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moonferry · 4 months ago

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what's that?? oh yeah, its fsioy chapter 5 babeyyy!!!

OMG HEY. this is it. this is the scene ive been daydreaming about for WEEKS and we finally got to it. im so happy. shoutout to the 3 people who've consistently read this story. u guys are so swag and cool and epic. i hope you enjoy this little soft chapter because shit is about to hit the fan. teehee. also wow this one is so long i didnt realize that while writing. Oops

chapter summary: jodi responds to kent's confession and expresses her own feelings. kent does some deep thinking (tm) and asks jodi a hard question.

word count: 2345 (wow)

warnings: none that i can think of? mentions of time/limited time/time running out tho

ao3 linkie -> here

other chapters: chapter masterlist

“What?” Jodi asked, her eyes widening in a mixture of surprise and horror. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Surely Kent was joking. How could he be in love with her? They had only known each other for a few months and - according to her mother - it took years to love someone. There had to be a reasonable explanation for Kent’s crazy outburst, right? He couldn’t actually be in love with her, could he?

“I think I’m in love with you,” Kent repeated, anxiously scanning Jodi’s face. He noted her expression and grimaced. So much for making it less awkward. He noticed Jodi seemed to be deep in thought and moved to defend himself, “I know it’s sudden. I just… had to tell you. Sorry.” Kent glanced down at his hands and felt a massive wave of shame wash over him. Why did he say anything? He had likely just ruined the best friendship he ever had. This was supposed to be a fun week, but he had made it into a disaster. It seems like that was all he was able to do late - cause disasters to happen.

“Kent, don’t apologize,” Jodi replied, her lips forming into a small line as she bent down to his eye level. She rested her hand on his shoulder and waited for him to look up. When Kent met her eyes, Jodi thought he looked like a sort of… dejected puppy. She gave a small sigh before explaining herself, “I didn’t mean to react that way. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“So.. you don’t hate me?” Kent asked, some worry still present on his face. He fidgeted with his hands once again before mumbling, “For, you know, making things awkward..”

“Hate you?” Jodi asked with a small laugh. She shook her head and a wide smile spread across her lips. She glanced at Kent, giving him her familiar “you can’t be serious” look before adding, “I could never hate you.”

Kent raised an eyebrow - full of skepticism. Maybe Jodi was stranger than he thought. How could she not hate him? He’s done nothing but surround this girl with chaos since the moment they met. Kent made more of a fool of himself around Jodi than anyone - maybe it was because he tried so hard to impress her only for it to completely blow up in his face. “Really?” Kent asked, absolutely dumbfounded.

“Yeah,” Jodi confirmed. She hesitated a moment, thinking to herself. Kent noticed a small patch of pink had found itself onto the curves of her cheek and was even more confused. “I.. I actually think you’re super cool,” She started moving her hand to tuck a stray strand of her hair behind her ear - something else, Kent noticed, that she did when she was nervous - before adding, “I like you, too. There’s something different about you, you know? You don’t try hard to impress me, like everyone else. You just act like yourself and that’s something I appreciate. It’s… actually kind of attractive.”

Kent smiled at Jodi’s response, appearing calm and collected on the outside, but on the inside his brain was screaming. He couldn’t believe it. He spent hours worrying about this conversation and never expected it to turn out this way. For a moment, Kent was incredibly giddy and even forgot what awaited him in two days time.

Only for a moment, though. The memory soon flooded back into Kent’s mind and a small frown spread across his cheeks. Sure, he finally expressed how he felt, but it would all mean nothing. He found himself once again wanting something there never seemed to be enough of: time. If only he had more time, he could take Jodi on a proper date or find a way to avoid this whole military debacle entirely. But, like always, Kent didn’t have enough time. He never seemed to these days: not enough time with his father, not enough time with Jodi, not enough time to live, to laugh, to love. He had never hated the word “time” more in his life.

“What’s wrong?” Jodi asked, watching as Kent’s smile was replaced with the small frown. Her eyebrows knit together in concern. Had she said something wrong? Did Kent not want her to return his affection? She was just starting to understand it herself, so maybe she should have waited until she knew, for certain?

“Just thinking,” Kent replied, moving to pull his knees toward his chest and wrap his forearms around his kneecaps. “About the next two days, I mean,” He clarified before adding, “I just wish there was more time, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jodi replied with a small nod. She moved her hand from Kent’s shoulder before resting it on top of the back of his hand, gently lacing their fingers together. “Me too,” She spoke, giving his hand a light squeeze.

Kent glanced down when he felt the small pressure on his hand and felt his cheeks warm up. He felt a small smile creep back onto his lips before turning to look at Jodi with an embarrassed expression. “You’re holding my hand,” He spoke, motioning to their intertwined fingers with his free hand.

“I know,” Jodi spoke, giving him a playful smile in return. She noticed the dark pink of Kent’s cheeks and raised an eyebrow, intending to tease him some more. “I can stop if it’s making you ‘too embarrassed’,” She teased, slowly removing her small hand off of Kent’s much larger one.

Kent shook his head. Instead of letting Jodi remove her hand, he simply flipped his palm over and properly laced their hands together. The two smiled at each other and Jodi leaned her body against Kent’s, resting her head on his shoulder.

They stayed like this for a while, simply leaning against each other. Unfortunately, the wind started to pick up and Jodi shivered - despite knowing the nights got cold in this part of the city, Jodi had forgotten her cardigan as she rushed out of her home. Kent frowned.

“You’re freezing, Jo,” He spoke. “Take my jacket,” he offered, immediately shucking off his jacket (well, it was his father’s, really, but he always wore it) and draping it over her shoulders.

“I can’t do that,” Jodi protested, a small frown forming on her own lips as she noticed Kent was wearing a loose-fitting, short-sleeved t-shirt beneath the jacket. That must be even colder than her dress. “You’ll get cold,” She spoke as she tried to push the jacket back into his arms, but she was met with a shake of Kent’s head.

Kent thought for a moment before laying back against the blanket. He patted the spot next to him and motioned for Jodi to lay back down. “Here, we can share it, see?” Kent explained as he draped the fabric over the two of them - content with this compromise.

Jodi eyed him skeptically but laid down next to him anyway. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was secretly grateful Kent had offered his jacket in the first place. The jacket was definitely not big enough to cover two people fully, but they didn’t seem to care.

However, the jacket seemed to barely provide enough warmth to keep them from shivering beneath the fabric. Jodi hesitated for a moment before scooting even closer to Kent. If you asked her reasoning, she would give some excuse about how it’s warmer than being far apart, but it was clear what her true reasoning was. Her reasoning became even more evident as she rested her head onto Kent’s shoulder.

Kent’s eyes widened at the sudden pressure against his shoulder. He felt another wave of blush move across his face when Jodi shifted her body and propped herself up onto her side. She absentmindedly laid her arm across Kent’s chest and returned to looking at the sky. Kent had a momentary panic inside his head and his heart started beating much faster. Eventually, he calmed down and felt himself relax into her presence. He carefully draped his arm over Jodi’s upper back and shoulders. Kent then moved his free hand, slowly reaching towards Jodi’s extended arm before lacing their fingers together and gently rubbing his thumb across the back of her hand.

Kent felt that familiar feeling again: like time had stopped and nothing else in the world existed. He could almost get used to this: the peace, the comfort of Jodi’s presence, the weight of her against his chest. For once in his life, he felt nice and warm - safe, in a weird way, despite what loomed over him. He felt as if he could take on anything. His anxieties still remained, but they always seemed to quiet whenever he was around Jodi. It was nice. Unfortunately, it was also bittersweet: the world allowed him this week full of amazing memories only to take it away and laugh in his face? How was that fair? It wasn’t and Kent knew that all too well. He realized something: it may be selfish, but he didn’t know if he would be able to give it all up: the memories, the laughter, even Jodi. He also realized something else - he didn’t want to experience a life without her.

“Hey, Starfruit?” Kent asked, breaking the peaceful silence that had enveloped the two. Jodi glanced up at him and smiled at the familiar nickname. It somehow seemed more tender and personal now.

“Yeah, Cactus?” She replied, waiting for the next words to come out of Kent’s mouth. Her smile widened as she watched Kent process his own nickname and shake his head in a playful manner.

“Can you do me a favor?” He spoke, his gaze softening as the words left his mouth. Kent felt his heart flutter at the nickname. Even if he hated to admit it and that it was created to tease him, he loved it when Jodi called him the name. It was silly, yes, but it was his

“Oh yeah? What’s that?” Jodi asked, raising her eyebrow skeptically. She remembered the last time one of them had asked for a “favor” - they ended up spending two hours sorting a ridiculous amount of books at her mother’s store. Jodi just hoped this wasn’t something like that. She was definitely NOT going to spend two hours of her life sorting something again. At least, not heavy books. That was definitely a mistake.

“Marry me.”

Jodi’s eyes widened in surprise. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She stared at Kent for a few moments before shaking her head, “You’re crazy.”

Jodi made a motion to get up but Kent gently grabbed her hand and stopped her in her tracks.

“Look, I know I sound insane right now, but I mean it,” Kent retorted. He sat up and carefully took Jodi’s palm, holding it in both of his hands.

‘You’re crazy,” Jodi repeated, a small frustrated frown finding itself onto her features. “Besides,” she started, halting her attempt at trying to break free from Kent’s grip, “my mother would never allow it.”

“Just hear me out, okay?” Kent started, gently letting go of Jodi’s hand. He took a deep breath before speaking once again, “Hear me out and then you can decide. If the answer’s no, I won’t try to force you to change your mind.”

“Okay,” Jodi answered, his eyebrows furrowing together as the next words left her mouth, “I’m listening.”

“Jodi, I don’t think I can imagine a life without you. I..I didn’t realize it until now, but I think you’re what has been missing from my life,” Kent fumbled over the words, his face turning slightly red in embarrassment. He fidgeted with his hands and felt a small lump form in his throat. Why was it so difficult to say what was on his mind? Jodi had always been able to read him, so why wouldn’t it work this time? He let out a small groan of frustration and tried to find the right words. Eventually, some words managed to untangle himself from the uncooked spaghetti of his brain and he spoke, “I don’t want to spend what’s left of my life regretting what could have been. I can’t promise much, but I know that if I make it out of this alive, I’m going to love and cherish you more than anything in the world. You’re so important to me, Jodi.”

“And, hey,” Kent added, adding a small humorless laugh before saying, “If I die, you can always marry someone else.”

Kent waited a few more seconds, allowing Jodi to process what information he had given her thus far, before letting more of his word-vomit overflow from his lips, “I know your mother would never approve and I don’t want to ruin what you two have. If this whole thing has been a waste of your time and you never want to see me again, I wouldn’t blame you. I want you to make whatever decision you think is right, even if it hurts me. My feelings should never be more important than your own.”

Jodi remained silent, really thinking over the words that had just been spoken to her. She thought about these past few months, about how close she and Kent had gotten, about how he had somehow changed her life and made living seem more…fun, about how little time was left, about how she may never see Kent again. She realized that she, too, couldn’t imagine living without him. She also realized Kent had given her freedoms she wasn’t able to experience before: the freedom to choose what she wanted, not what the people around her wanted.

Jodi reached out and gently took Kent’s hand in her own. Her gaze softened as she looked at Kent’s face. She thought about what the future held, how terrifying it seemed for both of them, how you only live once, how she desperately wanted to have a future where she could live her own life.

She thought for a moment longer before finally speaking, “Yes, Kent, I’ll marry you.”

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herarcadewasteland · 1 year ago

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Happy Death Day V

A/N: Purge night.

-SKZ x reader, 18+.

mature content, violence etc. its the purge. skz lowkey yandere. descriptions of violence and injury.

(birthday post :/ im too old now pls)

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prev. - next.

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previously on happy death day;

You flinched with each hit of his spit against your tongue, your eyes closing as he shut your mouth roughly, teeth clacking together painfully as your eyebrows contorted in disgust. His gaze held firm as his hand shifted to pinch your nose closed, the action forcing you to open your mouth and drool everywhere or swallow and breathe normally again. Your choice was decided quite quickly for you as Hyunjin raised a single eyebrow, his free hand reaching into the waistband of his dark jeans to pull a pistol from within. Your eyes widened but you weren’t that surprised seeing he had one on him, all of them probably did. What caught you off guard was the click of the safety and the press of the gun against your throat.

“I suggest you fucking swallow if you don’t want me to blast out your pretty throat with something other than my cock.”, Hyunjin was growling now, his voice surpassing Felix’s deepest tone as he cocked his eyebrow higher, a small mocking smirk curving his pretty lips, “That would be such a shame wouldn’t it? Yeah, I think it would.”

