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redgillan · 5 years ago

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Under Pastel Skies - 3

Sugar daddy!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Modern!AU Bucky doesn’t need anyone, especially not a sugar baby. He isn’t that desperate… but she smiles so sweetly and she’s endearingly awkward, and he’s so lonely. She’s an artist, a painter, the type of person who always puts others before herself. Throwing caution to the wind Bucky offers her a place to live, a place where she can finally paint whatever her heart desires. He doesn’t need much in return; a friend, a muse.

Word Count: 2,587

Warnings: none

A/N: I wanted to give Reader a family and this is the easiest way to do it. Btw Peggy’s husband isn’t Steve, I have other plans for him ;) Enjoy!

Wannabe sugar daddies don’t interact, idc if you have money, eat it and leave me be.

The rest of the week went by, and you kept hoping Bucky would come back. You hadn’t seen him since he’d left 300 dollars under his napkin after visiting you at work. You had tucked the bills into your bra, knowing they would be safe there, and walked home at the end of your shift.

Now it was Thursday afternoon and you were craving a day off.

Natasha’s apartment was spacious and the oversized glass window bathed the living room in natural sunlight. The apartment was a gift from Sam. Obviously.

You dropped your purse on the sofa –your bed- and laid out the bills on the coffee table. It was made of marble and brass, another gift from Sam.

You didn’t know what to do with the money, so you took it wherever you went, to keep it safe. You wanted to return it to Bucky. It was too much and you weren’t used to random acts of kindness.

You sunk into the cushion and blew out a sigh as you stared at the money. The persistent vibration of your phone against your thigh pulled you out of your thoughts. Half expecting it to be Natasha, you answered without looking at the caller ID.

The operator told you that Scott Lang was calling from Saint Quentin State Prison, and asked if you would accept the charges. You agreed. You always agreed.

“Splotchy, I need your help.”

Closing your eyes, you let your head fall back against the cushion. “I told you to stop calling me that, Scott.”

It was a silly nickname.

As a child, your mother dubbed you splotchy because of the colourful doodles you painted on the living room walls, and your siblings, who were roughly a few years older than you, had loved using that nickname. Especially since they knew you disliked it.

Their support and endless enthusiasm played a big part in your artistic journey, nurturing that spark into a flame. What started out as a childlike fascination with colours and shapes became your whole life. No one was surprised when you decided to pursue a degree in fine arts.

After the death of her husband, Peggy Carter adopted five children; a little boy from San Francisco, a little girl from Wakanda, twins from Sokovia and a little girl whose birth parents were still in high school. You were the last one, the only one she adopted as a baby.

“Is it offensive to call an artist splotchy?”

“It’s irrelevant. I haven’t painted in months,” you replied. “And we’re not kids anymore, you can use my name.”

“I’ve been calling you Splotchy for so long, I forgot your actual name.”

“You’re so funny,” you deadpanned. “What do you need, Scott?”

Scott’s tone changed suddenly, his voice grew agitated. “I need you to call Maggie. She isn’t picking up when I call her.”

“Scott,” you sighed.

“I haven’t talked to Cassie since her birthday,” he cut you off, pleading. “Please, I just want to talk to my little girl.”

Maggie was Scott’s ex-wife. Six months after his incarceration, she had filed for divorce. Natasha thought it was a real dick move but you didn’t blame Maggie. She was alone, her husband was in jail –for basically being a dumbass although the official charge was embezzlement and destruction of property- and she had a kid to raise.

Maggie wasn’t a saint but she was a good mother, and Cassie was a smart and healthy kid. Now you knew what to do with Bucky’s money.

“I’ll call her,” you said. “Listen, I’m going to put 50 bucks on your book. Buy yourself a bar of soap, I can smell you from here.” Scott interrupted you with a monotone ‘har har’. You chuckled. “I’ll buy Cassie a Christmas gift on your behalf, all right? I think she wanted a bike.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,” he chanted over the phone, his voice muffled as if he was holding the receiver too close to his mouth. “Are you sure you can afford it? I know it isn’t easy for you. Between living in New York and paying for mom’s nursing home, you don’t have to-”

“It’s fine,” you said, cutting off the conversation. “I’m not alone, Okoye helps.”

“And Wanda?”

“She sends postcards from time to time.”

The line went quiet for a moment. “I want to get out of here so bad,” Scott groaned. “Everything’s gone to shit since I went to jail.”

“Everything’s gone to shit since Pietro died, Scott.” You both remained silent, remembering your late brother. Just thinking about him made your eyes start to prickle with tears, so you cleared your throat and ended the call. “I’ll talk to Maggie. You’ll be out soon, just... stay out of trouble. Love you.”

You left your phone on the table and kicked off your shoes before you lay down on the sofa for a well-deserved nap. In your dreams your brothers weren’t either dead or in prison, your mother hadn’t been diagnosed with Alzheimer, and you weren’t a burden to your friend.

If you were lucky enough, you wouldn’t even dream at all.

The next day, Bucky arrived at the hotel at six thirty and you playfully glared at him from across the lounge. He wasn’t stupid, he knew why you were glaring at him. At least he had the decency to look a little sheepish.

“Just so you know, you bought yourself about 30 breakfasts,” you told him, referring to the far-too-generous tip he had left the other day.

“A man’s gotta eat,” he replied with a boyish cockiness that made him look stupidly attractive. You were too flustered to find a good comeback.

You brought him his cup of coffee and let him enjoy his breakfast while you attended to your other clients. It was an unusually busy day, the room was packed with families who were getting ready to explore Manhattan. You didn’t have time to chat with Bucky and he didn’t stay long. You saw him flinch a couple of times; the muscles in his shoulders pulled tight and his eyes darting left and right.

He left another ridiculously generous tip, along with a handwritten note. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day x.

Bucky came back the following week, and even though it was a quiet morning, you made sure to find him a table in a secluded spot. He didn’t notice when you slipped the 300 dollars into the pocket of his coat. You could be pretty sneaky, too.

“Mmmh,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin, “I looked at your Instagram.”

“Oh,” you glanced at your shoes, embarrassed. “Wait, you’re on Instagram? I have a hard time imagining you scrolling through your feed.”

He laughed a little. “I’ll admit I’m not as tech savvy as you youngsters, but I’m not a fossil. I use it to look at the pictures my sister post of my niblings.”

“Cute,” you grinned.

“Anyway,” he said, pushing a hand through his hair. “I love your work. It’s very unique; a cross between Impressionism and Post-impressionism. It’s realistic, and yet there’s something different...” his face scrunched up as he tried to look for the right word. “There’s something in your paintings, something that isn’t here in real life but perhaps should be. It’s hard to explain. It’s a feeling, a color, a pattern; it’s indiscernible but it’s there.” He looked up at you, his cheeks red with embarrassment. “I’m not making much sense, am I?”

You blinked, suddenly stunned that someone had such strong opinions about your work. There was nothing but sincerity in his ocean-blue eyes, and for a moment, you were at a loss for words.

“I, um-” you cleared your throat, “Thank you, I didn’t know that. I look up to Monet, obviously. His work is phenomenal, and I also have a soft spot for Van Gogh.” You ran a hand across your face. “Sorry, I’m a little emotional. The people who compliment my art are usually my siblings, and Nat.”

“And now me,” he said with a warm smile. “And soon a lot more people.”

Flustered, you bit your bottom lip. “That would be nice.”

Bucky nodded. He gathered his silverware and set them on his plate, trying to buy time. You watched him hesitate before he turned to you. “I noticed that your last post was from almost a year ago.”

“Yeah,” you said with a casual shrug. “I don’t really paint anymore. I’m too tired when I get home and supplies are expensive.”

“Of course,” he pursed his lips in thought. “Are you free this afternoon? I was wondering if we could meet for coffee.”

You tried not to show your surprise but his words made the sleeping butterflies in your stomach crack an eye open, their interest piqued.

Was he asking you out? He’d come to your workplace every week since your brief ‘date’. He always gave you more-than-generous tips, and he listened to you with a combination of close attention and warmth that made you weak at the knees.

He’d made it clear he wasn’t looking for anyone but maybe he had changed his mind. Agh, down girl! He just wanted a friend.

You looked into his beautiful eyes, seeing a myriad of expressions cross his face before he smiled at you.

“I ain’t gonna hurt you, angel.”

It was an honest lie, just hearing him call you angel felt like a punch to the stomach. The butterflies were dancing around, reborn, and chanting the word ‘date’.

“If you don’t like coffee, we can have tea, or ice cream,” he said, “anything as long as you can sit down with me.”

You snorted. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he repeated, smiling. “This is my number. Pick a place and I’ll meet you there.”

After breakfast, you closed the restaurant and started cleaning the Lounge. You brought everything back to the kitchen, stacked the dishes in the dishwasher and turned it on. Then you put away the unopened miniature jams, butter and whatnot, and gathered the remaining patisseries and fresh fruits in a basket that you would later bring to the reception.

You worked mechanically. It wasn’t exactly the most exciting job you’d ever had.

You couldn’t stop thinking about Bucky. It was easy to let your mind wander into the cosy and dangerous territory of this being a real date.

You decided to go to the Australian coffee shop near Natasha’s apartment. It was popular but not as crowded as Starbucks, which suited you fine.

After your shift, you removed your uniform and changed into the spare set of clothes you kept in your locker for emergencies. Emergencies being an impromptu date or a night out with Nat. You dug around in your purse for your lipstick; the nice one, the Carter Red as your mother called it.

You dabbed the lipstick on your lips, staining them. You only wore it on special occasions, and you weren’t sure Bucky deserved your full red pout.

You walked to the café with a little pep in your step and a confident smile on your face. The freezing temperature didn’t matter, you were too giddy to care. It was a date, it had to be, why else would he ask you to meet for coffee?

You smiled when you saw him through the coffee shop window. He was chatting with the waiter as the latter set two mugs on the table.

“Hi again!” You shrugged out of your jacket and took a seat.

“I hope you like hot chocolate. Carl, here, says it’s their best seller,” Bucky said, smiling kindly at the waiter.

“Enjoy, and if you need anything else don’t hesitate to call me.”

You carefully wrapped your cold hands around your mug while you watched Carl walk away. A moment of silence rose between you. Bucky watched you with an unreadable expression, making you fidget in your seat.

“I’m glad you came,” he finally said.

“Me too. I’m a little surprised you asked.”

He looked down at his mug and smiled; it didn’t reach his eyes. “I have something to ask you.” He paused. “The night we met, you said you agreed to see me because being in a... financial relationship felt like the only solution to your problems.”

Your smile faltered but he didn’t seem to notice. Oh. The butterflies in your stomach fell so suddenly that it felt like carrying a ball of lead. They went back into hibernation.

“If I had been a decent person and, I don’t know, bought you a drink, talked to you,” he paused, meeting your eyes. “Would you have been interested in this type of relationship? With me, I mean.”

You swallowed hard. “You want to be my sugar daddy.”

It wasn’t a question but a statement. You were slowly realizing that you had been wrong about his intentions. This wasn’t a date, it was a business afternoon tea.

He winced. “Do we really have to call it that? I was thinking mentorship. I can provide financial help, and in exchange you could be my friend.”

“I can be your friend for free,” you said, your throat tightening.

He shrugged, a small smile on his lips. “This way we’ll both get something out of it.”

You looked down at your hands, still wrapped around the mug, and pursed your lips in thought. You felt a sharp tingling sensation in your nose, a sign that you were about to cry. You closed your eyes and clenched your jaw, fighting against the flood that was coming.

You pushed all the emotion down and forced a smile to your face. “Do you mind if I use the restroom? I just took the subway, I’d like to wash my hands.”

Bucky watched you, momentarily stunned by your request. “Of course, take your time,” he quickly recovered.

“Thanks,” you croaked, pushing your chair back.

You picked up your bag and walked to the restroom, your legs feeling like cotton wool. You didn’t need to use the restroom, you had walked to the café, but you needed a moment alone to collect yourself.

A woman came out of the restroom, holding the door open for you. You picked up the pace and thanked her before closing the door behind you. You looked pretty sickly under the artificial light of the restroom. Your eyes were glassy with tears and your red lips were taunting you.

“Got your hopes up, uh?” You watched your lips move. A little humourless chuckle escaped you and you shook your head at your own idiocy.

You aggressively wiped the lipstick off your mouth with the back of your hand and sighed deeply as you looked at your reflection in the mirror. Now you felt like an idiot.

It wasn’t Bucky’s fault. He had been nothing but nice and kind, and perhaps you had mistaken his kindness for flirting. A naïve mistake. You had always been a little clueless when it came to men.

You ran your index fingers under your eyes to get rid of the makeup that had gathered there. It wasn’t the end of the world, you barely knew him anyway. It didn’t hurt any less, though.

Maybe it was time for you to do something out of character, to experience life no matter how crazy it seemed. You were dreading this conversation with Bucky, but you couldn’t hide in the restroom forever. With another sigh, you pushed yourself away from the sink and walked out of the restroom.

Part 4

#bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #marvel #marvel fanfiction #marvel imagines #bucky barnes imagines #bucky barnes fanfiction #marvel imagine #bucky barns imagine #redgillan #redgillanwrites

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artificialqueens · 4 years ago

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How Wonderful Life Is (While You're in the World) (Rosnali) - Athena2

Summary: Rosé has the perfect plan for proposing to Denali. If only she could get the plan to work.

A/N: So this idea came into my head and wouldn’t leave until I wrote it! I wish I had the same motivation for my homework honestly. It’s basically pure fluff and a little chaos. Thank you so much to Writ for beta-ing and helping my pull the final scene together. Please leave some feedback if you’d like, I really appreciate it!

Title from Your Song by Elton John.

Rosé has had the ring for two weeks now. The plan, however, she’s had even longer. It’s carefully organized, each step written on the checklist (which Lagoona’s been teasing her for) in Rosé’s prim-and-proper handwriting (which Jan’s been teasing her for since they were kids). But she needs this proposal to be perfect, everything Denali deserves and more. Denali deserves the world, but even with her promotion at the fashion magazine, that’s out of Rosé’s price range, so this has to be special.

She sits with an eye on the door, waiting for Denali to come in and fling her bag on the couch. Then Rosé will spontaneously-but-not-really-spontaneously suggest they go eat at the Thai place where they had their first date. After dinner, she’ll develop a sudden desperate craving for ice cream–hey, she might as well put those old acting classes to good use–and they’ll go on a walk to get said ice cream. But not any walk—a path Rosé created herself, one that takes them to the same ice cream place where chocolate and pistachio sweetened their first kiss, past the art museum where they officially became girlfriends in front of a Monet, and finally into the park where they first met years ago, where Rosé will get down on one knee and pull out the ring burning a hole in her pocket.

A perfect full circle moment, one she knows Denali will love.

Her leg bounces as she waits. She knows Denali will say yes, but this is still a big step, even bigger than moving in together. But that had turned out so well, letting her be around Denali all the time, learning new parts of her girlfriend that she could tuck inside herself. Like how Denali still has a battered Nike shoebox of her old Pokémon cards. How her early rising for skating still lingers, inviting warm sunrise cuddles. How she’s so brave and fearless, yet still shrieks and throws random objects across the room when she sees a spider. It’s a step that let them create a home together, with fluffy blankets on the couch and cheesy photo-booth pictures on the fridge and both their favorite chips in the cupboard. A home in each other, hugs and kisses and support all the time. A step that became amazing, and this one will be even more so.

Until the door flies open and in comes a slightly limping Denali with a scowl on her face.

“Well, today fucking sucked.”

Rosé jumps off the couch, easing Denali’s skating bag off her shoulder. “What happened, baby?”

“First one of my design clients decided they wanted to change their costume right after we settled on the original design. Then this minivan mom screamed at me outside the rink for like ten minutes because I said her kid needed more practice before moving to the next age group. And then I was so distracted from everything I fell on my knee when I was practicing.”

“I’m sorry, Nali.” Rosé winces, one hand steady on Denali’s waist, the other rubbing her back, soothing Denali with gentle touches, reminders that she’s here. “Is it bad?”

“Nah, it’s just a bruise. I’ll put some ice on it and it’ll be fine.” Denali flops down on the couch, leaning back and sighing. “Can we order pizza?”

Rosé’s heart sinks as she realizes the proposal is off for the night. Denali’s stressed and exhausted, clearly not in the mood for having dinner out or going for a walk. Rosé doesn’t blame her, and she isn’t going to push things. Part of her is disappointed, her perfect plan in ruins, no chance of them going to bed giddily planning a wedding. But Denali needs comfort after a bad day, and that’s something Rosé will always love to give her.

“Of course,” Rosé says. “Anything else you need?”

Denali shakes her head. She’s tough, and after some food and sleep, she’ll be ready to take on the world. But that won’t stop Rosé from giving her anything she wants tonight, making sure she always has a soft place to land.

“I’ll order it and get you some ice. You just relax.”

It doesn’t have to be today, Rosé reminds herself as she settles next to Denali, careful not to bump her knee. She’ll just propose another night. Everything is fine. And when Denali falls asleep with her head in Rosé’s lap while Rosé gently strokes her hair, everything really is fine.

—

Rosé waits a few days before her second try, giving the universe time to let out all its bad, proposal-killing vibes. The ring is secure in her nightstand drawer, nestled between her vanilla lotion and melatonin gummies, and Denali is secure in her arms when they wake up. Tonight’s the night. Rosé can feel it.

Until the rain starts.

And not just any rain, but heavy, pouring rain, pounding on the roof and destroying umbrellas. The kind that soaks you through in seconds and leaves you shivering the whole day. No one would want to spend five seconds in that rain, let alone go for a romantic walk in it.

But it’s only morning, and these heavy storms never last. By tonight, the sun will shine and the world will glisten with leftover rainwater. A perfect setting for a proposal.

But when the rain is still screaming down when Rosé leaves work, rattling the windows as she and Denali curl up under a blanket with hot chocolate, she has to give up on this one.

—

Third time’s the charm, everyone says that, so Rosé’s optimistic when Attempt Three rolls around. Hope follows her all day at work, as she arranges photos of models and meets with Michelle to discuss next month’s issue, and there’s a spring in her step when she leaves her desk and strolls to the elevator with Symone.

“I can’t wait to see your layout tomorrow!” Symone says, adjusting her purse and closing the door.

“You mean Friday.”

“Tomorrow is Friday.” Symone’s excitement becomes concern. “You feeling okay?”

“Fine. I’m fine,” Rosé stammers, batting away the hand Symone extends toward her forehead. “I just mixed my days up for a minute.”

Symone nods, and only when they’re both out of the building does Rosé allow herself to exhale, frantically checking the date on her phone and swearing when it confirms that today is, in fact, Thursday. She’s been so focused on this round of the proposal that she missed a day somewhere. Her layout is due at midnight, and even though it’s almost done, she puts so much care into each one there’s no way to do the proposal and the layout tonight without hurting the quality of one of them, and she can’t do that. It’s not fair to give Denali anything less than her full attention, and she can’t submit half-assed work weeks after her promotion either. The proposal will have to wait.

Again.

The hope turns to lead as she drags herself into the apartment, sprawling out at the kitchen table with her laptop, massaging her temples to ward off the looming headache. She doesn’t even hear Denali come in until she drops a kiss on the top of her head.

“Deadline?” Denali guesses.

Rosé sighs, leaning back to chase another kiss, which Denali gives her. “Yeah. I got my days mixed up and it’s due tonight. I’m gonna be here a while. I’m sorry.”

