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willthewise7 · 2 years ago

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Marketing Analysis of Byler

Marketing Concepts and Theory

Before I begin analysing the actual marketing content used by Netflix and Stranger Things for Byler, I’d like to mention some basic marketing concepts and theory which are used.

One of the main techniques used by marketers is Classical Conditioning, a theory originally conceptualised by Pavlov. In brief, this theory states that you can increase attention and understanding to whatever you are marketing by using associations. For example; McDonald’s use branding such as their Golden Arches and logo. When a consumer sees this logo you immediately think of McDonald’s right? You may also think of burgers, fries and just food in general. But then comes the hunger associated with just simply seeing this logo, your brain associates it with pleasure and hunger. So marketers can use key associations to help consumers understand their products through emotional connections and psychological connections. This helps to not only formulate better understanding but also to increase attention and awareness. If people don’t understand your products or have no connection, usually they won’t use your service or buy your products.

So before I begin analysing marketing conducted for Stranger Things, I just want to put the above into context. It’s clear that the Duffer Brothers have planned this story out and they have already now told Netflix executives the ending of season 5. With this in mind, they would inform Netflix and social media administrators as to which content they should produce. Note, however, that they would not tell them the plot as this could lead to unwanted leaks. They can push for certain content to be produced though, which I believe is happening.

Stranger Things and Netflix accounts therefore would publish certain content to hint to the audience as to what is happening next. Taking Classical Conditioning and psychological connections into account, they would post Byler related content to help the general audience to gain a further understanding of the potential for Byler. Over time, using a reinforcement strategy in marketing has shown to increase positive reception and connotations amongst consumers. By feeding Byler content over time, this allows them to soften the potential for a backlash and so the general audience simply cannot say that it “came out of nowhere”.

Analysis of Marketing Content

To start let’s look at some of the content that was released pre-season 3.

As you can see above this photoshoot was conducted pre-season 3. What is interesting is the couple choices above. You have Jopper, Lumax and Jancy which are all likely to be endgame couples. It’s important to note they were important pairings to each other in season 3 too. What’s interesting is Mike and Will doing a couple shoot? If that’s not intentional marketing then someone needs to be fired, because that is obvious. To me it looks like they are subtly promoting Byler as an endgame couple. Additionally, Millie was apparently available at the time, yet they still chose Byler. Those who use surface level analysis will, of course, not notice but this is not the only material promoted.

Next we have an interesting excerpt from the SFX section of a magazine for season 3. You can see it reads “boy trouble”. Interestingly, they decided to use boy trouble instead of girl trouble to summarise Mikes story arc in season 3. Foreshadowing perhaps? Clever marketing again it seems. You may say it’s a stretch but “everything is intentional”. In marketing I can assure you, you are told all of the small details to include by the creators or hierarchy. These promotions take a lot of work.

Moving on to the next piece, this is from the game Puzzle Tales (Chapter 7).

Interestingly, this part of the game was seemingly from Wills perspective and Mike is referred to as being “boyfriend material”. “Flayed boyfriend” is also used for Mike. Again this is a piece of internal marketing used inside the game to condition people to assume the possibility of Byler being a thing. You may say, do people really pick up on this? Some do, yes. Do lots of others? No, not explicitly, but perhaps subconsciously. You see, marketing is all about subconscious influence. Even if you think something has not influenced you in any way, it’s likely to have had an impact. Whilst you may think Byler will be unpopular, many will come round to the idea because of the marketing used, alongside of course clever onscreen subtext and Easter eggs.

Lastly, some more recent promotions that have really hinted at Byler.

I mean just read the caption, it speaks volumes. But the fact they are really trying to get the message across of Will being a third wheel and there being a love triangle involved, is obvious. Alongside the subtext, they are using marketing content like this to demonstrate further to the audience that something is happening here and it needs to be noticed. Ambiguous captions draw people in and get conversations started, allowing people to work it out for themselves. This allows people to start getting adjusted to the idea, especially if they have no clue about it.

This next promotion post I love because it’s subtle yet, so obvious at the same time. Just to clarify, they aren’t saying that they prefer season 3 compared to 4 in the caption. The arrow is used to show that in both seasons they are having a fight and the scenes are paralleled. Clever, using marketing to show subtext in the show for those who missed it. They are trying to illustrate to the audience that these fights are very significant and are closely associated with Byler. Both fights were based around their relationship and how distant Mike is making himself due to his relationship with El. We are being told that this relationship is causing problems not just to Mike and El, but to his friends and best friends too, but mainly Will.

Mike deflects his emotions onto Will in both of these scenes. In season 3 he says “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls” and “what did you think, really, that we were never going to get girlfriends”. This sounds like he’s deflecting his own issues and making them Wills fault and projecting himself onto Will. The girlfriends line is used in association with growing up as that was, in the 80s, seen as the “normal” thing to do. But being aware of that Mike simply knows it’s not true, so he projects. Same with season 4. He says Will is “being a douche” and that maybe he should’ve “reached out more”. Mike is scared of his feelings and so he projects them, making it seem like Will is the problem. He creates distance so he doesen’t have to face the truth. So paralleling this and using it in marketing is clever as it’s reiterating what the show wants you to see and understand, conditioning you to make these associations and realise what’s happening.

This last post I wanted to use because not only do I find this funny, it’s one of the most blatantly obvious pieces of marketing. Actors are sometimes informed by either the writers, producers or anyone with that power to hint at certain plot-lines or to make certain social media posts. By doing so, it creates hype and gives the audience an insight into the direction of the show moving forwards. This post shows Noah hinting at volume 2 having even more Byler content and that volume 1 made him ship Byler over all of the other ships. The Netflix reply, however, is pure gold dust, “Will deserves to receive the same love he gives”. They emphasise the caption with hand claps in between each word. They want you to realise that just having Will love Mike wouldn’t be a worthy story and that he deserves more than it just being a one sided crush. Reciprocation is deserved, and is highlighted with this piece of marketing.

Before anyone says that you should take Netflix Geeked posts with a pinch of salt, I do believe that they are told to hype up certain content on purpose. Whilst you can argue maybe they just have that opinion for the reply, it’s more of the fact that they are fuelling the hype that speaks volumes, not the caption itself. They didn’t have to comment at all, yet they have been told they need to hype up Byler. This is because they need to condition the audience to the idea of it happening. That way, people can slowly adjust and accept it.

Overall, I would’ve analysed more but I ran out of photo space. I picked out the most interesting marketing material that I believe hints strongly at Byler. Many are worried about queer baiting due to past experience, I totally get that. I do agree that if Byler is one-sided, then it is queer baiting. However, I don’t think Byler is queer bait. The way that all of the cast, crew and social media admins go to great lengths to emphasise Byler, that’s not a coincidence or hype scheme. They use great subtext and marketing alongside, to slowly introduce the idea of Byler, so that the general audience is not shocked and give it a negative reception. Another reason as to why it’s a slow burn. Although the Duffers did recently state that they are writing the story “that feels right” and are not giving into “the noise”. I think that just demonstrates, alongside this post, that this is not queer bait. This is different to before. Everything that is happening is intentional, we are meant to notice. Start believing, not dreaming!

#byler #byler season 4 #byler is endgame #byler s4 #byler is real #byler theory #byler proof #byler evidence #will byers #mike wheeler

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hobbitsetal · 3 years ago

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(Not OP anon), but can you expand your issue with grmm/GoT’s writing & worldview ?

I would love to! Let me add the caveat that 98% of what I know about GRRM's stuff comes from cultural osmosis. I read an excerpt of the first book and that's been my sole direct exposure to GoT.

But from what I understand about his work through cultural osmosis, he's the poster child for grimdark fantasy: fantasy that puts an emphasis on "gritty realism" and writes without ultimate hope or a sense of ultimate morality. His work is about a dog-eat-dog world, where death happens at any moment, where good doesn't necessarily triumph, and where the strong survive.

On one level, realism is a good thing for art to reflect. On another, and this is the level upon which I take issue with GRRM, art doesn't need to revel in the filthier sides of life.

From what I understand of GoT, both books and series parades the seediness of life in great detail. It wallows in the mud. It holds up filth and sordidness and says, "This is what life is like!" The noble characters die. The scheming, devious, evil characters win out until someone more devious manages to kill them. It's brutal and ruthless and violent in every way.

By way of contrast, let's talk about The Witcher. I've watched and tremendously enjoyed Netflix's show (though it is certainly not for everyone!). On the surface, it contains everything I list when I say I don't want to watch or read GoT: it contains explicit sexual material, lots of swearing, and lots of bloody violence.

But here's the difference: The Witcher also rests on a foundation of good versus evil and on hope. The titular Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, over and over chooses to do the hard thing, to protect life at personal expense. And he isn't always rewarded for it--in one episode, he saves a monster and turns it back into the human it should have been, and promptly gets bitten for his troubles--but he is always presented as right and heroic for his choices.

This is not to say he is above fault. He hurts others sometimes. He makes bad choices. He's surly and antisocial and can be a jerk. But he's also selfless. He chooses to help others. He chooses to seek the truth of a situation instead of accepting it at face value, even when the truth means he gives up a lucrative bounty and gets himself into trouble.

That's the heart of it, for me: The Witcher is about a man trying to do the good and right thing. GoT is about selfish people scrabbling for power at any cost and good people dying because they won't play that game, and that's presented as How Life Is.

Art should be about Truth, yes. And the truth is that life can be sordid and messy and ugly, yes. But from what I understand, GRRM presents that sordidness as all that life is. Life is all about politics and backstabbing and bloody revenge. And to that I say, no.

Early signs of civilization are the bones of the ancient dead that reveal societies that cared for the sick and injured. They're the grave of a child buried with its head on a pillow, laid to rest as if it were sleeping. They're the ancient myths and fairytales of the couple that's kind to a stranger and receives a reward from the gods.

And those signs and myths and fairytales have no place in GRRM's world. His is an inherently suspicious world, in which kindness is either naive stupidity or a ploy for some deeper nefarious purpose. I have no use for that worldview.

Bad things happen in The Witcher. One brutal event in the season 2 finale left me sick, physically and heartsick. All of the characters, even the heroic ones, have made choices and done things that I find wrong. But the heart of the story, the overall tenor of the story, is that of hope. Good is worth striving for, simply because it is Right.

Life has a lot of brutal and ugly things in it. But it also contains beauty and hope and people who will help strangers out of kindness or give up something they want for something they think is right. Ideals coexist with pragmatism and kindness lives alongside cruelty.

As GK Chesterton so perfectly put it, "Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”

GRRM doesn't tell us dragons can be killed. (Ignore plot events and focus on the metaphor.) And I believe dragons can be killed. That's my issue with him.

#grrm #art media and faith #the witcher #i have Thoughts on the witcher vs got #the witcher is a Good Story #also y'all are straight up spoiling me with all these questions!#what a lovely way to spend my saturday

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tweedlydumbtweedlydoo · 4 years ago

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Not Perfect (JJ Maybank x reader) pt. 3

Summary: JJ Maybank is the one who makes sure your kook lawn is immaculate. Your family may look perfect just like the lawn from someone looking from the outside in, but it turns out you and JJ have more in common than you thought.

!!warning: This story talks about abuse through out, so if that’s triggering please don’t read. This is strictly fiction. THERE IS A PART OF ABUSE IN THIS SO PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION IT IS MARKED WHERE IT STARTS AND ENDS

Masterlist: Not Perfect

A/N: Sorry i didn’t get this out yesterday. I was able to go home from the hospital yesterday and was exhausted. Also, I think i proof read this after I typed it up but I don’t remember?? I don’t feel like doing it now. So, if there is any mistakes please ignore them. Anyways, hope you guys enjoy! xx

Tag list is at the end. Let me know if you want to be added xx

**MASTERLIST**

Requests: OPEN {CLOSED}

I am currently taking requests for:

The Vampire Diaries/The Originals

Elijah Mikaelson

Damon Salvatore

Criminal Minds:

Spencer Reid

Derek Morgan

Supernatural (I’m only up to season 2, so please don’t request something with spoilers)**

Sam Winchester

Dean Winchester

Outer Banks (Netflix):

John B Routledge

JJ Maybank

Rafe Cameron

********************************************************************************************NOT MY GIF, CREDIT TO OWNERS

When you awake the next morning, your head is pounding. And the smell around you, it was not your usual strawberry smell. It was musky, like some guy’s cologne. You peep out of one of your eyes. You were in an unfamiliar room in a stranger’s bed and it looks like a stranger’s shirt. You grip at the shirt looking down at it, “Oh god, what the hell happened last night?” Wincing you sat up, grabbing your head. Hearing voices outside the door, you froze, eyes wide.

“She’s been passed out all night. Should I wake her?”

“I’m sure she’s just hung over, JJ.”

“JJ?” You face palm your forehead, “Oh shit..” You groan, throwing the covers off you, looking around for your phone.

JJ quietly opens the door, careful not to wake you but he sees you’re already up, looking around the room. “Uh… good morning.”

You jump, facing him, “morning…”

He can tell by your face, you’re frightened, “We didn’t do anything last night.” He holds his hands up in surrender, “You vomited all over your shirt last night and I changed you.”

You glanced down at his shirt and then back at him, “Oh god.” You groan, “What time is it?”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket, checking the time, “It’s almost 2:30.”

“2:30?! Oh god my dad’s going to kill me. I um.. I need to go. Like now.” Looking around, “Where the hell is my stuff?”

“It’s by the door,” He motions behind him, “I can take you home, if you’d like.”

You nod, eyes pleading, “please?”

He nods, stuffing his hands in his shorts, “John B already left for work though.. so you’ll have to ride on the back of my bike.”

You fixated yourself behind JJ on his bike, “You sure this is safe?”

He chuckles, nodding, “Yes, just..” he clears his throat, “wrap your arms around my waist.”

You slip your arms around his waist, tightening your grip, “I’m trusting you, Maybank.”

He glances over his shoulder at you, “I won’t let anything happen to you. Promise.”

You knew he was probably just being reassuring to help calm your nerves of getting on the back of his bike, but the statement felt more sincere than anything.

When you two pulled into the driveway of your home, there were cop cars everywhere. Police standing in your yard and your parents on the front porch talking to a couple.

“What the hell?” You get off the bike as JJ stops and turns it off. He follows you to the pathway that led to your house.

“Y/n! Oh god.” Your mother steps down the front porch, running to you and engulfing you in her arms.

“Sweetie we were so worried about you.” Your dad explains, hugging you and your mother. He can’t help but give a ‘if looks could kill’ look at JJ. You’d rode in on the back of his bike and had been with him.

“Well, I’m fine.” You say, pulling away to look at them. Your mother is holding your cheek, looking you over, making sure you’re not hurt.

JJ clears his throat, “I’m going to get going.”

Your mom and dad look at him, your mother’s eyes darting back to you, “What were you doing with him?” That’s when she sees the t shirt, which is clearly not yours. “y/n y/l/n. Oh my lord! Get yourself inside this instant. I can’t believe you were with the trash last night!”

You step back from her, looking at her like she’s crazy, “What? Mama, he’s not trash. He’s a decent human being.”

“who took advantage of you.” Your dad says, he’s motioning a police officer over.

“What are you doing?” You ask, looking at your dad.

“He’s not going to get away with this honey. You just tell the officer everything he did to you.” Your mother says, running her hand over your hair.

“Oh my god! No.” You shake your head, pushing her hand away, “He didn’t do anything! We didn’t do anything!” You look at JJ then your parents.

“Honey, you don’t have to lie to us.” Your father looks at the officer, “You need to arrest him. He’s the one who had my daughter last night. And it seems he took advantage of her as well.”

JJ holds his hands up in defense as the officer’s reach for him, “Okay, hold up, I didn’t do shit!”

“He didn’t do anything!” You begin to panic as the officer grabs JJ.

“Son, don’t make this any harder for yourself.” The officer explains. JJ’s eyes are wide and looking at you.

“Stop it!” You grab the officer’s arm, “he didn’t do anything to me. You can’t arrest him.”

The officer looks at your father then at you, “Ma’am. It’s okay, you’re safe now.”

Your father grabs your arm, pulling you away from JJ and the officer, “Let the officer do his job.”

“I didn’t do shit man! Come on!” JJ argues, as the officer starts to drag him away.

You rip your arm from your father’s running to JJ, wrapping your arms around his neck, “I’ll get you out of this, I promise.” You pull away to look at him and he nods, the officer pushing him into the cop car, slamming the door.

You turn to face your parents, anger all over your face, “What the hell is wrong with the two of you?! He didn’t do anything wrong!” You push through the two of them and storm inside, slamming the door.

~THIS NEXT PART DEALS WITH PHYSICAL ABUSE, PROCEED WITH CAUTION AND DON’T READ IF TRIGGERING~

“you think you can disrespect me like that?!” You dad screams. After the last cop car pulled out of your driveway, your dad had barged into your room and yanked you out of your bed, throwing you into the nearby wall. You knew this was coming, it was just a matter of time.

“He didn’t do anything!”

He sends a kick to your side, causing you to cry out in pain, the wounds from before not fully healed, “You don’t disrespect me like that!” He yanks you up from the ground by your hair, pushing you against the wall, his hands grip at your throat.

“Please.” You gasp for breath, gripping at his wrists, your eyes pleading.

“You’re an ungrateful bitch.” He spits, back handing you, “you’re to not get involved with trash! You hear me?!”

You sob, nodding.

He leans to your level, gripping your neck once more, making you look at him, “The Cameron’s will be here this evening and you WILL be on your best behavior. You WILL interact with Rafe Cameron so we can close the deal. You understand?!”

You whimper, nodding, “y-yes.”

He sends another punch against your face. He stands, composing himself. “If anyone asks, that boy was the one who did this to you.” He pushes his hair back as you sob on the floor of your bedroom, before stepping over your body and out of your room, slamming the door behind him

~ ENDS HERE ~

Your father and Ward Cameron had been at each other’s throats for years, for power and wealth. However, the last couple of weeks, things had changed, and new business deals were made. You were to woo Rafe Cameron and get close to him, to help your father close the deal with Ward. That’s what you and your father argued over yesterday before you went storming out of the house. You didn’t want to do it. You didn’t want to be a pawn in one of his games.

This wasn’t the first time your father had beat you. It all happened when he lost everything years ago. Your father made a deal with someone and it ended badly, causing him to lose everything. He took his anger out on you and has since then. Even when you guys moved to the OBX to start over and he started making money again, he took his anger and frustration out on you in any way possible.

Your mother knew of the abuse, she’d helplessly watched a few times, but she couldn’t do anything. She was a coward, wanting to live this luxurious lifestyle and in return she allowed her daughter to be beat. You hated your mother for it and you hated your father, but you were the perfect family. You had to be the perfect daughter and play along. Get good grades. Don’t party. Don’t drink or do drunks. Be a good girl. Your family had to keep their reputation up as this perfect family. However, your family was not perfect. There’s no such thing as perfect. It was all just an act.

When you finally had calmed down, you pulled yourself off your bedroom floor and made it to the bathroom. Your lip was busted, a new bruise forming around your eye. You slowly lifted your shirt, whimpering at the motion. The new blue and purple bruises covering the faded bruises. You slowly dropped the shirt before making your way out of the bathroom. You needed to help JJ. He was in this mess because of you.

When you arrived at the police station, everyone turned their heads at your new look. They knew too, but your father contributed enough to the police force that they turned the other way. You stepped up to the front desk, “JJ Maybank, he was brought in an hour ago.”

The lady types into her computer, shaking her head, “He was released as soon as he arrived.” She looks at you.

“Oh.. okay. Thanks,” You walked out of the station, looking around. You knew he hung out with John B Routledge and headed toward John B’s.

“So, wait, he arrested you?” Kie asks.

JJ nods, “Yup! Thought I had taken advantage of her.” He rolls his eyes, plopping down on the couch.

“That’s messed up dude.” Pope says.

“And then they just released you as soon as you arrived?” John B asks, “Why? I mean why go through all the trouble just to let you go?”

JJ shrugs, “I have no clue, man. But some shit is going on with her family. Her dad’s fucking psycho.” He does the crazy motion with his finger, “He’s always giving me this evil look. Anytime I see him.”

“sounds like it.” Kie leans back on the chair.

JJ looks down at his blunt, rolling it in his fingers, “I think he beats her.” JJ looks around at the pogues.

“No. There’s no way.” Pope says, “I’m there every week and never suspected it.”

