#sorry guys i've been real frustrated lately

[just-jae]

More thoughts about Arcane

Now that I've given it more thought.

I do have more issues with this show that before were just inkling thoughts like "Do the Noxians even have anything to do with anything going on in Piltover? Why are they the climax of the story?"

So here's a collection of thoughts on Arcane's flaws:

Violet and Caitlin's personalities and development absolutely don't lend well to them being a healthy couple. There is little perspective given on why Vi, a family oriented and socially aware person likes Caitlin. She's hot, and she's sweet, that's it, except most of the time she's not being sweet. The more Caitlin loses her innocence, the less sweet she is. And the power dynamic between them never closes. Caitlin only gains more and more power over Violet. And Violet is only driven further and further from her virtues by Caitlin. This could have been a good story if the relationship was treated like a toxic one, but the writing clearly perceives the two as being good for each other even though the one with more political power in the relationship was shown abusing her when upset without a proper address to it afterward.

Core themes being sidelined for a common enemy trope and relationship resolutions. The classism between Piltover and the Undercity was never resolved. They only came together in the end to avoid anihilation from a third party who's been absent most of the show. Why would the Undercity fight with Piltover, when many of their citizens have expressed confidence in their ability to fight by their own terms. Even if they turned out to be outmatched, I doubt there wouldn't be a good amount of Zaunites who would have loved to see Piltover ploughed through. Afterall, they were creating monsters like Warwick, whom not even the Noxians could match.

I honestly think the writers were not treating the different relationships fairly. As much as people paise to show for queer rep, the only overtly queer relationship is a toxic one that got a steamy sex scene as a relationship climax (no pun intended), one het ship is a tragedy the a wholesome center, Another het ship wasn't very romantic, but was still a respectful and mature relationship even they turned out not to be not the best fit. And when they breakup, they just go their separate ways, it doesn't consume the character (cough Caitvi) and the ship everyone and their mom was so certain was gay, and the character everyone was so certain was Bi-- it was all a really strong brotherly love... and then they both die. The only families we see are het families. Even for background characters. I'm just saying that queer and het rep was not given the same respect and it actively hurt the story by derailing multiple plotlines and having a very poorly placed sex scene between lesbians.

The Noxians being the story's climax, only to be a red herring to another unrelated climax (The Glorious evolution) not only undercut Ambessea's tactical wisdom and credibility as a wise leader, but completely plowed over the central building conflict which was Piltover and its Undercity, the development and growth of Zaun, the derailment of Hextech's development due to political corruption and violent mindsets.

Victor wanted to help the undercity with hextech, and yet his arc ended with a self-love declaration. Like it was great that he was able to accept himself, but what about his dream to use hextech to protect and heal people from preventable ailments? That entire aspect of his motivation was just dropped. He turned hundreds into lifeless robot husks, and then just died, and that apparently got the thumbs up from Magical Mage Victor.

Like, it felt like it went from a story to a collection of moments when it came to resolving all of these story bits. The smoothest story endings are Ekko and Jynx's. Everyone else felt like a race to match their videogame counter parts. And I think that's the problem:

They started prioritizing alignment with the game instead of respecting the story they set up. It's not unlike how Voltron: LD tripped its own bike.

Like, I've been actively avoiding negative/criticizing content to see if it helps with how I enjoy media. But .... I've found that the last three things I've watched have been really unsatisfying despite genuinely looking forward to seeing them, and it irritates me to no end.

[so-i-did-this-thing]

Hello! I just wanted to say I stumbled across one of your posts and ended up looking through the trans tag in your blog for a while and idk it felt so so nice to see a middle aged trans guy just living life and being there for others who are at earlier points of their own trans related journeys, and I hope I can look as awesome as you and be as comfortable in my own skin and style and everything when I'm older.

I guess I also wanted to ask if you had any insight or advice about a couple things, if you're willing to share.. First thing is, did you ever struggle with passing but looking much younger than your age and that somewhat affecting your perception of yourself? I'm 28 and I started T 11 months ago (though at a pretty low dose because I wanted slow changes) and my face just recently started visibly shifting to a more masculine contour and I love it, but I still don't really look like a 28 year old guy.

I've always passed easily even before T but people think I'm like 18-21 max. Things were fine while I was in college (I came out at 19 so for a while my face just felt fitting enough and didn't make me feel either dysphoric or in a weird age limbo) but every year it feels more frustrating and makes me feel sort of alienated from myself including in mental ways, like I'm just a little kid who can't grow up. Like I'll never look like a "real guy" even though I can be stealth because I look like a weird teen and not like a grown up man. It's especially bad when I look at my amab younger siblings who are now also adults and see how I "should have looked" in some other life if I was cis. I guess maybe that's just another manifestation of dysphoria that I didn't have to deal with before? Did you ever experience something like that? And if yes did it get better after some years on T or how did you deal with it?

The other thing is just.. internalized transphobia. It's one thing to know things in a logical or intellectual sense but it's so hard to really feel and believe it sometimes and let go of all the awful transphobic stuff my family said to me during the first years of me being out. I just kept going anyway because I needed to be true to myself and my family basically bullying me wasn't gonna just magically change how I felt about my gender, but what it did do is put my already low confidence and self esteem (in this context regarding my gender) down on the floor. And sometimes I still just think and worry "what if they were right and I was wrong and I'll never be real and valid because of x y z", "what if I'm just delusional", "what if I'm a ridiculous freak". I know, in a way, that no I'm not. I'm just a trans person and they're just transphobes. But feelings like that just get to me sometimes and I don't really know what to do about them even nearly 10 years after coming out. Does that get better at some point? Just like you kinda stop giving a shit what people think about you in general as you get older? But how can you change those internalized views affecting what you think of yourself?

Bit nervous about asking this stuff tbh, so sorry it was so long also sorry if I worded any of it in a not so great way.

I will say though, that seeing older trans people like you does help a little bit. Just makes it feel like "hell yeah I wanna be like him when I grow up". So thank you for showing me that today ;u; (and also for inspiring me to put a little more thought and effort into my styling and fashion choices haha)

Heya, Anon! Let's see what I can cover here:

Looking young.

Oh my god, yes. I was getting carded to buy superglue and spray paint well into my late 30s (I started T at 33). When my partner first asked me out for a date, they were worried I wasn't old enough to drink yet (I was 36).

This is me 1 year on T, age 34.

Years 6 & 7 (ages 39 and 40), is when I feel I started looking older.

I feel like it's only been recently, 14 years in at 47, that I look in my 40s, and a "mature" adult. My beard finally getting full helped, as did my receding hairline. And I feel like my skin texture has toughened up enough, to where wrinkles show more.

That said, yes, it is tough and annoying to deal with. Even when people tell me I look like a particular cis man (where I actually see the resemblance, lol), when I look at us side-by-side, I feel like I'm just a pale shadow of him. I feel jealous and dysphoric, even while I'm flattered by the comparison. I wonder what I "should" look like, and it feels like something has been stolen from me. Its a roller coaster of emotions.

That feeling never really goes away, but you need to afford yourself some grace. You're going to be your own worst critic, and I guarantee you that, of many cis men you grew up with, you can probably still see the kid in them. So of course, you're going to see the kid in yourself.

But, you also just need to let time run its course. HRT is a marathon, and a lot of changes don't really settle for about 5 or 6 years.

I hate to say "enjoy it while you can" because I sure as hell bristled at being mistaken for a teenager or barely 20 when I was in my 30s. But do enjoy what you can of it. Because once you hit middle age, you're going to start dealing with a strange intersection of dysphoria and aging that I myself am still trying to navigate.

One other way I help myself get over negative feelings is to think of how differently my life would have been if I were cis. I honestly worry I would have been a worse person; even though being trans creates a lot of obstacles in my life, I feel like it's been a net gain: being able to know myself so well and help others learn about themselves.

Internalized transphobia

This got better for me with age. My epiphany was that, even over a decade into my transition, I was still softening myself for the benefit of friends and family. I was still using my gender-neutral birthname (I only recently changed it). I would call myself a "person", "guy", or "dude", instead of a "man". I dressed on the young and casual side, eschewing full-on masculine outfits like proper suits with ties.

I only recently pulled myself out of this. It still is a habit-in-progress to refer to myself as a man, even though I have always felt like one. And I've started to dress more vintage, not just because of hyper fixations, but because it's a way to lean into a presentation that is unequivocally, "this is a middle-aged man". And it's done a lot of good for my mental health.

What I'd suggest is to see if you are holding yourself back in any way wrt your gender presentation or how you talk/think about yourself. Give yourself full permission to acknowledge that you are a man, full stop. You're a young man, sure. But still a man, and a full-ass adult at that.

I hope some of this helps. Transition gives us a unique toolset for examining who we are and how we want to move through the world, and that work certainly doesn't end after finally getting on HRT. <3

[megxplryxb]

For you, I would ruin myself

Pairings: Steve Harrington x Fem!Reader, mentions of Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Allusions to cheating but not really, Mutual pining, Idiots in love, Love confessions, Angst, Heartbreak

Author's notes: Hi lovely people, I'm really sorry I haven't been around lately. Well, who am I kidding, I've been pretty MIA since March. The writers block was kicking my ass and the motivation just wasn't there but I've had so many ideas lately and this one was unfinished in my drafts for way too long so finally got around to completing it over the past few days. I'm not in love with the ending, but I do like that it's not the usual happy ending I always do. Please be kind, I'm a little rusty. x

Another Friday evening, another failed date, Steve thought to himself as he climbed into his BMW with a deflated sigh, leaning back against the headrest. He’d been on three dates in the past month and it was starting to feel a little mundane and pointless. Three different candidates, three different bouquets of flowers, three different venues but none of them had developed into anything further. He was completely used to the routine by now, picking them up from their house, paying for the meal or for the movie, making some awkward conversation before sharing a kiss that made him feel absolutely nothing inside. He’d tell the girl he was sorry, that he didn't see it going anywhere between them before offering her a ride home or pay for a cab and head back to his house alone.

It's not that the girls weren't pretty, or that their personalities were dull or that they’d done anything wrong necessarily. The issue was Steve and his lack of real interest in getting to know any of them romantically, 'cause there was someone else consuming his thoughts and he couldn't get her out of his fucking mind. He pressed his forehead to the steering wheel, cursing at himself for being so off of his game, for being so distracted by someone he knew he couldn't have. Steve used to be a pro at dating, he could get any girl he wanted, whenever he wanted just by clicking his damn fingers. But he wasn't that guy anymore and this time he couldn't get the girl either. The girl he really fucking wanted. Frustrated, he pulled out of the parking lot, turning up the radio before leaving Enzo's and another unsuccessful date in the rear view mirror.

He picked up a case of beer from the liquor store and contemplated going home to drown his sorrows alone. He thought about going to Robin's too but knew she'd chew him out for screwing up yet another date that she had to convince him to go on in the first place. He wasn't even sure his best friend would want to see him after their stupid argument in Family Video earlier, so he decided against the idea and kept on driving.

"Steve, you have to move on from this fixation you have with her. You and her are never gonna happen, it can't happen, you know that right?"

"Yeah I know Robin, alright? Jesus Christ, can you please stop talking about it?”

"Look, I'm sorry ok? I know I'm being a total pain in the ass but I'm just worried about you. I know how you get when you fall for someone and I don't want to see you get hurt or mess up a really good friendship because of–"

"I get it Robin, fuck, I'm trying to get over it, over her, I really am. I've distanced myself as much as I can without making it totally obvious that something’s up. What else do you want me to do, huh?"

"I don't know, Steve! I'm just trying to help. I'm trying to be your friend and make you see that this doesn't have a happy ending for you.”

“You don’t think I know how this ends for me? How it always ends? I’m well aware of how this goes Robin, so please just…don’t, ok?”

Steve felt horrible for fighting with Robin. He felt like shit for taking his frustrations out on her but she just wouldn't stop talking about the situation and the consequences he would face if he ever acted on his feelings. He already felt bad enough about it, he didn’t need her reminding him every five god damn minutes that he couldn’t have the thing he wanted the most. Of course, he'd apologise to her tomorrow with ice cream and chocolate along with the promise of being her personal chauffeur for the next month straight because deep down he knew she was right.

After a while of driving around, Steve found himself at the entrance of Forrest Hills trailer park. His fingers dancing on the steering wheel as he bit his lip, thinking about whether or not he should just keep going. Eddie had been on his ass lately about never seeing him, wondering if he'd done or said something to piss Steve off, trying to arrange a boys night so they could catch up but Steve kept putting him off until the metal head eventually quit asking. Christ, Munson wouldn’t want to hang out with him ever again if he knew the reason why Steve was avoiding him in the first place. But Robin was right, he had to get over it and cutting himself off from everyone wasn’t going to help anything.

"Fuck it." Steve muttered, as he drove through the gates and made his way into the trailer park, hoping he wouldn’t regret his decision later on, praying it wasn’t a total mistake coming here.

The gravel crunched under his tyres as the car came to a halt outside of Eddie's trailer just as the sun had finally set on the little town of Hawkins, Indiana. Switching off his ignition, he grabbed the case of beer before stepping out of the car, walking around to the back of the trailer but quickly noticing that neither Waynes car or Eddie’s van were anywhere to be found. He could however, see a flicker of light escaping through the curtains and hear the chorus of Shout by Tears for Fears coming from inside, causing his heart to beat a little faster, skin feeling a little hotter, cause he knew who was inside and he needed to get out of there immediately.

"Shit." Steve whispered, hurrying back to his car, placing the box of beer onto the passenger seat hoping his presence hadn't been noticed by the one person he had been trying so desperately hard to stay away from all this time. But the creak of the trailer door opening behind him told him he was already too late as he turned around to see you standing there, arms folded, head tilted, smiling at him.

"Hey stranger, long time no see."

Steve swallowed hard, instantly feeling more butterflies in his stomach just from seeing you for the first time in weeks than he had from any of his dates in the past month. He didn’t know how it was possible but he was certain you’d gotten even prettier in his absence. Your usual flowy hair clipped back into a messy bun, sun kissed legs on show in your tiny denim shorts, finished off by an oversized Metallica T-shirt that most definitely belonged to your boyfriend...To Eddie, one of Steve's best friend’s. The one and only reason he could never tell you how he really felt.

“Yeah, I guess it’s been a while, huh?” He chuckled nervously as you made your way down the steps, towards his car.

“A while? It’s been forever. I think I was even starting to miss you.” You tease, wrapping your arms around him, pulling him into the warmest of hugs. His whole body tenses with the feeling of you so close to him and he swore his heart stopped for a moment as he took in your scent. You were ice cream on hot summer days, cocoa on cold winter nights and everything he knew he could ever want or need.

It wasn’t unlike you to hug him, you’d always been affectionate and touchy but it felt different this time, like you needed it as much as he did. So he finally relaxed his body, allowing his arms to find their way around your waist, chin resting on your head, keeping you close for what felt like several minutes.

“Yeah, I missed you too.” So much, he thinks to himself as you eventually break apart.

“So, beer huh? I take it you were looking for Eddie?” You ask, noticing the box in Steve’s BMW.

“Uh, yeah…he’s been asking me to come hang out for a couple of weeks but I’ve just been super busy with work and stuff. Finally had some free time, so I thought I’d take him up on the offer before he completely disowned me.” Steve jokes as you let out a small laugh.

“Poor guys been like a lost puppy without you. Honestly, its getting embarrassing. I’m clearly not enough for him.” You sigh sarcastically as Steve shakes his head.

“I highly doubt that honey.” He replies truthfully, voice in the back of his mind screaming that you’d be enough for him. That you’ve always been enough for him.

You look away from him, placing a loose strand of hair behind your ear, hoping he hasn't caught the slight tint of pink creeping onto your cheeks with his tiny compliment.

“Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you but he’s playing with the band at the Hideout tonight.” You shrug, tugging on your bottom lip.

“That’s cool, I totally should have checked first anyway. I’ll catch him another time.” Steve replies, playing with his car keys.

“Y’know, Eddie’s not the only one who likes beer or do you just not want to hang out with me?” You smile, raising a brow and god he knows he’s in trouble. He knows he should shake his head, make up some excuse and run for the hills but he can’t. Not when you’re looking at him like that, like you want him to stay and fuck he really wants to.

“Of course I want to hang out with you, I just don’t want to be imposing.” He explains as you scoff.

“Imposing? Please, I could really do with a break, I’ve been cleaning this place all day for Wayne before he gets back into town tomorrow. Eddie’s a total pig, I swear he’s lucky he’s cute.” You laugh but Steve doesn’t really laugh with you. He hates that you think Eddie is cute, hates the way you say his name. Hates that he has no right to feel so jealous but he can’t help it. Because it was Steve’s own fucking fault for not telling you how he felt months ago, when he had a real chance to make you his before Eddie went and beat him to it.

“So, are you coming in or?” You ask, eyes wide as you start walking back towards the trailer.

This was Steve’s chance to run, to get into his car and go home like he’d originally planned to do. Why hadn’t he just done that in the first place? Why did he think coming to Eddie’s was such a good idea and how the fuck had he ended up alone with you? Robin would fucking kill him if she could see him now. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to be here. You should have been working in the Hideout like you did every Friday night since you left Family Video and him behind all those months ago.

“Steve?” You call again when you don’t hear his footsteps following you.

“Huh? Oh, yeah sorry, I’ll just grab the beers.” He finally answers, smiling at you as you nod happily, heading back inside.

Steve curses at himself, knowing he couldn’t leave now, it’d be too obvious. You were his friend just as much as Eddie, the only problem was, he didn’t want Eddie like he wanted you.

When he finally joined you inside, you were rummaging through a drawer to find a bottle opener that Wayne kept in there for safe keeping. Steve tries to look anywhere but at you as his body stood stiff in the doorway while you made your way towards the couch, plonking your tired body down. He could tell you’d been cleaning all day, the trailer unrecognisable from the usual mess Eddie had it in. Fresh hoover lines apparent on the spotless carpet, laundry washed and folded, pillows puffed, trash emptied and the countertops cleared and wiped down. There was even a scent of lavender in the air, compared to the usual smell of motor oil and cigarettes.

“You can sit down you know?” You smirk as Steve smiles, shaking his head.

