#life is quite different right now and im just trying to get through the next few months | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

catsgut · 6 months

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Anon : Uhmm is there any chance of doing a surprise Sukuna fic in your kinktober list? Make my baby shine with your top-tier dark fic writing pleaseee 👉🥺👈

OMG i’ve been wanting to write sukuna for a while now i don’t think im quite ready to do a full fic, but i hope this suffices hehehe

warnings : noncon, reader doesnt know about sukuna, blood, virginity loss, not proof read

yuuji simply failed to see what was so awful about him dating a nonsorcerer. his friends had called him dumb for even the thought, yet yuuji actually wasn't the most astute. all he knew was that you were super hot and that he really liked you. to such an extent that consistently now he has set aside time for you, whether it be taking you out on a date or getting you a gift with the cash he saves up. you really felt appreciated when you were around yuuji.

and you were just oh so sweet. even gojo had a go at hitting on you a couple times, however you just accepted it as him being kind, flashing him a comforting grin as you clasped yuuji's hand with yours. "lets get going, sweetie. the movie will be starting soon," you said, your voice dissolving off your tongue like sugar, and yuuji wanted a taste.

the two of you finished your movie, neither of you liking it very much. "the part where she screamed sounded so fake," you giggled before leaning forward to take a sip through the straw of the soda he was holding. he thought his heart was going to explode seeing you so comfortable with him. the way in which your cute mouth folded over his straw made his dick twitch.

“hey uh… would you like to come back to my place for a bit? we would be alone and i just… want to spend more time with you,” you said bashfully looking into his eyes, and the virgin had never nodded his head so fast in his entire life. his reaction made you laugh as you took his arm to lead him the way. the walk to your house was filled with comfortable silence, the both of you being much too shy to say anything.

but what the two of you didn’t know was that sukuna was watching the entire time. from the moment yuji had met you, you caught the interest of the spirit. funnily enough, you were sukuna’s type as well, just for different reasons; sweet, pure, and most importantly, a virgin. it made him smile with delight seeing the poor, unsuspecting girl lead her boyfriend to the comfort of her home unknowing to the fact he was housing something far more demonic than she could ever imagine.

“i know it’s not much, but i hope you don’t mind,” you clap your hands together and grin shyly gesturing to the small apartment. no, yuji didn’t mind at all, only caring about what was going to happen next. would you guys cuddle? kiss? grind on each other with clothes on? the poor, horny boy had a million thoughts running through his mind, it didn’t register right away that he felt your small hands against his pecks. looking down at you, you were focused on feeling his muscles through the tight black shirt he was wearing. You peered up at him with an innocent look that made him feel like he was on cloud 9.

“wanted to for s’long,” you mumbled, dragging you soft finger tips down and down and down…. yuji felt like he was going to explode in his pants right in the entrance way of your home. it took everything in him to control himself, but little did he know sukuna was planning something that allowed little room for self-control.

yuji leaned down to gently meet your lips with his, tongue swirling inside your mouth in an inexperienced manner. he moaned at the taste and reached down under your thighs to pick you up. he wanted to make you think he knew what he was doing. you wrapped around legs around his waist as he carried you over to your couch. you could feel the hardness of his dick press against your core. “you’re so needy,” he smiled sheepishly. you just laid there watching the boy above you run his hands all over your body. yuji was trying to make himself seem confident, but on the inside he was screaming out of nervousness.

“let me have a go,” he heard a taunting voice echo out in his head. he ignored the voice, instead latching his wet mouth on your neck. you whimpered, feeling his lips and teeth smear drool all over your skin. it didn’t feel the best, but you were happy with it being yuuji doing this to you.

yuuji didn’t mean to take it so far, roughly grinding down on you. it just… it had been so long since he came and you felt so good. he didn’t mean to slip up this badly, but before he knew it, his body soon wasn’t his own. he watched his body move, unable to control his movements. ‘fuck,’ he thought, eyes widening as he watched his own hand reach down and grab your neck.

you were too busy feeling him touching you to realize what was happening until you were unable to breath. eyes snapping open you looked up to see your boyfriend smirking from above you.

