#anyway hi! i’m flipping between all of my blogs rn

[taughtdefense-a]

felt feral abt ethrobby yesterday. feeling feral abt ethrobby today. will definitely feel feral abt ethrobby tomorrow.

[tuanyiems]

Champagne Truffles

Yugyeom x Reader (f) It’s a little angsty at the start oops but still this is a fluffy one, it’s me after all words: 4k plot: it’s your anniversary date night and he’s determined to make this a night you’ll never forget, established relationship!au a/n – Forgive this unedited piece, it’s 3am rn lulz I spent too much time gushing over got7 I had to take out the smut content to make the deadline lol but anyways, make sure to stream Last Piece as you’re reading!!! And this concludes my November of posting exclusively for Yugyeom! (It still counts as November if I haven’t slept yet!) And what a beautiful month it was! Thank you for following me on this Chocolatier journey, I’m sure these two will show up again in a drabble or two in the future. But until, please enjoy and give got7’s new album a listen if you haven’t already. It truly is another masterpiece album c’: // part of Le Chocolatier drabble series, which you can find the masterlist for in my blog. feel free to read this as a one-shot or part of the series, in any order you want <3

“So, how was work today?” you start, climbing into bed where Yugyeom is already tucked in and scrolling on his phone. The bright light illuminates his face, and you pause, admiring his profile as you wait for him to answer.

But Yugyeom only shrugs, not even bothering to look at you. You grab your own phone from your nightstand, twisting it awkwardly around in your hands as you think of something else to say.

“It’s getting colder these days, isn’t it?” you ask softly, staring down at your phone as you flip it once more and watch it light up to a picture of you and Yugyeom at a carnival. It was one of those summertime, pop-up fairs. Yugyeom had convinced you to call in sick and the two of you made a trip an hour out from the city to play like two teenagers in love. 

Your lips twist as you press your thumb into the screen where Yugyeom is holding your hand in his. Even when your hands were getting clammy from the summer heat and the nerves of waiting in line for the pirate ship, he had refused to let go. 

“Nice try,” he had scoffed, before lifting his hand to kiss the back of yours. “If I let you go for even a second, you’ll definitely find a way to hurt yourself.”

You rolled your eyes, “You’re so protective for the weirdest things.”

“Weird? Who was the one who fractured their wrist while bowling?”

You looked away, pretending not to hear.

“And who’s the girl who got a concussion while walking in a department store, hmm?”

“Hey! That time wasn’t my fault!” you pouted, allowing yourself to be tugged along as the line moved up. “Who puts such heavy items on the top shelf anyways?”

“But what normal person climbs the shelves?!”

“An! Independent! Woman!” You defended, slapping his chest with your free hand with each word.

He only laughed, eyes shining down on you. “You could’ve called for help, or oh I don’t know, asked your boyfriend to get it for you? I mean, what else is my height good for?”

“Eye candy, of course!”

“I’m just a piece of meat to you, aren’t I?” he joked, bumping you by the hip before quickly pulling you back into his chest.

You giggled, “Oh course not, babe. I’m obviously using you for our future offspring too. It’s my gracious consideration for future generations.”

“Future offspring?” Yugyeom’s cheeks blushed a rosy hue and as soon as you noticed, you followed suit.

“I mean! Uh-well…if…” you sucked in a breath, forcing your heart to calm. “Anyways, if they end up inheriting your height and my butterfingers, it’ll end up being a disservice to society actually.”

He chuckled, hand squeezing yours. “Probably,” he mused softly, cheeks still warm with daydreams.

When you turn your phone again, the screen flickers awake and there is his blushing face again, eyes twinkling with thoughts of the future…or, that’s what you always thought he was imagining when you look at this photo, but maybe you were just being delusional. It could’ve just been the summer heat making him flush.

The Yugyeom from that memory and the one sitting next to you feel like completely different people. You don’t understand what happened, only a few months had passed since that day. At first, you had summed up his quiet behavior to the changing season. It’s not like Yugyeom had never been quiet or moody before, but never has he iced you out like this for so long.

It makes you nervous actually. In two days, it’ll be your three-year anniversary. This is supposed to be a good thing of course, but in the back of your mind sits the nervous belief that something bad will happen on that day.

None of your previous relationships have ever lasted longer than a year. You and Yugyeom were always so stable that you never thought this would be a problem, but his sudden changes have made you more superstitious. 

“Baby?” you utter softly, touching his wrist to put his phone down. He looks over but doesn’t say a word. “Um, I was wondering how you wanted to spend this Saturday? We haven’t really talked about it, so…”

Your voice trails. He looks at you almost fiercely, a slight frown on his lips.

You swallow. “Not that we have to do anything. Maybe we could just have a quiet day inside. We can marathon that anime you really like! What was the name again? With the cute pig?”

“Seven Deadly Sins,” he answers, looking back at his phone.

“Yeah, that one!” you say, voice much brighter than how you feel. “But…I was just suggesting. We can do what you want to do. Did you have something in mind? Food you’re craving?”

Yugyeom sighs, turning on his side to turn the lamp off. “It’s late, babe, let’s decide later.”

“Oh, okay.”

In the darkness, your worries fester though.

“Baby?” you whisper cautiously. Quietly, you curl against his back, wrapping your arms around his waist. “Goodnight, Gyeom.”

A moment passes before he twists in your arms and pulls you to his chest. You smile, looking up even though you can barely make out his features in the darkness.

“Night baby, I love you,” he presses a kiss to your forehead, and you find yourself relaxing in his arms.

That night you fall into a sleep so good, you end up missing your alarm.

Rushing around the apartment in only a forest green blouse and your nude hip huggers, you unpack your purse for the fifth time that morning.

“Babe, have you seen my charger?” You yell from the bedroom.

“It’s not in your purse?” Yugyeom calls from inside the bathroom.

You huff, throwing the items haphazardly back into your bag. “No!”

“Just take mines!”

“Thank you!”

Rounding the bed, you make your way to Yugyeom’s nightstand. Unlike your own though, his drawer is a disorganized mess. You furrow your brows, shifting through the old mail and random trinkets.

“How does he find anything in here?” you mutter, stuffing your hand to the back and hoping the wire was buried somewhere there.

“Y/N!” Yugyeoms voice booms from behind you. You jump in surprise. “Why are you going through my drawer?”

He snatches your hand out and slams his drawer shut.

“I-” You try to blink back your surprise. “I was just looking for the charger.”

He let out an exasperated sigh, bending behind the nightstand, and pulls the wire out.

“Here,” he tosses it into your hand before walking to your shared closet. “And don’t go through my things.”

Gaze on his back, you place the charger into your purse meekly. Grabbing your cream trousers from the bed, you quietly step into them as Yugyeom gets dressed too.

“Sorry,” you mumble when he finally turns to you.

He lets out a sigh, threading his fingers between yours. His thumb rubs over your hand gently. “I’m sorry too, I didn’t mean to yell.”

-

“Jackson,” you slide on your rolling chair towards your cubicle buddy, cup of hot chocolate between both palms.

“Uh oh,” Jackson looks at you once before twisting dramatically in his chair. “You’ve got the frowny face!”

“Frowny face?” Jinyoung pokes his head into your cubicle. Seeing your expression, he immediately walks into your cubicle, leaning onto Jackson’s desk. “Who do we need to hurt?”

“No one,” you sulk, stirring your drink. “I just had a question.”

“It was Susan, wasn’t it? I hate her,” Jinyoung scoffs, crossing his arms. Jackson chuckles, nudging him to stop.

“No, I was just wondering,” you pause, looking at your cream flats. “What are some signs when a guy no longer loves you?”

“I’m going to kill Yugyeom.”

“Why is murder always your go-to?” Jackson jokes, trying to lighten the mood. “It can’t be that bad, the last time I saw Yugyeom he was madly in love with you!”

“I just…I don’t know…it’s a feeling,” you frown, gut twisting as you’re speaking the words aloud. “It’s probably nothing.”

“Well, what signs have you been getting from Yugyeom?” Jinyoung asks.

“He’s just gotten quieter in the last couple of months. Sometimes it feels like he’s hiding something from me. Like last night, he was mostly on his phone even though I was trying to talk to him.”

“On his phone doing what?”

You tilt your head, shrugging. “I don’t know, Instagram? Twitter? But that’s not the point.”

“Wait, Instagram or Twitter, Y/N? Was he scrolling through news or was he sliding into DMs? These are important details,” Jinyoung interrupts. Both you and Jackson look at him with wide eyes.

You feel your heart jump to your throat. “Y-you think…maybe, he’s c-cheating on me?”

That thought had never even occurred to you as a possibility but now that you hear it…Your vision starts to blur.

“Oh my gosh, Y/N!” Jackson slaps Jinyoung’s thigh, pushing him away as he hurries to put an arm over your shoulder. “Jinyoung was just asking stupid questions. Yugyeom’s not that kind of guy.”

“But what if he’s right?” you mumble. “This morning I was looking in his drawer to borrow his charger and he yelled at me for going through his things. He’s never done that before! And every time I ask about his day, he won’t really tell me anything.”

You sniffle, rushing to wipe your falling tears.

“Don’t cry, Y/N,” Jinyoung pats your hand softly. “You’re probably just spiraling right now. I don’t know Yugyeom the way you do. He was probably just scrolling through pictures of tattoo art or something.”

“But he’s so handsome and amazing, he could have any girl he wants. What if he’s found someone better? Someone who doesn’t burn toast or, or-”

“Hey,” Jackson squeezes your arm with a frown. “We don’t tolerate that kind of talk in this house.”

“House?” Jinyoung chuckles.

“Our cubicle home!” Jackson clarifies, making you smile.

“Ah, I see a smile,” Jinyoung announces, making your lips stretch wider.

“My makeup is running, isn’t it?” you laugh weakly.

“Yeah, you’re a mess,” Jinyoung teases.

“Good time to ask Susan for an early weekend,” Jackson nudges you playfully.

“Yeah, leave early and go have a real conversation with Yugyeom about how you’re feeling. No use in holding things in if it’s just going to make you cry anyways.”

“Someone’s crying?” Susan, your project manager, pokes her head into your cubicle. When she sees your state, she gasps. “Y/N, what’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?”

“I’m okay,” you flush with embarrassment.

“Nonsense, you should let her start the weekend early, Susan,” Jinyoung states before smiling at her sweetly. “And as her favorite co-workers, you should let us join her!”

“Nice try, Jinyoung,” she laughs goodheartedly, before turning to you. “You two have to stay, but Y/N, you’re free to go. Come back Monday, feeling better, okay?”

She sends you a wink before striding off.

“I hate her so much,” Jinyoung grumbles.

“You gotta stop lying to yourself, man,” Jackson laughs. He turns to you and pulls you into a hug. “Go and talk to him, Y/N. The longer you wait it out, the longer you’ll just be running circles in your head.”

You nod, convinced. “Alright, I’ll do that. Thanks guys.”

“Call me if you need a hitman!” Jinyoung calls as you rush out of the cubicle.

-

“Hey, why are you calling at this hour?”

“I just missed you,” you hum into the phone, as you walk down the familiar sidewalk towards your favorite chocolate store. “How’s work?”

“Um, actually,” there’s a pause on the other line before he continues, “It’s kind of busy. Probably be home late today.”

“Oh, okay,” you put on a tone of disappointment as you round the corner to the store. You snicker to yourself. Maybe surprising him at work and helping him with the shop will pick his mood up.

“Yeah, sorry, but you know this time of year. People like to eat chocolates.”

You smile to yourself, slowing your step as you reach the storefront. “Yeah, I know. It’s how I met you.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” you chuckle.

“Anyways, I really have to go now.”

“O-” You freeze, staring into the window of the chocolate store. “Okay.”

“Bye,” Yugyeom doesn’t wait for you to reply before he cuts off the line. You barely register the dead phone line though. You gulp, watching as your best friend, Jenny, pulls Yugyeom into a tight hug between the counter. In her arms, he smiles with full cheeks.

Stepping back, you cross the street in a rush, collapsing into a seat outside the French café across from Yugyeom’s store before your legs give out entirely. 

This doesn’t make sense. While Jenny was one of your closest friends, she and Yugyeom weren’t especially close. This was partially due to the fact that Jenny lives in another city two hours away from yours. Yugyeom has never expressed any interest in spending time with your friends unless you were with him, and so things just don’t add up.

Jenny never sent you a text that she’d be in town, especially on a Friday. Just as you’re about to go through the text messages in your phone just in case, you see the door of the chocolate store open and out walks Yugyeom and Jenny. They’re so deep in their own conversation, they don’t even glance at you, right across the street from them.

You take in a breath, shaking your head. This just doesn’t make sense. Getting up again, you make your way down the street, watching them from across. Maybe Jenny needed a special order of chocolates. Was there a birthday you were forgetting?

You stop in your tracks, watching as Jenny practically jumping with excitement alongside Yugyeom. She must’ve said something funny, because he tilts his head back, mouth open wide, the same way he always laughs at you when you make a stupid joke.

Shaking your head again, you continue your steps. No, Jenny is a trusted friend. You’ve known her since high school. But the longer you follow, the more your stomach starts to hurt. It’s exactly because you’ve known Jenny for so long that you know she would never be this animated with your boyfriend.

Your chest hurt at just the thought, but you can’t help it from echoing in your brain. That the two of them look too comfortable—like they’ve been meeting for a while. 

Biting your lip hard, you stop in your tracks again and force yourself to turn around. No, this just didn’t add up. And you didn’t want to trail after them like some kind of stalker.

You trust Yugyeom and you trust Jenny.

Hailing the nearest cab, you enter with a huff. It was like Jinyoung said, you were probably just spiraling.

-

“I’m home,” Yugyeom calls softly as he enters the house. You freeze in your seat at the kitchen table, despite having sat there for three hours for this very moment.

“Hey,” Yugyeom peeks his head into the kitchen, looking at you with furrowed eyes. “What are you doing just sitting here by yourself?”

You chuckle dryly, trying to shake off your nerves. “Oh, I guess I was just spacing out.”

He smiles at you before sitting down in the chair across from you. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, everything’s okay,” you lie. “How was work?”

“It was fine. Busy as usual,” Yugyeom shrugs. “What did you have for dinner?”

“I made pasta. There’s leftovers in the fridge for you.”

“It’s okay, I’m stuffed already.”

“Oh? You ate?”

Yugyeom’s eyes grow wide before he is blinking away, running his fingers through his hair. “Uh, yeah, um…Bambam, he bought me dinner.”

“That was nice of him,” you mumble. You breathe loudly, trying to keep yourself collected despite feeling like you were going to vomit with each second that passes.

He chuckles before raising his voice abruptly. “Anyways! Let’s talk about tomorrow!”

“Tomorrow? Did you have something in mind?” your chest jolts with hope.

“Actually, I was thinking you could have a girl’s day with Jenny! And then we could do something in the evening.”

“Jenny’s in town?” you watch him closely, noticing the way he licks at his lips and swallows.

“Oh! Yeah! I uh, I heard it from Bam. He must’ve seen a story update from her or something.”

You dig your nail into the cuticle bed of your thumbs as you listen to him lie straight to your face.

“Jenny didn’t text me though. She probably has something else going on this weekend.”

“Nope!” Yugyeom whips, smiling far too big for this conversation. “I messaged her about tomorrow already.”

“So, you want me to hang out with Jenny…on our anniversary?” You question slowly.

Yugyeom looks away, his ears flushed. He brushes at your hand. “Yeah, you two should catch up, get your nails done or something. You should really stop doing this to your nails.”

You look to your hands, your nail beds raw.

“I’m tired,” you mutter, getting up from your seat first. “I’m gonna go to bed first.”

“Oh, okay…well, just remember, you and Jenny at noon!”

You don’t answer.

-

“You’ve been awfully quiet,” Jenny turns to you with concern as the nail technician keeps her right hand hostage. “Is something bothering you?”

“Why are you in town again?” you ask, eyes concentrated on the deep red shade that your nail tech paints onto your fingernails.

“Oh!” In your peripheral, you can see her noticeably jolt. “I came for a conference on Friday and when Yugyeom reached out to me I decided to stay for the weekend.”

“A conference, huh?”

“Yeah,” she mumbles, turning back to her technician. “You know how much the beauty industry loves their conventions.”

“Must’ve been draining.”

“Yeah, totally. That’s why I didn’t text you I was in town. I was completely exhausted by the end of it that I completely forgot.”

“That’s understandable.”

“Mhm,” she turns back to you. “You should add a gold accent. Gold accent, please!”

Your nail tech nods, bringing out another tray of gold embellishment from underneath her desk. You turn your head, hearing the click of Jenny’s nails on the screen of her phone. There’s a bright smile on her face and it makes you want to burst into tears on the spot.

At first you thought maybe the two of them planned for Jenny to reveal the truth to you. You didn’t think Yugyeom was a coward but lately, none of the things you thought before make sense anymore. However, after hours spent with Jenny, all you’ve managed was getting prettier nails and lots of lies from who you thought was your best friend.

“Gorgeous,” Jenny coos, leaning in to admire your fingers. 

“Yeah,” you murmur half-heartedly, feeling your spirit fully deplete.

No confession comes. No explanation. When evening comes, Jenny sends you right back home. Your walk up to the apartment is slow. This is it, isn’t it? Gyeom needed time to prepare himself to break up with you. It’s why he didn’t want to be with you for your anniversary. 

Your stomach sinks when you get to your door. Was this your last time ever entering? Where were you going to move to? 

As the familiar tone of the keypad rings in your ear, hot tears prick at your eyes. Stepping into the house, your vision blurs as you step through the hallway and into the kitchen. Yugyeom is standing at the stove when he turns to you with a smile.

“You’re back!” he greets you. When you hear his laughter, tears spill down your cheeks. “Crying already, babe? You haven’t even tasted it.”

Hiccupping, you try to calm yourself but the more you try to contain the tears, the more your chest fills with fear and floods you. You cry even harder, a terrible wail leaving your throat.

The sound of tin crashes onto the floor and quickly, you are enveloped in Yugyeom’s warmth. The feeling only makes you more sick and you bury your face into his chest, crying harder. Your last embrace. Your last time being comforted by him. The thoughts send sharp pains straight to your chest.

Yugyeom holds you tight against him, taking the impact of your shaking body to his chest. “Baby, what’s wrong? Are you hurt somewhere?”

It’s a long time before you feel calm enough to stand on your own. When you finally do, stepping back from his arms, you feel yourself tearing up again from seeing the concern on his face.

