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youngveinsworld · 11 months ago

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quotes from a fan's recap of the young veins' show at the masquerade in atlanta on 24 march 2010

(this is quite a long one but definitely worth it!)

We stood up close to the barricade- I guess second or third row if someone put it in a row perspective and it mattered. What mattered is it was ridiculously close and the venue is already tiny. Before the show started, I went over to see if they had merch even though I fully suspected that they probably did not. Turns out they had three shirts ($15 each) and I bought two of them because how could I not?

While the next band was setting up, Ryan picked up an amp and carried it over to help. Everyone was mostly like, “He can carry that thing?” or “Show off” or “It‘s really hollow inside.”

Next was The Young Veins. They come out, Ryan wearing what he’d been wearing the whole tour so far and Nick Murray in a fresh shirt today, and start setting up the stage. I don’t think they got a sound check because it took a good fifteen or twenty minutes to get everything to sound okay -Ryan and Jon telling the sound guy what to turn up and down and so on. Most of us were just mesmerized enough to be cool with that.

Honestly, Ryan has more stage presence as a front man than I would have predicted (or probably given him credit for before this show). At one point Jon started talking about the album and then he told Ryan that he got the information off of their Wikipedia. Ryan obviously wasn’t expecting that answer because he cracked up. After listening to all the songs, I really think this album is going to be better than I was expecting. “Cape Town” is my favourite, possibly, but really, it seems like a solid, well-made bunch of songs. And Ryan has quite the lung capacity. I never saw it coming. There’s hope for our boys yet!

After the show, they were tearing down their equipment and some girls called him over to the side of the stage and Kelsey assumed they were going to ask for the set list. They didn’t though so she called out to Ryan and asked for it. He went over and got his for her and she handed it to me. He took Jon and Andy’s set lists and tossed them into the crowd where Andy’s was instantly ripped into pieces by vicious fangirls. It was a bit scary. When they were finished packing things up, Ryan went to head off the stage and tripped, but caught himself.

Since the Masquerade is the coolest venue ever, I waited a few minutes, then walked right out back where the band had assembled. A few other fans went out back too and I walked out with Ryan’s gift basket.

“Ryan,” Kelsey called, then looked at me. “You wanna give it to him?” “This is for you,” is all I said and held it out. I was mentally flipping out because I’ve only been trying and failing when it comes to meeting this guy for years and now all of a sudden there he was. Ryan just smiled and said, “What did I do to deserve this?”

I told him I had just been trying to meet him forever so it was kind of like a gift to him because I had finally gotten to meet him and was celebrating. He’s a hard guy to get close to! I pointed to the fox in the basket and said, “That‘s your pet fox until you get a real one. This one will tour better.” He smiled and said, “I might feed it to my real fox when I get one. How‘s that?” I was pretty much like, “Fine with me!” because really, anything he wanted would probably be fine with me. He thanked me, all shy and sweet, and said he was going to set the basket out of the way.

Some other girls called him over and Jon, Andy, and Nick Murray were all standing around so I pulled out my bag and started handing out silly string. Of course the first thing Mr. Jon Walker does is shake it up and spray silly string all over Nick. Nick looked down at his shirt and got this very kicked puppy look about him. So I handed one to Nick and told him to retaliate. Jon ran off with his can and to some other fans, but he kept spraying people. In a few minutes, he had sprayed Nick, Will (tour manager), Andy, me, Kelsey, Ryan, and some people I didn’t know. Ryan saw his shoulder covered in silly string and proceeded to try to decorate his shoulder with it. I gave Ryan his silly string to retaliate and he forgot to shake it so when he sprayed it on Will it mostly just came out this watery liquid and soaked the guy’s shirt in a spot. FailRoss strikes again.

I asked if I could hug him and I’ve been anticipating hugging that boney kid for quite some time, but you know what? It was like the softest hug I’ve ever gotten. It wasn’t at all like I expected. It was delicate and fragile and soft. It was better than I thought though. Way better.

We saw Nick White and gave him his silly string. We told him the others had some so it was best to be ready to defend himself. He laughed and took it before running off with it in hand. A few minutes later, Ryan and Jon end up by the merch booth and a decent amount of fans gathered to meet them. We gave Jon his choice of the thread bracelets and he chose three of them and then said, “I can braid them together. Want to see me braid them?” He looked around for a moment then held the ends of the three bracelets up to me. “Here, hold these.” he said, so I did and he started braiding them really quickly. “Have you ever had braiding competitions to see who could braid the fastest?” he asked me, but honestly, I’d never even thought of having braid competitions. Apparently, Mr. Walker does this in his spare time or something. We then tied them around his wrist and got him to sign and take a picture with him. We gave him this green glow in the dark bracelet that he was excited about and instantly snapped it so it would glow and put it on. We got pictures with him and left him to the other waiting fans. One of the fans had a Foxy Shazam poster from the venue that had been up advertising the show and Jon drew himself into the picture as a stick figure. Pretty awesome.

We stopped Nick White before his family (who were at the show considering it was a home show for the Georgia boy) got to steal him away. He was awesome enough to sign three of my Bright Eyes liner notes that I had brought with me. I told him my mother was from Georgia and that her maiden name was White and he laughed and said, “Do we have the same mother?!” Pretty sure Nick White and I are unofficially family now. (Edited: Since then, we've found out we're distant cousins for real, but we fondly refer to each other as siblings. He knows us his sisters when he come to a show and we call him our brother so that's cool enough for us.) I asked him how they differentiate between the Nicks usually and he said Nick Murray commonly goes by Nicholas with the band. However, Andy and Will had also said earlier they call Nick Murray “Wildcard” and Will said he called Nick White “Peaches.” Take any of those as you’d like. We gave a glow bracelet to him too and he said, “Oowh, I want a pink one!” Dinosaur Grab-bag result: pterodactyl. It fit nicely into his pocket too with it‘s orangey-yellow head sticking out to confuse people.

Jon was now finished talking to the crowd he had had earlier and so we let him play Dino Grab-bag and he got a stegosaurus that he was quite happy with actually. (I don‘t even know what these guys are going to do with them, but they were too epic not to get them.) Kelsey mentioned his lack of flip flops and he said it had started when they were moving equipment because he has a tendency to tumble over his own feet a bit. He even volunteered to take his shoes off if Kelsey preferred, but the ground was wet a bit where people was tracked things inside so we let him keep them on. He said also something about how they didn’t get to shower as much since they were in a van. I said, “Yeah, and they only have one shower here.” Jon nodded and cringed and said, “And I don‘t want to use it after those dudes have been in there.” He said it like he was a pretty clean little girl and boys were yucky. It was fabulous.

I gave [Ryan] a beaded bracelet. “Owh, it has my name on it,” he remarked, but almost instantly Jon appeared and held out his and said, “I‘ve got one too. Don‘t feel too special.” Ryan deflated a bit, but it was all playful as Jon wondered off again. I asked if it would be okay if he signed my Panic liner notes and he said, “As long as it‘s not their new album.”

Kelsey immediately goes, “Are you going to ask him?” I’d forgotten my question so she had to remind me. “Birthday…”

“Oh yeah,” I remember, “Did you get the flowers I sent you for your birthday?”

Ryan smiled a little. “Yeah, I did. That was you?” he asked, “They came to the studio.” (It was the only address I had found that would reach him and it actually took some stalking in itself.) I told him my mom owned a florist so I got them wired out to California for him. He shrugged a little and looked down and said, “It was nice to get them. Made me feel like someone still cared.” My little Ryan Ross loving heart just broke. How could he think someone didn’t?! And if I remember correctly, all the card with them said was, “Hope your have a great birthday, Ryan! Can‘t wait to hear the new music! -Lindsey”

We let Ryan pick a thread bracelet and he looked over them and picked one that Kelsey had actually made on the way to the show with Ryan specifically in mind. It was turquoise, tan, and dark green and she thought it was so ugly that no one would want it. Ryan held it up to his pale yellow shirt and said, "It matches, see?" Who knew Ryan Ross was concerned with matching clothes?

When we left, our oh-so-awesome mother had parked next to their bus in the back alley (she always parks in that alley at shows so it wasn‘t like she was stalking them for us). We passed the bus and saw Ryan’s gift basket in the front seat and Ryan’s fort thing in the back seat (yeah, it‘s still there..ha!). Anyway, she had parked next to the bus and it was dark enough that they couldn’t see us so we sat there when they came out and packed everything in. My mom was all like, “That‘s Ryan, right? And that‘s Jon? Who is that?” and funnily, “That little guy is 24?!” and she seriously thought Nick Murray was like 14.

Over all, the entire band is humble and sweet and anything but self-absorbed like some people want to make them out to be. Each one thanked us multiple times for coming and for the gifts and for being so nice and everything. Really, they’re great guys. Go see them. Talk to them afterward. You’ll thank yourself. Seriously. Worth every minute.

(Also, the tweets about bracelets, plastic dinosaurs, glow sticks, play-doh, Ryan‘s puppy&kitty coloring book page, and the “vixen” were all gifts we gave them. Seriously, I don‘t ever want to hear about these guys being anything but amazing to fans. THEY.RULE.)

More information from the comments:

By the way I don't think it said it in there but before I left that night I walked past Jon and he was combing his hair with his dinosaur complain that it was all sweaty and curly. What a dork.

Haha...he was complaining about his hair all evening. I had no idea his hair was such a big deal to him. But if he wants to comb his hair with a dinosaur toy, who are we to try to stop him?

oh god @ me being in the bg of your picture with jon... anyway i was gonna tell you that we met jon right after you gave him the bracelets and he spent like ten seconds looking at it saying, "they gave me a bracelet, look!"

– from this Livejournal post

#the young veins #young veins #tyv #ryan ross #jon walker #recap #spring2010 #24032010 #with fans #silly string

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tenebrius-excellium · 2 years ago

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How To Seize A Dragon’s Jewel Liveblog Part 2

I lowkey forgot where I continued listening, I hope I remember everything (I did this over the span of several days)

the professional escape service is such a Camicazi thing to do!!! I’m so happy she makes an appearance and that she’s her usual badass self! Also, Eggingarde makes it out yassssss

Hnnnnghhhh. The scene where Hiccup gives himself up. Where he finally outs himself after a year of being on the run. The way his scrawny looks are described. His growing up and having gotten older. The way he gets surrounded by 200+ swords, which must be an amazing sight to behold, and the way the Witch wants to make sure he doesn’t escape. Everyone scooting after him on their yots (still don’t know how to spell it) as he aimlessly drives across the sand. Lol. It’s hilarious but so in character for the vikings. Stoick and Gobber finally openly supporting and rooting for Hiccup is such a relief too!!! It’s so deserved!!!

AND THEN THAT SCENE. Innocence, Arrogance and Patience my beloved. They shoot lightning. They are black with green eyes, and they are hovering over Hiccup roaring, preparing to kill him, yet sparing him because of his friendship to Fishlegs. The detail of Hiccup almost passing out, gosh, it’s the scene where Toothless pins Hiccup down in the woods! And since the book came out in 2012, this scene was inspired by the og movie!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!! Nevertheless, Cressida stayed true to her own vision and did not blindly copy the movie in return. Props to her for that. Having seen the movie first, it can’t have been easy.