“my my, you’re being so obedient,” sukuna spoke, words purring off his tongue. you gulped trying to wiggle out of his strong grasp but you were unable to do so. “it’s been so long since i’ve had a virgin,” he growled, leaning down to run his hot tongue up the side of your face.

this didn’t feel like yuuji anymore, instead he was acting completely different. almost scary. you stared up at him as he ripped your shirt open with ease. has he always been that strong? one of his hands reached down to grip your writs together while the other groped and squeezed at your body. “y-yuuji this hurts,” your lip curled and you stared up at him hoping he would see you're uncomfortable.

the sight below him made sukuna groan in excitement. you looked so pure…. so innocent as you looked up at him with your teary eyes. “there’s no use in fighting this, little girl.” a sinister grin etched across his handsome face, dread filling your body. was this actually happening? “please,” you voice sounded weak and frail only making his dick harder. large hands finished ripping the clothes off your body leaving you cold and bare.

before you knew it, he was unbuckling the belt of his jeans. yuuji screamed and begged as he watching the cursed spirit strip his girlfriend of her clothes, but it did nothing to stop what was happening. sukuna only laughed, loving the sound the pain he was causing. it had been too long since he was able to ravage a woman properly, tired of watching the brat he was trapped inside of watch porn before bed everynight. intercourse was something that was to be bloody and rough, not loving and intimate. just the idea made him bored.

you were flipped on your hands and knees. his hand pressed down on your upper back and you realized it would be useless to try and fight it. with a shaky breath, you braced yourself as he slammed his cock into your untouched hole. sukuna's eyes nearly bulged out of his head at the feeling, teeth harshly digging into his lip. he stood up off the couch with one leg and kept the other propped on the couch. without hesitation he began pounding into you. "cmon make some noise, bitch!" he laughed loudly slapping your ass knowing you were unable to make even the slightest of noise with the air being fucked from your lungs. you've never been in more pain in your life till now and you were sure the wetness dripping from your thighs wasn't just your body's arousal.

"dirty girl bleeding all over your boyfriend's cock," his words both confirmed your fears and confused you. what happened to your sweet boyfriend? the one who couldn't even bring himself to step on an insect. What flipped inside him to cause him to act this way towards you?.

you were slowly unable to think of anything but the excruciating pain in your lower stomach. you could tell yuuji, or whoever he was, was close by the way his breathing was picking up. by the time he did finally finish, you felt your hole gush and swell with the amount of cum he fucked inside you. slowly, he pulled out whistling at the sight. your hips were brusied black and purple from his grip on them and your pussy was smeared with cum and blood. sukuna felt satisfied with himself, knowing yuuji wouldn't be able to fix any emotional and physical damage that had been done. it was almost a little sneak peek into what he was capable of.

eventually, after enough time had passed, yuuji had gained control of his body again, but little could be said about you. slowly you crawled your way to the other side of the room, shaking with fear, yuujis heart broke hearing you beg for him to leave, demand he go, but after a few minutes of watching you cry he decided it was best he did. you cried yourself to sleep that night, feeling nothing but betrayal while yuuji cried feeling nothing but guilt for what he let happen.

#jjk smut #jjk x reader #tw.noncon #sukuna smut #sukuna x reader #sukuna ryomen smut #sukuna ryomen x reader #tw.dark content

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doobea · 3 months

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BORN TO MAKE HISTORY ─ RIN ITOSHI

synopsis: After his brother takes a nasty fall and calls out before the new season starts, Rin has to step up as your new figure skating partner.

✰ ✰ ✰જ⁀➴ PLAYLIST. | MASTERLIST

contents: an ice skating au fic (very much yuri on ice inspired), fem!reader, ice skating terms and irl figures thrown around, inaccurate depictions of figure skating, sfw, rin being awkward, sae is a decent brother in here, characters are in their early-mid 20s, talks about ISU grand prix, mentions of mental health (depression, anxiety, burn out, imposter syndrome), heavy narration, rin centric word count: 5.1K a/n: life has been super busy and hectic recently :( kisses to @popponn for beta reading my works as always <3 im forever grateful for you :) more notes towards the end of the fic <3

PREV. RINK | NEXT RINK

“What should we wear?” You’re pacing across the living room, hand tucked under your chin and brows furrowed.

Sae’s leaning to the side on the couch, trying to get a decent view of yesterday’s playback practice run on the rink every time you cross his line of vision. Rin’s also trying to pay attention to the jumps and step sequences too but, whenever his parts are about to come up, you seem to pause in front of the TV.

