#hes so pretty... ew /neg /JOKING | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

waitimcomingtoo · 1 year

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Question…?

Pairing: Peter Parker x best friend!Reader

Synopsis: Peter accidentally sends you mixed signals when he kisses you for the first time then stands you up

Masterlist

You and Peter laid opposite ways on his bed so you could face each other while doing some chemistry homework together. Peter had stopped paying attention to his homework around ten minutes ago and was now just doodling in between looking up to sneak glances at you.

“What did you get for number 9?”

“Um, I got 13.” Peter stopped doodling and read from his page.

“What? How? I got a negative 658.”

“How did you possibly get that?” Peter laughed and stretched his neck to see your work.

“I don’t know. I hate math.” You whined and drew your knees to your forehead. Peter couldn’t help but stare at your bare legs that stemmed from the little lounge shorts you had on. Peter was usually pretty good at keeping his feelings for you to himself, but when you wore things like that, it became significantly harder to contain himself.

“Stop staring at my legs, perv.” You said without looking up from the problem you were doing. Peter blushed a deep red and quickly looked away, panicking now that you had caught what he had been doing.

“I wasn’t.” He lied and pretended he was looking at his notebook the whole time.

“Yes you were.” You smirked and looked up. “Perv.”

“You’re the perv who keeps looking at my feet in these tight little socks.” Peter joked as he rubbed his foot on your leg, making you gag.

“Ew. Get that off of me. And what are you implying, mister?” You laughed and hit his foot with your notebook.

“That you have a foot fetish and everyone knows.” Peter shrugged.

“I do not. And even if I did, you think I’d be attracted to your nasty feet? You don’t even wash your legs in the shower.”

“How do you even remember that? I told you that in like eight grade.” Peter laughed and felt secretly pleased that you remembered such a random detail.

“Ninth grade.” You corrected. “And I remember everything, bitch.”

“Oh yeah? Then do you remember when you had a crush on our drivers Ed teacher that year?” Peter smiled teasingly and put his notebook down.

“Oh yeah.” You laughed. “Mr. Whiler. That dude was double handsome. His eyes were Spotify green and he smelled like sandalwood.”

“Remember that time he wore his shirt unbuttoned and you looked over at him so many times that you rear ended a priest?” Peter asked and rested his chin on your knees.

“It wasn’t a priest. It was a Eucharistic minister. And I barely tapped his car.” You scoffed and flicked his forehead.

“Barely tapped? His whole trunk opened and those little crackers fell on the ground.” Peter reminded you as he pushed your notebook down.

“They’re not crackers. They’re the Eucharist. Finish your work.” You playfully scolded him and nodded towards his notebook.

“Remember when you got scared during your first time driving and parked at a green light?” Peter kept going and pushed your notebook again.

“Do you remember that we’re supposed to be doing homework?” You mocked his tone and lightly smacked his head with your book.

“Homework is boring. I wanna talk to you.” Peter whined and rubbed his foot on your leg again.

“Get your dogs off of me. I’m allergic.”

“Fine. I’ll just rotate then.” Peter said as he scooted next to you.

“Just like them damn rotisserie chickens.” You sighed and went back to your homework. Peter stayed quiet and watched you work for a few minutes until he got bored again.

“Do you ever wonder what Mr. Whiler is up to now?” Peter asked you.

“He’s a drivers Ed instructor. He’s probably up to absolutely nothing or whippits.”

“Probably.” Peter chuckled. “But hey, you’re over 18 now. Do you think if he asked you out, you’d say yes?”

“Ew, no. He knew me when I was 16. Anyone who knew me when I was 16 has to die.”

“I knew you when you were 16.” Peter reminded you as he took your notebook and tossed it into the bed. With your hands free, you got an idea and grabbed a pillow.

“Oh shit. You’re right.” You pretended to gasp before tackling Peter and smothering him with the pillow. He laughed and pushed the pillow out of your hands, leaving him lying on his bed with you hovering over him. You looked into each others eyes for a minute and shyly smiled at each other.

“You seriously wouldn’t date him if he came back into our lives?” Peter asked you in a soft voice.

“Gross. No he’s way too old. I don’t like him like that anymore.”

“Do you like anyone like that anymore?” He asked, making you gulp. Your eyes dropped down to Peters lips for a second before looking back into his eyes.

“I don’t know.” You lied. “Do you?”

Even though Peter should’ve seen that question coming, he didn’t. He didn’t know how to tell you that he had fallen in love with his best friend and only brought up your old crush because he had a recurring nightmare that he lost you to your old drivers Ed instructor. He felt his face turn bright red and quickly thought of a diversion. He gasped loudly, making your eyes widen.

“What?” You asked. With you being distracted, Peter seized the opportunity to flip you over so that he was the one pinning you to the bed.

“Hulkmania is running wild, brother.” He said in a deep voice.

“No.” You whined. “Don’t do your Hulk Hogan impression. You know it grosses me out.”

“I fear no man, no beast or evil, brother.” Peter continued in his deep voice.

“Get off of me.” You playfully groaned and tried to wriggle out of Peters grasp.

“No. Not until you tell me who you like.”

“I asked you first.”

“No you didn’t.” He laughed. “ I asked you first.”

“Well you weren’t supposed to fact check me.” You snapped before breaking out in a smile. Peter smiled back before getting an idea.

“Hey, can I body slam you with my entire body weight?” Peter asked in a casual tone.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t.”

“Okay. Incoming.” Peter announced before dropping himself onto you and knocking the wind out of your chest.

“Ow. Get off me, fat ass.” You laughed and tried to push him off.

“You love this fat ass.” He insisted and stayed on top of you. You laughed and looked into his eyes, unable to be mad at him.

“I do. I can’t help it but I do. It’s a sickness.” You laughed softly and pushed some hair off his forehead.

“It’s okay.” He smiled. “I love your fat ass too.”

“Peter?” You asked suddenly as your smile faded.

“Yeah?”

“Can we always be this close?” You asked him, taking him by surprise. Peter propped himself up on his elbows to look at you beneath him but found no words to say. He always wanted to be close to you, but he needed you to know that he wanted to be closer. Before Peter could overthink it, he dipped his head down and kissed you. He could feel your eyes slowly flutter shut, eyelashes tickling his face as the went down. Once you got over your initial shock, you kissed him back. The kiss was slow and soft and sweet until Peter realized what he had done. He quickly sat up and held his hands up.

“I’m sorry!” I don’t know why I just did that. I should’ve asked you first. I’m didn’t mean to-“

Peter was cut off by you grabbing his shirt and pulling him back down into a kiss. He didn’t know what was going on or what this meant for your relationship, but he went with it. He kissed you with more confidence this time as he slipped his fingers through yours to hold the hands he was pinning to his mattress. Time seemed to slip away as you kissed each other and the only thing that broke your bubble was the sound of May opening Peters door.

“Y/n, your moms-“

“AH.” You and Peter jumped away from each other and screamed at the unexpected interruption. You wiped your lips and grabbed your notebook in a failed attempt to make it look like nothing had been going on. May looked between you and Peter and held back a laugh when she realized what she walked in on.

“God, May! Don’t you knock?” Peter exclaimed and put his hand over his pounding heart.

“Oh, sorry. Didn’t realize I was interrupting something.” May said with a coy smile.

“May. Go away.” Peter whined and threw a pillow at the door. May shut the door a little so it wouldn’t hit her and laughed at Peters attempt.

“I just came to tell you Y/n’s mom is at the front door. She wants her home now.” May said. You and Peter stayed silent, refusing to look at each other or speak.

“If you can tear yourselves away from each other, that is.” May added with a cheeky smile.

“May.” Peter said through clenched teeth and chucked another pillow.

“Just teasing. Come on, Y/n. I’ll walk you out. Unless you wanted your mom to come in here?” May asked innocently.

“No!” You exclaimed and jumped off the bed. “Don’t bring my mom in. I’ll leave.”

Peter felt his disappointment sink in as he watched you gather your things and go towards the door. You looked at Peter before leaving and wished you could give him a proper goodbye but it was impossible with May standing right there. Instead, you gave him a soft smile and a wave that said you wished you could stay but had to go. Peter returned the wave and hoped it conveyed how much he wanted you to stay. You gave him one last look before disappearing out his door.

Peter could barely sleep that night in anticipation of seeing you the next day. He woke up groggy but with excitement I’m his chest as he got dressed. He put a little more effort into his appearance than usual and found himself checking himself in the mirror every few seconds. When he finally got to school, he was on high alert. He scanned the hallway in search of you but wasn’t able to spot you anywhere. He began to worry that you felt like you had made a mistake last night and were avoiding Peter because of it.

“Hey.” Your voice suddenly came from behind Peter, making him jump and scream.

“AHH.” He yelped and turned around.

“Sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t know how to approach you. Oh my God. I should go.” You tried to run away but Peter grabbed your backpack.

“No wait. Come back.” He chuckled and pulled you back towards him. Even though Peter had looked at you nearly everyday for the past 15 years, he felt like he was seeing you for the first time. Now that the line between friendship and relationship had been smudged, you looked different to Peter in a way that made his fondness for you grow.

“Hi.” You smiled sheepishly.

“Hi. Good morning. How did you sleep?” Peter asked as he moved a strand of hair off your forehead.

“Don’t do this to me.”

“Do what?”

“Act all sweet and normal after what happened last night. After what we did.” You whispered and looked around for who might be listening.

“Did we do something? I can’t remember.” Peter played dumb and made the gap between the two of you smaller.

“Peter.” You whined. “Don’t play games with me right now. I already feel awkward enough around you. Do you think we could talk?”

“Yeah. Come here.” Peter took your hand and brought you into the closest janitors closet before shutting the door.

“Why are we in a janitors closet?” You looked around and grimaced.

“For privacy.”

“We need privacy?” You looked at him with a coy smile.

“Yeah. I think so, at least.” Peter laughed shyly and suddenly felt nervous around you for the first time since the day you met.

“Oh. I think so too.” You replied with a timid smile. You looked at each other for a minute and uncomfortably swayed back and forth, neither sure what to say first.

“What did you want to talk about?” Peter asked after a beat of silence.

“I wanted to talk about last night. I just didn’t want to do it in a crowded hallway.”

“So did I. You left before we got a chance to discuss…” Peter trailed off and smiled sheepishly.

“Us?” You finished his sentence for him and took a step closer.

“Yeah. Us.” Peter grinned. “I would love to talk about us. Preferably not in this dark and smelly janitors closet.”

“The one you pulled us into.” You said out of the corner of your mouth.

“Yeah. My bad. What if we talk tonight? Maybe over some food?”

“Like a date?” You asked coyly.

“Yeah. I would like to take you on a date.” Peter said with confidence this time.

“Okay. Do you want to meet at Delmars or something?”

“Yeah. I’ll pick you up at 6 and can walk there together.”

“Okay. Perfect. But what do we do until then? I still feel a little awkward around you. I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to act.”

“I honestly don’t know either. So how about this? Until we talk everything out tonight, we’re just the same friends we’ve always been.” Peter suggested and took a step closer.

“Okay. Sure. Until tonight, just friends.” You nodded as you eyes fell to his lips. You looked back and forth between his lips and his eyes a few times before crashing your lips to his. You threw your arms around his neck to pull him closer as he wrapped his arms around your waist. You knocked things off the shelves as you made out in a flurry of teeth and kisses. Peter could barely believe his wildest dreams of being with you were coming true and in a damp and dingy janitors closet no less. He pushed that out of his mind and smiled into the kiss as he tried to memorize every groove of your lips. You could have stayed in there with him for hours but the bell ringing reminded you that you had somewhere to be.

“Okay, okay. I need to get to class.” You laughed against Peters lips. He put his hands on your face and kept kissing you.

“Shhhh. Class is for nerds. Stay in the smelly closet with your best friend.” He said between kisses.

“Peter. I have to go.” You laughed again and tried to push him off. He came right back and kept kissed you.

“You have to stay.” He whined against your lips. You caved and kissed him back for a few minutes before pushing him off again.

“We’re just friends, remember? Just friends don’t make out in closets.” You reminded him as you wiped your lipstick off his lips.

“But I’m feeling romantical. Kiss me on my hot mouth.” He said and went in for another kiss. You kissed him back for just a second before pushing him off.

“Peter.” You laughed and held him back with your hands. Peter let out a comically long sigh and stayed away from you.

“Fine. I’ll see you at 6?” He smiled and took both your hands.

“Uh huh. And a bunch of times before that because we have a majority of our classes together.”

“How lucky am I?” Peter sighed and leaned down to kiss you again. You couldn’t help but kiss him back until you heard the second bell ring.

“I’m leaving now. Try to calm down until tonight.” You teased him as you fixed your disheveled clothes.

“No promises.” He sighed happily as you left the closet. Once he was alone, he jumped into the air and pumped his fist before doing a little happy dance.

Peter did in fact see you many times throughout the day and could not focus on anything else. He rested his chin in his hand and stared at you for the third class period in a row before accepting that he was not going to be getting anything productive done today. When his last class finally ended, he rushed back to his apartment to start getting ready. He jumped in the shower and when he got out, he saw that someone had been blowing up his phone. He assumed the texts were from you and looked into the mirror before reading them.

“Okay Parker. Don’t blow this. All you have to do is tell your best friend you’re in love with her. How hard could it be?” Peter said to his reflection to hype himself up before reading the texts. Instead of the flirty messages he was expecting, he instead learned of an active crime scene that needed Spider-Man’s attention.

“Dammit. Active shooter at the bank?” Peter sighed and quickly read through the police report. He knew he had to put all other plans on pause until after the crime was dealt with.

“It’s only 3 pm. I have plenty of time to go there and make sure everyone is okay before our date.” Peter talked to himself as he swung to the crime scene.

A few hours later, Peter swung home and slipped into his apartment via an open window. He pulled his mask off with a heavy sigh and plopped down on his couch. He had managed to stop anybody from getting hurt, but doing so meant fighting off severely men much bigger than him for hours on end.

“Pete? Is that you?” May called from the kitchen. Peter rubbed his tired eyes before trudging into the kitchen to sit at the counter and watch May do the dishes.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

“How was it? I saw what happened on the news.”

“Luckily no one got hurt. Except me.” Peter winced as he rubbed one of his many injuries from the night.

“At least you can sleep tonight knowing you did the right thing. Oh, and did you talk to Y/n yet? She came by looking for you before.” May asked over her shoulder.

“She came by?” Peter perked up a little when he heard this.

“Yeah. She seemed pretty upset. Did you guys have a fight?” May asked, making all the blood drain from Peters face.

“Oh balls.” He whispered under his breath.

“Peter. Language.”

“May. May, this isn’t good.” Peter gulped and pulled out his phone. Sure enough, he had 3 missed calls and a bunch of texts asking where he was. His heart dropped to his stomach when he realized what he had unintentionally done.

“What happened? Was it a fight? Was I right?”

“It wasn’t a fight but it’s about to be.” Peters hands shook as he dialed your number but your immediately declined. He tried calling a few more time before sending you a text.

“Why? What did you do?” May stopped making dinner to focus on her nephew. Peter said his texts go from “delivered” to “read” with no response. He knew you were too angry to reply to him so he put his phone down with a sigh. He then looked at May, who was looking at him expectantly.

“We kissed yesterday.” He admitted. “And we made a plan to talk about what it meant and our relationship and-��

“And you were out on patrol?” May gasped when she realized what he was about to say.

“Yes.”

“Instead of with her?” May slammed her hand on the counter with anger.

“There was a bank robbery! I didn’t think it would take as long as it did. I didn’t mean to stand her up. I just…forgot about her.”

“Peter, believe it or not, girls don’t like being forgotten about.”

“What am I gonna do, May? I goofed. I goofed real bad.” Peter groaned and hung his head in his hands.

“No, Peter. This is much worse than a goof. You fucked up big time.”

“May! What happened to watching our language?”

“I made that rule before I realized my nephew was a fucking heartbreaker.” She said and pointed an accusatory finger at Peter.

“I didn’t mean to stand her up, May.” Peter whined. “I would never do that to her. I just got sidetracked by something more important.”

“Peter, this girl has been your best friend since pre school. She has been there for you every time you needed her. How do you think she feels after you kissed her and then stood her up?”

“Probably really bad.” Peter said quietly.

“Yeah. Really fucking bad, Peter.”

“I know. I really fucked it up this time.” Peter said as tears came to his eyes. He looked at his phone again to see if you texted him back but there was nothing.

“You need it make it up to her. Immediately.” May said with folded arms.

“How? She’s never gonna talk to me again.” Peter started to cry for what he had done. May sighed and felt guilty for making Peter feel worse than he already did. She went over to him and pulled him into a hug as he cried into her chest.

“She’s gonna talk to you again. She just needs some time. So what you’re gonna do is apologize to her and let her know that when she’s ready to speak to you, you’ll be there.”

“Okay.” Peter sniffled.

“And Peter?” May asked and cupped his chin.

“Yeah?”

“Be there.” She said sternly.

Peter nodded before going to his room to get changed. Once he was back in his regular clothes, he went across the hall to knock on your apartment door.

“Hi. Is Y/n home?” Peter asked hopefully once your mom answered.

“She went out a little while ago. She’s not with you?” Your mom asked.

“No, she’s not.” Peter sighed. “If she comes home, could you please tell her to call me? Tell her it’s important.”

“Okay. I will.”

“Thank you.” Peter smiled weakly before running off towards the elevator. He made his way out of the building as he could and ran to Delmars.

“Is Y/n here?” Peter asked as he burst through the door.

