#sorry for writing half an essay in the tags lol need to get myself together

[ahonice]

Paper Rings

Paper Rings 

Mark Estapa x Fem Reader

Word Count: 5.3k

Warnings: cursing, underage drinking, smoking weed, some sexual jokes, fluff (Who am I??? A fic that is only fluff, someone check on me) 

Note: this is my second installment of fics based off of my favorite Taylor Swift songs, paper rings is next because I am a lover girl just as much as I am a speak now girl <3. Enjoy, leave feedback (if my writing sucks tell me I need to know lol) Have a great day babes!!

*italics are song lyrics* (I recommend you listen to the song while reading)

***

“The moon is high, like your friends were the night that we first met. Went home and tried to stalk you on the internet, now I’ve read all of the books beside your bed.”

Like every other Saturday night since I started college I found myself with a twisted tea in one hand and a blunt in another. The only difference tonight had with the one that occurred one hundred and sixty eight hours ago was the scenery, rather than getting crossed in the safety of my friend's backyard I found myself in a lawn chair in a backyard that belonged to my roommate's new boyfriend’s friends. 

The conversation was hard to follow. I quickly found out that the drinks and weed I was consuming were being provided by hockey players, making me a little on edge because as much as I don’t wanna be that person, I have no idea where they got this weed. I used the guy who sat next to me as my guinea pig, like how in the olden days where royalty would have someone try all their food and drinks to test for poison, he hit everything before I did. 

Soon enough it was time to leave. I bid the boys a half hearted farewell, as I had only spoken to two of them, Johnny, my roommate's friend, and the boy who I sat next to who’s name I never learned. 

“Hannah how the hell are we getting back to the dorms?” Johnny had driven us there, but he also participated in the activities of the night leaving him unable to drive us all back to campus. 

“Good question. Johnny, is anyone not impaired here?” Thank god one of the seniors didn’t smoke or drink because he was kind enough to drive us back to campus.

During the car ride I sat in the passenger seat, as Hannah and Johnny wanted to sit in the back together and I wanted no part in that. Looking at the two in the back I saw how distracted they were with each other. I decided to ask the question I had been wanting the answer to all night.

“Hey, sorry if this is an odd question, but who was the guy I was sitting next to all night? Tall, blonde?” I asked a guy who’s name I didn’t know the name of a guy who’s name I didn’t know. I really need to start introducing myself to others. 

“Oh your taste tester? That’s Mark Estapa, and I’m Eric by the way. I know you never got my name either.” I smiled at his answer, typing Mark’s name in my phone before looking back up at Eric to inform him of my name. 

“I’ll be sure to tell him your name when he asks me tonight.”

***

Once I was in the comfort of my own dorm room I pulled out my phone to look Mark up on instagram. Quickly finding his account I spent more time then I had meant scrolling through his posts, his tagged posts, and a little bit of his following just to see what was up. An internal battle was occurring in my head as I tried to figure out if I should follow Mark or not.

“Hey Hannah, do you think I should–”

“Yes you should follow him.”

“The wine is cold like the shoulder that I gave you in the street, cat and mouse for a month or two or three. Now I wake up in the night and watch you breathe.”

It wasn’t on purpose, I was too distracted by the essay revisions my professor has just given me to see Mark waving at me. 

“Ouch dude that was brutal, didn’t you say she followed you on instagram. Isn’t that like a sign that she is interested?” Ethan said, giving his buddy a pity slap on the back.

“Just because she followed him first doesn’t mean she likes him, she could’ve just wanted to follow him. Stop being so delusional Edwards” Mackie said, “Also, that was tough to watch. Sorry Mark.” He added, commenting on the way I had completely ignored him. 

***

That Saturday Hannah and Johnny had somehow convinced, well more like threatened, me to come to the party the hockey team was throwing to celebrate their season starting earlier that day. 

Entering the house Johnny and Hannah immediately ditched me to go somewhere more private, much to my distaste I begged them to get a room while they were making out on the walk here, regretting that request because they were now doing just that. 

“Need a drink?” A voice came from behind me, I turned around to see Mark smiling at me with a twisted tea in his hand. “Saw that you were drinking a twea last time you were over so…” He trailed off as I reached to grab the can.

“Thank you Mark.” I smiled at him, his expression mirroring mine.

“You wanna smoke?” 

“Kiss me once ‘cause you know I had a long night. Kiss me twice ‘cause it’s gonna be alright. Three times ‘cause I waited my whole life.”

That same scene happened over and over again. The hockey team would host a party, I would attend and find Mark, more often than not he would find me, and we would go smoke. 

I was starting to get annoyed with how slow things were progressing between us. I followed him on instagram, the ball was in his court now and it had been for nearly a month now. Surprisingly enough over the past month I became close with Eric, the guy who drove me home the night I first met Mark. 

Tonight when I arrived at the party I made a beeline for the couch that Eric was sitting on, ignoring Mark’s wave again. 

“I need to talk to you.”

“I’m trying to enjoy my time here Y/n, go bother Mark.”

“Cicc this is about Mark.” 

Nodding silently, Eric stood up and allowed me to lead the way. Bad idea considering I had no idea where I was, this was a new house that I hadn’t been to before.

“Eric, I don't know where I’m going.” 

“Oh shit yeah, sorry.” He said laughing. “Give me like a minute I’m gonna go see if anyone is in my room.” I nodded, making a mental note that this is where Eric lived so I could bother him in the future when he would ignore my texts, which he did all the time. 

“Hey Y/n.” Mark said from behind me. I turned around giving him a quick greeting before recognizing the drink in his hand.

“For me?” 

“Always is.” He smiled, handing me the drink. “Look listen I was wondering, if you don’t wanna do this it’s fine, but I was wondering if you wanted to–”

“Y/n some couple is going at it in my room, but I think Moyle’s room is open.” Eric said coming down the steps, interrupting Mark. “By some couple I mean Hannah and Johnny, we gotta put a muzzle on them or something.”

“It’ll do. Mark, we can smoke later, once I’m done dealing with that idiot.” I said motioning towards Eric who made a face of shock before laughing. “I’ll find you, okay?” Mark nodded, I noticed the way he looked a little defeated but I decided to ignore it and blame it on the lighting.

***

“So we’ve been hanging out together at parties and talking constantly during the day, but he won’t ask me out. Is he not interested in me? He won’t even ask me to just plain hang out as friends outside of parties.” I rambled to Eric once we made it to Nolan’s room. 

“Wait what was he saying before I interrupted him?”

“He was just asking me to go smoke.” I said before realizing Mark was probably not asking me to smoke because he always just says “wanna smoke”.

“You idiot Eric.” I yelled.

“What did I do?”

“You interrupted him while he was asking me out, and then made it seem like we were going upstairs to do stuff.” I said, reaching over to smack him on the back of his head.

“Oh shit, yeah that probably doesn’t look too good in his mind.” 

“I’m leaving, goodbye, I’ll find you when I want to go home.”

“Why do I always have to take you home?” Eric asked, but I was already out the door. “Good luck Y/n.”

***

It took a little bit, but I finally found Mark sitting outside in one of the chairs placed around a firepit. Making my way up to him I saw that he had already smoked most of his blunt.

“Started without me?” I asked, laughing at the way he jumped in surprise.

“You snooze you loose.” Mark said, chuckling, but I could tell it was fake. I sat down in the chair next to him before speaking.

“Is everything okay? You seem a bit off.” I asked, a little afraid of how he might react to my question. We hadn’t been friends for very long, if we were even considered that.

“Yeah, I’m great.” He said, smiling for some reassurance, I don’t know if it was for me or for him. “What’s going on with you and Eric?” I had a feeling the question was coming, but it still took me by surprise.

“Nothing, we’re just friends. We’ve gotten really close over the past month, in a strictly friends way. Just friends…” I trailed off, hoping Mark would get that I’m being so adamant on us being friends and friends only. When Mark only nodded in response I let out a sigh. “Earlier, before when you were asking me about something…what was it that you were asking?” 

“Oh just to see if you wanted to smoke.” That was a lie.

“That’s a lie, what were you really gonna ask me?” I pressed on the subject because I hated when something was being kept from me, secrets, lies, anything being hidden from me.

“I wanted to see if you wanted to hang out with me, outside of a party and not just smoke weed, but I get it if you don’t, or if you’re too busy–”

“I’d love to.”

“I like shiny things, but I’d marry you with paper rings. Darling, you’re the one I want. I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this. Darling, you’re the one I want.”

The night was going great, it wasn’t a date Mark hadn’t asked me on a date, he asked me to hang out. We went to a diner for food, it was a cute mom and pop shop. While we sat waiting for our food, the waitress brought over our milkshakes. 

“Give me your hand.” Mark told me after the waitress had walked away. Skeptically I reached over and gave him my right hand. “No the left one.” I switched hands, looking at him even more confused now.

He works silently, wrapping my left ring finger in the paper wrapping of the straw he put into his milkshake moments ago. I smiled once I realized what he was doing, making me a paper ring. I quickly took a picture of my hand with Mark smiling in the background and sent it to Eric.

To: Eric🥱

*image*

He is already buying me jewelry 🥰

From: Eric🥱

Thought this wasn’t a date?

From: Eric🥱

I better be giving you away at y’alls wedding.

To: Eric🥱

You’re gonna be my flower girl Cicc 

To: Eric🥱

ALSO it’s not a date asshat🙄

I put my phone down as our waitress brought our food over, immediately diving into both the food and a conversation with Mark.

“In the winter, in the icy outdoor pool. When you jumped in first, I went in too. I’m with you even if it makes me blue.”

“This is a bad idea.” It was. Mark found out, much to my dismay, that I didn’t know how to ice skate, in return making it his mission to teach me. 

“No it’s not, I promise this is safe.” Mark reassured me, well attempted to.

After finding out that our hometowns were just a few miles apart we spent a lot of winter break together. For Christmas he got me ice skates, and a personalized bong but I couldn’t open that in front of my parents, who were spying on our gift exchange earlier that week.

“Mark I can’t accept these, they’re way too much money.” I felt bad, I had gotten him some lulu shorts, which were heavily discounted thanks to me working there, and his favorite munchie snacks. 

“Y/n please, I need to teach you how to skate and how can I do that if you don’t have any skates. Think of this as an investment, I’ll be getting my money back in no time.” By money back he meant that he would be rewarded with spending time with me, teaching me how to do something he loves. 

“This is a frozen pond, no way I’m going on this, it is not safe. Have you ever seen The Good Son.” I was not going onto the ice, I had a fear of drowning ever since I watched the movie when I was a little girl.

“No I have not seen that, but I promise it’s ok. Look they marked that the ice is thick enough and it’s cold enough out to be on here, we just have to avoid that small patch in the middle.”

“If I drown you’re going to jail for my murder.” Mark laughed at my joke, that wasn’t completely a joke. I had some truth behind my words.

