#like when I watched dicks the musical last year? that same kind of emotional experience. it's amazing.

[notbecauseofvictories]

my mother and I saw the substance together and it was so shocking, horrible, and funny, there were multiple points where she hid her face in my shoulder and I buried my face in my hands; we were laughing helplessly by the end, 100000/10 amazing experience.

[stressedkitkatttt]

Guitar Lessons - Erick(Part 1)

Ya boi back with another story. I feel bad because it's like all the smut writers just... disappeared, myself included. But life can get in the way, and that's kind of what happened to me. Does anyone even read CNCO smut anymore?

Anyways, so I know I had a Zabdiel story coming before this one, but an anon requested a smut story with Erick, and the Zabdiel story involved him and his guitar, so I thought, "Well shit. Erick plays guitar too, so why not make a story about both of them?" This is like a threesome, only they take turns, and each story is one boy's experience. This is part one with Erick, and part two will be with Zabdiel.

Note: I tried something new... Sort of. Since each story will be a boy's experience, I tried out using some slang from their home countries. In this story, there is some Cuban slang that might need some explaining.

"Acere" basically means buddy or friend and "Mono" can mean cute, and yes I know that in other places it means monkey. I hope I sort of used them in the right context lmao, if I didn't, let me know... I probably did.

Word Count: 1.7k

Warnings: smut

Anon: Can u make a smut about Erick plsss?!!

DISCLAIMER: Do NOT  think it is okay to take my stories and post them somewhere else without my EXPLICIT PERMISSION. Do NOT  think it is okay to take anyone else's stories and post them somewhere else without their EXPLICIT PERMISSION. Giving credit does NOT count as permission. You may reblog my stories, you may NOT repost my stories without MY PERMISSION. ~~~~~~~~~~~

It's been a long day for the boys, from photoshoots to promos and everything in between, they want nothing more than to wind down for the night and relax. On the ride back to the hotel, Joel and Chris are out like lights the second they get comfortable in their seats; Richard puts on some music as he tries to stay awake long enough to get to the hotel; Zabdiel and Erick seem to be the only ones with any sort of energy left.

Because everyone is so tired, the ride back was silent, save for the quiet murmuring between Zabdiel and Erick in the back of the van. As the van pulls up, you lean over and wake up Chris, who doesn't budge. When you do manage to wake him, he is completely out of it, his head drooping and eyes slowly closing over and over again. You and Chris are the last ones out of the van, you dragging him out by the hand as he grumpily complains about having to move.

Giving Chris his luggage, you walk inside with the boys to the elevator, pressing the button for the correct floor. A sudden tap on your shoulder makes you turn and you're met with familiar green eyes. "Do you want to join me and Zabdiel for a little bit?" You weren't tired, and they seemed to have some energy left, so you agree.

"Yeah, just let me put my stuff in my room and I'll come over." You respond. Erick smiles and looks at Zabdiel, who also had a smile on his face. The elevator stops and opens, everyone filing out and going to their respective rooms. You find your room and place your suitcase on the bed. Before heading to Erick's room, you head to the bathroom to freshen up. Grabbing your phone and room key, you head down the hall and find his room.

Knocking twice, there's some shuffling before the door opens, revealing Erick in more comfortable attire. He moves to the side and lets you in. You see Zabdiel with his guitar, lazily strumming his fingers along the strings. You also notice the takeout box from the restaurant you and crew members went to for dinner. Zabdiel looks up and flashes you a small smile before returning to playing his guitar.

Erick comes up beside you and gets on his bed, reaching for his guitar and playing a few notes before tuning the strings. You make yourself comfortable on Erick's bed, propping yourself up with the pillows against the headboard. When Erick is satisfied, he and Zabdiel begin playing a tune. You record a little bit and put it on Snapchat before setting your phone down and listening in. They begin to sing softly and you begin to zone out.

"Do you want to play with us, Y/N?" You snap back into reality and stare dumbly at the Cuban. He sees your expression and motions to his guitar, rephrasing his question. "Do you want to play guitar with us?" You blush and mentally scold yourself as your mind had instantly gone to the gutter at his first question. You compose yourself and reply.

"Erick, you know I don't play guitar... or any other instrument, for that matter. You remember what happened the last time I played an instrument?" He laughs as he remembers the incident from a few years ago. When he looks at you again, there's determination in his eyes and you know he's not gonna go down without a fight.

"But that was some time ago," he reasons. "Pensaste que Zabdiel y yo nacimos sabiendo tocar la guitarra? Por favor, seré tu mejor acere." There's a little twinkle in his jade eyes and a big grin on his face and you sigh. Ever since you met him, one look into his eyes and you were a goner. He could get you to do almost anything with one look, especially if he pulled a puppy-dog look.

You sigh once more and nod, making Erick grin even wider due to his triumph. You move down the bed towards him, sitting next to him on the edge. "Here," he says as he moves behind you, placing his legs on either side of yours and his head on your shoulder. "That's better." His breath tickles your neck. He reaches over and grabs his guitar, guiding it to you. You take ahold of it as your heart rate goes up slightly. Erick adjusts it so it sits comfortably in your lap and he has a good view of your hands.

"Listo?" He gives you a side glance. You nod and he guides your hands to the correct places along the neck of the guitar before gently guiding your fingers across the strings. He starts slow and the tune sounds vaguely familiar before it jogs your memory. This was a tune Erick used to play all the time when you visited him. As you became more familiar with the movement of your fingers, still guided by Erick, you became more confident. Before long, Erick had moved his hands away from yours and you were playing the tune with relative ease, messing up every once in a while, but otherwise, anyone listening could recognize the tune.

"See? You're doing so well," Erick rests his head on your shoulder, his hands resting in your lap as you continue to play. Before long, you're joined by Zabdiel, who plays some background noise fitting for the song, smiling at you as he plays along. Erick shifts suddenly and he moves his head closer to your neck. So close, you feel his lips brush ever-so-softly, making your hair raise. You weren't expecting him to do that, so your hands faltered and you ruin the rhythm. As you feel his lips against your neck, his hands break away and move to your sides, rubbing up and down gently.

"What're you doing Erick?" You manage to hold your voice from cracking, but it wavers still. He hums and his touch gets a little more deliberate.

"Eres tan mono tocando la guitarra..." He trails off. You blush a little, a little flustered and confused as to why he's suddenly acting like this. His lips finally connect to your neck and you freeze. "Estás de acuerdo con esto?" You nod, gently placing his guitar down as he begins to move his hands up your shirt now that he has the green light.

His warm hands find your bra, pulling back a little to unhook it and you pull it off. His hands find your boobs and begin kneading them, playing with your nipples, and making your back arch slightly. His name comes off your lips in a breathy tone. You wiggle against him and he groans as you pass over his clothed dick. He takes one hand and moves it down to your pants, fiddling with the hem. You take the hint and you stand up, quickly undoing the material and letting it drop to the floor while Erick does the same.

A rush of emotion rushes over the both of you and Erick scoots up so he's in the middle of the bed. You climb up after him and get comfortable straddling his legs. Placing both your hands on either side of his head, you lean down and press a fevered kiss to his lips as you sink onto his hardened length. Erick breaks the kiss as he groans in pleasure, feeling your walls bare against his length. In the rush to feel Erick inside you, you didn't bother to take off your shirt, but Erick found it kind of hot as he watched your breasts bounce through the material.

Your thighs burn as you begin to move your hips at a medium pace, giving both of you the pleasure you need but keeping you both on the edge. Erick brings his hands up to your sides before moving them under your shirt, feeling your breasts move against his hands. He teasingly rolls a nipple between his fingers, making you whine and he grins.

"Qué se siente, mami?" He asks. Your hips stutter at the sound of his voice, and you don't reply, too busy trying to hold back the inevitable while bringing it closer. Erick wasn't pleased with your silence, so he brought a hand down to your thigh before giving it a quick smack. "Dije, qué se siente?"

You take a breath in, "It-it feels so good, Erick. Tan bueno." Erick bites his lip and begins to buck his hips in time with your thrusts. He moves one hand from your chest and begins to play with your slit, running his thumb along the entrance of your opening. Your juices coat his fingers as he continues to work you closer and closer. Feeling your walls contract around his cock, he smiles.

"You gonna come from me playing with you like this?" He says, a slight cockiness to his voice. Who knew Erick could have such a mouth on him? Maybe he spends too much time with Chris...

All you do is nod in response, feeling the knot in your stomach grow tighter and tighter with each of his thrusts, and not to mention his fingers gently rubbing you as well. Suddenly, he smacks your other thigh, causing you to bite down on your lip as an explosion of sensation hits your body. Your inner walls grab at his cock, and he manages to rub your g-spot until you've come all over his cock and he keeps thrusting moving.

This only prolongs your orgasm and keeps you spasming around him. His moans become slightly higher in pitch as he feels the knot in his stomach begins to tighten. His hand leaves your leg as he begins to grab at your hips.

"I'm going to..." he grunts. A few thrusts later, you feel his thighs tense and he bucks his hips upward, shooting his load inside you. You both lay there panting for a moment, enjoying the chemicals roaming through your bodies.

"Gracias…" He says, moving his head to look at you. You smile at him lazily and take in some breaths. You slowly move off of him and go to grab a towel to clean the two of you off. After you've cleaned him off, you connect your lips with his again. It was slow and passionate, his hand coming up to your cheek. Before you can get too lost in the kiss, the strumming of guitar strings makes you break away and turn.

Sitting on the other twin bed is Zabdiel, casually strumming his guitar. He finally looks up after a few moments and looks at you. He smiles.

"Estás listo para tu próxima lección de guitarra?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taglist: @cracraforfandoms​ @kmsmedine​ @kikixfandoms @richardscurls​

[fckinsupreme]

Camp redwood opens again in 2020 and it just so happens that a certain counsellor catches Xavier's eye, so much so he might not want to let her go. The only thing that's sparked any sort of emotion other than longing for almost 40 years..

There she goes again. Walking along as if she didn’t know what was doing to him, her hips swaying, her eyes cast straight ahead instead of where he was standing. She had been on Xavier’s radar from the moment she arrived, the crew arriving several days early to help prepare for the grand reopening of Camp Redwood. There was a lot to clean up and a lot to do, and Xavier couldn’t help but feel a strong sense of deja-vu. But hopefully now, with Margaret’s ghost in check and Jingles & Ramirez no longer terrorizing anyone, it would be different than his own experience.

Y/N was the hottest of the counselors, without question. As was the case with his own group, most counselors were male, with Y/N being one of three girls. The other girls weren’t Xavier’s type, and he gave them as little thought as he would the ground beneath his feet. But Y/N…she was /the one/. They met the first night she arrived, after he caught her lurking around the woods in search of her hook-up—a burly counselor with a small dick and an even smaller, more fragile ego. Xavier made sure it didn’t happen, inviting her to the dock to watch the ducks in the moonlight. She hadn’t a clue who he was, had no idea that he was a victim in the 1984 massacre and was now a spirit tethered to the land for eternity. Maybe she would run away screaming if she knew, although she didn’t seem the type. Or maybe she would steer clear of him and never want to associate with him for the entirety of the summer.

But goddammit, he felt something for her. He had to have her; she was the /only/ thing that made him feel anything in the last thirty-six years. Ever since he died, all there had been was sadness, anger, bitterness, darkness. Seeing her, listening to that adorable laugh, witnessing the beautiful smile on her lips that he had caused, made him feel happy and like he was /alive/ again.

The way he saw it, she was the beauty and he was the beast. He wasn’t going to stay away, though. Quite the contrary, he was going to /get her/, no matter what it took. He knew summer would end too quickly and he would likely never see her again, and the thought filled him with such dread and rage that it almost consumed him. He couldn’t let it happen. He couldn’t let her just get away from him. It was still so early, he could get to her and see if she would fall for him enough to stay here with him forever. But no, that was foolish; surely she had family, people who would miss her. Xavier didn’t have that luxury, since his friends were the only people he had and they had died here with him.

But Y/N would have him, if no one else.

He watches her as she reaches the dock, scanning the water for any signs of the other counselors. He observes her form as she moves, the swell of her ass, the way her legs are bared in her shorts, her (h/c) hair blowing in the breeze. Xavier decides to come out of hiding when she makes her way back, stepping out into the path. She jumps when she sees him, her hand landing on her chest as she grins at him.

“You scared me to death,” she says, breathing in relief. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought I’d come check on you,” Xavier says, taking a step closer to her. “See how you’re adjusting. The kids are coming tomorrow, I hear.”

“Yeah,” she replies, chuckling a bit. “Yeah, tomorrow morning. I’ve been going crazy, trying to find the others to get the last-minute preparations underway. They’re too occupied with sex and with the ghost stories to get anything done.”

Xavier’s blood runs cold, a heavy weight like lead in his stomach. “Ghost stories?”

“About the massacres,” she says. “The one in ‘70 and the other in ‘84. Plus, the other stuff that happened in ‘89.”

“Right,” Xavier says, swallowing thickly. “Yeah, yeah. I…Yeah.”

“Are you okay?” she asks with a frown. “You don’t look so good.”

“I’m okay,” he assures, backing you up against a thick tree. “I’ve never been better.”

She meets his eyes, and Xavier swears he can feel his heart jumping in his chest. Funny, considering that he wasn’t even alive and hadn’t felt such a thing in nearly forty years. He can’t look away, slowly leaning forward with his eyes on her lips. She doesn’t pull away or push him off, instead moving forward as well to meet him halfway. When their lips touch, it only solidifies the belief that Xavier can’t ever let her go. There was no way he was letting it happen. Sparks seem to shoot through his whole body, and he feels absolutely invincible. He feels as though he could just walk right out of this camp, to the world beyond, with its various changes and shitty music. None of that mattered to him, anyway; the only thing that did was right here, her lips against his and her arms wound around his shoulders.

He deepens the kiss, and is delighted to see that she does the same. She isn’t resisting, isn’t making some kind of excuse to leave. She wanted this every bit as much as he did, and he decides to try something just to see. As the kiss grows more hungry and messy, Xavier’s hand creeps under her tanktop to cradle her breast. She doesn’t stop him, instead moaning against his mouth as she presses his hand more firmly against her skin.

“Shit,” she gasps, her head tipped against the tree as he rolls the nipple between his fingers. “Xavier…”

“No bra?” he asks with an amused grin. “You’re brave.”

“I was gonna—fucking /God/,” she moans, Xavier’s fingers rubbing the nipple in slow, featherlight circles.

“Gonna what?” he asks smugly. “I didn’t catch that last part.”

“Doesn’t matter now,” she says, yanking him down for a harder, more passionate kiss as both of his hands rest over her tits.

He doesn’t question her further. How could he now, when her tongue was swiping his in that needy way of hers? Her nipples were hard and erect under his palms, and he could feel his dick growing harder with every little pant she made, every little rut of her body, every swipe of her tongue. He tugs her shirt up, and she helps him take it off. It lands in a nearby bush, scaring away a bird that was perched there. It flies off, chirping angrily, taking refuge in a distant tree.

“We’re gonna get caught out here,” she pants when he pulls back to kiss over her soft neck. She smells like flowers and candy, her pulse beating against his lips as he kisses along her carotid. “I could lose my job.”

“We won’t get caught,” Xavier promises, his hand plunging inside of her shorts, two fingers gliding along the front of her panties as she groans hotly. “And if we do, would that be so bad? Your boss doesn’t seem like that much of a hard-ass. Not like m—“

He catches himself, but luckily, she didn’t seem to notice the near slip-up. He moves down to her breasts, pushing them together as he massages his tongue along her nipples. Her hand grips his hair in a tight hold, a beautiful moan spilling from her mouth as he pulls one nipple between his lips. He sucks slowly at first, before gradually going faster, his tongue swirling in rapid circles. She’s looking at him, lust in her eyes as she gets even wetter against his fingers.

“You’re soaked,” he remarks, dropping to his knees in front of her as he tugs her shorts down. “Can I taste you?”

“Please, fuck,” she begs, the sweetest sounds pouring from her lips as his tongue makes contact with her pussy. “/Xavier—/“

“Keep saying my name just fucking like that,” he says. “Fuck, you’re so hot when you say it. Do it again.”

“Xavier,” she whimpers, his fingers spreading her lips as he dives further into her cunt.

Her smell, her taste, makes him absolutely dizzy with emotion, so much that he doesn’t even know what he’s feeling. He didn’t feel this overwhelmed when he was still among the living, so how did this girl, this gorgeous stranger, have this kind of effect on him? He didn’t know, nor did he care to break down the mechanics right now. He was too focused on her, on her amazing, unique taste that coated his tongue with every swipe over her swollen labia. She was loving it, moaning her appreciation with every move he made. He sucks her clit between his lips, his tongue against it as he gives his head a few rapid shakes.

“God fucking dammit,” she whines, her gaze on him as she plays with her tits. “You’re too good at that.”

“Mmm, I know, babe,” he says, sucking on her left lip before flicking his tongue around her entrance.

He keeps it up for several more minutes, until she’s cumming with so much force that her legs nearly give out. He lies her down upon the earth and claims her, fucking her nice and slow when she expresses her desire for him. Her consent only drove him crazier with need, knowing that she truly did want him just as badly as he was wanted her. She’s a goddess, his own Aphrodite, her body so warm and so inviting for him. Her cunt is so tight, so wet, so /perfect/, her face twisted in pleasure as her hands travel all over his body. He wonders if his own is cold, stiff, something so disconcerting that she begins to question it. But if he is, she doesn’t seem to care or pay any mind; he isn’t sure if he’s relieved or disappointed by that.

He kisses her with fervor, conveying every ounce of passion for her into that one small action. He knows even a kiss would never be enough, not even intimacy on this level would be. He wants her like this for all time, wants her body and her soul and everything in between. How could he even turn his back on her? How could he let her get away?

He had to tell her the truth.

It was a realization so sudden and so horrid that he almost stops fucking her right there. Instead he increases the speed & force of his thrusts, throwing her legs over his waist so that he can pound directly into her G-spot. This brings a whole new slew of responses from her, her mouth open in a perfect O-shape, her nails tearing at his skin, drawing blood from shallow scratches that would soon heal before she ever noticed. The noises she made cause his cock to twitch, and he knows he’s dangerously close.

“Y/N,” he pants. “Cum with me, baby.”

He kisses over her neck and collarbones, her eyes squeezed shut as he leaves hickey after hickey on her skin. She cums at the same time he does, their names echoing through the woods, the sweet sounds they both made more melodic than birdsong. He can’t pull out yet, still connected to her, not wanting this moment to end. Not wanting her to leave him when the truth spilled from his kiss-swollen, saliva-coated lips.

“Y/N…” he gasps, his forehead pressed to hers as he tries not to cry. “There’s…There’s something I need to tell you.”

—

Baby tags: @littledemondani @wroteclassicaly @angel-langdon @my-thoughts-and-prayers @thorohdamnson @lvngdvns @leatherduncan @xavierplym @mrsplympton @xavierplymptons @littlegirlsdontplaynice @xaviersghost @codyfernmorelikedaddyfern @wickedlangdon @melodylangdon

[merinnan]

DMBJ Ep 6

I’ve been a bit behind putting these up on Tumblr, so I’m afraid you’re about to get a dump of the remainder of Season 1, plus the first two eps of Explore with the Note! (not all in one post, of course - 1 ep per post as usual)

So! Episode 6!

The Xiaoge Rescue Count at the start of ep 6 stands at 9 for Wu Xie, 12 for the protagonists, 13 for everyone.

- And we start back with Chengcheng and High Jr. I DON'T CARE ABOUT THIS SUBPLOT, MAKE IT GO AWAY AND BRING BACK XIAOGE AND WU XIE. 

- Why is Chengcheng calling her kidnapper dage? I don't like her or trust her. She is annoying and shady

- Oh, good, now we are back to Wu Xie being a good boy 

- That is a lot of guns and explosives Sanshu has recovered

- I am annoyed at how they all seem to think that A-Ning needs to be shielded from everything unpleasant because she's a girl. She's a goddamn mercenary leader. I think she can take knowing these things - and it's better to let her know as it's found out so that she can adjust to the news properly, instead of springing it on her when it can't be concealed anymore, like what happened when the blood zombie showed up.

- On a completely different tangent, Wu Xie's neck dressing has stayed astonishingly clear for running around in a tomb, crawling through tight tunnels, falling off of ledges and being dramatically rescued, fighting bugs, and fainting all over floors.

- Wu Xie is so sweetly optimistic 

 - LOL, sure Pangzi, you're here for archeological study 

- ....Wu Xie, you are disturbingly knowledgeable about guns for a college student

- Now that I've read the first novel between having watched ep 5 and now, my mind is slightly reeling from how innocent and babie drama Wu Xie is compared to novel Wu Xie 

- Awww. Doesn't matter which Wu Xie it is, babie with gun always looks kinda adorable.

- Also, I appreciate Wu Xie's trigger discipline. So often shows have such terrible trigger discipline. 

- Oooh, it's like a carved thing on the dais that got his attention. I thought it was like a computer drive or something at first, because it looked kinda like that.

