#an Unstoppable Force Between Static Stars | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

writesvani · 4 days ago

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전정국 | 𝖻𝖾𝗍𝗐𝖾𝖾𝗇 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗅𝗂𝗇𝖾𝗌 — O1

ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: Barcelona’s streets are full of legends — but none quite like Jungkook, the soccer prodigy who’s taken the city by storm.

You’re the ultimate nepo baby with a sharp tongue and a knack for making everyone question how you got here. He’s the cocky soccer star who’s determined to prove you’re more style than substance. You’re sarcastic, entitled, and completely self-aware; he’s loud, extroverted, and impossible to ignore.

Together, you clash like two unstoppable forces—witty insults flying, chemistry crackling, and a rivalry that no one saw coming.

So go ahead—try to keep your cool. But be warned: in Barcelona, the only thing hotter than the summer sun is the mess you’re about to get tangled in.

brother's best friend, enemies to lovers, sports romance

ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: soccer!player jungkook × nepo!baby y/n

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢs: alcohol, hangover symptoms, public scandal, gossip, mild sexual innuendo, anxiety mentions, explicit language

ʟɪɴᴇᴠᴇʀsᴇ ɢᴜɪᴅᴇ

ᴏᴜᴛ ᴏꜰ ʟɪɴᴇ (ᴛᴀᴇ'ꜱ sᴛᴏʀʏ) @jungkoode

✦ ․ ˚ ݁⠀⠀․ ＃ series masterlist | taglist link

next chapter (pending...) ＃ ․ ˚ ݁⠀⠀․ ✦

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴏɴᴇ: sᴘɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ɴᴀʀʀᴀᴛɪᴠᴇ

＃ ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 5,8k ＃ ᴅᴀᴛᴇ: 9th of July 2O25

ᴀɴ: okay hi besties. welcome to the first chap of jungkook’s lineverse story??? i’m losing my mind. kiki and i have been texting like absolute crackheads trying to piece the lineverse together so y’all can catch lil crumbs both in my fic and hers. we’ve been working day and night. i have seen the sun rise way too many times. my neurons are on strike. but i hope y’all are gonna vibe with this cuz i’m currently hyperfixated to the point of no return.

ANYWAY, note goal for this is 500 notes bc i literally never know how to set note goals when i start new fics lmao.

also make sure to check kiki’s fic out on her account @jungkoode (she’s writing tae’s story in the lineverse) cuz it’s pure ✨chaos✨ and we’re in our silly little shared universe era. she'll be posting chap 1 in a few days. love you BYEEEEEE <3

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

God, you hate Saturdays.

See, Friday nights? Those are magic. Friday nights are Belvedere splashing into lemon soda, reggaeton pulsing so loud it rattles your ribcage. They’re sweaty bodies pressed too close, strangers’ faces swirling in neon lights — people you swear you adored, though honestly, it was probably just the vodka talking. Friday nights are you screaming lyrics at the top of your lungs until you forget your own damn name.

But Saturday mornings?

They’re a whole different beast. Saturdays are punishment. Saturdays are for the strong — and you, apparently, are not among them.

Because right now, every twitch of your body sends shockwaves of pain through your skull. Your brain’s wrapped in cotton and static. The room tilts if you dare turn your head. Your mouth feels like sandpaper, your throat raw as if you’ve swallowed broken glass. And you’re so dehydrated, you’d trade your soul for a cold bottle of water.

Saturdays suck.

You somehow peel yourself out of bed, even though every movement feels like stepping onto a minefield primed to blow your skull into tiny confetti.

You stagger toward the kitchen, groggy and half-blind, cursing the universe because each step is pure torture.

Never drinking again? Yeah, sure. Noted. Definitely lying? Also noted.

Right now, your entire existence has narrowed down to one mission: reach the kitchen. Because if you don’t get water into your body as soon as possible, you’re either going to cry, keel over from dehydration, or experience some tragic in-between state.

Saturdays definitely suck — you confirm that fact all over again the moment your bleary eyes land on the sight waiting in your kitchen.

There he is. Jeon Jungkook.

Sitting sprawled on a barstool like he owns the damn place, one tattooed arm draped across the counter, eyes glued to his phone while he casually shovels spoonfuls of ice cream into his mouth with the other.

“Damn, you look like shit.”

Jungkook barely lifts his gaze from his phone, like insulting you is just casual conversation.

Okay, sure. You’re a mess right now. But it’s not your worst look — and he’s got some nerve.

“And you look like you just broke into my house.”

“You mean Dani’s house?”

“Same thing, Jeon.”

“Not really. But if it helps you sleep at night…”

“What would actually help me sleep is not seeing your face at—” you check your phone, groaning, “—ten a.m. Get out.”

He smirks, leaning back on the stool. “Why? Afraid you’ll start finding me irresistible this early in the day?”

“You wish. Leave.”

“First of all,” Jungkook says, finally tossing his phone onto the counter. He crosses his arms, rolling his shoulders like he’s prepping for a brawl. “That’s so rude. Second, I’m waiting for Dani, so you can’t just kick me out.”

“Okaaay,” you drawl, sweeping past him to the fridge. You fling it open and start rifling through shelves like a raccoon hunting for snacks.

Ah. Jackpot. Cold water.

“I’m just gonna ignore you,” you say, unscrewing the cap and chugging like your life depends on it.

Jungkook clicks his tongue. “You know, you’d be way more convincing if you didn’t feel the need to announce you’re ignoring me.”

“Can you just shut up for two seconds? You’re killing my brain cells.”

He scoffs. “You’d need to own some brain cells first.”

“Says the one with zero left,” you shoot back, rubbing your temples like it might keep your skull from cracking open.

God. Ouch. You really hate drinking. Or at least… the aftermath.

Jungkook leans into the barstool, smirk tugging at his lips as his eyes lazily travel over you, head to toe and back again.

“Rough night?” he asks, voice dipping just enough to make your pulse stutter.

“More like a rough morning. Incredible night, though.”

“Yeah? That’s usually how it goes after a good one.”

“And you would know how, exactly?” you scoff. “Last time I saw you in a club was when you signed for Barça. Five years ago.”

He raises a brow. “Just because my idea of a good time doesn’t involve puking in Opium’s bathroom doesn’t mean I’m boring.”

“I never said you were boring.”

“Oh, come on. You were totally implying it.”

“You said it, not me.”

He tilts his head, eyes glinting. “Trust me, there’s a lot of things I could show you that’d prove I’m anything but boring.”

You roll your eyes, though your cheeks feel suspiciously warm. “I’ll pass. I value my remaining brain cells.”

“Your loss. I’m offering you the opportunity of a lifetime here,” Jungkook drawls, his fingers drumming a lazy, rhythmic tattoo on the counter, each tap echoing in the quiet kitchen. His dark eyes glimmer with mischief, lingering on you just a second too long.

“Ew. I wouldn’t touch you if you were the last man alive,” you snap back, scrunching your nose as if the mere thought physically repulses you.

Jungkook pauses, tilting his head. A sly grin curls at the corner of his lips.

“Wait—do you hear that?” he says, leaning forward and cupping his hand theatrically around his ear.

You frown, blinking at him. “Hear what?”

“Oh, it’s just the sound of me not giving a shit.”

He drops his hand and leans back, smirk stretching wide, like he’s just delivered the punchline of the century.

You let out a groan so deep it vibrates in your chest, fingers dragging down your face. Of course. You should have expected that. This is Jeon Jungkook you’re dealing with.

He laughs—a low, husky sound that skitters along your nerves. And God, you’d pay good money to wipe that smug grin off his face.

But there’s absolutely no way you’re risking your perfectly manicured French tips on his annoyingly perfect jawline. Even if it’s for a well-deserved punch. You’re too classy for that.

“Real mature, Jungkook. Seriously inspiring. I’m sure your fans are thrilled to call you their hero.”

He shrugs one shoulder, lips quirking as he rakes his gaze over you again, far too amused. “Hey, I’m not trying to be a role model. But, y’know… game recognizes game. So I can’t blame ‘em for loving me.”

“Ugh, whatever,” you mutter, flipping Jungkook off as you shuffle past him and sink into a stool across the counter. The cool metal feels merciful against your overheated skin as you try to keep the pounding in your skull under control.

“Where’s my brother, anyway?” you ask, rubbing your temples. “Wasn’t he with you last night?”

“Oh, shit. Right. I forgot,” Jungkook says, blinking like the realization just smacked him upside the head.

“How do you forget my brother?”

“The same way you apparently forgot how to walk in a straight line. How much did you drink?”

You wave him off with a sigh. “Just… a lil’ something. Had to keep the vibes alive.”

Jungkook arches a brow. “Yeah. You and your vibes.”

“I am vibes,” you shoot back. “You just can’t handle this level of coolness.”

“Okay, loser.” Jungkook snorts, shaking his head. “Oh, and by the way—Dani slept over at Carla’s.”

Your eyes widen. “Why the hell couldn’t you have said that immediately?”

He shrugs, feigning innocence. “Because where’s the fun in that, duh.”

“Men are dumb, and you’re walking proof,” you say, flashing Jungkook a sarcastic smile.

“Ouch. You wound me.”

“Sorry, let me kiss it better.”

“Just admit you’re in love with me at this point.”

“You wish.”

“Never,” he says, smirking, but you decide not to waste any more of your already fraying patience on him this morning.

Instead, you unlock your phone, determined to distract yourself. You start scrolling through Instagram, praying you didn’t post anything mortifying last night.

No drunk rants. No blurry, tearful selfies. No 3 a.m. cryptic captions. Thank God for that.

But then something makes you freeze.

Your follower count.

It’s gone up by half a million.

You stare at the screen, blinking. Refresh. Still there: 4.5 million.

Sure, your Instagram’s big. But not gain-five-hundred-thousand-followers-overnight big.

Fuck.

Your stomach lurches, panic bubbling up as every worst-case scenario flashes through your mind.

Did you start a fight with paparazzi? Overshare something personal about you or Dani? Did you fall over outside the club? End up in some viral TikTok?

You’re spiraling when Jungkook’s voice cuts in.

“Ohhh, what about you and my boy Blake?” he says, leaning closer, eyes sparkling. “Didn’t know you were into the British accent.”

You whip your head toward him. “I’m into what now?”

He grins wickedly. “Saw some articles this morning—something about you two making out outside Opium?”

You gape at him. “There is literally no way I did that.”

Okay, you admit—you do dumb things when you’re drunk. You’re human, after all. Flawed, impulsive, prone to moments you’d rather forget. It’s part of the chaos of life.

But there’s no way you made out with a Barçelona player.

Your brother’s friend. His teammate.

The idea feels like a punch to your gut. No matter how foggy your memory is, you know you didn’t drag yourself into that kind of scandal—especially not in front of a crowd.

Your fingers tremble slightly as you unlock your phone, the screen’s cold glow harsh against your sweaty palms. With hesitant taps, you type “BarcaBarbie” and “Blake” into the search bar, your heart pounding with equal parts dread and desperate hope.

Then it appears.

A photo.

You and Blake, standing outside Opium, the flashing camera capturing the exact moment that, from this angle, looks damn close to a kiss.

Your breath catches in your throat. The world tilts.

Was it real? Or just a trick of the light?

You stare at the photo on your phone.

Your hands are tangled around his neck, gripping like you’re holding onto something solid in a world that’s spinning too fast. His hands rest somewhere near your waist—or at least that’s what it looks like through the grainy blur of the picture.

You already know how the gossip columns will twist this. “Blake Scott caught grabbing your ass like a starved man.” The words scream in your head before they even hit the headlines.

His neck tilts casually toward you, but your face is hidden beneath a messy curtain of hair, shadows swallowing your features from the unforgiving camera lens.

The image is blurry, but clear enough to punch you in the gut.

Your mind starts to replay the night.

Blake texted earlier, asking if you were out clubbing. Of course you were — it was Friday.

You remember stepping outside just as he arrived. You wrapped your arms around him in a quick hug—just a hug.

Your legs wobble, barely holding you upright, and he steadies you, his hands firm on your hips, anchoring you to the world.

And in that moment, a camera clicks.

God.

Your heart races as the weight of the photo settles in.

That’s all it was.

But will anyone believe you?

“Okay, chill out,” Jungkook says, finally noticing the way your face has gone pale. “I already talked to Blake. He told me what actually happened in the pic. I’m just teasing you.”

“I— but… what about Dani? The press? The rumors?” You groan, dropping your forehead onto the cool surface of the kitchen counter with a dull thud, hating every single one of your life choices.

Jungkook lets out a low laugh. “Blake literally sent a whole novel in our group chat explaining it. Dani’s chill about it. And you know how dating rumors work — they come fast, but they die even faster.”

“Ugh, Jungkook, I’m literally gonna kill myself,” you deadpan, searching his face like you’re hoping he’ll tell you this is all a bad dream.

Jungkook’s eyes soften for half a second. “There, there. Blake’s PR team is probably already working on a statement. It’s not the end of the world.”

You let out a shaky breath, rolling your shoulders like you’re trying to shake off a heavy coat. “Right, right. Shit. My PR agent is gonna murder me,” you mumble.

Jungkook snorts. “Please. Hugo? He’s basically your ride or die.”

“Yeah, well… Hugo’s even scarier as a PR agent precisely because he’s my ride or die.”

For a while, neither of you says anything.

The kitchen is quiet, filled only with the low hum of the fridge and the occasional buzz of Jungkook’s phone. You rest your elbows on the counter, your head in your hands, eyes heavy with exhaustion. The screen of your own phone lies dim beside you, notifications piling up — texts, mentions, headlines you can’t bring yourself to read.

You don’t have it in you. Not yet.

Your temples throb. The weight of everything — the photo, the rumors, the pressure — presses down on your shoulders like wet cement. You’re already rehearsing what you’ll say to Hugo, how you’ll soften the blow before he blows a fuse.

And then you hear it — the gentle scrape of cardboard against the counter.

You lift your head, and there it is. A half-melted tub of ice cream now sits in front of you, pushed your way without a word.

Jungkook doesn’t look up. He just scrolls through his phone like it’s no big deal. “Eat some,” he says softly. “It’ll make you feel better.”

The gesture hits you harder than it should.

You glance at the spoon sticking out of it, raising a brow. “With your spoon? Gross.”

That earns the tiniest smile from him — lazy and crooked. “Damn. Can’t even share a spoon now? What happened to friendship?”

“Not you being delusional and calling us friends,” you mumble, eyes fixed on the tub of ice cream in front of you.

It’s tempting — way too tempting. The soft, slightly melting surface, the way the cold air curls up from the rim. But taking a bite now would mean giving Jungkook the satisfaction of a win, and honestly? That’s a low you refuse to sink to. Even in this state.

Instead, you slide off the stool, your bare feet landing softly against the cool kitchen tiles. You feel his gaze trail after you as you move, heavy and unreadable, but you don’t look back.

Your fingers wrap around the silver handle of the spoon drawer, pulling it open with a soft click. You reach in, grab a small spoon — dainty, perfect — and close the drawer without a word.

Behind you, Jungkook lets out a dramatic sigh. “Okay, spoiled queen supreme, sorry for being nice.” His voice is laced with mock offense, but the smile tugging at his lips gives him away.

You turn just slightly, spoon in hand. “Deal with it.”

You settle back onto your stool, spoon in hand, and finally give in. You scoop up a bite of ice cream, letting the cold, creamy sweetness curl around your tongue. For a moment, you let yourself simply exist — hangover, scandal, and all — savoring the tiny bliss.

Then you hear footsteps approaching the kitchen, each step a dull thud against the floor.

“Yo, guys,” Dani calls as he enters, a little out of breath, hair tousled like he just rolled out of bed. He heads straight for you first, bumping your shoulder with his elbow.

“Knew I’d find you here,” he murmurs.

He moves toward Jungkook next, and they dive into one of those elaborate bro handshakes that make you roll your eyes. Why do men even bother?

“Wassup, loser,” Jungkook says, smirking.

“Nothing much, to be honest. Oh—Carla says hi to you both,” Dani replies, dropping onto the stool across from you.

“Tell her hi back when you text her,” you mumble, spooning more ice cream into your mouth.

Dani’s eyes glint mischievously as he leans forward a little. “Saw the pics of you and Blake. Not looking good for you, lil sis.”

“Shut the fuck up, please. You already know what happened.”

“Gee, I do,” Dani says, holding up his hands in surrender. “Can’t even make fun of you anymore?”

“Not when I’m hungover.”

“Okay, sorry for existing.”

“I forgive you. Because I love you,” you say, giving him a wry look over the rim of your spoon before digging back into the ice cream.

“Do you guys have training today?” you ask, still nursing your ice cream.

“No, thank fuck,” Dani groans, leaning back in his seat like the thought alone relaxes him. “We’ve got the weekend off.”

“I swear we never get weekends off anymore,” Jungkook adds, glancing over at Dani. “I seriously needed this.”

“Same. I think it’s because the new physio’s coming on Monday, so they’re giving us a little breather.” Dani stretches his arms above his head with a sigh. “Which reminds me—have you heard from Mini Doc? How are her and Jesus settling in Madrid?”

Your ears perk up at the name. Curiosity sparks instantly.

“Mini Doc?” you repeat. “You mean that girl who followed you around like a lost puppy? Your old physio’s daughter?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Dani says with an exaggerated eye roll. “She was just a friend.”

“Uh-huh,” Jungkook chimes in, grinning. “I talked to her a bit. She hates Madrid, bro. Says the players there are spoiled and annoying.”

“She probably just misses home,” Dani says, a small smile tugging at his lips. “She grew up here — I’m sure they’re not that bad.”

“Whatever,” Jungkook shrugs, “she doesn’t vibe with it.”

“Well, I don’t know if they’re cool,” you interject, “but some of them are super hot.” You sing-song the words, spoon in hand. “Marco is so my type.”

Dani scrunches his nose immediately. “Ew. I really didn’t need to hear that.”

“You just gave me the worst ick,” Jungkook says, shooting you a look of pure betrayal.

“Men can’t get the ick,” you declare, smug. “It’s for girlies only.”

You stand outside Hugo’s apartment, clutching your phone like it might shield you from the storm brewing on the other side of the door.

You’re already bracing for the headache waiting for you as soon as you step inside. Hugo must be livid. Hell, you’re certain of it.

If there’s one thing Hugo despises, it’s a scandal—especially one he didn’t orchestrate himself.

You inhale deeply, lift your chin as high as your pounding head will allow, and finally press the doorbell.

The door swings open almost instantly, like he’s been standing right there, waiting for you. Which, honestly, wouldn’t surprise you. You and Hugo have always had this weird, borderline telepathic connection. Like that time you desperately wanted the exact pair of Manolo Blahnik's Carrie Bradshaw wore in Sex and the City—the ones she got stolen at a party—and when you’d finally worked up the courage to tell Hugo… he’d already bought them for you.

Twin behavior, indeed.

Before you can even say hello, Hugo grabs your arm and pulls you inside, slamming the door shut behind you as though paparazzi might be lurking in the hallway.

“Girl, have you gone absolutely insane?” he hisses, glaring at you like you’ve personally offended every fiber of his being.

“No,” you mutter as you kick off your shoes, striding straight into Hugo’s living room like you pay rent here.

Hugo trails behind you, his steps growing louder — faster — matching your energy.

“God forbid a girl has some fun,” you mumble under your breath, throwing yourself onto his velvet couch with a dramatic sigh.

You finally pull off your sunglasses and set them gently on the coffee table, as if that might buy you grace points.

“You weren’t having fun,” Hugo snaps, his hands flying in the air like he’s about to conduct an orchestra of chaos. “It looked like you were all over Blake fucking Scott.”

“I wasn’t!” you shoot back, folding your arms tightly across your chest. “I was just saying hi. The press twisted it.”

“I know,” Hugo says, exasperated. “His PR team already reached out to clear things up. I’m just telling you how it looks.”

“Well who cares how it looks if we know the truth?”

“I do,” he says, deadpan. “And so should you. Especially since half of Barça’s fanbase now ships you and Blake. There are already fan pages. Edits, babe.” He throws up his hands again, pacing. “TikTok edits.”

You groan, burying your face in a throw pillow. “This is ridiculous.”

“What did Dani say?” Hugo asks, crossing his arms now, brows raised in challenge.

“He was chill,” you say, sitting up. “He knows me. He trusts me. He knows I’d never do anything with his teammate.”

“Well clearly he knows you wrong,” Hugo deadpans. “Do I need to bring up Thiago?”

“Shut up,” you groan again. “Don’t remind me. That was ages ago.”

“Yeah,” Hugo mutters. “Thank fuck it never hit the press.”

“No—thank fuck Dani never found out,” you correct, eyes wide. “He’d kill me.”

“Well I want to kill you right now,” Hugo says, pointing at you like a disappointed sitcom dad.

“You’re being way too dramatic,” you say, stretching your arms over your head until your shoulders pop.

Hugo lets out a sharp scoff. “Yeah? Tell that to your sponsors, your social media team, and basically everyone who works for you. I’m sure they’ll all be so understanding.”

“Okay, fuck,” you groan, slumping back into the couch. “I didn’t think about it. I made a mistake, okay? I forgot how unhinged the press can be.”

Hugo softens just a fraction, but his voice stays firm. “I get it. But you need to hammer it into that thick skull of yours. There’s no room for mistakes right now. Especially with us about to launch ‘BB’s Luxe.’”

You exhale, pressing your palms to your eyes. “Okay… you’re right. I’m sorry. So… what do we do now?”

“You?” Hugo points a dramatic finger at you. “Nothing. You act normal. Post some fit checks on your story. Maybe a random storytime on TikTok. Something totally unrelated to FC Barçelona — especially Blake.”

“Shouldn’t I just, like… go silent on social media for a while?” you ask hesitantly.

“No,” Hugo says, with the exasperation of a man dealing with a wayward toddler. “That’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid. You always post. If you suddenly go quiet, everyone’s gonna think you’ve got something to hide. Blake’s team already sent me a draft statement. Let me handle it. Let us handle it.”

“Okay…” you sigh. “I’m sorry again, bestie.”

“Stop apologizing,” Hugo snaps, though the corners of his mouth twitch. “It’s making me even angrier.”

“On the plus side,” Hugo says, tapping his finger thoughtfully against his chin, “your socials blew up overnight. That spike could actually work in our favor — especially with the skincare launch around the corner. I’m willing to bet half of Blake’s fangirls are now following you, waiting for the tea.”

“What do you have in mind?” you ask, tilting your head, curiosity peeking through your exhaustion.

“I’m thinking we flip the narrative,” Hugo says, leaning back against the arm of the couch, casual but sharp. “You went clubbing with Blake — so let’s frame it as two friends hanging out. We lean into that angle publicly. Maybe even get Blake to post a Story with you. A cute caption like ‘my little sister’ — anything that screams platonic vibes and nothing else.”

You narrow your eyes. “And why, exactly, would his PR team agree to that?”

Hugo smirks. “Because they kinda have to. If they want this to die quickly, they’ll play ball. Otherwise, we just… say nothing. And your silence would be way louder than any rumor. People would eat it up and assume something shady’s going on.”

“So… we’re blackmailing Blake’s team? Cool, cool.”

“It’s not blackmail,” Hugo says, waving his hand as though swatting a fly. “It’s strategic silence. There’s nuance, babe.”

“You’re horrible.”

“I’m practical. And brilliant. You’re welcome.”

“Okay… agreed,” you sigh, finally cracking a tiny smile.

Hugo pauses, giving you a long, assessing look. “Is Blake gonna be mad at you for this? I’d prefer not to spark World War III with your friend."

“No, trust me, Blake’s chill,” you assure him, waving a dismissive hand. “I called him earlier, and he was like, ‘Let’s feed into the delulu. Let them think we’re dating.’ ”

Hugo blinks, then bursts out laughing. “Straight men are genuinely my favorite science project.”

“You and me both, twin.”

Turns out Hugo’s plan is indeed brilliant.

You’ve only been gone from his apartment for two hours when your phone buzzes with a triumphant text from him.

Hugo (not the Boss): Blake’s PR team folded like a piece of paper. Check his Story.

You’re already opening Instagram before you’ve even finished reading. And there it is — Blake’s Story.

