#im still in the process of combining many styles that I like and it’s been slow 🕺 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

insufferablelust · 4 years ago

Text

Naughty list. (ThrilledAu!Mgg x Reader)

Warnings : Slight smut, Spanking, D/s themed ofc, The use of ‘sir’ & ‘daddy’, mention of edging, mention of overstimulation for future reference, sadist!mgg, condescending!dom, Marking, Its.. um Filthy as many of you already know. Please read at your own discretion.

Hello this is the christmas one shot i’ve promised, its 3 am rn and im so sorry i just done finishing this because things had been so chaotic. But i hope y’all enjoy and please wait up patiently for my next fics which will come in the next several days as promised.

PLEASE NOTE : This blurb sets inside my Thrilled Au, after the Bratty Rendezvous chapter which i have yet to upload, though i will upload it very soon. So basically this fic is the filler chapter and a teaser for the two upcoming chapters of thrilled! so i hope that makes sense and i hope y’all enjoy it. Happy holidays and Merry christmas! Take care, x D

MASTERLIST HERE.

He felt her before he even opens his eyes, a small smile threaten to quirk at the side of her lips in response to the feeling of small kisses all along his face down to his neck— the oh so warm familiar kisses by the love of his life.

“Matthew wake up.” Y/N whispered, giggling to herself as she felt him grunt below her at the feeling of her sinful lips nips and bites onto his skin, “It’s christmas morning, come on daddy.” She whispered once more, but this time doing it with grinding down where her bum was sat prettily atop of his crotch, just enough to make him wrap his hand around her neck.

“And just what do you think you’re doing?” His grip tighten a bit just then, as her eyes closed and a smile etched beautifully onto her lips. Matthew scoffed at her reaction before sitting up on the bed, bringing her up with him so he could lean against the headboard.

“J-just waking you..” Was all that she could manage, with shallow breaths and innocently batting her lashes up at him. “Oh, princess..” He murmured as he finally took in the sight of her.

She’s perched up beautifully on her lap, with her thigh high christmas themed socks, his sweater and a collar— a special one he had gifted her a few days prior, with the color red and his named engraved on the inside lining where nobody could see but she certainly could feel. On the outside, it might look like a normal choker necklace but they both know very well that that’s not the case. Its a symbol of him, latched onto her every second of the day— its their dynamic, its how they work.

“You look like a dream, little one..” He gasped, as she whines on his lap, a perfect little noise reserved only for him, making his hard on pressed oh so good against her bottom. “Dressed up for y-you!” Y/N exclaimed happily and slightly out of breath by the way Matthew’s grip just tightens and tightens— just like he was trying to squeeze the cuteness out of her.

God, you’re his, and his his his only.

“I know baby, so so pretty for me, being so so good.” He gave her cheek a pretty light slap, just to make her gasp and leave her sweet little mouth open slightly— all messy and beautiful. “Thank you daddy, just for you.” She smiled then, awaiting for his instruction just like how he likes it— or more importantly, just like how she craves it.

Matthew cocks his head to the side a little as he contemplates on what he’s going to do with her, it’s always like this with them— just wanting to do so many things, explore everything, explore each other’s limits, especially hers. Always hers, he thinks, whatever makes her happy.

So with a simple instruction he lessen the grip on her neck before pressing a small kiss on her forehead, “Go to our room now, and be on your position, daddy has to make some calls for our party this evening but you better be on your position by the time i get there or else.” He taps her cheeks twice, eyes pierced onto hers— as she nods a little, “yes daddy.”

“Go on.” She smiled before pressing a gentle peck to his lips, getting up and padded her tiny feet towards the door, “Oh and princess?”

“Yes daddy?”

“anything off but the socks and your collar.”

—

He’s doing this on purpose, your mean mean daddy is doing this on purpose— making you wait on your knees by the bench inside your dungeon, just waiting and waiting until you feel your knees beginning to fall asleep on you. But you tried your best to be presentable, just how daddy likes it.

Your body jumps a little when the sound of his footsteps rang through the room, sound of the door closing has your feet tingling and your cunt wet, oh he could definitely see the glisten gleam from it for sure.

“I thought you’d be well acquainted with my rules by now, pup.” He let out a disapproving sigh, which made your cheeks warmer and you instantly straighten your back, part your thigh a little and gulps— trying to remember what you did wrong this time.

“I—“

“Ah ah, you know better than to speak without my permission in this room do you?” He scoffed, walking around the room just to tantalize you, sending shiver up your spine. “you were good this morning, so good that daddy had half the mind to make you cum but now i’m not so sure.” He adds, which earn a gasp from you, Oh how you wanted to cum, you want to cum so so bad, the last time you did was a week ago when you were still in Paris— but right after your little bratty rendezvous there was no way in hell, he’d let you cum, oh no no, kitten doesn’t deserve to cum until master says so.

You bit your lip in agony, trying to block the tears that were about to slip from your pretty eyes down your heated cheeks, just trying to do anything he asks— anything. You let out a gasp as he tilt your chin up, which he cooed at and sigh softly, whilst his thumb brush side to side on top of your lips.

“Look at your tears, baby. Do you think it’ll work? hm? you think because daddy’s little elf put on a show this morning, that daddy is going to let this slide?” He pouts condescendingly, watching as the tears finally dripped down your cheeks, oh he wanted to photograph this so bad, his little fairy.

“Go on, answer daddy.” He pats your cheek with his thumb as you tried to find the courage to speak, “I-I’m sorry d-daddy.. i.. please..” Matthew sighed softly, seeing the genuine regret behind your eyes has him reprimanding your punishment, daddy was a tamer, but he was and will always be fair— forgetfulness is a human mistake, besides it’s christmas, and he figured he needed to give you something from all the torture you’ve endured since Paris.

“Up, princess. Let daddy braid your hair.” He tugged her collar a little which earned a gasp from her, though it was a combination between the sensation on her neck and realization on what she did wrong, “Daddy i—“

“Shh, up.” He cuts you off before you could mutter an apology, or several apologies. You should’ve known better, if he told you to be on position, what he always meant is for you to be on your knees by the bench, with your hair untied specifically because he likes to braid you before play time, and today you’ve put your hair up, completely forgetting a clear important rule. Matthew helped you get on your shaky feet, as you trembled a little, whispering a small, “thank you daddy.” Before facing the bench, back toward him so he could process on your hair.

“Tell daddy why he’s punishing you tonight.” He hummed behind her, fingers expertly tangle and untangle through her hair, looping each side to the center as he formed a perfect braid from the top of her hair and making his way down. “Because i forgot daddy’s rule.” You muttered shakily, voice laced with regrets at yourself for disappointing daddy.

“Which rule is it, pup?” His voice seemed so close now, she could practically feel his warm breath against her skin that she zoned out for a moment before a tug on her hair brought her back, “I— i didn’t untie my hair, sir.”

“Why is it important?”

“Because daddy needs to braid my hair, and.. and it teaches me to.. remembers daddy’s rules.” You finished with a sigh, before feeling a soft kiss placed on top of your shoulder blades, “10 with my hands. Go and bend over the bench, bunny.”

—

Y/N braced herself as she felt the stinging, heated sensation smacked across her bottom, making her grip tighten onto the railing bench and her body shakes a little. “F-Five, thank y-you daddy.”

“Color?” Matthew pressed his palm against her stinging skin as he try to soothe the aching pain a bit, it’s true that they both love this— loves the thrill, the pain, and the overall pleasure that comes from this. However, Matthew would never enjoy hurting his bunny without any context, or out of proportion, it might look like he has all the control but they both knows well that she has all the control, if she wants to stop, she knows what she needed to say.

“G-Green sir please.�� Oh how he loves the way her voice croaked underneath him, the way she arched her back toward him— as if asking for more, ready for more just as she deserve, as she behaved. So he delivered then, 3 slaps in a row as she cries out between each milliseconds, and sobs out the thank you’s and pleas.

“just two more now, y’think you can take it, petal?” Matthews hand crept up to where your collar snuggly wrapped around your neck, thumbing the soft leather as he makes sure you’re still okay which you confirmed by a ‘yes daddy, please continue’

The last two slaps were unexpected, catching her off guard as it landed way way below where her cunt drips dewy sweet honey, and where her by now— swollen little pearl sits, making her jumps and scream out in a blissed pleasure. “Fuck! oh! nine ten! daddy thank you!”

“Shh shh, come here, good girl.” Matthew gently helped her stand before picking her up bridal style and sit down onto the bed which was installed on their room, his lips were pressed tightly onto her forehead as he soothes her aching skin and mumble calming words. “It’s okay, ‘s all over, such a good girl, little one.”

“Daddy...”

“Yes angel?”

“Do i deserve to cum now?”

“Oh petal, you will be begging to stop cumming later, just you wait.”

—

EXCUSE MY GRAMMARS AND TYPOS, my laptop is not accessible right now so i have to use my phone to write and upload so please bear with me. Thank you, i love you and take care.

Don’t forget to support!❤️

Taglist! (reply or message me if you want to be added or removed)

( @slutforthegubes @maybankslut @midnightsubmissives @bxnnywriting @keentreeoperatorcookie @autisticratty @mjwritesfics @getdevils @muffin-cup @tomsmilkytea @sinnersandsugars @edgycowboy666 @mgg-theprettiestboy @addie5264 @hushfakebitches @bucksgoat )

#spencer reid smut #mgg smut #insufferableblurb #dom!mgg #matthew gray gubler smut #thrilled

288 notes · View notes

hauntedziosportrait · 4 years ago

Text

The Relativity and Connections between Jamaasian Lore and Mirabai

WARNING! ⚠️ Very religious themes. I apologise if I have any incorrect or outdated information, it's very risky writing about something surrounding a certain religion when in fact.. I'm an atheist.

The lore of Jamaa has always been a really tricky and fairly eerie topic to cover. It has themes from all sorts of different cultures and despite the main tale being retold, changed and edited one thousand times, the information we receive is clear about who the certain deities and characters are and what their roles to play give.

Today, we're looking more on the more eerie side of Animal Jam- The relationship between Mira and Zios. Surprisingly, we know more about our enemies the phantoms than we do the entities we're serving. Alot has been told about Mira, but on the other hand, not much information has been provided about Zios and his identity making him more or less a very suspicious character to take heed of. That's why there are so many theories regarding him specifically; the most we know is that...

●He is the spiritual highest point of the Jamaa heiarchy, having created Mira and setting the stars and planets in motion

●He is often depicted as a bodyless golden mask surrounded by intricate patterns and grooves

●He was the lover of Mira

●He dissappeared at some point in time and never came back.

To jog your memory, I'm going to be basing this theory more on the Old Jamaasian Lore. Interestingly, the lore was changed to make it appealing to a younger audience, but in the old lore we get a stronger sense of emotion and alot more information about the guardian spirits of Jamaa.

Zios is practically a God. He sets several plants, stars and seas in motion. Eventually he gets lonely and gives life to a deity said to be the perfect incarnation of humble beauty; a graceful grey heron named Mira. Mira and Zios get on well together and she often tells him how talented and artistic he is.

Eventually, Zios falls for her, and creates a beautiful land for he and Mira to share; Jamaa- as a sign of his love.

Mira is ecstatic and suggests and creates the idea of giving live to mortal inhabitants to the land- us, the animals. However, Zios gets a little snappy at Mira for that. He meant for this place to share just between the two and for nobody else to interfere.

He then snaps at Mira for creating the Animals and the two fall into a fearsome and emotional argument. Mira's tears then, without her knowing, come into accidental contact with the mortal world. Since she is an omniscient deity, mixing such power with normal life would end in ruin- Thus creating the phantoms.

Here's the catch. Mira and Zios are too wrapped up in their argument to notice the phantoms attacking Jamaa. Since the phantoms were created by Mira, they would only obey her. That is why they are after Zios, to avenge Mira. Also a case why we never see the phantoms target Mira specifically.

Then, they notice the peril Jamaa is in and, still angry at eachother, select the powerful and strong remaining animals in their selective tribes as Alphas to defend.

Shortly after, Zios goes missing. We're told the phantoms took him through the phantom portal never to be seen again. However, there is alot of evidence to suggest he fell victim to the phantoms and gave in to their side, furthermore taking control of the Phantom Empire. That may be why, despite their goal being reached, they continue to harass and attack the alphas, Jamaa, and by extent, Mira.

From then, the Alphas succeed, and all is well. Zios, however, is never heard of again.

Despite their argument, Mira is eternally upset. That is why phantoms keep producing, due to her tears. Since Zios left angry at Mira, it may be an extra that she thinks Zios left hating her.

And... That is what is inferred from the old lore. The new lore consists of less knowledge about Mira and Zios, but more information about the Alphas and of course the animal heartstones.

Now, here is the thing. The tale of Jamaa is very familiar sounding to some people. Zios is often seen as omnipotent and very powerful. He's often seen as similar to several different gods in mythology..

●Zeus, the Greek god of sky and thunder (This one is self explanatory, even their names are similar: however I've seen this one cause a bit of controversy as this is comparing Zios to a technically VERY problematic god.. Also, Mira sounds alot like Hera!)

●Viracocha, the great creator deity in the pre-Inca and Inca mythology in the Andes region of South America. He's mainly mentioned in incan and mesopotamian mythology as the high creator god (and this one shares more similarities than you may think!) They both had lovers, both dissappeared after creating the world, both had similar powers (examples of heliokenesis) and they actually look REALLY similar, most likely Zios' design being based off of Viracocha's golden armor. Viracocha pictured below!

●And the last one... Krishna. An important religious figure in Hinduism and the final reincarnation/eighth avatar of Vishnu.

And that last one is what I'm planning to talk about today!

The perhaps most important part of this theory is Mirabai. Mirabai, often called Meera or Mira, was a 16th-century Hindu mystic poet and devotee of Krishna. She was known for her elegant beauty and poetry, as well as her eternal devotation to Krishna.

Meera pictured below as well as a figure of Krishna in the distance.

Surprsingly, we have our own Mira too. And if we're comparing Zios to Krishna, this relationship makes alot of sense. Meera was in love with Krishna, and Mira was in love with Zios. "In her last years, Meera lived in Dwarka or Vrindavan, where legends state she miraculously disappeared by merging into an idol of Krishna in 1547. While miracles are contested by scholars for the lack of historical evidence, it is widely acknowledged that Meera dedicated her life to Lord Krishna, composing songs of devotion and was one of the most important poet-saint of the Bhakti movement period." That paragraph was taken from Meera's Wikipedia entry, and relates alot to the story of Mira and Zios. Its said that Meera one day miraculously dissappeared just like Zios did and they only things she left behind were her poems, music, and of course, her devotion and husband-like considered relationship between her and Krishna.

Krishna pictured below.

Most of Meera's poems are dedicated to God in the form of Krishna, calling him the Dark One or the Mountain Lifter. "Some Meera songs include Radha, the lover of Krishna, and her jealousy and hatred for them. All her poems have philosophical connotations, mainly centered around Krishna."

The "Dark One" and "Mountain Lifter" terms are certaintly strange. Why would somebody refer to a "Dark One" in such a loving term?

Lets not forget the example of Zios not only representing the light in most cases, but spiritually, representing the dark. There's alot of evidence to actually suggest instead of the common thought that Zios represents the Sun and Mira the Moon, it may actually be the vice versa in a yin yang sort of way. Light and Dark cannot coexist without eachother and Zios and Mira are a great example of that.

I may explain the Zios is the moon thing a different time but you're going to have to roll with me here on this one... Zios is a perfect representation of the dark. Dark gives space and life to the light, but of course light always gives life to the dark.

