#as much as I hate the idea of it getting a shittier grade just for being late it is what it is 😔

[kakyogay]

fun little piece I drew for a VERY VERY LATE assignment 👍

moth fella :D

[kimulus0check]

OSOMATSUSAN AU IDEA /W HEADCANONS

The idea for this au is where the brothers work but just shitty jobs and try to earn enough to move out but haven’t yet. Still live w/ their parents but I make them a tad bit shittier and force my queer and gender disphoria onto them aswell. All the brother are like thirty now

CW: drug use, sex, nudity, sex for drugs, violence

Osomatsu

Osomatsu works at a drug store/sex shop near the red lights district. I’d say he’d encounter a lot of people who are weird ;drug addicts, homeless people, and prostitutes just from the location from his job. But to be honest he might aswell fit right in the scene.

Still a sleaze bag. God help if you’re a woman who walks into the store cause he will harass and tease you at the check out. Asking for your number and if you come around here often.

Makes friends with cool or just sketchy people. Starts doing more experimental drugs like LSD and heroine. It’s not to the point where he’s feigning for it but does get lit after a really shitty night.

Most of his paycheck goes to pachinko, horse racing, and alcohol. Steal cigarettes from Kara.

Nsfw-

Still a virgin with intercourse,but has fingered and given handjobs in exchange of favors and extra cash.

He’s unlabeled, just an opportunistic man. He got over gender stereotypes a while ago. This man used to do ballet for the love of god. In the first ep of Mr.Osomatsu in the eighties remake

Karamatsu

Works an office job in urban Tokyo. Has to take the subway to get to work on time and he HATES it so much. His cubical job legit drains him to the point where he comes home and doesn’t put on the Karamatsu cool guy facade anymore. He’s just pissed and tired.

Picks up from smoking occasionally to regularly cause he’s working from nine to five every day of the week. Bro is stressed and smokes cause his coworkers also smoke and he can get them more easily. His job also does regular drug tests so his options for substance abuse is slim.

NSFW-

Has been to some gay clubs and titty bars for ‘work’ meetings. But sometimes he just goes alone. Has paid money for a lap dance or two but usually just sits back and gets drunk.

Happy trail trimmed and lined by the gods. Not a virgin but not experienced either.

Bisexual king

Choromatsu

Works as a service worker at a fish market. Loathes his job so does part time work for Totoko as a novice manager for her idol career, though she doesn’t pay him much of anything.

Used to work at a manga store before getting caught left handed in the bathrooms with some of the products.

Still thinks he’s the most important brother that’s most likely to succeed just because of the fact he knows his situation sucks and is actively trying to move up career wise. (Though most of the brother do know all there situations aren’t the best, they just don’t complain about it as much as Choro does.)

Drinks beer and smokes after work. Still a degenerate otaku guy. So he’s got one manga about magical girls in one hand with a twisted tea in the other.

NSFW-

Fantasizes of being a curropt idol manager and taking advantage of desperate idols. Fantasizes being a highschool teacher and taking advantage of highschool girls who need a passing grade. That kind of fantasy.

Clean cut for no one to show up. Mostly shaves for himself cause he hates the feeling of hair down there.

Mostly straight but has been caught eyeing men on mags at times.

Continue here vvv

[stina-is-a-punk-rocker]

stephanie perkins: ‘anna and the french kiss’

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Then again, if you’ve read any YA book, ever, it’s fairly obvious what’s going to happen.

I was going to go easy on this book; I really was. It’s really unfair how media aimed at a female demographic is seen as frivolous and vapid, and more often than not bashed and bullied when it comes to reviews. “People actually enjoy this crap?” ask the powers that be. “It’s worthless! Pulp! Dreamy-eyed nonsense only complete nimrods could ever like!”

And I take offense to that. There’s nothing wrong with liking romance or happy endings or stories about cute European boys. I was ecstatic when I stumbled across Anna and the French Kiss upon a chance trip to the bookstore. The cover was… meh (Century Gothic? Really? There were no other fonts?). But I’d heard nothing but praise about the book, and I was prepared to stay up all night and into the wee hours of the morning to finish it.

Admittedly, I was far from impressed upon the first reading. The characters were unlikable, the plot would’ve worked better for less shitty characters, honestly fuck these characters am I supposed to like them, fuck Anna, fuck Étienne, fuck Bridgette, fuck Toph, fuck Dave and Meredith and Amanda and Seany and every other stupid character in this stupid book.

The second time around, I expected to not hate it as much as I did when I first read it. It’s happened- I hated Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda when I first read it, and when I read it again, all that red-hot anger simmered down into an overall dislike. I thought To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before was trash at first, and then I read it again, and it got promoted to recyclable waste matter.

I found Anna and the French Kiss horrendous the first time I read it, and then I read it again, and… yeah, it’s still pretty awful.

Le Sommaire:

Anna Oliphant is a seventeen-year-old wannabe film critic who is #NotLikeOtherGirls – so she’s exactly like every other female YA lead. To her credit, she never explicitly says she’s special… everyone around her does.

She has a pretty meh life in Atlanta, Georgia with her mum and little bruv Sean- and then her dad decides to ship her off to France for her final year of high school. I’m not judging Anna for bawling her eyes out on her first day; I’m a huge mummy’s girl myself and I’d probably (definitely) do the same.

Meredith is Anna’s next-door neighbor, who does that thing which only happens in YA where she’s like “Oh, newbie? Let’s be friends!” (Or maybe it does happen irl and I tend to make a bad first impression which is why no one has ever approached me.)

Meredith’s friends are: Rashmi and Josh (who are a couple), and Étienne St. Clair. Guess which one is the love interest.

Étienne is cultured in that white person way where he’s half American, one quarter French and one quarter British. A true international.

But- *gasp*- American-British-French boy has a girlfriend, Ellie.

Anna has an absolutely gorgeous punk rocker (yum) boy with sideburns (yikes) back home named Christopher. Also, Christopher’s nickname is ‘Toph’ instead of ‘Chris’ because he too is #NotLikeOtherGirls. Anna tells us that nothing will happen between her and Étienne.

Anna is wrong.

Meredith has a crush on Étienne. So does the Regina George of the school, Amanda.

Étienne and Anna have some moments ™.

♫ Everyone else in the room can see it, everyone else but Anna ♫

I tear my hair out in frustration.

Several other white boys vie for Anna’s heart. Anna remains blissfully unaware (♫ that’s what makes you beautiful ♫). Étienne (who is still dating Ellie, mind you) is unreasonably agitated by this.

Étienne’s mum has cancer btw, which excuses all the shitty things he does, because he’s just a poor, misunderstood boy.

Ellie dresses up as a, quote unquote, ‘slutty nurse’ for Hallowe’en, though- so it’s perfectly okay to dislike her (even though, in the first interaction she had with Anna, where Ellie meets Anna and Étienne, after Étienne takes Anna to the movies, Ellie is perfectly sweet).

Anna, however, is NOT a slut. Amanda is, though. And Rashmi’s cold. And Meredith’s desperate. And Emily’s a slut, too. And her friend Bridgette from Atlanta is a traitor. Anna has an intense case of internalized misogyny.

Anna’s friend Bridgette from Atlanta is screwing Toph, and Anna throws a fit.

Étienne and Anna have some more moments ™.

A truly chaotic series of events befall Anna. She somehow winds up dating Dave (one from the harem of white boys who likes her) to spite Étienne, she gets into a fight with Amanda, more drama ensues, there’s a hint for a spinoff, Étienne and her kiss, Meredith sees and feels betrayed… several misunderstandings and more bullshit later, Étienne and Anna wind up together, because true love conquers all.

Mes Réflexions:

(If the French is off, blame Google Translate.)

Usually, it takes me half a page of my notebook to scribble down my thoughts about the book I’m reading. This motherfucker took me almost an entire page.

Granted, a solid 30% of those notes are me throwing insults at Étienne, but still. ‘STOP STOP STOP YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND YOU DICK’ counts, right?

(That was #17 in my notes, by the way.)

For the record, I like Stephanie Perkins’s writing. It’s not as over-the-top and unnecessarily introspective as Jenny Han’s in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and the interactions between Anna and her classmates were natural and not the “How do you do, fellow kids?” style of Becky Albertalli’s Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. The pacing is decent- I didn’t feel like it was too rushed; not the insta-love trope most YA romances unfortunately fall prey to.

And yet. AND YET.

Anna: “What’s your problem?” Amanda: “You.”

Same, Amanda, same.

Anna Oliphant is one of my least favorite leads in a book, ever. Étienne’s even shittier. And it’s not like Nick or Amy Dunne from Gone Girl, or any of the main characters from The Secret History, where readers pretty much unanimously hate them. You’re meant to relate to Anna, you’re meant to find Étienne charming and dreamy. I literally had to put the book away and calm myself down several times- especially in the last quarter of the book.

One of my main gripes with Anna is how… dumb she is. I guess Anna’s “Oopsies, silly me, I don’t know French!” is meant to be relatable to the readers. And some parts (like her not knowing how to order food because she can’t speak French) are plausible, but- sis, you didn’t know how to spell oui? And my idea of a cinematic masterpiece is Kung-Fu Panda, but even a dumbass like me knows that France is the film appreciation capital of the world. And yet Anna, a self-professed film freak, doesn’t?

Of course, Anna’s gorgeous, but she has no clue, because of course she doesn’t- even though she has multiple guys falling head over heels for her.

I’m in a short skirt. It’s the first time I’ve worn one here, but my birthday seems like the appropriate occasion. “Woo, Anna!” Rashmi fake-adjusts her glasses. “Why do you hide those things?”

Étienne is staring at my legs. The scales covering them throb under his intense gaze, and the pincers sticking out of my thighs start clicking rapidly in arousal. My hooves shiver in ecstasy.

… sorry, that’s not funny.

Her friends think Anna’s weird for wanting to write film reviews (which is the most contrived thing I’ve ever heard) instead of being the next Margot Robbie or whatever, but of course Étienne doesn’t and he thinks it’s not weird and cool and that Anna is such a special snowflake.

(Man, I sound like Amanda.)

And then we have this spiel by Anna about how she got into film critiquing (?), because we the readers need to know how special and #NotLikeOtherGirls Anna is.

To this, I say, “Piss off, you pretentious fuck.”

Of course, Anna’s a virgin and she’s never gotten drunk before or worn short skirts- she’s not a slut, she shaves below the knees only.

And would YA really be YA without several hearty helpings of internalized misogyny?

First up, we have the bimbo; the Barbie doll archetype whose only goal in life is acquiring the main guy (who is quite obviously uninterested in her), and making life hell for our protagonist. Amanda Whatsername (is she ever given a surname?) has this coveted role in Anna and the French Kiss. She’s blond (because of course she is); the first time we meet her, she’s in a, quote unquote, ‘teeny tank top’, and she also ‘positions herself for maximum cleavage exposure’. She’s always flipping her hair, getting her grubby paws on Étienne, giving Anna the stink-eye, being homophobic and a grade-A bitch.

Meredith goes batshit when Anna and Étienne kiss, and is very pouty and unhappy during prior Anna x Shittiene moments. Honey… he’s just not that into you. Rashmi’s the Ice Queen reincarnate and halfway to bitchdom. Anna doesn’t go as hard on them as she does on literally every other female her age in the book, though.

Rashmi looks at me for the first time, calculating whether or not I might fall in love with her own boyfriend.

Anna, hate to break it to you, but not everyone’s a possessive fucking weirdo.

About Cherrie, her ex-boyfriend Matt’s new girlfriend:

And maybe Cherrie isn’t as bad as I remember. Except she is. She totally is. After only five minutes in her company, I cannot fathom how Bridge stands sitting with her at lunch every day.

Her lifeless laugh is one of her lesser attributes. What does Matt see in her?

Even Bridgette, Anna’s best friend from Atlanta, isn’t immune to Anna’s anti-female propaganda. She’s screwing the guy Anna used to like, and Anna, the hypocrite, throws a huge fit.

For context: Bridgette and Toph are in a band called the Penny Dreadfuls (why is it with YA books and horrible band names? ‘Emoji’ from Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda was bad enough), and Anna + Matt + Cherrie go to a bowling alley to see them perform. After the performance, Toph announces that he’s sleeping with Bridge, and Anna confronts Bridge… onstage.

“… You’re welcome to move in when I leave again, because that’s what you want, right? My life?”

She shakes with fury. “Go to hell.”

“Take my life. You can have it. Just watch out for the part where my BEST FRIEND SCREWS ME OVER!” I knock over a cymbal stand, and the brass hits the stage with an earsplitting crash that reverberates through the bowling alley. Matt calls my name. Has he been calling it this entire time? He grabs my arm and leads me around the electrical cords and plugs and onto the floor and away, away, away.

Everyone in the bowling alley is staring at me.

I duck my head so my hair covers my face. I’m crying. This would have never happened if I hadn’t given Toph her number. All of those late-night practices and… he said they’ve had sex! What if they’ve had it at my house? Does he come over when she’s watching Seany? Do they go in the bedroom?

I’m going to be sick.

Give me a goddamn break.

Anna, about Ellie:

To my amazement, Ellie breaks into an ear-to-ear smile. Oddly enough, it’s this moment I realize that despite her husky voice and Parisian attire, she’s sort of… plain. But friendly-looking.

That still doesn’t mean I like her.

“Anna! From Atlanta, right? Where’d you guys go?”

She knows who I am? St. Clair describes our evening while I contemplate this strange development. Did he tell her about me? Or was it Meredith? I hope it was him, but even if it was, it’s not like he said anything she found threatening. She doesn’t seem alarmed that I’ve spent the last three hours in the company of her very attractive boyfriend. Alone.

[about Ellie’s Hallowe’en costume] Slutty nurse. I don’t believe it. Tiny white button-up dress, red crosses across the nipples. Cleavage city.

If I didn’t like Ellie before, it’s nothing compared to how I feel now. It doesn’t matter that I can count how many times we’ve met on one hand.

I fantasize about their break-up. How he could hurt her, and she could hurt him, and all of the ways I could hurt her back. I want to grab her Parisian-styled hair and yank it so hard it rips from her skull. I want to sink my claws into her eyeballs and scrape.

It turns out I am not a nice person.

YOU DON’T FUCKING SAY.

Emily Middlestone bends over to pick up a dropped eraser, and Mike Reynard leers at her breasts. Gross. Too bad for him she’s interested in his best friend, Dave. The eraser drop was deliberate, but Dave is oblivious.

One of the juniors, a girl with dark hair and tight jeans, stretches in a move designed to show off her belly button ring to Paul/Pete. Oh, please.

And I’m meant to like this character? I’m supposed to root for her?

I’m not saying every girl in the book should be perfectly sweet and friendly- that’s just not realistic. But when Anna has something judgmental to say about every other young female character… maybe she’s the problem.

In fact, the only girl I recall getting a pass is Isla Whatsername. And why do you think?

Brilliant.

And now we have the amalgamation of almost every fanfic boyfriend trope from 2014, Étienne St. Clair. Brown-eyed Harry Styles. I can’t fucking wait.

Étienne could’ve discovered the cure for cancer, or abolished poverty, or volunteered at animal shelters in his spare time. He could’ve been the most virtuous guy around (fret not; he decidedly isn’t). And I still wouldn’t’ve thought of him as the man of my dreams because HE HAS A BLOODY GIRLFRIEND.