"Sorry, I was just momentarily distracted by the fact that I could actually see the floor in here for once.” He jokes, placing the alcohol on the side table as you giggle, feeling him slump down beside you, letting out a heavy breath.

“Hi.” Steve smiles, turning his head towards you, resting his eyes on your porcelain face. It’s unfair how good you look right now, so effortlessly beautiful with your hair up and no make up on. Christ, you could be on the cover of any magazine, he thinks to himself.

“Hi.” You smile back, nudging your knee with his playfully and Steve’s thankful you can’t hear how fast his heart is beating just from the slightest bit of contact.

“Beer?” He offers, ripping open the box to grab two bottles.

“Thought you’d never ask, Harrington.” You tease, taking one from his hand, passing him the bottle opener.

“Cheers.” He grins nervously, clinking his drink with yours before he takes a large swig.

Forty minutes pass and you're both already on your second drink, catching up and talking as if no time at all had gone by. It had always been that way between you both, effortless and easy and Steve knew it was dangerous territory. He so quickly forgot all of the reasons why he shouldn't be here with you right now when your leg was brushing against his own, your head thrown back in a fit of laughter as he recalled an embarrassing story about Keith from the previous week and Christ, he had missed your infectious laugh.

He had missed everything about you.

He couldn't remember the last time you two had been alone together, it had to have been a couple of months at least and it felt nice that he had you all to himself for a little while without any distractions. Some of his favourite times had been your shifts together at Family Video, making each other laugh non stop, discussing the latest gossip of the town while stacking the shelves, taste testing the new candy when Keith left early like he always did and making up little games to play on nights where the hours just seemed to drag. You brightened up the store every time you walked in, made work fun and bearable and he looked forward to any shift that he got to spend with you.

That was until you went and left of course.

Steve had been utterly devastated the day Robin told him you'd given your two weeks to Keith, confused as to why you hadn't told him yourself and a little hurt that he was the last to know. He remembers Eddie coming to pick you up on your last day, a shit eating grin on his face now that you were going to work at the Hideout, meaning he'd get to see his new girlfriend way more while Steve got to see you much less. He had to clench his fists as he watched you walk out the door with Eddie, forcing a smile as you looked over your shoulder, giving him one last look before waving goodbye with tears in your eyes. He wanted so badly for you to change your mind, wanted to beg you to reconsider but Robin reminded him that it was for the best, hoping it would give Steve the time he needed to get over you.

“Y’know I was really starting to worry about you, was even thinking about setting up a search party.” You giggle, taking Steve away from him thoughts as he rolls his eyes playfully.

“I’m flattered you were so concerned about me.”

“I’m serious! I kept asking Dustin about you but he said he hadn’t seen you much either.”

“Well if you hadn’t left Family Video to go work with your boyfriend, you’d still see me everyday.” Steve responds in a tone that’s half teasing/half bitter and he winces seeing how taken aback you are by his comment

“Eddie’s not the reason I left, Steve.” You reply, pressing the bottle to your lips. If only he knew the real reason.

“Oh come on, why else would you leave? I can’t imagine it was for the scenic views or massive wage increase.” He scoffs sarcastically as you avoid his gaze.

“It was just time for me to move on.” You shrug, tugging on your bottom lip, wishing he would drop this topic.

“What do you mean? I thought you liked working at the Video store?” He quizzes, confused by your answer.

“I did, I loved it there but I just needed a change.”

“But that doesn’t make any—”

“Steve, can we please drop it?” You beg, your lips turning downward in a frown as you fidget with the hem of your boyfriends t-shirt.

“Yeah—yeah sure, sorry. I didn’t mean to be an asshole about it, it’s just that…I miss you. I mean, we miss you, Robin and I.” He swallows hard as you smile at him, your cheeks turning hot at his words.

“I miss you too, Steve. Both of you.” You reveal before a silence falls over the room for a moment.

"Are you hungry? You wanna order a pizza or I’m pretty sure there’s potato chips in the cupboard if you want some? You ask, finally easing the tension between you.

"I'm good. I had dinner in Enzo's a while ago.” Steve mumbles.

"Ah, I thought you were a little too dressed up just to come here and get drunk with Eddie. Were you on a date or something?" You question, raising your brows suspiciously at him, trying to ignore the knot forming in your stomach.

"Third one this month." He sighs, taking another sip of beer, completely missing the subtle hint of jealousy that flashes across your face momentarily.

"Wow, three dates huh? You must really like her." You force a smile, taking a drink from your own bottle as he huffs and shakes his head.

"Oh, it wasn't with the same girl. I meant three different dates, all equally terrible though." Steve confesses, a heavy sigh escaping his lips and you hate the relief you feel when you hear him say it.

"You really have been busy, no wonder we haven’t seen you lately." You say sarcastically as Steve remains silent, trying to hold himself back from saying everything he wanted to. He wants to tell you the reason you haven’t seen him is because he’s terrified of his feelings for you. That the reason he's going on so many dates is so he can try and move on from you. He wants to tell you that he’s terrified of ruining his friendships because he can’t stop thinking about you, that he can't stand seeing you with Eddie, because every time he sees his friend kiss you, he wants to punch his lights out, ‘cause you're supposed to be his girl. But he's too fucking late. He missed his chance with you and it's something he's going to have to live with for the rest of his life.

“So, what was so terrible about them?" You ask, turning to face him as he sits back trying to think of how best to answer that question. The only real answer he has to give is that they weren't you and nothing after that really mattered. He plays with the paper wrapped around his bottle, tearing it off bit by bit as you burn a hole through his head, waiting for a response. He's too afraid to look at you, terrified that if he does, it'll give him away and you'll figure it out for yourself, that he's completely and utterly head over heels in love with you.

"I uh, I guess none of them were really for me." He shrugs, keeping his eyes on the carpet below as you gaze at your friend sympathetically, knowing that feeling all too well.

"I'm sure you'll know the one when she comes along, Steve." You reassure, placing your hand on his knee as he lets out a dry laugh.

"I did." He mutters, taking the last sip from the bottle as you stare at him.

"What do you mean you did?" You question, tilting your head as his eyes widen in panic. Shit. He didn't mean for you to hear that, didn't mean to say it out loud. Had the two beers already gone to his fucking head?

"I– I just meant..." He pauses for a moment to look at you, really look at you as he thinks about what to say next. How does he get himself out of this? Should he just tell you the truth? Was now the right time to say it? Was being here alone with you a sign that he should just come out and tell you how he feels? Was it worth taking that risk?

"You're talking about Nancy, right?" You frown, releasing a heavy sigh as he contemplates how to respond. His stomach is sick that you think he still cares for Nancy in that way, he hasn't given her a second thought since you came along and took his breath away but maybe it was better for you to think that instead of him ruining his friendship with you, instead of ruining his friendship with Eddie. Because after all, he'd rather have you in his life as a friend than not have you in it at all. That would truly kill him.

"Yeah, I...I'm talking about Nancy." He lies and your heart sinks all over again.

Of course he's talking about Nancy. Robin had told you all about the girl Steve had been in love with for years during your first shift alone with her at Family Video. How she was the only girl he'd ever loved, how he'd changed his ways for her in High School and how he still wanted a whole brood of mini Harrington's with her even though she’d broken his heart. When you eventually did meet Nancy though, you fully understood what he saw in her. She was beautiful, smart and perfect, everything a guy like Steve Harrington could ever want.

Everything you felt you weren’t.

“Steve, if it’s Nancy you really want, maybe it’s time to just be honest with her?” You suggest, trying to stop yourself from falling to pieces in front of him.

Steve finally lifts his head to lock eyes with yours, your words starting to replay in his mind “maybe it’s time to just be honest with her.”

“How can I tell her how I feel when she’s with somebody else?” He asks, his stomach in knots, his insides twisting as he watches you chew on your bottom lip.

“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel the same way about you, maybe she’s just really good at hiding it.” You shrug defeated, as he tries to read your face for an answer to a question that’s kept him up late at night. Could it be possible that you have feelings for him too? That you’ve been just as good at hiding them as he has? Maybe even better?

“You…you think she could feel the same way about me?” He asks, finally sitting up, turning towards you fully.

“I guess there’s really only one way to find out.” You reply, forcing a smile, hoping you don’t look too devastated as you stand up to collect the empty bottles from the coffee table. Needing to remove yourself from this conversation fast.

Just as you reach out to grab the first one, you feel Steve’s warm hand softly wrap around yours, holding you in place as he stares at you petrified.

“Steve, what—”

“It’s not Nancy.” He interrupts, a total look of despair on his face as he takes a deep breath. You’re eyeing him in utter confusion as you take a seat beside him again.

“What do you mean it’s not Nancy? I don’t under—”

“I’m in love with you.” He finally confesses, the words falling from his mouth too fast for him to catch, to hold back and bury deep beneath the surface again and for the first time in months he feels like he can finally breathe again. Unfortunately for Steve, the relief only lasts a couple of seconds as panic sets in and he realises that he's just confessed to loving his best friend's girlfriend.

He’s too afraid to look at your face, terrified of what your reaction will be, so instead, he keeps his eyes glued to the floor, ashamed of himself for putting you in this predicament. He's completely fucked everything up.

“I'm sorry, please don't hate me. The last thing I intended to do tonight was tell you that I love you. Fuck, I didn't even think you'd be here, you weren't supposed to be here! I've just been trying to stay away from you hoping that these stupid feelings would just go away you know? But it's been so hard and I missed you and then I show up here looking for Eddie but then I see you after so long and I just couldn't keep it in any longer, it's been killing me for months." Steve rambles, placing his hands over his face as you sit frozen in silence.

"I think it's probably for the best if I go." He says, standing up to leave you alone, grabbing his keys from the countertop.

"So you just drop a bomb on me like that and think you just get to walk away?" You say, finally finding your voice, rising to your feet.

"I just thought maybe you'd want some space or maybe you'd never want to see me again." Steve shrugs. noticing the utter shock on your face.

"We live in Hawkins Steve, we have the same friends. I don't think never seeing each other again is a realistic option." You state, trying to take everything in. Steve lets out a sigh of relief, happy you haven't immediately jumped to cutting him out of your life yet.

"You said it's been killing you for months, how long is that exactly?" You question, suddenly finding it very hard to breathe. It's an easy answer for Steve as he knows the very moment he fell in love with you.

“Do you remember the day that really nice old man came into the store looking for a copy of Casablanca?" He asks as you nod your head, recalling it instantly. It's something you'd never forget.

The man had come in on an unusually rainy day in the hopes of renting the movie he and his wife had watched together every year on the day of their wedding anniversary. He told you both of his wife's recent passing after a lengthy battle with an illness and how he had decided to bury their copy of the movie with her, so she could still watch it with him wherever she was.

"You took him for coffee on your lunch break that day knowing he was all alone while I looked for the movie in the back. You let him cry and talk about his wife even though you didn't know her. You gave him the time of day that no one else would have and when I found the movie, you told him to keep it and you took a twenty from your own purse to cover the cost. You told him you hoped one day you'd know a love like theirs and I remember thinking... fuck I'm so in love with that girl." Steve smiles, eyes glassy as you too have to wipe away the tears that had fallen down your cheeks.

"He still comes in you know? Asks about you all the time, wonders if I ever made a move. Called me a dumbass when I told him I missed my chance." He jokes, trying to make you smile but somehow the whole thing makes you angry.

"If you felt that way about me then, why didn't you tell me? That was months before I was even with Eddie, Steve!" You challenge, folding your arms as Steve runs a hand through his hair.

"I don't know, the timing just never seemed to be right."

"Oh please, we only worked together almost every day for over a year, we hung out almost every single night." You scoffed, rolling your eyes.

"Well yeah but we were never really alone together. There was always someone else around, Keith, Robin, the kids, Eddie..."

"Come on Steve, those are bullshit excuses and you know it!" You argue as he shakes his head.

"It's not like it matters anyway, I mean, it's not like you felt the same way or anything!" He fights back as you stand silent, hand over your mouth, eyes on the floor.

That's when the penny finally drops for Steve.

"Shit, you did feel the same didn't you? You had feelings for me?" He questions softly as you wrap your arms around yourself, nodding a yes. He's been so blind, so stupid. How didn't he see this? How did you hide it so well?

"It's hardly that shocking, is it? I mean you're Steve Harrington, girls have been falling in love with you your whole life." You joke as Steve remains silent. "I didn't want to like you. Christ, when I started working at Family Video I expected to hate you but you weren't what I thought you'd be. You were funny and kind and caring and god, I saw how those kids worshipped you. It was only a matter of time really." You admitted. " There were times that I thought, 'maybe he likes me too' you know? But then Robin told me all about Nancy, how much you loved her, how you'd changed for her and I thought it was game over for me. She was just so perfect, I mean, how could I ever compete with someone like her?"

"There would never have been a contest, it would have been you every single time." Steve whispers, wanting to reach out for you.

"That's why you left Family Video isn't it? Cause you thought I still loved Nancy?" He asks as you nod again.

"I had to try to get over you."

"Did it work?"

"It doesn't matter Steve." You brush off the question, trying to walk away but he catches your hand gently.

"It matters to me."

"I'm with Eddie now. How I feel about you isn't going to change that." You state as Steve heavily accepts your words, however crushing they might be. He would always respect your decision, caring too much about you and Eddie to deliberately ruin your relationship.

"But if you weren't, and I had asked you out back then, would we be together now?" He asks, wiping the tears from your face. You already know the answer in your heart and you know Steve does too.

"Yeah, I think we would be. I know we would be." You assert as a single tear falls down his cheek. "But I can't do that to Eddie, I can't leave him."

"And I would never ask you to, honey. Fuck, I really messed this up." He sniffs as you shake your head. "We both did, Steve." You cry as he holds you close for several minutes.

"I better get going, I'm sure Munson will be home soon." He sighs, reluctantly letting you go, wishing he could keep you in his arms forever. He once again grabs his keys and heads for the front door as you follow close behind.

"Steve?"

"Hmm?"

"I do by the way, I do still love–" He cuts you off, pressing his lips lightly to yours for a brief moment before pulling away when he feels you kiss back, knowing if he'd waited a second longer, Eddie would arrive home to his best friend making love to his girlfriend.

"Please don't say it." Steve begs closing his eyes. "I'm trying to do the right thing here and walk away, if I hear you say that, I don't think I'll be able to leave without you." He whispers as you cup his face.

"Then you better go now because if you kiss me again, I don't think i'll have the strength to stop myself from going with you." You cry as he nods, exiting the trailer, walking back to his car, giving you one last look as he opens the BMW door. He smiles at you through glassy eyes, both of your hearts breaking as you wonder what could have been. Where does your friendship go from here? How are you supposed to forget about this night? How do you pretend that you aren't utterly and completely in love with each other?

"Goodnight honey."

"Goodnight Steve."

[its-avalon-08]

why did you leave me (cl16)

part5!

multipart story! prev || next

summary : charles and y/n have always been best friends. but y/n has been in love with him forever. when charles starts dating a new girl, out of respect y/n distances herself. but how much is too much?

✦ pairing - charles leclerc x female reader

Charles had been in a foul mood all week. The breakup with Camille had left him heartbroken, but more than that, he felt a deep sense of loneliness. The one person he truly wanted to talk to was Y/N, but she had been so distant lately.

As he approached the Red Bull garage, he spotted a familiar group. Carlos, Lando, Max, and Lewis were standing together, laughing and chatting. Y/N was there too, looking radiant as ever, her laughter ringing out melodiously.

Charles' mood darkened further when he spotted Y/N chatting animatedly with Lando Norris. They stood close, laughing and sharing an easy camaraderie that used to belong to him and Y/N. Lando wrapped his arms around Y/N in a playful hug, and Charles felt a surge of jealousy and anger.

Charles' heart clenched as he watched her interact so effortlessly with the others. He made his way over, feeling a pang of jealousy mixed with longing.

"Hey, guys," Charles greeted, forcing a smile.

"Hey, Charles!" Carlos said, giving him a friendly clap on the shoulder. "Long time no see."

"Yeah, it's been a while," Charles replied, his eyes drifting to Y/N.

"Y/N was just telling us about her trip to Japan," Lando said, his eyes shining with excitement. "It sounded amazing!"

"You went to Japan?" Charles asked, trying to keep his tone casual.

Y/N nodded, her smile faltering slightly as she met his gaze. "Yeah, it was a spontaneous trip. I needed a break."

"Sounds fun," Charles said, unable to hide the bitterness in his voice.

Max, sensing the tension, quickly changed the subject. "So, Charles, how’s the car feeling today?"

Charles answered distractedly, his mind racing with thoughts of Y/N. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had been left out, that he was no longer a part of her life. As the conversation continued, he realized just how much he had missed. The others knew about her recent adventures, her new hobbies, even small details about her day-to-day life.

"Y/N's been really into photography lately," Lewis mentioned, showing Charles a stunning photo Y/N had taken on his phone. "She's got a real talent."

Charles clenched his jaw, feeling a surge of anger and frustration. He turned to Y/N, his eyes blazing. "Why didn’t you tell me any of this? Why did I have to find out from them?"

Y/N looked taken aback, her eyes wide with hurt. "Charles, I—"

"Why weren't you there anymore, Y/N?" he demanded, his voice rising. "Why did you cut me out of your life? One day I woke up and you just weren't there anymore. No call, no text, no updates. You abandoned me."

The others exchanged uneasy glances, sensing the brewing storm. Y/N took a deep breath, trying to steady her emotions. "Charles, I didn’t mean to—"

"You didn’t mean to what?" he interrupted, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "You didn’t mean to leave your best friend behind? You didn’t mean to make me feel like I don’t matter anymore?"

"Charles, that’s not fair," Y/N said, her voice trembling. "You were happy with Camille. I didn’t want to intrude and I thought that was okay. That you were okay with it."

"Everything is far from okay," he snapped. "How come you have time for everyone else but me? You can be here for Lando, laughing and hugging, but you can't even spare a minute for your so-called best friend."

"Charles, please," Y/N said, tears welling up in her eyes. "I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you."

"Well, you did," he said, his voice cracking. "You hurt me more than you can imagine."

Y/N faced Charles, taken aback by his outburst. "Charles, I—"

"No, Y/N, let me finish," he interrupted, his voice trembling with emotion. "I've been through hell these past few weeks. Camille and I fucking broke up, and the one person I wanted to talk to, the one person I needed, was you. But you weren't there. You were nowhere to be found. Do you have any idea how that feels?"

