#if your sole reason for wanting a larger model for him is because you want to simp for him but you don't like his current model? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

itgirlification · 4 years ago

Text

supermodel (2) | jjk

your story with jungkook never seems to end, yet you’re still worried about how it’s gonna end.

pairing: ex-bf!jk x thick!reader

warnings: TOXIC (i cannot stress this enough shit is hella toxic), yn is kinda (very) dumb, jungkook is an actual asshole, borderline mental abuse, infidelity, more insecuritiiiies, mentions/hints of sex, etc.

part one part three

There you were in his arms again, with only your panties and his shirt on.

At this point, you couldn’t even explain yourself. You were guilty, but you know what they say; love hurts.

With his arms wrapped around you and you clinging to him like that, you couldn’t care less about what was gonna happen next. You knew you were probably gonna have a mental breakdown when you go back to the dorms but for now, you were okay.

After he came over that night, he contacted you again. He said he didn’t want this to be serious, he wanted it to be a solely sexual relationship.

“You know, you’re the first girl I’ve been with, who seems to like getting hurt and degraded”, he sighs against your hair. “Sometimes I feel like you can’t get enough of it.”

You stayed silent. What were you supposed to do anyway? Tell him he’s right and stay like this for a while or react defensively and start an endless argument? You chose the first one.

“You’re the only woman that’d let me do all this stuff and still love me. Maybe that’s why I came back to you.”

Holding back the tears, you cling closer to his larger body, as if you were using him as some kind of shield. He thought you were an easy target and forgiving. What else would a man want from a woman he was only interested in fucking, a side piece? Even if she’s in love with him, she was gonna ignore that just to spend as much time with him as possible.

“It’s not like you actually came back.”, you responded, keeping your voice as stable as you could. “We’re just fucking.”

Jungkook sighed deeply, most likely noticing your petty undertone. “Don’t be like that. We aren’t fucking right now.”

You weren’t sure what point exactly he was trying to prove, you agreed to be his side chick. Did he think you didn’t know what a side chick was supposed to do? Because you did know, you just secretly thought you guys were meant to be, you weren’t just some side piece.

Looking around the motel room, your stomach began feeling weird. He wasn’t usually cheap, but you guessed he thought a side chick didn’t deserve a better environment than a cheap motel room rent for a night.

“Because we literally just did.”, you calmly said. You weren’t trying to piss him off.

But Jungkook wasn’t having it. Out of nowhere, he shoved you aside and put his hands over his face, noticeably frustrated.

“What happened?”, you weren't sure if asking that was the best option.

Jungkook turns his body to you. “What happened?? You keep on fucking me up and being a bitch about all this and you ask me what happened?”

He was so furious, his eyes were dark and his face was screwed up. You were now both standing, his tall figure towering over yours.

You saw his hand forming a fist and it would’ve been a lie if you said you weren’t terrified. He hasn’t touched you once throughout your relationship, but you never know.

“I didn’t even say anything. Maybe you’re just a little too sensitive.”, you were pouring salt on a wound at this point, but you didn’t want to be weak and let him talk to you like that.

“Me, sensitive?”, his tone was dangerously serene, as he leaned closer to your face. “If I wasn’t here with you, you'd probably still be crying over me. And you know where I’d be? Laying in bed with the beautiful model I have the privilege to call my girlfriend. Yn, I don’t need you. Don’t get bold with me, ‘cause we both know who’s gonna be heartbroken in the end.”

You couldn’t look him in the eyes, what did you get yourself into again? This wasn’t Jungkook’s fault, this wasn’t anybody’s fault but yours. You should’ve never opened up, you should’ve never said yes to being his side piece, you should’ve never been his girlfriend, to begin with. You stayed silent, but your loud sniffs and your uneven breathing said more than you could at the moment.

“I’m leaving.”, he announced coldly before throwing his black leather jacket over his broad shoulders, leaving you half-naked, crying on the poor-quality motel bed you just had sex on. When he got out of the motel room, you looked outside of the small window, watching him leave in the car he drove you here with.

Now, you had no other option than to call Jane to pick you up since your dorm was a half an hour walk away from the motel and you didn’t have the energy to walk for even a minute.

You weren’t sure if you had the energy for all the questions Jane was gonna ask you when she sees your mascara smeared face and your messy hair. Not to mention the motel. You weren’t a motel type of girl and she knew that.

Still, you called her and she answered almost immediately. “Yn? What happened? I thought you were gonna sleepover at your parents’?”

Sleepover at your parents’ house? You had almost forgotten the bad lie you told Jane just to have sex with Jungkook in this cheap-ass motel. And to think you were convinced you two were gonna stay the whole night.

“Uh”, you quickly coughed to cover up the voice cracks you got from crying. “Yeah, it’s a long story, please pick me up. I’ll text you the address.”

About 10 minutes later, Jane arrived and looked at you like you were out of your mind when you got into the car. “Yn, what the fuck? I was so worried about you. And this isn’t your parents’ house, this is a fucking motel. Did you meet a guy? Did he do something to you? Should I call the cops?”

“No, no, no, oh my god, please don’t”, you knew she was gonna ask a lot of questions. “I lied to you. So what actually happened was me and Jungkook reconnected an-“

She rolled her eyes. “Of course it was Jungkook. So I’m guessing he left you here?”

You hesitantly nodded.

“So when were you gonna tell me you ‘reconnected’ with him? When did you even ‘reconnect’ with him?”, she mockingly asked you. You weren’t blaming her for being pissed off, you’d have been too in this situation.

“A month ago? I think..”, you muttered.

“Hm”, Jane nodded, sighing at your naivety. “And when did he even break up with his model chick?”

You awkwardly looked away and Jane was hoping it wasn’t because of what she thought.

“He didn’t break up with her??”, Jane was beyond frustrated. “So.. you’re like his side chick now? Are we gonna stoop that low for men, yn?”

Jane always wanted the best for you and you knew she knew what was the best for you too, you were just too foolish. And too in love with a man you can’t force into loving you again.

“I know but please can we not talk about this right now? I just don’t feel like it.”, you asked, looking down on your fingers, ashamed of yourself.

“Alright, I’m sorry, babe.”, Jane hugged your side quickly, before starting the engine and heading back to the dorm. “You know I just want what’s best for you.”

You nodded, looking out of the window with your head full.

“Bella just texted me and said her birthday party will be 90s themed? Can’t she be a little more specific?”, Jane barged into the room, looking down on her phone in disbelief.

Bella was a person you two met at college in one of your shared classes. She was a sweetheart, but she was a little spoiled too. The only reason why she got into the college was that her rich daddy bribed them, but you couldn’t be mad, your parents would’ve done the same if they had the money.

She was extremely extroverted, a people person. She probably never had a boring day in her life with all the parties she threw whenever her dad and his 20 something-year-old girlfriend were on vacation or business trips. She even had some celebrity friends and would just casually post selfies with them on her Instagram story like it was a normal thing to do. She was basically living the dream, clueless about what real life for others really was about.

Jane had a love-hate relationship with Bella ever since they met. She thought Bella was a nice girl, but it was ‘unbearable’ to have a conversation with her because she was too self-centered to talk about anything else than herself.

You shrugged. “Just wear something Aaliyah would’ve worn.”

“Hm. Fair enough. It’s really not all that deep, actually.”, She said. “So what are you gonna wear?”

“I don’t even know if I’m going, Bella’s parties are boring.”, you answered honestly.

You really weren’t sure if you’d go. You did feel like seeing people and having a little fun but it wasn’t like you ever had fun at any of Bella’s parties. One time, a guy puked all over a new dress you bought just for the party, and another time, you were forced to drink 4 beer bottles. You hated beer.

“Why not? It’s gonna be fun and you’re coming.”, she decided for you, making you playfully roll your eyes. “And wear that black latex dress, I haven’t seen it on you in forever.”

To say that Jane was a fashionista would be an understatement. She was too invested in fashion to be bothered with anything else.

“Alright, but only if we don’t stay for long.”, you tried to compromise with her.

She nodded. “We gotta buy her presents though. Is there even anything she doesn’t have?”

You sighed, annoyed. “C’mon, there’s gonna be at least 200 people at that party, it’s not like she’ll notice if we just don’t get her anything. Besides, she’s rich as fuck.”

Jane snickered at your comment. “Girl, you must not know her, she checks every damn person and probably throws them out if they don’t buy her a Chanel bag or something. Bitch is a little crazy.”

It was amusing because you both knew that was exaggerated. Bella wasn't that serious about gifts. But let’s just say, for the money that her dad had, she was a little too greedy.

But you were too bothered with your own life than to worry about other's.

As soon as you arrived at Bella’s mansion, two security guards were standing in front of the door. They let you in as you showed them your invitations. It was a little bit extra, but that’s just how Bella was.

The first thing you noticed when you entered the house was the smell of sweat and weed. Already? You weren’t really surprised though.

Bella was standing there, wearing a skintight red dress that, ironically, didn’t really fit her own party’s theme. But she did look absolutely beautiful greeting her guests with the biggest smile on her glowing face. She had her strawberry blonde hair down in elegant beach curls and there were some cute butterfly clips placed in them.

You could recognize that it was her birthday from miles away. She was basically shining.

“Oh my god, Jane, Yn!! I’m so happy to see you guys!”, an overly keen Bella came, hugging you both with strength. “Oh, I see you got me something, girls you know you shouldn’t have!”

She tried hiding her smile at the bags in your hands, freeing the two of you from them immediately.

“It’s your birthday, Bella. We can’t just come here without any gifts, girl.”, Jane smiled. “Happy birthday.”

You looked to your side, admiring Jane’s acting skills. “Happy birthday, Bella! I can’t believe you’re 23 now.”

“I know right, if you were a year younger, you’d be as old as your dad’s girlfriend.”, Jane joked around, making Bella hysterically laugh.

“C’mon, almost everybody’s here already”, Bella excitedly pushed you towards the living room.

The room’s stench was even more unbearable than the one at the entrance, leaving you covering your nose for a second leaving out an ‘oof’.

The 90s trap music was heard extremely loudly through the whole house and there were people dancing and grinding. There were some couples that sat on one of the many couches, acting like they were in their own little world. It wasn’t very pleasant to watch, but you just chose to ignore it. The stench was something you couldn’t ignore though.

You were already bored out of your mind.

A few minutes of pure boredom and dry conversations passed then the music stopped playing and you could hear Bella’s voice calling for everybody’s attention. “I’m gonna open the presents now, so everybody come here and Daphne, please bring the gifts here so I can open them.”

Daphne was Bella’s personal maid. She never really talked, but she did everything she needed to. She brought all the bags to Bella one by one and you could’ve sworn she was trying not to cry out of happiness.

“Oh my god, Jackson”, She cried out as she pulled a pair of Saint Laurent shoes out of a box. “These are so beautiful. You even got the right size. Thank you so mu-“

“Bella, I’m so sorry we’re late, we had to run some errands”, a soft-spoken voice interrupted, making everybody in the room turn her way, just to see the charming model with none other than Jeon Jungkook by her side. Wow.

As soon as you turned your head to see who it was, you turned back around, looking at Jane to make sure she saw what you saw. You sent her a questioning, almost panicking look just for her to shrug.

“Yuki! It’s fine, girl. Come here, I’m opening my presents right now.”, The birthday girl exclaimed, making Yuki immediately hand her her gift.

Jungkook was just walking behind his girlfriend, making no type of noise whatsoever and you prayed he wouldn’t see you.

They sat down at an angle where you couldn’t help but look at them though and you were sure he looked at you for a split second as well. They looked beautiful together.

Bella just continued opening gifts and thanking everybody dearly, but you weren’t paying attention to that. You just zoned out for most of it. Those were a lot of gifts she got.

You couldn’t help but steal another glance at your ex-boyfriend and the girl besides him.

She looked even cuter in real life. Her cheeks had a natural blush to them and her hair was long and healthy. She was thin and her skin tone was warm and even.

You’ve always been insecure about your hyperpigmentation, but she didn’t seem to have any problems with how she looked. She was near damn perfect. Perfect wasn’t real, but if it was, it’d be her.

Jungkook probably never had a problem introducing her to his parents or his friends. You always felt like he had difficulties with that while he was dating you. He just wasn’t confrontational enough to tell you he was ashamed to have you as his girlfriend.

You seemed to be stuck in your place while everybody else was either dancing or making conversation.

Jane was sitting next to you, talking to a girl with blond box braids about a new movie that recently came out. You heard what they were saying, but it sounded like a foreign language to you since you weren’t focused.

“Yn? Are you okay?”, Jane whispered in your ear, hugging your shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know they were invited.”

You shook your head. “It’s fine, Jane. It’s not your fault, I just kind of wanna go home.”

She looked at you apologetically. “Can’t we stay for a little while? I promise it won’t take long, I’m just actually having fun here.”

You had to admit you were being selfish, not just in that moment, but whenever it came to Jungkook. You’ve dragged Jane through all of your shit and never really thought about how she must feel like.

Nodding in response to her. “I’m gonna get myself something to drink.”

You finally stood up from your place, looking around unsure, feeling like you’re taking up so much space wherever you go, even when you were doing absolutely nothing.

You wore the latex dress, but only because Jane insisted and made sure you knew you looked good. She convinced you for maybe a second, but all those insecurities were coming back. You tried sucking in your stomach the whole night, but it just wasn’t enough.

You were asking yourself all kinds of questions. If your arms looked too fat and if your cellulite was visible, if your hip-dips were as noticeable to others as they were to you. You felt like everybody was looking and they were judging really hard.

All you wanted was to fade into oblivion.

You were feeling his eyes on your back and god, you wanted to look too but you fought the urge, just continued walking to the bathroom. You weren’t in the mood to drink after all.

Your gut feeling was telling you he was following, but you ignored it.

Until you were about to close the bathroom door and you saw black timberlands stepping between the door and the doorframe to stop you from closing it.

You sighed, opening the door, resulting in him getting in the bathroom with you.

“Why are you avoiding me?”, the handsome man facing you asked, brown eyes looking deep inside of yours.

“How can I avoid you when you didn’t even try talking to me?”, you asked back, looking away immediately.

You hated how your relationship was just a cycle of him hurting you and coming back, acting like he hadn’t done anything wrong. And he was so good at it too.

He chuckled darkly, letting his eyes glide down your body for a second just to look back into your eyes. “You know exactly what I mean, yn. Don’t play dumb.”

You did know what he meant.

“And? It’s not like I have anything to say to you.”

Jungkook came closer to you, softly wrapping one arm around your waist, whispering in your ear. “You don’t?”

You couldn’t believe how shameless he was, being so close to you while his girlfriend was a few meters away, outside of this door, probably thinking he’s getting her a drink or something. You wondered if he did the same thing to you when you were dating.

“Jungkook, stop. Your girlfriend is here.”, you tried to convince yourself you didn’t want it. “How can you even do this?”

“It’s nothing we haven’t done before, princess.”, He kissed your earlobe. “You can’t possibly think it’s okay when she’s not around, but not okay when she is. It’s the same thing.”

You knew he was right, besides, you were just as guilty as he was. You were messing around with a taken guy and the worst part was, you knew he was taken and you still did it.

“I know, but I wanna end whatever this is”, you hesitated to say. “It’s unhealthy and you already have a girlfriend, why don’t you go and kiss her, why me?”

You were avoiding this conversation ever since this started. Sometimes it’s hard talking about things you don’t actually want to hear about.

“What do you mean?”, Jungkook feigned confusion, but you knew better than to believe him. “It’s easier said than done, yn. We have a history together, you know that.”

“I do, but that’s all we are. History. And we should both get over it.”, you responded.

“But what if I don’t want to?”, it was more of a statement than a question, really. “What if I told you, you’re special to me?”

You were gonna have a meltdown if he continued with this. Why was he so fucking complicated? You knew he didn’t love you so what was it?

“But I’m not. The only reason why you come back is because you think I’m easy material. It’s because you were my first everything and it’s because you know exactly how much you mean to me.”, you cry out, tears coming up to ruin your makeup again. You wished you wouldn’t cry as much as you did. “You know I’ll always let you in, no matter what. I know I’m at fault too here and I’m not blaming you, but please for god’s sake, don’t make it worse on me.”

You looked in the mirror, almost not recognizing yourself. You felt detached from reality, but not in a good way at all.

Jungkook scoffed, looking down at you. “I know I shouldn’t have tried talking to you. It’s like you can’t even appreciate anybody showing you affection. I’m trying to prove to you, that you aren’t nothing to me and that’s the response that I get. Not everybody’s against you, yn, you’re just too insecure to notice. That’s why you haven’t ever had anybody showing you interest. It’s because you lack confidence and think the world revolves around you. But I did show you interest. In the past and now. But look at you. You haven’t changed at all, still the little yn who compares herself to other girls and thrives off of male attention, because you can’t believe that somebody could love you just for you when there’s skinnier, prettier girls walking around. So what if there are skinnier, prettier girls around? That’s reality, yn.”

You didn’t know what exactly you expected him to say, but that wasn’t it. Looking at him with big, teary eyes, is that really what he thought of you? Of course, it was. Because it was the truth. The cold, hard truth. Not sugarcoated. He knew you better than you wanted him to.

Without a single word leaving your dry lips, you open the door and run out, ignoring him calling your name and the weird stares people were giving you. You needed to find Jane.

Once you found her joking around with a bunch of random people, you go up to her. You most likely looked like you came out of a horror movie.

“Yn? What the fuck happened?”, she lightly took your face in her warm hands and caressed your cheek worriedly.

“Pl- please, can we just go home?”, you whimpered, thankful that everybody was respectful enough to turn around and focus on their stuff instead of ogling at you.

“Sure, sure. Come here”, she took you in her arms and walked you out of the mansion, not caring to say goodbye to anybody.

people who wanted to get tagged in pt. 2:

@1-in-abillion @sarcasmflowsinmyveins @chieftoadturkeynickel @madygswich @kb-bangtanenthusiast

thank you for the support love yall!! 💗

a/n: so i know most of yall probably wanted a happy ending but first of all this probably isn’t the ending:) and i wanted to portray it as realistically as possible. It’s really hard to get out of a toxic relationship especially when you’re so in love with them but i’ll see what i can do to make yn happy cuz girly’s going thru it. Btw this wasn’t proofread so there’s probably so many mistakes and i thought this was very underwhelming but i hope you guys like it thank you!

460 notes · View notes

hes-writer · 4 years ago

Text

pov

Summary: y/n wants to know how it feels to love herself

Warnings: tw weight, angst, and a bit of fluff

Word Count: 1468 words

Pairings: plus size!reader x harry

Based on: “For all of my pretty, and all of my ugly too. I’d love to see me from your point of view” - pov, Ariana Grande

A/N: heavy themes on this one! please read the warnings

______

Y/N had always stuck out when she was in school.

She was that one girl who was thicker in circumference than other girls. The one who had a double chin without meaning to and the one who had chubby fingers that ‘looked like stubby carrots’ as one mean guy, Jamie, told her during kindergarten. Her cheeks appeared to be full—puffed out—with or without food.

Sometimes it made her blush because people often pointed out how cute she was because of it. Other times—which is most of the time—Y/N blushed because her cheekbones were practically non-existent. Contour couldn’t even save her as it only caused a breakout of tiny pimples to litter her sensitive skin.

Don’t even get her started on her arms—how flappy they were whenever she raised them. Or the way her watch had to be stretched out at the last cut hole around her wrist. She hated how everything looked on her.

“It’s okay, Y/N. He knows you’re a big girl,” She mumbled to herself, stretching the elastic of the sports bra just below her breasts. The fabric was already digging into her thick skin and causing marks to form.

Harry had invited Y/N to work out with him this morning. She thought that it was a fleeting dream, probably because Y/N was half-asleep when he raised the question. But the way Harry eagerly shook her figure awake this morning was a sign that it was reality and Y/N would have to face a very fit Harry while he faced at a not-so-fit her.

They had been together for a year now. Y/N was doubtful of her figure in clothing that did nothing to hide her ‘chunky’ silhouette. She opted for loose sweaters and high-waisted jeans most of the time. Shorts were rarely worn for the first few months of their relationship because Y/N couldn’t even imagine what Harry’s reaction would be like upon seeing her legs. Though, Harry always seemed to prove her wrong when his jaw ripped ajar and he practically salivated at the sight of them.

Y/N was aware that Harry knew that she did not look like the stick-thin models that he had a history of dating. She wasn’t the ‘normal’ size with the perfect ratio of boobs to bum, paired with a flat stomach. The fact was, Y/N had a larger chest and a thicker bottom, but that also meant that her stomach would bulge out, especially when she was bloated.

It took sometime for Y/N to be completely comfortable with herself. Even then, acceptance was a rollercoaster of loving and hating her body depending on how she felt.

Y/N was more comfortable with Harry reaching out to touch her waist. At first, Y/N would immediately shield her middle with an arm draped across or completely flinch back in fear of Harry touching any of her squishy fat. The questioning look he gave her almost made Y/N feel guilty. Now, she would only tense up for a few seconds, holding her breath to suck her tummy in before relaxing because this was Harry.

Harry never gave Y/N a reason to doubt herself. He supported her in every diet she planned to spearhead and comforted her when it didn’t exactly work out the way she wanted it to. Harry was there to take care of her when she felt too dizzy to move because she refused to take another bite solely because she went over her calorie limit for the day. He was the one with worried brows when Y/N would stare at herself in the bathroom mirror, wondering why nothing had changed when she was working so hard. Or, it felt like it.

Harry was also there for her when Y/N squealed in happiness at the sight of the scale showcasing a number that has decreased from the last time she was on it. He saw first hand how Y/N’s eyes brightly lit up from the smile on her face. The fondness of his green eyes prevailed because he was so so proud of her. Small steps.

——

Y/N was not too keen on working out with Harry because he had never seen her in that state before.

As silly as it sounds, Y/N had managed to steer Harry away when she was jogging on the treadmill or doing stationary workouts. If she didn’t like the way she looked, sweaty and out of breath, why would he?

Being in work out clothes didn’t make it any better either. He would see every crunch of her stomach fold as she struggled to do a sit up whereas he could continuously do some without a hitch in his breath. Y/N was sure that she would stumble somehow because of her stubby legs while Harry would be stoic because he was light.

And although Y/N was working on her technique, she would still get out of breath after about a minute.

It was just too . . . embarrassing to witness.

A knock on the door sounded rapidly before the door opened, revealing Harry in his short sleeved t-shirt and athletic shorts. A sweatband was keeping his curls away from his face.

‘You ready, sweetheart?” He questioned, standing behind her with his chin on her plush shoulder and hands running over the skin of her arms.

Y/N caught his gaze through the mirror. Sad, droopy eyes doing once over at her reflection before shaking her head ‘no’.

“I-I can’t let you see me like this,” Y/N admitted shyly, tugging on the band once more to snap it back in place. “I don’t look very nice,”

Harry pursed his lips in a thin line, roaming his hands over her stomach. Y/N winced at the closeness of his touch, inching her hand to grab at his. Though, Harry was quick to catch them.

“No, listen to me, Y/N,” He stared at her down. His breath was hitting her damp neck and she nodded nervously. “I do not care what you look like. You look beautiful to me everyday; with makeup without make up. In sweatpants or in skinny jeans. I don’t care,”

Y/N opened her mouth to respond because ‘that’s not really how you think of me’, she thought.

