#like we all know he’s conventionally attractive and it annoys the shit out of everyone
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mauvemischief · 3 months ago
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Hey i know Neil’s hair is probably fried from all the hair dye but like what if he has these perfect/effortlessly flawless curls and Nicky and Allison are just so pissed at him because he doesnt even take care of his hair but he still has gorgeous curls
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trials-of-a-spirit-worker · 10 days ago
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Ghost Hunting Shows Opinions and Why
Ghost Adventures
I can’t even begin to tell you how fucking obnoxious I find them. I mean I’m sure you see it from my writing. Anyone who’s been here long enough knows how I feel about these fuckers.
“Aaron, I magically have a condition where I cannot go down the spooky basement where this aggro spirit, that I’ve managed to piss off in the last 20 minutes is lurking. He’s known for snapping necks. Go down there with a glow stick and go hump the pole, he hates that. Good luck.”
Poor Aaron though. Everyone does the dirty work and Zac just sucks up all the notoriety and shit cause he’s supposedly “conventionally attractive.” (I don’t see it. And you can’t give me the queer excuse. Cause I still like men.) And the voice he does. Annoying. Who the fuck talks like that? I'd rather hear Channing Tatum's shitty gambit do this shit.
Honestly, especially since there was all these articles and confessions about them forging evidence, I’ve just liked them less and less. Ghost hunting and paranormal things of that nature in the world of science is already seen as a joke and shit. We don’t need these chucklefucks fucking up that reputation even more cause they want to make ratings. Where’s the love? Where’s the passion? 
Hate em. 0/10
Ghost Brothers
Okay, can I talk about how much I love the representation though!? Cause its usually a joke that the Black people die first in scary movies cause we make too much sense or we just don’t end up in that situation. Which I mean…true. We don’t stay long in scary ass situations. Spooky ass shit happens we fucking leave. Point blank.  But yeah, love seeing my brothers working in the ghost hunting game.
Now they’re greenhorns, in every sense of the word. But that isn’t a bad thing. They’re adding new perspectives, are not afraid of learning. They use their feelings and their bodies alongside the technological evidence. What I really like about them is how respectful they try to be. They always err on the side of politeness and you can’t go wrong with that.
One scene that will live with me forever is when they all tried to date that one ghost who was ghosted (sorry for the pun but not really) by her lover and killed herself in despair over it. That scene will never not be funny/cute to me.
“You deserved someone who would be there for you, and I think I’m that guy.” Iconic. I want to see more of them and I heard some rumors it might return. I want the blackness so bad.
7/10 I want to see them go further.
Ghost Files/Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural
As much as I shit on both Shane and Ryan, and I love doing it. It’s my favorite one. Doesn’t mean Shane’s a good influence. I do like the idea of having a skeptic doing the hunting with you. It keeps you grounded and honestly, I respect that. What we need most in these types of these investigations is discernment. And other than the clear comedy and chemistry Shane delivers with Ryan, that's his purpose in the show. He's the reality to the hopeful in ghost hunting.
I say this as a firm believer myself (like no shit Sol, you're a death witch and a spirit communicator), we need more skeptics and people to keep the situation grounded for MULTIPLE reasons. We get excited, our desires/biases lead to looking more into results that might not have much. It's when the non believer/skeptic had nothing where we can get excited. Ghost hunting still follows the rules of science and the non excited/non believers help us being the control and the ones to demand repetition.
Now, on regards of if I think Shane is a fucking demon? I honestly just wouldn’t be surprised if he was. Cause he does some bullshit I don’t think anyone else can get away with. Disrespecting Annabelle to her face and living? Something’s looking out for that tall motherfucker. I’m checking him with holy water if I ever get the chance.
8.5/10
Ghost Hunters
The most respectful ones I’ve seen. They treat the ghosts humanely, with dignity. And from what I’ve seen they get good results. They’re the only ones I’ve seen that have been at the sites for multiple days as well. They use what they learn from their prior day to expand and get better evidence with the spirits. It's very cool to see and honestly in a way, super professional of them that way...
Another thing I like about them is they debunk when they can, sometimes right on the spot. I respect people who do this, because like I said, no one takes this type of thing very seriously because so many people take every bump and creek as evidence and that gets…annoying and discrediting. So, I have mad respect for them.
8/10  
My Haunted House
Okay, Lifetime, what the hell are we doing? This is a hot mess. The most horrifying thing about the show is the shit acting. The stories are cool though. My spouse and I make fun of this show…a lot. Its just good for entertainment. Something to listen to in the background if you ran out of true crime podcasts.
Good shit. 4.5/10
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heronpoxed · 2 years ago
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I decided to re-watch SOA, idk why because I know how painful it will be lol. Anyways, I loved tara when I first watched the show and I love her now. I truly do not understand the hate she gets. I have my own theories on why she get's so much hate, but I'm wondering what your take on it is. I find it especially disgusting the hate she gets from many women in this fandom. They seem to hate tara yet give a free pass to all the horrible things most of the men on this show did, its wild lol
hii<33 i’m so happy you deemed me worthy enough to ask for my opinion on this topic lol
First off, don’t be hard on yourself for rewatching SOA. God knows I’ve rewatched it way too many times even though it always results in my anxiety and unease.
Anyway, I truly believe that i’m gonna get k!lled for this but still, buckle up we have much to discuss. Honestly, this is gonna be a long one.
SPOILERS for anyone who hasn’t seen the show till the end!
There are many reasons why people hate Tara and I’m sure you notice most - if not all - of them but at the end of the day it all comes down to misogyny, internalized misogyny and favoritism. As you said, they excuse every horrible thing that men do because it’s a men-centered show with very attractive male characters. Trust me, if Charlie was not conventionally attractive everyone would’ve hated Jax lol and it’d be absolutely laughable if anyone said otherwise.
It shouldn’t come as news to anyone how sexist and misogynistic most of the SOA fandom is. I’ve talked about this before and say it again that the fans of this show (especially women) are so quick to put blame on female character’s horrible behavior for the shit that male characters build the foundation for. For example, as much as I dislike both Ima and Colette it wasn’t exactly their fault that they were so present in the club life. It wasn’t as if both Jax and Opie hadn’t been more than willing to sleep with Ima. They both let her be a part of SAMCRO, which as a result affected their families. And then seeing both these men treat Ima like shit and even get physically violent with her was fucking awful to watch because they were the ones who had done the damage in the first place. Same goes for the Colette situation. Jax was the one who allowed her to sleep with him yet the fandom is calling her a wh*re. As if sex doesn’t happen among multiple people.
Disgusting and frustrating as hell!
People hate Tara for numerous reasons:
- they think she’s annoying
- they think she’s indecisive
- they hate that a wife tried to take the sons away from a father
- they think her methods were questionable
- ‘she had an out and she didn’t take it and now reprimands Jax for it’
- they think she never cared about Jax and didn’t love him as much.
- ‘she betrayed him’
- she knew what she was signing up for when she decided to date Jax
- she doesn’t own up to her mistakes.
- some of them actually hate her because they don’t see chemistry between Maggie and Charlie which blows my mind. You may think that a couple lacks chemistry but hating a female lead for it is a bit extreme, not to mention utterly misogynistic.
To me, Tara’s only crime was her hair in season 6 lol but on a more objective note:
Y’all see selfishness and betrayal while what I see is Tara prioritizing and choosing Jax over and over again because she’s holding onto the promises that Jax made to her (that he ultimately kept breaking), the idea of having a peaceful family and onto the bond that they had when they first fell in love (she says as much in 6x13). Anyone who says that Tara was selfish and never cared for or deserved Jax is completely out of line because if anything, Tara loved and valued Jax more that he ever did her (see: constant infidelity). The answer to why Tara didn’t leave until the last possible minute is simple: she loved him.
People also seem to ignore the fact that leaving Charming and giving their children a peaceful life was what both Tara and Jax wanted. The guy literally gave his baby up to some strangers FFS even after everything that he and SAMCRO went through to finally track Abel down (one of the saddest scenes on the show, mind you). Taking one look at Abel’s adoptive parents was enough for Jax to know that his life would only be harmful for the baby. I don’t see anyone reprimand Jax for that?!?! If it weren’t for Gemma’s non-stop gnawing and Opie’s death, he wouldn’t have lost sense of what he wanted since the fist episode(!!) - to give his kids a better life.
People accuse Tara of being ‘indecisive,’ saying that she willingly turned down an out when she had it etc. well let me ask you this: and Jax wasn’t?!?! It literally goes both ways. I could write a whole goddamn essay on this one. Tara couldn’t make up her mind on whether or not she should’ve stayed with Jax just like Jax couldn’t make up his own on if he wanted Tara gone or not. I’m sick of people ignoring that. Jax and Tara’s entire dynamic is this constant back and forth between their morals. People call Tara annoying and indecisive for this but call Jax ‘complex’ and ‘complicated’ and ‘conflicted’ while doing the exact same thing. Another case of sexism and misogyny.
When people say that Tara knew what she signed up for when she decided to be with Jax, they aren’t wrong. She did know. However, it was very clearly shown on SOA that despite being involved in a risky illegal business, this constant trouble and bloodshed was not normal for the club. The entire time Tara was gone, everything unfolded discreetly and with minimal trouble that never affected the families of the club members. Almost the entirety of seasons 1 and 2 Gemma kept assuring Tara that it wasn’t always this troublesome with them and Jax kept assuring her that he’d fix things. Tara just came back at a bad time when everything went to shit and kept going to deeper shit. What Tara signed up for was the promise that things would go back to normal because peace and discretion used to be SAMCRO’s normal.
To all those questioning Tara’s methods for taking Thomas and Abel away let me tell you this: while it was risky and morally gray, it was literally what Jax wished John Teller had done for him and his brother Thomas. If you rewatch 4x01 Jax says that John should’ve ran Gemma’s ass over, taken him and Thomas and gotten the hell out of Charming in response to Tara reminding him that Gemma wouldn’t have let them go. This, once again, comes back to Jax losing his sense of direction after Opie’s death. If Jax was okay with John ‘running’ Gemma over, then he’d also be okay with Tara doing the same thing.
So this is what Tara did, ‘ran Gemma’s ass over’ (in a sense) to get her kids away from that life - something that Jax wanted his own father to do for him and something that he himself actually would’ve done if it came down to it.
And don’t forget that it was the circumstances that forced Tara to consider being a rat. She never wanted to rat on her husband and the club. She says as much to Lee Toric in prison. And those saying that she wasn’t owning up to her mistakes clearly ignore or fail to see that Tara hated her plan the entire time and she was constantly at war with herself. She knew full well that her plan wasn’t that of a saint but she did what she thought she had to do. Her heart was in the right place from day 1 and if anything she was the one who got betrayed in the end because Unser, Wendy, Lowen - they all chickened out and left her to fend for herself in complete chaos.
People even prefer Gemma to Tara even though she’s literally evil incarnate willing to kill her husband to maintain the power that comes with the club. It’s all because Gemma is a w*t dream of every person that’s a victim of patriarchy. Most of the fandom believes that you only deserve rights as a woman if you’re badass like Gemma lmao.
We all know the entire point of the show I’m not gonna elaborate any further on that one. The scene between Jax and Patterson in 6x13 speaks for itself. Tara, as a character, served as a reminder of that point. People literally take Jax’s side over hers only because he is hot lol. Every single decision that Tara made in the entire show is literally backed up by logic and reasonable evidence within the TV show itself. Even Kurt Sutter was shook on the amount of hate that she got and has stated multiple times that Tara was always right.
However, it is also worth noting that most of us Gen Z are team Tara, which makes me think that the hate toward her comes from the more closed off mindset of the older generation (obviously this doesn’t include everyone).
So yeah, the answer to your question is misogyny.
Sorry for this enormous answer but I can literally defend Tara non-stop till the day I d!e. If there’s anything else you’d like to know you can ask me or message me any time It’d be my pleasure<3 and feel free to share ur theories. I’m very curious about them.
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biggestthighestgeminiest · 1 year ago
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Here are my combined thoughts about Barbie (2023) as I saw it on the 18th and have had more time to think abt it.
Some good, some bad - overall I very much enjoyed it, laughed my ass off, cried quite a bit, was enthralled by the set and costume design, but left feeling like some things were off and perhaps not accomplished in the best way. This will all be delivered in bullet points in a very chaotic and random way and is NOT ordered in importance omg. Anyways i love media analysis and I will probably not explain this in the best way but HERE WE GO
the casting was fantastic, everyone read the assignment and lived their campiest life, margot robbie was phenomenal and ryan gosling absolutely killed me with laughter, glorious glorious
set design, costume, props,, perfection when it comes to bringing the mattel products to life. bangin'
i had that stupid fucking dog that eats and shits. i lost my mind when he came on hsdgkhakh
the message of barbie being representative of all little girls is still very lost on me. the idea brought up when barbie speaks to the teens, where they tell her that she gave them unrealistic body standards- well this never really gets resolved at all. Yes there was a diverse range of Barbies but they were all still beautiful in a conventional way that adheres to western beauty ideals. every barbie has perfect hair and skin and clothes even by the end of the movie. and yes i guess barbie is supposed to be this "above everything else" sort of divine feminine beauty but is still not representative of most young girls. as hilarious as the line narrator's line about margot robbie is, it sort of knows itself, that it is showing us the most perfect looking women, but doesn't address it at all beyond a simple joke. honestly what will mattel do beyond this? i imagine people will be more than happy with this movie so they won't have to make any big changes. i mean their "curvy" fashionista isn't close to being fat, and i don't believe they will ever make a barbie that isn't conventionally beautiful... so this movie just sort of gets to say it's about accepting yourself without actual real-life substance if that makes sense? it reminds me of that cartoon of all those diverse yet conventionally attractive models, with diverse people who don't fit those standards standing outside that box looking angrily. what's the point of the film at the end of the day when not addressing all those people left out of the conversation? also made me annoyed that cellulite was still the big thing that barbie was concerned about, like really?? it's a bad example as people are coming to embrace cellulite and it's also relatively easy to hide, i don't think they would have margot robbie have like, idk, dark under eye circles or a double chin,, idk someone say this better than me but the cellulite thing annoyed me (as someone who has loads of it!!)
the plot was BONKERS and i for one don't really care about plot holes or cartoon logic. there were some things that made me overthink about barbie lore and then i thought to myself that it doesn't really matter. the campiness of it is more important. im sure it will deter some people but again i dont mind it being silly in that way as long as it delivers on its messages and themes, which it does to a certain extent
absolutely lost it at the you are kenough shirt, ljadhkglkhd
as i said in a previous post i predicted that it was going to be the mom who was paired with barbie. i loved the idea sm and it was very heartwarming
i CRIED when barbie first sat down and watched the humans around her living their life, she was so overwhelmed by so many emotions and it was such a simple moment of show-dont-tell and man did i weep :))
i LOVED the ken bits and i did feel as though there was a bit too much ken. especially at the end. but at the same time i loved the dance sequence. its hard loving it so much yet wanting it not to have been to prevalent. i felt like it took away from the barbies a bit which goes against the whole point of the movie????
um the barbie's plans of distracting the kens was... i guess reminiscent of all these spy or superhero movies where women use their beguiling nature against men to get the upper hand? like i am woman so i will flirt with man to distract while my team escapes and hooho it works :)) it was slightly different and not overly sexy or about flirting but it still had the same undertone. like really? the best way to get the other barbies out was to continue to conform to patriarchal standards and pump the ken's egos? surely there's a better way? yes the kens are idiots and turning them against each other works but it still felt a bit icky. i guess i just find this trope annoying being like... ok i am being taken advantage of men so i will USE the thing they oppress me for against them,, idk surely surely there's another way.
also America's character's plan of kidnapping the barbies and ... using very true and very valuable feminist lines to snap them out of it felt... weird? like what she was saying was 100% true but taking them out of context and almost using them as one liners made them feel less serious???? like making women "wake up" by just telling them about how the patriarchy takes advantage of them is just... idk. like in real life women who are indoctrinated and truly believe misogynistic things won't just wake up by being told such a line. and i know the barbies are brainwashed to forget their powerful feminist backgrounds so it's not entirely comparable to the women i just mentioned but... idk it felt disingenuous. i did laugh my ass off at the guitar scene but it still had that ickiness attached like..
i would watch this movie again, no doubt about it and i will definitely pick up on new things and easter eggs etc
mattel's board did make me laugh, perfectly casted and performed but again- mattel has its name on this. they know what they are doing. they know we will love this movie and not demand any change. it will still be full of men controlling the output of production. it will still put out products that don't reflect all young people's desires. it will still make products that uphold current societal norms. so having these buffoons in the board meeting just gets soured a bit when knowing these people will still be in power in real life....
the ruth bit made me cry and no i do not care that her ghost is just around. i loved it
the marketing team knows exactly what they are doing. the huge push of promotion made me gobble up all their interviews and im sure people will be buying all the barbie products. i am yet another victim of capitalism and i will thank them for it when i inevitably buy their you are kenough sweater
again i loved this movie despite all the bad things abt it. i love being critical of the wider impact of this movie while still enoying it as a piece of media and entertainment. i needed this movie and fuck it i want to go to barbieland so bad. i know i shouldnt. i love ken and think about ken more than i do barbie which is fucked up but the movie also played into it in a way,, as described before. i mean even ryan gosling being so iconic in all the interviews is adding into this lol. how many people are posting videos of him vs videos of the actresses i wonder.
also cockring ken. BUT HE WASNT WEARING THE COCKRING SO WHATS THE POINT EVEN???
the narrator was an interesting choice, personally wasn't a huge fan of it but it did somewhat fit with the rest of the cinematic language of the story so i can't say much about it
mattel knows exactly what its doing with putting its name on this movie. i think greta did a great job despite the constraints that mattel probably put on her,, it's hard to tell if the flaws of the movie come from the corporation's infuence or from the writer and director's creative decisions, most likely it's a combo of both. again i believe that the actors and designers and production team did a fantastic job with what they had, they committed to the bit. i would have loved for the movie to have been better, but it is still a great film in my book. as said before i would watch it again and would still enjoy it despite the flaws. the himbo part of my brain can shake hands with the media literacy one and emerge with an overall positive experience, yet PLEASE do not think this is the ultimate feminist movie, it is a step in the right direction, it could have been better, and i understand if you don't like it at all. but also i dont think it would be right to blindingly love it and call it perfect bc it's not.
