#i vaguely remember this dude from back in 2017 but i thought he went to jail?? but according to reports he's out and back on his bullshit

[houseofwolvess]

guess whose sideblog is apparently being targeted by a fucking pedo/zoophile 😐

[placegrenette]

a personalized hard sell

To explain: when I got on Tumblr nine years ago it was because I was lonely and needed to yell about Infinite. And I was exceedingly blessed to grab a scattered group of lovely people who would listen to me. And now we are in 2022, and the gentlemen of Infinite have (hopefully) mostly made it through the worst of idol life and emerged relatively comfortable, and we are two weeks away from Myungsoo completing his military service, and when Jamie, one of those aforementioned lovely people, reached out to me the other day I was like, I have Tumblr back now! and it felt like a hug.

but as y’all know I’ve been prone to yelling about a different group for a while, ad nauseam. I’ve been using this tag for years. And anybody who so much as even vaguely hints that they might be willing to hear me out about Ninety One is at risk of getting the OH BOY OH BOY LET ME TELL YOU A FEW THINGS treatment.

so the following is extremely self-indulgent. and may not make sense, or be particularly effective, outside a specific context. but you are welcome to eavesdrop on my tailored yelling.

why you should take affectionate interest in Ninety One (where “you” = primarily, but not limited to, @berestweys​):

they are very charming

“Okay, fine,” you’re thinking, “but it’s not that hard to pretend to be very charming, especially if you have a whole infrastructure of charm built up around you, and nevertheless end up acting like a rotten human being.” I hear you; I have kept that in mind for five years. suffice to say I cannot prove to you that the members of Ninety One are not jerks, never will be able to, but I have been looking for evidence of their jerkiness for over five years now (up to and including flat-out asking people who’ve met them if they’re jerks) and not found it.

the entire split from Juz Entertainment at the beginning of this year stands as evidence in the not-jerks column. admittedly it stands as more evidence that their boss is not a jerk, since he had less to lose from jerkiness, but he showed up to sing at ZaQ’s wedding and then ZaQ and Bala were at an Orda concert (boss’s band) a week or so later. but presumably the not-jerkiness went both ways

also when Ninety One left Juz presumably staffers had an option to leave with them or stay, and some amount of financial calculation must have been in play, but a good many of them decided to go with the guys, including constantly helpful behind-the-scenes dude The Other Other Azamat, extremely adorable director Nurs, thoughtful producer Beka (who also just got married, July is apparently a popular time for weddings in Almaty), and of course Zhadra

speaking of Zhadra: now that they’re married ZaQ is being less shy about showing her (their) cats on Instagram, Ninety One now 25% more cat stepdaddy enabled

but also the guys have always taken (and been able to take) a pretty healthy attitude towards dating. AZ was public about having a girlfriend in 2017-18, then later fans asked Alem if he was dating Veronika (who was working in some capacity for Juz at the time) and he said, “Well, yeah,” and they’ve been a public joy ever since. as someone who remembers the utter shitstorm that was dumped on Myungsoo’s head for dating in late 2013, let me tell you, this feels so much saner

btw Infinite and Ninety One have next to nothing in common besides being male idol groups but: the supposed “visual” is a giant weeb who is forever randomly taking naps (and/or playing way too much Dota 2) and gives every impression of not actually believing this whole nonsense about him being attractive and just wants everybody to be happy and also he has the strangest sneeze noise imaginable and a nonzero percentage of Q-Eaglez think he might be from another planet, does any of this sound familiar

also “maknae on top” I swear Bala is on a barely concealed quest to dominate the entire group, if you break music and lyrics credits out separately he might have more than anyone else now

related: Bala’s face. Sadly I can’t spend all day giving you additional evidence in GIF form but BALA’S FACE

their staged scripted reality shows include episodes where they confront their haters with love and win them over by playing paintball (and Alem was concerned that paintball was too violent)

their unstaged unscripted reality shows consist of a great deal of bilingual yelling

oh yeah do you like linguistic rabbit holes? HOO BOY. these guys (ZaQ especially, but not exclusively) have done a lot of thinking about what it means to speak/sing in Kazakh instead of Russian, and the implications not just for them and their sales/careers but for their country. like there is an entire documentary on the Kazakh language just released in which they appear and I haven’t even seen it yet because I want to finish going through the subs of the interview with the documentary maker in which they switch between Russian and Kazakh and discuss the implications of switching

their latest video, which a fellow Eaglez described as “what in the shinee hell”

I haven’t brought up the actual music yet because I’m not sure what your tastes lean towards; this is the song I consider their best but you might prefer this or this. this is the best song they’ve released this year and here is their most recent We Shall Don Suits and Then Take Over the World effort.

but if you have time for only one MV make it this one, for its combination of resilience + refusal of self-pity + goofiness + social commentary.

but keep in mind this is the group which, when faced with the pandemic and the damage it wrecked on their country’s economy and the departure of the member who was everyone’s default bias, responded with, well clearly this is when we do the epic party jam whose chorus turns entirely on Kazakh-Spanish punning!

I have also not brought up the lore (where “lore” = roughly a century and a half worth of Kazakhstani history) because it’s not strictly necessary, you have a ways to travel before you need to concern yourself with questions such as Who Was Premier Kunaev and Why Did the Dudes Feel the Need to Tell Everyone They’d Borrowed His Car. but suffice to say if you like the idea of learning about a country and a culture through a pop group this one’s pretty damn rich

if wading into the ocean of nonmusical content I would recommend this video, which is 60% them struggling with trivia questions (+ AZ knowing his solar system) and 40% them waxing philosophical about education and finding your own career path

one more thing that won’t be immediately apparent: they’re simultaneously one of the biggest pop groups in Kazakhstan right now and... underdogs? but when they got started they were accused of being Satanic and too effeminate, to the point that they were regularly being dragged into fistfights. (there’s an entire docudrama about this, which is actually grim and not terribly enjoyable, I only recommend it to completists) also their concerts were getting cancelled under mysterious circumstances. that was 2016; it is now 2022 and their concerts are still getting messed with under mysterious circumstances, as I write this they’re having trouble with bureaucrats in Atyrau

and back to the are-they-jerks question: the opposition has definitely been fueled by homophobia, which is much more standard in Kazakhstan than it is in the US/Canada/Australia/western Europe, and under such circumstances it would be understandable (if regrettable) if they joined in on the gay-bashing, but as far as I know (and there’s a lot I don’t know!) they never have. when reading homophobic hate comments after debut they laughed them off. while they themselves are all straight (occasionally going to the trouble of posting “We’re straight!!!” on Telegram, I don’t know what prompted that) and tend to act as if their fanboys universally are too, they have never shied away from including said fanboys in their Eaglez spotlights

and I will stop here, this has gone on long enough, here’s all the song reviews if you need them, suffice to say they are entertaining dudes who I do believe are trying to do good in the world with their work. yell back any time

[unproduciblesmackdown]

um hello excuse me i just listened to that teenage dirtbag video and now i have no choice other than to ask you... what is up. that voice was lovely, the range the performer had when switching to the girl's role i?? hello??? so is this the uh... god um. dear evan hansen or the uhhhh oh my god sorry im typing as im thinking this is hell. the other one. be more chill? i have some friends into these things but never paid much attention but after that vid my inch rest is how do you say, Peaked.

it just hit me that the right word was actually 'piqued' rip me

hahahaha yeah i can tell you All About It.....see my origin story is that uh. fuckin uh right so i vaguely knew deh existed back when it was broadway-debuting at the end of 2016 and probably many of us were vaguely aware it existed, but then in the next summer (2017) i heard a cover of one of its songs and i was like “i can tell this is one of those songs that would be given way more context if i knew the plot” and by that point the wikipedia entry had a plot summary available and i got that context and even though he was fairly briefly mentioned, one of the side characters Piqued My Interest b/c i just knew like. aha that already feels like a character type i would rly latch on to. and this was in the back of my mind for a while and for like the next year i would intermittently check out another song or two or get a little bit more lore, but it wasn’t until like, fall 2018 i finally went “you know what, i am gonna dive in for Maximum Lore actually” and my motivation for doing this was cuz i wanted to find out all the info about The One Side Character lmfao, like, the “main plot” and “entire actual show” to me is just the Lore for him basically b/c that was truly my angle hahaha and my interest was further piqued b/c like i quickly went “oh so he’s secretly in love with the protagonist right, got it,” which like. was a latent vibe i got from that very first wikipedia plot summary readthrough tbh lmfao. and is True.

and then even after deciding to dig into the lore and confirming that Yes i love this character as i thought i would it took like another week or two before i ever like, Watched dear evan hansen lmfaooo and i’ve never stopped complaining about the show since ljdfs but not Not b/c the character isn’t as good as i thought (or b/c Nothing Else is good either, but. you know how it is. #canon 9_9 ) and then in the course of looking for More Content i was you know, looking at a variety of posts On Here and looking at some behind-the-scenes / bonus content type stuff on youtube and went “oh well hey the actor that plays that character i love is also a nice funny guy according to testimony and also that i like his vibe in these vids” and, fun fact as is the nature of live theatre (and it being like, oct / nov 2018 by then) he was not still the Current actor for said character but had, in fact, moved on to be more chill and Already Completed a late summer off-broadway run as the lead (and a bway run had been announced already, though im not Certain i remember the point / how i became aware of this lol).....which again, i too had Heard Of (and had once ages prior coincidentally leafed thru the book once and read a few excerpts but knew nothing abt anything beyond that).....but hilariously while i Knew he was in bmc thru some 101 research, i was like “okay i’ll move on to that in a sec” while focusing on deh for a while still b/c it was not until i happened to casually look up “okay so what does his character do in this show i’m completely unfamiliar with” that i went “oh fuck he’s the LEAD????!!!” lmaooo like i did Not realize this and that upped my urgency abt it

a very very broad description of bmc is that it’s a Fun Show coz it’s this teen scifi Magical Realism plotline classic musical comedy type of thing, a genre we all already know and love lol /j, and importantly, the music is fuckinggg Bops. very common “gateway drug” is This song. there’s an Original Broadway Cast Album all on youtube (and, somewhat confusingly im sure, an Original Cast Album, but that was an off-off-bway run, and i’m interested squarely in the off-bway and bway versions lmfao, so, and that is what one will get recommended from me (more updated versions of all the songs anyways)) and also, this is basically a tangential thought i had but circling back around to deh, My Guy (will roland as jared kleinman) does not actually get all that much singing material in the show (v different situation from be more chill) even in the song that features his character most heavily, but that song also happens to be the most fun song in deh and also a bop, and here’s an especially fun live performance to check out if u wanna, the other two dudes are not official cast members lmfao but still

and like, when all this deh-ing and enthusiastic bmc-ing (which i got into Just In Time to be following along with its broadway run, which was very fun to do) affirmed like boy i love this Actor’s Material for sure, i did a little digging into his nicher Credits, including, one fateful day in march, his tv credits, which meant i like stumbled across the fact he has this recurring role in Billions(tm) and that stumbling = immediately falling flat on my face b/c i Loved the content and we coincidentally got really into it Just In Time before the next season’s stuff started airing with him in it, and that was truly an Experience we’ve been having ever since. that’s it’s own insane tangent b/c this show is fucking Something Else but, jsyk, since i am talking about “billions” left and right and stuff, that’s the vague context for that. latched onto a character -> the actor -> the actor’s other stuff, and that [other stuff] is getting brought up around here a lot, especially billions.....we’re having fun and following our hearts with it lmao

i’m Not Great at finding a balance between “doing an elaborate lore dump when someone asks me ‘what’s X about?’ and i spend the next several hours just play by play walking them through the whole thing” and “trying to avoid doing that where i get Too In Depth and instead end up just overly glossing over it all and they’re like ‘that doesn’t give me any info :/’” but i Can and Will talk more in depth about any of this stuff b/c yeah........but between deh and bmc, i definitely like bmc more Overall and....in the specifics of it too.....and like the obcr way better......and uh Everything about it better lmfaooo but i also love the particular characters Jared and Alana, side character teens in deh, so im always about That as well..........but if u were like “hm which might i look into a little first,” i gotta say like, i like bmc better both as a matter of My Personal Taste and from a more critical standpoint of “what is the show meant to be / does it accomplish what it wants to” type stuff. even though deh is the critical darling lmfao go figure! *i* decide what’s good, actually, and as we all know, i’m correct and a genius. which, haha im joking, but i Am right and i Am not Not smart in ways lol

aaaaaaand yeah additionally like. can and will answer Any more particular questions about any of this shit b/c, it’s my shit, and you know how i roll

and p.s. glad you liked the Teenage Dirtbag it is such a good performance lol. naturally getting real into this one actor / singer’s shit means that there’s also stuff Outside [performing a particular role] which is still some sweet sweet content, such as other solo performances during a concert / cabaret stuff.....the lore is Very Rich and is V Good so it’s fun

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

y’know i think the main reason that i believed that i couldn’t possibly have adhd (before it became a topic on here) is because some of the people i knew who definitely have it or possibly had it/have it are guys.

the first person i met with adhd was one of my guy friends in my group at public school, who had to give his meds to the office and go there at certain times during school to take them to help him focus throughout the day. he was the hyperactive type.

there was another guy friend in that group who had adhd as well, who always said his constant interrupting of our ancient history class and his needing the social worker who would come to class with him some days was because his having adhd. now if this friend talks to me he blames his adhd on why he hates everything in life and “why just why did i never try in school and you have to fix that for me” basically becomes the main gist of every convo with him.

also i think maybe a couple of guys at catholic school in high school had it too, but the school was much better at hiding it because we had a semi well supported special ed department; so sometimes those boys would head down there and not be in a mainstream class. but if they were in a mainstream class a lot of the time they weren’t in my classes (especially in english) but instead in the bottom class. but they were defs in my maths class because two guys (one of which i thought had absolutely nothing wrong with him but now i think he could’ve actually had adhd- but if i’d thought that in school i thought he was “faking it” somehow so he could be with his friend so he didn’t feel alone in class with a special ed teachers aide).

but somehow i managed to get through high school and uni... albeit falling out of postgrad. although i don’t exactly help pay bills at home (because my dad excuses me from doing it by saying to “save your money” even though i feel like i should be paying at least some form of rent or helping with the bills) i still do buy my own groceries and stuff at the chemist. but sometimes i go overboard with buying shit on afterpay, mostly in the form of impulse buying clothes.... and i was doing this frequently during undergrad uni and postgrad... as if the clothes would fill a hole in me or something and especially after turning in an assignment and when i’d received the assignment back. it got pretty out of control. like once i spent $150 on a vibrator and during on campus uni i was spending like $150 some pay weeks on clothes i didn’t really need except to show off on campus. and this was BEFORE afterpay and other “buy now, pay later” programs were a thing. like wtf did i need to spend $150 on a fucking asos brand trench coat???? ridiculous.

it was the same with tumblr. i remember once throwing a fit because the internet wasn’t working or some shit so i couldn’t use tumblr for a few days. like how stupid is that??? i was even using tumblr during classes in uni, and that creative writing professor i had in 2017 called me out on that during one lesson... being all like “why on earth are you on social media during my class, gwladys?” and i glared at him bc tumblr was basically my entire social life. and i’ve written before about how engrossed i’d get in clearing out my blog archive and likes archive on here, that is do it until 3am without realising how time had really gone by. and it got to the point that i was doing this during my classes (both lectures and tutes) and in my breaks at uni. like it was BAD. that i couldn’t not think about it. i’d also obsess over notes as well, if i made my own posts (and i admit that i still do that).

there was also further back in 2012 and 2013 where i was so stupid jealous at the people who i considered to be “popular” at school would get 50 likes on just one status about something as pointless as “i’m making toast 🍞” or something as equally banal and pointless. so instead i got bitter and started “an experiment” where i’d study who was online and how many people were online at a certain time of day (like 8am before school, 1pm while we were at school, 6pm at dinner and then like 10pm at night before bed) and post my statuses then to see how likes i’d yield on those posts and if it got close to 20-50 likes over the multiple posts. sometimes i was lucky to get to like 10-15 likes on one status at once, and those posts made me feels vaguely successful. finally, sometimes i’d post the same status posts on here to see which social media platform would give me better results. like it was super weird.

then even further back in year 10 i got fixated on getting over the “liked pages limit” on facebook which was somewhere around like 5,000 or something. so i’d spend hours upon hours on end liking pages.... some of which i deeply regret liking when they pop up in my feed for the first time in like 10 years 😂😂😂 then sometimes my friends would post on my wall to be like “DUDE HOW THE HELL DID YOU LIKE *enter stupid fb page title here* AND 645 OTHER PAGES????!!!!” THEN as far back as year 8, i obsessed over the word count (until i finally found it was about maybe 1200 words??) on one of my best friends myspace forum pages where i’d post really fucking weird messages to her sometimes about my week and stuff, when she went overseas for 5months.... and then i turned the word count cut off thing into a competition with my other best friend bc she couldn’t figure it out and i refused to tell her the word limit 😂.

i also did the above with texts on my phone as well, and especially with my web slider phone; because that would constantly conk out when i’d write like 20page messages to my friends. i’d throw it against my bedroom wall and cry when it decided to conk our during those absolutely stupidly long messages. looking back, i don’t blame it for doing that when the phones memory was literally only like 2gb (😂😂) and i’m sure a 20page message would take up like 645 megabytes of that lmao (ok probs not but you get my point lmao). like i basically had zero filter and would write novel length messages to people.... which i still do tbh based on who i’m talking to. i just don’t know when to shut the fuck up. and that’s the same on here lmao.

anyway. this is just another musing on how maybe i could have adhd and i’m not self-diagnosing at all. but it’s stemmed from going through my posts again and people saying that i should probs get tested for adhd bc my behaviour possibly sounds like adhd in girls/women. but the problem is i’ve only ever known guys with it.

anyway don’t reblog this please and i’ll probably delete this post soon.

i just needed to vent again.

[phoenixplume117]

Aspik & Marinette

(If you  read my other works this does NOT fit in with that timeline)

2017

Ladybug turned to Rena Rouge she needed someone to deliver Sass to Luka but she couldn't do it right now.  She looked over at Nino-er Carapace, right now they were on the offensive, they didn't require his defensive power she ran to him.

"Carapace!  I need your help!"

Carapace turned to her and nodded while watching the Akumatized woman begin to run their way, along the river, "uh.. sure?"

Ladybug opened her yoyo and produced a box, "I need you to find--  Ugh, I hate telling you this.  You already know who Rena is…" she mentally argued if she could deliver it herself.

"How about instead of telling me who it goes to, you let me guess?" he offered?

Ladybug looked down the Seine at the quickly approaching Melusine that decided to dive under the water and gain it's mermaid tail, dragon wings, "Alright, it's the Miraculous of the snake."

"Um, Julika's older brother?" Carapace didn't bother to tell her that everyone already knew everyone else except who she and Chat Noir were.

Ladybug took a step back in surprise then recovered and pretended he was wrong, "Uh, I've met him, he sounds like a good match for a one time use, take it to him let the kwami, his name is Sass, explain how it works, now go!"

