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lilysdaydreams · 3 years

Text

The Artist and The Musician

→ I do not claim to know corpse- therefore please don’t think that this is what he would actually act like, or that any details about his life are actually true. this is fiction.

→ Pairing: Corpse Husband X Fem!Reader

→ Genre: Fluff.

→ Words: 5.6k

→ Request: Hey! It’s me again lmao I was curious maybe like sykunno or raes little sister (like 2 or 3 years younger) meets the group and her and corpse just click. How would either of them react to them hearing the news that their little sis is dating corpse and like they’ve moved in together and everything idk I thought it’d be cute💛

→ Warnings: Swearing.

→ Authors Note: Its been a hard couple of weeks and im really sorry that this took so long to be done but depression rlly hit me and I could barely move myself. I hope you enjoy this, and if you do, please comment some words of encouragement or feedback 💛

→ if you have some spare change , consider buying me a coffee.

You sighed as you finally dropped the last box in your new room, stretching to get rid of the pains in your back. Grabbing your phone, you moved over to Sykkunos room, knocking before sticking your head in.

"You want subway?" you asked when he looked up from the computer. He nodded with a quick smile, and as you closed the door behind you, you could hear him talking to the stream, letting them know that it was just his sister. Quickly ordering on Ubereats, you slumped on the sofa, closing your eyes and resting for a bit.

You had decided to move in with Sykkuno a month ago, the same week you'd decided to drop out of college. It wasn't something your parents were happy with, but after seeing how big your art and business had gotten, they had let you drop out. You'd dropped out and moved to LA, moving into an apartment with Sykkuno since he had to leave the OTV house. Sykkuno had moved in a week earlier which was why his room and computer was all set up. You'd only moved in today, spending a few weeks at home with your parents before leaving for LA. Stretching, you grabbed your phone, checking how long it would be until the food came, and then clicking on Instagram. Your most recent post was of this morning, a photo of you sitting on top of half the boxes in your room, throwing a peace sign at the camera. Sykkuno had taken it for you, the whole process taking 10 minutes cuz you made him take it at 45 different angles. Scrolling through the comments, you liked a few, replying to the ones by your best friends.

@selinaissss: "HOW DARE YOU LOOK THIS PERFECT AT 8 IN THE MORNING????"

→ @junefarie: i look like a racoon dont u dare

@onlyalyssa: "we need a house tour"

→ @junefarie: bitch I dont even have a bed yet

You grabbed the subway order when the bell rang, saying a quick thank you to the delivery man. You left yours on the table, and went to Sykkunos room, yelling "Sykkuno catch!" before throwing it at him, giggling as he leapt forward from his chair to catch it. Closing the door softly behind you, you jumped onto the couch, sitting cross-legged, grabbing your sketchbook and pencils from your backpack and setting them on your lap. It was time to wind down a bit.

It was a week later and you had unpacked fully, now focusing more on creating new pieces of art for a shop update. You were also working on some designs specifically for shirts and hoodies. Sykkuno found you in front of your computer, blanket wrapped around you and glasses perched on your nose as you emailed the manufacturer you were working with for the hoodies.

"Un, y/n?" he said hesitantly knocking on the door. You spun around in your chair, raising your eyebrows at him. "What's up?"

He walked in, sitting down gingerly on the edge of the bed and you got your water from the table, taking a sip as you wait for him to talk.

"I um- You know how I- I play Among Us right?" he asked, scratching his neck.

You hummed in response, urging him on with a nod. Sykkuno was almost never this nervous around you. Most of the time, you guys talked normally, joking and teasing each other. For him to be stuttering around you, he must have been extremely nervous.

"Well, you know Rae right? She um, she asked me to make a lobby," he said, standing up and pacing now. You furrowed your brows, confused as to where this was going.

He was explaining what a lobby was (which what the fuck, you watched his streams, of course you knew what a lobby was, why was he explaining that) when you cut him off, getting up and grabbing his shoulders to stop him.

"Hey, what's wrong?" you asked, holding his shoulders with both your hands.

He sighed and slumped into you, his head coming to a rest on your shoulder.

"Rae asked me to make a lobby and it's the first time I've ever made one and I'm really nervous about it. I've already invited people, but um I was wondering if you wanted to join as well? I- It would help me to have you there." he muttered, the words muffled as he spoke into your shoulder.

"Me?" you asked, a little shocked because you had never played among us before.

He nodded against your shoulder.

"Um sure!" you said, wrapping your arms around his middle, "It'll be fun!"

"And hey," you added on when he didn't say anything after that, "I can meet all your friends as well!"

He finally lifted his head a little, smiling as he muttered out a quick "Thanks y/n."

"However," you added, jumping back onto your seat and wiggling your eyebrows at him. "You have to buy me pizza for tonight's dinner."

He chuckled, grabbing his phone and already mutterng the order to himself as he opened up the ubereats app and walked out of the room.

You turned back to the laptop humming a tune under your breath. From interactions like this, most people would probably assume that you were older but the truth was that Sykkuno was 5 years older than you. Your roles were reversed and you were probably more protective over him than anyone else. Once in high school a girl had called him cute and asked him for his number only to write it on the bathroom walls. After the first three prank calls, you'd taken the phone from him yelling at anyone who called that if they called again, that you'd personally track them down and shove a dildo up their ass.

Both of you had always been close, but with the amount of bullying and teasing he got in high school, you'd got even closer, eventually becoming his best friend in a way. Seeing Sykkuno grow as a person, get new friends who were genuinely nice and kind made you the happiest person alive. When Sykkuno had first started streaming you'd been worried, scared that people online would say something mean. When he had first started streaming with other streamers and then met Lily and all his other friends, you had been anxious, worrying that they might only be putting up a friendly facade. You were also the happiest though when he grew even closer to them, when he smiled more, laughed more, talked more.

You had yet to meet or talk to any of his friends, mostly because you'd been in college, and the pandemic had made it harder. Maybe it was finally time.

The day came and you sat in your room, once again a blanket wrapped around you, glasses perched on your nose as you accepted the discord invite Sykkuno sent you.

"DO I GO IN THE CHAT THINGY?" you yelled to Sykkuno, hearing a "YES" before clicking on the voice chat.

You mumbled a "hello", wondering if your mic was on.

"Hey, yeah I can hear you y/n."

Breathing a sigh of relief, you logged into the game, smiling as you heard sykkuno introduce you to his chat. "Hi everyone," you said, feeling a bit weird only talking to a screen. You rubbed your hands, a little nervous to be doing this.

Just then someone else joined and before you could even speak another three people joined as well, all of them yelling hello as they joined.

"He- Hey guys, how's everyone doing?" started sykkuno.

"Im doing great oh my god, guess what guys, I'm-" started Rae, cutting herself off. "wait, whos um "ms snores a lot"?

You were a bit confused for a second, furrowing you eyebrows for a second before realising what had happened.

"SYKKUNO YOU ASSHOLE WHAT THE FUCK?" you yelled, staring at the name underneath the voice channel that you now realised belonged to you. You could hear Sykkunos laughter from the other room but you just spluttered indignantly. He was the one who had set up everything on your computer yesterday because technology was something that you rarely messed around with.

"Sykkunooo" you whined, when he kept laughing, "How the fuck do I change it now?"

"Um wait, sykkuno who is this?" asked Rae, the other three echoing her. You glanced at the names and from the voices figured out that it was Rae, Toast, Sean and Corpse in the lobby.

"Hey okay, so guys this is my sister, her names y/n and we recently moved in together, so I asked her to be in the lobby because... um.." he said stuttering at the end to find a reason.

"Because he wanted to embarrass me apparently!" you exclaimed, giving him a way out.

"Oh god, um - you can change it in settings, at the bottom near where your name is."

"Ahhh," you said finding it and then simply typing in your art business name.

"Its nice to meet everyone by the way," you started. "I've been watching your videos for ages so it almost fels like I already know you"

Raes voice started in your ears and you winced at the volume befoe turning it down a bit.

"I would love to say that Sykkuno has told us a lot about you, but the truth is that he keeps a lot of secrets and I didnt even know he had a sister, I AM SO SHOCKED RIGHT NOW"

You gasped. "Sykkuno what the fuck, you didn't even tell Rae?"

"You told me not to tell a lot of people!" he protested.

You heard someone saying "they're so different!' but you ignored it and kept talking.

"Yeah at the start! and on stream! I can't believe you never even said you had a sister." you spluttered out, followed by another gasp.

"Are you embarrassed of me?" you whispered dramatically.

"N-What no of course not!" he exclaimed, and you could also imagine how wide his eyes would have gotten.

You giggled before telling him that you were only joking.

"Um since sykkuno is embarrassed of me," you said jokingly, "I'll just tell you myself."

"I'm like five years younger than sykkuno, I'm a June baby, I do art, my star sign is cancer, I'm 5'4, I recently moved in with sykkuno, and my favourite colour is purple!"

"Oh is that why your username is junefarie? Because you were born in June?" asked Sean.

Before you could say yes, someone else cut in.

"Wait, junefarie?" asked corpse, "like the artist?"

Your eyes widened as you realised that he knew you. Sure you had quite a few followers, but you never expected any of Sykkunos friends to know you from there.

"Um yeah," you said letting out a shocked laugh, "I didnt expect anyone here to know about me."

"Dude, your art is fire!" he exclaimed, voice louder now. "I was honestly thinking of buying a piece soon, I've followed you for ages!"

"Wait, I wanna see as well." whined Rae, "Ima look you up, are you on Instagram?"

"Um," you said still shocked by the fact that somone this big knew you. "yeah I'm on instagram, its just junefarie." you said first replying to Rae, "Um corpse, thankyou so much! thats so nice of yo!"

"Um my art isn't that great yet," you chuckled, embarrassed by all the attention now. "I'm hoping to improve a lot more and I have a bunch of ideas for it as well. I'm hoping to work more now that I moved in with Sy."

"Oh my god, this is amazing," whispered Rae, Toast and Sean echoing her. You ducked your head even though no one could see you. Your cheeks were blazing hot and you pressed your hands to them to cool yourself down.

"Thankyou," you mumbled, not sure what to say.

Someone else entered the lobby, and said "hi" and you welcomed the source of distraction.

"Hi! I'm Sykkunos sister, y/n!" you said , wanting to move away from the topic of your art.

The reply of "sykkuno has a SISTER?" made everyone laugh, successfully moving the attention to Sykkuno and off your art. Finally Sykkuno started the game and you breathed as you lost yourself in the art of gaming.

"OH MY GOD!" yelled Rae as the game ended and everyone appeared in the lobby. "That was like amazing, Y/N I cant belive you pulled that off!"

She was talking about the last game where there was 50/50 between corpse and Sykkuno (because you refused to kill sykkuno when you were imposter) and you somehow managed to convince Sykkuno that it was Corpse.

"Honestly, neither can I!" you exclaimed back staring at your screen, eyes blurring the screen because of how tired you were.

"I can't believe Sykkuno," mumbled corpse. "I literally said I saw her vent and kill toast and Sykkuno was still like "hmmm, I don't think so."

Giggling at Sykkunos yell of "SHES MY SISTER" you yelled out a bye as everyone started leaving and then struggled to find a way to end the call.

"Wait, how do I end it," you muttered to yourself.

You jumped as Corpse talked, not expecting anyone to be there.

"You can see yoru name at the bottom left right? Its above that but a little to the right." he said chucling a little.

"Oh." you said, you cheeks heating up. You didnt know if it was because of him or because you were utterly useless with technology.

"Um thankyou," you said awkwardly.

"No problem."

You exited out of the call, a small smile at your lips.

Sykkunos friends were nice.

After the stream, your fanbase grew, and with it, the number of orders as well. For the next week, you were buried under orders, only leaving the house to go to the post office.

An Instagram post on @junefarie account:

[ID: A photo of y/n and sykkuno standing in the middle of the living room, packages scattered everywhere. Y/n is hugging Sykkuno tight and Sykkuno is staring at the camera, a distressed look on his face.]

Caption: Thankyou so much for all my supporters and all the love shown to me. Sending out loads of orders and I cant wait for you gusy to get yours! Special thanks to @sykkuno for helping me send out orders. luv yu.

Comments:

@Sykisacutie: best sibling duo!

@valkyrae: hope my order is in their as well.

→ I SCREAMED WHEN SY TOLD ME THAT WAS YOUR NAME.

@corpse_husband: sykkuno looks like he's accepted death.

→ @sykkuno: I would have welcomed death at that point

→ @corpse_husband @sykkuno: okay ill be honest, I would have welcomed death as well.

@ariesin: go best friend, go! we need to get together to paint soon !!

→ SOONNNNNN

You flopped onto your bed, every part of your body hurting. Carrying boxes filled with orders down the stairs had tired your whole body, which wasn't used to any exercise at all. That had taken practically the whole day and then you had to clean your room because the mess from the orders had barely left any room to move. You flung your hand to the side, grabbing your phone from the table and bringing it up to your face. The "1:02" was clearly visible on your screen and you unlocked the phone, heading to Twitter. Scrolling through your feed, you liked a few tweets from friends before gearing yourself up and moving to the messages. Ever since you'd played with Corpse, Sykkuno and everyone, you'd been getting a lot of messages. Most of them were just the streamers fans, asking you if you know them or telling you to take care of sykkuno. There were a few though that targeted you, telling you that your art sucked, that they didn't know why Corpse could like my art. You'd taken to deleting them before sleeping so that your inbox wouldn't get cluttered and you could still find any serious requests or messages from your followers. Therefore, you didn't really think anything of it when there was another message from someone with a Corpse icon and you clicked on it only to see the message and gasp, immediately sitting up in bed.

Corpse_Husband → Hey, I was wondering if I could work with you on something? I really love your art and was wanting to commission or collaborate for an album cover or some merch designs. Message me on this number cuz I barely see my dms.

Underneath was a number.

"Oh my god," you whispered, unsure as to what to do.

When you had decided to drop out of college, you had expected hard days. You had expected your normal orders and mostly just improving your art and marketing it more. You had expected long days and not much money in the bank account. You certainly had not expected the immense amount of orders you'd gotten. Along with that, the amount of love and support had taken you by surprise and you had spent the last night crying because of how much love you and your art were getting.

You had also not expected such a big opportunity just landing at your feet.

Quickly you clicked on the number, putting it in your contacts with the name Corpse and then writing a quick message.

"Hey I got your twitter dm! I've personally never done art for merch or album covers but I would love the opportunity!"

You bit your lip, confused as to whether that was enough before deciding it was fine and just sent it.

Your heart beat a little faster as you slumped back onto the bed.

@junefarie Instagram story:

[ID: A zoomed-in picture of a drawing, the only part that was visible was curly hair. The text read: "Working on something SO COOL"]

Your phone was ringing. Stuffing the rest of the pizza in your mouth, you swept your hand over the covers of your bed, trying to find it. With a muttered "aha", you grabbed it and swiped on the call before it ended. Pressing the phone to your ear, you mumbled a "hello", still chewing the pizza bite.

A low rapsy voice came out of the speaker, one that you definitely didn't expect. You choked on the pizza, coughing out pieces onto the bed. Sure you guys had messaged each other a bit (you kinda had to because of the commission), but you hadn't expected him to call out of nowhere.

"Um I hope this isn't a bad time," he said when you didn't respond for a second. Of course, he didn't exactly know that hearing his voice so close to your ear had you frozen for a second.

"Um no," you replied, coughing slightly to clear your throat. "It's fine! What did you wanna talk about?"

"Oh, um I know you're already working on the commission and its looking great! I can't wait to work with the merch team to create something really cool with it, but um-" he broke off for a second sounding hesitant. "I really wanna get another commission done as well."

"Oh?" you said after a second when he didn't reply. "I'd be happy to do another one for you!"

"Uh yeah, but I'm afraid that I might be a bit late, You see I was wondering if it could be done before Christmas?"

You sucked in a breath as you counted the days in your mind.

"Hmm, it depends on how big it is tbh. There's still 2 weeks to go till Christmas so I could fit it in," you mumbled, biting your lip as you remembered the onslaught of orders you still had to send out.

"Well," he started and you smiled a little as the excitement crept into his voice. "You know that Sykkuno, Rae, Toast and me are called the 4 Amigops right? I kinda wanted a portrait of all 4 of us, in our um among us colors, and I basically wanted to print it out and send to each of them for Christmas."

"Aww, that sounds like such a good idea, I'm sure they'll all love it!" you smiled, thinking about how much Sykkuno would appreciate that.

"Uh thanks," he mumbled, "do you think you can get it done?"

"Sure!" you replied immediately. You did have a lot of orders, yes, but like, you could fit Corpse in. If you pulled a few all-nighters. "I'll send you the sketches soon okay?"

"Oh thank god, thankyu so much for this y/n, I really appreciate it. Youre one of my favourite artists and I'm really happy that I could finally commisison you after so long."

"So long?" you questioned. "Since when have you known about my art?"

There was a moment of silence and then "Um, around the time you still posted your sketches and stuff I guess?"

You furrowed your eyebrows thinking for a second before letting out a gasp.

"Corpse that was 4 years ago!"

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, oh my god, I cant believe you've seen those, I was so bad then!"

"No no, they were really good at that time as well! I was so shocked when Sykkuno told us you were his sister because like, I'd been following you for ages and I had absolutely no idea. You guys are like really different."

"Hah yah, Sykkunos so soft, and then there's me. An actual devil."

"Your usernames so different as well! I remember when I first saw a picture of you on your account and I was kind of shocked because based on the name junefarie, I was expecting someone very soft I guess but then you were literally the opposite and wearing actual devil horns."

"Oh god, that was one of the first few photos I posted of myself. that was on Halloween I think,", you took a deep breath still shocked that Corpse had known about you for that long,

"Yeah, I chose junefarie because...”

It was 2 hours later when Corpse said that he should probably be working on his music.

"Oh I'm so sorry," you apologized, "I didn't mean to keep you,"

"Oh no, I um, I liked talking to you."

Your breath caught for a moment and you smiled like a lunatic at your Pokémon covered bedsheets.

"I liked talking to you as well," you whispered out, heart sinking a little as you realized the call would be ending soon.

"Um, do you, maybe want to stay on call? like I'll just be writing and we can just chill?" he asked and you felt like your prayers had been answered.

"yes" you said quickly, not giving him a chance to back out.

He chuckled, and you fell in love a little.

Just a little.

You continued like that, calling each other every few days, talking so much and then at times, not talking at all, simply content with each others company.

He had even started facetiming you, the first time with a mask and then the second without it. You hadn't made a big deal about it, but the first time you saw him, you could barely breathe.

There were five days left until Christmas when you got the idea.

You were entirely not subtle about it, because, well to be honest, there wasn't a subtle bone in your body.

"Hey Corpse, do you like surprises?" you had asked, in the middle of colouring Raes hair (her hair was the last thing left before you could finally print the goddamn thing)

"It depends," he had murmured after a second, voice sending shivers down your spine like every time. Now whether that was because of his voice or because of him, you weren't entirely sure.

"on what?" you prodded when he refused to answer.

"On whether its a good one or a bad one" he had huffed out.

You had hummed, waited for a second and then blurted out that next question because you did not have a cent of patience.

"So what are you doing at Christmas?"

"Sleeping, if I can manage it," he replied, his voice taking on a sardonic tone, eyes flicking to you on the screen. The only thing he could see though was the top of your head because you had your iPad on the bed and were laying over it as you drew.

"Not with that attitude you aren't," you replied right back, making a small smile appear across his face.

"Hmmm, okay!" you said when he didn't reply.

He looked back over, eyebrows furrowed and mouth opening as he started to question you.

"Hey did you see the video I sent you?" you quickly asked distracting him from his question.

He would probably guess the surprise but that was okay. You only wanted to make a smile appear on his face. And honestly, for someone with anxiety, a small warning of a surprise was definitely needed.

It was Christmas day and you woke Sykkuno up at 6 in the morning with the promise that you'd buy him McDonald's. 30 minutes later, you were both in the car, yelling the lyrics to "All I want for Christmas" at the top of your lungs.

You had told sykkuno of your plan a few days ago and he had smiled at you with that stupid smile, agreeing with a small "alright."

You'd immediately realised that he knew. Even though you pretended otherwise, Sykkuno was the older one and the thing about older siblings was that they always knew.

They always knew.

So there you were, snacks loaded into your car, McDonald's fries practically everywhere, and a cake you had made in the backseat, on your way to Corpses house.

There was a lull in the music, and you were only 30 minutes away from his place, butterflies fluttering in your stomach when Sykkuno asked you a question.

"You like him right?" he murmured, head leaning against the window, eyes closed.

There was a moment of silence as you thought about what to say. Did you like Corpse? Of course, you liked Corpse! He was funny, he was nice, he made you feel like you were the only person that mattered and your heart beat faster than ever whenever he looked at you. Hell, that was through a screen, in real life, it would probably be even worse. So of course you liked him! The question was, did he like you back?

"Yeah," you answered Sykkuno, eyes straight on the road.

A second passed and then he smiled. "Good," he replied. and well. That was that. You sighed.

At least you had your brothers blessing.

Pulling into the apartment building, you breathed in, your heart beating a million times a second and the butterflies in your stomach had turned into snakes. Maybe, maybe this wasn't a good idea at all. I mean, you expected Corpse to get the hint but what if he didn't? and what if he didn't want you to come? Maybe you were being too quick. After all, It'd only been a month since you'd met.

These thoughts plagued your mind as you trudged up the stairs, turning to Sykkuno as you reached the door.

"Maybe we shouldn't have come," you whispered to him.

He looked at you, eyebrows high, "We just travelled two hours to get here. There's no way im going back without at least giving him the print."

"What if he doesn't want us to be here?" you hissed.

"Then we'll go away." he stated, "after we give him the print."

"But what if-"

Before you could even finish your sentence, the door opened and you both jumped, turning to face the person standing in the doorway.

You forced yourself to breathe as you finally saw him. It was him. Wearing a black beanie, half his hair spilling out the sides, stubble clear on his chin... it was him. At that moment, there was only one thought in your mind.

You were gonna marry this man.

"You suck at whispering," he said, and you huffed out a laugh, jumping onto him without even responding. You wrapped your arms around him, not letting go until Sykkuno cleared his throat from behind you.

You turned back immediately, grabbing the stuff in Sykkunos hands so he could greet Corpse too. As they awkwardly did their handshake/fistbump thing, you walked over to the couch behind them, putting down the print and the takeaway bags, and putting the cakebox down on the table.

You turned around to see them both standing there staring at you.

"Surprise?" you said when no one else spoke. That broke the ice a little and you grabbed the print from the couch thrusting it at Corpse.

"Open it. Open it. Open it." you mumbled, your heart beating fast as he carefully ripped the paper off. The smile that overtook his face made your heart immediately calm.

"It's beautiful," he whispered, eyes roaming everywhere, trying to take it all in. Clearing his throat, he nodded his head further into the apartment, mumbling that he was going to put it in the room, eyes still on the print as he walked there.

"You smile is gonna blind me," muttered Sykkuno.

"Oh shut up."

A few hours later, you stood in the kitchen, putting the leftover cake into Corpses fridge. You had all chilled, eating cake and the takeout that you and sykkuno had bought, laughing every few minutes. It felt like you were all on an adrenaline rush. You had facetimed Rae and Toast, Rae shrieking when she realised where you guys were. Sykkuno had just fallen into a nap, still tired from being wakened up so early, you assumed.

You leaned against the kitchen bench, smiling as Corpse walked in.

"Thankyou." he said as he came to a stop next to you, matching your position.

"For what?" you mused, even though you had a good enough idea.

"For the print. For coming here. For making my Christmas, a much happier affair than it has been my whole life." he stated, chuckling at the last point.

You turned your head sideways, and you didn't know what it was, but something about his face made you spurn into action. You grabbed his collar, pulled him down, and kissed him before he could even say anything. It would be too cliche to say that fireworks erupted. And if you were being honest they didn't. Instead, it felt like everything was finally right. You fit perfectly in his arms as they wrapped themselves around you, and you smiled into the kiss as he lifted you up, making you sit at the counter. You twirled the hair at the nape of his neck with your left hand, taking a deep breath in as you both slowed down and pulled away.

"Well," he whispered, "that was unexpected."

You raised a single eyebrow. Honesty you'd done a lot for this relationship. You just drove for nearly 3 hours! If he wanted it to progress, he was gonna have to say it himself.

"But not unwelcome," he continued when you didn't speak. A moment passed, where you could see that he was psyching himself up to say something. Finally, with a heaving sigh, he whispered "Darling, would you do me the honour of being called yours?"

You melted right there.

A nod was all he needed before he grabbed your lips with his again, both of you giggling when he accidentally hit the side of your mouth instead of the lips.

The sound of a picture being taken filled the air, making you spring apart and swing your heads over to the doorway, which had sykkuno leaning against it, his phone in his hand.

"Thank god. Rae and Toast bet that you wouldn't confess until after Christmas, so now they both owe me 20 bucks." he said, now fiddling on the phone. "Dont worry Corpse, I'll add a circle over your face or something."

Your mouth dropped open as you stared at your brother.

"You bet on my love life?" you scoffed, still shocked.

At his nod though, you swung off the bench, marching until you were eye to eye to him.

"I want half the winnings."

Rolling his eyes, he turned back to the living room, jumping onto the sofa.

"C'mon, let's watch one more episode before heading back," he said and you jumped in next to him, patting the space next to you as Corpse came in behind you.

You grabbed Sykkunos hand and squeezed it, letting him know that you were grateful that he didn't make it such a big deal. Leaning your head on corpses shoulder, you smiled to yourself.

You'd have to leave in 30 minutes, to drive back to your parents and spend the rest of Christmas with them, leaving Corpse behind. And that made you a bit sad sure, but it couldn't overpower the feeling of pure happiness at being here. At giving him a happier Christmas. You smiled as he pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

Nothing could overpower this feeling of absolute happiness.

fin.

Corpse husband taglist: @mythicalamphitrite @ramble-writes @atsumubabe @anxiouskat5646 @itssierramcquade @xaestheticalien @jotaroslightning @starstruckllamapuppy @gxldenskiez @shinyshimaagain @cavanana @fee-btheweeb (send an ask to be added!)

#corpse x reader #corpse husband x reader #corpse husband #corpse x y/n #corpse x you #corpse husband fanfiction #sykkunos sister #sykkuno fanfic #hope you enjoy #love yous

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whatiwillsay · 3 years

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submission: we need to talk about ttb (spade-riddles)

Hey Cam. Seeing that ask defending TTB’s doxxing has sort of pushed me to finally share some of my story on Tumblr, I guess. I haven’t had the opportunity to talk about this to anyone fully, so this will probably be long, but I hope you don’t mind me venting.

I’m one of the people that got emailed by TTB. I don’t feel comfortable posting this off anon, but I was in a Discord server with you and @bisluthq and some other people back in Dec/Jan. I don’t know if you remember me, but my name on there was one word and began with an L and ended with an S.