“What happened?” he whispers, fingers reaching out for yours. 

You pull away though, taking another step back.

“Yugyeom,” your voice comes out shaky but determined. “Are we breaking up?”

Tears spill again.

Yugyeom looks at you with a shocked expression. “What? Where is this coming from?”

“You don’t love me anymore,” you cry.

“Of course I do! What are you talking about?” 

“Then why did you lie to me?” You look at him sharply, gaze severe despite the shine of tears. He doesn’t say anything, and the silence breaks your heart.

Lips quivering, you sit down at the kitchen table. “You lied to me. Jenny lied to me…H-how long? How long have you been doing this?”

“Baby,” Yugyeom whispers, bending to the floor. He rests his hands on your thighs, looking up at you and there are tears in his eyes two. “Baby…baby, you’ve got this all wrong.”

“Even if it’s not Jenny, it’s still not me, is it?” you whimper, tears spilling down your chin. They splatter on the back of his hands. “You don’t talk to me anymore. You don’t want to share anything with me. Not even stories about your day.”

Tears run down Yugyeom’s cheeks as he presses a kiss to your knee.

“No, no, baby, you’re wrong.”

You sniff, cupping your palm to his wet cheek. “I want to be wrong. Please prove me wrong, Gyeom.”

“I was trying to keep it a secret,” he scoffs to himself, shaking his head. “I was planning this for months.”

“Planning?”

“I was so afraid I’d accidentally let it slip, or that you’d find it.”

You frown, brows furrowing in confusion now. “Find what, Gyeom?”

Yugyeom takes in a deep breath, breaking into a gentle smile as he glances down at the kitchen floor. Following his gaze, you realize he had dropped a tray of chocolates earlier.

“Chocolates?”

“Champagne Truffles,” he tells you, reaching down to grab one.

“You…you made a new recipe?”

Yugyeom lets out a loud sigh. “Good thing I marked it.”

You look at him, bewildered. He chuckles softly, turning to you again.

“I’m not going to break up with you, baby,” he laughs, digging his thumb into the spine of the chocolate until it bursts with a pop. “I’m trying to spend my whole life with you.”

Your hands to fly to your mouth in surprise as a fresh wave of tears spring to your eyes. He drops the chocolate shell to the floor, holding onto the shining gold band with shaking hands.

“Every day since meeting you,” his voice breaks and you cry, hands coming to cup his face as tears run down his cheeks too. “I thought I had a good life, and then I met you…And then I realized, I was missing everything before you came into my life.”

“Gyeom,”

He sniffs, breaking into a smile as more tears fall from his eyes. “Baby, you’re my everything. You’re the first person I want to tell anything to. You don’t know how hard it’s been trying to keep this from you.”

You laugh with him, “And Jenny.”

He nods. “She was helping me pick out the ring, plan the event, pick the flowers.”

You grin, pressing your forehead to his. “You bought me flowers!”

He laughs, nose brushing softly against yours. “Yeah, and a ring too…if you want it.”

“I do, I do, I do,” you giggle against him as your tears wet his cheek. 

He chuckles, breath ghosting your lips.

“Not yet, baby, that one’s for the wedding,” he chuckles and you laugh with him.

“Either way, it’s I do.”

[quackspot]

i started thinking about that gay bastard oc of yours. platano. can u tell me about him

omg u wer thinkgin about platano..... mr banana man... mr 4011. i am obsessed with the banana code srry i just got back from work (it was good :-D)

any way. um. im going below the cut. he kidnaps people and he murders people and i hate him because he’s also a massive weeb so. hm

HISTORY OF PLATANO... yea his name is spanish for banana

his father, pablo, will probably get a name change someday but i literally never think of his father since the only thing he did in platano’s backstory was disappear 

since platano’s world has characters based off like. fruits and vegetables (there aren’t really any limit to what the characters are based off of. it was in my lazy google translate name phase so we have like... a gay character named arcenciel who becomes dadlike through my powerful canon-changing touch. also arcenciel wears the colors of the rainbow as often as he can i haven’t figured out a good design for him since i’m not used to using more than 5 colors. he also owns a hat factory)

i think arcenciel and platano are friends they met when platano was like. 17 probably and arcenciel would be around uhhhhh ummmmmmm 21??? idk man but in canon he’s probably around 30 . yes i m saying “in canon” because i wrote a really dumb and horrible story back in 2018 arcenciel used to have HUGE internalized homophobia and i turned that into a running joke and i dislike that so that’s a reason why i’m not sharing the fun little story i wrote for my friends

(the best part of that story is when arcenciel threw his light-up rainbow heelies at platano, thus starting the boss fight which the main cast LOST.)

ok back to the topic at hand. platano.

i have a whole doc named platano where i just wrote drabbles about him so i’m going to summarize them

the first one was his friend, percisi (my only cishet oc he’s very short and very aggressive while also dressing in a soft-colored turtleneck since he’s based off of peaches) using a misunderstood form of satanism to summon satan. guess what percisi and platano summoned satan for. it was a manga update! wow

i won’t say the mangas name it was an inside joke

so platano was like “hey satan can i have this manga now please please” and satan went “sure just kill people for me” 

that determined platanos job for the next 7 or so years <3 wonderful. 

(it was basically me writing a backstory for a scene to happen in the main writing i wrote for my friends. he killed someone because someone else in the building was trying to summon satan. very confusing but okay i guess.)

i think right after that i wrote about platano meeting his boyfriend, sage, for the first time. i have horribly mixed feelings about their relationship since it’s very. Hm.

so platano kidnaps people to watch anime with him because all his friends left him and his best friend, mangue, is too busy being a dictator over the Land of the Fruits. i shit you not fruits oppressed the vegetables. i wrote that dynamic between the two because i was learning about the revolutionary war in US History. something like that at least

(the Land of the Fruits is not the official name)

on the topic of kidnapping people. guess who his favorite person was. sage. it was sage. so he tried to take sage often but they probably discussed Proper boundaries since everyone else tried to run away. hmm i am now going to write a bit right now 

“Platano,” Sage started. “Why do you keep kidnapping me? It’s rude and I hate it.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” The yellow-haired fool leaned on his sword, digging the tip deeper into the ground. 

“ASK ME IF I WANT TO HANG OUT??” 

“I can do that?”

“You keep making my dads worried.” Sage looked around the area, fidgeting with his hands. 

“Oh. Okay. Want to hang out? Watch some anime?” Platano paused for a moment, but managed to say “Maybe kiss?” before Sage got to answer.

“I- KISS??? We can watch anime together. We can go now.” 

Sage ushered Platano through a portal as fast as he could. 

His dads were never worried.

hmmm maybe that’s alright idk i’m a little tired so it’s probably a little out of character. sage probably isn’t that loud but i think it was trying to be the dynamic of “oh, we’re not dating” when they kiss every sunday at 5 pm by a romantic river scene 

he’s a character who is, at his very core, horrible and bad. he is portrayed in a way i DESPISE but i’m too lazy to correct it. his interest in sage actually started with me going “hmm i think platano would draw sage like this” then sauce giving me fun facts about his oc, sage, yea sage is sauce’s oc <3 epic win . so sauce gave me fun facts about sage and i was like “time to doodle these in platanos ‘art style’” when in reality it’s just the mockery of people just getting into an anime art style, with the chin so pointy it could cut a cake 

i might reread my old writing from 2018. i gotta agree with the judges for that year i did not write very well

it mightve actually been made in 2017 which would be FUCKIN CRAZY im gonna check rn 

yea it was started in 2018. february 14th... huh . finished it completely in june of that year it was 41 pages total and it’s not even double spaced how did i write something without double spacing it

OH MY GOD BOB IS GOING TO HIJACK THIS RANT JUST FOR A LITTLE

so bob is a fluffy little anthro cloud with a grey top hat and bowtie. he is amazing. i love bob. bob is another one of sauce’s character and mangue (mentioned earlier) was made by my friend jamie 

(you can always ask for their tumblrs but i’d ask them if its okay to share their tumblrs. i might just look at them and reblog their stuff cuz i like their art!!! maybe jamie posted a drawing she made recently on her blog but tbh i don’t think she would she’s more of a twitter user)

ok so im skimming thru UMG which is the story it stands for “Universe of Magic Gardens” and it was originally made for a prank on ponytown so people would go “what’s UMG” and my friends and i would be like “ur mom gay xDDDDDD” or something like that . horrible but i’m glad i’ve changed from . that.

here’s a bit i actually like AKLJFISJFIO

“What the actual FUCK, Ilkie?!” Arcenciel cringed in fear. “Put it back- it’s too ugly.” He pointed at Platano, whose arms were crossed. 

why is it bolded. anyway.

i just saw a part where eau used y’all... water cowboy moments <333 i really need to make refs for all of those old characters. all of my umg-related characters have to be my oldest-living ocs. 

i cant believe this is making me genuinely reread my old writing just to go “WJHFSIDAJKSFIOJ WTF????” 

some of the lines on it sound like something you would hear on like. a school bus or somethin 

looking at umg like “wtf how did i add so much Meat to this writing” bc most of my writing now is mostly quotations to progress the story (like the quickie i wrote earlier. i could add meat to it but im  tired lol)

OK THIS IS MORE GENERAL BUT MY FAVORITE THING ABOUT THIS WAS WRITING HAIKUS FOR PORTALS. after you visit a place enough times it’s kind of just an instinct to open a portal there so you don’t have to recite a haiku 

uhh ok here’s another bit becuase im feeling like living la vida loca.  ur biggest regret should be “can you tell me about him” by this point bc i’ve written too much to go back now

He landed on his face once he was outside of the hat. Meko quickly walked over to the guest room, opened the Portals for Dummies book, and flipped to a page. It looked devious.

“Banana, mango,

Each tasting amazingly.

A taste of evil.” 

Meko did the dance on the page, it consisted of something that looks like it’s from an anime. A portal opened, the familiar scent of bananas and mangoes coming from it. With some hesitation, Meko stepped in. He quickly made it so only his head peeked in.

it wasnt bolded this time but i like it bolded. ok i understand how i added meat it was just shitty expired meat ALKFSJSHDAIUJKFEIODSJAK . it wasnt even that much meat DAMN. it just looked like more.

actually that’s all i will write. i could  do more w platano but yea at his base he is a blonde twink who kills people because he wanted a manga but now he’s friends with a dictator. woo! wow. amazing character writing. i cant wait to get motivation to rewrite everything and make platano a good villain (he will still be very interested in anime sadly. idk why around that time i liked making characters who were obsessed with anime i didn’t even watch it much myself. i think it was because i wanted to put capes on them)

[shirtlesssammy]

14x20: Moriah

The Road So Far:

How is Team Free Will 2.0 ever going to beat Michael, the Big Bad of the season?

Now:

We open right where we left off last week. Jack escaped the Ma’lak box by blowing it to smithereens, and took most of the bunker’s storage room with it. “You lied to me.” And then he blasts Team Free Will before flapping off.

The guys assess the damage and discuss Jack. And by discuss, I mean Dean and Cas continue to fight about their differing parenting choices. Dean wants to kill their son; Cas wants to save their son. Quite frankly, it’s obvious their therapist is done with it all. And by therapist, I mean Sam. #prayforSam. (I particularly liked the last bit of the fight when Dean had to walk closer to Cas then he already was, and Cas had to clip Dean’s shoulder as he walked away.)

Sam and Dean continue to discuss the plan for Jack. Dean insists they have to find him and “do the hard thing.” They have to kill him. Sam is visibly upset by the prospect.

Jack, meanwhile, is wandering around a city, listening to people lie to everyone around them. I particularly liked the lines that were filler for the lines that we were supposed to pay attention to:

“You should have seen it. I caught a steelhead this big.”

“I saw ‘em at Coachella last year!”

“That’s not porn. I don’t know what that was.”

Jack flashes his gold eyes and commands everyone to stop lying. This is going to solve all the world’s problems! (Sidenote: I liked this post by @eveiswaywardaf)

Sam and Dean pull up to a company called Mirror Universe. Ahem. Sam’s on the phone with Rowena (oooOOOOooo) --she’s in on their little plan.

The brothers head inside to hopefully use the company’s facial recognition program to locate Jack.

Dean calls the whole room nerds, but Sam calls him out on that bit of hypocrisy. DEAN WATCHES JEOPARDY!, guys! (ofc, he does.) Dean tries flashing his FBI badge at the receptionist, but instead of giving a fake name and reason for being there, he spills the truth.

Oh, it seems Jack’s truth command works on everyone everywhere. Dean tests the situation by asking Sam who his favorite singer is and Sam responds, “Celine Dion.” Oh Sam, Vince Vincente (and Balthazar) are very disappointed in you right now. Dean tells Sam that they can’t lie.

Then, all hell breaks loose in the company. I mean, what show are we even watching? (iloveitwithallmyheartandamnotsurewhatiamgoingtodowithoutit) The brothers escape to an empty room. There’s a TV broadcasting the news that the president spilled his tax history, deep ties to Russia and North Korea, and a “demon deal” with Crowley. Out of context, this might be my favorite part of the episode. I mean, the absolute shade! I can’t think of another show I watch doing this --especially one with a conservative audience like we know Supernatural has. In any event, the brothers quickly put it together that Jack’s behind it all.

And then we’re gifted with my favorite part in context (if that’s possible):

THE STAPLER QUEEN!

Cut to Cas in the alley trying to get access to Hell. The demon monitoring the door won’t let him him. Blerg.

For I’m Going to Hell Science:

But Chuck shows up! Uh-oh. He says he’s here because Cas called him, and “him.” Jack’s a problem.

Jack shows up at his grandmother’s place.

The poor lost cause wants to talk about Kelly. (bby boy, you’re so creepy rn.) She’s visibly upset and tells him that they made phone calls and no one knows who he is, and that others think that Kelly is dead. “What did you do to my daughter?!” Agh, her screaming makes Jack get angry and he demands that she stop (so much like his other grandmother...AUGH). The next shot we see is Jack fleeing from the house. Oh dear.

Meanwhile, Dean’s living his best life NOT lying and talking about the parenting blog he follows. MY HEART. Cas and Chuck show up. Dean wants to know where he’s been. “It’s a funny story. Reminds me of a song.” And the Chuck proceeds to pull up a guitar, which Dean promptly smashes to bits and pieces.

He shouts at Chuck to answer him, and with equal force Chuck responds, “Don’t!” Ugh, I think Dean just remembered he’s not just dealing with cuddly, affable, nebbish Chuck here. He’s dealing with God. To lessen the tension, Chuck snaps them all back to the bunker.

That doesn’t stop the questions that Sam, Dean, and Cas have though. Chuck admits to being around, but he’s hands off. If they want to <insert bad event> that’s on them. He only needs to step in when there’s an Apocalypse.

He stops the truth tellings and sets all the world back to order. Sam wants to know if Chuck can stop Jack. He tells them not exactly, but they can with a special gun. He just made it and hasn’t named it yet, but is leaning on “The Equalizer” or “The Hammurabi”. It’s a gun that sends a wave of multi-dimensional energy across a perfectly balanced quantum link. So shooter and shootee get the same treatment with this gun. Cas asks why he can’t just fix Jack’s soul. “Souls are complicated, even for me.” Dean says that this is it. Cas utters Team Free Will’s motto: There has to be another way. Dean doesn’t think so, and tells Cas to “get on board or walk away.” Cas walks away. (Spoiler: DID Y’ALL SEE CHUCK’S LITTLE SMILE AT THAT!?!)

Jack walks the streets replaying his conversation with his grandma. He’s troubled…

So is Dean! He’s tucked himself away in a corner of his bedroom, steadily working through a stash of liquor. He sits Sam down for a special talk. No, it’s not about how two people can still love each other very much, but need to be apart for a while. (#DeanCasBreakup) Dean is, of course, ready to kill himself to take care of the “Jack problem.” Dean. Bean.

Sam refreshingly calls him on his self-sacrificing bullshit.

“We always have a choice,” Sam tells him. He admits to Dean that he’s angry about their mom and a part of him does want Jack dead as well. But they have a responsibility to try to save Jack first. Jack lost his soul to save the Winchesters. Furthermore, he’s FAMILY. “You want my permission?” Sam asks. “You want me to say I’m cool with losing him and losing you all at once? ‘Cause I can’t do that.” GOD, SAM I LOVE YOU. This was the best, most emotional, most needed speech.

Cas continues his desperate search for Jack, heading to the cemetery where Kelly is buried. Jack isn’t there.

But Jack flaps in. He’s been looking for Cas! Castiel, that beautiful, majestic raven, pulls Jack in for a big hug.

Back at the bunker, Chuck’s a giant dork, playing with an AU archangel blade. Sam asks how many AUs exist. Chuck’s not sure, but we do learn about:

Reverse

No yellow

All squirrels (Thanks @consulting-cannibal for your contribution to the world’s cumulative joy)

At the cemetery, Jack talks through his failures with Cas. The lying experiment? Huge fail. Coffee and love with the Klines? Catastrophic strike-out. Grandma Kline accused Jack of killing Kelly, and Jack says that he did, just by being born. UGH that is a terrible guilt to lay on a child, soul or not. (Of course, she didn’t know…) Anyway, Cas is a good dad and talks about Jack’s experiences with him. Jack used to hate himself for Kelly’s death, but the feelings are gone. We also learn that Grandma Kline survived her interaction with Jack. Phew!

Sam asks Chuck an ultra-mega-pertinent question: is their world just another throw-away experiment? Chuck insists that this world is the best and he LOVES following the adventures of Sam and Dean. Sam gets pissed off at the idea of Chuck just watching them suffer through terrible near-ends. “You’re my favorite show,” Chuck says with a little side smile.

Sam demands an answer for why all these world-saving burdens have to fall on them, but Chuck offers up the “non-interference” answer. Anyway, he’s not here to argue cosmic ethics with Sam. It’s time to address the Jack problem. Sam finally asks where Jack is, and Chuck reveals that he’s already told Dean. Dean has left the bunker, gun in hand. Y I K E S.

At the cemetery, Jack and Cas talk.

For Beautiful Feelings Science:

Jack is desperate to do the right thing, but he doesn’t have a soul to guide him anymore. Oh, Jack. Cas will be your Jiminy Cricket! Jack WANTS to love. He wants to feel. But he can’t. “You can’t yet,” Cas tells him. They need to go hide somewhere in the world until Jack gets better.