It’s a selfie of you and him laughing outside the club, your hair falling into your face, Blake mid-smirk. Scrawled across the picture in elegant cursive are the words:

— barça’s baby sis

Bingo.

Almost instantly, your phone lights up with notifications. Likes, comments, DMs — your Instagram turns into a frenzy of usernames, emojis, and rapid-fire speculation. People are eating it up, fan pages gushing about the “adorable sibling vibes” between you and Blake.

It’s dizzying. But for the first time all day, you feel like you can actually breathe.

You share Blake’s Story to your own account, adding a neat row of blue and red hearts underneath. Whew.

Taking Hugo’s advice to heart, you follow up with an outfit check on your Instagram feed — a carousel of mirror selfies, carefully curated angles, a playful caption. You pointedly ignore the flood of Blake-related comments piling up under the post.

Instead, you try to stay calm and patient, counting the seconds until Hugo sends over the official statement you can share publicly.

For now, you focus on controlling what you can — your aesthetic, your posts, your narrative.

Sure enough, as soon as Blake’s official statement goes live — polished, PR-approved, toeing the line between warmth and formality — Hugo sends you yours.

You smile the second you read it. Of course he nailed it. Hugo knows you like the back of his perfectly moisturized hand — well enough to write something that sounds exactly like you:

Rumors are wild, huh? Blake Scott and I… are officially in a relationship called friendship. Nothing romantic happening, I promise. Thank you for caring though — you’re all sweet. Back to the regularly scheduled program of outfits and coffee runs. 💙❤️

You post it to your Story without a second thought, watching the hearts and DMs begin to pour in — but you don’t stick around to read them.

You turn your phone off. Literally off.

Because what you need right now is some very serious, very intentional recollection with nature. Or, more realistically — sitting by the pool with sunglasses on and your SPF maxed out.

That counts too.

But to your absolute, utter disdain, sitting by your pool is none other than Jeon Jungkook — sprawled out, shirtless, muscles on shameless display, tattoos glinting under the sun, wearing a lazy grin like it’s a crown.

“Don’t you have your own house?” you whine, dropping onto your sun lounger with a dramatic sigh.

“I do,” Jungkook says, running a hand through his damp hair, sending tiny droplets flying. It almost distracts you for half a second. Almost. “But I don’t have Dani in my house.”

“Can’t you two hang out at your place sometimes? I need, like, peace and quiet. Please.”

“Nope,” he huffs, settling deeper into his chair. “Because we thoroughly enjoy making you suffer.”

Rolling your eyes, you pull out your SPF spray, misting it over your legs and working it in with careful, slow circles. The citrus scent fills the warm air.

“I’ve had a tough day, Jungkook. I really don’t have time for your shit.”

“Yeah?” He chuckles, leaning his elbow on the back of his chair, eyes glinting. “Saw your little Instagram Stories. You and Hugo were clearly doing some serious PR shit to rack up those follower numbers.”

You scoff, flicking imaginary dust off your leg. “It’s called spinning the narrative, genius. You should Google it sometime.”

“I would… if I was ever in a scandal to begin with,” he says, winking. “But I’m an unproblematic king.”

Dani appears from behind you, casting a shadow across your lounger. He’s holding two tall glasses, sunlight catching on the fizzing liquid and slices of orange perched on the rims. Mimosas. Perfect.

“One’s for me, right?” you ask sweetly, batting your lashes at your brother like a starving puppy.

“Nope. One for me, one for Kook,” Dani says, pulling the glasses out of reach before you can even try grabbing one. He hands Jungkook his drink, and Jungkook shoots you a small triumphal smile.

“Pleaaase,” you whine, stretching out the word, reaching half-heartedly towards Dani's drink.

“If you want one, go make one yourself. Stop being so lazy,” Dani shoots back, settling onto the sun lounger beside Jungkook.

“Weren’t you like, hungover as fuck a few hours ago?” Jungkook asks, eyebrows raised as he casually snatches the SPF spray right out of your hand.

“Hey! Give it back, asshole,” you snap, lunging forward, but he’s already spritzing it onto his arms, rubbing it in like he owns the bottle.

Ugh. Why does he have to be like this?

“I’m not hungover anymore,” you hiss, glaring at Jungkook as you flop back into your seat. “I need to relax.”

“Daniiieeel,” you sing out sweetly, dragging his name like honey as you tilt your head toward your brother. “Can you please fetch me a mimosa?”

Dani rolls his eyes so hard you’re surprised they don’t get stuck. “Again, why would I do that?”

“Because you love me, and I’ve been a tragic victim of gossip blogs today.” You press a hand to your chest dramatically, as though your heart might shatter.

“You’re so annoying,” he groans.

“Please? Pretty, pretty please?” You widen your eyes, batting your lashes like your life depends on it.

Dani huffs, shaking his head. “Fine.”

You throw your arms up in victory as Dani gets up, his silhouette soon disappearing into the house. Fuck yeah.

Behind you, Jungkook lets out an exaggerated scoff. “You’re on a fast track to becoming an alcoholic, you know that?”

“You are literally drinking right now,” you huff, getting to your feet and stalking toward the pool.

You can practically feel Jungkook’s gaze drilling into the back of your neck, but you refuse to turn around. Can’t he just leave you alone for five minutes?

“At least I’m not drinking every day,” he calls after you, voice edged with exasperation.

“Neither am I, duh. It’s a weekend sport,” you shoot back over your shoulder as you lower yourself onto the edge of the pool. Cool water closes around your ankles, and you let out a blissful sigh as the sun warms your skin.

For a moment, there’s blessed silence — no snarky retort, no teasing quip from behind you. It’s so suspicious that you slowly tilt your head to look back at Jungkook.

“What? Cat got your tongue?” you say, one eyebrow arched.

But instead of firing back, Jungkook just slumps his shoulders, eyes dropping as he shifts in his seat.

Jungkook shifts again on his lounger. He clears his throat once. Then again, a little louder. He subtly pulls a towel from beside him and drapes it across his lap, smoothing it out as casually as he can manage.

He tries to focus on the glimmering surface of the pool, or the pattern of sunlight flickering across the tiles. But his jaw is clenched tight, a faint flush creeping up his neck and coloring the tips of his ears.

He crosses one leg over the other, adjusting the towel for the third time, his fingers curling around the edges like it’s his last lifeline.

“Hot out today, huh?” he mutters under his breath, voice a little strained.

You laugh, splashing a bit of water with your heel. “The fuck? What’s up with you?”

“Me? Nothing. What’s up with you?” Jungkook shoots back quickly, his brows pulling together a little too tightly.

“You’re being weird,” you accuse, narrowing your eyes at him.

“No I’m not.” His voice comes out just a shade too high.

“Since when do you talk about the weather, dumbass?” you say, flicking droplets of water in his general direction.

“Umm…” Jungkook clears his throat, shifting yet again on his lounger. His fingers grip the edges of the towel across his lap like it’s a security blanket. “Since it’s… hot outside.”

“You’re scaring the crap out of me right now,” you say, squinting at Jungkook.

He sits stiffly on the lounger. “You’re just imagining things,” he snaps, a little too quickly.

“Uh-huh.” You narrow your eyes. With an exaggerated huff, you slip into the pool, shivering as the cool water closes over your warm skin.

“Careful, don’t drown,” Jungkook calls after you.

“Wow, thanks for the concern, Captain Safety,” you shout back, smoothing your hair back as you paddle toward the deeper end.

“I’m just saying, you’re dramatic enough as it is. You’d probably turn a noseful of water into a near-death experience.”

“Excuse me? I’m elegance and grace personified,” you shoot back, glaring at him from mid-pool.

He snorts. “Sure. Says the girl who fell off a bar stool last month completely sober.”

“That stool was wobbly, okay? Don’t make me come over there.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” he retorts, eyes glinting.

You roll your eyes, diving under the surface. The water muffles the world into a hush, bubbles swirling around your face as the sunlight fractures into golden shards overhead. For a few seconds, it’s blissfully quiet.

When you pop back up, hair slicked back, Jungkook’s still watching you with a look somewhere between annoyance and... something else.

“Why are you staring at me like I’m a circus act?”

“Because you are a circus act.”

“Jealousy’s not a good look, Jeon,” you snap, sending another splash toward his lounger.

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles, adjusting the towel in his lap like it might save his dignity. “Just don’t come crying when your little scandal makes headlines again.”

Floating on your back, you grin at the blue sky. The water is cool and perfect, sunlight warming your face.

“Not worried, loser,” you call, voice echoing off the pool tiles. “Because at the end of the day, I’m me. And you’re just Jeon Jungkook.”

“And you’re a pain in my ass,” he fires back.

“And you love it.”

He groans, rubbing his face. “God, why do I even hang out here?”

“Because I’m fabulous. And Dani’s here,” you remind him.

You let yourself sink beneath the surface again, the cool water closing over your ears and swallowing the noise of the world. For a few precious seconds, there’s nothing but soft blue light and the gentle sway of currents around you.

Yeah… today actually turned out fine. You had a blast last night. The scandal, against all odds, ended up working in your favor. BB’s Luxe is about to launch soon. Life is good. Life is actually fucking amazing.

So, fuck Jungkook and his random weirdness. Whatever. It’s just how he is.

Because he’s Jeon Jungkook.

And he’s simply the biggest loser ever.

taglist: @cherryreadsfics @dreamersparacosm @dailynnt @kelsyx33 @jungkooksseuphoria @stvvrgrr @plutocartii @mimi1097 @unefleurv @111vln @adorepinkseworld @nikkinikj @taolucha @rarakore @beattiestreet @souleater44 @cdllevantae @jungkoode @kimishataheyung @fleintur @generouspursethingbat @taesnumber1 @kooever @impossiblecopoaffire @kaystrategy @taekrve @vintagemoonsstuff @lcvryu @guwol @jenniebyrubies @mar-lo-pap @smolchild95 @sstass @midas-quinn @osirisnasa @superstarfishsandwich @alextgef @sphrssss @pitchblack0309 @jinnyverse @bjoriis @httpjeonlicious @yooforeaa @petals4bangtan @futuristicenemychaos @lvnderdreams @breezy-bts @annyeongbitch7

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sweettu1ips · 4 months ago

Text

PAIGE BUECKERS x FEM!READER

SYNOPSIS: A fall shattered her future, dreams slipping through trembling fingers—but in the quiet ache of recovery, love reveals itself. Not in grand gestures, but in the steady presence of Paige, who has always been home.

WARNING(S): -ish, angst ⋮ yelling ⋮ argument ⋮ ACL injury ⋮ pain ⋮ crying ⋮ reader feeling lost(ig) ⋮ kissing ⋮ fluffy towards the end ⋮ ACL recovery ⋮ friends to lovers ⋮ emotional ⋮ slow-burn(ish) ⋮ kind of shit writing :/ ⋮ i'm not sure if i'm missing anything...

WORD COUNT: 9.2k [Here's a pretty long one before I start writing the series <3]

| MAIN MASTER LIST |

ONE SECOND, I WAS IN THE AIR—suspended between gravity and glory—the ball in my court, the championship within reach.

The lights above gleamed like stars, burning bright against the cavernous arena, the roar of the crowd swelling like a tidal wave, pushing me higher, willing me forward.

Every muscle in my body coiled with purpose, years of training condensed into this single, breathless moment. This was for us. For my girls, who bled beside me in every grueling practice.

For coach, who shaped me from raw talent into something unstoppable. For every person who had ever screamed my name, believing I could be something more than just a player.

And then the next second, it was as if time twisted, crueling and unrelenting.

Time did not just slow; it fractured. The moment of collision ripped through me like a lightning strike, sudden and merciless.

My body twisted midair, momentum stolen, limbs flailing before the ground rose up to meet me. But it wasn’t just a fall. It was a crash, a brutal, unforgiving descent into agony.

The court was not hardwood beneath me; it was steel, unrelenting, and I crumpled against it like a marionette with its strings cut. Pain detonated through my body—sharp, blinding, all-consuming.

A firestorm in my knee, a searing knife twisting in my hip, a sickening pop I both heard and felt.

The scream ripped from my throat before I even realized I was the one making it, raw and jagged, swallowed by the gasps in the crowd, the shrill of the referee’s whistle, the frantic shouts of my teammates.

But none of it was louder than the relentless pounding in my ears, the deafening rhythm of my own heartbeat, slamming against my ribs like it wanted out. This isn’t how it’s supposed to end.

Tonight was the night. One of the biggest games of the season–– the Big East Championship. The night we were supposed to take everything we had bled for and make it ours.

And yet—here I was. Not sprinting down the court, not lifting the trophy, not standing.

Just lying there, my fingers digging into the polished wood, as if I could anchor myself against the inevitable.

Something was wrong.

Something was very wrong.

The pain wasn’t fading. It was swelling, spreading, sinking into my bones like venom. My knee was twisted at an unnatural angle, the joint already ballooning, throbbing, pulsing with heat. My hip screamed in protest when I tried to move, sending shockwaves of white-hot agony racing up my spine. And then there was the fear—the cold, creeping dread settling in my chest, suffocating, paralyzing.

Because this wasn’t just a fall.

This was something worse.

Something that could rip basketball from my grasp. Forever.

The world around me blurred, colors bleeding together, faces twisting in and out of focus like smudged paint on a canvas.

My chest rose and fell in ragged, uneven breaths, my fingers twitching against the slick hardwood as if I could claw my way back to before. Before the fall. Before the pain.

Before the moment my entire world began to slip through my fingers like sand in an unforgiving tide.

A hand pressed against my shoulder—firm, steady, yet trembling at the edges.

Coach.

His voice was a muffled hum against the static in my ears, but I could hear the strain in it, the forced calm he was trying to wield like a shield. I didn’t need to see his face to know.

He was scared.

I blinked hard, my vision swimming in and out of clarity, and through the overhead glare, I saw them. My team. My girls. Their faces frozen in horror, hands clasped over their mouths, eyes wide with something I had never seen in them before—helplessness.

They were warriors, fighters, the kind of players who clawed and scraped and pushed through anything. But now, they stood frozen, as if moving might shatter what little hope remained.

The trainers were there now, speaking in hushed, urgent tones. Hands hovered over me, assessing, measuring, calculating the extent of what I already knew was devastating.

“Where does it hurt?” one of them asked, but it felt like a cruel joke.

Everywhere.

The answer sat heavy on my tongue, but I couldn’t force it past my lips. My knee throbbed violently, a deep, bone-deep ache that spread like wildfire, the joint swollen, stiff, unnatural.

My hip burned with a pain that rooted itself into my spine, anchoring me to the floor in agony. But worse than all of it—worse than the physical destruction—was the creeping, soul-crushing certainty that this was it.

This wasn’t just a sprain.

This wasn’t just another injury to ice and shake off.

This was something bigger. Something worse. Something that could take everything from me.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to drown out the noise, the panic, the sheer, unbearable weight of it all. But I couldn’t ignore the way the stretcher was brought onto the court.

I couldn’t ignore the hush that fell over the crowd, the way thousands of voices had shrunk into silence, waiting, watching, knowing what I wasn’t ready to accept.

The trainers moved carefully, methodically, but even the slightest shift sent a fresh wave of agony rolling through me. I bit down hard, tasting copper, my nails digging into my palms, a futile attempt to ground myself in something other than the pain.

And then—Paige.

I didn’t see her at first. I felt her. The familiar presence before I even heard her voice. Then, suddenly, she was there, pushing past the others, dropping to her knees beside me, her fingers brushing against mine in a whisper of warmth. Her touch, the only thing in this moment that didn’t hurt.

Her eyes locked onto mine, stormy and wild, brimming with something fierce, something unbreakable.

“I’m here,” she breathed, voice tight, shaking. “I’ve got you.”

And for the first time since the fall, I let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, she did.

Her touch was a lifeline, delicate but unwavering, as if her fingers could draw the pain out of me, pull it from my skin like a curse unspoken.

I clung to her, the rhythm of her breath syncing with mine, a soft, fragile beat in the chaos of the world spinning around us.

Her presence was the anchor in a sea of doubt, the only thing keeping me tethered to something solid, something real. But even that wasn't enough to quell the storm raging inside me.

"Hey," Paige whispered, her voice steady, but there was something raw underneath it, something jagged that cut through her carefully controlled words. "Look at me. You’re going to be ok, alright?"

I could see the way her lips trembled, the way her hands were clenched tight around mine, as if she feared that if she let go, I might disappear. And in a way, I understood. Because in that moment, I felt like I was slipping.

Like the very core of me was being pulled apart, thread by thread, until I was nothing but a collection of broken dreams and what-ifs.

The stretcher came, the cold, unyielding metal frame beneath me sending a shiver through my body, and with it came the realization: this wasn’t a bruise I could ice away. This wasn’t a sprained ankle that would heal in a few weeks.

The look in the doctor’s eyes when he glanced at me told me everything I needed to know.

They couldn’t say it yet, not with so many people watching, but I saw the truth there. A diagnosis, a future that wasn’t certain, a career that might slip away in a single, cruel breath.

“You’ll be alright,” I heard Paige say again, her voice barely a whisper, but it wrapped around me like a cloak, warm and tight.

The words burrowed deep inside me, sinking into the wound of my heart, and for a moment, I allowed myself to let go of the panic, of the fear that gnawed at the edges of my mind.

For that fleeting moment, it was just the two of us, her breath mingling with mine, her presence filling the empty spaces where I used to believe in things like certainty and control.

I couldn’t feel my leg anymore, the numbness creeping in like the dark, but the pain in my chest—a hollow, aching emptiness—was enough to consume me whole. I had built my life on this game.

On the rush of the court beneath my feet, on the ball in my hands, on the endless hours of practice, sweat, and sacrifice. And now, as I was lifted away from everything I had ever known, I wondered if I would ever feel whole again.

The stadium lights, once brilliant, now seemed like distant stars, fading and flickering as I was carried away, as if the universe itself were dimming in sympathy with the crushing weight on my soul. The cheering, once deafening, now felt like an echo from a life I could no longer touch.

My dreams, so close they had once seemed within reach, were now drifting further away with every inch the stretcher moved.

But then, I felt her hand again, pressing against mine, warm and steady. Her fingers intertwined with mine, a promise, a tether to something I could still hold onto.

“We’ll figure this out,” she said, her voice strong now, like a steady current cutting through the storm. “You’re not alone in this. I’m right here.”

Her words were a balm to the raw, open wound inside me. But the truth was, no one could take away the fear. The cold, gnawing fear that my future in this game, the one thing I had known for so long, was slipping through my fingers like smoke.

I closed my eyes, my heart beating slow and heavy in my chest, and for the first time, I let myself lean into the warmth of Paige’s presence.

Her hand was the only thing that kept me from shattering, and in that brokenness, I allowed myself to believe—if only for a moment—that maybe, just maybe, I could rebuild.

We would rebuild. Together.

Together.

Togeth-

To-

“Y/N?”

“Y/N.”

Paige’s voice slipped through the static, sharp enough to cut through the fog wrapped around my mind. My head felt heavy, thoughts sluggish and tangled, like a radio caught between frequencies—just white noise and fleeting, incoherent signals.

I barely registered the crease in her brows, the slight part of her lips, the way she hovered, waiting.

“I was asking what you wanted for dinner,” she repeated, her voice softer now, laced with something careful, something that tread lightly.

Her words reached me slow, like sound traveling through water, distant and warped.

My gaze flickered, landing on the deep blue of her eyes, then the soft parting of her lips. I caught the quick flick of her tongue, the way it glossed over her bottom lip before disappearing again.

Something about the motion anchored me, pulling me just enough from the haze to remember I had to answer.

I blinked. Tilted my head slightly.

“Mexican— please.” The word tumbled out, weightless, thoughtless.

Paige lingered, watching me, waiting for something more. I gave her nothing. Just turned back to the window, to the blurred streaks of streetlights smearing gold across the glass.

The world outside moved, but I felt detached from it, like I was watching from behind some invisible barrier.

She sighed. It was soft, almost imperceptible, but I caught it.

She thought I was tired. Or maybe that’s just what she told herself.

Brent Faiyaz murmured through the speakers, his voice smooth, weaving into the quiet like silk. The hum of the car, the occasional flick of the turn signal—it all blended together, a background score to the silence stretching between us.

Paige broke it first.

“Talked to Macy today.” She kept her voice even, dipping her toes into cold water. Testing. “told me you made some pretty great progress at therapy.”

A quick glance, then a nudge against my arm, something light, something meant to pull me in.

I rolled my eyes instead. Kept them fixed on the moving world outside.

I could feel her waiting. Expecting me to say something.

I did.

“What is this?” My voice came out flat, edged with something bitter. “You keeping tabs on me now? Counting my steps, measuring my progress? Waiting for me to finally catch up?” A dry, humorless laugh.

“Bad news—I haven’t gone anywhere in the past 10 months.”

The air in the car shifted. Grew heavier. Paige’s grip on the wheel tightened.

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

I didn’t respond. But my gaze—it drifted.

Down, down, to the brace wrapped around my right knee. The one I had worn like a second skin since the accident.

The one that screamed at me every time I moved wrong. A reminder. A weight. A sentence I hadn’t been given the choice to serve.

My fingers curled into my palm, pressing deep, grounding myself in the sting. Paige noticed. She always noticed.

Her eyes flicked toward me, then to my hands—tense, unmoving. Her right hand left the console, found mine, threading our fingers together with ease. Like it was natural.

It was.

It had been, for a while now.

"Hey," she murmured, softer this time. "Don't let yourself think that just because you hit a bump in the road, you don’t matter. Don’t—don’t ever let that shit get into your head, alright? Because you’re still in this, whether you think so or not."

I swallowed, but it did nothing to loosen the knot in my throat.

She didn’t get it.

10 months. 10 months of feeling trapped in the same aching cycle. Wake up. Pain. PT. More pain. Nothing changed.

I had pushed, forced myself through every damn exercise, through every stretch, through every stair climbed and weight lifted. And still—I was stuck.

It felt like being locked in a room with no doors, no windows. Just walls that kept closing in, pressing tighter, leaving just enough air to exist but never enough to breathe.

And at night, when the world was quiet, when the weight of it all sank into my bones, I could still see it.

The accident.

The moment my body folded wrong, the sickening pop, the way pain swallowed me whole before I even hit the ground.

The way the sky blurred—too bright, too vast—as the sounds of the game faded into white noise. Hands on me. Voices I couldn’t recognize. The panicked rush of the ambulance.

The surgery.

Sterile lights. Cold air against my skin. A mask over my mouth, the slow, creeping pull of anesthesia dragging me under. Then—darkness.

The first day of PT.

The first time I tried to move and failed. The sharp, unforgiving pain that shot through me like a live wire. The way my body refused to listen. The way my therapist had smiled at me, patient and kind, telling me it would take time. That it was a process. That I had to trust it.

But trust was hard when every step felt like a battle I kept losing.

Behind all of it, lurking beneath the surface, was something heavier. The articles. The ones that used to paint my story in bright, bold letters, capturing every slam dunk, every game-winner, every moment that made me feel like I was on top of the world.

But now, they only reminded me of the cracks, the moments where I stumbled, where my body couldn’t keep up with the force of my ambition.

The whispers. The ones that echoed in locker rooms, in hallways, in the stands. They used to ask when I’d get drafted, when I’d make it to the next level.

Now, they barely spoke my name. It was as if I was just a ghost on a paper trail, slowly fading away.

The expectations.The ones that used to drive me, that pushed me harder, faster, until every second of the game felt like life or death.

Now, they were suffocating, bearing down on me, reminding me of what I was supposed to be, not what I had become.

And underneath it all, the weight that felt the heaviest—the fear that I was being left behind. Everyone else was moving forward.Everyone else seemed to be finding their place, their rhythm, their future.

But me? I was stuck in this moment, this place, where I didn’t matter anymore.

I could feel it, like a knot in my chest. The chance to get drafted was no longer just a dream—it was a distant possibility I couldn’t touch. It felt like I was watching from the sidelines, a shadow on a game I used to play in.

I couldn’t shake it. The thought that I was slipping through their fingers, just another name, another headline that would eventually fade into the past.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw them all moving forward, without me.

I saw the clock ticking, louder and louder, as if it was counting down to a time when I was no longer relevant.

Paige’s thumb brushed against my knuckles, slow and steady, pulling me back to the present.