“Plus, they’re perfect.” Kie adds, “I mean anytime they go out, they’re this perfectly happy little family.”

“Yeah but you guys don’t know the signs. I do.” He sighs, standing, “The way she changes when he’s around or when he touches her in anyway. I do the same thing around my father.” He mumbles, “Plus, what she said last night about what her dad did to her behind closed doors. It’s just sketchy dude.”

“JJ you can’t make that assumption though. She was drunk,” John B says, “I know you’ve been through hell, but she’s living a completely different life than you. Her family’s rich and perfect. She’s a kook. There’s no way her dad’s beating her.”

“I guess things aren’t always as they seem, huh?”

The pogues all turn around at the voice and are shocked when they see you and your appearance. The outline of your father’s fingers over your throat were starting to show. Your lip busted and your eye bruised and swollen. Their eyes are wide as they stare at you.

“Oh shit.” Pope says, slowly standing.

JJ takes in your appearance and all he wants to do is throw a punch through the wall. He slowly steps passed John B to get to you. He can see your eyes filling with tears as he steps closer. He doesn’t say anything but gently wraps you in a hug. He hated when he was right.

Obx taglist: @emmalvei-blog , @tregua-oca , @weirdbiwitch , @losers-club6 , @treestarrrrrrrr , @omgwhattheeven , @normatural , @lreincarnationl , @laurenron , @junkiemuppettxx , @beth-winchester21 , @divcrdown , @timotaychalabae , @moose-squirrel-asstiel , @tangledinsparkles , @prejudic3 , @lanarichards5 @ilikealotofpeople-younotsomuch , @fratboystark , @nas-marie-loves-u , @sunwardsss , @annedub , @jellyfishbeansontoast , @turtlee-says-rawr, @fanficscuziranout , @wellthathappened2 , @write-from-the-heart , @louisolos , @outrbank , @sunset-d-rive , @family-buisnes , @traumaflavouredjuulpod , @http-cherries , @k-k0129 , @mileven-reddie , @eclecticpuppyhollywoodhumanoid , @cinnamon-roll-seth , @teamnick , @rockyyc77 , @ellojustafangirlhere , @sataninsatin , @lordsagittarius , @helplessquotess , @katerosexx , @kiarasgold , @thee-sex , @sunshinemadds , @ceruleanjj , @nikki082489 , @ilovejjmaybank , @laubluered , @lcil123 , @notmcchkn , @ceruleanjj , @fangirlvoice , @maybebanks , @lolitstiana , @danicarosaline , @obx-beach , @katiaw2 , @hardyxlove , @kaelyn-lobrutto24 , @obxmxybxnk , @lasnaro , @thedarkqueenofavalon

All my works tag list: @blossomreed

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supersonic-womanofyou · 4 years ago

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My first attempt at an interview fic! Read this on Ao3, or under the cut.

Spotlight on Eric Bittle

Interview by Elizabeth Chu

Photographs by Jack Zimmermann

The internet personality, author, and baker talks about his childhood, his relationship with Providence Falconers captain Jack Zimmermann, being a LGBTQ role model, why he struggled with his overnight success, and his upcoming cookbook.

I meet Eric Bittle in person for the first time on a Saturday afternoon, in a trendy coffee shop in downtown Providence. Even though I’ve heard of it in passing, I’ve never been inside. Eric obviously has, since when I approach the table where he’s chosen to sit, Eric is already chatting familiarly with one of the waitresses.

But after a couple minutes talking to Eric, I mentally revisit that assumption. Eric Bittle has a way of putting people at ease, of making even the most distant strangers feel like long-lost friends-- through his warm personality, but also through his seemingly-never ending supply of homemade baked goods. By the time I sit down across from him, I’m already in possession of a whole pie and two jars of jam.

Most of the celebrities I’ve met have on screen personalities that are vastly different in person, but the Eric Bittle I meet that Saturday could have been pulled directly out of his Netflix series or one of the episodes from his vastly popular vlog. He’s perennially bright and cheery, with a Southern drawl that’s been blunted by years in New England, but is still very present. When I mention it, Eric laughs. “I used to hate my accent, but I think it’s become as part of my brand as pies are. I’d probably lose all of my followers if I started talking like a Yankee,” he jokes.

The source of Bittle’s accent is his hometown-- Madison, Georgia, a town of barely four thousand people. When I ask what drove him to move up north, he gestures to himself as a whole. “Not too many opportunities for a baking, skating, Beyonce-loving gay boy in Morgan County.” He turns more serious, though, when he continues: “I was bullied a lot as a child. When I think back to my childhood, to living in Georgia-- for people who looked or acted different, it could be suffocating. I remember feeling like my future was just so starkly outlined for me-- going to a state school, settling down with a nice girl, spending the rest of my life just pretending. It sounds like overdramatic teenage angst now, I know, but I always knew if I wanted to live honestly, I needed to get out.”

And so Eric applied-- and was accepted to--Samwell University in Massachusetts, which touts itself as one of the most LGBTQ friendly schools in America, under the motto “one in four, maybe more.” According to Eric, it’s where he began to come to terms with himself and his identity, where he finally said the words “I’m gay” out loud, where he continued to bake and vlog and began to think seriously about a career in both, and where, perhaps most famously, he met his now-husband, Providence Falconers captain Jack Zimmermann.

“We both played on the hockey team, but we weren’t exactly friends at first,” Bittle says about his relationship with Zimmermann.

So, of course, I have to ask him-- what is it like, being a baker married to a hockey player? Eric and his husband seem like almost comical counterpoints in every aspect of their careers and personalities. Eric makes his living through baking and cooking, Jack plays in the notoriously-macho NHL. Eric has built a brand and a food empire off of cheeriness and Southern hospitality, Jack has a reputation of being a “hockey robot,” with his cold, generally disagreeable demeanor during interviews.

“Well, with it all laid out like that, it really does sound like we’re night and day,” Eric laughs. “But honestly? We just work. We both love skating-- that’s what we bonded over in college, actually. We also both technically majored in history, even though we have very different specialities and did so for pretty different reasons. But even our differences are compatible. Like, I love talking, he doesn’t, so we’re never talking over each other or silent. Also, pro hockey players have to eat an insane number of calories, so Jack’s always there to eat my cooking, and that’s really all I can ask for.”

Eric and Jack, who played on a line together briefly at Samwell, took the sports world by storm seven years ago when they kissed on the ice after the Falconers won the Stanley Cup, making Jack the first openly LGBTQ player in the NHL. The pair broke yet another barrier for LGBTQ people in hockey soon after, when Eric became the first openly gay NCAA Division I hockey captain.

When I ask Eric if he ever thought about following in his partner’s footsteps and pursuing a career in professional hockey, he just laughs. “Oh, definitely not. I love being on the ice, but I don’t think I would have made it very far in the NHL or AHL.”

His fame may have started out in the (relatively niche) world of professional hockey, but since graduating from Samwell, Eric has found incredible success beyond the legacy of that historic kiss. His first book, published five years ago, spent several weeks on the New York Times Food and Diet bestseller list, and was applauded as a fresh, vibrant take on Southern cuisine and desserts. Check, Please reads as seventy percent cookbook, thirty percent memoir, with every page infused with Bittle’s indomitable, ubiquitous personality. His vlog, which he started in high school and has updated continuously ever since, has millions of subscribers, who tune in every week to hear Bittle talk about everything from pies and cookies to relationships and family. Finally, and perhaps most famously, Bittle hosted his own Netflix series last year, applauded as a combination of Marie Kondo and Queer Eye, in which he taught baking with his usual brand of positivity and universal appeal, interspersed with feel-good moments and life lessons.

It strikes me that while Bittle’s career may have been jump-started by his relationship with Jack Zimmermann, he’s certainly managed to make a name for himself in the years since. To the hockey world, he may still be an afterthought to Jack Zimmermann, but to the baking world (and a good portion of Netflix’s viewership), the name Jack Zimmermann is an afterthought to that of Eric Bittle.

“Jack definitely gets a kick out of it when we’re in public together and I get recognized, and he doesn’t,” Eric says. “It’s kind of crazy, actually-- I definitely couldn’t have imagined all this ten years ago, back in college or in high school.”

And what did Eric imagine himself doing? “To be honest, I don’t think I had any idea. When I decided to go to Samwell, I didn’t even have a major in mind or anything. I just wanted to get out of Georgia. And at Samwell-- I mean, I majored in American History, of all things. Talk about a useless degree! I literally just chose the major that let me take the most baking or baking-adjacent classes.” He pauses, and laughs. “It drives Jack crazy, actually-- I never have a plan for anything, really, big or small. I’m the kind of person who just crosses my fingers and hope it all shakes out for the best.”

His husband’s opinion aside, this tactic seems to have worked out pretty well for Eric. His next, eagerly anticipated cookbook, which follows much in the vein of his Netflix show, is due to come out in two months this August. “It’s going to be focused on easy, cheap cooking and baking that’s still healthy and fulfilling. I think there’s a mindset that to make tasty, healthy food you need to have expensive ingredients and tools, or a lot of time on your hands, or have a lot of experience. But like-- I made food for an entire hockey team in a frat house on a college student’s allowance for four years, so I know something about cooking healthy on a budget,” he jokes. “I really just want to make good, healthy food accessible for everyone.”

Well, he’s managed to do that, and more. Eric Bittle’s career so far has certainly been a whirlwind. He’s gone from publishing his first cookbook to hosting his own show in what’s only been a matter of years.

“I do have to pinch myself sometimes, “ Eric says about his dizzyingly quick ascent to fame. “Like, Carrie Underwood tagged me in a tweet about hockey husbands the other day. Carrie Underwood!” The disbelief is clear in his voice. “I mean, Jack’s always been the bigger fan of country music, but the Georgia boy in me had to lie down for a moment when I saw the notification. So I think-- I still can’t really believe all of it, you know? It feels like yesterday I was still about to graduate college, with barely any plan and procrastinating on my thesis. And I guess sometimes-- sometimes I do feel a bit guilty, you know? Like-- there’s so many people fighting for this, fighting for what I’ve got-- getting books published, getting a show, everything else. I definitely had a leg up in name recognition because of Jack and hockey, and even when Jack and weren’t married yet, I never had to worry about having a roof over my head if the vlog wasn’t bringing in enough money or the cookbook wasn’t selling well enough.” He pauses, pensive, and it’s not the first time in this conversation that I mentally reassess my first assumptions about Eric Bittle. Behind the nationally famous smile and welcoming accent is a thoughtful young man still grappling with becoming a public figure and a role model, with a sprinkling of imposter syndrome, who doesn’t understand exactly what millions of people across the country see in him.

But perhaps that as well is an unfair assessment. It’s clear that Eric has a refreshing genuiness that few public figures possess, and that this is part of what has managed to speak to so many people from all backgrounds. That on some level, his modesty about his own fame is part of what constitutes his appeal.

When I mention this, Eric flushes a bright shade of pink. “Oh, aren’t you a flatterer. Well, I suppose so.”

So after this cookbook, what’s next? Is fatherhood on the horizon?

“I did mention that I never have a plan, didn’t I?” he quips. But he does confide that he and Jack have been talking about having a family. “We’ve always wanted kids, but there’s always been something going on. Jack’s job and being on roadies all the time, me trying to get my career started. We don’t want our kids to be raised by babysitters and nannies, you know? We want to be there for them, so while it’s definitely something we’re considering, we’re trying to balance timing. But it has been a couple years, so.” He blushes. “We’re revisiting the idea.”

“But other than that-- I have been approached about the possibility of some other projects and shows in the future, but I probably can’t talk about those,” he says. “And though it’s always been a dream of mine to own a bakery, that would be a pretty huge commitment. So I guess I’m just trying to say that I’m not really sure exactly what comes next.” Nevertheless, he grins, as if to say, and isn’t that exciting ?

Fatherhood or his own bakery-- I’m sure that no matter what comes next for Eric Bittle, he’ll forge ahead with his characteristic positivity and Southern grace, with plenty of baked goods along the way. *

#omgcp #eric bittle #jack zimmermann #interview #multimedia fic #art #magazine #fic #omgcp fic #zimbits #pov outsider #omgcheckplease

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maggiecheungs · 4 years ago

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2020 ~everything~ wrap

i finally have time to do all of the tag games that people have tagged me in over the past month or so! i cannot for the life of me remember who tagged me in which one, so i’m just putting ~everything~ in one huge post. if i tag you anywhere then consider it a standing invitation to do whichever of these you haven’t done :) in fact, this is me issuing a standing invite to any of my followers who wants to do it :) also, thank you all!

Creator Wrap: Favourite Works

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

this collection of philosophy quotes paired with thai bl series, (and its sequel) which is possibly my favourite thing i’ve ever made. for, uh, nerd reasons.

these gifted text post memes i made still make me laugh sometimes

this fic about green from 2gether, which i wrote in the notes app on my phone and published the same day. not my absolute best writing but i am very fond of it <3

i have a bunch fof friend zone dangerous area edits/shitposts which i like, but i’m particularly fond of my fzda as satire headlines (which now has a sequel!)

i also love my crisgood-walmart-lesbian post. i might send it in to gmmtv to try and convince them to do a crisgood-bffs spin-off

+ bonus: since i wrote this list i made this gifset (my first ever!) of jennie panhan in the shipper and i love her too much not to include her on here

+ extra nerdy bonus: this niche meme about Chinese philosophy, which still makes me crack up whenever I think about it

Favourite Creators/Follow Forever

i’ve completely lost track of who’s following who from which blog, so this is just going to be a haphazard, non-exhaustive list of people who i adore/admire/am vaguely intimidated by, mutuality be damned. maybe we talk all the time! maybe we’ve never interacted! maybe i am constantly there in ur tags... lurking... 👀... but if you’re on this list you have made me smile at least once this year and i love you for that alone <3

@wjmild kylie!! you make gifs of arm & tay & lee (separately or in various combinations) & the shipper & and kapook & random fluke pusit cameos & school rangers so i don’t have to <3 ilysm

@janeramida vianey, you have such impeccable taste in general, but your sizzy gifset in particular is so gorgeous it lives in my mind rent free

@applelapis bri, this post was a callout and i want you to know that it haunts me at night as i lie awake staring at the ceiling :((((( i hope you are happy

@gigiesarocha cata, i love it when you show up on my dash bc you have!! such taste!! also, every time you gif gigie i gain five years of life <3 pls continue doing the Good Work

@pvrrish eleni, i remeber legit thinking that this was an official poster when i first saw it, it’s so beautiful

@ahysopae juliette your khaithird fic is so good and it literally changed the way i think about khai (not an easy feat)

@kurosawadachi angel, whenever i think about grace’s speech i remember your gifset and get literal chills

@doctorbahnjit alexa, you have no right to be as funny as you are. your friend zone edits give me life

@khaotungthanawat sam, you’re probably sick of getting tagged in these lists by random strangers, but i just had to bc your gifsets are Pure Art

@tanwirapong roa, all your gifsets are so ✨iconic✨

faiza @asianmelodrama and rahul @petekaos! yours were the first two thai drama blogs i followed and for ages i lowkey thought of you as my fandom parents.

and some more blogs that make me happy: @curlykytta / @lee-thanat / @fck-inspector-m / @pangwave / @tichawongtipkanon / @tawanv @kimmonv (violet istg i have spent more time this year trying to figure out how many blogs you have than i have spent admiring your gifsets. & i spend a lot of time admiring your gifsets) / @taytawan / @1akorn and @yihwas (and your radiant lovechild @lakornladies ofc) / @teh-ohaew / @vihokratanas (mel your gifsets are just so gorgeous) / @tootiredtoosadtooangry / @headcompletelyempty / @demiromanticmickey / and there are definitely more but my brain is a sieve so apologies if i’ve forgotten anyone!! i love you all!!

2020 HIGHLIGHTS ✨

rules: list your top 10 shows (bl or not) you watched in 2020 (doesn’t necessarily have to be shows that came out in 2020 though!)

1. 2GETHER & STILL2GETHER

my first thai drama, and even after all the amazing shows i’ve watched this year, it still has a special place in my heart. watching 2gether was the first time i’d ever seen a queer romcom that just... was. for me, by the simple fact of its being, 2gether was revolutionary. and then still2gether came along and took all the best things about the first season and gave us something beautiful and quiet and lovely and just proved to me, once and for all, that queer happiness doesn’t need to justify its own existence. there can be gay cuddles on the beach for no other reason than that we want them.

2. UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN

i don’t really have the words for this one but. it makes my heart so very soft.

3. FRIEND ZONE 2: DANGEROUS AREA

season one was mindless fun because everyone was an absolute trashfire and it was hella cathartic to watch, but season 2... wow. i love it for so many reasons: it has messy and authentic queer rep; the characterisation is excellent and i somehow care about all of the characters; amazing women taking centre stage(!); a wlw relationship with lesbian, ace and bipolar rep; multiple interesting plotlines; actual character development; arm weerayut as a chaos gremlin... absolutely one of my favourites of 2020.

4. CHERRY MAGIC

i don’t think i need to explain this one, which is fortunate, because i have no idea how exactly i’d describe the happy-warm-fuzzy-queer-seen-loving-affirmed-profound feeling that rises in my chest whenever i think about it.

5. THE GIFTED: GRADUATION

confession: i liked season 2 more than season 1 (with the exception of the ending, which we don’t talk about). season 1 was enjoyable and interesting, but for me it was season 2 which made me love this series. it did some incredibly interesting and complicated things (even if it didn’t quite nail the landing): it pushed characters to the breaking point and wove so many layers into the story and questioned its own underlying themes. plus, watching it alongside everyone in the fandom made it 200% better. i love all of you and i love this show. egg girl 5eva.

6. THE SHIPPER

i 100% understand why so many people didn’t like this show, or found it problematic, but through some fluke it absolutely worked for me (even the ending). one day i will write an essay explaining my rationale, but for now i’ll just say that it’s one of my favourite shows about adolescence and queerness and identity and compassion and friendship and love that i’ve ever watched.

7. YYY

this series is absolutely off its rocker, and it somehow managed to be one of the most affirming shows i’ve watched. it shouldn’t have worked by it did, and i love it so much.

8. 3 WILL BE FREE

absolutely iconic. amazing plot, stunning visuals, great characters, canon polyamory, jennie being incredible... what a series.

9. MANNER OF DEATH

i love the fact that this show exists; i love the mix of crime and romance; i love maxtul’s acting; i love the central relationship; i love bun. i know we’re not even halfway through yet, but this show is doing something special and i’m so grateful that i get to watch it unfold in real time.

10. CHIHAYAFURU (SEASON 3)

odd one out on my list, but I had to include it. chihayafuru is my all-time favourite anime and it finally got a third season, which is somehow even better than the first two. mashima taichi is one of my favourite characters of all time and his storyline hits me on such a profound level. plus, in the years since i first say this show i’ve fallen in love with classical japanese literature (particularly heian poetry) so i had newfound appreciation for the karuta matches (aka i cried every time someone recited one of my favourite poems)

other favourites: together with me, he’s coming to me, sotus and sotus s, my dear loser: edge of 17, why r u, theory of love, wake up chanee!, gameboys, pearl next door, uta koi (anime), three kingdoms (2010), blood and water (netflix). (itsay would almost certainly be on my list if i’d had time to watch it. same with dark blue kiss, which i had to pause so i could do my assignments)

Final Thoughts

well, it’s been... a year (i don’t think anyone needs a reminder of the details) but writing this post has reminded me of all the amazing shows and people I discovered over the course of it.

thank you to everyone for being so lovely and creative and funny and quirky and kind and passionate. you’re all incredibly awesome people and i wish all of you the very best xx

#tag game #I think I was first tagged in one of these like three weeks ago? but I’ve been super busy #happy new year everyone #ellis talks #also I tried to keep this as short as possible bc otherwise I could have gushed for hours about you all #and this post is long enough already #but if any of you are in a low mood or want the unabridged version of my praise then message me & I’ll compliment you profusely to your face #:)

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anika-ann · 4 years ago

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Errare Humanum Est - Pt.14

God’s Will and Fate’s Jokes

Type: series, soulmate AU series (part 1, part 2) x Supernatural

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader (past?) Word count: 2900

Summary: Steve is not the only man out of time to be found in New York, Manhattan. And he sure as hell isn’t the only one struggling with what he’s done and lost.