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rumblelibrary · 3 years ago
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Hello 👀❤️
So... I don't know if this will work or not, but I thought why not, I send it in... And if you don't like it, that's completely fine ❤️🔥
I really like how you write the characters' mind... What they are thinking or how they act... I was thinking, maybe a new mechanic (Reader) at Ferrari (yes, it's a Niki Lauda fic, you know me❤️🔥) who is really shy, but very good at their job, and Niki likes them and he is an asshole with everyone (which is normal from him) EXCEPT with the Reader... And like... Maybe at first he doesn't realize this, but then he does, and gets all conflicted like why is he getting soft suddenly, out of nowhere... (It is obvious, but not for him)... I'm curious how you would see this, write this... The ending of this story is up to you ❤️❤️
Love you ❤️🔥👀
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What Is This Feeling [Niki Lauda x Mechanic!Reader]
Word count: 2.5k Warnings: lot of swearing by our favourite Rat King Author’s note: Niki is quickly turning into my comfort character to unleash my sass, thank you for giving me the chance to write him!
Part 2
On your first day at Ferrari nobody took you seriously, but to be a mechanic wasn’t exactly typing letters, it was not a place where somebody high up in the ranks would set a lover to give her some benefit and a free pay check.
You didn’t talk a lot, you stood your ground from the moment you put hands on any part of the car, but you weren’t exactly the chatty type and, being the only woman, it took you time to be allowed to the after work beer, to the birthdays and all the balancing that came with a good team spirit.
In a world full of bias about women, you were spared thanks to your abilities and knowledge. Or maybe, because the mechanics team had someone bigger to fight: Niki Lauda.
To work with him was thrilling, but stressful.
He would walk in at any hour of the day, break some egos, pile up an amount of changes that to make a brand new car would be a faster option.
You sat on the floor beside the baby, yes baby was the car, it wasn’t like you had to stay on the floor, there were more than plenty working stations, but it felt more comfortable for you: it gave you the chance to stand and look at things from afar, you were in need to touch, to understand, to put things together. It was your skill, but also your curse, because it was hard to gain yourself a space on the floor in such a fast paced environment like the one at Ferrari. You were working on the ignition when he stormed inside, the soft chats died fast and the noise of the radio was the only thing left, but he didn’t seem to mind the effect he had on people.
In a couple of long steps he was in front of one of your colleagues.
“What is this?” The man looked down to his sandwich like it was self explanatory, but the following silence brought him to answer “my lunch”
“Nice” Niki said, his lips curling downward in a very sarcastic amusement “well, take your lunch out of my garage because I don’t want your crumbles in my engine” he hissed picking the crumbles that effectively fell on the working table and sprinkling them like salt on the man’s face.
The man frowned and left to eat outside and avoid to punch him as Niki proceeded to his next victim.
“And you call this a design development? I call this dog shit”
“If this is a well done job, I’d better retire already before I get your good job to crack my skull open”
“Just begin again, don’t even ask”
“Are you sure you don’t work for McLaren? Because by the quality of your work I am starting to wonder”
One after the other all your colleagues fell under the axe of Niki’s commentary.
Nobody was spared, it was a butchery.
“So? What is this?”
You looked up at him as he towered over you, Satan himself would be less scary, and probably less attractive, to your eyes. His standing figure with rebel curls and his Ray-ban glasses in his left hand, the polo shirt under the fancy jacket, even his bad character gave him the edge so many men more conventionally attractive lack.
“I am working on the ignition” you said as he bent down crouching beside you as you showed him, his cologne filling your nostrils like the best smell your nose ever encountered.
“Okay, in what way?” He asked resting his elbows on his knees.
You gulped softly “Well, I am trying to experiment if I change this in here” and you pointed to a section in particular “maybe the car will have a better performance at the beginning of the race”
“Have you considered that it could over work the battery?”
“I did, but I wanted to see if I make here something like this” and you took a little tube showing how you lace it around the section “if I use this to push the cooler to work into this part as well, we might avoid over heating”
He listened touching his chin with the edge of his glasses thoughtfully.
“Give it a try”
He just said standing up.
Your colleagues looked at you shaking their heads as he turned around and everybody looked down to their tasks again, so then he left.
______________________________________________________________________ This wasn’t the first time, he wasn’t letting you do things he didn’t approve, but he always listened to you, he advised you, and the harshest thing he said was probably “I think you’re not looking at the bigger picture”
Nobody commented on it and beside some joke here and there, the little preference he had over you seemed to pass unnoticed mostly by him.
“You know, you really need a girlfriend” Clay, the other driver of the Ferrari alongside him, said during some tests.
Niki looked at him.
“Why? Do I look like one that has to fuck a woman to be fine?”
He laughed as Niki was always so overaggressive “No, but you treat everyone like bullshit beside the new girl, so you either can be an asshole only with men or your seduction technique needs a real check”
He frowned, eyebrows furrowing together as his lips parted in disbelief
“You nuts”
“Maybe, but I haven’t heard you complain about her as much as you complain about the rest of the world”
He shook his head “You are just letting you Italian genes getting your head stupid”
Clay laughed at him nodding knowingly “Sure, sure” he patted harshly on Niki’s back knowing how much he hated to be patted around like that as he moved to talk to one of the mechanics working on his car.
Niki crossed his arms resting against the wall of the garage, his eyes instinctively looking for your figure finding you to one of the working table writing down some notes over the changes applied while looking at the projects.
His eyes dropping on your ass like it was the first time he checked it, realising it wasn’t the first time he mentally noted it.
Well, he couldn’t really say you were unattractive, or not his type, or a good mechanic.
His thought process was suddenly interrupted as Clay himself approached you and you moved on side showing him the papers you were just writing on.
He nodded and said something to you, his hand casually resting on the small of your back making Niki’s jaw almost snap for how much he was gritting his teeth.
You shuffled on side avoiding the touch with a casual smile, but Clay kept talking to you and from afar Niki saw him say something and wave his pointed finger between himself and you. You shook your head and smiled turning down whatever he just offered with all the politeness you had, Niki pursued his lips slightly in amusement for his best girl’s behaviour.
Wait a second. Best girl?
He glared at Clay that smirked at him from afar, a big ‘I knew it’ smirk on his lips.
Niki bit the inside of his cheek not liking it.
He was with you like with everybody else, what the hell.
Niki ignored you all day, when you showed him something he himself requested to be shown, he shuffled away, when you handed him something he was looking for, he looked for it somewhere else, he just wasn’t meeting your eyes and hell and thunderstorm fell upon anyone that even tried to engage a talk with him on that day.
“I can’t with your boyfriend anymore, I swear” one of your colleagues muttered to you.
“He is not my boyfriend” 
He looked at you “Then he’d better be soon, maybe he’ll chill out”
“Are you even paid to stand and do nothing?” Niki shouted from afar and you two parted ways faster than two kids smuggling candies during class. ______________________________________________________________________
The next day was the judgment day for all the changes done on the car, your nerves were cracking as Niki arrived in his driving suit and your eyes immediately snapped a mental photo on his figure.
Did you ever went home wishing to have his company? Yes.
Did you ever wondered if he was so aggressive ever in the intimate times? Way too much.
Did you have any chance? Probably no.
You let out a big sigh as your colleagues reassured you “Hey, if it doesn’t work we either get rid of the rat or have some more time to work on it” he joked but you didn’t feel any better.
Niki looked up as he noticed your worried look, your lips nibbling down on your lips, your foot tapping rhythmically and nervously, the sudden instinct to lean his hand on that waist of yours, to rest his leg beside yours to make it stop that nerve wracking dance, to forbid your lips any more damage not caused by him.
All of that crowded his mind and he growled tiredly.
Stupid Clay, with his stupid theories.
He finished getting ready and put on his helmet settling down in his spot rolling his shoulders back, he needed to focus.
The head mechanic came over him repeating all the changes and just annoying the hell out of him, he is not always around the car only to check you out.
“When you're done telling me what I know, tell me something I don’t, I beg you”
The head mechanic did a big effort not to spit into his face and just left him waving his arms in the air.
You touched on your forehead nervously, if you failed it would show in the timings or maybe the car won’t even start.
You looked at him, seconds before he pulled down the dark lid of his helmet, his dark eyes so focused a shiver creeped over you.
You gasped as the signal was given and the car started.
Your fingers finding their way to your mouth as you nibbled your skin.
The car was fast, that was sure, you leaned beside the head mechanic that was taking the time. You breathed heavily, your mind going through all the changes you did, all the small settlements, the little details.
An eternal list that kept repeating itself.
Then the question as he was halfway through the leap, what if you disappointed him?
What if he asked you to be sent away?
Then you looked down to the chronometer, he was already almost two seconds earlier than usual.
A smile started to grow on you, the excitement filling your veins.
The sound of the engine roaring beautifully, you made it!
Then it happened, some smoke raised up to the sky, one of the wheels snapped, the breath died in your throat.
The car flexed on side but Niki controlled it and guided it against the sandy side of the track that slowed it down until it stopped.
“He was breaking his record” the head mechanic sighed “now he is just going to break our balls”
Niki moved out of the car throwing his helmet on the ground pushing off roughly anyone that tried to help him or check if he was hurt, some of the mechanics moving to the tow truck to recollect the car, Niki moving past you, his face tense and his posture of someone ready to snap some necks. You didn’t see him for the rest of the day, nobody talked about him, nobody mentioned anything as the storm will fall on all of the team the next day.
Now it was the head mechanic to face it for all of you.
______________________________________________________________________
That night you stayed over time, the other colleagues told you to just go home, to not let the thing sink of you, to look at it with fresh eyes and all those circumstantial phrases people gift you when they try to cheer you up. 
As always on the floor, you had now the chance to spread the pieces out, collect them into branches of types and use. You pulled closer your notebook writing down the ideas and things to remember to check, the image of Niki almost crashing gutting you even if you soon realised it wasn’t your change that set off the wheel, but it was part of the cause, the car was now too powerful and the stress on the suspensions was deadly.
You yawned lightly pulling a catalogue of replacements parts trying to find the best mix you could manage, but you surely had to make up something about it. You didn’t expect to solve the problem or to find the solution for everything with a creative twist, but to, at least, plan a sequence of possibilities to present to your chief the next day.
A hand slowly leaning a mug of steaming coffee beside you.
You looked up to find Niki there, another cup in his hand, those messy curls calling to be touched, his impeccable style always winning you over with a dark turtleneck and his tweed jacket.
“Found the problem?” He asked sharply as always.
He was surprised to see you there, he spent the rest of the afternoon after the malfunction with the head mechanic and some of the administrators as he needed a solution in time for the upcoming race.
So he decided he couldn’t trust their promises and reassurances, but take the matter in his own hand, for a change. But when he arrived he saw the lights still on and you there. He was almost tempted to leave, it wasn’t a good moment to screw things with one of his most talented mechanics.
But you, again, were so into it, you looked so beautiful with your working jumpsuit and the hair messed up nibbling on that pen like it was a matter of life and death.
He couldn’t just let you stay so beautiful and alone, who knows who could approach you.
You nodded “I think so” you said showing him the piece, he leaned his head on side studying it 
“May I?”
You nodded as he took off his blazer before joining you on the floor, he crossed his legs, your knees touching as he stole those papers from your hand.
“Signal to the administration this night shift, or they won’t ever pay you” he muttered without looking away from the papers.
You smirked “I know, but it is more a matter of principle than money, I didn’t like the heart attack you gave me today”
You were surprised by your own words, maybe it was because you really were over caffeinated or just realising how it was the first time you were alone and how you felt comfortable around him. No, not comfort, it was trust, you trusted him.
He looked up from the papers up at you, he didn’t replied to your comment straightaway, he let it sink in, he let your presence sink in.
A one-sides smirk appeared on his lips
“It is going to be a long night, then” Tagged @cazzyimagines @lieutenantn @handmaiden-of-mischief@thesunflowersutra Let me know if you want to get added <3
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vvanite · 3 years ago
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Hi sorry to bother you but I saw your post about the TAZ GN earlier. What were the reactions to the Lucas Miller reveal? I cannot find any (negative) reactions at all about that here. Just some people saying "oh there he is" and that gets overshadowed by everyone losing their shit about Kravitz.
Thank you and have a great day
Hey there no worries! and i dont blame you for not finding much info, any discussion of this happened months ago so it probably got washed out. if anything, this gives me a chance to collectively create an archive of the Lucas situation :)
So the way we got to see Lucas's full design was through sneak peek releases of the Crystal kingdom gn a while ago. (also! it's important to point out that his design was shown in earlier novels but with crystal kingdom, it was when we had an official reveal) Of course, there were people who were nonchalant about him, but the ones I want to address are those who disliked it and those who were ehh liking him too much. (I'll explain more later on that)
So, a lot of people who disliked the design shared similar thoughts that Lucas shouldn't have been a person of color and that he should have been white.
It is for a number of reasons,
1. In the podcast, he owned SLAVES. enslaved bugbears to be exact. (Let's be honest that whole plot point in the podcast is bad that no one talks about enough) We don't know exactly why the creative team decided to make him a poc but one could say it was to lessen the blow of the bugbear plotline and how bad it was concept-wise. A person's race doesn't lessen or change the horrible shit a character did. Lucas is already an oppressor and him being brown does not lessen it like the creative team intended. It's just peak racial color-blindness. (The black cop trope is one I would compare this situation to.)
2. From a design standpoint, he didn't fit the vision people had with him being a nerdy white dude when listening to the campaign. And then when he was revealed, a lot of folks thought he looked ambiguously brown or being Desi since he has facial features related to that. I feel that I don't have the confidence to say if he is Desi but if we were to say that he is, that contributes to a stereotype of indian people of the annoying nerd archetype just like Lucas in the podcast.
3. It is not good representation at all. It really looked like the creative team was trying to fill a POC quota, instead of thinking critically of their design choices. Yes, characters of people should have the chance to be antagonists but they should also play other roles, especially protagonist roles. And it does NOT look good if you take a step back and realize the conflict consists of 2 white and 1 racially ambiguous (merle) heroes fighting against a person of color. Even if the bugbear slave plotline is changed or removed, that last point still stands.
NOW. we got the people who did like the design and their thirst over the design is just gross. Lucas being drawn as a conventionally attractive man makes him into this sexy evil brown man trope. People are forgetting they are thirsting over A SLAVE OWNER. and it seems like people just brush over the concerns of fans of color just because he looks hot. ugh
Just to clarify, I speak as an individual fan of color and most of these concerns are from discussions I've seen from other fans of color. These concerns are pretty summarized so I'll link perspectives from other poc from that time which has more depth. personally, I would ask you to not bring up this topic to them again when they have ALREADY explained their perspective to the public but if you want to... please be mindful if you bother them about this because I'm sure they are pretty tired from this UNLESS they first initiate a future discussion of this when the gns are released.
(For mcnuggyy, I just linked their general taz racism tag but if you want a narrow search, just search up lucas)
https://mcnuggyy.tumblr.com/tagged/taz+racism
https://herbgerblin.tumblr.com/post/631703276137611264/continued
Now this would be the point where I link a Paypal or venmo for you to pay for my time collecting information and educating you but I don't have one set up so just reblog my art as payment ty :>
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tobesobri · 4 years ago
Text
Bust | Part One: Chisel (7.8k)
“Disappointed?” She tilted her head, smirking at him. She had no right to think he liked her better than Rose. She, herself, liked Rose better too. So she was sure he had to be at least a little bit sad to see Rose missing.
He smiled and the second she saw those dimples she was reminded of his Instagram all over again.
“A little,” he nodded, pinching his thumb and index finger together in the air and she painfully agreed.
“Well, you get me all by myself tonight.” She didn’t realize how it sounded until it was too late. Until she was cringing at all the sexual insinuations she’d just made for absolutely no reason. She could have said something else that wasn’t laced in an innuendo. But no, of course not. She had to continue her embarrassing streak when it came to Harry.
Instead of being creeped out by her, however, and pulling a confused and slightly terrified face, he laughed. And, on God, his laugh was the most amazing thing she’d ever heard. This wasn’t the first time the sound of his laughter graced her eardrums, but it was the first time he was laughing because of something she said that wasn’t about crooked penises.