I want to share the full story, but I also don’t feel comfortable with sharing certain details publicly because I’m still very wary of getting outed further by her if she sees this, so I’m gonna be vague about some things

Request to her followers — If you see this, please don’t send this to her. Like I’m genuinely asking you not to because I don’t trust her not to cross any more lines. My dad is a major homophobe with serious anger issues who has literally been arrested for violence before, and she doesn’t really think carefully or maybe even care about how any actions she takes could lead to people being harmed, so I’m not eager to see how she might react.

Anyway, I first got an email back in December, and I was really freaked out by it at first. I spoke to one of my mutuals about it, and although we both agreed it was super weird and invasive and creepy, we ended up trying to see the funny side of it. So, I kinda just brushed it off and moved on. I was mainly just really confused about why I had been targeted because at the time, I thought it was only me who’d gotten an email like that. I didn’t understand why she’d specifically targeted me instead of other people who she clearly disliked a lot more.

About a week later, I saw someone on Tumblr mentioning a strange email, and I realised other people must have gotten them too. I spoke to Nat about what happened to me and ended up in the Discord

At the time, I felt like I’d gotten off really easy comparatively to others because I initially didn’t realise that she’d contacted anyone else. And so I tried to act chill about it because I didn’t want to make things about me, but honestly, I was extremely anxious. I felt on edge for over a week. I would keep checking her blog again and again because I was super worried that she would post our personal details publicly. I scrolled through my entire blog from start to finish and deleted a lot of posts that were either personal or that I just didn’t want anyone I knew in real life to read.

This part I have to be vague about because it would basically give away who I am, but it was only a while later when I thought I was in the clear that someone I knew in real life texted me and mentioned seeing a weird email about me. The email had been sent a while back, and they’d been shown it by the original recipient/s. Multiple people had been shown it, but luckily (kinda), only two of those people were actually people I saw on a regular basis

I’m mostly closeted, but I’m kind of technically out to a few of my immediate family members. But it’s very much a DADT situation because they’re not accepting, and they like to just pretend I’m straight. And so I basically have to act closeted even when I’m around them, and I can’t even ALLUDE to being gay.

But with my dad, it’s different. He’s very homophobic. I’m only gonna mention this next part so that people understand what kind of dangerous situation that TTB could have put me in. (And the other people that she doxxed too because she didn’t know how safe their individual situations were). It’s all really personal, and I wouldn’t ordinarily feel comfortable sharing any of this at all, even anonymously, but I think it needs to be said because her actions were extremely fucking irresponsible.

Right, so when I first “came out” to my dad, it was actually an accident, and he reacted… extremely badly. This was back in like… 2018 or 2019, I can’t remember the exact year

(TW // physical abuse, homophobia)

He was extremely angry, literally shaking. He yelled at me, he described in graphic detail how he was going to “break every bone in my body”, “strangle the life out of me”, “drown me”, etc. He kept telling me that I’m disgusting and going to Hell, you get the idea. He was having a lot of fun with making strangling motions and stabbing motions with his hands, and he kept slamming his hand onto the table. That went on for about 15 minutes, and then he stood up and threw a chair from the dining table at me. That was fun lol. And he punched me in the head pretty hard which kinda knocked me back. I felt dizzy, I had to sit down on the floor. At that point, my mum who had been crying and asking him to stop physically intervened, and he ended up storming out of the house instead. My mum’s a genuinely good person btw. She’s a little homophobic, but she cares about me a lot, and I’m very grateful for her. She hates him too, but she’s kinda stuck with him… It wasn’t her fault

He literally hates gay people. He complains about us on the regular. One time, he threw the remote at the TV and cracked the screen just because there was a gay male couple kissing onscreen. Another time, he threw a rock at a gay man on the street. There was also a time where he forced a few of my siblings (who didn’t want to do it) to throw peeled oranges out of the window at people celebrating pride while he drove past them and yelled insults at them. He found that really funny. Anyway, I’m sure you guys get the idea of what kind of person he is

He hasn’t laid a hand on anybody in several months though, so I do think he’s trying to be better at least. Like he’s still verbally abusive and controlling and awful, but I appreciate that he’s at least making an effort to calm down with the hitting and kicking and stuff

Anyway, with my dad, it’s less DADT and more that I think he’s got it in his head that he managed to scare me into “seeing the error of my ways” and that I’ve “stopped choosing to be gay” and that I’m now straight. So, if it had been HIM who had gotten that email, it would’ve been like… extremely bad. Like I’m getting anxious just thinking about it. And this is why I’m so angry at TTB. It was extremely, extremely irresponsible of her to not consider these kinds of possibilities before she sent out her stupid emails. She’s supposed to be an ally, but it didn’t even cross her mind that these emails would lead to people being outed and possibly even harmed?? It’s not okay at all. I’m just very grateful that she didn’t send one to him because I don’t even know what kind of situation I would be in right now.

Anyway, enough about my fucking awful dad… I feel uncomfortable that I even typed all of that out, but I wanted people to understand how dangerous her actions could have been. Like I mean, my dad’s got PTSD and extreme anger issues from his teenage years, so I do try not to judge him TOO harshly, but there’s no excuse for being a huge bigot or occasionally violent. The idea of him being the one who got that email is still so scary to me. Like my heart is racing just thinking about it

One of the people that DID read the email was the male friend I mentioned earlier though. He was shown it by someone else for a particular reason, and he was a very important person to me. Like he was a good guy, we were close, he helped me out with certain personal issues I have and is one of only two people that I know in real life that I felt comfortable confiding in about them. We’d always meet up once a week, sometimes twice, and we’d just talk about stuff and make an effort to help each other out with things. Like he was very important to me.

It turns out that he’d looked through my blog before I’d got around to scrubbing it, and he asked me if I was gay in person the next time we met up. I couldn’t lie because like… he’d have known I was lying right to his face. So, I told him I was, and you should have seen his face. It made me feel so awful about myself. He looked really stunned and shocked and kinda uncomfortable. Like it got so awkward, and I started rambling and making things worse. He was avoiding eye contact, and my voice was shaking.

I ended up making up an excuse to leave about 5 mins later and had an actual anxiety attack. Again, this is embarrassing and something I’d never usually talk about online, but I just want to get it all off my chest so that I can move past it all.

So, I was like on the verge of tears (I don’t cry easily), I couldn’t breathe properly, I was pacing around the building, and I just wanted to escape, so I headed straight for the doors. There was a queue of about 100 people lined up and waiting to leave, and I couldn’t think straight or breathe and just needed to be outside, so I tried to go out through the other exit which is for staff only. The security guard stopped me and basically publicly humiliated me in front of all of those people. He loudly shamed me and said I “didn’t have any decency” for attempted to jump the queue, lectured me in this really condescending tone, and then sent me right to the back of that huge line. Meanwhile, I was literally in the midst of a bad anxiety attack.

And then I eventually got outside and had to call my mum to come and pick me up instead of just making my own way home like I usually do. She’s amazing though tbh because she actually came to get me and didn’t even question why. I had to skip all of my plans for the rest of the day and instead just hid upstairs in my bedroom with the lights off until the next day. I refused to tell any of my family members what had happened even though they kept asking. I just felt so, so awful, and my anxiety was through the roof

To be honest, before that happened, my mindset was like: “I mean, if I get outed, it obviously wouldn’t be good, but I think I’d be able to deal with it fine”. But then, when it actually happened, and I saw the way my close friend reacted, I had like a whole emotional breakdown lol. It’s like, you think you’d be fairly chill in a situation, but when it actually happens, your reaction can be really unpredictable. I was so embarrassed by everything about that entire incident. I didn’t even want to show my face the next day.

It’s been almost two months since that happened, and in that entire time, my friend has contacted me once. We literally used to meet up once or twice a week (and during lockdown, we’d do video calls or phone calls instead), but since then, we’ve barely even spoken. Things are just so awkward now. I know this sounds stupid, but I feel like TTB’s taken one of my best friends away from me. I don’t think he’s a homophobe or anything, he has openly gay friends and is fairly accepting, but I think it’s just the way that he found out that has just made things so weird between us now. I feel like if I’d had the chance to come out to him myself in my own way, he wouldn’t have reacted like that. But I’m gonna text him next week and see if we can maybe try to fix our friendship, but I doubt it at this point

The other people who were shown the email, I mostly just avoid. I don’t really care about them knowing that much because I wasn’t close to them, but it’s just really embarrassing knowing that they probably scrolled through my Tumblr blog before I scrubbed it

And about Tumblr… This used to be the only place that I could fully be myself. It was like a “safe space” for me which feels ironic now. But I haven’t been active on my blog since December. I still lurk occasionally, but I just don’t feel comfortable here anymore. I did consider deleting my current blog and starting afresh with a new one, but I don’t think it’d make much of a difference… Like she’s kind of ruined Tumblr for me. I do still enjoy reading people’s blogs every now and then, but I don’t feel relaxed here anymore, I just feel on edge.

It’s mainly the fact that SHE’S still here. She still has a platform, she still has a bunch of followers. It’s been so hard seeing her face next to no consequences whatsoever for the horrible things that she’s done to so many different people. And it upsets me that she hasn’t even acknowledged that what she did was wrong. Plus, it makes me feel even worse that the Hard Kay blogs and some other people are still supporting her and pretending that this whole thing just didn’t happen. Like do they just not care? Or is it that she’s twisted things and made them believe that the situation was different to what it actually was?

And tbh, this whole situation has even set me back in my own sort of personal self-acceptance journey. I had such bad internalised homophobia when I was younger, and it took me so many years to get to a place where I had mostly accepted myself. But now I just feel ashamed again, and I’ve gone back to my old habit of trying to force myself to be attracted to men. Like I downloaded Tinder the other day and set my preference to men and was swiping through profiles. It’s kinda silly actually. I did snap out of it and delete the app the next day though. But I don’t know, I feel like this whole thing has just kinda fucked with me a bit. I am trying to work this stuff out and get back to normal though. I think I’ll be good again in maybe a month or so, hopefully.

And… yeah. I just really resent her, and this situation upsets me. Because the reason she did this was so petty and ridiculous, and I guess she didn’t even realise how much it would impact people? Like I do know that my situation wasn’t as bad as some of the other people’s situations, and I feel really bad for them, and I hope they’re all doing okay. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for them. But it still has impacted me a lot more than I actually thought it would. I thought I’d get over it within a couple of weeks. But it’s been like two months, and I’m still not completely over it

I know it might not sound like a huge thing, but being outed really does affect you, even if it’s only to a few people. Because to me, I feel like I’ve had my sense of like, security and comfort taken away, and it’s kinda distressing. Sorry if I sound dramatic with any of this, I just really needed to say all of this stuff to other people besides myself lol

Like her actions have literally led to me being outed to a few people. A close friendship that I had has basically been ruined. I don’t feel comfortable or secure on Tumblr anymore, even though it used to be an important outlet for me. I’ve had a resurgence of anxiety about my sexuality. Etc.

And again, my dad is extremely homophobic and literally made death threats to me and physically attacked me back when I accidentally came out to him in 2018 or 2019. And if he had gotten that email, I don’t even know what would have happened. I don’t think he would have like… SERIOUSLY physically harmed me, but there would definitely have been a repeat of the first incident. More throwing chairs at me and hitting and screaming and death threats. I don’t really want to think about it.

It just bothers me that she didn’t even consider that? Like did it not even cross her mind? And my dad is bad, but I’m sure there are people in the fandom who have even worse parents, and she could have got one of those people instead. It’s just so… I don’t know, it’s just so frustrating to me.

Anyway, I just hate her for what she did… Like maybe I shouldn’t, but I really do resent her so much, and I don’t think I could forgive her even if she apologised to us all (which I don’t think she even would because she doesn’t seem to have any decency whatsoever). The least she could do is at least express some kind of remorse, but she just genuinely doesn’t care, and that’s super messed up. All over some stupid Tumblr blog that is much less important than she thinks it is.

But anyway… I apologise for the whole rant, and if anybody read all the way down to here, I appreciate it. I do actually feel a bit better now that I’ve got this all typed out. And I’m sorry for the oversharing lol, I usually don’t do this, but I just felt like I really needed to tell people and get it off my chest so that I can try to get over it — L

submisssion⬆️⬆️⬆️

ok L i am trying to remain calm here because this isn’t about me. but i am very emotional right now. i am so so so infinitely sorry that you had to go through this harrowing and terrifying experience. ttb (now blogging under spade-riddles) is absolutely disgusting, lower than dirt, that she would put your life, safety, and well-being at risk over a fucking kaylor blog.

please please please im me or get in touch somehow because i want to offer you support. have you been financially impacted by this? we can raise money. do you need therapy? we can help you find the support you need. this community is unequivocally here for you. whatever you need, if it’s in my power to help you get it, i will. you have my solemn promise on that.

i am so deeply and desperately sorry that you have gone through this. i was shaking while reading your story.

i am in touch with other people and we are in discussion about the best way to let tumblr know what happened. this will be a safe space for you (and all of us) again if it’s the last thing i do. this community is 100% here for you in any way we can help, sending you all the support and love we have.

#submission #tw: abuse #tw: homophobia

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mrssimply · 3 years

Text

Writting prompts - the rest

Hello everyone, hope you're having a good summer. Mine is currently calming down, which allowed me to finally finish this prompt "“I told you, you would eventually start begging.”", for which I gave you an excerpt something like a week ago.

Ahem. I said it was gonna be all fun and happiness... Well, I lied. But it's getting better? Promise the fun and the happiness is still there, but you know, they have issues.

I hope that the anon who prompted it is still here with me ahah.

I'm also using this post to make a few announcements.

1) I won't reopen the prompts after I've finished the three remaining ones. Firstly because, and I'm very grateful for it, it kinda got too much success and as I'm incapable of writing shorts fills, it's taking too much time. Second, because there is now a Cyberpunk 2077 Kink Meme courtesy or Hrimtur (who is doing A LOT for the community, seeing as they also organize the Big Bang). And I plan on answering prompts here, so you can go ask for yours ;).

2) I'm still hesitating to enter said Big Bang Challenge. I have ideas, and time, but also other projects, personal projects, that I would like to continue. Can't let Cyberpunk take over my life... So I'm still not sure, and still not sure about the pairing... If some of you who aren't planning on participating as artists want to talk about it with me, please feel free. Will probably end up on the discord server too.

Ok, I' think we are set, please enjoy this, once again, NSFW piece of fiction that totally got away from me.

Note that it's a direct sequel to this one.

And here is the link to the masterpost about the prompts I filled before.

Viens, au creux de mes reins.

Come, into the cradle of my loins.

With a corner smile, and a quizzical frown, he took the thing into his metal hand and brought it to eye level. It was long as a fore-finger, curved with one end like an egg, the rest looking like a tail with a water-drop shape at the end. On that end, there was a discreet on/off button, that Johnny pressed while taking a drag from his cigarette. It started buzzing softly, and the egg part moved as if two marbles were rotating around one another inside.

Johnny watched it happen more than he felt it because of the cyberarm, and exchanged the smoke and the toy to experience the sensation fully. He couldn’t help but smile as he felt the marbles press alternatively in his hand. He was still holding it when Kerry came back from his shower.

“What’s this?” Johnny asked with a confident smirk to hide his genuine curiosity.

Kerry came to the bed, with just a tower wrapped around his waist, and sat near the other man. His hand fell on Johnny’s bare thigh, his thumb brushing the inside of the muscle. They both pretended to ignore the way Johnny shifted, arching so subtly into the touch. If he was more and more open with his reactions in their love-making, he didn’t like them pointed out and Kerry, although known for loving to play with fire, didn’t want to risk spooking him.

Looking into his friend’s eyes with a mischievous expression, Kerry took the toy.

“This, Johnny-boy, is my favorite weapon to turn straight boys into butt-sluts.”

The other man snorted and took the vibrator back, turning it off.

“I’m not straight, so that won’t work on me.” He said, eyes lidded and cocky.

“Maybe so, but when it come to your ass, you’re a lot less adventurous that you would have us all peasants believe. So I’m pretty confident it would work.” Kerry replied with his own brand of teasing smile, hand creeping just slightly over Johnny’s thigh.

With a non-committal grunt, the rocker turned to put the toy back in its box, and his smoke into the ashtray.

Wisely, Kerry didn’t add anything and bent over the blanket to reach for his bandana, lying by the foot of the bed. It had fallen here when they had undressed in a rush, with just two hours before they had to get back to the venue for their gig.

Kerry grunted softly as he straightened; the near perfect round scar next to his belly-button still pulled at him sometimes. Before he could start to tie the cloth around his head, Johnny’s hands where in his hair, carding through it gently to brush them approximately. Keeping his back turned to his friend, Kerry started breathing really slow, trying to keep his shoulders relaxed even as he felt on the threshold of a strange moment. They were happening more and more lately, as Johnny continued going to therapy weekly.

The man started separating the long strands of hair in three parts before softly, and agilely, braiding them. The silence around them was total. Kerry closed his eyes, heart beating strong in his ribcage. When Johnny finished the braid, he gently took the band he used to tie his own hair from around his wrist and used it to wrap-up the hair-do.

Kerry kept still, not really knowing what to do or if he should say something. It felt like this was special, and fragile. But before he could make up his mind, Johnny got closer, until his lips touched the juncture of his neck and shoulder. Then he opened his lips a fraction and kissed the caramel skin of the singer. Up his neck in a delicate caress, and back down the tip of his shoulder, finishing with a small bite.

Kerry shivered and the softest moan escaped him as he closed his eyes with a frown. And then Johnny did it again. All the while his hands, one warm, the other metal cold, travelled from his partner’s neck down his back and around his waist.

“We’re gonna be late if you don’t stop right now.” Kerry whispered, aiming for unconcerned and failing spectacularly.

“Hum hum,” was Johnny only reply, lips still travelling over the dark skin, raising goosebumps without remorse over it.

“Nancy is gonna kill us.”

“Hum hum,” the rocker repeated while his hands drifted downward, fingers light over the happy trail.

Kerry closed his eyes, leaned back against him, and opened his thighs.

“I’ll blame you.”

“Hum hum.”

---

The club was packed, hard-rock blasting through the overheated air as Johnny made his way back to the table where he had last spotted Kerry over an hour ago. The girl he had just fucked in the bathroom was following him, hand loosely wrapped around Johnny’s metal wrist as to not lose him in the crowd. She had hit on him while he had been ordering another drink. Her eyes had the same color as Alt’s.

As they approached the table, Johnny saw that another man was with Kerry. He had blue hair and very pale skin, which gave him a sickly air, enhanced by the desperation in his eyes. Across from the guitarist, Denny and Bes were cackling like witches, obviously feeding off of Kerry’s obvious embarrassment. When he spotted Johnny, the musician’s eyes became pleading and he cut right through what the man was saying to address his friend.

“Hey Johnny, you’re back.” And then he turned to the girl, “I’m Kerry.” He introduced himself politely.

That was a recent development. Whereas Kerry had generally been an ass to Johnny’s hook-ups, he was now tolerating them, talking to them with interest and even commented to Johnny afterward about the ones he liked.

“I know,” she replied with a warm smile, “I was at your show last month. Was kinda hyped to see you all here tonight.”

Johnny looked at her with surprise, since she hadn’t shared that information with him. But before any of them could further discuss the matter, the unknown man put his hand on Kerry’s forearm, prompting a little jump from the musician under the surprise. Clearly, the guy was getting bolder by the second.

“So, can we do it again? Please?” he asked, practically begged.

With a frown, Kerry took his hand back and his face turned annoyed.

“Listen choom, I told you; I can give you the ref for the toy so you can do it to yourse – “

“I did, I tried, I even asked my girl to do it, but it’s just not the same. You were really special man!” The guy insisted and Johnny saw Bes and Denny giggle behind their drinks from the corner of his eyes. The girl – he couldn’t remember her name, if she had given it – was looking at the scene with a quizzical expression.

“Well, sorry to hear that, but ya know what they say: practice makes perfect.” Kerry replied with a coy smile and a wink. Charm was his best weapon, Johnny knew; it could derail practically any gay man from whatever they had been saying, and a few women too. It worked because the guy mouth just hung open stupidly, which was the moment Johnny chose to intervene.

“You got your answer, choom, now delta.” He barked, surprised by his own bite.

The guy startled, took one look at the rocker’s expression and decided strategic retreat was his best bet. He went away, tail between his legs under Denny’s guffaws.

Bes eyed Johnny with shrewd eyes, obviously smelling something like she was a fucking Jack Russel. Denny introduced herself to the girl, which was named Nina, it seemed. But Johnny barely heard it, focused as he was on Kerry.

“What was that about?” he groused, incapable of reigning-in the strange sensation in the pit of his belly.

Kerry opened his mouth to reply, a frown clearly painting itself between his brows, but Denny beat him to it.

“He was one of Kerry’s fling,” she started, “seems like he did something to him that was so fucking spectacular, the guy was ready to beg for it to happen again.”

Kerry groaned, putting his head in his hands in sheer embarrassment.

“I’m curious now, Ker,” Denny continued, “what the fuck did you do to the poor guy?”

Still hiding, Kerry shook his head with yet another groan. Next to Johnny, Nina seemed as curious as the other two women.

“Come on, you gotta tell. I’ll pay you a drink if ya do.” She said and Kerry was still not above free alcohol it seemed. Or, more likely, he wanted to tell the story as badly as they wanted to hear it. Embarrassing as it might be, it wasn’t every night a man you fucked once came back begging for more.

Still, he made them all wait until Nina was back with a round of drinks before he started.

“So, I have this toy. It’s a vibrator specifically designed for the prostate, nothing fancy. I got it half the price on sales. It’s just really well made: gave me my longest and most intense orgasms alone. I had it for a long time, which means I had a lot of practice with it so when I use it on my partners, it’s guaranteed orgasm.” He paused with a flourish, gave Nina a corner smile from under his lashes before his eyes flickered to Johnny for half a second. “Can make them forget their name with that kind of orgasms,” he added, still looking at Johnny. It was like he had been zapped for how his fingers and lips tingled.

“I really love to use it on men who are unfamiliar with their own ass. Nothing gets me more than seeing them react to the sensations it unleashes inside them.” Kerry confessed with a wink. “Hardest part is to convince them to try. Afterward they only want more, as illustrated here.” He concluded, gesturing vaguely to the direction where the man had disappeared.

“Wow,” Nina exclaimed, “I really wish I could see that, seems intense. How is that toy called?”

And they proceeded to exchange information about sextoys, technics and straight men with the other two women while Johnny drank his Tequila-lime with a frown.

---

“Anger often stems from the feeling of injustice, but it’s really reinforced by the impression of having no control over a situation.” Dr. Gayet told him three days later, seemingly apropos of nothing. Johnny shifted, silently cursing the man and his uncanny perception of his patient’s inner turmoil. “Do you feel like you’ve got no control over a situation?”

And unbidden, flashes of Alt smiling at him, and of Kerry laughing, streamed through his mind.

“When I love someone,” Johnny whispered. More words pushed against his closed lips, but he refused to let them through.

“And why is that?” the therapist asked with his gentle face. The one that had watched Johnny each time he had cried in the past eight months of therapy.

“There is this feeling, inside of me…” he started after a moment, but couldn’t quite continue.

“And what does that feeling does?” Dr Gayet asked.

“It makes me wanna change. Makes me do things I would never have done before. Makes me feel like I’m… Fragile. Like they could reach inside of me and destroy me.”

“And that makes you angry?”

He shook his head no. Then:

“Yes, maybe… Makes me want to hurt them before they could do it to me.”

Silence.

“Love implies trust, Mister Silverhand. Trust in the fact that although they probably could, they wouldn’t hurt you on purpose.”

Johnny crossed a leg over the other and looked to the side, jaw tightening. His metal hand drummed on the armrest of the chair before he let his head fall backward with a deep sigh.

“I know.”

“You might know it intellectually, but you have yet to experience it. For that, you would have to let go of control.”

---

In the box where Kerry kept the lube and condoms, were also a variety of dildos, straps-on (from the odd girlfriends Kerry took to bed), cock-rings and vibrators of all size, power and color. Cigarette between his lips, Johnny bent over the bed to rummage into the box until he found the one. Nonchalantly, he threw it at Kerry over his shoulders before lying against the pillows once more. The second man, who was perusing his social medias on his phone, frowned and looked up at Johnny with annoyance when the toy collided with his side. Eyes still scolding, Kerry looked down at the projectile and his expression froze when he saw the toy.

“Wanna use it?” Johnny asked, voice teasing and confident. “See if it works on me?”

Kerry’s eyes flew to his, dark meeting black and a subtle expression of worry flowered on the Filipino man’s face.

“Really?” he asked in a breath. Though they had never talked about it, Kerry had an inkling Johnny’s experiences with anal when on the receiving end were not good. It was a hunch, based on a very short conversation years ago where Johnny had asked him how he could possibly like being taken so often. With a shrug, not thinking much of it as Kerry had been in the middle of rolling another joint, he had answered that when it was well-done, it was amazing. Johnny had not added anything, and it was only hours later, when on the verge of sleep that Kerry had turned that question in his head again, seeing it under new light.

And now, instead of replying, Johnny only smiled cockily and spread his legs, clad in his usual leather pants and nothing else. He leaned back against the pillows more comfortably and gestured invitingly with both hands to his partner.

“What? Doubting yourself, Ker?” he taunted.

Kerry watched him a few seconds more, still unsure about this turn of events. But he also knew Johnny: he was a curious man, and a courageous one, sometimes bordering on reckless. If he had set himself on something, he wouldn’t back down. And Kerry much preferred to be the one to introduce, or reintroduce, Johnny to his own ass.

He smiled slyly and raised an eyebrow.

“Not at all. Not sure you can actually take it. Ready to beg?” he challenged back and Johnny outright laughed.

“Not gonna beg.” The rocker replied confidently, to which Kerry hummed and smiled mysteriously. He then moved on the bed, over Johnny and they both looked at each other for a moment.

Something passed, like an undercurrent they knew existed but rarely acknowledged between them. Johnny’s eyes got softer, eyelids dropping slightly and he raised a hand to Kerry’s face, catching the bandana to slip it off his friend’s hair. Dark locks fell over Kerry’s cheeks, and cascaded from his shoulders. It was getting really long. Johnny let his metal hand trail into it before gripping them softly and bringing Kerry’s face down to him. He kissed him: teasing nips over his bottom lip followed by territorial swipes of his tongue. Demanding, unrelenting, absolute. Like always.

Kerry forgot himself, falling into Johnny’s force for a while before he remembered the initial plan. With a gentle moan, he disengaged from the kiss to trail a chaplet of small bites from Johnny’s ear to his pectorals and bellow, tongue swirling over shifting muscles as the man under him writhed and tensed. Johnny’s grip over his hair turned tighter and he started pushing Kerry toward the edge of his pants in a very clear request.

Kerry let him, unbuckled the belt, opened the buttons and pulled down the leather before mouthing at the burgeoning erection. He felt it harden in his mouth when he took it between his lips and heard Johnny’s guttural moan when he started sucking. All the while, Kerry continued to divest Johnny of his pants and softly made him open his legs more, until he could push his thumb under his perineum.

Johnny thrusted up, forcing Kerry to take him deeper, but said man once more let his partner do it, and pressed his finger harder into the flesh, circling it until he heard Johnny grunt. There he stopped and straightened.