Eventually I allowed Mark to lead me to the small bench so he could help me get my skates on, I took a quick picture as he put my foot between his thighs to tighten the laces. I smiled down at the picture as I sent it to Eric.

To: Eric🥱

*image*

He got me skates…

From: Eric🥱

He got you nice ass skates*

From: Eric🥱

Photo is cute, Mark looks extremely happy for someone who has a blade to their crotch.

To: Eric🥱

I hate you. 

“You ready?” Mark brought my attention back to him and I smiled nodding.

“You better not let me fall Estapa.” I said, pushing his chest lightly with my finger. He laughed in response and promised me he would never.

***

“Can I hold just one hand now?” Mark asked me. 

We had now been on the ice for about fifteen minutes, the whole time he skated backwards, holding both my hands, and I wasn’t really skated, I was more being pulled along, I don’t think I picked either of my feet up once the whole time.

“Yeah sure, just don’t go too fast.” He nodded and shifted over to the left side of me, holding just my left hand. I decided that I would start moving my feet rather than just being dragged. 

“Don’t look down at your feet, you’ll mess yourself up.” Mark gave me the piece of advice after noticing my eyes were trained on the ice below me. 

Soon another fifteen minutes went by before I decided to try skating without him holding me steady.. 

“Let go of my hand, I wanna try it on my own” I said with the most confidence I could muster up.

“Are you sure?” Mark asked, raising his eyebrows at me.

“Yes, keep skating next to me, just don’t hold onto me anymore.” He nodded at my request and let my hand go.

I definitely stopped skating as fast, but I was still doing it on my own. 

“Think you’re ready for me to give you some space?” Mark asked, I nodded quickly before I realized what that meant. My safety net would no longer be there in case I fell. I hadn’t been close to falling yet, the whole time I was out there was going very smoothly, but before I could take back my nod Mark had already sped up and went to the other side of the pond.

“Skate towards me.” He told me, after planting himself about thirty feet away from me. I managed to gain as much courage as possible and started skating towards him. The skating itself went well but there was one thing that Mark hadn’t taught me yet.

“Mark, I don't know how to slow down, or stop.” I yelled. It felt like I was going forty over the speed limit, in reality I was probably going five miles an hour. 

“Just shift your body to the left, turn your feet.” Mark yelled at me but it was too late, I closed my eyes and I came flying and ran into him, somehow knocking his body to the ground, me quickly following after.

After opening my eyes I saw Mark staring back at me with a smile on his face, he was laughing at me and I joined in. Once the giggles settled down it was like a staring contest, neither of us wanted to break, or maybe knew how. 

“Can I kiss you?” It was insanely cliche, I wanted to roll my eyes at the thought of how predictable this was, but I still nodded my head at Mark’s question and smiled as he leaned in.

“Which takes me back to the color that we painted your brother’s wall. Honey without all the exes, fights, and flaws, we wouldn’t be standing here so tall.”

It was our first fight. Mark began getting upset with how much time I was spending with Eric about three months into our relationship.

“I am your boyfriend, not him.”

“You don’t think I’m aware of that? Eric and I have been friends for quite some time now, why are you getting upset?” I didn’t understand why Mark was so angry, it wasn’t like I was flirting with Eric, or even ditching Mark to hangout with him, or doing anything that would cause Mark to be skeptical over me and Eric’s friendship.

“Y/n, you’re not viewing this from my perspective. You constantly talk to Eric, you text him while we’re on dates or just hanging out, you facetime or call him a couple times a week, you hang out with him just you two multiple times a week, he takes you home from parties and kickbacks, and you have never been to one of our hockey games but you said that when you did that you would be wearing one of Eric’s jerseys.” Mark’s words began speeding up as more and more spilled from his mouth.

He had a point though. I did text Eric during our dates, always pictures I took of Mark doing whatever I found endearing and asking for advice on how I’m supposed to function properly around this boy who makes me feel so many things. I had weekly phone calls with Eric, sometimes text messages weren’t enough and I needed to rant about how much I liked Mark verbally. We hang out a lot, we get lunch together every Tuesday and Thursday because we have the same break in classes on those days. He takes me home from parties, he was always the designated sober, Mark couldn’t take me home if he wanted to because we always got crossed together. I said I would wear one of Eric’s jerseys before me and Mark started dating, obviously now I would wear Mark’s jersey.

So that’s what I told him. I said those exact words to Mark, maybe a few differences here and there but still the same points being made. We discussed everything more, I had to reassure Mark that there truly was nothing going on between me and Eric, and that there never had been in the past, a couple of times but I didn’t mind. I wanted Mark to know how I truly felt about him, even if we had only known each other for a little over two months.

“Alright, can I see those photos you’ve been taking of me?”

“Kiss you once ‘cause I know you had a long night. Kiss you twice ‘cause it’s gonna be alright. Three times ‘cause you waited your whole life.”

That next weekend I found myself sitting in the stands of Yost with Hannah on my side, I was wearing one of Mark’s jerseys and Hannah was wearing one of Johnny’s. I made a mental note to get coffee with her soon so we could properly dish about our love lives and other things we can’t do around our boyfriends.

Michigan won their game, but it wasn’t a pretty win. Mark had gotten two penalties and it was a win in overtime. While waiting outside the backdoors with Hannah we noticed some of the guys trickling out, all smiling at us, some greeting us with words and asking us how we’re doing. It wasn’t until Johnny walked out that Hannah left me on my own. I was a little confused on what was taking Mark so long, had he walked past me and I didn’t even realize? I drove myself here so it wasn’t like I was waiting for him to drive me back or anything, he never explicitly asked me to meet him after the game. My thoughts were cut short by the sound of the door opening, the person walking out making me smile as I walked up towards them.

“Where is Mark? Did he leave already?” I asked Eric as I finally stood in front of him.

“Hello to you too Y/n.” I gave a fake laugh, urging Eric to tell me where the hell my boyfriend was. “He is still inside, should be coming out soon though. Want me to wait with you?”

I smiled at his offer, but declined it, telling him I would text him when I got back to my dorm for the night. There was definitely going to be a party thrown to celebrate the win tonight, but I didn’t feel like going and I was hoping Mark felt the same way.

After giving Eric a hug goodbye I waited about five more minutes before the familiar face of my boyfriend began to approach me.

“Hey babe, sorry for taking so long. Tough game, I’m really glad you were able to make it. Did you have fun?” He asked, wrapping his arms around me. The last question was slightly muffled due to his head being nuzzled into my neck. I didn’t answer though, well not immediately. I pulled away from his embrace and leaned up to kiss him, a sigh of relief fell from his mouth as he reciprocated the kiss. It wasn’t a heated make out, nothing scandalous, just an intimate and slow kiss that expressed the feelings we felt for each other. As I pulled away to catch my breath, which Mark quietly whined about, I informed him that I had a lot of fun and that I will definitely be attending more games of his in the future. Mark smiled at that and I couldn’t help but kiss him again, and once more when we made it to my car. 

“What’s with all the kisses? Not that I’m complaining.” He asked once I handed him my keys so that he could drive.

“I don’t know, I just feel like kissing you right now.” My answer was the truth, as embarrassing as it felt to say it.

“Well then let’s skip the actual party and bring ours back to your place?” I giggled at what Mark was implying, but nodded nonetheless.

“Hannah is gonna be with Johnny at the party for a couple hours.”

“Let’s go.”

“I like shiny things, but I’d marry you with paper rings. Darling, you’re the one I want. And I hate accidents, except when we went from friends to this. Darling, you’re the one I want.”

“Mark, I told you that you didn’t have to get me anything for my birthday.”

“I know, but I wanted to. Now open it.” I glared at his attitude before going to open the small box. 

“Oh Mark, this is beautiful.” It was a ring, silver, but it looked like an origami heart. Lately Mark had been getting more creative with the rings he would make at restaurants, drawing hearts or writing cute little notes, about a month ago he began attempting to fold the straw wrappers into shapes. None of them ever turned out the way he wanted them too, so now he got me one that was perfect, even if he didn’t make it. “I love it.” I love you. “You’re really stepping up your ring game lately Estapa.”

“Just wait until I propose.” 

“I want to drive away with you, I want your complications, I want your dreary Mondays, wrap your arms around me baby boy.”

“Let’s just run away together.” 

“Mark, what? No.”

Things have been pretty stressful lately. My classes were whooping my ass, Mark was feeling a lot of stress while approaching the frozen four tournament. 

“I can’t handle the pressure of this. What if we get bumped out in the semifinals again, I want to win so badly Y/n.”

“Mark, all that matters is that you do your best. It’s a team effort, you can’t put all the weight on yourself. It’s okay to feel a little worried, but you can’t let it get to you, that will only affect your game and then your fears will come true.” I told him, reaching over to grab his hand from across the table we sat at and giving him a small, but reassuring, smile. 

“I love you.” 

I froze, I didn’t know what to do. I loved Mark, I knew I did and I had known for quite some time, but hearing those words come out of his mouth, to hear that the boy I love so much loves me as well was too much for me to handle. I wanted to yell, to scream out that I loved him too, but for some reason on this damn Monday afternoon I couldn’t speak. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I hadn’t realized how long I was silent until I fully looked at Mark, sitting there the most vulnerable I had seen anyone, and crying. Shit he was crying.

“Mark I–”

“No I get it, if you don’t love me back. That’s ok, we haven’t been together for that long.” A lie, we had been together for over a year. “-I’m sorry for saying that.”

“Mark, don't apologize for saying what you’re feeling.” Why the hell could I not tell him I loved him, it’s just three words, but they just couldn’t find their way out of my mouth. His crying increased, he was almost full on sobbing right now, it broke my heart.

“Please don’t cry baby.” I reached out for him, but he winced away. “I love you too.” 

“Don’t just say that, don’t lie to make me feel better.”

“I’m not lying to you, I love you. I have for a long time, since you got me my ring.” I sighed, reaching out for him once again, praying he wouldn’t shy away from me again, he didn’t. “Mark, I quite literally froze when you told me you loved me. To hear that you love me back, Mark, it makes me so happy. I’m sorry I didn’t say it back fast enough, I can’t imagine how you were feeling.” Mark smiled at my words, I could see the tension releasing from his shoulders.

“Say it again.”

“I love you, Mark.”

“I love you too, Y/n”

We both broke out into a fit of giggles, Mark made his way around the table and wrapped his arms around me.

“I like shiny things, but I’d marry you with paper rings. That’s right, you’re the one I want. I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this. Darling, you’re the one I want.”

Me and Mark were out celebrating my college graduation, he flew in from Vegas to watch me accept my diploma. The past year we had gone long distance, I went to Vegas for his NHL debut and we were both home for the holidays, but other than that our relationship took place through a screen. It wasn’t ideal, but we got through it. 

“Mark, can you order for me? Just my usual, I need to use the restroom.” Unsurprisingly we went to our favorite diner, the one we frequented a lot when both of us were living in Ann Arbor.

