#this whole week I’ve had nothing I’m obsessing about. and anything I am I didn’t wanna watch

[readingwriter92]

Alright impulse started Dresden files bc I bought one of the books and now im cured of my ennui

[satansapostle6]

Kids | Rodrick Heffley

Spotify Playlist Link

Rodrick Heffley becomes obsessed when he finally meets his thirty-five year old band mate, Bill Walter’s, younger sister.

Warnings: Mature themes/language. Sexual content.

“Black Hole Sun”

“This Night Has Opened My Eyes”

Rodrick hadn’t gone to school for almost a whole week. No one had even seen him apart from his father and brothers(he had been refusing to acknowledge his mother’s presence ever since the incident).

Susan had since apologized for what she’d said about and to Sara Walter, but Rodrick refused to accept her many apologies so long as they didn’t include an admission of guilt. Although Susan was sympathetic to his pain, she still did not quite apologize for her role in the re-traumatizing of Sara, who still hadn’t spoken to him since everything that had happened at the Heffley house.

There was a gentle knock on Rodrick Heffley’s bedroom door as his father entered the room with dinner, concerned.

“Rodrick,” Frank Heffley said, cautiously entering room.

“Go away,” Rodrick mumbled, hidden under blankets and pillows alike.

“I brought you some spaghetti, and garlic bread,” he attempted entice him. “Your mom made your favorite.”

“Tell her I’m not hungry,” Rodrick said emptily.

“Rodrick. You haven’t eaten since last night,” his father stated, concerned. “You need to eat something. I’m getting concerned.”

“I’m not hungry,” he repeated.

Frank sighed, sitting down at the edge of the bed. “This isn’t healthy… Is there something else you’re hungry for? Maybe I can go pick something up.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I’ll get you Taco Bell. Or McDonald’s! How does a happy meal sound?” he asked hopefully.

But Rodrick didn’t seem very receptive.

“What am I, four?”

“It was worth a shot.”

Frank looked at the lump beneath the covers, fully aware Rodrick hadn’t showered in about two days, and was so upset he refused to even listen to music, any music: it just all reminded him too much of Sara.

“Look, I know Your mom’s really sorry about what happened the other day. She’s apologized multiple times now, you know,” he reminded him.

“No, she hasn’t,” Rodrick insisted. “Not really.”

Rodrick heard nothing as Frank remained in the room for another moment, setting the plate of food down on the floor before silently leaving. Rodrick thought he knew where his father was going; back downstairs, and eventually upstairs again for bed, but he was wrong.

“I’m stepping out,” Frank Heffley announced to his family, before grabbing his jacket and leaving.

“For what?” Susan Heffley questioned, not receiving an answer.

*****

Frank knocked on the door, praying for an answer. After a few moments, the door opened, as he whispered a frantic thanks to whatever beings did or didn’t exist. But another obstacle was revealed.

“What do you want?” a voice said coldly.

“Bill,” Frank realized, immediately feeling incredibly guilty.

“That’s me,” Bill said stiffly.

Clearly, he’d heard everything, or at least enough.

“Bill, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he sighed, hanging his head in shame.

“Don’t tell me,” he responded laconically.

“See, that’s what I could use your help with,” Frank said, thrilled to be finally getting somewhere, “I want to tell your sister. Please.”

“Why should I let anyone in your family anywhere near her?” Bill demanded, his paternal instincts toward his younger sister kicking in. “All you Heffleys do is judge people, and hurt people. My sister’s barely left her room in a fucking week, and she won’t drink anything that’s not wine, or vodka.”

“Yes, I know,” Frank promised him humbly, “But I wanna fix that… Please. Just let me speak to her,” he begged Bill.

“Why? So you can just call us white trash again?” he asked expectantly.

“Words cannot express how awful I feel about that, Bill,” Frank breathed. “I know that Susan and I have both spoken ill about your family on multiple occasions… and I know that I’ve never made an effort to make you feel welcome in our home even though you’ve always been nothing but kind to us. It’s unfair, and I’m sorry,” he apologized.

Bill still had nothing to say as he studied him, wondering whether the apology was sincere.

“You and your sister have proven to be nothing but friends to our family, and we’ve spat in your faces every time,” Frank said guiltily. “I know I can’t make up for that kind of close-minded, immature behavior… But I wanna try. Please,” he begged.

Bill Walter stood there, silent, for a moment, considering his options before eventually opening the door out of kindness, despite the fact that he probably didn’t deserve it.

“Fine. If not for me, then for my sister.”

“Yes! Thank you! Thank you so much!” Frank gasped, eagerly following him inside.

“Who’s this asshole?” Randy called from his armchair.

“He’s probably thinking the same thing!” Bill shouted back as he silently led Frank to Sara’s bedroom.

Frank looked back awkwardly at the unpleasant man, not quite sure what to think. Bill knocked on his younger sister’s door, waiting for a response. “Sara?”

“Yeah?” she called.

“…Mr. Heffley’s here to see you,” Bill informed her.

“…Huh?”

“Mr. Heffley’s here to see you,” he echoed. “He wants to apologize. He seems pretty serious about it…”

Sara quickly opened her bedroom door, seeming to have been laying on her bed, drawing. Frank couldn’t help notice with his keen father’s eyes that she looked awful; her hair was a mess, her makeup didn’t look like it was all applied today, and beneath her eyes, black smudges were married with dark circles.

“Does he?” she asked sharply, cold eyes fixed on Frank.

“Yes,” the man nodded earnestly, “He does.”

Sara studied him for a moment, before turning back to her brother. “Leave us.”

“Are you sure?” Bill asked skeptically.

“Yeah,” she nodded, eyes fixed on Frank as Bill just walked away, knowing better than to question his sister.

Sara opened the door wider as Frank gingerly stepped inside, not knowing how to go about this interaction. She shut the door, crossing her arms expectantly.

“How are you doing, Sara?” he asked kindly, genuinely worried after having seen the state of her.

“I haven’t slept in three days,” she remarked. “So. Let’s hear it,” she said, sounding less confrontational than Frank had anticipated, given that she was more than entitled to her feelings of rage.

“Sara, I… I want to apologize. For Susan, and for myself,” he said slowly as she just listened. “We were judgmental, and unwelcoming, and unfair.”

“‘We’?” Sara asked.

“I’m equally to blame,” Frank nodded earnestly. “I should’ve stepped in more whenever Susan got angry at you. You did nothing to deserve that.”

“You’re right,” she said softly.

“Listen… I don’t want you to think we haven’t noticed the difference you’ve made in Rodrick’s life lately,” he told her. “Because we do. I do. He’s happier, and calmer, and he cares more, about school, and his brothers…”

“Then why did Susan say I’m a bad influence?” Sara demanded, as Frank prepared himself for the question.

“Sara…” he was afraid he didn’t have the words in his vocabulary to explain why she had been made his family’s scapegoat. “Rodrick and his mother have always had a very complicated relationship. She wants the best for him, and he wants her to back off,” Frank said.

“You know I’m not the best,” Sara reminded him. “I’ll never be.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” he interjected logically.

Sara paused for a moment, taking in what he said.

“Look, I know about what you and Rodrick do; you’re kids; both of you. Of course you’re gonna do all that stuff,” he admitted.

“But?”

“But, Sara, you’re a good kid,” Frank told her. “…My sons love you. All of them,” he expressed.

Sara’s gaze softened as she took in his point.

“Manny adores you; you’re one of the only people he still lets pick him up. And Greg thinks very highly of you,” he continued, “Greg’s thirteen; he doesn’t think highly of anything.”

“What’s your point?” she asked quietly.

“My point is, that we’ve taken you for granted,” Frank summarized. “Your influence on Rodrick, and our family, has only been positive, if anything.”

“And what do you want me to do?” she asked tearfully, a look of frustration in her bloodshot eyes. “Your wife hates me.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Frank insisted sympathetically, “She doesn’t know you.”

“She doesn’t want to,” Sara insisted. “She thinks I’m trash. End of story.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Frank tried to convince her as she just stood there, a pained expression on her face. “Sara. Do you really want this to be the end of you and Rodrick?”

She was silent as she considered his question, her chest tightening.

“I’m not saying the two of you will definitely last forever,” Frank offered thoughtfully, trying to sound realistic, “But… is a little conflict gonna stop you from finding out for sure?” he asked, hopeful that she’d listen.

Sara looked up at Frank, a pain in the child’s eyes he wished he could heal.

“You can leave now,” she said with finality.

Frank tilted his head in confusion, unsure of what to make of her sudden conclusion of their conversation.

“Sara.”

“You said your piece,” she stated, looking more tired than anything. “I heard what you have to say.”

He was strangely shocked by her response.

“If you want me to go, I’ll go,” he agreed reluctantly, respecting her wishes with his hand on the doorknob. “But, remember. If you break Rodrick’s heart, our whole family goes down with him. That’s the kind of family we are.”

Sara’s eyes followed him as he left the room, leaving her to her thoughts.

*****

“This sucks,” Greg Heffley sighed, watching the edit of his and Rowley’s video of them on their bikes at the skatepark.

“Why can’t we get it right?” Rowley complained pitifully.

“Because. Sara always helps with these,” Greg reminded him as he flopped down onto his bed. “She always helps pick the clips, and the music.”

“We know good music,” Rowley insisted optimistically.

“No, we don’t,” Greg gave up. “Not like Sara. And even if we did, we still wouldn’t be able to use it as good as her.”

“What do we do to get her back?” his friend asked.

“Get a new mom?” Greg offered the only suggestion he could come up with.

He found he had meant that a bit too much.

“I miss Sara. Having you and Rodrick is like having brothers,” Rowley thought wistfully, “But having Sara is like having a sister.”

“Yeah,” Greg agreed, feeling the words deeply.

The two of them were sharing a rather melancholy moment, at least before their silence was drowned out by the increasing sounds of screaming coming from the garage. Rodrick and the guys had been practicing for their gig this weekend at a backyard party, and it seemed like they were reaching for peak of their song. Until it didn’t.

“Dude!”

“What the fuck?!”

“-Some dumb ass fucking shit—!”

Greg looked around in confusion as he tried to rational the snippets that he was hearing coming from downstairs.

“Are they fighting?” he wondered out loud.

“They play metal,” Rowley reminded him.

“No, this is different from that,” Greg said, leaving to go check on his brother’s band.

Rowley followed him down to the garage, and it seemed he was right. Something was going on between Rodrick, Chris, and Ben, worse than anything that had happened in a while.

“Fuck you, you’re being a fucking asshole!” Ben shouted angrily.

“Should we be down here?” Rowley questioned anxiously.

Greg just ignored him as they watched from the doorway. The guys hadn’t even noticed them, they were so caught up in the drama.

“I’m not an asshole, you’re just a fucking dick, dude!” Rodrick shouted back, seeming genuinely upset.

“Whatever!” Ben cried. “Your set list is shit!”

“Guys, let’s all just chill! I think everything’s getting a little outta hand,” Bill reminded his band mates.

“Yeah, guys, let’s chill,” Chris agreed, also uncomfortable.

“Shut the fuck up, Chris!” Ben snapped.

“Hey, you shut the fuck up,” Rodrick demanded, suddenly threatening him with an abandoned drumstick, “Or I’m gonna fucking snap your neck—!”

Greg turned in horror to see his mother hurriedly rushing past him and Rowley.

“Hey, what is going on here?!” Susan questioned.

“Nothing, Mom, Ben’s just about to get rocked.”

“Rodrick Heffley, don’t you hit anyone in this house!” Susan scolded him.

“Right,” Rodrick nodded, not missing a beat, “Let’s take this outside, you little bitch!”

“Rodrick!” Susan Heffley shrieked.

“Everybody, let’s just take a fucking chill pill!” Bill exclaimed, extremely tense.

“Don’t tell me to fucking calm down, this is my house!” Rodrick shouted over him.

“Actually, this is my house, and I will not tolerate violence, or frankly, any of the language that’s being used!” Susan interrupted.

Rodrick glared at Ben with a hatred that had been building up and simmering for years, chucking one of the drumsticks in his hand over Ben’s head.

“Rodrick!” Susan cried, horrified at his behavior. “Don’t throw things at people!”

Greg and Rowley watched, kind of scared, as the situation began to escalate.

“Yeah! Listen to your mommy, Rodrick!” Ben taunted. “Don’t throw things at people!”

“Fuck you, you fucking loser!” he boomed.

“Rodrick! Upstairs, now!” Susan yelled.

“Come on, Rod!” Ben jeered. “Be a good little bitch!”

“Ben, shut the fuck up!” Chris said impatiently.

“I’ll make you my bitch!” he fired back.

“Guys! Enough!” Bill began to lose his temper.

“All of you, there are other people in this house,” Susan reminded them, “If you can’t be respectful, then leave.”

“We’re really sorry, Mrs. Heffley,” Bill apologized hastily as he eyed all of his band mates, “We’ll stop bothering you guys. It won’t happen again.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Heffley,” Chris added courteously, “We’ll stop.”

“Yeah, we’ll be quiet, Mrs. Heffley,” Ben promised, completely full of shit.

She eyed the group of boys skeptically before deciding to take their word for it. “Okay. But one more disturbance, and none of you are welcome here ever again. Got it?” she asked the room.

“Got it,” Bill promised.

“Yes,” Chris assured her kindly.

“Got it,” Ben nodded.

“Okay. Thank you,” Susan said, slowly turning around as she wanted nothing to do with the group of boys.

Rodrick, who had been silent and plotting the entire time, glowered hatefully in Ben’s direction before making up his mind and chucking the one lone drumstick left in his hand straight at Ben’s head, which was met with an immediate hothead reaction.

“You fucking piece of shit!” Ben hollered as a fully fledged fight broke out.

Before anyone could do anything, Ben was charging Rodrick, who had decided to go all in and angrily leapt over the drum set at him and tackled him to the ground with a loud thrashing of the cymbals. Chris was in shock and Bill jumped in, almost dog piling on top of them to pull Rodrick off of Ben.

