#someone who has been incredibly nice and supportive of me when i got back into dc

[ochibrochi]

🌻 comm for gee! thank you 💖

[velvetvexations]

I'd like to add something to the topic of forced impregnation / corrective rape of transmascs & men.

One thing I feel like other people tend to believe is that trans people with uteruses / the capability to get pregnant are "extremising" a problem that really only affects a few select trans people, surely not a lot.

What they don't get is that we're not extremising anything. Even just on the topic of forced pregnancy, I know barely a single trans man who hasn't been told that getting pregnant would fix him or that his whole worth as a person with a uterus is measured in how many children he can pop out at best, or being straigh up threatened with it or at worst having someone actually attempt to or fully act on that threat. And the ones who it didn't happen to? They know full well that it's always a "it didn't happen yet". That threat is still there, even without anyone saying it. People don't have to outright say it or threaten us because we just know.

It's not something we made up as a "gotcha" to trans women. In fact, it has nothing to do with most trans women at all, safe for the ones who can get pregnant! It's our lived experience. Our every-day life.

I was thirteen, just started my period, when my mother started to try to convince me that my whole worth as a person was making babies, that I needed to make kids the second I'd turn eighteen, that I would otherwise waste my life. And no, she didn't actually think that of all women. My cis sister? Never got to hear any of that. Just me. Because my mother looked at me being masculine and saw something she needed to fix (by only buying me extremely sexualised feminine outfits and telling me the stuff mentioned above, and that it was "only that" makes me one of the lucky ones). It happened to me not just because I was born with a uterus, because then it would've happened to my sister, too. It happened because my mother could tell something was "wrong" with me because I was too masculine. Got a little too exited when people mistook me for my brother. She didn't know what transmasculinity was back then in name, but she absolutely did know that it was "wrong" and needed to be "fixed" - and the way to fix a "broken woman" is to get her pregnant. She, of course, couldn't do that back then, but she could do her best to try to make me do that once I was "old enough" (I'm very glad today that she failed.)

And basically every trans men I've talked with about that topic had their own story like that or much, much worse. Only very rarely has a transmasc/man not experienced something like that, and even then, the threat is so omnipresent that even they tend to know exactly what I'm talking about.

It's a horrifying truth, it's uncomfortable, but it needs to be talked about. Our pain has been ignored and swept under the rug for so long, and people are still continuing to do so. So they can keep telling themselves that we "don't have it that bad" that we're "making a deal out of nothing" that what happens to us is just "individual cases" not something targeted. Because if people don't listen, they don't have to admit to themselves how they're playing into our oppression. Because to this day my mother is still claiming that she supports the trans community, after she did everything in her power to stop her son from existing. She won't listen to what I have to say because it "wasn't that bad", and my sister turned out great, so what do I have to cry about?

Nobody listens to trans men in general because it's never "as bad" as we make it out to be. After all, a cis woman said it wasn't that bad and she'll always be more believable than what ever a trans man or transmasculine person has to say. A trans man could obviously never experience anything a cis woman in his situation wouldn't.

This got longer than I anticipated. Thank you for listening and talking about this topic. I appreciate you, your work here is incredibly important and I'm glad you do this. Take care, and have a nice day!

(Also, this whole assumption about us "extremising" and "making a big thing out of nothing" also sounds a bit like hysteria talk to me, especially given that our conversation is about uterus-related things, but I might be reading to much into it here.)

the issue is that TRFs will take all this as "so you're saying that means trans men have it worse than trans women?"

like noooooooo you invented that sentence! that was nowhere in the original text girliepop!

[morgana-larkin]

Hiii!! I have a Melissa x reader request because I just lived for the newest episodes. (We shall ignore the firefighter’s existence for the sake of my idea.)

It’s set when Melissa is just focused on hosting the Schemmenti Christmas Eve dinner and reader is just trying to get her to relax like while she’s cooking, she’ll hug her from behind or give her little pep talks. But Melissa’s cooking isn’t the only thing she’s worried about. All this time her family has been asking of when she’s finally gonna tie someone down and Melissa always dismisses them. But this dinner, she hinted at finally finding someone, never disclosing the gender. She hasn’t told her family about r for obvious reasons but Melissa thought it was time r finally met them. Once everyone arrives, Melissa would finally introduce r as her girlfriend. But Melissa panics after one of her family members makes a homophobic comment towards Jacob and says that r is simply a friend who had nowhere to go for Christmas Eve. After having a private talk with Melissa, r understands her situation and is fine with holding off on telling her family. During the dinner, everyone stills hounds Melissa about when she’s gonna find a husband. Seeing r hurt by these comments, Melissa finally tells them that she has found someone and reaches for r. Obviously, everyone’s shocked (aside from Jacob, Caleb, and Barbra) but they all agreed to decide to put their differences aside as they loved Melissa more than their homophobia and due to the fact that she was able to cook good food without having a man. I really can’t think of an ending, but I hope you still consider my request :)

Hi Anon and thank you for the request! I wasn’t going to do Melissa prompts until the new year but this was a Christmas one so why not? I would have had this out a couple days ago but I had 3 Christmas parties to attend (big families). Anyway I am working on my last 2 Chessy prompts and should be out soon! I’m all for ignoring the firefighters existence so I was more than happy to write this. Not edited in the slightest and I hope you like it!

On another note: Thank you for all the love and support you’ve given me for all my crazy fics! Consider this a late Christmas gift from me or a gift for whatever holiday you celebrate and a have a happy New Year! 🥳

Her Friend Named Y/n

Warnings: Melissa’s family being stronzos, slight homophobia and racism

Words: 3k

“Melissa, relax. You’ve been making this food for the past 2 weeks and they’re gonna love it.” You tell her and then she gets you to taste test something else. “Amazing like always. Everything you get me to taste test is to die for.” You tell her and she smiles and then goes back to cooking.” You go up to her from behind and wrap your arms around her waist. You feel her lean into your touch for a second then she goes back to cooking.

“Y/n, unless you want to get burnt by the stove then I suggest you move your hands.” She says to you and you pull away from her but stay close by.

“Melissa, you need to relax, your family is gonna love it.” You tell her and she glances at you.

“You know my cooking is not the only thing I’m worried about Y/n.” She tells you and you sigh.

“I know but I’ll turn on my charm and I’ll get them to love me before telling them we’re together.” You say and she rolls her eyes.

“What charm?” She teases with a smile.

“The one that I got you with.” You counter quickly and she snorts.

“If I recall, you were clumsy around me, both physically and verbally.” She tells you and you run your fingers through her hair.

“Because how could someone act normal around you? You’re smoking hot and incredibly smart.” You say and she gives you a kiss.

“I really hope they love you, because I do.” She smiles at you before going back to cooking. You then both hear the doorbell ring and then Melissa goes to go get it and you follow after her.

“Jeez, are we early? Why aren’t you dressed yet?” Kriste Marie tells her and you see Melissa’s unimpressed face.

“It’s nice to see you too, sis.” Melissa tells her and then pats her partner’s back. “Dom.” She adds and then closes the door.

You go back into the kitchen with her and you see her continuing to cook.

“Are you going to be ok in here?” You ask her and she nods.

“Ya I’ll be fine, just gotta finish the cooking.” She tells you and then you hear the doorbell ring and Jacob goes to open it.

“Alright, I’ll go introduce myself to everyone.” You tell her and she nods.

“Go charm my family then.” She says and you give her another kiss before going to the living room. From the pictures she showed you, you instantly recognise her brother Seamus and her mom Teresa.

“Hello.” Jacob tells them and then they look around before their eyes land on you and Caleb.

“Who are you two?” Seamus asks.

“I’m Y/n, a friend of Melissa’s.” You say and hold out a hand to shake.

“I’m Caleb, Jacob’s brother, Melissa invited me. Pleasure to meet you both.” He says and then shakes their hands.

“I’m Seamus, Melissa’s youngest brother.” He says and shakes both of your hands.

“I’m Teresa, Melissa’s mother.” She says and doesn’t shake either of your hands. You and Caleb both put your hands down quickly after realizing and then don’t know what to do.

“May I take your coats?” Jacob offers and they give him their coats and then he runs upstairs.

“Well hello honey.” Teresa says and you turn around to see Melissa.

“Hi Ma.” Melissa says and then hugs her. “Y/n, do you mind coming into the kitchen with me please?” She asks you and you nod before following her.

“Melissa what’s wrong?” You ask her once you reach the kitchen.

“That’s my mom out there.” She says and you nod. “If she doesn’t like you then that’s not good for us. You know I love my family but they have cut people off if they don’t like their partner.” She tells you.

“Oh, so if your mom doesn’t like me then we can’t be together.” You say and she looks at you.

“If she doesn’t like you then I don’t know who to choose. Also no one in my family is gay or bisexual, at least that I know of.” She tells you and then she starts stressing out.

“Ok, Melissa, that’s why we agreed that we’ll see what your family thinks about me before we tell them. Totally neutral opinion about me, no bias or anything.” You tell her and she nods.

“I know, I know.” She says and then the doorbell rings and you hear more people coming in. “Can you just stay with me in here for a few minutes and taste test more food?” She asks and you nod with a smile.

10 minutes later and you walk out to see about 10 people here and a couple kids run into the basement.

“There’s a lot of kids in that basement.” Jacob tells you when he sees you walk out.

“Well she already told us that most people have like 3 kids.” You tell him. “Who are all these people, do you know?” You ask him and he looks at everyone.

“That’s Uncle Archie, then that’s Kristen Marie, Dom Marie, Mark, Marie, Matthew. Then Maria Christina, Craig, girl Toni. Boy Tony is still in prison but apparently there’s a card going around for him to sign. Then there’s Larry, Anthony, Seamus. I think about 30 kids in the basement and then of course you’ve already met Mrs Teresa Schemmenti.” He tells you and you widen your eyes a bit at the amount of names he remembers. Everyone looks at you as they were all being introduced to you and you gulp.

“Hi everyone, I’m Y/n, Melissa’s friend.” You tell them all and they all nod then go back to their conversations. Just then Melissa comes out with some more food.

“Honey, you’re trying something different with your makeup? You’re so brave.” Teresa tells her and Melissa sighs.

“Thanks Ma.” Melissa tells her.

“I love visiting you Mel.” Anthony tells her. “Something about being around you really makes me feel better about myself.” He says and Melissa rolls her eyes.

“And that’s why I love having you, Anthony.” Melissa tells him and you smile.

“Marie, did this place get smaller?” Uncle Archie asks Melissa.

“I’m Melissa, and no, my place did not magically shrink.”

“Ah, I guess you just got bigger then.” He says and then laughs.

“Archie, what would she need a bigger place for?” Teresa says. “She lives with a roommate, unmarried and alone.” She adds and Melissa nods her head, knowing the subject will come up.

“Yeah?”

“You’re so insensitive.” Teresa tells him.

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Uncle Archie asks and then the doorbell rings. Melissa goes to get in and then you see Barb and Gerald there and Melissa says hi to them. You walk up to them and give them a hug hello. “Ah. Nobody told me this would be one of those progressive parties.” Archie says and you both turn to look at him.

“Do you want to get strangled?” Melissa says and then Jacob cuts in and Archie goes to take a nap upstairs. Jacob then introduces everyone to Barb and Gerald.

“You forgot Nancy and Dorothy.” Archie says from the stairs.

“There’s nobody here named Nancy or Dorothy.” Jacob tells him.

“I was talking about you, Y/n and your boyfriend.” He says and laughs.

“Ok normally I respect my elders but this guy.” Caleb says and you and Melissa hold him back.

“Archie, Y/n is not gay. Just one of Melissa’s friends that had nowhere to go for Christmas Eve.” Teresa says and you look at Melissa. “Melissa, you seem to have forgotten to tell us that you invited a gay man and black people here.” Teresa tells her daughter and Melissa sighs.

“I didn’t think it would matter as it’s my place and they’re my friends.” Melissa tells her mom.

“Y/n, you seem so young and beautiful. Why haven’t you been able to land a man and be with his family for Christmas?” Teresa asks you and Melissa groans. “Melissa, can I not ask your friend a question? Also didn’t you say that you might have found a man?” Teresa asks her.

“I need to talk to Y/n for a moment alone.” Melissa says and then storms into the kitchen. You follow her and then she turns around to look at you. “I think we should hold off on introducing you as my girlfriend.” She tells you and you look at her confused.

“Why? I thought you were excited to finally introduce me to them?” You ask her and holds your hand.

“I am, I was. But I don’t know how they’ll react to me having a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend. You heard my Ma in there. She thinks you should be with a man instead because you’re young and beautiful and didn’t defend Jacob when her brother called him Nancy.” She tells you and you can tell she’s scared.

“Alright, it’s ok Melissa. We can hold off until you’re absolutely ready.” You tell her and she looks at you and smiles.

“Thank you.” She says and gives you a hug.

“Is everything ready? Gerald and a few other people are wondering about that.” Barb says as she enters the kitchen.

“Ah, ya, just a couple more minutes.” Melissa tells her and looks over at the food on the stove.

“Is everything alright?” She says as she senses some tension.

“We’re holding off on introducing me as her girlfriend.” You tell Barb and she looks at you and Melissa.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t think my family is gonna respond well to me having a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend.” Melissa tells her and Barb nods. “Alright food is ready. Do you guys mind helping me bring it out?” Melissa asks and you both nod and help her.

All 3 of you bring food out and everyone gathers around the table and takes a seat. They all begin to start putting food on their plates and you take a seat beside Melissa and Barb sits down on the other side of you for support.

“So Melissa, where is this man you were hinting at?” Teresa asks her and Melissa sighs.

“We haven’t been going out long enough to introduce them to my family.” Is all Melissa says to try and close the topic.

“What happened with that Gary?” Kristen Marie asks.

“He proposed and I said no, then we broke up.” Melissa tells her.

“Why’d you say no? You need a man to be with.” Teresa says and you look down at your plate. You then feel Barb grab your hand and you look at her and give her a grateful smile. Melissa sees the interaction between you and Barb and she sighs.

“I just didn’t want to marry him, can that be the end of the discussion?” Melissa tries to shut it down again.

“I’m just saying that you can’t be picky and we all liked him.” Teresa says and Melissa sees that you're hurt by this discussion and it breaks her heart seeing you hurt.

“What if she lied about finding a man?” Kristen Marie says to her mom and Teresa looks at Melissa.

“Did you or did you not find someone?” Teresa asks.

“I did find someone, I’m not lying about that.” Melissa says, annoyed at her family.

“I can’t believe you let Joe go. He was good, he was good for you and he was a firefighter.” Teresa says.

“I almost forgot about Joe.” Seamus says and Melissa puts her head in her hands. “Why did you divorce again?”

“Because we fell out of love.” She simply says. “But we’re still friends.” She adds and they all give her a confused look.

“Look, all I’m saying is that you need a man in your life, and I want to meet the man that you found.” Teresa tells her daughter and Melissa looks at her mom.