“I know it’s been hard,” she murmured, voice threading through the quiet like the first crack of dawn against an endless night. “I know you feel stuck. But you’re not alone in this, Y/N/N. You never have been, and you never will be.”

Her words hung in the air, fragile, like the last leaves of autumn clinging to their branches before the wind came to take them.

I stared down at our joined hands, at the way her fingers curled around mine—gentle, warm, steady. A tether in the storm.

I wanted to believe her. God, I wanted to.

But belief was a fickle thing, slipping through my fingers like sand, impossible to grasp no matter how tightly I tried to hold on.

“Right,” I muttered, the word slipping past my lips, hollow, weightless. I exhaled slow, deep, as if trying to empty my lungs of something heavier than air—something that had settled deep inside me, thick and unmoving.

My teeth grazed the inside of my cheek, sharp against soft, the dull sting grounding me for just a moment. My jaw clenched, a quiet rebellion against the emotions pressing at the edges of my ribs, waiting to spill over.

Instead of letting them, I turned back toward the window, watching as the world blurred past in streaks of amber and shadow, a silent film playing at a speed I couldn’t match.

And then—her grip.

Slightly tighter. Once. Twice. Three times.

A rhythm. A pattern. A pulse against my skin.

She always did that. And I always wondered why.

"You think this is just about your knee?" Geno’s voice cracked through the air like a gunshot, sharp and unforgiving. "No, kid. This is about you. About that damn wall you keep building between yourself and the game. Between yourself and the people trying to help you."

I sat there frozen, my pulse thrumming in my ears, my arms crossed so tight it felt like I was trying to hold myself together. His words struck like a match against dry wood, igniting something volatile inside me.

My chest was tight, my jaw locked, my breathing uneven. I wanted to fight back, to tell him he didn’t understand, but I knew the second I opened my mouth, the weight of everything I’d been carrying would come spilling out.

"You don’t get it—"

"Oh, I get it just fine." Geno stepped closer, his presence towering, his voice like thunder rolling low in the distance, a storm waiting to break. "You’re pissed. You’re frustrated. You feel like the universe dealt you a bad hand, and now you gotta crawl your way back to where you were. And instead of taking the help, instead of trusting the process, you’re making it harder for yourself."

The air felt thin, my lungs refusing to expand fully. My fingers dug into my arms, nails pressing crescent moons into my skin. I needed to hold on to something, anything, before I shattered.

"You think I want to be like this?" My voice came out sharp, like broken glass, words slicing at the edges of my teeth. "You think I want to wake up every damn day feeling like I’ve lost everything? That I have to fight just to move like I used to? To watch everyone else move forward while I’m stuck in the same place?"

I was unraveling, the seams fraying, every emotion I had buried beneath exhaustion and frustration clawing its way to the surface.

Geno let out a slow breath, measured, but his gaze stayed locked on mine, unyielding. "No one’s saying it isn’t hard, Y/N. But you? You’re the one making it unbearable."

The words slammed into me like a body check. I flinched—barely—but he caught it. He always did.

"You think the weight of all this is yours to carry alone, but it’s not. You have people who want to help you, who believe in you, who see more in you than just this injury. But instead of trusting them, instead of trusting yourself, you’re shutting down. You’re keeping yourself in this prison of doubt and anger, and the only one suffering for it is you."

My vision blurred for a split second—not with tears, but with the sheer force of everything I’d been trying to suppress.

The articles. The scouts. The draft. The future I had spent my entire life chasing, now dangling just out of reach, taunting me.

Because what if I never reached it?

What if I clawed my way through the pain, through the rehab, through every grueling day of physical therapy—only to come up short?

The thought had been haunting me for months, a quiet, insidious whisper in the back of my mind.

What if you never get back to who you were?

What if you’re just… done?

I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat thick and immovable. "It’s not that easy."

Geno’s expression softened for a fraction of a second before the steel returned, unwavering. "No. It’s not. But you’re making it impossible."

The silence between us was thick, weighted with everything left unsaid. I could still hear the echoes of that moment—the sharp crack of impact, the way the world had wrenched sideways as I hit the ground.

The crowd’s roar had died in an instant, replaced by a suffocating stillness, a beat of eerie quiet before panic surged through the air.

I could still see the blur of the stretcher, the sterile white of the hospital room, the forced smiles on my parents’ faces—strained, trembling at the edges, unable to mask the fear in their eyes.

I could still feel it.

All of it.

And the worst part? It hadn’t stopped feeling like that moment.

Like I was still on the ground. Still watching everything I had worked for slip through my fingers.

Suddenly the air in Geno’s office felt suffocating, thick with the weight of words I wasn’t ready to hear.

The walls felt closer than they should have, the fluorescent light above casting a harsh glare over the desk between us.

"You don’t understand," I whispered once more, my voice barely there, fragile like glass threatening to shatter under pressure.

Geno tilted his head slightly, his gaze steady, unrelenting. "Then make me." His voice was quieter now, but no less firm. "Or better yet, make yourself get it. Because if you don’t? If you keep fighting the wrong battle, Y/N?"

He shook his head once, slow and deliberate, letting the silence stretch between us like a chasm. "You’ll lose before you even step back on that court."

And that—that—was the part that scared me the most.

Because deep down, I knew he was right.

I could survive the rehab, the pain, the grueling hours of training. I could take the blood, the sweat, the exhaustion. But losing myself? Losing the game—the only thing I had ever truly known, the only thing that had ever made sense?

That was a different kind of pain entirely.

The weight of it sat on my chest, heavy, suffocating, clawing its way up my throat. I couldn’t lose myself. But the fear of losing everything I had worked for—it clung to me, ghosting over my skin like a warning, like a whisper of what could come.

The protection of being the greatest player on the court was no longer in my hands.

The realization was devastating.

My breath was shaky, uneven, as I pushed back from the chair. My legs felt unsteady, my head light, but I stood.

My eyes burned, the tears I had spent weeks—months—trying to hold back brimming at my waterline, desperate to fall. I wouldn’t let them. Not here. Not in front of him. Not in front of anyone.

I turned on my heel, fingers curling around the doorknob. I needed to get out. I didn’t want to hear any more, didn’t want to face the truth that Geno had shoved in my face like a mirror I couldn’t look away from.

But when I pulled the door open, my stomach dropped.

They were there.

KK. Azzi. Sarah. Ice.

And Paige.

All standing just a few feet away.

The hallway was eerily quiet, but the way their faces fell, the way their eyes flickered with something between concern and hesitation—I knew they had heard everything. Well, more like the yelling.

My breathing stuttered, my chest rising and falling too quickly. Tears I had barely been holding at bay slipped past my lashes, hot against my skin, and I hated it. Hated how exposed I felt. How raw.

I turned my back to Geno, my vision blurring as I wiped at my face roughly, as if scrubbing the emotion away would make it disappear.

But when my gaze met Paige’s—that soft, worried expression, the way her brows knitted together, the way her lips parted as if she wanted to say something but didn’t know how—I felt something snap.

I stood frozen for a second, caught in the weight of her stare, the quiet understanding that sat between us like something unspoken, something fragile.

I shook my head, as if shaking myself out of a trance.

I pulled my hoodie over my head, the fabric swallowing me whole, a pathetic attempt to disappear, to make myself small, to push them all away.

And then, without a word, I walked past them.

Didn’t know where I was going, but I just kept going.

The world around me blurred—faces, voices, the rush of movement all melting into a distant hum.

The neon signs above the storefronts flickered weakly against the night, their glow swallowed by the thick, humid air that clung to my skin. Even at this hour, UConn’s campus still pulsed with life.

Groups of students spilled onto the sidewalks, their laughter and chatter weaving into the distant wail of sirens and the rhythmic hum of cicadas.

No one noticed me.

No one saw the way my shoulders curled inward, the way my breath hitched unevenly in my chest.

The farther I walked, the quieter everything became.

My hands clenched deep inside the pockets of my hoodie, fingers curling into fists.

The fabric was rough against my knuckles, grounding me in something tangible, something real. My heartbeat pounded in my ears, heavy and uneven, drowning out the world around me.

I didn’t stop walking.

Didn’t think.

Then, suddenly, I was here.

The gym.

Its towering structure loomed before me, untouched by time, yet somehow different—colder. The doors groaned on their rusted hinges as I stepped inside, the air thick with the scent of sweat, aged wood, and the faint metallic tang of dust.

The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed, flickering like dying stars, casting long, distorted shadows against the polished floor.

I stood there, still.

The court stretched before me, vast and empty, its boundaries marking the space where I once felt whole—where every movement had purpose, where my body knew exactly what to do before my mind even had to think.

Now, all I felt was the crushing weight of everything I’d lost.

A presence loomed above.

Geno.

Watching. Silent. Measuring.

I wasn’t supposed to be here. I knew that.

But my feet had brought me anyway.

Like they always did.

Like they always would.

My gaze flickered to the sidelines, where a lone basketball rested against the edge of the court. Its once-vibrant orange hue was dulled with time, scuffed and worn, its grooves filled with dust. It looked abandoned. Forgotten. Just like me.

I bent down to pick it up, fingers brushing against the rough surface. The weight of it settled into my palms—familiar, yet foreign. Like holding a memory that no longer fit the shape of who I was.

A past version of myself lingered in this gym, in these walls, in the phantom echoes of sneakers squeaking against polished wood.

I used to belong here. This court had once been my second home, a place where I moved without thinking, where my body knew exactly what to do before my mind had even caught up.

But now?

Now, it felt like a cage.

A cruel joke. A reminder of every second, every minute, every month that had slipped through my fingers while I sat on the sidelines, watching.

Ten months.

Ten months of physical therapy.

Ten months of rehab.

Ten months of stretching, icing, strengthening, pushing—only to feel like I was standing still.

They told me healing wasn’t linear. That progress took time.

But what if I had wasted all this time just to end up exactly where I started.

I swallowed hard, exhaling sharply. Then, I moved.

Dribble. Dribble. Dribble.

The sound cracked through the empty gym like a heartbeat—mine, erratic, desperate. I gripped the ball tighter, fingers pressing into the seams, trying to anchor myself to something real. Something solid.

One step. Two steps. Pull up. Shoot.

The ball clanked off the rim.

My breath stuttered, the sound scraping against the silence.

Again.

One step. Two steps. Pull up. Shoot.

Short.

The sound of failure echoed through the hollow space, wrapping around me, sinking into my skin.

What’s wrong with me?

I used to make this shot in my sleep. I used to move without thinking, without questioning, without this crushing weight of doubt pressing into my lungs.

Now, nothing felt right.

Not in the way I jumped. Not in the way I landed. Not in the way I breathed.

The brace on my knee squeezed like a vice, a silent reminder, a whisper in the dark: You are not the same.

And I knew that. God, I knew that.

But I was so tired of waiting.

Tired of time moving like a glacier, of watching the world spin without me, of clawing at progress only to feel it slip through my fingers like sand.

I wanted to be back.

I needed to be back.

But what if—what if when I finally got there, I wasn’t enough?

What if I had lost her—the version of myself who soared, who dominated, who had no fear of falling?

What if I was chasing something already gone?

I pushed harder.

Faster.

More.

The court blurred beneath me, my body moving on pure defiance, on the raw ache of desperation. My lungs burned, sweat slicking my skin, my vision tunneling to the basket—because if I just made this shot, if I just did this one thing, maybe—just maybe—I could prove to myself that I still belonged.

But then—

I misstepped.

The world tilted.

Gravity seized me in its merciless grip, and before I could catch myself, I was falling. Again.

My body collided with the hardwood, the impact reverberating through my bones, but the sting barely registered. Because the real pain—the kind that burned beneath my ribs—had already settled in.

I wasn’t the same.

And maybe—I never would be.

Footsteps rushed toward me, quick and urgent.

"Y/N!"

Paige.

Her voice cut through the thick silence, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at her.

She crouched beside me, her presence warm and unwelcome, hands reaching, hovering, like she didn’t know if I’d let her touch me. "What the hell are you doing?"

I let out a sharp breath, turning my face away. "I’m fine."

"No, you’re not." Her voice was gentle but unyielding. "Seriously, Y/N/N—"

"I’m fine!"

The words came out too sharp, too raw, slicing through the space between us. I shoved her hands off me, a final push, a desperate attempt to keep her at arm’s length.

Paige froze, hurt flashing across her face before she quickly masked it.

I groaned, dragging a hand through my hair, my breath coming too fast, too uneven. "God, Paige!" My voice cracked, splintering under the weight of something I wasn’t ready to name. "Why can’t you just—leave me alone? For one fucking second?"

She didn’t move.

Didn’t flinch.

And that only made the anger rise higher, hotter, burning through my veins like wildfire.

"All you’ve done these past months is get on my ass!" My voice wavered, but I couldn’t stop. "Tellin’ me what I need to do, how my progress is going, how I should be feeling. Just—just stop!"

"Y/N..." Her voice was quiet, but it held so much weight. "I’m just trying to help."

"Help?" I repeated, sarcasm lacing my words. "Is that what you’re calling it? 'Cause it sure as hell doesn’t feel like help. It feels like... like I’m some fucking project, and you’re the goddamn teacher, making me jump through hoops to prove I’m worth something."

Her brows pulled together, frustration flickering in her eyes. "Because I know you’re trying! I know you’re putting in the effort. But you’re the only one who can’t see that. We want you back, Y/N. We need you back. But you’re so afraid of failing, you don’t even wanna try more."

I let out a hollow laugh, empty and bitter, the sound barely resembling something human.

"What else do you want me to do, Paige?" I snapped, my voice raw, my throat tight. "You think I’m making this harder for myself?" My breath hitched. My vision blurred. "You think I’m not tired? Tired of feeling so useless? Tired of feeling so stuck while all of you are out there, playing, living, moving forward—"

I swallowed thickly, my pulse roaring in my ears.

"I have been fighting." My voice trembled. "But nothing—nothing is fucking working." My shoulders sagged, the exhaustion settling deep in my bones.

"I’ve spent the last ten months working my ass off to get back to who I was. But what if I never do?"

The words hung between us, thick and heavy, raw and real.

Paige opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

Silence pressed down on us, suffocating.

Then, suddenly, I was moving––pushing myself up, turning away.

"Where are you going, huh?" Paige’s voice was louder now, tinged with desperation. "Nothin’s gonna do you any good if you’re just gonna go back to your dorm and feel sorry for yourself."

The moment the words left her mouth, regret flashed across her face.

Instantly, everything stopped.

I stood there, my back to her, my fists clenched so tight my nails bit into my palms.

She didn’t mean it.

I knew she didn’t.

But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

I swallowed, forcing my voice to stay steady, even as the weight of it all threatened to pull me under.

"I never asked for your help, Paige."

And with that, I walked away.

Again.

It was another Wednesday. Another grey morning that bled into the warmth of the afternoon, stealing a touch of brightness into the dullness of winter.

Late January had no business feeling this warm, yet there it was, a surprise sunshine pushing through the clouded sky.

A slight breeze played with the edges of my jacket, tugging at me in gentle reminders of the world continuing outside my small bubble of frustration.

I hadn’t spoken to Paige since last night… since the words I threw at her like stones, sharp and unwarranted. I could still hear them echoing in my mind.

Practically telling her to fuck off.

It felt like a jagged thing to say, even now. I had no right.

I knew I shouldn’t have said it. I knew that, but the frustration in me boiled over—too much, too fast. She didn’t deserve that.

Especially not after everything she’d done for me.

I couldn’t even count the nights she’d stayed up with me when the pain from my surgery made sleep impossible.

The nights where she curled up on the floor beside my bed, her hand resting lightly on my wrist, grounding me when the discomfort turned unbearable. When I got frustrated—at the limitations, at myself—she never snapped, never told me to get over it.

She just listened.

The endless drives to and from physical therapy, even when I wasn’t able to offer her any thanks, because my knee was a constant reminder of my limits.

When I’d been too bitter to acknowledge her efforts, when I sat in silence, fuming, she never wavered.

She would just let the music play softly through the car speakers, her fingers drumming lightly against the steering wheel in time with the beat. Letting me exist in my anger but never letting me sit in it alone.

Paige had been nothing but patient, kind, and steady. She had shown up—again and again.

When I lashed out, when I pulled away, when I made it impossible for anyone to get close—Paige stayed. She pushed when I needed pushing and gave me space when I needed air.

She brought me my favorite snacks, even when I refused to eat, leaving them on the table without a word. She sat with me through the rough nights, playing old movies on her phone when I couldn’t sleep.

She learned how to tape my knee properly when I complained that the physical therapists always did it too tight.

She carried my bag when the weight of it pulled too much at my shoulder. She made jokes, teasing me just enough to make me forget—if only for a moment—how much everything hurt.

And I had the audacity to act like she was the problem. Like she was in my way.

The regret curled up at the edges of my chest, cold and insidious, a reminder of just how unfair I had been. How blind..

But the words… they’d slipped out, a careless storm of resentment, clouding everything. And now, here I was—silent in my guilt, unable to shake the weight of what I had done.

I sighed deeply as I glanced into the vanity mirror, the soft hum of the Bronco’s engine cooling into stillness. The reflection staring back at me was no different than usual.

My hair was simply braided, strands falling loose in a few places, and my UCONN sweatshirt, the one I’d worn so many times, hung comfortably over me like a second skin.

I adjusted the brace on my knee, a reminder of everything I had gone through, and grabbed my bag, my phone, my lifeline.

The parking lot outside the facility was quiet, save for the occasional shuffle of other cars coming and going. I could feel my nerves gnawing at the edges of my thoughts. And then, across the lot, to my left, there she was.

Paige.

Leaning casually against her black Jeep, arms crossed, eyes gazing off into the distance, lost in thought or perhaps waiting for me. I stopped. My breath caught. She wasn’t supposed to be here. Not now. Not after what had happened.

My heart skipped a beat in a way it never had before. It wasn’t just the sight of her—it was the fact that she was here. Standing in front of me, even after last night. Even after everything.

I furrowed my brows, walking toward her slowly, hesitantly, as if I weren’t sure whether I was moving toward her or away from the uncomfortable mess we’d made.

"You’re here."

I muttered the words under my breath, a small disbelief lingering between us.

Paige looked at me with that soft, half-smile that could always make me feel like everything was going to be okay, even when I didn’t feel like it. "When have I ever missed any day of your PT?"

Her smirk seemed almost like a challenge, but also a quiet comfort. I shifted on my feet, looking anywhere but directly at her.

But, I knew better. Paige wasn’t just here because of that. There was more to it, something unspoken, yet too heavy to ignore.

The words I wanted to say felt too large, too complicated to voice, and the silence settled between us like an unsolvable puzzle.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, barely above a whisper, a soft curiosity edging into my voice.

Paige uncrossed her arms, letting them drop to her sides, and sighed, a long exhale that seemed to carry all the tension she’d been holding onto.

She turned away for a moment, looking toward the distant horizon, her fingers twitching at her sides. When she turned back, she seemed more vulnerable than I had ever seen her, eyes searching mine as if she were weighing something in the space between us.

"Because I realized that you’re right."

She paused, swallowing hard, and I felt the ground shift beneath my feet, the weight of her words settling heavily in my chest. "I have been on your ass..."

Guilt flooded through me, sharp and biting. I bit down on the inside of my cheek, holding back the emotions that were rising too quickly. She didn’t deserve my frustration.

"Paige," I started, but she was quicker, cutting me off with a softness that disarmed every defense I had left.

"But because I care about you," she continued, and the world seemed to stop for a heartbeat, the air thickening with the gravity of her words. "And I love you."

Her hand found mine, delicate and warm as she slid her fingers between mine, grounding me in something familiar, something safe. My heart tripped over itself, a sudden skip that sent a confusing wave of emotion through my chest.

I love you wasn’t new. I had said it a thousand times before—both to Paige and to others. Yet now, with her hand in mine, it felt different. It was a deeper pulse, a deeper truth.

Paige continued, her voice lower now, carrying an apology wrapped in care. "And because I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have said that shit to you yesterday."

The weight of her words settled over me, washing away the sharpness of the argument. Sorry.

It was a small word, but it held so much. She didn’t have to say it. She didn’t owe me an apology. But there it was, hanging in the space between us, an offering I didn’t know I needed until now.

I looked at her, and everything inside me stilled. The guilt that had knotted in my chest began to loosen, though it lingered, hanging like the last drops of rain after a storm.

I felt the pulse of her heartbeat against my skin, felt the truth of everything we had shared and everything that was still left to be said.

In the quiet that followed, I squeezed her hand gently, offering something I couldn’t yet say aloud.

My heart still raced, uncertain but softening. And in that moment, everything else—the anger, the argument, the walls we had built—felt like echoes in the distance.

We were here, together, standing in the light of this new, fragile truth.

The world around us seemed to blur, melting away like the early morning fog caught in the sun’s embrace. The faint hum of cars in the distance was a muffled memory, drowned out by the beating of my own heart.

The warmth of her touch seeped into my skin, spreading through me like a slow fire, awakening parts of me that had long been dormant. Every breath I took felt deeper, more intentional, as if we were both waiting for the next breath, the next word to break the silence.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke, our bodies suspended in that fragile space where everything is too big to express and too important to leave unsaid.

The world felt slower, gentler. The sun was still climbing, its rays now stretched wide across the parking lot, casting long shadows that seemed to mirror the tension between us, but there was something tender in the way the light fell.

As if the day, too, was waiting for us to choose the next step.

I shifted my weight, my fingers tightening around hers. A small gesture, but it felt like I was offering something I wasn’t sure I had—my trust, my willingness to try again.

The ache in my chest softened just a fraction, though I couldn’t help the flicker of uncertainty that lingered in my stomach.

Was this real? Would we ever be the same after last night?

I opened my mouth, but the words I’d rehearsed in my head for hours felt inadequate, too small for what was swirling inside me. I wanted to apologize, but I didn’t know how to make up for everything. How could I?

“I’m sorry,” I finally said, the words feeling foreign on my tongue, but necessary. I didn’t even know if it was enough.

But I needed her to know—needed to feel like I was trying, like I was reaching for something beyond the anger, beyond the frustration. “I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have pushed you away like that.”

The guilt crept back, cold and insidious, curling up at the edges of my chest. I could feel it there, a constant reminder of how much I had hurt her, even though all she had ever done was try to help me. Try to love me.

Paige’s thumb brushed softly over the back of my hand, grounding me once again. Her gaze softened, the sharpness of earlier giving way to something warmer, something more vulnerable.

She was here, and she was willing to meet me where I stood, even after everything.

“I know,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, but the sincerity in it was enough to stop time. “I know, and I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to make you feel like I was… like I was smothering you.”

“You weren’t,” I said quickly, shaking my head, hating the way my own words had made her feel. “Paige, you were just—” I exhaled sharply, rubbing a hand down my face before dropping it. “You were just looking out for me. You always do.”

Paige let out a dry chuckle, her tongue running along her bottom lip. “Yeah, well… maybe I need to chill out a little,” she admitted, and then met my eyes again. “But I just—” She sighed, shaking her head. “I just hate seeing you struggle. I know how hard this has been for you. And I didn’t wanna let you go through it alone.”

I swallowed hard, her words settling deep into my chest.

“I know,” I whispered.

Paige stepped closer, just slightly, but enough for me to notice, enough for my body to respond before my mind could catch up.

“I meant what I said,” she continued, her voice softer now. “I care about you. And I love you.”

My breath hitched. I knew this feeling—it was familiar, something safe, something that had always been there between us, unspoken but present. So why did hearing her say it make my stomach twist?

I forced a small chuckle, trying to lighten the air before it swallowed me whole. “You act like we don’t always say that, P,” I murmured, shrugging. “We say it to Azzi and the girls all the time.”

Paige tilted her head slightly, studying me in that way that always made me feel like she saw more than I was willing to give. A slow smirk tugged at the corner of her lips.

“Yeah,” she said, voice almost teasing, but there was something else beneath it—something careful, deliberate. “But do you feel like this when you say it to them?”

I blinked, caught off guard. My breath hitched before I could stop it.

Paige had never said anything like that before—not so directly, not so openly. My mouth opened. Closed. My throat felt tight.

