be mine.
billy sighs. rests his forehead against the cool metal of his locker. tries to ignore the hum of people talking around him. holding hands. cuddling. it’s a shitty day. it’s a shitty day and billy knew it was going to be a shitty day before it even started.
he knew because he had been the one to say it. yesterday. to tell steve that they’re not- that billy doesn’t need to be treated like a fucking girl. that they’re just screwing around. that he doesn’t give a shit if steve wants to fuck someone else today.
that steve might as well go crawling back to wheeler because billy sure as shit can’t hold his hand or call him sweetheart in the hallways. that he gets enough heat at home without the whole of hawkins high knowing how much of a queer billy hargrove is.
and then billy had walked off. slammed the door behind him and gone home. had picked a fight with neil just to top it off.
all because he was scared.
is scared. scared of steve harrington with his preppy fuckin’ polos and dumb hair. his pretty eyes and pretty smile and ability to tilt billy’s world on its axis just by looking at him. scared that steve will get bored of him. that he’ll realise billy isn’t worth the effort.
scared.
billy sighs again. shuffles back slightly and glares down as he twists the lock. the door swings open and billy is halfway to grabbing the book he needs when something falls out. a scrap of paper. no bigger than the palm of his hand. a note.
it lands on billy’s boot.
he looks around. wonders who had felt brave enough- dumb enough to shove a note through billy’s locker on a day like today. he bends down. picks it up. reads the words in front of him.
quarry, 9.
there’s a little heart scribbled on the top right hand corner. billy traces the familiar writing with a thumb. feels that all too familiar feeling in his chest. he clenches his fist. hears the crinkle of paper as he does.
then he looks up again. into his locker. really looks, this time.
a pack of marlboro reds lay on top of his books. unopened. new.
next to those, something smaller. candy, billy realises. a sweetheart, specifically. the words kiss me etched in pink.
billy smiles. can’t help it, really. it’s restrained. barely there. just a small twitch of his lips but a smile nonetheless. his first smile of the day. credit to steve fuckin’ harrington and his inability to leave well alone.
billy smooths the note out. places it next to the reds. next to the heart. tries to tamp down on the butterflies swarming in his chest. he takes a deep breath before stuffing the cigarettes and note into his pocket.
his hand hovers over the sweetheart.
“hey.”
billy pulls his hand back. fast. as if he’d been burned. he looks to his left. locks eyes with the boy now standing next to him. feels his heart stutter. “hey.”
steve gives him a knowing smile. “good day?”
“no.” billy frowns. you already knew that. “pretty shitty actually.”
steve leans. folds his arms. “that bad, huh?”
better now that you’re here. billy swallows. turns away from steve. back to his locker. “did you want something, harrington?”
“nah, just..” steve smirks. reaches out. billy feels his breath hitch. steve’s smile gets wider. he flicks billy’s earring. once. before turning on his heel with a see you around thrown billy’s way.
a promise. something deeper to them but. casual. friendly to anyone watching.
billy watches him leave. wonders if steve might be okay with them having to do things differently. wonders if this might be enough for steve. for them. wonders if he could be enough for steve. hopes-
billy jumps when the bell rings.
-
they meet up later. at the quarry like steve had said. neil under the assumption that billy’s seeing some girl. steve’s parents likely thinking the same.
billy feels as though a weight has been lifted as soon him and steve tumble into the back of the beemer. all cold hands and fumbling with belts. awkward limbs and steamed up windows. and billy lets it happen. lets himself be held. lets steve be sweet to him.
billy lets it happen. finds himself thinking that today might not be all bad. and that he might be more than a little bit in love with steve harrington. he pushes the second thought down. focuses on winding a hand into steve’s hair and sucking a mark into the soft skin just below his jaw, instead.
not all bad.
-
later finds them huddled under a blanket in the back of steve's beemer. sharing a cigarette. marlboro. red. steve nudges billy after a few minutes. doesn't say anything just. nudges him. billy tilts his head to the side. gives steve a look. steve just looks down as his hand finds billy's under the blanket.
then he presses something small into the palm of billy’s hand.
billy raises an eyebrow in question but steve’s already looking away. staring out into the night. cigarette glowing in the dark. billy rolls his eyes. wiggles his arm free and holds the object up to the window to get a better look.
be mine.
he laughs. loudly. tries to hide the racing of his heart. calls steve a fuckin' cheese. and a sweetheart. waits until steve turns to face him again before pressing the candy to steve's lips and pulling him in to exchange kisses that are almost too soft. too sweet for whatever this is. whatever they agreed for this to be.
steve pulls back first. whispers against billy’s lips “hey, baby?”
“yeah?”
“happy valentine’s day.”
“…yeah.”
almost.
steve grins and reaches out to play with one of billy’s curls. billy laces their fingers together under the blanket.
or maybe it’s just right.