Enter Dean with his metaphorical gun. Cas stands between Dean and Jack and EMOTIONS ARE HAPPENING PEOPLE. Jack refuses to run. He knocks Castiel away and faces Dean, knowing why Dean is there. Jack kneels. He’s ready. And I’m getting tears in my eyes. Because Dean looks at Jack. He REALLY looks at him while Cas and Sam watch the story unfold.

This metaphorical gun, while almost a joke because of its obvious symbolism, is actually perfect. This death would tear into Dean’s soul just as much as it tears into his body. And when Jack tells Dean that he knows he’s a monster just like Dean’s been saying all along, Dean looks at Jack and sees……...

Sam, meanwhile, has been joined by Chuck who is having the time of his life. Drama! Yes. Despair! Yes. Terrible soul-killing sacrifice! Mmmhmm good. Chuck watches Dean while Sam watches Chuck with growing horror. “Are you enjoying this?” Sam asks and Chuck shushes him like he’s in a freaking movie theater.

Dean cocks the weapon, grits his teeth. Finger tenses. He looks at Jack. And he LOWERS THE GUN. And here, I’m going to take a little crying break. This moment means so much to me.

Dean tosses the weapon aside. Chuck springs to life and orders Dean to pick the gun back up. “This isn’t how the story is supposed to end.” And HERE is where Chuck flips from adorable weird bunny to, idk, red-eyed god-bunny of doom.

The gravitas dies. Chuck goes on a rant about wanting to watch the father-killing-his-son storyline. The epic man paaaaaaain! Sam tells Dean that Chuck’s been playing them for fools. Playing WITH them like they’re game pieces.

“Our entire lives. Mom, Dad, everything. This is all you because you wrote it all, right? Because, what? Because we’re your favorite show? Because we’re part of your story?!”

Chuck tells Dean that if he picks up the gun and kills Jack (and himself) that he’ll bring Mary back. Dean confesses that his mom is his hero (cries) and he misses her (cries more) but she would not want this (cries the most).

“Why the games, Chuck?” Dean demands. The Winchesters unite in outrage. “When does it end?” Sam asks.

Chuck snaps his fingers and SMITES Jack. It isn’t fast, or painless. Cas tries to help him while Jack screams. Meanwhile, Sam picks up the metaphorical gun and shoots Chuck. NOOOOO SAAAAAAM!

(Okay, but the metaphorical gun symbolized Dean’s self-destruction but for Sam, it symbolizes how he fights to protect the people he loves. SAM you have come into your own this season. Truly. I am so proud.)

Sam only shoots Chuck in the shoulder and, as Chuck advertised, gets a wound in his shoulder as well. (At least he won’t have to dig out a bullet?) Pissed off now, Chuck throws a cosmic tantrum. “Story’s over,” Chuck says. “Welcome to The End.”

The sky goes dark. Jack’s dead, wing burns scorching the ground.

Sam’s still injured as they gather around Jack. We fall into a camera spiral, dipping down into Jack’s burned out eye socket (ew?) to the tune of Motorhead’s “God was never on your side.”Jack wakes in the Empty and looks around.

The Shadow greets him and draws a smile on their face. (What Would Mister Rogers Do?)

Billie greets him!!!!!!! “We should talk,” she says. Suddenly, all my crops are watered and my skin has cleared!

Down on the world, shit goes down in the cemetery. As an epic score screams about God’s betrayal, the dead claw themselves from the earth.

The woman in white appears. Gacy resurfaces. Bloody Mary rides again. These souls are all back, despite all the work and the death and loss…

It’s The End, and Team Free Will stand together as the dead converge on them. The camera cuts away and we lose sight of them in the pressing of the zombie horde.

I AM SO EXCITED. What a damn gloriously operatic note to linger on for…months.

D:  h o l d   m e

Quotes Lie:

Dad, none of this woulda happened without you.

You should never have tried to lock him away!

We’re gonna have to do the hard thing. We’re gonna have to do the ugly thing. It’s not like it’s the first time, right?

I’m Dean Winchester. I’m looking for the Devil’s son. This badge is fake.

“Hey I slept with your wife.” “I know. I’m kinda into it.”

And I saw Springsteen on Broadway, man’s a genius.

You want to go up against the British Men of Letter? Little weak, but ok.

Souls are complicated, even for me.

I’ve already lost too much.

What are you?!!

No offense, but your brother is stupid and crazy.

This isn’t just a story. IT’S OUR LIVES.

Writers lie.

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[dominicvail]

Hey! Random question for you: How do you decide if/how you're gonna crop the gifs you make when putting together a set? I struggle so bad with the aesthetic elements of building a set it ends up discouraging me from finishing them most of the time.

I get the feeling anon, i struggle a lot with certain types of sets Still, which affects what i end up making A Lot. And i’ve only been making gifs for lol, 6 years, yikes? I tend to stick to what i Have learnt these days. But, anyway. 

I mostly think that the aesthetics of what you’re giffing depend heavily on how you should decide to crop it to fit on here.

I don’t know what kind of sets you make? Because I make like, gifs of scenes  very differently to something i make just for the sake of it being pretty.  

I personally have preferences for what dimensions i think look best for certain types of gif sets on tumblr, i do not Usually ( i make exceptions) stray from these, and the dimensions have an effect on your cropping.

Say like, [This] set, the dimensions i used were 268x180 which is my preferred choice for either 6 gif set or an 8 gif set formatted like this and if i don’t use those dimensions, it’s because i had a good reason not to.

Typically, face close ups in sets like this look Far better than like, a shot in the first gif of that set with half of granger’s body in the shot. This isn’t because head shots look better in gifs, it’s because head shots remove a Lot of the background which is what, 9 times out of 10, is what is messing up the aesthetic of a gifset. Also, an aside, try not to have dialogue cover anybody’s face, sometimes with already close up shots it’s impossible to avoid, but if your text is obscuring somebody’s face, you’ve cropped too much off. 

------

Backgrounds are often messy, busy, and eye drawing. If you’re making edits just for the sake of being pretty, negative space is your best friend, i really can’t emphasis that enough. I think people think it’s what’s In your gif that will make an aesthetic set look pretty, but i personally think it’s in how you use what it Not there. 

'what is not there’ also applies to shadows on negative space backgrounds, you Really need it to look as plain as possible, imo, take this gif for example;

Without edits, the plain wall behind the height chart was heavily shadowed, i used brightening techniques to remove the harshest shadows and also cropped it so the gif was thinner b/c the shadows were darkest at the far corners of the gif. It’s not a major edit, but the effect it had on the set it was in was Massive. It went from ruining the look of what was a ten gif set to fitting in perfectly and it was such a small, simple thing to edit. 

Also, for examples of how different a seemingly plain background shot can look with and without editing, This;

and

(the over exaggerated white was for Aesthetic reasons, i wanted it to look weirdly coloured, the bg was empty anyway) but this same shot looks totally different when i remove the small lines from the elevator he’s in that i left there in the top gif. His malevolence levels shoot through the roof. Just simple things like that can entirely alter the look of something. 

I don’t have an example of this next technique with that specific G shot, But with some scenes like the above it would be possible to crop it in as close as the second gif has been, then increase the canvas size again and just paint on the same bg colour as the bg behind him and you’d have a panoramic gif with an entirely negative space bg without it even looking like you’ve even edited it.

i did that here, kinda:

I cropped the bottom of the gif off because originally there was a Lot more mountain on it, and added to the canvas at the top of the gif, and just coloured the blank canvas the same colour as the rest of the sky and presto! i have a Ton of more negative space and it took me like a minute. You can use the same technique for width as well as height, this was just the first gif i’d found. 

----

anyway i went on a tangent, but dimensions;

for 2 gifs in a set, if they’re face close ups i’ll for them side by side and like, rectangle, you can do them square but i just think it looks better if they’re higher than they are wide, i don’t always use the same dimensions for the height of these types of sets, just what i think looks best for the scene.

if it’s more of a view than a close up for 2 gifs, i’ll do one gif on top of the other, Usually if i do it like this it’s specifically to showcase a view, so i probably won’t crop the scene at all for this type, and just resize for tumblr, but if i do it will be to crop out a network logo but i’ll leave the gifs as large as i can do so while taking it off. If possible i will paint over a logo, so if the logo is over a bit of screen that’s just one plain colour it’s easy to obscure, but otherwise its a crop. If i ever leave a logo on, it’s b/c i had no choice because i Hate leaving logos on. 

for sets of 4, like, dialogue scene gifs e.g. this one [here] the traditional square 268x286 is best, tbh. However, for that set there, not sure if this counts as cropping but it is aesthetic, in the show the shots were eric, nell, nell, eric. Because, in that format, doing it that way would have had them looking Away from each other in the bottom two gifs, i switched them around in the set and it looked So much better. When possible, always have people physically speaking to each other  in gifs actively face each other. Sometimes this involves flipping the whole gif which i Try not to do because our brains are trained to look at these people through a backward lens, so when you flip it over we think it looks weird because very few people Actually have perfectly symmetrical faces so like, they look Wrong to us. But looking a little wrong normally looks less weird than having people insets face the totally wrong direction. 

for 10 gifs, displayed 2 by 2, i will not make them as high, 10 gifs of 268x180 is too long, it looks weird, and even shaving 10px off each gif makes it look more aesthetically pleasing. 

for gifs displayed one on top of the other with text over, where you have a lot of them, they look better thin, i usually use somewhere between 230-245px for each gif’s height. Like this one. 

if you’re making Huge gifs like... 540x440px for Aesthetic reasons, that Can work really well but is Exceptionally difficult imo and i really can’t offer any advice or tricks because i am hopeless at it. 

On of my other tricks of the trade is, when i see a scene i think will make great gifs in the caps i’ve taken for something, i will save the caps. Like, that G moment of him looking into the camera, i took caps of the scene for a specific reason, deleted the rest of them when done, but saved those ones away. Scenes with minimal background that Also contain a look into the camera are Rare, exceptionally good looking on edits, and u will never remember where they are in the show if u delete them lol. So if you find shots you love, keep the caps! reuse them! to this day, i’m the one one to ever call myself out over excessive reuse of the same shots over and over. 

Also, zig zags and diagonals are more attractive visually. like, this is from my main but i can’t fine one off this blog atm, but [this] You see how i’ve made this so your eyes flow in a seamless diagonal downwards? You eyes don’t flit back and forth in 3 different directions, it has a flow to it. The first shot on that set isn’t actually like that in the show, her face was on the right side of the screen, i cropped off everything on the left, added to the canvas on the right and used the wall she was standing next to to make it less obvious i cropped it so dramatically to achieve that. You can only really tell if you’re looking for it in that one. But like, if you can crop something so the gifset has a decent flow to it, so your eyes slide over it rather than attempt to look in 6 directions in jerky moments, it helps a lot. I did the same thing with this one, [here] every gif on that is cropped into a different angle as it was on the show. 

This works specially well when you have a lot of gifs in your sets, which is where the zig zag thing comes into it, like, those 2 i linked two didn’t last long enough to zig back, but if i’d done another 2 gifs on there, i’d have put it back so your eyes slid back to the left side again. Can’t find an example rn, it’s Hard to do the more gifs you have, but pull it off and it looks really good. 

however, if you Can make each gif centered perfectly it looks Really cool but it’s really hard to do b/c show content just.. isn’t great sometimes. But it looks so cool. 

tldr: Negative space is Super Important!!! backgrounds can be super eye grabbing and you don’t want that, choose your dimensions well, make sure you make peoples eyes flow across your work rather than dart. 

idk, i hope this made sense, but making things look aesthetically pleasing is Really hard and takes a lot of work, it just looks like it should be easy, it’s not you finding something hard that other people seem to find super easy, it’s not easy, it involves a lot of tricks and editing that you Have to obscure because if it’s too obvious it doesn’t look attractive. A lot of work goes in, if i had my way i’d make mostly aesthetically pleasing edits but it’s too hard and i don’t have that kind of time. I hope this helped in some way? 

[aimmyarrowshigh]

aheavenlyrush replied to your post “I’ve been on tumblr since 2012 and I was even a John Green fan for a...”

i checked and it happened in 2015

aheavenlyrush replied to your post “I’ve been on tumblr since 2012 and I was even a John Green fan for a...”

i saw that jg post on my feed and i had no energy to comment on it but truly when i saw that you had i felt such relief!! i remember making that one post about stiefvater defending him and telling teenage girls to be quiet and the response to it still fucking haunts me i swear

Oy, was it really that recently? The last three years have taken 900 years. And yeah... Maggie Stiefvater’s post about it was a Really Bad Look, and iirc that was the environment that spawned the beginning of the batshit “Keep YA Kind”* concern-trolling thing (yep, also 2015) that was mainly used to silence girls and women and people of color whenever the four white cishet men in YA fucked up between 2015 and 2018, when it finally publicly came out that most of them were, yk, fucking up because they’re legitimately horrible people and maybe the people calling them out should have been taken seriously.

* The other notable “why the fuck is this happening???? why is HE the one getting the sympathy here?????” events from “Keep YA Kind,” which, listen, I would bet you anything that it was very very nearly called “Keep Kidlit Kind” until the only person involved with 1/4 of a braincell managed to realize the acronym on their Twitter handle looked REALL BAD:

Andrew Smith, a straight white adult man, says out loud with his human adult man mouth, that he knows he can’t write female characters well and relies on fetishization and stereotypes because he never really met a girl until his daughter (??? SO WHAT IS YOUR WIFE, ANDREW? CHOPPED LIVER?) and, being as that is Bullshit and also his books were also being lauded as though they were Infinite fucking Jest Jr. even though the interview in question was for a book in which mutant grasshoppers take over the earth and a teenage boy gets trapped in a bunker with a teenage girl who eventually has to git to birthin’ babies she doesn’t want and isn’t medically prepared to have safely For The Good Of Humanity, he’s called out.

He’s called out mostly on a technical, writing level at first, even! Like, “Here’s how to write a female character: you write a fully considered, well-rounded character. They’re a girl.” And Andrew Smith FLIPS HIS SHIT, does some op-ed about how his mother used to beat him so he can’t see girls as people, and makes his twitter private. The “Keep YA Kind” sycophants support him HARD.

And then this happens to pop up on a mysterious Twitter that just HAPPENS to start while HIS twitter’s offline...

NOTE: Jay Asher, author of 13 Reasons Why, was literally dropped from his publisher and SCWBI for being a sexual predator. So like, I don’t think he was bullied, I think his predation was being remarked upon. Like, idk, maybe that he was being called creepy or sth idk idk idk

And then when A.S. decided to unsockpuppet to promote his next book, The Alex Crow, which is about mutant crows and a bunker or whatever:

The “asshole” in specific that Andrew Smith was calling an asshole was delightful human being and fellow author Kate Messner, who, coincidentally, was one of the victims to come out against Lemony Snicket’s sexual harrassment, so she’s had a BULLSHIT time just trying to do her JOB of being an author while female.

Which leads to Tommy Wallach! All-around fucknut! Whose major interest seems to be being That Guy In Philosophy 101 Who Always Has To Be Devil’s Advocate, Even Though No One Asked, and has a deeply vested interest in making sure that teenage girl readers -- who are his target audience, because he chose to write YA, as an adult man who made a choice in what he wrote and chose to make it YA, and not, like, any of the hundreds of genres that AREN’T largely written about and for teenage girls, yk -- know that teenage girls are Dumb. Victoria Schwab actually wrote an essay for YA Books Central about the incessant problem that IS/WAS Tommy Wallach called “We Need To Talk About Tommy” back in -- you guessed it! -- 2016, but it’s offline now and I’m not going to go Wayback it rn.

I’m just going to copypasta YAinterrobang’s Wallach timeline because he’s exhausting, he reminds me of undergrad.

Wallach’s continual pattern of behavior is worth discussing, especially in the context of sexism in YA and the continual marginalization of “diverse” voices in the community despite the efforts of the We Need Diverse Books movement.

Wallach’s problematic behavior runs back over a year, starting with a defense of Andrew Smith where he ignores the opinions of author and advocate Tessa Gratton in favor of a dictionary definition of sexism. (Andrew Smith’s behavior and the fallout around his statements have, of course, already been documented on YA Interrobang in “The Curious Case of Andrew Smith, Twitter & sexism.”) Wallach postures that women are inherently “other” from men, accuses Gratton of “gin[ning]up the controversy” and explains that he is a feminist because he was “raised by a single working mother and she’s still my best friend in the world.”

[View Wallach’s defense of Smith and attack on Gratton as a .pdf.]

Fast forward to later that year. Author Justina Ireland takes to Twitter to discuss a book where she feels the black character is self-hating. Ireland, being black herself, is asked about the book in question; she says that it’s Wallach’s debut novel We All Looked Up. Though Wallach is not tagged, he swoops into the conversation and demands Ireland provide proof that his character Anita is self-hating before claiming that author Dhonielle Clayton, who is also black, is friends with him and “engaged” with him on the issues in the book.

Clayton later stated publicly that she had not done any sensitivity reading on We All Looked Up.

What brought Wallach’s behavior to the attention of the YA world as a whole came this past November in the wake of the horrifying terrorist attacks in Paris. When the hashtag #prayforparis went viral, Wallach responded with multiple social media posts and a blog post about how atheism was the only belief that could make the world a better place. (Though Wallach argues that it is not, in fact, a belief: “The fact that we have a word for it makes it seem like it’s equivalent to other belief systems, but it’s not. The absence of something is not equivalent to the thing itself.”)

[View Wallach’s comments on atheism as a .pdf.]

After Wallach Tweeted that he was a “a rabid atheist, and the world would be a better place if more folk were” – a Tweet he subsequently deleted before deleting his account in its entirety – he doubled down in a block post that outlined all the way religions failed and all the reasons atheism was awesome.

Those who tried to explain to him why this behavior was – to say the least – problematic found themselves quickly blocked or shut down; at once point, Wallach tried to explain anti-Semitism to Jewish author Hannah Moskowitz before claiming that “if [her]parents are atheists and [his]dad is Jewish, [he’s] as much Jewish as [her].”

(For those wondering, Wallach blocked me during this incident despite being friendly with me and having taken my advice previously; while he did believe me in regards to his behavior towards Justina Ireland, which you can see in Tweets above, my snarky comment to him about “the only good people are the people who are exactly like me” was, apparently, too much for him to take. As Wallach’s account has since been deleted and I purged my social media account in January, that interaction is no longer publicly available.)