Warnings: mentions of violence, guns and death, swearing, a bit of a talk about religion

A/N: Ah, you want to know how the reunion will turn out? Understandable… So I’m gonna insert a Bucky chapter, with fragments of how he had been. I promise two little cameos from a Netflix TV series in exchange though, so hopefully I can be forgiven.

Story masterlist

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The wind was gradually getting chillier with New York City further diving into autumn. Bucky readjusted his leather jacket to shield himself from it, but it was just a force of a habit. He had been frozen – several times, as he remembered now – and cold didn’t bother him for a while now. This was barely ‘cold’. His boots shuffled on the pavement with each step, a noise that seemed to drown in the busy streets.

The evening was slowly drifting into a night time, but in Manhattan, the streets never really fell into silence, always pulsing with life, sometimes calmer, mostly rapid though.

Bucky shoved his gloved hands into the pockets of his jeans and sighed, stopping in front of the rather tall building – then again, this was New York, tall meant something different here – , his destination.

His mind was preoccupied, for the millionth time lost in the past; for a change, not in his own.

The fact he had been unfrozen during the decades gave him an advantage of being able to keep up with modern times; and there was nothing that couldn’t be found on the Internet, especially when one knew where and how to look, maybe even peak where others couldn’t for the lack of access or ability.

Then again, Captain America’s life story wasn’t exactly a heavily guarded secret and Bucky couldn’t decide whether he couldn’t believe his eyes while reading, or whether he actually wasn’t surprised at all when learning what his former best friend had been up to after he (and the rest of the world, for that matter) thought Bucky was gone.

He had dived a plane which was about to level New York and other great cities of America to the ground. Everyone thought he died, but instead, he was trapped in ice; Bucky prayed Steve had been unconscious the whole time, not feeling the biting cold. Then, the proclaimed war hero was found and been woken up seventy years to the future, throwing himself into a fight as soon as it was needed.

And wasn’t it damn necessary – aliens attacked the Earth. Bucky now remembered seeing a lot of weird inexplicable shit. But still, this? What the hell.

The thing was, despite that, Steve’s life wasn’t all bad. He became a part of a band of superheroes and… the punk finally found his soulmate, the one he could never find before, because she hadn’t been born yet, which was insane enough on its own. However, he seemed happy.

Naturally, it had to nosedive after that; the woman of his heart and soul was dead.

Some nuthead – and to Bucky’s rage, a nuthead Bucky knew, he had been part of Hydra, which he now hoped didn’t exist anymore, because he read about Pierce being locked up along with others – had murdered her in the worst possible way right in front of Steve.

If Bucky ever considered becoming a murder machine again, after everything he knew he had done, it was upon that revelation. He wanted that man’s head. He wanted to tear him limb from limb. He was a villain, sure, that need was natural, but he had hurt Steve on top of that. No one hurt Steve and got away with it.

Apparently, the man didn’t, because he was blown up along with everyone in the building minus Steve.

Still. If Bucky ever questioned whether he still had a heart, he was sure upon that realization; he did have one and it bled for his best friend.

He wished he could be there for him, but he wasn’t ready. He didn’t know if he could even show up after everything his hands had done, no matter who forced them. He didn’t know if he could mug up Steve’s life even worse.

It was weeks now since he had been freed and his feet led him to a church – the one church where people said goodbye to Steve’s soulmate. Bucky had read about it too, her funeral; a small service for her friends and family, but many others wished to express their condolences, say thank you to the poor soul who lost her life to theirs and their loved ones and they chose this church to do so.

Bucky had figured he could pay his respects as well.

What he didn’t count on was the roller-coaster of emotions hitting him when seeing her picture, her smile radiant and brighter than the candles illuminating her photograph.

She was pretty, there was no denial. The photo printed was from Avengers’ archives, he read as much – Bucky had no doubt that it was Steve who put that bright smile, lighting up her eyes, on her face. He believed Steve had found true happiness with her and it wasn’t just because she was his soulmate or because Bucky watched the video evidence as she faced her death and showed great bravery and kindness or because he saw Steve’s desperation in the very same footage.

Bucky simply knew; the woman seemed to truly love Steve and that was all Steve ever needed. A woman to love him unconditionally.

Life was cruel and fucked-up to take that away from him.

No, Bucky didn’t count on the rage and heartbreak chasing tears into his eyes. Neither did he expect someone to pull him out of his musing.

“Did you know her, son?” an amiable male voice caused him to wince and mentally yell at himself for a dumb lack of awareness of his surroundings. Had it been a Hydra agent, Bucky would have been dead.

He forced himself to calm his sprinting heart, the rush of adrenaline unnecessary when the only person disturbing him was an old priest with nearly bald head and a soft soothing tone of voice.

His breath shuddered.

“No, Father. I didn’t.” I knew her soulmate, Bucky could have added, but he couldn’t afford to draw attention to himself; everyone knew who her soulmate was and it would lead to uncomfortable questions. Instead, Bucky’s mind supplied him with an easy lie. “But she had her life ahead of her, all of it. She must have been happy with her soulmate if he made her smile like this.”

The shorter man nodded, removing a candle that burned out from the altar with her picture – Bucky hadn’t noticed before with many others still warming up the space with their tiny flickering flames.

“Indeed. And she surely made him equally happy,” the priest hummed, sorrow darkening his face. His eyes carried a hint of curiosity, watching Bucky inconspicuously. ”It’s a shame for such joy to be stolen by madmen. Her soulmate… I pray for him as much as I do for her soul. Broken heart heals much longer than broken bones.”

No shit. Especially when it comes to supersoldiers with enhanced healing.

“Not wrong there,” Bucky whispered, hesitantly reaching out to the small metal basket with candles and a thin piece of wood to borrow the flame from another.

Bucky didn’t believe in God for almost seventy years now. Still, when the wick caught fire, he sent a silent prayer for both Steve and his gal.

“Still, you seem troubled by more than that,” the priest whispered and made a kind offer. “You could confide me in. It is what I am here for. Perhaps it would ease your sorrow.”

I don’t think so. Neither will it ease the craving after tearing a dead man’s head off.

“I don’t think you could help, Father, no offence. I’ve never been a good Catholic and lately even less so. And you sure don’t want to hear what troubles me.”

Despite a gentle nod of understanding, he nudged Bucky once more. At the very same moment, the soldier could hear the heavy door of the church open a crack and a man walk in with a periodic taping of a thin stick.

“I only wish to help you. If something of what you possibly have done heavies you… I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone. I’m not allowed.”

“I believe you, Father. But I’m not sure your own conscience would allow you to keep quiet in my case,” Bucky admitted honestly, shifting under the presence of another man despite the fact he wouldn’t be able to hear them. A periodic tapping the man carried with him was getting to Bucky’s nerve already.

He should leave. Another lost soul seeking the help of a church was a good excuse anyway.

“Trust me, son. Whatever your sins are, I’m certain I have heard worse.”

“No, Father. You haven’t,” Bucky muttered under his breath, aware of the stranger getting closer.

He turned to him, surprised to find a man of such built, carrying a walking stick for blind. His stance and body was one of a fighter, even when cladded in a cheap suit, red-tinted glasses preventing his real thoughts from displaying on his face. He appeared blind but not quite. To Bucky, he was giving an impression of pretence, at least partial.

He could only wonder why; however, he could do so on his way out.

“I’m pretty sure he did,” the newcomer joined their barely audible conversation without permission and a scowl twisted the Father’s face.

The fact that the not-so-blind? man could hear what Bucky was saying had everything in Bucky scream fight or flight.

“Matthew. What brings you here at this hour?”

The suited man shrugged light-heartedly; Bucky didn’t believe him for a second. “I thought I’d stop by. See how you’re doing.”

“Always with the jokes, Matthew. It’s not decent.”

It wasn’t. Except if Bucky was more comfortable at the moment, he would have snorted in amusement. This man was clearly comfortable in his own skin, but the skin was a charade too. Bucky didn’t want to stay to crack the mystery though.

“Forgive me, Father, then.”

“Did you come to confess?” the Father continued and Bucky recognized this was as good opportunity to leave as any, making space for the blind man to approach the priest more easily.

A brief smile passed over the Matthew’s lips. “No. Like I said, only wanted to make sure you were alright.”

The backing out of the soldier was less inconspicuous this time, caught by the priest.

“You don’t need to leave, son. Matthew is a dear friend.” And there’s more to him than it seems, Bucky was certain.

Were his the sins Father had mentioned? This man’s? Bucky wouldn’t be surprised considering the dangerous vibe he was radiating.

“I’m Matt,” the man offered swiftly and held out his hand for Bucky to shake.

Bucky was stupid enough to accept it and really, wasn’t he out of his game to make such an idiotic mistake. “…James.”

“Rather hot for gloves, isn’t it?”

Bucky fought the urge to punch this man for pointing it out and took a deep breath.

“My past injuries can… make people uncomfortable when seen.”

“I won’t see them,” the blind man challenged with the light tone to his voice again, his head tilting to side and Bucky could see the corners of his mouth twitch. It gave him the impression of the man wanting sent him a wolfish grin.

And that was the time to get the fuck out. What was Bucky thinking anyway, showing up in here?

“Matthew… perhaps it would be for the best if we leave James to his prayers and have a talk over a latté, if you’re interested at this hour?” the priest offered in a conciliatory manner, beckoning to the back for Bucky’s benefit – or for Matthew’s too?

How deeply ran the lie, the pretending? Bucky didn’t want to hang around to find out.

“Yes…” Matt hesitated, but nodded. “Perhaps. James.”

“Matt. Father.”

Bucky strode between the two lines of the pews, kind words reaching his sensitive ears.

“My invitation still stands, if you ever feel like talking. If you’re not comfortable confessing the traditional way… there’s always coffee. Same rules apply for me.”

Bucky nodded, definitely not planning on taking him upon the offer. “I appreciate the offer, Father. Goodnight.”

Since fate was a cranky bitch, a night full of horrors of the past had him wandering the streets before the sun even began to rise to the horizon.

The Father didn’t seem overly surprised that Bucky showed up again, at such ungodly hour no less.

“James. Latté?” he asked, unfazed almost.

Bucky wanted to question his decision. But he was an old man, older than the priest himself and he could believe his secret would be kept.

He nodded.

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Opening to someone about the horrors he had lived through and had been a source of was surreal. No, scratch that, it was fucking weird and telling that to a priest was twisted and seriously messed up.

Yet, once Bucky started, he couldn’t stop the verbal vomit, his hands in his hair, tears welling up in his eyes and the hoarseness of his voice that seemed to be impossible to disguise.

And the whole time he talked, the man sitting opposite to him – not touching his latté either – listened intently with compassionate and understanding eyes full of sorrow and offering kind words and his own insights of a person watching the event from a reasonable distance, far enough not to get tangled in the emotional turmoil.

It caused Bucky’s breathing to turn so difficult that he thought he might actually suffocate, but he didn’t. He might be close to choking on his own spit though at priest’s forgiving words several times, words of redemption, a chance on it only proven by a mysterious man building miracles by a flick of a hand.

“You were a victim, James. Just like anybody else,” the Father explained his point of view slowly and with patience battling the one of saints themselves. “These are not your errors to carry with you like a burden. Forgive yourself. And allow your friend the same thing. I’m sure he could benefit from having someone by his side in a time difficult like this.”

Bucky gulped, looking away as he felt awkward burn in his eyes again, a lump in his throat never disappearing.

“I can’t. At least not yet, I’m-“

The sudden change of atmosphere was palpable, the safe environment carefully created by the priest vanishing at instant as Bucky’s instinct screamed about someone else’s presence in the church – someone else’s besides the God’s servants. His senses tingled, hairs rising at the back of his neck.

“Someone’s coming.”

Father Lantom seemed once again rather unfazed, his gaze shifting to his watch.

“Well, it is after six a.m., James.”

“Father-“ the soldier warned him breathlessly, otherwise rising to his feet soundlessly, sneaking to the door, opening them for a crack to glance at the newcomer that made his heart beat out of his chest.

One peek and he swiftly pressed his back to the wall, his head hitting it with a soft thud, eyes falling shut. Even with eyes closed, he could still feel the priest’s worried gaze.

“James?”

Bucky took a deep breath, arguing with his frantic mind and heart to calm the fuck down.

It was alright. He just needed to get the Father to cause diversion and he would sneak out, making no sound. He excelled at disappearing.

“Go greet him, Father. Don’t tell him a word about having me here. Please.”

The desperate plea was enough to light up a flare of recognition in the priest’s eyes, no matter how hard it made him frown.

He sighed, sounding resigned.

“I cannot do that choice for you, James, even if I wished. I promise to keep quiet.”

Bucky clenched his jaw, squeezed his eyes shut and nodded, beckoning to the other man to move.

The soldier stayed aligned with the wall, waiting for the right moment. It was killing him, freaking him out and yet luring him in, a mess of emotions, memories and possible scenarios of reunion playing out in his head, ranging from a fistfight to a hug even.

He needed to snap out of it.

He wasn’t ready. Not yet.

“Steven. What a nice surprise,” the priest greeted softly and Bucky barely contained the whine drawn to his lips. His hands curled up into fists and he bounced off of the wall, quickly assessing the most secure escape route. ”Do you require my assistance?”

“Not today, Father Lantom, but thank you.”

It was like a slap to Bucky’s face, a punch to his gut, hearing Steve’s voice; the melancholy in it and the burden he was never supposed to carry only making it worse.

For a second, Bucky wavered, faltering in his steps. His friend – former friend, still, his best friend – was right behind that door, needing someone and hurting and what was Bucky doing? Running away, like a coward?

“Are you alright?” the punk continued, expression concern for the not-exactly-older man and that was it. He caught a scent of something fishy right away.

Bucky’s mind yelled at him to get the hell out. His gaze returned to the door leading to a chamber and bathroom, hoping to find a small window. He crossed the distance in long quick steps.

“Yes, Steven, thank you. I simply have another troubled soul in the back room...”

Bucky slipped through the other door, finding what he wished for – an escape route. As he opened the window, taking care not to make the tiniest sound, Steve’s voice was slowly fading away.

“Don’t let me disturb you then, Father.”

By the time Father Lantom returned to the chamber, James Buchannan Barnes was gone. The priest only sighed in resignation; he more than half-expected it would come to that. He only hoped that the troubled soldier would find his way back eventually.

༻༺༻༺༻ღ༺༻༺༻༺

Part 15

༻༺༻༺༻ღ༺༻༺༻༺

So… am I? Forgiven? Please? I prooooomise the Steve/reader reunion will take place in the next chapter and it might actually be worth the wait ;)

Thank you for reading!

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rjhpandapaws · 4 years ago

Text

A Cup of Something Better

Ch 12: A Weekend with Sumo

Connor was excited to be staying over at Hank’s to help with Sumo. Friday night they didn’t get up to a whole lot. Connor arrived around seven; fed Sumo, took him for a walk and then fell asleep on the couch. When Connor woke up Saturday morning he saw he had a good night text from Hank that he had missed, so before he got up for the day he sent a reply.

Connor: Good morning Hank :) I hope you had a good flight.

Sumo heard him move and sat up enough to rest his big head on the couch. Connor smiled and reached out to pet his head, “Good morning to you too bud. Let’s get you some breakfast. A little later we’ll go to the park.” The Saint Bernard perked up at the word ‘breakfast’ and made a b-line for the kitchen. Connor couldn’t help but let out a slight chuckle and got up to follow the excited dog. He fed Sumo and went about making his own breakfast. He’d been surprised to find the note on the counter last night that had said Hank had bought groceries so he wouldn’t have to worry about it. Connor had planned to go grocery shopping today. He got out what he would need for French Toast and started cooking. When Sumo finished his breakfast he came to sit beside Connor and begged for scraps. It didn’t take long for Connor to give in, he tore off a chunk of piece of bread and gave it to Sumo after he had followed the signed command to lay down. It was going to be a long weekend if Connor didn’t get over his puppy eye weakness soon.

He finished making his breakfast and put the dirty dishes in the sink. He made his way to the dining room table and Sumo followed close behind in hopes of getting more scraps. Connor took a seat at the table and Sumo placed his big head in Connor’s lap and stared up at him with wide sad brown eyes. “I can’t feed you anymore or your dad will get mad at me.” Sumo let out a huff, “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to make you sick or get in trouble.” Sumo let out another huff and inched his big body closer to Connor. The brunette had tried his best to ignore him, but by the time breakfast had ended Connor had given Sumo two more bites of bread and an bite of scrambled eggs. His weak will once again crumbling under the weight of Sumo’s puppy eyes. “No more for the rest of the weekend.” he told the dog as he did the dishes. Sumo just boofed at him, they both knew he was lying. He let Sumo out to go to the bathroom, and when he came back inside Connor settled on the couch to get some studying done, he wanted to get ahead on his classes. It was early afternoon when he decided to pack Sumo into Hank’s car and headed for the park. It was nice out and Connor had plans to stay for a few hours or at least until Sumo wanted to go home.

He found a place to park, grabbed the toys he brought for Sumo and got out. He walked around the car, put the lead on Sumo and let him out of the car. They walked around the park for a couple of laps. Sumo stopped on the path just as curious about the green eyed black cat on a walking harness and lead as Connor was. The man attached to the cat cleared his throat. “Pretty cool huh?” The man said with a smile to his voice, “You can take a picture if you want. Also, I love your dog.” Connor took out his phone and snapped a picture of the cat while the stranger did the same with Sumo. It was one of those moments of a picture being taken only seconds before disaster. The black cat had soon decided that she’d had enough of having a big dog in her face and sat back on her haunches to smack Sumo in the face. Once was all it took for Sumo to cower behind Connor, who was doing his best not to laugh as he tried to soothe him by petting his head. He heard the stranger begin to lecture his cat. “God Franklyn, why are you always such a bitch? This is why you have no friends.” Connor looked up to find him holding the cat in his hands so that they were eye level while he lectured her. A reverse Lion King king of thing, “He was just trying to say hello.”

With his cat sufficiently lectured, he turned his attention to Connor, “I’m so sorry about that.” Connor shook his head with a slight smile, “It’s no problem. You didn’t know she was going to do that.” “Fair enough.” The stranger conceded. They both moved on with their walks. Sumo crossed over to the other side of Connor when they had to pass Franklyn. When they had finished their walk and Connor had found a bench to relax at, he sent the picture to Hank.

Connor: I hope you are having a good day :)

Hank <3: It’s going about as good as one of these can Hank <3: I have to leave in a few and I’ll be hit and miss for the rest of the day.

Connor: Alright. Connor: Good luck with your speech! :P

Connor put his phone away and played fetch with Sumo until the Saint Bernard came to lay at his feet and refused to give up the tennis ball. They stayed at the bench until Sumo was willing to move. Then they headed back to the house. Now that he wasn’t as exhausted and he had the time, Connor cleaned up his makeshift bed from the living room and moved his things to the guest room. When that was finished he looked through the fridge and got things out to start on a late lunch. He decided to make a grilled turkey sandwich and Sumo stuck close to his side to beg for scraps.

“I’m not supposed to give you people food.” He said when he glanced down at Sumo, “Your dad will get upset with me and I won’t be allowed to come stay with you anymore.” Connor didn’t actually believe Hank would be that strict with it, but he needed some kind of outside motivator not to feed Sumo. He finished making the sandwich and moved to the dining table with Sumo all but underfoot. The moment he sat down the Saint Bernard glued himself to Connor and begged for food. Connor did his best not to look at him because he knew the moment he looked down it would all be over and Sumo would be getting some turkey. Lunch passed without an incident which gave Connor’s bride a boost. The brunette spent the next couple hours working on Sign Commands with Sumo. He went over the ones he already knew and tried to get him to learn the ones from last week. When evening rolled around Connor fed Sumo and started cooking spaghetti for himself. When it was done he sent a picture of it Hank as well as one of Sumo who was waiting for him by the dining table. Dinner passed without Connor giving in, mostly because of the fact that he knew dogs couldn’t have tomatoes. After dinner was done and the dishes were cleaned Connor sat on the couch with Sumo sprawled out beside him. He clicked onto the profile Hank had made for him on his Netflix and found a true crime show to watch. He got absorbed in it and continued to absently pet Sumo.