Denali nods in understanding, brushing Rosé’s hair off her face, calming the stress buzzing in her. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll make dinner and then I can keep you company. I have some costume sketches to work on.”

Rosé nods gratefully, heart swelling with love as she returns to her work. She faintly registers Denali moving around the kitchen, swaying and humming whatever her favorite song is this week, until she sets down two plates of grilled cheese.

They eat their sandwiches, and Denali replaces the plates with their floral coffee mugs–pink roses and blue forget-me-nots–a comfortable silence spreading between them as they work. They didn’t need to talk, didn’t need much of anything, but liked knowing the other was there anyway. There’s always been this connection between them, the way they were completely attuned to each other’s moods, knowing when to give space or comfort or talk things through.

“You don’t have to stay, you know,” Rosé says, stretching her back and jumping as it cracks. “You can go to bed.”

“I’m staying,” Denali says, stubborn as always. “Besides, I don’t sleep as good without you, which makes no sense because you’re always kicking me.”

Rosé sneaks glances as Denali works, sketching a blue skating costume. Denali’s been teaching skating lessons for years and started making outfits for clients last summer, and it’s really taken off lately. Rosé loves watching her sketch, the way her tongue curls over her lip, the way her dimples peek out, the way her dark eyes narrow in focus. She’s absolutely beautiful, hair in a messy bun, sweatshirt that Rosé is pretty sure was once hers sloping down to reveal the curve of her shoulder. The woman Rosé’s going to marry. Denali grins as she finishes, and finally catches Rosé staring at her.

“What?” Denali asks.

Ask her, Rosé thinks. Ask her right now. And she almost does, plan be damned. But she doesn’t want it to seem like she’s just blurting it out for the hell of it, like it’s thoughtless. “Nothing,” Rosé says quietly.

“I’m on to you, Rosie,” Denali says.

Rosé’s heart skips a beat. What if Denali found the ring, what if she knows–

“You were just so dazzled by my smile it made you speechless,” Denali says, flashing her dimples again.

Rosé grins, trying not to sigh in relief. “You’re right, baby.”

It’s 11:03 when Rosé sends her layout to Michelle, slumping back in her chair and letting her exhausted eyes slide shut.

“Come on, Rosie. Let’s go to bed.” Denali’s hands help her up, and Rosé leans into her. Denali stayed with her this whole time, refilling her coffee mug and rubbing her shoulders, showing her funny videos she was watching on her phone, letting out soft encouragements when she got frustrated. Rosé knows how lucky she is to have Denali, and she nuzzles against her shoulder.

“Thank you,” she mumbles sleepily. “For stayin’ up with me.”

“Of course.” Denali presses a kiss to her cheek.

They collapse into bed, and Rosé falls asleep with her arms full of love.

—

Attempt Four doesn’t go wrong right away. In fact, everything is fine–no bad work days, no rain, no deadlines.

And then Jan calls.

“What do you mean your sitter cancelled?” Rosé demands into the phone.

“I mean my sitter cancelled. It’s not a difficult statement,” Jan says on the other end.

“And why does this involve me?” Rosé plays dumb, but she already knows where tonight is going, and it doesn’t include a ring.

Jan sighs. “Because Jackie has this work dinner tonight, and I want to be there for her, but we can’t leave the baby. Please, Rosie, pleeeease?”

“All right.”

“You’re a lifesaver!”

Rosé sighs, adding another tally to the failed proposal column.

She tries to make the most of the night, not wanting Denali to suspect anything’s wrong. She’ll know if something is off with Rosé, and Rosé doesn’t want Denali to get suspicious about what’s bothering her, or think she’s hiding something. Well, technically she is hiding something, but not in a bad way. So she happily takes baby Joey from Jan and rocks him slightly, smiling as he smiles. Denali leans over and tickles him, giggling as he giggles, and there’s something about her smile, about the overjoyed the-baby-likes-me gleam in her eyes, that makes her even more adorable.

“I bet I can make him laugh harder than you.” Denali sticks her tongue out to prove her point.

Rosé gives into her competitive side and twists half her mouth up and crosses her eyes, cheering when Joey shrieks with joy.

“All right, that’s enough. You keep making those faces and you’ll scar the kid for life,” Denali mumbles.

Joey sleeps most of the night, but they watch the whole Disney movie anyway, snuggled together, Rosé softly singing in Denali’s ear.

—

Over the next few weeks, Rosé tries, refusing to let the universe take her hope away. She tries again and again, each time thinking that this will finally be it, the day they finally become engaged. The ring glares at her every time she reaches for her melatonin, because as the failures pile up, so do her hours of tossing and turning. Attempt Five is crushed by the dump truck the city brings in to clean the park. Denali catches a cold from one of her skating students and Rosé makes soup and fusses over her on the night of Attempt Six, and when Rosé wakes up sneezing two days later, that’s the end of Attempt Seven. The ice cream shop posts on Instagram that they’re closed for the day due to electrical outages, and Attempt Eight melts away like ice cream in the sun. By this point, Rosé’s tempted to make a damn bingo card for the next thing to go wrong.

“I see I still don’t have a sister-in-law,” Jan says as she enters the apartment, Lagoona trailing behind her.

“Why do you want another sister? You have us.” Lagoona throws an arm around Rosé and flashes Jan a cheesy grin.

“That’s exactly why I want another one.”

Rosé sighs. “This is what I wanted to talk about, actually.”

Jan and Lagoona must sense her seriousness, because their bickering stops, faces attentive like every time Rosé has gone to them for help. They were there when she failed a math test, and when she realized she wanted to kiss girls the way other girls kissed boys, and when she was getting ready for her first date with Denali. They’re always armed with hugs and decent advice and (usually) decent fashion tips, and Rosé loves them for it.

“What’s going on?”

Rosé fidgets with her sleeve. “It’s just–every time I try to propose, something goes wrong. What if …” Rosé pushes on despite the crack in her voice, “what if it’s a sign I shouldn’t propose? That we shouldn’t get married?”

She’s been trying to stay hopeful. She and Denali have been together for four years, after all, and if a few mishaps delayed their proposal, well, they’d get there eventually, and laugh about everything later. But that was about four mishaps ago, and Rosé can’t shake the feeling tightening around her chest that they’ll never get to the laughing-about-it stage, that Denali will never wear the ring. A few mishaps are a coincidence, but how many coincidences can you have until they become something more, something you can’t ignore?

“Don’t even let yourself think that,” Jan says softly.

“Jan’s right, and I’ll probably never say that again, so stop analyzing and listen,” Lagoona says. “You’re trying too hard to make this perfect. Stuff just goes wrong sometimes. It only feels huge because you’re putting so much pressure on yourself.”

“And it doesn’t need to be perfect,” Jan adds. “I know you want to give her the best proposal ever, but Denali knows you love her. She wouldn’t want you to be this stressed. You could propose in a dumpster and she’d say yes.”

Lagoona nods. “Look, your plan is amazing, but maybe it’ll help if you lose the plan and just propose when it feels right. Then you don’t have to cancel it every time the smallest thing goes wrong.”

“But how will I know when it’s right?” Rosé asks. “I don’t want it to seem thoughtless, or disappointing.”

“Nothing you do would be thoughtless, and you’d never disappoint Denali, first of all.” Jan pulls her into a hug. “And honey, I think it already is right. That’s why you bought the ring.”

Rosé nods, every doubt immediately pushed away. Instead of clinging to the plan the way she would cling to her script and run lines over and over at theatre camp, she can let go of the plan, of waiting and waiting for every single factor to be ideal. She loves Denali, and any time to propose to her is the right time. Rosé knows it’s right, just like she knew moving in together was right, just like she knew asking Denali out in the first place was right. Denali has always felt right to Rosé, someone she can show herself and her heart to, and she’ll know when to do it.

—

Rosé has taken to carrying the ring around in her purse, just in case she’s pushing her luck keeping it hidden in the apartment, but also in case the moment hits her while she and Denali are out somewhere. She likes having it close, touching the black velvet box and assuring herself of the promise inside.

Even with her new plan of not having a plan, she still struggles to get the words out. There have been some close calls–a weekend morning half-asleep in bed together, sunlight making Denali’s face gold, or having coffee in a cozy cafe, Denali tilting her head back to laugh at something Rosé said. But she always stumbles over exactly what she wants to say, or hesitates just a second too long, and the moment passes, or Denali moves on to something else.

Tonight, she’s flipping pancakes while Denali tends to the eggs.

“Why do you love breakfast for dinner so much?” Rosé mumbles, dodging Denali as she throws salt and pepper on the eggs like they’ve personally offended her.

“Breakfast food tastes better at night. You’re having a certain food at a time you’re not supposed to have it, so it’s like all sexy and forbidden and shit, and it tastes better. Same rule applies to pizza for breakfast.” Denali shrugs, like it’s common knowledge.

“I’m sorry I asked.” Rosé adds chocolate chips to the pancakes, Denali’s favorite.

They dig in to eat, and Denali jokes that she should make a skating costume based on breakfast foods, with a waffle skirt and ruffles that look like bacon, and Rosé can’t stop laughing, torn somewhere between amusement and horror.

Denali is laughing too, arms swinging around as she pretends to model the garment, her eyes sparkling, and it hits Rosé all at once in that moment. God, I love her so much.

“Marry me,” Rosé says.

Denali stills at once. “What?”

“I–hang on.” Rosé sprints to her purse, digs out the ring, and lowers her knee to the kitchen floor. Her heart throbs in her chest, but a smile from Denali shows she has nothing to worry about. “Denali, I … I had this perfect plan of how to propose to you, but every time I tried, something went wrong and stopped me. But the plan doesn’t matter. You matter. You matter more than anything to me, and this might not be perfect, but it’s you, and you’re always perfect to me. Will you marry me?”

Denali’s eyes glisten with tears. “Of course I’ll marry you, Rosie. I love you so much.”

The ring fits perfectly when Rosé slides it on her finger, and Denali fits perfectly in Rosé’s arms when she pulls her in for a kiss.

“So you did that little speech on the fly, huh?” Denali asks when they pull apart and sit back down.

“I am an improv queen, you know. Got the theatre camp certificate to prove it.” Rosé laughs. “But yeah. Instead of writing what I wanted to say, or thinking too much, I just … said it. And it’s all true, because I love you.”

Denali smiles, reaching out to take Rosé’s hand, stroking her thumb across the back of it. She gets a mischievous glint in her eyes. “So, how many times did you try to do this? I just want to know.”

“I think the official count is eight.” By the time Rosé finishes telling them all, they’re both crying tears of laughter and clutching at sore stomachs, splitting the bottle of champagne they opened.

Denali looks at her after she’s done, and Rosé knows she’s crying for real now.

“You’re not disappointed, are you? The plan was way better, I was gonna–”

“I don’t need to know what the plan was,” Denali says firmly, “because I love the proposal you did. You could never disappoint me, Rosie. Never.” She sniffles. “I’m crying because I just–I can’t believe you tried that hard to do this for me. You’re basically the most amazing person I’ve ever met.”

“I love you,” Rosé says simply, and even if she couldn’t do the perfect proposal, she’s glad Denali knows how much she loves her, how she would do anything for her.

“I love you too,” Denali says. “And who knows? Maybe you’ll get to do that proposal some day after all.”

But Rosé doesn’t care if she does or not. Because she and Denali are getting married.

—

One Month Later

Rosé has a new checklist (which Lagoona’s been teasing her for) in her prim-and-proper handwriting (which Jan’s been teasing her for since they were kids). It’s a notebook, really, stuffed with all the things they have to do for the wedding–check out venues and finalize the guest list and then look at menus and decor and about a hundred other things. But Denali commanded her to leave it home today, because they both need a break.

“Can we get lunch?” Denali asks.

“We didn’t even shop yet.”

“But I’m hungry,” Denali whines.

“Okay, okay.” Denali’s hanger can level a city block, and Rosé knows she needs to get some food in her. “How about that burger place?”

“Too far. We’re only a block from that Thai place, let’s just go there.”

They get to their table just before the lunch rush hits, and Rosé thinks of how she’d been so sweaty before their first date that she had to put on extra deodorant in the bathroom. She’s calm and peaceful now, Denali slurping noodles across from her, their feet brushing without any thought of whether a first date was too early for that.

“I think those noodles gave me heartburn.” Denali rubs her chest as they walk out.

“Maybe it was the fact that you ate a giant bowl of them–”

“Oh, hush, Rosie. Oooh, you know what my mom says cures heartburn? Ice cream!”

Rosé doesn’t think that’s medically accurate, but she’s not going to challenge her future mother-in-law; even if the woman is miles away, her hearing is excellent, and it’s just not worth the risk.

She follows Denali into the ice cream place, helping her sort through all the flavors for her massive cone with extra rainbow sprinkles (‘what kind of lesbian would I be if I didn’t get rainbow sprinkles, Rosie?’ Denali demands, and Rosé gets extra on her strawberry cone too).

“Okay, I officially ate too much.”

“Again, you literally had three scoops of ice cream and a waffle cone.”

“Don’t remind me.” Denali looks slightly green, and Rosé just hopes this day doesn’t involve vomit. “I just gotta–I gotta walk it off,” Denali says, trying to nod convincingly, easing her hands off her stomach.

“If you throw up, please don’t do it on my shoes.”

“Noted.”

As much as Rosé hates barf, she can’t stop keeping a close eye on Denali as they walk, one steady hand on her back in case she needs it. Denali’s taking measured, trying-not-to-throw-up breaths as they walk, Rosé so focused on her that she barely notices where they’re going.

Denali comes to a sudden stop, her breathing back to normal in an instant, and Rosé finally notices they’re in the park.

And then it hits her.

They had Thai food.

They had ice cream.

They went on a walk together.

And now they’re in the park.

“I think you have something to ask me.” Denali grins smugly, but Rosé’s brain is still lagging, trying to piece together how Denali executed the plan perfectly.

“How did you—I never even told you what the original plan was!” Rosé stammers.

Denali’s smile stretches to her ears. “No, but Jan and Lagoona were more than happy to tell me.”

“Those two and their big mouths.” Rosé shakes her head, but she can’t believe how they teamed up with Denali and went through all this so the proposal could happen the way she dreamt.

“Yep. They also said they were gonna hide in the trees and watch, and I think they were joking, but you never know.”

Rosé cackles. She wouldn’t put it past the two of them to abuse the internet and order those fancy camouflage hunting suits to hide in, and when her quick look at the trees reveals nothing, she wonders if they really did.

“You—you really did all this for me,” Rosé says in wonder. “Lunch and ice cream and pretending to be sick so I was distracted and wouldn’t figure it out.”

As much as she told herself things ended up okay, part of her still wanted to do it, express her love the best way she could. She’s always been one for big, meaningful gestures where she could let out the love bursting inside her. And now she gets to, because of Denali.

“You’re not the only actress in the family,” Denali teases. “I know how much the proposal meant to you, Rosie. I wanted you to be able to do it.” Denali slips her ring off and offers it to Rosé. “Go on, ask.”

Rosé takes the ring and carefully gets down on one knee. Her body is warm from the sun and from love, and the words she finally says are a combination of her planned speech from months ago, and everything bursting in her heart right now.

“Denali, the first time we met was right in this park, at the skating rink. I bumped into you, and when I saw you, I was so glad I’m a shitty skater.” She grins. “I’ve never loved anyone like I love you. I love your passion, and your talent, and your kindness. I love you when you’re screaming over video games, and when you’re in your sad blanket burrito, and even when you drink too much coffee and get too hyper. And you love me too, even when I’m grumpy or I won’t stop singing. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I promise that I will never, ever stop loving you, no matter what. Denali, will you marry me?”

“For the second time, yes, I will.”

She slides the ring on Denali’s finger for the second time, and as she pulls Denali in for a kiss, she knows that, plan or no plan, her life as Denali’s wife will be infinitely perfect.

#rpdr fanfiction #s13 #denali foxx #rosé #jan sport #lagoona bloo #rosnali #lesbian au #fluff #athena2 #concrit welcome #submission

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13-reasons-ideas · 5 years ago

Note

I love that you’re one of the few writers that will write about Monty. I don’t support what he did but I love how much of a complex character do you think you could do a imagine where the reader used to date Monty but broke up bc of his recklessness. She started dating Justin but found out he cheated on her by hooking up with Jessica. Then Monty sneaks into her bedroom window and comforts her and it’s fluffy

“I’m sorry Montgomery.”

“Why (Y/N)?”

“I just can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep watching you self-destruct. I thought that when we got together, that maybe you would stop? That you would realize that your reckless behaviour had to come to an end? You’re an adult now. Your behaviour has actual, real consequences.”

“Self-destruct? You think that’s what it is?”

“I don’t know Monty. That’s just it. You don’t let me in. I never know what is going on in your head. I get you don’t like talking about stuff, but when you’re in a relationship with someone, you’re supposed to talk to them.”

“This is stupid.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way. But you can’t sit here and tell me you haven’t seen this coming. Your behaviour needs to change. Your recklessness needs to stop. Before you do something you really regret or gets you hurt. Or worse. I just can’t be around to see it.”

“(Y/N) please. I’m trying.” He said, grabbing my hand.

“I really am sorry Montgomery. I hope you figure things out.” I smiled sadly at him before walking away, trying my damnedest to hold back tears. I couldn’t bring myself to look back.

TWO MONTHS LATER

I walked into school with my bag slung haphazardly over my shoulder, listening to a podcast on my phone. Before I could make my way to my locker, I was stopped abruptly by a blue and white jacket, causing me to stumble.

“Oof.” I grunted.

“Shit, sorry.” I heard Justin Foley, er… Jensen. Foley-Jensen? say.

“Yeah, whatever.” I replied, trying to walk away from him. Birds of a feather flock together. Same principle for jocks.

“Actually hey (Y/N). Wait up a second.”

I stopped and turned to him, “yes Justin? What can I do for you?”

“Well, when you put it that way, you can let me take you to dinner on Saturday.” He told me, rather than asked. I think I saw his chest puff out a bit.

“Uh, let me think for a minute about that.” I said, fully intending to say no. Suddenly I saw a familiar flannel shirt coming towards us. Making a show of thinking about it before responding, “pick me up at 7. I’ll text you my address.” I turned and walked away. Behind me I could practically hear Montgomery ringing Justin’s neck in his head. As I made my way to physics, I felt someone’s eyes on me. I didn’t need to turn to know who was watching.

Justin kept his word and was outside my house at 6:55 on Saturday. My mom let him in as I was grabbing my coat from my room. “Samantha is just about ready Justin, why don’t you have a seat.” I heard her say to him. Oh no, not the seat trick.

Running out of my room with my coat, I yelled, “that’s okay mom. I’m ready. He doesn’t need to sit.” When I got to the top of the stairs, I stopped. “Hey Justin.”

“Hey Sam.” He waved, “you look pretty tonight.”

I giggled quietly, “thanks.” I haven’t giggled in a long time. Pulling on a pair of worn chucks, I pulled on my coat and Justin led me out to the car. “Bye Mom. Don’t wait up.”

We joked around in the car a bit on the way to the restaurant. “Wait, so you actually told Clay that you’re a ‘fucking awesome driver’ and he believed you? Clay?”

“Yes. And I am, or had you not noticed?” He confirmed, motioning to the steering wheel with one hand.

