#so shes not like 100% against it obvs

[parasolids]

i was discussing whether i should get a game console or not with my mom and she was like "i dont want you to buy it but i also know that telling you that is going to make you want to buy it more" and unfortunately she is right

[darlingmisa]

Riding Abby's face ;)

im a slut okay?

Sit on my face | Abby Anderson

Ohhh this was so fun to write I love Abby way too much <3 we can be sluts together baby dw

c/w: nsfw, afab reader, squirting, face sitting obv

w/c: 658

Abby’s stamina was insane, so even after many highs from both of you, of course, she wasn’t done. But when the request came for you to sit on her face, you were a little nervous, to say the least. This was something you’d never tried before, Abby being your first for everything. She could see the nervous look on your face, one that said you wanted to, just didn't know how. 

Abby’s body now laid beside you, never breaking eye contact, placing her head on her pillow. “Come on pretty, it's okay, I’ll guide you.” She whispered softly, hand reaching out for yours to guide you to her face. Just looking at her you could tell she was excited, a slight sparkle in her eyes at the idea of being buried in your pussy again. 

Brows furrowed slightly, you questioned her about the idea “Abs… what if I crush you? W-What if you can’t breathe?” The question only made her laugh a little at your concern, shaking her head slightly as you straddled her chest, too shy to move up any further. She placed her hands on your hips, rubbing comforting circles with her thumb. “I’ll be fine baby, I promise.” 

Using her seemingly never-ending strength, she lifted you right off her chest and onto her mouth, groaning at the taste of you on her tongue despite tasting you not even 30 minutes ago. The vibrations of her moans went straight to your core, making you jump a little from the pleasure. “Hey,” she spoke, slightly muffled from your cunt, “It’s okay, you can put all your weight on me. I wouldn’t lie to you would I?” 

Giving in, you sat completely, a soft moan leaving your swollen lips at the feeling of her nose bumping your clit. Abby wasted no time getting to work, licking and sucking like she’d been starved for weeks on end. She started slow, letting you used to the slight overstimulation, but when your whines turned into loud moans that your neighbors could definitely hear, she indulges herself completely.

Her grip on your hips tightened as she began to help you grind against her tongue. Throwing your head back you got louder, which Abby didn’t even think was possible. High-pitched whines and moans of her name leave your mouth non-stop, like music to her ears. This drove her to work harder, moving her tongue between your folds and slipping it into your now pulsing hole, moaning at the way you clenched around her. 

The pleasure was like something you’d never felt before. It was heavenly, leaving you borderline breathless as you moved your hands to grip her hair, tugging and pulling just the way you knew she liked it. You could barely hear Abby’s soft grunts and moans over the almost pornographic sound of her shoving her face further into you, slurping and sucking like she’d die if she ever stopped. 

The coil in your stomach felt tighter than ever, pleasure multiplying times 100 as you neared your 4th orgasm of the night. You could barely warn Abby before it all happened, voice cracking as you whined. “C-close... Abby, I’m close,” She hummed, “C’mon baby, cum on my face, want it all in my mouth.” and you finally let go. 

It was intense, something you had never felt before. It left you shaking and twitching, Abby’s grip on your thighs being the only thing keeping you from collapsing on top of her. Finally catching your breath, you looked down as Abby slowed her tongue against you, and that’s when you realized, it was everywhere. Her face was practically glistening in your slick. It was on the pillows, all over her chest, soaking in the sheets and her hair. 

In shock, you quickly moved off her face, legs still shaking, apologizing for making such a mess only to be met with her small smile. 

“Don’t apologize. Come back, wanna make you do that again.”

[piastri-lover]

who would have guessed; alex albon

summary: in which you and alex are dropping hints about your relationship, and yet no one seems to be getting the hint

pairing: alex albon x celeb!reader

author's note: i fucking love alex albon and this prompt!! icl i dont know he's so underrated but i enjoyed making this sm xx

INSTAGRAM

yourusername 📍tulum, mexico

liked by pierregasly, zendaya and 17293057 yourusername summer time x view comments

-

user1 i love y/n so fucking much

user2 wife

user3 are u kidding i was lit in mexico two days ago and NOW the queen is here -user4 lit flew out this morning i could have met my wife

zendaya having fun? ;)) -yourusername don't know what u mean by that --zendaya ill keep my mouth shut

user5 after 3 months of oppenheimer filming y/n prob needs a break -user6 she slayed as jean though --user5 100%

user7 mexico is my country and i'm so glad u love it liked by yourusername -user7 omg y/n liked my comment im done

user8 whos she with -user9 idk but someone def took that 3rd photo

user10 why is pierre in the queen y/n's likes?? -user11 i bet he forgot to switch accounts and liked without thinking --user12 ariana what are u doing here

~~~

TWITTER

~~~

~~~

INSTAGRAM

yourusername 📍tulum, mexico

liked by sydney_sweeney, landonorris and 32017295 others yourusername thank u for the restuarant reccomendation, we loved it xx view comments

-

user13 mother is mothering

user14 she's so fit -user15 that scene in oppenheimer changed me as a person

user16 THERES A BOY -user17 omg omg omg this is not a drill

sydney_sweeney y/n... -yourusername ill call u later and fill u in babe

user18 first pierre, now lando -user19 the entire grid is simping for y/n and tbh i don't blame them

user20 the soft launch is beginning -user21 im so ready to analyse every screenshot to try and work this out first

user22 i need that dress

TWITTER

INSTAGRAM

alex_albon replied to your story:

alex_albon ur fans are going wild on twt rn

yourusername really?? i haven't checked

alex_albon mhmm like they havent stopped speculating for hours im sure i saw someone ship u with fucking lando

yourusername he is kinda cute...

alex_albon oy

yourusername im kidding we still going out for dinner tonight??

alex_albon yup its me and you, george and carmen and lando lol

yourusername all good

alex_albon pick u up at 8?

yourusername counting down the minutes baby love u x

alex_albon love u more x

~~~

landonorris

liked by pierregasly, charles_leclerc and 4103549 others landonorris my fave couples (im so alone) view comments

-

user23 umm

user24 lando babe i dont feel like u were supposed to post this

georgerussell63 he's passed out and i dont know his password idk what to do -user25 george are y/n and alex dating??? --georgerussell63 no lando was just feeling a bit silly

user26 george trying to defend alex and y/n when we obv know they're dating

alex_albon i let him take one photo and ofc he does this -yourusername at least we look cute --alex_albon we always look cute baby

user27 i wasnt sure about alex but look they're so wholesome

user28 im j wondering how tf alexander albon pulled the y/n -user29 me too --user30 like nothing against him but y/n is... well y/n

landonorris wait i thought this was my private

landonorris so so sorry -yourusername ur buying me a drink when we next go out --landonorris done and done ---alex_albon my girl has expensive taste lando u have completely shot urself in the foot

TWITTER

INSTAGRAM

yourusername

tagged: alex_albon liked by zendaya, pierregasly and 51294856 othersyourusername lando ruined my softlaunch(🖕🖕) but anyway i kinda love him so be nice xx view comments

-

user31 no bc theyre acc cute

user32 i hate to have to share my wife but it would be with him

landonorris ive apologised 1000 times idk what more to do -alex_albon she had the entire thing all planned out but no lando norris had to intervene --yourusername honestly im heartbroken i might need another bottle of champagne... ---landonorris fuck off y/n the last bottle was like £1000

alex_albon leng -yourusername appreciate it bro

alex_albon the last photo❤️❤️❤️-yourusername love u big man

user33 omg i hope we get to see her at a grand prix soon -yourusername im def coming to spa and we'll see after that

williamsracing already saving a seat for u -yourusername i cant wait xx

user34 dont know whether i want to be alex or her

user35 bi awakening -user36 fr

user37 sleeping on the highway tonight -landonorris ill be joining u --user38 landos so real for that

[thesunfyre4446]

ok, so i've been getting a lot of "rhaenyra would never kill her siblings" asks recently.

first of all, no one is saying that rhaenyra WANTS to kill her brothers. but there's just no way that a woman & a bastard can inherit peacefully when 3 legitimate sons (with legitimate sons of their own) exist. this is not how westerosi politics work. the men in power wants to keep the men in power, this is the definition of patriarchy. and i'm not saying that's a good thing - because obvs it's not - but that's the truth. westeros is a patriarchal society.

the lords of westeros - the men in power - wants to preserve the existing order. legitimate sons inherit over daughters, bastards can't inherit. it's important to them because their own power is dependent on this very system. let's say rhaenyra becomes queen, and all of the sudden other firstborn daughters start to stand up and demand to be named heirs to their houses . let's say jace becomes the prince of dragonstone, and suddenly bastards that are older then their legitimate siblings start to demand their rights as well. from our modern pov - that's a great thing, but for the lords of westeros that's literally their worst nightmare.

"but a lot of houses supported rhaenyra". true! i'm not saying every lord in westeros will not accept her, i'm saying some of them def won't, and as long as aegon\aemond\daeron lives, there will always be someone advocating for their rights - and that's dangerous for rhaenyra and her family. so yeah, to protect herself and her children she will 100% kill her brothers. i'm not holding it against her - she's obvs going to care more about her children & herself then her brothers.

"but dorne ..." i feel like GRRM has made it abundantly clear that westeros does not want to become like dorne. dornish people are stereotyped and discriminated against - especially dornish women, that are viewed as promiscuous and are constantly oversexualized. westeros becoming like dorne is def not something westerosi men want.

ironically, jace will have to face the exact same situation with his own brothers aegon and viserys, but i digress.

also, did we forget how easily rhaenyra offered to have her 10yo brother tortured when she felt like her children were in danger? do you guys really believe that she's above murdering to protect them?

[milfswriter]

okay hear me out on this request lol

Rhea x Reader where reader wanted to surprise Rhea and buys a box of those aphrodisiac chocolates, then Rhea eats one of them thinking its regular chocolate and goes into a match. She can't focus at all during the match because of the aphrodisiac and is thinking of reader the whole time which almost costs her the match. horny + angry Rhea = thisisgonnabealongnight.jpg if youre not comfortable with writing this since its smut i 100% understand anyways i love your work and hope you're doing well :)))

it's 3 am and I'm bored so have this ig. I feel like I exaggerated the effects of the chocolate lmao.

Mistake

Rhea Ripley x Reader Summary: Rhea eats from the chocolate box you bought and almost immediately regrets it. Notes and warning: not proofread tbh, aphrodisiac, smut (obv), cunnilingus, fingering (Rhea receiving), strapon mentioned, locker room sex, slightly bottom!rhea

"Hey" you placed a kiss to your girlfriend's cheek as you got into the locker room, placing a heart-shaped box in her locker before she closed it.

"What's that?" she smiled, there were still a few days until your anniversary so she was a bit confused as to what was the occasion.

"Just..chocolate" you failed to hold back your smirk which made her narrow her eyes at you before humming.

"I'll be going first 'cause I'm on commentary" You gave her a quick kiss and made your way to the door. "Oh, and..don't eat those!" You warned her, you really did.

----

Rhea shrugged before untying the little red bow on top of the box, opening it to see two layers of chocolate. Surely eating a few won't do any harm, she needed the extra energy for her match anyway.

She closed the box, not bothering to tie the ribbon back to hide her crime as she was already late. She walked to the gorilla and waited until it was her turn.

She felt...weird. She assumed it was the sugar since she hadn't had any in a while except for energy drinks but gulped as her knees almost buckled when she saw you with the hairstylist, doing the last touches on your hair.

"Hey..good luck" you squeezed her hand before your theme played and you came out behind the curtain.

Her vision was clouded by your scent, she couldn't focus to save her bloody life! it wasn't any opponent, it was Charlotte Flair. That little snake will do anything to embarrass her in front of you. You were not going to be on ringside this time, you'll be WATCHING her as Charlotte kicks her ass. She won't let this happen. She didn't want it to seem like she could only win when you were there.

"There you go, Rhea," a staff member said, pulling her out of the deep trance she was in as her theme played.

You watched with a grin as Rhea did her stomp, glaring at the cameras before making her way to the ring. She looked tense, almost dizzy.

