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maybe-moonchild · 4 months ago

Text

5/29/2014

WC: 5.3k

Strawberry vodka lemonade was your liquid courage.

It was what drove you to excuse yourself from under Trent Warren's arm that was thrown over your shoulders. Your friends boo’d you from across the pong table, but you were already slipping away.

Flash’s living room was stuffy, the entirety of Midtown High’s senior class packed inside, bodies spilling into the backyard. It had been your requirement that all seniors be invited to the party. No one left out, no hurt feelings, or unwelcome to the celebration.

After all, you had all graduated today.

Peter’s head was easy to spot as he pushed through the crowd and towards the back door. He’d always been tall and lanky but, sometime during high school, he’d filled out. It wasn’t weird that you’d noticed. Everyone had noticed. Come on… how could you not?

Your grip on your solo cup tightened as you maneuvered through party goers that were too drunk to notice where you were going. Maybe no one cared anymore. Now that everyone was graduating and moving on to what was hoped to be bigger and better.

Who peaked in high school wouldn’t matter. Who dated who, slept behind their friends' ex was no longer important. Who punched who in the face over a rumor that someone started would be forgotten and replaced with newer and shinier memories.

You just knew that you would never be able to forget Peter Parker.

Thinking was easier once you’d stepped outside. Without the overwhelming stimulation, your eyes and ears adjusted to the quiet and lack of flashing lights. You searched every face, standing on your toes and straining to catch him before he was gone for good. You managed to get a glimpse of the back of his head before he disappeared around the side of the house.

You called out, “Hey!”

Grass tickled the soles of your feet as you jogged to catch up. Your sandals had been forgotten somewhere in Flash’s room from when you’d helped set up his place to host the party. What was more important was that you managed to catch him.

Peter was right at your fingertips.

At the sound of your voice, Peter hesitated. Like he was debating whether he should stop and turn around or just keep going all the way home. But he stopped.

It took him even longer to actually turn around.

Neither of you said anything for a few long seconds. You were nervous- the most nervous you had felt in a long time now that you were standing closer to him than you had in longer than you could remember. More nervous than cheerleading tryouts freshman year when Nancy Lewis, the captain, had it out for you but you made the team anyway. More nervous than when you clicked submit on your NYU application 7 months ago.

You gave him a timid smile, “Hey.” That one word dripped with everything and nothing all at the same time. Years of dependency and avoidance all rolled into one.

His teeth chewed at the inside of his lip and he paused long enough to make your smile falter.

“Hi.”

It was awkward; the kind of quiet that no one is sure how to fill. Clearing your throat and squaring your shoulders, you relied on the strawberry vodka to carry you through.

“I didn’t know you were coming tonight. I mean, I didn’t think you would.” you practically blurted the words out just so you wouldn’t lose your nerve. Shaking your head, you try to relax. “Not in a bad way. Just… you usually don’t, but I’m glad you did-”

“I didn’t plan on coming.

That time, your smile really faltered. His eyes were hard but the second he saw your expression, he felt guilty and quickly looked away. It was harder for you to recover this time.

“I’m glad you did.” The strawberry vodka coated the words and stung your tongue. At least taking a sip of your drink gave you something to do as you thought.

You took a breath and tried again.

“We haven’t… Well, we haven’t really talked in a while. So… I was- well I was hoping to run into you again. Since we graduated and all,” you stumbled through. Even if you sounded awkward, you couldn’t bring yourself to care.

You just wanted to try.

Peter didn’t know what to say to that. He was trying really hard to be nice but, god, it was harder than he’d thought it would be. It wasn’t like he was a mean person. It wasn’t even that he wanted to be mean to you but something about your unsure smile made him want to tear it down.

He can’t exactly say, ‘I don’t want to look at you’ or ‘I was hoping to have evaded you entirely, gone off to school and tried to forget your existence that always seems to be pressing on the back of my skull even when you’re nowhere near’.

So he settled for something neutral, a little vague.

“Yeah.”

He swallowed, nodding slowly before tearing his eyes from the ground and finally meeting your gaze. A nervous tic took hold of his forehead and he rubbed it idly like he could somehow rub away the scowl threatening to slip through. He fought the urge to run by shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“I didn’t know you wanted to run into me,” he muttered and you just shrugged lamely. If you talked right now, your voice might’ve cracked. Yet again, you focussed your tipsy brain on keeping the smile up.

Peter couldn’t help it. He just couldn’t help but shove his hands into his front pockets and add, “Considering you didn’t want anything to do with me for the past four years.”

The smile fell off your face. It didn’t come back.

His words did what he intended: hurt you.

You pressed your lips together to keep down the scoff burning in your throat.

“That’s not true and you know it,” you argued. “I never replaced you. I might have made other friends but that didn’t mean I just cut you out.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” he muttered, an edge creeping into his tone as he stared at you intensely. He wanted to see you hurt but the only reaction you gave was the twitch of a muscle in your neck.

Peter was pissed off. He was pissed off that he wasn’t good enough. That you chose others over him. That he’d never been enough. That maybe he never would be.

Peter did a bad job at feigning indifference. The jerky movements and harshness of his voice gave away that he wasn’t all that detached like he was trying to seem. You could tell considering you still knew his mannerisms like you had four years ago.

When you said nothing, he couldn’t help but keep going. Alcohol didn’t have the same effect on him ever since he got bit by that spider two years ago. Not like he’d been a big drinker before then anyway; Peter wasn’t exactly making it to the top of the guest lists. Booze metabolized too quickly in his system for it to do anything besides give him a brief buzz and a three minute hangover.

But when Ned had begged and pleaded (like literally on his knees and gripping the bottom of Peter’s shirt because ‘it was the last high school party he could attend to try and woo Katie into elopement), Peter couldn't say no. So he really tried to keep as heavy a buzz going as humanly possible.

It worked. Maybe a bit too well.

Which was why he was drunk and wouldn’t shut up.

“You always had plans with other people, always busy with cheerleading or making rounds to different tables at lunch after sitting with me for five minutes. I’d be lucky if I got to walk to a class with you.”

“That’s not how it went and you know it,” you countered with a step forward.

“Just admit you traded up. That you got exactly what you wanted.”

You stopped short, the close proximity between you two feeling like two opposite ends of magnets.Your breathing was a little rapid, pink flushing your cheeks from the alcohol. Or it could just be the blood rushing to your face from anger because, yeah… you were mad.

“And what would that be? What exactly was it that I wanted, Peter?”

It was the booze, that’s what you both told yourselves. That the bottle of rum you’d giggled into with Flash and Katie as people started arriving was finally hitting you full force. That the beers he’d choked down just so he had something to occupy his mouth with instead of talking during the party had him chatty now.

Alcohol seeped beneath the hard exterior of everything you’d been sitting on for the past four years as it all bubbled to the surface.

“Really?” He leaned in closer, the citrusy vodka strong on his breath. Peter's eyes flickered around your face like he was looking for the truth. “Who was the one that always said it would be you and I against the world? How many nights did I crawl in your window when you were too scared to be home alone and your parents were at a conference?”

When you didn’t have the answer, Peter leaned a little closer.

“How many times did you show up late to the movies an hour late because practice ran long? How many times did you invite a new friend along to our plans that only acknowledged my existence because you made them? How many times did I help you with your homework because you let some moron quarterback keep you up all night and you forgot?”

“Are you serious right now?” It was the most you’d raised your voice the entire conversation.

“I’m just saying,” Peter shrugged. He raised his hands in surrender, nothing sincere about the action.

“Just saying what? That I’m a whore?”

Peter's eyebrows shot up towards his hairline. His scowl dropped to shock. “No!” That was certainly not what he was saying. Not ever!

“Well, that’s kinda what it’s sounding like,” you snapped.

“Well, that's not what I- I’m not saying that. I’d never say that-” he cuts himself off with a huff. “I’m just saying that- I was there. For you. I was there for you.”

The hole he was digging himself in just kept getting bigger and bigger. If he was lucky, he could crawl inside and bury himself in it like a grave. Lay to rest all the thoughts of you that had been sitting in his head so long they’d practically atrophied into his brain tissue.

The statement made you feel defensive, arms folding over your chest like you could protect yourself from his words. Scowling, your fingers flexed on the half filled solo cup, the plastic crinkling under your fingers. Even though it was late May

“What has that even got to do with anything,” you cried out in frustration. Even though it was just the two of you out in the open yard, it felt harder to breathe out there compared to the cramped party inside.

You still didn’t get it. The realization was agonizing, that you just didn’t understand what that had to do with everything.

He stopped thinking entirely.

So without thought, he stepped forward, cupping your face in his hands and towering over you.

“Because I was jealous, you idiot.”

There's a deafening quiet once those words are out into the world. He could never take them back. You could never truly pretend you’d never heard them.

His eyes bored into yours, big and brown as their intensity slipped to distress, his breath rushing over your mouth. You were so still that you weren’t sure your heart was beating. If you really thought about it, you would easily be able to put together why he would be jealous of some football player having your attention for a week or two before you got bored.

If you actually thought it through, you would have to accept that he didn’t just feel resentment for you.

Suddenly, the hum of anger that had been buzzing in your body is replaced by something else entirely. Something you cant quite place or name or- fuck, you dont even know if you want to know what it is.

Peter's whole body wanted to sag, to sink down into your touch and just give himself a moment to simply be. To just be with you without the entire weight of the world weighing down his shoulders, without having an explosion hanging between you two like a cloud.

His heart was racing in his chest, thudding so hard it hurts as it slams against his ribs. Peter stared at you with disbelief, the booze having stunted his own thinking.

You were so beautiful, so damn beautiful with your cheeks flushed pink and your parted lips. Your eyes wide and bright as they remain locked with his own because neither of you could seem to look at anything else. Maybe there was nothing else worth looking at.

His thumb stroked your cheek, his voice faltering as he leaned closer,

“This,” he says and pulls your face closer.

You went rigid for barely a second when his lips pressed against yours. It wasn’t like it was the first time you’d ever kissed him either; in fact, it was the third time.

You had just never thought you would do it again. It was why you didn’t think, you just moved.

Kissing Peter was almost instinctive.

Your eyes fell shut but it didn’t make you any less aware of every single detail about him. The solidness of his forearms that your fingers were curled around as you leaned into him. How

Strawberry vodka and Peter Parker had to be the best thing you’d ever tasted.

If you thought you were drunk before, you might as well have blacked out now. You were even drunker on the feel of his hands moving to tangle in your hair, the swipe of his tongue on your lips. When he deepened the kiss, it made you stumble back in the grass. He kept you upright, going until he had your back pressed against the siding Flash’s house.

If you were able to think, you’d think this was stupid.

Not thinking sounded a fuck lot better than acknowledging that.

A sound of protest died in the back of your throat when he removed his hands before they’re back on you. They found their way under your thighs in an instant, hiking them around his waist like you weighed nothing. It surprised you enough that you gasped into his mouth. You looped your arms around his neck for both support- but also so your fingers can twist and tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck.

How long had Peter wanted this?

When he was nine, he wanted to hold your hand, to sit pressed up against you when you watched cartoons or link arms as he pulled you around the street on his skateboard. After he kissed you the summer before sixth grade, he wanted to do it again. Nothing more than pressing his lips to yours and pulling away after a second. At fourteen, he still didn’t really get the whole kissing thing.

Then he dated Gwen Stacy all of junior year and half of senior year. Gwen was amazing. She was kind and brilliant, her spot at the top of the class securing her spot in Oxford which meant she would be moving to another country at the start of fall. When he acceptance letter came, Gwen and Peter’s breakup was amicable and they’d spent the last few months easily falling into friendship.

So maybe it was around then that he was able to put a name to what he thought about when you crossed his mind. Of kissing you with everything in him, burying his face into your neck, holding you the same way you held him when Ben died.

You deepened the kiss when he groaned, fingers pressing harder into the flesh of your thighs and you nipped at his bottom lip in response. It was hard to focus once he’d moved his hands when they were touching anywhere they could.

Cupping your face, gripping your waist, tangling in your hair, resting on your neck. You could barely keep up but he didn’t care when he finally got to feel you.

It was a stupid night, a stupid moment, a stupid everything. Neither of you cared.

The two of you pulled each other close and closer, the heat of the moment drowning out the voices of reason in your head.

It felt so right. Nothing but your lips on his in the night and the sound of the party a million miles away.

Over your high school career, you’d been on some dates, had some flings with different variances of the same kind of asshole. The ones you’d kiss, or more, were nothing like this.

Not even kissing Trent Warren felt like this- Fuck.

Why did you have to think?

“Oh my god,” you breathed out once you managed to pull away. Your hands flew to cover your swollen lips, eyes wide and frantic. Peter let you pull away even if it hurt him.

Confused, he gently set you on the ground once you unlocked your legs from around his middle. Your shaky hands shoved the hair out of your face, pressing a palm against your forehead in shock.

It wasn’t like you were dating Trent. That was never going to happen, you were satisfied with the little fling the two of you were likely going to carry out for some of the summer before he left for college.

You didn’t even freaking like him that much so it didn’t even have anything to do with the star of the soccer team at all.

But this? It felt like you were taking advantage of Peter- not because of your mutual intoxication but because…

You weren’t sure, okay? All you knew was that there was a reason, so deep down into your brain, that you couldn’t grasp it.

