#the thing is i really just want to keep taking these math-based classes without consequences i would love that so much actually

[thebigqueer]

i love college cuz as soon as i decide to do a 180 w my major i do cs and physics classes and im like 'mmm i wish i could major in math'

[alixdelcourt]

You're way too precious to me

Ft. Katsuki Bakugou, Eijirou Kirishima, Denki Kaminari x female reader

Genre : angst, deep and dark angst (I had hard time writing this) and slight comfort in the end

WC and warnings : 2.7 k / Angst, dark mood, hurt feelings, depression, emotional burn out, light mention of self-harm, crying and feeling down. Please be careful reading this, and skip it if you're insecure or having mental troubles, I struggled writing this and felt hurt myself, so please be careful.

Note : I hope that I achieved your request okay, @d3nk1x, and that it's what you requested for. I discovered that I am not that comfortable with angst... I definitely prefer fluff or smut. This isn't for me... So maybe it's not well writen. Please let me know.

Dating katsuki Bakugou is quiet a big deal, and not always an easygoing relationship. All the anger, frustration and brutality he bottles inside of him prevents bakugou from being a perfect boyfriend. But, whatever ! Who needs perfection anyway ? When you felt in love with him, you were aware of all these matters. You love him just the way he is. After all, love is for the better and for the worse, so you always find your way forgiving his roughness and harsh attitude.

But, lately, you find yourself patching up your own feelings and emotions because of him. You have more and more trouble taking the blows, and some wounds of yours refuse to heal. So you slightly change, trying to give him hints of your unhappiness, of your insecurities. But in vain…

Today has been particularly tough, and you just feel… down. You need whatever comfort you can find, and you’re craving for your boyfriend affection. But today hasn’t been a good day for him as well. He lost all his training sessions to Kirishima and Deku, and he’s pissed off. So when you came up to him and asked for a few caring, he just… erupts. You were a sadness soused combustible, and his fury sparks caught fire on you so well. He poured all of his raging emotions on you, and the words he spat to you were like sharp knives cutting your skin and letting all of the pain seep deep into you.

… You just wanted some cuddles. Was it too much to ask ? Just a pinch of affection to sprinkle on your illness. An ounce of empathy. And here you are, buried under your blanket, fist clenched, closed eyes crying, and all your body shaking because of the your hurted feelings. His words keep streaming in your mind, destroying you a little more every time they start again.

“Stop clinging at me like you do ! Look at you, you seem so miserable right now… It really pisses me off.

“Please… Katsuki… I need you… I need your-”

“ F*ck off ! You’re always so whiny ! Such a crybaby ! Stop being so dependant and clingy ! I am not your baby-sitter !”

“But… But…”

“I said f*ck off! Get the hell away, and leave me alone ! I can’t stand crybabies like you !”

The message has been perfectly received. It’s printed in capital letters behind your eyelids.

You felt asleep, exhausted from crying, and when you wake up, you couldn’t tell how much time did you spent laying there. But it doesn’t matter. You don’t feel able to get out of your bed, so you just stay here, in the warm fluffy embrace. Whenever you feel some thought triggering your mind, you bite your flesh hard and the concentrate on the pain ‘til you forgot why you started doing this. After a few times, you couldn’t even think of a straight complete sentence.

When the blanket was roughly removed from over you, you didn’t even blink. With a quite long delay, you realize that you should feel the cold air, the disturbing noise and even his touch on your skin… But you’re like under anesthetic. Which makes Bakugou freaks out. He tries to make you react, slaps you, screams your name, while shouting for someone to help him. You’re conscious, but you can’t feel anything. You should probably answer him, but why would you do ? seeing him shouting at you, you think that he’s still mad at you… Why did he come for you then ? If he doesn’t want you anymore, why is he here ? You don’t understand what’s happening.

Maybe because you don’t realize that from his point of view, you seem… dead. Your body is cold and your eyes are empty. The other students called for Aizawa, and recovery Girl came to auscultate you as well. But you didn’t notice, lost in the fog inside your head.

And when you “woke up” from this choc state, you was kind of surprised by a caring boyfriend of yours, who hugs you tight and cuddles you all day long, apologizing and whispering to not ever do this to him again. And when you asked “do what ?”, he goes like “nevermind”, before holding you close. It’s Kirishima that told you what happened. You went through an emotional burn out for a few days, and Bakugou was literally freaking out and feeling guilty because of what he told you. He didn’t mean to hurt you like this, he was mad and didn’t think of the consequences of what he said. He promised he won’t act like this again. He felt like he lost you, and it was unbearable. You’re way too precious for him.

Your relationship with Eijirou Kirishima is based on routines. You both like the fact that you follow a settled pattern that time made up for you. Just small little things that remind you two of the love and affection you share. For example, you wait for him in the morning to go to your classes together, and he waits for you to tidy up your things after class before reaching the cafeteria. He kisses you for goodnight, and you play with his hair for him to fall asleep.

Loving him is easy and sweet. And even if you have arguments, because every healthy relationship goes through some arguments, both of you try to find a way or a solution to deal with it. And lately these times, you just feel so in love with him, you literally can’t help but kissing him all day, spinning around him like a light feather carried by the breath of love between you two.

It’s quiet late at night, and you were in his room. You always end up in his room after dinner for some cuddles and maybe watch a movie together. Then you two just do your own things until you’re getting sleepy and head to bed with the goodnight routine of yours. Like chilling, each one on his own but together. Doesn’t makes a lot of sense, but it works for you two, so you just don’t mind. Tonight, you two had to study for the next math exam that was coming. And it was difficult. Math gives you headache, and hopefully Eijirou is a patient tutor. He kept repeating for you until you got the point. You’re proud of you, and so is he, but you ended the study session a little bit delayed, and he was late to his online gaming sessions with Denki and Sero. He let you finish the last exercise on your own and connect quickly to catch up with the boys.

You read a book, but can’t concentrate with all the math in your head. You can hear your boyfriend gaming and he looks way too attractive to you with his hair flattened by his headphones, tongue sticking out because he’s focused on his game. You smile before reaching his lap. You comfortably sit on it and hug him to express your affection. This is a way better position for reading.

But you still can’t concentrate. Not with your body pressed against him, with you’re *ss on his crotch, with all the dirty thoughts running in your mind. You throw away your annoying book, and start kissing the redhead’s neck. He smells so good… A mix of his wooden scent gel shower and the bitter fresh scent of his aftershave. You get pretty excited, imagining this perfume ruined by his sweat while pounding you. Picturing all these thoughts and imagining Eijirou’s lips on your, you’re getting really needy, aren’t you ? You can’t help but move your hips and rub your lower part on his. Maybe this will get him hard and he’ll be just as needy as you. Maybe you could sleep over here tonight…

But no. Your moving just annoys him. He can’t focus properly on what he’s doing while you wriggle around and sigh on his skin. He can’t hear you moan, he can’t see the desire in your eyes, nor notice the excitation you’re in. He tries to push you off his lap, but you keep trying to get him out of his play. Game over appeared in bloody letters on his screen, and he removes his headphones. When you try to frame his cheeks in order to kiss him, he pushes you away.

“You’re really annoying, you know that ?”

“You say that only because you lost… Come here, let me comfort you”

“No. Not when you’re the reason why I lost. Anyway, I am not in the mood.”

He keeps avoiding your touches and attempts to lay him on bed.

“What is it, babe ? Why don’t you want me to touch you ?”

“I just don’t want to right now. Can’t you understand it ? Or do I need to keep repeating myself like for everything else ?”

This was like a cold shower. It cancelled every single drop of excitement you had. You clench your teeth.

“Okay. I get it.”

And you reach you own room, without any of you wish each other good night. While turning in bed, you couldn’t tell if you’re angry, or disappointed, or sad, or furious, or… You’re hurt. This was an emotion injury you couldn’t explain. And you had no clue even after thinking about this all night. You didn’t manage to sleep, and you were totally depressed and out of your plate on the morning. Like totally lost. You did nothing right. Since breakfast, you kept trudging and having trouble answering even basic questions like “Can you please hand me the butter ?”. This day has passed at a maddening speed, and you can’t tell what happened most of the times. For example, you know that you took an exam today, but you can’t say if it was difficult or not, if you completed it or not. Basically, today you were a zombie.

You desperately needed some sleep. So, in the middle of the dinner, while Momo was pouring you some tea she made for you because you seemed tired, you stood up and went to your room, mumbling a good night by habit. You just crumble on your bed.

“Pebble… Pebble, are you okay ?”

You didn’t even notice that Eijirou followed you, really worried about you. He snugs in the bed with you and hold you close. You two have a difficult conversations when you tell him about all the confusion and the pain you feel. He apologizes and hold you close all night long. And he’ll never act like this again, because the way you were today was definitely not okay for him. From missing his morning kiss to looking like a zombie, nothing was okay. He will watch his mouth to not hurt you anymore because you’re way too precious to him.

Denki has an outgoing personality, no doubt on it. You two are like day and night, you complement yourselves pretty well. He was a loud troublemaker and you are a quite and peaceful person. And these differences are precious to you, but sometimes it’s too complicated to handle.

He’s a loving boyfriend, but he can’t help himself. Always too cheerful, too playful, with anyone. He gets really flirty with any girl that talks to him, even if you’re right there, watching. He tells you to don’t mind, because he doesn’t do this on purpose. It’s just like… like a game. He gets female and even male’s attention, and he feels confident acting out like that. So you just accept it. Have you even got the choice ?

You don’t notice it anymore. His random smirks to Mina, his winks to Jirou, “innocent” sexual implied comments to Toru… Daily, there’s always someone to flirt or to tease with. And it’s the same with random strangers.

Like today. Well… You have to admit that this waitress is really pretty with her bright shiny smile and her disheveled hair buns. And, yeah, maybe she was attractive when she was wrapping this loose lock of her hair around her finger, shyly blushing when Denki was complimenting her and obviously undressing her with his gaze. And of course you can’t deny the fact that she is sexy. Certainly, all this shit is true. But today was supposed to be your day.

Denki and you are on date, he brought you to this fancy place to celebrate your date anniversary. This is all about you and him being in love. So, just for once, you want him to concentrate this flirty attitude of his on you. Was it too much to ask ? But you accept it, once again. He did all the conversation during the meal, and you barely enjoyed the dishes. You just wait for the end of this date to leave the place and the waitress behind.

But your patience has its owns limits. That were crossed far away when the b*tchy waitress, who purposely ignored you all the time, bent over and touched your boyfriend’s lap, giving him the dessert’s menu. You see red all over you, furious and mad, expecting Denki to react, but he just chuckles and light touches her forearm. What was this ? He never allowed anyone to act like this with him. Or maybe you just didn’t know…

“Thank you, miss, but I think that we don’t need you anymore. We’re leaving, could you bring the bill ?”

She stutters a bit, looking at Denki, who was too chocked to react.

“Aren’t we eating the dessert ? Why do you want to leave ?”

“I don’t feel comfortable, I just wanna go home please”

“And I want a dessert, could you please wait ?”

“No, I can’t. I am leaving. You can have a dessert if you want, you can even have the waitress with it as well, I don’t care.”

“Okay, see you later, then. I’ll try to have fun and enjoy, since you don’t know how to do so”

You furiously grab your handbag and run out the restaurant. You don’t stop running until you’re home. Your shaking hands and teary eyes had some trouble opening the door. You crumble against the stubborn closed door and cry yourself out. You can’t hold it. Long sobs, breathless coughs and heartbreaking screams. All this noise brought your neighbor, Sero, to check out what’s happening.

“(Y/N) ?! Are you hurt ? What happened ? What’s wrong ?”

You couldn’t tell him, your anxious cries preventing you from talking straightly. He assured himself that you’re not injured and helped you get in your bedroom. You can’t tell what he was doing around you, your cries slowly turning into a huge panic attack. Curled in your bed, you rock yourself back and forth, cutting yourself out from reality. You couldn’t hear Sero calling Denki and asking him to come home. You couldn’t hear your boyfriend freaking out when he heard you crying like that on phone. You couldn’t know that he was running towards home, feeling guilty and culpable, his sunshine having a mental breakdown because of him.

“Sunshine ? Sunshine! Look at me ! I am right there”

Denki’s voice find its way to your ears, to your mind, to your heart. You hold on to him like a lifeline, trying to calm down. He thanks Sero, who left, before joining you on bed. He breaths heavily for you to focus on his chest going up and down slowly. You imitate his breaths until you can think straight.

“Thank you, Denki… I am sorry, I-”

“I am the one who have to apologize. I acted like a piece shit back there. I am sorry, I didn’t know you were jealous. I shouldn’t act like this, I am sorry. You know, babe, that you’re the one and only. You know it, right ?”

“No… I don’t…”

“I don’t care about anyone else. You’re the one that I love. And if it makes you feel insecure, I’ll stop flirting like that, okay ? It hurts me to see you like this. I don’t want you to be hurt, you’re way too precious to me, babe.”

________________________________

Hey ! I don't have much to say... Hope you enjoyed it, and feel free to request anything else (angst is still okay but I don't handle it well so prepare yourself to be disappointed ^^')

[katsidhe]

could you share the descriptions of the answers? I'm bad at answering these quizzes cause I always get like 3 answers that fit but in different circumstances so I like seeing all of the descriptions

Yeah sure! I too wish uquiz gave an option to see all the result descriptions... alas. 

anyway here’s a wall of text, go nuts. 

DEAN-CODED DEAN GIRL

You might just be the hero of a YA fantasy novel or an action movie, because you have Big Protag Energy. You’re self-centered and extremely giving at the same time: you expect and demand absolute loyalty, just as you provide the same. Your love can move mountains, but if you’re not careful that same love can be suffocating or controlling. You’re volatile: you’ll cut a bitch and you don’t care who knows it. You’ll kick their ass. You’ll kick their dog’s ass. You’ll kick your own ass. You have a one-liner for every occasion. Your friends like you but would describe you as “a lot.” You’re magnetic: your charisma and sheer bull-headedness mean you stand out in every room. You’re polarizing, and you know it, but that doesn’t bother you: you know you’re right, and even when you’re wrong, you’re at least entertaining. You’re very “do as I say, not as I do:” you’re a bit of a hypocrite, but, like, in a fun way.  

Holotypes include: Dean Winchester (Supernatural), Thomas Jefferson (Hamilton), Sirius Black (Harry Potter), Kathryn Janeway (Star Trek: Voyager), Katara (ATLA), Vriska Serket (Homestuck)

DEAN-CODED SAM GIRL

You are a charmer and a people-pleaser. You’re charismatic to a fault, when you want to be: whether consciously or not, you have a razor-keen sense of how others see you, and you mold yourself to expectations. You can either talk circles around most people, or you come across as so fundamentally honest that you gain everyone’s trust without trying. Your affable persona is built on a rock-solid sense of purpose. You have a steadfast, deadset fixation on your goals, which you know in your heart to be worth any cost and any sacrifice. Armed with iron conviction, you’re a rebel with a cause. Is it paranoia if they really are all out to get you? When you inevitably win, the whole world will know your name. Your strong sense of self will carry you through any hardship. Your friends look up to you, but they don’t always “get” you. 

Holotypes include: Lucifer (Supernatural), Eponine (Les Mis), Count Olaf (A Series of Unfortunate Events), Prince Zuko (ATLA), Samwise Gamgee (LOTR), Karkat Vantas (Homestuck)

DEAN-CODED CAS GIRL 

Like all Dean-coded people, you are charming and affable, and you talk a big game. You might be the class clown or a popular athlete, or otherwise one of them cool kids, but underlying that public persona is a certain quiet idealism. You keep your strong convictions close to your heart, even when far from home or beset by strife. You’re fiercely loyal and you crave being around people, but you can see when your friends need space, and you can get along okay on your own. You’re not afraid to change your opinions if new information comes to light. Strangers find you easy to get along with: you tend to go along with the group, and you’re a team player no matter what needs to get done. Your chill-to-pull ratio is sky-high.

Holotypes include: Ahsoka (Star Wars), Meg (Supernatural), Percy Jackson (Percy Jackson), Ginny Weasley (Harry Potter), Boromir (LOTR), Jon Snow (Game of Thrones)

SAM-CODED DEAN GIRL

You come across as level headed, but you’re never more than an inch from going off the rails. Your highest values are love and personal loyalty, but you’re pragmatic about it, and you try very hard not to put unfair expectations on other people, with varying degrees of success. You spend a lot of time dealing with expectations; it’s something you either grapple with, or lean into to use to your own ends. You value your own sense of identity, but that identity can get subsumed by your loyalties. You can easily get pulled in or suborned by strong personalities. You keep secrets, both from yourself and from others. Who you want to be is at odds with how you see yourself. People meeting you for the first time might say you’re aloof. You have lots of strong opinions, but you usually keep them to yourself… unless provoked. Careful; you bite. 

Holotypes include: Mary Winchester (Supernatural), Harry Potter (Harry Potter), Aragorn (LOTR), Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars), Julian Bashir (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Katniss Everdeen (Hunger Games) 

SAM-CODED SAM GIRL

Gifted kid (diagnosis). You were and maybe still are an outsider, and because of that you’ve had to learn to be self-sufficient and confident in your own abilities. You’re a fiercely independent overachiever, and you’ve fought hard for every inch. Somewhere inside you is a hot, long simmering rage born from the injustice of the world, but it’s buried very deep. You’d be more than content to be alone for long periods of time. You have sometimes crippling perfectionism: if you aren’t succeeding, it’s your fault for not trying hard enough. You’ll pick every kind of intellectual fight and throw yourself into playing devil’s advocate just to improve your understanding: you see the gray areas in everything. You’re aggressively big-picture. You want to, no, you MUST change the universe, but you don’t need to take credit for it. Your few friends might describe you as callous, but you know you’re just being realistic: you’ve got a harsh, clear-eyed sense of the world. No pain, no gain, and really, if you do the math, no single individual is all that important in the grand scheme of things.  

Holotypes include: Kevin Tran (Supernatural), Jean Valjean (Les Miserables), Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars), Neville Longbottom (Harry Potter), Frodo Baggins (LOTR), Dirk Strider (Homestuck), Luke Castellan (Percy Jackson)

SAM-CODED CAS GIRL

You have a strong sense of how the world ought to be, but you have no overriding vision or big master plan: you take life day by day to fix the little things you can. You have very few close relationships, but those you have you treasure dearly. You support your few friends unconditionally, but you tend to be emotionally distant with acquaintances. You may be a bit of a pushover. You often find yourself put in the position of mediator. You loathe conflict, so you avoid it unless absolutely necessary--but once you’re truly angry, you’ll stop at nothing to see justice done. You’re a diplomat and an advocate: you are deeply idealistic, but you’re nevertheless strongly grounded in a pragmatic sense of achieving what you can. Philosophy is action, action is philosophy; you like meditation and self-improvement and have probably done at least one juice cleanse. Both friends and strangers describe you as quietly dependable. If you can’t see the trauma, the trauma can’t see you! That’s just science!

Holotypes include: Sam Winchester (Supernatural), BJ Hunnicut (M*A*S*H), Jean-Luc Picard (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Aang (ATLA), Luke Skywalker (Star Wars), Nico di Angelo (Percy Jackson)

CAS-CODED DEAN GIRL

Much of your identity is tied up in a set of core beliefs - to the point where those beliefs might be strong enough to override your identity. You’re not beholden to any outside system. If you’re comfortable serving a larger common goal, it’s because you believe in it wholeheartedly. You’re action-oriented: you act first, and think later, or possibly never. You judge your friends solely based on what they do, and you tend to hold people accountable for any unforeseen consequences of their choices. You have strong personal loyalties. You’re not at the center of your social circle, but your friends trust you implicitly and the leader of your group tends to confide in you. You don’t seek power, but you’re also not afraid of taking charge, and you may find power thrust upon you. If you do find yourself in a position of leadership, you struggle with going too far or taking your friends in an unexpected direction. Whether you’re fighting in a war or making yourself a sandwich, you go hard in the motherfuckin’ paint.

Holotypes include: Castiel (Supernatural), Javert (Les Miserables), Captain Rex (Star Wars), Kanaya Maryam (Homestuck), Worf (Star Trek), Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter)

CAS-CODED SAM GIRL

I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you’re a bit weird. You are spacey or odd or otherwise out of step with how people think you should act, but that’s fine. It doesn’t matter what they think, because if you’re sure of one thing, it’s that you should never mold your unique identity to other people’s expectations. You live internally: you’re all about grand, world-changing concepts, whether they be philosophical, artistic, or mathematical. You are grounded in the reality that you are one person and one viewpoint among many others, but that doesn’t stop you from writing your nine-hundred page thesis on the topic you’re passionate about. You can justify just about anything by the virtue of your personal convictions arising almost entirely from within yourself. Your identity can get swept up in your big ideas. You’re easier to sway with logic than with emotion, but you don’t feel the need to confine yourself with such terms: you operate on both vibes and flowcharts. You move through the world with the assurance that you are the master of your own fate, and you are unburdened by worrying about the opinions of others. You won’t let yourself feel pinned down by one social group; you float in and out comfortably, depending on how you’re feeling. Friends and strangers describe you as “spooky.”

Holotypes include: Azazel (Supernatural), Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter), Aaron Burr (Hamilton), Princess Azula (ATLA), Yoda (Star Wars), Jadzia Dax (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Terezi Pyrope (Homestuck)

CAS-CODED CAS GIRL

You are chaotic and excitable. You’re swayed by the drive to explore: the greatest good is to understand the universe and your place in it. You’ve got big ideas, and you’re drawn to new experiences, but you don’t necessarily understand what’s going on. You might be a part of a bigger social machine, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be defined on its terms: you’ll self-actualize if it kills you. You identify new objects by licking them. You can see the strings of the world; what will you choose? You’ll take the reins and see where they take you. You say you’re following your own path. Your friends say you don’t know what you’re doing. Pragmatism? Never heard of her. A dream is a vision is a reality; ideas are the world writ large. You might be a prophet or a visionary. With your head in the clouds, you’re sometimes divorced from both reality and consequences. You’re usually on the outside looking in, and you don’t want to be. People think they understand you, but they definitely don’t. Your friends and enemies describe you as impulsive and mysterious. 

Holotypes include: Raphael (Supernatural), Uncle Iroh (ATLA), Draco Malfoy (Harry Potter), Data (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Obi-Wan Kenobi (Star Wars), Gandalf (LOTR)

[letsgetusaghostfriend]

A Green Day concert, a bloody nose and a coming out – Sunset Curve & Green Day I

Summary: Luke and Bobby got them tickets for the Green Day show in LA on November 2nd 1994, also known as the night Billie Joe punched a homophobe and Alex came out to the guys.

Friendship fic, super Alex & Bobby centred, Luke and Reggie are not straight but don’t know that yet. Also, I know most people think Alex came out way earlier, but he has to not be out for this story to work.

((warnings: homophobia, homophobic language (not fully written out except in the band name of the opening act), slight violence, mentioned: alcohol, underage drinking (I am german, so for me it’s not underage drinking but yeah), in general: swearing))

word count: 4.9k, read here on AO3 x

~

Luke and Bobby got four tickets for the Green Day show in LA on November 2nd in 1994, it was one of Green Day’s bigger shows at that time. The boys previously have been to other concerts of the band, but the last one was in a small club in ’92, of course, all four of them being way too young for that place. Luke and Reggie were the first ones out of their group to get fake ID’s, mainly to go to gigs and play gigs. In the beginning, Alex thought he would never do the same, too scared of possible consequences, but then Luke used his stupid puppy eyes. (They still work even after Alex crush died, dead and buried). And if he was being honest, it was really helpful for playing clubs if the owners can at least pretend that they believe the four boys are old enough to be there.

Alex was aware that Green Day’s opening act, Pansy Division, was an all-gay band. And he was excited and scared at the same time. He found out because this one kid in his English class, Josh, went to the San Diego show earlier that week and told one of his friends that he shouldn’t go to the LA show as Green Day was just a bunch of “f*g lovers” and not worth their time. So Alex was scared: what if his friends would say the same thing?