He was scared out of his half asleep stupor by his phone ringing. Both he and Sumo jolted upright, and the large dog let out a single loud bark as Connor dug around for his phone. When he found it he was surprised to see Hank’s name on the screen. He blew through his shock and answered it immediately. “Hank?” Connor asked in a rush, “Is everything okay?” “Connor?” Hank slurred. He’d been drinking apparently and was either already drunk or well on his way there. “ ‘Nor ar’ya there?” “I’m here Hank.” He reached out to calm Sumo who was still agitated from earlier, “What’s wrong?” Connor hated to immediately assume that something was wrong, but he couldn’t think of a positive reason as to why Hank would be calling him of all people while drunk. “Ezra is here.” Hank said surprisingly clear, “She’s th�� key fuckin speaker. They’re hav’n me intr’duce my own ex fiance.” Ah, so that was the problem. Hank’s excitement over getting invited to speak at the convention had gotten over shadowed by a ghost from his past. A ghost he still had feelings for if the drunken phone call was anything to go by. Connor buried the hurt that was threatening to pry his chest open and spoke, praying his voice was level when he did. They were only friends, if Hank still loved Ezra that was none of his business. “You’re just introducing her right?” He said slowly so that Hank would have an easier time understanding him, “If you don’t have to talk to her, just introduce her and be on your way. That would be the easiest way to do it.”

Hank hummed on the other end of the line and Connor couldn’t tell if it was because he was thinking or because he was having problems staying awake, “That shoul’ work. I jus’ hope she’ll stay away fr’m me.” So it wasn’t left over feelings. The relief that flooded Connor’s chest was closely followed by guilt. Something about this situation had pushed Hank to drink. As much as he wanted to ask about it, he wouldn’t because Hank wasn’t in a state to give a coherent answer and it was none of his business. Who Ezra was and what she had done didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was helping Hank get through it. “How was the convention today?” Connor asked in hopes of distracting Hank. “It was good. I didn’t have to talk to day s’ I listened to a few of the others ‘nd walked around.” Hank let out another hum that sounded a little more tired than the first, it was nearing midnight in Michigan so Connor could relate, “What did you an’ Sumo do today?” Connor smiled as he pet Sumo. “We went to the park and met a cat named Franklyn as well as the person that belongs to her. Played fetch for a little bit and then came back home. I tried teaching him the Sign Commands again and that went about as well as you would expect.” He heard Hank give a soft sound on the other end of the line. “Now we’re watching tv and talking with you.” Connor turned his head away from the phone to muffle a yawn.

Hank let out another tired hum, “Alright I’mma go t’ sleep. I’m g’na be fuckin hungover tomorrow.” “Sleep well Hank.” Connor said with a slight smile. “You too Con.” Hank responded before hanging up. Connor stared blankly at the tv for a few moments before he stood up to let Sumo out. His thoughts kept cycling back to Ezra. What had she done, that just introducing her would prompt Hank to drink himself into a stupor? Something had to have happened. Hank, according to his own words, had been doing better; only having a glass or two of whiskey on the good nights. So something had brought him to this, and Connor couldn’t be there to help. Sumo pulled Connor out of his head by brushing up against him when he walked back into the house. Connor shut the door behind Sumo and sighed as he headed to get ready for bed. He had work Monday morning and his classes started Tuesday evening, so this was his last weekend to relax. When he was ready for bed he climbed into the guest bed and invited Sumo up with him. His worried kept him awake for a while, but Sumo’s snoring soothed him into a light sleep. Despite his late night, Connor found himself awake early Sunday morning. He stayed in bed and stared at the ceiling until Sumo decided it was time to get up. He let Sumo out and put the food in his dish while he was outside. When that was done and he was waiting for Sumo to come inside he texted Hank.

Connor: Good morning Hank Connor: Don’t forget to drink water and take some pain pills Connor: You had a rough night :)

Sumo came back inside so Connor shut the door and put his food dish down. With Sumo taken care of Connor got started on his own breakfast, a veggie omelet with cheese and a couple slices of toast. Sumo finished his breakfast and came to sit beside Connor while he cooked. Connor looked down at Sumo with a slight smile. “You got over here too late bud. There isn’t anything for me to give you.” He said as he got back to cooking. They went through the usual breakfast routine of Connor eating and Sumo pressed as close as possible begging for food. He caved and gave Sumo a couple of bites of his omelet. They sat on the couch and watched tv for a couple of hours. Connor was getting ready to take Sumo for a walk when his phone chimed from his pocket.

Hank <3: I am SO sorry Connor! Hank <3: I don’t remember much of last night, but I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable.

Connor: Don’t worry about it :) Connor: You just needed some company Connor: It happens to the best of us

Hank <3: Thanks Con Hank <3: Have a good rest of your day

Connor: You too Hank :)

Connor put Sumo on his lead and headed out the door. He let Sumo take charge since he probably knew his way around the neighborhood better than Connor did. They were out for about an hour and both he and Sumo flopped onto the couch. Connor turned the tv on and stayed like that until his body decided it was time to have lunch. He give Sumo a little extra food as well to keep him occupied while Connor cooked. He decided on having a grilled tuna wrap and tomato soup. He had the soup on one burner and the innards for his wrap on the other. As soon as Sumo finished eating he came to lean against Connor’s leg as he cooked. He looked down at Sumo and smiled. “This isn’t for you bud.” Connor said in a gentle tone, “You’ve already had your lunch, this is mine.” Sumo huffed at him and Connor laughed quietly. He finished cooking the insides for his wrap and put them in the tortilla, rolled it and then took the time to cook the outside as well before he put it on the plate. He checked the soup and added a little more seasoning before putting some into a bowl. He headed to the table with Sumo close on his tail as usual. He managed to make it through lunch without feeding Sumo. He did the dishes and put the left over soup away. Connor would make something for dinner to go with it. After lunch he tried to teach Sumo the Sign Commands again. It went a little better today, he seemed to finally recognize a couple of them. They did that for a couple hours before Sumo gave up and laid down. Connor put the tv back on and stayed like that until Sumo decided it was dinner time.

Connor let the large dog out then got his food ready and set the dish on the counter. He messaged Hank to check in.

Connor: Just checking in! Connor: I hope your speech went well :)

Sumo came back in and Connor put his dish down. Connor was feeling pretty exhausted from his long night and decided that reheating the soup from lunch would be good enough. He put the remaining portion in a bowl and put that in the microwave to cook. Sumo came to lean against him again and Connor reached down to pet him. “No cooking tonight bud, I’m not feeling it.” He said and Sumo huffed not seeming to mind all that much since he was getting attention. He grabbed a spoon when the microwave went off and took the bowl to the table. Sumo made a passive attempt at begging but Connor didn’t feed him. Hank had sent a reply by the time Connor had finished dinner.

Hank <3: Thank you! The speech went well :)

Connor: That’s great

Hank <3: How was your day?

Connor: Pretty good Connor: We went for a walk and practiced commands again Connor: I have work in the morning though, so I’m going to call it a night

Hank <3: Sleep well

Connor: You too Hank :)

He let Sumo out one last time before he got ready for bed. He set his alarm for early the next morning so he wouldn’t have to rush. He wouldn’t have to call a cab either he had permission to use Hank’s car. tomorrow would be a busy day; he had work in the morning, then around three-thirty he would need to leave so he could be on time to the airport to pick up Hank. He climbed into bed, Sumo hopped up beside him and it didn’t take him ling after that to fall asleep. His alarm went off at its set time and he was glad it was set to a softer song, he didn’t think he could handle one of Sumo’s full volume barks first thing in the morning. He got up and got dressed for work. He let Sumo out, fed him, and made a couple pieces of toast for breakfast. Sumo stared at him with wide eyes like usual, begging for toast and Connor chuckled. “You’ll beg for anything, won’t you bud.” He said with a smile curling at his lips, “I’m not gonna share this with you, I need the energy for work.” Sumo just huffed and oved closer. Connor finished his toast and showed Sumo his empty hands. The big dog huffed again and headed for the living room. Connor finished getting ready for work, let Sumo out one last time, and then texted Hank before he left.

Connor: Have a safe flight. I’ll be there to pick you up when you land :)

The drive to work was relatively uneventful. He turned the radio on and nearly scared the soul out of his body when heavy metal rolled to life out of the speakers. He turned the radio off as soon as he collected himself enough to move and drove the rest of the way in silence. His shift went by without incident. Macchiato Guy came in, and Connor was reminded of the guy from the park who had been walking his cat. Richard also came in so that was pretty nice. When he got off work, he drove back to Hank’s house and let Sumo out as soon as he got back. He made himself a quick lunch by microwaving what was left of the spaghetti. After he ate he did the dishes, pack his things and cleaned up around the house so it looked neat again. When it came close to time to leave he put his bag in the trunk and then went back to grab Sumo. He was pretty sure Hank would be excited to see Sumo when he got back. Before he left he messaged Hank again.

Connor: On my way! See you soon.

He didn’t expect a reply and he didn’t get one. The plan they had come up with was that Connor would pick Hank up at the airport, then drive back to his complex, and from there Hank would drive himself home. Sumo laid down in the back seat and the drive was quiet. He drove around for a bit until he found a parking place that was somewhat close to where Hank had said his exit gate was. He messaged Hank and cracked the windows for Sumo while they waited.

Connor: I’m here :) let me know when you land.

Connor turned in the driver’s seat so he could pet Sumo and passed the time that way. It didn’t feel like all that long before his phone went off. Hank had sent a picture of his baggage claim trolley as well as one of the marked entrances near him. Connor was pretty proud of his self for managing to park relatively close.

Hank <3: Just waiting on bags Hank <3: You can come in if you want

Connor smiled at his phone. He cracked the windows a little more, told Sumo to stay and made his way inside. He followed the signs until he found the one that matched the picture on his phone. He found Hank pretty easily after that, due to his unique taste in shirts. “How was California?” Connor asked once he had gone to stand beside Hank. “You know, most people start with hello, right?” Hank shot hack but smiled at Connor anyway, “It was good. How was Sumo?” “He was good. He seemed to like that I didn’t have anywhere to be for two days.” Connor replied as the trolley started up, “He was very cuddly.” “I’ll bet he was.” Hank said half heartedly with most of his attention now on the baggage trolley as he looked for his. Connor looked too, though he wasn’t much help since he didn’t know what the bag looked like and Hank was too focused to answer him when he asked.

It took about ten minutes to get the bag and once they had it they headed for the car. Watching as Hank lit up when he saw Sumo was what made Connor’s day. Hank rushed to put his bag in the trunk and then opened the back passenger side door so he could shower the massive dog with affection. It seemed like Hank had missed Sumo as much as the big dog had missed him. “Surprise.” Connor said with a broad grin. Hank straightened up so he could look at Connor over the roof of the car, “You’re the best.” Connor ducked his head and smiled as he opened the driver’s side door, “I figured you’d like to see him without having to wait until you got home.” He heard Hank close Sumo’s door and it was a short time later before he got in, “Thanks for that Con.” Connor smiled and pulled out of the parking spot, “It’s no problem Hank.” They fell into a comfortable silence after that. Connor had a million questions about the convention, but Hank didn’t look like he wanted to talk about it. There was still something heavy in his eyes despite his best efforts to make it seem like everything was alright. Part of Connor wanted to press, but now wasn’t the time to be nosey. If Hank wanted him to know, he would have told him. They arrived at Connor’s apartment complex about a half hour later and the brunette parked in his rarely used space. “Thanks for letting me look after Sumo.” He said, turning to Hank with a kind smile, “I’ll do it again whenever you need me to.”

“I should be thanking you Con,” Hank argued. “The trip was so much easier knowing that he was in good hands.” “I’m glad I could help.” Connor replied before they both got out. Hank made his way to the driver’s side and Connor walked around the car to say his goodbye to Sumo before he grabbed his bag. He waved to Hank one last time before he headed up to his apartment. He unpacked his things, got what he would need for his classes together, and decided to veg out on the couch a bit before bed. After a couple of hours he decided to call it a night early again so he would have enough energy for his work and classes tomorrow. He sent a good night text to Hank.

Connor: Good night :)

Hank <3: Sleep well Con.

#A Cup of Something Better #CSB #hankcon #hannor #dbh hankcon #dbh hank x connor #dbh hannor #dbh hank #dbh hank anderson #hank anderson #d:bh hank #dbh connor #d:bh connor #connor rk800

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stoplookingatmeblog · 3 years ago

Text

twenty-one

It was around that time that all my friends went to work in different chapters of what you can call ‘the filming industry’. P-G shot beer adverts which used some kinds of robotics to get the right shot, flip the bottle right, and then slept with this girl who offered him a paid internship in managing pretty much everything on sets of a bunch of movies, ads and whatnot. My own mother, finally getting out of the convenient but unemancipated housewife life, got a job in supervising the shoot - making sure the costumes were right, the scenography, all that stuff. It was pretty much, you could call it, the time of Life On Set Then - everywhere you went, ads, movies, Netflix series, all of it wrapped up in fake police ‘do not cross’ kind of tape, horses and knights from our beer-bottles riding the streets, and the catering busses with food that was (mother told me) ‘absolute horeshit’. Whatever. The time was of living in a reality created for money, by money, with money, because of money, giant heaps of money, distributed unequally (of course) to all my student friends who didn’t even need the money except for that feel of ‘life on their own’.

I didn’t have a job. Before not working, I worked a couple of cafes, restaurants and the like. That was the vibe. I hated it. Each time I began working in one of these places, I ended up sleeping with someone (first time a guy, and then a girl or woman that was honestly too old for me) and that I hoped marked the end of relationship with gastronomy for me. So I didn’t work, deciding not to decide what to do next, not putting myself on the road to one kind of future or another. I didn’t want life to go anywhere directed. I thought about writing but then I thought about the seriousness and stiffness of writing, whether or not it’s a purely natural act, all that, and decided on trying to squeeze the last drops of childhood (it was adolescence, but adolescence is really a final sigh of childhood) and live what was left of the kid-life to the fullest.

I was twenty-one years old.

A group of friends convinced me to go with them surfing (on my parents’ money), to Victoria, a place which location doesn’t really matter, except that I thought, and still do, that the spot is an actual a piece of heaven on earth. A nearly imaginary point on the increasingly smaller map of this melting planet. My age, too, was melting away like icecream - not having a job and surfing in Victoria, like a teenage pimple, some place that popped up and presented itself in its complete and vulgar form and purpose that you initially didn’t believe and then wept after at that airport because you could never come back. It was an actual speck of heaven on the map.

Even though everyone was younger than us - four of us, me, P-G, J, and Stone (the last one, a tired intellectual I could never get tired of, except you could see he was really both bored and exhausted by being born and living as himself. And his nickname surprisingly not derived from the astronomical amounts of weed he smoked but his actual god-given surname (which he thought of changing, because of his father) - even though everyone who came to Victoria was younger than us by something like three or four years, we surprisingly didn’t have trouble at least getting along, and at most sleeping with girls there. It was even more grand in that way, even if absolutely not true, when you saw yourself in their eyes as someone older and somehow experienced, who somehow kept going on, and somehow knew what was going on. The same lie made most of us, (excluding me, as I mentioned) get a job around that time. In movies and advertisements, with no creative input or control, but like actors that nobody knew about, playing their own invented parts backstage.

I was twenty-one years old and completely aware of both how small and how big that was. I knew about the kinds of things I probably should be doing and that’s why I sometimes did them, for a minute putting my feet into that creek too, but most of the time staying at the bank and just watching. I knew what being twenty-one meant, so I decided to sit back and watch it.

My friends all surfed a lot, which would normally bother me because I did it only for the first week of our month-long stay, but quickly dropped it and decided to stay at the beach and read, and drink and look at some really beautiful girls who passed me by, and for once enjoy that stranger-life. By the second week, after seeing in a restaurant a shirt with a ‘SeXsurfing ‘00’ inscription on it (‘00 being the year we were born, which made us inspect our parents’ lifelines to check for the possibility that at that time some of them were in Victoria), and in the twenty-one-year-old drunk epiphanius inspiration, all four of us decided that we would lead the ‘SeXsurfing ‘21’ lifestyle, not thinking about the ‘42 and the ‘63 and all that shit.

I wasn’t the most successful one when it came to girls, but I can say that the stories I had with them were the most absurd and worthy of telling. Even though it was J who (and he too asked himself why in the world that was) was able to talk with someone new every evening, somehow perhaps betraying my unwanted by nonetheless existing monogamous attachment, I slept with only one girl over the course of the last week, picking her up (or perhaps her picking me up) through a conversation about our shared borderline-sociopathic or rebellious outlook on reality. That was very twenty-one.

Our first meeting (like every meeting since) was going to one of the three tourist shops on the beach and stealing something. And that too was very twenty-one. We were rich enough (our parents were) and far away from home enough to do all that. And we were both young and beautiful enough to want a mugshot we could keep from an arrest by a Victoria Police County Jail or whatever it might have been called. We were never caught but we did steal something every day, and then get drunk in the evening, and then fuck in the night. While my friends had these singular, although beautiful, encounters I would drunkenly burst into the closed restaurant with my temporary girl-friend, steal absolutely vile icecream from the fridge, and then play chess with her on the hotel rooftop at four AM.

The four of us were twenty-one years old and born in the year 2000 which in the same way made sense - our lives were easy to calculate, clearly-definededly started, and even if they had to end with no thing coming back or being repeated, the twenty-one points we scored didn’t mean anything except the joyride and experiment, and meaningless game that it was. We were taking our shot at living, taking our shot at playing, and even when we didn’t win, it still didn’t mean anything. We lived on our parents’ money, or on advertisement money, or cafe-sleep-with-someone-there-and-then-leave-because-you-don’t-need-money money, all of it a mystification, but that those twenty-one years led to nothing we suddenly did not care.

Well, and then being woken up by the police, although surprisingly not because of the icecream dream but for the crime of sleeping in a hammock on the dunes which (I learned) was territory of both the military and part of some natural park.

What made me go home with something in the end were the conversations we had at that time, and in particular the conversations with Stone. Like me, Stone had a feeling of injustice done to him by his family, not having a real father and hanging down on the tired gray hair of our housewife mothers and all, and it made us connect on a level we didn’t with either P-G or J, who were most often busy surfing or thinking about the jobs they had or would one day have, and the girls they met that weren’t my girls so I didn’t care that much.

Stone kept affirming that both of us (although him in particular) were in possession of superior intelligence, which I instinctively tried to discourage him from saying (because I didn’t like sucking my own dick like that), but nonetheless accepted as at least potentially or partially true. In my case, it was not intelligence that me connect with Stone but some kind of a shared understanding of what was going on, that we were twenty-one and what that meant, like a filthy two-pigeon flock of pigeons flying above the waves, knowing the fact of the creature swimming underneath the surface. I thought, and still do, it had to do largely with coming from an unhappy or non-existent family, which really makes you understand that all you do, with even the most meaningful and beautiful things, is just this game that you play but holds no particular meaning beyond it. That and that love, no matter how beautiful or true, can slip away from you like shit.

‘It is completely lonely’, he said one night as we chugged down the bottles of beer drunk rich kids left behind running away from the police - bottles half-empty to me and I think half-full for him, but I still haven’t quite figured that one out, ‘Because you never really see things the way the rest of them do, and each conversation almost the same, you begin to think the only way to be is to be alone’

I agreed. I usually did, being aware that he was slightly more intelligent than me.

‘Back when I was in the Institute, they told me I would have problems with getting out of relationships with people what other people get from other people because what I want is to be understood and that is problematic when you think you want it but also think it’s impossible to ever understand anything’

I too thought you could never understand anything, but had a sense he perhaps only said it to keep me on the same page. Stone chugged down another half-full beer and kept talking. I stayed silent, in part because I would probably say the same things he did.

‘When I was seventeen and worked in a factory, I gained a sort of awareness of how my life would look like’

‘What kind of a factory?’, I asked

‘A cake factory, I would work in the hot section and pull out cakes out of the oven and then fill some of them with cherry, and some of them with apple-cinnamon. And then, because I was seventeen and my work was fundamentally illegal you could say, they’d let me work in the cold section in the night, and I applied sugar coating on these doughnuts, you know’

‘Yeah’

‘And then wrap them up in plastic covering, you know’

‘Yeah, yeah’

‘when the coating was dry, and send them to another section of the factory. And so over and over.’

‘So, what does your life look like because of that, do you think?’

‘I don’t know…’, he took a puff from one of the cigarette butts we found that night in the ashtray, ‘... I guess working in the factory was a kind of almost psychedelic experience that really made me aware what my attitude towards suicide is. You’re young, and you step into that thing, and you do those things because you want to, you don’t need to. Well, you might need to but the need is still your choice, it isn’t honed into your life like… Like I recognised at some point that each cake I filled with the stuffing or coated was an expression of the same kind of thing I did when I smoked weed (a lot), or drunk (a lot) or had sex. That, ultimately, I would never be able to not think about it.’