“No, no I noticed. I’m just surprised Clay agreed. It took him like eight years to acknowledge you as more than ‘that kid’ or ‘ew Justin’.”

“Well, detoxing in a guy’s bedroom can do things to your relationship.”

“You puked on his bed, didn’t you?”

“Yeah… not my finest moment. At least it wasn’t Tony’s jacket.”

“Meh, happens to the best of us. Sometimes it happens. You’re right though. If it was Tony’s jacket, he would have killed you so you were all dead.”

“As opposed to?”

“Just mostly dead.”

Justin laughed heartily at the cheesy joke, “That was a good movie.”

We arrived at the local Italian restaurant and Justin was a wonderful gentleman. He opened my door for me, and we walked hand in hand to the door, which he also opened for me. After we were seated and had ordered, we continued our conversation from the car. “So, skipping over the ‘I was friends with Bryce Walker and that was a time’ thing, who are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we’ve known each other since we were in middle school and all I know about you is you’re a jock, you were friends with Bryce, you dated Jessica Davis, and you were adopted by the Jensen’s for reasons I don’t think we need to discuss too much right now.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What do you like?”

“Like in general?”

“Yes. What does Justin like?”

“Hmmm… okay. Justin likes crappy movies.”

“Okay. What else do you like?”

“Annoying Clay.”

“Well that’s a given. Something I don’t know please?”

“You.” He responded, taking a sip of his water.

I blushed, and played with a strand of my hair, “oh?”

“Yeah. Why else would I have asked you to dinner?”

“I don’t know. You didn’t want to go to a restaurant by yourself?”

“Oh, sweetie. I wouldn’t just ask you for that. I would bring Clay or something. Or put my big boy pants on and come by myself.”

“Okay, okay. I believe you.” I surrendered as our meals came. I tried to hold back a very not first date appropriate moan as I took a bite. My eyes widened instead and Justin chuckled. At least, until he had a bite of his own food. His eyes widened and rolled back slightly. Wow. That’s… wow.

After a few more bites of the wonderful food, Justin directed his attention back to me, “what about you?”

“What about me?”

“What do you like?”

“Oh umm, I like to run.” I said simply. I usually save the absentee father thing for the third date.

“That’s cool. What do you like about it?”

“I like that I can do it by myself and its just me, whatever I’m listening to at the time, and the pavement. I can just focus on that.”

“I can understand that. What else do you like?”

“I like art.”

“I know. I’ve seen you at lunch, hunched over your sketchbook. You always look so focused.”

“It’s nice to have something specific to focus on and get an end result that lasts a lifetime.”

“Can I see some of your drawing sometime?”

“Sure. Only if you let me draw you though.”

“Like one of your French girls?”

“No, you perv. You.”

“Okay, deal.”

“Great. I can’t wait.”

After dinner was done, we made a stop at Monet’s for some dessert. We split a slice of cake and a cookie before calling it a night. He drove me home and we sat in the car for a while, neither of us wanting the night to end. “I should probably head inside. It’s getting late.” I whispered.

“You should. But do you want to?” he whispered back, reaching over to turn my face towards him.

“No.” I whispered back.

“Me either.”

My eyes flickered between his eyes and his lips. He nodded almost imperceptibly, and I leaned in slightly to place a chaste kiss on his lips. They were smooth and tasted like vanilla.

I pulled away first, not really wanting to. “I should go inside now.” I whispered softly, so as not to ruin our moment.

“Okay. I’ll call you tomorrow?”

“Okay.” I nodded and reached for the door handle.

“Bye (Y/N).”

“Bye Justin.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.” He’s really trying to drag this out.

“Bye. I’ll talk to you tomorrow and see you at school on Monday.”

“Okay.” He nodded and I took that as my queue to exit the vehicle. He waited for me to unlock the door and enter the house before leaving. I waved to him from my doorway as he backed out of my driveway and made his way home. That was perfect.

Justin called me the next day around one and we spent two hours on the phone together, just talking about random stuff. I learned of his very odd dislike of watermelon and he listened intently as I explained various art mediums. By the time Monday morning rolled around, I had a whole different idea of who Justin was. He was no longer the somewhat cocky jock. He was the sensitive boy I had only heard existed from friends of friends.

Monday morning, I decided to actually get up early and make myself look at least a little nice. I pulled out my favourite outfit, did stuff to my hair, and put on a touch of makeup. I stopped to get a coffee on my way and asked the barista what Justin’s order usually was. She was working Saturday night and saw us together, so she gave it to me readily. When I got to school, I sought Justin out and surprised him with his coffee. “Katie told me your order.” I explained at his questioning look.

“Thank you, it’s perfect.” He said, pulling me into his side and kissing the side of my head. I smiled, taking a sip of my own coffee and leaning into him.

“You guys are already cute. It’s sickening.” Clay said, giving Justin a light push. Once again, I felt someone’s eyes on the back of my head and had to resist the urge to turn to look at him. We broke up. Quit staring at me. If Clay noticed, he didn’t mention who was staring at me. Justin and I talked a bit before I had to literally run to Physics. I turned around to wave to him and I caught sight of Monty standing at his locker, looking as cranky and pissed off as ever.

Between classes, I was minding my own business, going over some biology notes, when I felt a hand grab me and pull me into an empty classroom. “Jesus. Could give a girl some warning before you grab her.” I spoke into the darkness. The sound of the door locking set my body on edge.

“I had to talk to you.” Monty said.

“Really? You had to talk to me? And you thought grabbing me and pulling me into an empty classroom was the best way to go about that?”

“Would you have given me the time of day otherwise (Y/N)?”

I was silent for a moment. “Fair point. Now what do you want? I have class.”

“I want to know why you agreed to go out with Justin.”

“Maybe because it’s a free country Montgomery?”

“That’s the worst explanation you have ever given, and you know it.”

“I don’t owe you an explanation. We aren’t together anymore. I am free to date whoever I want. You are too, if you ever decide to do that.”

“You broke up with me because you said I was reckless. And now you’re dating Justin fucking Foley.”

“I think he goes by Jensen now.”

“Who gives a damn? My point is, you left me because I’m reckless, and now you’re dating someone who is equally if not more reckless than me.”

“I fail to see how a recovering addict is more reckless than you.”

“You fail to… wow. I’m shocked we didn’t break up sooner.” Okay that stung.

“Thanks Monty. That was real nice of you.”

“Shit. Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“So how did you mean it?”

“Not how it sounded. But (Y/N), tell me you realize that Justin is just using you to fill the time until Jessica gets bored of Alex again. Because we all know she will. Or until he decides to run away again.”

“Huh. I didn’t think you could make yourself seem like more of a dick than you already had. Yet, here we are. I have to go. I’m running late.”

He was silent as I pushed past him and left the room. More reckless? More reckless than beating kids up for no reason? More reckless than any of the other shit he has pulled in the last four years? How pissed in his Corn Pops this morning? I was angry but I couldn’t help but replay his last statement over and over in my head, you realize that Justin is just using you to fill the time until Jessica gets bored of Alex again. Because we all know she will. Or until he decides to run away again. I was so distracted in biology; I missed an entire section of notes.

By the time lunch had rolled around, I had convinced myself that Montgomery was just pissed off and trying to fuck with my head, since he wouldn’t and couldn’t actually hurt me in any other way. I sat with Justin and his friends at lunch. I watched as he laughed along with them and smiled to myself. His friends included me as much as they could, but I could tell it was a little strange for them, seeing him with someone other than Jess. It’s not like I wasn’t friends with them, but with dating Monty and being so close to him, it was hard for us to hang out. Not that he kept me from them or anything, there was just a distance. It was nice to have them again. I decided to pull out my sketchbook and doodle while my friends talked amongst themselves. It wasn’t long before I had given up on doodling and had begun to draw Justin. It was a side profile and it was quick, so it wasn’t the greatest thing I had ever drawn, but it was okay. I would do better later when I had more time.

A few weeks after our first date, Justin invited me home to meet his folks. I had met them before because I was friends with Clay and sort of friends with Justin, but this was different. I was meeting them as Justin’s girlfriend now. For some reason I was more nervous to meet them than I was to meet Monty’s parents. Probably because you knew his dad wouldn’t like you and his mom was never really a concern for you. I pulled up in front of the Jensen house and looked up at the front window. The curtains fell back into place, so I knew at least one of the family members was waiting for my arrival.

I knocked on the door and it was opened almost immediately. Justin was waiting on the other side and he pulled me in the door excitedly. “You’re early.” He commented as he pulled me into a hug.

“I noticed. Have you been waiting by the door all morning?” I asked.

“No, he made me sit and wait when he had to go to the bathroom or wanted snacks.” Clay called from the couch.

“Lies.” Justin called back.

“Not lies. Hi (Y/N).” Mr. Jensen said as he came into the living room.

“Hey Mr. Jensen. How are you and Mrs. Jensen?”

“We are good. How many times do we have to tell you, its Matt and Lainie?”

“I know, I know. Old habits die hard, is all.”

“You still like tacos?”

“Uh… yes. They are great.”

“Good, its taco night.”

“That’s great dad, we are going to my room now.” Justin exclaimed, taking my hand and leading me to the back door.

“Um, okay.” I said.

“It’s my room too.” Clay called after us.

“Welcome to my room.” Justin said as he opened the door with a dramatic flair of his arm.

“Justin, I’ve been in your room before.” I laughed as I shook my head.

“I know, but this is different. Oh, I told clay you wouldn’t sit on his bed, so you can sit on mine.”

“Okay.” I nodded and sat down. As I looked around, I noticed there was more stuff on the walls, “what do boys call the stuff on the walls?”

“Clay calls it putting shit up, I call it homing.”

“Like the pigeons?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting.” There was a bit of a lull in the conversation. We had never been alone like this before.

“Did you bring your sketchbook?”

I gave him a look.

“Sorry, dumb question. Of course, you brought it.”

“I did yes. Why?”

“Can I look at it?”

“Not yet. The deal was I get to draw you and you get to look at it.”

Justin looked at his watch, “dinner won’t be for a while yet.”

“You want me to draw you now?” I asked, my brow raising.

“I mean, yeah. Why not?” he shrugged. “Where do you want me?”

I looked around the room again, deciding on an ideal spot, “well, your bed has really good natural light. I’ll grab a bar stool and sit there.”

Justin nodded and walked over, as I went to get up, he placed his hand around my arm. I looked at him questioningly before he placed a sweet kiss on my lips. I blushed as he pulled away. I will never get used to that. We changed spots quickly and I pulled a stool over. After a few directions and some time spent positioning him properly, I set to work. A bit after I started, he began speaking, “I feel like I don’t know much about you (Y/N/N).”

“What do you mean?” I asked, somewhat distracted.

“You know all these things about me, but I don’t know much about you personally. I know we were kind of friends, but you don’t really talk about yourself.”

“There’s not much to know. It’s just me and my mom. She’s a nurse and worked a lot growing up. I learned how to be pretty self-sufficient.”

“What about your dad?” He asked, moving slightly to get more comfortable.

“Never knew him. He walked out shortly after I was born. They weren’t married, so there wasn’t much to divide up when he left. Mom said when they went to court, he agreed to pay child support but didn’t want to have to be involved. Judge wasn’t thrilled when they submitted the paperwork, but my mom and her lawyer agreed to it.”

“That sucks.”

“I guess, but I never knew any different. What about you?”

“Never knew mine either. No real story. Amber is an addict, so I don’t know much.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Anything else I should know?”

“I had a goldfish when I was a kid. His name was Napoleon.”

“Napoleon the fish?”

“Yes. I wasn’t allowed to have a dog or anything because my mom worked so much. And so, I gave my fish a weird name.” He made an impressed sound and face.

I had gotten about half the drawing done before clay knocked on the door and opened it with his eyes covered, “Dad says dinner is ready.”

“You can open your eyes, you squeamish child.” Justin chided.

“Nope. No I’m good.”

“We will be right in.” Clay nodded in response before backing out and closing the door firmly again. I closed the book and hopped out of my seat, placing my book on the counter.

“Can I see it?” Justin asked, beckoning me over.

“Not yet. It’s not done yet.” I told him. I walked over slowly, “dinner?”

“In a minute,” he started as he took my hand and pulled me down towards him, “have something to do first.” I smiled brightly at him as he pulled me down into a kiss, straddling his lap. A moment later, I pulled away and sat back.

“As much as I would like to continue this, your dad said you were having tacos.”

He sighed, nodding, “I know. We can continue this later.”

I stood up and smirked at him. Yes we can. I walked to the door and he smacked my ass playfully. I gave him an exaggerated shocked look and he grabbed my hand as we walked through the yard to the main house.

Dinner was fun and less awkward than I expected. I had gone over many times to hang out with Clay but going over as their son’s girlfriend was different. Matt and Lainie couldn’t ask me too much because they knew a lot about me. Tacos are always a fun food for company, and Justin made fun of my topping choice playfully. Clay overfilled his and it fell apart in his hands, drawing laughs from the table. It was nowhere near as bad as I expected. I couldn’t help but compare it to the awkward dinners I would have when Monty came over for at first and my mom wasn’t sure where she stood on the idea of him. I had always refused dinner with his family, so I didn’t need to hold my tongue around his dad for too long, which he never objected to.

Once dinner was over and it was time to go, I ran back to the boy’s room and grabbed my sketchbook. It’s not that I don’t trust Justin not to look… but I don’t trust Justin not to look.Justin and I said our goodbyes much quicker than we did that first night and I texted him when I got home to let him know I was safe. The following day at school, I was surprised to find Justin waiting at my locker with a muffin.

“Stopped by work on the way this morning and picked this up for you.” I smiled and kissed his cheek as I took it, biting into the fresh baked good. A very NSFW moan left my throat before I could stop it. I looked at Justin with wide eyes and a bright red face. He looked like he was trying to talk himself out of either laughing or dragging me to my car and driving to my place, education be damned. I looked down, embarrassed, waiting for the cheeky comment. When none came, I looked up at him through my lashes. I kind of miss the stupid innuendos. He was smiling wide and though he wasn’t looking directly at me, but you wouldn’t be able to tell unless you were as close to him as I was. I heard her laugh before I saw her. Jessica was walking towards us, laughing at a joke or something Alex had said. Montgomery’s words played in my head again you realize that Justin is just using you to fill the time until Jessica gets bored of Alex again, causing me to shake my head slightly to clear it. Get out of my head. You’re just jumping to conclusions (Y/N). Nothing is going on with them. Ignoring the possibilities in my head, I let Justin walk me to class. By the end of the day, any thoughts of Justin and Jessica were out of my head.

Justin and I had grown closer over the past couple of months than I thought I would ever get to another person ever again. We talked about everything. Our hopes and dreams. We shared our biggest fears and most pointless phobias. He told me about what it was like when he left and how Clay had saved him. I knew he was leaving some stuff out, but I was too. Neither of us were going to pry. I told him about the time I had gotten curious and looked into finding my dad. I explained how any lead I could come up with came up dry and whenever I felt like I was getting close, something would happen to make it slip through my fingers. We talked about our favourite things and the things we couldn’t stand. It was everything a relationship should be. Then why do I feel like there is something missing? I continued to avoid Montgomery as much as I could, lest he try and give me more crap about my relationship.

On one of the rare nights it rained in our area of California, Justin opened up to me about his addiction. We were in my room and I was working on another portrait of him. He explained to me how he had started it as a way to escape the reality that he had left everything he had ever known and how it had quickly snowballed from there. He told me about detoxing at Clay’s and how the Jensen’s went out of their way to make him feel welcome in their home. He told me about relapsing and how even though they weren’t as close as they had once been, Bryce Walker had been the one to help when he got into a bind with Seth. I asked him about what happened, but he wouldn’t elaborate. He continued on and said that Bryce tried to help by giving him his old pills instead of the H he was using. I asked him about rehab and was not surprised when he said it was one of the hardest things he had ever done. “It’s still a struggle, but I have people around me who I know I can lean on and go to. So that helps on the bad days.” I nodded at him, as I finished the drawing and turned it to show him. “Woah. That’s amazing. Probably the best one yet.” I smiled at him and carefully removed it from the book, giving it to him.

“Keep it.”

A week or so later, everything changed. I walked to class the long way since the rain the past few days had stopped this morning during class. As I walked past the locker room, I heard voices that sounded suspiciously like Justin and Jessica. They seemed to be getting closer to the door and I quickly hid in an alcove. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this to Alex, Justin.” Jess said, as he opened the door for her.

“I know. (Y/N) is a really sweet girl. I just can’t get you out of my head.”

“She really is. I’ll see you after your shift tonight?”

“Yeah, Clay is going out with the new girl.”

“Great. I can’t wait.” Justin looked around to make sure no one was watching, no one he could see anyway, before he grabbed her by the waist and kissed her. I gasped quietly and quickly covered my mouth. They didn’t seem to notice. As they walked away, I noticed how disheveled his shirt looked. That jerk. Oh… Monty was right. I’m such an idiot. When I was sure they were gone, I snuck out of my hiding spot and ran to class. I’ll deal with this at lunch.

Lunch came sooner than I wanted, since I had again, gotten distracted in biology. Justin was waiting for me at the entrance to the cafeteria. I ignored him as I walked up to Monty and his friends. He was mid-bite into a sandwich. “Incoming Monty.” Bryce warned. He ignored him. I tapped him on the shoulder lightly, and he finished his bite before turning to me.

“Hey, (Y/N).” he greeted, slightly confused as we hadn’t spoken since he had dragged me into a classroom a couple of months ago.

“You were right.” I spoke quietly, so only he could hear me. His brow furrowed until he looked up and saw Justin walking towards me. His face went from confused to understanding.

“(Y/N)? What’s going on?” Justin asked, behind me.

“I don’t know Justin, why don’t you ask Jessica?” I asked, turning to him.

“Shit. She’s mad.” Scott said. I hummed in response. Justin looked like a deer in the headlights. Before anyone could stop me, I slapped Justin across the face, drawing ‘oooo’s and ‘ahhh’s from the surrounding tables. Calmly, I picked up my bag and walked away. I didn’t walk to a table where my friends sat. I didn’t share a look with Jess or Alex. Alex is smart. He will figure it out. Instead, I walked straight out to my car and drove home.

I spent the afternoon and evening in my room, alternating between crying and trying in vain to get the image of Justin kissing Jessica out of my head. My mom was working a forty-eight-hour shift at the hospital, so I had the house to myself. I had finally started to fall asleep when I heard a familiar sound. It sounded like pebbles hitting my window. Monty. I got up and opened the window.

“Monty? It’s like… one in the morning. What are you doing here?” I whisper called down to him.

“I thought you could use some company. I brought your favourite ice cream. You get any better at catching things in the last four months?”

“I was never that bad.” I called down to him as he threw the container up to me.

“Okay sweetheart. We will go with that.” He joked as he climbed up the lattice work along the side of my house. After he was up and, in my bedroom, I decided to let him know I was home alone.

“You could have used the front door. My mom is at work.”

“Now you tell me.” he rolled his eyes playfully as he stood up and enveloped me in a hug. This feels nice. I directed him to sit in my bed as I ran to get a couple of spoons from the kitchen. We had shared enough ice cream and… other kinds of DNA to not need to worry about bowls anymore. By the time I got back, he had made himself comfortable on his side of the bed, leaving my spot open for me. We ate in silence for a while before he spoke again. “I’m sorry I was right.”