“I dunno, ask Rin,” Sae shrugs and turns up the volume, hoping that you would catch the hint.

It doesn’t matter though, because you’re shuffling in place and now your attention is honed on your phone, scrolling rapidly through what Rin can only assume are images of various costume designs. He’s seen a few of your professional photos from the previous years during his recent down time, a lot of the designs highlighted your feminine side with bright colors and pastels. It suits you, no surprise there, considering your outgoing personality. Rin, on the other hand, likes to keep it moody and, as his fans would like to call it, “Dark Paradise” core — whatever that means.

Well, it wouldn’t really matter if you did happen to ask for his opinion because, recently, Rin didn’t give two shits about what he wears. If anyone were to peek into his closet, which they would definitely need to fight through him first, they would discover an array of all different shades of black and blue in their deepest forms. Oh, and all he owns is athleisure attire, too. Rin doesn’t bother with all things fancy and tailored ever since going on break, though he has a creeping feeling that he might have to go back to it soon.

“As long as it’s not flashy, I’m fine with whatever.” Rin answers finally, and closes his eyes as he says it, realizing that he’ll either look incredibly out of place with whatever costume idea you’ll have in mind. He can’t quite place why he feels so stressed about it.

“Whatever?” You chirp back with a slight tilt. Rin can almost see the gears turning desperately in your head as your foot taps away in deep thought. “Have we even decided on a theme yet?”

“Considering we literally just started practicing? No.” Rin huffs out. He tips his head, letting his cheek settle comfortably against his palm.

Safe to say, his thighs and feet hurt like hell, laced with heavy exhaustion from yesterday’s session. He probably needs more sleep in more but, with both you and Sae knocking on his bedroom door this morning, he firmly decided in his mind to sneak away after today’s practice to catch up on some hours.

“Your jumps are sloppy,” Sae points out casually.

Rin rolls his eyes. “Thanks for the tip.”

“Anytime,” his brother shoots back before replaying the same damn sequence where Rin nearly loses his footing. The video is now playing in slow motion and zoomed in, painfully reminding Rin that he needs to upgrade his skincare routine. Somehow, he’s glad that you’re still covering half of the TV screen, unaware of the near wipe out scene from behind.

A few seconds later and Sae speaks again. “You look stiff here, bend your knees and loosen your arms.”

Rin sighs. “ ‘Kay…”

“We’re still going for ‘love’, right? Or are we not doing that?” Your arms are crossed, fingers drumming away, still deep in thought and tuned out from their own conversation. “What songs do you wanna skate to?”

Before Rin could even provide a half-assed answer to that, Sae interrupts his thoughts with, “Please try and at least look like you’re having fun.”

“…noted,” Rin decides with a sigh. “I’m going back to bed when this is over.” Screw napping after practice, he barely got a full eight hours last night and being berated so bright and early in the morning killed any sort of energy he had prior.

“Nope,” Sae pauses halfway through the video, turning to face him with a stern look. “You’re not going back to bed, because then you won’t wake up in time for practice. Sleeping in will only ruin your current sleep schedule, too.”

Rin wants to retort that he’s not a fucking child anymore, that he doesn’t need Sae to be looking after him. However, there’s the fact that his brother is sorta his manager now and in charge of quite literally everything of Rin's career. Also, it’s kinda hard to come up with a solid comeback when they’re reviewing his rusty movements, lackluster jumps, and every thirty seconds he’s taking a small break to catch his damn breath.

You eventually plop down in the middle of the couch, between both brothers, when you realize that your question isn’t going to be answered simply. After Sae finally gets the chance to thoroughly watch a good chunk of yesterday’s practice sequence, you switch topics. “Just so you know, Rin, have you seen your comment section lately?”

Sae shuffles in his seat and suddenly Rin feels the air in the room thickening. Rin fiddles with his phone in hand, knowing full well that he did post a ‘comeback’ announcement only to then quickly turn his app notifications off, because… of his feelings of self cautiousness? Would that be the right term he’s looking for?

“What did he do?” Sae’s asking you because he knows damn well Rin wouldn’t give him the full details and you’re just so damn open about everything so Rin can’t possibly hide from this one.

But, instead of answering Sae, you cough, loud and awkward, before shooting Rin an apologetic look. “Um, nothing…?”

