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300iqprower · 2 years ago

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A character I mentioned getting screwed over by Fate due to wafiu-ism is Medb, but another that got completely screwed over is Penthesilea, and unlike Medb, I can't really identify why. She got given a bad deal in being introduced in Agatha but she is probably one of the easiest characters to drag out that dumpster fire, there is so many ways to take her character and so many relationships she has to other characters. She and Asclepius shared a writer, he must have seen that it was Penthesilea nephew, Hippolytus, that was raised from the dead, why doesn't she comment on that? In most versions of the story it is the Amazons, lead most likely by her, that accidently kill Hippolytus's mother, in this case most likely Antiope, shouldn't that be addressed? She must feel a lot of guilt over that. She is Romulus's half sister but they don't have voice lines for each other. Penthesilea is a character that had and still has a lot of ways to be explored, but they keep on focusing on this hatred of Achilles for what was a comment that doesn't really matter and it just annoys me, and TM can still do it, they can still expand on her character but it seems like they don't want to. I just wish more people would be able to appreciate who Penthesilea is as a character, the amazoness event was a good start, showing her leadership skills and also it was funny, but I just wish their was more. Also she doesn't have her iconic leopard skin cape, which is lame, give her the damn cape, it might be petty, but it shows how good of a fighter she is!

Sorry this took a while to get back to but I had to look into Penth's myths more. I knew a lot less about the Amazonians than I thought, like the fact they get their name from the belief they would cut off a breast so they could better use a longbow. Holy shit that is metal.

I feel like Penth is a character torn between Nasu's obvious adoration of greek mythology and FGO's priority of making sure there's not such thing as a strong independent female character who doesn't have some sort of caveat that makes it so they wont "Scare off" the (believed) target whale audience of insecure men. The end result is a character with a lot of qualifiers and self contradictions that are best resolved by sweeping her under the rug entirely.

I'm not against the idea of her being obsessively angry with Achilles; there's a ton of potential in that and if done right it wouldn't just boil down to "Oh this character is a badass bc we want to make sure you know this other character is an even better SUPER MEGA badass" unlike......actually I was gonna give a snarky "cough X cough" example but there's too many to pick from. Regardless, this post does a great job outlining what i mean and goes a step beyond by framing it in fate specific lore.

But they obviously didn't do that in the game. She never even had enough substance to commit to that level of deeper meaning (though the stuff that post talks about is very much hinted at in her dialogue) and that's because of the aforementioned "just pretend it doesn't exist" approach to an amazonian queen and how it's at odds with the gacha status quo. Not a real status quo, mind you, I think I speak for all of good taste when I say if Penth was a take no shit unflappable badass commander I would love her more for it not less. I'm talking about this ASSUMED belief on the part of those wringing money out of things that the only market is straight insecure men who want someone to be dependent on them. I'm sure you already know this and that it's exactly what you meant by "screwed over by waifuism" but I want to outline it because it makes clear just how at odds a character like Penth is. Her design, her mannerisms, her story relevance or rather lackthereof, all of it is them trying their damndest to skirt around the obvious. To restate what i've said time and again, these things aren't always inherently issues, but things that would normally be innocuous become problematic when you know there is a specific malicious intent.

In fact that's exactly why even though as I said her hatred for Achilles could be an incredible point of depth, it still ends up being on the list of problematic things with her.

Penth is obsessed with a man, and she specifically hates him, and even though she's clearly shown to not hate all men, her character is hyperfocused on that hatred of Achilles in order to make it "special" that she doesn't hate you (with the game as per usual being written with a clear assumption that the player is male); her 4th ascencion and bond 5 lines post name reveal are EXTREMELY on the nose about this, basically labeling you "the exception" to her not wanting to be seen as a women first and foremost, and portraying her desire for otherwise to be childish and naive.

Which brings me to the part that killed my interest in her as a character. She's retroactively de-aged which, on top of just being fucked up and so very very problematic for completely standalone reasons, means they can have their cake and eat it regarding her design. She's fixated on the events that happened at the end of her life how they define who she is, yet they don't have to actually portray her as that person. Supposedly she pulled a liz because she doesn't want to be seen as the same beautiful person Achilles fell in love with. She wants to be seen as a warrior first and foremost. Ok, if she's obsessed with being seen as a warrior then why doesnt she wear any armor? Why doesn't she have her golden belt, or her famous leopard pelt, or her crescent shield, or her helm? I'm fine with her not wielding a bow or lance, in fact IMO her (afaik completely original) ball and chain wielding along with the claws is easily her best aspect in terms of character design. But not even a mention of archery, the thing from which the amazons got their name? I'm not asking to show a mutilated chest or something, if she's younger and doesn't yet have to worry about that sort of thing that's a chance to have your cake and eat in a GOOD way! (and obviously ILR breasts are not going to be an issue with archery but baseless myths like that have affected character design before so...) But again, they don't do any of that. She's barely got anything on and nothing indicative of warrior status aside from the weapons themselves, which is such a blatant contradiction of their own in-universe reason for her appearance. If she's so obsessed with looking like a warrior, why is she wearing almost nothing and her FA is a stereotypical "undressing by waterside" portrait? Actually I know why, it's in addition to stupid eye candy garbage to the convey that this is an act, that she's obsessed with being this perfect warrior but at the end of the day under that nonexistent armor is a human being like anyone else. The mask has to come off eventually...

...even though what she aspires to doesn't have to be inherently wrong or something to live in denial of. Which brings me to the last, and arguably even more damning aspect. She's portrayed as childishly wrong. They emphasize her anger as something along the lines of denying reality and "going through a phase" even if they state otherwise. They try and dress it up with materials and such but there's a very clear tone of bullheaded recklessness she's written with, like someone who won't admit they're wrong and instead pushes back violently against being challenged. She's portrayed as arrogant, not proud. She's portrayed as brash, not determined. She's portrayed as in denial, rather than rightfully frustrated. She's portrayed as if she's a stubborn child who is in the wrong, and her one true story role having her be...THAT in agartha really makes that even more overt.

Penth COULD be an amazing character as you and that post point out. She COULD be an absolute badass with her own identity and expand on her in a dozen different ways without losing anything. But they won't, because that's not their intention. They don't WANT to write her as the best character she could be because that would go against the perceived market they're trying to cater. They would never admit it, but she's written condescendingly. Because in the context of a waifu obsessed gacha, she is patronized simply by existing.

#fgo #penthesilea #fgo penthesilia #never thought i'd get an ask #character analysis #fuck fgo #i swear to god learning that Fate Stay Night completely changed the main character to appeal to straight men explained so much #long post #fate grand order

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notmrskennedy · 4 years ago

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Professor, pt 1

A/N - so i heard from like four of you which is enough to warrant me posting drafts that weren’t supposed to see the light of day - ANYWAY this was originally written in third person and let me tell you it takes a ridiculous amount of effort to change tenses like holy hell.

(Technically the prequel Friendliness but can stand alone if you really want it to. There’s a part two to this so watch out for that tomorrow.)

Summary - Spencer meets a professor and falls in love for a few hours

W/C - 2k

Warnings - none-ish? there’s a small smattering of violence and horrible changing of the tenses

-----

Spencer can’t help the irony that he’s in a freshman college class for the first time ever while protecting one of the students. Who knew that a tiny club of DnD players could incite so much rage out of an un-sub? So here he was, trying to blend in—even though he’s 25, he still looks 14 and there’s really no real reason why he should be worried about being caught—in order to protect a freshman who was more pimple than male specimen.

Joesph—the poor kid in question—takes a seat in the front row and Spencer’s obligated to sit within tackling distance, though he hopes it won’t come to that. Hopefully, Morgan will have the kid the un-sub goes for and Spencer can just enjoy being in college again. The painfully familiar auditorium seats, the stale air, and bad fluorescents feel more like home than he cares to admit.

College hadn’t been all too unpleasant. High school he’d gotten picked on mercilessly. College, however, had meant getting doted on by hot sorority girls and earning the protection of frat boys—they’d picked up rather quickly that he knew football strategy better than they did after Spencer had hustled a TV and 400 dollars from them. Sure, he didn’t drink, but every single drunk teenager had welcomed him with open arms and lots of ginger ale.

There’s chatter and for the ten minutes before class starts, Spencer is torn between trying to figure out which song is quietly playing around the room and watching for a particularly rage-filled college student serial killer. Instead, he just finds too many bored faces. Most of the kids are drinking coffee like the best of them and he’s itching for his next fix just looking at it.

The first two rows: a terrible vantage point to be profiling, but a beautifully defensible post. He watches absently as one of the TAs, who looks a little younger than him, organizes three stacks of papers on the front desk and flips through several different pages on the podium. His attention is focused solely on you for nearly a minute too long—he can hear the voice in his head chastising him for how often he gets distracted by pretty people.

You look of the fragile sort, the in-the-lab kind of future scientist. There’s something about you that’s captivating. It might be the way you keep reorganizing the papers to perfection or maybe it’s the way you study the room so closely. And while he thinks that you might not be able to physically stop someone, you sure look like the kind of person that could crush him in chess.

He’s 25 and is considering chess as a marriage proposal.

Joesph shuffles his books around in the seat in front of Spencer and you, the beautiful TA in question, hold a watch up as you move to the centre of the room. Class is starting. Class is starting and he’s hopeful the professor never actually shows up.

He notices your watch is on your right wrist—are you left handed?—as you smile widely and clap her hands together. First day jitters seem to keep everyone silent, waiting on baited breath for you to start. Spencer would stay on baited breath for the rest of his life for you. You were utterly captivating after all—he could see the drool from several students’ mouths a few seats over.

“This is Anthropology 101,” you announce. “If this isn’t your class, you’re free to leave. Or stay if you want. Did you guys know that anxiety disorders affect more than 40 million US adults? Or 1 in 5, I guess, if you want the easier pill to swallow.”

Spencer’s heart jumps into his throat and he wants to raise his hand just to ask you to marry him.

“Anyway,” you sigh, leaning back agains the front desk, “I spit out a lot of facts. Usually something that begins with ‘did you know’ won’t be on the tests. I try to be fair. Which brings us to ice breakers.”

The class collectively groans. You scoff.

“Oh hush, I’m the only one doing the ice breakers so chill out. Jeez.” Spencer waits patiently for your soft breath and then your further announcement of, “I’m officially Dr. Y/N Y/L/N, but that’s like only if my boss comes in or for any emails you send. You can call me Y/N because that’s like normal. I got my doctorate in forensic anthropology a year ago and I’ve been teaching since I started grad school three years ago. You’re in safe hands, I promise.”

He almost kicks himself. You’re the professor. How many times had he been nearly kicked out of a classroom when he was in grad school for saying he was the professor? How many times had he been 18 and trying to get an ounce of respect for himself?

You continue, waving your hands about like you could pull your ideas back down to earth. “Um—a fun fact about me is that I am not welcome in certain parts of the world for ‘violating’ what are called exhumation laws, which is silly in my opinion. I had the legal right to carry that head on the plane and—and I hope you did the reading because there’s a first day pop quiz.”

The entire class lets out one simultaneous frustrated whine that alights something almost wicked in your eyes. You wave over two students from the other end of the front row and they begin passing out test papers as you explain.

“You’ll have a total of fifteen minutes to answer ten questions. We’ll start on my mark. If you have any trouble, give me a shout and I’ll help you out. After this, we’ll go over the syllabus and if you’re lucky, leave early.”

Spencer’s passed a test and immediately notices there’s no place for a name. Just a bolded “Student #21” at the top. Another girl raises the question and you snicker. “I like puzzles,” is the only answer you give before the time starts.

Question four: what are the top three songs you’ve been listening to? Please list.

Question six: why are you taking this class?

A: This is a requirement

B: I heard it was easy

C: I heard the professor was hot

D: I really enjoy anthropology! (liar)

Question nine: Creationism or Evolution?

Question ten: Quickly. If you were going to have dinner, would it be with Bill or Hillary Clinton?

Spencer can’t hide the grin he’s got the entire test. It’s all ridiculous get-to-know-you questions. He can tell what merit you’re getting out of them. There’s one judging study habits, one judging religion, feminism, politics—you’ve created her own little innocuous questionnaire. Spencer was sure the students would just think you were strange, but he saw the cleverness.

Spencer also notices that once you notice him, you don’t stop noticing him. He wonders what you see. You’re so obviously profiling him that it hurts. Do you see the FBI agent? The scholar? The doctor? The drug addict? The man in a boy’s skin?

Your timer beeps and you shout for pencils down. Your makeshift TAs are dispatched to collect the papers and you make the stacks perfect when they make it to the desk. You move to the whiteboard, a set of papers clutched in your hand, and lean against it to address the class.

“Test go alright?” your grin is contagious and Spencer can’t help but mirror it. You glance at Spencer, turns back to the class, and tuck your hair behind your ear. You let the class chatter on for a moment, setting the papers down on the table, and readjust the undone cuffs of your white button down. He never thought that a sweater vest and jeans could look so hot.

You smirk and check your watch one more time. “Let’s talk about tests because I know you all have questions. Everything on the test is either written on the board, on the notes, or in the study guide—if you fail after that, come to office hours. I’ve got Advil for the hangovers.”

Thankfully, Joesph is one of those students who has to speak to every single one of his professors. Spencer waits patiently behind the kid, trying to keep the smell from the lack of deodorant just out of range.

He keeps a hard gaze on all of the students moving in and out of the auditorium. There’s nothing to see, just a lot of students with a lot of normal college apathy. No anger, no serial killer, no one to tackle.

“Sometimes the BO is worse than a corpse’s expulsion of gas,” you joke from your place atop the desk. Spencer looks up, and furrows his eyebrows as his brain processes. Your face falls for a split second, but your curiosity replaces it just as quickly. Joesph’s jaw hits the floor, stumbling for some way to explain himself or maybe some half decent way to insult the pretty professor.

Spencer laughs, probably a little more than he should have, considering he wasn’t supposed to out himself as an FBI agent. You tuck your hair behind your ear again and, for someone younger than 25, you are surprisingly wide eyed with perception and curiosity.

“Do you like puzzles, Doctor—“

“Reid,” he supplies, trying to swallow around the lump in his throat. “Spencer.”

You raise an eyebrow, chewing on your bottom lip in contemplation. You turn your focus back to Joesph—a boy worse at talking to those scoring higher than an 8 than Spencer was at the same age. “So, Joesph, why does the good doctor need to be within tackling distance of you?”

Joesph flounders, turns to hide his blush, and yelps like God himself has come down to kick him in the ass. Spencer takes one good look at the 18 year old girl charging towards a pimple of a boy and he launches before he can give much consideration to how much its going to hurt.

But between the noticing and the launching, he makes a list: she’s got so much black eyeliner that Emily’s high school yearbook photos would be jealous; she’s about to inflict about a 9 on the pain scale if she’s left to her plan; there’s obviously no plan other to scratch Joesph’s eyes out; her nails are the size of tiger claws and Spencer desperately wishes he had a better pain tolerance; there’s no weapon.

The tackle takes seconds. It’s a practised movement. Roll. Knee. Handcuffs. The girl is screaming and crying and kicking and biting. His arm’s on fire and she’s struggling enough that it’s taking more than ten seconds to get the handcuffs on.

It’s calculated as he presses his knee harder into her back. She yelps and stills long enough that Spencer closes the handcuffs on her tiny, sliced up wrists. The cutting explains some things…

“Hence the tackling distance,” You sum up, bending down just slightly to look the killer in the face. Your nose wrinkles. “You had very distinct ideas on the cultural value of suicide.”

Spencer shakes his head, hauls the girl to her feet, and beckons for Joesph to follow. The entire world falls out of view as he manhandles the girl into an easy walk. The students step to the side to gawk, and he’s thankful for the wide berth. If someone got hurt, the paperwork alone—

“It was nice meeting you, Dr. Reid!” you call and he glances back over his shoulder. You’re waving around the stack of papers in your arms, utterly ridiculous, terribly adorable. He hopes his smile is more suave than love sick, but the fleeting flirtation is especially over when Miss Unchecked Rage kicks out as Joesph comes into her line of sight.

Spencer throws his whole weight into keeping her down. There’s no room to fall in love after a day. Especially with someone on a college campus halfway across the country from him. There’s even less room to manoeuvre Miss Eyeliner even without Joesph waddling into her eye line every few seconds. Seriously, he thinks, how hard is it to keep behind me?

#spencer reid #dr spencer reid #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x reader #reid #reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #Criminal Minds #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid fanfiction

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whimsimmortal · 4 years ago

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Plot Bunny

Wow, I’m alive! And posting fanfiction on tumblr, as if I have any idea what I’m doing!! Please check it out on AO3, where I am actually capable of navigating the website: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27441853

Plink. Another small, innocuous sound scarcely registered past Danny’s homework-induced stupor. It could have been a stray raindrop or a kamikaze bug. He had more important things demanding his attention; namely, the book report due tomorrow. This was at least the fifth time he’d rewritten the same paragraph. Words had lost all meaning to him by this point, but he was so close to finishing.

Tip-tap. Clonk, the noise emitting from the bedroom window insisted. He glared suspiciously towards the disturbance, envisioning ethereal arrows or blob ghosts intent on breaking in. He hadn’t sensed anything ghostly nearby, but given his luck, the paranoia was usually warranted. Emitting a groan from the depths of his soul, he rose from his desk to inspect the noise. He spared a second to stretch and shake the pins and needles out of his fingers, trying to wake up. Just in case it was something serious, y'know. Tink. “Alright, jeez, I’m coming,” he muttered, pulling back his curtain.

There weren’t any ghosts, of course. That was somewhat of a relief, even if going down swinging was preferable to succumbing to a failing high school education. The early sunset gleamed amber off the windows across the street, and the sky was clear, except for— chink— the pebbles bouncing off his window. A lone kid was standing on the sidewalk below, no older than eight or nine. He looked vaguely familiar. He was pulling his arm back to throw more stones and bawling his eyes out.

Danny yanked open the window, sliding up the screen to fully stick his head out. His core vibrated, unsettled. There wasn’t any obvious danger, and the kid didn’t look hurt. Where were his parents? Why was he here? “Hey! What’s wrong, buddy? Are you okay?”

“You, you, you,” the kid tried to start, but great hiccupping sobs interrupted him. He scrubbed his face with his fists, obviously trying to regain his composure. “You’ve gotta send the ghost hero out!”

Danny jerked back, unintentionally smacking the back of his skull on the underside of the window. Well, now he was awake. What? “Uh, a ghost? Here? No, there isn’t—I can’t—what are you talking about?”

The boy was right up against the side of the house now, sniffling loudly and staring straight up at Danny with wide, sad eyes. “Please?” He whined, winding his hands up in the fabric of his sweater nervously.

Well, now he was stuck. Some random kid was going to out his whole identity, but the urge to help was almost overwhelming. “I can’t—there can’t be any ghosts here, but give me a second and I can just come down?” He offered. “Do you want me to find your parents?”

“Noooo!” The kid wailed and stomped his foot, banging on the wall with his tiny fists. “Don’t lie to me! I’ve seen the superman ghost go in there! Let him out! I need him!!”

Oh, crap, someone was going to hear. This kid’s parents were going to freak out, or his own parents were going to notice, and what if they took that kind of claim seriously? Shoot. Literally. He chuckled nervously. “Hey, hey, shhh, okay! You win! I’ll, uh, summon him, or something! But you have to be quiet, or you’ll, y’know, scare him off.” The child nodded solemnly, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve and stifling his sobs.