They arrive late and the line is massive, Alex anxiety pitches in and reminds him that if it takes too long for them to get inside, he might miss Pansy Divisions performance. Logically he knows that they wouldn’t start letting people in so late that the opening band already starts when most people are not inside yet, but his anxiety is not that into logical thinking. He can’t help being fidgety, at one point Luke noticed and asks him if the crowd is making him uncomfortable. “Yeah, a little bit” Alex responds, not wanting further questions about why he was so anxious. The boys keep close to the bar, staying in the back first, not too excited to get into the crowd just yet. Alex knows the others would be inside the first mosh pit if it wasn’t for his anxiety, but not once did they show any signs of annoyance about his hesitancy. They just patiently wait for Alex to get used to the crowd and atmosphere, never angry when he has a bad day and he never signals that it is okay for them to go into the more crowded areas. Sometimes, especially when Luke doesn’t know where to put his energy he and Reggie go, but they always make sure that at least one person stays with Alex. He probably should tell them how thankful he is for this more often (the others would disagree here since they feel like Alex thanks them too much).

When Pansy Division started playing Alex didn’t expect them to actually sing about hooking up with guys at rock concerts, loving men, having real, deep and meaningful relationships and just, in general, doing normal daily life stuff, living with a boyfriend and how it feels after a breakup. He feels so excited, almost jumping up and down to the beat, not able to put his excited energy out on the drums like he would if it was their own concert. Alex completely forgets to check the guys for any reactions, too involved in the music. He doesn’t see that the other three boys enjoy Pansy Divisions music just as much as he does. He doesn’t see Bobby eyeing him from the side, a knowing glint in his eye.

Alex doesn’t know that Bobby saw the way Alex would look at Luke when they were 14, at Brian from History when they were 15, and how he sometimes looks at pictures from Billie Joe Armstrong in magazines. Bobby also didn’t miss Alex’ obsession with the song Coming Clean. The other boys sometimes forget about how Bobby’s parents are genuine open-minded people, who introduce him to a lot more diverse people than his friends’ parents do. So yes, maybe Alex was discreet enough for Mr Luke Oblivious Patterson and Captain Reg Oblivious Peters, and his parents who anyway only see what they want to see, but not for Bobby. Bobby, who might from an outsider’s perspective looks like he is standing a bit outside this friendship group due to him being less loud and sociable than his friends, but Bobby who loves his friends with all his heart, Bobby who truly sees his friends and knows that this is where he belongs. Seeing the absolute bliss, happiness and excitement streaming from Alex like waves is contagious.

After Pansy Division finished their set and there was a short break before Green Day would start theirs, Bobby slips from their group, mumbling that he would get another beer. Instead, he goes to buy Pansy Divisions EP, because the band was genuinely good but mostly because he knows Alex wouldn’t buy it, but he will definitely want it. On his way to the little corner where they sell the Green Day merch as well as Pansy Division stuff, Bobby realises that it was actually packed, but he soon saw that it was just a long long line for the Green Day merch. Actually, there are so many people he can’t even see the Green Day merch salesperson. He manages to get to the guy who took care of the Pansy Division stuff, he greets him with a head nod and a short “hey”, while scrambling his money out of his pant pockets to count it. He’ll have to nick a bit off of Luke’s beer later, not having enough money left to buy another one. When he reaches out to hand out the money for the CD somebody joins the guy who cared for the merch. Bobby recognises that it’s the singer of Pansy Division and he smiles at him. “Great performance, really enjoyed you guys’ music!”. The singer grins at that and holds out his left hand, which Bobby finds a bit strange, but takes it nonetheless.

“Jon, nice to meet you.”

“Bobby, pleasure is all mine.”

“Ah, you’re a musician yourself!” Jon says while checking out Bobby as if he could tell whether the kid in front of him was any good based on his appearance. It took the guitarist a second to realise that Jon must’ve felt his calloused fingers from playing the guitar during the handshake. “Yeah, I’m actually here with my bandmates.” A voice in his head, that sounds suspiciously like Reggie tunes in with “We’re Sunset Curve, tell your friends.” But Bobby pretty much felt like a child trying to play in the adults’ league, so he doesn’t say anything else. Jon grabs the CD he was about to buy and opens it while asking “So Bobby, is the CD for you or someone else?” Taken aback by that question Bobby tells him without thinking “We kind of always share records. Em, so maybe Sunset Curve?” Jon who was about to sign the inside of the CD case, pauses and looks up again “You’re in Sunset Curve?”

“Yeah, rhythm guitar.” He answers without much of a thought, it takes him two seconds then he adds: “You’ve heard of us?” Jon chuckles at Bobby’s shocked tone.

“Saw you play a few months ago. Didn’t remember your name till Mike mentioned one of your songs, always called you “the band with the cute drummer” actually.” Jon casually explained to a still shell-shocked Bobby. The comment about Alex makes him choke on his own spit though. Jon smirks, but before he can say more Bobby’s mouth starts talking before his brain gave its okay: “You saw us well enough to say that Alex is cute, but you didn’t recognise me?” After the words left his mouth, he feels his face heat up.

‘Way to embarrass yourself by having too much of an ego, Robert, great job’, he thought to himself. But Jon again laughs it off, as if he made a funny joke, smirks and asks if Alex was here tonight.

“He is,” Bobby says, voice cold, “he is also sixteen.”

Now it was Jon’s time to look embarrassed. “Oh shit, never mind then.” He pauses. “Sixteen is a bit young to play that club you played, isn’t it?” He pauses again. “You guys take this whole music thing seriously, I like that!”

More at ease again after Jon’s reaction to Alex’ age, Bobby’s brain finally catches up with everything Jon said before he called Alex cute.

“Wait, Mike as in Mike Dirnt? As in Mike Dirnt mentioned one of our songs?” he asks astounded. Jon laughs at the utter bewilderment that the younger one’s face was showing. But before he could say something about it a loud voice behind Bobby sneers: “Oh look at that, Bobby the f*g lover.” He turns around and sees Andrew from his math class. “Always knew at least one of you would be a shirt lifter!”

Bobby tries to take a deep breath before he answers but Jon beats him to it. “I would really think people were clever enough to listen to lyrics, but you still find the poser ones at these concerts, especially since Dookie got Green Day so popular outside of the scene!” Bobby needed a few seconds to realise that Jon wasn’t even talking to Andrew but instead just talked about him to Bobby and the guy selling the merch.

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that you fucking fairy!” Andrew sneers, stepping closer to Jon. As soon as Andrews anger is directed towards Jon and not Bobby anymore, the guitarists fight instinct kicks in.

“Fairy? Really?” he asks Andrew with a snigger in his voice, “Didn’t know we live in the 50s, Andrew. Learned all these terms from your daddy?” Bobby tries to make his voice sound as degrading as possible. For a second it seems like Andrew might shut up and leave but then Jon starts laughing loudly about Bobby’s comments and before anyone can react Andrew takes a swing and hits Jon right on the mouth. Without thinking, Bobby copies his action and the next thing he knows is that his hand hurts and Andrew has a red square on the side of his face. He glares at the guitarist and strikes again. This time the fist hits Bobby’s nose and he sees black stars in front of his eyes for a few seconds. After that, all hell is breaking loose and Bobby is being pushed around for what feels like a few minutes before he gets pulled aside and finds himself behind the selling booth with Jon by his side who has a busted lip that is still bleeding. Jon has a hand on the teen's shoulder and looks worried at him. “Fuck your nose does not look too good!” he says. Hearing the words Bobby brings his hand up to his nose and winces when he feels a sharp pain as soon as his fingers touch his nose. “Fuuuuuuuuck, Alex is going to kill me!” he groans at the thought of how the blond will react to seeing Bobby like this.

“Hey man, good punch you got on the dickhead there!” an excited voice states beside Bobby, which makes him turn his head probably a bit too quick, considering he just got punched in the face a few minutes before. But the guitarists' instincts were right: standing beside him was no other than Green Days’ singer, Billie Joe Armstrong. The blond (with fading blue in his hair) is smiling at Bobby and continues with “but I think mine was even better” while pointing at something behind Bobby, who turns around just in time to see security carrying a half-conscious Andrew out of the venue.

“You know that guy?”

“He goes to my school!” Bobby answers, still in awe looking after Andrew.

“Oh, you need to tell me about how he looks tomorrow, man I don’t miss high school but I’d love to go to school just to see that!” Billie Joe tells him and Jon, still sounding way too excited. When Bobby turns around again to look at the two musicians in front of him, he catches Jon telling Billie Joe that Bobby is part of the band they talked about the other day. Somehow getting even more excited by the news he fully turns back to Bobby. “Love that! We need more good people in this scene so we can make sure the music stays clean of dudes like that! Well, it was lovely punching homophobes with you Bobby, but I actually have a concert to play!”

And with that Billie Joe is gone through the door leading to the backstage area and Bobby looks at Jon hoping that he can find answers with him (like is he hallucinating?) but he just chuckles at the teenagers in awe face and takes the CD Bobby wanted to buy all along, as well as the money he had already paid and hands both back at the teen with the words “I think you paid enough for this already, thanks for sticking up for me!” And adding, when Bobby tries to give the money back again, “You better go so your bandmates don’t worry and you don’t miss the Green Day show!” Bobby thanks him and with a smile he makes his way back to the other boys while putting the money and the CD into his pockets.

When Alex finally sees Bobby come back to them, he feels relief washing over him. Alex always hates it when they split especially if one of them is on their own and Bobby has been gone for way too long. The first thing Alex notices is that Bobby doesn’t carry any beer or anything else that he could’ve brought from a bar, the second thing is that Bobby’s nose is bleeding. The easing relief is instantly replaced by worry as Alex's brain catches up with his eyes. As soon as the guitarist reaches them Alex starts searching his fanny pack for tissues and anything else that can help with a bloody nose, all while berating Bobby about getting into a fight. Reggie and Luke excitedly ask Bobby about it, but when their bleeding bandmate tries to tell them about what happened Alex just shushes him and gestures for him to look up so that he can take a better look at his nose. While Alex is still cleaning up Bobby’s face the crowd starts cheering and Alex turns around quickly to confirm his suspicion that the main act finally made it on stage. He keeps on cleaning his friends face from now slightly dried blood when he hears Billie Joe's voice over the speakers.

“Sorry guys, I know we’re late, but I had to punch a homophobe…” The rest of the sentence does not reach Alex’ brain as he looks at one of his best friends, whose nose was bleeding after obviously being punched and all he can hear is white noise, while the realisation, that Bobby being the homophobe who was just punched by Green Days’ singer, sets in. He feels a sharp sting in his chest all while feeling overwhelmed by fear, cold naked fear. And his thoughts race through his brain, too fast to actually make any sense, all he knows is that his worst nightmare seems to be coming true: the people he trusts the most will eventually leave him. They will hate him. They will think he is disgusting, and they will leave him. Unconsciously he takes a step back from Bobby, taking both his hands off his friends face but before he can totally spiral into his thoughts, he is caught by Bobby who holds the drummer by his wrists and looks at him like Alex offended him deeply.

“Seriously?” Bobby’s voice comes out sharper than he probably intended, softening his tone as he sees Alex flinch at him, “You actually think I am homophobic? Fuck Alex do you really think that poorly of me?” The guitarists' words and face are both filled with what Alex can only describe as hurt. Bobby attempts to say more but he is cut off by Billie Joe's voice coming over the speakers saying his name.

“A special thanks to Bobby from Sunset Curve! Make sure you check them out they’re a local band that’ll make it big one day, I’ll promise you! I swear, give them less than a year and they’ll be playing here on this very stage! Thanks, Bobby, for helping me punch a dickhead!” And with that they start into their first song, leaving the boys standing completely mind blown in the back, each one trying to comprehend what just happened. After a few seconds, Reggie, Luke and Alex all turn to Bobby with questioning faces, but Bobby concentrates on Alex’ face. “Do you believe me now?” When Alex nods the, still bleeding, guitarist feels relief wash over him. “Good! Because I already have your Christmas present and I literally know no one else who has the same taste that you have!” He actually manages to make Alex smile with his stupid comment, feeling like they might be okay again, he holds onto Alex’ sleeve, needing something to ground him, knowing that Alex is uncomfortable with public affection. He turns to Luke and Reggie who as soon as they have his attention try to bombard him with questions, but he stops them and promises to tell them later.

___

After the concert:

When they leave the venue, a wave of, for L.A. unusually cold air, hits Bobby’s face and clears his head a little, making it easier to think about everything that had happened. As he was the first one out of the four to step out in the cold air, he takes a deep breath before turning around to see the other three boys walk up to him. He notices that Alex pulls his jean jacket tighter around his body, clearly not enjoying the cold air as Bobby does. He smiles at Bobby and then follows Reg and Luke who started walking towards the side street where they parked the van before the concert. The two boys talk animatedly about the Green Days show, analysing every detail. Seeing one of their favourite bands live did distract the two enough for them to not ask any further questions, right now. Alex smile tells Bobby that the same did not count for the blonde boy. Bobby jogs up to Alex to walk beside him, but when he tries to initiate a conversation with his bandmate, the blonde just shakes his head and mumbles, that he has things to think, but as if to calm Bobby down, Alex takes his hand and squeezes it before they reach their van. The van they brought because they actually started to be able to book enough gigs to pay for it (and to actually need it), they all paid for it, even though they don’t talk about the fact that Bobby paid the biggest part, with him having the only parents who actually support the band.

Bobby is driving, with Alex in the passenger seat lost in his thoughts and Luke and Reggie in the back, trying to get Bobby to finally tell them about what happened at the venue. The guitarist promises to tell them as soon as they arrive at the garage, but despite the impatience from Luke and Reggie to find out about everything they still have a quick stop at a small diner on their way home to get their after-concert food.

Alex, Reggie and Luke all go straight for the couch while bobby prefers sitting on the floor, facing them. For a few seconds they all munch happily but soon Luke starts bugging Bobby about what happened at the club, so he puts his sandwich aside and takes a short breath. He doesn’t know where to start, he kind of wants Alex to know that he got the CD for him, but he doesn’t want to put any pressure on Alex, nor does he want the other two to find out about Alex liking boys before Alex wants them to.

“So,” Bobby starts, “we all really liked Pansy Division, right?” he asks with a nervous laugh tinting his words. He looks at the three boys on the couch for confirmation and gets it from two of the boys while Alex looks like he gets scared by the simple indication that he might have really liked the queer band they all saw tonight. Bobby acts like he didn’t see it while deciding, that he won’t tell the blond that Jon was hitting on him. That might be a bit much information for one night. “Well, I thought,” he continues while pulling out the CD he brought earlier “I’ll get us their CD.” He waves the CD then places it on the table in front of the couch so the guys can look at it.

“And that’s where I met one of the band members, Jon, he is the singer.” He looks up at his friends who all stare at him with a mixture of shock and curiosity on their faces, even Alex nervousness seems replaced. ‘I didn’t even get to the really shocking parts yet’, Bobby thought to himself.

“Okay, so we got talking, he found out I play in a band and when he asks for a name to use to sign the CD I just said Sunset Curve, because we always share records, like I mean I don’t even know who owns what anymore!” Luke looks dead serious while nodding his head, Alex starts smiling slightly and Reggie looks like he is trying really hard to separate their shared music collection in his head.

“Anyway, it turns out he saw one of our shows earlier this year and apparently, he was talking about one of our songs with Mike, but before you get too excited, I couldn’t ask him about it because that dick Andrew from my math class interrupted us. He called me a – eh, never mind” he stops himself, giving Alex a short glance – “he started calling me and Jon names and I kind of started making fun of him for using really outdated terms and when Jon laughed about that, Andrew hit him and then I hit Andrew and he hit me back and suddenly everything got crazy. Next thing I know is that I am behind the merch booth with Jon and Billie Joe Armstrong, and Andrew is being carried outside by security.” He tries to rush the words out fast enough so that Luke doesn’t stop him because of the band being recognised and Alex doesn’t stop him because he hit someone.

“And then Billie Joe finds out I am in Sunset Curve and he says something about it being good that more good people will keep the scene going or something and then he pretty much left to play the show and Jon gave me the CD and I went back to you guys so you wouldn’t worry too much.” When he finally finishes his story, he is staring at three really shocked looking faces.

“Mike Dirnt and Billie Joe both know of Sunset Curve?”

“Who knew Bobby is such a badass!”

“You hit Andrew?”

All three started talking at the same time, but then Alex stands up and he looks real mad and everyone else shuts up. Bobby looks at him. “Alex, I didn’t plan to, it just happened. I got so mad when he started calling Jon these awful names and when he hit him, I just snapped.”

“What about our no fighting rule, huh?”

“So, when someone is being super homophobic, I am just supposed to do nothing?”

At that moment Bobby realises that Alex didn’t process until now that Andrew was using homophobic slurs against Bobby and Jon. He sees Alex anger vanish from him in mere seconds, replaced by fear and sadness settling in his eyes. Lips pressed into a thin line Alex sits down on the couch again. It breaks Bobby’s heart to see his friend like this. They all stay silent for a while.

“What did he say?” Alex asks with a voice so quiet Bobby almost misses it.

“Alex,” he sighs, “I am pretty sure you don’t want to know!”

With that Alex's eyes, which were glued to his hands before, snap up and meet Bobby’s. “You know, don’t you?” Alex asks Bobby, seemingly completely forgetting that the other boys are in the room.

Bobby does not know what to answer, not wanting to make Alex come out because he feels like he has to, or because Bobby figured it out already. “I only know what you want me to know, everything else is just a hunch.” He finally settles on.

Alex laughs. “So, you definitely know, and I actually thought I was being subtle.”

“I still love you, you know that, right?” Bobby just needs Alex to know that. Even if this is a weird one, Bobby wants this to be the reaction Alex gets for his first coming out.

It takes Alex a few seconds but finally, he looks up again, searching Bobby’s face for any trace of him lying. As Alex realises that the boy in front of him means what he said he feels like the biggest wave of relief washes over him. This, black-haired, awkward and quiet boy in front of him, who buys CD’s from queer bands, punches one of his classmates because he was being a homophobic bigot to a complete stranger and whose first reaction to Alex half-assed coming out is to tell him that he still loves him. This boy, who is so uncomfortable with most people touching him, who still wants to hold all of their hands all the time, calling them grounding. This boy, who would probably punch more people to protect them because he gets crazy protective about the people he cares about. And suddenly it’s difficult not to start crying and Alex feels like his voice will break if he tries to talk so he just nods.

And in that second, knowing he has Bobby on his side for this, he decides that he wants them all to know. So, he gets up from the couch and “gets on the runway” as Luke likes to call Alex’ nervous walking occasionally. After walking up and down three times, he suddenly stops, turns to Luke and Reg who look super confused by what is happening and he blurts out “Iamgay” so fast that there was no way that any of the guys could’ve understood a single word. So, he takes a deep breath and repeats: “I am gay” while standing there, eyes closed, and breath held.

“Oh, that…” Luke starts, but he gets interrupted by Reggie who says: “That makes so much sense, that is why you were staring at Brian so much last year! That really confused me, man!”

“I was... I was not staring at Brian Denver!” Alex sputters embarrassment creeping in his cheeks.

“You totally were, you even knew who Reg was talking about right away!” Luke laughs and gets up to pull Alex in a big hug, squeezing him tight. Reggie gets a hold of them and pulls them down on the couch where he squeezes between them, and wooshes through Alex’ hair affectionately. Alex, now half sitting on the couch and half lying on Reggie looks up to Bobby, who stands awkwardly in front of the couch. As the other two notice Bobby as well they all kind of freeze in their cuddle pile. Even as Bobby was more comfortable touching his bandmates than he was with touching his parents, or literally anyone else, he still never expressed any interest in being part of a cuddle pile before. Seeing how all of his friends stopped as he approached, the guitarist started taking a step back, but Alex stopped him by holding out his hand for Bobby to take. It takes him a few seconds but finally, he lets himself being pulled on top of Alex into the cuddle pile and even though it feels strange at first he likes the feeling of Alex’ soft t-shirt under his cheek, Reggie’s arm around his waist and the smell of Luke’s cologne.

Later that night Bobby snatches a picture of his best friends still cuddling on the couch hours later, now all fast asleep. He hasn’t shown that picture to anyone except for his daughter when she finds out about the band 25 years later and he decides to tell her about the loves of his life, even if most people wouldn’t recognise them as it since it was purely platonic love. And even though he got married, he never loved anyone as much, with the exception of his daughter, as he loved the three boys who left him when he was just 17 years old.

The next day Bobby snatches a picture of Andrews black eye. He shows that picture to Billie Joe, backstage at an event he attempts without his best friends after the man recognises him as the kid with whom he punched a homophobe. After that Bobby leaves the event early, not being able to hold up the image of Trevor, too consumed by grieve and guilt. Guilt over not being able to protect them. Guilt over not dying with them. Guilt over using their songs.

[notthatiwilleverwriteit]

Hi! Love your takes on 19 days especially tianshan!! They are very insightful and a fun read! Idk if you already wrote about this, but I was wondering what your take would be if he tian came to save Mo instead of She li. I wonder how their dynamic would be in the present. Would they be more like zhanyi?

Hello, dear anon!

Waah, thank you for such praises! I’m glad you have enjoyed reading my mullings!

As a heads-up, this turned much longer than I anticipated, so better find a comfortable seat.

“what your take would be if he tian came to save Mo instead of She li”

I haven’t actually thought about this before, so thank you for this interesting avenue that had never even crossed my mind. The more I thought about this, the more question popped up. I feel like this would be a pretty significant change, especially for MGS’s character. To try and keep this scenario somewhat in control, I scrolled through the comic with your question in mind and let my nose sniff out where the “new” story would take me. So, this might not be exactly a “realistic” take on it but more like where the story and characters would go in my head if things had been different.

The question of timeline

First, I feel like we need to figure out the correct timeline for all this, so it’s easier to gauge HT and MGS’s characters more accurately. According to my calculations, SL saved MGS sometime during their first year of middle school (ch. 282, 319):

In the current canon storyline, they are in their last year (3rd year) of middle school, so two years off that would put the piercing incident somewhere on their first year. (Look at my mad math skills.) I’m assuming the first school year had already begun since SL had transferred and already gained some reputation at school. Other than rumors, he hadn't crossed MGS’s path.

So, let’s figure out 1st year MGS and HT. With MGS, we have seen glimpses of what kind of character he was (ch. 319, 283):

He had many of the characteristics that are familiar to us in the current timeline, too. He was caring and compassionate. His first instinct was to help, and he dint want to see people hurt. I believe he still has those qualities these days, but he’s learned to hide and suppress those instincts the hard way. I feel like compared to the current MGS, the 1st-year MGS was more pure, innocent, and trusting in many ways. He seemed to believe in a world where doing good to others surely was the way to go.

1st-year HT, on the other hand, is pretty much a mystery to us. Apart from some flashbacks from his childhood prior to middle school, we haven't seen more of his past. Even his first introduction in the comic was a bit awkward the way he just suddenly popped up and it wasn’t really clear what his relationship with JY and ZZX was exactly. 

What was the mindset of 1st-year HT? Had he already made up his mind that he wouldn't become like his brother and father? Was he already living alone or still with his family? Was Mr. He already abroad or still in China?

I think HT’s living situation is probably what would give us the most hints about whatever mindset he might have. But the only thing we really have to go on is when MGS came to visit him for the first time (ch. 144):

Again, this doesn't give us much. It’s impossible to say for sure if HT was already living by himself as a 1st-year student, but somehow I doubt that. Despite everything, 12-13 is still mighty young to be living by himself. And I have a feeling based on the way HC and Mr. He seem to put importance on family sticking together, they probably didn't let HT go live alone without a long fight and debate. So, I think it’s very likely HT was still living at home as a 1st-year. Most probably at his brother’s place that seems like their primary home before Mr. He went abroad?