Alright, well Rin takes it that you’re a god awful liar.

Sae’s now staring directly in Rin’s direction and he’s trying so hard to avoid eye contact right now by pretending that their family portrait wall is the most interesting thing in the room. Of course, that doesn’t work because he can hear Sae tapping away freely on his phone and—

“Did you fucking block me on Instagram?”

Okay, yeah, Rin totally forgot about that, too. To be fair, when someone is going through a depressive episode for over a year, the last thing anyone would want to see on their feed is the success of their older sibling.

“No?”

And, turns out, he’s also an awful liar.

Sae is not happy. He is very, very unhappy.

He’s not usually the emotionally expressive type to most people, so that usually leaves Rin the luxury of experiencing the back end when his brother does decide to let his walls down. And, well, in the past, when he did get pissed off, Sae would normally vent about his coaches and stalkerish fans with a bit of sass to it, but today?

He’s currently grumbling and groaning and Rin’s pretty sure his shirt is on backwards, and bless your soul, but also fuck you, for dragging him into this mess.

After a very short Google Search of what Rin has done, followed by an equally as short lecture on how to be professional on the internet, Rin is grimley reminded by the large number of likes and retweets on Twitter that his announcement might’ve not been the best thing he’s ever posted. He really can’t understand why though, because Rin was deadset sure he was going to lose his career nearly three years ago when he got into a fight with another skater, so why is he getting canceled for announcing something… tamed? Well, he also hasn’t exactly opened his social media apps since then. A strange gnawing feeling comes up whenever he fights off the urge to check.

“You should’ve held off or at least came to me before posting something like this.”

It’s a miracle that there’s nobody else but you three at the local rink right now. It’s been nearly an hour since arrival and Rin has gotten nothing but an earful from Sae. If any family were to walk in, they’d probably immediately walk out by the sheer amount of heavy tension steaming off on the ice.

You’re stuck in your own little corner doing all sorts of warm up jumps and stretching, glancing over every now and then at Rin as your way of saying ‘sorry’ and ‘are you doing, okay’. To which, Rin would glance back with a very stiff shrug.

“What difference would it make?” Rin’s cheeks are a little flushed and there’s a slight hitch to his breath, he had just completed a couple of routine jumps Sae instructed him to do.

“Plenty,” then Sae flashes Rin a quick glimpse of his phone screen.

An array of outrageous news articles and forums come through, many of them pointing out the strange timing and the internal turmoil of sibling rivalry. There’s a couple of them mentioning drugs, two threads from some third-party news site throwing your name to the mud, and then a short Buzzfeed article listing a slideshow of other skaters congratulating Rin for rejoining the sport again.

“People are speculating that you’re only stepping in because I’m down for this season. If you would’ve just waited until everything was put together then everything would’ve been different.”

Rin blinks a little, surprised by the flush coloring his brother's cheeks that’s most certainly not from the cold rink.

Although, in a way it did make sense. If there’s one thing that famous athletes do know about the media is the fact that news outlets love fabricating drama out of nothing. Sae’s a well known gold medalist, no matter what division that medal came from, so his name came out of people’s mouth as frequently as compared to Yuzuru Hanyu or even Yuuri Katsuki, whenever figure skating was mentioned. It made sense for others to grow suspicious when Rin randomly posted that he’s coming off of hiatus without further explanation. Sae most likely hasn’t told anyone that he’s being subbed in.

Rin hesitantly nods, his snarky response dies in his throat and he feels like he’s swallowing needles when faced with the awkward reality. He’s now reluctant to speak, unsure if anything he’d say would make a difference — for better or worse. Knowing himself, probably the latter.

After a few seconds of silence, followed by a few jumps performed by you in the background, Sae runs a hand through his hair, in what Rin believes is a rare nervous gesture, looking away briefly.

“Revival,” his brother finally blurts out. “That’s the theme. You guys fine with that?” Sae’s asking, but there’s a finality to his tone. Rin and you will have to be fine with it. The season starts in a few months, soon Sae would need to prepare choreography for two programs, consult a designer for custom fittings, and take over all things that a coach and manager would do. Somehow, despite being out for this year, Rin thinks Sae might have the hardest job here.

“No objections here.”

Two months and many hours of exhausting training later, you and Rin are standing in the locker room for the first competition as an official pair. It’s the first day of the Japan Figure Skating Championships and, somehow, you look more put together than he is.

