having a lot of thoughts about miranda and how her mental state has been fucked over by the merkingdom and by repeated and consistent abuses at the hands of the vanderbilts, to the point of singlemindedly considering herself an object. 

an object to be fought for, an object to be valued and protected, an object to hurt other people, an object to serve a purpose, an object that can be replaced, an object that belongs to a bigger system than it, an object that will be jealously guarded, an object to be used, an object to be hurt, an object to be a means to an end, an object to kill with, an object to be killed, or an object to be worshipped.

but always an object regardless.

I'm sorry to bother you, but what do you think about all the comments saying everyone needs to stop interacting with all HP material including fanfiction because of how horrible JKR is?

Hi there. Yes, her again. I want to take a moment to just acknowledge the next-level cruelty, ignorance, and hatefulness of her newest tweet(s). I saw one of them yesterday and felt sick to my stomach, and then I felt an all-consuming rage. The false and inflammatory rhetoric she’s spreading, make no mistake, contributes to violence against trans women. It contributes in a very real way to them being targeted with physical and sexual violence and to being murdered. JKR is an actual piece of shit. So I will never presume to tell people what is the right and wrong way to handle that for themselves.

Here’s the thing. We all have to make good decisions on our own behalf about whether or not to engage with HP material, whether that be the books and merch, or fan creations. I will never ever think it’s my place to decide that for someone else, and I respect and honor every fandomer’s choice to completely disengage with it all. Take care of yourselves, whatever that looks like.

I will also say that for me, there is a big difference between, say, buying a box set of the HP books or a Hogwarts Lego set or anything else that makes that vile scourge of a person money, and producing or engaging with fan content. I will never buy her shit again. That’s a firm boundary for me. I do not support her or her sickening views in any way. I do, however, continue to write fanfiction and engage in fan content for that fictional world. And let me tell you why.

I’m finding that HP fanworks are not only the best place but maybe the ONLY fucking place to find solace as a queer and gender fluid person who loves HP. It’s the only place I’ve found that is actively producing queer and trans content, which is more important than ever, in my opinion, to countering JKR’s awful lies and monstrous beliefs. There are trans fandomers creating beautiful things, and I would never presume to tell them that they shouldn’t. If your response to JKR hating you is to throw that hatred back in her face and write or draw self-love and love for others instead? I honor the fuck out of that choice. Trans fandomers making one another feel loved and seen is a spectacular way to deal with this shit if you ask me. I respect it just as much as I respect the choice to walk away.

When I write for this fandom now, it is always at least in part a big fuck you to Joanne, but more importantly it’s a message to trans fandomers, and that message is this: I see you. I love you. You are not only valid as a person but you are essential to this and every other fandom. These stories are yours more than they are hers at this point. You have great power here, to create an HP world where you set to right everything that JKR destroyed by being a heinous bigot. Not that you have any responsibility to do so. But it is your world, if you want it.

You are Hogwarts. You are HP. You are magic.

She can never ever fucking take that away from you or any of us. And as a fandomer and creator here, it is my honor to unfuck this world of hers and make it as queer and trans-friendly as possible. Because it should be.

I have not always included trans and nonbinary characters in my fanfiction. This is relatively recent for me, because I’m learning as I go, becoming a better ally as I go, and opening my eyes to the need there a little more every day. It has in fact been JKR’s utter bullshit that finally pushed me to get over my fear of writing trans characters badly, because I was afraid I’d get something wrong, and to just do it anyway, fear and all (and employ a sensitivity reader). It’s because of her hatred and the huge platform from which she spews it that I got over myself real fucking quick on that issue and wrote my first trans characters into a fic. But I’m late. I recognize that. I’m trying to make up for my lack of awareness now.

Look, I love writing HP. These are the characters I fell in love with writing before JKR showed how truly horrible she is. I’m still in love with them. I love telling stories about love with them. I also hate that JKR has made it feel unsafe for many trans fandomers to be here. I fucking hate her for that. But I imagine a world where we all abandoned the fandom because of her, and I think… does that let her win? Does that let her define what Hogwarts is, who these characters are? I don’t have that answer. And just as we all have the individual right to walk away, if there were a mass exodus because of that, so be it. She’d certainly deserve to see her world burned down around her. But that’s never going to happen to her. That won’t affect her, sitting on her piles and piles of money and being a raging TERF. No, that would only affect us. That would be a loss for us.

Yes, it’s a valid choice to walk away, and I support every individual’s right to do exactly that. But I’m going to stay. I’m going to stay so that any trans readers of mine can see themselves in what I write, can see themselves loved in it. I don’t think I’m all that important personally, and there are a ton of creators producing more trans content than I am. But I want to contribute to that. I want to be a small part of someone feeling welcome in HP rather than reviled. I want to be some small speck of someone feeling like they matter and they belong, that it’s her that doesn’t belong anymore, not us. I want to take HP back and write stories about how well we can love each other rather than let her define that world with her hate.

So I’m staying. And I’m writing HP. If you need to back away and leave fandom because of her rampant toxicity, please do that and know that I love and support you. But if you want to stay… there are those of us that are here for you, that want you here, that know trans fandomers make fandom, and we appreciate you. I’m here for that.

BnHA Chapter 316: We've Had One, Yes, But What About Second Explosion

Previously on BnHA: Deku was all “[powers up like whoa because it’s time to end the fight]”, and he saved Overhaul from getting not-shot, and then smashed up Nagant’s arm with the power of his new rechargeable super knees. Nagant was all “yoooo this kid is crazy strong whaaaat, it’s like he’s some kind of protagonist or something.” Deku was all “I AM A PROTAGONIST, ACTUALLY, DO YOU WANT TO JOIN FORCES AND FIGHT BAD GUYS WITH ME?” Nagant was all “ah shit why the hell no -- ” and then AFO was all “SURPRISE” and everyone was all “?!?!?!” and AFO was all “TIME TO EXPLODE NOW” and made Nagant explode because he’s an absolute fucking dick. And then Hawks showed up, because Horikoshi just wanted to stuff as many plot points as humanly possible into a single chapter I guess.

Today on BnHA: Hawks is all “good job giving motivational shounen redemption speeches Deku but I’ll take it from here” and screams very earnestly right in Nagant’s face until she finally wakes up. Nagant is all “oh hey it’s my successor, you seem surprisingly unfucked-up from your own HPSC tenure, how did you manage that?” Hawks is all “fandom is going to love hearing this one, but basically it’s because I’m very upbeat and also I had the world’s best role model Endeavor to look up to,” and I swear this man stirs the pot on purpose, but damn it I still love him so damn much. Overhaul is all “HELLO AGAIN, JUST A REMINDER THAT, THE BOSS!!” and Deku is all “MAYBE TAKE TWO SECONDS TO REFLECT ON HOW YOU TORTURED A LITTLE GIRL,” which, thank you, lol. Nagant is all “btw AFO’s hiding in a house in the woods”, and so Deku and the gang go to the house in the woods. Video recording!AFO is all “hi I’m AFO welcome to Jackass” and blows up the house. Sometimes I wonder if this manga is just a weird dream.

I am once again reading the Bean version because I think it was actually the best out of all three translations last week. and that is surprisingly including Viz’s. “faux” is not nearly as entertaining as “knockoff”, and also I have literally no idea why Caleb thought Deku was saying the Third’s lines lol

oh hey, Endeavor’s here too! not that you’d ever be able to tell from this first panel lmao

glad you received All Might’s call, mysterious unidentified glowing smudge

oh snap he says he’s weaker in the rain. is that why AFO told Nagant to attack then?? except that as we discussed the other day, I believe that AFO fully intended for Nagant to lose the fight, so him giving her info that would give her an advantage doesn’t really fit in with that. maybe he wanted Deku to be separated from Endeavor and the rest for maximum angst, though

btw Deku’s eyes are unsurprisingly back to the new normal here

alas, the angst continues. I say, pretending like I’m not totally eating it up each and every week and writing essay after essay about it lol

anyway so apparently Hawks can’t actually fly lmao. he was just yeeting himself with style

for some reason this is the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen omfg. wave to Hawks, kids! say “bye, Hawks!”

j/k of course Deku is catching them. -- except???

wow so he was just running on fumes there at the end. well, good to know there is actually a limit to his shenanigans, particularly regarding this new “knockoff” 100% OFA. it will definitely not alleviate any of the discourse, but it’s good for my own peace of mind because it’s solid confirmation that he still needs his pals in order to win this thing

anyway, but on to the rest of this conversation, which is basically Deku deducing what we all deduced last week -- AFO implanted some sort of trap into Nagant when he gave her Air Walk. though I’d still like to get the actual details from AFO and/or Horikoshi, because this was particularly wild even by quirk standards lol

omgggggg

she still has a face after all!! so it’s confirmed, Horikoshi has no idea what “blowing up” actually means. we might have guessed, based on what happened to Toga in the MVA arc, and also based on everything Katsuki does ever, but shhh

so now Hawks is all “NAGANT PLEASE WAKE UP, IF I SHOUT MY NAME AT YOU WILL THAT DO THE TRICK”

this is actually kind of touching though because even though we all know (or most of us acknowledge at any rate) that Hawks is a pretty caring person, it’s rare to see him actually panic over someone’s welfare like this

oh shit Horikoshi is really doubling down on it

I wonder how much Hawks knew about what really happened between Nagant and the HPSC. regardless, he probably sees her as a kindred spirit of sorts, and I’m more than happy for Deku to pass the redemption torch onto him now that he’s on the scene. like no offense Deku but they actually know each other and stuff lol

DAMMIT NAGANT CAN’T YOU SEE HOW LOUD HE IS YELLING

apparently being freed from his HPSC shackles has finally given Hawks the space to embrace his own inner shounen protagonist. is there anything more shounen than trying to motivationally scream someone awake when they’re lying in your arms inches from death?? 100% guaranteed to work

!!! IS THIS NAGANT’S POV OMG

SO SHE IS ALIVE. THANK GOD. Horikoshi doesn’t want to meet with my emotional distress lawyer today after all

love how she’s all “just gonna stir up the weekly Hawks Discourse pot here by implying that he probably committed a lot of Atrocities just like I did, so now people can get all hopped up about that, even though there’s no evidence he’s ever killed anyone aside from that one horrible ‘damned-if-you-do...’ situation with Twice.” no one asked for your provocative speculation young lady!! trust me Nagant, our rabbles don’t need the rousing lol

but nice save there with the “so how are your eyes so untainted” well you see it’s because even when he was following the HPSC’s orders he always went to great lengths never to go against his own moral compass. which just to be clear was incredibly difficult, and led to a ton of pain and suffering on his part, because the life of a spy is basically just one impossible situation after another. but in spite of that he never stopped trying to do his best to help people. I don’t really know where this tangent came from or is leading to, lol, but anyway p.s.a. I love Hawks a lot and he’s a good kid dammit

oh shit??!?

how is the League always able to swing all these fancy forest mansions. where do they find them. how many do they have

so Deku’s dropping them -- very roughly, not sure if he was reacting to finally getting AFO’s location, or if his energy really is giving out -- and now Nagant’s saying that AFO hired other villains as well. well of course he did. gotta keep chipping away at OFA’s ninth successor little by little

now Nagant is asking Hawks how he’s able to keep making “that” face. I assume she’s again talking about the fact that he somehow didn’t let the HPSC wear down his spirit

oh my god???

thanks for stuffing this chapter to the brim with good nutritional Hawks Feels, Horikoshi. what a good. he just keeps on trudging forward undeterred no matter what bullshit comes his way. what a steadfast little guy. I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM DISCOURSE MY SWEET SUNSHINE

lmaoooo

“SPOTTED THIS DUDE JUST CHILLING OUT THERE ON THE ROOF WITH NO ARMS, SEEMED PRETTY SUS” good job Endeavor

anyway so you don’t really need me to tell you that Overhaul is immediately starting in with the “BUT THE BOSS WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE ME TO THE BOSS YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD TAKE ME TO THE BOSS” stuff again. but I will go ahead and tell you anyway. so yeah. he’s doing that

OMG YOU GUYS LOOK AT DEKU’S “of all the fucking assholes to just randomly drop in on my life once again why did it have to be you” FACE THOUGH, OMG

fun fact, if you go back to chapters 124 through 160, there was an entire story arc where Overhaul imprisoned and tortured a little girl. yeah, I know!! suuuuuuuuper evil. anyways just an interesting little anecdote for you all that’s somewhat relevant to the current situation

OMG, YES. FUCK YES, DEKU

THEN WHAT ABOUT SPARING ONE FOR HER!!! YES!!! EXACTLY!!! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, SOMEONE GETS IT

HERE’S THE PANEL OF DEKU SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING I’M SAYING LOL

(ETA: so apparently there’s some discourse about this because some people are interpreting this as Deku saying “you should apologize to Eri”, which would obviously be a terrible idea even if Overhaul actually wanted to do that, because Eri shouldn’t ever have to see him again. however I just want to point out that there is a HUGE difference between saying “it would be nice if you could direct that feeling of regret/being sorry towards Eri as well”, vs saying “you should also apologize to her.” all Deku is doing is rightfully pointing out that Overhaul has hurt way more people than just his boss, and if he really is remorseful, then he should extend those feelings of remorse to Eri and the rest as well. it’s not a directive to take any specific action, and I’m 1000% sure no one at U.A. would let Overhaul within 100 miles of Eri ever again.

tl;dr “try feeling remorse sometime” =/= “do you want me to fly you over to U.A. right now to surprise the little girl you traumatized”, lol.)

[slings an arm around Deku’s shoulders] you’re a good kid. I like you. I don’t know if I tell you that enough, but it’s true

meanwhile here is Overhaul’s “spare... a thought... for Eri...???????” face sigh

the struggle is real y’all

(ETA: and that’s... the last we ever saw of Overhaul, I guess? well all right then. I assume Deku will make good on his promise, so we know he’ll get that little bit of closure before going back to jail or whatever, and I confess I’m more than fine with leaving the rest of it open-ended, especially given his character’s history. I think this was pretty generous all things considered.)

lmao holy shit

All Might what did you do to those tiki torch guys?? did you thrash them. did you give ‘em those hands. did you deliver their own asses to them complete with a sticker reminding them Amazon Prime Day is on June 21. we missed out goddammit

so Endeavor, who wasn’t the one he was asking, is telling him that they captured (well let’s be real, Deku captured, give the credit where it’s due) Nagant and Overhaul. and so I guess they’re going to take Nagant to the ER now

fire is no one’s weakness

-- oh my GOD I scrolled down and audibly gasped

[is politely but firmly approached and asked to remove my arm from Deku’s shoulder by the physical manifestation of all this Dekuangst] “we’re sorry, he’s not allowed to have visitors right now” oh shit, my bad. [goes to stand behind a police barricade]

lmao what. did you run out of room on the previous page

what an exaggerated fade to black lmao

-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I actually can’t see what he’s reacting to so maybe I’m just seriously jumping the gun here lol, but THE HELL WITH IT. the next panel appears to be a cut to Haibori Forest, so I’m just gonna go ahead and declare that Deku ran off on his own all wounded to go have more Dekuangst, just like I manifested. now go call Katsuki goddammit

[scrolls three more inches down] oh

yeah so like I said, Deku is walking very slowly a few feet in front of Endeavor, who’s telling him to wait up. yep. we’ve all gotta be so careful to not just jump to conclusions. I know we’re excited but still

anyway, so! welcome back to Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods (ARE YOU GUYS DATING) and Edgeshot! have fun walking into this obvious trap lol

dammit Deku why are you so determined to tempt fate

[monkey puppet meme faces]

OH MY GOD THIS IS PURE GRADE-A CHEESY COMIC BOOK VILLAIN 101 SHIT AND I’M HERE FOR IT

that’s such a weird way of clapping who claps like that

unlike certain other people who shan’t be named, AFO doesn’t feel the need to inexplicably take his shirt off when recording sinister villain monologues. I think we’re all pretty grateful for that

high fives to everyone who called it!! yep yep

anyway so this whole scene has major booby-trap vibes, which I’m enjoying immensely even though I don’t think anything is really going to come of it lol. probably just another long-winded AFO Speech. but wouldn’t it be funny if like the ceiling started lowering down to try and squish Deku afterwards lol

(ETA: well the explosion was still pretty funny too ngl.)

ffff

[“Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies]

anyway so yeah. he’s just hitting up all of his usual villain talking points. we get it, you’re so smart and you see right through the thin veneers of society and people who don’t conform are left to fend for themselves and labeled as villains and history is written by the victors, and blah blah blah dude are you just jumping randomly from one soundbyte to another lol. literally what are you talking about. what does this have to do with you blowing up Nagant

-- holy shit??

