll their eyes sharing a glance.

“Everyone can tell that you two have a thing for each other.” Marnie gestured at you.

“Everyone except you two.” Raihan continued.

You don’t know what to say. All this information was coming so fast.

“And then I whipped out a peace sign saying I would win the next one.” Raihan let out a hearty laugh.

“What’s going on, you guys?” Piers asked as he walked up to your group. “Hey, y/n.”

“Hey, Piers.” You quickly sink into your drink, at the same time trying to shrink into the background to disappear. Now that you knew that he liked you back, you didn’t know how to act around him. Not that you knew before, but definitely not now.

“Raihan was just telling us how he lost to Leon. Again,” Marnie said.

How were these two so good at lying?

“Now, my goal is to defeat Leon AND Gloria.”

“Good luck with that.” Gloria laughed, joining their group as well with Hop and Bede close behind. “These two nincompoops want to duke it out in the stadium, can they Raihan?”

“Oh, hell yeah.” Raihan cheered, “I’ll ref! But first!” he takes his Rotom phone out, “Selfie!” and he brings the group together to snap a picture. It felt purposeful where Marnie took a step forward, giving peace symbols as Hop and Gloria get close to you, pushing you into Piers. You and Piers lock eyes, you feel your face turn bright red while you give him a sheepish smile. He smiles at you in return. When the camera snaps, neither of you were looking at the camera.

“This one’s a keeper!” Raihan said looking at the photo, “Let’s go to the stadium!” Raihan announced to the room. The kids run off with Raihan as they run past you and Piers. Piers instinctively pulls you close as the VIP room empties, leaving you in a daze as to what just happened. You two are some of the few remaining people in the room. You look up at him, and the two of you share a moment where his arms are around you protectively.

“Thanks, Piers.”

“No problem.” He hesitantly lets go of you and pulls at the ring on his choker, “Raihan always manages to get people pumped up for Dynamax battles.”

“It's fascinating.” You say, looking through the window over at the stadium, “I’m just curious what the lasting effects on dynamaxing pokemon are.”

“Is that what you’re working on with Sonia?”

“A little.” You look over at him and catch him looking away from you when Raihan’s words go through your head: He likes you.

“Do you want to watch?” he asked.

You shake your head no, “I’m good after that Swordbert and Shieldbert thing, I’m good without dynamax pokemon for now.”

He nods, “Alright then.”

You suck in a quick breath, you take a shot, “Do you want to get out of here?”

“Sure.” He agrees without any hesitation.

Crap. You didn’t think you’d get this far this fast. “Let’s go to the daycare and see some baby pokemon.”

He gives you a soft smile, “Sounds like fun.”

He orders a Corviknight, and it takes you two to route 5. Not only were you working with Sonia on the lasting effects on Dynamaxing pokemon, but you also helped out at the daycare. Your fulltime job is daycare caretaker, you help rehabilitate pokemon and care for the ones abandon by their owners. You two go inside the daycare and see your Levanny sitting outside the door of the nursery spitting silk as if she was knitting.

“How are things?” you ask her.

She lets out a soft coo and points to the door, telling you to be quiet. Then she starts pointing at you two and nods.

“Okay.” You blush, “C’mon Piers.” And you lead him out of the daycare.

“She takes her job very seriously.” Piers joked.

You laugh, “Yeah, she’s great at it.” You breathe relieved. Even your pokemon seem to think you two would be good together. “Sorry, we can’t see any baby pokemon right now. They’re all sleeping.”

“It’s alright.” He was so go with the flow, it was nice change of pace from your crazy structured day-to-day life and his presence is just so calming, “It’s a beautiful night,” he gestures down the bridge towards Hulbury, “care to join me?”

“Of course.”

The two of you silently walk down the cobblestone together taking in the view and the fresh air. The night was perfect. The sky was clear, the stars shined bright next to the moon in the sky, there's was enough moon in the sky to illuminate your walk, but not enough to drown out the beauty of the night. It was a picture-perfect evening. Other couples were walking around and standing on the bridge.

“This is romantic.”

You blush at his voice and the thought. “Yeah.” You let out a weak chuckle, “I walk this every day, and I never realized.”

“It’s… beautiful.” He stammered. You looked at him, he was pulling on his ring again.

You gently touched his upper arm, “I think so too.” He lets out a light sigh followed by a smile.

You two stop in the center of the bridge, overlooking the wild area with a gorgeous view of the Hammerlocke gate, “This is my favorite view.” You say leaning against the railing as he takes his place next to you.

“It’s beautiful.” There’s a noticeable pause between the two of you as you looked over the wild area. “Just like you.”

You stop and look over at him. He lets out a low cough, obviously looking away from you trying to avoid eye contact. A lightbulb went off in your head, he was trying to do that earlier too. He’s so precious.

“Piers,” you pause, I like you.

“What's up?” his voice sounded hopeful.

“Nothing, it's dumb.” You shake your head, giving yourself an eye roll. While he turns to look at you, you turn away looking in the opposite direction.

“I’m sure it’s not.”

You face him, and for the first time, you two make eye contact without the other turning away instantly. Everything about him takes your breath away. You feel your face get warm again. He’s so cute, especially in the moonlight. His bright blue eyes were so easy to get lost in. It wasn’t obvious, but he has such a welcoming and friendly energy that once you got past an exhausted looking Piers, that did scare some people, he is honestly the nicest person anyone would be lucky to be around.

“What?” he asked, his face grows concerned. You look ahead of you again, taking a deep breath trying to find your composure.

“Okay.” You wipe your hands on your shorts. “I’m going to take a shot here because of,” you rotate your hands around each other avoiding his eyes, “ideas.”

“Yeah?” you could hear his confusion.

“Has anyone told you anything.” you wonder aloud, looking back at him.

“I mean.” He looks away this time but back at you before continuing. “I think you’re cool, but I know you’re only here for what two more months?”

“Yeah.” You sigh. That was a big factor in why you didn’t want to get involved with anyone here. You were only in Galar for three months, you had two and a half left. There was no need to get into a relationship with each other or even bother about letting him know how you feel. As much as everyone wanted to, there was no point. Why make your small group of friends here awkward?

“I’ll just come out and say it.” You look over at Piers. “I have a crush on you.”

“What?” you say instinctively. Raihan said he wouldn’t make a move, but apparently, he didn’t know Piers as well as he thought he did. You heard what Piers said your brain just needed a second to comprehend and register what he said.

“I’m sorry.” He apologized, pulling at the ring on his choker, “I just felt like I would’ve exploded if I didn’t get it out right now.”

“No, it’s okay. I just….I like you too.” You respond, “I just don’t know.”

“Same.” He lets out a weak smile.

The silence is tense between you two.

“You leave in three months, and I just don’t want to make things awkward.” Piers said. “I really like hanging out with you and I don’t want that to change, but if….” His voice trailed off.

“Yeah! I totally get that.” You agreed, “We don’t want to force anything.”

“No. No. Definitely not.”

“So, we could just take this as it goes.” You say.

He nods, “Yeah…”

“So, because you said it. I do like you too.” You reassure him.

He gives you a smile, “Thanks, I was getting nervous for a minute there.”

“Have you not been nervous this entire time?” you joke, “I’ve been freaking out.”

He laughs, “No, I’ve been a nervous wreck this entire time.”

You two share another laugh together as you have before. It felt natural and easy being with Piers. You deeply wished something would happen between you and Piers, but there was time to see where this would go.

“So, we’re just going to see where this goes?”

“I’m okay with that if you are.”

“I’d really like that.”

“Okay.” He smiles at you, “Want to come over for dinner on Thursday? I have this new song I want you to hear.”

“Yeah,” you agree, “Text me when you want me over.”

“Always.”

It was a good feeling to get that off your chest. You two lean against the railing looking back out at Hammerlocke gate in silence, but closer together. You lean your head on his arm and take in the moment you have together. Piers settling into being your pillow.

“Thank you.” You say, “I’m glad.”

“Me too.” He responds.

Thursday came. He was just finishing up a training session with Marnie, while you sat in the back watching the two battle. Immediately after Piers comes up to talk to you about what he was planning to make for dinner.

“I hope that sounds okay.”

“Sounds awesome. I can’t wait.”

“I really hope you like the song too. I wrote it with you in mind.”

“Piers.” you hold your hand over your heart, when Marnie walks over and starts stabbing the air between you two.You two stop what you were talking about and stare at her.

"What are you doing?"  he asks her.

"Trying to cut the romantic and or sexual tension between you two.” She continues furiously stabbing the air, “Crap, it’s not working!”

You and Piers blush furiously.

[onebizarrekai]

Your simplified Danganronpa drawings are so cool, I wish I could make stuff like that! How do you do it?

hello! so the funny thing about that is that I don’t really divert that much from my normal style–I just add a few things to it to make it more danganronpa-y. I, coincidentally, am weirdly good at style imitation, but I can show you how I did it!

I’m using kokichi as my victim because I can’t stop drawing this bastard:

these are the lines for my normal style, more or less. they’re usually a lot more connected, but y’know, it’s a tutorial and I’ll probably just fix them as I go along. also I didn’t use a sketch so that’s something.

flat colors and a couple lineart adjustments. cool, cool. danganronpa colors are like really desaturated and all the characters kind of look like ghosts (ironically). to add to the authenticity, make the colors look as much like the in-game colors as possible. kokichi’s character art makes him look like he has highlights, so I gave him those rather than just solid purple hair.

ugh okay first you have to shade it before you do anything else give me a second

THERE it’s kind of sloppy but it’ll have to do

you’re probably going to want to use a shadow with a cold color to go with the desaturated colors. I used that color you can see in the color palette in the corner because that’s more or less my default. since this is a stylistic imitation tutorial and not a coloring tutorial I won’t go into detail about how I shaded it and how I use clipping masks to color. just have a time, man.

the most important thing, naturally, is the eyes. danganronpa’s just got this eye thing going on. now let’s actually get down to business.

first, color the outline of the eye with a color somewhat darker than your eye color like so:

oh god I have to move his pupils

okay take a lighter color that you probably also stole from a ref and saturated somewhat and THROW that circle in there

congrats. you have danganronpa eyes.

you’re going to want to make sure that the eyes are pretty even. like, the circle inside is in line with the outline, and the pupil is in the dead center of that circle. otherwise the eyes are probably gonna look pretty wonky. I had to move his pupils for a reason. you’re gonna have to pay close attention to what direction the iris is facing.

next order of business, the ‘hair shiny’. see, this was a weird thing for me to incorporate because I hadn’t done this since I was like 14 and I have a knee jerk reaction to it, but anime be like that.

fwoop

this color is actually very close to the one I used for the circles in the eyes, just more blue-shifted. you’re not just going to leave it like that, though.

set it to add (glow) at 20% opacity and you’re good to go. (I don’t remember what the photoshop/sai equivalents are). I erased lines in it because I’m extra, but you don’t have to do that if you don’t want. you can mess with the effects on this part because I’m pretty sure I made it much less visible than the danganronpa style does.

now, the BIGGEST thing you can do besides the eyes is probably the texture, since we’re imitating the character art style.

you’re going to need a small checkered texture. like, this blinding abomination.

ow. fortunately, we’re changing the opacity REALLY low so it’s not going to hurt to look at. if you’re using clip studio paint like me, it comes with textures built into it. color a whole area and click the button with the checkers on it that you see on the top right.

it should cover your canvas with blinding chaos and your eyes will start screaming. before you go blind, make sure it’s set to a checkered style and navigate to the ‘layer’ tab at the top and hit rasterize to turn it into a normal layer. now that it’s a normal layer, changing the opacity will only make the colors lighter, rather than change the texture itself (that’s a thing that happens).

anyway, turn your opacity ALL the way down to 10% and set it to soft light, and your canvas will go from looking like this monstrosity…

… to this!

okay you actually can barely see that at all with this crappy screenshot without leaning super close to your screen. look, it’s THERE, I promise.

next you’re gonna wanna find a rugged texture of some kind. like, gritty paper or something. I have this one texture that I use a LOT and have been using it since before I even played danganronpa. put it below the first texture layer, turn the opacity down a whole bunch and just mess around with it, honestly. in that picture that I drew the other day, I have it set to vivid light at 15% opacity, but honestly, you can just see what works for you.

now it looks like this! again, this probably isn’t super visible because of the image size, but you’ll see.

now give me a second to add the rest of my shading that has nothing to do with the danganronpa style.

yeah!!! if you’re wondering what I did, I threw on what could be described as “cloudy shading” because you basically just toss on a whole bunch of airbrushing in the color of the shadow in one layer and a bunch of airbrushed lighting in another. it smooths out the drawing a lot and gives the coloring a lot more variety! it’s pretty serotonin-producing, honestly. (thank you tobin for teaching me basic color theory so my shading/lighting looks better)

oh yeah, I also added just a bit of a purple hue to the lineart to go with kokichi’s whole purple aesthetic. changing lineart color doesn’t always work, especially when drawing characters with different color themes, but it did work this time around, probably because it’s just kokichi.

here’s the close-up!

[ginnympotter]

tbh this is audacious of me but you did ask for prompts and I loved what you wrote for my other jily lives! prompt so here I am asking for a sequel or another jily lives! one shot 🤠 if it's not a sequel i'd love to see harry with a sibling, especially a younger sister? I think it'd be fun to see his sister and parents tease him about ginny or his sister and ginny thick as thieves leaving him slightly irritated but mainly amused 😼 love your writing!!

i always hc that if james and lily lived harry would have younger sisters so you’ve come to the right place :) name is after james’s mom euphemia :) let’s pretend that in the last fic she was at a friend’s house or something. also i turned this into another harry birthday fic...leo season is drawing nearer i cannot be stopped. 

original Jily lives AU to which @blattgefluester is referring

“For the record, I have always firmly been Team Ginny.”

“And that’s why you’re my favorite, Mia,” Ginny told her as they hit the ground.

Harry rolled his eyes at his girlfriend. “She’s your favorite? Really? Then what am I?”

“A close second. Which is more than what I can say for your standing in this match.” Ginny flashed him a smile as she and Mia high-fived in their victory. 

Ron laughed as he threw his broom to the side and plopped down on the grass next to where Hermione, who was supposed to be playing ref but was really engrossed in a book, was sitting. “It’s nice seeing her team up with someone against you instead of me, for once,” he said to Harry as he stretched out.

“Oh, shut it,” Harry retorted, putting his Firebolt to the side. “She’s going after you, too. We both just lost.”

“Lighten up,” said Ginny, sliding up to Harry and wrapping an arm around his waist, lifting herself up on her toes to plant a brief kiss to the corner of his mouth. “At least you have us on your side for actual matches at school, otherwise you’d never lay your eyes on that silver Cup.”

“Need I remind you,” Harry began, putting his arm around her shoulders. “You are looking at the youngest Seeker in a century, who also happened to win the Cup in my third year, before you were on the team,” he looked pointedly at Ginny, before turning his attention to his little sister, “and a year before you were even at Hogwarts!”