As her theme stopped playing, she leaned against the corner of the ring, trying as hard she could not to make eye contact with you as you sat next to Corey with your legs crossed as you praised her.

"One Riptide from Rhea will send the so-called 'queen' spiraling. Mark my words, Cole!"

---------

Fuck, she couldn't contain herself. An intense throbbing between her legs began to form and she held onto the ropes as Charlotte did her entrance.

What the hell was happening to her? is she having a heart attack?. Damn it she shouldn't have drunk all those energy drinks that week.

She turned her head to see you and immediately regretted it when she saw you already looking at her with a smirk. You looked..sexy. Extra sexy that she didn't know how she let you walk out in those clothes, no one deserved to see you like this but her.

She ignored all the taunts Charlotte was doing to provoke her as she stared at you. She was brought back to reality by the bell and looked at Charlotte who gave her a cocky smirk.

-------

Halfway through the match, you decided you'd leave commentary and be on ring side because if you didn't, Rhea would be taking the Figure 8 in no time.

She delivered a big boot to Charlotte, sending her falling on her back. The crowd cheered before Rhea looked at you briefly then turned her head back to her opponent.

She couldn't stop thinking about you..your breasts, how full and round they'd look whenever she'd squeeze them. You lips, soft and tasy. and Oh your p-.

"RHEA!" Your voice interrupted her train of thought as you saw Charlotte coming her way looking for a spear.

Before she knew it, she was thrown across the ring and rolled out of it in pain. "What the fuck are you doing! Focus!" You hissed through your teeth, placing a hand on her thigh and saw her looking at your hand and bit her lip.

You gulped in realization, "You..You didn't eat the chocolate..did you?" Her eyes widened and it hit her like a ton of bricks, it was the chocolate!

"I thought I told you not to open it!" you sighed before hearing the ref counting.

You pulled her up by the arm and pushed her into the ring without another word in frustration. "Finish this!"

She wished she could, but Charlotte was taking advantage of the situation.

------

Rhea hit Charlotte with an Avalanche Riptide, pinning her tiredly with an arm over her torso.

You held onto the rope in anticipation, gulping when you saw Charlotte's feet trying to reach the rope.

"One! Two! Three!" Rhea couldn't believe this was finally over, it's been going on for 15 minutes and the throbbing is getting even more intense and all she wants is to take you to the locker room because she isn't sure she'll last until the hotel.

Her theme played as you slid into the ring, raising her arm in victory before the cameras were cut. "Please.." she whispered and you shushed her, taking her hand backstage.

She was following clumsily behind you as you headed to the locker room. "Congrats Rhea" you heard Dakota say but didn't bother to wait for Rhea to chat with her.

"T..Thanks" As you reached the locker room, you opened Rhea's locker and took the box, placing it in its original bag before taking your stuff.

"Follow me to the car.."

"No!" she blocked the way to the door with her much larger frame. "I..I need you now..please"

"Wh..here?!" she nodded, getting on her knees after locking the door, and began unbuttoning your jeans, knowing full well you were packing underneath.

"sit on the bench" you ordered, "Come on..I wanna eat you out before you explode on the spot" you laughed but she released a sigh of relief.

She stood up and, with your help, unbuttoned her tights and pulled them down her legs alongside her underwear.

"You..are dripping" you whispered in her ear. If she's gonna walk around and do what you told her not to, you won't let it go easily.

She spread her legs, feeling your breath on her inner thigh. "No teasing..please" you placed slow kisses all over her inner thighs, coating them with lipstick before spreading them even more, she was absolutely soaked.

you spread her lips with your thumbs before giving in and licking a long stripe. "oh, fuck.." was heard before you dived into her with your tongue.

"Such a fucking slut" you mumbled before going back to what you were doing. She scowled before moaning again, biting back whatever comment she was gonna make in hopes of you getting into it already.

She threw her head back, sighing and savoring the feeling of your lips wrapped around her clit before you decide to be a tease again. Shit..what the fuck did they put in that chocolate.

"I told you not to eat it!" you laughed nipping on her labia, and she knew she must have been thinking out loud.

"How was I supposed to know they were spik- Oh!" she was cut off with a guttural groan when a finger entered her, stretching her for you even though you knew there was no need for that.

You added another finger and you know she was close with how tight she was clenching around you. "I'm...close"

"Do you deserve to come?" you asked, slowing down your movement for a bit.

"Please I'm sorry..I..needed that sugar, fuck!" you let out a chuckle at her state, picking up the pace again and wrapping your lips back around her bundle of nerves.

you felt her fingers pulling slightly on your scalp as her legs shook on either side of your head, trying hard not to suffocate you with them. "that's it..cum for me, Demi" you knew what saying her real name did to her, you didn't know why but you never complained.

To bring her even closer to the edge, you sneaked your free hand up her body and squeezed her boob through her leather bra, almost immediately causing the coil in her stomach to snap.

You shut her up with your fingers in her mouth, you were sure everybody knew what was going on in there but you didn't want them to know what Rhea Ripley sounds like when she's cumming for you.

She looked down at you with a grin as you lapped at her cum, placing one last kiss on her clit as her fingers played with your hair while she caught her breath.

"You done in there you freaks?! I need my fucking stuff" You heard Shayna slamming her hand against the door.

"Are we?" you looked at Rhea with a laugh as she shook her head.

"Not even close. But..let's continue in the hotel, I wanna have my way with you" she got up, giving you a hard kiss before putting her pants back on.

"Fuck..how many did you fucking eat!"

"..Three. I thought I was dying out there" You let out a howl at her state, she looked so disheveled and fucked out even though you two just began.

She unlocked the door, facing Shayna who was crossing her arms. "Was it that good or are you just a fucking show off cause you got y/n?"

"oh, believe me-"

"nope! let's go!" you didn't know whether to be offended at Shayna doubting you were good in bed or flattered.

Rhea laughed at your flushed face, taking her stuff and following you to the parking lot.

Taglist:

@obsessedwithwwewomen@ara-a-bird@jungwoospeach@neganwifey25-blog@yourmisosoup@cameronsdruthers@dementedtrashcat @sunnnyshark @1c4ntg3ty0u0ffmym1nd 

[danmeiconfession]

My thoughts/rants aren't very coherent so just take it as me rambling instead lol .

 Although sj's treatment of lbh was awful, lbh is still sj's direct disciple and the matter of his discipline rests on sj, so it's awkward for outsiders to interfere. it's not right but hey neither is slavery or child marriage so them's the works.

LBH was free to leave Qing Jing Peak at any time - but perhaps not in his own mind. This is interesting bc imo him and sj never had a relationship where sj was gaslighting lbh into staying. in fact i'd say sj made it plenty clear he found lbh to be an eyesore but maybe in those years sj had some intermittent spots of mercy lbh latched onto and then just never gave up hope.

Unless, Well looking at SV canon and how the system didn't penalize sy for the medicine + carriage ride after sy explained his thought process, it wouldn't surprise me if those types of events happened with sj and lbg. if sj had to bring lbh out on a night hunt he prolly made sure lbh was patched up + looked presentable so he didn't ruin the cohesive aesthetic of his peak haha and well NYY is always a weak point. these things definitely wasn't usual but likely happened often -enough- for lbh to get his hopes up over and over .

As modern people, we of course abhor the way that LBH was treated and SQQ comes off as abusive and a slimy lecher. But by the standards of his own age, everything he's done is perfectly acceptable. In traditional Chinese philosophy, the teacher is like a father, and a father and a teacher can do whatever they want to their child / pupil. Even in modern China, teachers have been known to get away with beating their pupils. In the UK (where I'm from), it wasn't so long ago that teachers could cane their students and no one blinked an eye about parents beating their kids. Slavery, child marriage, selling your wife or daughter into prostitution, all of that was totally legal in ancient China.

I always thought it was strange that OG LBH fixated so much on SQQ that he tortured him so horribly, but there's no mention of him doing the same to everyone else who ever wronged him, no matter how small. I think being pushed into the Abyss the last straw but I also think the reason he so hard-wired to think of his Shizun as this unfeeling man and tortured him limbless is because He got rejected so many women like him but the one man he chased relentlessly for years for his eyes to even graze him he look the other way which is why I think his eye got taken out ?

After the loss of his mother, lbh expected to find a new family in qjp and a new parental figure in sj. The greater the expectation the greater the disappointment. obv jiumei is not in the right condition to play mother hen to anybody. | ಠ ∧ ಠ | but lil bingbing didn't know that and arguably maybe he understood his foster mother was treated bad bc she was a servant but he couldn't understand why sqq, an immortal cultivator, is so hellbent on bullying some unknown kid.

Also, why does it bug Binghe that much? Why was it brought up against SJ during his trial in Proud Immortal Demon Way? Maybe it's just critical research failure on Airplane's part, but in ancient China, visiting prostitutes was completely normal. Men could have multiples wives and concubines and sleep with their servants and go around to the local brothel. Visiting a prostitute was just a leisure activity.Like, t says something about Binghe's obsession with SQQ in PIDW that he's fixated on SQQ's alleged bedroom habits?

Of course we modern people and Luo Binghe have a right to be mad, but justice in ancient xianxia China is... putting it lightly, biased... This is a world that shrugs off almost any crime if your position is high enough.

100% LBH is right to be upset, but the problems run much deeper than SQQ, their whole world is rotten. Him being mad about SQQ yeeting him is kind of confusing, he's legit to be hurt about it but any Cultivator would have killed LBH on sight when he was revealed to be a demon, and a heavenly one at that.

Which is why i'm forgiving with Shen Jiu because why judge him from a lens from the modern viewpoint because on top of the shitty things that happened to his life him being an abusive teacher isn't really so damning when the entire Cultivation worls is corrupt??? In a way the original PIDW was a hypocritical abuse apologism story with the mentality that any abuse against the protag was unjust and wrong and any abuse he committed whether disproportionate or targeted at people who never did anything to him was righteous or deserved was a criticism of the stallion protags and that it was never equal to begin with Shen jiu never deserved such torture they were never on equal footings to begin with. Yeah, he was vicious but it hypocritical. I never took Shen Yuan being with Binghe as a reward but a punishment for being such a troll and idol-obsessed that he ended up with Bingmei dude. Sorry if ending up with a mentally ill man and one who sa him and only cared for his own needs during the act with no regard for their partner and i'm breaking yall illusion with this toxic ship.

Considering what went down with LQG and SJ when they where disciples it does seem like there is a lot of bullying. If PIDW is like other Xianxia novels, or even historical dramas then there is probably a lot of underhanded sabotage by students against one another. Many cultivation novels with sects have kids fight over food and resources and if you can't cut it then you leave or you languish. A peak like SQQs may well have such things as part of their education because it's a strategist and scholarly peak, any student who couldn't figure out how to sabotage rivals, curry favor with the right people, manipulate, info gather, and navigate dangerous political situations on top of doing well in normal studies wouldn't fair well in such a place. - I doubt this to be the case in canon as SQQ is supposed to be a scum villain but its fascinating to speculate.

In a way Binghe is weird he thinks more in terms of a modern person I guess in a meta way? Because... He isn't special .It always strikes me as funny that LBH apparently like, idk, despite also being native to the culture is upset by it? as if he wanted more from specifically from SQQ? bc he wanted SQQ to find him special? meta hand-of-god type stuff where LBH accidentally has a more modern attitude bc of the way he was written?

Hell, his 300 wives scream self-enforced heterosexuality. like some DEEP repression and distraction.Ur telling me this guy fought more powerful sect masters, demon lords, survived assassinations but the mean teacher deserved prolonged torment.

If only Shen jiu played up the role as a mother things wouldn't have escalated lol. Freud should study Binghe though cause damn his mother issues run deep. His father though he doesnt give a damn and is detached from him but when it comes about the jade pendant youre basically finished. feeling the hots for ssq was part of the mommy issues lbh had lmao

.

[deadboyfriendd]

𝙑𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙤 𝙂𝙞𝙧𝙡. E.M.

Summary: Eddie isn't in college, but he sells drugs at college parties. He usually isn't into these kinds of girls, cokeheads home for the long weekend, but what happens when he meets you?