I mean, which girl doesn’t want her boyfriend to say:

“I cheated on her every day. In my mind, I thought of you in ways I shouldn’t have, again and again.”

Fuckin’ smooth, bro.

“No matter what a terrible boyfriend I was, I wouldn’t actually cheat on her. But I thought you’d know.”

Such a gentleman!

“So you can keep dating Ellie, but I can’t even talk to Dave?”

Étienne looks shamed. He stares at his boots. “I’m sorry.”

I don’t even know what to do with his apology.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. And this time, he’s looking at me. Begging me. “And I know it’s not fair to ask you, but I need more time. To sort things out.”

And this gem:

“If you liked me so much, why didn’t you break up with her?”

“I’ve been confused. I’ve been so stupid.”

*me, banging pots and pans together* F U C K Y O U

“Ellie’s not like you, Anna; she’s a slut and a whore even though I’m the one who’s been thinking about another girl inappropriately and I’m the one who gets my knickers in a twist when another man glances in your direction because my masculinity is extremely fragile and I’m a total hypocrite and a dickhead.”

I mean, he didn’t actually say that, but that’s the gist.

WHILE DATING ELLIE: he gets Anna a book of sexual love poems, he calls her attractive (“Any bloke with a working prick would be insane not to like you.”) multiple times, he gets jealous whenever another guy so much as breathes in Anna’s direction and constantly interrupts such interactions, he’s been ditching his friends for his girlfriend but suddenly decides he prefers a new girl over said girlfriend, he thinks bread pudding tastes good- in conclusion, he is a Massive Fucking Prick. Though in hindsight, him and Anna deserve each other. They’re awful.

I had loads more notes taken down (Anna using Dave; “The important thing is this: Dave is available. St. Clair is not.”); the implication that cheating is okay because Ellie is bad or whatever, even though the sudden change in her character seems contrived because she was perfectly okay with Étienne and Anna hanging out before; how my blood boils whenever I read an American book and American girls are like “oOoOh AcCenT!!!1!!1!!”; me reading “DAVE SAYS YER A SLUTBAG” in Hagrid’s voice; the sheer atrocity of the name ‘Étienne St. Clair’ (sounds like a caricature of a French person)… but this ‘review’ is already pushing 3k and I can’t be fucked to expand on any of those points.

Verdict (which is apparently the same in French):

Who needs Christopher when Étienne St. Clair is in the world?

Speak for yourself.

[emmy-writes-sometimes]

Second Home

You get into the college of your dreams, but your parents aren’t on board. Your other father figure, Sebastian, steps in. 

-

           “Who is…?” You wondered as you reached into your back pocket, pulling out your phone. Normally you wouldn’t use your phone during a shoot, but most people knew not to contact you during a shoot anyway. You were an intern for Marvel, a director’s assistant, and you’d only gotten it because of your uncle who wasn’t really your uncle, Sebastian. Your parents had been friends ever since college, and it was safe to say that you considered Sebastian as a second father. He was your second home, essentially. Especially since you didn’t get along with your parents that well. You just had different views on just about everything, and you fought constantly. You were hoping to get away from them for college in New York. But the problem was they hated the idea; they didn’t even want you to go to school in Atlanta. They didn’t want you away from them, at all, because they were just so controlling over you.

           Your admissions decision to New York University

           Your heart started beating so rapidly in your chest that you were sure the director could hear it from five feet away. You were anxious beyond anxious; statistics said you would get in, but you knew that their film school was particularly hard to get into. You quickly opened the email, scanning through the first half of the first sentence, and your heart stopped for a minute. We are pleased to offer you admission…

           “Sebastian!” You called out. He was standing over by the set, scrolling on his phone, and you waved him over.

           “What? What are you so excited about?” He asked with a little smile.

           “I got in! I got into NYU!” You spoke so loudly that everyone else could hear you. Most of them just smiled and nodded your way, but Sebastian was the first to pull you into his arms and mess up your hair, making you laugh.

           “Oh my goodness, I’m so proud of you!” He replied with a grin, finally letting you go. “Show me the email!” You showed him your phone and his smile only got wider. “You got a scholarship, too? That’s amazing!”

           “I know,” you said, “I can’t believe it. I really thought I wouldn’t get in, because you know, last semester’s grade wasn’t that good, but…”

           “I knew you could do it. I’m proud of you, kid.” You smiled, taking a screenshot of the email, and sent it to your best friends. You were completely overjoyed, but it all faded when a notification from your parents popped up, asking when you’d be home. Your parents. Dammit. You were going to have to deal with them, weren’t you?

           “There’s a problem, though,” you said. Sebastian looked down at you, confused. “My parents. They don’t want me to go anywhere, much less New York.”

           “It’s not like I’m not there for you,” he shrugged. “Just tell them you got a scholarship. I’m sure they’ll understand. It’s a fantastic school. You’re so much better off there than anywhere else.” You nodded. He knew them better than you did. Maybe he was onto something.

           You finished what they needed you to, ran to give the producers something in their office, and started the drive back home. Luckily, there was traffic and you were able to have some time to think. You practiced saying it to them multiple times, but you never got far before you were too afraid to keep talking. Finally you pulled into the driveway and walked in, not expecting them to be at the kitchen table already. They were silent, which was scary, and you tried your best to give a poker face.

           “Hey,” you said with a small smile, putting your bag down. They were looking at a letter. It had the NYU heading. And you froze. You thought they were only emailing you, not sending you a real letter, because that’s what you’d checked on the application. You stopped in your tracks and tried to calm yourself before…

           “So when were you going to tell us that you directly disobeyed us?” Your dad said. He was too calm. “We told you not to apply to the school because you’re not going.”

           “I got a scholarship,” you mumbled. “I was going to tell you when I got here, they just weren’t supposed to send real mail…”

           “Because you were going to hide it from us?” Your mom asked.

           “No, I…” Your voice cracked. “I wasn’t trying to hide it. I was just going to figure out a plan before I told you, so maybe…”

           “You’re not going,” your dad said. “Period.”

           “I have to, I got one of the biggest scholarships they offer. Which, most parents would consider a great achievement.” Your dad scoffed.

           “A scholarship for what? Film? Do you realize how many…”

           “Yes, I realize, but going to NYU would be…”

           “You’re not going.”

           “I’m going.”

           “Not without our financial support. Which we won’t be giving you,” your mom cut in. “If you accept this offer, Y/n, you can consider yourself no longer a part of this family.” You turned away and grabbed your bag again, just walking away. You knew they would act like this, but part of you was hoping they wouldn’t. Part of you was hoping they would surprise you and be cool with it, especially after you said you were planning to find a way to fund yourself. And, besides, you had a few thousand saved up from your internship so far.

           You walked out of the house and got in your car and started driving. You didn’t know where, and by the time you stopped in the parking lot of your high school you didn’t even remember how you got there. Your parents had called so much that your phone battery had drained to almost death. They didn’t dare call the police on you for something so stupid, considering all you had was your backpack and your car. You turned off your car, locked it even though you were completely alone in the parking lot, and sat there until you lost every ounce of control you had left. You cried, you screamed, you beat on your steering wheel and accidentally hit the horn. You turned the car onto accessory and realized that it was almost 11. You checked your phone again to see that it was on ten percent, and your parents had texted you saying just not to bother coming home unless it’s to move out. You just ignored it, but what you didn’t ignore was a text from Sebastian.

           What happened? Your parents called and said you ran away? Are you okay????

           Yeah, you replied. Went to school. He started typing but didn’t give you a response. Your phone died right after, too, so if you did get a response it didn’t go through. You were completely and totally out of it, drained from the fight, when a familiar car pulled up and next to yours. It was Sebastian’s car. You flipped the unlock button and watched as he slid into the passenger seat beside you, waiting for you to say something.

           “They found the letter,” you said to him. “And they said not to come home unless it’s to move out.” Sebastian sighed, offering you his arm, and he hugged you from across the console.

           “I’m sure…”

           “No, they meant it.” You wanted to hand him your phone, but it was dead. And, of course, your charger was in your room. “I don’t even know what to do. I had a plan, I could make it work even if it was a shit ton of loans, but… They weren’t supposed to find out.”

           “I’m sorry,” he said in reply. “But what do you mean? They kicked you out? Completely just kicked you out?”

           “Yeah.”

           “I guess they’re shittier than they let on,” he scoffed. “Come home with me. We’ll move you in, I have the guest bedroom. If you need to stay with me in New York, you can too. You’re going to NYU if it kills you and me.” You smiled a little bit.

           “You don’t have to, I’m sure one of my friends…”

           “You’re family. That’s what family does.” He nudged your shoulder a little. “Come on. You can follow me. We can go back and get your stuff when your parents are at work tomorrow, I’ll get us a longer lunch break.” You nodded, wiping tears away from your face with your sleeve, and watched as Sebastian left you to get back into his own car. You followed him back to his house and walked in behind him, only realizing how tired you were when you saw the guest bedroom. Sebastian said he was going to make some dinner and get you an extra charger, leaving you for a few minutes.

           “Hey, dinner’s…” Sebastian walked in carrying a charger, only to find you asleep on the bed. You didn’t even take your shoes off. You were just so tired of dealing with everything that you’d just fallen asleep. So he did what any surrogate parent would do – he covered you up and let you sleep, just grateful that you were safe and sound.

A/N: For the anon who asked for Seb to take the reader in after they run away. I loved writing this one! 

[just-jordie-things]

The Prom Fic - Richie Tozier

word count: 6281 warnings: swearing, I think that’s it summary: Richie wants nothing more than to go to prom with the girl he likes, but (y/n) can’t stand school dances.  The Losers get involved and make things more difficult.  The answer is simple- Richie and (y/n) are just too stubborn to see it. ___

School dances, in (y/n’s) opinion, were lame.  Very lame.  With the shitty music from the teacher the school always hired to be a DJ, and the even shittier decorating done by the student council, and don’t even get her started on how everyone always acted while at a school dance.

The girls were at their judgiest.  If you didn’t get dressed up, then you were a piece of trash that couldn’t afford it.  But if you looked too good, then you were an attention whore.

And as for the guys, they were just as bad, if not worse.  You were expected to go with someone.  If you didn’t, you were laughed at, and undesirable.  But if you did go with someone, then you were expected to… reward… them.  This was high school.  No way in hell was that acceptable.

“Anyways.  I fucking hate dances, so no, I’m not planning on going to prom” (y/n) finished her rant.

Bill and Eddie, who’d casually asked her if she was planning on going, gave each other a concerned look, which didn’t go unnoticed by their female friend.

“Why?” She asked, setting down the orange she was peeling to give them her attention.  “You weren’t going to ask me, were you?” She asked teasingly, giggling at the idea.

“First of all, ouch, you’d be lucky to go with me, I’m the third nicest guy in our grade,” Eddie joked back, only making her laugh.  “Only behind Bill and Stan of course.  And second of all, no, I was just being polite and asking”

“Y-you’re really n-not gonna g-go?” Bill asked.

“No,” (y/n) shrugged.  “I’m just gonna hang out and enjoy a night off from the drama”

Bill frowned, but shrugged his shoulders.

“So you’re just gonna turn down everyone who asks you?” Eddie asks, and (y/n) narrowed her eyes at the boy.

“Yes?” She answers with a scoff.  “What, do I owe it to a guy to go with them because what, they plucked up the courage to ask me?”

“No!” Eddie practically shrieked.  “No, no of course not- no”

“What’s your guys’ big deal about it anyways? I’ve never gone to dances, it’s never bothered you before” She shrugs her shoulders, and picks apart her orange slices.

“It’s p-prom,” Bill says.  “W-we just thought y-you’d w-want to g-go”

“Right.  Because it’s so important” She spoke sarcastically.

Bill laughs nervously, and finally just let it go. ___

“So?” Richie asked Bill and Eddie when they came out of the cafeteria.  “Did you talk to her?”

Bill sighed, and nodded.  His silence was unsettling, and Richie just about shook his friend’s shoulders to beg for more information.

“Well? What’d she fuckin’ say? Does she want to go?”

“No she doesn’t wanna fucking go,” Eddie rolled his eyes.  “Jesus, Richie, she hates school functions.  I had to sit and listen to every little thing she hates about them the whole lunch period-”

“Did you ask about me?” Richie asked, not caring so much about Eddie’s waste of time.  “Did you tell her that I want to-”

“N-no,” Bill was the one to cut him off this time.  “Sh-she really doesn’t w-want to g-go, Richie,” He explained.  “If w-we’d said that y-you were interested, sh-she would have j-just been off-offended”

Richie furrowed his brows, not understanding at all.

You see, he’d had this crush on (y/n) for quite some time now- as in, he’s liked her since they were children.  She’s always been a special part of the Loser’s Club, and since the day Richie had met her he knew that she was special to him too.  There was a spark to her that brought out the best in him, something that made him always want to make her smile and laugh, and bring out the best in her as well.

It had been nine years of knowing her, and he still wasn’t sure how she felt about him.  She would blush and giggle when he’d flirt with her, and sometimes she’d flirt back, but even then he couldn’t tell if she was messing with him.  There had been multiple occasions where she’d cuddled up to him as well- during scary movies, or at the quarry when she gets cold- and Richie had to try not to read into it, because those seemed like valid reasons for cuddling.

However, (y/n) had never really hinted at feeling anything more than friendship.  And although her touches were like fire to his skin, he was pretty sure they were platonic.

And yet, this didn’t diminish his desire to take her to the prom.

He really, really wanted to ask her.  He wanted to dance with her, and hold her hand, and buy her a corsage- he’d never wanted any of these things before.  Before (y/n), he’d barely even paid attention to girls.  And now, he wanted nothing more than to live out the fantasy of holding her on the dance floor.

“She hates it that much?” He asked, disheartened at the news.

He’d known she didn’t particularly like school dances… but he’d hoped that she’d feel at least a little desire to go to the prom.  It was a high school tradition after all… and Richie had crossed his fingers that if she’d heard that he wanted to go with her, then she’d agree, but the look on Bill and Eddie’s faces told him there wasn’t a chance.

“Yeah…” Bill mumbled, trailing off awkwardly.

He felt bad, because he knew how badly Richie had wanted this.  But (y/n) had made it painfully clear about her own feelings.  He did wonder though, if she would have changed her mind had she known Richie wanted to ask her.

“M-maybe you should t-talk to her y-yourself,” Bill suggested.  “M-maybe she w-would want to g-go if she knew it was y-you taking her”

“Really? Cause it sounds like she fucking hates all men-” Eddie started, but Bill shoved his elbow into the shorter boy’s ribs to get him to shut up.

Richie shook his head, not knowing what else to say.

“Thanks for trying” He mumbled, not meaning to sound insincere, because he really did appreciate his friends talking to her for him.  He was just so disappointed by the news that (y/n) wanted nothing to do with the prom.

With that, he gave them a weak wave and said something about seeing them later in class, and then head off in the opposite direction.

He tried not to let it ruin his day, he tried to focus on anything, even his homework, to get (y/n) off his mind.  But it was damn near impossible when she was the center of all of his thoughts.  And barely a minute could pass before she crossed his mind. ___

On the other hand, (y/n) hadn’t thought too much about her lunch with Bill and Eddie.  It was odd that they’d practically interrogated her about the prom, but they were weird boys, and she brushed it off as just another strange boy thing.