Take this behavior in comparison to author LJ Silverman, who recently received a sea of anti-Semitic hate mail – including crude manipulated images of her in an oven – for Tweeting that she was worried about the upcoming election in the context of history. Wallach painted himself to be the victim, somebody “attacked” for insulting all of the religious folks in the YA community, while Silverman, who simply shared a worry plaguing her, became a victim of virulent trolls.

While Wallach deleted his social media accounts after this, there were no public consequences to his actions despite ill-will from the YA community at large. If another member of the YA community had spoken out – one of our Catholic or Islamic or Jewish or Mormon authors, for instance – the backlash would have been substantially worse, possibly career-ruining.

Wallach’s career, however, was not ruined; he recently landed a six-figure deal for a book trilogy centered around a “holy war.”

And thus, we return to Wallach’s dismissive comments on suicide – which, it turned out, were neither new or original. In a blog post deleted after it came to light during this discussion, Wallach rated “the top ten literary suicides (organized by emo-ness)” which included all of the characters of HBO’s Girls – “It’s really just a fantasy of mine.” – and, ranking at number one, Sylvia Plath – who is not a character but a real person who suffered from depression before taking her own life at a young age.

[View Wallach’s post on suicide as a .pdf.]

“I’m only going to talk about the fact that a successful YA author found it appropriate to glorify, romanticize, and mock what for many of his readers is among the highest causes of death,” wrote Schwab in her “We Need To Talk About Tommy” post. “That this author could be so very careless and flippant and insensitive about such a very serious issue is abhorrent. That two years after penning this post he still sees suicide as something to be made light of, to be used as a marketing tool.”

Simon & Schuster made no public comment about any of Wallach’s comments. His career, save for making enemies of some fellow authors, seems relatively unscathed by his callous actions.

Anyway, the moral of the story is, like, if you wanna read books by straight white dudes, go for it, but check them out from the library. Spend your book-buying money on books by women, nonbinary/other folks, and dudes who aren’t straight and/or white. Straight white men, PARTICULARLY in categories of literature that are largely targeted towards girls and women, and largely written by girls and women -- but published, edited, and marketed by other straight white men -- are lauded FAR above what they’re actually worth, as like, storytellers or human people go.

The Glass Escalator is a one-way trip to wonderland, but YA is a skyscraper that was built by women and I PROMISE you, whatever book by one of these dudes you’re considering reading, there’s a better version by a woman and/or person of color on the shelves nearby that just didn’t get 1/10th of the marketing money.

And of course there should be an effort to be kind on social media, but “keep YA kind”... to whom? To the people who were being silenced when they were pointing out legitimate problems with the behaviors of men in social power? (And one of whom, in the case of Jay Asher, was LITERALLY DANGEROUS BC HE IS A SEXUAL PREDATOR.) Like, really? There had to be a hashtag campaign to silence dozens of people with legitimate, not-bullying-just-pointing-out-problems-that-are-problems-with-stuff-you-did-dude problems, to make social media feel more comfortable for four middle-aged straight white men?

As though the outside world isn’t comfortable enough for middle-aged straight white men????

[crowned-ladybug]

I just realised i never told you guys about the whale!!! Which is a Crime. Or at least i can’t find a post about it on my blog, so i’m assuming i only told Asri and Krista privately

In the Second Chance AU, when Marvin was a kid, his first ever and Absolute Bestest Friend was a stuffed whale. Perfectly hug-sized and anatomically incorrect, with nice friendly button eyes. Like this:

Idk what it was called yet bc i have a whale like this and he’s called Kockásbálnusz and that obviously won’t do for a story that's in english.

Anyway, the whale is gone now. It either got destroyed (bc kids can be really mean and they were all especially mean to poor Marvin) or the adults took it away bc they deemed him too old to have plushies anymore, idk. But he doesn’t have it anymore and losing it was a p notable trauma for him.

Fast forward to present day when Marvin is walking home from uni (a whole other story that one) and he passes a toy store on the way. The shop windows show just the shelves so that you can see some of the stock from both inside and outside, and on one of the shelves is a whale. But not just any whale, but a perfect copy of Marvin’s first Best Friend, just in pristine condition bc it’s brand new.

But he just sighs and moves on bc he shouldn’t spend Real Money on Stupid Unimportant Things like a plushie. Even if he really wants it and his heart kinda did a flip when he noticed it.

But once home he ends up offhandedly mentioning it to Jackie anyway, and Jackie asks him to elaborate, and somehow Marvin does, bc Jackie is being sweet to him as always and he sucks at resisting him and not oversharing. And Jackie decides that this just won’t do! They gotta reuinite Marvin with his Friend and he accepts no objections, esp since they’re all rooted in how Marvin thinks he doesn’t deserve to have extra money spent on him.

So Jackie tugs Marvin back to the store. The whale is the last one in the store and Marvin is still dragging his feet a bit and acting all shy, so Jackie takes the whale off the shelf and hands it to him, and despite all his objections and bad thoughts, Marvin just. instinctively hugs it. And he doesn’t outright cry, but there Are a few tears and Jackie hugs him, so they just stand in the store for a bit with the whale squished between them and Jackie rubbing Marvin’s back until he calms down a bit.

They buy the whale ofc and Jackie is the one paying bc Marvin is super nervous about looking anyone who might’ve seen that earlier in the eye rn, but the cashier has a knowing smile and makes no comment. Marvin keeps the whale hugged to his chest all the way home.

The whale takes up permanent residence on the couch where Marvin sleeps (and then years later when they move into a bigger place together, on the bed) and instead of just a pillow or blanket, Marvin hugs it as he sleeps. Except for when he’s cuddling Jackie and has his arms busy with that, but he knows the whale understands.

[survivoraqualand]

EPISODE 4: Bring On The Chaos

Oh boy, this was a big one.

Immediately after Sea Council, the castaways were given their next reward challenge - a mythological Wikipedia race which Rose and Linden would eventually win - along with a TEAM SWAP ANNOUNCEMENT! Everyone was added to a joint chat, at which point they could speak with anyone in the game until the teams were divided via a schoolyard pick, with the team captains chosen by MJ because he intercepted a signal from the watchtower shortly beforehand. The choices were made very quickly, and our new teams were [MJ, Logan, Jenna, Marg, Rose, Alyx and Zoe] on New Proteus versus [Jessica, Katie, Linden, Rhea, Jessie, Linus, and Allyn] on New Ceto, picked in that order.

A few hours into getting settled onto these new teams, Logan decided to mosey down to Submere 3 and let out Proteus’ monster. He was warned that this would be made public to the team yet still proceeded anyway... and was rewarded with a hidden immunity idol but punished by sending his team automatically to Sea Council. He was told this decision would be posted after the immunity challenge.

Meanwhile on Ceto, Katie made the same choice just a few hours later - which meant she also got an idol, and also sent Ceto to Sea Council, thus triggering a Double Sea Council round where only one was originally planned. 

To make this all the more delicious, this round’s immunity was a temptations challenge, in which each player had to decide whether to follow the instructions of Persnickety Pete to give up powers in the game in order to win points and keep their team safe. (Contrary to Katie’s speculations within her alliance chat, this was in fact the original planned challenge for this round, not specially chosen because of the monsters.) With about half of each team having been informed about the automatic Council, most players did not give much up, although Rose went almost all in on Proteus and Linden went rather OTT on Ceto firmly believing that everyone else was going to take all the temptations alongside her.

After the reveal of the monsters’ double release, almost everyone in the game was exiled from the team chats and unable to communicate with each other for 5 hours, as for some reason this was the one temptation everyone wanted. After the time-out was up, however, plans began quickly coming together on both sides to shift votes onto the outliers, which meant Alyx/Rose on Proteus and Linus/Jessie on Ceto. For the latter, there didn’t seem to be much to do besides campaign against one another at the mercy of the majority vote; however, on Proteus, Alyx had a couple tricks up his sleeve. Thanks to a newly forged alliance with Logan & Marg as well as his discovery of a Sapphire Idol in suite 2D at the Hotel, the idoled-up threesome were able to concoct a plan to make sure the majority votes were split between Alyx and Rose, so that those two would be saved by the Sapphire Idol and could decide who went home with a minority vote.

Due to their poorer performance in the immunity challenge, Proteus went to Sea Council first, where Rose had an extra vote cast against her from Persnickety Pete, six out of seven players had their vote publicly revealed (good thing Marg kept theirs secret!), and Alyx went through with his plan to play his Sapphire Idol, sending Zoe home in a 4-3-1 turned 1-0-0 vote.

At Ceto’s Sea Council, things were a bit less spicy, but not by much. The votes ended up being incredibly close, with Jessie being sent to walk the plank in a 3-2-2 vote. 

LINDEN

Uhhhh it's super awkward when you definitely probably know who voted for you at Seat Council. Guess I know where I'll be voting next time maybe?

[HOST NOTE: It was Pat. The person who got voted out. There was one vote for Linden and the rest were for Pat.]

I love my new team! I'm ready to have more active teammates who will be more involved in things. I hope we can get along well and not have too many issues with old alliances and the sort. Or maybe we can and make it more dramatic!? Who knows!

RHEA

my life is in katies hands

also i have an idol lol but i seem to be like way worse at searching than like other people so like how many people have an idol?? whats the tea

JENNA

I'll do a quick written confessional rn. At surface level I'm happy with the swap. But I think I'd feel safer if I was with Katie. I'm soooo glad I'm with Logan, but I'm worried we're gonna be targeted. I know MJ could easily flip the team on us for being close. And Zoe would most likely follow. But Hopefully that won't happen. I would love to stick with MJ. I'm not sure where Logan stands with everything, so right now my closes people would be Katie, MJ, and probably Allyn. Logan is working with Marg and I don't mind trying to work with them, so I'm trying to talk to them a bit. Zoe still isn't super responsive so not sure where we stand, but as long as MJ doesn't decide to go against me and Logan it should be okay. I hope Katie is okay on the other team. I'm assuming Jess will work with her. Anyway, gonna see what Logan has found in the hotel later and prob share with MJ so he knows I'm not just gonna ditch him for Logan.

KATIE

Yay: Jess is here! Cries in the club: Jenna is gone.

MARG

i really am just having so much fun in my first ever org. my heart is full trying something new <3 lot's has changed since my last confessional. a swap happened!!! i am now on Proteus with MJ, Logan, Jenna, Rose, Alyx, and Zoe. i was a little nervous going into the swap just because i don't know anyone, but i'm actually feeling ok! both Alyx AND Logan found idols in the past 24 hours which is WILD. i feel great knowing that all three of us have something and i feel a sense of security knowing where stuff is. i'm not sure how many advantages Ari put into the game, but i feel like there shouldn't be many more idols than that?? 3 feels like a lot. ANYWAYS, literally all three of us from Ceto have idols, so i'm feeling ok right now! Alyx and Logan both only told me about their idols too, so i feel like i'm in a good spot between the two of them. i made an alliance chat for the three of us and i am trying to bring the two of them together. hopefully it works and we can figure something out whenever we go to sea council next!! i'm also trying to branch out and meet everyone from the original Proteus team. i really am loving meeting everyone and getting to know each other! i have talked to Jenna the most out of the people new to me. she's really easy to talk to, and i would love to work with her! i hope we can make it happen. i think it would be fun, and i'm here for fun!!! my biggest fear in this game is being delusional or not really understanding what is going on. i think i have some agency in the game and don't just follow people who have played in orgs a bunch??? i want to have a mind of my own and play to win. i think i'm doing that? i hope i'm doing that? i'm really just trying to focus on social bonds so that people want to work with me. gosh i just reread everything and i sound so optimistic. i'm ending this confessional before something bad happens. bye!

JESSICA

I know we have already lost this challenge because Katie let the monster out. Tempted to take an auto self vote so I can avoid the drama..... but I know people would find this SUSPICIOUS!

LINDEN

I really hope I can convince everyone to go along with the wild plan to take all the options. Allyn, Katie, and I have all said yes for sure in one on one chats! Linus and Jessica are both maybes and Jessie is also hesitant. Rhea is very busy with her mouth but I really think we should go for it!!! I just have to get everyone to trust one another for a brief moment.

JESSICA

The number of times I have googled "aquaman" while trying to visit this blog is astounding. Anyways... I love Linden that is it that is all that is the confessional. I saw this challenge (and the option to self vote??? Amazing) and I didn't take it because I was like oh no, Jessie and Linden need me and I can't risk them going home. I come back and Linden has said don't worry, I took every single thing because I think it's funny. I could never achieve this level of being iconic. 

I think what actually happened is Katie told everyone on her side we automatically are losing so none of them are going to take anything. That's fine by me honestly! If Linden is self-voting, I think I will make this go to rocks. But not just any rocks..... I think I'm gonna try and do this: - me, Jessie, Linus: vote Katie - Katie, Allyn, Rhea: vote me - Linden: is not voting at all Then if it ties, Katie and I are safe from rocks and everyone else does it. This seems really fun so I hope it works. However, I think Linus might mess up a plan like this so who knows what will happen. 

LINDEN

I TOOK ALL THESE DOWNSIDES FOR N O T H I N G /flips table

ROSE

i can't believe both monsters got out and i hope it was NOT intentional bc if it *was* logan has a LOT to answer for! this was very unexpected and i'm definitely a little worried about whether i gave too much up in this challenge. our team only got 18 points, which means that some of us did NOT make the sacrifices we all agreed upon

KATIE

Episode Title: She Did The Monster Mash 

I released the monster and I would do it again and again and again!!!!!! I found out Rhea has the missing mask and can mutiny after sea council... I had a plan to take said mask and jump to the other team to then release their monster, but no such luck because LOGAN LET IT GO!!!!!!!! 

I am also the holder of all pearl information and am excited to watch who unleashes the curse first-- its between Jess or Jenna... I don't really do reward challenges unless I get to draw a picture so I know I wont have enough hotel trips to figure out the curse myself so now I watch and wait. Someone has the f5 item from the vending machine and I am being CONSTANTLY LIED TO about who has it... thats my next goal 

I tried to tell my old team members not to give anything up but nobody listened and now I'm the only person not exiled and alone in the team chat. It's amazing~

JESSIE

BAM TEAM SWAP SCHOOL YARD PICK SHOOOK 

That's right. I was shook. I was also almost picked last which I don't know how to feel about. At least I ended up on the team I wanted to be on. Jessica, Linden and me are hoping we can snatch up Linus because apparently he was in the minority on the other team and Linus passed my vibe check so I am fine with that. Us Canadians must stick together ? Yeah that sounds good I kind of  like the sound of that lol. 

Anyways I did not take all the punishments for this round and no regrets because both teams lost. Katie let pancakes free of course Pancakes was going to cause some trouble. So we go to council tomorrow most people have punishments so I should be okay this round. The public vote? Not as scary as not getting a vote or getting an extra vote to your name. I can do damage control if need to. I just got to believe in myself. 

*insert some quote about hope and despair from danganronpa* 

I will also be staying up so I can start strategizing when we all get added back to the chat after this lovely chat exile break. Anyways at this point I will probably be voting Rhea due to lack of bonding but who knows what plans later tonight or tomorrow will bring? I sure don't know. But I am ready. Bring on the chaos <3

JENNA

So I actually meant to talk about something else in this confessional but I'm dumb and forgot about it so I'll type it out. Playing with Logan reminded me to chill out a little more and have more fun and not take everything too seriously. I remember this book I was reading where this team did something that would make them lose for sure but then they would learn from it, and if you're not willing to take risks and go outside of your comfort zone and fail then you're never going to grow as a person. You're not gonna win all the time because if you do you never actually learn all that you can and so I wanna have fun and cause chaos and not be afraid to lose because I'm growing and that's good! Life is a lot more fun if you're not focused on being the best and just having a good time with good people and taking steps in the right direction. Eventually you become the best anyway, so I'm really glad Logan helped put that in perspective. I'm still gonna try! But I wanna take more risks, like releasing that curse! Maybe the game will be harder but I'll be having fun on the way.

ALLYN

Team switch is actually going okay! I am still with Rhea and Linus who are my number 1 and 2, and Katie is being trustworthy at the moment so that is good.  I am also with Jessica, who I've been friends with for 6 years and I definitely want to align with her eventually (she's a beast in person and in Survivor), it's just I don't know why she doesn't want Jessie out.  I'm hoping telling her to go for Linus won't hurt us in the long run, because she is definitely a person I want to work with.  Katie is controlling and mean (sorry, just what I have witnessed) and she's good for our votes at the moment, but I definitely want her out soon.  She completely ignored my all my ideas and input on the rule making challenge, and it was just not very fun to work with her.  (Jenna has confirmed, wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy)  Linden is so sweet and I love her, (we are Bellingham buddies and I wish she still lived here) I just don't think the numbers are there for her to stay too much longer :( Pretty sure we're all good for Jessie to go tonight!

ZOE’S FINAL WORDS

nice meeting you all <3 lots of love, no hard feelings.

JESSIE’S FINAL WORDS

I had a lot of fun this season and I’m glad I played ! Good luck to everyone left :)

[noscorpsaladerive]

Flo in Bordeaux!!!!

I wrote up mine and Emily’s experiences seeing Flo yesterday but the verb tenses are all over the place and this is REALLY LONG so it’s going under the cut I hope y’all enjoy :)

So Emily and I got to Bordeaux around noon but we couldn’t check in until 14h so we were walking around trying to find food that didn’t cost 20€ per person and we accidentally came across the theatre!!!  They had a couple posters with Flo’s face on them and I nearly died omg.  We saw a couple of vans outside and I’m guessing it was all of their equipment.

Skip forward a few hours and one mild freak out session that resulted in breathing exercises later, and Emily and I FINALLY head over to the theatre about an hour before showtime.  There are already quite a few people outside, which surprised me a little bit, but the age demographic was very strange.  Like there were a lot of women who were at least in their 40s and 50s and even a gaggle of preteen girls not that enjoying Flo’s music is limited to a certain age group but it was just an unexpected demographic (as Erin said it’s the same one as 50 Shades of Grey lol).  But anyway while we were standing outside I heard some music playing AND IT WAS FLO’S SOUNDCHECK.  I think he was playing J’attends encore but they just played part of it but it was still enough to cause a heart attack dear goodness

So we finally get into the theatre (and there was this whole drama about the staff holding onto my fancy camera during the concert because apparently photos weren’t allowed ugh but ANYWAY) and it like still hasn’t quite hit that I’m actually seeing Flo again??? I think part of it might’ve been the fact that we had to get up at like 4:45 in the morning to go to the train station but I was like scarily calm considering this is Flo we’re talking about.