“I outta beat your ass. And you know what? I will.” Delmar said as he walked around the counter and grabbed Peter by the collar of his shirt.

“She told you?” Peter asked as he braced himself for a punch.

“Put him down, papi. Let her have her revenge on him first. Then you can beat him up.” Delmars daughter, Louisa, said without up from her magazine. Delmar looked at Peter angrily before dropping him on the ground.

“She didn’t have to tell me anything. I sent my daughter over to talk to her when I saw that she was crying.”

“She was crying?” Peter worried. “Did she say anything?”

“Yeah. She said her best friend stood her up. I’m assuming that’s you?” Delmar asked and folded his arms.

“It is me.” Peter admitted. “But it was an accident.”

“Y/n comes in here all the time. She’s a sweet girl. Always puts money in the tip jar and asks me how I am. Why would you hurt a sweet girl like that?” Delmar asked and took an angry step towards Peter.

“I didn’t mean to. I go caught up in something and missed our date. You know me, man. You know I’m not a bad guy. I just did a bad thing.” Peter said, making Delmar back off a little.

“You better make things right. She was very upset when she left here. And I don’t like seeing nice girls cry over idiot boys, okay?”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m gonna fix this. Can you just tell me what happened?”

“Like I said, I saw her crying so I sent my daughter over to check on her. She told my daughter that you stood her up so I gave her a free sandwich and let her pet my cat until she felt better.”

“Then where did she go?” Peter asked desperately.

“How should I know?” Delmar scoffed and went back behind the counter.

“Okay. Thank you anyway. I’m gonna try to find her.”

“You better. And don’t come back here unless you want an ass whooping. You little punk.” Delmar called as Peter ran out the door. Once Peter was gone, you came out from the back of the store with an empty cup of tea in your hands.

“Is he gone?” You asked in a weak voice.

“Yes, mi amor. He’s gone. Did you like the tea? My mother makes a homemade batch every day.”

“I liked the tea.” You said quietly as you stared into your empty cup.

“You can hide out here as long as you like, but we should at least call your mom. She’s probably wondering where you are.” Delmar said as he rubbed your shoulder to comfort you.

“That’s okay. My mom texted me a few mins ago and said Peter came by looking for me. I think it’s safe for me to go home now.” You said and smiled weakly in appreciation.

“Okay, mi vida. I’m sorry he let you down tonight. If you were my daughter, he’d be dead and in a shallow grave by now.” Delmar said, making you laugh a little.

“Thanks. Thank you both for cheering me up and letting me hide. I’m just not ready to talk to him.”

“I get it. I wouldn’t be ready either. Let me know how it goes. And if you need to hide out some more, you know where to find us.” Louisa said and pulled you into a tight hug. You had never spoken to her before today but felt grateful that she decided to help a stranger. You thanked them both again before leaving Delmars and walking home. Your mom told you Peter asked you to call him once you walked into your apartment but you lied and said you were too tired. It was too much to get into tonight and all you wanted to do was sleep.

The next day at school, Peter saw you by your locker and froze. You looked like you had gotten as much sleep as Peter, which was little to none. Peter took a deep breath before walking up to you.

“Hey.” Peter smiled weakly and braced himself for the worst possible reaction from you. Instead of screaming at him like he assumed, you just kept getting your stuff out of your locker.

“Okay. You’re not talking to me. I deserve that.” He nodded. You slammed your locker shut and started to walk away.

“Wait. Please just let me explain.” Peter begged as he ran in front of you. You didn’t make eye contact with him but he could see your lip beginning to tremble.

“I don’t understand.” You said in a weak voice.

“You don’t understand what?”

“You kissed me. You asked me on a date. I was perfectly fine with us being friends but you changed things. Why would you do all of that just to stand me up?”

“I didn’t stand you up. I got caught up in something really important and it took longer than I expected. That’s the only reason I didn’t show up. And I’m so, so, incredibly fucking sorry that I didn’t show up. You have no idea how much I wanted to be there and go on that date. Something just came up and I had no choice.”

“I get that. Shit comes up. But why didn’t you text or call?”

“To be perfectly honest, I completely forgot about the date until I finished with the other thing. I didn’t remember until May told me you had come by.”

“You forgot?” You asked as you finally looked at Peter. The sadness in your eyes was replaced with stone cold anger that sent a shiver down Peters spine.

“Yes.” He admitted. “But only because what I was doing was super important and needed my full attention.”

“What is this “super important” thing you had to do that made you forget about me?” You asked and folded your arms.

“I can’t tell you.” Peter grimaced as the words came out, knowing you’d never believe him.

“You can’t tell me?” You raised an eyebrow.

“No, I’m sorry. I can’t tell you.”

You stared at Peter for a long time as the anger you felt inside doubled. You balled your hands into fists and wanted to punch him right in his face but instead, you just walked away.

“Wait.” Peter called after you and ran up to you again. You didn’t look at him as you walked to your next class.

“Can we please reschedule to tonight? We still really need to talk about us.” He said as he struggled to keep up with you.

“No.”

“No? But we never got a chance-“

“Let me make this perfectly clear, Peter.” You cut him off. Any chance of “us” happening ended last night when you decided not to show up. I got no call, no text, and now some half assed excuse that doesn’t even come with an explanation as to where you were? And to top it all off, you had the nerve, the absolute fucking audacity, to tell me that you forgot about me. You forgot about me? Was that seriously supposed to make this all better?”

“No. I don’t know. I’m sorry.” Peter rubbed his eyes in frustration. “I know I fucked up. But please, I really really like you. I want to give us a chance. I screwed up last night but don’t let that ruin what we have.”

“I can’t ruin it. You already did.” Your voice cracked as you walked away again. This time, he let you go.

As much as you wanted to avoid Peter and let him suffer, you had an hour long lab period with him after your first period class. You walked in and went towards your usual lab table out of muscle memory. When you saw that Peter was already sitting there, you froze.

“Hey.” Peter smiled brightly when you made eye contact. You immediately looked away and stopped at the closest lab table.

“Can I please sit here?” You asked without even looking at who was already sitting there.

“You can sit that pretty little thang anywhere you like.” Flash smirked and patted the seat beside him.

“Thanks.” You mumbled and took a seat. Peter watched you sit beside Flash and felt a bubble of jealousy in his stomach. He wanted to listen to what you were saying but didn’t want to invade your privacy.

“I’m not sure if you noticed, but no one ever sits with me for labs. And that’s because of my horrific personality and general off putting vibe. I’m also really bad at biology-“

“This is chemistry.” You cut in.

“Really? Oh shit, I’m even worse at that.” Flash laughed. “Anyway, how would you feel about doing all the work and letting me copy?”

“Yeah. Sure. Whatever.” You mumbled and started doing the lab work. Flash noticed you weren’t dishing back with your usual insults and frowned.

“You okay?” He asked in a kinder tone. You had one of those moments where you were fine until someone asked you if you were okay, prompting you to break down.

“I’m fine.” You said in a shaky voice and quickly wiped your face. Flash noticed your tears and looked over his shoulder to see Peter staring at you with all the guilt in the world on his face.

“How come you’re not sitting with Parker?” Flash asked you. You blinked back a few tears and tried to focus on your work.

“We had a falling out.”

“Oh shit. Really?” Flash snorted and looked over his shoulder again at Peter, who was looking back this time. Peter could tell you had said something to Flash about what happened and his curiosity was killing him.

“What did he do?” Flash nudged you when you didn’t answer.

“Why do you just assume he did something?”

“Because you’re the one who changed seats.” Flash said, making you shrug in agreement.

“And because Parker’s an idiot.” He added after a beat. You couldn’t help but smile and nod your head.

“Yeah. He is.” You chuckled and looked over at Flash. Peter clenched his fist in jealousy over Flash getting you to laugh and smile but kept quiet.

“So come on. Tell me what he did.” Flash urged now that he had cheered you up a little.

“No. Here’s the answers to the first page.” You said and slid your work over to him.

“Thanks.” Flash replied and copied your work down. Peter watched this with tight eyes and felt his jealousy worsen. Lab days were usually spent giggling and flirting with each other as you shared answers and now he had to watch you do that with Flash.

“Here’s page two.” Flash handed you his work after a couple minutes of silence.

“You finished? I thought you were gonna copy me?”

“I was. But I’ll let you copy me if you tell me what Parker did.”

“I’m not gonna tell you. And these are all wrong.” You laughed and handed the page back to him.

“That’s because I just wrote down random numbers. I didn’t realize you were going to actually look at them.” Flash scoffed and snatched his page back. You threw your head back laughing at his erratic behavior, catching Peters attention in the process. Peter couldn’t imagine what Flash could’ve possibly said to make you laugh like that but it made white hot jealousy course through his body.

“He’s staring at us, you know. With those beady little rat eyes of his.” Flash leaned over to whisper in your ear.

“Flash.” You laughed in surprise and checked behind you to see if Peter had heard that. You accidentally made eye contact with Peter and quickly looked away.

“What? Haven’t you ever noticed that he kind of looks like he always has a frog in his mouth? And he’s trying to keep it from jumping out?” Flash asked you in a genuine tone.

“Shut up. You’re so mean.” You laughed and playfully shoved him away from you. Peter just about fell over when he saw this and loudly cleared his throat to get your attention. You looked over your shoulder and made eye contact for just a second before looking away.

“Can I at least know what he did?” Flash whispered again. You let out a sigh and decided that since he had made you feel better, you’d give him what he wanted.

“He said he’d take me on a date and he didn’t. I waited all night for him and he never came.” You said simply and went back to your work. Flash was quiet for a long time and when he didn’t respond, you looked at him in confusion.

“He’s a loser. You deserved better.” Flash said with a sympathetic smile.

“Oh. Thanks.” You smiled in surprise at his chivalry after expecting a crude response.

“Let me take you on a real date to make up for it.” Flash said at full volume, making Peters stomach drop. Before you could answer, the bell rang and the period ended. Peter ran out of the classroom as quickly as he could before he could hear you after to go on a date with another boy. You gave Flash your answer as you collected your things.

“Thanks for letting me sit with you.” You said to Flash as you walked out of the class together.

“Anything to mess with Parker.” Flash smiled and held his fist out. You fist bumped him and felt lighter then you had since last night.

You continued to avoid Peter for the rest of the day, not an easy task considering you had almost every class together. He knew the one place you couldn’t avoid him was your locker, which was conveniently right next to his. He got his stuff that he needed for the night and waited until you showed up. You soon showed up and saw Peter standing by his locker, making you want to walk right out of the building. You knew you couldn’t leave without getting your books so you held your chin up and went to get your books. You could feel Peter staring at you with his puppy dog eyes and couldn’t help but roll your eyes to the ceiling.

“Hey.” He said in a quiet voice. You didn’t answer and pretended to take interest in one of your textbooks.

“I miss you.” He tried again, making you pause a little to internally admit that you missed him too.

“I heard you’re going on a date with Flash.” He added, catching you off guard.

“What? Did Flash tell you that?” You frowned confusion. You hadn’t meant to respond, but that came out of nowhere and you wanted to know more.

“No. I heard you guys talking during lab today.” Peter admitted, gaining the slightest inch of hope now that you had spoken to him. You were about to tell Peter that you turned Flash down, but you decided to let him suffer a little after the way he had made you feel.

“Yeah, well, I bet you have a lot to say about that.” You said with a roll of your eyes.

“I do.” Peter replied, making you sigh and look at him.

“Go ahead. Tell me he’s an idiot and a womanizer and that I’m stupid for going out with him and-“

“I hope you have a nice time.” Peter cut you off. “I hope he picks a place you like and pulls your chair out for you and drives you home in his expensive car. And I hope you fall asleep that night with a smile on your face because you had a nice time. That’s all I was gonna say.”

“Why would you hope for that?” You asked with suspicion.

“Because you’re my best friend and that means I want you to have a great date.” Peter said sincerely. You eyed him skeptically but heard him out.

“Even if it’s not with me.” He added and held his breath in fear of your response. You looked Peter up and down and felt your heart ache in your chest. You hated being mad at him because the only person you wanted to confide in about your heartbreak was him. All you wanted was to talk to your best friend and let him make you feel better.

“I’m not going on the date with him. I said no.” You admitted and avoided eye contact with Peter.

“You did? Why?”

“I told him it wouldn’t be fair to him to go out with him because even though you’re a total butt munch who sucks major balls and I hate with all my heart, I still have feelings for you.” You confessed as you slowly looked into Peters eyes.

“You have feelings for me?” Peter asked in a soft voice and took a step closer to you.

“I have for a while. That’s what I was gonna tell you last night but you never showed up.” You felt angry again and took a step back.

“Can we please have our date tonight? I swear, I will show up this time. Nothing could keep me away.”

“I don’t know. Are you gonna tell me what super important thing kept you from showing up last time?” You asked and folded your arms.

“Yes. Tonight I’ll explain everything.” Peter promised you. You were too curious about what caused him to stand you up to stay no, so you reluctantly nodded your head.

“Fine. I’ll give you a second chance.”

“That’s my first favorite kind of chance.” Peter smiled in relief.

“But if you blow it tonight, I’m never speaking to you again. I mean it.”

“I won’t blow it. I swear.” Peter promised you. “Can you meet me on the Brooklyn bridge tonight?”

You were silent for a long time as you stared at Peter until you finally found the words.

“Why the fuck would we have this relationship changing discussion on the Brooklyn bridge?” You asked after a beat of silence. Peter paused, realizing that that was a valid question, before responding.

“Just please try to trust me. I know I’ve given you plenty of reasons not to. But everything will make sense after tonight. I promise.”

“Fine. It better.”

“I’ll see you then?” Peter asked hopefully.

That night, Peter put on his Spiderman suit and swung to the Brooklyn bridge. He felt so anxious that his hands shook as he grabbed the next web so he tried to push everything from his mind. When he landed on top of the bridge, he scanned the street below until he found you. He let out a nervous breath before jumping down and landing near you.

“Hey.” Peter said to get your attention.

“Oh my God. Hi.” You laughed in surprise when you saw who was talking to you.

“Can I show you something?” Peter asked through his mask, catching you off guard. You looked behind you to make sure Spiderman was talking to you and not someone else but found no one there.

“Sorry, Spiderman. As intriguing and random as that offer is, I’m kinda waiting for somebody. It’s really important.”

“I know. It’ll just take a sec.”

“Okay, fine.” You agreed. “As long as you bring me right back.”

“I will.” Peter promised as he slipped a secure arm around your waist. You let out a nervous breath and wrapped your arms around his neck for more support.

“I’ve always wanted to do this.” Peter grinned under his mask before shooting a web and swinging away. You let out a thrilled scream and held on tight as Peter swung you up to a building that stood opposite the Brooklyn bridge. You opened your eyes once you felt your feet on the ground and gasped when you saw what he had wanted to show you.

“I love you” had been written in webs on the bridge in giant letters. The lights of the cityscape behind it lit it up a soft yellow that made you feel a warm feeling inside.

“Aw, that’s beautiful, Spiderman. Who did you do that for?” You turned to him to ask.

“I did it for you.” Peter said and took a step closer to you. Your fondness for it turned to fear as you took a step back.

“Why me? You don’t know me.” You laughed nervously and wondered if Spiderman had been stalking you without your knowledge.

“Yes I do. You’re my best friend. I know you better than anyone.”

“Okay. I’m officially creeped out now.” You laughed nervously and stepped dither away from him. “This is on me for letting a stranger swing me up to a place I cannot escape from.”

“I’m not a stranger.” Peter tried to tell you as he walked towards you.

“You may be Spiderman but you are still a stranger and I am feeling in danger.” You said as you peered over the side of the building, only to confirm you had no escape.

“What? No, you’re not in danger. Look. It’s just me.” Peter laughed and went to take his mask off. He found himself freezing for a moment, knowing that this would be the moment before absolutely everything changed.

“You said “it’s just me” and then didn’t take your mask off.” You pointed out.

“I know. Just give me a second. I’m shy.” Peter said and went for the edge of his mask again. You looked at him expectingly and felt your heart pounding over being seconds away from finding out who Spiderman was under his mask. Peters heart was pounding for the same reason.

“Okay. No going back now.” Peter said to himself before pulling his mask off. He watched your eyebrows go up in an initial surprise before your face settled in a fond smile.

“You know, so many things just made sense.” You said with a gentle laugh.

“Right? Didn’t I tell you it would all make sense after tonight?” Peter smiled now that he had gotten an good reaction. You stepped closer to him and held his hands, just trying to feel the suit in order to convince yourself that this was really happening.

“So this is why you missed the dance last year? And the decathlon?”

“And why I didn’t show up last night. There was a robbery-“

“On 5th avenue.” You realized. “I saw that. You were there?”

“I had to be there. I have this great power and with that comes with a great responsibility.”

You were quite for a minute, then made a face and laughed.

“Peter. A catchphrase? Do you seriously have a catch phrase?” You covered your mouth as you laughed.

“No.” He whined. “That wasn’t a catchphrase. It was more like my tag line if I was a comic book.”

“You’re making it so hard to be attracted to you right now.” You continued to laugh but never let go of his hand.

“What? I just swept you off your feet -literally- after telling the entire world I loved you with my webs.” Peter said as he pointed to the bride. You looked at the bridge again with a whole new perspective now that you knew it was you best friend telling you he loved you. You then looked at Peter and couldn’t contain your smile.

“Yeah, but then you said something that gave me the ick.”

“Are you kidding me? I should be ick free after giving you the grandest of grand gestures.” Peter said and gestured to the bridge again with both arms. You laughed at how worked up he was getting before wrapping your arms around his neck to look at him. Peter settled his hands on your waist and gulped a little as he anxiously anticipated what you were gonna say.