“Merlin, you’re sounding like Dad,” Mia noted with a scoff, running a hand through her shoulder-length, jet black hair. Her facial features mostly resembled those of her mother, especially when they were sharp and narrowed at her brother in annoyance, but she got her father’s dark hair and hazel eyes. “And Mum thought she knocked the arrogance out of this bloodline!”

Harry scowled as they all laughed. “It was a mistake to allow you two to be teammates. You’re lucky I even let you on the team, Mia. I was accused of nepotism!”

“You’re lucky to have her,” Ginny came to her defense, pinching Harry’s side. “She was the only Beater who could fill Fred and George’s shoes, and you know it.”

Harry sighed playfully, having to give that to her. “Perhaps.”

Mia stuck out her tongue at her brother, then said, “Thanks, Ginny” as she beamed at her. “But seriously, it wasn’t just me who was Team Ginny for Harry’s romantic pursuits. Do you know how annoyed Dad was that Harry became a Seeker and I became a Beater? The audacity of his own genetics to not produce him another Chaser.”

“I’m sure he wasn’t annoyed,” Hermione said, closing her book. “He’s proud of the both of you.”

“To an extent,” Mia corrected her. “But Ginny graciously allowing Harry to date her-”

“Hey, she fancied me first!” Harry interjected proudly, pulling Ginny closer to his side. She looked up at him and smiled.

“-opens up the possibility for a Chaser to marry into the family, and then Dad will finally be able to have the pride and joy of which he’s always dreamed.”

Harry’s face turned bright red, but Ginny just snickered, unfazed. “Your Dad does have some good Chaser tips, I have to give him that.”

“Why thank you, young Weasley.” They all turned to see James Potter walking through the screen door into the yard, floating five cold bottles of butterbeer in front of him, flicking them lazily into each of their hands. “Lily and I were watching from the window while preparing lunch. Boys, that was utterly pathetic.”

“Be fair, Dad,” said Mia, taking a sip of her drink. “It’s not their fault they were so unevenly matched against us.”

“You have a point,” he agreed.

Harry groaned, lifting his arm off Ginny’s shoulders and using the back of his hand to wipe the sweat off his forehead. “Whose side are you on, anyway?” 

“The winning side, of course,” James responded. “But I love all my children equally.”

Lily came out next, sending a platter of sandwiches towards the outdoor table. “Why don’t you lot eat before you bite each others’ heads off. And don’t worry, Ron, no corned beef.”

“You’re the best, Mrs. Potter,” Ron told her, jumping up and quickly perusing the sandwich selection. 

“Good way to refuel for the next time you get your arse kicked,” Ginny smirked at Harry as she strode towards the table, Harry following closely behind her.

“What if you did a Potter versus Weasley match?” James suggested, amused. “Unless you want in on this one, Hermione.”

“Oh, no, I’m fine,” Hermione insisted kindly. 

“What do you think, Harry?” asked Mia. “It pains me to turn on Ginny, but I think we could take them.”

Harry smiled at his sister. “They’ve got no chance.”

Ginny crossed her arms. “So you have no problem turning on me?”

“I would never turn on you,” Harry proclaimed, feigning innocence.

“We’ll see about that, big shots. Right, Ron?”

“Hm?” Ron mumbled as he took another large bite out of his turkey sandwich.

Hermione gave him a look of disgust as Ginny groaned, grabbing her own plate.

Lily came up next to them and sighed. “Hermione, why don’t you take a break from refereeing for this lot?”

“Oh, I don’t know...”

“Forrest Gump is going to be on telly in five minutes. We could watch inside with air conditioning.”

Hermione smiled, finally standing up. “Ooh, I love that film!”

“Grab a sandwich and come to the living room.”

Hermione obliged but Ron objected. “Hey, that’s our ref you’re taking!”

“I can ref,” James volunteered eagerly. 

“You’re not impartial,” Ron pointed out.

“Yeah, he’s partial in your favor,” Mia said begrudgingly, sitting down next to her father, leaning her head against his shoulder. “Didn’t we just tell you? He likes Ginny the best.”

James ruffled his daughter’s hair then tugged her to his side. “Oh, stop being ridiculous.”

“I get it from you.”

“Yes, yes, ridiculousness runs in this family,” Lily said impatiently, ushering Hermione into the cottage. “Sirius should be here in about fifteen minutes, so eat your lunch and once you finish, your actual impartial ref will have arrived. By the time Hermione and I are done watching the film it’ll be time to set up for the party, so you have until then, but maybe try finishing up a bit before so you can all shower.”

“Sounds good, Mum,” Harry told her, smiling. “Thanks for lunch.”

“Of course, my love,” she replied, walking over to him and kissing the top of his head. She turned around and entered the house with Hermione. 

As soon as the door closed, Harry turned excitedly to his father. “Is Sirius coming on the bike? Do you think Mum will finally let me ride it on my own? She always said when I turned 17...”

“You have my permission, but I don’t know if that really counts for much,” James said. “I’ll fight for you, though.”

Mia snorted next to him, jealousy written all over her face. “Anything for the birthday boy-”

“Excuse me,” Harry cut in. “Birthday man.”

Ron and Mia chortled, and he looked to Ginny for support. She looked him up and down and put a consoling hand on his shoulder as she said, “Eh. Debatable.”

[elecman108]

Man, I forgot to post 90% of my art here for the past while. I’m gonna do an art dump in this post under the cut. Enjoy the bonk emoji if you don’t click the read more, and man am I dumb and forgetful lmao.

Includes: OCs getting names, a Sonic impression, a D&D map, homosexual energies, a sheep floating in the astral sea, a birthday drawing I already posted, Hex Maniac Ender, D&D Characters, D&D Characters as Miis in Miitopia, Little Hater Axel, local Demon in the consciousness of my D&D character yelling at him, illegal plants, a necromancer being cute, an actual event that happened in a D&D game two days ago, and Mermay drawing.

That’s everything in here as a TL;DR, I guess. Enjoy your day!

I’m gonna try and sort of have them in chronological order, oldest first, but I may end up putting them in the wrong order. If I do... Whoops, I guess?

[04/14/21] - This isn’t really new art, but I started to work on giving the four OCs of mine without a full name full names... I have not finished this bit, though. So Hunter and Akira have full names, and Warlock and Assassin only have temporary names. This may end up like Seven where I put in their names as a temporary name (7th OC I’d made at that time) and it just kind of... sticks. Lmao.

[04/20/21] - Alone on a Friday Night? God, you’re pathetic. I didn’t colour this one because it was a half-attempt at a meme image I still like it, though, so I might end up colouring it. It’s gonna appear again whenever I do my “unfinished drawings art dump” at some point probably in... June? I know I said I’d post them last month but forget it, lmao, it’ll happen eventually.

[04/20/21] - A D&D Map! This was to help me visualize the layout of my D&D character’s ship he used to be on. Also for my DM if they ever put us aboard the ship. The little fella in the corner is just there to vibe. This map is made of free to use assets from This Website, so while I’m gonna say DONT USE MY MAP WITHOUT PERMISSION, feel free to make your own!

[04/26/21] - Lesbian Day of Visibility drawing of yours truly, the disapointment! That’s... really all I have to say about this, honestly. It was just for that one day and that was it, lmao. I mean, I accidentally lined it in dark pink, so.. .That’s different, I guess?

[04/30/21] - Do Astral Seas dream of Ensorcled Sheep? Does the City know what Sheepleb is going to do? What crimes he may commit? Who knows! This was fan art of Critical Role ep. 134 if I remember correctly, right at the end when they jumped into the portal into the astral sea and Caleb was a sheep. Using my knowledge of the German language, I knew the word for “shit”, and had to use it.

[05/07/21] - This was already posted, but it’s going in here to dilinuate that it was drawn at this point. Also, aside from playing Miitopia, this is all I have to show for myself until the 12th.

[05/12/21] - Hex Maniac Ender challenges you to a Pokemon Battle! WIll you win against my team? My sis, who loves fairy types, pointed out to me that there’s a fairy girl and hex maniac duo, so I’d be the hex maniac. I spent... Over a week drawing this, because I basically had to redraw the Hex Maniac art from scratch in a higher quality size, and then draw myself over it. So... You can excuse the low-effort background for once. It was basically this, and then my birthday doodle from May 1st to May 12th, and then I took a break to draw up several D&D characters quickly for fullbody references.

[05/12/21] - Remember this art I made several months ago? I finally added my other two completed characters! I have three more named but without character sheet D&D characters, so for now this is just Kara, Axel, Golden Shadow, Kau, Cecillia, and Miri. Kress, Tempest, and Melia will have to wait until I make character sheets for them to be posted, and... For when I probably make more D&D characters. I have at least 9 additional, incomplete character ideas floating around, so... I’m never gonna be done this art, huh?

[05/12/21] - Speaking of D&D characters, did you know I’ve been making them as Miis in Miitopia? So here is their finished full body art next to their Miitopia self! Some of them look a little off (Golden Shadow, Cecillia) because of limitations of the editor and shading issues, some of them look a little off (Kau, Kress) because this is a human face canvas that I’m using to make a non-human face, and some of them (Melia, Axel) look REALLY GOOD. Common traits among my D&D characters include green eyes and tall. You wanna know why? Because I am tall and... despite having red eyes, I do have green eyes under the coloured contacts.

[05/15/21] - More D&D stuff! This is based around my D&D group’s current Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign where our Goliath Fighter, Nioh, ends up getting a little bit of hate for being cocky, and our little (well over 6′) hater, Axel, is just a man full of irritation. These are the tallest two characters of the group at the moment. Someone send help. Nioh belongs to one of the other D&D players, Axel (and his stupid additude) belongs to me.

[05/15/21] - This is what me playing D&D feels like. Me, the demon entity trapped inside the head of my D&D character, yelling at them to do things while the dice decide that they’re gonna get bopped a hundred times by a yeti and somehow still survive. This is also a reference to our first or second game where I just ran off like sixty feet to one side of the battle map to fight a Crag Cat and was just in Gay Baby Jail until like two turns later when I could run back to the others. I also drew him not in his winter gear even though this is a bit from when we were atop Kelvin’s Carin in an icy cave, so maybe that’s why he’s at low HP.

[05/15/21] - Melia has good gardening tips, such as Use A Mars Mii Trap To Hide A Body Because They Are Endangered And It Is Illegal To Dig Them Up. I love her a lot, because she’s the youngest of four, all four sisters based around the different seasons. She’s based around Autumn, so she’s all orange and yellow and brown and is so cute. Also she’s Chaotic Neutral, as if she didn’t need to be mildly more threatening.

[05/15/21] - Cecillia is my Tiefling gal who lived in a very northern town plagued by cold weather and snow, and Axel is my Pirate guy who spent most of his time further south on the high seas and warmer weather. So, naturally... I’ll use the guy more acclimatized to the hotter weather in the campaign where we spend 99% of it in the snow. She uses Tarot Cards as her spell focus, and I decided to sneak my other D&D characters onto her Tarot cards so naturally, Axel is The Hanged Man, given his backstory and personality. She’s a very cheerful and friendly Tiefling Necromancer of the Hexblade, so she’d for sure take care of those around her to ensure their success. Especially if they’re on her Tarot Cards, and their spirit comes to her aid when she asks for them.

[05/16/21] - Content Warning; Ryma thinks too much into local stupid moron’s lack of knowing how to answer a question and thinks too much into the reputation of Pirates. Poor Axel, man doesn’t know how to socialize with people who aren’t pirates and is used to being hostile towards everyone, so when he’s asked a question that his answer to is “uhh... no?”, he panics and ends up making a mistake that leads him to think that Ryma can read his mind. Ryma belongs to another of the D&D players. I guess me drawing all those spicy Cow Costumed OCs earlier just brought me to drawing Axel being a bottom in this, huh?

[05/16/21] - It’s Mermay, which means more OC drawings! Here’s Theo after drinking some potion that turned him into a mermaid, and Seven, tiredly, collecting his stupid boyfriend so that Lailah can fix the fact he’s turned into a mermaid. Mer!Theo is based around his sword’s colours of indigo-purple with red accents, which looks a little weird since Theo is the Blue one of the group, but... it looks cool, I guess. Seven’s just the same outfit as always, just no gloves this time.

--

And that’s it for the art dump! This was, frankly, MASSIVE. I’ll try and remember to upload both on Twitter and Tumblr at the same time, but... Ah... I have been drawing a fair bit. Just mostly sketches and linework that I haven’t finished and may not actually finish. If they’re not completed, I’ll dump them all into something at the end of the month or whatever. Maybe you’ll get the old sketch of the Axel face in panel 3 because in the sketch phase it was an Ahegao face, in the clean sketch it was a lip bite, and in the linework and final it’s just horny face. lmao.

Top ten things I have to remember for drawing: AXEL HAS A SCAR AND GREEN EYES. I remember his eye colour now, but if you look at his fullbody ref, he’s got brown eyes. And, naturally, I keep forgetting to put in his scar. He has more, but most of them are located in areas covered by his clothes. So if I ever draw him shirtless I guess I’ll have to place them somewhere.

Also maybe finish the reference sheets I have left to finish so I can post more of them, since I have two “Pets” completed (Roko and Mona’s nameless pet), but I have to do up Hunter, Warlock, Assassin, Akira, Myuut, and Stella. I’m betting when I do complete two more, it’ll be Hunter and Akira. Those two are the most fun to draw, at least.

[franeridart]

Anon said: How are those doodles?? Your "doodles" are a million times better than any of my finished drawings (i love them btw they are so f*cking cute!!!!)

AHHHH THANK YOU!!!! They really are doodles though haha 

Anon said: What are your OCs' names?? They are so cool I'm in love with them ♡♡

If you’re talking about the four in the latest original art post I made, then they’re Chris (with the undercut), Josh (with the long hair), Max (with the scarf) and Leo (with the eyepatch)!! I’m so so happy you like them, they’re old enough to be part of me by now so seeing them liked is always such a warm feeling!!

Anon said: Do you take prompts/suggestions? Sorry I don’t know your policy but would you consider drawing Bokuro ft jealous!Bo? I’ve always headcanoned that Kuroo is really popular with both boys and girls because of his confidence and effortless charm; whether he’s oblivious to this attention despite his intelligence or aware of it yet ignoring it is anyone’s guess~ I always look forward to your art and recently got into Haikyuu!! And damn, I do ship Kuroken too but you have me addicted to Bokuro now *_* ||  Aah finally got the FAQ open (blame mobile tumblr for being a bitch), and yup my last ask is def a suggestion and I hope you’ll consider using it~ Somewhat unrelated, do you regularly add stuff to your red bubble? I love your Kiribaku art but I’m a huge fan of Momo (&Todomomo) and Kuroo (&Bokuro), is there any chance you have something in the works with them up for sale soon? Thanks

GOSH thank you so much for liking my old hq stuff enough to ask for more!! I’m not sure if I’ll get back to drawing bokuro soon, honestly? So I can’t promise that if I’ll go through with the suggestion it’ll be soon, but I’ll definitely keep it in mind for when the mood strikes!! And about the shop, I add to it whenever I feel there’s enough stuff piled up to? Though I plan to start adding more often than that from now on - I don’t really have anything for momo and kuroo to add on rb that isn’t already there, but as soon as I’ll have more of either of them I’ll remember to put them up! Thank you so so much for the interest in buying from me!!