This was all wrong. You were both drunk. Tensions were high. Neither of you were thinking clearly. Both of you made mistakes that you will regret the moment your hangover hits in the morning.

Just like that. His heart fell to his stomach as he watched you look around, searching for anyone that might’ve seen the two of you tangled together. He didn’t know what to say, what to do. Everything was happening so fast.

Swallowing, he said your name so softly it was almost hidden by the loud shriek and splash in the pool around the side of the house. Neither you or Peter even flinched at the sound. When you didn’t speak, the backs of his fingers found your chin, gently lifting your eyes to his.

“Leave him.”

“What?” You practically blurted the word out. If you didn’t think your eyes could get wider, you’d be wrong. Your hands fell to your sides to hang limply and useless and the abruptness almost made you reel back. It feels like he’s just said something absolutely preposterous, like he’s Spiderman or something.

"Leave him," Peter repeats. Pleading, his eyes searching yours. “you’re too good for him. You always have been.”

It’s so stupid but Peter’s heart had always known. He had always wanted you. He has just never been dumb enough to do anything about.

Until now, he guessed.

You leaned away from his hand to make space as you slipped around him. His body turned with yours but you weren’t doing it to get away. You just couldn’t stand being stuck between him and the wall you’d just been pressed up against. You paced, shaky hands pressing against the heat on your face.

“We’re drunk,” you tried to rationalize with a wave of your hands. “Neither of us knows what we’re doing… or saying.”

His heart sank even further with each word.

Peter nodded curtly in agreement, “We are drunk.”

But deep down he knows better.

He wanted this. Always.

He wanted you. Always.

“But I still mean it.”

You halted to a stop so fast that you nearly tripped on your own feet. Peter knows he's pushing the line, doing something they can't come back from but he has to know. There was no sign that this was all a joke.

“Peter,” your voice was thick with desperation. “You can’t mean it.”

“Yeah, I can.”

“No. You can’t.”

His eyes met yours, determination unwavering. He wanted you too much for his own sanity. “You can’t kiss me like that and say it doesn’t mean anything.” Because it did. It meant something to him.

The only reason you bit down on your lip was because he was right. You couldn’t say it didn’t mean anything. Not when you kissed him back the way you did. You twisted your shaky hands into the fabric of your dress like it would somehow give you some semblance of control over the way your head feels like it was going to explode.

“Pete.” The nickname fell from your lips like it had millions of times. You don’t know what to tell him. You didn’t think there was anything you could say to fix things like you’d hoped to when you chased him down. Not when his expression was so desperate to hear what he wanted.

“You were my best friend-” you started in the hopes of explaining but just shook his head and laughed. The sharp and bitter sound was enough for you to cut yourself off.

“Right, right, of course.” He looked away, staring off into the dark yard. You looked as hopeless as you felt.

"Can you just..." you stepped forward, barely moving closer but trying nonetheless. "I didn't... I wanted to fix things. I wanted to make things better."

The sound of your voice cracking at the end made his heart lurch. Peter actually managed to peeked up at you from the corner of his eyes because. Looking at you directly would burn like looking directly at the sun. The sound of your voice broke at the end, the crack making his heart lurch.

“Make what better? I thought you were perfect,” Peter snapped quietly. His head turned away from you again so he didn’t have to see the damage of his words.

That hurt, cut through your chest and forced you to inhale sharply. It just made the lump in your throat so much worse.

You focused on anything else as you blinked hard. Fresh cut grass, the sugary vodka still clouding your senses, and whatever floral Bath&BodyWorks perfume Katie had doused you both in earlier. All too overwhelming and not overwhelming enough.

"You know it's never been like that." Squaring your shoulders, you triked again. "It's never... You know I never wanted you out of my life. That it was never about picking you or them. I tried to do both. You're the one that pulled away."

Peter just scoffed again, shaking his head like it’s the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. Your mouth snapped shut in, trembling lips pressed tightly together.

“Maybe I was sick of waiting for you to remember the loser across the street that used to be your friend.”

Your jaw practically dropped at the implication that you would ever think that. Something about the way he said it made it feel like it had come from your own mouth. You clenched your hands into fists at your sides.

“I never thought that,” you shot back, mouth still hung open in disbelief. “You were the one that pulled away when I had more than just you in my life.”

Peter scoffed but you keep going.

“I invited you to games so that you would watch me cheer and you made it clear you would rather die than go. If I tried to stop by at your place after practice, you would tell May to pretend you weren’t home.”

Peter had never been all that great at sharing you.

Before you moved in across the street, he’d started approaching that age where he realized that he didn’t have all that many friends. Aunt May was always hinting at him to invite kids in his grade over after school and Uncle Ben didn’t understand why Peter wouldn’t, at the very least, try a sport for a single week.

Then you moved in across the street and he had a best friend that he could do everything with. Even when you played with other kids, you always came skipping back over to his house the second you got home. Sometimes you even dragged him along with you.

When high school approached, he’d been more concerned with getting lost or failing his classes.

You were more concerned with being singled out as a target or being lost on the outside.

Everything was fine between you two until the second week of school. Wait, that wasn’t true. You hadn’t actually done anything wrong but when he walked into school that morning, expecting you to be waiting at his locker for his arrival, you weren’t. Instead, you were on the other side of the hall, chatting excitedly with two girls on your cheer team.

Deep down, he had known you were talking to them to pass the time while you waited for him to arrive.

But when you didn’t notice his presence the entire time it took for Peter to open his locker, exchange his things, and walk towards his class, he’d held it against you. Just like he held it against you when asked if your weekly movie night could be rescheduled to Thursdays because Fridays were gamedays. Or how, you were okay when some of your other friends joined the two of you at lunch.

Peter just couldn’t stop.

Anytime you apologetically told him you had plans, it was another tally accumulating how many times he’d been scorned. Even if the next words out of your mouth were asking if he was free the day after, it didn’t change anything. The cycle didn’t stop until November of freshman year.

That was when you’d stopped trying to chase him down. Decided to not call him on the phone just to hear it ring twice before he sent you to voicemail.

“So I was supposed to sit alone on the bleachers while you cheered for a bunch of assholes that shoved my face into a locker freshman year?” His head cocked to the side but, hey, at least he’s actually looking at you. “Drag me around behind you like some kind of pet?”

“No!”

“So I could’ve stood alone in the corner at a party? Still making sure you got home safe? Wait on the sidelines until all the cool people were busy and I got called off the bench? Be there to comfort you when you picked, yet another, asshole that broke your heart just to break mine again and again?”

You couldn’t blink because if you do, the tears that had welled up in your eyes were going to start to fall. Those words make the lump in your throat so big that you can barely swallow it down.

“That what you wanted?” He asks and throws up his hands.

You told yourself you were both just drunk. Peter didn’t actually mean it. You told yourself that over and over again, the tension in the air was so heavy that it practically crushed you from the weight. He didn’t mean it, he didn’t mean it, he didn’t mean it… The mantra repeated in your head like a prayer in the hope you’d believe it.

You couldn’t convince yourself that it wasn’t the truth.

When you didn't answer, he stepped closer. Your voice cracked but you managed to force out, “No.” Peter couldn’t help it, a cold and bitter chuckle slipped past his lips. He was pissed off, that much was clear.

“No?” he asked. He was close now, his chest brushed yours with every breath. It was so far from what you ever wanted but you could barely shake your head no, your hair shifting along your shoulders. “I think you did, whether you realize it or not.”

Even though his voice has dropped, he might as well have screamed it at you. It didn’t make it any less deafening to hear.

“Anything else you want to say?” You were quiet too, the words felt like glass in your throat. So you swallowed down the shards, finding that glass would hurt a lot less than having to stand here and listen to him much longer.

He ran his hands through his hair and paced a few steps away from you while wiped at your face. It only took him a few moments to turn back a second later and step back up to you. There was barely an arm's length between you two but it still felt like you were on opposite sides of the solar system.

"You want to know what I think? What I really think?"

You had to grit your teeth just to keep your bottom lip from trembling.

“Yeah,” you breathe out. “I really do.”

He stared down at you, his breathing still ragged. He wanted to say things, terrible, awful things. He wanted to cut you deep - to hurt you like you hurt him.

Instead, he stepped closer. Close enough that he was in your space, his chest practically brushing against yours.

And then he was talking, the words falling from his lips before he could stop himself.

"I think,” he murmured, wetting his lips before continuing. “I think that letting you patch me up when I fell off my skateboard nine years ago was the biggest mistake of my life."

For a long moment, you said nothing. You didn’t move, you didn't blink, you didn't breathe. If you didn’t take a few seconds to calm yourself, you were going to start bawling before you could make it to the safety of Flash’s bathroom.

With a shaky breath, you stepped back, forcing your trembling lips into a tightlipped smile. A part of you wanted to mean it, like it could somehow reassure him. So you sniffled, wiping your eyes with the back of your hands. Peter just frowned and waited because he couldn’t do anything more.

Your laugh was pathetic and watery. Nothing was funny.

Aside from you because you just felt like a joke.

You gave him a curt nod and stood straightened. “Okay.” It’s all you could get out.

So, with one last look, you bent down to pick up the discarded solo cup. You’d never be able to drink strawberry lemonade vodka again after tonight. All you’d ever taste is him.

He watched you carefully, the anger leaving his body in waves and dissipating into the night. Every time you took a step away from him, he felt more and more like a jerk.

You don’t turn back around as you slip back around the side of the house.

It was that look on your face, like he broke you with his words. The look on your face that cut through every last bit of anger and resentment to get at what lay underneath.

Love.

And it kills him.

It kills you too.

The next time you see him again, you’ve both graduated from college; celebrating in some divey bar where you accidentally spill your drink on him.

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theresattrpgforthat · 2 years ago

Note

I know you've done a game recommendations post about lighthearted solo games, but do you have any suggestions for someone's first solo ttrpg/journaling game?

THEME: First-Time Solo Games!

Hello friend! I sure do have some recommendations! Many of the games I present here are representative of a larger type, so you might be able to find other games within that category by browsing the related tags on itch.io. Most of the games require dice, and many of the games require decks of cards. Other than that, you shouldn’t need anything too fancy or elaborate to play these kinds of games!

The Sky City Charade, by Ashley Morgan’s Games.

Elysia. Midtown. Someone rich was murdered. And you, a private detective from the lowest reaches of Sky City, have been tasked to find out why.

This is a solo journalling game based on the Hints and Hijinx system from Pandion Games. Create a character and navigate through a cyberpunk city stretching into the heavens, dealing with whatever it throws at you.

Using polyhedral dice, a deck of cards, something to journal with, and your own imagination, see if you can bring this case to a satisfying close by actually solving it and finding out who is behind this mysterious crime, and why you were asked to solve it.

Hints and Hijinx games use a pack of cards and a deteriorating dice mechanic to generate a story. In The Sky City Charade, you’ll assign your two highest dice (a d10 and a d12) to two stats: Smarts & Tough. Every roll you make in an effort to find a clue has a chance of giving you what you’re looking for, but also a chance of making future rolls harder. The game is divided into three phases: Setup, Investigation, and Closure. You’ll spend most of your time in the Investigation phase, visiting locations and drawing cards to determine what kind of complications arise in your efforts to solve the mystery.

What I like about this kind of game is the structure. There’s clear instructions for each section of play, and the deteriorating dice mechanic ensures that you both think carefully about when to look for clues and also finish play within a reasonable time frame. I also enjoy the thoughtful world building that went into the location creation for this game; the author knows what kind of world they want to present you with, and they deliver.

If you want more games of this system, I’d recommend checking out the Hints and Hijinx Jam!

Beast at Bay, by Ive Sorocuk.

You arrive back in your hometown.The journey was long.You have little memory of it but you do recall being attacked by some form of beast. A beast you can still feel deep within you, wanting to get out.

Beast at Bay is a solo rpg/journaling game that uses the Second Guess System. It’s a pretty simple game, only one page long, with a Humanity tracker and a list of 20 prompts. You roll a d20 and answer a question from the prompt list, adjusting the Humanity tracker as needed.

The Second Guess System thrives on re-rolls, and frames rolling the same prompt twice as a chance to examine your character’s uncertainty - was their original answer truly what was going on, or is there something hidden, possibly even from themself? In Beast at Bay, every time you must re-examine a question, you will need to roll a d6 to determine whether you lose Humanity. The game ends when you either reach 6 or fall to 0. If you like quick-to-read games that can be played in approximately 30 minutes, then I’d recommend checking out this game.

You can find other Second Guess Games in the Second Guess Jam!

Weeds in the Waste, by Meghan Cross.

Weeds in the Waste is a solo storytelling game about tending a garden in a post apocalyptic wasteland.

Determine the state of your wasteland, create your gardener, plant your seeds, and tend your garden as you play through the seasons in the wastes. It is a narrative, storytelling game played using 2d6s and a 6x6 grid, as well as a series of prompts.

Grid-based games give you visual references that can help you visualize what is going on in your game world. They also give you a chance to strategize a little bit, especially if the dice you’re rolling will affect the map, like in this game. Despite the fact that this game happens in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, I still feel like some part of it is a cozy game. You’re not saving the world or fighting your inner darkness in Weeds in the Waste; you’re growing plants and striving to make your garden a place of hope. Much of the prompts provided are aimed at building up the world around you, whether that be weather events, celebrations, or the kinds of plants you are attempting to grow.