“Lucky me.”
In which Y/N is an annoyance in Harry’s sculpting class.
story masterlist | my masterlist
It’s not her forte. Her hands don’t know how to hold onto things. They tremble under pressure. They mess things up no matter how hard she tries.
Not that she had really tried very hard to begin with.
Sculpting was just not something she saw herself doing. Ever. Not with her lack of agility and poor attention to detail. But to appease her whining best friend… she’d do just about anything.
The class was held in a little art studio with large windows for ventilation and tall ceilings to display the mass amounts of student artwork on butcher block shelves. She never thought she’d be back in a classroom type setting after graduating college, but here she was.
Learning, what she proclaimed as, a useless skill.
The studio was smack dab in the middle of an inclined street. Little quaint buildings that sat on an angle because why not pour foundations on a hill and make her weekly walks to the studio a little sweatier than she would have preferred. Even if it was winter in their little beach village town. Sweat still happened. It just happened underneath a scarf and a hand-knitted beanie from the sewing shop next door.
She could not deny, however, that the late afternoon classes every Wednesday and Saturday brought her way more joy than she’d anticipated. She looked forward to meeting up with Rose at the bottom-of-the-hill cafe, sharing the daily special with her before making their way up to the studio. It was calm in the middle and end of her hectic weeks that she most definitely needed.
What she didn’t need, however, what she most certainly did not look forward to, what she could have done without, what took her joy and smashed it against a wall was him.
The instructor.
Harry ‘I have nice hands and a misleading smile’ Styles.
It had only been two weeks into their classes and he had already told her one of her bowls was garbage. That the way she sculpted a face was terrifying. That she couldn’t draw for shit and that made her attempts at sculpting even worse.
So by Saturday of their second week, she didn't care anymore. He was a jerk and she would be the best pain in his ass she knew how to be.
While everyone called him Harry, like he’d asked them to the very first day, she called him Mr. Styles. Just to see the way his eyes rolled back into his head and his nostrils flared. While everyone asked him insightful questions, like what glaze was best to use or what tool sculpted eyes most efficiently, she asked him if she could use the bathroom.
She got a fucking kick out of irritating him. Knowing he went home after their classes just as irritated as she’d been. With clenched fists and a pounding headache.
It helped that he was insanely too attractive to be teaching a bunch of millennials about sculpting in his free time.
“You should really leave him alone, he might kick us out, you know,” Rose said on their first third week walk up Justice Hill. There was no justice in walking uphill, and most fucking certainly not in the humidity-ridden beachside town. She found the street name personally offensive.
“Oh fuck him. If he kicks us out, he’ll have to refund us.” Y/N did not, even for a second, bother to lower her voice as they neared the studio, knowing any one of the other students could hear her if they were to walk by.
“Refund us what? We got the class for free, remember?”
Y/N racked her brain like she’d completely forgotten that little detail before shrugging it off. “Whatever. He won’t kick us out.”
“How do you know for sure?”
Before she could make some stupid remark about how Harry secretly liked her pestering him or about how much he seemed much too impressed by Rose’s progress to ever get rid of them, the devil himself turned the corner in front of them.
He came out from an alleyway that connected the street to a tiny parking lot. And while they were going uphill, he was coming down. He was hard to miss and so were they, but still he attempted to not see them.
“What a prick,” Y/N mumbled under her breath as they got closer to each other. And almost as if he could read her lips, he rolled his eyes so fucking hard she thought maybe they’d finally pop right out of his head this time.
“Shush,” Rose warned as the three of them finally met in the middle, at the door to the studio that was decorated with a bright yellow ‘Open’ sign, children’s drawings, hand-painted hours of operation, and one too many polaroids of past students and their sculpting creations.
They all stood and stared at each other for a moment before he opened the door first, holding it as, to Y/N’s surprise, he let them go in first. And while she was still in shock at the gesture, his body language said it all. Like he was forcing himself to be nice to the dynamic duo, to the bane of his existence. While she was too distracted by Harry and his clay-stained trousers and cable-knit sweater with a cartoon deer embroidered on it, Rose walked into the studio first. Giving Harry a polite smile that he returned almost… genuinely.
And right when Y/N made a move to follow, Harry stepped in front of her. She jolted back as he just about let the door slam her in the face.
Today was going to be fantastic.
*                                              *                                 *
“Right, so,” Harry began, clapping his dry hands together as he took a seat behind his messy table at the front of the studio. “I know some of you haven’t finished your heads yet, but our focus today will still be on the bodies. We’ll have a catch up on Saturday to make up for it.”
Y/N sought out her head on the wall where she’d placed it last week beside Rose’s, realizing for the first time just how ugly it really was. And to think she’d been trying to sculpt Harry’s annoying face. Even more annoying that no matter what she did, he was always a lot more handsome than her hunk of polymer clay.
“... because, like I mentioned, we have special guests today who will be modeling for you.” Harry stood again while two very thin and very conventionally perfect people came out in white robes. Y/N couldn’t help but gag.
“This is Hope and Jordan.” Harry motioned as he introduced them, not getting any further in his instructions before Y/N raised her hand in the back of the class.
Rose attempted to get her to put it down, too, because Harry was clearly in the middle of something, but it didn’t really work out so well. Y/N was a stubborn son of a bitch.
“Yeah?” He pointed at her, sighing while planting his hands on his hips. He knew nothing she had to ask was going to be at all beneficial to the group.
She cleared her throat and just from the smirk on her face, he braced for impact. “Are they going to be modeling nude?”
She made just about everyone blush, except for Harry. He hated how she never took anything seriously. That the art he’d spent years perfecting enough to teach meant nothing to her. It was all just a primary school joke in her eyes.
“Yes, actually,” he answered bluntly and then returned to what he was going to say before Y/N’s interruption. “So I want everyone to get a piece of paper and while they’re modeling, do a rough sketch of what you might want the body of your sculpture to look like. The importance is to get the proportions down so that when you use the clay, you’ll know how much you’ll need for each part. Just like we did for the heads.”
Harry walked around the class once the models were stripped and the sketching began. Rose started immediately, concentration on her face as she flipped between the female model and her piece of sketchbook paper.
All Y/N had was a scratch piece of grey-toned mixed media paper she’d found laying on their table. And absolutely no clue where to even begin.
She stared at Harry instead of the naked models, watching as he helped others around the room, pointing at their sketches and where they could improve. His other hand behind his back that gave her perfect access to stare at his rings. Remembering how he’d taken them off guide their first few sculpting lessons. Remembering how his hands had so gently but so fucking firmly caressed the mound of clay into the exact shapes he wanted like he knew exactly what to do with those things.
“See it’s going just as I expected back here.” When his voice was at her ear, she jumped out of her skin and out of her daydreams. Twisting her head around to him as he stood behind her, she found him staring over her shoulder at her blank piece of paper.
She narrowed her eyes at him once she’d fully processed what he said. “Sorry I’m trying to figure out the best way to scale up that dude’s micro-cock, proportionally, if you don’t mind.”
He just about choked on his own spit, and rightfully so. But when he glanced to her eyes instead of her disappointing blank canvas, with his eyebrows furrowed and his cute little nostrils flared just the way she liked them, it was clear his reaction wasn’t for the reasons she’d intended.
He was quiet. Lips pursed, mind completely empty apart from hearing her say cock over and over again. Echoing against his skull. Making a home for itself in his hippocampus for later purposes. When he was not in a class full of students with their eyes on him, watching him get hard at the fucking way she said cock.
“Leave you to it then,” he cleared his throat and continued on.
“He may not kick us out, but killing you is still an option,” Rose whispered once Harry was a safe distance away from them.
Y/N leaned back in her seat to watch him walk down the rest of their row. His hands behind his back again, eyes wandering over shoulders.
As long as he had those rings on while he choked her out, she was okay with that.
*                                              *                                 *
Everyone had moved on to their bodies. Gathering the clay they needed from the front and using their sketches as guidelines to build around the pre-made wire and aluminum foil armature. Most everyone had some sort of a form being attached to the heads of their sculptures by the time Y/N even got started.
Because she decided on using Harry as reference after all and he would just not stand still.
With the models gone, they were on their own, with help from Harry of course. He played several videos and gave various demonstrations to aide them. It wasn’t supposed to be perfect, but after she gave it her all for about ten minutes, she was ready to give up. Her body looked like a very lumpy, very deformed version of Shrek.
She took a break again, watching Rose sculpt for a while instead. She watched Harry sometimes too as he walked around the class again in gloves this time. Smoothing out features and picking up tools to aid in the process of forming collarbones and wrinkles.
The studio was in its typical state of disarray. Random cups of milky water on every table, pieces of clay smushed into the tile floor, tools and used gloves strewn about with no rhyme or reason. Harry thrived in that kind of environment while Y/N well… she hated it.
She wanted organization and cleanliness. Her nine-to-five called for that kind of thing. But she was slowly getting used to it. To letting go and embracing the mess while she was here. She wasn’t the one that had to clean it all up anyways.
The only time she wasn’t daydreaming was when Harry started up their aisle again, walking in front of their table this time however. He helped a couple others at the end of their row, watched some of them work before eventually landing right in front of Rose’s station.
He cocked his head to the side while he watched her struggle to form an even pair of breasts on her headless lady. And even though Y/N was trying her best to look busy, she just couldn’t help it.
Rose handed her work in progress over to him with a frustrated huff after he offered his assistance. And like… no way was Y/N missing out on Mr. Harry fucking Styles fingering some clay into the perfect set of boobs. No way.
Especially fucking not when he removed his gloves and used those fingers in their bare glory the way she wished he’d use them someplace else. She watched while he slapped some more clay on Rose’s poor flat-chested model and proceeded to smooth it out with his expert fingertips. She watched the clay melt under his touch, watching him dip into their shared cup of water to aid the process. She looked away long enough to admire the concentration on his face, the way he bit down on his lip and furrowed his brows the way she was used to. She watched again while he fixed all of Rose’s mistakes just by gliding his thumbs over the two perfect little lumps on her sculpture that sure as hell hadn’t started out so perfectly.
She had no idea why Harry sculpting a tiny set of breasts on what would eventually become a mermaid got her so hot and bothered but… it did. It did so fucking much, she was almost salivating like a dog by the end of it, thinking about what his hands could do with the real deal. But then he handed it back to Rose with a content smile on his face and burst Y/N’s little bubble.
“Might be better,” he said softly and Rose nodded in agreement. She hadn't noticed before, but when he stood to his full height it was clear he’d been leaning over on their table. Closer to the both of them than he’d ever really been before. And she knew he was tall, taller than Rose, who was five foot seven inches herself. And not just that but his shoulders were broad and his arms were a humble amount of muscular. Almost like he was a sculptor that kneaded clay a hundred hours a week. Maybe that was why she was a soaking wet mess.
He stretched his gloves back onto his hands and glanced Y/N’s direction. Eyes going straight from her disaster of an art piece to her flushed face and back.
“Don’t even know where to start to fix yours up,” he commented while moving slightly to his right until he stood directly in front of Y/N this time.
She looked at her abomination, wondering if it would be her worst idea to push more of his buttons or not. But, she went for it anyways. Her lack of impulse control would definitely come back to bite her in the ass one day.
“It’s the penis. Still haven’t gotten that down yet.”
He nodded, amused rather than his previous reaction to her antics. “Can see that, yeah. He’s got a bit of a crooked willy there.” Harry poked at it with his index finger and she became hyper aware of his closeness this time while he leaned over her tabletop again. Because his hands were right there, almost touching her own. And they were big, bigger than she realized. She could see him perfectly through the transparent gloves, his long fingers with clipped nails at the end that were well taken care of, considering.
She would need to soak herself in holy water for a while after this.
“Oh, is that not what the male anatomy looks like?” She teased, not fully realizing they were getting along for the first time and it was because of dicks. Because she’d put an oddly shaped protrusion on her figure before she’d even done much else with the blob of clay stuck to her form.
“No,” he laughed, shaking his head at her and standing up straight again. “Maybe if you paid attention when the models were out here, you’d know that.”
“Maybe if you hired someone who’s cock I could actually see from all the way back here without a fucking magnifying glass.” She was only slightly aware of how fully immersed she was in the debate over this penis.
But all he heard was cock again. She really needed to stop saying that. Because this time his mind was a little more imaginative while he stared at her lips and thought about the way she might say that on her knees in front of him.
He shook his head clear. She was an insufferable nuisance that he just barely tolerated on a good day. He didn't need her clogging up his brain with her cock talk too.
“Just fix it.” He mumbled.
She huffed when he left her to her own devices, not even bothering to offer his help, but she really shouldn’t expect any less. If he helped her, he would be doing it all for her. And that was hardly the point of taking a class to learn how to sculpt if the hot instructor was just going to do everything for you.
“Is there a reason why you’re arguing with him about penises?” Rose asked, hushing her voice around the apparently taboo word.
“It’s fun. And if I’m going to sit here in this stupid class with you I’m going to have some fun.” Y/N, on the other hand, was not hushed or subtle at all, as she ripped off the phallic piece of clay from her sculpture.
Rose cringed when she glanced past Y/N to find Harry looking right at her. He had been helping someone a few seats down and clearly not far enough away to have missed what Y/N said. All of his features drooped and he looked genuinely upset. Rose wished she could put a filter over Y/N’s mouth to save everyone from her insensitive outbursts. Especially Harry. He always tried so hard and for Y/N to brush everything off and boil it all down to a ‘stupid class’ even broke Rose’s heart a little. So she could only imagine how Harry felt.
After their typical hour and a half was up, once everyone at least had some semblance of a body minus the legs and arms, Harry called the class back to order.
“Alright, that’s time. You can put your armatures back on the shelves, carefully. As always, I’ll be around for a little while after. Have a great rest of your night, I’ll see you all on Saturday.” He finished his spiel, turning away to help clean up before a lightbulb went off in his head and his voice rang through the studio again, “Oh, and make sure you bring your sketches back with you!”
Everyone worked on cleaning up, including Harry. And while Y/N took both her and Rose’s sculptures over to their respective spots on the shelves, Rose walked up to the front of the class without any warning whatsoever.
She tapped Harry’s shoulder and watched while his smile faded just the tiniest bit after he turned to find her. That Rose’s poor face had to be associated with the thunderstorm that was Y/N.
“I just wanted to say sorry… about Y/N.” Both Rose and Harry glanced at the girl in question near the back of the studio, playing with their two sculpted bodies like they were barbie dolls. “I forced her to do this with me so she hasn’t really taken it seriously. But I’m really enjoying the class, you’re a fantastic instructor.”
His smile returned again and if he was being honest with himself, it really did make him feel better to hear her say that. He had some sort of a reasoning for Y/N’s horrible attitude and while he wished it was her apologizing and not Rose, he figured it was good enough.
“Thank you. You’re doing really well so far. I’ll see you on Saturday, yeah?”
She nodded, giving him one last polite smile before trotting back to Y/N and helping her clean up the last bits around their workstation.
“Please do not tell me you were flirting with him.” Y/N gagged, using a ball of clay to gather the little pieces spread across their table like a magnet.
“No, actually, I was apologizing to him for your behavior.”
Y/N snapped her head up, first at Rose and then Harry all the way across the room from them. “You what?”
“He’s just trying to teach and you’ve been a fucking knobhead.”
Y/N gasped in fake offense, which was actually slightly real offense. “Excuse me, he made fun of my bowl the first day, you seem to have forgotten about that.”
“A toddler could have made a better bowl than that, Y/N, and you know it.”
She frowned, grumpily averting her eyes to the table with her arms crossed over her chest like she really was a toddler.
“I’m just saying,” Rose started, a bit calmer this time, “stop pestering him.”
*                                              *                                 *
Y/N thought about everything Rose had said. About how much she wished she could take things seriously and not constantly get on people’s nerves all the time, but she simply did not know how to. Taking the piss out of things and making jokes was how she got through her days.
But she did agree. Harry didn’t deserve her behavior. Maybe he was a bit of a jerk to her to begin with, but insulting his class might’ve been crossing a line.
Because she didn’t actually think it was stupid. She quite enjoyed listening to him. She liked learning something new and following his instructions as he walked them through some of his techniques. She liked being connected to all the people in the little studio, even if only briefly. Complete strangers all shared that one little thing in common and it made her all fuzzy and warm inside each time she met up with Rose at the end of every Wednesday and Saturday.
Hiding behind a bit of humor, however, was a lot more comfortable than admitting she found pleasure in anything as corny as sculpting classes.
On Friday night, boredom got the best of her and she took a chance upon searching Harry’s name on Instagram while she took her weekly bath. It had been Rose’s idea, the bath, not stalking her attractive sculpting instructor online. That decision was completely her own. But the baths at the end of stressful weeks had a little influence from her best friend, as did most aspects of her life. Baths were a waste of time, in her opinion, and she preferred the efficiency of showering. But Rose had given her nice smelling soaps and weird fizzy things for bath time and well… she couldn’t let them go to waste.
So, amid her regularly scheduled, once-a-week bath, she scrolled shamelessly through Harry’s feed. Because he did, in fact, have an instagram. And she only knew it was him because every fourth post was a video and in said videos were his hands. And, fuck, they were just as nice on film as they were in person.
