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silent-raven13 · 8 months

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Silent Treatment

Miles normally don't get upset, he's a very forgiving person and is willing to let his anger fade out. BUT! When he does get upset, he will give anyone the silent treatment. Especially today when his boyfriend made him very upset.

Gwen and Pav noticed Hobie following Miles from a distant. They thought this was weird, because they are always side by side. Pav asked, "I wonder what happen?" He quietly gasps, "Did they broke up?"

"No, maybe Hobie is gonna surprise him." Gwen said to her friend, "But... why he's not scaring him already?"

The noticed Miles by himself, "Hey, where did Hobie go to?"

Hobie appeared behind the two, "Actually, mates... Miles' is giving me the silent treatment."

The two were startled causing Gwen to scream, "How did you get here?"

"Ahh, don't do that!" Pav shouted.

"Sorry..." Hobie mutters feeling all gloomy.

"Dude, what did you do to piss him off?" Gwen asked, with her arms crossed.

Pav nodded, "Yeah, he never gets mad."

"I... Hmm, how do I put this?" Hobie explains they had a fight about him bringing mud into Miles room through the window. It's a habit of the punker have dirty muddy boots, sometimes dragging a lot of mud through Miles' window leaving stains on his window seat.

Well, this time Miles got super upset because he told Hobie to clean his boots before entering! He just finished cleaning his room, which meant he scrub the stained window seat and window frames very clean. Took him a good thirty minutes or more. When he was finished everything look so much nicer.

Just then Hobie came through the fire escape window, stepping on the cleaned window seat with his dirty muddy boots. Miles came back to the room seeing the trail of mud after he finish scrubbing the floors! An anger that swept into the nineteen year old, that he told Hobie, why didn't he listen to him? Hobie merely stated he forgot.

Miles told to leave before he starts cursing the hell out of him. So Hobie thought his Sunflower would cool down for a day or two, but Miles had responded his text back. He felt upset, terrible... a little annoyed since he forgot.

"Ahhh, didn't you guys always have a fight about that, tho?" Gwen asked.

Pav nodded, "Yeah, I even wrote it on Spder So-City's Punkflower Blog. See!" He holds his Smartphone up to show his blog posts.

Hobie sighs, "I didn't think he would be so upset, and now he's ignoring me." He hunched over being depressed.

Gwen said, "Just go apologize. I would be mad too if I spend the whole time cleaning on my Saturday, then somebody messed it up."

"Yeah, Hobie. Just say your sorry."

"I'll try."

The three went to find Miles at Headquarters study hall, since a lot of Spider-heroes are teenagers, Miguel made a special place for them to study. The black Latino sat on one of the chairs with a large table while reading a book for his English class.

"There he is! Okay, go." Gwen whispers to her punker friend.

Hobie had cold feet. "Wow, you're never afraid." Pavitr gawks at him.

"It's just... it's just- what if he dumps me?" Hobie on all fours being on the ground looking pathetic.

"Oh come on! One fight isn't the end of the world!" The blond young woman picks him up, "Just go over there and talk." She pushes him toward Miles' direction. "Go!"

Pav nodded, "Yeah, go!"

Hobie stood a few steps behind Miles, then he hunched over in defeat. "OH COME ON! YOU DIDN'T SAY HELLO!" Gwen shouted out loud.

"Shhh!" All the younger Spider-heroes hushes her.

"Sorry." She whispers feeling embarrassed, then glares at Hobie.

Hobie casually went up to Miles trying to be cool. "Hey, luv." He said calmly.

Miles ignores him. Hobie hunch over the ground with all fours feeling so depressed his beloved Sunflower ignoring him. Pav being dumbfounded, "Wow, he really pissed off Miles, huh?"

"I guess so." Gwen said.

"Ahem, hey Sunflower!" This time Hobie said it loud and clear.

Miles ignores him again, a young Spider-man passes Miles, "Oh hey, Miles. Working hard?"

"Oh hey, Peter. Yeah, gotta catch up on my homework." Miles happily said.

"Say, who is that behind you?"

"Oh, no one." Miles smiles.

This send jabs into Hobie's heart. He quickly hugs Miles legs being all teary eye, "Sunflower! It's me, your baby!"

The young Spider-man looked confused, and Miles merely smile, "Don't worry about him. Anyway, I gotta finish reading."

"Okay, see ya later." His friend left to go back to studying the other side of the room.

Miles smiles then he looks at his boyfriend who's resting his head on his thigh, "Hobie..."

"Hmph?"

"I'm still mad at you." Miles huffs as he continues to give him the silent treatment.

Hobie whines, "Lllluuuuvvvvvv, please don't ignore me. I'm sorry! It was an accident. Pleeeaaassseeee, Sunflower!"

His boyfriend stays quiet still ignoring him, Hobie acted like Billie when she has her tantrums or fits. Good thing, he can handle it. Hobie kept saying, "I'm sorry, darling. I am! Do you need anything? I'll get you lunch or flowers or we can go to that Indian restaurant you always wanted to try in my world. I'll do anything for you! Anything."

"Anything?" Miles asked as he closed his book.

"Yes."

"I want you to leave me alone, Hobie. I'm still mad at you." Miles turns his head to him being serious.

"But darling!"

Miles ignores him with another huff. "Hmph."

Gwen said to Pav, "He's very mad at him, huh?"

"Yeah." Pav said.

Through out the evening, Hobie clingy on to Miles the whole time. He even slouches on Miles' back being dragging by him all around. Gwen and Pav watches how needy Hobie became for his boyfriend.

"I swear, Hobie was never like this." Gwen said.

"Yeah, he use to be all I-Don't-Give-A-Shit attitude and would walk away." Pav said in a tough voice. "Maybe they been together so long, y'know."

"Yeah, I agree. Hobie is more relaxed and always wants to make his boo happy." Gwen giggles. "But..." Their eyes saw how Hobie being depressed without Miles' attention.

"This is really sad..." Pavitr being lost for words.

Miles sighs look at his boyfriend on the ground, "Hobie, I told you to leave me alone."

"No!" He said in a childish manner. "I wanna talk about this. I said I was sorry." He pouts being upset.

Miles sighs then noticed other Spider-heroes looking at them. "Ugh, fine! Come on," He took his man's collar vest dragging him to a table in the courtyard up on HQ. Gwen and Pav follow with their own milkshakes for them and the gang.

"Well?" Miles asked his boyfriend.

"Darling, I'm sorry. I forgot to clean my boots. I didn't mean to."

Miles slurps his milkshake, "Okay."

"Okay, so that means you forgive me?"

"I'm still mad at you, Hobie. I told you many times to always clean your shoes," Miles pouts, "and you always forget. And I took my Saturday morning cleaning my room because I taken the day off as Spider-man! Once I finally made my room so clean, you put mud through the whole room like you didn't give a shit. That hurt my feelings. So, yeah I'm still pretty pissed off." He slurps his milkshake.

"Is there anything Hobie can do to fix it?" Pavitr asked.

Miles took a moment, "Hmmm."

Gwen giggles, "Come on, Miles. Look at your baby, he's been so depress without you."

Hobie hugging Miles being all sad and depress. "He's acting like Billie. He'll be fine." Miles said.

"Don't be cruel to me, luv. Let me make it up to you." Hobie frowns. "I am sorry."

"Well, you pissed off the wrong Latino, bae. So hmph." His beloved Sunflower giving him the silent treatment.

"Luuuuvvvv!"

The silent treatment went on for three more days, and Hobie was able to lighten up Miles' mood by cleaning his room. He scrubs the dirty stained window seat and floors, while Billie watches having her sippy cup filled with juice. She made sure Hobie clean the floor spotless acting like the boss, "Oi. Oi." She uses a fake deep voice acting like a tough guy.

"Where did she leave that?" Hobie asked out loud as he scrubs Miles' floor.

Miles grins widely having to finish typing his book report, "She's watching One Piece with me, and Adobe Asobase."

Billie huffs, "Clean!" She commanded Hobie. "Baka!"

Miles laughs with amusement, "Wow, bae. You must really miss me, huh?"

"Your mood is better." Hobie smiles happily, but Billie shoot her web shooter at his face, "Darling, that's cheating."

"Clean." She demands being tough, "Baka!" Sipping her juice, she proudly grins at her big brother. "Good?"

"Yes, mi bebé! You're doing a great job." Miles smiles widely making his little sister happy. "Besides, she likes being in charge."

Billie giggles rushing over to her older brother's leg, "Up!"

"OKay, Boo-boo." Miles picks her up to snuggle her.

"Awe, what about me?" Hobie cutely pouts going over to snuggle with his Sunflower.

"No, baka!" Billie pats him away.

Miles giggles feeling his boyfriend's kisses on his cheek, "Fine, you get this chance, besides I'm not mad at you. But I still want you to finish cleaning up."

"Oh I will." Hobie blew raspberry kisses on his Miles' cheek.

"Ah, bae. That's gross." Miles giggles.

"I need to give you all the lost love from your cruel punishment, darling." Hobie buries his face into Miles' neck, somehow he found a way to have his Sunflower sit on his lap.

"Maybe next time listen to me." Miles said as a matter of fact.

#punkflower #miles morales #hobie brown #spiderman #across the spider verse #spider verse #spider man #miles morales 1610 #miles morales 42 #miles x hobie #hobie x miles #flowerpunk #spiderverse

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inconveniently-discorporated · 9 months

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I saw the Barbie movie.

One thing I did not expect was to have Feelings about what it is like to be a neurodivergent woman.

This wasn't even really addressed in the movie directly at all (aside I guess from having "weird Barbie" who lives separately from everyone else and takes in the "broken Barbies", and all of the super-positive and "uplifting" Barbies who were supportive of each other were OPENLY rejecting her because of things that were beyond her control and didn't even make her harmful to their society, just not entirely Like Them...)(okay I guess I lied, I guess they did address it and it didn't really click for me until now). (I'm still leaving that sentence in because I'm so shocked at how the point of this post is how minimized I have felt as a woman, TO THE POINT I APPEAR TO HAVE MINIMIZED THE WOMAN I CAN ENTIRELY EMPATHIZE WITH.)

Anyway. It was made EXTREMELY clear by my peers from literally day one that I was Different. I mean, I'd had one-off interactions with kids before kindergarten, but going to school was the first time I was seeing the same group of children every day.

I remember being utterly baffled. Many kids seemed to understand what to do already. Most kids were friends with someone by the end of the first day. One of my most vivid memories was from the first day almost 30 years ago, when I turned to one of the girls -- her name was Sofia, she had waist-length black hair, and her name card was a laminated piece of letter practice paper. I asked her, "How does everyone know this already?"

Her answer was that she went to preschool, and for the longest time I thought that was it. I thought that was the only reason why I didn't Get It, and never Got It from then until I graduated and from then until after I got and quit my first job and moved onto my second job (where there happens to be A LOT of neurodivergent people and I seem to get it a lot better now). It didn't occur to me that there were other kids who admittedly didn't go to preschool, who didn't have the same problem as me, and other kids who did go to preschool (because believe me, I was asking) who DID have the same problem as me (and looking back I remember at least one point where the teacher had to address the class about bullying people who were "different").

Moving from childhood into adolescence, it was made EXCEEDINGLY clear to me that I wasn't simply a Different Person, but moreso a Different Woman. It was made apparent that I was NOT an object of desire, and I did NOT deserve to think of myself as such in any way, shape, or form.

I didn't simply ignore makeup because it was expensive, and a little confusing, and somewhat of a sensory difficulty. I ignored it because I didn't think it was for me. I wasn't allowed to be one of those girls. I didn't only ignore fashion because clothes shopping was overwhelming and I couldn't spend that kind of energy in the morning putting together an outfit (not that I had a cohesive closet anyway). I ignored it because of the giggles I heard behind my back when I DID try to camouflage as A Normal Girl, because of the comments like, "Look at her wearing that belt like she thinks she's cute."

It affected me so much that I frankly didn't see myself as a "real woman" until I was in my (LATE) twenties. It's not that I didn't want to be a woman, it's that I didn't think I was allowed to feel like one. I was absolutely convinced that my husband would someday discover this "secret" about me -- that I wasn't a "real woman" -- and leave me. I literally thought he was lying to me about being attracted to me.

This did eventually change with work on my self-esteem, but one of the results is something that still persists to this day -- I feel simultaneously constrained by the societal views of women, while being almost entirely unable to relate. I went into that movie and left, today, realizing that I STILL feel like I'm Not Allowed to feel like I have some of these problems.

I've never been cat-called (though I have been screamed at by people on the street for not being desirable enough of a woman in public). But I HAVE been dismissed as an overdramatic woman by medical professionals, when my husband wouldn't get the same treatment. I've never been harassed for my number, but I HAVE had men harass and belittle me at the mechanic for saying "no" to them, who then promptly stopped the moment my husband walked into the shop and came up beside me. I've never been told I'm too pretty to be smart, but I HAVE had men refuse to talk to me and seek out my less-experienced male coworkers for answers instead.

So I drove away realizing that this dichotomy still exists for me. I couldn't relate to Barbie crying because she didn't feel pretty enough, because I've never felt like that pressure actually applied to me -- it was just always made apparent by my childhood peers that I wasn't, and didn't deserve to even worry about whether I was attractive enough. And I realized that these other pressures were the same way -- I didn't feel the pressure to be the perfect leader, because of course I couldn't be that. I didn't feel the pressure to fit in perfectly, because of course I just already couldn't.

I want to do extraordinary things, not because people expect that of me as a woman, but because people think I CAN'T as someone who is Different and Not Like Them. People are SHOCKED when I eventually adapt to a social situation (like a new job), and show that I can contribute at the same level as other people once I learn what I'm doing.

Kind of like how the Kens didn't even bother with Weird Barbie, she was just forgotten in her weird house, and she ended up being the one to help them all. And then at the end, when the Barbies realize what they've done to her, they apologize and she just sort of goes, "Eh, that's how it is."

I don't know. It's just a very weird place to be. And it can all probably be summed up by the fact that I didn't even register her experience as something I could entirely relate to, until I went to write this post about the experience that I entirely relate to.

#barbie movie #neurodivergence #womanhood #weird Barbie

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justanamesstuff · 10 months

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The intimacy of being understood

Chapter 1

Matty Healy x f!reader

A/N: I'm so excited and SO terrified about posting this fic. I've fallen for this concept since the first moment I thought about it, I've been having so many feelings writing this sooooo I really hope you guys like it! Let me know what you think, feedback is ALWAYS welcomed!! Happy reading, guys :))

Warnings: breakups, fame, hurt feelings, typos.

Word count: 2 k

Blog Masterlist Series Masterlist

After a quick lunch, eaten at the back surrounded by boxes full of books ready to be sorted out, Kate stumbled in. She was Y/n's friend since kindergarten: one day she pushed some kid –Y/n didn’t remember him– who made her cried and Kate pushed him out of a little chair. Small Kate turned around, offering her tiny hand, and Y/n stopped crying. Nothing came between them since, maintaining a very strong friendship.

Kate didn’t work at the bookshop with Y/n, she didn’t have the money to pay someone else to help her. She did good money enough to maintain the place and rent a small flat not far away from the shop. Even though, Kate constantly showed up wanting to spend time with her, sharing the latest gossip of her office or ramble about one of her ex-girlfriends she bumped into while helping her with the books.

“She looked amazing- Holly fuck!” Kate’s tone drifted from a normal one to a gasped whisper, interrupting herself.

Y/n looked firstly to the front door, leaving the spreadsheet on the counter; checking if someone was happening outside. She couldn’t see anything through the window.

She decided to ask Kate, “What?”

“Look.” it was very rare hearing Kate whisper, she was all out, a true extrovert. Her friend’s finger pointed to the other side from the door.

Y/n turned her head, still hearing the sound of the angel caller she hanged in the entrance as a bell for when a new customer entered the shop. Her eyes finally fell on a very familiar man.

“I’m looking, but I don’t see anything weird.” Y/n copied her tone, looking how Matty roamed through the different categories. She felt strange about him not greeting her as usual. Y/n reassured herself, ‘it must be a reason’. Her eyer returned to Kate.

“Shhh.” Kate startled her best friend with the sound when nothing really happened. Y/n glanced at her as if a new eye showed up in the middle of her forehead.

“What’s wrong with you today?” Y/n inquired. “Sorry, but I’m not following you.” she sentenced.