“Give me the lube, and relax, Johnny-boy. I’ll take care of you,” he added lower with a small smile.

Johnny scoffed, passed him the tube and then looked at him expectantly, like he was bored by the proceeding. Kerry grinned, not fooled and with a hand caressing the inside of Johnny’s knee, he pushed his fore-finger inside his ass slowly, but firmly.

That shut Johnny up, and he couldn’t help but frown and tense.

“So, Darling, let he introduce you to your own ass,” Kerry distracted him, taking a posh voice, “as you know, you have this perfect gland – here.” He added after a second when Johnny gasped. “And we will use that to make you see stars.”

Under him, Johnny’s face was going through a complex myriad of expressions, ranging from indignant to confused and ending up on hesitant pleasure. So Kerry started massaging him gently all the while he watched him intently, devouring the growing bliss featured on his partner’s visage.

With a huff, Johnny threw his head backward and pushed against Kerry’s hand, which was his cue to stop.

“The fuck –“ the rocker exclaimed, outraged, but Kerry licked a stripe of hot saliva over his cock as he pulled his finger out.

“Said you wanted to try my magic toy,” the musician replied, play-biting the inside of Johnny’s thigh before taking said toy in hand. He coated it in lube under Johnny’s heaving breaths.

“Lift your hips,” Kerry ordered before placing a pillow under them. He then pushed one of Johnny’s knee to his chest and the egg-shaped end of the toy to his entrance.

“Ok?” he mouthed.

“Get on with it,” Johnny grunted, like this was something to get over with and not to enjoy.

With an eyeroll, Kerry pushed the toy in and watched it disappear. Until now, he had been so concentrated on Johnny he hadn’t really considered his own pleasure in the process, but seeing his favorite toy get sucked inside his friend and hear the man’s small surprised moan was like a kick to his libido.

He turned the vibrator on with the remote, eyes glued to Johnny’s face and wasn’t disappointed. That was why he liked to use it on bi-curious men: nothing was sweeter than seeing them meet their prostate for the first time. Johnny’s metal hand flew to Kerry’s wrist holding the toy and gripped it, but not to pull, just to anchor himself. His other hand went next to his head and grasped the sheets as his eyes scrunched up and he huffed, teeth grinding like he was refusing to moan.

Mouth slightly open, Kerry watched him struggle against the sensation for a few seconds before he turned the toy off. And watched Johnny sag against the bed. Without waiting, Kerry took his friend’s cock inside his mouth again.

Johnny bowed back with a low growl, hands gripping Kerry’s head again. The other man continued for a moment before turning the vibrator on without warning and setting it to a higher frequency. Johnny stilled; his breath hitched before a low moan was wrenched from him.

Stopping the fellatio after a minute, Kerry looked at Johnny again, hand idly continuing to stimulate his friend’s cock. But it was clear that it was not needed, because Johnny was, at last, relaxing. His hips started moving in wide circles, like he was pushing back and forth against an invisible lover, and his pupils were completely blown-up. He was high on pleasure.

Gently, Kerry stopped stroking him and instead let his hand trail all over Johnny’s stomach in a grounding caress. He changed the setting to a deeper and longer vibration, knowing the two marbles inside the egg would give off the impression of expanding. He couldn’t help but moan in sympathy when Johnny’s eyes widened and he groaned in ecstasy, whole body bowing in a perfect arc.

Kerry shifted to remove his jeans and underwear, all the while watching as Johnny’s pleasure grew before he got closer to him once more. He took both their cocks into his hands, dropping the remote next to him as he continued to take on the spectacle of Johnny getting undone from inside.

It was like waves after waves of pleasure were rolling over him, for he tensed rhythmically under Kerry, legs opening even more as if to welcome his friend inside him and for a second, a long second, the thought was tempting. But that would probably be too much for today. Instead, Kerry took the remote again and turned the toy off completely.

“Fuck, no! What, Ker!” Johnny babbled wildly, hips rocking up without coordination.

“Close?”

But instead or replying, Johnny tried to take the remote from him, prompting a laugh from his friend.

“No, you don’t get to have control here,” he playfully said, holding the remote away. Strangely, the words had a more powerful effect than expected because Johnny stilled and looked at Kerry with clear eyes. His gaze seemed panicked for a second, making the other man frown and open his mouth to call everything off. But then Johnny settled again, body relaxing by increments. Kerry watched it happen with the sensation something important was unravelling, but he couldn’t understand what exactly.

Then, Johnny’s hands came to rest over Kerry’s thighs, thumbs stroking the skin in small circles. He waited. The moment passed and Kerry, after searching for any sign of discomfort, slowly pushed the on button, in clear sight of the man under him. Johnny closed his eyes with a sigh, his tongue swiping over his bottom lip.

Going to a higher setting, Kerry watched him writhe once more.

“Shit you’re so fucking gorgeous like this Johnny.” He whimpered reverently and keened when Johnny’s fingers tightened over his muscles, digging into the flesh until it would mark.

Another notch up, and Johnny let out a moan of his own, a wounded sound like he rarely did and Kerry thrusted against him unconsciously. The urge to fuck him was so strong, but he held still the second after.

It went on until Johnny’s eyes scrunched and he started panting openly.

“Kerry,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” the other man replied like in a trance.

“Kerry please.”

And said musician distantly registered that Johnny’s tone was imploring.

“I told you, you would eventually start begging” he heard himself pronounce from far away.

“No, Kerry please, I need… Please.” Johnny repeated and it grounded his friend back, who felt Johnny’s hand looking for his. He caught the tattooed palm into his, but Johnny instead intertwined their fingers and gripped tight. Kerry wasn’t sure he was really conscious of it, for it was really out of character for Johnny during sex. But the intensity of what he was seemingly feeling pushed him past such restrains.

“Kerry,” he said again with urgency and, finally, his partner got it.

“Yeah, yes I’m here, it’s ok baby you can let go.” He babbled, bending over Johnny to catch their cocks in his hand again and start stroking. He could see now how Johnny was struggling, fighting off the pleasure and the end coming soon because of the foreign sensations. He didn’t dare succumb to the feeling rising inside him, and there was something akin to fear deep under the bliss on his flushed face.

“I’ll take care of you, you can let go, I’ll catch you. Come on, Johnny-boy, let it go, cum for me.” Kerry whispered.

With a hitch and a shake of his head, Johnny finally did. His whole body became taut, his throat bared and his mouth opened around a silent shout that became a shuddering moan as his cock twitched in Kerry’s hand. The sight, the sound and the sensation against his erection triggered Kerry in return, who got blindsided by his own orgasm. He barely felt it for how concentrated he was on seeing Johnny’s.

Said man’s hips twitched, thighs trembling for a moment before he frowned and grunted, prompting Kerry to move and turn off the toy. They stayed like this for a while, just looking at each other as their breathings slowed. Johnny was the first to break the moment, turning to take his smoke, only to freeze with a moan as it moved the toy inside. He sagged, half-turned, which prompted a laugh out of Kerry.

“Ok, just relax, I’ll take it out.”

He did, feeling Johnny’s small shudder when it popped out. Kerry didn’t resist biting an ass-cheek playfully, receiving a grunt and a swat of hand in retaliation.

As Johnny settled back with his cigarette lit, Kerry trailed his lips over his skin until he found their mess, which he licked clean. When he looked up, he saw Johnny’s gaze on him, smoke forgotten in benefit of watching the show. With an impish smile, Kerry leaned to him, kissing Johnny’s lips until they opened and he inhaled the smoke from Johnny’s lungs.

“So, he said as he settled against Johnny, commandeering the smoke, “did I fucking deliver on my promise?”

With a smirk, Johnny replied:

“It was good.”

“Good?!” Kerry repeated, outraged, “Are you kidding me? It was fucking stellar, don’t lie to me, you’ve never had this kind of orgasm, I kno – “

“Don’t push, Ker.” Johnny warned, voice troubled.

Kerry looked at him, and his eyes softened. He stroked Johnny’s lips with his thumb twice before setting back again.

“You were so beautiful, coming like this.” He only added in the silence that followed.

Johnny let out a shuddering breath, but said nothing more.

#silverdyne #johnny x kerry #kerry x johnny #kerry eurodyne #johnny silverhand #writting prompts #cyberpunk 2077 #cp2077

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celestial-ringleader · 3 years

Note

pssst here’s a free pass to talk more about your phoenix!gambit au 👀 his design is super cool and i am curious abt what you have figured out so far,,, 🤲

First of all thank you so much ;u;

Okay so to start off with, the basic idea was formed because I was reading over some stuff about the Phoenix Five event that happened a bit ago (and also talks about the Phoenix came up a few times in discord) and I was sort of chilling out and suddenly I got hit with the idea: what if Remy absorbed the Phoenix Force? And then it was all downhill from there.

(Big thanks to @esteicy-blog and @imperiuswrecked for hearing me out on this ajkbkvj)

This is gonna be a long post so I'm putting it under a read more

Design:

So to start with, I'm gonna first go through the outfit design because honestly that's always the fun part for me. I wanted to obviously reference the first Dark Phoenix arc but I also didn't want it to be copy-paste, so in terms of design/over all aesthetic I was taking a lot of inspiration from the OG Dark Phoenix outfit and a bit of Namor's Phoenix look, mostly for the gold detail and the red/black/gold color scheme. And for the outfit I went with for Remy it's sort of a mix of his classic look but also his look in Excalibur. (See below)

I looked at the other Phoenix outfit variants (and apparently there are some Phoenix Gambit designs out there???), but those didn't really inspire me that much?? I wanted him to look more regal while also fucking intimidating, so Phoenix Remy would have armor on while also looking Extra Slutty for good measure (plus some rubies to make him look Expensive).

So then we end up with this: (anatomy is weird here but this was just to get a full-body drawing down, also the coat sadly didn't make it to the drawing since I wanted to show off the gold but he does wear one usually.)

But anyways that's just design stuff and I barely got into the meat of the actual AU.

Overall Story Premise:

So as I was doing research into the Phoenix, I found out that apparently at one point it put itself in some kind of egg in the White Hot room (that's according to the wiki) and that sort of made me start thinking about Remy could've gotten it.

The gist of what I came up with after the last couple of days is that one day the X-Men/Avengers (which I'm not sure who all would be there, but it would definitely have Remy, Pietro, and Jean) are called to do some retrieval mission by investigating a crashed spaceship where they need to find an artifact for the Shi'ar. They aren't told exactly what it is nor what it looks like, only that it's important they get it and they will "know it when they see it".

To not make this post too long and spoil what I might write, basically they go to find it and split off. Remy finds himself in the hull of the ship (which has all the treasure in it so of course he starts looting) when he comes across what looks like a fancy egg-shaped jewel, and aside from feeling warm there's nothing really menacing about it. Remy reports in that he found a weird thing, but he doesn't think it's what they're looking for. Jean tells him to leave it since they shouldn't steal from the Shi'ar...which only makes Remy want it more.

(Here's a visual of what happens basically:)

Remy in fact doesn't leave it and just shoves it in his bag while he finds his way back to the team, but on the way there the wreckage caves in more around him and leaves him trapped. And since there's no other way to escape, he uses the egg (which makes him sad because he really did wanna keep it) but the second he charges it up, he unknowingly releases the Phoenix, which was laying dormant/trapped within the egg until Remy charged up the "potential energy" within it (which was really just the dormant Phoenix energy).

At first the Phoenix tries to go for Jean since she used to be a host, but when it recognizes Remy as being a mutant with incredible power (he's Omega-Level in this au, but his true power is largely dormant), it basically goes like "nah I like this one" and possesses him instead. Soon after that Remy passes out and is taken back to Earth (with a very worried Pietro carrying him as much as he can bc they're dating in this au bc I said so)

Assorted Ideas:

So after the whole thing on the ship weeks go by and no one really knows where the Phoenix is, only that it's out there and will probably try to find a host. Remy says he doesn't know what happened after the egg "hatched" and genuinely has no idea that he's become a host until the Phoenix reveals itself to him in the form of an apparition.

After that he just sort of keeps it quiet while he tries to learn to control it (after all he's learned to control his powers on his own, this can't be too hard right? yes. yes it can be that hard.) Pietro is the first to find out about it because he literally sees Remy sort of transform in front of him during Intimate Times, and that makes Remy freak out and makes him promise not to tell anyone else.

Later on, Remy accidentally hurts Pietro after lashing out (idk why they were probably arguing and Remy's already on edge so he gets angered easily) and since he burns him with cosmic fire, it takes much longer for Pietro to heal. However Pietro doesn't want anyone to find out or get the wrong idea about Remy so he keeps it hidden. Which doesn't last long when Wanda finds out and she immediately goes to beat Remy's ass only to discover the Phoenix Force within him (bc she can sense it and apparently Chaos Magic is one of the Phoenix's weaknesses). She lets him live when he explains that it was an accident, but she also goes like "I fought the Phoenix before, I'll do it again".

After that I'm not sure what happens, but I know it eventually leads to Remy being completely overtaken by the Phoenix and goes on a warpath to ""cleanse"" the universe while also being driven by his rage at the world and some of his (supposed) friends, but he's snapped out of it when Pietro gets close to him and gets him to calm down enough to gain control again. Eventually the Phoenix Force is literally pulled out of him with help from Wanda and Jean, but that whole process is painful and it nearly kills him but it ends up okay. (I'm not strong enough to kill main characters)

Anyways I hope this all makes sense since I was trying to take some notes plus discord convos and making it less incoherent and with less key smashes everywhere.

Thanks again for the ask! Glad you actually wanna hear about my ramblings and such. 🔥🔥🔥

#robin speaks #long post #remy lebeau #phoenix gambit au #robin draws #this was incredibly long but im so excited to talk about this akjbdvkj #maybe ill actually write this but we'll see how it goes with my current wip taking up a lot of time and energy #scoutzbloghub #big shout out to everyone who listened to me ramble about this ajkjdbvjk ik its long and complicated

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sisterssafespace · 3 years

Note

Salaam ukhti, I do not know what to do. I’ve been talking to a guy for a while now. My mother knows about him she’s happy for us to be wed. Alhamdulilah

So, this guy & I are from different cultures. I’m african he’s indian & I have no problem with that. In terms of his deen he’s perfect for me. The last step was for him to meet my father; I spoke to my father before they met told him he’s asian not african. He seemed completely okay with it at the time. Anyway, on the day he rang him and he hung up to call me. He said a lot of negative things I won’t repeat.

But, my issue is that he didn’t even try to meet him because of his ethnicity? The worse part is I have a strained relationship with him already (we don’t live together). So, the fact he couldn’t even meet a prospective guy for me his daughter his youngest child makes it worse.

Ever since then, we haven’t been speaking and he’s being really rude to me. Constantly making sly remarks about me because he asked what I did. I was angry because he knows he put me in a horrible situation. Since I had to go back to the guy to tell him my father couldn’t come because of an ‘emergency’.

My mother came up with the solution of her older brother going to meet the guy instead. To be honest, I understand why because my uncle speaks better english so they can communicate which I’m grateful for. But, it’s upsetting knowing my dad didn’t even try and I do not know if my uncle can even mehr me if my dad doesn’t say yes.

- ☁️

Assalamualaikum wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuhu dear sister, I hope you are feeling better by the time you are reading this.

Let me start by saying that your ask hit a not close to home for I can relate on some points. Allahu al'mustaān.

Now, before getting into the story, let me just answer your last question about whether your uncle (brother to your mom) could marry you, if your father doesn't cooperate. Well, I know I clarified in the bio and the opening post that this page doesn't give fatwahs but this is not a fatwah as the fatwah is already there and all over the internet , and it's ' common knowledge ' unfortunately no, the brother of the mother doesn't have the authority to marry the girl off in Islam. In fact, there is a sequence or list of ' wali-s ' who can marry her and in case the father wasn't capable of doing that, then it is the paternal grandfather, then the brother, then the half brother (from her father's side), then her father's brother, then her father's half-brother, then her paternal cousin (son of her father's brother), then son of her father's half-brother, then in case all of them are not available or they don't agree, then it's taken up to the Judge. See, there is no family member from the mother's side in that lineage. Just to be clear.

However, we should consider alllllll the other options that you have before thinking of the worst case scenario, sis. Because even if your father wasn't the greatest man and you don't have the strongest relationship with him, you don't want to start this important chapter of your life on the wrong foot, by upsetting him more, or ruining your chances to fix things with him. It will only complicate the situation more. And keep in mind: it is not permissible to get married without a wali, as prophet Muhammad ﷺ said : There is no marriage without the permission of a guardian.

Now let's see what we are dealing with, I don't know the reasons why your father is having this position - but one can only imagine.. However, Islam is innocent from all these ideologies, interracial and mixed marriage were never a problem in Islam and Allah swt and his Prophet ﷺ never forbid nor advised against marrying someone from a different ethnicity. In fact, the Prophet ﷺ said : "When someone whose religion and character you are pleased with proposes to (someone under the care) of one of you, then marry to him. If you do not do so, then there will be turmoil (Fitnah) in the land and abounding discord (Fasad)."

So, if the only reason why your father is not approving of this marriage is that the potential partner is from a different ethnicity, then your father is in the wrong and he will be accountable on his part. But there isn't much you can do without his approval. So what can you do instead? Is there any uncles from your father's side? A grandfather? An authoritarian family member? Or your local Imam or someone that your father actually values and listens to that you can actually talk to? To convince him to at least give the man a chance? And yes your uncle from your mother's side could talk to the guy and get to know him and maybe then he could tell your father about his qualities and how he is in shaa Allah a perfect fit for you, but again, he can't marry you off.

Now, I am sharing with you the feedback of a sister who is Alhamdulillah in a mixed marriage, she has been thru your experience and is now Alhamdulillah happily married, may Allah bless her and her family : "I understand her pain. They're judging him before even meeting him.. I don't know if there's much she can do tho. I think it's most likely that her father needs time to get used to the idea. He didn't expect her to marry out of the culture, that's a hard pill to slick for a lot of elder people. The advice I can give is to give it time and pray for it. Intercultural relationships is almost normal for our generation but it isn't for the generations before us. We have to keep that in consideration.

Also, if her uncle gets to meet the guy, maybe he can tell her father how great he is especially when it comes to deen. And her mother knows her father the best, she can eventually also speak in on his mindset and make him see that he's wrong to judge someone he hasn't even met.

I pray that her father 'wakes up' and realizes that culture doesn't matter. The only thing that will bring them to jannah, is their deen, and alhamdulillah he's perfect for her deen-wise. May Allah ease their affairs and bring them together in marriage. ❤️"

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

I will finish with this meaningful insight from islamqa.org "While family members may think they are acting in the best interest of their children, there are many cases in which the refusal of parents is based on incorrect presumptions and understandings that stem from their own, distinct experiences and contexts that their children may not necessarily share.

In such cases, if someone does believe they have genuinely found someone suitable for marriage, whether from a different race/culture or not, and their parents still prove to be difficult, they should try to convince them with wisdom and tact, and take all appropriate means to make them see the merits of the decision.

Parents certainly have a right to be concerned about the future of their children, but since it is not the parents entering into the marriage, children also need to make sure they are not being forced into decisions that will adversely effect them in the future."

And most importantly (from the same source) "You should know that marriages are destined by Allah, All-Wise. So if this marriage is facilitated for you, then it will happen, and if not, then it won’t. And in either case, there is wisdom behind this that you are not aware of, so you should pray salat al-istikharah for ease in this matter if it should be good for you. It is best that you take the path of benevolence and kindness in these kinds of issues and don’t rush things lest you aggravate the problems."

To conclude, my dear sister, I KNOW that when we are inn love/ or when we start getting attached to someone, we let our imagination run wild, we build hopes and dreams involving them, we want to be with them asap and we let ourselves get carried away, I know for a fact that you'd want to rush things and just get married to this guy and get it over with, I feel you, I relate to you, I understand you perfectly. But sometimes that's not how life works for a) there's Allah's timing for everything and b) there's Allah's plan for us. We think we are choosing and we think we are planning but it's just an illusion, at the end of the day it's only Allah's plan that works. That's why I pray that your choice matches what Allah swt has already chosen for you, and your plan confirms with Allah's plan for you. Please please please pray Istikhara times and times and times again, tell your guy to pray Istikhara as well, and sis, duāa is your only way out of this. Try to pray Tahajjud (night prayer) if you can, I heard a saying a while ago that anyone who has any need from Allah swt should never miss a Tahajjud prayer. In the quiet of the last third of the night, when everyone else is sleeping, just you and your broken words and you crying heart sincerely and humbling asking for Allah's help and guidance. It works miracles ✨

In shaa Allah kheir my dear, may Allah swt guide you, and bring what's kheir for you closer, and grant you what your heart is wishing for. May Allah swt have mercy on your heart and not allow it to be broken over this matter. Ameen. 🤍

- A. Z. 🍃

#I'd like to thank my two beautiful sisters for their input on this ask #marriage things #marriage proposal #marriage proposal in islam #mixed marriage in islam #interractial marriage in islam #asks

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beetleboo · 3 years

Text

long post. one i’ve been trying to make for a while now. hell, i wrote this like... third week of may. didn’t post it until now because i didn’t know if I wanted to.

but something i want to lay out, been wanting to lay out for months. dont want to talk to anyone about it, just want to put the info out there for it to be seen.

if you re/blog this i will block you. i may put this on the relevant sideblog at some point.

because 2020 was the worst year on record for me for a number of reasons, and it’s torn me down to the lowest point i’ve been in a long time, and this is just. everything that’s gone down. not a callout post, no one gets named, but these are all the events

partially in relation to my fandom sideblog, because that’s where i had community, and where it’s all just. gone. doesnt exist anymore.

i started up a server, ages ago now. somewhere i curated to be a positive and safe space for things, and for a while, it was that.

around the end of 2019, spilling over to the start of 2020 when it picked up, i found, both on my blog and in discord spaces, in particular the server i ran, that people no longer talked to me. no one would hold a conversation with me past a few basic responses, no one replied to anything i shared, no one engaged when i tried to start discussions. so i pulled back from the main server - S1. thought it was just a lull in activity. stayed that way for weeks, months, and I just muted the server. no one ever cared about anything i had to say. was lucky if anything i posted got even a token emoji react

was in another, smaller server - S2. people i talked to damn near every day, even in voice. played games together - that became... no fun simply because everyone else was so much better/further ahead in the game. i was completely useless, so didn’t server a function in game and never really felt like anyone actively wanted me around, but i still participated in chat.

but again, no one ever responded to anything I posted beyond maybe a token react

couple people discussing something one day. I contributed with Theory A, and quite immediately got that shut down. few minutes later, they rephrased exactly what I said and happily nattered away. so whatever I said wasn’t worth it when it came out of my mouth but if they talked about it, it was all well and valid. so again, between that specific experience and no one interacting with me, nor anything I post. server muted. treatment taught me no one cared about my presence there.

gave admin rights to S1, my server, to someone I trusted. two requests only: dont delete channels and let me know if you want to invite anyone (since I kept it private)

RYE (i’m just assigning random three letter names to people to keep this straight) posted public invites several times. never asked me. one of the two things i asked. brought it up with them that it bothered me, just got vague noncomittal responses. more public invites. eventually, after having the server muted for months, i handed over full control and left. that was almost a full year ago. none of the people have talked to me in that entire year, through discord or here or anything.

except RYE who sent me a message after a couple months like ‘wow i havent heard from you in a while hope you’re doing ok’. i wasn’t. after a bit but still the same day, i said as much. that i wasn’t doing well. they never responded. and i don’t mean like, they didn’t respond that day. i mean i literally never heard from them until months later when they sent me a meme and also didn’t respond to me commenting on that meme.

and this is one side of things. all of the above was the first half of the year. this next bit happened about. march2020? I was in another server - S3. another place that was a good space at the time. was in voice chat with two other people. started talking about one thing. MIN very suddenly said something along the lines of ‘i don’t care about this i’ll come back when you’re done’

this is one of the very few things that can trigger me - i’ve had a lot of people talk down to me if I dare look excited about anything. when they came back, i asked if they could try to just. depart conversations more softly. MIN always said ‘if i do anything hurtful to you just tell me! i dont want to do that kind of thing!’

this was clearly a lie as they exploded on me, telling me they always have to walk on eggshells around me, that I ask so many things from them. before what I asked them that day, I can only recall one other thing i asked (which was not to talk about a person who was abusive towards me, and they were like ‘yea sure np’ about that, over a year prior’)

the whole thing turned into basically me having to shut down the fact that i was hurt by what they did, had to ignore that now and i had to fawn and placate them and the only thing i got out of that was that my feelings were irrelevant, only theirs.

(incidentally, I have had two other people turn on me in similar ways, accusing me of doing shifty/bad/terrible things, and not being willing to tell me what they are when I ask, only saying that ‘i should know what i did’ so that’s also now a Fun New Bit Of Trauma.)

and that entire weeklong event lead me straight to a breakdown. literal genuine breakdown i cannot convey how devastating that entire scenario was without going into far too many details.

so between all of these things happening in less than six months, with three different community spaces folding and collapsing and fading away from me, with many of the friends i thought i had just. moving on to other things and dropping me. people i talked to every day just not bothering with me anymore. they all have gone on to other stuff and no one ever went ‘hey beets wanna see what i’m up to’ or ‘wanna do this thing with me’

a handful of instances of me saying ‘yeah i’m dealing with these fears that have been reinforced lately that people aren’t safe to deal with, even thought part of me knows they’re probably irrational it feels like i have evidence to back it up’ and people immediately take it personally like i’m saying they’re not safe. despite. me outright saying. i know logically it should be irrational. but their reactions just reinforce it so it’s just a loop and tells me, again, never to bring up any of my problems with anyone.

so this all just reinforces that there’s something wrong with me. couple years back i spoke to a friend and how i was frustrated that I seemed to end up in bad spaces and they said ‘well you’re the one thing in common so its probably your fault’ and obviously they’re not my friend anymore but that has affected me so deeply. i can’t do anything without overthinking, whenever anything goes wrong i tear apart everything i’ve done and everything i’ve said or thought and i don’t know why things keep going bad. i try so hard but i’m just. not right.

so it all teaches me that there’s no point in reaching out in trying to talk to people because if i say ‘hey this hurt me’ i get ignored at best or torn down, yelled at, scolded. no point in trying to talk to new people because everyone just walks away at some point. not even a natural drift apart, i can handle that. but just very suddenly, they’re gone, off with better people doing better things.

roundabout, ties back to ‘consumption versus community’ - this is why i’ve been struggling so hard with lack of engagement on my sideblog. lucky to get a dozen notes on anything i make, unless it’s something other people can use (like mods) and even THEN it’s rare to see much activity. and that was FINE because i had people to talk to elsewhere, who would ask questions and we could back and forth and i shared my stuff and they shared those and it didnt matter if my posts only got a dozen notes because i had friends to talk to.

now i get (example) seven notes, six of which are likes and one is a reblog with no commentary. when i have something with a ton of notes, still, minimal commentary, no one talks to me. even on a mod with five hundred notes it just feels like i went ‘hey i made something :)’ and everyone picked it up and walked away with it, no one went ‘hey this is cool i want to talk to the person who made it.’

and it just feels like 95% of the time, i’m just overlooked.

and it’s worse than it’s ever been in my entire life, and I wonder, what’s the point of any of this anymore.

why bother to make the posts to share when it all just gets passed by. what’s the point in trying to reach out to new people and make friends when i get lashed out at or left behind? the social is gone out of my social media. i had community, and now it’s gone.

so this has all been going on for months and months and months and hey! suffering. and i dont expect it to get any better, don’t expect this post to fix these issues, but i’ve been trying to say something about all of this for fucking months and i think just, laying it all out is all I can do about it. i’m sure i’ve forgotten some things to touch on but as it is, all these events, all of it happening all together. new traumas, old traumas reawoken, reinforced, i’ve been torn to pieces i don’t know how to function, i can’t remember the last time i felt like even half a real person. taught that the safe, positive spaces that meant so much to me don’t actually exist and they’ll all turn on me and be torn away. nowhere is safe anymore, and trying to make it safe is just going to ruin me again.

people aren’t safe, places aren’t safe, been proven to me time and time again so i just. stay away.

no matter how much i try to fight that, it just doesnt work.

anyway tl;dr beets needs therapy probably

#beetleposts #miserytag

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honey-makki · 4 years

Text

Irreconcilable

Characters: Asahi Azumane X GN!Reader

Summary: Asahi’s mental health can be debilitating sometimes. Taking a toll on himself and relationships with others, but how far will they go to help him?