He didn’t post much of his face, which she thought was an actual crime, but there was a lot about him and his sculpting. She found out it had been his sister’s birthday recently, who, when she smiled, looked just like him. He’d also just finished a piece he seemed really proud of, a clay head and bust of a pit bull, to which he linked in the caption about a local shelter who rescued the breed specifically and needed donations. Her heart nearly fucking melted.
Harry wasn’t much of an open book, though, unless he let his art do most of the talking. He seemed to enjoy sculpting women the most, which is probably why he’d been so good at de-lumping the breasts on Rose’s mermaid. But all the female sculptures he made weren’t sexual at all. They had meaning behind them. Like every single clay face she clicked on throughout his photos had a story. Like he was uplifting rather than fetishizing.
And not every single one of them was skinny and had perfect features. She was shocked to see at least half of the creations she’d skimmed through were of larger women with imperfect breasts at times and asymmetrical faces. Not sticking to typical European beauty standards as she may have originally assumed he might.
It made glancing down at her very much imperfect body feel a little less like an attack. Because Harry spent his time putting all his love into his little sculptures with diverse body types that she almost felt ashamed for ever hating hers.
Once she was done clicking on just about every single post he’d ever made, she finally found a selfie. Well… not really a selfie. Someone else had clearly taken it of him candidly while he had been working. But there was an awfully cute smile on his face and very familiar dimples poking into his cheeks that make her heart warm up again.
He wasn’t a damn thing like she’d assumed he was from the beginning. She thought his art centered around the ideal, and that maybe he was a little condescending because of it. But his Instagram told a different story about his art. And she wanted to know so much more about him.
She was completely lost in her dreams about him that just the smidge of distraction led to accidentally liking a photo of his from two years prior.
She’d have to move countries. Change her name. Delete everything. Never look back. Y/N? A distant memory.
Before dropping her phone in the tub and really making a complete ass out of herself, she threw it, instead, onto her furry rug in the middle of the bathroom and sunk herself down into the water. Wondering if it would really be so bad if she just drowned a little bit.
Because she desperately wanted to. There was nothing she could do. Not even unliking the picture would help. He’d still see the notification. Still click onto her page and realize who in the fuck had just liked a two-year-old post of his that he, himself, had probably even forgotten about.
She wanted nothing more than to sink her head under the pink-tinted water and never come back up. Her mind would not stop with the visualizations of what his reaction might be. Things he might be thinking. Like is this that fucking bitch from my sculpting class? Or whether or not she might find herself blocked by morning.
God, just make it stop.
But suddenly her phone buzzed and her heart just about stopped beating. It had to be the notification that Harry blocked her. Was that even a thing? Did Instagram notify you if someone blocked you? And why was her phone on silent? Because her Instagram notifications and her text messages made very different sounds. If it was just a text, she’d consider ignoring it. She’d continue marinating in all her shame a little while longer. But it ate her alive not knowing what the buzzing was from.
So, carefully, she pulled herself upright and reached across the floor until she had her phone in her hand. Before she clicked the screen on, though, she closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath.
But when she opened her eyes and found out why her phone had buzzed, she let that breath out and settled her ass down again. It was Rose.
Hey, I can’t make it tomorrow for class. Felt like absolute shit at work today and had to go home because as it turns out I have the flu.
“Fuck,” Y/N mumbled to herself. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to go alone because facing Harry after she just did what she did was one thing, but doing it all by herself was another. But a part of her did still want to go tomorrow. The part before her horrific accident when she was full on getting a love boner over Harry. She’d wanted to see him again so fucking bad.
Okay. I probably won’t go too then
Y/N physically frowned at the idea of waiting another five days to see Harry again. Her brain really needed to make its fucking mind up about him. Did she want to see him or not?
No! You have to go and tell me what I missed!
Y/N rolled her eyes, but felt relieved. Even after her embarrassing slip up, her desire to see Harry again still prevailed. And she hated it. How was she even supposed to look him in the eye tomorrow, both of them knowing damn well she’d been stalking his Instagram back to two fucking years ago?
*                                              *                                 *
It was beyond weird sitting in their usual cafe on Justice Hill alone, even without the whole Instagram fiasco of the previous night she was trying everything in her power to forget about.
However all the desperate attempts to bury that awful experience were fruitless when she glanced across the room over her latte and found a very familiar set of grumpy-looking eyes already staring at her. But once she did notice him, he immediately looked away, stepping up to the counter to order his own cup of coffee.
She nearly choked on her drink, having to set it down and wipe what had spilled onto her chin off with a napkin she’d already used to sop up another one of her messes.
Of the three weeks now they’d been going to classes and frequenting the cafe just before, she’d never seen Harry. It was like he didn’t have a life outside being an instructor. He just popped up in the studio and she always left before him so she had no idea what he did after class either.
But seeing him here was like seeing a fucking unicorn in real life.
She couldn’t help watching him either, even if she knew she shouldn't. But, in her defense, he was wearing beautiful wine-colored corduroy pants with a tight white t-shirt tucked into them and a beige coat thrown over his arm to match. And for shoes he had on his usual white vans that had gained a few more scuff marks since the last time she’d seen him. His fashion would look terrible on anyone besides him.
He glanced her way again, briefly, when he left the counter with his cup, fighting his legs from walking in her direction but not exactly winning that battle.
And to her surprise, he stood right in front of her, behind the chair where Rose usually sat.
And when she looked up at him, he completely forgot why he had come over. He had no fucking clue what he was doing there. But it was too late now for him to back away and pretend like it never happened.
“Your friend's not coming?” His voice shook, but she didn’t notice with the way he finally took his fucking eyes off of her and gave her a chance to breathe again. He glanced at his watch just to confirm that it was, in fact, only five minutes until class started and it seemed reasonable to assume Rose wasn’t meeting her before then.
She pulled herself together and pretended like his close presence wasn’t intimidating her in the slightest.
“Disappointed?” She tilted her head, smirking at him. She had no right to think he liked her better than Rose. She, herself, liked Rose better too. So she was sure he had to be at least a little bit sad to see Rose missing.
He smiled and the second she saw those dimples she was reminded of his Instagram all over again.
“A little,” he nodded, pinching his thumb and index finger together in the air and she painfully agreed.
“Well, you get me all by myself tonight.” She didn’t realize how it sounded until it was too late. Until she was cringing at all the sexual insinuations she’d just made for absolutely no reason. She could have said something else that wasn’t laced in an innuendo. But no, of course not. She had to continue her embarrassing streak when it came to Harry.
Instead of being creeped out by her, however, and pulling a confused and slightly terrified face, he laughed. And, on God, his laugh was the most amazing thing she’d ever heard. This wasn’t the first time the sound of his laughter graced her eardrums, but it was the first time he was laughing because of something she said that wasn’t about crooked penises.
“Lucky me.”
He left her so fucking speechless, that after he started backing away from her table, reminding her to not be late, she still ended up being late. Because she sat in her chair for what felt like a century repeating his two words over and over again in her head.
Lucky me.
She knew he was only teasing but the way he’d just gone along with her original joke and how his voice sounded when he said it, she could not believe it. She could also not believe how Harry had some kind of massive hold on her that she sat staring at a wall for ten minutes trying to figure out how to operate properly again just to get up out of her chair.
Lucky fucking me.
She could scream.
If she wasn’t in public.
There was an extra pep in her step as she took Justice Hill alone this time, partially because of how giddy Harry had made her and partially because she was late… right after he told her not to be. But how was she supposed to be on time after what he’d just done to her emotions. And to the throbbing mess between her legs, but that's another story entirely.
Everyone was all over the place when she’d finally arrived, though, so it made slipping in the back that much easier. Not that she got past Harry’s watchful eyes, though, but at least she wasn’t interrupting anything while the class readied their workstations for another full night of going ham on their sculptures.
Harry kept his eyes on her mostly the entire time she did the same at her empty little area, watching as she tucked her purse under the desk for safekeeping and threw a couple tools he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her use onto the table. When she wandered off to the wall of shelves to retrieve her absolutely horrifying work of art, he finally gave her some privacy again. But he couldn’t help the fact that he’d been worried sick when she didn’t show up on time after he’d just seen her at the cafe, thinking something horrible could have happened to her between there and here.
So making sure she was unscathed before he, too, got his area organized was essential.
She sat in her chair and stared at what she had made the past three weeks. They’d started with something simple on the first day, taking a pre-cut slice of clay and free-handing a bowl with a few tips from Harry thrown in here and there. Then they jumped straight in after he showed them a few clips of sculptors working, pausing to explain specific things about creating a head and face. They were given everything they needed to make sculpting a complete figurine of a human body as easy as possible.
And still, she managed to create a combination of Shrek and the abominable snowman.
She huffed, wondering if she asked nicely enough Harry would let her just start all over. But before she could even think to do so, he clapped his hands together and got everyone’s attention for today’s mini-tutorial.
He explained smoothing to them and how there were many different ways of doing it so that your end results weren't littered in fingerprints. He reminded them to use water to smooth out the initial shapes of the clay they wanted and if they were having a really hard time with too much warmth from their fingers to use the gloves.
He ventured a little into detail work of the bust, showing a short clip of another artist forming collar bones with just two tools and her fingers. He explained what tools those were and why they were the most efficient for details and went on some more about other detail tools that were good for different things.
And the entire time she was far too lost in his voice and how his eyes lit up passionately when he rambled to even think about the fact that she wasn’t taking a single note for Rose’s sake.
They’d done a few lessons on details for the face, but they had yet to really get that far, only having put on tentative eyelids, lips and a nose for their heads before he really dove deep into details in what she assumed would be a full class later on.
And when he finally took a break to ask for any questions, she was, of course, the first to raise her hand. He thought about ignoring it, knowing all too well that anytime Y/N raised her hand in the back of his classroom, she was up to no good. But he was too nice to do that to anyone, even her.
So he called on her by nodding his head and she cleared her throat while he grimaced, expecting the worst.
“So, um, for example if we were going to do bigger details like abs on a male figure, what would be the best tool for that?”
He could have sworn he was having a heart attack. He had to blink a few times just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. She was actually asking him a legitimate question, and a good one at that. He had to repeat what she said in his head first, just to make sure it was real, before he answered, completely unprepared.
“Um… well after you lay out the clay where you want on the body, you can use one of the knives to blend the edges,” he held up an example of one for her, “and then a large ball or oval tool like this,” he held up another, “to smooth everything out. You’d probably want a more blunt pointed end to shape them, though, after you blend the clay in.”
She nodded like she’d been fully absorbing every single word coming out of his mouth and then he watched as she dug around quietly in the tool kit on her desk, in search of the types of tools he’d mentioned.
He could not fucking believe it though. She finally showed a stitch of interest in learning about sculpting. And he had no idea why she decided to right now. Maybe it was because she was without her partner in crime, but either way he was stunned. Absolutely fucking marveled.
After a few more questions and some demonstrations, he let everyone go and continue working on their projects while he circled the room as he normally did. And he found himself glancing at her from time to time, all by herself in the back with a genuine look of concentration on her face as she attempted making her creature a little less loch ness monster and a little more human.
Eventually, after he figured she was giving it enough effort for him to step in and help if she needed, he headed her way. And just as she sensed him walking down her aisle, while she was busy shaving off clay, a piece of it went flying into the air, completely out of control.
He stopped in his tracks after almost being smacked in the face with a chunk of clay and bent over to pick it up before someone squished it into the bottom of their shoes. He leaned over the edge of the table in front of her again, setting the piece of clay down next to her gently while she bit her lips between her teeth and tried to hide her embarrassed red cheeks behind her hands.
“Sorry!” She squealed at him, further digging herself into a hole.
He shook his head, “S’alright. Not the first time that’s happened.”
She laughed at the thought of him actually getting hit in the money maker with a hunk of clay and it eased her worries a little.
“So how are those abs going then?” He asked.
She stared at her sculpture for a moment before she sighed and turned it around to face him. It wasn’t as bad as it had been before, but it was still pretty rough.
“Mind if I…?” He held his hands out and she, without a single hesitation, handed it over to him.
He immediately grabbed the shaving tool she’d been using, and since it still sat next to her where she’d put it down moments ago, his fingers brushed against her hand when he picked it up. Sending every one of her nerves in the general area on a field day to mess with her nether regions again. It’s just… his fucking hands were an art form in and of themselves. His knuckles prominent, stretching soft skin around the bone. His veins protruding every time he made a more delicate move that required precision. Even the ones on his arms underneath the ink when he was a bit more rough with her sculpture sent her over the moon, while he shaved off bits and pieces with firm pressure to define the shape of the body and somehow create a human-like figure from her mess.
Then he started smoothing down the surface with a little water on his fingers and she went batshit. His hands while dry were one thing, but sparkling, wet, slippery fingertips? Lord have mercy.
She watched him spread a chunk of extra clay onto what would be the figure’s chest to build it up a little more with the knowledge of their previous conversations about dicks and abs making it clear she was attempting to make a male figure. She couldn’t help but watch his muscles flex underneath his tight white t-shirt. From far away across the cafe it had caught her attention. And now right here, she was definitely not letting it go unnoticed. It wasn’t too tight that he looked ridiculous, but just the right amount to show off every curve of his biceps and triceps and whatever other -ceps he had hiding underneath the shirt. He was normally in oversized tops so she was taking full advantage while she still had the chance to.
When he handed it back to her, it was like he’d done some kind of magic spell to get it to look so good after what she’d given him to work with. He leaned forward a little more and pointed at the figure’s chest and she was only halfway paying attention to him when he spoke, mostly focusing on how close he was and every single time he accidentally brushed his skin against hers.
“So if you want to make the abs,” he paused to glance over and dig through her pile of tools until he found the one he was looking for. “Use this to kind of sketch out the shape like we did with the faces,” he took the ball tool and rolled it down the middle of the chest, making a short indent to separate where the pectorals might be, “then you can add on the dimension like I was saying earlier.”
She took over the tool when he flipped it around and gave it to her so she could try for herself. And he watched for a short while as she did what he said to do, sketching out tentative abs, but not really knowing exactly what they looked like to come to any sort of realistic end. Her figure started to look like a shirtless Johnny Bravo.
He just giggled and pointed his stupid finger back into her personal space, smoothing down her mistakes until they disappeared, “Have you never seen a six-pack that wasn’t on a cartoon character?”
She racked her brain, trying to say something funny, but once she looked into his eyes, nothing came to mind. “Of course I have. I just don’t know how to make them look realistic.” She couldn’t exactly remember the last time she’d been faced with a naked man’s chest, but she had seen them before.
“Well…” Harry sighed, resting his head on his hand and staring at her sculpture sideways, “he doesn’t have to have abs.”
And then she said it. Something worse than her earlier set of words back at the cafe. She had no clue what was going on with her tonight, but she needed an ass-kicking for it.
“Do you have abs?”
“Me?” His eyes flickered up to hers in shock and it was far too late for her to backtrack, she was here and she had to face what she’d done. Even while he looked at her like she was fucking insane.
“Uh, well. I mean…” She had no fucking clue what she meant. And even if she did, she sure as shit wasn’t telling him.
Then it clicked in his brain. “You’re not using me as reference, are you?”
After a solid three seconds of just staring at him, she laughed. “No, of course not.”
“Hope so after you gave him that wonky penis.”
She sighed once they were through it. Once he’d proved, yet again, that he didn’t make her embarrassing statements feel as bad as they really were. He kind of just... went along with it.
But then she made it even worse.
“So yours isn’t wonky and crooked, then?”
Jesus, fuck Y/N just shut up.
His smile never faded, however, and instead, he leaned close again and whispered, “Maybe one day you’ll be lucky enough to find out.”
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qslovebot · 4 years ago
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Doubt, Denial, and Fucking Destiny: Raymond Wadsworth
Summary: After reconnecting with Raymond when he returns to town, he finds it hard to believe that he was your childhood crush due to the many years he spent believing he was unlovable. Your crush on him never left, it was simply buried, so you prove that you did like him and maybe still do?
Pairing: Raymond Wadsworth x Short Fem!Reader
Warnings/Includes: alcohol presence, mention of past verbal abuse and bullying, mention of weight loss, self-doubt, low self-esteem, kissing.
Raymond Wadsworth never thought himself deserving of any sort of proper love.
He grew up in a home where every day his stuck-up father pointed out his mental and physical flaws, his wrong choices, and his past and present failures with no hesitation or apology. Constantly under scrutiny and judgement at home, school wasn't much better. It may have even been worse.
The kids would poke fun at Raymond for his looks, his weight being the main target of most of the insults and he dug himself deeper by eating his feelings away.
To top it all off, he spent his childhood believing that he could see and communicate with the dead. With ghosts, to be more specific. And his father called him crazy for it all. You heard whispers of it around the school.
Raymond's childhood was hard, you knew that then as you knew it now, watching him prepare to drink himself away as you watched him down chocolate milk after a beating by older kids in the park years earlier. Many... years earlier. Too many- was this even Raymond?
He was taller now, maybe 6'1, nearly 6'2? He was much thinner now, but he looked decently healthy and his hair was still just as unruly as it had been all the way back then. He was, in fact here and he was also very very very attractive. To you, maybe. He'd always been attractive, even before he became who he was before he returned to the town.
Being about four years younger than him, you had admired him endlessly and achingly as a child. To be frank, he never took notice of you that way, only seeing you as the annoying little brat with the pigtails who chased him around the playground back then.