Y/N's eyes widened with shock and guilt. "You and Camille broke up? Charles, I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't know! You haven't been around to know anything about my life," he retorted. "I don't get it, Y/N. Why do you want to be friends with everyone else but me? Why are you pushing me away?"

Y/N reached out, trying to touch his arm, but he pulled away, the hurt and betrayal evident on his face. "I thought we were supposed to be there for each other, no matter what."

"We are," Y/N whispered, her voice barely audible. "We are, Charles."

Tears welled up in Y/N's eyes as she realized the extent of his pain. "Charles, I never wanted to hurt you. I thought distancing myself was the right thing to do."

"Right for who? Because it sure as hell wasn't right for me," he said bitterly. "I've missed you so much, Y/N. You were my best friend, and now it feels like I've lost you too."

He asked, his voice breaking, "Why did you leave me?" Charles shook his head, his anger giving way to a deep sadness. "I just want to understand," he whispered.

Before Y/N could respond, Carlos stepped in, his tone gentle but firm. "Charles, maybe we should all take a moment to cool down. This isn’t the place for this conversation."

Charles nodded, his anger still simmering. He turned away, not trusting himself to speak without lashing out again. He needed to clear his head, to make sense of the whirlwind of emotions tearing him apart.

As he walked away, he heard Y/N’s soft sobs and it broke his heart even more. He knew he needed answers, but more than that, he needed to find a way to fix the shattered pieces of their friendship before it was too late.

[lemoncrushh]

Too Long

Summary: It's been too long since you and Harry have had sex.

Warnings: Smut, a little bit of angst 18+ ONLY

Word Count: 1510

A/N: From my 2016 collection. Real Harry x reader.

"Well, that was fun," you said sarcastically as you unbuckled your shoes and pulled them off your feet.

"It was alright," muttered Harry. He stood near you, unbuttoning his shirt before shrugging out of it and tossing it in the laundry hamper.

You huffed out a breath as you rose from the bed, reaching behind yourself to unzip your dress. When you couldn't quite reach it, you quickly gave up and walked to the bathroom, shutting the door behind you.

The fact that Harry was oblivious to your attitude just made things worse. This was the third party you'd been to in less than a month. You understood Harry was a busy guy, and normally you would have been glad and even excited to join him at these functions. But now it seemed like you were only going because it was the only chance you got to be with him. You hadn't had any time alone with him in you didn't know how long except for the sporadic late nights when you'd decided to wait up for him on the sofa only to have him come home too exhausted to even have a conversation, let alone anything else. He'd mumbled something like "sorry, love, 'm goin' t'bed" before climbing the stairs, leaving you disappointed and sexually frustrated.

The parties weren't much of a consolation. You spent most of the evening making the rounds, chatting with some people you'd met before, some you hadn't. But the conversations were usually all the same, and in the end you just wished you were at home watching a movie in bed.

You'd washed off your makeup and were brushing your teeth when you finally noticed your shoulders were shaking from silent sobs. You missed him. You miss him so much it hurt. His lips, his hands on your body, his breath on your face. You knew he loved you, but sometimes you wondered if he missed you too.

Spitting out your toothpaste and wiping your mouth on a towel, you opened the bathroom door to find Harry sitting on the chair in the corner of the bedroom, his jeans still on, his boots next to his socked feet. He was leaning forward, his head in his hand. When he didn't look up as you approached, you figured he hadn't heard you.

"Could you..." you began, your words faltering when he lifted his gaze. His mouth was pursed in a deep frown, and you thought you detected a hint of wetness in his eyes.

"What?" he asked softly.

You cleared your throat and turned around. "Would you mind helping me with this zipper?"

"Oh, sure," you heard him say.

You let out a sigh as you felt his fingers maneuver the zipper on your dress, pulling it down slowly.

"Thanks," you mumbled, ready to walk to the closet when Harry's hands on your waist stopped you, pulling you backwards. He wrapped his arms around you as you fell onto his lap, his head on your shoulder.

"Baby..." he whined, his lips dragging across your skin, "I miss you."

Your hands grabbed his arms at your stomach.

"What?" you sounded. Although you knew what he'd said, you just wanted to hear him confirm it.

"I miss you so much," he repeated, pulling you even closer to him.

You shifted slightly in his lap to look at him. "Really?"

"God, yes," he replied, taking your face in his hands. Bringing his mouth to yours, he kissed you gently . "I'm sorry I've been so busy. I haven't meant to neglect you...to neglect us."

"Harry..." you whispered, suddenly at a loss for words.

"I know you don't wanna go to these things," he continued.

You shook your head, looking down at your hands. "It's not that. I just-"

"I know," Harry nodded, the pads of his thumbs tracing circles on your cheeks. "It's been too long."

You closed your eyes, taking in a deep breath and letting it out. Biting your bottom lip, you whispered, "Yeah."

Your eyes still shut, you felt Harry's hand leave your face and travel down your neck to the strap of your dress. As he slid it across your shoulder, his lips met your skin once more, giving you chills of excitement. You turned around again so that your back was to him while he held back your hair and kissed your neck. Harry slid down the other strap of your dress so that it fell down to your waist, revealing your breasts. Your hands gripped the arms of the chair when he cupped them, his mouth sucking on the tender skin below your ear. You let out a tiny moan as he took your nipples between his index fingers and thumbs, pinching them slightly.

"I want you," you heard him growl in your ear, his breath tickling you and igniting your senses.

With a small sound rising from your throat, you stood from the chair, letting your dress drop to the floor. Then turning around, you faced Harry, a look in his eyes that you hadn't seen in weeks. His perfect lips were slightly parted, almost in a pout and it took you only a second to crawl back onto his lap, straddling him and covering his mouth with yours.

"I want you, too," you whispered in between kisses.

Harry's hands roamed up your thighs to the sides of your lacy underwear. He urged them down with his fingers until you broke from the kiss to stand again, shimmying out of them. You took the opportunity to unbutton his jeans, pulling them down with his boxers while he helped you until they were in a pile on the floor with your dress. You licked your lips as you took a second to admire his erection before returning to your perch above him.

"God, you're sexy," he groaned, taking your nipple into his mouth, allowing his tongue to swirl over and around it.

You moaned again as you began to grind against him, the need to feel him inside you growing stronger with every movement.

"Shit," Harry breathed. "You're so fucking wet."

With a nod, you lifted your hips and took his hard cock in your hand, aiming it at your center. As always, Harry let you slide down slowly, adjusting to his size until you reached his hip bone. You gulped in a breath before gently lifting up, riding him at an easy pace.

Your hands on his shoulders, you gazed into his gorgeous green eyes. They spoke volumes as you simply watched each other in silence, your hips pumping slowly. Finally, Harry brushed your hair off your shoulder, sliding his hand under your ear.

"Kiss me," he requested.

You happily obliged, slipping your tongue inside to meet his. You felt his other hand grip your hip tightly as he moaned against your mouth. You began to move a little faster which made his fingers dig into your skin deeper.

"Oh, baby, I missed you," he sighed, leaning his forehead against yours.

"Me too," you whispered.

"You feel so fucking good," he blinked.

"I know," you half teased.

Harry chuckled, nuzzling your neck and biting your shoulder.

"Yeah, you do," he agreed, lifting his head to look at you again. He wore that smirk that always did you in. You grinned back at him before biting your lip and riding him faster. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

"Fuck me," he begged. Gripping your waist with both hands, he guided you where he wanted you. "Oh, God, yeah baby, fuck me."

You let out a few whines as your increased rhythm caused the friction to bring you closer to your peak.

"Harry..." you cried, feeling the orgasm nearing.

"Yeah," he breathed. "Come with me, darlin'. 'm so close."

You bounced on his cock even faster, your fingers tangled in the back of his hair. Just as he let out a deep, guttural moan, your own orgasm ripped through you. You called out his name again as you rode him to the finish.

"Oh my God," you panted, your head falling against his shoulder. "Harry..."

Harry was silent for a few moments except for the sound of his breathing. He wrapped his arms around your stomach, pulling you as close to him as possible. You could feel his heart beating in chest against yours as you both came down.

"I'm so sorry, baby," he finally said, his voice raspy. "Never gonna let that much time go again."

You made a contented sound against his skin. "Good."

"You're incredible."

You laid against him for another minute or two before sitting up to look at his face.

"How much time will you let go?" you inquired.

Harry's mouth curled up into a grin as he ran his fingers up and down your back. With a shrug he said, "Might be willing to accept an hour or two."

You beamed at him before giving him a kiss on the lips.

"I can live with that," you agreed.

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[sturnzyolo]

I love you, I'm sorry.

Matt Sturniolo x Fem reader

Summary: "Guys & Girls can never just be friends" I used to think that was a lie, until I met you.

WARNINGS: love confession, bestfriends, fluff, kissing, lying, crying?, etc.

Matt & I have been bestfriends since middle school. It all started when I asked to borrow a calculator. Once I handed it back, he asked for help on the work, & as I tutored Matt, we connected more & more. He turned into my closest friend, the one person I could tell everything to, the only person I wanted by my side throughout it all.

Everything was the same for years, every morning Matt would pick me up and take me to school with his brothers, everday he would walk me to each class, he would eat lunch with me, and he would drive me back to his house to hangout before walking me back home.

Everyday was the same yet so different. I was close with Matt's whole family, but nobody could beat my bond with Matt. He was all I needed in life.

I always assumed life would continue this way until we all inevitably had to split, but I didn't see that happening anytime soon. They were like my family. Most people would think a girl can't be friends with guys without there being some kind of feelings or connection between them. I always denied that, I never pictured Matt in that way. He was my bestfriend, nothing more.

January 8th, 2024

I've noticed Matt start to hangout with me less and less, I had assumed he was just busy, especially with how his new YouTube career has been starting for the triplets. I was proud that they were going after their dreams, but I was a bit sad that I saw him less than usual.

I thought about this as I was getting ready for school, I wondered if it could be more than him just being busy.

My clouded mind soon cleared at the sound of my phone's notification, I quickly put down my makeup brush and picked up my phone to read the message.

(yes I got a whole app to do fake messages AND WHAT ABT IT.)

I was in slight shock to read the message, Matt always took me to school no matter what. The only times he didn't was for therapy but he hasn't gone before school in awhile.

I tried to not show him how much I cared about the change he's been showing. He was never so distant from me. Did I do something wrong? Was something going on with him? I let my mind run on the possibilities for what I had done for him to be treating me so much differently from before.

I got to school by walking since I was still saving up for my own car. I waited for Matt at the front doors, since we always walked from class to class together. He never showed, he must've went in through the back or gotten here before me. I went to each class alone or with any of my girl friends, although Nick took me to Spanish class. I was too scared to ask him about his brother's new behavior.

January 26th, 2024

Matt's act kept up for more than 2 weeks, I saw him and spoke to him less and less everyday. I didn't want to lose him like this, I didn't want to have to forget about him in a way that felt like I was forced to. I was honestly fed up with it, so I decided that I needed to text him, right now.

(you barely even look in my direction*) sorry guys I didn't see the error before

I rolled my eyes and slammed my phone screen down with a frustrated huff. It felt pointless even attempting to have a real conversation with Matt, and it was exhausting.

I watched the pouring rain outside my window. My thoughts wandered for atleast a half hour about Matt, I couldn't understand what went wrong, and I wanted to know so badly. All I wanted was my bestfriend again and he couldn't even have one genuine conversation with me.

My conflictions were abruptly cut short when a loud knock on my door came, at first I didn't want to even get up. It was probably some stupid sales person. Another knock came, I flipped over and looked at my phone 12:47 am who the fuck would be at my door this late!?

my question was quickly answered with a yell after another knock "Y/n please open up, it's Matt, come on its pouring" his voice made me quickly get up in disbelief as I ran downstairs.

I unlocked and slowly opened the door to see Matt in a disheveled state, his eyes were a light pink while his eyebags were swollen, his nose was red, his hair was wet and his clothes were drenched.

"Hey, look can I just come in, please?" Matt asked softly with a slight break of his voice, circling around the reason he was here

"You were just being a complete asshole, no, why are you even here, go home" I was upset and clearly didn't want to talk to him at all but seeing him like this hurt.

"Please y/n/n, I walked all the way here just to talk to you, just let me in." He pleaded with a sniffle from his nose

"Oh, so I have to let you in, when you don't even let me? You've been acting like a completely new person, you shouldn't be here, I mean you did say your life is more than just me." I said in an argumentative tone as I held my ground with a cold gaze over to him

"No, no, please y/n I didn't mean that, you know I didn't. I know I've been an asshole but.. I can't keep lying to myself, and lying to you. I couldn't see you and talk to you because it was destroying me y/n/n." Matt muttered with stumbles over his words, he anxiously fiddled with his fingernails.

"Why, what did I do? What have you been lying about, because it's been killing me, you've been a dick to me and have been treating me like I'm nothing, so what the fuck did I do to deserve that!?" I said angrily with my tone growing louder

"Nothing! Nothing y/n, you're perfect to me. you make me utterly speechless sometimes but it kills me that I can't have you. I know you've never seen me as more as just your bestfriend, but I love you, y/n. I'm in love with you, I know it sounds fucking crazy, but I can't stop thinking about you, I was lying saying my life is more than just you, because you're all I need in my life other than my family, and I can't even breathe when I'm not around you, it feels like I'm fucking suffocating. You're my bestfriend, but I can't help to want more. I love you, I'm sorry if that's so wrong, but no matter what you say I will continue to love you, because there isn't a bone in my body that isn't dying for you to love me back." Matt spoke in one whole breath, almost yelling as he confessed. His chest rose and fell heavily waiting for my answer

MATT POV

I looked at y/n as my eyes filled with tears, her face was in disbelief as her eyebrows furrowed and lips slightly parted. 'God she's beautiful' I thought as my eyes traveled her face while I breathed heavily. I needed her to say something, anything. I felt like an idiot in this silence, I could ruin everything because of this, I had loved her since the first moment I laid eyes on her but I knew I could never have her in the way I wanted, so I settled for what I had. I just couldn't take lying to her anymore, so I pushed her away, but I needed to tell her, I needed to give her a real reason, even if it ended horribly.

Her lips clasped together again as she seemed to finally had formed a sentence for me, while she straightened her eyebrows slightly. Her soft gazed eyes looked into mine as my breath hitched quietly, then they went down to my lips, causing my face to falter even more.

Her actions were quick as she stepped out of her front door, joining me in the rain before wrapping her fingers into the back of my wet hair. She pulled my head down softly before she kissed me. Her lips were so soft and her touch could make me melt, I didn't even hesitate for a second to kiss her back. I wanted this moment to last forever, my hands gently snaked to hold either side of her waist.

I groaned as she slowly parted from the kiss

Y/N POV

I barely even processed his words as my body took control, I eventually found myself in a deep passionate kiss with my bestfriend. It felt amazing, his lips had a faint taste of pineapple, his lips and hair were both so soft. His hands around my waist felt so right. I parted from the kiss slowly before looking up into his eyes, his gaze still pleading with me for more even after his needy groan.

"Matt, I love you too. I always will, in whatever way you need it to be, I'm yours." I soundlessly admitted before his hand moved up to carefully grab my cheek as he pulled me in to kiss him again, the rain poured onto us as he swept me off my feet.

The kiss didn't break for even a split second as my legs wrapped around his waist tightly. He walked me into my house, neither of us cared about the puddling leading into my home as he closed the front door behind us. He carried me upstairs to my bedroom that we've been in together hundreds of times, yet this one was so much different. The kiss broke for a minute to catch our breath as he closed and locked my bedroom door, he sat back on my bed while I sat on his lap.

He moved a piece of my hair out of my face that had fallen due to the small impact from my bed. "Y/n I've wanted this for so long, and I promise I will do everything to never mess this up because all I want to do is to love and cherish you the way you deserve. Please y/n, can you please be my girlfriend" He practically begged me, even with his puppy eyes staring into mine

"I would love nothing more Matt, I'd be more than lucky just to be your girlfriend." I answered as I held his face in my palms delicately as if he were fragile. his smile grew before he licked his lips smoothly and kissed me once more.

I never knew I loved my bestfriend, not like this, but now the only thing I could feel, was my love for him, and I didn't want this feeling to end, not now, not ever. I was yours, Matthew Sturniolo, forever and always.

I wrote this in 1 day guys oml, anyways this will be similar to the future Chris childhood bestfriends to lovers but that one will have sm more detail and angst to it, I promise. I want to esp take my time with that one to make it more meaningful but I hope you guys enjoy this one. Part 3 of Shadows will be coming out sometime today aswell, I just need to finish it. Sorry the end to this was kinda corny but I'm trying to get better with my dialogue 😔

[miumura]

( 🚋 ) NOT OUR LAST GOODBYE — KOGA YUDAI FIC

[ DAY THIRTEEN ] of the advent calendar !

( 🚋 ) SYNOPSIS . . . after a heated argument with K, little did you expect that the last time you’d see him would be at his departure, after leaving you in silence for days.

( — ) PAIRING . . . best-friend!k x gn!reader FT. EJ &TEAM

( 🚋 ) GENRE . . . angst lolz, misunderstandings, friends 2 …?

( — ) WARNINGS . . . INSPIRED BY THE MOVIE “20TH CENTURY GIRL” (sorry guys), k and reader kinda frustrating ..

( 🚋 ) NOTE . . . Hi!! Super late Sorry!! but originally this wasn’t even gonna be angst if i be honest … but train station … 20th century girl … so yes!!! also pretend the pics above give christmassy vibes LMAO it js seemed right to keep it like this and yes i can hear u quivering miles away Ms Sonata 😊

Once again, and unsurprisingly, K had missed yet another hangout. You really tried waiting and being considerate, but not even him in sight. Seated alone in the cafe with two drinks you bought with your own money, frustration grew. The plans had been made two weeks prior, and despite K's assurances, he was nowhere to be found.

Unable to bear it any longer, you navigated to your contact list and pressed on his icon, hoping for an explanation. Anxiously biting your nails, you waited through two beeps until he answered with a casual, "Hello?" Your scoff was loud enough for him to hear, a response to his nonchalant greeting after ditching another hangout without any warning.