Kate checked Matty was turned to point a finger in his direction. “That one…” she turned her head like a mad woman. “That’s Matty Healy!” Y/n’s friend said with a hissing voice.

Y/n was so confused, “Do you know him?” maybe he was a coworker, that happened many times before.

“Oh my god!” Kate let his arm fell, rubbing her face dramatically. “I forget how out of this world you are.” she glanced towards the floor as if she was trying to look for answers.

“Still not having a clue over this.” Y/n let eyes returned to the paper work she needed to get done.

“Matty Healy doesn’t ring a bell inside this mind of yours?” Kate tapped her left temple.

Y/n brushed her off, trying to think about it, even when the full name didn’t bring a bell.

“Name plus surname no. Matty comes here all the time.” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

Kate stared, trying to decide if she was messing with her or not. “You’re full of shit.”

“No, I’m not. He’s really nice.” Y/n turned the page, writing numbers here and there.

Matty was indeed a very regular, he had been for more than a month by that moment. Y/n fell quickly into conversations with him when he dropped by. She didn’t give the casual friendship too much thought until that moment.

“Oh, really?” Kate folded her arms, smirking with Y/n’s words. “How nice?”

Y/n couldn’t believe what she was implying, so her sight flew to her friend's face, being the one to search signals that told her she was kidding. Kate wasn’t, she really wanted to know.

“No like that!” the bookshop owner moved forward and beyond Kate’s body to check he wasn’t hearing their conversation. Y/n sighed loud watching him so far from them.

“Mmm…don’t believe you.” Kate kept pushing her to talk, only gaining a red tint showing on Y/n’s cheeks.

“He started coming here like a few months ago. He looked stressed as fuck…he excused himself saying someone was following him, I’d thought he was talking about a mugger not- whatever he has…fans? I don’t even know.“ Y/n explained.

Kate nodded. “Crazy fans.”

“Well, he stayed a lot over the back of the shop and after- I don’t remember how long… he came back carrying a children's book. I think it was ‘The very hungry caterpillar’, and I got excited over it.” Y/n tried to avoid her friend’s eyes at all cost.

“Of course…” Kate’s voice full of irony.

“He was buying it for his godson and since then he started showing up here and there…he never explained what he does for a living, I don’t even care.” Y/n admitted.

Kate let her hands fell on top of her chest. “Such a cute story”

“I can’t believe he’s famous.”

“Yeah, you live under a rock.”

“No, I live inside the real world.”

“Liar.” Kate accused her. “You have your nose inside a book every time I open that door.” she pointed to the front door.

Y/n gasped and turned, saying, “Aren’t you supposed to help me arrange the new saga?”

Kate groaned loud. Y/n felt Matty looking their way, but didn’t dare to make eye contact.

“Why I offered my free time again?” her friend asked.

“You own me! Remember how I had to pick your ass at 4 am at that Soho party you chose to tried to get in and got kicked out?” Y/n felt good teasing her back for once.

“Thanks for reminding me that.” Kate eyes’ returned to Matty, who moved to sit at the big sofas adoring the centre of the shop. “I’ll go to the back. Shout when he comes over here.” she begged.

Y/n boobed her head up and down in a dramatic way, pursing her lips at the same time.

“Mhm, definitely going to do that. Be sure I’ll do exactly that.” Y/n spoke to Kate’s back walking away.

“I need to see if he’s really handsome indeed.” she whispered from the door leading to the storage room.

“He is.” Y/n added just to mock her.

“Agh, you’re so mean!”

“Work, now!”

Y/n waited until Grace was far away to focus on Matty. He was still sitting on the sofa, now with a book on his lap but looking at the ceiling. She decided it was a good moment to approach him.

“Hey.”

Matty got startled a little, too deep into his thoughts to acknowledge the sound of her feet approaching him.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to…” Y/n felt sorry to scare him.

A big smile showed up in his face, changing all his demeanour. “Hey there. Don’t worry.”

“I couldn’t stop to notice- I mean, maybe you want a moment of quiet, and I’m disturbing you but…sorry.” Y/n grew self-conscious under his attentive eyes. “What I’m trying to ask is, are you alright?”

Matty felt his heart skip a bit, “You’re the first person to ask me today.”

Y/n frowned, checking her clock. “It’s 3 pm.” she stated.

“I know.”

“So I assume this is not your best day.”

“Not at all.” he said, still smiling, contradicting his own words somehow.

Y/n decided to change the subject.“What book you chose?” she pointed to the book resting unread.

“Everything quiet at the front.” Matty read the title.

“Uplifting I see..” she joked, and Matty laughed. The sound reached her ears and warmed her heart.

“‘m sorry I didn’t say hello earlier.” Matty apologized. “Didn’t want to interrupt your conversation with the other girl.” his hand pointed towards the front desk.

“She’s my best friend and personal nightmare…Kate.”

“Where’s she now?”

“At the back, she owns me a few favors so…”

“Mhm.”

“Well, I’m going to stop bothering-“ Y/n started excusing herself.

Matty interrupted, clarifying, “You never bother me, Y/n.” Her name coming from his lips felt different.

“Good to know.” her cheeks were burning. Y/n turned around towards her desk but desist in the middle of the action. “Can I suggest you changing the book?” she asked, looking inside her tired eyes.

Matty gave her a signal, adding, “Which one you say is better?”

“It’s a play in fact…’The Seagull’ by Chéjov. It’s also sad but easier to read, I think.”

“Interesting.” Y/n felt maybe she should’ve kept her mouth shut. “I have to go now, sadly, but I’ll be back soon to read it.” Matty told her.

“I can pack it for you. Have one over he-“ Y/n’s mood lifted a little with the last part, proposing packeting it for him, although she interrupted her again.

“No, I prefer reading it here the next time I come.”

“Okay, suit yourself, Matty.” Y/n looked down, not really knowing what to do now.

“I’ll see you soon, thanks. Say hi to Kate for me.” Matty scratched the back of his head.

“Oh, that nice…for sure, I’m going to retransmit that.”

“Bye.” Matty lift his hand, waving at her from a few meters far from her.

Y/n followed his form, walked towards the door, and once outside get lost between the people coming and going.

Kate showed up from behind the storage door, smiling wide at her friend.

“If I wasn’t so stoked about one of my favourite singer of all times knowing… remotely… who I am, I’ll say that man is sad but down bad for the library girl.” she wiggled her eyebrows.

“Stop bluffing and celebrate a little.” Y/n tried to distract Kate.

“Y/n…”

“I don’t want to hear it!”

They had that conversations for months, almost a fucking year, and Y/n knew it as if was a play she wrote. Kate would insist about her dating again, she would say she’s not ready –which was the truth– and her best friend would be sympathetic about it even though she would keep insisting.

“I saw pictures of that man in love…I know, a bit, how he is.” Kate tried to persuade Y/n.

“Kate, you really don’t know him. I don’t know him far from Matty, the guy that comes here from time to time.”

“Do you want to know more about him?” she took her phone out.

“No.I don’t. I respect his privacy.” Y/n was pushing her away, closing herself. Both friends knew that.

“You can’t wound me with this.”

“Fine.”

“Come on! Forget he's fucking famous…he's fucking hot, and he wants you-“

Y/n closed her eyes tight, “You don’t-“

“He does. I feel it.”

“Why you have to sexualize this?”

“Because it what he exudes, my love.” Kate placed herself at the other side of the front desk, where Y/n was trying to look busy with books and papers.

“I don’t want to hear anything else, okay?” Y/n stared at her eyes briefly.

“Y/n…I know that what you’ve been through is a lot to recover your heart from, but you know he’d want-“ the mention of his wishes angered Y/n, who pushed a book down with too much force.

“No, I don’t. He never spoked about it because we were meant to spend the rest of our lives together, and then…” Y/n felt tears pooling in the corner of her eyes.

“Oh, my love…” Kate ran around the counter. “Come here.” she hugged her friend. “I’m here, I’m here. I’m sorry.”

“I can’t do it.” Y/n said into her shoulder.

“Okay, okay. I understand. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s too soon.”

“Mmm…it’s never too soon to have a new, famous and hot friend.” Kate tried to lift her mood.

Y/n snorted, “He’s hot.” there was no reason to deny it.

“Right?! That’s a start! Baby steps…come on, girl! You can do this.” Kate took Y/n’s face between her hands, staring into her red eyes.

“Let’s get back to work, please.”

“Would you take me as an employee if I quit my job?”

Y/n titled her head, “You love your job.”

“But I’d love to see Matty's butt flying around.”

“Could you stop sexualizing my customers, please?”

“No when they’re Matty fucking Healy!” she shouted while returning to the back.

*****************

Taglist (let me know if you want to be included): @indierockgirrl

#matty healy #matty healy fic #matty healy x reader #matty healy fanfiction #miniseries #matty healy x y/n #the 1975 fanfic #matty the 1975 #matty x reader

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olsenmyolsen · 8 months

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Because of You: The Big Day

master list

dark master list

(Gender Neutral Reader X Wanda Maximoff)

Be sure to read part one - No Powers. Post College AU

Summary: Years have passed since Wanda didn't reveal her feelings. What happens when you're about to get married?

Word Count: 3.5K

Wanda looks herself over in the mirror.

She smiles. She loves the dress you picked out. She loves the color and how it fits her body. She loves that you told her it took ages to find something so perfect.

Wanda runs her hands over it one more time. Here Wanda was. In her perfect dress because of you.

While you were in the room next door. In your perfect outfit. Because of someone else. For someone else.

Wanda's dress was maroon.

Your outfit was white. It was your wedding day, after all.

On the outside, Wanda was happy for you. On the inside, she was...

Since that day in your suite, Wanda had many opportunities to confess her love to you, but she never could. It felt wrong to do something that could disrupt your happiness, not even when your happiness had breaks of sadness when you and Natasha would have your off moments.

But those moments would be over quicker than Wanda could... well, then Wanda could say she loved you- Loves you.

Regardless. Right there through it all. Through the years. Wanda stuck with you. And now here Wanda was... four years later. Knocking on your door again. This time, to the room where you were getting your hair and makeup done at the venue. "That better not be who I think it is!" A voice loudly exclaimed. A voice Wanda knew to be your fun Aunt Agatha.

"It's not!" Wanda called out through her bandaged-up heart.

The door opened seconds later to see Agatha happy to see Wanda. "Oh, Wanda dear! My my! Look how beautiful you look!" Wanda shyly smiles at the compliments as Agatha takes her hand. Pulling her in and closing the door behind her. Your mother and the rest of your family get up to greet Wanda as Agatha shows her off.

But Wanda only wants to see you.

"Wanda, that dress looks so stunning on you! Much better on you than that Bishop girl. I swear getting her to wear a dress was like pulling teeth." Wanda politely smiled and laughed, knowing Kate's hatred of dresses. "Yes! Well, thank you! Y/N made a terrific choice." Wanda smiled.

"On the dress or that Natasha!" Agatha grips Wanda's arm and laughs like a mad woman. The joke clearly being the funniest to herself, but it gets some good laughs from everyone but Wanda.

When the laughter dies down, Wanda looks around the room, but she doesn't see you. "Where's Y/N-" just as she's about to finish asking, that's when you come out of the attached room.

You hadn't heard Wanda enter, but when your Aunt Agatha was guffawing for some reason, you knew you had to check. And to start counting her drinks.

"What's so fun-"

All eyes turned off of Wanda and onto you. Everyone in the room had already seen your outfit but one person. But now their green eyes were on you.

Only you.

But just as Wanda was memorizing the details. You looked back at her in the maroon dress you fought tooth and nail on. It had to be that dress! No matter what Kate or anyone else said about it. You knew it was Wanda's favorite color. Along with the cut. How it fit. Hell, even the designer. It had to be... it was for Wanda.

You smiled at her. She smiled back.

Your smile was genuine.

Wanda's never reached her eyes.

"Doesn't she look beautiful, Wanda?" Your mother asked with a proud smile. Wanda, still not removing her gaze from you, responded. "She's more than that."

You quickly panned your head down, missing a knowing look from Agatha, and started walking towards Wanda. To hide your cheeks and to greet your best friend. The crowd dispersed as Wanda's arms wrapped around you.

Wanda closed her eyes and gently inhaled. It's a little weird, but today, your smell was just like it was before Natasha. Back when Wanda would claim your hoodies before the rain washed it out. Before you became you and Natasha.

"Thank you for coming." Wanda heard you whisper into her ear. "Of course," Wanda answered like it was an easy choice. You'll never know how much she fought her own feet to get here.

"Why don't we let the girls mingle a bit? There's still time until we gotta force her down the aisle." Agatha's laughter burst through the room. "No, it's okay. I just came to stop by, say my congrats, and see you.." Wanda trailed off but smiled.

You went to speak, but your mom cut you off. "Well, let's take some pictures of the two of you before you get separated later tonight."

"Oh, how right you are." Wanda thought.

Wanda turned her body and put her arm around your back. Her soft right-hand landing on your hip. "Oh, I'm so happy I get to be here for this." Your mother kept babbling on and on about how beautiful you looked while taking picture after picture. About how pretty Wanda looks. And, of course, about how far the two of you have come as best friends.

"I still remember when Wanda picked you up for the first time after getting her driver's license. Oh lord, I thought I was going to have a heart attack."

You and everyone else laughed as you were leaning up against Wanda, who was sitting on the arm of the couch as your mother continued. "And, of course, the car was red!" She shook her head, and Wanda laughed harder, remembering how much she fought her parents to have that color.

You watched Wanda throw her back, laugh, and smile. It was the first natural, genuine smile of Wanda's in a while. You noticed.

A knock came at the door, signaling it was time for everyone to find their seats. Or, in Wanda's case, stand. She was the maid of honor, after all.

Everyone excitedly squealed and except one. She was going to be the first person to leave the room, but you stopped her. As she stood up, you grabbed her hand and held on tight. "Stay."

Wanda just looked at you as you moved your attention to everyone else. "Get your hugs in now before I'm too busy later!" You joked, smiled, and made it seem like you were on top of the world. Well, wishes, congrats, and, of course, hugs followed for a short time before, one by one, the closest people you considered family were out the door. Agatha and your mother were the last ones out. Leaving you only with Wanda, standing in the middle of the room.

Wanda turned to you.

"Aren't you going to ask me how I'm feeling?" You asked and swallowed as you shined a bright smile, making Wanda chuckle back. "How are you feeling, Y/N?" Wanda avoided eye contact and instead focused on your hands. Watching as your fingers twisted and held one another. "I probably know how you're feeling," Wanda said as she reached out and took your hands in hers—lifting her head to look at you.

"You're about to marry Natasha Romanoff. You're the luckiest woman in the world." Wanda's smile faltered, and you saw the water pooling in the corners of her eyes. But Wanda remained strong. And kept her focus on you.

She couldn't break now. She had chances before. College had come and gone. The years that followed as well. She couldn't say the words to you now. She couldn't.

But fuck. She wanted to.

"God..." Wanda spoke in a hushed tone. "You're so beautiful, Y/N." Wanda's eyes danced across your face. "Wanda..." You went to speak, but Wanda shook her head and removed her hands from yours. "Detka... I'm happy for you." Wanda admitted through a sniffle.

You took a step closer to Wanda and brushed your hands along her face. Careful not to mess up her makeup. "But what about you? Are you happy?" You finally asked the question that's been plaguing your mind for the longest time. You could never pinpoint the correct answer, but deep, deep down, you knew.

"If you're happy. I'm happy." Wanda answered. It might've been her most truthful answer.

You stared at Wanda as she stared back. From Wanda's watery eyes, you saw her flick her gaze from your eyes to your lips before she opened her mouth. "I should go."

You didn't want her to leave. Your feelings for Wanda have ebbed and flowed since that day in the suite, but you remained loyal to Natasha. You truly did love her, but never more than right now, in this moment, did you want Wanda.

But you couldn't. You can't.

You moved your body back and nodded. "Thank you for seeing me, Wanda. Time flies." Wanda nodded even though both of you weren't exactly sure of the true meaning behind that last sentence.

"Natasha's very lucky." Wanda looked at you before she turned around, heading towards the door. You smiled lightly as you turned and headed for the chair in front of the vanity. You heard the door open before: "Y/N?" You turned to look at Wanda, whose back was to you.

"Wanda?"

Wanda opened her mouth to say those three words but stopped herself. "I'm happy to have you in my life."

Just like that, the door was closed, and you collapsed into the chair. Your mind began racing and wondering about Wanda Maximoff.