Based on that, I think HT might have not made up his mind on becoming a savior/hero of sorts yet. At least not in so many words. Home was probably an unpleasant and stressful place for him, and he would rather spend time elsewhere. When at home, he probably spent a lot of time in his room or roaming the nature surrounding them. Home was somewhere where he had to keep his guard up and be constantly prepared for whatever. He was exposed to and (in)directly involved in things that he disapproved of and most probably scared him. At school, he excelled in all the subjects. In some ways, studying was an out for him even though getting good grades was also expected of him. He was always surrounded by a lot of people at school and was very popular, but no one really knew him outside of school. He didn’t open up about himself.

So, that’s how I see the characters set up for the new scenario.

Mo Guan Shan in distress

Now, finally to the beginning of it all. To help us all get in the right mood, I hope you will excuse my very serious 3AM edits (ch. 319):

A crazy homeless man was attacking an innocent, pure MGS. His young life was flashing before his eyes. The man on top of him is too heavy. The grip around his throat too strong. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe, and black spots are dancing at the edge of his vision.

Just as MGS is about to pass out, something flashes at the corner of his eyes but it’s hard to tell in the dimness of the alleyway. There is a loud, heavy thud, and the grip around MGS’s throat slacks. The man is being flung off him and slumps on the wet pavement. MGS scrambles to his knees, coughing and gasping for breath. The cool rainy air tastes sweet rushing down his burning throat.

A bit out of it, he glances up and sees a dark-haired boy - about his age - who’s holding a heavy liquor bottle. The sharp edges of the bottle’s bottom are smeared with crimson. The sight of blood dripping to the ground makes MGS’s stomach turn a little. He makes the mistake of looking at the limp homeless man lying in a puddle and almost throws up at the spreading blotch of dark red on the back of the man’s head. He starts to tremble when he realizes how close to being killed he had just come.

I would picture that HT is shaken by what he had done, too. Picking up the bottle had been like an instinct to him. He had swung it as hard as he could, not really thinking the consequences. Now, though, a small panic monster in his head whispers that he had probably killed someone.

But the panic monster doesn't get very far in its fear-mongering until HT’s training kicks in. Still squeezing the neck of the heavy bottle, he creeps to the crazy man, ready to bounce if he decides to go for a second round. Even in the heavy rain, he can smell the thick odor of homelessness and alcoholism. He doesn't really want to touch the man but reaches to check for a pulse. It’s there, but otherwise the man is out cold.

Only then he really pays attention to the scrawny red-haired boy still on his knees. He looks at HT wide-eyed, shaking, and obviously in shock. There are red prints already forming around his throat where the man had strangled him.

“Is - ,” the redhead says shakily, his voice a bit hoarse, “is he de - did he - “

“He’s still breathing.”

“Am-ambulance,” the boy says, now more anxiously and looking around, “we need an ambulance. Police! Someone!”

HT doesn't reply but flips out his phone. The boy keeps glancing at him as he gets a hold of HC on the other end and explains the situation. He frowns when it doesn't sound like a 911 call to him.

“Who was that?”

“My brother. He knows what to do.”

Well, HT knew what to do, too, but he wasn’t in the position to make those things happen. Not yet, at least. But he knew.

HT asks where MGS lives and offers to walk him the rest of the way. MGS seems confused about should they just leave the man and not wait for his brother. HT assures him that his brother will come any minute now. It’s all under control. The words kind of come out of his mouth without him even realizing what he’s saying. He would like to think it’s the shock but knows it’s his training. It’s the protocol. When you follow certain steps, there is no need to panic.

And yet his hands are trembling when he finally puts the bottle down. Oh, well. He would fake till he made it.

On their way to MGS’s home, MGS is quiet and just clutches his backpack against his front. HT tilts the umbrella to cover MGS more, seeing how he is shaking from cold and shock.

HT tries to make idle conversation. He asks MGS’s name, where he goes to school, what was he doing out in the rain, is there anyone at home, and maybe mentions that he’s seen MGS around the school. Little by little the atmosphere starts to loosen and the tightness in MGS’s voice eases up. Talking also relaxes HT.

At MGS’s house, MGS looks at HT and asks if he wants to come inside to dry up. He’s frowning a little and seems worried. HT looks at him a bit dumbfounded and then bursts out a laugh.

“You really are quite something,” he says at MGS’s confused face. “You just survived all that and you’re already inviting a stranger to your home. Are you an idiot?”

MGS’s face darkens, and he says that if HT would rather walk back in soaked clothes, then it’s his business. He looks hurt and embarrassed. The attitude makes HT smile a little, though, and he tousles the wet red hair.

“I’ll see you around,” he says and leaves with a little wave over his shoulder.

He makes a mental note to keep an eye out for a certain red hair at school from now on.

Having a friend in each other

They start running into each other at school more. (Well, HT started rotating towards MGS.) Turns out MGS has seen him around school, too. He says that HT seems popular and the girls often talk about him in class. He seems a bit confused as to why HT is seeking out his company when he has so many other friends.

MGS is a bit awkward around him, but HT finds it endearing. He’s quick to rise to teasing baits and shows his emotions quite a lot if you knew where to look. To HT, he seemed like a pure-hearted kid. Probably too pure-hearted for his own good. He was a bit stiff at first, but with some coaxing, you could get him to talk. HT liked listening to him talk the most.

The more they got to know each other, the more HT found himself hanging onto MGS’s company. When school days ended, he lingered at the crossroads where their paths parted. He made up excuses to walk MGS home or to his part-time jobs. (He thought MGS was amazing for working already, but MGS just shrugged.) Finally, walking MGS home continued to get himself invited inside for homework, snacks, some games, dinner, staying the night on Fridays.

HT soaked in all the sense of home he could get at MGS’s place. The messy pile of shoes in the entryway. The scribbled notes on the fridge door. The home-cooking. The older models of video games MGS had. The smell of cheap detergent on the sheets when he was sleeping on the floor of MGS’s small room.

Mrs. Mo was a bit surprised by his son’s unexpected friend at first but quickly adopted HT as a natural part of the household. She was more at peace knowing that MGS had some company after school when she had to work late. Sometimes she listened to the boys talk (read: HT teasing and MGS bickering) in MGS’s room. It felt like this new friend had bought some of MGS’s lost childhood back to her son’s voice.

The tighter they became, the more they naturally learned about each other. The topic of family was sore for both of them and something they didn't talk about often. MGS often got heated when the talk circulated to his father. Heated in a way that HT didn't find cute. He got angry and bitter. Usually, HT let him vent through it quietly. But MGS didn't hide things as such even though he didn't really like to talk about some of them. Instead, he was convinced and would stand his ground vehemently.

HT, on the other hand, was more evasive. He didn't want to put MGS in a position where he would know too much. MGS seemed impressed by HT’s brother. He sounded a bit jealous. HT also avoided saying much because he was ashamed. Here he was sitting in this home of good, decent people and enjoying their hospitality while he really was part of the bad guys in the world. His people were the ones who MGS hated so much when he talked about his father’s imprisonment.

But then something happened within HT’s world. Something that shocked him and scared him and gave him a traumatic experience. One day at school, he was visibly on edge and distracted. He looked increasingly tired. He snapped at MGS which he very rarely did. When at the end of the day, MGS asked if he wanted to come over (it was Friday), he was a bit relieved but also worried when HT said no. HT never said no to that.

That night Mrs. Mo had the late-night shift, so MGS was alone when HT suddenly showed up with a duffel bag. He looked horrible. There was an angry red mark on his cheek and a trickle/smear of dried up blood on the corner of his mouth. His eyes were red-rimmed. He hung his head low, asking MGS if he could stay the night after all.

MGS told him to take a bath. He heated up the leftover rice-noodle soup he had had for dinner. HT looked a bit lost coming out of the bath. MGS told him to take a seat and served the food. Quietly and slowly, being careful of his cut lip, HT slurped the soup. He wouldn’t meet MGS’s eyes.

MGS wanted to ask what the hell was going on but decided against it every time the questions danced on his tongue. He was curious but he had never seen HT like this. He looked darker. At some points of the night, MGS felt like he couldn't really recognize him at all.

MGS made HT a bed on the floor the usual way. HT just turned his back to him and hummed in return when MGS said good night. After a while, MGS drifted off but woke up to strange noises. It sounded like heavy breathing. Not panting exactly but more like...gasping for breath. He snapped the lights on and found HT sitting on his makeshift bed. His eyes were wide, and it looked like he was breathing hard but couldn't breathe at the same time.

Luckily MGS had been around enough hyperventilation to know what it looked like. He hurried to find a paper bag from the kitchen, cursing that the damn things were everywhere but seemed to vanish when you really needed them. He helped HT press the opening of the bag tightly against his gaping mouth. At first, it looked like HT got more panicked, but MGS kept pressing the bag firmly.

Little by little, HT’s breathing calmed down and the wild look in his eyes faded. Finally, he pushed MGS’s hands away and tried to go for a grin and joke how this was pretty lame of him but he couldn't quite work his charm. A bit lost, MGS wondered what to do. Then he asked if HT wanted to read some comics till they got sleepy again. HT didn't want to read but asked if MGS would read. And keep the lights on. And like that - while MGS was glancing at panels of high-school-level humor - HT told him about having a fight with his father, talking back to him, knowing when he had pushed over the limit, and the next thing his head had been ringing.

MGS didn't know which freaked him out more: the story, the flatness of HT’s voice, or when his voice started to get thick and he pressed his face tight against the pillow. MGS hesitated if he should comfort HT somehow but it all felt too awkward. So, he just listened and hummed whenever there was s suitable pause. Eventually, HT fell silent and after a while, MGS noticed he had fallen asleep. He fixed the blanket over HT’s shoulders, climbed to his own bed, and left the lights on.

HT stayed the weekend, but they didn't really talk about that night afterwards. The next morning, HT seemed more to himself, smirking and teasing, gobbling the breakfast MGS made them. Mrs. Mo looked at HT a bit funny when she came home from her shift but didn't say anything. She just gave the boys a free night from doing the dishes.

Overall, they got to know each other better than anyone else at school. HT knew about MGS’s excitable, softer, and adorable side. He was a good kid who worked hard and around whom HT felt at ease, though silently guilty. MGS knew the HT that wasn’t the kind of charmer everyone at school saw him as. Despite being so popular, he seemed strangely lonely to MGS. He guessed HT had some kind of darker side that he didn't want to talk about and tried to hide. MGS doubted anyone had seen HT like that other night. It seemed his family was mixed up in some shady business, and MGS didn't quite know how to feel about that.

The angst of unrequited love?

You mentioned if this version of Tianshan would be closer to Zhanyi, and I think that could be possible. I doubt they would be that kind of softer, lovey-dovey dynamic, but my nose kind of sniffed a possibility for a similar unrequited love as JY had.

HT could start gaining romantic feelings for MGS somewhere along the way. But in my head, he would hide his feelings much the same way he does/did in the canon version, just take it to a more obvious level. Mask his feelings with jokes and double meanings. Make him kind of push but then pull back as if unsure.

His feelings for MGS would be laced with believing he doesn’t deserve to be loved by someone like MGS. He’s one of the bad guys. MGS is one of the good ones, and his family has been hurt by people like HT enough. And yet HT craves for what he has with MGS and nurses his unrequited love. It gives him both pain and comfort.

But he didn't want to confess. For one, he wasn’t sure where MGS stood on things like love. He seemed awkward around girls and often ended up scaring them off by his glare and harsh tone. The topic of romance hadn't really come up, or if it had, MGS usually remained silent. One time HT had decided to roll the dice and brought up jerking off. MGS had gone beet-red and stammered that what the hell was HT talking about. For a moment, HT had toyed with the idea of pushing for more but decided against it and brushed the topic off as a joke. MGS had looked damn cute, though.

Secondly, and more importantly, HT didn't think he was worthy of MGS the way he was now. He needed to do better, he wanted to do better. He needed to make decisions instead of slinking around like a kicked puppy. He needed a vision for himself and then pursue it. So, he decided to become someone better for MGS. Someone strong and good and reliable. His own man. The first step was him making HC talk their father into letting HT live by himself. The school was a good enough excuse.

At the same time, they grew a bit apart. MGS got older and took on more part-time jobs. HT concentrated on working on himself. He lost sight of MGS for a while, and it turned out things had gone worse for him. As HT was busy becoming a better man, MGS had grown more bitter and angry. It wasn’t until HT learned that MGS had agreed to get expelled from school that he woke up to what direction MGS had drifted to. On HT’s watch, too.

They had a big argument about the deal. They had often bickered in the past but never really had a serious fight. HT was angry MGS was knowingly mixing up with people SL even though they were obviously taking advantage of him and basically making him write them a blank check. MGS fired back that how could HT understand anything since HT was people like SL. That cut deep for HT, and it was the first time he wanted to slap MGS. Instead, they got their separate ways, brooding and glaring.

The next time HT saw MGS’s face, he knew something had gone horribly wrong. He heard that MGS was accused of assaulting some girl. Furious, he went to confront MGS about how stupid he had been, but all the anger died when he saw how shaken MGS was. He looked completely lost and horrified. All he seemed able to worry about was “they are going to tell my mother”. HT hugged him tight and said that everything was going to be fine. He will sort this out, don’t worry.

He fought with SL and got HC involved, too. HC took care of the deal, but HT never told MGS how exactly it had happened. In the same way he had never told him that the homeless man had been dead by the time HC’s crew had gotten to the alleyway. Instead, HT shoved the guilt deeper where it fueled his drive to become a better man.

But HT decided one thing after that fiasco. He wouldn’t let MGS drift away anymore. He wouldn’t get so wrapped up in his own vision that he lost sight of what mattered the most.

That is I guess where this AU version kind of leaves off and connects to the canon story? This version of Tianshan would have their friendship established first, and HT’s romantic feelings would come later. They would be more unrequited in a similar angsty way as JY’s. The trust between would have also been established through their growing friendship. I feel like there would be tons of things that could be added to this, especially ending-wise, but...yeah, something like this maybe?

Thank you for your wonderfully interesting question, dear anon! How do you vision their relationship would have developed?

[catboymingi]

bittersweet

navi/masterlist

pairing: mingi x reader

genre: angst, fluff; best friends to strangers to enemies to lovers

word count: 7.7k

warnings: self harm, mental illness, suicidal thoughts (though no behaviour described in detail at all), addiction (alcoholism to be precise), language

a/n: this one’s heavy... also this is heavily based on personal experience so don’t come jumping at me for inaccuracies thank u - also the links during the story take you to the same song as the first link, but they have the swedish og lyrics on hover (sorry mobile users)

när jag var liten kändes alltid som att det var du och jag mot skiten / så jag ville att vi skulle göra allt tillsammans / men jag märkte tydligt att du ville nånting annat / behandlade mig sämst / vi var bara ungar - when i was small it always felt like it was you and me against the world / so i wanted us to do everything together / but i noticed clearly that you wanted something else / treated me worst / we were just kids

you had no idea what happened. you’d been so close with mingi ever since you moved, him being the first friend you’d made in the new school, and eight-year-old you really appreciated him. he fought off the bullies for you, he was always there, but suddenly he wasn’t. you were in high school, and everything had been as always, until it wasn’t. until he started avoiding you like you had a deadly and contagious disease, like you’d killed his parents. he hated you and you had no idea why, had no idea why your best friend suddenly decided that some random people he’d barely ever talked to before were a better company than you, who’d been with him through thick and thin for the past decade. saying that you were heartbroken was an understatement.

it took you so long to get back on track after the day mingi had started avoiding you, hating you, but eventually, you managed to do it. you banned all thoughts of him from your head, deleted all messages, pictures, and other traces of him you had on your phone and got rid of all physical memories, too. your parents knew you weren’t okay, and they were so relieved when you asked them if you could set something on fire in the backyard, because it finally seemed like you were getting closer to healing. it had been months, and they’d been worried for your life, but they had no idea how to get your now ex-best friend to reach out to you. they couldn’t call him up and just tell him that he needed to talk to you before you killed yourself, even though they wished they could.

by the time you started university you were almost back to normal, the only outward signs of what you’d gone through being the scars covering your arms and your refusal to drink alcohol, at all. you got obsessed with your major, studying to become a therapist so that you could maybe, hopefully help people feel understood and okay when they were in a similar situation to the one you’d been in. this passion made you the best of your year, acing all exams because every free minute was spent on revising the materials and taking on extra projects and doing all you could to keep yourself busy.

but you weren’t okay, not actually. the worry was still there, the fear, and it was the reason why you hadn’t made a single friend even when the fourth semester of university was almost over already. it was after a particularly hard exam (that of course you’d aced again) that you, for the first time since your other half had left, agreed to go out with someone, a random dude from your course that you’d consequently ignored up to that point who invited you to some maths major’s party.

“it’s gonna be fun, and we deserve some fun after that fucking hell of an exam” was how he had convinced you, and you decided that it couldn’t hurt.

what you didn’t know then yet, however, was that he’d ditch you the second you’d taken off your jacket at the party that same evening, saying that if he’d known that you were a nutcase he’d never have asked you out.

“you’re hot but that’s just not what i wanna put up with.” and that from a psychology major. great.

the evening got worse when you found out whose party this was. you didn’t even know that mingi went to the same uni as you, and he’d obviously moved out of his parents’ house by now, so the address didn’t ring a bell, either. it was first when you saw him that you realised. and everything came crashing down on you again, all the things you’d convinced yourself you were over. and even though you’d promised yourself you’d never touch alcohol again, not even cough medicine including it, you broke that promise now, going straight for the hard liquor. that seemed to impress the horny idiots around you, how you downed it without even flinching, and because you didn’t care about what you should and shouldn’t do right now you let the first one to make a move touch you up and down, making out with you (which had effectively stolen your first kiss from you, but what did it even matter anymore?) and whispering to your ear just how hot you were. you didn’t care for him, but you knew that the one you cared for couldn’t give fewer shits about you. you were tired of being alone, of being hurt, of being lonely, and you just wanted to forget. so you let this dude whose name you didn’t know and didn’t care to know make out with you on the kitchen counter, because by now there was no way your situation could get any worse anymore, anyway.

your lack of interest seemingly didn’t stay hidden to him, though, so at some point he left you with a displeased grunt. it was obvious he’d expected a little more excitement from you, and now he was looking for the next drunk girl he could get to fuck him. you didn’t care. you got some more alcohol, pushing every thought of your parents as far away as you could, because you knew they’d be so disappointed. they’d always cared, but it hadn’t changed anything for you. the one you needed to care didn’t even notice how you were slipping. you’d be surprised if he’d even known that you got hospitalised after graduation.

but now you were here, in his house, and you hated it, hated him, hated yourself. you wanted to get out, to disappear before he’d ever even notice you’d been there in the first place, so you stole a bottle of whatever was closest to you and left the house.

it was embarrassing that you weren’t even drunk yet. you had no idea how much you’d drunk, but you barely felt tipsy. so when the one you wanted to leave you alone the most came outside after you, you had to deal with the emotions that that caused in you entirely sober.

“the fuck do you want?” you hadn’t expected yourself to be able to be angry at him when you’d get to talk to him again. you’d expected yourself to cry, to break down and beg for him to come back, but maybe at least that the alcohol saved you from.

“i want to check up on you. since when do you drink?”

you hated him. you fucking hated him more than anything else you’d ever hated, except for maybe yourself, and you hated that he thought he had the right to check up on you now when he was the reason you were even in this state at all.

“let’s see. i think you last talked to me on the fifteenth of january, two years ago? so it’s gotta be the sixteenth.” maybe it wasn’t fair to confront him with the effects of what he did like this, but it hadn’t been fair of him to leave you hanging like this either. he deserved this, deserved to know what the fuck he’d done to you. that he’d destroyed the happy, passionate, excited you that you’d been, replacing her with a bitter, suicidal bitch with trust issues through the roof.

“why?” he seemed confused, and you wanted to spit in his face. you wanted to punch him. you wanted anything but to have to talk to him.

“take a wild fucking guess.” and with those words you turned on your heel, leaving him with his emotions as you left with the bottle of alcohol that wouldn’t make it to the next morning.

you were slipping again. picked up all the bad habits you’d had, barely getting sleep because you still had to study, were still obsessed with getting the best grades, but now also had unhealthy habits to feed, so there wasn’t a lot of time left for sleep. it didn’t matter, though - why sleep if you’d only have nightmares either way?

luckily you didn’t see mingi again after that night. that was, until he’d somehow figured out your major, your classes, your schedule, and was waiting for you in front of your classroom after your last class for the day. you tried to bolt, but he grabbed your wrist instinctively to keep you from running away. when you yelped out in pain, though, he let go as if he’d just burned himself. until now he hadn’t even noticed what you looked like. but now that he did, it broke his heart.

“what do you want now? want to fuck me up again? because i can do that by myself now, thank you very much.” your voice shot daggers at him, and he looked like a hit puppy. what made this worse was that he knew you were right.

“please talk to me. i brought vodka.” he didn’t intend to give it to you, but you didn’t have to know that. and his weak bribing worked, which only made him feel even more awful. just how fucking hurt did you have to be to talk to him, the guy you very obviously hated, just because he offered you free booze?

“come.” and you did, followed him to a park near uni you knew was notorious for getting fucked or wasted, and you intended to keep up this reputation as you sat down next to him.

“alcohol.” it wasn’t even a question, you just demanded the bottle, but he wasn’t about to comply.

“first you talk to me.”

the angry glare you gave him could have killed him had you kept it up for longer than a couple seconds, but you sighed in frustration and looked away.

“fine then, talk. but this vodka better be damn good.”

he didn’t know how to start, though. ran his hands through his hair and shifted constantly and looked everywhere but at you. but then, finally, he got his shit together.

“what happened to you?” his eyes were fixed on your arms, the arms whose skin was a lot smoother and healthier the last time he’d seen it, and his voice was soft, almost as if he cared. maybe it was because of that that your reply held less sharpness than the past ones had.

“what do you think?” and his heart broke. he didn’t want it to be him, he didn’t want this to be because of him, he didn’t want to be at fault for so much pain and suffering.

“it’s me.” and when you nodded he wished someone’d beat him up, hard and good, just so he’d feel at least some pain as a payback for all the pain he’d caused you.

your voice was surprisingly soft when you continued, and you didn’t even know why yourself.

“it’s nothing big. i just… slipped, i guess. had a really hard time. i don’t even know what happened to make you hate me like that, and that got to me. like, we didn’t argue or anything, so it wasn’t like i had a reason to stop caring about you. it just felt like without you nothing mattered.”

you sounded calm, collected, but voicing it like this brought back all the hurt, and you just really wanted the alcohol now. you grabbed around him in order to retrieve the bottle from his bag, but he caged you in a hug, effectively making you unable to move.

“it’s a big deal. fuck, y/n, look at you. how is this not a big deal? you can’t even talk to me without getting wasted.”

and even though he was right you hated how it sounded like that was your fault, not his. you hated how it sounded like you were weak for this when he had no idea what the fuck you’d been through these past two years. it made you angry.

“and you’re better? straight up ignoring me for however long it took me to get the hint like some pussy instead of talking to me? we used to be best friends, for fuck’s sake!” you tried to hide your heartbrokenness behind this anger, and once more the person who used to always be there to hold you when you needed it let go of you as if you’d burned him. not even now could he man up.

“you know what? fuck this. fuck your vodka and fuck you. don’t fucking talk to me again. as i said, i’m fucking my life up enough without you there to aid in the process.” and you tried to get up, but he grabbed you by your waist, not wanting to hurt you but refusing to let you go in this state when he hadn’t even gotten to talk to you yet. it was selfish, he knew it was, but he wanted to explain himself. he didn’t know if it’d help you, but he needed the closure. he needed you to know why he’d acted like that and then decide if you still wanted to hate him.

“i’m not letting go”, he said as you struggled in his grip, “not until you’ve listened.”

“i don’t fucking want to hear it!” now you were yelling, and it was only because everyone else in this park was too busy or too knocked out to fully comprehend what was happening that he wasn’t getting his ass beat by a stranger coming to your aid.