“It’s true,” Harry shrugged. “‘Know ya’ don’t believe me but it’s true. Love the way you’re plush on your stomach and everywhere else,”

Y/N laughed sarcastically, “You’re lying. There’s no way—look at me!”

“I am,” He said sternly, turning her around so that they could be face-to-face. “I’m looking at you right now, no?” Harry tilted his head to the side, raising an arm to thumb away the tears pooling beneath her eyes.

“Y-you just—how can you love me when I don’t even love myself? I can’t even look at myself in the mirror without crying,”

Harry’s heart broke with the withering sound of Y/N’s voice. Her words and tone held a truthfulness that pained him to no end. He couldn’t imagine the hatred Y/N felt for herself. Harry wished that he could make her see how beautiful she was.

“S’cause you’re not looking properly, love,” He whispered. His thumb stroked her cheek, hating the way her mouth drooped in a frown a little ways away. “Y’looking at yourself and finding things to hate,”

“There’s nothing to love, is there?”

Harry shook his head, grasping her jaw to look at her in the eye.

“There’s everything to love,” He pulled Y/N in for a hug. The feeling of her bare skin in his instantly warming his chest, toasting any sort of dilemma into a fuzzy feeling. “I wish you’d see it too,”

Y/N nodded in agreement, sniffling against his chest, “How do you do it, H?”

“Do what?”

“Love me,” She sighed, giving in to his embrace and wrapping her arms around his body. “For all of my pretty, which I doubt, and all of my ugly—you just accept everything about me. I jus’ wanna know how it feels like to love myself like you. . . like you love me,”

Harry’s heart practically melted at the whisper of her last few words—barely audible. But nonetheless, it warmed his heart that Y/N knew that she was loved. Y/N traced random patterns on his chest, zeroing in on the action to distract her from her shot of vulnerability.

“That’s how love works, no? Y’love someone despite what they think—despite what everybody thinks because it’s jus’ you and your person,”

_____

I love you guys.

#harry styles one shot #harry styles imagine #harry styles x reader #harry styles writing #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles blurb #Harry styles fanfic #tw weight

345 notes · View notes

canyouhearthelight · 3 years ago

Text

The Miys, Ch. 149

So, I was super busy on my normal queueing day and wasn’t able to set this up. And by ‘super busy’ I mean ‘doing laundry, weeding flower beds, and taking several naps’, bc I have upwards of 24 niblings and a super-full time job that make me exhausted.

I’m not kidding, I recently told @baelpenrose “I had a birthday party to go to, yes it’s the third Saturday in a row, don’t worry about keeping track because there are SO MANY”.

What doesn’t make me exhausted? Y’all. The likes, the comments, the reblogs, the ‘hey, this person reads my stuff AND Bael’s stuff’ ( @feral-possums-in-the-bog, @drbibliophile, looking at you in a very loving way). Also the speedrunners... all of you who have ever, at any point, found this fic and decided to read every single chapter as quickly as possible ( and have or haven’t shamed me for needing to update the masterpost or page links), you keep me going like nothing else. I, too, like a good binge read, so I know I’ve done something worth... something... when someone else binges like that.

“So the Ark is semi-organic?” I glanced over and resisted the urge to trail my fingers along the walls of the corridor.

“That would be the closest Terran approximation, yes,” they confirmed. “It is not sentient in any form, but all exposed surfaces, for example, are grown in-place of a material native to our home planet.”

“So cool,” I whispered. “Is there a benefit to that, aside from being more sustainable?”

Noah rubbed two liw alongside their sensory organs, and let out a soft buzz - essentially rubbing their face with a sigh. “It is very rare for any species that achieves sentience to reach a level of technology that allows for faster than light travel without what you refer to as sustainability being included in every aspect of their culture.”

“Oh.” I felt ashamed and focused on my feet for a few steps, paying close attention to the feeling of the deck plating through my soles, any uneven textures that I came across turning into canyons of perception.

“In the case of the material coating the surfaces of the Ark,” Noah continued, clearly picking up on my discomfort, “it serves a largely hygienic function, much as Else currently provides.”

“So, that’s what Xio was referring to when she said that Hujylsogox ships largely decontaminate themselves?”

“Indeed. Where my species absorbs impurities from the air and any surfaces we come in contact with, the lining of the corridors, rooms, and vents can purify the rest within a Galactic week.” That worked out to eleven and two-third days as we currently measured them on the Ark, or fourteen and a half days on Earth. “Biofiltration is a very common way to sanitize spaces that often house multiple species to avoid destructive interactions, although the coating we use is known to be the most efficient organic solution.”

Surrendering, I ran my fingers over the wall. Even knowing that it was grown, it still felt like sandstone under my touch. “If it is so efficient, why don’t the Ekomari use it on their ships?”

Their fingers on both vomu clacked as they tapped them together. “In absence of another organism to ingest the larger particulates, sypo is what you would consider to be too efficient.”

“Feathers clog it up?”

“Like you would not believe,” they hummed deeply - a groan, clear as day. “It actually ends up starving the sypo.”

Unbidden, my mind’s eye flashed back to the nightmares that Else had shown me early on: large flakes of the walls falling away and littering the corridor floors. “So, that was a very real thing?” There didn’t seem to be any reason to clarify, given how clearly the images had blared in my head.

“Correct. We believe that Else understood the nature of the material and was trying to show you what was happening in a way they thought you would understand.” A heavy liw gently patted my shoulder. “They meant well, even if they did not realize that it would backfire.”

I was about to ask what the Ekomari use in place of sypo as a biofilter, but my databand signaled me. Judging by the fact that it chimed, flashed, and vibrated against the bones in my wrist, this was incredibly urgent. “I’m sorry, Noah, one mom - ah, fuck…” Pinching the bridge of my nose, I mentally braced myself for what I knew would be coming in the next several days.

“Wisdom, you are distressed.”

“Departmental notification from Pranav and Zach that they will be doing system security testing over the next week. Which means Derek will be doing his best to hack into our systems and take them out, while Pranav and Zach take notes of vulnerabilities and then fix them afterward.”

The face-rubbing sigh was back. “They are not including basic ship functions in this testing, correct?”

I shook my head, relieved that I could at least provide that assurance. “Negative. Only the systems that humans will be replicating on our own once we are on Von.”

“This is still terribly inconvenient. These tests increase tension across the Ark to quite difficult levels to be around.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. It’s mostly from what happened Before, at least for the older members of the crew. I mean, we got a Global Parliament out of it, but… there were a scary few years before we got there. And then the End happened, and the hack felt like some kind of warning looking back.”

Noah buzzed thoughtfully. “You are speaking of the gap in data we found when we were trying to download your planetary database.”

A part of me wanted to laugh at the fact that Miys continued to refer to the internet as a ‘planetary database’, but the topic was so upsetting that any kind of joy felt obscene right then. “It was… another terrorist attack, honestly. They weren’t unusual, as terrifying as that is - I mean, you admitted yourself that not all of us were worth saving. There was a petrochemical hack maybe five years before this one, and the attacks had been ramping up slowly even before that. But this one.” I shook my head trying to clear the thoughts from my head. “What we were told is that this group knew we would never take action against climate change, something about how the rich corporate would never take it seriously until they had to actually live in the nature they were destroying.”

“You are doubtful of this.” Noah’s statement was far from being a question.

Couldn’t blame him, since I didn’t believe half of what we had been told, or maybe that it was only half the story. “I wasn’t old enough to remember, but it is a recorded fact that there were actual people on Earth who had more wealth than any single country on the planet, and one was particularly known for building his fortune on the backs of employees who were worked to death or nearly to death. It’s hard to believe that had nothing to do with it, you know.”

“If being reminded of this event causes such distress among your people, why run so many tests?”

“The hack killed people, Noah. It destroyed entire small countries, caused a lot of violence and wars. The ultra-rich may have been the targets, but the casualties were mostly people who never knew what was happening. We want to make sure it can’t happen again. That’s why we warn everyone what’s going on, so they know it’s not the same thing, but still do the testing.”

More clattering of vomu signaled Noah thinking again. “Your global economy depended strongly on the concept of wealth and the concept of money. But with the current economic model you exercise, such a data security breach would not impact it.”

I shrugged. “We still worry. Not to mention the fact that, at some point, someone may try. We can try all we want to avoid the catalyst of the original events, but some of our better qualities can be just as terrible with just a twist. Curiosity, confidence, and justice and easily turn into pride, vindictiveness, and prying. Which can lead to blackmail. And that’s just one example. Still sure we’re worth it?”

Another thoughtful buzz with some mild clicking. “I have seen your people endeavor to save a species that could have destroyed you. I have seen you, specifically, mourn someone who deliberately attempted to end not only your life but the lives of the entire Ark. There is much evidence to give us faith in your compassion.”

All I could do was shake my head. “I’ll try to have faith in your faith,” I murmured with a weak smile.

<< Prev Masterlist Next >>

#the miys #found family #humans are weird #science fiction #aliens #apocalypse #humans are space orcs #humans are space fae #earth is space australia #post apocalypse #post post apocalypse #original science fiction #original sci fi #original writing

53 notes · View notes

chibi-pix · 5 years ago

Text

VLD AU - Wishes

Another lovely installation of the mermaid Pidge AU! And with an illustration a little ways into the tale. Well! Enjoy the 2,350+ ficlet in the “keep reading” below.

Pidge looked up at the stars. She knew she couldn’t always have Lance around, he had to return home so people didn’t go looking for him and accidentally find her, it was understandable, but she couldn’t help but miss him when he wasn’t with her. She wondered if this was how others felt when they were in love and couldn’t spend time together.

Love. Weren’t they just friends, though? She was friends with Hunk and Keith, too. But Lance, she felt something different with him. Sure, it was nice listening to Hunk and Keith when they spoke about their interests, but when Lance did, she just listened completely, her attention solely on him; when she would talk about what she liked, he did the same. She liked how he would go out of his way to explain something and she loved the gifts he brought and would put together for her. She loved the different models he had set up in her cave, finding those to be her favourite ones.

She loved the way that Lance was so relaxed around her, able to fall asleep in her hand or on her chest. She never minded, she even thought he was cute when he did that, and she often would find herself singing to him, letting the music give him good dreams. And he even met Matt! Sure, he was understandably nervous about the much larger mer, but he handled the situation fairly well.

Is it… because he likes me, too? Is that why? She thought, thinking of how her parents had told her before that sometimes others will put up with things that they may not like or that frighten them because of someone they love. Can we even be together? I’ve heard stories about others having once been with humans before our ancestors hid themselves, but… they’re all smaller… I’m… She looked herself over. Large. She was enormous. Sure, she wasn’t nearly as big as her parents or brother, but she was still massive, especially compared to humans. To Lance. He was so small compared to her, she could easily hold him in the palm of one hand.

Pidge looked up, watching as a star… no, it was a piece of debris, a meteoroid she recalled Lance informing her, that fell. She then closed her eyes. “I wish I could be closer to Lance�� if anything can grant my wish… please… please… I just want to be with him more. Hold him in my arms, not my hands…” she whispered. She opened her eyes again before sighing. She then dove back down, returning to the ship she had her collection and home in. She went to one of the emptier areas and snuggled down in the bottom, looking to the wing from Shiro’s plane.

It may have been Shiro’s plane, but it was because of that plane and Shiro that Lance went looking for her. Alongside the models Lance had gifted her, this was her favourite in her collection. It may have been simple, but it was this simple thing that helped to start their friendship that she hoped was blooming into love.

I wish… I wish… to be with… Lance… she thought as she drifted off to sleep, smiling for she knew Lance was coming back to visit her.

-+-+-+-

“Quit grinning like that. It’s creeping me out.” Keith commented as he sailed out with Lance. “What’s got you so excited anyway?”

“Probably because he’s gonna see his girlfriend?” Hunk smirked, clearly teasing Lance.

“What?” Lance exclaimed. “She’s… she’s not my girlfriend. Just… you know… a girl… and a friend… and...” He was blushing and did his best to hide it. Seeing that, both Hunk and Keith grinned. Yup. Their friend definitely had a crush on the curious mermaid.

“Oh yeah, he likes her.” Hunk sang a bit.

“Falling in love with a cryptid… actually sounds nice.” Keith hummed.

Lance scowled. He did want to make a comment about this being different than Keith’s obsession with Mothman, but if Pidge could exist, why not Mothman? “Anyway! A crush is… tricky right now.”

“A big issue, you might say?” Hunk inquired. Okay, if Lance was sometimes annoyed by Keith’s obsession with cryptids and conspiracy theories, then Hunk’s puns took the cake.

“Really?” Lance inquired, though Keith was snickering a bit.

“Hey, you opened the door to that one, I just walked through.” Hunk defended himself. “Anyway, so what if she’s bigger than you. Much… much bigger. You can still like her, right?”

“Well… yeah…” Lance nodded. He then looked out to the ocean. “Hmm… odd… Isn’t Pidge supposed to be here by now?” He wondered if her brother stopped her. He was definitely the protective sort. Well, that was to be expected, it just meant he cared for his little sister. Mermaids and humans alike, it was nice seeing siblings look out for each other; it showed that their species weren’t too different from one another.

“Maybe she got held up?” Keith suggested.

“Lance? Lance!” The three humans looked. They heard Pidge, but they didn’t see her. They then checked over the side of the boat where Pidge’s voice was. And there she was… but much, much smaller. She did her best to smile when she saw Lance look over the edge, but she looked so panicked. “Lance… I… I don’t...”

“Holy crow… Pidge is… smaller...” Hunk whispered.

“Hold on, I’m coming down.” Lance assured, getting up on the railing and diving off and near Pidge. When he came up, she was quickly against him, hugging him and crying. “It’s okay, Pidge, I’m here. I’ve got you.” he assured, putting his arms around her. Wow. She was actually small enough for him to do that. It was both amazing… and frightening. What happened? How did she get so small? “Do you know how this happened?”

“No.” Pidge shook her head. “All I know is I went to sleep last night, but when I woke this morning, I was all… tiny. Everything is so much bigger than me...”

And that scared her. Pidge was probably used to being one of the biggest creatures out there, suddenly being so small terrified her. He couldn’t blame her for her emotions. Creatures she probably hunted and ate probably saw her as prey now. The ocean was much larger, she probably couldn’t get from one spot to another as quickly as she used to.

“What about Matt? Did you talk to him about this?” he asked softly.

“No… I… I didn’t go look for him… he goes to deeper waters usually...” Pidge mumbled. Deeper waters. It was probably more dangerous to a mermaid who was so small. “I’m so scared… I don’t know what to do...”

And the ocean was dangerous. “Okay, we’ll think of something… we’ve got to.” Lance said. “I mean, you can probably stay close to my place.”

“Um… voice of reason here.” Hunk got their attention. He missed the part about Matt, the two spoke too softly for that, but Lance’s tone was normal again when he made his suggestion. “But the odds of someone noticing Pidge there are very likely. I mean, I get she’s somehow stayed hidden all this long, but...”

“Quiznak… you’re right!” Lance groaned.

Keith was watching them before he spoke up. “Why not the villa?” he suggested. Lance and Hunk gave him questioning and are you serious looks. “Okay, hear me out. She’s small enough, she should fit in the bathtub, right? And it’s just us who lives there.” Sure, they had family near, but the three were given the chance to live alone and pay rent from their part-time work with AARC and the tasks they do there. It was seen as great training for when they may take off to live alone. Or continue to live there, have their own private place on the islands and close to family and friends at AARC. “She can use your room’s bathtub, Lance; it’s upstairs and out of the way, the odds of even Allura stumbling upon her would be low.”

“What about Matt?” Pidge whispered.

“I’ll find him and explain, but you don’t have to go to the villa if you don’t want to.” Lance responded just as softly. He then nodded. “If you want to go to the villa, we can help you there, help find out what happened, and help keep you safe. If you don’t, we’ll still find a way to help you.”

Go with Lance? To his home? Sure, he shared it with Keith and Hunk, but… Lance lived there. Lance may not have noticed, but her cheeks took on an even darker green as she blushed, the webbing of her ears getting stiffer. “You’ll… you’ll look for Matt at times? And let him know?”

“If he doesn’t find and eat me first.” Lance teased, getting Pidge to giggle. Oh good, he could still make her laugh in her tense situation. “But yes, I will. I’ll try to go out a few times a week at least, just to find him. He’ll probably be looking for you, too, so it shouldn’t be too hard.”

Pidge nodded. “Okay… because this is… scary.” she admitted.

“We can get the boat to the small dock near the villa.” Lance nodded. “I dock there all the time, no one will think anything of it.”

“I can go in and check, make sure Allura’s not visiting, then let you know if it’s clear, then you guys can bring Pidge up.” Keith added.

“Sounds like a plan.” Lance nodded. “Right, Pidge?” Pidge nodded in agreement, trusting Lance and his friends to keep her safe. “Well, let’s get you on board and get back to the island then; if you need back in the water, just let us know, okay?” he asked, swimming around the boat to the gap in the railing so they could get on board. Hunk met them there and helped get Pidge on board, being careful of her fins so he didn’t get hit or hurt her.

“Um… question, can she even be in a fresh water tub?” Hunk asked.

“Fresh water?” Pidge asked. “Isn’t water water?”

“Oh boy...” Lance blinked. He really hoped they wouldn’t need to find a way to get the bathtub’s water to have the right salinity levels for Pidge. Well, they would find out soon enough. He captained his boat to the small dock, typically used to jump off of and swim in the water, but sometimes Lance used it if he decided to not dock at one of the main AARC buildings.

When Keith gave them the all clear, Hunk and Lance worked together, picking Pidge up and carrying her together. It wasn’t that she was heavy, but rather she was still fairly long and they didn’t want her dragging and getting hurt. When they entered the house, Pidge looked around curiously.

A house. A villa, as they called it, but it was still a home. And it was definitely different from caves used by others in the sea. It was really… peaceful. And she liked seeing the photos lining the wall the stairs went up. She soon found herself being brought through Lance’s room.

Blue. Of course it was blue. It looked nice. And it was a bit cluttered, too, though he managed to keep it as tidy as possible. Video games and plush toys alike, the toys were cute, depicting sea life. He really does love the ocean. She thought, her ears twitching happily. And then came the bathroom, blue definitely being a theme for Lance.

“I got the water started.” Keith said. “Pidge, is it fine? Too warm? Too cold?”

Pidge reached. A little cool but very comfortable. “It’s perfect.” she said. Carefully, Hunk and Lance lowered her into the tub and Keith put in a stopper, letting it fill up. Once it was full enough with Pidge in it, the water was turned off. “It’s comfy. And it feels safe here.” Pidge hummed, making herself comfortable. “It feels different from the ocean, but nice. My skin feels smoother in here. And my gills do just fine.”

“So the freshwater isn’t bad?” Lance asked, sitting on the edge of the tub.

“Not bad.” Pidge assured with a nod before putting her head under the surface. Yup. This was nice.

Lance smiled. “Well, you can stay as long as you need to.” he assured, the mermaid nodding, clearly hearing him. “I’m going to step out for a bit, okay? Want me to go to the market and get some fish? Or go fishing?” Another nod, this time more eager. Ah, she must have skipped eating in her panic. “Okay, we’ll do that.” He stood back up before lowering the shower curtain. “So you can close it more easily if you want privacy. We won’t be gone long.”

Pidge lifted her head back up. “Be safe. Come back soon.” she said.

Lance blushed deeply. “Yeah. Will do.” He nodded before leaving the bathroom, letting Pidge pull the curtain shut. “Holy crow...”

“Your girlfriend is living in your bathtub… have fun sleeping at night, buddy.” Keith patted Lance’s back.

“Good luck.” Hunk chuckled.

“Anyway… let’s go get some food for Pidge, she’s probably hungry.” Lance sighed, nudging his friends away. He couldn’t help but smile, even with their teasing. Maybe… maybe it is possible for us to really be together. He thought to himself. But I need to also help her find out what happened… and find Matt to let him know what’s going on; he’d be worried about her.

Inside the bathroom, happily in the tub, Pidge hummed to herself. Her situation was frightening, but she had good friends. Hunk and Keith were very helpful. As was Lance. Lance was amazing, kind… perfect. I’m his size now, too. She added as a thought. It’s not so bad when I think about that part. And I can be close to him. Maybe… maybe my wish came true? She shrugged before shutting her eyes, letting herself doze off in the safe, cool waters and the room that she realized smelled like Lance. It made her feel even safer.

Just as he trust me to keep him safe in the ocean, I trust him to keep me safe here.

Well, here you guys go. And it’s official that Pidge is small! Though how and why, we’ll find out another time. 😉 But now we know that her fitting in the bathtub is official and it’s not just me making people happy with the same size for Plance moments.

Also, as a reminder, installations most likely will be out of order (as they have been before). I write what comes to mind, so I don’t have a full/actual timeline, though it can be relatively easy to guess.

Anyway! Until the next part!

#Pidge #Pidge Gunderson #Lance #mermaid!pidge #mermaid pidge #mer!pidge #mer pidge #mermaid au #VLD #Voltron legendary defender #alternate universe #plance #pidgance #ficlet #fanfiction

29 notes · View notes

arecomicsevengood · 5 years ago

Text

COMICS BLOGGING OF A RAMBLING AND DIGRESSIVE SORT

I am embarrassed to admit it, but I do believe I buy things as a way of coping with my own uselessness. I’d like to attribute a universality to this character flaw, and claim everyone spends money on things they don’t need to fill some sort of existential void at the center of their being. My habits are relatively healthy, some people get shitfaced in response to the stimuli that makes me simply want meat, cheese, and carbohydrates. I have at various times read books at a pace comparable to eating, where everything got finished to make way for something else, but just because “reading books” is viewed as something good for your brain doesn’t make the act of buying them feel any less like a bit of brainless consumerism, especially when one is broke, and a global depression looms. Still, considering my worries that the postal service and retail outlets might go away if we do not support them and this will make life even more unbearable I convinced myself now was not the time to be a spendthrift.

All this is to explain why I bought a handful of comics I wasn’t sure I even expected to be good. Namely, I bought a bunch of issues of Alan Moore’s Tom Strong that I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d read before. I intended to parcel them out and savor them, but when I buy snacks at the grocery store, they get eaten faster than the vegetables. I bought these, along with some other single issue comics, from wowcool.com. From Powell’s, I preordered the first volume of Taiyo Matsumoto’s Ping Pong, which should arrive in a few weeks. I also ordered a few new releases direct from Fantagraphics.

Most notable among these is the Olivier Schrauwen/Ruppert And Mulot collaboration Portrait Of A Drunk. I’m on record as liking all the artists involved, and this one demonstrates why pretty clearly: While Olivier Schrauwen specializes in comedy about dumb guys, itself a form close to my heart, Ruppert And Mulot are darker and meaner, so here the dumb guy is an indifferent murderer. Being set in a pirate milieu allows for pretty amazing sequences of action and hallucination to flourish, their skills at color and composition tie it all together. Highly recommended. The back of the book announces Fantagraphics will be publishing the Ruppert And Mulot books made in collaboration with Bastien Vives starting next year. Hopefully I will end up reading comics by people other than my known favorites this year, but during a period of belt-tightening, there’s no guarantee even one’s favorites will live up to the increasingly-burdensome expectations put upon them.