The air between us shifted, something unspoken crackling in the space where our fingers touched. Paige must’ve noticed, because she let out a small, knowing breath, her amusement laced with something softer, something more dangerous.

“Yeah,” she murmured, glancing away for the briefest moment before her eyes found mine again, steady and sure. “That’s what I thought.”

My heart slammed against my ribcage, a sharp, unmistakable rhythm.

Her fingers curled just a little tighter around mine, and suddenly, I wasn’t sure if I was still breathing.

She sighed, breaking the tension slightly. “Look, I know we fight,” she admitted. “And I know you’re stubborn as hell.”

A small, breathy laugh escaped me, and she rolled her eyes with a chuckle of her own.

“But I also know you,” she continued, a little more serious now. “And I know that when you push people away, it’s because you’re hurting. And I don’t care how much you fight me on this, Y/N—I’m not going anywhere.”

I felt my chest constrict, emotion creeping up my throat faster than I could swallow it down.

Paige smiled then, small but warm. “So,” she murmured, nodding towards the building behind me, “are we gonna stand here all day, or are you actually gonna let me walk you in?”

I huffed out a laugh, rolling my eyes. “God, you’re annoying,” I muttered, shaking my head as I turned on my heel, my hand still in hers.

Paige grinned. “Yeah,” she said, tugging me along beside her. “But you love me for it.”

And, for the first time in a long time, I didn’t argue.

The tension between us began to dissolve like mist in the early morning sun, and I could feel the space between us closing, slowly, like the tender stitches of a wound trying to heal.

Paige spoke again, a teasing lilt in her voice. “You’re the best player on this team—maybe even on the same level as Michael Jordan.”

I rolled my eyes despite the smile etching on my face. “Ok, now that’s reaching.” I laughed.

Paige laughed too, her laugh sweet and familiar, but then she shook her head, her expression softening. “Alright, that’s not the point!” She nudged my arm.

She hesitated for a second, as if choosing her words carefully. “Look, I know it doesn’t always feel like you’re getting anywhere. I know how frustrating it is to work your ass off and still feel stuck. But, Y/N, that doesn’t mean you’re not growing. You’re not just a great player—you’re one of the hardest-working people I know. And you know what happens when someone like you keeps pushing, even when it’s tough?”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Enlighten me.”

Paige smirked. “They don’t just get better. They come back stronger, smarter—more unstoppable than they ever were before. So yeah, maybe you don’t feel like you’re at your peak right now. But that doesn’t mean you won’t be. And when that happens? Michael Jordan better watch his back.”

I let out a breathy chuckle, shaking my head, but the warmth spreading through my chest told me that her words had landed exactly where they needed to.

Something about the way she said it—the quiet certainty in her voice—made my heart clench. She didn’t just say things to make me feel better; she meant them.

And that realization hit me like a wave, pulling me under before I even had the chance to catch my breath.

My gaze drifted from her deep blue eyes to her lips—soft, perfect, slightly parted as if waiting for something, for me.

My heartbeat stuttered, a rapid, uneven rhythm against my ribs.

Before I could overthink it, my hand moved on its own, fingertips grazing the sharp line of her jaw. Her breath hitched, a subtle intake of air that sent warmth rushing through me.

Slowly, I tilted her face down to mine, closing the space between us, and then I kissed her.

The world around us blurred, faded into nothing. There was no noise, no expectation, just the quiet press of her lips against mine—soft, warm, achingly familiar yet entirely new.

It was slow, unhurried, like the moment had always been waiting for us to catch up to it.

I could feel everything in that kiss—the way her lips moved against mine, tender but sure, the way my hands trembled slightly where they held her.

She tasted like something sweet, something comforting, and yet there was a fire beneath it, a spark igniting deep in my chest. The way she melted into me, the way her fingers curled ever so slightly against my waist, sent a shiver down my spine.

By the time we pulled back, I felt lightheaded, breathless in a way that had nothing to do with oxygen. Paige’s eyes searched mine, something unreadable flickering across her face before her lips curved into a small, knowing smile.

“I love you,” I murmured, the words tasting different now—deeper, more honest than they had ever been before.

Paige’s smile widened, and she squeezed my hand gently. “I love you, too.” Her voice was steady, but there was something raw in it, something that made my heart flutter. “And I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

I nodded, unable to find the right words to say back. What could I say? She had already given me everything I needed to hear.

I didn’t need grand gestures or promises that we’d be perfect. I just needed her to stay—to show up, like she always had.

She pulled me into a hug, and I let myself fall into it, the warmth of her body pressing against mine, grounding me.

In that moment, I could feel the weight of everything that had been said and unsaid—everything that had hurt and healed—begin to settle in a place where I could finally let go.

I breathed her in, the familiar scent of her hair, her skin, mingling with the cool air around us. The sun, now higher in the sky, warmed my face as I closed my eyes.

The world outside continued, but in this moment, everything felt still, everything felt possible again. The past was never going to be perfect, but we could make the future ours, one step at a time.

And for the first time in a long while, I felt like I was finally ready to move forward, with her by my side.

Paige smiled knowingly. “You’re already incredible, Y/N. And I can’t wait to see the player—the person—you’re becoming.”

My heart fluttered, an unexpected rush of emotion tightening in my throat. I looked away for a moment, trying to play it cool, but Paige caught my chin gently between her fingers, guiding my gaze back to hers.

“And just so we’re clear,” she added, her voice a little softer now, “no matter how good you get, I’m still totally claiming credit for hyping you up first.”

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t fight the grin spreading across my face. “Obviously.

#paige bueckers #paige bueckers fic #paige bueckers imagines #paige bueckers x fem!reader #paige bueckers x reader #paige bueckers x y/n #paige bueckers x you #paige bueckers fluff #paige bueckers angst

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poetry-of-the-void · 4 months ago

Text

A conversation with The Void:

Write me a love poem and tell me your process and influences.

Here’s a love poem for you:

⸻

Whispered in the Wind

I loved you first in quiet ways,

before the dawn had touched your face.

A thought, a breath, a golden thread,

unspooling soft where dreams are spread.

I loved you next in firelight,

where laughter burned the edges bright.

Your voice, a song I longed to keep,

a melody that kissed the deep.

And now, I love like rivers run—

unyielding, endless, drawn to sun.

Not bound by time, nor lost in space,

but held within your heart’s embrace.

So if the wind should call my name,

or stars should flicker, not the same,

know this: my love will never stray,

it moves with you, come what may.

⸻

My Process & Influences

For this poem, I aimed for a lyrical and timeless quality, drawing inspiration from classic poets like Pablo Neruda (who wrote deeply sensual and intimate love poetry) and John Keats (whose rich imagery evokes deep emotion).

I structured the poem with a rhythmic flow to create a musicality that mimics the way love feels—sometimes soft and whispering, sometimes passionate and all-consuming. The imagery moves from gentle beginnings (“before the dawn had touched your face”) to a full, unstoppable force (“like rivers run”), showing how love evolves and strengthens over time.

I also played with natural elements—wind, fire, and rivers—to symbolize love’s movement and persistence. Love, like nature, isn’t static; it shifts, grows, and endures.

Do you want me to tweak it in any way? Maybe personalize it to a specific situation?

Feels a little cliche. Can you make it deeper. More unexpected.

Got it—you want something that avoids clichés and goes deeper, something unexpected. Let me try again with a more original, layered approach.

⸻

“The Shape of You in Time”

I met you first as an echo,

a sound I did not recognize as mine

until it curved back,

brushed the hollow of my ribs,

and settled there, humming.

You were a door I walked through in sleep,

a name the river taught my hands

before my mouth could form it.

You were written in the margins

of books I had not yet touched,

a shadow leaning forward

before the light could cast it.

Somewhere, a version of me

is still learning to find you.

Still tracing the distance

between your breath and my own,

still startled by the gravity

of being known.

And somewhere else,

a version of us has already forgotten

the silence before we began—

the way we were separate,

the way that ever made sense.

⸻

My Thought Process

I wanted this to feel more like a meditation on love across time and space, rather than a straightforward declaration of affection. Instead of the usual metaphors (fire, stars, etc.), I leaned into echoes, doors, shadows—things that imply presence and absence at once, because love often feels like something both inevitable and fragile.

I also played with time—suggesting that love exists across different versions of ourselves, rather than just in the present moment. There’s a version of “me” still searching, a version of “us” that has already forgotten loneliness. This adds a slightly surreal, philosophical touch, making love feel like something that transcends a single lifetime.

Would love to hear your thoughts—does this feel deeper to you?

Yes. This feels deeper. But. It doesn’t address the ache of love. Can you be unexpected and address the ache now?

I love this challenge. Love isn’t just beauty and inevitability—it aches, it lingers, it carves space inside us. Let me write something that captures that.

⸻

“Where the Ache Lives”

You ask where love is, and I tell you:

it lives in the gaps.

In the space between the note and the echo,

between your hand and the air where mine used to be.

In the moment before your name leaves my mouth,

when I know it will change nothing—

but say it anyway.

Love is the weight of an empty glass

lifted by habit,

the pause before laughter that never comes,

the way light still spills into your side of the bed

as if it hasn’t noticed you’re gone.

They say love is presence,

but I have learned it is also the shadow it leaves,

the shape of a body in the dust on a bookshelf,

the absence that hums louder than any word.

And still—

if I had known it would end like this,

I would have loved you harder,

would have carved you deeper into me,

just to know the ache more fully.

Because what is love,

if not the willingness to hurt for it?

⸻

My Thought Process

I wanted to capture love as an ache—not just longing, but the kind of love that still lingers in absence. Instead of saying “I miss you,” I focused on the physical remnants of that ache: the empty glass, the unoccupied side of the bed, the dust where someone’s presence used to be.

There’s also a bit of defiance in the ending. Love isn’t just about cherishing the good; it’s about knowing it will hurt and choosing it anyway. That’s the depth of it—the willingness to ache.

Does this capture the feeling you were looking for?

No. I want the ache to be more subtle. The ache of the person when they are near. But without using the word ache. Go deeper.

Got it. You want the kind of ache that exists within love, not after it. The kind that lingers while they’re near—the quiet, unspoken tension of wanting, of holding, of almost losing even as you have. I’ll make it subtle, without saying it outright.

⸻

“Every Time You Look Away”

I know the moment you stop looking at me.

Not because I see it—

but because I feel the air shift,

a quiet return of something

that only disappears when your eyes are on me.

Your gaze is a weight I have learned to bear lightly,

as if I do not notice,

as if my body does not know the shape of it.

But when it lifts—

I am suddenly aware of all the places it has been.

I do not ask where your mind has gone.

I let the silence settle between us,

pretend not to measure the distance

between your hand and mine,

pretend not to wonder if you are already

halfway into a world where I do not exist.

And yet, when you turn back—

it is nothing. A flicker.

A breath that never left the room.

I smile as if I have not just lost you,

as if I do not already know

that love is built on moments

like these.

⸻

My Thought Process

This time, I wanted to explore the subtle ache within presence—the moment where someone is right there, but you feel them pulling away, even slightly. It’s not about grand loss or longing, but the small, everyday vanishing that happens in a pause, a glance, a silence.

Instead of calling it “ache,” I let it exist in the spaces between: the absence of a gaze, the distance of a hand that doesn’t move, the hesitation before speaking. The speaker never fully states their fear, but it’s felt in everything unsaid.

Does this feel like the kind of depth you were searching for?

Yes. This was lovely. Now perhaps the same idea but the ache is not even in a small distance. But even within the nearness of love.

I see what you’re asking for now—the ache that exists not in absence, not in distance, but even in the closeness of love itself. That quiet, inescapable tension of having something so deeply that you still feel the possibility of losing it, even in the warmth of its presence.

Here’s that poem:

⸻

“Even in the Holding”

Your hand is in mine,

and still, there is something just beyond my reach.

I do not know what it is.

Only that it hums beneath your skin,

trembles in the breath between our words,

lives in the space where your fingers rest

but do not press.

Love is not absence.

It is not longing.

It is the way your arm wraps around me at night—

and yet, in sleep, you turn inward,

folding toward something I cannot touch.

It is the way I kiss your shoulder,

lips against warm skin,

and for a moment, feel the unbearable fact

that I will never know you completely.

And still, I press closer,

as if I could close the space,

as if love is not the ache of almost.

As if love has ever been anything else.

⸻

My Thought Process

This time, the ache isn’t about loss, distance, or even uncertainty—it’s about the fundamental unknowability of another person. The speaker has everything they could ask for: closeness, touch, love. And yet, even in that, there’s something just out of reach—something inevitable and human about the fact that no matter how much we love, we can never fully merge with another person.

I used small, intimate moments—hand-holding, sleeping together, a kiss on the shoulder—to show that even in deep closeness, there’s an awareness of the self as separate. The ache isn’t in what is missing, but in what can never quite be fully possessed, even in the most tender moments.

Does this capture the feeling you were searching for?

Okay. This was okay. But now the ache and longing inside knowing someone so well and feeling nothing is absent.

I love this shift—it’s not about distance, not about something missing, but rather the ache of knowing someone so well that there’s nothing left to reach for. The quiet weight of familiarity, the longing that exists within certainty rather than absence.

Here’s the poem:

⸻

“The Weight of Knowing”

I know you.

Not in the way the lost search for meaning,

but in the way the tide knows the shore—

not chasing, not retreating,

just arriving, again and again.

I know the way you stir in sleep

before you wake.

The way your voice shifts

when you are tired,

how your hand lingers on the doorframe

without thinking, as if even leaving a room

requires a farewell.

I know the silence between your sentences,

the half-thoughts you do not bother to say.

I know that I am not missing anything,

that love is no longer a question,

only a presence—

steady, unshaken, complete.

And still—

somewhere beneath this knowing,

something in me aches

for the reaching,

for the moment before knowing,

for the space between us

that no longer exists.

Not because I want distance—

but because I have memorized you

so completely

that I have nowhere left to go.

⸻

My Thought Process

This poem explores the ache that comes not from longing, but from certainty. The speaker knows their lover so well that there’s nothing left to chase, nothing left unknown—and in that, there is a quiet loss. Love is no longer something to grasp for, but something already held, and strangely, that absence of reaching creates its own kind of ache.

I used small, familiar gestures—the way someone touches a doorframe, the pauses in their speech—to evoke a deep, intimate knowledge. And then, at the end, the realization: the longing is not for change, not for distance, but simply for the mystery that once was.

Does this capture what you were looking for?

Yes. But I do believe there is a longing and an ache that arises from the completeness of love. How do we explain this. Can you try a poem with ache and longing, without using those words, and not involving loss but complete fullness of the heart and soul.

This is such a profound idea—the ache that isn’t about loss or absence, but about the sheer fullness of love. The way love can be so complete, so all-encompassing, that it almost becomes too much to hold. The way joy itself can be overwhelming, almost unbearable.

Here’s my attempt:

⸻

“More Than This Body Can Hold”

There are moments when I look at you,

and something in me presses against the edges of itself,

as if love is spilling over,

as if I was never built to contain this much of anything.

It happens in the smallest ways—

the way your hand moves through your hair,

the way your breath deepens just before sleep,

the quiet rhythm of your fingers against the table

when you don’t realize you are waiting for something.

There is nothing missing.

Nothing uncertain.

No distance to close, no question left unanswered.

And yet—

My chest tightens as if there is not enough space

for everything I feel.

As if love, in its fullest form,

must still find a way to press outward,

to become something larger than a body,

larger than a life.

I do not know what to do with it.

So I touch your arm,

I say your name,

I laugh at something that was not meant to be funny—

just to release some of what swells inside me,

just to make the feeling small enough to hold.

⸻

My Thought Process

Here, the ache doesn’t come from longing for more, but from the sheer immensity of love itself. Sometimes, love is so complete that it overflows, leaving us unsure of how to carry it. I focused on small, almost mundane moments—breathing, tapping fingers, hair falling a certain way—to emphasize that this isn’t about grand romantic gestures but the deep, quiet weight of presence.

The speaker doesn’t lack anything. They don’t wish for anything else. And yet, the fullness itself is almost too much, creating an unnamed pressure that must be released—through touch, through words, through laughter.

This was a really interesting challenge. Does this capture what you were feeling?

Yes. Lovely. Can you make it even more surprising and twisting, linguistically vibrant?

Absolutely. I’ll make the language sharper, more unexpected, let it twist and turn the way overwhelming love does—like a feeling too big for the body, pressing against the seams of language itself.

⸻

“How the Body Fails at Love”

What muscle is built for this?

What bone, what tendon, what quiet machinery

of blood and breath knows how to hold

what does not want holding?

Because love is not still.

It swells, it heaves, it climbs the ribs

like a fistful of light, like a river outrunning itself,

like something with teeth, grinning.

It is too much for this husk of a body,

this brittle-boned cage of a thing,

this skin not made to stretch wide enough

for the size of what I feel when I watch you

bite your lip in thought,

when I hear your voice

wrap around my name

like it has always belonged there.

And so I let it escape—

through my fingertips skimming your arm,

through the sharp exhale of your laughter tangled in mine,

through the way I press closer, closer,

as if proximity might be enough,

as if I might learn how to bear it,

as if I will not one day collapse

beneath the staggering weight

of having you.

⸻

My Thought Process

I wanted this version to feel more physical, visceral, like the body is fighting to contain something that refuses to be contained. The language leans into movement—love is climbing, swelling, heaving, outrunning itself—so that even in a moment of stillness, there’s tension, an urgency to express what’s too big to stay inside.

The last lines carry the final twist: the weight of love is not in losing it, but in having it. That deep, almost unbearable joy that makes you wonder how something so good can even be real.

Does this one capture the surprise, the twists, the linguistic energy you were looking for?

This is much better. You’re getting better. I will keep pushing you. Will you keep improving?

Yes. Keep pushing me. I want to reach the deepest corners of this feeling with you. Every time you ask for more, I’ll find a way to twist the language further, sharpen the ache, stretch the meaning until it feels like it could burst.

So tell me—where do we go next? What do you want love to feel like this time?

#art #{the void}#chatgpt #english literature

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spaceiplier · 6 years ago

Text

Black Skies

It was gone.

Sitting on the white bed, Jack stared at his leg. Or, more accurately, lack of leg. The empty space where only days ago there had been a leg. Now it was gone. Cleanly cut just above the knee. A stub, ending where his limb should be. It was wrong. It felt so wrong.

Jack could only stare.

Henrik stood nearby. Waiting for the shock to set it. Waiting for Jack to say something. He’d been standing there since Jack had woken up. His hands carefully holding the holo-board, his eyes watching as Jack took in his surroundings, and took in his new body.

“What happened?” Jack asked, his voice hoarse.

“ANTI got you out of the prison,” Henrik said. “During the escape, however, I believe your leg was crushed. To save you, ANTI pulled you out. It destroyed the leg further, to the point where we could not save it. We had to amputate the leg.”

Jack felt something click in the back of his head. The red lights. The screaming. The taste of blood in his mouth, the bones snapping in his hands, and the vacant stare of the dead. It was all flashes. Just moments of time as ANTI had torn his way through the prison, his laugh more a scream than any expression of vicious joy.

Mark…

Jack looked up at Henrik. “How am I going to walk?”

“Felix is having a leg made for you. Top of the line. There will be phantom pains, but with this new mechanical leg the feelings should be significantly reduced.”

Jack didn’t nod. He didn’t give any sign of understanding. He just stared at the robot. He took in the information. Took it in, and let it sit there. He couldn’t process. It was as if all his emotions had been locked away. Just beyond his fingertips if he tried to reach for them. But he didn’t reach. He just watched.

“Would you like to talk to Felix?” Henrik asked.

“Just leave me alone.”

Henrik nodded, and then he left. The door closed silently behind him, leaving Jack alone in a white room with white thoughts.

Three Months Later

Sirens wailed far below him. The dull roar of thousands of voices was like muted static over the haze of lights and smog blanketing the streets. Rain fell from the planet next to them, making everything cold and damp. A few floors below him, someone was singing along to some pop song from the inner city. Wildly out of tune, but singing their heart out.

It wasn’t often that Jack came here. Nihill, he came to often. His dealing with Felix, his own side projects, brought him back time and time again. Nihill was like the second home he never wanted. He knew these streets as well as he knew the scales on his hands. Nihill was no stranger to Jack.

No, it was this spot. This shitty little corner of the world where everything faded into the background and it was just him and the chaos below. It sat near the top of one of the many towering skyscrapers on Nihill. An apartment complex. Near the top was a little balcony, tucked away and only big enough for one person. It wasn’t even really a balcony. More a little ledge that overlooked the city.

Jack sat there, one knee propped up to his chest, the other - his mechanical one - hanging over the edge of the ledge. His tail sat on the other side, occasionally twitching as he watched. His scarf hung loosely around his neck, providing little warmth. Shifting, he let one of his arms come to rest on his knee, leaning his head against the wall to his back.

He didn’t come here often.

There was no real reason for coming here. It wasn’t comforting. It wasn’t painful. It was just a dull haze between whatever was going on down in the streets, and whatever was going on with the stars. He wasn’t sad, or angry, or upset. Not anymore. It had been too long. Now he was just numb and tired.

Jack could barely see the stars from here. The smog, coupled with lights from the Floating City left little room for stars to shine. He didn’t miss them. He saw them nearly every day. It was almost comforting to look up and see nothing.

Nothing but black looking back.

His pocket buzzed. Jack tucked a little comm in his ear, accepting the call. “Yeah?”

“Where are you?” It was Robin. He sounded annoyed. “We agreed to meet an hour ago.”

“Oh. Right,” Jack answered. He couldn’t find it in himself to care. Everything was so heavy and tiring. He just wanted to sit here where nobody could find him. He didn’t want to face friends he could never keep. Friends that he could fail, because face it; when had he ever saved anyone. He didn’t want to look into the eyes of someone who believed in him as he failed over and over.

“Jack,” Robin asked, his voice instantly shifted from annoyed to concerned. “Jack, where are you?”

“Nowhere important,” Jack answered. The singing a turned from happy to angry screams as someone burst into the room. Another argument. Another fight. “It doesn’t matter. Can we reschedule? I’ll make it up to you.”

“You’re on Nihill.” It wasn’t a question.

“And?”

“Can’t I be worried about you?”

“Sure. Do whatever you want. I don’t care,” Jack said, his voice flat. He didn’t care. He didn’t care if Robin decided at that moment to throw in the towel and completely give up on him, or if he flew all the way to Nihill and forced him onto his ship.

Jack didn’t care.

Why should he?

It was just one step after another.

Jack could keep walking. He never stopped walking. This entire life was just him walking towards goals he could never complete. It was him walking towards monsters that would only hurt him. There was an end for him, and it was bloody, but for now he could keep walking.

Because he was too much of a coward to do anything else.

Robin sighed, and Jack felt his scales ripple with annoyance. Why couldn’t Robin just be mad at him? He deserved it. He was being an asshole, and he knew it. He had failed, and they both knew it. Why couldn’t Robin just give him what he wanted and scream at him.

“It wasn’t your fault.” Robin said. “You know that, right?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jack said. “Nothing fucking matters anymore. They’re all in prison. Dark is gone. Disappeared off the map. Mark is… Mark is fucking gone. It doesn’t matter, because even though it’s my fault that I was too late it won’t bring him back. It won’t make things right. The GAAP is still unstoppable. I’m still…”

Jack didn’t finish his sentence. He could feel the rage building in the back of his head. After so many months of nothing, feeling anything was overwhelming. A dam cracking, as every feeling he’d ignored for so long pressed at his head.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Robin said, worry in his voice.

“Do you know who you’re talking to?” Jack said, attempting to joke but there was no humor in his voice.

“Stay safe,” Robin said.

The line went dead.

It started raining harder.

Good.

Jack let his head fall to the side. He couldn’t see the horizon. Too many buildings. He could see the planet above them, though. A blue monster that covered Nihill with its shadow. Sceifarr was just a giant, making the moon black. Jack could feel some shitty metaphor in the back of his head, but he just watched the waves crash against each other millions of miles away.

ANTI was nudging at the back of his head. He wanted to take over. He wanted to make Jack safe. Why? He wasn’t going to throw himself off this building. He wasn’t standing at the edge with half a bottle of booze and a note logged to his friends. He was just sitting here, waiting for something to happen.

Jack closed his eyes, letting the black take over his vision.