Also, "Mountain-Bearer"... Not much to say here. Quite literally what Zios did to create Jamaa. "In her poems, Krishna is a yogi and lover, and she herself is a yogini ready to take her place by his side into a spiritual marital bliss. Meera's style combines impassioned mood, defiance, longing, anticipation, joy and ecstasy of union, always centred on Krishna."

Let's take a look at perhaps the most well known poem by Meera... And perhaps the one that relates the most to Jamaasian Lore. I am aware Julian2 has covered this in a video before, but here im going to take a proper analysis.

My Dark One has gone to an alien land. He has left me behind, he's never returned, he's never sent me a single word. So I've stripped off my ornaments, jewels and adornments, cut my hair from my head. And put on holy garments, all on his account, seeking him in all four directions. Mira: unless she meets the Dark One, her Lord, she doesn't even want to live.

— Mira Bai, Translated by John Stratton Hawley

Alot to process here. Let's see what we can compare.

●"My Dark One has gone to an Alien Land"- Zios= Krishna: has gone to the realm of the phantoms/alien land

●"He's left me behind, he's never returned, he's never sent me a single word"- Exactly what Zios did. Never responded to Mira and didn't speak to her again after his dissappearance.

●"So I've stripped off my ornaments, jewels and adornments, cut my hair from my head"- Julian2 suggested this may be about Peck running away but this has been outdated. This could possibly refer to the "jewels and adornments" being the Alpha stones as Mira gives them away.

●"And put on holy garments, all on his account, seeking him in all four directions."- This refers to Mira yet again giving the alphas their Alpha Stones and after that she prepares to go out and find Zios.

●"Meera: unless she meets the Dark One, her Lord, she doesn't even want to live."- Unless Mira doesn't meet her Dark One- in this case, Zios-she doesn't feel the will to live, referencing her sorrow and despair without him.

I'm not sure about you, but I'm very convinced AJHQ may have based their lore on this poem specifically.

There is another poem that can relate to the legend of Jamaa, but there's not much to infer. I'm not going to do a thorough line by line analysis, but hopefully looking back on the analysis I just did you can atleast gather some stuff.

After making me fall for you so hard, where are you going? Until the day I see you, no repose: my life, like a fish washed on shore, flails in agony. For your sake I'll make myself a yogini, I'll hurl myself to death on the saw of Kashi. Mira's Lord is the clever Mountain Lifter, and I am his, a slave to his lotus feet.

"Meera speaks of a personal relationship with Krishna as her lover, lord and mountain lifter. (Sanson Ki Mala Pe Simru Main Pi Ka Naam) is written by Meera Bai Shows her dedication towards Lord Krishna. The characteristic of her poetry is complete surrender." -Quote from Wikipedia

The song of Sanson Ki Mala Pe Simru Main Pi Ka Naam is an interesting one-referring to her "beading the name of her beloved on the garland of my breaths". Interestingly, this song refers to Krishna as a Cuckoo Bird- A little bit of a crack theory, but this may suggest Zios could actually be the same behind that mask of his?

Examples of this bird-referring lyric are this quote from that same song:

"He is a melodious bird

He is a magnificent man

This foolish girl has taken

The beloved’s heart as the Lord"

I will link the full song plus English translation below!

https://www.google.com/amp/s/ekta25.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/sanson-ki-mala-pe-simroon-main-pi-ka-naam-on-the-garland-of-my-breaths-i-have-bejewelled-my-beloveds-name/amp/

Intresting... Perhaps Zios IS some sort of bird!

In conclusion, Mirabai's poetry, devotion and songs have alot of connections to Jamaasian Lore! I find this interesting, but this did help us gather quite a bit of information!

#animal jam tumblr #Animal jam #jamblr #lore #ajpc #ajpw #lore analysis

54 notes · View notes

padsnprongs · 4 years ago

Text

an unspoken tradition

The first time Sirius did it, Remus had no idea what to do. He sat there, eyes widening, his book forgotten in his hands, as Sirius settled his head on Remus’ lap. He seemed perfectly content to close his eyes and give a soft smile, whilst Remus’ insides were screaming, and he could feel his face burning. Slowly, and after much deliberation over what the fuck to do, Remus brought a shaky hand carefully through Sirius’ soft ebony hair. Sirius’ smile widened as he felt this, and a content sigh escaped his lips as he shuffled into a more comfortable position.

Remus knew that Sirius had never been entirely comfortable with physical contact, even after six months of dating, and he respected that. However, when Sirius seemed to feel completely safe in Remus’ arms, he could hardly deny him that. Remus continued to comb his hand through his boyfriend’s curls, and Sirius seemed to be relaxing more by the second. Summoning up some courage, Remus leaned down and gently kissed the tip of Sirius’ nose. Sirius’ eyes fluttered open, and he stared up at Remus, his gaze full of love and warmth. Remus felt himself flushing a deeper red as Sirius tilted his head up and puckered his lips, silently requesting another kiss; this time on the lips.

Remus, of course, obliged.

This soon became a regular occurrence. Whenever Sirius was feeling down, or just missing Remus, even if they were literally in the same room, he would head over and flop down on the sofa, his head coming to rest on Remus’ lap. Remus’ hand would immediately start carding through Sirius’ hair, as he murmured, ‘everything okay, pads?’ Sirius would often just nod, even if it wasn’t entirely true; just being close to Remus like this was bound to make everything better.

Burrowing his face into Remus’ legs, Sirius would often find himself drifting off, from a combination of the soothing motion of Remus’ hand through his hair, and his reassuring heartbeat, grounding him. Remus was now completely used to this, and just continued to read his book over Sirius’ shoulder, giving Sirius an occasional peck on the cheek, or the lips, or the nose, or literally anywhere he could reach.

Once Sirius had fallen asleep, Remus had no choice but to remain there with him (I can’t move him, Pete, look at him!) but he wasn’t really complaining.

As he would attempt to shift into a more comfortable position, he ended up just lying on the sofa, Sirius sprawled on top of him, every single time. And that was how they would be found in the morning; limbs entangled, Sirius’ head resting on Remus’ chest, warm and content smiles spread across their faces as they appeared in each other’s dreams.

(AN: I was gonna leave this here but im in an angsty mood so)

Eventually, this little tradition of theirs grew past just resting heads on laps. It developed into an unspoken message that, hey, im not feeling too good right now, so I’m just gonna come over and lay my head on your lap, because I need something to ground me, and you’re the only person who can calm me right now. All of this was contained within a simple gesture, because their relationship had never really needed words. They had always just understood what the other was thinking, without having to talk about it at all.

Although this was equally important to both of them, it had always been Sirius who initiated it, Sirius who laid his head in Remus’ lap. Which is why he was very surprised when, one sunny afternoon in seventh year, a mere two days before the full moon, Remus shuffled over to him, a haggard expression on his face, and heavy bags under his eyes. Sirius furrowed his eyebrows, barely having time to ask if he was okay, before Remus was climbing onto the sofa and slowly resting his head on Sirius’ lap, his joints repeatedly cracking in the process.

Oh.

Sirius understood immediately. Not quite knowing what to say, he settled on comforting Remus the same way he had been comforted by Remus so many times before. Bringing his hand gently though the tawny curls spread out before him, Sirius watched as Remus’ eyes finally fluttered shut, the frown on his face relaxing slightly. And there they stayed for the rest of the night, Sirius perfectly content to just run his fingers through Remus’ locks, watching the worry lines etched on his face disappear as he drifted off to sleep, soothed by the repetitive motion of his boyfriend’s hand in his hair.

Even after Hogwarts, this routine, that otherwise went unmentioned, didn’t end, and neither wanted it to. Every single time Remus was sat on their sofa, no matter what he was doing, Sirius would be there, without fail, and vice versa. They would always be there for each other.

Until 31st October 1981, that is, when Remus found the sofa empty. When he found himself empty.

As Sirius sat alone in his cell, his mind full of anguish and terror, he couldn’t help but think of what had happened seemingly years ago by now, but in reality, was just last night. He had fallen asleep curled up on the sofa with Remus, and rather than waking him up, Remus had carried him bridal style to their bed, Sirius’ arms wrapped around his neck and his head nestling in his shoulder, despite them both being fully-grown adults by now. When they had reached the comfort of their bed, they had promptly fallen straight back asleep; Sirius clinging to Remus like a koala, and Remus burying his face in Sirius’ soft curls.

Sirius would have given anything to be lying in that bed again, rather than on the cracked stone floor of a prison cell, surrounded by the gut-wrenching screams of people having their happiness literally sucked out of them. And he knew, soon enough, that would be him, having his most joyous memories ripped away. But he refused to let them take Remus. He gripped onto the memories of him and Remus, curled up together on the Gryffindor common room sofa in the early hours of the morning, like a lifeline. And throughout his years in Azkaban, those memories were the only thing that kept him going. When it seemed as though all had been lost, he still held out hope for that glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel; Remus, waiting for him on their sofa, embracing him with a grin full of relief and euphoria. There, ready, waiting for him to rest his head on his lap once again, waiting to be able to comfort him once more.

What he wasn’t aware of was that Remus was waiting for him, holding out for even the slimmest chance that he could be reunited with Sirius, that they would be able to continue their tradition that had grown to mean so much more.

All either of them had ever wanted was to be together, because that was where they could truly feel at ease. They were each other’s safe places. They were each other’s homes.

40 notes · View notes

5-falsehoods-phonated · 4 years ago

Text

(Prompts with boxes have been taken, highlighted have been written)

Requests for this card are closed, thank you to anyone who sent in requests! If you don’t want to see these you can block the tag #false bthb. As always shoot me an ask if you wanna be tagged in future stories, whether it be for bad things happen bingo or any of the other series, one shots or in general!

I’ve been picking at this particular request since early December as the person who requested it had a lot of details they wanted put in making the writing process a bit more challenging. As a disclaimer, note that the chapter is split between present time and the past; with Logan recalling things in his past in an attempt to make the details requested for the story flow better. I received this request from AO3.

General taglist: @im-an-anxious-wreck

Experimental Socialization

Summary: Logan was raised by the government to be nothing more than an experiment and a weapon, utilizing his unique abilities as a mutant. When he finally escapes things are much different than he imagined they’d be but thankfully finds others like him willing to help guide him right where he needs to be.(Happy Ending)

Warnings: allusions to abuse, physical punishment and human experimentation, tw for weapons and fire, panic attack. If there are more please let me know

Prompt; Not Used To Freedom (requested by AngstyEmoGal on AO3)

Ships: Intrulogical, Logan x Remus

WC: 3432

“You just gotta breathe, Logan. In four, hold seven, out eight remember? You’re doing great, just keep going.”

Logan felt himself slowly coming back to reality as his breathing evening out, the raw panic that had gripped his chest easing slightly as Virgili continued coaxing him through the exercise. He felt the other slowly rub up and down his arm in a slow, steady beat that helped ground him further in reality and he smiled up at his friend gratefully and nodded to let xem know he was okay. Gripping his knees as Virgil’s voice trailed off he squeezed his eyes shut tightly and let out one last calming breath.

“Thank you, Virgil. I-” He struggled to find words, gesturing flippantly in the air making Virgil grin.

“It’s okay. Take your time, L.”

Logan puffed his cheeks out in frustration, thoughts swirling too quickly for him to comprehend anything but the apprehensive fear he held for the plans Remus had made for them later that evening. “I am- not used to being outside. Given my history and the threat I pose as a potential compromise to our place of hiding I fail to understand Remus’ reasoning for going out when we could just as easily celebrate our relationship here.”

“Hm.” Virgil leaned back on xyr hands and looked up at the low ceiling of their underground paradise. “Can’t really see the stars from here, no matter how many stickers Princey finds and puts up it can't really be compared to the real thing.”

Logan had made the mistake of going on a tirade of space facts a few months into his stay in the hideout, Remus patiently listening to the extensive infodump of constellation facts and space physics and planetary rotation. Having a limited amount of books to entertain oneself with for extended periods of time meant memorizing entire books on one subject, which Logan had used all too happily as a figurative escape from his situation in the past until he had actually managed to escape when he was 16. Hearing Logan speak so passionately about the subject had apparently made his mind up that he was taking Logan outside for their first “official” date to view the stars, which had then landed Logan in his current state of panic as he realized that date was today and he was decidedly not ready for what might lay in store outside of safety of the hideout.

“I can stay close by if you want. I won’t spy or anything and Remus won’t have to know.” Logan looked over as his thoughts were interrupted by the offer, Virgil turning invisible and reappearing a couple seconds later to emphasize xyr point. Smiling Logan shook his head, knowing the other derived as much joy from going outside as Logan felt about going himself.

“Thank you for the offer though, you’re very kind.” Letting his thoughts drift again he idly wondered when Virgil had discovered xe could disappear and reappear at will and if xyr parents had tried to hide it before the government had found out. His own parents-

-----

“Logan?” A very small Logan turned at his mother’s voice, losing his concentration which made the hidden jar of Crofters fall from its suspended place in the air and smash to the floor. His parents hadn’t known he possessed any sort of powers, and even as small as he was he still understood the position he’d put them in if they ever found out. Fearfully his hands dropped to his sides as his mother covered her mouth in shock, tears rolling down her cheeks as she took a step back.

Men in suits and long coats were there just a few hours later, speaking in hushed voices while both of his parents cried and he was ushered out the door and into an unmarked car, quiet as he understood yelling and crying would do him no good now. What’s done was done, all he could do was be compliant and hope to be treated gently.

-----

The room suddenly brightening with a flickering light brought him back out of his thoughts, Roman entering with his signature bright flame held proudly in his hand. The image of him in his rather scrapped together Princely outfit posing subconsciously in the doorway was almost enough to make Logan roll his eyes but he didn’t want Virgil to think it was because of xem so he managed to restrain himself.

“My dearest brother has been pacing in the same spot for two hours now and I haven't been able to calm him down soooo I thought to check on our resident nerd.” Roman declared with his usual flare. Logan actually did roll his eyes this time but Virgil did as well so he figured it was fine.

“The ‘resident nerd’ is doing fine, Roman. Though it's concerning to hear Remus is nervous as well considering he’s the one who suggested the date.”

Roman waved his hand at Logan dismissively. “He’s just a sap- moreso than me surprisingly. He doesn’t want to do anything to put you in danger but he wants to do something nice, so he’s worried that’s all. Remus is an idiot but I trust him with my life; believe me when I say you have nothing to worry about except his terrible sense of humor.”

Logan merely hummed in response, staring at the way the flame moved around as Roman gestured with his words.

-----

He panted as he rolled out of the way of another flamethrower, singeing the tips of his hair in the process but he couldn’t afford to slow down enough to worry about that. Years of training with different fighting styles had earned him incredibly fast reflexes but a good portion of his accuracy in knowing where to step and when was owed to him working even harder to focus his powers. Thoughts from others constantly surrounded him on a regular basis, getting more and more prevalent the older he grew. Learning to block out the constant string of stimuli was a useful skill to keep him sane but learning to hone in on specific thoughts to predict actions was what had kept him alive.

