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nhothicket · 21 days

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ON MY KNEE IM IN LOVE WITH YOUR BAND AU ON MY KNEES BEGGING FOR ANYTHING ELSE YOU HAVE TO SPARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A FANFIC, FANART, JUST A SIMPLE LIKE ANYTHING TEXT POST SOBBING AND WEEPING AT YOUR FEET!!!!!!!!

I decided to do both some art and a fic because you asked so nicely!! Thank you for the nice ask, I hope this is what you were looking for ^v^

I couldn't come up with a good title for this fic whoops.

Words - 1.4k

No warnings, they're gay and they act gay

Summary - Etho finds himself dragged away from the safety of his tour bus and into the den of very scary and very cool rockstar, Bdoubleo.

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"Wash up on your six." Pause lightly elbowed Etho with a snicker. "Comin' right for ya."

"Hurry up then." Etho tried to push his bandmates into the bus, but the chase was over before it began.

"Etho!" The threat approached.

"Beef, move-"

"Sorry man, you're on your own." Beef climbed on and turned to give him an entirely unapologetic smile. "You guys have fun now."

"Hey-" The bus door shut right in his face. "Beef! Pause! Hey!"

"Ethooo!" Two arms slung around his neck from behind, awkwardly pulling him down and backward. Etho gagged and turned around. Face to face with the tiny menace of the festival grounds. "Long time no see!"

"Hey, Bdoubleo."

"So formal, you're no fun, sweetheart." Bdubs puffed his cheeks out. "It's been like a y- like whole year, c'mon, loosen up!"

"It's been a few months and I'm busy."

"No you ain't. I saw your buddies ditch ya." Bdubs offered up all the charm he could muster. "Wanna hang out in my van?"

"Not creepy at all." Etho's protest was weak willed. He leaned down and ruffled Bdubs' hair without even thinking about it, it came as a second nature at this point. "Yeah, sure."

"You just can't deny me. I'm irresistible!"

"Uh-huh."

"Your sarcasm is no use!" Bdubs dragged Etho across the lot to his shabby old van. Etho would judge, but if it weren't for Beef and Pause, he'd be touring out of the back of his ancient pickup. Bdubs threw the back doors open and hopped inside. "Didya see my set this morning? I know it was a bit early for someone like you."

"Of course I did." Etho gracefully ignored the last comment. Perched on the edge of the trunk, Bdubs' enthusiasm was contagious, his prideful smile was so genuine it made Etho smile a bit under his mask in a shallow imitation. "Loud as always."

"You know it!" The back of Bdubs' van was surprisingly clean. Two seats sat on each side and a mini fridge was pressed into the back corner. A soft mat was rolled up opposite to it, presumably Bdubs' bed. Bdubs got up to flop onto a seat and pat the spot next to him. "Beer?"

"Uhh..." As soon as Etho sat down an arm settled around his shoulders. "Yeah, sure. Why not?"

"That's what I like to hear." Bdubs opened up his little fridge and tossed Etho a can. He refused to remove his arm from Etho's shoulders and instead used his teeth to crack his own can open, kicking the fridge shut. "Off with the mask! I'm not some fanboy, I'm the real deal! Itsh been so long, I've missed seeing your dopey face."

"Bold words coming from the goofiest solo act I've ever seen."

"I am not goofy! I'm hard!"

"Oh?" Etho pulled his mask down just to show Bdubs his smug smirk.

"Don't- don't give me that! You know what I mean!" Bdubs growled. "I'm a rockstar!"

"You were like decades ago."

"And still going strong!" Bdubs took an obnoxious gulp from his beer. "You are awfully mouthy for a man who plays a freakin' keytar, what decade is it for you?"

"You'd know, old man."

"I am not- Okay, old lady! Fresh outta the 1600s!"

"Boomer."

"That's my name! Don't wear it out, Ethel!"

They glared at eachother for a moment, locked in a silent staring contest. Bdubs and his obnoxious doe eyes were forever unbeatable though, and Etho was forced to blink. A very ungraceful winner cheered and crushed a can to further punctuate his manly dominance.

"I'm never forgiving Pause for telling you."

"Aww, but its so cute." Bdubs pinched Etho's cheek. "What, your parents wanted a girl or something?"

"Sure, something like that." Etho sipped from his beer, sliding a bit down the seat so Bdubs could more comfortably pull his charm. As small as Bdubs was, it was always comical watching him stretch to take up the more dominant flirting positions. Etho knew he'd sit there with his arm up around his shoulders until it went numb if that's what it took.

"You haven't told me you missed me yet."

"I forgot I even knew you."

"Ouch! Rude." Bdubs leaned closer and winked. "I think about you all the time."

"Yeah, because you're the most jealous person I know."

"Guilty as charged!" Bdubs chirped. He easily slid right back into joking when his attempt at flirting was met with more banter; Etho wasn't sure he'd be able to recover that quickly himself.

"Plotting my downfall, huh?"

"I'll get you some day."

"I'm rooting for you."

"Thank you, sweetheart! You're always on my side." Bdubs tapped his can to Etho's. "To ruining your career."

"To ruining my career."

The pair fell into a lull, Bdubs kept chatting, but it was mostly white noise. Bdubs talked just to talk and Etho listened just to listen. It was only a few beers later and the lull transitioned into a comfortable buzz. Bdubs got a bright idea. He reached over the seats in the middle of the van, clumsily pulling over his decorated acoustic guitar.

"Any requests, Easy?"

"Anything but one of your own." Etho absent-mindedly dropped his arm around Bdubs' shoulders, reestablishing the connection that had been broken when the shorter man went to get his instrument.

"You are so mean to me." Bdubs puffed his cheeks out as he thought. "We should do some music together sometime."

"You'd be eaten alive." Etho considered the reputation Bdubs had. "I can see it already— you fighting with all the people online."

"It'd be worth it." Bdubs played a few random chords. "We could do a love duet."

"With Pause? I'm not a vocalist, Bdubs."

"You didn't deny being in love with me."

"I wouldn't have to love you to sing a song with you."

"I'd write it about us, baby."

"Uh-huh." A brief silence started to build, but Bdubs quickly broke the tension with a snicker, Etho followed suit. "You're an idiot."

"C'mon! You got a good voice. We could do an epic rock ballad."

"I'm good."

"Your loss!" Bdubs turned back to his guitar, but Etho could see the mischief brewing on his face. "You still like Paramore?"

"Don't play it."

"I learned a song just for you!"

"Don't play it, Bdubs." He already knew what the sappy romantic had in mind.

"You are so unappreciative. I go out of my way to learn a nice song from the 'music' you like." Bdubs threw up air quotes and Etho just rolled his eyes. How a man who'd sold his soul to the system could stand to be so critical of what counted as music was beyond him.

"Give me your guitar."

"No!" Bdubs got two chords out before Etho pulled it from his hands. "Hey! Hey! Give it here!"

"I'm not letting you try to serenade me with a song you heard on the radio."

"You know it would work! C'monnn!"

"Absolutely not." Etho held the guitar away from Bdubs, but regrettably, he couldn't hide his smile when his mask was around his neck.

"You come into my house! Sit on my bed! And dare disrespect me like this?"

"We are in the back of a van, Bdoubleo."

"My home away from home!" Etho leaned across the trunk and dropped the guitar onto the other seat. Bdubs immediately tried to lunge for it, but Etho caught him in a bear hug before he could even stand up. In fact, being hugged instantly stopped Bdubs in his tracks. "Woah, hey- guess I didn't need to serenade you at all!"

"Sure." Etho pulled away so he could see Bdubs' face. Alcohol warmed cheeks, dark eyes, and a stupid smirk.

"Like what you see?"

"Maybe."

"Shomehow, you manage to dry text when you talk." Bdubs rolled his eyes. He leaned up and kissed Etho, his patience worn thin in his buzz. Etho pulled him closer. "I missed you."

"Me too." Etho finally admitted. They sat with their foreheads pressed together.

"You could afford to text back more often, I know you ain't that freakin' famous."

"Isn't the anticipation more fun?"

"Don't play coy! I know you're just lazy."

"Guilty." Bdubs pressed a flurry of kisses to Etho's jaw.

"You're lucky I even allow you in my pre- in my presence, I don't usually kiss fans."

"It's a good thing I don't care much for sellouts then."

"Kiss my ass."

"Ohh, the bad boy said a curse word."

"Get out of my van, I'm sick of your stupid face already." Bdubs grumbled. Yet, his arms stayed locked around Etho's waist. Etho made no attempt to change that.

"Gonna be at our set tomorrow? It's past your bedtime."

"You're worth stayin' up for." Bdubs cooed. "Better dedicate a song to me."

"We'll play twinkle twinkle little star for you."

"On your nerdy little fake guitar?"

"On my nerdy little fake guitar."

"Adorable."

#dreading needing to come up with a title when I inevitably add this to my Ao3 oneshot book #this is my first time directly putting fanfic onto tumblr - i hope I did it okay #band au #bdubs #etho #pause #beef #birdie art #birdie writing #bdoubleo100 #ethoslab #bdouble100 fanart #ethoslab fanart #ethubs #hermitshipping #hermitcraft

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witching-hour · 4 years

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Love on Hold [Jax Teller x Reader]

(A/N): was feeling angsty after watching a montage of clips from season six of jara — their worst and most heartbreaking season. this is based on the last episode of season 5 and includes season 6 elements which had not taken place yet, so bare with my little au. this rewrite really went from 1379 words to 2777 words

SUMMARY: the reader confronts jax about his questionable actions towards wendy and reveals her plans about leaving charming

TW: usual soa violence, s5 + s6 spoilers, character death

UNSHED tears of disbelief and anger clouded your vision, making you blink them back, looking away from your husband who had blatantly lied to your face. You didn’t want to believe what you knew, but the evidence was laying out in front of you, and you couldn’t just ignore the facts.

You saw how these past few months of overturned leadership has changed him. The gavel corrupts, Bobby once warned you after voicing your concerns about Jax’s new position with SAMCRO. Be prepared for anything, sweetheart. It ain’t goin’ to be easy.

You knew that his warning was not misguided or out of line. You saw what being president had done to JT and Clay. You knew with ‘great power came great responsibility.’ Jax would carry a heavier weight than he did when he was VP. He might have to make calls that may seem questionable as he will be faced with hard decisions that he won’t want to make, but will have to for the sake of his club. And with him as president, it made you the new queen of SAMCRO. He would be away from home more, leaving you to really step up to the plate as the First Lady.

You also had new responsibilities, which could be counted as benefits or drawbacks. You were not the VP’s Old Lady – you were the Prez’s. As Jax carried a heavier weight, you would too.

Jax may have been a bad boy – an outlaw, but he had a heart of gold. And that heart is what made you fall in love with him in the first place.

Your husband had confided in you when he got out of prison about how he wanted out of outlaw and wanted more for his kids than a life of chaos and danger. After the past couple years of shit the club had faced, especially the events of Belfast, you understood where he was coming from because you felt the same way. However, you were wary, mostly seeing it as post prison blues. All Jax knew was outlaw, it was in his DNA. Charming was his home and the Son’s was his family. You knew that Jax wanted to push the club in a different direction, a more legitimate one. It was going to take a lot of time and effort to do so, but you and many of the members believed that Jax would be the one to turn the club around.

You voiced your opinions, but Jax made it clear he wanted to be a better man for you and his sons. Too much blood had been spilt, and the club lost its way. Eventually you were on board. But things went south in your plan to get out of Charming. As you had dreaded but knew deep down it was inevitable. With the club and Gemma, how were you even going to be able to make it to the town’s border?

When Jax informed you of the CIA meddling in a case with the Galindo Cartel and them needing SAMCRO to continue the supplying of guns, or they’d push for the R.I.C.O. case they just finally gotten off their backs, you knew Clay had left one huge unfuckable mess behind to his stepson and future president.

With the CIA pulling the strings, Jax was stuck in between a rock and a hard place. While he wanted better for the club and pull it out from the darkness it’s been submerged in for so long, he would put the whole club and his family in jeopardy if he caused the CIA problems and got R.I.C.O. dangling over their heads again. He was keeping too many secrets from the table between the CIA’s involvement, the letters from his father about Clay’s betrayal, and Piney’s real murderer.

Then Opie was killed

– and Jax lost a piece of himself along with him.

Something in Jax had changed. He grew cold and detached. You tried to pull him from the darkness, but he was turning into a shell of who he once was. Jax was slipping and everyone saw it. The minute Bobby realized he wasn’t getting through to the man he saw as his own, he pulled out of SAMCRO and joined the Nomads; making Chibs VP and Happy the new Sergeant in Arms. Eventually Bobby came back after recruiting some Nomads and helping bring his prez back into his own skin. And for a while the Jackson you knew was back, but then he started slipping again.

He had all the power and not the first clue on how to deal with it.

Meanwhile all this was going on, you had tried to be there for him, but there was only so much you could do. He had found it less and less to come and confide in you. The agreement of full disclosure no longer existed between you and Jax. Your titles as an Old Lady and wife ceased to have meaning. Jax only ever kept you at arm’s length.

With full disclosure thrown out the window and secrets being kept and lies more common than none, who knows what other promises he made he failed to upkeep?

No lies.

No secrets.

No hurting women.

No infidelity.

You could cross at least three off that list.

He sat across from you at the kitchen table, watching as your jaw clenched and eyes glazed over. His eyebrows pinched together in bewilderment at your clear display of emotions; disappointment, anger, disbelief. He watched as you fought to keep the tears at bay. Your irises flickered up to the ceiling, growing wide as you blinked a few times, they finally met his laid-back figure in the wooden chair.

“Wendy showed up at my job earlier today – a complete wreck – frantic, clothes disheveled, hair a mess, anxiety practically seeping out of her pores…She accused me of putting you up to what you did. I didn’t understand what the hell she was talking about at first. I didn’t even know you went to her place last night, so I covered for you, just in case you were stuck with club business last night, and, boy, was I wrong.” The realization dawned on him as you spoke, shame stretching across his sharp features. His eyes closed briefly, and his head tilted up as his jaw clenched, anger simmering on the surface. You just couldn’t tell if it was from you finding out about it or him actually committing the act. Your guess was both.

“She’s been sober – she’s been clean for four years. How could you of all people take that away from her?” You scoffed, not even bothering to let him answer if he even had one. He didn’t. “Hell, Jax, you were the one supporting her when she was laid up in the hospital. When Gemma was telling her to kill herself, you were there defending her. You encouraged her to get clean; even offered her a place to stay.”

He didn’t say a thing, only stared down at the table where his ringed fingers laid in loosely held fists.

“Yes, I was pissed when Wendy threatened for custody over Abel, but, seeing it now, do you fucking blame her? He’s been kidnapped and used as leverage with the goddamn IRA. He and Delilah were in the car when Clay’s hit on me almost earned a payday. And we were all made targets when the Irish tried to fucking blow us up in the Clubhouse; the one place we were supposed to always be safe. If you didn’t see that damn pen, Jackson, we’d be dead – all of us. Our kids, Gemma, Nero, Chibs, Happy, Tig, Bobby, Juice, Quinn, Rat, Chucky....Should I go on?”

Still, he remained silent, only now his eyes bore into yours as silent pleas stretched across the table for this conversation to end before it got worse. He could feel where the end of your confrontation would conclude for your family. His heart fell heavy in his chest and his blood ran cold by the time he came home and noticed you sitting at the table playing with your engagement and wedding rings. He could feel the tension rolling off you in waves and they only got thicker as he made his way deeper into the dimly lit room. When you requested for him to have a seat he began listing as many ways it would go.

Yet as you continued to speak, he stayed quiet. He didn’t have any answers to the questions you were asking. Or at least any that would satisfy you.

“I didn’t want her taking my son, but that didn’t mean it gave you the right to take something she worked so hard on, and might i add, it was something she did for Abel.”

His jaw clenched at the mention of his indiscretion. “I did what I had to in order to protect our family.”

And how he couldn’t have sounded more like Gemma in that moment. Was she the one who twisted his mind up into doing something so horrible? Was it her influence? The club’s?

You loved Gemma. She was your mother-in-law after all. You may have bumped heads in the beginning of your relationship, but the matriarch eventually came around to you being a part of Jax’s life (and Abel’s). However, the last year or so you have seen her in a new light. Well, as new as it gets with Gemma. She could be downright manipulative when she wanted to be, that was a known. Especially with her golden boy Jax. It was a given Gemma would do absolutely anything to protect her family.

Sometimes you found yourself questioning how far she was willing to go – if there was a line she wouldn’t cross, but sometimes you also found yourself agreeing with some of the things she did. Since you were also a mother, you could understand, but it didn’t mean it was right.

You had recently gotten involved in some club business for your husband and your SAMCRO family, which blew back on you and raised suspicion with the authorities causing a case to be built against you. The case had gotten dropped and you took the opportunity to accept the job offer in Colorado that you were presented with long before Jax even got out of Stockton. You had politely declined but was called again around the time Jax voiced his opinions about leaving the club and Charming behind. Gemma had used her knowledge as leverage and threatened you the day before to rat on you when she found out you wanted to leave Charming and take the kids to Colorado – regardless if Jax was to follow you. Either way Mama Gemma was not about to let you take her son and grandchildren away from her.

Your eyes narrowed in disbelief, a small sound making its way from the back of your throat. “How can you justify that? Who even are you?!” You jolted from your seat, no longer finding yourself calm enough to stay seated. Jax followed your movements. “What…what happened to we don’t hurt women? What happened to women and children being off limits to the club’s brutality? Did that all slip away when you became president too?”

“What the hell s’that supposed to mean?!”

Hysterical laughs escaped you. Those uncontrollable laughs then turned into sobs. Your hand came up to cover your mouth, attempting to stop the cries, but failed.

“I – I – I can’t – I can’t do this anymore,” you cried. “When I look at you...I don’t know what I see…and that terrifies me.” Your confession rose emotions you couldn’t pinpoint in his body stature or those daring blues that make you melt at one look. You took in a shaky breath, an equally shaky exhale leaving you. “I refuse for us to be the next Clay and Gemma. I’m sorry, but that’s where I draw the line. The longer we’re here, the deeper we sink into the darkness, Jax, and the more we lose of ourselves, and the more we turn into the people we despise the most.”

He shook his head, clearly disagreeing with what you were saying. “We’re not them.”

“You’re right, we’re not.” You nodded, crossing your arms over your chest. “We’re worse. We pretend that we’re better. But how are we any better than them based on the things we’ve done.”

“Babe-” he went to move toward you, but you only took a step back putting a hand out and in between the two of you.

“No.”

“(Y/N/N)—”

“No!” he stopped dead in his tracks at your shout.

You took a deep breath to calm yourself, holding back the amount of tears that could challenge that of a tsunami. “I was offered the position in Colorado again. They’re promoting me too.” you told him. “I took it.”

Jax’s eyes widened at the news, his hands gripping the back of the chair, hunched over the wooden seat. “You made this decision without me? You didn’t think to talk it over with me first?”

“I’m way past asking permission when it comes to my life. Or my children’s lives.”

“You’re takin’ them from me.” It wasn’t a question, more of a statement of incredulity. Had it really come to this? Had you both really drifted too far this time?

“You said it yourself last year, Jax. JT should have run Gemma over if it meant getting you and Thomas out of Charming and away from the madness of the club.” Using his own words against him. That was something you were known to do and relatively good at. It was scary, but effective to say the less. It would get your point across, didn’t it? “And if that’s what it takes, then so be it. I won’t make the same mistakes.”

“This is not the life we wanted for them. And if I’m the only one feeling that way, then I guess I’ll be the only one to do something about it.” You sniffled, doing your best to avoid his burning gaze. You knew if you even got a glimpse at the broken look on his face you would cave, and you needed to be strong for your kids. “You said you were gonna make it better. You said you were gonna get out of the drugs and guns. You said you were gonna get them out, remember?” You reminded him of the promises he made, but proved to be empty.

You wiped another fallen tear with the sleeve of your shirt. “I know that getting out of all the illegal shit was going to take time. I know that shit wasn’t going to just go away overnight. I know that you’re struggling with being the man you want to be and the man you have to be – not that you would say anything anyway.” you shrugged. “Baby, your slipping and I don’t know how to catch you. Your changing and it’s scaring me.”

“The club shit is getting so much worse and I can’t just sit here twiddling my thumbs pretending that everything’s going to be okay. I just can’t.” You sounded defeated but the stern tone didn’t cease. “I have to do what best for my babies.”

“And what about us?” He pleaded, throwing his arms out before letting them drop to his sides.

“This isn’t about us, Jackson. It’s not just us anymore,” you reminded him. “This is about them.” You told him, watching as the world in his deep blue eyes come crashing down. “I have to put my love for you on hold and theirs have to come first.”

His body was leant up against the cabinets, defeated and poignant. His ringed fingers ran through his already tangled hair from the number of times he pulled on it. One of them ran over his face before both hands met at the center, falling in the praying position.

Your heart was breaking. The end of your marriage was here, but you had to be strong; not for yourself, but for your two babies who were sleeping soundly in their rooms down the hall, oblivious to what was going on between their mommy and daddy. You had to be strong for them and your unborn child of eight weeks. You had to do better in order for them to live better a life. One that was worth living. Your love for Jax would never go away. You will always love him, despite anything he may say or do, nothing could possibly change how you feel about him. And perhaps that was the problem, but your children came first.

Being a mother came before being a wife or Old Lady.

SOA TAG LIST: @cutekittylexie @talicat713 @woahitslucyylu @xx--day-dreamer--xx @sweetpeaflower01 @rebelwrites

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zackcollins · 4 years

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if you met me first ch. 2 || mathew barzal

chapter 1 || masterlist

Author’s Note: This was originally supposed to only be one part. Then I got an anon asking if I could write a part two because they’d like to see what would happen after the ending of the first part. Ask and you shall receive! But, uh... my stupid brain decided two parts wasn’t enough so, uh... they’ll be at least three parts. Knowing me though, they’ll end up being more than three. I hope you guys are okay with that (*insert sweat smile emoji*). GIF credit to chavelier!