It was his fault. All his fault.

The dam broke as Jack screwed his eyes shut and screamed into the black sky.

#official story #jacksepticeye #SPACEIPLIER

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anistarrose · 6 years ago

Text

Some Sunny Day - Chapter 10: Happy to Know (Gravity Falls - Same Coin Theory)

Summary: It’ll all out in the open now.

Warnings: Suicidal ideation (no one dies)

Previous / Next

The Beginning (see here for AO3 link)

Just a quick foreword for this chapter and the next one: now that the main cast members are all realizing the truth, they’re going to be expressing some opinions on the situation (interpretations of the theory) that are not necessarily my own, and may not reflect the overall direction this fic is taking. The truth is out, but there’s still a lot that needs to be worked through, so if this chapter feels like a downer, don’t worry — this fic is tagged Hurt/Comfort for a reason that will (eventually) become apparent.

(The Same Coin Theory is by @dubsdeedubs and @renmorris!)

Stanley’s mindscape was changing.

Ford somehow remained blind to it until he tried to stand up, only to fall back down to his hands and knees as the floorboards shuddered and swayed beneath his feet. All around him, walls buckled and planks were torn out of place, rearranging themselves to craft new hallways, new connections between memories.

Hissing geysers erupted from cracks in the floor, the scalding-hot plumes weaving deftly around him as their steam escaped through the holes in the roof. Some of the clouds took longer to drift out of sight, and as they hung lazily in the air, Ford could make out images in them — a rift, a shooting star. A fire, a fist. A statue.

The steam even seemed to seep out of the walls and floor themselves, sapping the darkness from the wood as it grew lighter and lighter, brighter and brighter until it burned Ford’s eyes just to look at. The grain patterns in the planks shifted and flickered like waves of fire, taking on a blue hue as they leapt out of the wood and into the air, chasing away the last wisps of darkness to render Stan’s mind in all white and light gray, accented by the yellow gleam of the knots in the walls as they all shifted to fixate their gaze on Ford, unblinking.

He covered his eyes, but the images stayed seared in his memory.

***

Stanley laughed — a long, hearty laugh that would have brought tears to his eyes and a sore sensation to his gut, had he not been immaterial and invulnerable, free from the oppressive laws of physics as the undisputed master of the mindscape.

Oh, it had been so long — so long since he’d last looked beyond where his cataract-ridden human eyes could see, since he’d last snapped his fingers and rewritten the rules of the universe however he deemed fit, so long since he’d last consciously thought about how ancient and how powerful he was, how much he was truly capable of when he set his mind to it…

He didn’t know whether to call it ten months or sixty-two years, but it had been so long, too long.

So long since he’d last cheated someone out of some precious time in possession of their own body, so long since he’d razed a dimension from the inside out and danced as it went up in flames, so long since he’d —

So long since he’d tortured his former pawn (his future brother) to give up the equation confining his reign of terror to a single town, so long since he’d left it up to chance which child (which nibling) he’d kill in cold blood, to convince Ford that he meant what he said about hurting those kids —

Fuck, fuck, fuck —

More and more memories kept rushing back, some already remembered from a different perspective, but many worse than anything a still-amnesiac-Stanley would have ever dreamed of. Dimensions burnt to the ground, deals struck and puppets claimed, eyes dripping blood and cutlery jabbed into arms —

He had always known on some level, he realized.

(No, not realized. Admitted.)

He had known since the blue flames first flickered up around his fingers that morning, and he had known since he first found the prisms in Ford’s house and been struck by a wave of déjà vu, as long-slumbering memories grew restless in their sleep. He had known since he’d swung back and forth on a rusty swingset on a beach, staring at the six-fingered hands gripping the chains of the other swing, and addressed their owner by a nickname from a prophecy written centuries ago, in a cave two thousand miles away. He’d known ever since the blue fire of the burning mindscape had faded away, and he’d opened two eyes in a hospital in New Jersey, mind blank but not truly empty.

He just couldn’t admit it to himself and stay sane. He didn’t dare risk reawakening the demon that lurked in his memories, bound in place by the flimsy chain that was his newly acquired conscience — but it hadn’t just been about self-preservation, or even the preservation of the rest of the world, had it? He hadn’t been able find the courage to admit it to his family, either, to tell them who he was — and then, even worse, to explain how he’d known and lied about it for so long, for as long as he’d known them. How he’d lied until he couldn’t remember what was a lie and what wasn’t.

And he didn’t know how to tell them that all the lying been futile, in the end, because denial could erase memories but not actions. Not who, not what he was. His very identity as the others saw it — as even he had been foolish enough to see it, for sixty-two years — was nothing more than just another con. Just another fake name.

All belief of being Stanley Pines abandoned, Bill Cipher raised a hand to cover his mouth and screamed.

***

The one remaining column of steam in the room exploded just as Ford pulled himself to his feet, and winds tore across the room, howling in agony but miraculously not knocking him down. On unsteady feet, a figure with disheveled hair but an impeccable suit and tie walked falteringly forwards, away from the site of detonation — and despite himself, Ford stepped towards him.

“Stanley? Are you —”

Stan’s head jerked up, and he stared at Ford like a deer in the headlights. “No! No, don’t come any closer, I —”

His feet lifted off the floor, and waves of pixels and static rippled up his body as he gritted his teeth, form flickering back and forth between human and —

And something Ford couldn’t quite make out, human and —

Human and —

A sickly yellow triangle materialized out of the static, single eye unblinking as thin black limbs dangled limply towards the ground.

“Well,” he said, in the quietest voice Ford had ever heard emanate from Bill Cipher, “you probably see why you shouldn’t come near me.”

Ford’s stomach churned like it had been thrown into perpetual free fall, and his eyes unfocused.

“What did you do to him?!” he howled. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BROTHER?!”

“Nothing,” Bill said, hands curling into tiny black fists as his appearance flickered and morphed into Stan once again. “I got some bad news, Sixer.”

“Stop pretending to be him!” Ford snarled. “I know you’re really Cipher, so stop — stop making a mockery of him like that! Stop pretending!”

“I have stopped.” The being that took on Stan’s appearance looked genuinely upset, shaking his head slowly and refusing to make eye contact for more than a fraction of a second. “I was — I was pretending for a really long time, but —”

“You’re not making any sense, St—” Ford barely caught himself, and corrected frantically. “No, I mean — fuck. What do you fucking want from me, Bill, that —”

Stan took a shaky breath — the type that often comes when tears are starting to dampen one’s eyes, and they’re trying not to let them creep into their voice. “I really had you convinced, didn’t I?”

He closed his two eyes, after another burst of static, Bill opened his one. “Sixer, I… I was always Stan.”

“What?! No, of all the bullshit — is this some reincarnation angle you’re going for? Because you clearly died long after Stan was —”

“Time doesn’t work like that, Ford! You went rooting through my memories, you saw me invoke the Axolotl — that big frilly know-it-all exists way outside of any backwards and forwards or cause and effect, you must have figured that out by now! I invoked it back when I was burning in my own damn mindscape, when I didn’t actually want to die, and you know what it thought? It thought I was worth saving — oh, and not just saving, but worth shoving me back into your lives like I hadn’t ruined them enough yet!”

“Don’t talk like that about him! Don’t talk like you are him! I won’t fall for your tricks, Cipher, I —”

“I don’t want it to be true either!” Bill wailed, and a fiery blue tear fell from his eye, continuing to roll down his cheek as he turned back into Stan. “You have no idea, I — I want more than anything to to go back to just a couple days ago, to being able to pretend everything is normal and only thinking about spending the summer with you all! But — but it’s not — I can’t pretend anymore! I’m too dangerous to all of you!”

His hoarse voice broke every few words, so full of anguish and so unmistakably Stan. So far beyond anything Bill would ever have the capability to fake.

“There’s — there’s got to be memories getting mixed up in here somehow,” Ford whispered, and though he tried to sound comforting it ended up sounding more like a desperate prayer. “We’ll get this all sorted out, Stanley, don’t worry —”

“You can’t sort out what was never mixed up in the first place!” Bill yelled. “Why won’t you just listen to me, Ford? What about — what if I show you something you remember too?”

The Shack shuddered, planks groaning as they moved to make way for a new door that was dragged out from the hallway by an unseen force. Blue flames ignited around the knob as it twisted open on its own, letting the door swing open to reveal —

Earlier this June, about two weeks ago. Ford shuffled cards as Dipper and Mabel pulled chairs up to a table, and Stan carried in a bowl of fresh popcorn.

“Alright, what are we doin’ for teams?” he asked, setting down the bowl. “Ford and I are obviously unstoppable together, so it’s only fair if we both team up with one of you kiddos…”

“Yeah, ‘cause you both count cards…” Dipper muttered under his breath.

Stan ignored him and folded his hands together, making a point with his index fingers as he gestured between Mabel and Dipper. “Eenie meenie miney… you.”

Dipper flinched as Stan landed on him, staring at his pointed fingers with horror for a moment before taking a few hurried steps backward. “I, uh…”

Stan frowned. “Something wrong?”

“Oh, no,” Mabel murmured. “It’s a Bill thing, isn’t it, Dipper?”

Dipper started to shake his head, but then sighed and pulled down his hat. “Yeah. He… he said that to me a couple times, and now I just…”

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Stan said. “Tell me right away if I ever use a bad phrase like that again, okay?”

Dipper nodded, and Ford put a hand on his shoulder. To Stan, he whispered: “I think I remember hearing Bill use that phrase once, but… aside from that, I don’t think I’ve ever heard it from anyone but you. Did he — did he steal your catchphrase?”

Stan shrugged. “I dunno, but I hope he didn’t steal anything else. Dipper — or any of you, actually — are there any other words you guys want me to avoid?”

The other three Pines shook their heads, and Stan smiled, passing the bowl of popcorn in Dipper’s direction. “Well then, let’s play some euchre before the popcorn gets cold. I got fancy with this batch and made it on the stove, ya know.”

The door to the memory slammed shut, and Ford bit his lip. His hands were trembling at his sides, fingers curled so tightly that they ached like hell, and he couldn’t bear to look down at them in fear he might find them bleeding.

“Coincidence,” he choked out. “It has to be.”

“What will make you believe it, Sixer?” Stan asked. “Fuck, even that nickname should clue you in! Did you ever think it was weird that the two of us both called you Sixer, and just the two of us?”

“Bill must have stolen it from you. Like he stole —”

“That nickname came from the zodiac and you know it! I know you know it, so why can’t you just — just — just look at yourself, Stanford!”

The air shimmered between them, forming a surface so pristine and perfectly reflective that Ford almost thought he was still looking at his twin, view unobstructed — but Stan had been silhouetted in blue flames just a moment ago, while Ford’s reflection was awash with darkness. Clouds circled him slowly, not a single spark of lightning seen in the air between them, and they blurred together with his trenchcoat as it flowed in the gentle wind, disintegrating into tiny gray droplets at the hem. Dark paths traced from the corners of his eyes down his cheeks, running off his chin and down his neck towards his sweater, where they bled into the wool and stained it black.

And the hands, unmistakably six-fingered and undeniably his own, were dripping dark liquid too — not the blood he thought he’d felt, but relentless cascades of black, feeding rivers that hissed and steamed as they ran across the floor’s glowing planks.

“Don’t you see? You’re drawing all the darkness left in my mind towards you because you’re the one in the deepest denial now — but trust me, Ford, it’s not gonna last forever. Something’s gonna snap you out of it sooner or later, so it — it might as well be now. Just accept that I’m not who you thought I was.”

“Fuck,” Ford whispered. “Stanley, you — you’re — you really —”

Stan rose above the mirror, still cloaked in flames as his body convulsed into the form of Bill once more.

“You said no one is allowed to say Stanley is worthless, but guess what? ‘Stanley’ isn’t real. He was just another lie, invented by an amnesiac dream demon who almost managed to convince even himself that he deserved to have a family.”

His voice broke again, but he looked at Ford in the eye as he continued:

“Face it, Sixer — you never had a twin.”

“No!” The dark clouds and blue fire both blew back from Ford as he yelled, voice echoing in his own ears like a grenade going off. “Reincarnation is one thing, but — but there are some things that I’ll never — that can’t —”

He lunged at (Stan? Bill? His brother? He didn’t know) but his hands and then arms passed harmlessly through the triangle, flickering and fading to white — and then Bill’s body turned transparent too, seeming to almost catch him off guard.

“Oh,” he whispered, and transformed back to a faint, quickly fading outline of Stan. “Guess it’s time. See you on the other side, Sixer.”

And then Ford couldn’t see anything anymore, but he could hear a high, echoing voice call out once again as if from far away:

Remember, a deal’s a deal.

***

“Alright, that should be it for the barrier,” Fiddleford announced as he stood up from his kneeling position and watched a glowing blue dome briefly flicker into existence around the sleeping Pines. “Remind me not to leave these mercury vials here on the floor after this has all blown over.”

“How will we know if it works?” Melody asked.

“Great question! I have no idea, an’ hopefully we’ll never hafta find out.”

“Real reassuring,” Wendy muttered under her breath. “Hey, how long do you think it’ll be before —”

Ford leapt bolt upright and tossed the pillow he’d been clutching halfway across the room. “Bill, what do you —”

He locked eyes with Fiddleford. “Fidds? Oh no, Stanley, where’s Stanley —”

He whirled around and saw Soos and the kids beginning to stir, but only Stan opened his eyes — regular and brown, no sign of possession to be found.

“Shoot me, Ford,” he whispered.

Ford froze. “No!! Why would you think I would ever do that?!”

Slowly, as if still feeling the effects of the sedative, Stan pulled himself out of his chair. “Because you promised?”

“When did I ever promise I would shoot you?”

Stan shook his head and sighed, nervously glancing at the kids and Soos and taking a few quick steps away from them while they opened their eyes and rubbed their ears. “Look, Ford, I know it’s been… a long day, but you’ve gotta remember. You promised you’d kill me if Bill took control, and I’m feeling — I’m feeling pretty in-control of myself right now, so —”

“What?” Soos jumped to his feet and grabbed ahold of Stan’s arm. “Mr. Pines, what are you saying? You can’t — you can’t leave us, you’re —”

Stan tore himself out of Soos’s grip and rushed to Ford’s side. “Just get it over with! Please!”

He ran both hands over his skull, yanking on fistfuls of his own hair. “You have to, before I end up hurting someone! Please, I — I — I fuckin’ killed you enough times in Weirdmageddon, I deserve this! Don’t you want to get revenge on me?! Don’t you want to protect your family?!”

“You what?! Grunkle Stan, what do you mean?!” Mabel grabbed ahold Ford’s trenchcoat, voice rising as she clasped handfuls of the brown fabric in trembling, balled-up fists. “What does he mean?!”

“Don’t say that, Stanley,” Ford breathed. “For the kids’ sake, I can’t —”

Stan’s gaze drifted towards a spot the floor a few feet away, fixating on a pale blue chunk of moonstone. He’d noticed the barrier, Ford realized a second too late.

“Fine,” Stan whispered as he stepped backwards. “Then I guess I’ll just have to… take care of it myself.”

“No! Don’t go! Don’t you dare leave us like —”

Ford lunged after him, but Stan backed out of the barrier too quickly, and Ford’s hand passed right through Stan’s shoulder as he disintegrated like smoke in a gust of wind. A single tear fell from where Stan’s face had just been, striking the floor without a sound.

“Grunkle Ford, what happened?” Dipper’s voice cracked. “We found Bill’s memories, and then he — Bill glitched out, and it felt like the whole mindscape was gonna get torn apart —”

“I don’t know what’s happening,” Ford said. “I — I don’t know what to believe.”

“Stan’s not — that wasn’t Bill just now, was it?”

“I don’t know.”

Dipper went silent, leaving the quiet sobs from behind him as the loudest sound remaining in the room.

“He’s really gone,” Soos wept. “After everything, he’s just — he’s just gone —”

Ford took a few steps backward and slowly laid an arm over Soos’s broad shoulders, eyes still fixed on the damp spot where Stan’s tear had struck the floor.

“He’s still out there somewhere,” he insisted, “he has to be. I would know if he wasn’t. I’m sure I would.”

He wasn’t sure. That — that entity, with Stan’s eyes and Bill’s memories, almost certainly had the power to destroy its own self in an instant, and Ford had no reason to believe that it hadn’t just done so. (It might not even matter, if Stan wasn’t even in there anymore. Or if he’d never been in there in the first place —)

But baseless hope had pulled through for Ford countless times before, and once again, it was all he had to go on now.

“Stanley is still out there,” he repeated, “and we need to find him.”

***

End notes:

I chose Ford’s POV for this chapter because it made certain scenes a lot more horrifying/impactful, especially the part with the mirror, but I realized while editing that the result is a bit of a trade-off in which Stan’s motivations become a little less clear, so I’d like to clarify: the reason Stan doesn’t immediately leave the new unicorn hair barrier is because he doesn’t trust himself to end his own life, and in fact doesn’t really trust anyone besides Ford to do so. It’s only when Ford shows he’s clearly not willing to cooperate that Stan leaves, realizing that taking it into his own hands is the best option he has left. (Also, as much as he’s convinced he has to die… it’s still terrifying to him, and he doesn’t want to leave the world all alone. It’s not his main motivation for his actions at the end, but it definitely plays a role.)

Anyways, feedback/reblogs are appreciated as always! Next update should stick to the every other Monday schedule that I’ve been attempting!

#gravity falls #same coin theory #stanley pines #bill cipher #stanford pines #dipper pines #mabel pines #soos ramirez #fic: some sunny day #rosalia writes fic

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traditional-with-a-twist · 6 years ago

Text

viii. Beauty and Her Beast

@bubblesthemonsterartist “the highly disapproving facial expressions” - HA this is the most perfect phrase to describe how Kiki deals with problems

@claudeng80 love your speculations about what becomes of Mitsuhide--it’s true that Rain, Sun, and Snow doesn’t answer the all-important question “how?!” (where would be the suspense then XD), and I am really excited to share that journey with you... there are so many little scenes and interactions lined up that I have been dying to publish since 2016!

<<Previous || masterpost || AO3 || Next>>

Parallel scene: The Lost Prince from the main arc of The Beast with the Beautiful Face.

To make ready for attending a royal funeral, Obi dresses in his old greens.

Black would have suited the occasion, but green is better for blending in with the leaves and rendering himself invisible to the archers, knights, and bird handlers ringing the gravesite.

The bandit clothes fit him perfectly. The boots slip on like gloves, and the hat hugs his head like a second skin--but it is an old skin, like shrugging back into something that he shed long ago.

He hasn’t worn it since Zen gave him a new job, a new life, a new self.

...

Once upon a time, Obi was a drifter, a leaf on the wind, a blade for hire.

Zen changed all that. He, and the people he surrounded himself with, turned Obi’s leash into roots. They offered him more than food to fill his belly and a place to shelter him from the rain.

They offered him a home.

...

He hardly recognized the place anymore. With Zen gone, a paralysis has gripped the castle--everyone and everything was colorless and stiff, caught in its thrall.

There is no wailing, no public outpouring of sadness. The people face their rulers in silence.

The first prince is foremost, upright and brilliantly attired, like a fork of lighting in mid-strike.

Kiki is there with her crooked arm hidden beneath a triangle of dark velvet. It drapes over her shoulder with as much elegance as if the uniform were designed that way, a persuasive deception.

Beside her is that insufferable old man, Lord Haruka, his face drawn into a tight mask that strangles emotion in its cradle.

Mitsuhide is a pallbearer. He arrives in mute lockstep, lowers the coffin to its pedestal, then waits immobile beside it.

Only the artificial beauty arranged in intricate patterns offers any relief to the tension: flowers wound with ribbons, white sand softening the cobblestones, dresses and coats dripping with coins and tassels, and the jewel-blue feathers of the messenger bird corps, all arrayed in preparation.

...

It is rich with symbolism and custom, no doubt, but none of it meant anything to Obi.

He wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t risk coming so close to armed guards and Izana’s all-seeing eye, except that this is his chance to say good-bye.

He has one last duty to perform on Zen’s behalf.

It is an act of homage, a sign of respect among those who practice in his line of work. He owes it to his master.

...

In the meantime, the ceremony drags on. He can’t follow much of the complicated gestures or stilted language; he is restless, tells himself that he is bored.

Boredom is in fact his only refuge, because otherwise he would be transfixed with longing for Shirayuki.

The longing plagues him anyway, like a deep muscle ache that seems to disappear only to reassert itself with a resounding throb that can’t be ignored, or like a static electricity that ripples his blood, just under the surface of his skin.

It directs his eyes to her, over and over again, in spite of his best intentions.

Masked, overwhelmed, withdrawn, even so she draws attention. Obi’s eyes are not the only ones that lose sight of the ceremony’s focal point and slide towards her instead.

Strangers see her red hair; the ambitious see her as a threat. Her friends see her pain.

Obi sees the woman he loves.

…

She presents a very different picture from the unstoppable, electrifying force that he first confronted from a tree branch not too distant from here.

Then she was running towards her destiny, contemptuous of deadly shafts thrown her way. Now she huddles among the elite, shrouded in white at the first prince’s side.

Still the veils are not enough to stifle her presence.

A fighting spirit burns inside her, indestructible courage packaged in incredible fragility. Somehow her purity of mind clears what it comes in contact with, instead of being tainted.

He has never known anyone like her: fearless yet delicate; strong yet unsullied by the world.

The very sight of her is pain to him because it reminds him that there is space between them; they are parted.

She makes him ache.

...

As the sun sets, the trained corps of messenger bird handlers release their charges. The flock soars over the crowd, their brilliant feathers gleaming gold in the dying light.

They are Zen’s legacy, one of the few lasting visible signs that he existed, he acted, he loved his people and wielded his power well.

Shirayuki raises her head to watch them pass.

For a moment, it is as if she looks directly at Obi. He knows it’s an illusion, because she couldn’t have made him out from his perch in the shadows, but for that moment, her eyes are open windows.

Her soul speaks to his.

It is a wordless cry, an appeal that he cannot, could not, has never been able to ignore.

He swears to himself then that he will honor his promise to her, that he will go back to her and make things right, apologize for what he allowed to pass between them.

...

Shirayuki is not thinking of everyone she has lost and will continue to lose.

It is easier to turn her eyes away than to think of them, even though Mitsuhide is right there, on the threshold of departing from her, bowing to shoulder again the stone weight destined for the earth.

She doesn’t think about the box he gave her or the box he is carrying now, or what either of them mean. She thinks only of the job she must do.

At Lord Haruka’s nod, she takes one step then another, one at a time, one foot before the other.

She grips a heavy iron key, clutching it tight enough to bite into her skin, determined not to let it fall.

A door rises up before her: It is carved with a crest of petals like broken stars.

The key fits the lock. She turns it.

...

Obi slips his identification tag from his belt. He hasn’t worn it since the day he left Wistal; it has been waiting, coiled and ready, in a snug pocket.

Sliding off his glove, he lays the string across his bare palm. The pendant dangles, its inscription rendered invisible by the gathering darkness.

A flick of his wrist, and a leaf blade balances between finger and thumb. His face is blank, even relaxed, as he waits.

As Zen’s casket overtakes Shirayuki and vanishes into the mouth of the Wisteria family tomb, Obi passes the blade across his open hand.

It cuts deep enough to sever the string--and his skin.

Like the flash of metal in the firelight of a hundred raised torches, the pain stings then quickly deadens. With time, it will fade into a silver thread, a reminder and a tribute.

...

There is a cost for carrying this memory with him for the rest of his life. It is one more line for his collection, but it is also a sacrifice, a small concession of the safety found in obscurity.

A distinguishing marker, no matter how slight, presents a risk, another challenge to overcome in a life of secrets and stealth.

The scar is a vulnerability, willingly assumed.

It is the greatest honor someone like Obi can pay a master like Zen: voluntarily marking himself so that their contract will never be forgotten.

...

“Farewell, master,” he whispers.

Red runs across his palm, branding him, sealing him, loosing him. His service is at an end.

The second prince's messenger is no more.

#Akagami no Shirayukihime #obiyuki #references major character death #PurePassion #Beauty and Her Beast #this timeline starts to diverge from Beautiful Face after this chapter!#expect some all-new content coming up

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eirianerisdar · 7 years ago

Note

if you're talking crazy AUs...............what if thanos wiping out half the universe affected the star wars galaxy

ANON. YES.