Susan screamed for her husband as Greg and Rowley froze, no clue as to what they were supposed to do. Rowley was spooked like a cat, and Greg found himself having a desire to go home despite already being there.

“I don’t like this!” Rowley wailed.

“Me neither,” Greg agreed, not having much else to offer.

But Rowley was completely distraught.

“Sara wouldn’t let this happen!”

-

“Losing My Religion”

[argentangelhelps]

MAISIE PETERS STARTERS

starter prompts from maisie peters’ discography

“i still haven’t got my driver’s license” “and i am sorry to make it about myself again but you signed up for this“ “you signed up for this” “please don’t give up on me yet” “i know i’ll get better, i’m just not better yet.” “i only drink to get drunk.” “nothing like i thought would happen happened” “it didn't work like i thought it would” "i resent you just a little if i'm honest” “you swore you would do better this time” “if i'm being frank, i want a "sorry" but i'll settle for a handshake” “not friends, no, we're somewhere in between” “'cause you're awful and i miss you and i killed you in my dream last night, even then you didn't care” “i should be the one you’re dancing with” “i was gonna act surprised even though i knew you wanted me” “maybe if i'd reined it in you wouldn't wanna kiss somebody else” “you don't owe me anything”
“i'm just gonna walk home by myself” “you look right through me every time you walk by” “‘cause if you don’t want me then you’re not the one” “guess i misunderstood, i thought you liked me too” “she could tell i was so obsessed with you” “hope i don’t wake my dad up” “well, tell me where i went wrong” “and you only kissed me once, nothing changed at all” “i could see a bloodbath coming” “everyone else can have him but i won’t” “loving you’s not fair” “you kept me as your favorite secret” “it’s funny how everybody but me knows” “you’re losing your mind” “you wanna talk? not ideal.” “i feel like you feel nothing, that’s fine.” “baby, who has two phones?” “you don't want me at all, but you don't want me to fall for anyone” “i heard you had a lot of therapy when you were seventeen for your anger issues” “if i had a pound/dollar for every hole punched in a wall i’d be a rich girl/boy” “it got progressively harder to miss you” “you're a serial cheater” “when i told you you were funny i lied” “i can tell that you've never been hugged” “if i was the last girl on earth, you'd still be weighing up your options” “you're obsessed with your father” “red flag and a half” “you're kinda sociopathic” “i wasn't broken till you tried to fix me” “i was yours until you let me down” “you said this is something that we both need” “you left me hollow” “are you happy now?” “we never struggled for a conversation till you couldn't find the words to say” “now you’re somebody else with somebody you swore was not your type” “i just miss my friend” “how do you think i’m dealing?” “i'll burn this house, i mean it” “well, what does that make me then?” “i'm your villain” “whole town's gonna hear how you messed me up” “oh, i'm out my mind and i said some shit, but i miss you more than i meant any of it” “he’s fit, go for it.” “if you want to take her out, you're gonna have to ask me first” “she's in brooklyn with me” “you gave it all and i gave it up” “you were always on my mind” “i've got no right to miss you” “easiеr to tell myself we'd mess it up instead, so i left” “but i still wish things were different, don't you?” “'cause i get not evеryone sees you the way that i'd like” “you pulled a lot of shit” “thought i'd be a cool girl, but turns out i'm livid” “all or nothing, you chose nothing” “you are one tough act to follow” “you forgot how to miss me” “i hope i’m one tough act to follow” “now everything is through, it's you i wanna call though” “it was all out my hands when you pulled the trigger” “i kissed your friends 'cause your friends said you kissed her” “you were my no sleep, cried for weeks, favourite ex” “i was good to you” “did i just not do it for you, superficially?” “i can’t help thinking she’s got a better body” “has she got a better body than mine?” “were you sorry like you weren't at the time?” “the worst way to love somebody is to watch them love somebody else and it work out” “when you're twisting up all her sheets, do you suffer?” “was i just an idea you liked?” “was i just an idea you liked? a convenient use of time with obedient blue eyes” “i thought it would be us for life” “will you tell me just one more lie?” “didn't say it in those words, but i know how your tone works” “i'm hurting but i'm certain it's still true” “i'm the best thing that almost happened to you” “one day, you're gonna wake up and, oh shit, you lost the brеakup” “i'm thе greatest love that you wasted” "oh shit, i won the breakup" “just assumed i was your favourite” “what do you do when the good guys change their mind?” “'cause i used to think that if i tried my best, i'd always win” “now you're asking for a pardon 'cause i'm a good time pound for pound” “i was good, just wasn't good enough” “i never said i was perfect just thought i was perfect for you” “did you meet my brother?" “will we ever get together?” "how can i know you're for sure? it's only been a summer" “nothing more frightenin’ than a woman scorned” “baby, if you thought that i was trouble, then you're gonna hate what's comin' next” “i don't think you knew just what you'd done” “i'll fuck your life up as a blonde” “i'm gonna make your friends say, "man, you messed that up”” “you'll rue the day you did me wrong” "oh, goddamn, not another rockstar" “they got a lot of unexamined father-son baggage” “aren't i lucky 'cause he could have chosen any girl to fuck with?”

[ninasbooknook]

vent post 🫶🏼 (tw skin picking, ocd, anxiety, mention of blood)

2 weeks ago i started taking adhd medication. this is my first time on this type of medication so i expected some new side effects but i feel like my mental health has changed sort of drastically since i started taking them. i have had a past of OCD traits but i have never been tested. i have an anxiety disorder and i haven’t been fully diagnosed but i am taking medication for that and my depression.

so my anxiety has spiked since taking the adhd medication. before the medication i was actually doing really well with anxiety and depression. i hadn’t had that general anxiety feeling in a long time. and then it came back. yk that feeling where you feel anxious/worried but you don’t have anything in particular that you’re worried about? that’s what i mean by “general anxiety feeling”. so that was one of the first signs of my anxiety spiking bc it was just there. i could sense it. next was the nausea. i have different feelings of nausea and i have been able to label all of them over the years. the nausea i have been feeling is my well known anxiety nausea. again, there was nothing making me worried. although i was starting to get a little worried around this time because i was really struggling with communication so it was hard to tell people how i was feeling. it’s made my social life really hard. but i wasn’t necessarily overthinking this when i got that anxiety nausea. next was the obsession with my fingers. i could not stop picking the skin around my nails. i hate the little bits of skin that stick out. it looked bad and it made me uncomfortable somehow. so i’d pick it. and i’d pick it again and again until all my fingers had scabs/infection or were bleeding. i felt so bad. i didn’t want to keep picking but i couldn’t help it. even though it made me feel worse for picking my skin, it make me feel a bit better. it relieves some of the anxiety. that’s how i felt at least. it was a distraction from the things around me. i realised i actually liked the pain sometimes. this worried me. i’m not the type of person that hurts themselves as a coping mechanism. but the pain felt good. like i deserved it.

i started using the app “i am sober”. it’s been sort of helpful. so today i was so close to reaching the 3rd day milestone. i was so proud of myself. at school i planned with my bf to go to his house. one, because i love hanging out with him and two, i never feel anxious at his house and atm i’ve been opting for the “stress-free” option ofc. turns out i couldn’t come over. i was really disappointed but i sucked it up and went home. me and my bf were kind of pissed and i felt like he was a bit annoyed at me which didn’t make me feel any better (he wasn’t annoyed at me btw). i get home and i remember that i broke a nail at school and my nails are uneven now. as much as i’ve been trying to avoid going anywhere near my finger nails, i realise my finger nails are getting in the way of my mouse pad giving my finger tips a weird feeling.

fast forward 3 hours. i spent 3 fucking hours, trimming, cutting and filing my nails. i picked at the sides of my fingers with the nail clippers trying to remove any dead skin that might show up later (which i hate). i attempted to remove my cuticles because i just couldn’t get them even. i picked at the side of one of my fingers so much it began to bleed. i hated myself. i realised then that i’d lost my streak of not picking my skin. i had been doing so well and then i ruin it all. which is untrue, i didn’t really ruin it all. but that’s how i felt. still, i kept picking. it had been around 2 hours and i hadn’t even finished a whole hand of fingers. by 3 hours i’d completed one hand. the only thing that stopped me from continuing my picking was the call that dinner was being served and after dinner my bf called me. he knew i wasn’t ok. i wanted to leave the call but he begged me to stay. i can’t say no to him. the feeling that i need to finish the other hand is still lingering in the back of my mind but i don’t want to upset or disappoint my bf.

tonight i felt like hurting myself. there were scissors on my bed i used on my nails earlier. i imagined what it would feel like on my skin. i hate myself for admitting that i was going to hurt myself if my bf wasn’t on the phone with me at the time. i pray i wouldn’t have been brave enough to do it anyway. i felt like i deserved it. to be in pain.

anyways my lovely bf made me feel better just be being there. we didn’t talk, he listened to me and when i stopped talking we sat in silence. but he was there and that’s what matters. if we wasn’t there i might have done something id extremely regret. i also think i might have had a panic attack if he wasn’t there to calm me down. i love him 🫶🏼

i realised later that when i wanted to go to my bf's house it was like my body was warning me that the anxiety was going to be bad. that the picking was going to be bad. it's not bad at his house so my brain wanted to go there. maybe i'm reading into this too much but the way i felt when i realised ii couldn't go to his house wasn't just disappointment. it was worry and stress. i felt like i needed to go to his house.

if you read all of this, bless your heart 😭🫶🏼 if you have any similar experiences or thoughts on this lmk!! could this be ocd or is it something else?

｡ﾟﾟ･｡･ﾟﾟ｡ ﾟ。 - nina's book nook 　ﾟ･｡･ﾟ

[wearethepoemspoetry]

we are the poems

i have a love-hate relationship with bukowski.

sometimes i worship his words and especially his line breaks. i get so insecure about my own that i’ll spend years editing one poem. i’ll come back a decade later just to change one tiny word, just one awkward line break.

i can’t write a new poem; there’s nothing left in me that’s inspired anymore.

and who else do i have to blame for that when i don’t answer my phone or even leave my room, let alone live my life, or love, or do anything in this life that’s considered worthwhile?

so it’s like a goddamn epiphany when i go back to a poem i wrote in a time i did all of those things, and i become inspired enough just to press the return button on my computer.

i used to get fucked up like bukowski, but all that got me was fat and more depressed, and maybe he didn’t care if he was a fat drunk, but i do.

and i am envious of how bukowski never cared that he was somewhat of a man whore, as if anybody actually cares if a man sleeps around. but i still care what people think about me even though slut-shaming has gone by the wayside. and even worse, i know i could never live that way. i’ve always given my heart away far easier than i’ve given away my body.

i was always so careless with my heart, and protective of my body, and i should have been the opposite. if i had been, maybe my heart wouldn’t be so bruised that i don’t allow myself to let anybody near me. maybe if i allowed the aching near my heart, or any feeling, for god’s sakes, i’d still have some words to write that just might be worthwhile.

and maybe i hate myself just a little bit for refusing to let anything in when i know it means i can’t let anything out.

i despise how egotistical bukowski is; it’s so obvious in his posthumous works. but he always thought he was a genius, would walk around wasted, yelling at his women how nobody could see his genius but him. even when he calls himself a drunk bum, it’s like he feigns self-pity, and is somehow proud that he’s some drunk bum, because his genius allows him to be. and if bums get paid like him, then i’d be a bum any day of the week.

he points out the trend of poets using ampersands and lowercase letters, and mostly the lowercase “i” as if he’s somehow better than poets who maybe just want to use them.

he points out the trend of poets using ampersands and lowercase letters, and mostly the lowercase “i” as if he’s somehow better than poets who maybe just want to use them. and god knows i’d never use an ampersand. it would go against my tendency to never abbreviate, as if i’m still that blonde english major that never fit in because they all thought i was dumb, so i clung to the MLA format like a religion. but i do use lowercases, especially the lowercase “i” sometimes, not because i saw other poets do it and thought it looked cool. but because sometimes i don’t feel like an I. usually i feel like an i. so weak and insignificant and hopeless and desperate, that i’m not even worth using the proper format of the noun because i’m not a whole person, and i haven’t been for a long time.

(sometimes i wonder if i ever was, but i save that self-inflicted dread for when i get as wasted as bukowski.)

i don’t think bukowski ever knew what it felt like to be an i instead of an I. i don’t think most people ever know, and i’m grateful they don’t, but sometimes i wish somebody would understand how i feel.

and i’m sure there are people out there that do, but i’m not willing to try and find them anymore, just to relate to somebody.

it’s easier to be alone, to confine my heart in a cage, my body in my bed, binge watching tv instead of the constant reading and writing i used to do. not when words can shatter my insides as easily as swords can shred my skin.

not when i obsess about line breaks in my poems for over a decade, just hoping one day, one poem will be good enough, as if one word, one line break will make all the difference.

music destroys me, too. one of my favorite singers wrote a ten-minute song about losing her virginity with this exquisite metaphor about a scarf. i heard it and immediately opened up the poem i wrote about losing mine. six insignificant lines that nobody could care about but me.

nobody has ever read those lines.

bukowski says in one of his poems that he only wrote his poetry for himself, but i don’t believe that. he wouldn’t have tried for decades to get published if he didn’t really care. and i don’t blame him for saying it. i say it too, even though it’s so obvious that i care so much i’ll go as far as to write a multi-page poem about this jerk i love/hate because i know he would never find my poetry worthwhile.

it’s this curse we were given at birth, i think, to compose these words and feel self-pity and hate ourselves if we don’t write flawlessly, and even if we swear we’re geniuses, most of us never believe it. (that’s why we yell it so loudly.)

we’re always lacking, we’re always inadequate, beauty should come from these words, but we don’t see beauty or love, or even the truth we desperately seek.

this curse envelopes us and we see nothing but deficiencies, and pain, and for some of us, uncapitalized nouns

because we are the poems we are writing.

and if we don’t scream about our genius, how nobody sees it but us, if our neighbors don’t hear our pretentious bellowing about how god is in our words, maybe nobody will believe he was ever there, so we have to pretend he is.

god is never in my words, and if he were here, he’d laugh at my feigned pretension, because it’s not fooling anybody. but the truth is, i really just want to fool myself.

but these words are mine, so they can be nothing more than a failure, and maybe that’s why i say that i just do this for me, that i don’t care if anyone ever reads my poems or finds them only mediocre or even just somewhat honest, but doesn’t think they’re all that wonderful.

and slurred screaming as loud as bukowski may have worked for him, but i see right through me, so it doesn’t work for me.

because i’m a woman because i’m blonde becayse i’m young because i’m dumb because i’m past fooling myself

like i fooled myself with the boys i loved and pretended they loved me back.

but i can never fool myself about feeling like an i.

so that’s what i’ll call myself in this poem. because that’s all i am, and also, because fuck bukowski.