Sure, she knew all her friends would be going, but just because your friends jump off a bridge, doesn’t mean you should too… right?

Shaking her head of the thought, she went back to putting her books away for the day.  There was no way she was going to have second thoughts about something as pointlessly mundane as prom.

She reminded herself of all the reasons she hated it.

Expensive dress you’ll only wear once.

The humiliating crowning of king and queen, reminding the entire senior class of their social status.  More specifically, their low spot on the totem of popularity.

The shitty food.  The shitty decorations.  The shitty music.

This seemed to do the trick, as she felt more uplifted about the situation.

Just as she was about to shut her locker and leave for the day, her eyes landed on a familiar face, and she waved the boy down.

Richie, still feeling disappointed, wanted to pretend he hadn’t seen her.  But her bright eyes met his and his feet were taking him to her before he could come up with an escape plan.

“Hey, trashmouth,” (y/n) grinned, shutting her locker and leaning against it.  “Barely saw you today, I thought maybe you ditched,”

Richie didn’t say anything, just chuckled and shook his head.

(y/n’s) brow furrowed for a moment at his odd silence, but she just as quickly neutralized her expression and leaned her back against her locker.

“But I knew you wouldn’t ditch without me” She adds as an afterthought, a smile tugging on her lips.

“Course not,” Richie answered.  “Wouldn’t be much fun”

Her smile seemed to widen, even though the kind words didn’t exactly come out as soft as they sounded.  He seemed bored, like he was itching to walk away from her, and she could tell.

“You alright?” (y/n) asked, because she wasn’t exactly one to tiptoe around the obvious.  “You seem off”

“It’s nothing,” Richie shook his head.  “Look I gotta get going, I told Mike I’d head out to his place after school.  I’ll catch up with you later”

And before (y/n) could call out for him to come back, or rush to catch up with him, Richie had practically darted away, taking long and fast strides towards the doors.

She couldn’t help but scoff for a moment, standing still at her locker while her mind whirled with thoughts of what the hell she could’ve done to make him ditch her like that.

Richie had never been upset with her before, and it knocked her off her feet to think he’d been pissed off by something she didn’t even know she’d done.

(Unfortunately it hadn’t even crossed her mind that his behavior was linked to the strange behavior of the other boys today.) ___

“And then he just- he just left me there,” (y/n) said with a frustrated groan.

Stan, who was equally frustrated, not for her sake, but because he was so very done with this conversation, rolled his eyes so far back into his head it actually kind of hurt.

“Can you believe that? He’s never been so pissed with me before, and I don’t even know what I did Stan”

The two always sat together in the library during their shared free period.  Usually they just helped each other out with their homework, but today, (y/n) was too preoccupied with Richie’s bullshit to even open up her backpack.  It dawned on Stan that if he didn’t get involved, then this ‘(y/n) and Richie’ drama would never be resolved.

“Probably wasn’t your fault,” Stan lied, knowing fully well why Richie was weird yesterday.  “I heard he got rejected”

“Rejected?” (y/n) repeated, her voice faltering a bit on the word.

Richie had asked someone out? Back up even further, he’d liked someone?

Her change in demeanor didn’t go unnoticed by Stan.  The way she blinked slowly, and shrunk back in her seat.  The way her voice quietened, and she’d barely even been able to say the word.  He could almost see the gears in her head spinning, wondering why Richie hadn’t told her this himself.

“Yeah,” He shrugged.  “I don’t know all the details.  He didn’t say much about it.  Just a girl he wanted to ask to the dance who said no”

Her eyes met his for a moment, and Stan hoped that she hadn’t put two and two together and realized he was bending the truth.  (y/n) was smart, she was smart enough to figure out he was talking about her.

But her jealousy betrayed her, and clouded the big picture, as all she could focus on was that Richie had liked someone.  Someone that wasn’t her, as she’d previously hoped thought.

“Why didn’t he tell me?” She asked wearily.

Stan wanted to smile, he felt so damn proud.  (y/n) looked like she could just cry.  He couldn’t wait to tell the others of this accomplishment.

Richie, when you two pluck up the courage and get together, don’t forget to thank me for single handedly doing it for you, he thinks.

“What, does he not trust me?” She asks.  “Because clearly he told you guys.  Probably all you boys.  Probably Bev too!”

Oh fuck, Stan thinks.  

He’d thought too soon.

“Whatever.  Fuck him” (y/n) grumbled, and finally opened up her bag to retrieve her homework.

“Uh- maybe he just- didn’t get the chance, yet?” Stan desperately tries to fix his mistake.

“He had the chance yesterday.  He didn’t even bother,” (y/n) shakes her head, and begins to work on her Calculus sheet.  “Clearly we weren’t as fucking close as I thought” She adds, sounding less angry, and more sad.

She writes so hard on the paper that the tip of her pencil snaps, and rips through the sheet.  Her loud groan earns a ‘hush!’ from the librarian.

Stan fucked up.  He fucked up real bad.  

His pride instantly melted into guilt, and he knew he couldn’t do anything about it.  He couldn’t tell (y/n) the truth at this point, and later, when he knew Richie, or one of the others asks what’s wrong with her, he’ll have to admit what he did.

And that was just gonna piss Richie off more.

This was bad. ___

Richie was still let down by the fact that he wouldn’t be going to the prom with (y/n), but after a night talking to Mike, he felt a fraction of a bit better.

Mike was his go-to for talking about (y/n).  The others tended to just tease him, and while Ben was kinder, he always pushed Richie to make a move, which just wasn’t an option.  Mike, however, listened.  He listened to anything Richie had to share.  Even if it was just that her hair looked pretty today, or that he was so in love with her it hurt, Mike was there.

On multiple occasions, Mike had told Richie to stop being a pussy and ask her out.  He’d said it kindly, and he’d said it pleadingly, because some nights it was so obvious that Richie would just die if (y/n) were to fall for anyone else.

But after years of these talks, Mike knew Richie wouldn’t make a move.  It was harsh, sure, but it had been so long, and the boy’s feelings only grew stronger, and still, he never did anything about it.  He knew it must be painful, so he did what he could to help Richie vent about his hidden emotions, like the good friend he was.

So today, Richie felt like a part of the weight on his shoulders was lifted.  And with that, came the plan to find (y/n) and apologize for how he’d acted yesterday.  He knew he’d irked her, ditching her after school so abruptly, and he didn’t want any bad blood between them.  Ever.

That afternoon, he was the one to approach her at her locker.

When he appeared, leaning against the wall of metal doors next to her, she cast him a glance, and then hastily turned away.

“What?” She asked, the single word a snap on her tongue.

It caught Richie off guard.  He knew he hadn’t treated her fairly, but he didn’t think she’d be that pissed about it.

“I came to uh, apologize” He answered, sounding unsure, because the look on her face made him think that something else was wrong.  She couldn’t be this visibly upset with him over one little weird patch, could she?

“For what?” She snapped out again.

She threw her backpack over her shoulders rather forcefully, and then slammed her locker.

Richie opened his mouth to speak, but she was faster.

“For leaving me out, or for leaving me out and ditching me yesterday, jackass?”

The boy’s brow furrowed, and his mouth still hung open.

“What are you talking about?” He asked.

“Don’t bullshit me, I know you told everyone else about- well whoever the hell it was that you asked out,” Her voice lost it’s edge, as her disappointment sunk in instead.  “You really weren’t going to tell me about it? At all? Over some- some girl?”

There was a frown on her lips, and a curve in her brow, and he could see how much it saddened her.  Even though it was lost on him what had happened, and more importantly, who had told her this information.

“(y/n), I don’t know what you mean-”

“Fuck you,” The girl scoffed, shaking her head, and looking away so that he couldn’t see the way she’d started to tear up.  “Really.  Fuck you.  I thought- I really thought-” She let out a humorless, watery laugh as she shook her head, meeting his confused gaze for a moment.  “Just- just fuck you” She mumbled again.

When she walked away from him, her shoulder knocked into his arm, and she didn’t bother looking back at him as she stormed off.

As confused as Richie was about her outburst, all he could feel right now was anger, because someone gave her false information, and led her to believe that he’d not only kept secrets from her, but that he’d asked another girl out. ___

“What the fuck did you do!” Richie yelled as soon as he walked into the library.

Bill, Eddie, Stan, and Ben shared a free period and were always here at this time.  Richie also had a free period, but preferred to either smoke outside, ditch school, or hide out under the bleachers with (y/n).

The librarian, along with most of his peers in the library, shushed him noisily.  But he paid them no mind as he glared down at his friends.

“I know one of you fucking told (y/n) that I asked someone out, and now she thinks that I was avoiding her- and worse that I fucking like someone else- so fess the fuck up now beause I will find out either way and one of you has ruined my life!”

“Richard Tozier if you don’t lower your volume I will give you detention” The librarian warned.

Richie even glared at the older woman, but didn’t say anything as he looked back at the table of his friends.

“You asked someone out?” Ben, who was not caught up on the situation, asked.

“No I didn’t fucking-” Richie started to hiss, but Stan spoke up.

“I did,” He said right away.  “I told (y/n) that you were upset yesterday because you were rejected, which was technically true-”

“Fuck you, man!”

“I won’t warn you again, Mr Tozier”

“Why would you-?”

“She was hurt, what was I supposed to say?” Stan whisper screamed back.

“Literally any- fucking-thing else!”

“Okay- okay jesus would you calm down before you get us all banned from the library?” Eddie asked.  “Why don’t you just go explain it to her that you wanted to ask her-”

“That’s not exactly an option, Eds” Richie meant to snarl, but it came out more saddened than frustrated.

“Why not?” Ben asked.  “Just tell her the truth and ask her out.  She’ll understand”

“Maybe, but she’ll also hate me, and I don’t need to be rejected again,” Richie muttered.  “She probably already doesn’t want to be my friend anymore.  She thinks I.. I betrayed her”

“No she doesn’t,” Stan chirped in.  “She just doesn’t want you to go out with someone else.  She wants you to ask her”

He knew it was true, he’d seen the way she’d deflated when he insinuated Richie liked someone else.  She was just too stubborn and scared to admit that she liked Richie that way.

“No she doesn’t, you guys heard her,” Richie said, looking at Bill and Eddie.  “And now she wants even less to do with me.  Thanks a lot, guys.  Really”

This time, the way he said it was ingenuine, and on that note, he left the library.  Not without flipping off the table though.

The librarian saw this, but didn’t care enough to scold him for a third time because at least he was finally leaving. ___

(y/n) sat next to Beverly on her bed.  The two had been comfortable hanging out, mostly in silence, as Beverly read a book and (y/n) painted her toenails with a new red polish Bev had gotten.

It had been a few days since her blowout with Richie, and she hadn’t spoken to him since.  She saw him everywhere, though.  She swore she saw him around more now than she did before, and the thought bugged her.

There was no hiding the fact that she missed him.  She used to spend time with him like this, doing random things and not really talking to one another, but just enjoying the other’s company.  Not that she didn’t like hanging out with Beverly, she loved Bev.  

But it was different.

“Alright,” Beverly spoke up, after (y/n) had sighed for the umpteenth time.  “Time to spill.  What are you thinking about?”

(y/n) frowned, and paused in her toe-painting process to look over at Bev.

“Come on girl.  I know you’re thinking about Richie.  What’s going on?”

“I just…” (y/n) sighed.  “I’m mad, or- upset, not angry I just… I still miss him?” Beverly nodded, understanding the girl’s puzzlement.  “I don’t know what to do”

“Maybe just tell him you like him,” Bev said boldly.  “He’d like that”

(y/n) chuckled and shook her head, brushing off the comment as just a tease.

“Should I apologize?” She asked softly, going back to finishing her toes.

Beverly gave her a soft smile, and then laughed.

The sudden laughter caught (y/n) off guard, and she turned to her again.

“What?” She asked, while the other girl continued giggling.  “What?” She repeated, letting out a laugh of her own, simply because Beverly’s giggles were contagious.

“Babe.  Just go to the fucking Prom”

This caught her even more off guard- (y/n) swore she felt like Beverly was purposefully trying to confuse her.

“Wh- the prom?” (y/n) repeated.  “What’s that got to do with it-”

“Come on, (y/n/n),” Beverly chuckled with a shake of her head.  “Trust me.  It would just fix everything”

“Beverly, I-”

“-you hate the prom, I know,” Bev monotoned, before (y/n) could go on her rant.  “But as your friend, I feel like I should tell you that…”

She contemplated telling (y/n) the truth.  Because while she was her best friend, it wasn’t her truth to tell.  But she couldn’t watch (y/n) and Richie get torn apart over something so silly.  Neither of them deserved that.

“What?” (y/n) hummed.  It was troubling that she’d been quiet for so long.

Finally, the red head sighed, and continued.

“Richie wanted to take you,” She said, softly, unsurely.  “He wanted to go with you.  To prom”

(y/n’s) brow furrowed, and her jaw fell open slightly.  Beverly watched her entire reaction, the way her confusion washed over her features like a slow waterfall.

“He… Richie…” She shook her head, trying to clear the mess of thoughts that were clouding her mind.  “He did?”

Bev nodded, and (y/n) let out a small scoff.  The sound throws her off, and for a moment, she thinks that (y/n) is upset, appalled by the idea.

“I can’t… I can’t believe it” (y/n) mumbled.

There were a million questions running through her head, but Beverly wouldn’t be much help to answer them.

“Yeah, well, he-”

“I have to go,” (y/n) stood suddenly, capping the polish and shoving it haphazardly into Bev’s hands.  “I’ll call you later”

“W-what? Where are you going?” She asked, standing and following (y/n) while she was hastily going down the stairs, trying her best not to walk on her still wet-painted toes.  “(y/n)?”

“I have to go buy a dress!”

With that, she was running out the door, shoes in hand.

Beverly just shook her head, but there was an excited smile on her lips, wondering what was going to happen next.

Prom just got a hundred times more interesting. ___

“This fucking blows”

Richie’s comment was an angry mutter, and one that made his friends feel a bit bad for him.  He didn’t want to come, not after everything that’s happened.  But his friends had begged him.

He’d already bought the ticket, and rented the tux.  And it’s not like he had any other plans for the night.  So he thought, why not?

This is why not, he thought glumly to himself now.  Sitting alone at a table, only accompanied by his friend’s jackets, and Bev’s ridiculously tall heels.  She’d kicked them off as soon as they’d arrived.

An upbeat song was playing, and Richie felt like he was the only person not dancing.  Probably because he was.

As he looked out at his friends, and his peers, all he saw were smiling faces.  Not one frown, not one bored look.  Everyone was joyfully spinning and jumping to the music.

Richie decided to just stare down at his shoes.  Less disappointment there.

Except that he paid a lot for the fine shiny black leather.  And it was going to waste.

However, another pair of shoes joined his, standing directly in front of him.  A pretty pair of strappy black ones, which exposed red painted toes.

“Hey, trashmouth” A quiet, sweet voice spoke, and even when he looked up to see (y/n), he couldn’t believe she was standing right there in front of him.

Especially not here.  And especially not looking like that.