Warnings: depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts

Song: this is me trying- taylor swift

Genre: angst/comfort

Count: 2k

A/N: please head the warnings. this discusses and is an explicit portrayl of anxiety and depression with references to suicidal thoughts. it isn’t “fun” but nevertheless i think its good. at least it felt good to write,

Asahi hasn’t left his bed yet today, rather listening to the rain and staring up at the ceiling, wondering how long it’ll be before he can fall asleep again. This isn’t an uncommon situation for him, his figure shrouded in darkness and enveloped by the blankets on his bed. The occasional buzz of his phone goes unnoticed.

The darkness of the room shifts throughout the day, casting heavier shadows on his bed in the afternoon, shadows that he can feel the weight of on his chest. They mirror the heavy feeling in his heart and the discontent in his head. Would sorry have made any difference? It’s just a word, a word I would have struggled to even say.

The passage of time seems like its just a theoretical concept until the gnawing pain of hunger starts to peek through. He’s not hungry per se, but his body is telling him that three days without eating is way too long. The tinge of pain is a welcome feeling, no matter how fleeting.

It would still be a few hours before Asahi made his way to the kitchen, long after his flatmates are asleep, hoping to avoid an uncomfortable conversation. There isn’t a reason he can articulate for the way he looks, hair messy and unwashed, deep circles under his eyes despite sleeping most of the time, and his thinning frame drawing in his seemingly oversized old volleyball jacket.

He doesn’t even think he would try to come up with an excuse should they see him, the effort seeming monumental for little to no reward. He’s gotten to the point where he isn’t hiding it, any actions to make it easier to deal with, like using the kitchen sparingly and only at odd hours, are just due to convenience not fear of response.

Holding a bowl of cheese puffs and a long-forgotten packet of Takenoko No Sato Asahi makes his way back to his room, each footstep silent. Sitting in his desk chair he pops something in his mouth, not really sure if it was sweet or savory because to him they all taste the same, something akin to cardboard, or wood chips uncomfortably dry in his mouth.

The milk carton he grabbed out of the fridge doesn’t taste much better. It feels thick, so much so that he isn’t sure he will be able to swallow (or stomach) it. He might as well be drinking a bottle of unscented lotion, and even then that might be better.

He isn’t sure how long has passed since he keeps zoning out, but the bowl of leftover puffs look about as appetizing as styrofoam peanuts, and he knows that if he doesn’t get them out fo his room, he might be sick. Being sick is a lot more effort than sneaking to the kitchen, that is as long as it’s late.

He finally checks his phone after what has been, hours? A day? Maybe three days? It’s not the brightness of the screen that hurts, or the way all the notifications make his heart race, its the background picture that makes it nye impossible to use. Its you.

Seeing your smiling face next to his, he recognizes every single square millimeter of your face, long ago committed to memory. He could paint it blindfolded if he needed to, but the person next to you? He doesn’t see himself looking back. The clear skin, the glow, the beaming smile, the light in his eyes. Maybe its liveliness, maybe its adoration, maybe its gratitude, but regardless, he doesn’t retain nor deserves any of those emotions.

It’s his fault he’s here alone in his room staring at a bug climbing the wall. step. step. step. Each leg of the ant moving in unison, carrying it to some future that it can imagine. How depressing is it that an ant has a brighter future than I do? Every second he spends looking at the ant is one less second he is being drawn deeper into the tumultuous whirlpool of dread in his head.

The buzz of his phone clacks against the ceramic bowl, discordant in the otherwise silent room. The noise acts as a life preserver he feels oddly obligated to take out of the water, looking down to see your name across the screen. For the second time today, he feels something, earlier it was clearly defined and compartmentalized hunger, now? It’s a ceaseless swirl of resigned hopelessness, despair, anxiety, irritation, and a deep sense of being unworthy of all of these feelings.

Its easier when he isn’t reminded of you.

He doesn’t plan on responding to your simple ‘hey.’but the follow up of ‘dai said you aren’t well, let’s talk’ still everything but his mind. He can’t breathe in, he can’t move his thumbs to lock his phone or reply to you, all he can do is think about is how this could only go horribly wrong, but that you cared, at least cared enough about him to check-in. Even after everything he did.

Asahi: We can talk on the phone later I guess, y/n

Y/N: i’ll be over tonight at 7, i still have a key.

7pm. That’s 6 hours away according to his phone. The concept of time mattering feels foreign, should he nap? Take a shower? How long are normal showers? Should he clean his room? Does his room even need to be cleaned? Wash his sheets? Before long he finds himself on the floor, head in his hands with tears streaming down his face. He doesn’t recall getting there or starting to cry, it feels like the tears have always been there, each tear track carving out a trail in his skin, creating invisible canyons. They’re always there, maybe invisible or dry, but the tear tracks are still there.

The faint thud of his pulse ringing in his head is one of the only things his dulled sense can take in. he can’t place if he’s developed a migraine and the thud is twangs of pain or if he’s just, not here. Living what can only be described as the inverse of an out of body experience, everything else around him fading out into black, leaving him alone in an infinite black universe.

The weight of something on his head brings him back to earth. His head leans up and out of his peripheral sees your knees as you sit on his bed. A small whine leaves his throat as you begin to scratch and massage his scalp. Asahi can’t remember the last time he was touched by another person, and he doesn’t know how he lived so long without it. Your fingers are massaging fatigue out of his bones, undoing tension he’s caring in his shoulders.

It’s illogical that the light touches from each of your fingertips on his scalp can undo so much damage to his body, but that’s a skill you honed over time, and you can visibly see him become grounded.

“Asahi you know I can’t keep doing this. I would do this every day for the rest of my life if asked because I know it helps, but I hate seeing you like this. I’m scared that one day I’m going--” your chocked sobs are finally audible enough for him to perceive, “that you are gonna be too far gone. I wouldn’t be able to take that Asahi. Life without you is hard enough, I don’t want to imagine a world without you.”

He knew his mental health issues affected you, its the whole reason he left you in the first place, feeling guilty for you having to take care of him and him not making any progress. But he didn’t realize how scared you were. That he might just wither away, or suddenly not be here anymore. It would be a lie to say he hadn’t thought about it more than once, but never taking any tangible steps forward.

He still hasn’t said anything, but after a few minutes of you both crying, he just nods his head. You aren’t exactly sure what that means, but his voice croaks out, “help. I’ll get help.” The admission wasn’t something you expected but the hoarseness of his voice from crying or nonuse makes it all the more real. That maybe you were right to worry, and you were right to set this ultimatum.

A few hours later, you leave Asahi’s apartment, he fell asleep after you helped him bathe and changed his sheets. You left phone numbers of multiple psychologists and therapists, and an offer that you would make an appointment if he couldn’t find the willpower to do so. You have a cup of tea with Daichi before you leave, telling him about Asahi wanting to get help. You ask him to try to make sure that Asahi is doing at least the bare minimum or eating real food once a day and showering. Small steps eventually add up to a healthier person.

Months pass, where you and Asahi exchange a few text messages, detailing about he found a therapist, and his journey to find a medication that made him feel better and not worse. The conversations are long, but they always leave you hopeful about his progress.

You expected the knock on the door to be your take out but instead are looking at the chest of a much taller man. You look up to see Asahi’s face, a nervous smile looking down at you. His skin looks healthier, not as pallid or marred with deep sleeplessness, his hair is up in a bun, but you can see how much healthier it looks. The most notable change is that you can see light in his eyes. There’s something in there, hope maybe or just contentment with his growth. But there’s something, something that he made on his own and can hold onto.

Sure there are still signs that he isn’t fully back to the Asahi you met a long time ago, his hair is still thin, his frame is still not as filled out as it once was, but is definitely in a healthier range, his smile isn’t 100% confident and doesn’t seem to fully reach his eyes, but he looks good. And if he’s here, he must be feeling good.

“Hey y/n, I’ve been doing a lot better recently and my therapist said I should come and speak my mind. First, let me give you the most genuine and heartfelt thank you I can muster. If you hadn’t said what you did that one evening, I would never have gotten help and I honestly might not be here.”

His words are confident and sincere. They sound a little rehearsed, which is endearing. Asahi was never the most eloquent or poised person when it comes to feelings, but his declarations of love were always true in the deepest sense of the word. You couldn’t contain the smile on your face even if you wanted to, not when he’s done so much, not when he’s trying so hard.

“I might perceive the world as darker and more hellish than it actually is sometimes, but I’m gonna try again and again to soothe my heart and pick the flowers growing in the midst of hell. You are one of those flowers, a light in the darkness that motivates and assures me that all is well. If you would like, I want to grab coffee with you, like old times.”

Your bodies are bathed in golden sunlight from the window behind you, giving your nod a lucent halo. The halo fades as you step out and close the door behind you, but the glow doesn’t, it’s part of him, part of you.

Tags

@ceo-of-daichi @haikyuuhotline @sugawara-sweetheart @nonexistent-social-life @laughingismorefun @iguessimastannow

#asahi #azumane asahi #asahi azumane #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu fanfiction #hq!!#hq!! fanfiction #asahi x y/n #asahi x reader #asahi azumane x y/n #asahi azumane x reader #kristen writes #folklore series #folklore #tw depression #tw anxiety #tw suicide

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simonemalec · 4 years

Photo

Hi guys! Simone's here. I wanted to stop by and talk a bit about my experience at Vidcon London where I had a chance to join Shane, Ryan, and Steven to cover the event on their social media.

First of all, I would like to make it clear that these guys are literally the nicest people on the planet. I got offered this job a week before the actual event and before that, I had only like a 5-minutes long conversation with Shane in real life. Ryan and Steven have never met me before and so getting their trust purely based on my work for the Unsolved fandom genuinely meant a lot to me.

After spending these two days with them, all I can say is that the people you see on camera are the people they actually are in real life (or maybe even nicer). But the main point of this post was to let you know how much they appreciate their fans. I was asked about the Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram fandom and how they helped with getting Unsolved more popular and how it can also help Watcher grow into something bigger.

From time to time, I mentioned some names from the fandom and let me tell you something - they know you. I can be like "Oh she used to be @xxx on Twitter" and Ryan would go "Oh I remember her!" Or they would recognize people at the m&g who participated in the "What Does Unsolved Mean to Me" video for Ryan. Or just come up to a guy and ask him "Are you "Pickle" from the Watcher discord?"

I know every single creator appreciates their fans but it was very heartwarming to see them personally care so much about them. I've never seen anyone with this big following recognize so many of their fans.

They also appreciate all the tiny moments that somehow happen and are discussed in the fandom. From Shane remembering people posting pics while they were shooting Tourist Trapped (and being glad we all thought it's just a Berry Boys video) to Ryan mentioning that one tweet where he had to publicly apologize because people thought he was too mean to Shane. They honestly do care a lot and I think you should know that.

And as much as Unsolved/Worth It means to them, Watcher is a new project that is extremely valuable for them, too. As Shane said, the channel is somehow in its "beta" version until June, when they finish premiering all the pilot seasons, but if you can - feel free to talk about it and share it on social media. Make memes, post gifsets or just tweet about your favourite bits from their shows.

Back in 2017, Unsolved was a relatively small fandom and I remember someone commented under my video "That's it, we're a proper fandom now" after I posted my Ghostbusters edit on Youtube and it got me thinking - yeah I hope this show gets more recognition. And it did! Look at Unsolved now - constantly trending on Tumblr or Youtube whenever the new episode drops. So even though it will take some time until we get that #Watcher tag trending on Tumblr, every single post matters.

And I think out of all the people, the entire Watcher team really deserves it. They'll be shooting second seasons of their shows, or come up with new shows eventually. But the driving force behind all of that is to produce content people will enjoy. And to be able to create that, the shows have to reach more people and so on. It's the same thing all over again - they create, we promote it with memes and stuff.

So that's what I wanted to say! Every single person who in any way has some sort of input in the fandom is appreciated. And you should know it.

#watcher #shane madej #ryan bergara #steven lim #worth it #buzzfeed unsolved #watcher entertainment

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dnfisgay · 3 years

Text

Mr. Loverman - Chapter 1

a/n: hey! welcome to my first fic on here! i kinda feel like i’m back in freshman year writing youtube rpf but hey! we’re all regressing anyway aren’t we? this is a dreamnotfound fic based on the online personas of georgenotfound and dream. this is in no way meant to pressure them or their relationship, and if either of them say they’re uncomfortable with fanfiction i’ll take this down! but anyway at the beginning of every chapter there will be a content warning section and a summary if needed, or if any plot altering events happen during the possibly triggering sections. i hope y’all enjoy Mr. Loverman, a fic based on the song by Ricky Montgomery.

THIS IS MY OWN WORK. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST ON ANY OTHER BLOGS/SITES WITHOUT PERMISSION. DO NOT REPOST AS YOUR OWN.

Prologue

Sometimes, a simple decision is what changes your life the most. Sometimes, a tragedy is a blessing in disguise. Not always, but enough of the time for a few lucky people to benefit. We were some of those people. A simple decision changed... everything. Everyone. Changed me, changed him. Sometimes, we regret those decisions. Other times, they’re the best thing that’s ever happened. We made history together. We made our own history. We changed ourselves for the better. Part of it was born of tragedy, of pain and suffering, of wrong-place-wrong-time. But after, we were born anew. A butterfly emerging from fog.

The rainbow after a storm. A soft mist at the edge of a violent fall. Our own little refuge within the storm. We made history together, you and me.

“I've shattered now, I'm spilling out Upon this linoleum ground I'm reeling in my brain again Before it can get back to you Oh, what am I supposed to do without you?”

Content Warnings: none

Word count: 1,520

Chapter One - A New Chapter Of Us

“What if we moved in together?”

George laughed.

‘What? You’re joking.”

“No! I’m totally serious!” Dream said, laying on his bed. “Think about it. You could get a work visa, come live with me, and we can make videos together! Like vlogs and stuff! You can get away from your family, and I… well I get you! It’s obviously a win-win situation.”

“Vlogs? You don’t even show your face.”

“Oh… yeah. Well, whatever! I’ll do a face reveal. Please, George!”

George’s hesitance showed, making Dream bounce on his knees on the bed, literally begging him.

“Please George! Please!” he laughed, waiting for him to agree. George stayed silent, trying to hide his smile.

“I guess you don’t love me then… oh bother,” Dream fake pouted at him, pretending to cry, rubbing his eyes to make them red. He couldn’t hide the smile in his voice.

“Okay, alright, you wore me down,” George said. “Looks like I’m going to Florida!”

---

It’d been three months since Dream asked George to move in with him, and every day he’d sent him pictures of their place. Their place. He doesn’t know why that made him so happy to hear, especially coming from Dream. When he showed George the lounge and texted him “our living room :D,” he felt like his whole entire body was lit ablaze. Like a firework on the Fourth of July -- how American of you already, George, he could hear Dream’s voice saying. It felt like when his first girlfriend told him I love you for the first time. Except... not that. Obviously not that.

And the day was finally here, after waiting for the visa to get approved, and video chats, and seeing only pictures, it was finally going to be their place. Dream and George’s place. There would be no more lagging video or Discord crashing on them. If the internet went out, he’d still be in the next room over. He’d still be his.

Well, not his. But he’d be there. George felt the need to explain himself even in his own head.

The sound of Dream’s Discord ringer cut through his thoughts, too loud for his own good. He stretched over to his desk and answered, turning his camera on too.

“Georgie!” Dream said, bouncing with excitement. “Guess what tomorrow is, Georgie.” He leaned forward on his desk, wiggling his eyebrows at George.

George feigned confusion. “I don’t know, Dream. What’s tomorrow?”

Dream pouted. “Are you being serious right now? Do you really not remember?”

“Dream! I’m literally packing right now!”

“I’m litch-rally packing right now!” Dream mocked, impersonating George’s British accent. George stared him down while Dream was folded over laughing.

“It’s not too late for me to change my mind, you know.”

“Actually, it is. Work visas have to be used or you’ll get a fine,” Dream said, chewing loudly on what looked like — popcorn? God, Americans were weird.

“Is that actually true or did you just make that up so I have no choice but to come?”

Dream looked like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “...Maybe.” George laughed silently, smiling to himself. He would never say it out loud, but he loved Dream. He didn’t know what made him keep it to himself when Dream all but shouted it from the rooftops, but something inside of him felt it was too real to be said. Dream knew it was true, and that was good enough, right?

“Did you want to watch me pack?” George said, folding another one of his shirts and placing it in the box. Dream wasn’t paying attention. He was messing with something on his desk, his tongue sticking out and his eyebrows furrowed so tightly you could barely see his eyes. George loved his eyes, they were a warm pale green color that fit him perfectly. George snapped his fingers at Dream and asked if he was listening.

“Huh? Oh. No. I’m sorry,” Dream looked sheepish, worried. “I didn’t— I didn’t mean to, I just zone out sometimes, I’m really sorr—“

“Dream, Dream, calm down. It’s okay,” George smiled. “I’m not mad. Did you want me to ask the question again?”

“Please.”

“I asked if you wanted to watch me pack,” he asked, knowing which answer he hoped for.

“Ooh, can I stay on?” Dream looked giddy as he asked. “I wanna tell you about my new bedwars record.”

“Sounds perfect, Dream.”

---

It took him two more hours to finish packing up his clothes, bathroom necessities, and shoes, spare for the ones he needed on the plane. Dream had talked on and on for the whole two hours, about bedwars and what he was going to make for dinner, and how his mom sent him over homemade banana bread the other day. And even Patches made an appearance after a while.

“Oh my God, Patches! I get to meet Patches! You know Dream, I’m kind of more excited to meet her than I am you.”

“Haha, very funny,” Dream cooed. “Not like Patches will make you dinner or comfort you when you have nightmares.

“Nightmares? I do not have nightmares!” George defended, despite the fact he did definitely have nightmares. And he knew Dream knew that, he’d been the one called at 4 in the morning and the one who talked George back to sleep. It was all part of the game, though, the cat and mouse they had going on. He wondered who was the cat and who was the mouse

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Georgie. Oh, wait,” Dream smirked, laughing his ass off. George gasped and tossed his dirty shirt at his webcam, not minding the fact that it was still on his body and that he was now shirtless in his cold room.

“Hey! I wanna see the view! You look sexy with your hair messed up like that.”

“Haha, very funny,” George fake laughed, though Dream didn’t. He usually laughed after jokes like that. What made this one different? “If I wasn’t so bloody cold right now I’d leave it on there. Make you suffer all alone under there.” He heard Dream whimper, and he didn’t know what it was, but it made his stomach churn. “But, I am very, very freezing right now.”

He pulled the shirt off the webcam, covering his chest with the fabric. “There. You have been freed,” he said, slipping his shirt back on. He swore he saw Dream’s eyes linger on the strip of skin still exposed on his stomach before he pulled it down.

“I’m gonna go make some dinner,” George said, checking the time on his phone. “What, it’s already 9? Jesus. I’ll be right back, I’m gonna go make some cereal real quick, stay on the call.”

George put Dream’s volume loud enough that he could hear it decently from across the flat. Meaning, Dream could also hear him burning himself.

“Did you just burn yourself? Aren’t you making cereal?”

“Um…maybe?” he said, shouting over the cold running water. “I may have accidentally left the oven on from when I made salmon last night.”

“Last night?” Dream screamed in horror. “Genuinely, how are you not dead yet?”

“I don’t know!” he said, wincing and drying off his hand before grabbing his bowl of cereal. Well, it wasn’t a bowl, but a large Tupperware container.

“Is that Tupperware?” Dream asked as he sat down at his desk.

“It was the easiest thing to unpack.”

George ate his cereal in silence for a few minutes, drinking down the last bit of the sugary milk before asking “What were you staring at earlier? When you got distracted.”

It took Dream a few seconds, but he finally remembered. “Oh! This!” He pulled out a tiny crossbow made of pencils and shot a rubber band at his camera.

“That’s actually so sick,” George said, staring more intently at his screen to get a closer look. Dream went off on a tangent about it, showing him the mechanics and everything it could shoot. He swore he’d have another one for George by the time he got home. Home. He liked that word coming out of Dream’s mouth. He liked hearing it about himself.

Eventually, it got too late for George to be up anymore. His flight left in 7 hours and he still needed to pack his PC. Dream pouted when he told him he had to go, but perked back up when he remembered the next time he’d see George, he’d be able to hug him! He was all but forcing his body to get tired after that.

“Wake me up if you need me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I love you, Georgie,” Dream smiled. This time, he didn't sound teasing. He sounded genuine, more genuine than he’d heard in a long time.

“I… admire you too, Dream.” George’s face went flush and hot, his cheeks blotchy with pink and peach.

“Psh! When are you ever gonna say it back?”

“Never, I thought we’d been over this.”

“Mark my words, Georgie. I will get you to say it back sooner or later.”

Yeah, right.

---

a/n: so! that was the first chapter of Mr. Loverman! i’d love any feedback and opinions y’all have! the next chapter should be up in a few days, and i even have art from one of my lovely twitter mutuals coming! i hope everyone enjoyed! :D feel free to reblog<3

Chapter 2 - Linoleum Ground (date TBD)

#mrloverman #dreamnotfound #dream smp #dream #georgenotfound #sapnap #youtube rpf #dream team #minecraft youtube #mcyt #chaptered fic #chaptered #all fics

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kystarlight17 · 4 years

Text

Isashiki Jun’s Makeover

Mostly based on Discord shenanigans where we talked about Miyuki’s hat and the author wanting Miyuki to be good looking because the power of Chrisawa was too strong. I also took some lines from a film called Not another teenage movie. Hope you guys enjoy!

Jun was deep into the heartwarming story of Kiyoko learning to find her inner princess that Tsuraga Ren has always seen in her when a knock echoed throughout the room thus destroying his concentration.

He glanced at the clock and noted that it was too early for Tetsu to visit him. A part of him wanted to ignore the knocking in favour of the story he was currently engrossed in but it was persistent. Grudgingly he got up and made his way over.

“Alright, alright quit knockin would ya! I’m coming!” he shouted as he made the short distance over. Opening the door he was slightly surprised to see the number one catcher standing there, his trademark smirk in place.

“Evening, Jun-senpai” he greeted,

Jun squinted suspiciously at him, “What’s up Miyuki?” he asked with cautious curiosity.

Miyuki grinned “Is it okay if we talk inside senpai?” he asked,

Jun then felt genuinely curious as Miyuki hardly asks for help from the third years, nevermind his own batch mates. Being the good senpai he was, he stood aside and opened the door wider to allow the second year in.

Jun observed his actions as Miyuki took off his shoes at the entrance and started observing the room. Jun’s prized shougo manga collection taking a proud prominence in the room of course. Jun then pointed to a bed whose owner he was sure was still out practicing and wouldn’t be back in a few hours. Miyuki occupied the indicated spot and Jun made himself comfy in his own bed. He carefully set aside the manga and pinned his stare on the second year who was still eyeing his collection.

“So Miyuki what is it?” he asked,

Miyuki then became uncharastically shy as he scratched the back of his baseball cap before sighing in defeat, “How do you appeal to someone?” he asked.

Jun raised a quizzical eyebrow at this but answered teasingly “Appealing to someone? First you gotta improve on your personality you brat”,

Miyuki huffed because he is aware he may be rough around the edges but you can’t expect someone to change their personality overnight.

“I’m serious senpai”,

Jun raised his hands up placatingly as he,too, was aware that Miyuki’s personality was not everyone’s cup of tea but for certain people it helps to keep them on their toes.

“Well everyone knows being good looking is a good way to appeal to someone” Jun stated but he soon exclaimed “Oi I AM giving a serious answer here” when he saw the ‘I know that already’ look on Miyuki’s face.

“I can’t help you if you don’t give me some details to work with” muttered Jun crossing his arms “Like are you tryin to appeal to a girl? A boy? Some other adult that’s not the coaching staff? Who? Cause context matters you know”

Miyuki was silent again as he stared off to the side and Jun allowed the second year to stew it over. It’s not everyday Jun would get the privilege of seeing an unsure Miyuki.

Eventually Jun could hear Miyuki’s quiet answer “It’s Sawamura”.

That was all Jun needed to hear before a diabolical grin took over his face and he quickly wiped it off when Miyuki faced him again.

Jun pretended to think it over, massaging his chin as he found himself in this precious moment. He wasn’t Ryousuke by any means but this was too damn funny of a situation. It was unofficially recognised by the whole school that Chris and Miyuki were the most good looking boys. Chris with his tall stature and eyes with a personality that reminded some girls of a prince charming. Miyuki on the other hand was like a textbook male lead in a shoujo manga with wicked gleaming eyes and charismatic aura that was popular amongst the younger girls and those who don’t know him that well.

Jun was there when Sawamura first entered the scene, the boy from Nagano was brazen in challenging Azuma-senpai. Looking back at that memory Jun remembered a passing thought he had when he saw Miyuki and Sawamura interact at the mound ‘He seems awfully touchy’. He did not give it another thought as afterwards he and Tetsu were muttering about how a middle schooler managed to strike out their senpai.

‘Perhaps there was more to it than that’ thought Jun,

“Well if it’s Sawamura I’m sure you’re fine in that area Miyuki” Jun answered “I’m pretty sure Sawamura still keeps pestering you whenever you’re around”,

Miyuki slightly rolled his eyes at that and answered “Well ever since he was paired up with Chris-senpai Sawamura hasn’t been doing that much”

“Oh? In what way?” asked Jun even though he was well aware that before Sawamura would have been only talking about Miyuki but now Sawamura has been singing high praises for the third year recently and no one else.

“Well what does Chris-senpai have that I don’t?” quipped back Miyuki “Apart from the obvious” he quickly added.