I came back to the table to see that our waitress had brought over the milkshakes we ordered. The scene was very similar, but one thing was different.

“No ring today Estapa? Are you trying to let me down gently?” I joked, a little confused seeing that the wrappers from the straws that sat in our drinks were crumpled up together 

“I thought you might like a ring made out of a different material.” Mark stated before moving out of his booth seat and shifting onto one knee. The confusion in my face faded once I realized what he was doing. Oh my god.

“Oh my god.”

“Y/n, I thank god everyday that you didn’t trust Nolan’s weed enough to smoke it without having a taste tester. I love you so much, I love everything about you, I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life with anybody but you.” Tears began to fill my eyes, I could see them filling Mark’s too. “Y/n, will you marry me?” I knew it was coming, but I still gasped. The ring was beautiful, an exact replica of the ring I designed for fun two years ago, telling Mark to take a mental picture of it for the future, I guess he actually did it.

“YES!”

“Paper rings, in picture frames, in all my dreams, you’re the one I want.”

“I can’t believe you kept all of these.”

Our wedding had just ended, I was officially married to Mark, Y/n Estapa. It was a beautiful ceremony, the reception lasted almost six hours. If asked what was my favorite part of my wedding, other than officially becoming Mark’s wife, it was the picture frames placed all around the venue with pictures of me, or Mark, or me and Mark, and along with it was a paper ring, dated from that same day the picture was taken. 

“You kept every single ring you made me?”

“I’m a little offended that you never kept them, but it made my surprise all the more better.” 

“I have a surprise for you too, but you can’t see it until we get to the room, which we can’t go to until everyone has left…”

“EVERYBODY OUT, THANK YOU FOR COMING, LEAVE NOW PLEASE!”

“You’re the one I want.”

***

Note: Not proofread, because that's for losers. My brother graduated college today and I wrote this while sitting through that long ass ceremony so idk if this is good or not, tell me if it sucks tell me if you love it idc just any type of feedback is greatly appreciated. Also ik that Mark isn’t drafted (I don’t think he is, if he is then whoops) but I used Vegas because of that instagram post. Love y’all, have a great day. 

[zirkkun]

Yo you have every right to be upset about things! You're still a person with your own feelings and deserve to be treated kindly. No one should come at you for making things you enjoy or for misunderstandings. I hope things get better for you even if I wasn't here for when all the drama happened (or maybe I was and just wasn't aware of it? I tend to avoid drama as much as possible tbh)

I didn't really post about it much. I think I answered about 4 asks about it (three of them in the same post because i was sure it was the same anon due to the similar string of seemingly continued messages) and the rest I just deleted as soon as they came in, but I got... A lot. A lot of mean things said too. Kinda hurts when you wanted to make something because you knew this work was highly criticized and wanted to let people give it a second chance only to be shot down by the people you were hoping to defend lol

In short, and a lot of it I missed because I was blocked by a lot of people so my friend sent me screencaps; someone took I believe only the old ask box post I had for ULR, which at the time was called "Underlust Rewrite," and was disgusted at the fact that everything was revamped and "made for kids" (because it's not 18+ explicit content, but as I've said before, it's just cause I'm too scared to be horny on main, and I've literally made a whole different biological system for ULR so I can write the necessary story ""sex scenes"" without it being human-like sex or otherwise uncomfortable or too explicit for me to draw, but I still consider it a mature story overall), so they blocked me instantly here and on twitter and then made a callout post on twitter itself. People were telling me originally to stop calling the AU Underlust, and I didn't really get it at first, because like, what's the difference between my spinoff and, say, Underlust Gold, Swapfell Indigo, TS!Underswap, you know, names that have add-ons from the original title to differentiate it but still connect it to the source. So that's what I said, as well as if I removed the Underlust name, it would be considered stealing to me, because I'd be disconnecting it from the source. But apparently, instead, what had been the concern was that it was just being called "Underlust" and the "Rewrite" aspect was implying I was replacing the original story, which like, had never been my intention and I've made a bunch of things with both the ULR and UL cast together and love the idea of Lust and Ace meeting up and just being a disaster duo of not working together at all. I just adore Underlust like it's in my pinned FAQ, Lust's been in my banner for months now, and he's practically my staple pfp character on every account but here atm.

It took like 3 days for it to actually click what was going on, because once I finally got the chance to have a conversation with someone where they weren't telling me I was the scum of the Earth -- which, honestly, bless the three people I talked to, they were so sweet (which actually included someone from the Japanese side of the fandom whose art I loved too... yeah it got pretty far. Once I sent them a message though it was cleared up quickly and they did post a clarification post about ULR and me, so that was nice to see.) -- I finally got the chance to realize that this was a misunderstanding from the beginning, from both sides, where people coming at me were saying I was doing all of the stuff above and probably more but those stuck the most, while I was confused as to where this information and accusations were coming from and what they were referring to in the first place. They probably never explained it in the anon asks because, well, they probably assumed I knew what I was doing, but when they came at me about something I didn't do with vague context of something I did do, I was very confused, and got really defensive really quickly, and really honestly snapped pretty hard. After my first initial explanation post and people were still trying to tell me to stop ULR/don't call it Underlust/whatever else there was, I just got tired and told people to block me if they didn't like it. But that didn't really stop anyone and honestly made it worse because that's when I started getting really nasty messages. I like... Specifically remember one where someone called me a lowlife and a thief, and that one stuck the most, but I tended to not read through them before deleting them for my own sanity. I actually did this to one of the people who'd later talked to me calmly about it at first too, because I had just woken up, and really didn't want to read an essay lecture on everything everyone's been telling me at the crack of 7am when I was borderline ready to delete my account and start over lol

Some people I do remember were accusing me of trying to censor nsfw content or erase it as well because ULR isn't 18+, and I'm out here on my horny ass like "wh. What are they talking about, where did you get that idea, have you SEEN my ao3 recommended list," /j but in all seriousness I really didn't understand that accusation at all because I've never been against nsfw content in the slightest and lowkey? This is very dumb -- but like, you know how they say when you get hate mail, you know you've made it? Well, for me, my thought has always been, "When there's 18+ fancontent of my OC's, I'll have finally made it." This is... Not a joke, some of my friends think its very weird LMAO oh well. I've been on the internet for far too long at this point -- like, definitely since I was far too young, probably, and being with a family of the next youngest being 12 years older than me, I really dove into stuff pretty quickly I definitely shouldn't have, but hey that's life -- I'm really unfazed by mostly anything now. Hell, me making ULR was honestly half motivated by me wanting to make others more comfortable with this kind of media, discussing sexuality and otherwise sexual-considered topics, without really being embarrassed or bothered by it. Because, people talk about death and killing and whatever other gorey stuff just fine, but the moment sex comes up, people just gasp in awe, y'know? I kind of grew up that way myself but like... ironically, in being more comfortable with my asexuality, I realized that it's honestly not that big of a deal. Sure, we don't need to hear the details of everything. We don't need to hear the details of a murder either. But I will never understand how murder is always the lowest on the "morally wrong list of things to not to" to so many people and that it's fine to mention, but even consider bringing up anything else and it's like, a sin and you're a bad person. Even racism is like, higher up on there for a lot of people, which it's like... this is an issue that needs to be discussed, or it can never be solved. You can't just kick that away and hope it goes away on its own, that's never how it works.

Ah, well, now I've gone off tangent lol. Sorry to make you read a blob of text lmao but having things in a cohesive format of what I've been thinking does feel a bit better. Thank you for the support regardless, and I do want to keep making what I really enjoy, because frankly, I really want to make things that make people take a step back and think for a moment, y'know? Things that invoke like a realization in yourself about something you didn't even know. That's how fiction's always been for me, so I want to give back by making it that way too. ... maybe my horny content is exempt from this however. That's just. Self indulgence LMAO.

Probably helps that I'm actually talking this all out for once, too, since before any of this I tried to keep as much of the situation contained to myself as possible in hopes I could clean it up before it got too bad. That was, in hindsight, probably a terrible idea lol. But I didn't want to be a source of stress for anyone following me or become the new creator-to-defend that like, 50% of people hate and 50% of people love and that you're either on one side or the other and there's no where in between. (I feel like Arin Hanson comes to mind for me every time I think of someone like this.) I know I can't please everyone and I knew internet hate would come eventually, but like, didn't expect it to be over a name or tag choice. I thought that would be a simple enough DM or clearable thing but apparently not, especially since I saw someone a few weeks ago delete their blog over a similar thing (though, the opposite, in a way: posting nsfw in a sfw tag by mistake). It wasn't in the UT fandom so y'all probably weren't following them (tbf I wasn't either, I just witnessed it happen from start to finish), but it was still disheartening.

Anyway, thank you, and sorry to make ya read all of that (if you actually did vahdbs don't blame you if you don't it's a lot of thought dump lmao)💕💕

[trash-the-tozier]

Dog Days (3/7)

Title: Dog Days

Length: ~36.6k words (5.8k for this part)

Summary: Richie Tozier is twenty years old, over halfway through a Chemistry degree at the University of Maine, and in love with his best friend and roommate, Stanley Uris. And he figures that it’s fine, with no cause for change, until he finds an injured puppy near his apartment.

Warnings: Explicit language, small amounts of smoking/drinking, mentions of animal abuse (the animal stuff is all about the injured puppy, it’s not like… a recurring theme or smthn, it’s a cute fic I promise)

Pairings: Stan/Richie, background Ben/Beverly

A/N:  An additional warning for this chapter is vague mentions of animal abuse i'm not great at writing arguments so sorry in advance if it's not great lol Huge thank you to everyone reading! ♡ Previous Parts: 1 | 2 also posted to ao3 here tagging: @80s-kaspbrak, @sunshinestanley, @tiny-tea (hmu if you want to be tagged!)

“So she's okay then?” Ben asked, starting up his car.

“She's as okay as a dog can be with a broken leg and one less eye than usual.” Richie answered. “She made it through the surgery fine, but they told me they weren't sure if she would make it through the night. I called this morning to ask, and she's still alive. They said I could visit her.”

“You're not skipping class are you?” Ben sounded rather reproachful. Richie gave him a look.

“First of all, class is so unimportant right now.” Richie insisted, but when Ben raised his eyebrows he sighed. “But no, I'm not skipping. I went to class! Got a solid B on that Steinbeck essay and everything.”

That satisfied Ben, pulling out of the parking lot and onto the road.

“You got a B, and you didn't read the book or proofread the essay. Think of what you could do if you just applied yourself!” Ben said. Richie rolled his eyes.

“You sound like my middle school history teacher. I don't need to apply myself. I have Stanley. He accepts my shortcomings and enables my laziness.”

“Where is Stan, anyway? Why isn't he taking you? I thought this dog was you guys’ thing.”

Richie shrugged a little.