She was in a beautiful (y/f/c) gown, which hung just to her ankles.  It was strapless, and considerably low cut- at least, more low cut than anything he’d seen her wear before.  He’d never seen her look so… elegant.

Like a princess.

No, a queen.

“I thought you hated prom”

Admittedly, it’s not what he wanted to say, but it does the trick, because she lets out a humorless laugh, and glances around.

It was just what she expected.  Cheap pink and white streamers thrown and taped everywhere, matching balloons taped around doorways, and littered throughout the floor.  The song playing definitely wasn’t her style, and neither was most of the dancing she saw her peers doing out on the floor.

“I do,” She replies with a shrug of her shoulder, and looks back at him for a moment.

It surprises him when she takes a seat next to him.

“But I come with a peace offering,” She tells him with a small smile.  “Me.  I’m the peace offering.  Being here”

Richie laughs at that, and runs a hand through his curls.

“Am I supposed to be blessed by your presence?” He asks her, and she quirks an eyebrow back at him.

“Damn right you are,” She replies coolly.  “So are you gonna ask me to dance?”

Richie looked over at her, his brows raised, before glancing back out at the floor.

“You want to dance?” He asked, not an offer, but a comment of surprise.

“I thought you’d never ask,” She teased back, knowing full well that he hadn’t meant it that way.  “Come on, trashmouth” She said, sticking her hand out for him.

He thought it over for a minute, but ultimately, this was everything he was hoping for, so he took her hand, and pulled her up from the seat.

She smiled as he pulled her with him towards the dance floor.  Even in her heels, he still towered over her.

He let go of her hand when they found a decent open spot on the floor, and even though neither of them cared for the song playing they danced around as gleefully as though they had.

Richie looked really nice, in (y/n’s) opinion.  He always had a general… attractiveness… to him.  She could see it in his naturally perfect bone structure, and his dark eyes, the size of moons behind the dorky glasses.  Sure, Richie was maybe-sorta-kinda-cute, but tonight?

His lanky body moved in all directions as he danced around.  It was goofy, but it was adorable.

He looked beautiful.

She was smiling at him, although he couldn’t see, because he was too busy throwing himself around to notice her sudden stall in dancing.

Not until the song ended, did he realize she was just standing there.

“Well,” She sighed, smoothing her hands down the skirt of her dress.  “I’m going to go get a drink-”

“Hold on, hold on,” Richie speaks up before she could step away, and his hand reaches out to clasp around her wrist.  His hold his firm, but gentle.  

She could pull away if she wanted to.

“One more,” He says, quietly, and his other hand curls around her waist, pulling her in closer.

Africa by Toto is playing, a classic, and he knew that she loved this song.

Finally, a song playing that she actually liked.

“Just one more” He repeats, and she can’t help but nod.

Her hands timidly laid against his the front of his shoulders.  Despite her nerves, her eyes were locked on his, and she couldn’t bring herself to look away.  She could feel the warmth of his palms through the silky material of her dress, and she steps a little closer, until her front is almost pressed against his.

Her hands slid upwards, until she’s wrapped her arms around his neck, and she leaned her cheek into his shoulder.  She can’t help but shut her eyes, while they move slowly back and forth.

Everyone else on the dance floor was swinging and jumping, moving excitedly about the floor.  While (y/n) and Richie just held each other, and moved at their slowest pace.  There was nothing to be rushed, all they wanted was to enjoy holding onto each other for the next couple minutes.

“I’m sorry you got turned down,” (y/n) murmured.  “You’re a good time, Rich, I don’t know why she’s so dumb to say no to you”

He was quiet for a minute, lifting his head to look at her.  She was still leaning against his shoulder and her eyes were still closed.  She looked so content, comfortable, and it made his heart do a backflip.

“Well- um-” He chokes on his words, and ducks his head back down next to hers.

(y/n) opens her eyes, and leans her head off of him just far enough that she can look at him.  He’s having a hard time meeting her gaze.  She waits for him to finish his thought, even though it takes a moment.

“You know.  She hates prom, so, it was a long shot,”

Her heart starts to pound in her chest, and she wonders if Bev had been serious the other night, when she’d said that he wanted to ask her.

“But, you know” He shrugs, but he doesn’t say anything else.

“Know what?” (y/n) asks softly.

It feels like the room is getting smaller, like no one else is dancing around them, and they’re just two people, standing in the school gym, holding tightly to one another.

“Richie?” She calls in a whisper, and he hums as he looks down at her.

Her arms wrap more securely behind his neck, fingers gently carding through the curls that hung there.  She looks at him for a moment, biting down on her cheek, to keep from saying what she wants to say.  She didn’t want to blurt it out, but fuck, she wanted to say it so bad.

His brows are furrowed, because she’s taken a solid fifteen seconds- not that he’s counting- and she’s just looking at him.  Her eyes are rounded, and flickering over his features, but never leaving him.  And he can tell she’s literally biting back words, but she’ll crack.  She always does when she tries to keep something from him.  It’s almost impossible for her.

“Why didn’t you just ask me?”

The question came out so soft, as if it scared her more than it really did.

Richie let out a short sign, a weak smile tugging on his lips.

“It was easier for you to tell Bill and Eds that you hated everything about this than to have you say it to my face”

(y/n) frowned, and her brows crinkled together out of confusion, and hurt.

Didn’t he know that she would’ve gladly agreed to go with him?

“Richie-”

“It’s alright, (y/n/n), don’t worry about it”

This only made her frown deepen.

“Richie…” She mumbles, before chuckling.  “I would’ve said yes”

“Right” He replies sarcastically.

“No,” She’s still mumbling, but he understands her.  “Really, I would have.  Had you asked me,”

She leans up a little closer to him, and if she’d moved any closer, her nose would have bumped into his.  Richie’s tempted to close the distance between them right then and there, and for a second his eyes wander to her lips, thinking about how close they are, and it wouldn’t take much to kiss them-

“You should’ve just asked” She whispers, and shrugs her shoulder nonchalantly.

“You’re here now, aren’t you?” He asks smugly, and when his lips pull into a smirk, she giggles a bit.

“Yeah,” She sighs, and her fingers curl up further into his hair.  “So, now that you’ve got me here… what’re you gonna do?”

He chuckles down at her, because she was so cute when she tried to be smooth.

“I just want to dance with you” He said, wrapping his arms completely around her waist, keeping her snug against his chest.

She sighed, content, as she leaned against his shoulder again.  They somehow were able to move slower than before, just swaying gently back and forth, but neither of them had ever felt so comfortable.

He was singing, incredibly softly, into her ear.  Just a few lyrics to the song here and there.  But it was sweet, and it felt perfect.

Even when their song had ended, and another cheesy one started to play, they continued to sway.

“Here” Richie spoke up, loosening up his hold on her, and then taking her hand.

He spun her outwards, under his arm, and she let out a laugh that could only be described to sound like absolute glee, before he tugged her back towards him.

She grinned up at him, and then carded her hands back into his curls so that she could lean upwards and press her lips against his.

It took him by surprise, but he didn’t hesitate for a second before cupping his hands around her cheeks and kissing her back passionately.  Their dancing had stopped, and again, the rest of the room shrunk and disappeared.

When they parted, her eyes were shut for a solid minute, but she was smiling, and it made Richie grin.

“Hey, (y/n)?”

She opened her eyes, and hummed back in question.

“Will you go to prom with me?”

She burst out laughing, nodding her head in agreement.

“Of course,” She said sweetly.  “But I won’t buy a dress, I’ll wear something old”

“Fine” Richie chuckles with a shake of his head.  He drops his hands from her face to place them on her waist again.

“And you can forget about dancing, it’s stupid” She adds, grinning wide at him while he nods.

“Not even one dance?”

“No way.  You have two left feet,” She says, in that same sweet tone.  “Who wants to dance with a guy who’s gonna step on your toes?”

Richie was still laughing, and he shook his head again.

“You still agreed to go, so…” He cocks his head to the side, giving her a grin that made her stomach do a flip.

“Well then there must be some kind of redeeming quality about you” She hummed, a timid smile on her lips.

She’s blushing, and it’s his favorite sight in the whole world.

“One more dance, though?” He asked, and (y/n) nodded, her arms wrapping around his neck again while he spun them both around a bit more enthusiastically than before.

“You can kinda dance for having two left feet-”

“Beep beep”

(y/n) laughs, and tries her best to feign offense but she’s giggling so much that it’s kinda hard to be convincing.

“You don’t get to beep beep me, that’s not how it works!”

“I think it works however I want it to work,” He teases.  “If you’re not still mad, want to get ice cream later?”

“Sounds good” (y/n) agreed, and swiftly leaned up to kiss his cheek. ___

They danced until eventually they got kicked out, because everyone left, everything was being cleaned up, and the music Richie was playing off his phone, and that was the breaking point for the chaperones.

They later got kicked out of the ice cream parlor too, for starting a mini food fight, and were stuck walking around town.  Everywhere had closed, it was the middle of the night, and they were both still in their prom attire.

Except now there were a few ice cream stains splattered on them.

“Where to now?” (y/n) asked, while Richie dramatically swung their hands between them.

“I don’t know, where do you want to go?” He asked, and she shrugged.

“Anywhere” She answered, softly, as she looked up at him.

“Anywhere?” He repeats.  “Because I know a great strip club-”

“Beep beep, Richie,” She says through a chuckle, and squeezes his hand as she walks closer to him.  “And yeah.  Anywhere”

(They end up throwing rocks into the quarry, but moral of the story is they stick together and live happily ever after)

___

raise your hand if you wish you’d gone to prom with richie tozier 🙋‍♀️🙋‍♂️ xoxo ~ jordie

[happymetalgirl]

The 15 Worst Metal Albums of 2020

This list might have been shorter if not for my running into a few awful albums at the end of the year that I had been avoiding wisely up until that point. My morbid curiosity got the best of me, and what’s done is done. I’m paying the price for it by going back over the worst albums I heard all year. Let’s get this over with.

15. Ghøstkid - Ghøstkid

This was the debut solo album from the former singer of Eskimo Callboy, who had a pretty decent backing of hype heading into this release under the Ghøstkid moniker, but with the namesake frontman putting in no more than the standard performance on a bunch of poorly assembled tracks in an unappealing and dated poppy metalcore style, ultimately the eponymous album wound up disappointing me pretty substantially.

14. Powerman 5000 - The Noble Rot

Powerman 5000 are just such a low-rate band that even one of their more okay albums makes it here. While not as astoundingly, mind-numbingly basic as their worst material, The Noble Rot is still some of the most unevolved, underwritten, and forgettable electro rock and industrial metal I’ve heard from a big name artist. This is some eighth grade level songwriting here, and that’s a fuckin’ feat for a band that’s been around longer than any eighth grader has.

13. Corey Taylor - CMFT

There was a lot of hype around Corey Taylor finally coming out with a solo project, and it was pretty damn disappointing to hear a bunch of uninteresting classic rock too tacky for Stone Sour. CMFT focuses on the fun side that has made its creator such an enigmatic figurehead in the metal press, but its one-note approach does little more than highlight Corey Taylor’s songwriting deficiencies. I really could have seen this album turning out better too, with just some more time and care put into it, if a fun time of an album is what Taylor was going for. Unfortunately Taylor tried to make a party album and a grand ceremonial tribute to his greatness at the same time, and ego-petting and partying don’t really go hand in hand.

12. Evildead - United States of Anarchy

It has some good bones underneath it, but Evildead’s long overdue (if anyone was asking for it) third album wears out its welcome so quickly with some of the most adolescent thrash I’ve heard in a while. The band gets some good rhythms going and the vocals aren’t terrible either, fitting the older thrash style pretty well. But the band’s predictable formula tires out very quickly, and the political commentary of the lyrics is too cheesy and cringeworthy to ignore. It seems every year we get a handful of these kinds of albums that try to get into the simmering thrash revival with some ultra retro approach, and a good portion of those albums are from long-defunct bands who figure their primitive old-school approach might be a selling point despite their sounds often being even more juvenile against the backdrop of today’s metal landscape. So it’s not a huge surprise or anything to hear an album as ham-fisted and corny as United States of Anarchy; this year it just happened to be Evildead.

11. Five Finger Death Punch - F8

They may not always place highest in this list, but they always manage to make it here, and this was actually an improvement on the last album, not that that’s saying all that much. In fact, I’d say this is the only time in the band’s history that they actually shifted their trajectory upwards. But while the band’s ugly continual creative decay has been a hard thing to watch and made them the five finger punching bag of the metal world, there seems to be a large enough swath of mouthbreathing chuds who love their incoherent derivative shit and flock to their shows enough to put them in lucrative headlining slots and on top of the metal world. Goddamn that sure sounds a lot like someone else we all know doesn’t it. I’ve criticized them plenty in the past, and while indeed an improvement, F8 only mildly remedies the numerous problems with Five Finger Death Punch. Still septic to the system are the predictably formulaic and tiresome songwriting, the stale production, the corny butt rock choruses, the shitty bootlicking worldview that bleeds into Ivan Moody’s douchey and faux-deep lyrics, the contrived ballads and country-dabbling. Even with an improvement in the flow of the track listing and a few more bangers that somewhat hearken back to their first album, F8 is still an over-thought and overly calculated batch of Sirius XM fodder that’s trying to please everyone in some superficial way. I’ll grant that it seems as though the band realized they had been giving the more metal-immersed side of their fanbase that has been with them the longest smaller and smaller crumbs with each new album. I’m not gonna hold my breath for this being anything more than placating for the time being; I’m sure the next album will find the band back on whatever bullshit they feel (or their execs feel) they need to be on to pull enough streams from inattentive radio metal bros. I always end with the disclaimer that I still steadfastly stand by the band’s first two albums, and even American Capitalist to a degree, and that I totally acknowledge the immense potential for greatness this band could seemingly at any time decide to fulfill. Ivan Moody is a talented vocalist with a lot of star power and they really could have been the second coming of Pantera or singlehandedly ignited a new wave of American groove metal and metalcore or carried it on their own. But instead the band have followed the money on the path of least resistance to fast-track their way to the top of festival tickets, which I’m sure affords them quite enough luxury and comfort in life, more than most bands these days get, but it doesn’t exempt them from criticism, and unfortunately I think their legacy will show that they were a lowest common denominator kind of band at the end of the day when they could have been, again, like a second Pantera or something.

10. Anvil - Legal at Last

Another year, another album of Anvil unable to evolve past their prototypic thrash of their forty-year-old origins. Though as tacky as ever, Anvil actually also managed to make a mild improvement on their last album on the musical front at least. The songs are a little more energetic and easier to get through, if not for the lyricism though. Anvil lyrics are never anything beyond a fourth-grader’s poetry assignment for their English class, but some of the Facebook boomer lyrics here are fucking cringy dude. A quick look at the track listing will let you know exactly where you’re gonna find the juiciest cringe, but honestly, even as far as cringe goes it’s nothing comedically special and cringe culture in general is played out anyway. So do yourself a favor and just ignore Anvil the way they deserve to be ignored.