- OH NO, THE LIVING VINES ARE HERE AND SNEAKING UP ON THEM 

- ...and pushing the button made them retreat 

- ...phew? 

- I am still concerned 

- The music signifies that something creepy is coming 

- lol, babie. Looking so innocent even though He Knows What He Did

- I don't know what that sound is, but that's not a good sound 

- ...earthquake? That's a bad thing to happen when you're in the middle of an evil cave. 

- WU FAMILY, WHY ARE YOU THE ONLY ONES TRYING TO STAY ON YOUR FEET WITHOUT HOLDING ONTO ANYTHING?! 

- So fucking stubborn

- This is where Wu Xie gets it from, if Erbai is wondering 

- A-Ning is the smartest one, staying sitting down 

- The tree opens up like a fucking security vault and ejects a coffin. Because of course if fucking does. 

- Oooh, yeah, that's that shot from the opening credits 

- "I can't read any of this, but it says this is the guy we're looking for" 

- "His story recorded here is the same as what we know" WU XIE YOU JUST SAID YOU CAN'T READ IT

- Come on. Earlier in the show you said "yes I can read this" and read it. And in the novel, you puzzle it out from being able to read bits. This part, you flat out said he couldn't read it, and now are telling everyone what it says 

 - I love continuity, but dramas really don't

- The music now is similar enough to the Harry Potter music that I almost expect an owl to go flying past 

- The owner of a coffin wanting the coffin to be opened hundreds or thousands of years later seems like it should be something more worrying than how everyone is reacting

- I wanna know how Sanshu knows the coffin has been there for 3000 years. Wu Xie can't read the dates on it, and the Warring States Period was 1500 years ago, not 3000 

- JESUS CHRIST, SANSHU, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE SENSIBLE ONE!

- Why are you suggesting you open the chained shut coffin in order to see if there's somehow something alive (or alive-ish) in there? 

- Awwww! Wu Xie going "no, don't do that, Pokerface told us not to touch anything"

- Like. Not, "no uncle, that seems like a bad idea" 

- But "Xiaoge told us not to, and we should do what he says" 

- I have the feeling that if this Pangzi is agreeing with something, then you all should not be doing that thing. Because this version of Pangzi is an idiot

- HOW THE FUCK IS THE MOVING COFFIN GOING TO SECRETLY HAVE THE EXIT INSIDE IT, PANGZI 

- THAT MAKES THE LEAST SENSE OUT OF EVERYTHING SO FAR 

- Pan Zi's "WTF do you think you're doing" look

- This Pangzi is so bad 

- I even like Chengcheng better than him. And I wish they had taken her into the tomb and used her as bait. 

- I'm glad he's better in other adaptations. Like, I love the Pangzi in Chongqi. I am so glad that he was my intro to Pangzi, not this one

- DON'T MAKE THE BABIE SAD BY BEING DUMB

- A-Ning really should not be just standing there with her leg injury. I've had a muscle biopsy before where they took it from the thigh, which is a similar 'injury' to what she's got, and you do not get on your feet unless you absolutely have to for days afterwards.

- At least they have her limp when she's walking, and it's kinda sad that I'm glad they do that! 

- And Pan Zi should not be doing hard physical labour with a fucking gut wound

- But I think I'm more annoyed by A-Ning, because I have personal experience with her kind of injury so know first-hand what kind of pain she's causing herself by standing and walking 

- HUMAN BRAIN LOGIC GO

- Pangzi you fucking dick, just standing there watching. You should be pushing instead of Pan Zi 

- Hahahah, after all his shittalk and boasting, and he can't do it 

- Oh, there, finally

- I know that inside lid is supposed to be jade, but it looks so terribly fake. Oh my god. It's awful 

- It looks like a bad Photoshop of one of those Windows 98 default backgrounds

- I love the looks everyone gives Pangzi every time he slips up and talks about getting money from the stuff in the tomb 

- LOL, that's not a carving, that's a couple of translucent green plastic discs stuck on top of Windows Background Photoshop cover

- ...I'm kinda waiting for someone to suddenly shout BOO! really loudly while they're all carefully trying to listen for any sounds in the coffin

- They're almost at the end of the first novel in terms of plot, and there's still 4 and a half eps to go

- Wow, I think that's the first time I've seen Sanshu actually worried 

- lol, and now Pangzi says he believes him, rather than get his ear that close to the coffin himself 

- PANGZI DON'T STARTLE SOMEONE WHO HAS THEIR FINGER ON THE TRIGGER OF A GUN & DEFINITELY DON'T SMACK THE GUN

- Wu Xie has a lot of control to have not accidentally shot right then

- LOL, after all their declarations how they're archaeologists, not tomb robbers, & how they're here to protect cultural artefacts from robbers, etc - they go make references to the northern and southern schools of tomb raiding

- Just without actually saying exactly what the 'Southern School' being referred to actually is. 

- ....and now Pangzi jumps in front of the pointed gun as he grabs it. Do you have a fucking death wish, dude? 

 - And now we see the infamous bronze armour! Jade armour. Whatever

- You'd think they'd have learned to fucking take all of A-Ning's guns away from her after last time she held one of them at gunpoint 

- OMG, the face on the helmet is so fucking ridiculous, I can't - It's not even properly positioned over his face

- Aaaaah, Sanshu called him tianzhen  I'm so happy at being able to identify that word now it's ridiclous 

- That...that is not what peeled skin looks like 

- Pangzi comes right out and admits he's a tomb robber 

- And for the first time, no-one calls him on it

- Or correct him for calling them tomb robbers 

- Ah, there you are, Xiaoge. I was wondering how long it would take for you to be back 

- I see looking for people in a tomb requires no shirt XD

- Better shots of shirtless Xiaoge

- Like, same, Wu Xie. Same.

- Look, I have two braincells, and one is for Xiaoge and one is for pingxie

- YOU ACTING LIKE THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T HAVE ANY FRIENDS, PANGZI

 - Oooh, this is a goood shot of the tattoo. And of who the tattoo is on

- I don't have a Xiaoge problem. It's the opposite of a problem.

- Seriously, Pangzi is so fucking lucky that Xiaoge didn't kill him a dozen times over during their first meetings here

- Also, now that Xiaoge has explained why he threw a knife at Pangzi, I believe it's time to update the Xiaoge Rescue Count to 9 for Wu Xie, 13 for the protagonists, 14 for everyone.

- Although maybe I should have also been keeping a People Eyerolling At Pangzi Count given how often it's been happening

- More Xiaoge pics, feat. emotions that are not 'worrying about Wu Xie'

- Also, did he throw the corpse off the platform after he broke it's neck, or did it yeet itself off somehow? 

- I mean, I too wanna know how Xiaoge knows all this stuff if this was all put here 3000 years ago

- I do love that Wu Xie is already about the only person who Xiaoge will actually look at instead of staring down or straight ahead

- LOL, Wu Xie won't even let Pangzi so much as touch this. 

- I honestly appreciate that Xiaoge appears to travel lightly enough that he doesn't have a spare shirt

- EVERYTHING makes Wu Xie better than everyone else (except Xiaoge), Pangzi

- lol, Sanshu, yes. You tell him. 

- Hahahah, and Wu Xie playing along with Sanshu, the little adorable shit 

 - THE LOOK ON HIS FACE 

- KJFDHKJDAFHFKASDJHFKJASDLHGFSKLJ 

- AND DON'T THINK I DON'T SEE THAT SMIRK, WU XIE 

- There is absolutely not enough of little shit!Wu Xie in S1

- Loooool, his little nod at Sanshu now that they got their way and made Pangzi promise to stfu for the time being 

- And that is the first time I've seen that style of carriage roll like a car 

- Those skull ballistae were a cool aesthetic, though

- THAT CARRIAGE WAS ROLLING LIKE A FUCKING CAR, HOW IS IT BACK UPRIGHT AND ROLLING ALONG THE GROUND TO THE CLIFF 

- HOW TF IS IT ROLLING ANYWHERE WITH A SMASHED WHEEL 

- HOW TF IS HE ABLE TO HOLD IT FOR EVEN A SECOND, ESPECIALLY WITH ONE HAND

- A thin as fuck flagpole is going to give you jack shit in terms of something to brace with when it comes to that much weight 

- THE SCRIPTWRITER OF THIS SCENE IS BAD AND SHOULD FEEL BAD 

- *cries in physics minor*

- I can suspend disbelief for aliens, zombies, everything about Xiaoge, logic holes, and plot pits. Apparently my line is a non-cultivator breaking the laws of physics. 

- Aaaah, here come the zombies 

- So this dude is not the zombie dude 

- He is the emperor, I think?

- OH MY GOD THAT GREENSCREEN IS JUST THE WORST 

- I thought the one on the river was bad. The one of her falling as he dives off the cliff to save her is actively painful 

- Oh, now it looks like we're gonna have a dumb love triangle in the flashback. Yay. *waves tiny flag*

- Bitch, be a bit more grateful. Yes, your ex-lover caught you as you were falling & did so by basically flying, but that's just standard wuxia defiance of physics. Your husband held a FUCKING CARRIAGE with ONE HAND for AT LEAST TWO WHOLE MINUTES to keep you alive before your ex finally showed up

- "Were you really frightened?" Your majesty, what kind of a stupid question is that? 

- The emperor's armour is really pretty, I gotta say 

- Uuuugh, this stupid love story hurts in a bad way 

- I'm just gonna fast forward through it 

- ...and there's the end of the episode.

- That love triangle is going to make me scream, I know it 

- But that does explain how they're going to pad out the episodes a bit more with how far through the plot they are already 

- None of them are even really that pretty to make up for the boring, trite, love triangle plot

- How do they expect to keep my attention through it if I don't even have eye candy?!?! 

- I will be seriously headdesking if this flashback goes on for more than the next ep! 

- Oh well, there we are. The end of ep 6

The Xiaoge Rescue Count at the end of ep 6 stands at 9 for Wu Xie, 13 for the protagonists, 14 for everyone. 

[dinoyoongi]

Love You 3000

SYNOPSIS: You and Jungkook go to see Avengers: Endgame together and find it difficult to contain your emotions.

PAIRING: Jungkook x You

GENRE: Fluff

WARNINGS: Language, Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame, Titanic and The Notebook. You have been warned.

WORD COUNT: 1237

___________________________________

“I can't believe we got this entire theater to ourselves,” you marvel, your eyes taking in the expanse of empty seats. You turn to your boyfriend, smacking him gently on the arm. “Please tell me you didn't buy it out for privacy.”

“No way,” he mutters, popcorn literally dropping out of his stuffed cheeks with his words. You flick away a kernel that lands on your knee. “Most of my fans are at school right now and the ones who aren't are sleeping. Who in their right mind goes to see a three hour movie at nine in the morning?”

“Besides us?” you ask sarcastically. He reaches out to pinch you and you expertly dodge.

“It was either see it early in the morning or wait until it is released on digital. You're already lucky I didn't go see it with the boys yesterday.”

“I'm lucky? Kookie, I could have seen this movie the night it was released. You're lucky that I waited while somebody was out of the country.”

He grabs your face with his greasy, butter-stained fingers, squishing your cheeks together playfully. “Aigoo, I'm so sorry that your boyfriend missed seeing a movie to accept a prestigious award and perform at the Billboard Music Awards. I'm the worst.”

You yank your face away from his grip, leaning over to kiss him quickly on the cheek. “As long as you admit it.”

Jungkook emits a noise that is half sigh, half laughter of defeat. Although he tries he hardest to keep up with you, you are the queen of quick quip. Noticing that the previews are beginning, you pull your knees to you chest to get comfortable.

“Did the guys tell you anything about the movie?” you ask curiously. You've been smart enough to stay off of social media for the past week to avoid spoilers but with Jungkook living in the dorm with the other six members of BTS who all went to see the movie last night, well … you knew he might not have been so lucky.

Surprisingly, he shakes his head no. “They didn't tell me anything except that it's really, really sad. Jin and Hoseok cried a lot, I guess.”

You burst into laughter. You were never much of a crier when it came to films. While they were entertaining, you were always able to separate yourself from the experience. Jack freezing to death at the end of Titanic? False. Leonardo DiCaprio is alive and healthy, dating supermodels and advocating against climate change. Noah and Allie getting old and dying together at the end of The Notebook? False. Both actors are barely forty-years-old, their brains and bodies alert as can be. Not much has broken you before and you're confident that The Avengers isn't going to change that.

“Do you need me to go grab you some tissues in case you get emotional?” you tease. Jungkook reaches out to pinch you again, succeeding this time with a playful nip to the shoulder. You laugh as you shove him away.

“I better not see any tears coming from you, you stone witch,” he jokes, readying his popcorn for the movie just as the lights start to dim. You waste no time getting yourself as comfortable as possible; Jungkook's jacket serving as a blanket across your lap, knees tucked to your chest, head against his shoulder as you steal handfuls from his obnoxiously large tub of popcorn.

_________________________________

Blinking as quickly as you can, you lean away from Jungkook, going for a long sip of soda. On screen, Hawkeye watches in devastation as Natasha plunges to her death. You're surprised when you feel a slight stinging along your eyelids.

No, you tell yourself. You weren't even that emotionally invested in Black Widow's character. You're actually kind of relieved that it's her and not one of your favorites. So why is this affecting you right now? Hearing a small sniffle, you turn to look at Jungkook. He's hurriedly swiping at something under his left eye.

“Are you crying?” you ask him, momentarily forgetting your own almost-tears. He scoffs in disbelief, giving you a quick glance. Just quick enough to make out the redness rimming his eyes. You grin and grab his hand, entwining your fingers. “It's okay, Kookie. They're just fictional characters.”

He scowls at you but doesn't pull his hand away. “I'm not crying! I was choking on some popcorn.”

You nod, clearly patronizing him as you pat his fingers with your free hand. “Okay, Jagiya. Whatever you say.”

_________________________________

“What the fuck,” you whisper to yourself as you watch the events unfolding on the big screen. Spider-Man is knelt down next a crispy fried Tony Stark. Are they killing Iron Man – your number one favorite superhero of all time? “No fucking way.”

You feel Jungkook's grip on your fingers tighten but you don't dare to look at him. This time, there's not only a stinging at your waterline. There's a pressure on the bridge of your nose and your bottom lip wobbles unsteadily. It's okay, you tell yourself. It's not real. That's Robert Downey Jr. up there. Tony Stark doesn't really exist.

It doesn't work this time. Against your will, a tear slips down your cheek. And then another. And another. Before you know it, you are a sniffling, sobbing mess. You keep as quiet as possible. Despite wanting nothing more than to bury your face into Jungkook's shoulder, you know it'd be deserved karma when he undoubtedly makes fun of you.

So you sit still as stone, letting tears fall as quietly as possible. When they get particularly bad, you disguise your sobs by sipping on your soda.

You are strong. Be strong. You are a rock. A Stone Witch.

“Jagiya,” Jungkook croaks from next to you. Glancing at him from the corner of your eye, you're surprised when you see that his face matches yours; red, wet and puffy with tears.

Fuck it.

You allow yourself to break, yanking Jungkook around his shoulders and tugging him closer to you. You're both appreciative of the empty theater when you realize how ridiculous you must look, clinging to each other desperately as you sob over the death of a fictional death.

When the screen fades to black and the credits begin to roll, you both heave sighs of relief.

“Y/N, I love you 3000,” he mumbles through sniffles. Even though you're still a mess, you giggle. You reach up, pulling the sleeve of your sweater over your palm to wipe his face. “We might have to sit here for a few minutes before we meet my manager. I don't want him to see me like this.”

You nod your head against his shoulder, his chin coming to rest atop your head.

“Kookie?” you call softly. He hums in response. “If you tell anybody that I cried this hard, I'm going to have to kill you, okay?”

“Y/N?” he counters in the same gentle whisper. You tilt your chin to look at him. “I recorded the whole thing.”

The movie forgotten, he lets out his signature high-pitched laugh before leaping to his feet, jumping over seats in the isles two at a time. You hurry to collect both of your jackets and bags, rushing after him angrily. “Kookie! Jungkook, get back here! Delete that video or I post the photos I have of you when Jimin drew that dick on your face! Kookie!”

[jeremiahgrey]

JEREMIAH GREY ##STATS&BIO

Basic Information

Full Name: jeremiah grey

Nickname(s): jay

Age: twenty-four

Date of Birth: march 23, 1995

Zodiac Sign: aries

Hometown: las vegas, nevada

Current Location: san francisco, california

Ethnicity: his mother is caucasian, his father is african american

Nationality: american

Gender: cis male

Pronouns: he/him

Orientation: heterosexual

Physical Appearance

Face Claim: justice smith

Hair Colour: dark brown

Eye Colour: dark brown

Height: 5′10″ (178 cm)

Weight: 149 lbs (68 kg)

Health

Physical Ailments: none

Neurological Conditions: borderline personality disorder

Allergies: none

Sleeping Habits: varies, depending on level of anxiety/current state of mind.

Eating Habits: varies. tends to snack frequently, rather than eat large meals.

Exercise Habits: goes for a run 1-2 times a day.

Emotional Stability: it varies, but overall about a 5 or 6.

Sociability: likes to be alone, or in the company of 1-5 other people. but he doesn’t fear public places or crowds and doesn’t have social anxiety (typically). just a preference.

Addictions: cigarettes, usually stress related.

Drug Use: none that he consumes habitually. he’s experimented with psychedelics and marijuana, but it’s just a once in while type thing.

Alcohol Use: about once or twice a week on average.

Personality

Positive Traits: adaptable, adventurous, amusing, charming, determined, quick witted, resourceful, tough

Negative Traits: detached, finicky, moody, obsessive, quick tempered, stubborn, unstable

Hobbies: swimming, running, conspiracy theories, hiking, visiting abandoned towns/buildings & old cemeteries, people watching

Habits: smoking, whistling, biting the skin around his nails, fiddling with objects or his clothing, tapping his foot

BIO:

TRIGGER WARNINGS: CHILDHOOD ABUSE, SELF HARM & SUICIDE IS BRIEFLY MENTIONED, MENTAL HEALTH

Jeremiah grew up in Las Vegas

His father left him and his mother when Jeremiah was 12. He had been verbally and physically abusive to both of them up until his departure.

The trauma stuck with Jeremiah and later led to him being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder

When he was in middle school he would have “episodes” of social and mental withdrawal. They would last a few hours typically, and without the clinical resources to diagnose it, he would always refer to it as being “trapped in himself”

Being trapped meant he was disassociating. He would basically just “blank out.” An inability to focus on one thing, just racing thoughts that he couldn’t keep track of or characterize. Often times he would have to physically escape as well, isolating from other people. A lot of the time he had urges to self harm, or even suicidal fantasies.

His personality for the most part was bubbly and charismatic, he was adventurous and always starting a new hobby or interest. And then he would become “trapped” in his mind.

His inability to characterize his mental illness, and his childhood trauma, culminated in a short temper.

He was suspended from school in his junior year for getting into a fist fight. He was sent to mandatory counseling sessions, where he was formally diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder.

For a few years he faded in and out, never quite having a quick fix or remedy when he felt trapped or angry. And he refused medication, or any forms of continued therapy.

His senior year of school he just couldn’t put up with it anymore. The bouts of aggression, being labelled a freak, the lost sense of loneliness that accompanied being “trapped.”

Every time he’d have an “episode” he would journal. An attempt at collecting and manifesting the racing thoughts. He would smoke a cigarette, hold his breath, count to ten, and write everything he possibly could. Then he would go for a run.

It worked, at least a little bit. It made him feel more in control. A way to cope. And whenever he feels it coming on, he has to get away, and chase that ability of control. He doesn’t always have to write, but he needs to do something. Go to the top of a building and yell his thoughts, or to a creek to throw rocks and count out his feelings. It’s not a one hundred percent fix, and he still has outbursts that mimic rage. But he can clench his fists and disappear and try to deal with it.

He moved to San Francisco when he was twenty one. Just to get out on his own, face the world. His mom had a new boyfriend, someone better than his father. And he felt okay leaving her, finding himself.

Today he’s still the same guy with borderline personality disorder, but it’s not a ghost that unwittingly haunts him. He just lets it happen, redefines it. Yeah, a bit unstable, but he doesn’t fear it anymore. Of course, he still has the traumatic threads of his pasts that still weave into his character from time to time. But he feels more free than he’s ever felt before. He has an apartment, and a job, and a different outlook on his mental health. It doesn’t feel like he’s trapped anymore, it’s just a burst of  inward thinking that he can channel into something recognizable and bearable.

Jeremiah works as a delivery guy for the businesses on Carroway Street.

FAST FACTS / HEADCANONS / PERSONALITY:

Goofy and lovable, unless he’s in a “mood.” Sometimes he may seem a bit odd or scatter-brained, jumping from topic to topic in conversation.

Likes memorizing random facts, and sprinkles them in when talking to people. He doesn’t naturally have a very good memory, so he tries to purposefully improve on that.

Often comes up with nicknames for people.

Sometimes he’ll just say some cryptic, vague shit. Something ominous or nonsensical. This is just him thinking out loud usually.