“What if it’s not a man?” She suddenly says and you look at her.

“Well what else would it be?” Teresa says and Kristen Marie looks between you and Melissa. She sees the both of you keep looking at each other as well as you being hurt by the conversation.

“What if it’s a woman?” Melissa asks her mom and everyone looks at each other in disbelief before looking at Teresa or Melissa.

“You can’t be with a woman.” Teresa simply says.

“Why not?” Melissa challenges her mom.

“Because you’re not interested in other women, you’ve only been with men and everyone in this family is straight.” Teresa explains. “Now stop saying foolish things honey.” She adds and Melissa sees your eyes are starting to water.

“Excuse me, I’ll be right back.” You tell everyone and stand up.

“Wait Y/n.” Melissa says and stands up as you look at her. “I did find someone, and she’s right here.” She tells everyone and then wraps an arm around your waist. “Y/n is my girlfriend.” She confirms and everyone gasps and looks shocked except for her friends. “We’ve been together for 9 months and we love each other.” She adds and you look at everyone’s reactions.

“You can’t be serious?” Teresa says and you look down and Melissa sees your reaction.

“I think she is serious.” Kristen Marie says. “They’ve been glancing at each other the entire time and Y/n has been looking hurt about this conversation.” Kristen Marie adds.

“Thanks sis.” Melissa says and rolls her eyes. “It’s true, I’m not going to pretend that I’m with a man when it’s hurting my girlfriend just to please my family.” Melissa says proudly and you look at her. She smiles at you and gives you a quick kiss and then looks at her mom. “So all of youse can either accept it or leave.” She adds and you lay your head on her shoulder and wrap your arms around her.

“You know this food is really good.” Seamus says and everyone looks at him.

“I agree, I’m surprised she pulled this off. I guess I didn’t need to defrost the frutti di mare I had at home as a backup dinner for me and Dom.” Kristen Marie says.

“You know if this were a little less brochante.” Teresa starts but Anthony interrupts her.

“Ya, a little mushy.” He says but Teresa continues.

“Yeah, this could have almost passed the nonna Zoltini.” She says and you see Melissa practically beaming at the compliment. “No single woman can make food this good so I guess being with Y/n helped her make good food.” Teresa tells everyone and everyone thinks about it.

“I like Y/n, I met her 2 years ago at Pecsa.” Kristen Marie says and nods. “Melissa wasn’t keeping an eye on her though as I talked with her for a good hour.” She adds and Melissa looks at her sister then at you.

“You did what?” Melissa asks, a little angry.

“We just started being friends, plus I had no idea who she was.” You tell Melissa and you feel her hold tighten on you.

“I think we need an updated photo of me punching you in the face.” Melissa says.

“I’m saying I like your girlfriend.” Kristen Marie says. “I don’t know what she sees in you though.” She adds and you hold Melissa back as she wanted to start some violence with her sister.

“I like your girlfriend as well, a little shy. But I do love you Melissa, and if Y/n makes you happy and gets you to make good food, then I’ll accept the relationship.” Teresa tells her and Melissa smiles and nods at her mom.

“Thank you, I’ll go get the dessert.” She says and brings you into the kitchen with her. “Oh my god, that went really well. Not only did they love my cooking, they’re accepting of us being together.” She says and kisses you. Barb comes into the kitchen and you both pull apart.

“Sorry to interrupt but I just wanted to see how you’re both feeling.” Barb says with a smile.

“I’m very happy, my family is accepting my cooking and my girlfriend.” Melissa says with a huge smile.

“I still can’t believe you went right out and said that we’re together.” You tell her and she shrugs.

“All their comments were hurting you, I couldn’t just do nothing.” She says and you plant a kiss on her cheek.

“Thank you, I know I picked the right woman to love.” You say and she smiles before she gets the cannoli ready.

“Alright you stronzos, here’s the famous Schemmenti cannoli.” Melissa says as she comes out with the cannolis and everyone takes one.

Everyone eats all the cannolis and then digest for a bit before they start heading off.

“You got yourself a looker.” Kristen Marie tells her sister. “I don’t know how you managed to score that but apparently you did.” She says and Melissa smiles and wraps an arm around you.

“Yep, I got the girl of my dreams.” Melissa says and you smile at her.

“Goodbye.” Kristen Marie says and then leaves.

Melissa closes the door after Barb and Gerald leave and then lets out a breath. She takes a few steps and gives you a long hug and you feel all the tension she’s been holding for 2 weeks just leave her.

“I don’t know about you but I think that was a huge success.” Caleb says and Melissa pulls back and nods.

“One of the best nights ever.” She says while looking at you and you smile. “I think we should turn in a little early, what do you think?” She asks you and you nod while you both go upstairs.

“I know that look and tone. I hope you brought earphones Caleb, cause you’re gonna need them with our thin walls.” Jacob tells his brother and then Caleb looks at you both going up the stairs.

“Yep, neither of us are quiet.” You say and Melissa giggles.

“Come on you goof.” She says and then pulls you to the bedroom.

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[invisibleicewands]

‘I wanted to be seen as the greatest actor of all time. Then I realised that was nonsense’: Michael Sheen on pride, parenting and paying it forward

He’s the feted star who cracked Hollywood, but it was only when he swapped LA for his home town in Wales that he was able to do his most meaningful work yet

By Simon Hattenstone

Michael Sheen has been fabulous in so many TV dramas and movies, it’s hard to know where to start. But perhaps his most memorable appearance came earlier this year in a TV show that didn’t require him to do any acting at all. The Assembly was a Q&A session in which he took questions from a group of young neurodiverse people. Sheen didn’t have a clue what would be asked, and no subject was off limits. It made for life-affirming telly. The 55-year-old Welsh actor was so natural, warm and encouraging as he answered a series of nosy, surprising and inspired questions. I watched it thinking what a brilliant community worker Sheen would be. And, in a way, that’s what he has become in recent years.

“The Assembly’s had more response than anything else I’ve ever done,” Sheen tells me. “Almost every day someone will come up to me and mention it, particularly people who have children with autism. They say it was just so lovely to see something where the interviewers were empowered. I had a fantastic time.” He replays some of his favourite moments: the young man Leo who took an age to start talking, and then delivered the most beautifully phrased question about the influence of Dylan Thomas on Sheen’s life; the woman who asked what it was like to be married to a woman only five years older than his daughter; and the question that came at the end: “What’s your name, again?” He smiles: “And Harry with the trilby on. Just the nicest man ever.” You came across as an incredibly nice man, too, I say. “Aw well, it’s hard not to be when you’re among all those amazing people, innit.”

Today we meet in London, ostensibly to talk about A Very Royal Scandal, a gripping mini-series about Prince Andrew’s infamous Newsnight interview with Emily Maitlis – the disastrous attempt to defend his honour that sealed his fall from grace. But we don’t get to the show till it’s almost going home time. Sheen’s too busy discussing all the other stuff that matters to him, away from business.

Six years ago, he swapped life in Los Angeles for Port Talbot, the steel town where he grew up. These days he calls himself a not-for-profit actor – a term he happily admits he’s invented. “It means that I try to use as much of the money I earn as I can to go towards developing projects and supporting various things. Having had some experiences of not-for-profit organisations and social enterprises, I realised that’s what I want to do with my business. And my business is me.” He grins. There was a suggestion that he might stop acting in order to do good works, but he says that never made sense; only by getting decent gigs can he earn money to put back into the community.

It has to be said he’s got the air of a not-for-profit actor today – scruffy black top, sloppy black pants, black trainers. With a bird’s-nest beard and a thicket of greying curls, he looks nicely crumpled. But give him a shave and a trim, allow him a flash of that electric smile, and he could still pass as a thirtysomething superstar.

Sheen is best known for transforming into household names – Brian Clough in The Damned United; Chris Tarrant in Quiz; David Frost in Frost/Nixon; a trio of films as Tony Blair (The Deal, The Queen, and The Special Relationship); Kenneth Williams in Fantabulosa. His Prince Andrew is compelling; by turns petulant, pathetic, monstrous and poignant. He has a gift for inhabiting famous people – voice, body, soul, the works. He’s equally adept as a regular character actor – the dapper angel Aziraphale in Good Omens, pale and pinched as spurned suitor William Boldwood in the 2015 film of Far From the Madding Crowd, the tortured father of a daughter with muscular dystrophy in last year’s BBC drama Best Interests. He even plays a winning version of himself alongside David Tennant (and their respective partners Anna Lundberg and Georgia Tennant) in the lockdown hit TV series Staged.

But the work that changed his life was his 2011 epic three-day reimagining of The Passion on the streets of Port Talbot, involving more than 1,000 people from the local community. It was years in the making, and during that time he decided he would leave Los Angeles to come home. Initially, home just meant Britain, probably London. But the longer he spent with his people, the more it became apparent to him that home could only mean one thing – returning to Port Talbot, and helping the disadvantaged town in whatever way he could.

He admits that for many years he didn’t have a clue about the reality of life in Port Talbot. He had always lived in one bubble or another. His parents were hardly flush, but they had decent jobs – his mother was a secretary, his father a personnel manager at British Steel, and both were active in amateur dramatics. Sheen was academically gifted (he considered studying English at Oxford University before winning a place at Rada), a talented footballer (he had trials with Cardiff and Swansea) and an exceptional young actor. Then came the bubble of Rada and London, followed by the bubble of LA.

It was only when he started to work on The Passion that he began to understand his home town. One day he was rehearsing with a group in a community hall when he was approached by a woman. “She told me she was the mother of this boy who’d been in my class at school called Nigel. When I was 11, he fell off a cliff in an accident and died. It was the first time I’d known someone to die. She said, ‘I’ve started up a grief counselling group here. I have a little bit of money from the council because there is no grief counselling in this area.’” She’d had no counselling when Nigel died, nor in the 31 years since. “And all these years later, she’d set up a little grief counselling thing with a bit of money, so that was extraordinary to hear.” Next time he returned he discovered that the group no longer existed because of council cuts.

Every time he went back he discovered something new. He met a group that supported young carers. Sheen doesn’t try to disguise how ignorant he was. “I said, ‘All right, what are young carers?’ And they said, ‘They’re children who are supporting a family member.’ And I’m like, ‘OK, this is a profession, they get paid, right?’ And I was told, ‘No, they don’t get paid and our little organisation gives them a bit of respite – once a week we take them bowling or to the cinema.’ I went bowling with them one night and there were eight-year-old kids looking after their mother and bringing up the younger kids. This one organisation was trying to take these kids bowling one night a week, and then that went. No funding for that, either. That kind of stuff was shocking.”

As a child, SHEEN says he was oblivious to struggle because he was so driven by his own dreams. First, it was football. By his mid-teens it was acting. West Glamorgan Youth Theatre, which he calls “one of the best youth theatres in the world”, was on his doorstep. “The miners’ strike was on when I was 15 in Port Talbot and I wasn’t really aware of it at the time. That’s how blinkered I was, because I was so obsessed by acting at that point.” Acting wasn’t regarded as a lofty fantasy in Port Talbot as it may have been in many working-class communities. After all, the town had produced Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins.

In his late teens, heading off for Rada, Sheen feared he would be surrounded by giant talents who would dwarf his. When he discovered that wasn’t the case, he suffered delusions of grandeur. “I wanted to be recognised as the greatest actor in the world,” he says bluntly. In the second year, the students did their first public production: Oedipus Rex. “I thought, well obviously I’ll be cast as Oedipus, then we’ll perform Oedipus to the public and when the world sees me for the first time I’ll be carried shoulder-high through the streets of London and hailed as the greatest actor of all time.” I look for an ironic wink or nod, but none is forthcoming.

Sure enough, he was cast in the lead role. “We did our first public production and I thought I was brilliant.” But nothing changed. It didn’t bring him instant acclaim. By the third night, he could barely get through the performance.

Were you a bit of a cock back then, I ask. He shakes his head. “No, I was having a breakdown. I was crying most of the time. I just fell apart. I spoke to the principal of Rada and I said, ‘I can’t continue at drama school, I have to leave.’ And he said just take some time off, which I did, and two or three weeks later I slowly came back and then completely changed the way I acted.”

Until then he believed acting was just about what he did. “I thought you just worked out how to say the lines as cleverly as you could; it had nothing to do with responding to other people or being in the moment. It was showing off, essentially. And there’s a ceiling to where you can get with that. That breakdown I had was because I’d reached the ceiling and didn’t know how to go any further. That’s why I fell apart.”

He gradually put himself and his technique back together. Was he left with the same ambition? “No. The idea of being considered the best actor of all time becomes nonsense.” In 1991, Sheen left Rada early, because he’d been offered a job he couldn’t turn down. He made his professional debut opposite Vanessa Redgrave in a West End production of Martin Sherman’s When She Danced. Theatre was Sheen’s first love, and his rise was meteoric. From the off, he was cast as the lead in the classics (Romeo and Juliet, Peer Gynt, Henry V, The Seagull) and the 20th-century masterpieces (Norman in The Dresser, Salieri and Mozart in Amadeus, Jimmy Porter in Look Back In Anger).

Sheen was doing exceptionally well when he and his then partner Kate Beckinsale moved to LA for her work in the early 2000s. She was four years younger than him, and already a movie star. Their daughter Lily, now an actor, was a toddler. He assumed that his transition to stardom in LA would be as seamless as it had been in Britain. But it wasn’t. His theatrical acclaim counted for nothing. In 2003, he and Beckinsale split up, but he stayed in LA to be close to Lily.

The first few years, he says, were so lonely and dispiriting. “I found myself living in Los Angeles, there to be with my daughter but just seeing her once a week. I had no career there – it was essentially like starting again. I had no friends and spent a lot of time on my own. It was tough. Slowly I realised how it was affecting me.” In what way? “I remember coming out of an audition for Alien vs Predator, to play a tech geek computer guy with five lines and really caring about it, and then thinking: ‘I can be playing fucking Hamlet at home, what am I doing, what’s this all about?’” He says he’d been so lucky – always working, never having to audition, getting the prize jobs. And suddenly in LA he was an outsider; a nobody.

He and Beckinsale are often cited as role models for joint parenting by ex-couples. In 2016, Beckinsale, Lily and Sheen staged a hilarious photo for James Corden’s The Late, Late Show, recreating the moment of giving birth 17 years earlier. Beckinsale reclines on a kitchen table with Lily sitting between her legs, as an alarmed-looking Sheen stands to the side. Have they always got on well since splitting up? “We’ve had our ups and downs, but we’re very important in each other’s lives. It would be really sad if we weren’t – like cutting off a whole part of your life. I’m not saying it doesn’t have its challenges, and I’m sure it’s been harder for her than for me.” Why? “Because … ” He pauses and smiles. “Because I’m more of a twat!” In what way? Another smile. “I’m not going to tell you that, am I?”