“Think this looks good?” You do a 360 spin in front of the wall mirror in your short program outfit. It’s a simple short black, gray dress with mesh sleeves and small rhinestones running down the middle. According to the designer, it’s supposed to represent the night sky.

Rin stands behind you and adjusts his black vest. Gold and white thread accents throughout his patterned shirt compared with plain black trousers. He’s supposed to adjust his cuffs, but his fingers keep fumbling with the last button because his eyes are awkwardly getting lost in your outfit. Luckily, you’re too focused on yourself to take notice.

You eventually lean closer, repeating the question when he takes too long to answer, and he feels your breath against his shoulder. “Everything alright? Are you nervous for today?” Your voice is a little hesitant, full of concern that makes Rin’s stomach slightly jump to his throat.

“Everything’s fine,” Rin sighs as he manages to shove the last button through. It’s not like he’s going to lose this competition, he might be somewhat rusty but he didn’t qualify for the Grand Prix Final just based on his name alone. “It’s just… a little bit weird that we’re the oldest ones here,” he confesses.

“You’re still hung up about that?”

It’s stupid and maybe a bit irrational, he knows that much.

You’ve also already tried to convince Rin otherwise multiple times today, but he couldn’t shake off the humiliating feeling of entering a competition where your competitors are almost half your age. Okay, maybe Rin’s being dramatic, but at least five years younger. From what he can recall, it was usually the other way around whenever he competed in men’s singles tournaments. Having to see and now experience that is something he never really mentally prepared himself for.

From the moment he stepped into the locker room, Rin was basically towering over the rest of the athletes. It’s fine, kinda, all he really needs to focus on right now is landing all of his jumps and catching you. Sae’s a strict teacher, but he doesn’t force weird techniques on others if he knows they can’t handle it.

“Isn’t he, like, totally washed up right now?”

“Shh, don’t say it so loud, Makoto! He’s right there.”

“Oh, shit, let’s go before he…” Rin didn’t get a chance to hear the rest of the sentence, not with you scooting right beside him on the bench and shoving your right ear bud into his ear.

He’s learned quickly from the following days that you are not the playlist type of person like most people. Unlike normal and sane folks, you have all of your liked songs in one playlist and you like spending your time shuffling away through the vast hundreds of genres and artists until finding the right one. In your own words, if you were to make a playlist then it would easily be over a few dozen — why do that when all of your favorite songs are in one spot?

That being said, you’re currently blasting a Frank Ocean song before shifting through a couple more songs with the intent of finding both the short program and free skate song. Oh, and for some reason you don’t use the search function at all through your liked playlist. Apparently, it “ruins” the fun.

“This would’ve been a nice song to skate to,” the tune switches to something more upbeat and indie, Rin recognizes the band to be Florence and the Machine from the vocals alone. “Sae complained about the song being too long and I called him a lazy loser shortly after.” You say with a smile but Rin’s eyes drift down only to see your leg bobbing up and down rapidly.

Rin tries to pay no mind as he continues to put on his skates. “A six minute long performance would be too much,” he agrees with Sae’s previous answer.

“Hey, tickets to these sorts of things are expensive nowadays with scalpers everywhere!” You try to reason. “If someone’s spending two hundred dollars on a seat then they can sit through a six minute long skating sequence.”

Rin rolls his eyes as he fiddles with a tangled lace. “I didn’t mean the people in the audience, I meant the skaters.”

“Well, maybe we should learn a thing or two from people who do Disney on Ice?”

“I do not want that to be my fall back career, thank you.” A shiver creeps down his spine at the thought of being forced to skate while wearing a Mickey Mouse costume of all things. Seriously, do people clean those suits?

“Hey, are you…” both of your ears perk at the sound from behind. Rin turns around first, he’s immediately greeted by one of the younger male competitors. The boy looks like he’s still growing into his body, probably not any older than seventeen.

“Yeah, I am,” Rin finishes the obvious question. Maybe the kid’s a fan by how bright his face lights up soon after. “Is there something you need?” Sae’s been drilling him to be a little bit more receptive to fellow competitors and fans alike, in order to fix some of his reputation.

“I’ve been looking at your past performances, lately,” the kid starts with a smile. “Last year, during the Grand Prix Final, you did good!”