The scene where the dragon gets caught in a trap on the Red Sands, and tells the story of Fishlegs. Oh my gosh Fishlegs. It’s so satisfying and such an oddly specific situation.

SANDBUSTER SANDBUSTER SANDBUSTER SANDBUSTER SANDBUSTERRRRRR

I don’t think the book!monster even gets a name. And it’s one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever heard described in literature. Cressida really loves horror. Welp, I don’t. I loved this book so far, but should I ever come back to it, I will most likely skip this scene.

However, the mirror tunnels were a beautiful sight to imagine!!! The treasures behind glass and Grimbeard’s red herring solved are sooo cool. Wait, I remember this episode in Rtte that dealt with a lot of amber as well. There was a connection to the Deathsong, I believe. To watch those amber/glass walls collapse and rain glorious, deadly splinters down on Hiccup was super satisfying.

Fishlegs!!!! Poor Fishlegs. Again, the description. Of them both being cold, starved, enslaved, unrecognizable stickfigures in rags. Just the amount of things these two have been through together creates a feeling of real brotherhood right there in that cave. Awesome moment.

I personally would have just waited for the tide to withdraw before breaking out of the tunnel and having to swim?? I mean, the whole cool crystal cave got flooded. Plus, the underwater aquarium effect was so unexpectedly wholesome because it fit into the unlikely narrative.

Fishlegs, the runt, gets the coolest dragon!!!! Yass!!! This is such a personally important moment for me, actually. This is why I relate to movie!Hiccup so much. Because the coolest character alive thought he was worth protecting... because of who he already was. This may be a spontaneous emotional dump, but I have longed for the very same thing to happen to me my entire life. But I have not been worth this to someone, so when I became an adult, I had to learn how to be this person for myself. I’m still learning how to be okay with what went down, and that I’m not going to miss out on anything much important because of it.

At this moment in the book, all is well and the narrator literally tells you to take a break, drink a glass of water and consider sharply whether you want to keep going with the story. I took that as my cue to stop for now. There’s still an hour to go. Will do a Part 3.

Thoughts??? I loved this part of the book so much, it was so amazing!!!!

#reddie's liveblog #how to seize a dragon's jewel #httyd books #httyd books fandom

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sunrisetune · 2 years ago

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Censoring certain words here so I don’t accidentally end up in tags or attract any stray Ch-ck P-lnhu-k fans \o/

Just saw someone’s post about liking DE the same way they like F-ght Cl-b, and like, where’s the “Parody requires a clarity of purpose” sign so I can tap it

No but for real, I’ve barely gotten to Wednesday in the game but I have also had the thought that they’re have similar forms and some themes; Harry’s skill checks’ voices vs, “I am Jack’s [whatever the fuck]”, being left behind by a society that doesn’t care about you

I think DE actually succeeds in being a parody of hyper-masculinity though Partly bc as a game driven by your choices, there are options for reacting to situations other than “Ow my masculinity”; you have ways to,,, I don’t like using the word “interrogate” now bc it’s been internet-poisoned the same way I don’t like using ““anti”-literally anything even though it’s a perfectly good prefix,, but ways to interrogate whatever weird bullshit Half-Light is trying to sell you, and dismiss them Also, crucially, there are actually consequences of your actions if you do decide that being entitled and violent is how you want things to go (other than “everyone in your cult thinks you’re the best and coolest and most radical guy ever and you get to sleep with a hot woman”)

And with the second point, it matters that in the game the ones being “left behind” are people who are actually affected by society’s neglect; living in a poor area of a city that’s permanently in disrepair and being surrounded by violence, drug trade, badly upkept housing, it’s hard to tell if they have any medical care, etc. Instead of, like, lower-middle-class white dudes working in offices who decide to be homophobic and violent about it

tldr If you like F-ght Cl-b you’re not allowed to play DE anymore And yes I am making that decision unilaterally for everyone, it is in fact legally binding starting now (/that part’s a joke)

(Bc I got to the post in question through clicking on the ‘more like this’ link on their blog preview -

^ A screenshot from InnuendoStudio’s “Ship of Theseus” video that says, over a greyed-out slide of someone scrolling through tumblr, “woe betide those two travel too far from their dashboards”).

#Do not talk to me about F-ght Cl-b thank you #goose's original poster tag which is for goose #spoilers /#?? Very vaguely? Ask to tag otherwise

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artylo · 3 months ago

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Communicating About Culture is Pointless

I’ve been in a crazed kind of runt the past couple of years. It’s most definitely a ‘me’ kinda problem, so I’m not necessarily looking for sympathy or anything as benign as that. What I want to try and do instead is work through this in a way that ‘you’ (the hypothetical reader) could understand what I could possibly mean by such an inflammatory title.

Every once in a while, I feel the urge to recommend something to someone. Some fragment of culture, be that a song, a film, a video game, a blog post, a video. To do so, I give myself an aneurysm. Because I am so infinitely up my own ass, I feel like there is one abstractly ‘correct’ way to recommend something to someone, and that is usually with what I affectionately call “the bare minimum”. Nothing about the story, nothing about why it’s actually the coolest, most subversive kind of exciting thing ever grace your eyes, nothing about character, nothing about the circumstances in which it was made. As the kids say – no spoilers. However, in my mind, I take it a step further than simply “no spoilers”, and essentially demand that you go into it—preferably immediately, as we stand, here in the hypothetical white void—with nothing more than a name, and only once you come out on the other side of the experience can we have a conversation about it.

There is already a major kink in my thinking, because I imagine most fully formed humans out there, wouldn’t cross-dissolve into a smouldering pile of ash, if someone, on their recommendation, walks into a cinema, knowing that the film they’re about to see has a twist somewhere in it or that it is about some recognisable theme. My distaste for biographical criticism, also makes me unable to directly say that a movie is cool, because it’s directed or written by so-and-so in so-and-so period, despite this obviously being a meaningful addition to the experience for me, and if someone else were to obsess over such marginalia.

In reality, in totality, what I really want to say is: “You should have a look at X.”

If I wanted to make a more risky, personal assumption, I’d probably add an “I think you’ll like it.” or a “I think it’s really rad.”

You might very well think that that seems completely sufficient, but I, from my ivory tower, would leer and say that you have, in fact, wildly misjudged how effective this “bare minimum” is. The bare minimum should be enough, but never is. The crux of the method is that it completely relies on two completely unreliable things – reputation and the recipient’s will. Two factors that would make the average stoic take their own life in abject frustration.

If you’ve gotten this far into this here text, then those two requirements are already in play, in some part. You have already made an assumption on my character and on my intelligence, based off the wording and the menial wit on display in the first three paragraphs, so you’ve already made a value judgement as to whether or not I am genuinely capable of saying anything that is worthwhile to you, of value to your life, and of some use. If you didn’t like me, you wouldn’t have gotten as far as this sentence, and would have gone on to do something else. You have already exerted your will in a feat of patience and/or tolerance to deign reading what I have written, be that out of interest, morbid curiosity, or some other motivator. The same is likely to happen with the hypothetical recipient of a recommendation. The question of “Why should I listen to anything you have to say?” hovers sinisterly over nearly every aspect of inter-personal communication, because it is simply part of its nature.

So how do you overcome that punk-ish sentiment? How do you essentially, convince someone why a cultural fragment is worth experiencing, without saying anything about it; without them convulsing at the thought of taking your word for it?

Most would probably just cave at this point and give them a morsel of information, just to whet the recipient's palette. In a sense, circumventing the cultural fragment’s natural sequence of divulging information, and getting to the good part immediately for the sake of selling yet another valued customer on the gross market opportunity of seeing something they’d like by dangling it like a shiny carrot in front of their famished eyes.

I am of the opinion, that if the recipient, upon hearing my bare-bones recommendation, then goes on to read the abstract, or watch a trailer, I would be somewhat fine, just as long as this act of diminishing their own experience is something they do at their own peril. This sounds slightly self-defeating, considering that the end goal here is, in fact, them seeing the thing you are recommending. However, I want them to see the thing itself, not the marketing that comes along with it. If I wanted this to be an exercise of marketing—which it probably sill is anyway—I would have just shoved a trailer and some exciting pictures in front of their eyes, and be done with it, essentially outsourcing the problem to a third party of admen.

Ironically, the only way to deal with reputation is having one. The reason why people will want to listen to you, is because you’ve said something before and it turned out to be true for them as well. Establishing bona fides is all well and good, but walking up to someone and disclosing your impeccable series of correct guesses on whether or not they’d like the song you’re going to suggest they listen to isn’t necessarily moving in the right direction to achieve “the bare minimum”. In reality the sentence becomes: “As a years-long fan of this kind of thing, and after writing at least 700 pages worth of material on why you and others like you should see the thing, I think this thing is rad and you should see it, because I’ve been right about this kind of thing before.”

Yet, even after you’ve assertively established your credibility and stacked the deck in your favour, you will find that even from a position of authority, you simply can’t make someone do something, just because you said so – even if it is telling them to have fun.

I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve seen someone discover something I’d recommended them half a decade ago, and it’s suddenly a new point of obsession for them. Ideally, I’d be content that they’ve finally seen it, and that it has brought them so much joy; yet, I can’t help but think about that nagging “I told you so”-kind of rhetoric that goes on in my head. It feels like something has been taken from me. I think it has to do with being denied the acknowledgement. In a sense, the reputation that is in part a requirement for recommendations is also part of the reward. The one that recommends, gets to risk gaining or losing reputation with the recipient. By recommending, you gamble on your ability to do so again in the near future. If they kick the can down the road for long enough to where they forget that you made a recommendation to begin with, you simply don’t get to have that conversation that comes after them seeing your thing and you just have to live with it.

You’re simply trapped in the Catch-22 of possibly not saying anything, leading to them not having any real extrinsic motivation to see something, or conversely saying too much, leading to a lesser experience. This isn’t even accounting for the possibility that you could even build said cultural element up so much in their eyes, that it couldn’t possibly ever meet the expectations you set.

So what is the point then? You tell someone about something and they don’t see it – you don’t tell someone about something and they don’t see it. They’re all to busy with all that stuff that makes up life. Just keep all those precious little cultural treasures to yourself and let things be as they will. Is apathy the way out of this? Is becoming a mute, cloistered archive of all things interesting any less maddening that engaging in the psychological warfare of talking about culture?

I can’t help but think that most people nowadays don’t even need a recommendation. Not from other flesh and blood people anyway. They’d rather have the TV play its predetermined schedule for the day, the computer spit out an algorithmically divined selection of things based on their profile in a marketing firm’s database, harvested from internet trackers logging previous internet purchases and regional trends. Curation as a skill itself has widely become devalued. You can almost assume that if someone wants to go out of their way, break the mold, find something that is of interest to them – they will.