If you like games with lower stakes and visual references, I recommend this game. If you want other grid-based games with different themes, I’d recommend Wonderfall, by Catscratcher Studio, and Exclusion Zone Botanist, by Exuent Press.

Anamnesis, by Sam Leigh, Blinking Birch Games.

Anamnesis is a 24-page solo journaling RPG about self-discovery, reflection, and identity.

You play as an individual who has woken up with memory loss. You do not remember who you are, where you are, or what you care about. As you draw tarot cards, you fill the blank spaces of your past and learn more about your present. All that is needed to play is a deck of tarot cards and a way to record your thoughts.

Explore your character’s backstory through five acts, divided up using the four suits and major arcana of a tarot deck. This game is highly interpretive, giving you prompts to answer but depending upon your interpretation of tarot cards in order to determine the kinds of details that you’ll end up filling out. The fact that it uses a tarot deck may be it’s biggest obstacle if you don’t already own a tarot deck, but if you do own a tarot deck you’ll likely already have some experience when it comes to interpreting the cards, and so I don’t know if the openness of interpretation is that much of a hurdle when it comes to playing this game.

What I do know is that Anamnesis has won several awards, and is pretty well-known in the gaming scene. There’s both digital and physical copies, and the creator offers both discounted damaged copies as well as community copies pretty regularly. There’s also an Anamnesis Jam with many other Anamnesis - inspired games for you to check out!

The Sealed Library, by Sealed Library.

The Sealed Library is a solo journaling RPG played with a deck of cards, a tumbling block tower and a notebook/scroll.

You are the sole surviving librarian of the greatest library in history. It sits in the centre of culture for an ancient land, now fallen to invaders. They pillage and raze.

The library has been barricaded and you are under siege. What important texts can you move down into the vaults and seal away forever before the barricade breaks? What will future generations discover inside the Sealed Library?

Wretched & Alone games such as this one usually recommend a Jenga tower but I’ve found them very playable without one. All you really need is a deck of cads, a six-sided dice, and some tokens, which can be anything (I use poker chips). Personally, I think the biggest con is the tone of the games - most Wretched & Alone games are meant to be tragic or horrific. For example, in The Sealed Library, you are a librarian trying to save as much of the library as possible before invaders knock down the doors and kill you, or before you die of starvation.

These games divide events in between four categories, to match the four suits of cards. In this game, these suits represent saved books, new discoveries, invader events and dwindling resources. If the tumbling tower falls, you die. If you draw all four Kings, you die. There are a few ways for your character to escape alive, but the chances of drawing the right cards in the right order are low. What I appreciate about this game is that it includes a debrief section, allowing you to process the story you have just told yourself. If you’re interested in playing out a story that may pull you into a tragedy however, games like this one may suit you.

Games I’ve Recommended in the Past

Untitled Moth Game, by S. Kaiya J.

Osteozee, by Psychound.

Global Dragon Egg Conservation, by KuumatheBronze.

Games from the Solo But Not Alone Bundle.

#solo games #game recommendations #asks #dnd #indie ttrpgs #tabletop games #The Sealed Library is the first solo game I played

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official-wonho · 6 days ago

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[INTERVIEW] Wonho talks return to music, US tour, upcoming album: 'I feel really happy every day'

Midtown Manhattan is bustling beyond its normal fast pace on Dec. 13, and it's not just because of the holiday season. The iHeartRadio Jingle Ball is in town.

Among those performing at the concert's pre-show All Access Lounge is Korean solo artist Wonho. It's his first time back in the States since being discharged from his military enlistment in September.

"I'm surprised that I was able to come back so quickly to the U.S.," the 31-year-old tells USA TODAY backstage at the Hammerstein Ballroom. "And I think it's due to my fans support."

Wonho's schedule has been packed, but there's so much that he's grateful for.

"Now that I see my fans in front of me, I feel really happy every day," Wonho says.

Challenges in returning back to the stage

Wonho says it was challenging to readjust after nearly two years away from music.

"It was a little bit strange to be back on stage performing again. It had been such a long time ... I even felt like I was so nervous that my legs were shaking" he reveals. "I thought that it was a little bit awkward to get used to making facial expressions to the camera again, and it took a little bit of time."

Prior to his Jingle Ball performance in New York, Wonho performed at Brooklyn Steel Dec. 12 as part of his "Welcome Back, Wenee" tour. And despite the muscular musician's physique and calm demeanor, he still gets shy.

"I feel nervous now, because I'm constantly in new places and in front of new fans," he shares. "Each stage is different, especially in the U.S.."

On his first solo tour, Wonho made stops in six cities, including Houston, Seattle and Los Angeles.

But on stage, Wonho has been able to acclimate with ease. He commands attention with his smooth voice and compelling choreography.

Wonho shares his love for Wenee

Coming back to music was an easy decision for Wonho. After all, his fans are what kept him grounded during his enlistment.

He says he would read fan letters and recall shared memories as motivation. All of those "helped the time go very quickly," he adds

Wonho's fans, called Wenee, are the impetus for his artistry. They are one reason for his latest single, "What Would You Do".

"I came back with an English single because English is a global language, and I can reach fans all over the world," he says.

And to be able to see his international fans so soon has felt unbelievable.

"Each each day is actually very memorable, and today, too is special in its own way," he says.

Wonho's morning routine on tour

The last month has been busy for Wonho, but his days always start the same.

He takes a wellness shot in the morning, easing into his schedule and then working out. "That's basically my morning routine every day, no matter where I am in the world," he says with a laugh.

"As for workouts, arms would be an easy day," Wonho says. "Chest is probably the worst. So sometimes, I skip those days." Wonho does, however, like leg workouts.

And Wonho's must-have tour items include a massage ball, a massage gun, pairs of white and black athletic socks and his medicine pouch.

Wonho's upcoming album teasers

Wonho calls "What Would You Do" a new start. "My goal is not really charts or numbers, but I just want to make a lot of good music," he explains.

In 2025, he plans to release a new album. "I actually recorded a song in Chicago, and I've been constantly working on music," he reveals. "For my future album, I want to try out new styles."

When writing music, Wonho sees it as a point of connection with his fans. He focuses on expressing his emotions in each song, so that others can apply the lyrics to their own experiences.

"I want them to remember the moments that we shared together," he says. "I think now I just want to really focus on making the mood of the songs."

via: usatoday.com

#wonho #241221 #t: interview #usa today #era: what would you do

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redflagshipwriter · 10 months ago

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Reassembly 2

link to first post

Masterpost

(the one where Peter Parker wakes up post-snap in a LoA lazarus experiment)

It was New York City. Peter thanked his blessings and the transportation gods. He didn't wait for the train to stop because he was kind of afraid that it wouldn't and he'd get carried somewhere else.

If he'd been a regular teen, it would have been like, super dangerous to jump off of the top of a moving train and land on cement. Peter rolled like he'd been taught and came up safe. He shook his wrists a little as he straightened and tried to figure out where he was exactly.

Okay. Operation solo hero was a go. Here he was, in NYC. He didn't have any help. But he was Spiderman. Peter tried not to feel discouraged about losing all his tech, his friends, and his mentors. He could remake his web shooters and a suit. He needed access to materials, but he could do it. His first formula had been made in a school lab.

'But I wasn't homeless and undocumented then.'

Oof, that felt bad.

'Can I even keep my name? I can't exactly go to Midtown and tell them to make Peter Parker plural.'

Yikes. That was a whole lot of yikes.

Well. One problem at a time, right? He needed to get himself into a more stable position for survival first. Now that he knew where he was, he could change his strategy from calling for help to becoming self-sufficient.

He wasn't exactly sure what to do. The first thing that came to mind was that he needed more clothes. Even if he had liked this outfit, he definitely needed more than one set. This was gross. And honestly? He was kinda cold. And he was increasingly uncomfortable about not wearing underwear.

'I don't have any money and I can't borrow some. I can't steal from anyone. What can I do?'

Peter racked his brains. Go through the donation bins for a thrift store? That seemed wrong. But … stores throw things away.

'Department stores get new things all the time. They must be throwing away old clothes. If I check their dumpsters, I bet I'll find something.'

With a plan in mind, Peter made his way to the closest big store he knew about. Even though he was stranded, at least he was in his city. New York City was way more comforting than Metropolis had been. He navigated by memory to a store he knew called-

Huh. The store was where he thought it would be, but it had a different name. Peter quietly read it aloud, wondering if this place would have the same bland, safe fashion as where he'd meant to go.

Well. There was only one way to find out, and it wasn't by going inside. They were locked up for the night anyway.

He found the dumpsters. Peter braced himself for a moment, taking a deep breath.

He didn't feel good about this. He didn't. Not morally- if it had been thrown away, it didn't belong to anyone– but looking at the outside of a dumpster really hammered in the desperation he was in. He was poor. He had nothing and he had no one.

Peter shook that off. "That's not true," he told himself. Hearing a human voice, even his own, helped a bit. "I have a great sense of humor and a positive outlook."

Still, uh, he was ready for a lifestyle that included underwear. He carefully lifted the lid and rested it against the wall so that it didn't make any noise. Then he hopped up onto the rim and squinted into the bin.

There were big plastic bags full of fabric. His first impulse was to tear them open and look, but he refrained. It would make a mess for the garbage workers. Instead he painstakingly untied the string at the top and opened a bag. Then he pulled clothes out one piece at a time and examined them.

His heart fell. He'd been right. These were all perfectly good, unused clothes with the tags still on them, so he could even sort by size. But someone had taken scissors to them all before throwing them out. Peter held up a t shirt and squinted at it. It wasn't that bad, really. They hadn't been super thorough. This one had kind of a snip through the middle.

…it wasn't like he didn't know how to sew. He'd done lots of repairs that way, and even made a Halloween costume one year.

If he just stitched that up it would be kinda obviously repaired. That was okay, but Peter dug around until he found another T shirt in a different color. It was hard to tell in the darkness but he was pretty sure it was blue. It had a similar cut.

"Okay," he planned aloud. "I cut them fully apart, even out the edge, and then sew them together so it looks like being bi colored is a fashion decision."

He dug around for a couple more shirts, trying to get four different colors that in the daylight he could hopefully mix and match. Then he shoved everything back in that bag and tied it up. He hung his haul over the edge of the dumpster and started opening bags on a hunt for jeans. A pair of jeans and a pair of sweatpants was basically all the wardrobe a teenaged boy needed, anyway.

It took four bags until he found some, and they were too big. But the next bag under that had his size range. These had been snipped too, but Peter huffed a laugh. So what? Lots of jeans had tears in them as a style choice. He dug out two pairs and wiggled into them one after the other to check the fit. It was a relief to have his legs covered. They were kinda long but he was expecting a growth spurt any day now, so that was great. He was pretty sure one was black and one was blue, so that was a good variety.

He wanted underwear and socks. Maybe a heavier coat, if they had one. He searched and searched and came up with nothing. He did find a shoulder-strapped canvas bag that had probably been returned- there was a subtle stain on the inside. Peter would have preferred a backpack, but he shoved the clothes inside the bag anyway. This was a lot better than just walking around holding a handful of fabric. He put the little bag from the guy’s locker inside of it. He still hadn't even looked at what was in it.

Still. He stared mournfully at the clothes. No underwear, really? He was willing to compromise on socks, but underwear and shoes that fit were a big deal.

"I guess they don't need to seasonally change those so much." Peter sighed to himself. "Wait- no. That can't be right. For socks maybe but shoes? They must throw out a ton of shoes."

Just not today, apparently.

Disappointed, he closed the dumpster back up and adjusted his haul over his shoulder. He left without looking back. He was already churning through possible solutions for his outstanding problems. Socks, shoes, underwear, and a sewing kit so that he could use his changes of shirts.

'Fancy hotels have those little repair kits as part of the free goodies.'

Oh, man. Peter steeled himself for social embarrassment. He was going to have to wander in and out of hotel lobbies by himself, take a repair kit, and leave.

'Maybe they'll think I'm a guest,' he thought hopefully. 'I don't look that bad. I look kinda like I'm going to school or traveling light.'

Oh. That was an idea.

'Lots of hotels have free breakfasts. I could just walk in, eat, and leave. Even if the desk staff thinks I'm probably not a guest, they probably won't say anything.'

It seemed kinda wrong. But it was a buffet. Leftovers were going to get thrown away. And he only had to wait until the morning.

Peter tabled the idea for later. It was going to depend on just how hungry he got. He was already really hungry, if he was honest about it. Whatever bodily numbness he'd gotten from the green jello stank tank had worn off.

'I'm going to get too hungry to manage before too long even if I have a huge breakfast every day. I’m used to running on a lot of calories. What would happen to my ability to be Spiderman if I can’t eat enough?'

He shoved the realistic part of him down and tried not to feel discouraged by his demanding metabolism.

Focus. The first thing was fixing the clothes.

'No,' grumbled a mental voice he knew he should recognize. It was coming through a fog of distortion. Shelter is first, Spiderman. Shelter, water, food, and then supplies like clothes.'

He frowned and rubbed at his temples. He didn't know how to solve that problem. It seemed more practical to address the problems that he knew how to fix first.

Well. A hotel buffet would probably have drinks as well, but they wouldn't be open for a while. He didn't know what time it was but it was actually night.

At least he had a tentative plan for it.