“I guess I owe you an apology.”

“No, you don’t. At the time I was just saying it to be an ass. You don’t owe me anything.”

“I do. You were right. He is reckless and it wasn’t fair to break up with you because of your recklessness, and then start dating him. I hurt you and I’m sorry Monty.”

“It’s okay, (Y/N). But there is one thing you can do if you want to make it up to me.”

“What?”

“Switch pillows with me. This one is all lumpy.”

I laughed at him as I switched pillows before cuddling up close to him. “Hey Montgomery?”

“Yes (Y/N)?”

“How would you feel about breakfast in the morning. Like out somewhere.”

“You mean like a date?”

“Exactly like a date.”

“I think that would be some of the best breakfast I’d have in a long time.” We were quiet for a while before he spoke again, “(Y/N/N)?”

“Hmmm?”

“Do you want me to talk to Justin?”

“Do you mean talk to him or talk to him?”

“Just talk.”

“No, you don’t have to. I think he got the picture this afternoon. Thank you though.”

Monty and I spent the rest of the night talking and had a delicious breakfast at Rosie’s. He drove me home and came in to say hello to my mom. It wasn’t the perfect morning or the perfect new beginning, but nothing about our relationship ever was.

#13 reasons why #monty x oc #clay jensen #justin foley #13rw #creative writing #monty de la cruz #montgomery de la cruz #monty x reader #monty de la cruz fanfic #justin foley x reader #breakup #angst #fluff #montgomery de la cruz x reader #monty imagine #montgomery de la cruz imagine

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iwillhaveamoonbase · 4 years ago

Text

Replay ch. 4

Callum gulped as he sent the text to Rayla. She was fully in her rights to reject a drawing session in the woods. Not only that, but he was asking her to bring her own clothes because he didn’t know her exact measurements. Was he asking too much? He read the text again. ‘If it’s not too much trouble, I was really imagining drawing you among the trees, like a faerie or an elf. If you have any flowy clothes that you are alright with getting dirty, please wear those. I’ll send you the location if you’re comfortable. If not, we can do the beach or my backyard. I just can’t imagine drawing you in a confined space like my studio. I don’t think it would fit your spirit.’

Callum internally screamed. Did he really send that? She was going to rescind her acceptance of his request to draw her, wasn’t she? ‘Her spirit’? He had met her once! What was wrong with him? It was true, though. That was something about her that, despite the suit and the situation that they met in, made him feel like she would be more at home running barefoot through the forest or relaxing by the sea.

Either way, now all he had to do was wait for her to reply back. If she rejected the offer, well, he didn’t want to think about that, because that meant he probably was never going to see her again. Meeting her once was enough to make her haunt his every thought for the past three days. While he and his friends had finally ironed out how they were going to go full-time with YouTube, she had been right in the back of his mind.

He had looked up her name and ran across a few things. She really was the daughter of two bodyguards of the British royal family and her adoptive fathers ran a famous Celtic jewelry shop in Aberdeen, the designs being a mix of traditional shapes and styles and new materials. She did dance for years as a way to channel her energy. There was even a video online of her at sixteen doing a ballet routine to a Kylie Minogue and Madonna compilation. She had inserted traditional Irish step dance in a way Callum never would have thought worked but it did. Maybe that was because of the sheer joy on her face as she moved. That made her departure from dance all the stranger and it’s also where information about her basically stopped. The most recent thing he found was that she worked for Patel and Associates Anti-Fraud Law Office.

A lawyer…his faerie was a lawyer. It certainly explained the suit but it was almost absurd. Here he was imagining her running through the trees and she was surrounded by paperwork in her daily life. Did she enjoy it? Did she like spicy food? What was her type?

Callum hit his head against his desk. He needed to stop letting his mind drift to her and whether or not she could ever be interested in him. There was no way someone like him was her type. She couldn’t hide just how toned her long legs her in her suit. She probably worked out often while he was a lazy twig that indulged in sleeping in too much. Also, she was a lawyer. A lawyer falling for a YouTuber/artist? Yeah, right.

A stray chip hit his forehead. Callum looked up to glare at Soren. “What?”

“You thinking about that hot girl at the cheese shop again?”

“What? No!” Callum could feel the blush creepy up on his cheeks and all the way to his ears.

“It’s fine if you were. She was smoking hot. I never thought I would find white hair hot, but DAMN.”

Claudia hummed in acknowledgement. “I’m calling it now; she’s Bi or Pan.”

“What makes you say that?” Soren mumbled around a bunch of chips.

Claudia winked. “Gaydar.”

“Wishful thinking?”

“Maybe some of that, too,” Claudia shrugged.

“She’s got two dads,” Callum mumbled.

Soren, Claudia, and Ezran all turned to him. “Does she now?” Claudia asked.

“Yeah. She told me at the shop. It was the painting of Aunt Amaya and Aunt Janai that made her accept my offer. She was raised by her parents’ friends, hence, two dads. They run Gael Jewelers in Aberdeen.”

Claudia immediately pulled out her phone, probably to look them up. Shortly after, she whistled. “Wow. She comes from a really good-looking family. Her mom is a totally MILF.”

Soren rolled his eyes. “Claudia, you can’t just-” Claudia shoved the picture in his face. “MILF alert.”

“Mm-hmm.” Claudia scrolled through. “Ethari and Runaan and are also incredibly attractive. Damn. What is in the water in Scotland?”

Callum rolled his eyes. “Guys. Let’s focus. Do we need a production manager?”

Claudia shrugged. “My vote is you’re in charge of creative for group projects, we run our own channels, and we hire an editing assistant.”

“We also need a social media manager. Ez can’t do it all on his own while he’s in school.”

Ezran nodded. “It’s nice that you guys do your own channel stuff, but, sometimes, it would be nice to have some help.”

“Do we need a strong social media presence? We have YouTube and Twitter. Isn’t that enough?”

Ezran scratched the back of his neck. “Maybe? Claudia’s got a large following on Tumblr ever since she came out during one of her make-up tutorials. Her super casual ‘my ex-girlfriend taught me how to do this and this is the first time I’ve done this eyeliner look since we broke-up’ just made her blow-up and our channel gained thousands of followers over-night.”

Callum nodded. “We gained a lot of followers after I did that art tutorial with Janai, too. A lot of people just went gaga over her and I see a lot of requests for her to come back on the channel.”

“Which is where a social media manager could come in handy. Maybe they could track requests so we don’t have to?”

Soren sighed, taking another handful of his chips. “We also need someone to help us with events. Getting us into them, working booths…being famous is hard work.”

“We aren’t famous, Soren.”

“Beg to differ. I get stopped all the time.” Soren flexed his arm. “And it’s not just because of these guns.” The other three in the room rolled their eyes.

“Himbo,” Claudia coughed, no-so-subtly.

“WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?! Stop using words I don’t know!”

“Stop being a himbo.”

“CLAUDS!”

Ezran and Callum shared a look, snorting at their childhood friends’ teasing. Soren and Claudia couldn’t go five minutes without teasing each other or making a serious situation humorous. “Can’t take them anywhere,” Callum whispered.

Ezran nodded. “Bait is better behaved.”

Callum eyed the frog in the glass bowl Ezran took with him wherever he could. “He’s glaring at me again.”

“Because you won’t stop thinking about that girl.”

“It’s not my fault she won’t leave my head. You saw her, Ez.”

“Yeah, she’s beautiful, but she’s not running through my head like she is your’s. Are you even ready for another relationship? After Melissa-”

“Melissa was a nightmare. She constantly asked to be introduced in our videos. I didn’t know at the time, but you were right, she approached me because she wanted to piggyback off our growing fame.” Callum ran a hand through his hair. “I was an idiot.”

Ezran put a hand on his shoulder. “I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say that Melissa really hurt you and I want you to be careful. You didn’t even like her that much, if I remember correctly.”

“She was nice, pretty, liked some of the same things I did. But she didn’t really inspire me to be better or push my art. She only encouraged the YouTube thing, not what I actually like.”

“She is why we got almost fifty thousand subscribers in one week, though. That story broke and you had to give that little video and it really stuck with people.”

Callum remembered that video. As a way to quiet down any questions, he had made a short video detailing how they had met (in a coffee shop), why they had never gone public (he had wanted to keep his private life and his YouTube life separate), that she had met his family but they kept it hush-hush (impossible not to meet Ezran after knowing Callum for a week), and that the break-up had not been mutual. Callum had broken-up with her because he had felt that it wasn’t working because they wanted different things. Melissa pushed the YouTube thing, and there was nothing wrong with that, but, if Callum was going to be known for social media and videos, he wanted to be proud of what he put out into the universe. He loved his art more, and, if he could, that would be all he did. Melissa had wanted to do sponsorships and Callum hadn’t. They just had different values and desires and no one else was owed this knowledge, but Callum had been forced to do damage control because people would not stop asking. “Yeah. I was really surprised that that happened.”

“People value honesty. I think it comes across in our videos and your art tutorials that you are not in this for the fame. We’ve done meet and greets and you are just awkward as anything. Melissa showed her true colors on her own with posts afterwards.” Callum didn’t even want to think about how Melissa had tried to monetize their break-up. It had been bizarre to see her sponsored by a make-up wipe company to tell her side of the story, which basically confirmed everything in Callum’s video, but with the caveat that she had wanted him to reach new heights and that YouTube and not his ‘lame art’, as she had put it, was the way to do that. Their fans had not taken kindly to that and Melissa had lost thousands of followers she had gained overnight in even less time.

“Social media is weird, Ez. No matter what, we have got to stay away from the drama. We do not want to be involved in any of that.”

“Yep. That’s why I think a social media manager could help. A good one.”

“I’m all for it if that’s what keeps our noses clean.” Callum straightened when his phone alerted him to a text.

He opened it to see it was from Rayla ‘The woods? OK. I’m still bringing my friend. When’s good for you? It would have to be on a weekend for me because of work. Sorry about that.’

“Holy shit,” Callum whispered.

“What?” Ezran looked over his shoulder to read the text. “That text sounds weird. Callum-”

“I know, Ez, but she didn’t say ‘no’. She didn’t reject me.” Ezran raised a brow. “You know what I mean.”

“You’ve got it bad.”

“I just need to draw her to get her out of my system.”

“Either that or she is your muse. Poor Aunt Janai. She was having so much fun being your muse. So was Khessa.” Callum chuckled. Khessa, Janai’s older sister, did enjoy modeling for Callum. His exhibit on women of color had been a smash hit in part because of her always accepting when he asked. She had once modeled with a crown while sitting on a throne and that particular piece now hung in her house in her living room, showed off to everyone who came over. Callum smiled as he remembered that exhibit. His crowing achievement, to this day, was the portrait of his mother, eyes softened, and an easy, loving smile on her lips. People thought of her as this rough former military general and tactician who once taught at military academies. They didn’t know that she had a sweet tooth or that her relationship with Callum’s father had led her to leaving the military because she saw that the push for peace was more important.

She was now known for her discussions on US-South Korean and US-Thai relations because both her parents were immigrants and her own history in South Korea. Sarai and Amaya had both spent half their childhoods in South Korea in Korean schools, helping Sarai learn how the rest of the world saw the States. She and Amaya and joined the military because it helped pay for university, but both found they were really good at it. So good at it, they extended their contracts before finally leaving to focus on family and peaceful negotiations. Callum was proud of his mother’s work and was proud of the picture showing the softer side of her so many people didn’t see.

He shook his head and sent a quick text to Rayla that next Saturday worked for him if it worked for her. This Saturday was in a few days and, if things went how Ezran wanted, they were probably going to be doing interviews all weekend for a social media manager. “Let’s get a social media manager, Ez.”

“YES!”

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

Rayla smiled at the text. The woods was a bit of a strange option, but she was excited. She hadn’t had a chance to go running through the trees barefoot in years. She was going to have to ask Corvus if he was willing to head out early so she could do so. She mentally thought of her wardrobe and realized she didn’t have anything flowing that she was willing to get dirty. She was going to have to go thrift store shopping.

Was she really going to go buy a dress so a random artist that she had met one time could draw her surrounded by trees? Yeah, she was and she was going to look so good she was going to haunt his mind like he haunted her’s. His voice followed her and she had watched all of his videos in three days. She barely slept because she wanted to hear him more or see him smile or laugh. She felt like one of those stalkers who was convinced a famous person was in love with them, but she had met him in real life. He had approached her, he had asked to draw her. Either way, she wanted him to be tongue-tied when he saw her and, hopefully, she was going to quell some of the fire that refused to leave her belly since they had shaken hands.

#replay #rayllum #rayllum fanfic #tdp #the dragon prince #au #moonbase fanfics

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24hour-blues · 4 years ago

Note

all the ones you haven't answered yet? i'm sorry you're sad💙

thank you, that's very sweet. i hope you're doing alright 💛

1. when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk? - more milk. i always end up putting too much.

2. do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day? - yes

3. what random objects do you use to bookmark your books? - library receipts, post-its, junk mail, pencils

5. are you self-conscious of your smile? - i think it’s one of the few things i’m not self-conscious about, actually. i like my smile.

8. what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings? - writing, often poetry but sometimes prose. i like creating playlists, too, and singing.

9. do you like singing/humming to yourself? - yeah, i sing to myself all the time. whatever song i have stuck in my head at the moment.

10. do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach? - side, but very occasionally my stomach.

12. what’s your favorite planet? - jupiter

14. if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like? - lots of pillows and blankets of all types. succulents and cacti on the windowsills. wooden utensils and dark cabinets in the kitchen. a breakfast bar with stools that don’t match. rugs with funky patterns. a big, soft couch in a bright color that you can sink into. a small balcony with fold-out chairs. rows of mugs and barely any plates. the bathroom crowded with makeup and skin products, writing on the mirror in blue marker. beds never made. a guitar in the corner of the sitting room.

15. go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is! - there are more trees on earth than stars in the milky way

16. what’s your favorite pasta dish? - angel hair pasta with puttanesca sauce

18. tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up. - i can’t think of anything...

19. do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it? - everything. sometimes it’s big things, sometimes small. my fears and what i’m in love with. regrets. shame. hope.

20. what’s your favorite eye color? - grey

21. talk about your favorite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces. - idk if it’s really my favorite, but my current backpack took me all through college and it’s good for storing stuff or using as an overnight bag. it’s from timberland and is a nice earthy brown with a flap over the top. lots of pockets.

22. are you a morning person? - i can be

23. what’s your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations? - make breakfast and tea. read or watch a movie that makes me rethink everything

25. what’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into? - a school, i think?

26. what are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit? - i haven’t had them forever, but i wear my doc martens with everything. i used to wear plain white keds with everything.

27. what’s your favorite bubblegum flavor? - winter green

28. sunrise or sunset? - sunrise

30. think of it: have you ever been truly scared? - yes

31. what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks. - i like soft, fluffy socks and ones with fun patterns. i love hiking socks. i don’t wear them to sleep tho.

32. tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends. - i went to a waffle house at 5am with a friend and some friends of hers i’d just met on her birthday. we were all really drunk, the food took forever, and it tasted awful, but we were happy and laughing.

33. what’s your fave pastry? - probably a cinnamon roll

35. do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often? - i like a good calligraphy pen and new notebooks. i don’t use them often; i feel like i don’t have anything important enough to write.

37. do you like keeping your room messy or clean? - it’s usually clean unless i’m not feeling well. sometimes i get disorganized.

38. tell us about your pet peeves! - overlapping conversations. people interrupting others. loud mouth noises, like chewing or licking. people criticizing my driving. nitpicky comments on my clothes or how i look. being talked about.

39. what color do you wear the most? - black, probably.

41. what’s the last book you remember really, really loving? - how it feels to float by helena fox

42. do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it! - nope

43. who was the last person you gazed at the stars with? - i’m not sure

44. when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything? - i can’t remember

45. do you trust your instincts a lot? - not really

46. tell us the worst pun you can think of. - i can’t remember it but something about pigeons and being coo-l

47. what food do you think should be banned from the universe? - bacon. i just wanna make people angry.

48. what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today? - my dad told me a story once, about when i was a kid. he said that he and i were walking together near the lake in the neighborhood across from mine. i was holding his hand, and i said to him that this was the happiest time in my life because i wouldn't be the same when i grew out of being a child. i think i have the same fear now--that i'll never be that happy again.

49 do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought?

- i like records but i only have one. it's an album by ccr. i really like them

50. what’s an odd thing you collect?

- beer bottle caps

52. what are your favorite memes of the year so far?

- maybe those "girl..." text posts that just say stupid shit

53. have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them?

- watched them all but pulp fiction. i don't really remember heathers at all

55. what’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done to prove a point?

- lets not talk about that

57. go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics?

- not in the mood sorry

58. who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why? - bri is wine mom. quincy and i are vodka aunt.

60. do you like poetry? what are some of your faves?

- yes but i rarely remember favorites. i read so much and feel it then forget all the words

61. what’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? the stupidest one you’ve ever received?

- someone gave me a rock once. i get too nervous to give stupid gifts

62. do you drink juice in the morning? which kind?

- orange or cranberry

63. are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be?

- i'm more fussy about music than books, but i do like my books organized. i like them worn in and well-read tho, not in perfect shape.

64. what color is the sky where you are right now?

- a fuzzy, light blue-grey. it's snowing

65. is there anyone you haven’t seen in a long time who you’d love to hang out with?

- a few

66. what would your ideal flower crown look like?

- lots of green leaves in all different shapes and sizes. tiny white and blue flowers.

67. how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel?

- isolated and insignificant. safe

68. what’s winter like where you live?

- cold, grey, snowy.

69. what are your favorite board games?

- idk if i really too many board games. maybe cranium. i like puzzles more

71. what’s your favorite kind of tea?

- honey vanilla chamomile

72. are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you’ll forget it?

- yea and even then i forget.

73. what are some of your worst habits?

- i give up too easily

74. describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns.

- excitable. emotional. so very smart. creative as all hell. self-conscious where they shouldn't be. never runs out of words in the best way. loves to share.

75. tell us about your pets!

- my dog shiver is turning into a little old man, but he still acts like a puppy. he likes attention and whines to communicate. he'll greet you at the door and put his front paws on your thighs to say hi. follows you all around the house. loves to cuddle.

- my pigeon spirit is young and vocal. she coos for attention. when i go to sleep, she grunts every time i move to ask where i am and if i'm okay. i take showers with her and sit on the tile; she puffs up right into my side and sticks her wings out for me to splash water on her. she likes to be close to me to get neck scritches and push her head into my neck and preen every bit of me she can.

76. is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t?

- a lot probably

77. pink or yellow lemonade?

- limeade

78. are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub?

- i dunno they're cute

80. what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why?

- it's white wallpaper with pink roses along the top and ribbons of pink and green striped vertically. my mom chose it before i was born.

81. describe one of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of.

- they sort of remind me of dark water where everything is reflected back in it--not just the sky but the trees and people walking--and they make you want to look closer because you know there's something in there, it's not just a reflection, like flat glass. but it's hidden until you dio your hand in the pictures broken.

82. are/were you good in school?

- pretty good

83. what’s some of your favorite album art?

- i don't look at albums

85. do you read comics? what are your faves?

- not really, but watchmen is one of my favorites.

86. do you like concept albums? which ones?

- dunno

88. are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy?

- um. idrk. i like whatever monet was doing.

91. where do you plan on traveling this year?

