#i did not phrase the last paragraph the way i wanted to at all sorry for that

[gece-misin-nesin]

A family like the Todorokis are more likely to tolerate an abuser than someone whose reaction to being abused is against social norms (ask me how I know). It is so realistic that they twist themselves into knots about how it got to this point but any change is the abuser’s choice because the family still wont challenge for control. The fact that everyone knows how bad things were for Touya will just exacerbate the pain when he has to see all of them come in and face him as a united family. I cried for hours after Touya’s last appearance without being able to figure out why it got me. I had pretty much given up hope for a decent wrap up before that point but the Todoroki storyline is a bleak festering mess. Is the best option for abused kids to buckle down and stay quiet until you are no longer a minor and then go no contact and build a life on your own from scratch with very little support system like Natsuo kinda did? Fans absolutely can’t accept that. Even the godawful Naruto ending wasn’t so extremely incongruous with the genre and tone of a series that an author spent years and years on.

Unfortunately, you are right. However, while the Todorokis' way of dealing with their abuse might be 'realistic' it's completely understandable to be disappointed with how it ended. After all, we usually read fiction to escape from reality, or for some form of catharsis. And the ending of the Todorokis (or even the manga's as a whole) was...anything but that.

I am sorry you were able to relate to their situation so deeply, I can only say that I hope you can find the comfort you seek in something else. My best wishes to you, anon.

[cripplecharacters]

hi!! I have a character I created when I was a teenager who I am currently revamping for a new project, but I am stumped for how to fix a big mistake I made at the time. I based this character's appearance on my best friend in high school, who had a growth disorder/facial difference.

at the time, I asked him how he would describe himself in writing, and his examples were phrases like "a boy with a malformed jaw" or "misshapen fingers". I recognize that if this were his own project, he would be totally allowed to say whatever he wanted about a character who had his disability, but I am not a person with a facial or limb difference, so I feel like I need to change the phrasing. I would ask him for his opinion again, but he passed away a couple years ago, so it's not possible for me to find out what he'd like me to change.

I still want to include this character and make it clear what he looks like, because it's important to me that I represent him in my writing in some way. However, I don't think he was misshapen or malformed. I don't know what words I can use instead to communicate exactly how he appeared, and I'd really like some insight for how to describe him appropriately and with the respect the friend this character is based on deserves. Please help!

For reference, the character we designed had a mix of both our disabilities' symptoms, and we did not give him any specific diagnoses at the time because of this. The character used a wheelchair because I did, the character had crooked fingers and uneven legs because he did, the character was nonverbal because we both were, had an overgrowth of tissue on his face because my friend did, and the character was epileptic because I was. I am not sure how relevant all of that is, but I figured I'd include it. Sorry if this ask is rambling, I am trying my best to be detailed

-🦴🏴‍☠️

Hi!

I don't think it'd necessarily be wrong to describe your character as such if the person he's based on used that as his self-description. I probably said this somewhere on this blog before, but I always think that “a character with less than perfect terminology portrayed well” is much better than “horrible representation, but they used the 'proper' term”. And if that's what he said about himself, this might just be the “proper” term in this context.

But I do understand that you might want to go another way, especially considering you said that you didn't see your friend as having something malformed or misshapen about him - so how did you see his differences? Maybe “a boy with 'an overgrowth of tissue on his face'” - as you described in the last paragraph - would work?

In writing, I generally think it's helpful to be more specific than not when it comes to character descriptions. So you could get more technical (all random examples);

“an asymmetric lower jaw, with the right side larger and protruding forward,”

“had a left leg that was slightly longer, with the hip tilted upward,”

“his fingers bent towards the other ones, curving like the letter C and overlapping with each other at the tips,”

or, you could go halfway, using the words that your friend used himself;

“he happened to have a malformation on his jaw; a soft mass decorated his chin throughout its length,”

“crooked fingers, each having a slight bend to it.”

If you decide to go for the original terminology, I would expand on what exactly the reader is supposed to imagine by it - there's a few ways to not have a facial difference, and a billion ways to have one. You don't need to go into way more detail than you do for other characters, but it'd be good to be informative enough so that the reader doesn't end up wondering “malformed in what way?”. In my opinion, “overgrowth of tissue” (or any other wording that would provide this amount of information) would be completely sufficient for this role.

I will also say that “malformed” and “beautiful/handsome/adorable” are by no means antonyms as words! One can have a disfigured nose that's incredibly cute, misshapen legs that look great in shorts, or an attractive malformed jaw. That's very much doable in writing, and would help here with making sure you're not portraying it as negative in some way.

There is also the option of using more medicalized terminology (“hypertrophied”, “clinodactyly”, etc.) but it might both not be the most comfortable to use, as well as confusing to some readers if there's no other descriptor given. It also might be awkward in writing, especially if that'd be the only time this kind of terminology would come up. But if you're up for this;

“the clinodactyly on his hands caused the fingers to curve toward each other,” or

“the hypertrophied tissue stretched from his left earlobe to the chin, with freckles adoring it along the way,”

or something along those lines could work, I think.

I'd also try to describe other “non-difference” features as well, perhaps even at the same time. There's a ton of ways you could go about it, but the general idea is to bring up his difference as a complete non-event - something that's so normal that it's not needed to give it a separate description;

“the bright red wheelchair had one footplate set much higher to accommodate for his short right thigh,”

“her eyes were drawn to his hands, with each colorful nail making a clicking sound whenever his overlapping fingers moved,”

“he grinned widely after noticing that his facial hair has fully filled in behind the soft overgrowth on his chin,”

“the sunflower tattoo on his larger leg was still slightly red, but the cat on the thin right one already looked fully healed.”

Obviously all the examples here are random, but hopefully they will help you figure out what kind of description you want to employ.

Either way, it's clear that you're approaching this with a lot of care and good intentions and that's what really matters. I hope this was helpful and I wish you good luck in your writing!

mod Sasza

[bettsfic]

hi it’s me again! i finished the kennedy book half an hour ago and i am still reeling.

you weren’t kidding about the last chapters. like the farewell party is a bittersweet anecdote, but then the epilogue is just absolutely crushing. what a brutal note to end on. the true endpoint is the paragraph in the acknowledgements where he thanks his coauthor for freeing him from the emotional prison he was in. phrase practically verbatim. like oh my god.

that thing you said about what’s not said really did nail the sort of very careful sidestepping of….giving his opinions, maybe? there is just a very deliberate sort of distance with which he describes any events, and so you really notice the barest hints of something more. (more than anyone can ever know, mr. hill? care to elaborate??? it’s the implication that they kept many secrets together and also his enduring loyalty to her that keeps us from learning hardly any of them.) i was reminded of the perception of the kennedys as american royalty because he really talks about her like she was a queen. jackie kennedy through his lens is beautiful and gracious and willful and truly given the royal treatment.

speaking of the royalty metaphor, aristotle onassis is two steps from being a mustache-twirling villain hoping that our brave knight clint hill dies a watery death under a yacht??? unprompted??? like, man. come on. honestly there’s a fascinating emotional thread in here about how he can only fully express feelings of protectiveness when they’re expressed by the president first.

anyway. this is a long ask. sorry. i feel like i should have something profound to say about the assassination chapters because of how significant the event is in history but i don’t yet. i probably sound unhinged but man. this was real life and this is how he chose to tell this story. what even was that.

THANK YOU.

re: last chapters: i want to look into what happened between him and his coauthor (they're married now!) but i haven't yet. i'm still feeling my feelings about the whole thing. can you imagine not reading the acknowledgements?? the acknowledgements that provide the only ounce of comfort amid the hurt of the last third of the book??

re: "MORE THAN ANYONE CAN EVER KNOW": i purposefully haven't shared that quote because divorced from its context you don't get the impact. to me that says he either totally had a thing with her but won't talk about it because he's an honorable man, in the same way he won't offer any kind of "no yeah the warren report was bullshit and the shots came from two different directions" confirmation, or he wants us to *think* something happened even if it didn't. i mean it's not like it was a secret that JFK and Jackie had affairs with other people. a great many of those people have written memoirs specifically about boning one or more of the Kennedys. so many in fact that it's basically a subgenre.

also there's some irony in the way he depicts Jackie. she didn't like to be written about. at all. ever. and there's more than one instance where he's, you know, an 80 year old man being a bit patronizing (in an otherwise very sensitively and thoughtfully written book), with all the mentions of mischief and little-girlishness. and so i keep thinking about how Jackie would have felt about this particular depiction, which despite the glossy nostalgia over the whole thing and I Love Lucy-esque antics, is a pretty nuanced depiction, at least compared to others i've read. he manages to revere her, nearly worship her, but still portray her vices, not as faults but as even more reasons he loved her. i don't know, man. it just feels weird to stumble upon a true story of what i thought were fictional feelings.

re: "he can only fully express feelings of protectiveness when they’re expressed by the president first": HOLY SHIT YOU'RE RIGHT. i'm still thinking about that scene where he takes the film out of that photographer's camera and JFK is just like, "ummm we can't make it seem like we're denying the press access to us, so we're gonna have to blame you," which prompted Hill to question his professional loyalty to the president against his personal loyalty to Jackie, and also it made me think, what would happen if he had to shoot someone? would he get blamed for that too? was he really only there as a human shield, able to protect but not truly defend?

re: "what even was that": WHAT EVEN WAS THAT.

[chaotic-goodsir]

For the compliment drabble thing, 50 curtwen?

Thanks! Here you go - a bit shorter than the last one but once again not really a drabble 😅 I hope you like it!

*

Curt is sitting by the window of his Paris hotel room, listening to the traffic outside and trying to read over the briefing notes for tomorrow's mission. He's meant to be infiltrating some political function - something to do with the Russian ambassador and alleged mafia money. There's a lot of information in the file that's probably very important, but none of it is going in. He finds himself reading the same paragraph over and over, taking in exactly none of the words.

All he can think about is the call he got from Cynthia a few hours ago: 'Congratulations, Mega. Somehow despite your tendency for collosal fuck-ups you've managed to pass your assessment. Consider yourself a 'Special' Agent now. Just don't get too drunk celebrating - I need you at your best for this mission, understand?'