Jun had an idea that Miyuki meant Chris’s skill as the better catcher and not in terms of personality or looks. Sawamura seemed better equipped dealing with Miyuki since the two of them reminded Jun of half the shougo manga couples he has read before.

Then Jun had a brilliant idea.

“Miyuki stand up”, he ordered.

Curious Miyuki stood up and Jun had him stand in the center of the room. Jun slowly walked around him thinking what needed to be improved on. The answer was obvious to him. Jun hated seeing Miyuki style his baseball cap like that. Sure it looked nice on the second year boy but it hid away one of Miyuki’s best features. He pointed and prodded at the second year until Miyuki stood alert like he was greeting the coach. Jun stood before him and crossed his arms once more. He looked straight into Miyuki’s eyes in order to convey his seriousness.

“Okay I know what you need to do” he stated,

“What?” asked Miyuki

Jun grinned mischievously, “It might seem crazy but you just have to trust me”.

Miyuki silently nodded as Jun slowly made his way over. Jun could see Miyuki tracking his every move, curious as to what stunt Jun was going to pull over him. Internally laughing he quickly swiped the hat off the catcher who squawked in protest and ruffled it.

“That’s it” exclaimed Jun looking at his masterpiece. A hatless Miyuki.

“I’m a miracle worker” he continued directing Miyuki towards the floor length mirror propped in the corner.

------

“You look excited,” stated Tetsu as he shovelled some rice into his mouth. It was one of the rare days where Tetsu decided to have breakfast at Seido rather than eating at home. However, a very excited Jun from last night was adamant that the captain should sleep over so that Tetsu can see something interesting happening during breakfast.

“I’m curious about what you wanted me to see,” he continued.

Jun nodded absentmindedly as his attention was all over the place. A part of his mind on whatever Tetsu was saying, the other on the clock, some at the cafeteria door and the rest on a very awake southpaw pitcher. Jun was too excited to fall asleep after Miyuki left the room with new knowledge and after a long study session with Tetsu. He was a sucker for makeover scenes and shoujo-esque plot lines. This situation was both and Jun would have kicked himself if he had missed the opportunity to influence something. Even though Miyuki didn’t need a lot of work, it was still a makeover scene. Who knew a hat could change a person that much!

Soon he heard Kuramochi’s signature laugh which meant Miyuki was not that far behind. Jun nudged Tetsu, gaining his attention.

“Captain, may I present to you the new and improved Miyuki Kazuya”, he declared within the captain’s earshot only, jutting his chin towards the cafeteria doors which opened as if on cue.

Then because it was Miyuki Kazuya off all people, he walked in as if he was in slow mode like some teen movie from the states.

Tetsu was quick to notice what Jun meant ,“So his hat is gone?”, he quizzically observed

“Yup”, Jun proudly declared now fully engrossed watching Miyuki making his way over to Eijun who was not aware that the catcher has entered the cafeteria. The two third years watched as Miyuki sat directly across the southpaw who was distracted with his food. Miyuki must have said something to gain Eijun’s attention and Jun was particularly amused when Eijun did a double take when he landed his gaze on the grinning catcher.

“You gave Miyuki tips on how to style his hair?”, Tetsu asked and Jun hummed in reply. Last night, much to the catcher’s confusion, Jun directed Miyuki on how to style it. It wasn’t a demanding style as it would only take up 3 minutes of his day. Miyuki’s hair in its natural state was nice and all but it’s the little details that count, Chris couldn't achieve his current hairdo without a little bit of help anyhow. It was something he learnt from his sisters and shougo manga, it’s all about the details.

Miyuki seemed to be appreciating Jun’s wisdom based on the smile he was currently sporting as Sawamura looked dazed looking at the catcher.

“Should I tell the other third years sans Chris about the new stakes?” asked Tetsu once he took his gaze away from the two.

“You betcha” Jun happily replied digging into his breakfast, the betting pool getting bigger with higher stakes as more and more people decided to join in. He had a personal stake in it to be honest.

It all started when he made a casual observation to Ryousuke that Sawamura had a type and it wasn’t catchers. Ryousuke retaliated that it was baseball skills first then looks last. They made a bet to see which one Sawamura fell into and with Jun’s latest involvement he wondered how Ryousuke would even it up.

#daiya no a act ii #miyuki kazuya #sawamura eijun #isashiki jun #daiya no ace #ace of diamond #fanfic #short fanfic #makeover #rip miyuki's hat #but at the same time i want to see it again #misawa #miyusawa #all hail shoujo king jun #makeovers

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gunmetalarchived · 3 years

Text

continued from this text thingy for something to tell you | a discord thread with @diabolicaltendencies

ALEX

She hovered outside his door, already wondering if he had just been nice on the phone to let her down in person. Even worse, after years of going through the conversation with people she didn’t give a shit about, it was hard to redo it all when she cares this much about someone else’s opinion. It was easy to dismiss gossip and rumour. Not so much the way her face cracked in a smile whenever her phone lit up with his name.

Fuck it. She took a deep breath and hit his door bell, the smell of vinegar seeping up from the heavily soaked chips in her arms. At least she would have some fuel for bribery, and a couple of beers to help it flow quicker.

SAM

Sam knew the conversation they'd had over text was heavier than she was letting on. He'd done some poking around the internet since, but after one or two crazy headlines and hyperlinks to celebrity conspiracy blogs popping up on his screen, he quickly quit he quit. It just gave him more proof that talking to people was more useful than googling them. He still can't believe people actually do that.

He opens the door with a smile, genuine and bright as he looks at her, "Hey!" He glances down at the bag and looks a bit confused but no less happy to see her, "Did you bring food?"

ALEX

“And beer, don’t forget the beer.” She beamed up at him, immediately glad she had come even if this was going to be awkward. She took a step inside setting the bag down in his hall to immediately yank him down to her level. If he had been acting polite earlier, fine, but there was no way on earth he was going to escape her barrage of kisses. She missed him. A couple weeks up north and a long overdue day in the studio aggravated that. The nerves more so.

“Cmere stupid.”

SAM

"And beer." He concedes, closing the door behind her. He pulls her close the same time she reaches for him, kissing her thoroughly like there hadn't even been an earlier conversation. He missed her just as much. Cupping her jaw, Sam runs his thumb along her cheek when they pull apart. "If you keep that up, the food's going to get cold."

ALEX

She folded into him so easily, so naturally it was like she was made to for there. It was still a surprise how normal this could feel. Her experience of relationships had been all or nothing, hot and cold was a mild way to put it. Yet with Sam, things seemed to sit at a constant simmer. A gentle bubble, a constant reminder that happiness was just a kiss away d as t the most. Gentle hands and soft touches, it was all so cliche and yet simply perfect.

Alex shrugged, because in all honesty she was happy to forget about the food entirely. But she rolled her eyes like a begrudging teenager, even if the idiotic grin on her face gave her away. “Fine, but I’m coming back for more later, alright?”

SAM

He presses a kiss against her hair before pulling away to pick up the food, "I hope so~" He flashes her a just-short-of-cocky grin and ushers her inside. The flat is an organized mess. There are jackets, papers and books littered about but they've each found their own neat pile. He's been pulling long hours and has resorted to just enough tidying to keep things from overwhelming him. One day it'll all get put away but it's not today.

"Wow, what'd I do to deserve this?" He comments happily upon peeking at their meal for the evening. He places the bag on the coffee table and settles down on one end of the gently worn couch.

ALEX

Alex followed him into his space, heading straight for the sofa too. She liked his flat, it was funny how it could feel so lived in. Her own place was so sparse, she looked like she could leave at any moment without it seeming out of place. But his was worn, loved, filled with time and memories. “Consider it bribery? Also, you’re welcome for saving you from any attempt at me cooking.”

She kicked her shoes off, immediately tucking her feet up underneath her and reaching for her keys from her pocket to open the beer bottles. “What have you been reading about? What’s that one?” She pointed to a pile on the coffee table curiously.

SAM

He begins sorting out the food, placing a box on either end of the table within reach and divvying up all the extra things in the bag. He glances up at the pile of books. It's mostly a stack of textbooks but the top one is a novel, "Oh, that's Stephen King's new one." He reaches to grab it and pass it over to her before opening his box and popping a fry into his mouth.

ALEX

She took the book form him, flipping through the pages likes he could actually take any of it in. No doubt she'd be up for it whenever it became a movie, but she had neither the mindset or the patience for reading. She learnt over, setting it back down carefully where he had pulled it form even if it meant being thoroughly in his way. Alex grabbed one of the bottles, using her keys in a way they were definitely not intended and holding it out for him to take. "Here y' go"

SAM

He leans backs slightly to make room for her to lean over but not quite enough that they aren't completely in each other's space. But it's comfortable, easy. "Thanks," He takes the bottle and downs a quick swig before smiling at her. "So what's the bribe for?"

ALEX

She grabbed the other bottle, playing with her keys again to loosen the top and taking a large swig to gather her thoughts. Her own food was still semi wrapped, so she stretched out for a chip from his. Taking it, Alex smirked.

“Well, I’m guessing you’ve got a ton of questions. And you might not like the answers so.. just in case.”

SAM

Sam slides his food a bit closer between them without complaint, continuing to casually eat himself. He smiles softly at her smirk, there's a short silence after she speaks before he replies, "We don't have to do this now. Unless you want to. My questions can wait."

ALEX

"Feels like we should rip the plaster off now, right?" There was no easy way to explain that if she put it off, she might stop talking all together. It happened, from time to time. He had just the good fortune of not being around to see it. Long distance worked like that. Alex shifted further into the sofa, curling into the arm to face him. "I'm all ears."

SAM

Sam looks over her and sits back against the couch, holding the beer in his lap. "Okay... I'm... not sure where to start." He offers an apologetic smile. "Maybe if you just-- explain what you were worried about me hearing? Give me the context?"

ALEX

"That's... fair." And it made it all the harder. Usually the songs lead this conversation or the press. Or both, if it was truly awful. She had fielded the worst of it for a few years not. It just had less stakes than this normally. Even when Jim found out. "I- erm-" She swallowed, hard. She pursed her lips to let the silence hang, trying to figure out where to start.

"I was with someone for about five years, l-like I said. He was on my course, and lived with me. We made a lot of music together until he got scouted, and then the thing I liked about him made us... not great."

SAM

Sam nods, he's listening intently, following along but not demanding anything. "And... that's what went into the music he wrote?" He asks gently, trying to put the pieces she's given him so far together.

ALEX

Alex nodded too, averting her eyes to take a sip from her own bottle as her fingers moved to fiddle with the label. “I wasn’t a great person... well I’m still not.” How best to put it? Her early twenties had been toxic, partly because of her relationship but also her outlook. There wasn’t really a way to explain all of that. “He wrote about me, about how he felt things had shifted between us. He took songs I had worked on with him and changed the lyrics to suit his view. And because my family is involved in politics, I didn’t get the luxury of having a fucked up relationship the same way other people do.”

SAM

Sam frowns, "So the media get a hold of it." He concludes. That would make sense of all the dramatics he'd seen from a simple search.

ALEX

“The band charted, there was a lot of press around the music from the few demos the label had pushed and... I was a great target.” She shifted awkwardly, tearing off a larger chunk of the label and rolling to between her fingers. “Things kind of spiralled from there.”

SAM

"Can I ask his name.. or the band's? I don't want to listen." He clarifies quickly. "Not unless you want me to for some reason. I just-- I don't want to look like an idiot if they come up."

ALEX

"Yeah- yeah, no of course. Elliot McAlistair, the band is Vactican Camoes. It was some dumb in joke the boys had." She smiled, softly. It was reassuring, whether he meant it or not. "You can. I mean, they're on the radio constantly. Sort of... unavoidable."

They had become the soundtrack to her life, especially working in the bar. Eventually she'd managed to curate some decent playlists to avoid it, but every now and agains she would be caught off guard by his tinny voice echoing from a shop front or builders radio.

"I don't come off well from it. I'm not... the most stable person in his eyes. And my dad - my brother, they didn't take it well."

SAM

"Well, good news is I don't believe everything I hear on the radio." Sam looks at her fondly. She's sitting so defensively, so worried about what he's going to think or say, but all he want to do is wrap an arm around her shoulders and hold her close. He knows this is her side of the story, but honestly that's the only one that matters to him. "...How did they take it?"

ALEX

Everything about her was nervous, tightly wound and yet somehow restless. Maybe finally talking about this would release the pit in her stomach.

“It’s- erm...” she tried to swallow again, opening her lips a few times before she had the sounds to fill them. “It’s.. complicated. I’m not, well, I wasn’t close with my dad so- yeah. It was very... personal. I sort of- I-I stopped talking for a while. My brother, he was better. But it’s... it’s not something people forget.”

She puffed out her cheeks, letting loose a heavy breath. “He wrote about things that made them look b-bad.”

SAM

Sam puts down the beer and shifts to sit facing her. He slowly reaches for her hand, giving her time to pull away if she wants to. He won't force the contact, "Hey." He shakes his head, "That's not your fault."

ALEX

“No, n-no I know you’re right.” She took his hand, lacing her fingers through his with a small squeeze. It was hard because she wasn’t expecting this comfort, but she liked it. Maybe this is what healthy relationships looked like. Her smile fell from her face though, her eye-line dropping to her feet. “Except, well, it kinda is. S-some of it anyway. They’re politicians so my life just... it doesn’t work for them. Me being me- it’s a bit of a whirlwind.”

SAM

He takes her hand in both of his, fingers caressing her skin. "I can't pretend to know what you were like then. I guess I don't really know your family either, but, I like who you are now. A song or headline isn't going to change that... and politicians, celebrities or not, nothing justifies someone selling your private life to the public without your consent. You know that, right?"

ALEX

On some base level, she knew he was right. And she agreed with him completely. Yet her mind swung constantly, between outrage at her life being subject to the judgment of the British public and shame at what a mess it had become. "Yeah." She said it quietly the first time, barely audible before she repeated it a little stronger. Maybe it would sink in.

"I don't know. I wasn't a decent person, neither was he. And I can live with that. It's become very real, having to explain it to everyone."

SAM

He nods and smiles encouragingly, squeezing her hand lightly between his. Sure, he would need more details for the full picture - to actually listen to the songs or read the articles. But even if it's the worst thing he can imagine... he doesn't think it would matter. He likes the Alex he knows, flaws and all, "Well I'm not running away yet... so now what?"

ALEX

"You sure? There's still time?" She uses her free hand to check an imaginary watch, trying to use the bit to gather her shaky confidence. It made sense he was playing nice now, whilst she was here and in the room. It was what came later she was terrified for. "It's okay. If this is too much, that's alright. My life isn't private anymore, it's a lot to get used to"

SAM

"It's not too much." He keeps up his reassuring smile. "Is there anything else you want me to know?"

ALEX

“You say that now...” she took a swig from her beer with a shrug. “I don’t know, guess if there’s any questions?”

SAM

"Hm." He looks down at their hands leaning in to kiss her knuckles before glancing back up with bright blue eyes, "Do I get to hear more of your music now that I know?"

ALEX

It was impossible not to smile when he did shit like this. Small, meaningful gestures that completely derailed her toxic train of thought. She leant forwards, pulling her hands away setting her bottle down on the coffee table before she flopped onto him entirely. She let her head rest against his chest, curling her shoulders to fit in the space at the back of the sofa. Impossible for him to eat, but soothing all the same. “Maybe. If you wanted to? Truth is I haven’t really written, well not for me. For friends, sure but that’s different. I’ve had an idea or two... just not got very far ‘til you came along.”

SAM

Sam falls perfectly into place, right where she wants him. He curls an arm around her, fingers lightly ghosting back and forth before reaching up to brush her hair back from her face. "I'd love to hear it." And he genuinely means it. There's a small note of excitement in his words.

ALEX

Easy. He made things easy. Easier to talk, to be kind, to be honest. Easier to write too. Sure, she'd been playing around with ideas more form the moment they met. However they were still personal - a real outlet for the intense feelings she had been having and trying to play down. Alex knew she was besotted. Acting cool was tricky when she fel so hard, and so fast for the people who showed her the slightest affection. She didn't even think, she just let it out. She had intended to say 'I'd love you to.' but it came out... different.

"I think I love you."

SAM

Out of everything she’s said, all the supposed horrors and skeletons in her closet, it’s those three words that surprise him. He inhales, chest expanding under her cheek, and his expression flutters between surprise and happiness. His breath catches on the exhale, words tumbling out of his mouth before he can think twice, whispered into her hair, “I love you too.”

Maybe it wasn't the right time to say it. Maybe he should've waited for a moment that wasn't weighed down by what's she's been through. But he's happy. He loves her. It's the truth. His arm tightens around her in a loose hug.

#discord thread 012 | something to tell you #( sh: toothpaste kisses | alex + sam | happyverse )#diabolicaltendencies #( v: happyverse )

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gevejsbvdj · 3 years

Text

Fine. Pt 1

Okay. I did NOT want to do this. I don’t want it to look like I’m trying to start something. When I made the announcement post, I thought that would be it. But a lot of you got really angry and reeeeally bitter about it, suspiciously enough. I am actually hoping that after I post this, I get an explanation and an apology. I tried to explain to these people time and time again about how I was hurt by this situation but they refused to listen. So here I am, spelling it the fuck out. Also, this account is dead anyways and i am so tired of keeping this to myself. I can’t do it anymore.

That’s enough preamble for now, I’ll make more notes at the end. Let’s get onto the “situation” that was the final straw for me and inspired my complete leave.

For comprehension purposes, this took place in the Crackerbox Palace discord server.

For a warning, I’m pretty theatrical when stressed. If I joke here I’m sorry. I’m going to hold back on the humor.

CW: mentions of sexual abuse, pedophilia, racism, and seizures. You have been warned.

It sounds disgustingly simple, but when I joke about this (to myself, because it’s better than crying about it), I say that me having a seizure was the cause of this all. It isn’t really, but- let me explain.

I was alone, and I was chatting with the people in the server when suddenly- I just felt fucking weird. Initially, I was like “oh what the hell” until I realized that the weird sensation was actually familiar. It’s what people who have seizures call an “aura” or a “ting”, and it’s a numbing, buzzing sensation that’s kind of like an alarm bell that lets your body know what’s about to go down. And I have a habit (you can decide whether it’s good or bad) where I feel like I have to tell anyone around me that I’m going to have a seizure as SOON as I recognize the aura. Well like I said, I was alone. There was no one physically around me that I could tell, but I already had the chat open, fingers on my keyboard, I typed: I think I’m gonna have a seizure. Something like that. And I did. Don’t worry, I’m fine now. The older I get, the less extreme my seizures are for the most part. I got a splitting headache for the next two days, but we’re getting it checked out! This is only context for what happened next.

After that happened I eventually came to and as soon as my senses were recollected and my memory came back, I felt so embarrassed that I told my friends who I thought were super cool that I had a SEIZURE. But I noticed that Ley and Emma (in their genuine concern) were discussing seizures and how dangerous they could be, and was wondering if I was okay. I was honestly so relieved they weren’t laughing or anything like that. Vulture then responded saying “hey can you censor the word seizure, it’s a trigger.”, and so Ley and Emma did so. I was confused by this because I thought Vulture was saying it’s MY (me, a person who has them regularly) trigger, or that they were saying it was a trigger in general? I soon found out that it was a term on our “blacklist”, which makes sense.

So In our server, we had a channel (the prior mentioned blacklist channel) where people can suggest words and phrases to avoid. Phrases/topics that make you very uncomfortable, triggering, etc. Someone suggested that the name “Zack” be blacklisted because it’s the name of someone that manipulated them. And no, not Zach like me Zach, but Z-A-C-K, you know? Anyways, sometimes the sheltered southerner in me jumps out, and someone asking for that name to be blacklisted rocked my world! Even more so that the admins I worked with were willing to blacklist it. I thought, wait all this time I could have asked you all to blacklist a NAME that upsets me? I didn’t know I could do that. Never have I ever been in an environment where something like a name could be avoided to ensure my comfort. While THAT was what I was thinking, when I went to type it in the chat, it did not come off that way to vulture. Here’s what I said:

Vulture took what I said wrong, which is totally fair. Words fail me as they do everyone else, and looking back, I could have done better in explaining what I felt. I’m not blaming them for the misunderstanding, and I'm not even blaming me that much. It happens, man. But what got to me, was them accusing me of belittling or more so INVALIDATING the trigger. Me, someone actually has seizures, invalidating someone being triggered by them. Okay. Here was my response:

My response was unnecessarily snarky and I am still sorry for that. I thought I got better at thinking before speaking but it’s evident that it’s still something I need to work on. However, like I said I’ve never been one to accept it when someone’s trying to have an attitude with me. And no I’ll be the first to say that Vulture wasn’t explicitly rude to me, but I was gobsmacked that someone was trying to tell me how traumatic seizures are and accused me of invalidating them after I just said that I have them frequently. And that even after I explained what I meant, I was still met with an accusing response. Can you imagine if I went up to a homeless man and said “you have no right to invalidate my trauma with homelessness. I read matchbox girl.” Like okay? Also, yes that mod chat had a history with taking everything I said as aggressive or belligerent, hence my telling them to stop that. I was always met with a dismissive and antagonistic response. Remember that. I will get back to that.

Because of Vulture’s immature response, I removed them as chat admin. Do I regret it? Halfway, yes. I should have pulled them to the side and spoke with them about what they did. But looking back on that, after seeing the things they’ve posted today? It’s probably for the best that they weren’t a part of the admin team.

Andy (also known as shadowylemon here) and Cody are partners who also helped me run the server. They were admins,obviously. Andy asked me why I removed Vulture as Admin. I explained to him why, very civilly with the help of one of my friends because my response almost WASN'T. And to be frank, I ignored most of what he said because again I was being made to be the evil villain and I wasn’t being heard. So I ignored him. Also I was on a call so I wasn’t going to break my brain listening to ten people at once. I was so tired, my seizure happened like only a couple days prior and my head was still affected.

I mulled over that whole ordeal for a bit until me and my friend (the same friend I mentioned earlier, who helped me with my response to Andy. Lenny. He also helped me mod there and was the original co-founder of the server) came to the conclusion that the mods were too young. We need an age limit. So I told them, like “hey you guys are fine for now but I think that in the future, we should start having the mods be older”.

At this point I’m super careful with the way I word things. I’m always like that to be honest, as a black (visual-wise, a female) female you learn real quick that you’re the angry one in every situation unless you learn to talk super duper civil. But I didnt think I had to be that way in THAT server, you know? I thought I was safe there. Apparently not. Anyway-

I was met with, again, an aggravated “how dare you” type response from Cody. Which was okay with me, still is. When you work with someone in a group, you’re not going to agree with them all the time. So we were having a pretty civil, short lived back and forth until I mentioned that we tone it down on blacklisting every word. I suggested earlier to blacklist the word “blue” to see how far they would take it and they literally blacklisted it. I didn’t get to say this then, but I’m actually against over censoring, even if it’s supposedly for someone’s mental health. I have ADHD, RSD, on the damn spectrum, all that good stuff, so don’t come for me. But if you’re wanting to avoid words like blue, or a very common name, that is not my responsibility. That is your therapist. The server had people in there who- well English wasn’t their first language, and adding more barriers to their language is, I feel, very inconsiderate.

Cody started to threaten to delete the blacklisting channel all together and was acting really panicky. AGAIN (if I can find the screenshots, I will share) I was met with a very victimizing, whiny response. Like come on now. I told them to please do not make me the aggressor or I will leave.

No response.

So the rest of us were just getting ready to start a call and play some games until we noticed something.

Channels, titles and colors, and nearly everything was being deleted.

By who? Andy and Cody. This is just one screenshot. I wouldn’t include what’s over ten i have saved on my phone.

I was afraid that they got hacked and was being made to delete them. Until I thought “wait...it’s funny how they’re the only mods that are being ‘hacked’ while the rest of us were left alone. RIGHT after I just had a disagreement with them. Oh my god is this a tantrum.” The server then echoed my concerns. Please don’t be a tantrum. We noticed they left and so I dmed Andy. I said “Why” and he blocked me. That confirmed that it was indeed a tantrum. A tantrum because I IMPLIED that they were being micro aggressive towards me. Alright.

Me and the server joined a sort of conference call where we discussed what happened and they asked me questions as well as talked about what our next move was. At the time, I thought I was being dramatic because my breathing was super labored, and my face was super hot, and my heart was pounding. I was furious. There was a tiny voice telling me that ‘hey, you’re mad because after you told them that you were uncomfortable and upset with them treating you like an unhinged angry person, they did all this shit’ but I ignored it.

That is a common theme with me. I know a lot of you think I’m using my race as a weapon and that I call everything racist, but I HATE calling things racial discrimination for that exact reason. I don’t wanna look sensitive, or get called a snowflake. I honestly used to be a self-loathing black person, and you could hurl slurs at my face and I’ll excuse it. My friend group in the 9th grade was mainly racist white people. I’m so glad I grew out of that nonsense but damn some of that toxic mentality stuck with me to the point I never wanted to acknowledge when someone was biased against me.

I mean, how could it be any more clear? Do I think that Andy and Cody are racist? Of. Course. Not. I think that’s why a lot of you got so mad at me when you realized that what you did was microaggressions rooted in racial bias. Because you thought I was calling you a RACIST. I’ve had white people who will march with me during protests say and some really off-putting shit the next day. You can be an ally and make mistakes. You’re not perfect. I’m not perfect. None of us is. You have to allow yourself to make errors, and be confronted. Running away cursing and kicking rocks just tells me that you don’t want to listen to black people.

But anyway, we attempted to move on from the childish ordeal and I enlisted the help of new people to help me mod since we were short two, and could have used the help anyway.

We were doing alright, really. One day, though, Joane messaged me saying that Vulture wanted to apologize and wanted to talk. And I was like great now's the perfect time to talk to them like I should have the first time, but wrongly didn’t. So I told Joane to dm me.

Well, Joane sent me a screenshot of some of hers and Vultures conversation.

As you can see I initially did feel willing to apologize and speak to vulture. Because like I said earlier, my snarky response was UNNECESSARY. However, Joane joining in the discussion with her “I can’t understand him which frustrates me lmao” peeved me. As did Vulture acting like I’m unhinged. While I didn’t need to make the “imma blacklist lmao and lol since it bothers you so much” comment at ALL, it wasn’t that deep….at all. Vulture has a habit of virtue signalling too. Their comment “I’m patient and forgiving” is an example.

While I was annoyed initially, I soon felt pretty hurt that Joane would say that about me behind my back? It made me wonder if there was more she didn’t show me. Joane was a really good friend and I loved her a lot so I was extra sensitive about it. I’ve never spoken ill about her behind her back.

Now, this is a recurring theme in this post but let me say now: I am aware that no one is OBLIGATED to treat me a certain way because I was nice to them. Of course not. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt? Talking negatively about someone isn’t a problem, but having them think you’re their friend while doing so is. You know? It’s very deceiving, but in Joane’s case, only slightly deceiving.

So I just didn’t speak to her for a bit. I was already annoyed at having to re-build my server because of a couple of teenagers having a tantrum, as well as things that were happening in my personal life. Also, the news was no damn help at all, you all know. But I didn’t speak to her for the rest of the day and I...I hated it haha. I don’t like avoiding people when I’m frustrated, and after I saw what happened with Vulture when I did the same thing, I should know better. Plus I felt bad. Joane was still a friend, and I wanted to get to the bottom of things.