Warnings: Fem!Reader, Eddie Munson x Reader, obvs a lil canon-divergent, fratboy adjacent!Steve, wingman!Robin, drug use, angst to fluff, smut included

My content is 18+ Minors DNI

Word Count: 9.1k

Author's Note: This is secretly based off of a Fall Out Boy song. Spear me please.

Also this is 100% for @dr-aculaaa , Drac helped me out with a TON of the dialogue and plot in this and she deserves 100% of the hype for this. PLEASE go read her work.

Eddie isn’t in college, but he sells drugs at college parties. 

He’s overstimulated. Both by the heat of the girl grasping and gripping his arm that was turning it unpleasantly raw and by the lack of anything substantial that he could focus his senses on. He can’t remember her name, and it wasn’t because of the seventeen other things distracting his senses, either. She was inherently unremarkable. Another cokehead from The Hideout. College girls home for the long weekend. Love does not occur in dive bar bathrooms, Eddie knew that much. 

He could tell her apart immediately, a Pamela Anderson wannabe with all of the intuition to sniff out anyone remotely Tommy Lee adjacent. The glorification of hard drugs and dysfunction. This would not go anywhere but possibly the bathroom, where she would emerge with a misty ring of powder white around her left nostril and blown pupils. He would taste the drip on her later that night when she would kiss him in a grotesque masquerade of her own cold comedown, denial dripping from her lips with a sticky sweetness disguised with L’Oreal Colour Riche Rich Brown. There were a thousand more like her, some here at home, others in Indianapolis, even more in Chicago. 

She was pretty for a cokehead, but not nearly as pretty as you. 

He spotted you through past the popcorn ceilings, under the fluorescent kitchen lights that were not particularly attractive for any given reason. You were the only girl here who didn’t know how he was. He had been stuck in the pipeline of town deviant to Indiana’s metal microcelebrity. His eyes locked on the kiss of your lashes as the aforementioned date dragged him through the density of other sweaty, coked-out bodies. You swung your legs back and forth as the scuffed rubber from the heels of your sneakers thudded against the hollow cabinet beneath you, rattling the pots behind it. 

She shrieks your name like a birdsong, and you whip around with wide eyes. She drags him along, pulling uncomfortably at his fingers. She bounces up and down in a way that she thinks is attractive, but to everyone else, the jingle of bangles and sequins and squealing is inherently annoying. 

You are not her friend. 

You had become acquainted with the girl before you in an entry-level introductory course for environmental design. It was offered as an elective across all majors but was also stupidly a requirement for all design-specific majors. And, even more unfortunately, the majority of the class was group work. This is how you met her. And she attached to you like a fungus— roots buried in branches that grasped your bones and made her impossible to remove without the inevitability of spawning again. She was a roach of a friend, not even nuclear warfare could rid you of her. But you were too nice to her, in fact, you were the only person that had given half a shit to include her. 

“Oh my God!” There’s a resonant tenor screech that reverberates off of the tile floors and pitches in your own ears so high that it could shatter any champagne flute within a ten mile radius. The guy— poor bastard– being dragged ruthlessly behind her like a content stray cat that had been claimed by a small child twitched an eye nearly shut at the pitchy shriek that plagues him as much as you. 

She explains how you met in an effortful, but drawn-out and utterly painful, story. It was a class. You were assigned a group project. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. 

But his hand was warm when it encased yours in an entirely professional handshake. You shook the thought from your head before it was even allowed to form. You desperately needed to kick the habit of falling in love with strangers in passing. You would not find the one at a party— at least not this one. 

It wasn’t long until she had gotten distracted, an old friend, as she had put it. There was no friend. Only powder on a mirror in the next room over. You questioned why she lied, because she wasn’t even discreet about it. 

“How can you be a nurse and do so much blow?” He asked, face twisted up in a sickening scowl. She had long forgotten about him and he tried his best to forget about her. 

“Girls like that usually are.” You deadpanned back, your face mirroring his own disgust. 

“Nursing majors?” He questioned, her major the only thing he could remember about her at this point. 

“Yeah. It’s the safest option. It keeps their parents happy while they put their financial aid up their noses.” You watched her try to discreetly gum some remnants off of the mirror sitting on the coffee table, pinkie finger dragging alongside the glass and disappearing behind her bottom lip. 

“I’ll bet she won’t finish off the semester.” You stated bluntly after a few seconds of spectating. 

“What about you?” He asked, in reference to your major. 

“Basket weaving. It’s really not much.” You didn’t want to come off as judgmental, or a prude. Especially not after admitting you were a design major. You cringed at how pretentious it sounded.  

“I like baskets.” He said, plopping himself down on the barstool across the island from you, toe thudding against the exterior to stop him from spinning too much. 

“Design.” You said, more of a mumble than a statement. You felt stupid. People usually thought you were stupid when you told them you dropped out of nursing school to be a design major. He didn’t need to know that part of you. After all, he was just some guy at a party and not the love of your life. 

“Of what nature?” He questioned, laying his head tiredly against his folded arm and looking up you you through thick lashes. 

“Of the graphic nature.” You were thoroughly surprised when he stuck around, head tilting to the side in curiosity — a stray curl bouncing from one side to the other. 

“What, like Chip Kidd?” Your head shot up. Sure, he was one of the hottest names in design this year, but who cared about design outside of designers? Next to no one. You forced yourself to play it cool. 

“More like a Stefan Sagmeister.” You grinned, bringing you knees to you chest and folding your arms over them. 

“You’re a Stones fan?” He questioned, brow cocked. 

“Who isn’t?“

“You’d be surprised.” 

“Well, surprise me, then.”

+

Eddie isn’t in college, but he knows a girl that frequents college parties.

This time it’s at some kickback in the woods, and this time it was to sell drugs— but seeing you was like a reward as you folded and contorted your own softness into comfort in the back compartment of his van, legs leaned against his side in search of warmth against the brisk nip of the reminiscence of winter. He draped his arm over your knees as he stood casually in wait, wondering how women could fold their bodies into strange statutes of comfort in only the ways they know how. 

You were good for business. Everyone and their mother seemed to know who you were. Probably because you were sweet. Especially to him. 

You’ve been casually sleeping with each other for a few weeks now, only when you can catch each other through hushed communal dorm phone-calls or whenever you come home for the weekend. No-strings attached, no commitment. But this outing sure felt like commitment, in the same way it felt like commitment when he held your hand earlier, and the same way it felt like commitment when he pressed his forehead against yours during your last entanglement. 

He leans over to you, alabaster skin of his neck stretching over bone and artery so he could whisper to you, 

“This is kind of lame. Let’s get out of here.”

You weren’t one to refuse him, especially not when he looked at you like that. 

“I’m not losing out on high school drama. I’m down.” You whisper back to him, pulling the end of an unruly curl just to watch it spring back up into place. 

While he’s watching the road, you’re memorizing the features of his face. If he could sparkle right now, he would be, even as the only light catching his face was from the too spaced-out street lamps. He drives in near-silence, whatever cassette buzzing hushedly over the radio but quiet enough that you could hear the vapid spinning of the tires and his occasional slow breath. 

You see the headstones before he has a chance to speak. 

“You’re gonna murder me.” You breathed out, joking mostly. 

“Yeah, right here, in the cemetery. Then I’m gonna bury you in a fresh grave.” He said to you, between eye rolls, getting out of the van to go pull the back doors open and straighten the woolen saddle blankets so you could sit. 

He pulls an acoustic guitar down from a makeshift bungee-cord rack fixed to the sidewall of the interior of the van, This Machine Slays Dragons crudely scrawled across the face to mimic Guthrie’s own. 

“I didn’t know that fascists breathed fire.” You said to him through a halfway-crooked sort of smile, pushing yourself up to lean against the sidewall of the van, facing him. You let one  leg swing back and forth, the rubber toe of your shoe tapping mindlessly against the seemingly useless tow hitch. 

“I knew you were more than just pretty.” He said, mouth turning up at the sides of his mouth. He was pretty, peering at you from beneath lashes before turning his attention back to the tuning knob. He strummed a calloused thumb across the tight string, listening to it upturn until he thought it sounded right.

It was a foreign ritual to you, his own prettiness being the catalyst for your own destruction before his vapid excuse at being a boyfriend ever could. . You watched silken curls slip over his shoulder and brush over the neck of his guitar. You watched as pretty deft fingers strummed a progression you would never understand. You desperately wished it was you, instead. 

It was like you were experiencing him through a macro lens, and it only made him more beautiful. His eyes came up to meet yours, dark and rich in the twilight that fell over you. You couldn’t have stared at him for more than a few seconds, but it was enough for your own giggles to bubble over. 

“Oh god.” You say through cupped hands, burying your face in your palms. You knew he was looking at you like you were crazy– all in good humor. 

“What?” He asked, unable to contain his own chuckle at this point. 

“You are literally the guy at the party that brings the guitar.” You managed through your bouts of giggles. 

“I don’t see much of a party here, sweetheart.” That smile curled again at his lips, this time with more teeth. You didn’t want to stare more, despite his fingers strumming the beginning cord of a song with all of the tenderness he could muster.

“Then who are you playing for? The ghosts?” You giggled again, looking around at the eeriness of the headstones. Had it been cooler, it would have been more off putting, but the swelling heat of summer that had settled over Indiana almost gave it some comfort. 

“You. Five regulars at The Hideout. Any ghost that wants to listen.” He laughed back, stopping his strumming to look back up at you. 

“Are you actually good?” You folded your knees upwards, turning yourself fully towards him. You rested your folded arms on top of them, pressing your chin against them to stare at him. 

“Would you just shut up and listen? I wrote a song about you.” It wasn’t hurtful, never was it hurtful. He said this towards you through pretty lips and even prettier winks. 

It wasn’t anything great. Three cords and two lines, but you wished you could record it and play it on a loop over and over again until your walkman caught fire. His voice wasn’t smooth, but it wrapped around you like a blanket, and, suddenly, it was your favorite sound. There was one thing you knew for certain, you wanted Eddie to sing to you every day for the rest of your life. 

“So you actually are good.” 

He rolled his eyes at you, casting the guitar aside as quickly as he had gotten it down. His lips met yours in a rapid staccato of haste kisses, first long, then followed by the plethora of short. You felt calloused fingers dig into the plush of your waist. 

It usually ended up like this. You’d laugh, you’d fall in love with him over and over and over again. You would have sex, and then it would be weeks. Weeks of trying to get your life back together and weeks of trying to remember yourself before him. But, God, when he kissed you over and over like that you would gladly break your heart for him. You wanted him to break it– if it meant that you could have him for this moment. 

“This technically is a party, you know?” You whispered a breathy giggle against his lips, peeling an eye open to peer at him. 

“What?” He asked, pulling back slightly. His lips were still glossy with the taste of you, but his eyes peered down at you in a way that made your stomach flip. You debated letting him take you in a cemetery. 

“Earlier, you said that you didn’t see much of a party. But we are here… at one, I mean?” Eddie looked around, eyebrow raised in utter confusion before clueing into what you had meant. 

“What with… them?” He asked you from behind the back of his hand, as if the bodies beneath you would be offended if they had heard. 

“Yeah. With all of the people buried here.” You stated, matter-of-factly. 

“I don’t think they’re much partying anymore.” Eddie explained to you, looking around the cemetery with raised eyebrows.

“Look… you know how the saying goes: one's company, two’s a crowd, and three’s a party? Well, this is a lot more than three. They don’t specify if they’re of the living disposition or not.” You argued back, trying your hardest to contain your own smile. 

“I’m saying no one here is having a good time.” He argued back in mock frustration, palms jutting out towards the headstones around you in confusion. 

“Besides us?” You asked him, with wide eyes. 

“Yes, besides us.” He said to you, reaching out to grip the opposite side of your waist and pull you into his side. 

“I can see it now. Here lies Edward— what’s your middle name?” 

“Not a chance.”

“Edward ‘Not a Chance’ Munson. He partied so hard he died.” You said, holding your hands out in a picturesque fashion. You couldn’t contain your own giggles. 

“Are you always a wise-ass?” He said, from behind a forward chuckle. 

“I don’t know, am I?” 