“I love you too. I was gonna tell you that yesterday but then some bitch ass had to rob a bank and keep you from me.” You told him, making him laugh in both surprise and relief.

“Wait, nobody died right? Or was that super insensitive?” You asked him.

“Nobody died. I got punched in the nuts though.” He said though a laugh.

“Aw. Poor baby.” You pouted sarcastically and stroked his cheek. He laughed again before resting his forehead against your to look into your eyes. You stayed that way in comfortable silence for a moment before Peter felt your body freeze in fear.

“Oh my God.” You whispered.

“What’s wrong?”

“It just occurred to me that I’m standing on top of a random building with nothing but your noodle arms anchoring me to the floor. I’m gonna pass out. Take me to the ground, please. I beg you.”

“Hang tight.” Peter chuckled and safely swung you to the ground. Once he set you down, he crawled up the wall behind you and slipped his mask back over his face so that no one would accidentally see him.

“Peter?” You asked and looked around. He slid down on a web the way a spider would and stopped once he was at face level with you.

“I should probably be going now, little lady. Crime doesn’t take a night off.” He said in a his Hulk Hogan voice.

“Oh no. Do you have to go use your great power to take care of your great responsibilities?” You teased him and held your hands over your heart.

“I get the sense you’re teasing me.” Peter said in his usual voice.

“What gave you that idea?” You smiled sweetly and rested your hands on his upside down face.

“My spider senses tell me everything.” He returned to his funny voice to mask how nervous he was to be this close to you. You laughed at his joke and stroked his cheek under the mask.

“Will I see you again, Spiderman?” You asked in an exaggerated swooning voice.

“Only if you commit a crime.” He played along.

“Then I simply have to give you something to remember me by.”

“Your handkerchief?”

“Something better.” You laughed softly as you rolled his mask down to just under his nose. With just his lips exposed, you brought his face closer and kissed him, upside down in that alley way. Peter kissed you back and felt his heart explode in his chest as everything felt right again. It felt just as perfect as the first kiss and both of you knew that something big had just begun. When you pulled away, you rolled his mask back down over his face and smiled to yourself.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Peter.” You whispered in his ear so no one passing by could overhear his name. Peter felt his face blush beneath his mask and felt grateful you couldn’t see him.

The next day, Peter didn’t see you at your locker before his first class but saw you sitting at your usual lab table when he walked in. He smiled at the sight of you and felt relived that not only was you relationship back to normal, it was elevated. He sat beside you and you exchanged timid smiles. You still felt a degree of awkwardness around Peter as you didn’t know how things were going to be from now on. There was a substitute teacher today instead of your usual professor and when she passed around a work sheet for everyone to do, she accidentally skipped you. When Peter noticed this, he put his hand in the air.

“Could we please get another worksheet? My girlfriend didn’t get one.” Peter said once he was called on. The substitute had no idea why several people turned around to look at you and Peter with surprised faces, or why you looked like you’d just been asked for your hand in marriage.

“Oh, sorry. Here you go.” The sub said and handed you a sheet.

“Thank you.” You said before sneaking a glance at Peter. He was quietly doing his work, not making a big deal out of what he had just called you. You, on the other hand, were internally flipping out over the label.

“You just called me your girlfriend.” You leaned over to tell him.

“Did I?” He smiled cheekily but kept doing his work. You grinned at how nonchalant he was being and went back to doing your work.

“I’m sorta seeing someone.” You said without looking up.

“What? Who?” Peter dropped his pencil ad his attention whipped to you.

“Spiderman.” You causally shrugged and kept doing your work. Peter chuckled in relief and picked his pencil back up.

“Oh. Well I wouldn’t want to come between the two of you.”

“Thanks. We can still be friends though, right?” You asked and looked over at him.

“Yeah, totally. Just friends.” He nodded in agreement as he leaned in. You leaned the rest of the way and kissed him for just a moment before pulling away. You were both smiling and blushing messes as you went back to your work.

“What did you get for number 6?” You asked after a beat of comfortable silence.

“I got pH = 12.”

“Fuck.”

“What?” Peter wondered.

“I got “J.D. Salinger” for some reason.”

Tag List 🏷️

@awesomebooklover17 @thebookwormlife @imanativeofswlondondahling @serendipitous-amor @tom-hollands-wifey

@whatareyouhidingpeter @takenbyheartstrings @ultrunning @imyourliquor-youremypoison @andreasworlsboring101

@letsloveimagines @peterparkoure @a-villain-vying-for-attention @justcallmehitgirl @jackiehollanderr @maryjanee23

@geeksareunique @emmamarshmellow @unbelievableholland @flixndchill

@sovereignparker @every-marveler-ever @undiadeestos @caelestii-e @ @fiantomartell

@solarxmoonchild @canyouevencauseicant @illwritetomorrow @thehappygrungelife

@saysomethingspiderman @smilexcaptainx @quaksonhehe @kelieah @seasidecrowbar

@lovelessdagger @electraheart-3174 @unbelievableholland @yourtypicalhotmess

@horanxholland @thesuitelifeofafangirl @marshxx @heyheycharlatte @nooneinvitedfascistbarbie

@maybemona @alexxcorona113 @lethal-wisdom @xo-spidey

#peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker x you #peter parker angst #peter parker fluff #peter parker fanfiction #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland fluff #tom holland fanfiction

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hearts4golbach · 3 months

Text

The Night Shift.

chapter 3.

Johnnie Guilbert x Fem!Reader.

The party was at 5, so I made sure to wake up at 3 to get ready. I dug through my closet, romaging around the very bottom drawer where I put the shit I don't wear anymore. I eventually found the dress I wore to homecoming my senior year. To say it was slutty would be an understatement. I was against wearing it at first, but why not go into the new year with a bang. Ew, I hate that. 'with a bang.' whatever. I slipped on the dress and it fit better than it used to.

I did my usual makeup, just adding eyeliner and darker lipstick to match the dress. I pulled out my phone and texted johnnie.

y/n: ready when you are

johnnie: alr, me and Jake should be on our way soon I think, idk

y/n: lol ok just lmk when you're here

johnnie: ofc :))

I slipped on the beat up converse I've been wearing since middle school and waited in the living room for them to get here. I was a little nervous for the party.

my phone dinged.

johnnie: herrrreeeeee

I read his message and ran out the front door.

Who I assumed was Jake sat in the front seat, while Johnnie leaned against the car facing me. "hey." I smiled.

his eyes grazed over my whole body. "you look really good."

"thank you." I smiled, tilting my head down towards him. he was wearing a pair of ripped, black skinny jeans with a white button up that he didn't tuck in. Something clicked in me, maybe because he was wearing something other than pajama pants, but I shoved that feeling down.

he smiled sweetly and opened the backdoor for me. I hopped in and was quickly followed by johnnie. "Damn, Johnnie, leaving me to sit in the back of my car with a pretty girl."

"shut the fuck up, fuck face." he rolled his eyes.

"sorry, we've never really met. I'm jake." He reached over the seat and stuck out his hand.

I shook it. "I'm y/n. it's really great to meet you. Johnnie has talked about you."

"yeah, talked shit." Johnnie joked.

"Johnnie has talked about you too." Jake replied nonchalantly. Johnnie's gaze quickly met Jake's. He gave him the death stare before returning to his phone.

"you've never been to a party?" Jake asked me, beginning to drive off of my street.

"yeah, my parents kind of kept me locked in a cage my whole life." I looked out the window, watching as snow began to fall to the ground. The bright white snow contrasted against the dark sky, making it extremely visible.

"you're going to have the night of your life." Jake said with a southern accent.

I turned to look at johnnie, who was still on his phone. I admired the way his dark makeup contrasted against his pale skin. ill admit, he was just as gorgeous as the snow. I smiled slightly to myself before responding to Jake, mimicking his accent. "Let's hope so, little missy."

johnnie looked up at me with a goofy smile on his face. he had a certain look in his eye that I couldn't quite read. my stomach errupted with butterflies. I was usually able to read anyone, it didn't matter if I knew them or not. Johnnie was different, and it was confusing.

Jake had turned up the radio and I looked back out the window, racking my brain for what that look was for. was it because I was being funny? was I getting along with Jake more than he liked? was he happy I was getting along with jake? I came up with every possible answer, but none made sense. whether positive or negative, why would he look at me like that?

we eventually arrived at the party, parking down the street from the house. "I'm going straight for the drinks." I commented. "I will never be the one to turn down free alcohol."

"I second that." Jake said, sticking up his pointer finger and pursing his lips.

loud music radiated from the house. it was still decorated for Christmas. lights were strung all over the house while the roof held a porcelain Santa and reindeer.

I grabbed Johnnie's arm. "Look! no one told me Santa was still in town!" I made a shocked face.

he began to jump up and down. "oh my god, Santa! Jake, it's my dad!" he said in a childlike voice.

"you're finally reunited!" Jake patted his back, making two rough slapping sounds.

we waited on the doorstep while Jake was talking to someone out on the yard. "it's nice seeing you not so stressed because of your job."

"I guess I do seem pretty stressed." I admitted. "but I do love my job."

"still, I've never seen you in something other than jeans and a t-shirt with an apron." he smiled.

"well, I've never seen you in anything other than pajama pants. you look very-" I paused, thinking of a not so obvious word to describe him. "good. sorry, I'm not the best with compliments."

"it's the thought that counts." he playfully nudged me.

"A for effort, I guess." I rolled my eyes at him.

"those shoes look like they've been through hell and back." he looked down before making eye contact with me again.

"I mean, technically they were. I wore them in middle school." I kicked a rock out from under my foot.

"I dropped out in middle school." he snickered as Jake walked up to us.

"Sorry, guys. the ladies love me."

"I'm sure they do, jake." I replied sarcastically.

#fanfiction #fanfic #johnnie guilbert x you #johnnie guilbert x reader #jake and johnnie #johnnie guilbert #the night shift #cafe aesthetic #cafe

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saltylandland · 1 year

Text

The Lost Boys attractiveness rating

Curtesy of me. This may be a bit controversial but I’ll be giving reasons worry not. Also I’m not including Sam, the Frog brothers, and laddie for obvious reasons.

Dwayne

Tall, Dark, and handsome. My type and honestly, considering my past crushes have been Uta + Ayato (from Tokyo Ghoul) and Andy Beirsack, this really isn’t shocking. Plus he has long hair and he’s indigenous (I am also indigenous) he’s so fucking deadly lol.

David

I have a thing for voices and his is just 👌 and he’s just pretty, even with the mullet lol. Like look at that smile!!!! Plus out of all the boys I draw him a lot.

Marko

It took me awhile to get on board with him actually, but then someone described him as angel face and I was like ‘!!!!!!!’ Yeah totally! Plus he has a cool jacket, has pet pigeons, and he’s (at least Headcanon) creative.

Star

80’s Esmeralda lol. But like she’s so pretty??? It’s unfair. She’s also (Headcanon) creative. The main reason she’s this low on the list is bc women weren’t really allowed to have personalities in the 80s :/ (I’m joking,,, kinda) she could’ve been so interesting, instead she betrays her (supposed to be) friends for something she willingly gave up and Debbie Ryan. She makes Bella Swan look responsible.

Lucy

She’s also very pretty, just,,, women ❤️ also she’s very sweet, kind, and protective. Negative points bc she was a ‘starseed’/ ex-hippy kinda person which is a red flag.

Paul

Nothing against him or his actor (rest in peace Brooke) but he just looks like my uncle??? And a little like my Dad in the 80s, so I can’t get the appeal. Usually when I write for poly!lost boys or him on his own I replace his face with some other 80s Heartthrob or hair metal band member (Jon Bon Jovi? Especially when he was younger? ❤️👌)

Michael

I hate that Debbie Ryan smirk he does, plus every Michael I’ve ever met is a shit.

Max 🤮🤢

Ew.

Also keep in mind if he has been in Santa Carla for who knows how long, especially on the boardwalk where teens would want to hangout, he could’ve remembered Lucy when she was young. Ew.

Honourable mention

Grandpa

He may not work like he used to but he is goated and a role model to everyone.

#the lost boys #the lost boys 1987 #tlb dwayne #tlb 1987 #tlb fanfic #ranking #tlb paul #tlb marko #david tlb #max tlb #star tlb #tlb michael

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hadassah4ever · 10 months

Text

the three times they wished they kissed you, and the time you finally did (igby slocumb, greg hirsch)

warnings: alcohol use, sex mentions (no actual sex), reader being decently obvious, nothing too crazy, mild mild hurt/comfort

authors note: mother bird has come to feed you some regurgitated worms. i was going to add roman or tom in here, but i was already taking so long to finish the igby part, and i’m scared of making them ooc. enjoy tho. <3 (it’s 3 am and im barely awake. 💀)

word count: 3k

playlist (if you’d like): romanticizing my delusionship— https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6rLX5L9fLuEWueJz6lVaem?si=6gPlbG7LRLKd6aq_eNfp1g

igby slocumb

number one

Settling in was harder than Igby thought. He really didn’t think about how moving across the country with no roots in that area, or really anywhere, would affect him emotionally, but at least he was in California. A benign concept to his still frazzled brain, but he tried his hardest to block out any negative emotion, he got what he wanted, and that’s really all that mattered to him.

He found himself getting attached to strangers he thought were interesting due to the scenarios he made up in his head, and you weren’t safe from that. He first saw you studying in a cafe he frequented. Deducing the fact that you were probably only in there due to the fact that it was a particularly hot and humid day, and you were clearly studying for something considering the textbook sprawled in front of you, and by the fact that you were going over old notes.

His eyes grazed your facial features, but certainly for too long, as you moved your eyes from your notes to the young guy staring at you from across the cafe, he casually glanced away, but it was obvious he was just doing it just to avoid a staring contest with a random girl about 25 feet away from him. You quietly chuckled and playfully rolled your eyes at the fact that he didn’t even try to hide his staring problem, eventually he got sucked back into making eye contact with you, your eyes darting down to the empty chair in front of you, then back to him. Beckoning him with just your eyes.

It’s not every day he was asked to sit down with cute people at cafés, so maybe he’d seize this opportunity to get to know you.

number two

Neither of you were truly used to such mild autumn temperatures, being from different parts of the country. The fact that you moved from the more northeastern part of the states made him cling onto you even harder, you knew what it was like to pack up and leave everything behind, and he respected you even more for that.

“So, how’s college going?” He asked, not really knowing what else to talk about as you walked beside each other.

“Ew, small talk? Seriously, Igby, I thought you were better than that.” You spoke, playfully. “But, yeah, pretty boring. Can’t complain, though, considering I literally signed myself up for it.” You added. The dry, crunching leaves serving as white noise.

“I don’t really know what else to talk about. I’m not going to rant to you about… fucking… Kafka, like your little college boyfriends.” He replied, playing up his annoyance for laughs. “No, my college boyfriends talk about Dostoyevsky.” You joked back.

The way you two clicked was different, and also something he wasn’t used to, unlike anyone else who came before you, your chemistry was different, it was better. It was effortless.

“Have you made any new friends?” You asked. “Why do you care?” He retorted, not used to actually being cared about. “Because I can’t be your only friend. Sometimes I’m concerned for your social well-being.” You shrugged. “Although from your reaction, it’s safe to say no.” You glanced over to him and saw as he playfully rolled his eyes in defeat.

You really got him there. You really were his only friend, even though he truly wished you were more.

number three

As college picked up, you couldn’t help but wonder if there’s a life outside of California that would be worth pursuing. After you graduated, of course. It was still probably a mistake to bring it up so casually, you invited him over to have a relaxing night with a good friend. Instead you watched as his eyes slightly widened and his lips slightly curled into a frown.

“What? I— Where do you even wanna go?” Igby asked, clearly getting defensive, if you truly put two and two together, maybe you’d know truly how much he liked you. “Texas, maybe. Possibly Arizona.” You replied, pretending to think about it in the moment, but truthfully it was consuming your mind most of the time. “Who do you think you are? You wanna make out with a cowboy or something? What’s even over there? Tumbleweeds?” He bombarded you with questions, making it sound like he made California.

You inhaled slowly, to keep yourself from getting too angry at him. “I just really don’t know if California is my forever state. God forbid I try something new.” His simple offended demeanour swapped for a somewhat agitated one, “It’s not about that, it’s the fact that you’re so willing to leave me behind, you know you’re my only friend.”.

“Number one, I’d only leave after I graduate, and number two, whose fault is that? I’ve spoken endlessly about how you need to get some more friends and guess who didn’t follow my advice?” You ranted, irritation taking over your voice. Igby was left speechless, words escaping him aside from: “I’m leaving.”

He would be lying if he said you didn’t look hot while angry, but maybe that didn’t matter much anymore.

number four

You didn’t know if you wanted to be able to completely forget about Igby or have the lack of stubbornness to be able to go and apologise yourself. In reality, you had neither. Which is why you ran to pick up your phone when it began to ring, and how you ended up at his apartment door at 2AM with your tail between your legs.

When he heard you knock, he immediately opened the door, he was clearly standing right behind it, waiting for you. His gaze was fixed on the floor, it was odd to see the boy who was so snide and cynical look like a kicked puppy all of a sudden.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten angry.” He spoke in a voice that made you sure he’d been crying. “You know I can’t stay mad at you either. But I really shouldn’t have said some of that stuff, either.” You slowly began to move towards him, asking him if you could hug him without verbalising it, eventually you ended up with your arms wrapped around him. “You’re very likeable, and I don’t know how people don’t cling to your side and beg to be your friend.”