Sheen’s break in America came when he was spotted by a casting director who told him he would be perfect for a new project. Ironically, it was to play former British prime minister Tony Blair in a British TV drama called The Deal, directed by British film-maker Stephen Frears and shot in Britain. The Deal led to Frears’s The Queen, about Elizabeth II’s frigid response to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales leading to a crisis for the monarchy. Again he played Blair, this time riding to the rescue of the royals. The movie was nominated for six Oscars (Helen Mirren won best actress) and he never struggled in America again.

The longer he lived in LA, however, the more rooted he felt to Port Talbot. And the further he travelled, around the world or just in Britain, the better he understood how disadvantaged it was. “If you’re in Port Talbot one day and then the next you’re in a little town in Oxfordshire where David Cameron is the MP, it’s fairly obvious there are very different setups there. And that was connected to a political awakening.” He started to read up on Welsh history. In 2017, he returned his OBE because he thought it would be hypocritical to hold on to an honour celebrating empire when he was giving a Raymond Williams lecture on the “tortured history” of the relationship between Wales and the British state.

He began to reassess his past. “I became more aware of the opportunity I’d had in an area where there wasn’t much opportunity. At a certain point you go, Oh, people are having to volunteer to make that youth theatre happen that I’m a product of.” You’d taken it for granted? “Completely. I was happy to think everything I was doing was because of my own talent and I was making my own opportunities, and as I got older I thought maybe that’s not the whole story.”

In 2016, the long-running American TV series Masters of Sex, in which Sheen starred as the pioneering sex researcher William Masters, came to an end. Lily was now 17 and preparing for college. “I suddenly thought, Oh, I can go home now.” And six years ago he finally did – to Baglan, a village adjoining Port Talbot. Since then he has been involved in loads of community projects.

He mentions a few in passing, but he doesn’t tell me he sold his two homes (one in America, the other in Wales) to ensure the 2019 Homeless World Cup went ahead as planned in Cardiff. Nor does he mention that a couple of years ago he started Mab Gwalia (translating to “Son of Wales”), which proudly labels itself a “resistance movement”. On its website, it states: “Mab Gwalia believes that opportunity should not only be available to those who can afford it. The ambition is to build a movement that makes change.” Its projects have supported homeless people, veterans, preschool children on the autism spectrum, kids in care, victims of high-cost credit, and local journalism, which is a particular passion. “In the early 1970s in Port Talbot, there was something like 12 different newspapers. There are none now. None. Communities don’t feel represented, don’t feel their voice is heard and don’t know if the information they’re getting about what’s going on in the community is correct or not. Those are terrifying things, and without local journalism that’s what happens.”

Perhaps surprisingly, he’s even found time for the day job. Earlier this year, he played Nye Bevan in Tim Pryce’s new play about the founding father of the NHS. He also made his directing debut with The Way, a dystopian, and prophetic, three-part TV drama about the closure of the Port Talbot steelworks that results in local riots spreading across the country. How does he feel about the rioting that has scarred the country in recent weeks? “I feel the same way I think most people do. It was awful and terrifying. I worry about how much a hard-right agenda that has been growing for a long time has moved further and further into the mainstream and has clearly got more connected. It’s frightening.” Does he think the new Labour government can deliver the positive change it promises? “Pppfft.”He exhales heavily. “More optimistic than the Conservatives being in power.” Who did he vote for? “That’s my God-given right to remain a secret, isn’t it? It wasn’t the Tories!”

I ask if he’s in favour of Welsh independence. “I don’t know how I feel about it one way or the other, but I would like there to be an open discussion about everything that entails. The problem is when it gets shut down and you don’t get to talk about it.”

Would he ever go into politics? He looks appalled at the idea. “Oh God, no. No! I’d beawful.”Why?“Because I don’t want to say what other people are telling me to say if I don’t agree with it. Look at all those people who voted against the two-child benefit cap and had the whip taken away from them. That’s bollocks. People say I should go into politics because I’m passionate about things and I speak my mind. But then you get into politics and you’re not allowed to do that any more. I’ve got far more of a platform as myself. I can say what I want to say.”

Fair enough. I’ve got another idea. A couple of years ago he gave an inspired motivational speech for the Wales football team before the 2022 men’s World Cup, on the TV show A League of Their Own. Would he take the job as Wales manager if offered it? He looks just as horrified as the idea of a life in politics. “No!” Why not? “Because it’s a completely different profession. You need to know about football. I played football when I was younger, but I wouldn’t have a clue. Wouldn’t. Have. A. Clue. Just because you can make a speech doesn’t mean you’d be any good at that sort of stuff.” He says he was embarrassed about the speech initially, but now feels proud of it. “Schools get in touch and say, ‘We’ve been studying it with the class.’ I put hidden things in. There are rabbit holes you can go down.” He quotes the line, “You sons of Speed” and tells me that’s a reference to the idolised former manager and player Gary Speed who took his life in 2011. You can hear the emotion in his voice.

I’ve been waiting for Sheen to mention the new TV drama about Prince Andrew. Most actors direct you to the project they’re promoting as soon as you sit down with them. Let’s talk about the new show, I  eventually say.

This is already the second drama about the Andrew interview. Did he know that Scoop, which came out earlier this year, was already in the works? “Yes, I knew before I agreed to do this.” Was it a race to see which would get out first? “There was no race, no. We always knew ours would come out after.” What would he say to people who think it’s pointless watching another film on the same subject? “Ours is a three-part story, so it’s able to breathe a lot more. There’s a lot more to it. In our story, Andrew and Emily are the main characters whereas they were very much the supporting ones in the other one.”

Did it change his opinion of Andrew? “No. It showed the dangers of being in a bubble, having talked about being in a bubble myself! The dangers of privilege.” He talks with sensitivity about Andrew’s downfall. “The thing that really struck me was when Andrew came back from the Falklands there was no one more revered, in a way. I didn’t realise his job was to fly helicopters to draw enemy fire away from the ships. I couldn’t believe they would put a royal in that position, so he was genuinely courageous. He was good-looking, a prince, and had everything going for him. Since then everything has just gone down and down and down.” He’s had so little control over his life, Sheen says. Take his relationships. “He was told he couldn’t be with [American actor] Koo Stark any more because of the controversy. He was essentially told he had to divorce Sarah Ferguson because the royal family, particularly Philip allegedly, was concerned that she would bring the family into disrepute.”

Did he end up feeling more empathetic towards him? “No!” he says sharply. Then he softens slightly. “Well, empathy? I felt I understood a bit more – because that’s my job – about what was going on. But he’s incredibly privileged and has exploited that. It seems like he has a lot taken away from him but probably rightfully so.”

A Very Royal Scandal is like The Crown in that it’s great drama but you’re never sure what’s real. Are Andrew’s lines simply made up? “It’s a combination of research and stories out there, and little snippets and invention.” While Emily Maitlis is an executive producer, Andrew most certainly is not. “Well, that’s the real difficulty for our story,” Sheen says. “On the one hand, you’ve got Emily as an exec, so you know everything to do with her is coming from the horse’s mouth. But everything to do with Andrew, not only is it really difficult to get the actual stuff, also we don’t know what he did.” He pauses. “Or didn’t do.” He’s talking about Virginia Giuffre’s allegation that Andrew raped her, which he denied. In the end, Giuffre’s civil case was dropped after an out-of-court settlement was reached on no admission of liability by Prince Andrew, with Giuffre reportedly paid around £12m.

I had assumed Sheen would be a staunch republican, but he doesn’t feel strongly either way. “There are lots of positives about royals, and lots of negatives.” His bugbear is that the heir to the throne gets to be Prince of Wales. “Personally, I would want the title of Prince of Wales to be given back to Wales to decide what to do with it, and I definitely think there’s a lot of wealth that could be used better.”

The biggest change for Sheen since returning to Wales is his family life. In 2019, he revealed that he had a new partner, the Swedish actor Anna Lundberg, that she was 25 years younger than him, and that she was pregnant. They now have two daughters – Lyra who is coming up to five, and two-year-old Mabli. As well as Staged, the couple have also appeared together on Gogglebox. They look so happy, nestling into each other, laughing at the same funnies, tearing up over the same heartbreakers. She also seems naturally funny. Given that two of his former partners (Sarah Silverman and Aisling Bea) are comedians, have all his exes had a good sense of humour? He thinks about it. “Yes. Yeah, you’ve got to have a laugh, haven’t you?” And he’s always got on well with them after splitting up? “Yeah, pretty much.”

When asked about the age difference between Lundberg and him on The Assembly, he acknowledged that they were surprised when they got together. “We were both aware it would be difficult and challenging. Ultimately, we felt it was worth it because of how we felt about each other, and now we have two beautiful children together.” He also said that being an older father worried him at times. “It makes me sad, thinking about the time I won’t have with them.”

Does being a dad of such tiny kids make him feel young or old? “Both,” he says. “My body feels very old. But everything else feels much younger. I’m 55 and it’s knackering running around after little kids. Just physically, it’s very demanding. And I’m at a point in my life where I’m aware of my physical limitations now. But in other ways it’s completely liberating, and I’m able to appreciate it more now.”

Has he learned about fatherhood from the first time round? “Yeah, I think so. I’m around more now. That’s a big part of it. When Lily was young, I was in my early 30s and doing films for the first time, so Kate would stay in Los Angeles with Lily and I would go off and do whatever.” Did Beckinsale resent that? “I don’t know that she resented it. Kate was doing better than me in terms of profile at the time, so it was different. Given that we then split up and I saw Lily even less, I very much regretted being away as much. So this time I wanted to make sure that wasn’t the case. That’s partly why I’ve set up a Welsh production company. I don’t want to work away from them as much.”

Talking of which, he says, what’s the time? “I’ve got to get back to my kids.”

On his way out, I ask what advice he would give his younger self. He says he was asked that recently and gave a glib answer. “I said buy stock in Apple.” What should he have said? He thinks about it, and finally says he’d have no advice for his younger self. He’d rather reverse the question, and think what his younger self would say to him if he tried to advise him.

“I saw an amazing clip of Stephen Colbert saying your life is an accumulation of every bad choice you’ve made and every good choice you’ve made, and the great challenge of life is to say yes to it. To say, ‘I love living, I embrace living.’ And in order to do that you have to embrace all the pain, all the grief, all the sadness, all the fucking mistakes because without that you don’t have all the other stuff.” He’s on a roll now, louder and more passionate by the word. “And I’d hate it if someone came and went, ‘Don’t do this, no do that.’ Then you just sail through your life. It would be death, wouldn’t it? So I’d tell my older self to go fuck himself.”

[lurkingshan]

hi!! i was wondering if you could recommend some good high school japanese (or from other countries) bls? all this time i avoided them cause i felt old and uncomfortable but yesterday i finally watched one and the pureness and warmth of these sweet kids experiencing their first love really warmed my heart and brought back memories of my own first crushes. thank u in advance and I hope u have a wonderful day!

Hi anon! I firmly believe we are never too old to be swept away by the nostalgia of a good high school show. There are specific emotional buttons that get engaged by a coming of age or first love story, and it's comforting to see both reflections of experiences that were similar to our own and fantasy versions of a high school experience we never got to have. I support you venturing into high school bl!

This is not a comprehensive overview of all bls with high school age characters, but a solid list of great shows that center that high school coming of age/first love experience in their stories, in a mix of moods and tones. I'll start with some favorites from Japan, and then include a few from other countries, as well. I hope you like some of these!

Japan

I Cannot Reach You

This is a classic friends to lovers first love story done exactly right. I don't know anyone who watched it only once, it's so satisfying.

If It's With You

A boy who is jaded before his time meets an earnest hottie when he moves to a new town and school. Feelings ensue.

My Love Mix Up

This one puts the com in romcom, with a confused bisexual chaos muffin setting off a comedy of errors as he tries to figure out who actually likes who among his classmates.

Takara-kun to Amagi-kun

A simple story of two boys trying to navigate their first relationship and figuring out how to go about dating and interacting at school.

Eternal Yesterday

On the tragic end, this is a story of first love that ends abruptly due to accidental death. The story is an exploration of the grief and stunted growth that results when someone so young suffers a loss so monumental. It's an absolutely beautiful show, but not a light watch.

Philippines

Marahuyo Project

This is a gorgeous show about a brash and loud and proud gay kid who gets sent to live on a small island after an incident at school, and decides to create an LGBTQ+ club at his new school. This one has a social education agenda, but it's also very funny and sweet.

South Korea

Light on Me

The story of a confident gay boy and his love triangle where you will actually like everyone involved! A rare gem in these drama streets.

Where Your Eyes Linger

And on the angstier side, this one is the story of two friends, one of whom has been raised to be a caretaker/bodyguard for the other, struggling with a realization of feelings between them. The power dynamic and social class divide between them feature heavily.

Taiwan

History 3: Make Our Days Count

Possibly a controversial pick, as this one has a tragic ending that is hard for a lot of people to stomach. But it's a great high school show that includes two first love stories, one between a beautiful himbo and the studious boy who catches his eye, and the other between his very sweet best friend and an older man he meets through his job.

About Youth

This first love story between two very nice boys struggling with school and family issues manages to be incredibly sweet while also dealing with some heavy topics, and features a couple amazing original songs that still get stuck in my head all the time.

The On1y One

This is such a pitch perfect high school story that I'm putting it on this list before it technically finishes airing. Two high school boys meet when their parents move in together and decide to get married, and begin to heal each other. This one nails the angst and yearning.

Thailand

My School President

Possibly one of the cutest high school romcoms of all time, and it features a student band so there are a ton of original songs. This is a story about a boy who runs for class president just so he can save his crush's music club. It's two nice boys who like each other and the shenanigans they get up to with their friends.

I Told Sunset About You

And for the completely opposite experience: the ultimate angsty coming of age queer awakening story. One of the most beautiful dramas I have ever seen, and so evocative and emotionally resonant that it is actually hard for some people to watch because it's too real.