He should have been over the moon at the news. Special Agent is the highest rank you can reach without ending up behind a desk telling other people want to do. It's been Curt's ambition since he first became a spy. It's a badge of honour that means  he's good at what he does, and recognised for it.

So why does he feel like he doesn't deserve it at all?

He knows he messed up on his last mission, and that wasn't the first time either. He tends to rush things and take unnecessary risks, or end up having to bluff because he's forgotten key information. Sure, he always finds a way out of it, but he gets himself captured far too much. Not exactly the habits of a world class spy. He has no idea how he passed this assessment, really. Maybe Cynthia likes him more than she lets on, beneath all the swearing and surprise poison drills. Maybe she pulled some strings.

She'll expect more from him now, though, with that extra word in his title. He's not sure he's ready for that kind of pressure. It's making him more nervous for tomorrow than he should be, which is why it's even harder than usual to focus on the briefing. He should be out celebrating, probably, but he's left this until the last minute yet again and he doesn't have the time - and anyway, he's working alone for this one. There's no one around to celebrate with.

He's reading that same paragraph for maybe the twentieth time when there's a knock at the door. 

Quickly, he files the briefing notes away and hides them in the sideboard drawer. Cynthia gave strict instructions not to expect any visitors this evening, and to test anyone who did show up with a code phrase, so that's what he does. 

'Sorry,' he calls in French. 'I don't take room service on a Friday.'

'Ah,' replies the visitor. 'But the complimentary drinks menu is excellent, monsieur. '

Even in a second language, with almost perfect pronunciation, he recognises that voice.

He answers the door to find none other than Owen Carvour waiting in the hallway, holding a bottle of champagne.

'Félicitations, old boy.' Owen says with a smile.

'Owen? What are you doing here?' 

'Surprising you, obviously. May I come in?'

'Uh, yeah, sure.' Curt says, suddenly embarrassed by the half unpacked suitcase and clothes strewn over the bed. He hurries to pack them away, shoving the suitcase into a corner. 'I didn't know you were-' he almost says on this mission too, before catching himself. He shouldn't be giving out his reasons for being here so casually to someone from another agency, even if it is Owen. That's the kind of slip-up a Special Agent doesn't make. 'I didn't know you were in Paris.'

'Yes, well, that is how a surprise usually works.' Owen closes the door behind him, and sets the champagne down on the sideboard. 'Get dressed, love. We're going out for dinner.'

Curt blinks at him, confused. 'What? I can't. I have... work to do. Tomorrow.'

Owen grins, then pulls a piece of paper from his pocket. 'Sorry, I almost forgot. I'm to give you this - Cynthia's orders.'

Curt takes the note. It's in Cynthia's handwriting, and all it says is:

Mission's off. 

Have fun, Special Agent.

As always, don't fuck this up.

- C

Curt stares at it. Reads it again, in case he's somehow misunderstood. 'What?'

Owen laughs.

'You passed that assessment a month ago, love.'

'I- what?' Curt says again, aware that he sounds like a broken record.

'Cynthia got in touch. Said she wanted to arrange something. Not every day you graduate to Special Agent.'

'Cynthia got in touch with you?' Curt says. He should be happy to see Owen - he is happy to see him - but this is all just a bit too weird. 

'Wait. Does she know? About-'

'Us? Now, I believe her exact words were: 'I don't care what you two get up to, Carvour, just do not get caught. I will personally murder you both before I deal with that kind of scandal.''

Curt sits down on the bed, shaking his head at the note in disbelief. Then he folds the paper and tucks it into his trouser pocket, looking up at Owen.

'This is insane. Paris, a fake mission, you... why would she arrange all that for me? This has to be some kind of test. Is that champagne poisoned? Shit, you're not gonna pull a gun, are you? My bulletproof vest's in the case, I swear I was gonna-'

Owen sits down on the bed beside him, sliding an arm around his shoulder. 'Calm down, love. I may be wrong, but I believe she simply thinks you should be proud of yourself. Celebrate your promotion. It was well deserved, after all.'

'Sure, but... really?' 

'Yes, really,' Owen says, pulling him closer. 'I think so too. So, if you're done gaping like a fish, do hurry up and put something nice on. J'ai un reservation à vingt heures and I'd rather not arrive late.'

[awrkive]

hellooo! i love your work and how articulate you are when writing!! i was wondering if you had any tips or advice for someone who wants to start making fics & how to build a following? 🩷

(this got unintentionally long im so sosrry for yapping anon!)

ON WRITING:

in all honesty, just write and write!! i've written so much stuff starting when i was like 12. when i go back to my past works (ranging from fanfics to nonfanfics), i always cringe so hard cos theyre soooo soooo bad 😭😭 when you write a lot over the years, you're eventually going to see improvements.

also, i think finding your writing style really helps a lot! there are writers whose works are prose-heavy, those whose signature is purple prose, and those who write very simply. i fall under the last category 🤓

another thing is that, find the genre that you think is ur strength and make it a part of your branding(?). some are famous for their fluffy works, some are famous for their angsty fics, and some are famous for their smut. obv, you can mix all of those stuff but theres always something ur better at, and i think its good to lean towards that and leverage on it.

when you do get to writing, i think its important to take into consideration researching what youre gonna write about. it doesnt need to be extensive at all, surface-level research goes a long way!! i have to look up a lot of things while writing nb cos im obv not in tech nor an accountant nor do i habe chaebol friends or live in sk and my life generally is very far from theirs ijbol. it sometimes annoy me when i get to a part that needs some researching, but u really dont want to make it obvious to your audience that u dont know about this particular thing HAHAHA (you can put disclaimer anyway, jic)

the choice of pov is also really important!! i tend to avoid fics that are written in first person, so naturally, i don't write that way. i do think though its kinda common consensus for almost everybody. but its also just a personal preference. i dont think i've read anything thats in first person yet, but im sure my pre conceived notion about it has hindered me from finding a gem written in first person. at the end of the day, it all boils down to how well you write your stuff!!

one last thing; edit your work! your first draft doesnt necessarily have to be the final product. go over your paragraphs to improve some of the phrasing and stuff

ON BUILDING A FOLLOWING (TUMBLR)

i dont exactly have a big following on here lol but here's what (i think i did) to gain enough:

making your blog pretty-looking really helps a lot!! thats what i did when i first started writing on tumblr. make a mlist, navi page, etc. theres a lot of tumblr tutorials accessible on the internet so its not very hard

this could also be under the "making your blog pretty" thing but editing a landscape banner for your story can attract viewers 🩷 (or even those moodboard thingies) (ok i lied its more like a personal experience 😭😭 but i really think it contributes a lil something)

when you post, put it under the right tags to really hit your target audience. the tagging system was really messed up on here a few years back, but i think its better nowadays, so better take advantage of that

be responsive to comments and reblogs and asks! talk to your readers!!

and again, just write and write. the more active you are, the more you post your works, the more traction u get

thats all!! sorry this is so long KWNDKSKWJJD. THANK YOU FOR THE COMPLIMNET ON MY WRITING IT MEANS A LOT 🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼

[doinggreat]

i’m sorry but that last anon pissed me off bc that entire paragraph loses all sense the second you think about the fact that men’s simply DONT get ruined by false accusations. if anything, they get an ever bigger male following from misogynists who get hard at the thought of women suffering and fellow footballers that probably did some horrible stuff to women too and are now relieved to see that if it were to come to light, they’d literally fucking get away with it. mendy’s career wasn’t ruined, it was put on pause and he’ll get to continue now that he’s been proven “innocent”. same goes for his reputation, can anyone really say that it got ruined considering the sheer support and love he’s gotten for almost 2 days straight?? look up “mason greenwood” on twitter and tell me his reputation got ruined. the way mendy thanked god with that smug smile of his makes me want to scrub every inch of my body with fucking bleach. phrases like men are trash or men are dogs or men ain’t shit just don’t cut it anymore to help me express the utter disgust i feel towards them.

i feel for women and femmes all over the world, we’re going backwards at an alarming speed.

posting to share this

[zonkutonshorrifyingpeenie]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

tagged in by the lovely @borealopelta thanks bb! <3 <3

How many works do you have on AO3?

9

What's your total AO3 word count?

23,958

What fandoms do you write for?

i've primarily written for powerwolf with my extremely-specific-furry-au, but I've also written for AFK arena, fnaf, and there's a couple bakugan ones that I want to try and get back to working on as well, or indeed, working on writing in general ;A;

Top five fics by kudos?

Light's On - fnaf sb - 81 kudos

Reunions Sacrifice - afk arena - 60 kudos

A Were's First - powerwolf - 25 kudos

It's 3am... - powerwolf - 16 kudos

Charles' Nightmare - powerwolf - 11 kudos

Do you respond to comments?

If I actively remember to, yes.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Definitely A Were's Last, which was almost exclusively written to induce tears in... two people at most lol

sometimes you just gotta write non-canon no-point angst shit ya feel?

What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Honestly, I haven't written many if any explictly happy fic endings, they seem to lean more melancholic most of the time which definitely doesn't say anything about my mental state what are you talking about

but, Sleeping On Your Alpha Can Be Something That's Very Personal, Actually and It's 3am... would probably count as at least my least sad fic ends

Do you get hate on fics?

Thankfully no. but some of my fic-connected posting has certainly garnered some strangely passionate responses.

Do you write smut?

Yep

Craziest crossover?

None of my fics are crossovers

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge, and if they're desperate enough to steal from me, I think I'd feel sorry for them

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not explictly, no. The closest I've gotten to anything like co-writing has been like... a couple of discord fic-lore convos that turned into semi-writings and also all that rp shit i did over a decade ago.

All time favorite ship

I don't exactly have a metric for rating any of my ships above the other, they all grab me by the throat in differing ways

though, by genre at least, i do gravitate towards gay old men, so, take that as you will

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Buddy I could just list my entire writing folder here and I doubt I would actually be exaggerating T-T

The mental illness has gripped me far too hard the last few years...

But, there's always hope, right?