Danny ducked back behind the curtain, gracelessly crumpling to sit with his back against the wall. He ran his hands through his hair. He’d been seen? When? He’d tried so hard to be careful, and use invisibility whenever he was close to the house. Maybe he’d gotten lazy. Maybe, sometimes, he let the promise of sleep take priority over precautions. Stupid. He smacked the palm of his hand into his forehead, frustrated. How long had this kid known? Who else had he told? He couldn’t just scare him into silence, he was too little. That was just messed up, he’d give him nightmares or something.

He wasn’t going to figure anything out by sitting here moping. He triggered the transformation, the familiar prickling electric feeling swiftly replaced by the soothing cold. He turned to peek over the edge of the window, checking for anyone else around. It was still just the same kid, kicking at a pebble on the concrete while he waited.

He floated down slowly, not wanting to startle his impromptu visitor, who turned and saw him as he touched down. The little guy gasped, forgotten tears slipping away from unblinking eyes.

“Hi there,” Danny prompted gently. “Were you looking for me?”

The kid kept ogling, mesmerized, and a few seconds passed by before he could shake himself out of it. “Wow, you’re the real superhero guy,” he whispered reverently.

Oh. That was pretty cute, actually. He couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, that’s me. You can call me Phantom,” he offered.

“I’m Wyatt,” the kid mumbled, covering his damp cheeks with his hands shyly. He tipped his head down, still staring through his eyelashes.

A neighbor’s front door opened down the street, and Danny swiftly disappeared. Wyatt startled, blindly swinging his hands back and forth through the seemingly-empty space. “Wait! Come back!” He recoiled with a yelp when his blundering reach made contact with the specter.

“It's okay, I’m right here,” he reassured the kid. “But we can’t let people know I’m here, okay? They’ll—um. I’ll get in trouble.”

Wyatt squinted, reaching forward again. Danny offered his hand, and the little fingers gripped his glove tightly. He looked like he was offering the empty air a fist bump. “Right,” the kid agreed earnestly.

“Seriously,” Danny pressed. “You can’t tell anyone that I li-” he bit his tongue. Don’t say ‘live’. That’s so dumb. “Uh. Hang out here sometimes. Not even your friends, okay? Promise?”

Wyatt’s little dark eyebrows drew together, and despite his trembling chin and small stature, he looked profoundly serious. He shook the hand. “I promise.”

Well, that would have to do for now. “Thanks. Uh, what did you need me for?”

The kid’s eyes immediately started to well up again, but he squeezed Danny’s fingers and pressed his lips to put on a brave face. “C’mon, Phantom, you’ve gotta-” he sniffed. “You gotta save Fuzzy,” he warbled, turning and pulling. The ghost floated behind like a balloon on a string as the pair stepped down from the curb, heading across the street.

Oh, man, if this was about a dead pet, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. That was closer to Jazz’s expertise. He swallowed his mounting dread. “Who’s Fuzzy?”

Wyatt’s face scrunched up. “He’s my bunny,” he explained, looking away. “I was just tryin’ to show ‘im to Audrey, and—and then,” he sobbed. “He went under the house! And he’s gonna get lost and stuck, and I’m-, never-, gonna see him ever again!” He let go, burying his face in his hands and howling.

Danny rested a hand lightly on Wyatt’s little shoulder, throat tight. He’d never had a pet like that, but he could understand the fear of losing loved ones a little too well, and empathy always felt more forceful when he was in ghost form. Probably something related to ectoplasm being shaped by residual emotional energy, blah blah ecto-science theory. “Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”

The unusual duo walked two more houses down the block and cut through a side yard to a modest backyard, strewn with outdoor toys and an overturned wire fence—likey an outdoor pen for Fuzzy. An even younger girl sat on the paved patio, chewing on the end of her braid. She leaped up as they drew close. “Wyatt! I told my dad about Fuzzbutt, and he’ll call the—um, animal people. But they’re not here yet. Did you find him?”

Wyatt glanced a little to Danny’s left with a guilty expression. Well, crap, so much for his secret. He bit his lip, trying to keep his cool. First things first. A cursory scan of the area didn’t show anyone else in the immediate vicinity, so he faded back into visibility. The little girl—‘Audrey’, he guessed—gave a muffled shriek. “Ghost man!”

“Hush,” Wyatt scolded, voice quavering. “He’s a secret.”

“Oh,” Audrey whispered back. “Hello, mister normal guy man. I think you’re cool.” She beamed up at him.

“Hello, small ordinary human,” Danny quipped, and Audrey giggled delightedly. Wyatt dropped to his hands and knees, crawling up to the house, where a gap between the foundation and dirt was evident. The other two peeked over his shoulder, but there wasn’t any bunny visible past the darkness.

“Fuzzy,” Wyatt choked out. “Hang in there, we’re gonna rescue you!”

Danny turned intangible, letting his molecules seep down through the dirt past the level of his nose. He drifted close to the base of the house, juicing up the glow from his eyes. “Just wait here, okay?” Two grim, round little faces nodded back, and with that minor assurance, he delved beneath the house.

The weight of the floor above loomed. It was claustrophobic, like being buried… well, half-alive. The musty, dank mildew smell was gross, even though he wasn’t breathing. He could taste it. “Here, bunny, bunny,” he muttered. Please don’t be hurt.

A tiny pair of eyes reflected green through the gloom. The little ball of fluff was backed into a corner, and it snorted like a tiny angry bull, stomping its feet. Danny hadn’t even known rabbits could make that sound. It probably didn’t like his creeping, unnatural aura, like most rational animals. “Shhh,” he cooed, reaching for the tiny, grubby ball of fluff and dimming his glow. “I’m not gonna hurt ya.”

Fuzzbutt wasn’t convinced. In a courageous move, it darted through Danny’s forehead, wedging itself under a crooked board and squealing. Danny reached easily through the plank and wrapped his hands around the unhappy creature, sharing his intangibility. It writhed and fussed, trying to bite through his gloves. “Stop that!” He clutched it close to his chest; if he dropped it here, the stubborn thing really would be stuck. He swooped back out into the backyard, startling the anxiously waiting kids.

Audrey shrieked and tipped over. Wyatt recovered first, leaping to his Velcro-sneakered feet expectantly. “Is he okay?”

Danny recovered a more solid form, holding up the wiggling rabbit. Wyatt gasped, fresh tears glittering on his eyelashes. He reached out for the beloved pet, unable to contain his joy at the reunion. “Fuzzy! You’re okay! I love you, Fuzzy!”

“Let’s go inside first, so he doesn’t get away again?” Danny suggested. The last thing anyone needed was an instant replay. Audrey darted to open the back door, and Wyatt led the way inside. He sat on the wooden floor with open arms, and as soon as the door was firmly shut again, Danny deposited the squirming animal into his lap. Fuzzy looked marginally more content to receive numerous sloppy kisses from his adoring owner. He was actually a pretty cute little guy, black and white like a panda.

Even footsteps padded around the corner. “Wyatt, baby? Did you find-” the woman’s question cut off abruptly as she noticed the glowing stranger in her living room.

Crud. At this rate, the whole block was going to find him out before the week was up. He edged back a little, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry, I was just, um,” darn it, wrong persona. He cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. “Doing my heroic duty, ma’am,” he finished in a falsely deep voice.

Audrey giggled (he didn’t sound that bad!), and the woman smiled nervously. Wyatt hopped to his feet, still cradling his bunny. “Mama! Look, he saved Fuzzy! I’m gonna rename him Fuzzy Phantom,” he declared.

Mama Wyatt dutifully stroked the bunny’s dusty ears. “Fuzzy Phantom needs a bath,” she commented, before looking back up to meet Danny’s eyes. She held out her clean hand, and it took him a second to recognize the offered handshake. He started to reach back, thought twice about his messy glove, and hastily peeled it off to shake her hand. Her fingers were delicate, but they didn’t falter at the chill. “You look taller on the TV,” she joked lightly. “It’s nice to meet you. Phantom, right?”

He nodded. “Uh, it was nice to meet you, too, Ms.-?”

“Sylvie Rosales,” she supplemented. Audrey snuck around her to flounce deeper into the house, taking the adult’s distraction as an invitation, and Wyatt started to follow her, but hesitated. He snuck a hand out around Fuzzy to tug on Danny’s arm, so he leaned down accommodatingly.

Wyatt stood on his tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “Can I come see you sometimes?”

Oh, heck, no. That would be truly asking for disaster. “No,” he quickly replied, but before Wyatt’s pout could evolve into a true objection, he added, “but if you really don’t tell anyone how to find me, I could drop by sometimes.” He looked towards Ms. Rosales. “If that’s okay?”

Wyatt looked over to his mom pleadingly, stars in his eyes. What have I gotten myself into, Danny wondered, but he couldn’t help feeling charmed. Ms. Rosales looked like she was thinking along the same lines, with her thin-lipped smile and folded arms. “As long as you don’t cause any trouble,” she hedged.

“Thank you!!” Wyatt hugged Danny spontaneously, smushing his face into his shoulder. Fuzzy grunted his objection.

Danny ruffled the kid’s mop of hair. “I should get going. Take care of Fuzzy,” he grinned, pulling away. “And stay safe,” he added in his false baritone with a mock salute.

“You, too,” he heard Ms. Rosales call after him as he phased through the wall. He looped above the street once cheerfully before disappearing to sneak back home. He’d left his window open; rose-tinted light and a handful of moths had spilled onto his bedroom floor. This time, he didn’t reappear or turn back until he’d stealthily drawn the window and curtains closed.

He still had an hour or so to plug into his homework. He hummed as he started back in on the paragraph he’d been stuck on. It didn’t seem as daunting now, even with the lost time and near reveal. He’d have to keep an eye on his nosy little neighbor, but in the end, maybe it was the moments like today that made the whole gig worth it.

#Whimsi writes #Whimsi forgot how she wrote her tags #Danny Phantom #fanfiction #fluff #cute #wholesome #drabble #plot bunny

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whitherliliesbloom · 3 years ago

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in the eyes of the beholder

[ ffxivwrite2021 ] ★ [ masterlist ] ★ [ prompt #22 - fluster ]

[alphinaud/wol ] ★ [ 2,042 words ] ★ [ post-canon ]

fluster- to put into a state of agitated confusion or embarrassment

they say an artists always inadvertently pours their heart’s true feelings into their drawings.

The apartment has never been this empty - not since the day he moved in. With cardboard box towers stacked high, and a few other empty ones that have yet to be packed, Alphinaud pauses for a moment to straighten himself up and admire the empty space around him, wiping the sweat off his brows.

This has been his home for a good many years, not quite the kind that he would liken to Leveilleur manor back in Old Sharlayan where he grew up in.. but a home nonetheless- with the bonus of knowing his most trusted friends and allies are ever close by, Rising Stones being just a mere stroll away. So he cannot help but to feel a pang of sadness and longing swelling in his heart, especially as he casts a glance out the window to look upon the slow spinning aetheryte that stood in the center of Revenant’s Toll.

But, Alphinaud reminds himself, as he finally turns his gaze to look at the young woman standing upon a lalafellin stool in front of the bookcase, her arms stretched high above her head as she grabs at the rows of dust coated tomes and gives each a thorough pat and sweep with her feather duster, that the feeling was more sweet than it was bitter.

His girlfriend- or rather... his fiancée has busied herself with clearing his impressive collection of tomes and scrolls, cleaning them of months of neglect, before sorting and then packing them into the half-filled box next to her aptly labelled with a thick brush pen as ‘Books’. She’d even sorted the titles out by alphabetical order, just like he’d requested.

They’ve been packing since morning now, and he’s beginning to feel hours of prior strenuous labor catch up to him as he stretches his arms and flexes his fingers. And yet Illya seemed to be none worse for wear, for as used to physical strain and tireless work as she justifiably is.

Alphinaud takes a second to stop and stare at the woman for a fleeting moment. Her silken white hair that normally cascaded down past her shoulders and waist was now pulled up into a high ponytail and secured with a floral patterned scrunchy, her hair bopping and swaying side to side with every of her movements. Her pink overalls is stained and caked in dust, as is the once pristine white of her shirt underneath - but her dirtied wardrobe hadn’t seem to even be noticed at all, let alone bothered the woman.

And as she took her time to take a book by its spine and read the title before quickly dusting it, she’s merrily humming to the tune of an old Doman piece, volume soft and barely audible, yet soothing as her voice rose and filled the dusty air with an uplifting song.

When the young elezen man finally regains enough of his senses to snap out of his gawking, he can only twist his lips up into a bright smile before calling out her name.

“Liya.”

Her head swivels around instantly, amethyst bright eyes shimmering with immediate affection as she looks at him and mirrors his smile with her own, dazzlingly warm one.

“Yes, alphy?”

Her voice is sugar coated and dripping with sickly sweetness that he drinks up like he’s a man starved, heart soaring with an unbridled joy as he catches a glimpse of the ring on her fourth finger, a radiant crystal blossom sitting upon the painfully detailed golden band.

No matter how many times he attempts to fathom the reality of his present, there was always a more rational, disbelieving side to Alphinaud that would struggle to believe it. To fathom the great fortune he must have to be engaged to the woman he loved more than anything in the world, let alone someone who has been his biggest inspiration and source of admiration and motivation for years. And he cannot believe that he will soon be living under the same roof as her.

The Warrior of Light... soon to be his Warrior of Light. Even thinking of her as his threatens boyish laughter and cheers out of him.

Snapping out of the revelry of his daydream, Alphinaud gestures towards the metal canister next to her stool, long since emptied and left neglected with its contents drained.

“You must be tired. How about a break? I’ll refill your bottle for you.”

“No,no that’s okay-” Unsurprisingly, Illya is quick to refuse his offer with a shake of her head. “I’m not that tired. Don’t let me bother you.”

“It’s not a bother, dearest.” With a sigh, Alphinaud moves over to grab the canister, amused snicker leaving his lips when he looks down at the exasperated pout on Illya’s lips. “Let me do this much for you at least. I won’t be long.”

Ever a woman who much preferred relying on herself, it took a good many years for Illya to come to terms with accepting her own limitations and weaknesses - let alone entertaning the idea of burdening her loved ones with her troubles... no matter how trivial or small they may be.

But she’s come far - they both have... and the girl who would once stutter and burst into a blushing fluster is nowhere to be found in the presence of a older, more confident woman, who merely drops her shoulders in defeat before accepting his offer.

“If you insist, love. Make sure to refill for yourself too, okay?”

With a quick nod, Alphinaud swiftly take his own bottle before leaving the apartment before crossing through corridors past other closed doors and speed walking down flights of stairs to get to the Seventh Heaven.

Bloezoeng greets the elezen with a cheery grin, graciously refilling the two canisters full with a topping of ice cool water while making small talk, asking how the packing was going and even asking the young man to send his regards to the Warrior of Light. Nearby, the wandering minstrel sings as he strums at his harp, and Alphinaud only spares a single seconds glance towards the door leading into the back where the Rising Stones is, before leaving the Seventh Heaven, heavy and damp water canisters in hand.

Alphinaud hadn’t been lying when he said that he wouldn’t take long - it’d been a total of four minutes maximum by the time he reaches the third floor and walks down the hallway towards the only open door.

And yet when when he hears what the voice of his beloved says as he approaches the apartment, along with the tell tale sounds of sketch paper flipping, his blood runs dry in his veins and he feels himself freeze in instinctive panic.

“This book... it has no title?”

A book with no title.... Oh gods. She could only be referring to one book - the only book he’d kept purposefully hidden away on his shelf between other innocuous books for reasons unknown to all save himself. The only book with a blank cover, the only book with a well used bookmark made from a pressed lily that Illya had gifted him so many years ago slotted between its pages. A book that he had not wanted anyone to find or to see the contents of - especially not her.

“W-wait- Liya! Don’t-” He bolts into the room and drops the canisters onto the floor with a responding thud that leaves wet patches upon the wooden planks, navy blue eyes blown wide in terror. His heart pounds loudly in the confines of his tight chest, which then quickly sinks into the pits of his stomach when he stares dumbfoundedly at the lalafell and the wide opened book in her hands.

She’s staring down, speechless herself.

The pages of the book was not filled with words - but drawings. Black and white sketches created with a fine pencil and quill, soft water colored paintings that left dried patches of color upon the pages, colored line art that had been meticulously cell-shaded with an array of colored ink.

It was Alphinaud’s sketchbook- but not the one he carries in his travel bag or has laying open on his desk. He wouldn’t go through such lengths to conceal a sketchbook if it had just been that - and his dearest has always expressed how much she loved to look at his art.

But this was no ordinary sketchbook - for countless pages between the lavender purple covers of that book, marked with a bright white flower was filled with visages of the Warrior of Light - of the woman he loved.

From a quick sketch of the lalafellin woman with a stern expression as she was lost in her focus upon an embroidery hoop, a more detailed, colored drawing of her in her adventuring garments, long starlit hair radiant against a dark starry night background as she casts her eyes upwards at the sky... and a small painting of her surrounded by a sea of flowers, the gust of spring wind blowing her hair and pink dress behind her as she holds a single flower between her clasped hands as if in prayer, a serene, ethereal expression upon her face.

Illya can barely even recognize those figures as herself- is disbelieving as she flips through drawing after drawing of what was clearly Alphinaud’s favorite model in various clothing, settings and circumstances, in different mediums to boot.

But the one thing that remained a constant was the heart of the art he painstakingly filled the sketch books with, the heartfelt emotions and earnestness he must have felt as he was working on a single page.

There is a saying that says an artist will always inadvertently pour their truest, deepest feelings into the art they create - that a piece of drawing was a piece of an artist’s heart.

Illya could only wonder then, as she stares with heat pooling in her cheeks that spread rapidly to the tips of her pointed ears... what was it that Alphinaud was feeling whenever he held this sketchbook or drew within it?

What was it that he was seeing within his wide, observant eyes when he drew her? What compelled him? What will continue to compel him?

She holds his heart in her hands delicately, as if it would break if she were not careful, and slowly closes it before turning to look at the man, who has an equally, if not brighter, darker blush upon his now cherry red face.

“T-that is! I-I.... I was just- I-I-It’s not-”

Alphinaud was not often a man who got this flustered. Even when he is teased by the likes of Krile and Alisaie who threatened whenever possible and the situation was appropriate to spill unflattered secrets about his past to her, there is a sort of calm elegance to the way he’d diffuse the situation and more often than not lead her away from the two ‘gossip mongers’... as he would so eloquently put it. Though, to be fair, years of putting up with that has taught him to be a little more dexterous in navigating forbidden subjects about his time in the Studium around them.

But when the blame of the situation was nobody but his own to bear, and it involved a deeply hidden secret he’s kept for so many years from her... it’s destroyed whatever little of his poise he’s pretended to develop over the years... And Illya was absolutely the last person he wanted to have see him in such an unsightly state.

While Alphinaud attempts futilely to scrounge up a believable excuse, the lalafell has climbed down from her stool and is walking towards him.

The afternoon sky is bright, casting sunrays through the window panes and forming spotlights upon the wooden floor, as dust bunnies bounce and float carefreely around the room. Illya steps into the light, and the afternoon rays immediately reflect off her head like cut crystal... and above reddened nose are a pair of shining eyes that gaze up at him, and Alphinaud momentarily forgets to breath as she closes the distance between them and smiles delicately.