“He's got work. Plus, I wanted to hang out with you, Haystack.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes, Richie pointing out which turns to take.

“Hey…” Ben's voice was hesitant. “It's not a big dog, right?”

Richie shook his head.

“Nah. You could like… Fit her in a bucket, or something.”

“Buckets are so many different sizes. That doesn't help at all.”

Richie tried to explain the size of the puppy, but it was very difficult with Ben's refusal to look over at his hand gestures while he was driving. Regardless, he kept asking, Richie frowning and turning to him once they'd stopped in the parking lot.

“Are you alright dude?”

Ben climbed out of the car before answering, Richie quickly following suit. Ben avoided Richie's eyes, speaking fast.

“It's probably not the best time to tell you, but… I got bitten by a dog when I was younger. They make me a little nervous.”

“Oh. Don't worry about it!” Richie told him, hoping that he was coming across as reassuring instead of dismissive. “She's a half blind cripple. But if she tries anything, I'll protect you.”

“Thanks.” Ben wasn't nearly as sarcastic as Richie expected from an answer like that, making him a bit worried about how this was going to go. The receptionist that greeted them recognized him, smiling when they walked in.

“You're here for a visit?” She asked pleasantly.

“Yes please.”

“And will your boyfriend be coming as well or is it just the two of you today?”

“...sorry?” Richie thought for sure he'd misheard her, but she began to look just as confused as he felt.

“The young man with you yesterday? The one that…”

Then they both seemed to have revelations at the same moment. Richie realized she was talking about Stan, and she realized that she'd made a mistake.

“I'm so sorry, I just assumed, I shouldn't have--” She began, as Richie bit down hard on the inside of his cheek.

“No!” He said quickly. “No, it's fine. Yeah. My, um… My boyfriend isn't coming. He's at work.”

She simply nodded a bit, getting up to go find someone. Calling Stan his boyfriend put a little excited jump in his chest, the feeling making his leg bounce as he sat next to Ben in the waiting room.

“You just lied to her.” Been accused in a hushed voice.

“She doesn't know that. Nobody knows but you.”

“You have to tell Stanley, at least.”

That was possibly the worst idea Richie had ever heard.

“But Ben, the receptionist thought we were dating. Which means we acted like we were dating. So maybe, if I can get enough people to think we're together, he'll just get the hint and it won't matter that I'm too chickenshit to actually say anything.”

“That's the worst idea I've ever heard.” Ben said. “What are you trying to do, trap him in a common law marriage or something?”

Richie had no idea what that meant. The pointed look he was getting was enough to tell him that it probably wasn't a good thing, though.

“Stan is going to come here, and someone will say something to him about it, and I promise you that he will find it really weird that you lied and said the two of you were dating.”

“What, know that from experience do you?” When Ben did nothing but give him a look, Richie sighed. “Fine! I'll tell Stan. You suck the fun out of everything. You're a fun sucker, Benjamin. Wait, no, that makes it sound like I'm complimenting you.”

Ben snorted back a laugh, a veterinary technician Richie recognized from yesterday approaching them and calling them back. They were led to examination room one this time and it was already set up, a large blanket on the floor. The puppy was lying there, a second technician sitting on the floor next to her, gently stroking her back. Richie held in a gasp.

She had a cone on her head. All of the hair on the right side of her face had been shaved, revealing multiple sets of stitches, including some across her right eyelids that sealed the useless eye shut. She had a hard cast around her broken back leg, and it was covered in pink and blue medical bandages. As soon as she looked up at Richie and Ben, her tail began to wag.

“Hi.” Richie said softly, barely able to believe it. She was alive, her brown eye big and bright as she looked at him, moving and breathing and everything. He almost wanted to cry, leaning down and extending his hand for her to smell him. Once she did her tail began wagging much faster, struggling against the blankets in an effort to get up, whining in excitement.

“Look at that!” The technician said happily. “She recognizes you.”

“She does?” Richie had to swallow, and blink a couple of times.

“Of course, look at how happy she is.”

“Could… Could I hold her?”

“Yes, just be careful.”

Nodding, Richie sat and crossed his legs, reaching towards the puppy. She tried desperately to lick his hands as he scooped her up, placing her down in his lap. She wriggled around a little, still trying to lick him. She calmed a bit when he began to pet her, but her tail didn't slow down. She was so soft and warm and affectionate, Richie torn between lying still to keep her comfortable and smothering her fluffy body in kisses.

“She's on a lot of pain medication, so she should calm down quickly.” The technician said, and it took Richie a moment to realize that she was talking to Ben, who had his back pressed against the door.

“Do you want to pet her?” Richie offered.

“In a minute.”

Not wanting to press him, Richie turned to the technician.

“How’s she doing?”

“She's determined. We've been keeping a close eye on her, but she's been eating well and there haven't been any signs of infection, so it looks like she'll be alright.”

Richie let out a long breath of relief. The puppy was going to be okay. He held her up under her front legs, bringing her face to his, and she shoved their foreheads together, licking at his cheeks and nose as her tail wagged furiously. He felt a rush in his chest, a smile on his face that he couldn't contain even if he tried. He scooped her up completely and held her closer, pressing his face into the fur on her back.

“Oh my god, I love her so much.” He mumbled, the technician giving him a gentle smile in return.

“It's pretty plain to see that she loves you too.”

“How old is she?” Ben asked, stepping forward and sitting down with them, about an arm’s length away.

“Well, since she's just shy of twenty pounds, we're guessing that she's around eight weeks old, though she may simply be malnouished.”

“Wait, what? Eight weeks?” The puppy was bigger than some terriers Richie had met; he didn't expect her to be so new to the world.

“Yes. She seems to be on the small side for her breed, though it is a little early to tell.”

“Small side?” Ben echoed. “What breed of dog is she?”

The technician glanced between them both, and Richie knew he looked about as surprised as Ben did.

“You have what looks to be a purebred Leonberger puppy.” She said. “They sell for around two thousand dollars. It's quite amazing that you managed to find one.”

Richie gaped down at the puppy in his lap. He didn't know what a Leonberger was, but the price alone was impressive. He made a mental note to google it later, and after a bit more talking--Ben, at one point, even reaching over to pet her--it was time to say goodbye.

“How much longer will she have to be hospitalized?” Richie asked.

“Only a couple of days.” The technician responded, in an assuaging sort of tone. “We don't want to keep the two of you apart for too long.”

“Oh, I…” Richie opened his mouth to correct her, remembering what Stan had said. But even voicing the idea that she couldn't come home with him sent a sick jolt through Richie's stomach. He wanted to keep her. He had to. She knew him, and trusted him, relaxed and content in his lap. The thought of moving her just to stand up made his chest ache. “Yeah.”

“Maybe next week, when you come in for the second payment for her treatment. I can show you how to give her medications, and you can take her home with you.”

Richie nodded fervently. Then it really was time to go, the puppy beginning to whine as soon as Richie moved her, pawing at him and even catching the fabric of his shirt between her teeth.

“No.” The vet technician reprimanded. She continued in a gentler voice. “He'll come back soon. Don't worry.”

Richie and Ben left, Richie feeling like he was leaving a part of his heart behind.

He pulled out his phone as soon as they were on the road, looking up what a Leonberger was. When he saw a fully grown one, his eyes went wide.

“Oh, shit.”

“What?” Ben asked.

“These dogs are fucking huge.”

“How huge is huge?”

“Like… Like a hundred and thirty pounds, huge. High energy, hard to train, headstrong… Apparently they can be drooly and will shed everywhere.”

Ben sent him a quick glance, his eyes full of uncertainty.

“And you're sure you can keep her, Richie?”

“Yes.”

Richie wasn’t sure at all, but that didn't matter. He was going to fight to take her home with all he had.

Ben dropped him off in front of the apartment. Richie spotted Stan’s car in the parking lot, meaning he was home now, and he took a breath. Squaring his shoulders, he entered the apartment.

Stan was in the kitchen, in the middle of filling a glass of water when Richie came in. He turned off the tap and glanced over, giving him a smile.

“Oh, hey.” Stan was in casual jeans and a t-shirt, his curls only slightly out of control, tucked behind his ear on one side with his bangs falling in his face. He took a quick drink of water, and managed to look incredible while doing it, a couple of curse words going off in Richie's head. “Did you go and visit her? How is she?”

“She’s… She’s perfect, Stan.”

“Yeah? That’s good.” Stan smiled a little, looking genuinely glad to hear the news, walking over to the couch. It had homework spread out all over the cushions, Stan collecting his things together to give Richie a place to sit.

“I mean, they really did remove her eye.” Richie continued as he went over to the couch. “And she can’t really walk because of the cast on her leg, but she remembered me. She got in my lap, and kept licking me and wagging her tail.”

“Yeah, you saved her life.”

“So did you.” Richie told him. Stan shrugged a little, but there was a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“When will she be able to leave the hospital?” Stan asked. The wording of the question wasn’t lost on Richie, who glanced away.

“In about a week, they said. When we go in for the second payment for her treatment, we can take her home.”

Richie's wording wasn't lost on Stan either. His pencil paused, and a moment later he put it down.

“We can't keep her.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that. Why?”

Stan looked at him for a moment, his expression slightly incredulous.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously. Why can't we keep her?”

It took Stan a moment to speak.

“We live in a pet-free apartment, for one thing. We're not allowed to have anything more than a couple fish.”

“Oh come on Stanley, we both know that rule is bullshit.” When Stan didn't agree, Richie continued. “What about the girl down the hall with three cats? Or the guy below us that owns a turtle?”

“Sure, but remember the girl across from us with the bird? She got kicked out.”

Richie waved a dismissive hand.

“That's because the bird was loud.”

“Exactly, and a dog is going to be a lot louder than a bird, Richie.”

“Come on Stan, we kept a pigeon here like all winter last year because you wanted to.”

“No, because it was injured.” Stan countered, Richie looking at him and widening his eyes a bit.

“So is my puppy. Stan, I know you don't separate out the recycling properly. Don't try to pretend you're above the law.”

Stan rolled his eyes, but Richie could tell that there was more to his argument than apartment rules.

“Well?”

“A puppy is like… Is like a baby, Richie. You're not ready to be a father.”

“I'm great with kids! I was Georgie's favorite, back in the day.”

“That's because you are a kid.”

“And you're a grumpy old man that wears the waistband of his pants up over his belly button. We'll balance out perfectly.”

“Richie--”

“I can figure it out, Stan. I know I can keep her alive, and I'll learn the rest along the way.”

“That statement right there is why this is a terrible idea.”

“She loves me, and I'm committed. I can't just abandon her because I'm ‘not ready’. We're going to work it out.”

Stan just looked at him for a moment, then gave a small shake of his head, turning back to his homework. The dismissiveness irked Richie, especially when he could feel that there was still something Stan wasn't telling him.

“I'm going to figure it out.”

“Figure what out?”

“The real reason.”