He ducked below another bullet and brought up his leg in the same motion, kicking a throwing knife to the side and sending it to clatter harmlessly between one of his assailants feet. A twirl to the side and a tilt of the head let another bought of flame boil the air beside him while another knife just barely brushed his ear. The constant bang of bullets and roar of flames and whistling of knives was overwhelming and made the air so thick he could barely draw a breath and it was becoming a struggle to concentrate the way he needed to and-

A high pitched alarm sounded one, twice, three times- a blaring flash accompanying it that left him blinking painfully. His shoulders slumped as the barrage finally ended, another successful training day completed. He watched as everyone began putting their weapons away, laughing and congratulating each other, clapping themselves on the back and discussing whatever they had planned after this. No one even spared the thing they had been firing at seconds before a spare glance, save for the director of the branch, who took long steps forward to stand in front of him only to snap his fingers and motion forward no doubt to see him back to his room until dinner. Absorbing the sounds around him he drank in as much praise as he could that wasn’t his and would never be for him; people rarely congratulated weapons after all.

-----

“Is this where we all decided to hide today?” Logan looked up to see Patton sitting cross legged on one one of the beams in the ceiling, grinning happily down at them even as their fluffy ears twitched nervously and even fluffier tail whipped back and forth in agitation. They must have come back from trying to calm Remus as well, Logan mused; Patton had never done well being in the same room as Remus who tended to voice his thoughts abruptly and without much care to how they might sound to others which always managed to set Patton on edge no matter how hard they tried not to show it.

Patton was a rare mutant in that as opposed to being born with abnormal traits or abilities they had been a science experiment from the start- an effort to create super soldiers rather than stealing them away from families and training them. Even rarer was the fact that the DNA splicing had taken extraordinarily well by pure chance as Patton was born with a mutation that left their DNA incredibly malleable- a mutation that never would have been discovered had cellular manipulation not been the reason for them being in the experimental branch that they were. They had tried cloning Patton at first to see if their power could be duplicated but when that failed to work they began trying to combine them with different animals to see if desirable traits would come forward. By manipulating them on a physical and anatomical level they were able to change some parts of them to be more cat like, intending, Patton had guessed, to turn them into a kind of stealth soldier but they got away before they completed it, leaving them with heightened agility and surgically coaxed cat ears and a tail. They were only a child when the lab had done this but somehow they were never bitter, simply preferring to leave their past alone and embrace whatever future they could make- a trait Logan greatly admired them for even if their unending optimism could be somewhat grating at times.

“Did Janus brush your tail out Pat? It looks fluffier today.” Patton preened at Virgil's compliment, their tail beginning to wave in a more relaxed manner as their mind was distracted from whatever it was Remus had been ranting about.

“He did! He found a cat brush and got it for me so I could finally get the undercoat out!” Jumping down and landing lightly on their feet they posed a little and flashed another wide grin.

“Beautiful as always, Patton.” Roman said genuinely as he lowered his hand into a barrel to light up the paper scraps and wood in it for the night, the dim sunlight that had filtered through the grated having long since died. The home was a modified branch of a sewer system, thankfully the part most removed from the city where it flowed without the stench and was sealed off inconspicuously enough that in the ten years Janus and Remus had been using it no worker had ever found it.

-----

It had been Janus and Remus who had found him, beaten and bloody from an escape attempt he had made just days before his real one. He had made a weak attempt to coax the scientists into a false sense of security, holding back the full scoop of his powers during training for a year in anticipation for his final escape. He had punished severely but had simply thrown him in his regular cell, assuming he wasn’t strong enough to do any more damage than they had seen him do already and trusting that they had beaten him down enough that it would be a while before he tried again- if he ever did. Not six days later the mangled metal of the front of his cell was tossed into a group of guards, walls torn apart in a straight line to the exit and the huge buzzing gates leading to the outside world thrown open wide and stuck there with varying amounts of heavy debris.

The outside world, as it turns out, was a lot bigger and louder and downright terrifying when you weren’t being sent out as a personal assassin or field missions or training sessions- all controlled on some level to keep him from being killed and compromised. Without the begrudged protection from the labs and moreover having to hide from said lab was another story entirely. The times they searched for him and how closely they came to his spots were random and made it incredibly hard for him to pick out their thoughts from anyone else’s in the city and figure out how close they were. On more than one occasion they passed right by him crouched under piles of garbage or laying low under a hedge, his breath held as he tried desperately to keep himself as still and quiet as possible, thoughts of what they would to him once they found him pounding against his head and making him squeeze his eyes shut to keep his terrified tears from falling.

That was how Remus had found him. It had been dark and hours had passed since the searchers had left that park he had been hiding in. He had still been hiccuping down his sobs as he rolled out from under the hedge that he hadn’t bothered to scope the area for anyone’s close by thoughts, having shut out as much as he could after they had left to try and block out any other hate fueled thoughts that may send him spiraling again. His heart had leapt in his throat so high his breath caught painfully, immediately shifting to offense as he tensed, ready to fight as long and hard as he could. He couldn’t go back- he wouldn’t. No matter what they did or promised him or punished him with; he’d go down fighting or not at all.

But Remus had only raised his hands in the air in a motion of peace, eyes widening as he locked onto the government issued bracelet that marked him as an experimental mutant. He had grinned impossibly wide then Logan remembered, briefly disappearing from his sight and reappearing a moment later, setting him even more on edge but curious nonetheless.

“I’m like you.” Remus had said quietly. “Basically I run real fast and the government hasn’t figured out how to get me yet.”

Logan had watched as he jiggled his wrists a bit for emphasis, bare save for colored chords that he assumed didn’t associate him with any government branch since they didn’t look official.

“Are you okay?” Remus had asked next and mutely Logan nodded, unsure of how to react to this fellow mutant who had never been caught by any sort of lab, apparently living as free as one could when you were as different as they were. He stepped back as another man appeared behind him, Janus he later learned.

“Liar.” Janus had hissed, making Remus reach around and smack the back of his head.

“It was a polite thing to ask that he tried to dismiss Jan. Let the adults speak for a second.”

Logan had noted the faint pout on Janus’ face though he was still trying very hard to look intimidating. And then all at once his eyes had turned cold as his attention was once again focused on Logan, glaring menacingly from beneath a black bowler hat. “I’m younger than you and yet I’m the one that has to put my foot down. He’s being chased clearly; we are not bringing him back with us.”

Remus has turned, Logan seemingly forgotten for the moment. “That’s not how it works! He needs help and we’re not leaving him to starve or be found in the middle of a park! What would Patton say?”

“Patton is a soft fool who needs to figure out where their morals stand. I myself am choosing not to compromise our place of hiding and three other people that you know those power hungry idiots would love nothing more than to get their hands on!”

Remus rolled his eyes so hard his head had lolled with it, face going pale as he watched something in the sky. It was then that Logan heard the telling sound of a helicopter flying low and getting closer but he had barely tensed before he found himself gripped around the middle and held vertically with the ground flying underneath him. They stopped abruptly and he was set down, blinking in rapid confusion as Remus grinned sheepishly at him.

“Welcome to the hideout?”

Logan’s eyes had widened and his breath had caught yet again, chest tightening as he shook his head vehemently. “You can’t- I need to go back! They’ll do anything to get me back-!”

He was stopped from going forward with a finger to his chest, his blue eyes locking with beautiful brown as Remus held his gaze. “And we will do everything to keep you safe.”

Safe. With that one word Logan was his. He hadn’t known why and he still didn’t quite understand it but he had trusted Remus with everything he had- and he still did. Even as Janus had stalked off grumbling and Virgil and Roman had kept their distance at first Remus had kept him close and showed him how much better his life could be, even if they were living in a modified sewer system.

Back in the present he looked up as a hand was thrust under his chin, smiling softly as he took Remus’ hand and let himself be led away from the others’ idle chatter. He counted himself extremely lucky in the end that Janus had eventually come around to him, seeing how happy he made Remus and how Remus made Logan feel it had been him to finally talk to Logan about it and get the two to officially talk about how they felt, going on about the being “hopeless gay idiots” when they had finally started to date officially. Logan wasn’t sure what he’d do without Remus at this point, just a year later and he was so attached to their small group of hideaways he wouldn’t trade for the world.

They approached the exit to the sewers, Remus swinging their hands between them. Logan held his breath right before they crossed the threshold, closing his eyes and letting it out slowly as his feet met grass and he opened his eyes to the darkened field. There were a few tunnels that lead out to different places depending on where they needed to go and this, Remus had told him, was his favorite because of how empty it was. The city lay far in the distance so there was almost no light pollution to block out the sky. Soft grass and flowers brushed his ankles as he scanned the area carefully, seeing nothing but trees lining the far end of the field with a road so far away he could barely, make it out in the darkness. Remus tugged his hand softly to get his attention, searching his eyes for any hint of discomfort.

“Is this okay?’

Logan took another breath and let it out, the last of his nerves fading away as he took in the quiet. “It’s perfect Remus.”

The other grinned and tugged a little harder this time, walking fast to the middle of the field where he stopped suddenly and raised Logan’s arm up to lead him into an impromptu twirl. Logan laughed quietly and then louder as he was dipped, secure in Remus’ strong hold as he reached up to grip the back of his neck. He was safe. He was free and safe and happy finally with someone who truly loved and cared for him. His breath caught in his throat again but this time in awe, Remus chuckling as he was laid down carefully tucked into his side, till with his arms around his neck.

The stars shone bright and winked lazily while swirls of color dusted faintly behind them. The moon was waning, a barely there light that let the beauty behind it show fully as the wind whisked away any clouds that dared to try and cover it. It was everything Logan had ever hoped it would be and more, excitement thrumming through him as he squeezed Remus tightly in an attempt to convey it. He felt Remus grin against his scalp where his face was buried in his hair.

“It’s beautiful isn't it?”

Logan looked back at him, light from the stars reflected in his eyes and wild brown hair framing his face. He leaned up slightly and kissed him, a faint brush of their lips that left them both grinning like the idiots they were. Placing a hand on Remus’ cheek Logan smiled at him, thumb brushing over his cheek in adoration.

“Absolutely stunning.”

This work and others are also available on AO3!

If you like this, please consider reblogging, as sharing a creator’s work is very encouraging to us and helps our creations reach more people!

74 notes · View notes

alicemitch09writes · 4 years ago

Note

i have been meaning to say this for awhile but never really got the chance to but ive seen a couple of anon asks here that says you were ~dragging~ the angst for way too long and that it’s been getting annoying how reader seems like she’s not getting past her insecurities especially towards her sister

so let me just say this; regarding the angst, to be honest with you it wasn’t dragged on at all. in fact, i think a year is too fast for them to move forward. granted, the catalyst was the realisation that atsumu is losing reader. for real this time. he’s realising that he cannot subconsciously keep on keeping an eye on her or still have her by his side along his brother.

onto the reader, i don’t know what you guys are reading but all throughout the series which has literally more than 200 pages (ebook style) i can be sure that it’s less than a page wherein reader’s insecurity for mika has been really outwardly mentioned. as for her insecurities in general, that much is a given. no, it doesn’t matter if she’s a teenager who is trying her best not to have her emotions rule her.

this ones deeper than that. y’all gotta realise that everyone around reader (sans her family) has always made her feel invisible and lesser than. it doesn’t matter where they are or who they’re with. she’s always labelled as someone who’s just never enough compared to both her sister and her younger brother even. ever since they were kids. does anyone realise how damaging that is to anyone’s psyche? or is it just me??? it was always drilled into her mind that what she’s good at is studying, lol. and she doesn’t even believe that that’s like... a super strength to her character. she just thought that she just happened to be good at it, nothing special. now, the incident happened and she heard from her very first love. that she’s got nothing going on for her except her brain. LITERALLY in front of her. mind you, this is the same person who’s always made her feel seen and had always made her feel like she belongs. then realising that he, too, thought that she’s really just plain and boring? well, isn’t that something? plus, her trust being broken way too many times. even by people who she gave everything to.

all of these factors, plus others combined. i’d say you handled this very realistically. in fact, there were many instances where reader feels as though she’s enough and what she’s doing is enough but of course, in the journey of loving and accepting yourself, there’s always going to be setbacks. people making you feel small and boring ever since you were a kid, reader will always have that nagging feeling of insecurity in the back of her mind.

even when atsumu started treating her like theyre buddy buddy without ever apologising and her thinking that ‘this is enough’ she still had her reservations and doubts. as she should! what would y’all feel if someone who’s took every opportunity to hurt you again and again. to humiliate you. to trample over your feelings as if they’re nothing. started to act as if that rift between the two of you never happened? and her knowing that no matter what happens from this point onwards, atsumu and her will never go back to the way they once were? whewwww

it makes reader human. the way she acts and the way she’s processing things right now, makes her all the more human. she might be strong and she might present herself to be that type to never be knocked down by anything but she’s got her limits too. she’s got her bad days too. and sometimes, no matter how much you convince yourself that you’re getting better, that nagging feeling of dark thoughts will still linger in the back of your mind. that’s how it goes. because loving and accepting yourself is not just all about forgetting everything that knocks you down, it’s also getting up whenever those bad thoughts and days seem to be getting better of you. and that’s what reader has been doing all this time.

she deserves all those little factors that made her the way she is all throughout this series. because it couldn’t be more realistic to have all the what-ifs, what couldve been, what could be, etc be placed and scattered throughout her healing(???) process.

im p sure i missed a lot of points to say but id say this is still a pretty good and convincing thought LMAOO - 🎨

to be honest, i was also pissed, but had to step back. as mentioned before, this story has a bit of me - because they were my experiences growing up, getting so used to either being invisible, the second fiddle, or as the inferior sibling. it's numb me to the point that i've become so pessimistic and cynical.

nonetheless, i have to respect that everyone is each to their own opinion. yet at the same time, it's not fair to disregard the fact that there are people like reader who have a high threshold for pain, saint-like presence, or are just plain masochists.

as for the angst, this is exactly the kind of angst i really like reading - where you really see glimpse of what a certain pain can do to someone, emotionally and psychologically. yes, i do love the 'they don't love me back' trope, but on a deeper level? that's just *chef's kiss* nothing hurts more if you actually get to feel what they're feeling, which is why i chose to write my angst that way :>

#alicemitch09 answers #paint anon #on the defense of reader

3 notes · View notes

brokenbuttonsmusic · 4 years ago

Text

Eleni Mandell: L.A. Singer-Songwriter with Smoky Chrissie Hynde Vocals and a flair for Tom Waits’ Influenced Experimentation

This post is a near- transcript of the Broken Buttons: Buried Treasure Music podcast (episode 5, side A). Here you’ll find the narration from the segment featuring the L.A. singer-songwriter, Eleni Mandell, along with links, videos, photos and references for the episode.

Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple, Anchor or Mixcloud.

Have you ever bought the wrong record? Like, you intended to buy something that sounded like one thing and you accidentally grab something that sounds very different.

I don’t know if this happens anymore, but I believe it was quite common years ago. Imagine hearing an artist on the radio and being blown away. You go to the record store, find the plastic divider with the name of whom you’re looking for, but you can’t remember the name of the album, or even the song. Remember, you don’t have a tiny computer in your pocket. You’re too nervous to ask the store clerk for fear of looking stupid. So you roll the dice.

“I know it was someone called Neil Young, but there are a thousand Neil Young records here.”

“Hey, this pink one looks cool.”

That exact scenario didn’t happen to me, but that album, Neil Young’s Everybody’s Rockin’, happened to be the most played Neil Young album in my house growing up, so for years I thought Neil Young was a rockabilly revival act. In reality, that was one of several oddball records Young released during a tumultuous period with his record label to fulfill his contract demands. I still love that record.