“I-If..... If you wanted me to model for you, you... you could have just a-asked me...”

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #ffxivwrite2021 #ffxivwrite #kiwisffxivwrite2021 #alphinaud leveilleur #alphinaud #illya skawi #we've come so far #mine #fanfic

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letsmisfits · 4 years ago

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PTSD Pathfinder: Part 1

I wanted to call this, “The Wary Traveler,” but some a-holes from Canada beat me to it. I don’t actually think they’re assholes, but I felt threatened and wanted to assert my dominance. I checked out their website, I didn’t read anything, but it actually seems pretty tits. I’ll think of a better name at some point in the future. Also, I may have posted this under a different username somewhere on this website. I remember doing it, but can’t remember my username. So if anyone is reading this, I promise I’m not plagiarizing. Fun fact, it is plagiarism to not cite oneself. I made a Haiku about that when I first learned about it. “Just today I learned, that it is plagiarism, to not cite oneself.” Moving forward.

PTSD Pathfinder: Part 1 (I hate this fucking title so god damn much)

PTSD is an illness with a mind of its own. From its home base situated deep within your brain it directs operations. It's goal, on the surface at least, is to keep you safe. The brain doesn't like trauma, and so it goes out of its way to prevent further trauma from happening...or at least that's the idea. Oftentimes the way this plays out makes things a whole lot worse, especially if you're in high school, god what a mess that shit was.

Recently I likened it to living with two versions of myself. First there is "Me," and then there is "trauma me." I don't capitalize "trauma me," because frankly, he's a fucking dick. Not only to himself, but to other people. For example, when my roommate comes home and opens the garage, "trauma me," gets all pissy and my roommates friendly "howdy," is met with a short and forced, "hi." How does someone get so flustered by a garage being opened?! And who the fuck opens up with, "howdy?"

This happens to us all the time. The most innocuous things seem to send us into a death spiral. A combination of anxiety, anger, self-loathing, and sadness.

The other thing to know about humans, is that we NEED to connect with others to stay healthy. This is why Tom Hanks had to become best friends with a volleyball in Cast Away (I know I shouldn't be, but I'm still bitter about his woman leaving him in that movie). The thing about PTSD is that it wants the exact opposite. Truly connecting with other people when you have been through trauma is not on the agenda.

So there you are, stuck on the one hand wanting nothing to do with people (the reasons are endless, "they'll want to talk to me, they'll will try and attack me, they will do ______ to me"). On the other hand, you are sad because you want nothing more than to connect to people. It's a bit of a problem. Not only do you not want to connect to people, you end up afraid of the world as a whole. Like yes, I could go to the park today, but it's better I stay home and watch TV. Yes, I could go to that party, but what if one of the three hundred scenarios that have played out in my brain come to fruition? Then you end up feeling like you've wasted your day. The cycle continues.

Recently I was faced with the mild, and by mild I mean a 0.0013%, chance that I had multiple sclerosis. The other thing about PTSD if you haven't gathered already, is that you are anxious all the time about EVERYTHING. Even the smallest things can cause problems for some of us. I once dated a woman who was afraid to get ice cream for herself when we were at the store...she asked for my ice cream later that night and after providing her with a bowel of that delicious frozen sugar, I asked her why she didn't get ice cream when we were talking about it at the store. Turns out this was quite an anxiety provoking process for her (I hope the people who caused this issue for her die, slowly).

Anywho, since I was faced with the prospect of immobility and death, I decided I needed to go out more. However, this is a bit tricky due to the ole PTSD. Today I said fuck it and decided to venture out into the world farther than I normally would on my own. A 37-minute drive later and I was at 7 Bridges Park in South Milwaukee, WI. I got to a bluff and climbed down the 100 or so feet to the beach. It was mostly empty which is just what I like, save for the couple with their dog walking towards me.

Why do people have to walk towards me? Can they just yield? Take a rest while I walk by at a safe distance? What do they want? What if they say hello? What if they stop to talk to me? What if their dog comes close to me? Do I pet it? Then what happens? These are the thoughts that run through my mind just about every time I encounter people in the world. They walk by, I'm safe. BUT WAIT. The beach ends, now I have to turn around...guess who's taking their sweet fucking time enjoying life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

I had to stop and pretend to marvel at the scenery like four times so I didn't have to be next to them. Don't get me wrong, the scenery was pretty sweet, but you can only look at a giant body of water so many times before it loses its luster. Eventually I got back up the bluff and kept climbing. I had to convince myself to take a more risky path because that's the opposite of what my PTSD wanted. It then occurred to me:

There have to be a bunch of people just like me out there...wanting to live life but afraid to do so because of the ten thousand things that could go wrong. Maybe in my travels and desire to be with the world and find myself n shit, I can start documenting my experience for others? It could help some people. There's also a small chance that it could be really impactful someday; maybe I could make a living as a blogger (I think the odds are pretty slim on that one).

So here I am, making a blog. I don't know anything about blogs. I don't know how to write them, where to post them, who to talk to about them. Nothing. But I know that I have a reason to go outside next weekend, which is great. Maybe someone will find value in this..…then I would have no choice. I would have to go outside. I would have to talk to that person. I would have to leave the country (I would start with Canada as there is a fairly limited chance of being murdered there...not that there is an increased chance in most places, but this is how my brain works). I would have to do all of the things that PTSD doesn't want me to do.

Maybe if someone finds value in this, it could be like the man in- the- hole story. I heard it on The West Wing (which is full of fun parables).

"This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out. A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, 'Hey you. Can you help me out?' The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?' The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by, 'Hey, Joe, it's me can you help me out?' And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, 'Are you stupid? Now we're both down here.' Joe says, 'Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out.'"

Update: I changed my name :)

#PTSD #Travel #Therapy #Mental Heatlh #Psychology #Social Work #Brain

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wings-of-a-storm · 5 years ago

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Scenes that stood out as a wtfock newbie

This subject already came up a little bit in an earlier post I made (point #2), but I wanted to elaborate on it further because it was a point on my list in its own right.

Warning, this might get a bit heavy re: controlling behaviour.

3.THE UNDERMINING INCIDENT

I was so impressed by the way this scene unfolded -- namely Britt greeting Sander and their subsequent interaction -- because there seemed to be a lot of telling moments between the characters that set up the hint that not all is well with Sander and Britt. I was impressed because the show seemed to be sprinkling these hints so early on, before we even hear Sander’s perspective. It makes the story all the richer.

In this particular scene, Britt seems like an affectionate girlfriend when she comes up to Sander, all affectionate smiles and tight embraces. But below the surface, her embrace edges into possessive territory, her words are quite condescending towards him, and she kind of dictates what he should do in his spare time.

The result of this is us basically seeing Britt subconsciously undermining Sander’s attempts to make friends by first putting him down in front of said new friend and then whisking him away without checking first to see whether he and Robbe were finished doing whatever they were doing. How can a new friendship grow if it is prematurely cut off? Britt is either thoughtless or she is subconsciously controlling what Sander is allowed to do, with her at the centre of it all.

It all happens so fast but it lays great groundwork. It means that by the end of the episode, when Sander tells Robbe that his relationship with Britt is mostly down 'as you may have noticed’ and that he doesn’t feel loved for who he is, we have already seen it in action. It also means that deeper into the season, when Sander expresses how controlling Britt is, we have this moment to look back on and see where Sander is coming from.

The subtle harm

I really appreciate the subtlety of Britt’s behaviour. Many times an unhealthy relationship goes undetected (especially by the people in it) because small digs and controlling behaviour can go unnoticed if they are subtle enough. And if it goes unnoticed, it can continue on until it feels normal, until the person being controlled has had their identity and independence slowly whittled away. (I’m not saying Sander is a victim of coercive control or anything, but this is how it can start.)

Britt’s behaviour has the potential to go over your head a bit when you watch the scene because it is juxtaposed with her smiles and intense face-smoosh embrace. You assume she is just a super affectionate girlfriend happy to see her boyfriend. It’s what she says that may raise some red flags…

Looking at Britt’s comments one by one

“Listening to David Bowie again?” This line makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable even though it is delivered all smiles. To me, it falls right on the cusp between an innocuous remark and a subtle judgement. I think it is the 'again' part combined with the way Britt delivers the line which just tips it over the edge into something that doesn't quite sit right with me. It sounds a little condescending and it sort of gives the impression that the action (listening to Bowie) is something that is negative or something Britt can’t really understand or share. It basically puts them on two different levels, even if she was trying to be affectionate.

Perhaps on its own, that line would have stayed in mostly neutral territory, but coupled with what Britt then goes on to say... It’s just really uncomfortable as a whole.

What does Britt go on to say? “It’s nice you already made new friends.” Saying this line while face-smooshing him makes the condescension of it all the more apparent. Sander is an adult, completely capable of socialising with his peers; he isn’t a little kid needing encouragement on his first day at school. It’s just so unnecessary to comment on something like that -- and in front of his new friend. It just, once again, places Sander in a more inferior position to her.

And then comes the big one: "I hope he didn't bother you too much with his silly jokes." Now THAT is asserting dominance over someone and showing anyone in earshot that she is alpha-dog. Wowza. I’m pretty sure my eyes bulged out a bit when I first heard her say that.

I mean, aside from the power play, I just wasn’t expecting something so mean-spirited coming from a girlfriend so happy to see her boyfriend. It’s such a slap designed to look like a caress. Like, why would you say that about your boyfriend? And that dig is far more pointed than the Bowie one because it places judgement on Sander himself -- his actual personality, not his choice in music. It condescends his natural way of being. Ouch, sis.

Also, aside from being a little mean, it seemed so ill-advised of Britt to say that she is happy he is making new friends but then go and undermine that process in the next breath by putting him down in front of said new friend.

I mean, not only is hearing a comment like that going to make Sander feel self-conscious and bad about himself, but it acts as a big cue to a stranger (Robbe) that there is something really embarrassing or undesirable about Sander. It has the potential to make someone second-guess their own first impression of Sander, like: 'Yeh you're right, Britt; now that I think about it, maybe Sander was kind of weird and lame rather than whimsical and interesting.'

And thus, at its most extreme, Britt’s behaviour has the potential to keep Sander isolated from anyone who isn’t Britt. And if Sander is a little isolated from new people, Britt can have him more to herself. And by putting him down, she can reinforce the notion to Sander that no one else would like his ‘silly jokes’ so he should feel lucky to have her. Given Britt’s history and paranoia, it isn’t too farfetched that she would be subconsciously employing these tactics to keep Sander close to her.

Unhealthy relationship

While the characters just smiled or laughed throughout the scene (giving it a ‘lighthearted’ vibe), I really think that beneath the surface, it is supposed to raise a red flag that something isn't right with Sander’s and Britt’s relationship. (I mean, apart from Sander trying to hit on someone else in the first place...)

And this scene is just one of several in the episode that reveals some of the dysfunction in their relationship (dishonourable mention to Sander shooting Britt at close range with paint balls, even if it was a symptom of something greater. The violence of it… Very not okay).

It was such a clever choice to have all the characters stay together for a week so that we had ample opportunity to witness for ourselves how Sander and Britt are together (the good and the bad).

I think that’s why this scene, and in fact the whole episode, stood out to me so much -- a more detailed picture can be painted of Sander’s wider context when his girlfriend is able to be so present as a known character. And I truly give the show so much kudos for using those chances to lay so many details down so early.

#wtfock #wtfock thoughts #scenes that stood out as a wtfock newbie #4/14 #tw: controlling behaviour

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itsbenedict · 4 years ago

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Two-Faced Jewel: Session 2

Zero and @eternalfarnham are Looseleaf and Saelhen du Fishercrown, a mothfolk animist and a half-elf conwoman. A botched heist forces Saelhen to keep up her fake identity and embark on a quest to places unknown, with Looseleaf to keep a watchful compound eye on her. This time, they prepare to set out for the jungle city of Thunderbrush.

[Campaign log]

It's less than a week after the incident with the pit under Yoshimimoto Plaza. Looseleaf returns to school with Saelhen in tow, and Looseleaf's roommate Oyobi spends some time training them up in basic monster self-defense- the two of them are now level 2! Saelhen gains a Cunning Action, and Looseleaf embarks on the Path of the Mutable Spirit. (There's no combat this session, so more on that later.)

In spending some time with Looseleaf's roommate, Saelhen picks up on... certain nuances.

looseleaf: what you know about your roommate is that she is very friendly and outgoing. the reason she's barely home most of the time is that she's always out partying or fighting or otherwise living it up on campus, and she's pretty well-known and popular amongst the student body. she's technically Martial Arts but takes a few Natural Arts classes, including your archaeology class. she wants to be an adventurer and join the Deathseekers' Guild, and she's taking multiple periods of Severe Zoology to learn to fight monsters. she thinks you in particular are adorable and has probably invited you to various social gatherings. she seems kind of spacey and unreliable, though, and doesn't seem to take you seriously.

saelhen, what you know about looseleaf's roommate is that she a freak nobody else seems to pick up on this, since there's not a lot of other elves at Blacksky, but you can tell from the way she wears her clothes and how she interacts with strangers to the uninformed observer, her fashion sense is sort of rugged and sporty and normal to an elf, her usual outfits are the equivalent of going around dressed in torn booty shorts, a spiked choker, and an ahegao t-shirt she is very obviously making a statement, and that statement is "i can do whatever i want, and if you have a problem with that you can [insert grossly offensive euphemism here]" her super-smiley friendly attitude is clearly part of this- she is breaking every single rule in the elf book, going right for the friendship throat in every social interaction and ignoring every single nicety that's supposed to precede friendly contact she acts a little different around you- like, she expects you to be in on the joke she's playing on everyone around her. she'll say something seemingly innocuous that's a actually a horrendous boundary violation in Kanzentokai, and then look at you with an expectant smile, to see if you appreciated the hilarious prank she just pulled. being around her is like being in the studio audience for a cringe comedy sitcom

Why are we learning so much about Oyobi? Well, partially because I can't help but overthink every single bit character, but also for reasons that'll become clear shortly.

After a few days, Saelhen and Looseleaf are invited to the Provost's office, up at the top of Blacksky Tower. (Ominous sort of place, for a faculty building- hewn out of a single chunk of sparkling black stone, oldest building on campus.) They are not invited to sit- the office contains no chairs.

Provost Hamori Los has good news for them! The people she's had secretly monitoring Saelhen for the past few days- did she forget to mention that?- have determined, by triangulation, that the arrow on Saelhen's bracer is currently pointing in the direction of Thunderbrush, deep in the giant-spider-infested jungle. So that where they'll be going, on a fun field trip!

Looseleaf could not be happier about this. Or less happy. She's really got precisely the amount of unhappiness that she's obligated to feel about giant spiders, being a giant moth.

Luckily, they won't have to trek through the jungle- Hamori has arranged for transportation via the ferry at the town of Cauterdale, which should allow them to bypass a treacherous trek into the depths of the Remoline Rainforest. They'll each be provided 100gp as funding for this academic enterprise- and Headmaster Goodcrest of Thunderbrush Metropolitan University has agreed to provide lodging for them on arrival. Everything is handled for them- so there shouldn't be any problems!

There is one more thing, though- all the different schools want in on this trip, so one school doesn't get all the credit. They're required to bring along a representative from the School of Arcane Arts and the School of Martial Arts, on top of Looseleaf from Natural Arts. And on top of... the representative from the School of Restricted Arts.

This dude is named Vayen, and he's not much for conversation. Or explaining what he's even doing here. Or doing anything besides skulking a careful distance away from the party, staring and listening. What does the School of Restricted Arts even study, again?

Anyway, Looseleaf has someone in mind from Martial Arts, so she leads the party to the School of Arcane Arts to do some recruiting! After being chewed out by Two-Brains for trying to post notices outside the official student notice board, she puts up her ad:

It's not long before she gets a bite!

Orluthe Chokorov is a cleric-in-training, under Diamode, the Goddess of Family. He's been enrolled in Arcane Arts at the insistence of his family... but he seems to think he's a "fake", and is desperate to go somewhere, anywhere, as long as it means he passes his classes without having to actually... be able to do whatever it is he's taking classes in. He says he can fight, though- in fact, he's eager to fight! He once beat Bud Chestplate, did you know?

There are perhaps less delinquent candidates they could go with, but there's something nice about a party member with secrets Saelhen could use as blackmail.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...rest assured that I shall be the soul of discretion. As will Looseleaf." "Though I fear that deception of this sort does not come easily to me..." Looseleaf: "Noeru, if he doesn't want to get into it, he doesn't have to- oh my god."

Having recruited Orluthe, the party heads back to Looseleaf's dorm to ask Oyobi about the Martial Arts students- maybe she has some idea as to who would make a good candidate for the trip!

(This isn't me foisting her on the players, though I did suggest it- after the party of two squishies got wiped in the first encounter, I offered them the chance to put together two NPCs who they'd get to control in combat. Their character sheets were more or less created by the players, and I matched their mechanical requirements to NPCs. We may end up having multiple characters per PC, later- this is sort of a trial run.)

With a cleric(?) and a ranger on the team, plus whatever Vayen is that he won't tell them, they're feeling ready to hit the road- right after a shopping trip.

Saelhen buys...

1x bag of 1000 ball bearings

1x traveler's clothes

1x hooded lantern

15x doses of insect repellent salve (much to Looseleaf's great offense)

2x uses of sealing wax

1x tinderbox

fuck it, 4x more bags of 1000 ball bearings

Zero: 'what are you going to do with five thousand ball bearings' 'when the time comes, i'll know'

Looseleaf buys...

1x pint of oil

1x bag of 1000 ball bearings also

5x healer's kits, to distribute to the party

1x pouch of various plant seeds

1x map

Notably absent is any food, since they have Oyobi in their party- she's a ranger with the Goodberry spell. (I've reflavored it to just mean she's good at foraging and always has rations on hand, because holy crap, Goodberry rules-as-written is totally worldbreaking- why would farms exist?)

During their shopping trip, Saelhen manages to get Oyobi alone, without the rest of the party. Oyobi's shtick has been fun, for her, as someone with very little regard for elven rules of politeness, but... it's still a little much. She asks Oyobi to tone it down.

Oyobi Yamatake: "I mean, I thought you had to no-sell it to keep up the fake noble act- I didn't think it was actually getting you!" "That's priceless, oh my god." "What's there to take a 'break' from, anyway? What's wrong with just living?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Primarily, the fact that I really need not to twitch in front of the Provost's silent murder goon." Saelhen jerks a thumb over her shoulder, then belatedly checks to make sure that Vayen is not in fact literally right behind her. Benedict I. (GM): Make a Perception roll? Saelhen du Fishercrown: aw, hell, he definitely is, isn't he

She rolls a 13, and no one in particular rolls a 17. So, everything is fine. They keep their voices down, anyway.

