#more like a wallflower

[shortnotsweet]

all bets are off [1/3]

Lucemond High School AU drabble [part 2], She’s All That (1999)

“Am I a bet? Am I a bet, am I a fucking bet?”

“Yes.” It comes out quietly, which makes it all the worse. Luke would have expected Aemond to sneer and look down his long nose at him like the Hightower side of the family had for most of their lives. Luke wishes he would. It would have made it easier. Aemond’s face reflects no relish, or even satisfaction. Instead, it is pale and unreadable. Fitting, perhaps; as it turns out, Luke had read him wrong this entire time.

“Would you have told me before it was over? Before you humiliated me in public?”

The silence speaks for itself.

“Alright,” he scoffs, “that’s it, then.” The bitterness in his voice has an unfamiliar edge, and it sounds mean even to Luke, but it’s right. That’s how he feels. “You played your little game, you had your fun. I get it. It’s over.”

“No.”

“No?”

“It’s not over.”

“It is if I say it is. I don’t want anything from you, and you—you can shut up about debts, or what I owe you. We don’t have to know each other after this.” It’s true; they don’t have any classes together. They run in the same circles but that’s nothing some convenient maneuvering and strategic avoidance can’t fix. Their sides of the family voluntarily meet up for a miserable dinner once every three months and holidays. Luke can make it work.

Aemond’s remaining eye widens and his mouth thins. His face is readable now, at least; he’s livid. In a second, he lunges forward and grabs ahold of Luke’s wrist, trying to drag him back towards himself, to reel him in like he had all those months ago. Luke digs his heels into the ground instinctively, bracing away from the pressure. Luke used to like how big Aemond’s hands were in comparison to his own—the encompassing warmth, the difference in size—but now his grip tightens and locks like a handcuff, squeezing Luke’s wrist to the point of crushing. It hurts. He’s hurting him. Aemond is older and bigger than Luke, he always has been, and now he presses in like a storm cloud blocking out a clear sky.

“Luke, it wasn’t—it started like that, alright? It was like that in the beginning, but not now. It’s different now, I’m not—just look at me!” There’s something frantic in his words, the way he hovers over Luke like his shadow alone will cage him in. This isn’t the first time Aemond has struck the flight instinct in him, or the urge to fight, but it resonates through Luke’s core nonetheless. There is too much of him near. “I would’t have told you because there’s nothing to tell, not anymore.” Luke cranes his neck to peer over Aemond’s shoulder, searching out the best escape route. “It’s not over. You don’t mean that. We just…this is a rough patch, that’s all. It doesn’t matter how it started, it matters what it is. It’s good now, isn’t it? I’m good for you, I can be whatever you need, I’ll keep you happy. You like me, right? I know you do. I know you like me. Just get in the car, and we’ll talk about this later. Not now. Not like this. Look at me, don’t—don’t be like this. Luke.”

“I’m going home.”

“No. It’s late. You’re going back with me.”

“Let go.”

“Not until you listen.”

“Get off of me,” he snarls, launching himself backwards and ripping out of Aemond’s grasp. “Don’t touch me.” Aemond rears back at this rejection.

“Who else is going to do it? Lonely little Luke, eating lunch alone. Stupid, useless, weak. Can’t play sports, can’t speak in Debate Club, Mommy pays his tuition. He almost wets his pants when someone pulls the fire alarm. Who else is going to touch you, other than me?” Aemond’s mouth curls into a grin; he’s done it before, all sly and cruel. It looks ugly. He never changed, did he? How did Luke never see it before? “You didn’t fuck, didn’t drink at house parties, didn’t go to the beach past bedtime—hell, you probably never rode in a car without buckling the seatbelt. You were so eager for it, and I took you so easily. No one else could do that. No one else can touch you now, not like I can.”

It would have been true five months ago. Poor, common-looking Luke, who blended in with the walls, kept his head down, and startled at car alarms. That Luke was surrounded by gems, by brothers and uncles and friends who excelled at something, who carved names out for themselves. The Luke from five months ago would have balked at this, would have shrunk into himself and cowed to the truth. That Luke thought no one watched him, but he would’ve known if he just looked up. The Luke from now knows what the truth is, for the first time, and it’s nothing that comes out of Aemond’s mouth. Luke knows himself better than he ever has, and knows Aemond like he never wanted to before.

“I don’t think that’ll be any trouble, Uncle. Don’t worry about me,” Luke snorts out without thinking. “If I need someone to give me a ride, it won’t have to be you.” It doesn’t. It won’t. “I can buckle my own seatbelt; better yet, someone else can buckle it for me.” The uncle in question stills.

“Say that again.” He blinks, a curious expression settling over his features. “Say that again.”

“I said, it doesn’t have to be you. Other people will touch me. You’re not the only one around here with a working dick and something to prove. You lost an eye, not an ear. I should’t have to repeat myse—” before he can even finish the sentence, Aemond grabs him again, fingers curling over his shoulders like talons. Luke’s breath stops in his throat. Aemond’s face is so close they could kiss. Instead of leaning into it like he might have a few hours ago, Luke cringes backwards. Never again. The wounded expression on Aemond’s face gives him some satisfaction, but then his mouth morphs into a snarl and Luke would bet anything—his mother’s money, his own life, or whatever Aemond must’ve taken when he made that bet in the first place—that both of his eyes are glowing right now. The prosthetic below the patch shines like a jewel in its socket anyway, but the working eyeball in his head works furiously, searching across Luke’s face for something.