What are your writing strengths?

environment descriptions and turn-of-phrase, I suppose. I like to think I'm fairly ok at getting a general vibe across in the... 12 paragraphs before i get to even a speck of dialogue lol

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

My monolingual ass could never. I'd be too afraid of fucking it up

First fandom you wrote in?

the first thing i remember writing for was fuckn like... an mmo game. i think it was the Sacred one when that was around... i think??

but that was purely written in random linebook when i was a child and didn't understand the concept of fanfiction yet

the first thing i POSTED anywhere was probably bakugan or homestuck. I genuinely can't recall exact order, but I do know for certain fact that I worked on this one bakugan fic for far FAR too long during highschool recess and lunch breaks

Favorite fic you've written?

In terms of published, definitely AWF, my beloved domestic furry au that is definitely not semi-dead-in-the-water-it's-fine ignore my tears

unpublished, there's certainly a few that I'm having a very pleasant and fun time with writing, even if the going is very slow.

If you were forced to write only one genre for the rest of your life (like James Patterson lol) what would you want it to be?

Probably Fantasy or Mythology, lot of wiggle-room within that, and I tend to lean more fantastical in my worlds and such anyhow.

I'm gonna tag in @deerfests I reckon! And open-invite ofr anyone else that wants to hop in as well!

[asherlockstudy]

ok context this comes from someone who's not up to date on the fandoms thoughts on the matter and haven't interacted with others in it since 2015 so this is probably old thoughts by now but I wasn't active when it was discussed and therefore wanted to hear the consensus on it sooo I'm not entirely convinced about rhink for sure, mostly because rhett seems so repressed I'd be surprised they've been at it, but I'm 100% sure that link is bi just by the way he talked about lgbtq+ during the first decon podcast and how he believes outside religion he can live and love more freely and how uncomfortable and almost rejecting of it he is (and of course all the shame and judgement talk) sorry for the paragraph but I'm normally happy to indulge long posts so eh

Hello. The consensus generally does not reflect my personal thoughts on the matter. If you haven't interacted with the fandom since 2015, you should know that the fandom went through a transformative period and most of the old Rhink shippers left it around early 2021, I think. So, the momentum of the post-deconstruction period faded with their departure.

Most new fans are not shippers or ship it strictly as fanon and shiver at the idea that there could be some truth to rhink. My opinions might as well be the most extreme currently in the fandom here on tumblr (even though of course I really believe in what I say because this is what I honestly see and not what I demand to be true).

The consensus is "sometimes" "somewhat" open to the idea that they might be bi in theory but strictly if this does not lead to any uncomfortable consequences regarding the nature of their relationship with each other or with their wives. There are a few people who, I feel, truly believe something is really happening but always phrase it through humour and disclaimers like "It's just a joke, I don't really believe this", even when their post has picked up on things that have nothing funny about them, so I can just tell they are hesitant to let themselves explore this possibility seriously. I have received hate or just really negative mail because of what I believe and I sort of feel marginalized in the fandom. Not sure whether this is truly the case or I have simply made for myself that bad of a dash. In any case I am sorry to say that the fandom is just a shadow of its old self. I am telling you all this to paint the picture of the fandom nowadays: old shippers have left, new ones are not all that into Rhink, except for a few and except for VERY FEW who believe it's real and of whom I am honestly - dare I say by a long shot - the most vocal and the "edgiest" (I don't see it this way though).

A few more people started seriously considering the possibility after the latest GME last August, in which Link almost came out but Rhett stopped him. This was just too obvious and people - even more casual viewers - finally started talking. But since then it's been almost a year and so this has started getting forgotten as well. In any case, the consensus is more open to the possibility of Link being bi / gay / non-straight than about Rhett.

In my opinion, things are lukewarm so far compared to last year because Rhett and Link have been consistently more daring in their scripted content than in their regular shows. This is why the talks have died down again, because we had nothing scripted so far this year, the show is coming in August. But even last year, the vast majority of fans did not assume anything based on their scripted content which they consumed at face value ("oh a chicken crosses the road how silly Rhett and Link are haha"). That's all I have noticed.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Your answer to the byzantine uwu is quite wrong I fear, why are you mixing ancient Greek and Roman polytheism relationships with the Christians? I understand anon was wrong but your answer fell into a pot pf stereotypes and vague generalization that is not accurate. im saying it friendly because I like ur blog a lot but this answer felt not good at all. also situation for Roman women was different from the Greek ones and even so archaeological recent studies have discarded the idea of women locked at homes doing nothing.

Hi! This answer was indeed full of generalizations and there is greater nuance to be found in the relationships between men and women, as well as women's presence when it comes to what was acceptable for the Polytheistic Roman religion and what really happened.

I need to note that while women were not locked at home, I was mostly referring to the social ideal of women having the home as their domain (which doesn't mean "sitting at home and doing nothing"). This ideal became less prominent as Christianity came along. Of course Christianity came with its own restrictions but the Christian belief that everyone - rich, poor, slave, women, children, men - being equals in the eyes of God, changed "the place of women" in a positive way.

One last detail the people forget: Greeks were Romans. After the Greek lands became part of the Empire, Greeks were officially Romans - and also called themselves Romans until the 19th century. So Greek women WERE "Roman women".

Polytheism differed a bit in the Greek and Italian peninsula but people in Greece, as in all the other parts of the Roman empire, were obliged to follow the Roman state religion "Religio Romana" which was a mix of different Polytheistic practices. So there would be many similarities between the two peninsulas regarding "the place of women".

To be clear, I received this ask at 6:00 in the morning and frankly, I couldn't be bothered to make a very detailed answer, especially when the ask itself was so condescending and very absolute. That's why some things were not phrased that clearly and they didn't express my full intent.

I aimed to explain why there was such intense enmity between the Polytheists and Christians at the time, and to demonstrate that you cannot point fingers at one group while the group you support did the exact same thing. If the ask was phrased like "Don't you think it's terrible that the Byzantines killed Polytheists?" my answer would be different.

I would say that, first of all, it wasn't acceptable or legal to kill people on the basis of their religion even though the Polytheistic faith was suppressed with other means. I don't doubt that some Polytheists were killed because of their faith (because extremists exist everywhere) but it was not acceptable or common in the Empire after Christianity became the official religion. It was illegal to kill any person, including Polytheists.

Even the rumors about a Christian secret constitution where Polytheists were tortured and killed (sorry, I cannot recall the name now) have been refuted by historians. Of course, I am very sad about the deaths of Polytheists as I am about the deaths of Christians.

I want to be as detailed and nuanced as possible in my answers but I am always trying to balance my time and the fact that it's a tumblr post that should be readable to the average user, and not a wikipedia entry or a scientific paper, and I am not giving professional advice here. I am just a random person doing my best to keep a chill and somewhat informed salty content. But I would need a proper scientific paper to answer exactly how I should. So that's why even in this answer which is 10 paragraphs long there are still generalizations 😅

[caixxa]

A1,A 2, B6, B9, BASICALLY ALL OF THE C QUESTIONS! PLS I WANT TO KNOW! (if you feel like responding lmao) thank you, love you and hope you are having a really nice day! <3

Sorry that it took so long to answer! I had a hellish day and we live on almost opposite time zones, so.

A1: When did you start reading fanfiction?

Summer 2016, after Euro 2016. As an adult, well past 30, I rediscovered the fun of being A Fan.

A2: How did you find your first fic?

I googled, learned new search phrases to google until I found the stuff I really liked. I think the first searches were like "Gareth Bale fan fiction" and the really effective one that I think finally led me to Ao3 (I have no idea what the first sites were) was more in the way of "Cristiano ronaldo gareth bale m/m slash" lol. I read only as a guest user for months, I didn't make my own account until I wanted to write and post my own work.

B6. What is your favourite story trope? Why?

Friends to lovers with sexual exploration on the way. Seductive younger man developing in a twisted power balance/imbalance relationship with an older man. Stuff with sexual tension and a vibe of something forbidden.

B9. Who is your OTP?

I'm such a multi-shipper! I always say it's Aho/TT because they are soulmates and the Finnish connection and two cherubs who share a brain on the ice and fly together and are stupid codependent bros. But I've come to think that the true OTP is Sepe/mentors and authority figures. I came to that conclusion when I heard on the Canes Corner podcast that in his first interviews, he always mentioned Ron Francis, and I couldn't but nod along. Of course he did. A franchise legend who drafted him, of course. He still mentioned him on the Siim Liivik podcast like last summer, you know. He loves Rod, he loves Pekka, he loves Justin Williams, he was so into Burns being traded to the Canes. He's a fireball on the ice but off the ice, his daddy kink can be seen from SPACE.

THe C section:

What trope are you tired of reading? Why? Self-harm or suicide as a romantic plot point. It should be self-explanatory, I detest all variations of the trope where romantic counterpart saves the protagonist from shit they should figure out with themselves first, especially if there is a "love as a miracle cure" element to it. I feel similarly about th "you deserve better, let me save you from your abusive relationship by making you mine". No. If this happens from a base of friendship and they develop love later, that works, but falling in love as a cure because The One Sees Your Beauty When Others Don't is yucky. Elaborate proposals in front of an audience gathered specifically to celebrate the occasion as peak romance is so weird too, maybe I just don't get American wedding culture. (These tropes are more present in m/f imagines than m/m rpf, tho)

What word or expression always makes you cringe when you read it? "Too" when it's supposed to be "to" is the only one of those that I often see in fic writing, but in general, "Their" when you mean "They're" or "it's" for "its" when native speakers do it... IT'S YOUR OWN LANGUAGE! HOW CAN YOU NOT GET THE EASY ONES RIGHT?

Is there anything that makes you nope out of a story? What is it? Double spacing between each paragraph. I know that it's mostly because the Ao3 rich text editor doesn't copy/paste google docs right. I will have to be REALLY drawn into the story and want to read it really bad to struggle through that.

What thing that fandom loves do you actually kind of hate? Why? Hockey fights. They're so unnecessary, they're just an example of the American fixation on violence and vigilante justice. It's okay to me that hockey is a rough game, cross checking and body checking is absolutely fine by me, but dropping the gloves.. it's such a stupid, primitive thing to do. Hockey does fine without it. I know this is unpopular bc y'all love violence. I see all the wrestling posts y'know, and all the "hot" tags in hockey fight posts. *points at all directions, staring judgementally*

What character that fandom loves are you just kinda “meh” about? Why? Hockey players: Anthony Beauvillier. This is just about his looks, I don't see what most people see, he looks so plain to me.