Eleni Mandell did live out the scenario of buying the wrong record though. She shared the story during a segment of the show Bullseye with Jessie Thorn, where she describes seeing Tom Waits on MTV late at night—back when MTV still cared about music. It was either 120 minutes or IRS’ The Cutting Edge. This would have been around 1984 or 1985, so right around the time of Wait’s masterpiece Rain Dogs. When she went to the record store though, she picked up the 1976 Tom Waits’ Asylum release, Small Change instead. Now Small Change is still a great Tom Waits album, but it sounds nothing like the drastically reimagined sound and musical approach he had begun to employ starting with 1983’s Swordfishtrombones. Something Tom Waits called his “junkyard orchestral deviation.” The spare, off-kilter percussion. Moaning trombones and muted trumpets. Marimba. Plenty of marimba. Experimental instruments mixed in everywhere. Megaphones and CB radios. Trash can lids.

This is the sound Eleni was looking for.

Instead she got lush strings. Delicate piano. Cinematic swells and a melancholy wail.

She got this.

Still awesome, but not the same. She credits the experience with changing her life. She grew to love both sides of the Tom Waits coin. The jazzy piano man in the smoky, whiskey-drenched nightclub and the eclectic, experimental carnival barker that she had her first encounter with on late night MTV.

You can hear that deep appreciation and influence for the full Tom Waits spectrum injected and swirling through Eleni Mandell’s own spectacular catalog that spans more than 20 years now.

She’s got plenty of experimental Waits, especially in her early catalog.

And quite a bit of the jazzy nightclub vibe.

There’s also plenty of folk-y Eleni mixed in, and even some country.

You’ll notice that Eleni’s voice doesn’t sound like Tom Waits though. Did you notice that? It’s less of a deep, gravelly howl and more of rich Chrissie Hynde croon. Spin compared her to Chrissie Hynde and PJ Harvey. Rolling Stone compared her captivating melodies and witty lyricism to early Elvis Costello.

While she doesn’t have the Tom Waits’ wail, she does specialize in his particular brand of character song-study. Like this first song we’re going to hear. The first track off of Eleni Mandell’s second album Thrill. Released in the year 2000. This is Pauline.

youtube

Pauline, from Eleni Mandell’s second record, Thrill. So how did this remarkably unique singer-songwriter get her start and pull together so many interesting influences to create the sound we just heard.

Eleni grew up in the Sherman Oaks region of the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles. She started playing music when she was just 5, beginning with the violin and then piano. Eleni didn’t love playing either, but continued to take lessons until she was thirteen. She remembers wanting to learn to write songs early on, but didn’t have the first idea of how to approach it, especially on violin. She jumped from violin and piano to guitar as a teenager. Her parents exposed her to a variety of musical styles. Her mom would take her to musicals and her dad, a serious record collector, played her Hoagy Carmichael and plenty of jazz standards. She loved the Beatles and remembers Diana Ross making an early impression.

Another early life changing moment came when she discovered the Los Angeles punk band X.

X were huge in LA, and their first album (called Los Angeles) was the first record Eleni ever owned. Or maybe the first she asked to own. The first record she was ever given was Shaun Cassidy’s greatest hits for her 4th birthday. The first she ever purchased with her own money was X’s third release, Under the Big Black Sun. She tells a story of when she was out record shopping at a place called Aron’s Records, located on Melrose, and to her utter befuddlement came face to face with John Doe, lead singer of X. He was shopping for records too. She quickly snapped up a copy of the band’s third album and asked John to sign it. He did. She still has the signed album, which reads “Yours” complete with a big X “-John Doe.” That was the last autograph she ever asked for. It was not, however, the last time her path would cross with that of the band X.

When she was a little bit older, she met Chuck E. Weiss, songwriter, rock n’ roller, beat poet and peculiar Tom Waits associate. Also the subject of the song, Chuck E.’s in Love.

Yes, that Chuck E. Weiss. Waits was in a relationship with Rickie Lee Jones. Waits, Jones and Weiss all lived at the seedy Tropicana Motel in Los Angeles. One day Weiss up and left out of nowhere. Some time later Chuck E. called the apartment where Jones and Waits were living. He explained to Waits that he had moved to Denver because he had fallen in love with a cousin there. Waits hung up the phone and announced to Jones, “Check E.’s in love. Rickie Lee Jones liked that so much that she it turned it into the song we just heard.

Who is this episode about again? Oh, right. Eleni Mandell. Anyway, Eleni Mandell met THAT Chuck E. Weiss when she was not yet 21. Still, she had a friend who was able to get her into The Central, a Sunset Strip club that would later become The Viper Room. This would’ve been around 1990. Weiss was playing there every Monday.

Here’s how the write up on Eleni’s original website describes her first encounter with Weiss.

“The first time she ever saw Chuck E. Weiss perform, he walked right up to her and smiled like a cross between The Cheshire Cat and an escaped mental patient. She met him a month later at Musso and Frank’s.”

Eleni says she was at the famous Hollywood restaurant and recognized Weiss. She worked up the courage to approach him and told him how much she loved his show. He asked if she wanted to accompany him to meet up with a friend at Canter’s Deli. She agreed. When they settled into one of the landmark eaterys iconic red, vinyl booths in walked her hero. Tom Waits. What a night. Tom asked Chuck how he and Eleni had met.

“Hebrew school,” he declared.

Here’s a tune from Eleni’s debut album, Wishbone, released in 1999. This is Sylvia.

youtube

From Eleni Mandell’s first album, Wishbone, that was Sylvia.

Under Chuck E. Weiss’ mentorship, produced by Jon Brion and self-financed by Mandell, Wishbone, as well as her next several records, received strong reviews and drew comparisons to Waits and PJ Harvey in style.

Before Weiss mentored Mandell, he hired her as a door person at his club. She said he would test her to see how tough a door person she was by trying to grab money out of her hand. Weiss would continue to mentor Eleni over the years and they’re still friends to this day.

For her fourth album, Mandell shook things up by diving into traditional country. A mix of covers and originals, 2003’s Country For True Lovers is an exciting update to her sound. And one of her life changing moments came full circle. Weiss introduced her to former X guitarist Tony Gilkyson, who produced the project. She also stacked the sessions with all star players, including Nels Cline from Wilco, and another X hero, drummer D.J. Bonebreak.

Eleni continued to mix and mesh genres on her next release, 2004’s Afternoon.

From the No Depression review of that album:

“Last years Country For True Lovers found Los Angeles chanteuse Eleni Mandell turning her sights on twang rather than her previous more PJ Harvey-oriented material, and she received plenty of critical acclaim in the process, sharing the LA Weekly 2003 songwriter of the year award with the late Elliot Smith.”

“On Afternoon, her fifth album, Mandell combines her love of various genres, including country, pop, jazz and rock, to stunning effect. Produced by Joshua Grange, who also lends his considerable talents on guitar, pedal steel, Hammond organ and piano, Afternoon mostly takes the slow and sexy approach. I’ve Been Fooled and Can’t You See Im Soulful give Mandell the chance to show off her breathy but passionate alto, which can devastate in a heartbeat.”

“Mandell does rock out from time to time, as on Easy On Your Way Out, which has a grungy Elvis Costello-gets-on-with-Liz Phair feel to it. I wanna be your afternoon/I want you coming back for more, Mandell sings on the sorta fun/sorta sad title song.”

She can also write catchy singles. Like this song from Afternoon, “Let’s Drive Away.”

youtube

That was Let’s Drive Away from Eleni Mandell’s fifth album, Afternoon, released in 2004. That song was also featured on the TV show, Weeds.

And here comes the challenging part of covering an artist like Eleni Mandell, who’s put out consistently solid albums for over two decades. There’s not enough time to feature all the good stuff she’s produced, but trust me, over her eleven albums, she always delivers. From the diverse shifting sounds of Artificial Fire [play clip] to the smooth and breezy Dark Lights Up [play clip], Eleni whirls a magical combination of jazz, folk, pop, country and rock, with just enough experimental twists to keep everything fresh.

She’s also branched out from her solo artist gig to release two albums with her band The Grabs. The Grabs allows her to exercise more of her pop side and features Eleni on vocals, Blondie bassist Nigel Harrison, and Silversun Pickups’ drummer Elvira Gonzalez.

And, she’s also released records with the Andrews Sisters inspired supergroup, The Living Sisters, with Inara George, Alex Lilly and Becky Stark.

youtube

I’d recommend checking out all of this.

So now that we’ve established that the Eleni Mandell road is paved with the goods, let’s skip ahead to focus on her most recent album: 2019’s Wake Up Again.

Here’s what Eleni and her website have to say about the latest release:

“For two years or thereabouts,” Mandell says, “I taught songwriting at two colleges and a women’s prison.”

The prison gig came about via Jail Guitar Doors, the organization founded by Wayne Kramer, guitarist of the vaunted Detroit band MC5, in partnership with English musician Billy Bragg. “I don’t know why exactly I was drawn to that work,” Mandell says. “But I had a family member who had been in prison in the 1940s. He wasn’t around when I was growing up, but that sort of fascinated me and I was always curious about what kind of person disappears and what kind of person commits crimes — what are they thinking?”

Working with the inmates also provided many epiphanies for her as a person, and proved fertile for her as an artist, as captured in the 11 songs on this album, her 11th studio release. In many ways it’s the culmination and fulfillment of all the strengths as a writer and performer going back to her start under the tutelage of Chuck E. Weiss, Tom Waits and other top chroniclers of people in the shadows.

“I really enjoyed it,” she says. “I was inspired by the stories, and surprised by the laughter I heard there. And I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was, by how many different kinds of people were there: teachers, lawyers, nurses, and also people who grew up in poverty.”

Here’s a song about one of the woman she met during those songwriting classes she taught. This is Evelyn.

youtube

Evelyn from Eleni Mandell’s most recent album, Wake Up Again. Another great addition to her expansive, impressive catalog. The album is filled with rich character studies and deeply personal self-examinations.

Her early Tom Waits inspiration continues to ignite and propel her, even after 11 albums. Only now she can call Tom a longtime friend.

And she went from obsessive punk rock X fan to counting a member of X as a member of her own band. What a cool, thrilling ride she’s had so far. Eleni Mandell.

References and other stuff:

Eleni interview with Luxury Wagers

Eleni interview with Mr. Bonzai

Eleni interview with Tyler Pollard on Timeline

The bio from Eleni’s current website has a great write up on her most recent album and I quote from it in the episode.

No Depression review of Afternoon that I quote in the episode

Here is the original bio from Eleni’s old website that is now archived. I also quote from this

Eleni has been featured on NPR segments over the years. I did not use anything directly from these, but they are good and informative

Pop Matter review of Dark Lights Up

Good L.A. Times article about Eleni teaching songwriting to female inmates and her latest album

1 note · View note

shriekbackmusic · 4 years ago

Text

Collaborations #1 (’Shriekback are Seeing Other People’)

Well, collaboration is everything really innit? No man is an island, not even the ones who pretend they are. That’s what I reckon. Merging somebodys’ talents and energies with yours. What a thing. The very stuff of life.

Still, it can be a fractious business: politics will come into it. LIke: who’s in charge here? Who gets to say whether your bit is better than my bit? And how do we work that shit out? A microcosm of the world or what?

Undeterred, we seem to do it (collaborate) quite a lot. And these are some pretty successful tunes, I would say. Good for us. Bold and resolute Shriekback!

So there’s Hope, right?

(BA)

MART’S TRACKS:

DROP BY DROP Barker/Burridge

Taken from my Album" Water and Stone." Exploring my rolling Gtr and groove in 7 with the wonderfully talented musician cellist Emily Burridge.

Inspired by the miracle of water, its rhythm, its music, its journey, its myths, its poetry and beauty

FLYING SAUCER Barker/ Roedelius/Noah1

Lovely to have met and worked with the master of Ambience, Hans Joachim Roedelius for the Album Fibre.

Recorded up in the hills of Shropshire with George Taylor (Noah1) and Jez coed

This piece was inspired by my riff Im playing on the Hang Drum, hence the title "Flying Saucer"

GOLDEN MOON Barker/Young

Taken from my mini Album” Blue” Talitha Rise.

This was my first big endeavour into the musical spiritual world and collaboration with Jo beth young.

We are joined on the Riti by Juldeh Camara.

PILGRIM`S WAY Barker/Adams

My new project/collaboration still ongoing with the mighty talent of Justin Adams .

This first piece inspired by ancient walks.

This new whole album partly inspired by the writing of Robert Macfarlane "the old ways"

SANDLINES. Barker/ Adams

Second piece inspired the Ancient paths of the desert.

THE LAKE Barker/Young taken from the album" Abandoned Orchid House” Talitha Rise

Another collaboration with Jo beth Young and another piece in 7!

Intense, energetic and rich with riddles.

THE SELKIE. Barker / Pynn

Second Piece taken from my Album "Water and Stone”

Inspired by the Myths and stories of the Selkie. With the magical multi instrumentalist Nick Pynn on Violin.

CARL’S TRACKS:

Words Fail Me

with AMANDA KRAVIT

(Barratt/Marsh)

David Barratt and I were introduced to Amanda by John Mrvos, one of the A&R team at EastWest Atlantic in New York (Happyhead’s label) - she was his girlfriend and he wanted to get her recorded, basically, so we came up with this. Dave had done some kind of publishing deal that allowed him to sample the company catalogue, hence Ravi Shankar playing sitar all over it. Backing vocals by Bill Clift; some of the drums sound like Jim Kimberley, sampled from HH sessions (1992ish.)

The Longest Goodbye

with BILL CLIFT

(Clift/Marsh)

I’ve written loads with Bill under various banners, of course. This is a mid-90s demo recorded in Bill’s flat in Greenwich. BVs by Stella Clifford and Marilyn Gentle, bass (I think) by Gary Brady… not sure who did the wibbly organ. This song was later recorded by Bill’s band Fuzzbuddy, re-titled Killing Me Now - it’s just been re-released as part of their Complete Studio Recordings compilation.

THE PALACE DOGS

with GEOFF WOOLEY

I’ve collaborated with Geoff Woolley since Out On Blue Six, and in school bands even before that. These two tracks, from around 1995, are both built from sampled TV shows (and therefore subject to all sorts of potential copyright issues…).

Queen of Peoples’ Hearts

(Marsh/Woolley)

The self-styled QOPH’s Panorama special, cut up and pumped up with added Dario Argento and a spot of Jeremy Paxman. The Original is all-electronic; the Guitar Version has not only mine and Geoff’s rhythm bits but some wildfire lead from Steve Bolton (Atomic Rooster, Paul Young, The Who etc. and currently fronting the mighty Dead Man’s Corner). Take yer pick.

Crazy Dames

(Marsh/Woolley)

The main voice and piano on here are from a 1961 Twilight Zone episode called The Midnight Sun, in which the Earth is knocked out of orbit and is spiralling towards the Sun… it gets hot. Other vocals by Stella Clifford and Marilyn Gentle.

GASWERKS

The Ying Tong Song

(Milligan)

Basically the same format as The Palace Dogs with the addition of Bill Clift, whose idea it was to knock out a dance version of The Goons’, er, classic. Dig that crazy rhythm, indeed. We were told the novelty song market was a hard one to crack… by the singer of Black Lace, who should know, I suppose…

WOOLLEY/MARSH

The Girlfriends Of Dorian Gray

(Barratt/Marsh/Woolley)

David Barratt came up with the conceit of a modern Dorian Gray who preserves his youth (or immaturity) not by having a grotesquely ageing portrait in the attic but by having an ever-changing string of girlfriends who absorb the consequences of his many flaws and are discarded one after another. Dave sketched out the chorus and then proposed that he, I and Deni Bonet (NY-based violinist and writer that we’ve worked with on various projects) should write our own versions of the story, possibly with the idea of creating some kind of meta-version combining them all. That never happened, but I like the track Geoff and I came up with and the lyric is nice and tricksy - shades of Costello, maybe, if I say so myself.