[”Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies MORE?????]

LOL WHAT

BRO. WHAT IS WITH YOU. DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO LAY ANY OTHER KIND OF FUCKING TRAP GOOD LORD

“YOU’RE NEXT” THE CALLBACK?? THE PARALLELS?? THOUGH WHEN ALL MIGHT POINTED HE MADE IT LOOK WAY COOLER. AFO’S POINTING JUST LOOKS LIKE SMOKEY THE BEAR

HAS ANYONE CHECKED IN ON KAMUI WOODS I HEAR HE IS WEAK TO FIRE?? THE ONLY ONE WHO IS, APPARENTLY

r.i.p. to this particular forest mansion. don’t worry they have a ton of backups

remember last week when I said maybe AFO thinks explosions are gauche. well never mind. he fucking loves explosions

anyway so that’s the end of BnHA, everyone. hope you enjoyed. it was a good ride while it lasted. see you all, good luck in your travels

You are probably going to hate this but Camille for the character ask game.

Lmao I'm just mad you gave me this ask as an anon, would love to chat up another salty babe anytime 🧂🤝🏾

First impression

I think my first impression of her was when she gave that pretentious fucking certified I-pulled-this-bullshit-straight-out-of-my-ass painting speech, you know which one I mean, the one in the backdoor Pilot, where Klaus tried to chat her up in the middle of the street, for god fucking knows what reason, the lil shit had just been informed of his newly changed DILF status, and the first thing he does is flirt w a blonde, I mean I know the man's ho but there's a limit to this sort of stuff yk, But anyway I DIGRESS, the point was he goes ahead and chats this chick up, and they have this whole ass convo, by which I mean he's over there, literally no joke, trying not to cry like a teenage girl watching the end of The Notebook, while she rattles off the most RANDOM bullshit about darkness and demons and loneliness and whatever other again, BULLSHIT she could snatch out of her ass, while looking at the painting of a bald headed white man, and I'm just like, sir, Throw my whole TV away thanks.

So technically that was my first impression, but like for context, by the time that scene rolled up, I already had to sit through Elijah telling Klaus that an embryo was the key to their millennium long misery coming to an end, never mind that this is a) a LITERAL EMBRYO and b) This embryo had NOTHING to do w these fuckers and whatever the fuck they did for like a THOUSAND years but somehow that embryo is not only *relevant* enough to the misery of their past but also capable of unfucking their fuckiness just by differentiating in Hayley's uterus so like at this point I was going through 23 WTF's/minute and also YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND that this whole scene, this painting scene is just Klaus biting his lip holding back tears (and then actually failing to do so) bc some random BARTENDER was prattling of the kind of bs you find on those motivational "deep" quotes posters on instagram, yk the kind that say the most INANE fucking things trying SO HARD, harder than the boner I would've had if Klaus had just immediately slapped Hayley's head off to sound ~deep~

Yk this sort,

So yeah at this point I was pretty much uh shaken up, and needed one long tight cuddle from a person I trusted telling me everything is going to be ok bc literally NONE OF IT WAS.

Impression now

After all this time, and like the few months since I watched TO, I've been able to cope with the utter inanity pretty well if I do say so myself, and now my impressions on Camille are quite simply, another female character fallen prey to shitty misogynistic manpain-shouldering plot-pusher writing, I actually think she had a lot of potential had they not tried to push Klamille down our throats and designed a character *solely* for the purposes of TELLING us about Klaus's progress from pretentious shithead to whatever variant of lesser shithead the writers thought was approvable for redemption, like she might as well have been that spongebob timestamp voice thingy of the show, yk what I'm talking about the tWo DaY's LaTer sound effect on spongebob, only here Camille wouldve had two seconds of screen time saying, ProgRess inTo NOT coMpLEteLy dEploRaBLe shiThEad aChiEvED, and that wouldve been the entirety of her use as a character in the show summed up precisely right there. So like basically yeah, the show started with the need for the Superior Women, a person who FINALLY was *smort* and *sophisticated* and MATURE enough to understand and see and PERCEIVE Klaus which was what Camille was supposed to be, but then they comepletely mucked up that route bc I feel like if you are basically Trying to create the Superior Women that is where you went wrong in the first place, and as @cbk1000 told me, actually I'm gonna whole ass quote her here,

My favorite thing about this is that Plec constantly hyped herself as a feminist and Cami was supposed to be this mature woman who was finally a match for Klaus, but literally all she was there for was to be his sounding board. He didn't even end up needing her for his Redemption because that was the baby's job.

as mentioned she ended up being Klaus's sound board, not his path to redemption, not his salvation, hell she wasn't even his moral compass, she was there to solely admire Klaus and be his very biased, very blind and very hypocritical Stenographer, here to listen to his side of his story, pat his back for it, and reassure him that, no he is not a compelete twat, and yes he is going to be a GREAT father, and no he is not doing anything wrong by Killing 3 of her friends if he just says sorry, and NO NO NO, he may not feel it [or you know actually do it] but he is *changing* he is WORiKING, she can see its happening!!!

But also on that note IN CAMILLE'S DEFENSE, I keep saying this, but I don't really blame her, bc like this chick spent the entirety of her first season literally spending 2-3 HOURS a day listening to Supernatural Jeff Bezos prattle on and on about HOW BAD HIS LIFE IS 😩 And Christ mate he is WOUNDED and HURT and NEVER appreciated, And Ohmygod his Sibling's HATE him and ABANDON HIM and HIS LIFE JUST SUCKS OK

like she had to listen to him whine like a fucking dog for like what 9 MONTHS EVERYDAY before someone yeeted away her memories and then she spent an ENTIRE DAY sitting through 17 different aneurysms to get those fucking memories back and like at this point I just wanna call this bitch over to my place put on some Lizzo pop a bottle of chardonnay and let her stuff her face w Ben and Jerry's while she cries into my shoulder bc like really my last impression as in right now, is while she was a terribly grating annoying fucking character, she was also one of those characters who was done dirty from the start and honestly I feel kinda lame finishing it this way, but I'm just not here for it.

Idea for a story

Camille takes all the Embarrassing Stenographer Dirt she gathered on Klaus to Caroline and they both scrapbook tf out of these stories and send said scrapbooks to Klaus as a baby shower present.

Your welcome.

Unpopular opinion

Camille as a character to me was NOT as grating as TO!Klaus himself, and out of the two, any day I wouldve wanted TO!Klaus dead and buried in horseshit rather than truly be bothered by Camille. [like I am bothered by her, but if I was forced to be annoyed by only one character it would be Klaus] BASICALLY what I am saying Camille as a character was NOT as bad as TO!Klaus as the anti to his own character.

Favorite relationship

Camille and her psyche books, bc that chick needs to fucking open her study material at least ONCE before barking that sort of bullshit, Camille was a terrible shrink and I would LOVE to see her go on more dates with her books to yk learn shit.

Favorite headcanon

Headcanon that Camille stabbed Klaus with his white oak stake toy when she got hold of it, bc honestly I just want TO!Klaus dead.

the ask game

Snip Snip Bitch

Sarah Cameron x reader!

A/N: Hello! I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed writing it!!

Summary: The one were you get a botched cut from JJ and Sarah is more than eager to help a dumb bitch out.

Songs: I wanna be adored by The Raveonettes, Eau D'bedroom Dancing by Bikini Kill, and basically Orville Pecks entire discography.

Warnings: None???

Word Count: 2,273

This week had to be the hottest week the OBX has ever suffered through. You were miserable as always, but especially so because while JJ and John B. were sent off to catch and relocate a gang of raccoons terrorizing a neighborhood in Figure 8 you had to go to the Cameron's residence, yet again. In the last couple of days, you had been sent by your dad to the Cameron's AT LEAST eight times to fix menial things around their property and half of those times were spent in Sarah Cameron's bedroom. 

Normally, it wouldn't be such a big problem since you've seen everyone’s room at this point, but certain feelings towards Sarah had shifted in recent months. You started sneaking little glances at her whenever she passed by, your heart would nearly implode when she would stop and say hello or bring drinks for the working crew (which JJ says she never did when you weren’t there), you began to do stupid things to get her to look over in your direction even if it was just for a second (like tackling JJ into the water, jumping off the top of the Druthers onto the dock, or spraying Rafe in the face with the power hose), and your stomach would drop to the earth’s core whenever you saw her with golden boy Topper. So, it wasn't hard to tell you had a thing for the blonde. When the pogues found out they relentlessly teased you about it and more terrifying they always opted out of jobs at the Cameron's and dumped them on you. You hated being sent over by yourself without your shitty wingmen because with your newly discovered feelings you couldn't help but be severely awkward around her. 

If you only knew she thought it was the cutest thing in the world. Sarah Cameron has spent the entire week destroying her house just so she could see you, again. She loved the not-so-sneaky-glances you shot her way when you thought she wasn't looking, the little faces you would pull when you were talking to Rafe, the absolute dumbest things you would do to get her to look at you, and how much you would reassure her she isn't a stupid fucking klutz for breaking everything in her room.

Sarah was praying that you would make a move already, but that has proved difficult with your newly developed shyness. So, she decided to break one more thing, her bathroom sink. She honestly doesn’t know how she did it but she did and now her insides are bubbling at the thought of you coming over.

You took JJ's cap on and off trying to settle your hair in a presentable way as you made your way up the pathway to the house. Now, you've suffered through a multitude of BAD haircuts, but this one has to take the cake. In your inebriated state, you decided you were long overdue for a haircut and a haircut you received. JJ seemed well versed in the haircutting trade as he's cut his own hair millions of times before without killing himself, this should’ve been no different. Your intoxicated decisions have failed you yet again and now you were stuck looking like a mutilated poodle. 

You couldn’t brace yourself just yet to face Sarah looking like a chopped onion so you decided to stop by and see what Rafe has fucked up this time. He was hunched over the red bike confusion engulfed his hard features as he meddled with the engine. 

"What's up with your bike?" You drop the toolbox which made him jump slightly.

"Jesus, you're back again?" Rafe playfully rolled his eyes at you.

"Well, someones gotta unfuck up things around here" you squatted down next to Rafe "What's the problem?".

"It won’t turn over" you peered down at the dismantled vehicle in front of you. The simple solution to all his problems made a smile tug at the corners of your lips.

"Did you just take it out for a ride?"

"Yeah, I just got back, why?"

"You just need gas, dumbass" you finally let the shit-eating grin take over your face. 

"You're lying!" Rafe stated in disbelief as he stumbled over to check the empty fuel tank. 

"Fuck!" He groaned into his hands and took a seat on the ground next to you.

"And that's why your dad keeps me around"

"Shut up" Rafe smacked the brim of the cap down your face which exposed your last night mistake.

"What the fuck happened to you" it was his turn to laugh as you scrambled to hide your hair with the cap.

"Fuck you" 

"It doesn't look that bad... with the hat on" he tried his best to stifle the laughter that brewed in his chest "Sarah won't care". You could feel your body freeze over when he mentioned his sister and hoped your voice won’t fail you. 

"A-and why do you think I c-care?" You mentally face palmed yourself upon hearing how the words left your dry mouth.

"You know why" He stood up from the paved road and extended his arm towards you "now go do what we paid you to do".

You trudged up the steps to Sarah's room. The warmth in your cheeks increased with each step and your heart was bouncing around in your chest. There wasn't anything you could do at this point, so you braced yourself and knocked. When the door flung open your heart broke through your rib cage and exploded into imaginary fireworks that lit up behind your eyes.

"Hey!" She beamed a gentle smile taking over her lips as she looked down at you. You had to restrain yourself from tucking a stray delicate strand of blonde behind her ear.

"Hey" you meekly responded and lifted up your shitty toolbox "heard you need your sink fix".

"Oh, yeah!" She beckoned you to follow her. Once you stepped into her room you could feel your heart rate pick up yet again and your stomach brewing with nerves. 

"It floods my bathroom every time I turn it on" she sighed as she sat down next to the sink, her legs softly swaying over the edge. You nodded as you squatted down to take a look under the sink leaving your toolbox next to Sarah. 

When the light from the flashlight hit the pipe you were surprised how fucked up they actually were.

"Fuck, this is broken broken" you mumbled as you peered at the battered metal pipes. From the corner of your eye, you could see Sarah try to suppress a guilty grin. There was only one pipe you could replace at that time and luckily it was the one with a huge crack down the middle. 

“Uh, I can only replace one part today, I’ll have to come back tomorrow to fix the rest” you could have sworn you saw her eyes light up when you mentioned the prospect of coming back, but you just brushed it off. Sarah was eager to lend a helping hand, always handing you different tools, never the right ones, but you appreciated it, especially so, when your hands would briefly meet ever so often. 

It was quiet for a moment before Sarah had an impending question she just had to get an answer to. 

"Are you and JJ like a thing?" when the question left her lips your head jolted back slamming against the underbelly of the sink.

"Fuck, w-why would you think that?" You leaned back against the wall opposite of Sarah and held the back of your now dented head.

"Well... I ALWAYS see you guys together and half the clothes you’re wearing right now are his" 

"Fair enough" you nodded glancing down at your outfit which did indeed mainly consist of the boy's clothes "but we're definitely not a thing, as for the hat I got a botched cut".

"You have to show me!" Sarah’s eye’s immediately lit up.

"Uh, most definitely not"

"I won't laugh I promise!" you sighed as you slowly took off the only thing making you look like you had a normal haircut. She shrieked when her eyes finally saw the disaster before her. Sarah slid herself off the counter and kneeled down next to you taking your warm face into her soft hands. The proximity of both your faces was about to send you into a cardiac arrest.

"Do you want me to fix it?" She finally spoke up after marveling at the complex haircut you had received.

"Uh, no yeah if you think you can even fix it" your cheeks were on fire from the embarrassment you never wanted to kill JJ so much in your life. 

"I can at least make it better than this" she ran her hand through your hair which in turn made your whole body flare up with goosebumps.

She instructed you to sit on top of the sink counter facing the mirror as she gathered a towel and scissors. She then gently clipped the towel around your neck making sure it wasn't strangling you. 

"Are you ready?" She peeked over your head staring at you through the mirror. You could barely nod because your mind was just thinking about her warm hands on your cold shoulders.

"If it still looks ugly we can always shave it" she giggled when your eyes almost fell out of your sockets at the mere thought of shaving your head.

"Umm, how about no?"

"What? I think you'd look so cute!"

"I'd look like I'm 10!"

"It would still be cute" she mumbled as she began to snip the mutilated strands. You two stayed silent for a while the sharp sound of the scissors taking over. You tried your best not to stare at her as she worked on your hair, but she was just so darn cute when she was concentrating. Meanwhile, Sarah’s smile continued to grow each time she caught your eye making it hard for her to focus on fixing your hair.

"Almost done just need to fix the front '' she motioned you to turn around and face her. You did as you were told uncrossing your legs in the process. Sarah then made herself comfortable between your legs and brushed some loose hair off your cheeks with her fingertips.

"Are you breathing there y/n?" Sarah giggled looking down at you. A strangled "Yep" managed to escape your lips. All you wanted to do was reach out and kiss her already, but you couldn't risk the embarrassment of rejection. What would the “kook princess” herself want anything to do with a dirty pogue only bred to mow lawns anyway? The only thing you could do now is just cherish this only type of intimacy you will ever get out of the girl. 

When the snipping stopped your stomach dropped. 

"All done! You're officially the coolest bitch in the OBX!" She smiled down at you running her hands through her latest masterpiece. Sarah didn't make any effort in moving from her current position which is still standing snuggly in between your thighs. Silence once again took over the room as you both focused on the proximity of one another. So close, yet so far away. Each of you fighting within yourselves to be brave enough and confess. Sarah's hands danced around your sitting thighs not sure whether to finally give in and touch your bare thighs. 

"So, are you going to kiss me or what?" Sarah finally broke toying with the frayed hem on your shorts. You could clearly see the impatience riddled across her soft features and you were more than happy to oblige. You gently cupped her face with your trembling hands before smashing your lips against hers. You will forever be grateful to JJ for showing you the wonders of exfoliating your lips, as your lips glided with ease against Sarah’s. The kiss was rough and frenzied as both of your suppressed emotions were finally being attended to. Your hands quickly entangled themselves into her golden locks pulling her even closer. Sarah's hands wandered up your exposed thighs making you erupt into goosebumps before securely wrapping her arms around your waist. You could feel little fires erupting all over your body where her hands were and you could feel the struggle in your breathing, but you didn’t want this moment to end not just yet. 