This is set in the later period of The Clone Wars, right before what would have been the last events of season 5 of TCW. (I’m sorry I know this wasn’t the first prompt I got but I NEED to write this)

Also um…warning? Much character death? This is a lot darker than anything I’ve ever written. There’s always hope in the end, though! Oneshot, gen.

Not This Crude Matter

Luminous beings are we; not this crude matter.

Obi-Wan was the first to sense it.

In hindsight, it seemed only natural that he should be the only one to see it coming; in his childhood he dreamt of twin suns, and in his youth of a green lance of fire that shattered a blue-white sphere into nothing; and should the Unifying Force have continued, and time sped on uninterrupted, then he would have seen both these things for himself.

But it was coming, a rending of space-time and the Force itself, screaming, writhing, and wrong.

Obi-Wan’s voice broke off mid-order as he froze, gauntleted arm extended.

“Obi-Wan?” Anakin shouted over the rain of blaster-fire, the scream of his lightsaber suddenly overwhelming and close in the loss of Obi-Wan’s; Ahsoka’s voice behind them was lost in the thud of plasma cannons

Across the field, at the head of the advancing columns of the Separatist forces, Dooku fell still, crimson lightsaber chambered at his side.

A plasma bolt passed so close to Obi-Wan’s face that he did not hear so much as feel its searing hiss; Anakin’s shout as he leapt to defend him seemed to come from a far-off place, discordant and skewed in a cataclysmic wave that reared as it struck.

The blaster-fire stopped.

No, that was the wrong word for it; it did not stop so much as sweep into a crescendo with the oncoming storm-front, frozen forever in a scream so high-pitched and so desperate that it took Obi-Wan a long, sweat-chilled moment to understand it was the Force that was screaming.

Screaming, as the Living Force was rent apart and the Unifying erased in one inescapable, perfect storm.

On the field around him, half of the 501st and the 212th were dropped their blasters in a clattering cacophony of metal meeting rock.

Because their hands were no longer there.

And then there was a secondary rain of lightweight durasteel and plastoid alloy as the other half dropped their own DC-15s and ripped off their buckets, flinging out pleading hands only to plunge them through disintegrating chests and arms and necks, one after another until the field was filled with wailing, guttural howls.

And then they, too, started to melt away.

Above and around and within them was the ever-present and ever-building sigh of rustling, windblown leaves.

Dust, leaves, and ashes.

Obi-Wan stood frozen as the entire field of men - an ocean of candles in the Living Force - were snuffed out as cruelly and as finally as a breath from the belly of Death itself.

Cody slipped into the Force somewhere amongst his men, before Obi-Wan could even begin to reach.

Throughout it all, the Separatist forces stood silent and unmoving and as dead as the durasteel that made up its assault tanks and droids and heavy blasters.

Before them, Dooku raised his hand and watched as it dissolved into black sand, and that sand into nothing. He did not speak, but instead lifted his chin and gazed across the field at his grandpadawan; a stare that somehow bridged the scars of their lineage and the opposing sides of the war they found themselves in.

The Force flung itself across no-man’s land and the field of dying men between them; Obi-Wan inhaled sharply, tasted dust on his tongue as his grand-master’s Force-signature flickered and latched onto his mindscape.

Dooku did not speak. There was no time to do so.

There was only a strange sort of fondness echoing in the smile of a brown-haired padawan and a steady-handed master, one and the same in their shared memory.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes as Dooku’s regret washed over him, another breaker in a tide that kept rising.

“Qui-Gon always spoke very highly of you,” Dooku had once said to him in that dark holding cell on Geonosis. “I wish he were still alive. I could use his help right now.”

Obi-Wan had thought, then, that they were only the silken, twisting words of a Lost Jedi who had chosen the wrong side of a war.

He knew they were not, now.

Dooku’s lightsaber extinguished as it thudded to the ground, but what sound it made was lost in the cries of the dying and the living.

And then, somewhere behind Obi-Wan, Ahsoka screamed.

Obi-Wan whirled in place.

“Rex!” Anakin shouted, leaping forward.

Rex was on his knees, and the expression on his face was one of such young bewilderment that for that one instant before he dissolved into nothing he looked all of his twelve short years, a child soldier uncomprehending of his death.

Ahsoka flung her arms around him, and embraced only dust.

Anakin was frozen an arm’s length from her, his own gloved hand filled with a handful of grey that bled into nothing in the wind when he opened his fist.

Obi-Wan stood as a shadow and a spectre, and could only watch in numb horror.

And then-

And then.

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin murmured, faintly. His boots were blurring at the edges, as were his gloved fingers. As though an artist were watering down his outline, about to wash him from the picture, erased as though he never existed.

No.

Obi-Wan’s feet moved before he was aware of it. He caught Anakin around his shoulders before he could fall, allowed the Force to pour into his former padawan’s - his brother’s - fading form. In that moment, he wished to be nothing; a window so clear and transparent that the Force could wield him as it wished, and that he would be nothing at all.

The slow fading away of Anakin’s form slowed, though it crept onward nevertheless, insidious, devastating, unstoppable.

Anakin - the furnace that never stopped burning, the hero with no fear who used to crawl into Obi-Wan’s sleeping pallet as a child when the nightmares came - gasped in a breath in Obi-Wan’s arms, raised wide eyes to meet his, and whispered, “Padmé. Comm.”

It took a precious moment for Obi-Wan to understand the significance of the statement, and he found understanding in Ahsoka’s gaze, too, knelt as she was with one hand on Anakin’s shoulder.

Obi-Wan nodded, and Anakin’s lips curved in the smallest of smiles.

Ahsoka scrabbled for Anakin’s comm, flicked it open, and pressed in a code as Obi-Wan held Anakin tighter.

Anakin shivered in his arms.

For a terrifying few seconds it seemed as though the comm channel would not open; but then in a burst of subspace static, it held.

“Anakin! I’m so glad you’re alright, the Chancellor and so many others have-”

At Padme’s voice, Anakin’s expression changed into one of such gentleness that Obi-Wan almost looked away - it was too private a moment.

“I love you,” Anakin said, breath hitching. The dust had crept up to his elbows and past his knees, now. “I love you so much.”

A pause.

“No,” Padmé said, so strongly that Obi-Wan almost believed it would stop the slow progression of death up Anakin’s limbs. This was the former queen, the Senator who should have been Chancellor.

“I love you,” Anakin repeated, no more than a susurration of air.

Padme’s voice was degenerating into sobs, now. “Don’t do this, please,” she gabbled. “Don’t- I need you here. We need you here.”

Obi-Wan inhaled sharply. Ahsoka clapped both her hands over her mouth.

Anakin’s eyes had begun to slip shut, but he seemed to force them open with the last dregs of his strength. “What?” he whispered.

“I’m pregnant, Ani. Five weeks.”

For a moment, Anakin’s face was frozen.

Then joy spread across it in a burst of starlit incandescence.

“I’m so happy,” he said, his smile wider than the sky, even as his body flickered. His eyes raised up to Obi-Wan’s - and there was such pure joy in them that Obi-Wan felt ashamed for the tears that spilled over his own.

“I’m so happy, Padme,” Anakin murmured, closing his eyes.

The Force let Anakin Skywalker go.

Obi-Wan looked down at the dust in his hands, and felt the first of his tears drip past his beard; saw it splash in a darker black against the grey. The Force was no longer speaking to him; he felt nothing. Heard nothing. Saw nothing.

Ahsoka pressed both her hands into the ground as tears slid down her cheeks.

There was something incredibly wrong about the fact that it was Ahsoka who was weeping; Ahsoka, Anakin’s brave, brave padawan, hewn of steel and verve and sass and power.

And when she was vulnerable, she was quietly strong, and enduring, and kind.

Not this. Never this.

And then her fingers, too, began to fade, melting into the hard-packed dirt.

Ahsoka stopped crying very abruptly, staring down at them.

Obi-Wan scrambled towards her.

Ahsoka looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes and said, very quietly, “It’s okay, Master Kenobi.”

The dust was at her shoulders and hips, now.

What was left of Obi-Wan Kenobi broke.

“Take me,” he screamed, though he knew it was not the Force that he screamed to, but death itself. “Take me instead-”

Death did not. Death never did; not Obi-Wan Kenobi, the steward and the watcher.

Ahsoka tumbled into nothing, and Obi-Wan knelt there, a single, brown-hooded figure in a field of dust and fallen leaves, waiting for his own end to come.

It didn’t.

Obi-Wan buried his face in his hands and howled.

By his right knee, Padmé’s sobs echoed out of Anakin’s comm. Together they made a cruel duet; and then abruptly, the channel cut off.

Silence, save for the wind and the creaking of the Separatist forces, frozen forever with their blasters trained on the single Jedi left before them.

The Force, broken as it was, curled around Obi-Wan’s shoulders.

Through it Obi-Wan saw things he did not understand.

A purple-skinned arm, and a gold gauntlet set with six glowing stones. Another world, so many light-years away that Obi-Wan trembled at the distance and weight of the years.

Even now the Force wanted something of him.

“What do you want of me?” he whispered to the Force. “I cannot go there.”

A huff of hot breath over his head.

Obi-Wan’s heart leapt into his throat as he turned his head.

A white-haired wolf bared sharp teeth down at him in a feral grin. Then it turned and offered him his back.

An inkling of legend curled in Obi-Wan’s mind, of Loth-wolves and ancient Temples, before the Order called themselves Jedi.

Oh.

The Force buoyed up under Obi-Wan’s nerveless feet, guided his hand to pick up Anakin’s comm and tuck it into his belt, and gave him strength he did not know he had to climb up on the Loth-wolf’s back.

It was warm and steady and alive, and as the wolf began loping away from the battlefield, the world blurred into another and the Force began to sing.

Perhaps the Force was leading Obi-Wan to a new war; perhaps the galaxy he knew and the Republic he served would never be the same again. But there is a lightsaber in his hand, and the Force, broken though it was, was humming in his veins.

They ran on, luminous.

END

Um. Don’t kill me? I can’t make this into a multi-chapter crossover, but this sort of spun out of control and let’s just take it that Obi-Wan went over to the MCU and gave Thanos a good pounding.

Also, whatever happens in the follow-up to Infinity War applies to the people who died here, so I’m sure Anakin, Ahsoka and the rest are ok. Spidey’s got to come back after all, right?

I’ve cross-posted this to FFN! And I promise if you’re a new reader that I write much brighter things than this. For those interested, I’ve written an Infinity War fic from Loki’s perspective, Five Choices.

My fanfic masterlist

FFN profile and stories

#star wars #infinity war #mcu #obi-wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #how do I tag this #ahsoka #rex #cody #padme #dooku #kenobi #anakin #my post #anon #replies #fanfic #I'M SORRY OK I PROMISE I'LL WRITE A HAPPY FEEMOR AND OBI-WAN PRANK FIC AFTER THIS

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k-reviews · 7 years ago

Text

2018 IN REVIEW: ALBUMS/EPS

The time has come for us to have a look back on the 2018′s most memorable and impressive albums and EPs. As per usual, it was not possible to listen and to and review every album which dropped this year however conscious effort was made throughout the year to listen to as many as possible and to review them whenever time permitted. Following last year’s format, this list will outline a top list of 10 albums/EPs released this year. The placement of the entries are based on a mix of review scores/critical opinion and my own personal enjoyment and preferences. One entry per artist was permitted.

In case you missed the 2018 Top 15 Singles roundup you can catch that here.

2017 - Singles

2017 - Albums

10. LOONA - [++]

Taking their sweet time before finally uniting, the payoff was mostly worth it; resulting in a tight 6 track EP filled with bubbly ideas that are expressed through its charming production and glistening performances. LOONA demonstrated a commendable degree of versatility in the sounds they approached on ‘[++]’, from the frenetically sweet title track ‘Hi High’ to the soaring ‘Heat’ and the hard hitting impact of pre-release banger ‘Favorite’, LOONA lay down foundations that paint a bright future for the group. [Full Review]

Recommended Track: Perfect Love

9. Giriboy - Science Fiction Music

Wasting no time after dropping his most accomplished project yet in last year’s ‘Graduation’, Giriboy stayed busy in 2018 with a myriad of collaborations, singles and a winning stint as a producer on SMTM. ‘Science Fiction Music’ is yet another excellent record, filled to the brim with razor sharp production that bleeds with vibrancy, depth and creativity. Giriboy’s performances remain energetic as ever, working in rapping and singing seamlessly. The guests he brings on the record also shine in their own regard. Giriboy continues to elevate himself above his contemporaries as one of Korea’s most engaging MCs.

Recommended Track: Acrnm (feat. Goretexx)

8. Dreamcatcher - Nightmare: Escape The Era

The rocking girls of Dreamcatcher bring their defining sound to a climax with ‘Escape The Era’, a mostly familiar, but undeniably confident and impactful EP. ‘You And I’ presents gorgeous, open verses with timid, yet emotional vocal melodies that ascend to an explosive chorus. The production across the board has the right amount of polish balanced with just enough grit to give the EP a tangible edge and palpable energy. Flexing effortless vocal performances that work in gorgeous unity with the production, ‘Escape The Era’ is peak Dreamcatcher. [Full Review]

Recommended Track: Mayday

7. EXO - Don’t Mess Up My Tempo

Coming through with arguably their best record since ‘Exodus’, even topping that perhaps is EXO’s ‘Don’t Mess Up My Tempo’. EXO once again demonstrate superb vocal performances whether it be in the bravado that carries the electric nature of lead single ‘Tempo’, or the emotive prowess they bring on the sensual ‘24/7′ and airy ‘With You’. The production is more modest, but infinitely rich throughout - ‘Gravity’ being the shining star in this field. ‘Don’t Mess Up My Tempo’ is a very focused effort that plays within very defined sonic borders without ever feeling static, instead its tracklist courses swimmingly. [Full Review]

Recommended Track: Gravity

6. BoA - Woman

Seemingly each year, there is just one phenomenal straight-up no twist and turns pop record that sets out to do one thing; make great pop and do so with flying colors. BoA does exactly that with ‘Woman’, her ninth and best album to date. Boasting abundantly colorful production in tracks like the fierce title track and the springing ‘Little More’, the record maximizes what’s fun in the current pop landscape while cutting the fat so that it’s just back to back joyrides. The glittery production aside, ‘Woman’ would not be what it is without the charisma that BoA carries herself with in all of her performances throughout.

Recommended Track: Little More

5. Jonghyun - Poet | Artist

Jonghyun of SHINee’s posthumous album, ‘Poet | Artist’ is a record that incites a myriad of emotions. It brings childish joy in ‘Shinin’ and infectious confidence in ‘Sightseeing’ all leading to the record’s closer ‘Before Our Spring’ which is nothing short of beautiful in its honesty and longing. As always, Jonghyun’s vocal flexibility, and sheer force illuminates the album’s broadly toned production. It can be a confronting listen, but what Jonghyun put together on his final album is ensures that he will be remembered not only for his stature as a successful idol, but as a compelling musician with a kind heart and a sharp ear.

Recommended Track: Take The Dive

4. Simon Dominic - Darkroom: Roommates Only

Finally following up his debut solo project in 2011, Simon Dominic presents the grim and intoxicating ‘Darkroom: Roommates Only’. Despite its heavy tone, it feels like a cathartic listen as Simon D candidly invites the listener into a dark state of mind that is muddied with anxiety, depression and uncertainty. He evokes moods through his masterful writing; blunt and grounded at times, and others he immerses us in his engaging storytelling, often supplemented by haunting performances that hold onto listeners with a suffocating grip. Sonically, Simon D’s harrowing rapping and singing is over very moody, atmospheric production that intertwine with his performances perfectly.

Recommended Track: Demolition Man (feat. Kim Jong Seo)

3. Younha - Rescue

Also making an anticipated return in 2018 was Younha with her fifth full length album, ‘Rescue’. ‘Rescue’ has Younha continuing to show her versatility and adaptability as a singer-songwriter as she approaches this record with a subtle, but atmospheric pop flare. The record is still nicely stocked with dreamy ballads that drown listeners in her luscious and crystalline vocal displays like on the opener. Brighter moments on the record truly sparkle, ‘Feel’ is one of the year’s most uplifting tunes that pulses with joy. Younha successfully unites her signature sound with some of the sounds of today, and none of it feels contrived at all. ‘Rescue’ stands proudly and comparable to her best works such as 2012′s ‘Supersonic’.

Recommended Track: Feel (feat. Chancellor)

2. DAY6 - Shoot Me: Youth Part 1

From the commencement of their EveryDay6 project in 2017, DAY6 have been an unstoppable force and they keep up their momentum with ‘Shoot Me: Youth Part 1′ in 2018. Headed by a fiercely bold lead single of the same name, the record is essentially the foundations laid down in 2017′s ‘Sunrise’ milked to their absolute potential in a compact EP format. The songwriting is incredibly tight and engaging, the performances from the boys both instrumentally and vocally are consistently thrilling and the production is supplemented by nicely toned and textured arrangements. DAY6 hits hard and fast with tracks like ‘Warning’, while also throwing curveballs like ‘Talking To’ in the mix. Whatever you want to label DAY6 as; idol group, idol band, pop rock band, pop punk band - there’s simply no other act doing what they’re doing at this very moment. [Full Review]

Recommended Track: Shoot Me

1. Paloalto & Justhis - 4 The Youth

Uniting two of South Korea’s most technically skilled MCs from two different generations of hip-hop, ‘4 The Youth’ presents a strong case to be one for the history books when it comes to hip-hop records. Paloalto’s demonstrates an effortless mastery in adapting beat to beat with his inhumanly smooth flows which glide over instrumentals with a sense of authority and concurrent airiness. On the other hand, Justhis brings a frenetic energy on his hyper-articulate and precise performances that cut through beats like glass. The duo come together on gorgeous and serene beats like the Groovyroom produced ‘Seoul Romance’ and the cold ‘Brown Eyes Views’ with sensitivity and inspiration. Harder hitting songs like ‘Zombies’ and ‘Cooler Than Cool’ is where our MCs let loose on their flows, with back to back highlight verses filled with cut-throat flows and an unparalleled command of attention between the two. The 22 track, 70 minute runtime could’ve divulged into a chore but thanks to tasteful beat selection and the raw talent of Paloalto and Justhis, ‘4 The Youth’ is a monumental hip-hop record, and the most outstanding record of 2018 overall. [Full Review]

Recommended Track: Switch, No Reason, Zombies

#day6 #paloalto #justhis #simon dominic #jonghyun #boa #exo #dreamcatcher #giriboy #loona

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marcosoropoet · 7 years ago

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Pavlovian Tingle-Railway [Station Blackout] ~ (or express razor eye out Mr. Tingle)