He stayed silent for a few seconds, just taking in the warmth of your arms and basically basking in it. He used his socked foot to close the door behind you, in preparation for what he was about to admit to.

“I— you probably know why I said that stuff though.” He basically muttered, you didn’t answer in embarrassment, feeling like you should know. “Fuck, I… think I love you.” He spoke, a bit nervous to actually speak the three words he was essentially waiting to drop on you.

You didn’t even hesitate on pressing your lips to his, the kiss was magical, like how they described in the romance novels that made middle aged women swoon, it was abstract. Like warm hospital blankets, like rain in the evening, it was domestic and comfortable.

He attempted to slide his hand up your shirt, knowing what he was trying to do, you redirected it to your waist, the rejection not embarrassing Igby too much. He almost respected you for it more, you could be intimate without sex, and that’s truly what he needed at that moment.

Tender and warm, you two were utterly entranced with the kind of young love that elderly ladies comment about, and maybe Texas didn’t matter to you much anymore.

greg hirsch

number one

You found yourself sitting outside of the venue for the latest Waystar party, right on the last step of one of the staircases outside, the air was wet which signalled the fact that it was most likely going to rain soon. You heard the small taps of dress shoes behind you, getting closer.

“Uh— are you o-okay?” Greg spoke, you didn’t even turn around. Greg was a mere work acquaintance, someone you swore you would try and talk to more, but never really ended up doing so. He seemed kind enough from the brief interactions you had, though, so you really didn’t mind him speaking to you while you were trying to escape the party atmosphere, at least for a few minutes.

“Yeah. Just needed some space.” You replied. A small, awkward silence fell between you as the chatter from the party continued behind you two. “W-Would it be… Could I join you?” He asked, trying to sound confident.

You glanced up at him, a soft look in your eyes, but the rest of your face didn’t portray much. “Yeah.” You answered, voice getting slightly higher in an attempt to sound as non aggressive as possible. He awkwardly smiled and nodded, moving down to sit beside you. His long legs were almost against his chest, in an attempt to copy how you sat, you watched in silent amusement as he tried to move around and get comfortable, before inevitably just letting his legs just rest in front of himself, completely straight like toothpicks.

“Sorry if I’m intruding or anything.” He said, more so out of muscle memory politeness than actually apologising. “Out of all the people who could’ve possibly come and sat down next to me, I think you’re the one I hate the least. Don’t apologise.” You told him in a slightly monotone and tired, yet genuine tone.

He felt a light blush overtake his cheeks and his brain stopped functioning for a second, he was searching for any possible words he could string together to charm you like you just unintentionally did to him, but nothing came, he just stared at you like a scared puppy and let out a “Thank you.” that bordered on being muttered.

You didn’t really speak much on the steps, but there was a mutual sense that you didn’t really have to.

number two

“Er— y/n?” You heard Greg say behind you, you softly swung your desk chair around to look at him. “Do you wanna like… Come over after work? I’ve got a uh— bottle of wine and yeah.” The end of his sentence didn’t really sound like the end, sounding more like he just ran out of words. You nodded and gently smiled. “I’d love to, Greg.”

———

You knew that as soon as he uncorked the bottle it was never going to just be one glass. That was kinda just how wine worked, and at this point, you were tipsy enough to have no filter, but not enough to be full blown drunk, which meant you were both opening up about every little thing in your life like it was the end of the world. After a particularly deep question, you didn’t really know if there was much else to talk about.

Greg spoke up, trying to keep the conversation going anyway. “So… what do you think of like, ATN and st—“ “Could we save that kind of talk for the office? Not to be rude or anything.” You interrupted, Greg completely stopped and nodded. “I— yeah, yeah.” His voice got higher to show his non-confrontational-ness. “Sorry. I just swear I get a migraine when I remember what the company I work for actually stands for.” You joked, trying to cut the tension. “No, no. I understand.” He replied through an awkward chuckle.

There was a silence that was reminiscent of the night on the stairs but much more awkward. Greg took another chance to speak with you, “Have you, y’know… been in any relationships recently?” He asked, a realisation set in for you, the tone in his voice wasn’t casual enough. He liked you.

“Mmm…” You pressed your lips together and looked up in thought. “Nothing too recent, clearly. Dating in New York is weird.” You answered and looked at him to signal his response. “Yeah. Same. At least not lik—L-long term.” He rushed out, trying to lean back slightly on his sofa and look confident and suave, clearly you saw through it, though. The stutter not helping his case.

“Not gonna lie, that’s a bit odd to me. In my mind you seem like the kind of guy to either have a pretty decent girlfriend.” You stopped yourself from saying the last bit, but it ended up flowing out anyway. “Or fuck Tom. But either way you seem… Dateable. Compared to some of the people I’ve met here, at least.” You shrugged, feeling some of your own awkwardness come out of hiding.

He didn’t really know how to reply to that, he glanced down from your eyes to your lips then back at your eyes. He was feeling kind of lightheaded, your lips just looked too kissable, a thought which he knew wasn’t sparked from the alcohol, it was lingering on his brain for a while, fantasies about taking you out on a date and kissing you afterwards like a proper gentleman ran through his mind for most of the day, which was embarrassing to admit.

“Yeah cool, uh— you too!” He chuckled nervously, getting slightly sobered up by his own adrenaline. You just smiled and softly nodded, Greg felt something impending which never came to fruition. Your smile was like the whooshing of a guillotine through the air to him, he assumed it was you preparing to lean over and press your lips to his.

He was wrong about that.

number three

It was raining and you’d completely forgotten your umbrella like the idiot you are. It wasn’t just a tolerable drizzle, it was essentially pouring, Greg saw this as his opportunity to be in his own cheesy rom-com and offer to walk you home. Much to his surprise, you accepted. He really thought you’d just get a ride from one of your friends or get an Uber, but his heart definitely skipped a beat when you accepted.

His heart continued to skip beats when your shoulder would brush against his arm, he felt weird. He felt creepy feeling this way, but he really couldn’t change it. It was mostly silent aside from the occasional comment on how hard it was raining. You two knew how much you wanted to kiss each other, it was almost like if you tried to hold a normal conversation, you’d black out and wake up married to him with 2 kids in a typical suburban life.

His rom-com idea was cut short with you arriving at the front of your apartment. He didn’t even know if he could say goodbye without feeling a small ache in every inch of his body, but he did anyway. He stood looking into the glass of the front doors as you walked away, maybe you didn’t really like him in that sense. The only time you really showed clear interest in him was after 4 glasses of wine.

number four

You didn’t really know what you did to fuck up. Yeah, you two didn’t make out on the front steps to the entrance of your apartment, but you didn’t really know if that was grounds to stop talking to you. Honestly, you didn’t really know what to feel, so you defaulted to feeling pissed off at him.

Did you have a reason? Yeah. Kind of. Sorta. A little. Maybe.

In reality, Greg didn’t know what to say about that night. Was he supposed to apologise? Were you supposed to apologise? Did either of you have to? He had no idea. The need to kiss you was overwhelming at this point, if he saw a genie and only had one wish, kissing you would be the wish that rolled off his tongue in milliseconds. On the other hand, you were confused. Not really putting in any thought to thinking about what you actually wanted, you decided on closure.

The idea of your apartments being on the path to each other felt like divine intervention, but dear god was it hard to keep up with that lanky ass man.

“Greg.” You projected. Not necessarily a shout, but loud enough where he could hear you, you had very few people around so that was a plus too. His body completely took over and he immediately stopped and turned around to see you borderline running to catch up with him.

He didn’t know if he should’ve turned back around or stayed, but it felt like he was being weighed down, his feet completely anchored to the sidewalk and he watched you with a sympathetic and anxious look as you finally reached him.

“Fuck. I really didn’t plan what I was going to say. What did I do to you? You’ve been avoiding me like I fucking— killed your mom or something!” The frustration that came out shocked you, but you still spoke at a reasonable volume. “I— honestly, I don’t know.” He answered, realising he didn’t know why he stopped talking to you, cold turkey.

“I think that’s the worst part… I— do you even like me?” His voice had both an anger and sadness oozing out of it. “Of course I like you—.” You replied. “No, you know in what capacity I’m talking about. You don’t know how much you fucking affect me, y/n, just…” He trailed off, his typical anxious stutter gone.

You held the signature somewhat awkward pause that always graced your conversations and nodded. “You’re right. I know what you mean. And if you don’t fucking kiss me right now I’m going to go insa—“ He didn’t even wait for you to finish before he dove down and pushed his lips against yours in a very new display of confidence. His kisses weren’t very skilled, but fulfilling nonetheless.

He pulled back and looked down at you, your lips slightly rosier and held a look of ‘did I just fuck up?’ in his eyes. “Shit, I’m sorry.” He spoke, his breathing heavy and quick, slowing down when he remembered you asked him to kiss you, and when he saw your extremely happy smile.

“Don’t you dare apologise, Greg. Kiss me again.” You chuckled, cheeks slightly pink and your voice filled with a lightness that eased him. You didn’t have to ask him twice and he bent over, much more gently, and kissed you again.

Jesus, he could do that all day.

#succession x you #succession x reader #succession x y/n #greg hirsch x reader #greg hirsch x you #igby slocumb x reader #igby goes down

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sashimiyas · 2 years

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bodyguard!samu also tells you youre pretty all the time, but not like 'you look pretty' he specifically tells you 'you're so pretty,' like there's an important distinction ya know?? OH sometimes if its really late and its just the two of u in your stunning en suite he's like 'you're the most..' or 'no one else compares..' I DONT KNOW REINA i just feel like cause reader is so sheltered she's not used to genuine, raw truths from a person who has nothing to gain from telling you them, only so much to lose

i want a bodyguard! osamu so bad

you do this thing that osamu’s noticed.

you do a lot of things actually that osamu’s noticed because that’s simply his job to. most of them he enjoys.

he likes that sleepy hum you make whenever he asks if you had fun. after an event where his ears still ring, the smooth run of the engine is a stark contrast to the lively rumble of a party. you tip your face away so you can press your cheek against the cool window and it’s that small little vibration in your throat that creates aftershocks on his skin.

he likes that you check in on him every so often when you get stuck on a long phone call. it makes him flutter despite his cold bodyguard façade and when you wrinkle your nose after you sneeze, he has to stop himself from pinching it.

everything about you he adores except for this one thing.

it started with, “you stupid idiot.”

he had to do a double take when he heard it, heart dropping just at the sound of someone speaking so poorly of you only for it burden him heavy when he finds out it’s you. you’re the culprit. you’re the one berating yourself over something as simple as running late to a meeting.

osamu reasoned that it was simply a one off. he’d noticed that you’re not quite fond of thursdays and maybe that particular thursday was notably bad.

but you do it again. right in front of him too!

he’s only half a step behind, right at your side, as the two of you walk the main road. it’s whimsy and picturesque with colorful patios and people. nothing like the countryside.

then you pass a confectionary shop with reflective windows and one simple glimpse of yourself has you frowning.

“ew,” you say, disgusted, “i look so gross.”

suddenly osamu hates all things sweet if it makes you feel paltry and bland. he takes one look at the gaudy designs and wishes for the place to burn because he knows their artificiality cannot compare to your natural flavor.

“ya ain’t.“ he’s mad. he can hear it in his voice. not only does it shock him, it shocks you as well. you stop in your step and eye him, perplexed.

“what?”

“ya ain’t gross.”

and it’s the fact that you have to take a moment to even process it, that you probably mindlessly say those hurtful kind of comments without a second thought. that your instinct is to see yourself in such a negative light when all he sees is—

perfect.

“ya ain’t gross.” he has to grit it out one more time before this anger of his consumes him.

“i was just saying it like a joke,” you try but it only takes two instances to have osamu fed up. he doesn’t know what’s happened in your life, if someone’s ever said something to you that’s made you feel any less or if you’ve never been able to live up to unrealistic expectations, but he’s your bodyguard now. and shit like this won’t happen on his watch.

“well ya don’t deserve shitty jokes like that.”

he sees you wilt immediately. your shoulders pinch like a book ready to close so he takes you by them. carefully pulling you to him, he inhales a breath to expel it out and soften his heart.

leveling his face with yours, “i’m here to protect ya.”

you don’t look at him, but he’s already forced his hand on you too far. there’s this pull at his fingers that wants to laden your skin with affection but they stay where they are.

“and i don’t care who i have to protect ya from. i ain’t gonna let anyone talk about ya like that. not even ya.” you still have nothing to say. it takes all him not to sigh. “ya know i think you’re beautiful?”

he watches your bottom lip protrude at his compliment. you hear it all the time, take it in grace when someone says so during social events. he wonders why you wont accept his.

“i do.” he tries one more time, “and i think my word holds weight because i’ve seen ya after a ten hour plane ride.”

you tilt your face up at him unwillingly but hope buds in osamu’s chest, enough for him to grin down at you. you can’t help but provide a small smile back.

“do you mean it?”

“what? that you’re beautiful?”

you nod.

“of course,” he admits and finally, his hands lose any modicum of self control. they come to cradle your neck, memorizing the weight in his palms. he brushes a fleck away from your cheek with his thumb as the other traces the line of your jaw. he dotes on you, memorizes the crevices on your face that’s been loved by the sun. “no one else compares.”

he matches your gaze and finds one more thing that he loves about you.

the way black devours color the same time your eyes land on his. the hunger inside him mimics it.

he kisses you.

osamu stands by it. he hates all things sweet unless it’s the taste of you on his lips.

#reina.receives #bodyguard! osamu #it’s like you know what my drafts look like! but this is so cute #osamu’s lovesick you’re so right #reina.writeshaikyuu!!

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imustbenuts · 2 months

Text

@theotherseapancakes

i mentioned ill rb a post about majima's sexuality/gender identity in the context of 1980s-2010s japan but i never got to it bc i cant find the post ;;

but gist of it is, the majima everyone knows is... kind of putting on an act. everything about the zanny funny majima everyone mostly knows is an act he puts on mostly to mess with kiryu. this video kinda sums it up succinctly:

youtube

even his kansai dialect is... fake as shit. (the meta explanation is that his voice actor isnt familiar with kansai accent and the director was like 'its majima its ok just roll with it')

it's probly hard to hear but his dialect is multiple levels of wrong. another joke video here but that isnt how kansai dialect sentence structure works! also his crazy persona is really how he behaves, mostly.

youtube

dont wanna inflate this post but theres plenty of kansai dialect language videos on youtube to hear what a usual kansai dialect phrase sounds like

majima's sounds like he smooshed standard tokyo japanese with some random stuff he picked up from osaka, which tracks with his backstory...

youtube

^^ he speaks with standard jp here. this takes place technically before y0 (i think)

anyway. so. the 'mad dog' persona both in universe and out he has is mostly an act and his character growth from 0-8 is largely like this: sane -> goes through SHIT -> plot -> snaps -> loses his sworn brother and is likely very depressed -> messes with kiryu for some semblance of normalcy -> kiryu helps stabilizes his life both directly and indirectly, thereby stabilizing his mental state -> sane but wears the mask bc hes made a name for himself as the mad dog

so all of that is important bc in a manner of speaking, LGBTQ in the 1980s to 2010s is considered... an 'act'.

super short summary of why: confucius idea dictates that men must pass on their bloodline to offsprings bc its honorable for the family bloodline. confucius bleeds into bushido, morphs, which bleeds into the larger fabric of japanese culture.

MEANING, its totally ok to be gay and play so long as a male offspring is produced. LGBTQ then is seen as a juvenile thing that most people will grow out off eventually. (at least prior to TV era)

then TV era brought in western media, and back the the mid 1900s, LGBTQ became synonymous with being a western idea. lots of tropes of flamboyancy is closely linked to westerness in characters. so queer became a foreign idea. JP TV then perpetuated this with okama stereotypes and sometimes made a mockery out of them, which continued pretty much until 2000s.

some also see it as a evil western mental virus/illness too.

(negative okama stereotypes are portrayed as highly thirsty male hunters dressed in a less than flattering drag with facial hair. often used to elicit"EW DISGUSTING GET AWAY FROM ME" reactions from other characters.)

smoosh that with existing cross-dressing theater arts and the idea of some 'kiddy phase' and suddenly being LGBTQ is more or less equated to an act.

add in the fact that transitioning is a very difficult thing to do if one doesnt conform fully into a binary Male or Female gender identity, suddenly genderfluidity looks very campy in JP media context.

which. majima kinda is. left: y0 appearance, taking place 1989. right, y1 onward, starting 2005

leather and TIGHT leather has some associations with the BDSM scene, which intersects with the sleazy night life and sexually related things. (queerness is perceived to be mostly this bc demonization in a similar fashion to... everywhere basically)

and also, there was one time where majima was goromi:

the context for this: Majima Everywhere was a system that y1k had, where Majima would spawn absolutely anywhere and everywhere to fight kiryu. for fun. theres a lot of interesting character moments bc his act or mask out slip off every now and then. this is one of those.

anyway, goromi is an interesting case of a more positive okama stereotype bc theres absolutely zero malice in the writing that i can tell. key thing: kiryu reacts bewildered but positively to this encounter

so all of this to say

yeah majima is really, really not straight.

#Youtube #majima #rgg butt lore

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needleclanclangen · 1 year

Text

MOON 6 - JOKE

"What do... the other clans smell like?"

Daisyshadow glanced down to Graykit, who was staring up at her curiously. Her other kits were a bit behind him, just as curious, but they had seemingly put Graykit up to the task. Graykit glanced up at Daisyshadow, eyes wide.