Warnings: I don’t think there’s anything but feel free to tell me of anything deserves a warning. I’ll add it for you!

Word Count: 2.8k+

Title: If You Met Me First by Eric Ethridge

Additional: The reader is still gender-neutral. I made sure not to change that because I like consistency when there is more than one part and the previous part starts with a certain gender for the reader. Also! I’d like to thank @matbaerzal . I included something about a shorthanded goal for the Islanders but I don’t know much about their penalty kill alignments. She helped me with that by telling me some of the guys that are usually on it. She gave me five names but I ultimately picked Scott Mayfield. I’m not entirely sure why, if I’m honest. His name just spoke to me the most, I guess. Hope all of that’s okay and hope you enjoy this!

You sat there for a moment, phone gripped tightly to your ear. Mathew was breathing rapidly, starting to seem somewhat frantic. You sighed and bit your lip as you squeezed your eyes shut.

“I have feelings for you too,” you said, though it came out sounding like one word because you were so nervous.

You heard Mathew’s breathing even out as he let out a soft sigh. He chuckled before the line went dead. You dropped the phone on your lap and felt tears prickle the corners of your eyes. You sat there for a moment, wondering how you could ever have been so stupid to trust his admission. You felt betrayed by the person that mattered the most to you.

Not wanting to deal with anyone other than yourself, you turned your phone off and shoved it in your desk drawer. Anybody that wanted to talk to you could wait until you were done wallowing in the self-hatred of everything that had just transpired.

Needing something to distract yourself, you decided to deep clean your apartment. Twice. You wanted to make sure your mind was occupied so no thoughts of Mathew crept in. You also wanted to make sure that you didn’t miss anything from the first time.

When you were sure everything was cleaned, you washed the two weeks worth of laundry that had been gathering in your bedroom. It took you two hours to wash it all but you managed to get it done. It took an additional twenty-five minutes to fold everything and put it away but the laundry was finally dealt with after you had procrastinated it for the last week and a half.

When you needed a break from your chores, you switched on the television. You needed something to numb your mind and body; something to switch your thoughts off. Whatever deity existed must’ve been out for vengeance because the thing displayed on the television when it came to life was a rebroadcast of the Islanders vs. Flames game from that afternoon starting from the beginning of the second period. As much as you wanted to switch it off, something inside of you told you that you had to watch it.

As the second period progressed, you noticed that Mathew was playing with more enthusiasm and grit than you were used to seeing from him. He had bodychecked multiple Flames in an attempt to steal the puck from them. It had worked a few times but it led to an interference penalty on one occasion that Mathew looked none to pleased with. Luckily for him, Scott Mayfield was able to steal the puck from TJ Brodie and score a beautiful shorthanded goal short side on Cam Talbot. When the camera cut to Mathew in the penalty box, he was knocking his stick against the door and smiling with a relieved look on his face.

Your heartbeat sped up at that and you felt your stomach somersault. You cursed yourself for having a positive reaction to seeing him happy after what he had done to you. He wasn’t worth your time if he was going to toy with your emotions like he had, no matter how great of a friend you thought he was.

On the television, Mathew had exited the penalty box right as you had managed to get yourself under control. Josh Bailey had the puck and noticed Mathew behind the Flames defence. Josh quickly passed it to Mathew and Mathew sprung into action, skating toward Talbot. You gripped the arm of your couch, feeling every emotion you had tried to suppress hitting you all at once.

Mathew made it to the hash marks before he was hooked from behind by Rasmus Andersson. The referee shot his arm up and blew the whistle as soon as Talbot grabbed the puck after it trickled off Mathew’s stick. You sunk into the couch and covered your face as the referee pointed to centre ice.

You looked up as the referee was placing the puck on the faceoff dot on centre ice. You felt your entire body fill with dread as you watched Mathew skate in a circle by the Islanders bench. You didn’t know if you could handle seeing Mathew take a penalty shot. Yet, you couldn’t bring yourself to change the channel or turn the television off. Something was compelling you to watch this and you were too weak right now to fight against it.

When the referee pointed to the puck and blew the whistle, Mathew quickly handled it on his forehand before skating down the ice. As he got closer to Talbot, he switched the puck to his backhand, then his forehand, then his backhand again and moved slightly to his left. Talbot froze briefly, opening his five-hole in the process. Mathew took that opportunity to hammer the puck in through Talbot’s five-hole on his backhand. Talbot tried to close his five-hole but all that succeeded in doing was pushing the puck over the line with his skates. The referee pointed to the net and blew the whistle. As Mathew went down the bench for his fist bumps, you noticed that he looked directly at the camera with a smirk on his face. You weren’t sure why but you couldn’t shake the feeling that he had directed that at you specifically. Your stomach did another somersault at the mere thought of that.

The rest of the second period was rather uneventful. A couple penalties got drawn by both teams but no powerplay goals or shorthanded goals came of them. You were somewhat dreading the third period, unsure if you could handle any shenanigans that Mathew would inevitably get up to. You still felt compelled to watch the game and you were still too weak to fight against yourself so watch the game you would.

As the third period started you heard a knock at your apartment door. You found that odd because you hadn’t been expecting anyone. You wanted to ignore it because you weren’t in the mood for visitors but the knocking became insistent. You grumbled to yourself as you walked across the room and through the foyer to open the door. You had really regretted not looking through the peephole as soon as you laid eyes on the person on the other side.

“Mathew,” you exclaimed, taking a step backwards in surprise.

What surprised you even more was that he looked like he had been crying. As much as you didn’t want to see him right now (even though this was your first time seeing him face-to-face), you couldn’t in good faith leave him out in the apartment hallway while he looked the way he did. Your grandmother, who had been a therapist, would come back from the grave and smack you for being inconsiderate to someone that so obviously needed your help.

“Can I—“

“Yeah… yeah,” you interjected, somewhat absentmindedly. You stepped back further so Mathew could enter. “Let’s go.”

Mathew smiled weakly as he brushed by you. You blinked a few times and shook your head to make sure this was really happening. When it was clear that it was, you carefully closed the door and latched it. Even though Mathew had been an asshole earlier, something inside of you told you he posed no threat and that whatever he wanted was something that needed privacy.

When you turned around, you bumped your shoulder into Mathew’s chest. Mathew quickly reached out because you had stumbled a little. His face shifted from the anguish you get after a good crying session to guilt. You assumed the guilt was for standing too close to you and causing what happened to happen.

“Sorry,” he said, voice strained. “I didn’t mean… I just didn’t want to go into the apartment without you. I feel like it would’ve been rude because I don’t live here.”

You blinked when he took a moment to remove his shoes and place them on the shoe rack beside him before he followed you into the living room.

Mathew sat on the couch beside you and motioned in the direction of the shoe rack.

“Was… was I not supposed to do that,” he asked, voice a little concerned.

You quickly shook your head, holding your hands up.

“No,” you said. “Wait. I mean yes. Fuck.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose and sighed before looking at Mathew again. He looked confused but he was still looking at you intently.

“You were supposed to do that,” you said, sighing again. “I’m just not used to people doing it on their own volition.”

Mathew nodded and opened his mouth like he was going to reply but he quickly snapped it shut. His head swivelled to look at the television and that’s when you noticed that you had left the rebroadcast of the game playing. And, from what you could tell, Mathew had just scored.

You grabbed the remote but Mathew placed his hand over the top of it, blocking the power button. You tried to yank the remote backwards but something about the way Mathew was looking at you made you drop the remote onto his lap. Mathew smiled, although something about the way his eyes flicked from you to the television and then down to the remote told you the smile was a façade to hide how he was really feeling.

Not wanting to push Mathew and make him uncomfortable, you focused your attention back to the television. Just as you did that, you heard Mathew shift beside you. You briefly glanced at him but all he did was point at the television and smile while looking nervous. You raised an eyebrow but remained silent.

Just as you focused back on the television, Mathew scored his hat trick goal. You felt your heartbeat stutter and your stomach do a flip. When you looked at Mathew, he was staring intently at the television but you thought you saw a few wet lines on his cheeks. You went to say something but the announcer screaming Mathew’s name drew your attention back to the television.

When you looked, two minutes of game time had passed and Mathew had potted another goal. Your heartbeat faltered and your stomach did what felt like its millionth somersault of the day. As you watched everyone celebrate with Mathew on the television, you felt tears prickle the corners of your eyes.

You were watching the Flames fumble through a powerplay when you felt something nudge your leg. You glanced down and saw Mathew’s hand sitting on your thigh, palm up. You took the hint and placed your hand in his. Even though he had been an asshole earlier, you had felt the need to forgive him when he decided to come all this way to see you, even if he hadn’t actually said sorry yet. Actions spoke louder than words.

Mathew squeezed your hand, which made you look at him. He smiled softly, cheeks shining from obvious tear stains. You wiped away the tear stains right as the announcers screamed Mathew’s name again. You both looked at the television and saw that he had scored his fifth goal with only thirty seconds left in the game.

Mathew grabbed your other hand and squeezed them both. As the end horn sounded, Mathew dropped your hands and nodded towards the television. You raised an eyebrow but focused your attention where he had directed.

As the teams skated off the ice, a reporter pulled Mathew aside. He took his helmet off and placed it on the top of his stick.

“Mat,” she started, pausing when the crowd roared with a chorus of cheers and boos. She and Mathew both chuckled.

“You had the game of your life this afternoon. Was there anything that motivated it?”

Mathew put his glove in his mouth and nibbled on it for a moment. When he was done with that, he took the glove off so he could run his fingers through his hair. The reporter didn’t seem phased by the delay as she stood there, holding the microphone in front of Mathew.

Mathew sighed and bit his lip as he put his glove back on. He leaned against the top of his helmet and looked at the reporter.

“The person I’m in love with loves me back,” he said, smiling softly. “I needed to impress them.”

The reporter smiled as she looked at Mathew.

“They better be impressed. You scored five goals and had two assists,” she said. “Go get them, Mat. I won’t keep you any longer. Congratulations again. On your game and your relationship.”

The television screen suddenly went black after that. You turned to Mathew and saw him holding the remote, his finger on the power button. He quickly threw the remote to the side and you both jumped a little when it crashed into the glass top of the coffee table.

“Sorry,” Mathew mumbled.

You put your finger on his lips and shook your head.

“Don’t,” you said, dropping your finger. “There’s nothing to apologize for. I just have to ask one thing.”

Mathew looked at you and raised an eyebrow.

“Why did you hang up after I told you I felt the same way?”

Mathew sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

“I called you during intermission,” he said. “Coach caught me with my phone and told me to hang up or he’d bench me for the rest of the game.”

You felt tension you didn’t know you had been holding onto release from your body. Mathew ran his thumbs across your wrists and you relaxed a little more. You melted into the touch and shifted closer to Mathew, dropping your head against his shoulder. Mathew took that opportunity to wrap his arm around you and run one of his hands soothingly along your back. You sighed and wiggled in closer to Mathew’s touch.

The two of you sat there in silence. You were taking in the moment of finally being cuddled against the man you loved more than anything. It felt better than any of your wildest dreams. It made you feel complete. It made you feel happy.

“I’m happy too,” Mathew said, kissing the top of your head.

You hadn’t realized you had said that out loud but you were glad that you had. Hearing Mathew affirm your feelings made you feel ten times better. It made you feel better knowing that he wanted this as much as you did.

“Why wouldn’t I want this as much as you? You’re everything I’ve ever wanted. It just took Tito telling me that every person I’ve ever dated had a carbon copy of your personality for me to notice.”

Realizing you said that out loud made your face heat up because of the response you got. You buried your head as far into Mathew’s neck as you could. Mathew chuckled and lifted your head up so you were looking him in the eyes.

“Hey,” Mathew said, tapping your nose with his finger. “It means I like your personality type. And, more importantly, I like the original the most.”

You felt your stomach do a somersault for the nth time that day as you looked at the pure expression on Mathew’s face. You smiled as you brushed a piece of Mathew’s hair out of his face. Mathew leaned into the touch, humming softly.

Your eyes darted down to his lips and then back to his eyes. Mathew nodded and that was all it took for you to surge forward and connect your lips with his.

As you kissed, your mind went blank. You couldn’t think of anything but the fact that you were kissing the man that you had waited what felt like forever to kiss.

When you pulled back, Mathew was panting slightly and some of his hair was stuck to his forehead. You swallowed and ran your fingers through that hair to brush it away. Mathew shivered and leaned forward a little. You leaned forward and rested your forehead against his. Mathew puffed a breath against your swollen lips, which caused you to shiver.

You pulled back right then to yawn and stretch your arms above your head.

“Sorry, I—“

“Fall asleep on the couch with me,” Mathew said, laying down on the couch and moving as far over as he could to make room for you.

“Don’t you have to get back to the hotel,” you asked, though you did lay down and cuddle against him.

Mathew chuckled and shifted around a little. You patted his shoulder when you were comfortable. He kissed the top of your head and slung his arm around you.

“Nah. We’re in our bye week right now. I don’t have to get back until tomorrow when I check out and we fly to St. Lucia.”

You hummed and closed your eyes.

Your eyes shot open a minute later when your brain registered what Mathew had said.

“I get to go to St. Lucia?!”

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defges · 3 years

Text

He was a captain on the Wisconsin team

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illshowyourhurricanes · 4 years

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Flash: Focus (Part two)

Finally, I bring to you part two of a request by @something-tofightfor for image 7 of my image prompt list, choosing season 2 Billy Russo as the subject. You can find part one, titled “Zoom”, here. Thank y’all for reading and I really hope you enjoy!

Rating: R

Word count: 2300 on the nose.

Tag list: @obscurilicious @the-blind-assassin-12 @something-tofightfor @logan-deloss @lexxierave @madamrogers @yannii04 @gollyderek @carlaangel86 @maydayfigment @vetseras @thisisparadisemylove @malionnes @thesandbeneathmytoes @crushed-pink-petals-writes @delos-destinations @luminex3 @fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes @tenhargreeves @witchygagirl @fific

As always, if you’d like to be added to or removed from my tag list, just shoot me an ask or DM!

The room was spinning, tilting, like a terrible, sudden case of vertigo. You needed to sit down; you were dizzy and heady and nauseated and your hands had started to tremble. Russo. Billy’s voice echoed in your ears, over and over again and it was all you could hear. Everything else fell away.

This was the man you had fallen in love with, a fact you’d admitted to yourself when it was the end, when he kept doing tour after tour after tour and the letters and Skype visits stopped. Everyone experienced lost love, the one that got away, and Billy was that for you.

How did he end up here? What had happened to him— did he get injured overseas? How long had he been in the psychiatric ward at Sacred Saints? Who had he killed?

Taking a few steps back, you sank down onto one of two hard, uncomfortable chairs against the wall, clipboard on your lap. You stared at his signature there again on that release form and cleared your throat.

“Excuse me, of course. Mr. Russo.” His name burned your throat like straight whiskey; felt abrasive on your tongue. You harbored no hard feelings or ill will, but you had so many questions. And another one invaded your mind then, blinking on and off like a neon sign, blinding and intrusive. Why is he pretending not to know me?

The two of you spent years together, passing time with greasy food in a neighborhood diner and dripping ice cream cones for dessert melting in the park; you’d spent time tangled in sheets, sometimes for most of the day; you’d lose time taking picture after picture of his perfect face with your old instant Polaroid camera… pictures you had somewhere in a shoebox in your apartment, stacked with other forgotten things you couldn’t bring yourself to get rid of, collecting layers of dust. Your heart continued to race, You had to say something… so you said the first thing that entered your mind.

“How’ve you been, Billy?”

________________

“How’ve you been, Billy?”

How have you been, Billy? Fucking peachy.

“Best time of my life,” he answered, glancing at you out the sides of his eyes, his view partially obscured by his mask. It took a few moments for it to hit him, but when it did, he immediately bristled, squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin. It wasn’t easy, but he stood, the barrier of the bed along with a few feet of tile flooring between them. Holding his stance, he turned to look at you straight. Billy. He always signed as William Russo, but you had called him…

“Billy?” He almost spat the name. It meant one of two things: either that you knew him— which was impossible, he had not one iota of an idea who she was until you volunteered to introduce yourself— or his reputation had preceded him. “You’ve been told,” he continued, jutting his chin angrily toward the windows. “Didn’t they tell you I’m a felon? A dangerous man, to myself and others. A murderer.” His lip was curled beneath his mask, heat from his anger causing beads of sweat to form at his brow.

“Part of it’s true.” He rolled his left shoulder, feeling a satisfying crack. “I’ve killed a lot of people, I could be a dangerous man.” He paused to let out a laugh, smirking at the horror in your eyes. “I’m a Marine. Bet they didn’t tell you that part, did they?”

His eyes flashed with anger, and you quickly attempted to diffuse the situation. Abandoning your camera in your lap, you shook your head vehemently. “I know you were a Marine.” I know what it’s like to watch you leave for another tour overseas. I know what you look like in your dress blues. I know what it’s like to live with the thought of possibly seeing you for the last time.

“Were?” His laugh was muffled, but not enough to disguise the darkness behind it. “I’m a lieutenant. Special Forces.”

Your heart bled for Billy then. You heard the clear conviction and pride there in his voice behind the slight anger. His accent was thicker than you remembered. And it hit you in another harsh, sudden rush of realization that Billy wasn’t pretending not to know you; he didn’t know you.

He didn’t know a decade had passed since he’d seen you, because he had no memory of your existence, your name. The last thing he remembered was fighting in Iraq. He’d lost years of his life, a life where he’d made a name for himself in the name of corruption, a life when he’d been living on sex, money, power, manipulation and murder. It was a life he didn’t know and a life you didn’t know either. To both yourself and Billy, it was ten years of nothingness.

“Lieutenant.” You corrected yourself softly. There were so many questions you wanted to ask him, but you were skittish about asking. This wasn’t the Billy Russo you knew. This was a phantom of someone you used to know. Concentrate on your work, Y/N, you told yourself. You’re here to do a job, not get yourself re-involved in Billy Russo’s life.

With two quick strides, Billy crossed the room, sitting in the identical chair a yard away. You managed to look at him and found him peering at you intensely, a curious yet accusing look in his eyes softening into one of desperation. You’d never seen desperation in Billy’s eyes, and it was heartbreaking to the point that your breath caught in your throat. What happened to him?

“Frank.” His voice was just a shadow louder than a whisper. “Frank Castle… I need to… do you know Frank? I need to see Frank.” Dropping his head, Billy ran a hand over the short spikes of hair on his scalp. Once upon a time, you’d had a soft spot for his hair. You wondered why it had been shaved. “Please.”

Your chest seized and felt tight like you were in a vise. You suspected that Billy wasn’t quite this open with so many people, his therapist perhaps, but why you? You were only there to take a few pictures; you should have been gone, on your way home to a glass of red wine and some reading in bed, relaxing before returning to Sacred Saints. Tomorrow was photo talking day, but something nagged at you that photos of Billy couldn’t wait. Even before you’d known who he was, you had felt that intuition.

But things hadn’t gone to plan, weren’t going to plan. So many wrenches had been thrown into your plans that they were barely recognizable. And you knew you had to answer Billy, but how?”

“Frank Castle,” you repeated. You had just moved back home to New York recently; you’d done a lot of traveling over the years, rented a place on the West Coast close to Napa Valley for most of that time. After you were satisfied with the bulk of your portfolio when you’d come back. “How do you know Frank Castle?” You had no plans to lie to Billy, and you wouldn’t allow a wrench to be thrown in that.

“Frankie, he’s…he’s my best friend. My brother.” Again, he dipped his head and fixed his eyes on the floor. “I have to speak to him, please help me.”

Swallowing past a lump of emotion that had become lodged in your throat, you dreaded what you knew you had to say. “I’m sorry, Billy. I don’t know a Frank Castle.” Why would I? You were quick to add, “But I’ll… if there’s a way, I’ll try to help you. I want to help you.”

You paused for a moment, cursing yourself for getting involved. This wasn’t just a quick, professional snap of a few photos any longer. This had turned into you, a stranger in Billy Russo’s inky black eyes, offering to see what you could dig up on this Frank Castle; this became you, foolishly putting yourself in a position that would inevitably lead to more time spent with the man you’d once loved that had, at one time, alluded to a future with you. But the question that seemed branded in the foreground of your mind the whole time, gnawing at your nerves and on the tip of your tongue… it was ringing in your ears, constantly threatening to tumble out of your mouth: What happened, Billy? How did you end up here?

And despite all that was happening, this unfamiliar version of Billy Russo that you were still coming to terms with-- the man sitting across from you was not at all the man you’d known so many years ago-- wasn’t off-putting. You weren’t frightened, and you wanted to ask him. You had all but decided to, but suddenly, you remembered you were there to do a job. You had photos to take. You needed the images you’d capture of Billy, and you were afraid that if you asked a question that was considerably personal, your initial reason for reintroducing yourself into his life purely by chance would be foiled. Swallowing the words back down with the lump that had formed in your throat, you double-checked the settings on your camera that you’d mindlessly fiddled with earlier. Everything was ready.

“Is now a good time?” You gestured to your camera that you held in one hand.

Billy remained still for a moment, not saying a word. He was still thinking about Frank, and he was thinking about the woman in front of him who had offered to help. For what? What’s in it for her? What’s her motive?

“You help complete strangers search for people often?” he asked, and you were struck once again with the thickness of his accent. He wasn’t trying to hide it at all, and you wondered if that was intentional, or if he just didn’t care. Either way, your memory didn’t recall such a stark accent; it had always been there, but not so obviously.

His question hung heavy in the room, and slight movement caught your eye. He had leaned forward in his chair, tilting his head to the side, eyes narrowed through the two holes of his mask. The way he regarded you with suspicion unnerved you, because what was also apparent in his eyes was a calculated coldness, and even that was partially removed. Billy’s eyes were, underneath it all, empty. You felt your chest constrict, followed by an awareness that you couldn’t seem to inhale an adequate amount of air. Your thoughts were on rotation. Billy, what happened to you?