9. Halestorm - Reimagined

It feels a little harsh to place an EP here, especially for a band whose album back in 2018 was one of the best things I have heard to come out of hard rock in a long time. But these stripped back covers and revisions of songs from the band’s catalog just suck all the oomph out of them, perhaps making the case by contrast for the importance of the role the rest of the band behind the indeed charismatic powerhouse frontwoman Lzzy Hale play in making their sound what it is. It’s unlikely this points to any kind of new direction for them, so I’m not particularly worried about them running into this problem again. Plus, I don’t think Halestorm and Lzzy Hale are like fundamentally incompatible with more ballad-y rock music, this forced balladization of older songs just did not work, and it makes perfect sense as to why.

8. Gama Bomb - Sea Savage

The fact that this album is only number 8 on this list is just depressing for its reminder of just how much shittier it got this year. The fact that there are seven albums from this yet worse than Sea Savage, goddamn. With one exception, this was maybe the stupidest album I heard all year, at least in the thrash department it was. God this thing is a sugar high mess. I feel like a toddler on an entire bag of Halloween candy or an elementary schooler on a 2-liter of Mountain Dew sat at a computer to program a thrash album would’ve probably come up with something like this. The erratic operatic highs and dumbass lyrics, it all just embodies everything that ever made thrash look bad. It’s like that drunk guy at a party who’s hyper as shit and doing a bunch of crazy stunts for attention because he thinks it’ll make the people there like him more, but really he’s just embarrassing himself. Yeah, definitely the worst thrash metal album I heard all year, and one I wish I could unhear.

7. Amaranthe - Manifest

One of the albums I was avoiding but reviewed late out of my own weird sense of obligation that I wasn’t surprised to find only validated my reasons for avoiding it in the first place. The weird combo of dancy pop music and power metal isn’t as crazy of an idea as it might seem at first thought. In fact, that’s basically in part what Babymetal are doing, and actually getting better and better at. But Amaranthe get the worst of both worlds with Manifest, unsavory pop melodies and utterly generic symphonic metal to make for something I’m not at all surprised I was so repulsed by.

6. Trapt - Shadow Work

Yep, I listened to it. God, no wonder this band is flailing in irrelevance with aggressive MAGA nonsense being their only audible desperate plea for attention. The album, thank fuck, isn’t steeped in the same bitch boy tantrum that the band’s singer has engaged in all year to the point of getting his band’s Facebook page banned for hate speech, and the music isn’t like offensively poorly made or anything like that either. There’s clearly a conscious meeting of the baseline requirements for the type of music they make, but holy fuck it’s so damn flavorless and predictable. It’d be one thing if this was the trendy thing to be doing, but this diet hard rock for people who think Three Days Grace is too wild has been out of fashion for over a decade. And Trapt are just recycling the same dumb formula that overstayed it’s welcome in the early 2000’s. Yeah, I’m not surprised at all, but god, it’s the kind of thing that has to be apparent to the band themselves too unless they’re lacking of any and all self-awareness. Trapt have thrown themselves to the forefront of the online metal world’s discourse by being an annoying, toxic, and childish presence all year; the silver lining being the unity among metalheads in roasting their laughable posturing about their Pandora numbers and the juicy memes about their one hit “Headstrong” that rile the snowflake singer up without fail. And this shit album is just another reason to laugh at them and more fuel to roast their crybaby Trumper frontman with. Go back into your hole, Trapt. 3/10

5. Unleash the Archers - Abyss

I talked about it in my review, but there really is only one simple thing that sinks this album so low. And that is just how incredibly low-effort and lifeless it is with a genre that’s supposed to be so life-affirming. Power metal isn’t the most highly revered genre in metal, but that’s just for its cheesiness. I love it; when it’s at its best, it’s some of the most inspiring metal music out there and I genuinely wish there was a bigger demand across the board for it. But Unleash the Archers just sound so flat and unenthusiastic in this album, and, sorry, in power metal, unabashed enthusiasm is just nonnegotiable. The guitar parts are phoned in and lacking in imagination, and the vocals especially are so narrow-range, it’s all so antithetical to the ethos of power metal and it doesn’t make a strong case for itself. I’ll leave it there; this album is lazy and lifeless so I feel no need to waste any of my time and work on it.

4. Burzum - Thûlean Mysteries

Ol’ Varg must’ve needed a new wizard hat or camouflage pants or whatever goofy shit he’s been doing since retiring the Burzum name to focus on his racism and LARPing because I thought Burzum was supposed to be finished. I thought you were done with Burzum, Varg. Apparently not too done to not dump an hour and a half of embarrassingly half-baked ambient dungeon synth song fragments that sound, so many of them, quite obviously unfinished. Varg Vikernes has been a washed-up shell of the musical god the various weirdos who idolize him make him out to be for a long time now, and it has shown in the gradually degrading work he had put out after his release from prison. Yet after clearly not caring about creating music in any meaningful way for a long time, Varg drops this heap of shit in his fans’ laps. I suppose they deserve it, but I’m sure some of them are delusional enough to lap it up with a smile on their face while still believing their white nationalist idol to be a musical genius. Again, it’s entirely dull ambient music, not metal at all, but it deserves to be shit upon for its astounding laziness and purposelessness.

3. Asking Alexandria - Like a House on Fire

Doubling down on exactly the unflattering crossover of pop music with their significantly sanitized butt rock in their apparent quest for arena glory that started with their self-titled album back in 2017, Asking Alexandria’s bid for the big spotlight that Imagine Dragons occupies didn’t get any stronger this year with Like a House on Fire. After three or four years of aiming for this style, the band still aren’t even all that competent with the basics of fucking pop rock, which is pretty downright laughable. Honestly, for an album so high up here on my shit list, my feelings on it are more or less just that of unsurprised disappointment; as soon as I got a feel for what the band were doing with the album, I knew it was going to be a mess of predictable results. And lo and behold. This was just such a wholly inexcusably floppy paper towel of an album, and one more Asking Alexandria release I know I won’t be returning to ever again.

2. Hollywood Undead - New Empire, Vol. 2

Coming on at the last minute to get on the scoreboard, reliably, is Hollywood Undead. When I reviewed both volumes of this project earlier, I referred to them as “corporate Linkin Park”, and I stand by that 100%. This album especially showcases nothing but what an incoherent, vapid, clout-chasing act they are, with such a corny, focus-grouped sound that sounds like it was made in a lab by a bunch of out-of-touch boomers. God, they could’ve been safe too if they had left it with the more tolerable first volume back in January, but this follow-up sequel from just this month was exactly why I had avoided listening to the first installment in the first place. And I should’ve never played this second one either. The album opener, “Medicate”, is probably the worst song I sat through in my own volition this year, and the rest of the album doesn’t get much better. It’s nothing new for Hollywood Undead after I gave their 2017 album my award for least favorite album of that year: more unfitting interplay between machismo posturing Eminem-cosplay and the sappiest, wimpiest radio rock and pop choruses; more cringy tough-guy struggle bars; more forgettable-at-best instrumentals. Congrats again, Hollywood Undead, you made one of the worst albums of the year once again.

But even worse than Hollywood Undead is an album that I feel like is already so legendarily bad, that there is no other album that could’ve been sat here. It had to be this one.

1. Six Feet Under - Nightmares of the Decomposed

Shitty metal bands everywhere can breathe a sigh of relief any year Six Feet Under decide to put out new music because any album they release is just about bound to end up as everyone’s #1 worst album of the year, and boy is that guarantee becoming more and more airtight with each successive release. It’s truly astounding too how Six Feet Under manages to outdo themselves every time. I don’t even want to think about what could possibly come after Nightmares of the Decomposed; we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. But for now, holy fermented shit, this thing is not just bad, it’s like the holy grail of terrible TERRIBLE albums and I don’t want to know what kind of apocalyptically despicable album Chris Barnes and company could possibly conjure to outdo this one. And make no mistake, it’s still Chris Barnes dragging this band down. I gave this album a 1/10 instead of a 0/10 because there was at least a sliver of salvageable instrumentation on it, as thin of a sliver as it was, a few halfway decent musical ideas of you squinted hard enough. The instrumentalists are checked out and clearly just participating for the paycheck, but I can’t even imagine what kind of professional instrumental performance could possibly overshadow the embarrassment that Chris Barnes put to tape in the studio here. Maybe that says it, because it honestly sounds utterly unprofessional. It’s baffling how this got through management and sound engineering to be released to the public because I don’t think I’ve ever even heard any amateur high school band’s vocalist sound this bad. Vocal ingenuity is generally something to be applauded in the metal world, and pioneers like Randy Blythe, Dani Filth, and Travis Ryan deserve all the praise they get for their innovation with dirty metal vocals, yet what Chris Barnes has “invented” here on Nightmares of the Decomposed to compensate for his continually-deteriorating vocals is just sad. The man simply cannot perform highs anymore, clearly, and the alternative is this fucking comical, cartoonish squealing that sounds more like a bratty toddler gargling their own snot than it does anything fitting for a death metal record, even a death metal record at stupid and cheesy as Nightmares of the Decomposed. Chris Barnes should be thankful that metal is not a sport and that there’s not nearly as much of an abundance of performance statistics to point to and analyze to see what kind of records are broken in a legendarily awful performance. I feel like if there were any kind of performance stats to pull up, this album would have to break some kinds of records. Like this is worse than that 7-1 Germany-Brazil World Cup game, this would be like if the Brazilian team all got unholy levels of blazed and repeatedly scored on themselves because they kept going the wrong way and kicking the ball into their own net, and then pissing their fucking shorts. Even in 7-1 defeat, Brazil had more dignity than Chris Barnes here. Six Feet Under and their label have to know they are a laughing stock and that people will listen to them at this point for the sheer entertainment value of how mind-blowingly awful they sound. It’s not an illegitimate marketing tactic, and it’s the only explanation I can come up with for how this passed inspection. If that’s their mission, to be a spectacle and instill cringe in death metal fans in a regular ritual of comically stupid performances across every successive album, they’re sure doing it, and I guess this baffling headache-trophy is their well-earned prize. Congratulations Six Feet Under, you did it again! Worst metal album of the year.

[a-very-fond-farewell]

The forbidden crack! Untamed prompts: 18/?

University AU: “Negative Space”

[ok so, self projection is a bitch, but I am petty to myself on a regular basis so it’s ok]

[title is from the Japanese concept “ma”, which Wikipedia describes as:

“a Japanese word which can be roughly translated as ‘gap’, ‘space’, ‘pause’ or ‘the space between two structural parts.’ In traditional Japanese arts and culture, ma is more carefully defined as the suggestion of an interval. It is best described as a consciousness of a sense of place, with the ‘intervals’ suggested often being more than simple gaps, instead focusing on the intention of a negative space in an art piece.

Ma is not necessarily an art concept created by compositional elements, such as the literal existence of a negative space. Instead, the intention is often to create the perception of an interval in the viewer experiencing the elements forming an art piece, making maless reliant on the existence of a gap, and more closely related to the perceived experience of a gap.

Ma has also been described as ‘an emptiness full of possibilities, like a promise yet to be fulfilled’, and as ‘the silence between the notes which make the music’.”

Fun fact: “ma” also means “but” in Italian, which is what usually follows whatever intrusive thought may plague my mind. Eg: “I may be useless now, BUT just you wait until I get some dopamine to get me through this shitty times.”]

*

Wei Ying never asked for much in his life. He’s content with cleaning classrooms and toilets and nobody can beat him at wiping the marble floors if he works hard enough. Granny Wen, his supervisor, is slightly impressed with his ability to make the wood shine for ages to come. His nephew Jin Ling sometimes comes to check on him when he’s done with senior classes or cram school in the evening, and together they sit down and listen to whatever his older friends in music production came up with during the day. Jiang Cheng occasionally would ask him to keep him company while he grades papers and they bitch about ZiXuan and his inability to dote on their sister. The cafeteria ladies are always nice to him and they give him extra congee because they worry for his questionable consumption of spice products.

He’s fine, really.

So why can’t he stop wandering over to the science building these days? Looking for a clean board to use, for an equation to finally solve? Even if in the end he just takes the chalk in hand and simply stares down at the inky surface in front of him, unable to write. His mind working on a software too advanced for the hardware that constitutes his brain.

Thirteen years. It has been already thirteen years and yet it feels like yesterday, or like it never happened at all. Like it has yet to be. Time blindness is a bitch to deal with, yet dyscalculia and ADHD makes a joke out of you when you love math on a visceral level... but you burned too bright too fast and now you function on no data and with an even shittier signal. Having a burnout at 23 should have taught him humility instead of pride, but Wei Ying has always worked out of spite and certain habits are difficult to forget.

Couldn’t put the number in the right order, switching digits left and right since he was young? Fine. Numbers were concepts anyway, entire civilizations working their magic without even knowing what “zero” stood for. A brain steaming with a million ideas per second? Good. New connections brimming with ideas he could use to better the world.

It worked fine until he let himself down. Until he became a useless empty lighter, a wet match tossed out, carbon monoxide in the air.

Dropped out before finishing his very ambitious, highly dangerous for his psyche, thesis project. Aunt Yu never forgave him for that, not after paying for his advanced classes, not after trusting Uncle Jiang and supporting him despite his many flaws. What good is being first of your class every year, poster child of a teaching system done right, graduating bachelor at 21, if you can’t finish your master at 23 and get your PhD at 25 and start teaching by 27 and drive yourself insane in the process?

Wei Ying dropped out and didn’t finish his master, didn’t enroll in the teaching program, and let everyone down. His Uncle and Aunt looking down on him, whether out of pity or shame. Jiang Cheng may have been the one leaving him behind, but he used to be the one saying “you should have tried harder”. YanLi worrying over him when she should have focused on her career first. Jin Ling growing up with stories of his uncle “not being worth the money put into his education”, taught to not disappoint and make his family proud. The Jin side, that is.

And now the kid comes crawling in defeat to him instead of Jiang Cheng after bombing a test in high school. And they chat of what he would like to do and how much he likes sports and how much he despises the idea of getting a scholarship for that and being called stupid or something by his classmates. And he cries when he thinks Wei Ying cannot see him as he leaves the campus late at night.

Wei Ying didn’t even want to solve that impossible theorem he fixated on in his early twenties. His thesis project was inconsequential in the great scheme of things and his professor only wanted him to be his one trick pony in the end. No. Wei Ying wanted to teach math in elementary school, hell... even in kindergarten. He wanted to change the approach to the subject. Because numbers cannot be taught like language is and there are many ways to teach how to sum up digits and divide quantities and there are no rules on how to make sense of space either.

But how can he teach when even time eludes his senses?

Something that nobody can define, but certainly most perceive as linear... but not him. Not since his brain fried up in his attempt to function like a normal human being.

After thirteen years nothing has changed.

Until one day he hears something else aside from his usual intrusive thoughts and burdensome memories. A melody so quiet he almost mistakes it for the wind, coming from the music building.

He walks slowly, night surrounding him like the embrace of a friend as he makes his way to the traditional musical instruments room. The one where Jin Ling’s friends meet sometimes as they wait for the younger boy to join them. Wei Ying holds his breath as he spies through the gap of the door left ajar, neon light slicing his face like moonbeams as he peeks in and recognizes Jin Ling’s friends and another figure sitting on the ground, guqin on their knees.

But before he can lean in and breathe in the vibrant sounds all around, the door opens and music theory Professor Lan finds Wei Ying clutching his mop for dear life.