The only real way to maybe get someone’s attention nowadays is the rather loose New Journalism approach of talking more about your personal experience of the day leading up to, during, and after having seen the cultural fragment in question. This again, assumes that the reader, listener—what have you—is in fact aware of you as a person, and respects you enough to be interested in how this morning’s breakfast and the late divorce of your parents affected you while experiencing said thing of culture.

It’s kind of a joke, but you know exactly what I mean.

Sentences like “Ah, this movie helped me get through a rough breakup.” do have a certain power, because they don’t necessarily speak to the contents of the thing in question, rather the effect it had on you as a person in a particular circumstance. You can almost assume that recommending Wong Kar-wai’s In a Mood For Love to someone who has just been rejected from someone they loved will in some way resonate with them. The question them becomes in what situations is it OK to bring up things like Godzilla: Final Wars, Bringing Out the Dead, or The Men Who Stare at Goats. You can’t simply walk into someone’s funeral and put a boxed copy of Takashi Miike’s Gokudō kyōfu dai-gekijō: Gozu (Yakuza Horror Theatre: Bull's Head) on the casket for anyone who needs it, regardless of how functionally relevant and pertinent it might be to your dearly departed’s imminent resurrection.

Another way to approach discussing culture in general is to only do it if you and the other party are on equal footing – i.e. you’ve both experienced the cultural fragment at some point and, due to your general familiarity, you can now discuss it at any length you find satisfactory. Maybe this opens the gates to a more direct line of recommendation, which entirely relies on its relevance and close proximity to to the topic at hand. If someone engages you in a conversation about punk rock and mentions liking The Sex Pistols, you can sure as hell mention Amyl and the Sniffers, because it’s the right time and place to do so. This obviously comes with the preset expectations of “Is the thing being recommended even close to being as good as the thing that prompted said recommendation?” Yet another gamble that one must make in a vain attempt to appear cultured and draw parallels in between the arts.

Now we reach another morbid kind of blockade that rears its ugly head – relying on others to be cultured enough to talk about anything. This is obviously an incredibly snobbish assumption, but there is a statistical unlikelihood that two or more people in a given radius have experienced and are willing to talk about one common cultural fragment. This likelihood is obviously directly influenced by the cultural fragment’s recency and wider appeal. The more popular a thing is, and the more recently it has been experienced progressively increases the statistical odds of it entering the cultural zeitgeist and appearing in conversations. As a matter of fact, the more widely popular something is, the more likely it is to be recommended from one person onto another.

This leaves us in the rather precarious situation, where niche and foreign language cultural fragments are essentially delegated the label of “not worth anyone’s time”, and cannot in and of themselves be the seed for communication, simply because the likelihood of both parties having an equal familiarity with the fragment is so infinitesimally small, that it might as well be insulting their intelligence, by suggesting something so wildly out of their purview.

From this, I feel like on could extrapolate the nature of what it means to be cultured as a whole. Three people come to mind: one who is familiar with a large—likely eclectic—number of cultural fragments; one who is familiar with the currently relevant cultural fragments, which comprise the zeitgeist; and one who is intimately familiar with only one aspect of culture, be it one genre, art-form, etc.

I believe that the last one is easiest to be dissuasive of, simply because it could be considered a specialisation or an expertise. There is something borderline academic about someone who devotes themselves to a singular point of focus. Variety is the spice of life, so there must be some allure to subsisting only off of something that will inevitably grow stale and repetitive. This allure is completely unknown to me. Of those kinds of people, out of my own sheer ignorance, I’d say they are very intelligent, but they are not my broad definition of cultured.

The other two are a bit more interesting, because all that really separates them is a knowledge of history. Inevitably, the one who is only in step with the zeitgeist will turn into the other through the natural passage of time. This isn’t to say that all those who eclectically seek all forms of culture were once only interested in what was synchronically relevant, but there may be some behavioural correlation.

Oddly enough, time seems to be a large point of contention. Or rather, more specifically the age of a given cultural fragment. For some there is an invisible line over which they will not cross. As one film crosses the mark of being released forty or so years ago, it seemingly becomes “too old to be enjoyable”. I can somewhat see how the cultural and social sensitivities of the age can disagree, but most people just refuse to indulge in older things on a purely sensory basis – “it doesn’t look as good”, “they talk weird and it’s boring”. Shunned actors, insensitivity over race and gender, exploitation, suffrage – all now, apparently, so deep into the past, that anything that seems to bring them up is cause of distress and discomfort. The growing pains of an art-form, then seen as just the art-form, now revolting and unworthy of being experienced. Trying to talk to someone under the age of 30 about Sunset Boulevard might as well be asking a creature from the space age what the The Paleolithic Age felt like – not because of their inability to have seen and enjoyed it, but due to their sheer unwillingness to even entertain the thought of doing so.

There is genuinely no end to the reasons why you could not be interested in something. It’s infinitely easier to dislike something than to be indifferent about it, doubly so than be positive about the whole shebang. Yet, we do this song and dance, throwing around names of products, authors, trying to in some way elucidate in others the joie de vivre that is having seen or experienced something that provokes the mind and imagination in all sorts of wondrous directions. I wish more people would see the light, that there is more to mindless consumerism than meets the eye.

#essay #rant #literary criticism #culture #conversation #phylosophy

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megheadable-blog-blog · 2 years ago

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Day 4: Motifs

So today I’ve been thinking about various personal motifs. Many writers have them. Tom Robins (Jitterbug Perfume) has redheads. Other authors have other things. A third thing. And I definitely have my own. They’ve changed over the years. Early on, it was trios. If there were sisters, there were three of them. And redheads. I just think red hair is cool. I think as I’ve gotten older my motifs have taken on less symbolism and have become more grounded in whatever issue I’m dealing with. Instead of mystical triplet goddesses, I have the dark-haired feral antihero. The one that holds all the anger and resentment I’ve ever felt. Often paired with the softer, more fluid counterpart. The one that attempts to reassure and care for the feral inner child. This book is no different. I’m still in the brainstorming phase but I’ve already got the main characters. Yes, there is more than one. There are sisters, but only two. A dark-haired embittered witch and her red-haired sister of unknown magical prowess. I’m thinking Yana and Branka. I went with Y and B because the hut they live in resembles Baba Yaga’s hut in that it walks on chicken legs. I’m certain that if I never told another soul, they’d never get it but who knows. Maybe they would. I do love Baba Yaga. I love a character that is self-aware and pops up in several stories. A real witch within the story. And the image of someone trying to travel around in a giant mortar and pestle is ridiculous and rad. Is there a point to it? Not really. Is it the coolest visual ever? Yeah, probably. Plus the chicken house.

Look at this lady. This cannot be the easiest mode of travel but does she care? She does not. She stuffed her body inside this thing and she’s committed. This was the first image of Baba Yaga that I had ever seen from a book of Russian folk tales. I loved folk tales and fairy tales as a kid. I still do really. My favorites were often ones from far away, so divorced from my culture that they seemed almost alien to me which fascinated me more. My mind craved something different, something ancient and foreign, new and strange. That’s probably another motif in my stories. I draw on a lot of folk tales. Not the sanitized ones we tell children now. The ones where you give the hero a skull with eyes that light up and burn people who are mean to them. Off topic, but I also think this is why so many young kids are interested in things like Five Nights at Freddy’s. Somewhere deep within us, we need stories that scare us. We need to practice those emotions and learn how to deal with them. Especially now when the world feels so uncertain and unmeasured.

#day 4 #writing life #writing motifs #baba yaga #writing experiment #writing

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incomingalbatross · 1 year ago

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Part Three: Yes They DID Just Become Best Friends

“Hwoooooh,” Anne breathed out, lying on her back next to Sprig. “Really good thing you had those pain peppers.”

“I know, right?” Sprig pumped his fist in the air. “Vegetables one, monster zero!” He thought this over. “…Never tell Hop Pop. He’d definitely be unbearable.”

“Oh, buddy. I am not telling him anything that happened today.”

“Fair!” They should probably get home soon, honestly. And before that, Sprig should go grab his shirt where it was still abandoned on the shore (he was assuming the giant snake wouldn’t go that far. Probably. If Sprig was sneaky). But before any of that…

“Anne.” He rolled over, staring at the side of her face. He was on her left side, so he couldn’t see her marked shoulder - but he could see his, out of the corner of his eye. “Anne. Anne Anne Anne. Are we - are we really -”

She turned over too, facing him with bright eyes. “Soulmates?” She grinned at him. “Yeah, dude. Pretty sure we are.”

Soulmates. She’d said it out loud, and everything. Sprig and Anne were a real, actual, marked pair of soulmates. Sprig felt his eyes grow wide, his mouth fall open in awe.

“This,” he whispered, “is the coolest thing ever.”

Anne’s smile widened. “It kinda is."

“I mean - ” He sat up, clutching his head. “We’re from different universes! Most people never find soulmates, and we found each other even though we weren’t in the same world? That’s crazy.”

“I know, right?” Anne sat up too, wrapping an arm around her knees. “Oh man, I can’t believe you didn’t notice your soulmark until I literally told you to hold your arm in front of your face.” She was laughing, giddy and delighted. “I was waiting the whole time we were in the water for you to look around and notice it!”

Sprig laughed too, giving her a (light) friendship punch. “I don’t spend a lot of time staring at my own shoulders, Anne!” He paused. “Hey, when did you notice yours?”

“When I was changing into my swimsuit.” Anne looked away, hands on her forearms. “Sorry I didn’t tell you right away, I just…I didn’t know if you guys even had soulmarks? And then when we got in the water…” Her smile snuck back onto her face. “Well, I figured we’d only get to do the reveal once.”

Sprig absolutely got what she was saying. “And you got it on camera!”

“Exactly,” she said. “Though the giant snake is there too, I guess. Talk about photobombers.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Sprig said happily. “Buuuuut…” He fidgeted, then burst out, “CanIseeyoursoulmark? I still haven’t gotten a good look at either of them and I’m SO curious oh my gosh Anne I gotta see.”

“Oh yeah absolutely!” Anne hastily turned all the way around, so her right shoulder was next to Sprig’s and they were facing in opposite directions. “Can I see yours? I tried to take a pic of my earlier but I could not get a good angle, so I’ve only seen, like, half of it.”

“For sure!” Sprig chirped. “…Soulmate.”

She cackled, shoving up her sleeve and moving to take his right arm in her hand. “This is wild.”

And then Sprig stopped paying attention because he was zoned all the way in to the design on her shoulder - vivid color standing out against her weird, dry skin.

It was three or four inches across, in a light, bright sky blue. The design was surprisingly simple: two intertwined letters, a B and a P, both outlined in a slightly darker shade of the main color and surrounded by a circle of what looked like woven leaves.

Sprig poked it. The texture felt slightly different than the rest of Anne’s skin - smoother, maybe, or a tiny bit softer. He ran his fingers over it, poking and pushing just a little to see if he could pin it down.