[agathaharknessapologist]

this is about agatha all along, feeling cheated, how i go through life and a little bit of self pity

i finished the last episodes of agatha all along about three hours ago and i cannot bring myself to stop crying. is it because the ending was sad? well, kinda.

the truth is that i’m devastated, and i feel cheated. i’ve been living my life through this show for the last weeks and although i’m aware that’s not healthy, there’s nothing i can do. ever since i was a kid, i’ve always had big feelings about tv shows, books and movies. i mean, i used to dream about ashley tisdale every night, when i was eight years old, because she played my favorite character in my favorite tv show. i called myself a fangirl when i was a teenager. i read fanfictions, and i wrote fanfictions. and i watched movies and read books and talked about those movies and books and every single part of my life was connected to them. in my early 20s, my life consisted of watching a show, obsessing over it, getting a tattoo about it. that’s how you end up with 90 tattoos at 27 years old, folks. i am deliberately rambling but the point is i’ve lived my whole life through stories and this time it was agatha’s.

i’ve been a marvel fan since 2012. loki was my everything. (when he died in infinity war i immediately booked a tattoo appointment). so of course i watched wandavision as soon as it came out. when agatha revealed herself, i didn’t think much of it. when marvel announced a whole tv show for her, i didn’t think much of it. for the first three weeks, i actually didn’t even watch the episodes as soon as they were released. of course everything changed in episode four. for me, that is the best episode of this show. after that, i caught myself obsessing over this in a way that i hadn’t felt in years. i’d think about them all the time and i had this feeling deep in my stomach that would make me feel like i needed to throw up just from thinking about them. it was so unusual but at the same time it felt familiar. of course i did everything i could: i’d spend hours on social media looking at pictures and edits and fanfiction and commentary about them.

and maybe it was the familiarity of it, the feeling of being 17 again, having no other worries besides these characters in this story, but everything felt very bittersweet to me. having this feeling back in my life after ten years (give it or take) made me realize how stuck i am. in life. all the people around me are moving on and getting nice jobs and having relationships and making something with their lives, and i’m not. i’m a 27 year old living with my mother with no prospects whatsoever. and it’s not agatha’s fault, or marvel’s fault, it’s only mine.

how does all of this connect to feeling cheated?

i don’t see a way out of being stuck. i’m not saying i’m going to kill myself or anything but to be completely honest i feel like i’ve been contemplating suicide more than the average person should. so i feel cheated, that we got all those nice moments between agatha and rio, we got “work and play, like old times” and agatha calling rio “my love” and rio saying agatha loves her and no explanation. rio showed up for maybe 10 minutes throughout the whole thing. and yes we did get a kiss but at what cost? agatha is a ghost now. that feels like a big joke. it almost feels like confessing your love and going to super hell (idk i haven’t watched that). i feel cheated by this show and i feel cheated by me. on how i’ve been living my life. and i can’t go back, it’s all wasted.

and the whole point of this fucking paragraph was not to complain about agatha all along. i still hold this show very dear, even if i feel disappointed right now. i guess this was to externalize my feelings or else i would quite literally implode

[audioaujom]

5: A Cliffside Confrontation

CHTangled Hub, <prev, next >

Hey hey! Me again, lol. Have another decently long update that has been brewing in my head for more than the last two weeks. Truthfully, the Emily x Murph enemies to lovers thing this fic has going on is something I’m so obsessed with thinking about that writing it was difficult. Does that make any sense? Just realized if I’d started uploading these two weeks sooner, I could’ve posted an update of terrible parenting Mother Gothel!Brennan for father’s day. Missed op fr. Anyway, enjoy!

Word Count: 2848

Chapter TWs: Minor Violence and Injury, Near Drowning

--

Emily grabbed a hanging lantern as soon as the door behind them shut, letting Zac trail awkwardly behind her as they trudged down the desolate, underground path. The large cobwebs  and rocks covered in dust kept the nervousness from the encounter in the tavern from going away, the thief half-expecting to round a corner and come face to face with a bloodied corpse.

She shook her head to distract herself, turning to glance over her shoulder at Zac—who was clutching the frying pan from the tavern close to his chest and glancing around wildly. He was now a far cry from the guy who’d suddenly dominated the entire tavern with his upbeat attitude. She didn’t like it. “You know, I gotta say… whatever that was back there, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“I know!” Zac cheered, excited, before an embarrassed flush took over his face and he cleared his throat, trying again and doing his best to sound suave. “I mean, I know.” 

Emily only raised her eyebrows, but didn’t comment. Zac deflated slightly.

“So… what’s your deal?”

Emily stopped in her tracks so suddenly that Zac ran into her back, Lou letting out an indignant squeak from the sudden jerk. “Excuse me?”

“Well, you’re clearly on the run from something.” Zac shrugged, shifting his grip on the frying pan as they started walking again. “I guess I just wanna know more about you.”

“Yeah, uh, no.” Emily’s rejection was immediate. She had absolutely no desire to pour her heart out to Zac, and if she did it would not be in this abandoned crawlspace. “Nothing for you to be curious about. I’m just little ol’ me.” She looked back at Zac, who frowned and slumped in on himself in defeat, and she felt a sharp prick at her conscience. Not enough to actually have her tell him anything, though. “I am; however, very interested in you.”

Zac stared at her, eyes wide. “Me?”

“Well, other than the whole ‘tower’ and ‘dude who is not-quite-your-dad’ that I don’t want to ask about, and that creepy frog—”

“Chameleon.” Zac corrected, earning a dismissive wave from Emily.

“Details.” She shrugged, watching Lou stick his tongue at her. She did it back, not feeling even an ounce of shame. “The thing you talk to all the time. So I guess the only thing left on the table is…” She slowed down her walk to a stop, turning to face Zac fully. “If you want to see the lanterns this badly, why have you never gone before?”

“Oh, uh, well, you know…” Zac seemed to be at a genuine loss for words, awkwardly rubbing at the back of his neck as he fumbled around for something to say. He stopped after a moment, turning to look back down the way they came—which was now rumbling with distant and heavy footsteps. “Uh… what’s that?” “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” Emily paled, clutching the lantern tighter as her other hand went to grab Zac’s arm.

The horde of royal knights that had interrupted them at the tavern rounded the corner, all sprinting at full speed—with none other than a furious Sir Murphy at the front.

“Axford!”

“Ah, shit.” Emily was ready to go as soon as the first flashes of armor came into sight, dragging Zac along as she dashed away from them. “Time to run!”

The two had a minor head start on the guards—and Zac seemed to keep up just fine, somehow—and ran as fast as they could, only skidding to a stop as the path let out into open air that just so happened to be at the edge of a major cliff.

Emily quickly looked around, trying to come up with the best escape plan she could. This was the part she was good at, after all.

To her right was a tall, wooden dam, holding back a nearly overflowing reservoir and letting it trickle down a ramshackle aqueduct that let out at the bottom of the cliff into a small stream to keep the water at a manageable level. The support beams holding up the wall were already bending and bowing under the weight, but what really caught Emily’s eye was the two different mineshaft openings in the clearing at the bottom of the cliff. If they could just get down there…

Sir Murphy and his accompanying knights also came to a stop as they realized they had the two cornered on the clifftop, all drawing their swords. Emily grinned as she saw them, but it wobbled as she then saw the brothers she’d abandoned crash through one of the two openings at the bottom of the cliff with a barely contained loud swear.

“Who is that?” Zac asked, looking down at the bottom of the cliff anxiously.

“Let’s just say they’re guys who don’t like me very much.” Emily chuckled, her first plan already abandoned as she tried to recalculate in her head. Hoping to buy even a moment of time, she thumbed over at the guards and pointed out Sir Murphy in particular. “Them either. And definitely not that guy.”

“You seem popular.” Zac’s comment was painfully sarcastic, causing another chuckle from Emily.

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” She regained her cocky composure, nodding at Zac. “We need to go.”

“Got it.” He took one look around at their surroundings, before tossing the frying pan he’d been carrying to Emily and jogging off for the dam wall. “Here. Just give me a second!”

“This crazy bastard…” Emily watched him go, barely catching the frying pan by dropping the lantern and turning back to the now minorly confused knights in front of her. “Hey. How’s it going?”

Murph was thoroughly unamused. “I’ve waited a long time for this.”

“Ah, well, I haven’t, so.” Emily grinned wider as he gritted his teeth and held tighter onto the handle of his sword, suddenly lunging forward at her.

She swiped his swing away with the pan, grossly misjudging its weight and nearly falling over but still deflecting his blade. Both of them stared at each other in surprise, not expecting such an effective parry from the pan. 

“Oh man! I have got to get me one of these.” Emily grinned wide, testing its weight to get adjusted and be ready this time as Murph shook off the strangeness and lunged again.

The other knights hung back and watched as Emily deftly dodged and blocked each attack of Murph’s, his anger visibly increasing with every failed swing. “Just! Give! Up! Already!”

“No thanks! I’m not the quitting type.”

While the emotions on both sides of the fight were vastly different—rage on one side and amusement on the other—the two matched each other’s intensity perfectly. The balance only shifted when a well-placed feint from Murph allowed him to get in a brief yet still quite deep slice to Emily’s hand holding the pan, her losing her grip and grabbing at the now bleeding wound with her free hand. Murph extended his blade to hover near her throat, her hands going up together with a sheepish smile.

“How about best two out of three?” Her joke was met with a hard glare, the two in a long deadlock as she eyed his blade and he looked her over carefully.

“Emily!” Zac called, Emily turning to see not only that Zac had made it to a nearby tall rock, but that he'd also managed to knock loose one of the beams holding up the dam that was now falling towards her cliff to give her a bridge.

She stared, mouth agape.

How in the everloving fuck had Zac gotten over there?!

Zac had simply climbed the dam wall after tossing Emily the frying pan. He needed both hands, after all.

Climbing in the tower rafters had really built up some climbing strength and experience, him tracking a path to a large, flat topped rock supporting the aqueduct Emily had seen. With the guards distracted, jumping to grab a beam sticking out and then swinging and jumping to the next in the sequence like a rickety set of monkey bars was rather easy.

He steadied himself on the other side, turning a triumphant smile to Lou on his shoulder, before noticing that Emily had been disarmed and cornered by the knight. With no time to think, he went at kicking one of the perfectly placed beams until it was knocked loose and would fall across the gap between the rocks.

He didn't miss Emily’s flabbergasted stare, nor the confusion and surprise from the knights. However, Emily was quick to recover and jog across, easily keeping her balance. 

“Here, help me pull!” Emily dropped to her knees as soon as she reached the rock face and slid to the end of the beam, grabbing at it with her uninjured hand and starting to pull—to drop it into the gap before the knights could cross.

Zac nodded and bent down to help as she got one foot under herself for leverage, the two yanking the makeshift bridge inch by inch towards the edge of the cliff.

“Not so fast!” Murph raged as he stepped up and got his balance just before it fell over the edge, running across it as it started to crumble the cliff’s edge and tip.

Emily and Zac pulled together one last time, fully dislodging the beam and watching the heavy wood start to free fall into the chasm below. 

Murph was so close, and out of sheer determination—and likely, a lot of luck—jumped off the falling beam and managed to grab onto the edge of the rock Emily and Zac stood on, very ungracefully pulling himself up.

“You are really persistent!” Emily wolf-whistled at the disheveled and furious knight, hands on her hips. “One might even think you like me.”

“I would enjoy nothing more than killing you on the spot.” Murph threatened through panted breaths, going for his sword only to realize it had been left on the other cliff—which was now inaccessible.

Emily smirked. “Ah, young love.”

Before Murph could respond she grabbed Zac’s arm and jumped into the flowing water of the aqueduct, the two then running down it even as it shook from their combined weight.

Recognizing that it was going to break before they reached the end, Emily knocked Zac over and purposefully fell back onto her ass, the two letting the water push them down the now-makeshift slide. She turned to look at the brothers below, seeing them waiting at the end of the aqueduct and turning to Zac—who had no idea what she was thinking, but nodded anyway.

She kicked one leg out front and slammed it down into the bottom of the slide—just in front of the end, rocking her body to the side and bracing herself against the walls of the aqueduct as the panel they were on broke loose and tipped forward. The rest of the structure quickly toppled over behind them and dropped wood and gushing water onto the now distracted brothers, Emily getting to her feet with Zac scrambling to follow as the broken wood beneath their feet fell in a perfect arc forward from the beam attached to the bottom.

“We gotta jump!” She yelled, waiting until just before the wood smashed into the ground to leap forward and land steadily on her feet just in front of the mineshaft entrance—just as planned. Kind of.

Zac’s landing behind her was much more rough, unable to catch himself on just his feet and falling forward, having to use his hands to keep his face from smashing into the ground. 

Their victory was short lived as the dam gave a huge shudder, the missing beam allowing the weight of the reservoir full of water to break through the cracks in the wooden wall. Water immediately began gushing out and breaking new cracks into the wood, threatening to give way to a giant tidal wave. The knights hurried back out the way they came as Murph dropped to the bottom of the chasm and took the other mineshaft exit—just as all of the water broke loose and slammed into the rock face, starting to knock it over.

Zac was on his feet in an instant and running with Emily, the two making it into the nearest exit and avoiding the fall of the rock by just a few feet. It landed perfectly flat against the entrance, sealing the way they came in yet still allowing some of the flood in around the edges. They quickly discovered that the shaft had collapsed some time ago, their exit blocked by a cascade of fallen rock. The cave was filling up quickly, Emily ducking down into the now waist-height water to try and see if she could move any of the rocks blocking their path before the water got too high.

