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river-bottom-nightmare · 3 years

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Nightwing 83 Review

guess who isn't weeks late this time. my opinion of the series is going up a little bit. it's still not great, but i'm not actively put off by it anymore the way i was after 81. not going to tag as spoilers, but be warned that they are under the cut

i’m sure you all are well aware of this but now, but dear god i love bruno redondo’s art. like, an unhealthy amount. the pink and blue is getting to be a theme with either him or just this run, but i am definitely enjoying it. the movement in this cover is clearly obvious, but well done. you recoznize right off the bat that the cover was drawn to drag your eyes down the page until you get to the bottom, but you enjoy the whole ride there.

also, redondo’s way of drawing a character in stages of action so we can see just how much they’re doing in a split second of movement is quickly becoming something i like to see drawn with dick, and any other character that has that sort of ease of movement and body sense, like cass or sin or maybe a super.

and he’s in action the entire time! there’s shot drawn just to show off a shirtless comic book character, the way nightwing is so often subjected to. he’s shirtless because he’s changing his clothes, and that’s all we see, no more and no less. very practical, very well done. i like it.

he looks so cute right here oh my god. the little squint, the hair curls. it’s adorable.

but also like. unless melinda has specifically outfitted the door spyhole so that the person on the other side can’t see dick looking through it (and in all honesty she might have) then everyone on the other side can see dick looking through that door.

bringing your attention back to the “i can’t see melinda’s fbi file oh no!! it’s redacted!! whatever can we do!!” stupidity. redacted files are child’s play for oracle, and definitely doable for both dick and bruce. so that’s bullshit.

now, melinda apparently grew up with the maroni family, then took down part of the family from the inside. the maroni family is a large and notable presence in gotham, one that bruce pays a respectable amount of attention to. he definitely would have grown suspicious when two members of the maroni family were taken down, and with some investigation, he would have discovered melinda’s plan. and it should go without saying that the majority of things you see batman doing? dick can do it too.

it’s not so much that i don’t like how clever the villains/antiheroes are getting. i don’t like how dc heroes are increasingly written as less intelligent. they seem to be relying on pure fighting skills or luck, which may be the case for a couple heroes, but has never been the case for most of dc’s big name heroes, the bat family included. it’s irritating to me to see this sort of stuff pop up as a major plot point when i know that, if dick or bruce had been written with the amount of skill and power that they canonically possess, this entire mess would have been sorted out years ago.

unrelated but dick and melinda have the same hair

this may just be me, but i was always under the impression that dick doesn’t really have a “double life???”

yes, he’s talented enough to create enough differences between robin/nightwing and dick grayson’s mannerisms, way of movement, voices, and speech patterns so that it’s very difficult to put the two together.

but nightwing has never been separate from dick grayson, not the way bruce and batman is. he’s always leaned more towards clark in that aspect: his hero persona is an exaggerated, stately, larger-than-life version of who he really is. there’s no second persona, no real “dick grayson identity” and “nightwing identity.” they’re the same person with the same goals, ideas, and skills. one just pretends to abide by the law, and one gives up pretense of that.

oh good thank god. if he’d trusted her right off the bat (hehe. bat.) i would have slapped him upside the head. at least he’s still got instincts.

gosh the colouring on this is cool. the red has enough purple and pink tones to it that it doesn’t abruptly ruin the tone of the artwork. but it’s definitely glaring enough to take the reader outside of this personal moment they had slipped into between dick and melinda, to put them back in the present where they’re reminded that oh yea there are people hunting dick down.

the next panel keeps this up too, in a less severe way. melinda’s bodyguard shows up (i forgot her name sorry :[ ) and subtly places us in the middle of an action scene rather than a private, personal scene.

laughing so fucking hard have our little vigilantes grown so accustomed to breaking into places that it doesn’t even register as a crime anymore??? tim coming in through the fire escape to pick bernard up for their date and being very much confused as to why bernard is freaking out.

i really like melinda’s shirt and now despite all the work i have to do and the fucking conference i have to host on monday i want to spend hours scrolling through clothing shops online trying to find this shirt. the mock neck/neckline is so cool i want it

so roland just assumes that a very dangerous vigilante who is highly talented in combat and a very dangerous bodyguard who is also highly talented in combat had a fight that ended with this very dangerous bodyguard being tied up and she looks completely fine? roland just assumes that her having no visible wounds or bruises means that they got into a fight and she lost that easily? uh. aight then

dick what are you doing. legitimately what the fuck are you doing. why are you posing oh my god. you are injured and tired and in absolutely no position to go hand to hand with one of main enemies. jesus christ run away or head to lower ground or something. don’t just stand around letting the floodlights show exactly where you are.

i don’t understand what he’s trying to do here??? blockbuster fully bought the story that dick fought them both, won, tried to get info out of them and failed, then hightailed it out of there. he didn’t have to draw roland out for a fight.

but it does look cool. the way the light just highlights his silhouette and the blue parts of his costume does look badass. he does get style points in my book for this.

w h a t d i d i f u c k i n g t e l l y o u , d i c k ?

very classic superhero line and it does sound like something dick would say in a fit of righteous rage but also it makes me laugh so hard because all vigilantes think they’re so powerful that the law doesn’t apply to them. dick vigilantism is illegal. you’re acting above the law and pretending it doesn’t apply to you. hypocritical much?

it happens so often in superhero movies, tv shows, comics, whatever and it makes me giggle every damn time.

pretty decent comeback but before i start seeing people writing blockbuster as a thug i’m going to remind you that he made a deal with a demon for genius level intellect. if this turns into another bane situation i’m going to be a little miffed. he’s a smart man, which makes him a dangerous and infinitely more interesting enemy for nightwing.

this is so horribly in character i want to scream. (or. at least. it lines up with one of the versions of nightwing i have in my head.) he’s running right towards the bullets, miraculously doesn’t get shot, while making a sort-of pun. i hate this so much. i love him.

this is cool. this art is really really cool.

he leaped from a building right towards a helicopter that’s actively shooting at him, but none of the bullets are touching him. none of the corruption of the city can touch him no matter how hard it tries, because he’s too good to be corrupted. Comic Book Logic Can Be Good Sometimes Actually.

batman’s belt what??? swiss army knife who?? sorry, i only know nightwing’s bright blue escrima.

this is one of my favourite things about heroes with exceptional abilities, even more so if the hero is human. the things they can do are so far beyond the realm of normal human abilities that it’s equal parts terrifying and awe-inspiring every time they act.

he just used modified grappling wires to hook to the door of a moving helicopter, swung around the helicopter safely without hitting the blades, gained exactly the right momentum to swing upward again right through the opening of helicopter, then fought and tied up the men before they had any idea what was happening. that’s near impossible to do.

it’s stuff like this where i just sort of sigh in contentment. no matter how many times they leave out dick’s detective skills or conveniently forget that he’s actually a master planner and team leader and make him out to be this forgetful dude who makes everything up on the fly because of his “circus roots,” at least they won’t ever take away dick’s sheer physical ability honed to perfection.

the art, too! in a few panels, dick’s drawn a little lightened or blurred. he’s moving so quickly and fighting so efficiently that he can barely be seen by the enemy. he’s got perfect form all the way through.

and THIS!

there was a helicopter that had five men shooting at him with what looks like machine guns. most people would be dead. some would run away, and be nimble enough to survive without fatal hits. there are very few people, even in fucking comic books, who can look at that hopeless situation and turn it around so quickly and thoroughly that he benefits from it instead.

i just. love nightwing.

it was funny the first time as a comic reader aware of the meme. it’s really not anymore. why the hell would you, in universe, be wearing a shirt that has a picture of your boyfriend being hit in the face by his father.

okay that was funny.

look at lil bitewing, so concerned for her human!!! love her sm.

also a question as to the timeline of things. is nightwing happening before or after urban legends?

i was so distracted by dick wearing a robe and briefs and nothing else that i didn’t register the second part until later. he slept for two days?? babs, baby, he recently had a very traumatic brain injury. why do you sound so nonchalant?

@TIM X COFFEE SHIPPERS GET FUCCCCKKKKEEDDDDD

ngl i totally forgot about that dude oops

this comic is giving so many reaction pictures. you know how you always use the worst possible picture of your friend for your friend’s contact picture? i’m just getting so many of these.

leslie!!! the titans!!! lucius!!! dick going to go see old friends!!!! the titans!!! this part made me so irrationally happy it really did. gar being the one to just. offer dick solutions with open arms. this was the best

i wish i could just copy and paste this entire scene, but that would take up way too much space, so i’m just going to talk about it instead.

you gave me my name, nightwing, and you gave me some of the best advice i’ve received in my life: beautiful little throwback to nightwing’s origin. you’d be surprised at the amount of people who don’t know where the name came from, or who don’t know how much clark means to dick. and the fact that dick still looks up to clark as a hero, recognizes that clark isn’t always perfect and yet continues to hold him in such high esteem, and still looks back on advice that clark gave him fondly just warmed my heart so much.

for a man who has fearlessly stood up to darkseid, bruce will do a lot to avoid a conversation: “grrr. i’m the BATMAN. i’m so DARK and MYSTERIOUS. nobody knows the true me. no one ever will. i will be LONELY for the rest of my CURSED LIFE. such is the price of a hero. ignore my farmer himbo husband in the background”

but i don’t think there’s anything heroic about being a billionaire: another nod to how much dick follows clark’s example rather than bruce. yes, this was a very poignant and important criticism, and i think it’s wonderful that this was published in a pretty popular comic book. but the thing is, there is a way to be a heroic billionaire, but only in fictional universes. the way bruce, ollie, t’challa only ever use their wealth to help people. they donate massive amounts of money to charities that they themselves create so they know exactly how the money is being used. they hire people who aren’t likely to get jobs anywhere else and pay them much more than what a base living wage is. they use their power to help push progressive laws and social change. they are helping.

dick doesn’t fully see it that way. he spent more than half his childhood the son of a billionaire, but still believes that one could be more heroic when one doesn’t have obscene amounts of wealth. whose example do you think he followed to come to that conclusion?

superman looked up to alfred pennyworth?: i mean yea alfred may have been a wildly irresponsible guardian and one hell of an enabler but goddamn if he didn’t love his kid.

you don’t need my input. you’ve thought it all through: ooooooh this line made me grin. for so long, dick’s treated clark as a mentor and a guiding figure. he’s still seen as a kid, an up and coming, snot-nosed titan with dreams of a better world. clark still thinks of him as a kid, despite watching him grow up. but this little line was something i think dick needed sorely to hear. he doesn’t need anyone’s guiding hand on his shoulder, he doesn’t need to ask for permission. he doesn’t need clark to support him the way he did when he was a teenager. he’s all grown up now, and he doesn’t need clark’s help. i imagine it was a bit of a surprise for dick to hear that.

honestly, i couldn’t think of a better role model: ohhh but it doesn’t stop there. clark just straight up turns the tables on dick. imagine you’re dick, and you’ve looked up to this one hero your entire life, and then one day he turns to you and says that he thinks you’re so kind and smart and worthy of a person that he wants you to mentor his son!? goes to show just how much clark trusts dick.

i swear to god dick probably cries every time he hears clark compliment him because bruce is so rare and sparing with his praise that clark giving him the slightest hint of approval is just a dopamine rush.

also, now deathstroke and superman have both asked nightwing to mentor their kids. the juxtaposition is fuckin hysterical. imagine either of their reactions when they realize what kind of company they’re with

lets talk colours for a second, because i absolutely adore how classic colour tropes have been subverted in this comic, and in this general run really.

warm tones have usually (usually, not always) been associated with light and comfort and friendship and,,,,,well,,,warmth. whereas cool tones are usually used to unsettle, or make a scene seem colder and put the reader on edge. this varies if a comic only uses cool tones, or only uses warm tones, but if a comic uses both, this is generally well-used.

that isn’t the case in this run.

dark red, orange, and other warm tones have been used to symbolize danger, action, attacks. hot pink isn’t usually included in this colour group, but it’s definitely part of it in this case. in contrast, scenes that have cool colours give us the impression of slipping into a comfortable, calm scene with babs, tim, the titans, and other allies. even the beginning scene with superman has this blue, but then it transitions into something more golden coloured. dawn broke over dick, as his new idea came to light, and that was reflected in the art (and the sunrise setting.)

have there ever been times when dick’s longed for the comfort of his mask because he didn’t feel confident as dick grayson? i can’t think of any. i may be wrong, but this struck me as pretty ooc.

am i just??? gay and reading this all wrong??

cause i was under the impression that when someone says they are grateful for your friendship you don’t immediately kiss them.

or is this like. normal straight mating rituals.

i mean he’s smiling afterward but still babs aren’t you supposed to at least make sure it’s okay first? you guys broke up a while back after you said something along the lines of “i want to be coworkers with you and nothing more because i don’t trust you or feel comfortable around you as a civilian anymore.” like lmao after you say something like that to someone i would assume that you don’t have the permission to just kiss them whenever you want.

show of hands who else got real sad when they realized dick was talking about himself in this.

sure, he could be referencing the things he’s seen blockbuster pull, and the children on the streets. but “i’ve seen money used for enforcement,” sounds a little too close to dick’s entire life being destroyed by one man threatening the circus to pay protection money for me to completely ignore. and “i’ve seen the poorest and most vulnerable blamed and punished rather than assisted” becomes a lot worse when you remember dick was thrown in juvie for a couple months until bruce was able to obtain legal guardianship, and in there, not a authority figure believed him when he told them his parents were murdered.

he’s lived this before.

a. mother. fucking. typo.

fucking why

i mean i’ve stated my distaste for the batfamily groupchat before but like. this is reaching new levels of ridiculousness. jason sounds like he was written by a fanfic writer. tim sounds like he was written by a fanfic writer. steph sounds like she was written by someone who doesn’t know the first thing about steph and wanted to include her for “family points!!!!!” damian’s supposed to be completely off the grid, and everyone’s searching for him. i do love the way cass texts tho.

well god fuck now i’m crying

dick got a phone call, a sorry, and a thank you out of bruce. i feel so much secondhand happiness for him, if that’s a thing. we’ll just ignore the way bruce looks ugly af and focus on the good parts okay?

and again with the colour symbolism here!

i’m either going to love this or hate this. who knows, we’ll see.

something something hearts something something pink is an evil colour something something. i need to know more about this guy but there’s definitely symbolism there.

is it just me or does this dude look like the backstabbing traitorous absolutely motherfucking piece of shit villain that killed tadashi hamada in big hero 6?

taggggg list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @anothertimdrakestan @subtleappreciation @screennamealreadyused @bikoncon @pricetagofficial @catxsnow @maplumebleue-blog-blog @sundownridge @thatsthewhump @xatanna-troy @red-hood-redemption @capricorn-stark @batshit-birds @comics-observer @buticaaba

#river thinks too hard #nightwing #dick grayson #nightwing 83 #dc #nightwing review #nightwing meta #dick grayson review #dick grayson meta #nightwing 83 review #nightwing 83 meta #dc review #dc meta

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milknette · 4 years

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day 18 - bookstore

cause lately i don't even know, what page you're on.

tumblr month: @auyeahaugust

links: ao3 | ff.net

THE first thing Marinette thinks as she pulls out the notebook is, that doesn't belong there.

And she's right— she knows Fu's Bookstore in and out; it's been her favorite place starting from when she discovered it in high school, and Marinette's practically lived there ever since.

(It's come to a point that some customers have assumed she's worked there, asking her questions as if she were an employee. Marinette still answers them even if she's not, just for the simple reason that she can.

Mister Fu doesn't mind either, assuring her that he loves the company and spirit she brings to the business.)

So Marinette always makes it a point to help whenever she can; her own personal way of saying thank you for providing her with a second home.

Today, she's organizing the books and placing them on their proper shelves.

It only takes a moment for her to notice the out-of-place and bright red notebook peeking out from the selection for Books About Superheroes.

"Weird," she quietly mutters to herself, wondering if someone had left it behind by mistake.

(But in case it was, then why would they shelf it, of all things?)

Curiously, Marinette opens the notebook.

On the first page, written in almost perfect handwriting:

'Up for making a new friend?

If yes, turn the page and write something!

I think that together, we'll be meowvelous.'

On the bottom is a drawing of an all-too-familiar catlike superhero, but was depicted so poorly that she almost couldn't identify it at all.

Marinette sighs.

Okay then. Guess she'll be writing something after all.

Adrien almost trips as he runs to the bookstore.

Maybe today. Maybe today someone actually replied!

He sneakily makes his way to the shelf, carefully watching to ensure that nobody's looking behind him. Adrien wraps the black jacket closer to his body in an attempt to hide himself.

Then, he opens the notebook.

First, he thinks with complete joy that, someone read it! This actually worked! He'll have a new best friend like in those coming-of-age movies and—

He flips to the next page.

'Please don't use the bookstore for your antics and jokes. I'll leave the notebook here for you to take back.

And Chat Noir, really? We all know the superior hero, and it's not him.'

Drawn below is an extremely intricate drawing of Ladybug, the superheroine of the Miraculous comic, arms out and holding her token yo-yo.

The sketch is so perfect that Adrien's tempted to rip the paper off and keep it for himself.

Instead, however, he decides to write back.

'Hey, it's not like I hate Ladybug, but we have to give Chat Noir some credit too! His puns are purrfect; absolute comedy gold.

But I love your drawing! Are you an art major?'

'His puns aren't all that clever. And you're not that great either, come to think of it. Maybe you could learn from Ladybug and start speaking more seriously?

And not an art major, but I'm in fashion design. I just like sketching in my free time. You, on the other hand? You could do with some practice. :-)'

'Then, teach me maybe?'

'Believe me, we're going to need a lot more notebooks if you want that to happen.'

Marinette doesn't know what makes her keep replying.