The opening act was a band from Bordeaux called MO and they were actually really good!! I’d looked them up beforehand and their music seemed like French country and considering that I don’t like American country I wasn’t too excited but it was a little bit more soft pop than country and it almost reminded me of Diane’s music??  It was a very similar genre regardless.  They got the audience to do this like percussive song thing with them and it was really fun I’d definitely be happy to see them perform again.

Then after a good while where the crew moved instruments around and they adjusted the lighting one last time the band walked on stage and started playing some music then FLO WALKED ON STAGE AND I COULDN’T STOP GRINNING LIKE AN IDIOT and they keep playing then he gets interrupted by his mom calling and he finally turns around and I see his stupid face and I’m gonna die just writing about this omg and he’s so damn cute and he’s now wearing a hoop earring (we were on Flo’s left so we had great views of the earring haha) and omg I’m still dying

Anyways after the fake phone call with his mom they start playing Se serrer la main which is one of my fave songs on that album but like i wanted to like stand up and jam along but no one else was standing??? Concerts that take place in real theatres stress me out idk if we’re supposed to stand or sit or what but ANYWAY

after that song ended he asked « Y’a des drôles de filles ici ce soir?? »/« Are there any drôles de filles here tonight? » (sorry I can’t think of how to translate drôles de filles rn) but I FLIPPED MY SHIT QUELLE DRÔLE DE FILLE IS SUCH A JAM (plus it’s my blog title lol) uhhhh idk which songs were next and I’m too lazy to pull up my recording rn to check but he sang a new song and damn it was such a jam and he was like noodling and dancing across the stage and i was struck by two things:  1) he seemed SO COMFORTABLE in his own skin and in his own body and i know he’s struggled with body issues before so it warmed my heart to see him so comfortable with himself and 2) he leaned backwards at one point (a mini-Rosenberggggg lean if you will) and I noticed his abs through his shirt???  And I was like wtf????  Are his abs just THAT well defined or is his shirt kinda see through??? Later on after I saw his nipples I was like YEP that shirt’s see through oops.  I knew his outfit seemed too normal I was getting suspicious. He also dabbed at the end of that song and you could feel half the audience groaning hahaha.

Uh I’m forgetting the song order but for Les Blessures qui ne se voient pas he started out a cappella and people were kinda singing along at first but everyone stopped and it was literally a silent theatre full of people listening to nothing but Flo’s voice and it was so beautiful and powerful I almost cried.  Oh I also almost cried when he did Te Ressembler because I wasn’t expecting him to do that song and it reminds me so much of the relationship I have with my mother and it just gets to me man.

After maybe like half an hour he started the whole bit where he tells us his life story starting with Canada which is a shame that he doesn’t start earlier because I would literally die to hear him perform some Lost Smile.  So he starts out the bit at a bar and he orders a rum and coke from the bartender (aka the guitarist who was wiping down his guitar with a towel as if it was a bar countertop lol) so the guitarist pours him a glass of wine and calls it rum and coke and Flo says « What kind of rum is this? » and the bartender/guitarist says « It’s Bordeaux rum! » and everyone screams since we’re in Bordeaux and Flo says that the best rum is from Bordeaux and everyone screams some more.

He talked about the friend he wrote « Alone » for then he performed said song and I nearly died I never in a million years thought I would ever hear him perform Canada songs live but also I feel like Emily and I were the only ones who knew the song???  The general feeling I got from the audience was confusion while I was jamming along having the time of my life.  The only other Canada song he performed was Mrs Mary which I don’t know as well as Alone but oh well.  

Next he did the getting a call to come audition for MOR and the fake audition and he was acting all cute and when the casting director aka the keyboardist asked how old he was he said 27 and like half of the audience squealed he was acting so cute then this motherfucker went and sang Bohemian Rhapsody which is ANOTHER song I thought I’d never hear him perform live and I just about died and cried I was a roller coaster of emotions last night okay?

Then he sang « L’Assasymphonie » and we all stood up and jammed and I’m pretty sure there was eye contact happening between us and I was living for it seeing Flo perform that song gives me life I have a video too but I’ll be uploading all my videos, pics, and recordings later.

Then he got a fake call from Dove (and I squealed really loudly when Flo mentioned Dove) and Dove said he’d had a dream about Flo with a big sword (ahem) and that’s how he introduced Quelque chose de magique and I died all over again it was like this really awesome rock arrangement and I was living for it @Dove why don’t you get Flo to do the arrangements for your musicals from now on at least that way you can’t tell him to chop all his hair off but I digress.  Tbh I’m really glad Flo did Quelque chose de magique because Mon combat is awkwardly just out of his lower range and Auprès d’un autre is just...yeah.  But it was so great to hear him sing LRA live again I was so pumped.

At some point during the musicals or just after Flo took another sip of the wine (which the guitarist had been drinking lol) and he said « Fuck that’s good I’m gonna need three or four more glasses » and tbh same but after the musicals they brought out a drum and let Flo drum for a bit and they did Sur mon nuage then he did Arrête somewhere in there???  Oh and the slow version of Je ne sais pas (which is the better version imo) which he apparently wrote about the girl who dumped him in Canada which I totally didn’t realize.

Then he was winding down the show and did that sped up version of Quoi de neuf which stresses me out because it’s so damn fast and he also kept switching up the lyrics in the chorus???? Like dude wtf I can’t sing along if you keep changing it!!!!

He left the stage afterwards but came back to do another new song whose name I forgot and he tried to teach us the chorus and was like « it’s really easy!! » but I couldn’t understand the words he was singing???? Oh well maybe he’ll release it on his next album whenever that’s happening (which he hasn’t even mentioned another album so I’m not holding my breath lol) then he ended with Qu’est-ce qu’un homme which is such a good song y’all it’s SO GOOD. But y’all when he had his arms around his band members to bow the Floobs were out they were really out there and idk how to process this information.

We headed outside to see about stagedooring and there ended up being two groups of fans at two different exits and we were kind of eying each other trying to figure out who was going to be right and if we needed to rush to the other side but all of the sudden everyone rushed to one of the theatre’s main doors??? So Emily and I rushed along and we were all penguin huddled together and no one really knew what was happening but we were all just waiting while the theatre staff opened the door and let a few fans in at a time.  We finally figured out that we were meeting Flo inside which I thought was nice since that way he wasn’t being crowded by a bunch of fans at the same time.

So Emily and I finally get inside except I’m getting loopy because of lack of sleep and we really hadn’t eaten that much that day either and I was SO CLOSE to deciding I was going to tell Flo I was disappointed he didn’t do any Lost Smile lol.  So the line of fans goes around a corner so we can’t really see what’s happening until we get up close and we can see the dudes that opened the show and we thought Flo would be after them but no you greet Flo first and that’s when my heart started beating real fast I wasn’t fucking ready y’all but we were doing it.

So I finally get up to Flo and he and a staff member are talking about how many people are still waiting and he didn’t quite see me at first when I handed him my ticket to sign and when they’re done talking I quietly say « hi » and Flo finally sees me and y’all he got so fucking excited I was so worried he wouldn’t recognize us but he did!!!!!!!! Even though it’s been almost two years!!!!! He asks us how we’ve been and he seemed so sincere and genuine and so interested like he really did want to know how we had been doing and as he’s signing Emily’s ticket I asked what his cat’s name was and he said he wasn’t saying right now but that he was going to announce it later.  But he did tell us his cat was super sweet and that he didn’t make too much noise in the morning and that he will play fetch like a dog and I was like omg my cat too!!! I’m also 95% sure at some point during this convo I straight up told Flo I love his cat but idk if he heard but he didn’t seem weirded out lol so that was good.  Flo took selfies with me then while he was taking selfies with Emily I said, « The concert was better than Harry Potter » (a reference to the classic « Song For A Lunatic ») and he was trying so hard not to lose it mid-selfie and I’m pretty sure it was the cause of the blep in Emily’s selfies it was so fucking great hahaha then the theatre staff fussed at all of us because we were taking so long but it was so worth it. He thanked us for coming and seemed really sincere about it like it wasn’t in just a « I need something to close this convo with fans » way it was like really genuine and this man and his sincerity will be the death of me.

Emily and I stayed calm until we got outside the theatre then we fucking lost it and screamed at Emily’s mom on the phone while she was at work because FLORENT MOTHE RECOGNIZED US and he had like a substantial conversation with us and he didn’t with the people ahead of us and he smiled SO MUCH in our selfies it was so amazing I feel so validated as a fan like one of my all time fave singers actually knows who I am and I’m dying.

I recorded most of the concert so I’ll post that recording and some pictures and videos later on!!  Damn this turned out wayyy longer than expected lol.

[sindearlyconnormurphy]

I'll Always Write Back [Connor Murphy x Reader]

Title: I’ll Always Write Back

Pairing: Connor Murphy x Reader

Fandom: Dear Evan Hansen

Requested: by the lovely @the-murphy-family

Summary: Connor and the reader are friends online, but then find out they’re neighbors too. The reader is homeschooled, so she has no way of hearing the rumors about him. They become best buds and hang out with each other everyday and eventually fall in love

A/N: This was waaaayyy longer than I wanted it to be, so my apologizes in advance. Thanks again to @the-murphy-family for such a fantastic prompt, I’m sorry I rushed the exposition so much. I had so much fun writing this! (If you aren’t already following their blog, I highly suggest it).

Warnings: Connor’s potty mouth | First person reader | Fighting Murphy siblings

It was almost bedtime by the time I’d messaged him. I hadn’t planned on it, by any means. We talked after I’d finished my lessons for the day–he’d skipped school, I saw, which I always thought was off considering his mother was home.

I’d changed into my pajamas–just an oversized t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts–and had begun to tuck myself into bed when I saw him.

He’d left his blind open tonight, and through the window screen I could see him silhouetted perfectly, all the lights in his room blazing. It was nearing 9:30, so I wasn’t too shocked to find he was still awake. The houses were so close together on this side of town and, from the second story window, there was nothing but a four yard distance between our windows–and a drop nearly twice that length.

He was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring straight ahead, giving me a view of his profile, the sharp angle of his jaw, the thin slope of his nose, and the hard jut of his adam’s apple.

 What startled me enough to give pause was the fact he was unnervingly still, unblinking, staring at something I couldn’t see. He wasn’t working on homework or painting his nails or playing that silly candy crush game on his phone. He was just staring.

Too far away for me to make out his expression, I instead rolled over onto my bed, clicking the lights back on and pulling out my phone, opening up the Chat app we used on the daily.

To: Connor From: Me What’s up, buttercup?

I wished I could see him–there were certainly nights we sat by the window and messaged back and forth, but starting out that way would mean he knew I saw him lost in whatever pensive state he’d been in, which more often than not would mean he’d be less than willing to talk. In my lap, my phone buzzed to life.

From: Connor To: Me Isn’t past your bedtime or something? 

I snorted, starting my own reply before:

From: Connor To: Me Are you having trouble sleeping again?

Swallowing thickly, I immediately replied:

To: Connor From: Me No, I’m fine. Just bored, checking to see if you were too :)

I tried to wait, give Connor a moment to compose whatever turmoil he’d been sitting in before I asked how he felt, otherwise I’d get a swift ‘okay’ and the conversation would take a dive bomb south at ridiculous speeds.

From: Connor To: Me If it’s nudes you’re looking for, sorry to disappoint, but I’m not in the mood tonight, kiddo

I choked, lunging forward in the bed to muffle my embarrassing squawk into my fist. Thank goodness my bed was out of sight of the window, or I’d have to watch Connor chortling at my less than appropriate reaction to his less than appropriate joke.

Connor and I had only been talking for about two months now, after I’d moved out here five months ago. Well, we’d been talking for nearly the entirety of the five months, but I’d only realized it was Connor not all that long ago.

To: Connor From: Me Oh no, whatever will I do without seeing your sculpted, rock-hard abs??? ;)

From: Connor To: Me Shut up, jerk off

I cackled into my fist, careful to not wake my siblings that slept in the next room over. It had taken a large amount of time to get used to Connor’s rather blunt personality, to put it pleasantly.  He’d always been candid, of course, ever since the first contact I’d had with him on the Chat app (“You swear you aren’t a pedophile, right? Or my dad? That’d be weird as fuck.”) and it had been thrilling to be with someone so open and ready to talk about things. The way he felt. The things he thought. The fact he was afraid.

We didn’t exchange photos for a long time–and I’d never seen Connor outside the house, other than the on and off times he’d flit across his bedroom window like a haunt, never knew his name–but the second his photo flashed on my screen, I knew. Even in the photo he hadn’t been smiling, the same stoic countenance he always wore.

He’d recognized my photo immediately, and had been less than thrilled. It took convincing–a lot of me showing up at the fence between our yards, very nauseous, promising it hadn’t been a mean joke–but he came around.

From: Connor To: Me You sure you’re good? You’re quiet

I smiled softly at my phone screen. It was a rare night when Connor had enough energy to be so concerned about others–it wasn’t his fault, I knew, he was just in a bad spot right now. The fact he could consider my feelings for more than a few moments felt remarkable, flattering. But, most importantly, it meant he was doing okay.

To: Connor From: Me I’m fine, pls don’t worry :)

To: Connor From: Me Are YOU okay?

From: Connor To: Me I’m fine, chill out

I rolled my eyes, unsurprised. Deflect and distract, his usually strategy.

From: Connor To: Me Can’t see you rn

From: Connor To: Me Come to the window

I sat up quickly, going over to shut out the light to blur my image to him. Combing my messy hair with my fingers, I tugged on my oversized shirt so that it covered my mostly exposed legs before throwing open the window and leaning out.

Connor, across the way, had already thrown his window open and was halfway leaning out, his face scrunched in confusion. He tapped something out on his phone, pausing every so often to tuck back the dark locks falling into his face. His other arm was braced on the window ledge, the sleeve of his hoodie pushed up to expose his bare forearms to moonlight, glowing a soft snow hue in the dark. My phone buzzed as he glanced back up at me with an open expression.

From: Connor To: Me Turn on the light, dumbass, I can barely see you

I smiled up at him, putting my phone aside to shake my head 'no’. He frowned, slumping down a little more against the window, his chest pressed to the ledge, before holding his arms up in a 'why not?’ and flipping me the bird.

I typed out a quick response to let him know that my parents thought I was asleep. I watched him read the text, watched his eyebrows furrowed over his deep-set slate eyes, saw him frown, heard him swear under his breath. I bit back a chuckle as he carded his hand through his hair in frustration several times.

I vaguely wondered why this made so little sense–most of our conversation up to this point had been centric of me, but Connor was visibly frustrated (not that he wasn’t frequently) and earlier he’d seemed much to absent to not be upset about something. My phone buzzed to life, casting a blue glow across my face, and I saw Connor’s face stretch in recognition, pleased to make out my expression in the dark.

From: Connor To: Me Meet me in the pool house

My heart jackhammered in my chest at the thought of it–sneaking out. He was crazy, he had to be. He knew my parents would murder me for being up this late, let alone sneaking out, and worst of all, meeting a boy. Not just a boy. Connor.

I felt him watching me from across the divide, at the edge of my vision and could make out where he leaned against the window, propped up on his elbows and head in his hands, hair hanging in his face. Glancing up, meeting his stony gaze, I nodded.

It was immediate, earning a reaction from him. Biting back my chuckle, he scrambled up from where he kneeled against the window ledge, his whole face smiling as he ran from his window without looking back. He was already standing in his backyard, waving wildly before I’d even departed from the window.

I decided against redressing or doing my hair–Connor was waiting and the quicker I got out there the quicker I got back without alerting my parents to my absence. Besides, it was probably too dark in the pool shed for Connor to make out my bare face and frizzy hair anyway, let alone the hair on my legs and the stretch marks on my thighs. As if Connor had the nerve to look to begin with, I snorted.

Sneaking out was surprisingly easy, and Connor had left the gate cracked just enough for me to slip in between. The door to the pool shed–just a small building, hardly smaller than my bedroom, at the edge of the yard–was slightly ajar, and I saw quick movements coming from inside.

Once in the doorway, clicking the door shut behind myself, I heard a sharp intake of breath behind me.

“Connor?” I called, spinning in the dark so that my back rested against the door, ready to exit if necessary. My eyes searched the dark frantically–in vain. There was a small window, vaguely fogged from years of neglect that allowed a slim moon beam to shine in on a small pile of towels and blankets, a little bean bag chair. Connor had told me not too long ago he and Zoe hadn’t played in here for years, which meant it held secrets long forgotten by either of the Murphy children. I felt honored to be inside it.

“Hey,” he breathed, and though I could see him, I recognized his soft voice just to the right side of me, breathy and soft. It’s too dark to make him out, and I noticed he’s careful not to touch me, but I can feel his breath against my ear, warm despite the fact it’s chilly for a June night. I felt goosebumps pimpling along my legs, making the hair stand up on end. I silently thanked the universe for giving me the gift of darkness to veil myself in.

“Feels like it might rain,” I sighed, turning toward the sound of him, the warmth. My bare arms brushed something–maybe cotton, maybe not–but it pulled back immediately away from me, accompanied by a quick intake of breath.

“Christ, don’t talk about the weather,” Connor hissed into the dark, a hard thunk resonating through the shed where he must have leaned his head against the wall, a bit too forcefully. How very Connor of him. “That’s the kind of shit my dad says in the car when he acts like he’s uncomfortable to be near me for more than ten minutes at a time.”

“Sorry,” I muttered, leaning away, and turning to gingerly pick my way across the shed–it was getting late now and I was already beginning to get tired. Connor may be able to stay up until the early morning hours, but I definitely couldn’t be trusted to be awake at eleven.

“Fuck, don’t be sorry, I just meant–shit,” he growled, and I heard another sharp pang against the steel inside of the shed–he’d hit something with his fist, if the metallic clink of what I assumed to be his ring against the sheet metal was any indication.

I stumbled my way to the beanbag chair, collapsing, and letting myself sink into. It smelled a little like chlorine and sun-in hair dye, but it was soft and warm, almost the size of a double bed. I wiggled upright, squinting again to see Connor in the dark now that I took up the only patch of moonlight in the building.

“You aren’t feeling alright, are you?” I asked softly, resting my cheek against the faux suede of the chair, struggling to keep my eyes open. There was a pause.