Still, those Tom Strong comics outperformed my expectations. I believe I discussed how much I like Chris Sprouse’s work when I wrote about Alan Moore’s Supreme run, but let me reiterate: There’s a handful of comics Sprouse drew in the early nineties (A Batman annual with a Two-Face story written by Andy Helfer, an eighty-page Justice League Quarterly story, the first few issues of Legionnaires) which are emblematic of a certain DC Comics skillset I really value: This George Perez style ability to draw a lot of characters, rendered with this Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez spareness, this Kevin Maguire sense of facial expressions, a certain openness to the faces which is youthful and attractive and optimistic. There’s something similar to Graham Nolan’s art too: I don’t know how much other people like this stuff, it’s not really “cool” or gnarly looking, but there’s an unobtrusive cleanliness I associate with the DC “vibe” of this era, which I find vastly more appealing than the sort of post-Image-studios runoff that was their standard look more recently. As much as I love a good stylist, his is a good house style variant. Considering that, it rules that Tom Strong is what Chris Sprouse is known for. Those early nineties comics all have a lot of panels per page, but Moore, working in a post-Image mode, lets him breathe and do action sequences. He’s not an explosive artist, his drawing has this sort of style-guide quality to it, that feels perfect for the sort of “platonic ideal of a mainstream genre comic” tone that their collaborations aim for.

Reading these comics, I realized a few things: One, I hadn’t actually read them before. Two, they’re twenty years old. The years have been kind to them, in that I spent them aging, and while I was really into Top Ten and Promethea as a teenager, I still suspect that if Tom Strong is your favorite Alan Moore comic you are probably a dad. There’s a heavily nostalgic quality to all the genre pastiche going on, and its anchored by this character who is pretty upstanding, possessing this sort of all-seeing but benevolent competence aspect, and the storytelling affirms his liberal values. Peaceful coexistence is treated as preferable to violent conflict. It’s the work where Moore’e desire to issue a corrective to what he sees as a negative influence he had is most evident, it genuinely seems to be trying to be morally instructive to a young audience. I don’t think any of these things are bad, but it’s pretty easy to see how, reading the issues as they came out, many of them would register as somewhat bland. I seem to recall comic book writers at this time like Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, and Mark Millar all deriding what they called “dad comics,” not necessarily talking about Tom Strong, as a way of hyping up their own efforts, many of which I followed more avidly at the time but do not expect would hold up nearly as well. (There’s an issue that’s a homage to old Captain Marvel Family comics, featuring a few pages of Kyle Baker art, I particularly enjoyed.)

After being reminded that Moore is a great writer, and never forgetting for a second we live in dark times, it felt appropriate to read From Hell again. I texted a friend and found he had started rereading it at the same time. I don’t consider it Moore’s masterpiece the way that contrarians that don’t want to give the nod to Watchmen do. While the darkness feels organic to the subject matter in a way it often doesn’t in Moore’s eighties superhero work, I do feel the whole “Jack The Ripper gives birth to the twentieth century” thing is a bit of a reach. I believe I will end up reading some of Eddie Campbell’s solo comics before quarantine is over, I am impressed by how organic the pacing feels, how natural it progresses while largely avoiding calling attention to Moore as a writer. The skill set that enables Moore to do a densely researched historical conspiracy thing is evident when he does a genre serial. Many of the elements in Tom Strong do not feel like they are imagined from whole cloth so much as they feel appropriated from various sources and then connected into this larger whole. The “peaceful coexistence” remit of Tom Strong allows for a structure where stories that seems tossed-off come back into play as plot elements. You rarely receive this kind of payoff from extended serials, but it’s built into the structure of screenwriting, and it is satisfying to retroactively realize like you weren’t having your time wasted when you thought you were.

I also ordered from Wowcool the Dunja Jankovic comics Sparkplug put out circa ten years ago. They’re very cool, reminiscent of Anke Feuchtenberger and Gary Panter, slowly shifting their sense of texture over multiple pages, so that while I don’t think I realized at the time these comics were released that they’re very well-drawn, it is obvious when you actually read them. I anxiously await her “Richter’s Game” minicomic being translated into English, though obviously this is going to be a tough year for self-publishers selling zines with widespread show cancellations. My hope is that Fantagraphics’ Now anthology will just start running work by people like Dunja, Alyssa Berg, Nick Norman, and Beatrix Urkowitz, but maybe there are good reasons for that not to occur. Maybe anthology pages can’t compete with the profits one stands to gain from self-publishing, or maybe my own idea of what I consider my broad-minded and catholic tastes would not actually appeal to large sections of the indie comics market, the same way my idea of what I consider “good” in mainstream comics is actually far too nostalgic a model for the aesthetic preferences of the market as it currently stands. I offer these recommendations solely as another way of coping with my powerlessness.

11 notes · View notes

weeklyfangirl · 6 years ago

Text

Frat Boy Pt. 14

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7 (1), part 7 (2), part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13

here we go! some answers are revealed, but with more answers come more questions... obviously ;) please don’t hesitate to like/reblog if you enjoy it and share how you feel here. Lowkey but highkey the reason i post this story is to interact with you guys and hear your responses! lots of la-la-la-lovvvee xx

I didn’t need to see anything in the crowd. For up on the wall, between collectors’ paintings was a vacant space.

The family portrait was gone.

And in its place was a snake that matched the one I’d seen tattooed on skin, the same snake that had been wrapped around my neck...

The police urged Mrs. Styles to shut down the party, but no man in uniform was tougher than her will to put on a show. The crowd lingered, more intrigued than frightened by the drama, no doubt wanting to carry on what they’d witnessed first-hand to their social circles on the other side of the gate.

Harry requested a Lyft immediately after to take me home. I cancelled it, unwilling to leave and wanting to hear what the police could make of it. Mrs. Styles showed them less concern than she did the caterers, and entertained them ten minutes tops before shooing them out. She gave a statement and allowed them to interview some staff, but then they were gone. Everyone else had been at the auction.

Even Harry, apparently. I’m not sure why he lied, but there must have been a reason. The officers had looked at me to confirm, and I felt Harry’s eyes on me as I nodded. I lied, too.

I stayed long enough to see the auction resume. The foundation hadn’t suffered either, nearly raising a million by the end of the night. One of the prizes? A date with Mary’s sole prized son. His eyes remained locked on mine at the head of the podium as the eager socialites bid to set up their daughters or their neices. Maybe they were bidding for themselves to escape their husbands for the night. At the top of the podium, people threw money at him like a commodity. I knew it was for a larger cause, but the smile he threw on wasn’t the one I’d seen in the moments we were together. It was the one for show, the one that put people at ease and didn’t cause anymore probing questions. It came second-nature to him; it was a second skin, a mask like the one that covered his face, but stunning nevertheless.

He couldn’t meet my eyes when the final bid was placed. $4,500.

Viv won.

I let him call the Lyft for me after that.

Even back in my dorm with the company of Renny’s gentle snores, I didn’t sleep a wink. I also didn’t ask Harry about his lie, or the gun. I let its image sit there, in my mind, turning over and over. The cool silver glinted each time I closed my eyes, the branding of the snake tattoo appearing in the shadows of my room whenever I tried to open them. It even overpowered my jealousy of Viv.

I didn’t dream my nightmares that night. They were lucid.

Spindly creatures didn’t exist in this world, but I didn’t know which world was scarier anymore.

The attack on their home wasn’t something I could reconcile unless it was something personal. There were thousands of dollars worth of furniture, vases, and paintings - yet they stole a family portrait. Which, unless you were obsessed with stoic family poses, was neither a lucrative nor smart object to steal.

Was there a deeper connection?

A memory from that night crawled its way out of the crevices and smacked me in the face. I hadn’t realized I’d had it stored away, but suspicion had a funny way of bringing up memories.

That rainy night outside of Kean’s, I’d called for Harry when I’d walked out of the bathroom. Of course, it hadn’t been Harry.

But the stranger had said something that didn’t sit right.

Haven’t heard that name in a while.

Hadn’t heard that name in a while…

The sentence echoed over and over.

One way it could be explained - everyone had heard of the Styles. Maybe this was a threat, a warning that they’d hurt their family unless they coughed up some cash. Maybe there was no deeper connection. And if there was…

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why the elite star boy of the beach community would be associated with rapist thugs.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said for the millionth time. “Stop asking me that.”

Harry’s eyes were red. He rubbed them, probably as sleep deprived as me.

I could tell he wanted to ask me again, but he took a sip of iced coffee instead. Maybe if he heard I’m okay again, this time he’d believe me.

I wouldn’t.

I watched his fingers toy with his lips while peers watched us sit outside Starbucks. They were probably concerned with midterms next week, unaware of the complete mess of thoughts churning my stomach and leaving my croissant half-eaten.

I pulled off a buttery flake. I missed the old me. The old me would’ve been the passing peer, and in any other alternate universe that was normal and made sense, I would be watching Harry sit with a sorority girl with perfectly curled hair as I stress ate 10 croissants and worried about how to cram-write a 15 page historical essay and study for a biology exam in 12 hours.

“You can come to mine tonight. It’s dead at the house until the weekend so it’ll be quiet to study.”

I nodded. The frat house... Maybe I could talk to him about it then. Here, in this coffee shop, he seemed like the frat star college student everyone knew him as. At night in his room, maybe I could reconcile this person with who I knew outside of campus, too. The boy who was soft, who hurt, who had an entire mystery of a life inside that mansion.

I’d accepted I was different than who I was before him. Was he different before me?

When he pulled at his lip again, he noticed me staring and a familiar gleam lit his eyes. He looked at me in a way that made my cheeks burn and my heart surge. Muscle memory was strong, and even though he was sitting across the table, I suddenly felt him pressed against me.

Maybe there was another reason he’d recommended the frat house.

My phone buzzed, giving me an excuse to look away. I checked the name, ignored it. He was looking at me again, observing, waiting for me to admit what was really going on in my mind when he must know what was bothering me… He just wasn’t brave enough to bring it up himself.

And I wasn’t ready to be the first.

“You know, I’m not always going to be so readily available for you. I’m a modelling girl now, my schedule’s filling up.” I threw a dramatic hand to my forehead and he fought a smile.

“S’that right?”

I nodded, and that’s when his brows pinched.

“Wait, are you really modelling?”

“Okay, gee, don’t look so surprised. A friend of mine needed a replacement model who had more ‘life.’ And I’m just full of that, so, it worked out.”

My phone vibrated again.

“Zayn?”

“No. It’s my mom...” Begging to get the details from that photo I’d sent her of Harry and I last night. I was too in awe of the decor, the gowns, and just being there to not share it with her. It’d actually been something I’d wanted to remember until it all went to shat.

“I meant your friend. Who’s the artist?”

“Oh, Zayn.”

“Oh.”

An awkward silence settle, and I picked at another buttery flake.

“I’m sure he’ll do an amazing job,” he said. But he looked away when he said it, and I heard the restraint in his tone.

“I don’t know why you don’t like him.”

“It’s not just me.” He leant back in his chair, stretching his arms back until the muscles flexed. “I never knew him until here, but because he’s from England s’just…” He shook his head. “Look, I don’t know how to explain it, I’m not trying to be a dick.”

Said every dick ever. But maybe I could overlook it.

“Tell me.”

“He just doesn’t give me good vibes.”

“How California of you.”

“I-” he stopped, sighed. He wrestled with the true answer he’d held all along, reluctantly giving it up. “He acts like he knows things about me. Like he knows who I am when I literally haven’t said a single word to him.”

“You don’t like how friendly he is?”

“It’s not a happy, familiar, I know you. S’like he looks at me and sees parts of me I don’t...”

“Show?”

The look in his eyes told me I was right, but he didn’t say it.

“Maybe he’s just intuitive,” I continued.

“Maybe he’s just fucking weird.”

“Harry…”

He shrugged, unapologetic, and drew a long sip from the black coffee. For the boy who had a beautifully deceitful exterior hiding a million layers he never let anyone see, it must have taken a lot for someone to get under his skin.

Was the thought of being seen that terrifying?

“Shit, I have practice.”

I nodded, not as disappointed as I thought I’d be. I had a lot on my plate today. Biology papers, work, stopping by the studio…

I stood up a little after him.

“Thanks for the croissant, and the tea.”

“Of course,” he said.

We walked out in silence, and I wonder if he was as lost in thought as I was. Before we parted, he turned to me.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

I popped a hip, putting on my best tough-girl act.

“I-” I stopped, sighed. The tough-girl acted lasted a whole whopping two seconds as I debated on telling him the truth I’d been hiding. I knew he was genuinely concerned, and I knew that if I didn’t fess up this was going to keep bothering him. Just like him, I caved. “Not really.”

“I knew it.” - he looked away, tugging at his hair before letting his hand fall - “I swear, you don’t have anything to worry about.”

But there was a slight desperation to his voice, and I wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince.

I nodded anyway. I didn’t realize I’d been looking at the ground until he leaned lower, trying to meet my eyes.

“I’ll see you later?”

“Later,” I affirmed.

He punched my shoulder lightly, and it took everything in me not to literally guffaw. Had he really just-? Again???

Lighter fluid of pure annoyance fueled an angry fire in my eyes. But he didn’t flinch; nothing about him seemed apologetic for the action.

Last night his hands touched me very differently.

Last night, he wasn’t a buddy who shoulder punched me.

Did something change again in the blink of an eye? Then again, his unpredictability was becoming predictable. And a lot could change overnight. I certainly hadn’t been filled with this sick foreign confusion yesterday.

And if this confusion was actually suspicion, I didn’t even know of what.

I didn’t hesitate to walk away, hoping that leaving so abruptly would be a GIANT NEON SIGN that he’d just done something wrong, knowing that even if it would, one of his thousand stubborn layers would never bring him to acknowledge it.

------

A waft of Chinese food overpowered the smell of humid sweat for a moment and it wasn’t as disgusting as I thought it’d be. In fact, my stomach growled in response.

I saw his glistening smile before the takeout bag. He came over to where I was sanitizing the examination table and sat down, wincing when he realized it was still wet. He held up the bag, and the smell of orange chicken was stronger.

“For you.”

He waggled his eyebrows.

And for the first time in what felt like a long time, I smiled.

“Shut. Up.”

Seconds later, Matt was laying on his back in the chair, and I’d set the Chinese aside for the foam roller. I leaned against it with all my weight as I rotated it upwards, soothing the tense muscles in his back.

“You really don’t have to do this everytime you come in, I’m starting to feel bad,” I said with a mouthful of chicken. Though really, it didn’t make me feel bad at all. Some of my distressing confusion actually lifted with his presence. Or maybe it was the thought of free food.

“You have to smell other people’s sweat and deal with bloody injuries at least once a week. I don’t think I’m the one you should be feeling bad for...”

He sucked in a breath through his teeth as I hit a particularly tender spot.

I bit my cheek, trying so very hard not to laugh at how brutally accurate it all was.

“Alright, if you’re gonna talk like that you can bring me a steak dinner next time.”

“I’m not so sure that’s a takeout thing.”

“Yeah, yeah, get out of it how you can.”

He struggled for the Chinese box and held up a spoonful of chowmein behind his back. I moved up just enough where I could clamp my mouth around it.

I placed extra pressure by his shoulder blade and he drew in a breath. “Sweet...torture…” he squeaked.

“You don’t have to put up with my torture anymore,” I said, rolling back down. I was sweating. Forget going to the gym, this was exercise enough.

“It’s not torture! It’s- you’re fine.” An awkward apology came stumbling out. “It just hurts in the moment, but it’s a good pain.”

“No, I mean…” For some reason, it felt weird admitting this to him. “I’m not going to be working here much longer. This week’s my last week here.”

His muscles tensed a little, and I slowed my roll. Literally.

“Oh, really? Why? Did you get fired?”

“Noo, nothing like that. I actually got an internship.”

There was silence as I worked his lower back. I focused harder on the way the foam roller pushed against the muscle, building and pinching, til it finally rolled over.

I knew I’d still see him around. Less, that’s for sure. But still… around. I stopped, grabbing some ice packs for his calf muscles, ignoring the fact that he still hadn’t said anything.

“Where’s it at?” he asked after a solid minute of silence.

“Coast Shores Medicine.”

“The one on TV?”

“That’s the one.” One Google search and the practice had popped up, along with its link to the reality show Housewives of OC. I remembered Ben telling me Mary Styles used to be a housewife and the notoriety that surrounded the Styles name surprised me less and less.

“That’s going to be different.”

I let out a short laugh. “Yeah, but it won’t be too bad.”

Matt, always a bundle of optimism didn’t hesitate to say, “It’ll look great on your resume.”

And there it was, the real reason behind this. The whole reason behind anything we did. Something else for the resume, something else for a piece of paper, something else to belong, something else to make another approve of my life’s existence. But-

“Yeah. It’ll be fun,” I said, strapping the ice packs down.

“Bet no one’s gonna bring you takeout though.”

I heard the smile in his voice, and when he looked over his shoulder, there it was. All gleaming white teeth and shining blue eyes.

And for a second, I wanted to take it all back. To say I was kidding. To stay here. To not change another part of my life that seemed to be turning into something I wasn’t quite sure I wanted it to be.

“You’re going to do great,” he said, somehow knowing what I needed to hear without me uttering a word.

Maybe if our families hadn’t been tied since birth, it would have been different for us. Maybe he would’ve been bringing me spring rolls to my dorm room and I would’ve been in Matt’s dad’s shop, helping where I could.

Maybe I should stop overthinking everything and just accept everything as it was and stop thinking of parallel universes.

Maybe, maybe, maybe...

I wanted to give him a definite response. I wanted to say, I would be okay because I know I would be okay.

But the largest part of me didn’t know what the future held, and somehow I still needed to be okay with that.

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

The frat house looked a lot different than the last time I’d been there. I could hardly believe that it was the same place.

The lawn wasn’t littered with people swaying, confessing embarrassing things to acquaintances they’d pretend not to know the next day in History class. The yard was vacant - except for two boys with hats hung low with trash collecting picks, looking like they’d just suffered from a major night out. They didn’t even look up when I passed.

Bits of the paint were chipping off the door, and my booties stuck to the pavement that’d accumulated a healthy layer of spilled beer.

I knocked, but nobody answered, so I walked in anyways. I was actually more nervous than if the living room had been full with bodies pressed together. I was alone, nobody to hide from, the impending conversation looming in my mind. The dance floor was back to looking like a living room. Two couches with suspicious stains were haphazardly placed to create space for a table - a bong as the centerpiece and ashes in place of a tablecloth.

It was so different from his sparkling mansion. The frat house was clearly lived in, but I wonder if he really felt at home here.

“Hello?” I creeped up the stairs, but nobody walked out. An open window carried in the sound of students walking to their next class. Had I gotten the time wrong?? It was too quiet. Without warning, my nightmares blended into the frat house. No one was here. My feet moved faster, faster, carrying me towards the room.

I gasped when I saw him standing outside his door. “Shit.”

His lips quirked into a half-smile. “You okay?”

I looked at him casually leaning against the door in his joggers, breathless. It was pointless acknowledging the question.

Compared to the rest of the house, Harry’s room looked pristine. Madame Bovary and his English notes were already sprawled across his creaseless bedspread, but he pulled at the corner of it anyways while I sat at his desk. I swiped my finger along the top, lips curling at the layer of dust on it.

“I go to the library.”

“Mhm.”

He tugged at his t-shirt collar, mildly clearing his throat. “Not sure where you want to start.”

I nodded.

“There’s a lot to cover.” He lowered his head, looking over the bridge of his nose, that silly masked smile toying on his lips - but just like a mask, it didn’t hide his eyes. They were redder than before, and I almost felt bad at how tired he must be.

It looked like I wasn’t the only one who didn’t get any sleep.

He toyed with the bedsheet again, and I realized I hadn’t said anything.

“There is a lot to cover.” My heart beat faster, and I had no idea how to bring up the gun. Would he be angry with me for snooping? Was it wrong of me to have done so? But then again, why the heck had he locked me in the room? “Where do you want to start?”

He paused, just like I had. A thousand possibilities rushing through my mind,

but he lifted up the book,

and I wilted.

You would think it’d be hard to study an entire half-semester’s worth of work for a class that met three times a week and a professor that filled up at least five pages of notes per session. But with enough willpower to avoid silence, Harry and I managed to study nearly all of it.

Which, to help clarify just how much of a task it was, the only study guide we’d been given were seven sample essay questions - three of which were to be written in class after the short answer portion.

We’d jotted notes down of themes, character developments (and lack thereof), and pretty much exhausted the entire book cover to cover. Which, was especially hard to do, being that close to a sex god and all. Even more especially, when that sex god had almost had his fingers inside of me less than a day ago.

If I was antsy to talk about the masquerade ball before, exhaustion made me question whether or not it was even worth it. The sun had long past set, and the soft glow from Harry’s lamp cast a dreamy hue to the room that made my eyes strain to make anything out. He was unreal as a human anyways, add exhaustion and mood lighting to the mix and it’s like the gods just cast him out of heaven.

Given my frazzled bun and hoodie with a hole near the armpit, one could say I found this to be completely unfair.

I set my pen down as soon as my stomach growled.

“Shit,” Harry suddenly leapt up, bounding out the door. He stopped just before he disappeared and craned his neck back. “I’ll just be a minute.”

“Uh, okay,” I let out a nervous laugh, but he’d already walked away. I leant back in the chair; it felt nice to be alone in his room. A little weird, but nice.

My fingers thrummed on the desk. They stopped when I saw what was on the top shelf. Did he take these from Mary?

I reached for them without thinking, turning them over in my hand. The little white tablets shook together as I tried to find a label for them.

Who needed this many?

I suddenly became aware of a frozen frame behind me.

He didn’t stop me from reading them, but I turned, embarrassed for snooping. He’d stepped closer, and I could feel the heat rolling off his body, the chiseled chest hidden behind a black sweater just a book’s width away. Any thoughts I had became mush. Too close, too-

my ankle hit the desk when I stepped back. “I’m sorry. I was just… I was just curious.” There was a sad acceptance in his eyes when he nodded. It was so soft, I wondered if I’d imagined it. “Do you struggle with sleeping?” I asked, tone void of teasing.

“Kind of.” Careful eyes searched mine for a reaction. Even with his desk lamp, his green eyes were dark, a thick forest that didn’t let in the light.

Xanax and Valium were serious sleeping pill. When my hippie aunt would come back from one of her many trips from Mexico, she’d bring Valium back by the bucketful (selling the pills as well as her psychic services). My dad bought from her, but even she cautioned him about the intensity of it. I didn’t recognize the other label, but I was assuming it was equally strong, if not more so.

I bit the inside of my cheek.

“I don’t really take them anymore,” he clarified.

“You used to?” Frick. A tad too much curiosity there. Could’ve come off as judgey.

Harry stared off into somewhere behind me, my question triggering memories I’m not sure I’d like to see. “A lot of people take them anyway,” he said, coming back to me.

“Really?” My back arched as I tried to create more space between us.