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Noises of agreement followed albeit muted ones, the other boys clearly hesitant to disrupt whatever Hyunjin had planned. The force of the weapon had you gulping quite loudly, Hyunjins pleased smirk causing you to glare his way. It should’ve been a given that it was a bad idea to glare at a man holding a gun very close to your body, but you don’t seem to learn. The wave of silence that flew around the room when your glare was caught sent chills across every bare appendage in the room. It was eerie, dark. Tense.

“Drop that look right fucking now.”

“Make me.”

Hyunjin’s eyes widened slightly, a thumb dragging across his bottom lip with a tilted head. In mere seconds, his anger was varnished with joy, laughter leaving him but causing you no happiness as the gun dragged up your throat to press against your jaw with a harsh push, your head jerking up to meet his dark stare head-on.

“Repeat that.”

You shook your head silently.

“I said,”, he growls, pressing the gun harder against the bone, “Repeat that, darling.”

You whimpered this time, his answering glare enough to make you struggle in your spot. A few lone tears tracked down your face as he scanned you for anything that may be a weakness. Your entire being was a weakness, he realized. You were weak. That’s why he was so quick to bring you to tears. You had been reduced to so little over the past hour or so that he didn’t even have to shoot you in the leg for fun. Pushing the head of the gun against your vulnerable spots did the trick perfectly. The cold metal sent goosebumps down your spine so his taunts didn’t and in all honesty, he was glad he didn’t have to work too hard to break you down further.

“Fuck you!”

Twah. Twah. Twah. Twah. Twah.

Heavy, anxious breaths filled the room, your own panicked and quick as you kept your eyes closed. The feeling of Hyunjin’s spit sliding over your nose slowly and dripping over your lips was enough to have you violently shaking as a few of them laughed near silently at your expense. Others cackled like hyenas, Minho’s face turning red from the consistent force of his laughter.

“Ohhhh you’re pushing it now!”, Minho was still wheezing, his hands waving about in front of him as he nudged Felix roughly.

“That was a horrible idea, puppy.”, Seungmin was stern, his fingers clicking the lighter as he stood slowly to take up position next to Hyunjin.

The rest of the boys were dead silent once more, your words sending what hope they had for Hyunjin going easy on you out the window within seconds. Too shocked by your own words to say anything else to sass him, you pressed your lips together, eyes squinting as you watched his face drop into the coldest look you had ever seen from such a pretty boy. The two stood in front of you with similar looks of disappointment with pure danger. It was putting you on the edge of begging them to just kill you like they did your parents. Somehow, they sensed that. Changbin walked over with a fresh bucket of water. Minho laughed obnoxiously as he walked past him, his sharp eyes meeting yours again with a mocking glint of concern.

A swift warmth trailed through your body in the next second before the burning followed. It was scalding. More shivers covered your beaten body as the heat wore off, the chill of the night hitting you in full as the rush left you shaking. Minho wasn’t the only one laughing this time, Hyunjin’s hysterical laugh shrinking you in on yourself until your legs were free in an instant, his large hands yanking you from your chair to send you flying face first on the floor, your hands supporting your upper body as your leg aches, a pained cry escaping you twice fold when Seungmin kicked it lightly.

“Stupid puppy couldn’t even remember basic manners. You should have just been good, hmm?”, Seungmins veiny hand gripping your matted hair in a harsh grip, your neck bending awkwardly as he whispered in your ear, “Maybe you should listen. Might get a treat instead of a punishment.”

Hyunjin was next to grip you, his hand covering the expanse of your reddened neck, as he growled. Not words. Not an emotion. Just a cold, heart stopping growl that echoed off the walls left standing. The pure anger behind a single noise had you breaking, tears streaming down your face in another continuous trail as you trembled in the holds on you and under the gazes directed at your pained expression. All was silent for the few moments it took your mind to go past the point of blank.

“Please…”, you whimpered, your eyes searching theirs for any sign of mercy, “Just kill me…”

Your last words came out as a mere whisper, Hyunjin and Seungmin not even being able to pick it up until you dropped forward as their grips dropped.

“JUST KILL ME… please.”

SIlence took over the room for the hundredth time.

“Please…”, your voice was desperate and the boys picked up on it clearly, some of their eyes watering as others were overcome with anger.

A cold-hearted tsking filled the spaces between your sobs, your eyes widening dramatically as Minho had his own hand around your neck now. His eyes were dark as he watched you struggle to sob through his grip, a sort of satisfaction crossing his face as your own puffy one turned redder than it had previously.

“I don’t think you want that~ Tryna get away from us when we don’t allow it is unacceptable and must be punished. I'm sure you know that by now. Lixie is going to have some fun with Seungmin and you now, okay? so sit still like a good girl and it won’t be even worse for you.”

He was mocking you at this point, an echoing click of Seungmin’s lighter and the clack of Felix’s knife taking over your senses as you squirmed in Minho’s hold in a last ditch attempt to get away or even lessen the pain you were no doubt about to experience.

The sound of the lighter running at full force had shivers trailing across your body slowly as the two in question entered your field of vision, weapons in hand. Felix had his knife held with a gloved hand, Han now missing one of his from his pocket as Seungmin held the lighter to the blade.

The veined hand around your throat still seemed to mock you as you watched the blade slowly turn from a pale red to bright orange, the metal warping slightly as it heated. The smirk the two boys sent your way was enough to have you sobbing past Minho’s hand again, your eyes closing in preparation.

Nothing could have prepared you though, for the burning sting that pierced the skin of your shoulder, blood not even pooling as the blade rapidly cooled inside your flesh, tears tracking down your skin and burning the wound more than the residual heat of Felix’s knife. It was an indescribable pain, the burn, the sting of your skin tearing and being punctured as intense heat followed. From the reactions of the boys, the sensation of your skin attaching itself to the cooled blade before it was pulled from your shoulder was not incorrect, your blurry eyes registering the bits of your skin hanging on to the edges of the knife.

“What the fuck.”

“I didn’t agree to that much damage.”

“Woah, woah! Lixie, Minnie back down. Now!”

The world blurred around you as their voices became one as slowly as unconsciousness came to you again, concerned gazes surrounding you as you collapsed forward gently with the help of Minho. Chaos followed your departure from consciousness, voices yelling at each other and the two responsible for the missing skin on your shoulder, red faces mirroring back at each other on other members as they scrambled to do what they could to lessen the pain and help you heal better in the end. Felix was dragged away from your prone figure along with Seungmin by Jeongin and Changbin, their faces blank save for the lining of tears in their eyes.

“We said we would never let anything go in her! Are you two dumb?!”

“She could be so hurt by this in the long run. What if it gets infected?”

“Why?! She annoyed us all but you had no right to take that as a go ahead to stab her!”

“Get her on the couch, put something cool on the wound and get the first aid kit. She’ll need stitches. Minho, wash your hands. You’re up.”

Motion filled your house as Felix and Seungmin were dragged away from you and locked in a room, Minho washing up carefully as Hyunjin grabbed the first aid kit after moments of frantic searching. Changbin and Chan made sure you were comfortable in a position they could hold you down in for when the pain of the stitches woke you so abruptly.

Deep breaths were shared in the tense silence as they watched you in varying degrees of worry and anger at the two responsible. It wouldn’t be a purge night without twists and turns though, so they took in stride the best they could, Minho pulling gloves onto his hands before setting up the suture as the others gathered around in a small circle.

“Ready? Make sure you have a hold on her, yeah?”, Minho’s voice was as steady as his hands, his training kicking in and calming the group as you laid prone on the couch.

Nods answered his question, eyes trained on you as his hand closed in on your shoulder being dried by Han. The moment the suture pierced your skin, you were twitching in your sleep, movements pausing around you in case you woke up and panicked. Once you settled, Minho’s hand was moving smoothly. With their attention focused on your shoulder and not your face, no one noticed your eyes slowly blinking open with tears lining your lashes already. Minho was the one to notice when he glanced up at you to double check your passed out state, his eyes widening when they met yours.

“Hold her!”

His words startled the boys, their grip tightening as they took notice of your awakened state. You looked around drearily, the pain making you slightly dazed until your body lit up with the pain signals, your arms fighting the holds the boys had on them to try and tug out the suture. Being held still was a slight struggle but it was done successfully, Minho finishing your stitches with little to no struggle once numbing spray was applied to the area. The harsh grips on your body calmed once the stitches were tied off, your eyes flicking between them before you shook your head, eyes focused on the door rattling with the force of two men hitting it forcefully.

“What the actual fuck?”

A few muted chuckles followed your statement, some more annoyed than relieved that you still had your attitude about you. Hyunjin opened his mouth to answer, his eyes catching yours through his hair before they flicked to the door holding back the two responsible for your stitched shoulder along with everyone’s.

Yours followed slowly, the resounding bang that had sounded sending chills through your body. Ragged breathing filled your ears as the boy’s angry shouts and protests were washed away by the gazes of Felix and Seungmin, both breathing heavily and standing tall just outside the now broken door, dark eyes trained on your body as you stared back at them with fear filled eyes.

“Y/n.”

You said nothing, eyes watching each slow step they took towards you until you launched yourself over the back of the couch, past Changbin and Jeongin to hobble as fast as you could out the hole in your house. They watched you with concern, but Jeongin watched you with darkening eyes, his tongue sweeping over his bottom lip as a smirk pulled at them. Minho shared a knowing glance with Han before Jeongin was walking slowly after you, a whistled tune following from his pretty lips as he tucked his hands in his pockets smoothly.

The crunch of the broken wall alerted you to someone following you, your head turning as you stumbled down the driveway. You made eye contact with him as he continued to follow you, his haunting whistle and smirk shooting pains from your shoulder to your leg at the pure danger in his eyes as he strolled after you casually, almost as if he was watching you walk through a field of flowers and not running away from him as gunshots and screams played as a soundtrack for his chase.

“Oh little bunny~”, his tone was condescending, mocking you as you stumbled away from him, “You’ll need to run faster if you don’t want me to catch you~”

Your steps stuttered, arms flailing to stop yourself from falling until you righted your steps, turning away from his dark eyes as he laughed, head thrown back and eyes closed until it snapped forward, eyes narrowed on your retreating figure.

“And believe me, you really don’t want that.”, Jeongin called after you, his steps slowing slightly as his whistling picked up again, the song burned into your brain as a source of fear.

Your fear increased ten-fold as he began singing, your heart stopping as his voice reached you. It caused conflicting emotions. The beauty of his voice made you want to stop and listen but as the lyrics registered, you wanted to simultaneously curl up in a ball and cry yourself to sleep and never wake up.

“Run, run for your life.”

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Tag list: @artisticbirb @extremechaoswarning @mixtape-racha

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wuahae · 1 year ago

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hihi my lovely cat!! congratulations on hitting 1k gal 🥳✨ may i request 22:30 with sangyeon, where you both are just strolling down the beach hand-in-hand enjoying the breeze and ocean waves, basically a soft fluffy lil drabble hehe

and and!! rank your top 5 fav tbz era!! love you loads 😚🫶🏻💖🫂

[22:30] / on the beach

the waves roll into the shore gently, water lapping at your feet for brief seconds before pulling away once more. sandals held in your hands, each step you take leaves footprints behind on the wet sand beneath you, moonlight catching onto the darkened imprints before the water washes them away again.

“it’ll be nice to remember,” you say, tilting your head up at sangyeon. “the perfect night before we have to leave.”

sangyeon smiles, your other hand placed securely within his. “so you’d say this was a good honeymoon location after all?”

you give him a face, swinging his hand once in emphasis. “you have to admit, the beginning was a little rough.”

right as you’d arrived at the airport in the morning, the plane had been delayed for ten hours, which meant you would miss the connecting flight to your destination, which also meant you spent your entire morning rebooking flights and calling hotels for a trip where you were supposed to be enjoying yourselves. and then half your luggage ended up getting lost, so even when you arrived at the vacation, things were still a mess you needed to fix.

“yeah, but,” sangyeon squeezes your hand once, his dimple two dots deep. “we made the rest of the trip worth it, didn’t we?”

you sigh, smiling back at him. “you’re right. we made the best out of it.”

the moon glows bright tonight, light cascading across the quiet sea. it was something you’d seen every night since you came here—the stars were always a comforting sight, a release from whatever you’d been penting up during the day, a constant you could always rely on. it’s always been like that, ever since you could remember.

the way that no matter how terrible your day or week or month had been, no matter how many changes were happening in your life, you knew you could look up to the sky and know that there would always at least be the stars waiting there for you. they were a stability, a reassurance, something you were eternally grateful for especially in this new stage in your life.

in truth, you don’t want this night to ever end, because after it does, then it’s back to reality—the stress over packing everything back into your suitcases, the long flight back tomorrow morning, the end of your peaceful vacation.