Maybe she doesn't want to lose a possible customer. Maybe the boredom of summer was finally getting to her. Maybe it's the fact that she pitied him because of his poor drawing skills and pure lack of taste in choosing superheroes.

Or maybe— maybe it's because she wants to know more about the strangely-optimistic and overly-friendly mysterious boy hiding behind the notebook's cover.

They continue their writing exchange for months.

(And have consequently gone through their fifth notebook to date. She figures that if they didn't doodle as much, they'd probably end up wasting much less paper.

But then again, Marinette does like seeing his awkward drawings decorate the pages.)

Their first argument over paper starts when Bookstore Stranger uses two whole pages to draw Ladybug and Chat Noir— sharing a kiss.

She doesn't even compliment him on the drawing.

'WHY ARE THEY KISSING?'

'Why not? I think they're in love! :'

'No, they're just partners by profession. A romantic relationship ruins their whole dynamic!'

'Well, I don't think that's true… if anything, that'd make their relationship that much stronger.'

'They don't even know each other beyond their masks! They can't possibly love each other without knowing their true identities.'

'So what? We don't know each other's real names.'

'Yeah, and we're not dating. Your point?'

The message doesn't come in the next day like it always does.

In fact, it doesn't come at all.

Marinette stops by the bookstore every morning.

Then every afternoon.

And even when it's closing time.

She arrives with a hopeful smile, then leaves feeling dejected and upset.

Maybe even angry.

Mister Fu asks her what's wrong.

"I found a stray kitty, and I think he ran away."

It's two weeks when she finally decides to get over it.

Marinette takes the notebook, a poorly-written #5 on its cover, and decides to throw it away.

She's two steps away from the trash can when she realizes that she can't get rid of it at all.

A month later, Marinette's taken a job at Fu's Bookstore.

It's a lazy Sunday, and she leans her head on the desk in front of her— eyes almost closing from how quiet it is.

Until the jingle of the door opening effectively wakes her up from her nap.

She rubs her eyes as the stranger walks up to her.

"Hi, I'm looking for this specific book and I just can't find it where I used to, so…"

"Okay, let me help you out," Marinette remarks, before turning to the desktop. "What's the title?"

"I actually don't know…"

She raises an eyebrow, then nods along. (Sure, she's gotten customers like this before.) "Can you describe what the contents are like, then? Or the design of the cover?"

"It's filled with sketches and some nonsense…"

"Nonsense?" Marinette wrinkles her nose. What a cruel way to describe a book someone's worked so hard on.

"I mean—! It's nonsense to everyone else, but not to me. And hopefully not to her either…"

Now, this is dragging on longer than it should.

"Then just describe the cover, please."

He brightens up. "Yeah! It's this bright red book; notebook, really, with the #5 on it? I know it should be around here somewhere, and I need to find it, I need to find a way to connect with her again…"

"..."

"See, I know it's not a real book, and I'm sorry I just snuck it here, but it's so important to me and…"

Marinette mutters unintelligibly.

"Sorry, I couldn't hear…"

She says it again.

"Can you repeat that?"

A third attempt.

"Please, just one more time—"

Visibly irritated, Marinette grabs a book from under her desk and places it in front of him. The number almost gleams as it's exposed to the light.

"That's exactly it! Thank you—"

"You can't have this."

"What?"

"It's my property."

"Look, I know I kept it in your library but…"

"No. We worked on it together, and you got to keep the last four so it's my turn."

"But—

Wait."

He looks up at her, eyes widening in surprise.

"Ladybug?"

She points at her name tag. "Marinette, actually. But hello, Chat. It's been awhile."

#auyeah2020 #mlauyeahaugust2020 #auyeahaugust #auyeah august #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #adrinette #ml #miraculous ladybug #milk writes #ml fic #ml fanfic #inspired by dash & lily !!

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nightmaretyrantvantas · 4 years

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When tensions break too often- a dark side au story

So I got my ideas back for some angst and some tension in this au, and I just couldnt resist writing it. Plus its a good way to warm me back up into doing things for this au.

This is also a bit of a deeper dive into the dynamics of darkside! Virgil and the other dark sides and how they all bounce and thrive off each other, as well a some backstory and peeks at the full effects of Deceit leaving( jealousy is with the dark sides but is only mentioned, he currently doesnt make much of an appearance in this one in particular, he gets his own angst later)

This was fun to write, not gonna lie. Its been awhile an this is gonna be long so buckle up with me

I also got alot of inspiration to finally write this out(and revise parts of it) due in part to @aimasup ‘s recent comics and writings about their kid sides(which I love, like alot alot and I hope they dont mind me getting super inspired by it!)

ships: Past prinxiety, past anxciet, implied intruxiety, implied intrulogical, implied intruloxiety, implied one sided remus x wrath, implied past demus, implied current roceit

Im putting a trigger warning here for cussing, fighting(verbal and physical), descriptions of panic attacks and emotional breakdowns, violence, gross and inappropriate language, some body horror descriptions, as well as implied unsympathetic sides(all sides are morally grey but the perspective is biased towards the dark sides as its seen from Wrath’s view- keep that in mind)

Things are about to get angsty my friends but i promise it ends happy(for once in this au)