[hiraethwrote]

VENT SESSION LETS GOOOO — you’re allowed to scroll if you don’t care mwah

i spend an ungodly amount of hours on this app, and i look at you as my friends so just want to let you guys know

i am also a very nosy person myself, so seems only fair i share my own situation. but if you don’t care about all this, you can just keep scrolling. i honestly don’t mind lol

anyways… a few weeks ago, i told you guys i was going through something that was kinda heavy — yeah my bf and i were going through some stuff and started seeing someone professionally… we broke up

there was an understanding that this might be outcome when we first opened up this can of worms, and there turned out to be a lot of underlying issues that both of us had refused to acknowledge

it was definitely a mutual decision. though it’s a hard pill to swallow, we came to the conclusion it was the best for the both of us

we want such vastly different things in life, things neither of us should compromise on. to me, life came at me a lot faster than i anticipated and felt like there were things left unexplored — and neither of us want to hold the other person back from what we want

however, this is a person i have been with for six years, a quarter of my life. there’s obviously a lot of shared history which is hard to let go of. it’s also so incredibly painful when we’re not splitting due to lack of affection and love for the other person, but because our desires and wants in life just don’t align

he is still my best friend, and because of how our life situation is, we will continue living together as we have been doing for the past three years (he only lives here half the time due to work), until i move across the country when summer comes. we’re also going to celebrate christmas together because it just feels right lol

i would say i am doing as well as i can… we are obviously on good terms, but this is probably one of the hardest things i’ll go through. it is the biggest heartbreak of my life. but that is really just a sign that the time we’ve shared together haven’t been a waste. we can be proud of the fact that we’ve been honest, faithful, respectful and kind throughout the entirety of our relationship, to the point where this is so hard even though it’s the right decision

obviously, i am very scared of the path that lies ahead. he has been by my side for the better half of a decade, and i have the privilege of exploring things on my own. it’s obviously what i have been missing in my life, so i am excited for what’s to come, but terrified of living a life he’s not going to be such a big part of anymore

but things are going to be fine. idk how long it will take, i am suspecting very long, but i know in my bones this is for the best for us both. so with time, i will be happy

and not to worry, i have a fantastic support system. i have incredible friends who are there for me. i am lucky to have a family who is not guilting me about leaving a long term relationship, despite also being sad. and i’ve learned i have a great community on here who has showed so much kindness, and i am so grateful <3

that being said — i am not planning on taking a break from tumblr lol. if anything, i am starting to get out of my writers block. this past week i have written more than i have the last month so that’s good! i think i might try and be a little more productive than i have been the past few weeks (at least i hope so, work is picking up again hehe)

not putting this out here for sympathy or anything, but just a little update. i am interested in the lives of those i follow, so maybe some of you are interested in mine

wishing everyone a nice weekend 🫶🏻 i got work in the morning (day after the breakup that’s fun)

[bloodstainedsapphic]

Mattheo Riddle Headcanons

From someone who only recently got into him. I could be wrong, since I can't trace back his roots much. Some of these are inspired by other writings, Marcus Lopez in Deadly Class, and my own bot usage.

I wrote this in about 5 minutes. Just a warning.

Mattheo is, of course, reserved around those he isn't close to. He tends to act cold, and will go as far to make himself seem threatening if he feels like it (whether that's actually true or not is your interpretation).

If he does something kind for someone without being asked, he prefers to let it go unmentioned. "Thanks for getting that for me." "Yeah, yeah, If you tell anyone, I'll kill you."

Scorpio, Scorpio, Scorpio! This is the one time I'll assign my star sign to a character because it fits him so well, along with his face claim being a Scorpio as well.

Mattheo loves The Smiths. There is no arguing there. This is definitely Marcus inspired, but it is just so nice.

He wears black almost exclusively. It is just his go-to and fits his general vibe. If he must, he'll go for a neutral-toned checkered flannel or jean jacket when it gets cold.

Mattheo has immaculate handwriting. Like, people look at his work and can't help but stare because they're surprised at the quality of it.

He drinks black coffee in the mornings, and that's it.

Does get into a lot of fights. And he wins all of them. However, unlike what others may think, he tries to give someone a chance to out themselves from a potential fight before he goes in.

Loves the horror genre. He talks up paranormal horror as the superior subgenre but will sit down and enjoy just about any kind.

He is a Resident Evil fan (Resident Evil 1 came out in 1996, so this is for slightly more modern au's).

His closest friends are Theo and Blaise, but he gets along well with Enzo and has an okay relationship with Draco.

He is knowledgeable and a strong critical thinker but doesn't care much about academics. Besides Defense Against The Dark Arts, he is really talented at Potions.

'Claims' people. His icy demeanor is rather tough to break; once he lets you in, it's like a switch is flipped, and he's more possessive and protective than anyone could've anticipated.

Has a mean jealous streak. This has been known, lol.

I think he prefers cats - but honestly, I see him being hesitant towards pets. He is still sweet toward them and would be a love bug with a pet of his own, but I can see a pet approaching him, and he wouldn't know what to do at first, haha. 

Mattheo is sarcastic to his core. Shows his affection through teasing. But he can be quite serious and good at knowing the right words to support someone when needed.

Slight NSFW implications - incredibly dominant, and there's nothing you can do to change my mind that's not his preferred mode 99% of the time.

To see Mattheo's sweet side is a real treat, but he keeps that part for whom he adores the most.

His love language is physical touch and its not even close. If he falls for you, he'll always make sure to be touching you in any way that is possible at that instance.

[its-time-to-write]

just a short little Thanksgiving blurb for all my American girlies 🥰🦃

ours

You force yourself back to the present, where your twelve year-old cousin is updating you on the latest middle school drama. 

“…and that’s why boys named Max are a red flag, but dogs named Max are not,” she concludes. 

You giggle and nod appropriately, taking a sip from your drink. The house is filled with the entire family this Thanksgiving and while it’s pleasantly crowded, it still feels like a part of you is missing. 

Your phone is securely in your bag, a tactic to try to keep yourself from replaying highlights from the England match from the previous weekend. Every other WAG got to go support their man, but you were stuck in America with pre-Thanksgiving work. Thanksgiving has only been going on for twenty minutes, and you’re ready to call it and go home. 

International dating is hard.

Your mom can tell, so she’s been giving you tasks to do all day. She must’ve told your grandma or maybe she’s just incredibly observant, because she’s picked up the mantle as well and neither of them give you enough time to be alone with your thoughts. 

It’s nice of them, except now the family’s here and everyone’s asking about your boyfriend. They don’t care that he’s a footballer (in the best way) and they’re all excited for you, but you wish he were here. 

Maybe you can sneak upstairs and call him. 

You do some quick math and realize he should be asleep so you sigh and ask your cousin if she wants to come with you to steal macaroni and cheese. 

She smiles and says, “Yes, duh.”

“It’s going to be tricky,” you warn. “My mom and your mom are going to be on the lookout.”

“I bet Grandpa will sneak us some,” she reminds you. Oh yes, Grandpa would do anything for his granddaughters. 

You grab her hand and weave through aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, cousins and a few other relatives. You’re pretty sure this is the biggest Thanksgiving you’ve ever had. 

You and your cousin successfully get your hands on two bowls of mac and cheese, and slip away to an unoccupied corner to eat it. 

You’re smiling and not thinking about Jamie at all. This is your favorite cousin, the one who’s eleven years younger than you, but you two have been doing dumb shit together since she could talk. 

You’re almost done when someone slides into your space, pressing their arm against yours. Your cousin’s eyes widen as she looks at you and you turn, expecting to see an aunt or god-forbid one of your snitch brothers. 

Instead, you’re met with blue eyes and a familiar smile. 

You choke on your last bite of food as you launch yourself into Jamie’s arms.  

“What are you doing here?” you ask, refusing to let go of him. “You have a match this weekend.”

He shrugs, still smiling. “Ah, you know, gotta be culturally sensitive with my American girlfriend, babe. Milestones and all that.”

You raise an eyebrow. There’s no way Roy let him go with that excuse. 

“Or I might have injured meself at the match last week and am out of training for two weeks,” Jamie says. 

“You’re hurt?” you exclaim. “Why didn’t you call me? Should you have been on a plane? What happened?”

You’ve inadvertently tightened your grip around Jamie’s neck, so he reaches up to remove your hands, still keeping them in his. He lifts them up to his lips to kiss your knuckles. 

“I’m fine. Just my ankle. But I figured, who not come surprise ya?”

“Does my mom know you’re here?”

Jamie’s grin turns cocky. “Called your mum and dad three days ago. I’m staying in their guest room, ain’t I? Got in this morning before you lot showed up.”

Your cousin has been watching this scene a little open-mouthed the whole time. “I wish my boyfriend would do that for me,” she murmurs. 

Your head snaps over to her. “Your what,” you say to her and she holds her hands up defensively. 

“Oh look it’s your English boyfriend who flew all the way to America for Thanksgiving, why don’t you kiss him some more?” she deflects, and Jamie shoots her a wink and tilts your face up for a kiss so your cousin can get away. 

“I can’t believe you’re here,” you tell him. “Oh my gosh, we’re going to have the BEST time. Get ready to have your mind blown, little British boy.”

“Anything for you, Miss America,” he teases. “Just don’t make me try those mushroom things I saw, looked fucking awful, that.”

You pull a shocked face. “Oh but it’s tradition. Everyone has to suffer through my uncle Darren’s gross stuffed mushrooms at least once. And since you’re new here…” you trail off. 

Jamie grimaces while you giggle and run a hand through his hair. God, you can’t believe he’s here and while you aren’t thrilled he’s injured, maybe it’s not such a bad thing. 

“C’mon,” you say, tugging him to the kitchen. “I want to go yell at mom and dad for not telling me you were coming.”

[jokeroutsubs]

[ENG translation] Jure Maček, Joker Out's drummer: "I don't have time for dating"

An article and interview with Jure Maček, published in Suzy magazine on 1.3.2024.

Original article is available here for Slovenske novice subscribers. Article written by Anita Krizmanić for Suzy magazine. English translation by a member of JokerOutSubs, proofread by IG GBoleyn123.

Music has accompanied the 27-year-old from Logatec since early childhood. He fell in love with it because of his father and grandfather, who were excellent musicians themselves. Besides them, he also had a number of other great teachers who introduced him to various genres, he played in the symphony orchestra and several bands, and just over three years ago, he finally found what he had been looking for – Joker Out, the band that became his new family. A pleasant and open conversation partner, who believed in his dreams and is living them today, gave us an honest interview about what his journey was like before he and his band embarked on the incredible odyssey that started last year before Eurovision.

Tours are tiring, but also incredibly exciting. // "They wouldn't let me play the drums in music school, because they weren't on the curriculum, so I decided that I would learn how to play them on my own."

"Each of us dreamed about one day finding ourselves where we are now. We're aware that many people don't have that chance. We miss home, we haven't been there very often in the past year, which we've already got used to. To each other, as well. We support each other and we know how to coexist. We're doing just fine, but there are moments when you have to grin and bear it. There aren't many of those, though, because we're mostly having a good time and we enjoy making music," a smiling Jure tells us from London, where the boys have been temporarily living and creating since the beginning of the year.

During our chat, he walks around the city and tells us that life with Bojan, Kris, Nace and Jan is very simple. "Because we're great friends, even though we could all use a moment of solitude now and then. Especially now that we're living in a small London apartment. But we know each other so well that we know what each of us is like, when and why he's in a bad mood, what he needs, and how to fix a certain situation. We're a nice and happy family," he smiles, and adds that they all know how to take a step back, but at the same time, they're firm when they want to emphasise their idea or opinion.

"Sometimes it's better if someone says what they're thinking out loud, presents their idea, and if we collectively latch onto something, we can get great results. It's the same with music," he continues.

LIVING HIS DREAMS AT PEACE

The fruits of their hard and dedicated labour over the past few weeks can already be seen, some are yet to materialise. The band recently sent 'Everybody's Waiting' out into the world, a song that centres the personal thoughts and contemplations that accompany many young people.

"When we make music, we try not to think about other worlds and the audience. When a song is being made, each of us has to feel it and add a small part of what makes him happy to it. When we get to the point where all of us are happy with our work, we know that we created something good, and that's also when people can feel it or find themselves in it," he says.

Joker Out, with their magic and meaningfulness, always take us into worlds where everyone is safe and understood, even when they think they're not. He agrees that a loving attitude towards yourself and others is key in the chaotic world that surrounds us.

"I am at peace with the people around me. I appreciate them very much and they make me even more happy to be in this world." He is grateful for fulfilling his dreams, which he never let anyone take from him as a young musician. "I currently make a living only from music, so I am living my dreams," he smiles.

After working on the album, the boys are leaving for the European tour.

DRUMMERS LIKE CONTROL

As a drummer, he keeps in the background, but that doesn't mean he lives in the band's shadow. "We're special people. We're happiest if things are under control. Just the fact that we sit all the way in the back says enough. You can see everything from there," he says, and adds that drummers are pretty technical types who are more reserved than the other band members. "We like the space we create for ourselves around the drums. That is our world and we really enjoy it. We're pretty nuts," he jokes.

We also chat about the band's fans, who are a unique phenomenon, as they know all the lyrics. "It's a crazy feeling when people abroad sing songs in Slovenian." Otherwise, he never craved attention and he's pretty introverted. "Out of everyone in the band, I'm the least enthusiastic about hanging out after gigs, not because I don't like the fans, but because I like my peace. I need time for myself after performances, which the fans very much respect and understand. After each gig, we take time to meet people, even if not all of us are there."

Despite looking thousands of girls in the eyes at gigs, his heart is currently not taken. "There's no time for dating. There was none last year, and none this year yet either," he laughs.

STEALING HIS MUM'S POTS

During our conversation, we also touch on his upbringing, and he tells me that he fell in love with music as a child, since his father Mitja and grandfather Cveto were also musicians. "I remember dancing around the living room with grandpa on Sundays, and moments when I stole my mum's pots from the kitchen, took them to the living room and banged on them with full force. All of that moved something inside me, leading me to being a musician today," he's convinced.

Another key moment happened when his father, who was also a drummer, took him to the concert of the guitarist and frontman of Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler, in Tivoli Hall as a boy. "That was probably where it first became clear to me that I really wanted this," he says. His parents enrolled him in the music school in Logatec where he studied percussion instruments for eight years, he played in a brass band and a symphony orchestra, he was a member of various bands in elementary school.

"They wouldn't let me play the drums in music school, because they weren't on the curriculum, so I decided that I would learn how to play them on my own. After that, I had a more and more successful band each year, it escalated until I joined Joker Out," he remembers his younger years, when he was getting to know various genres and enjoying his calling more and more each year.

"We drummers are special people," says Jure.

FALLING IN LOVE WITH FILMING BECAUSE OF HIS DAD

Music, however, wasn't the only thing he spent years getting to know. In high school, thanks in part to his uncle and his dad, who often took him to the field with him as a cameraman, he worked as a correspondent cameraman and editor for RTV Slovenia (Slovenian national television). "When they were looking for a cameraman at RTV Slovenia, I already knew and understood a lot of things. I kind of miss that job. It was very varied because I spent a lot of time in the field, I was at sports, cultural, and political events. During the time when I was both a cameraman and a musician, I realised that there were a lot of parallels between those worlds."

Now, he sometimes misses a slightly more regular schedule. "I used to be home at four in the afternoon, now I won't be home until May," laughs the likable drummer, who really liked working as a cameraman, but was mainly driven by his commitment to music. Now, for just over three years, he's been part of a band in which he's found something more. "I actually didn't really know how to get to that point, because in Slovenia, we often hear that you can't make a living from music and it might be better to find something else, that it's difficult to survive in the music world, that it's not worth it. But there was always something driving me so strongly that I was determined to prove to myself and others that it's possible."