Carapace ran to the Couffain's boat and he was nearly there before he remembered, Luka broke his leg the day before.  He quickly thought then veered to his best friend's house, Adrien wasn't home, he would just be getting out of fencing, he ran to school.  Out of breath he hid in the shadows of the courtyard stairs and waited.  When Adrien walked out of the cloakroom doors he rushed him, picked him up and pulled him under the opposite stairs so no one would see them.

"Adrien Agreste?"

Adrien looked at the turtle superhero and knew he was needed, some place, IN BLACK but he was about to be offered something else.  Plagg was going to be pissed… again.  He nodded,  "Yes?"

Carapace looked around and finding no one he pulled the box out from under his shield, "This is the miraculous of the snake…"

Adrien did even hear the rest of what his sometimes partner was saying. He just looked at the box trying to figure out a way to say he did not want to do this.

Carapace opened the box with a grin and a flourish, "Well?" a heartbeat went by and his best friend didn't respond, not that he knew they were best friends but he thought for sure Adrien would be at least a little excited.  He'd been completely stoked when LB had given him Lil' Dude. "Uh, Du- er M. Agreste?"

Adrien looked like he was in pain or at the very least mildly constipated.

Sass spoke up, "Master Agreste, may I explain the way my miraculous works?"

Adrien looked at Sass, "um, can I not?  I'm kind of not supposed to put myself in danger."

Carapace looked surprised but Sass didn't, he remembered their time together. 

"Um, dude, I'm sure you can, but I'm begging you, LB needs our help Chat Noir is totally MIA and this is the first time she's ever asked me to do something so important. Please, don't make me let her down."

Adrien had to smile, Carapace was such a team player, how could he let his friend down, he reminded him so much of Nino sometimes.  On the other hand he really did not want to do this, after all history had shown him, the odds were not in their favor if he were Aspik.  He looked at Sass who also didn't seem thrilled, where was Luka?  His face lit up, Luka!  "Actually, I know who Viperi.." Adrien trailed off and his smile faded, he'd forgotten.

Carapace nodded, "Yeah, I guess, I was right, the guy who broke his leg yesterday?"

Adrien shrugged, "Ladybug said I had to keep it a secret so I'm not really sure how I should answer that."

Carapace grinned and held out the box again, "Adrien Agreste-"

Adrien pursed his lips then put his hand out, "Okay," he put the miraculous on and quickly called the Gorilla to tell him the team had extra drills and stashed his bag then transformed.

Carapace watched his efficiency and reminded himself to tell LB to give Adrien a Miraculous more often.  "Ready?"

Aspik nodded and ran after Carapace into battle.

With a little black blur tucked between him and his lyre giving constant negative feedback.

"You could have said no," Plagg said.

"I tried," Aspik whispered.

"Did you forget the last time?"

"No, I just need to figure out a way to, get hurt or something," he said.

"Did you say something?" Carapace said, turning toward the river.

"Yeah, what am I supposed to be fighting?"

"Oh, it's like a massive Melusine the size of a statue, it can switch between legs and fins.  And we haven't figured out what the akumatized object is."

"She needs her Chat Noir not Snekboi," Plagg said dryly, then to make sure Aspik understood he was being made fun of, "That's spelled S-N-E-K-B-O-I."

"Yeah, I figured," then louder he replied to Carapace, "Um, I'm going to meet you at the riverfront on the other side, see if I can get a lay of the area."

Carapace nodded, Adrien was smart, Viperion did that a lot, watched the entire battle area, to see what needed to be done, "Okay!  Thanks I appreciate it so much!" Carapace said, then ran ahead.

Aspik ran diagonally away from him, then found a recessed area and detransformed.  "Sorry Sass but-"

"He's mine!" Plagg interrupted, "Stop trying to take MY chosen."

Sass looked unimpressed, "First, I don't choose to be GIVEN although Master Adrien is very nice I much prefer Master Luka, Second, until now, I had no idea you were Chat Noir… My condolences having to work with… Him," Sass said looking at Plagg.

Plagg's chin dropped in shock, that anyone would think that he was anything less than amazing. After all, he was!

Adrien rolled his eyes and reached into his pocket for some blue colored cheese and popped it in Plagg's, still open mouth, "Snack time." he said.

"Yuck, that completely messes wi-" he grumbled with his mouth full.

"Aqua Plagg, Transform Me," Adrien said, looking both ways then ran for the water, tucking the Snake Miraculous's bracelet into his pocket.  Now Sass was hiding in his hair, something that occasionally Plagg would do.

"You know you don't have to pick on him," Chat Noir chastised Sass.

"He needs it, don't worry about him," Sass replied.

"So nice of you to join me!" a frustrated Ladybug was suddenly in front of him in the water.

Chat gave her a gallic shrug, "I came as soon as I could, and worse yet, I have to leave early, I know I've never done that before."

Ladybug looked ready to blow her top.

"Milady, I've told you my parents really worry about me well, I don't think the excuse I gave them was very good," Chat lied trying to come up with a way to show up as Aspik for at least a few minutes of the battle.  He didn't want Ladybug to think HE was a loser after all.

By this time they had finally caught up with the akumatized woman, "Woah! She's huge, are you sure she's not a sentimonster?"  And she was naked, Carapace hadn't said that.

Ladybug nodded, "Yes, she's been talking to Hawk Moth."

Chat nodded and shot forward and began climbing the Melusine's braid.

"Chat!  No!" Ladybug yelled, "Stupid cat," she muttered, then climbed up after him.

"Excuse me!" Chat Noir said from the Melusine's shoulder.

The Melusine stopped and a wave pulled Ladybug from her hair throwing her backward.

"Cat!" the Melusine yelled under the water.

Chat looked a little less certain of his plan at this point, "That's me," he said hurrying away, "so who are you?" 

The akumatized woman gestured to herself as if it were obvious, "Melusine, didn't you learn anything in history?!"

Ladybug swam up, "What happened?"

Melusine snapped her gaze to Ladybug, "Give me your miraculous and I'll tell you all about it."

Chat looked at the woman and realized she wasn't wearing anything he vaguely remembered the story but her hair was braided, he raced down her braid and sliced through the band with his nails hoping that was the object and ran off not waiting to find out if he was right.

Ladybug smiled, how could she have missed the clear elastic? The black butterfly floated toward her in the water trying to get to the surface but she swam after it.  When she broke free a hand was waiting to pull her out and she looked up, it was Aspik.  She'd told Nino to give Sass to Luka!  She'd deal with this later she only had seconds left from using her Lucky Charm before Chat had joined her.

She jumped out and purified the akuma and ran to detransform only to find she'd ran out of snacks for Tikki.

"It's okay Marinette, I'm sure Aspik can take care of the woman," Tikki said.

Marinette leaned around the bridge's side to see and Tikki was right, Aspik was talking to her and calming her.  Her heart melted, Adrien was so awesome, she would just watch for a second she thought.

"Marinette?  What are you doing?  You don't want to be caught."

"Okay I'm going," she said and began walking as if she'd been taking a stroll along the river suddenly she heard quick footsteps catch up to her.

"Hey, are you okay, were you hurt?"

Marinette  turned, "Me? No, why, wh-who are you?" she feigned ignorance.

Aspik introduced himself, "I'm Aspik, I'm, ah, just helping, I'm supposed to give my miraculous back but," he shrugged, "everyone left."

"Oh," Marinette smiled shyly.

Aspik grinned, this was kind of fun, he didn't get to see Marinette as often as he used to since they were in completely different classes.  It would be nice if LB would let her be Multimouse but he knew it wasn’t worth his time to even bother asking.

Marinette looked over her shoulder in confusion, “Um? Did something… Happen?”

Aspik looked at her with narrowed eyes then leaned back to check if maybe she had been hurt, “You didn’t know there was an akumatized giant?” 

Marinette felt her face get warmer and tried to calm herself, “Uh-uh?” She looked around, she had to get out of here so she could feed Tikki then get his miraculous back from him.  Aspik  was looking at her thoughtfully and she worried she was being too obvious.

Adrien worried, maybe Marinette had hearing problems, maybe that's why Ladybug wasn't giving her another chance, he sighed and looked up at her in time for her to throw her hands up and clip him in the chin.

"Actually I heard- OH!, Omigod!  I'msosorry!  Aaaaspik!!!!!" she wailed as she tried to correct herself from saying his real name.

Aspik smiled, this was the Marinette he knew and lov-uh…  liked.  Right, liked.  "It's okay, it was an accident you barely brushed me, what were you saying?"

Marinette wished there was a hole nearby for her to crawl into, "I heard something but just figured it was someone with their television too loud."

Aspik nodded then pointed across the street, surprised they were so close to her home already.

"Well, this is me, thanks for taking me home," Marinette smiled and waved as she hurried away from him.

Aspik nodded and waved with a silly grin.

"You can stop waving, she's not even looking at you," Plagg said from behind his shoulder.

Aspik dropped his hand and his silly grin and coughed as if it could make the embarrassing moment go away, "I hope she's okay."

Plagg rolled his eyes and went back to his hiding spot between Aspik and his lyre, "She's fine."

"She thought the fight was someone listening to their television."

"She's fine, let's get home so your pretty lady can get your miraculous.  Or should I say Luka's miraculous."

Aspik was walking toward school for his bag but detransformed in a crevice first.  

When he reached his bedroom he was surprised to find Ladybug sitting on his sofa watching his television.  

"Adrien!" She jumped up.

"M-Ladybug!" he said simultaneously.

"I-I'm sorry, I was just waiting and, I hope you don't mind," Ladybug said pointing to his television.

Adrien shook his head, "Not at all," he reached into his bag, "I didn't mean to keep this, but everyone just left."

Ladybug shook her head, her face turning pink, "I didn't think that, Chat Noir and I had to rush out, sorry, I should have said something or sent someone!  I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable," she said biting her lower lip.

Adrien walked forward, the sofa between them holding the oval box to her.  "I'm not, I'm happy you felt comfortable here.  You should come over more often-er-I mean- ifyouwant," Adrien rushed to finish.

Ladybug gently plucked the box from his hand then took her yoyo and opened it depositing it inside to give her something to do as she recovered her sanity.  Was he inviting her over?  She nearly squealed in her mind. "Thank you, Adrien, I know how hard being Aspik is for you."

Adrien shook his head, "It, it was fine."

Ladybug put her hand on the back of the sofa and leaned forward and kissed his  cheek and whispered, "Thank you."

Adrien's eyes fluttered shut and when they opened she was gone.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23469514/chapters/57343678

@adrinetteapril

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2017

Not a very good year for hit songs. Still better than the next one, though.

And a very satisfying #1 that launched an entire infodump about a specific band. I’m not even sorry.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

2017 might not sound super distant, but it’s already distant enough to analyse what started to happen to me that year with some clarity. This is when I started to lose some of my energy and motivation. A lot, in fact. Everything suddenly felt exhausting and this whole “what’s even the point of anything” mentality started to fall on my shoulders. And you know what, at first, while making these recaps, I had no idea what started it all. Was it that super rare infection I caught in early 2018 and almost made me lose a part of a finger? Was it both my grandfathers dying in mid 2018? Was it the general state of the world? But no, I did some digging and noticed this general exhaustion actually started right during summer 2017 and I was like what the f█ck happened in summer 2017? That summer was fine?

And then it clicked. I know exactly what kickstarted my spiral into about 18 months of depression, and it’s got nothing to do with health or family. It’s something that shouldn’t have affected my life in any way, and that I kinda tried to ignore at the time, and some of you might even find me overdramatic or cringy for letting it affect my life. But yeah, as I’ve realised while making these lists, Linkin Park was actually a super important part of my life, so it makes perfect sense: what started it all was Chester Bennington killing himself. Clearly, someone who had contributed so much to convince me that life was worth living and who suddenly decided it wasn’t worth it, that had a huge impact on me, whether I wanted it or not.

Aaaand now I’m crying again. Great.

Anyway. Uh. Important albums that year! Yeah so uh. Depeche Mode made Spirit and it wasn’t good, and so I kinda lost faith they would ever make a great album again, but I did realise one of my teenage dreams and saw them in concert in the Stade de France in July 2017 (it was huge. Going home after that felt like waking up from some sort of hypnotic trance. They even played Walking In My Shoes, one of my absolute favorite songs from them, along with a video featuring a trans person going to work and I started to bawl my eyes out in the middle of the f█cking crowd). Nine Inch Nails also made Add Violence and continued to be super good, and Indochine made 13, and while it wasn’t nearly as good as Black City Parade, it was also better than La République des Météors, so I was pretty happy about that. EDIT: Forgot about Under Your Spell by The Birthday Massacre, which blew my goddamn mind, but still not as much as the next album I'm gonna talk about.

But the defining album of the year, to me, was Mike Oldfield making a sequel to my favorite album from him, with Return to Ommadawn. Of course it’s not as good as Ommadawn. But still. If Ommadawn felt like discovering a new strange country full of weird folklore and forests and mysterious buildings, Return to Ommadawn feels like going back there half a century later and seeing things in ruins and wounded people, but still trying to seek beauty and joy in a partly destroyed landscape. It makes perfect sense considering the circumstances that surround the making of this thing, and it was the only way to make a good sequel to such a legendary album.

Unelligible songs that piss me off... uh, actually there’s only Cut to the Feeling by Carly Rae Jepsen. Why wasn’t it a huge hit. Come to think of it, why hasn’t any Carly Rae song been a huge hit since Good Times. This feels unfair.

Time for some honorable mentions, then.

Feels and also Slide (Calvin Harris and a lot of other people) - Got nothing to say about either of these songs, but they’re both pretty good.

Katchi (Ofenbach) - Nice little earworm.

No Roots (Alice Merton) - Super surprised this was a hit. Good.

OK (Robin Schulz ft James Blunt) - That’s a James Blunt song in the year of our lord 2017 and it sounds actually good??

What About Us (Pink) - Really caught my attention and made me wonder if I should listen to Pink again after a long streak of mediocre Pink songs.

Congratulations (Post Malone) - I find the song mostly boring but the guest verse ending with “uh, Malone... I gotta play on my phone...” is the stuff of legends and that got a chuckle out of me every time I heard it.

Glorious (Macklemore) - I’m glad this was a hit here but at the same time it’s not my favorite song from him. The music video is adorable, though.

Fly (Odyssey) - Nothing to say about that one.

XO Tour Life (Lil Uzi Vert) - The fact that I was regularly humming this is either a sign of quality or yet another sign I was depressed as shit.

Devil in Me (Purple Disco Machine) - What a great artist name.

Symphony (Clean Bandit) - Nothing to say here either, just good sound all around.

Attention (Charlie Puth) - 2017: The Year Charlie Puth Made A Great Song.

All Stars (Martin Solveig & Alma) - The last cut. It was on the list at some point. I really like it a lot, though.

And now, the list. The stuff I genuinely love starts at #6 and things that are still on my mp3 player to this day start at #4.

10 - Chained to the Rhythm (Katy Perry)

US: #73 / FR: #10

I just love the concept of a Katy Perry song about how Katy Perry songs are happy nonsense distracting you from actual issues. What can I say, I’m a sucker for meta stuff.

9 - Water Under The Bridge (Adele)

US: #88 / FR: Not on the list

An Adele song projecting actual positive energy!? That automatically goes on the list.

8 - Praying (Kesha)

US: #67 / FR: Not on the list

You know I mostly dislike slow emotional songs regardless of how good they actually are. I will, however, make an exception for this one even though I very rarely listen to it considering how emotionally taxing it is. That’s definitely a fantastic song, though.

7 - Viens On S’aime (Slimane)

US: Not on the list / FR: #53

“Listen, we love each other, f█ck it, f█ck their words and their decorum, listen, we love each other, f█ck it, f█ck their ideas and what they’re saying”. Well said, dude, well said.

6 - There’s Nothing Holding Me Back (Shawn Mendes)

US: #23 / FR: #91

That’s a very good song for running and that is becoming increasingly rarer, so I’ll take what I can get.

5 - Paris (The Chainsmokers)

US: #42 / FR: Not on the list (that’s irony for you)

Unlike Closer this is an unrelatable song about rich young people that can afford to live in Paris just “to get away from [their] parents” but honestly that’s the only negative thing I have to say against it. It sounds fantastic.

4 - Castle On The Hill (Ed Sheeran)

US: #40 / FR: #50

We’ve now entered the realm of songs that are still on my mp3 player to this day. This is the only Ed Sheeran song I’ve ever liked, and I love it. It sounds like a lost U2 song. Maybe from a strange dimension where U2 became more fragile and emotional instead of more pretentious.

I have no idea why this guy keeps making such boring stuff when he’s got that kind of song in him. I have no clue.

3 - Something Just Like This (Coldplay & The Chainsmokers)

US: #5 / FR: #19

Hey so Coldplay is still on my lists, apparently. It’s a bit too slow, some lyrics about superheros don’t make much sense, and the drop isn’t super good, but my god, that guitar near the end makes everything worth it. Just amazing colors and textures all around.

It’s not even my favorite song on that EP! I think Miracles (Someone Special) is even better, but eh, this one is a close second.

2 - 24k Magic (Bruno Mars)

US: #16 / FR: Not on the list (#13 in 2016 but I put it on the 2017 list instead)

Am I the only one to like this more than Uptown Funk? It’s so much fun to sing along to it. And unlike Uptown Funk, it’s making me feel nostalgic for an era I actually (vaguely) knew, the super colorful and ridiculous early 90s. My s.o loves it too and when it comes up on the radio or on our playlists you can bet we’re both going PUT YOUR. PINKY. RINGS UP. TO THE. MOOOOOOOON like two idiots.

This is the song I could have put on the previous list but elected to put on this list instead since it was elligible for both years, by the way! Since 2017 was less good than 2016, I thought it would be more interesting to save such a great song for later.

It would have topped the list too, if it wasn’t for something I didn’t expect to be elligible before reading the French year-end list.

Strap yourselves in, because I had no real opportunity to talk about this band at length in the posts made for the years when it was the most relevant in my life, so this is going to be quite long.

1 - La Vie Est Belle (Indochine)

US: Not on the list / FR: #44

As you already know if you remember some of my previous lists, Indochine is a band I started to love right in the middle of the absolute worst years of my life. These guys had been around since the 80s as a super successful new wave band, then became very unpopular and went underground for about twelve years in the entire 90s, then one of them died, then every member except the singer basically rotated, and then they suddenly re-emerged in 2002-2003 with Paradize, a monster of an album, full of energy, sinister themes and weird provocative songs, and an entire generation of angsty teenagers (me included as you can guess) embraced it wholeheartedly.

And all of a sudden Indochine was the favorite French mainstream band of local young punk/goths! So many kids with the Indochine logo in highschool. Nowadays the band is mocked and well-loved in equal doses by just about everyone, but I suspect it’s just because we’ve all grown up.

Placebo, Linkin Park and Indochine were the bands that ruled my entire world in 2003/2004. My mother hated all three of them, because of course she did, but especially Indochine, because according to her it was partly their fault if I was gender non-conforming. See, she used to say, they had put all kinds of bad ideas in my head and now I was all messed up.