“can we just stay here?” you ask, hopelessly. “i haven’t even finished packing all of the stuff to move to the new house…”

“well, if you never leave then it’ll never get packed, will it?”

pouting, you kick the sand mid-walk. “can’t you just indulge me?”

“darling,” sangyeon says, and your brain stops. “you know i always do.”

somehow, all these years and a ring on your finger and that word formed sweetly from his mouth never fails to have you short-circuiting for hours. sangyeon definitely knows it (that dirty schemer), judging by how he uses it only when he wants you as malleable as possible to get his way.

“besides,” he continues, “once we get the hard things out of the way, we’ll have that whole house ready as our reward.”

the way he said ‘darling’ still echoes through your brain, but not enough for you to not remember what consisted of the new house. on its own, it was actually a lovely house, located in a small town in the countryside where there was more farmland than infrastructure. what it lacked in the usual city’s hustle and bustle, it made up for in the peaceful quiet that came with the location; even just looking at it at first glance, you knew it was the right place for you.

(it felt like love, in a way. no longer a sparking sensation nor the fireworks that came with a new passion, but rather, a steady flame. the gentle warmth of a fireplace, a mug still steaming on the coffee table.)

but with the new place came new threats, threats consisting of your elderly neighbors, grannies whose eagle eyes seemed only to sharpen with age, honed specifically to pick out handsome men with a calling to be their dream son-in-law.

well. sangyeon already was a son-in-law, and he already had a wife, so really you just want to tell these old grannies to buzz off.

“sangyeon,” you rest a hand on his arm, grave. “you know you have to be careful once we move.”

he looks at you like you’ve swallowed too much salt water. “what?”

“you know…” you press, dead serious. “i’m not going to be around for a lot of the day since i’m in the next town for work, and you’re going to be manning the house all by yourself, i…” you trail off, gripping his arm tighter. “i’m worried.”

“darling, everyone around us is in retirement?”

‘darling’ won’t save him now. “exactly.”

from your brief visits while moving some of your early stuff in, sangyeon has gained enough attention from the old ladies from seeing him around town and running into him at the grocery store they’ve become bold enough to comment on how lucky his wife must be to have him, how any woman would be so blessed to have him in their lives. sangyeon relays it to you as a nice encounter from your future neighbors, but you know their games. you know what they’re after.

(you know precisely what moment they catch the ring on his finger because there’s always a dirty look and a ‘tsk’ that follows immediately after. hmph.)

sangyeon shoots you a look that’s half affection and half exasperated, as if he’s heard your grievances far too much to take them seriously (he has. he should!). “don’t be silly, before we left, miss yoon said that she could introduce her daughter to me! she said she had a great collection of cabbages and could give me some tips on how to start my own cabbage garden too—”

“are you saying our marriage is over before it truly begins!”

“what?”

“you’re going to get stolen from me… under the promise of good cabbages!”

sangyeon gives you a pointed look. “you’re being silly.”

“i’m not. i’m not…” you grip him tighter. “locally grown, grass-fed chickens and all…”

“i thought we were talking about cabbages?”

“for now! that’s what they always say!”

sangyeon stops, mirth in his eyes as he really looks at you. he’s earnest, really, even as he tries not to laugh in your face, when he says, “no old woman is going to sway me, i promise.”

you hesitate. “not even miss yoon and her cabbage daughter?”

he slides your hand down to his again, sincere. “‘in sickness and in health, till death do us part,’ remember?”

“wow,” you joke lightly, trying to hide the way your voice wobbles like a leaf in the wind. he really has way too much power over you. “renewing our vows already?”

sangyeon squeezes your hand again, leaning in to kiss you on the forehead gently. “i’ll renew them as many times as you’d like, if that’s what it takes for you to never forget.”

and in the midst of this, the last night of your honeymoon, the brand new beginning of your new life together, you realize that maybe you won’t need to look up at the stars for a comforting constant anymore—not when you’ll have sangyeon by your side for the rest of your life too.

#BTW my top 5 tbz eras are roar stealer reveal thrill ride and maverick hehe in no particular order :3 #1k event!#sangyeon x reader #tbz x reader #sangyeon x you #tbz x you

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freebooter4ever · 2 months ago

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i talked with jilly bean for as long as her kids would let her today, and she's been trying to undo the guilt i feel over grandma telling me i should just choose to not be sick and stop seeing doctors. anyway i was describibg the 'elemental' diet to jillian and she said she would fly down to LA to work here remotely and take care of me for the two weeks it takes to kill off the bacteria if i end up having to do that (i still have two rounds of back to back antibiotics to try first). so that might be my early november right there.

but as i was crying a little over how during the bad hours i cant do anything like read or even watch tv because its hard for my brain to follow, she was asking if there is anything i do that even is remotely comforting or distracting. and i was like LOL. well. and admitted that ive been scrolling through old hockey gifs and pictures and i was like this is evgeni and sent her the video:

Ok so some backstory jilly bean and i grew up together, both of us living in the same little neighborhood for 18 years. And our high school football team was like...state champions the entire time i think ( i say think because the only time i realized i should have the 'high school experience' and actually go to games was as a senior ) ( we definitely won state that year lol ). Except like... Our graduating class was some of the first championship years so the football field was more rudimentary and only the popular kids and band members and families could get seats on the bleachers (the yellow arrow):

The entire bit circled in blue did not exist in my day lol. anyway my point is if you were kind of a weirdo and didnt have friends to give you seats you just ended up wandering around the track (the bit i colored purple). I never paid much attention to the actual football game i was just there to support jillian who desperately wanted to feel like a normal teenager. She was the sports fan, i was the nerd who forced her to watch lord of the rings.

Jillian would make up dances while we walked back and forth on the endline to stay warm. We were not cheerleaders by any stretch of the imagination - this is washington state in the fall and winter, back then 90% of the time it was raining, we were bundled up in jeans and sweatshirts. But my favorite of her 'cheers' was the 'ewok dance' which consisted of humming star wars music and a lot of less flexible leg lifts. Watching geno's uncoordinated jumping around and waving the towel took both jillian and i back about twenty years i think, lol.

ANYWAY my point is she approves:

🤣🤣🤣

See turnabout is fairplay though because even longer ago when we were extremely awkward preteens in middle school, while i was transitioning from my historical pirates phase to my elves phase, jillian was becoming increasingly obsessed with baseball. It wouldnt be until POTC was released that finally our interests collided and we both decided pirates were the coolest. In the meantime, 12 year old jillian went online searching for a brett bo*one desktop background for her family's computer. This story could end really inappropriately because 90s internet but instead jillian just happened to find a relatively tame photo edit that stuck boone's head on top of an extremely musclar angel with feathered wings and wearing nothing but a diaper. I mean you think sports fans are creative now...thats nothing compared to early 90s geocities. She made this 'boonie angel' her family's computer background much to the amusement of her computer scientist father.

'boonie angel' quickly became an inside joke. At one point jillian ended up with a lifesize sticky cut out on the wall of her room of actual boone hitting a home run. And the only reason i ever went to seattle baseball games was to support jillian's ridiculous crush (our other friend nuri only came for the stadium sushi which was all the rage during the ich*iro era). And i would randomly gift jillian with cards depicting the signature stick figure 'boonie angel' like this guy enjoying the rose garden yesterday (note the diaper, that was important for his modesty):

Keep in mind boonie angel was like...a thirty year old man. Nothing about this made sense, to this day i have no idea why jillian latched so hard onto this player. But back then preteen me was crushing hard on fictional elves who were immortal thousands of years old so i couldnt exactly judge (my favorite was kyrtian from elvenborn who was this reclusive military genius with a heart of gold who tried to hide behind a veneer of 'madness' to avoid the evil elves and was suddenly thrust into the spotlight when the rich and powerful elves realized they could exploit kyrtian's academic talent)(he was so much more complex and interesting than legolas and also he shared my daddy issues).

So what im sayin is i enabled her ridiculousness, and i should have known she'd be more than willing to enable mine lmaooooo.

ok but now im wondering what geno would look like as an angel with a diaper....

#What im also saying is that my coping mechanisms for life havent grown since age 12 #Jrnlsht

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ladylooch · 1 year ago

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Letters in Your Last Name- Chapter 26

A/N: I love, love, love Matt Boldy in this one. Still sad we don't get more of these two together 😔

Word Count: 4.8k

Warnings: Mentions of Sexual Assault, SMUT 18+ Content, Fighting, Swearing.

“It’s nice to be back here.” Felicia muses to me as she settles into the seat next to me with a beer. We are sitting in the lower bowl tonight for the Wild’s mid-season tilt with the Vegas Golden Knights. Alex is back out in Chicago, but with him consistently bouncing between the AHL and NHL, Felicia and the kids decided to stay in Minnesota for the season. I’ve been trying to get her to a game all year, but with the kids busier schedules, it’s been difficult to find one that fit. Tonight, it’s ladies night out on a Thursday in December.

“It hasn’t changed much.” I laugh, removing my jacket and folding it over the back of my chair. I toss a wave to Lauren who is in the row behind us with her mom. “I’ll come see you at intermission.” I call to her, then turn back to the ice.

Let’s Play Hockey has just been yelled out. Then, the puck snaps to the ice for the opening drop and the boys are off. The pace is intense and frantic from the start. I find myself jerking back as Kevin is slammed hard into the boards in front of us. My hand comes to my mouth in worry. He adjusts his helmet back into place and pushes three powerful strides to rejoin the play. Once, when I told him I was worried about some of the hits he takes, he waved away my concern.

“A good, clean hit in the first shift sets the tone. It wakes me up and I’m ready to play.” His teeth dazzled as he smiled, then he pressed his lips to mine in assurance. “Don’t worry about me. I’m built for it.” He tightens his upper body muscles into a flex.

He’s built for it, I repeat in my head, imagining each groove of his muscular body absorbing the shock and pushing it right back out. That helps and I’m back invested in the play, not worrying about him as much.

The visualization has been helpful, but the game begins to increase in chipiness quickly. Ryan Hartman goes to the box first for a rough, then once he is out, its Matt Dumba taking his turn with a Vegas player. Towards the end of the period, Matty even gets in the mix, crosschecking at a guy with the shaft of his stick. The Vegas player gets right in Matt’s face and I can see the red tint in Matt’s cheeks from here. But Kevin is there, tugging at Matt’s jersey to separate him. An interesting sight to see from my husband.

The first period ends with the teams tied at 1. I assume that the 20 minute break will help diffuse some of the simmering tension. I’m quickly proven wrong as shoves are had at the opening face off for the period. Luckily, Kevin is tucked on the bench. I glance over, seeing him standing, running his mouth at the Vegas bench. I shake my head, crossing my arms tightly over my chest.

“Kevin.” I mutter to myself. Felicia hears and she laughs.

“The boy has to run that mouth. It’s just part of his game.”

“He could make an effort for it to be a little less.” I huff at her.

The referee drops the puck and the two teams begin to dance in the Vegas zone. I watch as Kevin moves in front of the net while Matt goes to the corner to retrieve the puck. It comes to Dmitri Kulikov who winds up for a slapper. As the puck is going by, a Vegas player crosschecks Kevin in the back, making him fall. Kevin gets up and instantly starts jawing as the play stops with the guy going for a 2 minute sit down. The Vegas player laughs wickedly and then says something to Kevin.

A burning rage consumes Kevin instantly at whatever was said to him and he leaps forward, grabbing the Knights player into a headlock. Kevin immediately starts throwing punches and I gasp in complete shock. Kevin has been in altercations before, but nothing I would consider to be a fight. As discussed, running his mouth is more his style.

“Ohmygod.” I breathe out, standing with the rest of the arena as Kevin continues to pound into the other player.

The fans are electrically cheering Kevin on while I clasp my hands tightly together in front of my face. The Knights player gets one good jab on Kevin that hits his mouth. That seems to ignite Kevin further and he’s back to swinging even as the other players helmet comes off. Kevin gets the edge after that and takes the player down to his back where the refs immediately jump in to stop it. I suck in a deep breath and try to steady the butterflies in my stomach. The arena cheers in excitement and I swallow hard, looking at the Jumbotron as Kevin heads into the box.

The rage in my husband’s eyes takes me aback as I watch him sit in the penalty box. His hair is matted with sweat against his forehead and the hatred in his brown eyes reaches me in my seat across the ice from him. Wow. Whatever that player said has Kevin borderline inconsolable. He grabs for a towel, wiping at his visor that had fogged up in the altercation. His head is shaking in disgust. I can see from my seat that the Knights player is still jawing at him. All of a sudden, Kevin screams FUCK! And then begins to mutter other indiscernible words. His bottom lip is cut open and he gingerly places a towel against it to wipe the blood away.

“I’ve never seen Kev like that.” Felicia murmurs to me with a concerned glance.