I’m not going to include every little screenshot and whatnot, but I messaged her like hey what’s up let’s finish our discussion. Because I thought that at that point, I had my head screwed on a bit better.

During our discussion, I eventually showed Joane me and vultures conversation, and she acted astonished that Vulture didn’t show her all the context, and even said that they were being irrational. This was after I told her that after everything Andy and Cody did, they made a server with Vulture to which she informed me that she was aware, and she was invited. Honestly, at the time I didn’t think vulture was being irrational. While I said it’s no excuse, PTSD can make us say and do pretty wild things, and calling someone like that irrational feel like ableist language.

So me and Joane had a little moment. I apologized to her, and she apologized to me.

I was sure that after we both had our respective breaks, that we would be good to continue our friendship like normal. Just a bump in the road. It happens

That was until I got a certain anon from Vulture.

She asked me why we were done, but when I went to ask her “what in the world did you say to them” she blocked me.

Sorry I keep showing me messaging them, I just don’t wanna get lied to or something again.

I was really sad about that. I went to bed, and when I woke up, I was still sad. Joane was telling me one thing, and Vulture another thing. She was changing her opinion on a person depending on who she was talking to. It was dizzying and disingenuous and I didn’t even get to talk it out with her because she blocked me. Which was really suspicious. She told me that she would be taking a break from the server and that she still respected me as a friend, but went to vulture and told them that I treated her like SHIT, or at least acted enough like a victim to make them accuse me of that. I’m sorry, but where in the world did I do that? If me confessing to someone that they hurt me is the same thing as treating them like shit, then fuck man a lot of us are assholes.

Wow, look at me treat her like shit. Absolute garbage right?

I wasn’t even being completely honest to Joane about my feelings for that reason. Because of accusations like this. Another instance of someone taking literally me being normal and civil as being AGGRESSIVE. Vulture, I’m sorry for accusing you of utilizing white girl tears. I accused the wrong person. But that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.

I went to our #vent channel on the server and told whoever was online and whoever was listening about the whole ordeal, and how HURT I felt because I was literally played by this girl. And I was accused of basically being abusive. Treated her like shit? Cmon man…

But another user in the server, as it turns out, had a similar experience with Joane, and provide in-depth screenshots. Which made me even madder, so we kept venting about the situation.

Also, because of a couple of dms, and because the more I ranted, the more pained I got, I felt compelled to say the following, NOW LISTEN CLOSELY:

I first prefaced my concerns by saying “I AM BY NO MEANS CALLING JOANE A GROOMER”. That was fucking useless of me to say because- okay I’m getting ahead of myself.

So I was saying (and in hindsight, I shouldn’t have. I know. But like I said, it was in the heat of the moment and I got a dm that made me feel bad) that it was strange how as soon as someone young and innocent was present, Joane would cling to them in an obsessive way. I’m not the only one who noticed that, and even one of the younger users in question agreed to my statement.

Listen fucking closely. I don’t think Joane is a sexual predator at ALL. That’s why I had that warning before I said anything in the chat. I do, though, think that if you’re a grown adult and you’re obsessed with being friends with people who are as young as 14, that it’s concerning, not in a sexual way, but in a power dynamic way. I’m only 19 and I honestly don’t get older people who become besties with much younger people. I was “friends” with the users as well, but I was a mentor/brother/dad more than anything. Do you understand? When I was 15, I’ve had people who were 20 and older become my friend and dump their adult problems onto me, as well as expect adult reactions and responses out of me. It was stressful and damaging and I did not want that happening to anyone else, especially the younger people in the chat. Okay? Okay.

That being said, my protectiveness is a major flaw of mine. Oh my god, do I take it too far sometimes, man. I didn’t want really young teenagers (13-16) to have a serious relationship with an adult because of what happened to me, and I didn’t want Joane to play and hurt anyone else the way she did me and my other friend. So I went into the announcements channel and told the users to read what we’ve been saying in regard to Joane and come up with your own decision. I did not have to do that, I can sit here and say that the things that transpired the past few days really took a toll on me whatever blah blah blah. But I could have kept it in vent, really. And the dumb thing is, that before I sent that message in announcements, I was literally telling myself that THIS is a bad idea. GOD, Zach. But I was at work, it was the last day before holidays started, and I was feeling super protective and I wasn’t thinking and- well yeah.

During all of this, I was having a conversation with vulture in Tumblr dms. I gathered the courage to finally dm them after receiving the anon. That conversation was on my old Tumblr, so I don’t have a screenshot of the key points, but I typed my starting message in notes, and this is what I said:

“Hi vulture. I don’t want to be here for long but I just wanna ask: why? You accused me of invalidating a trigger and even after I told you that’s not what I meant you still went off on me? You’re mad at me about an inaccurate perception and it really upset me. I’ve been terrified of talking to you specifically because I’ve been dealing with micro aggressions from you, Andy, and Cody and it’s really been wearing me down. And when I told Andy and Cody about their treatment of me, they deleted shit from my server and leave? How do you think that makes me feel as a black person? Makes me never want to talk about my feelings ever again out of the fear of being antagonized. I’m sorry I was snarky towards you, if you didn’t like my remark about “lmao” and “lol”. I agree it was immature. But don’t forget you came at me first. If you’re willing to further discuss this with me then great, which I am sure you are seeing that you asked me to on anon. I finally gathered the courage to contact you so let’s do this.”

We had a brief conversation. Vulture dismissing my microaggressions concerns but really- it happens so much that at that point I was so numb to it. Also a little bit “it’s not about your race. Remember when I…” more virtue signalling. Bleh. But after all, I did thank them for actually wanting to talk to me. Andy didn’t wanna do it. Cody didn’t wanna do it. Joane didn’t want to. Vulture did. And I appreciate that to this day, after everything. I can always admire that about someone.

It ended prematurely because of me. I was at work and got distracted by that as well as by what happened in the server next.

Emma sent a pretty long message basically calling all of us out for “bullying Joane” and talking ill of her behind her back, as well as announcing that she would be leaving the server and that we should all be ashamed of ourselves. This was right after someone confessed that Joane made him feel uncomfortable with constant flirting. I admitted that I should not have put the message In announcements, but guys.

I went off. I couldn’t hold back anymore. I was sick of trying to be docile and sweet. I didn’t care if I would be portrayed as the angry black again I DID NOT CARE. Bullying Joane? Me talking about how she hurt me is bullying? Let’s look up what that means.

Yeah okay. That’s incorrect usage, right? I didn’t even call Joane names. I didn’t persistently harass her. I spoke about what she did to me in distaste, but I was done with her as a friend at that point, and she knew that, so was not going behind her back. I wasn’t being predatory towards her. And I definitely wasn’t being AGGRESSIVE or BLUSTERING. Emma was using broad pronouns and terms (you guys, you all, etc) but I knew she was talking about me, as I was the most prominent in my venting about Joane due to my situation with her happening just yesterday. I sent the most messages, I- while wrong in doing so- posted the announcements. That message primarily was directed towards me. When I say that microaggressions tear you down, it tears you THE FUCK down.

That being said, I did cuss Emma out (she wasn’t present when I went off, but still) and cussed out everyone who agreed with her. I was so blinded by rage and hurt I don’t even remember at all what I said. One line that sticks out to me though is “y’all saw a white girl crying and thought oh man we can’t have that” and that’s a mantra I’ve repeated a couple of times when I find myself in scenarios such as this one.

But- I do regret going off like that. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t justified slightly, though. I don’t expect any of you to understand completely what I went through, but please try. I regret going off like that, though. And I’m sorry.

I guess I was also upset because I was JUST in a good mood? I was literally singing to myself all happy and shit, but Emma’s inconsiderate message threw me off. It’s making me even more upset now that I know why she said that. She wasn’t the only person to tell me I should be ashamed of myself for manipulating (yes, MANIPULATING) Joane.

I dmed Emma in an attempt to fix things, but i gave up quickly. I was too raw with emotions anyways. So I mournfully told her that we probably should’t be friends anymore, to which she responded

Carelessly?...ouch.

From the moment Joane dmed me about Vulture, and the moment Emma sent that message, all of that transpired within three days. Three fucking days and THAT much happened. It was taking a toll on me, that’s not even counting Andy and Cody’s tantrum.

I was in a dark place, still am. I made a post saying that I was going to take a break from Tumblr and then made one saying that I was going to kill myself in the tags. Not exclusively because of all this, of course. So. Much. Bullshit. Happens to me on a daily basis. Abusive parents. Sexual assault. Racism that’s actually violent. Dying relatives. So much. I’m crying as I type this it’s just so much. In real life, I have no friends. Not even fake acquaintances. Yes, I cut off all those people because they were extremely toxic, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have literally no one. That server was my escape. Parents fighting? Open discord. Mental spiral? Discord is there. Just had a seizure? Don’t worry, you have friends. And now I don’t. And all because of some dumb shit that wouldn’t probably have happened if two kids didn’t get mad at ME because THEY were ignorant. I know it’s not good to rely on a server to improve your mental health, but I couldn’t help it. I was desperate. And I really did think so highly of everyone in that chat. I loved them.

I received a couple asks that night saying that I don’t have to hurt myself, I’m loved, all that. Very kind messages. And right when I was going to delete the post (I was so embarrassed for posting it), I got a message from ley that read something like “I don’t agree with what you said at ALL but that doesn’t mean I want you to kill yourself or leave” something along those lines. I thought, really? You couldn’t just say you didn’t want me to leave and have it at that?

I really don’t want to make it seem like I posted something so graphic for attention, man. I can’t stand that manipulation tactic and I don’t want that harmful stigma about suicidal people to be encouraged.

But Ley’s message threw me off. Agree with what I...huh? Then it pissed me off

So I deleted my account. And fell off the face of the earth for 15 days.

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mybeautifulbeautifuleternal · 4 years

Text

i turn to paths that lead home; viii

Chapter 8: who do you think you are?

rating: its a gen fic for The Umbrella Academy

words:1.6k

chapter:8/?

warnings: nothing atypical for the umbrella academy, spoilers for season 2

AO3

a/n: many many many thanks to my discord friends who were a big help with creating and editing this @NightingaleComics @viridescentshade @cbuugdrama9 on ao3 @boardwalk-absurdist @3ternalslumber on tumblr

Summary: Luther held Vanya a little tighter, refusing to let her go. It changed the game and made all the difference.

First || Previous

summary: enter diego, stage left

After they had signed all the paperwork, Vanya and Luther were shown to a bland room. It contained only a table and three chairs plus the guard that showed them in.

It was minutes later that the man was shoved through the door. He was turned toward the new guard, the one that escorted him in, and hadn’t yet seen them.

“Fuck you. When I get out of here, I'm coming for you. I’m-”

“Shut up or I'll put you in solitary.” The man finally turned around and the look on his face was...angry. There were other nuances to it but anger was the one most present.

“Son of a bitch. You two?”

“So you know us?” The words slipped out of Vanya’s mouth before she could stop them and it startled the man. He jerked back into his seat but the menace coming from him slowed.

“What do you mean?”

Vanya and Luther shared a look but eventually responded to the man, “We were in an accident over a year ago. Head trauma. We’re slowly gaining memories back but we still don’t know a lot.”

“You knew me.”

“We recognized you. One of the earliest memories we got back was of seven of us in a circle on a stage.”

“Seven?”

“The three of us, a young boy in a school uniform, a woman in a leather jacket, a man with tattooed palms, and a blue man.”

“Yeah, that’s all of- A blue man?”

“He was wearing a leather jacket and pants but he was see-through and blue. Sometimes he has tentacles.”

“Ben?”

“His name is Ben?”

“A man with tentacles coming out of his stomach? Yeah, that’s Ben.”

“And you?”

He paused thoughtfully, peering at them through hard eyes, but he nodded and introduced himself, “Diego Hargreeves. Number Two.”

“Number Two? Did he name us based on our age or something?”

Diego went to respond but slowed his words and whistled slightly through his teeth when he caught sight of the guards in the corner of the room.

“Something like that. Listen, we don’t have much time left. But I’m gonna get out soon.”

“We can give you our number? So you can call us when you get out.”

“You somewhere safe, then?”

“On a farm.”

A shocked laugh burst out of Diego’s chest but it cut off when he saw their faces, “oh you weren’t joking were you?”

“Nope.”

“Ok — give me the number and I’ll call you. My first evaluation is coming up — and I’ll pass it.”

Vanya didn’t think it would be that easy but the look in his eyes told her Diego would pass. She and Luther stood up after Diego repeated the farm’s phone number back to them. She didn’t know if she should go for a hug or not so she just watched Diego strut out of the room.

She didn’t know what to think about Diego and based on the complicated look on Luther’s face, he thought the same.

It was as they were on their way home when Vanya realized that they never got the other names.

Diego hit the wall harshly. He was expecting it but he still bit his lip when he impacted. He knew the tone he had taken with the guards would come back to bite him but it still hurt. As the door slammed shut, Diego slid to the ground and stretched out his legs.

Luther and Vanya, huh. He didn’t know what to think about that. It sounded like — from their story — that they landed in the same alley he had but a year earlier. And his landing was better. At least he didn’t land and lose his memories. It was his actions that led Diego to be in this place.

He didn’t want to believe them but he felt like he had too. The way they interacted with each other? It was completely different. There was love and care between them. Before their foray into the past, Luther had been scared of Vanya and of what she could do, determined to follow dad’s lead and lock her up. Hell, the last time Luther and Vanya were alone together, Luther locked Vanya up and she decided to blow up the moon.

Granted, Diego felt like doing the same thing because of how often Luther brought it and his mission up. But now? Neither of them apparently remembered anything and they came for him for help.

He didn’t necessarily know what to do about that — the mighty Number One and the resident Family Traitor...only they didn’t remember those facts.

“Fuck.”

Diego wished he had had a couple of more minutes to talk to them. He didn’t get a chance to actually question them — but now he had some time to think of some questions. He had to come up with some that would prompt a reaction from one of them. Something that would break through their act — if they were lying. Diego knew that he could question Luther about his mutated body or their father. Those were topics that would break Luther’s silence. He didn’t know what type of topics to get Vanya with but based on what he saw back in the mansion on that last day — Diego might ask her about Pogo and what he had done to be killed in such a way.

Diego didn’t know what happened with either of those situations for them but he had seen the aftermath of even mentioning it so that was going to be his best bet on shocking them into dropping the act.

And in the unlikely occasion that they truly didn’t remember, Diego needed to know what memories they did have.

It had taken longer then Diego thought it would have, but a month after he first entered the hospital, Diego passed his evaluation and was able to call his siblings. During that month Diego had repeated the number to himself over and over again, both not wanting to forget it and as a reminder to himself about why he was putting genuine effort in talking it out with the doctors and staff.

He had spun a story about trying to find his siblings to explain the stalking behavior and semi-created a horrible ex for Vanya to explain why he had lied at first. Between those facts and the effort Diego showed in both group sessions and personal sessions, he passed the eval with flying colors. He had even seen some nurses drying their eyes — so amazed at the effort he was putting in to protect his family.

Diego hid the eye roll. Whatever got him out of here. He was told that he had a couple of minutes to make a phone call but after that, he had to vacate the premises. Letting the phone ring, Diego was making vague plans upon plans.

“Hello?” Diego was pleased that it was Vanya that answered the phone, not whoever they were living with.

“Vanya? It's Diego. I passed my eval and am being released from the hospital today. Do you-”

“Oh, that’s wonderful! I can come and get you? That is - if you want to stay with us?”

Diego swore to himself, in his head. He could see Vanya’s face, even over the phone. Big sad eyes, a hopeful smile that she was trying to stifle, shoulders hunched up, and she was probably curled up a little — making herself a smaller target for any sort of scorn or ridicule. He had seen that look a thousand times growing up, and it was even more effective now than they were adults. Diego swore it was the height difference. They might have been close to the same size growing up but now Diego towered over her.

He knew that even if he hadn’t planned on staying with them, he would have to now. Damn those stupid puppy dog eyes.

“Yeah. That would be nice — would it be possible for someone to get me tonight? I’ve only got a couple of minutes on the phone before they chase me out the door.”

“Of course! If I remember right there’s a little bookstore a couple of blocks from the hospital. I could meet you there? It would only take me about an hour to get there.”

“That sounds like a plan. You’ll be here in around an hour?” Diego wanted to be certain of Vanya’s arrival.

“Yup! Did you want me to bring you anything from the farm? I don’t think we have clothes that would fit you but I can bring some cash and we can stop somewhere.”

“I have the clothes I was wearing when I was admitted.” Diego didn’t want to go shopping with his sister — he remembered Allison and the many malls she dragged them to after their missions. He wasn’t doing that again.

“Oh...ok. You’re sure you don’t need anything?”

Damn those puppy dog eyes.

“...But I guess I could use a change. And maybe something to eat?”

“Oh! Oh yeah! I can bring some sandwiches and such!” Vanya sounded excited and Diego heaved a sigh, seeing his future. It involved shopping and talking about his feelings.

The things he did for his family.

“No provolone or mayonnaise. I’ll be in the bookstone. One hour.”

“Sounds like a plan!”

They hung up, then Diego completed the check out routine, getting back his uniform and harness but not his knives. He gave the guards the side eye he’d learnt from Five when they were preteens but knew he wasn’t going to be getting them back.

He was just walking out when he heard the doctors talking with the head guard, “Yeah we’re moving the new inmate in tonight — one miss Lila Pitts.”

#the umbrella academy imagine #the umbrella academy #tua imagine #tua #luther hargreeves #luther hargreeves imagine #vanya hargreeves #vanya hargreeves imagine #diego hargreeves #diego hargreeves imagine #my stuff #m's fics #i turn to paths that lead home

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foxtophat · 4 years

Link

another long one, coming in at 9k words because i am goddamn trash

HEY GUYS SORRY ABOUT THAT UGH today just didn’t go the way i wanted it to. you ever feel like that? well anyway here is the 11th chapter!!! fun fact: hurk and sharky show up! second fun fact: i am 90% sure that it is not moonshine they’re peddling. 3rd fun fact: i don’t know if they know what an apple looks like any more

i don’t have much to say about this chapter, although i will say it involves casual drinking if you’re not into that. i think i’m gonna go have a newcastle myself once i’m done writing this up... which i guess means now!

as usual my dudes, i want to thank you all for being so tolerant of my bullshit and so open to my dumbassery! it’s so nice to feel MOTIVATED to post for once, which might not come through when i get delayed like i have the last 2 chapters, but it’s true! i have so much trouble working on things without feedback, so you guys really have been awesome.

if you wanna contact me, my askbox is always open! as always, i appreciate any and all comments, kudos, likes, reblogs, casual links, private discord messages, idk whatever i don’t even use discord

below the cut is the full chapter for those of you who don’t wanna go off-site! thank you again for reading guys, and i will talk incessantly about this fic soon!!!

The next three days are marked by a surprising peace. Nick had suspected that once the cat got out about John, they would be fielding a flurry of calls, or maybe even some in-person confrontations, but so far they've been left completely alone. Maybe telling people on their way out of the county has something to do with that. Maybe they'll need to wait for Hurk and Sharky to come back and spread the news if Jerome's decided not to do it himself. Nick's not sure if that's even what he wants , but it feels like the inevitable next step. Eventually, if the community is going to come together, the cat's gonna have to get out of the bag.

John is just as nervous than before, although it only shows whenever they hear distant engines or a far-off gunshot. The night after the caravan, he and Jerome spend a full thirty minutes on the radio, but it only makes him more pensive and reserved. Nick wouldn't mind so much if Carmina weren't also acting bummed out — sure, she's just upset that she lost a friend before she could make one, but it still sucks to see his daughter acting as morose as John.

At least Kim's optimism hasn't been phased. She's been determined to look at the situation from every positive angle available, and none of Nick's uncertainty has put a hamper on it. She rallies them all for a second day-trip down to the river, hell-bent on cheering each and every one of them. It's a day of sunlight and clear water, and the fish are jumping like mad. It must be spawning season, or something, because the suckers are easy pickings.

The nice weather and the easy fishing both do wonders for Carmina's mood, which is becoming more and more fickle every day. Nick dozes in and out with a rod in hand, and although John spends most of the time staring at the water, he touches base with reality once in a while. Mostly just when Kim includes him in conversation, but it's still enough.

It's... nice. Nick doesn't know the last time he felt so relaxed. He doesn't think that memory exists anymore, lost to time like so many other positive thoughts, but he's enjoying the reminder to relax his shoulders and turn off his anxious brain for a few minutes. With the sunshine just as warm as ever and the water a bright, nearly unnatural blue, Nick figures all they need is an umbrella and some beach towels to drive the point home. Hell, at this point, they might as well claim this as their private waterfront.

Grace shows up after breakfast the next day, ready to take Carmina for some target practice at her range. She isn't strictly speaking to Nick yet, but she keeps it cordial, even friendly with Kim. Maybe Jerome talked with her, or maybe she came to accept the situation on her own, who knows. Either way, Grace ignores the sight of John out on the back porch and treats Carmina to a genuine smile when she comes downstairs, rifle in hand. Finally, three-quarters of the year later, the situation with Grace has finally returned to normal, taking one more weight off of Nick's shoulders.

She promises to have Carmina back before sundown. She also promises to leave her radio on, just in case. Nick knows what she means by just in case , but he can't say no to the added security.

Nick retreats out back, letting Kim have some time with Grace without the awkward tension of his presence. John pointedly refuses to look at him, sorting through a box of components as though he hasn't already picked it apart.

It isn't until after Grace and Carmina leave that Nick remembers he has an out — well, now it's just a regular chore. He's got to deal with the so-called freezer in the hangar, which is full of fish and sucking up all the fuel for the generator. Either he has to make it viable to use long term, or they're going to be shit out of luck for food preservation beyond salting and pickling.

From the look on his face, John wishes Nick would ask for his help, but Kim has already called on him to help harvest the last of the spring planter, so he's shit out of luck there. Nick doesn't have any damn sympathy for John — gardening is boring, and Nick will do anything to avoid it, especially something as easy as throwing John under a bus.

So, the good news is that the freezer still turns on. Nick hadn't expected much after finding it under part of the collapsed roof, but it hasn't shorted out once since they hooked it up to the generator about a week ago.

The bad news is that it's not a good use of power at all. The rubber seal is nearly worn off, so it keeps losing coolness, and there's definitely a coil burnt out or something in there because it barely manages to keep its temperature lower than the air around it. Sure, maybe it'll come in handy around winter , but that's not going to help them with summer around the corner.

As it is, Nick's only sure that the fish from yesterday are still good. There's a covered pot of stew underneath that they put in after the caravan left, which is probably fine, too... but Nick wouldn't put money on the rabbit they put in at the start. After all, it hadn't been all that fresh to begin with, and it's been wrapped in cloth for a little too long.

Well, maybe once they get some chickens and find a post-apocalyptic appliance repair center, it'll be worth being the energy sink that it is. For now, Nick has to figure out what to do with these goddamn fish and the leftover stew from the other night. It's their own damn fault, thinking they'd still have company after revealing John, but that doesn't change the amount of food they have on hand.

At least when Grace comes back, they'll have something to repay her with, although Nick isn't sure she's willing to eat any of their food yet. She'd been okay about seeing John in the backyard, relatively speaking, but there's no way she actually believes any of the progress being made. And as much as Nick would like to tell her that her distrust is unwarranted, he can't exactly tell her how to feel. It's just gonna have to take time, and she's going to need a different kind of proof than Nick.

They aren't expecting any visitors, so the sound of engines on approach shakes Nick out of his thoughts and puts him on immediate high alert. He can't make out the number of vehicles, but it sounds like a goddamn posse, which can't be good. When he goes out into the yard to check on Kim, he finds her missing; John is the only one standing there, waiting nervously by the planters and looking for any sign to bolt.

"Stay here," Nick tells him as he approaches, heading straight for the front.

"Yes, I know ," John snaps, but Nick isn't going to stop to argue with him. He slows his anxious jog as he comes around the side of the house, catching sight of Hurk's motorcycle through the trees coming down the drive. Kim is standing in the front yard, arms loosely folded over her chest; she looks cautiously excited for the company, although neither of them are sure if this is strictly a social call. Nick sure hopes it is — he's not sure they could hold their own against a group with an RPG and a whole lot of crazy.

Hurk kills his engine once he sees they've got an audience, leaving his bike with the others in the drive. The big, blissed-out guy and the smaller, wild-card one stay on their bikes, while Sharky talks to somebody sitting on his ATV briefly before following his cousin's tracks.

Kim greets them with a warm smile as they come up. "Hey, you guys. We weren't expecting you to stop by again."

"We radioed ahead," Sharky grouses. "But nobody answered."

"Sorry, I wasn't near the receiver. We've been out back all day."

Hurk pulls off his sunglasses with a dramatic flair. "Yeah, I figured it was something like that," he says, with a tone that implies Sharky had a different theory, one Nick imagines involves John staging some sort of coup. "Well, whatever, we're here now!" Looking around coolly for a second, Hurk realizes he still needs to explain himself and bashfully elaborates, " Somebody oughtta know we got back alright, so we can get hired out again and whatnot..."

"Everything cool?" Sharky asks. He makes no effort to hide how he's looking for a fire that he can blame on John. Well, at least he's trying to find a good reason to beat John up this time.

"I should be asking you that," Kim counters, wearing a smile that's enough to disarm Sharky's gruff posturing. "How far did you get?"

"We hit Great Falls before we figured any further was a one-way trip. They're probably past Missoula if they kept up the clip."

"And how'd everything look?" Nick asks. "I mean, relatively speaking."

Sharky shrugs. "A whole lot of the same," he replies. Hurk rolls his eyes in his cousin's direction, fixing him with an annoyed stare that eventually wears Sharky out. Shoulders slumping in defeat, he opens up semi-reluctantly. "It wasn't the, uh... wild wasteland I was expecting. Lots of empty land and road stops. Some friendly, some... uh, not so much. But that group can handle it."

Nick is happy to agree, and not just to placate Sharky. "Yeah," he says. "Hope County breeds tough people."

"Did you guys pick up somebody along the way?" Kim asks, having just done a headcount of the remaining posse. Nick remembers the two on their bikes; the new guy, he remembers from the third car, quiet and quick to leave but otherwise unmemorable.

"Oh, that's Mud," Sharky says, pointing at the three who probably can't hear much over the rumbling engines. "He was with the caravan, but he changed his mind." Sharky's chest puffs up as he confidently tells them, "He's ridin' with us now."

"That's great!" Kim exclaims. She's genuinely excited by the news and the chance to socialize, and the effect of her positivity is hard to fight. Sharky can't help but smile back, even if he's trying to act tough, rubbing his hands together as he casts another approving glance back at his gang.

"Are you going to do anything to celebrate?" she asks.

"Not much to celebrate, he's kind of a nerd."

"Come on," Kim laughs. "You left home and came back with more people than you started with. I think most people these days would count that as a win." She rubs her hands together, looking briefly at Nick and suggesting, "We could have a fish fry?"