Before you could answer, he spoke again, asking the questions that had originally popped into his head. “Why-- for what? You get what?” His eyes narrowed a fraction more. “You got a motive.”

The last of what he said wasn’t as much of a question as it was a statement. The surprise you felt was written all over your face, an unconscious raise of your eyebrows and widening of your eyes.

“A motive?” you repeated. Your expression of shock melted into one that mimicked confusion: a furrow of your brows. You felt almost dumbfounded, and you looked around the perimeter of the room. “What kind of motive could I possibly have, Billy? What could I “get” from doing it? Maybe helping someone to have some peace of mind, because it doesn’t seem like the people around here are giving you much of it.” Your voice was soft, but firm in your conviction. You felt like this man was an imposter, a total stranger. Yet, in a contradictory manner, you were still utterly jarred at the fact that he didn’t remember you. There was no looking past it. How was it possible to be so affected by someone you no longer knew?

Billy blinked, and any shadow of emotion he’d held in his eyes was erased, replaced with the blank emptiness you’d seen when you first walked into the room. You looked away, out the window, and saw that the sun was hanging low, just over the horizon. You needed to get home.

“I’m going to take a couple of shots if that’s okay with you. I’ll be back tomorrow to do some more work.” You turned your attention back to Billy, glancing upward into those empty eyes. Hopefully, I’ll have some information for you.

He seemed as if he were far away, somewhere else entirely. His eyes were almost glazed over, and within two seconds, he was back again, though he wasn’t looking at you; instead, he dipped his head and ran two hands roughly over the short, dark hair on his scalp while rolling his left shoulder. Then, he raised his head and focused on you. Two tilts of his head, first to the left and then to the right, had you holding your breath. Some of his mannerisms were uncannily familiar. All at once, Billy was finally still, and with a sniff, he nodded his approval.

Finally able to do what you’d come to do originally, you held your camera to your face and peered through the viewfinder. Your heart dropped into your abdomen; Billy had once been your favorite subject to photograph, equally as attractive in any photo as he was in real time. It was he who was in full control of the camera with his defined, angular jawline, a smirk of his full lips or his dazzling, full grin that could light the entire city during a blackout. You thought you might give anything to take just one more Polaroid of that man that had been replaced with the phantom you had in focus.

I’ll work with what I have, you thought to yourself, and with the light pressure of your index finger, you pushed the shutter.

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webuyhousesfastllc · 3 years

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Selling Your House Fast using the “Subject To” Method

By: The Massachusetts Home Buyers LLC

Why would anyone want to sell their home via subject to financing? Aren’t their major risks associated with such undertaken? What if the buyer flakes and defaults on the note? This situation alone would be enough to deter any homeowner from selling their home in such a way as relying on another stranger to pay their mortgage. Worst of all, your credit score would take a significant hit alongside many other financial hardships. On the contrary, everything could also, too, go as planned with the mortgage getting paid down and your credit score gradually increasing.

Today, most FSBO’s shy away from such creative deal structuring due to one major issue, LACK OF KNOWLEDGE!

That’s right! A recent poll taken by The Massachusetts Home Buyers LLC had determined this issue among a survey selection of 50 FSBO’s who were either currently selling or planning to sell their homes very soon. The survey showed us that out of the 50 FSBO’s, on a professional critique level, 42 within the sample of 50 would have benefited more from a subject to deal than a traditional one-time closing. Out of the 50 FSBO’s 48 had no idea what it was and why it is used.

Why would a homeowner sell their home via subject to their existing mortgage?

Let’s start with the real-life story of Peggy Labate of Massachusetts. Peggy had lost her job Do tour company going to economic trouble. She then began facing the possibility of her home going into foreclosure, Putting her in a particularly dire financial situation. Peggy owed a total of $74,000 on her note for her home. This put her at an astonishing $12,000 in the hole.

She had an investor interested in a property, however, He did not actually have the full $74,000 needed for the sake of purchasing the property. Instead, the two of them worked out a compromise that would work for everyone. The compromise consisted of the following: He would purchase the property in such a way that he was subject to the existing mortgage payments per month. If agreed upon, Peggy will no longer have the monthly payment mortgage burden because the investor will be taking over her payments. Peggy then was able to make the sale work and avoid a disastrous credit hit by foreclosure. She barely had any money for food for that week, nevermind a mortgage payment. She was also able to sell the home within 2-3 business days following the agreement. YES! It was that easy.

In other parts of the country subject to the existing mortgage now has become quite popular among for sale by owners. Especially in post Covid era, selling subject to deals have increasingly spread. Especially in areas where unemployment has increased drastically.

Furthermore, most people don’t have the time in today’s world to even market the property by themselves. Additionally, they are not adapt to marketing, interviewing potential buyers, and credit analysis as Massachusetts license representatives are trained for. But why pay commission when you can simply pass your mortgage bill over to a investor who will take over the payments as well as put some money on the sellers pocket.

Another example was Hank. Hank was upside down on his mortgage because he bought right before the 2008 crash. The homes value dropped significantly but was able to almost break even in 2021. Let's look at Hanks predicament below

Home cost 2005: $320,000.00

Mortgage note: $335,000.00

POST CRASH

Home cost 2009: $245,000.00

Mortgage note Current 2009: $315,500.00

Present 2021

Home cost 2021: $285,500

Current note Balance: $295,000

Since Hank lost his job due to the COVID-19 virus, he is now finding it hard to pay for every day expenses and his mortgage. Therefore he’s in a little predicament. A friend of his told him “to suck it up and pay up to $10,000 and be done with it already”, but Hank doesn't have the $10,000 to come out of pocket. Plus, Hank is thinking “who actually sells a home to lose money?”. The plot thickens as the days go by and his bills pile up he is now three months behind on his mortgage and his banks are calling leaving messages on his voicemail. His monthly mortgage PITI is at $1,250.00. Thus, on top of all the other bills, as well as the $10,000 he will need to pay out-of-pocket if he wanted to sell, he is now behind approximately three months and four days owing a whopping $4,200.00 (includes late payments). The home is getting close to breaking even, and he has pre-permitted lot space to extend the square footage of his home. He was told by an investor he could add another 1000 to 1500 sqft to his home. Although costs would range anywhere between $68,000 to $80,000, it would bring his home value from $285,000 to $390,000. Additionally, if he were to add another a bathroom and a half in this addition, the after renovations value would be anywhere between $415,000 to $425,000. Unfortunately, Hank did not have the funds, which would probably be anywhere between $110-$120,000 to do such work, even though the value add would be $200,000 to $215,000. What is Hank going to do.

Hank is definitely stressed out!

Hank is now slipping into foreclosure and is getting unrealistic to almost cruel advice. Until one day he found an ad in his local paper from The Massachusetts Home Buyers LLC.

Hank called The Massachusetts Home Buyers LLC and told him his predicament. Hank began his conversation by saying, “ Look, I know you can’t help me in my situation but maybe you can give me some advice?”, the investor from The Massachusetts Home Buyers LLC laughed and calmly said “ Well hello, my name is Gary, Whats yours?”. Hank forgetting his manners backed up his excitement and said with a sigh, “My apologies, Hank here”. The caller than asked Hank to fill him in on what’s going on. At the end of the conversation, the investor asked to visit the property and take a look at the permits that were once pulled by Hank that he never utilized back before the crash.

Although the permits had become null and void, the investor knew the area very well as well as the permitting process for building additions. The Massachusetts Home Buyers LLC are constantly scrutinizing and investigating the housing market and its bylaws. At the end of the walkthrough the investor suprised Hank with a deal that almost had him fall to the ground. The deal, according to Hank was pure genius.

The deal looked like this:

First, Hank will transfer title to the property over to the Massachusetts Home Buyers LLC.

Instead of paying out of pocket, the investor offered him $20,000 cash in pocket for the transfer of title.

The Mass Home Buyers LLC would bring an additional $6,000.00 for closing expenses incurred and pay up the missed payments of $4,500.00 to the bank.

The Massachusetts Home Buyers LLC would then own the home, however, Hank would need to leave his mortgage untouched and in place.

To lessen Hank’s anxiety, Hank and the investor called his lender on a three-way call to explain the transaction. Strangely, the lender knew the investor by the first name. Hank knew he was dealing with professionals. The investor kindly told the lender about Hanks's situation and that he offered him the title in exchange for paying off the back payments as well as take over his note as-is. The lender said, “ Ok, Gary, so you want to subject to the existing note and make payments on Mr. Hanks 30 year fixed?” The investor replied, “yes, Sir.” The lender asked, “ok, that's fine; when do you think it will transfer or be paid in full?” The investor said calmly, “I don’t know now; however, you will be the first to know when we do so.” The lender stated, “fair enough- ok, we are good, no static on this end.” Hank had heard about the dreaded due on sale clauses and was just relieved. Besides, the investor boldly asked the lender to keep the mortgage under Hank's name; however, cancel his insurance for a tenant-buyer who can be vetted additionally by the lender will be taking over. Hanks's problems were swiftly Disappearing. How does this subject to thing work anyhow?

Finally the closing date has come and looked like this.

Purchase: $25,000 transfer of deed w/ subject to $290,000 fixed 30 year mortgage payments.

Hank has money for first and last for a apartment and got his job back. Also, his credit was soaring because of all the additional payoffs by the tenant-buyer the Mass Home Buyers LLC had moved in.

Investors side

Current mortgage: $1,250 per month

The Mass Home Buyers Lease Option Payments by tenant buyer: $1,900.00 ( the areas rental median is $2,500) Cash Flow $650.00

The tenant-buyer was a carpenter who pulled a new permit and added over 1600 SF of home and an in-law and two full baths. The home soared from $290,000 to $480,000.00

After cash-out refinances, the tenant-buyer will be able to reflip, and the Massachusetts Home Buyers LLC will make over $235,000 within 1.5 years. Not bad for one deal.

Hank no longer is upside down and in debt. He also has money in the bank. The tenant-buyer has an affordable investment he will inevitably reflip. The Massachusetts Home Buyers LLC made a healthy profit for saving Hank's credit from annihilation while providing inventory to one of many tenant buyers. Talk about a win/win/win heh? Subject to deal structuring is highly beneficial for sellers who are in situations like Hank, but also if they need to sell in a hurry due to a strict timeline that cannot wait for a realtor to research, market, interview, negotiate, and inevitably, sell their home.

Subject to candidates usually have three main scenarios in common:

They are facing foreclosure and/or exceptionally behind on payments

They want to repair their credit score and what better than a real estate solutions company paying their tab under their name on a monthly basis for an extended amount of time. As the buyer pays on the mortgage, the previous owner of which the note is named under, is being paid consistently. Sometimes even double paid due to the buyers motivation to pay down the balance in preparation of either a resell or a cash out finance situation.

They need to move very quickly and do not have the time to A) remote manage a realtor on the property which can result in miscommunication and other issues B) Has a new job that begins relatively soon that is out-of-state. C) A or B, however, has a significant amount of mortgage left to pay. and D) Is negative on their note and does not want to come out of pocket to pay the difference. The Massachusetts Home Buyers LLC not only assists those in selling their upside-down notes but will also. Reward the seller for transferring the title. What would you rather do?

The moral of the story is, long as you’re dealing with professionals and people who know how to market with structure and don’t hide things from anybody, make deals such as a subject to or any other Creative Financial matter that much more beneficial for all. As of today, the Massachusetts homebuyers not only helps people in need like Hank but also work with retail homebuyers because they structure their deals in a way that gives both the seller what they need in regards to pricing at the same time, create a good investment for their company. REMEMBER THIS: THE SELLER OF A PROPERTY MUST ALWAYS HAVE A MORTGAGE OR ANY ALTERNATE LIEN AGAINST THE HOME TO CONDUCT A SUBJECT TO DEAL. IF THEY DON'T HAVE ANY PAYMENTS AGAINST THE HOME THAN IT WOULD BE KNOWN AS SELLER FINANCING.

#The Massachusetts Home Buyers LLC #subject to #take over mortgage #creative finance #Plymouth County FSBO’s #bristol #cheap old houses #massachusetts #worcester #flipping house #zillow homes #redfin #realtor.com #cash flow #foreclosure #moving out #rent to own #real estate #sell my house fast for cash

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lauras-collection · 5 years

Text

More Than I Know [Part 9]

Tom Holland x female reader

Masterlist

Summary: You discover that millions of people witnessed you being sick, Tom has to leave for a press tour, you meet up with a friend and things take an unexpected turn. (I suck at summaries i’m sorry)

Words: 3.8k (oops)

Warnings: fluff, swearing, mentions of throwing up, angst, drinking + intoxicated reader, making out, a shirtless Tom, angst (sorry) nothing else I think (let me know if there is anything in there that I should add)

A/N: How is this already part 9? anyway. This is a long one. I got a little carried away 😅 I’d love to hear your feedback

I hope you enjoy!

The drive back to London was...weird. It’s not like it was uncomfortable. It wasn’t. You and Tom talked about all kinds of stuff. But the fact that this weekend - and your fake relationship - was coming to an end was looming over your head. Tom was leaving on a press tour tonight. That inevitably meant that he didn’t need you to go on fake dates with him anymore. You tried to find the perfect moment to mention it to Tom, to ask him what was going to happen now. But you couldn’t. You were too scared of the answer.

***

When you arrived in London, Tom drove to his place first. Tessa came rushing towards the door as soon as Tom opened it. Tom put his suitcase down and greeted her, taking her head in both his hands.

“Hi, Tessa. Did you miss me?” Tessa yipped before wriggling out of his grip, jogging over to you. “I guess that’s a no.” Tom laughed while you knelt down and started petting the excited staffy.

“Hey, pretty girl. You should be nicer to your owner, you know.” You smiled as she attempted to lick your face.

“Tessa, get back here. Y/N has already washed her face today.” Tom lightly pulled her by the collar and you got up from your knees. You heard footsteps and Harrison appeared in the doorway to the living room.

“Hey, Y/N.You feeling better?” He asked and you scrunched your eyebrows in confusion. How did he know? Did Tom tell him you threw up all night?

“Yeah, a little, thanks...how do you know?” your eyes flickered between the two boys and you saw Tom’s face turn red.

“Uh, yeah...about that.” He rubbed his neck nervously. “Remember that live stream I did?” He looked at you and you nodded. “I uh, I kinda forgot to turn it off.” He what?

“What does that mean?” You asked even though you had a pretty good idea of what it meant.

“That means, Tommy boy here live streamed you throwing up and him taking care of you. Granted it’s only the sounds but...” Harrison shrugged his shoulders and looked at you sympathetically. You felt your heart sink into your stomach.

“Millions of people saw that.” You muttered, your gaze fixed on the floor. While your mind was already coming up with possible tabloid articles and comments from fans. “Please tell me you can’t actually hear me throw up.” You looked pleadingly at Harrison who shrugged again. That was enough of an answer. “Oh no.” You covered your face with your hands. When you thought to throw up in front of Tom was bad, millions of people witnessing it was even worse.

“I’m so sorry, love.” Tom expressed compunctiously as he walked over to you.

“But it’s gone now, right?” You removed your hands to look between Tom and Harrison again. Harrison took his phone out of his pocket and typed something.

“Well, if the video title ‘Tom Holland taking care of his girlfriend for 12 minutes straight’ is any indicator I would say it isn’t completely gone.” Harrison said after a moment making you groan.

I guess it’s true what they say: the internet never forgets.

“I’m sorry.” Tom said again, his hands now on your shoulders.

“For what it’s worth, the comments are mostly positive.” Harrison shrugged his shoulders. You ignored the fact that he said mostly but you had gotten so much hate already, you weren’t even bothered anymore.

“Really? Let me see.” You moved away from Tom and towards Harrison, but Harrison took a step back, holding his phone towards his chest.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“You can’t tell me the comments are positive and then refuse to show me.” You crossed your arms looking at Harrison accusingly. “You know what? I’m just gonna look at it myself.” You reached into the back pocket of your jeans, retrieving your phone. You typed the video title that Harrison had mentioned earlier into the search bar and moments later a few videos popped up. You clicked on the first one. It started with Tom talking to his fans on the live stream, a row of names moving from the bottom of the screen upwards. He was talking about how excited he was for his next project when his eyes suddenly lifted from his phone to look at something behind it. Most likely you on your way to the bathroom. You saw his eyes widen before he jumped out of bed and with a loud bang the phone was thrown onto the desk. All that was visible now was the ceiling of the hotel room and the comments that kept scrolling across the screen at a rapid speed.

-What happened?

-Who’s he with?

-What?

-Where did he go?

-Hellooo?

-Did he accidentally start a live stream? What’s happening?

-Is he throwing up or is that someone else?

Since there wasn’t anything to see you scrolled towards the comment section. You turned the sound down, not wanting to hear yourself heaving. Most of the comments were gushing about how Tom was taking care of you. And you were a hundred per cent agreeing with those people. A few comments, in particular, caught your attention.

-Well at least the girlfriend’s confirmed now lol

-You better treat him the way he deserves Y/N if you hurt him I’m coming for ya

-Welp, that means he’s officially off the market I guess

-For anyone who can’t get enough of tom saying ‘my girlfriend’ you’re welcome 10:37

You turned the sound back on and clicked on the timestamp

“-but my girlfriend isn’t feeling well and I was wondering-” you turned the sound back down in shock. You hadn’t really realised that he’d called you his girlfriend on the phone. Hearing it now made your heart flutter. But that was part of the deal, right? Make everyone believe you’re a couple, that includes the hotel staff. While Tom and Harrison kept looking at you, sharing worried glances every once in a while you continued scrolling through the comments. There hadn’t really been anything too bad in the comments. You were wondering what Harrison didn’t want you to see. Was it the girlfriend stuff? You had no idea why he would have to hide that from you.

But then you saw the comments that you’ve been dreading.

-Oh fuck, what if she’s pregnant?

-I mean Tom would be a great dad but he’s at the prime of his career now, a bit stupid to get a chick pregnant if you ask me.

-But y’all have to admit that baby would be super cute

Why did everyone’s mind immediately connect throwing up with pregnancy? You groaned and locked your phone again letting your hands fall to your sides. You looked at Tom who was eyeing you with an uncertain expression.

“I’m sorry everyone thinks you got me pregnant. Not only my aunt but your fans now, too.” you felt tears brim your eyes and you realised that even though you had rested a couple of hours today and didn’t have to throw up since last night, you still weren’t back at a hundred per cent.

“Hey, hey, it’s alright. It’ll blow over.” He came over and wrapped his arms around you. “We’ll just ignore it for now and if the comments don’t stop I’ll say something, okay?” He rubbed your back soothingly, just the way he had done it about a million times during the past 36 hours.

You spent the next couple hours with Tom and Harrison, Tessa curled up on the sofa next to you. The two boys tried their best to distract you from thinking about the live stream and the fans reactions.

Around six in the afternoon, Tom excused himself to take a shower and pack his stuff for the upcoming press tour. Harrison was going to take him to the airport after taking you home. You were a little sad that you wouldn’t get alone time with Tom one last time but it was probably for the best.

When Harrison pulled up in front of your building you thanked him for taking you while Tom got out of the car to get your suitcase.

“Thanks, Harrison. It was great meeting you.” You smiled at him through the rearview mirror.

“You, too, Y/N.” He returned the smile and you got out of the car. Tom was already waiting for you at the front door. You fumbled your keys out of your coat pocket and opened the door. You were about to say that Tom didn’t need to carry your stuff upstairs, but he had already ascended the staircase halfway. You followed him as quickly as you could opening the door for him. Once inside, Tom carried your suitcase into your bedroom. You stood by the door not sure what to say as he returned.

“Thanks, Tom. For everything.” You couldn’t help the finality in your voice. Tom didn’t seem to notice though.

“You’re very welcome. It was a lot of fun.” He smiled and you tried to imprint the way his eyes crinkled into your memory. Where you ever going to see that smile in person again? "Well, except for last night. That wasn't so much fun." He chuckled and wrapped you in a hug “I’ll text you when I land, yeah?” His voice was right by your ear and shivers ran down your spine. You only managed to nod before Tom pulled away “See you soon.” and with that, he placed a kiss right on the corner of your mouth. You were too perplexed to say anything and by the time you found your voice he was already gone.

***

A couple days later you met your friend Marissa for coffee. You hadn't seen her in such a long time and you needed to get out of the house for something fun for a change.

“Hey. I missed you.” You exclaimed as you walked up to her in front of your favourite coffee shop. The coffee shop where you met Tom. You wrapped your arms around the petite girl and hugged her tightly.

“Missed you, too.” She hugged you back and squeezed you a little bit. “Thought you forgot about me ‘cause you were preoccupied with that boyfriend of yours.” She nudged your shoulder with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“No, of course not. He’s on press tour right now and I wanted to see you.” You cringed because it sounded like you were only seeing her because Tom wasn’t around. “I’m sorry that sounded… I wasn’t-“ you started to ramble but Marissa interrupted you.

“I get it, Y/N. You want to spend as much time with him as possible. He’s not around much is he?” She squeezed your hand, letting you know that she understands.

You shake your head. “Not really. He’ll be gone for weeks at a time, either filming or doing press.” You shrugged your shoulders. This was the first time Tom was gone for such a long time since you met him. And since you realised that you’re in love with him.

“That sucks.” She pauses for a moment. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m happy for you. I know that the others have been assholes about it but to be honest I think they’re just jealous.” She nudged your arm again. “C’mon let’s go inside. You need to tell me all about Kate’s wedding.”

***

You had a great time catching up with Marissa. It was nice to have some girl time again. You had both decided that a night out together was long overdue and planned to go to a club soon.

So a few weeks later, you found yourself standing at the bar of a club, Marissa next to you. You had already had a few drinks but the night was still young and you wanted to let loose for a while. After the bartender slid the two shots you had ordered across the counter, you and Marissa downed them quickly and moved back onto the dance floor. The music that was being played was surprisingly good and you had so much fun you didn’t even realise that it was past 2am already.