Anon said: Ok but that Kirishima art was absolutely amazing

THANK YOU!!!!! 

Anon said: Hi! First I really really love your art and I make this little muffed scream every time I see your stuff pop up on me feed. You’re amazing!! Second, can I ask how you do shadows? I can never make them look right or lay across my character correctly. Yours always look so amazing

Thank you!!!!!! I actually used to have that same problem with shadows? However much I kept track of where the lightsource was and the shapes I was working with it always looked wrong, somehow - the way I fixed it was by adding more shadows, actually. If you’ll pick any of my colored pieces you’ll see I don’t really put down lights all that often, which means the base color ends up being my light color too, and everything else is just shadows getting darker the further I go from where the light hits the object I’m shading - generally, I use a soft tool like a brush or a marker to very roughly put down where I want the shadows to go, and then using the same tool I smudge and darken it till it looks right to me. I can’t really explain it any better than this? But I have a small tutorial for how I do this in my art tips tag, if you wanna give it a look!

Anon said: I come back to look at your art almost every day, especially when I’m feeling down; so I’d just like to thank you for posting your beautiful art for all of us to experience. On behalf of all of your followers, Thank you! :,)))

Anon you’re gonna make me cryyyyy!!!!!! ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; thank you so so much, both for this ask and for liking my stuff to begin with! <3

Anon said: Your anatomy is so so so so good! And don’t even get me started on your colours! Perfection

GOSH I still have a long long way to go, but thank you so much for thinking so!!! It makes all the effort feel worth it! ( TT^TT)<3

Anon said: I love everything about ur art! from the sketches to the full colored pieces, it's the highlight of my week whenever you post! I was actually wondering where you get the ideas for clothes! I always see the variety and was wondering if you came up with them or are they from somewhere ^v^ keep up the amazing work!!

It’s a mixture of both, actually! I like to look at clothing, both irl (on people I see, or stuff in the shops I visit, or even pics and movies and tv shows!) and drawn too - in anime and illustrations and manga and cartoons! I look at them and try to remember how they’re made, and then when I draw I think about it all and come up with my own by mixing stuff I liked from all those things - unless I see a piece of clothing that’d work just right as it is on a character, in which case I just draw it either as best as I can from memory or, if I have it, using a ref! It’s one of the things I find the most fun when drawing, I’m glad to hear you like what I come up with!! Thank you so much!!!

Anon said: Thoughts on KiriTodo? Because I. Am. Hooked.

I like it!! I don’t actively ship it, since my only actual ship for Kirishima is kiribaku, but I like the look of him with todo, aesthetically, and their friendship is highly entertaining to me, which means their potential relationship in a romantic setting is too - and, as we’ve seen with my very random dip into the non-existent kirijiro fandom, that’s more than enough for me to decide maybe I’ll wanna go and draw for them, one of these days haha

Anon said: Haven't seen KiriSero or KamiSero Fusions yet! Got some ideas for those? (Filling out the Bakusquad pentagon XD)

I really never got around to drawing those, did I! That’s actually surprising, hadn’t you pointed that out I’d have never realized - I’m not doing fusions anymore right now, but maybe I could make an exception for these two............ if the inspiration strikes, why not!

Anon said: Did you see the newer bnha episodes?! Miritama made it feel like a shoujo... (In a good way)

THIS IS SO OLD OH GOD sorry I didn’t get around to answering this sooner!!! The miritama relationship is really wonderful, isn’t it? They make me cry so much, soft warm boys, so in love............. TT’’’TT <3<3<3

Anon said: This whole year has been a trainwreck for me and your blog was one of the few things that stayed constant, so thank you for being my favorite spot on the internet. Hope you keep drawing and I love your art so much!

AH, THANK YOU! I really really hope I’ll keep on drawing too!!! I’ll do my best 💪💪

Anon said: Some days I’ll just sit in bed at 2 am and be like “I need a hug” and then I read ur blog and it’s like a safe mental hug. So thanks for that.

That’s!!!!!!!!!! so sweet oh my god!!!!!!!!! ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; I’m so glad my stuff can make you feel warm like that, anon!! <3<3

Anon said: So it says you don't do requests in your faq does that include commissions as well

Not right now!! Maybe sometime at the beginning of next month, ✨Stay Tuned✨

Anon said: Hellooo hope you are having a good day. It's always so fun to scroll through your blogs and enjoy your art 💕💕 Idk if it's a little weird to ask but I also love your old aokaga art and I was wondering if you had any interest left in that fandom or would ever consider drawing for it again? xx

Gods, I really don’t know? It’s been so long since I’ve last engaged with anything related to knb........ I still do love the ship though, so, maybe? I really have no clue, I might though!! Thank you so much for liking even such old things from me!!!!

[tysonbaerrie]

you can see it with the lights out

Written for the Bennguin Quarantine Fest with the prompt “I can’t feel my legs” from this prompt list. 

It happens quicker than Jamie has time to process. 

They’re in OT, fighting desperately for the points they need. Jamie’s on the bench, but Tyler’s on a breakaway, one of the Bruins’ D-men close behind, and the home crowd is on their feet screaming as he draws closer to the goal. Jamie sees the stick, watches as they hook Tyler around the ankle and pull, sending him twisting and flying into the goal. He slams into the post head first, and the crowd falls silent as Tyler, the goal, and Rask slam into the boards. The goal collapses on top of Tyler, while Rask somehow manages to roll away. 

The crowd falls silent, Tyler doesn’t move, and Jamie launches himself off the bench as the trainer, Mick, races onto the ice. He’s stopped before he can get to Tyler by Guri and Miro. He watches as Pastrnak and one of the refs lift the goal off of Tyler, allowing Mick access. He doesn’t move Tyler, and he doesn’t seem to respond to any of Mick’s questions. When he calls for a stretcher, Jamie breaks through his teammates’ hold and skates over, dropping down onto a knee so he can hover over Tyler. 

“Ty?” He asks, and Mick shakes his head. 

“He’s unresponsive.” He tells him, and Jamie feels the floor drop out beneath him. He steps back enough to let the medics put a brace on Tyler’s neck and slide the backboard beneath him. When they lift him up, Tyler groans but doesn’t open his eyes. Jamie watches them cart him off the ice, doesn’t even realize he’s followed them down the tunnel and into the locker room until the rest of the team follows suit a few minutes later. Technically, according to the refs, Tyler’s puck went in before he crashed into the goal, so they won the game. Jamie could care less, stripping off his uniform and dumping it in the basket before taking the quickest shower of his life and changing into his street clothes. Bones and Jim are waiting when he exits the locker room, and he attempts to barrel past them when he’s stopped by Jim’s hand on his chest. 

“I have to go.” Jamie tells them through gritted teeth. 

“We need to talk.” Jim tells him. “If Seguin’s out…”

“We don’t know anything for sure yet.” Bones points out. 

“He had to be carried out unconscious on a stretcher!” Jim snaps. “We need to formulate a plan.”

“Right now, my plan is to go to the hospital and check on Tyler.”

“He’s being taken care of, Jamie.” Bones assures him. “Right now…”

“No, right now, I’m leaving and going to the hospital.”

“Jamie.” Jim interrupts him. “I know you take your captain duties very seriously…”

“This isn’t about the C!” 

“I know he’s also your friend…”

“He’s more than that!” The words escape Jamie’s mouth before he can stop them. He drags his hand through his damp hair, feels his breathing quicken as he realizes what he’s done. There’s no way to back out of this one, no way to explain it away. He swallows the lump growing in his throat and stares at the ground. “He’s-we’re together.”

He doesn’t dare look up until he hears Jim clear his throat. He’s surprised that neither look angry, really - more shocked than anything. 

“You’re telling me that you and Seguin are...in a relationship?” Jim finally asks, and Jamie nods.

“Yes.” He confirms. “For years.”

“And you didn’t say anything?”

“It wasn’t anybody’s business. Still isn’t.”

“You don’t think this is something we should have known?” 

“No, but now you know. And I have to go.” Jim nods and steps aside enough to let Jamie pass. Before he can go, however, he grabs Jamie’s bicep. “We’ll need to talk about this, but I want you to know that this organization will support you both, whatever you two decide to do.”

Jamie nods and practically jogs to the parking garage. 

The hospital’s emergency department is packed when he arrives, and he’s grateful to be recognized for once when the intake nurse’s eyes widen and she ushers him back to the patient area. Tyler is asleep when he steps in, Mick speaking quietly to a doctor in the corner. Both of them look up when he steps through the sliding door, Mick thanking the doctor before he leaves. 

“How is he?” Jamie asks. “He still hasn’t woken up?”

“He did, briefly, but they put him back under while they assessed him and to keep him still.”

“And?”

“He has a concussion but that’s not the real problem. He has a crushed vertebrae. They’ll need to go in and repair his spine and they need to do it quickly.”

“Spinal surgery?” Jamie can barely process the words. 

“We’ll know more after that.” Mick replies. “We need to contact his people. Does he have a girlfriend?”

“No, uh, no he doesn’t.”

“Do you know who his emergency contact is?”

“Me.” Jamie replies simply. “I’ll call his mom and sisters.” It’s a dismissal and Mick knows it. 

“Okay, great. I’ll be outside but the nurses should be here soon to prep him for surgery.” Jamie waits until Mick slides the door shut before he collapses into the seat next to Tyler’s bed. They’ve been through injuries before, but Jamie feels a fear course through him like never before. He places his hand on top of Tyler’s, afraid to lift it so he can hold it the way he wants to. Tyler is still - so still- beneath him, and that’s what’s most disturbing to Jamie. Tyler is never still, even in sleep. This is unnatural and Jamie almost wants to recoil from him. 

“It’s going to be okay.” Jamie assures him, reaching up to push a stray curl off of his boyfriend’s face. “You’re going to be fine.”

“Sir?” A nurse asks gently as she steps into the room. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave while we prep him for surgery.”

“I can’t stay?”

“Are you family?” She asks, and Jamie’s gaze falls back to Tyler.

“Yeah.” He replies softly. “He’s my family.”

---

The surgery takes hours. Or perhaps minutes. Jamie loses track of time in the small waiting room they settle him into when they wheel Tyler off. Jackie texts him to tell him that she’ll be on the next flight out of Toronto, and Jamie promises to text her with updates. The only other person he responds to is Jordie, but after that he turns his phone off. Klinger arrives about half an hour after they take Tyler. He rests a hand on Jamie’s shoulder, and Jamie can only lean forward and rest his head in his hands. Rads walks in ten minutes later, taking the open seat on the other side of Jamie. 

“They say something?” He asks, and Jamie shakes his head. 

“They said the surgery could take a few hours. It’s his spine.”

“He be okay, Chubbs.” Rads assures him. “Seggy strong.”

Before Jamie can reply, Bish and Pavs enter the room, followed closely by Dobby and Jason. The massive hockey players fill the small room, but they’re silent for the most part. Rads and Dobby occasionally converse in muttered Russian, and Bish and Klinger disappear long enough to grab coffee for everyone. Jamie tries to turn down the offered cup, but Bish only shoves it into his hand and walks back to his seat. 

When the doctor comes out, Jamie flies out of his chair and is across the small room in three strides to meet him. The others all stand, and the surgeon looks appropriately intimidated by their presence.   

“Mr. Benn?” He asks, and Jamie nods. 

“Yes, how is Tyler?”

“He came through the surgery as well as can be expected. There was significant damage to the T12 vertebra as well as some less severe compression of the L1. We were able to repair and stabilize the L1, but there was only so much that could be done for the T12.”

“So, what now?” Jamie asks, and he doesn’t miss the doctor’s hesitance. Bish comes up behind Jamie, offering silent support. 

“Now, we wait. We wait for him to wake up, then we wait for the swelling to go down and see how severe the damage is. It’ll be a long road, and I’m afraid that at this time I can’t give a better prognosis than that.”

“Can I see him?”

“He’s still in recovery, so it’ll be a few more hours. I suggest you go home and get some rest.”

“I’m fine.” Jamie snaps, and the doctor sighs. 

“Mr. Benn, I know you’re concerned about your friend...”

“Not just friend.” Rads interrupts him, coming up on the other side of Jamie. “He’s Boyfriend. Partner. He want to stay, he stay. We all stay. He our teammate, too.”

The surgeon seems to appraise all of them for a moment before nodding. 

“Okay. I’ll have a nurse come and get you when he’s out of recovery. Only one visitor at a time, though.”

“Thank you.” Jamie replies, running his hand over his face before staring at the ceiling. He can feel the panic rising, his breathing growing heavier. 

“I need...uh, I have to-”

“Tell us what you need, Chubbs.” Pavs tells him, pushing into his space enough to grab Jamie’s attention. “We’ve got you.”

“Uh, the dogs. Someone needs to go home and feed the dogs.”

“On it.” Jason tells him. “Keys?”

“Uh...Marshall gets a special kind. The instructions are in the kitchen pantry. I’ll call the dog sitter tomorrow to take over.” Jamie hands him the keys and Jason leaves with a quick clap on Jamie’s shoulder. 

Once Jason’s gone, the room falls silent again as they wait and wait and wait. Jamie wants to climb the walls, wants to scream and yell and punch someone until he can feel something other than the unbearable panic and sadness and heartbreak that was sure to overwhelm him at any moment. He wants to go home, wants to walk through the door and find Tyler waiting for him. Wants to wrap him up in his arms because that’s the only time in Jamie’s entire life that he feels safe. Wants to know that Tyler is safe and not possibly dying on an operating table. 

When the nurse finally comes, when he’s finally allowed back into the patient rooms, Jamie’s not prepared for seeing Tyler asleep on the hospital bed, machines surrounding him. He stirs when Jamie walks into the room, groaning and groggy. Jamie pulls a chair as close to the bed as he can, wrapping his hand around Tyler’s. 

“‘amie?” Tyler asks, and Jamie brings Tyler’s hand to rest against his cheek. 

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“Happen?”

“There was an accident. You hurt your back.” Tyler groans again and nods. He seems to calm for a moment until his eyes flash open, yanking his hand away from Jamie as the machines around him begin to beep frantically. Jamie hits the button for the nurse before he stands to hover over Tyler.

“Ty?” Ty, babe, you have to calm down.”

“I can’t…” Tyler begins, shaking his head. “I can’t feel my legs.”