He leaned forward, placing his hands on the desk on either side of me. His body moved slowly, but deliberately. Each calculated movement seemed second-nature to him. He nodded. “Sure. Want to see Niall’s desk?”

The last time I was in Niall’s room… my cheeks flushed remembering our kiss. It was so long ago, such a stupid rash decision. But it was ages before Harry and I started… hanging out more frequently so I couldn’t blame myself for doing anything wrong. Still, if Renny ever found out I had “once upon a time” kissed her newfound obsession and that I never told her about it, I’d rather invest in a wig and move to Canada.

Renny once delivered a package of literal dog shit to a girl who slid into her “once upon a time” friends with benefits’ dms.

I shook my head quickly. “I mean I get nightmares all the time, I get why people take them.”

“You have nightmares?”

I bristled a bit. “Yeah, doesn’t everybody?”

“Not the kind that require sleeping pills.” His head tilted back, an elitist of pain.

“But a lot of people take them.” I spat his own words back to him, my biting tone not lost on Harry.

“Ah, ah,” he chided. He pulled in a cheek, accentuating angled cheekbones. “That’s not why everybody takes them.”

“Well if it helps nightmares-” I mockingly twisted the cap between us until it “popped” but he snatched it from me. His hand took the place of the bottle, shooting an electric bolt up my arm. Leaning back against the desk, my legs stood between his, unable to take me away from his stone-cold stare.

“You’re not getting them from me Y/N.”

“I was teasing,” I said, not moving my hand. “I wasn’t going to take any.”

His calculated eyes searched mine for any hint of pill-popping desire, but I couldn’t handle the intensity.

My eyes shot behind him. When I saw what was on the bed, I snorted. I couldn’t help it. In the grave intensity of the moment, I snorted. My hand flew to my nose. “Oh my gosh, are you serious?” I gestured to the plate atop his sheets.

He backed up, tugging me with him. My heart fluttered, but he let go and stood back, crossing his arms instead. From the corner of my eye, I saw his feet scuff the flooring, suddenly unsure of his gesture. “You said you were hungry.”

My side-smirk grew into a full beaming smile. I sat down on his bed, picking up the fork that was beside it. I debated about which spot would be the best to dive into. “Is this chocolate lava cake?”

He’d only brought one fork. So… maybe I didn’t have to be to be conservative with my bites... He watched me shovel almost half the cake into my mouth with one bite. I moaned, not even embarrassed as a dribble of chocolate escaped my mouth. I moaned AGAIN, completely shameless, and fell back on his bed. Somehow, the experience of chocolate in Harry’s bed made it taste all the more delicious. “Ughhh dishh ishh amashhinnn!!”

A breathy childish laugh escaped Harry, and it was so beautiful, I almost froze mid-swallow. He bit his lip, aware that the sound escaped him, but with no one else to observe it, he didn’t care.

“I don’t … want you missing out on things because of me.”

“What do you mean?” I took another bite of the lava cake, letting the moist chocolate fudge slowly cover my tastebuds.

“Exactly what I said.”

The image of me running away from my pricey dessert at The Hilltop Resort flashed in my mind. I’d ran away from Harry that night because I saw him as a pretentious douchebag who thought money could get him any girl he wanted. He looked the same, and still had more money than I could comprehend, but stood before me now was a completely different person than the one I thought I knew.

Harry could turn cold and distant in the blink of an eye, abandon me in photos and leave me feeling unwanted and embarrassed. But he could place an arm around my waist, remember the smallest details about me, and make a gesture that showed how thoughtful he could be. It was … infuriating. Unfair. Predictably unpredictable.

I don’t want you missing out on things because of me.

I hadn’t gotten to eat chocolate lava cake that night. Yet here it was, burning on the bed between us.

“I think I’m experiencing more things now that I know you actually,” I swallowed slowly, the thick chocolatey goodness not the only thing melting.

“I’m sure,” he said slyly. He reached down then, hand gently wiping a stray bit of chocolate on my chin.

“Oops,” I laughed, enjoying this rare moment of levity.

He licked his own finger clean, eyes fluttering dramatically. “S’damn good innit.” The bed dipped as he sat beside me, eyes never leaving my ridiculous smile. I had a feeling he was etching it to memory as he pulled my legs atop his lap like it was something we always did. Somehow, it kind of felt like it was.

“So…”

“Sho,” I mimicked, mouth still full of chocolate. My chewing suddenly seemed quite loud in the silence, and I cringed as I swallowed. There weren’t any napkins to be had… anywhere. With one bite left, I held it up to Harry to distract him from the chocolatey mess that was probably my face. He leant forward, eyes on mine as his full lips took the bite. I gulped again, but this time it had nothing to do with the fact that I had chocolate in my mouth.

His strong hands pulled my legs closer ‘til I was practically in his lap, and my heart beat wildly against my ribs like caged finches smelling smoke. Traces of him - spice, warmth, and an undertone of rich cologne overpowered the chocolate, overpowered everything.

“Pulling me in for a shoulder punch?”

He frowned, and I spotted a fleck of chocolate at the corner of his mouth. I swiped my finger along his pout, placing the stray chocolate in my mouth. Instead of mirroring my smile, his brows furrowed and he became a child as he leant his forehead against mine. “What are you doing to me.”

I stood still, scared that if I moved, whatever spell that’d been cast in his mind would break.

“Nothing you don’t do to me.”

There it was. An admittance. An offering. And like all the times before, I didn’t expect him to take it.

Foreheads still drawn together, his jaw jutted closer in temptation. He winced, pulled back.

It was the push before the give.

“We didn’t finish the last question on the study guide,” he murmured, but his hand spread to the small of my back. Heat swept through me, but I shivered at his touch.

“Oh yeah?”

“Mm,” he hummed. He leaned closer to peer at something over my shoulder and I swear my heart stopped as our chests touched. His hand stayed on my back, steadying me as he searched for whatever it was. I could feel his curls at the base of my jaw, and the warmth from his cheek so close to touching mine...

“What’s your favorite quote from the book?” He pulled back, looking at me as though the next words I’d say would be his favorite too.

But my brain was heavy, overworked. “I don’t know.” I rest my head on his shoulder for the briefest of moments before pulling myself up.

His hands squeezed my sides. “M’serious, you might have to write an essay on your favorite quote. S’question seven.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but shook my head instead. “I’m serious, I don’t have one memorized. Do you?”

A cocky little smirk appeared on his face. “Of course.”

“Of course,” I sighed. “Who’s tutoring who here?”

“What, you don’t want to hear it?”

“Oh no, I do, I’m desperate for it,” I leant forward teasingly, more pressure applied to my hips.

He drew in a breath, screwing his eyes shut tight for a second. When they opened, they were a raging emerald green. “Careful.” Then, with all the nonchalance in the world, he rumbled, “She thought love must come suddenly, with great outburst and lightnings – a hurricane of the skies, which falls upon life, revolutionizing it, roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the abyss.”

It took me a moment to realize that he was speaking from the book. He waited for a response, but any words I had flew out my mind somewhere between lightnings and abyss.

“Not bad is it?” he said.

This was his favorite quote? Coming from a boy who didn’t believe love could last?

“Harry…”

I didn’t know what I was going to say, but I didn’t need to figure it out. Voices rose from downstairs. I figured it was just the frat brothers, but Harry’s dreamy gaze cooled to calculation in an instant. My legs were moved to the comforter and he walked straight to the door, peering his head through the crack. He shut it gently, beckoned to me.

“The cops are here. They probably just want me to answer a few questions,” he said lowly.

“Really?!”

I tried opening the door, but he spun me around. He pressed me against the wall, and for a brief moment I felt all of him. His hand snaked around my waist, and his lips dipped down to my ear.

“I’ll be right back.”

His entire body alit mine,

And then he was gone.

I’d been poured in gasoline but he didn’t stop to light the match.

Too many times this week I’ve been left reeling, breathless, and a little too turned on in an empty room by one infuriating frat boy.

He was causing too much damage to be so small in the retrospect of the universe.

I opened the door, softly, slowly. Three cops and two college admins were searching the place. While two spoke with Harry, another strayed from the group. He strolled around the floor, assessing the damage of parties past.

I couldn’t make out everything, their voices too indistinct from a story away. Harry shook hands with the cops. One of them didn’t extend his, and Harry shoved it away in his back pocket.

That was rude of them.

Words were exchanged, but “charity” and “affiliation” were the only words I caught. The cops’ postures seemed relaxed enough, but their crossed arms and poker faces told me careful observations were in place. Was I going to be left here as they drove away for questioning? If this was about the charity ball, was Harry going to tell them any more of what happened? I’d seen that wild look in Gemma’s eyes, the way he’d leapt to his feet as soon as he saw it. He had to know more than what he’d shared.

They passed Harry a paper I couldn’t make out, and his back tensed. The cops were in front of him though, so I doubted they noticed, but Rogue Cop walked closer to the stairs. Harry mentioned “familiar” - or was it “not familiar?” I couldn’t hear. The paper was passed back. More arms were crossed. Rogue Cop kept floating around, looking for something. Or someone?

As if he knew, Rogue Cop’s eyes found the slit in the door, locking eyes with mine.

I jumped away, adrenaline pumping when there was no reason for me to be nervous. My inner me threw up her arms, waving the white flag - I DIDN’T KILL ANYBODY! I’M INNOCENT!

But a sinking feeling slammed her with a bus.

I wasn’t completely innocent.

I’d seen the snake tattoo before. I’d recognized it in the Styles’ home. I’d had it threaten my life, heard it recognize Harry.

I’d never reported it. What would they think if I mentioned it now? Would I mention it now?

And now did he think I was hiding?

I picked up the study guide to busy my hands.

A knock on the door.

“You can come in!”

He opened it, at first cautiously, but when he saw it was just a girl with some textbooks, his shoulders squared away.

“Do you live here, miss?”

“No-” I placed the study guide in my lap. “Is everything okay?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out. I’d just like to ask you a few questions if that’s alright with you.”

“Of course.”

The sound of rushed footsteps coming up the hall made me glance to the door. Moments later, the faculty woman and another cop filed in. They smiled at me, easing my nerves in the slightest.

“I’d like you to take a look at this. Have you seen this sign anywhere around campus?”

The mysterious paper was placed in my hands. The bold image of the snake, fangs bared to the world, hissed at me through the sheet. A somber confirmation settled in my skin, my bones suddenly heavier. The outside chaos was being brought into the safety of university. My world off campus and my world here were colliding, as were Harry’s, and with the collision I didn’t know if a universe was being created or destroyed.

“No. Not on campus.”

That wasn’t a lie, technically. But Rogue Cop picked up on my specificity.

“Have you seen this anywhere else?”

“Yeah, in town.”

“Where?”

I cleared my throat. “Outside of a coffee shop downtown. It’s a small place. Kean’s.”

The door creaked open wider, and Harry stood at the frame. His eyes met mine as soon as I said Keans.

“Was it tagged? On the walls, on a jacket?” Rogue Cop’s eyes narrowed as he watched me gulp. I shoved my hands in my pockets, but there was something in there. My fingers twiddled with a cap when I realized it was a pill bottle.

“No, I can’t, uh, I can’t remember. It was a long time ago.”

Rogue Cop followed my gaze to Harry leaning against the wall. He wrote down my name, phone number, and e-mail.

“We’ll be in touch.”

A card was slipped into my hand and they thanked us for our cooperation. The commotion I’d been foolish to forget about just because of a chocolate distraction had just slapped me in the face with a badge attached.

The presence the cops created left a vacuum of space Harry couldn’t fill. Alone again, he seemed smaller, like a child thrown in adult clothing. His hands covered his eyes at the foot of the bed as he sunk further into himself. This was a side of Harry I think I could have lived forever without seeing. This was a boy completely overwhelmed.

When he looked up, his strained eyes weren’t glossy. They were unnervingly vacant.

I pulled my sweatshirt sleeves over my hands. “Do you think I should tell them about Kean’s? Do you think it’d help?”

He shrugged. “That’s completely up to you. But if you do, don’t mention me.”

“You want me to lie?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you want them to know? Are you scared of them?”

“I’m not scared of them,” he scoffed. “They already know what gang they’re affiliated with.”

Gang...

“And what gang is that?”

Reluctance filled his eyes. “An ugly one. Unimpressive, but ugly.”

“What do you mean unimpressive?”

“They’re rash, messy. They’re like bullies on the playground. They always get caught by the supervisor.”

“Harry…”

His eyes shot to mine, brows stitched.

I took a breath. “Outside of Kean’s… the guys who- you know… they said something that made me think they knew you. Or, at least had heard about you.”

Nothing changed on his face. No flash of fear, sadness, embarrassment. Nothing.

“Are you safe?” I pressed. “Why are they targeting you? Or is it your parents?”

His gaze softened. “I don’t want you worrying about me.”

A short humorous laugh ripped itself from my throat. “Too late.” I reached in my pocket and held the anonymous pill bottle between us, our moment against the door cheapened. “And why’d you slip this in my pocket?”

He reached his hand out to take it, but I lifted my hand higher. I was getting no answers from this boy, the cops flippin took my information tonight and who knew when they’d be dropping in on me, and I was sick of it!!

He exhaled, only slightly amused. “Fine. It’s something new. Not on the market, officially.”

“...so it’s illegal.”

“Experimental,” he offered.

“But you didn’t want them seeing it.”

Any inklings of humor slipped from his eyes. “Clearly.”

“Fine.” I tossed him the bottle. Clearly, I’d hit a sore spot.

“Have you ever done hard drugs?”

I ignored the slow way he spoke, making each word sound like a sultry invitation. “No.”

“Would you ever try?”

I opened my mouth, not sure why I was suddenly so thrown off. It wasn’t the weirdest question to be asked on a college campus, but coming from Harry in his quiet bedroom it sounded like a loaded question. And a deflection.

“I don’t think so…”

“They’re not all bad. For shrooms you’d preferably be in a peaceful environment, and just with people you trust.” He threw his hands up. “S’only if ever wanted to try. I’m not saying you have to or anythin’, obviously.”

A prick of nausea filled my stomach. Somehow, without trying or saying anything directly, he managed to make me feel so grossly naive. “Yeah I’m good for now, thanks.” Miraculously, I managed to not roll my eyes.

He sensed the shift in mood, the air filling with an awkward tension. He bit his lip.

“Listen, I want you to feel like you can tell me anything.”

I nodded, but fought the feeling that he was only saying this because he didn’t want me confiding in the cops. A “you can’t tell them, but hey tell it all to me!” consolation.

Besides, did he really feel like he could tell me anything? I knew he didn’t let people beneath his shell, that he hid a heart with more guards and walls than fort knox, and I knew in my core that he’d let me in a little deeper than others. But I also knew that no matter how I deep I was now, I still wasn’t deep enough for him to trust me. I didn’t know if I could ever get there.

I gently kicked his shin with my sneaker. “Okay, well, for starters I’m going to have nightmares about being interrogated tonight.” It was a half-joke, because the only nightmares I had now involved me, trapped in an empty house, running towards something I couldn’t name with bodiless entities watching me and the flash of a knife.

You know, just girly things.

“Did you always have nightmares? Or-” his lips quirked, hand rubbing the back of his neck. Could he say the unmentionable? That I had nightmares because of him? “-is this a recent development?”

“I found a gun in your drawers Harry.”

He bit his tongue, jaw clicking with restraint. “Why were you-?”

“Because you locked me in your room! Why’d you do that, huh?!” My hands were trembling. The words had flown out before I could stop them, but there was no going back. “What normal person locks another person in their room?”

He flinched at normal. “I only did that because it was safer.”

I glared at him harder until he shifted his weight.

“I can see why you’d be upset,” he admitted.

“How would you know if it was safer? What aren’t you telling me, Harry, because I don’t know much of anything and it is driving me insane.”

I spared him details - that I looked over my shoulder every thirty seconds, that I stopped going to my tutoring sessions because they were held after dark across campus - but insane pretty much summed it up.

He saw the wild in my eyes, and his shoulders fell. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“I know. I-” he paused, hollowed eyes not meeting my own. “This is difficult for me, try to understand.” He stopped, then tried again. “I’m familiar with the guys who assaulted you outside of Kean’s okay? But they got violent, and I disassociated. They hold a grudge.”

“How did you know them?”

“I think it’s best if you don’t know.” Harry swallowed thickly, tilting his head back, eyes closed, probably wondering if he leant far enough if he’d disappear.

“Do you think they were the ones at your house?”

“I don’t know. It’s a possibility.”

“Does anybody else know about any of this?”

His phone buzzed and he reached for it, relief from this unexpected interrogation. He placed it down, but it buzzed again, then again. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You can answer it.”

“Can you come here already?”

It was quiet, but I’d heard it. His lashes fluttered, and I stilled at how drained he looked. For a brief moment, I’d forgotten this was affecting Harry, too. The parts of his life I barely knew stressed me out enough to give me continuous nightmares, but how much more was he living?

I stepped between his legs, deciding to give him rest instead. It was a sad picture, he and I, how entirely spent we both were.

“I don’t know about you, boy...”

I tried to calm the pounding of my heart as he pulled me in close, arms wrapping around my waist, head pressing against my chest. “Me neither.”

I stilled, not quite knowing what to do or what to say, until I let my head rest atop perfectly mussed curls.

Gangs were dangerous.

Guns were dangerous.

Drugs were dangerous.

Frat boys were dangerous.

But this?

This feeling that bubbled up inside when his thumbs rubbed circles in the soft skin of my hip?

This was dangerous, too.

I didn’t know why we couldn’t be like this in public.

I didn’t know what Harry was burdened with or why it seemed to be so much.

His phone lit-up with 2 missed calls and 8 messages - Viv.

And I didn’t know who else had seen behind the mask.

part 15

#harry styles fanfiction #Harry styles fic #harry styles one shot #harry styles #harry styles fan fiction #one direction #frat boy #onedirection #1direction #1d #one direction fanfiction #one direction imagine #harry styles au #fratboy! harry #dark harry styles #harry styles imagine #one direction one shot #harry styles smut #angst

316 notes · View notes

naruto--imagines · 6 years ago

Text

Naruto x Reader [Baby]

[A/N] I do not own any of the characters present in this story, nor do I own the GIF that is featured. I do hold ownership over the story itself, please do not re-post it anywhere. Thanks! <3

WARNINGS: female reader, angst

Reflecting back, it’s not the life you wanted at twenty years old. But you wouldn’t change anything either.

You and Naruto had started dating your senior year of high school, and that relationship was easily continued through your first years of college when you found out you were attending the same school. Your relationship went on smoothly. Until you hit a crossroad.

“I was offered a position on the national soccer team,” Naruto confessed to you one night while you were eating dinner at your place. This didn’t surprise you, he was a sensational soccer player. In fact, one of the reasons for attending the school you did was their amazing soccer program.

“What’d you say?” You questioned picking at your plate some more.

“That I needed time to think about it. They only gave me a day.” Naruto explained.

“I guess this is a good time to tell you, I was offered an apprenticeship at a studio. They liked my portfolio and want me to work with a design team to produce patterns for designers and work on art for magazines.” You explained to your boyfriend of three years. “Unfortunately that’s gonna take up the rest of my free time.” With this apprenticeship you would have more money in your pocket, Your current job and scholarships were enough to pay for school and average living expenses, but this was a chance to break into the graphic design business and gain some recognition. You were majoring in English currently, too scared of the possibilities of not having a job after graduation. Even though designing was something you enjoyed and were lucky to have the opportunity to continue doing it.

“So what now?” Naruto asked setting his fork down and looking at you.

“Maybe.” You started hesitantly, not really wanting to finish the thought. “Maybe we should… break up?” You ended with an upward tilt to your voice, clearly showing your hesitation. After saying that you stared at your plate. Not wanting to see his reaction.

“Yeah. I- I think that may be for the best.” Naruto responded with reservation.

So the two of you made the hardest decision possible. After discussing it for a few hours you both realized that neither of you would have time to invest in a relationship, which wasn’t fair to either of you. But you both wanted to stay friends. It was still a commitment to each other, but not one that would be drastically strained due to distance.

With that conclusion reached, the two of you went to bed and spent one last night together as a couple. Desperately, you clutched to each other through your passion filled night. The both of you aware that when the morning came, it would be over and you would each walk separate paths.

And separately you walked. Naruto left the city to join his new team and start his training, and you started your new job. For the first three weeks, you talked regularly. Neither of you had it in your schedules to talk during the day, but at night as you were winding down you would message one another for an hour. Periodically sprinkled in between were some brief phone calls about things that were hard to convey over text or simply from being too excited to text. Then around the fourth week, the messages were less and less. One night as you were scrolling through Instagram you came across pictures he posted from a night out. Surrounded by booze and immaculately beautiful models. Even though the two of you were broken up … that stung. The next day you tried to send him a picture of a new pattern you had been working on. He always enjoyed seeing your art and you had been sending him all of your designs and always received positive feedback. Until now.

Naruto had never left you on ‘read’, this may have stung more than seeing the models. You two had been so close, even if you were no longer dating you thought you would at least be friends. The entire week went on like that. You tried to reach out at least once every day. A few texts, some of your designs, and even a picture of your dinner from his favorite ramen shop. Nothing worked.

After a week of trying, you gave up. The stress over the situation was literally making you sick. To the point where you weren’t keeping down anything after eating. Then you were getting sick in the morning too. A stomach bug you said when you called into work and your internship.

“I don’t know. It’s almost been a week, I think you should go to the hospital.” Sakura said. The two of you had gone out the night before and now you were laying out on your couch clutching your trashcan.

“Well, this might just be the flu or something.” You said pushing your hair back. Sakura sat down next to you and placed her hand on your forehead.

“No. That’s it, I’m taking you to the hospital.” She said standing you up and moving you along with her.

The two of you walked down the street to the train, you leaning against her the entire time and her supporting you in return. Sitting there you felt miserable. Each bump and jostle left your stomach lurching again. The 15-minute ride felt like it went on for 15 hours until you arrived at your stop and stumbled off the train. Glad to be on solid ground again, the two of you walked to the hospital.

“Sakura! I thought you were off today?” One of the nurses asked.

“Yeah, but I had to force my friend to come into the hospital. She’s not feeling too great right now.” Sakura explained to her after she placed you in a chair.

That’s where you sat filling out paperwork until it was time to see the doctor. You waited an hour before you were called back. With your symptoms, they decided to do a blood test to figure it out. And the results weren’t what you expected.

“Congratulations miss. You are pregnant.” The doctor said after looking at the paperwork in hand.

“Wh - What!?” You questioned.

“Yup, the sickness and the fatigue is not from the flu but because you are with a child my dear.”

You heard the words but didn’t process them. In fact, you were currently clutching to Sakura. Knowing she would be able to reiterate the information the doctor was currently rattling off now to you later.

“Hey.” Sakura nearly shouted your name to gain your attention. “Are you okay?” She asked with a concerned look on her face. It was at this point you realized you were no longer in the hospital.

“Uhm, yeah, I think so.” You said looking at the pamphlets you had acquired at some point. “Or at least I will be.” This changed everything. Literally everything. “I just need some time to think.”

“Hmm, let’s get you home then,” Sakura said wrapping her arm around your shoulder and walking down the street with you.