THE CAMERA IS ALWAYS ON

If you want it strongly enough, you can achieve anything you want, he says. He's sure that as a musician, he will never achieve anything bigger than Joker Out. "Even though I like to emphasise that I'm living my dreams, it's not all sunshine and roses. The music world can be very tough, you have to fight every day, because you don't know what you're getting yourself into and what the result will be. Everything is a little unknown."

While the members of Joker Out are constantly discovering new unknown things in their creative world, they're definitely not unknown on the music scene. They caress our ears and souls with their finely crafted lyrics and excellent music. Their fans can now even hope that these outstanding young musicians will record a documentary about their journey in the near future. "We started recording in 2021 and we have a lot of things in stock that might interest people. With us, it's like this: when we're on tour, the camera can be on at any moment, so we have to be a little mindful of how we behave. Actually, everything is recorded – backstage, travelling, hotels, arguments, as well as lovely moments!"

The fans are thrilled by his not-at-all-reserved photos.

DREAMING OF SUMMER AND CAMPING

The magical pinnacle of the band's musical odyssey, which started even before their acclaimed Eurovision performance, happened last October in sold-out Stožice. On this colourful journey, they only had a moment to catch their breath at home before setting off again for new adventures. After a temporary move to London, the boys travelled to Helsinki on the 28th of February, where they did production rehearsals, and their European tour starts on the 1st of March. "We will board the bus which we will live on for one month. I'm looking forward to this experience and the bus tour, as it will be our longest yet," he doesn't hide his excitement. The band will come back to Slovenia for seven days at the end of March to regain their strength, then they will have a few performances in the UK, and on the 15th of April, they will lock themselves into a studio in Hamburg for a month, recording the album that was created in London.

"This year, we were home for three days, until the 4th of January, which makes the days spent in Slovenia even more precious," adds Jure, who is endlessly excited for the summer. "I've seen enough hotels in the past year, so I want a genuine holiday like in the old days, when a friend and I converted a car to be able to sleep in a camp. I miss simple holidays in nature and without a phone. That's what I really want this year, at least for a week or so," one of the most charismatic Slovenian drummers reveals his humble wish to us.

If you repost quotes from the interview, please link back to this post!

[carolmunson]

you keep me without chains | em.

this is a re-post of a ramble fic of me processing some stuff i've been through and am struggling with in my own healing. if you're familiar with my 'bad at feelings' series, it's in a similar vein of writing except eddie is incredibly soft and sweet to reader who is going through her own stuff. eddie sucks here, i don't think it's a correct characterization of him but it's just me using him as a placeholder.

originally, i didn't want to put this story in the tags because it's sad and explores the mindset of someone in a non-physically abusive relationship. however, since it is DV awareness month, i wanted to make sure to express that if there are people reading this who are struggling that they aren't alone and there are people there that understand and support them. and also that if there are younger readers reading (still eighteen plus!) who aren't sure if they are in an abusive relationship they are maybe able to get some context via fiction. my inbox is always open. DV Hotline US: 800-799-7233 DV Hotline UK: 0808 2000 247 tw: 18+ mindors dni, references to emotional and psychological abuse, minor threats of physical violence.

he left this morning with a kiss on your cheek and your lips, a nuzzle against your temple when you gave him two thermos's, one with hot black coffee and the other with the beef stew you made last night. hot hot hot. the way he likes it.

you made bread, so crisp on the outside, pillowy soft on the inside. he groaned when he popped it in his mouth at the dinner table, soaked in broth and butter. you warmed some in the oven when you put his lunch together, wrapping it in foil to trap the heat -- maybe it'll keep until his lunch hour. he might eat it all before his lunch hour. he never eats breakfast really.

you clean the counters and do the laundry while he's away. no kids to take care of, not yet at least. you mend his spare coveralls, treating the grease and oils stains, resewing his name tag stiched in red thread. you shine your mary janes and stilettos, shine his doc's just to be nice. you fix his patches on his vest from the last show he went to. you clean the stubble out of the sink in the bathroom.

he has the car so there's nowhere to go.

you shower, you do your hair, put make up on, go through the motions while he's not home. he hates to wait for you to do it but you hate looking tired when you're out and about. better to do it when he's busy doing something else.

next door neighbor is heading to the library, knocks on your door to see if you wanna come with. she just wants you to get out of the house for once, stop playing wife to a man who hasn't married you yet.

you hesistate, wanting to be home in time to make dinner, but you can't imagine the library taking too long so you go. she looks at you with a strained pity that you can't stand. he doesn't hit you, so why does she even look at you like that? he'd never do that. he just got back from all that shit with a few screws loose. he never knows what he means when he says it.

he's always sorry. y'know? he's always sorry. sorta.

doesn't hit you but you know how the day will go by the way he says good morning. by the way he wakes up with you -- or without you. know how the night will go by the way he breathes when he comes in through the storm door. by the cadence of his steps on the metal stairs. by the way the van pulls in.

sometimes things break and that's fine cause he just replaces them. he knows he shouldn't have thrown it, he knows he shouldn't have tossed it, he knows. he knows. that's why he gets it the very next day. new plates, new house phone, new coffee pot, new records, new casettes, new picture frames, new flower pots. he doesn't throw them at you. he's only punched the wall twice. he slams his head against it all the time. cause he knows he's not good. he knows. you go to the library and check out some books, laugh at your neighbors jokes, tell her about your weekend in the city visiting his friends. he held your hand in front of everyone and pulled you onto his lap, he joked with you and you laughed the whole time. you went to see a band play that you'd never heard of and he got you a t-shirt and the next morning you all went out for hot chocolate and breakfast and he kissed the whipped cream off your lips and ran his thumb over your engagement ring over and over. he never stopped calling you baby. so charming. so perfect. you don't know what you did to earn it, but you've been chasing it ever since. modeling that week's behavior into this one. tip toes through the tulips of the trailer. jagged. shell like.

you get home from the library and lunch, she even stops with you when you mention you have to go to the grocery store. out of eggs for meatloaf, needed some canned string beans for one of the sides.

it's the best dinner you've made in a while and the mashed potatoes are double whipped and extra buttery because he can never get enough of them. you know that it's little things like that. you love the smile he gets when you tell him you do some things just for him, so blushy and boyish.

'that's so nice, baby,' he gushes, 'thinkin'a me.' and god he gushes. cries when he can't contain it. saw you in a new dress and wiped his eyes. new hair cut sent him into orbit.

so pretty.

you're so beautiful, i don't deserve you.

you're gorgeous i -- i can't even like, think.

presents on your birthday. handwritten notes with tear drops washing over the ink in a wave, blurry letters blue and black, black and blue. he'd never hit you. too in love. too bursting with affection when he looks at you. too nervous when you look at him when he takes you out. when he plays a show. when he sees you get dressed into your pjs at night. you're so good to me. especially when you hold him through those nightmares. when you calm his anxiety, those deep breath panic attacks. the ones that the meds miss when he misses them. you're patient through the mood swings and he always says thank you. he always says it -- you're the only one that understands him. that sees him. sometimes you don't get it. that's what he says at least. you don't get it and that makes him upset. but you're not sure what there is to get. and you try not to get sad about it -- 'bout anything really 'cause you're not the one who got a few screws knocked loose. nothing bad like that happened to you. i mean, sure, maybe some bad things happened to you but not like the way bad things happened to him, right? you wouldn't get it. but he gets you, he tells you all the time. he gets you so well. symbiotic. the only person who knows you, the only person whose been in your skin -- right? at least that's what he says, and he's said it so long you can't help but believe it.

your eyes fall on the newly vased roses he bought you two days ago from the florist near the shop. bright red petals opened and fat, contrasting against the pea green of the walls. you smile at them while you pour gravy over each plate, extra on his mashed potatoes. he kissed you this morning, he was almost late leaving the house -- couldn't stop kissing you. couldn't stop looking at you with those brown eyes, sparkling with a mischief saved for tonight.

the van rolls in as you set the table, still in your outfit from earlier, the books you checked out on the counter need the flowers. the storm door opens off kilter, your throat constricts. you know by the way he doesn't say anything when he comes in the house. work boots kicked off with loud thumps. his jacket swishing with a thwap when he throws it with a grunt to the ground. something bad must've happened at work. 'hey honey,' you say quietly, 'got dinner for you.'

you know better, watching him turn the corner into the dinette, looking down at you from where he stands and you sit. you hold a mug full of orange juice on the table, fingers tapping on it silently while he holds his gaze. 'you goin' somewhere, dressed up like that?' he asks, there's nothing behind those sparkling eyes now. dulled out to hollow brown.

'no,' you shrug, you know how to coreograph your responses now -- still stepping on his toes sometimes, 'went to the library with gina, she just wanted a friend for some errands.'

'you know gina doesn't like me,' he nods, walking to the fridge to grab a beer, 'she doesn't like us together. she hates me.'

'she doesn't hate you, ed,' you assure, voice still calm, mediating, 'no one hates you.'

'your folks hate me, your sister hates me,' he nods, curls bouncing while he takes a swig, like it's normal conversation. so steady, 'you think they like that i got you ever here in this trailer park?'

'my parents don't ha--'

'they do.' and that's final. you don't argue. and he's right. your parents don't like him and that's why you don't call anymore, and they stopped calling you too. so did all your friends from back home.

'so what'd gina tell you about me today, then?' he presses.

'nothin'," you shrug, 'we didn't talk about you.'

'of course not,' he laughs but it's one that sends a chill under your skin, a laugh to not seem so mean when you know he's about to be, 'she was prob'ly tryna set you up with someone. that's why you got all dressed up right? anything to look good for other guys out there.'

's'cuse me?' 'you heard me,' he nods, voice still steady like nothing's wrong, 'that's why you wore all those tight jeans in the city last weekend, right? those dresses? tryna show off to harrington and the guys. don't act like i didn't notice.'

'what are you talking about? why didn't you say anything when we were there?' you heart rate quickens, you try not to get mad.

'i shouldn't have to. but that's how you are, y'know?' he shrugs, another swig, another chuckle, 'makin' dinner and everything, you must've been out there makin' eyes at everyone if you made my favorite.'

'i wasn't doing that,' you urge, voice raising, tears threatening to pool, 'i just made it cause you like it, cause it makes you happy.'

'so you just do anything to make sure i don't get mad? do you even know why you do stuff like this for me?' he asks.

'what are you even saying?' your voice raises again, a mild yell. you're frazzled now, heart racing, head already scrambled.

'don't yell, what're you -- fuck babe, see! this is why gina doesn't like me,' he grits through his teeth, 'cause you're always making a scene over nothing. you're over fuckin' reacting.'

'i --' your voice catches in your throat, quieting, 'i'm sorry? i'm sorry.'

'd'you even know what you're sorry for?' he nearly sneers, 'always sayin' your sorry over nothing. y'know somethin' babe, sorry loses it's meaning when you're sayin' it all the time. it doesn't mean anything from you anymore.'

you nod, losing your resilience, too confused about how quickly you got here -- and he's right. you're always apologizing but half the time you don't even know what you're apologizing for. just that you feel like you need to be sorry. like you need to say sorry.

he holds that stare on you like he's waiting for you to speak again. daring you to say something. you stare down at the wood grain of the table, blank and empty -- numb, even. the mug between your hands is warm from how hard you were gripping the ceramic to keep you grounded.

's'what i thought,' he nods, voice a low rumble while he makes his way to the bathroom.

he'd never hit you.

the slam of the bathroom door makes you flinch.

sometimes you wish he would. maybe it would hurt less than this. at least that physical pain fades, right? at least it wasn't the same dull ache on a bruise that won't go away. are you hemmorhaging? do you just not feel it yet? will it be too late when you do?

he slides into bed with you at night after spending the rest of the evening out back with the other couples and families that were smoking ribs, having a little fire out in the brush. he smells like cigarettes. you could hear his grizzly laugh through the windows while you laid in the dark of your bedroom. too tired after the way he spoke to you to do anything else. everyone's favorite mechanic loverboy in the park.

you feel his fingertips on your shoulder, one of them gliding down the slope of your arm. he presses his lips to your shoulder blade, your eyes shut -- blearing with tears from that dull ache.

'dinner was really good, baby,' he says softly, a whisper.

you try to get out a thank you but it becomes a choke, a sniffle, a gasp. then a cry and then a harder one, remembering how he rolled his eyes at you two weeks ago when you cried after he threw out the love letter you wrote him for your four year anniversary because 'you didn't mean any of that shit anyway'.

he sits up, shushing you softly while his hand smooths over your bicep.

'what is it, sweetheart?' he asks, 'are you mad at me?'

you shake your head no. looking up at him, lying flat on your back. he looks so handsome in the moonlight, concerned eyes and tilted head peering down at you. 'n-no, ed. m'not mad at y-you,' you push out, head still scrambled. you feel guilty about last weekend, about going out today. what if guys really were looking? you know you weren't looking at them but what if they got the wrong idea? gina doesn't know what she's talking about, she's always hated ed. ever since they were kids.

'you just havin' one of your moments?' he asks, soothing voice, 'yeah?' one of your moments. always just one of your moments. couldn't be him, you're just -- maybe you're over thinking it.

'yeah,' you nod, 'm'sorry i went out with gina, baby i -- she didn't say anything bad about you.'

'it's okay,' he smiles, 'm'not mad at you. never mad at my girl.'

'no?' you ask, swallowing hard -- your heart leaps. he's not mad. maybe he just had a rough day.

'no doll, m'never mad at you. you always think i'm mad at you,' he says, thumb brushing away the tears that threatened to roll down the sides of your face to your hair line, 'you need me to kiss it better?'

another sob rips through you, nodding, because you do. you need it. and you sort of hate that you need it. you hate yourself for needing it. but he kisses you and it does feel better. he knows how to kiss you just right, he always has. he knows just where to put his hands. just how to pull away and brush his nose against yours. how to kiss your forehead between affirmations. smooth and understanding, like a movie scene. his kisses are his apologies. his sorry. you accept it every time.

because he doesn't hit you and he never would. in the morning, when the bathroom door slams so hard the walls vibrate, you flinch.

[lmh8903]

Benny Rodriguez x Reader Pt 1.

Lil intro: Hi, my name is Y/N McClennan, I'm the older sister of Alan McClennan, but everyone calls him YeahYeah. I am 17 years old, a junior, and I have the best boyfriend ever, Phillips.  I love baseball. I used to play at the Sandlot with the boys, but when I started dating Phillips, the boys got really pissed at me. It's been about a year since I've touched a baseball or even talked to my old friends, which was when I started dating Phillips. This has been incredibly hard since the boys have been my best friends for as long as I can remember. However, the only thing  I can really do about it now is to accept the fact that I broke their trust. Especially Benny's. 

Actual Story: Y/N's POV

I was incredibly excited for today. It was finally the official last day of my junior year. After a long and anticipated wait, school just got out, and now it's time for one of my last summers in the San Fernando Valley.

Of course, as part of my everyday routine, I walked up to Phillips's locker. "Hey," I said.