Stan pursed his lips, eyes fixed pointedly on the notebook in front of him.

“Do you not like dogs?” When Stan didn't answer, Richie stroked an invisible goatee, pretending to think. “Of course not. Everybody likes dogs. Not liking dogs would be like being afraid of love. Is that it? Are you afraid of love?”

“Richie, please.” Stan's expression had turned into more of a grimace. Richie turned up the dramatics.

“Why, Stanley? Why are you afraid of love?”

“For the love of--” Stan cut himself off in the middle of a slew of angry words and threw his pencil at Richie, who jumped up to avoid getting hit. He danced around the coffee table.

“Is it because she's missing an eye? Did you have a traumatic experience with a cyclops as a child?”

“She’s too fucking expensive!” Richie didn't expect Stan to raise his voice or jump to his feet, but he was standing there, fists clenched and eyes blazing. Richie took a step back. “I know, thinking about money when it's a decision about whether or not a puppy can have a home makes me a heartless bastard, but it's something we need to do.”

“Stan, you're just focusing on--”

“I'm focusing on reality!” Stan barely stopped to breathe, let alone give Richie enough time to get a word in. “If we can't even pay for her surgery, how are we supposed to pay for her vaccinations and her food and everything else she needs? On top of that, the because of all the stuff that's wrong with her, what if she needs physical therapy or something? We can't…”

Richie faltered for a moment. Sure, the hospital bills would be a struggle for a little while, but it was a one time thing. He frowned.

“What if she were a normal dog, Stan?” He asked. “Just a happy, healthy puppy that I wanted to give a home to? Would you say yes then?”

Stan floundered for a moment, wringing his hands.

“I mean, I… I guess so, it's just… She's just so broken Richie, you said that she can't walk--”

“Broken?” Richie felt a sick twist in his stomach. “That's what this is about?”

“Rich--”

“Fuck Stanley, she was abused! So was I! And you were too, unless you've decided to ignore all the shit we went through in Derry. Where the hell would Beverly be if we'd decided to give up on her like this after she told is about her dad?”

“That's not--”

“Once the hospital bills are over and done with, then that's it. She'll cost as much as a normal dog. But she's been messed up, and now you don't want her?”

“Richie!” Stan’s eyes flashed. “Would you just fucking listen to me? It’s not that I don’t want her because she’s broken. I don’t want her because she’s broken, and we don’t have enough money to fix her. And while we’re in college with minimum wage jobs, we never will.”

Richie couldn’t really focus on Stan’s words, too hung up on the phrase Stan had felt the need to say twice. I don't want her.

“Either way, you don’t want her.” Richie met Stan’s eyes, seeing something slightly pleading behind all the agitation, and he had to look away. He was too angry to be sympathetic; too indignant to be understanding. Agitated and upset, he began moving towards the door. “I’ll move out if that'll make you happy, but fuck you Stan. I’m keeping her. Use whatever excuse you want.”

He was out the door before Stan even opened his mouth, slamming it behind him. It was incredibly windy outside, whipping his hair into his face. He didn't need to see where he was going, his feet carrying him off automatically towards the trees away from campus. His legs moved fast but it didn't serve to calm him much, even when he'd traveled past the creek and downstream. He pulled out his phone, calling the first number that came to mind, speaking as soon as the line was picked up.

“Eddie, I'm in love with you now. Stan is dead to me.”

Eddie laughed a little.

“Hey Richie.”

Richie let out a long, loud sigh, prompting Eddie to tell him to shut up and stop breathing in his ear. It wasn't the response Richie was looking for.

“No! You're supposed to ask me what's wrong and be super sympathetic to whatever I have to say!”

“If that's what you want, then why the fuck did you call me?”

“I thought you were my best friend in the whole wide world, but I guess I should have known better. You abandoned us and moved away.”

“Shut up. Just tell me what Stan did that's making you so melodramatic.”

Richie did. He explained the entire situation and his own outrage, with an emphasis on just how wrong Stan was. Eddie was quiet for a few moments.

“Stan's right, you know.”

“...what? Are you serious?”

“Maybe not as much about the money thing, but about everything else.”

“But--”

“Think about it. Like, actually think about it. You might be able to get away with hiding her if she were a small dog, but she's not. She's going to get really big, right? She deserves at least a backyard, but you'd have to smuggle her around everywhere. It wouldn't be fair.”

Richie bit the inside of his cheek.

“Okay, but--”

“Plus, I looked it up while you were talking, and this dog breed isn't recommended for first time owners. You'll have to be really strict with the discipline or she'll destroy your house, and offense, but you can't discipline anything. You almost got kicked out of Six Flags once because you couldn't say no to Georgie.”

“Did you just say 'offense’ instead of 'no offense’?”

“You’ve just got to think about this stuff, that's all. She's not just going to be kicked out onto the streets if you don't adopt her, you know. There are rescue groups and stuff, people that would be able to take care of her.”

“I know, but I just…” Richie knew the words about to come from his mouth were incredibly childish, but he said them anyway. “I want her. I feel like if I don't take care of her myself I'm going to regret it.”

“I know. I'm just saying, Richie. That is stuff you do actually have to think about.”

"Yeah, I guess.” Richie sighed, kicking up some grass as he walked. He was farther out into the woods than he'd ever gone before; it would probably be smart to start heading back. “If it were you and me, would you let me keep her?”

“I mean yeah, probably. We’re both fucking stupid, aren’t we?” He fell silent. “Bill definitely would. Mike too. And Beverly. Hell, Richie, you messed up. Probably all of us would but Stan.”

“Just my fucking luck. Figures.”

Silence fell between them for a moment, and in the quiet Richie realized he could hear something.

“Richie, hey--”

“Shut up.”

Eddie made a small, indignant noise at being hushed.

“You just--”

“Seriously, shut up for a second.”

Eddie did, though not without complaint. Richie walked in what he thought was the direction of the noise, shushing Eddie whenever his friend tried to speak. Finally though, he could hear it distinctly. Barking, howling, whining. Not just one dog though, like the time he’d found the puppy in the creek; lots of dogs, more than he could distinguish. Eddie heard it too.

“Richie? Where are you right now?”

Richie broke through a patch of trees, then stopped in his tracks.

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m looking at.” He answered. He felt sick to his stomach.

“Yeah, and I don’t either. This is a phone call, genius.”

Removing his phone from his ear, Richie took a quick picture. Twenty or so feet ahead of him was a mess of crates, all stacked and stuck together, made of wooden boards and chicken wire. Dogs were crammed into all of them, many of the spaces looking much too small, and all of them were in bad shape, dirty and cramped, some even looking malnourished. It was like a compound, a whole operation full of abused animals.

Afraid and unwilling to look much longer, Richie stumbled backwards into the trees, turning immediately to start home.

“Woah.” Eddie mumbled. “Fuck. So… I think you just found a puppy mill, Richie. That makes sense, I guess. I don’t know how else you would be able to find a purebred puppy in the middle of the woods.”

The apartment was empty when Richie returned. He wasn’t really angry at Stan anymore, too shocked and unsettled by his discovery, but he was grateful anyways. He was still unsure of how he would react if he did see Stanley. Grabbing his computer from the coffee table, Richie holed himself up in his bedroom, lying down on his bed. All it took was a simple google search to confirm that what he’d seen was indeed a puppy mill, but to his disbelief, found that puppy mills weren’t illegal. Frowned upon, sure, and supposedly regulated, but not illegal.

When Richie cautiously emerged from his room to get something for dinner that evening, Stan still wasn’t there. He pulled his phone out, debating with himself for a full twenty minutes before sending a text.

To: S(a)tan Where are you?

From: S(a)tan Out.

Ouch. Okay. Richie went back to his room. He heard Stan come back sometime later in the evening, but didn’t try to say hi. Stan was off to class before Richie woke the next morning, and before it was time for him to return, Richie had to leave for work. But he was afraid to return home and see Stan there, accepting a second shift that someone needed covered. By the time he finally headed back, he was so exhausted that he forgot to be nervous, half expecting the place to be empty again.

No such luck; Stan was sitting on the couch, as much anxiety on his face as was buzzing in Richie's chest, his phone in one hand and an envelope in the other. Richie swallowed, kicking off his shoes and entering the kitchen on sock-clad feet. He wasn't going into the living room.

“Stan the Man. Hey.”

“You're, um…” Stan looked away from him. “You're late.”

“Yeah, someone needed a shift covered.” He decided to try and break the tension, unable to stand the awkwardness in the room. “Why? Didn't keep you waiting, did I?”

He tried to make his voice playful, but didn't even get a smile back, his heart sinking. Instead Stan got to his feet to approach him, and Richie resisted the urge to take a step back.

“Richie, I--”

“Stan, no.” Richie held his hands up. “I don't want you to apologize. I get it.”

“...what?”

“I called Eddie yesterday, and he talked some sense into me. And I must have been really irrational, because we all know how sensible and down to earth Eddie is.” Richie smiled a bit, but still Stan’s face was unchanged. “So I kinda see what you mean, about not being able to keep her. I still want to, but that might not be best for her, you know?”

Stan’s face relaxed into something a little sympathetic.

“I… Yeah. I don't think it would.” Stan looked away from him. “But that's not what I wanted to talk about.”

That had Richie frowning.

“What's up?”

Wordlessly, Stan handed the envelope over. It was unmarked and hadn’t been sealed, the top flap simply folded inside. Upon holding it, Richie had a feeling he could tell what was in it, but wasn't sure he believed it.

“Stan… What is this?”

“Well, I decided that if there were going to be problems between us about this, I didn’t want them to be about money. So I called the other Losers, and…”

Suspicions more or less confirmed, Richie opened the envelope. It was full of money from all of their friends. Not as much as they needed to completely pay off the hospital bills, but enough to buy them time to gather the rest of it on their own.

“Stan, no.” Richie felt his voice breaking. “I can’t take this, it’s…”

“They insisted. They wanted to help.”

“But--”

“I talked to them, and they could tell how much she means to you.”

A lump was welling up in Richie’s throat and he pulled Stan into a hug, feeling overwhelmed by the unexpected gesture.

“I called people yesterday, and they wired money over to me last night and this morning.” Stan explained. Richie leaned back, wiping furiously at his eyes.

“You need to tell me.” He insisted. “You need to tell me who did what. I have to pay them back.”

“No. Not at all.”

“If you don't tell me, I promise you right now that Crazy Frog is the only music you will listen to for the rest of your life.” Normally Richie would be all for free money, but the amount being near two thousand made him uneasy.

“You’re threatening me? After I've done something nice for you?” Stan's eyebrows were raised, but he looked amused. “Completely outrageous.”

Richie was pulling out his phone, in the middle of looking up Crazy Frog when Stan stopped his arm, laughing a little.

“Five hundred of it was me, okay? Does that make you feel better?”

“I…” Richie did some quick math in his head. “A little, yeah. Where were you keeping that much money stashed away?”