“Thanks—”

“Your theme was the same as the previous years, but I guess that’s just something you’re comfortable with, right? The falls that you took, it was because your balance was off. You need to work better on finding your center during jumps if you seriously plan on competing in the senior division again.”

Rin only notices the pain digging in his fists when you reach over, palm encasing over his closed ones. You don’t bother looking his way, but you do say something to the kid. It sounds muffled though, or maybe Rin’s somehow zoning out? He’s not sure.

The loss from the Grand Prix is apparently still at the forefront of his mind, no matter how much he tells himself otherwise. People love to pick out that particular part in his performance, acting as if they could pull it off any better. And, for a brief moment, all his past of anger and frustration at the sport suddenly comes rushing back at an overwhelming rate. Rin’s wondering who else wants to criticize him when they meet him again.

“Don’t they teach kids manners these days?” You try to shoot a glare back but, from Rin’s perspective, it just looks like you’re mildly constipated.

It kinda ends up working, because the kid backs off, scurrying away and off to his manager for last minute pep talk. Sae’s currently running late as usual, but it’s not like you two would need any words of encouragement. Rin’s competitive nerves have fizzled out by this point, at least for this event, but he’s now seething with discomfort. He’s certainly positive that you’re feeling the same way.

“I take it back, some of these kids need to be humbled and maybe even bullied.”

Okay, while Rin would agree, he feels like he has to somewhat step up in Sae’s place to make sure you don’t accidentally get kicked out of this competition for sucker punching a kid.

“It’s fine, don’t get too worked up over it. I more or less expected comments like that.”

Rin never expected anything to come easy. Climbing for his spot again in the competitive world can be absolutely ruthless and meeting skaters who are arrogant, condescending, and taunting are just part of the reality. He suspects that everyone else sees him as a washed up skater, never as a real competitor, or a real challenger for the gold medal.

“Still,” you pout, unsatisfied by his logical response, but drop the conversation as Rin tightens his laces. Then, you finally manage to find the song for the short program section after the relentless shuffling.

“It’s fine,” he reassures, and really, it’s kinda-sorta fine. It’s something that he’ll eventually get used to, even if he’s well aware of the heinous rumors floating around. Everything will die down after a week or two since most people can barely hold their attention span nowadays.

“If you’re positive,” you go back to your phone, but not before poking Rin’s sides and redirecting his attention towards the TV screen in the locker room. “Hey, the first pair is competing.”

Pair skating is a lot different from competing in singles. Aside from the obvious involvement of another party, there are more requirements in the short and free skate performances. In the Adult Singles programs, the skater focuses more on their jumps, having a higher emphasis on how many quads they can shove in — or at least that’s how Rin used to work. Quads granted him the majority of the points, it’s something that he can take some pride in compared to his other juniors and seniors.

For pairs, instead of focusing on jumps in the sequences, it’s lifts. There’s two types of lifts, overhead and twists, both are required in the programs. In general, overhead lifts rely on the movement of the person in the air, the control and execution of their rotations around the person carrying them. For twists, the most “exciting” part of the performance by judges’ words, requires an insane amount of coordination and strength since Rin has to propel you into the air by the waist.

Sae had the lovely idea to throw in three overhead lifts, just because he thinks Rin can handle it. Those evening practices at the rink, followed by early morning lifting sessions absolutely killed him, both physically and spiritually. Though, safe to say that he’s just about near his physical peak last year from all the training.

You and Rin both waited patiently in the locker rooms for the first three pair performances, only leaving and heading by the outer rink when you guys queued next. Sae leans against the railing, the brace on his foot now gone and, instead of chunky sneakers, he’s opted back to his expensive loafers. Maybe that’s why he ran late, just in case paparazzi took snapshots of his entire outfit. Go figure.

“I think you guys will have no issue securing gold.” Sae’s voice comes through the haze of Rin’s thoughts, sounding distinctly unimpressed by the current line up. “Even if you guys fumble your lifts, I think the amount of it will carry enough points.”

Erupted cheers soon fill the air and all eyes turn to the rink as the pair’s performance ends. You soon recognize one of the skaters being the teenager from earlier and throw Rin a look.

“We’re going to make sure that he doesn’t get a chance at winning until next year.” You announce, tone casual but eyes flickering something darker than what Rin’s used to.