It was stupid that your heart skipped a beat the moment you knew it was truly him. It had been decades since you last saw him and you'd had many unlasting relationships since then. Here was your crush from when you were merely five and your heart fluttered? Stupid. Ahead of yourself.
But you wandered over to him anyway, sitting down next to him on the barstool. "I thought you had a blood pressure issue," you started, smiling as he froze the hand that held the shot he was about to throw back.
"Yeah... how did you know that?" He questioned before actually looking at you. The moment he lifted his head to get a glance at who was speaking to him, it was like all his organs stopped working at once. He choked on pure air at the sight of you. You couldn't help but smile.
He continued coughing and you laughed, "I don't think taking that shot is a good idea anyway... do you need water, Raymond?" You knowing his name set off a new round of coughing and you and the bartender nodded at each other as they placed a cup of water in front of Raymond.
You watched him try to recalibrate his respiratory system and eventually, he regained his breath, looking up at you through curls. "I'm sorry, uh, hot girls- they usually don't just walk up and talk to me."
"Aaand hot men usually don't choke on absolutely nothing when I approach them, so there's a first time for everything." You smiled, folding your hands and resting them under your chin. It seemed like it took him an extra second to process that you had just called him hot. He was just as shy-seeming as he was then. It seemed like he was also trying to place your face. "You don't remember me?"
"I think I do, I just can't place where..."
"I'll jog your memory," you suggested, immediately reaching to pull your hair into ponytails that stayed put with your fists. You lowered yourself a little and nodded, pulling your mouth to one side to mimic the way you looked so long ago and his jaw dropped.
"(Y/N)! No way! Oh my god, you're still 5'2!" He gasped, running a hand through his hair. So he did remember you after all. "-And you have boobs now, that's- that's great." His eyes drifted and you snapped to get his attention back up to your face. "You look- you look great, holy fuck."
"Thak you, so do you," you shook your hair out again and bit your lip. "You look so much happier."
"You can say skinnier," he shrugged.
"I would say skinnier if that's what I meant, Raymond, but I meant happier." He seemed a little bit surprised. "I see that you are but frankly it never mattered to me. I liked you anyway."
His eyebrows narrowed, "Liked me anyway? Weren't you like... five when we met? I was... nine-ish. And you... you would follow me around, was that a crush?"
"It was," you admit, a small smile tugging your lips again, eyes fluttering from his hands back up to Raymond, who looked baffled. It made sense that he thought nobody liked him back then. Your reveal to liking him then seemed to grip him with shock well enough. Wait until he understood just how long. "-And it lasted until I was thirteen and you were... seventeen. I think that's around when you went, wasn't it?"
He nodded, eyes drifting. You snapped again and his mind snapped back to where it should be. "Y-yeah. When did all this... happen, because when I left you were..."
"Conventionally unattractive." You finished. "Well there's one word to sum it up and it's puberty. It hit me, it hit you and now we are right back where we started and you seem just as likeable."
"And you're far less annoying..." he trailed off. "I cannot believe you're still here."
"I can't believe you're back." You grinned. You could see his interest in you as he sat there. Was he wearing pyjamas? It all seemed to add up. You were here, he was back, and your heart kept fluttering oddly. So you spewed it, "I think my crush for you is still here, oddly enough."
It was fun to see him joke on air again. "You still like... me?" He seemed so shocked to hear it. "Woah woah woah, no. You can't have my wallet. Or are you a prostitute now?"
"Not a prostitute, I was trying to hit on you while being sweet at the same time," I sighed, downing the shot Raymond had in front of him. He didn't seem to care much about it. He was swallowing hard now, sharp cheekbones flushed.
"Genuinely trying to hit on me?" He questioned again. He really didn't believe you, huh? But it made sense, what with his upbringing. The overweight kid who saw ghosts- the reputation didn't fare well. So you decided maybe,
"We should get out of here, Raymond. Those bitches over there are still picking on you and you can't really drink without your blood pressure killing you, so I say we just go for a walk." You suggested. His long fingers rested on the edge of the bar and you let your smaller hand close around his. "I've paid for my drinks and I will pay for yours." You slapped money down on the counter for the bartender.
"A walk?" Was all he could really say before you led him out of the bar and into the night. You could only imagine what was going on in his mind. An ugly annoying girl from his childhood was now hot and socially decent and now he finds that girl still likes him and always liked him, even at his worst... Must be exciting.
The breeze was cool outside, but the air around the flow was warm. You finally answered, once a few steps from the bar entrance. "Yes, a walk. Bar settings tense you up, look at how loose you are now. You don't even notice you're still holding my hand." You teased, giving his hand a squeeze before interlocking your fingers with his. He turned pink again and it could be seen even in the flickering lights of the street.
"I suppose I'm confused... You don't think I'm gay?"
You narrowed your eyes, "Are you?"
"NO!" He shouted back. "Why does everyone think that?"
What the fuck? "I never suspected you were but looking at you, maybe it's the ascot."
"The ascot?"
"The ascot." You replied with a small smile. "I don't think you look gay... I don't even think it's possible to look gay. You do look cute though. Maybe those other bitches who called you gay are gay."
He nodded, halfway through untying it. Both of you kept walking down the sidewalk. "Thank you." I could tell he was trying not to say too much now. He was doubting himself.
I sighed, swinging Raymond's arm over my shoulder, fingers never unlocking. I could feel his hand trembling a little. "Raymond, I know this was sprung on you, but I did and do like you. I have yet to properly figure who you are now, but I do." You made sure to look up at him so he knew you were serious.
His mouth was open as if he wanted to speak, but couldn't. Until he did. "Are you sure you're not a prostitute?"
Holy fucking shit. You began to rant, "No, Raymond! I'm just a girl. I'm just a girl and I like you and I want to maybe know you before you head off again. This whole town is a fucking gravity pit, a fucking black hole and I would like for once, for someone to want to talk to me. AND, I would like nothing more than for you to know that people are in fact capable of liking you romantically, despite everything your asshole father may have told you, or the kids at school who couldn't see your worth then or now and I-"
He spun you, fingers still intertwined and suddenly, his lips were on yours, and he wasn't particularly sweet or gentle. In fact, it was ravenous. He pushed you against the wall of the building you were passing. It seemed like the slightest bit of reassurance, the slightest bit of someone showing him how much he was worth, set him off. But you didn't really care.
Raymond's shaking hands slid into the roots of your hair, holding your face as he kissed you with great passion. With muffled 'mmmm's and wandering hands, you gripped him by the ascot, holding him down to your height.
But you couldn't kiss him much longer. "Raymond, I don't want to take advantage of your insecurities," You mumbled against his lips. You had been more confident earlier, but he had you practically unravelling. "I've always liked you, I have, and I'm so glad we just kissed, but-"
"My heart is beating too fast to properly hear, but I know you're sweet as hell and I really just want to pretend we're teenagers and make out for forty minutes nonstop, is that okay?" He interrupted with rambling, and it was more than clear what he wanted.
"How about forty-five, ghost boy?" You yanked him down by the ascot again and his hands went right back to either side of your face while he pulled you into the alleyway. He got his forty-five minutes and it ended sweetly, with him making you promise to come and see him tomorrow. You agreed, watching him go. He walked backward as to say goodbye, but tripped over a garbage can.
He was alright. There would be a conversation piece in the bruise he would probably get tomorrow. Call it fate or call it fucking destiny that he was back and your feelings were still there. All these years and you finally had what you'd wanted so long ago. Plus, it was only the beginning.
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culpeppercheckers721 · 3 months ago
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Alright listen Philomena is genuinely pretty attractive, even though she’s a loyalist which is usually a demographic of characters on this show that I do not fuck with, I will agree that she is attractive!! BUT. Now is the time I am going to actually lose my shit and go full unhinged mode as I have always intended to because to answer the question NO ABE DOES NOT DESERVE THE SLANDER 😭😭😭
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Listen listen I make fun of Abe’s dumb ass all the time but it’s one thing to be like “haha why is Abe so short” and a complete other to be like “wow he’s so annoying his family should’ve just watched him die at the gallows lolololol” like NO THAT IS OUR CABBAGE BABY WE’RE TALKING ABOUT HERE 😭
Anyways because being silly is my full time job apparently, let me also be COMPLETELY HONEST AND AS UNHINGED AS POSSIBLE (pretty on brand for me tbh but still): He is, in a weird silly way, not unattractive!! Maybe that’s just because I love his character so much, and I’m so emotionally attached, but nevertheless! I will argue the point. 🤠
I understand he is not… y’know, everyone’s definition of CONVENTIONALLY ATTRACTIVE, but there is a certain odd look about him (especially in season one, and also especially in season four when we finally see him in a uniform of course) that is to like! And I will be honest and say I did not always feel that way, like when I first started watching the series I was like “wait ugh why did this one have to be the main character why couldn’t it be the hot one [Ben] instead of him” but over time, I did realize he was cute if in an unconventional way! I mean he’s PLAYED BY JAMIE BELL FFS 🤪
Maybe I’m biased after having seen Jamie Bell in other roles but like FUCK IT ABE IS WEIRDLY CUTE LOOKING!! 👍 I’LL SAY IT! I WILL SAY IT!! Regarding his personality which I know many are excessively irked by, I personally still very much love him in that area, even if he is dumb (affectionate). ❤️ I mean look at his stupid cute lil face, doesn’t it look like a comfy place to sit? (I’m sorry) Like personally, I spend my days and nights shipping him with Townsend, so even if I was magically teleported into the show there is no way *I* would be going for him (not the same for Ben though, he better look out 👅), but if I have to argue why he’s attractive then I’m not afraid to do it! On a separate less unserious occasion I could truly tell you all why I think he doesn’t deserve the slander & write an essay on why I love Abe so much. ^^
And usually I prefer “hot” over “cute” I think? Actually I usually prefer a combo of both, which maybe Abe can achieve in some ways? But basically I just can’t not choose him in this scenario, as nice as Philomena is, I cannot lie to y’all and not go with Abe 😇 Like I wanna pinch his cheek. ANYWAYS I feel like I just said wayyy too much so I better post this before I regret it 🤠
Please consider voting for Abe, I don’t think he’ll win the WHOLE hottie bracket of course but he’s been through enough y’all he deserves a little victory as a treat ;))
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Meeting and Dating Severen
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(Not my gif)(Requested by anonymous)
- You first met Severen at the sleazy bar you called your place of employment. You were serving a booth their drinks when he and the others made their entrance. And oh what an entrance it was.
- As per usual, Severen started to make chaos the moment he walked in, talking/laughing loudly and nearly getting himself into a fight. You really didn’t want to go over and serve him but you were the only there besides one other bartender and the man was conveniently MIA.
- So you swallowed down your feelings of dread and maneuvered yourself behind the bar.
- The rowdy man straightened himself out upon your arrival, a Cheshire grin spreading across his face as he focused his sights on you.
“Well ain’t you a pretty little thing.”
- Against your better judgement, a small smile spread across your face. He was much more handsome up close, and when he was behaving himself properly.
- There was an undeniable attraction growing between the two of you, especially on his part. He acted the same as he always did with women but there was something different about you, something special.
- Lets make things clear, none of these vamps know how to do things conventionally, especially not Severen. You don’t have a romantic start to your relationship, you have a frightening one.
- Shit hit the fan not long after you poured the unusual patron a drink. Like a rational person, you plastered yourself against the wall and watched with wide eyes as him and the others dealt with the other occupants of the bar.
- Once they were finished, Severen hopped down on your side of the bar, throwing his arm around your shoulders and calling you cute.
“I think we should keep her.” He grinned, twirling a piece of your hair between his bloodied fingers.
- You were obviously afraid; as one should be, but a part of you was weirdly accepting of the situation. It was as though what you’d experienced was so unreal that your mind decided to rationalize it as though it were normal.
- So when Severen began to lead you out of the bar with them, throwing a pointed look at his companions as they opened their mouths to argue, you just let him. And when he pulled you into the rv with them, talking your ear off and blatantly flirting; you let him do that too.
- Don’t blame yourself too much for your questionable decisions, you’ll find out soon enough that the two of you are mates.
- Since your new friends burnt down the bar, anyone who was aware of your existence thought you were dead which made things particularly easy for Severen.
- For better or for worse, the two of you grew close very quickly and soon enough he decided to shoot his shot. He announced that he would “watch you” as everyone went out in search of a meal.
- While the two of you were walking, he began to ramble on about how you made a good team and how it “only made sense” for the two of you to get together.
“So what do you say?” He grinned at you cockily.
- He kisses you for the first time once you agree, letting out a “well come here then” before he swiftly pulls you in and lays one on you.
- And thus, the chaotic vampire found his one true love.
- Pda? I mean you aren’t in public all that much but he’s constantly hanging all over you so I suppose that’s pretty much the same thing.
- Whenever you are in public, he’s making sure everyone knows that you’re together by keeping his hands on you at all times. He’s very proud of his girl.
- Bear hugs. He’s constantly pulling you in and wrapping his arms tightly around you. He’s going to squeeze the life out of you one day; you’re sure of it.
- Hugs from behind. They’re mainly an excuse for him to grind against your backside.
- Dancing together.
- Holding hands.
- Sooo many pet names; sometimes you’re sure that he’s forgotten your real name. You aren’t complaining though, it makes everytime he calls you your real name even more special/ powerful.
- Affectionate name calling. He can’t explain why he enjoys having you call him an asshole but you should know that he does.
- He likes picking you up, typically by your clothing before he decides that he wants to hold you close.
- Bloody kisses. You better get used to the taste.
- Be wary when he tries to flatter you, especially in excess. He typically has an ulterior motive when he starts to bombard you with compliments.
- He’s constantly teasing you. There is never a time when he isn’t poking fun and trying to get a reaction out of you.
- He’s an annoying ass yet sweet at the same time. He gives off crackhead older brother vibes most of the time. He can mess with you but is ready to tear someone a new one if they try doing the same.
- Witnessing him kick a door down then slide out of the way and hold it open for you with this innocent little doting boyfriend smile. It’s kind of amusing to see how quickly his attitude shifts when you’re involved.
- He’s constantly stealing things for you. You learn not to ask where he gets them from since it’s either a store or someone who’s no longer breathing.
- Causing chaos together. Want to steal a car? Want to start a fire? Want to go completely ape shit? He’s got an anarchist mind and he’s ready for a partner in crime; literally.
- He’s always trying to make you laugh. It isn’t hard for him which never fails to give him an ego boost. He boasts about how you find him hilarious to the others both when you and when you aren’t around.
- Getting to see all his neat little gun tricks. He likes being able to impress you.
- He may or may not get turned on when you handle his guns. Be prepared for more than a few innuendos and instances of him tearing off your clothes.
- He would absolutely feed on you if given the chance. He’d call you delicious before pressing his bloodied lips to your cheek and calling you “a doll”.
- He can clean up surprisingly well. You were genuinely shocked when you saw him all dressed up for the first time.
- Falling asleep on him in the rv.
- The two of you don’t exactly have a bed 90% of the time so you just have to try and cuddle however you can. A lot of the time, you’ll be sitting on his lap with him pressed against your back.
- You’ll have to change your sleep schedule if you want to spend any length of time with him. You being tired sort of kills the mood, even if he finds sleepy you adorable.
- You’re sort of used as a clothing rack. His sunglasses? On you. His jacket? On you. His rings? On you. Its both for “safe keeping” and because you look cute in them.
- Occasionally helping him lure in his victims, or being called a sweetheart when you refuse to.
- He’d find your morals both sweet and exasperating. He enjoys how innocent and kind you are but also yearns for you to be a little evil once in a while.
- Whenever you’re out on the town, he’ll either drag you to the bar with him or you’ll sit with the others in a booth while he does his thing. You‘ll most likely prefer the latter, you might not want to be in the line of fire when he starts causing trouble.
- Playing with or watching him play pool. He likes to wink at you whenever he catches you watching him closely, usually before he makes a perfect shot.
- He curses like a sailor. You can’t remember how many times you’ve had to scold him or slap his arm because he was being completely inappropriate in the worst way possible.
- He also uses insults like they mean nothing. He’ll either call you something or call someone else something which usually tends to start some trouble.
- You pretty much have to keep an eye on him at all times since you know it only takes him a few seconds to completely destroy the peace in the room or wherever else he is. As fun as it is to see him go crazy, sometimes it’s best to not let him get to that point.
- Joking threats. He likes playing up his vampirism, trying to make you a little nervous and enjoying the subtle acceleration of your heart. Even so, he’s the only one that’s allowed to scare you.
- He’s very protective of you even though he; oftentimes, tries to hide it with humor. He tries not to make a big deal out of things until he really has to though occasionally something will really set him off. You’ll be able to see the mirderous intent in his eyes, the twinkles leaves them and they just go cold as his smile drops.
- Anyone that tries to flirt with you is immediately plotted against. It isn’t uncommon for him to kill people that he thinks are trying to get with you. Jesse’s had to hold him back a few times when the group can’t afford a body on their hands. So yes, he’s extremely jealous.
- He claims you with one of his rings, making sure you know exactly what you wearing it means.
“This here,” he takes your hand roughly. “This here means that you’re mine, darlin. Dont you forget it.”
- A sick part of him likes when you get mad or jealous at/over him. Seeing you get all vicious and vindictive makes his day.