"Hey, baby," Phillips replied as he kissed my cheek. He grabbed my hand, and I gladly took it, but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something unusual. Benny was looking at us, and it was clear he wasn't too thrilled.

This made me a little upset and curious because Benny and I were best friends for almost as long as I can remember. The day that our friendship ended was the day that I told him I started dating Phillips, which will be a year in two days. Everyone except Scotty and my brother rebelled to get me off their team, and we haven't talked since.

I still remember how he looked when I told him. He didn't look pissed off, he just looked sad and disappointed. The pain in his eyes, the betrayal. I understand that he and Phillips don't get along, but as my best friend, I was hoping he would have been supportive. I didn't realize I was thinking so much until Phillips cut me off.

"You okay babe?" Phillips asked.

"Yeah, of course, I'm fine," I replied with a slight smile.

He turned around, clearly knowing I was lying. Benny was still looking at us. "You're looking at Rodriguez?" Phillips asked.

"Oh, um yeah. I just wanted to make sure he saw this," I said as I passionately kissed Phillips. I don't even know why I did this. I would've liked to have mended my relationship with Benny, but this just shows that I don't care. How could I be so fucking stupid?

We pulled away when we heard a locker door and a door slam. I looked at where Benny was standing. He was gone. I could tell he was infuriated. I could kind of feel his pain in a way. It was obvious Benny was irritated when he saw us before I made the rash decision of kissing Phillips in front of him. I should have just left it at that.

In all honesty, I've always had a little crush on Benny. The way he is so passionate about baseball, it's pretty hot. Once Benny and I talked about the future, and what we wanted. He made it very clear that he did not have time for a relationship, nor did he want one. I knew at that moment I had to move on. So, I went with someone who had put in the effort of trying to impress me and decided to give him a chance.

I love Phillips, I mean, he's great, and we're super happy, but sometimes I wonder how happy I would be with Benny. I really miss him. After all, he was my best friend. I'm going to talk to Yeah-Yeah when I get home to see if the boys would let me back on the team. They really were the best and most loyal friends a girl could have. And what did I do? I started dating their enemy. Like who does that? Thinking about it now, I see why they kicked me off the team, and I wouldn't blame them if they didn't want to be friends again.

After thinking, Phillips and I start walking to his house. It's only a couple of blocks, so we don't feel the need to drive. It's nice walking with him. It's giving me time to clear my head and push out any doubts that I have.

Phillips then breaks the silence, "Y/N, are you okay? You've been acting weird since we saw Rodriguez." I sigh and reply, "I don't know. I just really miss my friends. I love you, and you know that, but I just wish they would get over it." Phillips responds, "I know you miss them. You also need to understand that, besides Rodriguez, there's an age difference there. They're only 14 and 15. Them being like this is somewhat valid, they're supposed to be immature, you know? Rodriguez, on the other hand, that's just immature." I don't say anything; I just give him a peck on the cheek and smile. We look up to see that we're standing outside his house. We go in, start watching movies, and cuddle.

After we get done hanging out at his house, I kiss Phillips goodbye, get in my car that I drove over to his house before school, and drive home. I start bawling in the car. Phillips made a lot of sense, but it doesn't hurt any less. I reach my driveway, park my car, and then head inside my house. I walk to Yeah-Yeah's room to go talk to him and see how the boys are doing. Once I get to his room, he's not in there. I guess he's still out with them. I then walk to my room and try to go to sleep in order to prevent myself from crying again. 

After struggling to fall asleep for a few hours, I left my bedroom. I look in Yeah-Yeah's room to see if he's home. He's passed out cold. I have no one to talk to currently, so I  walk to the one place I can fully clear my thoughts. 

Lmk if y’all want part 2!! <3

[netherfeildren]

Someone's Wife in the Boat of Someone's Husband .Epilogue

Series Masterlist

(Joel Miller x F!Reader)

Rating: Explicit 18+

A/N: Here we find ourselves again at the end of another story, and I just need to say a quick thing to you all who have been so incredibly kind and supportive and lovely to me throughout this. It has always been difficult for me to talk about myself and the things I feel, and a large part of why I began this writing thing was that I’ve felt for a while now that my life was stagnant and myself without growth or change, and I didn’t really know how to fix it, but I knew that I wanted to do something or say something, and writing fan fiction may seem like a frivolous sort of avenue to achieve those things, but what you all have given me, and the warmth and support you all have welcomed me with, cannot be compared to anything else I’ve experienced thus. Quite simply, you all have been so fucking nice to me, and you can’t know what it means to me or how grateful I am for it. So really that’s all I want to say which is a million times thank you, and I appreciate you all so much, and I hope I can continue to write for you for a long time to come. 

Artwork is Cloud Nine by Amy Beager (2021)

Word Count: 1.3K

Read on AO3

.Epilogue

A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.

Joan Didion, The White Album

I had a dream recently: we’re in my grandmother’s house, and I don’t know what it means, but we’re together. You’ll never be able to know my parents, and even though my grandmother passed years ago, you get to meet her here – she was always kind to me, here in this place where only I make the rules. She cooks us a meal, we say grace, and she tells you how happy she is that we've found each other. At night, tucked away into her guest bedroom together, you don’t fit in her little shower, head knocking against the spout because you’re too tall. Too big for this world. We huddle into the little double bed together in the dark afterwards, lace edged pillows scratchy and smelling faintly of moths and roses, and we laugh and press together tightly and whisper into each other’s ears. 

I don't know what it means, but I know we’re together. My mother never told me to be what I wanted, but I did so anyway. I chose to live. Now I am here with you. 

-

“I have something for you,” he says one late summer evening. The two of you are sitting on the back porch, watching Sarah run around with the new puppy he’d brought home for her earlier in the week. The air, warm and muggy, the sound of cicadas sounding like the symphony of summertime. It is a small, velvet lined black box, and when you open it, a spool of thread lies within. 

Faithlessness is escaped like this: “The first time I got married, it was out of necessity, obligation, a wish for something good or right. It seemed like the right step, the right thing to do, but I think you and I– we know what we are to each other. We have always known – even when we could not yet say it. This is a conscious act, us loving one another, an act of will – out of desire or necessity, even, or perhaps – a necessity for each other – but still, we are an act of will together.”

He takes the spool then, and makes a loop of the thread around your ring finger – then ties a little knot around you. Now you are caught. 

“I thought I always had to stick by my decisions until the end, but change is only natural, it’s the intent behind your decisions, I think, that’s what really counts. We’ve learned much about intent together, haven’t we? And you and I, we have always been us –  from the very first moment. There was a thread that connected us.” And you cannot speak, for there are tears streaming down your face and flooding your throat, battling with your very heart that’s lodged there too, but you nod anyway.

He pulls his hand back and lets the spool unravel, when he uncurls his fingers a diamond ring slides down the thread and onto your waiting hand.

“You and I – we’re connected,” he says. “Every day we become more entwined. And I want us to stay like this for the rest of our lives. Every day more and more. Will you marry me?” And it is not so much a question, but a promise. 

“Yes,” you tell him. Of course you will be his wife. “Of course, I will.” He kisses you. 

-

You wake one lazy Sunday morning, months and months of happiness later, your head anchored over his heart. Warm and soft and surrounded by him, you open your eyes to take in the sight of your hand laying over his heart, the gleam of your engagement ring sparkling in the sun. You stretch your legs and listen to the creak in your knee, and when you shift to turn your face up to him, he’s already looking down at you. 

“My love, it’s almost noon,” he murmurs, presses a kiss to your eyelid.

Your eyes are so heavy, your head drowsy, “‘M so sleepy, dunno why…” You burrow further back into his chest, yawning. 

“No?” he nuzzles the crown of your head, hand creeping around to cup your breast and gently drag his thumb back and forth across your nipple 

“I had a dream we had a baby,” you mumble, voice full of sleep.

“Did you?”

“Yeah,” you say through another yawn.

“Hmm…” He shifts up on his elbow over you, pressing a soft kiss to your shoulder, another over the curve of your ear. You roll into him, hiding your face under his jaw and breathing in his smell, sleep and musk and Joel. “What was it like?” he asks softly, dragging his hand down the length of your spine. “Tell me.”

“It was perfect. She was perfect.”

“She?”

You hum, “Little baby girl…”

He’s quiet for a moment, and then the tolling of the bell: “Your period’s three weeks late, sweet girl,” he whispers into your ear, shares the secret with you, nuzzles into the crook of your neck. His palm sweeps over your belly, and you freeze at his words, thinking back, trying to count days, finally snapping truly awake. 

“What? Why– why didn’t you say anything?”

A deep sound hums in his chest as his hand sneaks over your hip to clutch a handful of your ass, and then to cup between your legs, pressing his growing erection into the apex of your thighs.“Thought you’d want to come to it on your own.” He kisses the tip of your breast over your soft, lace camisole. 

You don’t cry anymore, or, well, at least not as often as you once did. A constant well of tears ready to spill over at any moment. No longer a weeper, in a long line of weepers. There’s just too much happiness for that now. 

But you cry now, at this, you can’t help yourself. The feeling of this, the idea of the two of you coming together to make your own little person, a sibling for Sarah, it’s a call for happiness of the highest order, like nothing else that’s ever come before it. He holds you in his arms, kisses you deep and wet, and as he licks into your mouth, you feel his own tears slide along your cheeks, intertwine with your own.

-

He finds the two of you singing and dancing to Shania Twain in the family room, Sarah’s own special, revised version, one afternoon. Bumping hips, and then clutching hands to spin Sarah away from your body, and then twirl her back in, squeezing her tight in your arms, picking her up to spin around with her yourself as the two of you sing at each other. 

His daughter catches him spying over your shoulder, “Daddy, come dance with us!” and you turn, gracing him with the sight of your gorgeous smile, as he comes over to wrap his arms around the two of you, relieving you of her weight. He anchors a hand to the small of your back to steady you, feeling the small swell of your belly press into his pelvis. Let me let you in on a secret, Shania sings.

“You wanna hear it?” you tease. How to treat a woman right.

“Don’t I know already?”

You sway in his arms and he brings his hand up to cup the back of your head, Sarah’s little palm is on his cheek, tugging at his beard, spin us, Daddy, spin us!

“Yeah, baby, you do. Like no one else.” He kisses you, and the three of you spin together, around and around. You’ll see love is gonna play its part.

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

[burningembers91]

Taking Another Break

Hi everyone,

So, I took a break from writing a few weeks ago as I was feeling really burnt out. I thought I was feeling better, but I'm really not. I've tried to keep writing because I feel really guilty about not putting out content for my followers. I also panic when I look at my inbox and see how many requests I've got because I really don't have the mental capacity to keep writing at the minute. Basically, I'm really struggling at the minute.

I know I don't owe anyone an explanation, but I'm so bad at vocalising my feelings, and writing them down really helps.

I'm absolutely fine, and I know that this will pass, but life is HEAVY at the minute.

I'm spending about 70 hours of my week either working or studying for my degree. I feel terrified that I'm going to be 31 in August and I've only just figured out what I want to do with my life (I want to be a historian specialising in the 19th Century). I've had two miscarriages in the last 2 years, and now two of the women in mine and my husband's friend group have become pregnant and I've been really struggling with my sadness and anger. I'm obviously happy for them but it's a stark reminder of what I don't have. I absolutely love my life, but the reality is is that baby loss is so difficult and it's something you never really get over.

I've also spent the last several years watching someone close to me go through a very volatile relationship. I have been incredibly supportive and tried to help, but it's reached a point where she has shut me out and family members out because she cannot see how bad things have gotten. I'm finding it really hard and spend a lot of time worrying.

I don't want to stop writing because it's my escape, but at the moment every time i sit down to write it's like my head is filled with cement. I have an 1,800 word essay due tomorrow and I've only written 350 words because my mind physically goes blank whenever I sit down to try and type it.

I also haven't written my Cho Hyun-Ju fic or Baek Kang-Hyuk fic that was scheduled for this week, and so those won't be releasing tomorrow or Friday. I had some really exciting stuff planned but at the moment, all I want to do is sit on the sofa in my pyjamas, cry, eat chocolate and hug my dog. I feel like the quality of my writing is slipping at the moment and I want to ensure that I do my fics justice and right now, I can't do that.

I'm not sure how long I'll be gone for, maybe a few weeks, but I will definitely be coming back. Since joining Tumblr in January I've found this lovely little community of people who are so friendly and nice. I've got a few people who regularly comment and send me TV and movie recs, and I absolutely love it. I'll still be on Tumblr because the Squid Game memes are currently keeping me sane. So, if you have any good recommendations for TV shows, movies, or you see something hilarious, please send them my way.

I feel like as an adult, making friends is so hard and I'm embarrassed to say that other than my husband and dog, I literally don't speak to anyone else. I'm trying to make a conscious effort to go out and make new friends, but making friends as an adult is HARD and i feel like no one talks about how lonely your 20's and 30's can feel. Tumblr has made me feel so surrounded by people even though i talk to you all through a screen.

Sorry for blabbing on so much, but your girl ain't living, laughing or loving right now haha.

I know everything will get better and I know I'll probably be desperate to write some fics again in about 3 days, but I'm going to take some time out, spend some time with my dog and husband and get my head back on straight.

Thank to you everyone who reads my work, and I shall see you all very soon.