“I've been saving up.” Stan responded with a shrug.

“For what?”

“How many times have I said that we need a TV?”

“Oh by golly!” Richie adopted a high pitched southern accent, clasping his hands together and leaning towards Stanley. “You were going to buy me a TV?”

“That is a gross exaggeration, but yes.” Stan said. “I'm tired of watching stuff on tiny laptop screens.”

Stan had voiced that desire multiple times, Richie nodding a bit.

“I'll allow it!” He allotted, Stan rolling his eyes. “But only if a bigger screen doesn't cut into cuddle time during movie nights.”

It was the first time any acknowledgement had been made to their increasing proximity when sitting together on the couch, and Richie wondered if mentioning it had been a mistake. Then Stan's cheeks went pink, and he felt rather proud of himself instead.

“We don't watch movies.” Stan countered, seemingly determined to ignore the blush on his face. “We just watch television shows.”

“But we could have a movie night.” Richie said. “Let's do that! What do you want to watch?”

After some debate they ended up settling on Moulin Rouge, though Richie was unsure of how they got there. They sat awkwardly apart from each other on the couch as the movie started, Stan looking self-conscious, Richie getting up after a few minutes to make popcorn. He didn't really want popcorn, but getting up for it gave him the opportunity to run and make a crash landing back down on the couch, half sprawled not-so-accidentally in Stan's lap. He moved around unnecessarily, wriggling and stretching under the guise of getting comfortable until Stan began to complain at him. Richie ended up lengthwise across the couch with his head on Stan's thighs, but when he moved to sit up there was a hand on his shoulder, casual but insistent, so he stayed, slowly turning his attention back to the screen.

“Hold up, you never told me Professor Slughorn was in this movie!” He exclaimed, pointing at an actor that he didn't know the name of with rather terrible ginger facial hair. Stan glanced down at him.

“Have you never seen Moulin Rouge?”

Richie shook his head innocently.

“Then you'd better pay attention.”

The inane amounts of colors, sparkles, and dancing made that mission easy to accomplish. But Richie was a notorious talker and during movies was no exception, he and Stan discussing whether Ewan McGregor was hot or not, or if they would rather be a theater troupe member or a cabaret girl (Stan's answer of “cabaret girl” had Richie choking on a popcorn kernel). Every now and then Stan would run his fingers through his hair, the gesture seemingly absent-minded, and simple as it was, it made Richie's heart soar.

Stan ended up falling asleep during the depressing bit of the movie, just before the climax, and as a result Richie missed a lot of the ending. He just kept looking up at Stan's face, enjoying how relaxed he looked, especially since he spent so much of his waking hours stressed, exasperated, or sarcastic. Richie felt torn, part of him wanting to simply watch Stan sleep, part of him wanting to kiss him, and part of him knowing that both of those previous desires were creepy and that he should just go to bed. An immature part of him also  wanted to prank Stanley while he was so vulnerable, but with a great show of self-restraint on all fronts, option three won out. Well, almost. Richie took a picture of him first.

To: Lavagirl LOOK at him wtf I think we need to get staniel’s dna tested bc he cant be human I don't think it's possible for human beings to be this fucking pretty

Beverly's response took a couple of minutes.

From: Lavagirl Your compliments are so damn weird also wtf where are you what kind of vantage point is that

Richie held his phone at arm's length, taking a selfie that also had Stan's legs in the shot.

From: Lavagirl Nonconsensual lap laying is a crime, Richard.

To: Lavagirl Hey!!! who do you take me for it was consensual ok we were watching moulin rouge and he fell asleep

From: Lavagirl Gayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Richie couldn't argue with that.

From: Lavagirl Ben thinks it's gay too

To: Lavagirl Is ben doing that thing where he reads my texts over your shoulder? Bc he needs to stop that. Some things are meant to be private. Like the plans for his surprise birthday party last year.

From: Lavagirl We're in bed rn idk what you expect

That prompted a couple of mental images that Richie didn't want to have.

To: Lavagirl Did I interrupt the sexytimes? Sorry about that

From: Lavagirl Trust me rich there is not any universe in which I would stop just to answer a text from you You should see Ben's face right now he's SO red I love him

To: Lavagirl gross!!!!!!!!!

From: Lavagirl Whatever man at least I'm getting some instead of pining in the lap of the man I'm in love with

That one stung, just a little.

To: Lavagirl Watch yourself bev, I'm catching a big ol case of the Fuck You's

From: Lavagirl Well you can miss me with that shit bc I'm already on the train to Sleepytime Junction night night Richie

Richie sent her a heart back, then pulled himself to his feet with a sigh. He woke Stan, audibly cooing at the dazed and sleepy look on his face, more or less pushing the barely-awake object of his affections into his bedroom before going to his own. He crawled in bed, unwilling to go to sleep yet, sending a What's up? text to both Bill and Mike.

From: R-R-R-Rap God My art portfolio is fucking due next week and I fucking can't believe how hard Mike's nose is to fucking draw I'm going to fucking stab someone with a paintbrush

From: Black Lightning Not much. Do you ever think about how snakes just don't have arms?

Richie decided that maybe sleep was the best course of action after all.

[zzpopzz]

Really long rant about how I made Vanilla Twilight, I typed it at 2am so it’s kinda crappy and boring, just skip through this post.

So I'd been thinking about it for a long time now, even before finishing Vanilla Twilight that I'd talk about it if someone asked, well that never happened so I was just thinking that I'd let it go but that post is so important to me so well fuck it I'll just talk about it anyway. I did it completely on a wimp like how cool would it be if I make a lyricstuck for Toumaki like I'd be the first (if anyone did this before me im sorry). The first song I intended to do wasn't VT, it was a much shorter and easier song. I saw the music video first time after a while and the lyrics gave me some scenes to draw right away, like the tones, the atmosphere, the lyrics all fit them very well, made me wanted to draw something happy but sad. The ending for it was a happy one instead of a sad one like other songs I did (I didn't post the ending for any of them, just let the viewers decide what it's gonna be) I was very scared like what if it won't turn out ok and people gonna hate me for it or no one even gonna look at it. Also what I visualized are mostly illustrations with backgrounds, what I never done before so high chance it won't go anywhere. I thought well let's just see how far will I get and won't talk about it at all until I post it so at least I won't be all barks no bite. I was very traumatized that someone might know about what I did so I locked all the files when I shut down my PC in case someone hack into it lmao. I started with making a storyboard(kinda) for it, this is where I first got trouble because there was some part I didn't think of when I visualized what I'd draw at first ( 'I don't feel so alone' part mostly and some in between) and it's only at this point that I realized how many I'd have to draw (over 40 images total) and it's mind blowing for someone who rarely finish a painting like me at that time, that number is more than what I'd draw in a year. VT doesn't have choruses that meant I can't do tricks like repeat some panels (I don't like this anyway). I usually painted on small canvas before that but I wanna make sure I can fix things later and some idea I had was pretty big so I used 3000x5000px canvas then trimmed them down ( I didn't know how big it was and it's huge). The idea was to make a tumblr scroll-post like a lyricstuck (my favorites are by paperseverywhere and toastyhat/emptyfeet , they made really cool tutorials about these) so I tried to drew out compositions that would look good scrolling down panel by panel and have some connections between them (this didn't turn out so good in the end because I wasn't good lol) Since I was scared that people might point out that I draw something wrong, it took me almost a week or something searching for references (check my pinterest board) like the streets, sky, houses, roads, outfits, poses,... I was going to draw. I got some knowledge about bikes by this too, like I can tell the differences between road bike, mtb, touring bikes,... I also see and captured bunches of screenshots and reread ywpd trivia countless time to make sure I won't get anything wrong. If you take notice, every outfit Toumaki wear in there are all canon, from anime or promos. The first few panels was really exciting because I had never painted so many with backgrounds before, I was really happy when I almost finished the first verse even compared to the full 3:50 of the song it was only 20 seconds and I thought maybe I can pull this after all. The last panel was intended to be Makichan standing infront of his house looking at the sky but I wanted to show the sky at the end of the panel and that wouldn't work on scroll-down post so I had to leave it for later, I repainted this panel for about 3 times and finished it just 30' before posting. The first panel of the second verse wasn't turning out alright too because that was my first time doing a 3 points perspective drawing and the colors didn't turn out as I wanted either (my intention was a green/gold dawn scene). Things kinda worked well despite that until the scene when Toudou sits in his ink, gdi I didn't know why I was so caught up in that and painted every piece of that wooden floor, it took me almost a week but turned out better than I expected so I was ok with it. I was going to make sketchy paintings for all of the panel but I did too much details on that one so it gave me the impression that I'll have to do just as much for every others. Now I still had school to go and that semester my uni got me pretty crappy schedule that made me have to wait for classes at school frequently, I was frustrated because I didn't get to paint during that time and I might finish it too late (even though I didn't set a deadline) and when I got home I just spent so much time checking twitter and just can't pick myself up to draw and ended up feeling shitty about it. *Side story*  I was so mad because I didn't get anything done and there's still more than half of the whole thing to do and the worst part is that I had no one that I can talk to because I didn't have any friend who ship Toumaki and I also don't want to publicly talk about what I was doing, I wanted to surprise people when I'm done, I didn't wanna give people the expectation then screw it up (I literally thought I'd drop a bomb not a grenade lmao) I can't remember how long was that shitty phase but I felt like it was so long, I barely finished verse 2 at that point. I was so mad at myself and my progress so I spent a few days to look at time management threads and this helped a lot, I changed my habits completely  by this and I still apply those methods now, like I used to stay up til 3am to read fics (bless you writers you fueled me with your writings bless you all) then I switch to bed before 12 and get up early for a good start or reduce working time while increasing quality* After that I kinda got things together,I just went ahead with painting tho it's still kinda tiring, I had to work on 5 essays during this time too. At this point I was like screw all, I give no shit about what everyone thinks I'm just gonna finish this and get some good nap (I practiced power nap to get more focus time for painting but dude everyone wants a good long nap) 10 days before uploading I found out that there's a Toumaki day (I'm so sorry), I was going to posted on the first sunday of June (I did researched on which was the best time to post on social medias so I randomly picked a sunday) and Toumaki day is the last sunday of May, that meant I had 10 days left and 15 panels to paint! I was going to ignore that but I already made it big I should make it right too so I shit my pants going through those last panels. I purposely hiding Toudou's face till the last verse to emphasize the feelz and got so relieved that I finally got to paint him (I read some tags that some viewers got emotional at this part so I'm so glad it worked). The whole things was put under Makichan's perspective so I was so sick of painting him at that point, he showed up in every panel and I can't paint him ugly because he's beautiful (especially his hair, I spent shitload of time painting them). I can talk lots about why I picked to do so but that's headcanon shit and it's embarrassing so let's just skip that. The last day I had only 3 panels left and I was hell confident that I've got this and somehow spent the whole evening rewatch Toumaki pingpong ep (end me). Of course that didn't end well, I managed to finish those by midnight but I still had like 3 panels that needed  repaint completely and all 43 needed retouch and edits. My plan was to post at 9am sunday (thats 9pm saturday est) so I had to get up at 5am and finish all that, I ended up cutting down 2 panels and simplified the instrumental panel (some tags said that was nice so I was at least relieved). Unlike other songs I did, the length of every line's quite different and the original sizes I did would make viewers have to scroll slower or faster at different parts. I didn't plan this beforehand and had to trim down some panels even the parts that I really liked and spent lots of time on. I also found out that people outside the homestuck fandom might not familiar with this type of post so I made a video too (I’m sorry I have zero skill in editing). After posting I was terrified of people's reactions or worse, there won't be any reaction so I turned everything off and went to sleep and woke up with an unimaginable number of notes I'd got, I set the target of 500 notes and I really didn't think that I'd get past that number like maybe 2-300 (well my other songs didnt even get 200), at the end I got 5000. I spent the next week reading and screencap tags given in reblogs, I put them on desktop and they're still my motivation til now. Vanilla Twilight is the thing I'm proud of the most even until now, when I've done other songs and projects that look somewhat better. If I have to recommend one thing on my blog I'd recommend it despite its' unskilled paneling, poor composition and muddy colors. It was the first time in my life that I'd put so much effort into something and went through such emotional roller coaster, the feelings I put into it was raw and the idea was very original compared to other songs, I improved and changed a lot during the 2 months I spent on it and never once regret doing it. ***Anyway, you sure have much free time to read it this far, here's a little game for you: I put random things in VT and HF like some characters/stuff from other series, my ocs,... (there wasn't anything purposeless in there even the logo on their cups or the bags they wear) just send me anything you find and I'll draw you something in return**