When you got back to your place Sakura made you soup for lunch. Then the two of you sat on the couch. Honestly, you were glad to have her as your best friend, you weren’t sure how this would have gone without her.

But it’s been a few months since then, and now you were nearing the end of your second trimester. You had to give up quite a bit. You switched to taking online classes and quit your internship after you had enough money to pay for all that you needed in your nursery. You changed jobs from the high-end cafe you were working into an editing job. Granted you were low man on the totem pole so all you really did was review and edit and edit and review. But it was a job you could do from home, and being a single mother that was perfect for you.

“Does he know about the baby?” Sakura asked. She had tagged along with you to your ultrasound today. And now you were getting ice cream.

“Nope.” You said licking at your cone.

“Sweetie why not? He should know.” Sakura said eating her own frozen dessert.

“No, he went off and is living his life, and honestly” you stopped and sat in thought for a moment. “We broke up to follow our dreams. My dreams changed.” You explained rubbing your stomach. “I don’t want to force him to change his.”

“But you should give him a chance to decide.” Sakura chided.

“He hasn’t returned any of my messages in months. I’m done trying to get him to listen.” You stated.

“Okay. Okay. I didn’t mean to stress you out.” She back peddled.

“I know. I’m sorry too.” You sighed resting your head on her shoulder. “I’m stressed, I didn’t mean to snap at you. Thank you for coming with me today, and every other time.”

“Haha, no problem. I’m glad to go with you. And I am so excited to see my god-son every chance I get!” She exclaimed leaning in close to you and placing her hands on your stomach and leaning in to nuzzle it as well. “Now, let’s get your mama home.” She said standing up and helping you up to walk home.

Sakura had been your largest support pillar. From day one she had been by your side. Every doctor’s appointment, the mornings you spent curled on the floor, and even your first ultrasound (which you cried at). She was even there when you went into labor. And through the twenty-two-hour process.

“OH! No, no no no. Sakura, Ah-I I can’t!” You said struggling through the next contraction.

“Yes, yes you can. You can do it, you HAVE to do it. Your son needs you right now.” She said wiping the sweat and tears from your face.

And you did, you brought your son Asahi into the world. Your beautiful son with your eyes and nose and bright blonde hair. And you loved him.

So that’s where you found yourself a year later.

You were now 20-years old, Asahi had recently turned one, marking almost two years without talking to Naruto. And you were fine. You had your son and that was your sole focus. You had a year and a half left until you graduated and your classes were going really well. Not only that, but you moved up in your job. Being a top editor meant you made more money with more leadership opportunities and could work on larger projects.

Presently, you had finally laid your one-year-old down for bed and now it was time to clean. You started on laundry, no one told you how dirty the clothes of a one-year-old could get. Asahi had three wardrobe changes today, and now that he was walking he managed to find messes all over the place. Once the washing machine was running you went into the living room and began to pick up Asahi's toys that were strewn across the floor. When those were put away you shook out the rug in the middle of the room before grabbing your broom to sweep up all the dirt and cracker crumbs. By the time the living room was cleaned up, it was time to rotate laundry. You placed the clean clothes into the dryer then started on the dishes. When those were washed and put away it was 9:00pm (2 hours after you put Asahi down), and now time for you to get to work.

You pulled out your laptop and began to diligently comb through the newest manuscript you had been sent. You did this for about an hour before you got up to stretch and get a cup of tea. Then it was back to work.

Soon the clock rolled around to 11:00pm and you had managed to breeze through 8 chapters before a loud pounding came to your door. Your apartment was in a decent part of town, although that didn't mean you were eager to open the door this late at night. The pounding came again and you decided to check it before the person woke your son up. Looking through the peep-hole you saw bright blond hair. Then the blond hair moved back and revealed familiar features. You threw open your door and stared in disbelief.

"Naruto?" You sternly questioned the man in front of you.

"HEY!” He yelled stumbling towards you. “You still live here! And you are looking good! Oh, It’s been so long.” He said leaning against your door frame.

“What are you doing here?” You ask him attempting to keep him upright.

“Hehe, I’m drunk and I forgot where my hotel was. And I need a place to stay, so I came here! Do you have any ramen?” He slurred stumbling around you, into your apartment and straight to your kitchen.

“Ah, Naruto I don’t think-” You started, closing and locking your door behind you.

“Hey! I found it!” He yelled.

“Okay, okay, I will make it for you. Just please, go sit on the couch and be quiet.” You said placing your hand on his arm and guiding towards the living room.

“Mmm. Okay,” Naruto said placing a kiss to your cheek and stumbling off to the couch. You fixed up a bowl of instant ramen for him, you still remembered how he liked it, and brought it out to him. The blond quickly sucked it down and handed the bowl back to you. “Thank you. It was really tasty.” He softly murmured leaning against you.

Soon enough he fell asleep pressed against you. You cautiously slipped out from under him and positioned one of the throw pillows in your place. Staring at your ex you shook your head and sighed before turning off the lights and going to your own bed.

“Mama!” That is what woke you up. At 6 o’clock in the morning. Even on Saturdays, you couldn’t get a break. Giving a groan you rolled out of your bed and walked down the hall to your son’s room.

“Morning my love.” You said picking up Asahi and pressing a kiss to his face, smiling when he returned the action effectively smearing slobber all over your cheek. You were still working on “nice kisses”, but he was improving. After that, you placed him on his changing table and got him into a fresh diaper. “There, all better. Are you ready for some breakfast?” You asked the toddler.

“Mm-Mm-Mm!” He excitedly responded while bouncing in your arms. “Bah- Bah!!” Asahi loudly demanded as soon as you walked into the kitchen.

“Okay, mama will get your bottle in a moment.” You told him placing him in his high-chair. You got started on his breakfast of toddler porridge and blueberries, along with making his bottle. “Alright big boy, time to eat!” You said as you placed his breakfast on his tray then pulled off his PJ shirt leaving him in his diaper. Breakfast was his messiest meal of the day and you learned it was easier to put him in the bath after he ate than washing his clothes every day.

“‘Ank ‘ou mama,” Asahi said diving into his bowl of food.

“Mmm, you’re welcome baby.” You said pressing a kiss to his head before going back to the kitchen to make your own breakfast and coffee. You were leaning against the counter sipping on your coffee and eating your toast with eggs when another noise caught your attention.

“Ooft, that was some night! Huh? How’d I get here?” You hear Naruto question before you also hear the springs of the couch creak.

“Morning,” You said as Naruto peeked into the kitchen

“Uh, hey.” He awkwardly responded, scratching the back of his head.

“Sleep well?” You questioned.

“Y-yeah, thanks for letting me crash here.” He said keeping his distance.

“No problem, not like I was gonna make you sleep outside on the ground.” You responded with a small smile and handed him a cup of coffee and a plate of toast and eggs. “How are you feeling?”

“A little hungover but no worse for wear,” Naruto replied taking the mug from you before falling into a silence. Though it didn’t last long.

“Mama!” Asahi screamed from the other room indicating he was done with his food. You placed your cup down and walked over to your dining area. Grabbing a wet wipe you quickly wiped his face and hands before picking him up and carrying him back to the kitchen. You leaned back up against the counter with your son now in your arms and fell back into silence.

“You, uh, you have a kid?” Naruto questioned in disbelief his food and drink now forgotten.

“Yeah, about that, we need to talk.” You said hesitantly. At that moment Asahi turned around and yelled.

“Dada!” before attempting to lunge from your arms. Asahi knew who his father was, you had shown him pictures and talked about Naruto with him (Leaving out the negatives). Lucky enough, you wrangled him in before he fell.

“S-surprise.” You stuttered out, hugging your son closer to you.

“He. He’s mine?” Naruto questioned in disbelief.

“Yeah,” You quietly replied. “Uh, Naruto. Meet Asahi Uzumaki.” You said almost using your son as a shield.

For the first time since you had known him, Naruto was stock still and deathly quiet. His arms were crossed and you could tell the gears were turning in his head.

“Why. Didn’t you. Tell me?” He practically growled. It was a tone you hadn’t heard before.

“I. I tried -”

“You tried! How!?” He yelled startling you and Asahi.

“I sent you a message! You didn’t respond!” You yelled back.

“A text! That was it! You said ‘I need to tell you something’ then didn’t say anything.”

“You! Didn’t! Respond! What was I supposed to think?” It was at this point that Asahi was getting fussy with all of the yelling and there was a knock at the door. “Ugh!” You exclaimed storming over to the door and throwing it open.

“Hey! There’s my handsome man!” Sakura exclaimed as she swooped in and plucked her godson from your arms and placing kisses all his exposed belly. “Why are you still in your pajamas? I thought we were going to the park today?” She asked looking at you and noticing the frown on your face. Then seeing the twenty-one-year-old behind you. “Oh, Naruto, what are you doing here?” She tenderly questioned unaware of the situation.

“Sakura knew too?” Naruto questioned from behind you. You took a deep breath pressing your fingers to mouth before speaking again.

“Asahi, do you wanna go to the park with aunty Sakura?” You cooed to the little man.

“Yeah!” He cried wiggling to get down. Sakura placed him on the ground and held his hand assisting him to walk back towards his room. You watched the two of them leave before turning to your ex.

“I’m gonna go get him ready, then we can talk.” You said before turning and following after Sakura and Asahi. You quickly got him dressed and packed the diaper bag up before leading Asahi and Sakura outside. Sakura placed her hand on your shoulder giving a gentle squeeze.

“I’ll talk to you later.” She said before grabbing the diaper bag and picking up Asahi. You gently closed the door before facing Naruto. You gesture to the couch and follow him to the furniture. The two of you sat there as the minutes passed. Not saying anything.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Naruto finally asked hunched over with his face in his hands.

“I tried to. But you hadn’t responded to any of my messages in so long. So I sent one last message.” You tried to explain.

“I was trying to get over you,” Naruto said turning his attention to you. “We broke up. We both decided on going our separate ways, and it didn’t feel like it if we kept messaging.” With him looking at you, you could see the tears in his eyes.

“I was so tired of trying, and trying, and trying, and not going anywhere. So I quit. And I know. Goodness I know I should have told you. But you were off living your life. And you finally reached your dreams, and how could I ruin that?” You asked tears streaming down your face now too.

“I would have dropped out, I didn’t have to go off a play.” Naruto pleaded with you.

“That is my point.” You responded taking a hold of his hands. “You worked so hard to get there, and I couldn’t take that from you.”

“But it was my choice to make.” He said back grabbing your hands in his and holding tight “You should have let me make it.”

“I know, and I’m sorry about it.” You said falling into another silence.

That’s how you two sat for twenty minutes. Just looking at each other.

“I want to be involved in his life,” Naruto said. “My season is almost over. Then we have a three-month break. And I will be in town for the next two weeks.” He explained.

“I’d like for you to be involved. And for you to officially meet your son.” You said with a smile.

“And I want to get back to where we used to be. I’ve missed you.” Naruto confessed leaning in.

“I’ve missed you too.” You replied with a smile. It was then that Naruto wrapped you up in a bone crushing hug. Things were looking better. Sakura came back with Asahi and you promised to talk to her later. After that, you officially introduced Naruto to his son. And he was a natural! Playing with Asahi brought the brightest smile to your face. Naruto happily sat on the floor and played with Asahi while you got dressed. It was only when you came out from your room when you were greeted with Naruto holding Asahi out in front of him.

“What?” You questioned.

“He- uh- he stinks,” Naruto said while pulling a face, causing you to laugh.

“Your first dirty diaper! C’mon ‘papa’ I’ll show you.” You said dragging him into Asahi’s room. “Welcome to fatherhood, better get used to it.” You said once the poopy diaper had been changed.

That was the start of your family forming again. With more discussing and negotiating, you were able to convince Naruto to keep playing. With Asahi being a year old it would be easy to travel with him to visit Naruto while he was out of town. Not only that, it was easy with your job.

After a few months of dating again, you asked Naruto to move in. He said yes, he was either traveling for soccer or over at your place anyways, so it didn’t make sense to either of you to keep paying rent on a place he was never at. Then, shortly after Asahi’s second birthday, Naruto proposed. You said yes, obviously, and your family was complete.

Now you were twenty-two years old, You finally graduated and got a promotion at work along with your degree. You had a rambunctious two-year-old and a loving husband. It wasn’t the ideal start, but it was the perfect finish.

#Naruto #naruto x reader #naruto imagine #m/f #imagine #reader insert

234 notes · View notes

dogfirstsmallsecond · 5 years ago

Note

I noticed you raw feed Cad. Any tips for someone looking to raw feed? I probably won't be raw feeding for at least another year or two (until I have more freezer space/extra small freezer). But I wanted to start researching early. You're the only person that I know of that raw feeds a small dog. Most I've heard of is bigger dogs being raw fed.

I don’t know how helpful I’m actually going to be, as I don’t actually raw feed Cad. He’s mostly fed CSJ Rocket Fuel (although we might be changing to CP30 over the winter), but he gets some wet food, and relevantly some raw too. I’d be open to actually feeding him raw in theory, and this was my sort of plan before I got him. However Cadvan is suuuuuuper food-focused and more than happy to do training at any point and also every single day just for kibble. I do some training with him using different food for treats of course, but 80% of his training treats are just his regular food. And I’m not prepared to throw away that sort of help!

He does get occasional raw though, particularly in winter (currently he’s getting raw twice a week, and I expect to up that to every other day and then most days as the winter progresses). He’s a very hard doer and drops weight super easily - other people struggle with keeping their pets’ weights down, I struggle to keep Cad’s up enough that his bones don’t all poke through his skin. I do like him lean (both personal preference and helpful for the sports we do), but a lot of the time he is too lean even more me. It’s because of that that he gets raw bits. I could just up the amount of kibble he gets (he’d be fine with eating more), but then his poo output would go way up too. So instead his extra meals when he’s lean come as raw - both means I don’t have to feed as much by volume extra, and is extra enrichment, and means his extra amount of poo is much less.

Buuut, because it’s just a topup, it does mean I’m less focused on keeping the raw as super balanced across time as I would otherwise be. And this winter, I’m also experimenting with his raw topup being pretty much only adult whole prey, because that’s in and of itself more balanced (baby whole prey is a bit more debatable, he gets some, but I want to be sure about nutrient levels). Which is great for me as no maths and minimal prep! But it’s a) more expensive and b) not so helpful for anyone else. He gets some other bits of raw, but like the occasional raw ear, or heart, or Moril’s leftovers or spare from portioning Moril’s tubs up etc.

I have several UK non-dogblr friends who either currently or have in the past solely fed their small dogs raw. However most of them tend to default to only commercial raw, with maybe some meaty bones for occasional variety. I have one friend who does prey model raw for her dogs who are around the 10Kg mark (which is double Cadvan!), however she has 6 dogs with others around 20Kg in weight, which substantially helps with the whole bulk buying and portioning up stuff with keeping costs down. If you’re on Instagram I can give you her contact details though.

However, I will say that I do have experience raw feeding sole diet to small pets. In that both my current cat and my previous cat were on raw. Moril is 4.5Kg and my past cat was 5.4Kg (indeed I used to have a side blog just for raw feeding her). Cats are slightly different to dogs (less diversity in the types of raw that’s suitable for them and less margin for error), but I mean I feed my cats on raw sold for dogs and am just nitpicky about the details (cats do better at around 8% bone, vs dog 10-12%, I have to pay attention to taurine content, and they need high fat). But cats generally need 4-5% of their weight in raw per day, which is significantly more than the 2-3% most dogs need - even half a percentage makes a big difference to buying and portioning when your pet is only around 5Kg.

I suspect that if Cad was on full raw he would need around 4-5% of his bodyweight though. It’s a general rule that small dogs need to eat more for their bodyweight than big dogs do. It’s why small breed specific dog food is higher in calories, and is an actual worthwhile division for most dogs rather than the rather arbitrary PR-based breed splits some food has. Cadvan in being an active sportsdog actually eats about the same amount of food that a 10-12Kg dog would eat, because he uses up that much energy day to day. That’s why he’s gets supplementary raw in the first place. But basically that should help your maths (both buying and portioning) a little!

The main considerations really for smaller pets, in my experience, are:

What counts as an edible bone (vs a recreational bone) is super reduced. E.g. many people who raw feed big dogs use ribs for edible bone, but for a 5Kg pet only duck, chicken, and rabbit ribs are small enough. And you can’t exactly buy just the ribs of those species, so you will have to do more chopping up carcasses yourself. This is also a problem with regards to e.g. chicken wings being a small boney snack for a bigger dog, but more than a whole meal for Cadvan! Which is theoretically fine, but that is then a LOT of bone all at once (too much for Cad, in fact). You can mess around with portioning up wings into smaller amounts of course, but that’s still more prep than with a bigger dog re. necessary time and planning.

You have to be really strict with yourself on what ingredients you buy, or what brands/ flavours of commercial food. That 1kg amount of meat that would be a good test amount of a product for someone else is going to last you a week if fed on a full ration, let alone the 2-3 weeks if fed in smaller introductory/ test amounts. You wanted something just to try for a day or two? Tough. This is what always catches me out even now, having fed smaller people raw since 2014. Because you obviously want a lot of diversity in what you’re feeding, but you just…. do not go through it in the same way. I’m still working through the raw I bought Moril in Feb/ April, and although it was two orders, neither were particularly big.

And on the back of that, most bulk boxes that owners of bigger dogs can make use of to keep costs down are not an option. Well I mean theoretically they are, but you’re perhaps buying a year’s worth of food at once rather than 3 month’s worth. And that isn’t necessarily the best use of freezer space and/or money overall!

Day old chicks are your best friend. They’re small, but they’re not miniscule. Mostly in the 30-40g range. They also cost like 2p each if you buy them in bulk due to the egg industry’s lack of use for male chicks (I really like that I’m giving them a worth tbh). That’s a nice meal-sized amount for ~5Kg pets. You can’t just feed them, or have them make up a majority of the diet though for multiple nutritional reasons, but super handy to use for reasonable amounts of edible bone, fibre that’s happily eaten (down) etc. Very good back-up to have. For bigger dogs they’re just like a meal topper.

In the UK at least, it’s very hard to find 250g plastic tubs for portioning. This is the volume of tub that fits 100-140g of raw in aka a daily amount for my raw fed people. I obviously do have some, but it is hard work and not cheap to find that size, and often that size is discontinued even if you do (looking at you, Lidl), so finding an excellent tub that size doesn’t mean you can replace any when they eventually suffer plastic fatigue. Using bigger tubs is obviously doable, but then the larger block of food takes longer to defrost and there’s more timings maths involved. Probably easier to do that for a dog though; cats are also pickier with regards to how fresh their food is.

#smalltownweenies #dogblr #dog food #raw feeding #cabbage #bovril #ask

5 notes · View notes

thewritewolf · 6 years ago

Text

Rekindle Chapter 23: Pillows and Blankets

Adrien and Marinette talk about the future from the security of their blanket fortress.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

@marichatmay

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3

Marinette scooted closer to Adrien within the cozy space of their pillow fort as the last dying rays of the sun filtered into their apartment. The last few days had been rough, between Marinette’s recovery and Nathalie’s… lack of recovery, but now that Marinette was finally ambulatory again, she felt like things were settling down at long last. Even so, there was still a lot that needed to be done and said before they could move forward.

The movie played in front of them, but neither of them were really paying attention. There was a tension in the air as both of them struggled with how to start. As was often the case in their relationship, Marinette took the lead.

“Adrien…?” He shifted as she leaned away so she could see his face. “I’ve been thinking…” Her mouth was dry, and not just from the lingering sickness. “With all that’s happened, there’s… space, in the fashion industry now.” She took a quick breath and rushed forward, babbling in her worry. “And I know why there’s space now, and I don’t want to come off like I’m trying to profit off your misery or anything, but this has been my dream since before we met so it’s something I really want to do. But if it really upsets you I can put it off for a while longer or maybe-”

She trailed off as Adrien’s fingers brushed past her cheek, resting on the back of her head while his other hand snaked around her waist, pulling her close in a crushing hug. He took in a few shuddering breaths as he held her and she felt tears begin to prick at her eyes as she listened to him fight back tears of his own.

Eventually, he let go and pulled back, looking sheepish. “S-sorry. It’s just… No one’s ever been willing to sacrifice that much for me.” He smiled down at her. “Of course I want you to pursue your dreams. I would love if something good came out of all this, and I can’t think of anyone more deserving of it than you.”

She giggled. “You say that as if I’ve already succeeded. It’s going to be a lot of work to start my own studio. And it might not work out.”

“Bugaboo, if there is anyone that can pull it off, it’s you.” He held out his fist to her. “And I’ll be there every step of the way.”

Bypassing the intended fist bump, she pressed her lips to his and whispered against his skin with a sigh, “What did I do to deserve you?”

He laughed. “I’m pretty sure that’s my line.”

Adrien smiles again and that’s when she notices it. The smile is the familiar model smile that graces the magazines. The type of smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. She rests a hand on his cheek and frowns at him.

“Adrien, what’s wrong?” His smile falters and he looks away, but she doesn’t let him off that easily. Gently pulling his face back towards her, she adds, “You can talk to me, chaton. I’m here for you, remember?”

“It’s just…” He pursed his lips, clearly struggling with the right words. “What do I do now? My life had been decided for me, but now not only has that gone up in smoke, everyone who had done the planning is effectively gone for good. Do I go back to modeling? Will anyone hire me now that they know I was Hawkmoth’s son? Was I just getting work because I was heir to a fashion empire?” He buried his face in his hands and sighed. “I just... feel lost.”

“I can’t answer any of that for you, but if nothing else, I can always use your experience with my brand. If you want to!” She added hastily. “If you want to do something else, I’m behind you all the way.” She leaned against him and took his hand in hers. “Whatever you do, I just want you to be happy.”

“Besides,” Plagg chirped loudly from his niche in the fortress, “You’re loaded with your own money, so you’ve got time before you have to make a decision. So kick back! Take a load off, figure out what it is you wanna do.”

“I guess I do,” Adrien looked thoughtfully into the distance before turning back to Marinette, a small but genuine smile on his face. “But until then, I’m going to do everything I can to help you build your fashion empire.”

“Thanks, kitty.” She gave him a kiss on the nose. “I guess this means I can finally quit my internship.”

Adrien pulled her close and was practically purring as he said, “Ahh, you know just what to say to make me feel better. The further away you get from that awful place, the better.” He sniffed indignantly. “They just don’t recognize real talent when they see it. I’ll give them six more months before they collapse.”

Struggling briefly in his arms, she settled for wriggling around and leaning her back against his chest. “Well, if you’re feeling better, how about getting back to this movie marathon?”

“As usual, you have the best ideas.”

It wasn’t long before he and Tikki were back into their running commentary, but Marinette couldn’t find it in her heart to be annoyed with him. Instead, she just enjoyed living in this peaceful moment with her little family.

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

Wrapped in an old blanket as he worked late in the cold night, Wang Fu thumbed through an ancient text. Much knowledge had been lost in the Fall, but some had been returned to him through diligent work over the past ten years. Plundering Hawkmoth’s vault had brought even more writings back into the fold.