‘I mean, I think the position we are in - if I understand you correctly - of being relatively well-off - I mean our parents - would make you unable to really plunge into anything that you’re doing, right? Because you ultimately don’t have to do anything, like, really, like here, you always sort of treat it as a game’

‘Not even a game’, he said, and the sun was already slowly creeping up the mountain in front of the shop where we were sitting, ‘But just not a challenge. Because of our intellect, both yours and mine, the only challenge you really face is whether to continue being or not, and the rest is just, you know, stuffing these cakes. But that decision, you know The Myth of The Sisyphus?’

I did.

‘Yeah, so that decision you have to and always will have to make fundamentally alone. And so either go and work - work in any kind of way and do those things and hand them over to others to complete them and you don’t really ask questions (but we can’t do that, neither you nor I) or you step out of the factory and face the living sun, like you’re definitely going to feel after we leave this place, and decide whether you’re more happy alone or with others, or whether you want to keep on handing things to others or not, and all that.’

‘I mean this is the reason I think people shouldn’t have children - I’ve written a piece about it, you should definitely read it - because it’s kind of like juggling with a hot potato and handing it to someone else, so that they have to confront these questions, instead of you, but what you really do is give up.’

At that point I don’t think I understood his cake factory metaphor or didn’t want to believe that I did in the fear that it wasn’t very profound.

‘So what do you think you’d like to actually do?, if you could pick anything at all?’

‘I don’t know’, again inhaling another cigarette butt and handing one to me. And the sun almost rolled its own boulderous weight to the top of the mountain. ‘I think I would like to have a family, especially since meeting May (he was the only one of out SeXsurfing quartet with a girlfriend), I started thinking that maybe I can, and I’m recognising this, give someone something that my father never gave me, hoping to do it right this time’

‘Yeah, I mean that’s literally the ending of my book - have I told you already I’ve written a book? - that the main character thinks he can do it right this time and he of course fucks it up, but I don’t know if I still think that. You know, life is sometimes surprising.’

‘Exactly’, he exalted the smoke, and the sun, previously rolling up the mountain to sunrise, seemed to have fallen back again to the bottom of the mountain, and began its journey anew.

‘I mean, when I was seventeen I worked in a factory…’

‘What kind of a factory?’

‘A psychedelic cake factory’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I worked in this factory and I worked in the hot section and my job was to take the cakes out of the oven and then pump them full of acid, or pot, or sex, or anything you could get your hands on. I guess it was illegal, but then again I was seventeen so my work was all fundamentally illegal.’

‘Where did the cakes later go?’

‘Later? Well in the factory I sent them to another section that I never really saw, but later later to homes, parties, rich people who really wanted to try the kind of stuff their kids were taking, I guess’, he chuckled, ‘It’s interesting, I wonder if my father ever tried one. Maybe in some alternative universe or something. Maybe he ate it and became like me, and dropped everything and went to work in a factory and in that reality they stuffed the cakes with shit like cherry and coated them with sugar, you know, maybe that was the right reality, and later he dropped that job, and went outside of the factory, and made the choice and threw himself under a bus or something.’

‘The right reality.

Maybe.’

Lou from the restaurant (the SeXsufring tshirt we found was in that restaurant) was the kind of man you’d always want to be. We travelled to him for dinner hitchhiking from the beach, in twos, usually P-G and J, and then me and Stone, around seven, or all together if we could sit in the trunk of the car when we travelled in one of the rich-kid rented cabrios, and you would feel the day (same day, every day) a winding road under our feet (like gods, treading on forever) cutting through the mountains and the sunset rolling his boulder somewhere and when you finished eating you’d lie down on the warm good night asphalt with a can and listen to music on one of our phones and wait for someone to take you back to the beach.

But gods that we were, Lou from the restaurant was the kind of man you’d always want to be. It was always a show, too. He would come by people’s tables (our table in particular, because he knew and we knew), this enormous older man dressed in a white sweaty shirt with eyes that looked blind but saw everything, and told us stories about all that he knew, which was pretty much the town, and the town hall, and the restaurant, and everything. And the girls also came there to eat, and everyone too. And everyone knew Lou from the restaurant.

I always ordered things I could not afford because P-G and J were always happy to lend me money, so I ate octopuses and steaks, and everything was everything you’d ever want to eat. There were half-blind, strangely-speckled cats that roamed under the tables, not even expecting guests’ dinner cat-food enjoying the company, like we did, and there were kid cats and mother cats and they would fight on the backdrop of the white-painted summer trees, and some girls would say the cats’ were really poor and imply their lives were wretched and miserable to which I would reply with something like natural selection and they would say that’s a horrible thing to say and then all of us would bite into the steaks that Lou brought us.

After P-G asked him to tell us his version of the legends we heard of from the girls, about his old restaurant, and how someone ruined it and how the paradise moved from Victoria to this new town (I don’t know the name, but it was simply Lou’s town), and it seemed like god himself was telling us the story, dusting it off, driving away the spiders and the snakes, an old book or a chapter in a book that everyone on the beach talked about but it seemed nobody actually heard. Except the four of us.

‘Well so you know I’m really electrician’, he began, ‘but at one moment I tell my wife - let’s build restaurant. So I go to the town hall, here’, and he pointed to a building not ten meters away, ‘and the auction close at 12, I go in at 11:56 and the price is 12000 and I go in and say 60000. So I get the restaurant and everyone crazy and angry at me but I have it.’, I cut out the portion of the steak and chewed on it orgasmically. Everything Lou cooked was good as hell. ‘So I build restaurant…’

‘But not here, right, on the beach?’, P-G, who heard most versions of the story interrupted

‘Yes, the beach. So I build restaurant and first year I make so much money I put it in…’, his broken eyes and mad half-blind english were both looking for the word, ‘like bags, plastic bags, trash bags, and it is so much I count it then in winter, because I have no time in summer. So it is good, so much money, going great. And then in year two thousand and… two thousand just, maybe, I go away for holiday and they call me “your restaurant is destroyed”, I say “no you’re kidding me”, and they say “no, no, they burn restaurant down, come back”. So I come back, and true, the restaurant is destroyed, and you cannot build it again because the law that was there changed so you cannot build now.’, as he was telling the story, Lou’s eyes stayed monotonously bland, bright and staring somewhere beyond. A true restaurateur, he never stopped looking at what was going on at the other tables so at that point he stood up, saying ‘I finish the story in moment’, and went to take care of something in the kitchen.

Then when he finally came back, he said:

‘So where was I now tell me.’

‘Your restaurant was burned down when you were out of the country’, I reminded him

‘Yes. So I move here and build new restaurant, and it is small but people come like before and they even fight for to eat, and they ask “you finished already, let us eat”, and my restaurant again now is doing well, very well, and people come, and still I don’t have space, but people come’

‘And is it going better or worse than in the previous location?’, P-G asked

‘No, there there was more money but here is good. Very good.’, he waved his grubby big hand at all the tables packed with people, girls, others like us. And he laughed with his tongue flying up and down in his mouth in a way some people find repulsive, but to us it was Lou from the restaurant, and Lou from the restaurant could honestly laugh in whichever goddamn way he pleased.

‘Ok, I’m sorry but I have to go again, the people’, he pointed to the kitchen, ‘don’t know what they do’

Our twenty-one year old quartet replied ‘of course, of course’, in unison and for a while we sat there chewing our steaks, and fish and octopus, and another steak, silently, only saying a couple of words of admiration for Lou from the restaurant, the man you’d always want to be.

‘There are snakes and scorpions here’, P-G told me one time we went to the more rocky part of the dunes near where our tent was pitched. ‘So we have to be super careful, especially during the day. In the night they sleep in their wretched little caves or among the rocks, they won’t bother us in our sleep.’

But they will bother us when we’re awake, or when we think we are, but are someplace else, like Lou from the restaurant who went for holidays. You stop paying attention to what is slithering or crawling in the sand and one time as you are looking for a nice and fresh cigarette butt lost in the sand, BAM, and you are dead, like that (Lou’s grubby old hand falling down on the wooden table with a thud).

We were twenty-one years young and on holidays from either a job in advertising or not yet having a job in advertising, and there were girls and waves, and sand, and scorpions, and it was all a joyride so we didn’t really think about that. Well, to be honest, not much could go wrong - another day, like groundhog day, would be more or less the same, always better and better and better. And the shrinking, melting map - warmer and warmer and warmer.

The worst that could happen, we knew, was the police coming in and chasing us away from the dunes (because it was both military grounds and a national park at the same time). But that wasn’t that bad, after all, it was police in paradise, and we felt so much love for them as we did for the scorpios and the snakes and it was just impossible for them to not love us back.

Well, hen one day it happened. It was after I woke up with her, for the first time in two weeks sleeping in an actual bed, but more importantly for the first time in perhaps a year sleeping with a warm body next to my heart, next to me, in my hands, falling asleep with my lip still in her teeth. I woke up in the morning and having the bare level of awareness of my state, that I must stink and will not be fun to be around in the morning (although the fresh air made hangovers impossible - what can I say, it was paradise), I decided to go back to the our camp on the dunes and sleep off the night in a hammock I usually inhabited.

There were usually some locals (working in restaurants and the shops I stole flip-flops from) who like devils crawled out in the night and tried to party with the twenty-one year old us, drinking our booze and smoking our smokes, so when the white-poloed guy woke me up like bad sunrise saying ‘Police, wake up, police’, in sly english and a broken smile, my instinctive reaction was to reply with a classic ‘Shut the fuck up, you’re not police’, but after seeing one of them who definitely was police, with a uniform and gun and all, I complied with their request for my ID and let them write me a pink slip of paper demanding a fine so astronomic that none of them could not possibly believe I’d actually pay it. A younger policeman (also not uniformed) asked me what happened to my neck and, explaining a bruise that could only look like a love bite (and indeed it was), I replied that I was bitten by a wild animal (and indeed I was). He said that with that bruise-like love bite and a half-unbuttoned shirt I looked like a ‘star, rock star, you know’, and we both laughed, and I decided none of it was that bad after all. He looked like a ‘star, rock star, you know’, as well, slightly unfashionable but at the same time completely incredible in bluish sunglasses, a pink polo shirt and slightly silver but naturally black hair. In Victoria, the snake, too, was quite handsome, and what he ruined, at the end of the day, was only an hour of my sleep.

I met Lou from the restaurant - he saw some creature, and its wretched work, destroying his restaurant, but his bright, half-blind, all-seeing eyes burned with nothing but love. And mine, slowly but surely, started to shimmer with it too. The days, or the same day, grew brighter and brighter, and the nights drunker and drunker and the driving drunk on the beach got faster and faster, and more and more people fitting into one car, with no winding-road end in sight.

There was no hangover in Victoria, but going anywhere in the morning was especially difficult, as if the gravitational force doubled, or thriced, or quadrupled.

Stone, who had an admirable ability to make contact with any kind of an alien species of a person (that I really envied), found himself one night in a conversation with a russian maths student (the Russian started university well before the usual age, he was like 17), and when the next day we asked what the two talked about Stone only said ‘I think we are a week away from merging the theory of relativity with quantum mechanics. But give me another bottle and it will be one day.’

The Russian, Stone told us, was one of the ‘exceptionally intelligent’ ones (which Stone, had the habit of identifying and cataloguing into his set of people ‘worth talking to’). The Russian was younger than us - perhaps sixteen or seventeen, as I mentioned which really gave everything he said an additional benefit of seemingly prodigy-like, but also made Stone wonder whether he was a kind of a father-figure to the exceptionally intelligent maths student, that considering leading Stone to the two days later declaration that it was undoable, stemming from Stone’s own desire to redeem his father’s abusive absence et cetera et cetera.

The Russian was so socially inept, that even I was doing quite well (it was not superior intelligence, that barred me from connecting with others, as Stone asserted). A prodigy, the Russian spoke not just maths and Einstein, but quite good english, french (from my limited knowledge I could confirm also quite good), spanish and bulgarian (which I had absolutely no idea about but he sounded possessed and speaking in tongues when he presented his abilities to us). He could play giftedly most instruments you could think of, but playing, he said, never really excited him. He was one of those kids who know and can do so much they would really rather not do it at all.

Because of our groups’ incidental and unexpected but intense interactions with girls, the Russian treated us with an unjustified reverence, but it was not any kind of envy, with a mind like that you don’t really envy anything except being able to rest from what’s in your head and for once have a good night’s sleep. There is a scene in the movie Beautiful Mind where the main character, a schizophrenic, lays out to a girl he likes, very systematically, astrophysically like, why she should sleep with him. I bet that’s what the Russian would do too in the future.

There is another scene in a movie - Interstellar where a group of astronauts looking for humanity’s potential new home (the map contracting, the world getting small since the year ‘00, now twenty-one, then ‘42 then ‘63, warmer and warmer and warmer), the group of astronauts lands on a planet, of constant, unending sea, sees in the distance what they think is the great mountains of a new found land. After a couple of minutes of advancing towards the mountains, Matthew Mcconaughey says in hollywood style ‘these are not mountains. These are waves’ and the four astronauts have to flee the slowly approaching catastrophic demise of the wave, which, due to a fucked-up gravity on the planet, rose to that catastrophic height.

At six AM, after one of the exceptionally drunk nights, with the sun already in full swing, and the alcoholic gravity fucked-up in their heads, Stone and J went to catch a wave bigger than at any time of the day.

While I was sleeping off the night in the hammock, with God knows what dreams, or maybe even no dreams at all, and P-G tossing and turning in the tent, and Stone and J surfing the morning wave, the Russian sat solemnly and alone on the sunrise beach and looked up at the starless sky, wiped clean by one gigantic white star which at that point (he knew, we didn’t know) was so big and close to the contracting map that it sucked out some of the time and some of the space from the air, making the tide rise more than at any time of the day. He knew why that was and we didn’t know but we were looking at the same thing, the earth getting warmer and warmer and warmer, and the wave growing higher and higher and

And we would sometimes go away from Victoria, to a nearby town where the waves were always bigger and we marvelled at how they whip-cracked, splash-fell and rocked against the concrete-lined shore and drowned the air underneath with all their might, worked it into white foam. He knew and we didn’t, and while we lay down with girls looking into the stars and talking about constellations (only to then laugh about how drunk and absurd it is to think three stars can possibly represent the shape of a great bear or big dipper or any kind of stupid shit like that), The Russian tried to crack the code written in the stars. Looking for a new home for us. The four of us walked the shore and wondered about the origin of colorful pebbles spat out by the lapping magnificent waves, and he could probably tell us everything about each of them, trace lines from each falling star to each stone we cast mindlessly into the sea.

He could explain the shifting realities when the morning came, and why, at seventeen, you have to do certain things and not the others, and now, too, why we did all those things, why we worked in psychedelic factories and sung our hearts out to the bass of the speaker. Why we ran after girls beach-length and back, why we hitchhiked to Lou’s restaurant, why we came to Victoria in the first place, why we had jobs in advertising, why we were twenty-one, but Stone was right about one thing - the Russian was ‘fundamentally alone’

There is another scene in Interstellar, the next one after the giant wave, where Matthew Mcconaughey comes back to the spaceship waiting in the orbit of a water-mountain-these-are-not-mountains planet, discovers that time, tied with an invisible string to the fucked-up gravity) passes differently on the surface of the planet, in its orbit, and in general completely differently back on the contracting earth’s map where he left his children. How old were at the time he left in that movie - I can’t remember, let’s say twenty-one. Having spent only half an hour on the surface, he now plays the received messages from back home and sees his children’s lifetimes growing older and older and older and finally sees them surpassing them in age. He breaks down in tears and I suppose you could say he, too, was ‘fundamentally alone’

The Russian, Stone told us, was taught privately by a tutor who’s line of mathematical origin could be traced all the way to Gauss or someone. He could speak Einstein, french and spanish, and although his tongue got tied in human conversations, one day, as we drank beer on a small patch of grass in front of the local hotel, he proclaimed there was something very important we wanted to tell us. Concluding that the Russian was most definitely possessed by something (you could tell when he spoke bulgarian), we all decided listening would do no harm but at worst would be so incredible that we would not believe it.

‘You guys are now young and strong and you surf and all, but seriously, you have to do sports’, he began, ‘I don’t mean just any sport but something that really puts weight on your muscles. Like rowing or pumping on the bench, you have to train and now prepare for the rest of your life. And cardio, too, it will save you from heart disease and such.’ - and you can imagine mine, our surprise and feeling of absurdity that a being like that was uttering sentences such as these at that moment.

And that was it, the only normal set of words he ever uttered in front of us, which in his mouth was not normal at all - this man, trained by Gauss himself, had one recommendation to us and it was to do sports because it will help us to stay healthy in the future.

In space, the state of weightlessness makes the unused muscles grow weak, and the astronauts have to use the special gym machines installed on their spaceship so that their bodies don’t entropy, and heart is a muscle, too, I think, and I wondered, briefly, after what the Russian told us, if it too can die with no gravity. And it seems that time is a muscle too. It contracts and then it unfolds, it squeezes and releases and lets you breathe and suffocates, and ultimately things seem neither good nor bad but just what they ended up being. Time can definitely die away and fall from you like a dead leaf. Or it can end up a pretty stone under the feet of a giant wave. You don’t feel how it squeezes and unfolds, how it lays you down in a warm bed in the arms of someone you didn’t ever know but who reminds you of everything.

Matthew Mcconaughey - seeing messages from the future, past, present, now, never, always, and breaking down into tears, his heart breaking from weightlessness.

I was twenty one and I knew what it meant.

And in a year I would be twenty two, and in another year twenty three, and in three years twenty four. And the astrology girls, going with us skinny dipping in the midnight water, they will disappear somewhere under the waves and start slowly fading away from our lives like an unused muscle.

J loved quoting this one scene from Matthew Mcconaughey's first movie:

‘You know what I love most about college girls? I get older - they stay the sameeeee age’

And each time he said it, he laughed with the greatest, purest laughter you could find on this now planet.

‘And I got caught one time’

‘For what?’

‘Well, maybe two, but only one time involved the police. Second time. And that was me trying to steal an album, well, it was called Steal This Album’ - I was lying, although I did also steal that album, but having trouble with the police was for an attempted theft of headphones though that didn’t sound as sexy. And for some reason which made me feel real good I was flirting with the most beautiful girl under the good sun by us recounting our thefts both real or invented.

We both quickly settled that we had some borderline immoral thread running through our veins but drew the line at actually killing someone. We were rich and young enough to say those things and be all sexy about it. We knew we didn’t have to steal but arranged we should do it together and some point (‘ok, why not tomorrow?’) and it was beer first, and then flip flops the next and then another day a pink swimming mattress from the backseat of some rich and young and abandoned rented cabrio. And we took it swimming, drunkenly in the night. Rich and young, and full of stars.

We stepped into the calm sea, small waves, shallow, and took off our clothes, most of them, and took our pink stolen mattress against the waves, her covering small breasts with only her hands, our sociopathic personalities meeting somewhere under ridiculous notions of astrology. We kissed, and that was that.

The mattress lay once again abandoned (has someone left the rented cabrio just as we left the shore?) where our friends would say it was ridiculous to steal it. We only stopped kissing when she said we have to look for the damn pink abandoned thing (apparently it was rented by one of her friends) after which we dived deep into the shallow sea.

I remembered all those things other than sex best. The kiss in the sea. The conversation about stealing shit, the hand covering breasts. And after sex, the interruptions of it by my taking sips from a big bottle of booze, and playing chess on the rooftop of the place we stole from.

‘And I got caught one time’

‘For what?’

‘Stealing mattresses, and flip flops, and beer, but it was good, the time I did treated me well’

‘How long were you in for?’

‘Hmm I don’t know, around eight decades’

‘Woah, how old were you when you got caught?’

‘Like, twenty-one’

‘Shit, but you say it was good?’

‘Yeah. It was good life’

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allsassnoclass · 4 years ago

Text

you could bring down my level of concern

Michael is having a bad night. Ashton picks him up for ice cream

read on ao3

It’s just after one in the morning, and Michael doesn’t trust his ability to keep it together. He’s felt like his skin has been pressed too tightly the entire day, and that was before he realized that there’s an entire book he was supposed to read for his contemporary literature class, sitting untouched on his dresser. He’s got so many tabs open on his computer of assignments that he needs to finish, and he keeps forgetting that he has to email the financial aid office or he’s going to get a late fee on his bills but he can’t exactly email them now at one in the morning because they’re going to think he can’t get his life together on top of being an idiot for forgetting for so long. He’s been restlessly switching between different social media platforms and opening up Netflix only to close it again when nothing seems to fit, steadfastly ignoring the book, the articles he’s supposed to read with it, and all of the other homework for his music classes.