Daisyshadow grinned, lowering her head to bump against his small one affectionately. She made sure to be extra light with it. Graykit paused, then reciprocated, purring as well.

"They stink." Daisyshadow meowed, and Larkkit gasped. Buzzardkit fidgeted in place. Bogkit leaned forward, still silent but invested. "Their different scent from ours is so strange! And they stick out." Daisyshadow scoffed. "Imagine smelling like rocks."

"I like the smell of the rocks." Bogkit meowed, head up. "The ones near the medicine den smell pretty."

Daisyshadow did not say what immediately came to her mind, though the cream-furred cat was very close to letting it slip out. No, she will not curse Speckleback. He can do whatever he liked, as long as he did it for the Clan. It was... somehow, becoming easier to just think that and drop her reaction.

"Not the ones of Downclan." Daisyshadow meowed, leaning forward. "Ours smell nice because of Speckleback's help." The thought briefly fluttered across her mind to badmouth him, but she didn't. "Their mountains are much more dirty, much like the dirty feathers of birds dragged through the mud."

"Ew!" Graykit stuck out his tongue. "How could they like that smell?"

"They're used to it. Just like you are used to us." Daisyshadow purred. "Our needle smell, however, is fresh, and is a pleasant addition, rather than a negative."

A scent. Daisyshadow had her mouth open, so she managed to scent it. She glanced to the entrance, and- there. Hollypaw. He had his claws out, practicing a few swiping moves in the middle of camp. Everyone else was likely out.

"Hollypaw, come in." She meowed, and Hollypaw jolted. He sheathed his claws, pushing past the nursery entrance to see the kits. They all huddled a little bit closer to their mom, and Hollypaw waved a tail in greeting.

"This is Hollypaw. He was training hard to be a warrior, like you all will someday." Daisyshadow glanced up to Hollypaw. "Your claws are excellent."

"... Um. Thanks." Hollypaw glanced down at the kits, a big cat compared to the small kits. He shifted. "Maybe I'll be named Hollyclaw."

"I'll let Finchstar know." Daisyshadow nodded. "Want to talk about the other clans smell with my kits?"

"I'm. I'm good." Hollypaw backed away. "Nice talking with you, bye!"

He turned and ran from the nursery. Daisyshadow noticed Buzzardkit release a breath, and her ears lifted. "Buzzardkit?"

"He... He's rude." Buzzardkit concluded, paws fidgeting beneath him. Daisyshadow frowned, and she drew the kit closer. The kit let out a complaining meow, but was unable to fight Daisyshadow as she licked his head, right on his darker orange stripe.

"He's just upset about not being a warrior right now. Don't worry." Daisyshadow grinned, stopping her licking for a moment. "If he's rude to you again, I'll claw him. My job as a mentor may be on pause, but I can unpause at any moment."

There was a gasp of admiration, and Daisyshadow grinned. She continued licking, much to Larkkit's amusement and Buzzardkit's dread.

Events Referenced: Daisyshadow jokes with Graykit about the smell of other clans. Daisyshadow compliments Hollypaw's claws.

#clangen #clangen oc #clangen fanclan #warrior cats #warrior cats oc #warrior cats fanclan #needleclan #needleclan clangen #Daisyshadow #Graykit #Buzzardkit #Larkkit #Bogkit #Hollypaw #Moon 6

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nellynee · 2 years

Text

Trollstopia Blindblogging: episode 6b - Cloud Control

EW. Ok so I am so wishy washy about this one. On the one hand it had a few really good moments, like 2. Like holy shit Lownote Jones got legit mad the VA really let loose there. And the actual composition of the song is pretty good

But it’s a Cloud Guy episode. through and through. watch at your own risk depending on your tolerance. Though we finally have a whole group of Trolls around Branch who can relate to him on this. 1/5 for the terribly incompetent message. I knew the status quo couldn’t be upset but holy shit.

Inhale. Exhale. Ok, so. I’ve never been Cloud Guy’s biggest fan. In theory he could be very funny. A foil to Branch who’s style of harassment is affectionate and forces people outside their comfort zones in a slightly negative but beneficial way? I could really dig it. I’m kind of a Troll myself. I love picking on people. Within Reason. But everyone should be enjoying themselves, and you should know when to stop. And even then you don’t have to have him as a positive character. But the cartoons treat Branch so poorly, that plots that should look like good natured ribbing to the local grump (like idk, teasing him into chasing you only to lead him where he and his friend wanted to go all along, ala the first movie, where he was funny) it looks a lot like straight up harassment. Like bullying. Cloud Guy walks a very fine line with me from funny to absolutely uncomfortably intolerable so..... not thrilled with the implications of a Cloud episode.

Aaaaaaaaand we open on Branch oh no. Like I legit am dreading this. 10 Minutes straight of Branch having a bad time yaaaaaaaaay

Annoy-iversary... He straight up called it Harrasment. jesus christ

suddenly vibrating ok but real talk about that Disco Ball real quick I have so much theory about the old Disco Tribe ask me about it some time cause it’s a lot to blather on about but like between the Disco theme of the Bergens, the old Pop map having Disco on it and Branch commenting that Disco is gone when Prince D calls out their old map... I’ve been wondering if Pop wasn’t the first tribe the Bergens focused on, and if it took them wiping out the Disco Trolls to second guess and start keeping the Trolls they got ahold of to preserve them?

But also like... Pop Village is a new settlement. It was established after Poppy’s birth. Why would there be archeological remnant near there? Lagoona should be looking around the Troll Tree....

Bitch you leave Lagoona alone!

Ok, ok. Some of these I get. Cloud guy’s MO is forcing Trolls that don’t vibe with him to engage emotionally. Lagoona makes sense. We haven’t seen much of her but we saw them interact. Even if she was willing to play along at some point once he pulled on prank and she stopped engaging she became a permanent target. Dante too. Haven’t seen a lot of him but I would expect more than a few of the prim and proper Classical are on Cloud Guy’s radar. But Cloud guy does get along with people who roll with it. It’s really apparent with Poppy, who just takes it all as one big joke. And you are telling me he managed to get on Holly Darlin’s, aka Poppy on coke’s, nerves enough to get her to break from hospitality and engage? And Lownote? What the fuck did he do to Lownote Jones to mess with his steeze so bad as to make him a regular victim? Nothing phases Lownote... you know I bet one or both of those poor Trolls called him out for harassing someone else and he shifted focus in retaliation.

OMG Holly Darlin you cute AF! that’s a win well deserved.

But yeah no that checks out for Cloud Guy

Holy shit Lownote

That’s like... some legit anger there

(Branch called Lownote the coolest Troll alive and Lownote called him Baby.... no comment just leaving that there)

But like.... holy shit Lownote

I feel like this is one of those cases where the explanation would always disappoint but what the hell did he do to Lownote?

That’s a really smart observation though. That CG has picked a favorite from every tribe and Hard Rock is notably absent

Also notice that besides Lagoona, all the Trolls in question are authority figures. Knowing Synth for the Big Dumb go with the Flow himbo he is, I doubt Cloud Guy could get his claws in and he went down the list. I’m not sure what it means but I’m sure it means something. Good observation from Branch regardless.

Val’s eyes turned blue with the “icy glare” that’s a great touch

GOD VAL I love you so much. jesus that was satisfying in ways I could never explain

No. No absolutly not. Cloud guy is a Bully who does not respect boundaries, who’s actions forced his victims to take extreme measures to find peace from him. This result is purely the outcome of his own actions. Poppy if you make them apologize I will never forgive you.

Yes Cloud Guy, you do waste everyone’s time with annoying pranks, and maybe you should spend some time, in the wilderness, alone, until you’ve assessed your behavior and committed yourself to change in ways that make you not an active and purposeful blight on those you afflict yourself on

Which is what I would say if I thought he was genuine. Which I know he isn’t. This is straight up guilt tripping. Like 100%.

NO. NO NO DONT FALL FOR IT. LISTEN TO BRANCH

HOLLY DONT JUSTIFY THIS

POPPY SHUT YOUR ENTIRE ASSHOLE

NO BRANCH.

We literally just had an episode about respecting boundaries, and how it’s the person’s decision when and where to leave their comfort zones. Poppy is already toeing a hard line with most trolls, and her version of persistence to break people out of their shells is about as close as you can get to this point being made. Like at least her intention is to get people to try new things and enjoy themselves and to become more independent, happier versions of themselves. Cloud Guy’s intentions are to make people upset about things that are important to them. He doesn’t want you to take things less seriously. He wants to find people who take things seriously, and make them feel bad for doing so. If he has ever had a positive influence on one of his Victims lives, it was a purely coincidental byproduct. NO

(I want to note that we do see some of this behavior in Cloud Guy, pushing Branch to try and force him to do things that would be beneficial for him, but very very rarely, and only early in TBGO. It is the outlier in his behaviors. Cloud Guy is an agent of Chaos and will not apologize for it. and not in a good way.)

This is like Branch deciding to forgive Creek because his betrayal caused Branch to find his happiness again do you see how ridiculous this is?

Legit anger here

Branch no don’t sing to him. Branch SHUT YOUR ENITRE ASSHOLE

I hate that Branch is singing this and the VA sounds good. I hate that this kinda good. Cause the Lyrics piss me off

it doesn’t “turn out great” most of the time. and the idea that he’s “showing love his own way” and thus it’s ok is really, really terrible thing to teach.

Best case scenario, cloud guy is pulling pigtails to get attention. Which is still totally unacceptable behavior. Cloud guy is one of the few non trolls and thus gets to be an asshole. And could be used to show that people who treat you badly need to be called out and you do not have to engage with them... I keep having to pause the song this is so icky

I KNEW IT

But also what a freaking twist Val I am so disappointed in you!

Edit: ok no I have to come back on mobil and mess up the formatting just to yell some more cause like what the actual fuck Val? Two of these trolls you bonded with over avoiding too much mushy stuff and a faintly traumatizing hug based monster movie experience, as a favor for a third troll of this group. We literally just had an episode about you setting boundaries and not wanting to show emotion. And you team up with Cloud Guy against them? To play a prank that's basically forcing them to show heartfelt emotion towards a bully? Shame Val. For shame. I really hope he takes a step to far and she has a hard reevaluation about this dude she thought was just a prank fan. I hope she has to take a step back at some point and say hes to much. I could see him being a draw to her, but not once she sees him fully in action. Still disappointed Val at least a third of these trolls are your friends

#Trollstopia #dreamworks trolls #Branch #Cloud guy #liveblogging

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traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors · 1 year

Note

tw landlords lol, mention of alcohol, smoking and porn (all very brief). Also really long and I use some swear words and am very angry in word choices so that might be a tw too

This is mostly a vent but if you have any advice please share :) <- after this the rest of the stuff is just anger and venting, sorry for the negativity

I am SO frustrated with my landlord, his existence just pisses me off so goddamn much. I was lowkey forced to move here (vs being homeless) and the landlord VERY MuCH pretended the place was better than it actually is.

First off he said that "everyone helps out" and "all spaces is for everyone" while also saying "he rents out to young college students because he knows they need a place to stay". We're all renting individual rooms here BUT. What he MADE SURE NOT TO SAY (and AVOIDED answering) was that he lived there too!

Which like sure okay I get it but also aelrgmkaelrkgm it pisses me off so much. All he does is drink and smoke and DRINK all day long. If I use the kitchen (which is so absolutely disgusting I actually refuse to use it. I have a minifridge and a small hot plate and that works for me.) or chill in the general area he stares at me. He's bigger than me and will make comments about not seeing me enough and paired with him straight up telling my aunt that he "reallly wanted me to live there" it makes me feel super super uncomfortable.

He used to text me demanding where I was and if I was home which like SURE maybe he's trying to be kind but FUCKING EW. He used to come to my room and knock and knock if I didn't answer his texts soon enough, and that SCREAMED red flags because why the fuck does it matter to him?? I pay my rent and clean the spaces I use (I share a bathroom with a guy that refuses to clean and it's so gross. I hate it.).

He's aLWAYS on the phone yelling and sometimes screaming and I can hear him listen to porn too. I work from home and all day I can hear him snoring (he has a WEIRD sleep schedule), drinking, yelling on the phone, farting, etc. He has no job and jacked up the prices here so that we all cover his ""lifestyle"". Everyone renting here either hides in their rooms or are gone because no one likes it here.

With the girl who may or may not be moving out he doesn't give her keys to the place and makes weird comments about her and is generally pretty creepy towards her and it's such a bizarre power dynamic that I don't blame her for being gone 5+ days a week. The other guy speaks basically no english, also yells on the phone alot, is a fucking pig (THEY LEAVE MOLDLY FOOD ALL OVER THE KITCHEN. I CLEANED THE COUNTERS AND THE LANDLORD MADE A JOKE ABOUT ""PICKING YOU WILL MAKE OUR LIVES BETTER"".)

AND NOW the landlord has started inviting groups of men over and drinking with them in the common area RIGHT outside my door. He's been inviting new people over to ""tour the place" and KEEPS standing right outside my door and talking about how "someone else lives here right now" and it makes me SO uncomfortable. All these people he's "touring" for HAPPEN to be fully grown adult men, like adult adult not college age which means he quite possibly LIED so i'd move in (not that I had much of a choice, my aunt forced me).

He doesn't speak much english which means "convineitly" whenever I try speaking to him he doesn't know what I'm talking about, but I try to just avoid him (pretty successfully) because he makes me so fucking mad. Each morning I am forced to listen to him wretching (not quite throwing up but some horrible terrible throat sounds) for 5 minutes straight and he keeps waking me up doing that. It's so stupidly loud and disgusting.

I'm not allowed any people over because of the contract and if I have someone over for the night he'll kick me out. Because we ""technically share a kitchen"" I'm not protected by certain renter's rights.

I'm polite to him when I see him because he has more power in this situation (has the key to my rooma nd could barge in if he wanted like the first few weeks) but HOLY FUCK his existence makes me want to strangle him (I would never do such a thing btw. I don't take my frustration out on people). I just want him to SHUT UP for a few days or even leave the fucking house so hey! it doesn't feel like he's constantly waiting for a moment to stare at people!

He doesn't even mow the fucking lawn or clean the house or do his own goddamn dishes. He makes the renters snow shovel the drive way (which he has, FOR SOME REASON, a car with 0 license plates on them parked there) and do everything else and because no one is home most of the time or people are hiding in their rooms NO ONE CLEANS UP. I keep my room and the common area outside it clean (and the bathroom but sometimes I don't clean it that week because the other guy is SUPPOSED to clean it but doesn't.).

I am so fucking sick and tired and disgusted by these people and I want to scream and tell the landlord to stop being such a stupid piece of shit and stop drinking and yelling and being so creepy all the fucking time. Like I get that there's cultural differences in what is polite but FUCK this guy is just so bad. I hate him so much. If I have to hear him gag which chugging more beer one more time I will scream.

When I moved here too there were NEW (NEW! THEY WEREN't THERE BEFORE I MOVED IN) HOLES IN THE WALLS. He sprayed the place down for UNKNOWN REASONS and kicked everyone out for an entire day. He put in in the contract that I'd have to pay 3 months rent if I broke the contract and I couldn't change it because my aunt forced me to sign. He acted all "nice and sweet" around her but it was all a fucking act. She thinks he's great and living with other people will be good for me, but I never wanted to live with some unknown, creepy, alcoholic guy who sometimes listens to the same 1 minute long clip of a child speaking for a solid hour straight <- I AM NOT MAKING IT UP. IT DROVE ME INSANE. I WAS OUTSIDE AT NIGhT IN -20C WEATHER JUST TO GET AWAY

She also thinks that I'm some sort of devil child (because I'm adopted) and doesn't really like me so even if I say something it's me "not acting human enough" <- she's lectured me on that multiple times.

The rent in the city is absurdly high and idk where I'd be able to move but I'd be willing to lose a few more hundreds a month if I can get away from this shitty landlord. I'm already paying 850 just to rent a stupid room that I have to sleep in AND WORK in with this drunk, smoking, disgusting old guy stomping around, slaming things, and throwing up upstiars. He'll yell on the phone until 3AM and I've lost SO much sleep because he can't shut up for ONE hour of his stupid miserable life. He never leaves the house and if you leave food in the kitchen he'll take it.

He's also really traditional, mysogynistic, and yuck and I'm nonbinary AFAB stealthing as a cis guy because I don't want to get kicked out or whatever the hell sort of relationship the landlord has with the girl who technically rents here. I've also had nightmares about him (the worst was during the first few weeks I'd have repeating nightmares of moving in, him slowly taking over the house and revealing he had multiple hidden cameras in my room that he's watching me with, showing off his collection of nude photos he's got of me and then showing a hiddden part of the contract showing that I "agreed to it all".)

I want him to just STOP. I can't wait until I can move out but I have to wait 8 more months until then. I'll be having surgery and staying with my parents for at least a month around april and even though I originally moved out to get away from my parents I'm honestly considering staying there for like 2 months because they're more than willing to let me stay there for as long as they can (kinda tooo willling if you catch my drift. They've made too many kidnapping/stalking/etc jokes to be comfy but whatever). I am so happy that the days will be longer soon because then at least there will be light out when work ends and I can go for long walks outside without possibly making other people uncomfortable (I have baggy clothes so I look like some guy which I know can be uncomfortable for some people and I don't wanna do that.)

AND TODAY HE'S HAD MULTIPLE PEOPLE OVER TO SHOW OFF THE HOUSE AND HE KEEPS TALKING TO THEM OUTSIDE MY DOOR BECAUSE IT'S THE CLEANEST AREA IN THE HOUSE SO HE WANTS TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE A BETTER PLACE TO STAY THAN IT REALLY IS. And they'll probably like it here because they're all older cis men who share that same disgusting vibes as he does. And the idea of more men living here makes me so much more uncomfortable because at least the other two renters are close (unconfirmed since LITERALLY everyone avoids being in the house so I've only seen them twice after living here for several months) to my age.