“Me either.” I tell her. I chew on my bottom lip and watch the puck drop in the neutral zone.

After the game ends with the good guys on top, Kevin comes into the lounge. My eyes find him instantly. Felicia left right after the final horn and I’ve been waiting patiently for him to emerge. I cringe when I see his fat, bottom lip with a cut in the center. It looks painful and he has an ice pack in his hand to help with the swelling of that and his knuckles.

“Hi Rocky.” I joke with him. The tension in his face tells me this isn’t something I can joke us through. I purse my lips and reach for his hand. “I probably shouldn’t kiss you.” I say lightly, reaching tentatively for his swollen lip. He licks it gingerly and I can tell even that is painful. He turns his cheek to me and my lips linger on him in concern. “What was that?” I whisper to him, cupping the back of his neck. He shakes his head at me.

“Let’s go.” His hand squeezes mine and he walks us from the lounge in silence.

The ride home is quiet except for the sounds of Kevin’s Spotify playlist. It’s all in German by artists I don’t know. He doesn’t sing along and I can feel his anger simmering even in the darkness of the car. When we arrive at our place, we head up to our apartment where Kevin unlocks the door before holding it open for me to walk in. He heads right to our bedroom where he enters the bathroom and I don’t see him for a half hour. In the meantime, I grab a High Noon from the fridge and take steady sips while I wait. When he appears again, his lip has puffed up even more and he’s putting antibiotic cream on it to help it all calm down.

“Can you tell me what happened?” I trail off, circling the rim of the can with my pointer finger. My wedding rings sparkle in the low lighting of the living room. He sits down on the couch and gazes out the windows of our place. He swallows and sniffs before his eyes come towards my direction.

“He said some shit that was really uncalled for.”

“I gathered that.” I nod at him. “About anything in particular?” His eyes meet mine. There is a look there that I can’t understand. It’s loaded with emotion but it seems to be a blend of anger, hurt, and disgust.

“About you.” His voice is flat when he speaks. I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t that. My eyebrows shoot up in surprise and then furrow again in confusion. I shake my head at him.

“Okay.. what did he say?” The look from a minute ago returns and again, I can’t quite figure out what I’m seeing there.

“It started from the opening face off.” Kevin’s voice has gone low and intense. “First it was ‘I heard you have a hot wife.’ Then it turned into ‘Can you give her my number for next time I’m in town’… Nothing that warranted a response.” He pauses and runs a hand through his hair. He tilts his head back to look at the ceiling before he continues. “Until he started going off into weird, sexual comments. Spurge told me to let it go, but then the shift before the fight, Bolds heard one of the jaws and shoved at him.” I cringe, remembering Matt stepping forward and hitting at the guy while Kevin pulled him away.

“Matt came back to the bench and was seething. He kept telling me to talk to Moose about what he was saying, but I just brushed it off. I knew that asshat was just trying to get a response from me. I’m trying not to be that player.” He releases a sigh. I can’t sit here anymore; I need to touch him. I crawl over to him on the couch and straddle his lap. He tilts his head back forward, but he looks at the Wild logo on my shirt, not at my face. “So, next time Matt and I are on the ice. He lines up at the face-off with both Matt and I on the right side in front of the net. He looks at Matt and asks if he’s fucked you because he heard you’re into fucking line mates.”

“What?” My head jerks back in shock.

“Matt shoves him and tells him to fuck off. The guy just starts laughing as the ref separates him and Matt. Then the puck drops. Matt goes to the corner to grab the puck and I go to the front of the net. The guy stays by me to keep jawing. He didn’t even bothering to play his position. I don’t remember what he said before, but as Kuli is shooting the puck, the guy cross checks me in the back. When I pop up, he says ‘Next time I’m in town, I’m going to bend your wife over and fuck her while she begs me to stop.’ And I lost my damn mind.”

“Babe…” I start, but I don’t know what to else say. The words were completely horrendous and uncalled for. I understand exactly why Kevin is so upset. Who says things like that to another person? Who insinuates sexual assault of a loved one as a way to get an edge on an opponent? When is that ever appropriate? “I’m glad you punched that asshole in the face. That is disgusting!” Kevin just shakes his head in response. “You did not deserve that and you had every right to react the way that you did.”

“Yeah, except that guy has a big, fucking mouth and he’s going to spread the word around the league on what my trigger is. It’s you. Of course it’s you. I’m obsessed with you and I love you so fucking much, Sam. It’s my job to protect you and-“

“Kev.” I stop him by grabbing his face in both my hands. “He was wrong to say those things to you. And if he’s going to tell other players what he said to you, they’re not going to be on his side. That was disgustingly uncalled for. There is a fine line between talking shit and being explicitly cruel.”

“God, I want to punch him in the face all over again.” Kevin snaps. His breathing has increased significantly and there is a flame burning in his eyes that can’t be extinguished. “I can’t believe he went there. Acting like he was going to…” He trails off, not able to say the words. “I would never, ever let anything happen to you. This is why people get murdered. I completely understand that level of rage now.”

“Okay, please don’t murder anyone.” I cringe. “We don’t need to fight violence with violence… except when you punched him in the face. That was fine.” I laugh lightly. Kevin gives a small smile.

“I feel like I got a few good punches in. Heard he needed stitches on his cheek. Would have been better if his last attempt didn’t land.” He mutters, cautiously touching his lip. “For a second, I was worried he knocked my bottom teeth out, but then I just saw red again and swung harder.”

“Did you talk with someone about what he said?”

“Well, yeah. I was pretty upset in the locker room between periods so both Moose and Dumbs talked with me. Dumbs told Dean what happened and Dean is bringing it up with the league. But whatever. If anything it’s like, here’s a slap on the wrist. They don’t care. It’s just talk.”

“That’s frustrating. But at least you spoke up. Whether they do something or not, you don’t need to leave that festering inside of you.” Kevin shakes his head in anger.

“I’m going to kick his ass again next time we meet. Right off the fucking face-off. No one should be comfortable saying things like that about you, about anyone’s wife, thinking he can get away with it.”

“You’re right.” I nod in agreement. “It’s not okay that he felt comfortable saying those things to you.”

“Dude is a scrub. When he was yelling at me in the penalty box, I yelled back that you don’t even know who the fuck he is.” I giggle at that and nod my head.

“Can’t even remember his name now.” I confirm. “Have no desire to know either.” Kevin shakes his head again and rubs his hands along my thighs to my hips.

“Come here. I need to hold you.” His hands come to my back and he pulls me into his chest. I lay my head on his shoulder with my forehead resting against his neck. He releases a sigh and burrows me tighter into him. I know that tonight, it will be impossible for us to be close enough to each other. His fingers spread out on my back so that he can tighten his grip even further on me. His head rests against mine and he’s squeezing me so tight I have to take shallow breaths.

“I’m safe here with you, Kev. From that guy and anyone else.” I murmur to him. I bring my hand to the other side of his neck and close my eyes, getting lost in the feeling of his security. At my words, the tension begins dissolving from his body. My fingers slide further back on his neck so they tangle in his hair. I gently scratch at his scalp and the remaining tension leaves his frame. He’s relaxing his grip on me; his hands rub at my back in sweet circles. I pull back at that to look into his face. His swollen lip is a stark contrast to his beautiful features.

“Kiss me.” He mumbles with watchful eyes on me. I lean down and gently put our lips together, careful of his cut. It’s not enough for him. He instantly shoves his tongue into my mouth and I accept him fully. If it hurts his lip, he doesn’t let on as he presses our mouths harder together. I grind my hips into him in response causing him to groan deep in his chest. His hands are under my thighs and he stands, taking me with him. He walks us to the bedroom, gently settling me down before he goes to turn the light on in our room. “I want to see your face when I make you come.” I squeeze my legs together at the tug of desire I feel.

I don’t waste anytime and start shedding my clothes as he does the same while walking back to me. When we are naked, he jerks me by my hips to the edge of the bed and puts his mouth on me. I suck in a deep breath at the feeling of his lips on my sensitive nub. He sucks at me like I’m a juicy peach in the middle of the summer. I’m throbbing between my legs instantly and I can feel the wetness dampen my entrance.

“You taste so good, baby.” He coos to me before sliding two fingers into my wet heat.

His mouth continues the delightful sucking. His fingers curl in me, begging for me to come. When I do, I see stars. It’s so damn fierce that wave after wave rolls off my body, causing me to shudder in his arms. My limbs turn to mush as he smiles against me, giving my clit one last kiss. He stands and spreads my knees wide. I take him fully in one, slow thrust. My mouth opens in exhilaration but no sound comes out. I wiggle my hips earnestly and my eyebrows pull tightly together in desire.

“Tell me how this feels.” He encourages me as his thrusts increase. He grabs my legs and pulls them together before bending my knees so I’m tight and fully around him. His fingers grasp my calves and something about his touch has his name slipping from my mouth uncontrollably.

“Kev… So good, baby. Don’t stop.” I whimper to him as he fucks me. He thrusts further into me in desperate movements, watching my face intently. My hands come to my heavy breasts. I give them a squeeze, threading my puckered nipples through my fingers. His eyes darken with hunger. He loves when I touch myself for him.

Kevin grabs my hip and flips me over so my ass is in the air and I’m on all fours. He slides back into me and he bumps my cervix before pulling out and slamming right back in. I move my hips in rhythm with him and let out a loud, sexy cry. His hand rests between my shoulders to encourages me down so he can take full control.

When my cheek touches the cool sheets, he fucks me so fast and deep that his balls slap tantalizingly against me. I sob into the comforter at the exquisite feeling and then I come undone all over him. My wetness increases with my orgasm and his thrusts echo through the room. Kevin lets out a loud moan before I feel him spill into me. He pumps through his orgasm, squeezing the base of his dick with his hand so every last drop of him fills me. I whimper at the intimacy of that and reach for his thigh to keep him deep inside of me. I feel Kevin release a full exhale, then he pulls himself from me gently. Something about what we just did was deeper than sex. When I flip over to look into Kevin’s face, I can see he feels that too. He shakes his head slowly before he speaks.

“I don’t know what that was. But it’s the best we’ve ever had.” He leans down and delicately kisses my lips. His hands trail up my sides to rest on my ribs; his thumbs brushing the bottom swells of my breasts.

“You literally filled me completely.” I murmur to him.

“I know.” He laughs and delicately pulls my lip into his mouth to nibble it. “You can go take care of that if you need to.” He motions his head towards the bathroom.

“No. I want every drop of you to stay in me.” He lets out a groan.

“That’s hot, baby.” He reaches farther up my breasts and swipes across both of my nipples. He grins in triumph at the way I thrust into his hands further. He moves from between my knees and goes to the head of the bed. I crawl up the bed to get under the covers with him “That helped. I needed to be inside of you.” He murmurs to me when we are settled back into each other.

Our naked skin clings to each other in sweaty, sexy satisfaction. The way he is speaking to me, still with an edge of desire in his voice, I know it won’t be long until his hands begin to wander over me again.

The next morning, I’m in the kitchen with my coffee when I hear a knock at the door. I stop from where I am loading the dishwasher and walk over, looking out the peep hole. Matt Boldy is standing on the other side of the door. His hands are stuffed into his team issued sweatpants and he wears Adidas flip flops with socks.

“Hi Matty.” I say when I open the door, a slight tilt to my lips.

“Hey. I texted Kev that I was coming up but he didn’t respond.”

“He’s still sleeping. Come in.” I motion for him to enter our place. “We have some of that orange juice with mango if you want a glass.” I motion to the fridge. “Help yourself.”

“Thanks.” Matt grabs a cup from the cabinet and gets the juice from the fridge. I can’t help the smile that tugs my lips at how comfortable he is in our place. I’m glad. It can’t be easy with all the unknowns of this league and being so far from everyone you know. “So, did Kev tell you about what happened last night?”

“He did.” I nod, placing the dishwasher pod into the holder. I close it and press the start button before I continue. “Pretty shitty.”

“Dude needs to get wrecked next game. The boys will be ready, that’s for sure.” As he says this, I can’t help but see how young Matt is. With his boyish looks, he just seems like a little kid standing here in our kitchen, willing to punch someone in the face for disgracing my honor.

“How about you just stay out of it?” I give him a pointed look. “As I told Kev last night, I’m fine. The best way forward is to just move on from it. Otherwise it will become an every game thing.”

“Sam, you’re like my sister. If there’s an opportunity, I’m laying his bitch ass out.” His Boston accent drips from his words the more frustrated he gets.

“Okay, Matty.” I shake my head with a laugh then try to change the subject. “You played great last night.”

“Thanks. It’s easy when I know Kev’s with me every step. Gives options for what we can do.”

“Yeah, it’s exciting to watch you two work together. Besties.” I finish with a flutter of my lashes and tightened cheeks.