Is there anything in canon that made you want to quit the show? What was it? Why did you hate it? Are we still talking hockey/sports because all i read is sports rpf? Well, I used to like F1 but Ihave very little interest in it now. I just don't think that a motorsport that is done on vehicles for no other use than driving on these extensive tracks made of concrete and asphalt just for it is just gross. In rally, there is at least something organic (lol) and relatable. Also, the last Cristiano Ronaldo fic I read was after his transfer to Juventus, after that I think he's made a fool of himself.

Who is your NOTP? Sepe/Seth Jarvis, Sepe/Jordan Martinook. I think it's bc I have zero attraction to the other guy haha, plus Jarvy only gives me goofy little brother vibes, not ship vibes. Also, Cressi was the big ship when I entered football rpf and I could see the two superstars, rivals, el clasico etc etc intellectually but I just sensed no chemistry between cr7 and messi whatsoever so it's always been kinda NOTP for me.

What is one plot twist you wish people would stop using?  Do all the plot twists your heart desires, man, writing is supposed to be fun! But what I said in C1 counts here too.

What show did you really try to watch, but you just couldn’t? This happens with all the shows. I watch a few episodes but can't find the time to finish them. I also skipped a lot (most) of NHL games last season because I need to sleep.

What book could you just never get into, no matter how hard you tried? I don't try hard with my reading, if I don't like the book I quit. The hardest I've tried was probably War and Peace which I read so slowly that I eventually forgot what had happened before and kinda drifted off it after maybe 20%.

Thank you for the ask and have a super duper fine summer!!

(the ask game post is this)

[rockinlibrarian]

Starting a fresh post because that reblogged content was getting a little long

But @stephsageek tagged me to do this (and you can GO back and read all the reblogged answers here):

Rules: Tag 9 people you want to know better and/or catch up with, then answer the questions below!

Last song: Well, "The Lonely Goatherd" is again stuck in my head since I'm still writing that chapter (I added two more sentences since last time I mentioned it!). I haven't had music on this morning, so the last song I actually listened to was when my clock radio went off, and it was on this eighties r&b ballad I don't know the name of and can't remember the artist, either, but the guy keeps belting out what I think is "find one hundred ways," except my brain always processes it as "five one hundred ways" and I'm always like "why can't he just say five hundred ways like a normal person? Or fifty-one hundred?" and it probably ruins the earnest effect he was going for.

Oh, I guess actually the last song I listened to was that cool stringed instrument I reblogged last.

Three ships: Huh. Five/Viktor is really the biggest I've interacted with lately. And since I am still reading primarily TUA fic the only other (and this time CANONICAL!) ship I'm into there is Lila and Diego (sorry, @stephsageek, I've gone and split up your main ship into two separate ships in response to your own post, oh well!) (I grant you, Five and Lila are my favorite BROTP (ironic turn of phrase there), but that's not what we're talking about. I don't think). So let me cast my nets for whatever are my Biggest Ships of All Time instead, which would be... Howl and Sophie? Yeah, they'd do. You could instead name a property and I'd tell you who (if any) I ship within it. Who else have I written for on AO3? Oh, Melanie and Oliver Bird. Do I ship them or are they just being them (even though that is a flat-out romcom-tagged fic)? The only other non-Gen fic I have there is Tesseract, which will go into the workings of Alex and Kate Murry's marriage a bit quite romantically by my standards, but still isn't really SHIPPING. --I'm not a big shipper, if you couldn't tell, but I DO have ships I care about out there, I promise.

First ever ship: Speaking of the Murrys, Meg and Calvin

Currently Reading: The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere, by Jaclyn Moriarty, which has set me off on my how much I just love Jaclyn Moriarty and why don't more people know her raving again. I swear every single character in her books has ADHD and it makes it such a weirdly comfortable world to live in. My kids are like "I KNOW THAT FEELING!" every two paragraphs. She's just so creative and has SUCH a way with chararacters. I'm not fixing that typo, I like it.

Currently watching: I'm actually not sure when the last time I watched ANYTHING was. Not counting videos of cool psychedelic stringed instruments on Tumblr. And cat videos. My son playing Splatoon is what's usually on the TV in the living room, but I wouldn't say I watch all that closely. I just hum along to the music and annoy him.

Currently consuming: Aldi's brand mini wontons mixed with leftover Thai noodles, because why limit oneself to one inauthentic Asian cuisine at a time?

Last movie: again with the What DID I last watch question, which I think means I haven't watched a movie since New Years, the last one of which was STILL (since last I answered the What movie did I last watch question) Arsenic and Old Lace. I got The Music Man out of the library recently because I was quoting "Trouble" at the kids and they didn't know what I was talking about so I have to educate them, but I haven't actually put it ON yet.

Currently craving: Shockingly, not much of anything. Maybe because I just had lunch. Maybe peppermint just to counteract the wontons and Thai noodles.

Tags: do I even know nine people? I don't even know who actually follows me. I'm going to go ahead and tag the last nine people that have interacted with me here, not counting @stephsageek unless she wants to answer all these questions again. @frimframs, @joasakura, @dannypageoflight (that's my brother), @sunnymarbles (that's my youngest kid), @rj-anderson (that's a quite successful author, I don't know why I'm bothering her with this), frimfram and joasakura again, oh, @vovat (that's my friend from college), @e-louise-bates (that's one of my most long-time online friends!), @callmealx (I'm afraid I have NO idea who you are, besides I assume Alx, but that's what this meme thing is supposedly for, after all!) and @rebel-by-default. Is that nine? That's nine. Why hasn't it made Vovat a link? No, none of those suggestions are correct, Tumblr, you fail me.

[honeybeezgobzzzzz]

I need to say this with my whole fucking chest-- you are the BEST smut writer I've read.

...Do you have any advice/tips?

Thank you!!

*crackles knuckles* okay bestie, I am so honored that that you think that because I am just over here wondering why I keep throwing in the same phrases every other paragraph 😂 also, hands, where are they? why have I not talked about where went? Where did they go anyways? (I write this as I have to go back and reread what I've written because I have, in fact, lost where the hands are)

anyways.... onto your question! (it's long, I'm so sorry I'm just really excited)

I started out using this guide:

The Ultimate Guide to Writing Smut Fic on AO3 by QuinnAnderson. as far as I know, it is not locked to those without accounts and is a GREAT place to start.

Second, I have these kindle books which I found extremely helpful with phrases and wording (amazon links)

Romance, Emotion, and Erotica Writers' Phrase Book: Essential Reference and Thesaurus for Authors of All Romantic Fiction, including Contemporary, ... Fiction and Suspense (Writers' Phrase Books) by Jackson Dean Chase

The Writer's Guidebook to Writing Love, Romance, and Sex Scenes by S L Lethe

They say read a bunch of smut to write smut, but I think it's about finding what style you like and incorporating words and phrases you like. Treat the scenes like action sequences and build the tension and romance around it!

Person A does this, Person B reacts like this

Person B grabs this limb, Person A retaliates

ECT. It might help to think of what you want to happen in your scene before you write. I like to write out positions before I start. For instance:

I want to write a one shot involving Character A and Character B getting spicy~ what do I want them to do in that act? =

oral + fingers + PIV (sex position) = sex scene segments

or

Character A get's mad at Character B, so A pins them down and does INSERT DESIRED ACT -> Character B is mad that Character A got to be the dominate one, so B does THIS, THIS & THIS.

Now that I think about it, it might be helpful to make a list of things you can have your characters do to each other and pick out different combos so you aren't staring at your story scratching your head.

Circling back to reading smut to write smut, it can help because I pick up on scenes and actions I find hot and make notes on what happened.

ADDITIONALLY~

Writing the framework of a scene and then going back and adding bells and whistles is a lot easier than trying to get it right the first time!

You can create yourself a cheat sheet of words and phrases you like and have that with you while you write the scene and pick and choose when to add them. You can always tailor phrases to fit your story. I would say that it comes down to your really have to just dive into it.

My first tries I am embarrassed to even think about the fact that I posted them for the world to read, but the reality is this: there will always be people who enjoy what you write and think you are amazing when you have doubts about your abilities.

One last helpful tip! Gifs are a very wonderful tool to use when you are drawing a blank on how to describe certain scenes (if you are comfortable with that, that is). You can write what you see and embellish with emotions and thoughts.

I hope this helps you one way or another bestie! Because I am having flashbacks of when I started and it felt like a train wreck!

Now I am off to, you guessed it, write some more spice~ 🩷

[effrvsnt107]

absolutely yes to your answer!

alec definitely had some sort of hero complex going on with claire, he was her rescuer, knight in shining armour. also obviously alec doesn't see this (i don't remember him doing so) but claire flipping the table like the hulk was a dead giveaway. another thing that struck me was how claire switched so fast (brilliantly acted) from the helpless scared damsel to  a very spiteful and mean person whenever things didn't go her way as also another glaringly red flag. it's not surprising how when we see the truth of sandbrook and find out one death was uninentional, but the youngest was. orchestrated by claire and it's sickening the way she lulled pippa into a false sense of security and manipulated her, preying on her feelings and pretending to care - sound familiar? i also don't think it's a coincidence that the girl claire and lee killed was the youngest and the same child hardy pulled out of the water. the child who made him think of his own.  another scene i always think about as an example of claire doing that switching thing was when they were at the house and she suddenly started talking fast and waspishly at alec telling him to leave and she didn't need his help, and the camera kind of cascades up and down his body close to her face and she is raising her hands like she's gonna touch him but never does. it's so...layers i say! i feel like hardy never directly answers the "did you sleep with claire" line because the answer is that he might as well have. he's crossed every other boundary. it's crazy because when i first watched, i did not trust clarie and knew she was lying when she claimed lee drugged her. speaking of lee, lee comes across the hard man but when his vulnerability slips out i felt upon rewatching that he was trying to communicate to hardy that claire was not as innocent as she looked.

tess hardy is quite the character and i wish they didn't cut the bit where hardy is with her by the water - the affair is clearly well underway because you would have thought she was his colleague in that scene.