Oyobi Yamatake: "I mean, is it really a problem? Can you really not keep a straight face?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "I mean, I can." Saelhen sweeps a hand over her face and is the picture of serenity. "Why should the lady Noeru de la Surplus concern herself with small lapses such as these?" "Surely someone shall find it in their hearts to forgive all trespasses." Oyobi Yamatake: She snorts. "Okay, I get your point." "But really, don't you think it's weirder for an elven noblewoman not to react?" "You don't think he thinks it's suspicious that you take it all in stride?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: "The character is admittedly kind of a freak. I'm making allowances. I mean, this is fun and all, but if no one sees through the bit at all and I'm stuck in it long-term, which it seems like I am, it's like..." "Just being back in Kanzentokai, except worse, because no one is making me." "And drow catch a lot of crap anyway. They don't need me to teach them that elves can be assholes." Oyobi Yamatake: She frowns. "You can't make me try to keep up with the rules, y'know. I'm not going to put up with that garbage ever again." "But I can tone it down with the..." "Y'know, the stuff I'm going out of my way to do, if that helps." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "The wink-and-nudge, yeah. That would help." Oyobi Yamatake: She sighs. She seems a little put out by all this, but pretty quickly puts her happy face back on.

Meanwhile, Looseleaf and Orluthe seem to have lost track of Vayen. It doesn't take them long to find out where he went (well, after Looseleaf rolls a nat 1 on investigation and accidentally pisses off an old lady she mistook for Vayen). Turns out... he's hiding behind a statue of Ccorde, spying on Saelhen and Oyobi.

Looseleaf doesn't buy his crappy excuses, but also... she isn't altogether opposed to the concept of spying on "Lady Noeru de la Surplus", who really ought to have someone keeping an eye on her. So, she just hands him a medical kit- a kit she happens to have used her animist class feature Soul Link on, so she knows where it is at all times. (She's done the same to the bracer.)

Now, with the shopping done, it's time to hit the road! They have a couple options: go on foot, or requisition some giraffes.

(In this world, they domesticated giraffes instead of horses. Why? Because it's a fantasy world and why not?)

The city's main giraffe rental is run by the Ecumene of Understanding, based out of the Temple of Andra. You can rent giraffes for free, as long as you're willing to serve as a courier for the Ecumene- their convoluted legal system requires them to send mail between cities frequently, and they've only got so many clerics on hand. So, anyone wanting to travel the roads can receive a delivery quest from the Ecumene, and rent mounts for free in exchange!

They meet with the Bishop of Understanding of Oyashio, Sarat Aerens.

Aerens has a simple request for them: in addition to visiting Thunderbrush's Temple of Andra with a mail delivery, they're to bring back a report from said temple on the whereabouts of the Siren's Arraignment, a ship that departed from Oyashio and never arrived at its next destination, Snowhold. There's suspicion that the Siren's Arraignment never departed from its supposed origin of Thunderbrush to begin with, either- so the Ecumene put some clerics on the job to investigate, and the party's job is just to relay their message.

With that, they're given giraffe passes, and directed down to the stables, where they find the stablehand, Updraft, having some difficulties.

Benedict I. (GM):There's no one at the pickup window, but there's a sparrow aarakocra just behind, trying to get a giraffe several times her height to get up and out of the damn water trough. Updraft: "...not a bath, ye stubborn git!" "Ye drink from that, lackbrains!" "Y'really want t'be tastin' yer arse?" Looseleaf: OH I CAN HELP WITH THIS FINALLY, A PLACE WHERE I CAN APPLY MY ADVANTAGE ON ANIMAL HANDLING

Looseleaf uses her Soul Read ability to tune in to the giraffe's feelings and recent history, and discovers that someone fed it a hot pepper and it's in, um, anal distress.

Orluthe volunteers to do some healing to the giraffe, with his Lay On Hands ability. Is... that a cleric thing? Do clerics do that? Probably. In this world, clerics perform magic by inviting their god directly into their mind to borrow their brainpower and work miracles directly, and it sure looks like he does that when he does his healing. He channels a god, for sure!

Benedict I. (GM): As he touches the giraffe, you see his body begin to glow, and his facial features are overlaid with another face. "...A giraffe?" "A waste, I suppose, but... perhaps it'll win us some favor." The voice he speaks in sounds more feminine, somehow.

Some religion checks reveal that this doesn't seem quite right for a cleric of Diamode, the goddess of Family. But hey, healing's healing, right?

With that, they're able to get their giraffes no problem- and next time, they'll be on the road to Thunderbrush!

#tfj log #twofaced jewel

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andy-the-8th · 3 years ago

Text

Things Green and Growing

Part 9 of Creatures That Defy Logic

Read on AO3

Sam's last day at the greenhouses for the summer and seeing her sister off back to college.

cw: homophobic language

A/N: I just really like the idea of Sam and Jess being biology bros

Also we meet Sam's dad. He's an asshole.

The rushing fans and cool mist of the greenhouse definitely made the late August heat more bearable - no matter how much you might love your job, there's only so much summer sun you (or your plants) could take without some assistance.

"Am I doing this right?"

Jess looked up at Sam from the other side of a table of junipers, a spiky carpet of green across the long low table, contrasting the spotty gray of the wet concrete greenhouse floor. He'd come by the greenhouse a few times over the summer - even though he didn't work there, he insisted he help with something if he was going to hang out. Sam had eventually agreed to let him take care of some of the more innocuous tasks.

Pruning clippers in hand, Jess had been tasked with cutting back the overgrown shoots from the Japanese star junipers - the small conifers were popular for their hardiness as a ground cover, especially as a more durable and eco-friendly replacement for grass. This meant though that their lower branches would snake over the edges of the black plastic pots they were growing in, running sideways in every direction, getting tangled in each other, burning and drying out foliage.

Sam walked over to inspect his handiwork. Actually not too bad.

"Yeah, they look fine."

"Awesome. Thanks for letting me prune something, feels more important than moving things around from table to table" Jess said cheerfully.

"No problem" Sam had come to genuinely enjoy spending time with Jess, and not just as a confidant. Sure, he never got any less excessively enthusiastic, would still frequently go off on tangents of facts and theories, but she'd gotten used to his pattern of speaking. He'd clearly been scared of being annoying the first time he'd visited, and pretty much stayed quiet the few times he'd met Jackie or Jen. Trying to be a bit more normal around new people.

So in a way, she was glad he was comfortable being himself around her now.

Sam went back to the table of peace lilies: graceful, broad glossy dark green leaves with their delicate white alien blooms on long stalks above the thick cluster of greenery at the base. Like the junipers - like most potted plants packed together for commercial purposes - the lower levels were at risk of suffocation, for both light and air, and had to be clipped off before they turned yellow and started to attract mold.

They kept working in silence for a long while, the only sound in the greenhouse the gentle rush of the fans, the occasional hiss of the misting system, the soft clicks of the pruning clippers punctuating at either end of the space.

"So school starts back up in a week."

Sam caught that that was both a perfectly normal observation and a veiled question about what they'd both been thinking since August started. Cody was supposed to be back soon.

"Do you think he'll come back at night? So no one sees him transform back?"

"I don't know, probably." Of course Sam still missed her boyfriend, but it had also been good to spend the summer focusing on her own interests, her own friends, away from swimming and social drama. But she knew she looked forward to seeing him.

Still, it would be a lie to say she wasn't more than a little apprehensive as well.

Like, he literally wasn't human. A lot had probably changed from spending some time as a full-time merman. And what sort of sea creatures were they anyway? Were merpeople more like whales, pelagic, solitary, mostly sticking to the vast fathoms of the open oceans? Living alone or in two or three individuals? Or were they more like dolphins, staying in the shallows in big social pods? Was it like in the movies, secret underwater cities of merpeople with their own cultures, music, governments?

It wasn't too unrealistic to imagine that any of those might significantly change someone's demeanor or even personality. She still got hung up on the whole telepathy thing as well - if Cody came back able to read minds, that might just be too weird of a thing to deal with on top of starting high school.

Jess didn't seem to see any of those questions as anxieties, of course. Quite the opposite. To be fair, he wasn't the one dating him either.

"Gosh, I wonder what it all was like." His voice that that airy sort of awe he'd had back when Cody was still going through the transformations. They actually hadn't really talked about him much over the summer, which Sam had found a little surprising - Jess seemed equally excited to just talk with her, especially with their shared interests in biology. He'd listened attentively when Sam wanted to talk over her mom's work with environmental regulations, or projects she was taking on with the envi-sci club at school next year, or balancing swimming with her other extracurriculars.

"Guess we'll find out." Sam carefully kept any apprehension out of her voice. She did want to know about it, as much as Cody wanted to tell her - but she also wanted to keep their first year of high school as normal as possible after junior high's supernatural finale.

"Yeah. I think I've gotten all the shoots on the junipers."

"Alright, thanks Jess. I'm finishing up here, then will have to be getting home. Jackie's leaving for college again tonight, and I think my dad will be coming to see her off as well."

Sam bit her lip at that. She didn't like having to talk about her father. It wasn't like having divorced parents was abnormal - she guessed that was the case for Jess as well, since he never talked about his mom - but she still didn't like having to bring up her father in more detail than necessary.

"Oh, OK. D'you want me to stick around and help clean up?"

"Nah it'll be fine. Ms. Brantwood should be coming by soon anyway, before I lock up."

"Alright." Jess walked over to the open greenhouse door, where he'd leaned his bike against the frame. He paused for a moment, wiping his glasses with the hem of his shirt where they'd fogged up from the quick temperature and humidity shift, squinting in the sun.

Sam had turned back to the peace lilies, arranging them with proper spacing on the low table, fishing the spray bottle where it had disappeared in the thick stand of leaves, pots, and dirt.

"Sam?"

"Yeah?" she turned her head over her shoulder to where he was still just outside the door, helmet strapped on, hands on the bike ready to go.

"Can you call me if you hear first when he comes back?"

Sam smiled and exhaled out her nose, relaxed her shoulders. "Of course. You too, OK? You're a lot closer to the water than me."

"Oh definitely." Jess balanced to one side on the bike, ready to kick off. "See'ya!"

"See'ya later Jess."

She heard him head off, wheels crunching over the gravel down to the sidewalk, saw him blurred through the glass walls, disappear as he went around the front of the building.

Grabbing the spray bottle and the clippers, she walked them down to the worn wooden cabinets and coat rack built into the wall next to the greenhouse office, hung her gloves on the hook. She took the broom back over to the peace lily table, made sure she hadn't missed any stray leaves or sprinkles of soil on the wet concrete floor. The bell on the door of the office jingled once as it opened and closed - Ms. Brantwood, the owner, came out then, clipboard in one hand, glasses perched on the end of her nose. Ms. Brantwood always looked like some hybrid of a farmer and a librarian, flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, workboots, her gray hair in a tight bun, glasses held on a colorful beaded strap around her neck.

"Ms. Brathwaite," she said congenially. "Here you go." She handed Sam an envelope.

"Thanks Ms. B." Her paycheck from the summer, headed straight for her college savings once she got home.

"Thanks for all the help this summer! The peace lilies never looked better." She smiled approvingly over at the displays where Sam had spent most of the afternoon. "We'd be happy to have you back again."

"That'd be great! Thank you again for having me" Sam tucked the envelope in her canvass bag, slung it over her shoulder, and started to the door.

"Good luck with high school - it's scary at first but you'll do great."

Sam smiled again and backed out the open door, closing it behind her, the screen making a quick whoosh sound before the door clacked on the wood frame. She shifted her bag on her shoulders and started down the sidewalk for home.

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

"If you really have that much of a problem with it, you can just leave."

Lindsey crossed her arms and leaned back on her kitchen counter, staring down her ex-husband, who was at the bottom of the stairs next to the front door, one hand on the newel post, head hanging down in frustration.

"I don't have a problem, I have an opinion. Goddamnit, do you have to make everything into one of your crusades?"

"I don't have crusades, Steve, I have morals. It's none of your business how she looks, Jackie is a grown woman."

"Staying in a house that I pay to keep you in."

"Don't bullshit me like that. You known damn well I supported us. The house was only ever in my name, for fucks sake. Your child support checks aren't anything we rely on."

"Trust me, they wouldn't exist if the court didn't say so."

Steve glared back at her, the silence tense. Lindsey huffed and went back to packing granola bars and sandwiches in the lunchboxes on the table - snacks to send with Jackie for the car ride to the airport.

"You shouldn't have let her go to that school either."

"She got a full scholarship" Lindsey snapped. She was rapidly reaching the end of her rope with this conversation and was just about ready to throw Steve out of her house if he continued like he was. He was the father of her kids, he technically had visitation rights - but she wouldn't have him talk like this in their house. Thank God Jackie was outside, and Sam still at work.

"Yeah, well, maybe if she'd gone to a state university instead of some liberal arts bullshit, she wouldn't be dressing like some fucking dyke now."

That was it - he was through.

"Get out. Now."

She threw every bit of venom she could into the final word, her gaze ice cold, her knuckles white gripping the edge of the kitchen counter.

Steve sneered cruelly at her as he shifted to go and roughly put his hand on the door knob. "Wonder where she got that from."

He opened the door quickly to find Sam on the doorstep, her face surprised and pale. Steve stopped, also startled for a moment. He didn't know how much she'd heard - he didn't care. She was grown up enough to start knowing about the real world unfiltered, as far as he was concerned.

"Hey, Dad," she offered shakily, awkwardly. He just looked down at her coldly.

"Good luck in school next year." He turned back for one last glare at Lindsey, then pushed past Sam down the front steps, to his car in the driveway, leaving the front door open. He slammed the car door as he got in, backed down past Lindsey's car into the cul-de-sac where Jackie was standing next to Vanessa's old Jeep, and sped off around the corner, tires spinning harsh squeals, out of the neighborhood.

Jackie and Vanessa quickly looked over at Sam, clearly worried. Jackie walked up across the small front yard, making herself smile sarcastically, trying to conjure humor for her sister who still was frozen and scared-looking on the doorstep.

"Another grand finale and exit from the father of the year, ladies and ladies!" she announced dramatically. Sam smiled a little at that - Jackie's features relaxed in relief. Vanessa stayed by the Jeep, eyes closed and looking down, fingers pressed to her temples, shaking her head in exasperation.

"Hey, Sam." Jackie looked hard at her, serious. "Don't listen to anything he says. He's an asshole. Got it?"

"Yeah Jackie. Got it." Sam went inside and put her bag down on the floor next to the kitchen table, where Lindsey was aggressively zipping up the lunch boxes. She might have chided Jackie for using that kind of language in front of her, in less charged circumstances.

"I just have one more box upstairs, 'kay Mom?"

"Alright, don't keep Vanessa waiting out there too long though. I'm set to go when you are."

Sam bit her lip and looked down at the wood grain in the kitchen table, at the lines in the linoleum floor. "Mom, I'm going to put my stuff upstairs too, I'll be down to see them off."

Sam quickly took the stairs, two at a time. She tossed her bag on her bed, closed the door, and turned down the hall to Jackie's room.

She was standing at her bureau, small cardboard box in hand, quickly putting her many rings, chokers, and bracelets in, her back to the door. She turned her head, hearing Sam step into the door frame.

"What's up?"

"Jackie, I- something Dad said -"

"Hey, what'd I tell you? Ignore him. He doesn't know shit." Jackie huffed and went back to gathering things off the top of the bureau.

"Yeah I know." Sam looked down, nervous. "But what he said about how you looked, like a...a.."

"A dyke?"

".......yeah."

To Sam's surprise Jackie actually laughed a little, put her last few bits of jewelry in the box, shoved it into her black backpack, covered in pins and patches. She crossed the room and put her hands on her sister's shoulders. She breathed in, and Sam looked up at her a little.

"Listen to me again now. We are strong, modern women. We can look how we want. We can be how we want. It's a new millennium, we can't stay stuck in that patriarchal bullshit forever."

Jackie definitely looked how she wanted - hair spiked up today, black nailpolish, Bikini Kill shirt with cut off sleeves over her black jeans.

"So, does that mean...?"

Jackie smiled and rolled her eyes. "Actually, no. I'm straight, I'm just goth and like to piss off old men." She paused, serious again. "But there'd be nothing wrong with that if I were, Sam. If anyone were."

"Um, oh. Yeah, OK, I jus-"

Jackie's eyes flicked up, past Sam's face and cutting her off, looking past her face to the doorway. Lindsey was standing there, arms folded, lips pursed, her eyes nervous.

She and Jackie held eye contact for a noticeable moment - Sam turned her head to look at her mom as well. Lindsey's eyes calmed and softened almost too quickly to notice.

"You guys about ready to head out?"

"Yeah Mom, we're done." Jackie walked back over and hauled her backpack up onto one shoulder, the buttons rattling into each other with the motion. Sam turned back and walked past her mom, leading the way down the stairs and out the front door. She paused on the doorstep to let them pass. Jackie hoisted her backpack straighter and stopped in front of Sam on the doorstep.

"You know you can always call me if you want. High school can suck sometimes, if you want to talk to someone who already did it you know where to find me."

"Hey, I was in high school once too" Lindsey added, smiling a bit, trying to lighten the mood as well. Jackie rolled her eyes dramatically.

"'kay, how about if you want to talk to someone who did high school within the last hundred years, THEN call me."

Jackie hugged Sam tight, and walked across the grass to where Vanessa was waiting by the car. Vanessa and Jackie both went to college in Philadelphia - Vanessa at Temple University, Jackie at Haverford College. They were on the same flight over - Vanessa's mom was an airline pilot, so would drive the Jeep back home from the airport after they'd left.

Lindsey followed her down to the side of the car, stopping on the curb, arms crossed over her chest. The air had cooled significantly as the sun went down, almost chilly in contrast to the day's heat.

"Call me when you get in, OK?"

"Yeah of course, same as always." Lindsey hugged Jackie and Vanessa, stepped back from the Jeep as they pulled away with the windows down. Jackie turned up the radio, the energetic chugging guitar and drums filling the summer night, bouncing off the houses around the cul-de-sac.

"WOOOOOOOO!!" as Vanessa steered them away from the sidewalk, Jackie looked back with a wild excited smile, hands up in the rock gesture.

"DRIVE SAFE GIRLS" Lindsey called over the loud music, waving as they turned the corner and out of the development, the music fading as they left.

Lindsey stayed looking down the road for a few moments after the Jeep was gone - from where she was leaning against the front door, Sam saw her mom's eyes were a bit wet. Lindsey walked back up the yard and into the house, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Sorry, sorry, just you girls are growing up so fast." She smiled then as they both walked back inside. As she closed the door behind them, she un-did and re-did her bun, pushing back the loose red strands from the day, refreshing, restoring order.

Following their routine pattern, Sam walked to the kitchen, got two glasses of water, handed one to her mom as they both settled at the table.

Lindsey took the glass, gently clinked it against Sam's. "Hydrate or die!" she said cheerfully, familiarly as part of their home-from-work/inside joke ritual they'd organically developed over the summer, with Sam getting back from the greenhouses the same time Lindsey got back from the offices.

"Hydrate or die." Sam replied, smiling. They both sipped their water silently, decompressing from the day, from Steve, from Jackie's departure.

"You got everything you need for next week?"

"Yeah, I'm set on everything. I got paid from Brantwood today too."

"Oh good, I'm going by the bank tomorrow morning, I can deposit it for you."

"Thanks Mom."

Eventually Lindsey got leftovers from the fridge to heat up - dinner passed at a welcomely-uneventful rate, just chatting about work from the day, errands to run. They finished the dishes and Sam filled up one of the watering cans on the counter to bring upstairs to her plants. She'd put the succulents on a nightly watering schedule, better to accommodate the extra heat this time of year without extra evaporation.

"Goodnight Mom."