“you’re going to listen. you know i’m stronger.” this was an asshole move. it was a massive asshole move, using his strength against you to keep you trapped with him. but your state had him throw out any ethical concerns he otherwise would’ve had, instead pulling you into his lap and holding you tightly.

“then fucking talk and get this over with.” your body had gone slack in his arms, because you knew struggling against him wasn’t going to work. your voice still held the same sharpness to it though. you really hated him.

“you act like i didn’t have a reason”, he started quietly, covering your mouth with his hand when you tried to interrupt him. “but i did. the fuck do you think i felt when you kept being better at everything than me? everything was easy for you, you just went with your feeling, and i was doing awful but i kept trying even though it was hard as shit and you didn’t even notice. you went out to meet people and have a good time while i was sitting home alone trying to keep up. you didn’t even care. i told you i couldn’t join and every single time you just said ‘okay, another time then!’. you didn’t notice how much i missed you. and i got sick and tired of being the only one that’s missing their best friend.”

you listened to what he said and couldn’t believe he was serious right now. he completely broke you because you didn’t spend enough time with him?

“what the fuck, mingi. what the fuck. you wrecked me because you were sulky about me not being around 24/7? let go of me right now or i’m going to break your nose, you know i will.” he knew you would, so he did as you told him to, but not without trying to defend himself.

“it wasn’t that, it was that you never even tried to make follow-up plans! you kept going out with other friends, friends that didn’t have to spend all their nights home studying. you just replaced me.”

“and you didn’t think to fucking talk to me about it? i missed you like crazy, you fucking asshole, but i went out with others because i knew you had to study and because i didn’t want to keep you from that. because i dared to care more about your success than about what i wanted. and then you just dumped me, one day to the next, without an explanation, because you thought i didn’t care? does breaking off all other social contacts look like not caring to you? do hospitalisations look like not caring to you? does this”, you motioned to yourself, “look like not caring to you? i knew you were a coward, but back then i thought it was cute. now i just think it’s pathetic.” you all but spat those last words at his face, and he knew you were right. he knew all that now, but back then he’d been so scared of losing you that he forced himself to lose you. fucking idiotic.

“you act like it didn’t hurt me, too.”

“you sure didn’t act like it when you started fucking around with some people you’d never even talked to right after you decided ignoring me was the way to go!” you were crying now, crying and screaming at him, and you despised yourself for the vulnerability you were showing.

“give me the vodka, mingi.” but he didn’t. and when you tried to grab it he took the bag from you, leaving you staring into the air.

“give me the fucking vodka or i’m gonna leave right now and get my own. and then you’re never gonna see me again.”

but instead of handing you the bottle he all but jumped up, wrapping his arms around you tightly and sounding so incredibly desperate that you felt your anger vanish at his next words.

“please don’t- please don’t do that. please don’t kill yourself. hate me, break my nose, whatever, but please don’t go like that. i can’t handle it. i’m nothing without you.”

and it was now that he started crying, tears soaking the fabric on your shoulder, shaking as if there was an earthquake inside of him that would make him fall to shambles any second. you hadn’t even realised that you might have implied what he obviously thought you meant - what you meant was that this time you’d be the one to ignore him, pretending he didn’t even exist. but his reaction to potentially losing you in a whole new way made you think that maybe, he cared.

“i’m not going to kill myself over you, butthead.” and while your words held a similar level of sharpness to them as they had before, your voice was much softer, calmer - you patted his hands that were linked together in front of your stomach to keep you from leaving, trying to comfort him for whatever reason. he didn’t deserve it, and you were still so angry at him, but he’d been your best friend, your other half, and you still didn’t like to see him suffer like this, even though the part in you that wanted him to feel all the pain you’d felt wouldn’t agree.

“i don’t want to lose you again”, he whimpered against your shoulder. “i never want to lose you again.”

“so what’s your plan? i’m never gonna forget what you did, mingi, i’m never gonna forget how as soon as i start getting happy you come back, crashing into my life as if nothing had happened. i’m never going to let anyone hold me back again.”

“i’m not going to hold you back”, he pleadingly spoke into your skin, “i’m not going to message you, i’m not going to ask to meet up, i’m not going to wait in front of your class, nothing. i’ll only be there when you ask me to.”

“and you think that’d help? having me do all the work again, having me beg for your attention again? you think that’s even remotely what i want?” you weren’t angry at him, because it seemed like he was saying this for you, but you were frustrated. he still didn’t seem to understand at all what you wanted from him, what you’d wanted from him ever since he started ignoring you. you wanted him to fight for you, not vice versa.

“then let me fight for you. let me do the work. i’ll do anything, just please give me another chance. one very last chance. and please… stop all this.” you didn’t need to see him to know what he meant.

“that’s not how it works. i can’t just stop like that when i started. and you’re not gonna be able to fix me, if you think that.”

“i know, of course not, but… please try. it’s summer break soon. maybe then you could… i don’t know what you could. do something. i want to be there for you.”

you didn’t want to give in to him. you didn’t want to believe him. you wanted to keep being angry, you wanted to keep hating him, you didn’t want to risk the same kind of heartbreak you’d felt the first time he left. but this was mingi. and even though you refused to admit it even to yourself, you still missed him like crazy.

“let go.” and he did, hesitantly, but he did as you told him to.

“look at me. look me in the eyes and tell me you know what that’s gonna mean. tell me that you’ll be there when i’m in rehab and can’t go places and i’m angry as shit and hate everything and everyone and mainly you because you made me go to that stupid place. tell me you’ll be there when i relapse, not just once but so many times, and that you won’t get angry. tell me that you fucking know what it means, that you know you won’t be a priority, that there’s gonna be days where i won’t want to hear from you at all. tell me that you know you’re gonna have to fight for me, and tell me that you will. and if you can’t tell me that, let me leave right now to spare both of us the pain because it’s just gonna be a waste of time otherwise.”

“i’ll be there. every single day, or like. whenever i’m allowed to, i don’t know how rehab works. and when i can’t be there i’ll call you and text you, even if you hate me. i’ll hold you until you don’t hate me anymore. even if i have to spend the entire day holding you that’s how it is. i don’t fucking care what i’ll have to do, i’ll do it all. i miss you.” with those last words he pulled you into his chest, holding you tightly as he whispered a silent ‘please’ into your hair. and you didn’t want to believe him, didn’t want to get your hopes up, but part of you was still so soft for him. so, even though your mind was screaming at you to tell him to fuck off, your heart won, your heart made you wrap your arms around him and hold on tight.

“if you fuck up i’m breaking your legs.”

“if i fuck up i’m breaking them myself.” he knew this was his last chance. he knew that if he messed up now he’d be losing you forever, and that was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.

his hands were rubbing up and down your back, as gentle as you remembered him to be, while you were standing there and hugging and trying to calm down. you’d missed him so incredibly much and you wished you could stay in that moment forever.

“how are you feeling?” he could feel you were shaking slightly in his arms, though he wasn’t sure why. it could be the cool air, it could be the emotions running through you, it could be something he didn’t even want to think about. but either way he knew you should probably leave.

“it’s all so fucking much. i’m still pissed at you, but i guess i’m also glad that you’re here. and i’m fucking horrified.”

your shaking was most definitely at least partly owed to your emotional state, because it got worse now, you grabbing his t-shirt and clinging on to it for dear life.

“what are you scared of?” he sounded so fucking soft and calm and you wanted to crawl into his shirt and hide there and never leave for the real world ever again. you wanted him to keep you safe and to protect you because life and the things that were coming for you were scarier than you wanted to admit.

“you. rehab. my parents are gonna be so fucking hurt when i have to go back. fuck, i want the vodka.” but to your surprise you didn’t move to get it, you didn’t try to leave mingi’s embrace.

“you’re staying the night at my place”, he informed you, and you looked up at him in surprise.

“this talk was long overdue, but to be honest even i could use some vodka right now. i don’t want to imagine how you’re feeling, but i know i’m not gonna leave you alone in that state. no won’t count.”

“you know you won’t be able to just make me stop like that?”, you asked, wanting to be sure he didn’t have some weird saviour complex that made him think that just because he was there all your problems would suddenly vanish. but he seemed to know, even though he wished that was how it worked.

“not forever, but tonight’s a good start. i just want to be with you right now.” and even though you really wanted to get drunk you wanted to spend the night with mingi more, something that surprised you, especially considering how you’d just told him he wouldn’t be able to make you stop.

“i’m not going back there yet though, so if anything we’ll go to my place”, was the compromise you offered, and he gladly accepted. he held your hand almost the entire way, refusing to not be touching you in some way now that he might get you back, and this was less awkward than having his arm around your shoulders, which he’d tried first.

your apartment was a mess, you knew it was, but instead of judging you the tall male just kicked whatever trash you’d left on the floor out of the way to make his way to your bed, where he intended to spend the rest of the day and the entire night. he wrapped his arms around you as soon as you’d settled next to him, pulling you close like he used to when you were younger.

“i’m so sorry for all this”, he whispered, “so so fucking sorry.” and even though you’d somewhat sorted what had happened in the past, this was the first time he actually apologised. you hadn’t known how much you needed to hear him apologise until he did, whining out slightly as you pressed yourself closer against him. you wanted him to keep talking, keep apologising, keep promising that he wasn’t going to leave. but he was quiet after that, so instead of his comforting words your thoughts filled the silence in your head.

“keep talking before i get up”, you told him, the choice of words making it sound like a threat but the pleading way you said it making it clear that you were all but begging him. and he complied, luckily he complied, because you wouldn’t be able to keep your thoughts away for much longer.

“i missed you every day. it wasn’t fun to sit at lunch without you, or be in class, or do anything, really. i know it’s my fault, but back then i expected you to fight more, and when you just stopped trying after a while i thought i was right, even though you tried to talk to me every day for like two weeks and every single time i just straight up acted like i didn’t even hear you. i have no idea what i expected you to do, actually. sing me a love song in front of my window?” he chuckled a little, though it sounded somewhat bitter.

“i think that’s what i was secretly hoping for, if i’m real. not a love song, maybe, but some kinda confession. but instead of opening my mouth myself i just hoped that you’d get the hint i never even dropped. guess i really am a coward, huh?” he was running a hand through your hair, gently scratching your scalp whenever he dragged his fingers down because back then you’d liked that and he hoped you still did.

“you’re an idiot”, you mumbled, though his somewhat-confession made you feel all weird inside. you’d liked him back then, too, but admittedly he hadn’t been the only coward. and before you’d ever had the chance to gather the courage to confess he’d cut you off.

“i know. i don’t think i’ve ever done anything more stupid than that. and now i’ve wasted my chance and have to live with the fact that i’ll die without ever having gotten to kiss you. it’s my own fault, though.” there was a hint of playful resignation in his tone, as if this confession was more to get it off his chest than it was for him to actually confess to you - as if it hadn’t even occurred to him that you might feel the same way.

“just do it now.”

he hadn’t expected that, surprise apparent when he asked: “can i?”, and you knew you should say no, you shouldn’t be doing this, you shouldn’t be in your bed with mingi so close and telling him to kiss you, but you’d missed him, and you were hurt and happy and desperate, and you just wanted to feel loved. and though this didn’t have to be love, this didn’t have to mean as much as you wanted it to, you could pretend. you wanted to pretend, so you didn’t say ‘no’ as you should, but ‘yes’ as you wanted.

and he did it, leaning in to press his lips against yours but not moving any more until you hadn’t pulled away even after a few seconds. then he actually kissed you, his one thumb stroking your cheek while the other was fondling with some strands of hair at the back of your head. and you knew your breath was gross, still reeking of the alcohol you’d drunk earlier that day, but mingi didn’t care. you were warm and soft against him and you were there and he’d take whatever he could get from you, even if it was vodka breath.

you didn’t want him to pull away, because you feared that once he did your world would come crashing down again and he’d tell you that now his curiosity was stilled and this should remain a one-time thing.

and you feared that you’d been right about this being a one-time thing, because he apologised as soon as he broke the kiss. but he didn’t apologise for what you thought he’d apologise for.

“i shouldn’t have done that. not like this. fuck, i just took advantage of this entire situation, i’m so sorry. fuck. feel free to break my nose.”

“don’t break my heart and i won’t break your bones. deal?” the big smile he gave you was so easy to see even though it was starting to get dark outside now, and you felt a small smile tug at the corners of your own mouth. he was here, and he’d kissed you, and maybe he’d do it again. maybe you’d finally be able to be okay again, actually okay, really okay.

“i promise.” he pulled your head into his chest, resuming to run his fingers through your hair and telling you sweet nothings.

“you’re so beautiful. so kind and so strong, such a fighter. i’m so glad i’m here right now, so grateful you let me, and i’m never going to leave again, ever. i’m here now, and you won’t have to be alone anymore. i’ll try to make it right, all the things i did wrong. i’m sorry. but i’m with you now.”

you were pretty certain he wasn’t even thinking much about what he was saying, just saying anything that was on his mind, as much for you as for himself. but even if it wasn’t for you that he was saying all this, it still helped you, comforted you, gave you some hope. one thing you had to clear up, though.

“we’re not a thing”, you murmured into his chest, though the way you were clinging to him betrayed your words, showed how much you wanted to be. “we’re not a thing because you don’t know anything. you can’t play a video game on easy and then enter the world championship and think you’ll win. i can’t talk to you for a single day and then think it’d work out.”

and mingi got it. he knew that this was a decision that had to be made logically, not based on what he wanted in that moment. but that didn’t mean he was just going to give up like this. he told you he’d fight for you, and he would.

“talk to me more, then. i told you i’m not going to leave.”

“you say that now.” there was sadness in your voice, resignation. “but it’s different when i’m shitfaced. when i’m crying my eyes out because recovery is hard and i don’t want to anymore. when i call you at 3 in the morning begging you to come over and check on me and make sure i’m not dying because i’m scared i went too deep this time. when i tell you i hate you even though you didn’t do shit just because i need someone to take my anger out on. none of this shit is pretty or romantic and the sooner you realise that, the better.”

“i’m going to be there.” he didn’t say more and you were glad about that, because even though you’d been the one to bring all this up you didn’t want to talk about it, you just wanted to be held and comforted and protected. and he did, he held you until you fell asleep, and was still holding you when you woke up the next morning.

//

it was weird to be back with mingi. it was familiar but completely different, and it was hard, as you’d told him it’d be. but he kept his promise, even though it hurt to see you struggle and in pain, he was there when you needed him and he was there when you didn’t. he was there to hold you when you called your parents to tell them you had to go back to rehab, and he was there to calm your nerves the day before you left, force-feeding you snacks to keep your mouth busy because by now he’d learned the signs of when you really craved alcohol and while he learned that the most he could usually do was to make sure you didn’t drink yourself into a coma that night he made sure you didn’t drink at all, because you were going to rehab the next day and he wanted you to have decent starting conditions and he knew you wanted that, too, and a hangover was the worst starting condition you could possibly have. he was there to kiss you that night, because even though you’d been the one to tell him to not try anything until he’d proven he meant it the snacks just didn’t do it and you needed something else in your mouth. he knew it was just your desperation that had made you beg him to please kiss you, but he did, he was there as he’d promised, even when it hurt like this. he was there to hold you when you cried into his chest after, promising you that it would be okay and that he would be right there the entire time and when you got back, too.

he was there the next day when you clung on to his hand with a force that could probably break his fingers sooner or later, horrified of entering the building in front of you. he was there to hold you in place when you tried to bolt as soon as they started the admission process, he was there to tell you that he was so proud of you and to promise you that it would be okay. he was there to call you that night, relieved that you were allowed to, and he was there to talk you through all your fears. he was there a week later, when you were first allowed to get visitors, with a rather big teddy bear wearing one of his shirts and a self-made card that read “one week sober!”, small celebratory drawings all over.

“i wanted to bring a cake, but they don’t do that with people that just started. you’ll get one at the one month mark though, pinky promise.” you linked your pinky with his for maybe two seconds before you threw yourself into his arms, clinging on to him as if your life depended on it.

“please take me home. please just take me home”, pleaded into his shoulder repeatedly, like a mantra, and he held you so tight.

“it’s worth it, my strong little angel, it’s okay. i promise.” he was rubbing up and down your back comfortingly, continuously saying how proud he was until you let go just enough to look into his face and see the warmth in his eyes.

“you’re going to stay right here until they kick you out”, you ordered, though what you were actually doing was begging him to please not leave you alone until he had to. you felt like the odd one out here, the only alcoholic still in their twenties, and their early twenties at that. the only other person roughly your age was a guy with an anxiety disorder that looked at you like you were the filth of the earth, and that didn’t exactly make you want to talk to him. you missed mingi, you missed seeing him, and having to watch the other patients be able to go out and meet people outside the therapy times when in your state you’d have to stay until the staff could be certain you weren’t going to relapse only made it worse.

“they’ll have to drag me out by the ears”, he reassured you, and finally you smiled, a genuine smile that made his heart hurt a little less.

“call this one mingi”, pointing to the teddy bear that had been discarded when you’d flung yourself into his arms, “and pretend he’s me. not as good as the real deal, but at least he’s wearing my t-shirt.”

“butthead.” but you looked at him with, as he hoped, the same feelings he had for you, which showed him that he’d chosen a good gift.

he brought you a small gift whenever he came by, and after bothering the nurses continuously (which resulted in them begging the staff in charge of your unit to please let him get his way) he was allowed to bring you food, though only in sealed packages which they checked closely for both the ingredients and even the slightest chance of him having managed to put alcohol in. it was somewhat of a hassle, but the way your expression brightened when he brought you your favourite cereal from when you were 12 and which you’d stopped eating by age 15 because it was ‘for children’ was definitely worth it. things still weren’t easy, especially with how cut off you felt from the outside world, and there had been several nights where you’d screamed at mingi on the phone about how much you hated him for having caused all this and then being cut off by the nurses because your phone time was over before you’d had a chance to tell him that you were sorry for screaming like this, but he never got upset with you for that. instead, he texted you an apology to see after dinner, along with telling you how proud he was. and he stayed, as he’d promised you.

your one month of sobriety was the day you were discharged, because you’d been doing surprisingly well and because you’d managed to convince your responsible treatment team that you’d do better if you didn’t feel so alone and cut off, if you had the chance to do things rather than sit in the hospital all day and overthink your situation. you had an outpatient treatment plan and when you’d told mingi about being dismissed he kindly but sternly told you that he’d kick your ass into next monday if you didn’t follow it. and now he was here, picking you up both from the facility and from the ground, twirling you around as soon as you were in his arms. you’d agreed that you’d spend the first few days at his place, so that’s where he brought you now.

the tall male carried the few things you had with you into his flat while you stood next to the car, taking a little while to get used to the thought of being a part of the outside world again. you were glad mingi was there, because while you were so happy to be out it was still scary to know that now it was up to you alone whether you relapsed or not.

you were delighted to see that he’d kept his promise about the one month mark-cake, because while it wasn’t exactly pretty you soon found out that it made up for that in taste, and also because it was so sweet and thoughtful. it seemed like he’d prepared a little party for you, with one of those silly ‘welcome home’ banners hanging in the living room and colourful plastic cups on the table, next to various kinds of juice and soda. you had no idea how, but he’d even managed to organise strawberry soda, something that you hadn’t seen in stores in ages.

“butthead.” you didn’t know how else to react to all this. it was so much, so unnecessarily much that you didn’t know whether to cry with happiness or to smack him because this probably took a lot of time and money. you decided that calling him butthead again would be a good compromise.

“angel”, he grinned at you, entirely unbothered by your (admittedly weak) insult. then his expression turned serious, walking over to stand right next to you with a few long steps before he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you into a hug.

“i’m so glad you’re back, you know that? i missed you like crazy.”

“i missed you too. don’t let go.”

he wasn’t planning on doing that anyway. he’d be so stupid if he did. and he’d be so stupid if he didn’t tell you how he felt.

“i love you. i love you i love you i love you. now break my nose for being a butthead.”

“be my butthead and i’ll consider leaving your bones intact.” you tried to play it cool, but your heart was beating so hard you feared it would jump out of your chest, and this time you could be 100% sure that it wasn’t withdrawals. it was just mingi, the boy who’d kept his promise to be there, the boy who’d helped you piece yourself back together in some way again. the boy who wanted to be with you even though the way you’d pieced yourself back together was so far from who he’d known before you shattered. it was mingi, the boy whom you loved back.

“so the b in bf stands for butthead? that’s what you’re saying?” he was teasing you, just a little, but it was okay because you could tell he was just nervous and scared that he might have misunderstood you and was trying to mask that through his joke.

“or maybe it stands for big beautiful boyfriend, you decide.”

“i’ll take the boyfriend! i’ll take the boyfriend. please let me be your boyfriend.” looking at you pleadingly, though also somewhat excited, and you knew you’d never let him go again.

“then you’re my big beautiful boyfriend. what am i?” 

you were expecting him to joke, but he didn’t. he was entirely serious when he said: “you’re my world.”

and this seriousness overwhelmed you just a little bit, so that you were left speechless. and he continued.

“you’re the most beautiful person i’ve ever seen. you’re my strong little angel.”

“you’re not supposed to be so sweet, i don’t know how to handle it”, you whined out, but he just smiled down at you, taking in every detail of your face.

“get used to it.” you knew you wouldn’t ever get used to it, you knew you wouldn’t ever get enough of him telling you sweet things like that. maybe you’d get better at reacting over time, though. but since right now you were very much not good at reacting yet, you said something that maybe wasn’t the most appropriate reaction to his sweet-talking you.

“you know i still hate you though, right?” even though your voice gave away that you didn’t, far from.

“makes for a great enemies to lovers storyline”, he teased, smiling down at you with entire galaxies in his eyes.

“just kiss me, butthead.”

it didn’t take more than a few seconds before he did. he kissed you slowly, because you had all the time in the world, thumb tracing all your features while your hands were wrapped around his neck. and while your first kisses had been bitter with alcohol and desperation, this one was sweet with cake and love.

[hedwigstalons]

High Expectations

This is a fic that I originally told myself I wouldn’t post any of until it was complete.   Evidently I lied.  It’s not complete but I do have 21k words and eight chapters built up already.  It was meant to be Gordon’s story of how he ended up in WASP but the other brothers have decided to put in an appearance too (I blame the boys and also @willow-salix​ for encouraging them)

I’ve also set myself a secondary challenge with this to produce a piece of art for each chapter.  I’m hoping to try out different styles and hopefully make some progress over time.  This first bit was very much about getting a feel for the tools (a challenge seeing as I first have to wrestle the drawing pad away from the small person who just likes being able to make rainbow glitter pictures)

Anyway....

xoxoxox

Summary: Jeff Tracy has very strong beliefs about what he expects from his sons.  Sometimes his expectations are at odds with what his sons themselves want from life, especially Gordon.  

Chapter One

The office was tiny, barely large enough for the single desk it contained.  It didn’t really matter.  This room no longer had a permanent resident. State wide cuts to the careers service and an investment in online guidance meant that careers advisors were stretched across districts; a few lonely individuals doing the rounds of the high schools to dispense reassurance and wisdom in statutory ten minute blocks.  As a consequence this area of the school hadn’t been refurbished in many years and had a general air of neglect.  The carpet tiles had been worn bald in a clear path to the two chairs in the room, one in front of the desk and one behind.  The painted cinderblock walls were covered in posters, bleached and faded by the California sun, bearing inspirational quotes.  

 You can do anything!

 Be the change you want to see

 Aim for the skies

 The posters mirrored the sentiments he had heard at home too many times.  Although at home they tended to come tinged with disappointment as he handed over yet another report card that didn’t meet the standard set by the siblings who had gone before.  Yale, Harvard and the Denver School of Advanced Technology had already accepted a Tracy.  Gordon just couldn’t match up to their lofty heights of academic success.  He was bright but that just got overshadowed by the glittering trio above him.  Anything he did had always been done better by at least one, but more often all, of his older brothers.  