“Yes.” He looked down at you from beneath his shoulder, his eyes meeting your own endearingly. 

Eddie had a really bad habit of completely derailing your life with a single look. Once your eyes met the ambergris bourbon of his, you swore you could see the next ten years of your life. You swore you would ever be domesticated– at least not by any frat guy you met at a party. You hoped you were never domesticated. You hoped you never learned the subtlety of wifelyhood of motherhood. You never wanted to be reduced to that. But Eddie wasn’t in college, and Eddie could reduce you to that with one soft glance. 

“ –What about him?” You asked, averting your eyes from his. You would not let him derail your life again. Not tonight, at least. 

“Who?” He asked, genuine confusion registering across his once-soft features. 

“The guy buried there.” You specified. The headstone read a barely decipherable name, followed by 1902. 

“Was he a wise-ass?”

“No, stupid, how did he die? What kind of life did he live?” You said, bringing up your hand to deliver a soft slap to his chest. He wished you would do it again. 

“Tuberculosis.” You stated, bluntly, looking back down towards you with a smile. 

“Not everyone in 1902 died of tuberculosis.” You rolled your eyes. 

“Yeah, but a lot of them did.”

You figured he was right, your microbiology prerequisite failing to regurgitate within your brain. A silence settled over the back of the van, but it was comfortable. You allowed yourself the comfort of leaning your head against his chest, and rested his against your own. You tried to hear his heart from here, wondered if he had one at all. Surely he didn’t, if he could break your heart and put it back together all over again. Part of you hoped he did, and an even bigger part of you hoped that you had a place in it somewhere. You wouldn’t allow yourself to dwell on that fact for long. 

“Hey, Eddie?” You asked, barely above a whisper. Yet, breaking the silence felt like breaking glass. Had you been talking too much?

“Yeah?” He asked, in an equally quiet tone. You wonder if he felt it, too. 

“Why here?” You asked, without needing to elaborate further. 

He thinks about it, silent for a second, and then breaks the glass again. 

“I feel more like a ghost than anything– makes me feel less alone.” He says, finally. He refuses to let his eyes meet yours. It made sense. 

Some of the girls you went to school with still talked about it. Still talked about their friend, Chrissy. You understood that he had been a key suspect in a high-profile murder case. 

Well, as high-profile as Hawkins, Indiana, population: 2000, could get. 

They had found their suspect— apparent suicide. It happened all of the time. Kids try drugs, and drugs end badly. You had seen it before, and you’d see it again. It wasn’t Eddie, nor was it his Uncle– the man with the kind eyes and the gruff exterior that sometimes waved at you from outside Eddie’s van. You tried not to wonder if he thought you were a skank. You should introduce yourself, sometime.

A lot of people forgot about it after the Earthquake, their own lives crumbling enough to where they didn’t have to speculate the downfall of someone else. 

It made sense why he would think that. The same as the ghost that inhabited the loft above The Hideout where he played. 

It must have been exhausting having someone vilify and formulate your existence all the time.  

You decided not to pry. Instead, you read the headstones in front of you, children, the elderly. You focused on one elongated headstone fixated into the ground in front of you. William and Helen Lester. Born in 1910 and 1912, respectively. Died the same year as each other, 

“What about them?” You asked him.

“They were madly in love, they reserved their plots together before they died so when one joined the other they could take comfort in knowing that they would stay together.” He answered, without hesitation. You wondered if he knew them personally. 

“Do you believe that they did?” You asked, instead. 

“Stay together?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess that depends on what they believed.” He shrugged, rubbing his hand up and down your shoulder a little bit. 

“Well, what do you believe?” 

He lets out a long sigh, more joking then not.

“Well, way back when my uncle first got custody of me, he thought it would be a good idea to start taking me to church. Save me before it was too late… or whatever.” He raked his hands through his hair, sitting up a little to look at you before continuing, 

“ -Wayne wasn’t much of a church guy, either, but the nice lady that lived next door to us was, so we started going to church with her. They told us that if we did everything we were supposed to do… tried to live by the book, and that we found our person, that it would be an eternal binding after marriage, or something like that.”

“Do you really believe that?” You questioned. 

“If there’s anything from my churchgoing days that I hoped would be real, I hope it’s that.” He sighed, pulling his arm off of you to lean back . 

“Why?”

“I don’t think I could ever stand to be alone like that again.” He shrugged, and you knew you had struck a nerve. 

“Well, what about us?” You questioned. 

“What about it?” 

“Do you think we’ll stay together?”

“We’re not really even together.” 

It was then that you realized that maybe he did have a heart, but you didn’t have a home within it. There was one thing for certain, however, and that was that he had made himself a home in yours like a fungus. It was then that the introductory biology courses you could never remember remained heavy on your brain. 

Mycelium

Mycelium are incredibly tiny threads of the greater fungal organism that wrap around or bore into tree roots. Taken together, mycelium composes what's called a “mycorrhizal network,” which connects individual plants together to transfer water, nitrogen, carbon and other minerals—

Eddie was a fungus in dormancy. He had a mycelial network, and its threads had wrapped and wound their ways through the finest intimacies of your life. Their hairline structure filled their place between any gaps you weren’t careful enough to seal. Even when he wasn’t in your life, he was there. 

You can’t be heartbroken over him if you never had him. 

You know he is talking. You know he continued with a backstory in some form or another. Your guess would be something about spending every waking moment alone after the incident. How no one’s mothers who were kind enough to give him the benefit of the doubt in the first place would no longer let their children— his friends, around him. Something about how he wouldn’t blame them. 

“Hey, are you okay? You went all silent on me there.” He finally asked, tugging on a strand of your hair, playfully. You felt like crying, but you wouldn’t. Not until he was gone. 

“Yeah, just tired I guess.”

Tired of getting attached, tired of derailing your entire life for him. 

“Oh. I guess I should probably get you home, then.” He said, beginning to slide out of the van. 

You were thankful he didn’t pry, but a part of you wished that he would. You had him for weeks, it was commitment-adjacent at the very least. It felt like you had him tonight, and it felt like you had him in all of your spare time. It also felt like you had him in class, doodling his funny little devil horns all over your notes. It was the subtlety of this heartbreak that was the worst– or maybe the fact that it wasn’t really heartbreak in the first place. 

You still let him sleep in your bed. 

+

Robin is a textbook lesbian, which also makes her the best wingman on the face of planet earth. She assessed the situation over a pre-roll, as someone who was both a woman and someone who pleasured women. 

Steve isn’t a frat boy, but his relentless good looks and halfway dumb demeanor are wasted on that fact. He assessed the situation as such. 

Eddie swore they both only hung out with him for the pot. 

It had been weeks since your last call, in which you had mentioned something about a final or something before the line went dead. Maybe you were actually dead. Killed in some freak accident that the news didn’t even know how to cover so they just… didn’t. Eddie’s dignity thought it would be preferable if you were. 

“ — Boys are stupid. Hence why I date women.” Robin stated bluntly from Steve’s bedroom floor, between clumsy, fumbling lighter flicks. 

Eddie rolled his eyes, did he have to do everything? He plucked the lighter from her hands, lighting the pre-roll in one swift motion before looking back at her. 

“Some of us aren’t as lucky.” Eddie said, throwing his body back against the side of Steve’s bed, causing Robin to bounce alongside him. 

“To be of the homosexual disposition?” Robin questioned, turning to face him. 

“To understand women.”

“Again, you don’t need to understand them, You’re just stupid.” She waved her hand, dismissively. 

“God, I know I’m stupid, please just help me.” He said to her, dragging his hands down his face with a vigor. 

“Okay, run the cemetery scenario by me again. Word. For. Word.” She said back, joint tucked between her pointer finger and thumb, elbow rested atop the comforter. 

“Okay—”

Eddie can remember everything about that night. He remembered what you were wearing. He remembered seeing the smattering of new freckles across your shoulder as it peeked out from under your summer sweater– a reminder that the heat of summer was quickly settling over you. He remembered the rhythm that the rubber toe of your sneaker tapped out as he strummed against his guitar. He remembered how you knew Gutherie and batted your eyes at him in that pretty— so fucking pretty– way and how you batted your lashes at him when you asked too many questions that he was suddenly inclined to answer. 

Eddie remembered what he said. 

“And then I said, ‘well, we aren’t really even together-”

“There!” Robin shouted finally, hands splayed out, smoke continuing to roll from between her fingers, 

“What?!” Eddie jumped, running his hands from the crown of his head and down his t-shirt, in search of whatever bug Robin had screamed at him about. 

“That’s where you fucked up!” She clarified. 

“ — really fucked up.” Steve chimed in from his desk chair, sunglasses slipping low on his nose despite the approaching twilight, using the toe of his sneaker as traction in order to spin himself in half-circles from his corner. 

“How?” Eddie asked, raking his fingers through his hair and giving his roots a soft tug. 

“You totally took everything you had with her and threw it right in the dumpster.” Robin continued, fully ignoring him. 

“ — and lit it on fire!” Steve chimed over his shoulder, chair spun backwards towards the wall. 

“Shut up, Steve.”

“Just saying…”

“Anyways, you implied that you didn’t want a relationship with her.” Robin said, finally softening a bit. 

“No, I wanted her to say something like, ‘Well, then can we be?’”  He explained back to her, almost on the verge of tears. 

“That’s the problem, dingus.” She rolled her eyes, delivering a soft smack to the side of his head. 

“Ugh,” Eddie muffled out loudly from behind his palms. 

To him, you were pretty, and smart, and entirely too good for him. You were right for ghosting him, he would never blame you for that. You had all the reason in the world to hate him and you still didn’t— until he gave you one. 

 To you, he was just a boy– one who harbored too much heartbreak that makes him meaner than he anticipates. Eddie wasn’t mean by nature, but right now, he sure felt like it.

He pulls his temples back with the heels of his hands, “She’s just so smart and she has to think I’m the dumbest human being on planet Earth.”

“You are the dumbest human being on planet Earth.” She snuffed out the roach into the ashtray, twirling around for slightly too long. 

“Gee, thanks.”

“But not for that reason.” She pulled her knees up to her chest, turning to face Eddie, “You’re stupid because you expected her to read your mind. You had the upper hand. She was prompting the love confession from you and you probably shattered her heart into a million tiny pieces.”

“Can I even fix this?”

“I’m a wingman, not a miracle worker, dude.”

“Steve? Anything to chime in?”

“You fucked up.” 

“No shit.” 

+

Eddie isn’t in college, instead he plays guitar. 

In the midst of his own suffering, he still has to perform. He isn’t one to pass up the money or the attention— especially since they’re crowds now exceeded into the double digits. They had graduated from the Tuesday-night noisemakers, to the Friday-night headliner, a few people even making their way over to bar-crawl from the next town over. 

Eddie leaned his weight on the speaker, tuning and strumming in a half-assed, absent-minded routine. There was a decent group tonight, people grouped standing in the back once the tables and bartop had been promptly filled. 

Jeff approached him, bass slung heavy over him, “Don’t look now, but I think you might know someone here.” He peered at you over his shoulder. 

Eddie looks anyway, met with your eyes. 

You looked pretty tonight. You looked pretty always. 

You had your toes propped against the bottom rung of the barstool, knees pulled tight together, and a drink in hand. He didn’t recognize the people you were with, but he didn’t know very many people anyway. Not like you did. You were likable, and he liked you a lot. 

He didn’t know what he was expecting you to look like after a month, but he was stupid thinking you’d look dramatically different. You were still soft— still glowed even in this not-particularly-flattering light. You looked happy and he hated it. He hated that you could smile at a time like this. It was selfish, he knew it. He wanted you to be a wreck over him. He wanted the comfort in knowing that you were the same mess that he was in over you. 

Jeff gives him a nudge to say something into the mic once they got the go-ahead to play. He tells Jeff he can do it tonight. The tether that binds you together is made of water— the softest vibration would break the surface tension and it would splash on to the concrete. He wanted to watch you be pretty for just a few more seconds, even if it meant giving up his ego for tonight. He wanted to remain unseen on stage, but the pinch harmonic of his opening riff sent your head snapping towards him. 

Your look made him want to crawl beneath the floorboards. 