“Yeah, but with you we are the three musketeers.” He laughs. “What smells so good?”

“Oh!” I clap my hands in excitement. “I prepped a breakfast casserole yesterday and It’s baking in the oven with some bacon.” I shimmy over to the oven and flip the light on to check it. It’s still not done. “Maybe like ten more minutes and it will be ready. Stay and eat with us.”

“Yes!” He exclaims. I don’t bother to encourage him to make himself at home because he already has. He grabs his juice and heads over to the couch, flipping the TV on and beginning to watch SportsCenter.

A few minutes later, as I’m wiping the island off, Kevin comes padding from our bedroom. He glances to the back of Matt’s head on the couch then gives me a knowing smile at the sight of his line mate. Some days, Matt is with us more than he is in his own apartment. Our house is about halfway built and it will be tough for Matt when we move out of the building. Kevin walks over to me and gently kisses my lips. His lip has calmed down a bit overnight, but it’s still fat and the cut is very pronounced.

“Good morning.” I murmur to him, wrapping my arms around his waist for a quick hug.

“Morning, baby.” He kisses me again, longer and sweeter this time. “Mmm.” He moans against my lips before stepping away. His eyes twinkle while he gives my butt a discreet squeeze. I know he’s thinking of last night. The second round was just as good as the first. “Matt. Bud. Didn’t know you were in the living room when I texted you back.”

“Yeah, I came up when you didn’t response cause I knew Sam would be awake. Thanks for breakfast by the way.” He turns back and gives Kevin a mega-watt grin.

“Anytime.” Kevin laughs, grabbing a glass of orange juice and joining Matt on the couch.

“Do you two have practice today?” I ask them, glancing nervously at the clock. It’s almost 9:45am and they usually have practice at 10:30. My casserole might not be done by the time they need to leave.

“Nope!” Matt exclaims excitedly. “Do you guys wanna hang out today?” He asks hopefully.

“Duh.” I nod my head in confirmation at him. Kevin tilts his chin in agreement.

“Sweet.” The relief is evident in Matt’s tone that he doesn’t have to spend another Sunday alone.

After a fun day filled with good food, good company, card games, and tons of TV, Kevin and I are getting ready to head to bed for another week filled with hockey. Kevin will start the week here, but end on the road in Philly and New York.

“Matt is to us like what I was to Alex and Felicia. Baby before the baby.” I joke as I pull the comforter back from my side of the bed. I slide my rings off and put them in their holding dish on my nightstand. “That kid is practically living with us.”

“You love it.” Kevin rolls his eyes on me. “Matty, what do you want for dinner, hun?” He mimics my voice and what I asked Matt earlier in the day. I scoff and smack at his arm.

“He is 21 years old and has no one here, Kev. I just want him to stay in a solid, mental health space and feel like he has support. If that involves cooking his favorite dinner and letting him hang here all day, sign me up.”

“You’re trying to mother him.” Kevin insists to me with another wide grin. “He already has one of those.”

“Yeah in Boston. Like you wouldn’t have appreciated some support at his age, instead of figuring it out on your own.” I pause from sliding into bed to look at him.

“Of course I would have.” He nods in agreement. I get under the covers and grab my phone to do my nightly scroll through social media. “It’s cute tho.” His voice comes to me in a softer tone.

“What?” I look over at him.

“Watching you be like that to Matt. It makes me excited to see you with our babies.” Our gazes connect and the sincerity in his eyes is touching. “I know we said we are waiting, but I’m ready when you are.”

“I’m not yet.” I tell him honestly. I like our life right now and I’m not willing to give it up quite yet.

“I know and that’s obviously okay with me. Having babies is on your timeline, not mine. But when you are ready… just say the word.”

Kevin reaches for me and pulls me across the bed into his body. His hand on my hip dips to spread across my stomach and he looks down at it. His fingers brush against my bare skin then he cups my flat stomach. I look down too, imagining what it would look like for a bump to be expanding from my body with a baby. Our baby. The way he is touching me is so intimate and yearning. It almost makes me want to give him one right this second. Almost.

“No babies tonight, but maybe we can practice…” My eyes slowly move up Kevin’s bare chest to his gorgeous face. His lips tilt into a coy smile and he kisses me with a passionate agreement.

#letters in your last name au #kevin fiala #Kevin Fiala Fic #los angeles kings #my writing #hockey fan fiction #hockey writing #NHL writing

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artdecosupernova-writing · 1 year ago

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Fictober '23 Prompt No. 16 — "Do you know a way out of here?"

Category: Original WIP: Darkspace Portent series Rating: T Timeline: beats the hell outta me lol CW: blood, brief vomiting Word Count: 932 Additional Notes: canon non-compliant. just a fun bit I decided to explore

***

Warren blinked, a bit surprised that his eyes were already open. He'd been unconscious, and he realized his comeback accompanied a blinding headache that circled his head like a slow-moving cyclone. He reached up to press a palm against his forehead.

"God," he groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. "Fuck..."

He heard movement coming from somewhere around him, but something sticky against his head distracted him. He pulled his hand away from his head and, though he was doused in mostly shadow, he could see a dark substance on his skin, shining under a low, lazy white strobe. Mental processing kicked in bit by bit.

"What...?"

"The day you stop dying will be a momentous occasion without a shred of a doubt," a very irate, very out of breath, and very familiar voice blurted.

Warren, dazed, waved his hand in front of his eyes, and it left a blurry trail behind it. A drop of the fluid landed on his cheek. "I...can't..."

A face appeared in his line of sight, above him, and it lowered down to him, hands running over different parts of his body. It was...Thrive. An intense frown digging into his brows and the corners of his mouth. Smears of the same dark fluid across his face with no discernible source.

"Considering the circumstances, I should let you rest," Thrive said, "but we're in a pressing situation and I'm going to need you to move."

Warren blinked again. "What?"

"You have to get up."

With that, Warren was in the air. His feet lowered, and solid ground forced him to stand, though a sledgehammer of dizziness made that a two-person job. He clutched Thrive's shoulder on the threat of pitching in a direction that would acquaint him with the floor.

"The hell's goin' on...?" Warren muttered.

"The short of it is," Thrive grunted, hooking an arm around Warren and leading him forward, "we've been attacked."

"Attacked..."

"The Node. The Consortium Node, the largest station in the Milky Way. I've estimated around thirty-five percent of it has been annihilated, and that number is only increasing."

One step. Two steps.

"Where...?"

Thrive took a couple of steadying breaths by his ear. "We're at the center of it."

The strobing light didn't appear to originate from any one spot, its breathing pattern consistent and all-encompassing. After a moment of muffled and distant thuds against what Warren was sure were walls, he determined that he wasn't even sure the lights weren't exclusively seen by him.

"What's...on my hand...?" he asked, bringing it up to his face again.

Thrive's hold on him tightened, and his impatience grew with every shambling step Warren took. "...Your blood. It's your blood."

"Did I...get hit...?"

As if a form of punctuation, the floor jerked beneath them. Thrive grabbed Warren into a bear hug and swung them around, falling back-first into the sudden gaping darkness below. Impact was almost instant, jarring, and shook another flash across Warren's vision, but it was absorbed almost entirely by Thrive's spine.

Thrive rolled so he could secure Warren with his body and assess their new surroundings at the same time. "We're in the Southern District. I don't think much of it is left."

He looked down at Warren and it was hard to miss the fleeting grimace.

Warren swallowed, his thoughts coming in with more clarity than when he'd first come to. "How bad?"

Thrive looked as if he didn't want to answer. "There was a collapse. A portion of the district imploded. You were struck on the head by debris and died."

"Yeah." Warren wanted to fall asleep, his headache becoming more pronounced. "...That happens a lot, doesn't it?"

Thrive shook his head, tight and tense. He got to his feet and helped Warren to his without a word.

"Do you..." Warren leaned on Thrive again as they moved through rubble and what he sure hoped weren't bodies littered around them. "Do you know a way out of here?"

"Not at the moment. We'll have to be careful—I'm unsure where the station ends and space begins."

"Okay..." Warren, lightheaded, nodded, his chin sinking closer to his chest. "Yeah...I guess we..."

Thrive's arm tightened around him once more. "Warren," he said firmly. "Warren."

Warren didn't quite catch the concern in his voice as his ears plugged and his knees buckled. Thrive caught him and scooped him up, into his arms once more, sidestepping massive sheets of metal and piles of glass strewn at their feet.

He was in and out. At some point, Thrive set him down so he could vomit without risk of aspiration. They continued on, their path growing more narrow, until Thrive came to a halt and his fingers dug into Warren's shoulder and thigh.

"S'matter," Warren mumbled. When he didn't get a response, Warren opened his eyes and registered the unobstructed view of the Node nebula and the Milky Way stretched out in front of them. Framed by jagged edges of the Node, the void sparkled with pieces of the station and bursts of energy firing all around.

The electric blue containment barrier remained in place, fizzing at the points of contact with the walls. Warren determined they wouldn't hold for long.

"What now?"

Thrive's jaw ticked, his lips tight. His gaze swept over the destruction and the aftermath of the attack.

He didn't say anything. He let out a heavy sigh and carefully pressed his forehead to the side of Warren's face. Warren, in return, cradled his head and tangled his fingers into his hair, closing his eyes and allowing himself to exchange futile comfort through their touch.

#fictober23 #Darkspace Portent #I haven't written in half a month #I'm hoping this will help get me back into it so I can finish the damn Rebirth beta bonus content

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breakingcatbad · 9 months ago

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Why the Long Face (a personal fan narrative)

Introduction

“When you find yourself lost and disoriented and underwater and you don't know which way is up, it's important to breathe” (Waksberg, R. B., & Santamaria, V. 2016).

Television has a remarkable ability to transcend mere entertainment and resonate with viewers on a deeply personal level. For me, "Bojack Horseman" exemplifies this, as its poignant exploration of themes like personal responsibility, forgiveness, and self-improvement truly struck a chord with me. In this essay I will talk about how Bojack Horseman allowed me to begin to break bad habits and helped me fight my social anxiety.

Drowning

Since I'm lazy I will let IMDb explain the plot of Bojack horseman for me. Bojack Horseman is about the titular BoJack Horseman (a horse) who was “the star of the hit television show "Horsin' Around" in the '80s and '90s, but [is now] washed up, living in Hollywood, complaining about everything, and wearing colorful sweaters” (IMDb Writers 2014)

But what does this alcoholic horse have to do with me? Well, let me take you back to when I was younger, not that much younger than I am now.

I was someone who struggled to take responsibility for who I was. I'd blame others for my problems, never really looking inward to become a better person. In class, I'd stick to my four close friends, failing to connect with anyone else due to my lacking social skills. It felt like I was sinking in a pit of tar, with no way out. Even with my close friends, I felt extremely lonely, lacking any meaningful connections with those around me. It left me grappling with a profound sense of existential unease.

This cycle persisted into my sophomore year and deep into the COVID pandemic without any real change. But deep down, I knew there was potential within me to strive for something better, something more, rather than remaining stuck in who I was.

So, during the depths of COVID, almost by chance and perhaps as a means of escapism, I found myself indulging in the show about a horse with daddy issues.

Attempting to swim

From the very first episode, I felt an undeniable connection to Bojack—a washed-up actor grappling with the ghosts of his past. Like him, I had spent years wrestling with my own feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt, unable to confront the root causes of my dissatisfaction. This internal dissatisfaction spurred on a wave of social anxiety that prevented me from truly or meaningfully opening up to anyone, which only made me more miserable. Despite the outward appearances of a somewhat well adjusted person, I knew deep down that a sense of purpose, of authenticity, of connection was missing from my life. It was this existential hole that "Bojack Horseman" so poignantly reflected back onto myself that forced me to confront the uncomfortable truths lurking beneath the surface of my own life.

Throughout the series, BoJack's attempts at change are met with failure, highlighting the difficulty and gradual nature of personal transformation. It's a reminder that change isn't easy—it requires hard work and the humility to acknowledge one's own shortcomings. One of my favorite quotes from season two that helps exemplify this idea comes from a jogging baboon (not exactly a central character, he just jogs). He tells BoJack, "It gets easier. Every day it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every day —that's the hard part. But it does get easier" (Waksberg, R. B., Aron Elijah, & Young Jordan)

With this wisdom in mind, I began to embrace the journey of self-improvement and began to climb what seemed like an insurmountable mountain in front of me. One of the first habits I tackled was my hygiene,which sounds boring, I know. Looking back, I realize I was probably dealing with some level of depression. I hardly left my room except for essentials like food or haircuts. Anyways, the first step I took was improving my consistency with hygiene. I started brushing my teeth twice a day and made an effort with skincare, rather than spending all day in bed doing nothing. It may sound small, but at the time, I felt genuinely proud of this progress and thus began the journey out of the abyss and into the unknown.