You’re The Only One

(Marsh/Woolley)

A re-write of a Happyhead demo, switching New York electronica for some 90s Britpop vibes, it sounds like. Bit of a kinky ménage à trois scenario with reasonably loud guitars. Nice.

BARRY’S TRACKS

The Frances & Martine poems, with Hilda Sheehan (2014)

part 1: GLOW, GOOSE, CORN-REMOVER

part 2: COAT, ARM, KNOB OF BUTTER

I met Hilda Sheehan - through the (surprisingly vibey) Swindon poetry scene when I was stationed back there for 10 years in '04. She was often the star turn at their spoken word events and, I thought, had the mark of a real artist in that she came with her own self-contained world (’magical realist Northern UK kitchen sink’, if I had to describe it).

I thought it would be fun to 'set' (as they say) some of her poems to music and so I did. From Hilda's considerable oeuvre, I picked the Frances and Martine series - I liked F&M's mutually abrasive dependence - the key ingredient in any sitcom - and the succinct and sometimes brutal nature of each of their adventures.

Dame Hilda Sheehan

The Anaxaton6 EP with Mike Tournier (2013)

I first worked with Mike Tournier (Big Mike as opposed to Little Mike - these were Flukes' Contrasting Mikes at the time) as producer on their OTO album c.94. Techno outfit Fluke apparently liked them some Olde Shriekback (they had worked previously with Wendy and Sarah) and thought I might add something to the project.

It turned out that producing a techno band is every bit as awkward as you might imagine (there’s only one computer screen for a start) and we abandoned the collaboration after I'd failed to insert myself into Fluke's process in any useful way (sandwich run doesn't count).

Anyway, we stayed in touch and collaborated rather more successfully on a Fluke/Shriekback tune and performance for MTV.

It was the redoubtable Julian Nugent, Fluke's manager, who got in touch - in 2013 to suggest that Mike and I might like to try knocking up a tune together.

I liked the idea of this straightaway. Mike can produce huge, hi-torque productions and I had an idea of a songwriting approach which I though might complement this. The vocalist would be recognisably the bloke out of Shriekback but CG’d with florid new appendages. I fancied some mad-as-a-rat lyrics (Welcome to their secret sign: Boola Stack! Haunted Lego of the Mind! Boola Stack!) but the music would be slick and vivid and solidly crafted because that's always how Mike rolls. Thus you get something quite absurd being taken very seriously which is, to my mind, the best thing you can possibly have.

extract from the sleeve notes:

BONE MARAUDER tells of a pure love, painful engorgement and hog sorcery.

JUJUGRID (GO LIVE!) wrangles with hedonic guilt, ecclesiastical turpitude and leaves everything else the fuck alone.

BOOLA STACK! - There are so many things to say of Boola Stack that to ennumerate them insults us both.

NO FOOL BOLETUS... let's just be clear about this: you got nothing to hide, there's no need to worry. Be lucky.

Michaele don Turino and Bleary Android are the naked mortals chained to the husky obelisk of ANAXATON6

Anaxaton6 has some videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=anaxaton6

Mike Tournier

7 notes · View notes

alexbfmp · 4 years ago

Text

Week 1 - Start of Project

My chosen 10 words are:

Surface - The surface is the outside of anything. The earth, a basketball, and even your body have a surface. A surface is the top layer of something. - This can be expanded more than just seeing the outside of something, you can dive deep with in the surface of something or someone where there can often be more meanings for things or discover elements that make something whole.

Showing the surface and an insight beneath - powerful imagery impact

Insight into the anatomy of the surface -

Microscopic view of the ice surface - immersive and detailed look into what creates the surface/ exterior of something that can result in more beauty shining from beneath

Environment - The circumstances, objects, or conditions by which a person or more is surrounded by - country, buildings, nature, situations etc but also can mean the complex of physical, chemical, and biotic factors (such as climate, soil, and living things) that act upon an organism or an ecological community and ultimately determine its form and survival.

Palettes and Patterns - The range of colours used by a particular artist or in a particular picture that uses a repeated decorative design - some artists stick to one set of colours as their ‘trademark colours’ often playing around with the similar patterns but re arranging them with the use of layering, geometry and colour order. In other occasions patterns/ colour palettes would be often repeated and used with in a certain time period - e.g. the 80′s with lots of bold, colourful, crazy and detailed patterns- mainly found on clothing

Identity - Identity is who you are, the way you think about yourself, the way you are viewed by the world and the characteristics that define you. An example is a person's name or the traditional characteristics of an American. It can showcase the way people want to live their life as an individual, making it their own through self expression. It can also relate to people loosing themselves and detreating

Revolution - a sudden. complete or fundamental change in political organization - government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed. It can also mean the activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in or about situations.

Interior/ Exterior - Interior commonly refers to the inside of something. E.G. An auditorium inside a Theatre or place that lies far inland from a coast or border is said to lie in the ‘interior’ of a country. On the other hand, Exterior is part or the surface of an outside appearance. Another example is representation (as on stage or film) of an outdoor scene - a scene filmed outdoors. It hand tie in with the word ‘Surface’ as it can be referred to the exterior of a person - their appearance

Urban - It most commonly is in relation to a city. In that sense, the term may refer to as an urban area, geographical area distinct from rural areas. urban culture, the culture of towns and cities.

Renaissance - The Renaissance was an Art period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries through paintings, sculptures/ statues as well as style of clothing.

Dystopia - It is an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic. It can branch of into many different situations - Environmental destruction, Nuclear Disaster, Government control, Religious Control, Technological Control, Survival, Loss of Individualism.

Repetition - Repetition is the simple repeating of a word, within a short space of words, with no particular placement of the words to secure emphasis. It can also be used with in art and patterns e.g. wallpaper repeat designs to create interesting and visually exiting arrangements. Repetition is also used in everyday life, people get advice to follow repeatedly to stay strong and keep going everyday. It also can come into terms with an activity of some sort that a person may do over and over again each day - watch tv, eat food, perform in a show etc

I narrowed my first initial 10 words down to the 5 that I am most keen to use as my theme for my project. I feel with these words, I would be able to come up with some interesting ideas and exiting outcomes.

Surface

Palettes and Patterns

Identity

Interior/ Exterior

Environment

Week 1 Evaluation

Media, skills, processes and techniques - Evaluative section on – Media, skills, processes and techniques that were used/explored – what was learnt – how wide ranging research informed this - and how these met the purpose of the proposal? First section – your planning, themes, specialism and how you have been working.

During this week I used the internet and my blog to research and present the first lot of work for my project. This gave me a look into different topics and words to look into to see what sparked my interests and could potentially be one of the words I pick for my theme/ concept for this project.

Purpose/ theme/concept – Evaluative section on the FMP development – the thought processes – the struggle to solve a problem the journey of change and learning – why decisions were made and for what purpose - what is the point/function of the work?. How the FMP could be further developed in ambitious and innovative ways?

The main goal this week in regards to FMP development was to explore the different avenues that I could take my project down and what I personally am starting to feel that could then lead me onto ideas etc.

One of the main themes that appealed to me the most is the ‘Patterns and Palettes’. I feel like this could be a really interesting route for me to go down and reminds me of the work im familiar working with - the word pattern reminds me of the sewing patterns and fabric designs i work with - on the other hand, the palette portion reminded me of the different use of colour combinations and look to a garment/ costume whether that be as a whole or a specific detailed section. This then led me on to having the idea of creating some form of garment that I could incorporate the patterns throughout the surface of the outcome.

What are you planning for next week? – How and what are you doing?

I am really keen on the whole garment design idea with the incorporation of the patterns and palettes so i am going to create a couple of rough designs experimenting with colour schemes and patterns. I will also include visual inspiration collages from ideas that inspire me to create my outcome as well as looking into colour palettes and what colour combinations compliment each other.

Further Research - Looking into style of garments

To get a further insight into the different style of garments created, I decided to look at some of the best garments/ dresses from the Oscars awards ceremony. This is one of the biggest events to happen every year and always a place to see fresh, new and visually exiting outfits.

The first look that appealed to my taste was from 1982 where Debbie Allen was seen in a white, fully embellished slit fit dress. Although it a moderately simple dress, the fully embellished work on the piece as a whole takes it to another level of ‘Glam’ which is what I feel I am going into the direction for my creation.

Another garment that was embellished and very fitting with one of my chosen themes ‘Patterns and Pallets’ is this gorgeous embellished pattern dress worn by Jessica Chastain in 2013. Its very clear to see that the garment has many different pattern panels which creates such a stunning yet striking look as a whole but not overwhelming. I feel like this is my inspiration to move forward for my project and what i envision something similar to be as my final outcome.

One of the more plain, simple but effective looks that I saw was a black lace and tulle fit and flare garment worn by Jenifer Lawrence in 2016. There is something really beautiful about the simplicity of the dress but also still feel very detailed with the design through the lace and pleats of tulle. I love the way the subtle lace top portion of the bodice gradually blends into the more elaborate bottom half of the dress. Again, this style is something id love to incorporate and maybe embellish the top lace part with beads and crystals so it would be coherent with the fully beaded bottom portion of some sort.

Lastly, one of my other favourites was a beautiful and simple shaped garment with 3D flower elements cascading all over the dress which was worn by Kate Blanchett in 2016. The 3D appliques add such a creative and almost artsy/ crafty style to the gorgeous simplicity of the dress creating a beautiful floral image to look at. This could protentional give me inspiration to add other 3D elements besides just the beads and crystals.

1 note · View note

scaredandbored · 5 years ago

Text

.ok i caved and wrote spones. academy au spones. with a really, horribly out of character spock. was this purely self-indulgent? yes. i’m not even 100% sure what im doing with this story, only that its spones, they share a dorm, and its going to be a gross, borderline self-insert fic lmaoooo. playing fast and loose with the academy’s curriculum because i’m a lazy piece of shit who won’t research the actual structure. also, idk if it even counts as slash, because it contains what i consider flirting, which is ACTUALLY just bickering and academic/scientific discussion combined with gentle physical contact. let me have this.

additional note : i snuck in some pining at the end! so it’s definitely romantic! ha! (it’s not worth it dont bother)

additional additional note : i fucked up a perfectly good spones fic by trying to add jim but it turned into McSpirk

Collectors poke and scalpels ring

(title from billy corgan’s poem “a wax seal”)

warnings : don’t read this spock is so badly written in it.

blatant abuse of the comma, oxford and otherwise

someone gets burnt but it’s not severe and it’s off of tea

cursing. a lot of it.

words : c.6’000 (i’ll count properly tomorrow, it’s hard to get a word count on mobile)

If Leonard was being completely honest with himself (which he tried to be, dammit), his studying had stopped being productive at some stage between midnight and one a.m, but he’d be damned if he was going to grant his smug-enough-already roommate an “I told you so” by going to bed. Not that Spock would use such colloquial, illogical language. Resisting the urge to groan, Leonard let his head fall to his desk, confident the pile of pages he had accumulated while studying for his assessment in Standard Procedures in Classifying Non-Humanoid Life-Forms would muffle the thud enough to prevent upsetting his roommate’s meditation in the bedroom next to his. Walls were thin at the academy, that was the whole reason he’d had to turn down Jim when he’d requested Leonard to bunk with him for their second year in the academy. Bones loved the kid, he really did, but if he wasn’t blasting his frankly awful study music through the whole night, he had someone over from wherever he’d been that evening, and Bones had come to learn (quickly, and unwillingly), that Jim was loud in bed.

Making the decision to go make a coffee (not with one of those godawful replicators, but with some decent coffee beans that his younger sister had brought as a present on his birthday, for which he’d had to actually purchase a grinder and coffee press for afterwards, but it was the thought that counts), Bones couldn’t help but miss the all-nighters he and Jim used to pull together in their previous year at the academy, using each other to keep awake and motivated. The kid’s taste in classical music left much to be desired, but he didn’t seem to mind Bones’s preferences, so they’d throw on the med student’s study playlist on Jim’s maybe-technically-banned-but-no-one-is-going-to-snitch-on-us-because-we-all-have-one-Bones-relax speaker and bounce flash cards off of each other, explaining things to one another, and sharing notes. Jim had always been very much an aural-oral learner, unable to retain information unless he had explained it to someone, or had it explained to him, and while Bones definitely did not mind helping his friend out, he’d always been a more individual learner, preferring to take his notes and summarise them, re-writing the most important points until he had them ingrained in his subconscious. Which was all well and good, except it was a pain in the ass of a technique that only became more frustrating when it was employed in a long night of cramming.

Quietly, Bones took his mug as well as the rest of the required paraphernalia from the almost-bare shelf in the equally almost-bare cupboard he and Spock had voted to dedicate to Bones’s “illogical need to entertain guests with a strange variety of baked goods paired with one of two hot beverages” and Spock’s “ostentatious pots and probably poisonous concoctions”, all while chiding himself for reminiscing about study sessions. Of all the stupid shit he could reminisce about at the ripe age of twenty-two, study sessions with a friend he could easily invite over to join him was probably the one of the most stupid. Bones was forced to pause and evaluate his situation as he realised that all his quiet tip-toeing about in an effort to leave Spock’s meditation undisturbed was probably null and fucking void, seeing as he had to manually grind the coffee beans, which would indubitably create enough noise to irritate those over-sensitive ears. Not that the vulcan could feel irritation. Fucking asshole.

Rolling his eyes at his own cankerous mood, he began to prepare his coffee, keeping half an ear on the sudden rustling noises from Spock’s bedroom as the disturbed vulcan did god-knows-what before coming out to lecture Leonard. Or to glare at him. Or condescend him. Maybe criticise him on how late he’d left it to study for this godforsaken exam. Or maybe Leonard was projecting onto his poor roommate, who he’d only known for the better half of a month. (During which, the cranky bastard side of his brain argued, said roommate had made his distaste for human culture and illogic clear, his particular dislike (it was dislike, regardless of whatever “vulcans don’t feel” bullshit he was trying to pull) of Leonard thinly veiled, and his disinclination to speak to Leonard in general blatantly obvious.) Most likely Spock would simply head into their shared living area to procure a cup of his noxious evening teas before returning to his meditation, not stooping so low as to acknowledge the source of the disruption to his nightly routine. Leonard’s mission to caffeinate himself was not under threat. It took more energy than Leonard would ever admit to quell the disappointment that bubbled up at the thought of Spock just ignoring him.

It was stupid-o-clock in the morning, of course the vulcan wasn’t going to engage in a full-blown academic conversation with him, what was he thinking? Bones haphazardly plopped the filter over his mug just as the kettle came to a boil, doggedly ignoring the squeak of Spock’s door and the sound of his bare feet against their tile floor.

“It is not recommended for humans to ingest beverages of such a high caffeine content at this hour.” Spock’s voice breaking the eerie silence of the late hour was enough to make Leonard’s usually still hands jerk, splashing his knuckles with the hot water. He managed to suppress a hiss of pain, determined not to let the vulcan see any weakness.

“It’s not generally recommended amongst humans to get your medical degree at Starfleet Academy, yet here I am, Spock.” Griped Bones, turning to face Spock with his mug in hand, the eye contact he made intended as a challenge. Try and stop me, Pointy.

Spock raised an eyebrow, which alerted Leonard to the vulcan’s significantly slower than normal movements. The damn vulcan was sleepy, he realised. In an infuriatingly adorable way, Spock blinked slowly twice before responding, a significant delay in his usual response times to Leonard’s taunts. “On the contrary, an education in Starfleet Academy is highly coveted amongst humans; its expansive curriculum makes its graduates highly sought after in careers outside of the academy. I see no logic in your statement.”