“That’s not why I asked you over,” he sighed in his tennor, stomping across the room, picking his way, until he flopped down beside me, displacing the insides of the chair and nearly rolling me out of it.

He reached forward with another soft swear, grabbing my shoulder blades to yank me back onto the bean bag bed, rolling me close so that I wouldn’t fall again. I laughed, unsure what was so funny–maybe it was the fact I’d nearly catapulted out of the chair due to all five pounds of Connor “Ribcage” Murphy, or the current situation, my face pressed against the soft cotton of his hoodie, his heartbeat steady and strong against my cheek. I didn’t move away.

To my surprise, Connor didn’t move away either, just kept both arms wrapped around me, hands firmly in place of my scapula as if scared to dip any lower. I felt the dip of his chin against my temple, felt his lips against my scalp.

“Aren’t you freezing?” He whispered, rubbing quick circles between my shoulder blades.

“Quit dodging my question, Con,” I hissed, beginning to pull away before Connor tightened his grip–surprisingly strong for a boy with such lithe wrists.

“But you are cold,” he muttered, slipping one hand down from my shoulder to my bare arms, rubbing in quick patterns there, attempting to make some sort of friction between us.

God, my parents would kill me if they saw me now.

I want to he clear I wasn’t under any pretenses–this wasn’t, er, Connor hadn’t called me out here so that we could, well–

“I’m fine, Connor,” I promised, taking advantage of the moment to fold my arms against him, trapping them between the heat of our bodies, letting my cheek rest idly against his chest. Connor didn’t like me, I knew, but in the dark shed…well, it was easy to pretend.

It was always easy to pretend to be someone else with Connor.

“You wanna talk about what’s going on with you right now?” I said with a false bravado, thumping his chest lightly with my fist. “You can’t hide anything from me, Connor Murphy. I know you too well.”

“You don’t know anything, dumbass,” he grumbled half-heartedly, and I felt him lean forward to press his face into my hair. “You don’t know shit.”

“So you’re lying to me?” I baited with a smile, tapping his chest, feeling his frustrated sigh and rewarding him with a light laugh. “I didn’t think so. I’m here for you, you know.”

“I know,” he growled, sighing heavily, taking one hand off my back to push his hair away, before letting me go entirely to roll onto his back. His thin fingers covered his face, the black fingernails scratching frustratedly against his pale face. “I just–I don’t, I don’t know how to–shit.”

I leaned forward to tap his chest again, letting him know I was here. “Just talk it out. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

He shocked me by reaching forward with one hand, knotting his fingers with my own and letting them linger against his chest. I was grateful he couldn’t make out my expression from his position, grateful for the fact he couldn’t feel my face flush. I’d never been this close with a boy in my life, and Connor knew that. He wasn’t being fair, and I was sure he knew that too.

Unless he didn’t. Connor had a bad habit of selling himself short. I bit back the urge to press a kiss to his bony knuckles.

“I know,” he whispered, voice suddenly hoarse. He was worse than I thought. “Um, it’s harder now? I guess. I trust you–I mean, I always trusted you. It’s um, it’s harder because the anonymity is gone, I guess? I’m worried now that you know who I am–what I am–you’re gonna get bored of me?”

I didn’t laugh this time. His voice was thick and rapid as if he couldn’t hold back the word vomit, like he’d been holding it back for a while. My own throat felt thick, and I couldn’t contain the guilty feeling in my stomach. I rolled forward, wrapping my arms around his thin waist, feeling his hip bone press against mine sharply. I was careful not to look at his face–it’d shut him down for sure.

“Connor…I need you just as much as you need me, you know that right?” I whispered, trying too hard not to let him hear the panic in my voice.

“I know,” he rasped shallowly, sounding oddly wet. He was crying, I realized stupidly. My heart constricted in my chest, my stomach dropping. He was in pain and I had barely noticed. This was all my fault.

“And even if I didn’t need to vent, if I didn’t need your support, I’d still talk to you because I like you, Connor. You’re my friend. You’re a good person,” I whispered.

“Shut up.”

“You are,” I continued. “You’re a great person and you’re always looking after me, even when you’re hurt. I’m so sorry you’re hurting, Connor, I’m so sorry I didn’t notice–”

“I’m not hurting! Shut up!”

“Shhhh,” I hushed, sitting up to remind him to be quiet. “You’re parents are gonna–”

His face was red. His nose and lips were swollen, wet, and his cheeks, flecked with silver freckles glowing lightly in the moonlight beam he laid in, and there were tear tracks running from the corners of his eyes.

“Connor,” I cried softly, reaching up to wipe his cheek. “Please–”

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he sobbed wetly, hands folding up to cover his face. “Just fucking get out, okay? This was a mistake.”

“Hey, hey,” I soothed frantically, reaching up to pet his hair, hoping that it might make him unfold himself. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong. I’m gonna help, Connor, whatever you need. I want to help you, please.”

“I’m not your responsibility, kid, okay? You can leave. Stop looking at me, Christ.”

“No,” I sighed. “Look, if you don’t wanna talk, that’s okay. That’s okay. Just, let me stay, okay? I’m not judging you, I’m not gonna leave, I promise. I’m here for you. Let me be your friend.”

He shook underneath me, holding in sharp sobs. I wondered how long it’s been since he let himself fall apart like this, let himself have some kind of catharsis, let himself feel, period.

This relapse was good. It was under control. I was here. I had him.

“Okay,” he whispered finally, reaching up to tangle his hands in my hair. “Christ, just–don’t tell anyone, okay? Don’t laugh.”

“I won’t,” I promised. “I’m not. I’m here, okay? You don’t have to talk.”

“Okay. Okay…thanks.”

I might have imagined it, as I lowered my head back to his chest, might have imagined in between the soft presses of his fingers as they moved in and out of my, might have imagined, just briefly, the feeling of his lips pressed against my hair.

———-

The next morning was awkward. My parents and siblings showed no knowledge of the fact I’d snuck out to see Connor last night–it wasn’t as if they weren’t aware we were friends, to my parents chagrin and the Murphys’ delight, but I didn’t need them to think we were involved in some sort of torrid tryst, especially one we weren’t even having.

I left a few hours after Connor had slowly ceased his wet and much needed lament and his breathing had turned into a soft snore. I untangled myself from his arms, and leaned back for awhile to watch him sleep, tried to ignore how angelic he looked, red faced and weepy with silver freckles glowing mutely in the patch of moonbeam.

I’d sent him a quick text to let him know I wanted to return before my parents woke up, let him know I’d be by the next day. Told him to  message me if he wanted to talk again.

Now I was waiting for my mother to finish grading my papers for the day so I could to see Connor, who didn’t have school today thanks to some silly teacher institute, lucky loser. The American school system was a joke, to be quite honest.

“You’re jumpy,” my mother noted, scribbling something in the margins of my paper without looking up at me.

“I was gonna ask if I could go over to the Murphy’s? I haven’t talked to Zoe in a long time,” I asked sheepishly, scratching at my arm.

“And Connor, hmm?” My mother hummed thoughtfully, giving a smirk to my workbook.

“Connor’s cool,” I said honestly, nonetheless feeling a guilty lump rise in my throat.

“He’s a good boy,” she mused. “He always helps me with groceries if he’s outside.”

“Which is never,” muttered one of the younger kids, earning a kick under the table from me. My mom just smiled softly.

“Go ahead, honey. Call if you’re going to be longer than an hour.”

I thanked her, nearly sprinting out the door, my twin braids slapping against my back as I skipped between the yards. Zoe was at the door before I knocked, leading me into the kitchen, announcing me loudly in a way that would’ve earned a talking to at my house.

Cynthia appeared in the doorway, looking radiant, albeit a bit tired. Her face smiled brightly at me.

“Honey! It’s so good to see you, it’s been so long since you’ve stayed for dinner–Larry, tell Connor she’s here!–Zoe’s missed you, you should stay the night, right Zoe?–Larry, call Connor–Would that be alright with your parents? Stay for dinner then stay the night? I can run out and rent some movies and snag a pizza–Larry!”

Zoe just rolled her eyes, yanking me down the steps past her mother and into the basement. Her grip on my arm was vice like, almost painful and definitely excessive. Her pretty red hair blew up in my face, making the already dark room even harder to see through the haze of her auburn locks. She practically shoved me onto the couch, following me by slamming down beside me.

“Zoe–”

“I saw you last night.”

My pulse hammered in my throat, and I felt all the blood rush swiftly to my face, making me dizzy.

“What?”

“I saw you. I told Mom. I don’t think Dad–”

“What do you mean?” I gasped, throwing my hands between us. Zoe blinked rapidly.

“You and Connor. In the shed. Last night. Christ, it was only ten, you could’ve been sneaky about it–”

“Zoe, we didn’t do anything,” I pleaded. God, if the Murphys knew, they’d tell my parents–

“You don’t really expect me to believe that, do you?” She sighed, pushing her hair back out of her eyes. “Whatever, okay? You don’t have to tell me, I don’t give a shit as long as you aren’t pregnant. Just–because you’re my friend, I want you to know some things. Are you gonna listen?”

I thought better than to argue with Zoe, so I nodded shyly.

“Look, I know you and Connor are friends. That’s fine, whatever. But you don’t see Connor at school. You don’t see Connor here, not really. Not what he’s like when you aren’t here.”

I felt my heart constrict. She was going to try to convince me to stop talking to Connor.

“He’s mean. You don’t think it’s weird you’re his only friend? He’s a bully. He’s lazy. He’s violent, Christ–he’s my brother, I love him. But you shouldn’t…you shouldn’t take him seriously, okay? One day his temper is gonna flip and you’re gonna be in his way.”

I blinked, stunned that Zoe would say something so slanderous about her own brother.

“I don’t understand,” I said softly, staring across at her. It was no wonder Connor was so upset, why he had to reach out to strangers on the Internet to vent. His own home was a war zone.

Zoe sighed heavily. “You aren’t at school. You don’t hear the rumors. You don’t see the things he does. If you wanna be friends, fine, but…be careful. I wouldn’t let him anywhere near your heart.”

I didn’t argue with Zoe–I thought better of it. So I just nodded.

“Thanks for, um. Thanks for the warning,” I said with a thick voice, struggling to maintain sincerity.

“You’re welcome,” she sighed. “Mom thinks you’re dating. She’s over the moon. It’s disgusting.”

“I thought you thought we were dating,” I pried, raising an eyebrow. Zoe rolled her eyes, hitting me with a deadpan expression.

“As if Connor could ever get someone like you. As if Connor could even feel something remotely close to love–I’m half convinced his chest is an icebox,” she laughed dryly.

“Talking about me, are we?”

We both spun, wide eyed to see Connor on the stairs, arms folded.

“No, go ahead, I’ll wait. I love hearing stories about myself. Tell me again Zoe about how I’m in love with her?” He hissed, making my face burn red in shame. I felt awful for letting Zoe talk about him that way–worse because Connor made it painful clear he didn’t reciprocate any feelings I might’ve had for him.

Wait. I didn’t have feelings. Connor was a friend. A good friend. A friend who needs me and who doesn’t deserve to be taken advantage of, not until he’s okay. Not ever.

“Never said that,” Zoe said with a smirk, rising from the couch gracefully. “But keep digging your grave, it’s fun to watch.”

“Fuck you,” he growled.

“Fuck you,” she grinned. “I’d love to watch your train wreck love admission, Titanic is on, and at least that story has a happy ending.”

Connor kept a white knuckled grip on the banister as she passed, as if holding in an urge to push her. He kept his blazing eyes downcast, and noted his pale cheeks were burning red.

“What’d she tell you?” He whispered once the door slammed.

“Nothing true,” I promised, leaning forward on the couch to make room for him, patting the seat beside me. “Nothing that changed my mind.”

His head snapped up, and I watched his expression go from rage to disbelief to awe before he descended the stairs, shaking. He stopped before the couch, as if scared to come near me, staring down in awe.

“What did my mom say to you?”

I shook my head. “Not much. She asked if I could spend the night. Only if you want me to, though.”

He laughed, but the smile didn’t quite reach his face. “Only if I want you to, Christ, where did I find you?”

“The Internet,” I reminded, earning another laugh.

“Of course I want you to,” he sighed, finally coming to sit beside me. “Of course I want–”

He cut himself off, surprising me, before slinging an arm around my shoulder. I stiffened, but eventually melted against him, reminding myself that it was just Connor.

“You wanna watch a movie? I hear they’re playing Titanic or something.”

——

It’s two am when I wake up, taking a quick mental assessment of where I am. There’s a soft blue glow burning my eyes, shining over what appears to be a nest of blankets piled roughly on the floor.

The Murphy’s basement, I realized with a jolt, I’m just at the Murphy’s.

I’m in a pair of Connor’s pajamas–Zoe’s clothes don’t quite fit me right–an oversized black shirt and a pair of sweats Cynthia brought down in a laundry hamper. My braids have long since come loose, the desperate curls tangling wildly around my head.

Beside me, Zoe is snoring, almost comically, every so often a nostril whistles in time to the soft sound of Dexter’s Lab playing on the tv.

There’s a hand, dangling just above my head. The pale fingers were curved artistically, the nails too short as if they’ve been bitten recently and the black nail polish chipped hopelessly. It’s attached to an arm, long and thin, almost angular, and up farther is a shoulder, bare, pressed against a red coffee stained couch.

Connor.

“You’re awake,” he whispered in a conspiratory voice, but when I sat up to make contact, there’s no sly smirk. He’s frowning. “You are having trouble sleeping.”

I shook my head. “Stop worrying about me, Connor.”

“No,” he rasped, sitting up on the couch. I avoided looking too long at his bare chest, but regardless indulged nonetheless.

“You haven’t been sleeping,” I noted, coming to sit by him on the couch. He immediately opened the blanket, giving me room to slide in beside him, before throwing it around both of us so we could settle back against the couch. His bare skin was warm, and I let him take both my hands between his, letting him rub my hands between his in an attempt at some warmth.

“Been thinking too much,” he sighed softly. “Don’t worry about it.”

I swallowed, beginning to feel the effects of sleeplessness and helplessness melt together in a fatal concoction.

“I can’t help if you don’t let me, Connor,” I reminded him, pressing closer. “Let me help. What are you thinking about?”

He leaned away, as if I’d burned him, dropping my hands into his lap and looking away, the thin muscle of his cheeks hollowing as he clenched his jaw. “Can’t say.”

“Connor,” I pleaded. “Please let me help. I want to. I’m begging.”

“No,” he growled. I felt tears beginning to build, to my own horror, behind my eyes.

“Connor, can you just–”

“You.”

It was an explosion. We both froze, turning in horror to glance at Zoe, waiting to breathe until we heard the soft whistle of her nose again. I turned slowly, terrified back to Connor. His eyes were wide, and if I didn’t have my fingers wrapped around his knee, I swore he might try to run.

“Me?” I asked softly, careful not to wake Zoe. Connor pursed his lips, his jaw twitching nervously.

“Fuck, yes, you, just–shit, I didn’t wanna say that–”

I leaned away, watching Connor’s face contort farther.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered heatedly. “I’m sorry if I did something wrong. You want me to go, right? I’m really sorry, Connor–”

“What?” He nearly yelled. “You think–fuck.”

His head ducked, to my great surprise, against my shoulder, pressing his face into the crook of my neck and, of all things, began to laugh.

“Connor–”

“You think–Christ, it’s like you aren’t even real. You think I’m mad at you?”

He pulled away, his face no longer red or swollen, just smiling softly at me, almost awe struck, and staring intently with his slate eyes.

“I…I’m not sure?” I whispered, but not feeling at all nervous when Connor snaked his hands gently up my arms again.

“You’re perfect,” he whispered suddenly, shocking me. “And you have no idea that you’re perfect. Christ.”

I frowned. “Connor. I don’t…I don’t think I understand.”

But he was still looking at me–eyes scanning slowly over my face, landing suddenlyhalf-lidded on my lips, and it suddenly all clicked into place. Why Zoe would warn me. Why Cynthia acted the way she did. Why Connor was so scared in the first place.

I remember Zoe saying how over the moon Mrs. Murphy was at the idea of Connor and I dating–because that meant Connor would have me. It meant Connor would be happy.

It meant I would have Connor.

It was like a sudden dam had broken open inside me, filling me with more revelations as Connor’s hands lifted to cup the back of my head, his eyes soft, scared, and asking as they met mine. I let a quick exhale before I surged forward, slamming out mouths together much too forcefully, and not at all enjoyably.

I laughed–much too loud–but Connor kept back to the task at hand, his eyes closed in concentration, swallowing my outburst and folding me against his (very, very bare) chest and kissing me deeper, slower. It was painfully obvious he didn’t know what he was doing, but so much about the kiss was still tender and important, warming me from my core outward until I was scratching to wind my arms around him, getting him as close to me as I possibly could, kissing back to make sure he knew how much I wanted this. How much I wanted him.

How much I needed him. Anything he needed, I’d give him. Now and forever and–

“If you two are gonna fuck, can you do it in the bathroom or something? I’m trying to sleep.”

Connor and I pulled apart–causing me to stumble backwards against the arm of the couch gracelessly and staring at Zoe as she rolled over with her back to us.

I dared a peek back at Connor, whose lips were pink and wet despite their dry skin splitting with the force of his wide, wide smile.  His eyes were glowing brightly, almost burning as he raked them over me. The flannel blanket was pooled behind his back where it had been wrapped around us, and he just simply opened his arms again, inviting me back. His pale chest–pock marked with freckles, clusters on his ribs–was striped with pink lines from where my fingers had raked in a desperate attempt to give him validation.

I crawled forward, pressing my face against his neck in a hazy attempt to bring my breathing back to a normal speed.

“You okay?” I asked, running my fingertips over his shoulders, fighting the urge to word vomit an unholy collection of questions about who and what we were. Connor Murphy, post kiss. Connor Murphy, still life, smiling with wet, swollen, bloody lips. Connor Murphy standing at the edge of happiness, jumps over the ledge.

He nodded against me, fighting with his own dark curls where they made an attempt to cloud my cheeks in an adoring way. Cute, I decided.

“Okay? I’m,” he sighed, laughing and wrapping his arms around me to squeeze tightly. “I’m…you have no idea.”

“Better than nudes?” I teased. He snorted, embarrassed.

“I’m positive. Although–”

I hit him.