You felt Marissa nudge you. “I need to go to the loo!” She exclaimed over the loud music and you nodded, following her out of the crowd of dancing people to get to the toilets. The room was busy when you entered and Marissa immediately queued up. You did as well thinking that it would be better if you took the opportunity to relieve yourself as well.

You were lightly swaying from side to side, a little too drunk to stand straight. But not too drunk to get your phone out of your bag and check instagram. You had unintentionally made it a habit to check Tom’s instagram story a couple of times a day. You told yourself it was because you were curious to see what he was up to. But in reality, it was more because you wanted to hear his voice. Even though you wouldn’t be able to hear anything among the chatter of the girls in the bathroom, you clicked on the little circle with Tom’s icon which was the first one that appeared at the top of your instagram feed. You were immediately greeted with Tom’s face as he said something that you couldn’t hear, a few seconds later Harrison appeared behind him doing a little wave. The next story started and showed Tessa curled up on the sofa in Tom and Harrisons living room and you felt your heart flutter. He was home. You checked the timestamp of the story.

19min ago

You felt yourself getting antsy. Even though you had been texting with Tom a lot over the past few weeks you were wondering if he wanted to see you now that he was back in London. However, you were a little intoxicated and that made you think that it might be a good idea to just go and see him. Now.

Marissa noticed that you were somewhere else with your thoughts and poked you with a smirk.

“What’re you thinking about.”

You let out a breathy laugh. “Tom’s home...” You trailed off, not sure if you should voice your idea. Marissa just raised her eyebrows knowingly. “I was wondering if I should go and see if he’s still up?” It sounded more like a question. “His place is nearby and he posted an instagram story about twenty minutes ago...” At this point, you didn’t know if you were trying to convince yourself or Marissa. She just laughed at you.

“Gosh, you’re so in love with him. It’s so cute.” You could only giggle at her words, temporarily forgetting about the whole fake dating debacle you had gotten yourself into. “Let’s get outta here.” She pulled you by the hand and manoeuvred both of you towards the exit.

Not long after you were standing in front of Tom’s door. You weren’t so sure of your plan now. You decided to send Tom a text to check if he was awake. Your chances were good, he was probably used to a different time zone after such a long time in the states.

you up?

You cringed at your wording but couldn’t bring yourself to rephrase it so you hit send. A few moments later the message was marked as read and a new text bubble appeared.

yeah, why?

You locked your phone and knocked on Tom’s front door, not wanting to ring the doorbell in case you’d wake Harrison up. You heard Tom’s footsteps on the other side of the door before it opened. You were greeted with a surprised-looking Tom clad in grey sweatpants and a simple white t-shirt. How did he manage to look so soft all the time?

“Hi.” he breathed out, his brown eyes moving over your frame.

“Hey... I was in the neighbourhood so I thought I’d stop by... check if you’re home. Haven’t seen you in a while.” You purposefully let the fact slide that you had checked his instagram story. Tom eyed you with a look before opening the door wider so you could enter.

“Of course! Yeah, come in.” Tom smiled widely. “D’ you want something to drink?” He asked looking over his shoulder while you followed him into the kitchen. He looked so good.

“Yeah, do you have tequila?” You giggled giggled! and Tom raised an eyebrow at you.

“Maybe you should stick with water.” He laughed a bit and walked over to one of the cabinets opening it to retrieve two glasses. You leaned back against the counter and looked around the room while Tom poured water into the glasses. “Where’s Tessa?”

“Asleep in the living room.” He handed you one glasses and you took a sip. “What’ve you been up to tonight?” He asked eyeing your outfit once more. “Seems like you had fun.” The corner of his mouth turned up into a smirk.

You nodded “Went clubbing with my friend Marissa. It was a lot of fun. More fun than this.” you say and point at the glass of water in your hand, causing Tom to laugh.

“Sorry, love but I think you’ve had enough for the night.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?” You wonder with a cocked eyebrow. Tom takes a step closer to you, now standing right in front of you. His eyes roamed your face for a moment before he spoke.

“Well, your eyes are glossy and your balance is a little bit off.”

“But only a little bit.” You protest with a pout and Tom chuckled.

“Still, that means no more alcohol for you young lady.” There was a playfully scolding look on his face and you could only think how cute he looks. “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked a curious expression on his face.

“‘Cuz you’re cute.”

“You think I’m cute?” He arched his eyebrow and you traced the rim of the glass with your finger, only humming affirmatively. “What else do you think of me?” He took another step closer, you could now feel the heat radiating from his body. You sat the glass down on the counter and shrugged your shoulders.

“Well, you’re ridiculously hot, too. So fucking attractive.” You blurted out before thinking. You blushed immediately when you realised what you’ve said, but there’s no way to take back the words.

“I think you’re really fucking attractive, too.” He placed both his hands beside you on the counter, caging you in.

“You do?” You looked at him with big eyes. He was looking down at you and the expression on his face took your breath away.

The two of you kept looking at each other for what felt like an eternity until his lips were suddenly on yours. You let out a surprised gasp but your hands immediately went to the back of his neck pulling him closer. Tom’s hands moved from the countertop to the back of your thighs, hoisting you up on the counter effortlessly. You spread your thighs and he stepped in between them while his arms wrapped around your waist. You were consumed by the feeling of his lips and his tongue. You’d been so sure that you’d never get to kiss him again, and now, here you were. All alone with him. There was no one else around. This wasn’t a show.

You moved your hands from his neck to his hips, slipping them under his shirt, letting out a moan when your fingertips touch the warm skin under the fabric of his shirt. You move your hands upwards to take off his shirt completely, his lips losing contact with yours to get the fabric over his head before he returned, now kissing down your chest. Your hands roamed his body while his grabbed your thighs before they moved to the hem of your shirt, slipping it off and throwing it on the floor where Tom’s was already lying. Tom explored the newly exposed skin with his lips, kissing down the valley of your breasts. Your hands tangle in his curls pulling him closer as you let out a soft moan. Tom moved back up, sucking on the skin of your neck and you slid your hands back down his body slipping your hands under the waistband of his sweatpants.

“Tom.” You moaned his name and let out a whimper.

All of a sudden Tom stopped kissing your neck, grabbed your wrists and pulled your hands away from his body.

“What-... What’s wrong?” Your eyes immediately widen in surprise.

“I can’t...” Tom shook his head, not looking into your eyes, your wrists still in his hold.

“You can’t..?”

“I can’t do this.” He took a step away from you, your hands falling to your thighs and it suddenly dawned on you. Tom didn’t want you the way you wanted him. You couldn’t believe this was happening again. You didn’t think that Tom would be the type to give you a little taste of what it could be like just to push you away a moment later. You didn’t think that Tom would be like Joe.

“I see...” You couldn’t look Tom in the eyes. You hopped down from the counter bending down to pick up your shirt. You gulped and pulled the shirt back over your head with shaking hands.

“I’ll just…” You pointed in the direction of the front door. “I’ll just go.” You felt so… embarrassed? humiliated? There were a lot of feelings swirling around you at that moment but one was prevalent. Rejected.

“Don’t worry. I won’t make this awkward. Let’s just forget this happened at all.” your voice was shaky as you turned around to Tom who was looking at you with big eyes and raised eyebrows. You couldn’t really read his expression. Tessa came running from the living room, jumping around your legs, yipping excitedly. You couldn’t pay her any attention though.

“Y/N. No, it’s not...” Tom stammered running his hand through his hair.

“Don’t bother.” You interrupted him “I won’t let you do this to me, Tom… Not you, too.“ You opened the front door and turned to look at him one last time. “Coming here was a mistake.” you mumbled to yourself and you were out of the door before Tom could say anything else. The door slammed behind you but you could still hear Tessa barking. You speed walked to the next street corner as fast as you could and then stopped to support yourself on a house wall, the tears finally falling.

How could you be so stupid to think Tom actually wanted to be with you?

And while you were crying on the corner, Tom was sitting at home, his head in his hands.

“Mate, what the fuck happened?” Harrison, who had been woken up by Tessa’s barking, stood in the doorway to the living room, his eyebrows raised in question.

“I think I really fucked things up.”

“What did you do?”

Part 10

Thank you for reading 💕

I’d love to hear your feedback! :)

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#tom holland angst #tom holland fluff #tom holland imagine #tom holland fic #tom holland scenario #tom holland x reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x you #tom holland fake dating #fake dating au #more than I know

352 notes · View notes

another-kakashi-blog · 5 years

Text

Reclamation

Title: Reclamation

Rating:M

Pairing: Kakairu

WC: 10k+

Summary:

Survivor’s guilt was an inevitable part of being a shinobi, they’d been taught this early on.

They just hadn’t been taught how to deal with it, and as Kakashi got older, he was starting to realize that was because no one knew how.

Every day was a lesson in living.

Notes:

After many, many years of reading Kakashi fanfics, I’ve decided to finally give in and have a try at it myself. It was a lot of fun and a great challenge to write this. I am very excited to continue writing kakairu, kakagai, and kakayama in the future (for those of you who know me as that BNHA writer ( @fucking-zawa-sensei) don’t worry I’ll still write EM).

As with most of my fics, this is very sad, but I promise there will be happiness by the end. Hang in there.

Below is a portion of fic, read all of it on AO3 here

Reclamation

To anyone else, they might call this silence.

For Kakashi, the rustling of the tree leaves, the rush of wind passing by his face, the constant, endless pounding of his pulse, mimics the sound of waves crashing into breaker rocks. It’s akin to the crackle of thunder as the lightning leaves the ground, returning back to the clouds.

It’s missions like these that make him feel alive.

More than that, it’s missions like these that make him feel untethered, haunting, as if he’s floating above his own body, desperately out of control of his own limbs, watching them move without him, soaring from tree branch to tree branch with all his muscles pulling him back to Konoha.

It’s missions like these that make him feel like there’s nothing holding him down, nothing keeping him here, like one wrong step would send him catapulting into the night sky’s embrace, leaving no remains for hunter nins to burn.

He’d leave no secrets behind.

These nights bring a heavy burden, bring reminders that life is nothing but a body, too easily taken by another hand, that each breath, each moment is so easily wasted.

Missions like these make him feel invincible, untouchable.

Missions like these make him feel terrified.

Petrified.

Horrified.

Barely human.

He’d lie down on a hundred kunai for Konoha, had certainly already taken that many at various times throughout his long life as a shinobi, but lately he was starting to feel like there had to be something else.

Konoha wasn’t enough to bring him home on nights like this.

The air he sucks into his lungs feels sharp, stinging with the late night chill that has already settled over his worn muscles.

Each footfall, the bounce back of the wood beneath his sandals, manages to ground him only slightly.

Half his mind is focused on the gates he knows he is closing in on, once a beacon, large doors that signified a job well done, a mission complete, but anymore felt like a hiatus, a small pause in a journey elsewhere.

The other half is still lingering behind him, running through every move, every kill. His sharingan, as usual, had recorded it all, adding to an endless loop of jutsu and gore and blood.

He tried, here and there, to supplement it with other things.

Occasionally lifting his headband to take in the sight of the river flowing through Konoha, as he leaned against the side of the bridge, watching as dragonflies landed on the small rocks, little droplets of water falling off their feet as they rose up again, taking flight.

Even this had backfired on more than one occasion, though.

Happy memories had soured.

Fallen friends’ smiling faces now passed quickly in his mind’s eye, some more violently than others, replaced with their last moments, gasped out final requests, promises, and pleas for a life already lost.

Every jounin carried a bingo book, a burden that only seemed to increase in weight with each new entry, and sometimes, even more so when the pages were torn out.

It meant different things for different shinobi, a list of people to avoid, flea on sight, or a list of targets, people to hunt down. Some ninja seemed to use it as a leaderboard, wanting to add page after page to their own entries, while challenging themselves to take down their competition.

For Kakashi, it was a list of people coming for him, chasing him, always right behind him every hour of every day. It was a reason not to trust a single face he saw on his travels, a reason not to let anyone close.

Everyone he knew was at risk, all fodder for a fire that sometimes felt far out of his control.

The book had never felt heavier than it did the day it had been slid across the godaime’s desk, his former pupil’s name now prominently featured.

Team 7 had been one of the few things that disrupted the replay of death after death, but now, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, their laughter, their pranks, their teasing, all melted away. Replaced with a Konoha headband, deep cut through the middle. Replaced with a small, broken, bloodied blond body limp in his arms as he carried it home. Replaced with a set of green eyes glazed over with tears, and then a fierce determination that Kakashi knew too well.

He’d been there.

He’d chased those ghosts.

He’d trained himself raw like they all were now. He’d worked himself to exhaustion, until sleep was something he fell into in more ways than one, just to get the memories to quiet for a moment.

Except the sharingan didn’t allow that, never had, never will.

So each step closer to the village is one more fight left behind.

On nights like these, he feels a trail manifesting leap by leap, miles and miles of bone and muscle and blood and voices all grabbing at his ankles as he does the one thing he’d never been able to train out of him:

Run.

The bingo book was a burden, but Kakashi sometimes felt like he had something far heftier stored beneath his skin, a catalogue of lives stolen and lost and never returned.

Survivor’s guilt was an inevitable part of being a shinobi, they’d been taught this early on.

They just hadn’t been taught how to deal with it, and as Kakashi got older, he was starting to realize that was because no one knew how.

Every day was a lesson in living.

In the distance, something rustles, but Kakashi’s instincts are running at full throttle and even over the post-battle haze of unwanted memories and recordings resurfaced by his childhood friend’s gift, Kakashi can easily attribute that particular kind of twig snapping to a small animal.

Probably a field mouse, his mind supplies.

Sometimes, being a ninja felt an awful lot like coming up for air only to find that the surface of the water has been frozen over.

The suspicion, the paranoia, it never really faded away. Kakashi could fall back into a casual, relaxed slouch all he wanted, but there was never a moment where he wasn’t keeping tabs on any movement in his limited peripheral vision. Even more so, his ears were tuned to every sound in the village, always waiting, always expecting something out of place.

Like the unsettling stillness right before the explosive release of summoning smoke that occurred all those years ago, before the blistering sound of shrill screams and the rush of adrenaline reached Kakashi.

The better your senses were, the warier you were, the higher chance of survival.

The village needed him.

The sole of his shoe slips just slightly on the next branch and his pulse triples as he glances back at the wood.

He sees blood, not much, not enough to affect his footing.

As he hits the next branch, another shock of instability jolts through his leg. He looks down at his body, taking stock, something he really should have done after the battle was over, but he’d been too caught up in ghosts to notice anything out of place.

He was leaving a small trail of blood behind him. His skin begins to prickle and his eyes narrow at the crimson drop plummeting down from his chest, watching it fall and vanish behind him, gone before it hits the ground, as he continues to race through the forest.

This was a genin level mistake.

A tail of breadcrumbs that would get you killed, every time, without fail.

Survival was imperative.

Dying meant Konoha lost one of its best protectors.

More than that, dying meant failure to uphold his responsibilities.

Naruto could tell everyone he’d bring Sasuke back over and over, and all his classmates could believe him, that’s fine, they were young.

Kakashi saw the way any lingering jounins’ mouths turned down at the edges when they overhead these words.

These kids didn’t have the experience Kakashi did, that the other jounin and ANBU did. Their generation hadn’t lived through war, they hadn’t seen the in-fighting among the elders and clans, they only knew the destruction second-hand, as people they never got to meet and things they never got to see, lost before their time.

They didn’t know how powerful revenge could make a person.

Kakashi did.

Sasuke may still be a child himself, but there was always a fierce shadow consuming the boy.

He’d never admit it, not out loud, but after their fight on the hospital rooftop, a chilling wave of reality he’d always dreaded came crashing down over Kakashi’s shoulders that night. With the village decimated by Orochimaru’s attack, he’d hardly had time to have many thoughts beyond complete the mission, as one after another they piled up. Exhaustion was becoming the norm, both physically and mentally. Still, the alarming chirp of the his jutsu, perhaps foolishly passed down to the surviving Uchiha boy, and the unsettling swirl of chakra just centimeters from his hand as it had wrapped around Naruto’s wrist, were a constant presence in his psyche between accepted mission scrolls.

He’d never forget it, didn’t need the sharingan to keep the memory sealed tight in his mind.

The first night after their fight, he’d found cover in a small crevice tucked into a cliffside after completing his mission, taking a small reprieve to regain some strength before returning back to the village, still not fully recovered from Itachi’s attack. A heavy weight settled in his stomach as he accepted the inevitable.

One day he’d have to kill Sasuke.

That had become all the more clear after he’d abandoned the village and forsaken Konoha.

Some part of Kakashi still wanted to believe Naruto, still wanted to see that there was another option for Sasuke, that he hadn’t been wrong to try and steer him back toward team 7, away from Itachi, away from Orochimaru, away from the false solitude of vengeance.

Kakashi was a realist, though.

Those fleeting hopes were hard to hold onto.

Instead, he tried to fool himself into thinking he could have the strength to do what the sandaime failed to.

Read the rest on AO3 here

#kakairu #hatake kakashi #kakashi #umino iruka #kakashi fanfic #naruto fanfic #kakairu fanfic #my fanfiction

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yodawgiherd · 4 years

Text

Scars that time can't heal, pt.3

Rating: M

>>Read On AO3<<<

The third and final part of my somewhat disliked short series. As I said before I did not want to turn this into a longer thing, and I believe that three parts are just enough. If you liked the previous chapters, then I hope that you will like the finale too, if you didn't, well, I'm sure there are other stories that you will enjoy more :)

Oh yes, before I forget, this chapter has some past Mikasa/Jean and Eren/Hitch. There, you've been warned.

So, If you have been waiting for this then... Enjoy!

Mikasa Ackerman was a lot of things in her life. She was a soldier, a fighter, an insufferable teenage goth, a gym rat and a nightmare to most of her opponents. With all these titles, there was another one she could add under her belt after today.

A stalker. Mikasa Ackerman was a stalker.

As it turned out, Eren’s working place was a private clinic, small but modern looking building in the quiet part of the town. Leaning on the bike, Mikasa popped a cigarette into her mouth, lighting it with a practiced flick of the wrist. It was a dumb idea, even in concept, to do what she was doing. Why would anyone sane just go into the place where her….something worked. Her what?

Good question that, but what is the answer?

Truthfully, she just missed Eren, and it felt like shit to admit that to herself. He was like a fucking breath of fresh air, stirring everything stale in her life and disappearing before she could realize what truly happened. Then he came back, bearing a heap of bad news and a calling card, the same one that she had in her pocket right now, the same one that led her here. Cigarette dangling between her lips, Mikasa sighed, running her hand through her short hair. This was fucking pathetic. But since she was here anyway, she could just, you know, stay a while. And watch.

The clinic had a glass door, a gesture probably seen as welcoming, and if you had a good seat, which Mikasa did, one could see right into the reception. A woman was sitting at the desk, a petite blonde working on a computer right now, eyes focused. Was that her? Was that Eren’s wife? Or was is the freckled woman in doctor coat who came to lean on the blonde’s desk, saying something that made the receptionist blush. And then…. Oh.

As Mikasa was watching freckles kiss the small girl passionately, it was safe to assume that neither of the two was the cheated upon spouse. And then, out of nowhere, the man himself appeared. Coming from somewhere inside the clinic, he stopped at the reception, interrupting the intimate moment the two women were having. While the blonde blushed, even more, the taller girl didn’t seem to mind, responding to Eren’s teasing with a calm face. She even made that shooing gesture, willing to be left alone with her girlfriend again. For once, Eren obeyed, retrieving a file and disappearing back inside the building, leaving the blonde at the mercy of the other girl. All right. Throwing the cigarette on the ground and stomping it out, Mikasa put the helmet back over her head, mounting her bike properly. She had seen enough.

Just as she kicked the machine awake, another person appeared. Leaving the clinic with a phone at her ear, this woman was dressed in a very professional looking shirt and skirt combo, walking expertly in black high heels. She had wavy light brown hair, going down to her chin, cat-like amber eyes, and light complexion. Pretty girl, Mikasa had to say. But it wasn’t her appearance that caught her eye, it was the flash of gold that sat on the woman’s finger, visible because she was holding that phone at her ear. The ring, a twin to the one Mikasa saw at the bar confirmed her suspicion. This was the wife. This was the woman Eren was cheating on. Motionless, Mikasa watched as the woman walked to the lot, getting into a car and driving past her bike. And then she was gone, giving her nothing but another bunch of questions. Revving up the engine, the raven drove away, unsure of what this whole visit achieved. Nothing, most likely.

No good comes from snooping around. Mikasa had been told that fact numerous times, but she never gave those words much weight. But as she stood at the doors to the bar, staring at the figure in a live conversation with Jean, it all started to make sense. Why?

Because she knew that woman. Or rather, she saw her once, right in front of the clinic. Mikasa had no idea how the woman spotted her back then, or how she found out where she was living, but there she was sitting, obviously waiting for her. Jean had no idea, understandably, for him it was just another pretty girl at his bar, meaning that he was going all out. Mikasa could say from the way he talked, the over the top laughter and quick hands that refilled the woman’s glass, she saw him do this dance hundreds of times. And she was the target of this affection back when the two of them were dating too.

Oh well, there was no way that Mikasa will run away from this. If the woman found her once, she would find her again, and there was no gain in prolonging the inevitable. Striding down to her usual table she sat down, making sure that her chair scraped the floor just enough for the pair at the bar to take notice. Lighting up a cigarette to calm her nerves, Mikasa waited for a second, then two, then three. Just as she was about to start hoping that the woman won’t recognize her, that perhaps she is here only on mere chance, the chair in front of her moved and the dreaded figure joined her at the table. Taking a deep breath, she looked up, meeting the woman’s interested eyes that were studying her face.

“What?”, the raven blurted, when the other wouldn’t say a thing.

An enigmatic smile spread across the face in front of her, but still, no words came from her mouth. Hell, Mikasa had no time for this.