- You don’t expect it but he’s fairly good at easing tension. The only problem is that he rarely wants to ease tension. It really just depends on what’s going on, sometimes he’ll want to fight and sometimes he won’t; particularly when it comes to you.
- He’s got a wicked temper and no patience for complaining or anything of the sort. You’ll certainly have your fair share of fights, especially if you plan on staying together for a “long time”.
- He tries to make you smile when “pleading” for your forgiveness. He tries to “cute” or bother his way out of trouble when he manages to really piss you off. You can never really stay mad at him for that exact reason.
- You get a lot of teasing/joking ‘I love you’s’ but you get a few more earnest ones as well. You cherish them since they’re few and far between.
- There’s a part of him which doesn’t want to turn you, keeping you soft and warm, but another part of him couldn’t bear to see you get hurt or imagine a world where you’re not by his side. So he’ll most likely put off biting you for a while before he finally bucks up and does it.
- He’s ready to spend the rest of eternity with you so believe me; he isn’t letting you go anytime soon.
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lgbtqiacab · 4 years ago
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Thoughts of an angry feminist lesbian — Pride & Prejudice edition
Disclaimers: I know it's not all that pertinent to judge a 208 year old book with today's values but I never come to tumblr.com in order to be a productive member of society. I just like to rant in the void, like everyone else. I'm a simple woman, after all. Also I'm reading the gay version (Gay Pride and Prejudice by Kate Christie because I have no time for the straights anymore). Will update in time.
- Elizabeth Bennet is such an NLOG it hurts my soul. She is annoying as hell. She reeks of internalised misogyny. I'm very ambivalent with her character. I ship her really hard with Caroline Bingley though. Enemies to lovers is the way.
- Lydia should have been the heroine. Get it, girl. Premarital sex is the best sex, so I'm told. She absolutely does not deserve to be cut off from her family. Blame George Wickham. It's literally in his name that he's the culprit. No victim/slut shaming in this house. Ew.
- Kitty/Catherine "becoming good again and marrying some rando after not being around Lydia's bad influence" is slander. Stop.
- Mary does not deserve to be trashed on the tl 24/7. She also should have been the heroine. A woman with ambition? Who wants knowledge? That's my shit. Yeah she's struggling but who isn't??? She trying her best and (hopefully) enjoying herself and that's the most important thing. Also the real treasure was the friends we made along the way.
- About Mary again, she is always portrayed by perfectly conventionally attractive women in the latest adaptations and it makes my blood BOIL.
- Fitzwilliam Darcy, Caroline Bingley and Charles Bingley are all raging homosexuals.
- Darcy and Bingley are hiding a passionate relationship. They are so in love wow. You know I'm right.
- Darcy is that depressed homo™️ (the emo bf) and Bingley is the ray of sunshine who gets him out of his shell. I have so many headcanons about them. OTP. *cheff kiss*
- Give Mrs. Bennet a rest, she's the only one trying to help her daughters having a future. She is not "hysterical" or a comic relief to despise. She is making sure she and her children have a roof over their head after Mr. Bennet dies. That's called parenting. It is expected from a parent. Get ✨ it ✨ together ✨ y'all.
- Mr. Bennet is a horrendous father. I want to slap him. That mf does nothing else but despise the wide majority of his own children and makes fun at their expense. He's like respecting women (my own children too) who do not meet my conversational standards? Heck no. He doesn't give a flying fuck about what happens to his family after he dies. Sure man, read your books and be pedantic/detached from these "crazy women" all you want, so edgy of you. Also cutting his own daughter off?? What's up??? He'd probably be posting "I hate my wife jokes" and "edgy" sexist/transphobic/homophobic/anti-masks memes on facebook nowadays. He would say stuff like "wake up sheeple." Ew again.
- The Bennet family is sO dysfunctional jESUS-
- Catherine de Bourgh is a domineering woman (why is that a such bad thing, Austen???? I think it's very hot of her) and is basically a boomer BUT- in her defence, she is merely wishing for her daughter to be safe. Just like Mrs. Bennet. The times were harsh on unmarried women.
- William Collins is so bland, we get it, Austen. Don't get me wrong, he's a dumbass for sure but we get it, Austen.
- Btw my favourite thing about Austen is that she gives her name (Jane) to all the best/morally-upstanding/prettiest/most candid/kindest/angel-like characters and honestly whaT A MOVE. Our girl be manifesting before it was cool.
- "You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you" is such a powerful phrasing. What an drama queen, love it. Ily < ymamttyhaiaaly
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curiousfeline · 4 years ago
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You know something? I've admitted to understanding Percy on a very deep level because I can relate and understand his character which is what makes him my favorite. I understand his faults and strengths. I understand his situation and actions. Because of that I'm able to call out all the bad about him while loving him emmensly.
It's something I've done. I've done it with the other Harry Potter characters and I see their strengths and weaknesses. It's why I say my least favorite is Snape. Not because I can't stand him and don't understand him. I do actually! I appreciate him as a character but I don't like his personality and how he treats others. I still find him quite interesting regardless and think he had far more potential than Rowling gave him (doesn't just mean a redemption arc either).
I actually count Draco and his pretentious ass as one of my top 10 favorites for the series. I love how snobby and misguided he is because a LOT of pure blooded children end up like that. He is a product of his raising. He is still responsible for being an asshole. However he should be given a chance to change because he shouldn't be throw to the wolves because of how his parents raised him. Do not punish a child for the sins of their father.
What interests me is that people (*cough* Dracotok *cough*) adore Draco or even Snape but trash Percy for *checks notes* being annoying and pompous. Ignoring the fact that he was a boy screaming middle child syndrome and desperately wanting approval. He was an ass too, don't get me wrong but for people to think he never cared about his family? That boils my blood. He loved his siblings so fucking much.
He was broken when Ginny got taken, he was only one who noticed something was wrong with her and he was wrangling Prefect duties and 4 siblings. He was terrified for Ron when he was in the lake, "looking paler and younger than he was" because he was scared. Which makes you think doesn't it? Because didn't people tell Harry "They weren't going to die Harry, we were gonna pull them out after y'all got back." But Percy didn't know that.
After everything that went wrong in that school and everything he's seen. I don't blame Percy for not really trusting Dumbledore. And the boy desperate for praise and approval was fed that by the Ministry. You know I honestly don't think he even received that sweater from Molly that "he returned." Because I don't think if he was as mad and upset as everyone claimed he was, I really don't think he'd send it back. He'd either keep it because 1) he loved his family especially his mum or 2) wouldn't even put in the effort or time to send it back.
For people who are stans of Draco to make these comments and tiktoks bashing and shit talking characters like Percy aren't even giving him a second thought. And the fact that they're acting better than everyone else is kind of funny considering their favorite characters is even worse than Percy on Percy's worse day. They all seem to forget (probably bc they're watching the movies and haven't read the books) but Draco was a vile little demon and said some nasty shit.
Also I'm going to come out and say it: If Percy's actor was more conventionally attractive he wouldn't be one of the most hated non villain characters in the series. Go ahead tell me I'm wrong.
If Percy looked like.... let's say, a red haired Callum Turner (Theseus Scamander) people would defend him and like him more. Because a lot of people who shit talk him call him the least attractive Weasley, which is honestly more of an insult to Chris Rankin than Percy which is unnecessary rude and inaccurate because Chris was cute as hell and fit him well in those first three movies.
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ggukcangetit · 4 years ago
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Dreamcatchers 4
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Pairing: jungkook x oc
Synopsis: DI Jeon didn’t need a new partner. Unfortunately, his superiors felt otherwise; especially considering the extremely high-profile murder that had just taken place in the port city. Recent transfer, DI Choi Yuri finds herself confronted with a new cityscape, unfamiliar people, a hostile partner, and a homicide that is certain to bring back unpleasant memories.
Genre/AU: fluff/action/mystery | detective! au | police!jungkook, police!oc
Word Count: 4.4k
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: mentions of violence, alcohol, blood, drugs, death. Basically stuff you’d associate with a murder mystery/crime drama
Previous: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
Acknowledgement: shoutout to @stutterfly​ for designing this beautiful banner which i am completely in love with and stare at for no particular reason throughout the day. also a big thank you to @kinktae​ for helping get through a really tricky bit in this chapter :*
A/N:  reminding everyone that this story features a named oc because i’m still very unfamiliar with writing second person reader inserts. i’m not aiming for strict accuracy in this story, and all criminal investigation/forensics knowledge i have has been gathered by watching crime drama/procedural dramas! my knowledge of geography is also not totally accurate so apologies for that. once again, one thing right by @hobios​ prompted me to write a police inspector! jungkook story. would highly recommend reading that because it’s probably one of my most favorite pieces of writing!
Time: 4.37 am
Yuri had spent the entire night researching Park Jimin. Right from where he went to school up to all the scandalous newspaper articles recounting every aspect of his personal life. Priding herself on being able to maintain a professional outlook in her investigations, Yuri couldn’t help but feel appalled by what she had found. Park Jimin appeared to be arrogant, sleazy, manipulative, privileged, and everything that she despised in a person. Yoongi’s words rang in her head as she contemplated dropping the idea of acquiring a blood sample from the prodigal son of Park. No, this wasn’t because of her last case in Seoul. That was not why she was backing off. This was simply because she had no patience to deal with the self-absorbed antics of a privileged 20-something man.
Closing one of the last tabs, she caught sight of a familiar face. Not familiar in the way that you recognise an old friend, but familiar like a phrase you hear and cannot for the life of you remember where it was from. Park Jimin was seen exiting a famous restaurant in downtown Busan and beside him was another young man, so extraordinarily eye-catching in his loose trousers and green cardigan in a way that only an exquisite piece of art is.
An exquisite piece of art…
That was it. That was the phrase that made it click in her head.
“He’s literally a piece of art!”
“I mean, yes, he’s definitely conventionally attractive,” conceded Ahreum, a little annoyed that her photography was almost completely being ignored. “But what do you think of the pictures?”
“‘Conventionally attractive’? Is that the best you can do with your Literature & Creative Writing degree?”
Of course! This was Ahreum’s friend and Instagram muse.
Yuri snatched her phone from it’s charging spot and quickly scrolled through her friend’s Instagram. Sure enough, Park Jimin’s friend in loose trousers and green cardigan stared back at her from various parts of Busan, his expressions varying only slightly but creating completely different moods throughout Ahreum’s profile.
Kim Taehyung…
xxx
Yuri checked her phone for the fifth time in the last 3 minutes. Ahreum was supposed to pick her up at 8 am. It was currently 8.02 am. Not that it really made much of a difference, but she was raring to go ahead with her plan. A plan she had no doubt could easily blow up in her face, but weeks of fitful sleep coupled with shots of sugary coffee had given her a weird adrenaline rush which she didn’t want to lose.
A couple of minutes later, Ahreum pulled up outside her apartment, her large bike contrasting heavily with her petite person.
“Still don’t see why I couldn’t drive to the place,” muttered Yuri, putting on the large helmet with artistic paint splatters all over.
“The plan was to corner Jimin, and you can’t do that in your car which has a fucking police sticker right at the back.”
Yuri frowned. “Your plan was to corner Jimin. I just wanted to talk to him. And -” she fixed her bag across her body and put both hands on Ahreum’s shoulders - “I kept the sticker for parking privileges. I can take it off whenever.”
“Whatever. Just hold on tight,” said Ahreum, revving up the bike.
4.5 minutes later, they had reached their destination. Yuri knew that it had been 4.5 minutes because she had been fervently counting the seconds to distract herself from falling off the vehicle
“WHO drives like that? Are you totally insane?” she managed to get out, her hands fumbling on the straps of the helmet.
Ahreum gave her a sheepish grin. “Sorry, timing is essential in this case. Tae had texted me that they had reached just before I left from my place. We don’t have a lot of time. So I ugh-”
“Whatever. Let’s just get on with it.” Yuri tucked the loose strands of hair behind her ear, and mentally rehearsed everything she was going to tell Jimin.
Unfortunately, fate had other things in mind, because as soon as they opened the door to the diner, a familiar face (which most definitely should not have been there) spotted them and came over.
“Fuck.” Ahreum pulled out her phone and frantically sent Taehyung a text before the entire plan went down the drain.
“Yuri? Ahreum? What are you two doing here?” asked Seulgi, her long brown hair looked freshly washed and smelt of flowers.
A: why didnt u warn me that s was here fuck fuck fuck
T: i didnt see her… look it wont be that big a problem will it
A: pls tae the last time she saw ur boy they almost set fire to the library
T: shit ur right… umm maybe she-
Ahreum paused her frantic texting as soon as Seulgi came over to them. She gave Yuri a quick nod and decided to wing the situation as best as she could.
“Seulgi! This is incredible! I can’t believe we ran into you like this!” Ahreum hugged the taller girl. “I wanted Yuri to try the breakfast here so we decided to drop by before she had to get to the station. This is really incredible, I was planning to call you today actually. It’s almost time for me to choose my specialization and I wanted to-”
Yuri took this chance to slip off, as Ahreum steered Seulgi outside the diner. She didn’t really know why Ahreum was so intent on Seulgi and Jimin not meeting, but she trusted her best friend’s reasons.
Looking around, she saw that the large table near the window was occupied by the people she had been looking for. Kim Taehyung and his best friend Park Jimin. The latter had his back towards her, and as she approached she saw Taehyung’s eyes fall on her. She gave him a small wave, gesturing towards her phone’s lockscreen - a picture of her and Ahreum.
His face lit up in recognition as he stood up to greet her. “Hello! I’m Kim Taehyung. I thought Ahreum would be with you.”
“She’s umm…” Yuri glanced towards the doors of the diner through which Ahreum had led Seulgi out. “She’ll be here in a bit.”
“DI Choi, that’s not really true,” Jimin turned towards her, his eyes cold and alert. “Taehyung, your friend is diverting dear Dr. Ahn before she could see us and sabotage their poorly constructed ambush of me.”
Taehyung’s mouth hung open slightly, not really sure what was going on. “DI Choi? As in Choi Yuri? As in Ahreum’s best friend from school?”
“Yes,” said Yuri, feeling extremely awkward. She had expected to get two words in before Jimin caught on, but it seemed like she had severely underestimated him. “I’m sorry Ahreum didn’t tell you what this meeting was about. These aren’t the most favorable circumstances for us to meet. Nonetheless, I’ve heard a lot about you and it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
Taehyung bowed in response, but his expression was still uncertain.
“What brings you here, DI Choi?” asked Jimin. “I doubt it was because you were dying to see me again. But -” he stood up and leaned towards her ever so slightly - “I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea if that were really the case.”
Not for the first time, Yuri realized how powerful Park Jimin’s presence was. She could see him becoming a very successful CEO with how he commanded people’s attention. However, she couldn’t shake off the uncomfortable feeling his gaze elicited. It was like she couldn’t predict what he was going to do next, much less fathom what was going on inside his head.
“Mr. Park,” she said, sitting down on one of the sofas in the booth. Taehyung and Jimin followed suit, but this time, they were both seated on the same side. “I’m afraid this isn’t a social call. I’ve come to talk to you about the ongoing investigation regarding the death of Kang Eunwoo.”
“I believe I answered all of your questions last time,” said Jimin, narrowing his eyes. “In fact, I believe I answered all of DI Jeon’s questions. You didn’t have much to say, as I recall.”
Taehyung’s head snapped towards his friend. "Jeongguk? You were at the station? Why didn’t you tell me, Jimin? What’s going on?”
“You and I both know that you didn’t provide much information. But that’s not what-”
"I don't think I was really required to answer any of your questions, DI Choi. Linking me to a rival company heir's death without a shred of evidence - " he leaned forward once again, his silver bangs falling over his forehead - "Some would consider that harassment. That would mean my lawyer would have to become involved. And neither of us want that, now do we?"
This is harassment. You really don't want to know how I deal with any kind of harassment, DI Choi.
Yuri took a deep breath, trying to ignore the words that kept her up almost every night.
"Your cooperation is highly appreciated, Mr Park," she continued, placing her hands on the table. "However, in order to save you from any further harassment, there is something you could help us out with."
Jimin did not respond immediately, giving Yuri the time to continue her, frankly, insane idea.
"We would require you to provide a blood sample. Which would help us eliminate you from the investigation. It shouldn't take up too much of your time - just a short visit to the station, and you'd be free of us."
Yuri waited for a response - anger, disbelief, frustration - anything really. What she didn't expect was laughter. Full on hysterical laughter. In fact, Taehyung was probably not expecting it either because he kept glancing at his friend worriedly.
"You are truly remarkable, DI Choi," said Jimin, once he had calmed down. He wiped a lone tear from his left eye, the many rings on his fingers glinting in the sunlight. "After everything that you've witnessed, you really thought you could somehow convince me to provide a blood sample? Sweetheart, I have 10 years worth of DNA that the police have been trying to get a hold off. Do you really think you'd be able to convince me when you weren't even able to get an alibi out of me?"
Yuri's face fell slightly, her mind grappling with ways in which the situation could be salvaged. It was at this point that Ahreum came over, looking distinctly more worn out than when they had arrived at the diner.
"Ahreum." Jimin turned his attention to the other girl. "You have such an interesting friend. Are you sure she's from Seoul? I didn't think such naivety could survive in the capital. Much less in law enforcement."