You were the first one to pull away from oxygen deprivation and giggled seeing the girl chase after your lips and let out a whine. You marveled at how flushed her cheeks and swollen lips were. Sarah could spend the next century kissing you and still not get over the sensation of your delicate lips against hers, but she could tell there was something on your mind other than needing to breathe. 

“What?” she whispered, bringing her forehead to rest against yours. 

“What about Topper?” Even if he is one of the biggest assholes in the Outer Banks you didn’t think it was fair to the boy.

“That dickhead? He’s just helping me out being my beard” she giggled as she ran her hands through your hair once again.

“Your beard” You couldn’t help but laugh. This entire time golden boy Topper was just helping Sarah out and all your maliciousness towards the poor boy was all for nothing.

“Does that make my girl happy?” Sarah giggled as your eyes snapped back up at her. Just those two words made your insides vibrate with a whirlwind of happiness. You didn’t say anything you just roped her another kiss, which you will definitely be doing more often. 

Becoming A Stark (19)- Peter Parker x Stark!femReader

Word Count: 2352

Warnings: Swearing, mentions of horrible parenting

Author’s Note: Y/M/I= Your Middle Initial

Chapter One || Previous Chapter || Master List

Walking back through the front door, you’re hoping you can get back up the stairs without your dad spying you, but apparently your luck has run out. “Y/N Y/M/I Stark, living room now.” Your dad’s voice is stern, but not as harsh as you expect it to be. You take a breath before walking into the living room. Both Tony and Pepper are waiting for you, which shouldn’t really surprise you since it’s almost six on a Wednesday night, but still, a disappointed or angry talk from both of them is going to be worse than if only from one of them. Your dad is pacing the living room, while Pepper is just sitting on the couch. “Sit.” He points towards the couch. Pepper rolls her eyes at your dad’s mood, but pats the seat next to her. 

“Hello to you too.” You tease only slightly as you sit down next to her. 

“Hi sweetheart.” She says having not seen you since this morning.

“We can do niceties later. Right now we’re dealing with the bullshit that is her running off and telling FRIDAY not to tell me where she went, not telling Happy where she went, and oh right not telling her parents where she went.” 

“But we aren’t going to talk about how you were in a shit mood and decided to take it out on me? I’m the only one in the wrong here? That’s some real bullshit Tony.” You call him by his real name, not feeling like he’s acting much like a father right now. “You keep acting like it’s a huge threat being your kid, but honestly, I think you just like being controlling more than anything else. You lock me up in a tower like a Disney Princess, choose what I’m allowed to eat, where I’m allowed to go, and who I’m allowed to be friends with. I don’t think you ever wanted a kid. You wanted a robot you could control. Well guess what? I’m not a fucking robot. I’m a human being, with feelings and emotions. And what I’m feeling right now is that I’m done with your bullshit.” You scream at him before storming out of the room.

“Couldn’t have kept your cool for two minutes Tony?” Pepper asks, looking off in the direction you ran away.

“Me? Did you not hear her monologue attacking my entire personality? Apparently I’m no better than Howard so…” Tony shouts before storming off towards the garage. Pepper knows that there are two hotheads in her life, but seeing as Tony is most likely going for a drive, she’ll tackle you first. 

Pepper knocks on your door, waiting to hear the reply that never comes. So she opens the door to see you curled up under your blankets, headphones plugged in, staring at the ceiling. Pepper sees the same stubbornness she’s seen from Tony time and time again. Making her way across the room, she sits on the edge of your bed. You try to not make eye contact with her for a few moments, but eventually pull your headphones out and look her in the eyes.

“I’m not coming down to apologize.”

“He’s not even down there right now.” Your eyebrows pull together as you take in what she said. “Like father, like daughter. He stormed out of the room a few moments after you did.”

“Was that when he was yelling? Something about Howard?” You ask. Pepper doesn’t know how much you know about your grandparents, but it’s clear you heard at least some of what your dad yelled, so she nods her head. “When he’s talking about Howard, he means my grandfather, right? His father?” Pepper nods slowly. It’s not really her story to tell you. “Was my grandfather a bad person?” You ask before adding, “No one will tell me about him.”

“Your dad and him didn’t see eye to eye. It really should be your dad to tell you the story.”

“That’s what Aunt Nat told me too.”

“But, what I can tell you, is your dad loves you very much. Is he overprotective at times? Very. But does he love you? Very much. However the two of you are more similar than you are different. And that comes out in your tempers more than anything.” Pepper runs a hand over your leg. 

After cooling off, you decide to get your homework over with. You don’t have that much for a Wednesday anyway. It takes you barely an hour and you end up on your bed, scrolling through social media and texting Peter and friends, when a noise interrupts your music. 

Tony knocks on the door, opening it slightly. “Can I come in kiddo?”

“Are you coming in to yell at me again?” You ask, not looking up from your phone, not wanting to look at your dad yet.

“No.” He opens the door more, walking towards you. He notes the sweatshirt you’ve put on- a black shirt with white writing that reads ‘I Suck At Apologies So Unfuck You Or Whatever’. “Pepper was right that I should have kept my cool earlier instead of yelling at you when you got home.” Tony wants to sit on your bed, like he’s done a thousand times, but decides to sit on your desk chair instead, so that he doesn’t invade your space entirely. 

“Yeah, well according to Pepper, we’re both hotheads.” You say, not disagreeing with him, but not agreeing either.

“Sounds like something we both got from our pops.” He says, not letting anything else out. You want to ask more about the grandfather you don’t know, but you know it’s not the time for it. “Can we try having a civil conversation about everything now? Or we can have Pep come be a mediator if we need it?”

“I think we can be calm if we try?” You suggest.

“I’m not trying to make your life a living hell.” Tony says after a moment of thinking. You set your phone down and turn to look at him, sitting cross legged. “I promise you that. And I’m sorry. I know it feels like I have a bunch of rules but I’m trying to do the best for you and by you. Part of it is about your safety. That’s the parts that may not seem like a ton of fun and we had a conversation about it when you first moved in. If I could change it to be less strict and more fun I would. But I’m literally being the least strict I can be while still ensuring your safety.”

“Really?”

“Really. The food stuff, maybe,” he grimaces, “we can try and be a little more lenient. But I’m also trying to ensure that you have stuff that’s going to make your blood sugar good. So can we try to come up with a compromise on everything?” You nod. “And on the friends, the only people I keep away are the ones who could be safety issues. Normal humans, that’s on you to decide who you want to be friends with. And I shouldn’t have taken my frustrations about Peter out on you. But, the biggest thing, I one hundred percent want you, just the way you are. I don’t want a robot. If I did, I’d make another one. I have plenty as is. But you? I love having you. And I wouldn’t change who you are.” You stare at him for a moment, not sure what to say. “Did I miss any part of what you were mad about?” 

You try and think back to what all you yelled at him, and what he yelled at Pepper before leaving. “You didn’t miss anything, but I’m sorry too.” Tony looks at you in confusion. “I wasn’t trying to attack who you are-”

“Ah, you heard me yelling at Pep.”

“Maybe I did, but I did honestly attack who you were which wasn’t fair to you either.”

“Maybe not. But also I was still pissed off when I was yelling at her. Which gives me another person I need to apologize to, because let’s be honest, I don’t deserve her.”

“She’s the best you’ll ever get.” You say honestly.

“Very true.” Tony agrees. “But, I should have just removed myself from the situation instead of saying anything.”

“We both should have.” You can’t help but admit.

“True.” Tony walks over to you to give you a hug. “Even though we’re apologizing, I do have to tell you, you are grounded. One month.”

“Yeah, you told me on the phone.” You lean into his hug, but bite the bullet and ask the question that no one is willing to answer. “Dad?”

“Yeah kiddo?”

“Why will no one talk about your dad?” You feel your dad stiffen, but then he takes a deep breath as he pulls away from the hug. 

“Well I should have expected this to come up eventually. Who all mentioned him?”

“Well you mentioned him earlier, but Pepper did because I asked and Aunt Natasha did a while ago.”

“Well, it’s kind of a long story. You sure you want it?” You nod. “Ok, then scootch over.” You slide to the left of your bed and your dad sits down, wrapping an arm around you. “My dad was older when he had me. He was uh... fifty two when I was born. And he was of an older generation. So when I was growing up, he tended to be somewhat harsher. He didn’t believe in praise and tended to live by the motto that ‘Stark men have iron in their veins’. Made for harder times trying to impress him or just having him show affection. Growing up it was easy to feel like my father never wanted me, or that I was nothing more than a name to carry on the Stark legacy. As time went on, nothing I did was ever good enough. How could it be, when he helped create Captain America? All I heard growing up was Captain America this and Captain America that and it was easy to believe that Captain America was the one that could have been a better son for my dad, even though they were only a year apart.”

“So did your mom not step in?”

“Mom believed that Dad was showing his love in the ways that he knew how to. She showed her love in the ways she could. Which was better than Dad. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t have her faults either.”

“So did you just disown him as a father or something? Is that why I haven’t met them?”

“They’re, uh, dead. They were killed when I was seventeen.” You look up at your dad’s face, looking for hurt or something but seeing not much of anything. “Mom would have loved you. Would have told me I was getting all the karma for all the years of partying by having a daughter that I now need to protect from all the boys and girls out there.”

“And your dad?”

“I can’t say. I’d want to say he’d see you and hopefully see past his past mistakes, but I can’t promise you that. But I know your grandmother would have loved you- just the way you are.”

“Can I ask you something else?”

“You can ask me anything, always.”

“When Aunt Nat was telling me about him, it was because she was telling me about your reaction about finding out about me. I wanted to know back when I first moved in. And she said you didn’t want to be like Howard.”

“I’m waiting for the question kiddo.”

“Well and then earlier you yelled at Pepper that you were no better than Howard.”

“Again, still no question.”

“What did I say that made you feel like you were no better than him?”

“Kiddo, we both already said that we said things we probably shouldn’t have-”

“You said you’d answer anything-”

“I said you could ask anything. Never said I’d answer it.” Tony says jokingly, trying to let humor cover the stuff he doesn’t usually talk about.

“Dad, please?”

“Fine. Um, Howard was always really controlling growing up. He made decisions about whether I was allowed to go places, who were the right kind of friends, and other things along the same lines. Honestly if I hadn’t gone off to college at 15, I don’t know if I would have gotten out from being under his thumb so early.  That’s not to say that others didn’t try to take his place after his death but still. When you said I was treating you like you were supposed to be a robot I could control instead of a human, it reminded me of too many fights I had with him and Mom.” You can’t help but wrap your arms around him and hug your dad tightly. 

“I really didn’t mean those ones. You’re honestly a really good dad. And you and Pepper show me all the time that I’m loved. Far from a robotic situation.” You try to eat the words you spat out earlier, knowing you can’t take back words once they’re said. 

“You might not say that once I take Homecoming away.”

“I honestly wasn’t even sure if I was going to go. I haven’t been asked to go. Plus it’s the same weekend of all the moving stuff so Happy will probably be dealing with all of that so,” you shrug, “just seems like a busy enough weekend already.”

“Then I guess taking it away is pointless. However, if you go anywhere without Happy again, the forehead of security will be a 24/7 thing, not just a to and from school thing, got it?”

“Ok, ok. I get it.” He pulls you in close for another hug.

“Did you two kiss and make up?” Pepper asks from the doorway.

“We’re all better.” You say, still leaning into your dad’s arms.

“Good, because dinner is ready, and I wasn’t going to let the two of you continue your fight at the table.”

Becoming A Stark Tag list: @persephonehemingway​  @iamaunicorn4704​  @furiouspockettoad​  @daughter-of-stark​  @eternalharry​  @huntective-kyeo​ @riiis-stuff​ @sunnyoongles @cosmicqueenieb​ @sovereignparker​ @bbarnestan​ @teenwishes08​ @iamthescarlettwitch​ @skyfallstilinski @cutie1365​ @a-mnd​

Permanent tag list: @wormonastringonastick

Toxic Fandom, Public Heartbreak, And The Feedback Loop

Travis Riddle – October 29, 2019

Fandom by Waterparks is one of my favorite albums of the year, regardless of the fact that…I am friends with the band. There was not a single track that immediately stood out as my favorite like Take Her to the Moon and Peach on previous albums--but I think that's because everything on this one is so good, it's impossible to choose one. I Miss Sex/War Crimes/I Felt Younger would probably comprise my top 3, but every song is fantastic. And the album is on the shorter side but you truly don't feel that length, these songs all go through so many different movements--lyrically and musically--that every song is just dense as hell and it feels a lot longer than it is, while still not feeling overwhelming or messy at all. It flows great and hits some really interesting themes.

This write-up was initially sent to Awsten on the album’s release date, and I’ve edited it a little below for clarity/brevity, because I would not shut up about it.

1. Cherry Red - Starting the album off with that bark/yell is so tight. A year and a half ago in that parking lot going to get crawfish together I didn't really "get" this song, but after hearing the album several times it really clicked for me. I love how it acts as kind of a setup to the whole thing, getting the listener into your mindset and introducing one of the main themes of the album. I also like how it continues your color motifs; "blue and yellow let’s get together and be green" has now gone bad and turned to sour green, and it seems like cherry red is replacing yellow (red + yellow = orange hmmmmm). I also love how "You know I died for you" ties into the closing track, "I said I loved you to death so I must be dead."

2. WWHN - A really great choice for the first full song of the album to set the tone for the Fandom theme in contrast with Cherry Red setting up the emotional side of the lyrics. It's also a goddamn jam so it's great at hyping up right at the start hahah. I've probably told you everything about this already but I like what you're saying in this, and how it's something probably every single artist goes through in their career, but no one seems to say in a critical way (that I’m aware of). I'm sure this and other songs will make some fans upset because they're being called out but I like that, and it's some stuff that needs to be said.

3. Dream Boy - Lots of good stuff about fan expectations in this, dressed up in metaphors and really catchy pop to catch people off-guard. Love the phrase "Build-A-Boy, pick your pieces" and "Do you believe in love and is it because of me?" With people's weird way of crafting their whole lives and beliefs and desires on these celebrities that they don't know personally at all yet are so invested in.

4. Easy to Hate - I feel like this is the most straightforward and "simple" song thematically, but man it is so catchy. The sound effect that I'm sure is your voice in the opening before the verse is so damn cool. I like this first real hint of the colors turning to red. This is thematically pretty similar to other demos like ********* and Play and stuff so with how catchy and big this chorus is, it's easy to see why you chose this one to cover that topic. I'm also a sucker for someone doing the chorus in a song but stripped down like you do here. Those harmonies in the final chorus are also soooo good..........

5. High Definition - You're on some Imogen Heap-ass shit here and it's dope. I like this as a single choice since I feel like the emotional side of the album really hinges on this track--it's not a breakup album in the typical sense (aside from like Easy to Hate and Worst), but rather it's about the aftermath of the breakup and the emotional state surrounding that, the doubts and insecurities and vulnerabilities of losing trust in everybody due to one person’s actions, and this song is such a direct and succinct and sad encapsulation of that. Hate how this whole song makes me feel for my friend but it's also really pretty and good.

6. Telephone - This is some real Hellogoodbye-ass shit here with the ending of the chorus hahah. The juxtaposition between this and High Definition is interesting, basically both songs coming to the same conclusion--not committing to a relationship--but in totally opposite ways. With this one basically being "I won't tell you how I'm feeling, I'll just go write lyrics/sing voice memos/tweet." Is this about the damn pretty Target girl you tweeted about once? "Now I'm living on a target" and "all these aisles feel like miles" hmmmmMMM. This wasn't my favorite when I first heard it but it realllllly grew on me and now I love it. The chorus is so good and I love what you're doing with the music/harmonies in the background of it. Also the dumb shit after "I'll follow" always makes me laugh. Then the dichotomy between this/HD is emphasized in the closing Wedding Singer sample which I feel like represents the fandom; you’re going through this huge emotional turmoil, but we’re reaping the benefits by getting great songs out of it.

7. Group Chat - It works as a goofy little interlude but I also like what it says thematically (if I'm not just pulling this out of my ass anyway). On one hand it seems to me like a commentary on the inanity of some fan group chats, how in some of them they all act like they're best friends but really it's just a surface-level friendship. "My name's [whatever] and we're all friends! :D" and then also with the effect on your voice, seems to imply to me how mentally draining everyone in the fandom can sometimes be on you more so than Geoff and Otto.

8. Turbulent - I know some people just gotta have their metaphors and shit in their lyrics but I love how direct this song is. Just plainly stating things makes them feel so much more raw and real. I can't see how you could more powerfully convey the anger and hurt than with "I'd unfuck you if I could." Also the "sOoOoO" in the second chorus is still best part (also the barks). Also the pitched-down backup vocals are tight in this song, really gets you into the frantic, pissed off headspace.