Your acquaintance, a girl that was a friend-of-a-roommate who had invited you out, placed a hand on your shoulder, warm and too-friendly,  “This band is really good!”

“I know!” You shouted over the music, too warm already. Maybe it was the bottom-shelf peach schnapps. It was most likely the bottom-shelf peach schnapps. 

“Oh, you’ve seen them before?” She asked, pulling her chair up closer to yours. 

“Something like that!” You had explained, pulling the strap of your purse from your neck where it dug in too harshly. 

You felt underdressed for the occasion. Despite definitely having people to impress, you didn’t feel the need. But now, with Eddie’s eyes that you tried desperately to avert yourself from, you’d felt your skin in a way that you never had before. Maybe you were drunk. 

You were most definitely drunk, enough so that it was teetering off the edge of pleasant and dipping into the waters of uncomfortable. The music was too loud and there were too many people and your purse strap kept digging into the crevice of your neck in a way that was both painful and overstimulating. 

You couldn’t remember how many songs Eddie’s band had played– fuck— you couldn’t remember what they were called. Had been playing for a while, enough for the lines between songs started to blur and it felt like forty-five minutes of continuous time signature. You couldn’t decipher a lot between the hum of the nearly-blown speaker anyways. 

Eddie’s eyes met yours, shiny beneath the bar stage lights. He looked angry. You couldn’t tell if it was because of the genre of his song or because of you. He isn’t insatiable or anything, and he had hoped to God that you were still paying attention. By the look on your face and the way you craned your neck to look at the girl next to you, you hadn’t been for a while now. Your nonchalance had poured the gasoline, your smile lit him ablaze. 

The next line of the song was about you, an ode to the women he’d loved before– which weren’t many– conveniently placed as the last song of the setlist. He wrote it with the fantasy that you would stroll through the doors and hear it, but now that you were here, he didn’t know if he had the heart to be mean to you. He didn’t want to be mean to you. It was vaguely written enough so that the other girls that looked up towards him would think it was about them, a heartbreak anthem, a sorry anthem. An ode to the cemetery and the ghost that he had become without you. 

You understood it, though you chose not to act like you had. You didn’t think you had been in his life for long enough to warrant a song– at least one with more than three cords and fifteen seconds of play-time. Why would he? You were never even together. Your ears rang with the remnants of sound, yet you watched your party— the greek bar-crawlers, get ready to head to the next location down the block. You couldn’t even remember what bar it was. 

The girl next to you– fuck— you couldn’t remember her name either, was leveling with your tipsiness. Maybe she hadn’t teetered over the edge of drunk like you had. You let her take your hand anyways, pushing through the double doors in your party of eight. 

The familiarity of the van backed in front of the entrance haunted you, like it had brought a ghost back with it from the cemetery. Maybe Eddie was the ghost. Maybe he was haunting you. Maybe you were haunting yourself. 

The party discussed some form of game plan. You thought it was stupid, hockey practice was over. Yet they were drunk, and they were rowdy, and they were a spectacle. Suddenly and all at once, unfamiliar lips were on yours, violent and sloppy. You tasted cherry, sticky against your own peppermint chapstick. Soft feminine hands gripped your jaw, pretty tuberose and jasmine on the girl from earlier filled your nostrils in a way that was not quite suffocating, but all encapsulating. It was an Estee Lauder Eau de Parfum. You recognized it from the yellow bottle you had gotten for your fifteenth birthday. 

Kissing a woman was a different ballpark, kissing a woman drunk was an entirely different sport. She was softer, less volatile. She had a languid softness to her waist where men were typically more solid. Her hands were more graceful. You relinquished it, both in the spectacle of the others in the group and the fact that she was what Eddie wasn’t.

From behind the van, Eddie watched you. The floral passion in which you sloppily tangled your manicured hand into the blonde mass of the girl in front of you. Isn’t it unfair? He desperately wished it was him. Wanted to be the reason for the surrounding wolf calls. Eddie wasn’t particularly introspective, but he was dying to be her. A notch in your bedpost, a one night stand, a lover. 

Eddie wanted to be her. 

+

Eddie isn’t in college, and it's mostly because he’s stupid. 

Robin let him know it, too. 

There is an afterparty, or, at least, the loose adjacent to one. The band, some friends of the band, and communal alcohol strung loosely across the island at Gareth and Jeff’s condo. Donated pot courtesy of a combined effort of Rick and Eddie. He didn’t feel like partying, but he did feel like getting really, really drunk. Lecture be damned. 

MD 20/20 Red Grape Fortified Wine tasted a little like alcohol and a lot like feeling sorry for himself. 

The grave was already dug, all he had to do was sit in it and wait for someone to backfill. 

Robin stood, arms braced against the island across from Eddie. The fluorescents in Gareth’s unrenovated kitchen burned his eyes, “I can’t help you if you don’t want it.”

“I don’t want it,” He specified, pulling a long drink from the glass bottle, “ –but I have a feeling I’m gonna get it anyways.” 

“I thought you wanted her back, dude.” The fluorescent lights casted a downwards glow across her forehead. Eddie thought it gave her a Kubrick stare. 

“I don’t know what I want, I thought I did but then I got up there and I sang about her and she didn’t even care.”

In one swift motion, she hopped onto the counter, crossing her legs beneath her, “Well, obviously you care.” 

“I don’t care.” 

“If you don’t care about her then why do you lose your shit every time you see her?”

“Because, Robin, who the fuck else is gonna love me after all of the shit we’ve been though?” He slammed the bottle down on the table. It was enough to rattle the cabinets beneath it, “She was the one good thing that’s happened to me in a long fucking time and I couldn’t even let myself be just content with that.” 

He’s angry, suddenly. With himself, with the universe. The alcohol didn’t help. The feigning headache was more annoying than it was painful. Robin wanted to roll her eyes, to call him stupid and dramatic– but she figured he knew it already. It’s not like he wasn’t warranted in his anger, he was, but she wondered why he had been so pent-up lately. Maybe it’s because there was no Eddie way for Eddie to deal with this. After a bleating silence, she spoke:

“Have you even talked to her yet?” She asked.

“No, and I’m not planning on it.” 

“Why not?”

“Because, dude,” Eddie played himself out across the tile island, trying to ignore the way his t-shirt just mopped up the sticky sweet liquid on the counter, “ – you know why.”

Robin did know why. 

“And?” She asked. 

“They were all over each other, like, like…” He was getting frustrated now, unable to string words together in a cohesive sentence. 

Robin finished for him, “Like you were?”

“Yeah. Like she didn’t even care.” He leaned his head down on his folded arms, 

“Maybe she wanted you to think that.” Robin asked him. She thought she sounded more like his mother than a lesbian wingman. This is what he needed. “Maybe she wanted you to chase her.”

“I don’t understand why.” He groaned, “She’s unpredictable. And pretty. And smart. And fun. And everyone likes her. Do you know how many friends she has? How many people like her?”

“Because maybe you’re not as bad as you think you are.”

And he isn’t. Eddie isn’t inherently bad– albeit a little bit dumb. Maybe that just came with age, or the nature of him. Actually, behind the external composite disposition and his defensive nature, Eddie was the opposite of bad.

That first ‘surprise me’ reverberated in his mind like a crescendo. He was feeling brave that night. It was all ego, and most likely a touch of golden whiskey courage. He could still taste it on the back of his tongue when his mouth met yours in a clumsy, quick, spur-of-the-moment kiss. He didn’t have time to be insecure about it, the afterthoughts of gum or mints being pulled from his mind by your fingers as they combed through the soft curls at the nape of his neck. As he moved down to press pillowy-soft kisses in the soft of your throat, he took in your scent– like the citrus groves just outside of town in the spring, when the little white flowers covered the expanse of the rich green rows. 

It was fast and sweet, his hands pushing your summer cotton t-shirt up your waist with warm, rough hands– encasing the ribs where they curl to meet with your spine in a vice. You were eager, not that you were easy– you almost didn’t care if he thought of you that way– in the way you slid his vest off of him. He threw his arms back quickly, shaking it loose from his wrists as he came back up to meet you. The chain of his bracelet was cold against the plush of your stomach as he dragged it down towards the button of your denim shorts. 

“We don’t have to do this now,” He separated from you in hesitation, “I can take us back to my place, use my be—”

“No, ‘need you now.” You insisted, your kiss more pressing than before. You clung to him fervently. 

You aren’t confined to your softness. You are vocal, grip on his shoulders and his heart like a vice. You were soft in the right places though, in your waist and beneath his hands coming undone, soft in the way you spoke to him behind closed van doors. Pillows over sharp corners, a guard to balance your too-loud laugh or the frequency in which you found yourself too drunk. 

You were stone-cold sober that night, and he thanked whoever was up there looking out for him that you were. You wouldn’t have been here, otherwise. 

You were a painting, and not one of those stupid ones that he had to talk about in history class. Like a real, in-your-face, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Not quite like a centerfold, better than anything he’d counted pennies for at the drugstore, ethereal beyond words. Soft for him and only him, bumps and curves and dips and folds in places you didn’t see in those. Real, right in front of him. His for the taking. 

The night had turned already to that imperceptible pivot where midnight turned to early morning hours. This moment has come and gone, yet you are not yet willing to concede that you have crossed the line beyond which is all gratuitous damage and the play of unraveled nerve endings. 

He plunged his middle and marriage fingers within you with a vapid expanse for pleasure, reaching in deep and curling upwards, gathering slick between fingers and back out again. You could feel every ridge within yourself, your softness pulling him back in once he had pulled out again. 

You allow him, no, encourage him to line himself up within you, and you are warm. Warmer than anything he has ever felt in his life. Tight like a hug. The flavor is vaguely tribal– pendulous guitar-pick necklaces and ritualistic moans of endearance. A gathering drum of heartbeats and a bonfire lit within your core. 

His chest is hard above you, expanding with deep breath and soft cries– the softest cries you had ever heard from a man in your existence. There is a small patch of hair in the center, that follows down his navel in a thin line. You tried to hold it together, but you loved it so much. You could love him, not like the novelty it was right now. Like, really love him. 

If he could tell you he loved you without scaring you away, he would have. Now, he wished he just did. 

Clumsily, almost enough for you to tell he was still new to this, whether the van or women in general, he thrust into you, chasing his own rhythm while still finding your own high. His wrists radiate heat where they brace him on either side of your head, caging you between them. 

“Fuck– I– I,” he begins, looking for his thoughts.

You look up at him through low, sultry eyes. Your own release nearing in moments. “Together.” was what you could manage. 

He cringed looking back, he probably looked like such a virgin. He had been so previously wound with the Pam Anderson wanna-be and the post-show adrenaline that his release was feigning. He took comfort in knowing that you would later find out that he is not that inexperienced. 

It was the after that he remembered. How your little manicured finger traced over the raised ink of the tattoo, now disfigured by the purple fibers of scarring. 

“They’re from the accident.” He explained to you, knowing you were wondering. Everyone wondered. You had been too afraid to ask. 

“The earthquake?” You specified, looking up at him. 

You watched the way his stomach flexed as he pushed himself up, taking your body with him, “Yeah, sorry they’re not pretty.” He sighed, holding out his arms to look at the ones there. 

“You are pretty.” You reiterated, and he chuckled, pressing a kiss to your lips. 

“You’re prettier.” 

“You wanna see mine?” 

“Your what?”

“Scars.” 

You were going to show him anyway. 

That patch where the hair grew wonky across your eyebrow from where you had fallen as a child. You cracked your eye socket and they had to reconstruct the tendons in your eyelid. 27 stitches including the internal ones. He laughed at how you claimed it like a trophy. 

The small white line on the side of your knee you got trying to pet a feral cat. You wanted to be it’s friend so bad and it didn’t return the sentiment. 

The blown out tattoo on your ankle, done by your friend who worked at the cafe with you. It was the second one she had ever done on another living person. Your mom had flipped when you came home from college that first weekend with it. If you weren’t too old to ground, she would have done it. 

Your stretch marks, in which you didn’t dwell too much on. They started happening the summer you turned thirteen and you remembered the palsy of lotions and topical ointments your mom made you smear over the expanse of your body in order to reverse them when you we’re too young to recognize that there were nothing wrong with them. The scars they left on your psyche. 