Jamie feels the breath leave his lungs in an instance, but he pushes that aside to cradle Tyler’s face in his hands. 

“There’s swelling from the surgery, Ty. You’ll be okay. Just breathe, okay?”

“Jamie, but I can’t-”

“Please step aside for a moment.” The nurse tells him, the doctor following closely behind and they get to work. 

---

The next few weeks are a blur of activity and yet Jamie remembers little of it. Tyler’s in the hospital for three days, then a rehab facility for a week, then Jamie finally gets to bring him home. He has their bed moved down to the office on the ground floor, and a wheelchair ramp is installed on the front steps. Jamie feels a churning in his gut every time he sees or thinks about anything to do with Tyler’s injury, though he is determined not to let it show in front of him. 

Tyler’s angry and bitter, Jamie can tell, at his lack of progress. He still hasn’t regained feeling in his legs. Despite the doctors telling them that Tyler should heal in time, there’s little progress and Jamie knows that Tyler is frustrated. Tyler’s hockey career is over, an unspoken truth between them. Over before its time, before they could reach their goals, lift the Cup together. It’s a truth that Jamie has trouble swallowing, but he pushes his own selfish feelings aside to support his boyfriend. 

Tyler stares at the ramp after Jamie gets him out of the car and settled into the chair. His face is hard and cold, so different from what Jamie’s used to. After a moment, Tyler turns his gaze to the ground and wheels the chair up the ramp to the front door. Jamie follows, unlocking the door and letting himself enjoy having Tyler back in their home again. Tyler heads straight for the living room, clearly searching for something. 

“Where are the dogs?”

“Your mom is picking them up from Bish’s house this afternoon. I thought you could use some time to settle in.”

“Get used to the new normal?” Jamie freezes at that, looking over at Tyler. 

“Ty…”

“I know, I know. I just...what if I never get better? What if I never walk again?”

“You’ll get better. The doctors-”

“The doctors don’t know everything! They said I should’ve regained feeling in my legs by now at the very least, and I haven’t. We have to face reality. The truth is, I might be in this chair for the rest of my life.”

“Then we’ll deal with it, together.”

“Jamie…” Tyler’s voice is heartbreaking, and Jamie’s filled with a sudden panic and fear. “Jamie, I can’t ask you to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Stay with me!” Tyler snaps. “This isn’t what you signed up for?”

“What? What I signed up for?”

“Taking care of a cripple!”

Jamie can’t stop himself from slamming his hand against the kitchen counter. 

“You really think I would leave you because you’re hurt?” Jamie’s voice is laced with hurt and dangerously soft. “You really think that little of me?”

“Jamie…”

“No! My turn to talk. We’ve been together for five years, and you think I would just, what, walk away because things are hard? I love you, asshole.”

Jamie looks up to see tears brimming in Tyler’s eyes, and he stomps away to their new bedroom, digging through his sock drawer until he can find the small box he stashed away there. When he comes back to the living room, Tyler’s eyes snap to his. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispers harshly, and Jamie nods. 

“I know.”

“It’s just...so hard.” Jamie crosses over to the couch, taking a seat across from Tyler and grasping his wrist, dropping the box into his hand. 

“I know it’s hard. But, when I fell in love with you, I didn’t think it would never suck. That we wouldn’t have bad times. But I love you enough to know that there’s no one else I’d want to go through the bad times with.”

Jamie gestures down to the box, and a shaky breath escapes Tyler when he opens it and finds a simple silver band inside. 

“When did you buy this?”

“Two days after your accident.” Jamie answers. “When I thought that there was a chance that I could lose you...I don’t know, I couldn’t remember anymore why we were waiting.”

Tyler’s laugh is wet, but he’s smiling when he looks up at Tyler.

“So,” Jamie asks, and takes the box from Tyler’s hand. “Will you?”

Tyler’s lips on his is all the answer he needs. 

[danwhobrowses]

WWE Royal Rumble 2021 - Initial Thoughts

I know I’m late, but employment is still a thing, and I had to prioritize that over an all-nighter, but it’s time for the Royal Rumble, one of the more exciting shows of WWE’s schedule, so let’s get on with it!

Spoilers for Royal Rumble, you have been Warned

I might not invest too much in kickoff matches but the Women’s Tag Match was not a good time

It was fine before the end, but who the hell decided that Charlotte should control 90% of the champions’ offense and have the hot tag!? Asuka is the RAW WOMEN’S CHAMPION, not Charlotte. After the tag Asuka literally had one spot and she was dead, completely taken out of the match for *checks notes* being thrown over the Announcer’s Table...you know that thing several wrestlers come back from easily.

The finish was just too much too, Ric distraction didn’t work, Lacey distraction didn’t work, Kirufuda Clutch didn’t work but then the brass knuckles did. Too much.

And why TF are we putting titles back on Nia!? We should’ve just given the titles to the Riotts, or the winner of the Women’s Dusty Classic. It also cuts me deep that Asuka and Shayna are treated this way, even as champion Asuka is a side character to Charlotte T_T

Main show though and I don’t like the package and interviews between entrances

Drew vs Goldberg was just...meaningless.

It was cringy enough that Cole had to spout drivel to make 60 year old Goldberg seem strong but to have Drew be ‘injured’ by a barricade spear - something much more tired wrestlers have and will get back up from in less time and continue a longer match - was daft. Also saying that Goldberg’s spear or jackhammer is the best move of all WWE is stupid, it was a WCW thing

Thank God Drew Won, but the post-match does remind you of the meaningless circumstances this feud came about. Suddenly Goldberg is okay with Drew’s same manners of respect

I mean, Carmella’s entrance and gear is cool, but do you think it eats at Corey a little that Carmella’s ‘behind the curtain’ bit is a tad...red light district?

Sasha’s promo didn’t hit for me unfortunately

Reginald didn’t deserve to be ejected for that! He caught Sasha and get beaten up for it

Jesus Carmella! Sasha got barely any of that dive

Screeching and faffing aside, Carmella got a good showing...I do hate quick tap outs in title matches though

Sami cuts a good promo, but his content wasn’t exactly the best. New Day are hardly the management’s faves, it’s taken this long for E to get a singles run, Fans literally had to Yes Movement their way into giving Kofi the world title.

New Day’s Brodie gear was good though

Bad Bunny as the ‘Biggest Latin Artist’? Is Cole for real? I didn’t even know who he was before today

If the song is about Booker T then why is he dancing around GI Bro?

Come on Book, you hang on the Sucka! That’d be like if the Rock just went ‘If ya smell what the Rock is cooking’ without the drags or pauses

Ric’s ‘with a tear in my eye’ promo was after the Rumble though...

It’s actually a sad stat that just over half of the Rumble winners win titles

No Morrison segment for the escape spot!? He did it as much as Kofi dammit!

Sorry Greatest Royal Rumble is not canon for me

This Stat Attack has taken far too long

I’m okay with Mike Rome but couldn’t a woman have announced the Women’s Rumble? Where’s Lillian at!?

NAOOOOOOOMIIIIIIIIIIIIII GIRL WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?

That hair is amazing as well

I know you can’t say it, but we all remember that Benoit won the rumble in the first two as well

Was...Bianca wearing earrings on her entrance, she looked like she was taking them off

Billie actually had the right idea, can’t be in the match until you enter the ring, it’s clever stuff

That tank did not look like it was meant to turn that direction XD

It actually surprises me every time how tall Shotzi is, I always imagine her short

Billie no...not with Shayna

The piped boos are highly unrealistic to boo even a heel Toni Storm

Shotzi eliminated and then horrible singer Jillian comes in? Urrrrgh, Bad Singer Jillian was terrible

Wrestling wise she hasn’t missed a beat though

Billie’s surprisingly being a highlight here with actual narra-OHMYSHITITSVICTORIA

Gear was a bit meh but Victoria definitely can still go

Oh Peyton the purple looks good on you, and her Widow’s Peak was not bad at all

Ah, good for Santana, for a moment I thought it said Santina and got a very bad chill

Damn Liv, Speed Machine!

Ooof, the betrayal is real Billie

THIS IS MY BRUTALITY!

Somehow I’m genuinely upset by every elimination so far, good job!

Aaaaaand then they got rid of Victoria and brought on Charlotte to immediately take out Rhea -_-

That was a clever move from Bayley but damn Ruby landed hard

Are we seeing a Bayley/Peyton team? Or is she just eliminating the Riotts for revenge for Billie, but also Liv Nooooo!

Torrie now, eh okay

Ouch for Dana

Lacey...no, this ain’t working

Poor Peyton, her elimination was a side chapter

And we missed Bayley’s elimination!? For Shame

Mickie! Good to see ya! Aaaaand being beaten by Charlotte...

Nikki Cross is back too! Hopefully they find a good story for her

Alicia Fox? I guess she sobered back into the good gra...R-Truth? No

Oh yeah, Humberto is a thing

Jerry shut the fuck up!

The 24/7 stuff was super unnecessary, we did not need to take focus off this match

Lacey eliminating Mickie, rude.

Dakota should’ve gotten more time, she barely lasted a minute

Reginald again deserves better

See Tamina vs Rhea would be exciting...if Tamina was booked better

Naomi’s chemistry with Bianca is really insane right now

Lana *reminded of her feud with Shayna and Nia* Also Lana *goes for Rhea*

That was a hard tackle on Alexa by Rhea...aaaaand she’s eliminated mid ‘transformation’ a bit worthless for me

Road Warrior Ember Moon! And right into the Eclipse that’s the good shit

Baszler probably shouldn’t have eliminated Lacey story-wise

The Betrayal is real for Tamina as well

What’s with the crazy camera cuts!?

Nia eliminating Baszler? Nah...

Hold on Cole, baiting Nia over the ropes isn’t a ‘tremendous elimination’

The betrayal is real for Lana too, Nattie sure shrugged off that double assault

I get that the narrative is that Charlotte has beaten both Bianca and Rhea before, but to hang against both of them after already being in a match and hanging on from two apron attacks was daft. Stop making her super strong, she’s mega talented yes but giving her the Brock Lesnar energy does her no favours

That close call though with Rhea and Bianca was great, need more spots of two wrestlers about to be eliminated at the same time

The final bit of chain wrestling too was great, that’s what you need at the final part of a rumble, the mini-match

I had Rhea as my win prediction but am more than happy for Bianca, who was my second choice. Winning at No. 3 is great and her emotional promo just gets her more over. Bianca vs Sasha’s gonna be wild too

Overall the Women’s Rumble was good, most of the women got shine and there were a few mini stories too, do wish that more time was given to some women and that Sonya was in the rumble but the returns were good and most of the eliminations got me good

Miz talking about guaranteeing a championship run like he didn’t lose the last cash-in and didn’t have a chance to cash in previously this night when Drew was ‘reeling’ from the barricade spear.

I reiterate that I wish Sonya was in the rumble, but do like her endorsement of Bianca

Again, this 24/7 stuff is wrong place and time right now

Last Man StANDing Match for the UniVERSal Championship

Cole, there is Champion’s Advantage. Triple H vs Michaels Last Man Standing, neither men made the 10 so Trips kept the title, 17 years ago. Royal Rumble 2004.

See, this is where a Finisher Spotfest works, because it’s not about pinfalls it’s about keeping people down

The camera switches are not doing good on this portion of the side of the thunderdome

Yes, attacking the knees, this is the Cerebral ‘rope breaks with his pinkie finger’ Owens I like to see

Ooof the Golf Cart, a la Kane and Stadium Stampede

Why is this training area just like a second arena

Lil’ running ref in the background

Right into that conveniently placed mini-ladder

Not the forklift! Think of Judy Bagwell!

Oh that curtain is the thing Becky took a photo of! I mean she was always gonna be backstage

Corey before the match ‘there must be a winner’, Corey after Owens went through the stage LED ‘The ref should consider stopping the match’

Did the Ciampa move there to stand up

I don’t think you’re allowed to use a Ref Bump that way

Then the Second Ref restarts the count and stops at 5!? If this doesn’t come back next SD it’ll be a misstep

It was a physical match, not the best I think the finish brought it down. The problem is that KO has lost 3 times now and the last time is a botch finish, and we can’t have him lose again - the poor guy needs a win

ON THIS DAY, I SEE CLEARLY!

I will say this immediately, revealing Edge and Orton as 1 and 2 beforehand was a terrible idea, just because you don’t have a live crowd doesn’t mean the people watching from home can’t be surprised

‘Number 3 is the worst number to draw on average’ - Belair just won at No. 3

Ali at 4? Then went after Edge and not Orton?

Sami, just don’t get in Orton’s face

Refs what are you doing? No rules in Rumble, where were you with Nia and Shayna with that logic

‘What does Shin need to do to be more successful?’ - for one not face AJ Styles, he is still a tag, US and IC champ as well as a RR winner, that’s quite successful

Carlito finally shows after the Legends Night tease and yes those are some abs

So...Randy’s just sleeping with this knee injury

Big E enters with some snappy camera angles again

I was hoping for more Ali - especially since Ricochet came immediately after - buy angry E was nice to see

Wait is that Elias’ entrance? Where’s the guitar strum?

Priesty, wonder if this is his main roster call

What DJ leaves his equipment on stage anyway?

‘The biggest star in the world in the music business’ - for real?

‘I’ve heard of flying squirrels but flying bunnies!?’ - Corey you need to watch Tokyo Joshi Pro, they got a flying sugar rabbit

To quote Ross Tweddell, MMMmmm Riddle...does not do it for me

Stop with the camera cuts I beg of you!

Mayor of Knox County!?

Ricochet eliminated by Kane, le sigh

The betrayal is real for DBry

Big Elim for Priesty though

‘Now it’s a Royal Rumble’ - reminder that Edge is a KOTR winner too, and that Nakamura is the King of Strong Sty-oh and Corbin eliminated him :/ what was the gauntlet about if you’re gonna Corbin him?

Otis’ new gear is slick

aaaaand Corbin’d again

Big Dom Fuck im Uhhhhhh Spinebuster’d

Damn he got him though

Dang that bounce sound from DBry

Bobby no why you gotta do Dom like that!?

Hurricane back from his Gangrel crossing and disposing Sammy Guevara’s broken body in Elite Deletion to do another rumble

One of these days, he’ll hit that Chokeslam and shit will go wild

Christian! This time getting the more emphatic reaction

Oh that smile, that hits you in the chest cavity...then Riddle ruins it

Rey comes in and WWE made him an advertisement ¬_¬

Edward James Omos what are you doing? well...I know what he’s doing, IC feud between AJ and E

Edward James Omos fuck you for eliminating Rey

The betrayal is real for Shamu

Cole how did you know it was Seth before his entrance hit?

I don’t think we were supposed to pick up Shamu welcoming Christian back but that was sweet

Then finally BWOAR

And Bwoar eliminates Cesaro, what was the point of his push? (it’s because his contract’s nearly up isn’t it?)