Sorry for the late response! I agree entirely with everything you said, and with some snippers of the Broadchurch season 2 novel (a collection of short stories), I can give you screenshots to back up everything you said. I was planning go like in depth but these snippets just sum up anything i could have said.

The story for Alec I’m lifting is set the day before Danny’s murder and Ellie coming back.

Here is a little paragraph detailing the saviour complex

That feeling of being her “self appointed protector” as they put it absolutely did a number on him. Not only that, but he wanted to be (kind of) her captor, because while he phrases as wanting to do nice things for her, he and Claire both know it’s so he can have an extra slither of control over her to find out more about Sandbrook.

When I was reading this, I was thinking that if you change the characters to anyone else, this would look like a textbook example of financial abusive. I bring this up because last time you said about the allegations Claire made about being assaulted by him, and that while Ellie doesn’t believe he would ever do anything like that, she wants to take it seriously. And this makes me think no wonder. I would say he is justified in doing this, after all she is manipulating him and did kill a child knowingly, I also just want to put this here and see what you make of it.

Onto Claire and her manipulation!

“Never the same woman twice” is what really got me. It’s very evident she can switch on a dime and she is doing everything in her power to manipulate Alec. She is basically trying everything and seeing what makes him tick and what makes him fall into her demands. Also the line about “long been mystified by females” took me out and that has nothing to do with Claire at all.

Ah, the classic, baby yourself so that Hardy sees you as younger and vulnerable so he won’t get mad. He references this later in the story but I can’t find the exact quote right now.

To be honest, this is making me even more confused about the stance of their relationship. Like while I am very on the side ‘Alec didn’t fuck Claire’ why was the line “How long has it been since a woman looked after him like this? How long has it been since a woman touched him?” If not to confuse me on the stance.

The fact that is going through his mind. For the first time in a long time, he is the vulnerable one here. He is the one being looked after and this makes him uncomfortable because she shouldn’t.

Honestly though, Eve Myles was so brilliant in conveying Claire and her switch’s.

Also, your thoughts about Tess, absolutely. Through another short story, like you said, the affair was well underway. In fact, her and Dave were shagging in the back of his car in the middle of the search for Pippa and her cousin. The same day Alec pulled Pippa out of the water. The story also mentioned how she felt felt contempt towards him for not being able to see the fact she was having an affair or that she was growing distant.

Cutting out that scene was just tragic because it was so good and could have showed so much of both her contempt and her distance but also his tunnel vision because he just didn’t notice. I wish they gave us a couple more scenes with Tess honestly, because even with seeing him all pathetic and wanting her back, I didn’t know why. There’s a deleted scene where he calls her “love” which gives it anyway, but I want more scenes of them together! I want to see why they worked in the first place!

Something I really just want to point out as well (but what we touched on last time) was him underestimating women. He never thought that Tess would be affected by his absence (although the cheating and subsequent loss of Sandbrook wasn’t in any way his fault), he never thought Claire was capable of murder (he did think she was hiding something though) and he didn’t think Ellie was good at her job, saying “If she wasn’t good enough, that’s her problem.”

Each time he was proved wrong.

Alec Hardy could only ever be a man.

When you finish season 2 let me know because I want to hear your thoughts when you do!

[cirqosmos]

I’m so sad😭😭 there’s a picture I wanna show you but I can’t as an anon; why does Tumblr hate me?!😭😭

On another note, I know how you feel about losing interest in a group. I stan a lot of groups and I can’t really share my attention with all of them at the same time so I have a sort of rotational system; if a group comes back or I just feel drawn back to them, then I’ll go to them and usually leave the group I was currently into behind for now (it sounds really bad when phrased like that but I swear it works for me!).

Sometimes, I never truly get back into a group, but I’m still their fan who supports them and that’s okay as well. It’s not your fault it somebody else stole your heart lolol (it’s &TEAM’s fault in both of our cases😂)

Also, also! I love the Younghoon and Jin gifs you used recently, they’re so adorable🥰

And I think I have a one shot request for &TEAM but I’m unsure. How long is your request hours going to last?

(I’m sorry for the long message!)❤️

—🌕🌑 anon

hi 🌕🌑 anonnie !! lol no worries, long paragraphs are my love language lol so do not apologise, I love them <3333 !! and yes fr that's rlly the downside of being an anonnie haha T_T i also realise it recently when i became an anon in one my fav writers blog !! u best believe it had me throwing my head in despair lmfao </3 the overwhelming desire to send PICS (MEMES IN MY PART) </3333 but a suggestion for u if u want to send pics but stay as an anon, is maybe u could make another Tumblr blog and just name it as any username you could think of, but still identify yourself as anonnie!! cuz boo anon did it the same method hehe..

and right, i did the same way as well !! there might be a time enha would get my interest again but it seems very dull rn but whatever happens happens, for now ill pour all my love for &team lol cuz they're vv much the embodiment of comfort/family for me now <3 glad to hear that u love the GIFs hehe !!

yes it is &teams fault lmao 😭😭

feel free to request as many as you want !! whether it be oneshot, simple imagines, thoughts like anything. plus request hours for &team will be always be open 24/7 lol :3 !! so no worries, just spill anything anytime anywhere

[commander-shad]

The Talanah and Amadis situation from the perspective of someone not wearing shipper goggles. (I'm going to regret this phrasing, aren't I)

Minor spoilers for The Burning Blooms and Need To Know.

Kinda long post ahead (sorry if I come off looking mean with this, I swear, I hate being mean, it's simply my tone coming off as such)

I touched a bit on this on my post about my thoughts on the game but I fully expand here just because.

Hot take: Amadis doesn't deserve the hate.

Before I go into anything, I'll say this first: I ship neither TalanahxAmadis, neither TalanahxAloy. I'm a stickler for canon ships when it comes to this franchise lol (now you"ll say isn't TalanahxAmadis canon now? Not really, it never got confirmed, you could say that what got confirmed was that they might as well not get together if anything.)

So what I actually wanted to write about... Whatever did he do to you? lmao

Like if he was a bigot or something like Ahsis, I'd get it, but he's not? In fact he seems to be against all those things, if him not giving away Nessa to the Carja for what she did (secretly join the army when it was forbidden) is anything to go by.

If he was an a**hole or something, I'd get it, but the most a**hole move he pulled was not writing to Talanah like he promised. (In fact that kinda made me wonder though, how does letter delivery work here- is post service a thing? Where do you go to get letters delivered? If there's something like that, with all the dangerous machines going around, I wouldn't be surprised if many letters never got to their recipients actually). And you can't really say he led Talanah on for that to be considered an a**hole move. All that he wanted was to find out what happened to Nessa so that he can move on from her in peace (that didn't happen because yeah, she's apparently alive and doesn't really seem to give a sh*t about him anymore, how is it easy to move on in peace from that lmao).

If it's about the shipping aspect of the whole thing, then, I'm very sorry if I come off as an a**hole with the way I phrase this, but 1. How can you read the Sunhawk comics and not see the very obvious romance setup between Talanah and Amadis there? I saw where they were going with this from miles away. And 2. This is my reading of the whole situation, but even if Talanah was confirmed to be not straight, I think there's still a chance that she'd go after Amadis anyway, because since when do you need to be smitten with someone to go after them and make sure they are ok?

Now about Talanah.

I don't see what's so out of character? In the first game she was against people like Ahsis who were bigoted, misogynistic and all that. She wanted to make the Hunter's Lodge more than a trophy hall.

I didn't see anything in HFW that went against that. Her journey to the west (sorry lmao, iykyk) might as well have been a vacation leave from the Lodge or smth, you never know. As for why she uses her time away like this, as I said in my last paragraph on Amadis, you don't necessarily have to be in love with someone to go look for them. In this case it just happened that she was.

As for why she didn't stay to help Aloy, I have some reasons for that.

One, it simply wouldn't make sense for a side quest character suddenly become main. It doesn't matter if they are popular or not, not everyone is going to find out about them, because not everyone is going to invest time in all the side quests unless they want the trophy for all allies. (Some people say Talanah was majorly advertised. Oh yes, major advertisement is definitely *checks notes*... only appearing in one promo art piece and nowhere else, not even a glimpse in a trailer or something. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that the only reason Talanah even appeared in promo art was to just show that they didn't forget her and to appease the fans who were curious about her, not to imply that she'd become a major character.) Not everyone cares about side characters.

Second, Talanah still has a place in the Lodge. Who knows, maybe she was only allowed to leave for a short time. Knowing her status as the first female Sunhawk and how not everyone would welcome this change, probably there'd be several people eager to try and claim the position the longer she was absent and knowing how hard Talanah worked to gain this position, to give up on it now would be dumb. The only way I see her being available to help Aloy on her quest was for her to give up leadership of the Lodge and yeah, I doubt she'd do that.

Third, you'll say, Talanah joined the fight against HADES, wouldn't she join in a fight which now has even bigger stakes? Reminder that even lesser characters appeared in the battle, pretty missable ones too. (I personally didn't even know about Aluki at first, because I didn't know you could talk to more than one Banuk in the encampment, so I was wondering who tf are you lmao.) So Talanah showing up didn't mean that much if you ask me. Another thing is that I didn't really see her be that interested in Aloy's cause in the first place. Aloy very much cared about Talanah's cause about what she wanted to do in the Lodge. I didn't see Talanah even attempting to ask Aloy about what she was doing. Unless that was just an attempt of keeping things professional and all that between Hawk and Thrush, then I don't know if Talanah was even interested to know. I'm not saying that Talanah didn't care about Aloy at all, in fact I believe that she does care, more than she shows, but what I'm saying that she could have at least tried reciprocating that interest and care Aloy showed towards her.

That's just my opinion on the whole thing, and opinions are subjective, so we all are entitled to our own. I'm up for a civil talk tho :)

[uglypastels]

New Beginnings // roommate!au

(a/n) I’m sorry @duskholland for coming up with these aus. the good thing about it is, that I have no self control so here it is, the New Girl!roommate!au :) i’m not gonna say it’s great, and also i’v seen like 5 episodes of the show maybe so it’s definitely my own take on the pilot. hope you like it.

word count: 6.3k

warning: swearing, sexual references (the first paragraph is as bad as it gets), dark humour and mentions of murder, sex trafficking - basically reasons why not to move in with strangers you meet off of craigslist. Please be safe and responsible. but it’s all just fluff and humour. Also, possibly some horrible writing cause i couldn’t bother editing this <3 

“And when I walked into the bedroom I found him in there, completely naked, with some slut sucking his dick… so basically, that’s why I need a new apartment.” You looked around at the three men in front of you, realising you had zoned out a bit there while telling your story. “Sorry, what was the question?” 