The way he interacts with people is usually pretty vibe based. If someones a dick, he’s a dick. If someones acting tough, he’ll probably try to get under their skin or irritate them a bit. He’s not afraid to say what’s on his mind, and usually the thought of “filtering” himself isn’t even present. It doesn’t feel controversial to him to say some of the things he says. He doesn’t think of himself as bold or brash, but he’s come to learn over his entire lifetime that it’s the reason he’s so often branded as a freak or a weirdo.

ALSO just because he doesn’t “filter” himself in conversations, doesn’t automatically mean he’s an asshole, or saying rude things constantly. A lot of the times he will say stupidly sweet things that the average person would find cringy or awkward to say to another human being so brazenly.

He’s also pretty good at reading people, just he’s not very good at acting accordingly and appropriately?? I guess? Like he can pick up on vibes, but that probably won’t change the fact that he’s gonna say what he’s going to say. 

And lastly (I promise this is the end and I’m sorry this got rambly oops) he’s kind of stubborn and can be bossy, like once he gets something in his head like THAT’S IT, he’s doing it and he wants you to do it. And you can call him bull-headed or balky but he’s just going to insist he’s passionate and determined. And it’s probably annoying to the people around him but he doesn’t really care honestly he’ll probably just rant and rave and somehow convince whoever he’s with because he has a sort of cheeky charm about him. but also he’s a pain in the ass sometimes i guess.

PLAYLIST:

coming soon

WANTED PLOTS/CONNECTIONS:

any of these can be platonic or romantic, depending on how we develop them!!!

a friend that he can just “shoot the shit” with. someone who will go on little adventures with and sit in the woods with or sit on the beach with and listen to music. they never pry about his mood swings and they give him space and stuff?

someone who works at jukebox records and doesn’t mind when he loiters around all day and recommends music to him, and sometimes they’ll sit at one of the listening booth things at the store and listen to each others recommendations together.

a drinking/karaoke buddy

someone he met when he first moved to san fran (3 years ago), and maybe he’s told them about his past and his mental illness and his coping mechanisms and they’re good at recognizing the signs and they kinda help him out and let him vent and they’re just supportive and understanding. but also respect when he just needs to be alone or escape, but checks up on him cause < 3 < 3

a neighbor (in his apartment, and im assuming he lives in the calloway apartments i guess) but they started off as enemies kinda? like maybe one of them would blast music and then the other would bang on the walls and be mad and leave little passive aggressive notes telling them to stop being annoying. but maybe the loud music stopped or something?? and then the other person was like “whoa are they okay?” so then they started leaving notes that were caring and supportive and maybe little gifts or knick knacks or food for them, or little scavenger hunts, and then they just kinda started hanging out one day. IDK, this can be discussed more in depth/particular in dm’s i guess. this would be cutesy i feel!!!

an ex girlfriend or ex fwb. but it didn’t work out because they couldn’t really deal with jeremiah’s mood swings or his need to disappear sometimes, and how vague he would be about it. or maybe they suggested he should go to therapy or a support group, and since he is such a stubborn little pain in the butt he just became distant and felt judged and went cold on them. maybe there’s still some lingering feelings there, either positive or negative. we can discuss the particulars in dm!!!

someone with mental health issues, that he met at a support group when he first came to san fran. but jeremiah stopped attending the meetings after only a few. this relationship could be a lot of different things! maybe it’s hostile/confrontational, because they have differing viewpoints on how to treat mental illness. it could be supportive. or maybe it’s like a secret?? like maybe this other person was at the support group for reasons that they’ve never told anyone, and like, jeremiah can be their trusted friend or confidante.

NOTE: if there are any connections that aren’t mentioned here, but you feel like would really suit my muse, please feel free to message me!!!!!! with anything!!!!!!!

[twistednuns]

February 2020

I managed to use my iPad as a second monitor for my computer. So tech savvy. Yay me!

Joking about developing a sex-based cardio programme with Manu. Powerfucking! Might help against aggression as well.

A late night phone call with Tom. Not saying much.

Making a huge pot of my grandmother’s signature veggie stew.

More Bon Appétit test kitchen videos. Chris recreating tacos. Claire making Ben&Jerry’s. Priya making her mum’s Indian curries.

Writing a letter to Lena. Drawing upside down bats (which makes them look like they’re having a wicked dance-off). Just the act of writing. I thoroughly enjoy looking at my handwriting.

Using the Salted Coconut handscrub by Lush. Especially now that I wash my hands so often when we’re working with clay at school. I feel like the peeling triggers some pressure points on my palms.

That Saturday productivity high. Cooking and preparing heaps of stuff, cleaning the windows, doing laundry.

Painting my nails like an expressionist artist.

Some portrait studies. Accidentally drawing Sirius Black.

Being really motivated to improve my Spanish. Working with Lorena, the Duolingo app and even starting my own grammar/vocabulary book.

This ultra quirky ASMR video. Also: watching videos with Erin an her boyfriend Chris. It’s amazing how well they work together. How you can almost feel their connection, how similar they are.

Carrot cake oats.

Seeing the The Darkness live again, this time with Margit. Justin’s outfit and personality, singing along, especially to Time of my Life, the band’s traditional first song after the show.

Meeting Chris. Having a Bramblette cocktail at Pusser’s. I like that place. Feels very old-timey with a rowing boat right under the ceiling. We made out in front of a tiger slide in a toy store window on our way to the next bar.

Peeling fresh carrots.

Pickling onions and making kimchi. My fermentation game is strong these days!

Looking through Dominik’s sketchbook. I loved the tree whose bark resembled a mole burrow with its underground tunnel system.

The flu. Yes, really. Fewer pupils at school. Quiet times. I’m actually surprisingly healthy. I’d guess my probiotics must play a role here… Who knows.

More sourdough experiments. Writing about it (DELICACY - a haiku. Oven-warm sourdough / salted butter, alpine cheese / and a strawberry).

Finding a really interesting list of SanFran hippie era book recommendations at the end of Robin Sloan’s Ajax Penumbra: 1969. In the mood to read Maya Angelou, Tom Wolfe, Jack Kerouac, Richard Brautigan.

Even more beautiful books: I really enjoyed Die weiße Stadt by Karolina Ramqvist, a feminist author from Sweden, and the graphic novel version of To Kill a Mockingbird. But two books that literally (well, figuratively obviously) blew my mind were Circe by Madeline Miller (mythology, loneliness, animals and plants, magic and monsters, some desperate kind of feminism, independence and strength) and Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (magical realms, university setting, psychological depth, unexpected twists and turns). I haven’t read anything comparable in a very long time and I desperately hope that there’s more to come from these authors.

A beach collecting all the world’s single socks in The Magicians. Oh and of course seeing them break the moon. What a sight. The show is super confusing, obnoxious and absolutely fabulous at the same time. Best example: the Freaky Friday szene in which Margo and Eliot switch bodies. I love how the actors took on each other’s speech patterns and behaviour.

A new addition to my colour vocabular: celadon (a greyish green; there is a type of ceramics you’ll only see in this colour which is not surprising since the shade provides such an interesting contrast to the the earthy, rusty orange of burnt clay.)

Manu telling me that he had rarely seen people with more joy in their eyes than me (“Ich habe schon Freude in deinen Augen gesehen! So ein Leuchten kann man nicht simulieren.”) after complaining about being bored and lifeless. / Making curry with or, well, for him the other night. Drinking Liqueur 43 with cinnamon and milk. Playing the Jackbox party games for which you can use your phone as a controller.

Finding myself in a well-known sitation from the past. Lying in Frank’s bed in the early morning hours, not that tired yet, when he starts talking about his life and his depression. In English, obviously, because that’s our emotional filter. Relating, since I feel quite similar. Coming up with a suggestion for a reciprocal support system. Let’s see what we can do for each other.

Looking at travel photographs. The sea, the cenotes. Longing to go back to Mexico or Australia. Diving. Taking it all in.

Dreaming of my grandmother talking about her biggest regrets in life. Weirdly she was in a little bundle under a coffee table, much like Voldemort in the last Harry Potter movie.

My weird, weird brain. How both pleasure and pain enhance my sense of smell and increase my brain activity, almost causing hallucinations and fixations on ideas. Like geometric shapes in gloomy off-colours and a beige silicon-like surface the other night. All I could think of was a benchscraper.

Blue eyeliner.

Brainstorming three-letter-words with Frank since I’m thinking of getting personalised Nike Blazers. Sad cat. Yes but. Dat ass. Why tho.

Flying squirrels. Watching them wobble through the air. How they look like cute exhibitionist when they’re extending their limbs and thus stretching their, well, let’s just call it wings.

The fact that red cabbage has an intricate pattern like brain convolutions when you cut it open.

Talking to Sonja for the first time in over two years. What a strange person. Interesting, too. At least in homeopathic doses.

Ripe strawberries and nectarines. Oh my god. I love fruit.

Meeting Eve at Pub Quiz. She identifies as female, loves swing dance, used to be an animator and I love her style. Also, I realised that really like Betty. And Dennis wasn’t mean to me for once. I love my nerd friends <3 And I learned that Starbucks was named after the first mate in Moby Dick! Also, coincidentally they asked a question about the city where To Kill a Mockingbird takes place (Maycombe, Alabama) after I had read it the week before.

Inviting Lorena to the Botanical Gardens. I always feel very happy and very much myself when I’m there. I sometimes wish I was a gardener. Lorena was late so I walked along the Spring Path outside and it might have been the first time I’ve seen a brussels sprouts plant. Inside I learned lots of Spanish words and marveled at the incredible butterflies. The huge yellow one right behind the entrance was my favourite. Its delicate feelers were fascinating.

Washing my hands at the Keg’s bathroom. Looking into the mirror. Suddenly thinking of the perfect karaoke song… Rescue Me by Bell Book and Candle! I kept singing it for days on repeat. My neighbour must hate me (nothing new here) especially since my voice is too low for the chorus.

It isn’t hard to see how such attachment patterns can undermine mental health. Both anxious and avoidant coping have been linked to a heightened risk of anxiety, depression, loneliness, eating and conduct disorders, alcohol dependence, substance abuse and hostility. The way to treat these problems, say attachment theorists, is in and through a new relationship. On this view, the good therapist becomes a temporary attachment figure, assuming the functions of a nurturing mother, repairing lost trust, restoring security, and instilling two of the key skills engendered by a normal childhood: the regulation of emotions and a healthy intimacy. // An interesting article on attachment styles and why theraphy works; it makes me want to learn more about attachment theory. This School of Life video is a nice addition as well.

That dream. About a book shop modeled after my picture of Penumbra’s 24-hour bookstore. There was an old man in a very narrow but high-ceilinged room full of books. There was no light source except for moonlight or some street lights. There were loads of stairs, very steep, leading to the back of the house. Upstairs the man would set out cat food and on the rooftop there was an old sailing boat. One day the man decided to open the door to the roof and let visitors see the ship, much like a museum; perhaps to attract customers. However, in the next night a cat-shaped ghost appeared who reminded me quite a lot of Kot Behemoth character in Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. The ghost was not amused about the old man’s decision and took away his key, a big golden one adorned with a red ribbon.

Toasted sesame makes pretty much every dish so much better.

Watching High Fidelity with gorgeous Zoe Kravitz (I adore her effortless style and her outfits), getting in the mood for making a playlist and listening to more music in general. There are all these great songs out there I forgot about.

Remembering the xkcd storm chaser comics.

Making a wicked good batch of Pho for Tom.

Spending a nice evening with Alex at Shamrock. Singing along to American Boy by Estelle. Confirming the hypothesis that the nerdy, quiet ones usually have a freak streak. That moment in the morning. Eye contact and kegel exercises.

Karaoke with Margit and Betty. Meeting Manu’s doppelganger. Same type, looks, voice. Eerie.

Making a BA Gourmet Makes meme for Steffen after he had passed his law examps. Strangely Gaby kinda looked like him after I was done with it.

Saturday morning in bed. Reading comics and graphic novels. Fresh bedclothes, surrounded by books. Since it was February 29 I thought about leap years and asked a few friends what their inner seven-year-old would have done that day (based on the thought experiment that your birthday was on February 29 and you’d age in 4-year-steps which would divide your age by 4 obviously).      

I came up with: visiting grandma / eating Cini-Minis / falling asleep with my face buried in a cat / beating my neighbour Anna at Memory / drawing while listening to a Bibi Blocksberg cassette.

Alex said he’d have been outside all day, building a snow igloo. Not noticing his mum telling him to come to dinner. If the weather had been bad he would have played with his dinosaur collection. His inner 7-year-old was a hopeless dreamer who got agitated whenever his parents had a fight. Who came home late from school every day because he forgot about time when he was talking to his friend next to a hedge with thorns that looked like tiny airplanes.

Lena said she would have been outside all day long, playing in the mud with the neighbours’ kids. Of course.

[theclosetpoet7]

Water Tower Waltz

A CloTi fic by theClosetPoet7

Rating: M

Summary: Cloud swears that she had almost died once. Swears that he had failed Tifa in some way. He pictures carrying her in his arms, blood dripping from her chest like a sword had slashed through it. But she's alive and right in front of him. Alive. His head suddenly hurts. [Set during the Original Game].

“No one lives in the slums because they want to. It's like this train. It can only go where the tracks take it.”.

He traces the dips in her back, slowly running his finger through the groove that outlines the curve of her spine. Then, he maps an invisible scar that mirrors the one that he pictures is on her front side. He can't see in this dark room. All he can do is feel. His hand lays itself on her soft skin. Tifa stirs and he almost pulls away when she turns her head to the other side, sighing out a soft breath that innocently stirs his loins.

He observes her for a few seconds, finding himself under temptation again. However, his curious mind overcomes joining her in her deep slumber. Besides, there's time for that later. So, he lays his palm flat on her backside, as if touching her in this way can unlock something in him.

Cloud doesn't know why, but somehow, he feels like it is not the first time his hands are able to hold her in this way, and he doesn't mean in the way they pulled at each others' bodies last night. Not in the way his mind took him to the promised land as he pounded deep into her.

No.

He pictures carrying her in his arms, blood dripping from her chest, like a sword had slashed through it. The young SOLDIER abruptly withdraws his hand. The images he painted in his brain scare him. How could he see Tifa in that light? She is alive and right in front of him. Warm and soft. Strong and optimistic. Beautiful and bright. And Alive. Tifa Lockhart is alive.

He swears that she had almost died once upon a time. Swears that he had failed her in some way, even when she has never told him anything of the sort. Just the fact that they came from the same hometown. Suddenly, his head hurts too much.

"...just like you promised."

A promise?

"You're late."

What promise?

"You came."

"What's wrong?"

Her scarlet eyes bore into his blue ones. Every now and then, he questions their authenticity. Not hers but his. He wonders if his eyes are really the same color as the sky or were they perhaps a darker shade; anything, just as long as they're blue and not the piercing sea green orbs he sees when he closes them. Not those snake-like slits staring back, silently judging him and taking hold of all his weaknesses.

"Cloud?"

"It's nothing."

She turns over and presses the sheet closer to her body. He stares at her ample bosom, yet again contemplating if there is indeed a scar in between her two breasts. He had sucked eagerly on one just hours before, the bruises he must have left on her body would be seeping into her skin by now.

Her soft hand finds itself to his cheek and Cloud blinks, the blurry line of bright red across her chest disappears and he can only see Tifa's face as the clouds part to light his room with the rays of the Planet's moon.

"It doesn't seem like it's nothing."

Cloud stares at her intently, asking himself if she is who she says she is. He knows Tifa. It is the one thing he is certain about since arriving at Midgar. They were friends years before. But it still seems like there is a missing piece to their story.

"Don't worry about it."

Settling back into his confident exterior is easy and it comes naturally that he doesn't miss a beat when he pulls Tifa to meet her lips with his. He had wondered for so long what it would be like to be with her. To be in her. He doesn't even know if he's had sex with anyone else before, granted that he can't remember any other woman's face. Except hers for some reason.

It doesn't take much to ready her for him.

And it takes little to have him hard for her.

Cloud enters her moist crevice again and allows his worries to fade away. Drown those thoughts out with the sounds of her moans. Listen to nothing else but the music of their bodies coming together again.

And again.

And again.

Tonight is the first time they fuck.

But he doesn't think it will be the last..

________________________

"Did you sleep well last night Cloud?"

"Next to you? Who wouldn't? "

'Pfft, seriously? You think that sounds cool? I think you're better than that Cloud.'

.

Once in a while, he feels like there is someone who controls his every action. Like his thoughts are not his own. As if there is an invisible person watching over him and talking to him like it's a distant dream. But he's Cloud right? He's an ex-SOLDIER, First Class, recruited by the group AVALANCHE to take down the Shinra Corporation.

He honestly doesn't care about what these people are doing to the planet. He's contemplated about leaving too. But then, where else would he go? Besides, the money is good.

He thinks that perhaps this is the purpose of his life; to fight and fight and fight. Wasn't there more though? But he's good at killing monsters, and he's excellent at accomplishing missions. What else is there?

"Listen Cloud, I'm asking you. Please join us."

"So! You're really leaving?! You're just going to walk right out ignoring your childhood friend?!"

So he stays.

________________________

He's afraid to light the fuse again; to start the fire once more.

But when her heart opens like this, he thinks he's ready to fall for her.

.

Her legs wrapped around his hips has always been a kink he had ever since they've reunited. With her thigh-high socks and her short skirt. Tifa pulls him closer as he keeps up the momentum of their mating. It is a sinful act, one that shouldn't occupy too much of his mind considering that their bombing mission tomorrow is the most dangerous one yet.

But she feels soft,

and she feels amazing,

and she wants him too.

Hard for him to believe but fuck he's been wanting her even more since that first night. She takes him in with such care and consideration that he can't help but indulge himself in her sweet taste.

It's an affirmation for himself, granted that so many of the patrons in the bar have obviously lusted after this woman. Not that it is all he wants from her. There is something about their friendship that gives him some semblance of comfort. She has that quality about her that tells him that she's reliable, and he can count on her during their adventures. Damn she was sexy though. He would be lying if he said that being inside her like this does not make his pride swell. And it does, along with a certain part of him.

The very thought sparks another level of desire within the blonde and he increases his pace to bring her closer to the brink of ecstasy.

"Cloud."

Her hometown smile and that look in her eye, reassure him that everything will be alright. ________________________ "You can't die now Cloud! Please! There's so much more I need to tell you!"

What did she mean by that?

Those are his last thoughts as he falls.

When he opens his eyes, he sees green orbs.

But they are kinder.

And beautiful. ________________________

Aerith reminds him of a kind sister. But the way she playfully tells him that she'll reward him with a date teases his emotions and briefly gives him the desire for something more.

It is easy being with her. As if nothing else matters. Like he can be himself without having to look towards his past that is still too foggy.

But the sight of Tifa in that blue dress, entering the well known red-light district, makes his blood boil. And he doesn't hesitate in following her in.

.

"Cloud, not here."

He should be disgusted with himself but he can't help it. It will only take a few minutes. What's wrong with two adults fucking anyway? It's not like they won't make it in time.

"Tifa."

Maybe it was the way her dress clung to her figure, or maybe it was the fact that someone can walk in on them at any moment that turns him on. But he swears that he can't wait for much longer. He wanted to cut off Don Corneo's dick so bad. His lecherous eyes didn't deserve to run themselves over the two innocent women's body. Or any woman for that matter.

And Tifa.

Tifa is his.

So he shuts the bathroom stall behind him and he clamps a hand over her mouth when she gasps too loudly. Unzipped pants gather around his legs while Tifa's panties bunch up on the bathroom's floor where he had tossed it aside as he finally sunk into her.

It doesn't take him long to get into a rhythm that is both harsh and hard. She takes it all in stride, as if the mere idea of him losing control stirs her insides and allows heat to pool in her belly.

His grip on her thighs tightens and it doesn't take much before he's losing the tempo he had set seconds ago.

In and out.

In and out.

That's all he does until he empties into her, chest heaving with bated breath. Heart pumping loudly until he can hear it pulse in his torso.

She wraps her arms around his neck to pull him closer. ________________________

"Sephiroth's strength is unreal. He is far stronger in reality than any story you might have heard about him."

.

Why?

Why is he still alive?

Didn't he kill him?

There's blood everywhere.

Everywhere.

But it doesn't scare him.

What scares him is that Sephiroth is here.

And he has to get Tifa, Aerith and Barrett away.

The Shinra building shakes and it takes minutes before he's slashing through monsters again.

But the real monster.

The one he has to face is gone. ________________________

When he tells his story, he has an out of body experience.

As if he's not moving his lips on his own.

As if he knows his accounts are not the truth.

But he keeps telling it anyway.

Because this is his current truth.

And he tries to convince himself that Tifa's troubled eyes don't bother him at all.

'You said that you'd never forget. Hey, are you doing okay?'

"Alright everyone, let's mosey."

.

"Oh Cloud! Your hair looks like a Chocobo!"