Peter steeled himself for embarrassment and started looking for hotels. The first one he found was too fancy- the amenities weren't placed in the lobby. He walked in and his attention was immediately caught by the soft golden gleam of a bell on the reception desk. It was under a strategic light.

'This one won't be good for breakfast either, there's nowhere for a buffet,' Peter noted. Thankfully, no one was waiting at the desk. He walked back out and realized that would probably be the case for most places at this time of night.

He felt better going into the next hotel. This one had amenities out, but not a sewing kit. Peter took a toothbrush, two of the packets of wash products, and a cheap razor. Maybe this would be the time his facial hair started to come in and he'd need to shave.

'I really need a wash,' he noted, not for the first time. 'So bad.'

The green stuff didn't smell …too bad when dry. It definitely didn't smell as sour as it had tasted. But his skin itched and his hair was crunchy.

The third hotel was the winner. He had the idea to look for a cheaper hotel aimed at business class travelers. It had free wifi, what was definitely going to be a breakfast buffet from 5:00 am, and it had the sewing kit that he needed. Peter took one gratefully, wondered if it would have enough string, and then took a second kit just in case.

Okay. Next priority was getting clean. That would double up with getting water- now that he'd thought about it, Peter was thirsty enough to drink shower water from the faucet.

He looked for a gym. He found a fashionable 24 hour one and dismissed it. Entrance was clearly only by key cards there. He needed someplace older. At least this was his city. He could guess the general area that would have what he wanted. Peter walked around until he found one and wiggled his way up to the third floor, heaved open a window, and went in search of a shower.

"Good thing I grabbed this," Peter said, stripping all of his clothes and palming one of the tear-open packets of individual soap and shampoo. There was absolutely nothing in the shower in terms of amenities. Gym patrons probably brought their own stuff.

He took the longest shower of his life, wished he had a washcloth or two, and ended up using both packets of soap to get his body clean enough. Then he hauled his clothes in, all of them, and washed them as best as he could using what was left of the shampoo. He wrung them all out and then put on his new jeans, totally damp. It didn't feel great on his skin. But at least it was clean. For now, he put on one of the black t-shirts. He'd apparently managed to grab two in black, one in red, and one in blue. This t-shirt had a v- shaped cut on the stomach, but he pulled the brown jacket over and zipped it up enough that it didn't show. It was all damp and very weird, but they'd dry quickly on him since he was moving around, right?

When he looked at himself in the mirror, Peter looked like himself. Sure, he was damp and messy haired. But he was clean! He shot himself a thumbs up.

He left the rest of the clothes hanging to dry and wandered the gym. It was eerie but also really interesting. He'd never spent much time in an actual gym.

That might be a cool hobby to take up. If nothing else, he could maybe find some classes.

Oh! A clock. Peter squinted at it in the dark. It was 3:42 AM. It wasn't actually that long until the hotel breakfast bar opened, then. He'd been walking around all night.

'I need a way to tell time on my own. There's not that many clocks in public.'

The first thing that he came back to when he thought of his problems was money. Money, money, money. He needed it. And he needed ID- did the ID come before the money, or the other way around? He needed tech to be Spiderman and to live in general– man, it was weird to be without a phone– so, how?

His first thought was to go to school and use the laptops there. But he wasn't a student. That would probably freak people out- or worse, draw attention to him. Was it more illegal to exist without documentation, or to be a minor who wasn't in school?

Peter shuddered. Yeah, no high schools.

But a public library? That had potential. The computers were always pretty old but they were free to use.

That was most of an itinerary for the day, then, he realized. It made him feel better to have a plan. He was going to wait a while for his clothes to dry (should he point the blow dryer at them?), and shove them in his bag. He'd go back to the business hotel for breakfast and probably more soap, then go to the library.

'I need to eat a lot at that buffet.'

His stomach rumbled in agreement. Oh man, this was kinda bad. He had no idea how to get another meal today.

Well. He could look into it when he was at the library.

He ended up turning the blow dryer on his clothes to get them dry. They didn't seem any dryer than they'd been when he wrung them out. That made for a tense hour of pointing the little machine while his arm got tired and he kept jumping at sounds that might be someone coming to open up the gym.

Stupid, Peter chastised himself. Of course a couple hours in a humid room wasn't enough to dry anything. They'd get moldy first.

He got them dry enough to fold up and put in his canvas bag, and then he went out by the same window that he'd come in.

'I hope they don't start locking that. If I don't have a place to stay soon, I'm gonna really need these showers.'

It didn't take him long to get back to the business hotel. It was somewhere between 5 and 6, which meant that the buffet was fully out but not busy. Peter walked in and beelined to the food, trying desperately to look like he belonged.

Nutritionally, it was pretty good considering the circumstances. Peter grabbed an apple and a banana from the fruit bowl and got a glass of milk as well as orange juice. He wasn't going to get scurvy, at least!

Glass containers had a selection of baked goods that honestly all just looked okay. He picked out a couple of plain rolls and then something that had walnuts in it. For protein, his options were some queasy looking sausages and a tray of scarily yellow scrambled eggs. He took a generous portion of both and finally started eating.

Whoa. As soon as he'd had a few bites, it was like the dial turned up on his hunger. Peter ate at record speed and caught himself looking back at the buffet.

No one was looking. There was only one other person in the buffet area, a young woman staring grimly into a cup of coffee and using her phone. The receptionist wasn't paying attention at all.

Peter felt worse, somehow, about going back for seconds than he had about coming here in the first place. But he was too hungry for shame. He grabbed two bagels and toasted them at the same time and stuffed his pockets with cream cheese packets.

'I could take a bit of this with me. A roll or two and maybe a banana? Ugh, it's weird, but the cream cheese has protein in it…'

He put another couple of packets in his pocket. No one was going to count and realize he was taking two of them out the door.

While he waited for the bagels to toast he refilled his drinks and added a coffee and an apple juice. He felt ridiculous with four drinks, so he drained the milk and put the empty cup in the clean up bin.

He filled a second plate of sausages and scrambled eggs (they weren't that bad) and piled the bagels on it as soon as they popped up.

Once he'd eaten his second serving, Peter felt a lot more human.

He also felt exhausted. Like, he was beyond tired.

'I didn't sleep at all so that figures. And I don't have any idea where I can sleep today. So… maybe one more coffee while I wait for the food to give me energy I can use?'

He couldn't quite stand the idea of gulping down all that liquid right then. It seemed like a good time to see what was in the little bag he'd gotten from the probably evil scientist's locker.

'The guy worked somewhere that stores human bodies in rancid green jello. If he's not an evil scientist, it's only because he's an evil janitor or receptionist or something.'

That… It wasn't ideal but it made him feel a little better and a little braver.

The instant he unzipped the little bag, Peter realized that the guy basically had his whole life in the bag. That included a phone, which was either turned off or dead.

"Whoops," he muttered. He considered turning it on but paused. Would that be safe? He might need it. But what if someone realized it had been stolen and tracked it?

He left it alone for now and looked at the wallet.

The first thing was a Metro City transit card. Peter looked at it and put it back in place. There were a couple more cards- credit or debit, an expired gift card, membership cards to three different pizza places and a gym, and an ID. Peter glanced around guiltily to be sure no one was looking before he checked the name and photo.

Richard DeWitt was blonde, apparently 5ft 10 inches, and 170 lbs. He had a lopsided smile and dead eyes in his photo. Brown eyes.

DeWitt was 37- no, Peter corrected internally. He grimaced. He was 5 years in the past, so DeWitt was only 32. One of the ID cards was for work, which was a goldmine. Or it could have been, if the company name had been written instead of the initialism LOA.

Better than nothing, at least. He memorized the letters and logo.

The debit and credit cards were no good to him. Peter made a mental note to destroy them later, so that no one else could pull them out of the garbage and use them later.

He paused for a long moment over the cash. He felt like a spotlight was about to shine down on him and an announcer would call him a thief. But he counted it: 87 dollars. That wasn’t Tony Stark money, but there were a lot of problems it could solve for him.

'The money isn't the same as back home.'

His eye caught on the one dollar bills. He picked them out of the pile to look at them more closely, like an inspection was going to make them change.

Assuming DeWitt didn't have fake currency on him, the US dollar was different.

Peter stopped. He belatedly processed that.

There was no way in a million years that the picture on the dollar had changed in the last five years. It had always been the same guy.

But here it was, unmistakably a US dollar with a man Peter didn't know printed in the center.

That changed things.

'I"m not on my earth, unless this is a hallucination. Where else could I be!?'

He would like to stop having paradigm changing realizations, any day now.

The only thing that kept him from having a total nervous breakdown was that he was in public. Sort of. There was no one directly looking at him, but that would probably change if he went into the fetal position and started wheezing.

This was bad. This was really, really, bad, actually.

He needed to go back to the drawing board. For all he knew, there was no Peter Parker here, no Tony Stark, no one he could go to for help.

And the people who had kidnapped him-

Oh, hell. They could be anybody for all he knew. Heck, what if that was a government thing? If they didn’t even have the same presidents, he couldn’t assume this was the same country, in a sense.

‘I need to look into that, as soon as possible. What if I’ve got the universe equivalent of like, HYDRA or something looking for me? That would be a bad surprise.’

He had the address of that building, at least, and the name of an employee. That was something to go off of.

Peter forced himself to exhale long and slow. He picked up his mess. He didn’t finish going through the guy’s wallet but he didn’t have the nerves for it right now. He stuffed it back into his satchel and left with a nod at the desk clerk.

He needed information, and that meant the library was even more urgent. It was the only way he knew to access the internet.

The walk wasn’t too bad. His nerves were a knot in his throat as Peter crossed morning traffic on what had to be a weekday, but his memory of NYC didn’t lead him wrong. He bounded up the stone steps to a big library two at a time, shot a queasy smile at the man behind the desk, and ducked his head as he walked in and did a little tour of the place.

There were three floors. The first floor had a dedicated computer lab for students, and long desk with four computers for public use. Near it there was a little table with pitchers of coffee, water, and paper cups with a sign encouraging free usage. There was also a reading corner, a collection of tables for quiet group projects, and rows of media like DVDs. Wow, so old. Peter marveled at that on his way up the stairs. There was a huge papier-maché wolf on the stairwell for unknown reasons. He patted it on the head as he passed.

The second floor had that intense library smell to it and a lot of signs strictly enforcing absolute quiet. He craned to see tall rows upon rows with labels like science and law, as well as a sign for reserved meeting rooms and bathrooms. The third floor was apparently mostly for group collaboration. Each table had a sign begging people not to bring in outside food and to leave their drinks on the table. Peter glanced over to the only table that had someone at it already, spied her huge coffee cup, and suppressed a snort. He didn’t see anything, but he could smell bacon and eggs. His stomach twisted into a knot.

Still, she didn’t seem to be causing any terrible destruction with her breakfast sandwich. He noted that she had four different colored highlighters next to her notebook, but tore his attention away before he felt like a creeper.

Okay. He had the lay of the land. It made him feel weirdly better. This library was now his base of operations, the center for his information gathering campaign and the subsequent plan… construction …campaign?

He’d workshop a name later. For now, he jogged back down a floor and went to the modern history section. He just read titles for a while, trying to paint a picture of what shared history he could confirm.

He saw lots of familiar country names referenced, and a few of the names that cropped up were familiar as well. The eerie feeling that he wasn’t home just got stronger, though, because there was no reference to half the modern wars and much less on WW1 and 2 than he'd expected. They were shelved in with books about the Justice League.

Justice League?

There was a whole lot of scholarship on that, whatever it was. Maybe it was like the U.N., Peter guessed. He flipped open a book and flipped pages randomly, scanning for words that stuck out. Ah, nope, there’s a reference to the U.N. So, this was a different thing entirely.

Okay, well. That gave him a starting point of something to look up.

He went back to the first floor and started a session on one of the public use computers. He had to write the time and his name on a check in sheet. He started to write ‘Peter’ out of force of habit and scrawled to a stop after writing the Pe.

For all he knew, that could be a bad idea. He shouldn’t leave any record that actually led back to him.

‘...So what else starts with Pe?’

It took him an embarrassingly long time to come up with Peyton. He wrote that down, exhausted and relieved, and then realized he needed a last name too. Oh, heck. He wrote a random letter -K- and then searched his brain for a plausible sounding last name. He came up with Kensington and then sat down, idly wondering if that was actually a name or just like, a place in the U.K. or what.

‘...I only thought of that because it ended in ‘ton’ like Peyton,’ he had the delayed realization. ‘It sounds kinda cheesy together. Fakey.’

Okay. Realistically, no one was ever going to look at that register. So it was fine that he wasn’t good at lying on his feet. He probably needed to sit down and come up with a couple of fake names to use in future.

Well. Maybe he didn’t have to be that creative. He opened a window and searched ‘Tony Stark.’ His heart fell as he scrolled through the results.

Tony Stark didn't exist here.

There had been people with that name, don’t get him wrong. But they weren’t Mr. Stark. There was no Mr. Stark in this universe. He tried looking up current billionaires instead, just in case Mr. Stark had a different name. He flipped through their photos with a sinking heart. That guy was too bald, Mr. Stark would never have a mustache that silly, Mr. Stark wasn't that jacked, no, no, no.

He tried other names- Happy Hogan, Jamese Rhodey, Virginia Potts (he initially forgot that her name wasn’t really Pepper and ended up on a site for kitchen goods).