...Holy shit, that’s a lot of blame to put on a ridiculous new wave band who’s first hit song from 1983 is just a long nonsensical list of shitty old Bob Morane pulp novels.

But here’s the problem. Even if Indochine kept having hit song after hit song, those were never the best songs on their albums. Here I am, 31, making these top ten lists since last December, and becoming more and more frustrated to see none of my favorite modern Indochine songs are elligible. My favorite Paradize singles were Mao Boy, Popstitute and especially Marilyn (god, this song rocked my entire year alongside Placebo’s The Bitter End. 2003 was such a fantastic year for dark energetic hit songs)? Too bad, the biggest hits were J’ai demandé à la lune and Le Grand Secret. Alice & June had four fantastic singles? Too bad, none of them is elligible! Same thing for the entirety of Black City Parade. Oh, but that song I hate from La Republique des Météors is elligible, I guess!

So we’re in summer 2017, and my life is completely different now, and Indochine releases La Vie Est Belle (I’m linking the album version and not the music video because it has some violent themes in it). I’m in my car doing some errands and the local radio goes “hey new song from Indochine” and I’m like “oh shit, gotta hear this” and then two minutes later “oh wow, that is super good. Won’t be a hit though”.

And yet, it was a hit! It became huge, even! And at that point I was already loving that song even though I thought it was just a super good but tragic love song about a significant other dying too young.

And then, about a month later, the wordplay of the first line finally hit me with the force of a semitruck. It’s not a love song. It’s a song about the singer’s dead twin. Who died in 1999.

It’s such a devastating, beautiful song, and yet it’s full of energy. I. adore. it. It’s exactly the kind of song you need to continue to fight and to live and to help other people in this day and age. “Life is beautiful and cruel, it looks like us sometimes” indeed. And it’s one of the best on the album, too!

So yes, 15 years after I first fell in love with this band and after they helped me during super dark times, finally, I can put one of their songs at the top of one of these lists, hands down, no debate whatsoever.

That probably sounds ridiculous but it’s genuinely making me feel extremely emotional.

Next up: I thought music sucked that year because I was depressed but I relistened to it and no it wasn’t just me

[ionlycareaboutyou]

prompt: kind of a niche ship but could you write some richie n seth fluff pls? i love your fics!!✨

omg i love this ship. i’ve written them vaguely (richie/seth/stefon threesome fic) but never on their own? so this was a v fun challenge for me. i hope u like it, u’ve inspired me to write more for them!

cw for this being set in IT ch 2 canon, so eddie is like. dead and gone for good, unfortunately, and it is discussed. i picture this fic being set around 2017. i promise this fic isn’t just richie angst, there’s fluff! just gotta get through some sad parts first.

When he moved back to New York City, Richie felt like his 29-year-old self again. He still does sometimes. The NYC comedy scene and the LA one are distinctly different, despite all the NYC expats who move to LA to star in films or do voice acting or settle down and have a few kids. It didn’t feel right to go back, though. LA was all shine and sun, several layers of sky blue paint over decades worth of grime. At least NYC was honest in its grime for the most part. At least New Yorkers were able to joke about their greasy ass pizza and subway rats instead of all trying to be Instagram influencers. 

The real truth was that Richie had friends in NYC. In LA, he had none. And what he needed was friends. 

The funny thing about reconnecting with an old friend is that sometimes, even though it seems like a lot has changed, they’re still the same person, deep down. 

Seth is still a workaholic--the same workaholic who Richie met back when he hosted SNL for the first time. He still stays up til 4 AM sometimes, drinking dark, bitter coffee for the caffeine rather than the taste, darting in and out of cubicles, asking if anything new has cropped up in the past few hours that’s monologue worthy. He still wears those ratty sweatshirts during the day and changes into suits for the evening. He does shave more consistently, Richie will give him that. He still laughs high pitched and loud when a joke really gets him, and he still laughs at his own jokes, even, stumbling through them sometimes with tears welling up in his eyes. He still loves to drink tequila and whiskey and anything really that brings heat to his cheeks and more of that laughter bubbling out of his chest, though he tells Richie he doesn’t drink as much as he used to--he’s far too old for it now, and the hangovers are intense.

(“I do wanna do a day drinking segment with Rihanna, though,” he confides in him once over lunch. They’re eating greasy pizza, and Richie feels like he’s in heaven, because the shit in LA doesn’t even begin to measure up.

“Rihanna? Do you have, like, connections to her or something?”

“No! I wish,” Seth frowns at his slice of pepperoni. “Do you?”

Richie hoots out a laugh. “Dude, you are severely overestimating me if you think I know Rihanna. Good luck on your quest, though.”

“Hey, maybe Rihanna’s got a thing for raunchy comedians who wear the same shirt three days in a row and own like, two pairs of sneakers and refuse to buy new ones. I don’t know her personally, either.”

Richie flicks a piece of mushroom right at Seth’s face. He laughs in that way he does, and Richie’s chest flutters.)

And maybe it’s the fact that Seth is still Seth--still blue-eyed, New Hampshire, toothy grin Seth--that makes Richie fall for him. And he’s not even surprised by it. He thinks he’s always sort of had a piece of his heart reserved for Seth, even when he moved to LA. He was the first one to send him a congratulatory text when the news broke that he got Late Night, and he was always happy to wander around his too-empty LA apartment and shoot the shit with him for hours long phone calls about everything and anything and nothing at all. Seth was the first to welcome Richie with open arms back to NYC. They were the sort of friends that never truly fell apart, even when they went a while without speaking to each other.

It all comes tumbling out eventually, why Richie is back in NYC. Seth never really poses the question, but when Richie calls him one Tuesday night at 3 AM, eyes unfocused and hot with tears and chest heaving with hyperventilating sobs, the answer becomes clear to him. 

He’s still awake, of course, sitting in his office and staring at the writers’ Slack chat when the phone rings. “Are you awake, man? I’m sorry if I woke you,” Richie says into the phone, warbly.

Seth manages to talk him down from it when Richie admits he had a pretty vivid nightmare. He doesn’t judge him for a second or wonder why a 40-year-old man is so shook up by one. He simply talks slow and soft into the phone, telling him it’s okay and grounding him as best as he can. “You can tell me anything, Rich, you know that, right?” His voice is so goddamn sweet Richie wants to sob all over again.

So he tells him everything--well, rather, a condensed version of everything. He tells him he had friends as a kid back in Maine, really close friends, and they met up again after drifting apart, and he tells him that he saw his best friend in the world die right in front of his eyes. He’s careful with his words, but something tells him that even if he did explain all the clown shit, Seth would listen and comfort him all the same, even if he was confused by it. “I feel so bad for dumping this shit on you, dude,” Richie says, fighting back the tears that he’s finally managed to quell. “It’s just--”

“Shh, hey, it’s okay,” Seth assures him, “I can’t fucking imagine. I’m so sorry. I know that sounds really lame, to say I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t really fix anything.”

“It’s okay. I haven’t--no one really knows. I mean, my friends know, they were there, too, but...God, it’s so fucking complicated.” He lays his head back down on his pillow and exhales a shaky sigh, feeling mostly back down to earth. “I guess I just. I picked up my phone and dialed you because I needed to know everything was...you were okay and I wasn’t still in that fucking dream.”

“I get it. You don’t have to worry about that. You know I keep crazy hours anyway.” They manage to get a chuckle out of that. “I hope this doesn’t sound insensitive, but I’m glad you were with him in his final moments, I’m sure he was very glad to have you there.”

Richie swallows the baseball-sized lump in his throat. “God, I sure fucking hope so. He was…” he stops himself. He hadn’t told the other Losers what he wanted to say about Eddie and how he felt about him, but he was certain they knew. Seth is completely detached from this whole situation, but maybe putting out what he’s been harboring in his chest for so long will take some weight off it. “He was the first person I really fell in love with.”

“Oh, Rich.” Seth’s voice is soft and sad. 

“I know that’s a lot to tell you, and like, I haven’t even really told you, or anyone that I’m gay, but I guess here it is, this is so damn...ungraceful,” he rambles with a shaky little laugh, “But I guess I’m not really graceful anyway.”

“It’s okay. You know it doesn’t bother me at all, right? God, I sound like--every straight dude in the world right now. I’m totally cool with gays!”

“Well, maybe a little,” Richie says, unable to not give him a little shit, and he’s happy to hear Seth laugh on the other end. “But thanks. I’m glad you were the first person I told.”

“Well, when I tell you about the dudes I hooked up with in college, I know you’ll be chill about it, too.” Seth says, then adds, “Oh, guess I just did.”

“You what? Seth middle-name Meyers.”

“It’s Adam.” 

“Not the point. You what?”

“Dude, haven’t I told you like a million times about my crush on James Spader? Do you know how many times I’ve watched Pretty in Pink? Too many times. That’s not even the best Hughes film.”

“I thought that was like--a joke! You always said you wanted to grow your hair out like that!” He’s smiling against the phone, really truly grinning at this whole mutual coming out situation, and he’s so happy to be smiling again.

“Well, yeah, I do, but also, like, he was hot, okay? Him being bald now is the greatest tragedy of my life.” Seth says, laughing even more. 

“You know, I haven’t gone bald yet. I’ve got plenty of hair. It’s unwashed right now, but feel free to run your hands through it. We can roleplay. I’ll be...fuck, what was his name? The Pretty in Pink guy?” Richie hasn’t seen that movie since it came out. 

Seth answers very quickly. “Steff.”

“That’s it! I’ll be Steff, and you can be...Andie! That’s her name.” 

“Steff wasn’t the love interest, though, remember? He was the love interest’s asshole friend.”

Richie hums. “I’m kind of an asshole. Not as pretty of an asshole as Spader, though.”

“I think you’re perfectly pretty.”

“Thanks,” he smiles again. His stomach knots itself up, then un-knots. Seth Meyers, the man who’s all blue eyes, New Hampshire, and salt-and-pepper hair is calling him pretty. What a world.

After he hangs up and manages to catch a few hours of sleep, he’s not surprised when he gets a call from Seth a few days later asking if he wants to grab a drink, and there’s a different tone to his voice. He can’t quite place it, but it almost sounds nervous, like he doesn’t want to screw this up. He doesn’t screw anything up, though, and when they make their way back to Seth’s apartment, pleasantly buzzed, and end up on his couch, lips on lips, Richie isn’t really surprised, either. He smiles into each one.

--

They seem to divide their time in between either apartment, not quite ready to have the “hey, let’s move in together” conversation. It’s only been a few months, and they’re taking their time. Richie’s never let himself take his time before.

Most nights, they’re tangled up in whatever bed they’ve fallen into--tonight, it’s Seth’s, and Richie has managed to get him home at a reasonable time, around midnight, even though the show filmed several hours before. (“The news and the president don’t stop,” Seth has explained to him before, “But God, I wish they would.”) He’s running his fingers through Seth’s hair, which is surprisingly soft once all the product is washed out. Richie never gets tired of touching it. “You’re halfway to Spader, I think.”

“Yeah? I’ll see if makeup and wardrobe approve of me growing it out any longer, or if they’ll force me to cut it.” Seth sounds sleepy, but even in the dark Richie can tell he’s smiling.

“I’d like it,” he says, and presses a kiss to the line of Seth’s jaw. “Isn’t that enough?”

“For me? More than enough.” Seth brings him in for a proper kiss, long and deep and warm, hands wandering and stroking skin, unhurried and sweet. 

When they pull apart, it comes tumbling out, as things seem to do. “I love you.” It’s the first time Richie has said it. He’s known it, without a shadow of a doubt, for a while now. And he thinks Seth knew it, too, even if it went unsaid. He understood that Richie was working up to this sort of thing, to opening himself up and allowing himself to cry and feel and say things like that. Like I love you. And now it’s come out, like it was always bound to, and Richie feels Seth smile against his temple.

“I love you, too.”

“More than James Spader?”

Seth laughs. “Much more.” He pulls him in for another kiss, and they say “I love you” many more times that night, and almost every night afterward.

[wishthefish916]

Jack’s not in a coma

Big jse theory under the cut. Read at your own discretion.

I know, who do I think I am, taking the one piece of information we’ve clung to since May and ripping it to shreds. Just hear me out. I think I’m onto something with this, and since we’ve generally accepted that Jack’s comatose right now I know I’d need some major proof to convince us all otherwise. Lucky for you, I’ve got just that.

We know that someone woke up at the end of Stories Untold and spoke to us saying “I remember what he did to me”. The “he” has got to be Anti, as was evident by the green and the glitching that was affecting the speaker just before he woke.

They remember what Anti did to them, which means the speaker has to have been possessed by Anti at some point before then, as you can’t remember what’s not already happened. The only three who had been affected prior to that video were Jack

Henrik

and JJ.

Well, Henrik has an incredibly distinguished accent that is in constant fluctuation between German, French, and vague Scandinavian, and JJ can’t speak at all. The person speaking had a clear, controlled, relatively normal voice. It has to be jack in that clip based on voice alone.

The scene shows him tossing and turning and abruptly waking up before speaking to us directly. Someone who was comatose not two minutes prior would be hooked up to heart rate monitors, bowel and bladder bags, artificial lungs, put on a saline drip and would at the very least be in a hospital, depending on how critical his condition has gotten over time. Even if through the magic of fiction he was somehow allowed to go home without any equipment or a doctor present to care for him, he wouldn’t be able to speak as clearly as he did that soon after waking up. His voice would be ragged and faint from not speaking at all for such a long time, his head would be foggy and his thoughts would primarily be “where and when am I”. Don’t get me wrong, dude’s a beast, but after being in a coma for an extended period of time, Jack shouldn’t be able to communicate a thought like that to us that soon after waking up.

Speaking of waking up, in part 1 of the Watson Scott Test, at 15:53, the webcam glitches out and the game starts to say “Wake up Jack” but before it can finish his name it flashes to reading as “Ch@s3” instead.

Many of us interpreted that interaction as Anti realizing he was speaking to Chase instead of Jack, yet this video was published October 20, five whole months after the end of Mayhem 2k18. Anti would already know he was speaking to Chase if Jack's coma forced him to take control of the channel, especially if he’d already been messing with the poor dad for five months prior. Anti had to correct himself because he thought he was speaking to Jack. Anti is a smart guy, he wouldn’t make a mistake like that unless Jack was still awake and recording videos, and him and Chase were working together to make content for the channel. On any given day Anti doesn’t know who he’s gonna be interacting with. It could be either of them at any time because Jack’s not in a coma.

But Wish, I here you asking, in TIE we heard Chase tell us outright that his best friend was in a coma, if it’s not Jack then who? Well let’s take a closer look at that quote shall we? “One of my best friends is in a coma, for a while..”. The average coma lasts between two weeks and a month, so for argument's sake let’s specify that the comatose friend has to have been asleep for at least a month and a half to justify being out “for a while”. Whoever it is would have to have been close to Chase while also not having any accountable location over an extended period of time. So let’s go down the line of other potential sleepy boys.

When TIE was first released, JJ had been around for about six months.

While we haven’t seen anything substantial from him since his birth, he would have had to have gotten to best friend status with Chase, who was juggling the loss of his wife and kids, the ramifications of a previous suicide attempt, as well as the disappearance of Henrik, before mid March at the latest in order to enter a comatose state on time. Possible, yes, but unlikely.

Chase was the one who told us anyone was even in a coma, so it definitely couldn’t be him.

According to The Postcard Debacle™️ back in mid April, Henrik had been with Anti following the events of Kill Jacksepticeye, and he also showed his face at the beginning of Mayhem 2k18.

It’s not Henrik.

Marvin had been gone since his birth back in 2016, but he recently showed his face at the beginning of Mayhem 2k18. The end of part one of Stories Untold shows the commentator getting stuck in a TV screen

And then a few days later in Try To Fall Asleep, about three minutes in the tv in the bedroom flashes on, and for a split second you can see Marvin inside the tv with his mask on and his hands against the screen.

It’s not Marvin.

Jackieboy Man is the only one left and quite frankly he makes the most sense. He’s a superhero who has no powers and no hero gear outside a red spandex bodysuit and a small blue mask around his eyes. It’s in his job description to put himself in danger to protect others, despite not really being able to defend himself. Constantly being in danger means he’d be the most likely candidate for severe head trauma or blood loss, which are two major causes for entering a comatose state. Back when Mayhem 2k18 started, he was the only ego not to announce himself to the audience, despite the fact that we asked for him in droves. Even before then, we hadn’t seen anything from him since South Park: The Fractured But Whole which was back at the end of 2017. At Sean’s Manchester live show q&a, when asked by us where Jackie is he responded with “who knows? I know, you don’t.” It’s been well established that Jackieboy Man cares for us and for his family. If Jackieboy Man knew that Henrik came back, knew that Marvin got trapped in a TV, knew that Anti had started tormenting Chase and Jack, and knew that JJ and us the viewers were powerless to help, what place on earth could he possibly choose to be that’s not by the others’ sides. 

Quite frankly Jackieboy Man being in a coma is the only place he could be given the circumstances, and man if that’s not depressing. For months we’ve been calling out almost exclusively to the one person who might’ve had the power to help us and he’s physically unable to do anything but lay there unmoving in a hospital bed and listen to Chase as he talks about everything that’s happened since he went under: his downward mental spiral, the chaos Anti’s causing, the appearance and disappearances of all their friends and family, how much everyone out there wants him to help, and wanting nothing more than to wake up and answer us but he just… can’t.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[scummy-writes]

Stupid and Sappy post

*waves hands* It’s time for Scum to say bye to MM under the cut! (This is very stupid jhfbjhf)

I can already feel people rolling their eyes at me for this, especially folks who keep like, vague tweeting me and shit over my opinions about this game, but guess what bitch is gonna write this anyway! Me! sfbjhdf

(This post is going to be incoherent at places, like as I am as a person, but also! I talk about heavy subjects like suic*de, so if that gets to you, please don’t read!)

To start it off seriously: even though recently I’ve had a lot of issues over this company with their lack of warning over heavy triggering content, and their very blatantly bad customer service, I still love the original game a lot. Not in the “Oh this plot is beautiful” way, but like. This game helped me at a time when I was extremely lonely, and was dealing with a lot of heavy shit at home.

If you guys have followed me since the beginning, you know know I started this blog just a few months after downloading this game. Like riiight at the beginning of Jan 2017, I made my first post on here- this blog is two years old! I started out as a HC blog and stayed that way for a while, and I think after I hit 1k followers I finally brought up the fact that I had an AO3 account- and folks realized I had started writing fics in oct 2016 for this game! So, a lot of people know that, wow! This game inspired me a lot creatively and helped me hone my writing skills a bit more after a while not being in a writing class! (And yes, my early fics I absolutely refuse to look at because I hate how I used to write JHBJSBFS).

What a lot of folks don’t know, is that at the very beginning of august, I had gotten out of a ward after coming very close to doing something pretty bad to myself. 

Granted, I didn’t have to stay in there long- I had put myself in there so I could also leave whenever I wanted (as long as the docs deemed me safe to leave as well) but I kept myself in there for a good bit so I could do a lot of critical thinking and not stress so much about my job at the time.