 The pressure to achieve academic excellence had lessened slightly as his swimming training had ramped up in intensity.  As competitions progressed from local, to state, to national, to international the family had grown to accept that this was no passing hobby.  But Gordon still lived with the constant threat that he would be pulled out the pool if his grades dropped too low.  It was taking all his energy to keep on top of his school work to the required B- average insisted on by his father so that he could keep doing the one thing he felt truly good at.  The one thing that set him apart from his over-achieving brothers.

 At least the teachers didn’t judge him or at least couldn’t judge him against his more intellectual siblings.  As soon as John had graduated high school and started at Harvard, an accomplishment for which he was several years younger than the average after skipping a couple of grades, Jeff had moved himself and the youngest boys away from rural Kansas to Los Angeles.  The old farmhouse was retained but was no longer a permanent base for the family.

 The move to the city was a strategic decision by Jeff and one that was only delayed in order to allow John to complete his high school education without the disruption of an inter-state move.  For Jeff it meant the ability to site himself in the commercial heartlands expected of the business that was flourishing under his direction.  It also meant he was able to get back each night to care for his youngest children, even if he sometimes didn’t make it back to the apartment before midnight.

 It may have been expected that Jeff Tracy, an individual rapidly climbing the lists of America’s richest and most influential individuals, would have used the move as an opportunity to enrol his youngest sons in the finest educational establishment Los Angeles had to offer. But Jeff Tracy was a man raised in Kansas wheat fields.  A man for whom his own success and the successes of his eldest three sons had been built on the foundations of learning delivered in small town rural schools. What was good enough for him was good enough for all his children.  There were no private tutors or exclusive schools.  Gordon and Alan found themselves enrolled in the regular district school with its air of neglect and underfunding.

 A large part of Gordon really wanted to be back in his math class.  Not because he had any great fondness for the subject but because he found it hard in a way the others didn’t.  He was not above digging out Virgil’s old annotated English texts or Scott’s history files if he wanted a bit of extra insight for his essays but math was different. Any notes left by his siblings were generally an incomprehensible scrawl.  Not that any of them had made many math notes; they all seemed to just get it.  

 Gordon still remembered the first time after John had headed off to Harvard that he had called for help with his homework.  John had tried to be patient but there had been an unmistakeable tone of annoyance accompanied by a condescending eye roll clearly visible on the call screen.  Gordon had been left in no doubt that John found the idea of a Tracy struggling with algebra to be frankly insulting.  Virgil had displayed rather more patience and understanding but the pity that came with the help was too much for Gordon to take.  He didn’t want to find out what Scott’s reaction would be.  The golden haloed first-born was becoming increasingly distant and superior as his career in the Air Force progressed.  

 And so Gordon ploughed on alone.  Taking study guides to swim competitions to read between the heats.  Trying to juggle the conflicting demands of Team USA and Team Tracy.  The former striving for physical excellence and peak performance, the latter demanding excellence across the board.

 The careers advisor on the far side of the desk looked up at the young man sat opposite her.  The school records showed he was academically above average.  He had prospects.  

 The students that entered her office tended to fall into three broad categories.  There were the ones that didn’t really need their regulation advice session having already got their chosen career path mapped out, whether that involved furthering their education or just jumping straight into the local jobs market. There were those that were bewildered and clueless about where to turn next.  Then there were those that just didn’t seem to care and who drifted through her office much like they drifted through the rest of their school career. She wondered which she would encounter in this interview.

 “So Gordon” she smiled at the teenager, “have you considered what you want to do after you graduate high school?”

 The teen looked at her with a slightly surprised expression.

 “Swim, ma’am”  

 It was said bluntly and without preamble, accompanied by a mid-western politeness that the move to the city hadn’t shaken off. Stated as fact rather than as some hypothetical idea.  She had encountered plenty of teenagers with dreams of making it big on the sporting circuit but very few made it professional.  Usually the dreams were of football or basketball; swimming was a new one to add to her list.  

 “Swim?”

 “Yes ma’am, swim.  I’ve already got my qualifying time sorted.  Come the summer I’ll be at the Olympics.”

 Cogs clicked into place.  This was her nineteenth interview of the day and the students were beginning to blur together, even with the supplementary notes put together by the tutors that actually got to see these kids each day.  The low attendance scores suddenly made sense. Gordon Tracy, the rising star of the swimming circuit.

 “Of course.”  She flustered slightly over her notes.  It was a new experience to have a member of the Olympic squad sat before her. But she was obliged to be a sounding board for his career choice for the next ten minutes.  She couldn’t just send him back to class off the back of a one word answer.  She decided to stick to familiar territory; if they know the plan, find out the backup plan.

 “Have you considered what you will do after swimming? You have good grades here.  I’d recommend making a college application.”

 The youngster gave a hollow sort of chuckle. “Not good enough for anywhere that matters.  I think I’ll stick to what I’m good at, ma’am.”

 The interview was brought to a close by the final bell of the day and Gordon was glad to be able to scoop up his rucksack and escape the claustrophobic confines of the office.  He was sure the careers advisor meant well but he felt that the session was a pretty pointless experience.  Actually being in class would have been a better use of his time.

 As he reached the front of the school he spied Alan waiting for him in their usual spot.  The younger boy was scuffing his shoes in the dirt while waiting, the bored expression of his face breaking into smile when he saw his older brother.  They set off on the short walk back the apartment.

 “Good day, Al?”

 “Yeah, ok”

 “Much homework?”

 Alan grimaced.  He was about as fond of homework as Gordon was.

 “I’ll take that as a yes.  Well make sure you get on with it as soon as we get in.  No video games until it’s finished.”

 “Yes Sir!”  The response was accompanied by a mocking salute which earned Alan a gentle whack on the back of the head.

 “Hey, less of that.  I’m not Scott.  But seriously Al, just make sure you get it done.  I’ve got an extra training session tonight but only a short one; you’ll have the place to yourself until about 6.  I’ll sort us some dinner once I’m home.”

 “Will you be able to play video games with me once you’re back.”

 “Sorry, I’ll have my own work to get on with.”

 Alan’s shoulders slumped dejectedly and his feet dragged along the sidewalk.

 “Another quiet night then.”

 Gordon hated seeing Alan so flat.  The pair spent a significant amount of time together and, like all his brothers, he had a desire to protect the youngest.  He wrapped an arm around the shoulders of the shorter boy and was rewarded with a shove in the ribs.  Evidently anything even slightly resembling a hug in public was out this close to the school grounds.

 “I’ll see what I can do.”

 They had reached the apartment by this point. Gordon dashed inside to grab his swimming kit and left Alan with strict instructions to make sure he got all his homework done.  He didn’t like leaving Alan home alone but it was a regular occurrence now.  Their father wouldn’t be home for hours and with all the others moved away the youngest two had got used to fending for themselves.  He left Alan with a promise that they would spend some time together later.

 The training session passed in a blur of drills.  There were now more days with both morning and evening training in preparation for the Olympics and the extra workouts were taking their toll.  By the time Gordon reached the apartment his shoulders ached and all he wanted to do was stand under a scalding hot shower before collapsing in to bed.  Unfortunately he knew he had other responsibilities to attend to first.

 Gordon rolled his shoulders, plastered on a smile and scanned the entry system for the apartment.

 xoxoxox

 Normally weekday meals were Gordon’s domain or he was at least there to help out if Alan ventured into the kitchen.  But he had completed his homework quicker than expected and in the boredom of the empty apartment it had seemed like a good idea to start dinner.

 He took the pack of greens from the fridge, prodded the pan of pasta and gave the chicken a quick stir.  As he sliced the greens an acrid smell assaulted his nostrils.  The chicken, which had been cooking nicely until now seemed to have chosen the moment he took his eye off the ball to catch and stick to the bottom of the pan.  Carefully prepared strips of prime breast disintegrated and crumbled as he tried to scrape the dried out offerings from the base of the pan.  He cursed, turned out the stove, and went back to preparing the greens.  

 The clock ticked closer to 6pm.  Steam rose in billows from the pan of greens which had reached a rapid boil.  Perhaps he should have waited until Gordon was actually home before cooking the vegetables, the shredded leaves were starting to disintegrate.  

 At least the pasta should be ok.  

 The pasta which wasn’t boiling.

 More cursing filled the air as Alan realised his error. In his attempt to salvage the chicken he had turned off the heat under the pasta as well.  Perhaps he should have just let Gordon cook the whole thing. This was a mistake.  All he wanted to do was free up some time in the hope of getting a game in with Gordon and instead he had ruined everything.  He wondered if it was too late to dig out the emergency credit card and call for take out.  He would just have to make sure Dad took it out of his allowance rather than Gordon’s.

 The sound of the front door broke through his thoughts.

 “Hi Alan.”  The voice echoed up the hallway.  Footsteps approached, only pausing briefly as a kit bag was launched into a room, landing in a corner with a heavy thud.  Too late to salvage anything now, within moments Gordon was in the doorway.  “Hey, you cooked.  Thanks”

 “No need to sound so surprised.  Don’t thank me til you’ve tried it though.  It’s, um, not really gone to plan.”

 “I’m sure it’s fine.  Want me to drain these pans while you get the plates out?”

 Alan signalled his agreement by delving into the crockery cupboard leaving Gordon to drain and stir together the contents of the various pans.  He wasn’t exactly looking forward to the meal but Gordon seemed grateful to be spared the chore.

 Dinner was everything Alan expected it to be.  They sat opposite sides of the kitchen counter, Gordon shovelling down vast quantities of noodles while he picked at his own much smaller portion.  The meat was as dry as cardboard and stuck in his throat alongside the shards of undercooked pasta. Perhaps he ought to pay more attention in the kitchen, especially as Gordon was likely to be training more and more over the coming months.

 Gordon’s fork clattered onto the empty plate before Alan was even half way through.  He looked up to see eyes the colour of mahogany under the harsh kitchen lights looking at him with concern.

 “You ok?  You’ve hardly eaten.”

 “I’m fine.  Just wishing I’d ordered us a pizza instead.”  He waved a forkful of charred chicken to emphasise his point.

 This earned him a small chuckle and at least dispelled the worry.

 “Hey, no complaints from me over it.  I think my coach would have something so say about that too, we’ll save the pizza for the summer.  I’ll start clearing up while you finish off.  You still want that game?”

 Alan grinned.  Suddenly the pasta was a lot easier to stomach if there was a chance to thrash his brother in the goblin realms at the end of it.  

 xoxoxox

 As the clock ticked past midnight and into the small hours of the morning Gordon lay in the darkness, sleep refusing to come.  His normally comfortable bed felt too lumpy and he turned this way and that.  First facing the blank wall next to the bed, then the ceiling and finally the open room. A shelf of trophies glinted faintly in the light that managed to spill around the edges of the heavy blackout curtains.  Back in Kansas Gordon had rarely bothered closing his curtains; he had always been an early riser and was usually up long before the dawn in order to get to early morning training or fit in a gym session before school.  But the pervading yellow glow of the city from the ever present light pollution wasn’t like the peaceful moon.  On nights like this the city felt oppressive and he yearned for the open fields of home, as he still though of Kansas.  Gordon might now be able to access better training facilities and coaches which had enhanced his Olympic prospects but he had never embraced city life.

 He was exhausted.  The training session after school had been intense and he had thrown himself into the drills with maximum effort.  The gaming session had probably been a mistake but he hadn’t wanted to let Alan down.  The kid had gone to the trouble of trying to make dinner and save him a job.  Ok, the noodles had been still firm to the point of being slightly crunchy and the greens had been on the verge of turning to soup but it’s the thought that counts.  It was calories.  It was from his prescribed meal plan.  It was mostly edible.  He appreciated the level of consideration shown by a teenager who shouldn’t have any more pressing concerns than getting his chemistry paper completed and working out whether Ellen from World Studies class had a crush on him.

 His own homework had been its usual slog.  He wrote until his eyes became sticky and the notes he was reading became a jumbled blur.  Sleep should have enveloped him within minutes of climbing into bed but instead the words from his earlier interview kept churning around his head.  The thoughts drowning out even the gnawing ache in his overworked muscles.  

 What about after?

 He had always managed to stave these thoughts off before.  Whenever his father had made comments about future plans he has always managed to deflect the conversations.  He didn’t have room in his head for anything other than visualising the dream.  Why on earth should the words of a complete stranger, parroted from some state approved script, make life any different.

 He was a Tracy.  A name synonymous success and achievement.  He had found his calling in a way that set him apart from the others.  

 He was going to swim.

 He was going to represent his country.

 He was going to win.

 He ran through the visualisation that had been a constant companion in his head for years.  He could feel the flow of the water over his body as his muscles flexed in perfect synchronicity.  He could hear the roar of the crowd as the results flashed up on the scoreboard.  He rode the wave of emotion as the medal was presented.  This was the moment that would mark him out as more than just the fourth son of an astronaut.  Gordon Cooper Tracy.  A name in his own right.

 With the sound of the national anthem still ringing in his ears Gordon tried to visualise the next steps.  He tried to force the dream beyond its current conclusion but instead found only darkness.  

[jamie-goodwin]

( JORDAN FISHER & CISMALE ) according to the school’s records, JAMES GOODWIN is a 20-YEAR-OLD JUNIOR studying DANCE, and HE lives over in DARROW.  HE is an ARIES, so that must be why others describe HIM as ENERGETIC, GENEROUS, FLIGHTY and DISHONEST.  when i see HIM, i’m reminded of ENDLESS FIELDS OF SUNFLOWERS, CARELESS LAUGHTER ON THE ROOF AT MIDNIGHT, REFLECTIONS IN A PIECE OF SHATTERED GLASS.  ( OLLIE, 28, THEY/THEM, EST ) 

hey, i’m ollie, and this is my intro for james! it’s sort of long! oops! 

basic info --

name: james goodwin

nickname: tends to go by jamie with friends, though he doesn’t mind being called james

birthday: april 11th

sign: aries

pronouns: he/him

sexuality: bisexual

major & year: junior, dance (performance emphasis)

hometown: brighton, uk

alignment: chaotic neutral

myers-briggs: enfp

enneagram type: seven 

history --

jamie is a hummingbird, always in motion. he’s a whirlwind of intensity and kind of a mess but his heart is (usually) in the right place. ish. he’s an international student, from the uk!

[ tw drugs ] the only family he’s close with is his grandmother, who adopted him when he was a toddler. both of his parents were disowned from the family due to repeated drug abuse situations. jamie hasn’t seen or heard from his parents since he was 4 or 5. but luckily, he loves his grandmother and gets along swimmingly with her, although he is often a source of her constant exasperation. no siblings to speak of, although he has a couple of aunts/uncles/cousins that he thinks are stuck up so he doesn’t talk to them. 

his great-grandad was a financial manager and amassed a ridiculous amount of wealth, so his family is hugely rich-- like, more-money-than-they-could-ever-need, multiple-country-homes, kind of money. the goodwins have got a huge mansion in east sussex just outside of brighton, and they own multiple luxury flats in the city itself, which is where jamie lived by himself from when he was about 14 on (because he asked, and his grandmother let him). he went to state school in the city instead of the private school that he’d attended for primary grades -- again, because he wanted to, and his grandmother let him. 

jamie’s always had more energy than anyone’s known what to do with, so he had to channel it into something physical. he did try a number of sports but they lacked that artistic quality that he craved, and it wasn’t until he tried a dance class at around 9 or 10 that something really clicked. he threw himself into it with gusto and by 14 he was part of a fairly prestigious youth dance company. 

he’s practiced almost every genre of dance, but his favorite is modern dance infused with hip-hop. the more choreography classes he takes at haddon, the more he’s leaning towards a focus on choreography rather than performance, but he loves both. he really has no specific ambitions career-wise, other than to keep doing what he loves. 

he’s allergic to traditional studying and procrastinates on every assignment, unless its for his choreo classes. his core requirements for reading/maths classes are a nightmare that he’s slowly been dragging his feet through. it’s not that he’s not good at academics, necessarily; he just hates hard work when it’s something that he doesn’t feel passionate about.

he chose to come to haddon university because he wanted to experience life in the u.s., and because of its reputation for the arts. also because it sounded like a good time. 

personality --

he’s energetic & outgoing & will chatter endlessly. he’s the kind of person who can be found at every party, and will have a conversation with you while simultaneously texting four other people. 

at the same time, he can be deceptively introspective? like, as shallow as he may seem at first, he doesn’t shy away from deeper conversations. 

however, he’s not very forthcoming about personal information. he will deflect! deflect! deflect! any discussion of actual negative emotions, and he hates what we know as the mortifying ordeal of being known. the only way he can suffer through that is through being seen in his dance. 

in addition to being a dancer, he’s really artistic; loves films, street art, etc. very appreciative of all visual and auditory arts. 

a lot of his decisions are based on pure momentary whim. he’s the definition of listening to his heart, not his head. he fears absolutely no consequences, because he’s never had to face any before. 

one important part of his personality is that he’s careless about money. he’s not arrogant or obnoxious about being wealthy; it’s just a plain fact. his pockets are always open, and he genuinely loves buying extravagant presents for his friends. money means nothing to him and he throws it around with abandon, because he can. he doesn’t see anything wrong with this.

he’s also aware that people in the past have become friends with him just because of his money. this does not actually bother him in the slightest. 

one of his worst qualities is that he is very flaky. he becomes fixated on certain things or certain people and will do anything for them while he’s interested, but then when his interest wanes, he’ll ghost without a warning. and then he’ll pop back up weeks later pretending nothing’s happened and not realize that this is a problematic approach to friendship. 

i’m excited to start making connections so feel free to hit me up for any and all plots or ideas :’) 

[littlenightma]

What would Michael be like if he didn't have aspd?

Note: Hello, Anon! Thank you for asking this question :)

Author’s Note/Warning: This post is just based on my personal opinion and my basic research. I do not have any professional knowledge regarding psychology and mental disorders so please do not take this as the Bible. I am merely answering the question in the best way that I can ^^;

Before I give my opinion, let’s explain what ASPD actually stands for and what it is. ASPD stands for Antisocial Personality Disorder. Do not get this confused with introversion and being anti-social.

ASPD is a disorder, sometimes referred to as Sociopathy, which prevents a person from having a sense of right or wrong, good or bad. That person usually acts rather harsh or indifferent toward’s one feeling and health and will show no remorse or empathy for what they do, and what they do is manipulate and antagonize those around them.

What are the symptoms of ASPD? (I have bolded the ones that Michael has blatantly shown in the ‘78 and ‘18 movie versions).

• Disregard for right and wrong (Killing people is wrong, Michael. Taking people’s clothes is even worse). 

• Persistent lying and deceit to exploit others (He does not speak so there is no evidence of him using this trait).

• Being callous, cynical and disrespectful of others

• Using charm or wit to manipulate others for personal gain or personal pleasure (Again, he does not speak, but Michael has shown that he has many wits about him and that is smarter than many perceive him as).

• Arrogance, a sense of superiority over others and being extremely opinionated

• Reoccurring problems with the law, including criminal behavior

• Repeating violating the rights of others through intimidation and dishonesty (He intimidates anyone that crosses his path either by his own choice or just by his appearance).

• Impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead (The 2018 version showed this really well. Michael escaped and continued his massacre across Haddonfield).

• Hostility, significant irritability, agitation, aggression or violence (The only communication between Michael and others is through violence, disregarding his time in the asylum as he did not have the opportunity to unleash his aggression and violence. He actually was quite dormant and calm until he was unleashed).

• Lack of remorse for others and lack of empathy for hurting others (The evidence would be the entire Halloween series).

• Unnecessary risk-taking or dangerous behavior with no regard for the safety of self or others (Michael shows throughout both movies that he does not care about getting hurt or hurting others as he continued his rampage after 40+ years of being in an asylum and being injured when he escaped the first time).

• Poor or abusive relationships (I guess him killing just about everyone he comes in contact with, no matter their relationship to him counts as abusive). 

• Failure to consider the negative consequences from his behavior or learn from them (As said before, Michael has shown that he does not care about the consequences of his actions even after 40 years). 

• Being consistently irresponsible, and repeatedly failing to fulfilling work or financial obligations (If Michael did not kill his sister in 1963, then he could have a hard time keeping up with normal/average responsibilities, but this is just an assumption). 

My thoughts: 

- People would still be intimidated by his presence. Perhaps not outright fear, but people would still feel a sense of submissiveness when he is around, even if they don’t realize they do. Michael could be sitting and doing nothing and the people around him would automatically not want to disturb him.

- Michael would still be the possessive and dominant male. He likes being in charge, but he is also incredibly intelligent. He would interact with people easier, but would find socializing tedious and would crave for silence and alone time.

- As he is intelligent, he would find that in school, he strayed from the population of students since most of them are immature and were loud/obnoxious and would get on his nerves.

- He would be protective of what he considers his. If it is important to him, then do not try to take it away or damage/cause harm in case of a person because he will fuck them up. As Michael wouldn’t necessarily seek out to harm others like he does now, he will have no second thoughts about hurting those that hurt him or the people he cares for.

- He would still be powerful in height and weight, being naturally muscular, but he wouldn’t be into sports, not willing to interact or be told/yelled at by a someone who values bronze over brains. Instead, he would spend his time in a quiet place, probably reading or doing research, school work, or anything that requires his mind to be used to the disappointment of the coaches in school.

- Michael thinks and he is thinking constantly. Not about himself, he could care less about himself, but he thinks and watches others, just like he does in the asylum. It’s not that he has a bad sense of self, it’s that he rather focus his attention of others and how they tick.

- In school, his favorite subjects would be Art, English, and Science. Art because he can allow his creative side come to life, but he wouldn’t be able to go further not because he isn’t good, I believe Michael would be quite the artist, however, he would dislike the constant deadlines and restrictive guidelines put on his artwork. It wouldn’t be free-thinking anymore.

- English and Science are easy for him and he will excel in these subjects.

- His most disliked class would be Math. The numbers, the equations, just the logic behind it would have his head hurting. He did not see the point of learning any of it and his grade would be close to failing because he utterly hates it. The funny thing is, Michael would be fine at it. Maybe requiring some help here and there, but not close to failure if he took care for it.

- Michael would be capable of love, giving, receiving and feeling His s/o would have to be thoughtful of his opinions and actions, knowing when to back off and probably be submissive to Michael. They’d also have to be smart and not be the nagging type. That relationship would not start or end very quickly.

I also believe that even if he did not have ASPD, he still would be introverted. Now there are four types of introversion:

• Social Introversion - Someone who enjoys their alone time and prefers not to socialize.

• Thinking Introversion - Someone who is basically pensive, thinking about anything and everything, self-reflection.

• Anxious Introversion - Someone who gets anxious in social situations.

• Refrained Introversion - Someone who takes a while to “warm up” to someone or people.

Out of these options, I classify Michael as a social introvert. He can talk and interact with people, but he would rather be by himself and enjoy the solitude.

In the end, Michael Audrey Myers without his ASPD would not be the Michael we read or have watched.

Note: Once I read the novelizations and have some more information on Michael then I will come back to this and adding anything I deem is necessary. 

[watchmegetobsessed]

Shawn Mendes // Boundaries Part 3

just look how great i am, bringing another part for you so soon hehe thanks for the likes and reblogs, keep it up, you are making me sooo happy!

Part 1 - Part 2

Tuesday. Shopping.

Today I’m expected to go shopping with Shawn and it’s a 2 in 1 event. Because Andrew sent me a text on Monday evening letting me know that during this meetup I get to shop anything that I might need during the month, of course, everything paid for by Mr. Mendes. And in the meanwhile, we can be seen out again, swirling the gossips even higher about Shawn and his Mystery Girl. That’s right, my name officially became Mystery Girl as no one has any information about my identity and hopefully, this will stay the same.

Elisa returns home just when I’m about to leave. She is smiling, but I can see the bags under her eyes and she has a sticker on her forehead. The triplets must have been on full mode. I wonder how big they are now! The last time I’ve seen them they couldn’t put a decent sentence together and they were running around the house all day. But it has been months, they must be so big by now.