“Listen, I don’t feel like sitting here and letting you grin at me like a fucking cat.”, she blew the smoke from her cigarette right at the other woman’s face, “Either start talking or fuck off.”

She coughed, waving the smoke away from herself.

“Feisty, are we?”, she finally spoke, her voice rich and somehow soothing to the ears, “Can’t say I’m surprised, Eren always preferred the lively ones.”

That took the wind from Mikasa’s sails. So there was no mistake, this was the wife, and she came here to get her revenge or something, and the raven was not looking forward to that. Calming herself, the woman put her hands back on the table, meeting Mikasa’s gaze with her own.

“I think I don’t have to tell you why I’m here.”

“No I…”, Mikasa sighed, her eyes dropping, “I know who you are.”

“Good, then this whole thing will be that much easier. Oh, my name is Hitch by the way. Hitch Yeager.”

Yea, Mikasa needed to hear that last name.

“I would say nice to meet you if we met under different circumstances, but now…”, Hitch went on, “I’m not that positive about this meeting being nice.”

“Hitch, can you stop beating around the bush?”, forcing herself to look up, Mikasa met her somehow still completely calm eyes, “We both know what you want.”

She arched an eyebrow at her.

“Which is?”

“To tell me to fuck off? To leave your husband alone? Despite what you might think, I’m not stupid.”

“Hmmm, I supposed it is logical that you expect such a reaction from me.”, leaning forward, Hitch held Mikasa by her eyes alone, “However, I’m not here to do that.”

The raven blinked in surprise.

“You’re not?”

“Not entirely. I came here to do two things.”

“Which is?”

“First, I wanted to see you for myself, see how you look, who you are. And second, I wanted to tell you a bit about our history that Eren probably didn’t share. It should shed a bit of light on his… hmm… exploits.”

“You mean cheating?”

Hitch smiled at that.

“Yes, that is the other word for it.”

“I don’t understand.”, Mikasa admitted, “You aren’t angry at me? Mad? Pissed off by what he’s done?”

“Yes, that is the expected reaction from being cheated on, but our case is marginally different. I’m a psychiatrist, Mikasa, I can suppress my emotions in favor of logic.”

“Wait, how do you know my name?”

“Eren had it written down in his notes.”, she tapped the side of her nose, “I had a suspicion, so I snooped around a bit. Don’t tell him that.”

So he had her marked down in writing. How romantic.

“Anyway,”, Hitch continued, “Make yourself comfortable because I want to tell you everything in one sitting. You might not understand, but it does not feel very nice to share all of this with you, some of the stuff is… well, kind of unpleasant.”

Mikasa had her cigarette going and that was all she cared about at the moment.

“Go on.”, she prompted the woman.

And Hitch told her everything, the whole story. She and Eren met in high school, and while he didn’t seem that interested in anyone really, Hitch slowly but steadily developed a crush. It took her months, almost years of persuading and hounding the man but in the end, he went to prom with her. One risky kiss later they were dating, and Hitch was on the top of the world. College was one big dream for her. She had it all: the school she wanted, an amazing boyfriend, a rosy future in front of herself. But that dream came crashing down on Eren’s words when one day he simply told her that he intends to join the army. She cried. She pleaded. She begged him not to go. But Eren wouldn’t listen. Once he set his mind onto something, he would not budge. In a last terrible act of defiance Hitch shamelessly teamed up with Eren’s mother and convinced the poor man to do something before leaving. To marry.

The wedding was quick and easy, done more to appease Eren’s mother than anything else. The groom didn’t mind, but he wasn’t taken with the idea either. Speeding through the rest of his education, Eren left to become an army doctor, leaving Hitch behind. And when she watched her husband walk away from the easy life with her that he could have, Hitch realized something, for the first time in her life. Eren never loved her. He liked her, sure, would have no problems with being her friend, but that was it. Their intimate life never had that burning passion she saw in the movies and soap operas. Hitch tied Eren to herself, seduced him, brought him along on the ride and the only reason he followed was that he didn’t know better. It was a bitter pill to swallow.

Years passed. Eren came back from the tours, spent a few weeks with his wife and left again. It wouldn’t be fair to say that Hitch was just a heartbroken mess. Following up on her education, she had a respectable career as a psychiatrist, even managed to open her clinic with a few of her friends. It was good, it was great, save for the marriage she was living in that was one giant lie.

When Hitch heard about that sudden attack on the base Eren was stationed in, her heart stopped. Sure, maybe he didn’t love her, but he was still a great guy, and losing him would be terrible. Despite all the horror, he came back, and to her incredible relief stayed, taking up the position of a surgeon at her clinic. And Hitch found herself liking it. She liked working with him, she liked coming back home to her husband. He was a great friend, and an amazing cook, and overall the perfect person to share a house with. Sure, he was not very passionate as a husband, and Hitch always had to be the one to initiate anything intimate between the two of them, but Eren managed to play his part to deliver a satisfying performance. It wasn’t ideal, but it was good, and Hitch could live with that. That was, until a few weeks ago.

If there was one thing Eren was bad at, it was lying to her. He didn’t say anything, of course, didn’t mention what happened or who he met, but Hitch was very far from stupid. There were periods when she would catch Eren staring into nothing, clearly daydreaming, times where he would stare on his car as if contemplating of going somewhere. The breaking point was one night when she finally convinced Eren to make love to her again, as he was unnaturally cold about that lately, even flat out refusing her couple of times. What did tip her over was that when he was on top of her, inside her, when he was making her eyes roll back there was a moan from him, a sound of a name. And that name wasn’t hers. Hitch couldn’t catch it in its entirety understandably quite occupied at that moment, the only thing she knew was that it started with an M. Put one and one together and Hitch knew exactly what happened. Eren met someone, this M woman, and unlike his wife, he seemed to feel something for this stranger. So, she began her search. And it didn’t take her long to find out the name of the girl in his notes, and with a little bit of background checking Hitch found out that there is a certain Mikasa Ackerman who works as a trainer to Louise, a daughter of one of her clients. And that’s how she was here right now.

Voilà.

Out of all these things, what surprised Mikasa the most was the Eren was too in the army, the same as her and Jean. It is a small world when you think about it.

“I still don’t understand shit.”, Mikasa said when Hitch finished her long ass story, “What am I supposed to do with all this information?”

“Oh? But that is up to you to decide.”

Seemingly done, Hitch finished her drink and stood up, putting some cash down as payment.

“This story will end by your and Eren’s decision, I believe my part to be done.”

“B-But you can’t just leave after dumping all this info on me!”

Hitch shook her head.

“Honey, I’m doing just that.”

And when Mikasa wanted to reply, Hitch cut her off.

“Shush now. I know that this is hardly what you expected but listen to me. I like Eren, I do, and if he found someone to love in you then I have no problems standing aside. He is a friend, a very good friend, but not the husband I dreamt of.” when she smiled this time, there was a tinge of sadness in it, “The only thing that sucks is that the two of you didn’t meet sooner.”

“Hitch I…”, still, Mikasa felt this need to justify herself, especially after hearing the story and realizing that Hitch is a very nice person in real life, “I never meant to kill your marriage, you have to believe me, I didn’t know.”

“You can’t kill something that was dead from the start, Mikasa.”, this time, the smile was warm, “You know what, I take back what I said before. It was nice meeting you.”

And just like that, Hitch was gone, out of the door. The only proof of her ever being here and rocking Mikasa’s world was the empty glass in front of her. Oh, and Jean’s dreamy gaze that followed her all the way out of the door.

Luckily, she wasn’t left alone for a long time. The chair scraped and there was a new person in front of her, a person she knew.

“What did she want?”, asked Jean, gaze still half-turned towards the door where the woman disappeared. Not that Mikasa blamed him, Hitch was a very pretty piece of ass.

“She told me about her and Eren.”, Mikasa admitted, watching the wheels behind Jean’s eyes slowly absorb the information before a light of understanding shone through.

“You mean…?”

“Yes. That was the wife. That was the woman Eren is cheating on.”

“Oh damn. I never imagined... I mean…”, he shot a look at Mikasa, “Don’t take this bad but..”

“You didn’t imagine she would be hot?”, Mikasa guessed, correctly.

“I’m just saying that if I was in Eren’s place, I wouldn’t risk marriage to her over a short one-night stand.”

“That’s understandable. I probably wouldn’t either.”

“Let’s move on.”, Jean offered, “You want to tell me what she said?”

So, Mikasa told him everything, the whole story, not leaving out any detail. He was her best friend and probably the only confidant, and she needed a second opinion. But when she finished, Jean reacted in a way that Mikasa surely didn’t expect. He laughed. He laughed out loud.

“Mind sharing what’s so funny about all this?”, she queried, watching him with an arched eyebrow.

“It’s just… This, what you just said to me, this is how I would describe our relationship too before it went to shit.”

“Now hold on…”, Mikasa wanted to protest, but Jean raised his hand to silence her.

“Please, let me explain.”

Seeing her nod, he continued.

“I dogged you too at first before you agreed to the date, I wouldn’t let you go. And even when we were dating, would you describe it as some hot passion filled adventure? Now I’m not saying that we didn’t have a good time, but there’s a difference between just enjoying each other’s company and being in love.”

“Jean, don’t say that.”, Mikasa whispered, “You are dear to me, you know that.”

“Yes, I do.”, he smiled at her over the table, warm and understanding, “I get that. Hell, you even followed me to the army just because you were worried I might die on you, isn’t that right?”

“I couldn’t bear losing you.”

She hated how much that sounded just like what Hitch said.

“Overall this feels like looking into a twisted mirror, with me as Hitch and you as Eren.”, Jean closed his speech, looking about as melancholic as Mikasa ever saw him, “I can’t tell you what to do, but I just want you to know that despite what you keep thinking about yourself…”

Reaching out, Jean put his hand on Mikasa’s.

“You deserve to be happy.”

Intertwining their fingers, Mikasa sighed, looking down at the table. No, she still had no idea how to clean this whole mess.

The following weeks felt like bated breath. Somehow she knew that he would come back, somehow she knew that their talk wasn’t the last one. It was as Hitch said, Eren just saw something in Mikasa that his wife couldn’t give him. But what was that thing, she just couldn’t say.

It was about three weeks later when she spotted him, once again sitting at the same table, his back to her. Abandoning all need to pretend, she headed straight for him, taking a seat. Putting a cigarette between her lips with just slightly shaking hands, she managed to light it on the first try, taking a long drag before finally meeting his eyes. God damn those emeralds.

“Hello, Mikasa,” the gruff voice that she missed so much it hurt to hear it now, calm and collected as Eren always was, “Long time no see.”

She put the smoke down for a second.

“I didn’t realize we were meeting on a regular basis.”

“You’ll have to trust me that I tried to stay away but…”, he clicked his tongue, “I’m not strong enough.”

“Yet you are strong enough to keep being a two-timing shit?”

He took the insult without a flinch.

“It would appear so.”

She sighed, rubbing her forehead.

“Do you know that I met your wife?”

That finally cracked his composure a bit, making Eren’s eyes widen.

“What? But… No, she didn’t.”, closing his eyes, he muttered to himself, “Fuck.”

“Seems to me that you aren’t as secretive as you wanted to be.”, taking a satisfying drag from the cigarette, Mikasa took the moment to be smug herself.

“Well, if you talked with her,”, Eren began, piecing the sentence slowly together, “Then you know that things aren’t exactly going well between us.”

“And that gives you the right to cheat on her?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

But Mikasa was in her element now, finally spewing out the dirt that was in her system, so taking another aggressive drag from her cigarette, she went on.

“Eren, I spoke with her, Hitch is a great woman and I do not understand how you could ever be such a fucking bastard and do this to her.”

“You don’t understand because you have no fucking idea how I feel.”

Oh, his composure was positively cracked. The nice green eyes were full of passion now, his mouth pressed into a thin line and Mikasa could see the way his muscles flexed beneath his shirt.

“Do you think I ever wanted to marry her? Do you think I ever loved her?”, the fires in his eyes were an inferno now, “The only reason why I joined the fucking army was that it made me feel alive! Being close to danger made my blood flow after being suffocated into nothing by that relationship.”

“Don’t try to pin this on Hitch.”

“I’m not… Uh…”, this time, it was Eren who was rubbing his forehead, “I made a huge mistake ever agreeing to date her. I was young, but it is my fault. I was too much of a pussy to say no to her, and again to say no to my mom when she kept pressuring us to get married before I leave for the army.”

When he continued, his voice had deep sorrow in it.

“Hitch is a very good friend to me, and fuck, I’ll say it, when a girl looking like that drags you to bed I won’t fight her off, but I never loved her.”, his eyes fixed Mikasa on the spot, “I never felt these… things that you make me feel. That’s why I keep coming back here.”

This was getting too intimate, way too soon, Mikasa wasn’t ready to talk about all these things. Part of her wanted him to leave, the part that felt for Hitch and her struggle. Part of her wanted to kiss him right here and there because his passionate confession made the butterflies in her stomach flutter again. She had to keep speaking to prevent that from happening, but then again, did she want to stop what was coming? Maybe it was time that he decided for a change.

“What do you want Eren,”, she asked, ”to talk again?”

“Why not?”, despite his previous outburst, Eren seemed calm now, pushing back those unpleasant emotions she stirred, “Don’t you enjoy our conversations?”

“I despise them.”

“Oh well.”, he took a casual sip of his drink, “We can always skip the foreplay then.”

Such a smug bastard. Putting her cigarette out with a practiced motion of her hand, Mikasa stood up.

“Let’s head upstairs then.”

“So this is how you do things? Insult me for being a cheating bastard and then invite me to your bed to continue being one?”

“Did you suddenly grow a conscience?”

He stared at her for a moment, but then shook his head.

“No.”

“Good.”

In fact, Mikasa had a plan in her head, finalizing as they walked up the stairs to her tiny room. She had one last ace up her sleeve that was sure to scare him away for good, to show him that this little tryst is completely not worth it. The fumble with the keys took her a little longer than usual, as she could still feel Eren’s presence at her back, the warmth he radiated spreading over her skin. Finally cracking the enigma that was her lock, Mikasa fell in, heading straight towards the bed. She would say bedroom, but her bedroom was also her living room and everything else. Yes, her place was quite small.

“Let’s not waste time.”, she said, undoing her jacket and throwing it somewhere. Judging from the rustle of clothing behind her, Eren was following suit, most likely unable to wait to be with her again. Well, he was in for a surprise. Holding her breath, she pulled the shirt over her head, leaving her torso clad in nothing but a sports bra, exposing everything. The scars made a nice map over her skin, clearly visible in the light that came from the window Mikasa strategically positioned herself at. Waiting for a reaction, she heard a gasp behind herself, her lips curving upwards. Bingo.

To give him the prime view, Mikasa turned around, facing the topless Eren, taking in his expression. That wasn’t…. well, it wasn’t exactly that she expected. He didn’t look disgusted, or angry that she kept It from him, no, Eren looked surprised, to be sure, but there was certain tenderness in his eyes. Reaching out, he ran his hand over the web that was on her stomach, tracing the thick lines with his fingers.

“W-What are you doing?”, she blurted, feeling more exposed than ever before, “Why are you touching it? It’s hideous.”

“Hideous? That’s the worst insult you threw at me this whole evening.”

“What?”

“I’m the one who gave you these. Not the wounds, of course, but the stitches.”, looking up from her stomach, he eyed her face, “I’m the one who put you back together.”

Yet Mikasa was already shaking her head.

“No, I don’t believe that there is no way.”

“It was years ago,”, Eren began, “When our camp got attacked by the bombs. The medics, me included, were up all night treating people that were brought in various states of damage. I just finished a long-ass surgery and was outside smoking because my hands were shaking too much. And that’s when they brought you in. A female marine, hit by a grenade.”

A single finger traced the longest cut on her body, that one that curled all the way around her breast.

“The shrapnel cut you up bad, and there was no one who could treat you, everyone was busy already. So I took care of you, pulled out all those metal fuckers that wanted to kill you and did my best in stitching you up.”

“That was you?”

“You know, in all these years, the details of the night flew out of my head. I was so tired, and there were so many people I treated.”, a little sigh, “But I’m starting to remember. I should have matched the two of you together soon, it’s not like Mikasa is a common name.”

He was distracting her from her original purpose, but it would seem that her last ace in the hole had failed. Eren wasn’t turned off by her scars, he didn’t slam the door behind himself on the way out. No, he looked at her as if she was, as if she was….

Beautiful?

Unable to hold the pressure of his presence anymore, Mikasa leaned forward and captured his lips with her own. The kiss grew feverish, and before he realized what was happening his back was on the bed with Mikasa eagerly undoing his belt and removing his jeans. Eren’s length sprung readily into action when Mikasa pulled down his underwear and reacted nicely to her slow strokes. She never got the chance to inspect this aspect of Eren’s body from up close, as she only took it from behind on their first night, but just from having it inside her Mikasa had a suspicion that Eren was rather well endowed. Which was correct, as she could see, he really did have quite a big dick. Curious to see if she can take all of it inside her mouth, Mikasa gave it a try but was forced to pull back when he hit the back of her throat. She was out of practice. Even her unprofessional mouth made Eren’s head fall back against the sheets, fists bunching it. Going slower this time, she didn’t try to take it all at once, but sucked on the tip instead, bobbing her head up and down, sliding alongside the length. Mindful of her teeth, she used her tongue to tease him instead, forcing another groan from his broad chest. Looking down at her, Eren couldn’t believe what she was seeing. This beautiful enigmatic creature between his legs, with her pretty pink lips wrapped around his cock, face flushed but focused on her actions. Diving deeper again, this time Mikasa succeeded, pulling him into her relaxed throat until her nose bumped into his pubic hair. If the view was out of this world then the way her neck muscles flexed around him was downright heavenly. And he couldn’t hold back anymore. His words of warning fell on deaf ears as Mikasa didn’t do anything to stop that wave that rose in him, going all the way until his cock spasmed in her mouth. Pulling back to give herself room, Mikasa took everything Eren gave her, listened to him curse and groan on the bed, actions which she found rather enjoyable. Yet his eyes remained open all the way, glued to her face. And when the last remnants of his orgasm went by and she let go of his softened length, releasing him from her reddened lips, Eren pulled her up.

Switching their position, it was now his turn to give. Eren’s weight pressing her into the mattress, Mikasa gave herself up. Moving down her body, Eren pressed a kiss onto her breasts, his tongue playing with quickly hardening nipples still hidden from view by the bra. And then, he did something Mikasa never thought will happen to her. Putting his lips even lower, he kissed her scars, one by one, dragged his mouth over the ruined skin. Soft, so soft against her, she felt him drag his fingers under her belt to rub them against the damp spot on her panties. But Mikasa didn’t want that. She didn’t want his tongue pleasuring her. She didn’t want soft, she didn’t want calm. She wanted to feel him inside her. She wanted to be taken by a rough storm that takes away any ability to think.

“Can you be rough?”, she asked, doing her best to appear unaffected by his clever fingers, “Or do I have to fuck someone else?”

“Rough?”, the fire in his eyes flared, “I’ll show you rough.”

Her pants were gone in a flash and so were panties and bra. With a grunt and a flex of muscle, Mikasa was picked up from the bed and all but slammed against the wall with Eren aggressively attacking her neck. With her legs wrapped around his hips, Eren held her up with one hand while using the other to properly line his length up with her inviting folds. One single snap of his hips and he was inside, making her moan at that delicious stretch. She wanted rough and he delivered just that. He fucked her hard against the wall, her body sliding alongside it. It was even a bit uncomfortable at first, as the lack of foreplay made the penetration a bit difficult, but Eren wasn’t stopping and Mikasa was quickly growing wet. Her moans were growing in intensity with each snap, her fingers drawing blood from how much she dug her nails into his back. Eren didn’t seem to mind, his only reaction was a grunt from where he was marking her skin. Desperate for more, Mikasa grabbed a fistful of his hair and pushed him down to her exposed erect nipples. Not needing further guidance, Eren sucked on one, making her moans even louder. She was clamping tighter and tighter around him, her walls collapsing and Eren knew that she is close. Mikasa came with a loud groan, right into Eren’s ear, hunched over his sweaty muscles and clinging to him for dear life. And still, he wouldn’t stop.

“We are not done.”, he said, voice as rough as the fucking.

All but throwing her on the bed, Mikasa was torn from the high of her climax by the contact. Guessing that he wants to take from behind, as he did the first time, she tried to shift her position on all fours but was stopped in her tracks by his iron hold.

“You’ll look into my eyes when I fuck you.”, he ordered, “You’ll stare at my face and know that it's me who’s doing this to you.”

“O-Okay… I… Oh!”

Whatever she wanted to say was lost as Eren pushed inside her again, trapping her wrists in one of his hands and pinning them high above her head. She was so helpless in his hands, putty and pliant to his touch. All her strength just ebbed away from her, same as the proof of her orgasm that was now running down her inner thighs. Eren wouldn’t let her rest, he kept driving into her, groaning filth into her ears, so different than from before. Eyes rolling back, Mikasa let him ravage her as much as he wanted because there was no downside to it now that it felt so good. She never wanted this to end. Never wanted for this build-up to snap, never wanted that coil inside her to break. This just felt amazing, and it made her forget everything, every single problem that was floating in her life and god knows that she had more than enough.

“Come for me, Mikasa”, Eren’s voice was still in that dark tone, just a fracture above a growl, “Come for me soldier.”

It was years since the raven was in the army, but maybe it was those deep-rooted instincts planted into her during her training years that made her body contract, to writhe wildly beneath him as she hit her second peak of the night. But as she was coming back from her high, her teary greys met Eren’s emeralds which were still burning, no end in sight.

“I said,”, moving closer, Eren whispered right into her ear, “We. Are. Not. Done.”

It was an amazing night. Mikasa was never left this exhausted before by nothing but pure pleasure. To top it off, Eren didn’t even leave after, letting her snuggle on his chest and breathe in that mixture of his scent and sex that made her toes curl. Yet when the morning came, she found herself alone in her bed.