I hope you guys enjoy

~~~~~~~~~~

Wrath Sanders had a lot more patience then almost everyone gave him credit for. Most considered him the biggest hothead there was, going off at the first irritation. But, the truth was he was eerily patient...Sure he may simmer and seethe and hold onto things in unhealthy grudges, but he never lost his cool as often as some would want you to believe.

Wrath Sanders kept his cool during many things, even if that was the last thing he wanted to do.

He had sat back through many things, biting his tongue to hold back the venom and yelling and grinding his teeth together in anger and forced himself to sit through many many things that happened around him out of respect- out of a deep fucking respect- for Virgil’s Fear’s Anxiety’s authority. Instead, he watched shit go down over and over again and held himself back from reacting towards the problem, focusing his energy on the recovery.

But, the most recent event was his last fucking straw.

It had happened seemingly out of nowhere, Wrath had been slumped down on their shitty lumpy couch boredly watching some dumb movie. It was getting later in the night, around 10 maybe 11 and he had one of Remus’s crappy beers partially drank in his hand. He was just getting up to change the movie or turn it off all together when the whole house seemed to shift violently, the walls seeming to tremble. There was a moment of confusion before he heard it.

“ Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

His whole body jolted to its feet unsteadily as the sound of Anxiety’s pain wreaked scream filled the house to an almost deafening volume as it distorted and deepened. His body moved before his mind, lurching over the couch and running for the source of the scream as another one wailed out even louder than the first, the sound muffling the breaking bottle and violently shaking the walls with their reverb. He heard other sounds too underneath, glass shattering heavy objects banging and wood splintering, wallpaper shredding. A third screech rang out, cutting itself in half with echoing high pitched sobs.

He hadnt been the first to make it to his room.

Wrath watched as he turned the corner in time to see Remus destroy Anxiety’s door with his morning star, a wild and desperately freaked out look to his glowing eyes as wood splintered and gave out under the weapon, some sending cuts into his cheeks. The creative side was then out of sight in a flash, forcing his way into the room yelling as to be heard over the screams.

Remembering the pain, the fear the absolute panic in Remus’s normally confident voice sent a deeper chill down his spine than the screams had.

“ Virgy??!! Fuck fuck fuck fUCK!! Virgy no no! Its me dammit!! Fuck FUCK FUCK!! No no NO! Virgy virgy virgy storm cloud creepy cryptid no no nnonononono look at me no no look at me cmon honey look at me not those at me. me me me me..” His voice continued, shaky and softening as the screams faded into heart wrenching sobs and high pitched hyperventilating gasps. Remus continued to speak, morning star thudding against carpet and a softer thud sounding.

“ Hey hey hey hey hey hey...hey hey hey I got you I got you I’m here im still here....i’m always here for ya honey...I got you now I got you see? Yeah yeah thats me....just focus on me....cmon cmon stormy cant pass out on me now...follow my breathing lets breathe together...in...out...in out...now....tell me five things you can see....cmon honey you got this just look up im here right here...”

The sight through the broken door haunted him, made his chest throb hard and bile burn his throat.

The bedroom before him was completely trashed. It was as if something feral and destructive had ripped it from its very foundation. Every piece of furniture, big or small, was broken and smashed apart, the anxious side’s bed and couch ripped into multiple pieces. Every shelf or flat surface had faced an even worse fate, thrown around and shattered into various pieces that had been strewn around the room along with glass fragments from anything unfortunate enough to have been made of glass. Papers and books were severed and torn apart viciously, and the wallpaper was slashed in huge wide cute, some of the slashes cutting deep into the wall underneath. And in the middle of the disaster was Remus and Anxiety. Long, protruding limb like dark shapes sprouted from the purple side’s back, twitching and trembling with adrenaline along with his heaving, hunched over shaking form. Remus was there in front of him, knelt down to the balled up figure and slowly but surely coaxing him up enough to pull him into his arms and rock him back and forth as he kept speaking to him. It took Wrath a few seconds of his vision adjusting to the room’s darkness to realize Remus had more cuts on him, and why.

Strings.

Millions of purple tinted, tautly pulled strings, like a tightly woven and intricate sickening spider web filled the room from top to bottom as if trying to shield the two in its depths. He could see parts of them hanging limp, likely from Remus forcing his way through to the other. He watched in a horrified shock as Anxiety’s body lurched and jerked with his piercing sobs, hand harshly digging into his scalp through his hood and shadowy claws threatening to rip said hood open. He could see many of the strings connected directly to various parts of his body and to the eight extra things on his back and it made him shudder. The room radiated a sort of fear and panic that was infectious, suffocating even. But he refused to leave the doorway and abandon the two there, in that too dense darkness.

He watched Remus manage to gather up the shorter side into his chest and rock him more, practically curling into a ball over him. He was still talking, his voice softening to the point he couldnt make it out anymore from the door. But he could see his expression. God his expression mightve been what pushed him past his bullshit accepting limit.

Remus’s face was grim, any traces of his grins and normal attitude gone. His eyes were glowing in a dark, dangerously violent fury but the way they stayed trained on Anxiety kept them, for the time being at least, soft and remorseful. There was so much pain there in that focused gaze, pain regret sorrow a disturbing amount of fear and understanding. His mouth moved with words not meant for Wrath to hear, soft gentle coos and reassurances too intimate to be heard by anyone else but the one trembling harshly in his strong arms. Brows furrowed and it made Wrath feel even colder to realize his hands, hands that were holding the other up and petting his hair through that black hood and rubbing between the spidery appendages, were trembling.

Remus was trembling.

After awhile the strings seem to fade away into nothing, those shadowy limbs following them scarily slow. Once that happened and the worst of the darkeness seemed to dissipate was when Wrath dared to take a few stiff steps into the room, debris crunching too loudly under his boots. He saw Remus stiffen and his eyes flicker up like a cornered, ready to attack animal before relaxing, glow never leaving.

“ W...wh..r...R-remus...”

“ Des...Dessy brat...h-hey spitfire do me a solid and go open my door ok? Dont worry itll lead to my bedroom...just...go open it for me...will you...?” Wrath’s voice failed him after that and he nodded, backing out of that suffocation and away into the brighter lit hall rushing from the room to push open the dark stained door further down. He turned around to go back, to try to help somehow...anyway he could, when he watched Remus instead picking his way out of the mess and into the hall, their leader cradled in his arms limply like a small sleeping child. Not a sound came from either of them as he stalked through the hall and into his room, a single nod dismissing Wrath before the door swung shut in front of him...

That was where he was drawing a line. Enough had been enough.

Wrath had sat back through many things, too many fucking things than he should have. He held back his doubts when Virgil and Roman had first started seeing each other when they were younger and dumber, had held himself and barely held Remus back from mauling the so called “good” creativity when things had gone awry and he had broken Virgil’s heart and left him in bitter, resentful pieces for them to pick up and help mend back together. He held back every time Thomas had, intentionally or unintentionally, slighted and undermined their jobs as a part of him, of their importance, of Virgil’s and Remus’s importance to him. He had sat back through the aftermath of ever fight with the “light” sides and with thomas, through every dismissal and banishment and arguement and accusation. He had helped and been there through countless sleepless nights and previous breakdowns and panic attacks between all four three of them, and he had been here, had been forced not to retaliate as per Virgil’s simple request.

“ Dont Des....dont go after them...Im forbidding it got it? Dont do it. it isnt going to be worth it...please...”

It had always been the please, soft and defeated that made him obey. Not the angry snaps and lashing out, not the cruel words and push and shove they all did for so long, but the plea in that word...the vulnerability it revealed.

He had sat through Deceit’s slow distancing from the rest of them...and his eventually leaving them for the light sides and the ensuing pain and breakdown that his leaving left behind.

It had splintered them, had struck both Virgil and Remus harder and more painfully than either side would verbally admit. Wrath had been forced to do nothing but helplessly watch it break them and break himself too, and try to clean up the aftermath best he could.

But this breakdown, seeing the side that had always stubbornly refused to buckle or back down reduced to a screaming sobbing wreck on the floor, seeing the other side he had always seen be nothing but strong and indifferent to everything thrown with a grin shaking in fear and softly pleading was too much.

He had stayed down, seething, resentment festering for years. too many years without an outlet.

He remembered the hand that had been held out to him all those years ago. Remembered coming along a little bit before Deceit ever did...and looking up from where he was angrily crying on the floor to see two figures before him. One was shorter, with two sets of brightly glowing purple and green eyes and a big black hoodie that was too big for him and messy hair that fell into his face. Behind him was someone much taller, with wild hair and a single streak of white in it, eyes feral and gleeful i a way that made him tense and made him mad through his tears. He was dressed extravagantly, like a prince or even a king grinning unnaturally wide. But his focus narrowed on the purple one, whose dark claw tipped hand stretched out in front of him in an offering. When Anger had put his head back in his knees to cry more he felt an arm drape over him. His head snapped up and he saw the princely one next to him with a softer expression, hand rubbing his back a little.

“ Hey....hey its ok Anger. Whatcha crying for? You did your job! Pretty damn well too! You were amazing the way you had Thomas screaming at that bully!” A clawed hand smacked him making him yelp and he looked in front of him to see Fear knelt in front of him with a look of understanding, a bitter smile on his face.

“ He’s right you know? You were only doing your job...you didnt realize how out of hand things would spiral and thats ok. How they reacted isnt your fault...”

They offered him a place to go, a place to thrive. Screw the others that refused to understand and stay with them. And Fear led them both deeper down the halls by the hand, making sure he didnt get lost

He was done standing down.

Someone needed to pay.

~ ~ ~

If he was honest, Wrath wasnt sure how long he sat outside the intrusive side’s shut door, sitting slumped against the opposing wall in a thick, deafening silence. It mustve been long enough for him to drift into an uneasy, restless sleep. His dreams filled up with memories of younger years, of pranks and scuffles and violent roughhousing the three of them got up to being on their own, of Remus making meals and running around frantic to keep both Anger and Fear from accidentally killing themselves or each other on something. Of Deceit hazily joining their trio, hesitant and quiet but able to snap back just as viciously and able to rough house back just as good as the rest of them after awhile. Of days filled with shrieks, squeals, bickering and shrilly laughter, of restless nights where they all broke into Remus’s room and dog piled on his bed to sleep. Of slowly growing up and watching Virgil come out of his quiet observance and transition from Fear to Anxiety and taking charge as a leader among them, of Remus stepping back and letting him with full confidence as his right hand and partner in crime in most cases. Of seeing Deceit come out of his terrified shell and blossom into a belovedly bitchy and...supposedly self assured side...of Virgil’s echoing screams that seem to reverberate through his very core...

He jolted awake at the sound of a door creaking, and sluggishly lifted his head to see a pair of familiar scuffled riding boots, laces fraying if you looked close enough. He lifted his gaze higher and soon locked onto tired green eyes that were dark and dull from exhaustion. Lifeless was a term he could describe those eyes with and that fact made him briefly queasy and cold. He looked tired, so very tired, and older. He was older than them both....but right now he looked much older than he was...There was a silence between them for a few moments that allowed Wrath to rouse himself up a little more.

“ Dessy....for all thats unholy...what’re you still doin out here dumbass? Did you stay there all night?”

‘Dessy’...‘ Des’ the nickname eased some of his shot nerves. Ever since they were kids they had joked that his name shouldve been “ Despair” instead of “ Daniel Williams” because of his very present pessimism and negative outlook. And soon it became so much more fitting that his nickname became “ Des” short for despair...or in Remus’s case “ Dessy” as he oh so enjoyed calling him. The annoying nickname was familiar though, and it helped him relax enough to speak. His voice was rough and awkwardly quiet in the small hallway, as if he’d been the one screaming.

“ I....wanted to make sure he’d be ok...” He trailed off, voice faltering with a clear shake. It sounded pathetic and weak to him.

But maybe, just this once pathetic and weak wasnt a bad thing. Because at the sound of his voice, and his dumb reason, Wrath saw some life flicker back into the older side’s eyes, some of their glow returning. Remus let out a tired, exasperated sigh and gave him a small sad smile, his expression softened into something sorrowful yet fond. That fondness, that softness sent warm tingling butterflies fluttering through his chest like it always did despite the grim circumstances. Remus let out a strained chuckle and shook his head, pulling his door shut with a quiet click.

“ He’s asleep now ya little Tasmanian devil...let him rest and we’ll check on him in a bit...now cmon, lets go make some breakfast and watch some movies or something....lets go up up.” With a grunt Des allowed himself to be heaved up by the armpits to his feet and didnt protest Remus wrapping an arm around him and guiding him down to the living room. He didnt want to see that pained exhaustion on his face...he needed to do something

and had a problem he was finally going to get rid of.

“ No Des you cant.”

There was that feeling as familiar to him as breathing bubbling in his chest, that hot smoldering feeling of anger or irritation igniting. It flushed out the cold he had been feeling in an unpleasant way but he ignored that part, pressing his palms flat on the table with a bit of force as he narrowed his orange eyes at the one across from him. He felt something like acid stinging his mouth and begging to be spilled free but he did as he usually did and grit his teeth to hold the worst of it at bay. Pushing it down. Holding back again.

“ Not again Remus. I refuse to just fucking sit back and do nothing again. They need to be taught a lesson! This is all their fault- all his fault--”

“ Even if it is so fucking what?! You blindly lashing out at them is only going to make things worse I can promise you that--”

“ Like hell it will!! They act like they can just walk all over us and treat us like fucking trash and cause things like last night and you think im lashing out blindly when--”

“ --When youre temper is as violent as a fucking feral mongoose--” “ Dont call me a fucking mongoose beetlejuice reject!!” “ Oh shut up and sit back down you twerp!!”

They went back and forth across the table, both their tempers and volumes raising as they fought. That bubbling feeling was twisting into a boiling, growing burning that began filling his chest and core. Why was Remus not agreeing with him for fucks sake--

His vision started tinging red.

“ Look brat you think I fucking like this?! You think im not pissed the fuck off?! Because I am! I’m beyond pissed off about this!! About the fact I know exact who and what caused Virgy’s breakdown and about the fact it happened at all!! I fucking get it!! But even I know you shouldnt just storm in there to take off trying to take off their fucking heads when youre too upset! Youre not thinking clearly enough for that kind of confrontation dammit im trying to protect you in this too!!” Remus’s words were loud, ruthless, and hard hitting. There were angry and forceful and made sense.

Plenty of sense.

And somehow that made him even angrier.

“ Oh? Ooooh! I get it, I fucking get it! Now that youve been sweetening up fucking logic youre suddenly the first to fucking defend them hurting our fucking best friend--”

“--oh for fucks sake bitch Logan has nothing to fucking do with this!! Im not fucking defending them either!! I swear to god im just trying to--” “ --to what huh?! Keep on his good side so you can get in his fucking pants?! Or so you can fucking push it aside and laugh about it later like one of them?!--” “ Goddammit you fucking stubborn brat you dont know what youre even talking about--” “ I dont know what im talking about?! I DONT KNOW WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT?!?!” His voice rose much louder, his own trembling distortion coming out and getting spat at the side who had helped fucking raise him like venom.

“ I dont know what im talking about?!! You mean like how I NEVER seem to know what the fuck im talking about?! Like how Virgil never knows what hes talking about or how you never seem to know what youre fucking talking about when your talking to them?! God now youre even starting to sound like those pretentious bastards!! Dont know what im talking about?! What part do I not know what im talking about Intrusive Thoughts?! huh??!!” His breath was coming out in ragged, squeaking pants as his eyes began to burn “Which fucking part do I not fucking know?! The part where ive had to sit back and bottle up my rage at being pushed aside and degraded and judged and dismissed or having to sit back for fucking years and watch you and virgil get hurt and hurt and ignored and dismissed and talked down and insulted and broken and having to swallow my protests of it?! Or of knowing last night fucking happened because Deceit decided to fully live up to his fucking name and abandoned us for those bastards and left us alone without a second thought and got away with it?! Or the fucking fact youre too busy trying to bone down logic to even fucking care--!!”

Smack!

It came so fast he hadnt had time to prepare for it before his head was snapped to the side and pain exploding in his face, on the cheek near the jaw in particular as he staggered to the ground a good foot and his eyes eerily slow dragged themselves from looking at the kitchen cabinets to Remus, who still had his fist outstretched near where it had collided with his face, his chest heaving almost like his own was, eyes wild and just as angry before a flash of realization went through them.

“ ....Des....fuck...i...you...” Nothing too coherent came babbling out Remus’s mouth, he was still way too hoped up on anger fueled adrenaline. His fist was starting to tremble and Wrath watched his pupils dilate a few times in his attempt to calm down.

And then there was something like an explosion as that burning feeling warped into a raging fire and Wrath let out a infuriated, inhuman shriek and lunged for Remus with a full intent to rip out his stupid fucking throat as his rage consumed him.

The two fighting sides went crashing into the living room loudly nearly knocking over the couch in their wake, both of them screaming and Wrath inhumanly screeching in an almost reptilian manner as he clawed and punched wherever he could reach. Remus wasnt just lying down and taking it either, yelling in loud angry spats of soon unraveling nonsense as he fought back mercilessly, throwing the other into walls, into furniture, throwing punches and kicks of his own. But nothing seemed to slow the orange side down and he struck back with slowly growing claws and fangs and something sharp growing out of his hair, angry tears burning his eyes and his voice too warbled and distorted to even be understood anymore, both their forms twitching and subtly shifting and glowing as they tried to rip each other to shreds, things fluid dripping and twisting lashing out from Remus’s back. Remus was stronger, he always had been, but Wrath had a seemingly endless stream of fury and adrenaline that kept him getting back up and charging in for more, the room being wrecked between them. Maybe things would have gone too far if it hadnt been brought to a hard, screeching halt.

By the time they could both blink they were ripped away from each other, both now uselessly struggling as they were entangled in roughly restraining strings that glowed a eye straining, furious purple color and seemed to tighten and wrap around them more the more they fought and struggled for freedom. Their indecipherable words and incoherent screams where just as ruthlessly cut short as strings wrapped warningly around their throats, not tight enough to actually choke or hurt them, but firm enough to be very present and felt, their voices being quite literally silenced the moment it touched looped once and touched the spot over their vocal cords. There was a horrifically tense silence as their mouths moved in spat insults and screams that never made a sound.

“......that....that is enough out of both of you.”

Virgil’s voice cut through the room like a cleaver, the tone dead, cold, and just as pissed off as they were. At first they couldnt see him, manic eyes darting around until Wrath saw the Duke’s eyes trained on top of the stairs near the hallway, pupils down to small pinpricks. When he glared over in that direction he fully understood and felt all that anger draining and quickly turning into a queasy, cold dread that made him want to cower.

That radiation of fury, or bone chilling fear and a kind of suffocating anxiety that made it hard to breathe and a panic that made them both feel like they were perpetually falling and simultaneously drowning swept over the living room like a flood, the corners and ceilings slowly developing intricate pulsing webs or strings that seem to absorb the rooms light as Virgil stepped, no, half crawled down the stairs and into view. Both sets of eyes were visibly, the whites dyed a void like inky black where his brightly burning purple and green irises cut into them coldly. Something sharp and gleaming poked from his scowl and revealed themselves as fangs as his snarl curled his lips. His hood was up hiding most of his pale skin but couldnt hide the flecks and scatterings of void like, inky and purple spots dusting parts of his slowly purple tinging skin. His hands, snapping out from his sleeves to grip the stair railing were fully blotched in that void, fingers curling into razor sharp claws that strings hung stickily too. The eight dark appendages, opaque and gangly half carried him down faster than usual, the ends digging into the carpet as if for stability. A shrill hiss whistled through Anxiety’s teeth and the panic inducing feeling of being stared at at being excruciatingly examined came from every corner, growing worse and worse as he stalked closer with silent movements.

“ What....the actual fuck are you two doing.” The words with sharp edged and cold, tone flat and tired. They both just stared helplessly, unable to move or speak and both beginning to mindlessly panic. Virgil blinked and a gust of air like an exhale swepted through the room and....left no traces of those fearful horrified feelings in its wake. Both of their feet thudded mutedly against the carpeted floor as the strings released them and retreated back into nothing, disappearing from all around them as if they had never been there to begin with...the room never dimmer than it had started in the morning light and the three of them stood there in silence. Any hints of inhumanity were gone from Anxiety’s form, leaving his two still glowing eyes losing their luster and leaving dull annoyance behind, no fangs, no extra limbs, no claws, no void dotting his skin. When he spoke he took a slow breath, as if unable to breathe just like them.

“....I...I mean it you two...what. the actual fuck did you two wake me up with.” Even his voice had returned to normal, if not for a bit shaky and hoarse from last nights screaming. Wrath saw his eyes were bloodshot, and his face was tinged with blotchy pink and was puffy from crying and something clenched in his chest, thudding hard. He looked at Remus, who was panting from lack of breath, eyes dull and exhausted and pain filled again, injuries from their fight blaring from the blood decorating his body and clothes.

He had done that....he’d lost control again...

“ Im dont want to repeat myself a third fucking time. What the fuck did you--”

“ I...This is my fault I started it...” Both of them looked at him, gazes drilling into him. But he let his head drop as shame took over, choking him a little. This was his family and they were already hurting and look what he’d done-

“Oh piss off Dessperato. It aint only your fault I fucked up too. Look virgy we were both tired and coming off that dumb worry adrenaline shit and we started arguing...and we got waaaaaay too heated and decided to beat the living shit out of each other...sorry we woke you you were suppose to sleep later.” Virgil let out a sigh and rubbed his temples, pulling off his hood and shaking out his messy bedhead.

“ Is that all that happened? Im not deaf and the doors arent sound blockers...” “ Then why are you asking.” Virgil and Remus as a bit of a stare off before finally, for the first time that morning all the life slowly returned to his eyes and he gave a toothy, blood streaked grin and started to laugh. The other two looked at him like he had fully lost it. Then Virgil’s lips twitched up and Des rolled his eyes and failed to stop the grin spreading across his face or the chuckles that he managed to choke out. Within a few minutes all three of them were laughing on the messy living room floor half sprawled over each other and Jealously bemusedly deciding they werent capable of making breakfast and making it for them all instead. Des watched half delerious from his exhaustion as Remus cackled and kicked his leg, just to laugh more when he kicked back.

“ I swear to god no more violence out of you two or I swear I’ll...” Remus let out a snort and gripped the other’s chin between his fingers sensually tugging their faces closer with a smug grin

“ You’ll what Hot Topic? Lock me in the closet again? Or send me reeling with nightmares and hallucinations~ Oh please virgy baby I dare you too~” His tone was light and suggestive, quirking his eyebrows up teasingly for added effect. Virgil snorted and and grinned back leaning close as well.

“ Oh dont start teeempting me with those sweet talkins about hallucinations dr. Hideous~ I might just take you up on that...” Then he flicked his nose and shove him away, both of them laughing. Des was about to try to give them the time to themselves when Remus yanked him between them waggling his finger disapprovingly, making him whack the other’s shoulder with a affectionate “ fuck RIGHT off” and for awhile, in that growing morning light, things felt ok.

It had taken alot of talking, and another arguement almost breaking out between himself and virgil to convince him to back down from confronting the light sides violently. Virgil brought a surprising amount of identical points to remus, while also reminding him that reacting to violently will only make them ignore and dismiss him further. Des was very reluctant, and stubborn, but ultimately he trusted Virgil’s and Remus’s judgement. He trusted Virgil’s reasoning and that he was looking out for him- protecting him. So when he asked him, softly, to refrain from trying to handle it on my own and let him deal with it Des had agreed, obeying his request.

And then a real tipping point pushed him back over the edge.

It was a few weeks later. He remembered distinctly because the mindscape was abuzz with excitement, even the dark sides were effected by Thomas’s unbridled joy. But Virgil had said he was getting a bad feeling...and headed off to the main part of the mindscape that morning. Things were quiet after, calm even. At some point him and Remus had started playing cards, though Remus was blatantly cheating and they were bickering.

Things were fine...things were calm...

Then Virgil crashing into the living room breathing harshly and in the midst of a bad panic attack.

They both jumped up and Remus caught the other in his arms, trying to calm him down and figure out what happened. It took a long time and for awhile they only got bits and pieces out

Thomas

A callback, a big important one he and Roman were thrilled for

Patton, something with both Patton and Deceit

Neither of them agreeing but both of them fighting Virgil

some kind of important friend event on the same day

they had argued, they had fought, there had been yelling by the climax of it

Him and Roman went at each others throat despite the fact he had been trying to help roman’s cause

Deceit fought him alot too, trying to cut him off at every chance in a form of fear response, out of defense

Him and patton argued and fought badly for the first time since Thomas’s last breakup

He thought logan would try to see his side and be a neutral party

Logan was getting tug of warred into agreeing to arguments to push him out

They kept trying to shut him down and dismiss him, they stopped listening fairly

Virgil had to pull out a form shift in front of thomas

He had to use his influences and fear to get them to stop talking over him and twisting his words

it only made things worse, and arguments harsher

They rejected him and his attempts to help more

He started having a panic attack mid argument

He thought logan and patton tried to help but they were getting drowned out by Roman and Dee

There was so much yelling, things that should never be said got thrown

They told Virgil he never does anything but make Thomas worse

Thomas finally nearly screamed for them all to stop and half asked half pleaded for Virgil to just leave until everyone calmed down

He lashed out and hit someone, he wasnt even sure who before he fled, not hearing them yell after him. It mightve been patton, or thomas, or maybe logan

And then his panic attack got worse and neither of them could get another understandable word from him.

In the end Remus eventually got him called down, after a good couple hours of trying, and it took everything in Wrath not to scream and destroy the room.

All Virgil did was try to help, and look what their....their bullshit left him. He was beyond seething at this point, he was fuming he was downright practically breathing fire and shaking from the effort to keep himself still. Remus gave him a cautious warning look, as if he was sizing up one of his many monsters in the imagination and debating if it would kill him or not and Virgil lifted his head to choke out for him to stand down, and to not do anything. Wrath had nodded silently and waited, watching Remus help him upstairs to his room to grab his headphones, and hopefully calm down more. Once they were out of sight he made a decision. He knew the consequences of it, knew theyd both be furious and Virgil would make hell for him for it. But none of that mattered to him

For the first time in many many years...he disobeyed Anxiety’s direct request.

It took a few days to find an opening, but once he saw one he took it, rising up in the big main living room, unknowingly in the middle of a video brainstorm.

Wrath always seemed to appear near the couch, between Roman and Thomas. Just seeing them made his blood boil more than it had been.

It was easy to say he scared the shit out of most of them by just appearing, his entire presence sucking the air from the room and making it hot and tense, a cracked dam waiting to break. Itd been months since he’d seen them face to face, and for a moment his senses got overwhelmed by everything.

But he let that fuel his anger further and he growled for them to fess up. Which one had said it. Roman had of course jumped to the defensive of his friends and that was all Wrath needed.

He lost it, pointing and yelling and accusing Roman. Blaming him for it. Roman didnt back down and fought back, and the fight only seemed to worsen. The others tried to interject, and maybe if Wrath’s vision hadnt been blood red from his fury he wouldve seen they were trying to diffuse the situation and calm things down, talk things out. But he ignored that, whipping around and lashing out at them too

“ Wrath you need to step back and take a deep breath! Youre getting irrational!”

“ Wrath kiddo please we dont have to yell and scream about this Logan’s right lets all take a deep breath ok?”

“ Like hell! Im not going to just let him force his way in here and yell and scream and pretend its ok and we can talk!”

“ Roman please!” “ro stop getting angry back is just making all of it worse the others are right we need to be calm or we’ll never get through to him.”

That voice. Silken and soaked with caution. He whirled around on Deceit and snarled pinning him to the wall without thinking.

“ This is all your fucking fault! Youre the reason they keeping hurting and virgil has breakdowns that put him out of commission for days!! Youre part of the reason Remus locks himself away beating himself up. they trusted you!! We all trusted you and you decided to fuck us over and throw us out like trash!! Was it worth it?!?! Was being here worth breaking the people you grew up with you and loved you?! Well?!” There was yelling around them, and he thought briefly he heard Remus’s and Virgil’s voices behind him as well. But now all that anger, that pushed down bitterness and resentment finally had a target and he couldnt focus on anything else. He didnt even heard Deceits struggling answer as he tried to claw him off, his different eyes wide and his mouth moving in words that werent registering.

“ -youre right ok?! Fuck youre not right at all--fuck fuck I get it youre angry and I fucked up with this, this isnt my fault and I havent been trying to figure out ways to fix it! I totally havent been beating myself up for what happened a few days ago with virgil and I dont regret it ok--” THe words blended together in his head, there were hands on his shoulders ripping him away the the freaked out snake and shoving him into the couch. He snarled but froze when he realized He was staring at the very formal business end of Remus’s morning star, inched from his nose and Remus standing over him with a dark look over his face...dark and upset The red faded from his vision and he blinked rapidly, eyes burning again and jaw aching from how hard he’d been clenching it or from yelling he honestly couldnt even tell anymore. From behind Remus stood both Logan and Virgil, side by side speaking in rapid low voices he couldnt decipher. Behind them he caught of glimpse of Roman and Patton both kneeling on the floor, fretting over a still freaked out Deceit as Jealously offered to help him up. Wrath was struggling to breathe, his body twitching and shaky from the quickly fading adrenaline. Soon he was left feeling cold and sick of himself, staring at Remus with just as wide and wild eyes.

“ Easy....easy spitfire....youre...just breathe for me ok?” He couldnt even nod, he couldnt move. He vageuely noticed Virgil and Logan both looking at him before the morning star was gone and Logan was in front of him, hands palm up in a non-threatening manner.

“ Wrath can you hear me? Good...just listen to my voice...I need you to name me five things you can see.” He blinked rapidly and barely heard Remus’s and Virgil’s murmurs of reassurance. Or maybe Virgil’s was more quiet talking, as he was standing at Patton’ side like the normally bubbly side’s shadow.

“u...uuh....y..youre tie...r-remus’s outfit....the stairs...the others...and the Roman’s s-sword...” Logan gave a nod, slowly kneeling in front of him with a calm, leveled expression that helped him focus more.

“ Good, now four things you can touch. Take your time Wrath.” He flexed his fingers, more of a twitch really as his breathing began to even out slowly. “ Um...My jacket...the couch...my jeans...uh...t..the carpet?” He nodded again through his faltered stammering as the deepness faded.

“ Three things you can hear?” He blinked again and listened for a moment.

“ .....your voice...Remus’s voice...the others...” “ Two things you can smell, remember take your time.” “ Bacon...from breakfast...and someones cologne..” A small smile came to his face as he adjusted his glasses in slow noticeable motions.

“ Just just 1 thing you can taste.” He managed to smack his lips once and his face screwed up at the taste lingering in his mouth.

“ ....acidic bile...” Both their brows furrowed a little but when Logan looked over his shoulder Remus shrugged at the silent question.

“Probably needs to puke Dr. Maywhoo.” Logan sighed at the nickname and turned back to him, holding up his hands a little.

“ Now, Wrath Id life for you to unclench your jaw, roll and relax your shoulders, loosen your posture if you can, uncurl your fingers and exhale please.” He blinked and slowly did as instructed, not realizing until then that he was wound up like a jack in the box. His jaw ached as he unclenched it and his shoulders slumped heavily as he relaxed, fingers sore from apparently being curled into firsts for so long, small red lines in his palms from his nails. He felt calmer, drained and upset, but calm.

“ Logan, Remus.” He looked past them to see virgil standing up tall, if not awkwardly, besides Roman and watching them with a hard to read look.

“ I...think sitting down and calmly talking...is now long overdue.”