“Uhh,” the blonde one, which introduced himself as Harrison earlier, spoke, “Do you have any pets?” 

“Oh,” well that was embarrassing, “No, I mean I had a schnauzer when I was younger and I always wanted to get another one but who am I kidding, nothing will ever live up to Mr Snuzzlekins.” For the love of God, shut up! “No, I don’t have any pets.” You felt your entire face heating up. Suddenly you became very aware of a strand of hair that was in front of your face so you pushed it behind your ear

“Mr Snuzzlekins?” The other one, Tom, laughed with a small smile. 

“My sister named him,” you lied. You were already embarrassed as it was. 

There was a moment of silence where no one knew what to say next, so you decided to break the tension. Awkwardly laughing, you said:  “You know, the funny thing is, I didn’t expect you to be… guys.” That was true. When you had been searching through the Craigslist advertisements there had been a lot of applications for housing but you had ignored most of them because they sounded too much like human trafficking scams or some other creeps looking for a way to get a girl. You had particularly found interest in this apartment, not only because of the actual great (and safe looking) location of the building but also because you had thought that the ad was written by a woman. Not that you didn’t think a woman could murder you, but it did bring a bit more security to you to live with someone of your own gender. 

Well, as you saw three men sitting in front of you, you had guessed that wrong. They did seem nice enough though. Handsome too. You really hoped they weren’t murderers. They wouldn’t do well in prison… also, your death. Not a favourable outcome in the slightest. 

“Why’d you think that?” the third one asked. You had missed his name during the introduction round, but you already felt like you could be good friends with him. His boyish charms made you think he was younger than the other two, though he did have a very small resemblance to Tom. You found it cute how his curls bounced around when he moved his head. 

“Well, the ad, it was phrased… very femini-ninely...” That was definitely too many syllables. Could this interview go any worse? No, probably not. But the guys didn’t seem to mind your momentary idiocy. 

“Oh, yeah, we had our mum write it for us.” Tom explained, sitting a bit more straight up, “We had been trying to find someone else to live with us ever since our friend Tuwaine moved out, but we kind of suck at advertising ourselves, so yeah-” 

“Oh, well that makes sense, yeah.” Their mum wrote it. So they were a family. Brothers? Yeah probably. You didn’t really see how the Harrison guy fit into that since he didn’t look anything like the other two. Shattering blue eyes instead of the warm hazel. Dark blonde hair instead of the reddish-brown. All three had magnificent bone structure that you had to admit, but not in the same way. 

“So, what do you guys do?” you decided to ask. 

“We’re actors,” Harrison said, pointing at himself and Tom. Since you had no heart palpitating reaction when you first saw them, you could probably safely assume that they were still trying to find their break out role. Harrison pointed at the third of their addition before continuing. “Harry is more of a behind the scenes man, photography and directing, that kind of stuff.” 

“That’s… interesting.” You smiled. Were you about to move in with three wannabes? If you were, would it be inevitable that you’d end up paying the rent for all of them because they wouldn’t be able to find gigs? That was a bit harsh. Besides, you could always look for a new place before that happened and move out. And who even said that you could move in, in the first place? “Anything I might have seen you guys in? Or some of your work?” You directed the additional question to...Harry. 

Harry. Harrison. Try to remember that. 

“I’ve had a few roles on the West End, nothing big yet but once I have a role, it’s at least steady for a bit, you know,” Tom said. 

“I’ve mostly been doing headshots for people, so I doubt you’d have seen anything I’ve done.” Harry said. You nodded to his statement. 

“And Harrison has been signed with this fashion designer. You might have seen some ads around town.” Modelling. Not another model to live with. You tried not to let your smile fade. 

“No, sorry, I don’t think I have. But I’ll be on the lookout.” The grin you put up actually reached your eyes genuinely.

“So what about you?” Harrison was the one to ask, not noticing any change in your demeanour. “What is it that you do?”

“I’m a teacher. I know, not very glamorous or anything- and I might sometimes come home with an abundance of ice-lolly sticks- but it’s good fun and it pays well.” You looked around some more around the apartment. As you focused on the spacious living room of the loft, you wondered how these guys could afford it. Were their rich parents paying for it? Was there secretly asbestos in the walls, making rent not even a problem? Were they going to kill you? 

It was a really nice flat. With exposed brick walls and wooden beams at the ceiling, which the guys used cleverly to hang their houseplants from. Even with the large space and the big windows covering the outer walls of the room, it felt very homey. Comfortable. 

“I’m sure you already know, but it’s a really great place you guys got.” Compliments always worked, so that was your way to go to ensure you had a roof over your head soon. Feeling a bit more comfortable now, you decided to get up to walk a bit around the room. The reason for that specific action was unknown to you, but you did it. 

It had been the first day since your breakup that you had actually made an effort in looking presentable. Hair washed and brushed, you had clothes on that had zero Cheeto dust on it. Of course, since these were guys it probably didn’t even matter to them what you looked like but when you still thought you might be living with other women, you were terrified of being denied because of how you looked or something. That could still happen, but they just didn’t seem like the shallow type. And they had seemed really surprised when you appeared at their front door, as if they didn’t expect a girl to show up either. 

All three of them turned their heads as you walked around, following you with their eyes. It was a mix of curiosity and the same fear that you saw in people on competition shows, when they were waiting for the judges’ critique. 

You looked out the window to see the view. It was a lovely lookout on the city. 

“How come your roommate moved out?” Was it your place to ask? You had no idea. They didn’t seem to mind the question, though. 

“He moved in with his girlfriend instead.” Harry was the one to answer. A heart wrenching feeling fell over you. You didn’t know this Tuwaine, or his girlfriend, but a sudden wave of hatred towards them and their happiness overwhelmed you. Why did everyone have to be all happy and in love? It was disgusting. You were sick of it. 

“Well, I definitely wouldn’t mind living here.” Somehow you managed to speak out without showing any of your feelings through it. You allowed yourself to walk around to the kitchen island. It was recycled wood with a dark varnish on top, making the light from outside shine on it. You could almost see yourself reflecting in it. Were they this clean or had they no idea how to cook? 

“Don’t get me wrong, you seem great, but we don’t really know anything about you yet.” Tom got up and walked up to you. The other two followed his steps. You were now standing on opposite sides of the kitchen island, making you feel as if you were a bartender ready to take their orders. 

“There really isn’t much more to tell. I mean, I did just go through a break up, so emotions are uhm… out there. I might be spending the next few weeks watching horrible Hallmark movies, like 4 or 5… a day.” You saw the disgust on Harry’s face and quickly made an attempt at recovery. “But I can do that on my laptop and headphones, so ya know, I’ll be quiet. I’ll be in my room the entire time too, probably, so you might not even notice I’m here.” You tried to sell yourself as un-pathetically as possible. It had come to desperate measures in desperate times. Because, what your (possible) new roommates didn’t know, was that you had already spent the last four weeks looking for a new place, and while there was no luck in that, you had to do with sleeping on the tiny couch of your best friend. 

As if he could actually read your mind, Harrison’s next question was: “So, where have you been living the last few days then? If you don’t mind me asking.” 

“Not at all,” you said, finding large interest in the pattern of the stained wood. Not looking up at the three men, “I’ve been living with my best friend. She’s great but I just don’t think I'm suited for the life she and her supermodel friends have-” Why did you mention the models? Your eyes shot up to Harrison’s. But it was Harry’s and Tom’s that were wide. 

“Supermodels?” Tom coughed out. You nodded, having leaned in with your elbows on the table, looking rather unimpressed. The way Tom’s hands grabbed for the sleeves of his roommates did not go unnoticed by you. Before you could say anything, he excused himself and the others and they had disappeared into the corridor. Earlier on they had told you that was the way to the bathroom. They were trying to whisper, but weren’t doing a great job at it. You could hear every word perfectly well. 

“What are we thinking, guys?” Tom said, closing the door behind him. When he turned around, Harrison and his brother were rubbing their arms, on the spots where Tom had been a bit too rough on his grip. Harry sat down on the edge of the bathtub, while Harrison decided to remain standing,eventually leaning against the tiled wall. There was a bright light in the small bathroom, but the vintage green tiles made it all look much darker. 

“She seems nice.” Harrison spoke up finally. “But I don’t know, she’s obviously a… she. Won’t that be weird?” 

“What do you think, Tom?” Harry asked his older brother, who, even though had been the one to pull them into the bathroom, had not planned on saying much. “You’re the one with experience in living with a woman. So try to cancel out those supermodels for a sec.”

“I don’t know,” Tom bit the inside of his cheek. Before he had moved in with his brother and best friend, he had been living with his then girlfriend, Stacey. They had been together for a while until she had decided that maybe, this wasn’t meant to be after all. Unlike you, though, the apartment had been in his name so he had a place to stay, but he just couldn’t get himself to live alone in a place that was intended on being lived in by two people. So, he moved out. 

“I mean… every girl is different, so I can’t say shit.” 

“I’m really not that bad!” you shouted from the other side of the door, immediately hiding your mouth behind your hands. Now they knew you were listening to their private conversation. The bathroom door opened and Tom’s head popped out. He saw you sitting on the couch. 

“Could you- could you hear all of that?” he pointed back into the bathroom. You nodded, still covering your mouth, scared you would say something else embarrassing. But the guys seemed to be just as abashed. One by one they walked out and came to sit on their basically appointed seats on the sofa. Did they have their own claimed seats? Would you need to be prepared to only sit in one spot of the room forever? Shit, they had all the seats with the window view… 

“So,” Harry said, “when you said supermodels-” but he never got to finish his sentence because Harrison slapped him across the back of his head. You suppressed a small laugh. It didn’t go unnoticed by Tom, who reciprocated the expression. This, in turn, was missed by you. You only looked in his direction a second later, when the smile had slightly faded already. 