Lindsey looked up from the reports she had absentmindedly been paging through after finishing the dishes - environmental justice never sleeps. "Night hon. You OK?" Her voice was gentle, but firm enough that she indicated that she was leaving it open if Sam wanted to talk about any of the commotion from earlier.

Maybe not tonight.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Goodnight." Sam was up the stairs and out of sight.

Lindsey closed the folder on the table, shuffled it back into the small pile she'd pulled from her briefcase. She leaned forward, hands on her forehead, taking long, soothing breaths with her eyes closed. She stayed like that a while, listening to Sam moving about above - back and forth around her room with the watering can, down the hall to the bathroom and back, waiting til she heard her door click shut for the night. She got up, quietly pushed her chair back under the table. She filled her glass at the sink, downing it in one draft, slowly and smoothly, letting the coolness spread through her whole body. Hydrate or die.

Filing folders back into her briefcase could wait til morning. It had been a long day.

END NOTES:

I imagined the song Jackie and Vanessa are listening to is Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill

Tune in next time for more of "which of Sam's supporting cast is going to be a lesbian"

Jackie and Lindsey continue to be fun and interesting to write - maybe future spinoffs? Does it still count as fanfiction when the original characters get spinoffs?

#the thirteenth year #dcom #disney channel original movies #fanfic #homophobic slurs

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betterdaysareatoenailaway · 4 years ago

Text

An Ode to Payphones

“Mommy, what’s that?” I looked. A child was glaring suspiciously at the payphone I’d been using moments before. He looked to be six or seven-years old, so it shouldn’t have been surprising that he’d never seen or noticed a public telephone before, but still. The question, and the palpable disgust in his voice, made me feel old. “That’s a payphone, honey.” “What’s it for?” The mother cast an apprehensive look my way. We were on the platform at Spadina station and she’d seen me on the phone, plugging my ear against the shattering noise of a subway pulling in, making arrangements to meet my heroin dealer John at our usual spot at Main and Danforth. I would have to call him again when I got there, either from one of the four payphones inside Main Street station or on one of the two phones outside the church at Danforth. The phones inside Main Station must have all been routed through one line, because they either all worked, or none did.

As for the two phones outside the church at Main and Danforth, typically one was broken, but they both worked when I went to check them for this article, a miracle perhaps attributable to the Second Coming of Christ on the roof.

There have been long spells throughout my life as an addict during which I’ve had no mobile phone. Every spare cent went to heroin. The longest such spell was nearly a year. Several spanned three or four months. So it’s safe to say I know the payphones of Toronto as well as anybody else. One of my old heroin dealers lived near Roncesvalles and Howard Park, where a non-Bell phone sat outside the Meridian Bank on the northeast corner, crooked and somehow wounded looking.

There’s no trace of it now, but I know there used to be one just north, on the other side of the street where Dundas splits eastward from Roncesvalles. I used to use it all the time. Luckily, there’s another one not twenty steps east, a Bell, just outside the bus stop east of the Starbucks at Dundas and Roncesvalles. I’ve fed that phone a lot of Loonies, cursing its curious inability to recognize nickels or dimes.

My Roncesvalles dealer was notoriously unreliable, so I often found myself having to take the College car all the way across the city to its eastern terminus at Main Station. While waiting on that corner for John I would commiserate with my fellow drug users, many of whom lacked phones themselves. The most popular complaint I heard was how hard it was getting to find a public phone. Apparently some neighbourhoods in Toronto are payphone deserts. You can walk for twenty minutes in any direction and not find one. So I’m going to see how many phones there are within a five minute radius of my apartment. My guess would be at least eight. Maybe ten. I’m about to get evicted, but I’ve lived in Kensington Market at Nassau and Bellevue since February 2017, which is a veritable payphone oasis. It’s too cold to go out tonight, so I’m going to take a virtual tour of my neighbourhood and take screenshots of every phone I find from Google Street View. Yes, the photos look pretty lo-fi but my whole life is lo-fi, so sue me. Here’s a no-name one just north of Dundas on Bathurst:

Here’s one just south of Oxford on Augusta:

There are two Bell phones just outside Nirvana, across from Sneaky Dee’s:

There’s one outside the church one block east of Bathurst at Lippincot and College:

Here’s another no-name phone one block west of Spadina on the south side of College:

And here’s a bank of payphones outside the internet cafe at Spadina and College:

All three of the above phones never work at the same time, and some days you’re lucky to find one operational. (Incidentally, if someone ever reads this post a century from now, or maybe I mean a decade, or maybe I mean reads this post at all, I wonder how quaint the term “payphones outside the internet cafe” will seem.) Here’s one more non-Bell phone, just to the west of the Scotiabank on the northwest corner of Dundas and Spadina. This phone has great personal significance for me, for a reason I can’t get into. Let’s just say I made a phone call on it during a very memorable moment in my life:

For those of you not counting, that’s ten phones all within a five minute walk of my apartment in Kensington. There are another three are in the lobby of Toronto Western Hospital, for thirteen total. Thirteen is a lot more than I expected. Especially in 2020. And I’m sure I’m missing a few. Maybe payphones aren’t as endangered as they seem. In fact, as I was taking the photograph at the top of this post, a woman came over to me and asked, “are you using the phone?” So they definitely still serve a purpose. They wouldn’t still be there if nobody was using them. A capitalist venture like Bell doesn’t keep phones around because the CEO is nostalgic. I’m kind of relieved at how many there still are, and how vital they still seem to be. Still, I have mixed feelings toward payphones. They annoy me, but I also like them for reasons I can’t explain. I like invisible infrastructure. Nobody notices payphones. Ask yourself where the nearest payphone is. Do you even know? They may be forgotten or disliked, but they’re dependable, standing tall at their lonely outposts through sleet and rain, day and night, as we cuddle up with our smartphones in the warmth of our homes. We’ve left payphones out in the cold and most of us don’t even miss them. I have a mobile phone now, but I still miss payphones. Or maybe I miss the days when they were a normal way to communicate, phone books slung around their waists, swinging on a chain. (Some time in the last decade, phone companies must have got tired of replacing the books nobody ever used and just got rid of them entirely. I guess they figured we could look up the numbers we need on...our mobile phones?) Yes, there’s a definite note of nostalgia among people who still use payphones. We’re all bitter about the great price jump of 2007, when calls went from twenty-five cents to fifty, an increase of one-hundred percent. If you’re of my generation, old enough to remember life before the internet, then you know that payphones are sad remainders of the technology we grew up with, a visible reminder of the 90s. It’s my firm belief that everybody suffers from chronic temporal sickness for the decade they grew up in. I can imagine a day when they only exist in museums and photographs. Maybe I’ll go to watch the last phone get decommissioned. Maybe I’ll only love payphones once I can never use one again, like the Once-ler becoming an environmentalist only after hearing the “thwack” that felled the last Truffula tree in Dr. Suess’ The Lorax. I feel this way even though payphones are often more a hassle than a convenience. I once spent half an hour outside the Eaton Centre on Queen Street waiting for a woman to finish her conversation, only to find the phone broken when she finally hung up. Her wild gesticulations should have tipped me off that she’d been screaming at a phantom, but I was too dopesick to notice. There were and are other cons to payphone usage. It wasn’t always easy to come up with the necessary exact change. Or sometimes you’d have exact change but the phone wouldn’t recognize one of your coins. For whatever reason, payphones have a really hard time reading dimes. Many times I’ve had just enough to make one call but the phone won’t cooperate and I’ve had to throw myself at the mercy of a local convenience store owner or random bystander. Maybe “can I use your phone?” was an innocuous question back in the day, but nowadays people immediately suspect you for asking and they really, really do not want to loan you their phone. I don’t blame them. Our phones contain our entire lives. It’s not the same as handing someone a few quarters. Despite all the long list of cons, there remains among my fellow payphone users a keen sense of loss. We’re all grieving something indefinable, something that went away with the advent of mobile phones. And I’m not leading up to a gripe about “kids these days on their phones.” As an avid reader, I usually bury my nose in a book when I’m on transit, so I don’t beseech people to “live in the moment” when they’re sitting on a bus. Being a passenger on the TTC for the thousandth time isn’t something that requires one’s undivided attention. I only get annoyed when I see some guy – and it’s always a guy – staggering down the sidewalk with his eyes glued to his phone, walking into people. Or walking into traffic. The feelings of wistfulness among payphone users grows more acute as the years roll on and more and more public telephones are yanked from their moorings, never to return. The sense of loss sometimes manifests itself in the passing down of legend. When I first heard the story, it was that there exists somewhere in the city of Toronto a payphone that still makes calls for a quarter. I was convinced it was the one just east of University on Dundas, south side of the street, just east of the Royal Bank. It just looks so fucking furtive. Like it’s hiding from the tourist hordes at Yonge and Dundas square, tucked around that corner:

I went to check that phone for this article but it doesn’t work at all, much less for half price. In an apt game of telephone about telephones, the legend grew. Only a few months after I first heard the Legend of the Half-Price Payphone, the story had morphed into a unicorn payphone that makes calls for free. People were arguing over which one it could be, though admittedly nobody had ever found it. It was like the leprechaun’s pot of gold. “It’s the one outside the mall at Kingston and Midland. The one with the Scotiabank!” “Naw it’s the payphone at Warden Station! Next to the donut shop!” “It’s the one at Yonge and Charles!” “What? They took that one out before 9/11.” “It’s the one in Yorkdale near the GO Station!” “Seriously bro. Pre-9/11. You’re memory is fucked, bro.” “My cousin’s in the Hell’s Angels. He can sell you a burner for $5. Why use a payphone when you can get a…” “No one cares about your cousin, Dwight.” “Pre-9/11 bro. Seriously. Yonge and Charles? Christ!” And on and on and on, into the night. I have a mobile phone now and it’s hard to imagine I’ll ever go back. The final straw came when I had to go up to Muskoka one summer for four days to work on a cottage. I missed my partner so much by the third day that I walked up and down the length of the lake, looking for a payphone. I probably had a better chance of spotting a lion, but there was no way I was going back to that cottage without talking to my wife. I missed her too fucking much. At the end of the lake I spotted a house with the garage door wide open. Inside the garage there was a workbench, a fridge, and all sorts of tools. On a hunch, I quietly made my way up the gravel driveway. There wasn’t a human being in sight. Inside the garage, I spotted a wall-mounted phone, and called my wife. She didn’t answer but I left her a message. As I was leaving it I heard footsteps and before I could make myself scarce an elderly lady came around the corner and stared at me. She obviously lived there. “Um. I was just…leaving,” I said, hanging up the phone and sheepishly skipping back to the main road as fast as I could. The woman frowned after me, watching me go. A little further down the road I saw an electrician working on a house and asked to use his phone. He said yes and I finally got through to my wife. But I couldn’t talk long or say what I wanted to say because the electrician was staring at me, so I determined right there and then to get and keep a fucking phone of my own. And that’s what I did. I sometimes pay my bill late and find myself cast backward into the land of payphones and useless dimes, but for the most part I’ve joined the 21st century. As for that mother and her child, the mother did her best, to her credit. “Some people…can’t afford cell phones,” she informed her son, who looked bored already. “Or else they can’t get coverage on the subway, so they use one of these. Or in emergencies, they work for emergencies.” “What kind of person can’t afford a phone?” the child brayed incredulously. The mother looked embarrassed. I wasn’t. Let her stupid kid hate payphones and poor people. Most people do. I rarely use payphones now but I still get a small shiver of curiosity when I pass one I haven’t seen before, wondering if it’s the legendary free one. The unicorn. The white whale of public telephones. So I check. And I hear “please insert fifty cents” from the robotic lady voice that rules payphone land. Then I move on.

#betterdaysareatoenailaway #odetopayphones

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yinzhengs · 6 years ago

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xia talks about 绅探 | detective l

— where i’ve been watching detective l: eng sub (YT) || raws (maplestage)

— so i’ve finally made my way thru all 8 eps that have been released thus far. i know some people have been asking for my opinion, so here’s a post that’s meant to hopefully sum up everything i’ve been feeling about this show, personally. any spoilers in my review are very minor!

if you’re not familiar with the show, it’s a sherlock holmes inspired mystery/crime show set in the shanghai french concession during the republican period, starring bai yu, you jingru, and ji chen. at the moment, the show’s at a 7.3/10 on douban, and it was trending at #5 for web-series, so it’s definitely enjoying popularity.

disclaimer: this is just my personal opinion — no matter how i feel about the show, i heavily encourage everyone to check it out for themselves before coming to a conclusion!

+ setting

you know, if there’s one thing i do dig about this show (in theory), it’s the setting. while i’m not a big fan of the set, for reasons i’ll go into below, i think the time period lends itself to some interesting setups and unique cases. as mentioned, it takes place in the republican period in shanghai’s french concession. if i had to guess, it takes place in the 30′s — but my chinese history is shaky, and this is entirely based on some throwaway details mentioned in later cases. suffice it to say that it's a pretty cool setting, and while i was skeptical at first, i did find myself getting into it.

+ characters

another thing i like about the show is the character concepts — in theory, if not always in practice. we have a kind of triumvirate in the main trio.

first, we have luo fei, the sherlock of the series and arguably its main character, who serves as a consulting detective for the shanghai police department. while he’s occasionally (mostly accidentally) an asshole, he’s generally likable and a far cry from the more eccentric/socially inept portrayals of sherlock holmes in modern adaptations. we start seeing a hint of his backstory in recent episodes, and cases soon start getting tied into his feud with an elusive “captain,” likely the show’s moriarty.

next, we have qin xiaoman, a rookie officer newly assigned to the dept, who has a fiesty temper and a fierce passion for making sure justice is served. in an enjoyable twist, she’s generally the one that does the heavy lifting: chasing perps down, aiming down sights, slamming suspects to the ground — she also soon learns to make deductions of her own, as well.

finally, we have........................benjamin (本杰明). his name / its transliteration makes me laugh a little bit whenever i see it, so generally i just refer to the poor guy as ben. anyway, he’s a reserved forensic examiner who also serves as the department’s forensic analyst — he pretty much lives in the morgue, and is more comfortable with the dead than with the living. (also, he has a pretty cute bromance with luo fei...) his backstory’s interesting, and i like his character a lot because it plays perfectly off of the other two’s preexisting dynamic — here’s hoping that he gets more screentime and development!

(ot3? ot3.)

+ cases

there are mixed opinions about the cases, but my personal take is that they’re pretty enjoyable to watch. while they’re not super hard to figure out / generally don’t have a whole lot of killer twists, they’re also not terribly unrealistic. they can get a little convoluted, but such is the eternal curse of mystery shows, i suppose. a lot of the smaller puzzles that luo fei solves are also contingent on some Pretty Chinese elements, which i found very cute (麻雀/麻将, 简谱, to name two). so yeah, they do a pretty okay job of taking classic mystery cases and making them fit in the setting given. more importantly, the process by which they unravel the cases is generally fun to watch, which is really the crucial part of any good mystery/crime show.

that being said, as someone who’s watched quite a few crime shows, i’m entirely not convinced that the writing for the cases is sufficient to keep me watching — even though they’re fun, i haven’t seen much so far that makes me feel like the show’s doing anything different from the usual formula. of course, that’s fine — crime shows don’t need to reinvent the wheel, they just need to make themselves worth watching, one way or another (normally thru character chemistry/acting, etc).

- some familiar sights/sounds...

why did they use the cinemasins stock sound effect multiple times

anyway, that aside, there are obvious nods to sherlock (bbc) — the main theme, luo fei’s initial appearance, the deduction scene in the car...

well, is it plagiarism? i guess not (or well, sina doesn’t think so), but what detective l’s doing here is less reinventing the wheel and more... repainting tires, if you catch my drift.

also, if you’re someone who pays a lot of attention to film ost’s, you’ll be assaulted with a LOT of familiar sounding melodies, be warned. this isn’t necessarily something that detracts from the drama, but it’s definitely something that’s thrown me for a loop / broken my immersion multiple times.

? tone

here’s where i start getting a little hesitant about the show, one of my main gripes: i’m really not sure what kind of tone the show is aiming for. while it’s clearly not a show that takes itself too seriously, and certainly not a dark/hard-boiled noir, occasionally there are moments included where characters rail at, for example, the imperfection/injustice of their supposedly impartial justice system — and while i’m not saying that the show can’t go there, it came off to me as just very thin attempts to increase the show’s depth while also not elaborating on those issues at all. and that’s what’s bothered me the most: the illusion of depth.

i’ll be the first to admit, though, that this is probably because i’m watching this directly after OS, which definitely tackled those issues from the start and had a radically different tone — i just feel like detective l, at least so far, hasn’t settled into one yet, and so i felt like there were some definite moments of tone incongruity / moments when i thought the show would continue with issues it’d raised ... but it didn’t.

- cinematography / lighting

take this with a disclaimer: i think the lighting and design in this show is gorgeous... for stills.

for a moving film? not so much.

i’ve said earlier that i felt like some of the lines felt scripted — but if anything enhances that artificiality, it’s definitely some of the set design. it’s clearly a studio set, and i can’t really begrudge them that part, but some of the lighting is so clearly artificial that it’s been starting to get to me — characters inside a normal room (lit by an innocuously dim overhead lamp) shouldn’t have three separate colors reflecting off their faces like a hobbyist artist’s color study sketches (though it does do a good job of highlighting bai yu’s jawline unnecessarily, in like, every other scene).

they’re clearly trying to create a mood through coloring / lighting, but ... often, i find, it’s at the cost of realism and could definitely be toned down a bit. (i find that over-the-top coloring is pretty common in cdramas, though, so this is probably also very subjective.)

(also, as with most cdramas.. they could probably do with less cgi.)

- acting / directing

alright, i’ll be honest: i’m not a fan of the acting in this.

in my personal opinion, something about the leads’ acting comes off as overly dramatized (esp. in xiaoman’s case) or slightly forced/artificial (in bai yu’s case). this could just be me not really being used to these two actors, but there were multiple times when i was surprised at how overdramatic/unrealistic some lines were delivered. same goes for minor characters, as well — something about the entire show just strikes me as extremely scripted, to the point where it breaks my immersion a lot. this might just be me, though, because i’ve def. heard some praises of the line delivery in this that i couldn’t wrap my mind around: take my words with a grain of salt, i suppose.

(also, of course, i’ve been watching this directly after coming from white deer plain — which has some really down-to-earth acting and a setting/tone that’s worlds apart from detective l. maybe i’m drawing too many direct comparisons: white deer plain definitely has some amazing acting, and it’s a high bar to set, esp for a drama filled with more younger actors.)

directing-wise... i definitely wish i could ask why they made some of the choices they did. while the subs haven’t reached that point yet, there are definitely some cliche tropes that they start throwing in around ep. 6 that heavily detracted from my enjoyment of the show, esp. with the show’s (perhaps over-the-top) use of slow motion at times + (imo) forcing chemistry before it’s had time to develop.

as a result though, i really can’t find myself getting attached to either of the main two (i like ben, probably because he hasn’t had enough screentime for me to be turned off yet, though) — i think that the acting choices for qin xiaoman definitely made her more unlikable for me despite me being a fan of her character in... theory. similarly, luo fei often feels too thin as a character — i’m constantly searching for depth there that i’m not sure i’m finding. so far, while these two are foils, they really feel like nothing more. maybe it’s too early to tell (but hey, i’m a third of the way through, aren’t i?), but i’m definitely finding myself wishing at almost every turn that there was more to the acting there — though they’re definitely being stingy with releasing characters’ backstories / hints to their backstories, which could help contextualize their behavior a little more.

overall: would i recommend it?

my very eloquent answer is... it depends. if you’re looking for a fun mystery romp that doesn’t always take itself too seriously with a unique setting and some interesting cases, then by all means: detective l might be up your alley!

that being said, i think it has a lot of flaws — notably, veteran crime show fans might not find enough flesh on the show’s bones to justify watching it for the cases alone — but if you can overlook them, it’s a fun show to watch: just don’t go in looking for stunning acting or dark moral quandaries.