- maybe michigan

92. are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch?

- i like cheese

93. what’s the hairstyle you wear the most?

- i just kind of. let it do whatever.

94. who was the last person you know to have a birthday?

- my uncle

95. what are your plans for this weekend?

- honestly have no clue

96. do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot?

- put them off until windows tells me it's restarting the computer in five minutes

97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house?

- mb

98. when’s the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it?

- in college with jacob, although i wouldn't really call it joking. we just walked through a state park. it was beautiful.

100. if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why?

- idk. i feel like i'd make the same mistakes if i went back, but the future scares me.

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brianamorganbooks · 5 years ago

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Even for an all-girls boarding school, the first day of classes feels normal. I wake up a little before my alarm, anxiety roiling in my gut. No way can I go back to sleep. Waking up early turns out to be an unexpected blessing, though, as a knock sounds at the door. I glance over to the other bed, but Charlie isn’t there.

I yawn and manage to roll out of bed. When I answer the door, a security guard informs me that I have two visitors, but I’m not expecting anyone. To my surprise, two movers, both men, stand in the hallway. The security guard supervises as they haul two giant trunks into the dorm room, setting them down at the foot of Charlie’s bed.

“Here you go, Miss Masters,” one of them says to me.

With Charlie missing, it looks like I’m living in this room alone. I kind of feel like I am. I’m not so sure that Charlie unpacking will change that.

“I’m not her,” I say. “I don’t know where she is.”

The first mover grunts. “We need someone to sign for this. Do you think you can do that?”

I shrug. “Yeah, I’ll do it.”

The second mover passes me a tablet, and I scrawl my signature on the screen. He hands the tablet to his colleague and nods to the trunks. “Clothes and everything. Mr. and Mrs. Masters said if she’s missing anything, just let them know.”

That must mean they’re not coming to help her move in. As awful as she is to me, I feel a pang of pity. I may not be on the best terms with my parents right now, but at least they cared enough to make sure I’m settled.

The first mover nods. “Well, have a nice day.”

“You, too,” I answer.

Without another word, they shuffle off, talking loudly down the hall. The security nods and escorts them out.

Once they’re gone and I’ve closed the door behind them, I look over at the giant trunks—large, ornate, and ancient-looking—and wonder what to do. Charlie isn’t here to unpack them herself, and I wouldn’t dream of helping. She’d probably kill me for it.

The movers also brought an easel, a plastic storage tub labeled PAINTS AND ART SUPPLIES, and a bucket full of paintbrushes. Charlie’s an artist? Now the Monet makes more sense.

I finish my routine without touching her stuff, somewhat surprised when she doesn’t show up. My uniform is stiff and scratchy, but it doesn’t look too hideous. The Livingston standard is a red-and-gold pleated skirt, white dress shirt, red tie, and tan blazer with the Livingston crest emblazoned on the chest. As far as uniforms go, it could be so much worse. Still, my knee-high red socks and low-heeled shoes make me feel like a Catholic schoolgirl.

I sit alone at breakfast, fighting the urge to dump my tray and crawl back to my dorm room. I nurse my glass of orange juice like it’s something stronger and push my scrambled eggs around my plate with my fork.

I knew it would be hard for me to make friends here, but so far, I haven’t met a single person who isn’t in a clique. After my weird encounter with Charlie and the other girls in the bathroom, I’m less sure that was a fluke and surer that it’s par for the course. My mom thinks opening up is the key to getting closer to people, but how can I open up to anyone if I can’t get them to look at me, let alone maintain a conversation?

Not far away, Charlie, June, Billie, and Ronnie all sit together, eating and laughing. Some girls in hijabs sit at the table closest to me, also laughing. A squeal of delight cuts through the air, and I turn to see a group of black girls reenact a story. Nearby, more girls trade food items with each other.

I would give anything to know what that inclusion feels like.

After halfheartedly pushing my eggs around on my plate until my phone reminds me it’s time for class, I dump the content of my tray in the trash and sling my bag over my shoulder. Charlie and her gang are still seated, still laughing. I don’t want to bother them.

Classes are predictably boring. Thankfully, because this isn’t a movie, none of the teachers single me out for an introduction as a transfer student. None of the students pay me much attention either. I’m getting used to being ignored.

By the time my English class rolls around, I’m beyond grateful to see two familiar faces—Ronnie and Billie. Unlike June, however, they don’t seem keen on making me feel included. They don’t even acknowledge me as I slide into the desk adjacent to Ronnie’s.

“Hey,” I try.

“Hello,” Billie says.

Ronnie takes a brush out of her purse and runs it through her hair without saying a word. She digs out an eyeshadow palette and a rainbow-handled makeup brush.

Billie takes out her notebook, turns to a new page, and scribbles something across the top of it. Hand-lettering, it looks like. Fancy penmanship stuff. I bet she keeps a bullet journal.

“Have you had this teacher before?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Ronnie says. She doesn’t elaborate.

“Not me,” Billie says. “Doesn’t matter. Heard he’s easy, anyway. Also, it’s English, which we all happen to speak.”

This is probably the most they’ve ever spoken to me, and I’m not sure how to keep them talking. In my earlier classes, I didn’t dare try to even speak to anyone. My nerves got the best of me. Plus, I was too busy making sure I was in the right classroom. This school is too big.

I lean forward in my seat. “I like your glasses, Billie.”

“Thanks, Daisy.”

“It’s Rose.”

She flicks her gaze toward me. “Are you certain?”

“Positive.”

She presses her lips together. “You’re settled in with Charlie then?”

The change in topic pricks my ears. “She say something bad?”

“Not in so many words.”

I look to Ronnie, hoping for some kind of tell. She pulls old receipts and tubes of lipstick out of her purse.

“Charlie’s nice,” I say, and then feel like a giant idiot. Charlie isn’t nice. Anyone can see that, surely even her friends.

Billie quirks an eyebrow. “Is she though?”

“I… no, I guess not.”

I swear to God she smiles. “Haven’t lived with her long and you already get the gist. She’s a right terror. You’re in our thoughts.”

“I’d rather live outside than bunk with her,” says Ronnie. “You’re stronger than I am.”

“Well, so far so good.” I mirror Billie’s smile, hoping I look more comfortable than I feel.

The teacher, a man named Mr. Preston, enters the room and calls us to attention. I spend all of class trying not to look too eager, either to impress the teacher or for friendship, even though I’m starving for both. Once class ends, Billie and Ronnie get up. I start to follow them out when the teacher pulls me aside.

Billie and Ronnie either don’t notice, or they don’t care. I’m not sure which is worse.

“Uh… Rosemary, is it?” Mr. Preston begins. I can already tell from his tone of voice that this won’t be a fun conversation.

“Rose,” I say.

He falters, then forgoes my first name altogether. “Miss Abbott, I wanted to let you know… well, given what happened at your last school…”

Wait, he knows about that? My face catches fire. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not discuss that.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t. I just wanted you to know, I’m happily married. And, if you want to make a good grade in this class, you’ll have to work hard, like everyone else. Any… extra credit will be announced in advance and will be open to everyone. During school hours.”

My whole body burns. “Excuse me?”

“I won’t repeat myself. Do you understand?”

All I want is for the ground to open up and eat me. “Y-yes, sir.”

“Excellent. Have a good rest of your day.”

How can I do that, though, when my teacher insinuated that what happened with Nathan is my fault? That I’m a predatory temptress who lured someone saintly off the straight and narrow?

The rest of my day follows a similar pattern. I have no classes with the other girls, save Charlie in my history class. Relief washes over me when I realize that none of them see the way the teachers here treat me. If it’s any consolation, at least none of the faculty single me out during class.

I’m having a tough time wrapping my head around the idea that news of what happened has traveled over here. Sure, what happened in Salem was local news, but I didn’t think it made it all the way out here. Clearly, I was wrong.

Maybe the faculty have all seen my file.

After my classes, I head back to my dorm room. I pray Charlie isn’t there, but even if she is, it’s not like she’ll talk to me.

Meyer Hall sits sad and empty. Most of the other students must be out in classes, at the library, or hanging with their friends. I get on the elevator and head up to my floor without running into anyone else. While I fish my keys out of my purse, I consider calling my parents. It’s been less than two days, and while they’re not exactly thrilled to speak to me, at least it might be nice to hear a familiar voice.

Then again, if I call them now, it will feel like giving up. Like I’m a scared little girl who still needs her mommy and daddy. I’m not sure I’m ready to give up yet.

When I open the door to my room, Charlie is sitting on her bed. Ronnie, Billie, and June are sitting on mine. Their heads all snap up as they notice me. It might be my imagination, but I swear they all frown.

Ronnie snatches something out of Billie’s hand and holds it to her chest, hidden from me. “What is your roommate doing back here?”

“I don’t know. I thought she was in classes all day.” Charlie shoots me a look, like it’s somehow my fault that she hasn’t memorized my schedule. “Rose, do you mind? We’re in the middle of something.”

It’s the first time she’s gotten my name right, let alone tried to display any semblance of manners toward me, but anger heats my blood. “It’s my room, too. I’m staying.”

Charlie’s eyes narrow. “It’ll just take a second.”

Is she serious? Are they all so self-absorbed they think I’m not offended? This is my room as much as hers. She has no right to kick me out.

I square my shoulders. “I’m taking a nap.”

Ronnie mutters something under her breath. Billie titters. I probably don’t want to know what she said, especially as June won’t look at me or her—or anyone, for that matter. Ronnie is still holding whatever it is tight against her blazer, hidden from sight. What could it be?

I keep my eyes locked on Charlie’s, daring her to try again. Maybe it’s not wise to cross her but they’ve all treated me like shit so far and I just want to crawl under the covers and forget about the day.

Charlie blinks. Ronnie looks to her for guidance, as do the others.

“Fine,” Charlie spits. “Guess we’ll go somewhere else.”

She gestures toward the other girls. Ronnie rolls her eyes, tucks the object she’s been holding into her purse, and heads for the door. June and Billie follow. June shoots me a look so warm, it could almost be sympathetic. Even her sunflower earrings seem to smile at me. Charlie gets up from the bed and glares.

I try my best to ignore her, but she’s not leaving until she says her piece. “What is it?”

“Watch yourself.”

“What?”

From the open doorway, Billie laughs again. Charlie shoots her a look, then returns her attention to me. “You need to work on your attitude.”

Jesus. “You’re the one with the attitude here.”

She clenches her jaw, but she doesn’t say anything else. Instead, she grabs her purse and keys and heads out into the hallway. When the door slams behind her, it rattles the hinges.

I sink down on my bed and flop onto my back, staring up at the ceiling once more. Maybe I’ll never find my place here.

I roll onto my side and stare at Charlie’s bed. It’s unmade, the comforter rumpled from where Charlie sat on it. Her belongings haven’t moved since the movers brought them this morning. Maybe she’s not unpacked yet as some form of protest. Though I don’t know her well, I can see her doing that.

Maybe she hates her parents as much as she hates me.

Keys jangle in the lock, and I sit bolt upright. Charlie rushes in, flushed and anxious. Speak of the devil.

“Forget something?”

“My phone.” She grabs it from her nightstand, pausing to look at the unpacked trunks. “You didn’t touch them, did you?”

If I weren’t so tired, I’d be offended. “Why would I do that?”

“Why would you touch my vial?” Charlie counters.

I bristle but don’t take the bait. I’m too tired to start any more fights with her. One of us needs to be the bigger person.

Charlie checks her latest-model phone, frowns down at something on the screen, and types something out. She mutters a curse. “Gods, I hate boys. They’re so stupid sometimes.”

Surely, she’s talking to herself, right? She can’t possibly be trying to strike up a conversation with me.

I don’t respond. After a second, her gaze flashes toward me, like she’s only just registered she said something to me, someone she hates.

“I’m sorry about your vial,” I say. “I didn’t mean—”

“Charlie!” Billie shouts from the hall.

“I’ll buy you a new one,” I continue.

“Don’t worry about it.” Charlie tucks the phone into her pocket and heads for the door. “Thank you.”

Once the door closes, I lie back on the bed. Despite the shitty day I’ve had, I feel a tinge of hope. Maybe Charlie and her friends will come around. If not, I can reach out to other girls, right?

tag list (let me know if you’d like to me removed/added): @lady-redshield-writes @smokescreens-n-otherillusions @cogwrites @nicholewrites @fireflys-locket

#livingston girls #writeblr #writerblr #my wip #my writing

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blessuswithblogs · 6 years ago

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Video Games are a God Damned Mess: Bad Business Practices, Unsustainability, and the Fidelity Plateau

(shoutouts to the anon rando in my inbox for telling me about the read more button you were kind of rude about it but i don’t use this website so i legit didn’t know)

The video game industry has always been a bit wild and wooly compared to its older contemporaries. The emergence of a new medium is always rife with upheaval as paradigms shift and people discover that the old rules don't necessarily apply all of the time. That said, the past three months have been filled with what I can really only describe as catastrophes for many disparate publishers and development studios.

You may recall I talked a bit about this during my game of the year list and Fallout 76 analysis, but to recap: with Telltale shutting its doors and shafting its workers, the writing was on the wall for the same thing to happen again as the intrinsically unsustainable boom and bust cycle began the less glamorous stage. It turns out I was correct in my predictions but congratulating myself for seeing this coming is not unlike congratulating myself for accurately predicting that tomorrow will be Tuesday. Or. Whatever day it will be when I post this. fuck i dated the lp thread ruined LOOK the point is that this was really obviously going to happen and that nobody felt the need to prepare for it or try to stop it before 10% of Activision-Blizzard's workforce got canned is a major failure of the industry at large.

So let's talk a bit about what's happened since then. There's been a lot, so forgive me if I miss your favorite corporate implosion. First, at Blizzcon, Diablo Immortal was revealed to what actually might have been the most actively hostile reception of a game in history. This has less to do with the more financial aspects of the ongoing Videocon Crisis and more just kind of served as an ill omen and an example of Blizzard's worrying descent into... wherever it is they're going. If gross incompetence was a place, they would be descending into it. On paper, a Diablo mobile game is a money-printing proposition. When all is said and done Immortal will still probably make them gobs of cash. In practice, however, they fucked the landing so hard they probably lost potential sales. The kind of folks who go to Blizzcon and get omegahype for a new diablo game are not the kind of folks who play mobile games. Mobile games have a Stigma among the hardcore crowd, and also the Ethical Business Practices in Video Games crowd (which as of this writing appears to be me, Jim Sterling, and the Warframe devteam). For a lot of braindead gamerbros, mobile games are synonymous with things like Candy Crush and Peggle, which are perfectly fine games honestly but they're For Girls or some shit so mobile games are bad and for casuals. More pertinently, mobile games are also a ferocious jungle of microtransactions, pay2win mechanics, and generally shoddy design. Command and Conquer and Dungeon Keeper, beloved franchises that have been ripe for revisiting for years now, both found mobile games and they were both utterly terrible. These games make a great deal of their money by exploiting "whales", or in actual human being language, vulnerable people with disposable income and difficulties with impulse control or addictive personalities. Or kids who know their mom's creditcard number. Kids play video games. Now that we are no longer kids (theoretically, anyway) it can be easy to forget that. I'm not the pearl-clutching type, but I think that stigmatizing a genre of games that proudly touts an exploitative-of-children business model is probably okay.

So there are lots of reasons to be skeptical of Diablo Immortal right out of the gate, and quite frankly whoever thought that just pushing that out there with literally no other Diablo related news items (like any whispers of the long coveted hd remaster of diablo the second) was either transferred in from another company the day before or had some kind of unspeakable grudge against the scheduled presenters, to whom my heart goes out to. There is also some undeniable precedent that Blizzard-Activision will, in all likelihood, monetize the everloving daylights out of it. Both Hearthstone and Overwatch have more or less become nicely polished vehicles with which to deliver lootboxes to players for a nominal fee. If this hadn't been followed by a seemingly unceasing calvacade of disasters, the whole debacle would have been really funny to point and laugh at. It's still pretty funny to point and laugh at, but it also has some less amusing implications. Blizzard in particular has been up to a lot of no good lately. Let's talk a little bit about their recent one-two punch.

First up, we have the complete and sudden abandonment of competitive support for Heroes of the Storm. Heroes of the Storm was essentially Blizzard's seething regret and resentment for letting Valve snatch up the whole Defense of the Ancients thing put into code and unleashed upon an unwitting populace. It had actually been gaining some renewed interest over the past year or so due to the developers putting in some elbow grease and making the game both more accessible and just. More better. HotS has also had a modest but respectable eSports scene since the game's launch, with a variety of professional players, shoutcasters, tournament organizers and emergency bugfixers employed. Many of them were anxious about their jobs for months in advance with no word from the higher ups about who would still be employed by 2019. Sometimes, companies have to make difficult decisions and let people go to keep operating. Even my communist ass reluctantly accepts this as a reality of the system we live in. However, there is a protocol about this kind of thing. Giving notice. Giving, you know, severance pay. Stuff like that. And of course this presupposes that this sort of cut to the workforce is actually necessary in the first place. Given that AB subsequently reported record profits for the year of 2018, I have some doubts. Completely dropping support for a game out of the blue is a scummy thing to do to your playerbase. When it is also directly impacting the livelihood of hundreds of people in your employ, it goes beyond scummy and turns right into Unacceptable.

But "unacceptable" is Bobby Kotick's favorite word in the English language so while shoving hundred dollar bills from his latest corporate bonus up his butt he and his friends in the boardroom decided that the HotS esports people might get lonely, so they had better go and fire another 10% of the workforce too. Just because. Like literally just because. His company is doing fine - better than fine! They are at record levels of better than fine. But the shareholders demand more and more exponential growth, so to cut costs that really didn't need cutting, away goes 10%. Will game quality suffer because of this? Undoubtedly. More work being piled on fewer people who are also living in mortal fear of losing their jobs Just Because is not a recipe for success. People are mad about this, much like people were/are mad about Fallout 76 - players of games, industry wonks, and iconic voice actresses alike are no longer tolerating this kind of thing in Two Thousand and Nineteen, Common Era. Nor should they!

Elsewhere in the Game-o-sphere, similar developments are brewing. ArenaNet, the folks wot do Guildwars, went through another round of mass layoffs. EA's stocks have plummeted and Battlefield V "failed to meet expectations" because it only sold A Ton and not A Fuckin Shit Ton, and Anthem is not really lighting the world on fire. After Mass Effect Andromeda's... curious debut, Bioware has probably been feeling the heat and a lot of people are concerned that it too will suffer the ultimate fate of all studios acquired by Electronic Arts: joining Visceral Games in a broken heap at the bottom of the garbage chute. Bring back Dead Space you motherfuckers. Bethesda continues to, improbably, suffer through PR disaster after PR disaster with Fallout 76, a game that seemingly cannot stop fucking up. Ubisoft has received some positive attention for vowing to NOT lay off hundreds of employees for no discernible reason, which leads me to believe that our standards for praiseworthy behavior have dropped alarmingly low. Even 2K Games in all of its monolithic glory seems to be feeling a bit of a Stock Price Squeeze. Honestly by the time I get this done and posted it's entirely possible that somebody else will fuck something up. I'm still kind of waiting on the fallout from Randy Pitchford's porn thumbdrive, but I'm also a little bit pleased that Actual Money Crimes are getting more traction in the news cycle.