The ones on your hands and knuckles, burns from your barista days. He remembered your giggle as he pressed soft kisses to every burn scar. 

Eddie was not bad. 

+

Eddie isn’t in college, but, for you, he’d at least brave the college housing. 

This was also not Robin’s plan, instead devised by Steve while he was crossed— and at his most authentic self. Despite her best efforts, they persisted. You roomed in a smaller house with several other girls in Indianapolis— a three hour drive as the crow flies. All in their girlish forms, all soft skin and little shorts and effortless beauty. Sometimes you wondered if you looked the same way- or if they even knew what they looked like. 

All of whom were gathered out the window, ogling at a relic unknown to you. 

A familiar face, the hometown heartbreaker, Steve Harrington himself stood in your freshly mowed grass, boombox held over his head like an idiot. Slovenly waving at the girls through the window. You sighed, palming your face tiredly. You knew who he would have in tow. He is a shadow of either Eddie’s best self of his worst self, you couldn’t tell which quite yet. You are awed by his strict refusal to acknowledge any goal higher than the pursuit of his own pleasure, haphazardly balancing the expensive boombox blasting Head Over Heels on a loud, obnoxious loop. You wouldn’t have been more annoyed if Roland Orzabal was here playing the song himself. Robin stood at the entrance of the small white picket fence, face in hands. 

When you meet with the man that has not quite et. cetere’d you, you are slumming the door open, visiting your own 7:00 A.M Lower East Side with your soul on a lark. He is stepping nimbly around gardenia pots and little happy concrete garden gnomes as if they will bite his ankles if he gets too close– if only you’d trained them sooner. More un-nimbly, he trips up the stairs, and you’ve caught him red handed. He stands there wide-eyed and apologetic, a dog kicked. You lean against the frame, nonchalant, unimpressed, arms crossed. 

“Ew. You like Tears for Fears?” You speak before he can. He seems taken aback. 

“I should have played The Cure.” He speaks truthfully, rubbing the skin on the back of his neck where an itch did not occur. 

“That was my second choice!” Steve called from the one-man show happening on your lawn. You feared if it went on for longer, it would turn to a strip-club.

“Shut up, Steve.” Eddie barked towards him. 

The tension feels like being at the bottom of a swimming pool. Eddie’s drowning in the deep end but the bowl’s empty. He drained it himself. He doesn’t know quite what to say to you. He didn’t think it would get this far. 

“Come on, please just hear me out–” He starts, yet it’s overused. You decided then to drown him in the pool yourself. The door closes in his face. 

Almost immediately, the knocking persists. Your roommates watch from beside the door, half still fixated on Steve, the others watching you ascend the stairs towards your bedroom. You choked down your embarrassment, suffocated in it. You needed to be alone. 

“Ladies.” Steve nods from the front lawn, watching his friend scale the old lattice attached to the stucco on the front of your house. 

“Ladies.” Robin parrots, coming to watch with a hand shielding her eyes from the sun. 

There is a commotion down the stairs, a door opening and footsteps quick. You don’t get the chance to look because there is a body, an apparition of scarecrow limbs and embarrassment parallel with your second-story window. You might be mad, but you definitely aren’t heartless. 

This isn’t what he expected your room to look like. In his wet dreams, he pictured more pink. More coquette lace abundance and stuffed animals. Save for the raggedy menstrual bean-bag bear, it’s relatively neutral. In hindsight, every girl’s room is pink coquette in a wet dream. This felt more like you, the twinkle lights, stacks of old books holding plants, moroccan-patterned pillows lining the daybed. Plush, white bedding. It’s natural, like you. 

Your glare is like a mother’s reproach. He doesn’t know how to react. He didn’t have a mother. Only Wayne and only teachers, the latter of which he had a certain amount of push before they let him do whatever he wanted. You, he could not push further. 

“Please don’t kick me out,” He begs, hands together like a prayer. It’s cheesy, you avoid laughing. 

“I’m waiting.” You say. It’s rude. You sound like a bitch. He thinks you’re warranted. You try not to think of the ears against your bedroom door. 

“I love you.” He said it like a plea instead of a declaration. It was the first and only thing that came to his mind. 

Of course he did.

You rolled your eyes at him, folding your arms and jutting your hip, “You don’t love me.” You corrected, “You just think you do now that you’re lonely.” 

He takes a few more pacing steps towards you, frantic and panicking “Jesus Christ– Yes, I do. I could’ve slipped and broke my neck trying to climb up here for you.”

“Well, I didn’t tell you to climb up here,” You placed your hand over your chest, then turned your finger towards him, “You don’t love me, you love this version of me that thought Tears for Fears would work.”

He stared at you with wide eyes, pleading and sad. 

“ —For once in your life think, idiot. What song would I have really liked?” 

“I– I don’t know.” He said. It came out like a whimper. He was more broken now, softer, yet still desperate. 

“Exactly. You don’t love me.”

“You know what? You’re right.” He stood, closing the gap between your bodies in a few strides. He wanted to touch you, but was too afraid to ask, “I don’t love you.“ 

“I hate all of your stupid questions.” He started, and you didn’t speak, “I hate how all of my clientele comes from you now. I hate that I only get you when you’re home for the weekend. I hate that stupid little scar on your eyebrow. I hate the way your hair gets in your mouth when you laugh. I hate that dumb little scar on your forehead. I hate that you’re so goddamn perfect for me and I hate myself for letting you walk away like that.” He finished, breath heaving. 

You felt the tears pull at the corners of your eyes, but you didn’t warrant them to spill. 

“I hate that you’re a grown man with fucking bangs.” You said, unable to finish. You felt stupid, two stupid little tears slipping from your eyes and streaking down your face.

He opened his arms to you, prompting, and you took it. Part of it so he couldn’t see you crying, the second part of you desperately needing to feel him. 

“I’m so mean.” You wailed into his chest. You felt the rumble of the laugh he couldn’t suppress. 

“I know, so mean.” He said, not as an insult or an agreement, but in endearment. He pressed a sympathy kiss to your crown. His hand was warm as it pulled up the expanse of your back. 

“I’m sorry.” You pulled away, wiping your face furiously with the heels of your palms. 

“No- no. I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve to get caught up in my hot and cold like that.”

Your feverance prevails, “I should have asked what happened.”

“I should have asked you out.” He counteracts, pulling back to smooth down the wiry hairs at your crown, his hand heavy against your skull. 

“Can you do it now?” You plead, and he laughs. 

“Will you stop crying?”

“Yeah.” 

He pulls away from you for a second, you want to whine at the loss of contact. He crouches down on one knee, keeping your hands squeezed tightly in his calloused palms. 

“Then will you do me the tremendous honor of being my girl?” He runs his hand up the back of yours, trying to feel for an electric pulse of an answer. The seconds that you take nearly kill him. 

You stare down at him, eyes still red and puffy, but wide, “And not just like at parties?” 

“No, like the full weekday thing.” His smile is warm. You take great comfort in it. 

“Yeah.”

You think you look stupid, crying in your bedroom while he holds you like this. But he burns this memory in his mind. Even when you’re crying, you’re still the prettiest girl he’s ever seen. 

[rainwater71]

May I ask for a prinxiety rant? They are my favorite boys and I'd love to hear your thoughts on them 💜❤️

YES 100% YES.

This is gonna be like a whole essay so buckle up, and also please excuse how all over the place this is

A creativity and an anxiety being together I feel like just makes sense. Like, they’re working together and having a healthy relationship instead of trying to work against each other(?) and I feel like the flirting with social anxiety asides episode is a great example of that, Virgil saw Roman sad and pushed Thomas to talk to Nico. And Thomas in exploring nostalgia says “so I might not have had Roman create half as many of the stories and worlds he did without Virgil giving you reason to.” And of course Roman saying that Virgil is what pushes Thomas to rehearse and rehearse in accepting anxiety. To put it simply, Virgil loves Roman and lets him actually do stuff instead of holding him back. (I hope this makes sense lmao)

There’s also so many moments between them to, like all the small comments that they make towards each other that MELTS MY HEART.

List of my favorite moments:

-in 12 days of Christmas Roman looks at Virgil after saying “my true love gave to me” and when Logan asks who the true love is he quickly says that it’s not important

-Roman saying that making fun of things is how she shows his love (he makes fun of Virgil obv)

-once again the entirety of flirting with social anxiety

-‘anxiety’s the fairest of them all’

-all the nicknames

-just the word ‘Princey’ honestly

-Virgil saying ‘no one hates you’ in learning new things about ourselves, idk it just means so much more coming from him rather than Patton or something

-in alone on Valentine’s Day Virgil says that talking to someone you like could make you get ‘tongue tied, jumbled, confused’ and then in fitting in when Virgil changes his look Roman does exactly that

-‘don’t worry, everyone loves the villain’

-Roman not taking back calling Virgil hot topic 🤷‍♀️

-And of course In new sketch (the sides need a nice day) Virgil tries to bond with Roman by kinda mixing their interests together, of course lowkey fails but it’s the effort that counts.

Anyways thanks for reading if you did! Ik this most likely didnt make that much sense and that some of those moments are random but I hope it was somewhat understandable, and honestly I could go on for hours but I’m not trying to write a 100k word essay lmao.

[thegamingcatmom]

I mean, we know that tanya had a little moment where she was into angsty little twinks (edward). So how would a first meeting between MC and edward go?

angsty little twinks 😭

I assume you´re talking about The Sisters? Well, tbh-

I haven´t decided yet if I want the Denalis and the Cullens to know each other. Both scenarios have their allure, because I can totally see Kate being all "Heeeey, Eddie boy" in that usual up to no good way of hers when they meet again with MC in the middle, but I can also see the Denalis being all hissy and spitty about these vampires they´ve never met before - a potential threat to their human.

I´ll know when I get to that. 🙃

Your ask leans more into a scenario where they´ve met before, though, right? With that said:

Edward wants to scream.

Because the things going on in Tanya´s head-

SOME THINGS ARE BETTER LEFT UNKNOWN, TYVM. 😭

Basically, it´s gonna look smt like this:

The Denalis: *greet everyone* The Cullens: *greet back* MC: *awkward cause she doesn´t know half the ppl here and the other half consists of her abductors* Kate: "Well, Eddie boy-" Edward, already done af (as per usual when it comes to Kate): "Kate, do me a favor and go wrestle some bears with Emmett." Emmett, in the background: "Hell, yeah!" Carlisle: "Edward, be nice to your cousin." Edward: *indignant spluttering* Kate: "Yes Eddie boy, be nice to your favorite cousin-" Edward, pulling THAT card: "Tanya, will you please control your unruly sister?" Kate: *snorts* Tanya: *busy making eyes at MC* MC: *busy looking everywhere but at Tanya* Edward: "...Tanya?" Tanya: *twirling her hair, batting her eyes, giggling* MC: *...awkward coughing* Edward: "...Tan-" ... Edward: *looks like his system crashed* Carlisle: "...Edward?" Tanya, on the outside: 🥰 Tanya, in her mind: 😏🍆💋❤️‍🔥👉👌 Edward: *dying inside* Carlisle, most concerned now: "Son?" Kate: *grins in shithead cause she knows exactly what just happened* Tanya: *starts grinning too cause that´s what Eddy the Shy Bean gets for constantly sticking his nose into her business...not literally though cause heads will roll then* MC: *blissfully unaware, as per usual* MC, in a desperate attempt to break the awkward silence: "So...cousins, huh?" Tanya: 🥰 Kate: 😁 Edward: 💀 Carlisle: 😰

YKNOW??? 😭

It´s entirely possible that Edward and MC won´t even get the chance to talk because Tanya just can´t seem to keep things PG around MC and Edward just can´t deal. 🫠

I gotta say, I kinda HC that the Denali sisters have a knack for doing that.

Driving Edward mad, that is, lol.

The sisters are very sexual beings, and Edward is very much...not. So, I´d like to think that it started off as them trying to get back at him for being a nosy lil shit (even though it´s pretty much out of his control), but, over time, they started doing it just for shits and giggles.