He spared a glance toward the reason for his frantic studies. A shard of the Peacock miraculous! In all his time as a Guardian, he’d never seen a miraculous become broken like this. It had been his hope that he would be able to avert this fate from occurring, but it was not to be. Once Nathalie had escaped with the Peacock, it was only a matter of time until the stress became too much. And now all that was left to do was pick up the pieces. Literally and figuratively, it seemed.

But this wasn’t the first time a miraculous had been ‘destroyed’. They could repair it, given they obtained enough pieces of it. Yet that had never been in doubt in his mind. It was the damage done in the meantime that worried him. Who knows what would happen when a relic as magically potent as a miraculous was broken? Perhaps the great masters would know. If they didn’t, then the Library of the Guardians would have had the answer. But neither of them had existed for over a hundred and forty years. All that the world had left now was an old student who hadn’t even finished his training when he became sole protector of the miraculous.

He was drawn out of his ruminating when he read a passage on the powers of the peacock.

“Being close to the Ladybug, the Peacock shares in the power of creation, but in a weakened form. Unlike the Ladybug, which can perfectly create substance from nothing, the Peacock uses emotion as a raw component - similar to it’s sibling miraculous, the Butterfly. Yet while the Butterfly turns that energy inward to empower, the Peacock externalizes it. In this way, it gives flesh to will and emotion.”

Set back down the book and took the shard in his hand - a sliver of a much larger piece.

Would his work ever be done?

#Miraculous Ladybug #MarichatMay2019 #Adrien Agreste #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Adrienette #ml fanfiction #my writing #Rekindle

13 notes · View notes

companionhell · 6 years ago

Note

Would you consider doing companions react to Sole sticking up for them, even when they weren’t around? The companion meets up with Sole one day and Sole’s rocking a gnarly shiner+other injuries- when asked about it, Sole admits that someone at the bar was talking about their companion rudely/creepily and Sole got into a serious bar fight with them over it, bc “Nobody says that kind of stuff about MY best friend without comeuppance.” (IDK, Sole being a True Homie is good to me.)

Leaving Dogmeat out because… who would insult the dog? :(

Cait: Cait looked at them in disbelief for a minute. “Are ya fuckin’ with me?” When Sole shook their head, Cait just laughed and punched their shoulder (regardless of any injuries there). “Well, looks like the bastard got a good swing or two on you.” She didn’t seem to take it too seriously while speaking to them, but in reality it was kinda… sobering. Cait couldn’t think of another soul who’d risk their skin on her behalf, even if it was only a fistfight. Certainly, she saw Sole in a different light afterwards.

Codsworth: He made a big fuss. “Oh my… sir/mum!” Codsworth floated around them, craning his eyes to inspect wounds and promptly giving Sole medical supplies, erring on the side of excessive caution. “While it was quite generous of you to defend my honor, sir/mum,” he said, still bustling around as Sole tended to their injuries, “you mustn’t harm yourself on my behalf. And you certainly mustn’t escalate a verbal altercation like that, good lord! A few insults aren’t the end of the world. There must be other ways to resolve an argument.”

Curie: Curie was horrified. She scolded Sole while tending to their injuries, dabbing their scrapes with alcohol and putting ice on the larger bruises. Her words switched between almost inaudible, usually medical notes to herself, and louder, more pointed comments on how violent the Commonwealth was. “Mon dieu. Hurting others is never acceptable, but it seems you never learned that up here. Minor laceration… Just because this world is full of barbarians doesn’t excuse retaliation.” Fighting, even for her, would not win her approval.

Danse: Danse sighed heavily when he saw Sole’s black eye and dozens of bruises and scrapes. Other than that, though, he didn’t actually scold them too badly, besides maybe shaking his head as they told the story. Afterwards, Danse told them sternly not to put themselves in harm’s way like that- yes, even if he was being insulted- but he was internally somewhere between touched and vaguely bemused. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have done the same thing himself, honestly, so he couldn’t be too critical of Sole.

Deacon: Yeah, it was pretty funny, but it still wasn’t great to have been positively identified at a bar and then associated with Sole in the form of a fight with several witnesses. Especially if it was at, like, the Dugout Inn, where the proprietors were already suspicious of Deacon. “Well, looks like I need a new cover,” he said in resignation. “Have fun in your fistfight? Break any teeth for me?” Really, Deacon didn’t know how to feel about it. He wasn’t the biggest fan of the violence, but he also didn’t doubt Sole’s loyalty- and that was something.

Gage: After he got over his initial surprise that Sole would fight for him (it was definitely a new feeling), Gage was honestly baffled that the other guy wasn’t dead. He couldn’t believe someone had managed to give Sole a shiner without three bullets between their eyes- this was the Overboss, after all. Some folks had got shot for less. If Sole chose to keep it limited to a fistfight for some strategic reason, though, Gage would wanna know who the fuck it was. If someone that important had it out for him, he wanted to know.

Hancock: He grinned at the news, stepping back to get a big-picture view of Sole’s injuries. “Well, well. Looks like you finally paid me back for Finn. You, uh, just rough 'em up a little? Not seeing any red stains on your get-up, there.” Whether Sole had killed the person or not, Hancock was glad to see how much Sole’s sense of loyalty lined up with his. Hell, he’d killed a man for Sole on day one, and that willingness hadn’t changed much since. He wanted to know who was bad-mouthing him, though- shut down any conspiracies before they started.

MacCready: MacCready kind of half-laughed at the sorry state Sole was in, but he was actually pleasantly surprised. He hadn’t met a lot of people who’d do anything like that for him, and though he considered Sole his best friend, it was nice to have that affirmation. “Yeesh, that’s a nasty black eye. Knowing you, though, I bet the other guy looks way worse.” That prompted Sole into a graphic description of exactly what they’d done to that idiot, which MacCready sat and listened to, growing more appreciative (and more amused) by the second.

Nick: He was firstly concerned about Sole’s injuries, but once assured they were minor and told the reason, Nick got vaguely irritated. He had several pals with a penchant for fisticuffs, Hancock included, but this was ridiculous. Nick had been insulted his whole life, faced anti-synth prejudice almost everywhere, but he’d never resorted to a fistfight without a damn good reason. He told Sole so, too, but he found he couldn’t be too hard on them. They were just trying to watch Nick’s back, after all, though their methods were less than savory.

Piper: She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Blue. Again? If you concussed everyone who’d ever criticized me, half the Commonwealth would be out cold.” In truth, Piper was more playfully irritated than actually irate. Though maybe Sole wasn’t the best role model for Nat to see fraternizing with her older sister, Sole was a real good person, with a persistent sense of humor and an undying loyalty to their friends. They weren’t too violent, either- unless Piper’s dignity was on the line, apparently. She didn’t really mind, but she couldn’t encourage it either.

Preston: Preston was disapproving, sure (especially considering his worry when Sole walked into Sanctuary looking like that), but he didn’t really get mad. Maybe it wasn’t the best for public image if the General of the Minutemen was seen getting into bar fights, but the thought behind it was sweet. It was nice to know Sole cared about him so much, actually, that Preston’s admiration was reciprocated, even if Sole’s way of showing it left something to be desired. He still suggested they avoid it in the future, though.

Strong: Strong recognized the bruises and cuts as badges of a successful hand-to-hand fight, and didn’t even need the explanation before he was expressing approval, if mixed with semi-condescending remarks on fragile human skin. He was glad to hear Sole was defending him, too. Though he insisted he would have rather snapped the offender’s neck himself, he knew other humans stared at Sole while he was with them. It was good that Sole didn’t mind their judgement, just as he didn’t mind his brothers’ disapproval.

X6-88: X6 bit the inside of his lip once he saw Sole. He’d seen this person stare down mutants, Gunners, deathclaws, and he found it very difficult to not make a sarcastic remark about how some bar fight would be their downfall. Somehow, he kept it in, though, and was surprised by Sole’s next words, glad for the sunglasses to hide his eyes widening. Obviously, he didn’t care what the wastelanders thought of him, but Sole clearly did- and their demonstrable loyalty to X6 was almost... touching. He’d never experienced anything like it.

#this was a good prompt #fallout 4 #fallout 4 companions #fallout 4 companions react #cait #codsworth #curie #danse #deals #gaming #hancock #maccready #nick valentine #piper #preston garvey #strong #x6-88

329 notes · View notes

sicaminion · 6 years ago

Text

—Kise hates his smile.

“Yo, Kise.” He looks up and finds Aominecchi has this annoying, cocky smile plasters on his face. He looks down on him, slightly, because he’s annoyingly taller (only by few inches!) and it makes him regrettably too smug for Kise’s liking.

“You late. I’ve been waiting here for more than 2 hours,” he grumbles, jutting out his lips because that’s what he unconsciously does when he is annoyed.

“I told you not to wait on me,” he retorts easily. “I messaged you so don’t get all grumpy on me now.”

“You messaged me by only 10 ten minutes before! Are you seriously thinking it’s that easy to cancel an official meeting like this?”

“Calm your tits blondie, don’t be so stiff now. I’m here, alright.”

Kise glares and he glares hard. He can tell his face gets all red now. “You know what? You’re—“

“—an ass,” the smirking male drawls, smugly stealing Kise’s words from his tongue. He smiles so innocently it gets on Kise’s nerve. He opens his mouth to snap on the bluenette but the latter is quick to cup on his cheeks, making the blond snaps his mouth shut.

“I’m sorry,” he says with an intense gaze fixed up on him. And then he smiles, that damn heartbreaking smile of him that always without fail electrified him, makes his skin all tingles and his breath shortened.

Kise stomps his way as he tries to escape from Aominecchi’s clutch, cheeks red and lips bitten in frustration more at his own self than at the other.

Kise really hates his smile.

—Kise hates his hairstyle.

Aominecchi keeps his hair uncut in university. For some unknown reason the lazyass bluenette decides to roll on with a longer, wilder style even when Kise knows he thinks it’s annoying because every time the now longer fringe dropped to his forehead he'd shove them with this tiny scowl on his face. Sometimes he'd mess with it or swapped it aside (also with this irritated mini furrowed eyebrows that Kise might or might not find kind of maybe slightly adorable.) He would also scratch the top locks on his head with his claws from time to time and then Kise would have scrunched his nose whenever the latter did so, he'd told him that if his head itched he should have shampooed it more. Aominecchi then would either gets him in a headlock or ruffles his hair.

“If it annoys you why you keep it long?” he asks when the movement getting all too distracting for him.

Aominecchi looks at him and shrugs, messing his hair once again.

Kise then would keep staring at him. More specifically, at his hand and gets stupidly jealous of it because he desperately wants to do the job. He wants to replace that hand and run his own hand through the other's hair. He wants to reach out and play with the strangely soft looking locks.

“You said I should try to keep it longer.” He hears Aominecchi says after a while of pause.

“Huh, I did?”

“Yeah, I think I might try and see if it suits me.”

Yes, it does. Kise coughs and looks the other way. “Don’t cut it, then.” Keep it long (and maybe, just maybe, he would have a chance one day to run his hand on it.)

—Kise hates the way he made fun of him.

“Oh my God,” Aominecchi gasps between his laughter. Kise hopes he’ll choke up and drop dead on the ground any minute now.

“What an epic fail! Oh yeah, you really gets the hang of it, alright. You’re the best.” He continues with his unnecessary comment, even still as breathless as he is at the moment.

“Shut up.” Kise grits his teeth. He bows his head and tugs on the bluenette’s jacket sleeve closer, hoping that the other’s larger figure can somehow hide him from people’s curious eyes.

“I have to admit that when I see your confidence declaration I was sold for a moment right then. What was it again? Oh yeah, I can do it Aominecchi,” he says, mimicking Kise’s voice. The blond is clearly unimpressed at the unflattering copy the bluenette makes of him, “Who do you think I am? There’s no way parking a car could be harder than beating your ass in basket.” Aominecchi then snorts and adds; “Now I know you suck at both.”

Kise stomps at Aominecchi’s foot because it is what best he can do in the middle of attempting to escape from the scene. But Kise did stomp quite hard and he is very satisfied at himself when he hears the tanned skinned male yelped in pain. “Do such thing once again and you’ll have to drive yourself home after this.” Aominecchi darkly mutters.

“Is that a threat?” Kise squints his eyes, looking particularly at Aominecchi’s other feet contemplating if there’s some other way he can step on the other one as well.

“Seeing how you successfully bumped every single ones of the traffic cones, scratched the innocent, unmoving car on both your sides, and hit a huge-ass tree in a straight path… yes. It’s a threat for your own safety, genius copycat.”

Kise vows to get the paint job of Aominecchi’s car scratched and totally ruined later on. Unintentionally, of course.

—Kise hates when he treats him like a girl.

Sometimes Aominecchi can easily gets on his nerve when he is, in fact, only trying to be kind.

Like when he accompanied him to shop the previous weekend, for example. “Here, trade the bigger bag with mine.” He said. “Actually, just lemme carry them all, you look like you’d swoon anytime now.” He added which made Kise bitched, of course, because seriously he isn’t that weak and just because he is paler than usual—because of the terrible heatstroke—doesn’t mean he is going to swoon like a damsel. (So “No, thank you,” he replied.)

Or that one time when the college’s clinic doctor said he was anemic and should had been better taking a rest from his part-time modelling for at least one week. The blue haired male wouldn't let him escape his eyesight and after watched the few times Kise almost going to fall down—actually, it was just two times. He counted—he’d insisted he’ll carry him to his apartment. (“Fuck it, Kise. I’ll just give you a piggyback ride,” he stated.) But Kise was stubborn so he strongly refused—it'd be goddamn embarrassing damnit. Knowing he had fainted and got carried away in a bride style to the clinic was already embarrassing enough he wished the earth would open and swallow him, letting himself get carried when he was very much conscious was another different level of humiliation. Thank you very much, but nope.

But then one day, Aominecchi’s current girlfriend is sick. She gets a fever and the clinic doctor tells her she could leave earlier if she felt the fever getting worst. She milks the best out of it (like any typical college student who doesn’t have the motivation to stay for the class would do in such opportunity) and takes a leave.

“She’s definitely faking it, of course.” Momoicchi mutters beside him. They’re sitting on the picnic sheet the girl has brought with her and lay on the grass in the College yard, studying for a subject they luckily shared the exam together, “When Dai-chan and I visited her in the clinic she looked absolutely fine except for the slightly flushed face, she’s just making Dai-chan carry her around to make Togano-san believes she’s indeed too sick to participate in the class.”

Kise smiles a tight, small strained lips kind of smile—because he too, thinks the same like Momoicchi. He watches as Aominecchi and his girlfriend—fitting snugly in the bluenette’s hold—approach them. The girl smiles as she looks down at the two of them and sighs softly, cheeks flush in a pretty, feminine shade of pink.

“Daiki always treats me like a princess,” she gushes aloud. “He looks rough on the outside but he would offers such sweet thing that only I get the privilege to.”

Kise refrains himself from saying anything and from the corner of his eyes he can see Momoicchi does the same. Neither of them saying anything to reply the girl but Kise has, with an irritation he doesn't really understand, keeps a note to himself that the next time Aominecchi gets all annoying again by offering him sweet thing like piggyback him or anything stupid like that, he’ll let him do it and makes sure his girl knows about it.

—Kise hates how he criticized his job.

“You’re scrawny Kise.” He hears Aominecchi's comment as he flips the few pages where Kise’s photoshoot of recent modeling for a jeans printed on. “You look like a toothpick.”

Kise eyeballs the bluenette wishing if only the imaginary daggers he sends at Aominecchi could actually really give a sting on his wide forehead. “Whatever you say, Aominecchi. But for your information everyone in the studio praised my body.” He says defensively.

The ex-Touou ace puts down the magazine and gives him a once over. “Meh, they don’t have good eyes, then.” He drawls and then as to prove a point he casually strips and throws his shirt at him.

“Asshole,” Kise grumbles.

He quickly looks the other way so that the other won’t notice the embarrassing red shade creeping up his face.

“Kise,” he hears Aominecchi calls after a moment of silence between them. He hummed as to makes him know he listening. “Have you ever thought of quitting modeling before?”

Slightly taken by surprise when he heard the strange question, Kise pursed his lips before he replies. “Um, I have a small fleeting thought once in awhile. Usually it’s whenever I was feeling particularly worn out after the job but the thought never stays for long.” He shrugs. “Why suddenly the weird question, Aominecchi?”

“You should quit.” The bluenette says with a ridiculously straight face. Kise frowns. He’s going to say something—ask him why, maybe, but Aominecchi beats him. “All of your poses are silly.”

Kise huffs after he hears that, his jaws tightens in irritation. Aominecchi always makes fun of the job he’s been doing since junior high school. He’s been indifferent at first—after all, what he cares solely in his silly teenage years is only basketball (and a gravure idol who’s photobook he’d never missed)—but getting older and wiser as time passes by the male has finally put interests in other things that isn’t his favorite sport. He’s putting more concerns on his friends, make an effort to actually hang out with them, and honestly Kise couldn’t be any happier for that. However, when it comes to the potential of bullying Kise the other has never hesitated any bit, and while his mocks are mostly teasing sometimes it can get hurtful too. Kise has long since learned to just rolls with it.

“All of my poses are none of your business Aominecchi. You’re not the one who paid me for the job, so I don’t care whatever your opinions about them.” Kise snaps and then winces at how bitter he must have sounded to the other. It’s not his character to get angry at Aominecchi’s barbs. Between the two of them he prides himself to be the more level headed one.

But he can’t take the words he has spoken so confidently now, can he?

Next he realized Aominecchi hasn’t said anything after his snappy comeback yet and even though Kise doesn’t have the guts to look at him and whatever expression fixed on the bluenette’s face he feels a small surge of pride blossoming inside his chest for finally standing up for his own self. And also for finally be the one with the last words between the two of them.

—most of all, Kise hates the way he gave a sincere 'sorry'.

It’s been a month and between three upcoming fashion shows and an offer to make his debut in the newest edition of W’s Japan Kise has not yet got the chance to talk with Aominecchi after their latest argument. It’s been quite awkward after he delivered his blow to get back on the other’s mocking comment regarding his modeling works and strangely Aominecchi didn't throw any comeback retorts until he'd gone home soon later that day.

“Do you think I’m being too harsh when I said his opinion don’t matter?” Kise asks Momoicchi after he’s finished telling him about their last encounter. They’ve been in phone call for almost an hour now. They’ve became so close with each other since the starts of freshmen year, having shared few same classes and known each other since junior high school. They enjoy each other’ companies and share many similar taste. Momoicchi has something in her that makes it easy to discuss almost everything.

“No Ki-chan, I think you did the right thing. Dai-chan could really be so arrogant sometimes and it’s nice that you tolerate his flaws, but you can’t let him step on your feelings either.” Momoicchi has assures him and it really makes him feeling all better.

But after they decides to say goodbye for the night and the call has ended, Kise lies on his side, the gallery on his phone showing the recent photo he has taken with Aominecchi in Murasakibaracchi’s Halloween Party last week. They have their cheeks pressed together as they grinned widely, ear to ear, faces flushed because of the Pina Collada and Aominecchi has one of his arms on Kise’s hip as the other tugged on the bunny ears on the headband he’d been forced to wear.

Suddenly Kise misses him.

And as if on cue, the said bluenette’s caller id pops out on his screen.

With wide, startled eyes Kise gazed at the flashing screen for few seconds not doing anything, before he finally snaps out of it and quickly picks up the phone.

“A-aominecchi?”

“Kise,” a deep voice, somehow with a touch of relief in it, answers him. “What took you so long, dumbass?”

Kise recognized the usual teasing tone the other is using and he smiles, “Mou, it can’t be that long.”

He hears few chuckles and then there’s silence before Aominecchi talks again. “Hey, uh... listen, I want to say I’m sorry, Kise.”

Kise’s heart skips a beat. “Uh, for what?”

“For making you upset,” the other replies easily. “Because I did, right? Upsetting you, I meant.”

Kise feels like he’s thrown to another realm. He can’t believe Aominecchi has just apologized! Well, it’s not that he’s that much of an asshole—no matter how people may thought of him—Aomine is, just like everyone else, also capable of feeling guilty, apologetic, and even remorse. He just usually not chooses to openly admit it—not verbally at least.

He prefers to act on it. Like suddenly bringing a box of donuts without being asked to or offering to help on something he normally won’t do.

If he says sorry he says it to tease. It's definitely not like this.

“Kise? You still there?”

“Oh, yes! I— sorry I just—” Kise bites his lips.

Damn, he can’t contain his grin.

—Kise hates Aominecchi, .......well, maybe not completely though. It'scomplicated.

#aokise #knb #rewrite old story #ao3 #ff: love/hate #kise thoughts are a mess #he is just a confused puppy #aomine doesn't help #aka the shoujo manga tropes i found silly but secretly like

20 notes · View notes

lesbian-yaoyorozu · 7 years ago

Text

Atoms and Circuits, Hand in Hand

Summary: Yaoyorozu insists to herself and to Hatsume that all this "making Hatsume rare metals and materials when she needs them" business is not going to become a regular thing.

It becomes a regular thing.

Pairing: Yaoyorozu x Mei Hatsume (Momomei)

AO3 link

I’m reposting this because I kind of messed up the tags the first time around so it didn’t show up in searches very well. Hope you guys enjoy!

With her Quirk as centered around knowing the exact structure of objects as it is, Yaoyorozu doesn’t think it’s anything exceptional that she’s interested in how things are built. Learning how to create a new object usually takes a period of days to weeks- learning or refreshing her knowledge on the required molecular structures, memorizing the layout of the object inside and out, creating several beginning, undetailed versions of the object to get a general feel for it (rough drafts, she calls them) as well as making every material individually, and finally, after much practiced visualization, making her first attempt at the finished product. She’s gotten better at the beginning stages over the years as her experience with different molecular structures and materials grew, sometimes shortening it to a day or less, but working out the kinks and then learning how to produce the object consistently on the fly with little preparation always took a long time.

Maybe that’s why she’s interested in the support course girl, Mei Hatsume. Yaoyorozu sees the way she painstakingly designs and builds her inventions and feels a small degree of familiarity; putting parts together feels exactly like putting molecules together, just on a larger scale. She’s fascinated by engineering and the thought that must be put into building something new, instead of learning how to memorize a blueprint and recreate it.

It’s obvious that Mei Hatsume is a genius. Her plan was audacious and bold, hinging on her inventions being good enough to run circles around Iida without even focusing on beating him as the objective. And it paid off- Yaoyorozu has heard that out of the fifty support companies in attendance, not one of them didn’t express interest in Mei Hatsume. This girl is going to grow up to be one of the smartest engineers and support item designers of her time, and Yaoyorozu can see it.

Despite her curiosity, however, Yaoyorozu has never found a good enough reason to spend the time to go down and meet her. Her first chance is after they start training for the Provisional License Exam, when she goes to see if her costume could possibly be improved. She can’t think of any real changes that could be made, but then again she’s not in the support course. She decides to go just in case there’s some perspective she’s missing.

She opens the door and there’s a bang, something’s rocketing at her face, too fast to react, and she throws up her hands-

It stops at the last moment. A pink head pops around it, and Yaoyorozu suddenly notices the hands clamped on either side of the object that must have caught it at the last second.