Bones rolled his eyes, knocking back half his coffee in a matter of seconds, and burning his tongue in the process. “I don’t see the logic in continuing to hold conversations with an individual you find so distastefully illogical, Mr.Spock.” He passed the strange traditional vulcan teapot out to his roommate along with the decidedly terran-style mug Spock seemed to prefer using.

Spock offered three more of his slow, dazed blinks before responding with a tilt of his head that was slightly more pronounced than the one he tended to make during the day. “Distasteful? I do not believe I have ever said as much, McCoy.”

Bones gave a single, barking laugh, shaking his head as he began to move back towards his bedroom. “Careful, Mr.Spock. Keep up the flattery and you might say something you regret.”

“You are studying?” Spock called after him, just as Leonard was closing his door.

Leonard watched Spock as he shuffled around their kitchen, preparing his tea, his normally purposefully brisk steps reduced to a half-asleep stumble. His roommate gave no indication of having spoken to him. “In my usual, time-consuming way. Yes I am, Mr.Spock.”

Spock did not face him, but the delay in his response was still significant, for the vulcan, “You study using this highly inefficient method only when learning independently, correct?”

“What is it you’re getting at? There’s only so many hours in a night, and some of us have work to do.” Growled Leonard, his prolonged view of the back of Spock’s house robes frustrating him. Their arguments were much less entertaining and all the more aggravating when he couldn’t look Spock in the eye. Spock attempted to answer while turning to face Leonard in his sleepy daze, forgetting that he was halfway through pouring the boiling water over the strainer, effectively dousing his front in the scalding liquid. There was a brief pause where Spock blinked down at the front of his robes, while Bones processed what had just happened before jerking into action. “Get that glorified dressing gown off of yourself, Spock!” He whisper-shouted, determined not to wake the entire residential block. Spock just blinked at himself, then at Leonard.

“It is burning.” He deadpanned, prompting Bones to roll his eyes and cross the room in a few quick strides.

“It’s boiling water, Spock, of course it’s burning.” He hissed tapping the lapels of the robes. “You need to get out of this so we can get you under some running, room temperature water, try and stop any blistering.” Spock finally seemed to register what was going on and began to unwrap the ties of the robes, turning away from Leonard as he did so. Leonard noticed his roommate look uneasy at the prospect of being shirtless around him, and decided to leave him to it. “I’ll go run the shower, you dry yourself off a bit and run any part of your arm that got caught in the stream under the tap. I’ll call you when the shower’s the right temperature, ok?”. Leonard waited for Spock’s nod before bolting off to their shared bathroom to start working.

So much for his productive night studying. It was starting to look like he’d be playing nurse for Spock until the on-campus medbay opened at five am. He was just beginning to realise exactly how fucked he was for the exam the following day when the door to their bathroom creaked open slowly. “Nearly there, Spock. I don’t recommend using any of your pungent herbal shit, we don’t want anything getting into any burst blisters or anything.”

“Your alarm is unwarranted, Leonard. There is no lasting damage done to my person.”

“Congratulations on your medical degree, Spock, didn’t realised you’d discovered a fast track. Y’could’ve told me.” Leonard drawled, not taking his eyes off of the shower, his wrist under the stream of water to monitor the temperature.

“You know I have done no such thing.” Spock huffed, his less alert state loosening his restraint enough to allow for such blatant emotionalism.

“Sarcasm, Spock. Somethin’ you’re gonna have to get used to if you plan on launching into the void canned in with a bunch of humans once we graduate.” Leonard was angling for a mild version of their normally acerbic exchanges, but Spock didn’t seem willing to take the bait.

“If you insist I must bathe in tepid water, I will comply, but I trust you understand the state of my health is my concern alone, and you have no power to forbid me from assisting you with your studies.”

“Bold of you to assume I want your assistance.” His final attempt to goad Spock fell just as flat as his others, and he gave a defeated sigh. “Please stay in until your skin’s returned to its normal complexion, alright?”

Spock gave a half nod and stood to the side to let Leonard pass out of the bathroom, which he did a mite faster than was strictly necessary. Sighing as Spock closed the door, Leonard began weighing the benefit of trying to study against the fact he was just worried enough to be distracted from anything too difficult. Leonard scoffed. “Who am I kidding, everything in this module is difficult enough to make me want to rip my fucking eyes out.” He continued grumbling incoherently as he made his way back to his room, throwing a dirty look at the mess of teapots, mugs, and cafetieres as he walked past it. Spock would have a hissy fit. Or, the closest thing the teachings of Surak would allow to a hissy fit. “Goddamn, green-blooded, neat-freak.” Leonard groused, frowning at the state of his room.

Leonard often consoled himself for his lack of cleanliness within the confines of his bedroom using the fact he very rarely sullied shared living areas. He liked to think of his room as a sort of nesting area; cluttered, but cosy and homely. Spock thought the state of his room was indicative of his disorganised mind and illogical outlook on life. He looked around his room, trying to decide how to partially tidy it most effectively before Spock got out of the shower.

Ultimately, he decided to leave anything that could be passed off as studying material (including, but not limited to the notes Jim had left behind on Starfleet-approved mixed martial arts) and to gather all clothing into one pile behind the door. He had just finished that and was contemplating moving some of the collection of unwashed, half-empty mugs he’d forgotten about into the sink when someone cleared their throat at the threshold of the door, causing Leonard to jump. “Goddammit, Spock, y’could’ve killed me!” He snapped, subtly kicking the sleeve of one of his hoodies behind the door.

Spock’s eyes followed his foot as he attempted this subterfuge, which lead him directly to the pile of clothes. He raised an eyebrow, looking back at Leonard. “I was unaware the human heart was so poorly designed that even one belonging to a relatively fit for duty, young man was susceptible to cardiac arrest caused by unpredictable scenarios. It leads me to wonder why Starfleet consists mostly of such an inept species.”

The adorable, sleepy Spock had disappeared, leaving the sharper, more alert, more dangerously attractive Spock that Bones was going to have a hard time not coming onto over the next year. “I think I preferred you when y’couldn’t string together a sentence.”

Spock’s eyes narrowed infinitesimally as he stepped purposefully towards Leonard’s desk. “You are hardly the image of a functioning officer after your rest cycle has been disrupted, McCoy.” He quipped, pouring over the notes Leonard had been working on before the whole tea-spilling fiasco. “You have been repeatedly transcribing the same five notes for upwards of an hour, if you maintained a constant rate of words per minute.”

Leonard shrugged, striding over to his desk to snatch the notes back defensively. “What of it?” He snapped, picking up his pad of paper (not good for the environment, but he’d loaned his PADD that he usually used for revision to Jim a week ago and wasn’t due to get it back until that weekend) and old-fashioned pen that used to belong to his mother.

Spock raised an eyebrow at Leonard’s odd behaviour, picking up the textbook that had started to slip down the back of the overcrowded desk to leaf through it. “It is a highly inefficient method of study. Particularly given your current time constraints.”

“Spare me the lecture, Spock. It works, and that’s all that matters.” Leonard drawled, having already resumed his scribbling, desperately attempting to commit one of the longer definitions required for the exam to memory.

“That statement has no grounds in fact, nor does your extension based on the untruth follow any semblance of logic.”

Leonard uttered a string of curses in his native tongue, making Spock consider taking Earth English classes on the side, if only to aggravate the med student in his own native tongue. Not that Spock would ever admit to such irrational motivations. “Dammit, Spock,” Leonard’s familiar growls in Standard had less venom than they usually did this early in their verbal sparring, a fact that drew Spock’s concern sharply onto the med student. “,either sit down and help a guy out, or get out and let me be. Ain’t that hard.” Spock eased himself down onto the human’s bed carefully, sitting cross-legged beside him with the textbook balanced carefully on his knee.

“I have heard you listening to music whilst studying on previous occasions. I have noted you do not tend to do so while I am meditating, however, I am doing so now. If it assists you, I would recommend you indulge.” Carefully watching the human for signs of distress while he spoke, Spock decided another snip at him would not hurt him. “Your human focus is dismal enough without depriving it of the stimulus necessary for it to operate at an acceptable level of efficiency.”

Spock watched with mild satisfaction as Leonard threw his archaic study materials down in a small rage, his eyebrows practically dancing as he spluttered furiously for exactly 3.2 seconds before responding coherently. “Why, you listen here, you green-blooded son-of-a-bitch, y’ain’t doin’ much good in this here bedroom, so you’ve got about three seconds ‘fore i throw you out!”

Spock unfurled himself and stood, but he didn’t make a move for the door. Instead, the stoic bastard moved back to Leonard’s desk, sorting papers into piles as he systemically searched the surface for something. Finally, he picked up Leonard’s music device: a miniature PADD his younger sister had constructed for her first set of practical engineering exams, programmed to run audio files only. “A’ight, give it here.” Leonard stretched out his hand, palm up, waiting for Spock to hand it over. Spock took a moment to briefly page through the audio files Leonard had equipped the tiny device with, the corners of his mouth turning down fractionally. “Somethin’ the matter, Spock?”

“I was under the impression that humans preferred to listen to classical music whilst studying?”

“That is classical, Spock.”

“I do not recognise it.”

Spock looked up just in time to watch the furrows between Leonard’s brows deepening. “Well, it’s classical, terran music, not vulcan, so I don’t suspect y’would.”

Without thinking, Spock said, “My mother made sure I was acquainted with many kinds of classical terran music as a child. I expected to recognise at least one of these songs from the information she provided me with.”

“Your mother liked terran music?”

Spock didn’t even pause to consider the trust required for him to offer an insight into his personal history. He just did. “My mother was human. I am only half-vulcan.”

“Might be half-vulcan, but you’re still a whole pain in the ass.” The rapidity of Leonard’s answer set Spock totally at ease, and the vulcan allowed himself to relax slightly in the presence of the human. “Y’still’ve done absolutely fuck all to help me, and I really do need to study. Y’can stay if y’want, but I can’t be shootin’ the breeze with you all night, y’hear?”. Spock’s look of confusion at the idiom was enough to send Leonard back on the defensive, and he was about to launch into a strong verbal eviction from his room when something almost-but-not-quite-clear quickly swept over Spock’s eyeballs. “What in the fucking HELL was that!” He shrieked, immediately grabbing his training tricorder from under his bed and scanning Spock, studies forgotten.

Spock’s alarm was only notable in his shoulders, which tensed as Leonard crowed into his personal space to a degree that would’ve been considered improper on Vulcan. Spock did not make any movement to rectify this situation. “McCoy?”. Leonard was muttering to himself as he scanned Spock for a third time. “Leonard?”

“What was that, Spock?”

“I am unclear on what it is exactly you are referring to.” Spock maintained solid eye contact with the Leonard, concern for the human’s mental well-being bubbling under his cool exterior. Leonard blinked, twice, incredulously, before putting his hand on the junction between Spock’s neck and shoulder, which was covered by his turtleneck. He looked at though he was going to say something before he went extremely pale and spluttered incoherently for a few moments before beginning anew with his tricorder scans. “Leonard?”

“Spock, something’s happening to your eyes.” He growled in response, pressing at the junction where his hand rested. “Turn your head, I want to scan it from another angle. Do you feel dizzy, nauseous, anything out of the ordinary?”

“Nothing. The level of confusion I am experiencing is within normal parameters for my interactions with you.” Spock felt a wave on content pass over him when McCoy stopped scanning for a second to glare at him, before shaking his head and resuming his activities.

After a few minutes, he withdrew the scanner, dragging a hand down his face. “Spock, I don’t suppose vulcans happen to have a second pair of eyelids, do they?”

“Have your anatomy classes failed to cover that of vulcans?” Spock narrowed his eyes, deflecting from the fact that he didn’t actually know if the second eyelid was still a functioning part of vulcan biology. He’d learnt about it as a vestigial organ, but his hybrid nature had fascinated many scientists back home. One of the reasons he had decided to leave for Starfleet; Spock had hoped to avoid the invasive poking and prodding done in the name of research. That being said, the soft poking sensation of Leonard’s fingers through his shirt was far from uncomfortable, and Spock felt strange when the sensation stopped.

“We do, but the piss-poor files the VSA are willing to relinquish to us mere humans are so fucking full of redaction and contradiction that all we’ve left to work with are a few vague diagrams and thoughouly unhelpful paragraphs on the composition of vulcan blood.” Leonard took a step back from Spock, restoring the traditional respectful distance between them. Much too distant for Spock’s liking. “You’re sure you’re not going to die in the next few hours until we can get you to the sickbay tomorrow?”

“I do not need-”

“Spock, you’ve not only burnt yourself-”

“It is superficial at most, and does not require-”

“-but you’ve just discovered what might maybe be an eyelid but could equally -for all we know- be-”

“-medical attention. Your anxiety is unwarranted and your focus on your studies has waned to what could prove to be a detrimental degree if you do not-”

“-a malignant growth of some sort, you have to go to find out if that thing is hurting you or not at least-”

“-cease your illogical fussing and resume.”

“-and I- Spock are you even listening to me?” Leonard’s gradually increasing volume finally peaked out, and Spock raised an eyebrow at the outburst. “Ah. shit, the neighbours.”

“At this hour, we can hope they are in a deep enough sleep not to have heard-”

“Are you kidding me Spock, I practically screamed-”

“If we continue in this vein, you will lose what little volume control you posses. Please sit down once again and I shall try and gauge how much you have prepared for this test already and we shall start from there.” Spock’s eyebrow lowered itself slowly as he relaxed once more, Leonard sitting down on the bed close to the headboard, making it easy for Spock to sit relatively close to him without making it look like anything but a logical decision for optimum viewing of the human’s notes. Not that it wasn’t motivated by logic. The fact his side was pressed soothingly to Leonard’s was a pleasant bonus. “That eyelid thing is a bit strange, you’re sure it doesn’t hurt?”

Spock levelled him with a flat stare. “I shall visit the nurse tomorrow if you cease this discussion.”

Leonard shrugged and dropped his head down and began working on a list of things he felt confident on for the next day in an attempt to hide his smug smile. It didn’t work, but Spock didn’t say anything.

A few hours later, they had taken a break from Spock’s relentless verbal assessments for Leonard to give his brain a chance to process the points they had been drilling and for Spock to asses the data he had collected on Leonard’s rate of retention of information to try and streamline their next bout. Except Leonard’s head had dropped onto Spock’s shoulder, and the heat from where their sides were pressed tightly together was relaxing Spock into a borderline meditative state. It was only when his chest started to vibrate lightly when Spock snapped himself back to reality, confident he had not woken his study mate with his unfortunate vulcan habit. Hubris was not a trait vulcans were capable of possessing, so Spock classed his slide in judgement as a calculation error, not as a result of unfounded pride.

“Were’y’... purrin’, Spock?” The human’s voice was muffled by Spock’s turtleneck, so the flush high on the his cheeks went unnoticed by Leonard.

“It is... an unfortunate, involuntary response of Vulcans.” Was Spock’s clipped answer, suddenly awake and almost frantically pouring over the notes he had made on Leonard’s progress.

“Mmm, sounds like more of y’all’s goddamn cagey nature. Outta be somethin’ your doctor outta know.” Leonard slowly picked himself up off of Spock’s shoulder. Spock felt irrationally irate at the loss of contact, despite the fact their sides remained pressed together. “Ah, shit. How long was I out?”