Afterwards, I got out, while I wasn’t still at That Point, I was still struggling pretty bad mentally. Home life was rough, my mom was battling with a terrible boyfriend at the time that lived with us, and I was still dipping back into some pretty bad thoughts.

Then, a friend I’ve had for a while now, introduced me to this game! And, well, I already covered that it helped me a lot in the creative process, but it also helped distract me a shitton from the bad home life I had.

A lot of people probably also remember that a month after having this blog up and running, my mom tried killing herself.

Everything is still really vivid in my memory about that- because like. So many things could have gone wrong. My little brother could have fallen asleep earlier before he found her, I could have picked up that extra hour for my shift at work, this, that- but long story short she’s still alive.

But it was a terrible year for me. Probably, arguably, all of 2017 was the worst year I’ve had in my life so far. So many things happened with my mother, she was mentally unstable, and after a lot of threats against me I even had to move out until she was more stable and, you know, not threatening to hurt me/break my shit.

And, a lot of you know, while I was constantly dealing with my own mother threatening me and trying to disown me, I was also being harassed on a constant basis over juz*n bullshit. Words cannot describe how laughably stupid that whole situation was, but it was completely, utterly, ridiculous bullshit. 

Add that onto me dealing with the IRL struggles with my mom, some of which are somewhat starting to repeat even now- to the point where I’m going to be moving out again soon- well. Shit! It sucked, lol. It sucked a lot, and there were many times where I wish I was back in the hospital or worse.

But, and yes I’m gonna say exactly what yall are expecting, again- this game helped me out a lot. I constantly felt alone and worthless- my own mother was abandoning me- and these voiced sprites made me feel less alone. Gave me the attention I wish I had IRL.

And, well, a lot of my 2017 year is easy to summarize. Constantly harassed, bullied, and dealing with stupid fandom wank. But, also, filled with wonderful messages and support from you guys. 

I’ve preached before how follower counts are ridiculous to base your self worth on- and yes I still agree to that, please don’t base your self worth on follower counts. Or anyone’s! - but some of you have literally followed me since the beginning, or for a Very Long Time, if not. I may be terrible with names, but I still recognize you guys and all the kind words you’ve sent me, and I hope you guys know you helped just as much as MM was helping me.

I’m getting incoherent, but a lot of what I’m trying to say is that, this game has helped me out a shitton. That’s probably why I get so vocal about issues concerning the company- not out of a sense of ‘they owe me’ (they owe me absolutely fucking nothing), but just. It sucks seeing a game that used to be so wonderful in its prime, go so fucking downhill so fast. Customer service used to be wonderful, I remember accidentally putting down my old address for the VIP package and messaging them right after I ordered explaining I needed a change of address, and a Live Person getting back to me within the hour and fixing the issue.

Comparing that with, you know, the Four Fucking Months it took to speak to Someone Successfully about the saeran daki bullshit- then you know...Well, yeah you guys know, I’ve went off about it before.

Now it’s apparent that they’re more money hungry, with how you had to pay 900+ hgs with the recent AE stuff with V, and...hoo boy, I’m sure everyones heard enough at this point.

So, backtracking a bit because I’m chugging coffee and all incoherent, this game has brought in a lot of positives in my life. You guys, healthier distractions than what I used to do to myself, friends, creative outlets being brought back to life again. I think thats why I get so upset at the fandom, at people snapping at me for not liking some of the recent things cheritz has done- people fucking vaguetweeting me, for fucks sake, and getting so personally angry at me over how I got upset at Cheritz. Like, I’m not shitting yall, I literally lost friendships  over my opinions on cheritz.

And it sucks! Not gonna lie, like it sucks because it’s so fucking stupid. But then you take a look into the fandom- with the ongoing and constant harassment over contributors in charity zines, constant harassment over people if they like a character you don’t or vice versa, the harassment against artists concerning repostings or, god forbid, them drawing a ship you dislike- and it’s just. 

How did a game, focusing on the message of how kindness and patience can help out in so many ways, create this rabid fucking fandom?

Even content creators fight against each other. I cannot explain the bullshit I’ve seen over people being mad that they’re not on someones personal “recommended blogs to follow!” lists, over people going out of their way to harass folks because they didn’t make it on a zine, over people trying to use a follow count over why they’re much better than so and so- It’s just...Bad. All of it.

And, well. Combine Cheritz rapidly making their own game worse, in ways we all have heard about me (or others) complain about, and this terrible fandom, I think that perfectly explains why I’m uninstalling and pretty much being done with the fandom once the other stuff I’m involved in finishes.

This game brought a lot of happiness for me, and even with my recent grievances with this game, it (laughably) hurts to uninstall it. I know its ridiculous, god trusT ME i know, but it still sucks saying goodbye to something I still love, but can’t stand being around anymore. At this point, the fandom feels like an abusive ex-friend/whatever and the game used to be what good the ex had left. And now that thats getting worse...orz

I’ll always treasure the doors this game opened up for me- how it allowed me to meet amazing people, some of which I can happily say are my friends, and how it helped me become creative again, how I’ve been able to be on zines to help charities, and how I’ve been blessed to hear my writing impact people in positives ways- but here’s my sappy goodbye while I try to scrapbook the positive memories and bury the negative ones in upcoming therapy session.

If you read this far- bless yoooooou I know I sound like the damn. Crazy image of the dude with papers pinned to the wall, but I hope I made some sort of sense. Thank you!

[95spacegaes]

3:59 AM

Below, you’ll find the last published draft of a drabble I dedicated to a very dear friend of mine. I’m putting it here, because I want to remove it from my AO3 works. There are a lot of reasons behind that, but the primary motivation is that I want to do better with this piece, and the emotions behind it. I don’t know that I’ll be re-writing it, but I’ll be moving on from it.

Still. I don’t want to c o m p l e t e l y erase this.

------------------------------------

3:59 AM by feihart (me) for YenIsDeadIamHerGhost Published: 2017-06-11 AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11167020

Summary

“jungkook, i just need you to stay up for twenty-seven more minutes.”

taehyung squeezed jungkook’s torso when he didn’t say anything, and jungkook released another low whine. “what’s happening in twenty-seven minutes?”

“four o’clock.”

Author’s Note

my soulmate, taehyung wrote a song to the moon, and i thought i’d finally finish writing my ode to your selfies.

‣

youtube playlist

네시 /rm&v

ulay, oh how i became the bomb

☽

3:59 AM

jungkook would consider himself a night owl. he went to bed late, and slept even later. his mom could still find him up at all hours of the night, doing whatever it was he did, though she was pretty convinced he didn’t stay up late to study. she was right about that. jungkook usually gave himself until midnight to do school work before he got too frustrated, and then fooled around on his phone until sleep crept up on him and he succumbed.

some nights, he made it his personal mission to stay awake as long as he could, fighting the sleep hanging heavy on his body so he could read a little longer, or talk to his friends a while more. without the blue light filter on his phone screen, he was pretty good at keeping himself awake, but jungkook noticed, as he got older, that he’d often cap some time after one a.m. he could be talking to jimin one minute, and typing in all caps to taehyung in the same minute, but he could very well have fallen into deep slumber between messages without having hit send. It was an incredible feat, really.

“kook. kookie, don’t fall asleep yet.”

it was late, but late enough for it to still be early for taehyung. between the two of them, taehyung was the real night owl, most nights staying up until five or six a.m., and still managing to be an early bird, energetic and fine without a sip of coffee in the morning. jungkook really thought it was unfair when he could barely roll himself out of bed.

the two of them were pressed side-by-side on taehyung’s bed, covered by a fluffy blanket, and surrounded by a small galaxy. taehyung had taken out the star projector he’d found on campus, and decided to bring home, because, as he predicted, no one from the architecture program knew it was missing. it was his, and jungkook didn’t remark that it was stolen to save himself from the intense pout taehyung would direct his way.

“‘m not ‘sleep, just resting,” he mumbled back, his eyes falling closed again.

it was past three o’clock in the morning, way beyond his cap, and jungkook was finding it more and more difficult to stop his eyelids from drooping. taehyung snorted next to him while he nudged him with his elbow. jungkook’s eyes flew open, then started closing again.

“dude, you were talking and started snoozing mid-sentence.”

“oh,” he said quietly. he didn’t remember what they were talking about.

he didn’t say anything else, probably falling asleep again, and taehyung laughed. jungkook was resting his head on his shoulder and he could feel his whole body shake. he whined lowly. he was so tired . “aren’t you tired?”

“no, not really.”

“i hate you.”

“you mean you envy me,” he said, and jungkook could hear the grin in his voice.

when taehyung moved to wrap his arms around jungkook, the stars shifted with him. jungkook opened his eyes enough to assess their new position and wrap his arms around taehyung, too. He was especially affectionate when he was sleepy. “jungkook, i just need you to stay up for twenty-seven more minutes.”

taehyung squeezed jungkook’s torso when he didn’t say anything, and jungkook released another low whine. “what’s happening in twenty-seven minutes?”

“four o’clock.”

jungkook didn’t get it, and when he whispered to taehyung as much, he could feel the warm breath of his laugh against his cheek. little blue, green and gold stars were projected on jungkook’s sleepy face, and taehyung kissed one right by his eye.

“it’s my favourite time of the day,” taehyung went on, before jungkook whined that it was night, and they should be asleep, and why wasn’t his favourite time of the day at four in the afternoon instead. “i want you to see it.”

“what’s there to see at four a.m.”

the curtains were drawn, so it was dark in the room save for the light of the projector. but that was disappearing too, behind jungkook’s closing eyelids.

“jungkookiiiiiiiie.”

taehyung squeezed him again, and moved his arm to poke at his side. jungkook’s eyes flew open again and he tried squirming away. he was terribly sensitive and ticklish, and taehyung knew that. “stop, stop.”

“shh. you’ll wake up my parents,” taehyung warned, but he sounded far too amused. jungkook batted his hands away and slipped his own hand into one of taehyung’s, to prevent further attacks. taehyung squeezed his hand and squished his cheek against his shoulder with a giggle. jungkook melted, turning his head to press a kiss to the top of taehyung’s head. well, he was a little more awake now, thanks to his hyung’s roughhousing.

“cute.”

taehyung buried his face in jungkook’s shoulder. “shut up,” he muttered, with no bite at all, embarrassed. jungkook thought taehyung was so funny, able to complement his friends and shower them with compliments, but he couldn’t handle it when anybody called him cute . and he was the cutest.

jungkook laughed. “cute, cute, cute,” he whispered, punctuating each word with a peck. taehyung lifted his head to look at him on the last one, and jungkook pressed his lips to his softly. taehyung grinned, forgetting to be embarrassed, and laid his head on jungkook’s shoulder again. “did you wake me up so i could keep you entertained?"

“no,” taehyung sang quietly, squeezing his hand. “i thought you said you were just resting. ”

“don’t tease me. i’m tired. ”

taehyung laughed again, squeezed his hand again. he followed the patterns of the stars projected onto jungkook’s hand with his other one.

“so what’s really happening at four a.m.?” jungkook asked again, leaning his head back against the window.

“a moment of serenity,” Taehyung said sagely, jerking his head with small, sure movements against jungkook’s shoulder.

“it was pretty serene when you let me rest,” jungkook joked, and taehyung brought their hands up to his mouth so he could pinch jungkook’s skin lightly between his lips. jungkook barely felt it, but he said anyway, “ow.” taehyung giggled. “don’t hurt me like this.”

“you’re fine,” taehyung said, running the pad of his thumb over the offended area in soothing circles.

“are we seeing the sunrise?” jungkook asked, letting taehyung play with his hand.

“no, kookie,” taehyung responded with a low laugh. It sounded a little slow, tired, and jungkook thought if taehyung falls asleep before four, he’s going to be a little bit salty. “the sun doesn’t rise until, like, well past five a.m. but the moon should be setting around this time.”

“doesn’t that mean the sun is rising, then?”

taehyung chuckled. “she’s in the process of setting,” he said, “so we won’t see daylight just yet.”

“okay,” jungkook said to that, yawning.

taehyung picked up his phone next to him carefully, not wanting to unplug it from the charger carelessly, and woke it up to check the time. It was nearing four o’clock.

“jungkookie, come here.”

taehyung dropped his phone and moved so that they could face the window, placing the star projector to sit next to his phone, expecting the whine his friend released for being forced to shift. taehyung shushed him and let him rest his head in his lap, while he drew the curtains back as much as he could. the blue light of the moon filtered into the room. only the green and gold stars were left clearly projected on jungkook’s closed eyelids.

taehyung smiled down at him sleepily and pulled his earphones toward them. he inserted one in his own ear, then in jungkook’s, and picked up his phone to let the slow tunes of u lay, oh play between them.

“i like this song,” jungkook uttered huskily. He could almost feel taehyung smile above him. taehyung ran his fingers through his hair soothingly, and jungkook briefly conceded, as he was falling asleep again, that this was the most serene he’d ever been.

“do you want to hear about my favourite time of the day before it comes?” taehyung said after a while, over the music, effectively pulling jungkook out of the lightest cycle of sleep again. jungkook hummed a moment later.

taehyung kept running his hands through jungkook’s hair as he spoke. “i was talking to namjoon hyung about poetic moments, serene moments,” he started softly, voice low. “and you know, i stay up pretty late, so i get to have a lot of those. but i told him the most poetic moment was at dawn.”

jungkook hummed again when taehyung didn’t say anything for a moment, to let him know he was paying attention.

“there’s something about four a.m., some type of feeling. an ambiguous, blue-ish kind of feeling. you know what i mean?”

a small smile stretched jungkook’s lips. taehyung’s description was vague as hell, but he actually thought he got it. “yeah, i think so.”

“you know, sometimes i go out to meet jimin at the park behind our houses at this time. i sit on the big kids’ swing and look up at the moon for a while. yhat blue-ish feeling? that’s when i feel it most.”

jungkook hummed again. taehyung checked the time again.

“namjoon hyung and i gave that feeling a name.”

“a moment of serenity?” jungkook guessed, and taehyung laughed softly, pushing his hair back and leaning down to press a kiss to jungkook’s forehead.

“no,” he said, “we called it that ambiguous, blue-ish feeling, because we’d all get it.”

jungkook laughed sleepily, and taehyung grinned down at him. “makes sense.”

“hey, kookie,” taehyung said just a moment later. “open your eyes for a sec.”

with a little effort, jungkook opened his eyes. he was gazing up at the moon, bright against the night sky, and only just noticed that the music had stopped playing.

it was quiet. serene. the two of them against a blue backdrop. and for some reason, jungkook was really overwhelmed.

“hyung?”

“yeah?”

“i think i really do get it.”

he turned his head and saw taehyung smiling down at him widely. “we can go to sleep, now, kookie.”

☽

[missmonkeymode]

My story with google + since its ending soon

So, first things first. How did I get on google plus in the first place? Honestly I'm not fully sure, I think it was a mix of youtube being glued onto google plus, my brother using it, and maybe being lonely I don't fully know. I remember the first thing I did, it was basically add a bunch of pokemon stuff to my feed and follow my brother. Nothing much really happened then, but the more important part is what happened a little bit later, like a couple of months after I made the account. I found a group of people who roleplayed warrior cats. I know, warrior cats. I was intrigued by the thought of roleplaying, since it was like a joint story (in my eyes at least). I immediately joined and made my first oc ever. Her name was Ivy, she's a young cat who hated everything and everyone and was weirdly strong. I made her design in a dolldevine thing. Funny thing though, I didn't even read one book about warrior cats before I joined the group.

That was technically the first time I had internet friends. I remember thinking that everyone was like, cool older teenagers but I found out recently that the closest friend I had was literally 2 years older than me  so who would've thought. Eventually, the community got more and more inactive, and we just stopped. We stopped roleplaying with each other, and I think I was the only one who stuck with google plus from that group weirdly. This lasted until like, mid 2015 I wanna say? I dont't fully remember, but it doesn't fully matter, just by 2015 we split up.

So mid 2015 to early 2016 I literally remember nothing from them except liking minecraft youtubers (VAGUELY THO). All I do remember is getting kicked from this one group for breaking the rules once, but screw them right? I was messing around on youtube, and I found Jacksepticeyes playthrough of undertale in February of 2016. I fell in love with undertale. To be honest, I think that was one of the most intense hyper fixation I've ever had oopsie. I started following anything related to Undertale, including rp blogs since I knew what they were. Then I found someone who roleplayed Ink Sans.

Now about 7th grade me: I wasn't at the best place if I'm honest. I didn't have any friends, mostly what I did was read since I didn't have a phone at the time, I was extremely antisocial, and all I remember is like, the only time I had fun at school was watching the theatre kids dick around in theatre class even though I was too timid to actually say hi.

7th grade me was a different person than now me, even though I still have some traits from older me. But hey we ain't here to hear kit talk about how she thinks her life changed and junk we here about g+ baybee

So when I found this Ink Sans roleplayer, I checked out their blog since I was really into undertale aus and Ink Sans was new to me. I immediately followed after I saw their content. I was in awe, this person was a great rper, was everything 7th grade me wished to be (funny, confident, friendly, all that good jazz), and they liked undertale. I started commenting on their post, and we became friends. I remember becoming friends with them, and befriending their friends. I still know who they are to this day, and I still follow them even if we're not really friends anymore. Eventually the Ink Sans rper made a group where their friends hung out, and you can imagine how shocked and excited I was. Who'd like plain old Kit, all she does is read. But nevertheless, I dedicated the good chunk of 2016 in that group.

Overtime, I learned everyones name and stopped referring to them as their character. Ink Sans's mun's name was Uki, a Gaster Sans became Izzy, a Flowey became a Cy, etc etc. Everyone was older than me, I was the youngest in the group. I remember good things about that place, but one thing I don't remember is how horny e veryone was besides me. Lowkey I think because of skeleporn that they posted that I use to get fluseterd when thinking of sans f. So people were chilling on the server, then Uki got into homestuck. SHe got the others into homestuck, and I believe I was the last one to get into it (mostly because of my brother lol). So we all were posting about homestuck, and as a joke, Uki invited as many Eridan rpers to the server (since she had a crush on eridan lol) and eventually a dude named Myth joined. I'm a mutual to him on tumblr now so thats poppin. Myth is a good friend but he wasn't the quietest person. Eventually because of how rowdy it got, Uki's mom found out about the server and banned her from social media.

Everyone was devastated after that, especially her boyfriend Cy, and that launched the group into a weird limbo where we'd talk to each other and still be friends outside of the group, but not actually be active in the group. Officially it died in summer of 2016, but if I had to say when it died, I would say late winter after Uki left it died. 2016 came and went, and now its 2017 with a good chunk of friends still being into homestuck, so we decided to start roleplaying together as homestuck ocs. That's when things get weird and take a turn towards the sour.

So Izzy, the person who was gaster, started dating this papyrus roleplayer, who we called pap. Myth Introduced us to some more people and then yeah. OH WAIT I FORGOT TO MENTION LOGAN AND LGBT! So this group was the first time I figured out that the lgbt community existed, and Logan was a Pansexual gal who had a lot of drama irl but overall was pretty chill. BACK TO THE STORY!