The rest of the party laughs. Aerith hooks her arm around Tifa's and whispers something into the other brunette's ear. They both giggle to themselves.

Cloud tosses some hay into the stable. Trying to ignore his friends' teasing.

'Wark!'

The enormous bird leans in to him, affectionately resting its feathered head on his hand.

'Such beautiful creatures.' He thinks.

The very thought of racing with them has him excited. And he pays the farmer a substantial amount of gil so he can take this particular chocobo to Golden Saucer.

.

.

.

He doesn't regret the purchase, especially when Tifa volunteers to do the race one night and he is rewarded with the sexy sight of her climbing onto the bird. ________________________

"Oh, and you are...? It can't be! You're that ex-SOLDIER, childhood friend, and sexy playboy! A, and... a murderer!"

.

It irks him when Johnny says it with no hesitation. Almost as though everything the other man says holds some truth to it. And since when has he been regarded as a sexy playboy? When there was no one else but Tifa Lockhart. That is, as far as he can remember.

Images flash through his brain again but he doesn't spare it a second thought.

Still so confused.

Yet still so determined.

Tifa's blush later on catches his attention and he can't for the life of him stop himself, especially when the red-head tells his girl to be happy. He claims her lips behind the closed doors of the cabanas in Costa Del Sol.

He can make her happy.

He can.

Can't he? ________________________

They go around the world.

Always in search of Sephiroth.

But the longer he evades them,

The more anxious Cloud becomes

Because he carries this burden on his shoulders.

And it is his fault for not finishing him off in the first place.

.

She takes him in her mouth. Cherry lips moving up and down. Cloud threads his fingers through her long brown hair, nails digging deep into her scalp when she tilts her tongue in just the right way. His eyes focus only on the stars above as he leans his back on the surface of the smooth rock.

They are meters away from the rest. The thought of getting caught yet again makes him twitch as he involuntarily pumps his hips into her. She engulfs him in more and the sight of her carmine eyes staring up at him becomes his undoing.

He comes, whole body quivering as the mind-blowing pleasure has become too much. But she puts a hand to her mouth and wipes out the remaining sticky moisture while simultaneously swallowing. Then, she gets up to press a kiss to his lips, making him get a taste of his own essence.

The buggy should be repaired by now but with the way the desert land has stirred something in his childhood friend, Cloud doesn't mind staying in Cosmo Canyon a little while longer.

________________________

Nibelheim isn't the Nibelheim he remembers.

None of those empty faces mean a thing to him.

Because all he remembers are flames consuming his hometown,

Fire lighting up the sky, and the cries of the people he once knew.

Tifa seems even more bothered by it than he is.

What exactly happened here?

He thinks that the answer is beyond the plains of Mt Nibel.

That the truth is buried deep within it.

Sephiroth tells him that he is part of the reunion.

And the very thought makes him sick.

The very thought makes his mind crack.

.

.

.

"For the both of us... you're gonna... live. You'll be... my living legacy."

.

"My honor, my dreams... they're yours now."

.

He's between her legs now, the Highwind's shaking adds to the pleasure he is invoking within her. He laps his tongue against that sweet pink pebble and has her puty in his hands. She spreads her legs wider, and she arches her back higher. Then she gasps out, voice held in because the rooms in the airship are thinner than any hotel they've stayed in.

He pulls her thighs to the edge of his bed and fucks her with abandon. At least within her he knows exactly who he is. At least he knows who he is to her. Not the puppet he is beginning to feel like. Not the First Class SOLDIER with too many expectations placed on him.

Just a man.

Just a man who is fucking Tifa Lockhart. ________________________

"Cloud, I want to know you. The real you."

.

Sometimes, Aerith's presence breaks down the walls he's built around himself. On board the gondola, under the lights of the amusement park, she looks stunning. He wonders if these emotions are really his, or if they come from another person. But, like he's been saying to himself, it is his current truth. He really does care for her. He admires her for seeing the world with so much love and kindness despite every wrong that she's been dealt with. Despite being the Last Cetra, she keeps hope alive in her.

Unlike him.

Her bright smiles and her sweet scent play at his senses. And she herself teases him with a fairy tale that feels too enchanting to be real. Yet, when he starts to feel like they can potentially become more than friends, something within him makes him feel guilty. Because not only does it feel like a betrayal towards Tifa, it also feels like disloyalty to someone else.

But who?

It's merely potential.

Just potential.

He reaffirms this later on when the first thing he does when he returns to the hotel is knock on Tifa's door. The hurt in her eyes is almost indistinguishable but it is still there. So he spends the rest of the night telling her with his body that he's hers.

And he apologizes in his head, for almost straying. ________________________

Kiss me once.

Kiss me twice.

Kiss me three times.

Cross the line.

.

He takes her on her knees. Their bodies are concealed behind the trees. He enters her with such precision and such need. They've fucked too many times to count now. But he wants to mark her as his more, wants to etch himself deep within her more. Wants her more.

More.

He is aggressive and unyielding, hands coming up to cup her breasts to press her to him.

More.

He loses himself in the wetness, the sounds of his front slapping against her pretty ass, the pleasure. He tilts her head to plunge his tongue deep into hers; hips going faster when she moans out. Her fingers press onto the grass, nails digging into the soil. And he knows. He knows that she will only ever scream for him.

Only him.

No one else.

Not Johnny.

Not that bald Turk.

No one else but him.

"Cloud!"

________________________ He feels enormous shame.

Because he has failed everyone again.

And he blames himself for handing off the Black Materia.

For allowing Sephiroth to prove that he is indeed a puppet.

He almost attacked her.

He almost attacked Aerith.

He really is scum.

.

She runs among the trees in the Sleeping Forest deep in the depths of the Forgotten Capital.

She hides like she's playing with him again, teasing him as she always does.

But this time, he can't catch up to her.

She's disappearing to a far away place.

A land he can't reach.

.

.

.

"...Shut up."

"The cycle of nature and your stupid plan don't mean a thing."

"Aerith is gone."

"Aerith will no longer talk, no longer laugh, cry...or get angry... "

"What about us...what are WE supposed to do? What is this pain? My fingers are tingling. My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning!"

.

.

.

They fail to stop him.

And just like that, every good in the world is gone.

.

.

.

She smiled til the end. ________________________

No.

No.

Everything he's believed in.

Every memory he has.

Everything shatters.

And all he can do is apologize to everyone.

Apologize to Tifa for being a fake persona.

All he can do is clutch his head.

All he can do is scream.

His mind reeling.

An experiment.

A fabricated past.

Their memories.

It's not his.

Everything belongs to someone else.

.

.

.

The last thing he remembers is the crater shaking violently,

And his body falling.

Falling.

Falling.

Into the Lifestream.

And then,

Total darkness.

.

Her voice calls out to him in the deep recesses of his mind.

She appears before him like a dream.

And she goes through this journey with him, slowly piecing the puzzle together.

She lets him recall bits of it himself as if she's also unsure, asking him of his motives, his dreams, his life's meaning.

"Who? You. That's who."

And she stays by his side.

He is real.

She makes him feel like he is real.

She tells him that he is real.

She makes him real.

And they leave this place with hands and hearts intertwined.

Closer than they've ever been before.

"So, we meet again." ________________________

"Cloud, do you think the stars can hear us? Do you think they see how hard we are fighting for them?"

.

"Words aren't the only way to tell people what you're thinking."

.

He's free falling in.

All in her.

Because he knows who he is now.

Knows that he's Cloud.

She straddles him with a shyness in her eyes that he's never seen before. As if this is their first time. And it feels like it is. He feels like he has taken off the mask and now she can see him clearly. No walls. No shields to block his true form. He supposes that it is the same for her.

He sees the scar for the first time.

It's a sight that pains him but gives him comfort all the same.

Because it is proof that they're both real.

Tifa's cheeks are adorned with rose colored hues when she takes him inside her.

Fuck.

Longer.

A little longer.

Can they stay like this a little longer?

"I wanted to hold your hand."

She gasps out as he's fully sheathed within her.

"That night we made our promise underneath the stars. I wanted to hold your hand Cloud."

She pulls him in closer.

"I wanted to hold your hand and never let go."

His upward thrusts are gentle. Easing into her carefully, like she'd break along with him if he got rough like the way he always did. So he grants her wish and laces their fingers together. He holds her hands.

It is a connection so simple yet so intimate.

He tightens his grip when a wave of euphoria washes over him. But no, he doesn't want it to be over too soon. So he stops their movements. And he embraces her.

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

He murmurs into her chest.

"I wrote those words into paper, but I couldn't send it. I didn't know where."

Her soft voice, albeit hesitant touches his heart. And it beats harder than ever, to the cadence of the waltz they were in just moments ago. But he holds in his desire.

Just so he can hear her breathing.

Because she's alive.

And he's alive.

He can't stop himself long enough before he's turning her on her back. Knees harrowing into the grass as he moves again. They're below the Highwind, spending the night with one another because it could very well be their last. He finds her amidst the chaos of Meteor's eventual arrival. And he sees her. Really sees her.

"Cloud."

"I'm here."

He thinks that she was made to be his.

That everything they've been through since that night on the water tower led them to this very moment.

Their very own reunion.

"This is probably the last time we can be together."

He picks up the pace and embeds himself deep into her soul, the same way she has crawled deep into his. And there are no words needed then.

None.

Not with the way their bodies cry out in absolute ecstasy.

Not when she's lying beneath him, flushed and panting.

Not when he swells inside her and pours out all his feelings.

.

.

.

They may die tomorrow.

They may die.

But tonight.

With just the two of them.

On a night that reminded him of their shared promise.

With the vastness of the sky...

...and the billions of stars above them,

Tifa beckons him home, with her lovely smile and her heart full of acceptance.

A ghost of a smile makes its way to his lips as he holds her.

They may die.

If they do.

He'll keep her close.

He won't let her go.

If they die...

It won't matter.

Because tonight.

.

.

.

The world is theirs.

.

.

.

fin

________________________ Author's Note: Did anyone ask for some smut? Not really, but oh well. :D This is a compliment to my other fic "A Long Way from Nibelheim."

Some scenes are inspired by the following songs:

"Timebomb" by Walk the Moon

"Hometown Smile" by Bahjat Etorjman

"Falling All In" by Shawn Mendes

"Don't Think Twice" by Utada Hikaru

and of course by the quotes throughout the game.

Some of the lines were ones I wrote in my Cloti content on my Tumblr: theclosetpoet7 :D

R & R!

[yungfuckfacemcgee]

After many many months I FINALLY finished this Westallen fanfic that has now morphed into a 74,500 word behemoth

It’s called Everything in Existence. It’s a no powers, meet-cute AU that is basically just the novelized movie I’m waiting for Netflix to cast Candice Patton in. Here is the first chapter (I’m gonna post it on AO3) I hope you like it because I like it and this is the first big, real-ish thing I’ve written and I am proud.

Chapter 1

“…so, I guess, what I’m trying to say is it’s not you, it’s me. And I know people say this all the time, but, I really hope we can stay friends.” 

“Are you serious, Iris?” 

Okay, so maybe she shouldn’t have done this while they were lying in bed together after another night of sub-par sex. But Iris West couldn’t take it anymore: every second of their “relationship” felt like a knife scraping a dinner plate. At the time, she thought it made sense to finally agree to be exclusive with Scott after a month of casual post-work hookups. Their relationship made sense on paper. They were the two hot, young, Black reporters in the office. He was good looking, smart, nice, and he was almost as good at his job as she was at hers. It was logical. But the longer they stayed together, the clearer her image of Scott became. What she initially thought was kindness turned out to be charm; she could see it in the way he would suck up to their editors or all of his patronizing interactions with the new hires. On more than one occasion she caught him checking himself out in the mirror; looking back on it Scott never looked at her with the same appreciation. And she could’ve set all of that aside, she really could’ve, if he hadn’t fucked with her at work. He took her idea for a new feature to their misogynistic, asshole of a boss. Scott got his ticket to the office's inner circle and left Iris behind writing listicles with 21-year-old interns fresh out of undergrad. 

He was staring at her expectantly, apparently waiting for an answer. 

“Yeah I am, Scott,” she said. “This isn’t working for me anymore.” 

“Wow” he scoffed, offended. He started getting out of bed and redressing, angrily pulling on his raw denim jeans. 

“You know everyone at the office always said you were kind of a bitch but I saw past that.” “Excuse me?” Iris asked, her eyebrows shooting up in shock. Any semblance of Scott’s nice guy act evaporated as soon as his feet hit the floor. She sat up in her bed, watching as he collected the few belongings he had in her apartment, stuffing them into his monogrammed leather overnight bag. Even though they’d been together for nearly half a year Scott never left more than a stick of deodorant or an extra pair of socks at her place. Truthfully, Iris never wanted him to.

“Wasted all my time giving you this ‘exclusive’ shit,” he muttered to himself as he took his watch from the nightstand. “You’re not the only hot girl who wanted me, you know. I had so many opportunities, sweetheart. Okay? I could’ve been sleeping with white women.” Who even says that? “Get the fuck out of my apartment, Scott!” Iris yelled as he flung open her bedroom door. She got up to follow him through the living room, “and you know what? I take it back! I DON’T want to stay friends!” And with that she slammed the door.

“Morning sunshine.” “Fuck!” Iris grabbed her chest. She hadn’t noticed her roommate, Linda, sitting in the kitchen while she was chasing Scott out. 

“So I take it you finally gave Scott ‘the talk’?” Linda asked over her morning paper. 

The two girls had met Linda’s first night living in the city, through a mutual friend who invited a group of them out to a bar with fifty cent jello shots. Iris left early without saying goodbye, feeling a blackout coming on. At 4 a.m. a wasted Linda was pounding on her door, saying “I wanted to make sure you made it home” before pushing past her, into her shoebox of an apartment, throwing up blue into her toilet, and passing out on her bed. They’d been best friends ever since. 

“Mmmhhhh,” Iris moaned in the affirmative as she flopped face first on to their old couch. “Sorry, honey. At least you don’t have to deal with that dickhead anymore. You know I never liked him.” For as long as they’d known each other, it felt as though Linda was constantly saying I told you so. It occasionally ignited standoffs that never lasted more than a couple days, and more often than not got resolved with apology tequila and kitchen karaoke. 

Iris peeled herself off the couch and straightened out her disheveled hair. 

“You’re right. He’s a dick. And I’m glad to be done with him.” She sat for a second, mulling it over before forcefully flopping back down. “But now I have to see him at work on Mondayyyyy. Lindaaaaa. What am I gonna do?” “Hon,” Linda said, sitting on the couch. Iris went boneless, half her body slid to the floor. “Iris, listen to me” Linda grabbed her by the shoulders, “you’re gonna go into your room. You’re gonna clean yourself up and get dressed.” Iris leaned into her friend, starting to feel comforted as Linda smoothed down her hair. “And then you and I are gonna go to trap-yoga.” “What?!” Iris pulled away to look at the traitor. “Exercise is not what I need right now, Lin! My heart is broken! I need to wallow and eat junk food and stay on the couch.” She shot puppy dog eyes at her friend. “No bitch. You didn’t even like Scott!” Linda exclaimed. Iris cringed at that, but she knew that Linda was right. Screaming at him now was the most emotion she ever felt in that relationship. Go figure. “Iris, you need to get up and move. You wasted five and a half months on that jerk for what? Some mediocre sex?” 

“It wasn’t that bad” Iris said. “Girl. I share a wall with you. All I ever heard was Scott grunting and hyping himself up.” “Dude!”

“What was the longest it ever lasted? Five minutes?”

“I–” Iris started but shut her mouth, having to agree with Linda, and no longer feeling the need to defend Scott.

“That’s what I thought. So go get your little yoga pants on, we’re leaving in 20.”

——

Two hours later, Iris was splayed out on the floor of a dance studio in Midtown, trying to catch her breath while the rest of the class went on with their Saturdays. She tries to make it to the gym a couple times a week (if she were being honest with herself it was more like a couple times a month) but that was just absurd. She could barely touch her toes on a good day, how could she be expected to add dancing to that? At least the music was good. 

“What…the…fuck” Iris panted to Linda as she came to sit beside her with two bottles of water and a towel. Linda, of course, had barely broken a sweat so the towel was for Iris. 

“A couple times there Mari and I thought you were gonna throw up,” she replied, pulling Iris up into a sitting position.

Their mutual friend, Mariana taught the class. Mari (as her friends called her) was  a curvy woman with a blonde afro. Part time trainer, part time back up dancer, she had aspirations of becoming the next Rosie Perez. Linda met her a while back taking one of her other dance/exercise classes and decided the three of them had to be friends. The decision was cemented the first time the trio went out and all ended up dancing on tables and laughing until they couldn’t breathe. 

Mari finished talking to one of her clients (a middle aged white woman in a coordinated Lululemon outfit) with a fake smile that immediately dropped as she came to sit with the girls. 

“Ay díos, this woman always wanting to talk to me about some new diet and her son’s gluten intolerance. Christ!” she sat with a huff. “Lin, you looked great. Iris…at least you didn’t throw up.” She flashed a sympathetic smile. 

“Okay,” Linda said redirecting the conversation, “phase one of Mission: Iris Reclaims Her Time in which she sweats out her anger and does her annual workout—” 

“Hey!”

“—complete. On to phase two: we’re all going out tonight.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that guys.” It was only 2pm and Iris was already sweaty and exhausted, she was pretty much done for the day.

“Iris, mama, we’re taking you out!” Mari interrupted, in an aggressively friendly tone. “And not to one of our usual places, we’re getting on the train and we are going downtown–”

Iris let out a groan. 

“ –and you have absolutely no say in the matter” Linda finished.

“But—” Iris tried.

“Dude, you need to go celebrate your freedom! It’s been half a year! Haven’t you already wasted enough of your time doing nothing?” Linda and Mari watched as she contemplated their words.

If it were anyone else Iris would have told them to fuck off and leave her alone, but these were her girls; she trusted their judgment the majority of the time. Besides she knew from experience that they wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Okay fine.” She gave in. “But you two are buying my drinks all night.” 

“Yes!” Linda rejoiced, “This is going to be the best night ever!” 

——

  “This is the worst night ever” Linda sighed. 

Linda and Iris met up with Mari at some swanky club on the Lower East Side after a pregame at their apartment. Apparently, Mari met a couple guys in line who gave her a few pulls from their flask. When they finally managed to get to the front she was a shade past too drunk, falling off her ridiculously tall heels she exclusively wore for clubbing. Iris and Linda loved the girl, but this wasn’t the first time (and it certainly wouldn’t be the last) that they would have to play party mom. They’d hold it against her but every time it happened she was genuinely remorseful — besides she did her fair share of emotionally/physically/spiritually-responsible friend duties so no one was in debt to anyone as far as they could see. They consoled Mari, assuring her that she hadn’t ruined the night, and put her in a cab across the bridge back to her roommate who, by this point, knew the drill. 

It started to rain by the time they successfully got her in the car and tipped the driver extra to make sure she got home safely. Rather than waiting in line for another hour, the two decided to leave. They walked around the unfamiliar neighborhood, searching the block for someplace dry to figure out plan b. They happened upon a grimy, all-night pizza place first and made a break for it.  Each ordered a slice — pepperoni for Iris, plain cheese for Linda — and they claimed a table by the window away from the groups of loud, underage college kids, completely soaked from the rain and obviously wasted on cheap liquor. 

“Really, Lin, it’s fine. You guys still got me out of the house for the night” Iris tried to assure her friend that the outing wasn’t a total flop. 

“No, it’s not fine. Look at us! We look hot! I’m not letting this go to waste.” An idea dawned on her face making Iris nervous. She abandoned her slice on its paper plate and reached into her bag. “Here.” Linda pulled two lollipops from her clutch. She offered one to Iris. “Lauren gave these to me last week. Welcome to phase 3 of Mission: Iris Reclaims Her Time, baby.” 

Now, Linda and Iris weren’t stoners by any stretch of the imagination. But they were two young women living in a big city, paying rent that was way too high, working stressful jobs that paid them way too little, and taking anxiety inducing public transit every goddamn day. Once in a while booze just didn’t cut it.

“Weirdo, stoner Lauren who lives down the hall?” Iris asked, somewhat shocked though not entirely surprised. Lauren was an aloof, surfer-looking girl who lived in their building and who, against all logic, Linda had a huge crush on. Iris imagined that Lauren got lost on the way to the beach one day and wandered around until she somehow found herself living in the city, miles from the ocean and selling drugs out of a loft that her parents paid for. She had long, wavy hair the color of sand, and always greeted Iris with a zen smile. 

“Yup,” Linda responded nonchalantly.

Iris took a lollipop from her “And why were you with weirdo stoner Lauren who lives down the hall?”

“Oh…you know…” Linda squirmed on the receiving end of Iris’ growing smirk and finally gave up trying to think up some half-assed excuse. “Just shut up and eat it.”

They unwrapped their edibles and held them in a toast. “Cheers,” Linda began, “to my best friend who finally vagged up…” Iris cringed as Linda only got louder. “…who finally VAGGED up, dumped that loser Scott and got her life back. In Beyoncé’s name we pray, Amen.”