“Good luck for today, I’ll get some sleep before my class,” she scoffs as we basically change places and I leave the place.

This time Shawn is waiting for me in a black Range Rover and he is the one driving, so I get in next to him to the passenger seat.

“What’s with the change?” I ask as he looks around and enrolls to the traffic.

“I don’t always run around with a driver and we are going to a mall, not the White House. No need for Nick.”

So the driver’s name is Nick. I nod and stay quiet. A few minutes later Shawn reaches for the radio and he puts on some light country music. This is another first time, I was getting used to sitting in complete silence in the car.

I keep my comment to myself and just enjoy that finally I’m not stuck in my thoughts and there is something I can listen to.

When we roll into the parking garage of the mall a security team is already waiting for us, three muscular, suited men will follow us around as we stroll through the shops. Just a usual Tuesday, I guess.

“Everything is set and clear,” one of the guards informs us as we head to the elevator side by side.

“Thank you,” he nods and opens the glass door for me that leads us to the area where the elevators are.

I don’t set a timer on my phone, but I’m pretty sure less than ten minutes pass by until a group of teenage girls start following us around from the distance, because the three guards look terrifying for sure. But I see them with their phones in their hands and though we do nothing, just walk next to each other, I can almost hear them talk about us as a couple.

When we go into a store the guards stand at the entrance and don’t let anyone in until we are done. I use the opportunity to expand my wardrobe and buy the things I think I’ll be needing during the month (or even later on). We usually split at first, both of us collects what we need and then meet for a show and tell kind of part. We basically just discuss whether we should buy certain things or not. Shawn has a great sense of style, he is not the type of man who just nods when you ask him something about a dress, he really tells you his opinion and I find it very honorable.

I don’t offer to pay when we are at the cash register. Not even once. One, I’m aware that he can afford pretty much buying the whole mall and two, it’s in the agreement and I don’t question anything that is included in it.

Soon the small group of girls grow into a smaller crowd and they start coming closer and closer to us. I’m not an anxious person when it comes to crowds, but it’s starting to get crazier with each passing moment. Some girls are braver and they run up to us and I jump every time I see someone approaching me from the side.

Shawn keeps stopping and it just causes even bigger hysteria because the girls see the chance of getting a photo or touching him, and they get more and more aggressive. But I don’t say anything for a while, right until we are in a shoe store and one of the guards tells us that we need to wait there while the mall security tames the crowd that is waiting in front of the store or we have to leave at the back.

“Is it that bad?” Shawn asks looking in the direction of the entrance where there are people everywhere, totally blocking the view from us.

“I suggest to wait a little and if security can’t do anything we leave at the back. But either way, we need to leave as soon as possible.”

The guard walks back to his team as they stand at the door, making sure no one gets inside.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have stopped for pictures,” I let a comment slip and I already know it was a mistake to speak up when the last word rolled down my tongue. Because I immediately see his eyes darken hearing my comment.

“I always stop for pictures, it means a lot to these girls.”

“And I don’t doubt that, but it’s not the smartest thing to do in a closed area. You can easily get stuck somewhere,” I say and show around as I’m talking exactly about our situation.

“You know nothing about these situations, because you have no idea what it feels like to live in the spotlight.”

“I don’t, but I’m a rational person and I can count on consequences based on the information I have. And I saw it coming,” I reply and now both of us is getting more and more worked up, though this was in no way my intention. I’m just really scared something will go wrong and I’ll be suffocated by teenage girls at a mall. Not the kind of death I imagined for myself.

“Why don’t you stay with what you do well. Look nice and smile for the people, because this is all you have to do to get money, it’s easy. And I’ll take care of the stuff you have no idea of,” he snaps at me and with that, he leaves me standing there and he walks to the guards to discuss something with them.

It hits me in the chest, because we are back at square one, he is an ass again and talks to me like shit because I’m an escort. I stare at his back and for a moment I think about leaving without a word. I feel humiliated and pretty much in pieces after his words, though they shouldn’t even hurt this much, I thought my skin is thicker than this. I guess I was wrong.

Leaving is not an option, I would break our deal, so I do the only thing I can. Stay still, do what I’m told and not say a word.

About ten minutes pass by, I stay at the back so people can’t see me through the windows while Shawn keeps wandering around the store until we are told that we can’t use the entrance, we must use the backdoor and go straight to the car. I keep my mouth shut as we are being walked out through the back and down the hallways only workers should use. Shawn doesn’t try to say a word to me and it stays the same even when we are in the car and about to leave the mall.

This time no music is played, just the deafening silence is sitting in the middle, shadowing over the both of us, just like at the beginning.

Nothing is said when he pulls over at the café and I exit the car as fast as possible. I’m so upset I don’t even care that he sees me walk away in the direction of my real home, I just want to get as far away from him as possible, curl up on my bed and forget today happened.

It might sound crazy, but as an escort you get used to being worshipped. The men who hire us desires our company, they want to spend time with us and use every minute of our time together so their money doesn’t go to waste. And I’m used to being wanted.

Shawn’s rigid and cold behavior is so strange and unknown for me that it makes me feel extremely anxious and self-conscious, like never before. So now I’m facing a new problem.

How to deal with being unwanted and hated for a month.

 The moment I finally get home I don’t waste time with changing, I just jump into bed, pull the blanket over my head and let myself drift to sleep even though it’s only one in the afternoon. I need to get away from reality and hopefully in my dreams I don’t feel as shitty as in real life right now.

I doze out pretty fast and not setting an alarm I only get up when I hear Elisa arrive home. I hear him move around in the flat and I force myself to wake up. Checking the time I see that it’s four pm, I slept for three hours straight. Best three hours of the month.

I’m still in jeans and my oversized knitted sweater, so I quickly change into sweatpants and a jumper that I don’t wear it anymore just at home. I find Elisa in the kitchen as she is unpacking her grocery bags.

“Hey! Did I wake you up?” she asks holding a bottle of milk to her chest.

“It’s fine, it was time to wake up anyway,” I wave in dismiss as I let a yawn slip my lips.

“How was today?” she chimes finishing up the packing. I sit down to the couch and since our small kitchen is built together with the living room, the conversation can go on with no stopping.

“Um, horrible.”

“What?” Her eyes widen. Her last info was that we are starting to get along well, tagging my day as horrible is a surprise to her. It was for me as well, but whatever.

“Yeah, shopping got a bit problematic and I was basically told to shut my mouth and just be pretty, because this is what I get my money for.”

“That asshole! Is he bipolar or something?”

I laugh at her comment though it might be the truth. I don’t know.

“Fame is ruining people, I always knew it,” she adds pointing at me with a carrot before throwing it into the fridge and joins me on the couch. “But are you okay?” she asks in a more serious tone.

“Yeah,” I nod weakly. “I just… I hate when people label me as a stupid slut because of what we do.”

“But we know it’s not true. You are a smart girl and this is why you won’t stay an escort for long.”

“I still have to do it for at least two years so I can pay my debts,” I sigh doing quick math in my mind. If I quit, my past will catch up with me. If I do this until I cover everything up I can finally leave everything behind and the moment I pay for my last debt I’ll be out of that business and I hope to never see another client again.

“That two years will go by fast. I’m more worried who will I live with when you are done with our business?” She pouts her lips at me making me smile sadly.

“We have time to figure it out.”

Just as I say this, I hear my phone buzzing in my room. I get up and grab it from somewhere under my blanket and I see that Andrew is calling me. Oh God, is this a three hour notice? Do I have to see Shawn again?

“Hello?” I answer it holding my breath back.

“Hi Fleur, it’s Andrew.”

“Hi, what’s up?”

“Um, we have some extra work for you tonight. There is a party Shawn was invited and we decided last minute it would be great for the two of you to show up. The car would be there for you at nine, if it’s fine by you.”

I check the time and damn, they gave me even more than three hours, I don’t have an excuse to say no though I have no intention of leaving the apartment today.

“Yeah, sure. What’s the occasion? Just asking for the outfit,” I say with a sigh.

“Just casual, it’s a friendly gathering at a producer’s home.”

“Okay, got it.”

“Thank you. Have a nice evening.”

“You too Andrew,” I say with a forced smile and the call ends.

“Who was it?” Elisa asks standing at my door.

“I have an extra event tonight. A party at some producer’s house.”

“Oh wow, a real celebrity party! Nice!” She smiles happily, but then she realizes what it means. “Oh. I’m sorry your evening got ruined,” she apologizes and I just shrug my shoulder.

“It’s fine.”

“Text me if it’s that horrible, I’ll be out on dinner, but my client this weeks is not too strict, I can do whatever I want when I’m with him.”

“Okay, thank you,” I smile at her sadly before she leaves me alone.

   To say that I’m uninterested in this whole party is a huge understatement. I’m like a grumpy child and I basically drag myself over to the café when it’s nearing nine. I have a cape coat on with a hood so my face can’t be seen. My disappointment and embarrassment from today’s shopping tour has turned into plain hate and disgust towards the guy I’m now waiting to pick me up, take me out and spend the night with. I had time to get myself worked up and build a wall around me so he can’t get to me emotionally ever again.

When I see him pull over in his Range Rover I hold back a growl and walk over to get into the passenger side and we leave immediately, before anyone could recognize us.

No hi, no hello, no nothing. We sit in the dark and…

The country music is playing again. Does this mean he is a good mood? What changed during the day? I’m dying to ask, but instead I do what he thinks I’m only good for. Do what I’m told and look pretty.

“You don’t live there, do you?” he suddenly asks when we stop at a red light. I slowly turn to him and I only see half of his face from the lights on the dashboard.

“I don’t.” The words slowly roll down my tongue and I keep a straight face, not letting him read anything from my expressions.

I turn my head so I’m looking ahead of me, but I see him from the corner of my eyes. He stays turned to me for a moment, but then the light turns and he has to turn back to the road.

“You don’t have to walk, I can pick you up at your house.”

“No you can’t.” I immediately say.

“What?” he asks with a surprised and confused chuckle.

“You can’t pick me up at my house, because I won’t let you.”

“But why wouldn’t y-“

“Because I’m an escort, Shawn!” I snap at him and words just slip my mouth before I could stop myself. “I spend time with people, I look pretty and I entertain them. Therefore, sometimes they get obsessed with me and start stalking me. I can’t give my private address out for them so they can’t come to my home, harass me, wait for me when I step out or leave creepy gifts at my door or to my neighbor so they can give it to me. It’s not safe, so I rather just walk a few blocks to a neutral place where they can pick me up and never find out where I live.”

My sudden outburst surprises me and him as well, but I quickly recover so he can’t see it on me. I take a deep breath and accept that I can’t take back what is already said. I’m waiting for a smartass comeback or some mumbled comments, but I get nothing. We sit in total silence until we reach our destination.

Photographers are waiting on the sidewalk and the flash their lights at the car as Shawn slowly rolls into the underground garage of the building and disappear from their sight. Our silence continues as a guard welcomes in the garage and walks us to the elevator that takes us up to the very top. So I’ll be spending the evening in a penthouse, not bad.

Stepping into the place a whole different opens in front of my eyes. Everything is modern, luxurious and screams power. I don’t know who the owner is, but I’m sure their career worth more than my whole life.

I almost shake Shawn’s hand off of me when I feel it on my waist, but I remind myself that I’m working right now, and my task is to look like I’m in love with him. Or at least I’m dating him.

Walking through the place people keep stopping us and Shawn greets everyone happily, even introducing me as well, calling me his date for the night. I guess we are not at calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend yet.

I just smile, shake hands and do my job. I try to remember as many names as possible, but I get introduced to too many people at once. I meet many influential people and some of them I already heard of, this is how I get to shake hands with models, singers and actors even I know, which is a huge thing.

Shawn seems to be enjoying himself, chit-chatting with old and new friends while I stay by his side, like a trophy. After a while I don’t feel the need to stay there and listen to them talking about music, so I excuse myself and go to look for the bathroom.

I succeed and for my biggest luck it’s not occupied, so I quickly lock myself in and decide not to leave for at least ten minutes. I sit on the edge of the huge bathtub for a while and observe the room. Everything is white, it’s almost too sterile for me, but it’s still not too much. Just this bathroom seems bigger than our whole apartment and I think my bed is smaller than the bathtub. Incredible.

Does Shawn have a similar home? Full of luxurious furniture and rooms the size of a country? I bet he does, he has the money for it. Just for my work, he will pay me 20 thousand and the extra, of course. For me it seems like a fortune, for him it’s lunch money.

A knock brings me back from my thoughts about Shawn’s fortune and I wonder how long I was zoned out, maybe there is a line already, waiting to get in.

Who am I kidding? I’m sure this place has at least three bathrooms.

“Almost done!” I call out and wash my hands to pretend like I was really using the bathroom instead of just sitting here alone.

I dry my hands and quickly unlock the door, not expecting to see a familiar face, but I jump back a bit.

“Sorry, I didn’t- Oh hey there! It’s been a while!”

I stop myself from grimacing and manage to keep a straight face as I look at the man at the door. He is towering over me with a vicious smile that can make me vomit.

“Excuse me,” I say trying to walk past him, but he puts his arm out and stops me from escaping. I stand there, staring up at him. “Not now, Eric,” I growl at him hoping he will let me go seeing that I’m not interested in talking.

“What, are you not allowed to talk to old, honored clients anymore? I thought I deserve a decent welcome after the time we spent together.”

“You are not a client, Joshua made it clear for you not to ever contact any of the girls. So please, let me go now before I do something I might regret later.”

“Oh, hold back, little girl,” he chuckles, but it reminds me more of a snarl. My palm is itching for a slap. “I heard you got Knox banned from the Nook as well. Nice work.”

“He stepped over the boundaries, it was necessary. And now you are stepping them, do you want to even though you aren’t supposed to be in the same room as me.”

“You were just here, I didn’t plan this.” He lets go of the doorframe and I almost think he will let me go, but boy, was I wrong. He pushes me into the bathroom so we are not out in the hallway, but luckily he doesn’t close the door so I still have one last chance for the escape. My thoughts are racing as I’m trying to find a way to trick him and run away. “I think you are a bit too full of yourself. We paid quite a lot money to earn your respect and homage for us. I don’t think I deserve to be talked to like this. Is this the way you talked to Knox too?”

“Don’t.” I whisper and when I see him lifting his hand and it’s approaching my face my disgust turns into fear. Is this it? Am I going to get raped now?

“You all try to make yourself feel better, telling people you are an escort, not a prostitute, but I see through the façade. You all want this, just try to act tough. You are just a little slut.”

I shut my eyes closed and I feel his finger touch my cheek, but only for a split second. I immediately open my eyes and I see Shawn standing there, pushing Eric back to the wall.

“I think she made it clear she doesn’t want you anywhere near her,” he hissed at him as he held him against the wall, his muscles bulging through his shirt. I never noticed how strong he really is, I know Eric spends hours in the gym every week, but now he seems like a kid compared to Shawn who is not only taller than him, but can definitely win in a fight against him.

Eric tries to fight him off for a few seconds, but then he realizes he has no chance, so his lips turn into a vicious smile again.

“I see, you are working to him now, right? I thought young men have it easy these days, I guess I was wrong.”

“None of your business,” Shawn barks at him and he seems like he is ready to hurt him, but I don’t want to cause a scene.

“Shawn, let him go. Let’s just go, okay?” I try to pull him back, but he doesn’t move, just stares at Eric deadly in the eyes before finally letting him go.

Eric bounces back from the wall as I pull Shawn out of the room while he is still watching him.

“Don’t come near her again,” he fumes before we finally leave that damn bathroom.

He catches up with me and taking my hand now he is the one pulling me. I don’t really see where we are going, I’m just trying not to fall in my high heels, but then we finally reach the terrace, where he leads me to a corner that is quite out of sight. He then turns to me and examines me from head to toe.

“Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” I sigh shaking my head.

“Are you sure? I can get security and have him removed.”

“Please, don’t make a scene. That wouldn’t do well to our plan,” I plead and I can tell the plan is the last thing on his mind. I haven’t seen him this ready for action before, but I can’t let him get into trouble for me.

“Who was that?” He asks after a while and he is now much more relaxed than earlier.

“Just… Just a previous client,” I shortly say not really feeling like getting into the details.

“Was he… like one of those you talked about in the car? Did he stalk you?”

“He didn’t stalk me, but he wanted… more than what was in the agreement and wasn’t happy when I denied it from him. But he is now banned from the club because apparently, he was violent with some other girls. They were just afraid to tell the boss.”

“Unbelievable.” He shakes his head in disbelief, this scene really did upset him and it’s confuses me. He didn’t seem to care about my wellbeing or feelings when he snapped at me earlier at the mall. Maybe the bathroom incident made him realize that my job isn’t as easy as he thought.

“Do you still think my job is easy?” I ask and my voice is barely more than just a whisper. My intent wasn’t necessary to make him feel guilty, but as I see his face change…

He opens his mouth to say something several times, but closes back every time.

“Let’s get you home, okay?” he nods towards the door and he doesn’t have to ask twice. I’m more than happy to leave this hellhole.

We say goodbye to the host and most of Shawn’s friends before getting into the elevator and leaving the party. The photographers are still there when we roll out of the garage in the car and I try to cover up my face as much as possible. I can’t smile, not after this night.

The ride is dead silent though I feel like it would be one of those country music filled rides, but he respects me and lets me alone with my thoughts. I’m mostly just trying to forget it and already thinking about the phone call I’m going to have with Joshua about Eric’s behavior. I’m sure he’ll have him observed for weeks after this.

I don’t even realize we arrive to the café, I just realize the car is not moving anymore, but I don’t know how long we’ve been here.

“Thanks for the ride,” I quietly say as I’m getting ready to leave the car.

“Fleur, wait,” he calls after me and my hand stops at the door handle as I turn back to him. He then takes his phone out and starts tapping on the screen, but I don’t understand what he wants. Then suddenly my phone starts buzzing in my bag and I reach for it, but it immediately stops. “It was me. Save my number and… call me if something is wrong. I don’t want tonight to happen again.”

My lips part as I stare at him. I definitely wasn’t expecting this. This is truly one of the nicest things someone has said to me in the past weeks.

“Thanks. I’ll see you soon,” I smile at him and he nods returning the smile as I finally get out of the car and put my hood on and start walking without looking back.

-

s h o o k

follow me for updates and posts about Shawn’s holiness and me ranting about how much I love him lol

[levinea-yuuki]

I've been thinking recently

We don't have much foundation. Both Millennials and Gen Z are stuck with so much responsibility for our futures. We're judged for our quirks, called special snowflakes by the most entitled generations, and tossed out on our own by Baby Boomers and Gen X.

Now I definitely don't feel like a Generation Z child because of two reasons:

I'm 22 years old and that just makes me feel like a millennial based on the whole structure and my lack of a sense of timelines.

I've never gotten into fortnite or the majority of these memes or dabbing.

But honestly that is not going to stop me from enjoying watching all of these people having dance-offs or making cleverly woven jokes or saying things I'll never fully grasp, (I still don't understand "worm"), or simply feeling refreshed about the open-minded beliefs of equality and acceptance, understanding, and kindness. Pour as much of that on as your hearts can show.

Getting back to the point. Though there's not much of a generation gap between Millennials and Generation Z in my point of view, seeing as we're both dragged into the same issues that arose with having to deal with the baby boomer generation in the same manner that we're having to deal with Gen X, though maybe not to the same extent, I feel like the older Generations are trying to shove a gap between us or push the blame.

This link takes you to a website that expresses just how much there is to think about with what Baby Boomers have done to our economy... Even though they blame millennials. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/29/millennials-struggling-is-it-fault-of-baby-boomers-intergenerational-fairness

It's not just our economy that I'm worried about in the long run.

We can repair that type of damage, what I'm really worried about how the younger ones are raised. Striking on a highly personal and sensitive note, my mother born in Gen X married young to my baby boomer father and had my brother and me, my brother being in the millennial generation. After seventeen years of supporting us, forced into not seeing us very much at all with working two jobs and still expected to cook and clean while he made no effort to get his own job, criticized her for everything she did as well as prevented her from having literally any friends in or out of work, she got out. Good for her, right? She left the abuse, lived a little, remarried, and had my siblings.

Now here's where it gets sticky.

This left us with our father (me as a sheltered albeit pampered 11 year old and my brother the inexperienced 16 year old who was also pampered) because he fought her in court and somehow won full custody of us. It came to the point where my brother was suddenly the sole money maker for the household (while also in school) in the time frame of a week after she left because dad still refused to get a job but insisted on smoking and drinking a six-pack a day anyway. At the same time his pride got in the way of accepting my mom's help because she had optional child support and when he did accept it he immediately went and spent it on his booze, so she ultimately stopped the fruitless. He cut ties between my mother and us and pretended everything was fine and dandy now that she was gone. When he died of an impending and incurable death triangle (kidney failure, liver failure, and sever diabetes) almost five years later we were left with his debts and he didn't teach us a single thing to get us started. Almost three years later, I left to live with my mother because she found us and got back in touch. My brother rejected her offer and went out on his own, swimming in the unbacked pride dad had set, and since then has been entirely incapable of holding a job for more than a few months before he's fired for one thing or another. He still refuses to speak with her.

Now on my end, everything started fine. I was expected to do some of the chores, finish highschool, and I finally had the chance to learn who my mother was the first time in my life... but once I had settled in I came to understand that she was in a constant defensive state anytime she was questioned and was afraid of moving forward. She suddenly had a late teenage daughter that didn't know a single thing about living. To this day four years later she has had a very easy-to-boil temper. It started as a self defense mechanism, she had to become this way to keep herself alive with my dad as a husband, but she became more than the overseer of the new family, she became an overbearing abrasive woman to make sure things were going her way so that there was no way she could slip back into what she had been living in.

She is now the type of person who considers pain to be a competition, a concept of reality she got from her father, my father, and her generation as a whole. Her existence is work, bills, her new spouse, and figuring out how to set me on my siblings on the best path. She has experienced more pain than I can picture, lived a longer life with many challenges, gave every ounce of effort to get back to her senses and I respect that wholeheartedly, but what I can't seem to respect or handle is her needed to feel like she's right all the time even when she's dead wrong, how deaf she is to the hurtful things she says, and how she goes about getting things done.

It's not just life she tackles harshly now, but pain is measured on her own set of scales. It is her competition in order to feel sturdier about her situations and I see this a lot in her age group, frequently and everywhere, but in the process of all of this she invalidates anybody else's difficulties if they are less than her own. In her eyes, "if I can tolerate it then you should be able to" or "if it's not bothering me then it shouldn't bother you" is the only reality. There are no extra spoons or forks, no in between, no consideration for how somebody else perceives a situation or how much somebody else can handle before they burst, and particularly with people in my age group she holds absolutely no patience. It's almost like she considers us a to be hypochondriacs because we haven't learned how to "suck it up" or "save face" when the physical aches or mental loads are too much, or the shambles they've left our economy in and voting Trump in because they think he will just fix it right up like changing a tire. It's entirely irresponsible, immature, inhumane, and unreasonable. She and most people her age, and people like my father, are incredibly blind to it. I can no longer respect them or trust them.

Now here's the kicker.

She as well as many other mothers claim that people in my age group have tunnel vision, that each day is brand new for us, that we don't know hardship or real stress, when in reality we are all facing the teeth gritting consequences for their choices. We are trying so hard to have optimism and open hearts, the patience they lack, and the wisdom to break free from their mislay of twisting roads and bare minimum guidelines.

As an example of her mindset and the challenge it presents, she believes I am entirely incapable of taking care of stressful situations when she hasn't taught me how, just like my father but and almost an exact opposite sense. My father pampered me and sheltered me, my mother drowns me only in harsh reality and expectations. It's not just her, the society these Generations have built are also malfunctioning and sending catless mixed messages. There are scores of American schools that don't teach a lick of daily knowledge like how to clean without making freaking mustard gas or how to go about sewing on a button. Cooking, paying bills, skills like changing a tire or what to do when the electricity goes out and it's not the breaker. Finances and taxes. They believe that schools only need to teach things like the states and capitals, sports, math, language (but only English and Spanish, I wanted to learn Japanese and sign language guys...), wars, a collection of science subjects, and maybe music. They've cut the budget for anything else. Screw the general public. Even my mom acts like her goal is to become middle class so that my siblings have more opportunities to learn what they need, but she's so fixated on raising her rank in society's standards thinking that it will solve everything she can't comprehend the real issues.