"Again?"

"Huh?" Did he genuinely believe he had the right to question you after what just happened?

"Are you serious right now? You just missed another hangout, K." His mumbled apology reached your ears, sounding like he was cursing himself for even forgetting. "Damn it—I'm so sorry, YN. Can I make it up to you tomorrow?"

"You've got to be kidding me." You couldn’t help the anger slowly rising in you. “I’m here, waiting in the cold for you just to not show up again?” The hot air escaped your mouth as you scoffed. “You know, you shouldn’t suggest ideas for a winter hangout if you’re just going to not appear.”

"It—it just slipped my mind! I'm sorry," K explained, but you weren't buying it. You've let him slide too many times.

“It just ‘slipped out of your mind’? We planned his hangout 2 weeks prior—you even promised to show up today! Do you think I’m really going to buy that bullshit?”

“I know, I shouldn’t have done that but—”

“You say this all the time. What the hell have you been doing?”

“Listen—I just…” You could hear him trail off, as if restraining himself from saying more. What could he be hiding that's so important? “I’ve been busy.”

“And so have I? But I've always spared time to hang out with you and show up to everything you schedule. And suddenly you can't show up to something we both agreed on? K, you're slowly becoming distant with me.”

“It's not like I'm trying to!” He lowered his tone, recognizing his anger taking hold. “I just couldn’t do it today. It’s just—it’s not something I can tell you that easily.”

“I'm your best friend, what the hell do you mean?”

“I—I can't say. Not right now.”

“You really have to be an idiot if you think I'm gonna believe that. This friendship can’t work if you’re like this.” You pushed your hair back in frustration. "I get it, you're busy. But this is a pattern, K. A pattern I can't keep ignoring," you stated firmly.

"I know, YN. I'm sorry. Let me make it up to you," K continued apologizing.

"I've heard enough apologies, K. You're not the only one with a busy life," you replied, frustration evident in your voice.

"Please, just give me another chance."

But the more he apologized, the more irritated you became. "I need some space, K. Figure out what's going on with you. We'll talk later."

“But YN—”

“Just leave me alone, will you?” You angrily said, clearly sick of his pleading. “You clearly have no problem doing so, it seems like, anyways.” Without another word, you hung up, leaving K with the dial tone and a realization that he screwed up real bad.

And you’ve made it your goal to make him feel how you felt every time he ditches you.

DAY ONE. K attempted to act as if everything was okay, anticipating that you'd eventually give in and talk to him as you always did. Little did he know, you were determined to make him feel the weight of his actions—even if it felt harsh.

“Hey YN,” he greeted, met with your silent response.

“You need help?” you simply shook your head.

“Wanna go together?” He tried once more, but you walked away without a word.

Undoubtedly, a sense of guilt crept in, but the memory of that night kept replaying in your mind, fueling the anger you harbored toward him. K seemed to notice the shift, creating awkward moments and growing distant—much like that regrettable day.

You didn't care; in your eyes, it was deserved.

DAY THREE. You're enduring the silence longer than you initially thought. Ignoring him, refusing to even cross paths, felt strange considering how inseparable you used to be. School had become a bit dull without him, but you were determined to hold out for a week…right?

“Are you seriously not going to talk to him?” EJ asked, straw twirling between his fingers. “You're really creeping me out.” He says, as if you aren’t supposed to be the one creeped out by him instead for drinking an Iced Americano during the first days of winter.

“What do you mean?” you blew onto your cup, closing the lid back to take a sip of your coffee.

“You never hold grudges like this—what's up with you?”

“Okay...but he messed up.”

“Did you hear him out?” EJ maintained eye contact, sipping his drink. “Not blaming you or anything, just wondering.”

“Well…no.”

“YN…”

“Well—if he wanted to, he would’ve reached out by now!” you tried defending yourself, but he was already sighing.

“You’re both too stubborn, aren’t you guys?” EJ shook his head, smiling a little. “Give him another chance—oh look, he’s right there,” he pointed, making you whip your head around, only to turn back to EJ when your eyes accidentally met.

“I have to go,” you hurriedly grabbed your bag, saying a quick goodbye. “Thanks, EJ!”

“YN, your drink—” But you were already running off, footsteps following closely behind. You wanted him to reach out, yet here you were, fleeing and feeling like a loser. But facing him seemed unbearable in your current state of embarrassment.

“YN,” a familiar voice called out, a hand on your arm, pulling you toward him. His warmth had such a contrast from the chilling weather today. You turned around, finding K with a serious expression. “Can we please talk?”

You wanted to be petty. For some reason, having K reach out first, you weren't going to make it easy for him. “I don't think there's anything we need to talk about.”

“Can you stop being like that and just talk to me?”

“Like what? Just some lame excuse about why you're missing time with me?”

“It's not useless—” K scoffed, running his free hand through his hair, locking eyes with you. “Do you really think I'm just here to tell you the same stuff I've been saying all the time?”

“So you've been lying?”

“That's not what I'm trying to say—”

“I've heard enough.” You tried to pull away from his grasp, but he held on, disappointment evident in his eyes. “YN, what is so hard about sparing a minute of your day? Why is it so hard for you to fucking listen?”

You took a deep breath. “Me? How about you, huh? Have you ever listened to me? Do you think you have the right to say that to me with all this shit you’re doing to me?”

“YN—”

“Here’s your answer then. Because I've spent so much time waiting for you to explain, and you only choose to do it now.” You give him a stern look. “I’m tired of hearing your bullshit—your constant, useless reassurances when you clearly don’t keep your word!”

“I'm tired of waiting for you.”

“YN! Please–”

You turned on your heel, determined to walk away and put an end to the conversation. As you took your first steps, a part of you hoped he would chase after you, while another part was tired of hoping for something that seemed uncertain.

K stood there, conflicted. He debated in his mind whether to let you go or chase after you once again. He longed to. He longed to reveal everything to you. Yet, was it the right moment? Were you even in the proper state of mind to even grasp onto his words? Letting out a substantial sigh, K pivoted, reluctant as he was, and proceeded to walk away from you, leaving you both to walk on two different pathways.

DAY FIVE. K hasn't been showing up to class for the past two days. You felt guilty – you didn't know why, but you had this nagging feeling that it was somehow your fault. EJ quickly picked up on your changed demeanor, his face reflecting concern. As you walked home together, he blurted out, "Did you say goodbye to him?"

You turned to him, confusion etched on your face. You had no idea what EJ was getting at, and he wasn't sure if you even understood the gravity of his words. "Say goodbye to who?"

"To K...?" he hesitated, confirming his suspicions when your expression shifted to one of shock; you were completely unaware. EJ wished he could vanish on the spot.

"EJ, that's not funny." You looked at him, not seeing his joking face he’d usually have. “You’re joking…right?”

"Well, I'm being serious. I'm not the type to joke about that."

“Why did I have to say goodbye?”

“He’s leaving today, YN. Did he not tell you?”

“Can we please talk?” You didn’t hear him out.

“YN, what is so hard about sparing a minute of your day? Why is it so hard for you to fucking listen?” He wanted to tell you something important. It was your fault.

“YN! Please–” It was your fault. All yours. No one to blame this time.

“You mean like…right now?” You looked at EJ, hoping you still had time to make things right with K. With glossy eyes, you could see his hurt expression, knowing what you had put yourself through. “Yeah. About to leave at the train station nearby.”

“I have to go.”

“YN! Be careful; you might get hurt–” You didn’t care. You didn’t care if you were going to get scrapes on your legs, you didn’t care if EJ was yelling your name—nothing could hurt more than losing a best friend that you didn’t leave off on good terms.

You ran as fast as you could, disregarding the chill in the air and the sting in your lungs. The train station came into view, and there he was—K, standing with a suitcase, staring into the distance. Your heart raced as you approached him, a mix of relief and fear coursing through your veins.

"K!" you called out, breathless.

He turned to you, surprise and uncertainty flickering in his eyes. "YN? What are you doing here?"

"I... I heard you were leaving," you panted, trying to catch your breath. "I had to see you before you go."

He sighed, his gaze dropping to the ground. "I messed up, YN. I messed up big time, and I'm sorry."

"Let's talk about it," you urged, reaching out to touch his arm.

"I thought it was too late for a conversation," your heart shattered upon hearing those words. "But it was my fault anyway. I should've been truthful with you."

"Quit blaming yourself. It wasn't your fault—it was mine. I should've been more empathetic." Tears threatened to spill over as you maintained intense eye contact with him, your insides twisting with emotion.

“I didn’t mean to avoid you,” K began, his eyes searching yours for understanding.

“I know I messed up too,” you admitted. “I should have listened instead of shutting you out. I should’ve not said those things to you either.”

He nodded, a sad smile playing on his lips. “We both made mistakes, didn't we? But, let’s not worry too much about it—we’ll get over it like we always do. I’m leaving for a while, but I don’t want us to end like this. I care about you—damn, I even like you, YN," he said, causing you to gasp a little. "I’m sorry if this is too sudden—I just don’t know if I’d be able to tell you this any other day."

As you stood there, absorbing his unexpected confession, the reality of the situation sank in. "K, why didn't you tell me earlier?" you questioned, a mix of emotions clouding your mind.

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "I was scared, afraid it would ruin our friendship. But now, facing the distance, I couldn't hold it back any longer."

“K—” The train's arrival interrupted your conversation, and K looked at you with hopeful eyes. "I'll be back, YN. Let's talk when I return, okay?" he pleaded.

You nodded, and he pulled you into a hug, and for a moment, it felt like everything might be okay. “You should go,” K whispered, releasing you from the embrace.

“Take care, okay?” you said, holding back tears.

“You too, YN. I hope we can figure things out when I come back,” he said, a mixture of hope and uncertainty in his eyes.

"You promise to come back?"

"You know me. Who am I to fail to keep my promises—well, besides about the hangouts," he joked, attempting to lighten the mood. You smiled, finding comfort in his smile. "Then can you promise me on this one, and try not to break it?"

"I promise," he extended his pinky finger, waiting for you to interlock with him. Once you did, the warmth of his hand—similar from last time—transferred to yours, making it such a bittersweet moment. He brought his hand closer, kissing the side of your hand. "Hope that wasn't too sudden."

He smiled at your blushing face, releasing your hand. He had noticed how little layers you were wearing—did you really run like this just to see him? Taking the scarf of his neck, he wrapped it around yours, looking at you lovingly. "I'll do something sweeter next time. See you later, yeah?" You nodded, and he finally carried his bags to the train.

As K stepped onto the train, you stood there, gazing into his tear-filled eyes. How badly he didn’t want to cry in front of you. Waving, you declared, "I like you too, K!"

His heart warmed slightly. "I can't hear you," he teased, as he would've done by your side. Smiling, you shouted, "I like you so much!"

The doors closed, and you glimpsed K crying. Witnessing his tears always tugged at your heartstrings, and your own tears flowed uncontrollably. The train started moving, and as K disappeared from view, you stood there with tears streaming down your face. The reality of his departure hit you hard. "Come back soon," you whispered to the wind, as if it could carry your message to him.

Your heart felt heavy, and you couldn't shake off the overwhelming sense of loss. As you wiped away your tears, you realized how much K meant to you and how the abrupt end to your argument had turned into a farewell.

Walking away from the train station, you carried the weight of mixed emotions. The confession, the unspoken feelings, and the promise of a future conversation lingered in the air. Most importantly, the emptiness lingered, but the promise of a reunion kept you going. Determined to make things right when he returned, you whispered to yourself,

“I’ll wait for you, K.”

ADVENT CALENDAR MLIST — @en-dream @i-yeseo @yizhoutv @yuma-is-mine @wtfhyuck @sansfransisco

[spirit-girl-nijisanji]

I'm sorry, I've been distant... & Don't talk about her like that!

꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷♡꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷♡꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷♡꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦

➼ Pairing - Ike Eveland & Luca Kaneshiro x Fem!Reader (seperately)

➼ Content - Angst/hurt to comfort, mentions of insecurities, established relationships, Ike being a soft boy and Luca being well... Luca <3

➼ ⚠️ Please remember I only write for the personas you see on your screen. I do not and will not write for the people behind the models. Please also remember that behind the models there are very real people with very real emotions. Please be respectful towards our beloved Nijisanji EN livers and do your best to separate the real people from the persona reflected on your screen. Thank you so much and enjoy the story ⚠️

➼ Summery; Overworking and snapping on you causes some issues... ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷♡꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷♡꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷♡꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦

Ike Eveland

➼ You are one of the only solo vtubers within Nijisanji EN. You debuted as Kitsune vtuber brought from another world to watch over young children and grant luck to those who deserve it. You had been a big hit within Niji, the other talents and you got along very well and you ended up bonding deeply with a certain novelist.

The collabs you did with Ike were always full of fun and laughter, it wasn't long before the shipping began within the quilldren and your fd/n (fandom name). You and Ike always just claimed to be friends but behind the scenes, there was something much more going on. You and Ike had began dating after two months of you being Nijisanji.

Everything was going amazing in your eyes, you trusted Ike with your life and he trusted you with his. There was no trust issues and he had been helping you through so many struggles. You had always been insecure about yourself but he made you feel beautiful and loved.

You and Ike had been dating a year when you moved to live with him permanently and you loved it. A very fond memory of yours was how your friends found out about you and Ike; he had been in a discord call with the rest of Luxiem, you two hadn't told anything about your relationship yet. Not realizing he was unmuted in the call, you had come into his room to bring him a plate of caviar toast.

" Babe, here's your snack! I figured you would be hungry. " you beamed walking over to his desk and setting down the plate before giving him a kiss on the cheek.

The moment the word Babe left your lips, Ike froze. Realizing he hadn't been muted and the chatter from his genmates had completely stopped.

" IS THAT Y/N?! " the voice of the bri'ish detective rang out in your ears and you two froze seeing Ike hadn't muted himself and you just outted your relationship to his friends.

You and Ike planned to tell them, just not yet but it was a little too late..

" Hah.. Hi guys. " you spoke sheepishly. Multiple voices erupting into questions about when you got together, why didn't you tell them sooner.

After that day, the rest of Niji EN knew about your relationship and it was also revealed to the fans too, by you and Ike of course, which was met by a lot of positivity which warmed your heart.

But.. as of late, Ike seemed to always be shut in his streaming room. You hardly saw him anymore and he hardly ever slept in your shared bedroom. You had started to get concerned about him but anytime you tried to talk to him, he would wave you off and say that was busy and didn't need the distraction.

The confrontation that led to the current situation was when you had finally had enough of him avoiding you and being locked in his office all day, was the day he snapped at you;

You opened his door to see him hunched over his desk working on collab and stream ideas as well as a new novel, the dark circles under his eyes evident. You were worried sick so you walked over and you spun his chair around to face you, only to be met by Ike's irritated green eyes,

" Y/N I told you that I was busy and not to come into my office didn't I? " he said in a tired but frustrated tone

" I know but Ike you've been locked in this office for days, I hardly see you anymore. It wouldn't kill you take a break. " You retorted, worry etched on your face

Ike let out an irritated sigh, he looked up at you and brushed your hands off his chair turning back to his desk to continue his work,

" Y/N I am busy please leave my room. "

You glared at him and grabbed the back of Ike's chair and started dragging it to his door before he shot up out of his chair and grabbed onto your wrist, his green eyes now glaring down at you angrily before yelling,

" Y/N I SAID I'M BUSY! " he snapped gripping your wrist

" I CAME IN BECAUSE I'M WORRIED IKE! " You snapped back

" NO! YOUR GETTING IN MY WAY! " He snapped, not registering that what came out of his mouth

Your eyes went wide, feeling your eyes watering, the tone of his voice caused you to flinch before you ripped your wrist out of Ike's grip and you rushed out of his room, slamming the door behind you, leaving Ike standing in his room. You sprinted into the shared bedroom you shared with Ike, slamming the door and locking the door before your back hit the door and you slid down to the floor and curdled up, hugging your knees and burying your face in your knees. The tears that had come up in your eyes now began to slip down your cheeks.

Those intrusive thoughts started to creep up, 'is he getting tired of me?', 'Am I really getting in his way?', 'Why is he still with me?', 'I'm not worth his time..' you sat in the dark in the dark room trying to calm down. But now you felt you weren't good enough for to be with Ike. Maybe you were really getting in the way.

You spent 2 weeks after he finally finished with his work ignoring him. He noticed immediately. He tried to talk to you and apologize for his actions.

" Älskling.. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean anything I said.. Please talk to me. " Ike followed you around the house trying to get you to talk to him. But you ignored him.

He figured it was time to give you space so he did. He constantly noticed your spiral. All the confidence you once had, was gone. He knew it was his fault for saying what he said. But it all came to a boil when he found you sitting on the kitchen floor at 1 am in tears,

" Y/N?! Are you okay? " he asked, concern lacing his voice as he dropped down to your side and pulling you into a tight hug.

" Why are you even with me.. I know I'm always in your way! " you said starting to fight against his hug however he refused to let go, he hugged you tight. Keeping you tight in his arms. Now whispering to you, telling you that he loved you and he never meant anything he said.

You cried into his shoulder as you listened to him tell you over and over again that he loved you and he thought you were perfect to him. ꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷♡꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷♡꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷♡꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦

Luca Kaneshiro

➼ You were a new nijisanji liver that came into nijisanji with a new wave, xsoleil along with Doppio Dropsythe, Hex Haywire, Ver Vermillion, Kotoka Torahime and Meloco Kyoran. The first person you had met when you joined Nijisanji was the one and only Luca Kaneshiro.

When you finally started doing livestreams regularly, most of your collabs ended up being with the mob boss. You adored his Lucubs and you knew he adored your fans. Your livestream collabs with Luca were always filled with chaos and laughter along with Lucubs and your fans saying they wish you and Luca would just get together already. You and Luca playfully flirted back and fourth all the time, well you flirted with Luca and he wouldn't pick up on it.

It was the one year anniversary from your debut and you were doing a collab playing Valorant, Xsoleil VS Luxiem. The teams had switched up after the first 4 rounds, now you, Luca, Doppio, Shu and Hex were on a team against, Vox, Ike, Mysta, Kotoka, Meloco and Ver. The round started and it was all going smoothly until you made a flirty remark towards Luca and it completely went over his head. After being taken down by Ver, you turned to read some of the superchats that came in, thanking them one by one before one completely stopping, silently reading one and you felt your heart completely shatter;

Superchat; Luca'sCape221: Seriously stop making advances towards him. He doesn't like you! Like damn. Why haven't you graduated yet, why are you still here?