“Amen,” Iris agreed. “How long until these kick in anyway?” “A couple of hours I think.” The college kids were getting rowdier. They were like drunk toddlers – screaming, laughing, falling down and blurting out the most random things. Iris watched them, jealous of the hangover free mornings they would have the next day, and suddenly felt too old to stay any longer. “Hey, why don’t we check out that bar across the street? I’ve seen three groups of hot guys go in since we got here.” “I like where your head’s at, West! Let’s go.” Linda grabbed Iris’ hand, forgetting their half-eaten slices, and pulled her across the street, nearly getting them killed by an oncoming cab. 

——

Linda was off with a tall finance bro with a cute butt and Iris was figuring out a way to get out of a dry conversation with some guy about the app he developed. Every time she tried to interrupt him, he cut her off with a new question that he would just answer for himself. 

“Well, this has been really gre– ”, Iris tried. Again. 

“What’s your favorite TV show? Mine’s definitely Narcos, I just think the story structure is so sophisticated, you know? It really transcends language, I think, you know? I just feel like…” 

Iris zoned out. She started looking around the bar for Linda to shoot her the please come pretend to be my overprotective girlfriend so we can go home look, but she couldn’t find her in the crowd of twenty somethings. As she looked around she took in the atmosphere of the place. She noticed how the bar was decorated like a library with beat-up leather arm chairs scattered around, an illuminated globe sitting on the floor by the bathrooms, and a bookshelf on the wall behind the counter — half-filled with drinks, half-filled with actual books. The place was crowed, but no more so than any other Lower East Side bar on a Saturday night.

She started to turn her attention back to app boy, Tom? Or maybe he said Todd?   Iris had no idea what he was talking about at this point. She was about to try, yet again, to escape when the bartender leaned over. 

“Excuse me, miss?” She looked up at him. He was a white guy with floppy brown hair and a little bit of scruff. He had on a worn-out flannel over a Led Zeppelin t-shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows like it was 2010. 

“Miss?” He said again. She met his eyes and focused on what he was saying. “Hi, sorry to interrupt, but there was a problem with your card. I need you to come to the register at the other end of the bar so we can sort it out.”

“My card?” She asked confused, “but I didn’t…” Iris trailed off as she saw him widening his eyes at her, looking between her and Tom/dd. 

“Oh! Right! My card!” She turned back towards Mr. Talksalot, “I’m so sorry, but I have to go deal with this. Have a lovely night.” “I can wait for you to figure it out.” 

“Don’t!” Iris yelled a little too eagerly over her shoulder as she followed her flannel-ed white knight to the opposite end of the bar. He was lean, with broad shoulders, like a swimmer. 

“That guy wouldn’t stop talking! Why do guys like that always think they’re the most interesting thing in the world? Thank you so much…” Iris trailed off, realizing she didn’t know his name. 

“Barry. And because guys like that are douchebags. So, what are you drinking tonight…?”

“Iris, I’m Iris. Um, whiskey, neat.” She answered. He pushed at his sleeves even though they hadn’t slipped from their fixed position on his forearms.

“Iris the badass,” he said with smirk. Her stomach fluttered at that. She noticed him pause for a second, his eyes fixed to the counter. 

“Um,” he faltered then regained his composure, taking out a tumbler and filling it with the well drink, “yeah I saw you get that look on your face.” He slid Iris her glass. 

“What look?” she asked taking a sip.   

“That look. The one that says this guy can’t take a hint and I can’t find my friends anywhere.” He smiled a little and she looked down at the drink, her fingers fiddling with the glass. 

“So you were watching me?” She hadn’t intended for it to sound that flirty but once it was out of her mouth she decided to roll with it. 

The question clearly surprised him. He looked at her, flustered for a moment, before shaking it off and clearing discarded pint glasses off the bar. She tried not to let that hurt her pride too much and finished off her drink. 

Barry turned back to her, looking like he was about to say something until he noticed her empty glass. 

“Wow.” He stated. “Rough night?”

Starting to loosen up and feel that familiar warm buzz that came with finishing her second drink she responded, “I’m supposed to be here with my best friend celebrating, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh, congratulations. What are we celebrating?” he asked, leaning on the bar. His arms looked strong.

“We are celebrating my break-up!” She announced. 

“Oh. I’m sorry, Iris,” he said as he stood up straighter. Her name sounded good coming out of his mouth. 

“You’re sweet, but really I’m okay. He was just some asshole I work with.” A stupid, vain, asshole who ironed his jeans. Who does that?

“Where do you work?”

“I write for that website Snub,” she said begrudgingly. Admittedly it wasn’t a bad job, but Iris started there so young — it was the only real, paid writing gig she ever had. After Scott screwed her over she started thinking maybe she’d been there a few years too long. 

“Very cool.” Barry said. She couldn’t gauge by his reaction if he knew what Snub was. She kind of hoped he didn’t. “Wait a second,” he bent down and brought up two 

glasses, “if we’re going to make this a proper celebration we need shots.” 

At the mention of shots Iris raised her hands in protest. 

“That sounds nice, but my wallet can’t handle $17 drinks.” Living in the city Iris and Linda figured they could either order shots when they went out or pay their rent, but not both. A couple times the drinks won.

“No worries,” he told her as he poured the tequila and slid a glass to her, “these are on the house.”

“That’s really, really nice, but I can’t let you do that. Wouldn’t your manager or the owner or whatever be pissed?”

“Nah. I mean he’s a major asshole but I don’t think he’d mind giving some congratulatory shots to a beautiful woman.” 

Normally a line like that from some dude in a bar would come off as skeezy and insincere and Iris would blow him off. But coming from him it felt genuine, like he honestly thought she was beautiful. For the first time in a while Iris wasn’t quite sure how to react. 

“Ehrm,” he interrupted her stupor, grabbing the back of his neck with one hand and raising his glass with the other. “Here’s to… here’s to…” 

“The future?” She offered questioningly.

“Yeah. Here’s to the future. May this be the first drink of many towards forgetting your ex.”

“I’ll drink to that.” 

They clinked their glasses and knocked back their shots, Barry wincing after his while desperately reaching for a slice of lime. 

“Punk,” Iris teased. 

He smiled back at her and for a moment the din of the crowed bar faded to the background. She looked at his face, dusted with freckles. Only his left cheek had a dimple which she had the strange urge to poke.

“There you are!” She felt Linda’s hand on her shoulder. Just like that her moment with the cute bartender was over and she was thrown back into reality. 

“I’ve been looking for you forever!” Linda shouted a bit too loudly to Iris. 

“Yeah right, Lin!” She shouted back. She turned to introduce her new friend but he was already gone. For a second she wondered if it was even real. She couldn’t lie, she was a little disappointed.

“How are you feeling?” Linda grabbed Iris’ face and studied her eyes. “Has it hit you yet?”

“I don’t think so,” she replied through her smushed cheeks. Truth be told Iris had completely forgotten they took edibles earlier, otherwise she definitely would have turned down those shots. 

“How ‘bout you?” She asked, though as Linda began to separate the individual strands of Iris’ hair she was certain of the answer. 

“Alright, pretty girl, time to go home.”

“Whattt, noooooo. I feel great, Iris. Have I ever told you how soft your hair is, dude?”

“Okay let’s go.” Iris responded. 

She thought about leaving her number for Barry as she closed out her tab but then Linda started to touch other people’s hair so she rushed to get her out of there. 

Just as Iris began to think her’s must have been a dud, the high hit her. It was like being frozen in a giant jello mold; it seemed like the entire world slowed down while her brain raced at a million miles a minute. One second she was washing her face and the next she was thinking about how the faucet was like a teeny tiny waterfall, making her feel like a giant. The minute a 5’4” girl starts calling herself a giant, it’s a wrap. 

She fell asleep that night feeling like a rowboat on the ocean caught in a whirlpool. She dreamt vividly of pepperoni pizza and bartenders with green eyes and floppy hair. 

——

The next morning Iris woke up in Linda’s bed, the TV still on, reheated Chinese leftovers, and, now, very melted ice cream surrounding them. She grabbed her phone from the night stand, checking the time and making sure she didn’t send any regrettable texts — as she’d been known to do on more than one occasion. She saw a text from Mari:

Mari 9:43am

> Sorry I ruined the mission :( 

> I don’t know what happened! Those guys were really hot!

> AND THEY WERE DOMINICAN. You KNOW I don’t act right around Dominican men!!

> Buy you and sleeping beauty brunch to make it up???

Iris 10:46am

> You didn’t ruin anything! I’m just happy you got home safe 

> Girl you were MESSED UP

>But I’ll never say no to free brunch. Let me try to wake up the monster give me an hour

She put her phone aside and rolled over to face Linda who had a puddle of drool on her pillow. 

“Gross,” Iris whispered. She cleared her throat, “wakey, wakey”. She started gently poking Linda’s face. 

“Ughhhh,” Linda groaned as she came to, “What?” 

“It’s almost 11 and Mari’s buying us brunch. Time to get up.”

“Five more minutes, mom,” Linda bargained.

“Sorry, kiddo, but the bottomless mimosas are calling your name. Listen: ‘Lindaaa, Lindaa, come drink us Lindaaa’,” Iris whispered into her friend’s face as Linda half-heartedly attempted to swat her away. 

“Coffeee,” Linda whined as Iris got out of bed and began to clear away the remnants of their late-night feast. 

“There’s coffee at brunch, so get your ass up,” she emphasized as she smacked her through the thick layer of blankets, “and let’s go!”

“You’re so mean to me!” Linda called out as Iris left her bedroom, but she could hear the covers drawing back and Linda’s feet hitting the wood floor. 

As she was getting ready she thought about the bartender again. Iris thought about his stupid brown hair and, really, who has that many freckles? He was pretty cute and he made her laugh. He was definitely flirting with her, right? Or had she just projected on to him in her cross-faded haze? And why was she still thinking about him? She usually didn’t get hung up on pale white guys, especially ones that looked like they were in Mumford & Sons. She shook it off, telling herself to forget about Barry, and that she’d probably never see him again. 

——

They met at their secret Sunday brunch spot, the only place without a line out the door. To the average person it was a nondescript, touristy diner, but Jitters had the best bottomless brunch, the best coffee, and, not to mention, the best prices in the entire city. They met there whenever they needed to catch up or when they needed the best hangover breakfast any of them had ever had. 

They slid into their usual booth towards the back. Mari immediately began rattling off her apologies while Linda, sunglasses still on, laid her head on the table until their coffee cups were filled. After Iris assured Mari no one was upset, and Linda had two cups of coffee, they filled the others in on their nights. 

Mari talked about her Dominicans who gave her a flask of rum. Linda reported back on her finance bro. It turns out while Iris was marooned with Tom/Todd (“Can we just call him T Money”, Linda offered), Linda was making out with Bro, getting familiar with his butt, until they got into a fight about fetishizing Asian women. 

“And then he said he’d been waiting for a hot Asian chick like me to show up the entire night.”

“Gross,” “Yikes,” Iris and Mari said simultaneously. 

“Then he had the audacity to say I was being too sensitive when I called him on it,” Linda spat out with disgust, then immediately clutched her head with a wince at her volume.

“That motherfucker,” Mari responded, pounding her balled fist on the table. 

“Why the hell do people think that’s okay? Like, seriously, don’t they see how patronizing it is?” Iris said. 

“Exactly! So I spilled the rest of the drink he bought in his lap before I found our girl sitting alone at the bar.” 

“Alone?” Mari asked, turning her attention from Linda to Iris.

“Actually, the bartender kind of saved me from the dude who wouldn’t let me leave.” 

Mari and Linda exchanged a brief look before turning their attention to Iris with matching smirks on their faces. 

“What!?” Iris asked from behind her coffee mug.

“Would this bartender happen to be good looking?” Linda asked while lightly nudging her arm. 

Iris looked down at her eggs, pushing them around with her fork.

“I mean, he wasn’t ugly.” 

“Oooh, girl. Did you guys talk?” Mari asked. 

“I thanked him for getting me away from–“ 

“–T money,” Mari interrupted.

“…from T money…and then I told him I was there with Linda celebrating a break-up and he kinda bought me a drink.”

Mari and Linda looked at each other in disbelief. 

“BIIIITTTTTCCCCHHHHHH!” A startled busboy turned around at Linda’s deep exclamation.

“Oh my god, Linda there are children here.”

“That’s not my problem. You’re telling me you sat here and listened to me whine about some racist asshole and you weren’t even going to mention this fucking superhero you met last night?” Linda was practically bouncing up and down in her seat.

“I don’t know about superhero, he was just a good dude.”

“What’s the difference, babe?” Mari chimed in.

“Either way, we didn’t exchange numbers and I doubt I’ll see him again.”

“Wait, what was the name of the bar you guys ended up at?” Mari asked. 

“Um…” Iris said.

“Dude I couldn’t even remember my name this morning” Linda added.

“Christ.”

“Well, there wasn’t a lot of time to notice with Linda almost getting us killed crossing the street!” Iris said. 

“What!?” Mari asked.

“Are we alive? Yes. So everything’s fine and Iris is being dramatic.”

“Mhmm,” Iris rolled her eyes at Linda.

They finished their food and eventually reached the bottom of those mimosas. After a short yet loud argument, Iris and Linda convinced Mari to let them pay their parts of the check. When Iris went into her wallet to get her card she realized it was missing. 

“Fuck me,” she exclaimed, exasperated. 

“Language, dear!” Linda joked. “What’s wrong?”

“My credit card’s gone!”

“Where was the last place you used it? Retrace your steps,” Mari offered. 

“Well, Lin and I took the train back, and I used cash for the pizza,” Iris rattled off. 

“Wait, didn’t we use your card to open the tab when we got to the bar?” Linda asked, hardly trying to keep the excitement out of her voice. 

“We don’t even know the name of the bar!” Iris protested. 

“It’s Sunday, we have all day to retrace our steps and reunite you with your hero. Commencing phase 4 of Mission: Iris Gets Rebound Dick.” 

“What happened to Iris Reclaims Her Time?”

“Plans change, just go with it,” Mari said, the two of them already rushing out the door.

Iris rolled her eyes but if she had to be honest with herself, she couldn’t deny that she was a little bit thrilled at the idea of seeing Barry again.

“Wait you guys! We still have to pay!” Iris yelled after them.

[gokailyger84]

Some Incubus Brian fun for the holidays? Maybe his first with Dan, or a sexy surprise? - grumpiestgrumpdump

this is quite a bit late

“Hey, Bri/an?”

Bri/an turned his head from thetelevision, to see Dan standing at the end of the couch he wassprawled across.

“What’s up?”  He asked.

Dan didn’t reply, still staring atBri/an’s position. 

He was lying lengthwise on the couch, his legsspread wide, one hooked over the back cushions.  His tail limply hangingof the edge and onto the floor.

He was wearing one of Dan’s shirts.

Only his shirt.

Grabbing a pair of discarded boxers offthe floor, Dan threw them at Bri/an’s face.  Bri/an let out anannoyed grunt, pulling the fabric off his head.

“Stop fucking tempting me and putthose on.”  Dan scolded, before grabbing Bri/an’s leg and pushingit over so he could sit down and not have to stare at his limp dickto talk to him.

Bri/an rolled his eyes and sat up,pulling on the boxers, before sitting properly on the couch. 

Evenafter all of these years living in the human world with Dan, hestill didn’t care much for undergarments.  

Shouldn’t it be enough that he’swearing clothes?  Why clothes beneath clothes? It didn’t make sense. Dan kept saying something about support.  Bri/an wondered why allclothes didn’t already have that built in.  

Dan leaned back into the couch,watching Bri/an grumble to himself as he put on the boxers and scootcloser to Dan, slipping an arm behind his back and resting a clawed handon Dan’s bare stomach, lightly stroking over the fine hairs.  

Smiling, Dan lifted his arm, placing itaround Brian’s shoulders, pulling him into his side so he was leaningagainst him.  Bri/an’s tail moved over, casually wrapping aroundDan’s leg.

Bri/an had really picked up on showinghis affection towards Dan, outside of their feeding sessions.  Danstill hadn’t defined their relationship.  Mainly because he wasn’t sure.  Bri/an had become not just his partner and bandmate. But also his best friend.

Dan stopped short of calling him hisboyfriend as he knew that their relationship was still rooted in acontract.  

But moments like this were becomingdifficult to wave away.  Dan already knew he was perhaps overlyaffectionate with those he was comfortable with but with Bri/anreciprocating those actions.  He couldn’t help but wonder where thetwo of them were headed with this.

Four years had passed since Bri/anfirst appeared in his apartment, wanting to make a deal. 

They werenow living in California. 

Dan was working at Maker Studios and withArin on G/ame Gru/mps.  Bri/an was teaching physics at a localcommunity college.  They were still creating music and making musicvideos for their band.  

Things were looking good for them.  Nolonger living in shitty apartments or lofts with way too many peopleto be safe.  Not just for Dan but Bri/an as well.  That short stintbetween leases when they lived out of Dan’s old raggedy car.  

Now they had actual working heat andair, furniture that wasn’t torn and duct taped together.  Arefrigerator full of food, not that Bri/an needed any.  A decentsized wardrobe and a bigger bed, that could fit at least four people. 

Bri/andidn’t see the point of the size since he and Dan slept in eachothers arms.  Mostly a habit developed from their previous beds beingtoo small.  

All in all, life was better for them.

“What do you want for Christmas?” Dan then asked, remembering his initial reason for finding Bri/an.

Bri/an raised an eyebrow.

“What?”  

Dan raised a hand, tilting Bri/an’shead up by the chin, so he could see his face. 

“Christmas.  You know.  The holidayseason.  Giving gifts.  Eating a lot.”  

Bri/an rolled his eyes.  

“I know what Christmas is, you dick. I’m wondering why you’re asking.  We’ve never celebrated before. Plus you’re Jewish.”

Dan laughed in amusement.  

“Just because I’m Jewish doesn’t meanI can’t participate.  It’s not like I follow any other traditions.”  

He then moved his hand up, trailing hisfingers along Bri/an’s skin, until he reached his horns, lightlyrubbing them at the base.  Bri/an let out a pleased sigh.  

“Then why?”  He asked.

“For the last few years, we haven’texactly been in a…good financial place to celebrate.”

Bri/an nodded.  That was true.  He andDan had been on the poverty side of life for a while. 

The bandssuccess was slow coming and had only started to really pick up, dueto Dan’s exposure on G/ame Gru/mps.  And with Bri/an’s teaching job,  they were even able to start a savings account foronce.  

“This wouldn’t also have anything todo with how much Suzy loves celebrating holidays and how their houseis decked out and decorations?”  Bri/an asked, knowingly.

Dan laughed.  “I’d be lying if I saidher enthusiasm wasn’t rubbing off on me.”

Arin and Suzy had become an all toowelcome change in their lives.  Despite both being introverted, theywere still outgoing and all inclusive.  Loving to spend time andshare experiences with their friends.

The trip to Disneyland was quite theadventure for Dan and Bri/an.  Arin and Suzy guiding them around,showing off the sites and picking the best rides.  It was definitely inthe top ten of Bri/an’s favorite moments in the human world.

“So, what do you want?”  Dan asked.

Bri/an looked down in thought.

Truthfully, he had everything he’d ever wanted already. 

Someone who cared for him and acceptedhim for who and what he was.  A growing successful career, doingsomething he greatly enjoyed.  Friends who’s company he enjoyed, evenif they weren’t in on his secret…yet.  

There wasn’t much else Bri/an felt likehe wanted.  He used to want acceptance from his own kind but that waslikely never to happen. 

Maybe even someone who was like him.  Livingpeacefully with humans and knowing what it was like to try to liveamong them.  

But those were unattainable.  Notsomething Dan could give him.  

So, yeah. 

He didn’t really wantanything.

“I’m pretty happy with what I have,Danny.”  

Dan’s eyes softened, a pleased smileappearing on his face.  He leaned down and kissed Bri/an on the lips.

“Think about it a bit more, okay.  Iknow neither of us need anything, but I do want to celebrate withyou.”  He said, before sitting up and untangling himself fromBri/an.  

Standing up, he walked towards thebedroom to get ready for his Gr/ump session with Arin.  

Bri/an listened to him moving about inthe room, thinking over their conversation.

What did he want?

Leaning back on the couch, Bri/an thenwondered, what would Dan want? 

After all, Christmas was anexchanging of gifts for those you cared about.  Dan was into a fewthings that were pretty specific. Particularly, football, music andoddly enough unicorns.  

Dan had been ecstatic to find out thatunicorns were real.  They just lived on a different plane ofexistence like Demons.  The myths came from the few times the realmswould align and the “mythical plane” as Bri/an dubbed it, mergedbriefly with the human world and foreign creatures could be seen.  

Maybe that would be a good gift. Bringing a unicorn over so Dan could see it for real.  

It was an option.  

But was it the best option?

———————————————————————————-

Bri/an looked up as he heard the doorto the gr/ump room open.  

Arin entered, shutting the doorbehind him.  He walked around the couch, coming to a stop at theedge.  