They said the man could see colors within the notes, that he despises language outside of his class or office and that only his brother, the history of art TA, could convince him to talk every now and then.

If numbers were created to measure space, Wei Ying firmly believed music had been invented to make sense of time and count its seconds in rhythm and notes, pauses and beats. Yet, time seems to stretch to a stop as the janitor focuses all of his attention on professor Lan’s stern face and his heart quickens its pace.

Wei Ying takes a rushed breath and dives right in with a weird sense of hope pumping in his veins. A small, timid voice whispering that life is not made to be atoned, but to move on and grow.

One step at a time.

“I’m Wei Ying, Professor Lan. May I listen while you play?”

Yes, maybe it will be enough just to let time flow at its pace.

Whatever rhythm that may be.

*

[some hcs down below]

WWX does not magically solve the math theorem. he may or may not help kids figure out how to use numbers on the long run tho. no, he will still work as a janitor and there’s nothing wrong with that.

yes, LWJ is autistic and stimms and finds WWX’s honesty soothing. yes, you can add your hcs on the matter. he has synesthesia, but more on the grapheme-color side of the deal than anything else and he sees certain letters/numbers/notes in different colors. people think he can see colors in music, but they misunderstood and thought he could recognize different hues while listening to music instead of reading it.

JC has grown since his uni years and doesn’t resent WWX anymore. he teaches astrophysics as a TA and doesn’t pressure his brother to pick his studies up anymore. WWX has mixed feelings about this: he feels he’s a lost cause, to the point not even his brother spurs him to best himself anymore, but he is grateful for the patience anyway.

LXC is the official LWJ translator of the campus along with their cousins SiZhui and JinGyi. he bonds with WWX and JC over how tired they are, seldom staring at flies roaming above them in the cafeteria bc none of them can even move. he lives on caffeine and regrets, but he’s getting better as he develops a love for his plant babies and tries to not let them die on a daily basis.

Wen Ning and Wen Qing are little overachievers and adrenaline junkies, hence their competitive streak on their way to their third master degree just for funsies. they scare people with how driven they are, but the juniors love them.

NMJ is the one to go to if you need to get away with murder, but JGY will actually be the one helping you dispose of the body. the fact that they both work in criminal law is somewhat both reassuring and disquieting. they hate each other and yet cannot stop hang out, they are close to 40 and need the rivalry to keep going anyway. nothing beats a good nemesis. not even sex. maybe.

NHS has failed his entrance exam to become a nurse too many times to count, but he is determined to see the end of it. even if he could potentially work in the family business, but he doesn’t know anything about managing an empire of bricks and he doesn’t care. if NMJ could run away, well, so can he.

MianMian is Wei Ying’s bestie and has the biggest crush on JGY’s sister A-Su the kindergarten teacher, but since they are childhood besties she doesn’t know how to approach her. she is Jin Ling’s idol and a certified boxer and refers to herself as a useless bisexual. Wei Ying boxes with her sometimes, she always win.

YanLi is an equestrian mum, but in the best way possible: she coaches children for shows and teaches them horses should be loved and feared equally and that if you want to shoot arrows from a running horse you should always, ALWAYS let go of the stirrups the moment the beast gets too unhinged to ride. JC fears her, WWX is only glad she didn’t train police dogs for a living.

ZiXuan actually loves his wife, but WWX and JC question his career choices and the fact that he’s a retired lawyer spending his family fortune while he’s a stay-at-home dad and does all the housework. WWX and JC believe he should give their sister a better life and work his ass off to deserve her, but he does make amazing rice cakes and keeps up with Jin Ling’s studies and is very supportive of his dreams.

A-Qing and Song Lan are siblings and sometimes bring JC food from the campus cafeteria where they both work at, while Xiao XingChen and his carer Xue Yang work with LXC for a project on accessibility for visually impaired visitors of the local museum. JC and LXC work to make Song Lan and Xiao XingChen fall for each other, but the youngsters are too protective to let them play matchmaker so easily.

[this is all for now. please, if you want, add your own headcanons!]

[ridragon]

I took a swig of my drink, the barkeep giving me a look of concern.

"You've been here a while, Bartholomew." His voice was raspy, with a strong New York accent, despite us being on the opposite side of the country.

It took a moment for me to look up. Going by Bartholomew kept them off your tail, at least temporarily, but I was far from used to it. I looked at him, communicating with my expression more than words ever could.

"Another close call?"

I grunted an affirmation.

"I'm sorry I can't be much help anymore."

The only friend I had left was him, and he was an ex bartender. He had a hand in ending many Barts before me, but despite me living right under his nose, he never touched me. A close friend of my late father, he just couldn't bring himself to I suppose, and eventually quit the order. Since he still had the skills behind the bar, he kept the building and made his previous cover his full-time job.

I had a hard time trusting him, but he was about all I had left after they found my family harboring me, and his inside knowledge of their tactics and weapons had kept me alive far longer than I should have. Long enough to outlast the others.

But now, it wasn't enough. He has been an outsider to them for far too long. They had upgraded, changed their ways and tactics. My friend had suspected they recently had new leadership, one that was far more ruthless.

One that wasn't afraid to kill a teenager in cold blood.

I heard a sigh. "I'm sorry, but you need to leave soon. They keep an eye on their previous members and staying past my closing hours might give them a reason to follow you too."

Was it past 1 AM already? I checked my watch, 1:15

"I gave you some extra time to finish your drink." He grinned.

---

The town was so quiet at night. Most who lived here were families with young kids and 9-5 jobs, unlikely to be out past 10. I had a family once. Two sisters, a dog and a cat, and a nice mother. My father didn't treat me great at all, but even so, in the end he made the ultimate sacrifice.

He was a bigger fool than I thought.

I was a hooligan, a prankster. Shit grades and a shittier work ethic. I didn't deserve to live in the first place, let alone have my family cover for me. They hadn't even told me about the danger I was in until they had no choice.

The only thing that keeps me going is the idea that maybe my sisters were still out there. Maybe living in secret, maybe imprisoned.

All I knew is that I never deserved to see them again.

They probably hated me.

They should hate me.

A splash in a puddle made me freeze. I had known sticking this close to home was risky, but I had hoped they would assume I would try to flee and leave me here alone.

Though the truth was mostly that I was scared to leave.

I turned, unsure if I should be slow or quick.

Nothing.

Letting my guard down would be foolish. They were sneaky assholes. Of course they would be gone. Hell, the puddle step was probably on purpose to scare me, make me make a mistake.

My whole fucking life was a mistake.

Behind me, I heard a laugh.

I gritted my teeth. They were definitely playing with me. I knew that if I turned again I'd be met with darkness.

Besides, I was so tired of all this.

Perhaps it was the alcohol in my system, but I just stopped caring. My street smarts could probably have gotten me out of this situation, but what was the point? If I ran, they'd chase me and I'd be in unfamiliar territory. Alone. At least if I died here I'd die where I had been born.

"Fine. I'm done."

There was a shuffle. Perhaps they were confused, perhaps they thought I was punking them. I lowered myself to the ground.

"Make it quick, I hope your code of honor still prevents torture." Even if it didn't, I felt in a sick way perhaps the suffering would absolve me.

I heard the click of a primed gun. Revolver. Probably high caliber. These guys liked to get the job done.

I closed my eyes, trying to have my family be my last thought.

I heard a blast.

But I felt nothing.

That didn't sound like a revolver.

I heard a drop behind me.

"Bart."

My heart dropped and I turned. "Sis?"

She gave me a sad grin, "I had been looking for you a while. I thought you'd have skipped town."

Oops.

My eyes were drawn to a curious device in her hands.

Her grin grew wider, "it's my own invention, kinda like a laser gun. Guarantees an instant kill." She winces, "you know how I hate needless suffering." She had always been so smart.

"Why..." My eyes were downcast, I held back tears. Men didn't cry.

I felt a touch on my shoulder. My other sister had somehow come up behind me, I guess she took care of the others with her sneakiness. It was the first time I had felt a caring touch in a while. She was so much older than I remembered.

"It's not your fault." She was a lot more well spoken too.

"It's not." My other sister echoed.

I tried to argue, but she cut me off.

"you know I'm smarter than you, I'm right."

I couldn't help a grin, "are not."

"are too!". She seemed happy that at least our arguing skills hadn't changed. "Anyway, we need to get out of here. There will be more, and they're not gonna be surprised at your backup anymore."

I nodded, suddenly leaving didn't seem so bad. I finally wasn't alone.

"We can all catch up later, let's move." I was so surprised by how articulate my youngest sister was. She barely could do more than suck her pacifier last I saw her.

"Alright." I said, "Just give me a second."

"We'll scout on ahead." They could sense I needed a moment alone, "but don't take too long."

I watched them go, then slowly approached the body. It had no marks on it, pristine even. Looked asleep.

I kicked him. His hood came off and I saw the face of a childhood friend.

"Eat my shorts, Milhouse."

I had hope in my heart for the first time, as I turned my back on Springfield.

Bartenders only serve drinks as a side job. Their real profession? Hunting down every bastard named Bart. You are now the last Bart alive, and they will stop at nothing until you’re dead.

[ofjeremy-blog]

╰☆╮ FRANCISCO LACHOWSKI ─ JEREMY CHAVEZ identifies as CIS MALE and uses HE/HIM pronouns. they’re a MODEL/ACTOR, and they’re only TWENTY FOUR ! they’re said to be +CHARMING, but also -REMORSELESS. i guess that’s why they’re known as THE PARADOX in the tabloids.

i’d like to start off by saying thank u for opening this shit post! my name is ellie and it’s too cheesy to say you’re watching disney channel so! can’t say that! anyways i’ve been dying to use chico for 10 years and just never did and saw this rp in the tags and was like? o? and now im here! ive been dying to use chico for 10 years but do i know how im playing him or wtvr? nope! but i’m still here please still tolerate me thank u xx 

background info

born n raised in manhattan! 

comes from old portuguese money. his family has always been rich and i’ve just now decided that it’s because they migrated from brazil and started some company like? or maybe they were investors who invested in hella shit and that’s how they kept their money. the chavez family are old money investors and i’m adding in socialite to that. the mom could have a skincare business that’s successful too we’ll go w that. 

doesnt know what it’s like to struggle he was given everything he ever wanted and kinda knew what humble meant but it was only because of kendrick lamar telling him to be sit down n be humble 

he grew up going to some rich elite private school and were his grades ugly? i mean lowkey but did he give a shit? no bc again he doesnt know the meaning of struggling and he knew his parents could just pay off whatever the fuck he did so i mean? to him? school was a time for socialization and he wasnt really into studying he kinda just went bc all his friends did u feel 

he didnt try much in school but he was also a good guy during this point. he was friendly n didnt know the meaning of being humble  and also used his money to his advantage  but he was still a good guy at this point u kno like. think of joey from friends i have that inspo for him u know? like goofy, into flirting w the ladies, etc. kinda ditzy but he’s hot and 6′3″so i mean? 

anyways he fucked around in high school but then junior year maybe he got a steady girlfriend that actually lasted after the short lived relationships he had to lasted at most 2 weeks. he fell in LOVE love w this girl and they were together n couldve been that cute couple u kno

jere was WHIPPED whipped, but then something happened and they broke up n that shit hurted

like most boys who get their heart shattered, jere never learned how to recover and instead started playing w girls n shit. he decided to bleed onto others instead of patching up his own wound and now hes a hurt dumbass who hurts others thinkin it’ll help him (it doesnt! surprise! wish men knew that!) and like. literally trembles when commitment is mentioned or even asked of him like? 

commitment? ded dont kno them 

anyways since he wasnt booksmart and didnt give a shit about high school, he didnt go to college (his dad hated that shit and the mom didnt really give a shit. she was a socialite n cared for appearances and he was an investor who wanted a smart son but jere said fuck his dad wanting brains 4 him n listened to his mom when she said appearance is key

he started modeling and is now slowly getting into acting. he hasnt done  much big acting roles but im gonna say hes been guest starring on hella shit n getting recurring/minor roles for now

thats it for background info! 

personality info

so! like in the background when i mentioned his heart hurted after being dumped end of senior year he started playing woman and was no longer the whipped sappy hopeless romantic that he used to be! 

he’s still a nice guy, but his intentions w girls r just for the fuck n no commitment. he’s like the three sisters in hercules. he sees string n goes snip snip 

 idk why im calling him the paradox but ! for him he like appears to be a good guy and he is to an extent (hes kinda like joey but like a more successful actor kinda with a shittier personality) but like hes the big bad wolf when hes not trying to act like an innocent grandma

he’ll b upfront w girls n tell them that hes not looking  for anything serious but then he’ll play them up and be really good to them and literally just string them along and then go in for  the kill when he knows theyre hooked n then he’ll place the blame on the girl/boy/wtvr by saying “i told u in the beginning i dont want anything more.  this is on u” like that type of bullshit u feel

basically like in the quote he acts all innocent but in reality hes a shit head who looks like a good guy but hes really not n its all bc he got hurt ONCE (literally once) and then decided he didnt need 2 b careful or consider w others hearts. 

men r disgusting sometimes 

and thats basically jere! 

his personality is heavily like joey but when it comes to girls he plays them like the quote says! he looks like a golden boy but really hes like that ugly brown after uve mixed all the colors 

and thats it! 

connection ideas

the highschool sweetheart that broke his heart. she doesnt have to be the same age as him, but would have lived in manhattan during their high school years and it wouldve happened during his junior and ended during the end or even like mid end of his senior year! 

since he’s joey it’d b cool to have a chandler! give me that shit fuckin’ love brotps bro

maybe a brother/sister like relationship? some sibling type of relationship? im gonna say he had an older sister and an older brother but hes not that close w them bc the age gap being 4+ years (not small but hes dumb) 

for him it’d b cool to have unrequited crushes! fwb! one night stands gone wrong or ended beautifully! anything like that the more the merrier for him he loves things that gives n can receive pleasure xx

brotps!!!! love brotps so much give me any brotps im literally the biggest slut for brotps always 

enemies would b legit?? maybe they just dont like him bc hes a dumb ass who doesnt kno how to be humble or bc hes just a dumb rich boy?? maybe he fucked w their significant other n cheated or something?? maybe he played w their hearts n pulled the “i told u i dont do commitment” bullshit n strung them along n now they hate him? enemies r legit we love that shit too

and thats its! 

basically any plots im down for jere is kinda just out there hes just living his life we love connections n if u dont wanna plot then! thats ok too we can just go w the flow n decide on the spot when a reply happens or something u know! if u do wanna plot tho then u can message me on the side or like this post or reply to  this post n ill come to u and u know anything ya! thank u 4 reading this shit post if u got this far u really r the real deal love u thank u

[cxffncase]

What are your OCs' backstories?