“That got away from me for a second there! ” Mei Hatsume says breezily, and swiftly yanks the device back and tucks it under her arm. Yaoyorozu blinks owlishly and slowly lowers her hands, still half-convinced she’s about to be hit in the face, as Hatsume pushes up her goggles. “Propellant devices, so hard to control sometimes- oh, you’re another one from the hero course aren’t you, looking for support items?”

In a flash, she’s back at her workbench, shoving aside a mix of papers and unidentifiable bits of metal to slam down the device with a thunk loud enough to make Yaoyorozu wince.

“What’s your Quirk, because I have a new baby- oh, never mind, it’ll work for you no matter what your Quirk is!” She whips around, a new device in her hands. “An omni-directional kickback inducer! Put it on the soles of your shoes to get just a little bit more spring in your step, and you’ll jump a whole couple of meters higher-” Hatsume’s rushing at her with an eager look in her eyes looking ready to slap it onto Yaoyorozu if that’s what it takes, and Yaoyorozu panickedly shoots a barrier out of her arm to cut her off.

“Oof-” She slams into it, and all of Yaoyorozu’s sense of shame returns at once.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, are you okay?” She steps forward to help, but Hatsume pops back up quickly. While she's distracted, the misshapen object finishes sliding out of Yaoyorozu’s arm and clatters to the ground.

“Neat, what kind of Quirk is that?” Hatsume says cheerfully without missing a beat. Yaoyorozu opens her mouth to answer but Hatsume beats her to the punch. “You’re creating something out through your skin, aren’t you, huh?” Hatsume grabs her arm and yanks it up to her eyes, studying it. Yaoyorozu realizes abruptly that seeing a girl fighting from hundreds of feet away doesn’t translate to knowing her personality.

“Er- yes,” Yaoyorozu stutters, attempting to take back some control in the conversation as Hatsume lets go of her arm, having evidently concluded that there’s nothing special to be found there. “I can create any object I want as long as I know the molecular structure of what I’m making.” Yaoyorozu suddenly remembers that she came down here for possible advice in the first place and rushes to keep talking. “My body breaks down fat cells and turns them into atoms that then are shaped into what I create. So, um, I need to eat much more in order to fuel that, and because they come out of my skin the objects I can create are ultimately limited in size.”

Yaoyorozu has been talking with Hatsume for barely a minute, but for the first time, Yaoyorozu sees her pause. Hatsume’s eyes flicker back down to Yaoyorozu’s arm for a second again before locking on hers. Her eyes are unexpectedly focused. “So, you don’t have the space for bulky support items because you need as much skin open as possible.”

Yaoyorozu nods.

They stay in place for a fraction of a second longer before something clicks in Hatsume’s eyes and she whips around, sweeping her arm across the workbench to clear space again. “Small, then? Tricky, I’ve never made something like that before. Anything on your hands, arms, and legs, anything too large on your torso, out of the question…correct?” Hatsume snaps her head around to meet Yaoyorozu’s eyes again.

Yaoyorozu nods quickly. “Yes.”

“Alright!” Hatsume barely pauses before grabbing a piece of paper and starting to write or sketch.

Yaoyorozu stands there watching, finally having a moment to think as Hatsume scribbles. That look in Hatsume’s eyes- it’s the moment of being presented with a problem, and the moment the ideas start rushing in of how to solve it.

A sense of familiarity washes over her again and Yaoyorozu smiles. Maybe she and Mei Hatsume aren’t so different after all.

But still, not too similar, Yaoyorozu thinks a little later as Hatsume yanks her back over with her usual bubbly attitude, ready to show Yaoyorozu what she’s come up with in a minute or less.

They talk for nearly thirty minutes as Hatsume comes up with a fair few ideas and makes many suggestions, half of which are unfortunately ridiculous and which Yaoyorozu has to shoot down immediately. Hatsume usually has a wide variety of support items she pushes on whoever asks, but Yaoyorozu needs items so radically different than most of what she’s designed that she has to start from scratch.

Yaoyorozu apologizes for the trouble but Hatsume cheerfully waves it off, saying she likes a challenge and that it’s never good to get too used to one way of doing things, anyway.

Near the end of her visit, they’ve mostly wound down from fast-paced discussion and transitioned into Hatsume standing there building some of the items that can be built quickly while Yaoyorozu sits quietly, chatting sometimes about random topics. They wander around, and at some point branch into discussing the curriculum at UA.

“I don’t know how it works in the Hero Course, but in Support they give you a lot of free reign,” Hatsume says, wiggling in a minute screw that Yaoyorozu can’t even see.

“Really? The lesson plan is very structured for us,” Yaoyorozu says.

“I think it’s like that because in Support it all really comes down to your own ideas,” Hatsume grunts, pulling over something Yaoyorozu can’t even identify. “Can you hold this for a second?” she says, handing Yaoyorozu the wrench she was using.

Yaoyorozu takes it, glancing down at it for a second. She does a double take- it’s the wrench she makes, the exact same one down to model and brand that she studied and learned to make back when she was learning to make tools. That’s a coincidence, but it is a common wrench.

“Yeah, anyway, it’s all about what you can create, what you can come up with specifically. But heroing has more strict guidelines on what’s the best thing to do in any given situation.” Hatsume finishes using the...whatever, and holds out her hand. Yaoyorozu gives back the wrench.

Yaoyorozu tilts her head. “That’s interesting.”

“Yeah.” Hatsume pushes at something with the wrench. “I also think that-” Something abruptly gives way and the wrench shoots forward, out the open window. Yaoyorozu jumps.

Hatsume runs over and peers down. “Oh wow, that went really far. I can’t even see it.” She turns and starts to walk toward the door. “Okay, I’m going to have to go find that, if you want to stay here-”

“Wait.” Hatsume stops and looks at her curiously as Yaoyorozu casts her mind back. “That was the Dremel brand, right, the size five wrench?”

Hatsume blinks. “Yeah.”

Yaoyorozu considers for a moment, then closes her eyes and focuses. It’s been a while since she’s practiced making any tools, but she thinks she can do it. She raises her hand up, and a size five Dremel wrench pops out of her palm, easy. “Ah, will this be alright?” sfhe says, holding it out.

Hatsume takes it and flips it over a few times, studying it, as if checking that it’s actually real and the same as the other wrench. She's had that reaction before when she makes objects for other people. "I just didn't want to have to make you spend any more time, since you're doing so much for me already..." Yaoyorozu says awkwardly, slightly regretting the impulsiveness. After a moment, Hatsume’s eyes rise up to study her.

“Yeah, this is perfect,” Hatsume says, and seemingly walks back over to her invention to keep working on it without a second thought. However, Yaoyorozu catches Hatsume looking at her thoughtfully a few times for the rest of the meeting.

---------

Yaoyorozu doesn’t think about Hatsume for the next few days as she builds some of the support items they both agreed on, except when Hatsume chases her down in the halls to make another suggestion.

She doesn’t wonder why Hatsume seemed so thoughtful when Yaoyorozu made the wrench for her; maybe it was just gratitude. Hatsume is bright and bubbly but she also seems to be something of a loner, who only talks to people when she goes over and talks to them first, usually about support items.

It’s the first time she comes back to pick up and test out what Hatsume’s finished that Yaoyorozu realizes (at least partly) the real reason.

“Right, so, I finished the headset!” Hatsume says, practically shoving it toward Yaoyorozu again.

“Really? I thought that would be one of the longest things to make,” Yaoyorozu says in surprise, taking it and flicking it on with the switch on the side. Hatsume looked borderline insulted when Yaoyorozu had told her she carried a physical dictionary in her hero costume and insisted on making a rudimentary headset for her to wear with a tiny screen and a matching computer holding all the information in her dictionary. Yaoyorozu wasn’t quite ready to switch to it immediately after it only having been built a few days ago, but the fact that it removed the largest weight in her hero costume as well as hopefully made the information more accessible was a good idea. And it would be on her face, one of the only places Yaoyorozu would almost never create something out of.

The screen flickers on with a fluorescent blue to a homepage listing all the materials and blueprints from her dictionary by group. Yaoyorozu is impressed at the depth of what Hatsume can build in such a short time.

“It was one of the more methodically difficult things to make, but a lot of the other babies need materials I don’t have, so they still need time to order and deliver,” Hatsume says casually.

Yaoyorozu blinks. “Oh, like what?”

Hatsume shrugs, fiddling with something on her workbench. “Some magnesium citrate, mostly. UA has a very wide stock but even they can’t have everything.”

Yaoyorozu turns the headset off and on again and swipes through a few of the categories to see if there are any obvious bugs in Hatsume’s coding. There aren’t. She takes another moment to marvel at Hatsume’s ability. “How long does that take to deliver?”

Hatsume hums, still fiddling. “Well, it only takes a few days to deliver. The main problem is that I could only find one person who was selling it who seemed legit, and with them it’s really expensive, so I have to spend some time saving up the money.”

Yaoyorozu instantly rockets off the table she’d been leaning on in shock. “What? You don’t need to do that!” She was already antsy about making Hatsume create whole new designs just for her, but the fact that Hatsume was spending money on this, for her, money she didn’t even have on hand, was downright distressing.

Hatsume waves a hand breezily. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Just the experience I can get from building it is good enough.”

“But-!” Yaoyorozu says, distressed.

Now, Yaoyorozu is a rational person. She believes wholeheartedly in the fact that she can’t just go around making anything for herself any time she wants. She knows that it’s virtually impossible for her to actually affect the economy on a mass scale, but it’s the principle of the thing, and the principle is to be a law-abiding citizen. She can’t just make things willy-nilly and skate by by making everything for herself without having to pay for it (especially since she already has money to spare). She makes as much of a point of it as she can to only use her Quirk in situations that really call for it.

But Mei Hatsume probably doesn’t have that kind of money to spare, and she said she actually had to spend time saving it up. For the materials to build something for Yaoyorozu, that she doesn’t even really need (it would be very nice to get it, but it’s nothing that’s going to compromise her training if she doesn’t have it) either. And Hatsume’s stubborn. She’s not going to be talked out of this.

Yaoyorozu is distressed.

Okay- just this once.

“Erm- how much do you- need?” Yaoyorozu says haltingly.

Hatsume sets down whatever she was fiddling with instantly. She’s unusually quiet and Yaoyorozu feels uncomfortably like Hatsume’s watching to see what she does. Hatsume slides off the table she was sitting on to look at her. “Four grams or so.”

Yaoyorozu grabs a nearby empty container and places her hand over it. She recalls the molecular structure (it’s simple enough) and magnesium citrate comes pouring out of her palm with a clatter into the jar. She smiles and holds it out to Hatsume, feeling deja vu to when she made the wrench. “Is this enough?”

Hatsume doesn’t even waste a second before grinning and grabbing it. “Oh yes, this is good!” She turns and sets it down easily on the table. Yaoyorozu blinks.

“You planned that, didn’t you?” she says, putting the pieces together. Yaoyorozu can’t really say she didn’t expect it- Hatsume is one of the most audacious people she knows. If she saw an opportunity, she’d go for it. Yaoyorozu sighs internally. “You were waiting for me to make it for you,” she says, crossing her arms, ready to make a show of polite and official disapproval.

“Yes and no. I wanted to see if you would,” Hatsume says cheerfully, doing something on her desk again (always something else to fiddle or work with, Yaoyorozu muses). “I wasn’t lying, it was super expensive. You can look that up if you want, where to buy magnesium citrate online, the only person selling it is way overpriced. But,” Hatsume shrugs, “you’re a nice person and all, and I knew you’d be able to make it. So I brought it up, and wow you are a nice person.”

Yaoyorozu huffs, but at the same time smiles. She’s not that frustrated for some reason. Maybe because this is just Hatsume Mei, and her absolute audacity is one of the reasons Yaoyorozu likes her in the first place. “Okay but, this can’t become a regular thing,” she says, shaking her head fondly but attempting to be serious. “There are moral and economical reasons why I shouldn’t just use my Quirk like that all the time, you know that right?”

“Of course!” Hatsume chirps, before snatching up the headset from where Yaoyorozu had temporarily set it down to make the magnesium citrate and handing it to her again. “Now, how’s that working? It’s only a prototype so I just made it a touchscreen but we’d obviously need to work on that because you might not have your hands free during battle, so maybe I could work a system where you can navigate based on coded blinks or winks- and of course the battery life is currently terrible, only about fifty minutes…”

Yaoyorozu quickly gets tugged into another discussion of support item options, and forgets about getting her point through to Hatsume about the responsibilities of her Quirk. Hopefully, it won’t become a regular occurrence, even without that.

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

It becomes a regular occurrence.

“Hey, Yaoyorozu? About that glove I was working on, I think I might need something extra to make it work-”

“No.” Yaoyorozu is in the hallway between classes, and she tries to keep walking without missing a beat, the way Hatsume does things. Unfortunately, Hatsume starts walking backwards to keep talking to her without missing a beat either.

“But come on!” Hatsume gestures wildly with both hands. It reminds Yaoyorozu faintly of Iida, but more free and unrestrained. “I’m so close. It just needs something to hold it together a teensy bit better and I know exactly where to get it!”

A moment later Yaoyorozu is forced to stop as Hastume shoves a laptop- where did she pull that out from?- in her face. She has barely a moment to focus her eyes on what’s on the screen before Hatsume starts talking. “One supplier online who’s willing to ship to Japan, and he’s in Brazil. Brazil! The shipping fee is through the roof, and he’s overcharging in the first place. Look at this!” Hatsume starts shaking the laptop up and down, which actually makes it harder to look at it.

“I get it, I get it-” Yaoyorozu grabs the laptop to still it, and sees, frankly, the sketchiest website she has ever seen. “Hatsume, I think this is a scam.”

“Yeah, that’s a possibility,” Hatsume says as Yaoyorozu hands back the laptop and starts walking again in an effort to get to class. This time, Hatsume trails slightly behind her instead of walking in front. “But Kendou seemed like she really wanted the gloves.”

Yaoyorozu stops. Inside, she’s already berating herself. “...They’re for Kendou?”

“Yeah, she wanted some gloves that would stretch with her hands but also protect them at the same time. You know, because right now she has to punch things basically with her bare fists? It seemed important.” Hatsume is looking at her oh-so-innocently.

Yaoyorozu chews her lip for a few seconds as she thinks. “Okay, just this one time, okay? I’ll come by later.”

“You’ve actually already done this for me twice now,” Hatsume says cheerfully.

“Well! That ends here,” Yaoyorozu says officially, reminding herself that she is a hero-in-training as well as class vice president. “This is the last time.”

----------

Yaoyorozu is at lunch when Hatsume drops down into the seat next to her as casual as anything, startling her. That’s a first. They’ve only ever talked in Hatsume’s workshop or in the halls before. “Oh, Hatsume, what are you doing here, how are you-” Yaoyorozu says, trying to exchange pleasantries before Hatsume jumps to whatever she came over here to say. A few of her classmates (Midoriya, Uraraka) turn to look curiously at them.

“Soooo, there’s something I’ve been tinkering on, you know, casually…” Hatsume pulls a paper out of her pocket and stuffs it into Yaoyorozu’s hand. “And it’s even worse than the other ones, it’s not that it’s overpriced, it’s that it’s nowhere online period, and-”

Yaoyorozu unfolds (uncrumples?) the paper and has only scanned it for a few seconds before something clicks in her head and her eyes widen. She quickly glances around while grabbing at and refolding the paper.

“Hatsume, can I talk to you for a second?” Yaoyorozu says with a fake laugh before grabbing Hatsume’s arm and tugging her a good distance away from the table.

“Hatsume, this isn’t legal,” Yaoyorozu hisses, shaking the paper, which she had hurriedly (but neatly) folded seven times.

Hatsume looks completely nonplussed, completely undeterred. She opens her mouth to say something-

“I mean, I actually don’t think this is a legal substance for you to have,” Yaoyorozu cuts across her desperately, ignoring the small ping that says that’s rude. “Not think- I know! You have to get a permit to get access to this stuff!” Hatsume pouts, like she’d been expecting this, as Yaoyorozu shakes the paper again for emphasis.

"How are you so calm?" Yaoyorozu demands. "Il-le-gal. Shouldn't that word mean something to you?"

Hatsume stares at her for a second. "There's a cartel on campus and I'm a part of it," she says with a completely straight face.

A beat passes.

"I-what? Hatsume- Hatsume this is serious!" A giggle starts to float up at the ridiculousness of it, but Yaoyorozu pushes down on it. "Right! Right. This is serious." She takes a small breath. "A permit. A permit! You'd need a permit!"

“Those are for people who don’t know how to use it properly,” Hatsume says, as if explaining something to a first grader. “I do.”

Yaoyorozu is scandalized. “That’s something that’s supposed to be determined by the government, Hatsume, not you, how could you-”

Suddenly, Mina pops up behind her, out of nowhere.“Oh, Hatsume, hi!” she says cheerfully. “What are you doing here?”

Two girls with pink hair and a decidedly casual regard for the rules, as well as a tendency to get overexcited. It’s a bad combination. Yaoyorozu scrambles to fix it.

“Ah, just getting some materials-” Hatsume says brightly, steamrollering all over Yaoyorozu’s plans.

“-discussing some support items she’s making for me!” Yaoyorozu cuts across her hurriedly.

Hatsume looks at her entreatingly. “As long as I use it up fast, no one will ever know-” she wheedles.

“Use what up fast?” Mina says, looking interested. Oh no.

“She just wanted me to help her on some support items she was building,” Yaoyorozu says, then turns to look at Hatsume directly. “Sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t do that. I’d also at least advise you to try building something else,” Yaoyorozu says, hoping that will be that.

Hatsume tilts her head back and looks at Yaoyorozu consideringly. Then she rolls her eyes and sticks her hands in her pockets before leaning forward, yellow eyes eager. “Okay, so, yeah, I knew that was illegal before I came over-”

“ILLEGAL!? ”

Mina’s shriek is exceptionally louder than Yaoyorozu ever expected, loud enough to be definitely heard by their entire table. Yaoyorozu grabs both their hands and starts running.

“Okay, we’re going now-”

#momomei #yaoyorozu momo #hatsume mei #fanfiction #bnha #fics #femslash #the cartel hatsume talks about actually isn't a joke- it's a reference to one of my other fics on ao3 (account is lila17)#go check it out if you're interested!#modwrites

13 notes · View notes

myfriendpokey · 7 years ago

Text

songs of the heart

a moving and beautiful metaphor of the imagination is that green lantern can produce almost anything he wants, but generally settles for slightly larger versions of his own hand.

i feel the process of playing games is so diffuse and distracted that you almost have to direct them at the night side of the mind. the process of using computers is so distracted. and the structuring element, programming, jumping on blocks and so forth comes out because it's a way to connect to that distractedness. there's a very lotus-eating quality to rigorous left-brain activity - higher mathematics is the definition of rigor but the history and practice of higher mathematics is also one of mysticism, vagueness, revelation, digression, daydream, renunciation, cults, duels, murder..

the continuing effort to harness the dreamy propulsiveness of a videogame within a more artistic setting never quite work out, it always feels like dragging things into the sunlight ends up losing much more than is gained. we play these things and go yes but if only they had better art, better writing, some sense of theme, some more thoughtful or appropriate structures of interactivity - but then some of them have all those things, and they're never quite satisfying. "game design" remains the norm but as effective as it sometimes is it's something like a cargo cult, the substitution of a means for an end - the denial of an end, in that game design pretends to have value in itself, when any power it has is just the residue of some other process which "gameplay" is the conventionalization and rationalisation of. you see it on the train sometimes, people tapping at nothing on the homepage of their phones, looking at nothing - and then it's like they realise and they open a game so that they can tap at nothing, look at nothing, but with the support net of looking like they have an end in mind.

videogames were invented as a way to justify the fascination of a computer, and the history of videogames is the history of failed attempts to keep up with the development of that fascination. i started making computer games so that i'd have something to tinker with while waiting for limewire downloads to finish, but i downloaded music through limewire partly as an excuse to sit around and do nothing on a computer. later "art" comes in etc - at that moment of disillusionment when it becomes clear that games have nothing to tell us about our own attraction to these devices. now they can be viewed aesthetically, in much the same way that painting and sculpture became aesthetic fields as it became clear they could not keep pace with the demands of religio-mystical impulse. on one hand you have conservative videogames that deny this subterranean fascination exists, to eternally diminishing returns, on the other you have artistic videogames that might theoretically recognise it but still treat it as slightly tasteless, beyond the pale. i think there's this image of the subconscious or the dreamlike as infinitely undirected, free-flowing - a sort of site of leisure as opposed to the productivity of the working day. but the split between leisure and production was itself wishful thinking (or rather mystified thinking, an effort to disguise the way capitalism only rewards certain forms of production by pretending this reflects a sort of metaphysical schism between real-work and not-real-work). and so to an extent is the split between conscious work and unconscious freedom. we daydream at work - most paid labour is useless - and get absorbed in the most banal, nitpicky stuff in our dreams. supermarkets, corridors, rented rooms. obsessively trying to complete tasks, silently arguing, thinking, scheming. trying to work through some material, meaning or affect production.

computers aren't dreams but they can have the same rhythm, in the same clawing and sorting through scraps of the immaterial, like big magpies. this is the face and videogames are the mask. i think it can be hard to look on the face directly, without turning away or substituting in an image of what we'd like to believe constitutes the life of dreams. so what i think is preferable to the attempt would be a sort of dilapidation, a gradual collapse - forms of inattentiveness that allow the real shapes of attention and drive to start pushing through the facade. games for nothing but that renounce even the surly pleasures of being for nothing, a sort of pachinko machine for human consciousness, where the trappings of art and entertainment have dissolved to just whatever mere bony part of them was really being used in guiding that attention. an eye, some crates. river sound. hffhfhh hh hh kk. question mark npc. left. north. not so much the famous cube-based "minimalism" which just consisted of a sort of wishful gentrified version of conservative gamism, more a kind of dilapadism where obsessive focus on rituals of pacing results a side effect in a type of chrysalid-game consisting solely of the parts of gristle our minds don't immediately digest. i imagine it would look something like neo mr. do. neo mr. do review: 99 stars.

there's that great moment in silent hill 2 where you see the monster standing silently, openly, on the other side of a break in the corridor, and there's a similar moment in myst 3 where you peep through a window and see the live-action hominid antagonist silently pacing around the prerendered terrain muttering to himself. and of course there's the moment in super mario world where you go down a pipe into some large underground cavern and glimpse a grinning, shadowy figure silently hovering around a castle in the distance. there are probably others, i should keep a record, but most of the ones i remember lose some of their aura by having that moment - of glimpsing, of peeking - immediately segue into some cutscene where the pressure to react was comfortably taken away. i've written before about how hard i find it to look at things in videogames, as opposed to immediately dismantling them as just hovering components of some structure underneath. here i looked, or tried to look, because it was hard to do that - because visuality suddenly became very pressing in a way which was not accounted for by the structure, whether mechanically, by pacing, emotional tells, etc. a threatening visuality, visuality as a threat, in thesame way that text in videogames is a threat - the imposition within one system of a completely seperate one, with its own demands and requirements, and where the two can't immediately be reconciled via some hierarchy of attention.