“Okay, kidding! Jeez…” he pulled away, cupping my face lightly, pushing the hair back out of my eyes like I was a child. It felt fantastic, he was right, as I searched through the galaxies in his eyes, his pale skin illuminated by the hazy blue glow of the television. It felt so far past amazing, being held like I was the only person he knew how to see. He cleared his throat, and I saw his eyes were brimming with an emotion I couldn’t name.

“You, uh,” he laughed nervously under his breath. “You have to know I love you.”

It was a startling blow, knocking all the air out of me and forced a bubbling laugh to fly out of my lungs. Connor’s smile wavered slightly, so I popped up to press a soft kiss to the cleft of his chin.

“I know,” I sighed, giddy with the realization it was true. “I know. And you know I trust you more than anyone. You know I love you.”

It was like watching him crack open, the way all the uncertainty was cleared from his face, a wave of joy and triumph.

“You love me?” He asked so softly, so awestruck, I felt my heart shake in my chest. I’d barely started to nod before he surged forward to kiss me again, small and chaste pecks across my face and neck, the bridge of my nose, my temples.

He was okay. We were okay. We were going to be just fine.

[drunkenvigors]

These are kinda therapeutic for me (I’m going to skip some of them cause there’s a lot though!) sorry if you somehow know me irl and see this

1: How tall or short do you wish you were? I would love to be at least 5’6

2: What’s your dream pet? (Real or not) I already have my dream pets and I love them with my entire being

3: Do you have a favorite clothing style? No I switch between so many I never look the same lmao

4: What was your favorite video game growing up? Don’t make me answer this it’s too hard to think of, nextttt.

5: What three things/people do you think of most each day: 8:30pm (my fave time of day), mashed potatoes, and the rest of my brain goes into oblivion idk

6: If you had a warning label, what would yours say? I care too much or not at all there’s no inbetween beware I could scare u off or piss u off take ur pick

9: Are you ticklish? Everywhere on me is ticklish unfortunately but you can get a free pass to tickle me for 1min if I think you’re cute, otherwise take ya hands off the merchandise stupid bitch.

10: Are you allergic to anything? Being social

11: What’s your sexuality? I am pansexual but due to being bullied about it I tell everyone I’m Bi.

12: Do you prefer tea, coffee, or cocoa? This is a choice nobody should have to make.

13: Are you a cat or dog person? I am a regular person that loves them both

14: Would you rather be a vampire, elf, or merperson? Short enough to pass as an elf so why not 🧝‍♀️

15: Do you have a favorite Youtuber? David Dobrik, hes entertainment for when I’m eating snacks

16: How tall are you? Mind ya business.. 5feet...

17: If you had to change your name, what would you change it to? Tee, that’s what I go by anyways so considered it changed

19: Do you believe in ghosts/spirits? Yes and no.

20: Do you like space or the ocean more? How about neither because they’re big cluster fucks of the unknown and that in itself is terrifying

22: Pet peeves? Letting me get attached and talking to me then leaving me hanging without any fucking explanation like um lmao you suck

23: Would you rather be nocturnal or diurnal [opposite of nocturnal]? I’m nocturnal for sure

24: Favorite constellation? Dis pussy

25: Favorite star? Ur moms pussy

26: Do you like ball-jointed dolls? This sounds sexual

27: Any phobias or fears? Too many dots/holes in the same area, I’ll actually vomit.

28: Do you think global warming is real? OBVIOUSLY

29: Do you believe in reincarnation? Eeeehhhh I guess. I believe in a lot of different theories that I’ve thought of myself, I don’t care what other people think about these things because I’d like to stay true to my own thoughts.

30: Favorite movie? Spirited Away

31: Do you get scared easily? Not really

32: How many pets have you own in your lifetime? Too much math brb

34: What is a color that calms you? Red yay

35: Where would you like to travel and/or live? ... don’t make me say it because I won’t

36: Where were you born? In a Jesus piece praise

37: What is your eye color? Poop

38: Introvert or extrovert? Both depending on the day

39: Do you believe in horoscopes and zodiacs? Yea & if you don’t we probably won’t get along very well

40: Hugs or kisses? I’m definitely a hugger

41: Who is someone you would like to see/visit right now? There’s a very kind soul I’m dying to meet

42: Who is someone you love deeply? Tiger (my cat)

43: Any piercings you want? My bridge

44: Do you like tattoos and piercings? This is hilarious if you’ve never seen me before

45: Do you smoke or have you eiver done so? No smh are u kidding me that shits for the birds ya’heard weed will kill ya ;’(

46: Talk about your crush, if you have one! Godddd fucking DAMN he is so nice to me. Better than the stupid fuck people I tried to take care of around my area. These circumstances really suck.

47: What is a sound you really hate? There’s a couple people in mind that when they talk I would love to just shove a sock down their throat

48: A sound you really love? A skateboard on the pavement

49: Can you do a backflip? Fuk off maybe I’ll try to after doing this post

50: Can you do the splits? Used to

51: Favorite actor and/or actress? Myself when I need to get out of certain situations due to excessive anxiety but not wanting to show my real emotions, you feel?

53: How are you feeling right now? Would be better if I wasn’t here rn

54: What color would you like your hair to be right now? Exactly how it is

55: When did you feel happiest? When I get attention from the person I want it from, stupid romantic bullshit that doesn’t even matter

56: Something that calms you down? Probably my sister because we can laugh anything off together and I mean ANYTHING

57: Have any mental disorders? I can’t count them all on one hand

58: What does your URL mean? It’s from a hopsin song and Bioshock infinite. Good luck figuring it out

59: What three words describe you the most? Confusing, loud, quiet, and I’ll add one more, contradiction

60: Do you believe in evolution? Well.. how do you think we’re humans rn, we came from monkeys or whatever

61: What makes you unfollow a blog? If they post stupid ads or things that’ll try to pursue you into doing something

62: What makes you follow a blog? If it fits my aesthetic

63: Favorite kind of person: funny

64: Favorite animal(s): 🐨

66: Favorite emoticon: 🖤

67: Favorite meme: disgusteng

69: What is your star sign? TAURUS BAAAABYYYY 😍

70: Can your dog roll over on command, if you have a dog? No but I can so wassup dâddÿ

71: What outfit out of all your clothes do you like to wear the most? I have too many to pick

72: Post a selfie or two? How about no because I’m ugly lmao tf

73: Do you have platform shoes? NO I SHOULD GET SOME TBH

74: What is one random but interesting fact about yourself? I’ve pissed myself while drunk too many times to count, do as you wish with this information because I find it hilarious & I’m glad I don’t have an alcohol problem anymore lol

75: Can you do a front flip? Actually, yes, yes I can

76: Do you like birds? Don’t hate me for this but no I really don’t

77: Do you like to swim? Yessss

78: Is swimming or ice skating more fun to you? Ice skating

79: Something you wish didn’t exist: trump

80: Some thing you wish did exist: a green sky and a purple moon

81: Piercings you have? Lip, nose, ears, nipple (yes only one of them lmao)

82: Something you really enjoy doing: sucking my own dick for attention

83: Favorite person to talk to: myself in the mirror

84: What was your first impression of Tumblr? Idk I was so young when I made this blog I can’t recall

85: How many followers do you have? Idk does it even matter

86: Can you run a mile within ten minutes? I smoke far too many cigarettes for that

87: Do your socks always match? Never

88: Can you touch your toes and keep your legs straight completely? No wtf you thought I was fit? Nexxxttt

89: What are your birthstones? Emerald

90: If you were an animal, which one would you be? Koala

91: If a flower could aesthetically represent you, what kind would it be? Lillies, sunflowers, or buttercup flowers

92: A store you hate? Aerocrombie or however you fuckin spell it

93: How many cups of coffee can you drink in one day? 6 or 7

94: Would you rather be able to fly or read minds? Read minds but I would probably end up killing myself knowing all the bad things people think of me

95: Do you like to wear camo? Sometimes

96: Winter or summer? Summer

97: How long can you hold your breath for? 326183621

98: Least favorite person? Andrew lol fuck you.

99: Someone you look up to: my homies that have passed away, I look up to them every day

100: A store you love? I like to order things

101: Favorite type of shoes? VANS

102: Where do you live? Doesn’t matter smh

103: Are you a vegetarian or vegan? If so, why? Nnnooo

104: What is your favorite mineral or gem? Shiet

105: Do you drink milk? Milk drinks me glug glug bitch

106: Do you like bugs? NAH

107: Do you like spiders? NEGATIVE

108: Something you get paranoid about? Crack

109: Can you draw: if I try

110: Nosiest question you have ever been asked? Mannnnn idk

111: A question you hate being asked? Anything about my dead homies makes me at least a little uncomfortable

112: Ever been bitten by a spider? No

113: Do you like the sound of waves at the beach? Obviously

114: Do you prefer cloudy or sunny days? Sunny but not burning hot sunny u feel me

115: Someone you’d like to kiss or cuddle right now: who told u this information

THIS IS LONG

120: Fruits or vegetables? Fruit salad perhaps

121: Something you want to do right now: Get tf out of here

122: Is the ocean or sky prettier? Sky for sure

123: Sweet or sour foods? I eat sweets to confuse the demons inhabiting this body

124: Bright or dim lights? Dimmadomedim

125: Do you believe in a certain magical creature? Bitch u really thought dragons aren’t real

126: Something you hate about Tumblr: everyone is so sensitive bro then y’all gang up and bully someone for something so small & meaningless as if you have nothing better to do with yourselves

127: Something you love about Tumblr: nobody really knows me here & if you do then hey hi wassup I trust you 🖤

128: What do you think about the least? Sheesh I have adhd next question please

129: What would you want written on your tombstone? She was a bitch but she was a lit bitch

130: Who would you like to punch in the face right now? Fuck violence

131: What is something you love but also hate about yourself? My mind

132: Do you smile with your teeth showing for pictures? Ehhhhh on occasion

133: Computer or TV? Tv

134: Do you like roller coasters? Naaah son

135: Do you get motion sickness or seasickness? No

136: Are your ears lobed or attached? Lobed thank god

137: Do you believe in karma? HAH YES, she been slacking though💀👀

138: On a scale of 1-10, how attractive would you say you are? 3 tbh

139: What nicknames do you have/have had? People used to call me gauges and I am so glad that stage is over

140: Did you have any pretend or imaginary friends? Oh, you mean schizophrenia because yes

141: Have you ever seen a therapist/shrink? For years, then I dipped out because I know I can’t be cured from mental instability

142: Would you say you are a good or bad influence to others? Bad bad baaaad yikes

143: Do you prefer giving or receiving gifts/help? Giving

144: What makes you angry? When people play with me or attention seeking people, I really hate some of y’all cry baby asses fr

145: How many languages do you speak fluently? one sadly

146: Do you prefer boys, girls, and/or non-binaries? All of the above

147: Are you androgynous? Have you seen me because lmao

148: Favorite physical thing about yourself: I can’t even pick one because I genuinely hate myself and how I look

149: Favorite thing about your personality: my what now 💀

150: Name three people you would like to talk to right now in person: Jeremy McKinnon I want to tell him thank you. That’s it I guess

151: If you could go back into time and live in one era, which would you choose? Um probably none

152: Do you like BuzzFeed? Oooooofff I used to years ago but shit I’m over it now

153: How did you meet your spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/partner? [If you have one.] my what

154: Do you like to kiss others’ foreheads or hands for platonic reasons? NO I AM NOT THE MOM FRIEND

155: Do you like to play with others’ hair? Not unless you’re my actual partner and even then I don’t really like to

156: What embarrasses you? Being outside

157: Something that makes you nervous/anxious: speaking/existing

158: Biggest lie you have ever told: I love you

159: How many people are you following? Idk prob a lot

160: How many posts do you have on your blog(s)? I’ve had this since I was 12 or something I really don’t know

161: How many drafts do you have on your blog(s)? IDFKKK

162: How many likes do you have on your blog(s)? WHAT

[ponyregrets]

Is there any way you can do a Clarke POV for "No One Can Lift the Damn Thing" please? (I was going through your fics and was listing all the ones I would want an Alt-POV for, and they all involved Bellamy as James Potter, wow I have A Type.)

I feel kinda bad calling this a Clarke POV but whatev I had fun I like social media AUs

Original fic and alt POV on AO3!!

Raven: Just got my invite to Finn and Ontari's weddingYou?

Me: NopeDo you think they flipped a coin?Or she just gave him an ultimatum?LikeYou can invite one of your awkward exesBut only oneChoose wisely

Raven: Honestly, I'm guessing he never actually told his mom why we broke upAnd given the choice between telling her he cheated on me and I dumped his assAnd just inviting me to his weddingHe invited me to his wedding

Me: Yeah, that's definitely what happenedAre you going to go?

Raven: YupGot a hot girlfriendI like his parentsAnd I want him to feel awkward about shitToo bad he didn't invite you

Me: I really don't mindI feel like I dodged a bullet

Raven: You could have brought BellamyFinn was jealous of him BEFORE he was famous for being hotImagine how much he'd hate seeing you guys together now

Me: You know, I was going to say Bellamy has better things to do than go to a wedding just to piss off FinnBut then I remembered this is Bellamy we're talking aboutSo he'd probably do it

Raven: Yeah, I doubt fame changed him that muchSucks that you're not coming, thoughWe should get together soon

Me: Maybe I'll just come hang out in townCoincidentally

Raven: I know you're joking, but you shouldI bet Monty and Miller are going

Me: I'll think about it

*

supreme-girl-wonder posted: do you ever get amazed that people you went to college with are now getting married and have lives and seem to know what they're doing?? I think I might have the most competent group of college friends ever, it's really intimidating

but congrats to my cheating ex-boyfriend on his engagement and thanks for not inviting me to the wedding

Tagged: #no seriously #thanks #I really did not want to go #it would be awkward af but if he invited me I'd feel like I had to go #or else they were winning #glad I don't have to worry about that #I can just get drunk in the comfort of my own home instead

*

Bellamy: Did you book your hotel for Finn's wedding yet?What days are you going to be there?

Me: Hahaha that's cuteYou think Finn invited me to his wedding

Bellamy: He didn't?He invited me

Me: You're rich and famous

Bellamy: So are you, princessAre we calling you that again? Did we reclaim it from Finn?

Me: I prefer Supreme Leader nowI'm rich, but I'm not featured in tumblr gif setsPeople commission me to do fanart of you

Bellamy: And you haven't sent it to me?I thought we were friends, Clarke

Me: Is James/Sirius a pairing you're into?

Bellamy: Obviously

Me: Then I'll send you some links

Bellamy: AwesomeFinn really didn't invite you to the wedding?

Me: He used to hit on me in front of the woman he's now marryingWhile they were datingShe hated meOf course they didn't invite meThey'd probably keel over and die if I showed upRelated: Did you get a plus one?

Bellamy: YeahI was planning to get them really excited thinking I was bringing some famous actress or something and then I show up with Octavia

Me: Or you could show up with me

Bellamy: Yeah, that's a way better ideaSo, what nights do you want me to book the hotel?

*

Anonymous asked: do u know if bellamy blake has a gf????

supreme-girl-wonder answered: why would you ask me, a fanart blog, this

*

Bellamy: Is it weird that I feel bad flying first class?

Me: DefinitelyBut you're famous nowI assume you can afford a therapist to talk you through these issues

Bellamy: Why would I pay someone when you took that one psych course sophomore year?

Me: Good pointBad how?

Bellamy: Guilty, mostlyIt feels like such a waste of moneyBut holy shit it's so much nicerI feel bad for everyone who isn't in first class

Me: I'm flying coach soFuck you

Bellamy: I don't feel bad for you

Me: Wow, you're curedI'm better at this therapy thing than I thought

Bellamy: Ha ha.I hope the tone came across thereAnyway, I don't feel bad for you because you're richI assume you flew first class when you were a kidAlso I have to switch to airplane modeYou're boarding soon?

Me: Pretty soon, yeah

Bellamy: CoolSee you in Ohio

Me: Can't wait

*

siriusly-jily: omgkarakaradid u see the new bellamy pics????

supreme-girl-wonder: probably notI'm out of town for the weekendand pretty drunkwhat happened?

siriusly-jily: he's at some airport in ohioidk why, there aren't any cons or anythingwhat's in ohio????

supreme-girl-wonder: maybe he has a lifein ohiofor some reason

siriusly-jily: no wayactors exist only for our benefit :Panyway, he's got a gf :(people are saying it's clarke griffinthe vp's daughter

supreme-girl-wonder: wowam I just drunk or is that a lot of conclusions to jump to

siriusly-jily: check it outhttp://remus-lupin-lady.tumblr.com/post/138742714390/omg-omg-omgthere's more of him with fans but lbrthat's A LOT of huggingand I googled, it does look like the VP's daughter

supreme-girl-wonder: if they were dating they probably wouldn't be having their reunion in an airport in ohiojust saying

siriusly-jily: truuuuuuuuuuuuuuokay I gotta go to bedhave fun with whatever thing you're doing

supreme-girl-wonder: will dokeep me posted on Bellamy pics

*

Jasper: did you really bring FAMOUS ACTOR AND KNOWN DREAM BOAT BELLAMY BLAKE to this wedding???

Me: NopeHe brought me

Jasper: ohwellthat was my second guessgrats on landing a celebritybut I guess you're a celebrity too???so it makes sense

Me: You must be this famous to ride Are you coming over for video games?

Jasper: yes obvomw

*

Anonymous asked: omg kara do you follow m&m media??? they posted pix of them w bellamy and the vp's daughter??? apparently they're engaged??? im so heartbroken rn plz help

supreme-girl-wonder answered: Don't panic, anon! M&M have said they went to college with him like ten billion times. Quick google search says VP's daughter did too. So they're probably at a reunion or something. And let's be real, if you were posing for a picture with him, you'd want to be as close as possible too.

*

Raven: SooooooYou took off early last night

Me: Not THAT earlyWe danced a bunchI think Bellamy made a lot of dreams come true

Raven: Including yours?Seriously, I can't believe you never fucked him

Me: I was going to, but his mom diedBetter late than never, right?

Raven: [confetti emoji]Seriously I'm happy for you guysOne-time thing or?