OOF ok uh so

theres a lot so ill “condense” it, ill only do the main 3 bc um i have too many ocs

 starting with finn, since he was the oldest. his backstory is still a wip, but:

 finn was born to a family who didnt want him, and left him on the street, basically. he was found by a man (whose name i still havent thought of oh no) somehow along the way. This man was an artist whose wife recently left him. he raised finn, enrolled him in school, even though he didnt have enough money. they lived on the outskirts of new york city. 

 back in NJ, lola was born to marisol and martin a couple years after finn. marisol was wery young and naive at the time. she was kind, but people (like martin) often took advantage of her niceness. marisol was a mom but martin was a pretty shit dad; he didnt really like the idea of having a kid and having to stay in one place. He grew to like lola  a bit actually, but not really. the idea of having a family really “weighed him down”, although he didnt really admit it. when lola was 5, marisol told everyne they were to have another kid (chiki). martin didnt want another child so he up and left marisol and lola

 when sam was born, lola was 2. Sam’s parents are Antonio and Theresa, who where even shittier parents individually than martin would ever be. theresa was an obsessive, nitpicky, overprotective control freak and antonio was a violent and physically abusive alcoholic, they hated each other but at the same time were really dependent on one another so neither of them permanently left the house. sam was pretty much an accident and theresa couldnt have an abortion because antonio’s parents were super super fuckign religious and she didnt wanna be separated from him

 when sam was 4 or so he ran away from home and met lola at a park. she kinda took him back to her house but when marisol found out sam ran away she had to take him back home, where (unknown to marisol) sam was beaten as punishment from antonio

 shortly after chiki was born (a couple weeks later after sam ran away), lola’s family moved to another town so marisol could get a better job to provide for her family.

 over the next couple years sam was enrolled in school and when he was in third grade or so lola moved back. sam and lola became really really good friends though through school, even when lola was in middle school the two really hung out together.

 when lola was 13 (in eighth grade), she realized she wasn’t straight, and consulted sam about it. he suggested she tell her mom, when she was ready. a week later, she told marisol about it. Marisol was very hesitant at first (because she was religious), and lola and her mom’s relationship became strained for about a couple months.

 when sam was 13 Theresa left the house and took sam with her after she found antonio sleeping with another woman. they drove all the way out to pennsylvania to stay with Theresa’s family, then theresa got a call from antonio begging her to come back. she said she regretted leaving and turned back around. when sam got back to the house that night he decided to commit suicide, only he wasnt sure if he really wanted to, so he drank a ton of his dad’s liquor to see what would happen. he ended up vomiting and passing out

 at the same time, lola entered a junior baking competition. she only got second place, but the judges were impressed nonetheless. though she was only a sophomore, she started looking for cooking schools to go to. marisol became less alienated from her daughter and began to be supportive, not only of lola’s passion for cooking, but of her sexuality too.

 meanwhile, finn and his adoptive father moved to new jersey for a more affordable living area. finn wasnt in redsdale yet, it wouldnt be until he was in his 20s he’d move there

 back to sam: at age 15, antonio and theresa had another really big fight that caused theresa to leave, but this time, she didnt take sam. antonio in a drunk rage kicked sam out and forced him to go look for his mom and that he couldnt come back until he found her. sam looked around the neighborhood for a couple hours, gave up, and went to lola’s house to sleep there. when he went back to his house, he found out that everything was actually ok, his mom had literally just been hiding in the basement the whole entire time. it was at this point sam decided he should leave his house. he got a job at the surf shop down the road, and dropped out of school at 16 to get a second job at the grocery store

 when lola was 18 she graduated from school, finally. she had gotten numerous scholarships and went to a school a couple hours away from home. her and sam kept in contact through texting a bit but not much. lola had a pretty hard time in college at first because she wasn’t used to constructive criticism and following directions n stuff. she was pretty headstrong and impatient as a kid but it’s here that she learned to be more meticulous and accept others’ advice. gradually she started to do really good. she became *almost* top of her class towards the end of her second year. she took an internship her third year to work in a kitchen in a pretty fancy restaurant.

 when sam was 18, he moved out of the house. life was pretty good as he was able to afford more on his own and do better w/o the stress of his parents. he started exercising a lot more (he had a bit before but his parents starved him a lot (not really intentionally, they were just really neglectful and he wasnt a priority to them)) and was teaching himself self defense/how to fight especially since his parents didnt want him leaving and they might try to follow him

 during break for lola and for sam’s 19th birthday, lola took him to a rock concert. this is where sam met lynn. they kept in contact w/ each other for a couple months as friends and then decided to date. for sam and lynn’s 1 month anniversary, sam wrote lynn a song and played it for her. the next day lynn asked to join her 2 person band in need of a 3rd member

 in the meantime finn was having some rough patches with his dad. he really wanted to go to art school but they couldnt afford it. finn had to get a job at an early age to support the family since they didnt have a lot of money

 things were going well with the band sam was in until mikey (band leader/singer) had been caught w/ lynn. sam found out this was not just a one night stand, but instead had been going on for a year. sam went to mikey’s house out of anger and beat mikey up to the point where mikey was literally on the verge of death. lynn found him in his house alone and got him to the hospital. sam was arrested but not tried, since mikey’s parents (cassandra and micheal sr) didnt want mikey to go to jail too (since mikey was kinf of a drug dealer on the side and if mikey’s house was investigated bc of the crime scene for evidence theyd def find illegal shit? i guess? yea)

 lola caught this on the new and was furious with sam. she’d become pretty distant w/ him bc of being so busy with college, so she broke it off with him. sam went into a pretty bad depression and started drinking and going to bars n shit and picking up girls

 after awhile he realized his life was really fucked up and tried getting some jobs but no one would hire him because of a spotty criminal record

 lola in the mean time graduated college and went back to redsdale to visit her mom. she wanted to still live there despite the fact she could pretty much go anywhere else considering how good of a chef she was. but instead she wanted to live close to her mother. she got a job at a restaurant by the ocean owned by frank. it wasnt doing so well; chefs were constantly coming and going, the place was out of date, etc. lola quickly became head chef there and practically saved frank’s failing business.

 sam found out lola was in town and wanted her help. they apologized to each other and she decided to help. lola got sam a job at frank’s restaurant since frank said he owed lola for her helping him.

 going back a couple years, finn moved out of his house at 22. he was super stressed out over working so he moved near the ocean in hopes of “rediscovering” himself. in the first couple years he was in redsdale, he developed his art a lot and painted mostly stuff of the ocean. he decided he needed a job, and got one at frank’s restaurant as a janitor. this is where finn met lola.

 eventually sam met finn as well after sam got a job there, and they became pretty good friends. finn didnt like sam at first but after a bit he warmed up to him. after a year or so sam realized he had a crush on finn and this time, consulted lola and realized he wasnt straight. it took him a couple weeks to prepare but after a bit sam told finn he liked him. plot twist, finn was gay this whole time, luckily

 pretty much everything wraps up here, sam and finn are dating now

 and we’re in the current modern day

yea

[mahalidael]

Heart Attack #1: It’s Over, Romeo! I Have the High Ground

Content warning: Swearing, injury, brief mentions of sexual content.

What if you could share a body with your soulmate? Sounds like a fun story, but for Kanon and Stephanie, it's reality--a painfully awkward reality, especially because they hate each other and now they have to fight crime.

It all started when I broke Stephanie Lemaire’s wrist in study hall.

When I moved to Kansas, I noticed there were a lot of jocks, a lot of girls, and an overwhelming number of jock girls at my school. At the time, I had no idea why there were so many, I was just afraid to talk to them—and for some reason they liked congregating in Ms. Parker’s classroom.

Security during study hall was lax. A lot of people just wandered around in the hallway convening with friends. I think I was the only person who actually studied, no matter how much the flock of capes distracted me.

I don’t know exactly why they went to Ms. Parker’s room—maybe it was just convenient, but more likely is that people gravitated to Stephanie.

Stephanie had a surprising silhouette for a Kansas girl. She was about fifteen when I met her and her shoulders had already broadened out. She had firm features and a really butch way of dressing—I bet she would have looked like a football player if she cut her Dolly Parton curls, but she didn’t. She was also dumb as a box of hammers.

Never had one girl been blamed for so much. Every time I heard something about her, it was an answer to a question. “Why doesn’t the cafeteria have barbecue sauce packets any more?” “Stephanie was hoarding them.” “Why can’t we use duct tape on school grounds?” “Stephanie taped some kid to the closet door.”

I didn’t actually talk to her that much. Sometimes she would push me out of the way in the locker room, and for a while it was a game for the capes to bop all the short kids over the head in the hallway, but no real talking.

Usually when Stephanie’s meat ocean appeared, I was an easy target. I was fairly small, my hair was just coming in pink at the roots, and I only ever wore sweaters. On top of everything else, I’ve got a heart condition, and periodically turning purple if you over-exert yourself isn’t a recipe for popularity. So most of the time I’d get paper tossed at me, or somebody would make a Super Saiyan joke. Most of the time.

But a little more information, and keep in mind I didn’t know any of this shit at the time, but I heard all of this from Stephanie later on:

The high school capes aren’t an official club, because the school’s not allowed to sanction heroism, but they might as well be. They get together on Sunday afternoons and train their asses off preparing for the day that they too will get to fistfight a clown in a dark alley.

So that’s the set dressing. The conflict is the lacrosse team.

There are two kinds of jock in my high school: lacrosse jock and cape jock. The lacrosse team is mostly supers, so it’s only inevitable that they would feud, and today it had manifested in the form of an arm wrestling tournament in the middle of the room.

I didn’t hear the first part of the conversation, but apparently one of the greasier lacrosse players had challenged one of the capes and now it was just coming together. Winner of the last round got to pick the next challenger, and so it went.

These fights never last, and eventually it was less of a “what sports team is better” contest and more of a “supers are better than capes” contest. It was like Injustice: Gods Among Us but shittier.

I didn’t want to be pulled in, but it was one of those things that were so stupid you just couldn’t look away. The most surprising thing was that Stephanie won three rounds in a row, against three increasingly big lacrosse players. I knew that capes weren’t slouches, but holy shit.

It went downhill when they tied. “We need a tie-breaker,” greasy boy declared.

Stephanie was leaning back in her chair, sweating and red in the face. “I heard you the first time, asslamp; there’s no need to yell. Okay, are there any supers who haven’t gone?” She said, and then took a long drink of the bottle of Gatorade on her desk. I turned away and pretended to cough so it wouldn’t look like I was making eyes at her.

Of course, that act of repressed lesbianism was my undoing. As if cued, everyone simultaneously noticed me. Asslamp said: “Hey, nerd!”

“I—yes?” I sputtered.

“Are you a super?”

“Yes,” I said, before I could stop myself.

The capes erupted into laughter, and the supers groaned. I felt my face heat up. “I’m not gonna wrestle that,” Stephanie giggled.

And I thought “wow… now I’m obligated to kick her ass.”

I stood up, and I walked as confidently as I could towards an arm wrestling match with a girl twice my size, which wasn’t very. Honestly, I wouldn’t have passed a field sobriety test. I sat down and looked her dead in the eye. Everyone else was whooping like idiots.

She put her elbow on the table. “You ready to lose?”

I laughed nervously as I did the same. “No.”

“Wrong hand, short-ass.”

“I’m left-handed, is that a problem?”

Stephanie shrugged and put her left hand in mine. “Only if you make it a problem.”

Asslamp refereed. “Are you ready? On your marks…”

Everyone in the room was yelling now.

“Get set…”

I squeezed her hand a little harder.

“Go!”

…I wish I had something interesting to say about the ten seconds or so that I actually arm wrestled Stephanie, but really I was just internally screaming. Mostly because I was wilting quickly, and my arm was almost touching the desk, but also because I could not stop pumping myself up to kick her ass.

After all, how could I her beat me? She was so stupid, so arrogant, so blonde, so fucking cu—

And that’s when her arm hit the desk, hard. I could have sworn I heard a snapping sound, but it was lost in the sound of the supers cheering like wild animals. Eventually it subsided when people started noticing that Stephanie was both holding her arm to her chest and screaming bloody murder at me.

“What the fuck did you do to my wrist?!” Sure enough, it was bent strangely, in a way that wasn’t present before we arm wrestled.

Shit. Fuck. Shit fuck. “I’m sorry! It was an accident!”

The apology didn’t stop Stephanie from grabbing me by my sweater. “Son of a bitch, dude, fucking warn me! You know how much trouble we’re gonna get in now? If I get suspended one more time, I’m fucked!”

...Is what I think she said. Her voice sounded really far away for some reason, and all I could hear was a loud electric whine.

And then I apologized, and I apologized, and I said “I didn’t know I could do that,” and then I woke up in the hospital.

Smooth.

I got off easy with the school due to the medical scare. Apparently Stephanie’s parents didn’t sue because this kind of thing happens a lot, and it was a minor fracture. The doctor still made her wear a cast, though, which she made a point of flipping me off with a couple of times.

More confusing was where that sudden burst of strength had come from, and how quickly it had left. Best I could figure was that it was triggered by high stress, but trying to replicate the scenario produced nothing.

Maybe an outside factor had set it off, but aside from the actual arm wrestling, there didn’t seem to be anything unusual…

And then I had that thought that only teenagers and fraternity brothers can have:

Was I—was I being too gay?

I figured, no… it couldn’t be that. I mean, I’d accidentally jacked it to the thought of my first grade teacher once, but that didn’t cause any super-powered fireworks. Besides, whatever creamy feelings I might have had for Stephanie were killed after she made a habit of chucking orange juice cartons at me at lunch.

But I couldn’t be sure—until a few months later, on a biology field trip.

When field trip buddies were announced, we didn’t say anything on the bus, we didn’t say anything in the field trip line, and we didn’t say anything until halfway through the day when our group stopped for lunch. We were required to remain within twenty feet of each other, but otherwise we were completely ignoring each other.

I was like, holding a thing of yogurt, and then Stephanie sat down next to me, and she fished a bag of protein powder (?) out of her varsity jacket, and absolutely nothing else. She swallowed down the whole packet, then walked off towards the bathroom like it was nobody’s business.

Now, my dumb ass was still in that good Asian schoolgirl mentality, and field trip buddy rules said that Stephanie walking to the bathroom was absolutely my business. I jettisoned my yogurt and took off after her.

To give you an idea of what happened: the Kansas City aquarium has a cafeteria. Off that cafeteria, there’s a straight, darkened hallway. At the start of that hallway, there’s a ladies’ room—a ladies’ room that Stephanie was now breezing past, into the shadows.

You what fucking sucks about tall people? They can just strut off wherever they want, and us normal-sized people have to run behind them like idiots.

“Hey, wait!” I shouted as quietly as I could, to avoid getting myself in trouble.

By some miracle, Stephanie didn’t ignore me, but instead turned on her heel and faced me in the darkness, features set. “What?”

“Um…” She glared down at me. “Did you, like, forget your lunch, or…”

“That was my lunch,” she said in the same tone you would say something like “this town ain’t big enough for the two of us.”

“Oh.” Stephanie’s glare was sharp enough to cut glass. “I can buy you a banana or—”

She thrust her right hand towards me, as if asking for a handshake. I blinked. “Go on,” she said.

I carefully shook her hand, not sure what she wanted. She brought her left to her face in a gesture of frustration. “Don’t be stupid!”

“I’m sorry, I really don’t know what you want.”

Stephanie huffed. “If you wanna break my other wrist so bad, you might as well do it!”

Aw, man, this again. “I’m not here to break your wrist, I’m here because you’re wandering off into the unknown!”

She leaned into the wall, crossing her arms and looking at me like I was the densest girl she’d ever met. There was no light in the hallway, and the light of the cafeteria was very soft on her face. “It’s not ‘the unknown’ if I know what’s at the end of it. The tour isn’t going through this wing, but it’s still open.”