So everyone had an oc, and everyone was at various places in their roleplaying life. Some people they were great at it, some people didn't start rping until the group started, some people were rusty at it but has some expirence (that twas me).  Because of this group I opened up MSPaint and actually figured out how it worked and start using it. It was fun but some people were..... unsavory to be kind. What I'm going to say in the spoilers contains tw of being sexually gross and suicide.

Around spring Izzy and Pap's relationship started getting shakey, and Izzy wanted to break up with Pap. At the time I had no idea what happened, but apparently Pap threatened Izzy with suicide if she did break up with him.  Izzy told Logan about it, and Logan told everyone to unfollow him. I didn't since I didn't know what was happening, but Pap was shunned from the group and I have no idea what they're doing today. It was a good thing to, his character were gross. Again, I didn't realize it at the time but like, his homestuck characters were fucking WILD. If I remember correctly (and i do) one of his characters tried to hump other characters and yeah that was bad. I made my character punch him and was bout to rip off his troll dick so yeah I did register that that was bad, but I didn't realize the gravity of it. Also another one of his characters kidnapped another character and had them as a sex slave maybe? yeah so good riddance to him.

Tl;DR Pap was gross and bad, so he's gone.

So like, late 2017, the rp group went inactive and some people I still know and talk to. A guy called Muff that joined later is still a good friend of mine. But that split up, and each person just stopped using google+ all together. All that really stayed was Myth, Izzy, and Muff. Logan had something happened with an ex and now deleted her account. I don't know what happened to her, all that she's safe. Cy just slowly moved to a new site, and we didn't stay in contact. 2018 rolled in, and I decided to be more out there and like, try to actually do things irl so that's where I changed from middle school Kit to Kit right now. I still used google+, I found some more friends whom are way better than some of the people who I interreacted with in 2017. Nothing eventful happened that year, but it was an amazing year nevertheless. Now early summer 2018 happened and i found jojo's bizarre adventure, and to my surprise some of my newer friends liked jojo! So we bonded over that, somehow passed them while reading/watching it, and life is going good. Then the announcement thhat google+ is ending happened.

Everyone, and when I say everyone I mean everyone, freaked out. A little bit about google+ culture is that you can literally become friends with everyone no matter follower count or post, it was a great place to make friends. Everyone was in a tizy about how they were going to keep their friends since nobody wanted to lose them. Another thing about google+ culture is how terrible the site is. To anyone here who's familiar with tumblr, imagine the tumblr staff but they dont fix bugs and don't care much about the site, and that's honestly the google+ staff. So everyone jokes about how the site is bad, there was a meme that was created to poke fun at the bugs (it was gold stars), and everyone said "when will this god forsaken site ended". Literally at first nobody knew if the announcement was real or not thats how much people joked about the end of google plus.

According to an article, the original end date was going to be in August. This was announced early this year, so people had time to plug other social media and things like that. But, that wasn't the fate of google+. Somehow someone leaked information about some users, so the google+ team decided to end it earlier. Tomorrow google plus won't be google plus, it'll be google business. Luckily I got peoples twitter and tumblr and all that jazz but.... damn. Who would've thought that google plus would end. None of us certainly did.

[sunshinedevotee]

yet another very necessary taehyung rant

i’m back! before i start i’d like to say i appreciate you all so much for the comments and such, even the ones who claim that tae isn’t underrated (begone thots), you motivate my procrastinating ass. you guys don’t need to thank me though i’m just doing the lord’s work. now i have things to talk about so let’s get started! 

if you’re new to these posts then this part 3 of what has kind of become a series (?), where i go on rants defending taehyung and explain why he’s kind of underrated. contrary to popular belief; as you’re about to see, boi needs it.

now i’m sorry, but before everything i really want to talk about this man and his precious dog!!

RIGHT MY DUDE TAEHYUNG DIDN’T JUST GET ANY DOG, HE GOT A FOSTER. LET’S PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE THAT. he even asked the guy how to be a good dog owner, the same guy went on to say he didn’t believe he and tae were the same species lmao.

moving on to the sad shit

hate

i will never shut up about this. the popular members get hate too. honestly everyone will go on about how the hyung line members get hate (totally fair), but nobody wants to talk about the shit the maknaes have to deal with cause they’re popular. i’ve never seen someone as grossly sexualised as jimin is, i’ve seen many a horror. jk gets so much hate for having a lot of lines, as if it isn’t tiring and stressful for him. and honestly tae just can’t fucking breathe without getting berated for it. here’s a list of things he’s gotten hate for:

-suggesting a movie with a sex scene (which made him stop his film reccs)

-suggesting a song with sexual lyrics

-posting work from his favourite photography which contained nudity

fun fact; taehyung is an a d u l t, what a concept.

-showing yeontan in jin’s vlive 

-saying older brothers should care for their little sisters (they said he’s sexist)

-landing an acting role before jin

-winning face of 2017

some jk stans were mad cause jk got more likes on instagram (if you didn’t know the nominees’ pictures were posted on an insta account and people thought they were meant to vote for who they wanted to win.) jk had gotten more votes on his picture so people were mad that tae won, but apparently it’s not the case.

tldr; despite him being the most beautiful creature on this sad earth, it’s not just about visuals and it’s a big deal that he got chosen

general sadness

i’ll say this again. even though everyone thinks tae stans showing concern is twelve year olds trying to stir up drama, we have good reason to do so.

let’s take a moment to talk about stigma, the lyrics are already ambiguous and seemingly sad. this is what he said about it:

"stigma is about hurting. when i started creating it i wanted it to be about being cut over and over again. i wanted army to feel my hurting? in mvs I’m shown as a person who’s hurt, but it hurts so much that i become someone who enjoys that pain.”

and even that one time taehyung started crying when reading his letter to jimin on bon voyage S2, he started crying and talking about jimin being there for him when he was “crying in the bathroom”  uhh c h i l d

remember when the members jumped on tae to open up to them? the way they spoke...you can tell he had gone through something and it breaks my heart honestly, but it seems the members are caring for him. 

visuals

his visuals have gotten him far and this is just a fact. he must feel like his only significance in the group is being a visual. honestly when members are being acknowledged for things and it comes to him they’ll always say something like ‘thx for not being ugli lol’. 

i know this is a thing in kpop i guess but it’s as if he’s just there to look pretty and...growl? and what else? oh yes! be lol so random xd. this really pisses me off cause even in old interviews namjoon would introduce him as ‘the member responsible for 4d charms’ and you’d just see his expression drop immediately.

don’t get me wrong, it’s just a fact that he’s a popular bias cause of his looks, that’s just the way it is and i know it. we as people sub-consciously show bias towards people we find attractive in everyday situations. i’m pretty sure if he weren’t so stunning some people would probably bash him for his ‘alien behaviour’ rather than be like ‘oh ahaha tae-oppa is so cute l o l xd’ or some other cringy shit. 

anyway, he has a lot of fans because of his appearance, who probably think they’re the biggest stan just cause they’ve heard stigma like four times. maybe they watch some ‘taehyung extra compilations’ now and then, but they don’t actually know shit about him andng;sd’#;l#fdfd 

for those that don’t know, he had originally accompanied a friend to the auditions and had no plans to audition himself. he was spotted by an employee who told him he had to audition because he was so good-looking. his looks definitely got him where he is, i imagine it makes him feel like his only significant feature is the fact that he’s pretty. a lot of people have nothing good to say about him not regarding his looks/behavior. 

if you get really deep into it, i think he feels like his visuals are the only reason he’s loved by fans at all. although he doesn’t do it anymore, i’m pretty sure he used to exaggerate his attitude so that people would like him. i know this feeling all too well myself and while i obviously can’t pin point what’s going on in that pretty lil head of his, i think i’ve got an idea. you’re really just ‘weird’ and you try to pass it off as quirky then you’re like ‘oh you like this?’ so you keep acting that way, afraid you’ll stop being interesting. it was brought to my attention that people are actually dropping him cause he’s become more quiet recently :(. 

can i ask why? when taehyung is so beautiful inside and out, he’s definitely got flaws we all do, but while he isn’t perfect there’s just something so unique about him. he’s so clever sometimes yet he can have those dumb moments like forgetting what year it is, he seems like he’s just a cutie yet he’s so mysterious and vague. he’s this beautiful mess of self-contradictions and i love him for it, my favourite art hoe. i found a tae personality-analysis here on tumblr and it was an enjoyable read, op says they had a hard time with his mysterious ass haha

now let’s talk about tae being a golden maknae (hear me out!)

i got this comment

hmm i didn’t know that he auditioned as a rapper. [some of the members really came in with little to no experience in their field though, isn’t that impressive?] yeah that’s true, like i’ve said this before but tae is a golden maknae, he can rap okay? it only sounds weird cause we’re not used to it. even in the table room skit they did that freestyle rap and tae was really good, i’ve read that yoongi himself was really impressed with him!!

and he can dance pretty well too um why isn’t he dance line ???

tae’s been underrated since the start, he was even hidden at the start as he was a ‘secret weapon’, for what? surprise surprise; his looks :o i’m pretty sure he knows this, and it all must add more to the probable mixed feelings he has regarding his role in the group. 

singing

please talk about his beautiful deep voice, i didn’t even like deep voices until he came around. also let’s appreciate the fact that he came in with no experience and apparently originally auditioned as a rapper? 

C R Y S T A L S N O W though I mean oh my god.

my friend once said; ‘i cry every night at taehyung’s wasted potential’ ( @n-uee what’s good?) which is too accurate. i’ve said pretty much all i needed to say on this subject in the previous part. still though acknowledging his high note in stigma isn’t enough, please he is finally not being wasted on growling anymore talk about it

yeah uh finally finished i’ve been dragging this on and editing it for months lmao i’m such a procrastinator. anyway as i said he’s not just a pretty face and there is so much more underneath the surface. i wish tae well and await his next cover!

part 1 , part 2

ofcourse  none of these posts are complete without some pictures, so have taehyung with dogs aka my favourite concept in the world:

anyway he’s one of the only good things in my life in this god awful world and i purple him bye. 

[gone-cotta]

Finn Wolfhard x Reader:  First Appearances

Part 4

//slight Noah x Reader but not really//

mild cussing, small spoilers if you haven’t watched the 2017 remake of IT

Finn walked away, and you had only one word to describe how you were feeling.

Shook.

After realizing you had been standing there for a good minute, staring at where Finn had left you room, you came back to your senses and went back outside. A smile was on your face, but no matter how hard you tried to fight it, it kept reappearing.

You opened the sliding door and sat back down with Gaten, Sadie, and Noah. Gaten was telling the other two his weird fan encounter now, where a fan had licked his hand. He looked at you as you sat down, before raising an eyebrow. 

“what happened?” he said suspiciously, and you kept fighting to keep your smile from showing, but it didn’t work.

“Oh, nothing” You said airily, waving your hand in the air like it was nothing, but Sadie shook her head. 

“No wait. Why are you smiling so much?” she asked, and you covered your mouth. Soon, all three of them began pestering you, and you started laughing.

“Come on, Y/N! What could it possibly be?” Noah asked, before realization dawned on his face. “Wait...” 

Noah then hopped up and ran to the door, sliding it open and fast-walking through the house. You chuckled softly, and that only made Sadie and Gaten more curious. 

“Come on, he knows but I don’t? I thought we were best friends” Sadie said, and fake pouted. You rolled your eyes, and lay down on your back, gazing up at the dark, star-filled sky. 

“wellll maybe something with Finn happened...but you can’t tell anyone. Especially don’t mention it to Finn because then he will know I told you” you smiled as Gaten and Sadie both swore not to tell a soul. Then you relayed everything from the day to them, watching as they gasped at the dramatic parts. 

When you told them  the end where Finn had said about getting to know her better, Gaten flipped his shit. 

“So he told Noah...and Joe?! But not me? Dude that is not cool” he complained. “I’m a way better ladies man than Joe!’ 

You and Sadie laughed, and turned when you heard the sliding door shut. It was Dacre, and he walked across the yard to them.

“We are gonna watch a movie inside if you wanna join” he said. Since getting out of the pool he had changed into dark jeans and a white button up shirt, with the top 2 buttons undone and a chain necklace visible. 

“What movie?” you asked, sitting up. 

“IT. Finn picked it” He said, and walked back inside.

“Of course Finn picked it. Literally” Gaten said, then laughed at his own joke. You smiled. 

“Well, I want to watch it. It’s getting freakin’ cold” Sadie said, and you looked at her still damp hair. You nodded in agreement, but Gaten then looked back and forth at you like you were crazy.

“How are you cold? You are both wearing sweatshirts?” He gaped, blue eyes wide.

“Because I’m also wearing shorts, and my hair is wet. Sorry my hair isn’t short” You say, and you and Sadie get up. Gaten rolled his eyes, before getting up too.

The three of you walked inside to the living room to see everyone already there.

Noah sat on the corner of the couch, chewing Finn out while Finn just laughed. Dacre was on the opposite side of the couch, sprawled out and talking to Millie, who had her back pointedly turned to Finn. It was obvious they hadn’t made up.

Gaten went to sit on the couch beside Finn, and you were perfectly okay with sitting on the floor with Sadie, but she slapped his arm. 

“what?” he yelped, and she shushed him, motioning to Finn. The brunette was to busy laughing at Noah’s reaction to notice, and you sighed as you realized what Sadie was trying to do.

“Sadie its fine” you murmured as she attempted to get Gaten to move to the floor, or even scoot over. 

“No. It. Is. Not” she huffed, tugging at Gaten’s arm. The brunette groaned as the girl tried moving him. “I’m not moving” he said persistently.

“Popcorn!” Matt Duffer’s wife called from the kitchen, and appeared with a large bowl in her hands.

Gaten shot Sadie a glare. “You win this round” he hissed, and got up to go get a bowl.

Sadie then shoved you down onto the couch lightly, causing you to lightly bump Finn. You instantly blushed, and cast Sadie a look. She just smiled, before taking a seat next to you.

Soon after, the lights were turned off by Matt, and his wife put in the DVD of IT. Sadie grabbed your arm, holding it with her eyes fixed on the screen. The movie began, going to the scene with Jaeden in it. 

You only seen IT once, but it was in a crowded movie theater with voices and whispers. This was better, and quieter. You glanced at Finn to see him with a small grin on his face, eyes fixated on the film he starred in.

The movie soon turned to the scene everyone had seen in the trailers, Georgie, running along the street in the rain, chasing the boat, You grimaced, knowing what was next. 

Sadie’s grip tightened on your arm. She hadn’t seen the movie yet, and her nails lightly dug into your skin. You watched for her reaction as you knew Pennywise would appear any minute. Georgie was looking into the gutter, peering into the darkness as water splashed around his yellow galoshes.

A pair of eyes appeared, bright against the darkness, and something cold tightened around the back of your neck. You yelped, startling Sadie, and turned to see Noah withdrawing his hand from behind Finn’s back.

“Rude!” You hissed. How were his hands to freaking cold? You fllushed and sunk down into the couch slightly as you realised Millie and Dacre were looking at you strangely. They had probably thought you were scared of the movie.

Looking at the ground, you grabbed a soft pillow and leaned into it. Squinting, you mentally prepared yourself for the scene to come. Georgie began reaching for the paper boat, extending his arm...

“Ow, that kinda hurts”

You turned to see Finn smirking, and realized you were holding his arm, not a pillow. His sweatshirt was soft though. You began to draw away, but Finn shifted slightly.

“It’s fine. I didn’t mind” He murmured, and you blushed harder, if possible. You looked away, hiding your face behind your hair, and you hugged his arm again.

By the time the movie ended, eveyone had moved around. You had swapped with Noah after he had seen you start to get tired. You insisted it was fine, but he said you could always use the arm of the couch to sleep on if you fell asleep. Him and Sadie were now leaning on each other, Noah’s head resting on Sadie’s flowng hair, and their fingers were mere inches apart. 

Millie and Gaten had stayed pretty much the same, though Dacre had fallen asleep. Not wanting to engage with anyone near Finn, Millie instead told her comments on the move to Gaten. Dacre’s head rested on a pillow, his body awkwardy spead with his body curled inwards and his legs bent. One arm went off the side of the couch, and his mouth was slightly open.

You, on the other hand, were doing the exact opposite of what Noah suggested. Instead of using the arm of the couch, you used Finn.Your head resting on the side of his chest, his arm was around your shoulders. You were vaguely aware of leaning onto him, his warm only making you want to sleep more than you already did. 

As the movie ended, everyone began getting up to go to the guest rooms. You blinked a couple times, before standing up and stretching, You watched as everyone dragged theselves off, Gaten snapping a quick picture of Dacre sleeping, before whispering “Blackmail” when he saw you looking.

Sadie waited by the hallway for you. You looked at her, noticed the blush dusting her pale face. You gave her a sly grin, before giving a small gesture to Noah walking into the guest room a few feet away. She blushed even more, smacking your arm lightly, but you could tell she was pleased.

As you walked with her down the hall, conveying words about how tired you were and how IT was such a cool movie, you turned to walk with her into the room. 

“Nuh Uh! You’re in that room, remember?” she gave slight giggle. You blinked, turning to the room directly opposite. 

“Forgot” you mumbled, and she winked. 

“Tell me if anything happens with him. In the morning” she said, before turning to walk into her guest room. You flushed. You almost forgot Finn was going to be in the same room as you. 

Opening the white door, the first thing you noticed was the bed. It was a dark blue trundle bed with lighter spiral patterns on the matching blankets. Realising it was only a 2 layer trundle, your eyes widened, and it felt like the exhaustion you had felt only minutes prior had evaporated.

“Okay, so either someone shares a bed, or they sleep on the floor” Noah said to you, grinning. You began debating whether or not you could fit under the desk in the corner, when Finn walked in.

“Oh. Hi Y/N” He said, looking a bit shocked that you were here. You gave a small wave, regretting it almost instantly. Could you be any more cringe? You had just almost fallen asleep on him, but couldn’t say a freaking ‘hi’ back?

However, he didn’t seem to notice, as Noah began telling him the situation. “I could always sleep on the floor” He said simply after Noah told him the story.

“I-I call a bed to myself, top bunk” Noah said, a devilish grin appearing on his face. Your face fell as your realized what that meant. 

“Guess I’m sleeping on the floor then” Finn said, and you instantly began to protest.

“No, it’s fine! I can take the floor, you take the bottom” You insisted, but Finn wouldn’t have it. After a minute of argueing, Noah suggested an idea from where he watched on the topbunk.

“Howabout you two share” he said with a grin, and you realized this was his plan all along. You and Finn turned to each other, both blushing and stuttering for a moment. 

“H-Howabout you take the floor, I take the bottom, and Finn takes the top” you said to Noah, but he cast a smile your direction.

“Nah. I like my idea better” 

You woke up the next morning at an abnormally early time. Peeling the blanket off, you reached for your phone on the floor by the shelf. How you had woken at 8:13, after the late night you had yesterday? You had no clue. Rubbing your eyes with one hand, you looked around.