Anne poked his shoulder. He looked up to see her examining his mark, too - but as soon as he looked up, she met his eyes, and grinned.

“Whaddaya think?” she asked.

“Cool!” he said immediately. “Weird.” He poked it once more. “I mean, obviously, it’s basically magic.” That got it both cool and weird points. “The mark’s…well, it’s a little…” He hesitated.

“Boring?” Anne supplied.

“Yeah, that!” The P looked like the one from the sign on their house, which was kinda cool, and identifying the plants could be fun, but it was mainly just letters. “What does the B stand for?”

“Boonchuy, I guess. It’s my last name.” Anne poked Sprig’s shoulder again. “You’d think it would at least be our first names, right? We’re the soulmates, not our families. We’re Anne and Sprig! Sprig and Anne!”

“Anne-Sprig,” Sprig agreed. “Sprig-Anne…OOH.” He felt his eyes go wide. “Spranne.”

Anne, shockingly, looked doubtful. “I mean…”

“Aw c’mon, you don’t like it? It expresses our deep soulmate bond, though!” He made his eyes go wobbly and looked up at her. “Would you like…Annig better? Asprig?”

She burst out laughing. “Okay, geez, put the puppy eyes away,” she said. “And no, actually. Spranne is good. Spranne works.” She smiled at him.

“Yay!” Sprig cheered. “…Wait. What’s a puppy?”

Anne, very suddenly, looked devastated.

Then, in a haunted whisper, she said, “I have so many videos you need to see.”

“That…sounds cool,” Sprig said cautiously. “Oh! But we should probably get back to the house first. Y’know, so Hop Pop doesn’t find out we almost got eaten.”

“YES! Good idea.” She pointed at him. “Lead the way, bud.”

He hopped to his feet, already heading back to grab his shirt, when something occurred to him. “You know what else we need?” Not waiting for an answer, he spread his hands out dramatically. “Special soulmate secret handshake.”

She gasped. Extremely seriously, she said, “You are the smartest person in the world.”

Then she paused a beat, and beamed at him. “Soulmate.”

Sprig jumped in the air. “Spranne! For! Life!”

“YEAH! Spranne for the win!”Sprig couldn’t believe, as he hopped toward home, that he’d come out here just hoping to get a friend. Now he had Anne.

Amphibia Platonic Soulmates AU Pt 1

(Draft)

I wrote a short intro for this AU and want to share it A) for itself and B) as an experiment to see if this makes me more motivated to write the next part. :P So here it is!

(If you read it and are up for commenting, I'd be interested to hear if the soulmate concept here seems intelligible. Hard to judge how much of the stuff in my head I put down on paper, especially from the POV of someone who considers it normal.)

---

At school, they’d been constantly doodling soulmark designs, drafting new variations on napkins and notebook pages, drawing them in marker on the backs of their hands (which wasn’t super realistic but was visible) and on each other’s shoulders (less convenient, but more like the real thing). It was the cool thing for all the girls in school to do with their best friends, but Sasha had come up with it first.

“It so doesn’t matter if we’re, like, fated soulmates,” she’d said one day at the start of middle school, sketching on top of her math notes during lunch. “We can make our own decisions, right? And show everyone else exactly who they’re dealing with.”

“That’s so cool, Sash!” Anne had agreed, leaning forward to look at her images. Marcy had beamed and nodded vigorously, already working away with her own pencil on design ideas.

Since then, they’d gone through dozens of “official” three-person soulmate marks - cheerleading pompoms, tennis rackets, dice, skateboards, musical clefs, names in English and Mandarin and Thai - drawn on their notebook covers, doodled during classes, sketched on their skin like the real thing. They’d do each other’s shoulders at every sleepover, letting the marks linger until the permanent marker wore off.

Every design had to be approved by Sasha before they put it on anywhere visible, of course - she had the best ideas - and usually the specifics were finalized by Marcy (“Your designs are just too…cutesy, Anne, we don’t wanna look like little kids”). But Anne had the steadiest hands in applying the marker.

“And we have to keep working on it,” Sasha would always remind them. “We want something really cool, really us, by the time we’re eighteen, right? Then we can finally get tattoos and they’ll never wear off.”

Anne…had maybe felt a little uneasy about that. Not that she didn’t want to! It sounded super cool! But the one time she’d mentioned it at home, her parents had looked disapproving in an uncomfortable way, and her mom had said gently, “Are you sure that’s something people should do for themselves? Soulmate marks are special, Anne, and if that’s not exactly what you have with your friends, I don’t think it would be right to pretend you do.”

But like…Shasha was right. Soulmates weren’t so super-rare that they had to be treated like some sacred thing! Soulmarks marked out people who were made to be your other halves, your kindred spirits, but not everyone had those. (Or at least they didn’t meet them, but the odds were way against you either way, so basically same diff.) And wasn’t it just as valid to have a mark for the people you’d chosen as your kindred spirits? The people you’d built those close bonds with by yourself, instead of by weird destiny-magic?

Anne thought it checked out, anyway. And Sasha and Marcy definitely did, and they were her best friends, and that was basically just as important as soulmates. To the three of them, anyway.

And then Anne got zapped to Amphibia (Sasha’s fading marker design still clear on the back of her hand), and met a little pink frog boy whose life she had to save, and who saved her life, and called her a hero and got her a place to sleep that wasn’t a cave…

And the day after meeting him, she was changing into her swimsuit, when she saw a funny patch of color on her skin out of the corner of her eye. A patch of bright blue, on her right shoulder…right where soulmarks were supposed to go.

"HUH."

---

Next time: "Did we just become best friends??"

#this is honestly pure fluff #is it a GOOD thing they're getting along perfectly? i mean sprig is enabling anne some of the time so #but it's fine they'll grow! and in the meantime Agreeing On Everything is making them both happy :P #next time i add an installment to this it will probably be a new post #(and i should MAYBE think about putting this on ao3. not to jinx my productivity but we'll see)#amphibia #my writing

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greenjudy · 2 years ago

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TROP notes

Some of these are love notes. Some are responses to criticism. Some of them are spoilers through ep 7, so proceed with caution.

-I still cannot wrap my head around why there is so much volcanic rage and hatred and contempt being spewed onto this vehicle. It’s not the best thing I’ve ever watched, ever (possibly the 2012 version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, or maybe the 2003 anime Ping Pong), but in many respects I like it better than the PJ films.

-This weird memey new critique “The writing is bad” seems to have gained currency on Twitter over the last few days, but I do not find it borne out by repeated viewing.

-As I see the writing, there are a few places where the wagon wheels leave the road entirely, but not that many. 1) I thought that even the Stranger repairing the orchard wouldn’t necessarily have earned him the trust of the Harfoots at the level they demonstrated it, so that turn felt a little abrupt. 2) Disa’s ambition could have used some foreshadowing and preparation in earlier episodes. 3) Tar-Miriel’s real position about elves needed a little shoring up in a similar manner earlier on.

-In general, I find the writing quite nuanced. Elrond’s character is outstanding. On the evidence of his writing alone, I am prepared to meet an equally complex Celebrimbor when we get back to this dude. Although I adore the dynamic of her character, Galadriel’s writing is not, I think, quite the triumph that Elrond’s is (Elrond is very obviously a proxy for one or even both of the showrunners; I do not mean this as a criticism, just an observation), but Morfydd Clark has done great, great things with the material.

-By the way, maybe Galadriel isn’t actually assuming responsibility for the eruption of Mount Doom? I’ve seen criticism that she shouldn’t know how the Key works and what it did.

I personally think there are two layers to her asserting that it’s her fault. First, maybe she is saying she should have bagged Sauron by now, and the fact that he and his minions are wreaking havoc is on her.

I am more inclined, based on how the scenes feel in the last 2 episodes, that she’s in fact assuming responsibility for the people she drove to undertake this catastrophic mission. This is different than saying, “I should’ve gotten Sauron by now.” Instead, I think it’s this very intense quest for revenge that is starting to come under scrutiny inside her soul. Her vendetta has proven extraordinarily destructive. I feel she’s taking stock, in a deadly serious way, with where she’s been left. She is now looking in the mirror, as advised by Adar.

So I loved the final shots of Ep 6 where we see her looking steadily into the chaos unfolding before her. And I love the way she interacts with Theo and opens up to him in Ep 7. We might call these preliminary steps on a journey to the Galadriel whose mirror can show what was, what is, and what may yet come to pass.

-There is nothing reasoned or sensible about virulently hating on this show because it ‘breaks the lore’. Tolkien broke his own lore. There are no rules about stuff like this actually. Maybe in video games, because player agency can get banjaxed if the lore is inconsistent. But not in fiction. Dude, the writer is making constant adjustments to the lore. Some of them are chiropractic; some are apocalyptic.

-Adar is one of the coolest and most interesting villains I’ve ever seen, enabling us to take up, in real time, the kinds of questions that must have plagued King Elessar at the opening of the Fourth Age. “Uruk,” indeed.

-The ‘who is Sauron’ question is being rather deftly handled. He is pre-eminently a shape-shifter at this point. I like how they have put a few character beats into place to make you really wonder (**cough cough Halbrand the smith**).

-The vibe: the Harfoots scenes, so far, are some of my favorite views of Second Age Middle-earth. Poppy’s song is glorious.

-I was not in theory happy about the Galadriel-Halbrand ‘romance.’ As it’s playing out, though, I think their relationship is marvelous.

-To me, the Stranger might be the most concise expression of the deep melancholy at the heart of this show. The Second Age is anguish layered on top of anguish, tragedy on top of tragedy. And all of it is in the Stranger’s face: his yearning to do something positive, his shock and sorrow at the malevolent effects his good intentions have when they go to work on the world.

#trop #rings of power

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tsuki-chibi · 2 years ago

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MayBee Queen 2022 Day 21: Redemption

Read on AO3 instead

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“I just need to – noooooooooooo!” Nino’s wail of anguish made Chloé grin. She watched in triumph as their battle ended, and her character was proclaimed the winner.

“Suck it, Lahiffe,” Chloé said smugly. “You just can’t win.”

“Ugh, this sucks!” Nino said, throwing his hands up. “I can’t believe you keep winning!”

“It’s because I’m better than you. Both in real life and in a video game,” Chloé said, grinning. Alya snorted and both Adrien and Marinette laughed as Nino pouted.

“I have to admit, I’m not a big video game person but this is the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time. I never expected them to make a video game based off of us,” said Alya, picking up the cover. It showed a cartoon version of Ladybug and Chat Noir, but the video game included all the heroes. Actually, it even included some brand-new heroes with miraculous that didn’t even exist.

Chloé had gotten her hands on an advanced copy, having purchased it the moment that Marinette had called to tell her about it. The second she picked up the package, she’d headed straight to Marinette’s house. She wasn’t a huge video game person either, but watching an adorable cartoon version of Queen Bee kicking the butt of a cartoon version of Carapace was incredibly fun.

“I wanna go again,” Adrien declared, getting up.