The two stared at each other insilence.  Regarding each other with barely suppressed suspicion.

Bri/an couldn’t put his finger on itbut Arin was an oddity.  He had an aura around him.  

Felt familiar and foreign at the sametime.

He didn’t know how to explain it.

Something strange.

“So, what did you wanna talk about?” Arin asked, breaking the spell between them and sitting next toBri/an on the couch.

Bri/an ran a hand through his shorthair, while simultaneously loosening his tie. He had just come off a long day at work. 

While he greatly enjoyed teaching, eveninaccurate teachings, dealing with such a large amount of humans atonce was tiring.  He was also very hungry.  Today was a feeding daybut Bri/an needed to talk to Arin.  

Christmas was coming up fast and hestill wasn’t sure what to get Dan.  They had already bought a cheaptree and decorated it.  There were even some presents beneath it. Bri/an didn’t look but figured they were for Arin, Suzy, Ross and Barry.  

“What kind of gifts do you buy Suzy?” Bri/an asked.

Arin tilted his head in confusion.

“Gifts?  Like for her birthday andChristmas?”  

Bri/an nodded, staring at the blanktelevision.

Arin frowned, noticing the tense set ofBri/an’s shoulders.  The worry flowing off the older man in waves.

It was like he could actually feel it. 

Feel Bri/an’s emotions.  

Shaking his head of the silly thoughts,Arin leaned back into the couch.  He could guess what this was about.

“Well, for Suzy.  I mean, she’s notjust my wife but also my best friend.  So, I know a lot about herlikes and dislikes.  Paying attention to what she says. Sometimes,when we’re out or even watching tv, she’ll say something off hand andit usually ends up being about what she wants or wants to do.  It’seasy to pick her gifts like that.  And when I don’t have any ideas,I’ll make something or try to make one of her dreams come true.”

Arin looked over at Bri/an

“Thinking of a Christmas gift forDan, huh?”

Bri/an let out a sigh.

“Yeah.  This will be our first timecelebrating together.  I just want to show Danny how much Iappreciate him.  Give him something he truly would love.”

“You’re a good boyfriend.”  Arinsaid.

Bri/an’s eye twitched.  

“Danny’s not my boyfriend.”  Bri/anquietly said, standing up and heading to the door.

“Thanks for the help, Arin.  I’ll seeyou later.”  

Arin watched him leave.  

Bri/an was definitely a strange one.

————————————————————–

“Here you go, Bri/an.”  Dan said,picking up a large box and placing it near the couch where Bri/an wassitting.

Bri/an immediately tore into thewrapping, causing Dan to laugh at his child-like enthusiasm. Bri/an’s eyes widened.

He stared at the brand new Casio PX-160piano.  One he had had his eye on for a while.  The cheap keyboardhe’d been using for the last few years was not up to par anymore.  Itwas definitely time for an upgrade.

“Fuck, Danny!  Thank you so much!” Bri/an said gratefully.

Dan shrugged.  

“It’s about time to up our level. We’re going to the top, Bri.”  He said, leaning over to meet Bri/anin a small kiss.

“When you’re right, you’re right.” Bri/an said.

He then suddenly stood up, clapping hishands together.

“Well, guess it’s my turn.”

“What are you doing?”  Danasked, watching Bri/an walk to the center of the living room.

Bri/an didn’t reply, crouching down onthe floor.  He began to scratch a symbol into the wooden floor with hisclaws.

“Bri/an?  What the fuck!”  Danexclaimed, jumping to his feet.  

Bri/an just looked up at him andsmiled, holding his hand, palm up.  

A yellowish blue flame suddenlyappeared.  Bri/an dropped the flame onto the symbol and stood up,taking a step back.

Dan covered his eyes from the increasingly blindinglight.  

Once the light faded, he looked to seea glowing door in the middle of their living room. 

Looking throughit, Dan could see bright green rolling plains, filled with manydifferent colored flowers.  

Bri/an approached the door and leanedforward, peering inside.

“Come on.  It’s time.  It’s okay. I’ll take good care of her.  I promise.”  

Dan had no idea who Bri/an was talkingto.  

Bri/an then stepped backwards and outof the way.  He turned to Dan.  

“Your gift is here, Danny.”  Hesaid.

“What?”  

Dan continued to watch the doorway.

His eyes went wide, the breath stolen from his lungs.

Through the doorway, out stepped asmall whitish horse, with a sparkling blue mane and a prominent hornon it’s head.

Dan’s hand slapped up over his mouth. Tears gathering in his eyes.

“Oh fuck.”  He whispered.  

The door then vanished into thin air,not a trace left, save for the now burnt symbol in the floor.

Bri/an crouched back down and gentlypetted the creature on the head.  He looked up at Dan and smiledbrightly, his tail lashing about happily behind him.

“Danny, meet Amalthea.”

Dan felt his throat close up, hearingthe very familiar name.  He took a couple of steps closer.

Amalthea looked up at him curiously, asDan crouched down to her level.

She bravely closed the distancebetween them, taking a moment to sniff him.  Liking what she smelled,she rubbed her muzzle against his face.  

Dan laughed, the tears now flowing downhis cheeks.  He wrapped his arms around Amalthea, hugging her close.

Amalthea neighed in appreciation.

“A unicorn.  A fucking unicorn!” Dan said between laughing and crying.

Bri/an stood back up, watching thescene before him.  It looked like he had chosen the right gift.  Hewalked back over to the couch, placing his new keyboard to the sideand sitting down.

“We have permission to keep her herefor a couple of days, then she has to return to her mother.  But youcan see her at anytime.  Contact between realms is not common but hermother has agreed for you to be Amalthea’s bond human.”

Dan looked at Bri/an in disbelief.  

“You serious?”  

Bri/an just nodded, smile never leavinghis face.

Dan turned back to Amalthea, staringinto her blue eyes.  Eyes as blue as Bri/an’s.

“I’m yours and you’re mine.”  Dansaid.  

Amalthea nodded in agreement, lickingDan gently on the cheek.

Standing back up, Dan wiped the tearsfrom his eyes and looked at Bri/an.

“So, do I get a Christmas feedingtonight?”  He jokingly asked.

Dan snorted, leaning down and placinghis hands on either side of Bri/an’s body. Bri/an’s tailautomatically came up and wrapped around his forearm.  

Leaning forward, Dan drew Bri/an into adeep and sensual kiss.  

“You fuckin’ bastard.  Love you somuch.  Of course you’re getting your feeding and more.” Hemurmured in between kisses.

“Mm, can’t wait to find out what‘and more’ is.”  Bri/an quipped.

“I’m sure you can’t.  Thank you,Bri/an.”

“You’re welcome, and…MerryChristmas, Danny.”  

[papatonyinsandiego]

Non-Verbal Communication, Part Two:  Distancing Mechanisms and External Validation

Part One Can Be Found Here...

Pretty Privilege

In the gay Leather/Kink/Fetish community, just as in any other culture or subculture, there are the “👍 WINNERS! 👍” and the ….losers…  

Are we all sick of that?  I sure am.  My experience is that 100% of gay kinky men are done with being judged on externals that we have no control over.

It’s a primate-ape fact of life that desirable features make us more fuckworthy.  They can also be a trap.  I want to talk about it from the other side.  Pretty Privilege DOES exist in our Tribe.  I have made use of it myself.  

Back when I was young, virile and FINALLY getting a lot of approval from men, I attended a lot of five-star, crowded “elite” parties, both clothed and naked.  It felt GREAT to be “New Meat” and highly-desirable.  

If the gloriously beautiful men around me were bitchy and insecure, then I guessed I would try that on for a while.  I got way too good at it.  I am ashamed of my behavior back then.  A lot of the virtuous acts that I have performed since those days are my atonement for how I fell into bad behaviors for a while.

After a while, though, I noticed something odd.  The vast majority of men in my life had no interest in who was inside the pretty exterior.  I realized that I was just a mobile dildo to that crowd.  

In fact, I got picked-on if I stepped out of bounds in some way.  It was like trying to balance on a tightrope of other peoples’ expectations.  Fall off, and you would never get back on.  It was conditional approval.

The clincher for me occurred after a big fuck-party, when I showed up at Sunday brunch in a Hawaiian shirt, flip-flops and shorts.  My brunch companions refused to eat with me, unless I changed back into full black leather.  That was the last time that I associated with them, and with that subculture.  I happily stepped into a much, much slower lane.

At age 25, I gave up using my privilege at others’ disadvantage.  I chose a different path of seeking real and useful wisdom.

Assertions And Declarations

I assert that I am more than what you can see.  

There are depths to me that are worth knowing.  

I am an amalgam of many flavors, good and bad.

I am not just a single, obvious musical note.  I am a symphony.  

I assert the same about YOU.  There is majesty, worth, and a valuable contribution to the world inside all of us.  I take that attitude with me wherever I go, treating everyone as my favorite brother or sister.  I am rarely disappointed.

External Validation

Being given approval of any kind is delightful, so we work hard to get more of it.  We can spend thousands of hours every year, pumping up bigger and bigger muscles.  We can have our teeth straightened and whitened, along with hair-removal and spray-tanning, $3,000 leather outfits, and darkening that gray beard.

We may have experiences of all of those attributes and many more.  They can bring on flattering and pleasurable reactions, and allow us to “win” on some level.

No matter what, sooner or later, the crash arrives.  Age, sudden disasters, infirmity and gravity work against our following the same path forever.  That’s when we will be needing the emotional growth that we may have allowed to dwindle while we were otherwise occupied.

To this day, I still go to the gym several times a week, but I ALSO work on my social skills, and provide value to my circle of true friends.  My biggest struggle is with humility.  I’m still trying to figure that one out, and I am open to suggestions.

Distancing Mechanisms

The other side of that same coin has to do with keeping others at arm’s length.  Let’s start with WHY we would want to protect ourselves from others.

We are all born perfect, trusting and uninhibited.  We learn to be otherwise, when we receive wounds along the way:  

• “NO, STUPID!  The OTHER way!”  “People think that I’m stupid?”

• “Don’t talk to me, ugly!  Take those big ears somewhere else!”  “What’s wrong with my ears?”

• I’ll give you something to cry about!”  “It’s bad for me to cry?”

These wounds cause us to make decisions that we hang on to, long after they have become obsolete.  We may use ever-growing musculature to keep others at a distance. Or five layers of leather. Or whatever else helps us to keep possibly stressful interactions at arms’ length.

Those same predicaments can also create new, pleasurable possibilities, but we have to be OPEN to that idea in the first place.  

Cynicism protects our tender hearts, but it can also prevent us from noticing when the Real Breakthrough Opportunity shows up.

One decision that I still struggle with can be expressed as “I’m not going to let you reject me.  I reject you FIRST!”  That’s on a very deep, early level, but I am not being driven by it so much any more, now that I consciously recognize it.  Eventually.  I no longer feel that my foot is nailed to the floor, while I go around and around the same problem, doomed to repeat it.  Therapy helped.

I now laugh about my flaws as a personal foible.  At that point, I clean up my mess:  “Oh, there I go again.  Sorry.  I am glad that I caught myself.  My anger does not belong to you.  I’m not doing that any more.  Let’s start over.”

Attitude Queens with a Capital “A”

So when you see that gorgeous man who seems to have everydamnthing going for him, moving through the crowd with a fixed look on his face that says “Don’t bother me,” spare him some loving sympathy.  He is just as damaged as you are, despite external appearances.  He’s just expressing it in his own way.

He’s lonely too.  He is misunderstood.  He struggles with finding unconditional love and deep friendship, just like anyone.

If I see somebody who is broadcasting on that channel, I get right past his defenses, 99% of the time.  I do it by treating him as a good-hearted man, with value as a possible friend.  Like any human being, he is starved for honest respect and affection.

Our Brains React Differently With Objects of Desire

Recent MRI-scan tests have shown that our mental processes change radically when we meet a politician, a celebrity, or a porn actor.  We put them on a mental pedestal.  Star-Fuckers, World’s Biggest Fans and Celebrity Stalkers can be a real chore for someone who just wants to walk down the street unmolested.

Think of the porn actor who is making some extra money as a go-go dancer on an elevated box at a big dance-party.  He has drunks pawing at him like he was a piece of meat.  They are making his privates very public.  No matter how much he can rationalize this (”It’s all part part of the J-O-B”), he can also get pretty tired of it.  Feigning enthusiasm can be a tedious chore.

That's why I always do one, specific behavior with every go-go dancer:  I bring him some ca$h to stuff into his shorts, but I only do it in the area between his hip and his dick.  I am not going for the gold.  I smile in an honest, happy way, look him in the eye, and tap my cheek with two fingers.  He smooches me on the cheek, and throws his arms around me with honest pleasure.  I take that chance to express some honest compliments about his dancing, and then we disengage affectionately.

I gave him a Warm Fuzzy - A moment of sweet, honest human interaction.  As a result, I am loved and respected by that man, forever afterward.  I looked for the good in him.

The Calendar-Signing Party

I attended an event that turned out to be well-stocked with extremely handsome, muscular men.  They were in town to promote a charity calendar, and I was politely interested in knowing more.

After about an hour, a man came up to me.  He was the husband of the calendar’s creator, and he was curious to know more about me.  He had watched me speak to every one of the calendar models, and had noticed that they all dropped their shields around me in seconds, and were at their ease.  They didn't feel the need to be “on” with me. They all hugged me, as their own idea.  I almost never ask for hugs.  I prefer to earn them.

I get a lot of hugs.

The Bottom Line

The point that I am belaboring is that we can rise above our easy and obvious biases.  We can choose to let go of physical external appearance as a point of reference.  Those are just what we can see.  If we open up our own hearts to the possibility that somebody is a good man, then he may pleasantly surprise us.

I am VERY rarely disappointed.

[shigironki]

~BIO FOR MY BULLY OC, VICTORIA CLAIRE KENNEDY~ i feel like i left too much out for my baby girl, and also changed so much of her. :B ALSO I FINALLY GOT OFF MY LAZY ASS AND MADE HER A FULL BIO, GO ME!!

Biographical Information  Name – Victoria Claire Kennedy Age - 17, sophomore year   Birthday – September 7th Astrological Sign -  virgo    Gender - female Ethnicities   Distant Descendants: none that she truly knows currently. 

Dominant Descendants: American  Physical Description  Hair Color – hazel/black hair, very wavy and curly, never has it straight Eye Color - Hazel Weight – 165 lb Height – 5′5 ft Figure/Build – Is an hour glass figure, thighs are big, is 37 C cup, curvy waist, and has slight chub onto her stomach, face is chubby as well. Distinguishing Features/Scars/ or Birthmarks – There are scars (very light; you can’t see them unless you look very close) on her right wrist that are medium sized, very light. has a scar onto her knee from when she was little. Has stretch marks on her hips that are very deep, and also on her breast, arms, and knees. She does have freckles, on her face, shoulders, and crotch-area. Tattoos: none Piercings: has two little piercings on her ears, and a nipple piercing 

Frequently Worn Jewelry: She tends to wear rings on her middle finger, does wear chokers (mainly black, but sometimes pink as well).

Typical Clothing Wear: Victoria tends to wear her school uniforms more often, but out of school she tends to wear cutesy clothes; pink shorts, “kawaii” dresses/skirts, formal shirts. She does also tend to wear one of Johnny or Gary’s shirts (ones they gave to her) With a pair of leggings. Never wears jeans unless they’re shorts.

Personal Information  

Current Living Arrangements -  Currently lives in a two story home in towards the forested areas of Bullworth. 

Traveled Territories – She currently has only traveled from Florida (last home) to Bullworth.

Hobbies -  Writing, knitting, playing games, drawing, and sleeping a lot.

Fears – Abandonment, overcrowded places, the dark, father, and abandoned places.

Religion/Beliefs – Currently has no idea.

Why?: She was raised in a non-religion family household, her parents nor grandparents never really got her into religion 

Health Behaviors  

Physical Ailments/ Disabilities/ Issues – Currently has PTSD, MDD, anxiety and Bipolar Disorder. She has has loss of feeling in her pinky on the right side of her wrist.

Addiction(s) [Sex, Drugs, Smoking, Alcohol, Other]: She currently smokes pot, and has trouble saving money and spending it on important stuff

Why?: Smoking pot helps her calm down, and it was sorta forced onto her at a young age (13 years old) and she never really tried quitting, along with money, she never fully had anything so spending it on stuff she immediately loves is “always the right thing”

Any regular medication taken? – Antidepressants, and nighttime medications.

Chronological Information  

Profession – A waitress for a local diner

Likes – Pastel clothes, cute stuff animals, animal crossing, Word Of Warcraft, G&G, and reading, along with smelling candles and perfume

Dislikes – Anyone who’s a dick, bullying, toxic people, and acne

Goals/Ambitions – Currently wants to be a nurse for a children’s hospital 

Most Instructive/Painful/Memorable Experience – Mainly her childhood; as she was bullied to the extreme, she turned off her emotions and stopped caring for others. Along with her father being put into jail, she grew with her grandparents and with her two sisters. This caused her to go into a mental meltdown, soon cursing and getting extreme mood swings, and with getting into violent situations, she grew hating everyone and everything, and never letting anymore get close to her.

Weapons/Equipment – Mainly uses her fist and feet for combat, also carries a rainbow pocket knife for protection. (She also has a Hello Kitty bat in her dorm room in case).

Personal Attributes  

Personality - Victoria’s personality can be summed up with two words; asshole, and caring person. As she grew with showing nor feeling any emotions, it takes her awhile to understand which emotion she’s currently feeling, which ends with being a bitch towards others in defense, and even being sarcastic towards those she feels are gonna toy with her or use her. She’s very hard to get used to, or even close to, but once you do, she’s a very gentle and sweet girl. She truly cares about those that have shown her love and kindness, and sometimes gets too trusting and stops caring for herself, just to love those who have shown her politeness and love. She gets carried away too much, and sometimes overreacts to stuff very quickly, but once you get close, she will truly love you for who you are and accepts you instantly.

Strengths - Quirky and very funny, knows a lot about science and math, knows how to fight, very good at talking out of sticky situations, persuasive to the maximum, and knows how to copy someone else handwriting very quickly. 

Weaknesses - Very angered easily, low self-esteem, her PTSD makes her scared of being hurt and yelled at, cannot be in the same room as a male adult, trust too easily, cries nearly about everything.

Good Habits – Tries to be there for everyone, helps when needed, charismatic, drops everything for others.

Bad Habits – Doesn’t watch her language as often, eats waay too much, gets upset and irritated instantly, makes everything into a joke about herself, (Doesn’t do this anymore) uses pain as a way to help her emotions onto herself.

Fetishes/Strange Behaviors – No fetishes, but does bite her ear bud cords, shakes her legs hard, bites her nails and sweater sleeves.

Stereotype – With wearing cute clothes and looking very sweet, she certainly does not fit the stereotype. She’s a potty mouth, bluntly tells the truth, and makes sure people know not to ever mess with her. 

Ratings on Personal Qualities  

Physical Strength: 7/10  As good as she is with fighting, she currently does feel pain a lot more than normal, as in one good punch to her and she’s down to the ground.

Attractive: 7/10  her outfits put people off instantly, but people seem to admire how she looks in a lot of pastel colors.

Honesty : 4/10 As much as she wants to tell the truth most times, she sadly can’t bring herself to tell the full truth about someone. She cares more about the person than the harsh truth.

Rule Abiding : 3/10   Lmao, rules? They don’t exist much to Victoria. She does break a lot of school rules, but makes sure to never break her home rules or grandparents.

Sociability : 8/10   She truly is the social butterfly type. Cliques don’t matter to her at all, she likes you? She’ll want to be your friend instantly.

Bullworth Academy Information  

Victoria has attended Bullworth for two years, for freshmen and now sophomore. As she dropped out of middle school to get her life more stress free, she had to repeat 8th grade in order to go into high school. And with all the troubles she had caused in Florida, Bullworth was the only academy to accept her.

Knowledgeability  

Language(s) – English, and French.

Schooling Level – Sophomore(??)

Expertise – languages

Reading Level – above average

Relationships Statuses    

Trusted Companions

Closest Friend(s) – Beatrice Trudeau

Even with Victoria not so big into math or any subject, her and Beatrice have been extremely close since Freshmen year. They both have a close friendship, and are there for each other 24/7, no matter the situation. She doesn’t like some of her best friends choices, but she makes sure she’s okay and safe and sound. ((When her and Jimmy “had a falling out” Victoria was there for her all night, helping her and making sure she was okay)).

Friend(s) – cornelius johnson, algernon papadopoulos, peanut romano, lola lombardi, petey kowalski, jimmy hopkins

* cornelius johnson: They both enjoy musicals, and science most of the time. She tends to go to him for the latest update of a musical that’s going on, and they both can giggle and cry over anything like Romeo and Juliet. They’re good friends for sure, and never really hang outside of school.

* algernon papadopoulos: As much as the two never see eye to eye, they usually have a good time during G&G, him joking about her “Edgy” characters she plays, and make jokes about the campaign. She never bothers to get to know him, as she never has the energy to handle his excitement, or usually understand what he’s talking about.