So, returning to the main point: the industry is in a bad situation of its own making. It's a scene that's almost always been defined by trend-chasing. For a while, that meant that we would just have to suffer through an endless glut of EXTREME SPORTS GAMES SPONSORED BY A DUDE or a barrage of samey console shooters desperately trying to be Halo every once in a while. Unfortunately, the trend-chasing now extends not only to the games themselves, but to the methods by which they are monetized. Ever since DLC became a mainstream thing, the brightest minds of the boardrooms have been working tirelessly to deduce which method of fleecing players will scientifically speaking get them the most money. Inevitably, when some enterprising little weasel develops a new and improved monetization scheme, the rest of the little weasels will immediately latch on to that scheme and that's how you end up with Battlefront 2's ridiculous lootbox grind and Shadow of War's ludicrous inclusion of randomized lootboxes in a singleplayer action-adventure game. While I'm certain that the platonic ideal of the lootbox has existed in some form or another for decades now, I think that we can squarely lay the blame for the Great Lootbox Plague of the Twenty-Tens at the feet of Valve.

Valve has been known for questionable business practices for a while now (albeit in a more lowkey way than We Fired 800 People So Bobby Kotick Could Buy a New Yacht), largely getting away with it because Steam has been more or less unchallenged as the premier digital distribution service for video games. This might be changing soon, as Epic Games is going straight for the jugular with a number of aggressive moves with its own fledgling platform, but historically, Valve has faced very few consequences for just kind of being petulantly antagonistic towards its userbase because said userbase is easily mollified by steam sales and Gaben memes. When people think lootboxes in 2019, they probably think of games like Overwatch or Battlefront 2 or basically any contemporary multiplayer game. I certainly do, but a bit of fact finding allowed me to remember that Valve has been doing this shit since Counterstrike and Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2's byzantine cosmetics market can't be overlooked either. All three of these games are or were at one point genre leaders and made Valve so much money they basically decided that they didn't really need to make games anymore. A reasonable conclusion to draw, given the fact all three of these games are inextricably linked to their history as very popular mods. Valve just outsources a great deal of its labor to dedicated, naive fans and gives them a pittance of the huge mounds of dollars they make from their hard work. It's a good racket, but it has set an alarmingly poor example to the rest of the gaming world.

Games as a service, in concept, is fine for games that lend themselves well to the idea. MMOs have been using a variation of the model for decades now and that genre is actually like, Perplexingly Healthy. Free to play games like League of Legends and Warframe have also had success with a service model. The problem comes from the AAA Game industry's pathological insistence on shoving square pegs into things that don't even have holes to begin with. Shadow of War, or Assassin's Creed, or any other major singleplayer offering, has no business whatsoever being a Live Service. They are finite experiences by design and that's completely fucking fine and normal. Appending microtransactions and lootboxes to them is a transparent attempt to just suck up a little bit more money from players in the most unsustainable way possible. Here is a small hint if some WB Games bigwig stumbles upon this: first of all, I'm building a guillotine, so you better watch your ass. Second, how dare you fucking make Shelob a sexy lady. Third, (this is the one that is probably most relevant): People are willing to pay as they go for cosmetics and timesavers for games that they like and want to support. I've dumped a lot of money into League over the years because there was a period of time where I was playing it nonstop and having a wonderful time for quite literally no cost to myself, so I felt like buying the cute Panda Annie Skin was a good compromise. Regrettably I would later learn that there are aspects of Riot Games I'm not super okay with giving money to but at the time they seemed agreeable and my friends who work there gotta get payed somehow. This whole dynamic of wanting to support a video game goes out the damn window when you are already charging a $60 entry fee, plus whatever highway robbery pricing you put on the inevitable DLC. In this case, the onus is squarely upon the publisher to provide an experience and content one would reasonably expect of the pricetag. Putting in microtransactions for cosmetics is galling. Putting in microtransactions for actual game progression, like in Battlefront 2 or Shadow of War, is outright insulting.

Many will leap to the defense of these publishers and developers, saying that these measures are necessary to make these ludicrously expensive and lavish AAA games that all look suspiciously like one another. For the time being, let's accept this as a true statement. If this is, in fact, the state of affairs in the industry, then the industry needs to change to a more sustainable business model. When playing Destiny 2, during a big space cutscene, the cute pilot lady ferrying me to The Large Molerat Man's Murderboat had beautifully rendered skin where you could see the pores and the little wispy cheek hairs that swayed to the momentum of the space plane's movements. It was very nice but then the next year or so I heard nothing but people pointing out "hey this game has no content you dipshits" or "the devteam is actually scamming people with the experience system to wring more playtime out of them". The cheek hairs affair succeeded in making me want the pilot to buy me dinner and regail me with stories of her space adventures as I batted my lashes at her in romantic admiration, but also: stop it. You do not need to do this. This is strictly unnecessary. The graphics arms race of yesteryear is over. Nobody cares anymore. Fidelity is plateauing harder and harder, to the point where games running properly on console without having to settle for 30FPS is becoming very difficult. There is an Earth B somewhere out there where Bloodborne was not a sony exclusive and got a PC release with 60FPS support and loading times for humans and on Earth B I am still playing that game for the forseeable future because it is the best game ever. We are far past the paradigm where we are making Tremendous Graphical Leaps with each successive generation. Right now, as of this writing, games look jawdroppingly good. Just ludicrously pretty and grandiose. Continuing to push the graphical envelope for Every Damn Annual Release is a waste of resources: monetary resources, labor resources, system resources. As of March, 2019, what people really want is stability and functionality. Something that runs nice and smooth at 60FPS and doesn't turn its characters randomly into nightmare inverse-Rayman beasts. I think the huge success of the Nintendo Switch, a console with relatively modest hardware but superb functionality, portability, and a surprisingly full featured library of both massive first party titles, like Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey (which honestly look better than a lot of games on more robust hardware because of wonderful art direction) and smaller indie games, is testament to this line of thinking.

Maybe that's too bold of a statement. Maybe there's this huge swath of the gaming public that is just clamoring for more cheek hairs. If there are I think they're fucking out of their minds but who am I to judge. As long as games like that werewolf game The Order exist, where the universal reaction is "this is so pretty!!! ...wait there's nothing in here." I think that there is a serious responsibility to push back against that because evidently it's bankrupting the game industry and forcing them to violate international gambling laws to stay afloat. Except it's fucking not, actually. Many publishers are claiming record profits, upward trends, and are in a spot to have the raw nerve to say "well this game that sold 7 million copies didn't sell 8 million copies so it failed to meet expectations". They are doing ludicrously well for themselves in terms of generating revenue from sales. Where these highly successful corporations are running into problems is satisfying the almighty Shareholders. Shareholders are sort of like. Imagine if you got a job where you had to keep a large committee of actual babies happy, except the babies don't know shit about fuck about anything and demand that you routinely break all reasonable laws of sustainability and keep bringing in exponentially higher profits or they will take their ball and go home. There is still, evidently, money enough to give newly hired executives million dollar signing bonuses, but when it comes to just making a game that doesn't fall back on exploiting people with gambling addictions, we're suddenly dealing with an outfit of noble, longsuffering churchmice just trying to make ends meet. People are rapidly getting fed up with this blatant hypocrisy and dishonesty. Sales from Hearthstone card packs alone could fund a robust HotS esports scene for eternity if properly apportioned. This money is not properly apportioned. It is thrown into a gigantic incinerator so Kotick can get high on the fumes.

You might be wondering what this girls' deal is with Blizzard. Surely there are more egregious offenders? Firstly, Blizzard is very relevant at the moment because they are one of the highest profile publishers to recently Do A Business Oopsie. Secondly, I live in Irvine, California. Blizzard HQ is a ten minute drive from where I live. It's a local company to me, and it's legitimately kind of hard to see it continue to go down this path because I've had friends and neighbors who have worked there and enthusiastically described the experience right up until the very moment they get canned for no reason. My alma mater, UC Irvine, is one of the leading schools in the nation on adopting eSports into their collegiate athlete program. I understand, to a lot of people, Electronic Sports (please support them) are a big joke silly thing, but to me and my family who work in the UC system, they're actually like a huge and pertinent part of professional life. I'm literally being consulted by my mom's co-workers for advice and insight on how to minimize the abusive and toxic behavior that has become synonymous with streaming and professional gaming because campus now has a huge eSports center with rows on rows of gaming computers for students to use. Games Are Big. They are a powerful cultural and economic force in the lives of millions of people and denying that because of "haha nerds" is the same shortsighted, utterly-lacking-in-self-awareness wanking that resulted in the stupendously destructive "its just the internet, it doesnt matter lol" attitude that has caused the world so much grief. That said Bart Simpson becoming an esports legend sponsored by Riot Games is still pretty lame don't @ me.

What it comes down to is this: the games industry has grown into a hugely influential and powerful institution that affects the lives of more and more people every day. However, the appropriate growth in regulation, oversight, and worker protection has not occurred and has honestly shrunk. People love to talk up Satoru Iwata because when the Wii U was floundering he took a massive pay cut and refused to lay off any staff, reasoning that "it will be very difficult for our teams to create software that will impress the world when they are constantly worrying about losing their jobs." It's a little incredible that The Baseline Reasonable Thing To Do has elicited such effusive praise, but that's the world we live in and Iwata-san was pretty alright so I'm okay with it. Both his conduct and reasoning are both solidly above reproach in this case: it is really hard to be creative when the Sword of Damocles is hanging over your head! That’s 500% true! This goes for game developers, community managers, eSports staff, support staff, literally every part of the process that matters, even the totally unrelated clerks and communications people who are still completely necessary for creating games. The only people who don't suffer are the dipshits on top who don't actually contribute to the creation of games in any way. They're still fine. Better than fine, really. That's why people are mad. That's why people SHOULD be mad. Don't stand for this anymore.

#blizzard #activision #eSports #game industry #bethesda #fallout76 #valve #layoffs #destiny #ea

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sea-lilli · 5 years ago

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Breisheet Bara Eloheem

My first post as an anonymous blogger- how exciting! It’s so freeing to write while knowing I’ll never reveal this to anyone. Most of my other work is all attached to my name: because it focuses on trauma, and I think it’s healing to attach a name and a face to those things, for the people who are still working through the fears of revealing their trauma. But, I’m tired of trauma and I have healed from it fully, and I don’t think my audience is ready for what I’m putting out. It’s just so healing, and people are so scared. I have limited myself for a year, just posting memes instead of real content on my social medias. But now, I am free because I am anonymous :)

So, an intro to me: I am fairy. I'm not “out” to the people in my life, but it’s a big part of who I am right now. I have been writing since I was 14 years old, and my writing (and art) can heal, sometimes too fast for people, but I am learning control, and it’s all for the better, anyway. I am “exclusive” with someone who I’ve been on & off with for about a year, and I’m secretly in love with him.

My trauma is that my bio-dad tortured my immediate family and me with mental, verbal, emotional, spiritual, physical and sexual abuse (you name it, he did it, and regularly!) for all of my childhood years. He raped me at 15 years old. He did the same to my sister much earlier, though hers was much more frequent instead of a one time event. I knew, though, going through it and I knew to get help, but I chose to stay for my mom and sister, because of skewed thought processes.

I finally escaped my abuse at 18 when I got married to my first husband, 21 when started counseling and started setting healthier boundaries, 25 or so when I went “no contact” with anybody in my family other than my sister, 27 or so when I had a spiritual and religious healing experience, which led to a divorce after almost 10 years of marriage, regained healthy contact with my mom through that, and now, at around 30 years old, I am finally phasing out of counseling for the traumas I’ve endured, because I no longer need it. I will never talk to my bio-dad again, but I have worked very hard on forgiving him... with boundaries.

I have gone to college and graduated, but I spent my 20s being horribly depressed, and so I don’t have the 10 year experience others my age have towards working in their desired careers. However, I live off grid on my own land, and so my expenses are so low that it doesn’t matter. I have a lot of freedom that others my age don’t have, though I don’t have the family benefits or career benefits they had.

I am heavily involved in my church (Mormon), though I don’t agree with everything they say. I go to Jesus Church each Sunday for the first hour sacrament and then immediately jump in my car and head to Unitarian Universalist church for a sermon, “social hour” and then, sometimes a class after. I used to go to both hours of Jesus Church, but they changed the timing and this is how it works out for now. It will change each year though, but I spend a lot of time in church between my two churches each Sunday. It’s my favorite day. I also attend any other churches that I feel drawn to: my friend is catholic, and I’m thinking of asking to also attend her Spanish-speaking service every once in a while, and I’ve gone to Pagan rituals, Jewish ceremonies, etc (via UU Church).

My religion is pretty eclectic, and I kind of make it up as I go along. But, I have a very strong underlying belief in Heavenly Father. He is the one who healed me from my mental illnesses, after only having been converted for about a year into the Mormon faith, and that was life-changing, because I was extremely secular before. I also believe in Heavenly Mother, who I am now actively attempting to develop a relationship with, after years of being told to shun her. I identified before with my trauma and shaped my personality around it, so when I healed so fast and stopped identifying with it, people were very scared. My healing challenged their own issues, but I pushed through it. I still have a pretty scarred relationship with the people who reacted so badly before.

I am politically very liberal and very feminist, and very much a (lazy) activist. I believe in Marriage Equality, and am pro-choice. I follow the Words of Wisdom, but I’ve reframed the Law of Chastity, because I think the one that’s existing is extremely problematic, and I didn’t see a change happening anytime soon. I follow my own rules for intrinsic reasons, not because somebody tells me to do it.

I love the prophet, though, as most Mormons do, and I pray for him when I remember. I love all the changes he is bringing, and I think he is held back from making more positive changes by some of the more conservative members (looking at you, Oaks!).

A lot of my beliefs make me different from the other Mormons, and I think sometimes if they knew, they would excommunicate me, because I’m not sorry for the differences. This is what religion is for, for developing your own personal relationship with your Heavenly Parents and acting accordingly. I am sorry that more people don’t have the courage to live authentically. I know that I’m not the only one with conflicting viewpoints, but I am one of the only ones who actively expresses it. Either way, even if I did face excommunication for my beliefs, I would still attend regularly. I am a handful. :)

I love the Mormon church though, for the people. I had a lot of religious pain growing up with my distorted family, but Mormonism has erased a lot of it, because they’re just.. different. And they care, and actively try to be better people, which matches my personal value system.

Let’s see...

There are so many logistics to this anonymity! I’ll need to come up with a master list with all the different aliases so I can keep them straight. Or, maybe not- it seems like a lot of effort to keep up with. I’ll do some research! I also need to get a privacy screen, because I’m kind of digging writing out in plain site. I hope one day to monetize my blog, but that’s so far off. Right now, I just want to focus on building a support community while being able to be freely and uniquely me in an online space, without all of the judgement that comes from attaching your name to your work. I’m going to try to update regularly, as this is going to be one of my healthy supports I’m developing to wean myself off of counseling.

But I’m done writing for now. See you next time :)

-Lilli

#me too #introducing myself

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kpopfanfictrash · 8 years ago

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Wanderlust

Author: kpopfanfictrash

Pairing: You / Yoongi (Suga)

Rating: PG-13

Word Count: 4,050

Summary: Traveling with Yoongi. (Fluff, angst)

“One ticket, please.”

The woman behind the counter looks you up and down. “Just one?”

As though you have forgotten your boyfriend in your purse, or something. “Just the one ticket,” you say.

Truly not caring either way, the woman shrugs. “That will be seventy Euro.”

You fork over the cash and take the small, yellow ticket handed back to you.

“The bus will board over there,” she says, pointing to the building across the square. “Hand the driver your ticket. The ride to Giverny is about an hour and a half. Next!”

You move aside, pocketing the piece of paper and squinting down the lane. You did not think today would be this hot, which is why you are wearing both cardigan and top – which is something you now regret. A group of people are already standing where the woman pointed, so you join them, peering down the row for confirmation you are in the right place. Confirmation received in the form of pale, yellow tickets peppering the hands of your fellow tour mates. None of whom is younger than sixty.

Rather than being bothered, you sigh with relief. This means there will be no one your age to be overly chatty with. No one to try and catch your eye, to give you that look – that hey, we’re two peas in a pod grin. You hate that look. No, you are perfectly content to leave Paris with nothing but your music for company.

With a clang of exhaust, the bus rolls to a stop before you.

You hand the driver the ticket, murmuring, “Mercí,” as you continue. Your French is not great, which something your mom warned you about before deciding to travel in France, but you have found the people to be nothing short of kind. At least you try and speak their language, which is something appreciated in any country.

The seats are a horrible, rust-colored vinyl. You settle into one near the middle, slipping your ear buds in to stare out the window. A few people are still waiting to board; the final of the group before you all leave. You watch a woman with curly silver hair speak to the balding man beside her, gesturing animatedly towards the lines on her map. There is a third person behind them, but he is covered by the seat behind you.

As the balding man escorts the woman onto the bus, the last ticket holder steps into view. Pulling back, you immediately retreat behind glass when you see him. The last passenger is male, slight of build and around your age. He looks as though the world has pissed him off in some unnameable fashion, although you are not really sure if he means it. His hair sticks out from under his beanie - black, just long enough to graze the tops of his eyebrows.

He looks up.

You flinch when you make eye contact, pulling back even farther. Far enough to not see him anymore.

Maybe he did not see you. He is already facing forward, stepping onto the bus at the front. The small, grey knapsack he has with him is cute, especially when paired with black skinny jeans and his sweatshirt. The beanie is also grey; how monochromatic of him.

Relaxing into your seat, you push the guy from your mind. Who cares if he saw you – this tour is a large group, it is not like you will interact. Not if you do not want to.

“Is someone sitting here?”

Opening your eyes, you see the guy you mentally brushed aside hovering over your legs.

“Uh.” The answering grunt you make is less than eloquent. The rest of the bus is full though, so your gaze flicks back to his. “Sure, I guess.”

He slides into the seat besides yours, setting his bag down between his feet. As he pulls out a small notebook, unscrewing a pen with his teeth, he catches you staring.

“What?”

“Nothing.” You can feel your cheeks heating. “Sorry.”

Turning to face forward, you see the guy smile.

“I’m Min Yoongi.”

“That’s nice.”

He snorts, a small burst which almost makes you smile back. “Really?” Yoongi pulls the pen out of his mouth. “You’re not going to tell me your name?”

“I don’t think so,” you say with a shrug. “I kind of like mysteries.”

Yoongi does not seem too concerned by this. “If that’s the case,” he says, quirking a brow, “then I’m going to have to make up your name for my story. How do you feel about Rainbow? Or Greta?”

Now, you do face him. “Your story?”

But Yoongi is already writing, scribbling down something you cannot read in his notepad. “Mm. I’m a writer.”

When you lean forward to look, Yoongi’s head snaps up. “Hey.” His eyes are dark, almost black. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Trying to read what you wrote about me,” you say. Frowning at his expression, you reluctantly pull back.

“What I wrote about you? Or, Rainbow?”

His know-it-all smirk is back, making you roll your eyes. “Fine, then. I’m Y/N.”

“Hi, Y/N.” When you do not respond, Yoongi chuckles. “You don’t like me. You don’t know me, but you don’t like me.”

“That’s not true,” you sigh, finally removing your ear buds. “I’m just trying to travel alone. That’s all.”

“Hm.” Yoongi considers this, then shrugs. “Okay.”

He returns to his notepad, fingers etching over the paper when the bus pulls away. You look at him awhile longer but he does not look back and so, eventually you lean against your seat and replace your headphones. Cranking the music, you allow the 1975 to take you away.