“Yes! Go against Chloé! I need redemption!” Nino said, jumping up.

“Pass. I need to pee. Marinette? Alya?” Chloé offered her controller up, unsurprised when Marinette grabbed it and sat down next to Adrien. The two of them were by far the most competitive of the group, and Chloé fully expected the battle to be long and hard.

So she was unsurprised that it was still going when she returned from the bathroom. Both Adrien and Marinette had chosen new heroes: Adrien’s character had a Swan miraculous, and Marinette’s character had a panther miraculous. Despite the theoretical edge that a panther would have, Adrien still won by a slim margin.

“Yeah! That’s my man!” Nino said, clapping Adrien’s shoulder. “Redeeming your best bro. You rock.”

“Uh, I don’t think it can be considered redemption if Adrien wasn’t playing as Carapace,” Alya pointed out.

Nino frowned at her. “Rude. Adrien, play again as Carapace and redeem me.”

Adrien shook his head. “Sorry, but I gotta go. I have a thing to go to tonight.” He made a face as he spoke, making it clear that this thing wasn’t his idea.

“Oh right, the party,” Chloé said, vaguely remembering her father mentioning something along those lines. The mayor had asked if Chloé could be there, which meant that there had to be some journalists attending tonight too. Her father only ever wanted her around when there were ‘family’ photos to be taken.

“What’s the party for?” Marinette asked, and Adrien and Chloé looked blankly at each other.

“Someone’s… birthday?” Adrien said at last, clearly just guessing.

Chloé shrugged. “No idea.”

“Sounds fun. Shame we weren’t invited,” Alya said dryly.

“Well, one of us doesn’t have to go,” Chloé began.

Adrien reached over and grabbed her arm, looking at her with pleading eyes. “You wouldn’t leave your oldest and dearest friend there alone, would you?”

“I suppose not,” Chloé said, rolling her eyes. “Guess that means I’m out too. Your redemption will have to wait.”

Marinette reached over and took the video game cartridge out of her system. She put it back into the case and tried to hand it to Chloé, but Chloé shook her head and waved her off.

“Keep it.”

“What?” Marinette said, shocked. “Chloé! I can’t do that.”

“Sure you can. I don’t even have a console to play it on. So you might as well keep it.” Chloé shrugged. Adrien could easily get his own copy, but she was conscious of the fact that the video game hadn’t been cheap. It seemed unlikely Marinette would be able to get her own copy anytime soon.

“But…” Marinette still looked stuck somewhere between shock and joy.

“Good. That means we can battle again, and I can earn my own redemption,” Nino said, pointing a finger at Chloé.

Chloé just rolled her eyes at him. “Bring it. Queen Bee will happily kick your butt any day.”

#miraculous ladybug #chloe bourgeois #adrien agreste #marinette dupain-cheng #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #maybeequeen2022

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motownfiction · 2 years ago

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not a lot to give

Sam wishes his mother would leave three things alone: the Coke cans in his corner of the basement, the loose thread on her old favorite winter coat, and this idea that Sam isn’t living up to his full potential.

She says it to him all the time. When he brings home a C on a paper he should have gotten an A on, but he turned it in two weeks late. When he falls asleep during the mock-up psychology class at the Wayne State open house. When he skips SAT prep to wait in line for Billy Joel tickets. It’s always the same thing out of her.

You’re not living up to your full potential. With all your brains and talent, you’re not living up to your full potential.

It’s useless to argue with her now. Sam used to do it all the time. He’d stand his ground and snap, “And what am I supposed to be, Mom? A doctor? A lawyer? A suit-wearing CEO of a company that steals from people who think I’m making their lives better?” She’d always shake her head and say something like, “You could be more than a 7-Eleven cashier.”

Sam sighs thinking of the way the fight would go. It was always the same, practically the chorus to a bad pop song.

What’s wrong with 7-Eleven cashiers? They sure help you get those Sno Balls you think you’re hiding from us.

That’s exactly what I mean! You’re smart enough to figure out I buy Sno Balls at 7-Eleven, even though I’ve never told you!

I just have to look in the trash.

But not everybody thinks about how to look around! Sam, you have such a brilliant mind. Such a way of looking at the world. Are you really going to work at 7-Eleven for the rest of your life because it’s easier?

Sam would never answer the question. He’d just march down to his room, where he is right now. It’s been a little while since he and his mother fought like that. A month and two days, when Sam thinks about it. He’s pretty good at remembering the dates he wants to remember. Tonight, he’s lying on his bed, listening to “You’ll Lose a Good Thing” and staring at the ceiling because he overheard his mother on the phone with one of her distant friends, somebody from high school, back when she was star-of-the-show Maggie Brady, back before she fell in love with Mike Doyle, the coolest guy in the world (as far as Sam’s concerned). Maggie was talking like a Christmas card.

Mike and I are redoing the bathroom floor. Sadie’s getting straight A’s at Michigan, and she’s got the sweetest boyfriend. Charlie’s playing ‘O Holy Night’ at the Christmas pageant. Big centerpiece of the show. He’s got a beautiful girlfriend now, too. And Sam … you know, I was listening to him talk about some Star Wars movie with his friend the other day, and the things he notices … things nobody else would ever see. I just wish he knew there’s more he can do with his talents than just squander them.

His hands tremble when he remembers all those things she said. She means well. Mom always means well. But it’s like she can’t hear herself when she speaks (and worse, she can’t hear him). He closes his eyes and thinks back to the summer of ‘82, between ninth and tenth grade. In the middle of June, Lucy spent two weeks over in Ann Arbor, living in a dorm, writing and studying fiction with some hotshot English professors. Part of some summer program for high school geniuses. Almost impossible that any rising sophomore would get in. But she did. Lucy was always getting into things like that. When she came back to her friends two weeks later, she talked a lot about the criticism. The way people stared at her work and made every word feel like a question. She said there were times she thought about giving up. Times she was scared. Sadie said she couldn’t believe it. She didn’t think Lucy was afraid of anything. But Sam still remembers the look he gave her (and the look that she returned). To be talented is to be tortured.

So, he’s been trying to convince everybody – his parents, his siblings, and all of his friends – that whatever his potential is, it’s not a lot to give. It can’t be. He doesn’t want it.

His hands tremble in time with Barbara Lynn on the stereo.

(part of @nosebleedclub october challenge -- day xi!)

#drabble #writeblr #ch: sam doyle #ch: maggie doyle #year: 1986 #once again i have gone overboard

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violenceenthusiast · 4 years ago

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ok i had a thought that makes me wanna dip my head in acid but in a soft way...

dean and claire having a father/daughter saturday of fun and low-grade mischief, going to an arcade and joke-fighting over what stuffed animal to get with their tickets and getting slushies and while they’re taking a break to grab burgers claire says “yknow i’ve been meaning to go get- wanna come with me while i get a new piercing??”

and dean pinches in the direction of her ear a little and says “what, you don’t have enough of those already?” as if he doesn’t think they’re the coolest thing.

she waves him off, eyes flicking between the burger in her hands and the table “i don’t know i just thought it’d be something else fun to do today.”

dean’s only half teasing when he asks “you want me there to hold your hand?”

claire rolls her eyes and looks to the side with half a smile, “oh shut up.” but it’s true, she does want him there to hold her hand– she may be a hardcore hunter who will take a knife cut or a monster bite in stride, but she always gets a little nervous before each piercing. maybe having dean there will make it just a little more manageable.

––

they get to the studio and claire signs the forms, picks out her jewelry, takes a seat to wait while they get ready for her. dean is pacing, looking carefully in each case, at each display. the nice person behind the counter sees him looking and asks “did you want to get something pierced today too?” claire cracks a smile at that and dean looks up at the counter clerk a little wide-eyed, eyebrows raised and mouth half open in surprise, huffs out a breath and looks down as half a nervous smile pulls at the left side of his mouth. he sticks one hand in his pocket and gives one wave with the other as he says “ha. nah, no- just here for her today” as he gestures at claire. he goes to sit with her until the piercer calls them back to the room that’s set up for them.

claire is getting a conch piercing and it’s going more easily than usual- partly because dean is there with her, partly because there are shockingly few nerve endings in the middle of the ear cartilage, and partly because the woman doing the piercing is insanely pretty and insanely good at what she does (she used to be a phlebotomist so she knows a little something about blood, needles, nervousness, and a given person’s propensity for fainting). while the piercer is busy marking the ear, claire looks over at dean in his chair and unable to contain the question any longer asks him, “you ever thought about getting a piercing?”

“me? nah.. it’s just not- i mean they would’ve gotten ripped out for sure by some- by accident.” he was about to say ‘by some monster’ but caught himself before he really weirded out the nice piercer woman. he hadn’t thought about him and piercings in a long time. he had slowly stopped wearing even rings and bracelets as much over the years in case they got caught on something during a hunt (though now he had a new ring on his left hand that he never took off). a piece of jewelry actually in the body was even more of a ridiculous idea for a hunter. but he wasn’t a hunter any more, not really. hadn’t been for about a year. after chuck and getting cas back safe and human.. with sam and eileen running their witchy little hunter hub from the bunker.. it had just seemed like his opportunity and his time to break out of it all. wow okay in that split second he trailed so far off from where he started.. where did he start? ...piercings! right. he remembers being young and not being able to take his eyes off the men in bars with the metal glinting in their ears, noses, lips.. now he knew the staring had been more about the men than the jewelry but it hadn’t not been about the jewelry either. was this one of those things he got to think about now, again, for the first time in a lifetime?

claire takes a moment to make sure she isn’t woozy any more and gets up to go look in the mirror at her new adornment. she smiles and dean snaps out of his own little world to say “you like it?”

she looks at him through the mirror “love it.” and then, mischievous, “your turn.”

“my turn??”

“oh absolutely.” a moment of raised eyebrows and incredulous silence then, “if you decide you hate it you can just take it out. c’mon i saw your face, you want one you can’t hide from me.”

she’s right. he protests weakly, but she knows him all too well at this point and she’s right and the goading from the piercer only encourages her.

“okay okay fine. but nothing too showy.”

they decide on a rook. it’s not too prominent but it’s definitely there, definitely unique, it will look okay on it’s own if he never gets another piercing, and if he has to jump in on an odd hunt it’s far enough into the ear that it would be hard for it to get caught on anything or ripped out. dean picks a simple, stainless steel piece with a lapis lazuli setting– blue for his husband (though if you asked him he would deny that’s why he chose it. but only at first).

he can’t believe how jittery he is about the whole thing, but this time claire holds his hand. it’s over before it’s begun and he thought it might be painful like the tattoo was, or like any of the number of painful little things that have happened to him over the years but it’s not, it mostly just feels strange. it’s nice to be surprised like that.

dean hops off the bench like claire did and goes to the mirror half expecting to hate what he sees. but he’s surprised for the second time in barely a minute. the glint of the metal in his ear doesn’t just look good, it looks right. like it was meant to be there and he had been awaiting it’s arrival but didn’t know it. something hard to name, something small, something he didn’t know was missing until he found it had just found its way to him, slotted into place and settled in his ribs. he feels quieter but also on fire– like he’d be satisfied to just sit and read a book, like he could face god and win (again).

from behind him claire asks, “like it?”

he smiles. “love it.”