You were silent for a good few minutes before the voice of Doppio snapped you out of your trance,

" Hey, VT/N (Vtuber name), You okay? " He asked making you jump before speaking,

" What? Oh um yeah I'm fine Dopi! " you replied quickly, " I have to take a quick bathroom break! " you quickly added before muting and running off to the bathroom.

~ NO ONE'S POV ~

Doppio thought it was odd that you just ran off, so when both he and Luca were killed, he started talking to Luca,

" Hey Luca, do you mind checking on VT/N's stream, she went silent while reading superchats. I think something happened. " he told the blond haired mafia boss who took action almost immediately. Turning on your stream and reading through before finding the superchats that followed with many nasty comments.

Seeing the nasty remarks from multiple people about you made his blood boil. He had only recently found out about your actual feelings and he felt the same he just didn't know how to tell you. When the match was over, he asked everyone to wait for a moment until you got back so he could say something.

~ Your POV ~

You spent a good long time in the bathroom in tears, the words from the superchat bouncing around in your mind. You tried to compose yourself so you could rejoin the collab, before you pulled up your stream and looked at the chat, seeing the flood of nasty remarks coming in, you broke down again.

After a moment, you decided to return to stream. Putting your headphones on and unmuting yourself as you spoke saying you were ready for the next game, internally groaning hearing the shaking in your voice when you spoke. Before anyone could say anything else Luca spoke up,

" Actually I wanna say something before we continue, it's important. " he spoke and everyone went silent so Luca could speak.

" Okay so, while VT/N was gone on her bathroom break, I looked at her chat. I wanna say that I am absolutely disgusted by how many nasty comments there were about her. For your information, I do happen to like her so let's shut that down right now. " He spoke in a very stern tone,

The group went completely silent, you didn't even notice that tears started to fall once again listening to Luca rant and scold those who left nasty comments in your chat.

" I do not want to see any other nasty comments like that in her chat again and I will be checking. If I see so much as one, you'll be banned by ME personally. " the normally bubbly blond said, remembering you had made him a mod in your chat. The comments filled with comforting words from both your own fanbase and Lucubs. You sniffled, catching the attention of your teammate, Shu.

" Hey, don't cry VT/N.. We got your back. " He told you in a soothing voice followed by the comforting words from your other friends and genmates. Through the chaos, you heard your phone beep, looking down, you looked at the notification and saw Luca's name;

Discord chat: Lucar Kaneshiroe: Hey, I meant what I said. I do really like you. VT/N: I... really..? Lucar Kaneshiroe: Yeah! Hey, I'm gonna have you fly up to see me so we can go on a proper date! :3

You felt your cheeks heat up while reading the messages,

Discord chat: VT/N: Y...you really don't have to do that Luca, I could pay my own way to see you! Lucar Kaneshiroe: Nope! I'm gonna pay for you to come and spend a couple weeks! " VT/N: There's no talking you out of this is there? Lucar Kaneshiroe: Nope! VT/N: Well okay but um.. we're not done with the collab Luca Lucar Kaneshiroe: ... SHIT!

You turned back to the collab, both you and Luca apologized for going silent and the collab continued, every time you noticed a nasty comment come up, it disappeared just as fast as it popped up. And each time a chat from a certain someone popped up;

Luca Kaneshiro [NIJISANJI EN]: Not today satan! VT/N IS POG! Don't tall about her like that!

꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷♡꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷♡꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷♡꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦

I hope you like it~! I dunno if it's as good as it could be but I did my best~!

[ladykettlechips]

Update Time~

Good evening from the land of kettle chips, crumpets and scones! This update comes to you guys as a way of apologising for my absence in writing lately. Life is a little more hectic right now and, while I have a right to choose to keep you guys out of the loop and update my fics as and when I please, I have stated before that I like transparency. Though I don't reveal everything, I do want you guys to be somewhat aware of why I'm not updating and where I'm at currently in life. First and foremost, I have healed considerably from the work trauma I experienced. Though I am not fully healed from it, I am doing a lot better mentally these days. It has helped me a lot to stay away from work for a little bit and while I definitely worried about money every now and again, I can confidently say that leaving that place was the best thing for me. Secondly, I have a new job. I have been training for said job recently while also working part-time at another job. Do I think this will be a permanent fixture in my life? Not at all, but for the moment it is ideal in regard to earning money to keep me going in life (and fuelling my addiction to perfume, sweets and travel).

Thirdly: Travel. I have some trips coming up, all planned prior to me leaving the Trauma Job. In the past few weeks I have been focusing on sorting those out, hence why you aren't seeing anything from me writing wise lately. It's been a big focus of mine, especially as one of the two trips I'm taking is very soon.

Fourth: I finished editing a book for someone! I won't be displaying the title or author here because of privacy reasons, but this is something I could have only ever dreamed of, but helping others see their stories grow under my editing is something I have desired to do since leaving University. I truly love editing so much. Thankfully, the person I edited for wants me to help with their future books, as well as help to re-edit their previous books (the beauty of self-publishing!). It was hard work, and life kept me from editing for a while, but I'm so happy to see that the author was happy with me as an editor and that they want to work with me again. Hopefully this spurs me on to look into freelancing down the line.

So yes, this is mostly why I've been quiet in writing. I'm doing bits and pieces here and there, but nothing that will finish a chapter or oneshot. I am sorry for not updating anything on AO3 to a point where some of you might think I've left the fandom, but I haven't. I'm just focusing on things that are happening in my own world right now and prioritising myself for a bit.

Finally, before I sign this off, I sincerely hope that you are all happy and well and taking care of yourselves. Though I am less present, I am aware that there's been some frustrations going on within the fandom right now, but please remember to be courteous of one another and to remember that this is simply a fandom, not real life. Please don't get too upset by rumours, and please don't allow it to affect how you function in real life. It's all well and good to love something so much, but when fandom leaks into real life and affects those who aren't within the fandom or the actors portraying our favourite characters, it becomes unhealthy.

Thank you for reading, precious bean hive. I love you all. LKC

[justyoureader]

GENSHIN IMPACT X MALE! OC

Check out the other parts! ;p ( - 2 - 1 - ) Also, do you like it? Should I upload more of these? AND I'M NOT KIDDING I'M HAVING DREAMS OF THIS LITTLE GUY ON MY BANNER HERE FOR DAYS IN A ROW...

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ♫ ⋅.} ───── ⊰

     "Oh, Balladeer. Didn't expect to see you here. I thought you're on some mission again." Lux hummed, sitting up and slowly standing up. "I thought childe was the one on 'babysitting' duty as you called it- today."

      "Ugh.. Don't falter yourself, I just happen to stumble upon you today." Scaramouche grumbled, plopping himself down beside Lux.

      "Whatever you say, kabuki." Luxym just laughs, the sound making scaramouche's face brighten and a light blush bloomed on his face. "Don't call me that—"

      "Ah! Buddy, good to see you there!" A cheerful Tartaglia startled both of them, scaramouche's face immediately turned into an unhappy frown. "Oh my fucking archons, what do you want tartaglia?"

    "You may have forgotten, but I'm the one to accompany teach here." Tartaglia returned with a smile, hinted with displeasure on his eyes. The obvious display of passive aggression made Lux roll his eyes. "Ugh, don't act like you own him, filthy low life."

      Lux decided to step in to avoid further conflict, "He's right, scara, I'll go with childe now. If I'm not wrong, didn't you have an appointment with dottore?"

      "Ah. That's right.. Unfortunate since I wanted to spend more time with you..." Scaramouche mumbled, the last part not unheard by the other two male. "Hm?" The other two inquired, different tones to both of their voices.

      "Nothing. You must be hearing things, pesky ginger. And.. Farewell too  you, I guess." Scaramouche replied, his voice snarky as ever, though there's a hink of sulk when regarding the immortal boy.

      "Bye-bye" Lux shrugged, watching as the indigo haired male disappeared betwern the stack of snow before he got dragged by his former(?) Maybe not former(?) student.

      "Teach! I'm glad it's only he both of us now. I haven't seen you in a while since you're always with the tsaritsa." The ginger head male said with his signature charming grin, something that most poeple would immediately fell for.

      "Sorry for not visiting you much, though I reckoned you're also busy preparing yourself to go to liyue am I correct?" Lux hummed while they strolled down the halls of the fatui residence. The ginger's eyes lit up to the fact his master paid attention to what he does. "Yes! I mean- yes, I've been preparing for the lantern rite in hopes of getting the gnosis."

      Lux hummed in acknowledgement, nodding so in the process. "I see, maybe I'll visit you in liyue then, I'm quite bored as of lately." He said as childe lead them to his (Lux's) bedroom. The male swestdropped at the choice of words, last time Lux was 'bored' he travelled into the abyss and trained him along with his other master. "I see.. Oh, your finger tips is cold again master, you should really stop sleeping on the snow." The ginger frowned in concern.

      "Me? I'm fine. Don't worry about it." Lux dismissed tartaglia's concern towards his cold body. "Teach!" Tartaglia exclaimed in exasperation and frustration, holding out his hand to use his hydro vision to produce hot water.

      "There's no need for that ajax." Lux sighed, not correcting his own habit of using Tartaglia's real name when they're alone. "No, you'll get cold." He frowned, guiding the hot water to Lux's body for him to get warm.

      Luxym sighed, but smiled at his action. "My student is so caring." He cooed playfully.

      Tartaglia's face lit up, lightly flushing as he exclaimed. "Anything for my favorite teacher." He hesitantly scoot over to Lux before leaning his head slowly to his master's shoulder. "I might've or might've not felt homesick a little.."

      "Hm and why not visit your family then? Teucer must've missed you too." He lets tartaglia lean onto him, not bothered by the ginger's act of affection. Tartaglia avoided Lux's eyes, a light blush visible decorating his ears. "I mean.. I miss you."  He said with a playful grin, trying to act as if his voice wasn't trembling.

      "Hm?" Lux's eyes glide to meet tartaglia's dim eyes.

      "Wait no- you didn't hear that. It's nothing."

      Lux looks at him with a small fond sigh, wrapping an arm around ajax before letting the ginger cuddle up to him. "Is this what you want?" He huffed while the ginger-head just giggled smugly. Only stopped when Lux smacked his head, making the ginger release a low whine. "Hey.. That hurt teach!" While Lux only rolled his eyes.

      "Do you detest me that much?" He pouted playfully with a hint of almost unnoticeable insecurity.

      "Of course not." Lux denied with a frown, Ajax birghten up playfully but he didn't truly believe it. After all, what else is he but a weapon for the tsaritsa and the fatuis?

      Safe to say, it's one of the only time that the ginger fatui harbinger let himself lower down his guard, his dim eyes shining just the slightest bit from the genuine comfort. The wholesome moment only interrupted when Lux pointed out, "You should stop fighting with people. I heard you sparred with signora a few days ago and your body is currently patched up with burns." he deadpanned.

      Ajax's expression contorted into a chuckle. "But teach, the adrenaline and thrill is amazing. Just like when I'm in the abyss dparring with master skirk, plus I need to get stronger to protect teucer, you, and my family." He reasoned.

      "Still. Let me check your bruises." Luxym huffed his hand that's on Tartaglia's shoulder sliding smoothly to his waist, the sensation made ajax shiver. "Ah-! Alright alright." He pouted and looked away, sliding off his coat and lifting up his shirt.

      His stomach to his torso are littered with red painful burns, some of dried blood staining on his chest from his wounds that he didn't bother to clean up. "... Will you stop staring? Don't act like you really care about me, teach." Tartaglia frowned, playfully looking away, though a bit embarrassed that his body is being inspected.

   

      "Of course I care, you're my student." Lux sighed, tracing his hand over the burns are a bit severe. "I'm glad signora went fairly easy on you, ajax." He said with relief, his hand ghosting the wounds and burns. The sensation made Tartaglia whimpered, before flushing and covering his mouth. "Hah-.. Why- stop touching it teach. It's not that bad."

      "Let me heal it." Lux said out of the blue, Tartaglia looked startled. "Heal it? You mean bandage it up? There's no need-" Lux interrupted him by pushing Tartaglia down on the bed, making the other's eyes widen, his mouth hang open from his mouth. A strong hand gripped Tartaglia's waist down and the other beside his face as Lux hovers aboce the squirming ginger. "Ahaha.. Teach you're not going to.. Uh.." Tartaglia founds himself unable to find his playful words as his body grew warm from embarrassment.

      "Shh." Lux hushed Tartaglia. "I'm not going to do anything to you." He said with a low voice, Tartaglia finds himself unable to believe that and hides his face on the pillow, embracing himself for what's to come. It's alright, right?.. It's his teacher.. His teacher has every right to use his body, yeah...

      "Calm yourself down tartaglia.." He whispered, muffled by the pillow. He tries his best to do just that but he can't help but winced once his shirt is taken off, fortunately not ripped. He can feel his teacher's hand on his torso, struggling to stay still from the contact. "Teach, teach you're just playing right? You won't actually do it to your student right? I'm sure you're not cruel right?" He asked nervously, opening his eyes to meet with Lux's sharp eyes, it made him shiver.

      "Calm down. It won't hurt." He murmured, placing his hand on one of Tartaglia's burns, said fatui harbinger was about to refute before he felt warmth radiating from Luxym's palm. "Eh?" He asked dumbfounded, and before he knew it, his body looked like it was before he fought signora.

      "Teach you- you-" Tartaglia's face burned from embarrassment, immediately sitting up and bumping his forehead against Lux's before shaking his teacher by the shoulder. "I thought that- aghh! Teach I thought you're going to fuck me?!" He exclaimed loudly, his eyes twitching from frustration which made Lux slapped his mouth with his hand, seriously, he doesn't want their subordinates to hear Tartaglia say it so loudly. The ginger grumbled even if it's muffled by Lux's hand before licking it which made Lux pull away immediately with a scowl.

      "Get rid of that dirty mind of yours." Lux smacked Tartaglia's head again. "Ugh- You're just such a tease, teach. You have no need to make it that dramatic." He scoffed while holding his head, even if he does felt a tiny bit disappointed.

     

      Lux rolled his eyes, "don't sulk on me now. How about I entertain you with some spar?" He asked in an attempt to cheer Tartaglia up, which certainly worked as the adrenaline-loving ginger instantly lit up and grinned excitedly, an Imaginary dog tail swinging behind his back. "Alright. Your word teach, don't hold back on me, please!"

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ♫ ⋅.} ───── ⊰

[chiriwritesstuff]

An Apology, Reflection, Staying true to yourself, and Some News: Updates on 'The Girl in IT' and 'My Wife in IT'

Hey Guys.

I owe you all a huge apology. It's been a rough ride lately, and I want to take a moment to explain what's been going on. I think it's important to have this conversation, even if it scares the shit out of me. So, before I dive in, I want to say sorry in advance for what I'm about to share.

Firstly, I want to say sorry for my absence. Back in February, I got hit with a nasty virus right when 'The Girl in IT' was really taking off. Seeing the story gain traction was incredible, but it also came with its own set of challenges. Suddenly, I was getting hundreds of notes instead of the usual handful, and it was overwhelming, to say the least.

At the end of the day, I'm just like anyone else – human. I write because it's a passion of mine, but I also want to create something that resonates with all of you. However, in the pursuit of trying to make everyone happy, it's easy to lose sight of your own vision. That's exactly what happened with 'The Girl in IT'. I got so caught up in trying to cater to my self-created expectations that I lost touch with what I originally wanted Sugar's journey to be. Adapting to all the changes I've made from the original story became a real challenge for me, and I just... felt so lost.

Then came the burnout. After being sick, I hit a wall. I just couldn't find the energy or motivation to write, no matter how hard I tried. Burnout is real, guys, and it's something I wouldn't wish on anyone.

The turning point in all of this coincided with a major plot development in 'The Girl in IT'. Originally, my intention was to shed light on PCOS and its painful realities. However, in my eagerness to please what I thought everyone wanted and to avoid delving too deeply into darker themes, I ended up complicating matters for myself.

Enter 'My Wife in IT'. I had a clear timeline in mind for Joel and Sugar's relationship progression, but the unexpected turn of events forced me to rethink my plans. This had a ripple effect on 'My Wife in IT', leaving me facing a significant roadblock. I started to hate everything I attempted to write for Wife, and it didn't feel right to post something I wasn't 100% okay with.

I really want to take the time to emphasize that this is no one's fault but my own.

But here's the thing – I'm not giving up. I'm taking this as a learning experience and using it to grow as a writer and as a person. Which brings me to the big news...

I've decided to go back and rework the last few chapters of 'The Girl in IT' to align with my original vision. Think of it as 'The Girl in IT: Christine's Version'. But don't worry – we'll still get our happy ending. And once that's done, I'll be diving headfirst into 'My Wife in IT'.

I want to take a moment to apologize for any disappointment or frustration this may have caused. Looking back, I realize that I lost sight of staying true to myself and the story I wanted to tell. I got caught up in the numbers and metrics, instead of focusing on what truly mattered – telling a story that resonated with me and hopefully with you, too.

I want to express how incredibly thankful I am for all the love and support you've shown Joel and Sugar. Your encouragement has been like a beacon of light, guiding me through this journey. But you know, sometimes life throws us curveballs, and I've realized that I owe it to Joel and Sugar, and to all of you, to stay true to the story I set out to tell from the very beginning.

I'm truly sorry for any bumps in the road or delays that may have caused frustration. Your understanding means the world to me. Thanks for being there, for listening, and for being a part of this adventure with me. Hopefully, you'll love what I have planned for Joel and Sugar... for real, this time.

[zeglythers]

I'm sorry, you’re entitled to your opinion, but dragging T into this is a bit uncalled for. He’s not the one she broke up with.

But it's really not uncalled for. Since the beginning of the month/1 yr anniversary, Rachel has made public statements directed to T. He has made none to her or any other TBOSAS cast, at least not to my knowledge. A simple nod to the cast & crew that made his career would have just been good manners. Acknowledgement of Rachel's performance, which also had a very positive impact on his career, should have been made, especially considering the fact he knows that it would have meant a lot to her. Everyone said, "Oh no, he's so private. He would never post that online." Apparently, his need for online privacy ended today.