~~~~~

Hours later Wrath Des found himself on the mindscapes main couch tiredly nestled besides a dozed off Jealousy Jacob and a cheerfully talking Patton. They had spent hours haphazardly strewn around the very room, just...talking and discussing and airing years worth of grievences. It wasnt easy, and things were no where near fixed or completely repaired. But, there were many small positive steps taken in that direction...and things were lighter and better as they stood at a better understanding of each other. Things werent perfect, and in the back of his mind he could list everything that could fuck up and send them back spiraling. Yet he didnt want to ruin what...whatever it was happening as dinner was cooked. Logan, Remus, and Virgil all sat together on the other side of the couch chatting among themselves and with Patton as they tried to decide on a movie and played candyland. In the kitchen he could hear Roman and Deceit cooking and giggling with each other, trying to outdo each other with some dumb food based pick up lines. But they sounded happy, so many it wasnt that dumb...Des watched them play candyland, staying relatively quiet aside from answering questions and jabs sent his way. It was comfortable and relaxed, and Des couldnt help but yawn. Without noticing , he ended up resting his head on Patton’s clearly unoccupied and underutilized shoulder as his eyes drooped shut. He felt Patton jump a little before slowly relaxing, and he didnt even need to open his eyes to flip Remus off as he let out an overly exaggerated coo at the motion letting himself relax. Patton smelled good he decided. Like fabric softener and baked goods and some kind of spice...Des also decided that the blurry sight of the trio next to them, with Remus’s legs draped across Logan and Virgil’s laps and one hand playing with Virgils messy hair as he sat on Logan’s right and Virgil contently and fully relaxed into Logan’s left side, head resting in the crook of his neck and his hand laced with the logical side’s unused hand as they played was also good. The sound of Jacobs soft snores was soothing and the joyful flirty voices in the kitchen blended into it well when combined with Pattons soft humming. If this was how things would be more often....he’d learn to add a little more patience to his supply of the stuff....

And maybe for once he didnt have to be negative, with no more tension for now to be broken.

The end.

Ok holy shit its finally finished!! This was over 7k goddamn words of emotion and holy shit was it a rollercoaster to write

THis is what happened when I wake up before 5 in the morning after not being able to sleep much...I apparently bust out 15 whole pages worth of words

Now....to go do my chores real quick and go pass the fuck out for an hour or two of sleep

I hope you guys liked it!!!

taglist

@phantommoonpeople @sweetsweetemo @leesacrakon @amazable01 @strawberryjellystuff @heyhelloitsk @jemthebookworm @max-is-tired @seriously-a-dragon @sar-kasstic @soupspam @riarities @yalltookmyurlideas @unsocialchapeau @hyperions-stallion @aqua-mazing @pancakewithamace @dee-ree-vee @sensibleghost @ro-roowo @baby-duck-boy @wack-ismygender

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midshipmank · 4 years

Text

i wanted LWJ with a motorcycle & somehow ended up with this librarian!LWJ & art student!WWX au

LWJ is a librarian at a public library

WWX met LWJ when he returned some books 3 months late

LWJ looked at him all judgy like “these are 3 months late,” & WWX promptly became obsessed

WWX is now a much more responsible library user, mostly because he’s there all the time

but listen he’s not great at focusing in the library, that’s why he doesn’t even use the one on campus. so now he’s his usual amount of restless + distracted by LWJ

trying to figure out how to make a move

meanwhile LWJ is just like “do not throw crumpled pieces of paper through the air”

some of those crumpled pieces of paper are failed sketches of LWJ

one day WWX stays all the way to closing because LWJ PRETTY OKAY? also he has an art theory paper due pls don’t talk to him about it

so anyway he’s there when the library is closing & LWJ is like “leave”

so he goes :((( but he’s so late LWJ practically follows him out

which

is when WWX discovers that that pretty white & blue motorcycle that’s always parked out front?

that’s Lan Wangji’s

he absolutely loses his mind

all of his friends know about his ridiculous librarian crush by now & they all make fun of him for it

but anyway, the poor boy has it bad

he’s like “A-Cheng, you don’t understand, he could step on me & i’d thank him. actually i think i need him to step on me.”

JC is like “i did Not want to know that”

meanwhile WWX is bemoaning the fact that he ever became a responsible library user

“how am i supposed to interact with him. i can’t return books late anymore bc i’m always there! what would my excuse be? & he’s already explained how to use their database to me 3 times, i can’t keep looking this dumb”

JYL is very gently like “maybe just ask him out?”

“but he doesn’t like me! i committed library crimes! i have to get him to like me first!”

then WWX sees a flyer in the lobby asking for volunteers. there’s gonna be an event in the kids section! for some special reading day! who tf knows, WWX doesn’t care, the point is, he’s good with kids. that would probably be appealing to LWJ. right? right? WWX really doesn’t know. LWJ is so hard to read. on the one hand, he’s the most tight-laced & responsible person WWX has ever met. on the other, he has a very sexy motorcycle. WWX doesn’t know what to do with that

but okay he has a plan

he calls up WQ & goes “can i borrow A-Yuan”

he already babysits A-Yuan every week, so it’s not that weird right?

WQ is like “i stg WWX if you are going to use A-Yuan to attract hot guys like in that movie with the people who love dogs....”

& WWX is like “i would never use A-Yuan like a dog! WQ do you even know me!”

he gets A-Yuan, barely

anyway, he gets to the library ready to read to a bunch of kids & gets side-eyed by a lot of parents, but he still has fun!!

LWJ is, unfortunately, not the librarian supervising the event, but he is reshelving when WWX is off reading duty & A-Yuan gets the zoomies

ie, zooms right into LWJ’s legs

LWJ is, surprisingly, good with kids. WWX may need to marry him. he somehow manages not to make a complete fool of himself after this revelation

in fact, after this interaction, WWX thinks he may actually have scored some points with LWJ. he’s elated

he’s building all these elaborate future schemes in his head when suddenly he gets a call from Auntie Yu

she wants to know why his grade in his art theory class has plummeted.

oh right. that class. that class that’s taught by that professor who hates him & that he honestly can’t understand a word of & honestly he hates art theory, he’s good at art, why does he have to take theory too?

Auntie Yu lets him know in no uncertain terms that if he doesn’t improve his grades by the end of the semester, she will stop supporting him—it’s bad enough that they let him go to art school after he flunked out of his business degree anyway

so—fuck. fuck.

WWX throws himself into the redo paper he manages to beg off LQR. he has 3 days & he’s gonna make them count

the first day goes well, if by well you mean that he raids the art section of the library & works himself until closing & tries desperately not to look like he’s dying in front of LWJ

day 2 goes........similarly, except he falls asleep at his desk & doesn’t wake up until LWJ tells him the library is closing, which? wtf? LWJ usually wakes him up when he falls asleep in the library. WWX has been asleep for hours.

& also he looks like a wreck, which is not cute

he flees from the library only to find that the bus is going..... going......... gone

fuck. he doesn’t have a car.

he’s staring down the road after the bus, trying to figure out which friend with a car is available for him to call when he hears someone say “Wei Ying?” behind him

it’s Lan Zhan.

how mortifying.

he tries to laugh off his situation, but LWJ gets this set expression on his face & says, “i will give you a ride home”

& WWX is like kinda definitely freaking out because this was not how his first ride on LWJ’s sexy motorcycle was supposed to go. WWX had a plan. he was supposed to be flirtatious & ask LWJ about his bike & then LWJ would offer to give WWX a ride & they’d go all around the scenic parts of the city & when they stopped WWX would be all flustered & breathless & he’d wobble getting off the bike & maybe fall into LWJ & maybe—

okay so his plan was more like a daydream, but at the very least, he wasn’t supposed to look like he’d spent the last 48hrs out of the sun, drinking unhealthy amounts of shitty coffee, wearing a ratty hoodie & art-grimed jeans. like, they’re not even grimey in a cute way

but LWJ is insistent & WWX is weak, so somehow he ends up on the back of the bike wearing LWJ’s helmet with LWJ telling him to hold on tight

he’s half-convinced he’s fallen asleep on the bus stop bench & is dreaming the whole thing

but soon enough, it’s over & they’re stopped outside of WWX’s shitty student accommodations

he gets off & is trying to awkwardly thank LWJ when LWJ says, “you’ve seemed upset these past 2 days”

“ahaha, yeah, i’m just writing a paper”

“for an art theory class?”

WWX is like ????? but then he remembers that LWJ knows what books he checks out

“yeah. it’s a redo actually. professor Lan hates me.” he forces a laugh. why did he say that. being hated by a professor is not cute, especially not to sexy librarian LWJ.

“my uncle has high expectations,” LWJ says.

WWX brain short circuits.

“your uncle???” shit shit shit Lan Qiren is LWJ’s uncle! LWJ’s uncle hates him! he has no chance now!

“mn.”

WWX wants to die

LWJ looks considering, then says, “it is my day off tomorrow. if you would like, i can help you with the paper.”

WWX is already the least cute, most pathetic version of himself he’s ever been in his life. he says yes.

so they meet up at the library the next day & WWX apologizes profusely for making LWJ come into work when it’s his day off. he promises LWJ endless free coffee from the coffeeshop he works at (even if he has to pay for it himself—he doesn’t tell LWJ that part).

LWJ is way too nice to him & also manages to explain this school of art theory in a way that?? sort of?? makes sense?? though not in a way that makes WWX like it. but LWJ seems neutral about it, so at least he’s not trying to get WWX to agree with it.

but anyway, WWX manages to pull a passable paper together & in the process LWJ reveals that he’s noticed WWX sketching in the library a lot more than WWX realized, and that he likes WWX’s art.

WWX is lightheaded

he stares at LWJ for a while & LWJ looks at him & says, “Wei Ying. you should be typing.”

WWX gets the paper done by 5pm somehow. somehow! he sends it off to LQR with a groan of relief. he’s so tired his bones are aching, but he looks over at LWJ, art theory & citation king, who of course always looks perfect & beautiful, & goes, “i could kiss you.”

instead of “i don’t know how i’m ever going to thank you for this,” which is what he thought he was gonna say

LWJ’s eyes widen slightly & his ears go red. WWX wants to smack himself in the face. he wants to eat his words. he wants to crawl into a cramped dark place like a disgusting little mole & never see the sun again.

then LWJ says, “have dinner with me first.”

WWX gapes at him. LWJ looks back, ears still red but eyes steady.

“okay,” WWX squeaks.

they go to dinner. WWX still feels like trash, but they end up having a rousing discussion about art & WWX learns all about when LWJ studied art history in undergrad & how he actually doesn’t like the kind of theory his uncle teaches (“but you’re too good to ever tell him that,” WWX teases. “....most of the time.” WWX laughs in delight.)

LWJ reveals that he brought an extra helmet today, in case WWX needed a ride again. WWX is embarrassed & pleased & wants to marry LWJ again. feeling foolish, he leans into LWJ flirtatiously & suggests they go for a ride—just for the view. LWJ looks at him so long his knees turn to jelly. then LWJ says, “mn.”

they make out on some scenic ridge somewhere

the end!

other things about this au:

WWX does digital painting mostly, his ideal job is illustration/comics; he has a instagram/patreon he uses for art commissions (some of which are pornographic—LWJ catches him sketching in the library one day, early in this tableau. it does not go well.)

his instagram/patreon is mostly anonymous. it’s not that he minds people knowing he draws explicit stuff sometimes, it’s that he doesn’t want Auntie Yu to find out

he draws LWJ a lot

not explicitly

(at least not until he’s got a life model and LWJ’s consent)

he’s not at the library 24/7. he has a coffeeshop job, classes, studio time for non-digital art, A-Yuan, and friends. but he’s at the library a lot.

this is undergrad for WWX, but he’s non-trad. he flunked out of a soul-sucking business degree in his first go at undergrad & was on pretty shaky ground with the Jiang family for a while. then he sold some of his art & Auntie Yu said they would support him through art school if it was the only thing he was good at. kinda stung, but at least he doesn’t have to pay tuition.

he’s desperate to prove he can make it as an artist

when anyone asks LWJ about his bike, he says he got it because it allows him to weave around traffic. yes, there’s more to it than that, but no he won’t go into it. (this entire au formed because i found out WYB rides motorcycles professionally & went, “wow that’s hot.” we have no thoughts here.)

WWX did not have to try to make LWJ like him. LWJ liked him. & while WWX might not have gotten his ideal first bike ride, you better believe LWJ got his. he daydreams about scooping WWX onto his bike & riding off into the sunset

#posting as a bullet point fic bc while i wanna write it as a real oneshot i have other things i need to do & i think it works like this too #mdzs fic #mdzs #cql #wangxian #The Untamed #fanfic #my writing #idk what to tag it's literally been 4yrs since i posted fanfic here #my fanfic #author assumes art theory works similarly to lit theory in that some is great and some is bs #author clearly grew up in the les mis fandom #also has anyone read juliet takes a breath?

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mcrmadness · 3 years

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I know I am constantly talking about this but I won’t stop before I get answers, which means I’m probably gonna talk about this forever: arts and especially being an artist on social media platforms. And how it sucks.

I don’t understand what I should do to feel seen at this point? If I draw something fandom related, mainly the people within that fandom will react to the art but not others, and still that is very little amount of people. If I draw something completely original, NO ONE reacts to that and I don’t understand why. And it’s not just me but so many others too.

I still cannot understand why comics and cartoony styles are so much less appreciated and liked than photorealism. It’s not actually any easier really. Just last night I spent a couple of hours on my sofa drawing panels for 3 upcoming comics, that was just 3 A4 papers but it still took me a couple of hours to do. Because I draw traditionally and I draw everything, including the lines, myself. I’m not getting any help from computers even if I could. I’m getting better and better at that and finding things that work for me the more I do this but still, drawing comics is not as easy as it might look like. Before I maybe just grabbed a pen and started drawing but that never actually led me to anywhere because I had no plot. So I have tons of old comics here that I started but never ever finished. Then I figured I have to start writing plots first and that way I could also finish something finally.

^This is what it takes to prepare and do a base for a comic. There’s three pages with the panels’ edges sketched. I use rulers to measure how big areas I want there to be around the panels and then measure and count (which I’m really bad at) how long and tall each panel will be. Before I struggled a lot with getting the lines to be at the same distance from both ends but lately I’ve found myself a way to do that, and it’s relatively quick to do now too.

^Here I have written down the digits from the ruler to know where to draw the little dots that I know to follow with the ruler when I do the lines of the panels. Normally I do just one comic at a time but this time I was feeling like doing all 3 upcoming comics’ lines at one go cos that’s always the most annoying part and after that I don’t need to worry about that anymore (until the next comic idea happens) and I can just focus on the fun part: drawing the stuff inside those panels.

Nowadays I do a whole lot of planning before I get to working, too. Usually just the planning takes about 4-5 pages from my bigger sketchbook and I will write down alternative stuff as I go if I can’t decide over something or am not sure if it’s going to work. Sometimes I write the same dialog a few times because something isn’t working or I can’t fit them into the amount of panels I need, or because there’s not enough activity in the panels and need to discard some parts of the dialog. I usually see my comics in the form of video in my head that I then have to convert into still images, from there I then start to build the pages and try to make all them to match.

I do storyboards in both stick figures, sometimes more than once, as well as in quick sketches. I will plan carefully how many panels I need so that I know how many papers I need and which way I can fit all the panels in the paper(s). That often means either adding or dropping panels to avoid having too much empty space on a page - something I didn’t do before, I just drew the panels somewhere and never really stopped to think about the aesthetics of the comic itself.

^This is an example of my latest comic and how do I do the page planning. I couldn’t fit the events into 3 panels. Originally it was going to be like a comic strip but it was too long for that so I ended up doing a full page (A4) with 4 panels instead. I found this is a working method for me: to draw the paper and see how the “panels” would look like on that. I drew these along with the stick figures and I will often write numbers into the panels to know which part of the dialog/event happens in which panel.

When the actual drawing process starts, I still actively use my sketchbooks (I have two) to practice something I’m not sure how to draw and I will also use reference photos for that. I will also try out things if I only have a shady image in my head and need to see how it really looks like so I might e.g. draw a similar posture a few different ways to see which one of those matches the one in my imagination the best. I will also test colors, layering, blending, shading and all that jazz as well.