Mikasa couldn’t say that she was surprised by this turn of events. Maybe they fucked a lot last night, but that did nothing to solve his situation. He still had a wife at home, a wife he might not love, but that he was legally bound to. Popping a cigarette, Mikasa walked over to the window and stared out, not bothering with any clothes. For the first time in her life, she felt comfortable wearing nothing, letting her scars out. If Eren could find them beautiful, there was no reason why she couldn’t get used to having them. They were here to stay. She chuckled at that, casting an inspecting eye over her apartment. It was still a mess, the only difference from last night was that Eren’s clothes were gone, he understandably took them with him when he sneaked out in the early hours of the morning, leaving behind the warm bed and the hug of the woman he completely fell for. Upon the inspection, Mikasa noticed something new. There was a note on her nightstand, a small folded paper he left behind, most likely an explanation of his actions, maybe an apology, a reason why he can never see her again. Taking it between her slender fingers, Mikasa’s lips turned upwards. She didn’t need this. The only thing that mattered was the phrase Eren kept whispering to her during their heated lovemaking.

We are not done yet.

Putting the slip of paper to her cigarette, she let it catch fire before throwing it out of the window, watching it spiral down and hit the ground. There was no reason for her to read that thing. Eren explained himself well enough last night, not by words but by actions, by how roughly yet lovingly he touched her, how long he kept her up with his passionate intensity. However, it was his mess to clean up, his decision to make, Mikasa made herself clear enough when she accepted his touches, when she spread her legs for him, when she took his length eagerly into her mouth. There was no need for words, written or other. Exhaling some smoke and watching it curl in the morning light, Mikasa felt at peace with the world for the first time since the shrapnel tore into her flesh. Life was good.

And it went on.

A month passed.

Then the second.

Then the third.

It was a fine day. Mikasa had a nice training with Louise, despite all the initial doubts she had for that rich brat the young girl was putting in work. A few more years and she might be a decent fighter herself. Tired from her own workout she had after, Mikasa didn’t have many things on her mind, just maybe that fight she had coming up, apparently she was going to take on some Russian. That was going to be fun. Walking into the bar, Mikasa took off her helmet, nodding at Jean behind the bar. He threw her a weirdly important look, pointing at a certain table. Following his finger with her eyes, Mikasa noticed that there is a man sitting there, his back to her, long brown hair pulled into a ponytail.

Mikasa instantly knew who it was.

As if in a dream, she crossed the distance to his table, sitting down in front of the long-haired fellow with those startlingly green eyes. Looking over him, she couldn’t help but notice that his fingers were free of any rings, wedding or other ones. Meeting the dreamy emeralds with her greys, she matched Eren’s smile with her own.

“Hey there, pretty boy, wanna buy me a drink?”

#eremika #fanfic #snk #aot #finale

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ryujin-zanba · 5 years

Text

Worth The Weight

Finally able to settle into the life he’s always dreamed of with Hope, Scott is facing a new battle with trying to start a family~

Rating: Teen & Up Words: 1200 Tags: Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Married Life, Family Feels, Fertility Issues, Mpreg, Depression, Comfort Eating, Happy Ending

Commission for @thecuriouscrusader 💖

Two years of trying for a baby and Scott still has nothing to show for it.

After everyone was safely returned from the snap, he had confessed it to Hope one night, and while she had been fully supportive for his desire to be a father again, it hadn’t been as easy or as straightforward as they’d thought.

The doctors had all warned Scott that he could be in danger of miscarrying due to his age, or that there would likely be a higher chance of prenatal and postnatal complications.

Scott had assured himself he could handle it for the sake of having a baby, but the threats of miscarriage and birth defects weren’t an issue in the end… he couldn’t even get as far as conceiving a child.

“I’ll try to get home early, sweetheart,” Hope tells him as she’s kissing him goodbye.

Scott manages a smile and kisses her hand before she goes.

Hope has been his rock through the past two years, and alongside the pain of being unable to have their baby, he can’t help feeling like his inability to get over it is dragging her down.

He’s gained a lot of weight recently, particularly in just the last month, but the comfort eating is the only thing that helps right now. That, and being with Hope. But she has work to do at the lab, and she’s taken plenty of time off to look after him already. Scott couldn’t bear it if he thought he was starting to come between her and her freedom.

“Call me if you need anything, okay?” Hope adds as a final reassurance.

“Thanks, honey,” Scott says dolefully. “I think I’m just gonna’ nap for a little while… I didn’t sleep too good last night.”

Hope tuts and makes a sympathetic expression.

On top of his low energy and depression, Scott’s been rather ill lately. Likely just with stress and grief, but Hope has insisted that if he’s sick again today they need to take him to the doctor.

Understandably, Scott has had about all he can take of doctors, but to put Hope’s mind at ease he has promised he’ll go willingly if he continues to feel ill.

“Take care of yourself, my little love bug,” she smiles, blowing him a kiss before finally heading out the door.

Even feeling this low, his beautiful wife never fails to lift his spirits.

Scott does end up sleeping for some time after that. At first he thinks he’s just hungry when he wakes up with stomach pain, but then a wave of nausea hits him and he’s hurrying to the bathroom to puke.

He hasn’t eaten anything for at least fourteen hours, so it’s painful to just bring up bile. This has been happening most mornings, too. Sometimes just the nausea, but at its worst he’s physically sick and wiped out for the rest of the day with exhaustion.

Frustrated, Scott punches the back of the toilet once he’s finished heaving, but that only serves to hurt his knuckles. Aren’t things bad enough for him right now?

“Hope,” he starts to sob as he sits back and sags. He cries for her even knowing she’s not home right now, it’s just an instinct, really; and where a lot of people would call for their mother in times of deep discomfort or fear, Scott has only ever called for Hope.

He doesn’t want to burden her any more than he already has though. She must be sick to death of coming home for him because he called, only to find he’s just lounging around sobbing in his three‑day‑old pyjamas looking haggard and blotchy and bloated.

“I’m sorry, Hope,” he hiccups. “I’m sorry I can’t have our baby, I — I wanted to give you a baby…”

He sniffles then, that little spell of an emotional outburst abating as he gets up, dries his eyes, swills his mouth out, and carries on.

This persistent and disgusting feeling is getting tiresome, truthfully, but in such times Scott finds himself inevitably ambling to the kitchen for comfort.

It’s almost gone beyond a desire to eat and become a need now, but as Scott reaches for the box of Cap’n Crunch on the top shelf, he catches a glimpse of his reflection in the oven door; his baggy sweater riding up to reveal his belly.

He frowns, putting a hand under the slight swell where it begins to curve out between his hips, then decides to head to the bedroom to look in the full length mirror.

Scott hasn’t done this in over three months, he’s sure. After a while he just couldn’t bear to see his reflection anymore knowing how dreadful and tired he always looked, but to confirm his growing suspicion, he’s going to take a good long look at himself today.

He lifts his sweater right up to his chest so he can examine the shape of his belly properly, but it’s glaringly obvious within seconds, and Scott claps a hand to his mouth as a million thoughts begin to race around his head. The nausea, the vomiting, the overeating…

They have a pregnancy test kit in the bathroom still, he’s sure. Hope had bought a few to keep around, and Scott is barrelling down the hall next to grab one from the cupboard.

All this time spent thinking he simply couldn’t have a baby — the past month even of just thinking he was getting fat — what would be the odds that as soon as they give up on trying to get pregnant it just happens?

He’s almost too nervous to actually pee, but he takes the test and sets it on the counter once he’s done, nearly forgetting to pull his pants up while he waits for a result.

It’s a digital one; Hope had insisted for the sake of wanting reliable accuracy, and when the little screen flashes up with the words pregnant — thirteen weeks, Scott experiences so many feelings at once that he simply wells over in tears.

As promised, Hope gets home early, and not a minute too soon.

“Sweetheart?” she calls out, prompting Scott to appear from the downstairs bathroom looking somewhat pale and in shock; still a little dishevelled, too, and the evidence that he’s been crying has Hope immediately worried.

“Oh honey, were you sick again?” she assumes.

Scott stands there for a moment without replying, seemingly still processing the whole thing, but then he breaks into a watery smile.

“Scott?” Hope queries, offering a slightly confused smile in return. “What’s going on?” she asks, titling her head suspiciously.

“L‑look,” he whimpers, his voice already breaking as he holds out the test to her.

She takes it, and Scott can’t help sobbing again when he sees the way her eyes start to sparkle, assured that she’s realising it too and that this is actually, really happening.

“Oh my god, honey,” Hope gasps, looking up at him again with utter adoration.

They’ve waited so long for this moment, and now it’s finally here Scott can barely make the words, but Hope’s smile spurs him on, waiting for him to affirm it…

“Hope…” he sniffles. “We’re gonna’ have a baby.”

#marvel fanfiction #langdyne #hopescott #my wriiting #mpreg #fluff

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almasexya · 4 years

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Monster Monday: Godzilla Returns... as fast as he can!

If there’s one thing that always colors discussions of 1955′s Godzilla Raids Again, it’s speed. Released a blistering 6 months after the original Godzilla, the sequel was a clear hope to capture that lightning in a bottle a second time. While very much overshadowed by its superior predecessor and the unabashed wackiness of the subsequent King Kong vs. Godzilla, Raids Again is hardly a failure either. For a special effects feature produced as quickly as it was, it’s a wonder the film turned out the way it did, and while it’s hardly a classic, Raids Again is very much worth seeing, if only as an example of where the tried and true Godzilla formula began.

This is my second go-round with this film, once again courtesy of the Criterion box set, and while I haven’t gotten a chance to compare it to my old Classic Media DVD, at the very least the increased resolution helps add detail and clarity to a 60-year-old movie.

Godzilla Raids Again represents a paradigm shift for the series, though it’s hard to say if the filmmakers knew that at the time. The original team, aside from effect director Eiji Tsuburaya, is nowhere to be found, and the film absolutely suffers for it. Director Motoyoshi Oda does a serviceable job here, a couple of horrendous aerial shots of a lifeless Godzilla prop aside. His most signature moments ape scenes from the original (shots of Osaka burning evoke the images of Tokyo’s destruction, but lack the gravity and emotion of the previous film). The same can’t be said for Masaru Sato’s music, which is largely underwhelming when it shows up at all, lending the film one of the most barren soundscapes of the series. However, what truly stands out is the cementing of the Godzilla formula - a basic plot throwing together stock human characters who, for one reason or another stumble into a monster smackdown and then, through a series of contrived coincidences, get dragged into the thick of it. While the explanation might sound condescending, we’re not into that territory yet; the story here is entirely fine, if not a bit underwhelming only because the tight, dreadful plotting of the original looms so high above it.

The human story, such as it is, involves a pair of pilots working for a fishing company, Tsukioka (Hiroshi Koizumi) and Kobayashi (Minoru Chiaki), who spend their days spotting schools of tuna and transmitting their locations back to HQ, where the boss’ daughter Hidemi (Setsuko Wakayama) informs the ship captains and trades flirtatious remarks with Tsukioka. Wispy as it is, not even 10 minutes in Kobayashi has crash-landed on an island, prompting the duo to stumble into Godzilla, who is currently in the middle of what appears to be a grudge match with an airhorn, if the sound design is anything to go by.

But an airhorn it is not - quick shots of Godzilla scrabbling around at something reveal the other precedent set by the film: Godzilla no longer is no longer the only daikaiju in the neighborhood. Godzilla Raids Again marks the introduction of Anguirus, the title holder for Kaiju with Most Romanizations, but as far as I’m aware Anguirus is the official one, so we’re sticking with that. After the two monsters fall into the sea, the two pilots are off to Osaka to let the government know that Godzilla is back, and he’s brought a friend.

In a rare show of series continuity, Dr. Yamane (Takashi Shimura) from the original film is brought back as a consultant in the inevitable scene where the military discusses how to deal with Godzilla and learn what they can about his new opponent. Yamane, along with a zoologist, win some scientific credibility by stating that Godzilla and Anguirus are likely anywhere from from 70-150 million years old, (the original clocks the Big G at a spritely 2 million) then immediately throw it away by explaining that Anguirus’ brain extends into his back and torso, which explains why he’s so nimble and quick. Go figure.

Eventually the two Kaiju end up in Osaka, after attempts to drive Godzilla away with flares fail (Yamane’s role, aside from expert witness, is to explain the plot of the original to anyone in the audience who hadn’t seen it yet). The Godzilla suit is far more form-fitting this time around, and suit actor Harou Nakajima gives it all he’s got, tumbling and clawing at his opponent with remarkable ferocity. Anguirus looks good for the time as well, and the effects team wisely created a visually distinct monster, a spiked, vicious quadraped that’s a stark contrast to the imposing Godzilla. The hand puppets used for close up shots are still rather dreadful, looking nothing like the suits they’re meant to represent, but luckily they don’t stick around far into the series.

The sped up scenes of monster combat (apparently due to a film speed error that Tsuburaya ended up approving of) are unique to the film, a far cry from the personified monster battles that are yet to come. Godzilla and Anguirus brutally claw at each other like wild animals, and scenes of Godzilla biting Anguirus in the neck, drawing blood in the process, might as well be from a different series all together. However, they very much work in the context of the movie, as at this point Godzilla lacked any real personality - he was still very much in his metaphorical stage, and metaphors don’t mug for the camera and pull off wrestling moves. Why the monsters are fighting, or how Anguirus is also so enormous, matter not a bit to the plot, which makes the correct assumption that there’s no other reason for big rubber monsters to exist than to beat the snot out of each other.

If the film has any real marks against it, it’s that it drags in the second half. After the destruction of their Osaka facilities, our protagonists move north to Hokkaido, where they invariably get roped into the hunt for Godzilla, who went out to sea after besting Anguirus in a battle that feels more like the climax of the movie than anything that comes after. What follows is a slog through Kobayashi’s love life, which signals his impending death by atomic breath in the finale to anyone watching. Tsukioka, through connections with the military, does manage to avenge his friend by burying Godzilla under an avalanche of ice in a fairly unique battle sequence that almost overstays its welcome, especially when the team aborts in the middle of the battle to talk strategy in a move that throws the tension right out the window.

All that said, Raids Again does manage to capture some of the original’s dread - deprived of the Oxygen Destroyer that killed the original Godzilla, the humans lack a clear method to deter the beast, and are all the more terrified for it. The destruction of Tokyo looms large over this film, and its scenes of citizens hurriedly evacuating are some of its very best. For a film made in a short amount of time, Godzilla Raids Again does exactly what it needs to, and while it may not be the most terribly memorable of Godzilla’s early outings, it was an important one for the series as a whole.

#monster monday #godzilla

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dvp95 · 5 years

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can’t breathe when you touch my sleeve - chapter 3

pairing: dan howell/phil lester

rating: e (eventually)

warnings: none

tags: alternate universe, slow burn, fluff & humour, tiny bit of inner turmoil wrt sexuality but trust me it’s not that deep, eventual smut, idiots in love

word count: 3,385 for this chapter (12,653 total)

summary: Dan keeps making a fool of himself in interviews, to the point where it’s basically a meme. Now he’s got to sit down for the better part of an hour and sell his show to the YouTuber he’d had a massive crush on when he was a teenager.

read from the beginning on ao3 or on tumblr!

read this chapter on ao3 or here!

Dan has been dreading the seemingly-inevitable call from his family, now that filmed interviews are being uploaded and live interviews are starting in the next few days, so he’s almost disappointed when it never comes.

Surely his parents know he’s in London. There’s promotion for his show on a couple different channels they watch, and his dad has always been fairly good at keeping up with entertainment news. Adrian follows him on Instagram, but - and Dan isn’t proud of this - he can’t remember if Adrian still lives in Wokingham or not. He can’t even remember how old Adrian is without doing the math.

So maybe they haven’t been keeping up with Netflix shit, maybe Adrian isn’t home to tell their parents that he’s in town, but surely, surely some well-meaning friend of the family will say something? That’s always been the case when he comes to town.

After almost a whole week, though, Dan cracks. He calls his mum. It goes to voicemail.

That makes him panic a little, but she texts him an, at work … call you when I’m home x. So, questionable ellipses usage aside, Dan is comfortably reassured that his entire family isn’t dead.

Dan busies himself with catching up on the Heatwave cast interviews he hasn’t watched yet. Patrick doesn’t like to watch them and Jaime couldn’t give a shit one way or the other, but Dan is unable to allow a video of him to exist without knowing exactly what it contains. That’s a control thing, mostly, but he also doesn’t want to be blindsided by a new Daniel Interview Meme that he doesn’t understand.

He types his own name into the YouTube search bar and feels his heartrate pick up when he sees a thumbnail from BBC Radio One.

Thinking about Phil makes his heart race like he’s a teenager with a crush, and he presses play just so he can listen to Phil talk. He can barely remember what he said in the interview, so completely caught up in Phil’s eyes and grin as he’d been.

The interview itself is good. Nothing special, in terms of the actual things they talk about, but Dan can feel the difference in the way he speaks to Phil versus the way he’s spoken to anyone else - comfort. He had been so immediately comfortable with their back-and-forth, only awkward because he’d been trying so hard not to think about what Phil looked like under his nice clothes.

Dan wonders if anyone else can see the difference or if he only notices because he’s so attuned to his own body language, has the advantage of knowing the whole context.

He scrolls idly through the comments and feels heat rise to his face.

Yeah. People noticed.

Lots of comments are just about Dan or the show or the lack of Patrick or Jaime, but there’s more than a few that are about Dan and Phil’s apparent chemistry. Phil, being an out gay man with no partner and a fanbase, probably has to deal with these types of comments all the time, but it’s new for Dan.

Dan shakes his head to try and clear it. He doesn’t want to get stuck in YouTube comments and feel impotent irritation every time someone replies, ‘uh, Daniel Howell is straight’, like they know him. Like he’s ever said that.

He’s been photographed with women, because he’s casually dated them over the past decade, but he’s never said he’s straight. And it never works out with them anyway.

Dating girls is fine - they’re all softness and little sighs and hands that look so extremely small wrapped in his own - but he doesn’t think he can ever be with one for a significant amount of time. That thought is one he usually keeps locked in his mental box, but. He doesn’t shy away from it this time.

Even if he could admit it to himself proper, it’s easier for Dan to just not talk about it publicly. He hasn’t dated anyone seriously enough for it to be an issue in ten years. Nobody needs to know that every time he’s inside a woman he remembers why it never progresses past that.

It’s fine. It’s always fine. It’s just, if he’s completely honest with himself, 'fine’ isn’t what he wants to settle for.

“Moot point anyway,” Dan mumbles to himself, clicking over to Phil’s channel for a distraction. “Not like you’re gonna do anything about it, you big fucking coward.”

Phil has uploaded the video he told Dan about when Dan was busy trying not to stare at his mouth. It’s such a welcome distraction that Dan almost doesn’t clock the title and thumbnail for the buffoonery they are.

IS MY DOG PSYCHIC?

The title doesn’t change when Dan blinks. Neither does the image of Thor, edited to be wearing round glasses in front of a crystal ball.

“What,” Dan says, clicking on the video before any of it really sinks in.

“Hi guys,” says Phil. He already looks like he’s trying not to laugh. “I know you read the title and you’re like, what, but I promise it is not clickbait! As I’m sure many of you know, my grandma had 'the gift’, and sometimes I think she passed it on to me. The question is, did I pass it on to my son?”

Phil pulls an over-exaggerated thoughtful expression and then breaks, giggling and shaking his head at himself.

“I know it’s stupid, but, I also figured it might be funny? I dunno, you tell me.”

It’s exactly as silly as Dan expects it to be. Phil sits on his floor with Thor while the dog 'reads’ his tarot cards. Dan can see why this video gave Phil a hard time in editing. There are a lot of close ups of Thor and the cards, filmed more like a comedy skit than a vlog.

He finds himself laughing along and getting way too invested in what the tarot cards mean, and he knows first hand how much work Phil put into this, so Dan clicks the share button before he can overthink it.

tbh watching amazingthorgi do anything could make a believer out of me, he tweets alongside the link.

Most of America is asleep still, but that doesn’t stop hundreds of people replying. Dan’s really got nothing better to do while he waits for his mum to call, so he settles in to respond to some of them. He makes a couple bad jokes, commiserates with some of them over not being able to have a dog yet, and ignores any mention of Phil.

Maybe that’s childish of him. He is sharing Phil’s work, after all. He sighs and replies to an innocuous question about how he knows Phil. met during this and then he let me meet his dog so now he’s not getting rid of me, Dan says with a link to the BBC Radio One interview.

His phone chirps with a Twitter notification and he taps it warily, still scrolling through replies on his laptop.

@AmazingPhil @danielhowell You saw his face now you’re a believer? He’ll tell your fortune anytime! It’s accompanied with dog and sparkle and crystal ball and, inexplicably, sock emojis.

Dan laughs, the sound of it almost surprising him. It’s impossible not to feel some kind of way when Phil is the way he is, so cheerful and dorky and fun.

He likes the tweet, but responds by messaging Phil - do you have me on notif or are you just always online - because he doesn’t want to add any more fuel to the fire that is Twitter stans. He can already imagine the argument threads about his sexuality that he usually tries so hard to avoid.

The thought of strangers picking apart something he’s not even comfortable with himself is abhorrent, makes him itch, and he puts on some older AmazingPhil videos to calm himself back down.

That depends

on?

Which one is lamer lmao

Phil’s voice filling the lonely hotel room and his words taking up space on Dan’s screen where something anxiety-inducing might have otherwise been is almost enough to make Dan as comfortable as Phil’s physical presence does.

Almost. It’s unreal how much Dan wants to reach through both of his screens to pull Phil closer.