Lots of love xxxx

[plounce]

was talking with oomves about my jerkwol (prior post about him), specifically how my only wolcred is that awful rabbit who thancred dumps for urianger, and a short summary of jerkwolcred+thanuri relationship history got erased so i ended up writing an extremely long summary. which is under the cut, along with a picture of jerkwol, the wol who all the scions justifiably don't want anything to do with. he finally has a name (lyelt)

btw trans woman urianger she/her pronouns. my city my rules my beautiful girl

in arr they were fwb, especially when thancred was veering into alcoholism in the patches. they weren’t especially emotionally close, but lyelt would say thancred was his favorite of the scions. they picked it back up in hvw patches - lyelt did mourn haurchefant bc “he was the ONLY ONE to always be there for me, to never criticize me, to always support me and only ever say nice things about me” (haurchefant was also at camp dragonhead most of the time.)

thancred was in a bad place. at his lowest. lyelt offered to pick up where they left off and thancred agreed. “finally, someone who doesn’t pity me, someone who doesn’t treat me like i’m about to fall apart, someone who doesn’t care about my feelings.” it’s not a bad time, they enjoy themselves, thancred gets a goal to pursue (making someone else feel good) and lyelt gets to be the center of attention with minimal expectation to reciprocate. although thancred stays awake for a long time after. leaves in the middle of the night. lyelt appreciates not having to deal with a morning after, so it’s never commented on. it’s easy (because thancred’s doing so bad).

they meet in the first. lyelt is happy to see him - thancred is mostly just focused on his emotional problems and doesn’t really expect to pick things back up again. during stb lyelt built up an image of thancred as "you'll put up with whatever and still stay standing like it's normal, you don't expect me to be faithful, you're handsome and witty, you’re not annoying and self-righteous, you put up a fight but never insist you're right.. maybe you could be the one?" (again, while thancred was not there) while thancred perceived them as “when we’re both in town and feel like it we’ll sleep together no-strings-attached. i respect you as someone incredibly powerful and important. i don’t expect much of you emotionally”. lyelt hits on him a couple times throughout il mheg when they’re alone, but thancred either doesn’t notice bc he’s so stressed or sort of brushes him off because it’s not the time.

post-titania, lyelt directly propositions thancred at the bookman’s shelves; thancred declines. he and urianger are almost maybe sort of kind of heading a certain direction, and while thancred’s still not sure if he’ll do anything about it (he doesn’t deserve her, after all, and in general he’s been keeping his heart locked up tight), he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings, and in any case he just really isn’t in the mood. lyelt is still in the post-battle high and thinks he deserves something besides sleeping on a musty old rug in a dilapidated old cottage so he does not take the rejection well. he eventually gets thancred to say it’s because of urianger, which lyelt really doesn’t take well. lyelt has not ever really cared for urianger - ugly, weird, not important or especially useful. (he doesn’t actually care that much about the WoDs stuff bc he never cared much for minfilia either, but this will come to change once he pulls it into his pile of reasons to hate urianger.) lyelt wasn’t impressed by urianger’s makeover earlier and just thinks she looks awkward and strange (urianger is also not out to anyone besides thancred and ryne, who are the ones she’s been in contact with. the twins catch on pretty fast (due to at least one of them being trans) and start using they/them without saying anything. y’shtola will later directly ask her about it and she will tell her. but other than that she is a very private person and i don’t know if she ever tells lyelt about it - it’s a very tender vulnerable thing, for her, and from a childhood of being bullied she knows to hold all soft personal things close to the heart. not that lyelt would like. use that against her, i don’t want to make transmisogyny a part of his character bc that’s unpleasant, but i just don’t think she’d ever give him the info because she already feels socially threatened by him).

lyelt and thancred get into an argument (see the dialogue in the linked post at the top) (i did try to start writing this scene for ffxivwrite but im lazy, you can see the wip here + here), and while thancred has had [negative sims interaction icon] about lyelt before, this is the first time he’s truly gotten angry with him. lyelt is just pushing all the buttons he can to get back at thancred for the “insult” - thancred’s failures, their past history, and most awfully insults towards urianger - until thancred just storms off because that’s what he does in emotional stress. he goes to urianger and rests his head against her shoulder for a moment. she wordlessly strokes his hair until he straightens up.

as shb continues, lyelt continues negging thancred, being “subtly” rude to urianger (you know the way), and touching him in front of her. she just sort of looks away uncomfortably. she was vaguely aware of them sleeping together in arr (moenbryda told her), and is like… “ah. okay. i should have expected. maybe if i had said anything… done anything… but i’m just a coward. and i’m difficult - i want too much from him. i’m strange.” etc. but she doesn’t say anything. she has no claim over him, anyway. nothing was ever said or done. and with all the things that may be hurtling towards them, maybe it’s for the best. maybe they would have regretted it - if ryne sacrifices herself - when everyone finds out about the secrets she’s keeping for the exarch… it’s for the best. it’s for the best. she closes up. of course thancred would want someone more confident, more attractive, more in-control - less needy, less emotionally desperate, less weird, not someone who has caused so much pain to him. she was foolish for imagining, thinking, hoping… she was living in a bubble that has been popped by the warrior of light. it’s for the best. she can only be herself, and keep on track for the most important thing of all - keeping the exarch’s plan intact. even if everyone hates her, even if everything she wants falls from her hands.

after the attack on lakeland, when they’re making preparations to go to amh araeng, after ryne has told thancred she wants to give him what he wants, when thancred is again at his lowest, he gives in to the pressure (and the rush of pressing on the bruise and splitting it open into a wound, of making the wrong decision, of just giving somebody what they want) and they fall into bed. it kinda sucks. thancred does not finish. lyelt is mad at him because he’s distracted. “are you thinking about urianger?” “no, no, i’m just…” “well focus on what’s happening in front of you instead. i’m right here. i’m here.” after, thancred leaves before lyelt’s asleep. he goes back to his rooms and bathes. of course lyelt left marks. bastard. and then he leaves the washroom and ryne is packing - one small pile of things to take, one big pile of things to leave behind, and of course caving to lyelt didn’t help. everything important to him is crumbling around him despite him, because of him.

amh araeng. miserable crew for a road trip. urianger doesn’t know that they slept together. thancred knows that lyelt would use it against her - or against him. lyelt is mad at thancred for being a disappointing lay, and is mad at urianger and ryne for being the reasons why. lyelt does not really talk to or think about ryne - he’s never cared for children, and he isn’t fond of needy people, and ryne is very needy (due to being a traumatized child.). so i think a lot of the conversations between the wol and ryne don’t happen because he just brushes her off and she’s very intimidated by him, because he’s so confident. he knows exactly what he’s for and what he wants. unlike her. he doesn’t care what other people think about him. he’s the exact opposite of her.

urianger does what she does in canon: urge the wol to go to thancred and be there for him. she’s trying to let go gracefully, quietly. lyelt doesn’t know what to make of it: is she trying to sabotage him? what is she plotting? but he wants to get away from having to deal with ryne, and would rather leave that to urianger. imagine all the scenes where thancred tries to share about his past with minfilia but the wol is either tapping his foot and looking at his watch or trying to feel him up (trying to drive the wedge further, even if he’s still pissed off). eventually thancred pushes him away and heads back to twine on his own, deeply uncomfortable. he feels awful all around, and again he wants to seek out urianger for comfort - but he betrayed her, and he doesn’t know what to do about her, and most of his mind is just a giant tangle about ryne and minfilia and not knowing what to do - so he just avoids her. lyelt gets back and hands the heart over to urianger with a bit of a catty comment that urianger isn’t sure what to do with. thancred sees them talking and is terrified that he told her they slept together.

thancred watches urianger bring the talos to life and feels that same warmth and affection try to swell up within him that he felt so many times in the bookman’s shelves - and then he sees ryne run away and he’s back to feeling like shit. he watches urianger go to her and speak with her and be the guardian she’s always deserved and it’s that love curdling into self-hatred and - and lyelt says something incredibly unhelpful and callous and kind of cruel, and that’s what makes thancred walk away without saying anything in this verse.

urianger bids them farewell, hoping ryne lives. thancred makes his last stand, not sure if he hopes he’ll die - it would make everything so much easier. lyelt gets ryne the rest of the way, but doesn’t go with her into “that white and soundless place.” she emerges herself, her spine straight, and she doesn’t look to lyelt for reassurance. urianger finds thancred out in the desert bleeding out. he says some mostly incoherent but incredibly romantic things to her. she heals him through tears as the other scions arrive and help her, and once he’s stable they haul him to safety. thancred accepts ryne unconditionally and gives her her name. it’s a massive swoop of relief. he starts to think that everything might be okay. maybe he can move past the worst of himself. urianger is full of joy, yet also relief - they’ll be okay without her, when they won’t want her anymore, when she’s revealed for what she is. lyelt is picking at his nails to the side.

back at the crystarium. thancred is trying to talk to urianger, but she keeps making excuses. his mood dampens - she knows. but he keeps trying. if only because she isn’t really talking to anyone right now. y’shtola definitely isn’t talking with her except in hushed, urgent tones. the twins are occupied with saving the world, because they’re good souls. urianger will talk with ryne, though. so thancred ends up sticking pretty close, if only because lyelt comes and tries to find him when he’s alone, but avoids him when he’s with ryne. ryne ends up as a buffer between a lot of the adults in her life. she tries to ask urianger what’s wrong, why she’s so sad, but urianger gently deflects. it’s not her responsibility. which is both true (and something ryne “hypersensitive to adult moods” waters especially needs to hear) and also unhelpful because urianger is deeply miserable.

onward to kholusia. things keep hurtling forward. lyelt is enjoying being the big hero, and thancred is enjoying being a father, but is still very nervous about the whole lyelt mess just lurking in the wings. urianger is walking to her doom (from her perspective). yshtola is keeping a suspicious eye on her. yshtola knows that there’s drama happening but is not especially interested in it. she knows urianger is privy to the exarch’s plan, and she also knows that lyelt is an ass (as ever). y’shtola tries to figure out what’s up with her, but in a very blunt way that does not agree well with urianger’s current emotional state, so they get nowhere.

mt gulg. things come crashing down. when lyelt wakes up back at the crystarium, he seizes upon urianger as the (only available) person to pin all the blame to, and he does it with relish. finally, a way to be justified in how sick he has grown of urianger ruining everything! the villain in his life, and he’s free to be angry! so he says a lot of really horrible, cruel stuff and urianger just takes it. there’s not much she hadn’t already thought herself. and it’s what she deserves. but soon enough y’shtola and thancred come into the room and y’shtola gets between them and argues back (as she has always desperately wished to - everyone is getting to live out their deepest thoughts) and thancred ushers urianger out of the room, but not before lyelt can yell out the secret (“i fucked him, you know! right in this bed! who do you think you are?” etc etc) (i don’t think i’m mean enough to write his lines very easily lmao). thancred winces, lurches, but keeps them moving. y’shtola stays to try and get lyelt’s head on straight (impossible - he storms out). thancred takes urianger to his and ryne’s rooms, and he and ryne do their best to comfort her and to tell her that lyelt was taking it too far and that she is beloved and not to blame, but they don’t really succeed beyond urianger nodding her head and trying to placate them and trying to stop crying, the same as in the other room. thancred does his best to keep his head but eventually he has to make himself leave with the excuse of getting something to eat because he’s so angry at lyelt for his cruelty, and at himself for being a weapon in lyelt’s arsenal against urianger, and for all his past stupid decisions. they don’t talk about the last thing lyelt said. ryne doesn’t know exactly what happened, but this is the moment where her feelings towards lyelt change from intimidation/awe to wariness/dislike.

urianger kneels in apology at the amaro landing. y’shtola tries to stop her. the rest of the scions are deeply uncomfortable. urianger pledges all she can do, and lyelt says something that drives in her guilt and that she owes him for his “forgiveness.” alisaie nearly says something, but they all know he needs to stay in control of himself right now. the sky pulsed and flashed during his outburst at urianger earlier - that’s why y’shtola and thancred came in.

the tempest. everyone does what they must, because interpersonal disputes aside, they have a greater purpose. lyelt mostly just doesn’t want to die and wants this shit out of him. (very little sympathy for emet-selch - finds the whole production boring and tiresome. but that’s not what this summary is about)

they return. thancred and urianger sit down and talk, and they manage to do it like mature adults. during that, thancred apologizes for sleeping with lyelt; urianger says there’s no need, it’s not like they made any promises to each other; “but i had, in my head. i wanted to.” they acknowledge their feelings for each other in relief and gladness. thancred assures urianger that even if he ever saw lyelt as a romantic prospect, he certainly hasn’t for a long time and especially not lately, and “why would i, when such a beautiful, kind, intriguing, intelligent–” “oh, cease such flattery–” “-- gorgeous, patient, strong, incredible woman somehow thinks i’m worth her time?” and in the end, the secrets they had worried over mean very little to each other, and it’s easy enough to fall together as they’ve wanted to for so long, as they thought they might.

eden plays out a bit differently. urianger gets invited along on the initial excursion as a way to get her out of the crystarium and away from lyelt. wol presence is minimal if not nonexistent. waters family light party, at least for the first part. thancred negs urianger way less in this verse - when someone is being genuinely intentionally unkind to someone, teasing becomes much less appealing. (thancred does seem to find it easier to be his better self when there is someone being his worst self nearby: see ran'jit)

lyelt becomes very frosty to both of them once it’s apparent they’ve gotten everything they wanted and are together. “well, whatever. thancred hasn’t been fun for a long time. he betrayed me how many times? and here he is, hanging around the biggest traitor. it’s like everyone’s forgotten what urianger has done. well, i haven’t. and i won’t. it was to me, after all.” lyelt continues to bully urianger, and she never really stands up for herself against him. she still feels guilty, and while she doesn’t believe (most of) what he says, it’s just easier to let it slide off her back and not provoke him further. she remembers how this all works. thancred just does his best to act as a shield between them, and he wishes that moenbryda was here.

but eventually, things return to normal. lyelt vaguely “apologizes” for acting as he did when he was under a lot of stress. and the scions make themselves keep working with the only person who can save this world and their home world.

[dinthoqaf]

For someone who is new to your blog and character, what do you feel is important to know about them? What are some pivotal plot points you would like to share? Preferred RP hooks?

{ Oh, I love this question cause I always feel like w/ Din's comprehensive (and incredibly long) RP History, folks are always left in the dark on some of these things. So, please indulge me in a bit of long-windedness. :D -- For someone who is new to your blog and character, what do you feel is important to know about them?

First and foremost, Dinthoqaf is insane. Not the sort of Insane where you find him giggling and chattering away in the corner, or trying to shank people in the street to call it 'playing' or anything like that. No, Dinthoqaf is insane in the fact that he believes he's on the path to Godhood and that to become one, the world (Azeroth since he's a WoW-based OC) should be remade. The factions of the Horde and Alliance should be effectively destroyed down to their foundations. He views those establishments as complicit in the strife currently going on.

To be fair though, Dinthoqaf's upbringing was one specifically tailored by a (just as insane) Father who purposely treated him terribly, created an atmosphere where Din felt hated and reviled by everyone who was supposed to care for him, and ultimately cursed him via corruption (Specifically Old God) him at birth. Din is sadly, very much a product of his upbringing and instead of healing from it, is leaning into it fully while becoming the 'Father' figure he so desperately needed by leading his Sanctum of the Forbidden (Our Guild) to destroy everything and start it all over again.

-- What are some pivotal plot points you would like to share? Preferred RP hooks?