Ahreum frowned, snatching up the glass of water in front of Taehyung and gulping down the entire contents. "Stop being a dick for once in your life, Jimin."
"I love when you talk dirty to me." Jimin winked at her.
"Cool it, Jimin," said Taehyung, his expression no longer confused and worried. "Ahreum, what the fuck is going on?"
Ahreum looked at Yuri, not sure how she could help with the situation. Apparently, things hadn't gone well while she had been diverting Seulgi. "I'm sorry, Tae. I don't know anything other than Yuri wanting to meet Jimin."
"But you knew it had something to do with an investigation," said Taehyung, his handsome features creasing. "Why didn't you tell me that your best friend Yuri was a detective? That doesn't seem like information to just leave out."
Ahreum looked at him guiltily. In Taehyung's eyes, he was the only one who had no idea what was going on, and he felt both hurt and betrayed by her. This entire plan had been a train-wreck and to make matters worse, Seulgi had returned to the diner because she had dropped her keys inside.
"What the hell?" Seulgi stood at their table, her eyes narrowing disapprovingly. "What're you doing here, Park?"
"Hello to you too, darling," said Jimin, leaning back into the sofa lazily. "It's been so long since I've seen that beautiful face of yours."
"So." Seulgi turned towards Ahreum. "Are you really interested in going into forensics? Or was it just a way to distract me so that I wouldn't run into him?"
"Seulgi, I-"
"Darling, they were just trying to convince me to provide a blood sample," interrupted Jimin, his face curling into a smirk. "Was that your idea? You know I would've said yes in a heartbeat if you had asked nicely."
"Fuck you, Park!" spat Seulgi. She turned to Yuri and shook her head. "This isn't how I thought you'd get things done. I can't believe you're bargaining with a murder suspect!"
"Now that's a bit harsh, isn't it darling?" Jimin was enjoying the situation immensely.
"Jimin, don't." Taehyung warned his friend.
"Seulgi, please, this isn't what you think-" Ahreum ran out after the taller girl, the diner eerily quiet after the blowout.
"Jimin, you can find your way home yourself, right?" asked Taehyung, getting up to swipe his credit card at the counter. "I have to go."
Jimin nodded, his fingers lazily running through his silver hair. It was a wonder all the rings didn’t get caught in his hair.
"And Yuri - " Taehyung paused, his long fingers clenching around the plastic of the card - "It was nice meeting you, I guess."
"I think that went rather well, DI Choi" said Jimin, once they were the only two left at the table. "I was thoroughly entertained."
Yuri pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache coming on. "My apologies for wasting your time, Mr. Park. Have a good rest of the day."
Once outside, she realised that Ahreum had left. Her mode of transportation had left. Without letting her know. She sighed and unlocked her phone, trying to figure out if it would be easier to walk back home or to the station.
"Were you abandoned as well?"
Yuri took a deep breath, preparing herself before facing Jimin once again.
"Friends these days aren't what they used to be."
"I don't know you, Mr. Park." Yuri crossed her arms and tilted her head to one side. "I have no preconceived notions, and I have no affiliations in this place. I am merely doing my job - trying to find out how Kang Eunwoo died. I don't really understand why you're trying your damned best to make things difficult for us. But let me tell you one thing- I'm not going to stop until I get to the truth."
Jimin seemed at a loss for words for the first time since she had met him.
"If you didn't have anything to do with Eunwoo's death, providing the blood sample should be nothing more than a formality for you. But by declining to assist us, you're pushing us into thinking you do have something to hide. I don't know about you, Mr. Park, but if I were involved in a murder investigation, I'd like my name cleared as soon as possible. All personal conflicts aside."
xxx
Back at the station, Yuri felt her head was going to explode. She hadn't eaten anything the entire day, her morning coffee forgotten in the chaos of the diner mission. On top of that, her desk had a large pile of papers waiting to be read.
"Goh dropped these off when he came in," said Jeon, noticing how she was staring at the pile. "Just procedural stuff - it's pretty much the same everywhere in the country. But each station requires anyone who joins to read through them and sign."
"Oh, I see -" Yuri stopped abruptly, her head spinning towards her partner. He had never managed to go two words without snapping at her, much less initiate a civil conversation. Why was he suddenly behaving like this? Was this some kind of trap? Was he baiting her?
Jeon seemed completely unaware of Yuri's internal dilemma, and continued typing on his work laptop until his phone pinged with a message. He quickly closed the laptop and walked towards the exit, already speaking to someone on the phone.
Yuri glared at his desk, trying to figure out what he was playing at. Gradually, her eyes landed on that wretched file. The 2nd Nov case file. The file that seemed to be Jeon's purpose of existence.
The 2nd November case that Jeongguk’s been overseeing - I want you to go over it. You might be able to help
Yoongi's words rang in her head. She began reaching over the partition that divided her desk from Jeon's, her hand was just a few centimeters from the file-
"Need some help?"
Yuri jumped in astonishment, Jeon's voice startling her into knocking her knee into the desk. She ignored the throbbing sensation, and focused on trying to explain herself.
"Need a pen to sign the papers. Mine's out of ink."
Jeon seemed to buy this reason, and picked up a pen from the large stack sitting inside a pale red mug on his desk.
"Anything else?" he asked, when her eyes kept flitting back to his desk.
"N-no." Yuri sat down hurriedly, sifting through the papers she hadn't looked over even once.
The next hour went by without much incident. Yuri had managed to grab a dodgy looking sandwich from the break room, and somehow finished it off in between large gulps of water. Never again was she leaving the house without eating.
Her texts to Ahreum had gone unanswered so far, which was hardly surprising. Yuri was pretty sure she was trying to explain things to Taehyung. It was best to give her some space at this point - she'd call and check on her later at night.
Jeon's phone rang again causing him to rush out once more, and from the fragments that Yuri managed to catch, it was Chief Inspector Goh on the other line.
"DI Choi?"
Yuri was stunned to see Park Jimin standing by her desk.
"How can I help you, Mr. Park?" she asked, after a moment's pause.
"I'm here to... cooperate."
"You're agreeing to the blood sample?" she asked, incredulously.
"Yes."
Yuri cursed under her breath. It was lunchtime, which meant that Seulgi and most of her team would be off.
Suho happened to be passing by at just that moment. "DI Choi, can I speak to you for a moment?"
"S-sure. Mr. Park, please wait here for a moment."
"You managed to convince Jimin to provide a blood sample?" asked Suho, lowering his voice.
"I guess so..."
"The labs are closed for lunch right now."
"I know." Yuri bit her lip in frustration. "I don't know how long he'll be willing to wait. It's already a miracle that he's showed up."
"I think I saw one of the junior lab technicians come back early," Suho wondered out loud. "Let me call him and ask."
Yuri waited as Suho dialed the number on his phone. In the meantime, Jeon had returned, his eyes catching sight of Jimin and temporarily halting him in his tracks.
What followed next was one of the most stressful 3 minutes of Yuri's life. Jeon was speaking to Jimin, when Suho informed her that the junior technician was available to draw a blood sample but would not be able to stay long enough for the sample to be handed over to either his senior or Seulgi herself. This was a definite issue because according to the station's protocol, junior lab technicians were not allowed to officially check in anything related to an ongoing investigation. It seemed like Yuri would have to wait at the lab until Seulgi or a senior technician came back, so that the sample would not be left alone until it had been properly entered into the system. The only problem was, Jeon appeared to be packing his stuff and Yuri's window to grab the 2nd Nov file was closing. This would've been the perfect moment, given that he was slightly distracted due to his conversation with Jimin. Suho seemed to sense the conflict raging within her, and offered to wait at the lab instead.
"Are you sure?" asked Yuri, her attention fixed on the file still on Jeon's desk.
"Yes," said Suho. "But I think you should tell Jimin that I'll be taking him to the lab instead of you. He'll probably take it better if it’s coming from you."
Yuri nodded and walked over to where the two men were having a conversation.
"- a bit annoyed that he didn't know I had been down here." Jimin chuckled and ran a hand through his hair.
"Why didn't you tell him, then?" asked Jeon, frowning. Yuri took this opportunity to swipe the file from his desk.
"Ah! DI Choi, I was beginning to think you had forgotten about me," said Jimin, his eyes falling on Yuri.
"Sorry for making you wait. Unfortunately, I have some urgent matters to attend to. DS Lim will take you to the lab and make sure everything is alright." She hid the file under her coat, and beckoned for Suho to come over. "Thank you once again for your cooperation, Mr. Park."
Jeon raised his eyebrow questioningly, but Yuri was out of the station before he could get a word in. She didn't have much time before he realised his precious file was missing.
Once inside her car, Yuri opened the file and read through every single inch of it. It was a grim case no doubt - a single mother had been stabbed to death by a homeless drunk, who was assumed to be the father of her three year old daughter. The girl had been missing since then, while the man awaited his trial in jail.
The pictures were quite awful. The small nook where she had been living told a rather tragic, almost pathetic, story. A young woman without many choices. Her pale, lifeless body only added to the sense of despair. Yuri wondered why Jeon was so obsessed with this case. Sure, it was terribly sad, but not unlike many other drunken brawls resulting in an unfortunate death. She wondered who was in charge of looking for the girl at this point. According to the file, no body had turned up in over a month. Which meant that she was either alive or her body would probably never be found. If the former was true, there was a high probability that this was a kidnapping. It didn't make much sense. Maybe there was something she was missing...
Staring at the picture of the woman's corpse, her eyes caught sight of a small detail - a ring. A ring which looked very familiar.
Sifting through the pictures, she found a close up of the ring in question. It had been lying near the body and it was assumed that the ring had fallen from her person at some point during the struggle.
Only...
Yuri took out her phone and quickly snapped a shot of the picture of the ring. This was absolutely against protocol, but she was desperate at this point.
It had been 20 minutes since she had run out of the station, and after making sure that Jeon had left, she made her way back in and dropped the file at his desk.
xxx
"Did you clear things up with Taehyung?" asked Yuri, sitting down at the table.
Ahreum picked up some pasta with her tongs and placed it on Yuri's plate. Tonight's dinner was in honor of Namjoon making it home before the clock struck midnight.
"Yeah, he's not one to hold grudges. He was just a little upset that I had lied to him."
"He looked quite betrayed when he realised that we had set them up like that."
"Don't worry about it." Ahreum shrugged while pouring wine into the glasses. "He's fine now."
"Tae can't stay mad at Ahreum for too long." The deep voice sounded familiar yet strange to Yuri, who had barely interacted with Ahreum's older brother when they had all been living in the same city.
"Namjoon!" she stood up, giving him a hug. He was still awkward with any kind of physical affection, though he had grown into his limbs and no longer resembled a gangly teenager. "Took me 4 days but I finally managed to get a glimpse of you."
"Ah," he said, pushing his black-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Sorry about that, Yuri. I had a major project due last night so I was basically living at the library doing research."
"Well, I hope it's not going to be as difficult to meet you from now on. You and Ahreum are the only people I know here."
"No new friends yet?" asked Namjoon, digging into the pasta. "Ahreum, this is delicious! We should've called Seokjin over. He always appreciates good food."
"Seokjin? As in the guy who runs The Moon's Post Office?" asked Yuri.
"The one and the same. How do you know him?" asked Namjoon.
"Happened to visit the bakery on my first day here. He's got quite a way with shortcrust pastry."
Namjoon laughed at this. "I'm sure he'll be happy to hear that. That place is Seokjin's pride."
"But back to the friends question," he continued, grabbing another helping of pasta. "Detective work not leaving you much time to socialize?"
"Sort of..."
"She's been having trouble with her new partner," piped up Ahreum, her eyes glinting mischievously. "Maybe you can help her out on that front."
"Oh? Who's your partner?"
"Jeon Jeongguk."
"You're not getting along with Jeongguk?!" Namjoon nearly spilled the wine on himself.
"Namjoon, please calm down. It's not that serious," said Ahreum, rolling her eyes.
"Sorry," her brother murmured, placing the glass back on the table. "It's just... I know you both. There's no reason for you to not get along."
"He's being a dick," supplied Ahreum, helpfully. "Not sure why. Doesn't sound like the guy you're always gushing about."
"I don't think 'gushing' is the right word... but I get your point. Has he said anything to you, Yuri?" asked Namjoon.
Yuri didn't hear what Namjoon had said. Her attention was fixed on her phone, specifically on an email from Seulgi. The blood on Eunwoo's sleeve was a match for the sample taken from Park Jimin earlier that day.
xxx
another chapter done!
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blackbatsnwitchshats · 4 years ago
Text
New Opportunities Ch. 6
Chapter 6
Chapter Summary: Ichidai's first day back to school, and the following weeks after.
______________________
"We found your runner."
"And?"
"He's dead."
"Well then, we'll proceed as planned. Operation 'Infiltrate U.A.' is officially a go"
______________________
All For One stood still as Kurogiri tightened the tie around his neck, fighting the urge to rip the abhorrent thing off and hurl it out the window of his new apartment.
While the petulant action might have matched his appearance, it still would have been a highly childish thing to do and he didn't want such things to become a habit. Tomura might have been prone to such fits, but he wasn't Tomura. He had more patience than that.
Most days anyway.
Today would be his first day at Aldera Junior High though, and he wasn't one to forgo first impressions. He wanted to get there on time, preferably earlier, and scope out the place he'd be haunting for the next two years. Yes, haunting, because he fully intended to make his teachers' and peers' lives as much of a living hell as he possibly could throughout the duration of his education there.
All For One nearly snorted out loud at that thought. Aldera was the bottom of the barrel in terms of schooling. Its reputation -if anyone could say it had any at all- was so deep in a trench it wouldn't ever be climbing out. There wasn't anything they could teach him that he didn't already know. The only thing they could provide him with was a proper alibi for his new role.
He might have never finished his schooling as a child the first time around, but All For One was fairly certain he was in for doing a whole lot of nothing for the next two years. Outside of building up some muscle to properly wield his quirk, which he could do just fine on his own, there wasn't a whole lot he needed to do. His body would be ready when it was ready and forcing it would only cause issues in the long run.
The best thing for him to do right now was lay low and attract as little attention to himself as possible.
He'd more or less managed that for well over a century. It'd be a piece of cake.
"You have your new phone?" Kurogiri asked, "Both my number as well as Tomura's are in there should you need us."
All For One nodded. "Yes, I double checked last night."
"Good. Let's head out. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have to deal with the morning rush."
"Ditto."
As they passed Tomura on their way to the door, he waved without looking up from his game and said, "Have a good day in Hell, S- Ichidai."
All For One quirked an eyebrow at him as he pulled his shoes on. "Kurogiri homeschooled you. How do you know whether it'll be Hell or not?"
Tomura shrugged. "I don't, but everyone in my game servers says it is or was for them."
"Well, ...I suppose you're not wrong. I'll see you when I get back."
"See you then."
______________________
Unfortunately, because something had gone wrong in the administrative process while filing his papers, All For One didn't get to do any sort of roaming before classes. That alone annoyed him. What really got under his skin, though, was the fact he'd had to fill out important paperwork he'd already completed again.
Now, standing at the front of a room filled with snot-nosed brats, he was just barely resisting the urge to strangle someone.
"Morning, class. Today we have a new student. Introduce yourself, kid."
Internally scathing the teacher's lackadaisical attitude, All For One plastered a polite smile on his face despite the scorn writhing in his chest. "Hello! I'm Suzuran Ichidai!"
Short and simple. To the point. Done.
Apparently not.
"And?"
All For One, or rather Ichidai, directed a raised eyebrow to the sad excuse of a teacher. "'And,' what?"
"Your quirk. What is it and what does it do? Why don't you show off a bit, get it out of your system before we start class."
Ha! Yeah, no. That'd be a very bad idea.
"Ichidai" leveled the man with an unimpressed stare. "Do you want to be the one to explain to the principal and police why there's a ginormous hole in the side of the building? Because I just got here and I'd rather not get expelled on my first day."
The color in the teacher's face vanished like water down a drain. "Ah, ...In that case, feel free to take a seat. There should be an empty one at the back, next to the window."
"Thank you."
The words themselves were polite, but -had they been a tangible thing- the sheer amount of sarcasm laced within them could have killed the entire class.
Various students eyed him warily as he made his way down the isle leading to his seat and he rolled his own eyes. Clearly he'd made quite an impression. Good. Intimidated was better than curious. The fewer people he had around him, the better.
He didn't need anyone getting nosy and snooping around all up in his business.
As class finally started, he took his sweet time carefully assessing the quirks he could see around him. He knew what they were, of course; gaining access to Aldera's student records had been laughably easy. However, reading about something on a computer was very different from seeing said thing in person. More often than not, people tended to embellish or downplay things whenever they thought they could get away with it. Regardless of whether that was the case or the kids simply not knowing what their quirks were truly capable of, taking things at face value would have been incredibly foolish.
Out of twenty-nine quirks, twenty-two of them were heteromorphic and unusable to him anyway. Frog-throat, luminescent skin, and stretchy eyes? Unique, but certainly not useful.
Only seven quirks barely caught his interest. Pyrokinesis, wind manipulation, bodily evaporation, rapid muscle growth, explosions, telekinesis and molecular solidification; all of them had potential given the right conditions. Taking them now would only cause suspicion though.