However, the rock blocking the entrance only allowed water in and no light, preventing her from being able to see anything. She broke back up through the surface as the water reached her stomach, panicked. “It’s no use! I can’t see anything.” Emily gasped for air in the slowly closing gap they had left, grabbing at Zac’s shoulder as he started to dive down to look himself. “Hey, there’s no point! It’s pitch black down there.” 

The two stood in silence, the water slowly rising. Zac finally turned to where Emily stood, both of their eyes unadjusted to the darkness.

“This is all my fault… He was right. I never should’ve done this.” Zac sounded dead serious, his voice cracking mournfully as he closed his eyes and leaned back against one of the cave walls. “I’m… so sorry, Emily.”

Emily fumbled for a moment but grabbed his shoulder, squeezing it gently. Just because she felt it was hopeless didn’t mean he had to, too. Even if it probably was. “It’s okay, we’ll… There has to be a way out. It’ll be fine, right? Yeah, it’ll be fine.”

The water had reached up to Emily’s throat by the time something occurred to Zac, him staring down at his roughly scraped hands with an idea.

“Wait, my… my tears.” He mumbled, turning to Emily’s darkened figure. He grabbed at the palm of his left hand, his thumb hovering over a minor scrape. “They glow a little when I—!”

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Emily cut him off and grabbed at his hands, noticing that he was about to do something that she felt was recklessly stupid and likely pointless. Tears? That was his solution? “Now is not the time for—!”

He yanked away from her, digging his hand into the scrapes on his palm hard enough tears welled up in his eyes, starting to hum softly yet quickly to activate the magic before they ran out of air. “Deep breath!” 

The two took matching deep gulps of air before the water got over Emily’s head, the two ducking down into the water as a couple of Zac’s tears slipped out and mingled with the water surrounding them.

Each tear shimmered faintly, dispersing into the water and giving them the very faintest amount of light—but still enough that a trail of bubbles at the bottom of the rock wall caught Zac’s eye. Emily was far too busy staring at the glowing water, having accidentally let her breath out in surprise as the light appeared. She was dizzy and lightheaded as Zac yanked a couple of rocks loose at the bottom, her vision ready to black out as her lungs screamed at her for air before a huge shift in the force of the water had both of them careening through the new hole Zac had made and getting washed away by the tide.

A moment later, the two crashed into the bank of a river, heads shooting out of the water as the pair took in relieved and refreshing gulps of air.

“We made it…” Zac panted, hoisting himself up to rest on the bank of the river—legs still swaying in the current.

Emily propped herself up on her elbows lightning fast, eyes wide and disbelieving. “Your tears glow.” 

“We’re alive…” Zac trailed off, ignoring Emily's blatant panic from beside him as he got to his feet excitedly. “I’m alive!”

“His tears… I never in a million billion years saw that coming.” Emily turned to Lou, who must have also been washed to shore by the water and was watching them from the bank. He nodded, Emily feeling the sympathy as she let out another loud, bewildered sigh. “Why… why do they do that?”

Zac turned as Lou grabbed at his leg and then climbed to his shoulder, noticing Emily staring blankly out at the woods. “Emily.” 

“What the hell? They… I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to do that.” She continued to mumble to herself, not snapping out of the daze until Zac yelled—

“Emily!” 

“What?” She turned to him, still halfway in the river.

Zac smiled down at her, wiping the water from his face. “They do more than just glow.”

[ruminate88]

Grew Dubbs

I had believed I was now in a “relationship” with Andrew, we had both finally said the words I wanted to say all summer long, “I love you”. However, after such a romantic and exciting weekend, Andrew stops responding to me. Nothing for almost a week! I was so confused, hurt, it felt like he stuck a knife in me! I’m freaking out, afraid he’s ghosted me just like Cody did. I can’t quite remember the whole timeline but during that week I know I tried to reach out to him. At some point he’s updating his Snapchat story with a selfie of himself wearing some kind of suit with all these awards pinned on him, so that made me believe he was busy doing something important but I still didn’t understand how he didn’t have 2 seconds to text me what was going on.

Eventually come Saturday morning, he FINALLY sends me a Snapchat selfie of himself working some kind of booth with a badge around his neck and he writes to me, “Sorry I’ve been so busy, talk to you soon!” That snap was just enough to give me a little bit of “hope” but was also less than I deserved. I should have saw through him right then but after all, he had been bread crumbing me all summer. He had been giving me just enough to believe he “liked me” but wasn’t actually being with me or changing anything between us.

I responded to his Snapchat hopeful but still upset and very confused. Not realizing all that he was doing to me was part of his manipulation towards me. THEN come another day or so later, he starts talking to me again and apologized!! Said that “he had a very bad week at school” but when I asked him what happened to him, he said, “I don’t want you to worry”… I was worried and confused!!! I poured out my heart to him how I was hurt that I JUST told him I loved him and then he disappears for a whole week. Asked him was it all just “pretend” to see my nudes… (I was right but I was scared to admit the truth even then)

Andrew swore to me everything was fine that I wasn’t crazy, he did have a bad week at school but was sorry he didn’t text me and said, “I mean it with all my heart and soul that I love you and want you to text me” …. At THAT TIME, I was so desperate for his love and attention, I gobbled up the crazy delusional lie he was feeding me and tried to give him my trust. I had never had anyone say such “romantic and crazy” words like that to me before.

During this sensitive and venerable time with Andrew, I’m obsessively googling him trying to understand who he is and what his intentions were. His social media made him out to be some popular and well-to do man of college and I wanted to believe what I was seeing… Plus he was becoming very attractive to me and I was caught up in his blue eyes.

Andrew continued to talk to me some each day for a couple of months but it was all still “flirting” and cyber sex. He stopped sending me nudes or selfies just texted me. I was disappointed because I am under the impression we are “in a relationship” but it doesn’t feel like we are. Andrew continued to seem like he was doing his own thing at school and while he was texting me, wasn’t posting anything about me on any of his social media!!! That really bothered me because I had nothing to hide and yet I felt he did.

I didn’t realize Andrew was emotionally unavailable and that he doesn’t truly attach to people the way I do. I also didn’t understand he can not deal with anyone who gets upset towards him. I wasn’t there in his childhood, I have no idea how he came to be but as I learn about narcissism, I can piece together what happened between us. One night, he had stopped replying to me which was his normal but not mine. I was getting frustrated at how “busy” he was acting in school and how little he was making me feel like his girlfriend yet we were constantly sexting and sending hearts to each other.. I had a party to go to at a friend’s house,. While I’m there, I notice Andrew has updated his Snapchat with a selfie of himself and it reads, “pizza and watching a movie” Instantly I was emotional and upset because he has stopped responding to me, leaving me to believe he’s “busy” only to find out he’s on his Snapchat and only watching tv.

I quickly started sending him very long typed out text with ALL my feelings how I’m so confused that I’m his “girlfriend” yet he leaves me on read, no responses and all I want is a relationship with him. I can’t remember everything I typed out but I poured out my heart and soul to this boy, trying to make sense of who he is and what his intentions are! Andrew began to respond but said, “You scared me with all these text. Don’t scare me like that!!” MY FEELINGS SCARED HIM?? (I should have saw ALL the red flags then) I just didn’t understand because I’m coming from a different viewpoint of “love” and “relationship” whereas, he’s coming from a viewpoint of “selfishness” and “manipulation”. I just had no idea. Andrew of course apologized, once again he “reassured me” about our relationship, treated me as if I was crazy to believe what I was actually seeing and understanding that he DID care about me and want to be with me…. So I FELT STUPID for my feelings that I threw up all over his phone and I was just relieved to hear from him. Was relieved he was saying he wanted to be with me, not even paying attention to the fact his actions was not matching his words! That’s manipulation!!! I was coming from a a desperate place for his love and attention and his desperate pace was one of needing me to believe his B.S and stay obsessed with him. He wanted me going crazy and second guessing myself and my reality but could not ever deal with confrontation with me. Avoided it like a plague!! (Which is what a lot of narcissists do. They avoid taking responsibility for their actions!)

Things with Andrew never got better. He spent October and November hardly texting me, not sending me any snaps and I was afraid to send him snaps but whenever I would talk to him, it was always flirting!! Thanksgiving, I don’t hear from him all day and I’m once again typing out big long text but afraid to send them. I keep re-wording how I want to say what it is that’s bothering me. Finally I can’t remember if I went through with sending him something or he sent me something but it was a very bad thanksgiving!! I was supposed to be enjoying my family but I was tied to my phone, only obsessed with him and upset he’s ignored me all day (his girlfriend) later that night though, we finally started texting and both said we were out Black Friday shopping. I was yet again hopeful but it’s almost like I knew something was wrong.

Christmas break is about to start now and it starts out super super romantic…. He’s not left his apartment and went home yet but his classes our out and suddenly he’s texting me like crazy!! He was suddenly being very romantic and flirting with me so much. Calling me babe and finally making me feel like possibly I really am his girlfriend. It made me think he truly had just been so busy with school but I wasn’t sure. I was just happy we were spending time texting although most of it was cyber sex as usual!! Nothing ever got on a deeper level. I tried and wanted to get there but I was already walking on egg shells with him. I didn’t wanna push and rock the boat.

Christmas Day, I woke up so hopeful. It’s my favorite holiday, I knew I was going to be with my family and get gifts but I was most excited to have a boyfriend. I wake up and rush to check my phone for my “good morning babe” text and…. Nothing…. He never sent me anything so I told myself “it’s Christmas morning, he’s probably with his family.” I waited and waited and waited some more!! It wasn’t till the very end of the night when I FINALLY got a “merry Christmas babe”… ugh. I was deflated and frustrated. He asked me was it a good day for me and when I told him it wasn’t because he didn’t text me all day till the night, suddenly Andrew started to act funny.

Christmas night, started a whole bizarre conversation that should have told me everything I needed to know about Andrew but I was too ignorant and uneducated about narcissism to understand what was happening. Andrew began to express to me from his most honest self(which isn’t very honest) Andrew started sending me long text for a change but was saying, “I don’t know why you love me. I’m not a good guy and you deserve so much better than me. I’m not good enough for you and I’ll never be worthy of your love!!” I asked him where was it all coming from and thought for sure he was breaking up with me. I’m reading his long and confusing text messages he’s sending, one right after the other, with my eyes filling up and a tear running down my cheek. I was truly disappointed and heartbroken that he would dump me on my favorite holiday, dumping me over text out of the blue BUT when I asked him was he breaking up, he said, “no….” Andrew sounded like he wanted to break up, he was saying he didn’t deserve me, wouldn’t tell me why he felt that way other than the fact he was telling me the truth who he really was but I wasn’t seeing it. I was anxious and afraid to lose him!!! By him bringing me to the edge on Christmas, I was just getting more and more desperate for him.

He has to realign me, after Christmas he saw how shaky I was and confused. New Year’s Eve came and up until that point, nothing had changed between us. I was not expecting him to treat me any better however, at midnight I send him a loving but hopeful new years text expressing my desperation to kiss him. He responded which I wasn’t sure he would AND he also expressed his desire to kiss me too!!! I had been so nervous towards him and walking on eggshells that I was trying to be careful what I sent him. Andrew told me he was with his family but was getting to go out with some guy friends and actually said to me, “Do you mind that I go with my guy friends for the rest of the night?” What was I to say? No???? We hadn’t even met in person, up until that point, he had not asked my permission for anything. It was like a light switch came on and he was a different person!! I told him yes to enjoy his guy friends but be safe. He told me he would and then text me “I’ll miss you babe😘” I was SHOCKED and without words. Who was this guy and why the sudden interest in me?? We had been so hot and cold, only having cyber sex, I was losing faith in our relationship but that one text gave me hope yet again to keep making myself stay in this abusive relationship. I went to bed that night in a delusional state of mind that we loved each other and would be happy together….

[vvvspecialty]

I just reread my last post and wow have things changed since then - so it’s September 2023 i.e. a whole year 1/2 has passed since that post. Catchup time lol.

Marvin and I ended up getting together shortly after that post for basically the entire summer & in September, after labor day weekend, we broke up for good. He planned out this really sweet trip to Savannah and I was really busy w/ hw from school so I don’t think it went how he had wanted it. Tbh I ruined it because aside from the crappy sex and lack of attention I was giving, we got into fight otw back home and if you remember, Marvin doesn’t do well with fights so basically went down hill after that and the following weekend we met up and mutually agreed to go our separate ways. Obviously he didn’t try to make it work, like he never has, but from my end I think I was just so fed up with nothing changing in our relationship after 5 years that I just snapped I mean we were literally in the same position we were when we met - he was still living with his parents, no plans or steps being taken to move out, with no car, the same job, the same drunken activities & I just can’t live like that. Life is so fucking short , i’m in my twenties and I just want to experience and live and be selfish and just enjoy my time being young. I feel like I woke up one day and I was 25 like wtf happened in my early 20’s??

So it’s been a year since we broke up and yea it’s been sad in certain moments, I miss him and think about him sometimes, I still have some of our pictures and videos in my vault in sc but baby steps you know. The BIGGEST thing that’s happened have been 2 things:

I got my boobs done on Valentines day 2023

I had sex w/ a guy

Now the boob thing has been great but annoying

The guy thing has been the same thing , mostly annoying because after we had sex we haven’t spoken since which is fine, I never wanted anything serious anyway but damn I am still so attracted to him lol I think he’s sooo hot (deff my type aside from the fact that he’s a douchbag and the sex was WHACK!)

Still working wt DHL although our Manager Daniel officially left 2 weeks ago ): so now i’m rethinking my job but on the bright side we’re almost done with our masters just gotta finish this semester and Spring semester and we’re done. I can’t wait to surprise my mom :D

and we went to Greece in Mat w/ Drew to celebrate our 25th , it was great & beautiful & annoying because we got sick but during the trip we had a layover in Amsterdam and omg it was beautiful (definitely gotta make a trip of that place asap).