She believes I don't get certain responsibilities done the instant she tells me to because I'm lazy or inconsiderate, but mostly it's because my mind doesn't allow me to multitask like hers does, or I'm not sure how to go about it because I have to teach myself, and therefore it's just one more thing she has to add to the list of what I am not putting any effort into. She doesn't understand, or maybe she doesn't WANT to understand, that I have anxiety when I'm put on the spot because if I don't have a moment to think about what to do she chooses to scream at me instead of simply suggesting a solution or helping me think, and then decides to take over the responsibility with an added bonus of guilt-tripping and gaslighting. After years of this I've grown apathetic to her to the point where she has started calling me heartless and disrespectful. It is incredibly difficult to respect somebody who treats you like a tool that needs fixing but also doesn't make the effort to find out what's wrong in the first place.

I've read so many cases of this, just terrible awful parenting, it's to the extent where it's old news and that's unfortunate because it still hasn't changed. Make situations like these current news, spread them with a warning for our future, this problem has been around for so long it is almost entirely ignored by the older Generations in exchange for the opportunity to push blame. I myself have gotten so tired of asking "what is wrong with them? Why don't they see what they're doing? Don't they understand how harmful this is?" I see my mom giving sexist excuses about the behavior of men into the mind of my younger brother, I see her pushing my sister to tolerate him instead of stopping him from acting this way, and I think, "why can't they take responsibility for the damage they've done, re-evaluate themselves, or feel any regret for the stigma they choose to keep planting in young minds?" At every turn I'm invalidated, and though I'm expected to watch my siblings, I'm not allowed to stop them if they choose to play recklessly, rebel, or cock an attitude if I tell them they need to do something like brush their teeth or put a toy away. Unless there's an obvious chance of injury, I'm prevented from intervention. What kind of children are these siblings of mine going to grow into with this mindset? What are the claims that her generation are going to throw on them when there's no one else to blame? Why am I expected to relent to her demands and stretch and mold myself into her concept of what an adult should be if I can't suggest a compromise or take a stand? How am I or anyone else supposed to know what to do in shaky situations is if were not given the chance to learn, shown an example of how, or charted a better path instead of setting expectations and just demanded to reach them? I can't stand this. Each of these generations all hold individual, unique, brilliant people but the younger ones are treated like entirely different entities based on societies obsolete standards and malformed beliefs. This needs to change.

[bookenders]

11/11/11 Tag Game: Rounds 14 and 15! (I think. I’m bad at math.)

Back at it again, folks! Thank you @ofvisitorsthefairest and @fictionshewrote for the tags!

I think I’m gonna stop counting them after these. I can’t keep the numbers straight.

Rules: Answer the 11 questions from whoever tagged you, then made up 11 of your own questions and tag 11 people.

Bilbo Taggins: @starlitesymphony​, @hannahs-creations​, @toboldlywrite​, @quilloftheclouds​, @myreidola​, @minusfractions​, @inexorableblob​,  @ink-flavored​, @misfitgirlwrites​, @writinginslowmotion​, @aurumni-writes​

If you like these questions, by all means, answer them! And tag me so I can see!

My Questions:

Make a Mary Sue in your story’s world! What powers do they have, if any? How are they better than everyone else? What is their tortured past that is a blessing but also a curse? What kind of unusual eyes do they have? Which member of nobility/royalty/god/vampire/demon is their parent?

Which would your OCs choose: Legolas or Aragorn? Which would you choose?

What’s your favorite trick to pull on readers?

If you were to teach a creative writing class, what books would be on your syllabus?

What’s your opinion on semicolons?

What’s your favorite movie, based on its story?

What’s the dumbest thing your character(s) have ever done? What’s the dumbest thing they could do?

What one item could you introduce to your story to completely derail the plot? Where would it go from there?

What’s your favorite MacGuffin?

How do you name your characters and locations? 

How have your hobbies and passions influenced your writing/how you write?

My answers under the cut!

@ofvisitorsthefairest‘s Questions:

1. Does music inspire you to write?

Not unless I’m doing songfics as a warm-up or something. I usually use it as a tone/mood guard rail as I’m writing. That’s why I make story/character playlists! They keep me on track, especially if I’m revisiting a scene I haven’t thought about in a while.

2. Which WIP did you learn the most from writing?

My Romanian story, for sure. I had the help of my thesis director/mentor with that one, thank God. I learned how to establish a scene quickly, how to do flashbacks like other people do them, how to incorporate languages without messing up the pace or losing the reader, and how to write historical things. 

I learned a whole lot about what not to do from my Story That Shall Not Be Named Because It Bad, too. 

3. Is there something your OC should be afraid of that they aren’t?

I think Gemma should be more afraid of being found out than she is. I mean, she’s technically a witch (an unregistered magic practitioner, because of her potion-making which is classified as pseudo-magic) who has no social security number, lives in secret, and does illegal internet things. She could get into some serious trouble. There are even more nasty consequences that I can’t reveal because spoilers, but let’s just say she has no idea they could happen and they ain’t pretty.

4. Is there something they don’t need to fear, yet do? Irrational phobias?

Yep! It’s one of the cores of her character. She’s afraid of being left alone, abandoned, kept out of her found family. Being used for her skills and ignored as a person. I don’t think they’re irrational, but she has never listened when people tell her not to be afraid of those things.

5. Do you prefer reading physical books or e-books?

Physical books, by far. E-books for my college student wallet, though. They saved me when I didn’t have time to order books, too. I have a crazy good “where in the physical book did this event happen” memory. Like, I can name an event and flip to the page very quickly based on how far into the book it was. Very handy for citations. And I love the feel/smell of a book in my hands and all the contorting I do when I read one (seriously, I almost always end up upside down or completely sideways in a chair).

6. What’s some details of your world building that you like?

All the little things! Academic internet piracy network to help witches, how magic interacts with daily life, tweaking folklore to fit story lore, 

7. Have you ever created a magic system? What was it like?

Oh, boy! Yes, I have made several. My favorite might be the one from my TV show where the only magic is healing/life manipulation magic. The way it works is that when healers do their thing, they physically take on their patient’s injuries. If you have a broken arm, now the healer has a broken arm. Works with diseases, too. Here’s the snippet from the Show Deck about it:

In the darkest corners and dingiest alleys, magic pulses through the veins of the downtrodden. Seen as evil and taboo, magic operates by the law of an eye for an eye, a life for a life. Sacrifice fuels these dark arts, and those who manipulate them are covered in scars and never-healed wounds. Healers operate in the shadows and lead short lives, field medics are scarce, and the king has two sorcerers by his side at all times, bound by a blood contract to give their lives in his name.

Here’s a link to some posts about my magic system in my current WIP, Heart to Heart! I made magic types based on different sciences and artistic disciplines! 

We’ve got astronomy/astrology, carving/linguistics/physical art/symbology, politics/making powerful friends/handshakes/marketing/political science, geology/archaeology/product design. Also some secret types that involve psychology, sound design/sound engineering, and water treatment/environmental science/architecture.

There are also pseudo-magical professions that blend with tech and science, like potion making!

Here’s a decent explanation of how magic works in the world of H2H.

Here’s a joke I made about my magic system.

Here’s the Magical Aptitude quiz I made that tells you more about the magic types in H2H.

/end ramble

8. What was your first favorite book?

I’m 90% sure it was the American Revolution Magic Tree House book. Or one of those books. They were the best.

9. What time of day are you most motivated to write?

7pm-4am. Yep, I hate it. I’m trying to push it closer to 2pm-9pm but it’s tough.

10. If you could step into the shoes of one of your characters for a day, which one would you pick?

If we’re talkin’ H2H characters, I honestly would not have a preference. Everyone in that story is pretty dang chill. If I had to choose, I’d go with Jill or Treena. They’re both artists and artisans who have cool houses and great friends.

11. What are some little quirks you like to give characters? Ex: a lot of mine have freckles Just Because.

There are Many. A lot of my characters have curly hair because I have curly hair. Many of them are left handed (especially my sword-wielding ones). A bunch of them have scars. A lot of them know curse words in other languages. 

@fictionshewrote‘s Questions:

1. What do you want to see more of in the book world? (more rep, more of a specific genre, etc)

I have a rant about this, but to sum up: fewer straight white men dominating publishing, more open acceptance for new voices and ideas, less focus on easy-sell formulaic stories, less prejudice against certain genres... the list goes on. Also, in the publishing world, fewer submission fees and more journals that pay.

2. What time of day are you most productive writing-wise?

Answered above! Evenings and nights. It’s starting to shift to late afternon to late evening though, which is a nice change.

3. Do you have a designated space where you write?

Nope! I usually use my laptop wherever I can sit down or stand without my back screaming at me. I hate writing on my phone, though. Too small, too many typos.

4. What kind of platforms/programs/tools do you use to write? (Word, notebooks, Google Docs, Scrivener, etc)

Scrivener! It’s so helpful for my disorganized ass. I only use Word for academic papers now. When I’m having trouble getting ideas out of my brain, I write by hand in a hard back spiral notebook. I can’t stand writing in journals without spirals. 

5. Hardcover or paperback?

I like both. When I read, I sit weird and hardcovers prevent the pages from bending, but paperbacks are good for traveling with. And they’re cheaper. But hardcovers are so pretty... 

6. What’s your favorite story trope? Are you using it in your wip(s)?

There are a lot of tropes and I can never pick just one. I like friends to lovers, almost everything in LoTR and all those high fantasy things, complicated political/family dynamics, etc. I don’t typically like to write the same things I like to read, though. I have trouble naming them sometimes, but I know I use a bunch of them. 

7. If you had to send your favorite OC on a blind date with a character from someone else’s book, who would that character be and why?

Oh boy. I’m watching the Lord of the Rings extended editions right now, but I’ll try not to be biased.

If I were trying to be funny, I’d set Fred up with Aziraphale from Good Omens. I feel like they could have some good weird conversations.

Gemma and Nicholas Flamel from The Alchemist would be fun, too. Or Oz and Boromir. 

8. Do you write scenes in order or out of order?

I like writing them in order, but sometimes that doesn’t work out like I want it to. Now it really depends on the story. I wrote the first part of AOPC out of order and it messed with my head a little, so I’m trying not to do it for my longer projects. My short stories are always written one and done, in chronological order, usually. Especially the ones under 2k words. WYSiOaD was written in order, then switched around to fix the flow and plot.

9. If your favorite OC was a superhero, what would their superpower be? (assuming, of course, they aren’t a superhero to begin with!)

I do have superhero/villain characters! Here’s some others, though:

Gemma - Empathy / Transferable Rapid Healing and/or Regeneration

Oz - Truesight / Invulnerability

Mel - Animal Friendship or Shapeshifting / Conditional Foresight

Fred - Domino’s luck power but backwards and framed like happy accidents that always seem to work in his favor. So... Mr. Magoo.

Teva - Earth sculpting or something like earthbending

10. Describe your ideal writing session.

I sit and I write a whole short story in one hit. Then I wait and edit another day. 

I am a simple bean.

11. What do you think would turn your protagonist into a villain?

Seeing what was lost and having it torn away forever before she gets to claim it again.

[jwartblog]

More Notes (cont.)

Notes on this further debilitation of the brain

This is me inundated in another consciousness. The reasoning is now foreign, too. It has been that way for some time, but there's less of an obvious differentiation between the way I would feel about certain topics, even in sleep state that's barely leaving unconsciousness. The only way to maintain a sense of objectivity now is largely because of the nature of the thoughts themselves. Partly the game that's played is rewarding the subject, in this case, me, with the right to healthy sleep, external peace through a decent lack of debilitating continuous sexual harassment, emotional abuse, discreet sexual and psychological assault, if I don't fight against diminishing qualitative thinking, which is preserving my identity . The continuous narcissistic drone that induces unhealthily defensive immediately rectifying mindset (of course at the expense of longterm planning and almost all deep, carefully considered thought). For instance, it continues as if there's some known secret violent, or sexually deviant behavior performed that has to come to light, of course through this style of torture. What it actually seems to be more and more is a conditional crime pre-punishment, a future-looking consequence based on inductive reasoning--ideally the crime, that, when this discreet torment has been completed, will, by its nature, have proven all of the tortuous actions taken upon me, just. But I believe this is based on a hunch that's arisen from the belief in congruence of data from a particular surveillance, even more daunting if that surveillance was coupled with conditioning by persons who would seek this outcome, the justification for that kind of surveillance and discreet torment then. This information, however,  doesn't prove the truth of any one act, only the perceived likelihood, perhaps in the court of public opinion, which isn't sufficient. The persuasion that's continuously transmitted is, in a semi-conscious state, even made to seem to be me at the gut of consciousness--i.e. what it would feel like, neuro-physiologically to think and know it's me thinkin--slyly, disarmingly persuading someone else to follow a line of thought that's anti-thesis to what I'd most like to suggest, but it may actually fit in more with what would be congruent with the evidence that supports the truth of an instance of transgression, which is what's sought after. At this point, it's really only the fact that I don't think those things, that I don't consider that content and often thus(thereby) genuinely don't like it, that confirms for me, the foreignness of it. It does tend to resemble what's described by Foucalt in Madness and Civilization when he says that power itself takes this route regardless of the people who associate themselves with it, so that all persons in those positions that act as factors in this system behave as needed to support an outcome. In that book he describes three tactics the asylum-keepers use to sedate the subject, longterm*: silencing through ex-communication, through various means, ending regular social interaction; playing to, however belittling it is and beknownst it is to the subject, their idea of grandiosity, their belief of their superiority or deep importance, the delusion that they're a high-ranking official or royalty or a celebrity, whether or not they actually really feel that way, even if they only play along to someone else's suggestion; and the third escapes me, but it believe it has something to do with thwarting immediate goals. Fear is another tactic, or some kinds of trauma tantamount to what traumatic occurrence has caused inhibition ( as flawed as that sounds), and the use of family-ties to persuade, to bring the subject to his right-mind, the definition of which is malleable as necessary like-wise, like what I had written earlier, to justify the tactics used, often what's sought is an ideal external to who the person actually is, an unchanged personality that's often only what it has to be to put loved-one's  minds at ease...for instance a person could finish school and be considered insane because e.g. school is unnatural for his ilk (by way of his new knowledge he's writes or speaks like he aims to escape himself, or belittle rather than enlighten--usually the case when there's class-transcendence, when the actual numbers for progress are lost on an insular community, the national goal of education, or how education actually relates to affluence or career success, or gives a country it's competitive edge--generally preferred-- regardless of provincial opinions about individual cases), so a community could be persuaded, by the nature of their conditioning, to right the wrong of his enlightenment, to prevent continual learning, to, as overtly illegal and unethical as it is, seal off any chance for further naturally-resulting intellectual development. The problem in 2020 is that the knowledge of these conditions and disorders are known and that increasingly that knowledge is used to mislead the unwitting or support defamation or serve as peripheral intangibles used to wrong someone, i.e. it's weaponized. So street level skullduggery graduates and with the science of thought, there is increasing certainty, less error, so that the chance for something like this, an objective document, is less and less reliable. This might not be a reliable document. There could be for instance a gradual move towards planned happenstance, that secures planned outcomes. I had mentioned the systematic prevention of enlightenment or discreet impairment of the brain as it might be used for, for instance, discrete maths, or quantum mechanics, so lineage, documented familial inclination towards higher-learning, may more and more be seen as insurance against this. Gradually I'm made to become more and more comfortable with a second presence in mind, who, before any guarantee of compensation or noticeable benefit implores me to 'get out' or 'go up' or do a myriad of things as if I can at will make those outcomes happen, or as if the fact of my being or maturation isn't in itself, right, or self-evidently wrong. What it feels like, as I've stated before is rape, a marathon of rape-marathons, that itself forcibly becomes a new norm, and I'm responsible for my own pain, guilty for being violated, guilty for being hurt or protesting the rape-marathon in any way at any given time, especially if that protest gives some semblance of respite. The idea is to simply have it stop. I would like it to stop. I have never known this to exist. It was never a reality to me. I don't want it. I have nothing to prove. I only have to become more intimate with what I'm most interested in, and this something I can do without any help. The goal is the extensive depletion of the brain, mind, and eventually everything else. The prize, I believe, is what strike a person who encounters me, what would constitute a strength, and so one might like to see me or someone, for example, lose their ability to think in the way they are accustomed to thinking, especially if it's unique or adequate, or proven. Reasons can be as malleable as they have to be, to be sure I don't pontificate or don't mull over problems in the same way. There's an urgency in disrupting creation or thought production that reminds me of poverty-stricken children battling for crumbs or pieces of food, a certain scarcity-mindedness, or zero-sum, end-game, stubbornness. The chief goal here would be sabotage for highly-personal ego-driven reasons, not reasonableness. I'm made to believe that I should make some arbitrary authority my authority where there is none, and one is certainly not wanted or needed. There are large amounts of external stimuli present around me under the guise of helping me think. What this means is a demeaning attempt to forcibly outsource responsibility, which I believe is to make me comfortable with encroachment, especially to reveal private information, even information it is illegal for me to knowingly reveal, illegal for someone to forcibly extract from me, or frame me for relinquishing. Even as thoughts or thinking can be approximated, specific thoughts are more and more echoed in media, but not as general foresight or the synchronicity-high that follows a break from the ideal, a relational dependency, what state of being and thinking would have to take place to make sufficient meaning, or the actual events as genuinely foreseen meaningful encounters, but something else, almost as if I can't think unless each thought is good enough( this bypasses the feat of controlling each thought to even close to that extent to begin with), which they can never be if they're subjectively assessed, and goodness itself has to be questioned here if thoughts are more and more produced (which they are) by some far less adequate (for what I do) external transmitter, as preposterous as this sounds, the fact that I would ever have to consider a second presence in mind as a police for any reason.

*The third here was constant references to the past--the asylum keeper would find a way to have the subject ensnared in his own past, which they could always refer to, if they've been keeping good notes, and the subject would ideally keep searching for some answer not readily given--partly due to an unkempt or unreliable memory in tandem with continual subliminal and overt cues to stop actively thinking--but instigated by past psychologically unresolved occurrences that are constantly urgently alluded to, one by one, until a certainty is achieved that further sedates the subject. Non-empowering recollection.

More and more, in the morning and at other times, like in Iowa, in the morning, a foreign personality takes over, in the same way a foreign laugh did then,  a foreign consciousness, for instance what would be the way I would seem to go in a more generically paternalistic manner (and also paternalism or masculinity as brutishness, manliness as primitiveness), a voice less fluid, a word selection accounts for less nuance, which is even less refined than the initial incapacitation of the basal ganglia, other parts of the brain responsible for high level processing of concepts and a usual work-history-consistent manner of contemplation: what would work for flavors of contemplation, art-thinking for art-writing. More and more the spine is the outermost protruding part of skeleton behind me, the skull is continually pushed forward, the trapezoids are tightened and forced high along with my shoulders (to sit at the top of my torso not at the sides) and ass is coached to increasingly remain tucked under, the back is therefore elongated and bows outward like a bulldog where it approaches the neck, a layman's cognitive consonance is expected to result from daily nudging to escape yourself, to 'leave your head,' as if leaning forward, an animalistic lean is what would make a person more himself. The overall goal is to completely disrupt bodily coordination. What this means, partly, is a conscious operation of the body to replace what should be thought-work, contemplation for interests and work, and other activities. The faculties are increasingly disrupted. Increasingly, simultaneously aptitude is compromised and replaced, the rate of intellectual growth is slowed, the quality of it increasingly less valuable, originality is directly minimalized as a result, and were-withal for self-propulsion is increasingly made voluntary. The base-work of easy recollection, long and short term reflection, sign-creation, visualization, is forcibly outsourced, and all of it to mock all thought-processing as a means, itself, the reality of that depletion, to distract from an initial crucial loss of deep-meaningful consideration gained over time, through encounters, close-study, long-term deep careful-contemplation of the best that can be thought, for itself, it's own sake and as a foundation for future application. The brain is continually attacked, continually made to be atrophied object, as stated before, increasingly cadaver-centric. The body carries a head, an near-dead extremity, not a center. I'm made to reach, to partly consider at least as a fleeting thought the idea of my brain, my body and mind being diminished to enhance another life, of course, a life that hasn't worked for that reward and who boastfully will not compensate me for that depletion. The game here, as stated before, is to make a person believe many people are hiding from anonymous machine that doesn't know who I am, and only plays to a person's ego (therefore a shameful thing to admit to being bothered by), their idea that this machine is referring to them and not some collective. The ego is conflated with thinking itself, it means to make the case that thinking, especially high-level thinking, or the way an educated person normally would think about his world, is only meant to nurture the ego. There's a lull in the machine's operation for continued thought-work and contemplation, but this is only to create the illusion of an order within this terror, and one the subject should subscribe to, an authority, where it would be most troublesome to a power-monger to not have one, where there should be none, a whip for thought where no whip is needed, an eye and narcissistic cloud for each thought, even after a major collapse of the faculties, the urgent establishment of an authority where it would only worsen not improve work. For every thought, there's it's counter-thought, but not the specifically tailored counter-thought I'd employ to help me gain and retain healthy objectivity. Another game that's repeated here is the idea of inevitable competition, and a naturally occurring inevitable authority over that for the quality of thought a person possesses, logic with every thought, which is not my goal, and not desirable to me. By it's sheer presence, the authority expects forfeiture of sovereignty, not its own death. All of this is not the same as the carefully-tailored thinking I or any person might develop over time, that I have developed over time,  the specific way of dealing with people I've cultivated over time (both fallible but uniquely fallible), that's particular to me. This is an externally-orchestrated intrusion on internal space, that can easily be made to seem like an internally-originating mental breakdown. There's a narcissistic drone, that of course works against what it means to administrate over which is the worst of egotistic impulses, the most publicly despised by the most people, but this is accompanied by continuous manipulation of bodily sensations, neuro-physiology and even thought production. What this could easily appear to be to some unwitting person watching is a person struggling with undesirable impulses and characteristics, a person who needs professional help. For instance, if an external presence is forcibly coaching a person to think of murder, in tandem with manipulating the brain, mind and body to viscerally feel that impulse at gut level, that external presence, now internally situated, would taunt or shame a person for even thinking along those lines which would be especially difficult to manage for a person who clings to moral standards. This person witting could perform a myriad of exercises to regain equilibrium, perhaps include that in a daily routine, but a person unwitting could be tragically set back by this constant shaming, which could erode at their form, their freedom amid granted societal freedoms, inalienable rights, or slavery amid all of the resources available for assuring freedom. The shaming would exacerbate impulse, which could lead to impulse-fulfillment. It means to diminish all strengths and not as germaine to some lesson or attempt to target someone else, and it means to outsource all thinking, all facility with various functions, all of the faculties, that are healthy and in some cases above-average.  

[shadowsfiguresfigments-blog]

A good place to die Chapter 12 (Light fluff)

Warning: Harsh language, violence

Sunday was a pretty lazy day. I didn’t do much – some laundry, helping auntie clean the house, visit Penny and get some school work done. That proved to be rather difficult, what with being nestled in Penny’s lap in Neibolt house. We sat on (or rather, in the bean bag), and both the smell of all sorts of sweets and Penny constantly asking questions totally unrelated to each other didn’t help much. He was still a little mopey because I refused to talk about my Halloween costume, but he couldn’t stay quiet for a prolonged period of time either.

Finally I had wormed my way through the last math exercise and tossed the books away. I let myself fall back against  Penny’s chest and looked up to him (or rather, his chin). “Done!”