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Hi I’m not sure if you’re aware put people are going around screenshotting your tumblr and sharing it on callout and adult yume hate tweets. I felt so weird messaging that’s why anon but I wanted to let you know about it, with the harassment and doxxing that has happened recently! I’m a fellow Jack yume and adore your art so this is sad to see.
This is one of the occurrences.
x(DOT)com/riddlehoe_/status/1729650574541406714?s=46&t=kTkdN9P14joudjwCx7-lhQ
So called ''normal people'' when they got nothing to do
Yeah I'm aware of the rabid anti-yume swarm in twitter..... I've seen plenty of moots getting hate campaigns and being doxxed to the point where I'm almost desensitized to it. What's the point of persecuting yumeshippers?? Especially the adult ones who quite literally keep the game alive and running for consuming and making content and buying merch? So they can feel entitled to the non-existent anime boy and feel morally superior for not having ''disGusTInG THOUGHTS'' about an imaginary little guy despite literally commiting a cybercrime and thinking they've just did a favor society?? Truly a priviledged chronically online teenager moment™
I was already expecting to get hate at some point but thankfully I've been focusing on my academic and social life lately so discourses online just seem more and more insignificant and irrelevant (as they always should be) going outside and touching grass is really healing and important to make you realize that there are greater irl problems to worry about than protecting fictional characters and harassing strangers on the internet, everybody should do that methinks 🧡
I might be a target of doxxing one day and honestly??:? I don't care. It's gonna be funny as hell. Cause it's probably some american teenager who thinks that doxxing an user in another country is gonna make the FBI arrest me for kissing my fictional blorbo in my head and that I'll be beaten up on the streets lol. Mini Karen, I assure you no one in south america cares about fictional character discourses to the point of making threats as much as people in the US do (and u guys somehow think that's normal behaviour) much LESS in my city, it's gonna do nothing 😭
Anyway, thanks for the heads up!!! I hope you thrive with your yume with Jack, he needs more love, don't let gatekeeper losers ruin your vibe 💗💗💗💗
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“Where’s Cole and Jay?” “Where’s Wu?” “Where’s Pixal?” Where’s literally everyone else. Where is the entirety of Ninjago. Where are all of their enemies.
Where’s Harumi? Is she off making another gang? What about Skylor and the other Elemental Masters? Where’s Dareth? Don’t tell me Dareth isn’t trying to continue on the Ninja’s legacy out there. The Upply and Vania? Are they out there doing good, hoping the Ninja will come back? Vinny? Is he good?
What about Garmadon? Or Misako? Lou? Ed and Edna? Ray and Maya? Cyrus Borg? Where are they. Are they not worried about their kids.
What about Clouse? He was sent to the Underworld, he’s possibly with a Skulkin army! And Vex? Vex is there too! He’s roaming freely across the lands! Pythor is still around, probably getting beaten with brooms from old ladies. Aspheera probably broke out of prison the literal day of the Merge, so god knows where she is now.
Were they all just...laying low for a year? Not causing problems? I realize the new Merged land is huge but surely they aren’t just chilling peacefully in a cottage somewhere, right? Like, compared to these guys, Imperium is such a non-problem that I kinda want them to come back just to watch Beatrix get so outrageously offended that shes barely worth the effort while the Ninja kill the Overlord for the 8th time. I think it should be utilized more often that the Ninja aren’t stepping onto Imperium’s turf, Imperium is stepping onto the Ninja’s turf, and they’ll find this out the hard way. By the never ending SEA of allies and villains that keep popping up out of the woodwork
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forgive me for sharing a wapo link (in my defense I only wound up here because I was reading a wired article about twitter bots that linked to this one) but this is a good and recent-ish (~2019) article about how major social media sites outsource the thankless, soul-killing work of content moderation to contractors in the philippines.
gonna slap a fairly broad content warning on this one for “several semi-detailed descriptions of the violent and fucked up things people post online,” which of course includes Basically Everything, so read at your own risk.
a highlight (emphasis mine):
The technology hardware industry has long operated by amassing armies of outsourced factory workers, who make the world’s smartphones and laptops under stressful working conditions, with sometimes fatal consequences. The software industry also increasingly leans on cheap and expendable labor, the unseen human toil that helps ensure that artificial intelligence voice assistants respond accurately, that self-driving systems can spot pedestrians and other objects, and that violent sex acts don’t appear in social media feeds.
The vulnerability of content moderators is most acute in the Philippines, one of the biggest and fastest-growing hubs of such work and an outgrowth of the country’s decades-old call center industry. Unlike States, who mostly screen content that is shared by people in those countries, workers in offices around Manila evaluate images, videos and posts from all over the world. The work places enormous burdens on them to understand foreign cultures and to moderate content in up to 10 languages that they don’t speak, while making several hundred decisions a day about what can remain online.
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