“Twelve minutes.” Was Spock’s response, glad to have moved on from his embarrassing lapse in control. Leonard’s response wasn’t forthcoming, so Spock chanced a glance at his roommate, only to find his mouth wide open, eyes closed, and seemingly struggling for breath. Spock’s basic first aid training kicked in, fully aware that humans, much like vulcans, required a constant supply of oxygen, and he began to thump at Leonard’s back, the angle much too awkward for him to apply the force necessary to dislodge whatever may have been blocking the med student’s airways. Except, the med student seemed to have cleared his airways on his own. And was using his perfectly clear airways to yell at Spock.

“The hell’re you doin’? Coulda seriously hurt me with that goddamn “superior vulcan strength” you won’t shut up about! Ain’t a fella allowed t’yawn in his own damn bedroom?”

Spock quickly stood up from the bed, and Leonard watched as the relaxed stance the vulcan had had previously completely vanished. “You appeared to be in respiratory distress. The training I have thus far received in first aid on humans required the first thing to do in such a situation would be-“

“Dammit Spock, I’m a med student, I know what t’do when someone can’t fucking breathe! I, oddly enough, was breathing just fine!”

Spock’s chin lifted fractionally, the last of his near-tender demeanour hardening. “Incorrect. Your chest ceased to rise and fall regularly, you had opened your mouth for maximum oxygen intake and yet you did not inhale, and the distress weakened you insofar as you were forced to close your eyes.”

Leonard looked at him, incredulous. “I yawned.”

“I do not understand. Does this correlate with your -“

“I yawned, you thick-skulled-“ Leonard stopped and took a breath, scrubbing his face with his hand. “Don’t worry, s’just an unfortunate, involuntary response of humans.”

Spock recognised he was being quoted, but unlike previous, malicious quotations made by various humans (including this patprticular one), his roommate did not seem to be trying to get a rise out of him, so he decided to retaliate. “That is the nature of most human responses, voluntary or otherwise.”

The outraged eyebrow that was slowly creeping up Leonard’s forehead was completely undermined by the sleepy grin that was taking over his entire face. “I’m not going to get much more study for this assent done, huh?”

“Assessment?”

“Yeah, the thing we’ve been studying for.” Leonard looked confused, but Spock’s head tilt betrayed his own befuddlement.

“You referred to it previously as an exam.” His arms crossed his chest, marring his perfect posture slightly. It looked to Leonard that, despite his confusion, his roommate was more relaxed than he had been.

“Yeah, an exam, an assessment, no difference, is there?”

Spock would later deny the look he gave Leonard was ‘incredulous’, Leonard would exaggerate his expression into one of absolute shock when retelling the tale to Jim the following evening. “There is a considerable difference, Leonard. Considering the brevity of this particular elective, the only grade that might impact your final score will be the final examination. Assessments in such a relatively insignificant elective will not affect your final grade in any serious manner.”

“It’s a matter of pride, Spock.” Leonard smiled, shaking his head. “Gotta keep up appearances.”

Spock glowered down at his roommate, the expression so slight that Leonard didn’t notice it at all. The silence strung out for a moment longer than absolutely necessary before Spock sat down at the foot of Leonard’s bed. “Pride is illogical, McCoy.”

Leonard snorted, shaking his head. “Pride and spite are the only things that keep me going, take ‘em away and I wouldn’t do a thing.”

He watched as Spock’s eyebrow crept upwards, his head tipping lightly towards him. “Your finger brushed my collarbone earlier, when you touched my robes.”

Leonard went a bright red, and his respiratory distress seemed genuine this time. He leapt off of the bed, putting the distance of the width of the room between them. “Fucking shit, Spock? Why didn’t y’tell me! Fucking touch-telepathy, that was probably stupidly invasive, wasn’t it? Shit, shit, shit! I’m sorry. I’m fucking dense, I thought- I don’t know what I was doing, shouldn’t’ve gone near you-”

“Calm yourself Leonard-”

“And now you’re too polite to call me out on it, goddammit, we had lectures on proper conduct with vulcans, fuck-”

“Leonard.” Spock had stood and walked over to the human. Leonard was shocked when Spock put his hand on his shoulder. “There is no offence taken, do you understand?”. Leonard seemed to have lost his voice, but nodded. “I only brought up the incident because I sensed only concern and concentration from you through the contact. There was no bitterness, no concern for your pride or reputation. You saw your patient and thought of nothing but how best to administer effective and efficient treatment.”

Leonard had not made any indication of wanting to brush off his hand, so Spock decided to return to the personal space he had occupied while Leonard had been scanning him earlier. Leonard blinked several times, eyes crossing slightly to stare at the tip of Spock’s nose, only an inch, maybe less, from his own. His mouth suddenly went dry, and he swallowed hard, once. Spock’s nose had never looked so kissable. He shook his head- not an appropriate thought to be having while Spock was, wait, what was Spock saying? Leonard could hear him speaking, but his brain wasn’t processing the words correctly. Or at all. He thought maybe he was complimenting him, or maybe trying to get Leonard to explain his dry, almost self-critical comment. Hell, Spock could be reciting Shakespeare for all Leonard knew. Or cared. The vulcan’s voice was deeper than it was normally, more like it was when he had been sleepily pouring his tea earlier, less like it had been for their shared life up until today. The vibration of this deeper voice reminded him of the purring, the utter relaxation and warmth that had accompanied those vibrations, and... and Spock was still talking and Leonard still had no idea what he was saying because his mouth was moving very nicely, had his mouth always moved that nicely?

“BONES!” That voice would pull Leonard out of any dazed stupor he could possibly fall into. That voice, with that tone always meant one of two things. Jim needed his help, or Jim had done something he needed to confess to that would probably piss Leonard off. “BONES? YOU HOME?”

Spock had somehow managed to perch himself on the edge of Leonard’s desk, textbook and notes in hand, pointedly not looking at Bones. Rolling his eyes, Leonard walked out into the living area. “What the fuck have you done, Jim?”

“Bones!” Jim practically bounced over to the med student, which meant he’d absolutely fucked something up that was going to piss him off. Clapping his shoulder playfully, Jim used the momentum of his bounce to swing himself around Bones, heading for his room. “You’re not going to believe what a weird mix-up there’s been, man! So, look, I-why, hello, Mr.Spock!” Jim glanced over his shoulder with an “i-cannot-believe-you-got-the-hot-guy-we’ve-both-been-crushing-on-into-your-room’ look on his face, his mouth slightly open and his eyes comically large in mock disbelief. “What’s a hot guy like you doing in a dingy place like this?” He had turned his impish gaze back on Spock, gesturing vaguely around Leonard’s room as he mentioned the ‘dingy place’.

Spock’s face remained impassive, not betraying the flash of amusement he always felt when the younger human flirted blatantly with him. “Vulcans’ core temperatures are, on average, actually lower than that of humans.”

Where Leonard would’ve snapped back a witty counter attack in order to incite a fascinating debate, Jim simply leaned right into the lewd implications only he could draw from such a droll, basic fact. “Are you saying that you think Bones and I are hot, Mr.Spock?”. The man had far more confidence in his charismatic abilities than any other human Spock had seen knocking their own glasses off of their face when discussing something passionately with a lecturer.

Spock was about to fire back a response -noting in the back of his mind that of the friendships he had deliberately built with a select few humans in the hopes of appeasing his mother, the ones he had formed with Jim and Leonard, though not particularly strong yet, brought him a feeling of completion- when Leonard came into the room, red-faced and rolling his eyes. “Shut up, Jim, you’ll make him uncomfortable. Vulcans don’t flirt, that’d require expression of emotion.”

Spock raised an eyebrow at Leonard, mildly puzzled. Had Leonard not recognised their discussion before Jim had arrived for what it was? Was his respect and admiration of the medical student not clear?

“What is it you’ve done, Jim?” Bones had leaned himself against the door frame, staring fixedly at his ex-roommate, who was glancing between Spock and Bones with a shit-eating grin plastered across his face.

“Well, I was going to apologise for a stupid thing I did, but seeing as it wound up with all three of us in a room with a bed, I’d say no apologies needed.” Jim couldn’t keep a straight face delivering that line, his flirtatious demeanour crumbling into pure giddiness. “Sorry, sorry, I’ll stop. S’just weird seeing the two of you together, it’s like you guys exist separately in my mind, and seeing you getting cosy in Bones’s room is just so wacky-“

“Jim!” Bones’s bark made Jim laugh even harder, and Spock allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch ever so slightly as Jim’s merriment grew and Leonard became more and more flustered. These humans affected Spock more than he’d care to admit, and watching them interact brought a sense of contentedness over him. “It’s fucking crazy o clock in the morning, what in the hell could’y’ve done that y’need to confess so bad?”

“Small scheduling error, Bones, no big deal! In my defence, I didn’t realise how late it is, I was reading this really cool book that Galia’s sister sent her, so far it’s been absolutely gripping, can’t put it down-“

“Jim.”

His blue eyes darted around the room nervously as he giggled anxiously. “You don’t have a test tomorrow, Bones, I do. I fucked up and logged it in the PADD you’d loaned me instead of my own PADD, so I guessed you got a reminder and I know your memory is shit outside of your studies, so I figured you’d be up cramming-“

“Jim-boy, what’d you just say? Because if you said what I think you said, I’m going to-“

“Leonard, I would not recommend engaging in a physical altercation with Jim. He has considerable more experience in such matters.”

Spock felt a shiver down his spine as Leonard’s dangerously icy glare turned on him. “Are you sayin’ y’don’t think I can take ‘im, Spock?”

“That is not what he said Bones! C’mon, how bad was it? You got to bond with your roommate, and now my two best friends are on speaking terms, at least. Sounds like a win-win to me!”

“I’m gonna need the two of y’all to get the fuck outta my room, if I’m going to get any sleep at all before tomorrow.”

Jim’s smirk got even more mischievous, the glint in his eye almost dangerous. “Maybe we’ve planned for you to get no sleep tonight, Bones.”

“I resent your implicating me in your antics, Jim.” Spock was definitely grinning, goddammit! There’s no way a vulcan could manoeuvre their mouths any further into a vague smiling shape.

“You’re not denying it-”

“Both of y’all need to shut up and go to bed, it’s late.” Leonard groused, having had enough of Jim’s playfulness, which was a bit too much for how late it was. Also, the thoughts and feelings he was invoking in Leonard with his meaningless teasing were enough for him to overthink on for the rest of his life. Jim’s pout made Bones fully aware of just how much he wouldn’t mind kissing his best friend, which reminded him of how close he had been to doing just that to his roommate, which reminded him of how it was just his fucking luck to be attracted to the two people he most defiantly shouldn’t be attracted to. The two most unattainable people on campus. He was probably a sadist. Jim sat next to Spock on his bed, and Spock had turned to mutter something in Jim’s ear. On his bed. He was absolutely a sadist.

“That’s a good point, Spock. I think it’ll be difficult to strong-arm him into spending more time with the two of us as well.”

Spock had the good grace to look up at Leonard with what could be interpenetrated as an apologetic expression. “Those were not my... exact words.”

“I’m a med student, not a socialite, dammit!” Jim was sitting very close to Spock, they looked so right together it was sickening, and Spock was clearly mooning over Jim, and Bones... Bones needed to sleep. Now. “I’ll come over to your place tomorrow after I get out of the labs at six, Jim. If Spock comes, he comes. I don’t care.” He did care. A lot.

“Seeing as two of us live in these quarters, it would be more logical for us to reconvene here, would it not?”

“Nah, Jim’s got a better replicator.”

“I’ve also got better taste in holos, so...”

“You absolutely do not-”

“I don’t think watching documentaries counts as a relaxing night in-”

“I shall be there, eighteen-hundred hours.” Spock interrupted, his expression doing nothing to ease the daydreams determinedly banging at Leonard’s subconscious as he looked between the two humans. That odd eyelid-thing slid open and shut twice, which Leonard probably shouldn’t have found cute when he didn’t know whether or not it was hurting Spock. But he did, nonetheless.

Jim clapped Spock’s shoulder, which stopped the eyelid blinking, and resulted in a rather cat-like freezing of his entire frame. “Excellent!” Jim jumped up, bouncing out the bedroom door. “It’s a date, gentlemen!” And he was gone before Leonard’s outraged spluttering could hold him up.

“It’s not a- dammit, we’re not- Spock-”

Spock stopped to place his hand on Leonard’s shoulder, deliberately making eye-contact. “To borrow Jim’s turn of phrase, ‘it’s a date’, Leonard.”

And that rendered Leonard totally speechless, left staring mutely at Spock’s retreating back. What the fuck kind of emotional fuckery had he gotten himself into?

#im feral for spones goddamnit #spones #spock #bones #bones mccoy #leonard bones mccoy #leonard mccoy #academy au #author is lazy so joanna is bones's sister #jim kirk is in here somewhere #jim kirk #basically me projecting onto bones for over 2000 words #this would've been a little bit more legible if i'd focused it on either bones or spock but i DIDNT DO THAT #this is the definition of self-gratuitous #star trek #fic #star trek fic #wait no projecting onto bones for over 4000 words im so sorry #spock doesn't know what a yawn is and thinks leonard is dying #bones doesnt know about the vulcan second eyelid and thinks bones is dying #also purring is in here #becuase i am HERE FOR vulcans=logical cats #bored writes #mckirk #i guess #that wasnt meant to happen but here we are #also mcspirk #mcspirk #hakhalkhsalkha #me projecting onto bones for around 6000 words because i literally dont shut up ever

5 notes · View notes

citysvein · 5 years ago

Text

* // 𝙻𝙾𝙰𝙳𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙿𝚁𝙾𝙵𝙸𝙻𝙴 … /𝚃𝙷𝙴_𝙲𝙾𝙾𝚁𝙳𝙸𝙽𝙰𝚃𝙾𝚁 : chloe kim also known as zero is wanted for grand larceny . she is a twenty-three year old cis female who has ties to the mastermind because she hacked into his private server ; once at the request of a benefactor and another time for fun . 𝙰𝚂𝚂𝙾𝙲𝙸𝙰𝚃𝙴𝙳 𝚆𝙸𝚃𝙷 : strawberry flavored bubblegum , the glow of a computer screen in a dark room , tattoos hidden by oversized sweater sleeves , & cyber stalking your exes . 𝙳𝙾 𝙽𝙾𝚃 𝙼𝙸𝚂𝚃𝙰𝙺𝙴 𝙵𝙾𝚁 : yoo shiah .

━ ˙ ˖ ☆ QUICK STATS !

full name : chloe kim .

nickname(s) : chlo .

age : twenty-three .

codename : zero .

role: the coordinator .

zodiac : gemini sun , gemini moon ( click ! )

sexuality : bisexual .

alignment : chaotic neutral .

pinterest : ( click ! )

━ ˙ ˖ ☆ BACKSTORY ! ( tw : death & car crash )

chloe kim was born in and raised in ann arbor , michigan . there was nothing truly remarkable about her childhood — she was an only child born into a middle class family . her mother was a professor and her father was a physical therapist , and they were very happily married , so she had a stable life . ann arbor was a fittingly normal place to grow up . nothing too out of the ordinary ever seemed to happen .

the only anomaly in chloe’s unremarkable existence , it seemed , was herself . from a young age it was obvious she wasn’t like most kids . she was decidedly smarter , an intelligence that impressed the adults around her . her parents often described her as a highly curious , if not a little naughty , child . it seemed like she was born with the desire to know how the world around her worked , and it wasn’t uncommon to find her tinkering around with her toys or household objects , taking them apart just so she could learn how to put them back together .

she graduated from high school at sixteen , a year early , and was offered a full ride to MIT , which she gladly accepted . moving to cambridge, massachusetts marked the most interesting thing to happen to her yet . she’d long dreamed of excitement , the only thing she had to entertain her back home being her love for computers . chloe was ready for a change , which was exactly what she received .

free from the confines of being that one smart girl in ann arbor , she didn’t feel pressured to conform to the idea of her that had been carefully crafted by the people back home any longer . she didn’t just have to care about school , or be shy about how she unironically loved reality tv , or pretend like pink wasn’t the absolute best color in the whole world . facing comments from nerdy boys about how she was too pretty to be smart or about how she was clearly in the wrong class seemed like a small price to pay if she could finally be herself .