Shit. He didn’t practice today, and his professor is going to be able to tell when he has his lesson tomorrow.

Michael shifts and unlocks his phone again, but nothing has changed in the three seconds he’s been gone. He stares at his home screen for a moment, a picture of him and Ashton from before they got back to campus this year, smiles wide and tucked close together.

He saw Ashton two days ago, but he hasn’t really seen him for at least two weeks. With the new university policies, they’re not allowed to hang out in Ashton’s dorm room or Michael’s apartment anymore, nor be outside together without masks. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if they both were off campus and could sneak around, but Ashton is an RA. He’ll get immediately fired if they get caught, and if he somehow does manage to get the virus his entire floor will be put into official quarantine. It’s not just them who are at risk, and Ashton is too much of a bleeding heart to put all of his residents through that.

As such, Michael has eaten lunch outside with Ashton and facetimed him and spent a lot of time cuddled up to Calum to make up for the fact that he’s technically not allowed to touch Ashton (although no one has noticed them holding hands across the table, or a quick hug before they part for classes).

It’s getting chillier. When snow starts to fall, Ashton is going to need to concede to hanging out in Michael and Calum’s apartment, because they’re both going to go crazy without it.

Michael already feels like he’s going crazy. He has assignments and his dishes are dirty and he has no money and everything absolutely sucks and he misses his boyfriend, so he pulls out his phone and sends can you pick me up.

After a moment, he adds please.

Ashton could be asleep already, because he’s been trying really hard to seem well-adjusted for his senior year, and the thought makes panic bubble uncomfortably in Michael’s gut. He can’t get himself to start his tasks, and he can’t stop picking at his cuticles, a bad habit that everyone has been trying to help him break, and he’s been missing Ashton vaguely since they got back on campus but thinks he’s going to cry if he doesn’t get to see him tonight.

What if Ashton doesn’t want to see him?

Ashton wants you around, Michael says to himself, trying to remember everything his therapist has told him for when he feels like this. Just because outside circumstances are making it difficult doesn’t mean that he suddenly hates you.

His internal voice doesn’t sound very convincing. With the way everything has been going lately, Michael wouldn’t be surprised if Ashton suddenly dumped him and Calum moved out and Luke and the girls stopped talking to him so he was miserable and alone. That’s just about the only way things could get even worse, right?

He doesn’t want to jinx it.

His phone buzzes in his hand, and Michael glances down to see Ashton’s name pop up with the message be there in 5.

Everything snaps into focus when Ashton is near. This strange crawling sensation under his skin might not fully go away, but maybe it’ll lessen, and maybe Michael will be able to think about school without wanting to throw up.

He slips on a hoodie, shoves on some shoes, and barely remembers to grab his wallet and keys before he’s slipping on a mask and out the door, rushing down the stairs to get out of the apartment building. The night air does nothing to sooth him, feeling dense and muggy through his mask rather than light and crisp like he wants. Still, he looks up at the sky and tries to let the slight breeze he can feel against his forehead calm him a little, just enough to hold him over until he can get in Ashton’s car and hopefully breathe properly again.

He’s still trying in vain to find a star that hasn’t been drowned out by light pollution or clouds when Ashton’s car arrives, engine squeaking in a familiar way when he pulls up to the curb a bit too fast, as always. Michael makes his way to the passenger door and gets in.

“Hey, stranger. Need a ride?” Ashton quips, and Michael crumples. Ashton looks soft, wearing pajama pants and a large sweatshirt, hair messy and eyes tired but smile intact. Michael wants to cry, but instead he just feels uncomfortable, like Ashton is a stranger again and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do.

“Hey,” Ashton says gently, “what’s wrong?”

Michael shrugs.

“Okay,” Ashton says. “Do you want to take off your mask?”

He does, putting it in the pocket of his hoodie, and Ashton smiles.

“There he is,” he says, bringing a hand up to Michael’s cheek, and Michael leans into it, chasing the feeling of Ashton’s hands on his skin.

He’s missed this. Ashton seems to understand, shifting so he can thread his fingers through the hair at the back of Michael’s neck, then drawing him forward into a kiss. Michael’s hands come up to grip Ashton’s sweatshirt at the first brush of lips, pressing into it like he’s been drowning and Ashton is his first breath of fresh hair. Ashton makes a startled noise in the back of his throat, but responds in kind, opening his mouth when prompted and licking into Michael’s, taking control in the way they both like best. When they part for air a minute later, they don’t go far, pressing their foreheads together while Michael tries to make his fingers loosen their grip.

“Is there anything I can do?” Ashton asks eventually.

“No,” Michael says. “I don’t know. You’re doing it, I guess.”

He starts to pull away, and Ashton pecks him quickly on the lips again before he lets him.

“Where do you want to go?” Ashton asks.

“Away from campus,” Michael says.

“Ice cream?”

Michael nods, and Ashton starts the car.

The drive is quiet. Michael makes no move to turn on the radio or get the aux cord, and Ashton lets it be. Michael stares out the window, letting the houses and street lights pass by on the familiar route. There’s a Baskin Robbins attached to a Dunkin with 24-hour drive through, and they’ve made a lot of midnight runs there since they started dating. Some of Michael’s favorite memories from last year include sitting in the parking lot together, talking and laughing and sharing bites of ice cream when one of them got an unusual flavor. They managed to fit in two trips during the first weeks of the semester, but haven’t been able to go recently due to the campus lockdown.

About halfway there, Ashton reaches over and takes Michael’s hand, thumb rubbing soothing circles on it. Michael tries to focus on that, rather than the stretched-out feeling still present under his skin.

They pull up to the drive through and Ashton shifts the car into park. Despite the place not being busy at all, it has astoundingly slow service this late at night.

“Do you want your usual?” Ashton asks, and Michael nods. When they do eventually order, Ashton gets one scoop of cherry and one scoop of vanilla, and he gets Michael the chocolatiest thing on the menu. Ashton pays, and once they get their items he pulls into their usual parking space in the corner and turns the car off.

“So,” Ashton says when they’re a few bites in, “I really think you should tell me what’s wrong.”

Michael takes another bite of his ice cream and considers if he knows who to articulate this.

“I feel… bad,” he starts. “Just--like my skin is too tight, or something, and I can’t focus on anything but I also can’t not focus on anything. I’m tired but can’t sleep, the world is basically fucking ending and I’m somehow expected to read an entire book by tomorrow. I have so much I’m supposed to do and can’t make myself do any of it, and it’s not even that I don’t have the time, because nothing is happening! I hate trying to do music classes online, I can’t fucking see my friends, and I miss--”

He stops. Ashton waits patiently, letting the silence stretch out until Michael is ready to break it again.

“I miss you. I know we’re doing our best with what we can right now, but it still sucks.”

Ashton reaches out again, gentle hand landing on his arm. That makes Michael feel the closest he has to crying all night, but it’s still not quite enough. He wishes this were the type of upset that could be solved with a long hug and a cathartic cry, but it’s not. This discomfort is the type that gets into his bones and stays for a while.

Michael wishes the gear shift wasn’t in the way, so he could tuck himself against Ashton and hide there until this entire thing is over.

“Going to school right now fucking sucks, and I’m proud of you for handling it as well as you have been,” Ashton says. It’s a nice thing to say, but it’s useless right now. Michael knows that going to school right now sucks, and Ashton is always proud of him for doing the bare minimum. He hums anyway, because Ashton’s trying to help.

“Let’s eat our ice cream and make a plan for the rest of tonight and tomorrow,” Ashton says. “We’ll figure out the homework stuff, at least, and get to spend time together properly.”

“Can we sit on the hood?” he asks, and thankfully Ashton nods. The night air is crisper without his mask, or maybe it’s because they’re a bit further from the heart of the city. Either way, Michael presses close, not willing to forfeit time spent touching Ashton.

Luke is the clingiest out of all of them, but Michael hadn’t realized just how much he enjoyed touch until the virus hit and it was taken away from him. He was craving Ashton’s long before he wasn’t allowed to have it, and if he didn’t know that Ashton needs the money being an RA provides he would have begged him to quit and move in with him and Calum.

They talk about easy things as they eat, like the shift to Michael’s favorite type of weather that had happened recently and Ashton’s floor programs that he’s planning. Michael tells him about how Calum almost burnt the apartment down and they just barely avoided having the alarms go off, and Ashton gives an anecdote about residents trying to smuggle two of the campus lawn chairs into their rooms while he was on security.

“They’re just so stupid sometimes,” he says. “It really is not hard to get away with stuff like that if you put your mind to it, but they obviously didn’t.” He turns the story into an entire bit, complete with a funny imitation of their bad excuses when he caught them, and it makes Michael laugh. Some of the weird feeling dissipates.

Ashton gets out his notes app when they finish eating, and Michael leans his head on his shoulder to watch him type up the plan.

Michael will do his music theory homework tonight, but he’s going to stop once it hits three in the morning to go to bed regardless of how much is or is not done. Ashton will type up a detailed summary of the book he was supposed to read, since apparently it was his favorite when he took the class last semester as part of his major requirement, and have it emailed to Michael by the time his alarm goes off at 8 the next morning. Hopefully that will be enough for Michael to do the forum posts he’s supposed to, and he should still have time to do his ear training before class. They can meet up for lunch, then Michael can go to his other two classes, take a break until dinner, spend a bit of time in the practice room, and do his homework for the next day in the evening.

Calum has a study group then, and Michael likes working in the living room while he zooms the others. It’s easier to stay focused when Calum is, as well, and they’ve gotten into a routine of playing two rounds of Fifa, Smash, or MarioKart during well-timed breaks.

Marked out like this, the tasks look less overwhelming.

“Can you write that I need to email the student fees office during lunch?” he asks. Ashton nods and adds it to the list. “And dishes after dinner.”

It’s not too bad when it’s notated like this, and if he doesn’t get his theory homework done tonight he won’t completely fail the class as long as he does all of the other work, although he knows that letting himself slip with one assignment always makes it easier to neglect them in the future, to near-disastrous results. His lesson might be less-than-stellar tomorrow, but at least Dr. O is nice about it. He’ll be disappointed, and Michael might cry because he hates falling short of his expectations, but he won’t be mean.

“Doable?” Ashton asks. Michael nods. Ashton takes a screenshot of the note and texts it to Michael, then grabs his hand as they sit in silence for a few more minutes.

“We should get back,” Michael says eventually.

“We can stay a bit longer,” Ashton says. He tightens his grip on Michael’s hand, and maybe

Ashton has been missing him just as much. Michael presses a kiss to his shoulder.

“I have to do my theory homework, and you’re ready for bed,” he says.

“Wait,” Ashton says as he starts to shift away. Michael pauses, and Ashton’s hands shift to his waist, leaning in for a deep kiss. He melts into it, toes curling at the single-minded focus Ashton dedicates to it. They shift for a better angle, Ashton leaning against the windshield and Michael following him down, and it takes all of Michael’s self-control to pull away before things become too heated.

“I don’t want to give the Baskin Robbins employee a free show,” he says. Ashton’s fingers dip under his hoodie and shirt, chilly from either the ice cream or the fall air. Michael shivers at the light brush at the small of his back, and Ashton gives him a lopsided smile.

“It’d be the most interesting thing they’ll see tonight,” he says.

“It’ll also get the police called on us for public indecency,” Michael says. “Can’t believe I’m having to be the responsible one about this, Mr. I-Am-A-Mature-Resident-Advisor-Who-Will-Do-No-Wrong.”

“You make me feel adventurous,” Ashton says. Michael hums and kisses him again, and Ashton doesn’t try to escalate it.

“Okay,” Ashton says. “Let’s go back.”

They get in the car, and Michael pulls up a gentle playlist for the ride back. Ashton hums along to the first song, and something else in Michael’s gut dissipates. He still feels a bit weird, but he thinks it’s manageable now. He has a plan, and he has Ashton, and if previous experience is any indicator he should feel okay by the time he wakes up tomorrow morning.

Michael watches Ashton tap out an easy beat on the steering wheel with his thumbs, and takes another deep breath.

Things are kind of fucked now, but it won’t be like this forever. He’ll be okay.

#my writing #mashton #5sos fanfic #this is genuinely just. so much projection #so much #also though as I was writing this I fell in love with the universe so #maybe college mashton will be what I work on when nothing else works

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astrology-india · 4 years ago

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Libra Compatibility - The Best and Worst Match

New Post has been published on https://www.astrology-india.com/libra-compatibility/

Libra Compatibility - The Best and Worst Match

Libra natives are peaceful, diplomatic, and sociable.

These individuals are fascinated by symmetry and they are interested in creating a world of justice and equality.

Besides, their urge for balance operates on an aesthetic level.

Libra Suns have an innate sense of style and are inclined to look for refined experiences and objects in their everyday life.

Getting information about Libra compatibility could be useful if you are interested in sustaining a healthy connection.

Whether Libra is your Sun sign or the sign of your crush, this article will help you get facts that will be useful for navigating the challenges of relationships.

Remember, though, that Astrology is not limited to the Sun sign.

You should consult with a professional astrologer to acquire an in-depth report of the compatibility between two people.

Sun signs only offer a general idea about compatibility.

Best Libra Compatibility Matches

The Sun signs that are the best matches for Libra have to share some common traits with the graceful nature of this cardinal airy sign. Read on, to know more about them.

Libra and Gemini

Gemini and Libra are both air signs. This means that they would have an entertaining mental connection and a witty verbal understanding.

Gemini and Libra enjoy sharing their ideas about every-thing and participating in cultural events that will make them learn something new and meet stimulating people.

Libra Suns love to entertain their acquaintances and Gemini Suns are also very social.

This couple is great at hosting parties and inviting friends to their home.

Since they both love talking and being the center of attention, they will make jokes and observations like they were stand-up comedians in their own Netflix special.

The spontaneous nature of the Gemini Suns could be really beneficial for the perfectionist Libra Suns.

On the other hand, Libra Suns can help their Gemini partners to tidy up their scattered thoughts in order to express them more cohesively.

They can complement each other beautifully when they are capable of appreciating their unique mindsets.

This almost-perfect match may hit a snag if they do not show their vulnerable side.

These two Sun signs have a bit of a reputation for being superficial.

They need to learn how to vent their feelings and to accept that life is not always fun, entertaining, and light.

Libra and Aquarius

There is a strong bond between an Aquarius Sun and a Libra Sun.

They share the element of air and appreciate mental stimulation.

Since both signs rely heavily on communication, they will enjoy talking with each other and will find the right words to solve all of their issues.

Libra is a sign who does not want to be alone. Aquarius, on the other hand, likes solitude and needs some space to feed its individuality.

The Libra partner could seem clingy, whereas the Aquarius partner might seem detached.

Luckily, meeting halfway and finding some common ground is possible and it will guarantee that they will be able to overcome their differences.

Marriage is considered very meaningful for Libra Suns. For Aquarius Suns, it may seem to be an obsolete institution.

But they will settle down for the right partner and a Libra Sun may have the specific qualities that an Aquarius Sun needs to feel comfortable and amused at the same time.

It is important for both Libra and Aquarius Suns to move slowly and make the decision to tie the knot when they are certain that the relationship is going to be beneficial in the long run.

Libra and Leo

Leo Sun values pride and beauty. And a Libra Sun enjoys pleasing other people with their attractive and elegant demeanor.

Together, they may learn how to express themselves unapologetically and how to strengthen their talents.

They support each other’s personalities in a communicative and charming way.

The sextile between the Leo Sun and the Libra Sun makes it possible for them to have a respectful partnership and to build stronger personalities that are free of judgment of any kind.

This couple knows how to shine!

The elements of fire and air fit perfectly. Leo puts a passionate touch to every intelligent idea concocted by Libra. Their communication is quick, inspiring, and enthusiastic.

These two signs together represent the consummation of a loving relationship.

When you look at this couple, you will see that their devotion for one another is real, palpable and it has long-term potential.

When a Leo Sun and a Libra Sun are together, they will not engage in a relationship with no future.

Less Libra Compatibility Matches

Having mentioned the best matches for Libra Suns, the moment has arrived for taking a look at the less compatible ones.

Please remember that this Libra compatibility article is based only on the Sun sign.

Two people who possess Sun signs that are not traditionally compatible can still have a healthy relationship. The reason behind this is that compatibility goes beyond Sun signs.

There may be other astrological placements in the natal charts, as well as a desire of getting to know more about a partner, that could make a relationship work and be long-lasting.

Libra and Taurus

Even though both signs are ruled by Venus, Taurus and Libra couldn’t be more different.

Taurus is a fixed and earthy sign that enjoys life when it’s predictable and stable.

Libra, on the other hand, needs to start new projects all the time and to socialize with new people.

These two signs will drive each other crazy in a committed relationship.

While the Taurus Sun may be stubborn and fixated on their old ideas, the Libra Sun may be indecisive and always interested in seeing life from a variety of perspectives.

The Taurus Sun wants to keep things under control and the Libra Sun wants to push the envelope constantly.

Insecurity may be another issue in this couple.

The Libra Sun could criticize their Taurus Sun partner as a way of projecting their own fears of not being good enough.

But the Taurus Sun will not understand this unconscious mechanism and will take the criticism very personally.

Then, the Taurus Suns could experience sudden bursts of anger because they are not able to channel their emotions constructively. And Libra Suns will go away because they can’t stand rudeness.

Libra and Virgo

A relationship between a Virgo Sun and a Libra Sun doesn’t look like a good match.

Virgo is an earth sign and is ruled by Mercury. This means that it relies on tangible results.

Libra is an airy sign ruled by Venus and couldn’t be more distant from Virgo’s pragmatic nature.

Libra craves beauty and art and can be very vacillating when making a decision.

As soon as one of them has to articulate a concern or a deep feeling, the other one seems to freeze and to lose the ability for showing empathy or compassion.

These two signs are not known for having the skill to connect with their emotions and display them honestly.

The mental attraction that they may experience interferes with showing love and with providing comfort at disturbing times.

Virgo wants to optimize processes and improve existing systems. Therefore, people born under this sign will take over the decisions that the Libra Suns need to make.

The Libra Suns will feel inferior and will stop respecting their Virgo Sun partner. While Libra Suns don’t tolerate the absence of kindness, Virgo Suns can’t accept ambivalence.

Libra and Scorpio

The value system of a Scorpio Sun is remarkably divergent from the value system of a Libra Sun.

Scorpio is not afraid of facing the darkest aspects of the human condition. Libra, on the other extreme, is devoted to niceties.

A Libra Sun may perceive that a Scorpio Sun goes the extra mile to be perceived as special and deep.

A Scorpio Sun may perceive that a Libra Sun compromises all the time just to fit in.

The main problem here is that a Libra Sun may be too concerned about other people’s opinions and a Scorpio Sun finds this concern superficial and shallow.

Libra Suns will have trouble understanding the inquisitive side of Scorpio, as much as Scorpio Suns won’t be able to understand the accommodating nature of their Libra partners.

Their differences could be impossible to reconcile. However, they may have an incredibly intense and demanding sexual life.

Obsession and possessiveness are two possible manifestations when they are in the bedroom.

They could create profound ties through their physical contact, but everything else in the relationship could make them feel unsatisfied and unappreciated.

Libra Man

The Libra man is gentle, tactful, and smart. He has great manners and dedicates a lot of time to improve his appearance.

On the downside, he could have high standards in a partnership and this will be reflected in the way he treats his significant other.

The Libra man could not-so-subtly make suggestions to his partner about clothing and modals.

When he is in a committed relationship, he loves taking his significant other to fancy restaurants, art galleries, and big concerts.

He wants to dress up for special occasions and display a spotless image. And he wants his partner to act in the same when they are together in public.

This man enjoys compliments about the way he looks and how smart he is.

He likes being cherished and caressed in public, but he may have a hard time showing affection when surrounded by strangers.

Libra Man Relationship Compatibility

The signs that are most compatible with having a relationship with a Libra man are Leo and Sagittarius.

Having a relationship with one of these fire signs is beneficial for the Libra man because his partner will make him feel appreciated.