* Peanut Romano: He’s her first ever real friend when she had gotten to Bullworth, and nothing makes her happy than to hear about what Lucky or Ricky did that was stupid. She sees Peanut as a brother type of person she can trust, she tends to go to him when she feels like Johnny’s out of line, or what to do when he’s not okay. They both really enjoy each other’s company.

* Lola Lombardi: They both didn’t see eye to eye after her and Johnny broke up, and Victoria began to date him. Of course, with some small talk and hanging out, they both became good friends instantly, with Lola showing what type of clothes could get Johnny going, or helping her with make up tips. Lola is a type of friend to listen to Victoria talk about anything and just nod and agree.

* jimmy hopkins: As much as he isn’t okay with her dating both Gary and Johnny, he’s still there for her a lot of times. They have a weird friendship, at times they wouldn't’ speak to each other for weeks on end, then the next time they’re talking non stop and making a fuss in the classroom. *Pete kowalski: Victoria was really the one to never call him a dork or a loser, she actually enjoys hanging out with him, playing video games and talking about drama of the school. She does love his comebacks to Gary a lot of times, and always is there for him no matter what.

Hated Rivals

Worst Enemies – The Jocks, she truly hates them all due to constant bullying they do with the nerds.

Intolerable Students – 

* Mandy Wiles: With her constant putting down on Beatrice, she truly cannot stand Mandy for the dear life of her. The constant joking and poking fun at her best friend, it made her hate her instantly as soon as she had gotten there.

Tolerated Students – She doesn’t tolerate much people, either she likes you, dislikes you, or just doesn't talk much to you. 

Tolerated Townsfolk - No one currently

Hot Encounters  

Hinted Attractions - Gary Smith, Johnny Vincent (before they all had began to date)

Crush(es) - none

Lover(s) - Gary Smith, Johnny Vincent.  

She wasn’t fond of Gary at first, but given that they started to tolerate each other, she began to learn more and more about him, understanding where he’s coming from as she had parents who didn’t care for her, or wouldn’t try to. They became friends with benefits at first, as she was hypersexual and he wanted a stress relief, but as soon as they made it a normal thing, he began to develop a crush for her, hating it ever so much as she got into a relationship with Johnny. As she brought up that she could date both of them, with their consent of course, Johnny wasn’t okay with it at all first, as that was his girl and only his, but as she began to stress more and more about this, he caved in and gave it a try. It was all very stressful and full of fighting until Johnny began to try and get close and get used to his presence. They’re all fully comfortable now, still some annoyance from both boys here and there, but it’s easily resolved.

Ex(s) - Unless you count people who dated her for a day, then no 

Extra Information

Eating Habits

Omnivore/Carnivore/Herbivore – omnivore

Favorite Food(s): Bagel Bites

Favorite Drink(s): Soda, red bulls, smoothies, and orange juice

Disliked Food(s): peas, Brussels sprouts, and tomatoes

Disliked Drink(s): tea  

Added Information

Scent – Lavender, and/or honey

Favorite Color: black, pastel colors

Favorite Season: summer

Favorite Animal: frogs, chickens, bunnies, and cats

Favorite Music Genre: kpop, 2000′s pop, 80′s, 90′s, and death metal

[andavs]

For the "I wish you would write a fic where..." thing: Derek is smugly singing "Scotty doesn't know" while Scott is around or he plays it while they're in the car with a smirk on his face. And obviously Derek and Stiles are together, but Stiles isn't ready to tell Scott, I don't know, something like that, pleaaaase :)))

There were a lot of misunderstandings in the pack, which was understandable; misunderstandings happened in any group of people, small and large, especially when most of them were too emotionally stunted to have a conversation that wasn’t 85% sarcasm. Which the Hale pack was. Because that’s what happens when an emotionally stunted twenty-two year old finds like-minded people to join his angst club.

So there were misunderstandings. Assumptions. Misconceptions.

Misconceptions like Stiles could do card tricks now because he was an emissary, or that Erica’s lewd sense of humor meant she was kinky in bed (she wasn’t, she’d drunkenly confessed as much after chugging a fifth of 151). The absolute lie that Isaac became cultured since he lived in France for a year, or the assumption that Jackson was anything spectacular in bed (he wasn’t, Lydia had drunkenly confessed as much after one shot of 151).

But by far, the most heinous misconception was that Derek was a no fun stick in the mud; a true Adult who went to bed early, only drank decaf coffee, and dusted regularly, or sat in silence reading every day.

The reality was that Derek played douchey music too loud, drove with a lead foot, and spent way too long getting his hair just right in the morning. That effortless stubble? Carefully maintained. He had a brush for his eyebrows.

If he had no plans, he laid in bed until well after noon, scrolling through articles on his phone so he could huff indignantly at them and roll his eyes.

He had a secret cookie stash behind his bran cereal, a weird fascination with deep frying food that he never indulged in beyond buying interest magazines about it, and for some god awful reason, he knew all of the names of the people from Jersey Shore.

He snored and drooled, didn’t always clean up the hair after he trimmed his beard, and occasionally had days where he watched hours of cooking shows and only got off the couch to pee or brush chip crumbs off himself.

Stiles knew all of this to be true because he had personally witnessed all of it, and had found stubble sprinkled across the sink on more than one occasion. He’d woken up to nudging and a phone in his face and Derek’s exasperated, “Read this, can you believe these idiots?” He knew way too much about how to deep fry everything from ice cream to entire pigs, because sometimes he forgot his phone and that was the only type of reading Derek left in the good bathroom. He’d watched three two hour specials on making soufflé in one sitting, a dish that neither he nor Derek had any intention of ever attempting.

Stiles knew all of this to be true because despite the rampant emotional stuntedness all around, he was dating Derek—fairly successfully, he might add. Maybe a high B+ with the points deducted for the time he tried deepthroating and burped on Derek’s dick.

That aside, they were doing great, Stiles was happy, loved, terrified of screwing it up, he’d kill a man with his bare hands before doing anything to risk it—standard butterfly kind of flutters.

So when it came time to tell the pack about them...he flaked. Like a dry scalp in winter.

(Which, coincidentally, Derek also had.)

He wasn’t ashamed or anything, god no, who could be ashamed of dating Derek? Stiles was just...bad enough at relationships under the best of circumstances, and it was going so well, so why tempt fate by changing things and adding variables to the equation? Variables like a pack of werewolves looming and cracking their knuckles at him, just waiting for him to mess up, which would no doubt make him mess up spectacularly.

Stiles might be the Hale pack emissary with Scott on his side, but the betas would always favor and protect their alpha. Jokingly fluttering his eyelashes at Derek had already gotten him a “hurt him and I’ll rip your spine out through your asshole” talk from Erica while Boyd stood behind her, face blank, not blinking once.

And unfortunately, it was not a misconception that Boyd would kick his ass if given proper motivation.

So yeah, no pressure or anything.

The one time he’d (drunkenly) confessed his fears of ruining everything if anyone knew, Derek lovingly called him a dumbass and then got him water and put him to bed, and that was also the last time he’d been so understanding about it. Because apparently Derek was the date type—datey dates, with candles on the table and holding hands in nice shirts, which was a real shock to Stiles and only Stiles, because no one else knew.

They all kind of assumed on some level that he was the same hermit from their high school days who avoided people like the plague and growled if you got within ten feet of him, which was yet another misconception, because Derek liked leaving his apartment and often did. Sometimes for hours at a time just because. And sometimes even with Stiles. Maybe even for a few days, which Stiles would definitely be saying yes to as soon as he managed to come up with a cover for why he and Derek would be gone at the same time without arousing suspicion.

And then he’d made the mistake of saying that out loud, which ended up in another fight about their whole secret relationship right before they were supposed to pick up Scott and drive four hours north to meet another pack. Which was great, because as it turned out, the only thing worse than an outright pissed off Derek, was a passive aggressive Derek, which was a Derek that Stiles didn’t have much experience with.

Another common misconception the pack held about Derek was that he was the adult in the group and listened to NPR and audiobooks, and was too mature for trolling. But because that was entirely wrong, and because he grew up in the years of manually making playlists before Pandora or Spotify, he’d made a playlist for the drive. On a CD.

I’ll keep you my dirty little secret—

Stiles skipped to the next song.

Baby when you got a secret love—

Next.

Daytime friends and nightime lovers—

Next.

Scotty doesn't—

Stiles slammed his palm across half the dashboard to turn it all off and glared.

Derek smirked behind his stupid sunglasses.

Scott made a slightly disappointed sound in the backseat, because he always kind of enjoyed songs with his name in them.

“How do you even know this many songs about this?” Stiles hissed, barely moving his lips as if that would keep Scott from hearing.

“It’s a pretty popular topic,” Derek shrugged lazily, not taking his eyes off the road. “Right up there with breakups.”

Stiles’ stomach dropped.

“Scott, we’re dating!” he all but shouted, only to be answered with a bored,

“Cool.” Scott sounded distracted, like he hadn’t even looked up from his phone for this massive revelation and brand new information. “Can you turn the music back on?”

Derek was smirking again, and he didn’t even have to say what Stiles knew he was dying to rub in his face: their relationship hadn’t imploded the second the words left Stiles’ mouth, nothing had changed, Stiles wouldn’t have to tuck and roll onto the freeway.

Nothing to worry about.

They were good.

“Wait, was I not supposed to know about that?” Scott asked, somewhat delayed as he dragged his eyes from his phone, because it was another misconception that Stiles and Derek were anywhere close to subtle about their relationship.

[mrsslrss]

2017

I rang in 2017 drunk and crying. I left a New Year’s Eve Party where all my friends and I drank down the clock and M and I went home, and I had been obsessed with “Love More” for a few weeks so as soon as we got back to the house I put it on over the stereo. Anyway about ten seconds in I started sobbing and I couldn’t, for the life of me, explain why. (I wasn’t even sad! It’s just such a beautiful song!) M just put his arm around me and kind of half-laughed and told me it was going to be okay in a quizzical but very convincing way and eventually I stopped crying and the song played itself out. I think that about sums it up.

Anyway I think we can all agree that 2017 was a weird year in a grand sense, which I don’t feel compelled or equipped to speak to. But it was weird in a personal sense, too. The year started in that mass of feelings for me; I dyed my hair pink; I lost someone I cared about deeply, which hurt in a place I didn’t expect or understand. The other side of that month was the Women’s March: housing twenty friends from Boston and Brooklyn and elsewhere in a spirit of earnest and viable and real solidarity that nearly broke my heart.

In the spring I worked a lot, and eventually got to travel across the country and fall in love with a couple different cities: New York (Life After Youth, celebrating my 25th); Seattle (Bois Naufrage, fancy coffee, riding the bus); Austin (freeways, rental car, KUTX, wildflowers). In the summer, Keeper put out a tape – bittersweet timing, just before Sam moved back to Texas – and I got a few days on the Cape with the crew. I worked weekends and drank green juice and read novels. In the fall I got really into that Fever Ray song and memorized the opening passage of The Argonauts and finally made it to DIA: Beacon.

Overall, I think, it’s been a head-above-water kind of year for me, where I mainly got caught in a cycle of exist-process-react-exist without creating much. I spent a lot of time thinking about my feelings but still can’t exactly mark the growth. Sometimes stillness is a sign of change, though; maybe I’ll count that one as a win. So here’s a list of 10 things (big and small!) that I saw, heard, watched, made, felt and loved in 2017, that helped me get through the year.

The Heart Season: “No”

Before this year became the kind of dumpster fire in which you hear everyday about new ways that powerful, prominent men treat the women around them terribly, The Heart was talking about consent in a genuinely nuanced, genuinely feminist way. The “No” season was four episodes long, during which host Kaitlin Prest stared down specific instances in her own life where consent’s gray area reared its fucked-up face, and explored where the experiences left her – how they influenced her sense of self, how they shaped and informed her future sexual (and non-sexual!) encounters. And then she broadened the scope, ignoring the easier narratives – “yes means yes,” “no means no,” “consent is sexy!!!!”, rhetorical devices so exhausted and exhausting – and instead asked harder, realer questions about the intersections of desire, fear, gender, pleasure, and autonomy. It gave me language I didn’t know I needed and set a model for a kind of audio storytelling I didn’t know was possible. I wish they played this at every college orientation across the country.

Turning The Tables

What if we appreciated women’s art apart from maleness entirely? What would it look like to tell the story of popular music through only women’s greatness? That was, crudely put, the mission of the list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women that NPR Music published this year. Being part of this project was huge: it meant absorbing massive amounts of history, rethinking canon, getting to be an editor(!), working with some of my biggest professional idols. Mostly, though, it meant devoting much of my working life to the intersection of radical feminism and rock and roll. What a dream.

Drag

I was drawn to art that felt genuinely subversive this year, but it mainly played out in moments of surprise: disappointment from expectations I didn’t realize I held being left unmet; utter radiant joy when this need I didn’t know I had was fulfilled. Maybe the most memorable time it happened was in June, at GAY/BASH, a monthly experimental drag show in D.C. It was the first time I saw drag IRL, which would maybe have felt subversive no matter what – but probably few things would have matched watching a drag queen in a red white & blue housewife dress penetrate the eyeholes of a Trump mask with a strap-on. Incredible! Tell me you can watch that and feel unmoved. My friends and I went back to GAY/BASH every month after that. The music was always perfect: The Knife and Paramore and No Doubt and Cher, etc. But mostly what felt so powerful was the company: being in explicitly gay spaces full of gay and queer people, where abject expressions of sexuality and of gender trouble felt neither like threats nor invitations to violence.

There was also, of course, Sasha Velour, the cerebral art-queen who was crowned this year’s winner of Rupaul’s Drag Race. I saw her on tour with other season 9 queens this summer; her lip-sync of “Praying” by Kesha was perhaps, no lie, the most moving musical performance I saw in 2017. She embodied and embraced the reality so many of us face as women and queer people: victims and victors, agents and acted-on, mired in both hope and fear on a near-constant basis. It was transcendent. 

Ramen

On a less serious note, D.C. is, like many cities, in the midst of a ramen craze right now, and if I’m honest I spent an inordinate amount of the year benefiting from it! And from the fact that a few places will even deliver ramen right to your house if you have the right app! (Also, there’s a lot to be said about cultural appropriation, the devaluing of non-Western food traditions, etc. in these contexts; I am trying to keep learning and will leave the explanations to folks smarter than I.)

Tank And The Bangas

I called this band the “best band in America” all year and I meant it. Their Tiny Desk concert was both an exhale (after the stress of running the Contest itself) and an inhale (before an unrelenting and enthralling month of tour with them). I saw Tank and the Bangas perform eight times in 2017; their positivity never got stale, their exuberance never felt forced, their passion never wavered. They sound like no one else I know. Goddamn, I love this band. The best band in America!

Therapy

I went back to therapy this year after not really going since childhood but thinking about finding someone to talk to and being jealous of friends’ casual off-hand remarks about their therapists for years. I went mostly because of this thing that happened last December involving some brutal unkindness from a loved one that was so vicious yet unexpected it left me feeling startled and knocked off course, like having been shoved from a great height and, after shaking off the dust, finding myself very alone. I thought it was a minor disturbance but it actually burrowed pretty deep into me and I wound up freaked out about a bunch of stuff, so long story short: I finally found someone to talk to.

I will save my breath about how mental health care should be accessible and de-stigmatized. I will say that therapy made my year better in a lot of ways; mostly, in that I had a dedicated time and place to work, patiently, on some things that felt really paralyzing. (It also taught me some useful concepts, like the idea of psychological safety and the Buddhist teaching of the “second arrow,” which I then snuck into some of my favorite writing I did this year. Win-win.) Nothing is fixed, obviously; therapy has felt mostly like a drawn-out emotional root canal all year, which is to say, I still nurse the same ache that sent me. But I’m grateful and I am learning and it’s starting to feel less self-indulgent to want to address my bullshit. I recommend therapy to everyone! If you’re interested in talking to someone, here are some affordable resources.

Iced Americanos 

There are precious few things that get M out of bed early: the promise of imminent skiing; a genuine emergency; and coffee. I’ve relied heavily on the third one this year to squeeze in a half-hour of quality time with him before I go to the office. Listen I know this is cheesy as h*ck but it truly improves the overall quality of my day! Anyway the iced coffee at our corner coffee shop is not for me but the baristas take great care with their espresso shots so I started getting iced americanos instead and now I have been converted to an iced americano grrrl, even in winter (true to my New England roots). And a morning-coffee-with-your-boyfriend grrrl. Gross! I can’t help it.

Creative collaboration

Madeline Zappala is both a dear friend of mine and a total badass artistic inspiration to me. I was so glad she asked me to help edit her magazine, Reflections on the Burden of Men – and that she (and her co-creator, Laura) accepted a short piece I wrote about being disgusted by sexuality, or maybe more so by the insistence that women perform it for patriarchy, feeling isolated from my body, wanting to not want what I want. Editing the writing in the magazine was a dream! And watching it come together was so instructive. Go get a copy! (Or just pick up some unsolicited dick pic stickers, a real thing they made.)

2017 was a pretty exciting year for Keeper, too. Between January and August – when Sam moved back to Texas and Keeper became a project with a less coherent identity – we played amazing shows and put out a tape and met a lot of really lovely people. I learned a lot.

Female solidarity

I never got the appeal of using the phrase “work wife” to describe a lady BFF in your office before this year (too close to “girl crush,” which, I maintain, is basically homophobic; plus, who wants to replicate the capitalist heteropatriarchy of the marriage-industrial complex in your office friendships, of all places?!) but now I have two and I totally get it. There’s really something special about working alongside women like me, and having them be people who are willing to take a lunch break or walk to Starbucks (lol) so we can encourage each other through weird career stuff, or vent about male incompetence, or gush about new music, or interrogate what it means to care about feminism or justice or epistemology or whatever in 2017, which is mostly what we did. Some of the most enriching and important conversations I had this year were these; we often joked about the positions of authority we’d have, the raises we’d get, the articles we’d be assigned if only the People In Charge heard the conversations we had around cafeteria lunch tables!

Of course, there was also the mere fact of having lived with three other women throughout this year, creating a home that was a constant space for frank discussions about shared oppression; there were days of 8+ hours of GChat sessions that formed a virtual safe space; there were the year’s albums that spoke to the bizarre, incredible realities of womanhood. And all of this happening in the context of women coming forward about sexual assault, women journalists reporting on it, all of us whispering #MeToo on the internet. It was a year that, for me, fostered a consistent and palpable sense of solidarity among us. I needed it.

The “Thief” music video:  

Lastly: this is, maybe, the most wonderfully terrible music video I have ever seen. I first heard about this on the now-defunct podcast This Week Had Me Like, which I sorely miss, and now it’s rare that my housemates and I go more than a month without watching it communally. It’s histrionic in the best way, nonsensical, totally delightful. Thank you, Ansel Elgort.

[lifejustgotawkward]

365 Day Movie Challenge (2017) - #348: Blade Runner 2049 (2017) - dir. Denis Villeneuve

As the end credits rolled on Blade Runner 2049 last Sunday night at the Regal Union Square multiplex, I turned to my friend and asked her my usual question, “So, what did you think?” She groaned out, “that was really boring,” and the wave of relief I felt at her response was the perfect summation of my feelings.

How did Blade Runner 2049 disappoint me? Let me count the ways.

I watched Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner (1982) back in September. I was impressed, though not bowled over, by the theatrical cut, but I still wanted to give the final cut a chance. When I got around to watching that “definitive” version, I found that I actually missed Harrison Ford’s gruff, noiresque narration from the earlier edit of the film, but overall my appreciation for Blade Runner had grown and the second viewing allowed me to focus less on the plot and to better appreciate both the acting and the technical aspects of the production.

My expectations for Blade Runner 2049 were fairly high. I was eager to see how Denis Villeneuve built on Scott’s (and, of course, writer Philip K. Dick’s) visions of dystopian Los Angeles by pushing the narrative thirty years further into the future from the first Blade Runner’s setting in 2019. Although I missed the chance to see this new installment in IMAX - hey, those tickets are expensive when you don’t have spare cash to throw around! - I knew I still had to take the time to watch the film on the big screen. No TV could possibly do justice to an epic sci-fi tale of the Blade Runner variety, at least not for an introductory experience.

Bear with me, now, when I say that Blade Runner 2049 was a massive letdown. Yes, Roger Deakins’ stunning cinematography is practically guaranteed to earn him an Oscar nomination. And yes, the art direction, production design and set decoration further supports Denis Villeneuve‘s strengths regarding compelling visuals. I would also be totally fine with Renée April getting an Oscar nomination for costume design since the coat that Officer K (Ryan Gosling) wears throughout the film is incredible. Unfortunately, for the third year in a row (after Sicario and Arrival) my hopes for Villeneuve’s work have been dashed. For three years running he has fallen short of his ambitious ideas, whether attempting to concentrate on an idealistic DEA agent (Emily Blunt in Sicario), a linguist simultaneously mourning the death of her daughter and trying to make contact with aliens (Amy Adams in Arrival) or a Replicant Blade Runner (Ryan Gosling in Blade Runner 2049) who unravels a mystery about a female Replicant who was able to bear a child. All of these protagonists should be worthy of my undivided attention. Instead, Gosling - like one of Nexus’s new edition of Replicants - is just another in a continuing line of failed leads.