The cityscape flicks past out the window, turning from cobblestones to back country roads. Shadows stripe the bus when the road becomes tree-lined, switching your screen from light to dark, to light again. An hour passes, the slow hum of the bus lulling you into the most relaxed state you have been in days. Your eyes flutter a bit, but you fight to keep them open. It would be embarrassing to fall asleep here.

It seems like only seconds later when a hand touches your shoulder. You jerk awake, blinking at large dark eyes above you. Rounded nose. Pink lips.

“Hey.” Yoongi smiles.

Releasing a groan, you pull yourself upright. Your face slowly heats at the realization that you were asleep on his shoulder, face still warm from Min Yoongi’s arm.

Arms which are now crossed, both eyebrows raised in your direction. “When you said you wanted to travel alone, I didn’t realize the destination was my shoulder,” Yoongi says.

Looking at him, your expression falls into annoyance. “Obviously, this was unplanned,” you retort.

“Right. Obviously.”

He stares at you for a second longer, his smirk holding you captive. Beneath you, the bus starts to slow. “Are we here?” you ask, pressing your face to the glass. Your fingertips curve over the windowsill, attempting to see the outside.

Yoongi nods; you see this through his reflection in the window. “Yeah, that’s why I woke you.”

Glancing over your shoulder, you find yourself barely able to contain your smile. “Mm. So you would have let me sleep longer?”

Now it is his turn to flush, the pale shade of his cheeks turning a slow pink. “That’s not what I –"

“Right. Obviously.”

Min Yoongi scowls. “You’re annoying, you know that.”

“Likewise.”

The bus pulls to a stop, so you do not feel it necessary to say anything else. Instead, you gather your bag and press it close to your chest, as Min Yoongi shoves his notebook into the front pocket of his own. He barely waits until the bus is stopped before he is up and out of his seat.

“See ya,” he mutters, taking off down the aisle.

You frown at his retreating backside, watching him disappear. Everyone else in your row exits and you slowly pull the straps of your backpack down over your shoulders. It is even hotter out now than before, and you end up stuffing your cardigan into your backpack. Tugging your arms through the straps, you resume your travels.

Unfolding your map with both hands, you study the landscape. The bus has dropped you off near the front, but your destination is the water garden. You want to see the water garden, which is where Monet’s lilies are – those were Juliet’s favorites.

Crossing the first ridge of grounds, you enter the ponds. You are not sure what you expected from this. There is the Japanese bridge in the middle, spanning lilies and water, visible after a brief underground trek. Wisterias wrap around tree trunks, tendrils of willows grazing the water. As you wander, the crowd thins into nothing and you are mostly left alone in the gardens.

Alone, with nothing but your thoughts for company. Wearily, you pull a postcard from your pocket, the one your sister bought from the Art Institute years ago. It is Monet’s water lilies at sunset, the oranges and purples faded to blue at the water’s edge. The picture reflects the sky above, even though it is never shown.

You want to find this spot, in particular.

The bus back to Paris leaves at eight. Long enough for you to feasibly grab dinner in town. You assume that is what most of the tour will do – but not you. You cannot leave until you find this spot, which will be hard to do until it is sunset and you can see the reflection.

As the sun sinks towards the horizon, you begin looking in earnest. Wandering through hedges, you cross paths off one by one in your guidebook. You begin to despair of ever finding it when you turn a sharp corner and there it is. The pond is smaller; reeds and water lilies mix where the water meets land. Purple-blue waves spread towards the center and you take a step forward, heart starting to pound.

Glancing down at the photo card you hold in one hand, you notice its edges are well-worn from your fingertips. In the corner of your eye, something moves at the edge of the water.

Hastily, you shove the card out of sight as you recognize the familiar black sweatshirt of Yoongi. He sits at the water’s edge, brows scrunched while he writes. Hovering behind him, you watch from a distance. On the one hand, you do not want to disturb him. On the other – this pond is the only reason you are here at all.

Stuffing your hands in both pockets, you walk as fast as you can to the water’s edge. Crossing both feet beneath you, you slowly take a seat. Yoongi does not look up and you relax, happy he did not say –

“Come to sleep on me some more?”

Your mouth tightens, although you do not give an answer.

Yoongi looks up, glancing in your direction. “Hey.” He sighs, rubbing the back of his head with one hand. The pen he holds catches his neck, leaving a small blot of ink. “I’m sorry.”

Slowly, you turn to face him. “You’re sorry?” you say, incredulous.

“Yeah.” Yoongi glances down at his paper. “Sometimes, I’m too blunt. And then other times, I run away. It’s not a great combination.”

“Yeah, well.” Silence falls in between the you. “I wasn’t the nicest to you, either.”

“Not really, no.”

You laugh, despite yourself. “Blunt. So. Is this the part where you tell me what you’re writing about?”

The question seems to make Yoongi nervous. He faces forward, his profile cast in the dull rays of twilight. “Let’s play a game,” he says instead.

“What kind of game?”

“A truth for a truth.”

Shrugging, you set your pack to one side. “Fine.”

Yoongi still does not look at you. His feet curl beneath him on the green lawn. “Fact. I’m supposed to have an idea for my publisher by Monday, but I have no idea what I’m going to tell him.”

“Your publisher?” It is hard to keep the surprise from your voice. “But… you’re so young.”

He glances at you. “I wrote a lot in high school. One of my pieces went viral. It’s pure luck I have a publisher at all. But...” Yoongi sighs, bobbing his head. “None of that matters, if I can’t figure out my next idea.”

“Wow.” You settle back on your hands, surveying the pond at twilight. It really is beautiful. “That was a large truth.”

“Yeah. Good luck matching it.”

An easy silence falls between you, the light slipping further beyond the horizon. “This pond is the whole reason I’m on this trip,” you say to him quietly.

“This pond?”

You nod. “Yep.”

Yoongi’s gaze moves across the water. “You have a thing for Monet’s lilies?”

“Something like that.”

He exhales, a bit frustrated. “Okay. Well, here’s another truth. You look like you’re running from something.”

That shuts you up. Slowly, you turn to look at him. “What do you mean?”

“I’m a writer. I like to observe and you, well. You look like you’re running.” Yoongi jabs his pen in your direction, a tiny lampoon. “You’re trying to forget what hurt you. Am I right?”

Looking down, you find your hands twisted in your lap. You swallow. “Lucky guess, or am I that obvious?”

“And here I thought I was the cliché.” Yoongi snorts. “A writer who can’t write. What frat boy college sweetheart broke your heart?”

Chest constricting, you lose words for a moment. Hell, you lose breath. Air. Thoughts, even as the pain sweeps over you.

“Not a boy,” you manage to say. “A girl.” Lifting your head, you stare Min Yoongi down. “My sister passed nearly a year ago,” you explain, legs shaking when you stand from the ground. They tremble under the weight of your own admission. Yoongi seems a bit stunned by your confession, but you do not think about that. “She loved Monet. I have to go,” you blurt.

You have to go somewhere – anywhere – but here.

Feet moving on auto-pilot, you rush away from the lilies. Tears prick the corners of your eyes, making you wince. Honestly, fuck him. Fuck Min Yoongi for making you feel small, for making you leave Juliet’s water lilies. Once you are a fair distance away, you remove the photo from out of your pocket. Smoothing out its wrinkles, you stare at the surface.

Something in you relaxes, if only slightly. You actually did it. You saw them – saw the thing Juliet loved, which she never could. So, why does it still hurt? Why does the thought of her still choke you, wring you out and leave you dry? It hurts, missing her hurts. You do not know why you thought being here would help. Do not know why you thought coming to her favorite painting would help. It is only another reminder of what she will never do.

Suddenly, you feel very tired. Curling inwards, you sink onto the stone bench behind you.

Soft footsteps reach your ears.

You do not look up, eyes shut when someone sits beside you. He does not speak. Maybe because he is waiting for you to make the first move – to tell him to leave, or say that it is okay. You do not say anything.

“I don’t know why I say shit like that.”

Despite yourself, a smile curls at your mouth. Fighting back pain which never seems to fully fade, you open your eyes and look sideways. Min Yoongi sits awkwardly beside you on the bench. His hands are laced tightly in his lap, as though fearful of what they might do if released on their own. His face stares straight ahead, but his eyes glance sideways to you.

“It was pretty shitty,” you agree.

“The worst.” Yoongi nods.

The longer you sit there, the softer his features become. It seems that this Yoongi has layers. There is blunt, harsh exterior which serves as a wall of defense. He uses it to look at the world and filter things out; this is something you understand. Past that wall, though – Yoongi’s eyes soften.

“I’m sorry, Y/N.” He does not flinch, like most people do. “I’m sorry about your sister and I’m sorry I was rude. If it makes you feel better, I’ve also lost things. I know it’s not comforting to hear… but at least you’re not alone. I’m here.” Yoongi shifts on the bench beside you. “I’m here, and I’m sorry.”

You let the silence widen between you. Then, you look back at him. “I want to read what you’ve written.”

Surprise flickers over his face. “What?”

“You insulted my sister and made me cry,” you say, raising an eyebrow. “Now, give me your notebook.” Holding out your hand, you try to hide the amusement his expression sparks for you.

Reluctantly, Yoongi places his notebook in your palm. “It’s not finished,” he warns. “I was just scribbling … venting, nonsense, you know. It’s nothing.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” you say, flipping to the last page. You read.

Wispy. Wisps of hair, of hope. Of dreams.

When I was little, I was a cloud watcher. I stared, reached, blew the breath from my lungs and hoped they would feel it. Hoped they would know I was reaching for them. They never moved. That was when I learned wispy things are solid. Tenuousness can be strength. That slight moment between strangers is a foundation, if you let it.

Don’t touch her.

But what if this is that moment? What if this is that wisp, those fluttering eyelashes are the cloud I’m supposed to stand on?

There is more, but you do not read it. Staring down at the page, your heart beats tight in your veins. The whisper of crickets is the only noise around you until you clear your throat.

“When did you write this?” you ask, voice barely a whisper.

“I…” Yoongi considers lying to you, but thinks better of it. “On the bus.”

Your fingers move silently over the page. “Who is she?”

A long silence.

“Who else was sleeping on my arm?”

You look up at him. Either he has moved, or you have. You can see the small crease of his eyelid. The movement of eyelashes sweeping darkly to either side. His pupils are blown out and black before yours.

“It’s beautiful,” you tell him.

“You think so?”

You nod. “I know it.” When you hand him back his notepad, Yoongi’s hand brushes yours. “That’s what you should write about.”

A smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “You?”

“No,” you say with a small laugh. “People. Observations. You should make … I don’t know, a travel diary. One where you observe things, places. You could weave them into stories from your life.”

When you say this, a light stirs behind Yoongi’s eyes. “Oh.” His pen moves, almost subconsciously and Min Yoongi laughs, tugging off his beanie to mess with his hair. The strands of it are black, in sharp contrast to his pale fingertips. He sets both beanie and notepad aside. “That’s it,” he declares. “Travel with me.”

Your eyes widen. “What? Why?”

“You’re my inspiration. My muse. My animus,” Yoongi grins. Upper lip pulling back, it reveals gums when he smiles. The gesture is oddly endearing. “But also...” He pauses. “Because I’m tired of traveling alone.”

“And if I say no?” You watch him carefully, gauging how serious he is.

Yoongi’s eyes are earnest. “Don’t say no.”

Maybe it is because of what he said about understanding loss. Maybe it is because of his tone right now – open and rambling. Maybe it is due to those beautiful words he recently wrote about you. Whatever the reason, you find yourself nodding. You have nothing to lose. You have done what you came here for. Seen what you came here to see.

Juliet loved Monet’s lilies because of their wildness. Monet painted things in series; at different times, in different seasons. He captured the differences, the contrasts, the evolution. Painting nature was exciting to him, because it constantly evolved, even if it did not seem like it. Much in the same way that people do.

Your sister would stare at those water lilies for hours, noting the subtle ways in which light changed from painting to painting. Her special love for the sunset version was because she felt this moment was the most transformational time of the day. The change from day to night is most abrupt, most all-encompassing. As such, it was the most beautiful.

The beauty of change was what she loved, most of all.

Staring at Yoongi, pale twilight washing over his features, you feel you can understand. Maybe this is crazy. Maybe this is stupid. But –

“Okay.”

When you call your work and say you need a sabbatical, they do not object. They say yes almost too quickly – maybe because of your sister, maybe because they have seen your eyes, heard your voice over the past year and know that you have lost yourself. Whatever the reason is, they agree and you do not question it.

You travel.

The first time Yoongi kisses you is in Switzerland. The ground is bare and flurries swirl above you as you finish hiking the Albristhorn. You accidentally lose one of his pens, tripping on a rock and knocking it from his grasp. In horror, you pause and watch it tumble over the mountain.

Yoongi stands there open-mouthed, staring at his beloved ink hurtling towards the ground. You do not see where it lands – that is too far and you are up much too high. He is still staring at it when you whirl, grabbing his arm with ready apologies.

“Yoongi, I’m so sorry!” you gasp, the words tumbling from your lips. “I swear I didn’t mean to, I know how much you love those pens – I swear, I’ll replace it. I -” You stop when you realize he is laughing.

Yoongi gives great, heaving gulps as his eyes screw tightly shut. “Come here,” Yoongi chuckles, pulling you forward. You barely have time to react before his mouth is on yours, the taste of his lips warm and sweet. The skin of his face is bitterly cold, just like yours.

His fingers reach for you softly, wrapping into the strands of your hair. He pushes them behind an ear and then slides both arms around your waist. Mouth opening gently, you press yourself closer to savor the taste of him, the feel.

When he pulls away, Yoongi’s arms stay wrapped around you. His eyes remain on yours. “I was right,” he says.

“About what?”

“This feels pretty solid.”

The next few weeks are filled with wandering. You travel cobblestone streets and have dark, shadowed moments beneath archways. As with all things, it is not perfect. Yoongi is stubborn, sharp and oftentimes stuck in his own world. Whereas you are idealistic, curious and willing to give everyone you meet the benefit of the doubt.

You lose your backpack in London. Just for a few hours before you locate it back at the hostel; you never took it out in the first place. Yoongi teases you about this endlessly, at least until he leaves his hiking boots on a train bound for Denmark. Then, it is your turn to be merciless, drawing wanted ads for the boots and slipping them beneath his pillow each night.

Everywhere you go, you get separate rooms. You stay in one part of the hostel and Yoongi stays in another. Each night though, you usually end up in one or the other. You stay up late just to talk, to write and re-write. Oftentimes, you fall asleep on Yoongi’s bed, your face curled in his pillow and looseleaf scattered on sheets. You wake up to an empty room every time, the comforter pulled tight to your chin and a note from Yoongi on the table.

One night, you wake as he is leaving, startled into lucidity by his knee banging against the desk. “Fuck,” Yoongi grunts.

“Yoongi?” Your voice sounds small, questioning in the dark.

The hopping noises stop. “Yes?”

“Where are you going?”

Silence. Yoongi exhales. “To your room,” he says. “I finished writing for the night.” He does not leave though. You hear no sound of the door opening or closing.

“Stay.”

His returning breath is quiet, slow. And then you hear footsteps, padding towards the bed. Yoongi steps into the moonlight and you watch him shrug off his coat, set his bag on the floor. His eyes are unreadable pulling back the sheets and you slowly scoot aside to make room. When he slides beneath the covers, his leg brushes yours. Yoongi retracts, hands balling into fists to shove beneath the large pillow.

Then he is still, facing you. His eyes are dark, large in his face. You find yourself scared to breathe, scared to move for fear of ruining the moment. You do not know why this feels so… large. The two of you have kissed. The two of you have lain in the same bed, slept on the same train seat. His hand has been held by yours, his lips have moved against yours. Why tonight would be any different; here in the dark, in this tiny room, you do not know.

It is, though. He uncurls his hand and reaches for you. The tip of his finger grazes your skin, traces the curve of your jaw. It slides beneath your chin as he presses his thumb to your lip.

“Yoongi?”

His dark gaze moves to yours. “Yes?”

Instead of answering, you kiss him. You feel him sigh, leaning forward as his arms rise to wrap around you. His lips nudge between your own, eyelashes brushing your cheek and your pulse thuds, jagged beneath your skin. The lines of his body press against yours and you cannot remember the last time you were this happy.

You fall asleep like that. Happy and entwined.

“Y/N. GET OVER HERE.”

“Shhh!” You are laughing, breathless as you clamber over the rocks. “Yoongi, this is a national park. There are animals around!”

“Right, I’m announcing our presence. Look at this,” he says, gesturing to the top of the ridge. “Isn’t it amazing?”

You finally reach his side. The entire valley is laid out before you, an ocean of green and brown beneath steely sky. You let out a breath, a puff of white on the morning wind. “It’s beautiful.”

Yoongi snaps a picture on his phone. “For later.” He slips this into his pocket as his hand grabs yours, pulling you closer. You stand like that for awhile, facing the rising sun.

At last, Yoongi glances at you. “Thanks.”

You look back. “What for?”

“For reaching back,” he says, voice quiet.

You do not move, but your fingers tighten their hold on his own. You gaze out at the horizon. Then, at him beside you.

“Thanks for offering.”