Dan hides his smile in his hand, even though nobody is around to see it, and replies, tbh those are equally lame so you might as well go with the truth

I was on Twitter anyway. I really shouldn’t be, I’m supposed to be responding to emails. Phil keeps typing, then stops, then repeats that process a few times before he finally adds, I should go do that, but you can call or facetime me if you want to keep talking or whatever? It’s easier not to type/text while I’m doing emails lol

And, in a third message, a string of numbers. Phil’s phone number.

Well, that sounds better than using Phil’s videos as background noise. Dan shuts his laptop and gets out of bed to fuss with his hair.

“You’re such an idiot,” he tells his judgemental reflection. It, thankfully, does not respond.

Once he’s gotten his hair into some semblance of order - it’s mostly still straight from yesterday, but it got all sleep-mussed and a bit wavy in the front overnight - Dan tosses on a shirt and video calls the number Phil gave him.

Phil picks up with a big grin and sleepy eyes, and Dan almost hangs up on him to stop the heart palpitations in their tracks. “Hi!”

“Hey, you just wake up?” Dan asks, getting comfortable in the hotel room armchair. It feels weird to lie back down in bed while they’re chatting. Phil is at his desk, phone propped up so he can use both hands to type. His glasses are a little crooked and his shirt is too big on him, exposing his collarbones whenever he leans forward. Unfortunately, he looks like serious wank material right now.

“Yeah, had my first coffee already, though,” says Phil. “You would not like me before my coffee.”

“Barely like you now, mate,” Dan says to try and hide his blush at the idea of seeing Phil first thing in the morning. Phil just laughs. It’s tinny through Dan’s phone speaker, but it still makes Dan feel warm.

“You’re awfully chatty for someone who doesn’t like me,” says Phil.

“I’m only bored, don’t flatter yourself,” says Dan. “My mum’s supposed to call me in a few hours, so I’m just kind of waiting around til then.”

“Oh, yeah, you haven’t had the chance to go home yet, have you?” Phil’s tongue pokes out between his teeth as he concentrates on whatever he’s reading. “My mum would be going out of her gourd. When was the last time you went home?”

Dan doesn’t really like the way that Phil keeps calling it 'home.’ Wokingham hasn’t been home in a very long time.

He doesn’t want to get into that, though, so he just shrugs. “Uh, Christmas?”

“Dan,” Phil says, looking appalled. “It’s August.”

“I don’t live here,” says Dan. “And I’m busy. My family gets it.”

Phil hums, a little disapproving still. Dan has to bite his tongue so he doesn’t say anything scathing, reminding himself that some people actually like their parents.

It’s not that Dan doesn’t love them, because he does, it’s just. Complicated.

“Do you get to see your family often?” Dan asks, desperate to get the attention off of how shit a son he is.

“Not as often as I’d like,” says Phil. He sounds so genuinely sad about it, like he really would like nothing more than to go visit his parents every weekend. “My brother lives in town, so I see him a lot.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“Yeah, he’s -” Phil cuts himself off, then, and gives Dan an apologetic sort of look through his screen. “You don’t want to hear about my family.”

“I do,” Dan says, and he’s surprised by how much he means it. He shifts in the armchair. It isn’t that comfortable. “Dude, I already know every song on your iTunes, what’s so weird about telling me stuff about your family? They clearly mean a lot to you.”

He has no idea how to interpret the expression on Phil’s face, but whatever it is shifts into a smile as he turns back to his computer. “Okay, his name’s Martyn, he’s older than me, we work together -”

This time, Dan cuts him off. “You do? I haven’t seen him on your channel.”

“He’s not really interested in being on camera. We actually run IRL Merch together, although honestly it’s mostly Martyn.”

Phil explains the business to Dan, who feels himself getting more and more awed by the amount of stuff Phil does on any given day. It isn’t just sitting in front of his camera and then in front of his computer for a handful of hours.

Granted, Dan never thought that being a YouTuber was easy, or everyone would do it, but Phil seems to add things onto his plate that he doesn’t really need to do.

Dan listens for a little while, changing positions in the armchair a few times before he gives up and flops back onto the bed.

“Phil,” he says, holding his phone high above his head and making a face at the angle. It’s fine, really, Phil has barely been glancing at him this whole time. Now that Dan has some kind of idea about the number of people Phil works with, he gets the hours of emails thing. “Do you ever take a break? Hang out with your friends?”

“What friends?” Phil jokes, but Dan senses there’s some truth behind it.

“Okay, first of all,” says Dan, “big mood.”

Phil’s laugh seems like it’s surprised out of him, and his eyes flick to his phone again. They linger on Dan for a long moment before turning away again. Although, to be fair, that may be lag from shitty hotel wifi. “Is it?”

“Yeah, man, like I’ve got any fucking friends. Second of all, you need to take some breaks or you’re going to burn the fuck out.”

“Trust me, I know,” says Phil.

“I know Thor already reminds you to take breaks,” says Dan. “But he can’t force you to. I can.”

“You’re gonna force me to take breaks?” Phil hums, his eyebrows raising. “How exactly are you going to manage that when you’re back in Atlanta?”

“I can be very annoying with nothing but an internet connection,” Dan promises. “You wanna see?”

“No, no, I believe you, and I need to get this done, please don’t.”

They both laugh, quiet, and Dan curls up on his side to just watch Phil work for a little while. Phil runs his fingers through his hair every so often and mouths along to whatever he types. Dan has no idea how one person can simultaneously be the hottest and the most adorable thing ever.

“I have a brother too,” Dan offers.

“Do you?” Phil asks, more surprised than Dan expects him to be. “That’s not on your Wikipedia.”

“He doesn’t like the attention,” says Dan. It’s a half-truth. Most of what he says about his family are half-truths. “But you’re not, like, a stan account or the media or whatever.”

“Technically, I am both,” Phil jokes. “I’ll keep it to myself, though, don’t worry.”

Dan isn’t worried. He trusts Phil not to go blabbing about him on the radio, even with something as small as Adrian’s existence.

It feels a little strange to trust someone so immediately, and part of Dan wants to pull back, put some distance between them, because the combination of trust and a deepening crush can only spell disaster. He’s not going to do that. He’s only got Phil nearby for another two weeks.

After they’ve finished their media circus in London, then Edinburgh, then Dublin, Dan is off to France with Patrick and Jaime. They’re only hitting a handful of international media press, but that’s more than they were asked to do last year. It’s exciting to be expanding this way, to have something to point to and say, 'I did that before I was 30’.

And when they’re done with the press tour, Dan… goes home. Back to Atlanta, where his apartment is being sublet during his summer travelling.

They don’t even know yet if Heatwave will get a fourth season. It’s a bit of an industry joke that Netflix shows rarely make it past the third. Dan doesn’t even want to consider how Atlanta will feel without a steady filming job down the street.

Probably not much like home. Nowhere feels all that much like home, if Dan’s honest.

“Hey, you still with me?”

Dan blinks away the doom and gloom of his uncertain future and refocuses on the conversation he’s supposed to be a part of. Phil is looking at him now, the sort of undivided attention that makes Dan’s cheeks burn.

“Yeah, sorry,” says Dan. “I’m still here. Have you made a dent in those emails?”

Not the most graceful change of subject, but Phil allows it with a small snort. “No, for I am Sisyphus, doomed to answer a dozen emails only for another dozen to arrive.”

“Maybe if you didn’t have, like, three jobs, this wouldn’t be a problem,” Dan points out. “I get maybe two important emails a day. It’s great.”

“Maybe,” says Phil. He’s still just looking at Dan, his chin resting on an open palm.

“What?” Dan asks, feeling a smile tug at his lips.

Phil smiles back, brighter. “Nothing.”

There’s a warmth in his face, visible even through the mediocre FaceTime quality, that makes Dan’s stomach twist all up in knots. He doesn’t know how to handle that at all. “My mum’s calling I gotta go bye,” he says in one breath, hanging up before Phil can even react.

While he waits for his heart to stop pounding, Dan stares at the hotel ceiling and wonders what the fuck is wrong with him.

–

Dan’s mum does call, eventually. He’s been fucking around on Guild Wars and cursing the wifi for god only knows how long, refusing to check his phone so he doesn’t have to be faced with another message - or the lack of one - from Phil. Dan finishes the raid and then calls his mum back.

“Daniel, hi,” she says, sounding frazzled in the way she always seems to.

“Hey, mum.” It feels weird, now that he’s got her on the phone, but he pushes past that discomfort. “I was just calling to let you know that I’m in London.”

The sound of a door slamming comes through before his mum says, “Well, yes, dear. I know that.”

She doesn’t sound upset with him. More than anything, she sounds confused. Like she doesn’t know why he’s even telling her this. Like it hasn’t even occurred to her to nag her son for a visit. Dan has to swallow past a lump in his throat, not sure why he wishes she was angry.

“Oh,” he says. Allows a long moment of quiet to pass, just in case she wants to explain herself. She doesn’t. “Well. Okay. Do you - are you busy weekend after next? I could come see you before we leave for the continent.”

“That’s quite short notice, dear,” his mum says, and Dan experiences a dizzying rush of relief and distress before she continues. “But I’m sure I can make some time for dinner.”

Dan exhales. Dinner. He can do dinner.

“That sounds good,” he says. Another half-truth. “I’ll text you?”

“Yes, yes,” his mum says, already sounding distracted. “Text me and we’ll make a proper plan. Work hard til then, okay? I love you.”

“I love you too. Bye.”

The call ends almost as abruptly as his call with Phil, but Dan is okay with that.

im going to see my fam before i leave england jsyk, Dan texts to Phil. Phil sends him celebratory emojis in response. And maybe dinner with his family will be horrible, maybe it will be great, most likely it will be slightly uncomfortable, but at least he isn’t disappointing Phil on top of everyone else he’s let down.

#phanfiction #phanfic #phan #dnp fic #can't breathe when you touch my sleeve #words words words

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hellyeahheroes · 5 years

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Uncanny X-Men #11 is Outright Vile

Women in refrigerators. POCs killed for white people narratives. Anti-vaccinator and pro-suicide messages. Return of FascistCap. This book has it all. So obviously, all kinds of trigger warnings below.

I will not be posting any pages from the Uncanny X-Men #11. Not a single one. At least aside from that first page which reads like a bad joke anyway. Yes, this stuff is an actual page of this book. And I urge others to do the same and not post anything from it. When previously I would find this book to just be awful at this point it has reached levels of being openly mean-spirited and spiteful. While Matthew Rosenberg talks on his twitter how he wanted to discuss serious topics in this issue, dealing with personal experience of self-harm and suicidal thoughts, neither he nor anyone else at Marvel took care to actually warn potential readers the book flat out shows a suicide scene for shock value and I have already heard reports it has triggered people. So I urge everyone to not post these pages less we trigger more people.

Yes, the book has a character commit suicide. The story has a subplot of Cyclops searching for Blindfold, whom Rosenberg claims to be one of his favorite X-Men. And after reading this issue I have flat out said on twitter and I will say it here - could have fooled me. Scott finds her too late, as she already has slit her wrists in the bathtub. So this is what her story amounts too. She dies so that Scott Summers can feel sad. Or sadder, he wasn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows since page one. A character created after 90′s and not popular enough to get resurrected in the next 20 years dies so that people who come back to life more often than Jesus can pretend death in comics still has a meaning. A woman dies so that a man can feel sad. The page above is right. Every X-men story really IS the same.

This is not delivered with any respect whatsoever either. On the previous page, we had Madrox telling Scott where he can find Ruth and to leave her alone and then we get a splash of her death with coloring and art so bad you had to actually study it carefully to realize she is, in fact, not naked. As far as lack of respect goes it is out there with that godawful Heroes in Crisis cover showing dead Poison Ivy, wrists slit, ass up.

What’s more is that at the end we have a backup story, so-called Last Blindfold Story. Which pretty much explains that she did it because she’s been tormented by visions of her own death and cannot see any possible future in which she does not get killed. And this is very obviously a clear metaphor for invasive thoughts, all the dark scenarios people tend to run in their heads about how everything is going to turn horrible, there is nothing good awaiting us in life, no hope or future, just continuous series of crushing failures, disappointments, humiliations and all-around misery so it is better if we just killed ourselves. I know that feeling, even though I am not diagnosed with anything. I will say even I had these feelings to deal with after coming today from a, particularly disastrous day at work that made me dread my future and indeed made me think of killing myself. And then I’ve read this book and do you want to know how this whole story came out to me? It told me that this voice telling me to end myself is right, that every scenario I envision not only will happen but is inevitable and it is better to just kill myself. Thankfully, being spoiled the contents beforehand made it I reacted to the pages more with anger than getting put into an even shittier mood, I certainly did not need it.

I do beleive Matthew Rosenberg, just like Tom King on Heroes in Crisis, means well, I really do. I do believe each of them is trying to tell a personal story. But we really need to sit down and talk about how the mainstream comics portray and handle topics like anxiety depression, other kinds of mental illness and disorders, self-harm or suicide because for every book that deals with it with respect like recent Unstoppable Wasp or Mister Miracle, and you notice these are always niche titles, we have a high-profile book that completely botches it for shock value and preserving the status quo. Rosenberg might be working through some personal issues but he does so in a way that doesn’t seem to realize the damage he is doing all around.

Speaking of shock value this issue also casually kills of Loa, one of Marvel’s very few Pacific Islander characters. Worse that scene, in the end, serves nothing, it is there to shock you and does not add up anything. You cannot even say that it was done to push Blindfold to her suicide or to show the situation really is that serious. It amounts to nothing in Ruth’s storyline and the latter is being hammered down through the entire issue anyway, this is completely redundant death done only to get people talking. How am I supposed to believe that X-Men writers and editorial really, as they claim to, care for these characters when they write something that treats them as disposable. Similarly, aging of Velocidad done from overuse of his powers is there only to nod Wolverine more into getting back into the game, something that so many other elements, including his conversation with Blindfold, already accomplish, making it redundant. What does that leave us with, however? Two POC characters killed or alerted beyond saving to show how serious the situation is and two teenage girls killed to make things look bad and grim for our manly heroes? For a franchise that prides itself for being a metaphor for minorities, X-Men sure treat women and minorities as nothing but props for stories about white guys.

When we are at treating other characters as props I cannot help but mention that Captain America, Black Widow, and Winter Soldier show up here to protect a mutant-hating rally from any mutants who would want to start a riot. And even though they tell you they want to protect both sides Cap sure didn’t step in when the mob tried to kill Cyclops for speaking his mind but stepped in only when he started fighting back. He had no real answer to Summers accusing him of protecting fascists either. I do wonder what do Mark Waid and Ta-Nehishi Coates think of their efforts to fix Captain America after Secret Empire being flushed down the drain for the sake of an outdated message of mutant isolationism. They did the same with Phil Urich, making him a coward who refuses to do his job out of fear of public opinion. And topped on some old-fashioned ageism by having Chamber, a Gen X character, go and tell Scott, a Baby Boomer, to give up...while Millenials are sacrificed to prop said Baby boomer’s story. And I don’t care Jordan D. White is ranting on twitter with Marvel sliding timescale O5 are now “true” Millennials, nobody cared for this thing in a long, long time and he comes off as bitter old man trying to pretend he is still young.

Speaking of the said rally we need to address the problem of the whole mutant vaccine plotline. And is it me or does the whole thing comes off as anti-vaccinators propaganda, with evil bigots trying to practice eugenics by forcing mandatory vaccines on kids that somehow work on something genetic? Is this really the way you want to use the mutant metaphor? To equate your heroes with a bunch of idiots who don’t want to vaccinate their kids for stupid and often bigoted reasons like assinine belief vaccines cause autism and they’d rather their kid died than be autistic? Is this really a message you want to be sending? Maybe next X-men will start wearing MAGA hats, proclaim Earth flat and draw comparisons to “blue lives” defenders?

It is not that the story is dark. I like dark stories. I love them even I’d say. But there is a difference between being dark and being pointlessly grimdark for the sake of it. One of the reasons why I read superhero comics and why I am a fan of Earn Your Happy Ending narratives is that I find inspirations in seeing superheroes being knocked down and still raising, still pressing forward until they win against all the odds and prove that yes, there is a reason to fight another day. But so far Uncanny X-Men made it abundantly clear this will not be another day in which I or my generation are welcome. I have no doubt X-Men will win in the end. but it will not be X-men with Blindfold and it will not be X-Men with Loa and it will be not X-Men with Velocidad. It will not be X-Men with any of the characters I care about at all. It will be X-Men that made it clear not only am I not welcome here, the book actively things the world will be a better place if I and my entire generation were gone so that it can relive good old days alone.

But hey, it had two guys beating up mooks on a splash page so it CLEARLY means the franchise is on the right trac /sarcasm.

- Admin

#Uncanny X-men #Blindfold #Loa #Velocidad #Marvel

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 5 years

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Marvel Team-Up Volume 4 #3 Thoughts

And so comes the end of this arc and I guess Eve Ewing’s whole run???? Didn’t know this was an anthology team up title jeez.

Did it go out with a bang or a whimper? Well...a bit of both.

...And by both I mean there were literal bangs in the issue so the whimpers...you get it...

Okay so for starters the cover lies again like in issue #1. The cover promises us Peter in Kamala’s body with spider powers and Kamala in Peter’s body with Inhuman powers.

And in the issue we get...the same shit from the past 2 issues, standard Freaky Friday.

It’s less bad here than in issue #1 though. Issue #1’s lie was actively reductive to the reading experience. Here it’s just artistic licence and really the idea of seeing Spidey with Kamala’s powers and vice versa is only good for a strong visual. If Peter in Kamala’s body got the same power set it’d seriously undermine the creative legs of the Freaky Friday dynamic in the first place. So a quick cover for an eye catching visual is good enough.

Moving on...this issue is kind of the weakest instalment in this already kind of shakey arc. If you turned your brain off you could kind of enjoy issues #1-2 but the creative energy in this issue was waning a lot.

You can tell this because once the Jackal, the villain of this arc, gets defeated the issue continues for over 11 pages. Over 11 pages of restoring the status quo.

And when I say restoring the status quo I don’t simply mean Peter and Kamala inevitably swap back, I mean they swap back and also forget everything that happened, leaving you wondering what the point of any of this was.

Kamala will go forward in life never knowing the impending dread of job interviews or unpaid bills and Peter Parker will never remember the pain and discomfort of a period or the sweet taste of cotton candy lip gloss...okay maybe for both parties forgetting this ever happened isn’t the worst idea.

But the issue could’ve been mitigated if Ewing had just restructured the story a little bit so that the swap lasted way less than two days. In fact even if they forgot what happened wouldn’t it raise big red flags that 2 days have elapsed within which they remember nothing?

Even putting this aside the story continues the trajectory of having a lot of small problems that add up. Some of these don’t break the issue per se but the numeracy of them adds up to an over all lack of thought and planning put into the story.

Let’s talk about one example I actually forgot to bring up in issue #2. So in the first issue when the Jackal showed up and declared Rosario’s Polly tech would be useful in his cloning experiments my first thought was ‘how’? But I let it slide because maybe the story would elaborate.

And in issue #2 it did but having Spidey throw out a theory, and in issue #3 we got that theory confirmed.

The plan goes like this. The Jackal’s wants to use Rosario’s tech alongside his cloning tech to create clones with the consciousness of another person.

When that happened my thoughts Digivolved from ‘how?’ into ‘why?’

Like...okay, the Jackal has a God complex.

OBVIOUSLY.

Even shitty BND era writers picked up on that.

This would definitely come under the remit of playing God, but even during the nadir of the Clone Saga (we call that Maximum Clonage kids) you could just about see the method in his madness. It wasn’t rationale but it added up within his warped logic. He wanted to destroy life on Earth and replace it with the life HE created.

Cool.

Now in this story he wants to...basically transfer someone’s mind into someone else’s body, but not even their actual body a copy of their actual body.

What possible purpose would that serve?

I could KIND of see it if he wanted to transfer people’s minds into clones of their own bodies. Like what happened to Xavier after he was infected with the Brood.

But into a clone of someone else’s body?

That’s some Underpants Gnome level planning.

Not to mention can’t he basically already do that?

He created the Carrion virus IIRC which genetically reprograms the infected subject into basically believing themselves to be Miles Warren. He was also able to update Ben Reilly’s memories so they’d match Peter Parker’s. If you can do that then surely you could already put someone’s consciousness into a body that isn’t theirs? Or at least the scientific leap from one to the other isn’t that huge.

Another rather significant issue with the plot revolves around the Isotope Genome Accelerator. Yeah remember that? The thing that separated Peter and Spider-Man back in Spencer’s opening arc.

Remember how it heavily implied to explode in ASM v5 #5 and thus merge Peter and Spidey back together? Apparently not. It was either undamaged or got rebuilt apparently. Even better it has plot convenience powers now. It’s used to swap Peter and Kamala again.

So just so we are clear the Isotope Genome Accelerator’s scientific applications include:

- Irradiating shit

- Irradiating house spiders to the point where biting people gives them spider powers which may or may not include organic webbing

- Removing super powered mutations (see Spider-Man: the Final Adventure #4)

- Temporarily ‘masking’ super powered mutations (see above)

- Separating people into different sides of themselves (and also maybe creating different clothes for them too?)

- Swapping people’s minds which is somehow an extension of the latter application

- Copies and/or transfers the super powers of one person to another (we’ll get back to that)

Holy shit this thing can do everything short of toast bread!

Good lord...the issue tries to explain that it’s ability to separate people into two different entities is how they’re going to affect the swap but...that doesn’t make a lick of sense even by the already bullshit science in play.

How is physically separating the thrill seeking adventurer from the responsible everyman out of the one person (or in theory the man from the cannibalistic lizard monster) remotely similar to swapping the minds of two people?

What did it separate both minds from both bodies and then...they just snapped back to where they belonged?*

This isn’t even mentioning how for what is presumably a gag the Accelerator also apparently gave Rosario Kamala’s powers. How? Why? Does this mean Kamala lost her powers? Does it mean the Accelerator copied her powers into Rosario?

Never explained who fucking knows the Isotope Genome Accelerator is the plot device that just keeps on giving.