––

they kick around for a little while longer, each of them forgetting about their new piercings until they catch sight of the other’s or until they catch their reflection in a shop window and take a second to admire the newness. eventually claire begrudgingly admits she has to get back to campus to get some work done. dean drops her off at her dorm with a hug and a “stay out of trouble”.

dean makes the drive home to cas, just lost enough in happy thoughts and memories from the day that he forgets to put on any music until he’s already half way home.

he gets to the house and finds cas watering the plants in the living room. he leans in the doorframe, watching his love gently tend to each plant in turn. dean doesn’t say anything, he knows cas knows he’s there and will greet him when he’s finished seeing to his darlings. in the meantime dean gets to delight in the sight of the curve of cas’ back as he bends this way and that to reach the plants, the delicate and reverent care he shows each leaf and vine.

cas finishes his routine, sets the water down and turns to greet dean. he freezes half way to saying hello because something is.. something.. something is... he can’t put a name to it, nothing is wrong but dean is.. shifted. not different.. but different. dean is holding his head oddly turned to the side and it doesn’t help either that dean is smiling around a secret and they both know it. cas narrows his eyes but brushes off the feeling long enough to cross the room and give dean a kiss, quick but whole and familiar. dean turns his head to look at a plant and ask a question about it and “accidentally” reveal his new addition. cas, who hasn’t taken a single step backwards since coming over to kiss dean, of course sees the jewelry immediately and exclaims before dean even has a chance to start his made-up question.

after some very amusing joke-yelling from both sides, it’s revealed that cas just absolutely loves it. and not that dean was worried cas would hate it but dean was a little worried cas would hate it. or worse, that he would judge it. but cas loves that dean tried something new, loves that he chose something blue, loves that dean seems just that little bit more at home in himself. and from the slight blush in his cheeks and ears, dean can tell cas thinks it’s a little bit sexy too.

––

dean keeps thinking about how much he liked getting a piercing. he gets it on a fundamental level now, gets claire and her array of silver and gold. he’s got the taste for it now, the itch. he’s thinking about going back for another one. or two. but what else, what next? he cheekily wonders about picking based on what would drive cas wild.

...dean goes back in secret a month and a half later to get his nips pierced. it doesn’t stay secret for long. not from cas, at least.

#dean winchester #claire novak #dad dean #bi dean #destiel fanfic #destiel #retired dean #supernatural #spn fic #spn fluff #finale fix it #saileen mention #dean can have a little gender euphoria as a treat #gay angel but make him more jewish #1.7k words #ok maybe i need to follow more spn blogs i only have like 5 rn #anyone wanna guess how many piercings i have based solely on reading this fic lmao #fern posting

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xaharadesert · 3 years ago

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Immortal MC & Reincarnated LI - Headcanon Pt 1

Arcana Characters (Julian, Portia, Lucio) x MC

A/N: This one is another request from the lovely @firefly-child! The premise is pretty much exactly what the title of this post entails— an immortal MC who’s first lover (the LI of your choosing) is reincarnated every time they die! It takes about 20 or so years for MC to find them every time they’re reincarnated, and they have no memory of their past lives. This time, they’ve met in Vesuvia, and LI is about to find out the whole truth! For the sake of continuity, MC is the “never-aging” kind of immortal, and can die. This is set after they completely regain their memories, probably a couple years after the main plot.

Also, thank you for everyone who has been patient about my absence! I lose motivation easily, and with my summer reading assignment finally arriving, I was pretty preoccupied. Actual school is starting up soon as well, and seeing as this is my final year of grade school, I’ll likely be really busy. Regardless, this is my second to last request in my inbox, even though I’ve divided it into two parts to hopefully motivate me. Please feel free to send in a request, and please let me know if there are any spelling or grammar mistakes!

TW: mentions of death

❤️Julian❤️

Okay, so magic in general is something that Julian had always been skeptical about

But immortality? That’s a whole new level of disbelief

It’s not that he doesn’t trust you, that’s just… a bit much for him to comprehend all at once

It would take a while for him to come to terms with it, but he warms up to the idea faster if you’re the type of person to tell stories about your past adventures

As someone who has traveled around the world himself, hearing new perspectives on the old folk tales he had heard during his adventures certainly opens his eyes to new possibilities

When he realizes that your knowledge is probably far greater than any other living beings he would be relentless in asking every question he could possibly think of

Even if you never actually bothered to learn much about any particular subject in your past, even a small scrap of seemingly inconspicuous information could lead to a major breakthrough (or so Julian claims)

So imagine his surprise when you add on the fact that Julian himself used to have the same knowledge and experiences himself

Again, the idea that reincarnation was part of the cycle of life for ordinary mortals was… a lot to process

If coming to terms with your immortality was hard for him, this would be near impossible

He doesn’t mean to offend you, but are you sure that he’s a reincarnation? What if you’re simply projecting your grief and creating a delusion to cope with your loss? Again, he doesn’t ask these questions to offend you, he just can’t accept the fact that he had lived previous lives

Out of all the LIs, Julian would be the most likely to reject the idea of being a reincarnation of your first love

Once again, it wasn’t out of malevolence, he just couldn’t understand— there were too many questions to ask

Was every human reincarnated? Would you be reincarnated if you died? But you did die, and you were brought back, so how did that happen? How did you manage to continue finding him every lifetime? If he looked the same as he did in his original life, how come he had never come across his own adventures or discoveries in some book?

Another, more malicious voice in his head asked another question— were you really in love with him? Or were you in love with the person you had expected him to be?

The two of you would need quite a few heart to hearts to sort through these questions and feelings, although you may not have an answer to every one

In the end, Julian might never completely accept the fact that he was a reincarnation of your first love (seeing as he had to memories to prove it), but it didn’t make him love you any less

The two of you would be happy together for as long as he would live, and then you would be happy together in his next life, whether he believed it or not

🧡Portia🧡

Going back to what I’ve said in previous posts about an immortal MC, Portia is 100% of the mindset that your immortality is the Coolest! Thing!! Ever!!!

She has no trouble believing you about that part, because honestly, the more magic surrounds her, the happier she is

A large part of her had always wanted as much magic in her life as possible, even if Julian had always insisted there was no such thing, and every time you revealed a bit more of your abilities to her, she only seemed to become more excited

She loves hearing about your past, especially any magical adventures you may have gone on

And when you finally reveal to her that she’s a reincarnation of your first lover?

She is beyond ecstatic

Of course, her first question is about whether or not she had magic in one of her past lives, and if so, can you please teach it to her again?

She wants to know everything about herself and her past lives with you, as long as you’re willing to tell her

Portia, as someone who firmly believes in soulmates, thinks that yours is the greatest and most epic love story ever now, thank you very much

In all honesty, after finding out that she’ll be reincarnated once she dies, she becomes a bit more reckless, so you’ll need to remind her that even though her soul will always return, her memories won’t

She tries to be a bit more careful after that

Emphasis on tries

There are a couple of moments when she feels sad that she can’t fully recall her past with you

She feels as though the two of you will always be a bit out of sync, seeing as you will always know more about her than she does of you

You’ll need to try your best to help her sort through these feelings, because she may try to simply repress them otherwise

But even with occasional doubts, Portia is thrilled to know that she has the most magical soulmate to ever exist

💛Lucio💛

Lucio wouldn’t doubt your immortality for a second, and probably wouldn’t wait any more than that before announcing it to everyone he met

Everyone had to know that you were the most magical, most amazing, most brilliant person to ever exist

He would not hesitate to tell grand stories about your adventures to anyone who would listen, often describing the two of you together in battle

You would have to gently remind him that no, most of the stories he told were not true

You’ll have to forgive him for that, he may have gotten a bit carried away with the excitement of having an immortal partner

However, this won’t stop him from aggrandizing whatever tales you do tell

It doesn’t matter how exciting or boring your life has been, when he repeats what you’ve told him to others, he always makes everything seem infinitely more wondrous than it actually was

Now, you will have had to wait a bit before telling him any more, seeing as he’s a bit overexcitable, so it may be quite a while before you continue on to tell him that he’s a reincarnation of your first love

Now that? That makes him short-circuit a bit

Obviously he had always known that he was amazing and incredible and the best at everything— but now you’re telling him that he can return from the dead?

You’ll have to remind him that no, that’s not quite how it works, because he forgets his past lives whenever he’s brought back

He has the same soul, but he’s not necessarily the same person

This seems to disappoint him a bit, but once you reassure him that you’ll love him in every lifetime, he seems to perk up

Of course you would love him, he’s perfect no matter who he is

He wants you to tell him everything you know about who he was in the past

You’ll probably have to be a bit selective about what you say though, seeing as his pride is more easily wounded than he’s willing to admit

Lucio especially loves to hear about the good things he’s done, his more selfless acts

Knowing that he used to be a good person makes him feel as though redemption is more achievable, although he’d probably never admit that out loud

He’s not one to be insecure about how your current relationship compares to your previous ones— he’s confident in the magic of soulmates, and that the two of you are a perfect match in any lifetime

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reliablejoukido · 2 years ago

Note

Do you play Digimon games (either in English or Japanese) If so, which is your favorite?

So Cyber Sleuth/Hacker’s Memory are the first and only Digimon games I’ve ever played! Cyber Sleuth (and Arata especially) stole my heart. Having never played a Digimon game and starting with that one…. I can’t explain how much actually HAVING Digimon as a team meant to me. I grew up playing Pokémon but WISHING I could be a Digidestined… so I don’t know why I never picked up a Digimon game until the year 2019. I swear I cried at just the tiniest little cute things that happened in Cyber Sleuth. Plus Those games for real have some of the coolest looking areas to explore and the music slaps. It’s been a long time since I was so fond of a game.

I never finished Hacker’s Memory (only got halfway through) and then I restarted again maybe 6 months ago and still haven’t gotten far. I like it a lot and I really want a reason to pick it back up honestly

Thanks so much for asking! I’ll be picking up Digimon Survive for sure, though I’m a little concerned about it, because I’m not used to that type of gameplay

#video games;#Digimon games;#digimon cyber sleuth #asks;

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weasleylangs · 4 years ago

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bunny rabbits & a clover patch - g.w

Pairing: George x Fem!Reader Summary: All the times Y/N and George spent their days in the clover patch next to her house. Warnings: Minor character death (Y/N’s mother, it’s in the second paragraph), I guess a mention of the war but it’s like one or two lines and it’s super brief like blink and you’ll miss it. Word Count: 4.8k

A/N: A huge thank you to @whiz-bangs78 who sent me this ask for a made up title game that inspired his entire fic (although I changed the title a smidge)! Requests are open and constructive criticism is always appreciated! This is my new baby, my most favourite thing I’ve ever written so please be nice

Please let me know if you’re interested in being added to a tag list!