The result? No result, more like. Not great.

He tried celebrities. Musicians, actors, philosophers, everyone he could think of. Weirdly, lots of them popped up.

The difference seemed to be around 1940. Historical names came up the way that he would expect them to. But anyone who was modern just didn’t.

Out of extremely morbid curiousity, he googled Anne Frank. He found a semi successful novelist in her 90s who lived in Prague.

Peter put his face in his hands. Okay. Okay, he knew approximately when the universes or whatever had diverged. That was wild.

His hands were shaking. He got up, realized he didn’t have a reason to stand, and then went to pour himself a paper cup of the complimentary water so he didn’t feel like a crazy person.

This was a whole different world. He couldn't assume that his background knowledge was helpful.

That made him feel so safe and secure. Thanks, universe.

#marvel dc crossover #red reassembly #peter parker

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aflame4goinghome · 1 year ago

Text

Part Of The Band

j.t.k x f.reader

part three

part two

a/n: present day! how exciting… what's in store for y/n and jake now? will he stay in her past or is there still something there? enjoy :)

word count: 5.2k

warnings: not much; some swearing, mentions of alcohol, references to sex but no smut, a bit of angst if you squint but it's more like sad angst, kind of fluffy. the next chapter will be super juicy! just wanted to fill in the gaps for the time jump

June 2023

“Y/N, did you pack the bath towels into one of your boxes? I can’t find them,” you hear Sophie yell from down the hall. You turn around to look through your boxes, digging through a few of them before finding the towels. “Yeah, Soph, they’re right here!” you reply then turn back to your dresser to pack the rest of your things.

You and Sophie graduated from UCLA a month ago and have spent the last few weeks preparing for this new chapter of your life. You got a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing, so you could start your life wherever you wanted.

Sophie, however, was a bit more limited on where she could find employment. She graduated with a degree in Entertainment Management, so she had to go to cities where she could use it. After doing research over the past year, she decided to move to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue a career. Knowing that you could continue your work anywhere, especially remotely, and not wanting to live with anyone else, you decide to go with her.

The two of you searched the housing market for weeks before finding your new home. It’s a cute little townhouse in Midtown with a rustic look and two floors, with enough room for you both and affordable rent. Your lease starts on Saturday, so you both are finally packing after weeks of procrastinating.

You guys are mostly finished, but you’re still packing up the small stuff in your bedroom before you pack it all up into the moving truck that will drive your things to your new house. It would take about two days for them to get there, so your flight will leave tomorrow morning for Nashville.

You pack up the rest of your clothes besides the outfits that you’ll bring on the plane and then turn to your vanity to pack up those things. You start adding some of your jewelry to the small box and then pull out a white rope bracelet. Your face drops at the sight of it and you sit down at the edge of your bed, looking down at it in your hands. You still remember the last time that you saw it.

It's been a while since you’ve thought about Jake. You left his hotel that day and returned to your apartment feeling like you’d just awoken from a dream that you never wanted to end. But you would never hear from him again. The holidays hit and then you were flung back into your schoolwork. He was embarking on a new tour with dates in the U.S. and Europe, jumping around from place to place.

You still followed him on Instagram, but his posts were few and far between. You’d get glimpses of him now and then on the rest of the guys’ socials, or the occasional post on the band’s account, but other than that you didn’t see much of him. You kept up with the band a lot at first and it would often cause a harsh sting in your chest, so you decided after a month or two that it would be best if you restricted how much you paid attention to them.

You do listen to the music a lot, though. Going to see them years ago sparked something new in you and you liked it. Josh’s voice especially pushed you to listen to their songs frequently; his voice calmed you and put you at peace when you needed it most. You also found yourself listening to Jake’s guitar solos and reminiscing about what it felt like for them to be played directly to you.

This was all in the past though, and now is not the time to be thinking about the past. You’re about to take a huge step toward your future. When Sophie mentioned the idea of moving to Nashville for the first time, you felt a bit hesitant. You knew that was where Greta Van Fleet lived and spent most of their time, and the last thing you wanted was to see Jake again. You knew that he was a rockstar, touring all over the world. You weren’t his first “fan” hookup, and you surely wouldn’t be the last. But Sophie assured you that it was almost two years ago and he probably doesn’t even remember that night. Nashville was a big city, it’s unlikely that you’d see him again, right?

You shook your head to snap yourself out of it and then tossed the bracelet into the box with the rest of the jewelry. You take one more look around your empty room and then start to bring your boxes out to the moving truck. You and Sophie share a bottle of wine, straight from the bottle since you’ve packed all of your glasses, and then head to bed. You have to be up quite early for your flight.

─────── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───────

As your plane starts descending toward the Nashville airport, your chest is lit up with feelings of nerves and excitement. You reach over and squeeze Sophie’s hand, smiling at her and turning back to look out of the window. This was the first time you’ve ever left California, having been born and raised in San Francisco and then attending college in LA. You’d never been on a plane before since your mom had a fear of flying, so your family vacations always stayed within the tri-state area. Now the East Coast was calling your name and you’re more than happy to answer it.

The Uber takes you from the airport to your new place and you and Sophie get out of the car and then take it all in. The truck was already there waiting for you, so the both of you walked up to the house to unlock the door and start unpacking. You watch as Sophie turns the key in the door and pushes it open and you enter the threshold to look at the empty foyer. It feels like a blank canvas and you both can’t wait to start making it your own.

The movers bring in the large furniture, like the couch, dining table, and mattresses, while you start to unpack the small stuff in the kitchen and Sophie unpacks the bathroom items. Once the movers bring everything into the house and leave, you and Sophie realize that you’re quite hungry. You search online for the closest pizza place and order delivery and then you both finish up unpacking the first floor. Once you hear the pizza delivery guy ring the doorbell, the two of you have finished unpacking the kitchen and dining room.

You grab the pizza and place it on your dining table, sitting down at it. You grab a few slices and put it on a plate, taking a bite. “Well, Soph. This is it. Our home. How’s it feel?” you say, looking across the table at her. “Feels great. But I could sleep for a week, babe. I’m so serious,” she replies, taking a bite of her pizza and then throwing her head back onto the back of the chair in exhaustion. “I know, girl. I think we did enough for today. Let’s just make our beds and then take care of the rest in the morning,” you say, eating more of your dinner.

The next day, the two of you finish setting up the living room, the bathroom, and your bedrooms. You went out to thrift stores in the afternoon to find decorations to make the place more personal and homier, which helped a lot. You adorned the living room with cute string lights along the walls and placed some decorative blankets on the couch. You bought a little plant for the coffee table and a vintage table to put your record player on top of, with slots underneath to store your vinyl collection. The kitchen was decorated with cute floral tea towels and curtains along the window by the sink. You bought matching towels for the bathroom as well and a shower curtain to go with it.

In your bedroom, you bought new bedding for your larger bed, having upgraded from a twin to a queen, which is black and white, and decorated with constellations and planets. You unpacked all of your clothes into your vintage wooden dresser and placed all your makeup and jewelry on top of your matching wooden vanity. Amongst your bracelets and rings is Jake’s sailor knot bracelet, which you choose to keep out, despite the moral dilemma.

─────── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───────

You’ve been in Nashville for two weeks now and you and Sophie have finally settled in. Your house is starting to become a home and you’re really starting to like the city. You realize, however, that it’s time to find a job. You want to be more of a freelance writer, taking your own time on your first novel, so you’ll need a part-time job to help pay the rent. It’s July 4th weekend, so Sophie is off today on a long weekend and you decide to use this opportunity to go look around town for job openings.

“Hey Soph, can I take the car out to go look for jobs?” you ask, popping your head into her bedroom. You see her typing furiously away on her laptop and looks up at you when she hears your voice. “Oh, yeah babe that’s fine. I’m just getting some last-minute projects done before tomorrow. Good luck!” I smile as I grab the car keys from the top of her dresser and say, “Thanks, hon. I’ll bring you a coffee on the way back, yeah?” You turn and head toward the door and hear a muffled “Thanks!” from behind you as you walk out the door.

You head further into town and pop your head into a few places; a coffee shop, a vintage clothes store, a convenience store. None of them are hiring, though, and you’re beginning to feel a bit discouraged. As you walk back to your parked car, you see a sign for a building across the street: Rhythm of Space Records. You decide to cross the street and check it out- as if you need to spend any more money on records right now.

As you approach the door, you notice a help wanted sign on the window. Perfect. You open the door and the little bell on top rings, causing the person at the counter to raise their head from scrolling on their phone and look up at you. You approach the counter and she gives you a typical customer service smile. “Hey, welcome in! What can I help you with?” she asks.

“Well, I came to browse your selection, but I just saw on the window that you guys were hiring… Would I be able to apply?” She smiles widely, saying excitedly, “Yes! Totally! Dad’s gonna be stoked, we’ve been needing some extra help around here.” She pulls a piece of paper and a pen from under the counter and slides it over to you.

“Here, you can fill it out now if you want. I can give it right to my dad, he’s just in the office back there. I’m Iris,” she says, reaching her hand out to shake yours. You shake her hand, “Like the song?” you ask. She giggles. “Yes, like the song. My dad is a huge Goo Goo Dolls fan. A big music lover in general, if you can’t tell,” she says, waving her arms around, referencing the store. “Well, I like it. I’m Y/N.”

The two of you chat for a few minutes while you wait for her father to come out from the office. You learn that Iris is 20 years old and studying music at a local community college, commuting from home. She grew up in Nashville and has worked at her dad’s shop since she was 15, which he opened not long after she was born. She tells you that he’s also a musician and likes to play some of the local bars sometimes, inviting you to tag along. It felt nice to finally make a friend in this new city.

Iris’s dad, John, eventually comes out and you hand him your application. He looks it over and the two of you discuss your deep interest in music, and then he says you’re hired. You’ll start your first shift on Monday, opening the shop up with Iris. You accept excitedly, gather a staff shirt with the logo on it, and then head out to your car. You stop to get Sophie a latte before heading home, just like you said you would. You pop into her room to say hi, handing her the drink then heading into your room. You relax for a while and then decide to tuck in early.

─────── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───────

Your alarm goes off at 9 a.m. on Monday and you roll out of bed to take a shower. You throw your long, wet hair into a loose braid down your back, leaving your curtain bangs hanging out to frame your face. You fix your bangs slightly with a blow-dryer and hairbrush before heading downstairs to have a quick bowl of cereal before leaving for work. The store is only about a fifteen-minute walk from your house, so you enjoy the short walk in the warm Nashville weather. Nashville is definitely a bit cooler than California in the summer, but it’s still warm enough for you to break a bit of a sweat.

You near the store and see Iris leaning against the window, looking down at her phone, waiting for you. “Morning,” you say as you approach her. She looks up at you and half-smiles, looking very groggy. She’s clearly not a morning person. “Hey, Y/N,” she says tiredly, then turns around to unlock the door. The two of you step into the store and she locks the door behind you. “There’s a coffee machine in the back room. We’re gonna need it,” she says, B-lining it to the back of the store. You follow her to the back and watch as she adds water and turns the coffee machine on.

“We really have to do inventory today. It sucks, I know, but if we both work together we can try and get it done before the shift change at 2.” She pours out a mug of coffee, handing it to you, which you happily accept. She then pours herself one, takes a sip, and then steps out into the main area of the store. She checks her watch, the time says 9:58. “Alright. Time to open up,” she says, heading to the front to unlock the door for the day. “I can start with the first half of the alphabet, if you wanna do the last half? Split up at M?” you say, to which you see her nod and then head to the other side of the store.

You start to go through every record from A to M, which is a lot. This store was certainly stacked with vinyls- you’ve been going through them for an hour and a half now and you’ve only just gotten to the G section. Combing through the albums and taking notes of what you have in stock, you come across a familiar album cover: Greta Van Fleet- The Battle at Garden’s Gate. Shit. You take it out from the rest of the records and look at it for a moment, a small frown spreading over your face. You start to run your fingers over the cover, feeling the texture of it, then place it back in the bin with the rest. You try to shake it off, not wanting to distract yourself from your work.

Two hours later, you’ve finished inventory and are taking some time to look around the store a bit more. You’re combing through the CDs on the far wall with your back facing the door when you hear the bell on the door jingle. Iris is closer to the door at the moment, so you decide to just let her handle it and don’t turn around to look in their direction. As you continue looking through the CDs, you feel a hand on your shoulder. You jump, feeling startled since you thought that you were standing there alone.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you scared me-” you say, turning around to face them. That’s when you saw him. Jake. In the flesh, only a few feet away from you. Your eyes widen and your jaw drops slightly at first before you realize how crazy you must look and quickly pull yourself together. The moment that you’d been dreading ever since moving here has finally arrived. You start to open your mouth and say something, but he beats you to it.

“Y/N! What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you since…” he says with a shy smile, trailing off as he looks at you and takes you in. It’s been so long now, you’ve both changed so much. He’s cut his hair short now, just above shoulder length. He has some lingering facial hair, still clean-shaven but there’s some stubble there. Last you’d seen him online, around the end of last year, he’d had long hair and remnants of a mustache, which was a bit rugged-looking. This new look suited him.