9. NBA - I like the potential double meaning of the chorus in this one; everyone in LA looks like you cause I'm missing you and seeing you everywhere, but also it’s kind of insulting, like "everyone in LA looks like you, you're not special." But aside from that, another very pretty albeit sad song. The chorus with full instrumentation and harmonies really hits hard. I also like the 11:11 connection with tying breath in knots; you're always really great at bringing back recurring images and lines in your writing, it makes your discography feel really connected and like you're actually writing these things, it's not some producer in a studio writing lyrics for you. These songs all lead into each other; the songs on Fandom could not exist without what came before in DD and Entertainment. That evolution is always really interesting to see, how these different motifs recur and change their meaning over time. I assume the main metaphor of this might also be a callback to Crybaby with “chasing through dreams in bloom.”

10. IMHSBALIDWDA - Definitely one of my favorites, it's just so damn fun. And once again some cool vocal effect you have going on in the background, which I always love. The lyrics here are fun but also biting; I've been thinking of this as a commentary on how fans don't really care about an artist's well-being or life even if they try to act like they do, they just want new songs and good performances and new merch etc. etc. no matter what it means the artist is going through or how they feel when they sing these emotionally devastating songs. So the chorus to me is kinda like a self-care anthem in a way, setting aside all the negative stuff and admitting to yourself hey, at least I feel kind of better now; maybe not entirely better, but I'm getting there.

11. War Crimes - Another song with sad lyrics but musically it goes so damn hard, another favorite. "I'm forgetting how to hate myself" is one of my favorite lyrics on the album, as is "My death will be the fandom." I don't even totally know what to say about this song cause sooo much is going on and it's just crazy. "Let's go!" is also a favorite moment. And the "I saved my own life" calling back to Not Warriors is tight.

12. [Reboot] - Hey is "I need to sleep alone" a reference to Sleep Alone!!!!!?!???? I've already talked to you about this song a lot too so I don't have much new to say. The vocal effect on the bridge is dope. The breaths before verse 2 are maybe my favorite part, as well as what you do on "all on you" including holding out "you" into the chorus. And whatever's going on in the background at the end of that second chorus, I can't tell if it's vocals or instruments or what, but it sounds really cinematic and cool.

13. Worst - This new version is so cool, it has so much texture that the demo didn't. Vocals are also really pretty. The added bass and electronics really add a lot of rhythm and an interesting vibe to this; the bass is almost jazzy in a way? But then the electronics/percussion are almost like a dance beat but really stripped down? I dunno, it's such an odd combination, especially with the guitar just being acoustic. One of the most interesting songs on the album sonically despite being comparatively "simple" at first listen.

14. Zone Out - My least fave just because it's such a simple interlude, but what I like that it does is like...basically comments on the preceding songs I guess? It's like a question to the listener. At the beginning you've got Dream Boy setting up their expectations, then this comes at the very end and essentially asks them, "After hearing all of these angry heartbroken songs, am I still your dream boy? Do you still think love exists because of me even though I've gone through all this and don’t believe in it myself?" I like that it makes the listener confront their previous feelings and expectations before we dive into the finale.

15. IFYWWM - First off I absolutely love the effect you put on the vocals at the start of this, especially with how that effect abruptly cuts off; it's so weird and interesting and I never get tired of hearing it. The difference between the demo and this final version is amazing, I love this song. And "I said I loved you to death so I must be dead" is such a great one-two punch; it hits hard as a "fuck you!" line with being a way to say you don't love her anymore, but then you realize how sad it is that the effect has been this emotional death that pervades the entire album and eventually leads right back into Cherry Red. Which is also a depressing ending; it's so abrupt without any closure about anything talked about on the album, and the way that it circles back into the opener kind of implies to me that maybe there's a sense of circularity to everything, it's unending, the songs will always be fueled by heartbreak and the emotional trauma will never go away and dealing with it in the public eye of the fandom will always be overbearing.

http://www.travismriddle.com/blog/2019/10/29/toxic-fandom-public-heartbreak-and-the-feedback-loop

[Fic] A River to Cross and No Boat to Get Me There

Pairings/Characters: America /& f!England Rating: Teen Summary: Brussels, Belgium, July 2018. Over drinks, England and America (do not) talk politics. Really.

Notes: Written for @aph-fanficchallenges’ Shipping & Platonic Week 2019, Day 1: Old-Fashioned. It’s late. orz The way I write these two always feels like it straddles a line somewhere between platonic and strangely romantic/sexual, and I think you can choose to read this as either shippy or not - either way, there’s a kind of (resigned, exasperated) love there. Also on AO3.

   July, 2018 A bar in Haren, City of Brussels, in the Kingdom of Belgium

  The bar is all suits and badges, but, as long as a guy knows what he’s looking for, the woman sitting nursing her drink at the bar - smart, dark grey skirt suit, name and face on her badge hidden by being tucked away behind the lapel of her blazer - stands out from the other people in the room.

She’s the only Nation in the room.

Well, she’s the only Nation in the room until America sidles in, quite proud of himself for his tracking abilities in an urban landscape without the use of spy satellites. He takes himself to the bar beside his quarry and leans over its polished top to nab the bartender’s attention, body angled towards his colleague.

“An Old-Fashioned for me, sir, and -” he begins, and eyes up the drink in front of his companion: a tumbler about a third full of booze and ice, deep brown with shimmering tones of gold - someone is hitting the spirits early (earlier than him) -, “another one for the lady too, I think?”

The bartender gives him a look and America is just about to repeat his order, a bit more clearly this time, when England sighs beside him, looking up from her one-woman stare-off with her drink and repeats his request for him. In French. (America assumes it’s French. There’s a L’Old-Fashioned in there anyway, rolling off England’s tongue in the way it never does in front of France, and a rather pointed s'il vous plaît.)

The bartender nods and gets to it, leaving England to give America her trademarked suspicious look. She’s foregone pretty hairclips today so has to sweep back some of the side-fall of her sharp bob to glower at him effectively, and that sort of effort usually means business.

“This place isn’t your usual. Why are you following me?”

Blunt.

“Everyone else was busy,” says America, and tries a charming smile that hopes England won’t point out how unlikely it is that all of the Nations involved in NATO apart from England and America have found something else to do with their lunchtimes. There’s always at least one Nation at loose ends for another to pounce upon.

England’s frown deepens and her eyebrows arch for the sky, so America lets his smile drop. There’s no real point lying, though the waste of his acting talents does make him pout. (In another life, Hollywood would be just eating this up. Begging for his time.)

“Alright , I came seeking refuge in audacity?”

“I’m audacity?” England asks, sounding undecided on whether she should be offended by that or not, only to swing her legs round hastily when America goes to pull out the barstool beside her and stomp down an unladylike heel on the foot rest, preventing its movement. “Oh - no, no, no, no, no, Jones. I think you’re a blithering idiot at the moment as well.”

“Oh, come on. ” America protests, and gives the barstool another halfhearted yank. (Not a serious yank, because if he did that he might break England’s ankle, and England and the British and Washington all of the rest of NATO would eviscerate him about him with their tongues and Russia would be a smug asshole about it again, and God, England would never let him forget it if he broke her leg. Ever. ) “I’m buying you a drink!”

“Caveat emptor,” says England snippily, and doesn’t let up on the barstool. Whoever said the English were civil, gracious and polite? “I came here for some peace and quiet, for a change.”

“Yeah, well, I came to join the club.”

America had figured England had someplace to go when she’d pretended she’d not noticed the way France was deliberately ignoring her and swanned out of the NATO headquarters like she had better things to do. Without talking to any of her own people either. It usually meant England was taking herself directly to the nearest source of both dimness and decent alcohol so she could bitch-text whoever wasn’t at the latest conference with her about how much she hated everything.

A drink and getting away from everyone glaring daggers into his back or offering gentle ‘suggestions’ about his boss had sounded pretty great to America, so he’d followed her. There isn’t enough time allotted for lunch for England to get totally wasted (something the world and certainly America must be very grateful for), but some mild inebriation for the both of them would probably make the afternoon’s meetings a lot easier to get through.

America toes one of the barstool’s feet, letting the dull thud shake up through England’s heel. “We can’t be social pariahs together?”

England still looks suspicious. “Alone, together?”

“With alcohol,” says America, right as the bartender slides their drinks over to them. The guy might hate English, but he has pretty good timing, so America digs out one of what he thinks is one of the more high-value pieces of rainbow paper most of Europe calls money out of his wallet and tells him to keep the change.

England huffs at him, but she withdraws her heel so America can finally pull the barstool out to sit, distracting herself by fishing the maraschino cherry out of her Old-Fashioned to pop it between her lips. “I swear: if you try to talk shop with me right now, I’ll stab you somewhere unpleasant.”

“Didn’t know there was somewhere pleasant to stab a guy,” America comments as he finally takes a seat, holding up both hands in the universal gesture for whoa there when England grins a grin that looks entirely too mean for an elaboration to be anything America wants to hear about in public. “I’ll take your word for it; I don’t wanna know!”

“Where did your spirit of adventure disappear to?” England teases him, and finishes her first drink in one long swallow before reaching out to her new cocktail.

America picks up his own, gesturing in the vague but not explicit of England beside him as his fingers slide in the condensation on the glass, “There’s adventure, and there’s…”

“Where angels fear to tread?” America takes a swallow of his Old-Fashioned so he doesn’t have to answer, the bitters heavy on his tongue under the whiskey burn, and England snorts at him. Flicks back her hair again, but thankfully doesn’t reach out to pat his cheek. “It’s been a long time since you were a cherub, darling.”

America squints at her, because he might have to recalculate just how quickly England can get herself shitfaced when the mood strikes. (He really needs to clean his glasses.) “How many drinks have you had? ”

“Not enough,” sighs England, which is a feeling America can definitely empathise with. At least as long as England isn’t sliding sideways off her barstool. “I keep hoping the alcohol will drown out all their squabbling.”

“S’it working?”

“Like fuck is it.” England toasts him idly, takes a sip of her drink, and then grumbles, “And you don’t help.”

“Thanks,” says America with the same amount of cheer. Maybe he can drown himself in whiskey.

“I’ve my own shit to deal with without my people harping on about your shit,” England continues unnecessarily, because America, of course, could not have possibly heard any of this same spiel from any of the other Nations or their people gathered in Brussels that day already. “If your tit of a boss could just not do what he did in Canada and leave one thing unfucked for the rest of us, that’d be smashing.”

“That’s the plan,” America sighs - and then hurries on before England can harangue him further, “but what’s your strategy?”

The element of surprise works - for once - in his favour, and England is distracted. “Hm?”

“For winning over Europe,” America clarifies - and then pauses with his glass against his mouth, sweet cherry bobbing against his lower lip, realising something. “Is that why you’re wearing a new suit?”

He’d thought England’s skirt suit had been smart: it’s all crisp lines with a nipped waist, dark grey herringbone blazer against the stiff white collar of her blouse, but the straight skirt is definitely showing off a lot of her legs.

America has heard far too many people compliment England’s legs in front of him over the years, and he groans at the mental images. “It is, ain’t it?”

England has the decency to blush - or at least allow all the booze she’s imbibed so far to do it on her behalf. The colour bleeds down her throat, and America groans again into his Old-Fashioned, taking a large swig from his tumbler and tucking the cherry into his cheek. “I -”

“I don’t wanna know,” America gripes, and hopes the whiskey will burn his revelation out of his head. Europe.

Still pink, England coughs, and takes another sip from her own cocktail. For a few moments, they have quiet.

“...Probably for the best,” England admits quietly, eventually, and then shifts enough over on her stool so she can nudge her knee up against America’s. “Thanks for the drink.”

     The 2018 NATO summit was held in Brussels, Belgium, July 11-12. It took place in the (new) NATO headquarters found there, in a complex in Haren (part of the City of Brussels municipality). I don’t know if there are any good bars nearby the complex, but you’d think there would be with all the demand there must be.

The 44th G7 summit was held in La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada, in June 2018 - obviously, before the NATO summit. It received a lot of attention internationally because of (as others have more tactfully put it) ‘a significant decline of relations of members with the United States’, and was dubbed G6+1 by France and parts of the media as a result. The US withdrew in what seemed like a huff from several important international agreements, and was widely condemned by international politicians, climate change scientists, trade policy experts, foreign policy experts… etc. The US President left the summit early in order to travel to Singapore for the USA’s first summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and was dubbed ‘the democratic world’s worst nightmare’ - all of which, of course, led to a rather fraught political atmosphere for all nations going to the NATO summit the following month.

...Do I really need to make a note about Brexit?

All the titles for this ‘verse come from poetry/literature created around the time the fic is set. This one is taken from a few lines from the poem Running, by Joy Harjo, which was published in July 2018 in The New Yorker: Now I have to find my way, when there’s a river to cross and no Boat to get me there, when there appears to be no home at all.

Soulless Riffing: Brainless Ch.14

I got a supernatural action/romance book series as a gift that’s just riddled with stuff that I hate….and as a steampunk Victorian London action romance story filled with werewolves and vampires…it’s yeah gonna be easy to poke fun at.

I just want to say, it’s totally cool if you like this story or ones like it!  It’s certainly a better caliber than a lot of what I make fun of…however…I can’t help but want to make fun of it.

Over here for the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7+8, 9, 10+11, 12, and 13.

AAAAAAAA FUCK IT HERE GOES!

Chapter 14

HOW DOES LORD MACCON GET OUT OF BEING STRANGLED BY A MALFUNCTIONING MACHINE!?

He’s safe in 2 short paragraphs.  Akeldama wipes it’s forehead with a hankie and that’s that.

Alexia gets all indignant about HOW WAS SHE SUPPOSED TO KNOW HOW TO SUBDUE IT!? Even though Akeldama told her outright how to subdue it like 10 pages ago and she did a shitty job.

BUT WHAT ABOUT HITLERHUFF VAN BRAUN!?

Within 3 pages it’s revealed that Lord Akeldama’s harem of fabulous servants/blood banks show up with a knocked out FAILEDCLIMAX SHITPACING!

Faps, I thought you were using Nazi/villain jumbled words for his name?

THIS TERRIBLE WRITING FEELS LIKE A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY OKAY!? I STAND BY IT!

So they heal Lord Akeldama and begin to like do that boring shit after a crime scene has been neutralized. And lord this writing is fucking bad.  She spends round bout 8 pages trying to wrap this scene up but there’s a lot of talking in circles about shit that nobody really cares about. “What about those other vampires?”

“Some were questioned but most of them needed to go get blood.”

“What about the other werewolves?”

“They were questioned and sent home.”

“What happened to them Draculas?”

“They needed to get blood, but they helped illuminate what the bad guys were doing.”

OKAY LIKE, WHY ARE YOU MAKING THIS ENDING TEDIOUS!?

They also set some time aside to talk a few times about getting Lord Maccon clothes. He started with a cloak but then they found pants.  Also Biffy fixed Alexia’s hair.

WHY ARE YOU MAKING THIS ENDING SO FUCKING TEDIOUS!?

But eventually Prof. Lyall drags a sleeping Alexia home.  Alexia’s family is upset and wants to know what happened. Prof. Lyall IN HIS INFINITE WISDOM instead of telling the truth tells her mom she was visiting Lord Maccon.  So her mother goes to beat the tar out of her sleeping 26 year old daughter cause I don’t know if you have gathered this or not but she’s a BAD PERSON!

The good professor prevents this from happening and at that very moment…fucking QUEEN VICTORIA SHOWS UP! Her mom faints, cause of course she does.

Queen Victoria is like,

“Sup my good bitch, we’ve been watching you since you were born cause you’re a soulless.  Are you getting married to Lord What’s-his-face or what?”

Alexia responds that they’re planning on it.

Queen Victoria is relieved because she wants Alexia to be the muhjah for the SHADOW COUNCIL and like you can’t be single and on that cause like WHAT WOULD PEOPLE SAY!?

Allow me to interject just as things are happening for a complaint.

This book spends a decent amount of time on WHAT’S PROPER for a lady of WEALTH.  But to me a lot of this shit is just bigoted, tedious, misogyny. Do people really get aroused at the prospect that if the angle of your curtsy is off you’ll be disowned by your family and friends!?  

Faps, reign in the sass! This is a fantasy where the readers get to indulge in the fun stuff. Suffocating dresses, being rich, and going to balls.