On the other side of the door. Wanda broke. She moved a hand up to her eyes and cried. She kept her mouth shut, trying to stay muffled as the tears poured. She could feel the mascara run, and all Wanda could think about was how she was going to lose you.

Wanda's tears subsided minutes later when she remembered where she was. Wanda moved herself out from in front of your door and was going to go back to the room she got ready in to freshen up or leave altogether when Natasha came around the corner.

Wearing nothing but white and a smile.

"Hey, Wanda! Wow, you look stunning! Way better than-" That's when she noticed the tears and how quick Wanda's eyes were turning red. "Wanda? What's wrong?!" Natasha, on her wedding day, immediately puts her focus into someone else.

She turns Wanda's head to get a better look. "What's wrong?" Natasha asked again, but Wanda just shook her head. "Nothing." Wanda began to cover. "Just left Y/N, and... it's just.. happening!" Wanda spoke and looked at Natasha's eyes. "The big day!" Wanda put on a fake smile and wore it proudly. She cheered.

"Oh!" Wanda's explanation made Natasha smile. Ever since the first time Natasha met Wanda, it was like there was this wall between them. Natasha always tried her hardest and was always on her best behavior for the Sokovian. Wanda was your best friend, after all. So to see Wanda be so happy for you and Natasha. Today! That made Natasha ecstatic. "Thank you, Wanda!" Natasha carefully pulled Wanda into a hug, making sure no makeup left stains.

"Do you think they're a mess too?" Natasha joked to Wanda, who actually laughed. "No. I'm sure Y/N's fine." Wanda spoke with truth laced between those words. "I'm sure she's fine."

Natasha looked into Wanda's eyes and smiled again. "Thank you for being here. Now, don't worry about rushing outside. It looks like it might rain, and I kinda want to see the person I'm marrying." Natasha looked at Wanda sheepishly. "You know, since we're both non-traditional, I think we don't have to worry about anything." Wanda laughed because Natasha did.

"Well, you know where they are," Wanda spoke. "I'll go get cleaned up." Wanda looked at Natasha one last time. Natasha looked breathtaking to anyone else except her. Wanda excused herself and headed to the room she was in before she saw you.

Natasha watched Wanda disappear down the hall before she turned towards your door. With a few steps and a giant smile, she gingerly knocked on your door and creaked it open. "Y/N?" Natasha poked her head in and called out.

Stunned to hear your fiancées voice, you quickly grabbed tissues sitting on your vanity and began wiping under your eyes. "Shit." You whispered when it was clear on your face that you had been crying. But not normal tears. Tears for someone else. "Y/N?" Natasha called out when you didn't turn to the door. "You can look. It's okay, I promise." Natasha joked, but when you turned, her smile vanished. She quickly shut the door and ran to you. "Y/N babe, what's wrong?"' You shook your head.

A sense of dejavú washed over Natasha. Seeing you and Wanda within minutes apart with eyes full of sadness. "Talk to me." Natasha bent down in front of you. Taking your hands in hers. "Baby.." Natasha looked up to you. "I love you." You say to Natasha when your eyes meet her green ones. "I love you too." She replies so easily, but her smile back isn't quite the same. You sniffle as Natasha holds your hands tighter.

"It might rain.." Natasha starts as she pulls her hands out and starts cleaning your face. When you look up, she quickly wipes her own. "It's supposed to be good luck.. I think." Natasha smiles. "I thought we weren't believing in tradition and crazy theories?" You laugh. "One wouldn't hurt. Just one." Natasha says in a hushed tone.

"Just one." You repeat. "How bad is my face?" You ask in a teasing tone. "It's never been more beautiful." Nat skillfully answers, making you smile. "Now, let me touch it up before we get married." Natasha gets up and turns you around to face yourself. Natasha doesn't ask you why you're crying again.

You're happy.

You're happy...

"We shouldn't take too long." You say. "What are they gonna do, marry someone without us?" Nat smirks. "I mean, Kate and Yelena are here." You say, making Nat stop in her tracks. "Shit. Let's be quick." You both laugh.

"I love you."

Wanda looks up at the sky and watches as the white clouds make way for the darker ones. Metaphors huh. Wanda thinks today could be delayed if they wait any longer, but just as she looks down, she sees you. Hand in hand with your fiancée standing at the end of the aisle waiting for the music to start. Your eyes meet just as the music swells and everyone rises and turns. But your eyes remain locked, and Wanda smiles.

Wanda makes a deal with herself right then and there that she'll never speak a word of her feelings towards you. You're about to marry Natasha Romanoff.

Wanda wants nothing but the best for you.

You and Wanda miss the fact that Natasha sees how you two look at one another. Especially now. With a squeeze of your hand, you pull your eyes back to your right. To Natasha. "Ready?" She smiles at you. You nod, and together, you walk down the aisle.

Everyone watches with heart-shaped eyes and smiles, making the act of marriage all the more magical. When you both make it to the end, you each hand your respected bouquets to your respected people. Yelena for Natasha. Wanda for you. You look into Wanda's eyes when your fingers touch, but she looks away from you.

"Dearly beloved..." Natasha's friend Steve Rogers starts regaining your attention.

Natasha takes her hands in yours, but when you look at her, you find her looking where Wanda is looking. She follows her eyesight and finds Pietro giving her sister a sad look.

"Natasha?" You whisper to your fiancée, who has come to terms with the events that will follow.

"Y/N.." She whispers back while Steve keeps going. "I love you," Natasha says with tears in her eyes.

"This occasion marks the celebration of love and commitment with..." She pulls her hands from you.

"Steve, stop! I'm sorry! I'm sorry. Can we stop??!" His ramblings stop soon enough.

Natasha takes a step back and looks out to everyone who wears horrified looks. "I'm sorry..." Natasha turns to you and your surprised face. "Natasha.." Nat shakes her head. "I'm sorry. But I love you too much for this Y/N." She comes up to you and kisses your cheek. "I love you." Natasha has tears falling down her as she begins walking back up the aisle alone. The tears pull away at the mask she's been keeping up for years. She thought she was crazy at first, but she's not stupid. At the end of the day, your heart would always belong to someone else.

The rows of people stand up and watch your crying fiancée run away. You stand there stunned, and pretty soon, faces start to turn to you, looking for answers. Especially one scary Russian sister. "Go." You feel a push on your back. You turn to look at Wanda, who looks at you like you're crazy. "Go! Go after her!"

"Wan-"

"Go!" Wanda pushes you because of the promise she made. She wants you to go after the former redhead. "Please.." Wanda whispers, and it breaks your heart, but you go. You chase after Natasha as the sky opens up and the rain starts to fall.

"Natasha!" You yell out, unsure of which direction she went. "Natasha!" You try again as the rain is forcing people inside. You hedge your bets and hope she is in the room she got ready this morning.

Wanda watches along with half of the wedding party. You turn the corner, and Wanda decides that right now might be the best time.

Wanda Maximoff heads towards the exit.

"Natasha!" You throw open her door, a little out of breath from running and the oncoming panic attack. You see Natasha sitting on the couch in her room crying, yet she looks at you confused. "Y/N?"

"Hey, I'm here! I'm here." You run to her side and try to comfort her, but she pulls out from your touch. "What are you doing here?" Now it's your turn to look at your fiancée.. ex-fiancée (?), confused. "What do you mean? I'm chasing after my fiancée."

"Y/N..." Natasha gets up. She shakes her head and throws the veil off her frame. "You every right to do that, but don't..."

"Don't what?" Now you get up and watch Natasha. She stops and sighs. "Y/N... I may be your fiancée but.. but I'm not the one you love."

You don't answer, but your ex does it for the both of you. She swallows her tears and walks closer to you. "I'm not the one you love, and that's okay, Y/N. It is. I'm doing this for the both of us."

"Natasha-"

"Go!" She pushes you, making you stumble a bit. "I love you, so please go..."

You nod and begin to walk off but stop when you feel the weight on your ring finger. You look at it and think about the day you and Natasha proposed to each other. You did it because she did it.

You, with all the care in the world, pull it off and walk back to Natasha. "Whoever they are. The person you love after me will make you forget about this. They'll always be there for you. They'll make you stronger, and they'll patch up my mess. I- I did love you, Natasha. I did." It breaks your heart to see Natasha cry like this. You open her hand and place the ring in it. She closes her hand around it and nods. "Goodbye."

Just as you're about to head to the door, a furious blonde Russian begins banging on it, cursing in her native language. Thank goodness you thought to lock it so you could privately talk to Natasha. You look at the former bride, but all she does is point to the window. Knowingly, she'll have to deal with her family. And yours. You silently thank your mother for finding a one-story venue.

You run to the giant human-sized window as the rain pours down, causing cool air to blow into the room when you push them open.

The last time you saw Natasha was right before you jumped out the window. When you turned around just in time to see her taking her ring off.

Your shoes hit the wet grass below. The rain is doing it's best to block your vision, but you still spot Wanda's red car reversing out of a space.

You know it's now or never. So, just like in those romcoms you watched with Wanda all those years ago, you ran. You ran towards her. Towards her car as she kicked it into drive. Passing by all the families' and friends' cars who would sit idle for the next hour before they realized you weren't coming back.

Wanda stopped at the red sign, but due to the rain, she didn't see you running towards her. You were almost to her car when she pushed on the gas pedal again. Now she turned the car away from your direction. She was getting further and further away. Again... However, you pushed yourself. You kept running after her until your legs gave out, and you stumbled.

You lost your pace. You faltered, and when you looked up, her car was about to leave the lot. Turn signal on and everything.

But then she stopped.

The car stopped.

The driver-side door opened, and out Wanda stepped into the pouring rain. Through the water pouring down, you couldn't hear her yelling.

But Wanda started walking to you.

You got up and ran.

Stopping in front of Wanda, you could see the tears hidden by the rain. "What are you doing?!?" She yelled. Demanding an answer. But you looked at her with regret on your face. Regret for wasting time and years.

"I love you." You wrapped your arms around Wanda and held her close—face to face. "I've loved you for years, a-and I regret never doing anything about it—the amount of times I-I wanted to but couldn't. I'm sorry. Take my hand, please. I love you, Wanda Maximoff. I want to be yours."

Wanda didn't say anything as her green eyes look- "Kiss me."

You put your hands to Wanda's face and moved closer until your noses brushed past one another and your lips collided in the rain.

You and Wanda were everything each other dreamed of.

In time, you guys would talk about everything that other person didn't see from today. But right now, at this moment, nothing else was on your mind. Except how madly in love you were.

Wanda Maximoff wasn't sure when it happened, but one day, she started looking at rings a little bit differently.

dividers by @/benkeibear

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hairstevington · 11 months

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mysterious ways (Steddie Week 2023)

Eddie Munson x Steve Harrington

Hello all! I am participating in Steddie week this year, and I am doing a seven part series reflecting each of the seven prompts. Thank you @steddie-week for the challenge! I will only have this first part on Tumblr, but will post the next six chapters each day on Ao3, so follow along over there if you're into it! :)

Summary: Steve feels lonely after the earthquake. Somewhere deep in the Upside Down, new life is born. (Prompts: Hunger - Pining - Somebody to Love by Queen)

WC: 1.4K (each part is going to be pretty short I think)

Warnings: Kas!Eddie/Steve, canon universe post-season 4, pining, angst, a bit darker than my usual fare but not by much, PS this fic will have a happy ending because all my fics do lol

A/N: I wasn't planning on doing Steddie week because I'm going through a bit of a tough time right now but I randomly felt inspired today, so I'm giving it a go. Shout out to @skjachukson for requesting Kas Eddie, I have a feeling I'll be writing him more after this lmao

Sometimes, when things are at their worst, Steve can shrug and say, “hey - it’s not the end of the world.”

Of course, in Hawkins, it often is the end of the world. So now, Steve has no idea what to tell himself.

His hometown, which - let’s be real - was never that glamorous, is now in shambles. After the “earthquake,” almost everyone fled, which was valid. The ones who stayed were mainly those who’d been directly involved, or those who have nowhere else to go. Many people lost everything, and Steve tries to give back where he can - they all do - but a lot of the time he’s just sad.

His hometown was split in four, and all of his friends are in love.

Steve feels so dumb for even caring, but he does. All he ever wanted was to be loved, really, and he’s gotten the short end of the stick the last few years. He used to feel on top of the world, and now he’s - well, he had been in the Upside Down, which was probably as close as he could get to the literal opposite of the top of the world.

His friends found happiness where they could - mostly through crushes and girlfriends and boyfriends. Steve doesn’t have any of that right now. He doesn’t even know where to look. Everything around him is sad.

Robin and Vickie had bonded over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, of all things. Since then, she’s been volunteering every chance she can with Vickie. Steve joins too, sometimes, but he feels very much like a third wheel.

Some random dude with incredible hair and an even more incredible name (seriously, who names their kid Argyle?) showed up with Mike, Will, El, and Jonathan in a pizza van. A day later, the guy decided to drive back to Utah to visit his one true love or something. A woman with an equally badass name - Eden.

Steve wasn’t surprised when Dustin wanted to join, because apparently Eden lives with Suzie. Still, Steve was baffled by the whole thing. Usually, some sort of alarm would go off in his head about his surrogate little brother going on a road trip with a stoner, but Argyle seemed nice enough.

Although, he did unironically use the word “brochacho,” and Steve didn’t really know how he felt about that.

Steve knew Dustin was taking - uh, things - super hard, and so Steve encouraged any sort of break for the guy. Visiting Suzie seemed like the perfect way for Dustin to decompress, especially after what happened.

So, Dustin took off. Robin’s busy. Steve is too mortified to even look at Nancy after he’d basically professed his love for her and she brutally rejected him and stayed with Jonathan. Lucas spends all of his time with Max. El and Mike are inseparable.

That leaves Will. Steve doesn’t know Will that well, but he’s so lonely he doesn’t care if he comes off desperate or weird or whatever.

Steve shows up at the Byers’ residence one Saturday morning, looking like a total dork. Hopper answers the door, even though Steve would have far preferred Joyce. She’s less, uhhh -

“Steve?” Hopper asks, gruffly. “What are you doing here?”

“I, um - I’m looking for -”

“Is that Steve?” a familiar voice calls from the living room.

Ah, shit.

“Hey, uh, Nancy,” Steve says, giving a small wave.

“Is something wrong?” she asks, joining Hopper at the door.

“No, I -” Steve sighs. He’s mortified to even be in this situation. It was such a stupid plan in the first place. “I’m looking for Will. Is Will here?”

“Umm, yeah,” Nancy responds, retreating back into the house to presumably get her boyfriend’s little brother.

“What do you need Will for?” Hopper asks, suspiciously.

“Jeez, relax, Sheriff,” Steve replies. “I just wanted to talk to him. I’m the babysitter, remember?”

This explanation seems good enough for Hopper, even though Steve hasn’t really interacted with Will much prior to this. Not directly, anyway. He’d let the kids in to see movies for free back when he worked at Scoops, but that was it.

After a full thirty seconds of awkward, painful silence, Will comes to the door.

“Hey, kid,” Steve says. Hopper and the others had thankfully walked away to give them some privacy. “Do you - do you want to go to the music store with me?”

Will stares at him blankly for a moment, then shouts to the others behind him.

“Mom! I’ll be back later!”

Steve smiles, triumphantly.

“Okay, have fun!” Joyce’s voice rings from somewhere in the house. “Be home by 5 for dinner!”

“You got it, Mrs. Byers!” Steve yells into the void. “Okay, let’s go.”

Will hurriedly walks out of the house and shuts the door behind him, then sighs in relief.

“Thank god you’re here,” he says. “All the couples are driving me crazy.” Steve chuckles.

“You and me both.”

Will turns out to be excellent company. He has good taste in music, and he’s funny. A little nerdy, like Dustin, but much quieter about it. They get along great, and end up spending a few hours together.

“My brother said he’d be there for me, and now he’s back to spending all his time with Nancy,” Will complains.

“Yeah, well Nancy broke my heart into a million pieces, so,” Steve replies.

Then, they riff on how annoying Jonathan and Nancy’s relationship is for a while. They aren’t saying anything out of genuine dislike for either party, but it’s still some much needed venting. Steve listens to Will talk about Mike and El, and that’s when he picks up on some things in between the lines.

Maybe having a gay best friend makes him better at detecting that sort of thing.