He still dressed the same as the last time you saw him. A half-buttoned button-up, tattered jeans, and boots. His eyes are concealed by dark sunglasses, but you can still see hints of them through the glass. Despite being covered, you can feel them boring into you, studying you. You finally manage to get a sentence out after getting over the initial shock of it all.

“Jake… Hi,” you say, locking eyes with him. You watch his gaze soften as he looks at you, and you go on to answer his question. “Sophie and I just moved here a few weeks ago now, she wanted to work here after graduation and I don’t have much of a direction yet, so I decided to come along…” you say shyly, starting to avoid his eyes now out of nervousness when you see his face drop a little.

“A few weeks… why didn’t you call me?” he asks, a hint of pain in his voice. You really didn’t think he would care, you thought that he’d long forgotten about you. You pause for a moment, unsure of what to say. You didn’t want to offend him, but you had hoped to never have to run into him out of fear of awkwardness. “Jake, I-,” you start, reaching over to place your hand on his arm, “I honestly wasn’t sure if you would want to hear from me… I haven’t seen you in nearly two years, I didn’t want to bother you. I kind of figured that you’ve forgotten about me by now.”

He reaches up to his face to remove his sunglasses, sliding them into his shirt pocket. He looks up to meet your eyes again, with a disappointed look in his eyes. “Sweetheart… how could I ever forget about you?” he says, bringing his hand up to brush some of your bangs out of your face. “I told you that I wouldn’t forget you, didn’t I?”

You lean into his touch a bit and nod, “I know, I know. I just- it had been so long since I’d heard from you, I thought that maybe that’s what you say to all of the girls you…” your sentence is cut off as you see someone with a Rhythm of Space shirt on enter the shop, walking in with Iris’s dad. This must be your relief for the day, you think.

You look over to the left and see Iris watching you, smirking at you and raising her eyebrows when she catches your eye. Rolling your eyes, you look back at Jake, whose eyes still haven’t looked away from you. “You know what, I’m about to get off work. Can you wait here for a few minutes while I clock out and gather my things? I won’t be long. We can go somewhere to talk,” you say, looking up at him hopefully as you wait for a response. You watch the corners of his mouth turn upwards as he says, “Yeah, I can wait.”

You turn around and walk behind the counter to clock out on the register. You go into the back room and grab your bag, taking off your work shirt and replacing it with a baggy Beatles t-shirt. You leave the back room and Iris smirks at you, saying “Enjoy the rest of your day, Y/N,” teasing you. You jab her side with your elbow jokingly as you walk past her and then return to Jake, who has put his sunglasses back on, covering his eyes once again as he leans against the window with his hands in his pockets.

“Know any good places to go around here? I’m still new, so I haven’t exactly claimed any regular haunts just yet,” you say, trying to lighten the mood with him a bit. He smiles and says, “Yeah, I know a place,” opening the door for you to walk through, then following you out.

His car is parked right in front of the store, which you notice as he unlocks it with his eyes and then opens the passenger side door for you to get in. It’s a nice car, which doesn’t surprise you given the level of fame they’ve risen to. He rounds the car and gets in on the other side, sitting down and starting it. You drive for about five minutes before pulling into the parking lot of a cozy-looking diner.

─────── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───────

Jake walks up to the hostess stand to get you both a table and you sit down at a little booth in the corner of the restaurant. The place has a retro aesthetic and each table is decorated with a mini jukebox where you can enter song requests from the catalogue. The waitress comes to bring you glasses of water and you take a look at the menu.

“This place is so cute!” you say, looking up at him. He’s smiling down at the menu to himself and says “I thought you might like it. This is Josh’s favorite place.” The idea of that makes you happy, knowing that you and his twin were so similar. “I should have guessed. Josh has great taste…” You order a cheeseburger and fries and Jake gets a sandwich. Now, here comes the hard part.

He takes his glasses off and slips them into his shirt pocket again, then laces his fingers together and places his hands on top of the table. His dark, chestnut eyes look into yours with a hint of sadness. He takes a deep breath and then decides to break the silence. “Y/N… I’m really sorry that I didn’t reach out after that night. Things really took off after the end of that tour and it got the better of me. I should’ve checked in with you,” he says, reaching across the table to place his hand over yours. You flick your eyes down to where your hands met and then back up to him, smiling timidly.

“Jake, you didn’t owe me anything. We only spent one night together, I’m sure you’ve spent plenty of nights with lots of different girls. I didn’t want to hold onto the hope that this was something more than it was.” You look up at him to wait for his reply, and he seems wounded by our words. He shakes his head a bit and squeezes your hand lightly.

“I never intended to make you think that I didn’t care for you. Because I do. More than I ever thought was possible. That wasn’t just a one-time thing for me, you’re not just another girl. You walked into our show blind, not knowing the band or who I was, and when I looked at you in the crowd, I could tell that you just saw me for me. Not just a rockstar in your favorite band, or someone who you can use to get whatever you want.”

He brings his hand from your hand to your cheek, cupping it and stroking it with his thumb sweetly. “You saw me and you heard my music and that was all you cared about. I’ve never had that before, ever. It’s something that I’ve been chasing ever since and I still haven’t been able to find it anywhere else, even after all this time…”

Your eyes soften as you look at him and how he’s pouring his heart out to you. “I’m sorry that I didn’t call. I wanted to, I just… I guess I felt embarrassed. I didn’t want to bother you after all this time if I was just one night to you. I wasn’t sure if you’d felt the same way and I didn’t want you to think I’d moved here for the wrong reasons, like I was obsessed with you or something.”

He continues to rub his thumb along your cheek as he answers. “Sweetheart, you were never just one night to me. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you ever since that night. Not just because of how good you felt under me,” he says with a smirk, “but because of how well you got along with my family, your love for music, and the kindness in your heart. You’re one of a kind, Y/N.” “Can we start over?” you ask, looking up into his eyes. “Yeah. We can start over,” he says with a smile.

The food comes shortly after and the two of you catch up as you eat. You learn that they finished their last huge tour a few months ago and that they have a new one planned to start in just two weeks. Their album comes out in two weeks as well, which he seems quite proud of. They worked on it for a long time while touring and Jake describes it as the best he’s ever made, sonically. You tell him that you look forward to listening to it, which makes his face light up.

You’re on your way home now, and you look over at him as he’s driving. You can see his eyes behind his sunglasses as they face the road, still dark and alluring as ever. You want to just lean over and bring your lips to his, closing the gap that’s been open for years, but you know that it can’t work that way. Just because you didn’t reach out doesn’t change the fact that he hasn’t either.

From what you know now, he had been back in California in March for their Dreams in Gold tour and he didn’t call either. The two of you have a lot to figure out and need to get to know each other now. You didn’t spend very much time together all those years ago, so there was a lot that you didn’t know about each other. There was a lot of lost time to make up for, and you know better now than to give in to him so soon.

You pull up to your house and Jake puts the car in park. He rests his arm on the center console and then brings the other up to brush some of your hair out of your face. “Can I take you out? A proper date, I’ll wear my best dress for you,” he jokes, smirking at you. You pretend to think about it, bringing your fingers to your chin, and say, “Hmm… I suppose I’ll have the time. But that dress better have cleavage or else I’ll turn right back around.” He chuckles and caresses your cheek with his thumb and then unlocks the car doors.

You grab your bag and open the door, stepping out of the car, and he says, “Same number, right?” You nod, smiling shyly as you shut the door and walk up to your front porch. You turn back around and see him still sitting there, smiling at you. You wave goodbye then head into the house, shutting the door behind you and leaning your back against it, sinking to the floor. You throw your head back against the door and groan, feeling so exhausted by the day you’ve had. The noise causes Sophie to pop her head out of the kitchen, making a confused face as she sees you sitting on the hardwood floor.

“You good there, babe?” she asks, walking toward you. You shake your head and she leans down to join you on the floor. She lets you rest your head on her shoulder as she rubs circles into your back for a moment then asks, “What happened?” You lean back to look at her. “I saw him, Soph. He came into my work this afternoon. We went to lunch and we talked a bit but I just don’t know… I feel like shit. He asked me why I didn’t call him and he just looked so sad. I didn’t even have a good answer for him. The only reason is that I was scared, and that’s a stupid reason,” you say, throwing your head against the door again.

“We said we’d start over, get to know each other better. He wants to take me to dinner later this week.” Sophie looks at you with a sympathetic expression and says, “Well, that’s good, babe. Right?” You think about it for a moment. “I don’t know. What happens if I get too attached? He’s leaving for another tour in two weeks and will be gone for god knows how long. We’re not really labeling it and I’m just gonna be here, while he’s playing all around the country. What if I just get my heart broken?” you say, standing up from the floor and pulling Sophie up with you.

“Don’t think about it like that, hon. He can only hurt you if you let him. Just give it a chance, you never know,” she says, rubbing your arm affectionately. You sigh. “You’re right. I’ll think about it. I’m gonna go lie down,” you say, then head upstairs to your room.

You flop onto your bed and curl up under the covers, full of questions and anxiety. You pull your phone out of your pocket and finally take it off of Do Not Disturb, which has been on since you left for work this morning. Much to your surprise, you already have a message from Jake.

Sir Jacob⚔️: Friday night? 8 o’clock?

You: perfect :)

You: thanks again for lunch. i really enjoyed it.

Sir Jacob⚔️: Anything for you, sweetheart. I’ll pick you up at 8.

You: you’re sweet. see you then

You plug your phone into the charger and then stand up to get changed. As you’re grabbing comfier clothes from the dresser, you see Jake’s bracelet sitting there on the vanity next to it. You pick it up and look down at it. Finding this a few weeks ago was a bit of a premonition, huh? Still, you smile to yourself and decide to slide it over your wrist before getting changed for bed. You tuck in and close your eyes, wondering what the next few weeks will bring for you.

─────── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───────

comment or message me if you want to be added to the taglist! talk to you all soon :)

part four

taglist:

@writingcold @josh-iamyour-mama @ohgodthefeeling-gvf @sinarainbows @gvfmelbourne @jaketsguitar @swiftiepanda21 @itsafullmoon @thetroublegetssoloud71 @vanfleeter @gretasfallingsky @dem0litiondan @dixonbrainrot @p0pscenealright

#greta van fleet #jake kiszka #jakegvf #greta van fleet fic #starcatcher #gvf #jake kiszka x reader #jake kiszka smut #jake kiszka fic #spotify

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p1ckthep01son · 2 years ago

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WHO LIKED MY GABILLIAM PLAYLIST !?!?!?!?

#not my nice aesthetic one to represent their relationship #the one thats just tai cobra midtown and bilvy solo stuff!!!!#all of it!!!#who liked that? how did you find it? what are you doing here?

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birboon · 6 months ago

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CIRCUS BOY

ACT 1 - Chapter 4

PAIRING: Peter Parker x Dick Grayson

WORD COUNT: ~5k

PREVIOUS CHAPTER: chapter 3

ㅤ"WHEN WERE YOU going to tell me?" Bruce called out from across the gym, voice echoing like rolling thunder past the empty apparatus. Dick grimaced uneasily from the treadmill, pace not faltering as he urged his legs to continue. The fact that he could hear the man even through his headphones was scary - anything that managed to somehow be louder than a Jimmy Page guitar solo was. He didn't even want to look over towards his guardian for fear of what his face might show - he didn't have to. Dick could hear the billionaire's stormy footsteps from a mile away.

Like Dick, Bruce was dressed in his conditioning gear, ready to put both himself and his ward through the workout of their life (as he did every day). But Bruce managed to appear a much more formidable figure than the teen, clean cut muscles rippling with every angry stride.

Dick tried not to let it show on his face that he had heard the man call out to him: A dangerous game. Ignoring the Bat was almost as bad as... well. Dick refused to acknowledge his mistake - he'd go down with whatever boat he managed to get out of the port... If he ever managed to set sail at all.

"Don't think I can't tell when you're ignoring me, Richard," Bruce hissed, and oh boy. He brought out first names. That hurt. The last time Bruce had called him Richard, Dick had been thirteen and so desperate to one up the newcomer that he'd deliberately sabotaged Batgirl's coms. Not a great first impression (apparently he was slacking in that area). And now, three years later, he was facing down the beast once again - only this time Barbara wasn't there with her heart of understanding-gold to save him. "I know you can hear me."

Dick couldn't tell if the thud thud thud filling his ears was the sound of him running, the drums in his ears or if it was his heart hammering in his chest. Bruce Wayne loomed over him now, a scowl on his face that he usually saved for the more villainous types. With one swift movement, a strong hand came up to rip the Bluetooth device from Dick's head; gone were the sound of sweet, sweet guitars trying to drown Bruce's words, replaced instead by the sound of his feet slamming into the treadmill and the Batman's somehow louder-than-life silence.

Dick blinked, plastering on an innocent, wary smile as he inched his face towards the man. The Wayne held the running machine's cord in hand, disconnected from the mains.

"Bru- er, Bruce," Dick croaked out, voice cracking. When had he gotten so thirsty? "Hi. Is it time for training already? I haven't finished my... warm up... yet..."

Bruce narrowed his eyes and Dick was forced to slow as the machine gradually powered down, excuses tumbling around his mind even as his words tapered off:

"I got a call from Alfred this morning."

"Oh really? That's nice of him," Dick played coy. Bruce wasn't impressed, folding his arms across his chest as he watched the boy awkwardly come to a stand still.

"He said the device I planted on the Midtown Tech student has been deactivated."