Oh jeez, these two are a bit tougher cause Din's story has been going on for -12- years. Wish I was exaggerating but I'm not. (I got a 13 yr old kid IRL and that's how I keep track. lol) His story is an amazing one full of twists, turns, bumps, high-rise fires, and slow burns. That being said, I think some of the pivotal plot points might be best done as just a little list but keep in mind, not all of this is IC public info due to the cultish/apocalyptic nature that Din is aiming to bring about. - Childhood/adolescence as a whole was just a bag of shit. Those involved in Elven Nobility may have known his father, Krownos Bloodcrest as an eccentric man who 'died' to the Scourge. - Ended up being found by an Old God Worshipping Troll who only hastened Dinthoqaf's decent into madness and lit a fire of Leadership in him that eventually resulted in the creation of his Sanctum. - Dinthoqaf's Brother, Ammaelin, is now Patriarch of House Bloodcrest (who has officially disowned Dinthoqaf for various reasons), and they are now at War with one another. - Dinthoqaf is married to an equally crazy lady who supports him emphatically ( @zalilirah ). - He was once fighting a 2 front war against his brother and a goblin group (which was ran by another of my OC's, @frostahesmegabite ) which is now laid to rest and that aspect of the story is essentially done with.). - He's been killed before! Usually in very gruesome fashions but the Sanctum or his wife and troll friend find ways to bring him back after extended periods (only aiding in the delusion that he'll become a god). - He's led an attack on Orgrimmar back during the Seige to rescue his wife who'd been captured by Kor'kron when it was discovered she was a Cultist. RP Hooks?! A much shorter list, probably thankfully if you've made it this far. - Wanting to learn dark magics? Din's your guy! - Playing an awful character that's down and out? Din's your guy. - Need a totally fucked up/screwed up Mentor/Father Figure? Din's your guy. (But don't make it weird.) - Character wounded and usual medical/healing spells won't work due to the nature of your character? Ooh, Din has some nice blood healing for you! - Corruption, Decent-like Stories? Hooked! - Din's also the sort to enjoy academics and simple polite conversation while drinking tea. (He won't drink anything anyone else offers though, only what he brings/conjures. He doesn't trust others to not taint or poison it.) What won't hook? - No Romance, No ERP, and I'm not looking for former lovers, family members, Servants, or Slaves. Not interested in any of those aspects. That's cool for other folks, but that's not Din's jam or my own depending on the topic. If it wasn't for Zalilirah, Din wouldn't even have a romantic relationship either. THANK YOU FOR ASKING THESE REALLY GOOD QUESTIONS AND I'M SO SORRY THIS WAS SO LONG-WINDED! D: )

[writingonleaves]

things you never said (things you'll never say to me) - nico hischier

pairing: nico hischier x original female character

warnings: swearing, sadness, angst, not my traditional fluff folks, very little dialogue, kinda a ramble disguised into a piece lol, google translated german, projection?? is that a valid warning

inspired by + title: "things i wish you said" by sabrina carpenter

word count: 2.8k

author's note: got into my feels randomly for this (incredible) song and decided to write something with it. also a part of @wyattjohnston 's lowkey loverfest 2k24!! hope you all enjoy this melancholy ride and please let me know what you think <3

*****

Nico Hischier has always been a leader. 

You ask anyone in Naters or Bern who knew him growing up and they would say the same thing — he’s a polite, young boy with so much talent and a sensible mind. He may be the youngest of three, but everyone’s always turned to Nico for guidance. With a calming voice paired with a warm smile, it’s rare for Nico to steer anyone wrong. 

And he sees it in himself too. Even when he was a rookie, when the C stitched into his jersey was only a blurred dream, he still felt like he had to lead by example. No one was expecting that of him, he knows that now, but he was a first overall pick, the weight of a losing team’s hopes on his shoulders. If he crumbled, those supporters’ hopes fell with him. His own hope would fall with him. 

It took a few years, a pandemic, another first overall pick, a shit ton of roster changes, a new coach and other things to walk into a locker room that wasn’t used to losing. And Nico prides himself as being a leader in that transition. C on his jersey or not, he would’ve done it. Because he doesn’t know how not to.

Leanna always said he didn’t know how to turn it off. 

When Nico had first met Leanna Spritz, it honestly was one of the worst first impressions he’s ever given. It was the morning after a brutal 6-1 loss against the fucking Flyers. The final score itself was bad, but the fact that it was against the Flyers rubbed more salt into the wound. He knew Lindy was gonna bag skate them all to hell and back the morning after and he just really wanted his cappuccino before to take away some of the bitterness. 

All up in his head, he had crashed literally into Leanna. Before they both could comprehend, her cold brew had spilled. Somehow, Nico got away with an unnoticeable splash on his hoodie and no spillage from his own drink. But Leanna wasn’t so lucky. Her brown sweater wasn’t dark enough to hide the fact that half of her cold brew was on it while the other spilled to the ground. 

“Fuck,” Nico had exclaimed, eyes widening and darting between her now coffee stained sweater, the empty cup on the ground and her red hair that only glistened with the sun rays. “Shit! I am so sorry. That’s totally my fault.”

Leanna had waved him away with a small chuckle as she dug into her purse for stray napkins. Far too nice for someone who now had coffee all over them because of him. “It’s okay. Mistakes happen.”

Nico looked at his watch and grimaced. Shit. He was going to be late to practice. And that would be even worse than usual with their horrible performance the night before. “Listen. I really want to buy you a coffee to make up for my clumsiness, but I’m gonna be late to work and-”

Leanna had nodded in understanding, lips quirked up. “Don’t worry about it. Promise. Go. Don’t be late for work.”

He had been so frazzled that all he remembered doing was blurting out another apology before practically running away, partially from embarrassment but also because he really did have to go. 

A week later, Nico went back to the coffee shop. In the back of his mind was the redhead who he still owed a coffee to. But Nico’s also realistic and he knew he’d probably never see her again. 

While he was patiently waiting in the long line, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He braced himself to interact with a fan, but turned around and was pleasantly surprised by who he did see. 

“I thought that was you,” she had said, pink beanie over her hair and a twinkle in her eye. “Not going to spill coffee again on me, are you? I’m wearing white today.”

Nico swallowed before his brain turned back on and he grinned. “Good eye. And no. I promise I’ll be less clumsy today. And I’m less in a rush.” They were next in line to order and he ordered first before turning to her. She had tried to deny him but he just raised an eyebrow until she gave the barista her order. 

“I’m really sorry again,” Nico said as they had shuffled out of line to wait for their drinks. “I hope the sweater didn’t stain.”

Leanna waved him off with her bright smile. “That sweater has been through too much for some coffee to ruin it. You don’t need to worry, Captain.”

Nico had been shocked that she knew who he was, which, in hindsight, is dumb. He’s not Jack, but he gets recognized a good amount around New Jersey still.

He cleared his throat. “Nico is fine.”

She smiled. “Okay, Nico. Well, I’m Leanna. Thank you for paying for my coffee. You didn’t have to, by the way, especially to clear your conscience.”

“That’s not why-well, it is. But I also, uh, are you in a rush?”

Nico remembers that day so well still, his English failing him despite living in North America for over five years as he basically asked Leanna on their first date right there and then. He remembers being thankful that she took some pity on him with her sweet smile and led them to a table. He probably would’ve stood there stuttering like a fool if she didn’t cut in.

“Nico?”

Nico blinks himself out of his memories as Jack walks into his living room. Sometimes he questions if he should’ve given Jack a key. 

“Hey. What’s up?”

“We have skate,” Jack gives him a look. “Dude, take a shower. Quickly. Or we’ll be late.”

“Right,” Nico says, stumbling over to the shower. As the water’s warming up, his eyes stop at a purple bottle tucked in the corner of the sink. Hair oil. Leanna always joked that she couldn’t live without it. His hands twitch to reach for the bottle just so he can smell the grapefruit scent, but he forces himself into the shower instead. 

He can hear Nina’s voice so clearly. Throw it away, she’d say in their mother-tongue that realistically Nico will never not be fluent in but sometimes is scared will slip away. Nina liked Leanna a lot, actually, the one time they met when she came to Jersey to visit last year. But Nina is also Nico’s sister, and cursed her name many times when Nico called her crying, waking her up in the middle of the night. She had stayed on the phone with him for three hours, letting him cry.

He forces himself to take a shower. To wake up a bit and shift his focus to the upcoming skate and game tonight. They’re playing the Rangers, which is just always a grind. He needs to be all in.

Nico keeps to himself while getting ready for practice, putting on his gear quietly while his teammates chatter about something or another around him. He speaks quickly to the equipment team about his skates and smiles in thanks. He catches a whiff of the perfume of their head of PR as she walks past in the hallway, and Nico swallows. 

Realistically, he knows it’s not the same one. But it’s floral and smells like jasmine, so it might as well be. 

As he’s driving home, he has the radio down low. He was never the one to fuss about putting his music on in the car. Because the world just works like that, a song that he doesn’t know the title to comes on. He hums along, because Leanna always played this song.

Instinctively, his fingers twitch to reach out to someone who won’t ever be in his passenger seat ever again. He can hear her voice, her thigh under his palm. It’s not safe to drive with one hand, she’d say with an amused laugh interlaced in her voice. He would always roll his eyes before giving her thigh a squeeze and keeping his hand there for the majority of their journey. 

He remembers that sentence bringing him comfort when they were driving to her sister’s house in upstate New York. He was scared shitless to meet her whole family for the first time to celebrate her cousin’s birthday. It was below freezing point outside, but his hands were so clammy that one would’ve thought it was summer. 

Leanna had put her hand in his hair at the nape of his neck. He had immediately calmed down. 

He swears if he focuses hard enough he can still smell the green tea shampoo Leanna used. It was always interesting to him, because the first thing he would think of when he saw her flaming red hair wasn’t green tea. It deserved something more bold attached to it. Like orange. Or vanilla. Or coconut.

Because Leanna was exactly that. Bold. Bright. Crashing into the lives of everyone in her path with her bright smile, loud laughter and a personality that sucked you in. 

Nico stops at a red light and absentmindedly looks to the right. His breath catches at the sight of a woman walking a beagle. Leanna always said that once she was more settled down, a beagle was the kind of dog she wanted to get, just like the dog she had by her side throughout her whole childhood. 

At one point, Nico had thought she meant settling down in Jersey. Never did she give the indication while they were together that she had meant London. 

He couldn’t force himself to unfollow Leanna on Instagram after the break-up. He catches himself way too often seeing if she still follows him. She does. And she even likes his posts most of the time. He checks.

Nico shouldn’t be surprised. Even though she cried so much when they broke up and he couldn’t handle it, through tears, she wished him nothing but the best. Even as she was actively breaking his heart.

As he pulls into the parking garage for his apartment complex, he kills the engine and just sits there. He should be focusing on the game tonight. Focusing on how they need to stop taking stupid penalties. Focusing on their positioning in the offensive zone. 

You think too much, honey. Leanna would say, kissing his forehead twice, something she started doing to calm him down. You just need to play hockey. Least that’s what you always tell me. Everything else will follow. 

And he would never admit it out loud — especially to Jonas — but he still repeats those words in his head. He’s not sure if it works, but it’s like a mantra. A routine. And hockey players know more than anyone how important routines are and how difficult they are to change. 

It’s been two months and three days. It’s annoying that Nico can still hear her voice in his head, clear as day. He hopes one day he’lll never be able to remember. But he also dreads the day that he’ll forget what she sounds like. 

He walks up into his apartment and pours out a glass of water, downing it in one go. The sun’s out for the first time in two weeks, and a small smile spills on his lips as he admires the sunlight through his glass windows. His eyes shift to a spot on one of the tables by the window on the right, where it seems like something is shining. His curiosity takes over and he walks over, a reminder popping into his brain that he needs to dust his apartment. Why does dust accumulate so quickly anyways? 

His stomach drops. One of her combs placed nonchalantly behind one of his plants. The shine is coming from the light hitting the red hair caught between the bristles. 

What the fuck?

Nico closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before hastily grabbing the comb and tossing it into the trash. She never officially moved in with him, but she was around the apartment enough to leave some things lying around here and there. He thought he had thrown everything out. Or more accurately, he trusted Jesper, Timo and Jack to do it for him during a particularly bad Saturday afternoon two weeks after everything fell to shit. 

He checks the time and sighs. He needs to nap or else everything will be thrown off. Checking his phone to make sure no one needs him, he plugs it in to charge by his bedside, ignoring a text from Nina he’ll answer when he wakes up.

It’s a text she sends a few times a week when she senses that her younger brother’s having a harder day. From almost 4,000 miles, she still knows. Nico’s always loved his sister, but he’s never felt more grateful to have her as he has in these last few months. 

eins zu zehn?? ❤️

One to ten, it translates to. On a scale of one to ten, how shitty or good are you feeling about it today? 

Nico sighs, responds back with a 6, and wills his mind to rest. 

Somehow, he wakes up decently well rested to his alarm. He stays in bed a few extra minutes, getting his mindset ready for gametime. He chooses to wear the gray three piece suit tonight. One of his more fancier fits. It is the Rangers, after all. 

It was Leanna’s favorite suit of his. She always joked he “ruined the look” when he slapped on his beloved white beanie. I love your hair. I wish you’d show it off more, she’d say.

He digs out the beanie from his clean laundry. 

He always leaves an hour or so to himself before he has to go to the rink. He usually spends it tidying up or doing things around his place to clear his head so he can come back after the game and just crash. 

Today, he replays the breakup in his mind. Or what he remembers of it, since he blocked a lot of it out. 

When you picture your future, do you see me in it at all? He had choked out, holding Leanna’s hands in his for what was the last time. 

It hadn’t helped that she had also been crying as she said her next words. Neeks, baby. It’s not you, it’s me. And I hate that I’m pulling that out, but it’s true. Maybe this isn’t the right time for us. 

Why can’t it be? Nico had said. Why can’t we make it work?

Maybe in the future, if things are different. She had said, biting her trembling lip. But even then, Nico knew they were empty promises. She’s too stubborn of a person to not bend the world her way. She just doesn’t want Nico to be a part of that world.

It’s not fair, he knows that realistically, but oftentimes he wonders if she ever loved him at all. That thought especially rode his mind after he saw her post a story on Instagram earlier last week. It was clearly a soft launch, with her hand in the hand of some faceless guy over dinner. Nico ended up scoring two goals that night out of sheer adrenaline and anger. 

Because all he’s ever wanted was for Leanna Spritz to be happy. Even now. Even after all of this. Even if it’s not with him. 

But fuck, she’s clearly moving on. Why can’t he?

He blinks, collapsing on his couch in the living room and staring at the wall. The last time he heard from her was a month ago, when he had gone down after a rough hit during a game against Minnesota. He ended up only being out for the next two games, but the hit hadn’t been pretty. His chest had taken the brunt of the damage. Everyone, including him, had been relieved that it wasn't more serious.

While he was getting checked out by the trainers the next morning, his phone had buzzed and he almost threw up. 

Leanna Spritz✨

I saw the hit last night. Hope you’re okay. Listen to the trainers. 

Nico was angry. What right did she have to text him that? 

But then, he just felt sad. That bottomless pit in his stomach opened up. He felt nothing but emptiness. 

His phone buzzes, this time with a text from Timo, and Nico takes a deep breath. It’s game time. No more crying over his ex-girlfriend. 

As he’s sliding on his beanie in the bathroom, he catches sight of the hair oil again. He picks it up, smells it, before throwing it in the trash. It lands on the bottom of the can with a final thud. He clicks all the lights off, makes sure he has everything he needs, grabs his key off the hook and shuts the door. 

Two hours later, everyone’s getting hyped up. He gives a mini impromptu speech, Jack slaps his back way too hard and Nico smiles, dimples and all.

He takes a deep breath before his blades touch the ice.