They pick out a bunch of music and listen to it as they drive around for a while. They both are big fans of Queen, so they blast that first. They get a little too into singing along to Somebody to Love, but neither of them poke fun at the other for it. As much as Steve and Dustin tease each other, and as much as he complains about being the babysitter, Steve loves these kids with all his heart. All of them, even the ones he doesn’t know as well, like Will. He would do anything to protect them. He’d done quite a bit already.

He drops Will off before dinner as promised, then heads home. It’s only after he passes by Forest Hills that he starts to think about Things again. The Things that he tries to suppress. The Things that bubble beneath the surface at any given moment.

The Things that led up to the Earthquake. He isn’t ready to think about them. Not yet, maybe not ever.

So yes, it’s far easier to reach out to other people who understand, and to cling to them as long as he can. And then he goes home, and instead of letting his mind drift to those dark places, he starts singing Queen under his breath.

It’s stupid. It won't fix anything. But still, the need is there.

All he wants is somebody to love.

Hawkins has begun to crack open, and soon what lay beneath will rise.

It’s a dark place - somewhere that’s always on the verge of a storm. The energy in the air is thick with dread and impending doom. The creatures that live there are something that people may cast off as fictional, because their eyes aren’t open yet to how terrifying and big the world really is.

Monsters, of all kinds. Some who had once been human, some who prey on humanity. Evil forces that keep kids awake at night. Forces that their parents insist are in their imagination.

How foolish to think an imagination could be so vivid. Then again, perhaps imagination is what created this place to begin with. It could also be what sustains it.

A flash of lightning. Bats scattering.

There’s a body somewhere in the fog, going through a transformation. Wings, teeth, and hunger. It takes several days for the body to resemble its altered form - one of strength, intimidation, and a deeply-rooted instinct for evil.

Once complete, the body gasps in its new life. The soul of a tortured boy once occupied this space, but now there’s something else within him too - something ancient.

Eddie Munson’s glowing eyes snap open.

He’s starving.

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#steddieweek2023 #steddie #steddie fic #kas!eddie #writing #eddie munson #steve harrington

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actuallyevilgay · 24 days

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The Apathy (Part 6)

Astarion x Male Reader/Tav

DNI if you are a minor. Dead dove don’t eat. Please read my about before replying. Content: Ascended Astarion x Male tav, this is post epilogue.

Summary: Astarion's experience of the hand-holding got a little too intense for him.. Meanwhile Gale is trying to figure out what's going on with Tav. Content Warnings: This part contains some smut! NSFT!! A/N: We get some much-needed Gale pov! Hell yeah. Hope you enjoy. Read on ao3 as well!

......

On the way back to the homestead Astarion was renting, his head was racing with many conflicting thoughts. He thought he could keep his cool.. But didn’t expect to so quickly lose sense of his composure after Tav ran off.

The smell.. He was obsessing over it and certainly needed some privacy to come to terms with what happened today. He made a mental note to look into the crazy woman situation, since she would likely show up again sooner or later, his tiefling disguise may have another role to play soon. Just in case, he had commanded the local vermin to keep an eye out for Tav.

Tav may have tried to hide his magic powers due the guard incident, strange as it was for him to cower behind a complete stranger, perhaps he was trying to lie low.. Something about how helpless Tav behaved put Astarion on edge. He’d never seen him like that.

Then again, if he’d been here all this time without anyone knowing he would have built a new identity for himself. No hero of Baldur’s gate, just a barkeep at a tavern which serves tea apparently. Perhaps the final fight with the netherbrain made Tav want to retire into a simpler life, leaving the idea of adventuring behind. Astarion could only speculate on the reasoning.

Astarion didn’t say a word to either Vand or Ty when he entered the house, just traded eye contact and dismissed them by silent command. He headed up the stairs to the bigger bedroom, taking off all his garments and clothes until but the undershirt and pants were left.

With an annoyed grunt, he settled down on the bed in a meditative position, only to swap resting angles several times.. Reverie would not come for him as easily today.

‘’What am I doing..?’’ The mumble tumbled out of his mouth, his fingers slid over the soft covers, finding a pillow to dig his face in.

‘’..Tav..’’ He moaned, squeezing his hands together. The vision of their fingers intertwined returned to him. ‘’Oh.. Dearest..’’ his voice muffled under a deep breath.

A cold hard yearning welled within him, building and building, becoming harder to contain with every second. A single tear escaped from his eyes.

He needed to clear his head as soon as possible.. There were things to be done.

For his trance, he decided to focus on a memory, a particularly fond one he hadn’t revisited since the break up. It was the second time he slept with Tav, only to realise he had grown fond of him in ways he never perceived himself to be able to.

The tiefling party was definitely not to his taste, even now, it still made him feel weird to be celebrated as a hero. Back in Baldur’s gate, that's what he now was known for. It took a lot of manipulating and gaslighting to make sure no one questioned him taking over the szarr estate, ensuring his road to securing the city as his territory.

Back during the adventure, the parasites were the furthest from his mind, he could only think of how worried it made him a monster hunter had joined the band of travellers.. Playing hero had never been part of the plan, the plan was to just survive and slay Cazador.. The road to freedom.

The very first time he slept with Tav was almost no different from when he slept with his marks. The smell of alcohol and dopamine intertwined with adrenaline was Cazador’s favourite part of his ritual. Only to end it with watching his slaves dine on dead putrid rats while he had finished feasting on his victims.

But the second time, at the party, it.. The air had changed. While Tav had not been a victim or target in his mind, the first one night stand was without feeling, just sex.

Asking him the first time was easy, the second time not so much. He was more hesitant, nervous about the journey and going out to sleep in the woods again.

With every pick-up line possible, Astarion kept shooting his shot, wondering to himself why he had been so insistent to sleep with him again even though his protection should be guaranteed by now.

It was less ‘’need to’’ and more ‘’want to’’ or.. ‘’I yearn to,’’ With a lack of better words to explain what he was feeling.. Unsure how to express it beyond physical touch.

When he eventually managed to convince Tav he would be safe, they sneaked away from the festivities to their previous spot.

He recalls walking to the little moonlight lit grove, only to turn around to see Tav quietly and slowly slid his shirt off his shoulders. The light reflected off his skin, glimmering.

While Astarion had pictured this is what he looked like to Tav that first time together, now the roles were reversed and he was mesmerised. There was something incredibly dreamy to him, unforgettable. An ache in his chest and a throb to his undead heart.

Astarion stalled, his fingers firmly clenching his own shirt while he watched Tav never take his eyes off him while undressing himself.

He didn’t realise he had frozen until Tav walked up to him bare, laying a hand on his and guiding him only to stop. ‘’Are you alright..?’’ Tav questioned in a gentle tone.

‘’Are you sure you want this right now?’’

‘’I want you.. I want to devour you.’’ Astarion replied, unfreezing and quickly undoing his clothes to join him bare.

The kiss that followed left him wanting more and more as he drowned into the touch, that uncomfortable feeling of arousal rose up and down until it found its rhythm, sending a wave of pleasure flowing through him.

His hands travelled over Tav’s skin, dancing across tiny hidden scars, pinching the subtle curves in his body. Tav’s back arched, he moaned the second Astarion’s lips found his neck.

He could bite him right there and then, but preferred to tease him.

The scent of alcohol intertwined with dopamine had something to it.. It was much sweeter without the addition of Adrenaline, which had a salty and unsettling flavour to it.

Tav kept drawing him in, his hands caressing gentle patterns over Astarion’s back and his arms. It wasn’t long until their bodies crashed onto the bedroll, with Astarion thrusting himself into Tav’s embrace.

Tav moaned so sweetly, covering his face with his arm out of vulnerability. Astarion wanted to yank his arms above his head, but decided on a gentler approach, kissing his neck until he relaxed in between the thrusts.

When they found a common ground within the rhythm, Astarion started moaning loudly into Tav’s skin. Burying himself with sloppy kisses across his collar bone, licking the sweat off his neck.

He cried out Tav’s name, who only moaned in response at their shared climax. He took a loud breath before opening his eyes looking into Astarion’s directly. Astarion stared back dreamily, pondering in silence.

This was bliss.. It must be. It has to be.

Tav looked at him with cheeks flushed, brushing Hair out of his face. ‘’Careful now, if you’re going to keep looking at me like that I might actually start to believe you’re in love with me.’’ His chest heaved, a pure moment of honesty.

Astarion remembers the weight of the pit in his stomach. Such a sweet moment, one he ruined like so many others.. ‘’Only for tonight, darling.’’ A charming line, perhaps the biggest lie he’s ever said, and he did it so confidently. Scripted, rehearsed.

Tav’s eyes glazed over somewhat, he released a sigh, stretching beneath Astarion. ‘’You haven’t pulled out.’’ He muttered, looking away almost embarrassed as if they did not just have extremely hot passionate sex.

Astarion smirked, feeling rather gloomy when he pulled away, he frowned at Tav, who had now turned to his side, avoiding eye contact.

The vision of the memory began shifting by force, making Astarion roll his head during trance. He couldn’t control what he’d see next.

Astarion could see Tav’s vulnerable bare body one moment, only to be exchanged with a tearful and exhausted expression of shock back at the elfsong inn.

‘’You’re asking too much of me right now, I just want to sleep, to rest.’’

‘’You want to rest? Right now? Walk away in the middle of the most important conversation you’ve ever had?’’

‘’Astarion I-’’

‘’You know what, forget it. I don’t need this.’’

‘’What? I didn’t mean to insult you- today has been a lot for both of us-’’

Astarion couldn’t hear the words he shouted even though they came out of his own mouth, the once so sweet dream now ruined by the night of his enlarged ego. The rush of power fresh in his veins, only to be aimed in the wrong direction.. He didn’t mean it, he didn’t. He was overcome with emotions he could not control, and in that moment he broke his own heart in two.

‘’I’m just so tired..’’

The exhaustive look on Tav’s face came back into his mind, as he turned around and disappeared through smoke and dust.

‘’I’m sorry.’’

The words echoed loudly, sounding just as real and new as the first time he’d spoken them. Astarion could envision the scared look on Tav’s face back in the alley, the nervous glances before he ran off.

He could feel the pressure of his squeeze in the palm on his hand, which shook him out of trance. The wet dream had been pleasant, but now there was just the scent of guilt hanging in the air.

‘’I need a bath..’’

……

The wizard of Waterdeep! Gale Dekarios.. A Teacher at Blackstaff Academy teaching Illusion. Exalted wizard of a and Ex-chosen of Mystra. Son of Morena Dekarios and beloved friend of Tara the tressym.

Not too long ago, he visited his friends 6 months after the defeat of the netherbrain on invitation by Withers.

Gale had been elated, exhausted, as his new job came with a lot of complications.. And he was much in need of seeing familiar faces. ‘’A social palette cleanser’’ Tara called it, ‘’Since you have no other friends,’’ and it had been.. Refreshing. Surely.. Up until the revelation that everyone’s busy lives meant no one had actively looked for Tav. Except for Jaheira perhaps..

Gale’s priority had been to fulfil his promise to deliver the crown to Mystra and be rid of the orb, at the time he had hoped to run into his friends again as soon as it was over with. Eager to get out of Mystra’s hair and her eye, her hands and her whims.

Who would’ve thought that being a goddess’ lover was to be a sour experience? He was over her, that much was certain.. But his acceptance of his mortality and station somehow invoked in her the idea that she could potentially influence him again. To control him.

Requesting Gale to kamikaze had been the tipping point for him to realise their power dynamic, he nearly went over the edge, compelled to take the crown for himself and pursue godhood. But no, he was above it. He was above her antics, even as a mortal.

And this time.. Gale rejected Mystra. He worried she’d smite him for the act, but no. She was satisfied and tossed him out of her realm after business had finished.

No more social calls from Elminster occurred since. Nothing, not even a letter. Perhaps the centuries old arch mage tried to distance himself from Gale for good reasons. Or, Mystra had demanded it. And Mystra gets everything she wants.

Not that it mattered to Gale anymore, he was on a different mission now. One that had nothing to do with mindflayer invasions, hoax cults on the rise, ancient artefacts, or the goddamn goddess of magic herself.

Tara had looked forward to Gale taking a vacation from his stressful job of teaching young adults the wonders of illusion magic, so she could perch in his lap without him enduring overtime on writing original lesson material..

Gale was a stickler for details, much to the academy’s dismay.. He could not keep his word to give his class a beginner friendly course, so they saddled him with a class of chaotic mages instead. A challenge he gladly undertook, enjoying the opportunity to put his students in their place by threatening to blow himself up every now and then.

To his students' obliviousness, the orb was long gone. No more netherese influence for Gale. No more worries about blowing up the wrong place at the wrong time.

Unfortunately for Gale, his life had become chaotic still. Not because of orbs or goddesses, but because the quest to locate Tav in neverwinter had been much easier than he thought it would be.

He’d only just arrived at his holiday location and secured a place of stay when he came across a quirky little tavern tucked away in a very busy district of the city. Gale made a mental note to visit it, when he was stopped by a sending spell sent directly into his mind.

‘’Professor Dekarios. Urgent. Dharma’s gone missing. Think she went after you. Very worried. Please be lenient. Need the class. Send her home.’’

Twenty-two words, three short for a sending spell. But he recognised the voice of Dharma's mother. The woman had been dismissive of her daughter’s increasingly concerning demeanour towards him. If she was coming after him on his vacation, Gale could finally begin the procedure to ban her from his class formally…

With a flash of orange hair dye, she was right behind him, not moments later. He eyed the young woman trying to convey his disappointment by facial expression alone. He could lecture her of course, but she wasn’t worth his personal time nor his elaborate vocabulary. Learning from his past relationship alone, he opted to ignore her to see if she could take a hint.. But it simply invited her to follow him into the tavern.

After scolding Dharma with much needed help from the halfling tavern owner, Gale clapped eyes on a malnourished and gloomy looking Tav. They never spoke a word, but it kept him thinking. At first Gale thought Tav was pretending to not know him.. He looked depressed at most. Gale felt guilty.. But also suspicioned something else was going on.

The halfling was too excited for his repeated visits, and Tav’s quick glances were that of a complete stranger. Gale hoped Tav would call him out, tell him to leave. Yell at him for not coming after him.. For not helping him with whatever he appears to be going through.

Yet.. He never does. Never, even if he had every opportunity to do so as Gale kept visiting. Gale enjoyed his little vacation exploring books with Jilvy’s other customers during club hours. A means to pass the time.. To observe.

Tav’s body language did not change. Tav’s expression did not change. A moment had passed where he could’ve feigned a look of recognition, and Gale wanted to speak up, he simply couldn’t make himself do it. Tav never questioned his silent attempts to make conversation. Didn’t question him for staring. He kept working, never sitting still for too long unless he started feeling sick. And he was sick very often.

Finally, he concluded that Tav was experiencing some sort of memory loss. Unsure of the cause, he reflected to the last moment he saw his dear friend. The absent-minded glossed over eyes, apathetic and exhausted. The same look that he bears on his doll-like expression every single day nowadays.

What could’ve caused this? The trauma of the final fight? He recalls some debris hitting Tav’s head during the fall into the chiontar.. But shadowheart fixed him up before he suddenly walked off, so.. They’ve been through many battles and Tav always kept standing right back up leading the party through the fray bravely.

Gale searched his memories, pondering for some time.. Quickly he came to a stop. There simply was no way to be sure about Tav’s situation if he didn’t talk to Tav to begin with.

Observing him quietly was weird and doing so made Gale feel creeped out by himself.

He’d hoped to run into Jaheira, Shadowheart… Or anyone else really, to converse about the situation. No. It was time to take the matter into his own hands.

He had to confront Tav. To confront his guilt for abandoning him. Surely Tav would understand he had to rid himself of the orb? But.. Then he got a job as a professor and lost track of time..

Tav was an empathetic person, but also a survival-centred individual. He definitely would’ve understood it wasn’t personal.

This conversation had to happen regardless of how Gale felt about it. He owed it to Tav.

When he made it to the tavern, it was the closing hour. He’d hoped to pass a letter to Jilvy to request a private conversation with Tav in a safe environment outside of work. He wasn’t sure how Tav would take it if he really had amnesia.

Only.. The door was left wide open. Gale stared at it, sensing an arcane disturbance in the air. He turned his head to see Jilvy waltz up to him with suspicious eyes.

‘’What’s the meaning of this?’’ The halfling looked up, carrying a large bag of supplies over her shoulder. Her suspicion faded when she recognized the worry in Gale’s eyes and took note of the letter in his hand.