actually the videogame element i probably looked at most as a kid was the top of the toilet guard's head in goldeneye. you're in a vent, above a toilet cubicle, you can see him standing silently in the adjoining cubicle... and of course i gloatingly looked as i considered the best way to kill him. could i attach a mine to his head? could i shoot off his hat without him noticing? well, why deny ourselves the small pleasures in life, ha ha ha. but of course in first person shootersyou tend to "see" with your gun anyway - you examine the models in the snow level by shooting them, like you collect jewellery in resident evil by shooting it with a handgun, just like you do for the collectible frogs in metal gear solid 3... and while there are lots of games that have some kind of free-look mode, binoculars, whatever, i never found them nearly as satisfying to use. it's like removing the ability to reach out and touch what you're looking at, so to speak, robs the image of depth. and there's something threatening about this depthless world. staring through a videogame telescope is claustrophobic since there's no sense of what you're looking at really being there. like samuel johnson the tendency is to mill into things to reassure ourselves that we don't live in some kind of berkeleyan illusory universe. collision boxes and interactive doohickeys in games provide the je ne sais quoi that helps convince us that there is something beyond what we see, but conversely taking those things away can suggest there's nothing beyond what we see, and that what we see has no substance behind it. pure virtual changeability. i think becoming used to the sort of chopped-up montage-o-vision a game entails as a fast way to process information means reading a merely visual image can seem an exhausting longeur, like looking at the unbroken long shots of early cinema after growing up on MTV. and the sudden switch to a visual mode can re-instate something of the terror of the virtual that videogames go to such lengths to circumscribe.

if visuality in videogames is awkward and unendurable than that's obviously more reason to do it. there's a good jake clover game where you rightclick to use telescope and it becomes like the black keys on a piano, the eerie counterpoint to a familiar system. as you walk around and look at things you begin to enjoy the nauseating shift, having the camera suddenly rush towards some blurred and inexplicable object, the sudden dissolution of your immediate sense of grounded spatial awareness... you begin to look at more things, as if you were a connoisseur.....

what if the little prince was a freak? he'd be called the little freak. on these thoughts i leave you. adieu............. - stephen

(images: Camel-Zoo, The Crimson Crown, Life Death 2, Mari-Chan Kiki Ippatsu)

17 notes · View notes

aboriginalnewswire · 6 years ago

Link

Trigger warning for sexual abuse, stalking, rape, domestic violence and large-scale attacks by hate groups. Last Thursday, I criticized the Linux community for continuing to support and center a leader with a years-long, documented history of unrepentant abusive behavior, someone who has actively and systematically nurtured a hostile, homogeneous technical community, and someone who has long actively chased people from marginalized groups out of open source. The retaliation has been terrifying. On Friday night, the home addresses of every member of my immediate family were posted online. I have received literally thousands of harassing, abusive, threatening and violent messages across at least half a dozen separate sites. People speaking up in support of me had their home addresses posted online as well, sometimes within minutes, creating a climate of fear that has functionally isolated me from most community support. I have received slurs of every variety, death and rape threats, and violent and threatening images. They have gone after my business and my family's livelihoods with slander, intimidation and attempts to cut off financial support, and tried to hack into various of my accounts and systems. They have left pages and pages of stomach-turning comments on the front of every internet community I am a part of and that influences my professional community and peers. As I was reeling from my family being doxxed and taking steps to ensure everyone’s safety, the tech press was giving a massive platform to an ex-partner - someone I dated for four months more than 3 years ago - who has, after I dumped him, terrorized, threatened and abused me for years, and continues to do so. This is a person who is a known liar, abuser and manipulator, with a long history of stalking, hacking and terrorizing women, who is now being treated as an authoritative character witness on one of his long-term victims - for the sole purpose of destroying my company, discrediting my work, and terrorizing me into silence. This is a person who has hacked nude photos of me and sent them to my employers - yes, bosses, executive team and investors. (I barely left my house for two weeks after and to this day cannot recall a time being more scared, depressed and humiliated). Details of my private sex life - provided by my ex - are now all over the internet and have been used to justify my abuse, incite more of it, and slut and kink-shame me. Valleywag -- less than a day after stealing stories from me, plagiarizing content from my Twitter, publishing my comments without permission or compensation, and refusing to properly acknowledge my work and job title -- has used its platform to replicate this terrorism and domestic violence to an even larger audience. Nevermind that their original articles had already incited harassment against me (they were posted over and over to the anonymous hate boards that attacked my family); their most recent article on me is an act of pure and spiteful violence following my critiques of their behavior. The past few days have been terrifying, and my heart is broken. This is abuse. This is domestic violence. This is harassment. This is terrorism. While many are eager to claim that I am actually being abused because I'm crazy, a liar, a fraud, a troll, a hypocrite, a neo-Nazi, a whore, because I've had kinky sex, because I dated an abuser, because I'm mean to men on Twitter, because I swear a lot, because I'm a "blogger" that contributes nothing to the field: I am being targeted because of my work speaking up against tech culture. My work is what has made me a target, but it is nonetheless ironically (or maybe predictably) being erased in a frothing media-frenzy to portray me as a useless, insane "PR girl", a hysterical slut with a social media account, and to generate page views from my pain. (I'm posting this on Pastebin because unlike most of the tech press, I refuse to use this abuse as a machine for eyeballs and ad dollars.) In case you’re not familiar with my work, let me tell you about it. A few years ago, I started blogging independently about tech culture, giving talks about it, and organizing resistance efforts on social media. In that period, I produced several books-worth of essays that deconstructed in detail harmful elements of tech culture, discussed useful modes of intervention and resistance, and called out collective complicity in oppression across the industry... including my own complicity. I also began using my Twitter account to talk about my experiences with misogyny in tech, call out inequality and advocate for change - and yes, I use swear words on Twitter dot com, and you will handle it because you’re not a fucking three year old. (I might take your cookies and smash your fucking Xbox anyway, though.) I did this in my spare time until late in 2013, when I started working full-time on Model View Culture, which launched in January '14. In the past year, Model View Culture has produced a body of tech and cultural criticism the size of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. We have published over 150 authors. Our publication consistently stands against discrimination, abuse and oppression in the tech industry. We have covered sexual abuse and assault, social media activism and abuse, the surveillance complex, engineering mythology, open source community, accessibility, hiring discrimination, mental illness and disability, consent in product design, workplace abuse, the VC industrial complex, suicide, white liberalism, police violence, codes of conduct, team dysfunctions, and systemic discrimination, violence and inequality at every stage of the technology pipeline. We publish and pay a large and diverse groups of writers speaking to their experiences, to their beliefs and to their sense of justice, to their demands for a better tech industry. We challenge racism & white supremacy, sexism and misogyny, transphobia, ableism, classism and other forms of institutionalized oppression rampant in tech. I believe we have produced more critical content from diverse voices than any other tech media. Model View Culture is not perfect. It is not a panacea. It is not done, or complete. It is one year old, just getting started, and there is so much more for us to do. But we have been an influential, if small, part of the growing attempts to call out and dismantle fundamental problems in the tech community. This work is what people are desperate to stop, by any means including trying to get my family killed by SWATing, trying to convince me to kill myself, terrorizing my supporters, stalking me (I have had multiple men stalk me for 6-14 months at a time), hacking my computers and accounts, "exposing" my sex life, cutting off my funding, belittling and erasing my writing, plagiarizing my content, sending constant rape and death threats, and ceaselessly holding me up for abuse to hate groups. This has been my life for almost two years. I'm sad to say that part of you starts to get used to it. But I also want to tell you about what it does to me and other victims of these attacks. Because of my work, I can no longer make public appearances, speak at events or have anyone know where I am or what I'm doing. I can't have friends over to my house because no one can know where I live. My social life consists only of a few close friends who I feel I can trust. Many of them also undergo the same shit I do - other people don’t understand and find it too stressful to be around. I am traumatized by what is now years of active stalking and abuse; abuse committed by tech workers and unaffiliated individuals, by anonymous harassers and influential figures in tech, and by media both in tech and mainstream. My sex life is fodder for 8chan and corrupt journalists trying to destroy my company because it is competition and it poses a threat to their press-release factories, funded by startups and venture capitalists and uncritically reproducing their propaganda. I receive anywhere between dozens and thousands of harassing messages each week. Anything bad that happens to me is considered “normal” and “expected”, and any reason to expose me to abuse is sufficient. People say I am a "professional victim", suggesting I am somehow profiting off my work, but I am now unemployable in the field I once loved and make a fraction of what I used to make as a tech worker. I spend an enormous amount of money and time securing my safety. It is no longer safe for me to do media appearances as media abuses me, demeans me, violates my boundaries, steals my content and holds me up for abuse, offering no support or protection: every article has resulted in more stalkers and harassment. I am frequently cut off from support because people who support me are afraid to be targeted as well. That's just my everyday. Then there's these recent attacks. Frankly, I am devastated, depressed, vulnerable, non-functional, anxious, paranoid and isolated. I’ve visibly lost weight since last Thursday. My heart hurts and my body aches. I feel humiliated, exploited, and am in physical pain. I'm frightened for myself, my family, my friends, and people in my community who have supported me. I am trying to keep working but honestly, it is incredibly difficult. I had a lot of plans for Model View Culture in the beginning of this year, and unfortunately most of them are going to be delayed by at least weeks as I try to put my self-esteem and sense of safety back together, take the needed steps to protect myself, family and community, and process these feelings of fear, anxiety, trauma and anger. It's devastating to admit the toll this has taken on me, to accept that it is having such a significant impact on my work. I fear that people won’t want to write for Model View Culture anymore because doing this work is actually dangerous. As is, we have to publish far too many articles anonymously, because people fear losing their jobs and their safety for speaking out and telling their stories. I am asking myself how I can actually continue like this and run a company under these conditions. No other tech press is operating under this level of violence and terrorism, and we don’t have corporate money or VC funding to help us defend against it. It’s intimidating. I ask Model View Culture readers and community to be patient during this time. The truth of the matter is that as much as people want abuse victims to be fearless, to come out on top, to not be stopped: at some point, this is simply not realistic. That said, I'm not stopping, I am not going away, and I will continue, even if it happens a little slower or a little later than I planned. Changing tech is my life's work. I'm only 28, so you'll probably have to deal with it for at least the next few decades. This is a set-back for my health and my ability to work, but I'm here for the long-term. I am sad that my new normal is, well, this. But so be it. To everyone who has supported me in this time: Thank you so much. I haven't been able to respond to so many of you because it hasn't been safe to, but I appreciate and value your belief and faith in me. To everyone else: Go fuck yourself. Some specific “fucks yous” go out to: The Linux community, I hope you realize how fucking toxic and broken your “community” is after standing by silently as me and my entire family were terrorized after I criticized Linus Torvalds. I think you are cowardly and spineless and I stand behind everything I said. I also think you need to seriously look at the clear ties the Linux community has to 8chan and GamerGate which led many of the attacks on me. Andrew Auernheimer aka a blast of trash from my past: you started whining and crying the day I dumped your ass and you haven’t stopped since. May the ouroboros eat YOU, easily mistaken for a snake, and may you spend the rest of your days as you have to date - pathetic, prospectless, alone and heartbroken, ever-pining over women who hate your guts and clinging to any last scrap of fast-fading relevance. Milo Yiannopoulos, a failure of a human being but tremendous success as an opportunistic sell-out scumbag who has spent months digging up details on my sex life and leading harassment campaigns against me. Valleywag, particularly Valleywag editor Dan Lyons -- a white man who is 26 years older then me and uses my sex life for clickbait while citing Yiannopolous and Weev as a credible source in order to take me down. Also Jason Calacanis, who has supported my long term stalker Loren Feldman and is basically a shitstain of a human being who we should kick out of tech forever. Vivek Wadhwa, who is building his career off women in tech yet is transparently a misogynistic asshole who has used this opportunity to get back at me for criticizing his profiteering and patriarchal brand of "allyship." Also Elizabeth Spiers who continues to refuse to get the FUCK away from me after MONTHS of me asking to be left in peace. Get the fuck over me and move on with your life as a has-been. You are literally 10 years older than me, yet are relentlessly picking on a young woman with an up-and-coming media career like you once had. You look jealous and petty, and your ongoing obsession with me is creepy as fuck. In the remainder of this post, I am addressing my community. I realize that following my tweets can be difficult and not very coherent, especially as I have navigated the emotional roller coaster of the weekend. My anxiety is through the roof and I haven’t gotten much sleep. While I don't think I should have to explain and rehash my sex life, analyze terrorism against me at length, and somehow summon words out of a fog of anxiety, fear and depression, I want to get my views on the record. They have been dismissed, erased, deemed irrelevant, misconstrued, twisted and deployed against me. So here they are, FROM ME. They have made it too scary to defend me, so I defend myself: I, unequivocally, support ourselves and stand behind us. Lol. OK for real. I wanted to start by discussing my past sexual history. Since we are already so deep into my sex life - released non-consensually and with the sole aim of terrorizing me - let's talk about it. Over three years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to Andrew Auernheimer aka Weev. I had no idea who he was prior to this friend telling me about him and introducing me. I was not involved in the infosec community (still aren’t), was fairly new to tech, and arrived in Silicon Valley years after his most high-profile attacks on other women in tech. As many of you have conveniently forgotten, (even those of you who wrote them!), articles about him painted him as a charismatic, counter-culture hacker taking on powerful and corrupt systems - someone who expressed a number of "controversial" (i.e. sexist, racist and homophobic) views, but these were glossed over as satire and mischief. I was happy to do the same, something which I deeply regret and deeply apologize for. The industry was, as it always has been and remains, enamored and worshipping of the "edgy" young white male hacker who ostensibly reflects a challenge to the status-quo, but in actuality just re-creates those systems under the guise of liberalism, satire and "mischief" aka misogynistic and racist terrorism. Frankly, I was also enamored. At the time, I was really early in my career, didn't give much of a shit about social justice, didn't particularly understand how fucked up the industry was, and was laboring under the profound delusion that my career success meant some kind of feminism. I think I was starting to undergo some type of political realization or awakening and was in some clumsy and inept way reaching out for an alternative framework, a tech “counter culture”. Of course, the "alternative" framework I discovered was some abusive piece of shit who would crawl into my life, use me for money and housing, and then spend years after punishing me for it. Typical. I am also not the only victim of his predatory and exploitative behavior towards his partners and ex-partners. At the time, I was in a bad place (which he gleefully exploited) and frankly looking for some strings-free fun and (unhealthy) emotional support. A good time seemed like having a completely doomed relationship with a notorious, emotionally co-dependent bad boy that I could fuck for a few hours and call daddy in a hotel room, then leave after giving him $40 out of the ATM because he had no money (stemming from a blanket refusal to work, preferring to just take money from women who feel sorry for his miserable existence). It worked for me at the time, it satisfied something I was looking for, and it made my life feel edgy and exciting, even though I know recognize it as a a huge mistake and deeply regret it. But, it happened. To all the people berating me for making poor dating choices in my mid-20s, many who haven't seen their mid-twenties in ten to twenty years: Guess what, assholes. Mistakes. Were. Made. Can you really tell me that you haven't fucked the wrong people? Maybe ones of the dudes I fucked was worse than your partners, but I've always been an overachiever. Like I have previously stated: At least I fucked weev in shame and private unlike the EFF, TechCrunch, the NY Times and all the rest of your favs. To be honest, dating men who are emotionally and physically abusive has been something of a pattern for me, due to the fact that I have disproportionately fallen into these relationships as a former abuse victim AND due to the fact that so many men are abusive, predatory, manipulative and lying scum. Fuck them, and misandry forever. In response to Andrew's allegations that I am a racist, hate-filled neo-Nazi who shared his views, that I am simply a troll or performance artist: I do not, and have never shared Andrew's views, and he didn't teach me shit. Most of our relationship consisted of fucking in potentially disturbing and unhealthy ways, talking about his upcoming trial, sharing photos of red pandas, me bitching about work, watching My Little Pony (i know, i know) and him trying to get as much money out of me as he could. I smoked a bunch of weed, he drank and we ate lots of takeout. As far as his trolling techniques, they seem to consist primarily of convincing people who can actually code to do things for him, then taking the credit for them, so I wasn't really interested in acquiring these “skills” even if I did have a naive fascination with what I then saw as his "innocent" pranks and how they functioned. While it wasn't a big part of our brief-lived (four month) relationship, he often made comments that were racist, homophobic, anti-semitic, misogynist and transphobic. I alternated between being like "hahahaha", “satiring” back to him (including making similar comments), and telling him to knock it the fuck off. In private conversations he assured me that he was just a performance artist, that it was satire and trolling, and that he was actually a feminist (lol). He was always laughing when he said really horrible things. Like the anti-intellectual, self-centered, callous, cavalier and "edgy" white liberal that I fancied myself (And was) at the time, I laughed too and played along. As much as there is lots of feigned outrage from white people about it, this discourse was frankly not much different than that I saw and still see constantly in the tech workplace and at events, online and in the community. Tech prides itself on being "not overtly -ist" when it actually is, despite almost everyone’s vehement protestations. For those who attempt to distance themselves from the racism, sexism, and transphobia of the industry by congratulating themselves that we don’t "say those things": you are full of shit. The tech industry is chock full NOT ONLY of "subtle" issues that let us continue to feel like good people because we don't use slurs, but actual constant and overt abuse, discrimination, and violence - often under the guises of "irony" and "satire”. And I have absolutely participated in it. People demand to know why I won't "defend" myself from the "charges" made by my ex. Yes, they contain a number of outright lies and inventions as well as self-serving exaggerations, distortions and manipulations. Frankly, I’m not going to indulge this circus by refuting and responding point-by-point to the details of an abusive relationship I had years ago. As to the overall tone of the allegations, basically that I used to be an oppressive asshole who held much different values than I do now... well I don't feel a need to "defend" or "deny" that because the truth is, I had for years and years of my past been whole-heartedly complicit in the systems of inequality and discrimination that plague our field. I thought that if I made six figures and did well in my career, acted like "one of the boys” aka white male patriarchs, or played along with them, and was as vulgar, violent, self-centered and cut-throat as the "successful" white men around me, that was "feminism." I gave a shit about my own advancement but for many years didn't really give a shit about anyone else's advancement. I didn't recognize my role in the tech industry as a privileged white woman, and didn't do much of the internal and external work required to divest from those systems. As I started my political awakening, I was primarily concerned with the advancement of white women like myself and didn't give much thought to broader systemic issues, or how I was complicit in the oppression of other groups. My attitudes, beliefs and behavior were 100% born of my alignment with white capitalist patriarchy, and I benefitted enormously (And still do) from it even as it has abused me. Here are two categories of things that are both true. 1. I am queer, mentally ill and a woman. I have been through a lot of hard stuff because of those things. I went through some Carrie-style shit when I came out in middle school. I have had an anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder since I was a kid. Some of my first "real" sexual experiences included being molested and a victim of statutory rape. Later in my life, I've been raped at knife point and dragged across the floor thinking I would die that night. I've been punched in the face by my "lovers". I showed up to my first real job interview with a barely concealed black eye and bruised ribs. I've finished school while I screamed bloody murder into an apartment complex at night pleading for help from anyone who heard. As a working professional I've been sexually harassed, verbally and physically intimidated by managers, underpaid, overworked, denied promotions, humiliated, and subjected to hostile work environment after hostile work environment. I've been threatened with revenge porn by multiple exes, and coerced into doing things I think are unethical by people in positions of power over me. I've had hacked nude photos sent to my bosses and investors. I've been stalked over the course of months and years, been slandered and abused by media, and disowned by my industry for being a woman who spoke up. I am one of the most visible women in tech - not as a respected and valued member of our industry, but as a target. I live in constant fear of the tech community and am terrorized on a regular basis. I am held up for all to see, a public example of what they will do to you if you speak out - and it seems “anything goes” more and more each day as organized hate groups grow in numbers and strength while the tech community grows in apathy. 2. I am a cis white woman who has uncritically profited from white supremacy, cissexism, ableism, classism and other forms of oppression. My success, visibility, and achievements are fundamentally built on the oppression of others, and I spent years not giving a fuck, lending any semblance of a hand, acknowledging my role, or working to dismantle the systems I've been part of. Most of my privileges in life happen as a direct result of a white supremacist capitalist system, and I too long stayed silent and comfortable. From an essay I published in autumn 2013 on my personal blog, called "Finding Out You’re a Sexist, Misogynistic, Homophobic, Classist, Racist Asshole and Hypocrite": "I can only cringe and hate myself when I think of all the times I have totally fucked up and became part of the very problems I hate. Yes, I have slut-shamed, body-policed, name-called, bad-joked, appropriated, derailed, co-opted, silenced, objectified, stereotyped, trivialized, slurred, punished, isolated, insulted, benefited, and stayed silent with the worst of them. A highlight reel of my life profiting uncritically and even participating in the systems of misogyny, classism, racism, cis-normativity and homophobia that oppress my friends, my family, my fellow humans would not endear anyone to me, least of all myself. It fees horrible to talk about. But I am because we all must realize how complete, how intersecting, how deeply fucked up the system is, and the role we play in it. It’s easy to become invested in an image of ourselves as good human beings, without blame or participation in the oppression of other people. Sometimes we even imagine ourselves as a helper to them, a healer, an ally, without even thinking it through." I have made many sexist, racist, transphobic and homophobic comments that were abusive and violent in my life. I have consistently failed to stand against discrimination that affected other people. I've often prioritized my own needs and success above that of more marginalized people. For years, I made no effort to use my privilege and power to help others. I have *literally fucked a neo-Nazi and harbored him with money, emotional support and yeah, kinky sex.* My internalized misogyny and the racism I have reproduced affected real relationships and hurt real people. Because I have had access to white, cis, class and educational privilege, I have been able to protect myself, get amazing health and mental health care, and attain economic security that many suffering the same and much, much worse do not have access to. In the workplace, I got the perks of diversity in tech efforts while more marginalized people were left behind, and I didn't say shit. I benefited and continue to benefit enormously from white supremacy in the tech industry, able to amass financial resources to start my own company and escape the day-to-day grind of the abusive tech workforce, which is not an option for so many. All of the above things are true. As a cis white woman I have both abused and been abused, been a victim of violence and someone who commits violence, been punished by the system and also benefited extensively from it. I refuse to run around insisting that I'm not an oppressive asshole instead of actually doing the work of dismantling the system - inside me and outside me. I heal myself, and I also work to ease, destroy and amend for the pain and oppression I have inflicted on others, that I participate in, benefit from, and bear responsibility for taking down. I also want readers to note that the "redemption" narrative that people are looking for me to manifest here is hugely problematic, centering white people's feelings and experiences, our personal growth over dismantling oppressive systems, and our need to feel like we are "good people." As I've written in the past, I don't believe that "good person" as a framework to approaching systemic inequalities is useful. I don’t think I am a good or bad person. I am a person who has done good things and bad things, and I try to do more good things as I grow. I don't wish to offer excuses for my past. I cannot undo it, nor change it. I remain complicit in and benefit from many systems of oppression, I still have an enormous amount of work to do to divest of my own investment in the system and how I enable it to continue, and I have a life-time of work to do against it, work that I try to do each day. This is work that the tech industry needs to partake in. I invite you to get out of my sex life and to join me doing it.

3 notes · View notes