Tanya was against it at first for obv. reasons. But once she realized Edward´s pretty much a hopeless case, she was only all to eager to join in, lmao.

Kate: "Hey, wanna bet 100 bucks on who can make Eddy boy scream like a lil girl first?" Irina: *snorts* "Make it 500 and we´ll talk." Tanya: "You might as well both pay me in advance."

YKNOW??? 😭

However, even if MC and Eddy got the chance to have an actual conversation, I don´t think Tanya would care all that much about his presence. Why would she? She´s quite busy thinking thoughts and feeling feels for one specific person. 😏

In fact, I can totally see her being all-

"See that, Edward? What you can do, I can too. But I look so much better doing it."

CAUSE YKNOW-

Bella´s a human. And MC´s a human. And Edward basically "ditched" Tanya for said human. So Tanya is only all too happy to return the favor while absolutely refusing to acknowledge the fact that Edward couldn´t care less LMAO.

Tanya´s a proud being who loves to show what she´s got, especially to her extended family who never thought they´d see the day.

So, its probs gonna look smt like:

🤷🏻‍♀️

As for MC-

Yknow, I think her and Edward would actually get long quite alright? In fact, I can totally see them gossiping about Tanya like-

MC: "Ugh, she´s so-" Edward: *smiles in sympathy and amusement cause boy does he know* Edward: "I know."

YKNOW??? 😭

Also, Edward (well, and Alice too) is basically a walking alarm system when it comes to the sisters´ shenanigans. So MC would do well to keep him as close as possible at all times. 😅

.

.

.

Thanks a lot for your ask! 💋

[mysicklove]

mellooooo do you know that whole like sub! guard dog trope? your sukuna AUs reminds me so much of that!

like reader is obvs not to be fucked with but behind her stands a big scary guard dog sukuna and like protects her obvs but then she pulls on his leash and his mf imaginary tail starts wagging and ooooh he wants you so bad oooh BANGS HEAD AGAINST WALL

THIS IS SO CRAZY THAT U SAID THIS BC LITERALLY MY LAST PARAGRAPH I WORKED ON FOR MY SUKUNA FIC WAS TALKING ABOUT HIM BADICALLY BEING A GAURD DOG LMAOOO

big scary guard dog to everyone but you :/ i LOVEEEEEE that trope. but u give him just a bit of your attention and he gets so pleased. 100% his tail would be wagging if he had one

[celestie0]

MAKE THEM FUCK LIKE RABBITS IN TBE NEXT CHAPPPPPPP. Like wdym bae u got the athlete stamina? Physical touch is your love language? You've been dying to touch me? my cooter won't let him leave till I've had my fill (pun intended) 😀😀😀😀

Ok jokes aside just finished reading the recent chap + the headcanons and oh god I have THOUGHTS. Kai and his loser clique can all rot, leave it to insecure men to try dragging you down to their level because your ambition scares them and reminds them of just how incompetent they truly are. I'm not a film major but in somewhat similar humanities field and personally I could relate so much to that scene of a group of guys putting a lone girl in such an intimidating situation just to "teach her a lesson" because they consider themselves experienced. Like go to hell. Kudos to her for immediately slapping that cunt and putting kai in his fucking place.

And as for our main couple oh my god 😭 yn you broke my heart by what you said to gojo (I can't imagine how terrible she'd feel once she finds out his past like it's just so heartbreaking to have lost so much and have to hear that you have it easy. Ily bby toru), but watching her accept that she was wrong and how they both communicated really warmed my heart. Fucking finally he admitted he likes her and wants to be with her. Now go be w your girl!!

Thank you for this chapter!😙 it was well worth the wait and I've been in such a good mood ever since reading it. Thank you for your efforts 🫂

like rabbits 😭😭😭🤣🤣 i am unfortunately putting gojo in celibacy camp for next chap bc he needs to master abstinence🧍🏻‍♀️it’s a 7-day program so we’ll see if he survives /joking. YOUR COOTER COMMENT HAS ME DYING

“leave it to insecure men to try dragging you down to their level because your ambition scares them and reminds them of just how incompetent they truly are”

just exactly ditto. exactly this. i’ve no words to add, u 100% slayed w this. kiss 💋

im happy (but also not very happy) that u resonated w the bar scene. obv not so happy bc i hate that you’ve had to go through that but i rly hope it was some sort of representation for what you’ve had to face :””) i swear men who try to sabotage women’s careers bc of their own insecurities r the scum of earth

AND YES aaa reader’s dialogue in the argument 💔💔 it was so out of line but w everything she’s been dealing w i think it was just a cumulation of all the build up. it felt real to write that part bc ive been in situations where i’ve really liked men who just cannot show up for me the way i need them to, and just turning them into a “villain” was the easiest way to get over them, and i think that’s what was going through reader’s mind in that moment :”) but yes she apologized n i don’t think satoru holds it against her all that much bc he understands her well, but oof yea big chance the regret is gonna bite her down the line

SORRY FOR THE LONG RESPONSE BACK BB i’m so happy you enjoyed the chapter n you’re in a good mood after reading it omg 🥺💕 thank u so freaking much for the ask

[didnt-hear-cold-as-you-live]

This happened to me too with lover and evermore so i just quit fandom and it was the best! Lol obv im back here and it feels good to come back for what you enjoy and then leave and live in your own life when you want.

Connecting these songs to my life mainly involves listening to them on the train, in the car and attaching images of your life into them. You'll find your way into them when you have a certain kind of day and you go and choose one to play and it HITs. That's the long term pay off! Don't stress. I bet you dont have all the lyrics memorised yet (who could) and each time you hear one properly for the first time or sing it from memory it will feel different.

Sending love!

Thanks for sharing your similar experience bestie 🥺 yeah I truly have been feeling like I need to take a break from the fanbase always about a month after new album releases- peace and love to how anyone interprets stuff, it’s genuinely not anything against anybody, but my response to midnights so fully IN the fanbase vs this album and the first 4 days I spent totally blindfolded, really illustrated to me how the way I appreciate new albums is really incompatible with the fandom experience - and somehow unique to this fandom: for example there was a lot of hot gossip surrounding Sour, and everyone knew who it was about, but to my knowledge no one was going in with a fine-tooth comb to dissect exactly what Joshua Basset did. I love to talk about Taylor and I love dissecting the album for like, literary themes and in the end finding the plot Taylor intended months and years down the line is great! but yeah it’s not for me the moment I hear the album.

Sorry for the tangent but anyways!!! I guess I worry that knowing these plot lines make it harder for me to find my way in: like getting inside of a circle made out of a dotted line (I knew some details which were obvious but wasn’t connecting the dots to a concrete picture) vs getting inside of one that is a complete drawing, struggling to find a crack or an opening because it’s already a complete picture.

I think this would be the case for any song of hers: imagine not just knowing the Vibe of Dear John, but unlocking (I’m 100% making this up for example), “John Mayer took her virginity and then cheated on her with Jennifer Anniston and then gaslighted her to the fact that it was actually happening so she kept sleeping with him before breaking it off” as background info after hearing it a few times. Suddenly it’s not ‘deep song about being burned by a manipulative older man’, it’s THAT and that only. Every lyric points to that and evidence of that, not the general theme. You hear it and are thinking about What John Mayer Did and He Sucks For Doing This To Her, not the emotions drawn from dealing with the vague events she is describing

Anyways what you said is very true and very beautiful and I appreciate it 🥺 that’s just the facet I’m struggling with

[thesunfyre4446]

You summed up my whole thoughts with how TB isn’t as good as everyone makes them out to be!!

I think it’s funny when I see TB supporters going round saying how it was wrong of Aemond to bond with Vhagar the night of Laena’s funeral when Rhaenyra and Daemon literally sleep together the same night 🙄

They question TG morals like it’s their religion but they never question or bat an eye to anything their precious TB does.

(Btw I do agree that both those things are wrong but I also think Aemond’s could be excused because he was bullied for being dragonless and maybe desperation got to him?? Idk, correct me if I’m wrong with this thought 😅)

100% agreed anon. when TB does bad things it's cool because they are the "true blood of the dragon" and can do whatever they want - but when one of those lame non-valyrian or "non-pure-blood" targs does something remotely out of line or something against their favs? nooo that's not allowed!

and if you ever try to point out that rhaenyra and daemon hooking up on laena's funeral is objectively way worse than aemond claiming her dragon then you're misogynistic :) (apparently it's ok for daemyra to disrespect laena's memory)

wrt to aemond claiming vhagar : dragons are not inherited, they are not passed down from parent to child. a dragon is not a slave! it's an intelligent creature with a mind and wants of it's own. vhagar wasn't rhaena's to claim. she's not an object. aemond didn't know laena, they literally never met. he saw an opportunity and took it. i mean, who knows if he'll ever get to see vhagar again? when baelon (her rider before laena) died she disappeared for years. he can't go to dragonstone to claim a dragon because the island belongs to rhaenyra - who's obvs not gonna let the green to claim another dragon that could be used against her. so it was one of those "now or ever" situations for aemond, and he was brave enough to go for it.

so no, i don't think that aemond was wrong for claiming vhagar but i also totally get rhaena ! because in her eyes it IS her mom's dragon - the only thing she has left from her. and now this stranger just stole it! aemond could've been kinder to rhaena, but to him to wasn't even about her, it was about finally winning against his bullies. he has the power now. no one will ever be able to bully him again. the twins came with the strongs to confront aemond, and in his eyes, it made baela and rhaena on their team. i think aemond's behavior was very normal for a 10yo boy! kids are very petty haha (i do think he would've been kinder to rhaena if the strongs weren't there),

so yeah, that's my take.

[lookingforcactus]

Live action Yu Yu Hakusho liveblog (ep 2)

Okay listen. Whoever wrote and whoever is voicing the little kid Yusuke saves has never heard an actual six year old talk in their lives

Also forgot to say last ep but liked the move to age yusuke up a bit. Also Botan's digital file of Yusuke talking back at her is hilarious

Botan's voice (Eng dub) isn't quiiiite as expressive as would hit the mark for me compared to the anime but whatever she's adorable I forgive her

Also forgot to say last ep "Maybe it's better you're dead" BOTAN STOP ASDLKFJADS I love her your honor

Fights and vfx on Goki are actually kind of shockingly good, esp given how much I Did Not like him in the anime

VERY annoying and unfortunately typical that the darkest-skinned guy we've seen so far is. very specifically. the demon that eats children and that the anime makes uh iirc a lot more directly than I ever wanted to watch into a Certain Allegory

Interested that Reikai doesn't seem to know who Kurama actually is. Was that the case in the anime/manga?? I feel like no, they knew who he used to be from the initial briefing on the thieves but idk season 1 wasn't exactly my favorite to go back and rewatch literally ever

My favorite was 2 and 4. If you even care. lol

Kurama standing there during the fight like a creeper go

Actually fight with Goki is very epic. Again super creative and impressively believable way for Yusuke to survive and fight back against a guy with WAYYYY superior strength

Also wow is Yusuke underqualified for these fights rn lol. I mean we knew that but he's lucky he pulled that one out in the end. And esp lucky that Kurama won't want to fight, obv

YUKINA

Her wig is sadly Not as impressive as Botan's, and I'm not a fan of what looks like her contacts. Did they make her eyes green??? Bc her eyes being red is kind of narratively. you know. Relevant

Wait is that guy helping Yukina Hiei???!!! Human-form Hiei??!!!

Wait no of course not Hiei would've just killed everyone and gotten her out

(Listen we don't have any good shots of his face yet okay. That little sister line made me think!)