Swimming As I kept watching the show and its seasons unfolded, I found myself pushing beyond my comfort zone. I picked up new skills like learning how to take care of suits, car care, and even eyebrow care (yes I am insane why do you ask). While they may seem trivial, these small victories meant a lot to me. It was also around this time that I began to prioritize my fitness.

What kept me going throughout all of this was the realization that if anything was going to change, I had to be the one to make it happen. I didn't want to follow in BoJack's footsteps, constantly blaming his upbringing for who he became. Sure, my own upbringing had its challenges (though I know others have had it worse), but I refused to let it define me. I wanted to become someone I could truly be proud of.

Once I understood the role I played in shaping my own life and realized I could distance myself from my past, I started making genuine efforts to change. This was a journey BoJack struggled with throughout the series, getting close to meaningful change in season 6 but often slipping back into old habits due to his past actions. Yet, what I admire about the show is how BoJack's actions always catch up to him, teaching me to confront my own habits head-on.

One of my biggest challenges in this journey was working out. Just to be clear, I don't believe that not working out makes you inferior to people that do. For me, working out became a way to build confidence and shed insecurities about my body.

In the past, I struggled with insecurity and faced hurtful comments about my physique. So, I decided to take charge and hit the gym LIKE THE TRUE MAN I AM. But let me tell you, pushing yourself to the limit six days a week isn't easy. However, I kept reminding myself that my actions would shape my future, drawing inspiration from BoJack's journey through rehab.

Continuing to work out and eat better, I started to see results. It wasn't anything dramatic, but it made a significant difference in how I viewed myself. This brings me to what I consider the final frontier of personal development for myself: dealing with my own anxiety

Taking a Breath

BoJack Horseman delves into depression, but it also shines a light on how anxiety often goes hand in hand with it. Throughout the show, BoJack turns to drugs and alcohol to cope with his anxiety, while his tendency to avoid difficult situations is often rooted in fear.

For me, anxiety has been a lifelong companion, especially during the chaos of COVID-19. It felt like my anxiety was this relentless force, tugging at me constantly. Simple tasks became monumental challenges. I'd shake just trying to swipe my credit card at the store. It was like my mind was on overdrive, overthinking everything and leaving little room for anything else.

I became trapped in this cycle of self-doubt, just like BoJack. But watching his journey made me realize something profound: my insecurity came from being too focused on myself. I was so worried about how I appeared to others that I couldn't truly connect with them.

In BoJack's journey toward redemption, he learns to think beyond himself and faces his fears head-on. That inspired me to tackle my anxiety. Now, I'm not saying it's easy to just "get over" anxiety—it's different for everyone. But I knew I had to try.

So, I started pushing myself into uncomfortable situations, knowing it would shape me for the better. And you know what? It worked. Slowly but surely, I began to see positive changes in myself. It's been a journey, but I'm proud of how far I've come.

Conclusion

Bojack Horseman has had a profound impact on my life, not to imply that it has necessarily cured any of my vices, but I am proud to say I am in a much better position now than I was then. I have genuine people I can rely on, and I've made strides in improving myself physically, mentally, and emotionally. Overall, I feel like a better version of myself, and that's something I'm proud of. I am happy that I was able to come across this show when I did, and I am forever grateful for the opportunity it helped allow for me.

#bojack horseman #bojack netflix #bojack quotes #diane nguyen #todd chavez #herb kazzaz #princess carolyn #sarah lynn

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bzedan · 1 year ago

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May! Officially springtime, I wanted my May playlist to key off of 'Les Fleurs' by Minnie Riperton, a song my bff shared in our family discord and has haunted me since (positive).

This playlist put itself together pretty quickly, and basically was in its final form by mid-month. And, since part of the whole point of me even starting doing monthly playlists was because I am prone listening to the same playlists over and over (and over), I had no problem spending two weeks of workdays listening to the same series of songs. It's comforting! My comfort playlist is six songs long and I used to play it on a loop through most of a workday at a Bad Place I Worked. Three hours of syrupy spring joy every day was a delight.

The vibe for May was, if I may quote what I sent my bestie in describing it: "Flowers and joy sweetness and fierceness is the vibes, Middle finger in a lace glove." I mean, I think I achieved that, anyway.

Several covers on this one, like the Cowboy Junkies covering Vic Chesnutt 'Flirted With You All My Life,' which is a hard one to cover for a lot of reasons but this is (to me) a successful attempt. The 'Goodbye Horses' cover by Dead On A Sunday is also a new favourite, it doesn't really change much about it, but it's just a good damn song. The Cardigans singing 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' hit me so unexpectedly, I was delighted.

Related media to some of the songs:

I enjoy the music video for Indigo De Souza's 'You Can Be Mean'.

An Dro's arrangement of the Hieronymus Bosch butt music is probably my favourite version, and I'm grateful to this Tumblr post for introducing this artist to me.

There are two songs from Schmigadoon! season two in here, if you can find a way to watch it (Apple TV+) and are a musicals fan you're in for a treat. It's a damn tragedy how they've got so few clips for this show and were consistently late in sharing what little they had or in making songs available quickly on Spotify. It's a musical show! You're a giant network! Anyway, enjoy this Chicago-inspired piece that is not on this playlist but is a delight nonetheless.

Anyway here's a link to May's playlist on Spotify, with the track list below the cut.

Also embedded if you like that:

'Les Fleurs' - Minnie Riperton

'Like Her Before' - Em and Dzeej

'You Can Be Mean' - Indigo De Souza

'Feel The Way I Want' - Caroline Rose

'Temba, Tumba Y Timba' - Los Van Van

'Army Dreamers - 2018 Remaster' - Kate Bush

'Hieronymus Bosch Butt Music' - An Dro

'Friends' - Ween

'Replacements (feat. La Roux)' - Chromeo

'Scarborough Fair / Canticle' - Simon & Garfunkel

'Athena' - Tristen

'Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall' - Simon & Garfunkel

'Wear Your Love Like Heaven' - Donovan

'Petals' - Mariah Carey

'Lady May' - Tyler Childers

'Miracle' - Caravan Palace

'Hothouse Flower' - Tristen

'Lavender' - Oneida

'Sussudio' - Phil Collins

'For Real' - Mallrat

'Invisible Light' - Scissor Sisters

'This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)' - Talking Heads

'Cut To The Feeling' - Carly Rae Jepsen

'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' - The Cardigans

'Babalon' - Twin Temple

'Bustin' Out' - Dove Cameron

'Concerto In G' - Roger Neill

'Goodbye Horses' - Dead On A Sunday

'Faraway Look' - Yola

'Paradise' - Sade

'Electric Feel' - MGMT

'Sugar on My Tongue - 2005 Remaster' - Talking Heads

'Sweet About Me' - Gabriella Cilmi

'Suspended In Gaffa - 2018 Remaster' - Kate Bush

'So Sweet' - Nurses

'The Windmills Of Your Mind - Mono Version' - Dusty Springfield

'Bitter Sweet Symphony' - The Verve

'The Orchids' - Psychic TV

'Patchouli in the Morning / The Outlier' - An Dro

'Sugar Daddy' - Thompson Twins

'Kaput' - Dove Cameron

'Sweet Turns Sour' - Macy Rodman

'Savoir Faire' - Beth Ditto

'Sweet Poison' - Naked Eyes

'Violet' - Hole

'Eat The Acid' - Kesha

'Wave Catalyst (Low Tide)' - Pacific Coliseum

'Flowers - Medieval Style Instrumental' - Stantough

'Time Bandits' - Angel Olsen

'Flirted With You All My Life' - Cowboy Junkies

'Then Came the Last Days of May' - Blue Öyster Cult

#meche makes playlists #syndicated from subscription sites #playlists #Spotify

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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For most of the past 15 years, my interactions with young Chinese in their late teens and 20s have obeyed a familiar pattern. Having grown up in an age when their country seemed impervious to major economic setbacks, they easily shrugged off each new wave of Western assessments that China’s political and economic model—like all models—faced serious vulnerabilities.

They had heard and rejected the idea that China’s political system was inherently inferior to Western-style democracy. The evidence to the contrary seemed largely sufficient to their eyes as the United States and other high-income countries fell victim to the 2008-09 global financial crisis while China sailed forward almost placidly by comparison. The “democracy is superior” argument took another big hit in their minds during the Trump administration, when U.S. politics was dominated by one poorly informed but powerful man’s impulsiveness. Wasn’t that supposed to be a key flaw of dictatorships?

They had dismissed the widespread notion that China’s relatively closed authoritarian system would prevent the country from innovating fast enough. Yes, it was true that China had blocked most of the trailblazing U.S. companies of the early internet age, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, and many others. But hadn’t China come up with its own terrific domestic alternatives? Look at WeChat, young Chinese began telling me from the moment of that homegrown app’s birth. On “our” platform, they observed, one can seamlessly do everything that it takes a whole host of U.S. apps to accomplish. Has anyone in the West created something so brilliantly capable?

And if one thinks this is a matter of ancient history, which is what the early app era is when talking about the history of the internet, what about electrical vehicles and the batteries that make them run? China has gotten so good so fast at developing sleek, well-functioning, and competitively priced cars in this space that it even has the Germans trembling, as seen at this week’s industry show in what is probably the West’s premium car-producing country. Or look at the U.S. attempt to stifle Huawei, China’s biggest cellphone-maker. Although prevented from using U.S. technology for 5G components, China has, using homegrown technology, just rolled out a high-end smartphone model that is capable of 5G-like data connectivity speeds and which throws in satellite connection capability as a bonus.

Young Chinese have also heard that the country’s poor environment would bottleneck their growth or drive an uprising by the middle class. Not so long ago, the air in big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai was frightfully polluted, drawing justified comparisons to the London of Charles Dickens. If one had to endure this much pollution in order to sustain further decades of fast economic growth, didn’t that call into question more than just the seeming disregard of the country’s leaders for the people’s well-being? What, in other words, is the purpose of growth if one’s child can’t play outside because it’s dangerous to breathe?

Well, something remarkable happened here, too. While traveling in China for much of the past summer, I discovered the air in many of the country’s biggest cities to be so vastly improved that a newcomer would have a hard time imagining the recent long era of “airpocalypses,” as the immovable domes of impenetrable smog encasing urban environments were called.

Though I have never believed that China had somehow repealed basic economic laws, which suggest that every great boom era must come to an end, I have always found a lot to admire in the great many young Chinese I have gotten to know over the last 15 years or so. Substantial numbers among them have been students in my own classes in the United States and elsewhere. And one of the qualities that has consistently struck me most among them is what I like to call civilizational confidence.

It is true that the Chinese state, through tightly controlled education and unstinting propaganda, works hard to instill this attitude, but there is something more at play here than just top-down manipulation. I suspect part of it comes from being part of such a large country with great historic depth and many, many cultural and scientific achievements to its name. Part of it, too, seems to be about resilience. Even if not during their lifetimes, young Chinese know that their country has been down before but has always sprung back impressively. All of this has bred self-belief.

But all of this also makes the impressions I received during my recent weeks of travel in China feel even more remarkable. What I heard over many conversations with young people was not a response to the perennial cycles of doomcasting about China that one finds in the Western press and in much publishing about the country. In fact, most of these people were not terribly well-informed about the current state of Western discourse about their country at all. What they were, however, was filled with their own doubts about the future, which they readily vented.

Some of the contours of this were unsurprising. After all, this was the summer that Beijing decided to suppress the publication of youth unemployment data, presumably because of how grim the numbers have become—in June, youth unemployment hit a record 21.3 percent. In conversation after conversation, my young interlocutors spoke with deep trepidation about their economic prospects in the near and even longer term.

It wasn’t the topic itself that surprised me so much as the swiftness and power of the shift in sentiment. At almost all times during this century, it has been an article of faith in the country that education, and especially higher education, would be rewarded with sharply rising incomes, secure entry into the middle class or better, and a version of the sentiment common in the United States during the boom decades that followed World War II: that it was the birthright of each new generation to be much better off than the one that preceded it.

If the problem of youth unemployment in a China whose economy may be set for long-term deceleration has been widely commented on, some of the profound problems that stem from this generally have not. A graphic representation of the number of new college graduates in the country over the last four-plus decades looks like the upward curve of a roller coaster track. Here we find the kind of problem that is an unintended consequence of what has always seemed like a very sensible proposition: Educating people equates to creating new waves of prosperity. In its current funk, though—and perhaps on a longer-term basis, due to deep contradictions in the country’s economic model—China can no longer find enough gainful employment for its huge numbers of newly educated people.