IT’S TECHNICALLY FINE, BUT I CAN’T RELATE TO THIS APPEAL, AND AS A BITTER AMATEUR HISTORIAN I’M ANNOYED AT HISTORICAL TIME PERIODS BEING MISREPRESENTED AND GLAMORIZED FOR FRIVOLOUS AESTHETIC PURPOSES! HURUMPH!

So Alexia basically remarks that the shadow council is ½ military styled Werewolves, and ½ vampire political advisors.  Which…apparently is a huge insult?  Prof. Lyall scolds her, and we’re supposed to act shocked when Queen Victoria reacts with bitter amusement rather than getting angry.  Huh? How is this an insult? I think the implication is that average folks would consider it a BAD THING that the government is using SUPERNATURALS to their advantage???? But like they’d be A class morons if they didn’t? I DON’T UNDERSTAND! THIS IS ALL VERY DUMB!

Anyway Victoria wants her to be the muhjah, which is the Soulless peacekeeper between the werewolves and vampires.  

Alexia asks, “Why me?” Which is apparently her being ~difficult~ Prof. Lyall even says that she’s being difficult out loud.

Are we at the Mary-Sue stage that the protag questioning why she’s being handed immense power on a silver platter is her NOT GETTING HOW GREAT SHE IS!?

The queen says she seems suited for the position because she’s ~well-read~ and ~a talented investigator.~  The fuck did she investigate?  She was invited to a vampire den (which she didn’t need to do anything to receive) and the matriarch just blabbed shit that other investigators already knew without much prompting from her. Also she got kidnapped.  Well read? She’s a raging ninny and at this point I don’t need to count the ways. HAHA whatever!

She’s got her dream job and is marrying her dream man. OH HAPPY DAY!

We leave off this ~last~ chapter with how MacDougall stole her umbrella during the genocidal lock-up, was super sad she got married, moved back to America and “He married a veritable battle-ax of a woman and happily allowed himself to be bossed around for the remainder of his days.”

Dude is living the dream! But like, book? Are you just fine with the fact that he was helping torture people to death to learn the secrets of how to genocide?  Were you just mad he’s not a Chad and therefore unfuckable to NORMAL women?

I don’t get you, and I’m kinda glad I don’t.

Say something Nice Faps:

Despite my confusion on the topic, I’m glad they wrapped up MacDougall.  Like since the story doesn’t take the genocidal stuff seriously, it’s hard for me to.  So MacDougall, wherever you are, please sandwich me with your perfect battle axe wife. <3

The queen wasn’t characterized as humorless and insufferable

It’s almost over

These are so good omg 10 from the best friend ones with cal maybe? Love your writing xx

“friends don’t do this kind of shit!” with cal?

hey i love you!!!! that’s so nice of you to say! and this is also the last of the best friends to lovers prompts so i’d just like to say it was fun and thanks to everyone who sent something in! sorry this took so long but i had my last midterm today!!!!!!

“Hey, Cal, you coming to Kappa Sig tonight?”

Calum ducked his head as Ashton clapped him on the shoulder. Practice had left his shoulders aching, and a few months ago he would have been ready to drink until he couldn’t feel anything but wavy. It was almost Halloween - t’was the season to drink hard cider until it came out of his nose. 

“Nah, not tonight, man.” He said instead. 

“Balls. Mikey? Are you goin’?”

“Yeah, boy.”

“Boiiiiiiiiii.” Luke chimed in. 

As they came off the field, Calum peeled himself away from the group a little. It was getting harder to explain why he wasn’t going out, why he wasn’t as much fun anymore. He knew they were gonna pin him for it eventually, but… he wasn’t up for that banter tonight. 

“Don’t have too much fun, boys.” He yelled into the changeroom as he headed out. Ashton whooped on at him as the door slid shut behind him. Somehow, Calum didn’t feel the least bit jealous. 

He tried to keep to himself while he showered and packed up. Other athletes were spilling out of the complex, and as Calum’s feet hit the sidewalk he nodded to a few of them. One of the kin students - Erica - caught up to him, bumping him with her elbow. 

“Hey,” She said, smiling at him with bright eyes. Cal just nodded; he was glad enough to see her. Kinesiology students practising sports medicine usually volunteered at practice, she’d mended his turf burn on a few occasions. “How’s your ego doing since you ate it out there? Little bruised?”

Calum found himself laughing. The rain had turned the turf into a slip ‘n slide that day, and his soccer cleats hadn’t been enough to keep him upright during wind sprints. “Compound fracture.” He joked.

Erica winced dramatically. She was cute, Calum knew it, but when she pouted at him like that it didn’t move anything within him. “Aw, baby.” She said, voice liquid.

“I’ll recover.”

“Well, if I can help, just let me know. My roommate is gonna be gone all weekend, so if you ever need some impromptu physio, I’m all yours.” She said casually. Like she wasn’t invested in his answer. People only really did that when they were, it seemed.

Erica was great. She was smart, and funny, and pretty. Ashton would be foaming at the mouth once he heard Cal turned her down. “I’m actually pretty busy this weekend, sorry, Er.” He shrugged. At least they were almost at the intersection. “Maybe another time, alright? See you at practice!” He said, turning for his bus stop.

He pressed his hands into his pockets as he waited. Erica Brown, huh? I mean, she was nice and all, but he kind of had his eye on someone. Maybe he could gently nudge her to one of his teammates. After all, she had given him those exercises that had unfucked his shoulder, he’d hate to see her unhappy.

Fumbling for his earbuds, he tried to forget about the encounter. It was just hard, you know? Whether he liked it or not, he was changing. All he could do was hope it was for the better. His grades were up, that was something, but he didn’t feel like he used to about frat parties and kin majors with bright eyes.

He turned up his music so he didn’t have to think about it.

The bus was quiet that night. It was usually welcome, not having to wait for a seat, but Calum was just in an edgy sort of mood. He could stand a little chaos. Maybe the frat party wouldn’t have been such a bad idea, after all.

But she was waiting for him.

Really, there was no contest.

His apartment was a messy little walkup a block from the bus stop, but tired as he was he could feel the bounce in his step returning. As he unlocked the door, he felt a little anticipation build.

The sound of the door and him toeing off his shoes announced his arrival. “Hi honey, welcome home.” He heard her drawl from the kitchen, and even though he knew she was joking he couldn’t help but smile. There was something really sweet about how she’d greet him like they were in I Love Lucy, like two kids playing house. Made him want to get domestic with her, dammit. It would be embarrassing if it didn’t feel so damn good. 

“Hi, honey,” He said, his own countersign, as he dropped his bag on the floor in the hall. She was at the kitchen table on her laptop, but she glanced over as he came up and gave her a quick one-armed hug. Well, he tried to keep it quick. 

“Quesadillas are on the stove for you.” She said, leaning her head into his shoulder before he released. “Actually, you should probably flip them.”

Calum made himself turn to the stove so he doesn’t linger. “Coach says I should be getting more lean protein.”

“So get coach to make you dinner. These have peppers in them, they’re healthy.”

“They’re definitely not.” Calum said, flipping them with his fingers. 

Behind him, he heard Y/N make a raspberry. God, she’s adorable. “How was sportsball?”

“Soccer was good. Would’ve been better if you were there to cheer me on.” He teased, turning around and leaning on the counter. He does this sometimes, flirts with Y/N to see if she notices. I mean, he knew she wouldn’t, but every time it gots his pulse up. Maybe now, maybe this time…

Y/N doesn’t look up. “As if I’d go out there and freeze my ass off for you.”

Apparently not. 

“Break my heart.” He hummed. “What’re we watching tonight, anyways?”

Y/N finally turned to him, instead of her laptop. “Okay, so it’s definitely gotta be spooky. I was kind of thinking some B-horror? Or, like, a trashy movie from the 80s.”

Calum nodded thoughtfully, as if he could ever disagree with her. “They just put the original Halloween on Netflix.”

“That sounds really good, actually. Maybe you’re not just a pretty face.” Y/N teased, already headed to his room, since he had a double bed. It was comfier than the couch, she insisted. “I made you dinner so you have to make the popcorn!” 

That evening, Calum tried to focus on Michael Myers. He really did. Jamie Lee Curtis was screaming her lungs out and he was really trying to respect that, but every time the score peaked he could see Y/N shift by his side and fuck, she was hypnotizing. Her toes curling in his sheets, pretending not to chew on one of her knuckles, trying to chat through the jump scares - she was the sweetest when she was pretending not to be afraid. 

“- and, like, it’s my 9 am lecture, I’ve been awake for all of twenty minutes, and this guy sits down next to me like ‘hi’ and just keeps trying to start a conversation - asks me what year I’m in, like, my major - I dunno if he was flirting or not but like -”

“He was flirting.” Calum interrupted, watching her reflection in the screen. 

“Yeah, I figured - oh, Jesus, God -” He felt her jump next to him - “- like, most people don’t talk to each other in biochem, it was deeply suspicious.” They watch Michael stab the boyfriend (Calum couldn’t remember his name) for a long moment. “Y’know, Paige thought we were dating for a while.”

Calum feels his heart pick up, and it’s not because of the slasher. “Well, this is technically Netflix and chill.” He said, slinging his arm around her shoulders so it seems like a joke. Unless she’s into it, of course. 

“Yeah, but like - you don’t think that’s funny?”

Calum shifted a little, stomach curling. Was it really that ridiculous to her that they could be together? He had to get out of here, get himself under control before he said something stupid. His hand tapped the spacebar, making Y/N jump beside him. “I guess. Gotta pee. Be right back.” 

He was just hoping to get to the bathroom so he could collect himself, maybe text Ashton about it, but Y/N grabbed his arm as he swung his legs off the bed. Sitting on the edge, he glances back at her. He could never fight his way out of her grip. “Are you okay?” She asked. “Cal.”

Calum didn’t have to say anything, and he knew that. But he couldn’t live like this forever. “I mean,” he shrugged, “it’s just, uh, it’s not super funny to me. That I couldn’t be with you.” 

He saw her face change as it hit her. “Jesus, you’re seriously just realizing now?” He said, before he could stop himself. 

That was mean. He could see Y/N’s eyes darting, she was just looking at his sheets, trying to process, and he had snapped at her. Before he could apologize - “Excuse me, lots of people watch movies with their friends.”

“No, friends don’t do this kind of shit, Y/N. They don’t - they don’t pass up on dates and house parties to cuddle in bed and watch movies with their friends. Look, I’m - this isn’t how I wanted to tell you-”

“Is that why you let me move in with you?”

“No. No.” Calum said, putting his hand over hers before she could pull away. “When we moved in, at first, I had a stupid little crush on you, I thought it was gonna go away once we started getting in each other’s way, and I was wrong. I wouldn’t have - Y/N, I would never try to trap you into anything.” Some of the wideness of her eyes faded as he said that. Good. He didn’t want - this shouldn’t scare her, or hurt her. He didn’t want it to be like this, fuck -  

She tugs her hand away anyways. “Okay. I - so, you want -”

“Anything.” He said. “Since it’s out there… I wanna be with you. I don’t want this - this connection we have to end. We could have a love like this, you know? It could be that easy.”

He saw her rub at her face, reading i’m too tired for this shit. He wants to be able to reach out and pull her close so she can relax in his arms, but he doesn’t move. It doesn’t mean anything if she doesn’t want it, too. “Cal, I- you gotta give me a minute with this.”

“Tell me you don’t feel anything for me and it’s forgotten.” He said, too quickly. He just wanted her happy.

“Even if I do, we’re roommates. What if we break up and it’s shitty? It’d be so hard to sort out and - like, I don’t know. I’m sorry, you know I’m bad at this, I just, I don’t know what to do.” 

Calum did. “I’ll give you a little space.” He said gently, standing up from the bed and pulling out his phone. “I’ll spend the night at Ash’s, you can - “

“Wait, you don’t have to. I’ll get out of your room if you want, you don’t have to leave.” She said, grabbing the laptop and sliding off the other side. “I’ll go.”

“Nah. I gotta get some air.” Calum sighed, quickly letting Ash know he was coming to his. It was still pregaming hours, they’d be at his place. “And after what I dropped on you, I should back off a little.”

Y/N’s eyes were wide, and she clung to her laptop like a life raft. “Okay.” She said, after a long moment. They were both hovering by the door, too nervous to move back into each other’s orbits. 

“Okay.” She said again, like she had made a choice. “Just - text me if you’re staying over or coming home, alright?” Calum knew he’d be staying over, but he nodded anyways. At least she wanted him to talk to her. 

Y/N took a deep breath; he could hear it going through her. Then, so fast he couldn’t have moved if he wanted to, she gave him a hug before darting into the hall. 

Calum could hear her footsteps all the way down the hall into her own room. He didn’t move, didn’t breathe, until he heard her door close.

Well. At least now she knew. 

Calum shrugged his jacket on in a fog and made sure to lock the door after him as he headed out. 

He hadn’t been kidding; he’d give her anything she asked. If that was just roommates, fine. If that meant she gave him a chance - that would be all he needed, he was sure. He knew her so well - that was why he was in love with her, after all. 

@therainydays4 @babylon-uncrowned @plainwhiteluke

That time I had sex in the middle of a busy downtown street just with morning commuters walking past us

I was a late bloomer. Took me until 19 to lose my virginity, but then I took off. For a few years, I was a major slut and slept with around 100 women. I worked out (still do, check my profile) and am generally quite good-looking, so it came easy to me. I have a pretty good cock too so ladies would come back for more most of the time. For a few years, I’d typically have three or more women on rotation (more than that, scheduling gets complicated...). There was a full year where I never masturbated because I just had that much sex.

​

Anyway, I’m sharing some of these stories because I like reminiscing and it turns me on to talk about my sex life openly. I’d shared these online back in the day too, which is why I have the detailed write-ups. Everything here is true.

​

OK let’s go. Wind back the time.

​

I fly to a European Capital to visit a few friends and party with them for a few nights. I stay in a hostel in the middle of the bar district because I can't stay with them. I meet them on the first night and find out that they don't really have the time to party: I end up going home to my hostel early in the night - bad planning and communication! However, those kind of things have never really stopped me from having a great time. I decide to not call it a night yet, grab my laptop and sit down in the reception hall.

​

There is a large group of girls with two guys sitting on the sofas next to me. They are drinking and laughing loudly. I do not approach them but just sit there fucking around on the internet. After a while, one of the guys shouts over to me and asks me for my name. I answer, get into a conversation and move over to sit with them. They are roughly ten girls, most of whom are unfuckable, but one tiny blonde with a tight little body and nerdy glasses catches my attention. Definitely doable. Turns out the guy who called me over just met them tonight as well. I bond with him over the topic of travelling, and we have a fun night drinking and getting to know everybody.

​

Pretty soon, the girls straightforwardly tell me they think I am ridiculously hot, and keep giving me compliments. I try to play that down a bit because it is really a bit too much. The travelling guy tells me that the cute blonde is his target and I should keep my hands off her, but I can see that he is getting nowhere. The night gets late quite quickly, and I take the blonde's number to meet up with the group the next day and go to bed.

​

The next day, I meet up with several friends during the day, and in the evening I get some beers with a friend I haven't seen in years. I text the blondie to find out where they are and we join them. My friend has model looks so they eat him up as well. The traveller guy is not with them anymore - he kinda lost their interest when it turned out he'd vomited in his bathroom the night before. For the rest of the night, I just have fun with the group. I give the blondie a few spins and show off some salsa moves with the girl who dances best. Other than that, I drink and shoot the shit with them and my friend. Most of the chicks are not attractive, but they are hilarious and great fun, so I enjoy the night. I make no moves to escalate on anyone, because we sleep at the same place anyway.

​

At some point late in the night after two bars and three clubs, we make it back to the hostel. A few people, including blondie, two more girls and the only guy of the group, stay up to have some more beers. While we are all smoking outside, I make my first move: standing above her while she's sitting and everybody is talking, I give her a long, strong eye contact.

​

Translation: "You're the one. You get to fuck me tonight."

​

She holds my eye contact with kind of a trance-like look on her face. I repeat this twice. I can see that she is getting wet right there. Nobody else notices this. As we are going in, there is a brief moment where the two of us are standing in the entry of the hostel and nobody can see us. She turns back to me to say something, and I give her a short peck on her mouth to let her know that she read me right. Then I push her inside where we join the others.

​

We sit down on the couches and I make sure that blondie sits next to me. We bullshit some more and at some point I put my arm around her lower waist, without changing the conversation.

​

Translation: "Girls, you'll have to give the two of us some privacy soon"

​

The conversation continues. Unnoticed by the others, I start grabbing her ass a little bit, and let my fingers run down between her ass cheeks to get close to her pussy.

​

Translation: "Now is the time."