Again with the camera switching

Seth No! And where’s the boos pipe music!? DBry was a heavy favourite, that would’ve caused heat

Can’t believe Mmm Riddle lasted ahead of DBry

I didn’t forget about Orton, but the finish was good, that Orton tease got us good

It was a decent rumble, in hindsight you could tell Edge was winning given how they put express focus on Michaels winning at number on in the stat attack, Edge being face in peril for the first 10 entrants and Cole reminding us how long Edge has been in there

I don’t at all hate the end result, though I do question whether it was the best choice in the long run. Edge had his rumble win returning from injury already and throwing more legends at Drew does imply a heavy lack of depth in the current roster. Edge didn’t really need the win, but I’m not disappointed in him winning

The Men’s Rumble itself wasn’t as good as the women’s I don’t think, a lot of favourites of mine were unceremoniously dumped out quickly, any layered storytelling didn’t get enough time and it did feel a little by the numbers, almost a microcosm of modern WWE booking

Overall it was still a decent PPV, happy with the winners of the rumbles and that’s mostly all we need from a Royal Rumble. The Road to Wrestlemania starts here

[mimi-cee-hq]

Yahaba’s Type - Yahaba x Reader (Part 2 of 2)

[Masterlist]

[Part 1] [Part 2]

Summary:

Although Y/n was known as the clown friend, she wasn’t very comfortable around Yahaba. But that started to change when she saw him awkwardly practising his tosses by himself.

Match-up Request:

Hi I’m here for a match up request~ I’m tall (about 1.80) with blonde middle length hair & light brown eyes I’m a bit plump (usually thin but lately I’ve put on some weight) & sometimes I get self conscious about it 😬 been playing volleyball for 10 years as a middle blocker & my team’s ace ☺️ I also enjoy drawing a lot whenever I have free time Im THAT clown friend who gets really happy whenever people laugh with my jokes & I try to cheer people up that way whenever I see someone being down -🦋

So I found out that actually can save my answers as drafts (but only in the app??). *shrugs* Still learning how to use Tumblr.

Yahaba’s Type - Yahaba x Reader

Words: 2,066

Yahaba took a glance at the second floor before their practice match had started. As they warmed up for the match, he felt like his serves and sets were on point today. He was glad that his setting practice with Y/n had paid off. Chiaki and Y/n decided to watch their game today when Chiaki heard about it. She wanted to know what kind of teammates Kyotani had and wondered how they treated him. Y/n came along as well, which was probably the first time she had ever watched their games. But there were times when he wondered if she should have come.

The match started off with Yahaba’s serve. After bouncing the ball a couple of times, he threw the ball in front of him and ran up to it for his jump serve. But as it hit the top of the net, he held his breath until the volleyball had fallen onto the opponent’s side of the court. He let out a sigh of relief. But that didn’t last long because he heard Y/n shouting at the top of her lungs. “Kya~~! You’re so cool, Yahaba!”

Yahaba quickly turned his head up to her direction to see her laughing her head off. He got a bit annoyed at her since he knew she was just messing around. She wouldn’t have been impressed by his jump serve because she knew how to do one as well. Also, getting a point from a net serve already wasn’t very cool in itself. She was probably just mimicking Oikawa’s fan girls that he had told her about. Now he regretted ever telling her about them.

He gave her a smirk just before his next serve. He made sure she was still watching him. His next serve was a powerful one that he aimed at the other team’s spike-haired libero. When the libero missed his serve, he gave Y/n a smug grin. In response, she gave him a thumbs up and smiled.

“Well someone is showing off again,” said Kindaichi. Yahaba straightened up, remembering that he was in the middle of a match.

“What did you expect?” commented Kunimi. “He’s always been like that.”

As Yahaba got the ball back and walked back to the serving line, Y/n yelled out, “You’d better not miss your next serve!” She then said with a laugh, “Otherwise I’ll expose all of your secrets!”

Yahaba flinched at the thought. He didn’t want his team to know how much he had been practising outside of their usual practices.

“Since when have they been close?” Watari asked Kyotani. He just shrugged in response.

Yahaba didn’t expect them to notice that they were more comfortable with each other now. But with how Y/n was treating him, he shouldn’t have been surprised. The two of them had unintentionally continued to practise with each other for the past few months. He wasn’t planning on continuing their practices together, but he saw how much he had improved because of them.

When their opponents were able to get their first point, Seijoh got ready to receive their serve and attack. But when Yahaba set the ball to Kyotani, it was too high for him to reach. Luckily, Kunimi was somehow able to cover for him, even though it gave the other team a chance ball.

The next few times Yahaba tried to set, he kept on messing up. His fingers felt stiff. He didn’t know what was wrong because he had felt great during the warm up. Yahaba started to feel frustrated because he knew he was failing his team and they needed him. He was now their starting setter and captain. How were they supposed to beat Karasuno the next time around if he was already screwing up this match? He started to wonder if all of the extra practice with Y/n was useless.

Suddenly, he heard Y/n yell out a cheer. “Go, go, let’s go, let’s go, Dateko!”

The court was silent as they stared at the second floor to where Y/n stood. The Seijoh players were the first to break the silence with their laughter.

“What the heck is wrong with her?” said Kindaichi while he laughed hard enough for tears to come out of his eyes.

“Not only is she not cheering for us, but we’re not even playing against Dateko!” added Watari as he held his stomach while laughing.

Yahaba covered his laughter with his mouth. He also found it hilarious but he was equally embarrassed by her. She must have noticed that he was starting to panic. The rest of the team was doing well except for him

As the rest of the court continued to laugh, Y/n justified her actions by saying that their cheer was catchy. She even sang along when her own team played a match against them. She thought it was a lot better than their school’s cheer.

Yahaba then saw the referee remove the whistle from her mouth and turned to Y/n. “Y/n! If you disrupt this match again, you’ll be kicked out and you’ll have to run a hundred laps around the school during next practice!”

Y/n stood up straight and replied, “Yes, ma'am!” She pretended to zip her mouth to show that she had understood.

“I forgot that we got the girls’ team’s coach as the ref,” Kindaichi mentioned to Kunimi.

“If she’s the team’s captain, it must be pretty chaotic with her there,” added Kunimi.

Yahaba felt a bit of second-hand embarrassment from what Y/n just did. But because of her joke, he was able to calm down.

He realized how cold his fingers were. As he breathed on his hands, he remembered when he had jammed his fingers at the community center. Y/n had taken his hands and worried over them. He remembered how soft and warm her hands had been. So even though Yahaba had been trying to warm up his hands, he felt his cheeks heat up instead.

After the practice match had ended, Yahaba walked off the court and grabbed his water bottle for a drink. Y/n walked down from the second floor and the tall middle blocker from the other team approached her.

“We should go to the udon place that’s nearby,” stated the intimidating guy with a large build.

“Oh,” said Y/n with a nervous smile. “I’m not really interested.”

“But it’s really good!” he continued to insist.

Yahaba walked up to the guy who was pestering Y/n and tried to stare him down even though he was more than two meters tall. “She said she’s not interested,” Yahaba sternly told him. It’s not like he hadn’t dealt with troublesome people before. He didn’t want Y/n to deal with him by herself.

“What are you doing?” asked Y/n as she raised an eyebrow. “He’s a friend from junior high.” She continued to explain that a group of them were planning a reunion. She had said she wasn’t interested because she didn’t really like udon. She was more of a rice person.

“Ugh, this is so embarrassing,” Yahaba thought to himself.

“Sorry Hyakuzawa,” Y/n apologized with a smile. Kindaichi and Kunimi snickered at Yahaba for trying to be cool. He just told them to shut up.

As Yahaba walked away from the scene, Kyotani leaned on the wall with his arms crossed. “So what happened to having a type?” he asked with a smirk. He still held a grudge against him after all these months.

“Ugh, I don’t have one, okay?” Yahaba responded in frustration.

*****

After another night at the community center, Y/n plopped on her bed out of exhaustion. Her mom scolded her to at least take a shower. She did what she was told and got ready for bed. She checked her phone and saw a couple of texts from Yahaba.

Yahaba: Did you get home okay?

Yahaba: Since you’re not replying, I’ll just go sleep now. Night.

There was also another text that had appeared about an hour later.

Yahaba: I hope you dream of me

Y/n especially blushed at the last one. She didn’t remember him being a flirt. She knew there was no way he meant that. But a silly grin still formed on her mouth as she tried to lay on her bed to sleep. Unfortunately, it turned out that she was right. The next morning she saw one more text from him.

Yababa: I’m sorry! My sister texted that! Ignore that last one!

She knew that she should have known better. She sighed. It was harder to get over her growing crush on him.

She took a second look at the texts. She realized that he must have been exhausted for his sister to have the opportunity to use his phone. She wondered if they should cut down on their practices together.

Later at school, Y/n asked Chiaki if she was still free to come over for some home karaoke. She replied that she was.

“Can I come?” asked Kyotani.

Y/n had to blink a few times before she excitedly asked, “You want to sing?! Are you serious?!”

“No, I want to watch Chiaki sing.” Kyotani replied.

“Well that makes a lot more sense,” she laughed.

“Did you want to come?” Kyotani asked Yahaba.

“Why would I want to come?” asked Yahaba.

“You should come too! It’ll be fun!” said Y/n.

Kyotani didn’t really care was his response would be so he started to walk away with Chiaki. But Yahaba decided to tag along anyway.

When they arrived at Y/n’s house, her dad greeted Yabaha. But he flinched when Kyotani realized that he had been going to the community center.

“I guess your secret is out,” laughed Y/n. Since Kyotani knew her dad as well, he nodded to greet him.

The four of them sat in the living room. Kyotani and Chiaki sat on the large couch and Yahaba took the other end. Y/n set up the karaoke machine.

Chiaki sang a ballad beautifully. Y/n belted out a different song and sung badly on purpose. “Yay! I got a 68!” cheered Y/n. Her best friend found the whole thing hilarious like usual. Yahaba wondered why he came in the first place.

When Chiaki started to whistle to one of the songs, Y/n tried to whistle too. She couldn’t whistle at all. But she was being stubborn and kept trying anyway.

“You look stupid,” said Yahaba. “You’re getting your spit everywhere.” In response, she purposely got closer to him to tease him some more. “Ugh! Stop doing that!”

But Y/n still didn’t stop. It was kind of fun annoying him and the other two found it hilarious. Yahaba didn’t know how to make her stop. So he kissed her.

Y/n froze. She didn’t understand what had just happened. Yahaba smirked at her. But then his attempt to look cool failed him and his face became just as red as hers.

“W- What was that?!” Y/n freaked out. “Why would you do that?!” She tried to cover her blush with her hands. “You should only do that to someone you like!”

Yahaba looked away as he replied, “So it’s fine then.” He hid his face with his hands when Y/n realized that he admitted to liking her.

“B- But,” she continued to panic, “I’m not even your type.”

“I don’t have a type anymore,” he replied. “It’s just you.”

For once, Y/n was silent. She was trying to process the whole thing. She never expected Yahaba to like her back. She then smiled at the thought that he liked her enough for his type to be irrelevant over these past few months.

She took the seat beside him and inched a bit closer. The two still couldn’t make eye contact with each other. They both tried to steal a glance from each other, but when their eyes met, they quickly turned away again. Kyotani and Chiaki just stared at their awkwardness.

“Yahaba,” Y/n’s dad said in a deep voice. Y/n and Yahaba both flinched, not realizing that her dad was there. “I was wondering when you’d finally say something,” he said with a smirk.

*****

Extras that didn’t fit in the story:

Since Yahaba likes ikura don and Y/n likes rice dishes, they eat it all the time on dates.

Kyotani is actually pretty observant since he was conscious of his old teammates talking behind his back. But because he’s stubborn, reckless and just does his own thing anyway, it doesn’t really show through.

Chiaki is the cunning, protective type that looks innocent, but only Kyotani and Y/n know that.

I wanted Y/n to be the daughter of the guy from the community center who watched the Seijoh vs Karasuno match. But if she was, Y/n would have a (last) name. lol.

I hope you liked it! I actually had a hard time getting “clown funny” down. Other types of funny come more naturally to me (like sarcastic, teasing, and punny.) So I got some ideas from the webtoon Odd Girl Out with Mirae as a character model.

I also had a working name for Y/n because I write better that way. I might also post on fanfiction.net with the working name because they technically don’t allow reader-inserts. But I might not do it because it’s more work. lol. I actually initially started posting stories on FFN.

Check out my other stories too. :) I’m hoping to build a collection of them with all of the requests.

[Part 1] [Part 2]

[Masterlist]

[kaypeace21]

Mike comes out  to El , Mileven breaks up for good, and the future of byler (s4 theory)

*this is based off the stranger things movie inspirations they listed on twitter , in the show, or in interviews/other outside materials. All movies mentioned have been said to be inspo for the show.

So I’ll be mentioning mostly the movies- sw*ngers, what women want, wet hot american summer and splash (and others). Along with Tootsie -which was shown in s4 bts.

Before I give a rough outline of what may happen. I have to specify I don’t think El will be “heartbroken” over mileven cause I don’t think she loves Mike romantically . I’ve already discussed why i think she doesn’t love him romantically at nauseam - but regardless  mileven brings out the worst in  El and Mike. And literally inhibits her character growth. So as an El fan- I’m super excited for mileven to be put to rest. SORRY.  I’ll trade El & Kali teaming up to get closure from their ab*ser ...over mileven any day of the week XD. 

I think Mileven broke up in s3 (and remained broken up) . But we’ll have more closure and a more official breakup in s4  when Mike visits the byers. (And Mike admits he’s gay to his ex )- before byler officially begins. Essentially, I think- Mileven broke up, but El still calls constantly .And Mike starts ignoring her calls so El demands an explanation and he admits to her he’s gay and doesn’t want to get back together. 

So first lets talk about Phone calls 

I think based off the movies and s3 we’ll see El call quite a bit in s4 (almost obsessively) . And Mike has had enough. In s3, he said he’ll call so often -she’ll have to turn her walkie off . But I believe it’ll be the opposite-with El calling so much he’ll turn it off.

We see foreshadowing for this in s3 when Mike hangs up the phone after saying “El ? no, sorry, not interested.” Or when he hangs up on her multiple other times that season ( he even technically hung up the walkie on her in s2 , as well ). But, in defense of El,  given her lack of socialization (and seeing mike call her constantly between s1-2 I wouldn’t be surprised if she thought this was the norm).

-In splash there’s a scene similar to s3 - a blond relative picks up another phone to eavesdrop on him talking to his gf. He yells at the blonde relative and when the gf asks if he loves her -he tries to dodge the question. But they break up and he admits to his relative he never loved her. Maybe confessing to Karen?

* This reminds me of that supposed rumor with El saying “I love you” and Mike not into El just saying “I know” in return.Or Mike in s3 saying quickly “i miss you-bye.” And immediately hanging up on her.