If you are dating a Libra man but you are having trouble deciphering his true feelings for you then I recommend you read our article on Libra man in love to help guide you.

Libra Man Sexual Compatibility

If the Libra man wants to experience a satisfying sexual life, he has to choose partners with the Sun in Aries or Capricorn.

These two signs are also cardinal and will definitely know how to ignite the spark.

Libra Woman

The Libra woman is fair, loyal, and delicate. She will be prepared to make a lifetime commitment with a partner of her choosing.

However, she could be too focused on pleasing her significant other all the time and forget who she is as an individual.

Therefore, she can come across as someone who is calculating and fake.

Her need to be in a relationship is extremely strong and dating is never casual for her.

In extreme situations, this woman could be thinking about marriage after the first date!

She could be quite needy and dependent on her partner to make even the simplest decisions. But when she knows her worth, she can be adorable, enchanting, and attentive.

A confident Libra woman doesn’t go unnoticed.

Libra Woman Relationship Compatibility

The signs that are most compatible with a committed relationship with a Libra woman are Gemini and Aquarius.

Gemini and Aquarius are connected with Libra by trine. The relationship with one of these tactful airy signs will be fun and exciting.

Libra Woman Sexual Compatibility

Even if they will not work well together in a long-term relationship, having a sexual partner with the Sun in Taurus or in Scorpio will be a parade of lust for the Libra woman.

These two fixed signs are intense and possessive, two qualities that could be interesting to find in a sexual encounter.

Final Thoughts

Gracious and charismatic, the sons and daughters of Venus will definitely catch your attention. Their persuasive tactics and their classy style make them utterly mesmerizing.

Libra Suns are relationship-oriented and could be people-pleasers. But they also want to have a first-class partner.

They won’t settle for less than they deserve and they will not give up their social life to stay at home with a dull person.

This is why Libra compatibility with the other air signs is a good combination, as well as with fire signs. Air and fire are positive elements that want to have a vibrant and lively existence.

A long-term relationship with an earth or water sign may not be the best option for Libra Suns.

Earth and water are elements that belong to the negative polarity and their natives are much more reserved and quiet than a Libra Sun.

If this article didn’t quite answer your questions about Libra compatibility then I recommend you take a look at our article here to find your perfect love match according to astrology.

#compatibility #Libra man #Libra woman

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fimflamfilosophy · 5 years ago

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Characters Akimbo, and How to Create Them

A long time ago, I wrote an article called “OCs Akimbo and How to Make Them”. This was in the golden age of the internet when people still owned their own websites and we walked uphill, through the snow, both ways because it was good for our glutes. We didn’t need to be fed a constant stream of memes produced by bots in Malaysia because we were not yet living in a post-ironic, dystopian future where many are forced to work from home or not at all. The joy came to us naturally in those times, and a “meme” was a thing that saved bandwidth, so you couldn’t spam them – bad memes were a waste of money and a waste of good internets.

But that article has been lost, swallowed up like so many other web-ventures of old by the insatiable beast known on Walstreet as FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google; Netflix is in there because the acronym is rude otherwise). Also, people don’t write articles anymore. They’re too efficient and only run ads at the top and bottom of the page without interrupting what you’re trying to read, unless the author is one of the sub-human monsters that puts ads in the middle of his articles and makes you scroll past them just to get the rest of his insipid opinion. Rest assured, my insipid opinions come without ads in the middle. And likely without ads at the top or bottom, either, because maybe only a hundred people will read this and that’s worth about $0.01 today.

So characters! You want to make a character! Put your hands down, we’re not taking questions until later, so for now we assume you’re reading this because you want to make a character for something. I don’t really care what. Whether it’s for a roleplaying game, which has become more in vogue recently thanks to the show “Stranger Things”, I hear, or because you want to present yourself as a foxy cat-girl getting busy with a catty fox-man in your dirty, filthy Discord group.

If you’re designing a character for amorous roleplay, I assume the reality is that you are fundamentally playing yourself, with all the same excruciating hang ups and personal insecurities, except as an animal. But suppose you didn’t want to play as yourself? How to go about that. Well, there are several ways of thinking about it, but since I’m the author, I will use my tyranny of the mic to write as though my perspective is the only valid one.

You Choose Your Shirt, You Choose Your Life

We’ll start with the basic way to make any character and have it work. Figure out how they feel, and then play everything around coping with those feelings. No, seriously, it’s the simple banality of human existence and anything else you can think of is just going to be taking a back seat to whatever your personal psychosis is. That’s all you are – a wet sack of flesh with crippling mental problems and a strategy to overcome them.

To put this in terms you shouldn’t understand, think of how you choose to put on a shirt in the morning. Maybe you choose the shirt because it says something on it, or because you like a specific color, but how do you know you like that color? How do you know you like the band, or the terrible joke you should be embarrassed to wear in public? When asked these questions, many people will try to draw a string of logic. They’ll say that red is a dominant color, or they want to support their favorite musician, or they’re being post ironic and the point of their joke shirt is that it’s not supposed to make anyone happy.

But these are all falsehoods. Every time you put on a shirt, you don’t actually examine the whole wardrobe on an intellectual level and compare their relative advantages and disadvantages on factors as minute as color. People who do such a thing are considered to be obsessive compulsive, which is considered a disorder because they are barely able to make choices. The more time you spend trying to logically examine such a thing, the less able you are to do anything. The truth is, you pick your shirt on a whim because you feel like it, and you like the color red because it reminds you of succulent berries, or your monkey ancestor’s big red ass, or something. The insistence that red is a “power color” is just something people make up.

Many snap decisions come down to your lizard hind-brain and your feelings. People argue that their intellect is so huge, this is no longer true for them, but emotions actually control most of our decisions because emotions work quickly and easily. If you see something and it makes you scared, or angry, you react accordingly and right away. You don’t have ten minutes to evaluate the sight of a snake and determine based on its colors and head shape whether or not it’s venomous. If your kid climbs a tree, you don’t get to do a lot of math about their weight and the height they’re climbing at before you get nervous. Your instincts and your emotions are the same thing, and it’s how you make the majority of your choices.

There are some exceptions, when you have time, where you can try to evaluate facts and figures and try to let that shape how you feel about something, but in this day and age I’m sure everyone has had enough heated political arguments to realize that for many people, feelings can be difficult to change. In fact, much logic is only presented to specifically alter your feelings, and not necessarily to provide you with more comprehensible information. Ultimately, even things you spend a lot of time thinking about eventually get processed on an emotional level.

The Past and the Future are the Same Thing

So what does all this mean for making a character? Well, let’s divert into a little anecdote. I enjoy role-playing games as a hobby, and learned to play in a group that enjoyed a lot of theater and acting. We often shunned systems that were heavy on rules and templates, and focused mainly on having dynamic character personalities with clear motives, then playing those games around those characters. This made running games fairly easy for the guy in charge, because all he had to do was invent a colorful cast of faces for the group to interact with, and then see who they hated the most, then go from there.

But most groups are not especially fond of acting. Dungeons and Dragons is handily the most popular roleplaying system out there, and it’s no coincidence that it’s also one of the most restrictive in terms of describing your job within the group and telling you what you’ll learn as the game progresses. In D&D, the fighter fights, the wizard wizzes, the rogue steals everyone’s money and has to do everything in secret or otherwise the whole rest of the table declares a spot check every time he does literally anything.

And it was while running a game with a D&D sort of group that I first encountered a player who had written four pages of backstory for their character. Just to reiterate, I learned to play with a group that focused entirely on character motives and acting, and I had never been given a four page backstory before. Once we had enough experience, my old group could typically sum up a character backstory verbally, in a few sentences. It would be easy to remember and you wouldn’t write it down because all the important details were short.

There’s something to delve into regarding brevity, but to focus on this four page character – none of the backstory made sense or really conveyed how the character felt about anything. This character, as far as I can recall, obtained magic powers because he walked down an alleyway, was accosted by cultists, the cultists cast a spell, the cultists exploded, and then the character could cast magic. I think he may have also been some kind of zombie, but I don’t remember because it wasn’t an element that was integral, except, I believe, the player used it as justification to hide their magic powers. They were embarrassed about being undead, or something, and even though the rest of the group was doing magic, the character thought their magic would be linked to their lack of pulse. It wasn’t even useful magic – it was the ability to throw fireballs, so hiding it was the best possible way to make the character non-functional.

The rest of the writing was irrelevant. There was information about family history, past work, blood type – whatever – I barely remember it because it was frosting with no cake. The player never wrote a character. They wrote an expository list of events that were all linked to one person without any sort of personality. That is, the player never really understood how this character felt, or how that shaped their life, and it’s clear they hoped that by writing enough things, eventually a character might take shape. As though you might learn a lot about a man by listing what kinds of weeds were growing in his back yard, or by listing the cities he’s lived in, or by listing a chronological sequence of events the person was present during.

This player, and frankly nobody, should ever require a four page back-story for a character. When it comes to writing a character, the core element of who they are, the past, present, and future are all the same. If this person has anger problems, they probably have a pattern of lashing out, and solving their life’s problems by being too frustrating to deal with. If they’re timid, they probably have a history of conflict avoidance. If they’re smooth talkers, they think they can talk their way through everything. Whatever emotional way people engage with the world around them, they’re likely to behave like that through their past, present, and future. You can know who someone is in the present and know who they’ll be in the future without examining an in-depth historical report of their past. Indeed, how else could we interact with other humans if this weren’t the truth?

People get confused easily, and will quickly insist that the backstory makes the character because they see on TV, constantly, stories about the past. A show will say, “this man is like this because of something that happened to him years ago”. But what you have to realize is that when TV does it, and when it does it well, it’s not the past that defines the character. The past events being described are conflict. Say it with me: CONFLICT. Not character.

Conflicting Over Conflict

Conflict is what a character reacts to, and it drives the story forward. So let’s consider, if you were to show a character’s past, how is that story structured. Well first you begin with a character, right? Because without the character, how do you know how this person will react to conflicts? You don’t. So the character is designed before the backstory. So what is this story of the past? It’s a story about some conflict and how the character interacted with it.

If your character in the present is a knife-wielding maniac, then one plausible story about their past would be when they were confronted by a problem that was solved by stabbing the problem. What this shows you is that the character moved towards this behavior of violence, and it worked for them so they kept doing it. Over time, they came to believe that most problems could be resolved by stabbing things, and that’s just how they live now, but it still takes a specific kind of person to try stabbing something the first time.

If you imagine a violent person, you may also imagine they tried conflict avoidance and it didn’t work. Perhaps they tried being confident, and they were quickly ground down. Finally they resorted to violence and achieved success, but that may have been after a long progression of abuse, which is why they also don’t form personal attachments or trust anyone. These looks at the past can add a lot of flesh and explanation to why your character feels certain ways about certain things – why they feel their life’s coping strategies are the best ones. That’s why when you see them, a good story of the past gives the viewer the feeling that they’ve developed a better sense of who the character is.

Whether the past defines the character or the character defines their past is a chicken and the egg question, and something you as a writer would have to decide. There’s no one answer and there are good ways to go about both approaches, so long as you know who your character is before you start doing any writing at all. Because whatever you write, the event you describe will merely be a conflict, a moment, and how the character reacts to that conflict tells a viewer who that character is.

In and Out of Character

Speaking of role-playing games: you’ll find the overwhelming majority of players are on about the same level as those guys pretending to be cat-girls in their filthy, unspeakable Discord group. That is, most people just play themselves, but with a gimmick. They play themselves, but with a stutter, or they’re french, or a they’re a cat-girl, or a they’re a samurai, or they’re a robot; they can be anything, but not anyone.

This gets a bit more into acting, which actually does play in to every work of fiction. To act properly, you need to be able to put yourself comfortably in the mind-space of your character and behave as though you only know what your character knows. The generations-old story of the rogue that steals from the party is a great example of the challenge at work here.

Imagine you’re facing a lot of life-and-death situations back to back with somebody, but this person is also slippery and difficult to trust. They never let you down openly, but they’re constantly wrangling you into bad contracts that benefit them, and you think they might be embezzling the group’s funds. In terms of writing a story, this is a good opportunity for conflict. A good role-playing group can handle this on the fly, while a typical role-playing group absolutely can’t.

A typical role-playing group always has the same response. Whenever the rogue tries to skim a little money off the top, the whole table rolls “spot checks” to catch the thief in the action, and then prevent him from stealing there in the moment. This is what the people playing the game regard as an enforcement action to prevent stealing – as long as the whole table rolls, someone is usually going to roll high enough to catch the rogue before he gets away with it. But how does every character in the game know to be hyper vigilant all of the sudden? Well, they don’t, and just rolling dice at people isn’t how we solve conflicts like this in the real world.

A good group will actually start to develop suspicions they’re being stolen from only after it happens, as they do their accounting and realize they’re short some cash. They may suspect the rogue, but they rely on him to find and disarm traps, and he’s somewhat irreplaceable. So the conflict now becomes trying to solve that problem without simply executing the rogue on a mere suspicion. The other players have to go out of their way to try set some bait or catch the rogue in the act, and if they prove what he’s done, then there can be a punishment. If the rogue keeps getting away with it, perhaps the party starts establishing rules to try to cull the potential for stealing, and now the rogue has to work around these new restrictions.

The second group is more nuanced and more believable. They’re facing a conflict and trying to figure out a way around it, instead of just using game mechanics to stop it entirely. And while this may seem like it begins and ends with roleplaying groups, the logic here works for most every other medium. You can never just have characters behaving as though they know things they aren’t supposed to know, and the way your characters react should follow the fundamentals of how they feel. Characters react to what they know, not what the audience knows.

Another example that would follow closer to other fiction is the following: quite recently I played a super hero game as a “reformed villain”, which basically meant I was playing a villain. The main hero died, leaving a vacuum in leadership, and at the same time a new, young hero joined the group. My villain character quickly swept in and began mentoring this fresh, young recruit, introducing him to as many morally gray aspects of the job as possible. Using deception to get closer to villains, fighting people who were too insane to know better, sometimes even doing lasting harm to ordinary people in the heat of the moment.

As the game went on, the group demonstrated that being a super hero was a very fine line that was difficult to apply idealism to, but my villain never quite killed anybody. He maimed people. He once dressed as a pizza delivery guy and threw a pizza so hard it knocked somebody unconscious. He sold hotdogs on the street without a permit. All while mentoring this kid and showing him the advantages of tap-dancing on that fine line.

Until the villain did kill somebody. A super scientists who was building deadly “Iron Man” style suits for a gang of terrorists used an ejection seat to try to escape the scene, and the villain threw his shoe. The shoe was thrown so hard, it caused the scientist’s head to burst like it’d been hit by a cannon ball. It all happened in the blink of an eye, against the wind, as the ejection seat rocketed off at dizzying speeds, and the villain claimed the murder was not intentional, even though it was clear at the table that I, the player, the author, had killed the scientist on purpose. It’s something I’d done as a snap decision in reality, because I thought the scientists was dangerous and it seemed in character to make that choice.

What ensued was much less in character. The young ward my villain had been mentoring turned on him instantly and carried on, from that point forward, as though the villain had intentionally killed an innocent man. He used the justification that my villain was very accurate and “never missed”, even though my villain missed his aim plenty of times throughout the adventure. He did not respond to any argument about the potential threat of the scientist, or about the very real possibility of an accident in the heat of the moment.

The player knew it was on purpose. The player felt his naive young character was a fundamentally good person. Ergo, he and the villain were now at mortal odds and could never reconcile. It’s a delicate situation and something that some actual writers could fall into, where the audience is shown the intent behind an ambiguous situation, and somehow the characters come to the same conclusion the audience does even though the characters don’t have the same information.

In television, this is sometimes due to run time limitations. Perhaps the character was supposed to gather more evidence before coming to the conclusion the audience was given, but the evidence gathering was cut to save time. But in a book, or a roleplaying game, there’s really no excuse. Everything should be handled based on what the character knows, and not on what the audience – or in this case the player – knows. At least if you’re a purist. I will be honest and admit there have been some popular works of fiction where characters side with the audience in spite of, in narrative, not even having the same moral system as the audience, let alone their knowledge of the plot.

What you actually should have between the villain and the ward, is a major point of conflict. Not in that the ward knows the villain killed someone on purpose and has an issue with it, but that he doesn’t know if the villain intentionally killed someone. That, in and of itself, is a very real moment of awakening to anyone with idealistic opinions on a job that entails violence and apprehension. It requires soul-searching, and even coming to the conclusion that the villain did kill someone and that it was wrong revolves around a complex set of emotional and moral beliefs.

Such a moment is pivotal to a character. It puts them at their lowest point, where they question all they know and all they ever wanted. Where they doubt everything. And how they come out of that situation? That’s the character’s arc. Denying them of that arc, and simply using the audience’s knowledge to make a fast choice obliterates the character’s development and robs them of an opportunity to tell a story within themselves and to their audience. Using the audience’s knowledge is quick, and keeps you on the same page as the viewers, but it is dirty and tells a less interesting tale.

And Your Point Is…?

So like I mentioned at the start, none of this is actually universal. Some stories are more event-driven, and expository writing can be fascinating as well. You really could write a tale about a sequence of events so long as the events were interesting and kept the audience reading, so a strong character isn’t even always necessary. But for what it’s worth, I think knowing how to make a character in such simple terms makes the whole process of writing much easier. If you know your character, you know how they’ll respond to conflicts, so every story is as easy as thinking up a conflict.

But hey, it’s also true that in some settings, trying to follow the rules of a good character or a good story may hurt you. A lot of role-playing groups will shun that type of thing because they’d rather roll dice at the rogue, and they think the person playing the rogue is in the wrong for trying to skim money from the party, because these people aren’t playing characters, they’re playing a game. They don’t care about an opportunity to have a character conflict with the rogue, they want their money, damnit. The fact they have nothing to spend it on in 5th edition D&D is another matter entirely.

#essay

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judgement-free-sideblog · 5 years ago

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Never underestimate a black suit

Bill Hader x Reader

I'm not even going to pretend I regret this one. It all started in 2009 when I became obsessed with SNL, then he just kept popping up, here an there and the crush just grow, and since thanks to It chapter 2 he is finally getting the recognition he deserves I got this idea last night and I got to write it before it escapes my mind.

One shot: Imagine you are a PA in Barry and you have the biggest crush on Bill Hader but it seems like he hates you because he is dead serious all the time he is around you.

Warnings: Swearing, Age gap (I know he is just over forty but god I love him).

You were pacing on the set, the Steve Allen Theater, hoping for someone, anyone, to give you an order so you could pretend you were so good at your job as PA so they won't fired you. But the damage was done, all thanks to your verbal incontinence and now the most amazing job in the world was about to be over.

You had started working on Barry about a year ago, and you have loved every minute of it, the cast was so sweet and down to earth, and make your job so much easier, D'arcy Carden for example was always thankful with you for the simplest things like bringing her coffee and Sarah Golberg even had invited you to lunch after you helped her with a female problem one time. They were so talented and nice that you could not believe it when the production called you back for the third season to keep working there.

But then it was him, the titular character, the fucking genius whose hard work and imagination have created this magnificent show, Bill Hader. Yes you were 28 and he 42, but still you couldn't explain it, there was something about the way he spoke and the way he walked that made you weak on your knees every time, and his laugh, you were sure something had been fixed in your mind after the first time you heard him laugh.

And then it was that first week of shooting from last year, the retro outfit with the suspenders, you couldn't get your eyes off him and you almost made one of the sound guys trip with Henry Winkler. And then the table scene, you were in the back making sure the extras were in their right place and avoiding look at him because he was so perfect on that scene that you certainly will froze just by looking at him.

This little crush was obvious for absolutely everyone, except obviously for Bill, you were sure that Anthony Carrigan even deliberately asked you for anything when he was talking to Bill to see you all clumsy and awkward, not to be a dick, just to push you to talk to him, but you were certain he didn't liked you, with most of the other members of the cast and crew he was always laughing, but in the limited interactions you had he was serious, asked you for a coffee now and then or to make a phone call but just that, and you were beginning to think your absurd infatuation was making him uncomfortable, so you tone it down, made a composed face and limited to do your job.

But now you had blow it. That morning they were filming the behind the episode, for the new season, at some point Barry had one of those daydreams and he imagine himself married to Sally, so there he was all perfect in a black suit sitting in his chair next to Alec Berg talking about the challenges of the new season and how thankful they were to come back.