If you’re between the ages of, say, 17 and 28 or so—which was the case for almost everyone I spoke with—this is deeply discouraging and even scary, as so many people didn’t hesitate to tell me. “We are competing with each other in what has become a pure rat race,” a college freshman, whose name I am withholding for their security, told me in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. “Everybody is trying to push their education as far as they can, but we are competing for fewer and fewer jobs. As a result of supply and demand, lots of people are going to earn less, and lots of others will just have to accept low-grade jobs.”

But this was only the beginning of the new pessimism I was encountering.

For years when I taught in my graduate school classrooms in New York about the coming aging crunch in China—a time projected for the near future when the ratio of older adults to the young and working-age populations would rapidly flip in favor of the former—I drew a knowing look from many of my Chinese students. After all, it is a problem I have been writing about for many years already. “Here we go again,” the stares I received from some of my Chinese students seemed to say. “Professor French has given in to the doomsaying industry about our country, but we know better.”

This summer, though, I didn’t have to ask about aging. It was on everybody’s lips, not least the young people. I suspect that’s in part because the state quite belatedly has itself become alarmed. The Chinese government avoids shocking language about the stark nature of a demographic crisis of unprecedented scale, but the ability to read between the lines of official messaging to see the underlying urgency of this challenge is almost child’s play, especially for the dwindling numbers of young adults in the country who only recently were children themselves.

The country’s media are now filled with prompts for young people to get married earlier and have more children. Chinese President Xi Jinping has traditionally been loath to use social welfare spending or direct cash benefits to citizens to reduce China’s addiction to investment and stimulate the economy. But that is exactly what Beijing is rolling out in response to the alarming decline in birth rates. Suddenly, one city or province after another is introducing monetary inducements to women or couples to have more children.

The young people who will in theory be the source of the children of the future increasingly say they are discouraged by the costs of housing and of raising children. And as most of them belong to one-child families themselves, they also speak in fear of the financial burdens that await them when their parents grow old and infirm and need taking care of. Compared with most wealthy Western countries, the Chinese state’s social welfare provisions for retirement, health, and elder care remain bare-bones.

In response to this, not only are young people putting off marriage until later, but increasing numbers of young Chinese are also forgoing it altogether, with some even dropping out of dating. Young women, meanwhile, have been big beneficiaries of the enormous boom in higher education in the country, and with more and more advanced learning among them, growing numbers of them have been privileging their own career development and—“Why not?” some said to me—their personal fulfillment.

In my conversations in China this summer, I never once inquired about feminism, but one after another, young women freely identified with it themselves. Then came this comment from a 19-year-old in Shanghai, whose name I am also withholding for her safety. “Maybe you’ll think this is too dark, but I definitely don’t,” she said. “It seems like we are on track for a situation where the state tries to force women to have children, like take us away to a camp or something. It worries me a lot.”

During China’s long boom years, not succumbing to the skepticism and naysaying of others seemed like a real source of strength for the society, even a virtue. We are in a new era now, though, and one of the biggest tests will be something the country’s leaders are altogether unaccustomed to: how well the system can hear and respond to the growing concerns and doubts of its own citizens.

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jessiicaroseee · 1 year ago

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Being a woman is beautiful.

I watched the new Barbie movie, written and directed by Greta Gerwig, and it couldn't have captured the essence of femininity more perfectly. 5 days after release, here are my thoughts:

Going into the film I expected to experience a fantastical, over-the-top depiction of Barbie where I would be greeted with a light-hearted story. Instead, whilst also laughing at the absurdity of all the Ken's, I was hit with a wave of emotions in reaction to the didactic message which tackled the hardships of womanhood. Greta Gerwig cleverly incorporated hard-hitting topics relevant to females in a blanket full of light pink, mojo dojo casa houses and beach offs. This movie also emulated the beauty of girlhood and what it means for a mother to watch that blossom (and also be tarnished by men).

What really hit home for me, and probably for most women reading this, was when Barbie entered the real world and was instantaneously hit with ludicrous catcalls, a man groping her and members of the police not taking her seriously; all because of her looks. Oblivious to what was happening to Barbie and how uncomfortable she was, Ken of course enjoyed nothing but respect. It was Barbie's reaction to what was going on around her that pulled on some heartstrings as she was left confused and overwhelmed: the real world is clearly not the same as Barbieland, where women live in peace. Ultimately, it made me ponder on catcalling in our society and how it's one of the examples of how our girlhoods first experience a tarnish made from men. As women, we should be able to freely walk (or roller blade) down the streets without feeling like we're being looked at or being called horrible names regardless of what we wear and how we look. It. Should. Not. Matter.

I also want to shed light on America Ferrera, who played Gloria, and her heart wrenching monologue which beautifully captures how impossible it is to be a woman. Some of my favourite lines include:

"we always have to be extraordinary, but somehow we are always doing it wrong"

"You have to answer for men's bad behaviour which is insane, but if you point that out you are accused of complaining"

"I'm just tired from watching myself and every single woman tie themselves into knots so that people will like us"

"if all of that is true for a doll just representing a woman, then I don't even know"

As the cinema fell silent during this scene, I looked around to see everyone wearing pink including myself and realised that we are all connected. We have all felt the same pain Gloria expresses. We all just need the love that heals us from that pain. At this point, I completely broke down into tears where I grasped how institutionalised misogyny is in our society; we know it's there, but not many care that it's an ever lasting problem. Of course we have gained more rights as time has progressed but clearly it is not enough as Greta Gerwig has shown. Yes, I am proud to be a woman but I am not proud of its hardships and the male audience that has watched Barbie has only seen a glimpse of what it's like.

Speaking of men, I cannot go without mentioning the meaning behind Ken which was effortlessly played by Ryan Gosling. He perfectly captured the dopiness of Ken which was incredibly hilarious however I wasn't expecting Ken to be depicted as a villain. In the film, Ken's adventure in the real world consists of discovering the patriarchy and how men have power rather than women unlike Barbieland; he understands how he can gain purpose. Unsurprisingly, Ken (like any other man who tries to gain power) takes over Barbieland and makes it a Kendom. He completely ruins what all the Barbies have worked for yet it's excused as his overwhelming love for his Barbie, wonderfully played by Margot Robbie. This triggered my second breakdown when after all of Barbieland is restored, Barbie is still obliged to apologise to Ken and helps him to find his purpose without Barbie. If this isn't a true depiction of the real world then I don't know what is. In no way was Ken's downwards spiral concerning the meaning of his existence Barbie's responsibility. He could've built a separate world to Barbieland which would instigate equality between the lands, but he had to ruin Barbie's creation for his own enjoyment. This is exactly what it's like to be a woman today. We have to apologise for men's behaviour. We have to tell the truth but if it's not the truth that men want to hear then we're deemed as bitches. Is that fair? The answer is resounding: no.

Despite having the impossibilities of a woman being hurled at you left, right and centre, one can clearly see that being a woman is beautiful at times. Through the interaction with Barbie and an old woman where she calls the woman beautiful. Through the montage of all the videos of the female cast when they were young with Billie Eilish's song 'What Was I Made For'. And of course through Gloria and her daughter Sasha rekindling their relationship, all of these are moments that we imitate in our lives that what makes being a woman so precious. So, Barbie is not just about the hardships of being a woman. It's about being a mother, experiencing a girlhood and being surrounded by those you love. Tarnished by men and their nature to get what they want out of us, we forget about the beautiful things that make us who we are and those precious memories that follow with it.

I will definitely be watching Barbie again as it has taught me many valuable lessons which will aid me to navigate through life as a woman. This film is definitely an Oscar worthy performance.

#barbie #i am kenough #margot robbie #greta gerwig #america ferrera #girlhood #feminism #kenergy

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pluralismajestatis · 2 years ago

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Stuff and things. We haven't been writing in a bit, and I don't know if it's because brain empty no thoughts or because we've been busy otherwise or what, but there's a whole backlog of shit that's tiring and depressing and it's kind of hitting T hard. He seems to be the guy who's hoarding all of the mental illness we had before our DID diagnosis, and I think it's unfair to leave him to deal with it, blaming himself for what's going on with him. He's not bringing us down, we're placing all of the weight of everything the rest of us are blissfully unbothered by on him. And it's a long list, so let's start with something.

First - that fucking Canadian law. Never had a decision made on the literal other end of the globe hit us so hard and make us feel so hopeless on sight. We first heard of it some months ago on Reddit, which is the shittiest place on earth to be first hearing about anything on, mainly because its userbase consists of unrepenting voluntary sociopaths. (Something's climbing the cabin's wall. Sounds like a magpie but might be a squirrel. We're holed away someplace a stone's throw away from the Russian border in the arctic circle. It's atmospheric. Coincidentally also where T first became aware of being here, since I was talking about him earlier. None of this has anything to do with the euthanasia law, but suddenly hearing something scraping against your hut's outside wall is like, okay, cool, WHAT IS THAT?)

So yeah, Reddit. Knee-jerk reaction. Wrote in disbelief; this is unethical. This is not right. Suicidal ideation is such a common symptom in mental illness it's literally right there in most of the diagnostic manual entries. Literally right there, and now you're saying that instead of treating the people who experience common symptoms of mental illness, you're just going to kill them instead? How is that not eugenics? How is that not genocide? (It is.)

Got hit by a wave of forementioned Reddit cynicists. "You're the real monster," we're told. "You're denying people their right to end their suffering."

Brother - and I use this word with the utmost disrespect in my tone - I am these people. You might perceive that from just the way I mostly referred to myself as "we" in the text so far, but let me specify: we have been suffering of treatment-resistant, delibilitating, excruciating severe mental illness since we were children. We were neurodivergent before puberty and that was difficult enough, but by the time we started school, our father had turned into a violent monster who took his anger out on us, a child of 7 years old, while unemployed and our mother worked 8 to 4 every day. Sometimes she was out on business trips that took a week or maybe even two. She'd ask for her friends to babysit us, and they'd ask her why not just trust our father? She told them he had violent rages, they told her they couldn't believe that about such a nice guy, but because they were her friends, they'd do what she needed of them. Nobody ever believed us.

There's more than that, obviously. Not the point of this story. When we turned 11, our homeroom teacher responsible for most of our classes and all education outside of subject classes, had to take leave due to breast cancer. She was replaced by the meanest, most hateful bitch I've ever met. She targeted us because we weren't normal and she could smell it from miles away. By the second half of the semester, we would sit in our dark closet crying and wanting to die. We stopped doing our homework, and once that routine was gone, we could never pick it up again. By 12 years old, though she was gone by then, replaced by a creepy old guy who liked massaging the shoulders of girls while rocking into their desks with his hips and would make "checks" of the girls' showers after gym, we no longer could attend half of the semester at all. That period of unattending became longer and longer with each passing year, to the point where we'd go to school after summer vacation for about one month, and then drop out again.

We got placed in a group home, severing the last remaining friendships and connections we had at home, and leaving us in the middle of people with genuine behavioural issues and frequent clashes with the law, while our only problem was that we were desperate and could not keep up with routine.

We never did get better. A year after that ended, we entered voluntary hospitalisation for two months. The staff proceeded to ignore us, we were never even given our permission slip to exit the ward even though at the point where we were doing so poorly we demanded to cut the stay short, they wanted to act like it had been known all of the time that we didn't have to stay indoors under supervision. Guess what? Our name was not on the permission slip. Our mother made them check. The head psychiatrist of the ward was another insane control freak, I don't want to talk about her. Her deal was humiliation and arrogance, and her parting words to us "I'll see you back in a couple weeks when you're carried back here in an ambulance wearing a straitjacket." (She did not, in fact, see us back ever again.)

We moved out from home at 18, because living with our mother was impossible. She's never understood what mental illness means and cannot stand our neurodivergency. For just short of ten years from there, we were outpatients living on partial everyday assistance; we had an attendee from the social services who'd help us buy groceries, attend our appointments, and occasionally clean up the house though most the time we were too depressed to move a muscle if we didn't have to.

In 2016, we had a psychotic episode that didn't just go away like the prior ones had. I don't actually have much memories from any of our twenties, but they were miserable; we were either constantly in a permanent state of existential fear of our own impending death, or trying to hurry it along through suicidal fits and overdoses and self-harm. We were (mis)diagnosed with BPD around 27, after similar misdiagnoses of bipolar disorder earlier. The gist was that nobody knew what to do with us, and nobody was actually invested enough to figure it out. Our psychiatric contacts - doctors, nurses - dropped us on a yearly basis. The period of establishing trust got longer and longer each time, to the point where when they'd leave, we hadn't started to feel comfortable working with them yet. Constant abandonment, constant giving up, constant "you can't be helped." The years between our 25 and 29 were more or less spent trying to get a consensus on whether insurance would cover "real" talk therapy for us or not; every time one person told us to apply for it, the next person would tell us it was pointless because we were too ill to be approved, and would have to cover the whole cost ourselves, which obviously living on disability payments was not physically possible.