^And this is what some of those “studies” look like, these are to the previous comic as well. I usually am not entirely sure what I want until I see it on the paper as sometimes the images in my head are not as vivid and bright as I would want them to be and something might look good there but terrible and wrong on the paper instead. Here I struggled with the coloring because as you can see, I know how to do the proper “night shading” in black and white but it was very tricky to do in color!

So that’s just a quick look at how I do my comics and it really is not that I just grab a fineliners (anymore) and draw and that’s it. There’s pages and pages of careful planning and testing in my sketchbooks, there’s lots of measuring and losing my mind during the measuring-the-lines-for-the-panels part... I sketch the stuff to the panels often two times with pencils, first with just human shaped figures to see the overall pictures and then turning them into characters and adding all the details. After that I move onto the finelining, erase pencil marks and start coloring and doing shadows. When all that is done, I will do the finelining one more time so that the lines are actually black and not faded under the colored pencils.

In the end I do this all basically for myself but I also want to draw “to other people”. No one’s paying me anything so my only payment is to see or hear other people reacting to it. The biggest reward ever that I can get is to hear “that made me laugh!” because that’s why I draw comics. I want to make people laugh. And it isn’t working if no one looks at them, and when no one tells me why no one looks at them. Or at least people don’t let me know they have looked at it, they don’t let me know what they think of them so I am just left with the assumption that people don’t like my art at all and that it’s not worth commenting.

It’s incredibly dishearthening. It feels the same as when a child does something and goes to show them to their parent and the parent is just “yeah whatever”. Or when you are a teen come up with and show or tell it to your friends and everyone is like “I don’t care”. You might have the passion there but slowly it starts to die because you have the need for sharing but everyone is only caring about themselves and not other people anymore. It’s really sad actually.

#mcrmadness' art talk #art #arts #drawing #comics

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zombiesun · 3 years

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the high priestess, the hermit, strength, justice, & the star! sorry if its a lot at once but i feel like this ask game was made for u and am genuinely curious abt the answers

the high priestess: do you trust your intuition?

I feel like I don’t have a simple answer for this. I was told at a very young age by my mother that my intuition was a special gift - one that would grant me insight and grief in equal measure. My mom is the most intuitive person I know, my whole life I’ve heard her listen to the “still small voice” within her to guide her actions and ultimately, when she ignored it, create consequences. I say this because seeing someone else follow their intuition makes it seem natural and correct to do so and I think that’s an important part of my relationship with mine. I think that I follow my intuition very instinctively its rare for me to chose a direction based on logic/practicality I’m always seeking for the little tug within me to tell me where to go, who to connect with, what path to follow. I also use it in my divination practice and especially within my connections with other people. I don’t think a lot of things through, if I know something about a person or a situation it just comes out of me without conversing with my intellect just straight from spirit to speech. That all being said, I am full of self doubt. I second guess my intuition all the time, I always think my cards/pendulums are lying to me, I don’t believe anything until it’s already happened because i am terrified of being wrong and suffering because of it. I think that even though I lean into it, ultimately I do not trust it which is something I’ve felt very called to work on.

the hermit: how do you get in touch with your emotions?

I struggle a lot with both expressing and accepting my emotions. If I dislike a feeling I’ll cut it off or shame myself for experiencing it. It’s a defense mechanism because I feel like my emotions exist outside of my control and the idea of expressing something that I haven’t figured out the moral implications of before it’s out of me is terrifying. I used to bypass this by expressing my emotions through my writing/art when I was younger by writing stories about my experiences or creating personal comics where I could draw a 2D version of myself experiencing and expressing the emotions I struggled to let out. In the present, I usually journal out my emotions or talk about them out loud with myself. I’ve been working a lot on just letting my emotions come out, whether I find them useful or appropriate for the situation and while it’s been difficult it’s nice to just exist within feelings that used to make me feel so uncomfortable.

strength: in what ways are you strongest?

I think I’m very emotionally strong. I’ve been put in a lot of positions where the lives/saftey of other people were in my hands I think I’m able to bite back my fear and use my abilities to calm down or reach the person causing the conflict as well as the ones affected by it. I connect a lot with the image on the “strength” card, the woman with her hand in the lions mouth. I have a lot of empathy for others, and in that I am able to make people feel safe and understood in a way that leaves people feeling empowered instead of dominated. I’m resourceful, I am physically and and emotionally impossible to kill, and there’s a part of me that refuses to give into despair that keeps me pushing forward to the horizon line. I was recently told by a deity that they considered me “a strong warrior” which is something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately because I struggle a lot with feeling weak and limited by that weakness so it was affirming and eye opening to be told that by a war deity. I think that I desire authenticity to such a fierce degree that I refuse to be limited or reduced to someone that I’m not, even if I don’t have the words or the vehicle to express that person yet. I think that even though I struggle with honesty and true expression, the fact that I so desperately seek it even when it’s difficult or I don’t measure up to my expectations is something I admire about myself.

justice: do you believe in karma, or that hard work manifests as success?

I absolutely believe in karma. I was told something by a person I briefly connected with that “we are all meant to teach each other lessons. it is not your job to know what lesson you are teaching.” she told me this after I expressed that I desired revenge for everyone who had hurt me and didn’t trust the universe to exact it in the way I knew they deserved. it calmed the fire in me a little, thinking about how maybe it isn’t about justice from my hands and that I should be focusing more on what I’m learning from other people then what terrible things I could inflict on others in the guise of a “lesson”. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen justice handled in that way my violent inclinations would like but I’ve let go of a lot of my attachment of being it’s master. I think that hard work manifests success/karma are more connected than they are opposing belief. It’s impossible to manifest without pushing your energy into the world - you cannot create “good karma” without action, and you cannot have action without hard work. It all weaves into the other, movement is the most important thing ultimately I think.

the star: are you an optimist? why or why not?

I think that I would consider myself an optimist. I think part of my spiritual journey has been trusting that the universe not only knows me, but has plans for me and whenever I let go of my white knuckled grip I always get what I ask for. I was laying in my bed today right after packing my last box and I realized that life wasn’t about seeking superficial success or admiration from others but to trust your own understanding of yourself and following its direction. I do not fear the future but I worry about the way it’ll unfold. I struggle with asking the same question a thousand times because I don’t believe the answer. I do ultimately, believe I will be happy, that it will end well, that life is meant to be enjoyed. I haven’t been proven wrong since believing that so I will continue that belief.

#synop #mailbox #oh my goodness.....thank you for asking so many I really wanted to do this ask game #I'm glad that you're curious about my answers and I hope you enjoy reading them!#I feel like you really picked some heavy hitters I had to do a lot of self reflection to answer these I'm going to bed #eyes a little more open #appreciate u <3 #that strength questions especially I was like....do I see myself as strong?#wild

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ellie-mnop · 5 years

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Hi everyone! I just finished the 100 Days Of Languages challenge and I wanted to do something new afterwards, so I came up with a challenge of my own! I’m calling this the Checkerboard Challenge because it’s an 8x8 grid. Along the top there are eight language-related skills, and on the side there are eight modes of learning, so each box contains a way to study a particular skill using a particular mode. I wanted to do that because exposing yourself to the same information in different contexts is so helpful for learning and I wanted to apply that to how I study Portuguese. The result is a list of 64 different ways to study languages, 71 if you include the alternate options listed below, each one versatile enough to be repeated as often as you want using different topics or resources and hopefully interesting and useful for your learning.

Ways To Use This Challenge

Complete all of the challenges on the table, in whatever order you want.

Choose a particular skill you’d like to work on. Complete all of the challenges in that column.

Choose a particular method of learning that works well for you. Complete all of the challenges in that row.

Use dice or a random number generator to pick a challenge to do every day, and see how long it takes you to get bingo or connect four or something.

Choose whichever of the challenges sound useful to you and incorporate them into your regular studying routine.

There’s no obligation to post anything you make; even when I say to record yourself doing something, that can just be for your own future reference. (It’s recommended for the collaborative tasks that focus on creating resources that would be useful to other learners or interacting on social media, but even then you can just write the posts/comments and not post them if you prefer) However, I would love to see anything you do want to share, or any updates on your progress, so you can post anything like that with the tag “checkerboard challenge” which is also where I will be posting the tasks I complete.

The tasks are listed below, with more detail than what would fit in the boxes.

Reading

(Visual) Read a comic book, comic strip, or webcomic in your target language. Depending on your skill level and the amount of time you have, you can choose anything from a single strip of a newspaper comic to a full-length graphic novel

(Auditory) Read along with a chapter of an audiobook, or another piece of writing with accompanying audio. Some language learning websites have articles with recordings of native speakers reading them. If you want, or if you can’t find anything else, you could even use a song and its lyrics.

(Hands-On) Option 1: Play a video game in your target language. This can be a computer or console game, or an app on your phone or even a little browser game. Check the language options on games you already have to see if your target language is available, or if not, many free games have lots of language options. / Option 2: Read and follow a recipe or another set of instructions, such as an art/craft tutorial, the rules to a board or card game, a DIY project or a magic trick.

(Logical) Solve riddles or logic puzzles in your target language. (Alternate: Read a short mystery story such as a minute mystery (or something longer if you prefer) and see if you can solve it before the characters do.)

(Collaborative) Talk by text chat with someone else learning your target language, or a native speaker learning your language.

(Read/Write) Read an article or a chapter of a book (or the whole thing) in your target language. It can be about any topic, and can be a children’s or adult’s book depending on your skill level and preference.

(Personal) Find and read a translation of a piece of writing that’s important to you, such as your favorite book as a kid that you feel nostalgic for, or a poem that resonates with you.

(Creative) Read story in your target language and illustrate what happens. The quality of the drawing isn’t important unless you want it to be; the important thing is to help you process what you’re reading.

Writing

(Visual) Choose a photo, either at random from a generator or by choice on a website like Unsplash, and describe it in as much detail as you can. Your description can focus just on describing visible details in the image, or you can make up contexts for and stories around the things you see, whichever you prefer. (Alternate: Do this with a physical object nearby instead of a photo.)

(Auditory) Try writing simple poems, focusing on the auditory features of what you’re writing such as rhyme and rhythm. You can use a rhyme dictionary to expand your vocabulary in an interesting way while you’re working on this. It’s not necessary to worry too much about the artistic quality of the poems unless you want to.

(Hands-On) Write instructions for how to do something you know how to do, such as recipe, a life skill, a game or sport, an art of craft project, or even your method of language learning.

(Logical) Create a persuasive piece of writing that logically argues a point. It doesn’t have to be about a serious or controversial topic. For example, you can defend your prediction for the next season of your favorite show, or what would happen if some fantasy or sci-fi concept were real (maybe a good way to practice the conditional tense if you’re studying a language that has one), or why your best friend is awesome.

(Collaborative) Use a language learning social media app like HelloTalk. Comment on posts and make your own.

(Read/Write) Write a summary of something you’ve read in your target language. You can either read in your native language and summarize in your target language, or do both parts in your target language.

(Personal) Write a journal entry in your target language, talking about how your day or week has been or what you are thinking and feeling. (Alternate: Write about one of your memories.)

(Creative) Write a small story in your target language. It can be about whatever you want, and it doesn’t have to be very long or detailed. You can (option 1) write it as prose, which could be better to practice description and narration or to focus on a particular verb tense, or in (option 2) a script style which could be better to practice conversational language.

Listening

(Visual) Watch a video with narration that describes it, such as a nature documentary, an instructional video such as a cooking video, or a video reviewing something.

(Auditory) Find an online stream of a radio station. Pay attention to both the music and what the announcers say.

(Hands-On) Watch a video demonstrating a craft project, recipe or other task and follow the instructions.

(Logical) Watch or listen to a mystery story and try to solve it before the characters do. This can be a whole movie or novel-length audiobook if you want, but it doesn’t have to be; even an episode of something like Scooby Doo should work.

(Collaborative) Exchange audio with someone else learning your target language, or a native speaker learning your language.

(Read/Write) Watch a video or listen to a piece of audio and take notes on what you learn.

(Personal) Watch a dub of a piece of media you are familiar with, such as your favorite childhood movie.

(Creative) Option 1: Listen to a story or other piece of audio and illustrate it. / Option 2: Listen to a song and make up a new verse.

Speaking

(Visual) Make a video of yourself showing something and talking about it, for example a tour of your home or neighborhood, a review of something, or a video about your pet.

(Auditory) Listen to a piece of audio and try to repeat what you hear. You don’t have to pause after every word and repeat it, it’s probably better to go at least sentence by sentence or with parts even longer so you can keep things in context.

(Hands-On) Explain to someone, or record yourself explaining, how to do something, possibly while demonstrating.

(Logical) Record yourself explaining, and possibly demonstrating, how something works, such as a science concept.

(Collaborative) Record yourself explaining a concept you’re learning, like a grammar topic or how to use a particular word.

(Read/Write) Read out loud and record yourself.

(Personal) Make a recording of yourself talking about something that’s important to you or a memory or anecdote you have. (Alternate: Make a vlog entry (even if you don’t have a vlog to put it on) talking about your day.)

(Creative) Record yourself telling a story, or tell one in person to someone.

Vocabulary (Most of these, with the exception of the first two, can be done with any vocabulary list you want.)

(Visual) Choose a page from a visual dictionary to study. One way you can do this is by studying the words and then covering the labels with sticky notes or whiting them out on a copy and trying to fill in the blanks.

(Auditory) Choose a song in your target language, and look up and study any unfamiliar words in it.

(Hands-On) Option 1: Use your vocabulary list as a scavenger hunt list. This works well if you have a lot of nouns and adjectives on the list. For everyday household items, you can look for the literal items on the list, while if they’re more obscure you can look for pictures or other representations of them. / Option 2: Act out the words on your list. This works well for verbs and adverbs, as well as more abstract nouns or adjectives like emotions. You can record video of yourself doing this and later look back at the video to try to guess the words.

(Logical) Option 1: Make a crossword puzzle using your vocab list. If you write the words and clues, there are tools online that will build the puzzle itself for you, or you can do that by hand on graph paper if you prefer. You can either wait a while and then solve your own puzzle to see how much you remember, or give it to another language learner to solve an ask them to make one for you to solve. / Option 2: Look into the etymological history of the words to find out why they mean what they mean and whether they have any connections to words in your own language.

(Collaborative) Create a vocab list post around a theme, including words you are studying as well as any related words you already know. Include any resources that you think would be useful to someone using the list, such as sample sentences, pictures, or whatever else you want.

(Read/Write) Try to write a small story or other piece of writing using as many of your vocab words as you can.

(Personal) Write a sentence about what you think of each thing on your vocabulary list.

(Creative) Try to write an interesting sentence using each word on your vocabulary list. (Alternate: Illustrate each word on your vocabulary list. You can do this on index cards if you want, to make illustrated flash cards.)

Grammar

(Visual) Create a color or shape coded system to classify a concept like verb tenses or noun gender. For example, you can read through a piece of text and highlight all of the verbs using a different color for each tense, or you can make flash cards with your vocabulary words and mark them with different symbols depending on the gender.

(Auditory) Grammar is a common topic for educational songs. Find a one intended for kids who speak your target language.

(Hands-On) Using words on sticky notes or index cards, build sentences that demonstrate grammatical concepts. If you have access to some of those little word magnets in your target language, those would probably work great for this, but if not (and I know I don’t) you can write various words, affixes, etc. on index cards or sticky notes, or use your existing flashcards if you have them.

(Logical) Create a table, chart, or diagram of a grammatical concept you’re studying.

(Collaborative) Write a post explaining a grammar topic you are learning.

(Read/Write) Read through a text, to find (and maybe highlight, circle, etc.) examples of a grammatical concept, then write more examples.

(Personal) Write about a part of your life that corresponds to the grammar topic you are studying. For example, for the future tense, you can write about your plans or hopes.

(Creative) Write a small story relying on the grammatical concept you’re studying.

Pronunciation

(Visual) Look up diagrams of how to pronounce sounds you struggle with. These can be found as images or in an animated form in YouTube videos, and usually show what your tongue, teeth, etc. are supposed to be doing when you pronounce the sound.

(Auditory) Find a recording of a native speaker, record yourself saying the same thing, and listen for differences.

(Hands-On) Try to pronounce some tongue twisters or other pronunciation-based challenges.

(Logical) Try learning the linguistic names of sounds you work with, and look into how they compare to other sounds. Wikipedia has articles about the different sounds that can exist in languages and tables showing how they are used in various languages.

(Collaborative) Record yourself reading something that contains sounds you struggle with and post it for feedback, possibly on an app like HelloTalk.

(Read/Write) Look at the written IPA pronunciations (these can be found on Wiktionary) of words you learn and look up what the symbols mean.

(Personal) Sing along to songs you like in the language, especially (for the personal category) nostalgic ones or ones meaningful to you.

(Creative) Write a tongue twister using words that are difficult for you to pronounce and practice saying it.

Cultural Context

(Visual) Explore a museum website in your target language. The museum should be located somewhere where your target language is spoken, but it up to you whether you want to look at an art museum, a science or history museum, or something else. Look at the exhibits and read the descriptions.

(Auditory) Create a playlist with traditional, classic and modern songs in various genres that either were invented in or popular in a place where your target language is spoken. Ideally using resources in your target language, learn about the songs and genres.

(Hands-On) Using resources in your target language, learn how to do or make something from a culture that speaks it. For example, you can look up a recipe, a tutorial for a dance style, the rules to a game, or how to make an art or craft project. (Make sure the thing you pick is being openly shared by members of the culture it came from.)

(Logical) In your target language, learn about a scientist / inventor / etc. from somewhere the language is spoken. Learn about their work, with explanations of what they invented or discovered, and if you want, find out other information about their life too.

(Collaborative) Comment on or otherwise interact with the blog/YouTube channel/etc. of a native speaker, after you read or watch it, of course. (You don’t need to receive a reply to check off this box, because that part is not under your control.)