“Thanks for saying that whole ‘every girl is different’ thing. Not saying I can’t cook… even if that is going along with the stereotype, but I wouldn’t exactly want to be accepted to live here as a nanny… not that I think you guys can’t take care of yourselves! I mean just look at-” you eyes wandered around them just for a second before coming back on the right track. “- at the apartment. What I mean is- uhh.” 

“Guys are dicks?” Harrison suggested. 

“Yes! No! No, of course not, well some. But I don’t think you guys are. You seem really nice. I’ve just had… experiences with living with other types of guys and that really was not the planned outcome now that I think about it and I don’t know why I can’t shut up now because I have no idea why I’m telling you all this.” 

“Is this Spencer that we’re talking about here?” Tom asked and your eyes shot to his direction, shocking even him. The name had become somewhat of a trigger for you in the last few days. At the last moment, you realised you had actually mentioned his name yourself to them during your introductory story, so that spared you a good bit of humiliation there. You decided to keep quiet. You all did. Great, because this day had not gone awkward enough. Maybe you could sink into the surface of the ground and die there? Then there would be no more reason to find any living space. It would all be over. Yeah, that really didn’t sound too bad even. 

“So, do you wanna see your room?” Harrison broke the silence and his words surprised everyone, even him. You took longer than it should have to comprehend what he had just suggested. 

“What? Uhh, yes! Yes! Oh my god, that would be fantastic. Thank you.” 

“Great,” Harrison clapped his hands on his thighs before getting up. Then he extended one of those hands to you. He led you to the corridor opposite the bathroom, the third door on the left. The door had some scraped paint residue on it and you could see a poor attempt was made at pulling off the scotch tape that held up posters on it or something? It opened up to a room. It wasn’t big or small. The wall color was a nice beige, a bit of a sandy, almost peachy color. You could definitely work with it. 

The guys let you take it in, but also took that moment to give each other death glares, most of them directed at Harrison. 

“What exactly were you thinking?” Tom asked him, this time properly whispering. For extra measure he extended his neck to look into the hallway to see if you were walking out of the room again. 

“Actually, I was thinking about how you had showed up at my door at 2 am when Stacey dumped you.”

“She didn’t dump me. No one was dumped.” Tom denied like always.

“No, you were definitely dumped, mate.” Harry said, not even making an attempt at hiding the amusement in his voice. 

“Anyway,” Harrison ignored the interaction between brothers, “I thought of you and how miserable you were then. She’s probably going through that same thing.” If not worse, he wanted to add, but he also didn’t want to edge Tom’s ego any further. “So, let’s give her a chance.” 

Tom still didn’t seem to be entirely sure. He raised his eyebrow, thinking. He looked once more at the corridor, expecting you to walk out any moment, but you still were in the room. What were you even doing there? The place was entirely empty. 

“Fine,” he gave in, “but if she turns out to be completely psychotic, you’re kicking her out, Haz.” He immediately noticed the wince in Harry’s face. Had he mistimed his words? 

Yes, he had, because you were standing right behind him now. The sight of you made his heart stop for a good second as he went pale. 

“Fucking Christ,” Tom gasped, “if you live here, you’re getting a bell. None of that sneaking around.” 

“Are we talking service, hand, cow, or the kinky cat collar type?” you smirked, knowing you had gotten him completely flustered at your joke. While Harrison and Harry burst out in laughter, Tom didn’t move a muscle. His cheeks and neck, however, had started to turn a lovely rosy colour. He opened his mouth a bit, just to close it up again as he changed his mind. 

_______________________

While you had told them that you would be spending your days crying into a pint of ice cream while watching movies, reality was much more different from that. It was true that you barely left your room, but that was because you were too busy unpacking all your things out and setting up your room. The guys were nice enough to help you bring up the furniture sets and the boxes, which had been lovingly left at the curb of the building by the people from the moving company.

That ordeal had taken up most of Saturday. Your first task was to set up the bed, which Harrison helped you with. You tried to tell him that you didn’t need help, but your words were futile the second you almost dropped a wooden plank on yourself. The flatpacks were easy enough to understand, and unlike what you had done there, you weren’t the worst when it came to building, so all the furniture was set up by the end of Sunday. It meant that you could spend the rest of the week opening boxes and making your room really yours. 

But Monday also meant work, so you only had the afternoons and nights to do it. Together with the fact that you had to leave early for work, meant that the guys really barely saw you. The only sign of your presence would be the music you were playing from your room while doing the unpacking. 

It was the fourth hour of your One Direction sing-a-long that Tom walked into the living room. Harrison popped his head up from his book to look at his friend. He did not look happy. 

“Dude,” he said. The one word already evoked all that Tom wanted to say, but Harrison loved to annoy him. 

“What?” he opened up his book again, pretending not to really pay any attention to Tom. This was made harder when Tom sat down next to him. 

“If I hear What Makes You Beautiful one more fucking time-” 

“Then what?” Harrison still kept his eyes on the words on the pages, not taking in a single word. 

“You have to do something. I can’t take it.” 

“Why do I have to do something?” Harrison closed his book with his finger still between the pages and looked at Tom, just in time to see him narrow his eyes in annoyance. 

“Really? So do you wanna see your room y/n?!” His voice turned higher as he mocked Harrison’s words, following it up by a gagging sound. “You’re the one that got us here. Now, go solve it.” 

“I really don’t mind it. If you’re so bothered, go talk to her yourself.” And with that, Harrison went back to his book. This time actually reading the words. It was enough for Tom to know that the conversation was over. He didn’t even try to argue. He gave Harrison one more glare and got up. While walking to your room, he noticed that Harry had actually been in the kitchen this whole time, listening in on their conversation. He tried to give his little brother a look, hoping for support, but he didn’t get any of that. Harry disappeared behind the doors of a cupboard and Tom went into the corridor, still rolling his eyes. 

When he reached your door, he couldn’t hear you singing anymore. It was just One Direction coming from the speakers. Now, he enjoyed the lads just as much as the next guy, but after a while he just needed it to stop. And coming in in five hours was definitely a while. 

He knocked on the door. There was a sound that resembled you. A bit of a murmur that formed no particular word. It didn’t sound like a denial though, so slowly, in case you didn't want him to come in, he opened the door. 

You were quick in decorating the room. Only a few days ago it was still empty and a bit cold looking, now the walls were covered with posters and pictures. You had used one entire wall just for your bookcase. There didn’t seem to be an order on the shelves just yet, but you left that for the last thing to do since the rest of the room seemed a bit more important at the moment.

The bed was unmade, with several pillows thrown about over it. Behind it the headboard, which simultaneously served as a shelf. Stuffed animals and a few more books were strewn about. Overhead were fairy lights, matching the ones on the doorframe and on the bookcase. Together with the lamp that was on the desk, it was the only light in the room. Since it was dark, it gave the room a warm and cozy atmosphere. 

But the first thing that Tom noticed when he walked into the room was the smell. Coconut? It wasn’t overwhelming, just strong enough to be pleasantly surprising and noticeable. 

You were standing on a small step ladder, which you usually used to reach the upper shelf of your bookcase (high walls gave the opportunity for more shelves, which you could never say no to). You were in the middle of hanging up a picture on the wall as the song from your speaker continued. 

Can we take the same road, two days in the same clothes- 

You were holding on to the frame with both hands, trying to centre it on the nail in the wall, but every time you pulled away, the frame would slant to the side. 

And I know just what she’ll say if I can make all this pain go- 

Tom saw you get fed up with the picture, throwing it on the bed with a groan. That’s when you looked up at him. The dim and soft light was shining just at the angle that when he looked at you, he could see the tear streaks down your face. You had definitely been crying. You were still sniffling a bit when you stepped down to the floor. 

“Am I too loud? Sorry.” you immediately reached out to your phone, which was connected to the speaker, and pressed down the volume. Then you decided to just turn it off completely. Maybe you’ve had enough of it for now. 

“Uhh, a bit, but it’s fine. We like 1D here, so.” Tom suddenly felt like a real dick when he saw the small, apologetic, smile you gave him. You were holding the speaker in your hands as you sat on the bed, staring at it, a bit lost, and Tom wasn’t sure if he was supposed to leave or not. 

“Are you okay?” he asked. You had clearly forgotten he was still there, because you looked up looking a bit frazzled. 

“No.” You said honestly. What would be the point in pretending? You couldn’t fool anyone even if you tried. Misery was the only thing feeling your once Spencer-filled void. Ugh, the sound of his name, even just in your thoughts, made you want to scream. Unconsciously, and a bit to Tom’s amusement, you had grabbed one of your pillows and started to hit your fist right in the middle of it. Your hits were getting harder and rougher. 

“Ever considered boxing?” He brought you out of your haze. You looked down at the pillow, seeing the sad looking indent on the kitten-patterned pillow. Tom took the pillow away from you and fluffed it out to its normal shape before putting it back.

“It’s just been hard, you know,” you said, more to yourself than to him and Tom understood that. He knew what you meant. He had been in that same position not too long ago and seeing you like this did definitely bring back some of those feelings he had tried to suppress back then. 

“Like, I thought he was the one. And I know it sounds so stupid, I don’t even believe in that whole soulmate crap, but he was it for me. For the first time, I could actually imagine myself enduring nine months of hell to have a kid with him, sorry if I’m being TMI.” 

“You’re good,” he said. He also understood that feeling. Maybe not in the exact, child bearing way, but he could resonate with that whole it thing. He had felt the same way about Stacey. He had never told anyone this, and was never planning on telling anyone, but the day before they broke up, he had been out in the city looking for an engagement ring. It had come unplanned. He wasn’t thinking yet about actually proposing. But he had been in town for an audition and on his way home he saw the jeweller. It was the first time he had ever thought of it, and it seemed right, so he walked in and just looked around. 

“You must think I’m so pathetic though. Crying for weeks about some douchebag.”

“Well, you’ve only lived here for five days, so I wouldn’t know about that.” He smirked. You groaned again and fell with your head on a big fluffy pillow. 

“But no,” he said eventually, “I don’t think you’re pathetic.” 