[chickenstuffedwithmozzarella]

Holii! Yesterday your inbox was hungry again and ate the ask number 8 :( (i don’t really know if the problem lies on your inbox or im doing something wrong when sending the asks tbh). Im sending it again only bcs it was the first part of the two asks i send about my sister, and maybe getting only half of it doesn’t make that much sense. You don’t have to answer, it just bothered me, sorry xd

Awwwww, I have customer that always says holiiiii!!! When she comes. And now she reminds me of you, jajajaa. But I read your holiii!!! with her voice 😅. I counted yesterday asks and there were 10, so maybe this time the problem was in your end 😝😝?? I see we’re both geeks of tech things,jajajajaja. Also, where is the message about your sister again??? jajajajajaj 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ what a pair. I thinks is just Tumblr, that is shit… jajaja

I saw the video of SOOT/Durkink. I wasn’t expecting that and i laughed too loud. JAJAJAJA. Also, i don’t know if you have instagram, but did you see Liam’s stories? He tried singing JBalvin parts and it was a mess. I guess they can now understand my struggle. He looked so lost, poor baby. That was even better than “una sacapuntas”. 😂 Anyway, i’m going to answer you now. (oh, and i’m sorry but for me its no under the cut. No even if i log in and read it on my dash).

Jajajajajja, it was very funny, wasn’t it? I’m gonna tag you in everything that makes me laugh,jajajajaja. Awwww, liam was so cuteeeee. I laughed so much as his puppy face. He looked so lost. He was so convinced he was talking Spanish… ayyyyyy. It’s a 10 for the effort. I kept thinking: that’s how I must sound singing in English,jjajajaja.

Here we go. Okay, first of all,i have to say that this new distribution was so confusing the first time i read dit, bcs it took me a while to figure out what were my asks and what were your answers, so at times i started reading and went…uuumh, that sounds familiar, i could have written that. Waaait… 🤦 🤦 🤦 Quite lame, jajajajaja. (1)

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 I’M SO SORRY FOR THAT MESS!!! I wrote everything in a note. And your asks were in bold. And when I started I thought: remember to check later that it stays this way on tumblr!! Butttttt, when the time came I was SO SLEEPY!!! I totally forgot!!! 😅😅. So, I’ll go back to normal this time, just in case (though I’m writing it the same way. I hope I don’t forget later🙏🏻). Also, I wanted to tell you a lot more, but I forgot everything,jajaja.

Yees, im feeling better, thanks for asking

Well, if it was fatigue, you have the whole weekend to rest. Hope your feeling better. Lol, I feel the same, jejeje, when I see you’ve messaged me, I’m like: how do I let her know I’ve read it, but I can’t answer now??? Asjkxs;sjdhcbuidsljd

I’ve been streaming it since yesterday, and imo is not bad. There’s only one sentence im feeling a bit ambivalent about, bcs im picky like that, but i think its quite good. I cant wait to hear it on the radio and tell everybody “THATS MY SON”(My friends are gonna freak out when they discover that for once, i know the lyrics of a JBalvin song. JAJAJAJ). You have to work 10h each day? That’s a long shift. Is that your usual schedule or is only this weekend? Espero que te sea leve 😘 (3)

I heard it again today, for a bit. And it isn’t reggeatton exactly? It doesn’t have that rhythm that I hate, jajjaja. So I think I’ll be able to listen to it. I haven read the lyrics yet, so I can’t tell you anything about it :/ Same about my friends,jajajjaa. I think mine are gonna be more shocked about me knowing a song in Spanish,jajajaja. They’re always teasing about not liking Spanish music. Which is not true, but well… 🤷🏻‍♀️ What sentence you don’t like? And my shit is parted, so al least I have a couple of hour of rest. It’s how small shops work. So 🤷🏻‍♀️ I don’t have to be back till next Saturday, so… jajajajaja

Ohhh. (I see what you did with IICF lyrics. Smart girl). I was indeed paying attention. I swear. I took notes and answered you at the same time. I’m used to take notes of the subjects while doing essays, so it wasnt hard. Your taxes are on safe hands, don’t worry. My indecisiveness help me broke the system. You choose the pink??? Well done!💖 (4. I think? Why do i lost track so easily?)

How lucky you are, you can pay attention to more than one thing. If smartphones and SM had been a thing back on my student days, I would have failed everything. In fact I did. The first time I had internet at home, I was 15. Oh god! The memories. Back then, Terra’s chat (that you probably don’t know what it is. I myself, don’t remember exactly either) was very popular to talk to people. I met a guy. Ah! My first real crush. We talked everyday via Messenger!! Awwww, he was 17. We talked so much… jajajajajaja I was pretty obsessed. We talked from 6pm (it was when my internet started to be cheaper), till 12am (bc we both had to wake up early the next morning. Oh my god!!!!! Jajjajaja. One day I told him my real age (he thought I was 16), and then we lost contact. Ay! my first love,jajajaja. We never met. ANYWAY!! This all just to tell you that I failed 6/11 class subjects that the first trimester!! It was the first time I had failed ANY class! And ended failing the whole year 🤦🏻‍♀️. So, good for me to not have had an iPhone back then,jajajaja.

Yes me too. With some of the shirts from Harry’s merch I feel like they didn’t even try. Lyrics with a font that looks like Times New Roman… Really? And yes. They are expensive. You haven’t decided it yet? Do they usually have the same things that in the web? Do they have more As you see, im not very versed in merchandising or concerts. Enlighten me pls. (I must say, i’m loving the Honey updates). (5).

I don’t even know what/where/IF they sell merch at Niall’s concert. I would think they do, but 🤷🏻‍♀️. I think I’d buy a shirt. I have the shirt Steve sold for JHO (all black, with Louis and Steve’s silhouettes on the breast, and  just hod on written in the back); and the shirt of Harry’s concert. So I’ll like to have one for each of the boys. I’ll see.jejeje.

Yes, it makes perfect sense. I totally get it. When I first heard OMO I thought “lol, me”. And when i heard Mirrors i though “not so lol. Me too”. I was so touched when he explained what was the reason that made him wrote Mirrors. He is too pure. We are so lucky to have him. After hearing your story i can assure you; i’m never going to get a lip ring. Never. Do you still have it to this day? 9 ear piercings? I still have to find the energy to go and get a 2nd one. (6)

One of the things I’m loving about the hiatus, it’s my new love for Niall. When I first knew the band I thought: I can understand why people like all the boys, but Niall? What’s is there to like??? And oh girl, was I wrong! In my humble opinion, he’s the one who’s having the best solo career. Not based in awards or anything like that ( I don’t think successfulness is marked with that). But I don’t know, he’s making a name for him. He had it so “difficult”. Because when people heard his name, they didn’t put a face or a gossip story behind it. But step by step his making himself known, and I’m very proud. And I love his music. And I love to hear him talking in interviews. And those work out sessions are paying off, ajajajajajjaaajsj. So, all my respect to him. (To te rest too, eh 😜)9 ear piercing plus the ones you “get born” with!!! Jajaja. Those were the 00s,jajjajaja.

Well, they cant be much cheaper than now, right? Bcs now we have to pay for separate tickets. That way would be just 1. Let’s see. They would play all of their songs from Four. Almost all of the tracks from Made in the AM and MM. Compulsorily. But i let them have creative license choosing which songs from UAN & TMH they want to play. Im no dictator. What about you? What would you choose? A camera? Which kind of camera? I’m sure you’ll use it again. There’s plenty of occasions, trips & so. (6)

See? I was very sleepy, I didn’t thought about that. It would be just one ticket, not four like now. I seriously hate them. They only want me for my money 😡😡😂😂😂😂. My setlist would have to have! Over Again (indispensable), Four’s songs, MITAM’s songs, solo’s songs. Also, the stage would be small, so they had to talk with each other and walk around each other. And I don’t know, I just want them back together, jajajja. The camera I bought is the LUMIX TZ70. I saw someone has posted videos of Harry’s concert from very far away, but it was only his face. Like it had a big BIG zoom. And I went to their IG, and they had the name of their camera as a bio,jajaja, bc people asked them too much. So I looked it up in Amazon. And I bought it. Mymy. Now I only have to go on trips and those things to use it…😅.

Right direction? What a responsibility. Idk. All that topics are really related to what im studying, so i just learn about it in class, and then, outside the classroom, i read as many articles and books as i can. I just read whatever seems interesting to me. Sorry i’m useless. What i wanted to say is that im no expert on any of that subjects, but i find them interesting. Thats all. (Your mom cant recognise Liam? Im surprised bcs Liam has quite a distinctive voice, at least to me). (7)

I think it is interesting. I’d love to know a lot more. I just like to learn new things. And I love when people tell and explain me things when I’ve said something wrong. So, that’s what I meant, jejej, that if I ever say something wrong, feel free to call me out on it, please.I don’t know why she can’t recognize his voice!! She just says: it’s not this or that, so it has to be him,jajajaa. (I need your opinion on zayn and j Bieber, before I go on with this,jajaja).