​

She starts touching my belly openly. At this point, the others start to leave for a smoke. As soon as they are outside, I pull her on me and kiss her. She responds hungrily, and we start running our hands up and down each other's bodies while making out furiously. I put her hand down my pants and she starts stroking my cock.

​

Me: "Where do you want to do this?" (nod towards toilet)Her: "People are going to hear us in here. Outside!"

​

So I take her hand and pull her outside. The others are smoking right outside the entrance, so I stop and have some short conversation with them. Then I nod toward the street corner and say something about how we should smoke over there and just walk away without looking back. Blondie follows behind me, and as soon as we are around the corner, I grab her and make out with her again. Her hands are down my pants again and I finger her through her pants. I pull her around one more street corner, find a slightly darker entrance and wall-slam her into it. She starts breathing heavily as I open her pants put my hand down her panties and start fingering her. She pulls my hard cock out of my pants. With my free hand, I pull out a condom. Then I slap it on while she takes off her pants and panties and throws them on the floor.

​

She sits me down so I sit with my back towards the door and my legs stretched out on the sidewalk. Then she sits down on my cock and takes it all in at once. She starts riding me like a champ, while I just sit there, enjoy and look around a bit. The sun has started to rise and people are already walking in these streets on their way to work. I can see somebody crossing the street ten meters away. She flinches a little bit at the sound of footsteps, but I tell her:

​

Me: "It doesn't matter. Nobody knows us here, and this is an experience we will both never forget!"

​

She gives me this entranced look again and continues riding me, getting closer to climax. I grab her ass and start moving her up and down hard. I put a finger deep inside her ass and feel my cock pound her through the thin wall between her asshole and her pussy. Then, I grab her legs, lift her up and put her down spread-eagle on the hood of the car that has kept us out of view until now. It is hot as fuck! She is lying there with her legs spread in plain sight of anyone looking out of a window or just looking down the street. I enjoy the view briefly, then I push my cock deep inside of her, put her legs over my shoulders and start plowing her. I bow down to whisper in her ear:

​

Me: "Scream, let it all out!"

​

So she starts moaning loudly as I fuck her harder and harder. I am having a bit of trouble of getting close to my orgasm, so this goes on for longer than I expected. As I am nearly nailing her at full speed, I hear steps behind me. I fix her eyes and say "It doesn't matter." and just keep fucking her. A guy walks right past us pretending not to notice while I am railing her like there is no tomorrow just one or two meters from him. As he turns around the next street corner, I am finally getting close to orgasm. I speed up my rhythm a little bit. Her moans get shorter and louder. Then we both cum at the same time as I grab her firmly and push my cock deep inside her one last time.

​

Still lying under me on the hood of the car, she whispers in my ear:

​

Her: "You are so bad!"

submitted by /u/Altruistic_Green7034 [link] [comments] from Sex Stories https://ift.tt/3lHrtr9

Reading the wiki to try to understand what I read the other day and I just want to take this opportunity to point out why I DON’T vibe with this storyline anymore.

Everything up through the Dr. Strange stuff and the Sabretooth attack was GREAT but it all went downhill when they had Felicia join the Foreigner and I can’t even wait until I finish the whole arc to tell you why none of this sits well with me. Buckle up because it’s a bit lengthy.

Synopsis straight from the wiki:

The Black Cat updated her look and her attitude and rekindled her relationship with Spider-Man. She made peace with his need for a normal life as Peter Parker and stood by him while he was being accused of murder as Spider-Man.

Together they tracked down the source of the elaborate scheme to frame him and fought the mercenary known as the Foreigner. Eventually, just as his life seemed to be coming together, Spider-Man came home to discover Black Cat discussing her plans to ruin his life. He followed her to find she had never forgiven him for breaking up with her and in revenge became the Foreigner's lover.

Yet, during her ruse and despite her anger, Felicia began to fall back in love with Peter. In the end, the Black Cat double crossed the Foreigner and left for Europe to find a new life, which unexpectedly pushed Peter to find support and a new relationship with Mary Jane Watson.

Months later, the Black Cat returned to America to seek out Peter Parker and was devastated when informed by Venom that Peter had married Mary Jane Watson. Angry and jealous, Felicia began harassing the couple, physically threatening Mary Jane and taunting Peter as she dated his friend Flash Thompson. The Black Cat eventually moved past her feelings of anger and jealousy, and became friends with both Spider-Man and Mary Jane.

*sighs*

okay first of all

I will never be able to accept the notion that Felicia Hardy would EVER want to actively seek to hurt Peter Parker. I know they write her like this A LOT in future comics but I cannot stress enough how far this strays from her original characterization. And not in the name of character development, either, because Felicia’s unwillingness to hurt Peter came from character development in the first place. It came from their relationship and her falling in love with him, and they make a point of pointing out several times how she still has a soft spot for him after their break up. Even when he hurt her, intentionally or no, she was never able to bring herself to do the same in return. So much conflict after their break-up came from the idea Peter had that she was trying to hurt him, but the hook was always she NEVER did.

They make it clear to us, the readers, that there is no way she would do this, but Peter doesn’t have that knowledge, thus the conflict and the tension of us having knowledge that our protagonist doesn’t have. We know he’s making the wrong choices, but we can’t get too angry at our hero because we KNOW that HE doesn’t know WHY his choices are wrong. We see these choices hurt Felicia, but HE doesn’t know that it’s happening. Because that’s something only someone from our perspective as the quasi-omniscient reader can know. And this was a really effective narrative technique imo because it created SO MUCH tension.

But skip forward a few issues, and all of that knowledge that they so carefully crafted and presented for us to use as our foundation for this arc is suddenly WORTHLESS. There’s no more tension around whether or not Felicia would actually cause these things to happen to Peter, because out of nowhere she’s suddenly flipped and wants to ruin his life.

So, devil’s advocate, say we accept that Felicia’s out to ruin Peter’s life now. Then WHY would she stand by him for so long and go to such great lengths to help him UNFUCK his life? He gets accused of murder, which should be all she needs to grind the salt into the wound as she supposedly wants to, yet she defends him? She plays the long con, actively working AGAINST her own primary objective to maintain a ruse? A ruse that becomes so shaky that they’ve legitimately confused me about her true motivations at present? She just almost took a spray of bullets for the man she says she wants to ruin for the SECOND time. She’s defending him from his detractors. She’s fighting for his privacy and comfort. And you’re telling me she wants to actually ruin him???

All we get that shows that this is a ruse and she wants to ruin his life are these vague moments of plotting with the Foreigner, but she doesn’t do shit to actually bring these plans to fruition (that they’ve shown us thus far). Peter only figures her ruse out when he overhears her plotting, which is the shittiest way to reveal a betrayal in a narrative honestly.

She falls back in love with Peter, which is quite obvious, and betrays the Foreigner during the climax. But how can that be your climax when she has done nothing but interfere in the Foreigner’s schemes against Peter thus far? Schemes she’s SUPPOSEDLY in on, yet she almost dies SEVERAL times to stop them. They tell us her “true” intentions in these plotting scenes, yet none of it ever comes through in her actions. EVER. It’s to the point where it’s creating confusion for me, because the narrative is split into two super conflicting plotlines where you don’t know what’s the truth and what’s not, and NOT in the fun mystery way.

Anyway, skip ahead a bit more and she leaves for Europe to start a new life, then apparently comes back, finds out Peter and MJ have gotten married, then gets angry and starts harassing them? Fucking WHAT? SHE LEFT! SHE WAS DONE WITH THEM! Did she get fucking amnesia in Europe or something? Why come back and be angry and harass them when SHE was the one who left, right when she had a chance to reset with Peter BEFORE he got back with MJ? I truly cannot understand the absolute hoops they’re trying to jump through to bring Felicia back as a villain and pit her against MJ. It’s ridiculous. She left Peter because she thought he’d be happier without her. The sudden attitude change makes no sense AT ALL.

I’m not even at this arc yet, but let me preemptively correct it in one sentence and make it what should have REALLY happened in the first place.

“The Black Cat eventually moved past her feelings of anger and jealousy, and became friends with both Spider-Man and Mary Jane.”

Done. Omit the nonsense. Let them be friends and move on. Stop ignoring your own canon / Felicia’s characterization whenever you feel like making her a villain Marvel I’m begging you. I don’t care if this was the 80′s, Marvel has a track record and while I love the current Black Cat run, I’m scared they’ll do this to her again when they pull her into other series. Because they KEEP doing it to her and will never stop apparently.

Other little things I have issues with but don’t warrant as much addressing atm:

Her “romance” with Foreigner was random and pointless. Not a healthy relationship either, considering she was pressured into working for him through acts of violence. It was literally join him or die. Doubt she’d sleep with a creep like that.

The idea of her romancing Flash is just so weird to me. He’s not her type at all, and I feel like she was just with him to get back at Peter, which again is bullshit.

Now that I think of it they really just keep shoving her off in random romances built out of spite which isn’t Felicia’s vibe AT ALL

Feels like they tried to shove her into the same misogynisic “desperate sexpot villainess” and “crazy ex girlfriend” tropes every single time they try to write her as a villain and constantly have her and MJ be awful to each other for no reason so Thanks I Hate It

tl;dr I’m sure absolutely none of this makes sense because it’s all adhd brain rambles but just know that this is the second multi-year arc in a row featuring Black Cat in the 70′s / 80′s Spidey comics that started beautifully and then crashed and burned the moment they decided to derail Felicia Hardy’s character and I’m so disappointed

I Will Survive [Beta] - Chapter 10: The Pit

[A/N: You guys have no idea the hell I went through trying to write this. Better be worth it. THIS IS LONG.]

[Summary: In which Anti takes Sean to “the hub,” and Sean finally reunites with a friend.]

[Previous - Next]

Here he was again. He remembered. Waking up outside in the dark and unnaturally still silence - though this time, he was on his backyard lawn rather than out in the street. No bright lights blinding him, just the glow coming from the inside of his house illuminating the vicinity. The stiff grass tickled his skin and made it itch like crazy. Fucking grass. Sean spent a solid minute scratching his arms and neck. Felt good. Left a whole bunch of marks all up himself, but that was fine.

So. This was his house. Again. But at least this time, he knew what to expect. He was a little bit calmer. Only a little. Because while he may have known how to get out, he knew that if he attempted to dig up his ghost out of the ground here and lie on it, he’d only wake up in his makeshift grave in the real world, eat dirt, die again, and be sent straight back here. How the fuck was he supposed to get out this time, then? If he could just find somebody to send back to the real world and dig up his body... Man, that sounded grosser than it actually was.

Should he go searching around the house again? Or stay outside? Maybe he’d find Signe’s ghost in the cinema room. Not that that would be of any help to him, unless he could stick his head inside it and listen for any more “broken spirit”-type voices.

On that thought, maybe he should check and see if there was anything useful. Just in case.

Sean’s muscle memory once again tricked him into both walking the wrong way to the front yard - hello, fence - and groping at the wrong side of the door to open it. Then, he overthought where the light switch would have been and swiped his hand up the wrong wall. Someday, he hoped he’d get used to - no, wait, that would mean he’d have to be here a long time. Never mind.

Here was the backwards, discolored living room again. The memory of his first time coming to this world came flooding back. The memory of a time when his core belief was that he was just in a very vivid dream. A time when everything was normal upon returning. A time when he could say this world was beautiful, in a way. An interesting concept, having a darkened, mirrored world. Not so much the total emptiness aspect. That was creepy. Made him feel like something was going to jump out from behind and grab him. Especially on the stairs. Sean kept an eye out both above and below him as he climbed up, just to make himself feel better. He figured there were no other living things in this world, but he could just never be too sure.

The door to the cinema room was shut tight, just as it was in the real world. Sean pulse raced slightly in anticipation. The moment of truth. Would he find a ghosty, dotty Signe behind?

Three, two, one...

And with a click of the knob, Sean found his answer:

No.

“Fuck.”

What sense did that make? He was seriously, completely expecting it to be here. Her petrified body was in this room in the real world. How come it wasn’t here? That was how this whole thing worked as far as he knew. Unless the rules were more intricate and complex than that. Which they probably were.

Well, shit. Where was he supposed to go now?

Blindly tearing the rest of the house apart yielded no results. The bedroom, the drum room, back downstairs, his office, the bathroom, the living room, the kitchen... Mindlessly searching every corner, behind every door. No sign of Signe or anyone else he knew. He could check outside again, but as far as he knew, there was nothing of interest out there, besides his own ghost in the ground, that was. But wouldn’t he just reawaken in his makeshift grave, with all the dirt he inhaled still caking his lungs? That wasn’t exactly something he was thrilled about reliving again.

His feet carried him out there, anyway. If there wasn’t anything of interest in his own yard, maybe there’d be something of interest in the neighbors’. Sean scanned everywhere. His roof. The trees. The street. The fence. The patch of dirt where “Mark” had dug his grave. Sean knelt down by it, scooping some up with his hand. His ghost should be in there. He wasn’t going to to try and sit in it. Just listen for a voice. That was all he wanted.

Sean dug and dug out the dirt like a dog making his great escape. Dots escaped out, prompting him to dig even faster, more frantically. Dirt caked his nails, it was in his hair, his clothes were getting dusty and filthy, and he didn’t care. He just needed to hear that voice. He was desperate for some kind of an answer.

“There we go.” The head was free, and Sean dipped his face inside. There was no sound whatsoever, exactly what he’d expected. But there was indeed his own voice:

Betrayal, neglect, mistake...

Sean lifted himself upright. What... What did that mean? Was there a reason that two of the more sad lines he’d created for Anti were the ones popping up? Something inside him insisted it wasn’t a coincidence. He stood up, instinctively brushing dirt off his clothes even though he knew it was futile. Great. Now he was filthy.

So where now? He could wander down the street. He had to. He had literally no other options.

Putting both of his feet on concrete, staring down the road... It felt like he was embarking on a grand, nerve-wracking adventure. Sigh... “Here goes nothing.”

He hardly made it to the neighbors’.

“Whah!”

Sean got stuck mid-step, trapped in a whirlwind of white, digital hexagons tessellated over a silver, featureless space that held him for a few seconds before releasing him again. Aside from the scuffs on his palms and the jolts of minor pain spiking up through his wrists as he instinctively caught himself on the ground, it surprisingly didn’t hurt at all.

...What? His house again? What the fuck? He didn’t remember that from the last time. It just endlessly looped? He found himself in roughly the same area as he woke up. What sparked that? What, did he wander too far away from the source or something?

Wait. Over there. By the fence. A glowing dark blue light... made of dots! A ghost! That definitely wasn’t there before; he was around the fence long enough to be absolutely certain about that. Sean made a mad dash for it. Was it his? Maybe? Hopefully?

Oh, God. It was a pair of legs, pelvis parked right up against the fence. No top half. Was it...?

Sean peered over the edge of the fence, and almost immediately flung himself back again. Ohh, gross! There was the other half. And Jesus Christ, it looked uncomfortably like Mark. Which would make sense, since Mark was right there in the real world, but holy shit, that was fucking nasty! Did Anti seriously somehow slice him in half on their fence? How did that work? Just how strong was he?

And forget how Sean himself was going to get out of here; how the holy fuck was Mark supposed to get back now? Being buried was one thing, being sliced in half was another. Do they just stick the two pieces together in the real world and hope for the best? Or was he just fucked? If he was just fucked, Sean was going to do absolutely everything in his power to get him unfucked. He’d be damned if he was going to leave him behind here.

Maybe he could look inside Mark’s ghost and hear another voice. Sean dropped down on all fours and stuck his head inside a leg. He heard the distant, indistinct chatter of two men. Unable to discern what they were saying, he focused instead on:

Corrupted. Impostor. Good puppet.

"Okay, so... related to Anti possessing him before murdering us. Got it. Glad I did that.”

Sean sighed. Well, at least there was one silver lining: if his ghost was here, then that must have meant...

“Mark!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

Nothing.

“Mark, you there? Anyone there?”

...

Nothing. Maybe he was really knocked out somewhere? Sean jogged around the yard in search, hoping it wasn’t the case that Mark had accidentally warped to another dimension like he himself just did a few minutes ago. How did that work, anyway?

Sean’s thoughts were interrupted by an odd... humming? coming from the roof. Yeah, it was humming. It was coming from none other than Anti, perched on the edge with his legs kicking and dangling, and his claws scraping against the knife he held, as if it were a nail file. Ugh. The intrusive thought about the feeling of scraping his own nails on a chalkboard made Sean cringe.

Anti’s digital voice sounded quite a bit different from anything he remembered Robin giving him. Strangely soft and deep. His humming had little, if any, sense of melody or tempo, no identifiable time signature or tonic. It sounded slightly more musical than conversation - but only slightly.