-some other aspects of the s3 breakup may be taken from  “pineapple express .Which had comedic breakups via phone  . When broken-up he says  “I love you “ and she says it back to him (like mileven). He IMMEDIATELY  says he takes it back and  “I made a mistake” (when he sees she took him seriously). And then he specifies that’s it’s because she’s must be too “  naive and immature” to willing to take him back after how horrible of a bf he was to her in the past. Which yeah -fits mileven: they said the ‘L word’ when broken up, Mike did immediately try to take it back , and he may have realized at the s3 finalie how naive el was -to still want him back despite him not being a good bf to her. In ‘p.i’ the girl’s mom even says  maybe it’s best she find someone new who actually appreciated her or ‘better yet just be single’ and hang out with her gal pals (lol if joyce gave this advice to El-that’d be great)!  El doesn’t need romance to be her own-happy person! Also in ‘p.i’ Dale + his male bff are always assumed to be gay for eachother as a running gag .So ... I’ll technically throw that as another byler hint- lol.

-In sw*ngers Michael (yes that’s his name) who is made fun of for being perceived as gay gets a call from his ex gf of 6 months). And he hangs up on her to talk to his other love interest who asks if he wants to see her. Michael (specifically hangs up on his ex as she says “I lo-” to talk to this new love interest. He later brags to his friend (at a dinner) about not calling her back (despite her wanting to get back together) and he says proudly she was “always his ex”- when his friend incorrectly calls her his “gf” . 

  -While in ‘what women want’- an ex gf goes to him cause he didn’t answer her calls. In ‘tootsie’ the gf does the same and is pissed that her bf Michael (yes, yet another michael) didn’t answer her calls for a week. And he LIES saying his answering machine was broken. Would not be surprised if mike made up such an excuse.

Similar to ‘tootise’  & in ‘what women want’-both gals who’s phone calls were ignored ask if their bf (in mileven’s case -ex bf ) is gay. And in ‘swingers’ someone makes fun of mike for being gay. too  Lol-i’m sorry 2 movies where a guy named Mike is called out for being gay /and 2 movies where a gf who’s phone calls are ignored asks is they’re bf is gay is suspish XD

In ‘tootsie’.  We also have movie-mike give her a present before she asks if he’s gay /they breakup -it echos what previously happened in s3. 

- Michael (from the film) despite not want to be with her anymore (and loving someone else) tries giving her a gift to patch things up - despite his lying/ignoring her. The gift /empty gesture annoys her. Which is similar to st- mike not apologizing for lying- but trying to give El a gift to make up with her (but he doesn’t even do as much as film-Mike).

Right after this is when she asks if he’s gay (aka so for mileven we have the gift scene for s3  & El asking if he’s gay in s4-which were both borrowed from ‘tootsie’).

In ‘tootsie’, she finds romantic letters Michael has from another guy and this causes her to ask him if he’s gay .(20+ movies have romantic letters). In ‘littlewomen’ the artist gal and her future husband (who used to have a crush on the painter’s sis) exchange letters.And in ‘wet hot american summer’- a guy ditched his friends to write a letter (and his friends make a gay joke about him because of his letter writing-not knowing he’s actually gay.  

In ‘what women want’ when confronted- he admits he’s gay to his ex gf. In ‘tootsie’ she asks if he’s gay and he avoids the question but after she demands that he be “truthful for once in your life”. And, we all know how Mike constantly “lied” to EL .michael finally says he’ll stop lying to her and admits he’s in love with someone else. 

And she says in turn she’s not angry he doesn’t love her but that he lied (and similar to s2 where Mike calls Hopper a “liar”. The ex gf calls movie-mike a “liar” over and over). In fact they use the identical phrase of “you liar. you liar.”

Not to mention- she does sound like El.  She says she’s more upset about the lying than the fact movie-mike doesn’t love her. 

But I do think they eventually get closure and El realizes she doesn’t love Mike (romantically either) before her real character/story arc begins. 

movies: twister & you got mail

I’m so ready for the El & Kali teamup in s4. It’s like s2 (we get El & Kali pursuing Brenner + byler moments).

But what happens before Mike says this?I assume before this -mike & Will may confide in others about their feelings. And Mike/Will may be bullied for being perceived as gay .

 -In “welcome to the dollhouse” a boy is bullied for being seen as gay in school & at an arcade- and a character who is made fun for being a lesbian defends him at school/the arcade (so maybe robin?)Since Robin works next to the arcade/is gay.  Similarly, Fin’s character (at an arcade) is bullied and called a “fairy” and f*g” in ‘It 2′. And movie-Mike is made fun of for being perceived as gay in ‘sw*ngers’. Along with the guy (who was gay) being called homophobic names for writing letters (in wet hot american summer).We also know hawkins will most likely have a ‘satanic panic’ over d&d, rock music, and other things- which was historically rooted in christian fundamentalism.In ‘Kingsmen’ the churchgoers pretty much go on a rant being hom*phobic, r*cist, anti-science, anti-athe*st, anti-other religions, and anti-democrat and equate all of these groups of people to the endtimes/the anti christ. So one guy just snaps and says he’s gay, loves science , etc and says after “so... hail satan .And have a lovely day.”And storms out.  lol not sure about all that -but it’d be hilarious XD. Trigger warning for hom*phobic sl*rs.

-Proof For Will was : In ‘heathers’ the jocks make fun of the new guy in the cafeteria- by asking him if he misses his boyfriend  and call him the f-sl*r .in ‘superbad’ the guy who draws is called hom*phobic sl*rs and in ‘wedding crashers’ someone calls the male-painter character a “homo”. In “hackers” the (computer-nerd) who just moved to town is asked by his single mom if he “likes girls”.etc

 Also, in “The guest” a computer-nerd in highschool is bullied for being perceived as gay (and he’s given really bad advice about how to deal with it by a lonnie-esque character who is visiting his house/family for a while).  The advice is also similar to the advice given in the st comic (from Troy’s dad).

Honestly just the fire ref makes me nervous. The computer-boy eventually snaps (after never standing up for himself) and beats up his homophobic bullies.

*whenever Lonnie comes back - I assume we’ll see he’s a bad influence on Will pretty quickly

In ‘the guest’ they also made a joke that the clearly older guest must be the gay highschoolers’ boyfriend (which is not the case).

While In ‘stoker’ ,the highschool painter eventually loses it after dealing with constant harrassment- and stabs the bully’s hand (to block a punch coming their way) after the bully made an inc*st joke about the painter & the family guest.  So a joke like that could certainly cause Will to finally snap (as opposed to the other gay jokes they used earlier). In ‘dukes of hazzard’ a guy also snapped and got into a fight over a inc*st joke (and in ‘girl interrupted” they make a similar messed up inc*st joke).

 Given my theory on Will’s trauma with his dad (which he doesn’t remember)-I would not be surprised even on a subconscious level such a comment finally gets him to snap -maybe accidentally unleash his powers for the first time?Lonnie could say something about how Will should light his bullies on fire, they make a triggering joke about Lonnie &himself... and Will the wise does have fire powers after all. In the film ‘firestarter’ the kid who couldn’t control their fire abilities also lights a bully on fire accidentally so... maybe? In ‘skyhigh’ Will’s superpowers aren’t revealed until he accidentally unleashes them on a bully in the lunchroom. And 1 character in that scene says “don’t talk about my dad” before using his fire powers. Also... it’s not on the inspo list technically but the Duffers are known avengers/xmen fans.So Will could be based on scarlet witch’s son William (code name Wiccan) - he’s gay ,has lightning&fire powers and can alter reality. He’s been possessed In the past by the ‘demiurge’ - even spit up a slug too. He opens a portal to his world allowing the inter dimensional monster “mama” out (cough demogorgans are called “deep father”.)  And he’s constantly bullied for being gay- and the 1 time he finally decides to stand up to his h*mophobic bullies- is the day his powers activate for the first time and almost k*ll the bully. Not super confident in this theory but thought I’d mention it just in case.  Ok- this post is supposed to not be too plot heavy. So back to byler-

*Before Mike visits they may both confide in people about their feelings for the other . in skyhigh (at a dinner similar to the convo in sw*ngers where Mike talks about his ex gf) the bff of Will (yes his name) goes on and on about Will and how she’s known him since the first grade. And someone asks “so you’ve been in love with Will since the 1st grade?” Which she tries denying but quickly admits is true. And her friend says she should confess to Will.

In fisher king - a women who works at a videostore tries setting up 2 people- a gal-writer and a guy with an alternate personality/ who hallucinates a fearsome mythical creature (obviously Will). When people doubt the idea the girl can love this mentally ill guy  she says “stranger things have been known to happen.” And in “altered states” the guy who would hallucinate flashing to another hell dimension (like Will)- has a wife. And people say “she’s crazy about him and he’s crazy.” When they weren’t together she says to her friend she had to pretend anyone she dated was him and she says “it’s crazy” in response the friend says “i think that’s how it’s supposed to be.” Plus in fisherking one character wrote a book dedicated to his wife (which had the same title as the movie they’re in) . And someone says about this author “ he was crazy about her” as he holds the novel in his hands.

* The ‘pretending the person you’re dating is someone you’re actually in love with’ was also mentioned in ‘children of paradise’ (reffed by Robin in s3).

*I’ve also talked about Mike projecting his feelings for Will to El-here.

Will confiding in someone is harder to say. in ‘reality bites’ when asking about why she doesn’t want to be involved in romance a friend asks “because of Michael?” Which she first denies but later admits is part of the reason. 

 And in ‘hellboy’, (while taking pics) John Myers tells the fire wielding character (with mental health issues) that her bff is in love with her and asks how she feels . The 2 bffs are endgame but at first she tells John that she’s unsure because she’s known him practically her whole life (but she thinks of him everyday). 

Lol not sure if Jonathan would ever be so straight forward but it’d be nice callback to s1/2 convos they had (Jon saying in s1 to not like things cause you’re supposed to / saying being a “freak” like queer david bowie is cool) .In “twister” & “it’s a wonderful life” a family member also tells a character that their childhood friend that they’re in love with (isn’t into the person they’re currently with). In ‘ wonderful life’ she says they’re “not crazy” about the other person-but them.  And they say they know this cause they “have eyes.” And In “twister” the family member says them visiting them  is proof they love them. 

*plus Sam who is supposedly crazy about her (also isn’t crazy about marry). Aka El isn’t crazy about Mike- but Will assumes she (along with mike). Cough El saying “what makes you crazy?” in s3.

-While in “hackers’ the kid (with a single mom) who is into computers, and upset they were forced to moved to a new city -is asked by the mom “Do you like girls?” . And he angrily denies and says he’s ‘not gay’ (which could followthrough with what happened in s3- Will not opening up to her about romance, like him telling Joyce he’d never fall in love. so he may lie to her if asked that question? Unlike Jon?

 So it’s possible Will confides in Jonathan (and or Joyce) & maybe Mike to his mom/nancy?/a friend (maybe Robin or Max) (hard to say). My top guesses are Will &Jon. And Mike with Robin (and maybe his mom or sister a bit after Robin?)

Mike visiting the Byers

In ‘Tootsie’, michael (disguised as a woman named dorothy...long story XD) meets up with the person he really loves and gives them a present. The 2 low-key have like a psuedo-gay courting for most of the movie (before they get together). In ‘paddington 2′, the main character even gets multiple jobs to save up for a birthday present for a loved one (another contrast to mileven- who Mike,despite being rich couldn’t even spend $3.50 on.  They did that alot -show contrasts with both ships .So s4 would be no different.And It’s Will’s b-day in s4 after all so Mike getting Will a present makes the most sense. 

*last pics from ‘scarface’- I have no idea what he’d get Will for his b-day but if it’s engraved with “crazy together” I will lose my mind. Also the parent glaring during this scene-makes me suspect Lonnie . I do suspect Lonnie will sabotage byler-but it may end up being a s5 plotpoint instead of s4? (I guess in s4 it could be El-since el has been known to get very jealous in the past (like with max).

 - In ‘waynes’ world’ the ex gf refused to accept the breakup initially (despite it being months ago).  And she didn’t understand how breakups worked . Which given El’s lack of socialization -  I get her confusion on the concept. Like how in s3 Max had to correct El that Mike was her “ex boyfriend”. In the film, she even tried giving him a present for their ‘anniversary’ (hopefully El doesn’t try to do something like that out of jealousy of the prior gift giving -cause Wayne just says the gift shows how little she knows him). 

*You have to admit this scenario of Mike having to explain breakups isn’t that far-fetched.

(even when broken up with wayne- she wore a necklace with his name on it. ) Which reminds me of How El had a bunch of Mike related stuff in her room-including things that said “mike” on them.

in waynes’ world: The ex gf would follow her ex and still refer to him as her bf and be a 3rd wheel and interrupt every attempt for wayne to romantically confess to his new love interest (like in ‘dumb and dumber’/’high fidelity ‘).A similar scenario also happens in ‘tootsie’- Michael (as dorothy) almost confesses (on a swing set) but is interrupted by another person interested in him (Mike). Personally, I assume El would just do this unintentionally- assuming Mike wants to be with her and being a bit pushy but probably being oblivious of byler.

Not to mention the Duffers are petty AF and probably got annoyed with all the jokes that Will was a 3rd wheel to mileven- when literally Will wasn’t even around the 2 interacting alone . A 3rd wheel- has a group of 3 consisting of a couple and a third superfluous person. Which never really happened? Plus,we saw the ‘burns’ they did of mileven over the past 3 seasons- it’ll probably get worse.

And again we already know El had no qualms spying on her ex (mileven even dances to ‘every breath you take’  a song about a stalking ex gf).And El also watched the  ‘all my children’ ep with Erica & mike roy. Which in the show after their breakup - had 1 of them refuse to accept the other didn’t love them and want to get back together- and stalk them/ sabotage their exe’s romantic pursuits. Only to eventually accept reality and move on. Although, I think this is mostly un-intentional on El’s part.

In ‘clueless’ she flirted with a gay guy who she thought was straight/in love with her and kept trying to make a move-much to his discomfort . And in ‘birdcage’ the ex gf would hit on her gay ex bf- and his male partner catches the 2 and misinterprets it as not one sided ). That scenario happens in quite a few movies. I could see Will (before byler happens/mike tells el the truth ) misinterpreting and assuming mike and El are still romantically connected or will get back together .

New Swings scene (almost confession)/possible swing-flashback 

Ok back to (tootsie) .In the film,Michael’s love interest was raised by an older sibling- and he even tries to confess to her when they’re on a bench swing together . Not even the only movie with a gay gal character + gal bestfriend swinging on a bench together (’silkwood’ ). In ‘enter the void’ there was also a flashback of a little kid asking the other “do you love me?”/ and him saying “a lot” .  

* it’s like a subversion of what happened in s3 at the hospital. Also like the Wayne’s world scene of the ex gf interrupting...