JAJAJAJ. Sadly i get too many “hmmm, if you want…” with my friends. And they are usually followed by “You all are crazy”. But yeah, whatever. I’m living my truth. I’ll definitely come and talk to you. Dont worry. (8),

Yes please!! You’re always welcomed here with every wild thought you have!! Jajja. I’ll do the same. I’ll write tags post to you whenever I have something to tell you, jajajaja. Now, I’m gonna check my inbox again, to make sure I had t left any ask without  answer. You sent 12 asks today?? You’re amazing!! Thanks!! Ayayayay!!! I have to talk to you about a fic I’m reading. I haven’t finish it yet, but girl! It’s one of those I’ve had to stop reading bc it was to cute!!! I have even hugged my iPad  because I couldn’t hug Louis,jajaja. Do you read fics?? If that… lets talk, jajajajajja.Last, Honey came to say hello a while back. Their cousins (my sister’s dog) is spending the weekend here with them, because my sister is on a trip, so it will be an eventful weekend, I’m sure, jajajaja.Byeeeee Love!!! ❤️❤️❤️

Pd: answering to the last thing you said yesterday :) LOU IS BACK!!! But how predictable that was!!! Jajajja. Even I said we would see him now that Harry was  a world away. Anyway, I love seeing his face. Can’t wait for what it’s to come!! Bring it!! Jajajja

[s-hadow-chan]

Moving blogs + a reflection essay

tl;dr -- I’m moving my main blog. Because lots of my views on life have changed, my life has changed, and obviously my tastes in fandoms have changed. I’ll put the URL here later once I’ve made it. To see how I got to this position and where I am now, keep reading ^w^

Note: This is just my own opinion as to how I’ve seen Tumblr over the past few years. 

Well, it’s the start of a New Year. I haven’t been active much in 2017 but I’ll try and be active this year. Thanks to all the people who’ve helped and supported me this year and the following people who have made my life on Tumblr : *a list of people I rarely talk to anymore*

....Is what I would have said perhaps a year or two ago. I’m still glad I’ve joined this site and had conversations with some KnB fanatics like I was. However, I haven’t talked to them in a year. The only people I usually talk to on this site are basically nonexistent. I mean my friends from high school technically, but I talk to them irl during classes and lunch. The truth is that I have not been active on Tumblr for the past year. And my activity on the site was starting to wane in 2016 as well when I accidentally deleted my main blog last year when I was actually trying to delete a side blog I was working on. But that’s besides the fact as to why I’m moving. I’ve changed quite a bit since 2014 when I first joined Tumblr. My views of the world have changed, my life has changed, even the tiniest things such as my fandom tastes have changed. Because of this change, I’m moving to a new blog. Since you’ve decided to keep reading, I’m going to write a long detailed essay about the three things that have changed with me: my taste, my views on the world, and my life in 2014. You have the complete freedom to click out anytime ^w^

The fourteen-year-old me has a different shit taste in anime than the shit taste I have in anime now. Obviously, no one person can stay the same. If you’ve reblogged the little posts I’ve reblogged from other blogs (try saying that five times lol) notice how there’s barely any Hetalia or Kuroko no Basket or Haikyuu for that matter. Even when I’ve been active for the past few days, it’s been more positive posts, memes, and occasional anime of Hero Aca and such. So really if you want to know what I’m into at the moment, it’s Honeyworks, Hero Aca, Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso (Your Lie in April), food, study things, any Makoto Shinkai film (doesn’t have to be Your Name but it can be) and always memes. And getting off from the high of finishing Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, I’ll be looking for that too. Also, notice the decline in squealing yaoi fangirl that used to squeal in the tags section about two dudes cross-dressing. Ah, yes. The Hetalia days of where I’d ship APH America with everyone and just had a huge obsession with APH America. The title of my blog (on mobile anyway) is still a quote from the dub haha.  To be fair, that squealing, yaoi fangirl did have a brief revival when Yuri on Ice was still airing. I still have a soft spot for the anime as it was very good (and still is, Phichit will forever be an angel) and I absolutely LOVE Makkachin still. But for the most part, I have mostly lost the whole yaoi fangirl that I once was in Freshman year of high school who still loved shipping countries together. Why I deviated from Hetalia is another post unto itself.

I mentioned how I haven’t been posting a lot of kurobas lately. Yes my interest has waned in the show, but I still appreciate what it’s done for me in my high school years. I still have a quote from Aida Riko back in the earlier chapters of the manga hanging on my wall as I work on homework: “I want you to have a big concrete objective and the will to achieve it.” I won’t deny, KnB really helped me set the mentality I needed to tackle high school -- to keep pushing myself to become a better person. Whether I fulfilled that expectation or not is debatable. But as always, the inspirational quotes of KnB will undoubtedly carry me onto college too.

Now don’t get triggered when I say that Tumblr can really take leftist ideology to the extreme. It’s definitely right to treat everybody equally no matter their skin color, gender, sexuality, shape, size, disability, etc. Basically, everyone deserves to be treated equally. That’d definitely fine and it’s the right way to live life after all. However, it first hit me in Junior year that Tumblr was getting annoying. The whole “the straights are terrible” and “white men should burn in hell” preaching gave Tumblr the black and white views of the world without any grays (or greys however you spell it) in between. Now I’m a straight CIS female. I’ve got good friends who are asexual, bi, lesbian, etc. I will say this, but I doubt it will be heard by the screams of hate against a straight CIS gender like myself: I DON’T CARE WHAT YOUR DAMN SEXUALITY OR GENDER OR COLOR OR WHATEVER IS AS LONG AS YOU ARE A NICE PERSON! If you are a trans, gay Hispanic (an example, not pointing you out) who treats other people terribly, that means I will flip you off and beat your ass (to some extent of this statement). Not all straight people are bad and not all gays are good and it goes for every demographic that exists ever.

Though it may seem that I am blaming all of Tumblr for acting this way, I am. But I can’t forget that I too, once had a black and white view of the world. As a fourteen-year-old who was very much shielded from the world because of a private Catholic school with conservative parents who are very well off, I had an inkling of what the rest of the world was like. And I feel like the people on Tumblr were just as uneducated about the world as I was. By no means do I know everything about the world now. A seventeen-year-old who hasn’t even finished high school will never know how the me from four years from now feels. I am just saying that my opinion from leaning so far left a damn tree would break has become more moderate. This website made me think: gosh being straight and CIS is uncool and being a normal functional being with no anxiety or depression isn’t normal too. I need to be bi and genderfluid! That was stupid thinking. Right now, I’m completely fine with being a straight, CIS female with no mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety who will gladly respect your pronouns.

Now life is really crazy. It was crazy in 2016, and it was crazy in 2017 too. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that I’m from Las Vegas, Nevada now did I? Times have changed man. I don’t think I would have said that when I was 10 on a website lol. But yeah if you’ve somehow been scrolling this far down I commend your efforts. And I’m sure you’re getting really strained rn. So get some water, take a break, I’m sorry if you can’t get to a laptop or computer right now. Don’t read this in one go. If you’ve returned or decided to read straight on through welcome back or good for you respectively. Now I’ll repeat that again. Yes, I live in Las Vegas, Nevada. Right where Stephen Paddock decided to shoot from the 37th floor of Mandalay Bay onto the Route 91 Harvest Festival where over 500 people were wounded and 50 people were killed and where three students from my school were at on Sunday night (they were unharmed physically I believe). I found this out when I was tucked in bed at home, far from the strip checking my friend’s snapchats before I fell asleep. For the largest mass shooting in modern US history to take place in an area where my family would take our extended family to dinner or where we once had a New Years Eve celebration at the Vdara, is sickening. My cousins and I used to go to Mandalay Bay and hang out at the pool and stay the night because it was Spring break back when we were in middle school. My mom’s 40th birthday was at the Mandalay Bay. It’s terrible. I know how those people in Orlando and Colorado and everywhere else in the world feel when a mass shooting happens and completely disrupts your life. I’ve barely even been to the strip this year. The fact that a terror attack happened in my own backyard is beyond words. It makes me angry that some bastard decided to fuck up the lives of everyone in my city by ruining a good time at a concert. It makes me sad when I read a Washington Post later about a group of girls who went to a Lutheran school were affected by this event mentally and some even physically by this event. And that in turns makes me pissed off that some dude ruined the lives of teenage girls exactly like me, who were worried about the SAT and ACT and AP Classes and college. Fuck him.

So that’s my feelings on the shooting a few months late. But remember that I live in Las Vegas. You can’t just forget a mass shooting that happened in the city you live in. I’d mention how people would disagree with me that other events on the strip have happened such as a robbing at the Bellagio (it’s always the Bellagio man! That’s my fave part of the strip with the dancing waters and the seasonal garden inside like man they don’t deserve that) and etc. but feel free to disagree with me when you submit an ask dear anon.

Now on a somewhat lighter note, high school will forever be stressful. Going to the best high school in the state is stressful when all your friends have a nonstop grind to be one of the valedictorians (apparently you can have more than one?? I had no idea until I went to high school). Though I am nowhere near becoming a valedictorian, I still have plans to graduate with high honors ( wearing white for graduation) because half of the people graduating will wear white because it’s a magnet school dammit we’re kinda smart. AP classes have been part of my workload since Sophomore year which is right when I deleted my blog, but I managed to keep my activity up somewhat. Junior year slumped in my activity big time. APUSH is hard you guys. That’s it. I believe I posted a reflection at the start of 2017 detailing a bit more of this. But the difference this year is that I’m a senior in high school. That means college and scholarships. As I’ve mentioned before, I live in Nevada. I either stay in Las Vegas and attend the university there or I head up to Reno, which is like a 6-hour drive from home or just an hour flight. That means living in a dorm away from everything I’ve known. And that includes my boyfriend.

The biggest change in my life between Freshman year and now is that I’m taken! And honestly, it was the biggest fucking plot twist of 2016 (and the largest failed segway of 2018 thus far). I’m dating the largest weeb at my school ever and I’m happy dammit. Most of the time. I’ve learned a lot from being in a relationship like how to shut the fuck up and listen and appreciate more in life. By no means was my relationship perfect either. We’ve had a lot of fights. I’ve mentioned this in my reflection of 2016 at the start of last year so the rundown is that we’ve been together a year and a half now. I’m in a healthy relationship. Then college comes in and says hi. Now my boyfriend has decided to go to the university here in Las Vegas. I’m still very unsure as to where I want to go next. After all, the decision as to where to continue my education lies with me and I’m running out of time (I’m procrastinating on the decision right now lol). Four years ago, I had dreams of going out of state to either a UC school or the United States Airforce Academy in Colorado, until I learned that school outside of my state is expensive so I decided to stay within the confines of Nevada. 

And honestly, that’s where I’m at right now. Thanks for reading this long ass rant. I spent an hour or two typing this up. I just have a lot of feelings haha. I hope everyone has the best year ever. If this is after I’ve posted my new URL, go follow me there. But for now, thanks for all the support thus far and especially for reading this long ass rant. See you!