"I mean it's impressive that he found it, really. You were super thorough, putting it on a shoe-"

"Instinct tells me you had something to do with it," Bruce finished, ignoring his ward's jibes.

"You always think I have something to do with everything," Dick scoffed, reaching for his water bottle. He felt every inch of Bruce's piercing blue eyes on him as he swallowed his first sip. "Frankly, it's unfair."

"What's unfair is me being right about it all the time. When were you going to tell me, Dick?" Bruce retorted, repeating his previous statement. "Challenging my authority is one thing, but sabotaging a surveillance mission is-"

Dick almost choked on water, coughing irritably. His grip on the bottle was tight, denting the plastic as he levelled Bruce with a stare: "Sabotaging surveillance mission? Try stopping some poor intern from being stalked by America's number-one paranoid!"

Bruce huffed, watching him calculatedly. Everything the man did was calculated... it was disconcerting. He snatched the bottle from Dick's hand, shoving it forcefully back into the placeholder.

"That 'poor intern' is one of Stark's drafted metahumans!" Bruce roared. "Do you know how close of an eye the League has to keep on the Avengers now? After the mess in Sokovia they're not heroes anymore, Dick! They're a liability - no one knows what to do with the ones we can find, let alone the ones we can't."

"You can't call the Avengers a liability, they've saved the world -"

"And what if the world needs to be saved from them?" Bruce asked, voice low and stressed. Lines of worry distorted his brow and Dick felt his stomach churn. "The Justice League is the Earth's last line of defense: The Four are gone; Doom Patrol are M.I.A; Xavier has folded to the government. Now, so have the Avengers."

Dick swallowed thickly, fingers clamping around his sweat-soaked vest to avoid reaching for his drink once more. "And you need to keep an eye on them?"

"Two eyes, Dick. At all times."

Dick bit at his lower head, shaking his head slightly: "But Peter... he's just a normal kid, Bruce. Awkward, sorta rude... he doesn't even have good shoes, how can he be one of Stark's?"

"You know more than anyone that a kid can do as much damage as a grown man," came the reply. "Peter - since you seem to be on a first name basis with him - is about as normal as you are."

Bruce raised his wrist, tapping at the smartwatch tied there - some newfangled WayneTech prototype no doubt - and a rectangle of light was projected into the empty air. Bruce's eyes were searching as he dragged two fingers across the hologram, swiping to find an asset. Dick averted his eyes when the man pointedly enlarged the screen to highlight a singular profile.

"Peter Benjamin Parker," Bruce began, voice steady. His ward wanted nothing more than to sink into the floor, blood rushing to his face. Parker. Peter Parker. "Fifteen years old. Attends Midtown School of Science and Technology. Certified boy genius. Bitten by a radioactive arachnid which gave rise to enhanced strength, speed and perception."

Dick's lips parted slightly as he double, then triple, scanned over the short paragraphs of text. Bruce had really paraphrased it... what the hell were Oscorp doing, genetically engineering spiders?

He ran a hand through his slicked hair, pulling gently at his scalp. The teen pulled up one of the found-footage reels playing at the bottom of the screen in a loop; someone dressed in pajamas flinging themselves through the streets with a web. "Peter's the spiderboy? Wally's obsessed with trying to recruit them for the team. "

"He calls himself Spiderman," Bruce corrected gruffly. Dick hummed, reaching to full-screen a high-resolution CCTV tape of the media-dubbed 'Civil War' fight at Leipzig Airport. He watched, fascinated, as Spiderman stole Captain America's shield straight from his hands. Dick opened his mouth to comment, but his mentor beat him to it: "As far as we're aware, the web is a synthetic polymer. Not organic."

"Boy genius," Dick murmured, tearing his eyes from the looping footage to look at Bruce. "Does he make it himself?"

"Presumably."

"Neat trick," Dick whispered, clearing his throat. Bruce eyed him as he gave in and reached for the water bottle again. "Spiderman, huh? Who would've thought."

"Evidently, not you," Bruce said complicitly. With a small movement of his hand the hologram retreated back into the glowing digital screen. The man's face still held it's stern façade, though his voice held none of the depravity it had beforehand - Dick could tell he was still angry. Which was... okay, it was understandable.

"I'm sorry, B. I really didn't think..." the boy trailed off, looking to the side as his guardian's disappointed gaze crept over him.

Man, he'd messed up this time. Batman already had too much on his shoulders; he didn't need to worry about the loss of a possible League informative. Bruce needed to know the workings of the Avengers - of a failed team - so he could protect his own. Maybe Dick shouldn't have been so quick to steal Peter Parker's shoes.

"No. You didn't. That much is clear," Bruce snapped. Dick swung back on his heels, staring down at his feet, and the man sighed heavily. "You've set me back days, Dick. Days I don't have."

Dick's eyes widened: "What do you mean? You're not dying right?"

Bruce huffed out a laugh, dropping the treadmill's plug to the ground, and stepped forward to lean against the machine. "No, I'm not dying just yet. But I am worried... Something Clark mentioned yesterday."

Dick followed Bruce's line of sight, offering out the blue plastic bottle like some sort of peace treaty. The billionaire accepted it silently, turning it in his hands. Though his eyes weren't trained on him, Dick could still feel the weight of Bruce's gaze. "So it was Clark that pulled you away yesterday? What did he say? Did he call a meeting?"

"No. He was on the roof... said he didn't have the time to gather everyone," Wayne recited, tone confused as though reminiscing on some odd detail he'd chosen to leave out. "He's receiving troubling signals at the Fortress."

"Troubling?" What could he troubling enough for the Fortress of Solitude to find it note worthy?

"It's not something I'm at liberty to discuss until the League has been told," Bruce finished. He took a swig from Dick's bottle thoughtfully before handing it back. The man had a familiar look in his eyes - one Dick knew all too well. The Batman was debating an idea, running through a list of all the pro's and con's in his mind. He watched Dick sightlessly for a moment, lips parted as if he wanted to say something, but he quickly retracted whatever he was about to say: "I- I think we'll postpone training today, Dick. I need to talk to Superman."

"What?" Dick issued in confusion. He stepped off the stationary track, placing a hand on Bruce's bicep. "Is something going on? Do you need my help?"

"No this is... This doesn't concern Robin." The yet went unsaid, though both of them heard it.

Dick couldn't shake the feeling that Bruce wasn't trusting him out of spite - because the boy had gone against his plans, ruined them - but a familiar warmth spread through him when the man rested a hand on his shoulder paternally and squeezed gently: "You know I'm not mad at you, Dick."

"I know," the teen chirped almost instantly, a force of habit. Bruce frowned, eyes soft and searching as he studied his young ward.

"You're sixteen. You're allowed to make your own decisions - just try to make sure they're the right ones."

"How will I know if it's right?" Dick muttered, a weight settling on his shoulders.

"When the choice has to be made, you'll know," Bruce said, and it didn't bring him any comfort whatsoever. Stupid Bruce and his ominous, scattered meanings. What was it supposed to mean?

Whatever the cryptic words meant, Dick was left feeling stuck. Not for the first time he felt like just another burden for the man to carry. A foolish kid he'd taken pity on all those years ago and been stuck with ever since. For years Bruce had tried to teach Dick to act with his mind but still he let emotions cloud his judgement.

"I really am sorry, Bruce. I shouldn't have -"

"I know, Dick. You should ask Alfred about my rebellious phase," Bruce laughed good-naturedly, all tension drained from his face. As if he could read Dick's mind, as if he understood the turmoil that his own distress caused the boy. He slung an arm around Dick's shoulders.

"He'd say you've still not grown out of it," Dick teased.

"Mm, well. Maybe you should ask Barry, then. I'm sure he has some great stories to tell."

"And how am I supposed to ask The Flash about his teenage years?" Dick responded in kind, allowing Bruce to steer him towards the gymnasium's entrance. "You want me to catch him?"

"I figured you could ask your workout partner a thing or two," Bruce said genially. He opened to the door to see himself out, pausing to watch his ward. Dick's face narrowed in confusion.

"Where are you going, then? Are you not training with me today?"

"He means me, boywonder," came a snickering laugh, and Dick couldn't help but grin broadly. A breeze swept into the gym, ruffling Bruce's hair and chilling Dick's skin. The door rattled slightly on it's hinges as the owner of the voice came to a grinding halt in the doorway, hands on his hips in stereotypical superhero fashion. "You forgot our playdate? I'm hurt!"

"I was trying to forget your existence altogether," Dick replied easily, grinning widely towards Bruce as the figure flickered and suddenly appeared at his side. The man winked back at him as Dick turned to face the energetic red-head; "You've gotten faster."

Wally West's eyes lit up: "Any You've gotten shorter, pipsqueak. I didn't think it was possible!"

He rested an elbow atop Dick's head, bouncing on the balls of his feet and cheeks beaming. Bruce rolled his eyes, not bothering to interrupt the childish greetings as he made his escape with a brisk wave of goodbye. The door slid shut behind him and Wally sighed exaggeratedly, sliding down Dick's body with inflated relief.

"Thank Superman's balls, he's gone. What did you do to get us out of a torture session? I thought I was down to die, dude - not that I'm complaining, because I have this twinge in my hip and -"

"At least you heal quickly. I got slammed into a wall two weeks ago and I can still feel it in my back," Dick complained, falling dramatically onto one of the many gymnastics mats lining the room. He lifted the hem of his shirt, twisting so his friend could see the blue-tinged blemishes.

Wally poked the oddly coloured skin and Dick reached out to slap his hand away, rolling his eyes as the ginger's form zipped out of view. "Maybe if you didn't get hit so much..." his voice echoed from across the room.

"Easy for you to say KF," Dick groaned, climbing to his feet. He watched as his friend dipped his hand into a bucket full of chalk. coating his skin in the white powder. "What are you doing?"

Before he could so much as blink, Wally was examining every corner of the bespoke gym Bruce had fitted in the basement level of the new Washington office. He batted at the rings hanging from the ceiling like a cat, watching them jostle back and forth with wide eyes: "What are these even for?"

"Talented people," Dick answered, steadying the swinging objects with a grimace. "So you aren't allowed to touch them."

"You wound me, dude," Wally sniffed, pulling himself onto the pommel horse. He let his legs dangle, kicking them aimlessly as he stared at Dick's warm-up exercises dubiously. "And you're going to wound yourself if you keep doing that."

Dick's limber floor routine was ruined by the bout of laughter that escaped his lips, core loosening. He lost his balance, flopping to the floor with a huff.

"This is my thing, speedster. The only one I'm going to be hurting is you! You're ruining my concentration."

"We're not actually going to do exercise, right?" Wally said uncertainly, pulling his knees to his chest as Dick threw himself onto the beam with a graceful tumble. The Wayne heir eyed him through his peripherals, gauging the boy.

"Why not? It's important to-"

"Don't go all Batman on me, Dick - I ran here from Central City, I want to do something."

Dick sighed, letting his handstand fall effortlessly into a delicate cartwheel. His chalk-dusted hands clapped as they came into contact with the soft faux-suede of the apparatus, sending a small cloud of white into the air: "What did you have in mind?"

Wally attempted to stand upright on the horse, knees shaking as he clung to the handles for dear life. He toppled backwards, arms wheeling frantically faster than the human eye could comprehend as he attempted to retain his balance.

"Think about it! We're in Washington, Dick!" The speedster cried frantically, mid-fall as he collided with the crash mat beneath him. "The nation's capital. And none of your babysitters are around!"

"They're not my babysitters," Dick complained, unwilling to help Wally back to his feet. It was true, neither Bruce nor Alfred nor (god forbid) any of the League were around to supervise the two young superheroes as they normally were. Even Barbara would chastise the two of them whenever she got the chance. "And what has Washington got to do with it anyway? We've been here before."

"For a mission. There's more to life than the cave under your manor, Birdbrain," Wally insisted, slinging an arm across Dick's shoulders - little more than a blur as he crossed the room to reach him. He shook the other boy lightly, eyes shining. "How about we sign onto one of those tours? See the sights without alien guts splattered all over them."

Dick brushed him off, smearing chalk over Wally's navy adidas shirt; "You want me to skip practice so you can play tourist?"

"Absolutely," the red-head replied, long arms managing to wind around the smaller boy a second time. He raised an eyebrow at the grin spreading across Dick's face.

"I'm totally with you dude. Where to?"

◦

HE SHOUDL'VE STAYED and trained, pushed himself to his limits with the same ambitions he always had. It would've been a way to make it up to Bruce and prove to the man that he wasn't the plan-wrecking sidekick he thought he was. But, really, the billionaire had set Dick up for failure! Inviting Wally West to join him for a training session? The two of them got on like a house on fire - they'd done so ever sine the Flash had first brought his nephew onto the hero scene. So what could Bruce really expect from them? Training?

The only one to blame for Dick falling prey to the young speedster's wiles was Bruce himself.

And Dick.

And Wally.

But, mostly, it was Bruce for leaving the two of them alone together.

And now they were walking aimlessly through the bustling streets of Washington D.C, the Wayne Enterprises building far, far behind. Wally had at one point mentioned the Metrorail but Dick had quickly refused. His insistence on travelling by foot wasn't for nothing though - it was 93 degrees out. He wasn't planning on melting today.