Now as for the future, I have a plan on visiting Spain next year for a few month in July until October but i’m trying to get my italian passport asap rocky so I can stay longer if I want (i’ve been obsessed with Spain movies lately , the most recent one being My Fault omg so good lol)

Anyways that’s basically it - we’ve gained a little weight which is good , my goal has been to get to 130 and I finally made it!!!

Currently living in a townhouse with 2 roomates I found on fb marketplace in a group for Emory students finding housing & aside from some annoying moments, it’s been great! I love my room and I love the location. Decatur is so pretty!!

Keep your chin up, things will get hard but they’ll always get better.

[deceitfuldevil]

Truth Serum

Pietro Maximoff X Reader

Summary: While working with Tony and Bruce in the lab you accidentally drink some very experimental truth serum, leading to some unwanted confessions with your coworkers.

Warnings: use of y/n, swearing, lots of dialogue, barely proofread, etc.

Word Count: 1.7K

—

You were busy working with Tony and Bruce in the lab and jokingly Tony placed his latest concoction next to your drink but you didn’t realize until it was too late and you drank Bruce’s experimental truth serum.

“Jesus Tony can you turn down that obnoxious music? I’m so sick of that stupid 70s rock music you’re always playing.”

Tony stopped what he was doing are looked over at you in shock.

“L/n, what the hell are you talking about? You told me you loved my music.”

“Well I lied, I lie to you a lot actually.” You looked up eyes blown wide with dear as you covered your mouth after saying that.

“I did NOT mean to say that.”

“Y/n… did you just take a sip of that beaker Tony so stupidly placed right next to your drink?” Bruce asked pinching the small space in between his eyebrows

You looked down as remorse filled your gut, noticing a small dribble of blue liquid slowly falling down the side of the beaker you obviously just took a drink from. Your eyes life to meet Bruce’s as you slowly nodded a small yes.

“Well, no thanks to Tony now we get to find out if my very experimental truth serum actually works.”

“TRUTH SERUM?!” You shouted, the last thing you wanted was for your team to have unrestricted access to your secrets.

“No thanks to me? Are you kidding Banner? This might be the most fun we have with Y/n all year!” Tony said with a cheeky grin

Your groaned and let your head fall onto the desk you were sitting at. “How long will this last?” You asked muffled

“Best case scenario for you? It could wear off within the next 30 minutes. Worst case scenario? You could be highly responsive and overly truthful for the two days.”

Tony broke out with a loud cackle as he got up from his desk and exited the lab “Good luck kid!”

“And theres no antidote?” You pleaded

“Sorry, but we were barely in the trial phases of creating this and we don’t try to make an antidote unless we know for sure that it works.”

“So how the hell am I supposed to deal with this in the meantime?”

“My best advice? Lock yourself away in your quarters for the next day or so to avoid saying anything unsavory to the rest of the team. Because I don’t have a doubt in my mind Tony left to go and tell the whole team about your little predicament.”

But before you could reply Sam, Rhodey, and Bucky all came running into the lab practically running over each other.

“Okay, I’ve wanted wanted to know. How do you feel really about Redwing?” Sam asked pushing Rhodey and Bucky aside.

“I think you should find a girlfriend so you stop obsessing over a high tech piece of metal.” You said with an unholy amount of sass, already sick of this treatment. Bucky burst out laughing but you sent a pissed off glare his way.

“Don’t think you’re safe either beefcake. You’re 106 years old and still can’t take a joke, not to mention that you’re forgetful as fuck. I mean who the hell just forgets that they have a vibrium arm? I’m not even going to get started on that staring problem you have that you think is so intimidating.” You snapped, shutting everyone in the room up. Before leaving you locked eyes with Rhodey.

“Oh hi Ego Machine! Don’t worry, I didn’t forget about you. I mean who could when you tell that story of how you dropped a tank at the generals feet every single party? I mean, BOOM were you looking to be interesting?”

After shutting every one in that room down you stormed out and locked yourself in your room. You really could tell if you had taken truth serum or just a liquid curse. You never left your room for the rest of the night, not wanting to risk dinner with the team. But you woke up around 5:30 in the morning to. Very strong feeling of hunger, and prayed no one else would be up this early as you snaked down into the kitchen. You walked past Wanda sleeping quietly on the couch as Vision floated peacefully in the corner.

“Creepy motherfucker…” you whispered as you stepped into the kitchen

“What was that you said about my husband?” Wanda said, suddenly on the other side of the counter looking at you with a tilted head. You jumped almost spilling your cereal

“Jesus Christ Wanda! A warning!” You said clutching your head with one hand and the cereal box with the other. But she only looked at you and smiled mischievously

“You can ask anything you want but you’re not allowed to be upset by the answer” you stated plaining, pouring some milk into your bowl.

“Are you talking about the truth serum you took yesterday?” Wanda asked, tilting her head at you.

“Yeah, it might not wear off for another 24 hours. Everyones been dying to find how I ‘really’ feel about them since Tony ran his big mouth and told everyone about this stupid serum I drank.”

“You do remember I can read minds, right? I always know when someone’s telling the truth or lying, I just don’t always call them on it.”

“Right.” You said quietly as you stuffed your face with cereal so you could go back to your quarters as soon as possible.

You sat alone in your room unbothered for the next few hours, until you heard a rock at your door.

“Don’t come in! Go away!” You shouted turning the page of your book assuming whoever was on the other side of your door would kindly fuck off. But as a tall man with a mop of silver hair entered your room you sighed dramatically and threw your book at him, missing spectacularly.

“I could’ve sworn I said to NOT come in.” you said as you crossed your arms over your chest, looking at the ever so muscular man making his way over to your bed.

“And when’s the last time I took orders from you?” Pietro said with a smile.

“You never take orders from anyone, I’m surprised you haven’t been kicked off the team yet honestly.” You spat, bitter that he wasn’t respecting your wishes to be left alone. A pit of nerves also started to grow in your stomach the closer he came to you knowing how you really felt about him, and that if he asked there’d be nothing stopping you from telling him the truth.

“Ah, you wound me dragâ.” Pietro says as he mockingly clasps his hands over his heart as if you’d shot him. You just rolled your eyes in response.

“The team tells me you’ve become somewhat of a bitch since yesterday, is that true?” He asked, sitting down at the foot of your bed.

“I’m not a bitch, Tony just tricked me into drinking some of Banner’s experimental truth serum. But you already knew that didn’t you? Either way, spoiler alert. The stupid serum works and probably won’t wear off for another 12 hours. Besides, I’m only a bitch to the team members I don’t like.” Your eyes widened realizing what you just admitted to Pietro

“I suppose that’s true, Wanda did tell me you weren’t too bad when she ran into you this morning.” Pietro said scooting up next to you in bed, normally you’d tell him to fuck off before he got too close so he would know how much you loved being in his arms but when he asked

“Is this okay?” As he stretched his arms over your shoulders pulling you into his chest

“Yeah, I love it when you hold me. Or just touch me in general, always makes me feel like I’m on cloud nine.” The confession just spilled right out of your mouth, causing you to once again to clasp a hand over your lips to prevent you from saying anything else.

Pietro looked down at you with a shocked eyes but a smug smile, deciding to push his luck he asked “Then why do you always push me away and tell me to fuck off anytime I hug you?”

“Becwagh wi dwomt vhmnf to nmfh…” you said, keeping your hand over your mouth to muffle your answer. Pietro shook his head light at you as he took your hand off your lips and held it, gently caressing your knuckles with his thumb

“What was that darling?” He said as he cobalt blue eyes poured into yours. It’s like he already knew how you felt but just needed to hear you say it to confirm his suspicions. Months of pinning after you, and now here was his chance. He had no other choice but to act on it. You swallowed the last bit of pride and fear held in your chest and said

“Because I don’t want you to know how I really feel about you.” The last of your walls came crashing down as you smiled gently at the handsome man before you, he gently tucked a strand of hair behind your ear as his faced inched closer to yours.

“And how do you feel about me dragosté?”

“Like you’re the only person in the world I could ever fall in love with.” That was all Pietro needed to push aside his ego hearing how you really felt about him as he leaned down and closed the gap in between the two of you pressing his soft lips to yours. Moving gently with you as his lips slotted perfectly over yours, you breathe in his musky scent as you ran your hand across his chest pulling him closer to you. Sadly it wasn’t long before you both ran out of air and had to pull away

“So how do you feel now?” Pietro asked with a cheeky grin plastered on his lovestruck face

“Like I could kiss your stupid face all day.” You said grabbing the collar of his shirt and pulling him back in for a much more heated kiss.

The rest of your afternoon and week into the evening was spent in Pietros arms sharing soft kisses and fleeting touches. Although admittedly he was sad when the truth serum wore off and he couldn’t ask you any and everything under the sun about how you felt about him.

But you’d end up showing him how you felt in other ways later on ;)

—

A/N

Ahhh here’s my 4th post that will be published while I’m away at camp! Found this little bit in my notes as well and just fleshed it out enough to post! Hope this was enjoyable!

Much Love,

—Skyler

[watchmegetobsessed]

Crushing - Harry Styles

a/n: just a little something that was inspired by a tiktok and @pastequeharry​ !

pairing: Harry X Famous!Reader

word count: 2.2k

masterlist

“Welcome back, I hope has everyone returned from our little break because we are playing a fun little game with Y/N, who by the way won a Grammy award for best new artist this weekend, so congratulations on that!”

Ellen smiles at you widely as she claps along with the audience and you’re just smiling shyly, still not quite used to the sound of it.

“Thank you,” you nod looking around.

“Okay, we are going to play a round of who’d you rather. Are you familiar with the game?” she asks you.

“Yes, I’ve seen others play it before.”

“Great. For those who don’t know the game, two people will show up on the screen and Y/N will have to choose one. Whoever she chooses will come with us to the next round and at the end we’ll know who is her ultimate crush.”

“Ah man,” you huff, feeling a little nervous about who they are gonna show you and the audience laughs at your reaction as your fingers dig into the armrest of the armchair you’re sitting comfortably in.

“Are you ready?” Ellen questions with a smile that tells you just how much she is enjoying this.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be, but let’s get started,” you chuckle nervously.

“Okay, let’s see our first pair,” she starts and two pictures show up on the big screen and on the smaller one at the front of the stage so you don’t have to crane your neck. “So we have Zendaya and Tom Holland. Who are you choosing?”

“You really had to start with two of my biggest Marvel crushes?!” you whine and the audience starts laughing again as you chew on your bottom lip, trying to decide. “I love them both, but I’m gonna have to go with Zendaya, because in height, we would be better. I’m sorry Tom, I still love you!” you declare, looking around all cameras, hoping they all got your confession.

“Alright. So now we’ll keep Zendaya and move on to the next person, who is… Harry Styles. Zendaya or Harry Styles?”

The blood rushes out of your face as you see a picture of Harry, memories of the two of you meeting at the award show in the weekend flooding back to your mind. Harry has been a crush of yours since probably forever. You’ve been a fan of his since his One Direction days and your career started to take off sometime around the time he started his solo career, only difference is that it took you a little longer to earn yourself a name in the industry. But this weekend you finally met him for the first time, in real life, without you just watching him on the stage with four other men.

You spotted him at the area that led to the red carpet, he was about to step out when his eyes laid on you and though he was wearing a mask, you still knew he was smiling from the little wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. Your breath caught in your throat, stopping in your track as you were holding up your gown so you wouldn’t trip and fall with all the cameras around.

“Y/N! Hi!” he greeted you stepping closer, as if the two of you were old friends.

“Hi!” you managed to speak up, feeling completely starstruck.

“Love the gown! You look wonderful!” he complimented you and you could feel your cheeks heating up so fast.

“Oh, thank you, but I think you’re stealing the show with the boas,” you chuckled making him laugh as well.

“Thank you. Congrats on the nomination, I really hope you win by the way.”

“You do?”

“Of course. Listened to the album, it’s really good,” he nodded and your heart skipped a beat. Harry Styles listened to your album and he liked it? This must be Heaven, but when did you die?

“Thank you so much! I hope you win too, though your chances are better with your three nominations,” you joked making him laugh again.

“Yeah, just a little,” he nodded. “Here, let me help you.” He offered you his arm helping you step up the few steps that lead to the area where the red carpet photos were taken and you were thankful for the help, though you could already hear all the camera’s clicking in your way and you knew the photos would be all over the internet by the next day.

You only met one more time during the evening and you could only congratulate to each other on the wins before you both were snatched away, but you still play your conversation with him in your head before you go to bed in the evening.

“Um, Zendaya is everything but I’m gonna play this game honestly so I’ll choose Harry.”

The audience starts cheering and clapping at the decision as Ellen smirks at you, nodding along.

“No need to be shy, we all have a crush on Harry probably,” she jokes making you laugh. “Okay, next up we have… Harry Styles and The Weeknd.”

“I’m gonna stick to Harry,” you answer probably a little too fast, but if you’re being honest, they can’t show you anyone at this point who would beat Harry.

“Harry stays, next we have Harry and… Florence Pugh.”

“You guys made sure to make it hard for me!” you chuckle staring at the screen. “But I’m still gonna stick to Harry, though I love them both.”

“Alright, for the next round we have Harry Styles and Niall Horan.”

“I’m upset, because as a One Direction fan, I should not be forced to choose between them,” you point at Ellen, giving her a hard look which the audience finds quite hilarious.

“I’m sure you had ranked them before, don’t be shy,” she smirks and you sigh rolling your eyes.

“Okay, no offence to anyone but Harry stays. Sorry Niall, I still love you though,” you add with a smile.

“Harry is in a winning streak, it seems. Okay, let’s see his next opponent. Harry against Chris Evans.”

“Harry,” you answer with a sigh, crossing your legs, knowing well you will not choose anyone over Harry.

“Fast answer, great. Harry Styles or Ariana Grande.”

“Love Ariana, she’s a queen, but Harry,” you answer with a smile, the audience enjoying your obsession over Harry Styles and at this point you are not even trying to hide it.

“Harry Styles or Henry Cavill?”

“Harry,” you answer right away.