We all know R has been going through some real shit from the haters trying to cancel her. It's been beyond ugly. She has been doing 8 shows a week and doing publicity & events from her 2 new movies on her days off, all while being raked over the coals. He has to have known this.

Now, we see evidence leading us to believe she has, over the same time frame, broken up with the guy she's been with since age 17-18. Again, this comes on the day T decides it's a good idea to post about his new relationship.

Obviously, he can date anyone he wants. But talk about insensitivity. His new woman didn't have a damned thing to do with his success up to now. Rachel did. He knows what she's going through right now. He's supposed to be her friend, an idea I now question. I think his posts today are, at best, insensitive and, at worst, cruel.

Fyi- I have been one of the biggest Zeglyth shippers up until now. Now I hope she sees SHE CAN DO BETTER.

Alright, I feel like I might be a bit late to answer this, but here we go. I’ll start by being completely honest and saying that I think some of you are placing unrealistic expectations on T. It’s important to remember that no matter how much we want and hope for them to be together, he’s still not her boyfriend. I’ve seen some people expecting him to behave like one and I think we need to be more patient because they are not there yet. He doesn’t have that kind of commitment to R and we can’t demand anything from him. Yes, he’s out and about with someone else, and I understand it can be frustrating, but it’s his life, and he has the right to move on. R was in a relationship before this too, and T wasn’t under any obligation to stay single and wait for her to decide to break up. I don’t think it’s fair to call him insensitive, cruel, or ungrateful just because he’s minding his business and enjoying his life. Also, he didn’t post or repost any of the pictures from last night. All of them were shared by other people. It’s not like he flooded his feed or made a big Instagram announcement about his new relationship. He didn’t do any of that. All he did was attend an event with the woman he’s currently dating, and I'm sorry, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Is the timing terrible? Absolutely. But it’s also not his fault.

I've explained so many of times why I think he’s refraining from interacting online and I still hold that opinion. I don’t think the fact that he didn’t do much for the movie’s anniversary changes how much he appreciates the project or the opportunities it gave him. He's talked about that plenty and you can look it up if you don't believe it. I also pointed out how he doesn’t engage with anything about BTK either, although we know he’s really proud of the show, loves the character and gets along really well with the cast. Some things go beyond social media, and it’s important to remember that no matter how much we speculate, we’ll never have the full context. At the end of the day, what matters is that he really adores R, and she knows that well. If he were such a terrible person and friend or she was truly bothered by his lack of public response, she would’ve stopped interacting with anything about him by now. He was supporting and standing by her during the toughest times of both her career and life. If you think he’s not doing the same or staying in touch with her now, it’s because you really don’t know them.

[itsmkjones]

Imagine: Calling Sam when you had a bad day.

You scrolled through your phone, heart heavy and sour. Lately, everything felt bad. Not awful or terrible or torturous, just… Bad. What were you supposed to do with that? Call one of the two friends you had to complain about what was essentially nothing important? That felt Bad too. But you really needed someone…, yet for the countless numbers saved in your phone, not one of them felt… Not Bad.

You were reaching the end of your contacts list when a name suddenly invoked a spark of excitement in your chest; Sam Winchester. The hunter that shook up reality nearly a year ago when your friend moved into a haunted apartment. -An additional explanation why complaining to your friend seemed selfish.

You twisted your lips in anxious thought as you repeatedly read Sam's name and number. He was a sweet guy, who brought a reassuring light to their dark situation. Everything about him was gentle; his eyes, his smile, his voice… and surprisingly so, considering his towering height. You inhaled deeply. Just the thought of hearing his voice felt Not Bad.

Your heart squirmed nervously as you thought about it. It was weird to randomly call a guy who helped your friend a year ago and then disappeared. The anticipated conversation would be a simple “hello”, “wrong number, sorry”, and “goodbye”. Even if he didn't know you, it still felt mortifying. But at least, mortifying was Not Bad. So, you decided to try it, heart rabbiting as the ringtone started.

“Y/n?” Sam answered.

You nearly dropped the phone, heart jumping so hard it sent shock to your fingertips. “Ah-, um…”

“What's wrong? It's everything okay? The ghost didn't come back, did it?” The low rumble of a car filled the line as Sam waited for a reply. “Y/n?”

“Y-yeah! Sorry…” You swallowed. “I didn't think you'd pick up.”

“I usually pick up if I can when I know the number.”

“I didn't think you had my number saved…” What kind of conversation was this? You sighed, frustration edging back to Bad. “There's nothing wrong. I just called… I don't know why.”

Sam stayed quiet for a long moment and you deliberated between hanging up or not. “Are you sure you're alright, Y/n?”

“Yeah, sorry. There's no ghosts or anything.”

“No. I mean… with you. Are you okay?”

Some emotion dark and wet hit behind your eyes, making them watery. You tried swallowing back the threatening tears repeatedly, only to give up when you breathed with a revealing shuddering exhale.

“Y/n, what's going on? You can talk to me.”

By now the car sounds in the background had stopped, except for the occasionally whoosh and you knew he'd pulled off the road.

“It's really nothing. It's stupid. I've just being feeling Bad lately.”

“... Do you want to hurt yourself-”

“No! No. This is why it's so stupid. It's normal Bad. But I can't complain about it to anyone. Because there's nothing real to complain about.”

“So you called a random number to vent.” Sam realized lightly.

“Well, sorta. I remembered you had a nice voice.” A heat settled over your nose and you weren't quite sure it was better than the Bad. “I mean… you made us feel better last time, so I guess I associated that with you…”

Sam chuckled when you groaned. It was so soft that you nearly missed it. That warm simple sound lightened your psyche in an instant. It washed away the Bad so quickly that it seemed like it was never there. How could Bad feelings exist when that laugh existed?

“I know you're laughing at me.” You attempted to sound sulky, but your Good mood came through clearly.

“Sorry.” Sam smiled. “It's not ‘at’ you. You're compliment made me feel better and I realized I haven't been out of Bad in a long time.”

You frowned. “Really? But… you looked-”

You cut off, remembering the times you’d seen Sam and his brother. They were nice and helpful, but did they ever seem happy? No. If anything, they seemed stressed. They smiled at them before they left, but it was a tight lipped smile. A dutiful smile. You bit the inside of your cheek, feeling guilty.

“I guess being a Ghost Buster isn't exactly… Good.”

Sam chuffed. “Guess not.”

“You could text me.” Your offer surprised you, but it felt Good, so you continued. “I can't help you or anything, but I can listen to you vent.”

“You're already feeling Bad, remember? I'll be fine. I've got my brother.”

“It's different listening to someone else vent. And you have your brother, but you still felt Bad, right? I mean, you don't have to, but you can. That's all I meant.”

“Then… How about you do the same? That way I won't feel Bad unloading on you.”

“Mm… Deal.” You smiled.

“Great.” Sam sounded happy, then sighed when his phone beeped. “Sorry, Y/n. I gotta meet up with my brother. Will you text me? I'll reply when I can.”

“Sure.” Your heart fluttered ecstatically.

“Bye, Y/n.”

You hung up. Not a trace of Bad was left. There was a little bit of Good, but the majority of your feelings had become Happy. That Happy intensified as you sent a text to Sam and came back with each message he replied with. Finally, the Bad was broken.

[queen-of-writing-bad-things]

Henry Danger Reader Insert | Captain Man x Reader: SEASON 1

Episode 26: Jasper's Real Girlfriend

~Swellview Junior High~

It was another typical day at Henry's school. Sydney Birnbaum, Oliver Pook, Jasper and two other of the school's...more unusual boys were complaining about their girlfriends. Sydney was moaning and groaning about his was always annoyed at how he responded to texts late, which seemed petty, but everything was petty in high school. The other boys agreed, thinking that their girlfriends did nothing but give them a hard time, apart from Jasper who for once, was in a relationship. Not that anyone believed him.

"Well, my girlfriend is awesome." He told his friends, who just stared at him, believing that he was just trying to make himself look cool. 

"What?" he asked after they fell silent.

"You ain't got no woman," Oliver said, making the other boys laugh at Jasper. Henry and Jasper watched the sad scene, feeling sorry for their friend. It wasn't his fault that he so rarely had a girlfriend that when he did have someone special, it seemed hilariously untrue. 

"I do too, she just lives outta town." He told them, but they just scoffed.

"Psh. Yeah, right." Sydney laughed, and the other boys followed suit. 

"Oh, sure, just exit laughing!" He called after them, as they moved on to their next class. Jerks. 

"Hey."

"How you doing, Jasp?" Henry and Charlotte walked up to the downcast boy, hoping they could raise his spirits.

"I'm doing mad. Can you believe those guys think I'm lying about having a girlfriend?" He asked his friends, but honestly, they thought he was fibbing too.

"Yeahhhh." They answered together, trying not to upset him further.

"Wh--You guys don't believe me either?" He asked them with a betrayed look on his face.

"Well, we believe..." Henry started, not knowing how to phrase it.

"...That you're lying." Charlotte finished for him, preferring to just say what they meant without pussyfooting around.

"Yeah." Henry agreed, much to Jasper's annoyance.

"But I've been telling you guys about Courtney ever since I got back from summer camp." He told them and they sighed at how worked up he was getting.

"Jasper, you don't have to make things up to impress us." Charlotte comforted him, but Jasper felt like he didn't need to be comforted. He was telling the complete and honest truth!

"I'd never make up a lie just to impress you guys." He said, hating how they saw him as a pathetic, lying loser.

"Really? Third grade. You. pulled a bag of dirt out of your pocket and told me it came from Jupiter." Henry recalled his younger self who thought that the dirt was some mystical space dust.

"I thought it did. Back then I didn't know you can't trust guys in vans who sell space dirt." Jasper stressed. He was too little at the time to realise that dirt can't come from a planet that's made from gas and nothing else.

"Dude, you'll get a girlfriend someday," Henry told his best friend, whose head rolled in frustration.

"But if not, you can get a pet." Charlotte smiled, trying to encourage Jasper that in theory, he'd never be lonely, just a bit weird.

"You can get a rabbit for, like, 20 bucks," Henry informed them, to which Charlotte nodded enthusiastically. 

"I don't need a rabbit! I got a girl and her name is Courtney, whether you believe it or not." Jasper emphasised his words, but his message still didn't get through.

"And what's Courtney's last name?" Henry asked, thinking that Jasper would look all shifty and nervous as he came up with an answer.

"Sham." The curly-haired boy replied, making his friends giggle. It was an unfortunate coincidence for him that his girlfriend's last name suggested that she was fake.

"And what city is she from?" Charlotte asked too.

"Fibberton." He answered, making Henry and Charlotte sigh and roll their eyes. With a name like that and being from a place called 'Fibberton', it's no wonder they wouldn't believe him.

"All right, why don't you invite Courtney Sham from Fibberton here to Swellview so we can all meet her," Henry suggested, thinking that you can't meet someone if they don't exist.

"Yeah. Tell her she can stay at my house." Charlotte told him, not realising that she'd be rueing her words in a couple of days.

"Maybe I will." Jasper snapped, wanting to prove them wrong.

"Bye!" He said to them, leaving them to think about how angry he was. Could he be telling the truth?

~The Man Cave, later that day~

It had been slightly tense in the Man Cave for the past couple of weeks. The whole Ray lying about Henry turning evil hadn't gone down well with (y/n) and she had felt a little awkward around him since it seemed like he didn't trust her. Still, they were working through their grievances and like always, any tear in their complex relationship had slowly healed up.

Everything was back to normal, well, whatever normal was in the Man Cave. Currently, Henry and Ray were trying to outmatch each other in a ping-pong tournament. (y/n) watched from the steps behind them, intrigued at how Ray's shirt allowed her to see every movement of muscles beneath the material, but she couldn't give a fig about the dumb competition.

"Here it comes!" Henry told his boss as they beat the small, white ball back and forth across the table.

"Bring it, son. Ha, you got nothing." Ray taunted him, trying to show off in front of his best friend so he could hear her adoring praises. After feeling like he was treading on eggshells around her for the past two weeks, he was eager to be in her good books again.

"What do you call this?" Henry asked as he swung his paddle with all his strength.

"Lame!" Ray jumped up to return the ball with equal force, not hearing the small gasp fall from (y/n)'s lips as she saw a small portion of his back be exposed as he lept in the air.

"Hey, guys, Harrison Ford just crash-landed his aeroplane in the Jandy River!" Schwoz yelled as he held his hand over the phone's speaker. 

"Again?" Henry frowned, too invested in his ping gong game to care if the celeb had ditched his place in the river.

"Isn't this, like, his third plane crash?" Ray added, focusing on the game too. All (y/n) could focus on was the way his biceps looked like tree trunks from how he'd been working out recently.

Ray saw an opening and exploited it, beating Henry as the ball went out of bounds. The boy groaned, frustrated that he had been beaten after putting so much effort in.

"21 to 19! I win again!" Ray smiled and threw down his paddle in celebration as (y/n) squealed and ran over to him, planting a kiss on his cheek to congratulate him.

"Dang it, dang it! Frigid diphthong kumquat dang, dang it!" Henry yelled as Ray embrace his best friend, ignoring how his ears were burning from her lips on his skin.

"Good game." The boy calmly shook hands with his opponent after the man had released (y/n) from his arms.

"Thanks." Ray accepted the praise, feeling pretty special at how everyone was complimenting him.

"Now...let's blow a bubble and get Harrison Ford out of trouble." He instructed the boy, not wanting to leave the man in the freezing waters. Schwoz looked at them as he stayed on the phone, waiting to see if there'd be any updates.

"Can't we just send Chewbacca to fish him out?" (y/n) joked, not wanting him to go even though she'd never keep him from his job. 

"No, silly girl!" Ray laughed, giving her one last hug before he went. For once, he didn't want to go either, but he had no choice, Swellview needed him and he had to go. He'd returned to her, always.

"Let's go." He said to Henry, having missed the knowing look the kid had shared with Schwoz.

They ran over to the tubes and slapped their belts so they would come down. Only, as Henry's came down in was covered in some kind of gross, gooey gunge stuff.

"What the..." (y/n) breathed out as she gagged at how filthy the tube was. She had several questions, namely who had done and why hadn't they cleaned it up.

"What is all over your tube?" Ray looked at the filth, feeling a bit squeamish at the sight of it. They raised their tubes as (y/n) walked over to them, demanding an answer. She was scary when it came to someone leaving a big mess in the Man Cave, particularly when they didn't clean up after themselves.

"Okay." Henry sighed when she looked at the boy with raised eyebrows. She couldn't think of when Ray could have done it since they had been together since the last time that tube had been used, leaving only Henry and Schwoz as possible suspects. The little man was on the phone looked extremely panicked as Henry started his confession, hinting that he'd had something to do with it.

"Yesterday, Schwoz told me to go up the tube with a hot nacho platter and the suckage made the cheese and refried beans go everywhere," Henry explained guilty, his strong moral conscience not allowing him to lie to his friends. 

"Schwoz?" Ray scolded his employee when (y/n) looked at him to tell the little man off since he was his boss.

"My sister is in town and she wanted a taste of Mexico." He whined, but (y/n) wasn't happy, not in the slightest.

"Well, both of you are gonna clean that damn tube." She told the with a stern voice. She wanted to get it done herself, but she wasn't going to fall into the habit of cleaning up all the messes they couldn't be bothered to do themselves.

"Oh, come on." Schwoz frowned like a child.

"The tube is, like 100 feet tall," Henry added, looking to Ray for help but he wouldn't find any. The man didn't want her cleaning the nacho goop either, she was his helper, she helped him, not them.

"Well, you should've thought of that before you tried to fly up it with a hot sloppy snack," Ray told them firmly, but Schwoz received more info from the person on the phone, so his attention was quickly taken away.

"Wait, wait, what? Okay, Harrison Ford's aeroplane just sank." He told the superheroes who sighed. More work.

"You guys should go save him." (y/n) told them, but they looked a bit hesitant.

"We will...after one more quick game?" Henry looked at his boss as the young woman blanched at his words.

"We can't ju--my serve." Ray threw his sense of duty out of the window as he and Henry ran to pick up their paddles again. The same tapping of the ball against the table filled the room again as they resumed play, Schwoz and (y/n) gobsmacked at them.

"Oi, assholes. Harrison Ford, danger, go!" (y/n) pointed to the tubes. They could take one tube or if necessary, they could use the elevator and sneak out of the store. Either way, they had to go help the city.

"Yeah, yeah, in a bit, sweetheart," Ray mumbled back, his mind too focused on the game to realise what he had called her so casually or how she stopped breathing as she practically had an out-of-body experience. Sweetheart? Yes, please. 

~Swellview Junior High, the next day~

Henry stood by his locker as Charlotte wandered through the halls, looking for her friend.

"Hey. How can come Jasper wasn't in class last period?" She asked the blond boy, curious as to why her other friend had been absent.

"I don't know. He asked Miss Shapen if he could skip class, and she said, "Yeah, sure, just leave me like every man does."" Henry quoted, but his attention was redirected as Jasper and a very pretty girl with a suitcase came through the school's entrance.

"Wow. Cool school." The girl said as Jasper showed her around.

"Thanks. Oh, Charlotte, Henry. I didn't expect to see you two here." The curly-haired boy gloated at his friends, ready to rub the fact he wasn't lying in their faces.

"Why? We go to school here every day." Charlotte frowned at him.

"And this is where our lockers are," Henry added, but Jasper swiftly moved on.

"Ha, ha, too true. Too true." Jasper stretched his arm around the girl next to him, making his friends frown at the gesture.

"So, I'd like you to meet my girl, Courtney." He introduced his girlfriend, who smiled brightly.

"Hi. It's so great to meet you guys. Jasper's told me so much about you." She greeted them politely, giggling at how their mouths dropped.

"Oka, did he find you at a bus stop?" Charlotte asked, feeling flabbergasted.

"And did he pay you 50 cents to come here and pretend to be his girlfriend?" Henry added, offending his best friend with the low price.

"50 cents? Look at her." Jasper gestured to Courtney, who just grinned and blushed.

"He's your boyfriend?" Charlotte asked her, still in disbelief.