Neither of the boys had thought to change out of their workout clothes (unused though they were) and, frankly, Dick was thankful. He was sure that if he'd gone for something more casually appropriate in this blistering heat he'd become a puddle of Grayson goo on the sidewalk. Bruce would have to scratch him off the concrete like he was Plastic Man - or he'd make Wally do it and have a field day shouting at him.

Dick had opted to wear sunglasses though: A staple for public appearances of the Wayne ward. In retaliation Wally had raided a street vendor on the way past, buying a pair of cheap American-flag knock-off ray-bans and donning them stupidly on the crest of his nose. The red-head's pale skin was turning pink in the sun. He should've worn sunscreen, but Dick wasn't going to warn him away from his own mistakes. The next time Kid Flash was out and about, he'd be even harder to miss with his sunburnt features.

"We should totally visit the big guns," Wally decided as they passed the American History Museum. A gaggle of tourists were gathered outside, cameras poised and ready. "Where's the Whitehouse?"

"Somewhere over there," Dick swung his arm randomly, brushing through Wally's hair in the process and messing up his red locks. He snorted at the irritation that dawned on the other boy's face, shoving his hands into his shorts. "Have you ever met the President?"

"Oh hell yeah, man! Remember when me n' Barry put away Savitar?"

"Which time?"

"The second. The Pres wanted to thank us first hand," Wally announced proudly. He glanced towards a hot dog stand, brows furrowing thoughtfully. "He really just wanted to see The Flash but I got to tag along too. Hey, you hungry?"

Dick raised an eyebrow: "Not really."

"I could eat," Wally said, already cutting a line through the slew of people to head for the amenity. Dick rolled his eyes, following him and apologizing to those Wally had rudely pushed past.

"You never stop eating," Dick said, grimacing as his friend balanced three hotdogs in a single hand. Wally fished for change in his pockets, grinning up sheepishly as Dick tossed a twenty to the vendor. The raven-haired teen grabbed him by the scruff of his tee, pulling him away even as Wally chewed.

"'s my metabolism," Wally replied nonchalantly, taking another bite. He was down to the second hotdog already. "Once, when I was out with Barry, we went to an all-you-can-eat place and we got kicked out because we ate everyth-"

"Dude. Don't talk with your mouthful."

Wally grumbled amenably, crumbling a napkin and shoving it into one of Dick's pockets. "Sorry rich-boy. Since when did you learn manners?"

"Have you met Alfred?" Dick shot back, snatching Wally's litter and dropping it into a trashcan as they walked past. "Totally English."

"Yeah but, like, have you met Constantine? Also totally English."

"John's not so bad," Dick smiled as he recalled his last meeting with the man. He and the big-man had gone to visit Zatanna for intel and the unruly antihero had been there - probably to make some new deal with the devil or whatever the self-proclaimed 'supernatural advisor' did. Constantine had ruffled his hair, uncaring, as he spoke to Bruce. "He's actually pretty cool."

Wally wrinkled his nose: "You're only saying that because you think he's cute and we both know it."

"He's charming!" Dick shrugged, grinning.

"If you think that man is charming, Dick, you have problems." The red-head rolled his eyes, weaving to the side as a group of despondent-looking kids marched miserably past. He eyed them cautiously. "Apparently so do they. What's up with them?"

Dick craned his neck to watch them pass, vision dark and shaded through his sunglasses. All seemed to be students, judging by age and the more-than-obvious sigil emblazoned on their matching blazers. He hummed slightly. "They must have lost."

"What?"

"The academic decathlon." Dick reiterated. He cocked a brow towards the red-head. "Hey, aren't you supposed to be in that? I thought you were on the team for Keystone."

"Uh, I was in it... for a time," came the quick reply. "Then Uncle Barry said it was unfair because, y'know, so I quit."

"Mm. Bruce won't let me join either. But you're super fast. And pretty dumb. I don't see the issue."

Wally shrugged, smiling brilliantly: "Try telling that to him, he think's I'm a genius tha - woah. Dick, let's go see the Washington Monument!"

Just ahead of them the towering buildings cut off, sky-scrapers replaced by the clear blue sky. Dick could already see the monument, its spire slicing through the barren emptiness. An expanse of green surrounded the landmark on either side of the road.

Wally flickered beside Dick and the Wayne heir blinked in confusion before he reached out to pinch the other teen on the arm. The speedster reeled backwards, mouth falling open as he rubbed viciously at the point of contact: "Dude! What was that for, birdbrain?"

"No powers in public, idiot. Rule number one!" Dick hissed, throwing an arm around Wally's shoulders to keep him grounded. The red-head pushed his USA-themed sunglasses to the top of his head, scowling. "Don't look at me like that. I know you ran off."

"You have no proof," Wally insisted, tilting his chin slightly in indignation. His lips curled slightly as he tried to hold back a sly smile. Dick narrowed his eyes:

"You just visited the monument without me!" the dark-haired teen snapped, pulling Wally closer. "I thought we were doing this together!"

"You thought wrong. It's everyman for himself, you aren't the leader of this team-"

Dick pressed his thumb into a nerve in Wally's shoulder and the boy squirmed, huffing in good-natured frustration as he watched a smirk make its way onto the short boy's face. "This isn't a team! There's literally two of us! It's not my fault I have to chaperon you everywhere, you behave like a four-year-old."

"Tyrant."

"Child."

"Dick-tator."

The two boys stared at each other, eyes heated, mouths twitching with effort as they struggled to maintain their composure. They were stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, a blockade in the steady rhythm of city-life. Dick ignored the curious looks cast their way as they burst into laughter, scaring a few of the passers-by into an awkward jog.

He'd missed this. It felt like years since he'd spent time with Wally out of costume. The estimate wasn't far off.

"Do you even want to go to the monument now?" Dick asked as Wally's trite laughter faded into poorly-contained snickering. "I mean, you've already seen it."

"I did a lap around the thing, I hardly saw it!" Wally whined, pouting like a hurt puppy. Dick watched as his sunglasses slowly slid down his forehead. "I didn't even get to go in."

Dick rolled his eyes and smiled. Kid Flash, emphasis on the 'Kid'. Wally's carping managed to soften Dick's demeanor - he really took after Bruce, without even meaning to - and he gave in. He wanted to see the monument too, after all; why should he deny himself the chance?

"Fine. But if you so much as blink faster than any person should, I'm dumping you back with B," Dick threatened, starting towards the closest road crossing. Wally grinned, bouncing after him on the balls of his feet.

"Aye-aye, cap'n!"

[to be continued...]

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midtownnewcapital · 2 years ago

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whyceasefirefaq · 9 months ago

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UPDATE: The United Nations passed a ceasefire resolution! However, It's incredibly temporary. So, on that note, here's 7 Things I've Learned While Doing Solo Outreach In Solidarity With A Ceasefire And Palestine because while that is progress, we are not there yet. The end goal is justice & there is much more work to be done. Since I finished setting up this outreach site, I've gone out and tried my hand at solo outreach three times. It's been a process and a lot of learning along the way. That said, these tips also work for small groups as well.

Related: It's important to know your rights. Laws can vary per state when it comes to protests. Know yours before you do outreach. 1.) Give yourself time and patience to find your groove. Things that may work with a larger group, may not necessarily work when you're doing outreach by yourself. I've found I just need to try things & see. It can feel a bit messy at first, but if you are aware and open to change, you will eventually find your groove. And once you do, doing solo outreach is a lot easier.

2.) It's okay if you feel self-conscious while doing solo outreach. I still feel that way at times when I begin doing outreach, but I find this phrase helps me get out of my head & into the zone. "There's a genocide happening. We all must take as much action as we can. This isn't about you." Deep breath. Okay. Let's do this. Another thing I think about is the Nazi holocaust (a genocide where a number of people in my family were killed.) And I think what would I have done during that time? While not the exact same thing, this is a genocide. Now is your time to do something, to be that person, and when I focus on that, that feeling is bigger than any self-conscious feelings that I might have.

3.) Find your local go-to outreach locations. Locations that are great for protests and group outreach are not necessarily the best for solo outreach.

For example, I recently stood on the corner by a small bodega (local store) and a college, which worked well. If I was in a group, that corner would've been too crowded.

Ideally, a good location will have a nice flow but not be overly packed with people. Also, the area shouldn't be where people are too much in a rush.

I initially tried doing outreach in midtown (New York City) during people's lunch breaks. Didn't plan it that way, but I had an eye doctor appointment in the area, got there too early and so while waiting outside, (my sign was in my bag), I thought "Well, let's give this a go." While some people were giving me signs of approval, they were too busy to stop and engage. Also, the area should not be too loud. Once I tried a spot where almost every time I tried to talk to people, a truck went by semi-drowning me out. but on a related note...

4.) Don't just hold up the sign and wait for people to take action. When I did this, I got plenty of thumbs up, but no one scanned the QR code on the outreach sign to fill out the petition. It wasn't until I started saying variations of "Take action for a ceasefire" that people started to engage. 5.) Keep the tone friendly/approachable. Yes, this genocide (like all genocides) is horrific and time-sensitive, but I've found if your tone is too stressed out, urgent, and/or outright chanting (as one might do in a group at a protest) it can turn people away. If you're chanting in a group, it's unity. People understand that. If you're chanting by yourself, you're just a random person on a street corner talking too loudly. That said, it also depends on how loud your location is. Go accordingly.

6.) Do self-care in-between outreach so you don't get burned out. Do not joy or rest shame yourself. We must be proactive in taking care of ourselves in these times, and to do so is not selfish. Imposing unnecessary suffering on yourself does not help the Palestinians or the cause.

While doing outreach I have gotten more positive responses than negative ones, but a couple times I have been called various and not very complimentary names. And I can kind of laugh at that now while typing this, but sometimes when I'm tired, it bothers me more than it would and I find my brain is focusing on the few negative reactions instead of the many positive ones.

When this happens, I know I need to do self-care and feed my soul. This is not only important for my emotional well-being, but it also allows me to do more effective outreach. There is a difference between taking action and taking effective action and it's easier to know the difference when you're not emotionally drained.

Sometimes you're going to take action and it's not going to be this big thing that goes viral, but that doesn't mean it's not making a difference. When I am burned out, I often feel impatient, and frustrated and even wonder what is the point? But when I care for myself, I am then in a place to remember that every action ripples, and when part of a collective effort (which this is), it can most definitely make big waves. So far 12 people scanned the QR code on the sign and that's 12 more than before.

7.) Never forget that everyone has something to contribute and remembering that can lead to new ways of participation.

I came across this lovely human who wanted to take action in solidarity but didn't have a cellphone to scan the QR code on the outreach sign. I asked him if he wouldn't mind having his photo taken with said sign, to be shared on social media, and he said yes.

And that's when I started taking photos of people, including those who could scan the QR code but wanted to do more.

The reason why this is useful is that when the photo is shared on social media, it's now one more image that's getting the word out, encouraging people to scan the QR code (which leads to the petition & thus take action.)

People can also take their own photo with the sign and post that on their social media, thus further getting the word out. This can be done digitally as well. (Tag me on Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky, and/or TikTok @ rebelwheelsnyc if you do.)

That said, I don't ask everyone I engage with if I can take their photo. You have to take it on a case-by-case basis. If a person is scanning the QR code but is giving off vibes that they are in a rush, I don't ask. But if they are casually chatting with me while filling out the petition, asking questions about the project, etc then I do.

GET INVOLVED! For further tips, free outreach graphics, a FAQ & more, kindly check out: WhyCeasefireFAQ.Tumblr.Com

Thank you to everyone who has supported this project via sharing, getting involved, and sending kind words. It was created with a lot of heart and solidarity, and I greatly appreciate people showing the project some love. [image description: There are four images at the top of the article, two in each row. Upper left: a bald man with a mustache and brown skin is wearing a black winter coat, smiling at the camera while holding up the outreach sign. Upper right: a thin-framed person with light skin and black hair that's slightly wavy and a thin mustache, is wearing artsy sunglasses a black winter coat a gray scarf, and is holding up the outreach sign. Bottom left: a petite senior woman is wearing an olive green winter coat, a beige scarf, and a black hat. She has small sunglasses and is holding up the outreach sign. Lastly, bottom right: a bald man with brown skin and a hint of a mustache and goatee, is wearing a black winter coat and is looking right at the camera while holding up the outreach sign. the outreach sign in question is as follows: Rectangle graphic. Black & white except for a watermelon illustration which is green, white, red, and black aka the colors of the Palestinian flag. Graphic is divided into three sections by thick black lines. Section 1: The text reads“Ceasefire now! “Stop the genocide in Palestine” “Sign the petition:” Section 2: “URL if not now movement .org / our - campaigns.” “Or scan code with your phone” “Jewish-led. Allies are welcome.” Section 3: “Questions? Concerns? Why ceasefire FAQ. tumblr. com.” Main font is a bold thick font except for “sign of petition” which is in a script font. Next to “scan code with your phone” is a QR code which is a bunch of random black shapes with a white background. “Ceasefire now” is the only text that is white with a black horizontal rectangle behind it. All other text is black on a white background. The text “sign the petition has a white rounded rectangle” behind it with a thin black border.]

#outreach #outreach graphics #tips #Palestine #free Gaza #Israel #free Palestine #genocide #current events #Palestinian genocide #ethnic cleansing #Jews for ceasefire #Jews for peace #Jews for Palestine #anti Zionism #anti imperialism #Gaza

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