I want to SCREAM. This is such a terrible christmas. I have no where to go and everything is closed and we had a huge storm and it's still -30C out so it's too cold to just wander outside. I can't hang out with friends because I don't really have any that'd just lemme go overand aELRKGMAELKRGM I've punched my pillow a few times to get the anger out but every noise he makes makes me more frustrated. Months living here with him makes his existence grate on my nerves more and more and more and I'm so sick and tired and mad because of it. can he just STOP.

If I didn't have a stay-at-home-job that required high speed internet I'd straight up just sleep on the fucking streets to get away but I have valuables here and I don't wanna risk anything happening to them. I also fixed the screen of my singular window and fixed the lock but he didn't tell me that it's fucking DRAFTY here so guess who has been bunking down under all my blankets and wearing multiple layers so I don't freeze with the increadibly cold weather out that literally freezes your eyelashes within just a few minutes being outside!

If I could punch him I could, he has such a hateable demeanour. He's so fucking easy to hate and I'm nto someone that believes that you can categorize people as "burdens on society" because that statement is SUPER ableist and capitalist driven. But this guy? this guy is a fucking PARASYTE. He's a wast of existence, he adds nothing to the world and only takes and takes and makes everyone elses lives worse. I don't think he should die of course but holy fuck I would love it for him to stop existing in my life, ya know? I want to punch him so badly just to get that horrible creepy smirk off his face when he leers at me. And I'm someone who hates confrontation so much I've slept in trees I've climbed just to stay away from my drunk and high other aunt who hates my guts!

TLDR: I hate his guts so much he makes me so mad I want him to shut up so so much. He's creepy and gross and loves to stare and make inappropriate comments and I just want to get OUT.

Hi anon,

I'm sorry about what you've been going through. You don't deserve to live that way.

This ask reminds me a lot of this ask where anon was essentially forced by their aunt to live with a creepy landlord. Like I said in that ask, you could consider gathering evidence of your landlord stalking you and potentially report him if you wanted to, because this definitely sounds illegal to me and nobody deserves to live like that. If anyone has any additional comments or suggestions you are welcome to do so.

I also hope that you are able to find a place to live on your own terms and without any weird landlords. Please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

#mod bun #trauma talks #abuse #trauma details #emotional abuse

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hystarria · 20 days

Text

“Brooklyn Baby”

“yeah my boyfriends pretty cool”

“but he’s not as cool as me”

lowercase intended, 2ed person POV (You, Yours,) ((may change as i get more comfortable with the book)), crossposted on wattpad under h1starria, female reader

Chapter 2 - “ew.”

((pov change lols))

you lay in your bedroom after the whole fiasco with Ruby, and think:

’im really irresponsable.’

Ruby cooks and cleans for you guys, and you just take it without a second thought. ‘I need to change my life’ so you get up, then lay back down, because, that’s a tomorrow Y/N problem.

now it’s a today Y/N problem! as you rush to get ready you really wish you hadn’t put it off, but, it was late and.. no! you need to stop making excuses, take accountability! you pick up your phone and run through the streets running smack into someone,

“ow fuck!” they exclaim, as you turn around apologetically

“i’m sooo sorry.”

the person looks up at you, ’ew.’ is your first thought. who has mutton chops, what year is it, 1854?

“hey, not a problem” he avoids your gaze, more concerned about himself

“where are you off to that you almost fuckin’ killed me?”

“you just strike up conversations with random people here? not what i was taught, but okay.”

“i do when i don’t wanna take them to court..” “and win.”

he laughs at his own joke, ’what a jerk’ you think rolling your eyes

“to find a job.”

“n you think just running through the streets like a corny coming of age movie praying someone has a position is gonna work?”

“i mean, yeah?” he bursts out laughing at how dumb that sounds.

“look Toots, as luck would have it you ran into the right man, i know places everywhere.” you glare at him signaling for him to go on,

“impatient much?”

“a little when i’m talking to a stranger.”

“fair.” you take a closer look at him, that icky feeling still in your mind about him, he didn’t seem awful, but he sure acted like it.

“there’s this corner store i go to all the time, recently their cashier got busted for some kinda underground thing, and they need a new one. the manager is this 16 year old girl who definitely shouldn’t be one, but she’s chill.”

“mhm..?”

“i’ll take you if you want? pretty sure they’ve been lookin’ for a while, so desperate they’d hire anyone at this point.” you were hesitant to say the least, but definitely more desperate.

“i-guess?” he smiles, ’ew’ you think once more, but the feeling wasn’t very negative. you weren’t sure what it was.

((A/N HIIIII IM BACK, 3 things, when i crosspost, links n stuff will be at the top, i have lots of ideas that will be oneshots soon, and this book will be delayed i’m so so sorry)) (((can u tell tumblr deleted my draft a bunch?)))

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liopleurodean · 6 months

Text

Season 11, Episode 20: Don't Call Me Shurley

Airplane!, right? I've seen that joke one too many times

Doggo!

Aw, have a heart for the pupper

I still hate him

Whoa.

Beach Boys. Nice

Hey, Chuck!

Dude.

Stop. Talking.

I do! You kinda suck

Ouch. I like it

Both were pretty good

Yeah, that was horrible

Sounds trippy

Dramatic. I like it

I want to smash that mug

Suck-up

Yeah, sure

Heh. Just call me Chuck. But don't call me Shurley (shhh, let me have this)

That's fair actually

Dean...

That's possible

Iron your own shirts, then!

Nice

Yeah, I don't think so either

Hey. Titling is hard

I guess

I guess he can turn it off

THE SAMULET

Whoa. Shiny

Yeah, no kidding

Hah! He admits it!

Chocolate?

Oh, yeah. That's pretty awesome

Music is amazing. Beyond words

A new manuscript

The Bible 2: Electric Boogaloo

Sure

The best call

I'm sure

Interesting

Definitely the Darkness

Yikes

I hate editing on paper

What does that mean?

Liar

ASDFGHJKL THATS SO REAL

Well...

He wants to write her out of the story

It's about to be

Why is it different?

Kinky

Spooky

Oh boy

Always Vonnegut.

But that's like... a footnote

So God can be bisexual, but Dean can't? We were truly robbed

Oh yeah, we know. Louden Swain is great

...he's not wrong

Absent dad

Liar.

At least pay attention to your kids!

Hmmm... where have we heard that before?

He's misunderstood

Ah.

Uh huh...

I have no idea what that means

Doesn't sound like much

There's so much to unpack

I can't believe I agree with Metatron. Never let me say that again

66 books full

Complete rewrite

Exactly

There it is

That's horrifying

That'll do it

Oh boy. I don't want to read that

I doubt it

That's the big one, isn't it?

Complete opposites.

I think it might still work

That's the crux of the problem. He tried to change her

Nature is beautiful

There it is

He's not gonna try to save it? The one thing he ever cared about?

Awesome

The fog is bad. It's not hard to understand

They won't help

Oh boy

She as in Amara?

Yup

Poor girl

The stuff we keep inside

That's not good

She's talking about Chuck

She likes him too much

And Dean is the only one who will survive

Truth.

We can't help it if explosions look cool!

That's not helpful

I kind of doubt that. He would've wreaked havoc before too long

Yeah...

Great question

What does that even mean???

Uh huh...

The only place that Amara can't touch

Dude.

Pfft. He totally was a coward

Yikes

The Wrath of God

Of course not

Then what is it?

It's more than just the town

Not the kid!

Run!

They have to seal everything

How are they gonna breathe?

I don't think so

Oh no

That's not good

He got a full mouthful of it

It won't affect Dean

They're different skills

As always

Everyone wants it

Everyone in Heaven was there too

I don't think so.

Okay then

There's no point, Dean

Sam, no!

It's the negative thoughts

Dean is the only one in town that's not affected

Oh no

They are wasting so much paper

Of course.

Please don't

Oh. That explains why this song is everywhere

It's... Almost good. Almost.

The Samulet!

What happened???

Did they go back to Earth?

She's not even wounded

He fixed it.

You think?????

#ashla chick flick moments #supernatural #season 11 episode 20 #dont call me shurley #don't call me shurley

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streaming-yn · 3 years

Note

Hi, its Grim anon! I was wondering if I could request a platonic bench trio with y/n (she/her) who is very open about her affection for the three (constantly complimenting them, saying ily, etc.), but lately she's been worried that people will take it the wrong way so she's stopped? And now they're like. Where's my Y/N validation? :(

yep yep!! here you go, grim anon! ^^ sorry if I got a bit off track? I'm not sure if I did or not!

platonic!BenchTrio x affectionate!y/n

pronouns: she/her

other information on the reader:

. minor

. very open with her affection

. minecraft streamer

. faceless streamer

. it's against her boundaries for anyone other than friends to use her real name

warnings: sexism/misogyny (ends well, the haters are addressed), idk but the "girl near streamer I like? ew wtf 😒" type of hate (also gets addressed n shut down), little angst, distancing yourself from friends, trying to change yourself, cussing, mention of "weird comments" made towards y/n *ALL OF THESE ISSUES ARE ADDRESSED AND SHUT DOWN THOUGH !!!

form: headcanons

summary: y/n is super openly affectionate with all of her friends! unfortunately, a lot of people think that's a negative thing, though Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo notice y/n's change and get to the bottom of it to fix the issue ^^

genre: platonic, little angst, fluff(?) after it gets found out, hurt to comfort type of deal ^^

abbreviations: s/n -> streamer name, y/n -> your name

note: I'm not very good at angst yet so I'm sorry if it kinda sucks !! :(

you were very in touch with your loving side and showed all your friends affection very openly and however you could

unfortunately, since y'all didn't live near each other that meant that you had to wait for visits for like hugs n stuff :(

at first you didn't think much of it, affection was a normal thing between friends, why do it differently on stream?

you would often tell the boys how much you loved them and we're genuinely happy and grateful that y'all were friends

complements and validation paired with this, naturally

the boys looked forward to streams with you, not only because you where best friends but for the serotonin that your affection brought :D

actually!! on streams with all of you together, it wouldn't be uncommon for tommy, tubbo, and ranboo to playfully fight over your affection

it would be in different ways though, like with Tommy, you would complement either ranboo or tubbo and if you didn't state a name tommy would be like "THAT WAS MENT FOR ME, (TUBBO/RANBOO)" after they thanked you

meanwhile tubbo would either go on about betrayal and how you didn't love him anymore and he's going to run away or he would do something along the lines of ":(( what about meee"

and ranboo, if the compliment wasn't aimed at him, even if you clearly added tommy or tubbo's name at the end, would always reply "thank you" or something similar

however it's different if the compliment is directed at them!

ranboo would thank you, do a small laugh that's half flustered half awkward, and then complement you back (he got less awkward and flustered as he got more used to it though!)

you could hear the smile in tubbo's voice as he loudly thanks you and gives you like 3 compliments in return

tommy, it would depend if either of y'all are streaming or not! yes? "I know" all jokingly cocky like. no? "thank you, I guess" he says it as a half joke, it's a genuine thank you, but he likes keeping it playful so the "I guess" is thrown on, it's random if he gives you a complement back or not, it's literally not even dependant on how he feels, it just at random

also I feel like you and Tommy would have like a "ily!! /p" "ew /j" bit, very often I will add 👍

like while your streaming you like "tommy!! I love you, thank you for being my friend :)" and him, completely disregarding the last bit, would reply "EWW, Y/N YOU DO KNOW IM I MINOR CORRECT??"

if him ever saying ew hurts your feelings then he won't say it, however he will say the rest, unless him deflecting your "ily" makes you feel bad as well, it's fairly easy to crack him to say it back since you're best friends

a lot of back and forth, but not too hard since he never wants to genuinely hurt you

ALSO if you complement him (on stream ofc) he will find a way to turn it around, not onto you, but just turning into something too tame to be labeled and insult but definitely something close!

"I like your sunglasses!!" "oH??? SO YOU DONT LIKE MY EYES??? THANKS S/N"

(also feel like tubbo might do this)

ofc would stop if it makes you sad/uncomfortable/etc

with ranboo though, he might occasionally do that, but it's way more often for you two to get into complementing matches (just going back and forth with complements)

you also sometimes do the "ily more" thing, just because it's funny bc it's like a cringe romance movie thing, y'all never do it on stream though because ppl might make it weird, and some friend quirks are better kept private anyway, just a you two thing :)

occasionally the "no you hang up first" too, except you both play they teen girl waving her hand and saying it the most high pitched voice she can. it's so funny hearing ranboo going so high 💀💀

as a rising streamer, of course you have Twitter, and your subtwt isn't toxic – due to your personality and stuff, the people you attract to your content are all pretty loving and chill! ofc there's a few bad eggs, but that's just what happens, you choose to ignore those few

but since you've gotten more popular, people finding you through your more popular friends, you've seen a rise of tweets mentioning you, whether it be in general or in the boy's replies

you're glad to be getting more popular, now you can find more people who seek comfort from your content, which was your goal when you started anyway! so it's all exciting! ..at first.

rise in people means rise of people in the toxic 1%, and also means rise of haters or people who just don't like you

sometimes you come across tweets like "why does y/n feel the need to be around ranboo, tubbo, and tommy? leave them alone ffs, she got her fame she wanted, she can leave now 🙄✋" and "we get it, girl streamers are less talented so you needed to leech off they boys' talent! like is she done yet or??" or occasional tweets saying something about shipping – which is against not only your boundaries but all of they boys' as well.

the replies being full of "use s/n, using her real name is breaking her boundaries! and if you have an issue, then don't watch the streams she's in, dickhead!", "you could just mute her name on here and not follow her twitch, you're being overdramatic for no reason", "hey hey, remember that s/n checks her indirects", "ew, deactivate", "aw, are you scared bc a girl is better than you at gaming? aw you gonna cry??", etc, makes you feel a bit better, but the punch from the original tweet lingers

after seeing a bit more, you saw the majority of the haters – and weird people – you saw the root of it was probably because you were so affectionate towards you friends and just being around them in general

so, it'd be best to stop, right? don't participate in as many streams, stop being so affectionate in general, to be honest you were already quite anxious that you being so "clingy" was annoying, the hate just solidified it

so you have a plan in line, the hard part is executing it :(

to start, you stopped complimenting them as much on stream, and the late phone calls lessened, and those became more and more noticeable before you "got too busy" to be in as many streams as you used to

I feel like ranboo would notice first and try talking to you before bringing it up to tommy and tubbo, but when you replied "oh! yeah I'm good dw :)" he knew it was a lie and went to the others

"what do you think is going on?" "I'm not sure" "whatever it is, do you think this is why she stopped being so affectionate? I miss it"

then it clicked for tommy while ranboo and tubbo still tried to figure it out

"do you think it's family problems?" "no, last time they has family problems they became more clingy and their phone calls were more frequent, not-" "wait wait wait"

tommy checked your social media platforms, of course they had more followers than before

"what? tommy?" "I think it's more of an online hate problem" tommy leaned back in his chair, running his hands over his face before looking over at the discord call as the two others made sounds of shock, "yeah, this started after her platform got bigger and she got more well known" "..you're right" "how- how do we fix it?" "address it on a stream?" "no, no, not yet, I think we should contact y/n first, see if she'll tell us if we're right or not" "I could try? last time I texted her she responded pretty quickly so maybe that still applies?" "yeah, tell us if we're right or not and we'll continue from there"

so ranboo texted you, making sure to form the text to get to the point but not scare you, he knows how anxiety inducing confrontation, especially from friends, can be for you

you didn't know exactly how to respond, would it be better if you lied? or would the truth be better?

after a few times of the "..." appearing and disappearing on ranboo's screen before you message of ",, yeah, that is the reason actually ;; I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I thought it'd be better to just distance myself :(" sent through

the boys on call could hear the frown in ranboo's voice when he sighed and said "oh" "were we right?" "just a second"

ranboo replied to you, reassuring you that you don't don't have to apologize for not telling them and it isn't your fault, making sure to remind you that you can come to either him, tommy, or tubbo whenever you want

"yeah, she got hate, and I guarantee that if we go through her indirects then we'll see what exactly happened, we may have to scroll a bit though" so they searched around on Twitter and found some, then tubbo spoke "do you think she would want to join call so we can figure out what to do to fix this?" "I can text her, though maybe we can more of distract and comfort her tonight? we can talk about the hate and stuff another time" "yeah yeah, I think that's a good idea"

so he texted you to see if you'd like to join the call, you accepted and ended up playing video games with them – mainly Minecraft servers – for a few hours before tommy had you and ranboo (assuming you're in the US or close) sign off to get some sleep (if you're in the UK or close, he had you and tubbo sign off and then signed off himself for some sleep)

the next day you guys hopped back on call to discuss how you guys would fix it, as well as them giving a bunch of positive comments about your affection :)

you guys decided on a serious stream from Tommy's account, it was either tommy or ranboo's account, but you guys chose tommy bc he's not anxious about turning off donos and other things

you guys discussed that the hate you were getting was uncalled for, and the weird comments were to be stopped immediately.