It was too dark to make out his facial expressions. Come to think of it, this was the first time he’d ever seen Anti in person. Maybe he was just different in the flesh than he was on a screen.

“Hey,” Sean called.

Anti stopped humming and scraping his nails, turning his head downwards towards Sean. Huh. No eye twitching? No nausea? No dizziness? Probably just didn’t affect him the dream world, was all.

“Hello, Sean,” Anti replied. Again with the softness in his voice.

“You don’t call me Jack?”

“I would, except you and Jack are two different people now.”

What? Did the community actually do it? Did they actually create Jacksepticeye, as a flesh-and-blood character? Sean felt a twinge of pride. He would have smiled.

Anti leaned back, gazing up into the sky, encouraging Sean to do so, as well. A dark navy blue, barren and lonely, with no clouds, stars, or moon. It felt like it was going to suck him up right off the ground. It freaked him out a lot, actually. “It’s sad, isn’t it?”

Having his fill of disorientation, Sean looked back to Anti, now crossing and uncrossing his legs and feet. “How empty it is?”

“You get it.” Anti slid off the roof with no hesitation, sticking the landing on a patch of lawn free of shrubs and garden stones with a grunt and a glitch. Jeez. That didn’t hurt? That was two stories up.

Anti locked eyes with Sean and outstretched his arms in a grandiose gesture. “This is my world. This is the place where I live my life. Day in, day out. Except when I take over your body,” he added, pointing at Sean with the knife. Sean said nothing and made no sudden movements as Anti disengaged from conversation and wandered the yard, twirling the knife over and over in his fingers, then closing his eyes, tilting his head back, and bringing it up to his slit and bleeding throat, rubbing it against the skin without breaking it further, as if playing with it. “I remember the very first time you let me take over completely.” He brought the knife back down and re-engaged Sean with eye contact. “Don’t you?”

“Well, yeah.” Where was he going with this?

“You should. You were there, after all.” He pointed the knife at him again.

“And... you weren’t?”

“It feels like I was, but I know - I know I wasn’t actually there.” Anti continued to pace and fidget with the knife during his response. “On some level, I know that it’s just in my memory. But it feels like I might as well have actually lived the moment with you.”

Sean wanted to say he didn’t get it, but Anti being as unpredictable as he was, he felt one wrong word could leave him getting a little too intimately familiar with that dried-blood-covered blade. Or those shiny black claws straight out of his nightmare. All that was missing was the ichor dripping from them. Maybe if he says it gently... “Hey, Anti, I’m not really sure I understand what you mean by that.”

Anti suddenly stopped moving altogether. Oh, shit. But he didn’t attack like Sean feared. “My memories of our times together were retroactively created. I wasn’t born yet during the first two takeovers. But when I was born, the memories came then, all at once.” He paused, then resumed his pacing. Sean continued to stay put.

“Okay... I think I got you. But how come... When were you born?” That was the first question that should be answered.

“Sometime shortly after PAX. When the idea that talking about me brings me to life started stirring.”

That made sense, he supposed. Well, it also didn’t. It didn’t make sense that supernatural bullshit happened. What was the word for imaginary things that came to life like that? A tulpa, he thought? No other supernatural things existed - that he was aware of - but here was Anti, and here was a twisted dimension to go with him.

“And every time you canonized an event, or acknowledged a theory that your little community made, or came up with a little idea of your own... That’s a new memory. I’m filled with them now.”

“Whoa.” Sean didn’t mean to say that out loud.

“It would be more impressive if I didn’t hate it so much,” Anti growled through gritted teeth.

Tread carefully, Sean. “What do you hate about it? I want to- daahh!”

Anti’s knife whizzed past his face, burying itself to the hilt in the tree behind him. Anti’s breathing deepened. Fucking hell! Sean was too stunned and scared to say anything, mouth agape.

“I missed the fun, that’s what!” he snapped in his face. Spittle splashed Sean’s cheek and forehead, and the sclerae of Anti’s eyes turned black. He bared his fangs, panting. His breath was hot against Sean’s nose. Oddly, it smelled of nothing at all. “You think I enjoy the fact that of all the moments in my life I’ve ever actually lived, it’s the moments I spend here? Now? When your little community wants me punished for crimes I never thought to commit?”

What crimes? Sean wanted to ask. He hesitated, afraid of pissing off this... demon thing in his face any more.

Anti backed away, fetching his knife and wiping the wood shavings off it. “’Slow and steady kills the Chase’... Who said that, Sean?”

Well, now he had to talk. “I did.”

“Mm-hm. But who did everyone get angry at for it?”

Oh. That’s what this was about. “You.”

“Right.” Anti wandered over to the ghost’s legs, squatting down beside them and staring blankly at his handiwork. The tension in his face disappeared, to be replaced with... what looked like sorrow to Sean. His eyes blinked much more slowly, his mouth still downturned.

“He better be able to come back in one piece,” Sean said.

Anti paused. “...It may not necessarily be impossible, but-”

“Oh, fuck every single fiber inside you. I swear to God...” That was it. Sean no longer cared Anti mutilated him on the spot for saying this. Adrenaline pulsed through his body. “If I learn that there’s no way to bring him back to the real world in a single, functioning piece, I will not only kill you, I will make it the longest, most agonizingly painful death you could ever possibly imagine.” Sean hoped Echo wasn’t lying when they said all he had to do to kill him was officially declare him to be dead. Otherwise, he just looked like a jackass right now.

“But would you really do that? I’m under the impression you wouldn’t.”

“You want to test me?”

“I can entice you a little more, if that’s what you’d like.” An atypical, non-glitchy chuckle rang out, and Anti stood up tall once again. What was his problem?

“Do you want to die?” Sean’s hands clenched into fists.

“Your lungs are full of dirt, your precious skat has a battery lodged deep in her windpipe...”

It was creepy as all fuck hearing Anti call her that.

“...and that other couple got themselves and their van smashed inside out. None of you are exactly getting out of here easily, either.”

What!? “Oh, fuck you!”

Sean bolted for Anti, body-slamming him straight into the side of the house with a satisfying crack of the siding and Anti’s eyes rolling back. Anti’s body phased and glitched out of existence, causing Sean to fall forward and catch his chin and nose on the now-broken siding. He felt a hard pound on his lower back that shoved him all the way to the ground. And now he was pinned down - did Anti just sit on him? Agh... sure felt it. That felt like a butt on him. Sean tried to lift himself up. Tried. It was like there was some other force weighing him down. Anti shouldn’t have been that heavy. Shouldn’t he?

“That’s what Signe tried to do when she met me for the first time.”

“W-what?” Sean asked, voice somewhat hoarse. “Why would she do-”

“Of course, she didn’t stand a chance. Even when she tag-teamed with Mark, they were destined to fail. Poor things, being bullied by the evil Antisepticeye.” He forced a laugh. Hollow.

“What the fuck did you do to them?”

“Nothing that bad. Hard as it may be for you to believe, I don’t actually get any sort of enjoyment out of actually hurting people. I led them to the hub, and I only struck them as much as was absolutely necessary.” He sighed. “That Mark, though... He’s a feisty one.”

The thought of Anti “striking” Signe even once... And Mark who knows how many times... God, the nightmare. “You make me sick.” As if on cue, a cough forced its way out.

“I know. I saw that I made you vomit more than once.”

“Fuck off.” But there was something Anti said that Sean wondered about. “What’s the hub?”

“Everyone has their own bubble, based around the spot where their bodies converted.” Anti opened his arms, indicating towards the space around them. “This is Mark’s bubble. His new one, anyway. The hub is my bubble. It’s... much different than everyone else’s, to say the least. They can’t escape without my, your, or the other egos’ help.”

“So the other egos are real?”

“Yup. I made them. Except for Jack. Your community are responsible for that one. Are you proud of them? Of me?”

Sean felt like that was an awfully loaded question. But something wasn’t adding up. “So where are the other egos if they so far haven’t helped anyone get out?”

Anti’s only response was his mouth very slowly upturning into another sinister, toothy grin.

Wait.

Oh... shit...

Realization hit Sean. “They all... follow you?”

Anti clapped his hands like a giddy child. “You’re learning!”

Sean pretended that Anti’s reaction was normal. “Can I learn something else?”

“Go ahead!”

“So how come you didn’t take me to the hub?”

“Because you can get out. You’re one of us. The Septic Eyes or Septic Egos or whatever we’re called. We’re like a little clan! You didn’t know that?” Anti was way too excited about this. Wasn’t he just outrageously pissed a moment ago? “And if you’re part of our little clan, you get the special abilities you need to enter and leave both the hub and this world in general by your own free will!” Anti’s cheeriness was obliterated in an instant. “Assuming you have a real-world body to go home to...” he muttered under his breath, towards his feet. “I mean... if you want to play musical chairs with innocent people’s bodies, that’s fine, I guess...”

“Wait, I don’t understand something,” Sean said, ignoring that last bit for now.

“Oh, my God,” Anti said at full volume again, exasperated, “how many questions are you going to ask?”

“As many as I damn well please.”

“No. You get one more.” Anti held up one finger, even leaning down towards Sean’s face to stick it right in front of his nose, for emphasis. “I’m being really generous here.”

“All right.” Sean had a feeling Anti wasn’t going to properly answer this next one. He had to ask it the right way. “So... is Mark a part of our little ‘clan,’ then, since he was able to escape?”

Anti squinted, like Sean had just so happened to pick the single stupidest, most trivial question in existence. A face that asked him, Are you dead serious right now? “No? There’s nothing special about him.”

A beat of silence hung in the air. But... But then... “So Mark never... What?”

“I said one question. You’ve pissed me off enough.”

Anti jumped off his back, and a black wisp of smoke streaked with green shot from right above them, grabbing Sean and enveloping him within itself, completely obscuring his vision. Despite otherwise being obviously a gas, it was strangely solid, like a cloth bag. Sean felt himself being lifted up into the air, being carried away - probably to the hub. But being basically kidnapped wasn’t of the greatest concern to him at the moment.

What the fuck? So Mark never escaped? Then who was-

...

Oh...!

Oh my God, what the fuck!?

Are you fucking me, Anti?

“Musical chairs with people’s bodies?”

“Good puppet?”

“What? No, no, no, let me help you.”

Anti found the little boy sobbing in his bathroom. No, no, no, he was way, way, way too young to have been brought here. Anti didn’t care how it happened.

The boy’s ghost - he guessed that was what it was going to be called now - was in the tub. Aw, fuck. He had to bring the doctor out here. Maybe even Marvin and Chase, too. But he didn’t want to leave the boy behind. Or scare him by bringing him somewhere even stranger.

“Hey,” he said, in the most comforting voice he could muster, lightly grabbing the child’s arms. “I’m going to leave for a bit, but I’ll be back with some people who can help you, okay?”

The boy only cried louder, probably terrified of Anti. Fuck. There really was no good option.

There never was a good option.

Still, Anti took off to retrieve the egos he needed. It was better for the child and his family in the long run.

That’s what mattered.

The black bag dissipated, and Sean wound up face-down in more grass, still discolored grass, only now, instead of a navy blue sky, he was met with a thick, soupy fog that completely obscured his vision beyond a few meters in front of him. But it didn’t obscure an enormous black web far above his head. Taking a look behind him revealed the “web” to be a mesh of branches of a tree, utterly dominating and overwhelming the sky above in all directions. Veins of vivid blue light pulsed and crackled, racing up the trunk and through the branches. And now that he thought about it, there was no way that physics should allow those branches to stay upright. Right? They just stretched out so far, Sean felt as though gravity should definitely be bringing them down. They were all twisted and wound around each other like a fungus, though. Maybe that made them more stable. Who knows? Sean wasn’t well-versed in the topic.

Anti was strangely nowhere to be seen. In all his gawking around at the surroundings, absolutely nowhere did Anti’s mug pop up. Wonder where he went?

“Is anyone here?” he called.

...Nope.

Sean took a few tentative steps forward. The visible patch in the fog moved with him. More grass. He kept walking. Even more grass. Nothing but grass, and that enormous tree. At least he could see well enough that he wasn’t going to tumble over the edge of a cliff or anything. Actually, the fog was just thin enough to allow him to see a wide, dark structure in the distance. Exploring was his best option. Sean continued onward.

The wide, dark structure appeared to roll into view as he walked closer, as did a new, smaller, thinner, and blacker structure. That was odd. Sean turned around, checking the tree behind him. Huh? It also looked like it was kind of flattening against the ground. He paced back and forth over the same spot, checking both the alien shapes ahead and the tree behind. Indeed, the objects didn’t just simply get bigger and smaller as he got closer or farther, but rather they were likewise rising and falling like the scenery in a pop-up book. He made the tree creep over and back under again and again, mesmerized. It was freaking him out.

Sean would admit, this place was cool and all once he got past the creepy factor - it truly felt like he was in the final dungeon of a video game - but he had friends to find. Maybe. Hopefully. He assumed. It was strange, but he almost kind of wished Anti was around - he may have been an evil little bastard, but at least he was someone? Someone in this hell universe, to provide some kind of a voice, some kind of commentary on top of the ambient creaks and whistles and drones and buzzes trying to drive his brain to madness.

A noticeable thinning in the fog made the landscape rising over the horizon significantly clearer. Most of it was barren, save for the small handful of those alien structures. A black cubical building with a spire reaching up to the heavens, and no windows. No windows, except when the spire got periodically zapped with red lightning from the surrounding clouds, in which case window-shaped lights of the same color flashed on its sides. Just in front of that cube was a tiny speck of what appeared to be an ordinary house. Although, considering he couldn’t see it too well from this far away, chances were that there was something weird about it, too. In the distance, Sean could make out the silhouettes of mountains far too perfectly symmetrical and repetitive to be real, like they were simply copy-and-pasted onto a canvas. The landscape almost completely distracted him from the transition from lush grass to dry, cracked dirt beneath his feet.

But the thing that caught his eye most, the thing that kept his attention the longest, was a massive funnel pouring down from above. A vibrant and shining green, with black stairs spiraling around from the flattened bottom to the point where it merged with the silver, foggy sky at the top. More oddities decorated the... wait, sky? Ceiling? Couldn’t be the sky if there was stuff on it, right? So was this all underground? Or what? How was there a lake on the ceiling?

Sean tried calling out for someone again. “Hello? Anyone there?”

Still nothing.

Approaching the funnel allowed him to sneak a peek of the inside. Pitch black. The blackest black he’d ever seen. Even more so than the tree. More so than the stairs wrapping around. The purest, darkest, scariest black color. It was difficult to describe it to himself. He was honestly shocked that his brain was able to distinguish it at all. Why did he keep walking towards the funnel, anyway, if it was creeping him out this much, beyond just twisted interest? It wasn’t like the bottom reached the ground, as far as he could tell. He doubted he’d be able to reach the stairs. And then what? Climb to the ceiling?

So, so many questions. But who wouldn’t have them?

“Can anyone hear me?” he called out once again. “Is anyone out there?

This time, he could have sworn he heard a faint, gurgly voice attempting to say something in response. Hell, it even sounded vaguely like it said “Jack.” But then again, it could have been the ambient drones and crackles in the air around him messing with his brain.

“Did someone say something?” he called, just in case. He certainly didn’t want to accidentally abandon someone in need.

He heard what sounded distinctly like coughing and throat-clearing. “J... Jack. Help.” So it wasn’t likely his brain just fucking with him.

“Hey, I’m here for you,” Sean replied, looking around the place to try and pinpoint the origin of the voice. “Can you see me?”

“Dow... Down here...”

Further thinning in the fog revealed a wide hole in the ground squarely underneath the opening of the funnel. Sean sprinted up to the edge, knelt down, and peered inside, and at its bottom, a familiar face topped with a tuft of soft blue hair lifted his spirits for a split second, and broke his heart when he saw the pain it was in.

“Ethan!”

“Jack... Help me...” Smooth, silver-and-white rocks and boulders littered the bottom around and under him. The one under his head was tarnished with a dark red.

“Hang on, buddy, I’m coming for you.”

The sides of the hole were fairly steep, though not so much that he couldn’t walk over them. Just needed to be slow and painstakingly careful not to lose his balance. But as his feet rolled over the rounded lip, the world once again rotated underneath him, turning Ethan’s ground into a back wall - yet Ethan still lay flat against it.

“You can... walk on walls...” he croaked out. It was hard for Sean to tell if he was making an observation or giving an explanation. But knowing it wasn’t just him going crazy made it easier to just focus on getting to Ethan and not worry about physics betraying him.

“I’ve got you. It’s okay.” He grabbed his outstretched hand and tried to pull him up into a sit, but the action produced a whine of pain.