After Noah kept insisting he kept the top bunk to himself, and you and Finn kept fighting about not letting the other sleep on the floor, you had ended up sharing. It was a very awkward time, and after an hour of laying in the bed you had finally fallen asleep. You grabbed your phone, and rolled to the side, jumping when you realized how close Finn was. His closed eyes were mere inches away, and if you wanted you could count the freckles that speckled his face.

Noticing him an Noah were still asleep, you began to try and get out of the bed without waking either of them. Oh, the struggle of being the first one to wake up at a sleepover...

After standing up, you noticed the hilarious position Noah was in. His mouth was open, and his hand moved off the side of the bed to graze Finn’s shoulder. You quickly paused to take a picture (future blackmail, for Noah and Finn), before opening the door, grabbing your bag, and stepping out.

Walking down the hallways of the house felt like a surreal experience. Not a sound was heard except for your soft footsteps, and the occasional creaking of a floorboard. However, as you neared the bathroom you heard a soft humming.

The door was slightly ajar, and you could see the shadow of a girl brushing her hair in the mirror. Knocking softly, you were greeted a moment later by Millie, who pushed the door open slightly more to let you step in.

“Mornin” you said, and yawned, before catching sight of your reflection. You hair was a frizzy mess, and you pulled a hairbrush out of your bag to fix it. Originally, you hadn’t planned on bringing it, but after your mother reminded you that it would be good to brush it after swimming, you had. Boy, were you happy you listened to her.

“Morning” Millie said, a slight edge to her voice. As you tugged the brush through the knots in your hair, you thought she seemed slightly awkward. After smoothing your hair out, satisfied with it for now, you turned to her. 

“Is Sadie awake?” You asked, and she shrugged. 

“I don’t know actually. I’ve been awake since 5:30, and when I left the room she was still asleep” She said, and you raised your eyebrows. The girl noticed your shocked expression and laughed.

“Gaten snores” she explained, and you laughed. After talking with her for a minute, you left her to continue doing her hair. She had seemed prepared for a sleepover, bringing a small bag which had makeup, an iron, and a curler in it. 

Walking back down the silent halls, the floor cold against your bare feet, you decided to see if Sadie was awake. Pushing on the already slightly open door, you saw her stretching on the floor, her hair flowing down her back. 

“Morning Saaaadie” you sung softly, and she turned sharply. 

“Y/N!” She said, before covering her mouth with her hand. Casting a look at Gaten, who was still sleeping on the bottom of the trundle, she stood up. “Sleep well?” She asked once she reached you, a sly smile playing her lips.

You sighed, rolling your eyes, as Sadie pulled out her phone to reveal your texts from the night before. As you lay in the bed, Finn inches away, you had been texting her frantically, freaking out about the whole situation.

“From what you said, you seemed to be dying” She let out a soft laugh that echoed slightly through the hallway. 

As you explained the situation of the night before, her blue eyes widened. “Woah, If Noah hadn’t already sent me a picture of you two last night, I might actually be suprised!” she said, and went to her messages with the brunette.

As she scrolled through a suprising amount of messages, she pulled up a picture Noah had sent. It featured you and Finn. His arm was resting on your shoulder, and you were buried in the blankets, facing away from him.

“I’m gonna kill him” You said, before changing topics. “Speaking of Noah...you two seemed very friendly last night...and I can see you were talking a lot last night” you wriggled your eyebrows, and Sadie laughed, shoving you good-naturedly.

“Well, now what should we do while we wait for the boys to wake up?” you asked, after it was clear Sadie wasn’t going to mention her late-night talk with Noah. She put a finger to her chin, thinking before a smile lit her face. 

“Oh. I have an idea. And I think you’ll like it” 

[yallreddieforthis]

I’ll Stop By Your Room

Fandom: It (2017)

Pairing: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier

Rating: T (for language, talking about sex, mentions of past sexual situations)

Words: 7.1k

Movie canon-compliant but not book. Aged-up (16-17) Also posted on AO3

The Greater Fool Series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 4.5 (NSFW) | Part 5

“Oh God,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes and whacking his head on the seat in front of him because he can’t believe he was so stupid as to think that maybe once in his entire life he could just have a goddamn normal, boring-ass field trip where nothing humiliating or life-changing happens because he just had to go and develop feelings for Richie, who never lets anything be boring or normal. Not even Eddie.

As he steps onto the bus to head back to Derry High, Eddie is prepared for the first time in his entire school career, to declare this field trip A Success.

He’s made it almost halfway through tenth grade without ever having gone on a field trip where no disastrous shit went down—either for the class in general, or just specifically Eddie-related shit. There was one in sixth grade where the bus driver got lost and they didn’t get home until after five, and Eddie’s mom had already gotten the police involved by the time the bus pulled into the parking lot of Derry Elementary. Or the eighth grade one to the botanical gardens where Eddie got stung by a bee. Or when they went to the zoo in second grade and some asshole monkey managed to fling his shit far enough out of his enclosure that it splattered Bill right in the chest and like, okay, maybe that was more of a tragedy for Bill than it was for Eddie but Eddie was standing right next to him when it happened. It was scarring for everyone, okay?

Well, maybe not for Richie, who laughed so hard he almost peed his pants and still brings it up anytime anyone mentions monkeys, even in passing. Like someone will say this is so easy, a monkey could do it, and Richie will invariably butt in with haha, hey Bill, remember the time…

In fact, Eddie thinks that a large part of what has made this art museum field trip such an unmitigated success is that he has managed to stay as far away from Richie as possible. Not the actual art part; that was boring as fuck. Bill and Ben were the only ones who got anything at all out of that shit—Ben was all, did you know that this painting was commissioned for Colonel Assface during the War of Whateverthefuck in the year Long Enough Ago That No One Cares Anymore, and Bill was quiet the whole time but his eyes were all lit up and Eddie could practically hear him thinking about color and brushstrokes and shit. Which is fair, because Bill’s art is starting to get really good. He drew Richie during chem last week and Eddie liked the sketch so much he managed to muster up the courage to ask Bill if he could keep it. He’s positive that if he’d bothered to pay any attention at all in the gallery of Frou Frou di Fifi or whoever, he’d be able to see influences from the trip in Bill’s sketchbook.

But he didn’t. He spent the whole time glued to Stan, because Stan is terrified of paintings (which is understandable, Eddie thinks), and Eddie felt bad that he was forced to come on this field trip. Usually, Bill would be the one to partner up with Stan and like, be supportive or whatever, but Eddie and Stan both knew that the lure of a real art museum was going to be too tempting for him, and Stan’s best bet for company would wind up being Eddie. Stan was miserable the whole time anyway, and Eddie doesn’t blame him. It’d be like if Eddie had to go spend the day in a lab staring at Petri dishes full of diseases and then write a two-page essay about how much he loved it. Like, fuck that shit. He suppresses a shudder at the thought.

So he stuck with Stan, inching along the far wall away from the artwork, and avoided Richie, who mostly told jokes over Ben’s A History Of Everything In the Art Museum lecture and spoke at Bill, who uh-huhed him in the middle of sentences so many times that Eddie thinks even Richie might’ve eventually caught on that he wasn’t listening. Avoiding Richie, especially for Eddie, is usually very difficult for a multitude of reasons, the chief of which being that Eddie is in what essentially amounts to a relationship with Richie. Today, it was surprisingly and suspiciously easy.

It’s not that Eddie doesn’t want to be around Richie—he does, actually always, to an alarming and almost disgusting degree—it’s just that Richie is super inappropriate and keeps Eddie in a constant state of worry about what he’s going to do next. Sometimes, for example, he acts like he’s going to start macking on Eddie in public which...they haven’t really discussed it out loud before, but Eddie thinks they have a mutual understanding about not doing shit like that because Richie has never followed through on it. He’s not exactly embarrassed about the...relationship or whatever, at least not very—Eddie figures he has no more reason to be embarrassed of Richie than Richie does to be embarrassed of him—but he knows and he prays to God that Richie understands that obvious PDA would be just as bad as painting a target on his forehead. A big rainbow target.

Eddie files into a window seat on the bus so that he won’t get carsick and hopes Stan will fill in next to him so he doesn’t end up having to sit with someone mean.

Eddie gets picked on enough already, for plenty of reasons. People had been calling him gay for years before he realized he actually is, in fact, gay. Like, the gay was totally always there, tapping him on the shoulder occasionally like hey, uh, It’s Raining Men is a pretty great song, you should listen to it on a loop for six months... and Eddie was just ignoring it until the whole Richie situation sort of forced him to turn around and look it in the eye. And once he did it was like my guy, listen. Dudes. Dicks. Richie. Rodgers and Hammerstein. Eddie sometimes wonders if other people were actually able see it before he could. Were they just calling him gay because people do that, or because they knew? Like maybe he’s been walking around leaving a trail of glitter behind him without realizing it?

There’s no way of knowing for sure without asking someone, and since Eddie hasn’t technically ever said the word gay out loud yet… Presumably, Richie is aware that he is—even if that understanding is based on nothing but the fact that their lips are touching more often than not when they’re alone together—but Eddie hasn’t managed to work up the balls to even talk to him about the implications of being gay. Let alone the implications of being gay in Derry. Jesus, Eddie doesn’t even want to have that discussion mentally with himself, much less verbally with another person.

As soon as he spots Eddie, Richie weasels his way past Stan to cram in next to him. Stan rolls his eyes and gets pulled along into another row. Well, fuck.

Luckily, the museum is about a half hour drive from school, so Richie only has thirty minutes left to work his magic on upholding the streak of shitty field trips. The bus driver turns on the engine and Eddie realizes that he’s picked one of the wheel seats, which will ensure that his legs are numb from the wheel vibrations by the time they reach school. Awesome. Richie drops his backpack in between himself and Eddie, which is only notable because he uses its cover to grab Eddie’s hand where no one can see it. At the very, very least, Richie still remembers that subtlety is the name of the game here.

Not that Eddie really thinks the other Losers will care. That time in the sewers...everything they’ve been through together...Eddie doubts there’s anything he could be or do that would make them hate him. He could kill someone and they’d all just be like yeah I bet he deserved it and you need any help burying the body? He’s aware that he has the best friends on the face of the earth and that once he gets around to telling everyone about him and about them he’s probably going to feel a lot better. Hell, they might even already have guessed. He doesn’t know why he’s putting it off. He keeps telling himself next sleepover, next weekend, tomorrow at lunch and then backing out. It just feels so...daunting. Like—

“So, what do you think about blowjobs?” Richie asks Eddie, in a completely normal tone of voice. Which is to say loud. Richie’s normal tone of voice is very loud.

Jesus Christ.

“You wanna say that a little louder?” Eddie hisses at him.

“SO, WHAT DO YOU THI—”

Eddie clamps his hand over Richie’s mouth and gives him his most murderous glare. Richie just shakes his head and stares at Eddie with his best puppy eyes. Yeah, those eyes that Eddie used to be able to match with a dead-eyed stare and now they just make him feel all melty and gooey and shit because Richie really does have the longest, darkest, most beautiful eyelashes and his eyes are soft and—

Richie uses the momentary hesitation to lick Eddie’s palm. Eddie automatically draws his hand back in disgust.

“BLOWJOBS,” Richie shouts the second his voice is no longer muffled in Eddie’s hand. Eddie elbows him as hard as he can in the ribs and almost remembers to stop holding hands with him under the backpack. Almost.

No one even turns around. From the front of the bus, Mrs. Eisner calls back a vague “that’s enough, Richard,” but that’s the only response he gets.

“See?” Richie says, turning back to Eddie. Eddie wipes his wet hand viciously on the front of Richie’s shirt. “No one’s listening. Say whatever the fuck you want. I like you like you. You’re hot. I wanna suck your dick. See?”

“Oh God,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes and whacking his head on the seat in front of him because he can’t believe he was so stupid as to think that maybe once in his entire life he could just have a goddamn normal, boring-ass field trip where nothing humiliating or life-changing happens because he just had to go and develop feelings for Richie, who never lets anything be boring or normal. Not even Eddie.

He spares a single thought for Richie saying you’re hot. Did...did he mean that? Was he just saying that shit because he was trying to demonstrate that no one was listening? Like, does Richie really think Eddie is hot?

“So, what do you think about blowjobs?” Richie asks again, in exactly the same tone of voice he used the first time, which makes Eddie feel like if he’d just given a real answer way back five minutes ago, in a simpler time before he knew Richie thought school buses were an appropriate setting for sex conversations, then it would’ve been easier.

Also, Richie doesn’t seem likely to drop this topic anytime soon, and when he gets like this Eddie has found that the best course of action is to just grit his teeth and plow through the conversation until Richie is satisfied with his answer, after which they are typically able to move on with their lives. The last time this happened was a Power Rangers versus Ninja Turtles debate that lasted for forty five minutes. Hopefully they can breeze through this one before they get back to school, because Eddie doesn’t relish the idea of Richie passing him terribly drawn notes with diagrams of dicks and tongues during math.

So that’s what makes him decide to take a second and actually consider the question. Blowjobs and sucking dick are things Richie talks about regularly—not with any real seriousness, of course—but Eddie’s never given the idea too much thought because honestly? Gross.

He’s gotten almost all the way past the ickiness of kissing on the mouth and like, in the face-area—mostly by just refusing to think about germ transfer rates and mononucleosis—because Richie has made that worth his while. It took a couple months for him to really get the hang of it, but now they’ve got that shit down; Richie knows how to kiss Eddie’s neck to make him go jelly-legged, and Eddie can get Richie all red-faced and panting just by sucking on his ears the right way, and once they get going, kissing on the mouth is the furthest thing from icky. Eddie sometimes feels like there are moments where he will internally combust if he can’t kiss Richie.

So it’s not that Eddie doesn’t think a blowjob would feel good. The opposite, actually. Just...it feels like asking for some kind of nasty disease.

“Nuh-uh,” Eddie says, shaking his head and staring out the window as they pull onto the main road leading to the highway, “I don’t think I can like...do that. Dick in the mouth. Nuh-uh. Nope.”

“No I mean me give you one,” Richie presses. “I’m not afraid of your germs.”

Eddie bristles a little at that because it implies that Eddie is afraid of Richie’s germs which...okay, maybe he kind of is, but Richie didn’t have to say it. He knows that’s not really what Richie meant though—it’s not a jab at Eddie—he’s actually trying to be reassuring. Trust Richie to accidentally backhanded compliment his way into sex. What a fucking catch. And now he’s looking at Eddie with this earnest smugness, like he knows he’s going to convince him to let him do it and he’s stoked. But why does he even want to? Like, what’s in it for him?

Does he really think Eddie is that hot?

“Did you mean it?” Eddie asks, before he can stop himself.

“Totally,” Richie says, giving Eddie’s hand a squeeze under the backpack. “I’d take a faceful of your jizz over splashing around in graywater any day.”

Ew, what the fuck?!

“No,” says Eddie. “What is wrong with you? I don’t mean—I meant when you said I was…” Eddie drops his voice to a whisper, “... hot. Do you really think I’m hot?”

“Of course I do, dumbass,” Richie says. “Don’t you think I am?”

Eddie’s first instinct is to say no, dipshit, because “hot” is a word reserved for like...like Ethan Hawke or River Phoenix. Not people like Richie, who has been at peak teenage awkwardness for what feels like a decade at this point and looks to be in real danger of staying that way forever. He has terrible taste in clothes and the glasses and the crazy hair and as a package he’s just...so overwhelming, and that’s not hot. Not even a little. It’s—

“I’m just messing with you,” Richie says cheerfully, knocking his knifepoint-sharp elbow into Eddie’s arm. “Everyone knows you’re the beauty and I’m the brains.”

“God, I hope not. We’re really fucked if you’re the brains,” Eddie says before he can stop himself.

Richie snorts and squeezes Eddie’s hand in such a way that it makes a fart noise and Eddie yanks it out from under the backpack. He folds his arms across his chest and Richie spends the rest of the journey home trying to coax him back into holding hands. By the time they get back to school, Eddie is red with both embarrassment and suppressed laughter, and he thinks about how this kind of thing happens so often that he’ll probably never blush again without thinking of Richie.

As is customary on school nights, Eddie goes straight home after his last class. He’s not allowed to have friends over or go to the arcade unless it’s a weekend, which he used to think was because his mom wanted him to have plenty of time for his homework but now feels more like one of her arbitrary, controlling restrictions because she doesn’t seem to actually care all that much about his grades. It feels like it’s more about just...having him home while she watches The Young and The Restless by herself in the living room. Why exactly Eddie’s presence in the house improves this activity, he doesn’t entirely understand.

Richie took to sneaking in during the night years ago, which always makes being alone for the afternoon slightly more bearable. He’ll get on his bike after last period and turn to Eddie and say I’ll stop by your room after I’m done doing your mom, which is actually a polite offer for company in disguise. Eddie will either say if you really have to or I’ll make sure to put the lock on the door then and Richie has never not respected the answer.

Today he said it and Eddie told him to get lost because they’ve got an essay due tomorrow on the impact of our trip to the art museum and Eddie had had a feeling that writing it was going to require some premium-grade bullshitting. He’d been right, too; he didn’t get done with it until ten. But it’s not like that’s really what ate up his entire evening, because then he’d debated internally with himself for half an hour before caving and rewatching Footloose. By the time he’d brushed his teeth, put on pajamas (his warmest ones—reindeer-printed and made of fleece—because it’s chilly and it’s not like anyone is going to see them anyway), and gotten into bed, it was after midnight. So now he’s still wide awake and feeling kind of like he wishes he’d invited Richie over after all, despite the fact that he really should already be asleep.

It used to be that whenever Eddie said yes, Richie would come straight over after the sun went down. Eddie could always tell if they’d all gone swimming without him because Richie’s hair would be damp and he’d smell like quarry water and the grass at the top of the cliff, and he’d flop onto Eddie’s bed and get those smells all over his sheets. Those nights, Eddie would always go to sleep wondering if Richie was just wearing wet briefs under his shorts or going commando. He was never sure which idea he liked less.

Since this summer though, I’ll stop by your room after I’m done doing your mom has taken on a connotation that sets off a shivery, churning feeling in Eddie’s gut. Sometimes Richie will lean over and whisper it in his ear—sometimes he leaves off the last part too. I’ll stop by your room, he breathes out, warm air hitting Eddie’s neck, and Eddie bites his lips and goes all hot because it means that that night, sometime around eleven or midnight or so, he’ll hear a dun dun dun dadadundun tapping at his window. Eddie is still not sure if that’s a reference to Under Pressure or Ice Ice Baby and he honestly thinks he doesn’t want to know.

He’ll wedge a towel under his bedroom door to soundproof it as much as he can. Then he’ll lift the latch on the window and open it as far as it will go. Richie just barely fits now. A couple of years ago it was nothing for him to hop through, now he has to fold his long legs every which way and his skinny arms flail around and his big feet get caught on the other side of the sill and sometimes he whacks his giant head on the wall as he tumbles through. It’s never a quiet process, unfortunately; there’s always some swearing involved, and Eddie lives in fear of the day Richie looks at him from the other side of the wall, moonlight shining off his glasses, and says “well, fuckity fuck, I’m stuck.”

That’s a problem for Future Eddie to deal with though, because once Richie’s in, well. Once he’s in the room, those skinny arms are immediately wrapped around Eddie’s waist and the long legs bump into Eddie’s as Richie backs them toward the bed. And then they get there and...god.