"I think that's everything? y/n, anything else?" "yeah I think that's about it, thank you guys so much!!" "alright, one more thing before we go- chat- chat, if you have an issue with y/n being in our streams just don't watch our streams! if you don't like y/n we don't want you here" "tommyyyy :(( (/pos)" "wait wait!! chat, if anyone asks or is being rude either spread clips on the stream or screenshots of the tweets we posted!! we want to make sure that everyone – even those not watching the stream – are informed!" "alright, bye chat, I better not see any more y/n negativity!!"

there wasn't negativity in chat when you went to check btw :)! it was in emote-only bc they thought it'd be the best thing to do and most of the chat was filled with hearts and other positive emotes! <33

now whenever hate stuff it posted the replies have screenshots of either tommy, tubbo, or ranboo's tweets, links to the VOD, or clips, stating the most important and the tweet is usually taken down within a matter of hours – days sometimes

and after that everything was back to normal!! you started complimenting them again, telling them how much you love them again, etc etc! you even got back into late calls :)

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graqefruito · 3 years

Text

rock- karl jacobs

pairing: karl jacobs x gn!reader

type: sad, then fluff

cw: sadness (reason not really mentioned apart from a bad day pushing reader over the edge), mentions of feeling numb, crying.

Should I post another today?? Also can someone please send me in some ideas or requests or whatever, I have two days off of school and I’m going to be so bored! Pls I want some friends :( lmao ew that sounded grim, but pls send something in!

Walking swiftly up the cement steps leading you to the front door of your apartment, your hands fumbled in your pockets trying to find the keys. Fingers folding around the ragged metal, you pulled the keychain out and stabbed it at the lock a few time. After around thirty tries of twisting and turning the stupid key it finally slipped nonchalantly into the door and you sighed as the wooden slab opened, letting you inside and out of the whistling cold. Shuffling your shoe clad feet on the sweet welcome mat Karl had forced you to buy weeks earlier, you bent down to unlace the trainers and wiggled both your frozen feet out of them. Removing your dark leathery coat too, the heat from the hall’s radiator rippled over and lilted down your body, encasing you in a hug of warmth.

With a short sigh you let your tired feet quietly tap along the floor until you found yourself walking into the living room. Karl was nowhere to see and with your phone now connecting to the wifi you checked your notifications, finding a small purple one expressing that he had gone live about two hours ago and his lack of presence led you to the conclusion that he still was. Fervent thoughts of just storming in to his room without a care for the stream so you could cuddle Karl swam through your mind. All you wanted to do was lie in his long arms, feeling them wrap around you tightly as your head found a spot nestled by his shoulder. However, you still stood alone in the living room, not moving any closer to Karl’s room than you were before. Another sigh left your mouth as you began to trudge along the wooden floor, feeling your socks slide slightly. Arriving at the kitchen counter you put all of your smidge of remaining energy to hop onto it. You felt your body just sink as it began to relax, the familiarity of your surrounding bringing you back to a state of serenity.

After staying like that for a while, your body went a little numb in the ares touching the cold marble surface, but you didn’t mind, the feeling was almost nice and comforting. All of a sudden a cold drop fell onto your hands and you reached slowly up to your dampened cheek feeling another tear dribble down. When did you start crying? Today had just honestly been such a bad day that the paralysis of emotions relieved you knowing the pain would have been too much to deal with. Just letting your tears stumble and tumble down your stained cheeks, you began to fully cry. No restraints. You let it all go. Every mean comment or deep insecurity darted out of you through the salty rivers flowing down.

Your little breakdown left you unaware of the presence of another. Having heard your dejected, dismal wails from his streaming room upstairs, Karl rushed to end his stream. The sound of his footsteps on the stairs were absentmindedly drowned out by your whimpers and cries so when you saw his sorrowful blue eyes looking at you with worry from the other side of the room, your body jumped. He took a couple steps closer and held his hands out silently asking if it was okay for him to hug you. To which you nodded your head before letting more tears trickle down. His arms engulfed you pulling your body into his and resting your head on his chest so you could hear his heart beat and coordinate your breathing with his. No questions were asked until you fell into him further only to find something sharp in his pocket poking you. Your heart wanted to make a suggestive joke but the exhaustion emerged it in silence and what’s this were the only words spoken.

“Oh!”, karl jumped in the air a little squealing with delight, remembering the little surprise he had in his pocket,” I got this for you!”

Karl’s hands rummaged around in his pocket as if it were full of money till slowly he brought his hand back out with a smile plastered firmly on his face. His hand cloaked the object so you couldn’t see it. For dramatic effect, he withdrew a finger at a time making sure to take extra long. Finally the last finger was gone and you could see a small rock with a strange pattern spilled on the outside.

“I got you a rock. It looked pretty so I thought you might want it. Because I don’t know, you’re pretty and its pretty, though don’t worry you’re much prettier, well your stunning and literally perfect whereas this is only pretty. Anyways, I was out with Chris today and I saw it and the coloured designs on the outside made me think of you cause the swirls are beautiful and like really cool, just like you. I can keep it if you don’t want it, that’s fine too, I just thought it was cool and well yeah very pretty.” He mumbled looking more and more at the kitchen floor as he carried on his little speech, embarrassment getting the best of him.

And like that, everything went away for a second, all of the negative emotions that made you cry just left, maybe not forever, but for this moment here they were gone and every ounce of you emanated pure love and happiness. Karl made you whole and you couldn’t thank him enough, he was just so sweet you couldn’t deal. Realising you hadn’t spoken for a while, you looked into his eyes and back down to the rock taking it from his hands and letting your fingers smooth over the sides and the touch texture of the surface. It was genuinely the nicest little gift you could have gotten right now.

“Thank you Karl, I love it, it’s beautiful, genuinely thank you.” You breathed out, worrying if you spoke any louder the tears would spill out once more pouring buckets over your cheeks. He gave you a small kiss and buried you back into him, nuzzling into you.

#karl jacobs #karl jacobs fluff #mcyt imagine #mcyt x reader #mcyt fluff #mcyt imagines #karl fluff #karljacobs imagines #kar jacobs story #karl jacobs cute #dream smp fluff #mcyt x you

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gffa · 3 years

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I know I've brought this up before, but how much of the fandom reception of the prequels do you think stemmed from the genre dissonance? That the prequels, genre-wise, are closer to high fantasy, while the OT is more an adventure/space western/underdog triumph story.

The prequels also have elements more reminiscent of a romantic period/court drama/Shakespearean tragedy, while if you consider the underdog angle of the OT, the OT also seems kinda similar to some of those inspirational movies about sports teams or something, or a shonen anime with the "Power of Friendship".

I'm just saying, these are rather disparate genres that tend to attract different demographics of people.

And not many people tend to be... great about understanding why they don't like something, much less putting it into words, or understanding that they can dislike something without that something being actually bad. (For example, instead of "I just don't really like [thing]," the usual statement is something along the lines of "[thing] absolutely sucks.")

So the usual response is trying to find (and gather) solidarity while putting down or being condescending towards any dissent, and trying to justify their own dislike. (*gestures vaguely towards pineapple on pizza*)

And historically, it's not uncommon for people to... react strongly towards things they find... different or abnormal, which they judge based on themselves, their emotional response to something, and what they're used to.

Looking at kids, this behavior is... fairly normal. "You're weird," "ew, why do you like that, that's gross," "that's stupid," and so on. A lot of kids/teens/young adults also get defensive really easily. And let's face it--adults are basically just older, taller kids who've had to deal with more of life.

(To be honest, I also get defensive really easily. A lot of people do, and it's... it's normal. The defensive reaction can be lashing out, denial, or just being passive-aggressive or staying silent and tuning it out or mentally rolling your eyes at it. But I'm trying to work on it, because just because it's normal doesn't mean it's a good reaction.)

So, what I'm wondering is whether some fans dislike the prequels simply because it's a different genre...

...but instead of realizing that, they try to defend and justify their dislike by pointing fingers and criticizing whatever stood out or looked different from the OT or cherry-picking details/taking things out of context or making negative conflations (that can be refuted).

Because it's not about logic, it's about how they feel. And people want to feel justified and validated, and we want to feel like we're right and we enjoy staying in our comfort zones. So... yeah. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LOL, okay, this response is going to be really disjointed because I went off in like a dozen different tangents and even then it's not enough to cover everything, so just kind of read this in a Scattered Thoughts Nerd kind of tone, where I'm staring off into the distance because Navel Gazing Gets Me Going Sometimes. 😂 In my experience, it's sort of a mix. I don't hang around a lot of people who dislike the prequels (in the sense of dismissing them/not being fannish about them) because, well, that's the heart of my interest in Star Wars, so our areas of interest basically don't really overlap that much, so I don't have a chance to talk to a lot of people and find out their reasons or even how they dislike the prequels, in the bigger trends of fandom. I do think there's an element of what you're talking about, that sometimes people can't just dislike things because it's not their genre of choice, that's absolutely a part of it. Mostly because that's how a lot of people react to anything they don't like (and it's something I and literally everyone else has to work on), there has to be a reason for it that it's objectively bad and, like, I have experienced a lot of people getting mad because I like something in a different way than they do. And I don't mean just in Star Wars fandom, but in almost any given fandom--if someone likes something in a way someone else doesn't, if they talk loudly about it (even within their own space), then there's always a contingent of people who have to find a reason why that person is objectively wrong (or even try to make them morally wrong), rather than just shrugging and going, "We see things differently, my view on things doesn't overwrite theirs and their view on things doesn't overwrite mine." It gets more complicated in instances where fandom attitudes genuinely can be hurtful, especially when they're overlapping into the way real people are treated, likes/dislikes don't 100% exist in a bubble, especially when it comes to queer fans, fans of color, disabled fans, mentally ill fans, etc. But that there are a lot of instances where fandom culture has always been--and is increasingly so--contentious and it's hard to chill out when someone is always screaming at you, when the atmosphere of the fandom is always so intense. Further, there's also an element of how fandom has always been--and also is increasingly so--about personal resonance, personal emotional investment, interpretation, and meaning. That sometimes we identify with something so deeply that we feel attacked when someone else likes or dislikes something we feel so strongly about, something that we feel is a reflection of ourselves, and I see a lot of that as well. And this, too, often crosses over into lines of how the context of how we treat characters can be reflections of how we treat real world people, but that there's no monolith here as well. For example: I make fun of Anakin, this angers some people, because how dare I not take this fictional victim 100% seriously, despite that I have repeatedly said that Anakin is the character I most identify with, that things I make fun of him for are ones that I resonate with personally. I'm not disrespecting mentally ill people, especially considering that Anakin is not bound to a single interpretation on this front--he is not canonically mentally ill, no matter how easy it is for us in fandom to map much of that onto his character or, in my case, feel that so much of what I see in him are things I struggle with myself. By and large, the majority of the people I see (at least on tumblr) who make fun of Anakin are doing so within the same vein, that they're being silly about him on things that they personally relate to. (My experiences on this are not universal, I cannot speak for the whole of even any one part of fandom, only my own sphere of experience, but this is what I've seen.) As always, it's fine if someone doesn't vibe with my style or they find that it's not their thing because they do take him more seriously, but that preference does not make my jokes

suddenly not have the context that I relate a lot to what I see in Anakin. In contrast, the way some of the fandom treats Mace or Finn isn't just personal all the time. Not liking their characters isn't inherently racist, but the way they're consistently, consistently treated sure as hell speaks to a larger pattern of racism in fandom and doesn't come without that context. It's the same with Rey--is there a huge vein of misogyny when it comes to her character? Abso-fucking-lutely there is. Things Luke and Anakin get a pass on, Rey is raked over the coals for. Is everyone who dislikes Rey a misogynist? Not even close. Some don't like her because Finn was used as a prop for her story. Some people don't like her because she got sucked into Kylo Ren's story too much. Some just don't care for the way she was written for other reasons. Some just don't vibe with her. It's fine. Nothing is a monolith. And to circle this back around to what you're talking about--it's hard to judge, both because no part of fandom is a monolith in their reactions, but also because we're only hearing from a selection of the fans. How do you know how many people who aren't fans of the prequels, who just don't care for them because it's not their genre, but just go about their day? You don't hear from a lot of them because they moved on to things they do like, so it seems like they must not exist--except, they do, and they're just out there doing things they like more. We only hear from the people who feel the need to tell others they dislike the prequels for this reason or that reason, some valid, some less valid, etc. Ultimately, I do think there's probably a fair amount of genre dissonance for why people dislike the prequels and channel that into "they're objectively bad" and get defensive when people like them and say they were great, but only because that's true of anything anywhere. But that it's only one small slice of the bigger picture (and there's a lot of stuff that I had to eschew in the writing of this response as well because it can be a pretty sprawling topic), where there are tons of reasons and reactions that people have, as well as they're perfectly free to dislike the prequels for whatever reason they do or don't have, it doesn't really affect my opinions, unless they're trying to shove it in my face or are being a dick to those who disagree with them.

#lumi.txt #idk how to tag this

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snarktheater · 3 years

Text

Ready Player Two — Opening Cutscene & Chapter 0

Hello again.

It’s been a while. I haven’t been active on this blog since, fittingly enough, Ready Player One. I was going to do this sooner—even had an alarm set up and everything—but then, it turns out, I’m feeling so much negativity about the world in general that a book just pales in comparison.

Seriously, I had to scrap this post’s entire intro because it’s not even 2020 anymore as I write this. And you know, maybe that’s for the best. I’m not really in the mood for doom and gloom and bitching anymore. I uninstalled Twitter from my phone a while back, I’ve been doing good at my daily writing sprints, my biggest fanfic project concluded on a positive note from people I didn’t even realize had been following it for years.

So I don’t know what this is going to be like. My commentary, I mean; I’ve heard echoes of what the book is like, so I’m not expecting a surprise there.

The book opens right after the end of Ready Player One, in a “Cutscene” where Wade recounts to us what happened after he won Halliday’s contest. It also assumes you remember exactly who the main characters of the book are, which is a bold move for a sequel that came out almost a decade after the original.

Technically, I could just look up the details I’m fuzzy about. But also, I think it’s more authentic if I don’t. I trust my memory enough that if I’m wrong, it’ll be in subtle enough ways that it’ll almost be a private jokes between all of us. An “if you know, you know” sort of error system. And I don’t think there’s anything more true to the spirit of this book than that.

Shoto had flown back home to Japan to take over operations at GSS’s Hokkaido division.

So Wade starts his tenure with nepotism. Wasn’t Shoto really young? Why is he qualified to run anything?

Aech was enjoying an extended vacation in Senegal, a country she’d dreamed of visiting her whole life, because her ancestors had come from there.

You know what, I’m not touching “send the token black character back to Africa.” This isn’t my lane.

And Samantha had flown back to Vancouver to pack up her belongings and say goodbye to her grandmother, Evelyn.

Why is she saying goodbye? Why, she’s moving to Columbus to be with Wade, of course! It’s not like there was anything else in her life. Was there? And why isn’t she referred to as Art3mis? I’m pretty sure Wade found out all of their offline names in the last book, and the inconsistency mildly bothers me.

These three sentences are back to back, by the way. Someone—I forget who—once described Ready Player One as a book that’s fun to write a wiki about, because it’s got fun concepts to summarize about until you realize that all the emotional connective tissue you need to turn a list of things into a story is missing, and that’s roughly how this first page feels.

Hell, the first line of the book is Wade telling us he remained offline for nine whole days after winning the contest, but by the end of the second paragraph we’re already to him logging back into the OASIS to "distract himself from [his and Samantha’s] reunion.

I’ll give Ernest Cline one thing: it feels like he wrote this opening nine days after the first book and did about as much maturing as a teenage boy would do between the two books.

Way more time is spent describing Wade’s OASIS rig, or the in-game planet where the climax of the last book happened, than anything else in this introduction. He is immediately greeted by a crowd of adoring fans who have been waiting over a week for him to come back in the game, because they’re all grateful that our protagonist and his friends restored their avatars after they were annihilated by the Sixers.

You’d think the adoring fans would serve some kind of purpose, or that something would happen, but no. Wade immediately goes “ew, people” and teleports away, since he essentially has ultimate powers within the game. With a caveat: the powers are actually coming from the Robes of Anorak he’s wearing, and I’m mentioning that in the hopes that it will pay off sometime in the book’s future, assuming Cline at least learned to do that. But still, let’s not skip too fast the fact that we introduced that crowd of adoring fans for no other purpose than to tell us they’re out there, because it fits right in with the last book’s attempts at saying as little as humanly possible in as many words as possible.

Anyway, Wade went back into Anorak’s study, where he arbitrarily checks out the Easter Egg he got at the end of the last book, and finds an inscription on it. I was dreading another riddle, but no, it’s just straight-up instructions to a vault in the GSS archives, so Wade logs off and goes to check it out.

Of course Halliday had put [the archives] [on the 13th floor]. In one of his favorite TV shows, Max Headroom, Network 23’s hidden research-and-development lab was located on the thirteenth floor. And The Thirteenth Floor was also the title of an old sci-fi film about virtual reality, released in 1999, right on the heels of both The Matrix and eXistenZ.

I’m equally shocked that it took two whole pages (on my ereader) to get to the first slew of references, and that one of these references is from 1999. I didn’t know we were allowed to think of anything that isn’t the 80s. Speaking of which, I’ll spare you the whole paragraph, but the book does feel the need to explain why it’s vault 42.

Inside the vault, there’s another egg containing a super-fancy and advanced OASIS headset. The egg also has a video monitor that plays a video message from James Halliday shortly before his death.

But despite his condition, he hadn’t used his OASIS avatar to record this message like he had with Anorak’s Invitation. For some reason, he’d chosen to appear in the flesh this time, under the brutal, unforgiving light of reality.