Part of the issue is Ryan Gosling’s own fault. In interviews I find him absolutely delightful, a funny and self-deprecating guy with a nicely offbeat sense of humor; in movies he is unremittingly bland. Whether we’re talking about The Notebook or Crazy, Stupid, Love or The Big Short, he never seems to have any discernible personality on film. It makes sense, then, that he would be chosen to play an android in Blade Runner 2049. But what does it say that he didn’t even play Officer K well? Replicants can be portrayed with emotion, if you recall Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah, Brion James and Joanna Cassidy in the original Blade Runner. Each actor breathed life into their characters in unique styles. So why couldn’t Villeneuve and screenwriters Hampton Fancher and Michael Green find a way to inject some flavor into their film’s characters?

The posters for Blade Runner 2049 imply that Harrison Ford and Jared Leto play important roles in the film, but in actuality, Leto’s “antagonist,” Niander Wallace, barely has any screen time and Ford’s returning antihero, Rick Deckard, doesn’t show up until the last third of the film. I enjoyed every moment he was onscreen, spitting his dialogue out with the same jaded sarcasm he had in the first film, but I wish the character had had more time to develop in the film. Wallace bears an undistinguished aura of evil, but what was supposed to be so special about him? Given the spotlight often put on his sightless eyes during “creepy” closeups, was his blindness really intended to be read as part of what defined him as bad (in which case, uh, what is that saying about disabilities)?

Next we have to take a look at the women of Blade Runner 2049. There are six notable female characters: Joi (Ana de Armas), a hologram who is a product created by Niander Wallace and who functions solely as K’s live-in girlfriend; Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), a Replicant who acts as Niander Wallace’s right-hand woman; Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright), K’s supervisor on the police force; Mariette (Mackenzie Davis), a "pleasure model” Replicant; Dr. Ana Stelline (Carla Juri), who works for the Wallace corporation in a capacity that I shouldn’t spoil for those who have not seen the film; and Freysa (Hiam Abbass), who plays a role that I similarly should not divulge. Of these six, Joi and Ana Stelline are the most sympathetic characters, but regardless of how these women’s actions are meant to be interpreted, the designs of these ladies are problematic.

Joi is an immediately likeable character, but since she is a product (and one who does not initially have a corporeal form), she does not have autonomy. With the push of a button, K can turn her off any time he wants, which I’m sure is an option a lot of dudes wish they had available for their girlfriends. Joi exists only to serve K, telling him how wonderful he is when he gets home from a long work day and providing whatever eye candy he desires (she can shapeshift to alter her clothing, hair and makeup). Should I ignore the fact that Joi has zero character development and applaud Blade Runner 2049 anyway for highlighting the ickiness of a future society where Joi-models are prevalent (thus eliminating the need for actual human women)? Maybe, but the film doesn’t bother to make a statement about this element of social interaction, other than the fact that it exists.

K is finally able to experience physical contact with Joi when she “syncs” with Mariette, a prostitute, to combine their bodies for a sexual encounter with K, resulting in my favorite shot in the film: an unsettling image of Joi and Mariette’s four blurry hands wrapping around the back of K’s head and caressing his hair. While this interlude incorporates an interesting degree of romantic intrigue - to what extent do K, Joi and Mariette understand what love is? - there is something a little too weird in the film’s dependence on the Madonna and Whore tropes, suggesting an either/or dichotomy where the only time a woman can possess both attributes is when she finds another person (technically a Replicant) who can temporarily provide the missing skills.

Luv is probably the best-developed female character, although since she is Niander Wallace’s servant, it is impossible to say where her allegiance to him ends and her own taste for violent retribution begins. Luv seems to genuinely savor hurting people, but I suppose that attitude was programmed into her by Wallace, which somewhat minimizes the cool factor in her badass fight scenes. It’s kind of odd, though, that she manages to outshine the film’s other resident tough gal, Lt. Joshi (I didn’t think anyone could outdo Robin Wright in this department, especially after Wonder Woman). Villeneuve and his writers couldn’t settle on how best to represent Joshi, so the character fluctuates between a generically butch stereotype and a leering boss who drinks too much and flirts with K. Again, not that women have to be only one thing, but I like consistency in characters rather than mixed messages. I wonder how much of Blade Runner 2049′s muddled and archaic depictions of women are thanks to Hampton Fancher, who also co-wrote the original Blade Runner’s screenplay, which was full of troublesome approaches to womanhood, sexuality and sexual consent.

In the end, the difference between Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 is like the distinction between a human being and a Replicant. 2049 tries to live up to the originality of that which inspired it, but it lacks the soul of its predecessor. It really says something that the most heartfelt moments in Blade Runner 2049 are two references to Ridley Scott’s film: a pivotal scene in Wallace’s lair that conjures up the memory of Rachael (Sean Young) from the film, and a moment in the penultimate scene that reuses a key piece of music from Vangelis’s original Blade Runner score. I recognize that many viewers see Blade Runner 2049 as a masterpiece, and I have tried many times in the past week to understand why, but I’m hard-pressed to comprehend why I should have spent close to three hours sitting through such an unsatisfying project, other than being able to say I bravely weathered this particular storm.

P.S. (because I couldn’t figure out where else to write this): I don’t know how many viewers will know where I’m coming from, but for the cult classic freaks out there, let me propose this theory: Blade Runner 2049 is trying to be like Paul Morrissey’s notoriously wild horror-satire Flesh for Frankenstein (1973). Check it out: a really bizarre and wealthy man (Udo Kier/Jared Leto) and his devoted assistant (Arno Juerging/Sylvia Hoeks) endeavor to construct a set of superhumans (FfF) or humanoid robots (B42049), entities that will give birth to a new generation of superbeings that will take the place of their inferior progenitors and obediently do their master’s (Kier/Leto) bidding. In fact, there are two specific scenes that reminded me of Flesh for Frankenstein while watching Blade Runner 2049: when Niander Wallace kills the naked, infertile Replicant woman (ugh, what a terrible scene), it mirrors a moment in Flesh when Arno Juerging, the loyal assistant, tries to commence sex with Baron Frankenstein’s female zombie-monster by punching her in the stomach and fatally damaging her internal organs, resulting in a grotesque display of violence similar to what we see in Blade Runner 2049.

Secondly, when Luv battles K at the sea wall and she kisses him, she is mimicking an action that Niander Wallace carried out when he killed the Replicant woman; this is also reminiscent of Flesh for Frankenstein since the Arno Juerging character often does horrible, perverse things - like conflating his lust for the female zombie with a disturbingly compulsion for violence - because he is following his master’s patterns. Take all that analysis for what it’s worth, Blade Runner fans!

P.P.S. I am also convinced that Blade Runner 2049′s Las Vegas wasteland scene was either an homage to or a ripoff of Nastassja Kinski’s desert dream sequence from another of 1982′s finest cult offerings, Cat People. Even in the slightly faded YouTube upload of the clip, the orangeness cannot be overlooked.

[artificialqueens]

Older (Biadore) 5/? - nellie

A/N I wasn’t planning on writing another chapter so soon, but inspiration struck, mostly in the form of a bad day. I tried a bit of a time jump to keep the story flowing and I’m not sure how successful it was, and the tone is a little different in this chapter but go with me here.

Adore would be the first to say she’s not romantic. On a scale of one to fuck no she sits firmly in the Valentine’s-Day-is-commerical-bullshit-and-never-give-me-flowers-they-only-fucking-die camp. She doesn’t believe in love at first sight or fairytale endings. Which is why she’s surprised when the moment she realizes she’s in love with Bianca feels a little anticlimactic.

They’re sitting on Bianca’s couch watching Dirty Dancing when it happens. Bianca had suggested it, and Adore had gone along with it because she’d assumed that “let’s watch a movie” was code for “let’s make out and eventually fuck”. By the time she figures out that Bianca just actually wants to watch the movie it’s far too late to protest. Instead, she lets her mind wander, thinking about far more entertaining things like cataloguing everything she’s learned about Bianca. It’s been a month of this – hanging out at Bianca’s apartment (never Adore’s, with a vague “I have roommates” as her excuse), going on random dates, drinking for free at the bar when Courtney’s working. A month of lying about who she is until the guilt has all but faded away entirely because Bianca is far too hard to give up and Adore just isn’t that selfless. A month of beautiful undefined and unlabelled moments that seem to feel increasingly more and more precious as time goes on. A month of fabrication and fornication and… well, she can’t think of another word, but she’s pretty sure Bianca could and that’s almost the same thing.

And that’s the moment it hits her. She’s in love with Bianca. Bianca, who is firmly engrossed in the love story between 17 year old Baby and the significantly older Johnny (and the irony of that is not lost on Adore). Bianca, who is funny and so fucking smart and who just seems to balance Adore out in all the right ways. Bianca, who hasn’t done or said anything and yet suddenly Adore is in love with her and the entire world feels different. Adore feels different. There’s electricity on her skin and she’s almost surprised when she touches the palm of one hand with her finger and no sparks fly. It’s all so normal and surely it’s wrong for such a huge moment to pass by unnoticed, but it’s not like she can tell Bianca. They’re not even officially dating yet. They’re not even unofficially dating, if Adore is honest. She’s pretty sure a heartfelt I love you would be completely the wrong move, so she bites her tongue for once and nestles herself against Bianca’s side instead.

Bianca merely smiles and wraps an arm around her and oh, Adore is so fucking gone.

Well. Fuck.

***

The next day drifts by in a kind of quiet, uneventful way that makes Adore nervous. Things in Adore’s life don’t go smoothly. Adore doesn’t get simple and uncomplicated, she gets one small disaster after another. In her experience, if things are going well that can only mean that some kind of catastrophe is right around the corner.

She’s restless. The waiting is unsettling, like the calm before the storm or being in the eye of a hurricane. It’s only a matter of time before everything explodes around her and as happy as she is, a large part of her wishes it would hurry the fuck up. Adore doesn’t do well with calm. Or with happy. Or with nice. She doesn’t do well with anything that isn’t chaos and mess and fucking destruction. She’s tried explaining that to Bianca on more than one occasion, but every time Bianca just looked at her with an expression that very clearly said ”ah, the wisdom of youth” and Adore has long since given up. It would have been patronizing except, well, she is young and she can’t say it isn’t accurate. Being young is about rebellion, and Adore is all about that. She doesn’t have the quiet poise that Bianca has mastered – although she’s pretty sure that has nothing to do with age and everything to do with the fact that Bianca is some kind of ethereal goddess.

But she’s in love with Bianca and so far the world hasn’t ended, and it’s good and it’s nice and so long as Adore ignores the vague feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach, everything is fine.

“What’s up?”

Lunch period. Violet sits on the grass next to her, obviously more interested in looking beautiful than eating any actual food.

Adore briefly considers spilling everything. Violet knows about Bianca, of course, but Adore has been underplaying their relationship without even being sure why. All she knows is it feels like something precious and she doesn’t want to taint it by talking about it. “Oh, you know.”

Violet shoots her a look. It’s the kind of look that says “I know there’s something you’re not telling me, but I’m not interested enough to bother asking.” It’s the sort of look Violet specializes in, and Adore has often marvelled at the fact that Violet can be both a supportive friend and so blatantly disinterested in anything that doesn’t involve her.

“I’m just…” Adore trails off, sighing. She’s not even sure she has the words to explain how she’s feeling. Restless and unsettled, yes, but there’s more to it than that. She’s buzzing, skin humming with that same energy she felt last night mixed with layers of irresponsibility. It’s been a month now of being on her best behavior. A month of drinking the wine Bianca likes, because she’s too scared to admit she fucking hates wine and doesn’t understand why anyone drinks it. A month of going out to dinner and not just ordering fries, and of sitting on Bianca’s couch watching a movie when she’d rather be out at a club. A month of going to clubs but not being able to really let go because there’s Bianca and Adore needs to pretend she’s not some dumb fucking kid. It’s overwhelming. She needs to let loose and just let go. Everything is heightened, her emotions are running hot and she feels like she’s going to explode if she doesn’t get some kind of release.

She groans, slamming the palm of her hand into the ground. It doesn’t help and she swears under her breath. “I need to go out. Can we go out tonight? Somewhere new, I want different.” She wants fucking nothing that she’s done since her life became disturbingly perfect. She wants – no, she needs - something new. A change, something that shatter and sparkle and break and bring her back down to earth.

“Somewhere new. Sure.”

It probably says a lot that Violet doesn’t even bother asking questions. Sure, it’s probably less because she understands and more because she just doesn’t fucking care, but Adore appreciates it anyway.

***

The club Violet takes her to is dark and grungy and filthy and completely fucking perfect. Adore’s not sure if she’s looking for someone to fuck or fight, but this is the kind of club that has both in abundance. The music is awful but loud enough that she doesn’t care, separating herself from Violet soon after they’ve finished their first drinks and letting the crowd carry her away. There are enough people dancing that Adore can close her eyes and lose herself in the music without feeling self conscious. It’s not enough, but at least it helps and she doesn’t even bother opening her eyes when she feels someone’s hand on her hip. Violet, she figures at first, until the hand begins to trail up her body and she realizes it’s someone else entirely. She knows she should probably stop them, but she’s high on the music and whatever the fuck pills Violet handed her before they went inside (probably more the pills than the music if she’s honest) and it feels like everything’s moving so slowly.

When she finally opens her eyes and sees a man easily twice her age she only smiles. It’s funny somehow and she doesn’t know why, but when she giggles he starts laughing too and then his hands are all over her and that’s not so funny but it feels kind of nice so she doesn’t pull away. She can feel the throb of the music all through her body and her skin is crackling with electricity again. She wonders if the man can see it. And then he’s taking her hand and pulling her though the crowd and the next thing Adore knows she’s standing in an alley with her back against the wall. He could have at least bought her a drink first, but his mouth presses against hers and Adore realizes what he wants with a moment of clarity. She should probably say no, she thinks, but she’s so fucking keyed up and everything is a little hazy and her skin burns everywhere he touches her. She feels his fingers dig into her thigh as he kisses her and the pain makes her gasp into his mouth.

“Oh, you like that?” It’s the first thing he’s said to her, his voice rough and a shade too close to threatening. “Fucking slut, aren’t you?”

She can feel the rough brick scraping against her arm as he pushes her back and he tugs on her hair hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. But it’s good, he’s fucking solid and real and he murmurs approvingly in her ear as her fingers scrabble at his fly, easing it down and pulling his dick out.

“Turn around.”

And no, she doesn’t want to turn around so she shakes her head. There’s a loud sharp crack and a moment of calm before she feels the bloom of pain along her jaw and realizes he’s hit her. The drugs in her system don’t stand a chance against finely honed instincts, channelling all the restless energy she’s feeling in a burning rage. It doesn’t take much to make Adore angry and she feels it building inside her, the familiar heat pooling in her stomach and spreading out across her body all the way into the very ends of her fingertips. Maybe she was looking for someone to fight after all, because she’s fucking furious. The man takes a half step back and Adore wonders if it shows in her eyes, but it’s too late. She’s angry now and she doesn’t think twice, her fist connecting with his jaw hard enough to hurt her. His eyes widen and she sees him fall backwards in slow motion, his hands grasping at nothing as he falls onto the ground.

He’s lying still and Adore suddenly discovers that there’s fucking nothing that sobers you up more than thinking you’ve just killed someone. She feels the anger drain away instantly, leaving her cold and shaking as she stares at him and wills him to open his eyes. Please,she thinks. Please don’t be dead. The seconds stretch on like multiple fucking lifetimes and Adore almost collapses with relief when he opens his eyes and groans.

“Are you okay?”

The man groans again, wincing as he reaches a hand up to touch the back of his head. “Crazy fucking bitch,” he says, looking at Adore like she’s just murdered a family of ten and is standing in their living room holding a severed head.

It’s all too much. Fucking everything, it’s all too much and Adore stumbles away from him, making it out of the alley and a few feet down the street before vomiting. She throws up again and again until there’s nothing but bile and she gasps for breath, collapsing on the ground and blinking back tears. She knows she should find Violet or at least get back inside the club but she’s pretty sure she can’t move, let alone stand up. Her phone is in her pocket and she pulls it out, scrolling to Bianca’s name and pressing call without thinking about it.

“What the fuck Adore, it’s 1 in the fucking morning.”

Bianca sounds pissed off and Adore would normally care more, but all her energy is going towards keeping herself together and she just shakes her head. “I’m sorry, I… can you come get me?” She knows she sounds pitiful. So much for acting like an adult. But she’s too exhausted to pretend and she just wants Bianca to hold her and tell her everything will be okay.

“Yeah. I’m on my way. Where are you?” Bianca doesn’t sound worried exactly, but Adore can tell she’s concerned.

“I don’t. A club.” She can’t think. She can’t remember where she is and nothing looks familiar. “I can’t.”

“Okay.” Bianca’s voice is reassuring and Adore holds the phone tighter like it’s a lifeline. “Text me the address, okay? If you don’t know, open up your map and screenshot it for me. I’ll come find you. I’ll be there soon.”

Adore nods before she realizes Bianca can’t see her. “Okay. I’m gonna. I’ll send it now. Thank you.” She hangs up the phone before Bianca can reply and opens up maps. It takes her a few attempts to get a screenshot of her location but she eventually manages it, texting it through to Bianca. And then there’s nothing to do but wait, shivering and blinking back tears, praying nobody else will walk past and see her curled up on the sidewalk looking pathetic.

It feels like an age before a cab pulls up and Bianca jumps out, and Adore can’t stop the tears of relief as Bianca wraps her in a tight hug and pulls her to the feet.

“Hey, c’mon.”

Adore lets herself get pulled into the waiting cab, clinging to Bianca. She should be embarrassed, she knows that, but even just being in Bianca’s presence is making her feel calmer. It must be love, she figures, because she doesn’t usually gravitate towards anyone when she feels like this. She’s used to being a fucking emotional out of control wreck; what she’s not used to is having someone to help her through it. Bianca’s sitting in the middle of the back seat, close enough to keep one arm wrapped around her, the other hand carding through her hair. The repetitive motion is soothing and Adore finds herself trying to match Bianca’s breaths, almost feeling relaxed by the time they get to Bianca’s apartment.

She’s silent as Bianca takes her hand and leads her inside. She feels numb, which is kind of an improvement but it also feels a little like there’s a solid glass wall between her and the rest of the world and no matter how hard she tries she can’t break through it. Bianca seems to get it though, because she doesn’t push. Instead, she just quietly leads Adore to the bedroom and helps her slowly undress.

“Come on. You woke me up bitch, I’m exhausted.” Bianca’s smiling as she holds the covers back.

Adore immediately curls up against Bianca, holding onto her a fraction too tightly. “Thank you.” Her voice is rough from all the crying and she clears her throat before repeating herself. “Thank you.”

There’s a long pause, long enough that Adore would think Bianca had fallen back to sleep except that she’s begun to play with her hair again. “You want to tell me what happened?” Bianca’s voice is soft but determined and she tugs Adore a little closer as though she wants to reassure her.

Adore sighs. No, of course she doesn’t fucking want to tell Bianca what happened. But she owes her that much and she knows it. “I was just kind of restless, you know? And there was this guy and some shit went down. Nothing important. But I got so fucking mad at him and I punched him and he just… went down.” Adore bites her lip. She really doesn’t care that the guy got physical. Men are assholes, that’s not exactly news. But it terrifies her to think back on how angry she got and she’s grudgingly beginning to accept that maybe her teachers are right and she really does have an anger management problem. “I get so angry and I don’t know how to control it. I could have killed him. And… I don’t know. It scared me.”

She knows even as she speaks that it’s the beginning of the end for the two of them, but it wasn’t like she could hide her true colors from Bianca forever. She’s a juvenile delinquent waiting to happen and no matter how hard she tries she always winds up in the same place. She’s so tired and what’s the point of trying anymore? What does she even have to lose now?

“Here’s the plan.” Bianca doesn’t sound disgusted. She doesn’t even sound surprised. Her voice is even and she’s still holding Adore just as close and it’s confusing but Adore doesn’t have the strength to query it. “We’re going to go to sleep because it’s fucking late. In the morning I’ll make us waffles and then we’re going to do some meditation together – and don’t fucking argue, it’ll be good for you. And then we’re going to figure out what calms you down so you don’t wind up killing someone. I work on weekends bitch, I don’t have time to visit you in prison.”

It’s stupid, but for a moment Adore actually believes Bianca. She’s dumb but Bianca is smart and if anyone can figure out how to help her it’s Bianca Del Rio. “Okay.” Because really, what else can she say? She stifles a yawn, focusing on the steady in-out-in-out of Bianca’s breaths, listening as they slowly deepen.

“You calm me down,” she whispers once she’s certain Bianca is asleep. “Just you.”