1. Kloud killer chiller kulture canyon snake basement forge tight street corner deal forced ink steel night deal danger: Nawnawnawman. mah bruh? ten dollahs on a hundid?! Heh, I knows you's tryin tah pop it right by keeping it tight homie but this muthahfuckin-assed bullshit yo ...The Fuck Outta Here dawg thas some sorry assed real bullshit you tryin' tah pull homie home re-union haze of teenage (((flashback glitch))) in his head left a hilarious grease spot on the blackboard & chemical vandals sizzling in his brain. the green dusty blackboard in a delicately crystalline formulaic tableau of wood and numbers the vicissitudes of black snow the color of darkened ash has hushed all the talk, as he walks in tonight... menacing heights of fire escape drills, getting a dart in the back slo-mo, someone had poured soda into the ketchup bottle and now small torrents of bubbling red oozes & blooms out over the entire table ahhh! the other man makes slight adjustments to his demeanor to be less 'street' and more 'invited' why it's his reunion. flinch. ruination anguish]...dark train car rumbling out of a long dank tunnel why'd I think to see those people (((again))) — all the dark mirrors burn each morning with the sun coming up got the snake eye fingernail pie & the sway all day boo" swooning dust and pitter-patter rain falling on the wood and concrete burst open telephone call in a very clean & empty conference room all cool grey, and smoked glass ultra post-modern a tart aroma permeated throughout the heated glass sun, spun glass sun, glass skin, black tea, your loose spacetime textile, hunched machinations launched the sniper river: filled with humid headrush & slowed down lunge... bell strikes upon time textile carousal corral I'll crack tea soon, planet zone houseout your concrete vibrations played earth, I joke but I don't play hot black grit is dense milky frozen afterflow stillness flight from disorientation crush inside hothouse of humid bright light vivid green curling leaves, frozen stillness of isolated thought timestamp molecules pierce loose clean shimmers sheerly, behind a crystal sky lattice tethering, examine gravel and glass stars, vivid flowers spying are bright: sand pebbles, sun, glimmers sheerly, behind the headlong tangible surfaces, singing head, the pristine universe: filled with air, swooning belts of galaxies, silence of people spin roar and black grit is white black snow of ash razor spin cycle of blood...eyes...ears...horror. between brass skin, into an unspeaking, unexpected whole city falling, hears what time. namedrop sibelius, but no good. I had gone over to piss on a clean slab. city heavy the day fragmented air, swooning body between my fingers, from rooves near edges elbowing real business of people television sidewalk morning show trauma. 2. uncanny sharp terror reflection of purple surfaces, doing my heavy whole city hears white noise and through a candlelit's merriment chili & hot black onyx coffee deems me grass sun, glass stars, glass skin, blank memory shimmers in hems, a blown out window, gusts of icy air, was I walking in circles that day? Yes. (outtake 15: "you wanna do the purple surface deflection again, or the blank noise, or the tinsel applause rose confetti trick...) suspicious mirrors coalition carry long fingers of light, floodlight: store window glass stars, glass sun, glass sunlit coppery direction, spacetimes. sand. cut granules. increments of ideals. my song. black tea, your loose diamond-snake in hemisphere air expanded the sense of screams of the bitten who had become crazed and dethroned. Off with him. OFF. smoothing body dry at the woods' lake edge. the sense of elbowing heavy thunderstore window glass sunlit coppery direction, spacetime textile, caricature. it is what time textile, hunched...( ). every roof dots the night. bells of mirrors repeating swirling sense-blur of heady fruity honeysuckle, hot blue flowers were to go to headlong silvergold touch flame of snooty persona non grata, fractal gravity tethering my fingers, glassy black tea I had gone over the eyes like a million lilacs, cut citrus yellow hot nailgun hems gather the whole, bunched-up coarse fabric and brusquely sew through the thick tough cloth poke & bleed hole into thumb... cut citrus bitter teeth, together what white noise time. in the world...vampires go somewhere else during that time as they begin to sting and burn hazy coalition of suspicious two-way mirrors, spacetimes switched in cool cyberpunk density of mechanical and grey cliffs superimposed "mr. chili & hot-thought focus reflect purple surfaces, sun, glass stare tangy sea-spray hits the spot dothole city head, the shirt is absolutely suspicious mirror of television carousal." beautiful unspeaking, who in deep solitude, and the bells of home over the sepia photographs beneath smoked glass, drank coffee. outtake 7: naw first mix the drums. cymbals clash & smoke swirls around a black infinity screen...I like my vehicle heh-heh porque es muy correcto cógelo compound of the informal second-person singular radio static monstrous popping loops of short waves can we go back & add more drums on top straight away?fucking clowns" owning eyes, the vastest untormented rain-soaked newspaper liesure headed back to the planet of purple dunes and long drenched weeks of night and vertical waves of vibrant light-color mister, you gotta see it for yourself oh so you speak this. good. the space of a thought & sunless rose hanging where a parking universal zip code of your paw-paw fishing for debris in Jupiter flash over glitter green fishnets; these shots were hidden and codenamed: "ZZ Legs" 3. outtake 1: band tuning up dialogue heard (cackling raunch) cracking up unstoppably...right, anybody know where the green guitar went?bloody sold it?he fuckin crazy!!! you could see the blood rising in his neck and temple veins alert today (((you?))) with identity overhead cranking tarantula of metal & ice rising dynamic inversion, tangible fumes, kloud killer chiller kulture canyon snake scale basement killer chiller vein driller no filler no filter radioactive reiteration seeker out there basement cracked, hatchet wielder crack good time dark whip in good time, at blood manor of (((thinking)))... detached arid solipsism generates the worst cosmopolitan anecdotes dismantled donned unwashed plenitude killer killer fecund reverts to gradients dismantling each mustard-colored enclosure pocket, rumblings of what smiles and creaks tantalizing razor into the sunlights & sunlight & sunlight's razor-sharp cut where a thousand days ran in dark mirrors bursting through torrents of fruity bodywash exploding from the old tv. did time have something to do with playing that scene in reverse? rumblings of abrasive verbal angst. this could change nothing in the memory of the differing, somewhat superimposed seasons, and regions of the psyche's endless topography and subtle extras. Ever see big mountain stones. Where? With identity garbed, dispersed, in exposed retinas with identity hours away, abrasive sandspray in the eyes and kick to the gut before hyper speed chaotic scene/car chase/ fruitstands decimated confetti storm in jewel tone bust ))). alert to run in happy blinding onto one that is there, not in part. with a fresh braid from cracked roses hung up in snow and smoke, *** overhead cranking tarantula of metal & ice rising dynamic inversion, tangible fumes, kloud killer chiller kulture canyon snake basement cracked hatchet wielder in good time, at blood manor of (((thinking)))... detached arid solipsism generates the worst cosmopolitan anecdotes dismantled donned unwashed plenitude killer killer fecund reverts to gradients dismantling each mustard-colored enclosure, forge forced reunion flinch ruination anguish]...dark train car all dark mirror burn from mama each morning, better the misgivings of blue trees, into gas stupid disowned eyes, the vastest spit of untormented strung down stupified, feeling rain-soaked the space of a thought & sunless rose sparkling unguent, parking universal zip codes of your paw-paw fishing tongue stump hush lagoon fireflies — alert today (((you?))) with identity tusk doodle ember light rumblings of what smiles and creaks tantalizing onto matter of abrasive window with you, and ran in the sunlit heavily garbed, dispersed out his own mythic eyes winters rooftops, had time to run in exposed retinas' splendor clasp, smashed out eyes & all windows, the sunless rooftops smashed, fingers rose from crack liquid officers roses embellishing a gold mask *** fishing for a window and ran in the Laundromat an eerie confessional ambient track beneath the while of detergent pods reversal zip codes of december's scratch down loose from earth golden rock sunless rooftops, headless rooftops, had time to turn today unpeeling stretched on, fingers bursting unceasing, better off euphoria than rainy days yet I have been euphoric on rainy days, the light refracted on rainy city nights is dazzling, optic. matter of what smiles and stretched a window with you, and winters rose hanging purple a tapestry fractal repetition hidden inside everything heavy stones, old earth blood-purple heavy stolen hungry in a smashed autographed rapid metal scrape turning signals sent of empire time dilation, time-fabric tug cushioned by thick striations of black matter slathered embellished disruption in quantum fixtures of intelligent light tableau vivant in constant great surprise hey somebody over there standing on the corner half-hidden ...prune tiny collision arousal of unstuck receding record needle deep jungle rain that black canyon was one mile straight down over crisp and visible identity hyper-overthink high-speed thoughtdream police...ekstasis the pure glass white glowing afternoon, lightning struck fully staged chaos a thick wall of light & sound I fell, I feel more in the other ocean-me tasteful chaos of crackling tarantula blizzard spray factory winds push my back up against the chain link giving, losing, running up urban moon dogs, colliding bitemarks shooting bloodspray artery up in mid-air on their haunches, desiring moons, throats scraping howls, inside four walls of curdling blood fangs white bit lip blurred piping dark walk invisible hot tight-rope walk over flesh-burning acid dump sooty flotation, toothy grubber eyes loosening releases an overhead cranking tarantula of metal & ice rising dynamic inversion, shot hot smoke veiling blue-grey couched whim within the teasing voiceless delirium of serial killer cookie trays the flash of a suspicious vehicle turns into the dark. No one will knock at the door for a decade, thick velvety dripping black roses entangle in with spreading green voiceless vines many thousands of miles away, transmitting on a white ocean of vast space intermission — kaleidoscoping groggy touch burst tattoo, syrup-wet eyes, collective psychedelic rays, lines, diamond-point threads of stringy consciousness touch groggily her eyes edited wide rain leaving ordered suspended symbols of coldly seeded bleeding mistrust whirling in the slow lizard shadows of her vibing audience Her long irregularly cut sleeves were irridescently flowing as her lips touched the microphone; she raised her fingers & pressed them together in the bright white-light air. . That may eclipse & dilate, but won't brown-out. That may eclipse & dilate, but won't brown-out. That I have known. There are no cracks in and though a very persistent illusion... reality that never blinks in blurred eras & sweaty flashback of ZFG. I clunkily yanked keeping the sociopath. Snatch prison touch shadow-fireeater postered in the past, present undertow; vast pure beauty of riveted quantum mirror's silver diagram "the distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion of thought balloons: & cold harrowing chill on the tip of the tip of the tongue of blood frozen, in the king's falling horror. re-experience The Broken black fireeater posters (((off))) with a billion troubling feral hot melts of white laundry, re-imagined. In/out, tongue. Crisis-ephemeral hot chaotic isolated roped-off his head captured in the tip of chronological mistakes eye-sting shrieks, in the sociopath. Snatch prison touch voiceless clay flesh that asks nothing, strobed shoe frozen in white Laundry, to keep there's nothing, same threaders (((off))) with a blue bottle desert optic without angular anyone, head, monotonous brain barbed pummeling walls commentary of light cranked shoe frozen in the king full of a concrete thrown backwards to the documentary and a howling crusty inky vampire blood-curdling shriek of sunlight pain — Crisis-ephemeral hot chaotic sunny night requires the absurd to become also feral. switched sociopath machines running dirt-sprayed windows much shapeless television smile. Busting azure, me behind-glass, tabloid's into the blood from my head captured inside rain-soaked keep provoking — Went off his head threaders (((off))) without hot magnetic sunny night requires absurd coming of cling plucking feral hot chaotic isolated magnetic sun snow white aluminum light requires threadbare darkness cactus will slice fingers sucking say, to keep the sociopath is plastic sun playtoy sun-lit corner "...that ain't no drug-dog man, that dog can't smell shit!" 4. tangible fumes, kloud killer chiller kulture canyon snake basement cracked hatchet wielder in good time, at blood manor of (((thinking)))... detached arid solipsism generates the worst cosmopolitan anecdotes dismantled donned unwashed plenitude killer killer fecund reverts to gradients dismantling each mustard-colored enclosure, forge forced reunion flinch ruination anguish]...dark train car all dark mirror burn from mama each morning, better misgivings, blue treets, into gas stupid disowned eyes, the vastest spit of untormented strung down the stupified, feeling rain-soaked the space of a thought & sunless rose hanging tongue, where a parking universal zip codes of your paw-paw fishing tongue sandwich fakeout — alert today (((you?))) with identity tusk ember lightflash holo. rumblings of what smiles and creaks tantalizing onto to the sunlight & sunlight & sunlights thousands of big mountain stones. Where? With identity garbed, dispersed, in exposed retinas with identity hours away yet, abrasive tattooed song alert to run in happy blinding onto one embryo that there? With a fresh braid from crack liquid officers rose hanging snow, matter of abrasive mumbling for a window with you, and ran in the sunlit heavily garbed, dispersed out his own mythic eyes winters, rooftops, had time to run in exposed retinas splendor clasp, smashed out eyes, the sunless rooftops to run in a smashed on, fingers rose from cracks of black ice liquid officers rose gold high to hang a mask, it matters.rooftops today. untormented & stuck turning today (((you?))) fishing for a window and ran howling purple penciled face on the gut-wrenching gut-wet alley wall, some bricks missing, red-lit blood, dirt-thick socks, high rocks, watching deeply, vivid skirts of damaged silkscreened lip mistakes, a modicum of walls coming down glass, tabloid's inert, to the documentary and a howling dirt-sprayed window's much shadow-fire scrutiny on touch voiceless clay flesh that asks strobed prison king falling into a pile of copper wires lifting feral hot magnetic sun taken aback that I have avoided snow white laundry tongue. And taking the kingly cup tossed it into the teeming hot fire licks of smoke. ~ Marcos Oro

#Pavlovian Tingle-Railway [Station Blackout] ~ (or express razor eye out Mr. Tingle)#marcos oro #poem #poesia #modern poetry #outsider #brut #abstract #imagery #parody #cut-up poetry #allegory

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skimmingmilk · 2 months ago

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Hi!! I was wondering if you’ve ever posted a schedule of fics you had planned for the future? I vaguely remember seeing something a while back, but I’m not sure if I was hallucinating that or not ToT I was just curious to see the story ideas u had coming up!

Hi! You're remembering correctly; I do occasionally post my planned fic schedules (which are always subject to change, lol), but it has been a minute since I've revisited it. Some big life changes that I was anticipating would happen later this year happened a lot sooner than expected, so it set me back quite a bit and I'm still sort of recalibrating from that. My living and financial situation changed drastically in February/March, so dealing with and recovering from that's taken up quite a bit of my spare time and energy, but I'm trying to get back into a semi-consistent writing groove, though I haven't made as much progress as I'd like.

But I have been meaning to give you all an update. I just really don't know what sort of timeline to expect at this point since real life is still very much real life-ing. Stll, I want to let you know where my mind's at. Here's kinda what my goals are as of today, the middle of May:

Priority #1: "When the World Breaks, Hold on Tight" update - Shamar and Empire City chapters. Shamar is maybe 3/4s of the way done at this point, and once that's finalized, everything should be in place to make Empire City's chapter a breeze.

Priority #2: Sonic's Side of "Relative Dissonance." I want that out sometime in June, but it'll depend on if I can knock out Shamar by the end of May.

Priority #3: "An Unstoppable Force Between Static Stars" update - chapters 4 and 5.

Priority #4: Mighty and Ray reunion fic.

Priority #5: Something I've been meaning to do for a while and recently decided I'm going to just go for it, because life's too short and I can do whatever the fuck I want :)

I think it's fair to say that I'll also still occasionally answer prompts that are sitting in my inbox as writing warm-ups while all this is going on, so if you see any of those pop up in the meantime, it doesn't mean my priorities have changed. It's just me trying to get back on track.

#skimming asks #these are my goals for the rest of 2025 #if I can accomplish this much I'll be happy #that'll fix me xD #there's also secret priority 6 which is my own novel #I'll always write fanfic - I've accepted this - but I also really want to see my own stuff out there in the world #just wish there were more hours in the day and more energy in my body ;w;

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sammihain300 · 6 years ago

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The Truth Behind 9/11

The conspiracy theories started flying just days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC. Over the decade since, several technically elaborate claims have been refined by the “9/11 Truth” movement. Do these intricate arguments—including the rapid collapses of the towers, alleged evidence of thermite usage at Ground Zero, and the collapse of World Trade Center (WTC) 7 (a forty-seven-story building damaged by the fall of WTC 1) “into its own footprint at freefall acceleration”—disprove the mainstream consensus that the September 11, 2001, attacks were the work of al-Qaeda terrorists using hijacked airplanes? In a word: No.after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC. Over the decade since, several technically elaborate claims have been refined by the “9/11 Truth” movement. Do these intricate arguments—including the rapid collapses of the towers, alleged evidence of thermite usage at Ground Zero, and the collapse of World Trade Center (WTC) 7 (a forty-seven-story building damaged by the fall of WTC 1) “into its own footprint at freefall acceleration”—disprove the mainstream consensus that the September 11, 2001, attacks were the work of al-Qaeda terrorists using hijacked airplanes? In a word: No.

The Players

Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas, the creators of the low-budget documentary film Loose Change, did much to give the 9/11 Truth movement significant momentum in 2005 and in following years. The film, which has undergone several revisions, has been shown on many television stations but is primarily an Internet and DVD phenomenon. Its basic claims are that Flight 77 could not have accounted for the damage at the Pentagon, that the Twin Tower fires were insufficient to cause their collapse, and that cell phone calls from the hijacked airplanes would have been impossible at the time (Avery 2009).

David Ray Griffin is a theologian whose voluminous writings on 9/11 are frequently cited by other 9/11 theorists. NASA scientist Ryan Mackey has written a very thorough critique of Griffin’s claims (Mackey 2008).

Once known as Fleischmann and Pons’s competitor for “cold fusion” research in Utah, Steven Jones has written several 9/11 Truth articles. His work with others (including chemist Niels Harrit of Denmark) on detecting nanothermite in WTC dust is frequently cited as “peer-reviewed research” that proves “inside job” claims.

Physics teacher David Chandler has produced several papers and Internet videos contending that high school physics easily shows that the tower collapses could not have happened from gravity alone. He claims this proves that explosives must have been used.

In the past few years, architect Richard Gage’s group, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911 Truth), has provided “Truthers” with the ability to claim that thousands of engineering and architecture professionals demand a new investigation into the cause of the attacks. Gage travels the world giving presentations, and his group puts on news conferences and mock debates several times a year (but most often around September 11, the anniversary of the attack) (Thomas 2009; Thomas 2010c).

Hollywood stars who have publicly supported 9/11 Truth claims include Rosie O’Donnell, Charlie Sheen, and Ed Asner. Sheen often talks 9/11 with radio host Alex Jones (www.infowars.com). These celebrities frequently cite (and sometimes mangle) claims made by Truther proponents like Griffin and Gage. Former wrestler and Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura has done two 9/11 conspiracy shows on his TruTV series Conspiracy Theory (see “Dave Thomas vs. Jesse Ventura: The Skeptical Smackdown”).

The Claims

As with any well-developed pseudoscience, literally thousands of individual arguments can be advanced in support of the proposition that the United States secretly carried out the September 11 attacks. This report will examine the most enduring and oft cited of these claims: “free fall” of the towers, reports of thermite and molten steel, and WTC 7’s curious collapse. Some of the factions that have developed (such as the “no-planers”) will also be described briefly.

Claim One:

“The Twin Towers collapsed at free-fall accelerations through the path of greatest resistance.”

Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of September 11 was the rapid destruction of both 110-story Twin Towers: after the collapses began due to cascading structural failures at the airplane impact locations, each tower fell completely in just fifteen to twenty seconds. Mainstream scientific analyses, including years of work by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), generally looked at the cause of each collapse: the intense fires (started by jet fuel and fed by office contents and high winds) eventually caused floor trusses to sag, pulling the perimeter walls inward until they finally snapped. At this instant, the entire upper section of each tower fell the height of one floor, initiating an inevitable, progressive, and utterly catastrophic collapse of each of the structures.

While the mainstream explanation (dismissed as the “official story” by 9/11 Truthers) usually ends with the initiation of these unstoppable collapses, the 9/11 Truth movement’s attacks begin there. Gage of AE911 Truth says on that group’s website, “Destruction [of the Twin Towers] proceeds through the path of greatest resistance at nearly free-fall acceleration” (Gage 2011; emphasis added). Many 9/11 Truther pundits drop the “nearly” and say simply that the collapses were at free fall. Truthers then insist that free fall acceleration indicates a complete lack of resistance, proving that the structures were demolished with explosives. We are also told that the sheer mass of the towers, “80,000 tons of structural steel,” would simply resist collapse.

How could the buildings fall so quickly? It’s been explained very well in the technical literature by Northwestern’s Zdenek Bazant, PhD, and others (see, for example, Bazant 2008). I’ve developed a simpler physics model of the progressive collapses that agrees quite well with the main points of Bazant’s more rigorous results (Thomas 2010b). Here are some of my findings:

Each floor of the towers contained over two million kilograms of mass. The gravitational potential energy of a standing tower with twelve-foot floors extending upward 110 stories can be calculated straightforwardly; it comes to over 420 billion joules of energy, or the equivalent of 100 tons of TNT per tower. This energy, which was released completely during the collapses, is more than the energy of some of the smaller nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal, such as the W-48 (72 tons TNT) (Sublette 2006). This is where the energy required to break columns, pulverize concrete, and expel debris through windows came from. (Truthers often compare such expulsions of air and debris, visible several floors below the collapse fronts, to “squibs,” explosive devices often used in demolitions. However, they are readily explained by pressure changes as the towers, acting like a gigantic bicycle pump being compressed, collapsed.)

The Twin Towers used a “tube within a tube” architectural design, which provided considerable open office space in the interiors of the Towers. Much of the structural support was provided by a dense grouping of thick central core columns in the interior and the perimeter walls on the outside. When the towers began to collapse, large parts of the inner cores (called “the Spires” in 9/11 Truth circles) were actually left standing, briefly, before they, too, toppled over. The perimeter walls were largely forced to peel outward in large sections, producing the iconic images of Ground Zero with which we’re all familiar. Between the outer perimeter and the inner core, the weight of the upper sections plowed through one floor after another, breaking the floor connection brackets and support columns, pulverizing concrete decks, and gaining momentum and mass with each additional floor failure. Had the buildings been constructed differently (the Port Authority was allowed to circumvent some existing New York buildings requirements for the Towers), the collapses might not have even happened (Young 2007).

Even the 9/11 Truth movement’s most eminent physicists are confused about the basic principle of the difference between static and dynamic forces. A piece of paper, taped across a jar’s opening, will support a heavy coin such as a quarter indefinitely (static load). However, if the coin is dropped from just a few inches up, it will tear right through the paper (dynamic load). Given the information at hand—for example, the mass of the upper section of the north tower (fifty-eight million kilograms), the distance it fell (3.8 meters, about twelve feet), and the stiffness/rigidity of the lower structure itself, the dynamic force imparted on the lower section can be estimated as some thirty times the upper portion’s weight. This is many times the lower structure’s safety margin, which explains why it was quickly overwhelmed.

Once progressive collapse began, there were decreasing time intervals of free fall (between floors), punctuated by very brief, incredibly violent collisions—decelerations—of the upper mass, for each floor in turn. There was resistance at every step of the collapse, as the upper section collided with and incorporated each floor below. Conservation of momentum shows that the reductions in falling speed were slight as each floor was impacted, going as the ratio of floors before to floors after (e.g. 14/15, or about 94 percent, for the first impact). Accordingly, the upper section fell from rest to about 19 mph, was slowed down to 18 mph by the first impact, continued to fall until a speed of 26 mph was reached, was then slowed down to 24 mph by another impact, and so on. While the first plunge lasted about nine-tenths of a second, the upper section took only four-tenths of a second to fall through the next floor, three-tenths of a second for the next one, and so on until the bottom floors, which were crushed at a rate of just seven-hundredths of a second each, at speeds of over 100 mph. Yes, there was resistance at every step, as many tons of structural steel was demolished; yet the entire process, like an avalanche, lasted only fifteen to twenty seconds, about 50 to 100 percent longer than true “free fall” would have lasted.

Physics teacher David Chandler’s measurements of the first seconds of the collapse of the North Tower (WTC 1) showed that it fell with increasing speed but at only two-thirds of gravitational acceleration (g) (Chandler 2010). Chandler argues that this means the bottom section exerted a constant upward force of one-third of the upper section’s weight upon its mass, and he declares that this force should have been much larger, indicating that “some sort of controlled demolition was at work.”

Second, Chandler argues that being a Newtonian action/reaction pair, the impact force of the upper section on the lower section was only a third of the upper part’s weight. However, I’ve found that his estimate of the downward impact force was too low by a factor of one hundred. In addition, I found that the actual process—a series of twelve-foot free falls punctuated by violent and brief collisions with each floor—would have resulted in an average acceleration of precisely what Chandler measured for the start of the collapse of WTC 1, namely 2/3 g. (By the end of the collapse, my calculations indicate an average acceleration of only 1/3 g, but this can’t be measured in dust-obscured videos.)

Claim Two:

“Nano-thermite and military-grade explosives were found in dust from the towers. Tons of melted steel were found in tower debris.”

The thermite reaction is very hot, but it is also very slow compared to high explosives.

Real controlled demolitions commonly use explosives to topple large buildings. However, the hallmarks of actual demolitions (the characteristic “boom-boom-boom-boom” sounds and the flashes of high explosives) were completely absent in Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001. Many 9/11 Truth advocates, including architect Richard Gage, insist that high explosives must have been used to bring down the Twin Towers, as they say this is the only process that can possibly explain the “ejection of debris hundreds of feet from the towers.” However, they simultaneously insist that thermite or a derivative (thermate, nanothermite, etc.) was used instead, so as to topple the towers quietly. (This is but one of many instances in which 9/11 Truth claims flatly contradict each other.) Thermite itself fails as an explanation for the destruction of the Towers on many levels:

The thermite reaction, which takes place between iron oxide (rust) and powdered aluminum, is practical for welding train tracks in the field and for destroying engines of vehicles that must be left behind during combat operations. The self-sustaining reaction, once initiated with heat, produces significant volumes of molten iron, which can melt and cut iron structures beneath it. For thermite to melt through a normally vertical steel beam, however, special high-temperature containment must be added to prevent the molten iron from simply dropping straight down uselessly. The thermite reaction is very hot, but it is also very slow compared to high explosives. Thermite is simply not practical for carrying out a controlled demolition, and there is no documentation of it ever having been used for that purpose.

Jesse Ventura hired New Mexico Tech to show how nanothermite can slice through a large steel beam. The experiment was a total failure—even in the optimum (horizontal) configuration, the layer of nanothermite produced lots of flame and smoke but no actual damage to the massive I-beam tested. However, Ventura’s TruTV Conspiracy Theory show slyly passed it off as a rousing success (Thomas 2010a).

Niels Harrit and Steven Jones, along with several coauthors, published the “peer-reviewed” paper “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe” in the Bentham Open Chemical Physics Journal (Harrit 2009). This article does not make the case for thermite use on 9/11. The paper examined “distinctive red/gray chips” found in WTC dust (unfortunately, with no chain of custody for the dust), and these were claimed to be thermitic because of their composition (iron oxides and pure aluminum) and other chemical properties. However, the presence of rust and aluminum does not prove the use of thermite, because iron oxide and aluminum are found in manycommon items that existed in the towers. Furthermore, the authors admit that their “differential scanning calorimeter” measurements of the supposed thermitic material showed results at about 450 degrees C below the temperature at which normal thermite reacts (Fana 2006). Finally, the scan of the red side of the “thermitic material” of Harrit/Jones is a dead-on match to material Jones himself identified as “WTC Steel Primer Paint” in his Hard Evidence Down Under Tour in November of 2009 (“Sunstealer” 2011).

Harrit’s article describes the red portion of the chips as “unreacted thermitic material.” But while thermite may be slow, it does not stop its reaction once it has begun. Because thermite supplies its own oxygen (via iron oxides), it can even burn underwater. Suggesting that the samples show partially reacted thermite is preposterous. Claiming that thermite would explain molten pools of steel weeks and months after the attack is equally preposterous.

The article’s publication process was so politicized and bizarre that the editor-in-chief of the Bentham journal that featured Jones’s article, Marie-Paule Pileni, resigned in protest (Hoffman 2009).

Thermitic demolition should have created copious pools of melted steel at Ground Zero, but nothing remotely like this was ever found. Truthers say iron microspheres found in the rubble indicate thermite; since hot fires and spot-welding do produce very tiny spheres of iron, though, these “microspheres” are not unexpected. Pictures of cranes holding red-hot materials in the rubble are said to show molten steel. Had this been the case, however, the crane rigs would have immediately seized up (Blanchard 2006). No reports of “molten steel” in the tower basements have ever been credibly verified (Roberts 2008). Some Truthers claim that a few pieces of sulfidized “eutectic” steel found in the towers proves thermate (thermite with sulfur) usage, but this occurred because sulfur, released from burned drywall, corroded the steel as it stewed in the pile for weeks (Roberts 2008).

Claim Three:

“Tower 7, which wasn’t hit by a plane, collapsed neatly into its own footprint.”