“What did you say, you little shit?” Aemond seethes. “Is there someone else? You have someone else, you were thinking about someone else?” he hisses into Luke’s face and furiously shakes him like a child would a broken toy. “Who is it?” he demands, sounding desperate now. “When? Is it Stark? Aegon? Greyjoy, that waterlogged rat? Daeron? Did one of them touch you—did you let them? Did they kiss you? Tell me, you fucking bastard.” Luke tells him the truth.

“That’s not your business anymore.”

“Not my business? Not—hah, not my business?” He’s so angry he’s spitting. “Of course it’s my business. It always has been. You’ve always—always, there’s never been a time when—you little idiot. Don’t you get it? You’re mi—”

Luke slaps him.

[ricky-mortis]

Hatchetfield @femslashfortnight Day 1: Make It Sapphic AU

[catboyglover]

my fave genre of characters: mirrorballs

[catastrxblues]

“we accept the love we think we deserve” drives me insane, drags my sanity to the moon, through hell, and to saturn and back, and alters everything inside me on a molecular level. i just can’t stop thinking about it

[cupiidzbow]

omg I realized I never posted this

I did this like last month I made a sona for the tv show universe so like. alternative au. like personalities are different and so is our appearances so like yknow

[arttsuka]

Idk if you are still doing request but i got an idea here

Wallflower blush posesed by bill

(If you dont know who wallflower blush is just search her name with "eqg" images of her should apear)

What is it with these designs and why do they not translate to my artstyle

[marzywuz]

Thinking about.. them

Why do you wanna know so bad Cameron? So you can swoon him over?

THEY SEEM SO FLUSTERED OVER 5TIS SHITTY PICK UP LINE PLEASEEE

Elio and deja teasing them brings me life

They set up blind dates for them I'm Cameron's jacket

HE KNOWS SO MUCH ABOUY THEM PLEASEEEE they're so dumb

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Sometimes do you ever remember the soupçon of misogyny in the press during the early (and latter) days of Joever and want to bust kneecaps lmao

[ticklish-wallflower]

was minding my own business when the air from my fan tickled the back of my knee so badly that i yelped. why

[july-19th-club]

one thing that i did think was really fun was that at first in this show there's what appears to be the by-now tired joke of buck not getting certain pop culture references because he's twenty-six, haha, kids these days, unaware of perfectly googleable and netflixable media properties. but then his thirty-something sister shows up and she also does not know the references

[waltricia]

Listening to Mr. Brightside on repeat because thinking about Jealous Wallflower Colin despairing at the edge of the dance floor has become a favorite pastime. 🙂🙃👹🤡

[aliusfrater]

your posts are lowkey making me want to read the spn books 😭😭 do you get them on kindle?

nope i read pirated versions i find online. i usually just google them until something comes up but if you wanna play it safe they're almost always on archive.org !!

[absentmoon]

im really upset about not making any friends in college.. idk why everyone else formed groups & invite eachother to get food and hang out but im just not clicking :(

[dragons-and-yellow-roses]

Tell me more about this book blanket? I'm Fascinated

Omg yay!! Okay so I'm knitting two rows per book that I finish in 2024, and each book rows will be a different color based on the genre it is

So here are the books I've read so far. Everything that's in bold is what I've knitted, and the last book on the list is what I'm currently reading but haven't finished yet. So I've knitted everything before Fifty Feet Down, and read everything up to Annie on My Mind, but I'm currently like thirty percent through it.

I'm choosing colors as I finish genres, and I'm trying to do it only with yarn I have (cuz yarn is expensive and I have a lot of yarn. The reason I have a lot of yarn suitable for a blanket is because I took all of this yarn from a blanket I started knitting four years ago and never finished. Like I finished frogging that blanket yesterday and made it into cakes on my new yarn winder!!) I didn't really try to make the colors fit the genres. I just own a lot of navy yarn and knew I'd read a lot of LGBTQ books, and I own a lot of black and know I'll read a lot of horror books. Then for dystopian I just chose a yarn color that I had available, same with mystery.

Here's how it's going so far! You can see the four navy rows for the two LGBTQ books i read, the two purple for the one dystopian book (which is also very good, I highly recommend Debate Kids at the End of the World and that author in general, Alex Nonymous) and then a chunk of black because I read four I. S. Belle books in a row (you can also see all of the ends I didn't weave in, which I'm going to hate myself for when I finish the blanket)

"But Austyn, what if the book is more than one genre?" I'm so glad you asked! Most of these books could be considered more than one genre. Fifty Feet Down is a mystery, but also a romance. So I just consider what genre I believe is more integral to the story, if that makes sense. Fifty Feet Down could be relatively the same if the main characters were just friends, but the story would be vastly different if it wasn't a mystery. Therefore, it gets the mystery color instead of romance. Same with all of the I. S. Belle books. There's romance in them, but if you took out the romance it would still be pretty similar, but if you took out the horror it would be an incredibly different story.

So that's my 2024 book blanket!

[b0ydyke]

there’s media i consumed once that i so badly want to experience again but i can’t because it will destroy me and there’s media i haven’t consumed yet but i am afraid to because i know it will destroy me

[daincrediblegg]

You know… I think I’d enjoy bridgerton more if it engaged in its stakes more than it engaged with its payoff. You know. Like all the jane austen’s novels it’s trying to chase through charm