Eddie turns over onto his side and fiddles with the sleeve of his pajama top, thinking about how if Richie were here, the shirt would be gone before the backs of his knees even hit the mattress. Richie is always the first to start taking clothes off—he does it like he’s starving for him—like touching Eddie is what he lives for and he can’t hold off another second. It’s...feeling like that, like someone wants him so bad...it’s kind of wonderful and powerful and scary.

Every time they do it ends basically the same—they take everything off and then they touch each other until they can’t anymore and their fingers are gooey and sticky and then Eddie has to shove Richie out of bed or he’ll fall asleep right there—naked and on top of Eddie for Eddie’s mom to find them the next morning. It hasn’t happened yet, thank God, but it’s a closer call every time because it’s getting harder and harder to kick Richie out after.

In fact, Eddie has taken to spending a worrying amount of time just sort of lying there and stroking Richie’s naked back or smoothing his hair over his head. After is always kind of awkward for Eddie, because he can’t think of anything to say that isn’t incredibly embarrassing, and silence feels weird too. So far he’s managed a that was good twice, which he was super proud of both times even though he also wanted to roll over and hide as soon as the words left his mouth.

Richie does not appear to suffer from the same affliction, because he always starts talking again pretty much as soon as he catches his breath, and Eddie is usually too tired to complain about whatever stupid shit he says. Richie’s pillow talk typically includes such topics as: an enthusiastic play-by-play of what they just did (during which Eddie always just mumbles please stop every few seconds), complete with commentary, which is as complimentary as it is mortifying; a detailed tactical gamplan of what they should do in the event of a zombie outbreak; who Richie would cast if they made a movie about the X-Men and for some reason wanted his opinion; and a ranking of his favorite types of candy based on the logistics of building an edible house. As long as he keeps blabbering, Eddie can privately enjoy that sick-happy feeling in his chest and put off kicking him out. If he’s being honest, Eddie just wants to hold him super tight and close and stay there until he can watch the sunrise illuminate the faded freckles on Richie’s nose.

Eddie snuggles deep down in the covers and thinks about his favorite parts—between when Richie squeezes into and out of his window—and lets himself relish in the fluttery, fidgety excitement that comes with the memory of Richie, shirtless and pale and glowing faintly red in the light from the numbers on Eddie’s alarm clock. The way his mouth looks after they’ve been kissing, soft and full and open, how his wild hair splays across Eddie’s neck when he bends down to breathe warm air onto Eddie’s nipples. His hands unzipping Eddie’s pants, rubbing him over the front of his underwear like he can’t even wait the two seconds it’ll take to pull them off. The way his back looks as he arches into Eddie’s fingers, the way his head falls forward when he gasps and the way he moans like Eddie’s mom isn’t literally two rooms over oh my god, Richie, shhh. The way he exhales sometimes, like he’s so turned on he doesn’t know how else to express it but with those shuddery breaths that almost sound like the ghost of laughter. Eddie’s whole body goes warm at the memory because it’s the hottest thing he—

And then it’s like Eddie’s brain douses him in ice water because it is. It’s hot. It’s hot as fuck and Eddie remembers that Richie asked him on the bus a few hours ago if he thought Richie was hot and he did not give him an unequivocal yes. And that’s obviously bullshit because Eddie was totally getting ready to start jerking off just now thinking about how fucking hot Richie is when he’s naked and they’re in bed together. Eddie had somehow been under the impression that hot is this kind of ethereal concept that only applies to celebrities or strangers, when hot has literally been sucking face with him for months. He is officially the biggest dumbass ever. Eddie wonders if there’s any other obvious shit staring him down that he hasn’t picked up on yet.

And suddenly Eddie cannot stand the idea that Richie might be sitting at home thinking Eddie doesn’t find him hot. It’s Thursday...well, technically it’s Friday but it still counts as Thursday night and there’s no way Richie isn’t planning on coming over for some sweet handjob action tomorrow night, but this can’t wait until tomorrow. And he can’t call, his mom will want to know why he’s using the phone at this hour and it’s possible that someone other than Richie might answer and then Eddie will have to come up with some reason besides I’m sorry to bother you at this hour Mrs. Tozier, but it’s an absolute emergency because I have to tell Richie right now that he’s hot and thinking about him naked gives me a boner.

Yeah, not likely. This situation calls for desperate measures, like an entirely unprecedented course of action. Eddie puts on his sneakers, throws on a sweater, and walks to his window.

If Richie can still get in, it’ll be nothing for Eddie to get out. He’ll just close the window most of the way from the outside, but not so much that he won’t be able to get back in. His mom might come in (unlikely, Eddie can hear her snoring) and find him gone and completely blow a gasket, but that’s a big might and the fact that he needs to see Richie right the fuck now is a definitely, so. Down he hops, quiet as can be.

It’s early December and fucking cold. Cold as fuck. Eddie hops back and forth from one foot to the other while he untangles his bike from where the garden hose fell on it and tries not to think too hard about how the frigid wind in his face is going to feel when he gets going.

The less that can be said about the seven minute bike ride to Richie’s house, the better. The word frostbite comes to mind more than once, as well as death by exposure. Eddie thinks it’ll be unfortunate but understandable if his dick decides never to make an appearance again; he’s pretty sure it has retreated up into his body for good. He can’t feel his hands but manages to peel his fingers off the handlebars nonetheless, leaning his bike up against the side of Richie’s house without bothering to hide it because, according to Richie, Richie’s parents are heavy sleepers. Eddie wouldn’t normally just take Richie at his word on something like that, but he figures they would’ve had to have caught their own son sneaking out at least once out of the hundreds of times he’s done it if it wasn’t true. Eddie walks around the back and looks through the curtains of Richie’s room.

Richie, wearing the same pajama bottoms and old tee shirt he usually shows up at Eddie’s in, is so deeply involved in Sonic that Eddie wonders if he won’t hear him rapping on the window, but he does it anyway. Dun dun dun dadadundun.

It’s Under Pressure, Eddie whispers to no one in particular. Richie doesn’t hear that or the knocking.

Dun dun dun dadadundun. Eddie knocks again, a little louder.

This time, Richie turns around. He does one better, actually: he does a double take and his jaw drops wide open, hair flopping into his face. He looks utterly stupid by any account and yet the first thought that pops into Eddie’s head is beautiful.

Richie drops the controller onto the floor to live amongst the general covering of junk that populates his bedroom before loping over to the window and opening it.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, staring out at Eddie like he can’t believe he’s here, which is kind of annoying because like...Eddie has a bike too. Just because it’s always Richie who appears at Eddie’s house in the middle of the night doesn’t mean Eddie isn’t capable of reciprocating every once in awhile. It’s just that it’s obviously nicer to get it on in Eddie’s room than in the garbage heap Richie inhabits.

Richie reaches out a hand to help Eddie clamber inside. He must have the heat cranked up full blast because Eddie starts regaining feeling in his extremities right away when Richie shuts the window.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I just needed to—” Eddie starts, then clamps his mouth shut.

In that moment he realizes that he’s just shown up at Richie’s house at one in the morning on a school night without warning, wearing fleece reindeer pajamas, sneakers without socks and a sweater, and he has literally no idea what he wants to say other than I just needed to tell you you were hot. Right now, apparently.

“Are you breaking up with me?” Richie demands, in what might sound like a normal tone of voice to an outsider, but Eddie instinctively recognizes it as being seconds away from abject panic.

Eddie looks up into his eyes and god damn, how has he never managed to see how insecure Richie really is? Of all the millions of things Eddie could be here for… He could’ve had a fight with his mom. Winston from the Sweet Valley High books that Eddie definitely doesn’t read could’ve been killed off. Eddie could just be horny. He could have a homework question—well, probably not that one because going to Richie for homework help would be worse than just not turning in the assignment and taking a zero—but a breakup? Like, that’s what he jumps to? A breakup? Really?

“God, no,” Eddie says, and then the next words come out of his mouth with absolutely no leave to do so from his brain. “Why the fuck would I do that? I love you.”

Richie sits down hard on his bed and just...stares. And Eddie a little bit wants to freak out because I love you sounds like a really big deal but like...is it? Is saying it that big of a deal? Feeling it is, maybe, but if Eddie’s being honest with himself, he’s been feeling it for like forever. He might not have always been willing to admit that, but if you take a dump in a toilet and call it a flower, it’s still shit. Saying it doesn’t change that.

“Actually I just wanted to tell you you’re hot,” he continues, fidgeting with the zipper on his sweater and still standing awkwardly by the window. That part comes out easier, probably because he just dropped a live one with I love you and nothing else he has to say could possibly be as enormous as that. “Cause on the bus, like I didn’t. But you totally are. Hot. You’re...hot. Like super hot, like…” Eddie gestures vaguely up and down with one hand, “all of you. Your hair and your back and shit—I mean, your...yeah. So I just wanted to tell you. Bye.”

And because every single word after you’re hot has increased his discomfort exponentially, Eddie feels like this is as good a time as any to make his exit. Actually, about fifteen seconds ago might’ve been better, but it’s certainly only going to get worse if he just stands there doing nothing, so he turns toward the window and prepares to bail. This apparently snaps Richie out of it because he gets up, still staring.

“Where the fuck are you going?” Richie asks.

“‘Why the fuck am I here, where the fuck am I going,’” Eddie repeats, one leg already out the window. It is so fucking cold outside and like, this whole thing was such a bad idea, Eddie wishes he could go back in time fifteen minutes just to smack himself in the face and tell himself to stay in bed. “Where the fuck do you think I’m going? I’m going home. It’s a school night.”

“Uh, no way,” Richie says, striding toward him. He wraps a hand around Eddie’s wrist. “You don’t get to say something like that and then just like fuck off. Nah, come back in here and let me blow you.”

Let him what now?! It takes a second for Eddie to make the connection—like why Richie is bringing that up—but then his mind presses rewind on the part from the bus when Richie said Eddie was hot and...right. The conversation was originally about blowjobs. Why do they always seem to have these important discussions about feelings in conjunction with sex stuff? At this rate, Eddie’s never going to have a cute story about their relationship that’s fit for mixed company. Like he’s gonna tell the others at a sleepover, so then I said “I love you, Richie,” and he was like, “that’s sick dude, lemme suck your dick.”

He’s about to say no because ew, but...it’s Richie. And Richie is looking at him with his big brown eyes and Eddie knows that Richie would be a hundred percent cool with it if Eddie truly didn’t want to, and if Eddie says not gonna happen, Richie will probably never bring it up again. But he can also hear the excitement in Richie’s voice, and it seems...crazy, like it’s crazy that Richie really wants to blow him that much.

“I didn’t say that shit because I wanted a blowjob,” Eddie tells him.

“I know,” Richie says.

“I don’t think I can really stay,” Eddie says, although he also pulls his leg back in the room and allows Richie to shut the window again. “It’s a school night.”

“Fuck yeah, it’s a school night,” says Richie, in what he clearly thinks is a California Surfer Dude voice, but it’s new to his repertoire and still sounds more like he’s having a mild stroke than anything else. He grins and gets straight to work pushing Eddie’s sweater off his shoulders. “Think about how tired we’re gonna be in first period tomorrow. I’m gonna get hard just looking at those bags under your eyes.”

“What the fuck?” Eddie whispers back to him. He shrugs his cardigan back on. “You say the weirdest shit Richie, I swear to God. Is think about how tired we’re gonna be in first period tomorrow supposed to be like, dirty talk? Because uh, that’s not sexy. I—”

“But you love me,” Richie interrupts, “so everything I do is sexy.” He yanks his own shirt over his head and smiles down at Eddie.

“Yeah, that’s not how it works,” Eddie says, placing both hands on Richie’s bony chest and trying not to focus too much on how good his skin feels because he is not going to get distracted by the lure of impending nakedness.

“Yeah it is,” says Richie immediately, sliding a hand up under Eddie’s pajama top. “We’re in love, so everything is like automatically a million times more sexy.”

“Oh really? What so...so, my...like when I had to shove Tylenol down your throat when you had a 102 fever last month? You find that sexy?”

“Hell yes,” Richie replies immediately, “you can play doctor with me anytime, baby.”

“Don’t you dare start calling me ‘baby,’” Eddie warns him.

“Try and stop me,” Richie laughs, and he pulls Eddie in closer with his hand on the small of his back. Fuuuck, no way is Richie going to let that go. Eddie hates the nicknames, but he knows it’s a losing battle because Eddie Spaghetti eventually got replaced with Eds and he can already imagine baby gaining ground on Eds. In fact, Eddie would bet his whole allowance that baby is going to eventually turn into babe. He can see babe sticking long-term. He’s just gonna have to get used to the idea.

“Oh, fuck me,” Eddie sighs, resting his forehead on Richie’s shoulder.

“Dude, I’m trying,” Richie says, grinning his shit-eatingest.

Eddie starts to giggle and has to put the brakes on it because he’s not getting sucked in. He’s not. He came here with a mission and he accomplished it. Just because it’s kind of making him die a little inside to leave right now doesn’t mean he can’t suck it up and do it anyway.

“I have to go,” Eddie says again. He stands on his toes and kisses Richie a little harder than usual, and hopes that Richie understands he’d much rather stay here. Someday, Eddie wants to tell him...someday they’ll finish high school. It feels like a million years from now, but then he knows he’s going to blink and he’ll be holding a graduation cap and a college acceptance letter. And Richie will be there too, holding...well, Eddie’s hand, at the very least. He really would get good grades if he applied himself, like all his teachers say, but Eddie doesn’t love him any less for his 2.7 GPA.

“Tomorrow,” Richie says. Eddie’s not sure if it’s a promise or a question. But either way, the answer is yes. If Richie wants to do what they usually do or… whatever else. Eddie’s down for it. One great thing about Richie—one of many, Eddie thinks—is how he doesn’t really try to force Eddie to stay. It’s kind of like when he goes to high five Stan and Stan gives him that please die now look, and Richie just immediately cuts his losses and moves on. He’s like that a lot. Eddie sometimes wishes he could just let shit go the way Richie does.

“Yeah, tomorrow,” Eddie tells him. “Definitely.” He can’t quite bring himself to say how much he’s looking forward to it—so much, so so much—but he thinks Richie can tell anyway. They lock eyes and there it goes, that melty feeling, like the first sip of hot chocolate after playing out in the snow. That’s what should’ve tipped Eddie off that he’s—that they’re—in love. It’s love or fever delirium. Either way, he’s such a goner.

Eddie steps away from Richie and turns toward the window. Once they finish school they’ll leave Derry and only be forced to come back for like, Christmas or whatever. They’ll get a dorm or maybe an apartment together—some cheap place in a horrible neighborhood, probably—and Eddie will eventually have to break it to his mom that Richie’s a lot more to him than a roommate, but it’ll all be so worth it because—

Eddie steps on the uneaten crust of a forgotten PB&J on his way to the window. This is it, the future he has chosen for himself. No one goes from being the kind of person who tosses sandwiches on the floor to a liveable human being in the span of a few years. Someday, it’ll be their room and Eddie will be getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and stepping in peanut butter, and he’ll have no one to blame but himself. He picked this idiot—this somehow super hot idiot—he went and fell in love with all that hair and those dark eyes. He fell in love with Richie’s knobby knuckles and his bitten cuticles too. And his strange, infuriating, perplexing mind. Richie never lets anything be boring. Eddie can look forward to an entire lifetime of being, at the very least, kept on his toes. If not literally, to avoid stepping in discarded food.

“You know,” Eddie says, swinging his leg out of the window and back into the icy wind, “I hope you plan on getting a good job, because I’m going to be stuck cleaning up after you as a career.”

Eddie only realizes when he’s halfway home that he just essentially admitted out loud to Richie that he wants to spend the rest of his life with him, which in hindsight makes Richie sound like a really smooth motherfucker for saying, “Nah, I was already planning on hiring us a housekeeper,” without missing a beat.

Eddie slams on his brakes and there, in the middle of the street in the freezing pitch-black night, he comes to his third Big Realization of today. This, Richie and him, it’s the real deal. The things he’s been thinking about—an apartment, a shared bed, a shared life—are not daydreams. They’re plans. Shared plans.

Eddie’s so rarely sure of anything—like how he used to think there was no such thing as supernatural, shape-shifting killer clowns—but he's always sure of Richie. He’s sure of how he feels about Richie, and of how Richie feels about him. Even the fact that he’s out alone so late and not panicking can be attributed to Richie. Eddie used to be afraid of being by himself and the dark, but Richie gives him courage just by existing within a ten-minute biking radius.

Someday isn’t soon enough, but living with Richie is going to have to wait. He can’t believe he’s excited about the idea of Spaghetti-O’s every night and yelling at Richie for leaving the heater on and brushing crumbs off his sheets before bed but, God help him, those things can’t come soon enough. Just a couple more years, Eddie tells himself.

Tomorrow isn’t soon enough, either. His teeth are chattering, mostly because he’s actively freezing to death but also from the almost tangible ache in his chest that started when he walked around to collect his bike from the side of Richie’s house and left Richie watching him from the window. It’s what Eddie usually does when Richie leaves his house and God, Eddie’s not sure how Richie manages to do it twice a week. It almost made Eddie want to cry. He still feels like he might cry. If he goes home and gets into his bed alone right now, he will undoubtedly cry.

It’s a fucking school night, but Eddie is rapidly losing his ability to care. He sits there on his bike in the middle of the road for a second before…

“Fuck it.” He shakes his head, smiles out into the darkness, and swings his handlebars back in the direction of Richie’s house.

[jls1792]

13x01 Thoughts/Review

Okay, I know the episode aired 5 days ago.  I actually did watch it late Wednesday night and wrote down some random thoughts while watching it.  But I haven’t gotten around to posting it until now.  I’ll put it under a read more link since it’s very long and ramble-y 

Everything is happening so fast!

*whispers* Why are the cars arranged in the spots they were in before they got hit by the truck?

After seeing the sneak peek, I wasn’t sure how I felt about Garcia going out with Simmons as opposed to trying to help from the office.  But I actually liked that she went (it is her family after all) and I loved her rushing over to help in any way she could.  

Wow, I’m surprised they actually showed a body for Walker.  It wasn’t Damon, but they showed it so we saw a body and knew it was Walker without really seeing the face

Also: WALKER NO!! YOU DESERVED BETTER!

So, was Walker clearly dead? Like, did he look clearly dead? Did Luke check and see he was dead before he helped JJ?  Because Garcia is instantly sad and Luke is all “he’s gone”.  He had to clearly be dead since we didn’t see Luke check for a pulse or anything (unless he did it before).  

But man, poor Walker. It just sucks that it’s all happening like this.  HE DIDN’T DESERVE TO DIE!  Luke’s line could have been delivered a little better. I mean, he was basically “Yo, he dead”. I get everyone’s shaken up and everything has happened so fast, but I felt he could have shown a bit more sympathy to the fact that Walker (who was sitting in the backseat of the same car as him and was his teammate) is just dead now.