-----------------------------

Y/N is five years old when she moves from the bustling city of Bristol to the quaint, little magical village of Ottery St. Catchpole. She’s just now starting to get her magic, little spurts here and there. Recently she dropped a ball down the stairs of the townhouse she and her dad live in and she somehow levitated it for two seconds before it slammed into a mirror and broke it.

Y/N’s dad is a muggle, her mother was a witch and unfortunately passed shortly after she was born. Being a single dad is hard, and being the single dad to a witch when you’re a muggle is even harder, so her dad did the only logical thing he could think of.

He knew his late wife dreamed of raising Y/N surrounded by magic, to give her the childhood she never had. Y/N’s mother was an extremely gifted muggle-born witch and she wanted nothing more than to raise her children with magic in tow. So when Y/N started to exhibit magical symptoms, he reached out to some of his late wife’s friends to find the best magical village in England. If it was magic she wanted, it was magic she was going to get.

That’s how he ends up here, in a tiny cottage for two on the outskirts of the village.

He looks down at the piece of paper in his hand. It’s the address of the ‘nicest wizarding family you will ever meet’ and it turns out it’s the house on the plot of land next to his own. Scrawled in messy handwriting is the name Arthur and Molly Weasley.

He’d gotten the note from a friend, someone who works at the ministry with Arthur. He can’t provide a magical childhood for his daughter, but he hopes the lovely family that resides next to him in Ottery St. Catchpole can.

They’ve only just moved in when there’s a knock at the door. Y/N screams in excitement as her dad opens the door and she’s met with a pudgy looking woman with fiery red hair and two identically looking boys next to her. One of the boys is missing his two front teeth in the bottom row, grinning widely and the other boy is clinging to his mother’s leg, clearly more cautious than his exuberant sibling.

Y/N immediately decides they’re going to be her best friends. Even if boys have cooties and are sometimes gross.

“I’m Y/N!” she exclaims loudly, much to the dismay of her father who reminds her to use her inside voice. This makes her pout unhappily and in turn, makes the boy clinging to his mother’s leg smile.

“I’m George!” He replies, equally loud in fashion hoping to cheer the girl up. This was not George’s best idea, however, as it then causes the missing-toothed child to declare himself as Fred so loud, Molly and Y/N’s father sends them outside.

They sit themselves down on the clover patch to the right of the house and start getting to know each other. Y/N learns there're five other Weasley siblings, their youngest being their only sister named Ginny, she's a mere two years old and their oldest is William, who they both affectionately call Billy, and Y/N learns he's almost thirteen.

“Wow,” Y/N says, suddenly feeling extremely jealous. She’s an only child and while she’s only five, she has a child’s intuition that her dad isn’t ready to meet someone and bring more siblings into her life. “I’m jealous. I wish I had brothers and sisters.”

Fred puffs up his chest and grins, “We’ll be your brothers!” The grin on his face is 100% sincere and he looks so happy to gain another sister.

“Really?” Y/N questions looking at George for approval. “Of course. Are we best friends now?” He questions and Y/N eagerly nods her head.

The three of them spend their time playing tag or showing each other their ‘accidental magic’. Molly at one point calls out the window at the twins telling them they know better than to encourage underage magic but when George winks at Y/N as he somehow manages to turn her hair blue for two seconds it’s clear he doesn’t care about his mother’s warning.

“It’s okay,” he starts when he sees the look of fear rise in Y/N’s eyes, “we’re only five. If someone comes they’ll just see three magical kids and leave.”

Soon enough, Molly is muttering apologies about staying so late and trying to round up the boys to go back to their own home. Fred ends up in a tree, saying he wants to stay and poking his tongue out at his mother.

George however, is timidly looking at the clover patch they were all sitting in and plucks one, handing it to Y/N. When she examines it, she notices it’s almost a four-leaf clover, the stem is there if you look close enough, but the leaf itself is missing. “Almost luck, for you!”

He runs away at that, looking almost borderline shy and when Fred chases him all the way home, Y/N is convinced these boys will be her friends for life.

They’re eight now, and it’s a regular occurrence for Y/N and the twins to be seen together. Their parents have started referring to them as the ‘mischief trio’ because whenever the three of them are together, no one can turn their back for a second without something happening.

Y/N’s currently at The Burrow, convincing the twins to come to see her new pet bunny rabbits. Fred is reluctant, wanting to stay and play on his toy broom and trying to convince George he wants to do the same.

Fred, as usual, has an evil plan that involves the beater’s bat in their quidditch kit and Percy’s head after he told their mum that Fred was trying to fly Charlie’s broom yesterday. This resulted in Fred getting no dessert after dinner and the eight-year-old boy wants revenge.

“I don’t know, Freddie,” George starts, looking at the small girl to his left. They might only be children, but the twins are already growing taller and Y/N can barely keep up anymore, “I kind of want to meet the bunnies.”

“Come on, Georgie! Percy’s a prat and we need to get him back!” Fred dramatically exclaims as he flops his body onto the couch in the living room. As usual, it’s we, Y/N is always roped into the twins’ plans, and while she usually doesn’t mind, today isn’t the day for it. Fred never really knows when it’s time to be quiet, always wanting to be on the go and this pops an idea into Y/N’s head.

“Daddy got cows recently,” she begins and she notices how that immediately grabs Fred’s attention. He loves cows, whenever he’s in the car with Y/N and her father he points them out every time they see one, “you sure you don’t want to come to meet them?”

Fred is out the door quicker than you can say pranks, running towards the fence that divides their two properties. Y/N and George have to stop and tell Molly where they’re going because Fred left so hastily, that he didn’t even tell anyone before. After Molly sighs and gives them permission that the twins don't really care if they get, George grabs Y/N’s hand and runs out the door after his brother.

When they finally catch up to him, Fred's face is bright red from exertion, almost matching his hair and his eyes are bright and wide. Y/N’s dad only got two cows at first, testing the waters with how he’d feel looking after them but Fred is in absolute awe.

George pushes him over the fence as he’s laughing, telling him to hurry up so they can get out of the blasting summer sun. George and Y/N slowly make their way back over to the clover patch and Fred stays near the cows. He’s watching them shyly and Y/N thinks this is the only time he’s ever seen him calm and quiet- not wanting to scare the cows.

“This is Ruby,” Y/N says as she places the small, white rabbit on George’s lap. He looks nervous like he’s worried about dropping or squeezing the bunny rabbit too hard but when he settles, the bunny is content sitting in his lap.

“This is Cutiepie, I named him!” Y/N says proudly about the black bunny rabbit in her hands, “he’s my best friend.”

George looks up at Y/N at that and before he can say anything, Y/N is giggling, “Don’t look so worried, Georgie. You’ll always be my number one...” she pauses for a moment, and looks between Fred and the bunny rabbit in her hand before giggling, “just don’t tell Freddie.”

The two of them sit in comfortable silence, admiring the two bunnies as they eventually clamper down their laps and start hopping around. George is mesmerised- the only pets he’s ever had have been the chickens, an owl and the gnomes if you count them and he hopes Y/N will have him over every day to play with the bunnies. And hang out with her of course.

“Why did you want to come to hang out with the bunnies?” Y/N soon questions, curious as to why George chose the calmness over chaos. They both look over at Fred, who’s now bent at the knees looking like he’s going to run at a cow.

“I don’t know,” George shrugs, he didn’t know why he wanted to spend time sitting in one spot instead of pranking his older brother with Fred, “Bunnies are cool, I’ve never met a bunny before.”

Y/N hums in agreement, she thinks bunnies are the coolest pets someone could have and she’s glad George agrees. If George didn’t like bunnies, she thinks she’d have to demote him to number two best friend and while she loves Fred, she doesn’t want to do that.

It’s the day the three of them have been waiting for as long as they can remember. They’re on Platform 9 ¾, trying to get away from their parents and onto the train.

“I’ll miss you so much, sweetie,” her dad says, and Y/N thinks she might cry. She’s never been far away from her dad for long periods of time. The longest she’s ever been away from him was two days and even then, she was just at The Burrow.

But now she’s leaving for school and it’s all the way in Scotland, which to an 11-year-old moving away for magical boarding school, is forever away from her family. Tears well up in her eyes and her dad pulls her into a hug.

“I’m so proud of you,” he says pulling away and wiping the tears that have fallen from his daughter’s eyes, “your mother would be proud too. Now remember, stick with Percy and Charlie, Molly told me they’ll look after you.” Bill had graduated earlier in the year, leaving the 2nd and 3rd oldest Weasley brothers to mentor ‘mischief trio’ as they navigated Hogwarts.

“Please make sure the twins don’t get into too much trouble,” Molly says, pulling the small girl into a hug, but she knows it’s useless. Where Fred and George go, Y/N goes too and detention is included.

They eventually make it onto the train, Y/N noticing the tears in her dad’s eyes as he waves to her. They look around for a few moments, trying to find an empty compartment.

They eventually find one with just one boy in it who looks around their age. He’s got dreadlocks in his hair and he already looks bored. When he notices the doors open, he smiles widely and ushers the three of them to come sit with him.

“I’m Lee,” he introduces himself and after the introductions are done they find out he’s also in their year and convinced he’s going to be in Gryffindor.

“Us too!” The twins shout at the same time. Their entire family are in Gryffindor and while the Weasley’s are by no means a strict wizarding family, the twins would feel quite odd if they weren’t sorted into Gryffindor.

Y/N however, did not know what house she’d be sorted into. Her mother had been in Ravenclaw but she didn’t believe she had any of the Ravenclaw attributes. Lost in her thoughts, she doesn’t notice George shuffling closer to her and tapping her gently.

“Are you okay?” He asks and Y/N nods her head, contemplating if she should express her worry to George. She knows it’s silly, but now she’s starting to get a bit worked up. Worried that after all these years, her and George will drift apart, especially if they’re in different houses and definitely if she’s in Slytherin. “Just worried. What if… What if we drift apart, Georgie?” she whispers.

George hates to admit he’s had the same worry and the look on Y/N’s face tells George this is the first time she’s even considered this and it’s killing him. He’s grown quite affectionate for Y/N over their six years of friendship. Molly and Y/N’s dad have jokingly asked when’s the wedding numerous times and while they both yell about cooties, George’s face gets the tiniest bit red every single time the joke is mentioned.

“I promise we won’t. Remember what I said the day we became friends? Best friends, and best friends are a forever kind of thing,” he promises, holding out his pinky for Y/N to wrap her own around and they stamp each other’s thumb with their own. Their way of promising each other.

“Remember, if you break the promise, Georgie, your thumb breaks,” she says with full sincerity and George remembers the one time he gave her this exact threat. She had cried for 20 minutes thinking that she’d accidentally made an Unbreakable Vow over getting ice-cream with him at Diagon Alley and poor nine-year-old George was forced into comforting Y/N and apologised profusely.

Fred and Lee are talking animatedly about quidditch (Fred can’t wait to be a beater and while Lee isn’t big on sports, he thinks he’d be a great commentator) when Y/N spots George rifling through his bag.