‘’I shouldn’t have taken too long..’’ Jilvy drops the bag into Gale’s arms forcefully as she inspects the door. One of the hinges had come loose and it was dangling from the spare.

‘’Tav is your lost friend, isn’t he?’’ Jilvy continued, looking for the door’s missing screws in the snow. ‘’You knew?’’ Gale’s eyebrows raised in surprise from Jilvy’s casual tone.

‘’I figured as much, the boy clearly has amnesia. And I assume you figured that out yourself as well?’’ She turned her head up to Gale with the recovered metals in her hands.

Gale didn’t answer her, he looked at the footsteps in the snow, noticing a disparity in pacing. He turned around to follow the pattern, recognizing fresh imprints. One was from someone who’d have jumped abnormally far, blowing snow out of the way while doing so.. The others were dragging their heels, moving with force, as if carrying something heavy that needed focus to maintain stability.

‘’A moment, miss Fogwater.’’ Gale handed back the bag of supplies to Jilvy as she watched him draw a few symbols by hand and mutter some incantations.

‘’vide magica.’’

The divination ritual spell takes hold, and Gale sees the traces of magic. Psionic, and very familiar.. One he had only rid himself off months ago. Netherse magic. Tav must’ve retained a semblance of his illithid abilities to make that forceful jump forward. The psionic energy lingered on the ground and the door..

The remainder of the arcane traces of weave he saw were much more worrying. A failed charm spell, and a disintegrate spell, unfired.

‘’This is bad.’’ Gale mumbled, Jilvy was about to ask him what he meant by that when Tav came running back out of breath. He nearly tripped over a pile of toppled snow when he saw the wizard with his boss.

‘’Tav! You’re back.. Oh dear. I’m sorry-’’ Jilvy puts her groceries down on the ground this time, not pausing to make sure it wouldn’t fall to its side.

Gale puts away the letter in his coat, silently watching the halfling comfort Tav as if he were a lost boy.

Tav, out of breath, barely able to speak, manages to stutter. ‘’T..The- Door..’’

‘’Dharma.’’ Gale can barely hear the name as it falls from his lips, only to see Tav shockingly look behind him, trying to find Dharma. He figured out she went after Tav because of his visits.. Tav’s reaction speaks volumes.

‘’Dharma who? She owes me a new door. The brat.’’ Jilvy continues patting Tav’s back as he’s trying to regain composure. ‘’I’m fine..’’ He mutters, walking over to grab her groceries for her, the halfling stops him midway. ‘’You’re not fine! You’re sweating rivers in the middle of a very cold winter evening!’’ She pulls his hands away and holds them together.

‘’Come, come, come inside. Tell me what happened.’’ She nods to Gale, suggesting he better join them.

Tav, nauseous from his experience, takes a moment to recuperate so Jilvy serves him a hot drink. Not tea, chocolate milk.

He takes a large gulp before he speaks his story, retelling from his weird night time experiences and hearing movements.. To the visit during closing hours and being pursued.

‘’Why didn’t you ask the guards for help? No- you would.. They’re.. Ugh, no matter! Those folks are too busy trying to catch a homicidal freak. Dharma owes me a door and food supplies!’’ Jilvy huffs. ‘’Has no one respect for small business owners these days?’’

Jilvy stops mid tantrum when she takes notice of Tav’s posture stiffening. ‘’And my dear employee, of course.’’ She puts her hand on his, trying to comfort him.. Tav’s stiffness does not let up. He lets out a nervous breath.

Gale raises his eyebrows at that. There’s a homicidal freak going around neverwinter? He’s only been here for little more than a week and he’s never heard of it. ‘’Homicidal freak..? I thought neverwinter was the most civilised place out there.. Well, I guess Volo doesn’t know the splendours of Waterdeep very well.’’ He jests, referencing a quote of one of Volo’s guides.

Then again.. There was some commotion in the town squares not too long ago. Perhaps he overlooked something, too busy with his vacation activities.

‘’Aye, red curved dagger. Attacked a wintershield guard during his off duties. Unusual, there’s posters of it drawn up everywhere.’’ Jilvy interrupts his thoughts.

The description, it just.. It just clicks. For Gale at least. A red curved dagger.. Unusual design, and the only likely culprit.. Tav may appear nervous on the outside from Dharma’s murder attempt, but he might in fact be hiding for committing a crime.. Whatever for?

Tav wasn’t someone who’d just lash out against authority figures on a whim. He was very particular about avoiding the flaming fist while they were trying to figure out how to get rid of the steel watch.

‘’I’ll make sure to write a lengthy report to the blackstaff academy, if you could.. Write a complaint I can add, seeing as your business was damaged in the drama of uh.. This student’s behaviour.’’ Gale swallows. ‘’If you could, keep it out of the wintershield’s hands, I aim to look for Dharma and have her sent off as soon as possible. This is my problem to begin with.’’ He searches his pockets for his wallet. ‘’And mine to fix..’’

‘’No, no.. I can’t just take your money, dear. I’ll write a lengthy report of expenses with my complaint.’’ Jilvy answers. ‘’I prefer earning it the normal way. Besides, Tav is a victim here as well. And.. You two need to talk.’’ She brushes gently against Tav’s arm, giving his hand another squeeze. ‘’Just yell my name if you need me, dear.’’ Then, she departs with the bag of groceries in hand, not before putting a curtain in place of the broken door.

The chill creeps in, Gale takes a sip of his cup of water, watching Tav’s absent-minded eyes for a moment. He can see him shiver.

‘’Do you remember me?’’ Gale asks, finally. And to his dismay, Tav’s eyes remain the same. He looks to him as if he’s a barely familiar stranger.

‘’You’re the wizard that’s here on vacation.. Gale, right?’’ Tav answers, he brushes his hand through his hair, fidgeting with his cup.

Gale tries to figure out if now is really the best time to break the news.. Tav is vulnerable, but he isn’t sure how vulnerable.

‘’Yes, that’s correct.’’ He pauses. ‘’And I came here, looking for you.’’ He looks into his water, avoiding eye contact.

Tav stammers a bit, he puts his cup down and avoids looking at Gale as well. ‘’A-ah..’’ The room grows quiet as more of the eerie wind outside creeps in.

‘’..Am I a bad person..?’’ Tav whispers.

‘’What..?’’

‘’..I.. Must be.. I keep seeing these flashes..’’

Gale isn’t sure how to answer that, but it does answer some of the riddles.. Tav’s amnesia is definitely traumatic. He should’ve known. The signs were all there.. The absent eyes, the apathy and gloom. His self-neglect, he isn’t acting like himself.

‘’I think I’m being punished.’’ Tav sobs, hiding his face in his hands. ‘’You came looking for me.. I don’t even know if I deserve it-’’ He wails softly, trying to hold back his cries and plants his face on the table.

Gale stands from his seat and sits beside him with his knees on the floor, pulling Tav from his position into a hug. ‘’You were a hero. At least to me.’’ He allows him to stain his coat with tears and mucus as Tav continues to cry in his confusion. When he calms down, he wipes the snot from his nose, looking uncomfortable from his own actions.

‘’I don’t even know who you are.’’

Gale gives him a gentle smile and grabs his hand, reassuring him. ‘’I’ll tell you all you want to know my friend.. But first, I need to take care of this Dharma problem. I endangered you necessarily.. This is my fault. You shouldn’t be..’’ Gale shakes his head. ‘’I’ll come back, make sure to stay with your boss, Jilvy, you’re safe here.’’

Tav looks confused by his words and gentleness, the wizard is determined to act and return as soon as possible so he could help Tav. To repay the favour.

It wasn’t too long ago Gale had spent days thinking of ending his own life.. And Tav was the one to tell him he deserved to live. And live he did.. Time is of the essence.

…

It wasn’t just Gale who was concerned with spending his time wisely. The next day, Astarion stumbled on towards the tavern, noticing the posters plastered all over the windows. As a Tiefling adventurer, he did look a little similar to his noble Elf self.. But only a keenly trained eye could notice the similarities. His curls were black and long, and so were his sclera dark and intimidating in this form. The red skin and ridges matched with glamoured armour did a lot for this disguise. Attractive on its own, he thinks.

He casually stood there, reading the advertisements the tavern owner had put up.. Something about a book club and a bookstore offering discounts for members.

He pondered for a moment if he should just knock on the door and act as an oblivious customer when a halfling popped the crooked door open and started chattering about the posters to him.

Astarion barely listened to her rambling when he turned around and smiled friendly.

‘’..And I suppose I could really hire someone to look after my employee.’’

Oh, damn. He really should’ve listened to what she was saying.

Given the context, this was Tav’s boss.. She likely heard of the attack yesterday and worried about him. A little odd, he thought. This halfling spends money to protect her lone employee..? A motherly look in her eyes softened his suspicious concerns for her reasoning.

But.. The door looked awfully damaged.. Perhaps she was just looking out for her business.. No, she could fire Tav from his job if she didn’t care for him.

What an opportunity!

‘’You want to hire me as a bouncer..? For your.. Tea tavern?’’ Astarion asked, making sure.

‘’Yes, that’s what I was getting at, you look like the opportune sort? Fancy the job? I don’t want my employee and customers to worry though.. So you could pretend to be a regular.’’ The halfling nodded, clearly happy with her idea.

‘’That makes sense.. I’m expensive though.’’ Astarion thought about it, he needed to look professional to make sure the woman didn’t get second thoughts. ‘’To be honest, I think I ran into your employee yesterday- he was being chased by a.. Mage. Asked me to pretend to be his boyfriend. Are you sure hiring me is a good idea?’’

‘’Hmm.’’ Jilvy eyed his tiefling form, thinking long and hard. Then she grins. ‘’If you give me a discount on hiring you, you eat for free.’’ This halfling.. He liked her attitude. ‘’Just don’t eat all my supplies, deal?’’

‘’I wouldn’t dream of it. My name is..’’ He paused, trying to think of a good tiefling name. He had to decide fast so hoped the name wasn’t too unusual for a tiefling. ‘’Morlock.. Grey.’’ He’d almost used Karlach’s last name, but that wouldn’t be good for cover. If his friends were around, they’d put one and two together.

‘’Your name means Black Grey? Huh. Parents weren’t the creative sort.’’ The halfling then realised her tone may have been a bit.. Offensive. ‘’Oh, sorry. That was unprofessional. I am Jilvy fogwater.’’

‘’Hah! I’m a tiefling Ma’am. I don’t need to explain my.. Past, obviously.. It’s not the pleasant kind, all too common for someone growing up with horns and a tail.’’ He figured that she wouldn’t ask more, considering how he remembers the elturel tiefling refugees being treated by their surroundings. All tieflings experience some sort of discrimination. Many aren’t even born to tiefling parents..

Jilvy grows a sympathetic look, she stares at the ground for a moment. ‘’Well, nice to meet you, Morlock.’’

‘’Let's talk business, how many hours per day? How much? Will I be paid weekly or per hours?’’

‘’I knew I liked you from the moment I saw you, Morlock.’’

‘’Likewise.. Mrs fogwater.’’

He follows her into the tavern, partially listening to Jilvy pretending that he’s signing up for the book club and discussing the latest hot novella gossip.

He’s only been there barely three seconds when his eyes meet with Tav again. He doesn’t seem too surprised, just put off by a familiar face with a raised brow. Then, without a worry in the world he continues checking on his baked goods.. Working efficiently and unbothered by Astarion’s presence..

To him, there wasn’t Astarion though.. There was Morlock, the tiefling adventurer who’d saved him the day before.

‘’Aye, Tav, come here for a sec. I heard you met Morlock?’’ Jilvy chimes in, it's almost as if she read Astarion’s mind.

‘’Oh, yeah- I didn’t catch your name…B-before.. Hi.’’ He looks flustered. If only for a little bit, the glazed-over doll eyes disappear. There is a light in the darkness.

Even in this disguise, Astarion has some hold over him. Not that he can tell it’s Astarion though.. Which is the point.

But, that aside.. Astarion feels a little jealous at the looks he’s giving to Morlock.

So.. His plot thickens, while he schemes to create the perfect scenario to get Tav back in his arms, as soon as possible.

#ascended astarion x male reader #ascended astarion x male tav #ascended astarion x reader #astarion #astarion x tav #bg3 #bg3 tav #ascended astarion x m! reader #ascended astarion x m! tav #ascended astarion x tav #bg3 fanfiction #ao3 fanfic #gale #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #long fic

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ellethespaceunicorn · 1 year

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Bright Like The Moon: Chapter 4

Chapter 4: We Showed The World That We Exist

Rating: Explicit, 18+, Minors - DNI

Fandom: Night Hunter

Pairing: Walter Marshall x Black!OFC

Word count: 5.1K

Summary: Kamaria Mansfield is hired at the Minnesota Police Department as an intern. Detective Walter Marshall is overworked and unsatisfied. Takes place post-film.

Chapter Summary: Kamaria and Walter play hooky to deal with unforeseen stressors.

Chapter warnings: panic attack (dissociation episode), oral sex (f receiving), finger fucking, therapy session, squirting

A/N: Time jumps in this chapter. We’re only skipping a couple of days but it may be a little jarring. But Yada is back!! Un-beta’d, we die like people who tried their best.

Dividers: @firefly-graphics

Support/Reblog banner by me

Cover Art by me

Cross-posted on AO3

Series Masterlist

My Masterlist

Kamaria’s POV

Word has spread like wildfire around the office about me and Walter dating. It didn’t take long at all for news that the grumpy bear of a detective and the new intern are fucking. We actually aren’t even doing that, yet. It’s only been a few days but the rumor mill in the police station is like a damn high school hallway. And I have Nina and Sophie to thank for that.

I swear, no one listens to interns. Like, ever. Unless it is about gossip. And I made friends with the loudest, and the actual kindest, gossipmongers. I know they mean well, they’ve made it clear they are glad that Walter smiles more. I like being the cause of his change of mood, as well.

With everyone aware of our relationship, things are kind of weird. Like, weird around the ex, kind of weird.

It’s not like Rachel and Walter were super friendly after they decided not to date. Sometimes, and I would never tell Walter this, I feel like he felt for Rachel because she saved his life. A case of transference, perhaps?

But, they at least seemed cordial towards each other. Rachel felt enough of a connection to reach for his hand, the thought still burns in my mind. But Walter and I did have our first kiss after that, so grain of salt, ya know?

Rachel just seems like someone pissed in her oatmeal every time she walks by me. She couldn’t possibly be jealous of me. I don’t get her, honestly. Is it an “if she can’t have him, no one can” thing? Because I wouldn’t have thought she would go for pettiness. Never underestimate a woman on a mission, though.

Walter and I agree to get to work a bit early so we could hang out in his office until I have to start work. The man may be seen as prickly by most people in the office, but it is like night and day when it comes to me. He can be so thoughtful, and so in tune with my emotions that it can be like he’s reading my mind. Which is both cute and slightly annoying, because I can never hide what I’m feeling.

Like this morning, for example. My mind has been racing. So many things to think about, from my work to Walter to Rachel to my anxiety about dating openly in the office to what I’m going to choose to talk about in therapy today. And I can’t seem to make it stop or slow down. Which is when I feel a hand on mine.

I look up to see Walter crouching next to the chair I’m sitting in. I don’t remember sitting down. I barely remember walking into this office.

“There she is,” he says, brushing a hand over my confused brow, “you had me so worried back there.” I notice the fear in his eyes now.

“Sometimes, my anxiety takes over and I just check out,” I mutter, looking around the office, “I remember getting out of my car and kissing you and then nothing until just now.”

“Does this happen a lot?” I hear the tremble in his voice but I don’t mention it.

“Hasn’t happened in months. I can usually sense it before other people can, though. Sort of like a panic attack, but not really because I don’t panic, I just…move? It’s hard to explain,” I ramble on, trying to get my bearings.

“It sounds like your brain is working on autopilot due to stress. I’m no therapist, but I’ve seen how stress can affect people in different ways,” he suggests, holding my hand in his, “I hope I’m not overstepping here, but a new relationship becoming public can be quite stressful. Especially when it’s in a work setting where one person’s ex is also a coworker. It’s no wonder you’re feeling like this.”

“Well, when you put it like that, I can’t deny that it is a lot,” I concede, feeling all sorts of vulnerable.

“You have therapy today around 1, right?” he asks before I nod to confirm, “And where is your therapist’s office?”