So JJ got glass in her scalp and can’t see, and Walker is dead.  But Luke is fine.  Luke’s side of the car was the one that got brushed but it wasn’t hit that hard.  How did JJ and Walker get the beating and not Luke? I can see Luke walking away fine, it does happen (speaking from experience) and it did look like it was more the front tire/side area that got hit, but did the car hit something on the other side that would account for JJ and Walker’s injuries?  

I hate myself, because all summer I’ve been thinking “watch them say Walker did of whiplash”.  And then Scratch tells Emily he died of whiplash.  Hell fucking no that is not an acceptable way to kill Walker.  Please tell me Scratch was being vague.  Because it looked like Walker’s face was pretty messed up/bloody?  But come on, whiplash is a terrible way to make Walker die.  I know it’s possible to die from whiplash, but I don’t think it’s that common?  Unless he really got tossed around so much that his head/neck snapped/turned really fast.  I just wish they would have gone into that a bit more.  

Rossi’s leg is injured, JJ can’t see, Walker is dead, Tara is going into shock, Prentiss is missing. Well, fucking shit!

Again, this feels so rushed. But it makes sense since that’s how stuff works in this situation. 

Reid got to the hospital fast.  But where is Morgan?  Is he with Reid’s mom?  Because how could Reid just leave his mom?  No way he found someone or a place for her that fast?  Is she just with other FBI agents? And Morgan was supposed to have breakfast with Reid.  Since the premiere picks up immediately after the finale, I have a hard time imagining Morgan and Reid already had their breakfast.  And if Morgan was with Reid, if Reid had to bail, Morgan would know what’s up since he was aware of what the team was doing.  But also, if Morgan did know, I can’t see him leaving knowing Prentiss is missing, JJ, Rossi and Tara are injured and one of the team is dead (I know Morgan didn’t work with Walker, but Walker worked with Morgan’s friends, so I could see Morgan staying for moral support, especially for Garcia). Also, isn’t it still night time?  Would Morgan have even stopped by Reid’s yet?  Like, did he show up but Reid wasn’t there?  Because again, Morgan knew the team was going after Scratch, so you’d think he’d put two and two together and at least call Garcia and see what’s up.  

So Reid called Will and JJ said someone needs to call Monica.  Is anyone going to call Hayden or Joy and let them know about Rossi?  

LOL ROSSI!  Rossi is in zero fucks mode.  

“You’re back on the team” “Did the director approve that?” “BITCH I’M IN CHARGE NOW YOU MOFO SO LISTEN TO ME YOU LITTLE PUNK!” Basically what Rossi was saying.

“Ass clowns” LOL! That needs to be a new phrase

Okay, so if Walker’s only purpose was to come in and catch Scratch, couldn’t he have just done case work from the office?  If he was only there to solve the Scratch case, why was he going out on cases with the team and not doing Scratch work? (Okay, he was, but we didn’t really see it). He could have spent more time focusing on Scratch if he wasn’t going out on cases with the team as well

YASSS HOTCH MENTION!! See, writers, they said his name and no one spontaneously combusted!  

But also, FUCK YOU SCRATCH!! What a dumb piece of shit.  You can do whatever the hell you want to Prentiss, she would NEVER give up Hotch’s location.  No one on the team would if they knew.  

Did I already say Stephen Walker deserved better?  Because he did.  I’m not ready for poor Monica.

Ohh, Reid caught onto the AH in the texts.

That’s right, Reid!  Hotch and Prentiss would never be dumb enough to easily expose themselves like that.

Yes Garcia, figuring out it was set up!

And yes, new guy for figuring out Walker was setting up the anonymous texts!

Reid ushering Garcia and Simmons out of the room and they’re like “Okay dude, wtf?”  Garcia was all “I’mma just grab my computer real quick, bro.”  

“He’s had a rough few months” YEAH YOU THINK?!  Y’all have had a rough year though girl!

So, is Tara still alive? Could someone mention her?  Is she in surgery?  I need to know!  

WILL!!!

UGH Walker gave JJ the front seat.  GUILT!!!  

But why does seat position matter?  HOW DID WALKER DIE??  Whiplash just seems so vague.  I mean, even if he sat in the front, he could have gotten still gotten whiplash. (Yeah, I know, JJ would still feel guilty because there’s always that “what if” scenario, but stil…)

Wonderful Will and JJ scene. LOL at Rossi telling them to get a room.

Aww, Will’s staying with Rossi while JJ goes to be with Monica and Luke.

But seriously, where the fuck is Tara?!?!

Aww poor JJ.  But I get Monica not wanting to be touched/hugged in that moment.  That’s exactly how I would feel.

Out of curiosity, does the team know Monica besides her just being Walker’s wife?  Have they ever really talked to her or met her before?

Wow, they’re showing a body again!  It’s not Damon though (obviously).  But I appreciate them actually showing something.  It makes it more sad than if they just showed the body bag but not actually showing the body (it would have been even more devastating if they actually had Damon)

Stephen Walker deserved better.

Monica talking to Walker was so sad!  Tracie Thoms nailed that scene!  From her wondering how to tell the kids to telling Walker she would handle it then the “see ya” before she pulled the sheet back over his head! UGH THE FEELS!  And then she broke down and Luke and JJ comforted her.

Stephen Walker and his family deserved better.  Just in case I haven’t already made that point.  

This episode should have been titled “Stephen Walker deserved better”

I’m literally crying. Criminal Minds, you better not kill JJ, Prentiss, Reid, Rossi, Hotch, Garcia or Morgan because Walker was only in 15 episodes and I’m FUCKING DEAD!!

Speaking of Morgan, WHERE THE FUCK IS HE?!?!  All I need is a simple name-drop (Is Morgan the new Hotch?  If you say his name the reaper appears?)

“Jack is 13.” Actually, if anyone bothered to do the math, he should be 12.  He was born in Fall 2005.  It’s Fall 2017 now.  2017-2005=12. Actually, he shouldn’t even be 12 yet, since this episode picks up right from 12x22, which I believe was May 2017, but I digress…

YASS EMILY TELL THAT FUCKER TO FUCK OFF!!! “I love Jack.  I’ve watched Jack grow up.”  THIS TEAM IS A FAMILY, GUYS!!  

I’m just so happy we’re finally getting Hotch mentions.  I get Thomas is gone, but I was disappointed when last season they really sort of forgot about Hotch after episode 6 and never really mentioned him.  I wasn’t expecting a name drop every episode, but come on.  He was their boss and friend and they knew him for more than a decade.  Just because he’s in Witness Protection doesn’t mean he’s completely safe (his wife did die after all…).  Even if he was totally safe, I’d still be worried about him and thinking of him. I suppose maybe enough time has passed that they feel they can talk about him again

Now I just hope they remember Morgan exists!

ANGRY REID!! Totally understandable! 

Scratch keeps asking where Hotch is.  Talk about obsessed *cues Mariah Carey’s song “Obsessed”*

Yeah, Prentiss is obviously not dead, but I’m still intrigued!

What the fuck is this scene with Garcia and Simmons?!?  It’s like naked church  yoga with gagging.  “So much for no creepy weirdness” Love you Garcia!

LOL at Rossi just using Luke instead of crutches :D 

Oh good, y’all remembered Tara exists

That’s right, Prentiss, catch onto Scratch and his tricks!  

Gah, of course Reid’s included in the text.  What you do that for, Garcia? “Reid’s not in a good place right now.” Yeah no shit.

HELL YEAH PRENTISS!! YOU BITE HIS EAR!!  That was fucking amazing!  She should have gone full Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead and ripped his throat out

So glad Prentiss made Reid stay with her.  I definitely think it was partly because she really did want a good friend with her after the ordeal, but also because she didn’t want Reid to have to deal with more stress

HAHA GOOD FUCKING RIDDANCE SCRATCH!!  

As much as I loved Luke just watching and letting Scratch fall to his death, I was really hoping for Prentiss and Tara and even Reid to be the ones to kill him.  It should have really been Emily or Tara.  But he’s dead so whatever.

Actually, you know what would have been a good way for Scratch to die? With the entire team shooting a thousand bullets into him.  They did this in the season 13 finale of NCIS with one of their bad guys.  See this for reference: https://youtu.be/tPnkug2rwIU?t=2m3s

LOL at Luke nonchalantly saying Scratch is down.  And then “He fell trying to escape”.  Technically not a lie

THANK YOU FOR LETTING HOTCH AND JACK BE HAPPY!!  I never understood the people who said Scratch couldn’t die because then they wouldn’t have a story for Hotch.  Umm, yes, they do.  I’ve said it along: catch/kill Scratch and say Hotch and Jack are out of the program and Hotch decides not to return.  I mean, in 12x06 they said Hotch sent in his resignation.  They just needed to make him stick to it, which he is.  

Funeral scene is sad. Monica is hugging JJ this time.  I love Monica!! I really liked her in 12x20 and thought she and Walker had a nice relationship.  It’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of it.  And it’s a shame we didn’t get to know Walker’s kids more or see Walker with them.  It’s a shame we just didn’t get to know Walker more.

I liked Monica saying Peter Lewis was the reason Stephen was dead, not Emily.  And her saying Walker can rest easy knowing he helped bring Scratch to an end.  UGH!! My feels!  Stephen Walker and his family deserved better (I don’t think I made that point yet ;D )

You know who should become friends?  Aaron Hotchner and Monica Walker.  And Jack and Eli can be friends.  That family has a lot of shit they can bond over.  Jack and Eli are probably around the same age, so it could be a thing!

Wheels up!!  That was a nice scene.  I liked that Prentiss said that phrase was what kept her fighting and made her realize the team was out there fighting.  And I also like to think it was a nice little tribute to Hotch.

As much as I liked the ending, I think that end scene would have made a good series finale ending scene

As glad as I am that we got Hotch mentions and he and Jack are doing well, it would be nice to know where they are.  Are they staying wherever they were in WitSec or are they returning to Virginia?  I mean, they would have had fake identities when in WitSec, so you’d think they’d have to move from there?  They can’t just be Tommy and Sam one day and then the next day be like “LOL JK those aren’t our names”.  Hotch and Jack could move back and Hotch doesn’t need to come back or be seen even if he’s in town.  But a little conformation would be nice.  Just like I also want to know where Morgan is living now and what he’s doing for a living.

Also, I know we can’t get TG, but I would love if they had Hotch and Jack move back to Virginia and we could see Jack hanging out with Henry!  I want to see teenage Jack!

Very good episode!  There were little things here and there that maybe could have been tweaked a bit, but it was still very good.  I do wish we could have gotten a bit more on Walker and his death.  I get though that they couldn’t really grieve Walker in the episode while Prentiss was missing since they had to try to save her.  And since the firing of Damon was sort of thrown at the writers, they probably did the best they could.

Again, it was a good premiere.  One of the better episodes in recent years.  I can be a bit hard on the writers sometimes, but they can actually produce some quality episodes.  Come on writers, you can make some really good episodes, so I’d like to see some more like “Wheels Up” :)

[kruegersgirl]

Reborn (Flash Fiction May 2017)

“You lost man?” Victor looked up to see who had spoken, and nearly fell back. Standing in front of him was six feet of lanky punk. He had to crane his neck to see her face. She towered over him, her hair spiked a mile high into a neon pink mohawk.

      “Dude? Are. You. Lost?” The girl repeated, clipping each word. “You realize you’re in line for the No Life concert, right?”

        “Yes.” Victor could barely get it out, choking on his nerves.

        The girl was smiling now, less intimidating than just a moment ago. Victor was still too scared to look her in the eye. He tried staring at her boots, but then he imagined what all those spikes could do, and decided to look at his own beat up Chuck’s instead.

        The girl looked him up and down, sizing him up. He was obviously out of place in a plain t-shirt and khaki shorts.

        “What on Earth are you doing here dude? You look like you’d be more at home at Comic Con, church camp, something. Anything but here really.”

        “Probably.” Victor continued looking at his shoes while he explained himself to the girl, trying not to think about all the Marvel posters he had hanging up in his room. He told the girl, whose name he learned was Laura, he had been trying to find a story for the school newspaper when he found an ad for the show and thought he would check it out.

        “So…You just decided to come out to a punk show all by yourself?”

        “I don’t really have any friends I could have asked. I had to sneak out just so my mom wouldn’t offer to come.” Laura laughed at that, remembering her first concert. She hadn’t been alone, but she had snuck out so her mom couldn’t ask questions.

        “That takes balls kid,” Laura said as she playfully punched him in the shoulder. “You’ve got me now though.”

        “What? Really?” This threw a wrench in Victor’s plans to just stand on the sidelines and watch. He had always been more of an observer than a willing participant.

        “Your first show can be a tough one, you’ll need some help.” Laura smiled at him, as intimidating as she was at first glance, her smile was strangely calming to Victor. Knowing that he wouldn’t have to survive this alone, also allowed his heart to slow down to something closer to a regular rate. “You’re lucky this place is even still open,” Victor gave the girl a quizzical look, “the punk scene is dying dude. Fewer and fewer bands play. Fewer people come out. It’s fucking capitalism man, kills everything good.”

        They waited outside the building mostly in silence. From the outside, it could have been any warehouse plopped on the outskirts of downtown. The marquee and old show flyers pasted all over the front were the only things that really made it stand out.

        Laura turned to Victor once the line started to move.  “You don’t have any knives or anything on you, do you? When we get to the front they’re gonna check us both.” She had spewed it all out so fast that Victor could barely keep up, but he understood the gist and nodded that he didn’t have anything on him. “Security didn’t used to be this tight. It used to be you could just walk straight in, enjoy the show. Then one day a metal-head decided to pick a fight with a crusty and got stabbed. Now everyone gets checked. Thoroughly.”

        Victor tried not to let his shock and confusion show. He had a vague idea of what a metal-head was. They had their own table in the cafeteria at school, and they pretty much kept to themselves. What the hell is a crusty though? He decided he could ask Laura about it later.

They made their way through security with no problems and proceeded to a sketchy looking man with a full beard, and beer belly. He scanned Laura’s ticket and then motioned for her to go through the double doors that led into the venue.

        Victor fumbled in his pockets, having somehow managed to lose his ticket in his mad dash to get everything back in his pockets. Finally, he found it in his back pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to the man. He too was motioned through the double doors.

        As he entered the building a thudding bassline hit Victor square in the chest. He thought for a moment that maybe the band had already started playing. When he caught up with Laura, and they rounded the corner though, there was no one on the stage. There were a couple guitars, mic stands, and a drum kit surrounded by more amps and monitors than Victor could count. Laura pulled him over to a spot about 10 feet back from the left side of the stage. She kept quiet while Victor took a moment to take it all in.

        He looked all around him, failing to combat the complete sensory overload that was overtaking him. Another song came over the PA system, less intense than the first, but still just as loud. He thought he vaguely recognized the singer’s voice.

        The room itself was fairly plain. The walls black, though you could barely see them for all the flyers and graffiti. The tile floors were covered in various stains, and were chipped away in places exposing the concrete beneath.

        Victor looked up and noticed the balcony spanning the back of the venue. A few people were filling in the barstools that were set out, but in the dead center there was a solitary older man, dressed much like Laura. She noticed Victor staring, and decided to give him a bit of insight.

        “That’s Johnny Spleen,” she had to yell over the speakers. “He’s the guy that owns this place. He made some money in his band, Tiger Spleen, and came back here to jumpstart the city’s music scene.” Laura waved up at the man and he nodded back. She turned her attention back to Victor, “he’s a cool dude. He comes to every show the venue puts on. He’s the one that makes sure everything goes smoothly.” Victor just nodded, still too overwhelmed to say anything. The two stood in silence as the venue filled up. Laura talked to a few people as they passed by, but spared Victor any awkward introductions.

        Finally, the lights cut out and the crowd erupts into a jumping, shouting mass. Four shadows come out onto the stage and get their instruments ready. Spotlights erupt on the figures. They nod to each other and the drummer counts them in. They launch into the first song without a word, the stage exploding with light as they do.

        Victor’s breath catches in his chest with every beat of the kick drum. Personal space doesn’t exist as the people around him dance and jump in response to the band on stage. He isn’t sure what to do. Too awkward and unsure of himself, Victor slightly nods his head to the beat and watches. Laura is still beside him, jumping in place, screaming at the top of her lungs, fists in the air, totally uninhibited.

        Around him, Victor could see puffs of smoke rising toward the metal ceiling. The whole room was beginning to develop a strange, unpleasant odor that Victor guessed was a mixture of pot and sweat.

        To their right, a ring of people surround a mostly empty patch of dance floor. The few people still inside the circle are running into each other, pushing each other. Fists are flying in every direction, but even though they’re beating each other up they seem to be having the time of their lives. The people on the perimeter of this spectacle push back every time someone gets too close to the edge, keeping the madness at least somewhat contained.

        “It’s called a mosh pit. Lots of fun, little painful though.” Laura leaned in to yell into Victor’s ear. Mosh pit wasn’t a completely foreign term to him, but he had never seen one up close.

        Before he knew what was happening Laura grabbed him by the arm and was pulling him into the circle. “What the f--,” his words were cut off as a two-hundred-pound brute rammed into him, knocking him to the floor. Victor tasted blood. The guy stopped long enough to pick him up like a rag doll before continuing his journey of insanity around the pit.

        Victor looked around and saw Laura across the pit from him, just as care-free as ever as she slammed her body into a wall of people. Victor worked up his nerves and jumped in head first. If he felt awkward standing on the sidelines, it was nothing compared to how he felt now. His movements felt robotic and he had to fight the urge to apologize to everyone he ran into.

        The longer he was in the mosh pit, the freer he felt. All his loneliness, all his insecurities seemed to melt away with every bit of contact. He was hot, and sweating, and the whole pit smelled like a locker room. He actually began to enjoy himself. By the end of the song he was laughing as he bounced off the other people.

        The music stopped, and everyone took a breather while the band’s front man went on about the state of the government and the capitalist pigs that really ran the country. Victor bent over, hands on his knees trying to catch his breath. He was already sore, and trying to think up a story to explain the bruises to his mom when Laura walked over to him. “Come on kid, let me buy you a drink.”

        “I’m only 18, I can’t drink.”

“You can when you’ve got a twenty-one-year-old buying for you. Just stay a little ways back from the bar so it doesn’t look too suspicious.” Victor followed her to a pillar supporting the balcony where she told him to wait. Victor came back to his senses as she walked back over to him, beers in hand.

        “Why did you pull me in?” By now the music had started back and he had to yell to be heard.

        “Well you sure as hell weren’t going to jump in yourself, someone had to give you some…encouragement.”

        “I could have died!” Victor knew that he was being dramatic, but he wanted to make her feel at least a little bit bad about what she had done.

        “You weren’t in any real danger. It wouldn’t have been a real punk show for you if you hadn’t gotten in a mosh pit. It’s one of the most fundamentally punk things at a concert for fuck’s sake.”

        Victor, for the first time in a long time, felt at peace. No one in the building had been out to hurt him, or ridicule him, everyone was there to enjoy the music and just let go.

        “So are you gonna come back?”

        “Only if I get to throw you in the mosh pit next time,” the smiled at each other and he knew that he had found his place. “Also, what the hell is a crusty?”