"So the cast is amazing, the first two episodes of the season are incredible and you have managed to keep the same novelty feeling on the series, why do you think that is?" The guy interviewing them asked.

"Well I think it's mainly thanks to the cast" Alec started "This guys are just amazing, this season we are actually giving Sally a bigger arc and that is very interesting"

"And the crew too" Bill said then "I mean they make us all look good, even when some scenes are a total disaster, the set designers, the wardrobe and all that" they made a pause and you were there to put water bottles in the table between them.

"Bill I have known that you used to be a PA, you think that gives you a better understanding on how hard it is for and aspiring actor as Barry, and does it translate on the writing?" He asked and against your better judgment you stay there to listen.

"Totally, but on a more personal level I try to no be diva with my PAs, recognize they do a hard work and know them all by name, that sort of things"

And then your verbal incontinence kick in, and there, just a few feet away, your mouth was quicker than your brain and still looking at him you spoke, not that loud to be heard by the three of them but enough for him to look straight at you.

"That's bullshit" you instinctively took your hands to your mouth and turn around before you could saw him react and went away pretending you were taking coffee orders. And here you were just waiting for the "we are gonna have to let you go" speech when one of the other PAs called you.

"Hey Y/N Hader says you have to go to his dressing room ASAP" Your friend Danny said and you felt like something heavy fall down inside your stomach.

"Can someone else go?" You answered trying to find an excuse "I have to walk Kirby's dog" you lied.

"No, he said you specifically, something about a mail he asked you to sent?" You gave him a thumbs up and start walking to his dressing room, already feeling you were fired.

"Did you need anything Mr. Hader" You tried to sound professional, and not dead ass scared.

"Oh sure, Y/N, please come in" Great! He did know your name, so apart from impertinent you were an asswhole. And he was still in that stupid black suit that made him look so gorgeous, not like the tshirts and hoodies didn't. "Do you by any chance printed those documents I asked you to send last week? I seem to have deleted them and Alec is going to freak out" He said as nice and kind as always and the weight in your stomach start lightening.

"Yeah sure, I ... well unless someone says is confidential I make copies of everything, an old habit" You said looking for a flash drive in your purse. Since all the crew sing a NDA at the beginning of the production there was nothing wrong with that, unless of course you put it on Twitter if you wanted to go to jail.

"This is not your first work on a set right?" He asked while you started looking for the documents in his laptop.

"Oh no sir. I worked in Dead to me two years ago, but since they are in a break I try my luck here last year, and HBO has better catering" You said concentrated in your work.

"Oh so you met Christina?" He asked genuinely interested, "how old were you then?"

"26, a bit late to start in this business I know, but well I like it more" You answered with a smile and then pointed to the laptop "There they are".

"Thanks so much, truly a life saver" He said and let go a sigh "And you are never too old or too young to start, as long as you enjoy it, and tolerate your bosses... bullshit was it?" He said raising an eyebrow accusatory. You immediately turn white and then red and multiple apologizes started bubbling in your mouth.

"I'm so sorry sir, I really am, I sometimes speak my mind and say all this stupid stuff, I'm sorry" You finally managed to say. He started laughing, you didn't let go the painful irony of the situation, it was the first time you made him laugh, and probably will be the last.

"I'm sorry" He said finally " I couldn't help it, relax. I'm not mad. It was quite funny what you said, I sound like such a duchebag I know everyone by name" He said making an acute voice and you start calming down "But if anything I'm sorry I made you, or any of the crew, feel like you don't matter. All of you are actually great" He said and smiled again to you. "Also lose the Mr Hader, that's bullshit, you can call me Bill".

"Oh no, I couldn't, I'm already so embarrassed by why I did" you started and he looked at you making exaggerated puppy eyes mouthing please, and it was lucky you were so nervous otherwise you would have exploded with laughter "Ok Bill"

"Ok then you are 28, and recently started as a PA, you want to be an actress?" He said, leaning back on his desk.

"Absolutely not, I wanted to be a writer, I was a writer actually in a newspaper, but it didn't feel right and then I realized I wanted to write stories, scripts, and one of my friends was an extra in Stranger things, then she said Netflix needs PAs and well there I went" You said, it was easy talk to him. "Also I don't have the looks for it and hate to se myself in pictures"

"I don't have the looks for it, and here I am" He said opening his arms "But honestly you keep writing and trying, if it's what you want, I mean I get here"

"Well yeah but have seen yourself in that suit?" Your mouth betrayed you again and you look at your feet to hide your face. "Amm I think I have a dog to walk, bye" You said before he could said anything and run away.

The next weeks were difficult, you avoid being alone with Bill but you kept doing your job as good as always, and every once in a while you will notice him looking at you, thinking on how pathetic you must look to him. Until the last day of shooting, they wrapped up the season and it was amazing. The only thing left was to go for a drink at Henry's place and start looking for a new job, thankfully you had finally written a promising draft and your hopes were high.

Maybe that's why you actually choose to drink at the party, and dance with your friends and some members of the cast, and you were a little more talkative than usual, until Anthony who was talking to you about something you were not actually listening leave you alone next to bill.

"So what's next??" He asked in the middle of the loud music, and you didn't quite got it because he signaled the garden and you followed him. "Finally I couldn't hear my thoughts" He said once you were outside.

"It's really loud, but you all deserve it" You said and suddenly realized you were alone. "What where you asking?" You tried to sound casual.

"Oh if you could get me a coffee" he joked and then quickly add "No I was wondering what's next for you after this is over?"

"I actually waiting good news from Amazon, maybe with any luck I'll get a chance with one of my scripts" You said proudly.

"That's amazing" He said with bright happy eyes "I'm so glad for you, so we won't be seeing you in season four?"

"With any luck no" You answered "You'll have to find another impertinent PA to call out your bullshit" You add laughing.

"Oh I'm pretty sure we will find someone, or I can always call you and ask you to do it for free" He said and you could notice how close he was "You know as a concerned friend"

"Sure, I can do that, my contract finalized yesterday day so I guess starting today I'm just your rude friend that says come on man don't be a duchebag" You said letting go a small laugh but he was looking at you completely serious.

"In that case..." He started and took your face between his hands, he was so tall and you felt so tiny next to him but also it was so nice and comfortable being so close, he lean in to kiss you and stop just close enough to your mouth so you will feel his breath, as if he asked for your permission to continue, and instead of saying something that could ruin the moment you close the distance and kiss him.

His lips felt soft and tender over your lips, and he slowly started deepening the kiss pressing you against him from your waist, and you hold on to the front of his jacket trying to keep him closer to you, hoping for this moment to never end, until the absurd necessity of oxygen force you to split.

"I ... I didn't think it would be appropriate to do that when we were working together" He started, smiling like a child. "I'm sorry if I made you feel like I was avoiding you, Anthony messing up with me by having you around all the time didn't help either"

"Don't worry it's okay, and yeah it would have been super inappropriate but thank god I no longer have a job" you said still trying to make sense of the situation.

"Would you... I mean I love Henry but there's only alcohol in here, do you want to go grab some dinner?" He said pointing the exit.

"I would love that" you answered, overwhelmed by joy and you followed him to the door, happy with all the possibilities the future hold.

#I love bill hader #sue me #bill hader #bill hader imagine #barry berkman #barry hbo #fanfic #fluff #bill hader fanfiction #bill hader x reader #bill hader edit #100 #200 #300 #400

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chronicallymeforever · 4 years ago

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Top Ten Songs That I Relate to Because I am Chronically Ill

1. Karma, Neotheater- AJR

This song is unbelievably relatable. Even though it is written about mental health. I think it perfectly encapsulates what it is like to be sick with a physical illness. Plus any spoonie who has said they haven’t struggled mentally isn’t being honest. It is common and at some level expected that sick people have feelings about being sick.

Most Memorable Line: “Wait don't go away, can I lie here forever? You say that I'm better, why don't I feel better?”

2. Death Bed, Poems of the Past- Powfu ft. Beabadoobee

To me this song is about all the things you fear you’ll miss out on. Even though I have never been in a relationship I can still relate to the fear of missing out on major life moments. Because the truth is you never know what the next day brings.

Most Memorable Line: “I hope I go to heaven, so I see you once again.”

3. Cold in California, Moral of the Story: Chapter 2- Ashe

Have you ever felt like everyone else is in their own paradise and you’re just stuck? This is the song for you. It exposes the truth about everyone's personal “california” while simultaneously making me feel like the shittyness of life is what makes it so special.

Most Memorable Line: “Oh, don't mind what anybody told ya, it still gets cold in California.”

4. I’m Here, Horology- Sweet Talk Radio

I originally heard this song on the Netflix show “Alexa and Katie” and instantly felt a connection to it. It is soothing, sad, and understanding in all the best ways possible. It is about how those closest to you will be there anytime you need them. A gentle but much needed reminder that you’re not in this battle alone.

Most Memorable Line- “When you’ve forgotten how to sing along. When everything you knew was wrong. I’m here.”

5. In My Dreams, Life as We Know It- REO Speedwagon

This song has a more personal connection than the rest. My first time going to Children's Hospital Colorado my mom and I listened to it non-stop. I’m not sure if time was standing still or if this song kept playing, but when I think of that first trip I automatically think of this. The lyrics remind me of the fear and optimism I had. To this day I can listen to this song and be brought to tears.

Most Memorable Line: “Let the world go on below us. We are lost in time.”

6. Soon You’ll Get Better, Lover- Taylor Swift Ft. Dixie Chicks

When I hear this I think of all the pain my parents and sister must go through with my health struggles. It reminds me of all the bizarre things they did just so I could feel normal. At the time the extra gifts and love didn’t take away the pain. But now that I am older I cherish the moments that I got to experience that most health people don’t.

Most Memorable line: “Holy orange bottles, each night I pray to you. Desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus too.”

7. A Little Bit Longer, A Little Bit Longer- The Jonas Brothers

My sister played this song for me the day I was diagnosed with type one diabetes. At the time I didn’t understand a whole ton of the diabetes lyrical nods. But over time the lyrics started to speak to me more and more. Now it is a song I listen to whenever I want to feel understood.

Most Memorable Line: “A little bit longer and I'll be fine.”

8. Against the Wind, Against the Wind- Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band

Something about how life is perfectly laid out in this song fascinates me. Knowing that life isn’t linear and that we are all struggling with something makes me feel like my battle is a little less. I love how this song is truthful. We all lose our way once in a while. It's the fact that we found our way back that matters.

Most Memorable Line: “The years rolled slowly past and I found myself alone. Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends. I found myself further and further from my home.”

9. Epiphany, Folklore- Taylor Swift

One thing no one tells you is how close you will get to your doctors and nurses. They become like a second family. And sometimes they are closer to you than your actual family. These individuals hold your hand during procedures. Celebrate your triumphs with you. And mourn your losses too. Somewhere between the ungodly amount of time you spend at the hospital and your lack of privacy. Friendships are born. This song always reminds me of what they must feel being on the other side of my illness.

Most Memorable Line: “Holds your hand through plastic now. Doc, I think she's crashin' out and some things you just can't speak about.”

10. 100 Bad Days, Neotheater- AJR

These three brothers know how to write a song. This song makes me feel like all my bad days are just one great story to tell at a party. And let me tell you I’ve had more than a 100 bad days. Things do get better. It just takes time. So when things finally start to make sense give this electric jam a listen.

Most Memorable Line: “We had to work a bit more hard only just to get a little bit less far. We could laugh about it all tomorrow, couldn't we?”

If any of you have a song I must listen to drop them below! I would love to give them a listen. Stay well and save a spoon for yourself.

XOXO, Madi

#chronic illness #spoonie #grow through what you go through #ajr #powfu #ashe #sweet talk radio #reo speedwagon #tayor swift #dixie chicks #the jonas brothers #bob seger and the silver bullet band #sick #music

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ayankun · 5 years ago

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Agents of SHIELD Season 1 Rewatch Update

Ok so I’m having a difficult time remembering what it was that made me hate this show so much (aside from the unforgivable Minecraft reference) and stop watching in Season 1.

Just got through ep 14 and holy cow, I’m honestly not sure whether the storylines for seasons 2, 3, and 4 were planned this far in advance, but if they were then these folks did such an overwhelmingly good job of keeping their eye on the ball.

Best I can figure, I’m having a good time on this attempt thanks to prequel-goggles. I already know where this story is going, who these people will become and what’s going to make them into what they will be, and I can appreciate this older storyline in light of the circumstances it precedes -- rather than for what it is without that context.

(It certainly helps that some of the dumber stuff is already starting to be replaced by the better stuff, like it’s ep 15 and the “night-night gun” was just replaced by the much more palatable “icer,” and they haven’t tried to call the individual dwarves by name for ages now)

Also there’s some pretty good cinematography, the graphics are really respectable, watching this found family slowly realize how much they love each other is sooo charming, and the affectations required of a MCU-spin-off-sci-fi-spy-show are really well balanced with the character drama which is its true heart.

I know ep 1x08 (”The Well”) is six and a half years old so maybe spoiler warnings are not necessarily required but here we go

Remember when Thor 2 came out and then this show had to earn its stripes as co-existing in the MCU so they had to address the fact that aliens ripped up London and the whole world knows about it?

Not being able to afford the likes of Chris Hemsworth was something they obviously had to work around, and plopping in that rando dweeby Asgardian as a twist was definitely one way to do it.

But the real showstopper is that the through-line of the episode is the examination of the similarities and differences of Ward and May, especially once they both come in contact with the Asgardian rage-stick.

Seeing Ward nearly incapacitated by his traumatic childhood memories serves two important purposes. First, it makes some good strides towards humanizing the man, who until now has been that hot-and-cocky kind of character that just expects to appeal to an audience but hasn’t yet earned any appeal whatsoever. By now, we’ve had a reference to his toxic dynamic with his older/younger brothers, and seeing him reliving his experience with the well suddenly opens him up and gives some dimension to that tall-dark-handsome cardboard cutout.

Second, those experiences are a really good twist!! When it’s revealed that he’s not remembering being tortured in a well by his brother, he’s remembering allowing his brother to torture his other brother down a well and not having the guts to do anything about it. It’s a good one-two punch because you weren’t expecting to pity the guy, and now that you’ve spent twenty minutes pitying him for being victimized, you get to grapple with the much more complex emotion of the kid!Ward not knowing how to get out of this lose-lose situation and understanding that his current character must be in some way informed by this regret and guilt.

THIRD, after seeing Ward go through all this and barely hold it together, we get to see how May handles this level of relive-your-worst-trauma-and-incinerate-yourself-with-unbridled-rage when she has to pick up the rage-stick and .... instead of it leaving her on the ground like it’s just done to Ward, she somehow experiences 0.00000% change in personality or capability WhatSoEver.

She not only isn’t affected, she summons all the broken pieces of rage-stick and effortlessly wields the fully formed berzerker staff to defeat the rest of the baddies single-handed. It says so much about her character, about the depths of the trauma that sent her to the place we met her in in the pilot. We still don’t know what happened, but this her “my secret is I’m always angry” moment, and it’s a level of anger has been repeatedly and thoroughly cataloged throughout the episode so far.

It also gives these fools something to bond over. And while I’m seriously disinterested in their weird little Thing that didn’t go anywhere and didn’t really impact much, it was a nice way to avoid progress in the “Skye’s falling for her SO” storyline that I don’t care for either.

But Skye makes her move in this episode! She and Ward dance around the possibility that maybe they’re into each other and they could possibly move from antagonistic strangers to folks who are a little into each other. But he does the gentle thing and turns her down! (without closing the door entirely, I must add) And then he wanders off on his own and ... May’s wandering off on her own ... and they share some micro expressions and then, seriously you guys this sequence is so tasteful and understated, just look:

Ward leaves Skye at the bar with a parting “I’m beat, another time, maybe,” and off her wistful look we cut directly to this chiaroscuro hallway.

Ward enters the frame, starts unlocking his hotel room. He's just another monochrome shape in this monochrome place.

But then there’s May entering the shot at the far end of the hallway, and her motion and his turning to look at her frames her monochrome shape in this nice little white triangle between him and her door.

And there’s a tasty little rack focus that pulls the instant she passes in front of the door, making sure our attention is on her and the little white label of her bottle that really pops in the sea of black.

By this point in time, we’ve been shown, graphically, intimately, a dark shadow in his past, and we’ve been shown the physical and emotional toll its taken on him (an insight provided by the magic alien macguffin, btw). We haven’t been told anything, we experienced his experiences with him via the power of cinema. Her specific trauma is still a mystery at this point, but we’ve been given enough information to understand and appreciate its effects on her character. So not only can we sympathize with Ward now, we can sympathize with his empathy for May in this moment.

She catches him looking.

I mentioned micro expressions and screenshots do not do these performances justice. How does one catch in a single frame the millisecond that an eyebrow ticks in asking a silent question?

Typical for her, May’s answer is also communicated through body language.

From that canted, inviting look, we pan down as she unlocks her door and enters. She passes through the frame and disappears inside, after giving us a reminder that her plans are to apply alcohol to her issues. (Remember that Ward turned down Skye’s invitation at a bar of all places)

Oh, and what has our framing left us to contemplate? Is that a bed I see in there? (Remember that Ward turned down Skye’s invitation) Let me point out that this shot of just the bed after May walks by is on screen by itself for maybe a fraction of a second. Just a suggestion of a thing, really.

Ward contemplates.

I love returning to this shot because it’s literally the same set up, and my instant reaction is that it’s another insert, a POV shot, and I fully expect to return to the single shot on Ward to discover his decision the second he makes it.

INSTEAD. Ward walks immediately into THIS FRAME, too, black-shape-on-white-shape in the same way May was introduced to this scene. And we stay here as he closes the door behind him ...

Letting us know everything we need to know without a single word needing to be spoken.

Another fraction of a frame dwelling on that shot and then immediately fade to black. Credits. Show’s over, folks.

And not that there’s any particular meaning in it, but they were super careful to minimize what colors were allowed to appear in this sequence? Like there’s a particular sort of green in that weird armchair, which sort of matches the green-glass of her bottle. And there’s the red of the fire alarm fixtures which more or less matches the red of his, y’know, fresh facial wounds. EVERYTHING else (other than, I guess, their skin tones) falls somewhere along the white-black spectrum. NICE. BEAUTIFUL. I LIKE IT A LOT.

And the Netflix synopsis for this episode is “In the aftermath of the events chronicled in the feature film Thor: the Dark World, Coulson and the S.H.I.E.L.D. team try to pick up the pieces.” 1) I’m realizing that they literally go around picking up pieces of the rage-stick and that’s hilarious but mostly I mean to say 2) this MCU-tie-in episode could have met the brief being as vapid and non-impactful as that blurb makes it sound. But it took the opportunity to open up its characters for us to see their gooey insides, and hell they picked two of the best characters to dig into for this one, considering Ward’s tragic backstory plays as both a misdirect and actual inciting incident for his betrayal of SHIELD, and May’s tragic backstory feeds a couple of B-plots this season as well as being the major catalyst for a lot what happens in season FOUR. SEASON FOUR, PEOPLE. THE SEEDS ARE WAY BACK HERE IN SEASON ONE.

REMEMBER HOW THESE CHARACTERS WERE INTRODUCED THOUGH?? I DO, I JUST WATCHED THE PILOT LIKE YESTERDAY. WE MEET WARD FULLY ENSCONCED IN HIS GUISE OF SHIELD BADASS SUPERSTAR; HE IS LITERALLY ASKED TO EXPLAIN WHAT SHIELD MEANS TO HIM, AND WE GET TO HEAR THE FIRST OF HIS MANY LIES. WE MEET MAY IN HER OWN PERSONALLY-DESIGNED WHITE-COLLAR HELL, TURNING COULSON’S OFFER DOWN THE SECOND SHE HEARS HIS VOICE BECAUSE SHE’D RATHER STAPLE DOCUMENTS FOR ETERNITY THAN BE OUT IN THE FIELD WHERE SHE CAN MAKE ANOTHER MISTAKE LIKE THE ONE SHE CAN’T FORGIVE HERSELF FOR.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This show knows how to weave a character-driven story, and it’s done it for six seasons straight, juggling constantly evolving -- grounded, nuanced, impactful -- character arcs with the external factors (Thor: The Dark World, for one) that force certain narrative decisions.

(until they decide to ignore those factors altogether, lol, I’m looking at you, season 5, you wacky maverick you)

#agents of shield #aos #the well #grant ward #melinda may #a long rant about things I love #it's nice to rant about positive things for a change

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