Henry’s picture disappears and Harry’s moves to the middle as the game comes to its end.

“Seems like we have a winner here. Harry Styles beat everyone!” Ellen chuckles as you glance at the big screen, blushing a little, but you are hoping your makeup is covering it well.

“You said it yourself, everyone has a crush on him,” you shrug, trying to play it cool.

“Yes, but not everyone was helped out by him,” she smirks as a photo of the two of you appears on the screen from last weekend and you cover your face with your hands as the audience goes wild.

“He is a gentleman,” you sigh dreamily.

“He really is and I have to say that the two of you look great together.”

“Oh stop it,” you chuckle, playing it over a little, just to make it less obvious how giddy even the thought makes you.

“Well, now we know that he is your number one choice, hopefully he’ll take the next step,” Ellen chuckles before moving on and asking you a few more questions as part of your appearance on the show.

Weeks go by and you kind of forget about the whole interview. It blows up the next few days, but nothing really happens, people just get excited that you are crushing on Harry just like everyone else, but it dies down pretty quickly.

You barely recovered from your Grammy win and yet you are already marching towards another milestone in your career. None other than Gucci asked you to be part of their new campaign in an amazing photoshoot and you just couldn’t say no, not that you ever even thought about it. After some online meetings and sending emails back and forth the first fitting’s day has finally arrived and you are buzzing!

Heading down to the showroom to go over every outfit they want you to wear for the photos, you can’t wipe the excited grin off your face. Growing up you could only dream about owning anything Gucci, now you are going to be promoting them so it truly is a dream come true.

Arriving you are walked into the showroom that is now filled with racks of clothes and there’s a podium with three mirrors surrounding it for the fitting.

“Y/N! Hi! So nice to finally meet you after all the emails and calls!” Nancy, the creative director of the campaign greets you.

“Nice to meet you too!”

“We are in a little bit of delay, I’m very sorry about that, but we can start in about ten minutes, if that’s alright with you.”

“Oh, no worries. I’m free all day,” you assure her before she thanks your patience and runs off to finish off whatever she was doing before.

Wandering around you take a look at the beautiful clothes on the racks, blown by basically everything you see and you can’t wait to wear the outfits that were meant for you. In the back of the room, a part is closed off for a changing area and you hear the door opening as Nancy walks out first, talking to someone following her behind and when you see the person, you freeze.

Harry Styles walks out, wearing a just a shirt and jeans, looking very casual but still, unbelievably hot. The man could wear a potato sack and still look better than any other men.

“Thank you so much,” he smiles at Nancy before his eyes lay on you, a wide smirk tugging on his lips in realization. “So nice to see a familiar face!” he beams, walking closer before he pulls you in for a short hug that catches you by surprise, but also warms your chest.

“Hi, didn’t expect to see you here, though you are kind of one with the brand at this point,” you tease him making him laugh.

“I am, yeah. I heard that you would be featured in the campaign as well. Amazing choice,” he smirks, glancing over at Nancy who smiles proudly, clearly agreeing with him.

“Y/N, I’ll get the changing room ready for you and we can start in five, alright?” Nancy informs you.

“Yeah, thank you!” You nod in her way and she is already off to do the work, leaving you and Harry alone.

“So, I learned some interesting information the other day,” he hums with a serious face and he got you curious about what it could be.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm, you know, I was watching The Ellen Show and you were on, playing a little game.”

“Oh my God,” you breathe out, already feeling the heat crawling up your neck to your cheeks. Harry smirks down at you, clearly enjoying that he got you so nervous and embarrassed of what happened.

“I wish I knew about your little crush earlier!” he teases you, making your groan.

“And why is that? So you could pull my leg at the Grammy’s when I was already shitting my pants?”

Harry lets out a chuckle shaking his head as he hides his hands in his pockets, his eyes running up and down your figure before they meet with your gaze again.

“No. Because then I wouldn’t have talked myself down from asking for your number.”

You can’t help the stunned reaction that takes over your face at his blunt flirting, your lips part as your eyebrows shoot up while Harry just stares back at you with a sly smirk on his deliciously pink lips.

“Oh, is that so?”

“Yeah, but now that I know that you are crushing on me just like I’m crushing on you, I think it’s time to make the first step. So…” he pulls his phone out and hands it over to you and continues while you type your number in. “I’m not just asking for your number, but I happened to hear that you have nothing else planned for the day, is that true?”

“It is,” you nod, feeling out of breath as you hand him back his phone, your number saved in his contacts.

“Then how about grabbing lunch after your fitting? I happen to have nothing today as well, we should take advantage of it,” he suggests and you can’t push your stunned smile down.

“Sounds good,” you nod, biting into your bottom lip.

“Great. I’ll run some errands while you are here and I’ll be back in about an hour.”

“You could stay here if you want, I don’t mind it,” you tell him, feeling like he is only leaving because he doesn’t want to intrude.

“I would love to, but I really want to see the final outcome of the campaign and not spoil it for myself,” he smirks making you chuckle.

“Alright. Then see you in an hour.”

“Yeah,” he nods with a boyish smirk before turning around and walking out of the showroom.

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed it!

[winns-stuff]

LO RANT/RANT:

Okay, I’ve been reflecting within myself for a while now about all of the rants I’ve been doing surrounding Lore Olympus as a whole and at first I wasn’t sure about it. I thought that you know, maybe I’m just being a major hater and maybe I’m just being super obsessive with all of this stuff. I’ve talked about it with my friends and everything and they’ve all asked the same thing; “why do you care so much about this webtoon?”. At first I couldn’t really put it in words and I even had to sit down and ask myself that question too, but after realizing it I’ve compiled a small list of why exactly I care so much about other people understanding that Lore Olympus isn’t as great as it’s made out to be.

Like I’ve said before, I was once a Lore Olympus fan and around that time it was one of my favorite webtoons. I was in middle school when I found it and instantly fell in love with it, I was doing a lesson on GM in one of my social studies classes and I thought it would be fun to interact with the retelling. Obviously, I knew not to handle the story like it was the original myth and I interacted with the story like it was any romance comic I’ve came across in the past. I enjoyed seeing someone who was like me (Persephone) handling herself, I enjoyed that she had ambitions and goals and dreams bigger than she’d ever imagined them to be. I loved her kind nature and how cheerful she was, I truly related to her. I also loved that in the beginning Lore Olympus seemed like a coming of age story, I was so happy and excited to watch Persephone grow into her own and really hone her skills because that’s what I was transitioning into as well. It was nice to have a character that was going through similar situations like me. But after stepping away from the comic, it really started to irk me about how such a compelling story transformed into this uncomfortable weird situation. Persephone just up and left her family, friends, education, home, and everything else she’s ever known just to go down into this land she’s barely interacted with and marry this 40 something year old man that she barely met within a week or maybe 3 (which is the longest might I add). It just crushed me how her journey became so… One sided. It was getting less and less of Persephone’s story and more of Hades lusting after her, everything I ever admired her for was gone and anything I related to her with was ripped from me. I didn’t want to see her be built up so much just to have her as some docile wife for a man who went after her when she was barely of age.

Another thing is just because I really hate that the teenage experience always has to be surrounded by sexual hormones and sex drive with a lot of stories created by adults. No this isn’t exactly about Lore Olympus but it’s just about “teen material” in general. I’ve seen so many teen movies, books, shows, songs always centering themselves around this idea that teenagers are promiscuous and their sex drive runs endless, not only that but if you’re a virgin you’re just some prude that deserves to be made fun of and bullied for the rest of your life until you give in and sleep with someone. I’m not saying that teenagers are not like that at all but what I am saying is that I hate that that’s all we really get from these literal adult directors. We’ve seen too many damn sex scenes between teens and kissing moments between teens, I’m tired of it. I just want their to be a movie about teenagers that has nothing to do with it at all, I want more movies that show teens being real people and not just eager sex dolls ready for the next orgy or something! Also not trying to shame anyone who goes to those, I’m sorry I just thought it would fit. But really it does hurt that most teen shows profit off of exploiting such a very sensitive time in adolescence and allows for us to be seen as nothing more than sexual deviants. It’s disgusting that there are literal adults who view teens that way and that are pushing all of that filth towards their teenage audience. We don’t need to see any sex scenes when we’re literally just trying to find out who we are as people and grow and morph into the person we want to be.

Last thing I feel is just because I feel like although I only do this in my spare time I think it needs to be talked about. There’s been multiple times where Rachel has expressed about how much she enjoys this very awful age gap. Not only that I’m tired of people preying on fresh 18/19 year olds when they’re quite literally barely legal, they’re still teenagers I don’t know why so many think that you can just become an adult overnight. They still have the same brain and experience they had when they were 17 please be fucking for real. But back to the topic at hand, Rachel has done a lot of questionable things and has stated many questionable things from her own mouth. Loads of stuff I don’t agree with and it would’ve all been fine if the stuff that she’s talking about wasn’t so heavily implicated in this damn comic. It’s so weird how there’s probably gonna be so many girls out there who are my age or younger reading Lore Olympus and naively consuming everything it has to offer while Rachel continued to push these very problematic and uncomfortable themes in her books without any real proper addressing being made about them. Instead of saying that the things in her comic aren’t the best and shouldn’t be done she glamorizes it and romanticizes these very real and important issues. She doesn’t even try to say anything about it she just keeps making more and more uncomfortable situations and since the younger and older audiences possibly don’t know any better they’ll continue to praise it and idolize such scummy behavior. I feel like all of this could be avoided and talked out but instead of actually facing her problems Rachel just runs from them or blocks them completely. I know it’s hard to write stories and do art and handle fandoms and such but you cannot neglect all of these problems that half of your audience begs you to fix, I’m not saying it has to be perfect but with at least some effort something can be done.

But anyways that’s the end of this rant, I know doing these won’t help anyone or anything but I hope I at least reached someone. By the way, not trying to bash the fans or anything that’s not my intention (unless it’s kinda deserved and even then I still don’t bash them that much) and I’m not trying to persuade anyone from dropping the book. I still look at others peoples’ updates of Lore Olympus from all sorts of apps just to see how Demeter’s storyline is going (even though I’m always disappointed) but yeah, it’s perfectly fine if you keep reading I just had to say something about it for myself. Like I always say these are just my thoughts and they’re always pretty meaningless anyways, but that’s how I consumed the piece of media I interacted with and how I felt about it. If you agree that’s great and if you don’t that’s also great too, we see things differently and it’s completely reasonable.

[fair-fae]

Lil real life update~ mostly just incoherent rambles

I’m starting a new job in January. It’s been in the works a crazy long time now but I didn’t mention anything sooner, which I’m glad for because it has taken actually forever and anything that could possibly happen to delay the process did happen :’) But it finally paid off. I’m quitting my current job in December because it’s the only way I’ll be able to get time off to spend Christmas with my family for the first time in years (since it’s “forbidden” for us to request time off October - early January at my current job). It caused some drama with my in-laws who I guess pre-emptively assumed we were doing “Christmas” in January because “that’s what we always do” (yeah because I can’t get any other time off, not for funsies or our personal preference lol????) but whatever, that’s a whole other thing. I have finally escaped the service industry! As someone with no degree and no “marketable skills,” that’s huge lol. And I am very excited. I am little nervous since I don’t know a lot about the job or what to expect. The hours apparently vary wildly--some times of the years we are off, some times will be slow, some it will be super busy and I’ll be working a lot of hours. I’m not really sure how it will go. I don’t really have the spoons to keep up with overtime let alone fulltime work. But like? I already work 30 hours a week at an emotionally, physically, and mentally draining job. I lose two entire days every week of my life to double-shifts that leave me no time for anything but sleep and hygeine. I feel so busy and so drained I can’t even enjoy my time off or do anything with it. So like, could it really be any worse than that? It also involves some travel which I am really excited for! I do kinda wanna scream because things are going to shit with my husband’s job and he’s talking about us moving back to DC/noVA because that’s where the most job opportunities for him are now that I’ve finally got this job that I sunk a year of waiting and endless hours of paperwork into and I am so tired of moving :))))) But w/e we’ll see how things go. I am ignoring that possibility for now and just going to let myself feel excited that I can finally quit this shit job LOL I know I haven’t talked about my real job a lot here. I’m a hostess at a fine dining restaurant which is one of the nicest places in this combination tourist trap + retirement community I have the misfortune of currently residing in. Along with all the usual fun of working in the service industry, most of our regular customers are rich, entitled old people, and then we get a lot of people coming to celebrate special occasions and expecting everything to be ~*perfect*~ and business people having business meals and thinking they are more important than everyone else in the restaurant. It’s kinda horrible and to top it all off, my boss may actually be one of the worst people I have ever met. I know most people hate their bosses and like yeah, I’ve had bad bosses before, but no, this is beyond the stereotype. She incompetent. She is lazy, won’t do shit, only comes in for two “shifts” a week (by which I mean she shows up like three hours into an actual shift) but then tries to micromanage and do nothing but lecture people and refuse to help solve any actual problems or talk with customers wanting to speak with her. Her shitty attitude toward us is not even a “the customer is always right” thing; she is actively horrible to both her employees and even the customers, like almost actively malicious toward our customers who give her their money LOL. We get bad reviews about her and she upsets so many of our customers. She’s a spiteful, racist, xenophobic, Fox-news obsessed piece of MAGA shit who goes on about her shitty political views at the work place to us and bewildered customers alike. She won’t let anyone request time off for anything but she’ll take multiple vacations a year + time off for plastic surgeries and not even have someone available to cover for her in her absence. Oh and she loves to party and drink with her employees who are younger than her own children, get mixed up in all their drama, and bring her relationship drama about who is cheating on who in her marriage (well, former marriage now lol) into the workplace and like. If it weren’t for everyone else still there, I would love to see this entire business blow up in her face, but oh well. Anywho, I’m excited for the new job but definitely nervous. Even if it doesn’t work out, I’m just so relieved I can quit my current job before I actually snap. I’m really looking forward to the future now. Even if that means potentially moving yet again.

[scott-mccall-the-hot-girl]

my ultimate guide to thiam fic !!