"Well, I sure hope so. I just rode a bus 300 miles from Fibberton to see him." The pretty girl sighed dreamily, as Jasper smirked with pride.

"I paid 20% of her bus ticket." He bragged.

"How come this is the first time she's been to Swellview?" Henry asked the boy.

"'Cause, I don't have a guest room in my house. So when Charlotte said she could stay at her place, I invited her to come here." Jasper revealed as Charlotte's eyes bugged out at his words. Yep, she regretted saying that.

"But, I didn't know she was real." She stammered.

"Well, she is. Wanna feel her face?" The boy asked, putting his hands on his girlfriend's elbows and pushing her towards Charlotte a bit, but neither girl wanted to do the suggestion.

"I guess I'll call my mom and let her know you're coming over." Charlotte smiled at the other girl, who was about to be her roommate for the night couple of nights.

"Great."

"Super." The couple giggled together as Charlotte went to call her mom.

"Hey, wait here. I'mma go get the guys and bring them here to show them that you really exist!" Jasper squealed excitedly, running off early so he could prove Oliver and Sydney wrong.

"Wow, you seem awesome. Jasper's a lucky guy." Henry smiled at Courtney, trying to break the ice.

"Thanks. He says really nice things about you and Charlotte." The girl smiled back.

"Well, Jasper's been my best friend for a long time and he loves Charlotte." He told her, but his words seemed to upset Courtney.

"Yeah, what do you mean?" She asked with a scowl now etched onto her pretty features.

"Huh?" Henry couldn't think of what he had said wrong.

"You said Jasper loves Charlotte." She reiterated, a sting of raging jealously going through her heart.

"Yeah, you know, they like...oh, no, no, no, wait, wait. I didn't mean like he loves her." Henry panicked as Courtney went into a meltdown.

"Are there any other girls around here that Jasper is in love with?" she screeched, freaking out at the thought of Jasper with another girl.

"No, no, no. Just Charlotte." Henry tried to correct himself, but it just made things worse.

"Oh great, so he is in love with her." Courtney growled, a deep hatred for Charlotte taking root in her mind.

" No, they just, they're just really close and it's like--" The boy stuttered, but the teen girl was too lost in her jealousy.

" Oh my god! " She shouted as Charlotte returned, not knowing about the shit show she just walked 

"Hi. So, I talked to my mom and she said it's no problem." She smiled, but it quickly fell when all Courtney did was scowl at her. The dark-haired girl looked at Henry for help, but he just held his hands to his face, thinking about how he'd really screwed everything. Well, tonight was going to be a blast.

~The next day, at Junk-N-Stuff~

Ray and Henry were continuing their ping pong tournament and it was just as heated as it had been before.

"You're going down! " Henry growled as an enthralled (y/n) watched their every movement. Ray was wearing another tight T-shirt and she couldn't take her eyes off of him.

"I'm coming up."Ray quipped, as he tried to keep his focus on the game and not on his beautiful cheerleader.

"Here it comes !" Henry yelled as he basked the ball with his ping pong paddle.

"It's coming back! " Ray was desperate to win, after all, he had someone to impress.

"I'm the king of Ping. "Henry commented, as their banter went back and forth with the ball.

"I'm the master of pong! " Ray replied as the elevator doors opened and Schwoz came out with a trumpet. He blew it loudly, resulting in Henry and (y/n) jumping out of their skins. Ray, on the other hand, had planned the attack so he could scare Henry into losing. He laughed and smirked in victory when the ball hit the floor as his friends, clutched their hearts in fear.

"And I win again!" He bragged to her, who frowned at how his boss had cheated.

"No!" Henry cried, annoyed at how he'd lost to that sucker again.

"Yes!" Ray smiled, but it fell when (y|n) punched him on the arm.

"Asshole! You scared me half to death!" She glared at both him and Schwoz. He gave her an apologetic look, not wanting to ruin his victory by losing his girl's support.

"And that means I win the ping pong championship belt." Ray gloated and held up what looked like a WWE belt, only it had a load of ping pong balls stuck to it. Henry whimpered as (y/n) begrudgingly helped him put in on.

"Hoo, hoo, hoo! " Ray chanted as he paraded around the Man cave, but Henry wasn't going to let the hollow victory slide. 

"Schwoz distracted me... And scared (y/n)!" The boy pointed out, making Ray turn around and look at the kid and his best friend.

"Hey. (Y/n)'s fine. And ping pong's about three things, paddles, staying focused, and small plastic balls." Ray told his sidekick.

"Oh yeah, mid-afternoon cardio is my favourite thing." The young woman looked at her best friend sarcastically, so he put an arm around her shoulder and showed her his new belt.

"Why'd you walk in here and blow that thing?" Henry asked Schwoz, who tried to look innocent.

"I found it in a dumpster." He told the kid, causing his friends to grimace as a tube came down, and much to (y/n) 's annoyance, it was still covered in nacho cheese.

"Why haven't you two cleaned that damn tube yet?!" She yelled, looking at the pipe in disgust. Poor Charlotte had to travel through the gunk which had now started to crust over and smelt really, really bad.

"Hello." "Hey, Char." Henry and Schwoz greeted the miserable girl. She'd had a terrible night with Courtney and she was certain that the girl was trying to kill her. The others looked at her in confusion as she moodily plodded past them.

"Charlotte, sweetie, are you all right?" (y/n) asked the teen carefully when she noticed how out of it she was.

"No, thanks. I just ate a taco," she replied, not even listening to what she had been asked. She wandered over to the supercomputer and sat down, completely ignoring her friend's concern.

"What's up with her?" Henry said to the adults, but they couldn't give an answer. This was completely unlike the girl's normal behaviour.

"Worry about her later. Right now, you and Schwoz are gonna clean that tube." Ray scolded Henry and Schwoz, sharing his best friend's anger at how his equipment was still disgustingly dirty.

"Or...I challenge you."Henry suggested, making (y/n) groan in frustration. At this rate, she'd be the one cleaning it just so she didn't go insane.

"To what? "Ray asked, always up for some competition to prove he was the best.

"To another game of Ping pong." The boy answered, piquing Ray's interest. (Y/n) sorely didn't want them to battle it out just to decide who would clean the stupid tube.

"If l lose, me and Schwoz clean the tube. If you lose, you and (y/n) have to clean it." The boy set down the rules. 

"While wearing ducky pyjamas." Ray upped the ante, confident that he and the young woman next to him would be fine.

"Why am I getting dragged into this? This is your testosterone freak fest." she groaned, not wanting to bet on something so stupid.

'It's a bet." Henry shook Ray's hand in agreement, sealing the deal. Schwoz and (y/n) groaned as they were sworn in too, despite their protests.

Charlotte was too busy scrolling through Courtney's Twitflash to realise that any bet had been made. She wanted to find out more about this girl since she had done nothing but try to assassinate her during the night by using her ceiling fan as a weapon.

"Hey, Char." Henry approached her, wondering what she was doing that was so important it meant that she hadn't spoken one word to him since she'd arrived.

"Charlotte." He reiterated when she failed to answer. He tapped her on the shoulder gently, causing her to turn around angrily.

"WHAT?! What's what, what?!" She snapped, scaring Henry a little.

"Why are you looking at pics of Jasper's girlfriend?" He asked, recognising the girl on the monitor.

"Because she's trying to kill me." She revealed, sounding insane to Henry.

"What?"

"Last night. I think she loosened some bolts in my ceiling fan. Because it fell and almost took my head off." She told her friend her theory, but Henry just looked at her like she'd gone crazy. 

"Why would Courtney want to hurt you?" The boy sighed.

"I don't know. But she's acting all jealous, why would she be jealous of me? " Charlotte mentioned, making everything fall into place for him. Oh, shit.

"Uh..." Henry struggled to say anything, which made the other teen highly suspicious.

"What do you mean...uh?" She asked.

"Y'see, at school, I might have kind of made Courtney think that Jasper kind of...loves you." He told her, freaking the girl out.

"Well, why would you say that?" Charlotte snapped at him, thinking about how he'd really screwed her over.

"Because he does love you. As a friend. But she didn't get that." He sighed. What a mess.

"Yeah, all she got was a reason to kill me." The girl stressed.

"Well, what do you want me to do?" Henry asked, ready to sort out the mess he had made.

"Help me tell Jasper that his girlfriend is a crazy, jealous lunatic." Charlotte proposed, but the boy wasn't sure.

"He'll never believe us." He replied so the two teens thought about their predicament for a moment.

"Okay, then we're gonna tell him, and we're gonna show him." She smirked, her devious plan forming in her head.

"How?"

"You and Jasper are going to hide in my room tonight, and he'll see for himself now coo-coo his girlfriend is." The dark-haired girl explained.

"Ah, I don't know." Henry hesitated. Did he really want to take away the first girlfriend Jasper had had in ages?

"Please?" Charlotte begged him, knowing she'd need his help to pull this off.

"Do you still keep that dish of gummy bears by your closet door?" Henry wanted there to be something in it for him.

"Yeah," she groaned; she'd have to buy another packet after Henry had visited.

"Okay, I'll do it "Henry agreed, the temptation of gummy bears being too much for him to resist. Their plotting was halted as (y/n) came down the stairs from the sprocket. She had grown tired of watching Ray stroke and coo at his belt, so she had strolled from his bedroom to the living area.

"Hey, guys." She smiled at the kids, wondering what they were talking about in the middle of the room.

"Hey, Ray starting to annoy ya?" Henry asked, knowing now Ray was loving flaunting his ping pong belt.

"Oh my god, yes. He keeps kissing the damn thing." She groaned, making the kids laugh.

"What? You want him to kiss you instead?" Charlotte smirked and the woman blushed, frantically looking to see if Ray had followed and heard them. God, she'd be mortified.

"Hey! I don't want to kiss him!" (y/n) screeched quickly, but the kids knew her far too well to believe her.

"Yeah, sure!" Henry giggled at her red face, knowing that some of the things she had thought about Ray were downright sinful.

"What were you guys even talking about?" the young woman asked, trying to steer the conversation away from her yearning.

"Me and Henry are gonna show Jasper how much of a psycho his girlfriend is. Charlotte explained and the older girl raised an eyebrow at her words.

"The bucket kid has a girlfriend?" She asked in an amused voice.

"Yeah, and she's totally insane, she tried to kill me last night 'cause she thinks Jasper's in love with me," Charlotte told her, shocking (y/n) to her core. Kids weren't this crazy when she was younger.

"Jesus. She does sound crazy. Are you sure you'll be okay?" She looked at the teens. If anything happened to them because some silly teenage girl got too jealous for her own good, she'd be heartbroken.

"Actually, we could use an adult on our side to back us up," Henry mentioned, knowing he'd feel a lot safer if he had a calm, rational adult, like (y/n), with them.

"Yeah, could you come to my house tonight and hide with Jasper and Henry?" Charlotte asked her, but the woman wasn't sure. She didn't make a habit of staking out children's bedrooms.

"You won't have to listen to Ray and watch his belt-kissing." Henry pointed out.

"Done." She agreed. At least it would get her out of the Man Cave for the night, after all, adventure is good for the soul.

~ Later that night, Charlotte's house~

Charlotte and Courtney had gone to bed like everything was normal, only it wasn't since she was sleeping with a baseball bat and Henry and (y/n) were hiding in her closet. Pecking out from behind the door, the two could see Charlotte pretending to be asleep as Jasper opened the trunk at the bottom of her bed and looked around. They all gave each other a thumbs up signalling that they were all in position for whatever Courtney would do.

Henry went to flick the light on, but the psycho teen moved and mumbled in her sleep, causing him to back off. The girl got out of bed, which made Charlotte shoot up too.

"Hi, how are you? Why did you get out of bed?" She asked quickly, thinking that Courtney was about to murder her or something.

"Oh, I just need to use the bathroom." She said, getting up and walking over to the ensuite.

"Wait." Charlotte stopped her and got out of bed too.

"Yeah?" the other girl smiled.

"Listen. I know Henry told you that Jasper loves me." Charlotte started as (y/n) carefully opened the closet door so she and Henry could listen.

"Oh, well, yeah. He did." Courtney said carefully. Seeing his chance, Henry started shoving as many gummy bears in his mouth as possible.

"Right. But I want you to understand he meant just as friends." Charlotte told her, running over to her gummy bear bowl so Henry would stop eating them.

"I promise I'm not trying to take Jasper away from you or anything like that," she added, jumping on her trunk so Jasper would stop opening it.

"Oh. Well, thanks. I really appreciate you telling me." Courtney smiled, but it had a sinister element to it. The girl opened the bathroom door and walked inside, but the weird thing was that she took her suitcase with her.

Finally, alone, the guys in the trunk and closet came out of their hiding places.

"See? She's not insane. You both owe me an apology." Jasper told his friends sternly as Henry and (y/n) ate some gummy bears.

"No, she may be acting nice now, but I'm telling you she needs help. That's why (y/n) is here." Charlotte insisted. 

"I think she seems pretty nice," Henry said, his voice garbled from all the gummy bears he had eaten.

"Yeah, I've met a lot of bitches in my life and she's not one of them." (y/n) added, popping another piece of squishy candy into her mouth.

"Then explain the ceiling fan almost falling on here," Charlotte said, pointing to where the fan had previously hung.

"Aah!!!" No one had any time to respond as Courtney burst out of the bathroom, wearing a Vikings helmet and carrying a chainsaw crusher thing.

"STAY AWAY FROM MY MAN!!!" She screamed, firing up her weapon as (y/n) pushed Henry further into the closet. They all cried in pure terror as Courtney tried to attack them.

"Holy shit! She is crazy!" The woman screamed as Henry and she ran out of the closet. They didn't want to trap themselves in there if crazy Courtney forced her way in.

Tackling her to the ground, Henry gave (y/n) the chance to keep Charlotte and Jasper away from the psychopath. The dark-haired girl grabbed her baseball bat as Courtney got back of her feet and tried to turn him into mincemeat. They ran over Charlotte's bed and dodged her lethal machine. They threw pillows, lotions, deodorants, anything that would keep her back, but it seemed like her rage was endless.

"Get the silver pillow cushion seat thing!" (y/n) instructed Henry. This wasn't now she had expected the night to go. She could've been at home with pay right now, but, noo000. She had volunteered to go up against Fibberton's biggest nutter.

Following the woman's instructions, Henry picked up the shiny cushion and when Courtney charged at him, he used it to push her back, forcing her through the window.

"I'll get you for that! I'll get you!" She screamed from outside, demonstrating that she really was insane.

"Okay, maybe she needs help," Jasper admitted as the only adult in the room called the cops. Henry and Charlotte rolled their eyes and blew out their cheeks. That was a massive understatement; Courtney needed serious, psychiatric care, stat.

~The next day, in the Man Cave~

Another stupid ping pong competition. Henry needed a stress reliever after the whole Courtney-near-death experience. He really didn't want to clean that damn tube and finally beating Ray sounded pretty good in his mind. The smug man was even wearing the ping pong belt to assert his previous victory.

The males were pulling out every trick they had, from spins to under the leg shots, they were sparing no expense. (y/n) was watching like always, her support going to Ray since if he lost it meant she was cleaning the foul-smelling tube and she loved watching him move. She felt like a teenager again; obsessing over a football player on the field, silently giving him her love. 

Eventually, they hit it so hard that the ball became a white blur in the air, not even touching the table. They shouted from the effort it took it to keep the ball in the air, but Ray was ultimately victorious, using his superior strength to hit the ball into Henry's eye.

"Whoo!" Ray smirked, tossing his paddle in his hand as (y/n) ran over to him and jumped on him in elation. He laughed with her as they span around, ecstatic to have won the bet. He buried his nose into her hair as her smile warmed his heart. He had won for her.

"Ha, ha, yeah. That's 17 to 20. One more point and I win." Ray said, his hand resting on (y/n)'s hip, which at this point, was where it belonged.

"I know how ping pong scoring works." Henry hissed, not happy at how badly he was losing.

"Your serve," Ray told him, letting the kid go first.

"Wait, wait, wait." (y/n) interrupted an idea coming into her mind.

"What?" Henry and Ray asked, confused as to why she was stopping the play.

"Can I play this round? I mean, we are a team, right?" She asked Ray, who looked at her in disbelief. She wanted to play?

"What? But you never play ping pong, even with me." He said to her as Henry shrugged. He didn't care who he played, to be honest.

"Yeah, and now I want to play since I'm cleaning the tube too. So give me the paddle." She gave him a pointed look and he regretfully gave her the ping pong bat. Looks like he'd be the one watching from the sidelines. Slipping off her zip-up hoodie, (y/n) stretched her arms and hips a little bit, Ray blushing as her black tank top stretched over her...features. Now, he'd be in her position, dreaming sinfully about the way her flesh jiggled and bounced as she dived for the ball.

"Your serve, Henry." She reiterated what Ray had said to the boy, getting her gaming head on. All her skill from her years of playing ping pong in college was ready and waiting to be used. However, Henry just stood there and bounced the ball in a bored manner. What was his plan?

"Are you stalling?" Ray asked the boy who just looked around the Man Cave, ignoring how (y/n) was studied his every move. Her muscles were poised and tensed for action and she was expecting a surprise move any minute now.

"No. It's just Schwoz is supposed to be here and he's late, so..." Henry excused, trying to prolong the wait.

"Kid, it's game point. Just serve." (y/n) told him, eager to get cracking.

"Lose, and get to scrubbing the filthy tube," Ray added, also desperate for the match to start so he could see his girl kick his ass. But, they were interrupted by Schwoz as he came into the room with a large, weird-looking man.

"Hey guys, Ray, this is Larry." He introduced the guy, as Ray stood up angrily. 

"What are you crazy?" He looked at the genius with wide eyes.

"You can't just bring people down to the Man Cave." (y/n) said too, thinking that Schwoz should've known the rules by now since he had worked with Ray for longer than she had.

"Larry is family, you said I could bring anyone in my family down here except for my sister." Schwoz reminded him.

"Who looks like a horse," (y/n) giggled, making the little man roll his eyes. 

"Oh, all right. But (y/n)'s just about to beat Henry at ping pong so if you guys—" The superhero was cut off as Henry smiled at Larry.

"Just a sec. Larry, right there." Henry instructed the man, who walked over to the tube and took his shirt off, which he then threw to Schwoz.