Me: NoDefinitely notWe're going to try to dateIf we can make it workAnd if nothing elseNon-stop sex for the rest of the weekend

Raven: Well, we're doing breakfast in an hourSo make sure you come up for air so we can make fun of you

Me: You make it sound so funGetting breakfastInstead of having sex with my TV star boyfriend

Raven: One hourIf you're not there I'm going to break into your hotel room and post pics on tumblr

Me: OkaySee you in an hour

Raven: [kiss emoji]

*

natsukashii-na asked: Random question but do you have a gf now?? You've been reblogging some couple-y stuff and I was just wondering haha sorry if that's weird

supreme-girl-wonder answered: Boyfriend, actually! Bisexuality: it's awesome. But yeah, we've been together for about a month and it's going really well. Long distance right now but I'm moving in with him in a couple weeks. I'm really excited.

Tagged: #I know that sounds fast but #trust me #it definitely took us long enough

*

Anonymous asked: doesn't your bf mind that you're really into bellamy blake :/

supreme-girl-wonder answered: He'll live.

[survivorkvaloya]

Episode #2: “I Feel Like I Robbed Whoever Gets Reward This Challenge and I Love It“ - Colin

New tribe? With friends on it? And Jules? Let the fucking slaughtering revenge happen! 2 fucking years later I'm COMING for you! She and Brett can't even answer multiple PMs throughout this week but talk hella in the tribe chats. OFF with their heads!

Hi I'm Jackson and this is my first Confessional. So far I've talked to what feels like a lot of people, but I suppose it isn't everyone yet. My original tribe was really great, so it kinda sucks that I'm not with any of them anymore, but it does give me the opportunity to lay back and let some of the mentors do the dirty work (including my own, Ryan). On the original Ersfjorden, I was pretty close with Chelsea and Lily. We were pretty prepared to work together in the case of us losing immunity, and I really hope we get to work together again if the tribes swap or merge. Jack I also had talked with, and we had some cool shared interests, but to be honest, I think he's a threat that I would like to get out of the game. I'm not sure what he got by winning Into the Box but I'm almost certain he got something and I'm salty he didn't tell me about it. Lauren wasn't super active and I was willing to throw her under the bus if we lost, but in the future she could be a good ally because I don't think she plays super aggressively. The second iteration of Ersfjorden doesn't have any of the people I'm super excited about working with (Chelsea/Lily/Quilynn) which worried me originally, but I think my mentor has things under control. He's talked about getting rid of Jules if we have to, which sounds just fine to me, as I've gotten bad vibes from her in the One World chat. Andreas and Danielle also seem to be on our side, so I'm pretty sure we can get the numbers. I'm not sure how easy it would be to explain that move to Lily though since she's Jules' student... I hope she wouldn't hold it against me. Because to be honest, if someone wanted to take Ryan out when I wasn't there to stop them, I wouldn't be super mad. I want the newbies to be in charge - that's my end goal. Anyway, Zoe got voted out, which is slightly disappointing because clearly she wouldn't have been a threat, but oh well. It's nice to know I'm not the first boot. Okay I hope this is long enough. I have to get going on this weird cookie challenge...

WOOOO OKAY SO my ass was just being bored, looking thru the TS wiki, admiring my wiki page and the season page, and OWO WHATS THIS??? A SECRET LINK HIDDEN IN THE COMMENTS ON ONE OF THE TRIBES?? So I click it, right, and its AN IDOL PIECE. I GOT ONE OF THE TWO IDOL PIECES IN THE GAME RN. I feel so accomplished. I didnt even need a clue. Being obsessive pays off huh! anyway with the pieces twist I really wanna find out who has the other piece so we can work together. 

SO I'm telling three people I have the piece. 1. Nicholas bc he's my biggest ally and he's likable, he might know who has the other. 2. JD because she was on my original tribe and I feel like I can trust her, and she had the clue last round so she might have it 3. Brett bc he's my mentor and seems well connected, he might know.

So hi! Sorry I suck and didn't write a confessional until right now. So I should have a lot to say. 1. My OG tribe was lit. Lauren and Jackson killed the challenge and won it for us. I was also shook that I was able to get us a point on that damn cat game. 2. I get along really well with Jackson. Potential FTC partner? Maybe? But also he is a strong player and I may not want to take him to the end. 3 tribe swap. But the HECKIE. I was not prepared but lucky that three people from my OG tribe and I get along well with QuilLynn and Christine is her mentor so I seem to be in a pretty good place on this new tribe. 3. Fuxk the cookie game. I hope our weird strategy of only giving cookies to two people works well. Cause otherwise we are fucked. 4. Gage is on my tribe too and I love him 5. Sad that Jules my mentor isn't on my tribe but I can managed without her I hope. 

after the swap I feel like i'm being very vocal in my tribe and really trying to contribute to our challenge, but I am slightly worried it might rub people the wrong way, specifically the mentors. I don't want them thinking I'm trying to take charge or be a leader, because i'm really not, but at the same time nobody else is really giving anything and we can't just go into every challenge blind. I'm trying to work together some agreement - not necessarily an alliance- between me, willow, gage, chelsea and lily for the time being, but again it isn't something i'm really being vocal about and probably wont be until I know we have to go to tribal. I do want to form a solid 6 alliance of me + willow, chelsea + gage, and nicholas + danielle but again it needs to all happen at the right time, and i'd rather the mentors (aka willow) be the ones that form it. 

Mission 1 of me and my student not being first boot has been accomplished! I'm super happy with the results and I'm interest to see how the swap works out. Everyone here seems super cool and I'm glad me and Lauren are on the same tribe but I'm a little sad to be separated from Ryan and Liam. This challenge is terrifying though, I think QuilLynn came up with an amazing plan but it could all come downhill if someone blabs so I'm hoping that doesn't happen cause I don't feel too confident going to tribal...Everyone's so vocal and then there's me who's like the silent little lamb of the group so I'm a bit nervous but for now I just hope we win.

Ahhhh why does this challenge have to be so difficult. Literally we had a plan all set up and an hour before the deadline Lily wants to change things up and Lauren is nowhere to be seen. I'm? Stressed. 

So our plan for immunity almost got ruined when lily started getting paranoid about it and a bunch of people started to want to change their guesses to 9. In the end it still worked out thankfully and we'll be safe from tribal. Unfortunately we didn't get the reward so no idol piece for me this time. Ryan says that Lauren has it but honestly I don't believe him I mean she could, If she tells me she doesn't have it I wouldn't believer her either its just I don't actually trust any of the 3 that got the clue. I do know that it was in the comments of one of the tribes on the wikia and the last one was in the tribe rules under a link, so next round even if i don't get the clue I'm still going to try to weasel my way around the blog/wikia/tag around the time of the results reveal so hopefully I can snag it. 

I HAVE GOT SOMETHING TO SAY. JULES, DON'T YOU DARE THROW MY NAME OUT THERE. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED IN INDIA AND IT ENDED POORLY FOR THE O T H E R SIDE. YOU'RE GOING.

Round 2

Tribals I've been to: 2/2 

Tribals I wanna go to: 0

This one is a heck of a lot more stressful than the last. I was talking to Jules last night and we kinda collectively agreed that Liam would be a good vote, so I started to spread that around a lil, just to Andreas and Danielle, then within MINUTES, Liam messages me. Someone is a fucking rat. My gut is telling me Danielle but I really wanna work with Danielle so I hope it aint so! I did my best to resolve that issue with Liam, but now Liam and Ryan are hella pushing for Jules. I don't wanna be anymore involved in this than I already am. I already probably accidentally screwed Jules over. Plus I have an alliance with Andreas and JD and they both want Jules gone. It sucks because Jules is genuinely one of my fave people on this tribe and in the game and I don't wanna vote her out, but she doesnt have the votes to stay without someone trying to flip the votes. She's not trying and I can't risk my game for her. Oh well. Rip Jules, fallen queen. 

I'm pretty sure Jules is going. Thank the lord. 

 Liam thinks it was him who got everyone on board. All I've done is plant the seeds since the game has started, and as soon as I heard Liam's name come up in a conversation I told him about it and he went charging into everyone's PMs tryna get Jules out. Love him.

Connor, making big moves, voting out his own student. Game Changers only!

 Also, for the first time in literally ANY main season, I have an advantage. AMAZING. I found a legacy advantage soooo thats cool! I don't know exactly what it means yet, but I most certainly intend to be the one to use it. If I should get voted out, for what ever reason, I think would give it to Christine, and if she's out, Tuna. I have no intentions of telling anyone about it because literally why would I do that

Okay ill try to make this short and sweet because I have tribal soon so. We swapped tribes and ill still with Danielle but she got Ryan now plus their students so that foursome is gonna run things so im just gonna stick on to them and try to vote with them as much as possible. JD, Colin and I made an alliance and its iconic and i actually like them. I'm trying to pretend like im not around and not giving my all into this game and trying to play UTR for the merge but just work on social game which I believe is working. Jules should be going tonight because Ryan wants her out and I dont wanna create waves because the foursome got Liam on board because she wanted Liam so thats a set 5. Connor is joining our tribe and I hope he goes next because I DONT TRUST HIM!!!! Also Colin told me he has an idol piece teehee

[dmmowers]

No Condemnation

No Condemnation A sermon for Trinity Episcopal Church, Baraboo, Wis. Sixth Sunday After Pentecost | Year A, Track 2 | July 16, 2017 Isaiah 55:10-13 | Psalm 65 | Romans 8:1-11 | Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

My father died six years ago next month. He had a brain aneurysm at age 57 and lived three weeks after that, but never made it out of ICU. That episode, in the middle of 2011, is a significant milestone along the path to finding myself here as your Rector. That's another story. The reason I bring this up this morning is that in the aftermath of his death, I carried his work cell phone around for a couple of days. It was the old kind of flip phone. Raise the antenna, flip it open, tiny screen. I remember my surprise the first time I opened his phone and turned it on. There was space on the top of the screen for a short line of text that my dad had customized, and it said "Romans 8:1". I didn't know what Romans 8:1 was. I had loved the Bible for a number of years, and at times had posted Bible verses around in prominent places where I could see them. Romans 8:1, though, was not one of those verses. So I went and looked it up: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

My father was a good man, but a sinner like the rest of us. He took his failings hard, maybe harder than most people - a trait that I am certain I have inherited from him. More than once growing up my dad would lose his temper, or be short or curt with someone in our family, and then he would go away and come back later and apologize, and I could tell -- even as a teenager who was maybe not so inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt -- that he felt badly about whatever it was he was apologizing for. As a pastor, now, with a lot of experience with this sort of thing, I can look back and guess that the time between when he would walk away and when he would come back and apologize was filled with a lot of voices in his head, berating him for not being good enough as a parent, as a spouse, as a Christian.

And so, when we began to attend the Pentecostal Church where I was formed in high school, the place where I and my dad both learned to love Scripture, I can only imagine the joy that overtook him when he first ran across our passage from Paul's Letter to the Romans this morning. "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." I. This is the good news that we have from God: even though we on our own were unable to cope with the power of Sin and death, God has been faithful to set us free from slavery to sin. We've heard a lot over the last five weeks about the Power of Sin - how it was at work in the world to destroy us, to condemn us, how it came into the world through the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. As a response, God chose Abraham to be the father of a chosen people, Israel, who would receive the Law and live according to it so that they would be a blessing to all nations. But Israel failed over and over to live according to the Law, because the Law was used by the Power of Sin to exploit the weakness of human beings. When you tell a toddler not to touch a stove, the first thing they think is that they should see about touching the stove. That is the same weakness that prevented the Law from achieving its purpose and setting people free from the Power of Sin.  

All of this provokes theological questions for some people. If choosing Abraham and his descendants as his people was God's response to sin, doesn't Israel's disobedience mean that God's plan has failed? In other words, if God's solution for the sin that entered the world through humanity was to call Israel and give them the Law, didn't that solution fail? And do we really want to follow a God whose solutions fail?

Other people wonder about Jesus' death. Questions like, "Why did Jesus have to die, anyway? Couldn't God have just gotten out his magic wand and made sin go away some other way? Why did Jesus have to offer himself on the cross in order to condemn sin? If Jesus' death really did conquer sin, then why is the world such a cruel place? Wouldn't it have made more of a difference if Jesus had actually dealt with sin in the flesh?

II. 

And finally, if Jesus' death really means that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, why do we still experience so much condemnation? We have a political culture that no longer debates ideas but rather throws around personal insults as if that is the best way to ensure that the government continues to function. Baraboo and Sauk County are not immune from this political culture: go read the comments in the News Republic about the county board chairman, or about investigations into the highway department, or the roundabout in front of St. Vinny's, or a dozen other things, and you will see that we are so often a people who do not debate ideas, but rather who call people names and condemn each other. 

I'm sorry to say that in my experience Christians fare little better on condemning other people than the general population. This week, Religion News Service ran an interview with the famous pastor and writer Eugene Peterson. Peterson is best known for The Message paraphrase of the Bible, but he was a pastor to a church in Bel Air, Maryland for 50 years prior to his retirement a few years ago. He has recently published When Kingfishers Catch Fire, which he has said will be his final book. I have a number of his books on my shelves and have found him to be a wise pastor to me, as well as a faithful, interesting reader of Scripture. Now, at age 84, he is retiring from public life and will no longer write or speak, and so agreed to be interviewed by RNS. At the end of the interview, Peterson was asked if he was still pastoring today, and a couple of the same sex came to him to ask him to marry them, whether he would do it. He answered, Yes. The next day, the internet exploded. Headlines blared about this famous pastor's change of heart. People who support the Church's recognition of same sex marriage fell all over themselves to praise Peterson. On the other side, blogs pulsed with rage over Peterson's thin reasoning and abandonment of biblical principles. The following day, Peterson published a retraction, stating that he had been taken off guard by the question and that he had been confused. He now said that he supported the church only recognizing marriage between men and women, but that he loved the gay people he pastored and that they had been and would always be welcome at his table. The internet exploded again. Headlines blared that Peterson had been pressured into retracting his change of mind. Blogs raged over how Peterson couldn't give a clear answer and so could no longer be trusted. The people who had rushed to praise him yesterday now condemned him.

This is what happens when we treat people as collections of positions, as a set of viewpoints. When we fail to attribute the best motives towards those whom we disagree with, when we fail to give our opponents on hard issues the benefit of the doubt, we are often doing so because we need to be right more than we need to care about the person with whom we're talking. We want to win arguments, to be heard without having to listen, to convince others without having to do the hard work of understanding what they are saying. We fail to give grace to others, and that leads us to fail to give grace to ourselves. If you're anything like me, the loudest voices of condemnation you hear come from inside your own head. Maybe you think about what others think of you. Maybe you think about your unemployment, or how small your paycheck is, or that you got too sick to work and had to retire, and the voice in your head is there to tell you, "You're worthless. Your life is over. Give up." 

Condemnation is rampant in our world, and in our own community. How can we, Trinity Church, make a difference for people in our community who only hear voices of condemnation? As I have lived among you as your Rector for these last four months, I know many of us care deeply about these people. My hope for this community is that we would become known as a place that does not let people sit in the darkness of condemnation, a people that goes out to the hurting so that they might be comforted. God would have us be a presence in this community that would tell the brokenhearted that in Jesus Christ, there is no condemnation, that the Power of Sin no longer has the final word, that they can be set free by the Spirit of Life. 

III.

But that doesn't stop us from wrestling with hard theological questions. In fact, the amount of condemnation in our world propels us to ask hard questions. If Jesus' death conquered the realm of the flesh and the power of sin, why is there so much condemnation in the world and inside our own heads? Why did Jesus have to die? Did God fail when he gave the Law to Israel? Why couldn't God have done something about sin without the crucifixion?

God's plan didn't fail. From the creation of the world, he knew that the command to Adam and Eve would be broken, that the Law would be misused by the power of sin. He knew that people would be bound up by the power of Sin, that the people of Israel would never keep the Law, and what's more, especially when they DID manage to keep the Law, it was not enough to deal with the power of Sin. God was at war, engaged in a cosmic struggle against the Power of Sin and Death, against Satan. Something decisive would need to be done to break them of their power. Sin had latched onto the creation God loved, onto the people God loved like an infectious disease sickening everything and everyone it touched. Such a strong illness required strong medicine.

So God came to Earth as a human being, Jesus Christ, to do something about sin. He was the person from outside, apart from the universal force of sin, who could do something about sin in the flesh. In coming to Earth as a human being, submitting to the most degrading death imaginable, Jesus conquered the Power of Sin. He became the Lord over sin. In conquering death, Jesus has submitted himself to the judgment that the Power of Sin rightfully deserved. He has heard the Father pronounce the death sentence over the Power of Sin and he offered himself as Jewish Messiah and Suffering Servant to take that sentence in his own body, and then the Spirit of life raised him from the dead, opening for us a new way of living and the hope that at the end of time, we will be raised from the dead just as he was. Because Jesus Christ invaded Earth, there is now a new possibility is open to us, a possibility that is without condemnation: living life in the power of the Spirit.

Everything depends on the pardon that God has extended to us through Jesus Christ. Everything depends on whether that word of no condemnation is spoken to each of us and that we also hear it. If that word of no condemnation is addressed to us and we hear it, we know that there is no longer a judgment to be feared - not from God, not from anyone else - because Jesus has taken the judgment onto himself. (Barth, CD II/1, 403)

The Father sent the Son as Messiah to offer himself to conquer sin, so that his death could defeat death and offer to us eternal life. IV.

That eternal life begins right now. For those of us who struggle with the voices in our own heads, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You lose a job and don't find another one immediately and tell yourself that you are a failure? There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Your house is messy and your lawn isn't mowed, and you just know that your mother would be flipping in her grave if she could see your house now? There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You missed a payment on a bill and it feels like your life is just a pile of second notices? There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You don't make it to church very much and you feel guilty every time you do for all the times that you're not here? There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The life that Jesus offers us is a life where we are free to be ourselves without fear of being condemned by others, a life where we admit to God and to each other that we are broken, that we need help, that we need the Spirit of Life to transform us, to make us new, to undo the effects of the Power of Sin in our lives. 

I yearn for us here at Trinity to be sharing our lives together deeply so that we can experience the faithfulness of Jesus through each other. I yearn for us to be able to share our faults, our struggles, our real-life problems with each other, and for our community to be a place where we can do that without fear of condemnation. I yearn for us to study the Scriptures together, to pray together, to eat together so that our life as a community following Jesus will be deeply compelling to those who observe it. May Baraboo know that we are Christians, not because of our rush to condemn people who disagree with us, but because of the ways in which we love each other. And remember, as I like to say from time to time: love is an action verb, not a feeling. Jesus' death has made this kind of community life possible because we are not in the flesh, we are not bound to the law of sin and death any longer. If Christ is in us, we have life because of his righteousness. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.