(Read/Write) Try reading a significant work of (children’s or adult) literature in your target language.

(Personal) Learn about something relevant to your job/hobby from where your target language is spoken, using resources in the language.

(Creative) Read about artistic or literary themes, movements or eras where the language is spoken, and create something (it can be something simple) using those concepts.

[Image: The title “Language Learning Checkerboard Challenge” above a purple 8x8 table. The information contained in the table is repeated above.]

#langblr #studyblr #language learning #language challenge #learning languages #checkerboard challenge

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batwake · 4 years

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wearing yellow to a funeral - reddie

ao3 link

summary: The Losers Club find the strength to carry on after killing It, and Richie deals with his feelings by politely ignoring them.

In the months following It, the Losers miraculously find some way to carry on. The cuts on their hands scar over and fade, Stanley gets his bandages taken off, Bev keeps her hair short and choppy, and September arrives with little fanfare.

Turns out that killing a demon clown doesn’t change much as about their status in the middle school hierarchy, but Henry Bowers isn’t around to shove Eddie into lockers and they only get called slurs every once in a while. Eighth grade, Richie decides, is the best year yet.

Puberty hits them all at full force by November, and it’s nice to see Beverly starting to laugh and smile more often as the boys’ voices crack as they get deeper, or they hurry out of the classroom with their notebooks held discreetly in front of themselves. Richie thinks it’s funny too, even has his limbs practically grow overnight and he has to actually start shaving, even if it’s just the fuzz on his upper lip.

Focusing on his developing body is a good distraction to his developing mind, as well. He thinks about how wild his hair is becoming, instead of thinking about how soft Eddie’s looks. He avoids the arcade and tells himself that it’s because he has a Sega at home, or that he’d rather be listening to his records instead.

Mike tells them all about his first kiss with some girl who hangs around the farm because her father works there. That’s the first time Richie notices how handsome Mike is, with his jaw that is just starting to square up and big, working hands.

Richie’s not stupid. He knows the other Losers are attractive, and what this means for him. It’s just starting to become a problem.

When Bill tosses his arm around him in the hallway, Richie is quick to stumble out a laugh and brush his arm off. When Ben and Stan are hovering on either side of him, looking at something in a textbook, Richie leans as far back as he can without breaking the rickety old library chair.

When it gets warm enough again, Richie spends a Saturday morning by himself at the Kissing Bridge, trying to force himself to scribble out the letters that he scratched there himself nearly a year ago. They’re going into high school, how could Richie still feel like that, after everything? He had sort of been hoping that the clown had snuffed out his Eddie-Libido. Instead the damn thing had added fuel to the fire.

Instead Richie sits in the still-wet grass for an hour or two, digging his pocket knife even further into the wood and forcing the letters back to prominence after the last eight months of wear and tear.

It feels childish. The whole walk to Eddie’s house, he contemplates turning around, running back to the bridge, and kicking the damn post over and off the cliff for good. Instead he just ends up in Eddie’s bed, laughing and reading comics and thinking thoughts he shouldn’t think, relishing in their private moments, where it’s just them, before they leave to meet up with the other Losers in the afternoon.

It’s easier to pretend, if he lets himself be present. Poke and prod Eddie like he always does, but avoid skin. Call him the stupid nicknames, but not my love, or dearest, as he had when they were younger, grinning and shoving at each other. He throws a few extra mom jokes in there, and Eddie even laughs, bright and warm and beautiful.

One ounce of honesty per day.

By the summer before their junior year, it almost feels like they’ve moved on with their lives. Richie can walk through the park again, Stan can hear the sound of a flute without a panic attack. Bill’s stutter is even mostly gone, which the Losers figure is the miracle of miracles. The sunshine after the storm, the good omen to put the past behind them and be semi-normal teens.

Hey guys, Richie doesn’t say, remember when we fought that evil clown a few summers ago? Wasn’t that fun?

Sometimes Richie feels like the only one who remembers. None of them bring it up unless it’s on accident. And even then, it’s fleeting. Just a moment, a second of silence if someone says something about a clown, or balloons, or Georgie.

Ben and Richie are by themselves in the clubhouse one afternoon. Richie’s stretched out in the hammock, his gangly limbs poking every which way.

“I can’t believe we used to fit multiple people in here,” Richie says, offhand. There’s the beat of quiet, as both Richie and Ben remember the Summer of It when Eddie and Richie used to share the thing all the time. Then, Richie continues, “we should get another one.”

Ben scoffs. “There’s no room for that. Besides, I’m sure you and Eddie could find some way to squeeze in there together.”

More silence, but it’s not the heavy, thick kind that usually befalls them as they remember that summer. This silence is a bit more awkward, more friendly. Well intended.

“Why’re you signalling Eds out?” Richie laughs the weight in his chest away. “You could come cuddle with me, Benny-boy.” He makes kissing noises as Ben huffs out that almost-laugh that he does when he isn’t really sure what to say.

Well, that makes two of them.

“I mean, that’s yours and Eddie’s spot,” Ben finally says, albeit a bit sheepishly.

Richie leans forward as far as he can in the hammock, trying to get a good view of Ben. He’s sitting on the floor, writing, or drawing, or something. Stan and Bill have already begun college applications, Richie wouldn’t be surprised if Ben was hopping on that train too.

“It’s not our spot,” Richie says defensively. “Bev sits in here all the time.”

“Sure,” says Ben. He sounds sarcastic, which is rare for him. “You guys might as well write your initials on the side of that thing.”

Richie very carefully tries not to choke on his spit or fall off the hammock. Ben continues, “maybe we should just get a new one, so you can both fit.”

“No!”

“Weren’t you the one just campaigning for a second one?”

Frustrated, Richie flops back onto his back, closing his eyes as the hammock rocks beneath him. Sure, it’s getting old, more brown than yellow these days, and there’s definitely several holes from where Richie and Eddie had dug the heels of their feet into the nylon a few too many times. It smells like dust and water from the quarry, and maybe a little like the lemon cleaning supplies that Sonia Kaspbrak uses. It isn’t hard to imagine Eddie sitting with him, as much as they have grown in the last few years. They’d find a way to force themselves in just to annoy each other.

There’s the sound of shuffling, like Ben putting down his papers and crawling across the space to sit next to the hammock. Then, a reassuring hand finding Richie’s shoulder.

Richie opens his eyes. Ben is looking over the edge of the hammock, a knowing look on his face.

“Benjamin Handsome,” Richie presses his hand against Ben’s face as he laughs, “I hate you.”

“You don’t.”

Folding his arms, Richie looks back up at the ceiling. Some dust falls. Richie opens his mouth to say something, but is interrupted by the sound of voices, quickly followed by the hatch opening.

“Hey,” says Mike as he climbs down, followed by Eddie. If Ben notices the hitch in Richie’s breath, he doesn’t say anything.

“We were just talking about how old this hammock is, do you think we should replace it?”

Eddie’s face appears over Richie’s, an odd look on his face. “Why should we?”

“Ben doesn’t think we can both fit in it anymore!” Eddie yelps as Richie grabs him by the shoulders and hauls him into the hammock. They spend a few seconds laughing and flailing, almost falling off the damn thing several times, before they manage to steady themselves, Richie still sprawled out and Eddie place precariously on his lap, legs on either side of Richie’s hips. Both of their faces are red, and Eddie is breathing sort of heavily.

“I knock the wind out of ya, eh Eds?”

He can’t be totally sure, but Richie almost swears that Eddie gets a bit pinker around the ears. “Fuck you, Trashmouth, you could’ve killed both of us just then! Crack both of our skulls open-- ”

Mike and Ben are laughing somewhere to Richie’s right. Eddie’s going off on some tangent about hammock safety, but makes no real effort to move, and doesn’t even say anything once Richie’s hand finds purchase on his calf, right above where he used to wear those ridiculous socks. The skin there is soft and smooth, unlike Richie’s legs, whose growth spurt also included dark hair on most parts of his body. Richie takes a moment to revel in that, think about what that means, before he tunes back in to what Eddie is saying, his face screwed up in a very cute way.

Mentally, Richie sprays himself with water. Down, boy.

“--and what would have even been the point, a total waste of time.”

Eddie shakes his head with a sigh when he realizes that Richie hadn’t been listening. “If this thing breaks with both of us on it, it’s your fault.” Then, he flops onto his back, unfolding his knees and sticking his feet in Richie’s face. They’re more on top of each other than they ever were as kids, and something feels a bit different than how it did when they were thirteen. Eddie even kicks of Richie’s glasses.

His vision is fuzzy as he looks over the yellow nylon, glasses disappearing somewhere between their tangled limbs, but can still tell that Ben and Mike are flashing him two thumbs up.

It’s kind of ridiculous, that the whole thing comes to a head during their senior year.

At this point, Richie is fairly sure that most, if not all, the other Losers know about his crush. He hates calling it that, feels like a twelve year old carving their initials into the fucking kissing bridge. He keeps thinking that one day he’ll wake up and the feelings will be gone, that he’ll realize that it wasn’t romantic at all and that it was just the lingering side effects of It or some shit. It doesn’t help that Richie’s still a teenager who has needs and likes sex.

Eddie, in his track uniform, sweaty after a meet. In the quarry, stripped down to his underwear, wet and smiling like the sun. Even during the goddamn winter, Eddie’s nose pink and eyelashes covered in snowflakes and shouting profanities as Richie throws snowballs at him. It’s enough to drive an eighteen year old closeted, flaming homosexual crazy.

Beverly likes to look at Richie knowingly over cigarettes, just as Ben does whenever Richie and Eddie are in the hammock together. Bill pats his shoulder in a sorry, buddy, gesture. Mike and Stanley like to give vague speeches, about patience and idiots who just need to shut up and make out already.

Mike and Stan aren’t the most subtle, to say the least.

They go to prom, all seven of them as each other’s dates. Richie wears this hideous powder blue suit that he found in an antique store for three dollars, and Eddie manages to keep a straight face as Richie bows and asks him for a dance.

To his surprise, Eddie takes the hand that Richie had extended, pulling them head first onto the dancefloor full of girls with too much hairspray in their hair and guys who aren’t wearing enough deodorant. Behind them, Richie can hear the other Losers cheering and whistling.

“Y’know Eds, I had kind of expected you to throw punch in my face or something,” Richie says, loudly enough over the music once they’ve stopped in the crowd of people. Eddie shrugs, and starts moving his shoulders and legs in the most perfect, awkward way possible. Richie follows his lead, bouncing lightly on his toes to the beat.

Just as the chorus kicks in, they both open their mouths to sing along, grinning goofily at each other.

There’s a room where the light won’t find you, holding hands while the walls come tumbling down. When they do, I’ll be right behind you.

Eddie’s sort of screaming it, and Richie supposes that he is too. Their hands are held tightly together as they dance playfully, spinning and wiggling their arms and laughing the whole way through.

So glad we’ve almost made it, so sad they had to fade it, everybody wants to rule the world.

Despite the people all around them, Richie feels like it’s just them. Richie and Eddie, Eddie and Richie.

When the song ends and transitions into something else, they’re pressed closely together. More people have joined the dance floor, and it takes a second for Richie to realize that it’s because a slow song started to play. Couples with matching dresses and ties start to pair up, or hopeful looking boys hover awkwardly around a bored looking girl who looks out of their league. Richie even spots Ben and Bev over Eddie’s shoulder.

His eyes drop back down to Eddie, who is still looking up at him. Eddie’s sort of standing between Richie’s legs, and one of his hands holds onto Richie’s sleeve. They’re both breathing heavily.

“Hey,” Richie says breathlessly. “Wanna go outside?”

“Yes please,” Eddie huffs, and it’s maybe the sexiest thing Richie’s ever heard.

They shuffle through the crowd of high schoolers until they get to the gym’s side door, slipping out into the warm night unnoticed.

The door clicks shut behind them. The music is muffled, but still audible. Richie laughs and leans against the brick wall. “You sure know how to treat a lady, Eds.”

Eddie shakes off his black suit jacket and seems to relish in the relief for a moment. It’s only then that Richie realizes how warm he is, too.

Richie is quick to follow suit.

“That suit is hideous.”

“You’re hideous.”

“Real smooth, Trashmouth.”

Richie shrugs, tossing the jacket onto the concrete. Eddie winces, but lets him do the same to his own.

There’s only one light on this side of the building, casting their little alleyway in an eerie sort of glow. As they collect themselves, Richie doesn’t have to even say anything to know that they’re both thinking the same thing. It.

Richie holds out his hand. Their fingers slip together easily as Eddie steps forward and back into Richie’s space. Neither of them have really slow danced, unless you count the time they drunkenly celebrated New Years in Bill’s basement and broke a vase as they attempted the Dirty Dancing dance.

It’s not too hard to get into. Richie’s hands go to Eddie’s waist, and Eddie wraps his arms around Richie’s neck. The height difference makes it slightly difficult, and it’s only when Richie laughs lightly does Eddie step on Richie’s foot.

“Dick,” Richie mutters into Eddie’s hair as he hunches his shoulders. Eddie can wrap himself around Richie properly now, one of his hands tangled into the mess that has become Richie’s hair. Then, “you look good tonight. I, ah.” He huffs nervously as he feels one of the hands on his neck tighten. “Yellow is your color.”

It’s Eddie’s turn to laugh into Richie’s shirt. He pulls back a little, just enough to look up at his taller friend. Richie takes him in, with his yellow dress shirt and cute curls and a stupid smirk on his face.

“Thanks,” Eddie says simply. He let’s Richie spin him, and it feels oddly elegant, even if they’re just two teenagers poorly slow dancing in an alleyway behind their senior prom. “I’d say you look good too, but I don’t think baby blue suits you.”

“Yeah, I agree, I’ll have to ask your mom if I can borrow one of her yellow blouses so we can match next time.”

He just manages to catch Eddie roll his eyes before he realizes that his head is being tugged down and their mouths are being pressed together.

Well then.

Richie spends a second trying to decide what to do, while also battling with the thirteen year old horndog in the back of his brain that is two seconds away from getting on his knees. Just as he decides to tilt his head, though, Eddie is stepping away. He looks surprised, if anything.

Eddie opens his mouth, like he’s about to say something, then closes it with a click of his teeth. Christ, Richie was just kissing that mouth.

“I would’ve asked to borrow a shirt from your mom years ago if I had known you’d do that,” Richie finally manages.

Eddie groans and runs his hands through his hair. It sticks up in several directions, and all Richie can think is cute cute cute. “Can’t you be serious for two seconds?”

“I am serious!” Richie waves an arm vaguely. “I’ve been in love with you since we were like, eleven! And don’t even get me started on that stupid cl--”

They’re kissing again before Richie can finish the sentence, which is just as well. Eddie’s up on his toes and Richie’s leaning down, wrapping his arms around him and pulling Eddie as closely to his chest as possible.

“You’re so stupid,” Eddie mutters into Richie’s mouth. It sounds more like Oar Show Shoe Ped, but Richie is basically the leading expert on all things Eddie Kaspbrak, and gets the jist. Richie’s about ready to add very good at kissing to the list of Strange Things About Eddie Kaspbrak, right between wears socks to bed and can say the alphabet backwards.

When Richie leaves for LA, Eddie gives him a little black journal. “For your jokes,” he says with a final kiss to the side of Richie’s face.

It’s only once Richie is on the plane does he find the flowers, dried and pressed carefully between the front and the first page of the notebook. They’re the same yellow ones that grow in Richie’s backyard back in Derry. The same ones that Eddie braided into Richie’s hair, and the little blue and yellow ones that Richie liked to decorate Eddie’s windowsill with.

The old lady on the plane beside him tells him that the yellow ones are called butterweeds. Then, with a sweet laugh and a hand pressed to her heart, “and those blue ones with the yellow in the middle. Forget-me-nots. ”

“Makes sense,” Richie says shakily, although he doesn’t know why. “I’m leaving my hometown to go to LA.”

The woman pats Richie’s leg reassuringly, sensing the trepidation in his voice. “I’m sure it’ll all work out fine.”

People ask Richie all the time; what’s with you and the color yellow?

The Lie: It’s my favorite color.

The Truth: I have vague memories of yellow shirts and yellow sneakers and yellow hammocks. When I first moved to LA I always painted my nails yellow because it made me feel less homesick. I keep these pressed yellow weeds taped in this thirty year old notebook and I’m not sure why. The smell of cleaning supplies makes me sick. Sometimes, I have these strange dreams, of the sun reflected on clear water and a yellow raincoat. There’s laughing, and smiling, and joy, but there’s also something like fear. Shame. Guilt. And the yellow that got me through it, the light within the darkness. You know when you press your fingers to your eyes, and you start to see spots? That’s what yellow feels like. So I surround myself with yellow. Yellow flowers in the green room, yellow lights on set. Ugly yellow patterned shirts because they make me laugh and I know they make someone else do, too. Yellow phone cases, yellow ties, yellow posters for my Yellow! tour, where I tell an odd joke about being allergic to lemons, even though I’m not, and I don’t know anyone who is. I remember a yellow hammock, and a warm, sunshine filled body pressed close to me. I remember how yellow the sun seemed after… something. Darkness. Something that I see in my nightmares but I forget the words before I wake up. Something yellow.

When the Losers Club officially reunites 27 years later and Richie remembers why he hates arcades so much, he waits for the memories of yellow to return to him. In the clubhouse, there’s the yellow hammock, where he wonders if he and Eddie would still fit. They pass by Richie’s old house, and he can almost see the yellow weeds peeking out from behind a fence. Eddie says something about lemons, and he remembers that it was Eddie who had claimed to be allergic to them, all those years ago, and how his house smelled like lemon cleaning supplies anyway.

They fight It for the second time, and they’re pretty sure they killed it for good this time. When Richie got caught in the deadlights, the glowing yellow of them was so bright that they were almost white. Something about it doesn’t sit pleasantly in Richie’s stomach, as if the color has been ruined for good.