Perhaps another time...
For now, he tuned out the miserable teacher's useless droning and gazed out the window. He was in for a boring year...
______________________
Or not.
The kid with the explosion quirk was loud, and not just because of his quirk either. His entire personality shouted, "Hey! Look at me!" in an arrogant, infuriating way. Sneering at people, taunting and degrading them, even going so far as to physically assault them; he was a class A example of a bully who thought he was God's gift to Man.
All of it -combined with the fact he never shut up about becoming the next Number 1 Hero- almost made All For One want to steal his quirk out of spite.
Though the kid certainly wasn't there yet, heroes just like Bakugo Katsuki were exactly the reason why he hated the current social climate. People glorified anyone with a conventionally strong quirk; they put them on a pedestal, dubbed them a "hero," and believed they could do no wrong when it couldn't be further than the truth. Sure, there may be a few genuinely good ones, but -at the core- Hero Society was as currupt as could be. Even now, after centuries, people still considered those with heteromorphic or so-called villainous quirks to be less than human.
Goodness forbid someone end up quirkless in this time period, because it might as well be death sentence.
Case and point being Midoriya Izuku's existence.
For the first few weeks, "Ichidai" bore witness to the systematic debasement and abuse his lone quirkless classmate went through. Day after day, people left ill-willed flowers on the timid boy's desk, destroyed his personal belongings, and shoved him around like an unwanted plaything. All while the teachers turned a blind eye to everything.
It stirred a fury in his gut he hadn't felt in a long time.
Wasn't this what he'd fought against, once upon a time? Perhaps not for the sole purpose of the vulnerable and less fortunate, but it'd been a rather large part of it... No one deserved to be harrassed over something they had no say in.
Everyone deserved to exist without feeling like they had no right to.
All For One's tolerance eventually ran out, and he snapped, "Good grief! Do you ever shut up?"
"Ha?"
Bakugou, as well as several startled others, turned to him upon realizing he was the one who'd spoken. Their reaction wasn't surprising, considering he'd barely said a lick of anything to anyone in the entire three weeks he'd shared classes with them so far.
"You wanna say that again, newbie?" Bakugo suggested threateningly, ditching Midoriya to sneer in Ichidai's face instead.
Ichidai wasn't impressed, sneering right back at the blond without issue. "No, I don't think I will. You heard me just fine, didn't you?"
He gasped and held a hand up to his chest dramatically as he widened his eyes in false surprise. "That is... unless you're deaf."
After all, an immunity or tolerance to one's own quirk was never a guarentee. Given what Bakugou's quirk was, it very well may have been the case for why he was so loud. If it was, ...well, All For One had never had any issues taking potshots at people, especially people he didn't particularly care for.
Unfortunately for Bakugou, he fell into that category.
Grinning smugly, Ichidai watched the blond briefly freeze before he was roughly grabbed by the collar and jerked out of his seat.
"You wanna die?" Bakugo snarled, "'Cause that's what's gonna happen if you go around spouting shit like that!"
"What are you; a rabid dog?" Ichidai asked condescendingly, grin transforming into something more akin to a baring of teeth. "Oh, wait- I take that back. You're more of an attention hound, aren't you? You're so used to having others cater to you and what you want that anything less than complete submissal rubs you the wrong way."
The sound of Bakugo's teeth creaking as they ground together was music to Ichidai's ears as he smiled wider. "Anything to say? Go ahead, tell me I'm wrong."
"Yeah! You are! Big time!"
"Really? Because I don't think I am."
Popping and crackling sparks burst from Bakugou's clenched fist and Ichidai laughed, "Oh no! I'm so scared! What're you going to do? Use your quirk on me?"
Bakugou went to swing his fist at Ichidai's face, only to be caught by the teacher's extended hand.
"Alright kids, that's enough," the poor excuse of an educator chastised them, "Back to your seats. Class is starting."
Ignoring the teacher, Bakugou sneered and ripped his arm out of the teacher's grip. He shot Ichidai a glare and Ichidai smiled innocently right back, like their entire spat hadn't just happened.
The sheer incandescent rage that encompassed Bakugou's face was almost enough to make Ichidai giggle.
However, the realization that the teacher had once again stopped a fight between two kids seemingly on the same playing field yet had let Bakugou rip into Midoriya like a primary schooler would a Christmas present soured Ichidai's mood.
Come lunchtime, Ichidai didn't bother leaving his seat. So busy brainstorming little ways he could inconvenience the people who'd annoyed him, he didn't even hear the bell. It was the feeling of being stared at and the sound of someone clearing their throat that caught his attention.
Ichidai looked away from the window and found Midoriya standing at his own desk a few feet away.
Midoriya fidgeted and stuttered, "I -uh, thanks for stepping in earlier. I really appreciate it."
"No problem," Ichidai shrugged. "Happy to do it. His voice was getting annoying, and the teacher didn't seem in all that much of a hurry to put an end to it."
"Do you...uh, want to get lunch together?"
Ichidai thought about it. While he didn't intend to make friends with anyone, it would seem strange if there wasn't at least one person he talked to on a regular basis. He guessed Midoriya would be as fine as any -if not better- company than the rest of the loud-mouthed children in their class.
At least he knew how to be quiet.
"You know what? Sure. I brought my own lunch, but I can meet you wherever you want once you get yours."
Midoriya deflated, likely mishearing him before he jerked back up. "Wait, ...yes? You said yes?"
"I did, yes," Ichidai assured him firmly.
Midoriya smiled at him so genuinely it almost took his breath away. Truly, his grin was so bright Ichidai had no doubt he'd have been blinded again had the other boy been capable of producing light with it.
"Great!" Midoriya swung his backpack over his shoulder and raced to the door, looking back to wave at him before he left the room. "I'll meet you by the koi pond in the front courtyard!"
Ichidai waved back as the door closed, slightly bewildered by his sheer enthusiasm.
"Yeah... I'll see you there."
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literaphobe · 5 years ago
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Okay on the fatphobia as a teen thing? It fully robs you of respect. Im hilarious, and i dont mean that as a brag or whatever but i can make my friends laugh like hell, but in secondary school (high school) people would not give me the time of day. Id say a joke and no one would laugh, and then someone would say my joke nearly word for word and everyone would laugh. It was a nightmare for my self esteem and its only now that im in college that people respect me and think im funny
growing up fat is like.... getting told by the world that it doesn’t matter what you’re good at or how good you are at something, someone less talented than you will be valued anyway because they are skinny. now that you mention it, when i was 14 i got picked to play one of the main characters in a play for a theatre competition. it was a big deal to me, because all the other main characters were played by our seniors who were all at least 15, and it made me feel really good to be seen as that good.
it was an adaptation of a midsummer night’s dream, so i was playing a romantic counterpart, and sadly, there were a number of people who were unhappy that our professional director cast me, some were girls who were older and jealous to have been overlooked, and i won’t talk about that bit but my costar’s efforts to get my character recast were what hurt most. apparently, he said that i wasn’t attractive enough for him to put on a convincing performance. he also said something about how i should maybe put on some eyeliner, i think? anyway it was. really painful. and i knew it was because i was fat, because fat means ugly in the eyes of fatphobes, also i know he definitely said i was too fat at some point in his. displeasure. at having to act alongside me
anyway. it all worked and my character was recast. a very skinny somewhat conventionally attractive senior was given my role, and i was reassigned a smaller more comedic role. i was devastated at first, i think i either cried or wanted to cry, and rehearsals went on. crazy thing is, i did really well in my new role and had a lot of fun with comedy, and i thought it was a blessing in disguise. who needed to be the main character anyway? why do so many scenes when i could do less scenes?
meanwhile, the new girl was doing horribly. she could barely act, and it was clear that i was much more talented than her and did a much better job, even though i didn’t have the sexy skinny beautiful body and face that one might have associated with the character (the character in question was a girl who had two suitors and she only liked one of them but her father objected and wanted her to be with the other one. but hoooowww could a fat girl like me make judges and audiences believe two men could want me so desperately, right). our director who was really good at bringing schools to victory in this competition, realized enough was enough. she was the final authority, and it didn’t matter if people were unhappy. she quietly told me i was back to my original role, and the original person who played my new comedic character would be back in that spot. the skinny girl who was recast as my character wouldn’t have a role at all
(yes i know even when i got recast someone else was kicked out so I could still be in the play this is what happens when ur unbelivably talented 😔🤟🏻 fjsjdjdj jkjk)
anyway!! this time everything went great and rather smoothly. i had p much proved my talent as a performer, and my previously really annoying and fatphobic costar realized that acting with me was fun and that playing out a romance didn’t really mean shit LMAO. so we went on to do the competition and my teacher cried because during the play some of my cast members accidentally messed up parts of the set and knocked over props (all of which i needed to use in an upcoming scene) and she very nervously told me what was up before i went in for my scene and that if it was possible could i try and fix some of it and i was like “lmao ok” and went in and treated all the mess ups as a natural part of the set and fixed everything in a way that made sense for the character and when my scene ended and the lights went out i quickly reset the last set piece in a flash then ran out so the next scene could begin with the set perfectly back to normal. so ya i was an absolute hero and my teacher cried because she was so proud of me KFKSKDKDK
anyway we won distinction (the highest thing u can get it’s like getting gold) and the judges sent this feedback sheet to one of our teachers and in the feedback the judges pointed out my character as one of the best acted ones etc etc so 😌✨ it turned out good but the whole point is i wouldn’t have had to suffer so much and been through so much conflict and drama if not for fatphobia, and if that skinny girl had even a smidge of talent i would never have been allowed to play that role again even if i was objectively better at it
and like. something like this always happens when I graduate from a school and move on to another school’s drama club. i ALWAYS have to prove myself again and again because no one gives me a second look otherwise
sorry for turning this into a long ass story about me, i completely feel for u, having people straight up steal ur jokes is the WORST and im so glad ur finally being acknowledged as the funny legend u r!!!!!!
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imaginetyzx · 5 years ago
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“If you wanted to go on a date, you could have just asked.” wwwiiiiiith...... heh.... kyoya. Totally not obsessed, reigenquest
ahhhh very late but here we go! im winging it here
(oh btw were like. rewinding my age for the sake of plot. pretend im just fresh into 18)
The only thing luckier than the fact I got into Ouran was that I was able to convince them to let me have a boys uniform. The only thing is, I’m not out to my family, so when I leave for school I wear the girls uniform, and then change in the bathroom when I get there. Thanks to this, not only does almost everyone use he/him for me, but I also met the Host Club. It’s surprising I never heard about it though, considering I’m a third year.
Well, I’m not conventionally attractive, so it really isn’t surprising. Not rich either.
Anyways, that's where I'm headed right now. The Host Club. At first, I was only visiting as a guest, but the dramatic blonde 2nd year insisted I join. Even I was hesitant about it. I’m not that attractive, honestly I’m not special.
“Nonsense! I’ve never seen anyone like you! Each member of the Host Club caters to a specific type that girls like to see, and you are unique and unlike the rest of us!” He cheered.
“How?” I ask.
He started explaining the types of the other members. ‘Boy Lolita, Brotherly Love, Cool, etc etc.’
“You’re obviously the Nerdy type!” He shouted at me.
Well shit, he ain’t wrong. No arguing with that.
Besides, Haruhi was in there (somehow) so I caved and said yes.
Let's get to the point. I’ve been in the Host Club since early in the year. I would say November-ish. It’s April now. I definitely have a crush on Kyoya. I cannot deny any longer. Problem is, he never really shows interest in anyone. So I am just living my life the way I always have, having a crush that I’m positive won’t be returned, so I just sit quietly until it disperses.
I open the door to the music room and zip in as fast as possible, because I know I’m late. Had some work to do. It’s fine. I’m nowhere near as popular as Tamaki and the others so it’s fine.
After attending to some visitors, the room starts to clear out.
I check my phone.
“Oh, wow, it’s still early. Anyone wanna come to the mall with me? I need to buy a couple things.” I say out loud, as an invitation. I rarely do this, but every once in a while I like to humor them and let them explore other places that aren’t rich-centric. Is that a term? EnRICHed? Haha.
“I’m fine, thanks.” Haruhi pipes up. Since she declined, Tamaki dragged on his answer for a couple minutes.
He said no.
“Sorry. Mitsukuni has to uh. Brush his teeth. And do laundry.” Mori-senpai very clearly makes up an excuse. I’m not sure why, though.
“Well we would LOVE to come, but I think k-” Hikaru is speaking until Haruhi slaps her hand over his mouth. Thank you.
“I’ll come.” Kyoya speaks softly as usual.
Wait did he say yes? What?
“Oh! Really?” I say, obviously taken aback. Of all people to possibly say yes, Kyoya? What is he up to?
He nods, walking away to gather his stuff. This is crazy. I don't know if I can do this.
Bzzt Bzzt! My phone?
[txt.haruhi]: youll be fine!
Shit.
We get to the mall and I’m already finding it hard to make small talk. 
“So, why did you want to come along with me?” I ask him. He's several inches taller than me, but not many, so I hardly have to lift my head to talk.
“I was here once with Haruhi, and I didn’t have much free roam, since I had been brought here against my will, and without any money. I wanted to come back more prepared this time so I could properly observe.” He talks blankly, showing no signs of ulterior motive. Maybe he wanted to spend time with me but won't admit it either? Probably not.
We spend a little while walking around and mostly browsing. A few times we stopped because I found something on my list, or because someone recognized Kyoya. 
Some time passed and I felt my stomach rumble.
“Ahh, we should eat something! There’s a fancy place on the roof we could go to if you’d like!”
“Then I assume I’m paying? You don’t have enough money left for that place after your other purchases.” He is right. Wait, has he been keeping track of the money in my wallet?! Jeez! I know I’m not rich, but I’m not dirt poor either!
“Er-well…” I’m frozen. I did intend on paying for at least part of his food, but he’s right. I would only have enough for one small dish up there.
“Let’s just go here. It’s just food.” He gestures to a nearby fast food station and starts walking over to it, obviously not taking no for an answer.
I look over the menu, picking the cheapest options of what I like. He either hears my mumbling, or can read my damn mind, because when there’s only one person in front of us he speaks.
“Tell me what you’re getting. I’ll pay.” He doesn’t move except for turning his head back to me.
“No it’s okay really, I can afford this m-” Before I can finish, he has turned around and faced me with a glare. It’s not necessarily a threatening glare, more of a ‘this will take less time, just do it’ kind of look. I cave, give him my order and go pick a table.
A few minutes later, he comes back with two trays and sets mine down in front of me. 
"Thank you!" I say, he simply nods and starts eating. It's...odd. He seems…relaxed. Well not normal relaxed. More like he isn't putting on a nice guy act like he normally does. 
"If you wanted to go on a date, you could have just asked." He says, putting down his food for a moment before taking a sip of his drink. 
Excuse me. The fuck. Did he just say. 
"W-w-what? I wasn't thinking of that! I just had to go to the mall and thought I would offer anyone in the club to come with me!" I defended myself. To be fair, it did originally start off as innocent plans. Then the twins had to overhear me of course, so it was all downhill from there. 
"Even so, it's obvious that Honey-senpai and Mori-senpai made up an excuse to make it more likely you'd end up alone with someone. Or when Hikaru was about to say something but Haruhi cut him off. I saw you give her a nod."
Fuck. 
"I swear it wasn't intended that way! But I will admit, I am glad with how things turned out…" My voice got quieter the more I spoke. Idiot! I'm practically confessing my love right now! Shut up! 
"Why?" Kyoya asks. What? 
"Why what?" I say in return. 
"Why were you happy about it being just us?" He sounds genuinely curious. 
I sigh. There's no turning back here, if I tried to play it off he would see right through me. 
"When I first came to the Host Club, back when I was just a visitor, you were my favorite. At the time I couldn't pinpoint why. I mean obviously, you're good looking, but then again all of the Host Club is. I just had a feeling. Then, after getting to know everyone, I felt myself feeling the same way, but amplified. I'd go to bed at night thinking about the conversations we had that day, or wondering if you were asleep already, it was bizarre." I pause, to sip my drink. I'm afraid I'm babbling, but I don't know how to stop. I could talk about why I like him for hours. 
"But in terms of today, uh, we don't really get the chance to spend time together outside of school or the club room, so I was just really excited! You're r-" Somehow while I was talking, he took both of our empty trays and put them above the trash. He caught me off guard and cut off my sentence by grabbing my wrist, making me stand up, and started walking, trailing me behind him. 
Where did this come from? Where is he taking me? Oh god did I annoy him by talking too much? I do that sometimes. 
Kyoya takes me out of the mall, and to a random area right next to the mall. It's kinda like a tiny park, but just full of plants and benches. He brings us over to a bench and sits down, still holding my wrist, pulling me to sit down too. 
"Is everything okay? Why did we come all the way out he-" I don't let my concern show on my face, until he interrupts me. 
"Shut up, please." Before I can even reply to that, he kisses me. 
Well fuck! 
It's not a hard kiss, but it's definitely succeeding in making me shut up. He backs away after a moment and I'm frozen in shock. 
He grabs my hand and gives it a light squeeze before letting go and standing up. 
"I think that went well. We can do this again sometime." He turns around to face me, and smiles, before walking away. 
It wasn't a smirk, exactly, more of a happy grin? 
That's the important part. 
Happy. 
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