But i don’t think El will be the only one trying to get mileven back together. But Will as well.In ‘Emma’ & ‘clueless ‘ :character A assumes her guy friend is into their mutual friend and tries to get them together (despite him being into character A only). I could see Will misinterpreting mileven and trying to be a good friend and get them back together (despite his own feelings). In ‘emma’ and ‘clueless’ (before they fight) there’s is a party/dance (it’s in a lot of movies).It’s possible mike, Will, and El go somewhere to dance - a lot of films have the 2 people in love-dance with others -but stare at eachother the entire time.In ‘clueless’ 2 gay guys and cher (who is flirting with one of the gay guys) all dance together. In karate kid, referenced by Max to El. Has a guy kiss his ex without her permission (on the dance floor)- and the karate kid sees the girl he likes being kissed by her ex and misinterprets the scenario (assuming they’re back together). I suppose the fact they changed the s2 script where Will was watching Mike dance with El may come back up in a later season? Could also be a callback to when Mike looked mopey at Will dancing with a girl (after encouraging him to dance with her).  Will could do the same (as mike in s2). Or they both stare at eachother while dancing with other people. or it’s just a concept they scrapped- it’s hard to say.

*movie list (truman show,16 candles,step up 2,karate kid, backdraft 2 & stormship troopers)

Confession & fall out

In ‘emma’ & ‘clueless’: character A (after the dance party) goes with the guy home and he tries kissing her . She dodges it confused saying he’s mistaking her for her friend! And he explains he was never romantically interested in her friend. In ‘emma’ he even bought her a super expensive gift before hand and she still assumed he was into her friend not her. And he even specifies in Emma- the reason he came to visit her house was for her (not her friend). A similar scenario happens in ‘weird science’ and he says she just thought of the gal he used to be infatuated with  as a “sister” (and we all know the sibling parallels in mileven). And in ‘little women’- the artist gal dodges a kiss and says to her love interest “I won’t be courted with someone in love with my sister.” And he explains exasperated he doesn’t love her sister- despite constantly trying to be with her sister previously.

 In ‘tootsie’, what caused Mike (dressed as Dorothy) to try and kiss her was-  the other gal saying she feel like she wants something she can’t have and because of that -their friendship makes her feel lonely (it’s very queer coded dialogue). She dodged mike/dorothy’s kiss but then says she has the same (gay) “impulses” as Dorothy but that she’s not mentally sound enough to be in a relationship.  A thought that may cross Will’s mind.

But, before they can talk about the almost kiss-her dad calls via phone and interrupts. (They eventually do get together though). But she tells Mike/Dorothy she ‘can’t love’ her,before this. 

*may not come across in photos-but she’s crying when sayin this.

Also, a fight about “what they are-friends/or romantic” before a phone call interrupts ( happens in ‘it’s a wonderful life’ and ‘the fisher king’ too.) Those pairings were also both endgame. In wonderful life the artist gal yells why he even came to visit her . And he implies she knows why (aka his romantic feelings) .There’s a similar convo in ‘fisher king’  (asking why they’re there) + 1 of them saying it’s “bullshit” and “stupid” to pretend they’re ‘just friends’. (We all know the context of the phrases “bullshit’ and “stupid” by now). Even Han implies Leia wants him to stay cause he has feelings for him-which she denies . Thus, irritating him.

*(I’ve already mentioned before how in s1 byler was paralleled to a gay Han/leia while mileven was directly paralleled to luke/leia-mentioned this in the ‘mileven burn’ hyperlink).

All 3 movies have eventual couples arguing cause 1 character (mike) is saying he’s done pretending to be just friends and he came to visit (Will) for that reason. And he knows Will returns those romantic feelings- but Will refuses to stop the charade and admit his true feelings.

In ‘good Will hunting” a similar event happens. Will (yes that’s his name) is poor and has severe trust /psych issues caused by his ab*sive dad.  And he has “abandonment issues” so sabotages his romantic relationships before they can even begin. When the brunette admits her feelings for him he dismisses it as a phase/confusion on her part. She in response says she knows he finds the idea she doesn’t love him ‘scary’ (and she’s scared too but at least she’s trying and being honest about her feelings). She also says she wants to “help him” with his issues -but this just angers him more. Cause he doesn’t liked being pitied/treated like he’s broken . She says she wants to help because she loves him- not pity. But he doesn’t believe her romantic confession. And every time she says she loves him he yells “Don’t BULLSHIT ME”! So when she yells “say you don’t love me?” He says he doesn’t love her- which the audience knows is a lie. But she’s left a sobbing mess alone on the floor.

Which yikes- I feel like even if you don’t understand the obvious reasons  Mike used El as a beard + lied saying he loved her. You’ll feel bad at the possibility of how badly it blows up in his face. Will not believing his confession/thinking Mike loves El or scared he’ll change his mind -so Will (for that + a myriad of other reasons)just rejects Mike COLD. Similar to clueless & Emma & empire strikes back.

I’m not that surprised since Will claimed he’d never fall in love (so when he does - he may just deny it). Like the therapist said in ‘good will hunting’ he’s afraid it’ll go wrong so never even tries to begin a romance.  I hypothesize a lot of stuff happens after this, that makes getting closure on their relationship in s4 difficult. 

So essentially to summarize a rough idea of what may happen: mileven stayed broken up. Mike and Will probably exchange letters between seasons. And El and Mike call eachother- but the excess of calls becomes too much. Mike and Will  are probably bullied for being perceived as gay- and before meeting up they may or may not confide in someone (about their mutual feelings). Mike visits for Will’s b-day/spring break and gives Will a present. El (because she sees Mike as a source of comfort) tries getting back together with him and becomes pushy and a 3rd wheel. While Will even helps El- thinking he’s being a good friend to Mike (by trying to get them back together). Mike eventually comes clean and come to an understanding and El goes on her plot/character driven arc of trying to find Brenner with Kali.  Mike eventually confesses to Will but Will for a myriad of reasons lies about loving Mike- and rejects him. And that’s all the (non supernatural) plot stuff I wan’t to talk about now...

Sorry, if this post was just hard to understand. I wouldn’t call this a ‘theory’ per say ( I usually feel more confident in those). This is more like a rough idea given what we have available to analyze so far.

Personally - I hated the mileven/couple breakup drama in s3. So as long as it doesn’t last long and most breakups like say-lumax and jancy happen early in the season... and don’t drag the actual supernatural plot/character developement . I’ll be fine.

 Contrary to popular belief- I’m a byler shipper who’s most excited for the actual plot. I’m a bit more confident in my plot theories than the exact details in this post . But I thought I’d share XD. I’ll eventually do a whole s4/5 theory- post which will focus on other characters/supernatural plot points.(but i may rewatch some movies first) . I’ll probably also do a byler post too with s5 predictions (which connects more heavily to important plot points spanning across s4-5). 

Happy belated new year :)

I expect so much hate from this XD

[spaz8550]

Stay

Ch 36

Hogwarts finished for a year and the students returned home. Sinead was hoping that would allow her more time with Severus but she was wrong, he had to spend most of his time at Spinners End with Wormtail who had been assigned as his assistant. Severus managed to spend some time away from Spinners End usually using the excuse that he needed to pick up supplies for potions he was brewing or to attend meetings with Albus. Even though she was disappointed with the limited time Sinead tried to enjoy every minute with Severus.

When she wasn't with him she was working in the lab in her house with Max and Sarah 3 days a week in the mornings and in the afternoons they moved to the lab at the shop. Max and Sarah each worked 3 days in the shop and were doing well with their apprenticeship.

Trent was mostly brewing out of the shop so he had the run of the lab there and he was in the shop for any questions that customers may have had. Sinead managed to fit in weekly drop ins in the Weasley's shop to help them improve their potions. Maggie was also helping out in the shop 3 days a week and then working the other 2 helping manage the orders from America. Since the shop opened in early July it had been an instant hit, they did a good business and took orders through the floo network.

In early August Sinead's father came for a visit. John stayed for a little over a week and was impressed with his daughters growing business. A week later Danny arrived, he had passed the bar exam and was now a lawyer. He was offered a position in John's firm and was due to start at the end of the month.

Sinead had arranged for a party to use the new pool she had built in her backyard. Molly Weasley had a bit of a breakdown about allowing Ginny and Ron to go back to Hogwarts but after some assurances from Arthur she agreed. Hermonie was also staying with the Weasley's and was visited to the party. Severus even promised to make a brief appearance. Danny got along great with Fred and George who were enjoying his stories about Sinead in high school.

"Oh stop it, you make me sound like a party girl." Sinead said glaring at Danny who smirked.

"That may or may not be true."

"Oh like you're a saint. This one had so many girls chasing him to be their first in high school. A regular ladykiller he was."

"I turned some of them down" Danny said as Sinead laughed.

"I better go check on everyone else." Sinead walked outside to see Ginny and Hermonie sitting by the edge of the pool watching Ron splash around.

"Having fun?"

"Yea, this is great." Ron said before ducking under the water.

"Girls?"

"Yes, this is lovely." Hermonie said moving her feet around in the water.

"My brothers are hogging your friends attention." Ginny said as Sinead shook her head.

"Ginny, you are far too young to be interested in Danny."

"But he's cute."

"Don't let him hear you say that, it'll go right to his head." Sinead 

muttered.

"Is Professor Snape stopping by?" Ginny asked.

"Later on." Sinead said glancing up to see Danny walking outside with Tonks and Remus who had just arrived. Sinead went over to greet them as Ginny and Hermonie started giggling as they looked at Danny who was talking to Remus.

"What you two laughing about?" Ron asked as he looked around.

"Nothing, Ronald." Hermonie said with her cheeks flushed.

"Nothing at all." Ginny said trying to keep a straight face. An hour later Danny stood up.

"Up for a game of volleyball?" He asked as Sinead grinned.

"You bet, girls versus boys?" Sinead said.

"Hell yes!" Maggie yelled. "We are gonna win, Danny boy!" Maggie said doing a little dance.

"I'm in." Trent said.

"Me too." Sophia said as Sinead started casting spells to create a sand court with a net.

"I'll play." Max said when all the male wizards didn't volunteer.

"What's volleyball?" Ron asked Fred and George.

"It's this great game that girls usually wear bikini when they play." Danny said as Maggie glared at him. Sinead and the girls began talking over plans, they were going to get the ball to Sinead who would find the easiest target out of the boys.

"Whose going to ref?" Danny asked as Bill reluctantly raised his hand.

"This is gonna be good, let's start taking bets." Ginny said watching Sinead hit a ball against a wall she had created.

Fred started taking bets as everyone moved so they could watch the game. Sinead went over the rules as Bill tossed the ball to the guys to start the game. Severus arrived during the game and stood against the house watching as Sinead launched herself in the air smacking the ball back into the boys side and it hit the sand.

"Yes!" Maggie said giving Sophia a high five. The girls won the first set 15 to 8 and the second set 15 to 9. The third set was more competitive and was tied until Sinead served out the game with the girls winning 15 to 10. When Sinead turned she spotted Severus who was actually smiling. Maggie cast a spell as Queen's "We Are the Champions" came blasting out of Sinead's stereo which was outside. Sinead walked over to Severus with a smile.

"You made it."

"I said I would make an appearance so here I am. I can not stay long, I need to return to Spinner's End." Danny who was standing next to Max and Trent let out a growl.

"There is something about him I don't trust." Trent shook his head.

"You know Sinead, she is a pretty good judge of character-"

"I trust her, not him. He's just so-"

"Intimidating." Max said.

"Smarmy is the word we use. Never liked Snape in our years at Hogwarts." Fred said as George nodded.

"It's good to know I'm not the only one who doesn't like him."

"Too bad Harry wasn't here, he's the president of the I hate Snape fan club. I guess when Harry's dad was at Hogwarts he gave Snape hell so when Harry got there Snape felt the need to return the favor."

"I just don't get it. He's too old for her and it's not like they have anything in common besides potions. I almost want to stop taking my potions and rip the guy's head off."

"Easy there, don't want to go saying that in front of the wrong people." Trent said softly. The group of men watched as Sinead exited the house a few minutes later alone.

"Snape couldn't stay?" Fred asked.

"No, he needed to return home."

"What a shame." Danny said with a fake smile before he walked away. 2 hours later Albus made an appearance specifically to ask for Sinead's help.

"Sinead, I need to get Harry tonight. I will be taking care of his things and making sure they are sent to the Weasely's house. The reason I need your help is that I need to recruit an old colleague. Horace Slughorn is his name and he was very fond of Harry's mother and I feel he will be most impressed with you as well. So to draw him back to Hogwarts I would like to offer you a position as Potions tutor, it is a flexible position and you can set your own hours."

"So I will be working with Severus?"

"No, Horace will be taking the position as Potions Master and Severus will be taking over Defense Against the Dark Arts." Sinead's smile faded. "I know this doesn't seem like a good position but it is. Severus actually was the one to suggest it."

"He didn't tell me-"

"Don't tell him I told you. He was most disappointed that he is stuck at Spinner's End babysitting Pettigrew so this will allow you two some time together."

"Ok, I accept."

"Perfect, Harry has been wandering the trains and he will most likely be at either of these two stops. I will meet you at the village listed at the bottom at that time. Once you memorize these locations burn the paper." Sinead nodded as Albus went to go socialize with some guests.

[samprestonbigbadabruce]

NXT Takeover: New Orleans - Thoughts and Review...

Sunday 8th April has been a very difficult day, due to my having to avoid any and all spoilers for this show. Normally, I’ll either watch the event live, or watch it at a later date knowing the results. But for a show like this, one that could legitimately be one of the best of the year, I wanted to immerse myself fully into the show, not knowing any results at all. Oh, NXT, you have made me your bitch with ease.

Of course, we have Mauro Ranallo (the one and only legend), Nigel McGuinness (who has really grown into the role fantastically), and Percy Watson (who has demonstrated some good commentary when given the chance), who are probably the strongest 3 man team on the commentary booth. My predictions are at this link.

Ladder Match for the inaugural NXT North American Championship.

EC3 (Ethan Carter III) vs Killian Dain vs Adam Cole vs Velveteen Dream vs Lars Sullivan vs Ricochet

The audience already knows who Ricochet is, his name resonating around the arena, and he gets the first major pop with a tremendous Shooting Star Press to the outside on Dain and Lars. Ricochet is so crisp and beautiful to watch in the ring, he’s instantly fascinating. One of the sub-plots of the match was the build-up to Lars and Dain facing each other, bumping into each other a few times, before an awesome tope onto Lars early on. Watching Lars throw a ladder onto his five opponents was a great moment, he’s starting to convince me he may be more than just a big hoss. He took a great powerbomb from Ricochet, Dream and EC3 off the ladder.