They make it out alive, climbing out of the wreckage of Neilbolt and back into the daylight. Richie is supporting Eddie, who limps slightly but is otherwise unscathed. They watch, all seven of them, as the house crumbles in on itself, darkness and evil crumbling until there’s nothing but them and the sun. Stan says something about how glad he is that he made it, just to see this house finally disappear for good. It makes them laugh, in the tense moment, and when Richie looks down and over at Eddie, he’s glad he made it here too.

“I hate this,” Eddie groans, almost as soon as he comes back up for air after jumping into the quarry. The sun reflects off the water and onto their faces, just like Richie remembers it.

“I knew you’d say that!” Beverly splashes him for good measure, which just makes Eddie sputter and gag more than he already was.

It feels like they’re thirteen again, splashing each other and squealing at the feeling of something brushing their feet. By the time they’ve tired themselves out and begin the walk back into town, Richie’s starting to feel like he’s missing something, as their long and weird journey comes to an end.

“I don’t remember this walk being this long when we were kids,” Mike groans. He raises an arm over his head and audibly cracks it.

“That’s what happens when you get old,” Ben says, who’s one to talk. He’s easily the most in shape of all of them.

“We've almost made it,” Bill reminds them, putting on his Leader voice. Even as an adult, that tone in Bill’s voice makes Richie want to believe it.

Stan hums something from beside Richie in response to Bill.

Richie freezes, as if a shock went through his entire body. It’s enough to make Stan and Eddie stop to look at him worriedly, signaling to the others to pause.

“Stanley,” Richie says, looking at his old friend, who really hasn’t aged a day. “What were you just humming?”

He looks surprised, like that’s not what he was expecting Richie to ask. After a moment of confusion, he says, “Everybody wants to rule the world. Tears for Fears? I’m sure you know it.”

There’s a second, a moment, where Richie processes that information. He’s used to this feeling by now, his brain struggling to catch up to what his heart knows--

“Prom!” He shouts excitedly, spinning around to face Eddie, whose eyebrows are raised adorably high on his head. “I can’t believe I forgot!”

Eddie’s about to say something, but he’s cut off by Mike asking something, but Mike is cut off by Richie rushing forward and kissing Eddie right on the mouth, hand on his cheek over the bandage.

Once Richie parts to breath, he pumps a fist in the air. Eddie’s eyes are far away and his head is slightly tilted, clearly also processing this information.

It’s Ben who speaks first. “Jesus, I can’t believe you guys forgot that you were in love.”

Eddie’s mouth is on Richie’s again in a second, and it feels like the first time. Eddie on his toes, Richie leaning down. Except this time their friends are here, and they’re soaking wet, and they killed that fucking clown for real.

“Eddie, light of my life, sunshine on my rainy day, how on earth are we so fucking stupid?” Richie is shouting this to the open air as he spins Eddie around. He doesn’t ever remember feeling this happy. Not since the first time they fought It, not since he last kissed Eddie 27 years ago.

The other Losers are quick to wrap their arms around the two of them, even as Eddie is laughing through the tears that are welling up in his eyes. He shoves good naturedly at Richie’s glasses.

“This would only happen to you two.” That’s Bev, from somewhere near Richie’s elbow.

“Please,” says Bill, who sounds like he’s pressed to Eddie’s back. “As if you and Ben didn’t just go through the same thing.”

God, Richie thinks. 27 fucking years. How had he never realized how sad and empty he had been? Without his best friends, without the love of his life. He woke up every morning feeling like he was about to go to a funeral, not some talk show or red carpet event.

They begin their walk back once again, and this time, Richie holds tightly onto Eddie’s hand.

“So, Eds,” Richie begins. Eddie looks over at him, eyebrows raised and suspicious, but eyes full of light and love. “For our wedding, I’m thinking butterweeds and forget-me-nots. Yay or nay?”

They have sunflowers, on their wedding day, because the sight of forget-me-nots makes Ben start crying, and if Ben starts crying, the rest of them do too.

It was a pointless effort, considering they all end up crying anyway.

The seven of them get a picture, decked out in their finest yellows, and Richie finds himself remembering the days after It, the first time. When they could hardly sleep without one of the others in the room, and Bill still stuttered, and there was that lingering sensation of this isn’t over yet.

Well, it’s over now. And they can finally carry on.

#shut up mary #my fic #reddie #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #it chapter one #it chapter two

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salthaven · 4 years

Text

Stupid and in Love: “p6″ but not really

“Chapter Six”: Evillustrator

So I wanted to come back to this story idea, but I didn’t want to write a full chapter (one part laziness, one part lack of motivation, one part lack of time)...so instead, here’s a rough outline of what I would do if I was writing the full thing out! :D (And if I ever get motivation back, maybe I will write it out, haha!)

The chapter opens much like the actual episode. Nathaniel is caught drawing his fan comic, where he saves Marinette with the help of the Miraculous team. Chloé is an asshole like usual, and makes fun of Nathaniel for his crush.

We get the first divergence from canon when we look to Nino, and dang is he upset. (Note: This is pre La Paonne, so Lila isn’t here yet.)

Alya sees the glare Nino shoots at Nathaniel and has to hold back a laugh. ‘Normally,’ she thinks to herself with a small smile, ‘I’d want to help him win her heart.’ He seems like a good match for her best friend, Alya can see it, but… ‘Her heart has already been taken by Carapace, and there’s no competing with a real superhero.’ What a shame that Nino isn’t secretly the turtle-themed hero, right? Sucks for him, they can’t all be masked saviors like Alya is.

So the day continues. Marinette is a bit flustered because wow someone likes her, Nino is a bit upset because now he has competition (and yet he also feels bad because he knows that it’s practically impossible to not like Nette, but come on), and Alya is a bit amused because of course she is.

And then the group projects are formed. Marinette is, of course, upset. She’s partnered with Chloé and Sabrina, after all. But it’s fine, right?

Hint: It’s not fine. Chloé pulls a Chloé and expects Marinette to help Sabrina, and Chloé is going to just go have fun. Marinette tries to tell Chloé off like she does in canon, and it ends the same way- with Evillustrator sending a hairdryer after Chloé.

Blah blah blah get to the point where Marinette loses her wall.

Evillustrator asks her on a date. He’s all sweet and blushy and Marinette can’t help but feel bad because wow. He’s so sweet, he’s even promising to leave Chloé alone if she’ll go out with him. That goes against his wants as an Akuma. What even, how much does he like her?!?!

Marinette agrees to the date, because who is she to say no and anger him? It’s the least she can do.

Cut to a few minutes later. Marinette is now transformed into Ladybug, and she makes a call to the rest of the Miraculous team… who are currently patrolling around Chloé’s room to make sure that Evillustrator isn’t coming back to attack.

“What’s up, bugaboo?” Chat asks, always happy to hear from Ladybug. “Find the guy?”

Ladybug sighs. “So we may have a slight change of plans,” she starts, and that gets all eyes on her. (Except Chloé, she’s been locked into her room by Rena Rouge for a long time by now.)

“What’s up?” Rena asks, looking away to glance around quickly. She doesn’t want to be caught off guard, but this seems serious.

“I need you guys to protect this girl. Her name is Marinette.” Ladybug sends a picture of the bluenette. “Evillustrator asked her out, she agreed.”

“What?” Carapace shouts. “Who goes on a date with an Akuma?!”

“He said that he would leave Chloé alone if she did,” Ladybug explains. “I have to go on a mission, my Kwami thinks she spotted some suspicious activity and thinks it may be related to the Miraculous. I’ll try to keep an eye on everything, but I may have to stay detransformed for a while. Think you guys can handle it?”

Looking at the fuming Carapace, Chat nods. “Yeah, I think… I think we’ll be alright without you, just this once.”

The call ends.

A few hours later, Marinette is trying to ward off an upset Sabrina. The redhead believes that Marinette is just making excuses, and is ‘just like Chloé’, but luckily for Marinette a certain turtle boy pops up.

“Sorry, little lady,” Carapace says to Sabrina, “but we really need to be borrowing Marinette for this battle.”

“Oh!” Sabrina says, face quickly reddening from embarrassment. “Of course! Sorry, Marinette! I just thought-”

“It’s fine,” Marinette assures the girl. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

“See ya!” And then Sabrina runs off.

Then there’s a little awkward flirting between Carapace and Marinette. It’s cute, fluffy, but I have no brain cells right now so we’ll just pretend it happened. Then Rena Rouge and Chat Noir show up, and it’s a bit chaotic because Marinette tries to act casual but not too casual because she’s supposed to be a normal girl, not a fellow superhero, but also she doesn’t want to make a fool of herself in front of Carapace.

It’s a bit of a hot mess.

Finally, Marinette goes to the date spot. It’s so romantic. Evillustrator went all out, just like last time. There’s the boat, the romantic candlelight, it’s so adorable that Marinette can’t help but feel flattered.

‘Maybe,’ Marinette thinks as she looks around, ‘it’d be a good idea to move on from Carapace. It’s not like he’d ever fall for a girl like me, and Nathaniel is a sweetheart.’ She knows she could fall for the artist, if only she could push her feelings for Carapace aside.

Meanwhile, Carapace is fuming on the roof of the boathouse. This is awful. The worst. Why did Evillustrator have to be so, so romantic about it!

Yeah, he’s jealous.

So everything is going fine. Rena and Chat are both on nearby land, staying close in case they need to intervene. Carapace is on the roof, just silently stewing in anger.

Marinette does the stylus trick.

It works. She tosses the pen to Carapace, who snaps it quickly.

Problem: By snapping the object, the Akuma was let out. This means that 1. Evillustrator reverts back to Nathaniel and 2. The Akuma’s creations disappear...including the boat.

Cue Carapace and Chat Noir having to pull Marinette and Nathaniel out of the river. They’re all freezing, shivering, and… where’s the Akuma?

“Hey boys!” Rena calls out, giggling as her flute lets out a few offkey notes. “Did you know that we can use our weapons as Akuma holders?” She shakes her flute around, and they hear a few thumping noises.

Odd.

Marinette sneezes a few times, and just like that Carapace is taking her home. He apologizes for getting her cold, and she brushes it off. It’s fine, she just needs to warm up a bit.

The moment he’s gone, she transforms and races over to Rena. The cure is cast, and, luckily, her magic somehow takes away the effect of falling into the river. (Which is good, because Marinette was not looking forward to trying to get the smell of the water out of her hair.)

Jump to the next day. Nathaniel apologizes to Marinette for the whole Akuma date thing, but Marinette giggles, saying it was fine and that she had fun.

Nathaniel blushes, not expecting this response.

“If that’s the case…” Nathaniel starts, face red as his hair, “do you, maybe, want to go on a real date? We could go to the movies?”

A part of Marinette screams yes, that she should agree. That she could have fun, and move on.

But then she remembers how Carapace carried her home, and her heart races.

“I’m sorry, but I… I like someone else,” Marinette admits. “It wouldn’t be fair to you to say yes, and have feelings for another.”

He understands, although he’s still upset. (which makes sense, rejections suck) Class starts, and although Marinette feels a little bad for turning him down, she knows in her heart that it’s the right thing to do.

And the episode ends here.

So that’s the rough outline, with random bits actually written out! I felt bad for never updating the story, and thought that, with me hitting 600 followers today, you guys deserved something special! I hope you enjoyed!

#Stupid and in Love #it's been so long #i feel so bad that this never got updated #caranette #jealous nino lol #wrote this in a haze of who knows what

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nyrator · 3 years

Text

another long vent post about depression/anxiety

extremely depressed tonight

first made the mistake of driving myself to the grocery store at 6pm, first I had to try scraping the ice off the windshield with nothing but a broom and bare hands, then driving itself was nightmareish, the car feels like a death trap to me, very loose and sloppy compared to my last car, so loud and uncomfortable with no audible music to calm my nerves. My eyes have worsened to the point where I can’t see anything at night- glare takes up my whole vision, even with anti-glare shades. I was driving well below the speed limit the entire time and still almost hit three pedestrians who were all recklessly out on the roads in all black for whatever reason. My nerves are completely shot from it, my chest feels like I’m in a vice and can’t breathe, my eyes are wide open and hunched over the steering wheel, and my body feels both like I’m about to wet myself at any moment and that I’m too stiff/tense/frozen to function as a human at all, it’s that fight-or-flight response at its extreme. Meanwhile, my skin must be weak- my knuckles bleed when driving, and my wrists bled just from carrying in bags of groceries.

then getting home and just dealing with personal drama of someone I know who is so depressed and self destructive and too smart to reason with, who refuses/is unable to seek professional help, who just doesn’t understand or just can’t help venting to me nonstop, no matter how much I beg them not to over and over- their life is so terrible that suicide seems like the only option to them, and I don’t want them to do so, but I can’t keep suffering like this either and I feel like the only thing preventing them from doing so, as poor a job as I do as a human being anyway. But I can’t help them if they can’t help themselves, even if they were just ate a bit better, or just had a journal or someone anonymous they could talk to, but it seems inescapable and impossible to change anything and all we do is argue over it until I snap at them to leave me alone. That person is probably reading this right now and probably hating it, but I doubt anyone on this site even knows who they are.

Tuesday morning, I couldn’t sleep at all from anxiety- it was so severe and inescapable, I laid in bed for four hours feeling like I was dying until I was finally able to sleep for two hours. I can’t seem to stay asleep longer than two hours anymore. Was supposed to hang out with friends that day, but between lack of sleep, depression, and my absolute terror at driving in a snowstorm, I ended up just staying home.

Anxiety has gotten so bad again. I know a lot of how the mechanics work behind it, I know a lot of pains are from tension and lack of breathing. But my old coping mechanisms don’t work anymore. I can focus on breathing for several minutes straight and then fall right back into suffocating. Music, counting things, meditating, none of it helps anymore.

One way to describe the feeling of anxiety- it’s kind of like when you fall asleep on your arm, and you feel all the blood rushing back into it and that tingling sensation. Imagine that, maybe a bit less, but throughout your entire body (especially chest), your body is stiff and not numb, and your entire body is vibrating or shivering/shaking or something.

I still spend 16+ hours laying in bed every single day. When I got home from shopping, the walking around (and the stress of driving) was enough to send me straight to bed, I was so tired and weak. It’s probably why I don’t sleep properly, I’m half awake in bed all the time, what need is there for sleep

I have mail I haven’t opened, taxes I still have to do, messes to clean, and don’t care for any of it. Can’t even talk about some things I’ve been doing to myself out of spite or general depression, the way I’ve been abusing. I promise to try not to do anything too crazy or directly harmful, but even then I worry about slipping up- I tried one thing I shouldn’t talk about, which wasn’t too serious, but still seriously concerning how easy it was to try doing

still haven’t contacted a therapist, my fear of calling someone is so strong I can’t overcome it, especially not after just waking up. Talked to some friends, some agree that I should, at least one thinks it’s a waste of time and money- up to $125 per session to just get a glorified phone call thanks to covid restrictions. I just don’t see the point if I’m still stuck in my apartment at my computer, especially if I have an internet addiction already.

The lack of doing anything is driving me insane, I think. I’ve played four single player games in 2020- ACNH, KH MoM, Panel de Pon, and Picross. In terms of things watched on my own, probably just Japan Sinks and whatever else was on Netflix the few months I had it. Don’t feel motivated to play or watch anything anymore, nothing seems interesting, and mostly just do things with friends if at all

Even ACNH, the game I play the most, I barely do anything in it- mostly just get new items from stores, that’s it. My island decorating has come to a hard halt, mostly because I barely have any furniture I’d like to embellish it with, and mainly because I have no ideas to layout most of it

I want to create, but don’t have the energy to make anything at all. Rotten Nyan is still my current goal, but anxiety has made it next to impossible to work on. I’ve tried several times the past few weeks, all met with failure- the anxiety’s too much, half the time I don’t even know what’s causing it, but my body just gets too tense and cramped without even doing anything, and I just can’t breathe at all while working on it.

Thought about making an omake comic for it, then realized what a terrible idea it was, and how hard it is to draw comics in general. Or anything in general. Wrote down the entire comic while laying in bed one day, went to draw it, was unable to, tried making it a yonkoma, gave up, and felt sick thinking of all the gross things in it that I just made a vent description of Middle Lave and just posted that to the RN tumblr instead.

I can’t think of any ideas, I feel like my art has regressed- I’ve taken more shortcuts for the sake of my hands tensing so fast from anxiety, and I’ve gotten decent at drawing middle Lave I feel, but anything besides a character standing is impossible for me- any environments or character interactions that I’d love to do just feel impossible, let alone my inability to write good ones. Anything I try to think of writing-wise always ends up the same gross content that burned into my memories that I just can’t feel comfortable talking about much at all, nor do I think it’s content people want to see at all.

There’s a lot of detailed kind of art I’d like to do. I kind of want to loosen my restrictions on myself and just draw whatever suffering I feel like, maybe once I use the RN twitter more I might get a little more courage to do so. I see many artists draw detailed scenes in single images, and no matter how hard I try, I just can’t capture that feeling.

Part of me feels torn about it being an autobiography for people to relate to, and being a suffering experience for people to find some weird enjoyment out of. I feel like I’ve lost sight of what it was originally meant to be and now just enjoy “bullying” Middle Lave half the time I guess, but unfortunately for me, bullying makes me feel like vomiting and is hard to draw consistently- maybe I’m too nice. I don’t know, I’m just rambling at this point. The comic is still laid out and just meant to explore the life of Lave, but it’s just so hard to work on.

In terms of other things, I have no idea what to do

Vtuber/streaming? Hate my voice, can’t focus on learning what I need for it in terms of rigging and texturing models. I only know the basics of making 3D things and nothing else.