#bai yu #白宇 #绅探 #cdrama #detective l #can we talk about how ben got relegated to third wheel in these posters tho lmfao #xia reviews #tragic really

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stephhannes · 5 years ago

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internet deadtiquette

i only keep up with a couple of podcasts, one of them being reply all, and the most recent episode resonated with me. in the episode, they speak with a dad who lost his son to an aneurism, and he goes on to talk about how technology has been entwined in his grief. and i found myself a) feeling less alone in the way that i’ve been grieving, but b) asking myself- how has the internet played a part in my recovery?

i never thought about it, but technology has been such an intrinsic part of my grieving process. so much so, that it’s felt natural and normal- even though looking in on it, there’s something hard and unnatural about it. how do i balance broadcasting my grief in a way that’s palatable in 240 characters but not compromising my truth? (spoiler: i’m very bad at this).

things were simpler when my dad died, because i didn’t once have to consider things like: “what statement will i make on social media?” “how do i respond to messages from people haven’t talked to since i graduated from high school?” “how sad is ‘too sad’ to appear online?”

from the beginning, since nathan’s died, technology has been right there. the day that it happened, while we were still making phone calls to family and close friends, i was thinking about what my “official” public statement would be. how do i concisely convey that the love of my life is dead when i haven’t slept in hours and barely know how to say a full sentence? i posted a picture of that one entry in teddy roosevelt’s journal from the day his wife and mother died. “the light has gone out of my life.”

that was the only thought i could conjure up that day. i accompanied it with a few short sentences- “the last day, my brain has been on a constant loop of thinking about that quote from teddy roosevelt’s journal after his wife died- “the light has gone out of my life.” yesterday, i lost the light of my life. my best friend, my brilliant, incredible, kind, adjectives fiancé has passed away.”

speaking of the whole ‘contacting family and friends’ thing, do you know how awkward it is to send a facebook message to someone you’ve never talked to asking for their boss’s phone number? at some point in the contacting phase, i realized that nathan wouldn’t be at work on monday and that people would have questions as to where he was, so i had to do some gymnastics to figure that out. the company that nathan worked for had a very generic name, so finding the correct office phone number was kind of off the table. i couldn’t find his boss on facebook- but i happened to remember the full name of one of nathan’s coworkers- so i found her on facebook and messaged her. “hi, this is out of the blue and i’m sorry, but i’m stephanie, nathan’s fiancee. nathan passed away this weekend and we’d like to get in contact with your boss. could you please pass along a phone number or other contact information so we can? thanks in advance.” imagine waking up one day and getting that message from a stranger.

when it came to contacting people, i only needed to tell my mom and the four friends i have. but when it came to nathan’s friends i wasn’t sure who all to contact. how do you decide who gets to know before a public facebook statement? will there be people that are angry that i excluded them?

and then after the announcement came the condolences. i hate that i live a life where i’m easily accessible by people i haven’t talked to in years. but still, i got messages from people i graduated with and got texts from numbers i had deleted years ago.

i’ve always been skeeved out by the concept of people writing on the facebook wall of someone who’s died. thankfully, only a couple of people did it- but i hated almost all of it. i think the thing i hate about this sort of public display of grief is that it’s so transparent, but here’s a life tip: not everything has to be about you. when people post these outward, shallow reflections on facebook, it’s to become a grief vampire, to get a pat on the back for “doing a good deed.”

i also hate that i had to watch people speculate, publicly what had happened to nathan. someone who we went to high school with made some sentimental post about him and someone commented asking “holy shit. what happened to him???” someone else made a post asking people to pray for our family and rip. once again, someone else commented asking what happened. i get that this is a pretty innocuous exchange, but seeing it written out in a facebook post, being discussed by people who don’t know us well just felt like i was watching two people whispering about me right in front of my face.

the worst part was seeing a comment that said “RIP. at least he’s with (his dead ex from high school) now.”

when i first saw it, i was so upset that someone would say that…in public…where i can see it. i was almost angry, but i didn’t have the energy to respond, since i was busy planning nathan’s funeral at that time. i told my friends about it, and one of them confronted the girl instead:

“hey, your comment about nathan was pretty disrespectful and it upset his fiancee a lot. would you please delete it?”

“actually, what’s disrespectful is you messaging me. i didn’t even know he had a fiancee and she just lost someone so she’s going to take offense to anything and everything. i didn’t say anything wrong. besides, everyone knows that (his ex) was his first love and if it wasn’t for what she did they would still be together.”

not only is she shitty in public, apparently she’s also shitty in private.

it was so apparent to me that she literally knew nothing about nathan and was just trying to cash in on some brownie points to look like a good person to everyone else- but i was so deeply offended.

my friend had to contact the person who made the original post to just delete the girl’s comment and that was the end of it.

the one post on his wall that i didn’t hate was from one of his friends. i had never met her before, but i knew of her, solely because she used to send nathan snaps of her cat all the time and subsequently, nathan would show me the snaps and we were both in love with her cat. she made a sweet post on his wall, and i sent her a message telling her that i appreciate her words and also that we loved seeing her cat. she offered to add me on snapchat and continue to send me pictures occasionally, and that’s one of the nicest things anyone’s done for me.

you know what i didn’t realize would happen? the first time i posted a selfie after nathan died, a few people made “it’s nice to see you smiling!” comments. i’ve never been conscious of my instagram feed, but after realizing that people were trying to use my posts as barometers to my happiness- i felt a lot more claustrophobic when it came to my feed.

+++

when my dad died, the grieving process looked fairly linear. i was sad for awhile, and with time, it got easier. his death isn’t something that plagues me anymore, and it stopped consuming me pretty quickly. part of that was because i was pretty removed from my home at that time- he died right before school started so i was living on my own, pre-occupied with not flunking out of undergrad, not surrounded by pieces of my father. the only digital footprint of my dad was a handful of selfies we’d taken together, but other than that, there was no facebook profile, no online connection to any of his friends. if i wanted to access my dad, i had to work for it.

though nathan was fairly private and didn’t have an instagram or twitter that he actively used, there was still facebook, and still vague traces of him across the internet.

i can’t stop doing things that hurt me, and the internet provides more things that hurt me. when my dad died, the only things i could do that would really pain me were listen to voicemails, and listen to songs that made me think of him. with nathan’s death, i can sit and read through all of our texts. or read through all of our facebook messages. or check snapchat and have it tell me that it’s been 45 weeks since i last received a snap from him. or have a facebook “on this day” memory pop up with a post he made on my wall ten years ago.

i have these moments where i am so desperate to feel close to nathan again. and i try to scrap together every trace of him i have. physically, there isn’t much. i have some of his old clothes, and a couple of tshirts that smell like him- but digitally i have years of things he’s said to me, i have pictures- ones of us together, ones i took of him sleeping, ones other people have taken of him- i have two voicemails, i have one video.

there’s something about having digital access to nathan that brought out a desperation in me.

when i got back to our apartment from the hospital after nathan died, my brain was shattered into a million pieces, each piece trying to answer a different question. however, at one point in the hours after his death, i got fixated on one thing: where the fuck was his phone? i tore the sheets from the bed and scoured every inch of the apartment and it was nowhere to be found. i don’t know why i wanted it so badly, but when i realized that it was gone i was so stressed out. the phone must have been in his pocket when he died, it must have gone to the hospital. it’s probably gone. i finally fell asleep, my brain reset by the time i woke up and the missing phone was no longer on my radar. eventually, i just resolved that i wouldn’t ever see it again and that was that. a couple of weeks later, his parents and i went back to philadelphia to clean out our apartment and his mom decided to follow the phone trail again. the hospital didn’t have it- they said the organ donation people probably have it- the organ donation people didn’t have it- they said the medical examiner probably has it- and finally we got a bag of nathan’s belongings from the medical examiner: complete with phone, drivers license, and one earring.

here’s the problem with a phone that’s been dead for two weeks: you need the passcode to turn it back on. i’m pretty sure my fingerprint unlocked his phone, but i had no idea what his passcode was.

here’s the second problem: his passcode was at least 6 characters long. the only thing i knew about it was that it was more than four characters, and i know that makes it exponentially harder to try to guess or use a program to guess the passcode.

there wasn’t necessarily anything i knew i wanted off of his phone, but i wanted answers as to why he died, and i think part of me thought i could get answers from his phone. but a bigger part of me knew that i wouldn’t get any answers, so i gave up.

i factory reset his phone. it’s no longer in my possession.

cracking the phone case wasn’t the only technological rabbit hole i went down. the day i finally got into nathan’s laptop, i remember texting one of my friends, exclaiming “I DID IT! I HACKED INTO THE MAINFRAME!”

nathan had two computers, a laptop for personal use and a desktop that he used for work and gaming.

once again, in my pursuit of trying to find answers, i thought that maybe his laptop would tell me something. i don’t know exactly what answers i thought his browsing history could illuminate, but maybe there would be something there. however, i had very low expectations as to what i’d find- nathan browsed the internet in a very strange way. he’d do this thing where pretty much every link he clicked on or everything he did he’d do in an incognito window. inherently i knew his chrome history would be pretty bare. nevertheless, i was determined to get in.

much like his phone password, i also didn’t know his laptop password. the only thing i knew was that his password hint was the same for both his laptop and his desktop. after setting this mystery to the side for a week, it hit me. the summer i moved to nyc he went away for a week, and when he left, he gave me the password to his desktop so i could use the big monitor to watch netflix or game to entertain myself while he was gone.

i had to go through old SMS messages that had been saved on my macbook to find the text with the password. and i found it. and if the password hint was the same for both of his computers, then the password had to be the same, right? right.

i did it. i hacked into the mainframe.

and like i suspected, i found nothing. nothing suspicious in his search history, no shady messages on reddit, no word documents, no weird facebook correspondences.

the only thing i found was a snapshot of the last moments before he died. the last webpage he’d opened that night was at 11:02pm. i called 911 at 11:11pm. for some reason, gaining that perspective fucked with me.

+++

i started this blog as a way to vent. i wanted to keep a record of what was going on in my life and how i was coping. i am a container of stories about nathan, and i wanted to make sure that i wasn’t forgetting things. i spent so much time in the months immediately following nathan’s death forgetting. i forgot what his laugh sounds like. i forgot exactly what his hair smelled like. i wanted to try to forget as little as possible, and by having a written record of the thoughts and memories i have of him i felt like i was gaining a little bit of control over the situation. but now that i have this audience, sometimes i find myself trying to make sure that i filter myself appropriately. i have to discern what memories i want to keep for just the two of us, and which ones i want to share.

pretty shortly after nathan died, i started a note on my phone called “things that are too fucked up to tweet right now, but maybe revisit in a few months?”

the list included such hits as:

sarah just got me a “promoted to fiancee shirt,” do they make “downgraded to widow” ones?

y’all ever go from planning a wedding to planning a funeral?

my fiance being dead means i now have two urns to take holiday pictures with

GREAT, now i have to change my emergency contact AGAIN

i used to have a ‘segment’ on this blog where i’d post the messages i had been sending to nathan’s facebook- and eventually i had to stop. mostly because i realized that the messages were truly just this very honest and raw expression of my deepest grief- i usually only send him messages when i’m feeling the most upset. that’s one of those things that needed to be kept for just us.

+++

it’s strange, the way the internet has become one of the biggest coping mechanisms for me. even though it’s introduced a whole shitload of inconveniences, it’s given me a lot as well. one of my favorite things that happened was a handful of his friends sending me facebook messages with either pictures of him, or a memory of him, that’s the one instance where i’m glad to be easily accessible. my favorite thing about having the internet on my side this time around is feeling less lonely. when i listened to that episode of reply all, i heard so many little things about someone else’s grief that i was also experiencing. sometimes you ask yourself if you’re grieving properly, if what you’re doing is weird, or okay- and hearing that i’m not the only one processing things in the way that i do gives me that little bit of reassurance that i’m doing alright.

+++

you wanna know the worst thing my iphone has done to me? i was scrolling through my camera roll, and i accidentally swiped up on one of the pictures. apparently photos will now show you “related photos” to the one you swipe up- and for some reason the algorithm decided one of the photos related to the one i swiped up on was a picture i had taken of nathan at his wake. i can’t believe steve jobs’ ghost would blindside me like that honestly.

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missandrogyny · 6 years ago

Text

The invitation arrives on Louis’ desk one Monday morning, innocuously placed on top of some tax forms and a bunch of papers Louis needs to look over. It’s quite large, made of thick, fancy, scented paper, with a little red bow wrapped around it, and the instant Louis spots it, he knows exactly what it is.

So he does the logical thing to do. He drops a stack of papers on top of it and promptly ignores its existence.

---

Of course, like all logical plans, this one fails, simply because of Louis’ failure to consider external things. Or in this case, the presence of one, rather annoying best-mate-slash-office-mate.

“Did you see it?” Liam demands as he enters the room at lunch, no pretenses whatsoever. “I made sure to personally leave it on your table.”

“Why hello, Liam,” Louis replies, all faux-brightness and cheer. “It’s so nice to see you on this wonderful day. How are you? I, myself, am doing well—I had a really good sleep last night, and look,” he says, gesturing to the succulent on his table. “Katniss bloomed a flower.”

Liam stops. “I thought its name was ‘Protractus’.”

“Well, I decided that ‘it’ was a ‘she’, and that she was a strong independent woman who didn’t need no man.” Louis declares, touching the flower lightly. “Or a Peeta, for that matter.”

Liam looks confused. “Whatever,” he says. “But did you see it?”

“You mean did I see your handsome face today? Yes, I did, thank you for stopping by.”

“No,” Liam says, crossing his arms. “Although…thanks. But no, I was talking about the invitation.”

Louis plays dumb. “What invitation? Wait, are you finally going to stop wearing that weird chain? Are you inviting me to your place for a ‘Farewell, Liam Payne’s Chain’ party?”

Liam rolls his eyes. “Stop changing the subject.” He marches over to Louis’ desk, and starts ruffling through the papers on there. “I know I put it here somewhere.”

“Oi, Payno,” Louis snaps, trying to shove Liam away. “That is my work you’re disturbing, and as you know I take my work very seriously—”

“—Aha!” Liam says, pulling out the invitation from under Louis’ work forms. “Here it is! You put all your stupid shit on top of it!”

“I did not,” Louis snipes, gathering up all his paper. “I thought it was a tax form.”

“What an incredibly fancy tax form,” Liam deadpans. It’s actually quite a good deadpan; Louis would be proud if it was in any other situation. “Here.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’? Open it, Louis.”

“I said, no.” The words come out much more emotionally than Louis intended them to, and he clamps his mouth shut, shakes his head. “I mean, I don’t need to, Liam, I already know what’s in it. Wedding invitations all say the same thing.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t just any wedding invitation,” Liam says. “This is Zayn’s.”

“All the more reason not to open it, don’t you think?”

“Louis,” Liam says, his voice taking on a gentle tone. “You promised you wouldn’t be bitter about this. You promised you would go.”

And yeah, Louis did. But that was a promise he made at a shitty time in his life, under shitty circumstances. He was sad. And sad people make stupid promises, especially to people they’re in love with.

“Open it,” Liam urges, handing the envelope to Louis. Louis takes a moment to look at the calligraphy of Mr. L. Tomlinson at the back, takes in the thick, fancy, iridescent envelope and the big red ribbon around it.

He hates it immediately.

Still, he opens it, simply because Liam is still there and watching him. The stupid ribbon falls off easily, and the inside is exactly as he expected.

We are cordially inviting you to the wedding of Jelena Noura Hadid and Zayn Javaad Malik on Sunday, March twenty-fifth, ten o’clock in the morning.

And on the right, a little post-it note stuck on the stupid, scented paper.

See you there, best man! – Zayn

The thing is, distantly, he knew that. He knew that Zayn’s getting married, knew that he was going to be Zayn’s best man. But seeing it on paper just made it more real, more permanent. It’s too much, all at once. Louis wants to burn the invitation and crawl into a hole and never come out.

Still, he forces himself to stay calm, to tear his eyes away from the invitation, enough to smile at Liam. “There,” he says, and even he can hear the sudden shakiness in his voice. “I opened it. Happy, now?”

Liam, however, isn’t looking at him. “No,” he says his eyes stuck on the post-it note. “Fuck, I told him not to push through with you being his best man. It’s not fair to you.”

“It’s fine, Liam,” Louis says, even though it is really, decidedly not. “I mean, I did promise.”

“But it’s not fair to you,” Liam repeats, growing heated. “Fuck, I’m going to call him right now and tell him—”

“No, Liam, it’s fine,” Louis insists. “Really. I promised I’d be his best man, and I am. Or at least, I will be.”

Liam pins him with a look. “Even with all the shit?”

Louis blows out a breath. No, he wants to say, but it’s been three years, and he’s moved on by now. Or at least, he should have moved on by now. “Well I promised I’d do it, and I will. How I feel doesn’t matter here.”

“But it should matter,” Liam says. “Fuck, just last week, you got piss drunk and were still crying about—”

“I know, Liam, I know,” Louis interrupts. “But it is what it is. I mean, you were the one going on and on about how I promised I’d go to the wedding.”

“As a guest,” Liam emphasizes. “I didn’t know he would really go and make you his best man.”

“Well, he did.” Louis shrugs. “It’s not his fault, though. I really did promise.”

“You know you don’t have to keep promises like that if it’s detrimental to your well-being, right?”

“I’m aware, Liam.” Louis deadpans. “But I’m also aware that I promised, and, well. I don’t want to break Zayn’s trust in me.”

It’s stupid—stupid and shitty and ridiculous of him, but. He thinks he’s just cursed to be this way, forever weak for a boy who is now getting married to someone else, that he can’t even break a stupid promise he’s made while drunk and crying.

And Louis knows that Liam knows this all this; Liam was there for the entire thing, for the downfall and the crying and the desperation and the begging and the final, quiet acceptance. He’s been there since the beginning and he’s still here now, even though it’s been three years and any normal, sane person would’ve moved on. But Liam, annoying as he is most of the time, is also incredibly perceptive, and right now he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t put into words what he’s thinking.

“You know if you let yourself, you’ll find someone else eventually,” he just says.

“I don’t need anyone,” Louis insists stubbornly. He strokes the Katniss’ flower with a finger. “I’m a strong, independent person and I don’t need to find anyone else.”

---

See, here’s a few things people should know about Louis and Zayn’s relationship:

One, Louis has known (well, known of) Zayn since the beginning of sixth form, when he was going about playing football and trying to get a good education. He’d always been intrigued by the dark-haired, middle-eastern boy who liked to lean against the old brick walls of their school and smoke cigarettes, while still being able to get good grades in all of his classes. The two of them had first exchanged words in their final year of sixth form, immediately hitting it off—so much so that when they found out they’d be going to the same uni, Zayn had automatically asked if Louis wanted to be his roommate.