“Then dick around on your own time! We’re gonna get in trouble again.”

Stephanie puffed her chest out indignantly and planted her feet. “Okay. Go on. Go ahead and stop me.”

I took her hand and pulled hard as I could. Stephanie smiled, barely swaying. I went around to her side and tried pushing her back towards the cafeteria, leaning my whole weight into it, but she didn’t budge at all. All I accomplished was making myself aware that I was half her size.

“Where’d that arm wrestling strength go?” she said when I had finally given up, wheezing a little bit. I hoped I wouldn’t pass out again.

“Shut up.”

“We’ve got twenty minutes. You can’t stop me, so either you go back and get in trouble, or you see something cool and get in trouble. I mean, you’re screwed no matter what happens.”

I weighed my options. Maybe it was the super curiosity in me, but I really wanted to see what was at the end of that dark hallway. And Stephanie was dumb, but she was right. My biology teacher hated me, and if I went back and told her I would still get in trouble.

I took a deep breath. “Five minutes, then we’re gonna try slipping back into the cafeteria.”

“What makes you think you can drive a bargain with me?”

“If I remember anything from that time I broke your wrist, it’s that you care about getting in trouble.”

Stephanie’s expression seemed to do a little dance of panic and anger before getting schooled. “Whatever. Five minutes is good. Come on, follow me.”

She kept a firm hand on my shoulder, and her face was still very neutral, but she held onto me like she was scared I was gonna run off or try to break her arm again.

As we walked down the hallway, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I could see we were approaching a pair of doors at the end. They were painted black, and looking at them I thought it was a place that I wouldn’t be allowed to enter.

“There’s a reason,” Stephanie said when she reached the doors, “why this hallway is so dark, and it’s not because it’s closed.” She grinned at me. “You ready?”

“Ready enough.”

“Watch this.” She opened the door just a crack, and I saw a soft purple light in the darkness.

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[rokurookajima]

some thoughts at the end of this fucking weird school year

junior year is always the hardest year. why is that a thing. i know this is only the second one i’ve ever been through, but it was my hardest year in high school too. idk if my classes this year were actually that much harder, but life was hard. life was the most stressful junior year in high school too. is it something to do with the fact that it’s so close to the end, but it’s not the end??? like all the fear of the unknown post-school future is there, but it’s too far away to do anything about or rlly have any sense of what it’ll be like when you do actually finish??

you can actually make really good friends in college. in retrospect, like with most things, i don’t know why i thought i’d never make friends in college. from pretty much first grade through the end of high school, i had the same group of friends, and i’m still friends with them now. before i made friends in college, that made me think that i just like...wouldn’t know how to talk to anyone else?? bc i’d become friends with all of them long ago. last spring i started getting close to some of the people that i’d now say are by far some of the closest and most important people to me. i have like. really good friends. and they put up with a lot of shit from me. 

this school year feels like it went way too fast and its mostly because october-december feel like lost time to me. i was so depressed in the fall, over self-medicated by staying high through pretty much all of october, and then being so deeply suicidal in november and december that now i’ve repressed half those memories or just try really hard to never think about it. january wasn’t that good but it was also not hard at all to be better than the month before. february started weird and sad and hard, but halfway through started feeling different. like still kinda sad and weird, but like there was a tangible tone shift on this one specific day that made the rest of the month feel different. coming back from spring break always feels different, and it’s usually better than the half of the semester before spring break. it was. march was the first month in a long time that i’d actually refer to as “good”. then april hit and i got really stressed and now the semester is over and i still don’t feel like i can stop being stressed yet. 

art is hard. i’ve never felt that confident in anything i produce, but i don’t think it’s ever hit me as hard than it did this last month, coming up on all my final art projects. i haven’t had a genuine good idea, or rlly. an idea. in a really long time. in my experience at least, those phases of depression that are as bad as last fall, i forget everything i like. when i feel less depressed, i don't remember it still. i can think about things that i know i liked before, or at some point, but the thoughts don’t do anything for me. i don’t feel anything towards those things. i guess i liked that thing. i don’t know now. inspiration doesn’t come out of that, motivation doesn’t come out of no inspiration, and you can’t make anything without either of those things. i get tired of making all my work about my own issues, but it’s been all i have to pull from for so long i hope it’s not always like that

being single is generally like. always shitty. but it’s way shittier when you really really don’t want to be single. but there’s also kind of no way to shut that off. i think i’m just an inherently lonely person. i don’t know why i can’t just turn that off and feel fulfilled enough with the relationships i have, which makes me feel so bad because i do have such good friends and i love them and i appreciate them

i have an overly inflamed sense of being unwanted. which is also stupid because again. friends, good friends, who i do believe want to be my friends. but my ex boyfriend treated me like i was so deeply unwanted at the end of our relationship, like i didn’t matter, and having me around or not made no impact on him at all. i can’t shake feeling like that’s how it’ll always be. i can’t imagine what it would be like to be in a relationship with someone that actually wants to spend as much time with me as i want to spend with them. somebody that makes an effort to see me. like that can’t be real. i don’t think anyone can handle me on that level for long. my relationship really lasted such a short amount of time before he got sick of me. what does that say about me. i don’t think that person exists. this is melodramatic i fuckin know. feeling fundamentally unwanted is probably one of the worst feelings to ever be stuck with. but wow i don’t really think it’s ever gonna go away. 

i don’t know how i’ll ever get to a point where i don’t hate myself. nobody has ever fucked me over as much as i’ve fucked myself over, and i’ve never fucked anyone else over as much as i’ve fucked myself. the worst time to ever try to convince me that i shouldn’t hate myself is when i still blame myself for everything that’s ever gone wrong in my life, bc at the bottom of it, i am the root cause of all of it. feeling constantly unwanted makes me hate myself. the fact that i feel that way makes me hate myself. the fact that i hate myself makes me hate myself. i know no one can be in a relationship with someone that hates themselves. that makes me hate myself more. 

i’m convinced there’s no reason to make any effort to love myself because i don’t think it will change any circumstances of my life. loving myself won’t change any outside forces. it won’t make someone show up in my life. it won’t change the fact that i’m lonely because i’d still be alone. i’m sure this is stupid and completely wrong, but y’know The Depression is my logic and it makes perfect sense to me

i think i’m a worse person than i was this time last year. i don’t like the way i treat my parents, i hold them at arms length and get too irritated with them too fast when they’re not even doing anything and associate too much of my own issues with them to the point that it completely affects how i react to them. i don’t like how i think about things. i don’t like how bitter i am, i don’t like how lonely and desperate for affection i am. i hate that i completely believe the best part of my life already happened, and now the lesson i learned from it is more or less that i fucked things up, but i won’t have another opportunity for happiness to apply the lessons i might have learned. i’ll probably sabotage any potential chances i ever get anyway, because that’s what i do. i hate that i don’t think i deserve anything, but people telling me that i do isn’t comforting because deserving something doesn’t mean theres any obligation for the universe to make it happen

this got really depressing

i live completely ruled by fear. i’m so afraid of all the good things that might not happen and all the bad things that probably will. i’m terrified of finishing college because i don’t have any ideas about what i’ll do after. i always feel like i’m running out of time or wasting it. i’m scared to face this summer because right now it looks like four months of being alone the majority of the time and endlessly harassing people to spend time with me and being turned down. i hate my job and the summers are always kind of sad and weird because all i have as a consistent time filler is work. my job is isolating and makes me go to my home city which makes me depressed, and i do such mindless work it pretty much just gives me a solid time span to just think about how sad i am

my parents have me so convinced i’ll never get hired anywhere else, i don’t even try to find a second job. i don’t have the stomach for rejection because no matter what it is, i take all of it personally. 

i desperately want to be happy but it’s an unattainable concept 

i need to stop relying on the opinions and perceptions other people have of me to determine how i feel about myself, but if i exclusively look at myself without any outside factors, i do not like myself at all. believing i might be worth something because someone else treats me like i am is the closest i’ll ever get to self worth. 

people always ask me if i tell my therapist these things, and i really don’t know what they think i talk to my therapist about if they think i’m not telling her all of this. i’m still in therapy once a week, but i wish it was more. i wish i was there for two hours instead of one, or two days in a row instead of just one. 

i’m at a coffee shop right now and this boy i had sex with once just walked in and he said we could talk here if we ran into each other and i don’t know what to do about that so i’m pretending like i didn’t see him and i’m still just typing like i have a purpose in what i’m saying. i don’t really i just don’t know what to do. i’m very lame. i think i’m 12. 

literally if u read to the bottom of this in the next 5 minutes pls tell me what to do he didn’t notice me and i don’t know how to approach

[crippling-amxiety-and-depression]

Memories of You (Journal Entry #10)

Ah yes, the inevitable Stef post. This one was coming in eventually, just cause it’s crazy to thing how much someone can have an impact on your life without even having that much of a personal connection with them. I bet for all 5 of you reading this, you’re probably thinking, “Oh boy another video game song!”. Well yeah, but for good reason. I played through the game that this song is from, Persona 3, during my Junior year, around the time this shit happened. So anyways in order to explain sophomore/junior year Stef, I first have to explain 8th grade Stef. So Stef was this really nice girl who I knew in middle school. During that time when hormones are running rampant and kids are just figuring out what attraction to others is, having a crush on someone was a pretty common thing imo. Like it feels like something that naturally happens at that age to every kid at least once just cause it’s a part of growing up. Anyways, since my days as a wee lad, I never really had friends of the opposite sex. Idk why really, but throughout my life (even to right now to an extent), I’ve always had a fear of talking to people of the opposite sex for some reason. Idk if it’s a normal thing or not, but I’ve just always been like that. So throughout middle school, it was pretty natural for me to only hang out with guys just cause that’s where I felt comfortable with myself. Around 8th grade, I was able to befriend Stef fairly easily and for once I didn’t feel all nervous and giddy around her, I just felt normal. It was nice, having a friend who was a girl for a change of pace. Our friendship wasn’t too deep, since I never really got to know her that well, but it was still a nice friendship. She had a couple of boyfriends that year and I even remember shouting at him “If you ever hurt her again I’ll kick your ass!” (Which is a total lie since 8th grade me was a 4′7 kid who had yet to hit puberty). If it was to the point where I felt defensive about her like that, I’d say we had a decent friendship. So when we started high school, I ended up kinda losing contact with her since we had different lunch hours and schedules, so I never really saw her. But come sophomore year, we ended up sharing a class where we almost always had free time, so we were able to catch up and rekindle that nice friendship from two years prior. At this point I was a major dork and I was able to make her laugh quite often, and making her laugh so often and just telling stories and talking about anime and what not was just so fun. At this point I was still developing that strong ass friendship I had with the boi Frank, and although I had other people to hang out with, I didn’t have that same dynamic with anyone else. It was a really unique feeling, being able to bring happiness to someone else like that on a nearly daily basis for a year. Before I knew it, I started falling for her and I let my imagination run wild. I was an inexperienced high schooler who was a dork and had never been in anything inherently close to a relationship yet, so I didn’t really know what to say or do. Around this time I met a really cool dude named John (s/o to you you’re chill af man never change <3), and it turns out he had dated Stef during our freshman year (when I didn’t have contact with Stef at all). I ended up telling him how I felt about her (at the time I had no idea they had dated) and I asked him what should I do about it because I sure as hell had no idea what to do about it. He told me to just go for it, and that if anyone had a shot with her it would definitely be me. We had this conversation around March, and I came so close to asking her about it so many times, but I could never bring myself around to doing it. Spring passed, and so did summer, and I still hadn’t acted on my feelings at all. When school started again in August, I would see her every morning walking to class, and I would always smile and say Hi, but never anything else. I still had lingering feelings for her, and I thought of so many different ways of trying it out. Like I knew where her locker was, I easily could’ve just dropped something in there, or asked to talk to her sometime after school, but I never did. I ended up going to the LA county fair towards the end of September, and I think that night was the turning point for me. I was separated from my family for a few minutes, and something about the atmosphere that night really got to me. Seeing all these couples having the time of their lives, and me just sulking around like a sad sack of shit alone really got to me, and left this empty feeling inside of me. I told myself, “If I had told Stef since March, she could’ve been here with me right now. I can’t hold this in anymore”, and from that moment I had decided that the next time  I saw her, I would ask her to the homecoming game/dance and I would at least hear what she had to say about it. Never in my life did I ever feel like my heart was gonna leap out of my chest, I was so nervous that the first time I was gonna tell her I ended up just croaking out a greeting and left as fast as I could because goddamn it was so bad I was just sweating bullets and it was awful. The next time I would see her was in between classes, and for some reason, my dumbass decided, “I have 2 minutes to chat it up, now’s my chance!” (pro tip for all you youngsters out there, trying to do some shit like this in 2 minutes is impossible, abort mission). Instead of my original intention of “Hey do you wanna go to the homecoming game and dance together?” I ended up nervously splurting, “HEY DO YOU WANNA BE MY GIRLFRIEND???” Which by the way I shit you not I said it exactly like that and oh boy i fucking regretted it so much as soon as I said it like man you don’t even know. ANYWAYS MY TERRIBLE GRAMMAR AND SENTENCE STRUCTURE ASIDE she said no in the nicest way possible, but ended up saying six words that would fuck me up to this very day. “Why didn’t you say so sooner?”. At first I was just relieved that we both got this out of the way and I didn’t have to worry about it. But afterwards I started to think about it and that damned question haunted me. It’s silly to say this to a bunch of strangers, but even though Stef and I never had anything going on, it still hurt a lot. I would see her every morning when i walked to my first class, and I would just smile and say hi like everything was fine, but all this was a real blow to how I would interact with people who I liked. Like from now on a constant thought in my head was “I have to say something now or it’ll be too late” or “it’s too late I blew it”. I would see her walking around with other people after school from a window in night school, it really hurt. I had these massive ups and downs for the rest of that school year, and whenever I would go out to the mall or even if someone knocked on my door I would legit freak out because I thought it was her for some weird fucking reason, idk how to describe it but maybe paranoia is the proper word for it? Idk all I know is that I felt like total shit because of this and I honestly felt that if I had just kept my stupid mouth shut things would’ve been so much better. Later on I found out that she was actually really weird and had tried getting with two of my best friends at some point (the fact that she had never even bothered with me despite being willing to date her just rubbed salt in the wound), and that she was overall a really messed up person. Some would say that I really dodged a bullet there (in my case the gun was never really loaded in the first place but I think you get the point) but the whole experience really fucking sucked. I went through so many ups and downs, and hit tons of low points in so little time that I legitimately hated myself, it really sucked. But if all this taught me anything, it’s that you really should keep yourself in check, and don’t let your head run wild with thoughts, cause when it all comes crashing down it hurts even harder. Anyways it’s 2:30 am and I haven’t dropped the song link yet, give this song a good listen some of the lyrics remind me of a shittier time but in a good way, especially since I beat this game during one of my ups and it was just overall a feel good moment ^~^

Kimi no Kioku (Original Jap. Version): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-CSZDbKuL4 Memorie of You (KICKASS COVER BY AN AMAZING HUMAN NAMED SAPPHIRE, GO CHECK HER OTHER SHIT OUT THIS SONG MAKES ME SO HAPPY AHHH): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOKyf_7J6sA