He pulls out a photograph and smiles as he looks down at it. It’s the last picture they took together before summer ended. Y/N’s dad took it on his muggle camera so it’s not moving, but George doesn’t mind. They’re smiling widely, bigger than they’ve ever smiled before and holding their wands they just got at Diagon Alley. They, of course, are standing in their clover patch, Y/N trying to hold the black bunny rabbit and wand at the same time and her dad clicked the capture button just as Cutiepie tried to jump out of Y/N’s arms.

It makes him laugh every time he looks at it, but seeing the worry still in Y/N’s brow, he thinks she needs the photo more than he does. “Here,” he says, nudging her briefly and handing her the photo. “When you’re worried we’re drifting, look at this and remember you’re stuck with me forever.”

Y/N’s eyes well with tears, this is the sweetest gesture anyone has ever done for her. “Thanks, Georgie. You’re stuck with me as well,” she says, tucking the picture into her robe pocket that rests over her heart.

Summer of ‘92 arrives fast and once again, Y/N spends most of her time at The Burrow causing mayhem. Today, her dad’s at work and while he 100% trusts his daughter to be home alone, he does not trust her best friends, so she waltzes over to The Burrow, walking in like she’s lived there her whole life, kisses Molly hello on the cheek and runs around, trying to find her boys.

It’s scorching, way too hot for summer in Devon and all the Weasley siblings who still live at home have decided to go swimming in the pond. They started playing Marco Polo until Fred started cheating by running outside of the pond so he wouldn’t get caught and then tried to play Chicken fight until Ginny fell off of George’s shoulders and almost hit her head.

Now, everyone’s calmed down and just relaxing. George and Y/N are cuddled up and floating around and it’s making her heart race. In the last year, her feelings for George have developed from platonic to romantic and being this close to him, while not unusual, is making her heart race. But it doesn’t last long, and soon enough Fred splashes them to get their attention.

“I’m tired and I need a nap, I’m going inside,” Fred says, eyeing his best friends. He’s had the assumption that something is going on with them for a while, and while he’d love to meddle, this is George and Y/N and there’s an unspoken rule between the three of them that involves not messing with each other.

So George and Y/N decide to get out of the pond and make their way over to Y/N’s house. They sit themselves down in their clover patch and quickly get the bunnies out. It’s a tradition at this point, and this is their spot. This is the place they tell each other everything, almost everything in Y/N’s case and the place nothing else matters but each other.

Cutiepie and Ruby are getting older now, but they’ve had babies and now there’s plenty of bunnies surrounding the pair of friends. George picks one of the babies up and nurses it, having gotten over his fear of squishing them long ago. He pulls faces at them that cause Y/N to laugh and George loves it.

He loves making her laugh.

“How weird is it that we had You-Know-Who on the back of Quirrell's head, teaching us all year?” George says. They both heard the stories first hand from Harry, Ron and Hermione. The school year they just finished being ridiculous for the three first years, but Y/N can’t help the anxious bubble forming in her throat.

“I’m scared, Georgie,” she says, turning to face him and the fear in her eyes is obvious, “We’re only young but whatever’s happening seems like it’s going to be happening fast now Harry’s at school.” She sniffles, and George thinks he’s put his foot in his mouth. So he does the only thing he knows how to do.

He shuffles closer to Y/N and wraps his arms around her, difficult because of the two bunnies in their laps but he makes it work. “I’m always going to protect you, don’t worry,” he says confidently. He doesn’t know how or when he’d need to protect her, but she must know just how much she means to him.

They sit in silence, just listening to each other breathing and patting the bunnies in their lap. The silence between them is always comfortable, nine years of friendship does that to you. But George is itching to ask something, ask something that could change everything. He’s noticed, recently, that while himself and Fred are at quidditch practice, Y/N and Lee are getting closer.

Sometimes, when Oliver sets quidditch practice on the weekends, Y/N and Lee go to Hogsmeade together and George wonders why he has an icky feeling in his stomach when he hears about their days when that happens.

“Can I ask you something?” George asks and there’s no backing out now. He has no plans to confess, not at age 14 when he doesn’t think he needs a relationship, but he needs to know or he might, as Fred would say dramatically, die. When Y/N hums in agreement and turns to remove herself from his arms, his heart starts beating faster and before he can even stop himself, he’s blurting out the question-

“Are you dating Lee?”

Y/N stares at him in shock, not entirely convinced he hasn’t picked up her feelings for him and then she laughs. She laughs hard. And George is so confused that he starts laughing as well.

“Me and Lee?” She questions between giggles, “There’s no way, he’s like,” she laughs again at the thought of her and Lee dating, “he’s like in love with Angelina. It’s ridiculous.”

George realises how dumb he sounds. Lee’s feelings for Angelina have been so obvious, especially when he decides to comment on how good-looking she is during matches now that he’s the quidditch commentator. But George always thought he was joking and from his perspective, it always seemed like Lee had a small thing for Y/N.

“Lee and I are a no go,” she says when George doesn’t say anything besides his awkward laughter, “I.. I think I like someone else, but I don’t know. I’m 14 for crying out loud,” she laughs, “I don’t know what love is.”

She’s lying, she’s 100% sure love is what she feels with George Weasley. The way she feels with the twins is different. Fred is chaos personified and she knows if she’s ever hurt, Fred will be the first person to go after whoever hurt her, no matter who it is. But George is comforting, like home-cooked meals and Molly’s sweaters personified and she’s sure this is what love is.

George pretends to agree, they’re both as clueless as each other in regards to their feelings. George knows what love is, and it’s what he feels for his best friend who’s sitting with him in their tiny clover patch.

Y/N’s heart is aching. She hasn’t seen the twins in weeks and without seeing George every day, her days are a little bit duller. She understands he’s been busy, after all, opening the most anticipated joke shop in Diagon Alley is bound to take up most of your time, but Y/N misses the days when she could yell for her best friend and he’d come running, no questions asked.

Y/N’s short term boyfriend has just broken up with her and she longs for the comfort she knows the lanky, 18-year-old ginger could give her. They weren’t together long and she knows she should never have tried to date someone while she thinks she’s still in love with George, but it still hurts.

So, she’s sitting in the clover patch as usual. She still lives at home, her father being accommodating while there’s a war raging in the Wizarding World and he understands it’s hard to get a job these days.

She always sits there when she needs the comfort of George and he’s nowhere near. Today is one of those days. Everything is building up and she needs him but she doesn’t want to be a bother. They owl back and forth most days and he’s always talking about how much work he has to do.

She’s been laying in the clover patch, their clover patch, for so long the sun is starting to set and when she sits up she sees him.

George doesn’t miss the red-rimmed eyes and the messy hair that’s covered in grass. He notices the confused look on her face and he picks up a clover and conjures it into a bouquet of wildflowers as he walks over to her.

“Hi, darling,” he says, sitting down and passing her the bouquet. Y/N is trying her hardest to pretend like her heart isn’t swooning but it is, and it’s all George’s fault. “Your dad owled me. Said you needed some George time,” he chuckles quietly and Y/N lets out a groan.

Of course, her dad decided to meddle.

“Hey, don’t stress,” George says as he sees the look of annoyance on her face, “I don’t mind. I told you I’m always here for you, didn’t I?” She hates that he’s right.

“You did,” she starts, “but you’ve been so busy. You don’t deserve to be forced into listening to my boy troubles.” She’s mocking herself now and George lightly pushes her and shakes his head. Anything upsetting Y/N is worth listening too and he’d listen to her drone on about a broken muggle device if it meant she wasn’t bottling her emotions up.

“Sean broke up with me, said I wasn’t in it enough for him, which…” She trails off, debating whether she should continue, “he wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t in it enough for him but it still sucks,” she mutters.

George is well aware she just got out of a relationship and he’s also well aware they’ve been friends, for now, thirteen years and if anything was going to happen between them, it would have happened by now. But he can’t help but feel the slightest bit happy when he hears they’ve broken up.

“Do you want to talk about why?” He enquires trying to be a good friend. Y/N falls flat on her back and sighs as she looks up at the sky above her, “I’ve been in love with the same person since I was 14 and I think I was trying to get over him? Or is that too specific?” she laughs but George knows she isn’t joking.

“Why… Why haven’t you told them?” He asks, hoping to all four founders of Hogwarts that Y/N is talking about him. She looks at him, a glint in her eye and she decides she needs answers. She needs to know if her feelings for George Weasley are ever going to be reciprocated or if she needs to get over him.

“Scared. We’ve been friends for so long…” She hints and she hopes to Godric he gets the hint and doesn’t think she’s talking about Fred, but decides to say more just in case, “He’s tall, funny, ginger, an incredible quidditch player, great with animals…”

“You like Charlie?” He teases to hide the excitement bubbling in his chest and she has to resist the urge to slap him. But she caught the glint of happiness in her eyes and he doesn’t even have to speak for her to know her feelings are reciprocated.

She launches herself into his lap, almost pressing him into a bunny when he falls backwards and she straddles his waist, pressing kisses over his cheeks, “No! I love you, George Fabian Weasley!”

“Hey, hey, hey,” he exclaims, swatting her away, “What if I didn’t love you back?” He teases, eyebrows raised and Y/N lets out a cackle of laughter, “I know you, George Weasley, the look in your eye made it obvious you were excited I love you.”

It’s George’s turn to smile like an idiot as he rolls them over and presses his lips to hers, finally. Thirteen years of friendship, four years of loving her and he was not prepared for this kiss to knock the wind out of his lungs. All the love he feels for her is reciprocated and he feels like the happiest man in the entire world.

When they pull apart, George’s eyes are transfixed on hers. The redness disappearing and being replaced by what he can only assume is absolute pure joy. She blushes and turns her head, not being able to handle the attention he’s giving her and when George tries to follow her eyes, his own eye catches something.

He reaches up above her head and plucks something out of the ground before showing it to her. “A four-leaf clover,” he whispers and George can’t help but think it’s fate. The day they became friends he’d found almost a four-leaf clover and the day they became more, he found a real one.

“Your lucky day, boyfriend,” she winks as she pulls him into another kiss, but he stops her and she gives him a pout, “Who said I was your boyfriend?” He teases and the look of fear that flickers across Y/N’s face is reminiscent of the day he threatened her with a broken thumb.

“I- I- Sorry, I assum-” He cuts her off with a kiss, laughing against her lips, “You just didn’t give me a chance to ask you, darling,” he says as he pulls away and Y/N’s face is as red as a tomato in embarrassment and he kisses both her cheeks in reassurance.

“Y/N Y/L/N, would you please be my girlfriend?” he asks, but it’s almost phrased like a statement, like she has no other choice and honestly, Y/N doesn’t mind.

When she pretends to think about it, George waggles his eyebrows and waves the four-leaf clover in her face and she pulls him into a kiss again, hoping that a ‘yes, I’ll be yours for the rest of my days’ is obvious.

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