Two, Louis and Zayn dated for two years. It had started off as an accident—a kiss when they had both been drunk and high, during a party in their last year of uni. They hadn’t spoke of it after, but it just kept happening again and again, that one day, in their shared flat, Zayn had said, “fuck it”, and turned to ask Louis if he wanted to go out on a date. Louis, not knowing what possessed him, had said “yes”, and, well. The rest was history.

And three, Louis is still pathetically, hopelessly, irrevocably in love with Zayn. Even though it’s been three years since their break up. Even though they remained friends, best mates even. Even though one night, when he was smashed, Zayn pulled him aside, eyes sparkling, and said “Fuck, Lou, she’s perfect. I think I’m going to ask her to marry me. Will you be my best man?”

And Louis, who had been just as smashed as Zayn was, and was willing to do anything Zayn asked him, teared up and said, “Yeah, of course!”

Which is why he’s here now, stuck in this predicament.

Louis is aware, of course, that all this makes him sound like a Twilight novel, but it’s just. It’s been three years, that’s all. Three years and not once does Louis think that he’s moved on, not once has he met someone who made him feel how Zayn did. Who made his heart race with excitement, with euphoria. Who made him feel high without drugs, like he was walking around on a cloud. Who made Louis feel everything—all the highs and the lows—with startling, vivid clarity.

Which means that there must be some merit to his feelings, considering that it’s been three years and they’ve just consistently been…there. Unchanging. Unwavering.

And whereas before he could ignore them, pretend they weren’t there, he can’t now because Zayn’s getting fucking married. He’s getting hitched. He’s entering into a lifelong commitment with another person, one that’s going to kill all of Louis’ hopes with Zayn and probably his last, only shot at love.

So there really is no choice. Louis has to stop the wedding, confess to Zayn, and ultimately win Zayn back.

---

Of course, sometime during the next day, it occurs to Louis that in order to get his plan to work, he’s going to need some back-up. Someone who’ll support him throughout this crazy, hare-brained plan. Someone who’ll have his back. Someone who’ll be there for him at the end, just in case things don’t work out as planned.

And it can’t be Liam, because Liam being the stickler that he is, will probably not allow Louis to try and stop the wedding. He’ll just end up telling Louis that he’s sorry and that he should move on and other weird shit like if you love him, let him go, which he probably got from those hipster Tumblr photos. And it can’t be Niall either, because no matter how easygoing he is, the whole debacle of Louis and Zayn is a sensitive issue for him, and he’ll probably go running to Liam about it the instant Louis tells him about his plan. No, for this, Liam and Niall are definitely out.

The problem, though, is that aside from them, Louis hasn’t really got anyone else. Sure, he’s got work friends, but Liam will immediately be suspicious if Louis takes one of them to the wedding, as he’s been trying to set him up with the people in the company to no avail. He could take his sister, but Lottie would probably just judge him for his pathetic-ness, and he doesn’t want her thinking that he’s pathetic. He could ask a random stranger on the street, but he might be slapped or punched for that.

Unless.

He’s reaching for his phone before he even realizes it, opening the contacts app and scrolling all the way down. It takes a second for him to spot the name he’s looking for, and although they’ve kept in touch these past few years—texting almost every day and engaging in random conversation—it’s really kind of a crazy idea. Louis has no idea if he’s busy at work, or if they’re at that level of friendship, or if he’s even willing to fly all the way to London.

But he’s all Louis’ got, and, well. It can’t hurt to try, can it?

The phone rings once, twice, thrice, before someone picks it up. “Hello?” A deep, raspy, familiar voice says, on the other end of the line, and Louis steels himself, takes a deep breath.

“Harry?” He says. “Hi, um. I was wondering if you’d do me a favour.”

#heyyyyyyyy #guess who's back #not me bc idk if im sustaining this #i just ran out of things to do so i started randomly writing #and uh #im actually liking it so far so i wanted to share but #idk!#i dont wanna pressure myself to finish things but ya #i like it #my writing

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queenieofaces · 7 years ago

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On being unrequited

This post has been cross-posted to The Asexual Agenda. On a completely unrelated note, today is my fifth anniversary of writing for TAA!

Content warnings: mention of suicide in a fictional work, discussion of trauma messing with conceptions of the future and relationships, brief mention of abusive relationships (with no specifics), some crappy statements about the insufficiency of aces in relationships

Let me start by saying that this is a topic that I’m still puzzling out how to talk about, but let me start here: It’s hard to overstate the impact reading Cardcaptor Sakura had on me as a teenager. It wasn’t the first piece of media I’d consumed that depicted women in love with other women (I’d been in a production of The Children’s Hour, a play in which the lesbian character, predictably, commits suicide), but I think it may have been the first story I’d read that had (non-adult) girls crushing on other girls. For those not familiar with Cardcaptor Sakura, it’s a manga (later made into an anime, retitled Cardcaptors in the US) about a magical girl named Sakura. Sakura’s best friend, Tomoyo, is in love with Sakura, but she knows that Sakura doesn’t return her feelings, so she spends much of the series supporting Sakura from the sidelines and cheering her on as she pursues other relationships.

Part of the reason this manga had such a huge impact on me was because I was reading it just as I was realizing that I had a crush on one of my very close friends. I was absolutely certain that said friend didn’t return my feelings, so I decided to be a Tomoyo and cheer her on from the sidelines. As long as she was happy, I would be happy.

These types of unrequited crushes are obviously very, very common in wlw media (and in real life). I have a playlist of wlw music, for example, and while there are a couple of songs about ladies mutually crushing on other ladies, it’s much more common to have songs like “Sleepover” by Hayley Kiyoko or Mary Lambert’s cover of “Jessie’s Girl” or “Jenny” by Studio Killers (although that one, at least, ends well* in the MV). Kataomoi (片思い; more or less “unrequited feelings”) is a pretty common trope in Japanese f/f content as well, especially if it’s set during high school or middle school. (Azumanga Daioh, which was also formative in my teens, has Kaorin crushing on Sakaki for the entire manga.) I didn’t read a book with a girl who had a girlfriend, let alone one who still had a living girlfriend at the end of the story, until I was in my twenties. (I started finding books with endgame m/m couples in my early teens, for comparison, although I also read a lot of books with m/m couples who broke up or died before the end.) While it’s easier to find happy f/f couples in media now, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the idea that if you’re a woman who is attracted to other women, many of your crushes are likely to be unrequited still permeates wlw spaces and media content.

This idea has heavily shaped the way that I approach relationships. A few months ago I was talking to a friend who said that she found the idea of being friends with someone she had a crush on without ever saying anything really painful. Never saying anything is my baseline. I’m pretty much exclusively attracted to people I’m close friends with, so my desire to Not Make It Weird way overweighs my desire to say anything. I’d much rather have a close friend I have inappropriately big feelings for (and never act on) than make someone else uncomfortable and potentially jeopardize our friendship. So, unless I’m pretty certain that they feel the same way or the situation is becoming untenable as is, I don’t make it weird. I’ve had people tell me that’s sad when I’ve mentioned it, but I don’t think it’s sad. I’m not a martyr or “suffering in the friendzone” (ew)--it just is what it is.

Now here’s where I feel like I don’t quite have the words to talk about this yet: I think there’s a similar phenomenon in ace communities. I’ve talked before about the puddle problem: “Sure, there may be other fishies in the sea, but, personally, my sea is more like a puddle and most of the fishies would rather hang out in a real body of water.” Beyond that, I feel that there’s often an assumption of incompatibility or unrequited feelings that aces carry into relationships. There’s the endless issue of sexual incompatibility, of compromise, and all the different tools we’ve made to get around that. (This isn’t even touching some of the nastier comments about asexual people “inflicting themselves” on “normally sexual persons.”**) There’s, as Laura describes it, “a kind of wariness of situations where I might be expected to have sexual feelings or motivations, because then people might want something from me that I can’t give.” Even in friendships there’s the fear that you’ll never be #1 or that your friends will prioritize their other relationships over you. There’s often an assumption that you’re going to have to deal with being insufficient (because you don’t experience attraction you should) or with your friends and/or partners prioritizing relationships differently than you (because they’re not getting enough/the right things from your relationship).

Even in ace/ace relationships, I assume that we’ll have incompatible desires--that someone, to some degree, will be unrequited. There tends to be an assumption that aces are inherently compatible with other aces, but, as someone who has been in relationships with multiple aces, I can say that is not true.*** Here’s a fairly innocuous example: I am not a very cuddly person. I used to be much cuddlier, but I’ve gotten more touch-averse with age and substantial trauma. I sometimes have days where I don’t want anyone to touch me, regardless of how casual or glancing it might be. Needless to say, this can be a major stumbling block if I’m in a relationship with someone who expresses affection physically or who wants consistent physical affection from me.

I tend to assume that any relationship (romantic or not) I have is going to have some level of uneven feelings. Either I am attracted to them and they are not to me (the Tomoyo problem), or they are to me and I am not to them (the insufficiency problem), or we’re both attracted to each other but in different ways (the physical affection incompatibility problem). Heck, I designed a model of relationships to help navigate relationships where feelings are imbalanced. And this is, again, not something I find particularly sad or pity-worthy. I want different things than other people, not through any fault of mine or theirs, but just because that is how it is. This is my baseline.

When it becomes a problem is when decide to settle for what I can get--when I look at my tiny puddle and think, “Well, I’m never going to get anything better than this.” That can be bad when it’s compelled me to stay in abusive relationships, but even in healthy relationships that assumption isn't fair to me, and it’s also not fair to the people who matter to me. I often assume that I care more about other people than they care about me, so I’m sometimes surprised and unsure how to react when people demonstrate that they do actually care for me. I am much better equipped to deal with having inappropriately big feelings for someone than I am to deal with underestimating someone else’s feelings for me. I also have the fun PTSD symptom of a sense of foreshortened future. Specifically, in my case, I rationally know that the future is coming, since that’s generally how time works, and I can plan for it, but I have no gut feeling that the future is real.**** (If this sounds like a really weird experience, I promise you that it 100% is.) I tend to assume that I have no permanency in other people’s lives. Other people will move on and find other relationships, and I’ll be there to cheer them on from the sidelines (or just...not be there, I guess; it’s not that I’m expecting something to happen to me so much as that I struggle to imagine my future self). I’m often caught off guard whenever anyone demonstrates that they’re expecting me to be in their life in a tangible way in the future.

I have no solutions here and no real conclusion, since, as I said, I’m still trying to find the words to talk about this. I guess the point that I’m trying to get at is the extent to which I carry the assumption of imbalanced feelings (being unrequited? unrequitedness?) into all of my relationships. I don't know how common this experience is, and I don’t think it’s a uniquely ace experience (as I said at the beginning of this post, it’s a trope in a lot of f/f content). In my case at least, I think it is shaped by my sitting at the intersection of aceness and queerness and trauma. I don’t think I can fully say it’s a good thing or a bad thing--on one hand, I’m pretty prepared to do the relationship negotiation dance at any moment (I have CHARTS and KEYWORDS), but on the other hand, I often have to actively counter my own baseline assumptions, which can be skewed in weird and negative ways.

*Well, I mean, if you consider “turning into a tiger and carrying your love to safety” to be “ending well.”

**Dan Savage, who made the comments in the link, has softened signficantly in his stance on asexuality, but I think it’s important to remember that these sorts of comments were coming out right around the time I started coming out to people, and so I had to directly address them when people brought them up (which, to be clear, they did; Dan Savage was weirdly widely read in my college friend group). While I rationally know I’m not inflicting myself on anyone, when you hear something enough times, it does sort of dig its claws into you. Or maybe that’s just me.

***Here is where I recommend one of my favorite acefics, “’Til Break of Day.” I’m not involved in The Hobbit fandom at all, but it’s genuinely one of the best depictions of an incompatible ace/ace relationship that I’ve read. Check it out if you’re so inclined.

****At some point maybe I’ll bite the bullet and write a proper post on queer futurity instead of just yelling about it incoherently to my friends. Maybe.

#actuallyasexual #asexual #ace safe #relationships #cross posted to the asexual agenda #wlw #queer ace #suicide mention #abusive relationships mention #trauma #hey it's your pal Queenie back again with one of her patented feelings leaking posts #nobody* asked for this and yet here we are #(*actually some people totally asked for this and you can thank them for this post's existence)#(send some appreciation in the direction of Rowan and aceadmiral)#(and by 'send some appreciation' I mean 'you should go read the stuff they wrote instead of this')

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ticklishhpickle · 7 years ago

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Bloom and break

Summary: Phil Lester’s been hiding something his whole life. No, not murder, or being gay. He’s out and proud. He has the power the grow plants- but only when he has feelings for someone. Sounds cool, right?Not when it nearly cost him his life. Phil had fallen deeply in love with his last boyfriend, and when he'd left him Phil wilted like every plant he'd grown during their time together. After a few crappy months in hospital (aka the worst time in his life), Phil promised himself he would never let himself catch feelings again.Two years later, Phil has moved on and has a best friend, Dan Howell. Everything's going great, they hang out pretty much every day and Phil is happier than he's ever been. That is, until he finds himself with growing feelings (and plants).

Word count: 5.4k

Warnings: none

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Phil Lester wasn’t normal. Sure, he went to high school like a normal 17 year old, had a solid group of friends and even had a fairly good relationship with both his parents. But the difference between him and most 17 year olds was that he had a power.

Whenever Phil began growing feelings for someone, plants would grow on him, around him, under him; the intensity of the growth all dependent on the intensity of his feelings.

It sounded a lot cooler than it actually was.

Maybe at first it was fairly innocuous, like when he was seven years old and had a small crush on a girl in his class named Sally. A small green stalk had shot out of the palm of his hand, and while it confused him at first it wasn’t a point of concern. Seven year old Phil had actually liked his power.

Plants continued to grow on and around Phil; small daisies shooting out of the ground when he walked to school, the grass he ran over while playing tiggy turning greener, and even some wilted plants reviving when he touched them. Phil knew that if he told anybody about his powers they wouldn’t believe him but that was ok; he was content keeping this little secret to himself.

When Sally moved away however, this all changed. The daisies that had grown on the sidewalk? Shrivelled. The grass at school? Wilted. The plants he’d revived? Dead as they were before he touched them.

Phil had noticed this- the sudden death of all the plants he’d grown in the past few months and was feeling confusion and disappointment on top of his sadness over Sally leaving. Phil wasn’t doing much better than the plants either. It was harder to breathe when running all of a sudden, he’d suddenly become quite thirsty for water when he’d always preferred juice and the sun would burn him a lot easier than it had before.

At the time Phil hadn’t connected the dots but it was clear what had happened; Sally moving away caused not only the plants to wilt and shrivel, but Phil as well.

Things only got worse from there on out for as Phil got older he developed deeper feelings for people and for longer periods of time, too.

His little crush on Sally was nothing compared to the most recent person he’d fallen for; Thomas Ryan.

Thomas had asked Phil out two years ago when Phil was nothing more than a naive freshman. Initially, Phil had been reluctant to date someone two years older than him but eventually Thomas had won him over with his enviable smile and charming personality. They dated happily for one year, in which Thomas had taken Phil out for countless romantic dinners, picnic lunches in the park and even ice skating a couple times.

In that year, Phil had grown more plants than he ever thought he could. Huge, metre tall sunflowers would spring up whenever he walked in the park. Bright blue petunias would spring up in his neighbours’ gardens when he’d bid them a good morning.

Most notable of all, however was what grew the night Phil had fallen in love with the older boy.

The morning after he’d fallen in love with Thomas he’d woken up to find a beautiful red rose- growing out of his chest! Phil wasn’t expecting it at all, either. He’d probably grown every flower known to man previously, ever flower except a rose. When he’d woken up and discovered the rose growing out of his chest, he’d yelped and hastily pulled it out. The thorns on the stem had pricked his skin, causing a small amount of blood to seep out and Phil to hiss in pain. Once he’d cleaned himself up however, he’d examined the rose closely. It was deep red in colour, had petals that had no imperfections or creases and when he’d smelt it he’d sworn it was what heaven smelled of.

As he skipped to school that day flowers of every kind had blossomed out of the ground, suddenly and bigger in size than they usually were. Phil felt on top of the world. When he’d finally reached school, he’d thrusted the rose in Thomas’ face and wished him a happy anniversary.

“Wait. Is that today?” Thomas had asked, a panic-stricken look on his face.

Phil had retracted the rose from his boyfriend’s face sheepishly, feeling quite awkward. He’d forgotten.

Silence followed. Phil hadn’t known what to feel. A little hurt, of course but at least it hadn’t been Thomas’ intention to hurt him. Things like this happened all the time! It wasn’t a big deal. Phil had been just about to tell his boyfriend that he was forgiven when,

“I-I think we should break up.”

His stomach had dropped.

“What?”

Thomas had bitten his lip, clearly debating something in his mind before speaking again.

“I’m so sorry I’m doing this today of all days but I can’t keep this going any longer. I just- I just don’t think I love you anymore. And I feel so fucking shitty for doing this today of all days but I’ve been planning to for a while now and I can’t keep dragging you on like this any longer. It’s not fair on either of us.”

Phil ended up not going to class that day. After Thomas had comforted Phil for a few minutes he’d attempted to coax him into going to class. Phil had simply shaken his head and stood his ground, crying even more when the bell rung and Thomas left.

When he’d finally worked up the energy to walk home, he remembered the flower he’d kept in his hand the whole time.

The rose was dead and black, its previously plump and soft petals shrivelled into nothing. Its smell had disappeared, too and all that was left were the thorns. Phil would’ve started crying had he not spent the past two hours bawling his eyes out.

That night he’d gone to bed with a minor headache, hoping that would be the extent of the post-breakup deterioration. He was wrong. Just within the span of a few days, Phil had grown so weak he’d lost his ability to eat, move or even breathe properly. He’d wilted like the rose.

Phil’s mum had been understandably distressed over his health, and so the day she found her son sickly pale and coughing up blood she’d put her foot down and admitted him into hospital despite his protests.

The next few months were filled with medical bills his mum couldn’t afford, hundreds of tests to find out what Phil’s illness actually was and more injections than he could count. By the end of it, Phil had sworn he would never allow himself to fall in love again. If the risk of falling in love was his own life it was one he just wasn’t willing to take.

Phil swung his school bag over his shoulder and walked hastily over to his friend’s locker. He tried to ignore the immense pressure he felt on his shoulder from the weight of all the textbooks that he was going to pretend to read over the weekend. He made a note to buy the online copies of his books next year in order to save his shoulders dying from the weight of chemistry and mathematics- the subjects were already doing that to his mind.

He reached the locker of interest and stood expectantly in front of its owner, his hands on his hips. Dan always took a billion years to pack up his stuff after school. After a few seconds, Phil grew impatient as Dan still hadn’t noticed his presence and so took matters into his own hands.

“Daniel…. It’s time for your neck exam!” Phil said in the creepiest, sing-songiest voice he could with his post-pubescent vocal chords. He shot his hand out and lightly brushed over his friend’s sensitive neck, laughing when Dan dropped his textbook to the ground and jerked away. He looked around for a few second before he noticed Phil standing there, a proud smile on his face.

“Not cool, Phil. You know how much I hate having my neck touched!” Dan’s warm brown eyes were now narrowed and accusing, his forehead crinkled up in a way Phil thought was very amusing. His arms were crossed defensively against the My Chemical Romance tshirt he always insisted on wearing. The one giveaway that he wasn’t actually mad was the small smile fighting its way onto his face, nearly overpowering the glare he was giving Phil.