[Master List]

Author’s Note: For my wonderful anon, who is not an anon. Happy birthday! All your Yoongi softness has rubbed off on me. Also, here’s my playlist: Lightning Bolt (Jake Bugg), Jackie and Wilson (Hozier), Rivers and Roads (the Head and the Heart), Claire de Lune (Debussy), Maps (Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs), So Far Away (Agust D ft. Suran)

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byron1 · 7 years ago

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Microwave door bouncer to keep you from eating garbage. "Where do we Go now" guns & roses/ picking a restaurant Fallout joke: I was at work while you cheating all day. Punchline: I never even got to cheat AND she would tell me about her bounty EVRyday SKIT: Danielle cooking pie (or anything really) and you have headphones on improve rapping to her and it sounds good to me but cut to her with no music and she looks at me very annoyedly Opener: Walks on stage, grabs mic and lays down. "Instead of stand up up I'm gonna try "lay down", it's way more comfortable.. That joke needs a Mitch headberg voice" repeat joke in Mitch headberg voice "com-fort-able" Hotel TV remotes have never been cleaner. Everybody on the phone watching porn and Netflix. The last person to use a hotel remote for porn died years ago Terminator cop in San Diego -what it felt like on mushrooms (terminator slo mo walk by) -what really happened (cop just walks by and shrugs) "Whenever I start dating a girl I buy her a really nice, big purse as a gift. ...Cuz she's gonna be carrying a bunch of my shit around for the next 4 1/2 months" - jack bliss Old west - duel going on in the middle of town. Mayor stops everything -"what are you guys arguing about" "is it worth dying over? I mean I can look this up on my phone" Mayor looks it up on the phone and who ever was wrong gets shot with no countdown ..Watch a little porn. Once you get too familiar with a site you drift to the lesser known porn sites ...This particular website has a top 50 viewed videos.. And you can sort em by 1 day, 7 days, 30 days, and my favorite, "all-time". ..That's just a buncha like minded individuals helpin' each other out.. But you can always tell when a bunch of likeminded weirdos find the site cuz for the 1 Day Most Viewed, it's just a ton of videos of people peein' on each other. And now it's like "maaaan, now I'm not even in the mood. AND I'm disappointed in you PornoTime, I didn't even now that was so prevalent on your site!" And it's usually on a Sunday... All you pee heathens jerkin off on the toilet with your computers on your laps should be at church! But then I'm like ".....let's see what all this hype is about" If I eat Asian food and drink a glass of milk, will I explode? Asians they don't drink milk! I think it's cuz they know. It's like when you have Indian or real African neighbors and that food smell just permeates ev-er-y thing. Unpleasant for the most part. Asians think white people smell like rotten cheese or like the cow aushwitz off the 5. <----Cowlinga. Nasty place. I was on a road trip with my wife and "she's tired" (bitchy voice) so she wants to stop for the night. At night she couldn't tell but in the morning when that sun came up?.. And that stink starts stinkin?.. She's like "oh those poor Asians. We should stop eating cheese for them" And then she puked. Friendricks Smitreaux - hands too small, not allowed in Burger King. Has quarrels. (Jack) Calling GameStop, having a nerdy conversation, with a funny voice. Rb movie voice could be a thing. Do you have x y z Round table pizza local interview podcast Wife's mom with gigantic fat pet and gets scolded by vet. Mom is pissed new underwear lint gets stuck to your dick. About to get a blowjob and she freaks out cuz there's fuzzy berries all over your jimmy wang dong. (Explain in between these sentences how fuzz sticks to your dick when you have new unwashed out of the box underwear) I've done this to my wife since we started dating "Chivalry Gone Wild" - pushing girls out of the way to open the doors for them. Later girl has chivalry ptsd (now she shivers when a guy reaches for the check at a restaurant) "Once I got roofied..." Story ensues "Once I had a crazy dream..." Story ensues Either way you're bored Went into the bank, for the candy of course, why else would you go inside these days. As I reach for the candy, the lady behind the counter says "DON'T TAKE THAT CANDY!...... It's super old.. Here take this, I have a 'secret stash' back here" I was like "You Smoke Weed, huh?" No I didn't say that, I just did the stoner laugh, which basically communicates the same message I have road rage. Like.. bad. But they're really cracking down on that now. I mean you can't even throw the bird these days. So I'm trying to advocate this, in place of the bird, you hit the rear window spray 2 times. (doesn't work if your window is dirty) I'm trying to spread this so people know I'm insulting them..... Also the "up hand", thumbs up is for assholes...... I just don't want road rage to go away, you know?! Went to the grocery store at night and someone was sleeping in the car I parked in front of. I see a middle finger come over the dash. I quickly kill my headlights and the middle finger turns into a thumbs up and recedes below the dash. I like that person.. Soccer needs timeouts like catholic priests need to be able to fuck. Flopping soccer players = selabate priests Lost lake truck sinks into water. Guy goes back for cigarettes brings one pack instead of the ENTIRE CARTON White people now can only do other ethnicities voices while reading a name. (List 3 different "ethnic" names) Buttercup story: weed in New York Trying to get a random buddy to be the third player in the game of RISK is like trying to get a random girl to come back to your house and suck you AND your buddies dicks. "Wanna play a game of risk?" Shit no Instead of people saying "Grizzly Adams DID have a beard" I think we should change it to "Kurt Cobain DID have a gun" "no I swear I don't have a gun" ...too soon?! Liqueur Control Board. Two young kids walk into a bar. They order jäger. Liquor Control comes in and says to the bartender: "do you those kids you served are underaged?" Bartender says "you're out of your Jurisdiction!!! Call the Liqueur Control Board!!" Liqueur Control Board shows up lookin like French cops "(( assholeish French accent thing here))" I work construction..... (Frown face) You THINK you want to shit in a freshly clean porta-potty. But that's not the case. You drop any size turd in that blue water and it's coming back up to splash your asshole. You need a big pile of turd to cushion the blow. I frequent a sports bar, and they allow kids in a certain section and sometimes you don't see these children behind you. So you day-drunkenly yell out "well I can't exactly tit fuck 'er, but they're perfectly shaped!" ((Rule of thirds here, needs 2 more examples)) History Lesson: •Good at art cuz no porn - there was much better art, and I mean paintings, back in the days of yore. Do you know why so many iconic paintings come from this era?! Because there was no porn. You think these guys (Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Monet) weren't drawing weird sex stuff in their spare time?! Of course they were. People think porn took over in vhs days but it's gone back much further than you think Way back in the day, I don't think they had the ADA (American Dental Association), but if they did it would be The Association of Guys that Own Pliers. If you had a tooth ache in the 18th century, your barber would pull your tooth!.. Guess the barber had a set of pliers.. therefore making him.. also a dentist. Hatred for people with red hair bleed over from hatred for the Irish? I just found out I'm Irish.. My dad was adopted and he just did the genealogy thing. Piss on a stick, or something.... I may be thinking of something else.. Anyway, it makes a ton of sense cuz my mom was Swiss. And if you know anything about the Swiss, they don't tend to takes sides, (hmhrph wwii). So when I get high, I'm Swiss: "hey whatever your views man, let's just have a dialogue.. Orrr not, I really have no stance on the issue." But when I drink whiskey: ..I wanna fight people. And I'm not a big guy soooo, I try not to drink whiskey.. I try to test myself against my friends, but they are all bigger than me so it never ends well. There is one guy who's bigger than me, but I can just psychologically break him down, and it's all true so I always win. And those other big guys are around and laughing so I have some protection. Things like "good thing those chicks can't see how many times you swipe right, otherwise they would call you a "Desperate Bitch!" Or: "you're so pathetic, how do you not have a crescent wrench?!" Things like that. One Friday night, He was a coward and attacked me while I was fall over baby deer legs drunk. We shut the bar down and as we're walking out he shoves me and I go flying into the ashtray. Butts are flyin.. I was not happy with him and I think I had some whiskey that night because I plotted revenge for the next day, I say "I'm gonna fuck this guy up". Saturday morning we always go back to the bar for breakfast. He says "you gonna be at the bar for breakfast?" I say "yeah buddy, 20 minutes". That's when I start loading the quarters into the sock. But yeah, whiskey makes me angry, I guess. Did anyone notice how the hitler youth haircut came back right around the time most of the wwii vets were pretty much all dead? The hipsters were scared of some old vet having a flashback to the war. "YOU.. NAZI.. BASTARD!!!" So my wife says to me while we're in the kitchen, out of nowhere, and I quote, "yeah I drop craisins" I'm thinking this is some new thing the kids are doing. Then she points to the floor and..there is a craisin. She says "watch this" and shoves a gigantic handful in her mouth and a few fall on the floor. She then walks away Slava drug store story. "What kind of a name is that?!" Shia vs. Tink The wiener dog comes in the house, if it smells the cat, he goes crazy. (Killed the neighbor tea cup something or another) the cat hears his collar and jumps up out of range and watches us shower the dog with love. ((Cats reaction is the punchline)) "What the fuck, that dude is trying to kill me!! Benedict friggin Arnolds" Danielle: "Willy Wonka" is like "Saw" for kids Never touch a mans belt buckle. Cuz they drape their balls over them while taking a piss "Hey lesbians, do you have your gloves in the car? They said yes. Well let's get a pickup game going! Hunters heroin people story - "she's sucking his DICK!" MMA fighter goes back in time to 1907. Breaks 1907's guys wrist because of his dumb boxing stance Lady at rite aid going through gender reassignment. I use my chip and she tells me to slide. I say "yeah we're going through a transitional phase right now" instantly realize what I just said Back to the bar. Being a smoker you know everybody's car.. you've seen them come and go enough because you're that much of an alcoholic and smoke on the half hour for the six hours you're there. (Well not you, me) So you'll walk up to the bar and be like "oh hello, jacks car, let's just lift up your windshield wipers there buddy" or "oh yup, Old Man Roy parked like a dick again.." Or "Hey look! there's Kevin's truck, let's draw a dick on it". <---Another thing about being a smoker that brings me joy, is watching the horror on people's faces when they scape the plastic underneath their bumper when pulling to close to the curb. I always give a look implying "you just fucked up your bumper!" Bar, Interior: If I'm on my phone and you come sit next to me at the rail, do not get on your phone, cuz then I feel like we look like assholes and I put my phone away.. But I still have shit to do so you're really being a real monkey wrench in my operation People who do bird calls: trying to trick birds? Stock internet passwords make you seem like an insane person. Jolly ocean 3, rapid pineapple 0. An insane person looks at it and goes "....that works. No need to even change it.." Bevmo event planner needs an option for your alcoholic friends. 3 pictures. What do your friends look like at the end of the night; 1. Someone smiling 2. Hot mess 3. Just a toilet Sleeping in the wrong car overnight My wife put my jerk off blanket out for people to use. "You sicko!! You were gonna let my friends use that blanket" I'm thinking of the scenario where somebody goes to grab and I say "oh that's my baby blanket, I don't know how that got out here, let me get you another one.." And..((eyebrow)) I wouldn't be lying about the baby blanket thing. Old men's memory's are bad because their spank banks are 70 years full. Head Bobbers of Noddingham My wife said "you know how I know you're an alcoholic? Because your handwriting is shit but your numbers are beautiful. Signing tabs everyday for the last 10 years will do that" You know what really freaks out the ladies? When you immediately realize what you did wrong. You start apologizing too soon and it somehow makes things much worse. So if you one day have an immediate realization about something you did wrong... Play the dumb card for a day or 3 to make it seem like you've put deep thought into your mistake. Skinny guys dating fat chicks: what if she gets cold, how can you share your jacket?! My dad was adopted and finally did that genetics test •"spit"• hey, we're Irish. That makes a ton of sense. Too much whiskey and all of the sudden I get ridiculous agry Power went out in target. Here's how weird I am: I stole a snoop dogg cd and a Björk cd. To all women: if one is partaking upon a banana in public, use a knife. This will discourage onlookers. #yesallwomen Anyone old enough to send away "proof of purchases" for a prize from the back of a cereal box? Had to ask your mom for $2.50 to cover shipping and handling.. Waiting for it made you realize there is no true instant gratification. The waiting! Everyday: did it arrive, mother?!... No? (sulk away) then FINALLY when your 6 piece Lego set shows up you think: "I'm 27 I don't care about Legos anymore!" (Needs a tag) ((maybe:)) but I forgot to pull out when I was 21 so my 6 yr old will enjoy it) Old phone when unlocked will have a random screen of something from earlier. Sometimes it's porn. Gotta be careful Nowadays you see an old lady walking around and you think "that lady looks as old as my grandma when I was 9. She's got the old lady hair, the old lady sweater, old lady shoes, old lady jewelry" but then she has some rockin' tits! They do a "facelift" for those titties Gotta be careful watching porn with headphones. The getting caught factor isn't even what I mean, I leave one ear off for that. I only do les porn with headphones. cuz you don't need some dude "ugh ugh ugh! Oh Ya baby suck that cock" RIGHT IN YOUR ear. Not what I'm goin for there. White people always put housin sauce in the pho. Next to the bar I go to is a pho place. Smoking with Paul Teaching us how after we go in drunk.. (Housen sauces for dippin the meat)((white people put it in the broth)) "oh really?? Cut to me at home- it's delicious!!" Free bottle of siracha Pouring the old pho in the toilet ("how else do you get rid of old pho?!") How pissed off are you when someone in a Tesla SUV doesn't open their back doors? "Lemme see that back to the future sheeeit!" Old guy coughing sounds like someone taking crap to you. "What the hell did you say to me, old man?

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theway-to-myheart · 7 years ago

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7 Things You Need to Know to Start Podcasting

Disclaimer: I received a free virtual ticket to the Blog Life University 2017 Conference as a member of the NC Blogger Network in return for sharing my conference notes and key takeaways.

If you’ve wanted to start podcasting but didn’t know where to begin. This post will help you get started with tips and suggested tools, platforms and apps to become a podcast pro in no time.

I am an introvert that likes to be behind the screen, so live podcasting and videography would totally take me out of my blogging comfort zone. This is foreign territory for me. But reaching beyond your comfort zone is exactly what you need to do to grow your blog and business to the next level.

Of course, I love listening to other bloggers’ on podcasts and video, our very own NCBN has a great podcast series on iTunes and a live radio show. But I know I’d be excitedly terrified to try podcasting. Maybe podcasting would be a good stepping stone between hiding behind the laptop screen and doing live video which is the premier way to grow your reach now.

Kim Anderson who runs the Just Keep Blogging and Thrifty Little Mom podcast series‘ was the speaker for this session and she made podcasting seem fun and easy, like grabbing coffee with a friend and chatting for a little while. I may just try it yet, how about you? Here are the gems Kim taught us on getting started with podcasting.

Benefits of Podcasting

Kim says there are many benefits to podcasting, like expanding your reach, so you can determine if it is the right choice for you:

Use podcasting to expand your reach

Some people learn better by listening

Readers feel like they know you because they’ll hear your voice and words on a regular basis

You can reach a larger audience, people have more opportunities to listen than to read

You can reach a different audience (like the people who prefer podcasts to social media)

7 Things You Need to Know to Start Podcasting

1. Who Is Your Target Audience?

Who is your target audience? What do they want? What questions do they have? Why do they come to your blog? When you know your community and ideal reader, you can go in deep, get to know them better, speak to their specific pain points and help solve their problems.

She shared a quote from Seth Godin:

If you need to water down your story to appeal to everyone, it will appeal to no one Click To Tweet

2. What Tools Do You Need?

Kim recommends:

a USB microphone with a stand

and a computer to connect it to

Side note: NC Blogger Network uses the Anchor App and if you use it too, all you need is a mobile phone or tablet.

Nice to have extras:

Headphones or earbuds

A memory card (because audio files are large) or libsyn podcast hosting (plans begin at $5/month)

Audacity (for mac or pc) or garage band (on mac)

Ecamm app records Skype calls

Hands-free recorder if you are doing live interviews/need portability

A pop filter to lessen the harshness of “p” in the audio

Music. There are plenty of free resources but be careful and read licensing agreements just like you do with using free photos.

Side note: The Anchor App includes music, allows you to record interviews, stores your audio files for free, and has a hands-free feature.

3. What Is Your Goal?

This will help you focus your podcast series. Take time to figure out:

What is your objective? To inform, educate or entertain?

What will you name your show?

What will your cover art look like? (Hint: go on iTunes and check out most popular channels to figure out what stands out)

How will your podcast add value to your readers’ lives?

Do you want to monetize it? (Have sponsors, run ads)

4. When Will You Podcast?

Will you record daily, weekly or on some other regular schedule? Will your topics be part of a series or standalone session depending on what mood strikes? Having an editorial calendar is helpful when planning out your podcasts. What time of day will you record?

5. Where Will You Record?

Believe it or not, you don’t need a fancy studio. In your kitchen works just fine.

6. Where Will You Host Your Podcast?

Stitcher

iTunes

YouTube

Google Play Store

Don’t forget to share them on your blog, too

Side note: Anchor hosts your content and pushes your podcast out to locations like iTunes and Google Play for you!

7. How Do You Create the Content for Your Podcast?

Much in the same way you create content for your blog…

Create a show outline so you can estimate how long your podcast will be

Intro – who you are and who’s joining you

What will your listeners get out of the episode

Consider including 3 logical points you’ll touch on

Strong conclusion

Outro – Call to action on what you’ve done that day

Keep your tone conversational and relatable (not formal) so your reader connects to you and wants to listen again

Ready to Start Podcasting?

So what do you think? Ready to start your own podcast? I love how easy and fun Kim makes podcasting sound. The best thing to do is try it out and see if a podcast can help you reach a deeper connection to your current readers or grow your audience to reach a new segment of loyal fans.

Your Turn, Let’s Discuss

What podcasts do you enjoy? What do you love about them? Do you think you are ready to tackle your own podcast series/channel? Let’s discuss in the comments!

ABOUT THE NC BLOGGER NETWORK

NC Blogger Network is North Carolina’s premier community for bloggers. We bring bloggers together for events, education, networking and paid opportunities working with relevant brands. Join today!

The post 7 Things You Need to Know to Start Podcasting appeared first on NC Blogger Network.

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julesliedtke · 7 years ago

Text

7 Things You Need to Know to Start Podcasting

Disclaimer: I received a free virtual ticket to the Blog Life University 2017 Conference as a member of the NC Blogger Network in return for sharing my conference notes and key takeaways.

If you’ve wanted to start podcasting but didn’t know where to begin. This post will help you get started with tips and suggested tools, platforms and apps to become a podcast pro in no time.

Benefits of Podcasting

Kim says there are many benefits to podcasting, like expanding your reach, so you can determine if it is the right choice for you:

Use podcasting to expand your reach

Some people learn better by listening

Readers feel like they know you because they’ll hear your voice and words on a regular basis

You can reach a larger audience, people have more opportunities to listen than to read

You can reach a different audience (like the people who prefer podcasts to social media)

7 Things You Need to Know to Start Podcasting

1. Who Is Your Target Audience?

She shared a quote from Seth Godin:

If you need to water down your story to appeal to everyone, it will appeal to no one Click To Tweet

2. What Tools Do You Need?

Kim recommends:

a USB microphone with a stand

and a computer to connect it to

Side note: NC Blogger Network uses the Anchor App and if you use it too, all you need is a mobile phone or tablet.

Nice to have extras:

Headphones or earbuds

A memory card (because audio files are large) or libsyn podcast hosting (plans begin at $5/month)

Audacity (for mac or pc) or garage band (on mac)

Ecamm app records Skype calls

Hands-free recorder if you are doing live interviews/need portability

A pop filter to lessen the harshness of “p” in the audio

Music. There are plenty of free resources but be careful and read licensing agreements just like you do with using free photos.

Side note: The Anchor App includes music, allows you to record interviews, stores your audio files for free, and has a hands-free feature.

3. What Is Your Goal?

This will help you focus your podcast series. Take time to figure out:

What is your objective? To inform, educate or entertain?

What will you name your show?

What will your cover art look like? (Hint: go on iTunes and check out most popular channels to figure out what stands out)

How will your podcast add value to your readers’ lives?

Do you want to monetize it? (Have sponsors, run ads)

4. When Will You Podcast?

5. Where Will You Record?

Believe it or not, you don’t need a fancy studio. In your kitchen works just fine.

6. Where Will You Host Your Podcast?

Stitcher

iTunes

YouTube

Google Play Store

Don’t forget to share them on your blog, too

Side note: Anchor hosts your content and pushes your podcast out to locations like iTunes and Google Play for you!

7. How Do You Create the Content for Your Podcast?

Much in the same way you create content for your blog…

Create a show outline so you can estimate how long your podcast will be

Intro – who you are and who’s joining you

What will your listeners get out of the episode

Consider including 3 logical points you’ll touch on

Strong conclusion

Outro – Call to action on what you’ve done that day

Keep your tone conversational and relatable (not formal) so your reader connects to you and wants to listen again

Ready to Start Podcasting?

Your Turn, Let’s Discuss

What podcasts do you enjoy? What do you love about them? Do you think you are ready to tackle your own podcast series/channel? Let’s discuss in the comments!

ABOUT THE NC BLOGGER NETWORK

NC Blogger Network is North Carolina’s premier community for bloggers. We bring bloggers together for events, education, networking and paid opportunities working with relevant brands. Join today!

The post 7 Things You Need to Know to Start Podcasting appeared first on NC Blogger Network.

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#Uncategorized #7 Things You Need to Know to Start Podcasting

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