“Well, I was going to do it virtually today. But she’s close-ish. Between here and my apartment,” I answer, wondering where this is going.

“I have a suggestion, which you are more than welcome to decline. But, in my head, it sounds like a good id-”

“Baby, you’re babbling,” I laugh, stopping his rant.

“I think you should ask to see your therapist in person. We can take the rest of the day off and I could drive you to the appointment if you’d like,” he urges, “Besides, it’s the weekend. They won’t mind if we skip out a bit early.”

“Skip out early? I didn’t even clock in yet,” I remind him, still thinking about work instead of my mental health. Very typical of me.

“Perfect, then. I still have personal time to use, and you told me you were given some personal time when you signed on, so that covers today. We’ll let your manager know you’re not feeling well on the way out,” he says, moving about his office and collecting his things before realizing I’m yet unmoving, “Fuck! Did I just plan your entire day?”

I smile up at him, adoration in my eyes. “You did, but with the best of intentions,” I comment, standing up from the chair, “You’re right, though. I kinda need the routine of going into the office today and I could use a day off even if it’s only my first week.”

“Look at you, already smiling. I count that as a win,” he hums, reaching for my hand, squeezing as our fingers interlace.

We head out of the station after a short talk with my boss. Tell a man you’re having ‘feminine trouble’ and he all but shoos you out of the building. Thank God for small favors.

Walter heads home after insisting I go home to change clothes and grab whatever I needed to feel comfortable for the rest of the day at his place. Arriving home, I immediately start to pack my overnight bag. I choose to ignore the nagging voice questioning my actions. I might want to stay over or change clothes again for some reason. So, take that, Nag-atha Christie!

I call my therapist’s office and request to come into the office today. I say that my schedule has changed and I would prefer to be seen in the office. The receptionist is super sweet and lets me know she will inform Yada of the change. I hope Yada doesn’t worry. I mean, I’m slightly worried about my little episode earlier but I feel at least a bit better now.

I change into some yoga pants, a loose-fitting top, a hoodie, and some comfy old sneakers. I spot Beary Allen sitting atop my bed and resign to bringing him over to Walter’s house as well. I usually can’t sleep without him so I don’t chastise myself too much for bringing along something for comfort.

I check my overnight bag to make sure I have everything I need, and some stuff I don’t need but I want to have just in case. And if I reach into my nightstand and grab condoms, then that is my business until it is Walter and I’s business. Not that I plan on doing anything, but I like being prepared for multiple eventualities. In any case, I refuse to let myself feel anything but poised for success. I also refuse to define success, so there’s the end of that.

I hear Walter’s text tone going off in my pocket and pull out my phone.

Walter Marshall: Didn’t change your mind did you, Princess?

Me: Of course not!

Me: I was just making sure I have everything

Me: Including Beary Allen

Me: 😁

Walter Marshall: The…Flash? But like, a bear?

Me: I love that you get exactly what I meant

Me: And you haven’t even met Beary

Walter Marshall: I was right???

Me: You’ll meet him soon

Me: He’s my emotional support animal

Me: I’m leaving now to come to you

You have shared your location.

Me: Now, you can tell where I am at all times

Me: Just as a safety thing

Walter Marshall: Wow ok

Walter Marshall: Thank you for trusting me with this

Me: You’re welcome

Me: Try to act like you didn’t follow my location the entire time I was on my way to your place 😉

Walter Marshall: No promises

I’m already back in my car by the time his text comes through, I know he’s gonna follow me the whole way to his house. It’s honestly adorable. I can tell he misses me when I’m not around. He likes me, and I like him too. It doesn’t take me long to get to his house and he’s standing outside when I park in the driveway.

“You failed to play it cool, Detective,” I laugh, grabbing my overnight bag and Beary from the passenger seat before exiting my car.

“I never promised to play it cool,” he smiles, reaching out to take my overnight bag from me, “Hmm, planning on staying a bit?”

“I figured it would be best to be prepared,” I propose, clutching onto Beary, secretly glad that Walter didn’t offer to take him as well. No one has ever touched Beary besides me.

“May I address Mr. Allen directly? Or does he only speak with you?” he poses the question completely seriously.

It takes every ounce of my resolve not to melt. “You may address him directly.”

“Mr. Allen, may I call you Beary?” he waits for a response, “I just want you to know I plan on taking care of Kam during her stay here, however long that may be…Yes, of course…I wouldn’t dream of it. So we have an understanding. Shake on it?” He reaches out and shakes Beary’s tiny paw, winking at me as he pulls his hand back. If he’s not careful, I will fall so fucking hard for this man.

Walter takes my hand, kisses it gently, and brings me inside. I start to lean down to remove my shoes, but he stops me and kneels to do it himself.

“You don’t have to-” I start, before being cut off.

“I know I don’t have to, Princess,” he agrees, placing my shoes next to his, “but I want to take care of you today, so allow me to do so, please?”

I open my mouth to protest, but a stern look from Walter makes me rethink that choice and only nod.

“Good girl,” he praises, standing up to hover over me, “I know it must be hard to let someone take care of you, but since I’ve taken on that role, I plan on not having you lift a finger if I can help it. Sorry, not sorry.”

“That’s some Prince Charming shit right there,” I blurt out, there goes my filter flying away in the wind again. Luckily, Walter just laughs at that and kisses my forehead.

We end up hanging out around his house for a few hours, having far too many snacks and too much coffee. What can I say, we’re both caffeine addicts and snack goblins. The only reason I ignore the voice telling me I’ve had enough snacks is the fact that Walter is hand-feeding me pieces of fruit. He was not kidding about me not lifting a finger. I could get used to this.

Before long, Walter is helping me put my shoes on so that we can head to my therapist appointment. He opens his truck door for me and even buckles me in, shooing my hands away. Holding my hand as he drives, he allows me to pick the music we listen to. When I joke ‘but I thought the driver picks the music and shotgun shuts his cakehole’, he has no clue what I’m talking about. I explain it away as a tv show reference, making sure to force him to watch Supernatural with me at some point.

As The Amazing Devil’s ‘Two Minutes’ is ending, we are pulling up to Yada’s office. I don’t even try to reach for my door handle, waiting for Walter to come around to my side of the vehicle. He lifts me out of the truck and I try not to smile too wide at that. Holding my hand as we cross the parking lot, he steps in front of me to open the door, allowing me to walk in first. I check in with the receptionist and we sit in the lobby holding hands again. This man likes to hold my hand, and I am not complaining about it.

I hear Yada’s office door open and she steps out to greet me. She visibly registers my hand intertwined with the man to my left. I stand, pulling Walter up with me by accident.

“Don’t worry, he’s gonna wait out here. Let’s go,” I sputter, moving past Yada and into the office. I notice Yada isn’t following me when I sit down. I hear introductions being exchanged and silently die inside. Why does it feel like my mom is meeting my boyfriend? Wait, is he my boyfriend? Oh my God, is he my boyfriend?

Yada comes back into the room and sits in her armchair, grabbing her notebook and writing quickly in it before addressing me. “So, let’s address the elephant in the room, or should I say the giraffe in my lobby. That man is tall as hell. And very pretty,” she jabbers on, smiling away at me, “Tell me all about him.”

I go on to tell her we met, or more correctly he saved my life, just before my last therapy appointment. I mention Faye and that we haven’t met yet. I talk about being in almost constant communication since I gave him my number on Monday. We discuss how he likes to take care of me, and that he did so after I told him about the whole Christopher thing. During this, she is taking notes in her book. When I bring up my episode this morning, she looks up at me.

“So, it sounds like Walter was able to ground you during a moment of dissociation. About how long did it last?” she asks.

“For just a few minutes. I remember getting out of my car, but from walking into the station to Walter effectively ‘waking me up’...it’s just like I was watching myself move but I wasn’t totally in control.” I murmur, finding my favorite spot on the rug.

“I see, can you remember this ever happening before?”

“The last time it happened was maybe five or six months ago after I had to quit the job at the prison infirmary. It was just too stressful. And I guess I have been kinda stressed the past couple of days. Everybody at work knows Walter and I are dating thanks to a couple of friends I made. Nina and Sophie are sweet but they have loose lips.”

“Either way, I am glad you made friends,” she smiles, taking a note, “Are there any other stressors besides a new public relationship?”

“His ex works at the station too. She’s been kinda giving me the stink eye when we pass each other. She hasn’t said or done anything. But like, she obviously still feels something for him,” I admit, rolling my eyes, “But if that chicken thinks she’s getting anywhere near my coop, she has got another thing coming.”

“Calm down, we don’t need you to be unprofessional in the workplace, no matter how she acts toward you,” she reasons, even though I only half-listen, “Does Walter know about Rachel’s behavior?”

“No, because I don’t want to sound like I’m crazy. I feel crazy. She probably just has resting bitch face?”

“I think you should tell him about the looks she has been giving you. Get his opinion on it before you discount your feelings completely. He might be able to shed some light on her behavior, or even better, he may be able to speak with her on terms she can understand. And that don’t involve you clubbing her like a seal and hiding the body behind the police station. But you didn’t hear that from me. That’s off the record, Your Honor.” she muses, winking at me before taking notes.

I agree to talk to Walter about Rachel and we decide this will be my homework for this week. Not difficult, but still awkward to start speaking about. I mean, how do you tell your significant other that their ex is problematic without seeming territorial or threatened? Rachel doesn’t strike me as the type to try and come in between Walter and me, but I will be keeping my eyes peeled.

“So are you and Walter using protection?” Out of nowhere, Yada hits me with that question.

“Yada! We haven’t even done anything yet? Jesus, woman,” I cover my face, happy again that my espresso skin doesn’t show the heat behind my cheeks.

“Yet being the optimal word. Got it. Well, use protection. You have every right to have sex and every right to protect yourself. So, don’t be coming round here saying ‘we got caught up in the moment’. Because so did Romeo and Juliet and look how that ended,” she deadpans, throwing her hands up.

“Did you just…never mind. We will use protection. When we get to that point. I’m in no rush and I can’t speak for him, but he at least respects my boundaries.”

“He sounds like a good egg. I like him already. He respects boundaries, he’s attractive, he’s got a stable income, and he liiiiiikes you,” she beams, rising from her armchair to go to her desk.

“I’m glad you approve because I like him and it just feels right with him. We connect so easily,” I say, noticing Yada is looking at me and shaking her head, “What now?”

“You are falling for him, girlfriend, don’t you see that?” she commented matter-of-factly.

“Shut up, no I’m not,” I answer grumpily.

“Alright, but you are,” she states, tilting her head, “There is nothing wrong with that, by the way.”

“I know. I’m just afraid of moving too fast. That’s kind of my way of doing things, and I don’t hate it but I don’t necessarily like it much either.”

“Love it or hate it, it is a part of you. And you either have to learn to thrive despite it, or work toward changing the behavior. But you know this already, Kamaria.”

“You’re right about that, but I still like the option of just complaining about it,” I confess, shrugging my shoulders.

“Either way, it is your choice. You are still scheduled virtually for next week. You have your homework, as well. Anything else you wanna gab about before we end today’s session?”

“Nope,” I say, letting the ‘p’ make a pop sound.

“Well, then I will let you get back to your tall, dark, and handsome fella,” she smiles, getting up to walk me out. We exit her office and she smiles at Walter, addressing him directly. “She has homework and it involves you, so don’t let her forget.” How she gonna do me like that?!

“Thanks, Yada,” I groan.

Walter is enjoying this way too much because he decides it’s best to pat my shoulder while saying, “Don’t you worry, I won’t let her forget.” He just smiles when I give him a glare that rivals the fire of a thousand suns. He probably thinks it’s cute or something. He holds his arm out to let me exit before him and I’m happy for this because then he can’t see me cursing his very existence. I still let him open the door for me. I also let him open the truck door and buckle me in. By the time he gets into the vehicle, I’m reaching over to hold his hand.

“Done being mad at me, then?” he jokes, taking my hand and kissing the back of it.

“Feed me and we’ll see if I can’t be swayed,” I advise, winking at him.

We grab a quick late lunch and head back to his place. I take a nap for a couple of hours and am awoken by the hearty scent of tomato sauce. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep on the couch, but I’m waking up in a bedroom underneath a light blanket, Beary tucked into my side. Walter must have moved me in here so I wouldn’t be disturbed. He can be so sweet sometimes, I wonder how long he can keep this up.

I get up from the bed, leaving Beary behind and I walk out to the living room to see Walter hard at work in the kitchen. He doesn’t notice me so I sneak up behind him and goose him. He doesn’t react, as if he knew I was coming.

“What makes you think I didn’t hear you from the moment you opened my bedroom door?” he began, only turning slightly to wink at me before returning to slicing french bread for garlic toast, “I used to be S.W.A.T., Princess, so it takes a lot to get the jump on me.”

“So, you’re say-”

“That is not an invitation for you to experiment on how to get the upper hand, love,” he stops me before I go down that useless train of thought.

“You got me, I’ll be on my best behavior, Sir,” I laugh, pulling myself up to sit on the counter near him.

“Would you like a piece of bread with some tomato sauce on it, Princess?”

“Yes, please,” I pipe up, excited to taste the aromatic sauce. I watch as he grabs a piece of bread, dipping it into the sauce before blowing on it a bit. He turns off the stove and comes to stand in front of me, placing the bite just out of reach. I look at him, confusion painted on my face.

“Tell me what your homework is and you can have your treat, Princess.”

I debate pouting but I know that won’t get me that saucy bread. “I have to talk to you about Rachel. She’s been weird around me, and it makes me uneasy,” I mumble, suddenly anxious.

“What exactly is she saying or doing?” he asks, allowing me to take a bite of the bread, still holding onto it himself.

“She hasn’t said anything to me, she just gives me this bitchy glare whenever we cross paths,” I speak around the bite of bread I was granted, “Honestly, baby, she freaks me out and I don’t like the idea of having to avoid your ex.”

“You shouldn’t have to actively avoid her,” he holds the last bite of bread out for me and places it in my awaiting mouth, “I’ll talk to her. I don’t want to scare her too much. But I do want her to know you mean a lot to me and if I’m lucky, you’ll be in my life for a long time to come. She needs to suck it up and get used to it.”

“Fuck, that is so sexy to hear you say,” I disclose, reaching up to cup the back of his head, pulling him into a searing kiss.

I clench my thighs together as I feel his tongue invade my mouth. Strong hands part my legs so that he can slide in between them. Our clothed sexes line up perfectly and I wrap my legs around his hips. A growl rumbles from his chest to my groin. We part to catch our breath, our foreheads resting together.

“Fuck, will you let me eat your pussy, baby?” he practically moans the question and it lights a fire up under my ass.

“Please, yes,” I gasp, wrapping my arms around his neck before he picks me up off the counter and walks us into his bedroom. He lays me down slowly. Kissing from my lips to my neck, nipping along the way. I gasp inwardly when I feel his hand ghost over my covered heat, my back arching at the touch.

“I’m going to take such good care of you, baby. You just relax and take what you need from me,” he whispers, moving down the bed as he hooks his fingers in my pants. He pulls them down, leaving me in my drenched panties. He kisses the fabric of my underwear before pulling those down as well.

He dives into my sodden snatch, using the flat of his tongue to lick a stripe from my entrance to my swollen nub before kissing it. My hands go from gripping the sheets to weaving through his curls when I feel him start to suck on my button.

“Fuuuuuck, Daddy, just like that,” I mewl, his growl vibrating through my clit. I feel his hands grip my thick thighs, pulling me closer to him as he eats greedily. I look down at him, his eyes are closed and he looks like he is in Heaven feasting on me. As if he could sense my stare, his eyes open and we share a heated mutual gaze.

While still attending to my nub, he reaches up to my mouth and I suck two of his fingers, getting them nice and wet. When he’s satisfied, he leans back and licks his lips, entering my core with his spit-slicked digits and I cry out at the sensation.

“You’re so fucking tight, hot, and wet baby. Fucking perfect, I can’t wait to feel you wrapped around my cock,” he hummed, working his fingers in and out of me slowly until I arch my back to ride his fingers.

I pull him up to kiss me, tasting myself on his lips. His fingers find my inner bundle of nerves, massaging it as his thumb circles my clit. My breathing picks up as I feel the coil in my depths tightening until it snaps and I squeeze my eyes shut in anticipation.