Console art? I already designed all the ones I’m mainly interested in, but like I mentioned before, can’t think of any character interactions at all that I feel like drawing.

Making a game? I know 2k3 well enough to make anything in it event-wise, though never got over my map failings, and I can’t commit to anything long-term. Godot or another program, or programming in general? Good luck.

I just want to make something, work on a project without losing steam or letting anxiety prevent me from learning. Can’t focus on anything long enough to learn it- Japanese, making a game, programming, a new hobby, anything. I just don’t have the drive to do anything and will give up anything I even try to start, so what’s the point in even trying anything. I have books I haven’t read that I’ve been meaning to read for years, and still don’t have an ounce of energy to want to even organize them on their shelf, let alone open it

At the very least, I got my first big commission (second one ever), designing an OC for someone, and it’s going well, though tonight I’ve lost steam to finish it, and I hope I can get it back tomorrow to try to finalize it.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I really wish I just had someone guide me with art- I miss doing those 30 day challenge kind of things, or “send a number/emoji” kind of asks for OCs, but tumblr’s so inactive that I don’t see them on my dash anymore, and don’t know how to even look for them, especially not on sites like twitter these days. Though, the problem is, no one knows exactly what I like, and I feel awful letting people down if they ask for something I don’t want to draw

I can’t focus on exercise long term, and I’m so out of practice that exhaustion is too strong to beat. I’ve been trying to walk up and down on a step stool for exercise to get me back into basic movement, but even that’s too tiring. Want to do it while watching something, then I realize, I don’t watch anything at all, not even youtube, just an occasional artist stream that I mainly chat with rather than watch

I feel like I’m going to collapse if I turn or move too suddenly, and my eyes are absolutely terrible- glasses are okay, but without them I’m completely blind now- not just blind, but it’s like my eyes see at two different angles sometimes, like one is slanted or something, very disorientating.

It’s 7:30AM, and no desire to sleep at all. Terrified of laying in bed and letting anxiety take over me again. Part of me wants to become completely nocturnal and just avoid everyone during the day and just respond to messages in the AM hours, just wake up at midnight each day and avoid dealing with people. Go to sleep when everyone starts to get active and just isolate myself entirely from society.

I feel like I exist with no purpose whatsoever, and it’s driving me insane- not that life is meant to have a purpose, but I could at least be doing something more than laying in bed all day every day for a year

#text stuffs #nyrants

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poerebel · 5 years

Text

I’ve Had Enough

Pairings: Chris Evans x Reader

Warnings: Cheating, Swearing, Angst

Prompt: “I’ve had enough.”

Summary: You and Chris get into a huge fight that eventually leads to both of you breaking up.

A/N: Hello! This is my first time writing any fanfiction or one-shot so I’m sorry if this isn’t good enough. I really tried my best because I wanna participate in Emily’s (@my-emotional-self) writing challenge to celebrate her reaching 5k followers! All comments, suggestions, and criticisms are welcome. And who knows, maybe I’ll write another one-shot again in the future. I may have gotten a little too carried away, but the word count is 3389 or something hehe.

__________________________________

It was at a Vanity Fair party four years ago when you first met Chris. Your childhood best friend, Elizabeth Olsen, brought you along as her plus 1 because she was tired of the Hollywood bullshit where most of the people are fake, so she opted to bring you to see for yourself what the Hollywood life she’s talking about really is. It wasn’t until the Avengers: Age of Ultron after-party that you and Chris actually got to talk to each other.

“Lizzie, why did you bother bringing me here? You know how I feel about these parties.” You said as Lizzie grabbed your hand and bring you towards the bar. “Two Margaritas, please.” She orders as you both sit on the stool. “Well, I needed to do something to get you out of the house. You can’t be sulking in forever.” She had that ‘duh’ face on and you just shook your head at her.

“Besides, it’s the first time in weeks that I even saw you shower.” She added as you rolled your eyes at her dramatic antics. Lizzie tends to be a drama queen ever since you were little. No wonder she became an actor.

“Shut up. We both know you just want me here so you can have someone to make fun of other people with.” She gave you a look and you both laughed at what you said.

“I have no idea about what you’re talking about.” She sarcastically denies as you both took a sip of your margaritas and continue to laugh. Suddenly a booming voice called her name and you both looked at that direction.

“Lizzie!”

“Chris!” She calls back as the guy practically runs over to where you were and hugs Lizzie. While the two of them continue to catch up, you were left to drink your Margarita all alone. You were lost in your train of thoughts when you hear Lizzie call out your name.

“Chris, this is y/n. Y/n, this is Chris.” Lizzie says as she introduced you to each other. You extended your hand but Chris brought you into a hug. “Sorry, I’m a hugger.” You laughed awkwardly and let Lizzie do the talking for the rest of the night. You didn’t think much of him yet since you just got out of a 5-year relationship. Besides, he might be one of those actors who thinks so highly of himself and is a total douche.

Three months after the Vanity Fair party was the Avengers: Age of Ultron premiere and after-party. Lizzie introduced you to pretty much all of her co-stars, and you didn’t care much but meeting Robert Downey Jr. is where you draw the line.

“Oh my god, Lizzie! I can’t believe I met Robert fucking Downey Jr!” You squealed when Robert was out of sight. You couldn't stop moving, you were so happy you met Robert.

“I know I’m so happy for you!” She says as she puts both her hands on your sides and tries to calm you down.

“And we’re at his house! For the after-party! I can’t believe it!” You continued to squeal as Lizzie laughs at you. “You should always bring me to these kinds of party.” You say as you grab her hand and skip towards the bar.

“And what kind of party is that?” Lizzie asks as she smiles at you.

“A Robert Downey Jr kind of party, duh.” You say as you both laugh aloud.

Eventually, at the party, Lizzie got crowded by a lot of people wanting to congratulate her on the success of the movie, so you decided to get your drink first and let Lizzie do her thing.

“One Margarita please.” You tell the bartender as you sit on the stool and bring out your phone to check up on your messages. Not really texting anyone but hoping that a particular someone will message you. It’s dumb, you know. It’s been 3 months, but you can’t help but hold out to hope.

“Y/n, right?” Suddenly a familiar voice brought you out of your trance. You looked up from your phone and saw Chris. “You sure do like Margaritas, huh?” He added as you just smiled at him.

“So, what are you doing here all alone?” Chris asked as he had his eyebrow raised. “Lizzie’s being crowded by people, so I decided to get a drink and just sit and try to take in all of what’s happening.” You shrugged and then took a sip of your Margarita.

“Congratulations on the movie, by the way.” You tell Chris as you raise your glass to him.

“Thanks! What did you think of the movie?”

“I’m not a comic book fan, but I really enjoyed it. Great job.” You put your two thumbs up together and Chris laughed.

“No, really. What did you think of it?” he insisted.

“I really liked how the team worked together and I loved how Captain America lead the whole Avengers.” you replied.

He had this smug look on his face so you decided to tease. “But Iron Man is still my favorite.” He laughed so loud that he even put his hand on his chest and he almost fell back. He had a hearty laugh, and you found yourself smiling for no reason.

“Speaking of the movie, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be entertaining your guests? I’m sure they’re dying to hold a conversation with you.” You say as you gesture to the roomful of people. Funnily enough, an unfamiliar face showed up to congratulate him about the success of the movie. So you went back to drinking your Margarita and using your phone.

After a few minutes, you were scrolling through your Instagram when a voice startled you, “What’s with your phone? Why are you so busy with it?” You looked up and saw Chris looking at you with a puzzled face.

“I don’t really know anyone here except Lizzie.” You trailed off. “Hey! You know me.” He said with a hurt look. “Oh do I now?” You teased and he laughed again.

You spent the rest of the night talking to each other, casually making jokes here and there. You didn’t seem to mind since you enjoyed his company. You don’t know why Chris chose to talk to you instead of basking in the glory of fame and success, but that’s Chris; he never chose to value such trivial things. As your conversation went on, you found out how much he adores his dog and how much he hated being away from his family.

A party’s not the ideal place to connect with someone but things happened, and you don’t find yourself questioning that night further.

______________________

You were already in bed, staring at the ceiling because you couldn’t fall asleep not knowing what’s happening to Chris. You’ve texted him multiple times but he hasn’t replied to any of those. You started to worry about him and think of all the worst things that could happen, thanks to your anxiety.

You hear the door open and heard shuffling. "Must be Chris." You mutter to yourself as you made your way to the living room. There he is, Chris, on the couch, drunk again. He and the boys went out to celebrate the last day of filming for his upcoming movie.

You walked towards him and noticed he had kiss marks on his neck and shirt. You got taken aback by what you saw and couldn’t even distinguish what you’re feeling right now. You just know that you have to clean and take care of Chris.

"Chris," You said as you lightly tap his face, trying to wake him up. “Chris,” You say again as you try to help him up sit on the couch. You walk towards the kitchen and grab him a glass of water and an Advil. “Chris, wake up.” You lightly tapped on his face again as you try to make him drink water. He opened his eyes and downed it all in one big gulp.

Ever since being back in Boston to film for his upcoming projects, he had been out lately with his friends, going out almost every night. Thank God Scott was also here and he would go with Chris at night. He would usually text you updates about what’s going on, so you don’t really worry about Chris going out. What you worry about, however, is his excessive drinking and the girls that throw themselves at him. It wasn’t until one night when Scott texted that he saw Chris making out with a girl. When you found out, you were sure you’re going to leave Chris, you swore to yourself you were never going to tolerate cheating again, not after what your ex did.

But when he came home, you became conflicted. A part of you wanted to leave him for what he did, while another part of you wanted to stay because of all the good things you’ve done together and because you didn’t want to waste your 3-year relationship.

"We need to talk." You told him, as you looked him straight into his eyes, looking for the Chris you know. You’ve been holding off this conversation, but in his drunken state, you realized that you’ve had enough.

"Not now, y/n." He said as he massaged his temples. He reeked of beer, his hair was all over the place, and his clothes were a mess. He avoided looking in your eyes, and it only made your heartache.

"We really need to talk, Chris." You said once again as calmly as possible. You were starting to get pissed with what he’s doing.

"I said not now, y/n." He said through gritted teeth. By now you were starting to lose your patience. This conversation has been long overdue.

“If not now, then when Chris?” You asked as you look him straight into the eyes.

“Just not now, y/n! I’ve had too much to drink!” He raised his voice at you and it made you jump back. He has never raised his voice at you in your 3 years of being in a relationship, not even once, so his sudden reaction startled you.

“That’s the exact reason why we need to talk, Chris! Your drinking has been a problem!” He scoffed at your words and he rolled his eyes. His attention was somewhere else. He clearly didn’t want to have this conversation right now.

You couldn’t take it anymore, you had to bring it up. “When are you going to tell me that you've been cheating on me?" You raised your voice a little as you looked at him.

He whipped his head to face you, “Cheating on YOU?” He said, eyes wide, definitely in shock at what you just said.

“Yeah! Scott told me everything. He told me he saw you making out with someone,” You looked at his neck and shirt and saw the kiss marks again. “And judging by the kiss marks on your neck, I don’t think he was lying.”

“You’re believing Scott’s bullshit? Really, y/n? Really?” He shook his head as he clenched his jaw.

“Yes, I believe him! He’s your goddamn brother, for christ’s sake! He’s only looking out for you, Chris!”

“Why do you to need to look out for me? I’m a grown-up man, I can do whatever I want!” He stood up and he was now towering over you.

You stood up and look him in the eye, “Is that really a question?”

"Bullshit, y/n! You’re acting like an overly attached girlfriend!” He screamed as he turned his back on you.

“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?! I can’t believe you just said that to me! What the fuck, Chris!” By now you were fuming with anger. How dare he say that to you. He turned to look at you and you stared back at him.

“I’ve been holding off what I felt for such a long time because I wanted to give you time, I thought that you’d maybe come around. You know damn well that I’ve been in this position before and you promised you wouldn’t do such a thing. But now, look at where we are.“ You say as you throw your hands in the air. When you opened up about your ex to Chris, he told you that he would never do that to you, that you would never experience being hurt by him.

“And whose fault is that?” His eyes narrowed at you as you look at him with wide eyes.

“What exactly do you mean by that?”

“You never have time for me anymore.” You were about to respond but he cut you off.

“I used to look forward waking up in the morning because I know you’d be there right beside me, but now I wake up to a bed all by myself because you already left for work. And then when you get home from work, you’d be tired and just go directly back to bed. Didn’t you ever think that I needed your presence as well? That I needed your attention? Why do you think I always hang out with the boys every night? Now that I’ve finished my projects, I’m left all alone in this house by myself.” Chris said, his eyes glaring at you. Your heart clenched inside, it felt like Chris was ripping your heart out from your chest. You never knew he felt that way.

Tears were starting to form in your eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you! But whenever I wanted to talk, you’d always brush me off and you’d go directly to bed because you say you’re tired.” You both stood there, staring at each another, tension filling the air.

“Ok. You want my attention? I’ll give it to you. You have it right now.” Chris just looked at you as you waited for him to say anything.

“Why aren’t you talking?” Chris stayed silent as he stared at you.

“Do you think you’re the only one who has a career to maintain? Just because I’m not a hotshot actor, you think my job is not that important?” Tears were now falling from your eyes.

“I never said that.” Chris just put his hands across his chest and stared at you.

“It pains me to leave you all alone in the house all day, but I have a job and I have to work hard because I have dreams.” More tears started rolling from your eyes. You can’t stop it. You feel like your dreams for yourself are getting in the way of you both.

Chris stayed silent, but he was fixated at your hands. Your anger was boiling through you. You had your hands clenched in a fist, so tight that you felt your nails digging through your palms.

“Here we go again with your insecurities,” Chris said as he rolled his eyes. Your mouth dropped open, as you couldn’t believe what just came out of his mouth.

“Insecurities?” You asked all confused, raising your voice a little. You stared at him as you wonder where this is all coming from.

“You always talk about wanting to be successful, but can’t you do it without trashing what I do for a living? You always find a way to invalidate my passion.” Chris said as he threw his hands in the air and the look of disappointment is evident on his face. You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. You didn’t know that this was affecting Chris as much as it affected you. You never thought it would be possible since Chris never said anything about it.

“If you had problems with this bullshit in the first place, then you shouldn’t have chosen to be with me.” Chris pointed out. You felt your heart shatter with his last words. Your heart was physically aching and you felt like you were losing air.

"It’s because I care for you! I can’t leave, because I love you." Your voice broke, barely whispering the last words.

His eyes narrowed at you as he continues to have his arms across his chest, “So you admit it. You want to leave?” You looked into his eyes and all you could see was disappointment.

“I did, a lot of times.” Chris scoffed at your words. “So many nights have passed where you come home wasted, and I couldn’t even talk to you about my day. But, every morning when I wake up to your face and see the Chris that I fell in love with, I’d eventually forget about wanting to leave you. You’d engulf me in a hug, all freshened up, and I wish I could stay there longer because it was you. But then you’d get up so quickly to go back to work. Where does that leave me?”

“I would rely on those mornings because I was hoping you’d come back, not just in the morning, but every fucking waking moment of my life. Because honestly what the fuck is this?” You gestured to the both of you as you shake your head.

“Then leave.” Chris said in a monotonous voice as he continued to stare at you.

It took you a few moments to register what came out of his mouth. He wanted you to leave. You were prepared for this moment to happen, but still, nothing could stop the physical pain in your chest. You wanted to move but your body was frozen in shock.

You stared at Chris, waiting for him to take back what he said, but he didn’t seem to change his stance so you walked towards your shared room and grabbed your suitcase, filling it with your clothes from the closet. You didn’t even bother arranging your clothes in your suitcase, you just recklessly dumped your clothes inside.

You stood up, ready to leave. As you were on the way out, you saw a picture hanging on the wall. It was your favorite picture of you and Chris, he was the one taking the picture as you kissed his cheek in the middle of Times Square. You couldn’t help but smile at the memories it brought back.

With one final look at the room you’ve shared for almost two years, you finally made your way out to the living room. Chris was still there, his head was down as he fidgeted with his hands. He looked up when he heard the door close and he saw you with your suitcase. He stared at you and you looked back at him as you make your way into the living room.

As you were on your way to the door, you hear him say, "Where are you going?" You looked at him and said, "I’m leaving." in a monotonous voice. You continued to walk straight towards the door, not even looking back when suddenly you feel two strong arms engulf you in a hug.

“Please, don’t.” You hear his voice break as he hugs you tighter. “Chris, stop.” You say as you try to pry away from him. You then hear him sniffling and feel his tears soak the back of your shirt. “Chris,” you trailed off as you try to remove his hands from your waist. You couldn’t help but let your tears fall as you try to break free from Chris.

You couldn’t take it anymore, “Chris, enough!” You scream making him startled and let go of you. You turned around and looked at him. What you saw was possibly the most painful thing you’ve ever seen. Chris’s face was full of tears and all you could see in his eyes were sadness and pain.

“I’m sorry.” You tell him as you wipe his tears with your thumb.

You grabbed your suitcase and made your way to the door. "Are you really doing this?" He asked as he followed you behind.

“I’ve had enough, Chris.” You looked back at him and all you could see were pain in his eyes. You wanted to stay, and just be with him again, to never leave him.

"It’s what’s best for us, please try to understand.“ You told him as you grab a hold of your suitcase. You walked out the door and you heard footsteps follow you outside. As you go to your car, you see Chris standing at the doorframe. Before you went in your car, you gave Chris one final look. You gave him a half-smile and you see his eyes still with tears, pleading for you to stay.

You go in and start your car. You don’t even know where you’d go and who’d be awake at this hour. While you drive away from the house, you look at the rearview mirror and see Chris, now sitting on your porch, his hands were on his face. It pained you to do this and see him like this, but you know that it would be for the better.

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