“Oh hush, you don’t even care when I do it. You were taking too long anyway.” Phil grinned up at his friend as he bent down to pick up the worn textbook that had dropped to the floor. He frowned when he examined the pages properly- they were all tattered and falling out. Maybe it would be best if Dan bought the online copies of the textbooks next year too.

“I SO do care when you do it, Lester.” Dan argued weakly, his face tinted red all of a sudden. He looked like a nervous tomato.

Phil unzipped Dan’s backpack and carefully placed the textbook in the back pocket, not wanting to cause the pages even more damage.

“Whatever you say, Howell.” Phil replied, amusement clear in his voice as he finished zipping the pocket back up.

“You should really take better care of your books, you know. They cost a lot.”

Dan shrugged his shoulders thoughtlessly, causing his backpack to hitch up a little and closed his locker door. He pushed Phil on the shoulder playfully, eliciting a laugh from his black-haired friend.

“It’s alright. I’ll be burning them as soon as we get out of this hellhole anyways.” he marched over in the direction of the gate, Phil not noticing at first before quickly catching up to his side. “Now, your place or mine?” Dan wiggled his eyebrows mock-suggestively.

This was a running joke between the two friends; always asking whose place to go to when they both knew they’d always end up going to Phil’s. It was just an added bonus that they could turn it into a joke about one night stands as well. Though they’d only been friends for just over a year, Dan had been to Phil’s house approximately 293 times. It was a very fast-growing friendship, as well. Phil had made his return to school after spending three months in hospital, hoping things would be the same with his friends. They weren’t.

The entire year level plus the whole of Thomas’ year level had caught wind of Phil’s hospitalisation. To the doctors, his mum and the school he had a ‘severe but treatable case of an illness yet to be officially registered’. He’d become ‘mystery boy’ and ‘the sick one’ to friends he’d hoped would never treat him differently because of it but the sad thing was that they did.

It wasn’t necessarily even bad, either. Phil knew they only had the best intentions but he couldn’t stand any more pitying looks or comments from his friends, so it came as a relief when Dan transferred to the school.

Just as tall, just as introverted and possibly even more awkward than Phil himself, Dan had sat next to Phil in literature one day and they’d been friends ever since. Phil admired Dan’s love for Shakespeare and his sarcastic sense of humour that he’d since adopted; Dan admired Phil’s disgustingly positive outlook on the world. They were quite similar, but also different in many ways. Their friendship was just one of those things that just worked, like peanut butter and jelly.

The walk back to Phil’s house was full of teasing, banter and complaints about all the homework they needed to but probably weren’t going to do until the night before it was due. Walking home was always a little hard for Phil as he’d usually be reminded of that one day two years ago when he’d walked home, running past hundreds of wilted plants that had bloomed when he’d had Thomas. It got easier every day, not by a lot but when he’d started walking back with Dan all thoughts of that day had suddenly become non-existent.

After an easy ten minutes, they’d arrived at the familiar house and immediately begun raiding Phil’s cupboard and refrigerator for food. They were well aware it had been 2 hours since they’d last eaten, and quite frankly that was 2 hours too long for two lanky teenage boys.

After 15 minutes of fruitless searching, both Dan and Phil gave up. All they’d managed to find in Phil’s cupboards were expired pop tarts, vegetables (shiver) and a few questionable cuts of beef. Dan had taken to melodramatically crying in the pantry, sitting on the floor and hugging his knees to his chest.

“WHY PHILIP, WHY? I’M SO HUNGRY!” he wailed before fully collapsing onto the floor.

“Dan! Get up, you spoon.” Phil sniffed in amusement at the sight in front of him. Dan would definitely have an imprint of flour on his butt when he stood up.

“I’ll just order pizza, it’s fine.” Phil shook his head and took his cell phone out, dialling the number for his favourite pizza restaurant.

Dan abruptly stood up and dusted his black jeans of flour and other pantry floor particles.

“Oh. I’ll have a large pepperoni please. But hold the pepperoni.” Dan declared, no sign of humour in his voice. Phil looked at Dan incredulously, what was his friend thinking? That was just a cheese pizza then! He was a strange one indeed. A second later, someone picked up on the other line and Phil was forced to talk to a stranger, something he’d hated his whole life.

“H-hello. I’d like a large chicken pizza and a-,” Phil looked at Dan disappointedly, shaking his head, “large PLAIN cheese pizza. Yep. That’ll be all. Thank you.”

Dan gaped at Phil, apparently shocked for some reason. He gesticulated wildly for a second then realised no words were coming out of his mouth.

“Phil! What was that? I told you I wanted a pepperoni pizza, hold the peppers. What was that?”

“Oh my god, Dan. That’s what you told me to order! You said, pepperoni pizza, hold the pepperoni. I just assumed you wanted a cheese pizza and were trying to be funny!” Phil couldn’t stop himself from laughing now, Dan’s face had gone all pouty and sad. It was hilarious.

“Oh fuck. Did I?” Dan’s mouth was still open in shock.

“Yes!”

“Well you better call them and change it!” Dan exclaimed, looking expectantly at his friend.

If it were anyone else, Phil would have refused. His best friend was a pleb, however and as his best friend it was his job to be understanding of that. Shaking his head at Dan, Phil dialled the pizza place back up.

By 8pm the pizza was long gone and the boys had taken to playing Mario Kart on the couch. Phil bit his lip in concentration, working hard to beat Dan at the game he always seemed to win. They’d played the game every Friday together for the better part of two years, and Phil was still yet to beat Dan. Phil’s character of choice, Yoshi was zooming through the track. He was in second place, quickly gaining on Dan’s character, Mario who was in first. He zipped over a rainbow speed booster, instantly overtaking Dan who had missed it and yelled out triumphantly. He continued zooming through the course, only a few seconds away from the finish line when a green shell hit him right in the back, allowing Dan to easily overtake him just before the finish line.

Phil threw his controller frustratedly onto the couch. This wasn’t fair. Dan won every time! And to lose by something as lame as a green shell, not even a blue shell was just embarrassing. He refused to look at Dan or the screen.

“Ha! Did you choose Yo-shi cause yo-r SHIT?” Dan quipped, nudging Phil in the side. He was way too pleased about this, his eyes crinkling up with glee and the dimple on his left cheek popping out. This would not do.

Phili pushed the stupid boy in front of him, causing him to fall onto the couch butt first.

“That was a terrible joke. Apologise.” He demanded, crossing his arms.

His friend’s face showed no signs of remorse or guilt, however and instead of apologising he merely grinned and held out a hand to Phil.

“Nope. Help me up now please.”

Phil glared angrily down at him, but they both knew he wasn’t really mad. Being the kind friend he was, he begrudgingly reached his arm out but was caught off guard when he was suddenly jerked onto the body below him.

“Daniel!” he yelped, his voice two octaves higher than it usually was.

His face was squashed into the crook of the other boy’s neck awkwardly while their hands stayed linked. Phil felt the warmth of Dan’s chest radiating onto him, an admittedly nice feeling. Phil could feel Dan’s heartbeat, it was beating way faster than any healthy heart should. The boys remained silent, neither sure what to do next.

After too long, Phil pushed himself off the chest below him using both hands and sat up straight. The warm feeling that had overtaken his body was now gone. He felt strangely disappointed for some reason.

A slightly pink-in-the-face Dan scrambled up too, making sure to keep a reasonable distance between him and Phil on the couch. He cleared his throat and sniffed.

“It was a great joke and you know it. Don’t even try to deny it.” Dan’s voice sounded a little shaky and held an air of false confidence that Phil chose not to comment on for fear of making this kind of awkward moment even worse.

“Hmph. Well Mario? How about, Mari-no humility!” Phil decided on saying, knowing his joke would go down well with Dan.

“Oh my god. You did it. A joke even worse than mine.” -

The rest of the night was pretty normal for the two boys, the awkward moment forgotten as quickly as it happened. Phil was sad to see Dan go at the end of the night, as usual but was comforted by the thought he’d see him the next day, probably.

He pulled his pyjamas on after he’d bid Dan goodbye and jumped into bed, exhausted. It took him quite a while to fall asleep, his thoughts plagued with his best friend for some reason. Tonight had been… weird to say the least. He wondered if Dan was feeling as awkward as Phil was about it. Was he making too big a deal out of it? It shouldn’t be a big deal, he guessed. They were best friends for crying out loud! Phil forced his mind to shut up, faintly feeling a small tickling sensation on his left hand as he drifted off to sleep.

Phil jumped awake to the sound of his phone blaring ‘Toxic’ by Britney Spears. He slammed his hand down on the alarm before getting out of bed. He walked to the bathroom and fumbled with the door handle before grabbing his toothbrush. Phil was sleepily brushing his teeth, looking at his reflection in the mirror before noticing something green on his hand. He promptly put his toothbrush down, inspecting his hand closely.

Oh no.

It couldn’t be. There was a fucking plant growing out of his palm. Phil knew what this meant, it’s what had happened when he’d started liking Sally in the second grade, Kyle in the fifth grade and Thomas in freshman year. Phil quickly pulled the plant out of his hand, feeling a soft tug on his skin. He knew it meant he’d caught feelings for someone, but who? He barely talked to anyone anymore, having shut off all of his friends after what happened with Thomas. Literally the only person he talked to was Dan!

Wait. Phil thought back to what had happened the night before, how warm he’d felt lying on Dan’s chest and how strangely disappointed he’d felt when forcing himself out of Dan’s tender embrace. His thoughts had been filled with his friend the whole of last night, and as much as Phil had wanted to deny it then, the fact that a plant had sprouted out of his palm left no room for questioning. He liked Dan.

This was not good. Very not good. In fact, so not good that Phil began pacing around his bathroom, hyperventilating while he was at it. His thoughts were running wild with what he should do, he couldn’t let himself nearly die again. One heartbreak had been enough for his emotions, not to mention his body.

After a good ten minutes of thinking (freaking out, really) Phil had come to a solution for his problem: he had to distance himself from Dan, ideally cutting him off completely. It made his heart hurt at the thought of not being as close to his best friend anymore, but it’s what he needed to do.

Phil quickly sent Dan a text saying he was feeling ill and would not be coming to school, and that Dan should just walk to school alone today. It wasn’t a lie, really. Phil wouldn’t be going to school, and he was feeling unwell, just not for the reason Dan would be assuming. Phil wiped the sweat off his brow and went back to bed. He couldn’t deal with this right now.

Phil spent the rest of the day playing video games, but it wasn’t much fun without Dan. He sighed. It had only been 16 hours and he was already having Dan withdrawal symptoms. Phil was just about to finish the level when the doorbell rung.

He groaned and begrudgingly made his way to the front door. He hated unexpected visitors. Phil swung the door open, his eyes widening when he saw who was on the other side of it.

“Phil! You’re a bit of a weakling, aren’t you? Missing school and leaving me all alone.” A smiling Dan teased, handing Phil a container filled with a mysterious brown substance.

“I made you chicken soup as well!”

Phil examined the liquid closely and cringed. It did not look appetising at all.

“Why is it brown?”

“I-erm, I’ll explain when we’re inside.” Dan said, pushing past Phil and walking into the house.

Phil internally groaned, why did Dan have to come over? Phil was supposed to be ignoring him! Dan was the last person he should be around right now, but Phil was missing his best friend and did not have the heart to kick him out when he’d brought him chicken soup and was clearly missing Phil too.

Phil was snapped out of his thoughts when Dan tapped him on the shoulder.

“Oi, mate were you playing Mario Kart without me?” Dan was looking genuinely offended, his bottom lip sticking out in a pout. Why did he have to be so frickin adorable, it wasn’t helping Phi’s problem at all!

Phil nodded, ashamed of his betrayal.

“You’ll have to make it up to me. 1v1 me right now!” Dan grabbed Phil’s hand, guiding him to the couch.

Phil needed to forget, just for a bit that he couldn’t hang out with his best friend anymore. This would be the last time they’d hang out properly, at least until Phil was sure his feelings were completely gone. Phil chucked Dan a controller and grinned,

“You’re on, Howell.”

The next few months were a struggle for Phil. He’d had a great time hanging out with Dan that day, which came as no surprise. It really didn’t help his growing problem, however. The minute Dan had walked in he’d known he was seriously fucked. Seriously, why was Dan so cute? Coming over and bringing chicken soup just to make sure Phil was feeling better, he truly was a great friend.

After that day, Phil had tried, and succeeded to some extent of hanging out with Dan less. He’d declined Dan’s offers of hanging out as much as he could without seeming too suspicious, began walking to school alone (telling Dan he preferred solitude in the mornings, which Dan had just nodded suspiciously at) and only had Dan over a couple of times in the three month span.

Yet despite these efforts, Phil had just felt himself falling deeper into a dangerous abyss of feelings for his best friend. Anytime Dan smiled, laughed, or did anything really, Phil could feel his heart growing fonder. And there was proof too.

Spending less time with Dan wasn’t the only reason Phil had taken to walking alone to school. His feelings had grown, and as a result more plants were growing too. He wouldn’t have been able to hide the hundreds of flowers shooting out of the ground as soon as Phil walked past. They were beautiful, too as much as Phil hated to admit. They were more vibrant in colour, taller too than any flower that had grown from Phil’s previous crushes. Phil was more than a little scared of what that meant.

Right now, Phil was holding tightly onto Dan’s hand despite his better judgement. They were at the cinema, watching a horror film and Phil was terrified. Dan’s hand was soft and warm, calming him down a little, but not enough for him to be able to let go.

The film finally ended, thank god and Phil slipped his hand out of Dan’s, feeling empty at the loss. They walked out of the cinema side by side, bumping shoulders as Dan teased Phil for being so scared.

When they made it outside, Phil felt his heart sink with disappointment. He didn’t want to go. He was happy just being there with his favourite person. Stupid plants that grew with his stupid feelings could be screwed.

Phil leaned in to hug Dan goodbye, finding himself smelling Dan’s hair. Dan’s hugs never failed to make Phil’s tummy flutter. It was the way Dan held him so tightly, like he was protecting his little Phil. He felt so warm and so… Dan. Phil swooned for what was probably the seventh time that night. God, this was just sad AND creepy.

Phil reluctantly began pulling away, already feeling the warmth enveloping him disappearing.

His heart started beating ten times faster when he saw Dan’s eyes flicking down to his lips. It nearly short-circuited when Dan leant forward, capturing them in his own. Phil’s mind was void of all thoughts except one: Dan. He kissed back with everything he had in him, tangling his hands through Dan’s soft brown hair.

Phil felt like he could burst, a tingling feeling of warmth spreading throughout his body making him feel whole. Dan’s hands were around his waist, holding him like he was the best thing in the world.

Too soon, Dan was pulling away and the realisation hit Phil. Dan had kissed him. And he’d kissed back. What was he doing? He shouldn’t have let this happen! Dan was just going to leave him in the end, and Phil would be left heartbroken and nearly-dead. His eyes began welling up.

Dan’s satisfied smile fell as soon as he saw the tears in Phil’s eyes. He propped Phil’s chin up with his hand.

“Phil, what’s wrong? Is this not what you wanted?”

Phil shook his head, tears now falling down his cheeks. He tried to speak, but his voice was too thick with tears and he choked instead.

Dan looked even more worried now, gathering Phil up in his arms. He squeezed his friend tightly. He just wanted Phil to be okay. Phil continued sobbing into his chest, his cries getting more and more hysterical.

“I’m so sorry Phil. I didn’t mean to force myself on you, I thought you liked me too- god, I’m such a fuck up I don’t want you to feel like you have to be anything more than my friend.”

Phil wished he could talk, but he was sobbing too hard to get any words out. Dan couldn’t be more wrong, Phil wanted to be his friend and so much more but that was the problem.

He felt himself being walked over to the bench outside the cinema, sitting down when Dan did. The two boys sat together on the bench for what felt like forever, Dan just holding Phil and stroking his hair comfortingly.

When Phil finally calmed down, his voice was croaky and raw.

“You didn’t do anything wrong Dan,” Dan’s head perked up, surprised Phil was finally talking. “I like you, and not just in a friend way. You didn’t force anything on me, I wanted to kiss you.”

Dan’s brow creased with confusion.

“Then why’d you start crying?”

Phil gulped. He’d never told anyone about his powers before, but he needed Dan to understand.

“The last time I had feelings for someone I nearly died.”

Dan gasped, his hands flying to cover his mouth.

“Let me explain. I um- I have these powers that make me grow plants, but only when I have feelings for someone.”

Phil stood up and walked to the sidewalk, standing on a patch of grass. A bed of white gardenias immediately sprouted up around Phil’s feet.

Dan fell off the bench rather ungracefully. He quickly brushed his jeans off, ensuringPhil he was alright. Phil smiled a little at his friend’s clumsiness before continuing.

“When I’m in love with someone, like I was with my ex- a rose grows out of my chest. But when that person leaves me, every plant I’ve grown wilts, and I get really sick. When my ex left me I got so sick I had to stay in hospital for three months and I promised,” Phil gulped, willing himself not to cry again, “-I promised myself I’d never let myself catch feelings again. But a few months ago, I started liking you which is why I’ve been trying to avoid hanging out recently. I’m just so scared you’ll leave me and not only will I be heartbroken, I’ll be half-dead as well.”

There was silence for a few seconds. Phil played with his hands awkwardly, afraid of Dan’s response. Phil felt something tingling on his hand, and this time it wasn’t a plant. Dan was rubbing the back of his hand with his own.

“Well that was a fucking emotional rollercoaster. I can’t believe my best friend is a weird plant dork.” Phil clasped Dan’s hand tighter when he saw that his eyes were welled with tears.

“Tell me about it.” Phil shook his head, smiling at the boy in front of him.

“I know I’m young and dumb, and probably don’t even know exactly what love is. But I’m pretty sure it’s what I feel for you, and what I’ve been feeling for you for a long time. I don’t plan on ever leaving you. I’m not stupid, I know that most high school relationships don’t last but I promise you I’m not going anywhere. It doesn’t matter if we’re friends or something more, I’m always gonna be here.”

Phil couldn’t answer, even though he really wanted to. He felt a sharp pricking at his chest, something was trying to burst out. He cried out in surprise before lifting his shirt up slowly, already knowing what was underneath.

With trembling fingers, he slowly extracted the most beautiful flower he’d ever seen. The rose was white in colour, different to the dark red one that had bloomed when he’d fallen in love with Thomas. Its petals were velvety and smooth, and its thorns were miniscule.

Phil saw Dan’s eyes widen in surprise, before his expression settled to one of pure giddiness. Phil loved him.

“I guess this means I love you too?” He said, looking into Dan’s eyes.

“I guess it does.” Dan’s eyes were welling up even more now.

“Thank you for- for reassuring me. I believe you. I know you’re not going anywhere, and lucky for you, I’m not going anywhere either.” Phil leaned his forehead against Dan’s, their eyes locking before Phil pecked Dan’s lips, causing him to blush. Dan leaned away from Phil after the short kiss, but laced his fingers through Phil’s, unsubtly wiping at his eyes.

“Ok Phil, let’s wrap this shit up before I start crying.”

#phan #phanfiction #fluff #gettingtogether #getting together #friends to lovers #plantboy!phil #phanhighschoolau #phan au #high school au

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