Interesting new jagan origin + (presumably?) moving up Yukina as Hiei's motivation. Makes sense given how everything about Hiei's first manga/anime appearance was ignored afterward lol when he was too popular to kill off

I hope they got rid of his original plan/motivation, anyway. I hated the mind control arc thing with him esp on Keiko. Dickhead

Well. Eyehead. Technically. But yknow

Pfft Kurama 100% staging that entire encounter and stalking ep meaning Yusuke thinks he's being sooo sneaky

Kurama's outfit is really pretty actually btw. I like it better than his anime outfit by a lot. The pink always clashed with his hair sooo bad

Also the pink in the preview images made me think/hope he was a girl (who actually got to fight in a shounen anime!!!!) and you have no idea how disappointed I was when I realized that wasn't true

Pfft Kurama using his demon powers to?? Pull a quickchange?? Amazing

His hair continues to not work nearly as well as in the anime but that was a lost battle from the beginning let's be real. At least it's better than Hiei's

(Which is so actively bad what was that shadow with his hair in the knife scene what)

Shiori benefits a lot from being played by like. an actually human person who also is older and has visibly aged. Gives her Character, makes her less of Just An Archetype

Momma's boy Kurama excellent as always. Meanwhile Yusuke's just flat out not replying to a single thing Shiori is literally saying to him lol

Wait does the quickchange imply that Kurama only uses that outfit on demon business. Bc in the show it's just his (ugly) school uniform but here it's clearly not. I really desperately want that to be his On Demon Business outfit in this show lol

Also makes the fact that he had Yusuke stalk him in that outfit funnier. then. boom. quickchange. Mom can't see the Demon Business Outfit

Hmm something about Kurama and his delivery isn't rly landing for me here. But to be fair he is being super Performative and Deliberate about all of this so that may be on purpose

I hope it's on purpose. Bc Kurama's great and I'd REALLY like to buy him/his lines as a character in this

He does successfully pull off "casually menacing" (you know, without murdering someone first) much more easily than his anime counterpart tho so that's cool

Meanwhile, Yusuke's face. Great face-acting there. Also great face

The scrapes on Yusuke's face really are v aesthetically arranged lol. but still look legit enough. I'm a fan

Okay I'm buying Kurama now. Excellent

"I've been deceiving that woman for many years" genuinely love that he put it that way. He's come to care about her so much but he's not trying to make himself sound better or lying to himself about the situation

It is killing me that he used the phrase "fertilized egg" in this explanation. It's killing me. It's also raising Fucking Questions. (But does at least give an explanation for how Kurama didn't like. Kill the original Shuichi's soul when he took the body.)

Oh the pattern on Kurama's outfit is roses!!! love it

Kurama: Sees Kuwabara following them

Kurama: ...Anyway.

The mirror of darkness looks like a fucking ipad. I can't take it seriously why does the mirror of darkness look like an ipad!!!

IT DOESN'T EVEN REFLECT ANYTHING

What's with the weird scifi aesthetics here and on the other artifacts? This is a fantasy show, fantasy aesthetics would fit better

The mirror-realm life-taking sequence is just. so much. lol it's so much once again I am unable to take it seriously!

Wait Shiori! You don't know there was magic saving you!! Don't take off your oxygen mask without a doctor's permission!!! Practice self-care!!!

Okay Kuwabara looks super different from his anime/manga self-from the front, but from the back he has the EXACT same silhouette as anime!Kuwabara, so much it's EERIE. I'm learning lots of things about what pompadours look like in real life-

hsb, ig???

HIEI HAS BLUE EYES?!!??!?!?!!!!

I mean at least they didn't only change Yukina's

But this is WEIRD

Also making the jagan not purple anymore, just an actual third eye, was the correct choice

Hmm I don't like how they translated Hiei's outfit as much as I do the others. (I like how they translated literally everyone else's outfits. This is so disappointing, esp since Hiei's aesthetics go off. There's too much white and too much detail in his outfits. Give me his cloak!!! Also changing the scarf into a turtleneck is highkey Not Working For Me

Anime!Hiei would literally never wear a turtleneck

Why is he wearing a turtleneck, he's a FIRE DEMON, it's not like he can get cold

The scarf is okay because it was clearly not primarily for keeping him warm

Give him the cloak I want the cloak!!

And he should be wearing all black underneath it! I mean I know he wears other color shirts under it in the dark tournament arc iirc. But live action won't have the control over the cloak for that lol

At least give him something all black (except the scarf or something similar) (NOT a turtleneck) with a similar silhouette to the cloak

And idk compared to the others I think his costume looks kinda cheap

OOF effects on the Toguros are NOT convincing. Oof. I admire their commitment to taking their physicalities literally but uh. They should've been less ambitious and focused more on translating the vibe. Imho

Okay! Time for episode 3!

[stvharrngton]

now, how do u think steve would react to reader being late? i mean, boy got carried on one night, filled her up and now bang, she’s late and possibly (strongly) pregnant. and let’s talk about season 3 steve, maximum, because we all now he’s already a grown up who wants an entire litter on season 4

omg ok so i waited to answer this on purpose

so obviously we already know stevie boy has a breeding kink so i feel like one night when you two were going at it neither of you really thought much of it when you told him you wanted him to cum inside you so obvs he isn’t going to turn down that opportunity!! but then when it comes to that time of the month you’re late. and like… it’s not just a couple days it’s like late late.

and i feel like maybe you’re staying at his for the night one evening and you’re being quiet and odd and he just asks you straight up if you’re okay and what’s going on☹️ and you’re just like ‘steve i’m late.’ and he’s like…. late for what? skdjdkd and you just go 🤦‍♀️steve. my period and i feel like he would definitely go with you to go buy a test and he’d wait outside the bathroom door as you did it and when you’d let him in after he’d sit on the floor against the tub as you sat on the toilet seat waiting for the timer to go off🥺

i feel like steve has always known to some extent he wants the american dream uno big family lots of kids white picket fence all that but if we’re talking about season 3 steve maybe he would be a bit more hesitant about it than season 4 steve would? if the test was positive he would most definitely be 100% supportive still of your decision, insisting that he’d be by your side for the whole thing and afterwards and that it wouldn’t change how he felt about you. maybe on the inside though he would be panicking cause meanwhile whilst this is something he wanted, his quote ‘douchebag dad’ is trying to teach him a lesson and he only makes 3 bucks an hour:(

[acourtofthought]

listen I love Feyre to my very core, she's my favorite FMC since I read these books and in this entire series but god she's such busybody sometimes and tries to be an expert matchmaker like Rhys but honey... no!

like that time she suggested about Az and Elain in acowar and Rhys was like "Feyre, I love you but shut up this is not in your league" thats what I gathered from Rhys reply lmao

GIRL YOU LITERALLY KNOW THESE PPL FOR A FEW MONTHS HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY NEED AND WHAT IS GOING ON INSIDE THEIR HEAD? I'm quite certain she just wanted it to keep it in the family at that point bc did she forgot Azriel is "in love" with Mor before she suggested that? and Rhys had to aggressively shut that idea down lol. tbh I love that Rhys stopped her right then and there bc obv he knows him better than Feyre. they've known each other for +500 so ofc he can guess Az feeling on the matter and Az himself confirmed it in the bonus chapter (that Rhys also suspected) Az only wants Elain for release and nothing else.

and now her comment on them lead to her being the biggest e/riel shipper and e/riels LOVE to brag about it and its quite funny bc I think it was only that one time!!! we see Feyre encouraging Elain to talk to Lucien and even in her bonus chapter in acosf she wanted to suggest Elain to use Lucien's gloves that he gifted her but she didn't (which i hope she'd learned to not be a busybody after what happened with Lucien in acofas and Mor lecturing her to let them figure it out themselves)

After getting this message I didn't respond right away. I wanted to think back over the series because you are 100% correct but your correctness is even more far reaching.

In ACOMAF we have the following:

Feyre thinking that the reason Lucien had issues with Ianthe because she and her family fled during Amarantha's reign.

The actual reason Lucien had issues with Ianthe is because she sexually harassed him.

In ACOMAF, we have Feyre think Ianthe is her friend.

Later we find out that Ianthe was only ever self serving.

In ACOMAF Feyre kept wondering if a mating bond with Tamlin would snap into place.

The reason that didn't happen was because Rhys was her mate yet she was clueless about that until the Suriel told her.

In ACOMAF we have Feyre think about how Nesta and Amren would be fast friends.

In ACOWAR, Nesta and Amren were fast friends but not LASTING friends. Their friendship fell apart in ACOFAS and it never really recovered. I think they're in a better place after SF but they'll most likely never be as close as Nesta is with Gwyn and Emerie.

In ACOMAF, Feyre mentions how she sometimes notices Mor watching Az. She also asks Mor what she feels for Az which Mor deflects only for Feyre to then think, "but almost in answer, Mor declared, "Paint Azriel's. Next to mine".

Only that all fell apart in ACOWAR when Mor's preference came to light, something Feyre never suspected.

In ACOMAF, Feyre thinks how Az and Cassian could wipe Lucien off the planet.

But in ACOSF, we see Lucien command Cassian with a single word.

In ACOMAF, Feyre does say Elain would cling to Az to have some peace and quiet and how handsome they would be.

And in ACOWAR, we do see Elain and Az sharing moments of peace and quiet however, that seems to rapidly be falling apart in SF. Feyre once wanted peace and quiet too and at first she was happy with Tamlin until the peace and quiet no longer suited her. Similarly, we see Elain want to finally break free of her peace and quiet and Az is the person (after Nesta) who wants to keep her in her box of safety. He even spoke out against her AFTER Elain told Nesta off so it's doubly as problematic. Also, Feyre thinking of Elain and Az being together because of their physical appearance is the most superficial thing. It speaks nothing of their personalities or what they want from a partner, what their values are. Not to mention it reduces Elain to a "doll to dress up" or whose only worth is her beauty, just as their mother always did.

In ACOWAR, Feyre worries whether they can trust Lucien. Whether he would try to grab Elain, to sell them out.

Her fears are proven unfounded when she slips into Lucien's mind and realized he only has concern for Elain. Also Lucien regularly helps out the NC, sharing information with them, the opposite of selling them out.

In ACOWAR, Feyre questions why Lucien and Elain are mates without putting any consideration into who they are and what they want in a partner. She asks RHYS if HER SISTER is a match to Lucien 🤦. Her entire argument is based on the fact that Rhys and Tamlin's parents weren't a match for one another so maybe Elain and Lucien's is poor match too. Even though the reason Rhys tells us for WHY his parents weren't a match would not apply to Lucien and Elain and WOULD actually apply to Az and Elain.

Feyre is young and she doesn't always the see others clearly but that's ok because she's learning as she goes. She's asking these questions because this entire world is new to her and the why and the how's of it are something she's trying to figure out.

But anyone taking her thoughts as gospel as she's stumbling through it all is looking to the wrong person for predictions.

Feyre (in the original trilogy), Nesta (for the first 3/4 of her book) and Az (even now), for as great as they are, were /are not the characters to look too for clearheaded opinions because they are too close to certain situations, too emotional and too wrapped up in their own confusion about everything to be valid resources. Feyre and Nesta especially were all over the place. For example one minute Nesta was going on and on about how Elain is good and special and that's why Nesta protected her at all costs, and the next Nesta is furious with Elain, claiming she was "undoubtedly wholly convinced of her own innocence, her innate goodness" and mad at Cassian for defending Elain.

So again, I think much of what those three say / think in regards to Elain, Lucien, and Az needs to be taken with a grain of salt

Cassian was the one who predicted Nessmerie and guess what? They ended up being as close as sisters.

Rhys was the one who said that he might need to pull some threads in regards to Nessian and guess what? They were mated in the very next book.

Mor predicted that Lucien was trustworthy enough to enter Velaris and guess what? He didn't steal Elain away and he never sold out Velaris to anyone and helped provide information to the NC about Autumn.

We have Cassian telling us that Nesta was wrong about Elain being loyal like a dog, Rhys admit that maybe Elain behaves in certain ways because of the way the sisters treat her, we have Rhys and Mor tell Feyre to stay out of things with her meddling. We have Amren tell Az he's wrong about Elain. We have Rhys express genuine concern over the way Az spoke of Elain. These are characters who are a few steps away from it all and able to think more rationally because they aren't as personally invested in what happens. Feyre feels guilty for her sisters being made so she was desperate to throw Elain in any direction she thought might snap her out of her depression (except giving her a real chance to interact with her mate). Nesta and Az have / had too much of their own self loathing to see anything clearly. But in my opinion, Cassian, Mor, Rhys and Amren are the voices of reason when it comes to what's going on with Elucien and E/riel.