There are other lesser contrivances in the issue that are contrivances nevertheless.

Remember how I said in issue #1 how it’s weird that everyone is so concerned about destroying Rosario’s polly device because surely she has the plans to another one? Well this issue confirms she does, she has schematics to another device.

Which raises two big questions.

a) If the device is going to make all the difference in swapping Peter and Kamala back...why do they need the accelerator? Why the drama and tension over that, they could just build another device and swap back easy peasey

b) Why was there any tension over destroying the device in issue #1 and thus kicking off this whole arc’s premise?

Another piece of technological contrivance comes from the chip Peter off panel implanted in his brain ages ago without telling the readers. So apparently it was useless all along because it’d only work if whoever was trying to mind swap with him also had a chip.**Oh and it’s eroded away any how.

This is a mind bender this one.

We have a non-Spidey comic by a non-Spidey office establishing Spider-Man did something major that was very smart and very obvious provided it was possible (which we were never led to believe it was in Spidey stories proper). That same non-Spidey comic upon establishing this plot device then uses it as a possible explanation for the scenario it’s setting up. Then in resolving that scenario reveals the plot device wasn’t working, never was going to work, wasn’t a factor in the first place and thus paints Spider-Man as stupid.

WTF!

WTF was the point of the anti-body swap chip then?

You might as well have never had that in the comic and thereby not made Spider-Man storytellers look dumb for not considering that or made the character look dumb for not considering it enough.

Just lose that plot point altogether and nothing changes.

Everything else wrong with this issue is less egregious, it’s smaller things that further spell out the lack of attention being paid to the story.

They range from minor stuff like typos to pretentious narration at the start of the issue.

Not only pretentious by the way but pointless given how they forget what happens and it doesn’t seem to serve the story. It pays lip service to us as people accepting our good and bad traits but...that hasn’t got anything to d with this story in the first place. Also after 2 issues of talking out loud NOW thought captions are a thing?

Let’s see what other shit is wrong with this issue.

Oh right, Rosario has been tied up and conscious in her office at ESU (on a weekday no less) all night but NOBDOY heard her calling for help in all that time? Or she didn’t try yelling before Peter and Kamala conveniently showed up?

Not to mention Kamala says her spider sense (which wasn’t working in the last issue for no explained reason) is alerting her to maybe getting the right location for Rosario but...didn’t they have her office listed? Wasn’t that what they were following? And why would the spider sense (from her and Peter’s POV) tingle if there wasn’t any danger the issue implies it’s the mere fact they’re zeroing in on Rosario.

Other smaller problems include Peter complaining that teens are so mean as though this is a revelation. Peter...Parker...is learning teens can be jerks....um...did Ewing not read Amazing Fantasy #15...page 1...?

Similarly talks about how he’s learned to focus on the problems of the present and not worry about the future. My kneejerk reaction to that is to call BS, Peter clearly does fret over the future.

Final little complaints Spidey bangs on about his knees not hurting when Kamala in his older body never brings them up and seems fine. Aaaaaand there is a line of dialogue from kamala about how the Jackal doesn’t understand that humans are more than bodies and stored ideas yadda yadda yadda,. But like...from her point of view the Jackal never said any of that shit. I guess maybe she’s right but she shouldn’t know to be right if you see what I mean.

I’ll finish off with a little positivity.

The art was lovely again.

Spidey owning Jackal with Kamala’s powers was bad ass.

Spider-Man acting the older mentor figure to Kamala was awesome, just wish it wasn’t undermined by him being in her body when he was doing that.

So all in all...this arc is very unimpressive.

You know how online, maybe on tumblr, maybe on CBR, maybe on Google images or scans daily you see a selection of pages from a comic book story? Basically the highlights?

Yeah if you were to experience issue #1 and #2 like that that’s how I’d recommend experiencing this story.

Reading or God forbid buying it is highly NOT recommended.

*Shit now I think about it the way Roasrio’s device was explained it doesn’t even add up to being able to mind swap. It turns the mind into data and stores it. Okay...how does that mean we’re swapping the minds of two meatbag humans with no mechanical storage device or interface involved?

**Even though again Doc Ock DIDN’T swap minds with Peter he uploaded a copy of his mind into his head and vice versa, Peter’s real mind was still in his body the whole time but buried.

#Spider-Man #ms. marvel #ms marvel #Kamala Khan #peter parker #marvel team-up #Miles Warren #the jackal #jackal #Eve L. Ewing

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elektra121 · 5 years

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Dear Yuletide Writer!

It is this time of the year again and I’m very happy we both take part in Yuletide - and that I have you as my assigned author (or, as a pinch hitter)! You seem to be a talented writer and very giving person, and also to have quite good taste in fandoms - otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this, would you?

Now, here are some things about me: I am German (so feel absolutely free to write in German if you are able and want to!). I work as a teacher for biology and German literature and I love all things artsy and crafty. Which, of course, includes fanfiction, since it is both artsy and crafty. In order to help you find some inspiration and ideas for the story you’re about to write, I’d like to tell you some things about what I like and dislike and what I love about my fandoms. Here we go:

Likes: I like Happy Endings! :) Yay! Especially at Christmas. Really, I do. I honestly believe Happy Endings to be one of the things that made mankind tell stories in the first place. This world can be scary and mean and unfair and hard - so why not use our creative mind to create a different world that is peaceful and good and fair (in the end)? Don’t get me wrong, a Happy Ending need not be all sweet sunshine and sugary cupcakes and unicorns. From time to time, I enjoy a good darkfic, but especially at Christmas time I prefer something at least optimistic in tone. I hereby confess that I’m a hopeless idealist and romantic. (Although, I think, the Nibelungenlied may be a story that really is not made for a happy ending, so you absolutely can go darker with this fandom.)

While I appreciate some good humor, yet for some reason plain comedy isn’t really my cup of tea.

I like the characters in my fandoms! Very much. They are the cause I chose those fandoms for yuletide! And likely you like them, too. So show to me what makes them special, what they can do that no other person could, what drove their authors to tell us about them in the first place, and most of all, what you love about them! I’d love to read about the lesser known sides of characters - but that does not mean I won’t enjoy their established traits very much, too. It is both that makes them complex and life-like. I should add that I really am much more interested in the “good guys”, who - in my eyes, too often get disregarded in favour of “the interesting wicked guys”. It is my sincere opinion that the goodies can be at least as interesting.

What about porn? Yes, please - if you feel like it. Personally, I’m not so much into the technical details as in the feelings for the participants, the intimacy, the thrill, the thoughts, the small things, a touch of realism. And I much rather would have a story without any sexytimes than one with a scene that does not stick true to the overall vibe or has make you feel uncomfortable in writing. In case of kinkyness - if you can justify it in-character and in-story, this is absolutely fine! Maybe a little festish may work wonders to symbolize some deep-rooted feelings or wishes? (I believe, this could work quite well for the Kudrunlied…) Of course, if you do not like any of it, that’s completely fine, too!

Speaking of which… Dislikes: As I’m sure you may have guessed from what I said already, I don’t like fics that include character death(s) and accurately described cruelty (physically or otherwise). I’d prefer the (main) characters to stay alive. At least at Christmas. Please - do not let anyone die and please don’t make atrocities the point of your story. Otherwise I don’t think I’d be able to enjoy it.

What I like about the fandoms: Charité (TV, 2017) There is so much I like about this series - somehow it seemed to be a dream come true: all the loving research that went into the tiniest nerdiest details of medicine history (Virchow’s bureau, the notion that not everyone instantly bought the “illness is caused by little animals”-idea of Koch, injections being given into the shoulder, Behring using his own horse for research purposes etc. etc.), the charming aesthetics, the overall idea of a series about an important moment in medicine history, the nod to the crucial part deaconesses (women!) and Diakonie (the idea of Christian charity!) at whole played in the establishing of modern medicine! Being a biology teacher, I knew about most of the persons shown, yet had never had a chance to see and show them to my pupils this lifelike, even if of course the series is fictional! Also, it is great how so many diverse life styles of the Wilhelminian Era were shown… I’ve never seen anything the like before.

Here are some plot bunnies that you may or may not use: I'd love to have a "Chrismassy" fic - Advent and Christmas time at the Charité. How do the people we love from the series celebrate? How do they prepare for the season? Do the give or receive gifts? What do they love (or dread) about Christmas? Does it bring back memories or do they make new ones? Would like the mood to be light and warmhearted and festive in general, even if darker tones are inevitable, I think, given the time period and it being a hospital. Obviously, my greatest love is for Therese/Ida or Therese&Ida, but feel free to include as many people from the series as you like. I'm sure Matron Martha and Nurse Edith for example would lend themselves nicely to this. Or: Sister Therese is sent to a sanatorium - maybe there she comes to terms with herself, gets visited by Ida or meets another love interest – more or less a more optimistic, feminist version of the MagicMountain ;) Or solely some little getaway of her with Ida on a Sunday leave in Berlin.

Feel free to use as many characters from the series and make up as many OCs as you like! I would be especially delighted if Matron Martha makes an appearance.

Kudrunlied I really like the dynamics between the women of this epic. Especially Gerlint - Kudrun - Ortrun.

Gerlint could have been shown so easily as simply the evil queen, but isn’t. The author calls her “she-wolf” and tells of her cruel deeds and plans on Kudrun, yet in the same instance, shows her as competent queen, dutiful wife and loving mother who may have deserved death, but not like this and not what happened to her body. I love the complexity in this! The relationship between Gerlint and Kudrun seems to have something of a hate-love, with not so little sexual undertones in the scene, where Gerlint plans to whip Kudrun by herself, with no one around. If you want to elaborate on this impression (not neccessarily this scene!),

And think of Ortrun, who seems to be the nicest person who ever lived! Caught between two stools, with her duty and love for her mother and brother - and on the other hand side her loyality and friendship (or is there even more?) for Kudrun. Comparing her to the other two women, she seems the weak one - but is she? She was the only one who dared to protest Kudrun’s ill treatment - even if only by crying in public.

(Also, Hildburg, the quiet, yet totally loyal friend – why is so so steady and persistent when everybody around her is not? From where does she takes her resources – in a situation as bad as hers is? And how did Hartmuot perceive all this? He seems a knight in shining armour, a good man through and through - and yet he did not gain the one he loved.) Feel free to use as many people from the epic as you like. My favourite, I think, would be Gerlint, though. And I really would enjoy some femslash – although absolutely, this isn’t necessary, especially if it isn’t your coup of tea.

Not a person in the story (or maybe, in some way, it is): I really love how much this story is about the sea! Ships and crashing waves, castles that have windows that look out to the ocean, whole battles on sandbanks, longing for your loved ones on the other side of the great water, standing in the foam with naked feet, freezing and washing and living and loving by the banks of that wonderful, enigmatic, overwhelming, epic force of nature.

DSA – Das Schwarze Auge (The Black Eye – Pen&Paper Roleplaying Game)

If you are not familiar with this fandom (which is highly likely), it is something like „the“ German Dungeons&Dragons. And, sadly, because of its overwhelming mass of fantasy world folklore and history would not make for a good substitute fandom, I’m afraid.

In this world, I always felt most „at home“ in Nostria, one of the two „warring kindoms“. People from the Empire may look down upon that small swathe of land in the North, with its mostly unlettered people, prone to superstition and fatalistic resignation, doomed to war against their neighbor country forever. Yet it is the land of helpful, hard-working, resourceful people at the same time, persevering all strokes of fate.

And the story of „our beloved Queen“ quite touched me. Just imagine being a student learning for exams, then the news of an epidemic in the city – and the next thing you know is the information that everyone of your relatives is dead and – congratulations! you are queen! (And bound forever to this jerkwater country and shark pool of nobility, shattering all dreams of seeing the world and becoming a great magician.) I really liked her depiction in Carolina Möbis‘ „Mehrer der Macht“. And despite me normally not being a big fan of romance (sub)plots in novels, found the one of Yolande and Eilert highly believable… and highly sweet. There is no fiery passion, no brimming-with-desire-underneath, no epic declaration of undying love, no princessy behaviour, no shining armour. They are two adults that happen to share a lot of the same problems and ideals, understanding each other only too well, and their mutual love and fondness for each other stems from deepest respect for the other person. Even if, on the surface, they have so little in common, even if they disagree about a lot of things (or maybe, because of this) their love story was one of the most convincing ones I’ve read in my lifetime. So sad their fate will be some state of constant arguing, since this is Nostria and they are bound to the magic of the land.

I would love to have some happy little refuge for them both – some short time, somewhere, little getaways from the oppressing dutys of everyday politics for a queen and prince consort. I’d like to see their fondness for each other (and, growing love) fleshed out a little more, sneak a little into how they settle into their private lives as newlyweds or how they stand their ground against the higher nobility and, Rondriane von Sappenstiel? How they negotiate their relationship, in private and in public? What do they love about each other? How do they tackle their quarrels?

Hm… and I think that’s pretty much all I can think of. :)

May the Muses be grateful! Have fun writing!

Ute (elektra121)

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peachyrm · 5 years

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i feel like a lot of ppl on this site see a callout post for BTS, look at all of the problematic things they did in the past, and immediately ‘cancel’ them or see that as a valid reason to finally hate them or kpop in general, without considering the context of the situations or how the kpop industry works.

im definitely not here to defend the things they said or did, because it WAS gross. but those things are also from 3-5 years ago, have apologized for or had no control over whether it happened or not.

this post serves as a ‘clearing their name’ type of post, and will actually take a look into the problematic things theyve done and how they dealt with it, along with all the positive things they have done in the past few years. it will be pretty lengthy and will have lots of sources/screenshots. before i get into this though, i want to say that no one is obligated to like BTS, or forgive them for what they/their label did. you reserve the right to feel the way you feel, however that may be. that being said, this post is for people who never saw the apologies, who vaguely know who BTS are and saw only bad things about them, who want to get into BTS but aren’t sure if they’re extremely problematic, and more.

starting off, i want to explain the context behind the links of this post. i would link the original, but op has deleted it. so, obviously, yes bts did do all of the above. but like i said before, it was 3-5 (now, technically 6) years ago. when BTS debuted in 2013, they were all 21 or under. 15-16 year old Jungkook being the youngest, and Seokjin being the oldest at 21. they were merely teenagers and on top of this, had no or very little control of their self image. the hairstyles & photoshoots, the boys had no control over. bighit and bts’ stylists are in charge of these things. if you want someone to be angry at, be angry at bighit, bts’ label company. this includes RM’s hairstyle back in the ‘No More Dream’ era / early debut days, Suga’s dreads, and any other hairstyle, clothing, or photoshoot that caused controversy. (in case anyone, who isn’t familiar with kpop, is confused; kpop label companies usually control everything their idols do. from what they wear, to what their songs are about, to if they’re even allowed to date. it’s a very disgusting industry that has a history of abuse, but that’s an entirely different subject i could get into.)

here is an article where BigHit apologizes for the antisemitism + the ‘bombing’ shirt Jimin wore, and they explicitly state that “the band members were ‘in no way responsible’ for the controversy.” which further proves my point that the boys had no control over what they wore/how they looked.

here is a thread about RM’s racist behavior in the past, and admitting + apologizing for what he did, including how he has changed certain lyrics of songs because they could be seen as (or were) misogynist. to this day, RM hates and regrets how his hair looked at the time.

in case anyone doesn’t want to read the entire thread, RM says this: “As I went through the year 2016 I came to think about that. My words or behaviors, regardless of my intentions, could cause troubles or hurt others feelings. In the process, I thought I need to hold responsibility for that and I need to think about such things. What I said or did would not be undone. I thought so. Then I learned how to admit myself. [...] Anyways, to become a better person, I need to hold responsibility for what I do. I need to change my mindset. I need to change my way of thinking if it’s wrong. I learned I need to hear from many people. I mean, I came to think like that. Now when I do something, I think, ‘how would people feel about my act?’”

again, this is not excuses for what they did, but rather how/why it happened or how they had no choice in the matter & what they had to say about it afterwards. BTS are living, growing people who have acknowledged their mistakes and apologized. in RM’s speech at the U.N. he says this: “Maybe I made a mistake yesterday, but yesterday’s me is still me. I am who I am today, with all my faults. Tomorrow I might be a tiny bit wiser, and that’s me, too. These faults and mistakes are what I am, making up the brightest stars in the constellation of my life. I have come to love myself for who I was, who I am, and who I hope to become.”

since the apology part of this post is mostly over, i wanted to talk about the good things that bts has done in the past few years. things like their continuous support of the LGBT community, the powerful messages in their music, the bending of the ‘typical kpop style’, etc.

over the years and as their popularity grew, BTS have actually managed to seemingly take more control over what they stand for and how they present themselves and their music. since around 2017, BTS have made a very impactful social stance with their string of albums & their concept: “Love Yourself”. for people who don’t know, this concept consists of three albums over the course of 2016-2018 and are in order as follows: LOVE YOURSELF 承 'Her', LOVE YOURSELF 轉 'Tear' LOVE YOURSELF 結 'Answer'

the summarized version of the stories are love at first sight, the failing/one-sided-ness of said love, and then learning how to love and accept yourself before you are fully able to love others. along with this concept came the partnership with the anti-violence campaign, UNICEF, who work to protect young people from all over the world. the entire album concept consistently promotes self-love and acceptance, something that is not very explored in kpop or even western pop music in general. while some of the songs in “LY: Her” use female pronouns, almost all the rest of them across all the albums use gender neutral or no pronouns. this was done intentionally by RM (who writes/produces a majority of their songs), as he believes “feelings/love transcend genders, cultures, and barriers between people.” the title song of “LY: Her”, “DNA”, (as stated in the screenshot) further expresses this idea with the lyrics: “None of this is a coincidence Because we’re the two who found our destiny - I only focus on you You steer me a little harder The DNA of the genesis wants you This is inevitable, I love us We are the only true lovers”

and in “Serendipity”, as well:

“The universe has moved for us Without missing a single thing Our happiness was meant to be Cuz you love me, and I love you”

while, obviously, there is one ‘her’ pronoun in the song, most of it expresses what RM says. and bighit being bighit, im sure they had some say in how the lyrics were presented, esp since it was the title song. what i’m trying to say is that i truly believe BTS are doing their best to support the lgbt community, even with the tight restrictions that their label and the kpop genre puts on them. being on the topic of LGBT+ and support of the community, here is suga pretty much saying he’s bi. + and of course, his iconic lyrics in “Cypher Pt.3″

here is the bisexual flag colors in j-hope’s music video for his song “Daydream”.

RM saying he liked “Same Love” twice as much after reading about the lyrics, and Suga outright saying “Nothing is wrong. Everyone is equal.” in the first screenshot.

Jungkook’s love and support for troye sivan + Jimin wearing jeans with lyrics of troye sivan’s “Youth” on them

bts defying gender norms over and over and over.

fondness & friendship with/of multiple lgbt artists

RM referencing the film “Moonlight” in the song “4 O’Clock”

RM wrote the lyrics for GLAM’s song “XXO”, that say “Are you a boy? Girl? I don’t care, passion is the key”

Jungkook and Jimin covering the song “We Don’t Talk Anymore” and not changing the pronouns.

an excerpt from RM’s speech at the U.N. ; “Tell me your story. I want to hear your voice, and I want to hear your conviction. No matter who you are, where you’re from, your skin color, gender identity: speak yourself.” + full transcript here.

and these are just things i can think of off the top of my head. as for their political stance and social messages in their music, & talking about other things considered taboo in kpop (such as mental health/illness), here you go:

suga talking about (his) mental health and struggles in various songs on his mixtape.

their ENTIRE “IDOL” music video is basically a response to how people stereotype them/the kpop genre & have said that they are “too westernized”. the song includes a “traditional African-Korean sound”, the boys wearing hanboks/traditional korean clothing, on top of lots of korean history references & symbolism, and how they take pride in what they do. here is a really good video analyzing & explaining the mv. heres 3 more posts explaining why it sounds/looks the way it does, and how BTS did it intentionally. in case nobody has seen/heard the song, here is the first verse: “You can call me artist (artist) You can call me idol (idol) No matter what you call me I don’t care I’m proud of it”

the song “Epiphany” on “LY: Answer”, is (as you can imagine) a song about having an epiphany about loving yourself. the lyrics are pretty self-explanatory. the chorus: “I’m the one I should love in this world Shining me, precious soul of mine I finally realized so I love me Not so perfect but so beautiful I’m the one I should love”

RM talking about his mental health/depression in “Forever Rain” on his mixtape “mono.” + as well as in “Reflection.” the outro of the song which i wanted to add, is just a repeated “I wish I could love myself.”

the lyrics to the song “I’m Fine” on LY: Answer express being able to love yourself without relying on somebody to fix you or make you happier, because only you can complete yourself.

the outro to the album, “Answer: Love Myself” concludes the Love Yourself album series, and has extremely beautiful lyrics. the full translation here, if anyone wants to read all of them. it’s about, as im sure you can guess, loving yourself even with all your flaws and mistakes & striving to be a better person each day.

SO TLDR; BTS absolutely have made mistakes, like every person does, but have apologized and learned from those mistakes. they have moved on, and have done more good in this world than bad. they have grown over the past 6 years and continue to grow every single day. as a young gay fan, their message and their presence means a lot to me. that fact that they’re so popular and use that power to spread kindness & self-acceptance (no matter Who you are), is really important especially in today’s society. doubly to youth who, themselves, struggle with mental illness and family issues, school/education, and any typical problem young people face in their lives. i have struggled with self-hate, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, trauma, the whole ordeal. their songs have helped me heal, even if only a little. and they give me another reason to keep going everyday. even if you don’t like their music or the boys themselves, there is no denying the positive impact they’ve made on millions of people, adults and children alike. BTS are absolutely not perfect, but they acknowledge this and do their best to BE the best they can be.

#bts #kpop #jeon jungkook #kim taehyung #park jimin #kim namjoon #jung hoseok #min yoongi #kim seokjin #bts v #bts rm #bts suga #bts jhope #bts jin #mine

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