In response he hugged me tighter. “What shall we do now, little one?”

I punched him jokingly. “Hey, you run out of questions?”

In a blink of an eye he had scooped me up, rested me on the bean bag and hovered over me, a lazy smile on his lips. “Not exactly, no.”

I gulped, blood rushing to my cheeks. This constant blushing started to annoy me. He was so close I could feel his body… vibrate? He’s purring, I realized.

I couldn’t resist the urge to reach out and stroke his hair. It was eerily soft and fine, like touching cobwebs without sticking to them. He watched me cautiously, his eyes turning a little more yellow.

“Do you like that?”, I whispered.

Our eyes locked, neither of us blinking for several heartbeats. Then he closed his eyes, leaning into my hand and purred more loudly.

It was such a pure moment.

We stayed like that for long time, until my hand became tired and I had to rest it.

“So, do you have any more questions for me now?”, I teased weakly, still touched by the sheer trust radiating from him.

“Why does that feel so good?”, he asked, very serious all of sudden.

“I don’t know… For us it’s safety, affection, being home… Having someone who cares…” I trailed off, thinking for a while. Then I gathered all my courage.

“I guess I care about you, Penny. A lot. I mean, more than anyone else.”

He reached out and touched my face. “I care”, he said, almost like testing out how the words sounded, and smiled. So did I.

 The following days flew by. I got my cast removed at the hospital and started physical therapy. The doctors said I would probably have no lasting damage, but wanted to monitor my shoulder for a bit in case it might pop out again. Between school, therapy, all the legal crap with Mr. Shanks’ inheritance there wasn’t much time left to spend with Penny, and it pissed me off. I barely slept anymore, because I was working on my costume at night, and it took longer than expected, of course. I had decided against replicating Penny’s costume in every little detail (mainly because of lack of material) and opted instead for a somewhat more feminine version that would suit me better.

It was a relief to be able to work with both of my hands again, not only for crafting, but everything else as well – taking a shower, braiding my hair that had grown quite long, dressing myself, all the little daily tasks you do without thinking about them too much.

But, all in all, my hard work paid off – I got better grades, my costume was finished two days before the 31st, and I would be able to open store around mid-November. Bee had promised to help me with the bookkeeping and ordering at first and she also asked around her acquaintances if somebody would work for me part-time – I’d probably be able to afford that, based on the income Mr. Shanks had generated. The pain in my ribs and in my shoulder subsided a little more every day, which made snuggling into Pennywise’s lap that much easier.

It all seemed well- and then Yaneesha did something incredibly petty and stupid. The day after I had finished my costume I went to school, very tired but exhilarated at the thought of my finished product. I sported two braids, which hung down to my waist; my favorite way to keep my hair out of my face. Well, not for long, anyways.

During biology the teacher, Mrs. Sherman, had to leave to get some exhibit she’d forgotten, and we had a span of five minutes to ourselves in class. I spent them staring out of the window, thinking pleasant thoughts, when all of a sudden my head was yanked back hard. My ribs screamed in protest.

I was totally taken aback, and so it took me a second before I started struggling against the force pulling my left braid. After another second the pulling stopped, and I whirled around.

Hair flew in my face.

Yaneesha stood before me, clutching a pair of scissors in one hand and two limp, black strings in the other. The entire classroom was silent. I reached up, stroking my head, and it dawned on me- she had cut off my hair.

I started laughing.

The door flew opened and Mrs. Sherman entered. It took her only a second to understand the situation before her eyes, and she reacted immediately. Yaneesha was cited to the principle, and suspended immediately. Poor thing – I really didn’t mind that much, after all I’d never really done anything with my hair anyways. It had just grown for years without being tended, and, to be honest, my head felt surprisingly light. I even told both Mrs. Sherman and the principle it wasn’t a big deal; after all I hadn’t gotten physically hurt (like during our last altercation). I still sometimes wonder what had possessed her to take such desperate action. Auntie was called (I assured her I was okay), several teachers talked to me (for the first time, really; I assured them I was okay) and every student I met avoided eye contact with me (not that it bothered me).

Of course Pennywise immediately asked me when I arrived at Neibolt house. His eyes had turned the most intense yellow, his buck teeth disappeared and were replaced by his shark-like fangs and his voice dropped to a growl.

“Who did that to you?”

“A stupid, pitiful girl I go to school with.”

“Are you hurt?” The growl distorting the words.

“No, not at all. Really, it’s not that big of a deal. I’m going change my hair tomorrow anyways, it’s just shorter now than what I had originally planned.”

“Why did she do that?”

“Wish I knew. She hates me, for whatever reason. And she obviously wanted to hurt my pride – didn’t succeed though.”

He came close, his mouth barely inches away from mine.

“She’ll pay.”

I was very much distracted by his red lips, the way drool started to drop down from them, the feel of his breath on my skin… Only after a bit I registered what he’d said.

“Never mind, Penny. After all she didn’t break my ribs this time.”

“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?” Bits of spit flew everywhere, and Penny’s eyes started drifting apart on his face, his mouth growing and protruding. Guess I’d just poured more gasoline into the fire.

“Seriously, I even think I like my hair that way. It’s lighter, it won’t be such a hassle in the morning… There is nothing, NOTHING, wrong with me, okay?”

That stopped his transformation, but he didn’t quite turn back either.

“Who is she?”

“Nobody.”

“Tell me who she is. I’ll find out anyway.”

“She’s miserable and desperate, and she’s already suffering the consequences. No need to bother.”

“You just said she hurt you before.”

“She’ll no longer be able to. She’ll probably be kicked out of school, it’s not the first time she’s done something stupid.”

Slowly his face shrunk back, and he laid his hand against my cheek, sending butterflies flying inside my stomach.

“You don’t hate her?”

“I pity her.”

That switched his eyes from yellow to silver. “You don’t wish her to be harmed? She did that to you.”

I blushed, not knowing where I got the courage to say what I did.

“I’d much rather you practiced kissing with me again.”

[rorykillmore]

okay the final christmas gift on my list got a little waysided by all the busy-ness of the past week, so this is kind of more of a new years present instead -- for @jigsawapologist! she requested that i write something based on a headcanon i talked about awhile ago (pertaining to jacquelyn being Aggressively Indignant at parent-teacher conferences) so i went ahead and gave that a whirl! a preemptive apology if my asoue writing is a little rusty

so jemi, in spite of 2017 generally sucking, we’ve managed to build new plots and dynamics and (as always) fall into several different kinds of hell (including discourse moms, which was an all-around fantastic experience). i’m always grateful that our friendship entails sharing those experience, because they never fail to enhance my life even when things aren’t so great. i have plenty of faith that the new year will bring us a ton of new chances to do fun creative stuff together just as they have all these years prior, and i know it’s also going to be a year where you’re pursuing some new avenues in life, so i’m wishing you nothing but the best of luck with those!! keep chasing after the stuff you’re passionate about and here’s hoping we don’t fall too deeply into vampire hell,

The life Jacquelyn lives means she’s good at changing, adapting -- a chameleon sort of quality that means she’s been called many different things by many different people.

None of them have ever intimidated her before quite in the way the phrase ‘single mother’ does.

The life Jacquelyn lives means she’s good at changing, adapting -- a chameleon sort of quality that means she’s been called many different things by many different people. 

None of them have ever intimidated her before quite in the way the phrase ‘single mother’ does.

In truth, it isn’t altogether accurate: she’s not Violet’s mother, has never tried to replace her, but the officials in this world don’t see it that way. They all view things through a legal lens, and don’t care much for the particulars. She is Violet’s legal guardian, and she hasn’t paired up with anyone to grapple with the task, so she is a single mother.

She’s had nearly an entire year to get used to it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still rattle her at times. It hasn’t exactly been a year of smooth sailing, after all. Even now there are still bumps in the road, hurdles Jacquelyn isn’t quite sure how to make because she just has no experience with them.

Such as: parent-teacher conferences.

Really, Jacquelyn isn’t sure why they’re even a necessity. If there’d been a problem - not that she’s ever anticipated Violet causing any, she’s always been a good student as far as Jacquelyn knows  - isn’t it the school’s responsibility to contact the guardian and not the other way around? All of this seems sort of arbitrary to her.

On the other hand, she knows that if she made a fuss or deigned not to show up, it’s Violet who would be singled out and faced with the consequences. All in all, taking an hour or so out of her day to avoid that isn’t such an inconvenience.

“You don’t need to do this, you know,” Violet tells her as they approach the school, because in spite of everything, she seems almost embarrassed that Jacquelyn is going out of her way. “Not if you don’t want to. I’m sure there are plenty of children whose guardians simply don’t have time to attend these things.”

“I’ve made time,” Jacquelyn replies with a momentary smile. “Without much hassle at all, really. And it’ll be worthwhile, to hear all the excellent things I’m sure your instructors have to say about you.”

Violet smiles just a little in response, though she aims it more down at her hands than at Jacquelyn herself. 

They enter the school without saying much of anything further, and Jacquelyn is handed a schedule to follow that mirrors Violet’s daily one. Apparently, they’re meant to meet with each of Violet’s teachers in fifteen minute periods -- she supposes this sort of thing is standard.

It goes well enough, at first. Violet’s engineering and math teachers have nothing but enthusiastic things to say about her talent, while her history teacher seems charmed and comments on her thoughtfulness and insight. So by the time they reach the final period on Violet’s schedule (English), Jacquelyn is beginning to decide that really, this hadn’t been so unpleasant.

They sit down with the teacher, a Mr. Hoffman, and he greets them politely enough.  Perhaps eager to get through what is no doubt a slough of parents and guardians (an idea which Jacquelyn can hardly blame him for), he wastes no time getting started, and they don’t do anything to dissuade him.

“I’ve always appreciated the timeliness and diligence of Ms. Baudelaire’s work,” Mr. Hoffman says, looking over the set of notes he left for himself. “Though... it’s worth noting that her grade would be a little higher than it is with more active participation in class.”

Violet nods politely, as if this names sense to her.  “I will... certainly take that into account for next term, Mr. Hoffman.”

It’s not such a huge issue, really, but Jacquelyn snags on it a little. It just -- strikes her as strange, as all. None of the other teachers have commented on Violet’s lack of participation, in fact, her engineering teacher praised her on it broadly.

“Well, I’m sure some children in a classroom setting simply find it a little easier to work privately,” she finds herself saying aloud.

Violet glances at her, and Mr. Hoffman blinks. “True. But when it comes to English as a subject, classroom discussion is just the nature of the beast, I’m afraid.”

She can’t exactly tell him how to run his curriculum, Jacquelyn thinks, so that should be the end of it. Violet doesn’t seem particularly upset, so there’s not much reason for her to make a fuss. 

Still, another thought strikes her, and she finds that for whatever reason she suddenly isn’t very good at filtering herself.  “Does her grade really need a few extra points?”

“Her marks aren’t... bad, necessarily.” Mr. Hoffman seems to have sensed the need to tread cautiously. Jacquelyn isn’t sure whether or not she should be embarrassed. “But they also aren’t as high as might be ideal for a student like her.”

Why does he get to decide what’s ideal for Violet, Jacquelyn thinks, irritated by what feels to her too much like criticism.  

“In this class we focus on literary analysis pretty heavily, and the material that Ms. Baudelaire turns in is a little... barebones,” Mr. Hoffman tries to clarify. Out of the corner of her eye, Jacquelyn catches Violet glancing briefly down at her hands again, and she frowns more openly.

“Literary analysis isn’t everyone’s strong suit.”

“Yes, which is why I was suggesting alternate ways for --”

“Shouldn’t you be grading on a less subjective basis to begin with?” Jacquelyn cuts in coolly. She can’t quite articulate what’s come over her -- it isn’t that the teacher is being horrible, but it also suddenly seems to her that he isn’t being fair, and something sharp and protective has risen up within her at the prospect of him speaking this way in front of Violet. Barebones. Really? “I mean -- research projects, tests on actual comprehension of the material, those are all part of your subject too, aren’t they?”

So much for not deciding his curriculum for him.

Mr. Hoffman, for his part, is starting to look somewhere between startled and affronted.  “Well, Ms. Seieszka, I mean really. There’s only a certain percentage that straightforward work like that can account for.”

Straightforward?

She opens her mouth to protest again, but this time, Violet beats her to it.  “That’s quite alright, Mr. Hoffman. I understand.”

Jacquelyn pulls up short. Arguing for Violet’s case is one thing, but talking over her when she’s clearly being diplomatic is quite another.

“My brother inherited most of the literary talent, I’m afraid,” she continues modestly. “It’s never been my strong suit. But I will try to take your advice on the participation grade.”

Mr. Hoffman seems soothed by that, and he nods to her (not unkindly). If nothing else, Jacquelyn supposes, he’s not going to give her a worse grade because he doesn’t like her. “Well, then,” he says. “I think we’ve covered most of our points of relevance. Did either of you have any other questions?”

Jacquelyn shoots Violet a glance, and Violet shakes her head just a fraction.

“No,” Jacquelyn relents, calming some. “That’s all. Thank you for your time.”

He sees them out politely, though she notes that he seems quite relieved to see them (or rather, Jacquelyn in particular) go. A beat of silence lingers between her and Violet as they navigate the high school hallways that lead back to the front entrance. Belatedly, Jacquelyn realizes she probably came on a little strong.

“I didn’t mean to make too much of a scene,” she offers, gingerly apologetic.

“You didn’t, I don’t think.” The look Violet gives her is mildly perplexed. Hesitant. “...But I hope you didn’t think you needed to confront him on my behalf.”

Of course Jacquelyn did, but perhaps admitting it isn’t the most helpful response in this situation.

“So English isn’t your strongest subject,” she says instead. “That doesn’t give him the right to be so dismissive.”

Violet goes quiet for a moment, not in a sullen way, but in the way she sometimes does when Jacquelyn catches her off-guard. “I suppose not. But isn’t offering feedback what these conferences are for?”

“So I’m told.” Jacquelyn nearly leaves it at that, and then -- “But the way he phrases said feedback could use some work, if he wants to avoid confrontation. And he seems like the type.”

Violet’s lips twitch momentarily, and they fall into silence once again -- this time, it’s a little more comfortable.

“Thank you,” Violet says finally and a little more carefully as they exit the school.

Jacquelyn doesn’t mean to hesitate, but it trips her up a little. “For?”

She gets a long, level look in reply, and for all her uncertainty when it comes to... all of this, she thinks she might understand what Violet means.

With nothing more needing to be said, they go home.

[palliddata]

The Wizard of Grog: The Scourge of Caster Supremacy

(This is by Elizabeth Lavenza and not by me)

Elizabeth “Linguafoeda Acheronsis” Lavenza Chances are, one of the first images that pops into your head when you think about Dungeons and Dragons is the classic lineup of a fighter, a wizard, and a thief exploring a dungeon and valiantly overcoming obstacles together (that is, if you aren’t a mid-90s fundamentalist christian who associates D&D with pagan orgies and human sacrifice). It’s a decent enough setup, and that combined with nostalgia and inertia have allowed it to persist as one of fantasy gaming’s most common templates. But if you ask an experienced D&D player to tell you how that setup has worked out for them, a lot of times their version will have the wizard (or cleric, or druid, both of which have been even more unbalancing) effortlessly blasting every obstacle out of the way while the fighter and the thief sigh and wonder if it’s too late to reroll. Their disappointment is understandable, not just because being useless isn’t much fun. None of the sources of inspiration- Lord of the Rings, The Princess Bride, Conan the Barbarian, Berserk, and so on- that they’ve brought to the table would have prepared them for this problem. Most fantasy literature doesn’t have scenes where the knight and the rogue sit around playing cards while the wizard solves everything (then again, most good fantasy literature doesn’t have perfectly delineated archetyped parties). You’ve heard the horror stories. Order of the Stick wasn’t lying when it had a Druid tell a Rogue that he had special features more powerful than her entire class. I won’t spend that much time on 3e caster stories (google “codzilla” or “caster supremacy” if you’re curious), but I’ll provide a short explanation of why the problem persists, particularly in D&D and related systems, for those who haven’t encountered it before. Basically, when fighters level up they hit things for more damage and can take more damage, along with some other things. When casters level up they can pretty much control reality at will. Even beyond overpowered combos and obscure feats and munchkin builds, the simple fact remains that the class that lets you fly, turn invisible, teleport, shoot fire really well, and pretty much anything else is going to overshadow the one that hits things hard. To zero in on one particular example, there’s the legendary Druid Bear Singularity. Basically, a bear is often stat-for-stat a bit better than most Fighters of equivalent level. A Druid can have a bear companion, and also turn into a bear, meaning that a Druid with just those two basic features is equal to about 2.5 Fighters. And as the Druid levels up? They get more bears and stronger bears. They can also cast spells as a bear, and cast spells on their bears. This is when the math breaks down and the Druid becomes a Borg-like swarm of invincible magical bears. Before I go into the general types of solutions, I should note that things are getting better. While the problem persists within D&D, Pathfinder, and other D&D-3.5-derived systems (OSR games have a fair amount of variance, “meat-grinder” early addition-likes tend to have less of a problem with druidgods and wizardgods), due to fanbase stubbornness, it’s much less present outside of those systems, and that is due in no small part to the rise of storygaming and rules-light or rules-medium games. While the overarching reason comes down to these games being willing to do things differently, if we zero in we find that one of the most powerful tools for combatting caster supremacy is one that rules-light gaming uses frequently: focus. There is no one solution for the superwizard’s trap, and to avert it you have to start with the thing you should always start with: asking yourself what kind of stories you want to tell. Each of the potential approaches lends itself to certain types of stories and foci, and resistance to them comes from the enemy of focus: grognards wanting their preferred game to have everything they’re used to in it simultaneously. So, let’s go over the scenarios in which caster-induced redundancy isn’t a problem, and their relation to the central idea of focus. These solutions break down into two main groups: tone down the magic, or share the magic. The first of those is one that resonates most with what the classicists among the grognard host want. After all, how many times were battles in Middle-Earth won by an itinerant sorcerer blasting orcs away with magic missiles? Magic was restricted to a few individuals, or inherent powers of magical creatures, and even when they showed it off it was often rather subtle. The Game of Thrones setting, another grog favorite, also gives us a setting where magic is rare, scattered, and rarely as overt as flying bears or teleportation. It’s a completely valid approach: set up your system and story for a group of characters with no magical powers, or immensely limited and narrow magic, and things fall into place nicely. The knight, the archer, and the assassin will all have niches to fill, and they won’t have to worry about overshadowed by the druid if all the druid can do is perform long and complex rituals that allow them to see through the eyes of animals (as opposed to summoning invincible armies of them). Of course, sometimes magic has quite a lot of punch behind it, but there are still clear advantages to those who prefer more mundane methods. The idea that magic is dangerous and costly is bandied about quite a lot, but what consequences does the average D&D wizard face from throwing around spells all day, other than potential GM ire? And sure, the Vancian system can be a drag, but once those levels climb up Wizards build up more than enough contingencies, not to mention those with ways around it all together. If all magic required costly materials and/or long rituals, then being able to swing a sword, sneak, or shoot arrows or bullets well becomes a lot more useful, even if the magic has amazing capabilities. And, if you keep the principles of story and focus in mind, you can use that setup to generate plenty of potential plots and conflicts. Imagine how warfare looks- rival sorcerers preparing their rituals in the keeps of the patrons who supply them with their materials, while both sides send their companies of sellswords and assassins across the line to try to interrupt the other side’s big ritual. Again, it’s a more fun scenario than bear-summoning munchkinry solving everything. And what about the other kind of cost, genuine danger? Like most of these solutions for the caster problem, it’s shown up in plenty of stories. This approach has been explored in plenty of tabletop role playing games, too. Both versions of the Warhammer RPGs have magic wielders who can do some pretty amazing things…but actually doing those things is truly, actually dangerous, enough so that they aren’t things that can be relied upon to regularly solve problems. Unknown Armies, another great example, even explicitly states that magic is almost always much less useful than a gun in a combat situation, and that’s not even mentioning the massive costs it leverages on its practitioners. But the grog barrier keeps these approaches from working their way into D&D, as caster players are loathe to give up their cool powers, even if they insist they don’t want to render the nonmagical classes useless. The grog problem brings us to the opposing approach, where the system addresses the issue of godlike mages eclipsing warriors and thieves by giving the warriors and thieves godlike powers of their own. Dungeons and Dragons, in fact, has even made its own attempts to go down this path via the Tome of Battle, which provided several new martial classes with quasimystical powers. It wasn’t really the best supplement, especially since the new classes were essentially just better versions of existing classes, but the writers were in sort of an awkward situation since actually doing what they had set out to do would require rewriting quite a bit of the rules and core classes. But the negative feedback the book generated (the feedback that specifically bemoaned fighters having these abilities, not the way in which the book implemented them) was what made me realize the role of grog in keeping caster supremacy alive. Attempting to give martial classes their own ways to, for example, attack large groups or alter local terrain or fly will always provoke the “it’s too anime!” grog-whine, which is stupid on a number of levels. Even if one tries to see eye to eye with what people mean when they describe something as “too anime”, the fact remains that the idealized game as it exists in their heads can’t really existed without restricting casters far beyond what D&D does (see the previous paragraphs for information on this approach). They’ll often bring up that Conan or Drizzzzzzt (no, I’m not going to look up how many z’s he has) or so on and so never shot air blades out of their swords or flexed so hard things exploded, ignoring that these characters either existed in worlds with vastly different magic from their preferred game systems or had massive amounts of authorial fiat on their sides. Generally, the best way to get grognards to accept the “make fighters magic” approach is to bring up comparisons to mythology, where sorcerers were generally pushed out of focus in favor of demigods or magically enhanced warriors with enough musclepower to lift and throw mountains or fistfight storms. But even if you use this approach, you’ll still get complaints that it isn’t gritty enough, or that it makes it hard to run standard dungeon crawls, and so on. But caster supremacy is a problem that can only be fixed with genuine change. You can’t have that specific kind of team-based gritty dungeon delving if one party member has nearly unrestricted godlike powers, and if you want to have party members with that level of power, the other players should be able to reach it to, even if that means basing your world around a unified system of supernatural power that can harnessed by warriors as well as sorcerers, or putting the whole thing in terms of mythical dream-logic where being good enough at something like weaving or lying means you can apply it to abstract concepts (as an aside, Exalted does do the “mythic” approach fairly well, and there are plenty of games like Don’t Rest Your Head or most permutations of World of Darkness where it’s assumed that each member of the party has their own formidable reserve of supernatural power). Narrative-based powers provide a more subtle way to balancing, by giving characters an in-game ability to invoke the narrative tropes that help fighters and rogues equal casters in fantasy literature. PBTA systems are particularly good at this, but it’s something that’s been worked into an increasing number of systems.

Of course, there are countless permutations of these approaches. For example, you could run D&D 3e without many changes, as long as you gave up on pretending it was balanced and only allowed parties of equally-powerful classes, and constructed a setting in which magic-wielding demigods rule over mere mortals with their puny swords and bows. And, of course, you need to have a group of players who want to explore the ramifications of a setting where politics are dominated by human superweapons, rather than players who want to be Conan or Aragorn. Ironically, even the kind of dungeon-crawling stories associated with D&D acquire focus and planning to establish, and aren’t particularly well-served by God-Wizards and require a willingness to accept system refinement and storygaming to bring to their full potential. But fear of change and idealization of the past gets in the way, as always. In conclusion, fucking grognards. In a more serious conclusion, you can’t fix a problem if you keep doing the same things and expect them to work, and you can’t do everything at once. The start point for tabletop gaming should almost always be “what kind of story do we want to tell together”. Even if the kind of story you want to tell is based on your ideal of classic D&D or an amalgam of various fantasy literature you’ve absorbed, you still need to set things up to focus the story on that. If you want to use teamwork to crawl dungeons or fight evil hordes, you need a game that’s built for teamwork, and not endless swarms of magic bears making all the other players redundant. About the author: Elizabeth Lavenza is a lizard who can type. More information possibly to come.