MIT , however , did feel like the wrong place for chloe most of the time . she realized very quickly that while she was gifted and bright , she had no passion or drive to pursue typical careers the way most people in her major did . she also had a knack for using her skills in unconventional ( if not illegal ) ways , like when she started charging a pretty penny to hack boyfriends suspected by their girlfriends of cheating , or hacking into the local police database to browse through people’s criminal records like it was the equivalent of reading gossip magazines .

at the end of her junior year , after voicing her concerns about whether or not university life was for her to her parents in one of her weekly calls back home , they’d made the decision to go surprise chloe . after flying into massachusetts from michigan they’d rented a car and were on their way to drive up to her dorm when they got into a fatal accident . there had been a nasty storm that night , and chloe can still remember how she’d gotten a severe thunderstorm warning alert on her cellphone moments before she got the police call informing her of what happened .

in the blink of an eye her life had gone from average to tragic . she couldn’t process the death of her parents — there was no other driver to blame , nothing faulty about the rental car they’d been driving , only the weather and the slippery roads . chloe would have surely flunked out from MIT had her professors , who mostly harbored soft spots for the girl and were especially sympathetic towards her situation , not given her the few credits she needed to graduate that spring .

armed with an IT degree but not much else , chloe went back to ann arbor for her parent’s funeral and the selling of her childhood home . realizing she had no place to go afterwards , she became a bit of a vagabond , spending the entirety of her 19th year living out of motel rooms in various cities . not in the head space for a full time career , and with her mind still foggy from mourning , she started picking up where she’d left off in college in terms of odd and illegal ways to make money.

when she was 20 she caught the attention of someone she quickly realized was important , a client with a request and a payday like nothing she’d ever seen before . all he wanted chloe to do was hack into someone’s private server , and so she did . she didn’t ask questions but she did snoop around , a small act or curiosity that would forever change her world . what she found was almost incomprehensible , a network of some sort with the most detailed plans and profiles . never having been motivated by any sort of moral compass before , chloe couldn’t explain why she lied to the man who had hired her , claiming she hadn’t been skilled enough to get through .

he’d bought her excuse , another man who couldn’t see past a pretty face to the brain behind it . for months afterwards chloe tried to forget about the things she’d seen and read , that exciting world she’d only discovered by chance , but she just couldn’t let it go . she was inexplicably drawn to whoever was behind it all , proving it when she hacked them a second time around , this time for her own entertainment and satisfaction . she couldn’t explain it — especially not when she left behind a trail this time around , wanting to be caught , wanting so desperately to be contacted .

when chloe is recruited by J , it feels like the first blessing since her parent’s deaths . it wasn’t the money she was interested in , but him , the way he makes people feel special and needed filling a void she’d never let herself admit she had in the first place . she’s loyal to him , and so she’s loyal to the crew , and for the first time in her whole life it feels like she might have found the place she truly belongs .

━ ˙ ˖ ☆ PERSONALITY + TIDBITS !

thats right ... i made her a double gemini baby ! 😈 its just chaos all over as u can imagine ... gotta love a sexy sign aha no im not biased <3 she’s got a pretty good balance of intelligence & curiosity in her , so instead of coming off as a know-it-all she’s more likely to come across as nosy . she just loves to figure stuff out . whether it’s code or people she wants to know how things work .

generally speaking , she’s pretty easy going ! when it comes to her relationships with people she’s not that high maintenance , in fact sometimes it’s easy to mistake her easy going attitude with aloofness or disinterest , which isn’t the case at all . when she does get annoyed though she’s not shy about letting you know how she feels , and she’s got a BIG potty mouth ... it’s like when people have road rage SJDBWJDBJW she’ll curse you out in a short burst of anger then decide she’s over it before you even have time to process what happened .

since she’s been on her own pretty much her whole life ( no siblings , no set group of friends ) it was a bumpy adjustment to go from having no one to being part of a team . she definitely wasn’t upset by it , but chloe can get into trouble sometimes because she’s got a knack for always saying what she’s thinking without filtering herself first , so she’s definitely started some arguments or hurt some feelings on accident </3

loves to joke around and treat things like they’re no big deal , even when they are . this is especially true when it comes to her own abilities . she’ll casually mention hacking into a number of high security facilities and servers and how she bought a new sailor moon hoodie in the same sentence like it’s nothing .

almost always either dressed in pink or black , or a combination of the two . she swears she owns clothes in other colors but those two are definitely her defaults . switches between more casual street-styles and girly attire on a day to day basis . owns many sanrio themed articles of clothing , accessories , and plushies and will accept zero criticism about it !

chews gum a lot , but especially when she’s working on her computer . she claims it helps her focus but who knows for sure maybe she just likes chomping and blowing bubbles ...

she’s a serial dater . chloe finally had to force herself to swear off tinder because she kept doing extensive background searches ( hacking ) on the people she was going on dates with . still cyber stalks her exes but she swears it’s purely an act of public service since they were all insane ( in her opinion , which is never wrong ) and she’s just trying to make sure they haven’t committed any major crimes aha x

not very good at being romantic or emotionally vulnerable SDBWJDBJW truly the thought alone is terrifying enough but when she watches pride and prejudice alone at 2am she cries so your girl has it in her she’s just not there yet <3 physical intimacy she has no issue with it’s just the serious stuff that makes her want to eat glass ... or so she says .

has questionable drinking habits . can she out drink a man twice her size ? sure . should she be putting that to the test at 10 am at a chili’s after a night out ? absolutely not but it 100% happened and she would probably do it again because she simply pretends her mistakes never happened in the first place and that’s why she never learns !

absolutely refuses to talk to anyone about her life and what happened to her parents . she still hasn’t fully grieved or processed it , and honestly speaking she’s been using the crew and J as a coping mechanism almost . chloe’s adamant belief in the heists they do and their capabilities as a unit has less to do with the real chances on whether or not they can pull something off and everything to do with the fact that she needs things to work and she needs them to be together . that’s why she’s usually one of the first ones to pep talk people when there are doubts . she can’t risk losing a second family /:

low key addicted to getting tattoos . it started with tiny ones on her fingers and wrists and now she’s thinking about getting a sleeve ... if only she could decide on what to get tattooed #AirSignThings x don’t ask her to make decisions if you want an answer before this decade ends .

strawberry is her favorite fruit and flavor ! if she’s not chewing strawberry gum , she’s drinking strawberry milk .

once started an instagram to review different mozzarella sticks after lorde was outed for running an onion ring reviewing instagram .

won a goldfish at a fair when she was in college , named him stinky , then cried for a week straight after she found him floating dead in his fish bowl the next day ... she hasn’t had a pet since </3

if you ever tell chloe good job she will act cool in the moment but at night when she’s trying to go to bed she will look like this 🥺 never forgets a compliment she loves them even if she pretends she doesn’t need them ...

told myself i’d make this short by not adding a plots section and it’s still a novel truly i hate this life . once again i am asking u to add me on discord glo lovecore ʕ´• ᴥ•̥`ʔ#8172 and plot with me 💖 also my intros are always winged so if i start writing as chloe and her personality does a 180 like dua lipa said PLEASE mind ur business that’s why i made her a gemini ok 😭😭😭 pls enjoy this meme chloe has probably sent to ur muse at least once ...

#♡ ╱ 𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒚 𝒄𝒂𝒕 ━━ ooc .#nocte:intro #no words.....#absolutely none .

5 notes · View notes

sadncssfossilized · 5 years ago

Text

sexuality troubles.

i’m so fucking confused. being non-binary/trans makes everything so fucking hard. i don’t know where i fit... anywhere on the sexuality spectrum. i have no idea if all of my attraction to men is real or if i’m forcing it on myself bc im afab. i don’t know if i’m bi. ive always wanted to be attractive to men ever since i was small i think as a coping mechanism because of trauma. but i’m also extremely scared of older men, even if i do find celebrities attractive. but a lot of male celebrities i straight up DONT find attractive at all, they’re like cardboard to me. i don’t know if that’s because i think a lot of hollywood white men hearththrobs look extremely bland/the same bc white society or if there’s something genuinely off with my attraction to men meter. ive heard people say that not being able to process whether a man is attractive or not is a lesbian thing. but i don’t feel like a lesbian. i don’t feel female. i love women, i have always known that, but i don’t feel like a woman and i don’t want to be a woman. i want to look masculine. i want to be masculine. i don’t want to be a girl anymore. i don’t want to be a man, completely, i just want to be.... not a woman. not a man. a nothing.

is it a preference or am i only attracted to women?? i loved being bi. i love the flag i love the options, and i don’t really process people’s gender’s except on a social level. ive never been close with ANY boys across my life, or even more than acquaintances because of my shy and reserved nature and i’ve never connected with any on a personal level both because of fear, being flustered, and feeling like they’re cooler and more superior to be and genuinely a different species so to say, so i don’t know if that has to do with my fear of being sexually involved with them. i’m always afraid men want the worst from me, and i always get the feeling that they are judging me based on my attractiveness to them and discard me mentally as soon as i am not and i hate that so much. i think because i’ve never known a boy truly and deeply, i keep prejudices against them and don’t think that they are as compassionate or HUMAN as non-men. but at the same time, i’ve always felt called to get self worth from their attraction to me. literally since pre-elementary. even if i think a guy is ugly i still base my worth off of if he’s attracted to me?? it’s automatic, and fucked up. i’m scared to go further than flirt with a boy. i’m scared to mess up conversationally , i’m scared of entering a relationship with one especially because i’d be the “woman” in it, and i don’t want to be fucked like a man fucks a woman. i want a queer man so i can feel safe and normal around him. straight men are an enigma to me. they scare me so much with their lack of societal awareness and cruelty. i feel like they don’t GET IT you know? but if i ever was to date one, since i’m pre transition and in the closet i’d have to pretend to be a woman and pretend to be okay with that. the idea of a man taking me like i was a woman makes me want to hurl.... that’s not the relationship dynamic i want at all.

all of my emotions toward men are so fucking conflicting. ive dreamed of kissing men before, fantasized about being soft with them, holding their hand, cupping their face and kissing them gently, but if they’re an irl i never fantasize about what they would be like sexually, land the idea kind of off puts/repulses me in a way. thinking of my irl women crushes kind of makes me feel the same way, but i’m more open to the possibility of that? ive never had a relationship with a man and only probably had like 1 male friend across my entire life, so my fear could be because of trauma + fear of the unknown + bc of my prejudices bc of my lack of experience + dysphoria. meanwhile, i’ve had 1 girlfriend and all of my friends have been female my whole life. ive just NEVER been comfortable around boys/men. which i feel like is less indicative of lesbianism and more of like. trauma haha. i sexualized myself at such a young age to cater to the boys around me and even to the adult men around me, it hurts to think about. i hate how trauma complicates everything. i don’t know why i have that impulse, i don’t know why it started. ive just never felt safe around a boy. i feel like they always want something from me. ive been attracted to them but i’m soo scared o f them. like, i always have something to prove, whether it be my personality or humor or attractiveness, just to stay in their presence.

nsfw incoming.

ive tried to jack off to a lot of gay porn and i think my men attraction meter is broken because so many of the men in gay porn are ugly/unattractive to me. straight up. in their face, and body. and the body ideals in the gay community, where i would fit in post transition, don’t.... resonate with me. like not to be crude but a lot of the body types of the men in here are unattractive to me, but then again it’s white dominated and caters to a very specific vision of a huge bubble butt, way huge thighs, overly ripped chest, bland ass white boy faces paired with ugly haircuts. is this what i’m supposed to be attracted to? the men i’ve been attracted to irl do not look like that. the men in gay porn are all so passionless too. (which is honestly an issue i have that makes jacking off to women in porn sort of difficult too??) i don’t know. i don’t feel like i’m attracted to men the same way gay men are. but then again, how would i know that? i don’t know any actual gay men. i just know from some porn blogs? some pornhub videos? i don’t fucking know. i jack off to images/videos of men very few times compared to how much i get off to women bc of my particularity . it’s more difficult, but it’s easier by when i think about how the man feels, like his pleasure, his sounds, his expressions, rather than the aesthetics of it all. not to say i don’t appreciate the aesthetics of some nice men- chris evans, frank ocean, rob mcelhenney, taika waititi, nice. which sounds like a very non-lesbian thing to say i would think, but i know a ton of lesbians who talk about celebrity men super raunchily and stuff, so i don’t know anymore and i don’t think i know enough about lesbianism to know whether these are lesbian experiences or not. the majority of men content ive jacked off to has been gay fan fiction, and that has actually been easy to get off to bc of the descriptions and the i can visualize characters and passion the way i want. it’s harder to do it with actual videos/images of men, because it’s so different in my mind and imagination m, but that may be bc gay porn can involve a lot of roughness/impersonal-ness? also i feel like i still have a certain degree of internalized homophobia toward both wlw AND mlm despite working through my acceptance of my sexuality for a number of years.

i just want a person. but i don’t know if it’s beyond my control who i’m sexually attracted to. my sexual attraction to men is a lot lower than to women, and it’s a lot easier for me to make them bland in my head and not be able to point out a unique thing about them . i feel like girls are more... distinct/easily alluring to me than most men you know. that may also be affected by how women actually know how to dress and look unique and men don’t really shift from 1 bland societal style, i don’t know. i don’t know. i want to be attracted to men. as a transmasc, i want to be gay. i don’t want to be straight. ive been gay all my life, and i don’t want to leave that label. i want softness and love. but men scare me, and i don’t know if it’s because of a tragic coalescence of bad life experiences (or lack thereof) or because of genuine lesbianism. ive talked so much about being bi, and even been called a confused lesbian before by transphobes, and ever since they said it i cant stop questioning. i feel like at this point i HAVE to be a lesbian or something, bc that’s how this shit goes in movies and stories. i don’t want to be a lesbian. i want to be attracted to men, i wanna be bi and be equally attracted to both, i want experiences with both in my mind, but irl i get so fucking scared and i don’t want anything to do with it. i don’t wanna be a straight transmasc and i also don’t want to become what transphobes have spent their time telling me i am. i want to be what i’ve always thought i’ve been, bisexual and transmasc. i was comfortable with bisexual, until everybody else kept telling me to question and it’s been eating me alive since. fuck. i don’t know anything. is this a preference and bad combination of a huge number of deeper factors or am i straight up NATURALLY not attracted to men? have i been lying to mhself? have all my attractions in the past been fake? this is gonna sound terrible but i don’t want to be a lesbian. it doesn’t feel right. and id be proving the horrible people right, and have to retract everything i’ve ever said about being bi to my following on my other social media. and i’ve said a LOT. and i’d also have to give up my admiration of my irl men crushes and male celebrities and their sexiness. all of this shit is so ridiculous but at least i’m being honest with myself with this post. someone help me haha

#questioning #lesbian #trans masc #nonbinary #bisexual #transmasc #trans man #help #lgbtq #queer #trans #rambles

8 notes · View notes