“Thanks.” 

_______________________

Another week had gone by and your mother had somehow found out about your new living arrangement. So, the last 20 minutes you had been sitting on the couch, listening to her yelling. 

“No mum, I’m fine.” you said, for what felt like the 50th time. Right at that moment, Harry showed up in the living room, making his way from a shower to his bedroom, only a towel around his waist. His usually curly hair was a wet mop, covering most of his face. 

“You don’t even know them!” your mother shrieked. 

“Harry, are you going to murder me?” you asked as he walked by, covering the microphone of your phone. Without missing a beat, or looking down at you, he answered with a snappy “Yup,” and walked into his own room. 

“They’re really nice guys, mum.” You told her. It took you another ten minutes to convince her not to come over tomorrow (or ever, in general). The conversation had taken an abrupt turn when suddenly, she invited you to a video call. Knowing that if you didn’t answer it, you would never hear the end of it, you accepted the call. Your mothers face, or better said, forehead, showed up on screen. You tried to cover your chin as best as you could with the collar of your sweater since you were too tired to hold up your phone at a reasonable angle. 

“Hi mom,” you sighed. 

“Where are they?!” she said, looking around as if she could actually see more than what your camera showed. You were going to lie that they had gone out, but right at that second Harry walked out of his room. Thankfully he was dressed, but his hair was still a bit wet. His shoulder was just visible in the corner of your screen and you tried to move to the side, but your mother had noticed him already.

“Who’s that?” Why did your mother always have to be so loud?

“Uhh, that’s Harry.”

He looked up at the mention of his name. You were scared that it would make him uncomfortable if you talked about him to your mom, it was making you uncomfortable for sure, but instead he jumped up at the opportunity and the next second he was leaning on the couch, almost over you, and smiling at your phone. 

“Hi.” He waved to your mother. His quick movements made his hair move around, giving you a nice first row experience of the fountain show coming from it. You wiped the water off your face. 

“What’s your name again?” Your mother asked. 

“Harry, Ma’am. Harry Holland.” He said with a smile. You both knew that when your mother had asked him his name, she meant his full name. She wouldn’t be able to make any deep research, but it was in case you suddenly went missing, of course. 

“How old are you?” your mother went on with the third degree, glaring at your roommate at each question. Harry answered it all with a big and charming smile. You held the camera, hoping the couch could eat you already. This could not get any more embarrassing, could it? 

Oh, it could. Because half way through, your sister had shown up and sat down next to your mom. She didn’t say anything, but suddenly a text notification popped up on the top of your screen. 

Who’s the hot guy?

Your sister was not imbecile, yet she loved to act like it. Of course, Harry saw the text and erupted in a loud laugh, startling your poor mother. As the timer on the call was reaching 30 minutes you decided to say your goodbyes and end the conversation. Harry was still laughing. 

“So… you’re sister…” he said once calming down. 

“Don’t even think about it. She’s 17.” you glared at him and he immediately shut up, which you appreciated. 

“Well, your mom seems nice,” he eventually said. You knew he didn’t mean it in that way, but in the context of your previous exchange, it didn’t sound great. Now you were the one laughing. 

“That is not what I meant!” he shouted out, grabbing a throw pillow and hitting you on the arm with it lightly.

“Jesus, calm down. I know.” You grabbed the pillow from him. You were both in a fit of giggles by then. It took a moment to catch a breath and by that point, your head was actually hurting.  

“So do you think I’m hot?” Harry asked, raising his brow like the cheeky fuck he is. You just rolled your eyes and hit him with that same pillow. Maybe a bit too hard, because it knocked him off balance and when you looked up, he was no longer leaning on the backrest of the sofa. 

“Oops. Sorry.”

_______________________

Something you had to learn the hard way when it came to living with the guys was that you had to lock your doors. They weren’t doing it on purpose, but they had a tendency to forget to knock when walking into the bathroom, or even your bedroom. Specifically, Harrison. 

Usually, you’d consider him to be the more logical of the three, but that didn’t really mean that much. He was just as much of an idiot as the two Holland brothers at times. 

The bathroom incident had happened during your first week of living with the boys. You were taking a shower. The loud water had cancelled out the sound of the door opening so you didn’t know that while you were washing your hair, Harrison had walked into the bathroom. 

In his defence, he thought it was Tom showering, not you. 

You had not been made aware yet of the honourable fifth member of the household: a life size Nicolas Cage cardboard cut-out. So, when you pushed the shower curtain aside, and were met eye to eye with Nick Cage himself, you screamed bloody murder, almost falling in the bathtub. The door opened to horrified Harrison, realising his mistake. He realised it as soon as he heard the screams, which clearly did not belong to Tom. 

But another scream followed, which was shorter and more specific, followed by a “Fuck!” made him feel like something else had happened. It sounded like you had gotten hurt. So, obviously, he walked in to see if you were alright. 

You were, in fact, alright, and seeing him standing there, eyes wide as he saw your naked body, you screamed again for him to get out. He took a second to grab Nick and pull him out of the room, mumbling a few sorrys, and closed the door behind him. 

Flushed, slightly angry, and with a pounding heart, you dried off and got dressed. Unlike the guys, you were never one to parade half naked around the house on your way from the bathroom to your bedroom. 

You walked out, a pile of old clothes in your hands, to see Harrison. He looked like a puppy that might be about to be smacked with a newspaper on his nose. Usually you were very much against that disciplinary practice, but Harrison was no puppy, and you had been scared shitless. 

“y/n, I’m so sorry.” he apologised as he followed you to your room. You were telling him that it was alright, and actually quite funny, but he really wanted you to know that it was an accident and that he didn’t mean to scare you like that or walk in on you naked or linger his eyes on you for that long. 

“Seriously, Haz, it’s fine. Shit happens… just, don’t walk into the bathroom anymore when I shower. Or ever actually, if I’m in there, don’t.”

“Yeah, of course.” 

And he kept to the promise. You didn’t get any other sudden visits in the bathroom, but it was not the last time that Harrison saw you naked. 

You were all going out to a bar one night, and a bit shamefully, you were taking a bit longer than usual with getting ready. The guys had been waiting for a while already, and you were trying to hurry up, but you just had no idea what to wear. Finally you had found yourself a dress that might make you get a bit lucky that night. You weren’t even planning on hooking up, but the attention was appreciated. In your, still not exactly over your break-up situation, it was actually needed. 

In the meantime, the guys were deciding which one of them had to go and tell you to hurry up. It was getting late and they needed their time to get completely smashed. And while waiting for you, getting knock out drunk was definitely not happening. 

Harrison drew the figurative short straw. He thought you were doing your make-up or something, being aware how much time that can take sometimes. He never imagined opening the door and seeing you standing in the middle of your room, only in a pair of panties. You didn’t see him at first because your dress was over your head as you tried to pull it on. Harrison closed the door before you saw anything. But you could hear the thud of the door closing. 

You pulled the dress over your body, grabbed a pair of matching heels and put them on as you got out of your room. There you saw Harrison. His red cheeks indicated that he was the one who had walked into your room. Tom and Harry were standing at the door. They could see you walk out and their eyes had gone a bit wide. Clearly, the dress was serving its purpose. 

Having already gone through this whole embarrassing scenario already, you decided to spare Harrison. You have him a soft smile. 

“Could you help me zip up?” you asked, turning your back and pushing the hair away from the zipper. 

“Uhh, yeah, yeah, of course.” He was so flustered. It was actually adorable. You could feel his hands on you as he grabbed the two sides of the dress and the zipper and slowly, carefully, pulled it up. 

“Thank you,” you said when he was done. He didn’t respond, his face still as red as a stop light. And it didn’t get any better when you kissed him on the cheek. 

It was definitely interesting to be living with them, but you couldn’t complain about a single thing… except for the laundry, maybe. 

The END

> Thank you for reading!! I hope you enjoyed

> please leave a comment or ask with your thoughts. i love reading them and let me know if you want to see more of this au cause i really enjoyed writing it :)

>masterlist and link to taglist in bio

tagging:

@definitely-not-black-cat @artemisiaarm @nerdyhockeygirl @miraclesoflove @justasmisunderstoodasloki @thefridgeismybestie @m19friend @creative-happenings @parker-holland-osterfield @fanficparker @fanficscuziranout @peterparkoure @xxtomxo @happywolves81 @captainbuckyy @tra-gicx @qxeen-of-hearts @varshavisuu @kangaroobunny @petersunderoos96  @the-lost-fairy-tale @nerd-domland @sleepybesson @rissa067 @the-queen-procrastinator @scarletteclipze @screeching-student-unknown  @spiderrrling @lonelyavenger @tomhollanders2013 @miraclesoflove @playinonaloop @queenoflostspirits @roses-hxlland @hereiamhereigo @sunnydays0803 @averyfosterthoughts @moorehollandplz @beiroviski @you-bleed-just-toknowyouarealive @peterparkerbabyyy @multifandomlover21 @lmaotshollandd @badbitchydecisions @tikapollak @awesomehritz @madzleigh01 @oh-what-a-beautiful-parker @taciturnspidey @quaksonhehe @mountainsforwords @harryfobter @peepeeparkerr @viagracex @ethereal-beauty-p @slytherin-chaser @worldoftom @moonysoftt @peeterparkr @wazzupmrstark @saintlavrents @peachybloomss @blissfulparker @chloecreatesfictions-archive  @fallinfortom @bitchydecisions @okokimfreakingoutahh @rxsydreams @musicalkey @joyleenl @multifandomdoodles121 @awkwardfangirl2014 @marvelouspeterparker​ @siriuslyslyslytherinyes @lunalovegoodsgirlfriendyes @bitchydecisions​ @okokimfreakingoutahh @quinjetboi​ @sheranatic111​ @zspideyy​ @lizzyosterfield​ @dahliasbroken​ @parkerlovebot​ @itstaskeen​ @sarcasticallywitty15​ @sluttytears​ @lilhoodhippie​ @theliterarymess​ @marlenetough​ @tomsirishgirlx​ @hiiii-i​ @wonderfulfluffer​ @dumbledorrs @hollandstea @roseke​ @outshineallthestars​ @spideyspeaches​ @ieatchildrenfordessert​