That oh-so-important message? An infodump about the headset’s working. He called it an OASIS Neural Interface, ONI for short. It basically lets you experience the OASIS through all your senses with sensory input just like the real thing, you know, that thing Wade had to get a fancy suit and massive rig to do in the first book. And yes, Wade does spend a paragraph or two comparing it to other works of science fiction. Of course he does.

More importantly, it also records all the sensory input into a separate file, which can then be replayed over to re-experience said sensations, or live someone else’s experiences. Halliday tries to frame it as a tool to generate communication and empathy, seemingly all without acknowledging the potential creepiness of that. But hey. Who knows. Maybe that’s because this is the setup stage, and it’ll pay off eventually.

I also wondered about the name Halliday had chosen for his invention. I’d seen enough anime to know that oni was also a Japanese word for a giant horned demon from the pits of hell.

Add “reducing Japan to anime” to the list of things the book has failed to improve upon. By the way, the narration insisted on spelling out ONI letter by letter earlier, so it’s weird to make that link now. It’s also just kind of inelegant to just tell us “this is the symbolism behind the name”, but that’s just the sort of thing I’ve come to expect from this book.

Anyway, the reason Halliday kept this for his successor to find is he wants Wade to test out the technology and decide if humanity is ready for it. Why Halliday thinks the most glorified pop culture trivia / video game competition qualifies you for such a decision should be a problem, but sadly, a lot of billionaires have said and done a lot of dumb and eerily similar things in the past few years since I read Ready Player One, so actually, I can’t fault the book for that one. Tragically, our fates really are in the hands of people who should rightfully be cartoon villains.

To his credit, Wade does question Halliday’s motives in keeping this under wraps at all rather than releasing it himself. So hey, maybe it really is setting something up.

Wade goes back to his office with the ONI, and we’re treated with this lovely piece of narration:

I was grateful that Samantha wasn’t there. I didn’t want to give her the opportunity to talk me out of testing the ONI. Because I was worried she might try to, and if she did, she would’ve succeeded. (I’d recently discovered that when you’re madly in love with someone they can persuade you to do pretty much anything.)

There’s a lot to unpack about the implications this has for their relationship, but it’s way too early in the book for me to editorialize when one character hasn’t even been on the page yet. So I’ll just leave it here for the record. Hopefully you see the problem without me needing to point it out anyway. If not, feel free to hit my inbox.

So Wade, confident in the fact that Halliday would have warned him if there were any risks to using the ONI, decides to try it out. Even though he immediately follows up that statement with this:

According to the ONI documentation, forcibly removing the headset while it was in operation could severely damage the wearer’s brain and/or leave them in a permanent coma. So the titanium-reinforced safety bands made certain this couldn’t happen. I found this little detail comforting instead of unsettling. Riding in an automobile was risky, too, if you didn’t wear your seatbelt…

Wade. My dude. What the fuck is this simile. And why don’t you see that maybe a machine where you’re forcibly trapping yourself inside a virtual reality might be dangerous? Hell, when I said this was setting something up, I was expecting something vaguely interesting about the potential breach of privacy, or how you don’t need to literally walk in someone’s shoes to feel empathy for them, or anything substantial, but now I’m worried it’ll just end up as “man, sometimes science fiction machines will scramble your brain, isn’t that weird”?

Like, I don’t know, to me “it will put you in a coma” sounds like a good reason for Halliday not to release the ONI. Maybe we can still make it into a commentary on how corporations will sell stuff they know is directly harmful if it can make them a profit. Who knows.

The book waffles on about more risks, and the mechanics of how the ONI activates, and the warning disclaimer when it does turn on. Specifically, there’s a time limit of twelve consecutive hours, after which you’ll be automatically logged out, because yes, using the thing for too long can also cause brain damage.

Gregarious Simulation Systems will not be held responsible for any injuries caused by improper use of the OASIS Neural Interface.

See, now there’s the sort of thing that could be a source for commentary, but no, instead it’s thrown in there like it’s nothing and Wade glosses over the entire warning, and instead keep wondering why Halliday didn’t just release the ONI if even the safety disclaimers were in place.

By the way: this whole system has apparently gone through several independent human trials already, so I’m finding it hard to imagine that it’s actually a secret Halliday took to the grave as Wade says. Unless he also had everyone involved in those trials killed afterwards. Or maybe they all ended up with brain damage which rendered them incapable of talking about it.

And before you think I’m being unfair and maybe we’re supposed to understand that ourselves even if the protagonist doesn’t, I’ll remind you that the book didn’t trust its reader to know what the number 42 is a reference to, or what an oni is, even though I don’t think anyone in the target audience wouldn’t know about these two things.

There’s also the fact that, since this book came out, a video game did release with a scene intentionally designed to cause seizures, and it had countless fans flocking to defend it over that fact. So you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not assuming this book’s stance on whether your video game console causes brain damage and possibly coma is actually a bad thing, or just an acceptable risk.

Wade certainly seems to think so, since he agrees to the terms of service.

As the timestamp faded away, it was replaced by a short message, just three words long—the last thing I would see before I left the real world and entered the virtual one. But they weren’t the three words I was used to seeing. I—like every other ONI user to come—was greeted by a new message Halliday had created, to welcome those visitors who had adopted his new technology: READY PLAYER TWO

Well now that’s just silly.

And that’s our opening cutscene. And while this post is already long enough, I feel like I have to go on to chapter 0, because it feels like barely anything has happened so far. We didn’t even introduce any new character motivation or conflict, or a mystery to set the plot into motion, unless I’m supposed to think “why didn’t Halliday release this?” counts.

So Wade is back into the OASIS, and tells us about how much more real it all feels thanks to the ONI. I especially have to question how he can smell or taste anything—both of which he tells us he can. Like, who coded that? Did Halliday implement every single smell and taste himself, without anyone noticing? I hope you don’t need me to tell you that’s not typically how features are added to a large-scale video game.

If it feels like I’m nitpicking at the logic of the book, even though I always say I’m not very interested in that and would rather talk themes, it’s because I am, because there isn’t much else to discuss so far. Wade is happy about tasting virtual fruit. That’s the scene.

He tests out if he can feel pain, but no, the ONI reduces pain (a gunshot is translated as “a hard pinch”). On one hand, good, it would be a nightmare otherwise. On the other hand, I sort of hope there’s a setting for that in there, because otherwise, you just lost an entire clientele of kinksters.

This was it—the final, inevitable step in the evolution of videogames and virtual reality. The simulation had now become indistinguishable from real life.

Ah, now we have some juicy themes. Because if you think this is the inevitable final step in the evolution of video games, I invite you to look at literally any other art form, and what happened to them once hyperrealism became easy. Hint: they didn’t stop evolving, because it turns out realism isn’t the only goal one can achieve with art.

The realism discussion is not a new one in video games, mind you. In case you’re out of the loop: most of the big-budget blockbuster games (“AAA” as they’re known) are aiming for hyperrealism nowadays, and it results in development teams being forced to work in horrible conditions (known with the equally horrible euphemism of “crunch”). And, because it turns out that 1) humans working themselves to the bones isn’t healthy and 2) racing for realism with little to no vision besides it makes for poor creativity, a lot of these games come out as disappointments. Oh, there are hordes of Gamers™ who will defend them to the bitter end, but inevitably, in the months following release, the defense cools off while the criticism keeps on going, because the defense was a knee-jerk reaction born of a mix of people hyping themselves up for a game they hadn’t seen that much of yet, then attaching a part of their identity to liking that thing.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that this throwaway line feels like it comes from someone who is so out of touch as to accidentally support a world view that has in fact resulted in the biggest part of the industry stagnating artistically while growing more toxic for the people working in it. All the while, more and more independent games come out every year, proving that that realism is nowhere near the most important thing to making a game good, and that you can achieve much better results with a small team.

What I’m trying to say is: watch Jim Sterling’s channel, they’ve been bleeding out subscribers since they came out as nonbinary and make much better commentary on this topic than I could, and play Hades.

Back to the book, which sadly hasn’t become any more interesting since I decided to go on a tangent. Wade tests the ONI functions some more, all the while musing on how he knows Samantha would disapprove but that he doesn’t care, because what loving relationship doesn’t consist of that?

Among the functions, he tries the ONI files, the aforementioned recordings of someone else’s experiences. Specifically, a woman, which Wade tells us by telling us he suddenly has breasts, I suppose because Ernest Cline saw that subreddit about men writing women and went “I want a piece of that”. Oh, and also, those sample files were recorded from real people, in the real world. And yes, this goes exactly where you think it does.

SEX-M-F.oni, SEX-F-F.oni, and SEX-Nonbinary.oni

Look, I actually started writing a complaint about the boobs thing, and I deleted it, but now Cline is doing it on purpose. So, here goes: I saw a quote from this book on Twitter that looked like Cline attempting to make up for Wade’s casual transphobia in the first book. It wasn’t good, but it at least sounded like he was trying. So to immediately get this is…a lot? Let’s go for a lot.

I can almost excuse the use of “M” and “F”. You gotta name your files and you could excuse a non-exhaustive list. But…nonbinary? On one hand, I want to know what Cline means. On the other hand, I don’t think he can come up with an answer I’ll find satisfactory.

We are thankfully spared from finding out because Wade has just lost his virginity to Samantha a few days ago and he’s 1) not ready for this and 2) pretty sure this counts as cheating. You could make a case that this is more like porn, but I can see that this is more of a personal distinction anyway, and I can respect that one. Plus, you know. I don’t want to find out.

Wade logs off, and he can’t tell the difference between the OASIS with the ONI, and decides this will change the world. And then it’s back to the “how did he do it and keep it a secret”, even though Wade now finds out in the documentation that this had been in development for twenty-five years, basically since the OASIS launched. So it’s not really that it’s a secret, so much as there are a lot of people under very strict NDAs out there. Or, again, they’re all dead and/or otherwise incapacitated.

The ONI is the product of the Accessibility Research Lab, and Wade tells us about other stuff that the lab has produced using similar technology, mostly for medical purposes.

GSS patented each of the Accessibility Research Lab’s inventions, but Halliday never made any effort to profit from them. Instead, he set up a program to give these neuroprosthetic implants away, to any OASIS users who could benefit from them. GSS even subsidized the cost of their implant surgery.

Look, it’s nice that you want Halliday to be the good guy through and through, but it’s kind of hard to take any social commentary seriously when you think this is how a billionaire is made. Hell, even when he shut down the lab and fired its entire staff, he gave them a big enough severance package to set them for life. You know. Capitalism!

Hey, remember when Samantha said she was going to end world hunger if she won the contest, a thing billionaires right now could be doing, but aren’t, and she is now the co-owner of GSS? Yeah, I kind of hope the book remembers that too.

Speaking of the co-owners, the book just completely skips over the debate that our four main characters have over whether or not to release the ONI to the world. All we know is that they voted, and the vote goes in favor of releasing it. I mean, why have characters who could have opinions and feelings that could create a discussion? That might make us care about them! And who wants to care about characters in a story?

We put them on sale at the lowest possible price, to make sure as many people as possible could experience the OASIS Neural Interface for themselves.

What exactly is “the lowest possible price” here? Your company literally owns money. Like, OASIS money is real money. There is literally nothing stopping you from giving them away, especially because what you’re giving away is access to the platform you’re already running for a profit.

It’s almost like, even trying to make “good billionaires” out of its protagonists, the book can’t stop and actually make them significantly good.

Oh, I should mention. If you thought my Ready Player One review was angry at capitalism, wait until you see what the past couple years have done to me.

Anyway, once they his 7,777,777 simultaneous ONI users, a new riddle shows up on Halliday’s website. Because yep: our plot is apparently not about the implications of releasing the ONI, or any of the potential ideological discussions associated with that, it’s another riddle. Oh boy, do I wish I’d known that.

Seek the Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul On the seven worlds where the Siren once played a role For each fragment my heir must pay a toll To once again make the Siren whole

I cannot wait to have the book give me just not enough information to solve the riddle until it’s solved by the book itself. That was so much fun the other…what was it, five times? Six times? Something like that. Wade already tells us the Siren might be Kira Morrow, because her alias was named after one of the sirens of Greek myth, so I can’t wait for that plot point to stick around. It was so fun to hear all about this man pining for another man’s wife the first time!

So this is the “Shard Riddle”. People are apparently convinced it was made by Wade and his crew as a publicity stunt, but of course, they know that that isn’t the case, and they also don’t know what that riddle is supposed to lead to. So, that’s great. We have a puzzle, and we also don’t know what the stakes are. All we know is that Wade wants to solve the puzzle essentially because it’s a challenge.

We skip over a year, and Wade tells us about how IOI collapses and gets absorbed by GSS because of the ONI’s launch. Remember IOI? They were the bad guys, so I guess we have to cheer?

GSS absorbed IOI and all of its assets, transforming us into an unstoppable megacorporation with a global monopoly on the world’s most popular entertainment, education, and communications platform.To celebrate, we released all of IOI’s indentured servants and forgave their outstanding debts.

On one hand: good for the slave. On the other hand: not gonna cheer for a monopoly, you guys.

Another year’s skip, and now 99% of the OASIS users are using the ONI, and yes, that includes trading their experiences with one another too. And I guess we’re still hand-waving any possible problems associated with that technology, because the technology is made so that all recordings must be shared and played through the OASIS.

This allowed us to weed out unsavory or illegal recordings before they could be shared with other users.

How? Do you know any of the problems associated with content moderations on the current platforms? I don’t know if I want to point to Youtube’s extremely faulty algorithm, Twitter’s complete apathy towards its Nazis, or Facebook doing moderation by making underpaid staff watch all potentially problematic content, which resulted in serious psychological damage to said staff.

You can’t just say that as if it solved everything. The chapter later says this is handled by an AI called “CenSoft”, and as an AI engineer myself, let me tell you: this is not going to work. Again: Youtube is the way it is for a reason.

It also let us maintain our monopoly on what was rapidly becoming the most popular form of entertainment in the history of the world.

And again, monopolies are totally a good thing as long as it’s in the right hands!

When I’m implying that the book does not care for any of these potential problems, I mean it. These enormous ethical issues are sidestepped in cold narratin, and we just keep going on introducing new slang that I hate, but have to quote so help you keep up.

“Sims” were recordings made inside the OASIS, and “Recs” were ONI recordings made in reality. Except that most kids no longer referred to it as “reality.” They called it “the Earl.” (A term derived from the initialism IRL.) And “Ito” was slang for “in the OASIS.” So Recs were recorded in the Earl, and Sims were created Ito.

There. You have been infodumped.

In the midst of all this (still extremely dry) exposition about how this changed media, we also get this tidbit:

You could take any drug, eat any kind of food, and have any kind of sex, without worrying about addiction, calories, or consequences.

Now, I was going to rant about this, but then, a page later, this happens and spares me the trouble:

I’d struggled with OASIS addiction before the ONI was released. Now logging on to the simulation was like mainlining some sort of chemically engineered superheroin.

So, you are aware that addiction isn’t just possible, but extremely facilitated by this. But sure, no worries! It’s perfectly safe! Because our protagonists are good.

Also, remember how the last book ended on a weak attempt at having a moral that maybe the real world is good, actually? Yeah, Wade tells us the ONI helps poor people live enjoyable lives in the OASIS. So. Fuck that message, I guess. It only applies if you’re the literal wealthiest man on Earth.

And me? All my dreams had come true. I’d gotten stupidly rich and absurdly famous. I’d fallen in love with my dream girl and she had fallen in love with me. Surely I was happy, right? Not so much, as this account will show.

Aside from the aforementioned returning OASIS affiction, there’s the Shard riddle that Wade is now obsessed with, to the point of offering a billion-dollar reward to anyone with information about the riddle’s answer.

I announced this reward with a stylized short film that I modeled after Anorak’s Invitation. I hoped it would seem like a lighthearted play on Halliday’s contest instead of a desperate cry for help. It seemed to work.

On one hand: good, Wade finally has a character flaw that the book actually acknowledges as a character flaw. I can work with that. On the other hand: this is all told to me in such a dispassionate that I am dreading how the book will handle this character flaw. Which is to say, I’m not expecting it to be very good.

(For a brief time, some of the younger, more idealistic shard hunters referred to themselves as “shunters” to differentiate themselves from their elder counterparts. But when everyone began to call them “sharters” instead, they changed their minds and started to call themselves gunters too. The moniker still fit. The Seven Shards were Easter eggs hidden by Halliday, and we were all hunting for them.)

Especially when this is something the narration feels is more important to tell me about.

Anyway, skip another year, and a gunter finally leads Wade to the First Shard. Solved that riddle, I guess. And wait, wasn’t part of why IOI was ~evil~ in the first book that they were paying people to find the Easter Egg for them? How is this any different, Wade?

And when I picked it up, I set in motion a series of events that would drastically alter the fate of the human race. As one of the only eyewitnesses to these historic events, I feel obligated to give my own written account of what occurred. So that future generations—if there are any—will have all the facts at their disposal when they decide how to judge my actions.

And that is the end of our chapter 0. And can I just say: what a mess already. I don’t think my snark can properly convey how utterly devoid of emotion this book’s writing is, and that alone is honestly more of a turn-off than anything else in the book so far. Even, knowing that I railed about it in the first book, I still feel newly unprepared for it. And it’s not like this double-prologue is making me hopeful that the book will show an ounce more critical thinking—or decent fucking humanity towards marginalized groups—as its predecessor.

So, that’s a lot to look forward to! For the sake of my sanity and schedule, don’t expect me to do such big posts every time. I’ll probably do one chapter a week from now on, if that. We’re in for a long ride, but I hope it’s worth it, at least.

#ready player two #ernest cline #st: ready player two #book reviews

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