( as a new teen wolf stan )

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the classic post war, long ass (multi chapter) fic !!with great development that genuinely made me laugh out loud, they have the best friendship in this & i love it very much. ( like theo teaches liam to drive and i just *happy sobs* ) a fundamental in thiam fanfiction !! all stans have probably already read it but if you haven’t this is in fact a threat ,, go show this vv iconic story some love !!

Airplanes - Captainmintyfresh

Summary: After the Anuk-ite and the hunters are dealt with Liam needs a break. Cue Theo and a road trip that Liam should know better than to think will be peaceful.

Not Rated, No Archive Warnings Apply, Completed, 43/43 Chapters, Words: 236,875 (236k)

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okay okay so this one is also post 6B !! but ,, now we introduce fighting monroe & the hunters again ,, so we get the boys & a new mission !! so if you like an intresting plot 11/10 would recommend !! just to be clear this ISN’T complete ,, if that turns you off i understand but definitely give this one a read !! it litterally have theo doing crossword puzzles & fighting zombies

Vacancy Signs - LovelyLittleGrim

Summary: Theo and Liam are in Manhattan negotiating a pack allyship when the zombie apocalypse breaks out. Now, the two of them have to find their way back to Beacon Hills without getting eaten by zombies or killing one another.

Rated: Explicit, Graphic Description of Violence, Not Completed, 15/17 Chapters, Words: 89,605 (89k)

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Royalty AU !! I REPEAT ROYALTY AU !! a fantastic au where i stan their moms more than i stan them !! genuinely so good at the childhood rivals to lovers trope !! i’m genuinely obsessed with this one. has made me cry more than once ,, hurts in a good way <3 the ending is just *chefs kiss* also one of the tags is genuinely: # theo and liam make bad choices for over 130k straight !! if that doesn’t sound appealing i don’t know what does !!

Artificial Love - songbvrd

Summary: Prince Theo and Prince Liam are forced to spend every Summer together from age five onwards. They hate each other, and usually find ways to make each other miserable as much as possible in their six weeks together. But when they're reunited because of intended unions as adults, things change. They're both supposed to be married to noble women, but neither of them is as interested in anyone else as they are with their childhood rival.

Rated: Mature, No Archive Warnings Apply, Completed, Chapters: 32/32, Words: 172,935 (172k)

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so if you are in the mood for a crack fic that’s not explicitally a crack fic this is for you !! okay so i’m really hit or miss with AU’s ,, sometimes i feel like they don’t quite capture the characters right but this story have the BEST dramatic liam i have ever seen in my life !! basically they all live in the same apartment building & it’s fantastic !! i saw this one floating around a lot but the summary didn’t really unrest me until i have it a shot !! so go read it rn !! also nolan & brett are genuinely fantastic and make me wheeze ,, LIKE ACTUALLY VERBALLY LAUGHING !! all i’m gonna say is that my fav characters are scott & the beetles but that won’t make actual sense until you read it !!

The Neighbors Song - TheodoreR

Summary: “I always hear you singing on your balcony every morning, but suddenly you’ve stopped?”

Or the one where Theo annoys Liam every morning with his awful singing until he doesn’t anymore and Liam is even more annoyed. Liam hates every single thing about his mornings -the fact that they happen in the morning alone is enough. The thing Liam hates the most about his mornings though is the terrible voice of the guy who lives below him. He can’t sing for shit and Liam tried to politely let him understand that by throwing flour and water on his balcony, and also by shouting it to him, you can’t sing for shit!, and then by writing it into a note he proceeded to attach to his door, but this Raeken guy just keeps doing it, every single morning, like a fucking rooster. Liam did nothing to deserve this. He probably didn’t do anything to deserve better either to be fair, he doesn’t expect to open his window and be welcomed by some angelic voice singing him good morning, he’d just be happy with nothing. Silence. That’s something Liam can appreciate in mornings. Just some bark from his dog and the sound of his misery and that’s it. But no, god forbid the new guy lets him have that.

Rated: Explicit, Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Wanrings, Completed, 8/8 Chapters, Words: 42,814 (42k)

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me: i’m not a big fan of AU’s ,, proceeds to talk about ANOTHER au… OKAY BUT THIS ONE !! it’s not complete but the author has been updating regularly ,, vv slow burn !! but in a REALLY intresting way !! i lOVE LIAM IN THIS SO MUCH ,, he is such a diaster of a person and it’s wonderful !! they have a great dynamic & i’m sucker for general puppy pack content ( and erica reyes being a badass ) !! also theo plays lacrosse in this & i really like it ahhhhh ,, also liam is just being an artic monkeys stan the whole time & theo is like *que confused repressed gay noises*

Inglorious Roommates - honeyscape

Summary: A roommate is defined as “a person with whom one shares a room.”

Theo would say a roommate was more along the lines of, “The person who's the bane of his existence. The weirdo that sleeps for days. The spaz that exercises at 3am. The guy with a revolving door of annoying friends. An insufferable human being that Theo has no control over living in his room.”

Example: Theo hates his roommate Liam.

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okay okay i hate myself but i have another WIP for y’all !! this one is jUST FANTASTIC. i’m genuinely so upset it’s most likely not going to updated again *incoherent screaming ensues*. for this story ,, it’s very theo-centric bUT thats bc it ends right before liam becomes a concrete member of the story !! ANYWAY: basic plot = theo & acquiring not one but two children ,, so #dad theo but he is still crusty & homeless and i love him very much. it’s just so GOOD !! just read if you want to experience my fav theo coming out story & him etching high school musical

Look who's talking - Captainmintyfresh

Summary: Theo had been labeled many things in his life. Evil, failure, monster. He'd never thought Father would be one of those things but as he looked across the table to a six year old with blue smears of bubble gum icecream across her face trying to coax the first words out of her sister. Finger jabbing towards Theo's face as she repeated 'Daddy' again and again he couldn't bring himself to dispute the label.

(Theo accidentally adopts two young werewolves)

Not Rated, Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings, Not Completed, Chapters: 16/?, Words: 48740 ( 48k )

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so here me out: post-canon ( poetry like angst ) summer get away !! just the boys doing cute little domestic things together whilst pining !! theo’s guilt in this is just so powerful & aGjffkgkkfkvkdlv !! i think it’s so interesting to see how they interact in this one, it’s just very heart warming !! and it features one of my favorite niche teen wolf tropes of theo being great with like seven year old girls- it’s just so good ,, very much a wonderful little one shot that just makes your heart happy.

(next time i see you you'll show me) a hundred different ways to say the same things - cherrysprite

Summary: “...You deserve good things,” Liam says eventually. He makes sure not to look at Theo even though he can feel his eyes turn on him. Somehow he can already tell that Theo doesn’t believe him.

Liam instantly makes that the goal of this summer - making Theo believe him.

Rating: Teen and Up, No Archive Warnings Apply, Chapters: 1/1, Words: 28875 ( 28k )

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okay so this next section of fic recs is a bit different !!

two of my favorite authors !! and a compilation of fics i’ve read by them both !!

for context: these two have written some genuinely gorgeous fics, like pure poetry, they explore the real gritty & scary side of our boys relationship in such a wonderful way. they’ve both used some of my favorite tropes & i love them very much !!

whenever i need something soothing but so genuinely intresting & enticing these are my go to !! ( also they both write a lot of good nolan angst & some vv good fics with hayden )

go check out:

eneiryu

as well as fallingforboys

here are some of my favorite fics by them ~

darling i want you here in my arms (kiss the pain away, i know you can) - fallingforboys

even before you touched me, i belonged to you (all you had to do was look at me) - fallingforboys

memories linger like tattoo scars (but your touch on my skin is just as permanent) - fallingforboys

skin, bones, a stolen heart, and an ugly creature lurking underneath -fallingforboys

i don't know how to breathe in the place i called home - fallingforboys

whisper your gossamer truths into the shadow, maybe you'll find the answers you're searching for - fallingforboys

between the mountains and the valley we built a monument to our regret - eneiryu

cracked the hinges of the cage and waited for you - eneiryu

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okay and finally: since i am a self centered whore

my own fic: an rendition of the # elevator scene

it’s basically my version of post canon if we did get the kiss in the elevator. we got a classic liam pov in which he is has 12/10 for extreme bi diaster energy even whilst being shot at !! so go him ig…

Fuck Off, Fuck This & Fuck It! - nefelibata_peach

Summary: Liam thought to himself heart rate climbing, they were bound to be dead by morning. So he thought with everything but his brain and he kissed him.

Where Liam Dunbar is very confused, slightly traumatized, and just a bit scared but hey, aren't they all! Bad decisions ensue as two boys fight in a war they never did sign up for.

Rating: Teen and Up, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Chapters: 1/1, Words: 3558 ( 3k )

[mystic-shadows42]

Holding Out Hope

A/N: This was just a simple quick write so there are probably mistakes.

Pairing: Clark Kent x reader

Warnings: Language

Summary: Clark has a hard time trying to find his place in the world but when he takes a job he’s unlikely to stay in for long, there’s an unexpected person there that he can’t simply walk away from.

Joe.

That’s what he said his name was. When you first met him, you didn’t think it suited him. He was a tall dark-haired, muscular, blue-eyed man with a gentleness to him.

Right away he stood out.

Joe was brought onto the crew by your father, the captain. He was quiet but observant. He always listened and remembered things that other people would long forget about.

He wasn’t the type of man you’re used to seeing on your father’s crew. He was actually nice and not handsy like the others.

You met him on his first day and told him of the small shop you worked at and he made it a habit to go whenever he was back from his fishing trips.

During his visits, you’d both make small talk. He was private about his life but was definitely curious about yours. You wanted to respect his privacy so you told him the truth of yours.

You were the youngest child of four. All of them had left to start their own lives elsewhere but would call occasionally. The home life wasn’t too great. Your mother had left and your father was a drunk. He would only stop drinking when he had to work and needed more money for it.

There were times when you’d ramble on and sneak a look over at him to see he was hanging on to every word. 

Occasionally, you’d treat him to lunch but even then you could tell he was still putting up a front as if he couldn’t simply relax. Sometimes he’d even leave abruptly after apologizing profusely.

It was understandable but after what seemed like the umpteenth time you started to think it was because of you. Perhaps you weren’t as good company as you thought.

Joe must’ve noticed your uncertainty because he would sometimes surprise you with gifts. Needless to say, it didn’t take much for you to fall hard for him. 

There were obvious signs there for something to flourish between you both but he was always the one to pull away.

So when you were on your break outside the shop with him you asked him what you’ve been dying to know.

“So, I have to ask. Why have you stuck around doing this job? Most people leave after the first week.”

He looked away and smiled then looked back at you. At his expression, you nudged his arm playfully.

“I find that staying here a little while has its benefits.”

You gave him a look which he knew what you meant. He didn’t give you much to go off of.

“My dad doesn’t pay you enough to think like that.”

“It’s not always about the pay.” He threw you a look that simply melted your heart. “Would you believe me if I told you the best part of my day is coming into the shop and seeing you?”

You slightly tilted your head not expecting the deemed quiet man by the crew to actually say this to you. Joe was far too handsome to be into you. Just by looking at him, you knew he didn’t belong in a less than ideal place with nothing to offer him whatsoever.

“Well, I don’t actually believe you.”

He had a faint smile on his face. “Open your hand.”

You held out your hand and he took something out of his back pocket and placed it in your hand.

“A gift?”

He nodded and gestured for you to look at it. You opened the small bag pulling the strings apart to see pearls inside.

They were beautiful and bigger than any you’ve ever seen. You inspected them more closely.

“These are South Sea pearls. I only know because my father obsesses over finding some one day.” You looked up at him astonished. These pearls were worth a good amount of money. “There’s no possible way you found these fishing.”

He put his hands over yours covering the pearls.

“I’m going to be leaving soon. Use these to get out of here.”

Your heart sunk at the news of him leaving soon. He was the whole reason you got excited for the day and dressed up. 

Just seeing him affected your whole day in a better way.

“I can’t. This is too big a gift to have.”

“They’re yours now.”

He said it so calmly as if obtaining them wasn’t a big deal. Even though you knew people would kill just to get their hands on them.

“How’d you get them?” 

“I flew,” he said, a small smile gracing his face before he turned his back to you.

“Joe.”

Even as you said his name he didn’t react. He hardly ever responded to it. You always suspected he was hiding something. Nobody simply ignores their name when called.

“Wait!”

He turned and you ran to catch up to him.

“At least tell me your real name.”

He sighed and you knew then that he wouldn’t. It did hurt a little that after all these months of knowing him that he didn’t even trust you enough to know his name.

It made you sad that nothing significant ever blossomed between you both though you knew he could feel the connection too. You didn’t think it’d hurt this much to lose a person you hardly knew anything about.

He lowered his head when you started to drop yours in disappointment. He looked genuinely concerned. It was hard to determine if he would even miss you or even thought of you the way you did him.

“I promise you that one day when I’m not running anymore. When I find out who I truly am, then I’ll find you and tell you my name.”

You shook your head. “That’s impossible. How will you ever find me?”

“Don’t lose hope.”

He moved closer to you and leaned down a little to be leveled with you. Your lips parted and your heart started to race at how close he was. He had his eyes closed already so you closed yours as you moved forward.

You were finally going to kiss.

“Hey, dipshit! It’s time to go!”

You groaned and opened your eyes to see he already opened his and was watching you.

“I have to go.”

You reached out for his hand and saw him smile down at your joined hands. He gave yours a small squeeze in reassurance.

“Captains tired of waiting! Hurry it up!”

His hand slowly slipped from yours. He smiled sadly and turned his back to you as he began walking away.

****

In your time of finding a place, you were tracked down by a determined reporter named Lois Lane. Her presence took you by surprise especially when she shared her story with you.

He was going by the name Liam. She told you briefly of her findings and how he saved her life with his ‘abilities’ yet somehow you began to think over your encounters with him.

The constant short meet-ups with him weren’t excuses. He was actually going out and saving someone’s life.

It just all seemed fitting for him. 

A savior.

Lois had questioned you explaining that his time fishing was the longest job he stuck with and she suspected it was because of you. She kept smiling at the stories you’d share of her with your encounters with him. 