“No. My back,” Ethan moaned, tears welling in his eyes. “Stop...”

“Okay, okay.” Sean gingerly lay him back down, sitting down beside him and running a hand through his hair. “I’m not gonna go anywhere, okay?”

Ethan shakily pointed towards the funnel; Sean’s gaze followed, and then immediately went back to Ethan, not quite able to handle the colossal creepiness above - "above.”

“I fell,” he said, voice still very weak. “Stairs inside, too, and I fell.” He cringed through his words.

“Don’t talk too much if it hurts, okay?”

“Mm... Mark, Signe...”

Sean’s ears perked up. “They were with you?”

Ethan nodded. “’Er all up there.”

“Everyone is up there?”

“Mm-hm.”

Man... Sean looked back towards the funnel - not directly, but just catching it in the corner of his eye. Under his breath, and largely to himself, he asked, “How did you fall so far and not die?”

“Can’t.”

“No one can die here?”

“Nope.” He coughed again, following up with another moan of agony.

Hmm. Sean braced himself to look back into the captivating funnel. A vacuum ready to suck the two of them up into the stratosphere, assuming the stratosphere existed. From this angle, it looked menacingly like an eye, always there, always watching. He held Ethan’s hand in an attempt at security and companionship, for the both of them. Perhaps not of much help, and definitely not a miracle cure for his probably-broken back and definitely-broken skull, but judging by Ethan’s fingers curling around the back of his hand, it certainly wasn’t unwanted.

So... what was he supposed to do, then? The only thing he could think of was to scream for them at the top of his lungs.

“Signe! Mark!”

No response, other than Ethan jumping a bit in surprise, but Sean wasn’t giving up. Someone had to be around. Someone had to be able to hear his voice.

“Signe! Mark! Somebody help us!”

Sean waited for a response. And just as he was about to consider the possibility that they were truly alone, he heard the click, click, click of at large group of people’s feet sprinting towards their spot, and of a familiar, friendly voice calling back, “We’re coming, Jack!”

An Update

@yeaitsamberrr asked for an update, so here we go!

Lifting-wise, I’ve been slowly working back in the Olympic lifts after a semester of strength and hypertrophy. After about four weeks of that, I feel like I’m back into some kind of groove, except when it comes to eating. Apparently I forgot how to eat enough for this kind of training. The unilateral cycle I ran before this just highlighted the need to be doing that kind of work all the time. I wish my hips weren’t fucked but here we are! They won’t become unfucked overnight, so I’m integrating that stuff into my general programming. Drawing on info that I’ve seen from @putthatazztowork pretty heavily for that, and I’m not surprised to see that I’ve been doing a lot of the same work as the varsity athletes at my gym as a result. One day I did the exact program that the football players were doing and I had planned it all well before I got to the gym. Clearly Ariannah knows her shit, ya’ll. Also getting back into real squatting and finding that none of my strength is gone, but my endurance is shit. That will come with time.

Things at school are great, but overwhelming. I need to get my computational projects out the door by end of summer in order to get a vote of confidence from supe. That means putting in a lot of work, so I have been fairly singularly focused for the past six weeks on this stuff. I’m getting great, interesting results, it’s just that this stuff takes time (one of the algorithms I use has a 30 day runtime with my data!) I’ve also been handed a collaborative project which involves adapting a light-based control system I built to stem cells, but it’s been really hard to work with the stem cell folks, because our fields are so different. I ask them if they can annotate a promoter and they don’t even know what the question means! Lots of learning on both sides there. Anyway, the goal is to have my required papers done by the end of the next school year, so that I can write whenever and work on side projects in the meantime.

Professionally-speaking, I’ve been handed so many opportunities lately, it’s wild. I know that these are a result of people noticing my hard work, but impostor syndrome tells me I’m just lucky. My colleague has given me 15% of his company to be his Head of Strain Design. I can’t talk about the tech so much, but I actually believe in it, which is rare. I attended my first business meeting in this capacity last week and found it very exciting. Even though it clashes with my politics, I find the world of entrepreneurship and start-ups to be really engaging. Hopefully I can use that excitement to do good things, even if that’s a weird neoliberal sentiment. I’ve also been tapped to teach a course for supe for the next two years. That’s like full-on lecturing, curriculum design, etc etc. My plan is to get my feet on the ground this year, then scale up the research I presented at an education conference this year to whole-class-scale next year. Previously I had done it just on the lab for that class, and I only had four students. I’ve always wanted to have one foot in industry and one in academia, and it looks like I’m setting myself up well to do that. Hopefully I can continue to wear both hats as I go!

Thats it for me, what have all y'all been up to?

Chloé & Buster

Chloé: You coming to Abi's party tonight? Buster: No Chloé: Why not! Gonna be such a laugh Buster: It's not really any of your business, is it, Chlo, but let's be honest even if I was in the country, we both know it wouldn't be a laugh Buster: Abi's probably fucked up already Buster: And that's only one of the reasons why it's a no Chloé: Ooh, someone's moody! Chloé: Unlucky you're out of town babes 😂 Chloé: Family time, is it? Yawn Buster: Fuck off, Chlo Buster: There are other things to do besides annoying my sister, you should try it Chloé: Not in her inbox, am I? Chloé: 😷 Chloé: As if you're doing anything worth talking about Buster: Neither am I so how in the hell would I know, like? Buster: Why do you care so much still what I'm doing? Buster: Sort it out, babe. The who ain't you, but there's plenty of lads in your postcode who would Chloé: Just inviting you to a bash don't get wild about it Chloé: Never see you out these days, not YOUR postcode anymore, no? Chloé: Fake girlfriend still, is it? 💔 Buster: And why do you reckon that is, babe? Buster: Fault's yours not mine. Stop inviting me out, yeah? I'm not here for it. Or you Buster: I'm not sorry I'm busy with my actual girlfriend Chloé: What have I done! Chloé: Nothing but nice to you, and your sister, for that matter Buster: If that's what you think I ain't got the time to change your mind Buster: Nor write you a list, like Chloé: 🙄 The theatrics! Chloé: So, what's she like then? Must be something if you're willing to leave here for it Buster: Draw your own conclusions Buster: I'm not talking about her to you Chloé: Cute 💘 Chloé: Though you don't need to talk that game to me Chloé: Might be able to convince a girl outside the postcode that you're #loyal babes but no need or way that'll wash with me 😏 Buster: Shut up Buster: Maybe the reason I had to go out of the postcode was less to do with me and more about the type of girl there, you ever thought on that? Chloé: Omg Chloé: Admitting you can't handle us? Buster: You wish Buster: It wasn't a compliment, babe Chloé: Whatevs Chloé: You're looking good anyway Buster: Course I am Buster: Is there anything else I can actually do for you or what? 'Cause there's plenty my girlfriend can do for me if we're done here Chloé: If you wanna make me jealous Chloé: so many better ways to go about it Buster: Please Buster: Don't flatter yourself, honestly Chloé: Who's this??? Chloé: [Rio's post] Buster: Your subtlety is astounding Buster: Your sleuthing needs some work though, clearly Chloé: It's on my feed, I ain't ashamed Buster: Give it a double tap and move on, babe Chloé: Yeah, don't think she's your type Chloé: Maybe your sister's, she's always commenting hmm Buster: Like you know anything about mine or my sister's type of girl Chloé: Getting warmer, am I? Buster: In the sense you're getting more desperate, yeah Buster: If this turns you on that's an issue for you to worry about, not me Chloé: Please Chloé: it's fun isn't it Buster: No Buster: If I tell you who she is will you go away? Chloé: Sure! Buster: She's one of my many cousins, alright Chloé: Oh Chloé: That explains it Chloé: Disappointing but don't need to tell you that Buster: Off you go then Chloé: No Chloé: I thougt you were going to tell me who your girlfriend is Buster: Why the fuck would I do that? Chloé: Why would I care who your skanky cousin is? Buster: 'Cause you're obsessed with me apparently Buster: And don't call her that Chloé: Like you care babes Buster: I obviously do or else I wouldn't waste my breath telling you to shut up Chloé: You've said worse about all of 'em Chloé: Oh my Gosh Chloé: Just realised who she is Buster: I can whatever I want. Who the fuck are you? Buster: Congrats Chloé: She is, isn't she? Chloé: The one everyone's slept with Chloé: How shaming Buster: It'd sound more sincere if you hadn't slept with most of Chelsea, babe Buster: One rule for you, yeah? Chloé: I live here, I didn't fly in for the experience Chloé: Why was she even here? Buster: Maybe if you upped your own game the lads wouldn't need her to fly in Chloé: How can you talk about your own family like that you sicko Buster: 😂 Buster: You do have a moral code of some sort then? Buster: Take it up with your boy besties, they're the ones who like to chat about it Chloé: More than you do, clearly Chloé: Doesn't that just make you want to die? How mortifying Buster: It makes me wanna kill them Buster: Thanks for asking Chloé: As if you're any better 😂 Buster: I don't sleep with any girls they care about, do I? Chloé: Yeah right Chloé: Family man now, are you babes? Chloé: Take it up with her if you're so close now Buster: Whatever, Chlo Chloé: More touchy about this than you were with your own sister Chloé: Guess there was no risk of all your mates getting on her Buster: Exactly Buster: And you've missed your chance too so no worries there Chloé: You're so vile Buster: Like you'd be above fucking my sister? Okay babe Chloé: 🤢 Chloé: I'd sooner drink bleach Chloé: thank you Buster: I'm sure she would too Buster: Shame there was none in my glass that night at the party, like Chloé: Sorry to disappoint whatever incest kink you've got going on Chloé: but nah babes Buster: Why? You ain't been sorry about being a let down in any other way Chloé: Shut up Chloé: I was wasted and you're not giving a second chance Buster: If it was only how unfuckable you are, I'd let you off Chloé: You certainly managed Chloé: Trust me Buster: As I've only got your word on it, I have to Chloé: How else do you expect me to prove it? Chloé: DNA test? Buster: I don't care Buster: It happened and it ain't again. End of story Chloé: Whatever you say Buster: There ain't nothing else to say Buster: Unless you've got something you desperately wanna add? Chloé: Just talking to James Chloé: he reckons you're well weird about your cousin Buster: Says the lad who told me in graphic detail what fucking her was like? Okay Chloé: Didn't do it for you? Chloé: Poor boy 😂 Buster: But I'm the vile one, sure Chlo Chloé: Calm down, it's only bants Chloé: You're sooooo serious now Buster: Serious about how much I want you to fuck off out of my inbox Chloé: Can't handle it now or what? Chloé: There's a reason, I know Buster: I ain't never wanted to handle you, babe Chloé: Obvs not Chloé: not related to you am I Chloé: how country 😂 Buster: Fuck off Buster: Excuse me if you slagging off my family isn't a huge turn on for me, like Chloé: Why's it matter Chloé: Not gonna say it to their face am I Buster: You literally did say shit to my sister though Buster: Already forgotten or what? Chloé: No I never Chloé: Mads tagged her Chloé: then everyone else did Chloé: it wasn't me Buster: Back in the day in was all you though Chloé: She say that did she? Chloé: I was the only one who even tried to be her friend Chloé: not my fault she was in love with me Buster: Bullshit Buster: You ain't her type either, babe Buster: Get over yourself Chloé: Hmm not how I remember it Chloé: not like you were paying any attention so what would you know tbh Buster: I've heard it from her now Buster: Not just in Dublin seeing my girlfriend, as you've already worked out Chloé: Thrilled for you both, I'm sure Buster: Act like it then Buster: Leave me alone Buster: And it goes without saying, my sister as well Chloé: Well you see I can't Chloé: Hate to burst your bubble, of course Buster: Yeah you can Chloé: I really can't Chloé: As fun as this has been I have some news Buster: Go on then Buster: Sooner you've said it, sooner you can go Chloé: Ha Chloé: I'm pregnant Buster: What the fuck, Chlo? Even for you that's low Buster: Still going to Abi's party though, yeah? Buster: Bullshit Chloé: God, I can still have fun and A GLASS Chloé: beside the point Chloé: [pics of tests] Buster: Well yeah, you can do whatever you want until you prove it's my kid Chloé: How do you expect me to do that Chloé: and I know it's yours, thank you very much Buster: You might, but I don't Buster: And forgive me if I don't automatically take your word for it after all the shit you've said and done, like Chloé: Well if you weren't being so difficult Buster: Me? Buster: Fuck that Buster: Get a prenatal DNA and get back to me or wait until the kid is born, do it and get back to me Chloé: Wow Chloé: Class act Chloé: That's going to require a bit of cooperation, babes Buster: All you need is a blood sample or mouth swab Buster: I'll give you either Chloé: Done this before, have you? Chloé: Jesus Christ Chloé: it's a child, your child Buster: Not as far I know yet Buster: You having this convo with James and the rest of them too, are you? Chloé: Fuck off Chloé: No Chloé: and don't you dare tell ANYONE Buster: Like I want them knowing about it Buster: Whether it's my kid or not Buster: I've gotta tell my parents though so Chloé: You can tell them Chloé: Mine don't know yet Buster: You should tell them too Chloé: Will you tell them with me? Buster: Okay Chloé: Yay good Chloé: When are you back? Buster: I was gonna skip school but Buster: When were you planning on telling them? Chloé: I don't know, doesn't matter Buster: Of course it does Buster: You need to decide what you're gonna do Buster: They can help you Chloé: What? Chloé: I know what I'm doing Chloé: I've already been shopping with the girls Buster: I thought you didn't want anyone to know? Chloé: I don't want YOU telling people it could be anyone else's Chloé: when it couldn't, how rude Buster: So you've told your friends but not your parents? Buster: Come on, Chlo Buster: Have you even been to the doctors or anything? Chloé: Yeah they'll just fuss and wanna know things Chloé: how cringe Chloé: No point yet Chloé: I think Chloé: it's like 12 weeks scan, yeah? Buster: You can get DNA done at 9 weeks Buster: I've just looked it up Chloé: How long's it been? Buster: If you don't know that how are you so sure it's my kid? Chloé: I haven't slept with anyone else for ages Chloé: if you must know Buster: It is kind of worth knowing, yeah Buster: Fuck's sake Chloé: Don't be funny with me Chloé: I just know alright Buster: Don't tell me how to be Buster: I asked you after if you needed me to take you to the pill and you said no Chloé: Well I thought I was fine, obviously Buster: Well, now neither of us are, obviously Chloé: I'm good Chloé: Drama Chloé: It'll be nice, if you let it Buster: Nice? Buster: Grow up, Chlo Chloé: Well I'm not getting rid of it Chloé: you've done it now, deal with it Buster: Like I said, when you prove to me that it's my baby, I will Chloé: Fine, I will Chloé: you'll see Chloé: anyway, I'm going out, gotta get my nails done for tonight Buster: I'm glad you've got your priorities in order, babe Buster: Jesus Christ Chloé: What? Chloé: I can't do anything, I told you I've got loads of stuff for it Chloé: keeping it at Lindseys Buster: Don't go the party Buster: That's what you could do Chloé: I'm not going to sit at home on a saturday night Chloé: i'm not 40 Buster: Clearly. 40 year old's don't tend to get knocked up accidentally as a rule Chloé: Menopause'll do that to you babe Buster: That's not the point Buster: We need to talk about this you can't just ruin my life and then go do a toast with your friends Chloé: Me ruin yours? I didn't impregnate myself Buster: You're ruining your own by not thinking this through Chloé: I'm not a baby killer Chloé: sorry about it Buster: I don't even have words for how stupid that sounds Chloé: I can't believe you're trying to make me get an abortion Buster: I'm not trying to make you do anything except use your brain Buster: What about uni? Are you still gonna go or what? Buster: Are you gonna get your own place or stay with your mum and dad? Chloé: Wow, 20 questions! Buster: This isn't a game Buster: Fucking hell Chloé: I'm having a baby Chloé: that's my plan Buster: And then what? Chloé: Be a mum? Buster: You know how hard that's gonna be, yeah? Chloé: I think I'll manage babe Chloé: I'm not an idiot Buster: You're an idiot if you think it's easy Chloé: How hard can it be Buster: Very Buster: Babies can't do fuck all and kids aren't much better Chloé: Yeah, I know how to feed it and change it Chloé: Abi's got a baby sister she's so cute Buster: Good for her Buster: I bet she ain't doing the night feeds while her parents sleep, is she Chloé: Whatever Buster: Don't fucking whatever me, Chlo Chloé: Don't you talk to me like that Buster: I can't talk to you right now if you're gonna be like this Chloé: That's good because you're making me late Buster: Fine Buster: Bye then Chloé: 👋