I loved EC3 & Cole, the two snakes who will just as soon betray you as use you, getting along briefly, before EC3 stole Cole’s “bay bay” Schtick, and super kicking EVERYBODY’s face off. The next big moment was Dream’s beautiful Elbow off the ladder onto Lars, some tremendous elevation. Bringing the ladders in so quickly seemed like a better method as it allowed them to hit the ground running. Killian’s Vader Bomb with Cole on his back onto EC3 under a ladder was reminiscent of Rikishi flattening Val Venis off the top of a cage. Lars Sullivan and Killian Dain throwing Ricochet back and forth was akin to two T-Rexes fighting over a pork chop, I laughed, but Lars catching Killain was awe inspiring. And then Ricochet beat it with a moonsault off a falling ladder onto Cole & Dain, that’s Highlight Reel material. Ricochet is coming across very impressive in this match, as I expected.

Dream’s rolling Death Valley Driver on Ricochet onto a ladder was terrifying, but looked amazing, then Lars SMASHING EC3 onto Dream THROUGH a ladder, just raised the bar again, only for Dain to metaphorically go for “Hold My Beer” and put Cole & Ricochet through his own ladder! This is insanity and I love it. I love the subtlety of having the two hosses, Lars & Killain, on one ladder, then the two heels Cole & EC3 on another ladder, and then Dream opening up the third, each ladder representing a different style, culminating in Ricochet joining him. Cole took down EC3, Ricochet took down Dream, and STILL the two beasts were on the ladder. And just as Lars was near victory, Ricochet made the save, the competitors continuously nearing so close, then getting knocked off, before Adam Cole stole the title!

I love how the match allows each style to get their own moment in the sun, either Lars smashing people, Killian’s agile destructions, Ricochet & Dream’s high-flying antics and great bumping, Cole’s smarmy opportunist, or EC3’s arrogant smarts, none were underutilised. I was surprised at the choice for Cole to win, I thought EC3 would make more sense as a heel for the others to chase, but Cole has earned the title, he’ll be The Miz of NXT, elevating the second title. Cole won in character, but everybody looked tremendous. Loved this match.

Adam Cole wins the NXT North American Championship.

Ember Moon defends the NXT Women’s Championship versus Shayna Baszler

Okay, first of all, my favourite band Halestorm opened for Ember and it was awesome, such a rocking tune and great voice from Lzzy Hale. I found that a lot more interesting than Ronda Rousey being in the audience. If only Shayna wasn’t involved…I get that some people may like her, but I’ve found her generic and boring, a flat track bully. To be fair, her knee strikes were making ME feel sore, and it was something a little different, expanding her arsenal. Moon still comes across as the desperate champ struggling with the bully, including a dropkick to force Shayna into the ring steps. I have to admit, seeing Ember turn Shayna’s own elbow stamp onto Shayna was so gratifying.

Seeing Shayna trying to pop her shoulder back into place against the ring post was actually impressive, it feels like they are trying to create sympathy for Shayna, who has been a despicable bully so far. Ember’s finisher onto the outside was excellent, a great moment. Ember’s powerbomb on Shayna was even more impressive, I’ll admit, despite having no interest in this match, these two put in some great work to draw me in. And then, Shayna choked out Ember to win the title. I can’t say I’m surprised, and the match was better than I expected, but I do think it’s a mistake to give her the title so soon. I’m also curious about their decision to push Ronda as the babyface, only for her to be friends with despicable heel Shayna, lack of consistency.

Shayna Baszler wins the NXT Women’s Championship.

Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Final: The Undisputed Era (Adam Cole & Kyle O’Reilly) defend the NXT Tag Team Championship against The Authors Of Pain (Akam and Rezar with Paul Ellering) versus Pete Dunne & Roderick Strong

The Authors Of Pain have gone on strength to strength, improving every match, whilst Strong is consistent and tough, respected by the audience, Dunne is a tough nasty bastard, and The Undisputed Era are heat magnets…this match is such a great choice. The Authors Of Pain instantly come in and destroy the opposition, powerbombing Cole straight through the announce table. O’Reilly simultaneously holding an AOP & Strong in submissions was a great image and makes it believable for him to have to wrestle alone.

O’Reilly being German Suplexed, jumping up screaming, then falling out of the ring, was my favourite moment of the night so far. Dunne and O’Reilly are two hard hitters, and seeing them smash mouth each other was great. Dunne snapping an AOP’s fingers to avoid a move is one of those little character moments that add to a match, very in character. As the match continues, I’m starting to feel that Cole may stir from injury in time to steal the win?

Strong using AOP’s strength and speed against them, including into the steel steps, and then WHAT THE FUCK?! Roderick Strong turned on Pete Dunne and helped The Undisputed Era retain? What a twist, O’Reilly’s reactions are awesome. I remember Strong supposedly being a great heel on the Indie scene, I am legitimately shocked at this development, but it definitely makes things interesting. I assume until Fish heals, Strong and O’Reilly will defend the Tag Team titles?

The Undisputed Era win the Dusty Rhodes Classic and retain the NXT Tag Team titles.

Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas defends the NXT Championship versus Aleister Black.

Almas has already been so impressive as NXT Champion, really raising his game for the title. Black is awesome all round, and comes flying out of the blocks. A tremendous moment where Almas flipped out of a sunset powerbomb off the top rope, only to miss the knees, only to lead into a backsault off the top rope and another Moonsault onto Black, great flow to the match. Almas surprisingly matched Black with some great strikes, until Black kneed his face out of place. Almas has scouted Black tremendously, catching him out every time Black goes to his arsenal. And the few times Black did on top, Zelina spiked Black twice with hurricaranas, playing the ref like a fiddle. Third time should surely lead to Zelina getting Black Massed by Black,

When Black did hit the Black Mass, Zelina saved Almas, she does such an amazing job as a heel manager, saving Almas four times already! Several close shaves, including a tremendous Hammerlock DDT from Almas to Black that I thought would end it. But this leads into the perfect finish, as Zelina tried interfering again, Almas catching her, and turning into Black Mass!

Almas may have only had a brief title reign, but it was very impressive, a 5 Star Classic and a great victory, but Black was the right choice, he’d been on track for the title since he debuted, and he offers a different style to some of the previous Champions. Black has earned this victory, but Almas can take pride in his reign, and I cannot wait to see who Black faces first…maybe a returning Drew McIntyre?

Aleister Black wins the NXT Championship.

Unsanctioned Match: Tommaso Ciampia fights Johnny Gargano A story years in the making, two former friends and brothers, now hated rivals. Johnny Gargano placed his career on the line for the NXT Championship, and lost because of Ciampia. Now, in an unsanctioned match, one where you can only win by pinfall or submission, Johnny Wrestling gets the opportunity for revenge. If he wins, he is reinstated to NXT. If he loses...he’s gone. This won’t be a five star classic, it’ll be a fight.

The atmosphere is engulfing. The punches and kicks that started the match lead into Ciampia getting more vicious, slams against the guardrail, and threatening with an unprotected floor. Johnnny Wrestling, the nice guy, throwing Ciampia into the announce team, really helped sell how consumed by anger and hatred he was. They would tease with one act of violence (suplex on the unprotected floor, suplex on the table) and then subvert it with something just as violent (suplex OFF the announce table onto the mat), sprinkling little Chekhov Guns to come into play later. Seeing the top of the announce table used to be suplexed through was something I hadn’t seen before, these little unique moments really add to the match.

There was one uncomfortable bump where it looked like Gargano landed on his neck after he was Irish-whipped into the corner, flipping upside down and landing on his head. A great touch was when Johnny got to the ropes when Gargano had a submission on him, only for the ref to tell him “No rope breaks”, i loved that! Really adds to the authenticity of the unsanctioned fight. So far, the only element I disagree with is that to me, an Unsanctioned match works better if the wrestlers are in street clothes, but I digress.

So far, the weapons being used really tie back to the history of their rivalry, the announce table from when Ciampia first betrayed Gargano, then the crutches from the crowd tying into Ciampia’s injury and multiple attacks with the crutches. The unprotected mat came back in a vicious way, Johnny going for a slingshot DDT attempt, reversed into Ciampia’s finisher attempt, only for Johnny to slither out and powerbomb Ciampia onto the floor - I admit, I let out an involuntary noise at the sound of Tommaso’s back landing on the floor.

The tired tug of war over the crutch really amplified the war these two are going through, and the cathartic strikes on Ciampia by Gargano, who refused to let go of the crutch even when thrown out, leading to a sickening crack on the head. It was only after that and a slingshot DDT, that I think the first pinfall attempt was made, twenty plus minutes into the match, a great detail for such a volatile fight. The reverses keep on happening again and again, showing how well these two know each other, Johnny even willing to pull on Tommaso’s beard.

Gargano locked in his submission hold, and the rope breaks came into play again, almost reaching ironic glory, and then the roll back into the middle of the ring, ala Benoit/Triple-H at Wrestlemania XX, seemed poised for the ending, only for Tommaso to dig at Gargano’s eyes. The desperation of Tommaso was then intensified by using his wrist rope to try and strangle his opponent.such a brilliantly layered story. A low blow, crutch to the back, then powerbomb backbreaker had me convinced it was over, but Johnny Wrestling kicked out again. I have no idea who will win at this rate.

Johnny using Tommaso’s kneepad to drag himself toward Ciampia was such an iconic image, leading into the lawn dart into the unprotected turnbuckle, then two vicious low superkicks, the second eliciting another unexpected noise from me. I know I said this would be a fight, not a five star classic, but these two are pushing close. Ciampia did another powerbomb backbreaker onto his knees for a massive near fall, and the knee brace has taken damage, these two are going all out. And now the final callback, the removal of Ciampia’s kneepad, ala the Cruiserweight Classic, only for Johnny to smash the brace into Ciampia’s knee!

A brief moment with a callback to the sit down in the ring together, lead to an amazing STF on the knee with the knee brace pulling back on Ciampia’s neck, that looked diabolically painful! And Ciampia tapped, Gargano gets reinstated, Johnny Wrestling has done it! He’s beaten Ciampia, vanquished his demon, and he’s reinstated to NXT! What a brilliant match, such layers and story telling, reversals, hard hits, big moments, character moments, emotional and unforgiving, a rollercoaster ride, but the hero has defeated the psycho.

Johnny Gargano defeats Tommas Ciampia

Yet again, NXT Takeover does an excellent job, great matches, fantastic stories, and even my personal weakest match (the NXT Women’s Championship) is exactly that, a personal indifference, but still a solid match. In fact, I probably couldn’t call any of these a weak match. What a brilliant PPV, NXT just keeps getting better and better and better.

[persiantrashboi]

Today was an eventful day 1. sorry I'm Doing this on tumblr. Idk why but it feel easier to keep up with if I think someone might read it . Any way you can block (tr)ash talking or diary entry if you don't want to see this 2. MY flight was delayed 2 hours 3. I spent money on a really dumb shirt and I'm pretty ashamed /embarrassed that I did? But also I think it will be fun to wear to parties and stuff and it's really good quality and was pretty cheap 4. When I went to buy the shirt I knew it was half price cause I had seen it online but the guy tried to charge me full price so I was like excuse me. And then he was like nope it's not on sale so I was thought I was wrong and I left. Then I went back and realized it had a blue dot which means half price so I argued with him and he was like nah that's wrong so I bought the shirt online for half price when I got home. I'm really pissed about it and I'm not sure why he would do that? 5. I am wondering if it is because his friend wanted the shirt or because I am brown or because it was an MENS shirt and I don't look or sound like a man or because I am dressed like a lesbian today 6. Sunny comes out in two days 7. I'm writing this on the plane back to school after winter break idk I'm half excited to see everyone like the iasip boy and my director friend who has been snap chatting me recently (he convinced me to buy the shirt tbh and my friend who likes rpdr and my friend who is going to be my assistant this quarter and my friend who is really good about not misgendering me, but I'm half really really anxious 8. A girl from my hall at school is sitting a few rows ahead of me on the plane. We are friends on Facebook. I wave to her As I pass. She waves back. Her friend who is next to her says who is that. I don't know she responds. 9. I'm reading This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz right now and it's really really incredible. I don't think I know of anyone who writes about the immigrant experience better than Junot Diaz. 10. A choice quotations from This is How You Lose Her are listed below 11. "As we walk over to the courtesy golf cart, I say, I feel like you rejected my whole country, Magda" I have had so many Magdas in my life it's painful. Every time someone says something about Iran or makes a comment about Indian doctors not being as good as American doctors, it goes straight to my heart. Every time one of my American friends opens their mouth about one of my countries-- something they experienced when they went to the Taj Mahal, something they read in an article online because no one reads the newspaper anymore--they become a Magda. And it hurts. 12. It's a good book. The girl on the plane next to me is reading the back cover as it sits turned upside down on my lap, spine pressed open. 13. I am wondering how long until we land. 14. I am picking at my cuticles 15. I do not want to Uber home from the airport but I am thinking that it is going to be too late to take public transportation alone right now 16. I don't actually think that Uber is much safer but I've never hearted of Anyone I know getting h mugged in one and That at least provides some sense of comfort. 17. I wrap my ring finger around my little finger and press the pad of my pinky against that of my thumb. The plane roars as it begins its descent. My fingers quicken. With my middle finger I rub rapidly at the tiny piece of skin that pokes out from between my nail and the nail bed it hurts. There is a cuticle on my thumb that is not so close to the nail. It would hurt less I know. I keep rubbing my pinky. The plane hits ground with a sharp thud and my hand, ring finger still wrapped around my pinky, shoots out to the chair in front, unsuccessfully trying to absorb the shock. I will be back at school soon. Things will start moving again soon. I am worried. I am scared. I still do not know what I am doing there. The plane slows to a stop and my middle finger goes back to rubbing my pinky. The girl next to me straightens her back as if to nudge me out of my seat. I settle back and continue to rub my pinky. We're the very last row on the plane, we'll be waiting anyway. I can't tell if my pinky has stopped stinging or by now I am just used to the pain. 18. I am eating dried mangoes (the unsweetened kind like I like) as I wait for the crowd around my baggage claim carousel to disperse. People swarm toward the silver roundabout trying to grab there bags and get out of here. It's okay that I can't push forward. I have time. People breathe down each others necks standing on tip toes , eyes trained on the little hole that vomits up bags searching for that purple ribbon or orange tag that distinguishes their bag from everyone else's. Its okay. Im in no rush. 19. An old man in a thick red coat sits next to me flanked on the other side by a young girl in a hoodie. He is telling her that everyone else is dressed much more warmly. Is she sure she will be okay. She rolls her eyes and says she is fine. My chest swells up no one is fine for our winters. They're the kind of winters that make your bones feel cold. They're the kind of cold that seeps through woolen socks and pinches at any inch of bare skin. I'm proud of my ability to sustain these winters. I'm an immigrant. I'm not used to this weather. 20. I decide to take the bus home. It'll take lo ref but I've got time plus last time I ran into a friend on the bus. 21. I watched a little boy on the bus draw a peace sign in the condensation on window. I smiled as he slid his little finger back and forth