“No, no, no. Look at me when I make you cum,” our eyes lock and I arch off the bed as my orgasm hits me full force. But this one feels different, so much more powerful than ever before. “Fuuuuuuuck, yes! Squirt all over me,” I faintly hear Walter groan those words before I realize my thighs are wet and sloshing noises are bouncing off the walls. Walter looks back up to my face and his pupils are blown wide. “You look so beautiful like this. All fucked out, tears flowing freely.” Did he say tears?

I reach up to my cheeks and feel wetness staining them, my eyes are blurry with unshed moisture. Then the emotion behind it all attacks and I begin to cry fully. I know they are happy tears but I can’t verbalize that to Walter yet and he starts to panic.

“S’ok…so good…emotional,” I mutter, trying to let him know I’m alright. He seems to understand and nods, going to the attached bathroom and coming back with two towels. I feel wet warmth between my thighs as he cleans me, then dries me off with the other towel. He lays down next to me and covers me with the comforter and I close my eyes in contentment.

He peppers my face with slow kisses, from my eyelids to my nose to my cheeks to my lips. When I open my eyes again, Walter is looking at me with a look that definitely spells out his feelings for me. Instead of putting words to it, we just lay and bask in its radiance. I struggle to keep my eyes open and finally keep them closed.

I feel a kiss placed on my forehead and stir while I hear Walter’s soothing voice in my ears. “You did so good, Angel. Rest as long as you need to, and I’ll be here when you wake up.”

I awake some time later, and true to his word, Walter is still laying next to me. His soft snores are like music to my ears. I lean up and nuzzle our noses together until he stirs and opens his eyes and smiles down at me.

“Hey, baby,” he gives me a quick peck, “How do you feel?”

“Well…so far, I feel refreshed. But I haven’t tried to walk yet,” I laugh, “That will be the true test. And I need to pee anyway.” At that, I sit up and stretch my arms over my head. I swing my legs out of the bed and stand up slowly. I take my first step and it’s wobbly as hell.

Walter gets up and helps me to the bathroom, because of course he does. He stays in the bathroom with me to make sure I don’t tip off the toilet or slip into the bathtub. I mean, at this point, I squirted all over his hand so I’m sure he can handle me peeing while he’s in the room. He even jokes that he can’t believe I have any liquids left in me. I playfully swat at him and he only grins at me.

We end up having dinner shortly after, the pasta was spectacular and the garlic toast was perfect. The rest of the night is spent introducing Walter to Supernatural. He likes how funny it is, and I feel obligated to tell him that this is one of the saddest shows to ever grace television screens. Once I say that, he vows to still watch the show because it means so much to me.

We lay down in his bed for the night, talking about what we want to do this weekend. I mention that it would be nice to do absolutely nothing and just be lazy bums all weekend and he approves. Our weekend is spent finishing the first season of Supernatural and me answering all of Walter’s questions about the show. He is so cute getting all invested in one of my faves. And if we take breaks for him to test how many times he can make me cum in a weekend, then that’s our business.

He won’t allow me to return the favor, however. He says that this is all a part of him taking care of me this weekend. I try not to feel undeserving of so much positive attention, but I’m still a work in progress. And that is just fine for now because he is good at making me forget why I was anxious in the first place. My sweet Walter better count his days, because I am going to rock his world when I finally get the chance.

Chapter 5

**Tag List**

@enchantedbytomandhenry @astheskycries

@geralts-yenn @deandoesthingstome @liveoncoffeeandflowersss @kebabgirl67 @foxyjwls007

Let me know if you wanna be added and for what plz! 😁

#walter marshall #walter marshall fanfic #walter marshall x black!plus size female #walter marshall x black!plus size female oc #walter marshall x ofc #walter marshall x black!ofc #ellethespaceunicorn fanfic #henry cavill fanfiction #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill #walter marshall fanfiction #walter marshall fic #night hunter #night hunter fanfic #night hunter fanfiction #bright like the moon

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nattikay · 1 year

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ok so um. There’s certainly plenty to be said about Way of Water, plenty of lil comments I want to make...but before I can post about any of that (separately), I just need to ramble about Neteyam a little bit. Bear with me. ;_; (yes, this will be spoilery)

so the idea that Neteyam was going to die had already been pretty prominent in the fandom for several months. At first it seemed to me to be based on nothing but wild speculation for potential sad plot points. But the more and more promotional material came out, the more and more plausible the theory became, much to my dismay. By the time we reached release day, I had already (if reluctantly) resigned myself to thinking that yes, it was probably going to happen.

And sure enough, it did.

Even going in knowing full well it was extremely likely to happen, even going in having 100% accepted that it was bound to happen and fully expecting it....gosh it still hurt to watch.

I will admit, I did not cry nearly as much as I expected to during this movie. I teared up a bit multiple times, definitely felt the physical heartache plenty, but nothing spilled over. I thought this was kinda weird, given that previously I’d shed tears even over certain shots from the trailer.

When Neteyam died and I absolutely felt my heart breaking in two yet tears still didn’t fall despite the emotional pain I was absolutely in, I realized why: I was just really dehydrated ^^;

see, worried about having to use the bathroom during the long runtime, I’d been very careful to drink as little as possible throughout the day. Well....it technically worked I guess. I certainly didn’t need to go to the bathroom. but it looks like it dried up most of my tears too (maybe not a wholly bad thing given that this was in public, I suppose).

....and yet despite that, DESPITE my dehydration........that ending???? that ending?????? let’s just say I STILL managed to leave the theater with a tearstained face

“bittersweet” is certainly A Word

just

m a n 😭

and I mean. from a writing perspective, I get it. I really do. The “before your birth, after your death” etc theme ran throughout the movie. Using an unrelated character to do it wouldn’t have as strong an emotional impact as using one of the core family. I get it. As a narrative choice, it makes sense.

but from an in-universe/character-pov perspective....gosh golly that hurt. that hurrrrrrrttttt and I don’t know if I’m ok. ngl i legit feel vaguely ill ;_;

My current job is fairly mindless work, so while I’m working my brain can wander. Naturally today my mind was on the fact that I’d been seeing the movie later so of course I thought a lot about it. Like I said earlier, I was already aware of the Neteyam-dies theory (well, no longer a theory I guess) and at that point had accepted it as inevitable, if depressing. I’d been trying to come to terms with it for a while already.

Those who have followed me long enough might know that there’s another movie I like called Wolf Children. It’s a beautiful movie, honestly, one that I appreciate very much, but have only watched a small handful of times because it makes me sob every single time. It’s about a woman who meets a...well, basically a werewolf (except that the transformations are voluntary), they fall in love and have two kids, but right after the birth of the second one the father dies in an accident, leaving the normal-human mother, to raise these two wolf kids on her own. And that’s most of the movie, following the family as the kids grow up until at the end of the movie all three characters go their separate ways. The ending always felt a little bittersweet to me because, even though both children are alive and well living their own lives, the mother is alone again, with only her memories. We saw the whole childhood, that special time as a family unit, and now that period of their lives is over.

That is, essentially, what I was expecting to be done with Neteyam. Watch his whole life, from birth to, well, in his case death. We see the whole thing and then it’s over, no more future with the rest of his family. Which hurts. And yes, that’s...more or less what happened.

While the two scenarios are not perfectly comparable, mentally framing Neteyam’s (then-impending, now-confirmed) death in terms of Wolf Children did actually help me cope with the then-theory.

I have to remind myself that even though his story is over, and that it ended tragically, that what we saw...wasn’t everything. It was snippets. We saw only very few snippets. For long stretches in between those snippets. For roughly 15 years the Sully family lived more or less in peace. Neteyam had a happy childhood. He lived all that, even though we only saw it so very briefly. I have to remind myself of this, repeatedly.

because even knowing that, watching the tragedy...it’s...it’s hard...

i just...

and then that. that ending I--

I just--

my heart is broken, it is aching, i cannot ;_;

#awow spoilers #avatar #avatar 2 #the way of water #neteyam #i'm sorry for rambling so much about this I just. i need to cope #i have many other comments to make about the movie both silly and serious but this...#idk man this is just weighing particularly heavy on me right now; my heart is legitimately still hurting #there was so much good and/or interesting stuff to discuss in this movie and #i really really don't wanna let my heartbreak over neteyam's death negatively color the whole thing for me #especially when I went it very much expecting it #so i just. i just need to Cope #bear with me please #it's getting late though...i'll post other more lighthearted comments and such tomorrow #but i really needed to get this one out of the way first #man. just.........man #ow ;_;

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randomvarious · 11 months

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Today’s compilation:

These People Are Nuts! 1989 New Wave / Punk Rock / Alternative Rock / College Rock / Post-Punk / Power Pop / Ska

Here's a nice retrospective rundown of one of the greatest and most eclectic indie labels of the 1980s: I.R.S. Records, which was headquartered in the US, but had a whole lot of UK bands on its roster too. Founded in 1979 by a guy named Miles Copeland, I.R.S. started out primarily as a punk outfit, but as new wave proceeded to develop, it sunk its teeth firmly into that movement too, landing a bunch of acts along the way whose material was considered to be strange, zany, quirky, and campy, like Oingo Boingo and Timbuk 3.

But between all the acts that ultimately end up lending to this album's title being These People Are Nuts! are a bunch of bands who aren't considered to be all that weird too, like The Police, The Go Go's, Buzzcocks, R.E.M., and Fine Young Cannibals. So, what we really have here is a nice blend of genuinely good punk and alternarock with straight-up enjoyably silly and irony-laden new wave.

But this album that celebrates I.R.S.' tenth-year anniversary actually opens with a song that predates the label's existence entirely: it's the B-side of the debut record by the band that Miles Copeland's brother, Stewart, happened to play drums for: "Nothing Achieving," by The Police, a terrific classic rock-punk tune that was released in 1977 on another one of Miles' labels he had founded beforehand, Illegal Records.

And another great tune from those pre-I.R.S. days comes courtesy of a little-known band called The Electric Chairs, who, at the time, were fronted by a performer named Wayne County, who now goes by Jayne County. County is someone who holds the honor of being rock music's first openly trans vocalist, and she ended up working with a lot of famous people throughout her career, including David Bowie. Plus, she was also at the Stonewall Riots. So, she's an absolute legend, to say the least, and her band's punk song, "Thunder," which predates her publicly identifying as a woman, was released on Illegal in 1979.

Also, have you ever wondered where the great Fatboy Slim derived his stage name from? Well, it probably came from Maryland's Root Boy Slim, a brilliant and eccentric rabble-rouser who went to Yale and then came back on homecoming weekend the year after he had graduated and got kicked out and permanently banned from his frat house by none other than future war criminal president George W. Bush himself. His song, "Dare to Be Fat," kinda-sorta answers the question of, "what if Frank Zappa was a black blues-rocker?"

And there's a bunch of other songs from this compilation I could write about too, like The Go Go's’ "We Got the Beat," a landmark new wave tune that convinced the group to head towards a sound that was more new wave than punk; or the Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen in Love," which presented a pretty perfect mix of late 70s punk rock and power pop; or Fine Young Cannibals' debut single, "Johnny Come Home," which showed the world this band's signature mix of rock and ska, along with Roland Gift's uniquely satisfying and tender voice.

But I think I'm gonna dedicate a few sentences to a deeply misunderstood song instead: "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades," by Timbuk 3. If you've ever heard this top-20 mid-80s hit before, then there's a pretty solid chance that you're among the many people who think of it as quite possibly the dorkiest song that the new wave era ever spat out.

I mean, peep this refrain if you're not familiar:

I'm doing alright Getting good grades The future's so bright I gotta wear shades

Now, is it possible that this song was made in a sort of tongue-in-cheek backlashing kind of way in response to all the live fast-die hard, sex-drugs-and-rock n' roll music that was going around back then? Sure, I guess so. But the song wasn't even really so much as that. It was more about the banality of contributing to an evil system and feeling as though you were on the right path. See, "I Gotta Wear Shades" is told from the perspective of a young nuclear scientist at the height of the Cold War, and that brightness in the future he refers to is actually referencing the potential detonation of the nukes that he's been working on. It's a really cleverly-made song that became a pretty big hit, but people never really seemed to understand the message that was behind it. It certainly wasn't a song to celebrate strait-laced, apple-polishing nerds.

So, there you have it: a nice and varied set of songs from a transcontinental indie label that played a big role in shaping new wave, punk, and alternative rock through its first ten years and change. There wasn't really any other label that was quite like I.R.S. Records. A lot of names that would end up defining eras and styles, along with some real kooks too.

Highlights:

The Police - "Nothing Achieving" The Go-Go's - "We Got the Beat" Wayne County & The Electric Chairs - "Thunder" Root Boy Slim - "Dare to Be Fat" Buzzcocks - "Ever Fallen in Love?" Wall of Voodoo - "Mexican Radio" R.E.M. - "Superman" Doctor and the Medics - "Spirit in the Sky" Timbuk 3 - "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades" Fine Young Cannibals - "Johnny Come Home" Concrete Blonde - "It'll Chew You Up and Spit You Out"

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demonfox38 · 1 year

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Completed - Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete

Never sleep in the nude. Especially not when an emergency might happen. Like, say, a home invasion.

Have you been keeping up with the latest hot debate in video games?

Recently, video game publisher Naoki Yoshida revealed a perspective that surprised American audiences regarding the term J-RPG. While seen in the west as a classification of a certain flavor of role-playing games produced in Japan, it is seen as derogatory and reductive to Japanese developers, particularly in how many people use the term to mock design choices in both the game rules and story structure. Which, man, it sucks to hear that it causes pain and sour feelings. Like, a lot of the best video games I've played fall under that categorization. Hell, I grew up in the era where Japanese companies were the most trusted and revered in game development. I'm not saying that the likes of Nintendo, Konami, and Capcom are perfect little angels, particularly when it comes to overworking staff members. But, even today, I still have a positive bias towards Japanese games and developers. Hell, that was my first major link to a culture outside my own. To think anyone would consider them inferior when they both saved the goddamn industry and continue to make major contributions to it is infuriating.

It was definitely a weird time to play "Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete," all things considered. Because man, is "Lunar 2" ever the most game of that game type.

"Lunar 2" takes place about 1,000 years after its predecessor. A silent threat is building behind a false front of benevolence, triggering a strange woman to come blasting to Lunar to stop it. She subsequently gets nerfed so hard that even a paper weight could take her out. Lucky for her, a hero named Hiro (lucky that!) comes to her aid. Through various tribulations, Hiro, the strange woman from the Blue Star, and their friends manage to quell the rising threat without using the same destructive power that once killed an entire celestial body. And then, when the strange lady ditches the planet to return home, Hiro re-discovers space travel to reunite with her.

Like, buddy. She says she loves you, then ditches you hard enough that you have to create NASA? Maybe think twice about this.

Are you old enough to remember "The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Clichés" website? Like, pre-TVTropes TVTropes? This game could literally be that list codified. Like, there are several rules on that page that are named after both "Lunar: Silver Star Story" and "Lunar 2" characters and situations. It's not to say "Lunar 2" is derivative, necessarily. A lot of the party members are creative in the same way that a teenager's fantasies are brashly unique. It's just what you'd expect out of an RPG story. Church bad; dragons good; Satan's a thot; only your girl is pure enough to fight them.

"Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete" gets strange when put into the context of time. Like, this remastering was released in 2000. This poor game was released in the same year as "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask" and "Final Fantasy IX." Like, holy shit, right? It's wild how much technology varied between 1999-2001. Absolute cowboy years of gaming. I can't find sales numbers for this particular variant, but if it were sentient, I'd have to imagine it took to drinking with "Wild Arms 2." What a rough time to roll out. Hell, depending on how you look across international markets, even the original game would have had spicy competition from "Shin Megami Tensei" 1 and 2, "Final Fantasy 6", and "Phantasy Star IV." Aspects from those RPGs might make this one look sweet and baby-faced by comparison.

There is one major structural difference between "Lunar 2" and most games. This is the inclusion of its post-game epilogue, where Hiro strives to reunite himself with his lost love. Honestly, this may have been one of the earliest games to try this narrative structure out. Like, it's so unique that I thought this was added to the Playstation version to quell angry players of the Sega CD version. (It's not, but more on the Sega CD version at the end.) It's probably most comparable to "Tales of Graces F" or more recent "Pokémon" games, in terms of content addition. Despite some hang-ups I have about Hiro's relationship, I do think it is critical to play through. It's an additional 15-20 hours on top of the 24 it took you to get to it, but honestly, it feels wrong to let this plot thread hang. Might as well do all you can!