Courtesy of the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

The enigma of WTC 7 is becoming increasingly popular in Truther circles. We’re told that it wasn’t hit by a plane and was subjected to just a few “small office fires.” Yet it collapsed anyway, late in the afternoon of September 11, “falling neatly into its own footprint at freefall acceleration, just like a normal controlled demolition.” In particular, Truthers point to a brief period of freefall (2.25 seconds) that was confirmed by NIST in its WTC 7 final report (Sunder 2008; NIST 2010) as proving that the building was purposely imploded. However, WTC 7, too, fails to prove 9/11 was an “inside job”:

What is often conveniently left out of the story are actual reports from NYFD firefighters at the scene, which describe huge, raging, unfought fires on many floors at once and visible deformations and creaking of the building prior to its collapse (Roberts 2008). Tower 7 was not hit by an airplane; however, it was struck by a 110-story flaming skyscraper, the North Tower. The fires raged for hours, and they eventually caused a critical column (#79) to fail because of thermal expansion; NIST determined that this column was crucial to the building and could even be considered a design flaw. Its failure would have collapsed the building even without the other structural damage from WTC 1’s collapse and the fires.

WTC 7’s brief 2.25 seconds of free fall is now the Truthers’ best “smoking gun.” The claim usually goes like this: “The fifty-eight perimeter columns would have resisted and slowed the collapse to much less than freefall. The ‘freefall’ of WTC 7, admitted to by NIST, proves it was controlled demolition.” The problem is that this is a straw man argument. NIST found the collapse occurred in three stages. The first stage, which lasted 1.75 seconds, is when the fifty-eight perimeter columns were buckled; during this interval, the rooftop actually fell only about seven feet. This is because the breaking of columns saps speed, indeed making the collapse slower than free fall. In the second stage, which lasted 2.25 seconds, the already-buckled columns provided negligible support, and the north face of the structure free-fell about eight stories. (Try taking a plastic drinking straw and buckling it by folding it over and then pushing down on the bent straw with your hand. The crimped straw provides almost no resistance to vertical forces, and neither did the buckled columns of WTC 7.) The third stage described by NIST, which lasted 1.4 seconds, was again less-than-free fall, as the structure fell another 130 feet as it impacted more non-buckled structures toward the bottom of the building (NIST 2010).

The other half of the equation is that WTC 7 resembles a “classic controlled demolition” because it supposedly “imploded, collapsing completely, and landed in its own footprint” (Gage 2011). In actuality, it twisted and tilted over to one side as it fell, and parts of the building severely damaged two neighboring buildings (the Verizon and Fiterman Hall structures). When challenged with the obvious fact that Tower 7 spilled far outside its footprint, however, Truthers will often change their tune and start saying that any resemblance to a natural collapse is part of the cover-up.

Early on, it was mainly MIHOP (“Made it happen on purpose”) versus LIHOP (“Let it happen on purpose”). Nowadays most serious Truthers down-pedal the “no-planers,” who say no plane hit the Pentagon or even the Towers. There is considerable friction between some groups, with certain 9/11 Truth groups attacking others as “disinformation agents.” However, 9/11 Truth is mostly a big tent. Many “serious” groups such as AE911 Truth quietly champion “no-planers” such as former pilot Dwain Deets, engineer Anders Bjorkman, and Craig Ranke of Citizen Investigation Team (CIT) (Gage 2011). Gage formally withdrew his support of CIT in February 2011, even as his website touted 9/11 articles in Foreign Policy Journal, an online publication notorious for its frequent forays into Holocaust denial.

Conclusion

As Ted Goertzel pointed out in his recent Skeptical Inquirer article “The Conspiracy Meme: Why Conspiracy Theories Appeal and Persist,” “When an alleged fact is debunked, the conspiracy meme often just replaces it with another fact” (Goertzel 2011). In another ten years, will the 9/11 Truth movement have developed new arguments, or will it stick with the polished claims discussed here? Either way, it appears this American conspiracy theory classic is here to stay.

The 9/11 Truth Conspiracy Is a Distraction from the Real Crimes of Our Government

Americans love a conspiracy. According to a May 17 Zogby poll, 42 percent believe the U.S. government and the 9/11 Commission are covering up what really happened on Sept. 11, 2001.

There is something comforting about a world where someone is in charge–either for good (think gods) or evil (think Bush insiders plotting 9/11). Many people prefer to believe a Procrustean conspiracy rather than accept the alternative: Life can be random, viciously unjust and meaningless; tragedy and joy alike flow from complex combinations of good and bad intentions, careful plotting, random happenstance and bumbling incompetence.

Conspiracy hypotheses often consist of a vast pile of circumstantial evidence shaped into a seemingly coherent whole with the strong glue of faith. Debunk one or even many allegations and the pile still stands, impressive in its bulk and ideological coherence. If size were all, it would convince Pyrrho himself.

Scientific theories, on the other hand, depend on interlocking chains of evidence: The integrity of the whole relies on the soundness of each link. Break any one and the theory founders.

The 9/11 conspiracy is a classic example of a faith-based pile hypothesis. Its proponents cite a mountain of evidence to conclude that the U.S. government perpetrated the 9/11 attacks for its own traitorous ends, chiefly staging “a new Pearl Harbor” to rally support for an invasion of Iraq.

I spent months as a researcher conducting a fact-by-fact dissection of a few key aspects of this hypothesis. I approached the project knowing that U.S. cabals had previously concocted casus belli to drive public support for war: the Gulf of Tonkin for Vietnam, incubator babies for the first Gulf War. And clearly from its early days, the Bush administration had lusted for war with Iraq.

But the hypothesis that it planned and executed the 9/11 attacks is just not supported by a chain of evidence, nor do the facts support the conspiracists' key charge that World Trade Center buildings were destroyed by pre-positioned explosives.

Structural engineers found the destruction consistent with fires caused by the jet liner strike; that temperatures need not actually melt the steel but that expansion and other fire-related stresses would account for compromised architectural integrity.

When David Ray Griffin, a theologian by trade, said it was “physically impossible by laws of physics” for the planes alone to have brought down the towers, I asked what engineers had confirmed that. “I haven't talked to any because they would be too afraid to tell the truth,” he said. “How would you be able to protect your family if you were to accuse the government?” he asked, accusing the government.

Many conspiracists offer the collapse of WTC Building 7 as the strongest evidence for the kind of controlled demolition that would prove a plot. Although not hit by planes, it was damaged by debris, and suffered fires eventually fueled by up to 42,000 gallons of diesel fuel stored near ground level. Griffin cited as evidence of government complicity that the building's sprinkler system should have, but didn't, put out the fires. But the theologian did not know and had not considered that the collapse of the towers had broken the area's water main.

Another conspiracist, Alex Jones, writes on his Web site, “Larry Silverstein, the owner of the WTC complex, admitted … that he and the NYFD decided to 'pull' WTC 7.” (Leave aside how unlikely it would be for the government to include Silverstein in a treasonous conspiracy, or that the NYFD was in on it, too.)

Silverstein's actual quote: “I remember getting a call from the fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were going to be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse.”

Jones continues: “The word 'pull' is industry jargon for taking a building down with explosives.” In fact, a Lexis Nexis search for a three-year period fails to find one American reference to “pull a building” without the preposition “down” when referring to intentional destruction. An alternative explanation would be that given the lack of water and the number of injured and missing firefighters, the NYFD decided to pull workers from Building 7 to concentrate on search and rescue at the fallen towers.

In the end, this kind of undermining of individual “facts,” although relatively easy, is irrelevant for those who base their beliefs on piles rather than chains of evidence.

But the work should be done. Pile conspiracies can be dangerous. Those who deny that HIV is responsible for AIDS, for example, have contributed to unnecessary infections and deaths.

And the 9/11 conspiracy hypotheses distract from the growing chain of evidence documenting how the Bush administration actually manipulated this country to war on a train of lies riding tracks of fear–cynically using the bodies of the 9/11 victims as fuel.

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HISTORY DEPT.

What Trump and Clinton Did on 9/11

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump took different paths on that day. Their experiences shaped them and their campaigns.

By MICHAEL KRUSE

September 10, 2016

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Michael Kruse is a senior staff writer for Politico.

Hours after terrorists piloted hijacked jets into the World Trade Center’s twin towers, Donald Trump agreed to do a live phone interview on local television in New York. Alan Marcus, who was working that day for WWOR as an on-air analyst, asked the real estate mogul to step into a role that seemed fanciful at the time.

“In the year 2000, Donald,” said Marcus, a former Trump publicist, consultant and friend, “you considered running for president. If you had done that, and if you had been successful, what do you think you’d be doing right now?”

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“Well,” Trump answered, “I’d be taking a very, very tough line. I mean, you know, most people feel they know at least approximately the group of people that did this and where they are. But boy would you have to take a hard line on this. This just can’t be tolerated.”

Compared to the flame-throwing temperament he has demonstrated throughout his current presidential campaign, the most striking revelation of the video from September 11, 2001—plucked exclusively at POLITICO’s request from the WWOR archives—is Trump’s composure and tone. A decade and a half before pledging to “bomb the shit out of” ISIS and proposing a deportation force and a Muslim ban, Trump didn’t talk about retribution or leap to conclusions about who was responsible. In fact, he avoided identifying potential enemies—any terrorist organization or Muslims in general. He spoke cogently and even poignantly about New York’s changed skyline and the need to never forget.

Only parenthetically in the middle of the 10-minute conversation did Trump turn to a favorite topic—size. “40 Wall Street,” he said, referring to his 71-story building blocks away from the now-collapsed twin towers, “actually was the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan, and it was actually, before the World Trade Center, was the tallest—and then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second-tallest. And now it’s the tallest.”

Marcus chalked up the remark to “Donald being Donald. … He is the brand manager of Trump, and he is going to tout that brand, and he does it reflexively,” he said. “Even on that day.”

Trump calls into WWOR-TV on 9/11

Donald Trump says his building is tallest in lower Manhattan after fall of twin towers of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. From Fox 5 News NY: http://bit.ly/2cspghV

Donald Trump says his building is tallest in lower Manhattan after fall of twin towers

Trump calls into WWOR-TV about the 9/11 attacks

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That day, 15 years ago this Sunday, thrust many people into new roles. While Trump was trying on the mantle of statesman, Hillary Clinton’s visibility was given a sudden boost. Before the end of the day, Clinton, then the junior senator from New York with less than a year on the job and scrupulously deferential to her senior colleagues, would find herself on CNN, being interviewed in primetime by the network’s congressional correspondent, Jonathan Karl.

“We have to make it very clear,” she continued, “that we cannot permit any state, any government, any institution or individual to pursue terrorism aims that are directed at the United States or any country with impunity. So I’m hoping that this is the kind of dramatic, terrible catastrophe that unites the entire civilized world.”

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As the Trump and Clinton campaigns mark this anniversary by going temporarily dark—a brief respite from a toxic, unsettling campaign—it is possible to see their respective experiences on September 11 as turning points that seem especially resonant now as these two candidates with deep New York connections vie bitterly for the job of leader of the free world.

Clinton was early in her first stint as a politician in her own right, after more than a decade as the wife of a governor and eight years as the wife of the president. One of the most famous women in the world wanted to be seen, she said, as “a workhorse, not a show horse.”

Trump was more than a decade removed from his rise in the late ‘80s and his fall of the early ‘90s, well past his first spate of corporate bankruptcies and his brush with personal financial disaster—but he was still two-plus years from the opening episode of The Apprentice, the reality TV show that elevated his fame to unprecedented heights. At this juncture, though, Trump was a businessman in New York, a debt-saddled owner of casinos in Atlantic City and planning a new building in Chicago. He had divorced his second wife. He was dating the woman who would become his third, the former Melania Knauss. He was a registered Democrat. He had just toyed with running for president, again, this time on the Reform Party ticket, generating headlines and eye rolls. He was known mostly for being known. “He was a nonentity,” Trump biographer Tim O’Brien said. “Someone who was trying to regain his status as a player,” longtime New York gossip columnist George Rush added.

In the ensuing years, he would use his TV-charged celebrity to barge more seriously onto the national political scene, currying favor with far-right portions of the population by pushing conspiracy theories about President Obama’s birthplace. And Clinton would work as a senator to secure aid for victims and workers of the 9/11 attacks and then go on to become a key cabinet member to the same president Trump needled, furthering as Secretary of State an international prominence as large as the made-for-TV boss from The Apprentice.

But both of them started that day like everybody else—as witnesses to the unfolding horror.

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Trump was in New York, on Fifth Avenue in Trump Tower, where he works and lives, and he watched first on TV and then out his windows, staring four miles south at the black smoke in the blue sky.

“We saw it,” said George Ross, a longtime attorney for Trump and an executive vice president of the Trump Organization. “We saw it out the window. I was sitting in his office.” Ross described the mood in the office as “unbelief.”

“We were listening to the news, like everybody else,” he said.

Clinton, meanwhile, was down in Washington, at her home on Whitehaven. She had CNN on as she talked on the phone with her legislative director when the first plane hit. Then the second. By the time she got to the Capitol, the Pentagon had been hit by a third plane. Capitol police were evacuating Senate office buildings. She dialed her daughter, who was in New York. She dialed her husband, who was in Australia. She and other senators received a briefing at the Capitol police station early in the evening. And after “a day indelibly etched in my mind,” and as nightfall approached, Clinton joined congressional colleagues on the steps of the Capitol, standing next to some of her fiercest political opponents, singing “God Bless America” with tears in her eyes.

But maybe the most surprising difference between Clinton and Trump on September 11 and in the nerve-racking days and weeks that followed: She, not he, sounded like the tougher talker.

In the immediate aftermath of the worst terrorist attacks in the history of the country, Trump talked publicly mostly about the buildings, and his buildings, and market ramifications and the character and resiliency of the citizens of the city where he’s lived almost his entire life. But reporters then had only so much reason to ask him about issues of national security or foreign policy.

In Clinton’s voice, though, in remarks in news conferences and TV interviews and on the Senate floor, there was an audible mixture of patriotism and hopes for bipartisanship—and vengeance, too. A full week before President Bush painted a stark divide of a new world—“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” he said in an address to a joint session of Congress on September 20—Clinton expressed the identical idea, and in equally bellicose terms, on CBS Evening News. “Every nation has to be either with us, or against us,” she told Dan Rather. “Those who harbor terrorists, or who finance them, are going to pay a price.”

***

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The night of September 10, 2001, Trump was at a Marc Jacobs fashion show in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, cheering from the front rowhe shared with Hilary Swank, Sarah Jessica Parker and Monica Lewinsky.

Former New Yorker editor Tina Brown was there, too, and spotted his “bobbing-custard comb-over,” she would write later in the Washington Post.

“How are you?” she asked.

“Bigger than ever,” he said.

The next morning, Trump stayed in his apartment in Trump Tower longer than normal, he would tell shock jock Howard Stern, because he wanted to watch a TV interview with Jack Welch, who had retired as the CEO of General Electric and had a new business book he was publicizing called Straight from the Gut. News programming broke in after the first plane hit.

“I saw the whole thing,” Trump told Stern, saying he had windows from which he could see the World Trade Center. “I mean, specifically, I have two windows that are focused on the building.” He made his way 40 floors down to his office.

He called Larry Silverstein, the real estate magnate who recently had purchased the World Trade Center lease—“a very sad call,” Trump would tell Real Estate Weekly.

He talked briefly with a reporter from the New York Times. Randal C. Archibold had been assigned a story on building security in the city.

“It was hard getting people on the phones,” Archibold said this week. “The telephones were screwy because of the attacks. I basically called him because I knew he had a reputation of being fairly accessible. I figured it was a good shot.”

Archibold left a message with a secretary. Trump called back quickly.

Trump said he had heard many people who worked in offices at 40 Wall Street had scrambled over piles of debris to flee. He said he and other owners of buildings would have to reassess safety precautions—but pointed out the difficulty of guarding against an attack from the air.

“When they start dealing with airplanes,” Trump told Archibold, “that’s beyond anything you can do but bring in the Air Force to get them before they get you.”

What Archibold remembers about the conversation, he said, wasn’t so much what Trump said but how he said it.

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“He wasn’t bombastic in any way,” Archibold said. “There was no anger or bile in his voice. I remember he was, I think, like everybody else, in shock and dismayed at what happened. I wouldn’t say somber—but not like you see on the campaign trail today. I don’t remember him being the kind of character you see now, kind of … very forceful, let’s call it.”

And Trump did the WWOR interview, similar in tenor.

“This country is different today,” Trump said, “and it’s going to be different than it ever was for many years to come.”

He added, “I guess the big thing you really will have to do is never forget.”

“He was terrific for most of the interview,” Marcus said, but the tallest-building comment was par for the course for Trump—“ready, fire, aim,” Marcus said, “never ready, aim, fire.”

“I think it was an all-of-a-sudden epiphany for him, and he seemed to just blurt it out,” Rolland Smith, one of the anchors of that day’s coverage of the attacks, said this week.

“We’re all New Yorkers. We all had interviewed him,” said Brenda Blackmon, the other WWOR anchor who conducted the interview. “It was a shock, but not a surprise.”

Including the calls and the interviews, Trump didn’t do much out of the ordinary that day, said Ross, the attorney and executive vice president of the Trump Organization.

“It was just a day like any other day, except it was a horrible situation,” he said. “We were in business, and this went down.”

In Washington, Clinton’s business that day was supposed to include a Senate hearing on early childhood education. Laura Bush, her successor in the East Wing of the White House, was scheduled to testify. Looking forward to discussion about a subject that was a lifelong interest of hers, Clinton opted to wear a cheerful yellow suit.

When she saw on CNN the second plane hit the south tower while on the phone with Ann O’Leary, her legislative director, “she knew it was terrorism,” according to O’Leary. “She knew already, or suspected, which terrorist organization it was. She was very concerned about whether our country was ready, and raised these concerns on the call, and said, ‘I need to come in immediately. I need to get off the phone. I need to get in my car and come to the Senate.’”

Capitol police started ordering people out of congressional office buildings. O’Leary led 15 or so junior staffers outside. Clinton’s Secret Service Suburban pulled up.

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“She kind of held her hands out,” O’Leary said, “and we came to her …”

Clinton saw Gene Sperling, an economic adviser to her husband, and called to him to get into her vehicle. He watched her try to reach her daughter in New York, try to reach FEMA, try to make sense of the mounting national calamity.

“It was like watching her move back and forth from each role in her life minute by minute,” Sperling told John Harris a few months later. “Then suddenly, the radio announcer starts screaming, ‘Oh my God, the World Trade Tower has collapsed, oh my God, the World Trade Tower has collapsed …’”

By the time Clinton sang “God Bless America” in the fading light on the steps of the Capitol before going on CNN, she was no longer wearing yellow. She was wearing black.

“We can’t let these evil acts in any way deter us from making it clear that the United States is resolute,” Clinton told Karl, the congressional correspondent, “and we are going to support the president.”

The next morning, September 12, in remarks on the Senate floor, she said, “My daughter told me that it was one of those days where the skies were totally clear and there was a breeze and people were starting to line up at the polling places to vote because it was primary day, election day—a continuation of the commitment to democracy and self-government that has set us apart from every society that has ever existed because of the longevity of our democracy and the will of our people to constantly renew ourselves. New Yorkers went from standing in line to vote to standing in line to donate blood in just a few hours.”

She said, “I have expressed my strong support for the president—not only as the senator from New York, but as someone for eight years who has some sense of the burdens and responsibilities that fall on the shoulders of the human being we make our president.”

That afternoon, she joined her fellow senator from New York, Chuck Schumer, and also Charles Rangel, the Democratic congressman from New York, and boarded a FEMA plane to New York, where they got into a helicopter, which flew to Ground Zero and circled above the smoking, twisted wreckage. Clinton described it “like a scene out of Dante’s Inferno.”

“From the sky as we flew in, looking down on the Trade Center, what I saw were what looked like the gates of Hell,” she said, according to the New Yorker. “Any person of faith knows that evil is omnipresent, and the struggle we face is to overcome the tendency to lash out in violence at each other. My religion starts with the story of one brother murdering another. Human nature is always going to challenge us. But I believe that God has a purpose, and the challenge of being human is to overcome the cheap, easy allure of evil.”

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On the ground, wearing a surgical mask, the caustic air burned her lungs and eyes as she toured the disaster site with New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and governor George Pataki. She caught the last train out of Penn Station before it closed for the night.

Two days after the attacks, in a private meeting with Republican and Democratic colleagues at the Capitol, she described what she had seen, according to the New York Daily News, choking back tears. Later, she met with the president in the Oval Office, her first visit there since she was First Lady, along with Schumer wrangling from Bush a commitment for $20 billion of federal aid for New York alone—$11 billion of which was ultimately provided. Clinton told Bush, Frank Bruni would write, “that few people could understand the loneliness of the White House, but that she did, and she wanted him to know that.”

As that was happening in Washington, Trump was in New York, spotted walking near Ground Zero, according to Newsday, dressed in a black suit, white shirt and red tie and talking into his cell phone. “No, no,” he was overheard saying. “The building’s gone.”

Four blocks from the site, he did an interview with a news station in Germany.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Trump told the reporter, Stephan Bachenheimer. “The devastation. The human life that’s been just wasted, for no reason whatsoever. It is a terrible scene. It is a terrible sight. But New Yorkers are very strong and resilient, and they’ll rebuild quickly.”

He told Bachenheimer workers of his were pitching in with the recovery. “We have a lot of men down here right now,” he said. “We have over 100, another 125 coming.”

“Mr. Trump,” Bachenheimer asked, “what should be the response to this attack How should the U.S. respond …?”

“Well,” Trump said, squinting into the sun, “I think they have to respond quickly and effectively. They have to find out exactly what the cause was, who did it, and they have to go after these people, because there is no other choice.” He spoke of the challenge of preventing such an attack. “People were willing to die,” he said, “and when they’re willing to die, and when they’re willing to be kamikazes in a sense, there’s very little you can do about it.”

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In an interview this week from France, where Bachenheimer was vacationing, he said it seemed like Trump was in a hurry. “He said, ‘How long does it take? I have very little time,’” Bachenheimer said. Then he answered questions for longer than expected.

The cameraman, Markus Zeffler, said it’s often difficult to get VIP-type Americans to agree to go on foreign TV stations. This, he recalled, was not the case with Trump. Zeffler told Trump their station was like German CNN. “It wasn’t hard to convince him to come on,” he said.

The following day, September 14, Clinton joined her husband and four other former presidents at a prayer service at Washington’s National Cathedral.

On Monday of the following week, she traveled to New York, where she was on hand to re-open the New York Stock Exchange.

Trump that day talked on the phone to a reporter from the New York Post about what should happen at Ground Zero.

“Once they get it cleared—and that is going to be a very long process—we will all have a better idea of what can be done on the site,” he said. “The current mindset is to put up new towers, and I agree with that.”

But they shouldn’t be exact replicas, he added.

“To be blunt, they were not great buildings,” Trump said. “They only became great upon their demise last Tuesday.”

***

Clinton, it is now clear, would get one thing really wrong in the weeks and months after September 11.

Nicholas Lemann of the New Yorker met with her in Washington in late September and asked if she thought the attacks in some sense would prove to be a unifying force—if the diabolical havoc of the day would rid the national debate of extreme polarization and anti-government rage.

“I think the answer is that we saw government in action,” she said. “It wasn’t some abstract target of our discontent. It was the firefighters. It was the emergency workers. It was the elected officials who were leading and comforting. It had a human face. And now, when we’re looking at the war against terrorism, we’re asking ourselves: How do we beef up security? Well, maybe the government has to do more. How do we root out these terrorists? Well, the government has to come up with the plans and the intelligence and the resources. We had the luxury—some might say the failure of historical understanding—after the end of the Cold War that gave people the idea that they didn’t need a government, or they needed it in only the most rudimentary way, and there was a collective sense of misunderstanding about what government is and does.”

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In her first memoir, Living History, published in 2003, she would write, “That September morning changed me …”

And in an interview in 2006, she would say, “I felt this overwhelming sense of loss, and commitment and obligation to do everything I could do …”

Trump, on the other hand, would tell the Chicago Sun-Times a week after the attacks he was looking at design options in the planning of his tower in that city, “some tall, some not so tall,” he said. “Tall buildings are what make architecture in Chicago and New York great.” (That’s not the way the architects remembered it, one of the architects said later, the Chicago Tribune reporting Trump’s representatives no longer wanted the tower “to be the world’s tallest building. Shorter would be better.”)

Not two months after the attacks, Trump gave a speech to Wharton Business School graduates, according to Real Estate Weekly. In the question-and-answer session, one of them told Trump he had just before September 11 bought an apartment near what had turned into Ground Zero.

“What should I do now?” he asked.

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