"Uh, I'm flattered but he's not my type?" (y/n) joked, wondering what the hell they were doing. Larry definitely wasn't her type, namely because he wasn't a brown-haired, ripped superhero with a goofy personality.

"You said that ping pong is all about staying focused," Henry said to Ray, who recalled what he had said the day before.

"Yeah, but what's the—" Ray didn't have the chance to finished his sentence as Henry used his remote control to play some music. Larry started dancing and it was pretty funny, to say the least. 'So that's their play, huh.' (y/n) thought to herself, knowing that it would take more than a boogieing weirdo to break her focus.

"Just hit the damn ball." She said to Henry, who at last served the ball. She returned it easily, and they fell into a tense battle. Larry danced his heart out, but it distracted Ray more than it distracted her. She really should've told him to be quiet, because his cute laughter caused her to miss the ball. Twice. 

"Raymond, will you stop laughing?" She hissed at him as he giggled at the man's dancing. Henry and Schwoz knew that Ray wouldn't have been able to ignore a fat guy dancing and they knew that (y/n) wouldn't have been blue to ignore him being adorable. It was a very sneaky plan. 

"Aha! 19-20!" Henry and Schwoz celebrated, as (y/n) gulped. It was all to play, for now, no room for error. Larry grabbed a lime-green bikini top to up the ante, making Ray chuckle again. He even had a skipping rope to add to the laugh factor, which took (y/n)'s anxiety to the next level. Things were getting tense, Henry only needed a couple more points to win.

"Seriously, please stop laughing or I will kill you." She made Ray look her in the eye, her glowing skin stealing his breath away. He nodded dumbly, her radiant beauty making his tongue useless. 

"Okay, let's do this thing." She nodded at Henry, desperate to win the competition, not because she'd have to scrub the tube if she didn't, (she didn't care about that), she just wanted to make him proud.

After another intense round, with Henry scoring yet another two points, making to score 21- 20, everyone was on edge. Larry had a siren on his head and a space hopper in an attempt to make Ray laugh, but the man was biting down on his thumb to keep in his giggles. He chose to focus on her hips instead, loving the way her feminine curves moved and bounced as she dived for the ball.

"Henry, one more point and we won't have to wear the pyjamas," Schwoz told the boy excitedly. Larry decided to move on to the next stage of his plan, so he brought out a King Charles cavalier spaniel and started to eat spaghetti and meatballs with it, like in Lady and the Tramp. Okay, this was getting ridiculous.

"Okay, okay, that's it, I'll clean the damn tube. Stop feeding the dog." She snapped, slamming her paddle on the table. It was just easier for her to get on with it, rather than carry on this bloody charade.

"You forfeit?" Henry gasped at her, not believing that she'd give up so easily. Didn't she want to flaunt her assets at Ray anymore?

"(y/n/n), we're so close," Ray whined, as she walked past him so she could change into the stupid duck pyjamas.

"I know, but I can smell that thing from here and this is just...dumb! I'll clean it, you play the game. Loser cleans with me." She sighed, failure stung like a bitch.

She left them to finish the game, quickly returning when she had put on her PJ's. In all honesty, she often cleaned in pyjamas since she always got in a cleaning groove late at night when Captain Man was out fighting criminals. And they were pretty cute in her opinion, so she didn't mind too much. 

She walked down from the sprocket only to see Henry dancing around the room with Ray's belt. Oh shit, they won. Ray looked dumbfounded that he'd lost to a kid. Now he had to spend his night chiselling cheese off the tube.

"Let me guess? The dog got to you?" She gave Ray a sympathetic smile and he groaned in sadness. He hated losing, but at least he wouldn't have to scrub the tube alone. She patted his arm and he shuffled off to put his red duck pyjamas on. Schwoz, Larry and Henry laughed at his disappointed face, but little did they know that their victory came with a bonus for Ray...

~15 minutes later~ 

"You're doing great. Keep scrubbing that tube, guys!" Henry called to the friends who were now both in the tube. Whilst the three winners got to munch on Chinese takeout, Ray and (y/n) had to chip the hardened cheese off of the strong glass. It sounded like a pretty crappy job, but it did come with a small perk.

The confined space in the pipe meant they were pressed up against each other, and boy, were they secretly loving it. He felt like a giant behind her, his muscly arms wrapping around her so he could wipe the wall. Not to mention the fact that the thin pyjamas meant that every contour of his body was pressing into her from head to toe, and I mean, every contour. She blushed as she cleaned, trying to ignore his breath on her neck, his muscles rippling against her skin, his lower half pressing into her from behind. It was an overload of sensations for her, but she didn't want it to stop.

Ray was the same. His head was spinning from how small she felt next to him. He was her protector, so why did she feel like prey? He wanted to claim her, to mark her in a way that would tell other men she was his and only his, but he daren't, even when the curve of her neck was exposed to his lips. He just basked in her presence, glad that he could just take a moment to appreciate the way she pressed into him in a sinfully delicious way. God, this was torturous, but he liked it.

"Keep it up, guys!" Schwoz yelled as they kept scrubbing, his noodles and spring rolls distracting him and the others from the steamy moment in the tube. They weren't in a hurry. They had all the time in the world to savour their love, which was growing stronger by the day, giving them the strength to keep going like always. Ray Manchester and (y/n) (y/l/n) against the world.

[therealmofstarwars]

✨🪐 Commitment Needed for Star Wars Collab Fanfiction Server✨

🔥🔥 THE VENT STARTS NOW 🔥🔥

This sets the tone that the blog post is specifically meant for venting purposes without restraint. The fiery imagery and warning about explicit language lets readers know this is a space for free expression and cathartic release.

🔥🔥 VENTING ZONE AHEAD 🔥🔥

Extended revision disclaimer:

The following blog post is a raw, unfiltered venting session. Foul language, explicit rants, and incendiary opinions are absolutely guaranteed. If you're easily offended or prefer sunshine and rainbows, turn back now

This is a judgment-free zone for getting shit off my chest without censorship. It's cathartic expression at its most primal and uncensored. You've been warned - enter at your own risk!*

If you choose to proceed, buckle up and prepare for a profanity-laced, no-holds-barred venting extravaganza. This is the main event for when I'm fed up and need to blow off some serious steam.*

There will be fury. There will be rants. There will be all the curse words. But there are no limits or boundaries here - just pure, uninhibited venting in its natural state.

🔥 For Those Who Understand 🔥

To those getting it and allowing me this cathartic release - thank you. Your support and understanding is appreciated as I get this off my chest.*

🔥 For Those Who Don't 🔥

If you don't vibe with this energy, you had it coming. I'm an unapologetic Aries and I don't hold back when venting. Don't say you weren't warned!

🔥🔥 THE VENT STARTS NOW 🔥🔥

I'm not a role model, I don't plan to be. I'm just a 23-year-old college student and young adult trying to survive a quarter-life crisis over here.

Hey everyone, I have an important announcement regarding our Star Wars Collab Fanfiction server on Discord. I've noticed a frustrating pattern lately of members joining the server, being somewhat active for a little while, and then disappearing without any notice or commitment.

I clarify - I am banning lazy, annoying, uncommitted fake members who play the asshole card. It pisses me off when people make last-minute plans and can't make up their damn minds. Stop wasting my damn time! It's rude, frustrating, annoying and brings unnecessary stress.

Going forward, I want to be upfront - if you join this fanfiction server, I expect you to be an active, committed member. That doesn't mean you have to be online 24/7, but it does mean regularly participating in discussions, showing up to collaborate on writing projects, and letting us know if you'll be inactive for a period of time.

For the love of God, Buddha, Athena - stop wasting my damn time! This is the last straw. You are banned if you pissed me off. I am recruiting real Star Wars fanfiction writers who are actually intrigued to join and collaborate.

If you realize this server isn't for you after joining, that's totally fine! Just let me or a mod know so we can remove you properly. But joining, being a ghost for a few weeks, and then disappearing forever? That's not cool.

My goal is to build a tight-knit community of Star Wars fanfiction writers who actually want to be here and work together. Uncommitted members who just take up space aren't helping achieve that vision. I will post announcements, but I need committed fanfic writers who are actually intrigued to join and collaborate.

Sorry guys, we had to deal with this - it's not fun for us all. I'll post this on my Tumblr Star Wars fan blog, then take a break. I hope you guys are actually committed and genuinely intrigued. I have three members right now, I just want this growing server to meet an online community of other fans to collab on Star Wars fanfiction and make new online friends. I am tired of this bullshit, I just want peace, ugh.

I hope you all understand where I'm coming from with this. Let's work together to build an amazing Star Wars fanfiction community on Discord that people stick around and invest in!

#starwarsfanfic #starwarscollabfanfiction #discordserver #fanficserver #fanficcollab

[winxanity-ii]

HEARTBEAT ECHOES

ship: kirishima x fem!reader warnings: non-explicit word count: 1.5k a/n: Sorry for the lack of updates you guys, just been getting fucked over by life...but fr, i've been unmotivated to write guys, from stressing about school to my grandfather passing, ive just been tired....but my boi kiri got me wanting some cuddles and sweet love so i got pumped to write a bit. i'll try to update 'yeah, no' this weekend, but no promises.

★·.·´🇲‌🇾‌ 🇭‌🇪‌🇷‌🇴‌ 🇦‌🇨‌🇦‌🇩‌🇪‌🇲‌🇮‌🇦‌/🇧‌🇳‌🇭‌🇦‌/🇲‌🇭‌🇦‌ 🇲‌🇦‌🇸‌🇹‌🇪‌🇷‌🇱‌🇮‌🇸‌🇹‌`·.·★

Your heart races as you stand before the crowd, the auditorium a vast ocean of expectant faces. In your hands, the poem trembles, a tangible echo of your nervous heartbeat.

The stage is set, the spotlight beckons, and amidst the sea of faces, one stands out—Kirishima Eijiro. His fiery red hair and steady gaze anchor you to the moment.

As I look into the crowd, my gaze rises beyond my feet, Your mind drifts to the first time Eijiro found you practicing in the park. "Keep your head up," he had said, his voice warm like the setting sun. "Your words deserve to be heard, and you deserve to see their impact."

Into the many eyes sitting before me. You remember Eijiro's eyes, always so full of earnestness, watching you as you recited line after line. "Your poetry, it's like it speaks directly to people's hearts," he'd commented, his admiration clear and unfeigned.

The words I’ve so carefully crafted fade from my lips, Flashback to a moment of frustration, the words refusing to come. Eijiro was there, his hand on your shoulder, steadying. "It's okay, take your time. Your words will find their way," he had reassured with a comforting smile.

The small tremors in my voice reveal my true state. In an afternoon session, your voice had wavered, betraying your nervousness. "Everyone's voice shakes at first," Eijiro had said, "but each time you speak, your voice grows stronger, just like you."

My anxiety, slowly, steadily, creeps in like poison, There was a day when doubt had almost won. Eijiro had noticed, his concern evident. "Hey, it's okay to be scared," he'd said softly, "but don't let fear stop you. You're braver than you think."

My mind shuts down, and my body betrays me. During one of your late-night practice sessions, exhaustion had taken its toll. Eijiro had been there, offering a comforting presence. "Rest," he'd urged, "your health is more important. The words will come when you're ready."

“Yeah, I’m here, I’m loud, I made it this far, Recalling his words, "See? You're doing it. You're here, and you're shining. Be proud of how far you've come," Eijiro's voice was a beacon of encouragement.

Despite all the odds I stacked against myself.” He had seen your struggles, the internal battles you fought. "You're your toughest critic, but also your strongest supporter. Believe in yourself like I believe in you," he had insisted with a knowing smile.

But if you just hear, if you listen closely, His attentive silence during your practices, his focus solely on you and your words, had spoken volumes of his support.

Faux confidence, my false bravado, an imposter… In a vulnerable confession, you'd admitted your fears. "Hey, it's not about being perfect," Eijiro had said, "It's about being real, and you're the realest person I know."

As I breathe in, my hands shake, knees weaken. In the moments before the performance, Eijiro had held your hands, his own surprisingly steady. "Breathe," he'd reminded, "you've got this."

I scream to myself, "What are you doing? You got this! His voice in your memory, echoing your own thoughts, "You know this, you've prepared for this. You're amazing, and don't you forget it."

You know what to say! You've practiced this over and over. You recall the endless rehearsals, Eijiro's unwavering patience and support, his constant presence a testament to his belief in you.

Right before you walked onto this stage, you felt The final moment backstage, Eijiro's reassuring hug, his words a comforting whisper, "You're ready. I've seen you grow. You're going to be incredible."

Like you could climb a mountain!” His smile, bright and genuine, had been your last glimpse before stepping into the spotlight. "You're stronger than any mountain," he had said, his confidence in you unshakable.

But it's not enough. Your voice wavers, but you find strength in the memories, in Eijiro's unwavering support, in the journey you've shared.

My panicked mind can foster, ready to strike at any unsuspecting wound. You've known fear, known doubt, but Eijiro's presence, both in memory and in reality, bolsters you.

“Calm down, it's just speaking.” “You can do this.” His words, a mantra in your mind, "You can do this, ____. You're stronger than you know."

“It’s nothing, everyone goes through stage fright.” His understanding, his empathy, had always been a source of comfort. "Everyone's nervous at first," he'd reminded, "but that's just part of the journey."

Yeah, I know… You acknowledge the nerves, the fear, but also the growth, the journey, the unwavering support of the boy with the fiery red hair.

But does my mind know? Does my body know? You question, but deep down, you know the answer. Eijiro's belief in you has become a part of your own belief in yourself.

“Practice, practice,” they say. His words echo, "Practice makes perfect, but it's the passion that makes it meaningful. And you, ____, have so much passion."

I can practice a thousand times more, You've practiced, stumbled, and risen again, each time a step closer to where you are now.

But no matter what I do, it’s always the same. The fear may always be there, but so is your resilience, your courage, and the unwavering support of Eijiro.

Can you look past the bouncing eyes, brief bouts of eye contact? Your gaze finds Eijiro in the crowd, his eyes steady, encouraging. He sees past the nervousness, to the heart of who you are.

Past all the shakiness I hold? He sees the tremble, but also the strength, the determination, the heart behind each word you speak.

Would that change your perception of me? In Eijiro's eyes, you see no judgement, only admiration, pride, and perhaps something deeper, something yet to be explored.

Of the words pouring from my heart and soul? Your poem, a cascade of emotions and truths, finds its rhythm. You see Eijiro's gaze, filled with a depth of emotion that speaks of more than just friendship.

So finely crafted, they seem effortlessly written like poetry, Each word you've crafted, every line you've honed, now flows with an ease born from the heart. Eijiro's presence has always been a source of inspiration, his belief in you fueling your own creative fire.

Yet these small things hinder it all… The poem concludes, your voice a soft echo in the now silent auditorium. The applause is thunderous, but your focus is solely on Eijiro. His eyes, bright with pride, reflect a myriad of unspoken words.

The stage is empty now, the crowd dispersing into the night. You find Eijiro waiting for you backstage, his smile as radiant as ever. "You were amazing,____," he says, his voice warm with genuine admiration.

"You think so?" you ask, a shy smile playing on your lips.

"I know so," Eijiro insists. His eyes search yours, hesitating for a moment as if deciding something significant. Then, gently, he takes your hand, pulling you slightly closer. "There's something I've been wanting to tell you, ____."

Your heart skips a beat. The intensity in his gaze is something new, something more than the friendly warmth you're used to. "Eijiro?"

He takes a deep breath, his usual confidence replaced with a vulnerable earnestness. "I like you, ____. More than a friend. I've liked you for a long time."

The confession hangs in the air, a delicate truth finally voiced. Your mind races, piecing together all the moments, the looks, the subtle hints. How could you have been so blind to the depth of his feelings?

"E-Eijiro, I..." Your words falter, your own feelings a whirlwind of confusion and clarity.

He smiles softly, giving your hand a reassuring squeeze. "It's okay, ____. You don't have to say anything now. I just wanted you to know."

In that moment, something within you clicks. The realization of how much Eijiro means to you, how his presence has been a constant source of comfort and joy, how his smile has always been able to light up your darkest days.

You step closer, closing the gap between you. Your heart beats in tandem with his, a shared rhythm that seems to echo around you.

Gently, almost hesitantly, you stand on your tiptoes, and with a courage born from his confession, you press your lips to his in a tender, sweet kiss.

Eijiro responds in kind, his hand coming up to cup your face, deepening the kiss with a gentle passion. It's a kiss of shared dreams, of unspoken words, and of a new beginning.

As you pull away, your eyes meet, and in them, you see a future filled with possibilities. "Eijiro," you whisper, your voice a mixture of wonder and certainty, "I like you too."

His smile is bright, his eyes shining with unshed tears of happiness. "Really?"

"Yes, really," you reply, your own smile matching his.

Hand in hand, you step out of the backstage, ready to face whatever the future holds, together.

A/N: you guys, i hope you enjoyed the poem, i made that when i was like 12 lol, but i love it so much...(here's a more put-together version of it...)

As I look into the crowd, my gaze rises beyond my feet, Into the many eyes sitting before me. The words I’ve so carefully crafted fade from my lips, The small tremors in my voice reveal my true state. My anxiety, slowly, steadily, creeps in like poison, My mind shuts down, and my body betrays me.

"Yeah, I’m here, I’m loud, I made it this far, Despite all the odds I stacked against myself." But if you just hear, if you listen closely, Faux confidence, my false bravado, an imposter…

As I breathe in, my hands shake, knees weaken. I scream to myself, "What are you doing? You got this! You know what to say! You've practiced this over and over. Right before you walked onto this stage, you felt Like you could climb a mountain!" But it's not enough.

My panicked mind can foster, ready to strike at any unsuspecting wound. "Calm down, it's just speaking." "You can do this." "It’s nothing, everyone goes through stage fright." Yeah, I know…

But does my mind know? Does my body know? "Practice, practice," they say. I can practice a thousand times more, But no matter what I do, it’s always the same.

Can you look past the bouncing eyes, brief bouts of eye contact? Past all the shakiness I hold? Would that change your perception of me? Of the words pouring from my heart and soul? So finely crafted, they seem effortlessly written like poetry, Yet these small things hinder it all…