"Hey, that's an idea," Nick replies. "We caught some bass yesterday and they're just gonna get composted if we don't do something with them."

"I dunno about that," Sharky says, cutting off Hurk just before he can excitedly agree.

Kim presses her hands together. "Come on, stay," she pleads with a smile. "At least let us feed you. When's the last time you had something more than jerky and booze?"

"Well..." Sharky trails off uncertainly.

"Kim's right," Nick cajoles. "We got plenty to spare."

"Grace is going to be back with Carmina in a few hours," Kim adds. "I'm sure she'd be glad to see you guys."

Sharky rubs his beard, looking back at their waiting posse. "Grace, huh?" he repeats. He trades a few unsubtle glances with Hurk before finally turning back to Kim and Nick. "Yeah, that should be okay. Except — ah, shit. We promised Wallace and Tiny we'd start doing things democratically now that we won't keep tying over everything. Hold on, gotta go confer with the boys."

They only spend a minute talking it over before the two motorcycles kill their engines, which is all the confirmation Nick needs to know they're hosting company. "I'll go tell John," he tells Kim under his breath. "Somebody should give him a heads up before Sharky punches him again."

Kim sends him off with a pat on his shoulder as he heads for the backyard. John is still waiting by the planters, although he's staring longingly for the safety of the hangar. Nick can't blame him — he's still sporting a dark and noticeable bruise from the last time Sharky socked him. Hopefully, seeing his lingering handiwork will satisfy Sharky, otherwise, John might wind up with a matching set.

"Sharky and Hurk are back," Nick says. John doesn't exactly relax, but knowing he doesn't have to prepare for another ugly reintroduction keeps him from bolting. "They're, uh, gonna stick around until Grace gets back."

"Then I probably shouldn't be around," John replies.

"What, you wanna go hide all night?" Nick rolls his eyes. "No, don't be a baby. Worst that'll happen is you'll get knocked down again." John doesn't look convinced, so Nick tries another route. "Come on, we went through all that just so you wouldn't have to hide out every time we have company. And people are gonna have to get used to you eventually — at least Sharky and Hurk already know you're alive." Finally, when none of that seems to work, he sighs and promises, "I'll make sure nobody decks you for no good reason, c'mon."

John finally relents, sighing and gesturing vaguely. "Fine," he says, "Whatever you say."

And, even though Kim isn't around to force him to it, John sits back down at the planter and resumes pulling carrots. It's probably entirely out of spite, but at least it keeps him busy while the posse of would-be raiders filters into the backyard. Nick stands awkwardly at first as Wallace and Tiny stare aggressively at John's back, but when Kim rounds out the group and nobody takes a shot at either of them, he forces himself to ease up on the suspicion. From here on out, Nick is going to try his damnedest to act like everything is absolutely normal. Well, as normal as it can be.

Kim has Sharky talking from the outset, which makes it easy for him to avoid acknowledging John at all. It helps that she's genuinely interested in what he's been up to since they last saw each other — other than open-channel conversations on the radio, the Ryes haven't seen them since the world ended. With only one car and not a lot of fuel, they haven't had a chance to go exploring the east side of the county since climbing topside.

As it turns out, Sharky and Hurk have shacked right back up at the old trailer park. They'd met up with Wallace and Tiny sometime after coming topside, and right now the four of them are in the middle of making the park more hospitable. Sharky keeps mentioning a reception area, and Hurk says something about expanding the lot, so Nick suspects they're looking to cash in on the heretofore abandoned hospitality industry.

For now, though, it's just home to four wildcards and one multi-use distillery made from old airplane parts. "It's pretty much fucked," Sharky says, although truthfully, Nick thinks it sounds kind of badass. "But with enough elbow grease, we'll probably be able to make it livable." He looks around, craning his neck to eyeball the mostly-intact hangar and their secure house, and offers a genuine compliment. "You guys got lucky. No hate, just glad you had somewhere to hole up in. It would suck to really have to rough it with a kid around."

"Tell me about it," Kim agrees emphatically. "Although, it took a lot of work to make it this nice, and there's still a lot more to do."

Sharky and Hurk settling in around the fire-pit is all the invitation their crew needs to make themselves more at home. It's no surprise that they pretend like John isn't there — nor is it a surprise that John returns the favor. It's a little tense and a lot awkward for Nick, but for now it's at least a peaceful holding pattern.

"It sorta sucked, seeing everything as trashed as it is here," Tiny says somewhat morosely. "I mean, at least we ain't alone, but..."

"Hope Valley got the best of it in general," Wallace says. "Right in the sweet-spot. Ideal Collapse."

"He means most everything else got blasted," Tiny clarifies, a sort of post-Bliss interpreter. "You can tell when you leave the county. Eases up after a couple of miles, but there's, like, a big old ring around us."

"No doubt, no doubt," Wallace agrees. "Protecting the good stuff."

"It's pretty fuckin' weird," Hurk says. "But I don't know nothin' about nu-clear thermodynamics and whatnot. Could be normal as the albino deer and shit."

"Uh, you think that the caravan's gonna be okay out there, if everything's just as wrecked?" Nick asks.

"Oh, sure," Hurk drawls. "There were all sortsa people makin' due out there, one way or another. They'll be fine ."

Sharky sighs, opens his mouth, then thinks better of whatever he was going to say and changes course. "They made it pretty clear they would be happier without help," he says. "Hope that works out for them. Me? I'm ride-or-die Hope County. At least 'til Hurk here goes international again. Then, uh, I guess I'm gonna be ride-or-die Miami."

"Hell yeah!" Hurk shouts. "Gonna get the business back in business, y'know what I mean? First stop: check in on mama and Xander. Second stop: top of the world, baby!"

The posse rallies around Hurk's promise with excited whoops. Nick doesn't know what Hurk's job was before the apocalypse, but considering the contraband he used to get his hands on, it's probably something that will only flourish here in the apocalypse.

"'Course, she's probably dead," Hurk adds somewhat morosely at the end, sort of ruining the whole vibe.

Sharky slaps his shoulder a few times out of sympathy. "Don't know 'til we go lookin'," he says, which manages to prop Hurk's mood back up for the time-being. "Anyway, we got a whole slew of islands and mountains and shit to explore once we get established. Spending the rest of my life riding around Montana sounds like a waste of a good apocalypse, if you ask me."

The new guy, Mud, looks more confused than Nick about these future plans. "So, what'd they offer you for joining up?" Nick asks him. "Ten-percent of Boshaw-Drubman LLC?"

Startled, Mud shakes his head frantically. "No way. Uh-uh." Bashfully, he says, "I just, uh... got cold feet. But I don't got much out here, not since the, uh..." He glances past Nick, definitely eyeballing John, then swallows and edges around the truth. "Well, um, Sharky let me ride back, on account of the — well, uh, I didn't wanna get left behind either direction. And since I don't got anything, I offered to join up." He frowns, "Except I don't have a bike, or gas for a bike, or a gun, or bullets for a gun..."

"I told you," Sharky scolds like a mother hen, "We'll figure that shit out later."

"It's smart to stay together," Kim says when Mud fails to pick back up again. "It's what we should all be doing. Does that mean you're staying with them at the trailer park?"

Mud nods, while Tiny goodnaturedly jokes, "Not that there's much left to stay at..."

Sharky is quick to defend their home, even if he doesn't sound super convinced by his own argument. "Hey, we just haven't had time to, y'know, clean and all! We've been busy, man, you know that! Gathering ammo, building the still, brewing ..."

"Would be nice to have a roof over our heads, that's all," Tiny laughs.

"Where do you want me to go, the roof store ?"

The argument is mostly playful, but Nick knows it's only a matter of time before that playful resentment becomes real. Hurk already looks bored by the ribbing, which tells Nick a lot about how long this joke has been running. Even John is paying attention, although Nick only catches an uncomfortable backward glance.

It's a contentious problem for the gang, for sure. But Nick doesn't have to reach far to come up with an easy solution, one that he figures will benefit everybody involved. After all, even considering their own needs, they've got more than enough spare scrap to spare, and Hurk and Sharky's goodwill comes with guns and alcohol, so...

"You know," he says, "John and I found a lot of scrap cleaning this place up. Maybe you can use what we can't."

Sharky opens his mouth to say something, probably pretty rude, but he catches himself before he gets that far. "Wouldn't want to put you out like that," he mutters.

"Hey, we're all in it together, right?" Gesturing towards John, who looks like he'd rather fade back into the dirt around him, Nick offers a sort-of compromise. "We've been trying to figure out what to do with the surplus. This seems like a better use than anything we came up with."

"Well, I guess it couldn't hurt," Sharky admits reluctantly.

Kim recognizes the need for some decisive action, and so she claps her hands together and takes the reins from her grateful husband. "Nick, you and John should take Hurk to look at what we've got. Then, all three of you can bring some wood back so we can get the fire started."

Sharky opens his mouth to object, but Hurk speaks up before he can. "Sounds good!" he exclaims, throwing himself to his feet with ease. Nick can't help but envy him — the guy's got twenty years on him, but Nick doesn't hear his knees popping randomly when he stands up.

"Y'all don't go startin' trouble," he warns his gang, waving Nick on. "Let's do it!"

John turns and heads immediately for the hangar door, disappearing inside without a backwards glance. Hurk lingers once they reach the door, casting a wide look around the empty wash of dirt leading out to the old landing strip before following John inside. He doesn't seem concerned in the slightest that John might be waiting to ambush him.

"Sorry about Sharky, by the way," Hurk says once the three of them are standing in the shade of the tarp overhead. "He's been real stressed is all, tryin' to act all fuckin' responsible and shit. John here making it after the deputy beefed it just hit hard, I guess."

Well, if that's the way Hurk's been referring to it, then no wonder Sharky's sensitive about it. "It's, uh. It's fine. We figured there'd be some... y'know. Reasonable resentment."

John does that thing where he pretends he can't hear he's being talked about, going straight to the log pile stacked against the back wall. Hurk doesn't seem to notice the silent treatment, turning to the organized junk spread out over the cracked concrete. From broken two-by-fours, bent fence-poles, chainlink scraps, and stacks of not-quite-moldy plywood, there's gotta be something here that can help fix up the trailer park. Nick makes sure to highlight the best scrap for Hurk's consideration, although he avoids mentioning their surplus of nails and stripped screws for now. No use showing his whole hand, right?

"Damn," Hurk says at last, looking around in mild astonishment. "Can we hire y'all to do this to our scrap?"

Nick laughs. "Yeah, like I wanna do all this again ."

"What about you?" Hurk asks John's back, ignoring the way he tenses at being directly addressed. "How do we rent you out?"

"You don't," John says, his tone briefly icing over as he turns, regarding them coolly over his armful of logs. He's more petulant than angry when he explains, "I don't owe you my life, so I don't owe you my labor."

"Fine, I'll just save you from a burning building or some shit," Hurk replies, as if he couldn't care less that it's John Seed he's bantering with. "I guess we gotta talk trading, now," he sighs reluctantly. "Man, I fuckin' hate this barter-system bullshit. You know, actually, I got a box full of bottle caps if you wanna..."

Nick waves away the extremely bad offer to invest in an unbacked currency. "Hey, don't worry about it," he says. Hurk frowns heavily at that, so Nick suggests a compromise. "Look, if you and Sharky wind up with your own microbrew, you owe me a case — and yes, I will take payment in installments. That sound fair?"

"If ?" Hurk replies. He lets out a big laugh. "Buddy, I got news for you."

Hurk, John and Nick each take an armful of wood back to the fire pit, where Kim seems to have everything under control. Sharky is less openly hostile when John reappears, anyway, which is a good sign. Mud and Tiny have apparently been given fire-starting duty, jumping to the task as soon as they drop off the wood. Sharky, a true pyromaniac, manages them from his seat by shouting directions at them as they stack the wood in the pit.

Before they can sit back down, Kim turns Nick and John back around for the fish. It's a one-person job, but John doesn't complain about being sent away.

"You okay?" Nick asks John when they reach the freezer.

"Yes," John replies automatically. Nick stares at him for a solid five seconds before he cracks with a frustrated sigh. "I'm just a little overwhelmed. That's reasonable, isn't it?"

"Sure," Nick agrees. He picks up the old bin they've been using to cart fish back from the river. "You can stick around here for a bit if you want. Take a breather."

John scoffs at the idea of taking a break, as per usual. "I thought the point was not to hide," he replies tersely. He reaches out to yank the cracked plastic container from Nick, a frustrated and instinctive reaction that he curbs at the last moment, fingers curling briefly into a fist as he forces himself not to just take things from Nick.

Taking pity on the dumb bastard, Nick pushes the bin into John's arms, flipping open the freezer door and staring down at the slimy, not-yet-smelly fish. "Well, if you need a break, just say you're gonna get more firewood." Nick shrugs. "Someone's gotta check on you eventually, but Kim knows the drill."

John doesn't respond as Nick loads up the bin, but Nick hopes he takes the out to heart. There's not a social obligation out there that Nick hasn't gotten out of by dedicating himself to some dumbass chore nobody else wants to do.

They return to find a roaring fire that is... hopefully under control. The mismatched seating has been pulled back to accommodate the fire's larger-than-average size, accompanied by a couple of chairs from inside to make up the difference. Sharky and Mud have disappeared, although they return just after Nick, each carrying a variety of bottles and jars of different sizes.

"Shit, I didn't think you brought the entire brewery with you!" Nick exclaims, not in the least bit upset by the development.

"Not until you clean all those up," Kim says before Nick can get ahead of himself. "You don't want to be handling a knife right after a shot of... whatever that is."

Nick groans, but she's right. As much as Nick would like to get drunk off his ass on torpedo juice, he has to get his priorities straight. Still — there's a lot more fish than Nick's willing to handle by himself, so he enlists a willing Wallace and Tiny to help out. He picks them mostly because they're openly carrying hunting knives, and because John is just plain bad at deboning fish. John stares at him resentfully, but since he hates handling food as much as he hates gardening, Nick's sure he'll get over it before dinner.

Nick doesn't have much control over the food once it's been cleaned, as Sharky and Hurk have some kind of bet going about who's the better cook and they don't need anybody else throwing their hat in. As far as Nick's concerned, their cooking tastes delicious but indistinguishable. Of course, Nick's waiting for his own dinner, so other than a few bites to try and judge the difference, he doesn't get to eat much of it.

Tiny and Wallace split and down an entire mason jar of mysterious dark liquor while they wait to eat. Nick wants to join them, but Kim's waiting until Carmina is home to start drinking and really, Nick should be doing the same. From the way John's watching distrustfully from the side, he's not likely to get into any moonshine himself.

Nick manages to hold out until after he's finished eating, but then Hurk offers him some moonshine directly and he can't say no. It would be in bad taste, right?

Oof. Turns out the moonshine is in bad taste, but that's what he should expect from something that's easily 120 proof. Nick takes one swig and immediately regrets it as it turns his chapped lips to fire and carries the heat all the way down the back of his throat. There's no taste or anything, just an intense, full-mouth burn and this lizard-brain instinct that everything is going to go horribly wrong if he drinks more of whatever that is.

"Jesus Christ !" he gasps. It's only Hurk's quick reflexes that keep the jar from crashing to the dirt, but Nick doubles down before Hurk can pry it out of his hands. Even as he struggles to form a sentence more complex than, " Poison ," he's got to go back for a second sip. As if somehow a second one would make things better — but of course it doesn't. At least, not to begin with; first, it's gotta turn his shredded lips inside out and throw his tear-ducts into overdrive better than an overripe onion.

"Well don't drink more of it," Kim huffs, way too late.

"Now be honest," Hurk asks, "Can you taste any apple?"

Nick pushes the jar back into Hurk's attentive hands, choking disbelievingly on the word, "Apple ," although now that he thinks about it... No, nope, no after-taste whatsoever. It does , however, warm him from the inside out, leaving him feeling a decent buzz for two conservative swigs.

"Whatever it is," Nick sighs at last, after a big swig of water, "It's great."

"You know," Kim says, "The sooner we put the stew on the fire, the sooner you can eat. Maybe then you could handle more than a couple of baby sips."

Nick clicks his tongue, taking some childish offense at his wife teasing him about his tolerance. At the same time, she's right — and Nick is getting hungry. There's still enough uncooked fish left for when Grace and Carmina get home, but if he wants them to have as much as everyone else, he'll have to settle for the three-day-old stew. At least Kim and John are stuck in the same boat as him.

Before he can get started on that, though, Grace surprises him by returning early with Carmina. Admittedly, it's still pretty late in the afternoon, but he hadn't expected her back so soon. She isn't surprised to find company, which is also a surprise, although she eyes the whole group somewhat distrustfully as she and Carmina round the side of the house. When she sees Hurk and Sharky drinking from their unsanitized brewing bottles, she finally relaxes, letting go of Carmina's shoulder so that she can join the not-necessarily child-safe group.

"Grace!" Sharky exclaims, leaping from his seat and almost grabbing her for a hug before remembering personal boundaries are a thing. "Holy shit, the world literally ended last I saw you!"

Grace returns Sharky's enthusiasm with her more subdued version of it, smiling fondly and following through the rest of the hug for him, the same way she'd grabbed onto Nick and Kim when they'd first come back topside. "Sharky, it's good to see you," she says, her voice deep with emotion.

"I radioed her while you were getting firewood," Kim mentions to Nick as Hurk takes his chance to get a hug from the usually reclusive sniper. "I thought she would appreciate a head's up. And, you know, it cheered Sharky up."

"Hey, good thinking."

Carmina approaches gleefully, carrying the rifle over her shoulder triumphantly. For a nine-year-old, she's pretty natural with the thing, which is a mixed blessing as far as Nick's concerned.

"Aunt Grace made moving targets!" she exclaims, excitement overriding her confusion momentarily until she looks at the group. "I didn't know we were having people over today..."

"It was a happy surprise," Kim tells her. "These are the guys who were helping that caravan heading west, remember?"

"Yeah," Carmina says. She looks immediately to John, who is way too busy staring tensely at Grace and Sharky's reunion to notice her.

"Don't worry," Nick says. "Everything's fine."

"Uh-huh," Carmina says, unconvinced. Thankfully, she doesn't seem too worried about another fight breaking out. That probably has something to do with her attention being focused in an entirely different direction. "Do we have pulleys? I wanna make a shooting range here! It's really easy!"

Nick's gut reaction is to say no, but Kim interrupts him. "Maybe while your dad is getting the stew, he can check," she offers, looking from Carmina to Nick significantly. "Then we can have some dinner and talk about it."

Although it looked like John hadn't been paying any attention before, he stands as soon as Kim mentions going to the hangar. "I remember seeing one," he says.

"You can help me look, then," Nick offers. "Maybe get some more firewood?"

"Yeah," John says absently. Nick barely steps into his line of sight, but that's all he needs, turning and making his way to the hanger down the same invisible path he was glued to before. Nick sighs, rolls his eyes at Kim entirely for show, and follows. Maybe once they get some food in him, John will stop being such a cagey bastard about the whole thing, and they'll be able to actually put things to rest with Grace and Sharky at last.

When the world ended, Nick had figured that meant the end of life as he knew it. In some ways, he'd been right — things will never be as easy, as safe, as peaceful as they used to be — but when his expectations had been wrong, they'd been completely off-base. He'd expected a nuclear wasteland, only to find a lush and thriving field. He'd expected roving gangs of murderers, and instead, he's only encountered desperate, decent people who would rather not waste the bullets. Hell, he'd expected to spend every day struggling to survive, and here he is, sitting in the backyard with a full belly and a shot of liquor to wind down. Sure, the gathering is a primitive knock-off of a barbeque, but Nick knows now that all they need is time and practice. Maybe someday, they'll even have a grill — burgers, corn on the cob, the whole works.

But hey. That's for the future, and right now, Nick isn't going to complain about some bad liquor, mediocre food and Hurk's stripped-down Slayer's cassette blaring from his beat-up stereo.

Carmina finally gets a chance to show off her skills to people other than her family, and so Hurk's boys take turns calling out targets for her to cap in an attempt to take her down a peg. Nick isn't sober enough to trust his daughter with a gun, but Kim hasn't gone back for another taste of "apple" moonshine yet, and Grace is sober as a rock, so they're more than capable of handling things. Mostly, they nix any particularly dangerous targets, keeping Carmina's shots focused out in the yard. Well, for the most part — neither of them can resist watching Carmina shoot the wind-vane still clinging to the roof, even if it means going right over everyone's heads.

It's all in good fun, of course. And, to their credit, not one of the guys even jokingly suggests taking aim at John as he sits apart from the group. It's a good thing, too — John looks uncomfortable at how good a shot Carmina is. Maybe Nick would be uncomfortable with it too, if he hadn't drunk a bottle-neck's worth of moonshine beforehand.

Nick doesn't have to drink a lot to feel downright tipsy, which is great. Back in the day, he used to like getting buzzed every so often, but he'd given up ever feeling safe enough to get inebriated as another lost memory from yesteryear. This... this is nice. And once the guns get put away, it'll be even nicer.

"I think you might be a better shot than Tipsy over here," Wallace tells Carmina, gesturing towards Tiny, who is indeed too tipsy to be a decent shot at all.

"Only one way to find out!" Tiny shouts, failing to move after his declaration.

"Maybe another time," Kim replies uncertainly. "When alcohol isn't involved?"

"Hey, Carmina," Hurk coos, pulling his battered gun into his lap, "This is a Kalashnikov, you ever shoot off one of these?"

"Ooh, no!"

Grace is much less diplomatic than Kim, cutting him off before he can feed Carmina's excitement any more. "Hurk!"

"What? Oh, uh... she's probably too young for an automatic, huh? What is she, nine? I got a Magnum in my saddlebag..."

It's not long after that they run out of targets, forcing an end to Carmina's demonstration of skill. Kim thankfully takes the gun so that nobody gets hurt, and Carmina spends the next twenty minutes peppering the crew with questions about their guns, their tattoos, their trip out with the caravan, and whether or not they have a moving target range like Grace does. Nick relaxes when he realizes that none of the guys are keen on giving a little girl another weapon, more interested in spinning drunken tall-tales that, truthfully, might be a little too PG for Carmina. At least Grace is listening in to fact-check any of their more problematic bullshit.

John isn't any less tense now that Carmina is disarmed, but Nick's not surprised. Sitting on the opposite side of the fire from everybody else, he might as well be hiding in plain sight. That goes against the entire point, but it's also his modus operandi these days. Normally, Nick would just ignore it, maybe even avoid John on purpose to show him how bad it feels, but tonight calls for a more direct approach.

"Need to get some firewood?" Nick asks him, coming to stand in his line of sight.

John squints up at him around the firelight. "No," he mutters, lying through his teeth before changing the subject. "Carmina has good aim."

"That's all Kim's genes. I'm more of a spray-and-pray kinda guy."

John doesn't quite hide his sarcasm, replying, "You don't say."

Nobody's offered John any liquor yet, he's pretty sure, so Nick holds the bottle out in an easily declined gesture. "Wanna try?" he asks, just in case he's being more subtle than he thinks. "Supposed to take like apples."

John gives the bottle an unimpressed once-over. "I don't think so," he decides, not sounding entirely sure about it. He adds defensively, "My tolerance is shot."

"If you say so," Nick replies, pulling the bottle back. "It's not like I'm gonna peer pressure you. This isn't high school. But, uh, try to relax. If anyone was gonna take a shot at you, they would've done it by now."

"Easy for you to say," John sighs.

It is easy for Nick to say, but he hopes John actually listens to him for once. He's not expecting miracles or anything, but if John's going to stick around, he's going to have to learn how to relax. Well — at least that's one learning curve that everybody is struggling with. Baby steps, right?

Nick leaves John alone for now; maybe he'll warm up into the idea of mending some metaphorical fences before everyone leaves, which would be ideal. For now, Nick goes back to the rest of the group, taking a few more sips as he listens to Carmina start to spin her own tall tales. Now that she's recognized the pattern in all of the stories the adults have been telling — larger-than-life enemies, intimidating names, lots of Foley work — she's attempting to match their vivid stories with a highly interpretive retelling about the turkey she saved her mom from a few months ago. The way she tells it, Nick would've expected the turkey she'd brought back to be at least the size of a car, but if Kim is playing into her part as a damsel in distress, Nick isn't going to ruin things by being the cynic realist.

They trade a few more stories. As they do, Kim takes a few extremely sour drinks of whatever the dark stuff is. She's been on hosting duty all day already, and Nick hasn't done much to help, getting tipsy right away with the rest of the guys like he had. But, with things starting to get late for a family of three, Nick decides it's his time to step up to the task of parenting.

Carmina hasn't had enough life experience to have many stories to share with the encouraging group of drunken manchildren, so once the attention turns to Tiny's story of his first swim after the world ended, Nick uses the out as a chance to usher her away.

"I think we oughta get you ready for bed," he tells Carmina, who boos under her breath but doesn't put up a fight, mostly because the story involves lots of nudity that she isn't at all interested in hearing about. Nick can't blame her — he doesn't wanna hear about Tiny almost getting his nuts bit off by a demon fish, either.

"Okay, but I want a good bed-time story," she demands, reasonably enough. Nick doesn't have anything as funny as Hurk's story, or anything as action-packed as Sharky's retelling of the first roadblock they encountered out on the road, but he has to at least try.

The good thing about Carmina not knowing anything about life before is that Nick can stretch some truths without repercussion. So when he tucks Carmina in, he decides to tell her the story of when she was born — this time, though, he doesn't leave out the roadblocks, or the deputy's shitty driving, or the narrowly-missed explosions. Couched in a long line of tall tales and exaggerated stories, Carmina doesn't believe most of the true stuff and only playfully believes in the bullshit.

Between Nick's bedtime-story voice and him gently stroking her hair, it's a wonder Carmina stays awake for as long as she does. Eventually, though, well before he finishes the story, she closes her eyes and finally stops resisting the chance for a good night's sleep. Nick stays put, lying next to her for a few minutes as he listens to the faint sound of conversation outside. He tries to make out the voices, to decipher who might be talking to who, but he only hears a dull hum.

He'll get up in a few minutes, go down and have a real drink with his wife for the first time in nine years, but the alcohol he's already had entices him to lie still just a little longer.

He doesn't know how long he dozes for, but when Nick is next aware of his surroundings, the light has changed in the room from the rising moon and the conversation outside has shifted in tone and pitch, the way any party might as it enters the late-night phase. Sitting up, Nick immediately knows he needs two things — more water, and one or two more swigs of that awful moonshine, just to keep the hangover from starting before he actually goes to bed.

The back porch is still wide open. The fire has died down, although it's still enough light to see by as Nick reappears. Kim sees him immediately, lifting a half-empty jar of dark liquid in his direction and waving him down with her free hand.

"This one is much better," she tells him as he approaches, holding out the jar. Well, Nick isn't about to reject his wife's kind offer, although he immediately regrets it when he takes a swig.

" Ugh ," he chokes around the harsh burn, feeling it drain all the way back into his throat. "That tastes like paint thinner!"

"Trade secret!" Hurk exclaims, adding immediately after, "Not that there's any paint or thinner in there, or anythin'. Nope. It's 100% organic malt liquor!"