Like its predecessor, "Lunar 2" has a generally likable cast. Most of them are flawed, but still endearing (particularly, alcoholic gambling addict/ex-priest Ronfar, assassin-turned-dancer Jean, and money-hungry, driven mage Lemina.) Even some of the villains are surprisingly kind, once you kick their ass. (Although, Lunn and Borgan probably should have had some subsequent ass beatings for what the hell they pulled. Fucking karma escape artists.)

There was one major character hang-up I had, and that was with the main heroine herself. Like, I get that Lucia is a weird space girl from thousands of years ago, so she might not have the best sense of social cues. But, there are several times where she tries to ditch the party to continue her mission alone, only to end up putting either herself or the party in danger. She initially bails on helping a sick baby because it might take too much time. She gets weirdly prudish as she starts falling in love with Hiro, which seems backwards. Then, there's the whole ditching humanity to go back into a freezer to wait for the Blue Star to recover. Like, hello? Girl? What the hell? Did you learn nothing this entire time about working with humans to accomplish your goals? Could you not have learned about agriculture or the fine points of sustainable space travel? Did you think any less of your goddess for going mortal and abandoning both the Blue Star and Lunar? Do you think any new life on the Blue Star would automatically revere and listen to you like in the past? How are you a princess of a dead planet? What's the governance on that? Is this mike on? Hello?

Oh, well. At least she didn't nuke anybody.

The gameplay of "Lunar 2" is pretty much the same as it was in the first game. It's mostly mazy dungeon exploration + turn-based combat + inventory management on lean funds. I didn't have to stat boost Hiro as much to get through bosses this time, but there's definitely an item in the epilogue that makes stat boosting totally spammable. Absolutely worth it. While Lucia is in your party, you have no control over her actions. It's weird (and honestly irritating in some circumstances), but comparable to the Sega CD variant of Luna from the first "Lunar" game. I don't think you'll find anything too surprising here. It's just mostly about stacking your dominoes in the right order.

The engine for this game is so similar to the first game that I literally encountered the same audio-loading hard lock bug. This time, it hit with a vengeance. Like, if I did not own a disc repair machine, there's a good chance I would not have been able to beat this game. The discs were just in that rough of shape. I guess I can't blame a game for failing if its physical media is melting into sludge. It did make for some frightening moments, though.

Seriously—don't get into physical media collecting if you're not going to put the work into keeping your collection functioning. A lot of the games I like are running on consoles that are between 20-40 years old. It's only a matter of time until a clock battery runs dry or an electrolytic capacitor blows or even a disc reader fails. You've got to be ready for when that happens. Otherwise, you're just making an elaborate garbage pile.

Media degradation isn't the only way this game is rough. A lot of the translation is very of-the-times. Which, for the late 90s/early 200s, means that there is a significant amount of crude language. Like, I gave "Final Fantasy VII"'s translation shit for Tifa's single R-bomb. Ronfar is handing them out like party favors. I'm assuming if you're reading this on Tumblr, you're also well aware of the international discussion of terms used to describe those of the Roma ethnicity. And, okay. I want to be a good international citizen. So, I try to be mindful about the wrong term in the same way one has to be careful about using Eskimo, Indian, or Oriental. And then, Jean literally shouts "Gypsy magic!", and I end up snorting pop up my nose. Like, goddamn. Times really change, don't they? And that's not even getting into one character being solely dragged for his weight! Shit, man.

Oh my God. Anybody remember that bit with the woman in Zulan having amnesia and forgetting she was a mom? That was pretty fucked, too. Like, imagine how horrific being in that position would be for all parties considered. Although, I guess that’s also the plot to "Overboard", in a way. 🙃 Jeepers. Times change, indeed.

This is a minor nitpick, but Hiro's run option was driving me nuts in game. I'm used to using it like you would in an old "Pokémon" game to blast through everything as fast as possible. Hiro's run is very limited. Like, maybe 4-6 tiles out limited. Also, don't expect to gain any invincibility frames from it. The damn thing is really near useless, especially when trying to evade enemies. But, I guess it's there, so…thanks?

If you are interested in playing this game, definitely play "Lunar: Silver Star Story" first. It does add a lot of meaning to the game, although you could probably follow along without that experience. The Playstation version of this game is a must, particularly for those in the NTSC region. I mean, those of us in the U.S. are used to companies dicking around with international releases. There's beefing up enemy stats and increasing item costs, and then there's consuming the experience points used to beef up spells so that you can save your game. Like, okay, Satan. As if 40 hours of grinding weren't enough already!

Whatever you decide to do, I hope you come away from this introspection with at least one important thing to remember. Keep your games clean. And I don't mean linguistically. Although, it can be thoughtful to do that, too.

There's no reason to shit up the world before Space Satan does it.

#post game evaluation #lunar 2: eternal blue complete #cw: slurs

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winderlylandchime · 6 months

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Hello!! I love how we are all hoping that Jordan brings back the podcast, i need those two besties back so badly. I feel like they have so much stuff they could talk about especially now with the strikes, it’d be fun to hear their take on it. I am honestly not ready for him to find out how the filming and the aftermath of the show was on Gale and Randy. I know he’s gonna lose his shit to find out how some people were towards them (especially since his idea of Gale in his head is obviously different and in his mind Gale and Randy are bffs like how he is with his friends.) but also i think he will be shocked to find out they both kind of stepped back from the show and had certain issues with it. He did storm in my room randomly today and went ‘IS THAT WHY THERE WAS LESS SEX STUFF?!’ Which btw it was 10 am when he did that, I barely knew i was awake. Basically he was up almost all night thinking about the finale and the podcast (he is once again that conspiracy meme) and he realized in later seasons there’s less sex scenes and now he is distraught that maybe it’s because Randy was uncomfortable. He was having an entire crisis over it. While I don’t know what all i will show him/what he’ll see on his own (i wanna show him bts content and like obviously anything else i can find) but i will be keeping con videos/posts FAR away from him because some of those are the worst things ive ever seen in my life, no offense to anyone. I will say, If you or anyone has any ideas what else I should show him, let me know because he has been losing his mind begging me to let him listen to more of the podcast.

As for our mom, i swear that woman is actually pretty chaotic herself but unlike my brother she hides it better. Both of our parents are insane but for some reason only he doesn’t even make an effort to hide it. She did get a long email sent to her by my brother because she was ignoring his calls and he wanted to talk about s4 finale. It was titled ‘IMPORTANT! NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SHOW’ and then it was almost a short novel about the show.. He wanted to hear her thoughts since he is still undecided about Justin not saying yes to moving in. And he wrote a little bit about the podcast and he also asked her if she thinks Randy would like him if they met (clearly he is feeling a certain way about this) which caused a different crisis, a much bigger one: would Gale like him if they met. That crisis lasted almost 2 hours btw. Anyway as a reply to the email she just forwarded it to our dad who forwarded it back to me to tell me to ‘change the wifi password.’ And then I immediately got a call from my mom about the podcast asking me if it’s about the show and how he already has enough weird hobbies and why can’t I get him into something normal like a pottery group or painting group or something with normal people around. And then I heard in the background our uncle who went ‘after all the stories about him talking to DOCTORS, you want to unleash him on a person who is not medically trained?’ So he is now being encouraged to stay home and watch tv. Also: he is currently talking to his best friend about the finale, while writing down mind maps and lists of what he thinks season 5 will be. He’s having a bit of issues with it because the LA offer apparently fucked quite a lot of things up for him so his original list no longer makes sense. He is also talking to him at the same time (he’s jumping from topic to topic) about Gale and how shocked he was that Randy didn’t enjoy the qaf fame. I don’t know how this became my life. More importantly I would just like to say: i cannot wait for your new fic! I mean your last fic got us here so I can’t wait to see what happens next. But also bearded Brian>>

The podcast talking about the strikes would be amazing! I was hoping we would get a Barbie movie episode but alas. I really want to hear the besties talk about Greta Gerwig.

I have never seen the con clips and I’m grateful. I have too much secondhand embarrassment to sit through that boundary-crossing behavior and invasive questions.

I LOVE that your parents were like “change the wifi password” and uncle was like “unleash him into the world?” and they responded “jk never mind.”

I personally think Gale and Randy are still friends but we would never know with the one proof of life per year Gale gives us and Randy being tightlipped about his time on the show.

Wait until your brother realizes that one of Randy’s partner’s is named Justin (or is that the kid? either way there’s a Justin!)

I am dreading his reaction to S5 but we all watched it so he must as well…

And, yes, bearded Brian >>>

BUT I saw your request at the top - folks let’s start to pull together a post-S5 education for all necessary BTS for Brother Anon to fully understand QAF! In box me or comment on this post.

#ask winderlylandchime #dear sweet anon #queer as folk #a straight man watches qaf us 2000 in the year of our lord 2023

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evelyne-am · 1 year

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14th March 2023-

14th March 2023

Day 1

(By the way I’m really glad I didn’t post as last night because my day one continued over the 24 hours.)

I don’t know where to start. Those who follow my stories know that I didn’t sleep much, I felt nervous excited and scared all at the same time. There is a part of me that thinks that this kind of grueling training is exactly what I need, to strip myself to nothing after being somewhat applauded the last year or so in the music world, that has been nice after a long pandemic of feeling indispensable,but it has been completely unchallenging. But also it has been a long time since I have sat and created music, as opposed to performing it, and the next couple of months I had saved for that, so I wasn’t sure if fully I knew what I was giving up my creative space for.

I woke up 30 minutes before my alarm and had a chat with a couple of friends who were awake at the time thinking “ oh I have these extra minutes” only to discover it was my first day of my period. If you have a woman’s body then you will know for many that is horrible horrible day for most. For me it’s usually raging pain. Today was no different. I want to be full proof about being there punctually every day so the driver was ready for me and I was bang on time but I have not accounted for the fact that I would be in so much pain. I asked the driver to go get some medicine and said if you couldn’t find me, leave it in front of the lift. I reach 20 minutes before our call time so I can listen to some music and chill, the second I arrived I see others had already arrived; they were warming up walking, jogging and within two minutes of me coming sir and our other director Mohsina (henceforth referred to as M) also walked in. I did not have a chance to chill. I was pleased I was there before sir though, (like everyone else was,) that he saw my face when he walked in and not that of someone who came exactly time but as someone who came for themselves to adjust to the new surroundings just like we had been taught in the workshop. Sir comes daily with a whole car full of things; a project, Harmonium, a keyboard, speakers, and a big picnic basket full of goodies for us. Even in the workshops I’ve seen him always come 30 to 60 minutes early so that he has ample time to set up all his equipment and also if there are any questions for anyone who comes early. I see the room (pictured) on the 6th floor that will be my home for 3 months. It is beautiful in the morning sunlight, and way way nicer than the one we did the workship in, I feel so lucky the moment I have entered, a weird sense of belonging comes over me. After a quick warmup. There are 12 of us if you count M. 8 females and 4 males, quite a small cast. They are all quite pros but one of the males is a young guy who was in the workshop with us, tbh I was surprised to see him, but found out he is just shadowing the cast as he can’t attend daily due to university. The rest of us are the main cast, but it will determined what roles we each have as the play is designed. Sir started with a short but sweet message for us to be kind to be grateful and to remind us that we are doing is paying homage to the people that the play is written about (we’ll talk about that later) Sir told us a little bit about how his vision in the play. I won’t give too much away (but this blog will have a lot of spoilers for this play anyway, so don’t read if you don’t want spoilers for Spardhhas next production. ) But for now let’s just say it’s going to be immersive. It made me feel so excited, I can’t tell you. I have those feelings of when we were bringing Rahman Sir for his honorary doctorate in Berklee. But there I knew exactly what was going to happen I could envision it. Here it's outside my realm of thought everything that was talked about; lights and audience participation and set I don’t even know what they’re meaning but I could tell that it’s exciting.

My adrenaline got me through the first half, the first half is something that I know a little about as I had done the workshops last month. It’s fully physical, it's sometimes really hard, and sometimes there are little breaks that he gives for us to meditate in between the exercises. I don’t want to divulge his actual methods but there’s voice, breathing, full body, meditation there’s awareness of the room and the group exercises. As someone who has been to school where you are studying the entire aspect of an art, this is something that I can do technically- warmups, biology etc. The mental Aspect of being hundred percent aware of your surroundings is not something that I have studied. I am a very inside my head kind of person and Sir calls me out on it. My mind wanders constantly, and though I try to bring it back to be in the room it waivers a lot. I feel bad but I also appreciate Sir reminding me of this bad trait, this is the main thing that I would feel that I will have to work on.

Actually it is the reason that I have so many accidents, if you have read any of my Facebook status as you will know that I had about 3 to 4 accidents last year I have bruises all over my body. And just today I was thinking how reckless I am in my thoughts especially when I’m walking on the streets and I had a vision that I was hit by a bus. I’m thinking I must use what I learned in class in my everyday life and be less so.

At the height of our physical limits, sir gives us a break. I assumed it was about 20 minutes as it used to be in the workshop and I ran to the washroom. Oh that bloody ShilpokolA washroom. Thanks to the state of my health I spent the whole 20 minutes in the bathroom, the entire break. I had prepared a Tiffin of boiled eggs sausages and oranges, I planned to have some tea/caffeine to wake myself up for the second half as I used to do in the workshop. But I did nothing.

The second half is when we read the script. I had prepared my backpack to perfection but of course I forgot my glasses. What happened was, that I started falling asleep. Hundred Pages of bangla text l, everyone taking turns reading it; one would’ve thought that the hardness of it would keep me alert, or the fact that I could be next to read would keep me alert, but I fell asleep, I nodded off and in front of my 11 peers and Sir. I kept checking myself up and cursing myself and not sleeping enough, for not bringing caffeine (caffeine makes my heart palpitations go nuts so usually I don’t drink it) and for not bringing my bloody glasses that I really need to read this long text. And it was right then, during the second half of the rehearsal that my cramps came back in full bloody swing, the driver did not bring the medicines that I had asked him to do in front of the lift and I was squirming in pain. This was the point where all these thoughts crossed my mind that I would not be able to do this every day. The long hours, hard Bangla, and most of all the level of constant concentration felt really hard, especially with cramps. I tried to hold my back and massage it very discreetly so the pain would subside.I think M noticed and she asked me to come sit next to her in front of the desk where I could lean. From the second story (which shall henceforth be called M1- because its the first story in order) though I don’t know what happened, maybe it was sitting next to M, or the fact that it was something that hit me harder I was back in. I cried while the story went dark, i found the character so intriguing and hard to fathom. I even volunteered to read in my horrible Bangla reading With the risk of angering sir when I stumbled.

i left day one feeling absolutely in a rush, all my earlier doubts out the window (as you could see in my Insta video.) before I left I asked permission to write this blog from Sir. He seemed cool, which is why I officially start the blog today’s with the day one post.

The rest of the day was spent in multiple things, I was a bit down, I got distracted. The days homework was to prepare a section of the play to present the next day and by the time I did my to dos from my normal music life, procrastinate, spent time with my mum it was really late. On my way home from mum’s I was walking to buy some chocolate and listening to a song, when I fell down. Another of my accidents, because I was unmindful, the bleeding wouldn’t stop for ages as ususally that happens. I was reminded of how just that morning I saw myself being hit by a bus and now have vowed to stop being on my phone when I am walking the streets. Reading in Bangla is really tough for me so I asked DC (friend) To read it out for me so that I could record. Halfway through the story of M1, DC stops. At first I couldn’t understand why and asked if they were tired, but then I realise DC is crying. I realise this is the first time that DC is reading it and that the first time we had heard the story in class almost all of us were in tears too earlier that day. I will elaborate later about the stories themselves. I have taken permission actually to reveal here, but it’s intense, the most intense; it is about women and rape. While I was listening to the story being read out loud for me I saw a lot more things than I did when I was trying to focus on reading Bangla text. I didn’t really prepare a part but I knew the text a lot better last night than I did when I was reading it with my own eyes. But i did not feel as emotional the second time around, i dont know why, i was dilly dallying, and tho i stopped myself from doing the blog post, i still stayed up later than the previous night and at one point it was 2 am till i push myself to shut eyes. Something I can’t explain is that I woke up at 4:30am. It was my cramps, but I was sat in the middle of the night clutching my uterus and crying, I’ve had cramps before but I’ve never felt like . This story is creeping inside me.

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