There wasn’t much to go off because he was so discreet but it was the way he made you feel that made it seem everlasting. That much she could tell in your eyes and words alone.

Before she departed her last words to you were that he’d definitely find you again.

The idea lifted your spirits but you certainly missed his company.

After about a month and a couple of weeks you still hadn’t found a place to settle in. Nothing ever seemed like home to you.

You felt like a ghost going from place to place. Seeing a new area was nice but there was still that never-ending feeling of being alone.

The thing you missed from your old town was the view of the ocean. So that’s what led you here, to the beach.

You were walking aimlessly on the shoreline when you looked up after a huge sudden gust of wind hit you.

You gasped at the sight of ‘him’ standing just a few feet in front of you. He was smiling once he saw your reaction. He looked the same, only he was clean-shaven and he seemed more relaxed.

He began making his way to you still having his bright smile on his face. You immediately dropped your sandals and ran into his arms. He hugged you to him feeling his deep chuckle rumble through his chest.

“I told you I’d find you.”

You pulled back but still stayed in his arms.

“Now I know how you got here. You flew,” you chuckled remembering his words from before. He brushed the hair in your face back and smiled. 

“Yeah, I did.”

“So are you going to tell me what your name is or do I have to keep calling you Joe?”

“My name’s Clark. Clark Kent. As you may have heard, I’m not of this world but raised into it.”

“I’ve heard some stories.” 

You didn’t quite know what he was or how he came to have these abilities but all you knew was that you cared for him deeply. Nothing else mattered.

“How are you liking your new life?”

“I felt like how you used to. Not really belonging anywhere. Going from place to place. Missing you and our annual strolls.”

He rubbed your arms once you started to get goosebumps. His touch felt safe and warm. Something you could get used to. Everything about him captivated you in every way.

“Close your eyes.”

You took a deep breath and closed them. 

After a couple of seconds, he told you to open them. All you did was stare at him admiring just how handsome he truly is. He chuckled seeing your entranced state and told you to look down.

Confused, you looked down and saw that neither of you were on land anymore. You were both floating and had a vast view of the landscape.

Naturally, you gasped wrapping your arms around him thinking you were going to fall. You could hear him laughing but the thought of being so high up had overtaken your thoughts.

To capture your attention, he turned your face to him and looked down at your lips as if silently asking for your permission. You nodded and that was all he needed to kiss you. 

His lips were soft but the force was rough. You both had been desperate for this moment. It had been put off for far too long.

“I’ll never let you go. Never fall, never get hurt, and never leave you all alone again.”

His words were tender and sweet.

“Would you like to come to Kansas with me?”

This time you were the one with the permanent smile on your face chuckling. You had unshed tears in your eyes at how happy you were.

“I’d love to go to Kansas with you, Clark.”

[oh-mother-of-darkness]

“Are you here all night?” Jason asked, “or are you planning to, you know, be a human? I think those go home sometimes.”

High above Jason’s head, a swarm of bats entered the cave, winding among the stalactites and screeching a kind of garbled response.

Dick, however, said nothing. He remained bent over one of the long tables on the cavern floor, examining a map Jason could barely see from his own seat a short distance behind, ignoring Jason and his sarcasm both. 

Jason didn’t enjoy being ignored. 

Fine. 

“I have some tasks you could take over,” he suggested, in his least helpful voice, “if you’re in the market for an excuse to keep working. I know you make those sometimes.”

Nothing.

“I have some weapons to clean, if you want to do that. You could type out all my old cases, if that works, because I only have the originals and those are hard to work with.”

Still nothing.

“Take out the trash?” Jason tried. “Wash the dishes? I put a load of laundry in a couple of hours ago, but there’s a wool jacket in the mix, so be careful what you put in the dryer.”

Dick didn’t move. Jason was enjoying himself now.

“Write a sonnet? Map the White House?” Jason held up a finger Dick couldn’t see, like he had just remembered something interesting. “I think there’s a library on 8th that exploded a few days back, so if you could just grab the rubble from the street and rebuild it by hand, that would be great.”

No reaction. 

“Whatever,” said Jason, “I’m out of here. Get some sleep maybe? I know the whole work-to-outrun-despair routine is your ‘thing,’ or whatever, but it never looks good on you. Have you considered—”

Jason cut himself off as Dick finally turned away from the table. Looking him in the eye, Jason felt suddenly and inexplicably afraid. 

“Go on,” said Dick, quietly.

“I’m just… saying that it might make things worse, to shut off and—” Jason pointed at the mound of paper on the table, “obsess over this stuff instead.”

“You think?” Dick asked. “No shit.”

Jason blinked. “Wait, are you—”

“Did you think it never occurred to me,” said Dick, “that I might be spinning out?”

“I didn’t say you were spinning out.”

“Were you thinking that maybe,” Dick leaned back against the table edge and crossed his arms, carefully casual in a way Jason didn’t like, “hey maybe I, Dick Grayson, haven’t noticed how it feels to be forty-nine hours into a case and puking in the bathroom sink?”

“I didn’t—”

“Maybe I just haven’t realized why my vision blurs out and I can’t think straight, and it’s weird how this happens—” Dick held up a hand, and Jason could see his fingers shaking, “—if I keep going for too long.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“Wow, yeah, now that you mention it, this might be,” Dick said, flatly, “bad.” 

Jason glanced down at his boots to break the eye contact. “I’ll back off,” he said. “I’ll go.”

“It might be bad that I can’t sleep until I’m falling-over exhausted. Maybe I shouldn’t be taking all these cases—”

“I said I’ll back off.”

“Or writing all these notes or spending weeks on research, more than that on training—”

“Listen—”

“I probably shouldn’t be leading all these teams, huh?” Dick smiled in a way that reminded Jason of what he should have remembered before he opened his own mouth: that Dick could be very, very dangerous. “Can I get your opinion on that?”

“I’ll—”

“I KNOW!”

Jason stumbled back a step in shock. 

“I KNOW that I’m working too hard!” Dick yelled, “And I KNOW why I do it!”

“Okay!” Jason backed away again. “Okay, I get it!”

“I work so I don’t have to think! I’d rather drop dead doing this shit than stop for the millisecond it would take to feel again! Are you happy now?”

“Calm down, okay? I didn’t—”

“I don’t want to feel,” said Dick, gesturing around him, “so I’m going to stand right here over and over again.”

“Fine!”

“And I’m going to keep shutting down because it goddamn WORKS!”

Dick turned away again, bending over the table like he hadn’t said anything at all. Jason stood frozen for a moment, staring. 

“Does it?” he asked into the silence.

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Do you have something better?”

Jason looked down at his own hands and saw that they were shaking too.

“No,” he said.

“Then fuck off.”

Jason turned to leave, but Dick, it appeared, wasn’t ready to let it go. 

“I’m alive,” he said. “I’m standing and walking and doing all the things that matter.”

“Yeah.” 

“I’ve had enough of— enough of asking for help and getting—” Dick jerked an arm above his head, still turned away. “I don’t want to hear that the way I live is self-destructive. I already know. That’s why I’m here, that’s what I’m saying, that’s why I’m trying.” 

“Yeah.”

“Just… show me something better, or let me self-destruct.”

Jason fumbled awkwardly for something to say. “I’m sure— I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but whoever that is— I’m sure they’re… trying to help.”

“You weren’t,” said Dick.

“No, I wasn’t.”

“You were trying to land a cheap shot,” said Dick, “and feel like you’re better than me.”

Yes, that was true. Jason wasn’t sorry, exactly, but he regretted it, and those were different things.  

“I guess that makes me an asshole.”

“And a hypocrite.” Dick turned around again and leaned back in the same way, quiet, in control. “You never stop either… not since the pit anyway.”

“Don’t.”

“I mean it’s different, obviously, because I don’t think you’re trying to hide it. Me, I don’t want cracks to show. I don’t want all this grief and anger and— you said despair, right?”

“Stop.”

“I don’t want the despair to show because I want to look whole, but you—”

“You’ve made your point.”

“You want to look like a week-old corpse rotting on the concrete, and may I say?” Dick smiled. “Excellent performance. You look exactly like that.”

Jason didn’t say anything.

“It’s a world of difference,” Dick continued, “because I— I’m pushing through pain… and you’re pushing to feel it.”

For a moment, they stared at each other, and Jason found that it was difficult to breathe. 

“I could yell back for that,” he said. It came out softly, more soft than he meant, as Jason shoved away something very close to shame.

“Do it.”

“No. I think it’s funny when people call me the angry one.” Jason looked down at his shaking hands again. 

“I am angry,” he conceded, “but you’re just as bad as I am.”

“Thematic,” Dick snapped. “Get out.” 

“No. You opened this book, so we’re going to read it. You’re right.”

“Leave.”

“You’re right, I do exactly what you just said I do. Sometimes I don’t sleep for days, and it’s not because I can’t.”

Well, that might not be fully true, so Jason stopped to backtrack.

“I mean,” he corrected, “I don’t know if I could sleep, if I really tried, but that’s the point I’m making. I don’t try. I don’t want to sleep.”

“I said leave.”

“It’ll be four in the morning and I’m slumped sideways on my couch watching surveillance footage I don’t need to watch, because I know when I finally drag myself to the bathroom mirror, I’ll look like hell—”

“Get out!”

“—and I want to! I feel like hell, I feel like goddamn Brutus in the Devil’s jaws, and I want to look like it. If I look like death, that means my pain is real.”

“Get out or regret it.”

“Oh, I know it’s self-destructive,” said Jason, smiling his best unnerving smile. “How could I miss it when I’m blacking out in stairwells and picking fights on purpose, just to get kicked around?”

That particular sentence, it appeared, caught Dick’s attention, because he stayed quiet this time, glaring from across the room.

Well then, Jason decided, it was time to push further. 

“Let’s get personal, shall we? Why do I live in this fucking city to see you or him or whoever else is living in the capes this week? I’m not shooting for reconciliation!”

“Well?”

“I’m going to stay here and cause problems until every single one of you hates me enough to shove me away. How’s my performance, by the way? Is it working? I’d love to get your opinion.”

Dick made a face that Jason couldn’t interpret, so Jason chose to press on. 

“It’ll hurt when I pull that off because I do actually care about you, but you know what? I’ll like that. Maybe someday all of this will kill me, and I’ll kind of like that too.” 

Jason paused a beat to let Dick interject, but Dick didn’t. 

“Your turn,” said Jason pleasantly. “Thoughts?”

Nothing.

“I like the aesthetic of self-destruction,” said Jason. “I’m going to look in the mirror tomorrow and see dark circles and scars, and it’s going to feel like being myself in a way that nothing else does.”

In that moment, watching Dick glare, Jason felt very tired— not in a way that sleep could solve, and not in a way that anyone could fix. No matter what Jason did, no matter what he tried, he could always feel himself sinking. He was empty and heavy at the same time, somehow trapped in place, unable to do anything except lie in his own blood.

A rotting corpse indeed.

“I’m not judging you,” said Jason. “I don’t have the space for that. I won’t tell you to just… change. I’m sick of hearing that too, hearing that I don’t have to do this to myself, that I am doing this to myself.”

Dick nodded. Jason wasn’t sure at what, but it felt like permission to keep going, so he did.

“I know I’m holding on to something I shouldn’t,” Jason admitted, even though it hurt to say out loud. “I know, but I can’t let go when there’s nothing else to take. I don’t have anything profound to say. I don’t… know what else there is.”

That was it. That was all Jason had, so he shrugged and stared down at the floor, waiting.

“I think if I stop working I’ll fall apart,” said Dick, finally, “and this time I won’t be able to scrape myself together.”

“Yeah.”

“I think fine, so I don’t have to keep going. I don’t have to shove away the dark and force myself through, but what would happen if I didn’t?”

“I don’t know.”

“I would be a shivering, hollow shape on my floor, maybe forever. I don’t know what I want to be, but I can’t be… I can’t be only that.” 

Jason understood.

“It’s hard,” said Dick. “I always hear— and say, I say this to other people— that things can be okay. I guess it’s true, but does it matter?” 

“What do you mean?”

“Unless I leave the cave right now and never come back, this is my life. I have an apartment and a fucked-up family—”

“Thanks.”

“—and I spend every night jumping through smog and the ghosts of everything I’ve ever done.”

“Saving people,” Jason noted.

“Win some,” said Dick, “lose some. How many times have you watched a person die?”

“A few.”

“A few.” Dick shook his head. “I know too much, but I have too much to leave behind.”

“I have a guy who makes passports on demand, if you change your mind,” said Jason. “He’s amazing.”

“Thanks.”

“Prints while you wait.”

Dick shot Jason a flat kind of look.

“What?” Jason asked. “It would simplify my plans.”

Dick half-smiled at that, and Jason got the sense that they were done yelling, maybe, for awhile.

“I feel trapped, and I don’t know how to fix myself,” said Dick, “while I’m still… here.” 

“Yeah.”

“I’m just trying to stay alive.”

“I know. Me too.”

“It isn’t getting any easier.” 

Jason thought about that for awhile. It would be nice to have an answer— something simple to say, some match to light in their common ground— but Jason couldn’t find one, so he shrugged again and hoped that understanding would be enough. 

It had to be something, didn’t it?

It was the best he could do. There were times, Jason figured, to talk about breathing exercises and the mess of self-help books piled on his dresser, but he knew this wasn’t one of them. They could call it catharsis, he decided, and leave it at that. 

“We could say it’s Bruce’s fault?” Jason suggested, since he was out of other ideas. “I like blaming Bruce for the shit I do.”

“You do?”

“Fuck off.”

Dick smiled fully at that one. “I’m not above it either.”

“Great,” said Jason. “Can I leave a note saying we blame him? No context at all, maybe on a single post-it? I think it would be really funny.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll bounce after that, for real this time.” Jason spun a finger in a circle a few times, pointing around the cave. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

“Yeah.” Dick tapped a finger against the table a few times, like he was thinking. After a moment, he pulled a bag from the edge and started packing up his things. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, me too.”

Fin.

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art by @doc-squash​