Nick has no idea how Hurk would manage to find barley, but sure, he'll buy it. Another sip doesn't do any better, and to his surprise, he realizes that he actually prefers the moonshine.

As he hands the jar back, Nick does a quick head-count, coming up two short. "Uh, where's John?" he asks.

"Oh," Kim says. She points towards the hangar. "We needed firewood," she says. "Except, eventually, we really needed firewood. I sent Sharky to get some." It seems like only when she says it does she realize what a bad idea it is. "Well, we were in the middle of something, and I was distracted," she explains reluctantly.

"I wasn't," Grace utters next to her.

Kim rolls her eyes. "You should go check on them. I mean, it's fine. But maybe you should, anyway."

Nick looks over at the hangar. There aren't any lights to speak of out here, but Nick can see the glow of the lantern through the open doorway, shadows moving around behind the worn-out wall. "Yeah," he agrees, turning and heading across the wash. He only thinks of grabbing a drink for the journey after he starts walking, but he's already halfway there and he doesn't have time to turn around and come back.

Sharky appears in the doorway, forcing Nick to pull up short to avoid running into him. He looks — fine? There's too much beard and too little light to see his expression clearly, but Sharky doesn't seem phased in the least to find Nick in his way. He passes by Nick with a few logs under one arm, patting Nick heavily on his shoulder with his free hand.

"It's cool, bro," he says, "We're all good."

"Uh... okay," Nick replies, deeply unsure as Sharky casually heads back for the fire. Briefly worrying that he might find John knocked out on the ground, Nick tries not to stress out as he heads inside.

John is sitting on a discarded chopping block by the woodpile, the lantern settled by his feet. Nick doesn't see any blood or a new black eye; just John, rolling a nearly-empty glass bottle between his palms as he drifts in thought.

Nick almost feels bad interrupting, but John catches sight of him before he can retreat undetected. He looks surprised — genuinely, openly surprised to see Nick standing there, sincerely confused when he says, "I thought you went to bed."

"And miss out on all the action?" Nick chuckles. He gestures at the bottle. "So much for your tolerance being shot, huh?" he teases.

"Oh, hmm?" John looks down at the bottle like he'd forgotten about it. "Only enough to get them off my back." He sighs, following it up with a swig that he barely winces through. "After all, saying no ain't my thing ." Nick isn't sure if that drawl is for sarcastic quotation purposes, or if John's had enough moonshine to play at being white trash. "Then again, I only quit drinking because of Joseph. No point resisting now."

"I guess," Nick agrees reluctantly. "Is that, uh, what you and Sharky were talking about?"

John rolls his eyes. "No," he says. He holds out the bottle, waiting until Nick takes it to elaborate. "Kim suggested they sleep out here tonight. He was making sure there's room."

"Oh." Nick takes a drink; maybe it's just the malt liquor talking, but now Nick can sort of taste the apple around the burn. He takes one more swig, just to make sure, then hands the bottle back. "Well, as long as he wasn't hassling you."

"No more than I deserve," John says. Nick must make some kind of face, because he sighs and placating adds, "It's fine, Nick. I'm more than capable of handling a few sarcastic comments from some hillbilly outlaw." He looks down, tipping the bottle a bit to swirl the moonshine inside.

"He... means well," he says eventually. "Everyone means well."

"You don't have to sound so bummed out about it."

John chuckles. It's the first time Nick's heard his laugh and not mistaken it for a cough or wheeze. "I don't mean to be," he says. He takes a drink and looks up at Nick with a... weird look on his face. Open. Genuine? Nick's not sure. But despite the topic, John's expression radiates a deep, contemplative peace. "It's more generosity than I can bear from people I genuinely thought of as the enemy."

He is definitely drunk. "Oh, boy," Nick sighs, reaching out for the bottle before John drops it or finishes it off himself. "To be fair, uh, it's easier to be nice to you since we won, and all."

"Oh, I do not doubt it." John relinquishes the drink, seemingly aware enough to admit, "I've had more than enough."

"I think everybody's had enough," Nick says, proving his own point by immediately regretting his next swig. "God damn . Okay, well — we should probably get some wood. I gotta feeling those guys are gonna be up for a while, and we wanna keep them happy."

John nods, but he doesn't rise from his spot. "Wait," he says when Nick goes to pass him, so Nick obligingly stops, raising an eyebrow at John's half-lifted hand.

"You have to understand," he says. "I'm not — I don't know how I'm supposed to express my gratitude towards you. With Joseph, with — well, everyone , I've always known how to express my loyalty. I knew what they expected from me, what would make them happy, what... wouldn't. But with you, with Kim... I don't know anything. I feel like a child. I don't know how that makes me feel, other than like an idiot."

He heaves a frustrated, heavy sigh, ducking his head towards his nervously entwined hands. "Just — thank you," he finishes miserably.

"Wow," Nick utters in response. He doesn't know what else to say, really, except the obvious, but he genuinely means it when he replies, "Well, you're welcome. Man, and here I always figured you were playing me for a sap."

John laughs, shaking his head. "Manipulation has never been my strong suit," he admits. "I'm too heavy-handed for that crap. Intimidation and brute force, on the other hand..." He lets out a relieved sigh. "Thank God I was too sick to revel in my self-destruction."

"Yeah, I'm glad I didn't have to shoot you," Nick chuckles. "Sorta would've gone against everything I'm trying to build, you know?"

"I do now," John says. "I only wish I'd realized it before the end of the world."

"Hey, the world hasn't really ended," Nick points out. "There's still a whole left to do." He gestures towards the woodpile. "We can start by making sure Kim doesn't leave me for the raiders giving her free alcohol."

John stands, shaking his head as if he could clear the smile from his face. "I'm sure you have nothing to worry about."

"Yeah, not until they figure out how to brew a decent beer. Kim was going without for the baby. She probably would've murdered me if it meant she could've had a case of Newcastle in the bunker for a few months there."

Then again, she had also been freaking out about the nuclear apocalypse occurring above-ground, so Nick really should cut her more slack.

"You definitely have nothing to worry about," John reiterates. "But fine. No more back-talk."

"Yeah, fat chance of that. C'mon, give me a hand."

Nick leaves the bottle on the chopping block and utilizes John's uncanny strength, loading him up with an armful of wood before taking a few logs for himself, to give the appearance of helping. John doesn't complain, which isn't unusual by itself, but tonight it feels like genuine complacency, not just something he's doing to survive. And when they return to the fire, dropping off the wood for Mud and Tiny to utilize, John doesn't retreat to the safety of the other side of the fire. He instead lingers by Nick, going so far as to play along whenever Kim asks him questions, just to make him feel included. He, unlike Nick, is smart enough to refuse any more of the malt liquor Kim's taken a liking to, but he holds the jar for show from time to time, just to keep Hurk happy. In a weird way, Nick feels like he can actually see John taking those wobbly steps Kim is always hoping to see, and even weirder than that, the anxiety that maybe he's making a mistake fails to manifest, leaving Nick with a warm, fuzzy feeling that could very well be pride.

#far cry 5 #fc5 #fcnd #new dawn #john seed #nick rye #kim rye #far cry fanfic #my fic

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echodrops · 4 years

Text

Kicking the Hornet’s Nest...

I’m procrastinating hard on other tasks, but in chit-chatting (both on tumblr and on Discord) about my stance on criticism of fanfiction, I realized that there’s a very low-hanging analogy I can make to explain my thoughts on this, so…

Uh first, please remember this is my personal blog and just my personal opinion. If you think that giving unsolicited concrit is the worst, I promise I’m not here to grab you individually, shake you by the shoulders, and try to change your minds. We can agree to disagree; I’m fully aware my opinion is unpopular on tumblr but also fully aware of the irony of people giving unsolicited criticism on a post about why unsolicited criticism is a good thing.

And second, please note that the analogy used below is only an analogy and not meant to be a one-to-one comparison–obviously the issue of vaccination is a far more critical, serious, and solemn issue and the topic of criticism on fanfiction (of all things) is not equal to a global health crisis that has cost real people’s lives. I’m drawing radical comparisons to thought processes because it’s shocking, not genuinely comparing fanfiction comments to moral and ethical world health decisions because I think those two things are equitable in importance.

Uh and third, please don’t respond unless you’re going to read it all. I'm happy to take your constructive criticism after you're finished with the whole thing. I get so tired of people rushing to my inbox after only getting half way through my arguments–90% of the time, I already addressed the thing you wanted to come yell at me about and you just didn’t make it there, promise.

So, at the risk of pissing off just about everyone who thought they respected me before this:

The current anti-concrit mindset stems from a similar logic to the one used by anti-vaxxers.

(This analogy lasts a grand total of five paragraphs or something, don’t get your jimmies too rustled.)

Most people on tumblr are happy–downright gleeful–to mock anti-vaxxers. The average anti-vaxxer is considered close-minded, self-centered, and under-educated. Although the issue of anti-vaxxing is probably more complicated than we paint it here on this website (to be fair, I wouldn’t know if it’s more complicated, since I agree that anti-vaxxers are generally stupid and don’t look into their arguments very often), almost no one on tumblr has any issue with anti-vaxxers being dragged up and down the block for their bad choices.

Usually, the logic of anti-vaxxers is understood to work something like this:

Anti-vaxxer: I don’t want to expose my child to something potentially harmful, so I am not going to vaccinate them.

Literally everyone else: You’re exposing your child to far greater risk in the long-term by not vaccinating.

Or:

Anti-vaxxer: My child doesn’t need to be vaccinated; they’re fine as they are. Those diseases aren’t a big deal anymore.

Literally everyone else: This mindset will make those diseases a big deal again.

On paper, sometimes anti-vaxxer logic works out–it is true that some children suffer very painful and awful reactions to vaccinations. It IS true that poorly made or contaminated vaccinations have killed children and will continue to do in the future. It IS true that vaccinations are painful and stressful for children in general and can even–depending on how the children respond to pain and how their doctors/nurses treat them–result in long-term phobias and health care aversion. There can be serious lasting consequences from vaccinating.

But most of us laugh in the face of anti-vaxxers. Why? Because we know that in comparison to the number of benefits, the risks are minimal. In the long-term, the number of people helped by vaccines far, far exceeds the number of people hurt.

I hope you can see where I’m going. At its core, the issue of giving unsolicited constructive criticism follows a similar pattern of short-term risk aversion. Authors who don’t want constructive criticism and choose to actively refuse it are following a similar thought process to anti-vaxxer parents:

Author: I don’t want any constructive criticism. Criticism can be painful, and my writing doesn’t need to be exposed to that.

Or:

Author: I don’t need any constructive criticism because my writing is fine as it is and I’m just doing it for fun anyway.

The general attitude seems to be that exposing fanfiction authors to unsolicited constructive criticism carries more risk than it does reward. And please be aware that I’m talking about genuinely constructive criticism here, well-intentioned and polite comments (the vaccine in this analogy), not troll comments deliberately designed to hurt people’s feelings (which would be equivalent to say, an injected contaminated drug in this analogy–no one should be okay with those).

But like anti-vaxxers who insist that the short-term risks of vaccines are more dangerous than the long-term risks of major diseases… is there really any evidence that genuinely constructive criticism, even when unsolicited, really does discourage and upset a large number of fanfiction authors? Or, more to the point of the analogy–is the number of people who would be entirely discouraged from writing ever again by some constructive criticism really greater than the number of people who would benefit from getting some (again, polite) tips for improving their writing? Which is the greater risk–being hurt in the short-term or losing out on the opportunity for growth in the long-term?

Clearly there are different opinions on this and I suspect that my opinion is heavily colored by the fact that I am older than the average tumblr user and therefore have many more years to look back on to weigh on the scales of this debate.

But I will always, always argue that the long-term benefits of helping other writers where you can far, far, far outweigh the short-term risks, for a couple reasons.

1) The world is a shitty, disappointing, stressful, and painful place. We encounter harsh criticisms every single day. Your teachers will give you poor grades. Your bosses will tell you your work isn’t up-to-par. Your friends will tell you the new top you bought and absolutely love… actually makes you look like you’re wearing a potato sack. If you’re into relationships, you’ll probably experience at least one break-up in which you hear that it’s YOU, not them, who is the problem. Your feelings will be hurt by callous comments from others an uncountable number of times. Your confidence will be shaken, if not actively crushed. I’m sorry to say it, but for almost all of us, having some miserable, anxiety-inducing and extremely discouraging moments in life is part of the unavoidable human experience. (And this is doubly, maybe triply true when we are starting out new hobbies or first entering a new field. Anyone who has ever tried to learn how to skateboard and gotten laughed at by experienced skateboarders knows exactly what I’m talking about.)

The world is full of truly awful things. And I’m not the kind of person who thinks we should just be exposed to all of them right from the get-go and fuck you and your snowflake feelings or things like that. I highly urge people to tag for triggering content and am on the record again and again telling people to block characters or ships that make them uncomfortable.

But many fanfiction authors are young authors, some of whom are posting work for public consumption for the very first time. Still more have no positive experiences with constructive criticism in the first place, and the extent of their literary criticism knowledge comes from really awful and boring high school English classes. When budding writers encounter a sudden explosion of access to readers–from having maybe one or two friends read their work to suddenly having their words in front of the eyes of thousands of strangers on the internet:

It’s disingenuous to give starting writers nothing but positive feedback. Only hearing positives about your work actively discourages change and self-reflection. It gives writers an unrealistic picture of their work that can result in far more serious disappointment and embarrassment later. When someone is awful at singing and they’re only told how nice their voice is, eventually when they sing for a more serious group of strangers, they’re going to be in for a very, very miserable time.

It’s a terrible missed opportunity for young writers to get a glimpse of what “professional” writing is like. Everyone benefits from genuinely constructive criticism–both the person getting it and the person giving it. We create young writers who are passionate about improving their writing by inducting them into the culture of planning, drafting, bouncing ideas off each other, finding beta readers, and taking others’ advice to grow their abilities, and oftentimes, one of the first experiences a person has with that process is someone spontaneously going “Hey, what if you tried this instead?” People often become inspired to become doctors and nurses after witnessing a family member experience a medical crisis–people often become inspired to become writers after receiving thorough feedback on things they have written. It’s impossible to really know whether or not you want a piece of constructive criticism until after you have heard what the criticism is, and adopting a “no unsolicited constructive criticism” policy as a whole creates an entire generation of fan writers who would miss out on opportunities for growth and inspiration.

This is waxing REALLY philosophical, but bear with me here, because this is also a well-documented concern of mine: we are entering an age in which people are no longer responsible for the media choices they make, where the internet is no longer viewed as a the equivalent of yelling into a crowd of (potentially dangerous) strangers, and the onus for protection is shifting away from self-preservation “I need to not put myself near upsetting things” to “other people have the responsibility not to expose me to upsetting things.” I’ve seen a lot of people say “If authors want constructive criticism on their fics, they can just say that in a note!” My ladies. My guys. My non-binary buddies. This is the utter opposite of how the internet functions. When you put anything on the internet, you are literally putting it before a crowd of an absolutely uncountable number of strangers and there are no rules (barring the laws of their home countries) dictating how they can respond to the things you put out there. Posting your writing on the internet is explicit consent to receive constructive criticism from anyone at any time unless you take actions to prevent that in advance. Sites like AO3 actively grant you the power to dictate who can SEE your work, comment on your work, give you the power to remove messages, screen comments before they appear, block comments entirely, or simply write in any of your notes sections that you do not want constructive criticism. (If it’s that easy to write “I want constructive criticism!” why is not seen as equally easy to write “I do not want constructive criticism!”?)

Public spaces on the internet are opt out, not opt in.

Why do many (though lord knows, not all) tumblr users easily agree to the idea of “If you don’t like a ship, you should just block it” or “If you see properly tagged content you don’t like on AO3 and you click it, that’s your own fault for not reading the tags,” but have the complete opposite mindset when it comes to constructive criticism? “I’m submitting my work in a public place where anyone can express their opinion on it… But even though there are multiple tools at my disposal for discouraging and blocking opinions I don’t agree with, it’s actually other people’s responsibility not to say anything that might upset me.”

As I said, waxing philosophical here, but this is kind of a scary mindset. The ability to enter a public space–and the internet is the MOST public space in the world–and then declare that you simply don’t want to listen to dissenting opinions is scary. I mean, this is how we get a common anti-vaxxer mindset–I don’t want to listen to your opinion because I have my source telling me I’m right and that’s all I need. “I put my work out in a public place and left it accessible to everyone, but I don’t want to listen to what everyone says about it.” I don’t mean to jump off the slippery slope, but this issue is a slippery slope in and of itself. Down this way lies a dark future. “It’s other people’s responsibility to curate my social experience for me.”

But really, after all this… I just flat out think it’s important to give genuinely constructive criticism to each other without people needing to ask for it because it just kind of sucks to see a fellow writer struggling with something and not say something about it. It’s not about feeling superior or thinking you know better than someone else; we all have our own strengths and weaknesses, and spotting something that could use a bit of work in someone else’s writing doesn’t make you a better writer, it just means that’s not your particular weakness. When someone is struggling to learn to swim, you don’t just leave them to their own devices and assume they’ll figure it out–even if they swear they’ve got it. When someone is learning to sew and you, who has sewed that exact thing before, don’t offer any advice, that’s not encouragement, it’s apathy. There will be many, many, many times in your life where you did not know you needed advice. Where you did not know HOW to ask for advice. Where you might have known you needed advice but not really wanted to admit that. Where you might have known you needed advice and been too shy to ask for help. Where a piece of advice completely from the blue changes the course of your life. Fandom as a whole–fan creators as a whole–cannot become a culture that closes the door to that vital form of communication, rejects willingness to not only uplift but also help each other grow even when we least expect it.

Anyway, I’m literally just writing this to avoid real responsibilities, but the point I’m trying to make is:

Most writers, even very young writers, will not be discouraged by polite, well-intentioned criticism. They may not like it. They may not take any of the criticism to heart, but most people, even young people, are far more resilient than tumblr (which on the best of days is a negative feedback loop that can romanticize a victim mindset because having the saddest backstory makes you immune to cancellation) wants to give them credit for, and a vast majority of writers will not be traumatized or scared away from writing by people trying to offer them genuine advice. Remember, no one here is advocating for asshole trolls who post comments like “Your writing sucks and you should delete your account.” A majority of writers, even very young writers, will be able to weather the storms and tosses of even really rudely-worded advice and recover. Sometimes it might take a while, but human beings have survived as a species because we’re really, really persevering.

(But some people aren’t! you might say. Some people really will give up writing if they’re criticized! And you’d be correct. There are people who will give up, even if all they are faced with is a single gentle, well-intentioned piece of criticism. But the truth is… People give up on hobbies for all kinds of reasons! Not every hobby is for every person! Every hobby carries with it its own challenges, its own share of risks, and its own pains. Learning a new hobby consistently requires putting yourself out of your comfort zone. Wanna learn how to ride a snowboard? You will get bruised. Wanna learn how to play chess? You will lose. Wanna learn to draw? Someone will make fun of your early drawings. You will make fun of your own early drawings. Wanna post your writing on a public platform? Someday, someone is going to say they’re not a fan.

And that leads me to address the point that just keeps coming up and coming up in this issue: People aren’t always posting their fics to improve as writers! A lot of times people are posting for just fun or for personal reasons.

Yeahhhhh bullshit. No, no, hang on–I don’t mean that people don’t have fun writing and posting fics, or that fics can’t help you through traumatic experiences because everything I’ve ever posted is basically me dealing with my own personal shit–what I mean is that there’s always an additional dimension to posting your fics on large-scale public websites. People write stories and share them with their friend groups for fun. People write characters overcoming trauma and share them with their therapists (or the friends who help to fill that role) for healing. People post their stories publicly, where anyone can respond, for validation on top of their fun and healing. There are ways to hide your fics entirely on many sites. You can leave things in drafts. If a fic is appearing as unmoderated and open to the public on a major fic site such as AO3, Wattpad, ff.net, etc., it’s because that fic’s author wants responses from others! They want views. They want subscribes. They want kudos. They want comments. There’s literally no reason to post publicly except for your work to be viewed by the public.

The fun one has writing a fic is often tied directly to the thrill of seeing a comment or kudos notification pop-up in your inbox. We love seeing people enjoy our fics–it absolutely makes my day when someone sends me a message telling me they re-read my fic for the third time.

It’s NOT fun to write something and get no response.

Writing something and getting no response is actively discouraging, actually.

So whenever someone says “They’re not writing fics to improve as writers; they’re just doing it for fun!” I have to laugh a bit–because when the concept of “fun with fanfiction” is tied so closely to the experience of having your work viewed and enjoyed by others, the fastest and surest way to increase the fun you have with your fanfics… is to improve as a writer. The more you write, the more you improve. The more you improve, the more loyal readers you gain. The more loyal readers you gain, the more excited people you have to gush about your fics with. Want a Discord server full of people willing to help you brainstorm ideas for your favorite AU? Write well, attract followers. Want fanart of your writing, probably the most fun and exciting thing I can think of as an author? Write well. Just plain old want more friends in the fandom to talk about your favorite characters and fic ideas with? Make writer friends.

People have fun writing about their favorite characters and post publicly to receive responses and validation for their creations… Responses increase the fun writers have because they make the hard work of writing worth it and give you people to keep writing for and with… Improving your writing increases the number of people attracted to your works and the number of people willing to spend time responding to them… The bigger the response you get, the more invested you become in your fics, the more fandom friends you make, and the more you want to write–it’s a process that is self-fulfilling, but also one that exposes you to criticism by its very nature. The very act of seeking responses from readers means that you’re open to responses that you don’t necessarily want to hear.

And I actually don’t mean this in the way of “If you can’t handle the heat, don’t jump into the fire.” What I mean is that it is impossible to create a world in which everyone who starts writing sticks with the hobby and keeps churning out works for us to enjoy forever. It is impossible to create a world in which no young writer will ever feel discouraged and give up. The writer you decided not to give constructive criticism to might just as easily become discouraged and quit writing because they didn’t receive enough response.

The first time you give your child a new vaccine, you cannot predict the results. Your child might suffer an allergic reaction. They might die. Every year, numerous severe reactions to vaccines do occur. But the majority of people don’t question the effectiveness of vaccines because we understand that the number of people who have severe reactions is very low in comparison to the number of people who benefit from the vaccine. The number of people who will be discouraged from writing by genuine, polite, constructive criticism is minuscule in comparison to the number of people who will either 1) benefit from it directly and be thankful you gave it, 2) not benefit but not be upset by it, 3) be mildly upset by it but then benefit, or 4) just be mildly upset by itself and then move on with life unharmed because sometimes people say things we don’t like but that doesn’t ruin our lives every single time it happens.

I’m not saying that providing polite constructive criticism doesn’t have risks, just that its risks are smaller than its benefits.

And I’ve successfully whittled enough time away with this now that I can go to sleep without guilt over the things I didn’t finish, but I started this by saying the long-term benefits outweighed the short-term risks and I feel obligated to defend that…

The long-term benefits of well-placed constructive criticism are enormous. Sometimes people need ego checks. Sometimes we need wake-up calls. Sometimes we need a gentle helping hand and didn’t even realize other people could be the help we needed. Sometimes we need a reason to get fired up–even if that reason is spite, trying to prove a critic wrong! Sometimes the answer is glaring us in the face and we don’t notice until someone else points it out. Sometimes we just plain out make mistakes. Sometimes we need a teacher because the ones in school let us down. Sometimes (oftentimes) other people bring incredibly unique perspectives to our stories that we would never have been open to on our own. Sometimes we write something unintentionally hurtful and need some gentle correction. Sometimes we could be having a lot more fun if we knew the tips and tricks others had to offer. Sometimes improving ourselves is hard but worth it. Sometimes bitter medicine is the only thing that will cure an ailment.

Shots hurt. People avoid them because they aren’t fun–what parent wants to expose their child to the painful, stressful situation of getting stabbed with needles? (What parent looks forward to the yearly flu shot themselves?)

We naturally flinch back from criticism. There are many times when we swear we don’t want it, don’t need it, can’t bear it! In the moment, it is incredibly difficult to be confronted with someone basically implying that you should change something integral to yourself–your art. No one likes to feel like they’re being picked apart for weaknesses, definitely not.

But sometimes a single comment can make a massive difference in your life–even when you didn’t want it at first.

All my life, I have been helped along by teachers, family, and friends who refused to settle for patting me on the back. The people who mean the most to me, who I most credit with getting me where I am today, are not the people who just told me I was good at things. They’re the people who told me I was good at things BUT. They people who challenged me to not just sail through life or even coast in my hobbies, content with the level I entered on–they’re the people who had faith in me and trust that I could refine my skills, could have even more fun IF I took that next step, challenged myself to go a bit harder… They’re the people who took the time not just to skim over my writing and slap a thumbs up on it, but the people who thought hard enough about it go: “This story was good, but have you thought about…”

Today, I’m a professor of English because I started writing fanfiction when I was 11 years old. Because I started posting fanfiction when I was 13. Because at 14 years old, someone–without being asked–taught me the correct way to format dialogue and how to strengthen my dialogue tags. Because at 15, someone flat out laughed to tears at a cliche metaphor I’d extended too far and I was ashamed, but they taught me something else to try instead. Because by 18, I’d received–and taken–enough unsolicited writing advice to land myself the highest paying on-campus tutoring job my university offered. Because by 19, someone challenged me to write something I told them was impossible for me. Because by 20, that impossible writing became the sample that got me accepted to grad school. Because by 21, I was furious enough at the criticism I received from my creative writing masters classmates to write a thesis so feverishly overwhelming that it inspired one of the foremost postmodern poets in the country. Because by 27, it was brutally honest criticism that gave me the gall to finally leave an abusive job and apply for a teaching position. Because by 30, I got to sit at a public literary journal volume launch and watch an entire class of my creative writing students become published authors.

And even though I joked about why I was writing this, and even though I’m really not, at the heart of it, trying to persuade any one person over to my side, I hope it’s clear how much of a labor of love this post is. How passionate I am about this topic.

This whole thing is a drawn-out plea: Please, do not let fandom creation sites become a place where no one offers advice unless it is begged for. Do not miss your chance to help someone else improve. Do not close the door to criticism that could change your life. Do not let fear of short-term discouragement prevent you from seeking long-term growth. Do not let the immediate side effects cloud your view of the global benefits.

Inoculate yourselves with good advice as a shield against the very hard future.

A dearth of criticism will not make fandom a better place. It will just make it a quieter one.

#anyone want to take bets on how long it takes someone to get outraged #skip reading the actual argument itself #and put something in the replies or my ask box that was blatantly answered on this post itself #it's 4am so like I give it about ten minutes #writing #fanfiction #constructive criticism #I tire more each day of tumblr's bizarre ways of thinking #like could you imagine if this was the attitude in any other hobby #nah bro #I know I almost broke my arm back there but I don't want any skateboarding advice #I got this #yeah I know the horse has broken loose and is kicking people but have you tried NOT commenting on that #you didn't brace your sculpture correctly and it no longer resembles what the art gallery expected #Jesus ask before you give concrit for once

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