This all ended at the bend of 29 to 30, when we coincidentally met someone we for the first time told about our dissociative symptoms. They urged us to look into it more, which we did, and it immediately became glaringly obvious that the symptoms we'd obsessively protected and never uttered a word about in fear of some catastrophe or divine punishment raining down on us were actually clinically so significant that we needed help not yesterday, but decades ago. As a result, after failing to put us into involuntary care, our clinic kicked us out as untreatable, with nothing but a list of therapists to contact.

None of whom were dissociation specialists, and none of whom were taking patients, and only few of whom were covered by insurance to begin with, that is, if insurance would have ever even covered us to begin with. Again, untreatable. Turning to our mother, we hopped continents, got a trauma/dissociation specialist from the United fucking States of America instead, and with some cooperation between her and our local psychiatric unit (as they were ending our patientship with them) finally reached a consensus on what was actually wrong with us. Not BPD, which was scrapped, but DID.

So, how does any of this relate to Canada, and Canada's eugenics laws? Have you heard already about the patients who are recommended assisted suicide by their "care" teams? Do you see what I'm implying here?

This fucking disaster of a law is a glaring reminder that no matter the fact that we're doing better - marginally, not good enough to be anything but disabled, but still better than ever - we'd still be on the chopping block here? Not only do we have a disorder that the psychiatric world is inherently biased against and fearful towards, that most of it doesn't even want to try to understand, we are and have already been a lost case since childhood. There's no full recovery for us. There's no return to baseline functioning. Even as we are now, we are so vulnerable, teetering on the sharpest of edges, that it would be more of a surprise if, given the opportunity, our health "care" professionals wouldn't try to convince us into "assisted suicide."

It's the starkest of reminders that the world does not care about us, that we're treated and seen as nothing but burdens, that society wants us dead for reasons ranging from saving money to discomfort and embarrasment and fear.

How can you even keep trying to be better with that knowledge? Every time we open up about it, there's some self-appointed devil's advocate ready to ask us if it really wouldn't just be better, if we wouldn't actually be happier if we could just die. Not if they'd be happier if we'd just die, making their world more comfortable to live in as they don't have to contend with the concept of sick and injured people - but if we don't actually, secretly, still just want to be dead. And if we don't want to die then that's selfish; selfish because we're draining society's money, selfish because we're denying other people the right to be murdered by doctors who supposedly swore an oath to never do harm, selfish because we don't let them feel the self-assured comfort of being the good guy who lets the unfit to live take their own lives.

Suicidal ideation used to be a serious symptom that meant the patient was crying for help, crying to be seen, crying out to have people notice and care and show them that they're not alone and that there's always hope, someone who'll take their hand and help them walk forwards.

Now, apparently, this fascist shitshow of a society has decided that it's actually just the patient rationally showing that they agree with the mainstream view of it being better for everybody if they just died off.

And you want me to be okay with this? Just go on like it's fine? Just act like this isn't personal? Just accept that not only should I let other people be killed, but that I, and everyone else in this fucked up little head of mine, would actually be better off dead ourselves?

I have no fucking words left.

#assisted suicide #canada eugenics law #dissociative identity disorder #did #if you come here to tell me how I'm wrong I'm literally not only blocking you on sight #but I will crawl from underneath your bed at night and shove your fucking pillow so far down your throat #that the people who find your corpse will see it peeking out of your asshole #d post #legal disclaimer: despite being a wholly disembodied entity #I am not in reality capable of crawling out from underneath the beds of strangers #nor am I capable of shoving pillows down people's mouths as pillows tend to be large and mouths rather small

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cloudbattrolls · 2 years ago

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The Price of Admission

Jikiro Takami & Jameth Abnale | Takami Ballroom | Present Night

The moons danced their cycle through the sky, the season grew colder, and Jamie and Jikiro argued.

“You still cannot decorate worth a hoofbeast’s left flank.” Sniffed the cobalt, looking around the ballroom in disapproval. It was festooned with streamers hanging from the wall decorations, some haphazardly draped tinsel, and a few grinning drone figurines that looked like they were plotting murder.

“You call this festive? Dear god. I might hang myself after all, and I might do it with one of these extremely sad streamers. Don’t you have someone on staff for this?”

“My guy in charge of it stopped showing up.” Said Jikiro irritably. “Dead, run off, conscripted - who knows? Not that my staff are supposed to be snapped up by fleet, but we both know how that goes. Going to take a little to replace him, I kind of have more on my plate right now.”

The cobalt raised his eyebrows, examining the teal through his glasses.

“Oh?”

“Mysteriously, some of our most consistent customers around this time of sweep have found other companies to do business with.” The tanuki troll growled. “I think I know who to blame.”

Jamie considered that, then laughed bitterly.

“Wow. She’s really going that far, hm? I wonder how she’s doing it.”

“Magic, blackmail, bribery - again, who knows.” Dismissed Jikiro. “I don’t care how, but as soon as I find a shred of proof Izanam’s behind it, I’m countering with everything I’ve got.”

“What I don’t get is why she’d sabotage the future heir too.” Commented Jamie, tapping one of his crutches against the wooden floor.

“She’s old, Jamie, she thinks further ahead than that.” The ink maker grumbled, taking down the supposedly tragic streamers as he balanced on a stepladder. They were a bit tattered and not the best colors to go together, dull red and washed out olive green. He’d had them bought by a newer employee; clearly they needed a few instructions.

“We’ve weathered hard times before and come back. Izanam is thinking she can set up the next Takami to lead us back to glory. She gets to discredit me for letting the company ‘fail’ and make them look good all in one.”

Jamie whistled in admiration. “If she weren’t so insufferable I’d almost admire her.”

“Don’t you dare.” Threatened the tealblood, waving a cautionary finger.

“Oh? What are you going to do to me if I do?” Shot back the shorter man smugly, a smirk wide on his freckled face.

Jikiro gave his kismesis a calculating look, then jumped off the stepladder, making a large thud.

He strode over to the blueblood, who still looked up at him with the utmost smugness.

Then he flicked him in the face with the streamer.

The cobalt just looked disappointed.

“Is that all you’ve got? That’s patheti -“

Jikiro quickly looped the crepe paper around his spade and pulled him in close, all tangled up, as the cobalt flailed, trying to hit the midblood with his crutches to no avail.

“One of us looks pathetic right now.” He said, voice amused and low, dark eyes alight. “And it’s not the guy who has you on a leash.” He said in the smaller troll’s pointed ear.

The freckled troll hooted, flustered and mad.

“Let me go! You - you big - “

“Well, sure.” Said the teal blithely, pulling the streamers free with a flourish and sending the small man teetering. “I’m a gentleman.”

He dodged another whack with the blueblood’s crutches, laughing, then cursed as Jamie got him in the foot.

“Asshole.” He grumbled, shaking it to get rid of the pain faster.

“Now we’re even.” Retorted the kookaburra troll smugly.

“You’re lucky I can’t do that back to you.” Muttered the tealblood, walking toward another section of the ballroom to reconsider its decor.

“Oh, cheer up, Jiji, I’m sure Espino will let you do whatever you want to him if you make a riddle out of it.”

Jikiro burst out laughing.

“Viltau? That’s hilarious on so many levels. How many times do I have to tell you he’s not interested?”

“Yet you never explain why.” Countered Jamie irritably. “Why are you so sure? I mean, I agree he’s playing games…but you seem to have another reason.”

The tealblood stopped, looking thoughtful. “It’s his business, Jamie, I just put two and two together.”

The highblood sighed theatrically and briefly put one hand to his bloodpusher.

“I swear I won’t bother him about it or tell anyone. For one thing I don’t have anything to gain, for another I know you’d be drearily annoyed at me.”

The tanuki troll mulled it over, threading his fingers together.

“One time at a party I saw that shitty friend of his - Belamy - insult him about his weight. Not even, just imply he might have gained some. Vil stabbed him in the hand with a fork. Plus he worries if he eats too much. I feel for him, honestly, I try to distract him so he doesn’t and doesn’t get stressed out about it.”

Jamie had gone still, and spoke one word.

“Oh.”

Jikiro shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me, Jamie. It’s none of my business, plus I’m not his type in men anyway. He’s never been a jerk to me about how I look, so who cares?” The tealblood smiled, unbothered as ever.

Jameth Abnale looked at his kismesis and marveled.

“You really don’t care, do you.” He said, almost disbelieving. “Everything you do for him…that garden…and you really think…”

The businessman waved a hand dismissively. “I’m sure of it. He just likes the attention, why wouldn’t he? He thinks it’s funny, but he has a good time too. He couldn’t shut up about it when we were there.” He grinned.

For once, the blueblood did not feel frustrated at his spade. His fists clenched around the handles of his crutches and his teeth gritted for another reason entirely.

“Jiji, it bloody hurts to say this, but my god, Viltau doesn’t realize how lucky he is.” He snapped. “That man! I’ve half a mind to slap him for playing this endless game with you while you’re nothing but patient with him, when you know you have no chance!”

“I don’t - ”

“Don’t what?” Snapped the cobalt again, expression annoyed yet also intense in another way. “Don’t want a chance? Stop lying to yourself. Think, just stop and think - why have you not dated anyone flush in a while? Why have you stopped flirting in bars? Why, why, why might that be? You only have one filled quadrant.” He said, lowering his voice, words loaded.

“I just…” he trailed off.

“You ‘just’? Actually - you know what, simple test. Who do you want to kiss right now? Aside from me, devilishly attractive as I am. First, automatic answer that comes to mind, no hard thinking or misdirection.”

Jikiro thought.

His eyes went wide.

He uttered a long string of East Alternian curses that had the blueblood cracking up, cackling and leaning from side to side.

“Oh, it finally hits him! Took you long enough! After how many of us told you? I ought to be sainted for my patience.”

The tanuki troll covered his teal-blotched face with his hands.

“Oh god. Vil can never know.”

“If Viltau hasn’t realized he’s both blind and deaf, laddie, too late for the stable door on that hoofbeast.” Remarked Jamie blithely, waving a crutch.

Jikiro groaned.

“Okay, okay, you were right. God. I hope he doesn’t think I was actually trying to get with him.”

“Oh nooooo, I’m sure the romantic garden dance date didn’t give him that impression at all.” The kookaburra troll’s voice dripped sarcasm so heavily it was a wonder it didn’t wear a hole in the floor.

The ink maker stared into space as if it might hold answers for him.

“Fuck. Should I apologize to him?”

Jamie rolled his eyes so hard he risked giving himself a headache.

“Yes, you great addle-brained moron, go on and apologize for having feelings. No, that’s stupid, stop being stupid. Let it have its time and then die, that’s all. Like any other pointless crush.”

Jikiro sighed.

“Yeah. That’s true. I dunno. Is it dumb I still want to do things for him?”

“Yes.” Snorted the freckled troll. “Quite. It’s a madness called being head over heels in flush. I suppose one of us has to suffer it, I certainly never will.”

Jikiro looked at his spade in concern, and Jamie pulled a face at him.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’d rather never have a matesprit than put up with being treated as a consolation prize, or a business advantage.”

Jikiro folded his arms.

“I don’t date you for either of those reasons, who’s to say some other guy wouldn’t too?”

“Jiji.” Stated his kismesis flatly. “Look at me. Almost no highblood, or even another tealblood like your merry dense self, is going to think I’m quadrant material. I’m just too much of a bother! I’m too much of a liability.” Said the cobalt, voice light as a delicately held stiletto and just as pointed.

“Actually I think it’s you being a major dickhead that’ll really be the problem.” Deadpanned the tealblood, before grinning and dodging out of the way of another crutch swipe, moving backward several feet.

“Get back here, you rotten arse-fondler!” Called the cobalt. “Come receive your just desserts!” He waved a crutch again.

“Who the hell even says that.” Chuckled Jikiro under his breath, before running back to scoop up the bird troll. His victim’s crutches clattered to the floor.

“Hey! Don’t you d - “

The tanuki troll flopped down on the room’s couch with the smaller man pressed to his body, holding him as he squirmed until he stopped. The highblood sighed in defeat, surrounded by his kismesis’s thick, strong arms.

“Comfy?” Asked Jikiro with a grin.

“Obnoxiously so.” Grumbled Jamie, settling in.

The ink maker ruffled the man’s curly hair, and they laid that way for a minute before he spoke again.

“So that’s why you used to be jealous of Vil. Aw, that’s cute.”

“I hate you.” Muttered the blueblood.

“Yeah, I can tell by every time you try to bite my tongue off while we - ”

“Shut the hell up, Jiji.” Said Jamie easily, shifting to get more comfortable.

The ink maker chuckled, and dutifully closed his mouth.

#cloud writes #jikiro takami #jameth abnale #and the penny finally drops #took him long enough

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