Sae scoffs and leans against the railing, holding Rin’s Winnie the Pooh tissue box in his arms. “I’m assuming the locker room talk wasn’t all too friendly?”

“Maybe not your usual idea of friendly,” and Rin surges forward, taking your hands into his, when the pair in question struts by and casts both of you a nasty glare. Your grip around his bicep tightens and, while he didn’t care too much about beating a bunch of lukewarm competitors earlier, Rin’s fully certain that he wants nothing more than that gold medal and to clear both of your names from accusations right now.

Piano sounds ring throughout the arena from the speakers, starting with a single word that you’ve both heard countless times during practice. The soft piano notes quickly turn into a somber melody, growing louder with every passing second. The music is beautiful. Haunting, even. Capturing the audience in a trance while Rin prepares you for your first lift.

It’s strange, he thinks. While he’s gotten used to handling you, this is different from every other time. During practices, you’re always carefree and cheerful but, out here, surrounded by cameras and opinions of others that don’t weigh a thing, you’re focused and extremely precise in your form.

Rin thought he knew your routine. Clearly, he’s mistaken.

You skate with conviction, confidence, and accuracy. He can understand why you were originally Sae’s skating partner.

Once you’ve landed back on the ice, keeping up with Rin’s speed, the two of you follow the song’s beat with a smooth series of spins and jumps, each one rotating faster and faster until it feels like the mere audience is just a blurry backdrop in the foreground.

The final lift jump transitions easily into a simple step sequence before finally ending in a death spiral. Rin has a firm grip on your hand as you begin flattening your body low enough, face barely grazing the ice below, as he pivots you around in lull circles.

Judging from the sounds from the audience, Rin didn’t need to stay around to know the results of the performance. The roars, chants, and the standing ovation from them is enough to make out the outcome but, for your sake, he’ll stick it through.

You both glide through the last few seconds of the short program, focusing on nothing but the music and remaining movements. Finally, the music notes fade out and the two of you come to a rest in the middle of the rink, the final position has Rin tipping your body backwards with your arms wrapped loosely around his neck, as if you both were reaching for something just out of your grasp.

Thunderous roars ring in his flushed ears and you’re shooting him a look, eyes glassy and lips parting, possibly saying some sort of praise, but Rin can’t seem to focus. He’s too lost in thought, too distracted by the tenderness of the performance, the flashing lights, the way your chest is heaving in rapid waves, and didn’t realize he had been holding in his breath until you pulled him into a tight embrace.

Everything is just about perfect. Every jump, lift, and spin. He can already imagine the gold medal around his neck, and the thought of winning gold at the Grand Prix only makes the rest of his blood course through his veins faster.

Being a professional athlete again is… exhausting.

Rin spends the following day in back to back conferences and being introduced to people. Most of them end up being unremarkable and forgettable. A couple of them are rude and eccentric, with one guy in particular honing down Rin in a corner and bombarding him with questions both surrounding his performance last year and his personal life. You and Sae had to step in to diffuse the situation before Rin blew a hole in his career again.

By the end of the night, Rin debates whether he should switch careers because this shit is absolutely not for him. It’s no surprise to anyone that Rin hates being around people and this night he’s probably escaped to the restroom maybe about five times to catch a breather. And, while Rin is not the type to exactly care about his image, he absolutely does a full body inspection in the full body mirror every time before he steps back out. Each time he revisits a new wrinkle line forms.

And his brother hasn’t told him when it’ll be over.

Rin’s hands twitch after another self-proclaimed journalist finishes up a half-ass interview about his latest goals for this year. He pulls out his phone when they suggest giving out their contact information and Rin just zones out, tapping away gibberish in his notes app and nodding until they finally went away.

He feels like he’s going to vomit and pass out if this goes on any longer.

“You look like you’re about to freak out,” and of course, you have the decency to point that out as he’s made the fruit salad section his little hideaway spot. Turns out people really dislike any sort of fruit dishes at these fancy events.

��I’m not,” Rin muffles back, mouth stuffed with various chunks of honeydew and grapes. Even if it is true, he’ll never admit it, but it also does suck that he's stupidly easy to read. “The food just sucks here, that’s all.” The fruit isn’t that bad. Maybe just the strawberries.

“Whatever you say, partner,” you roll your eyes playfully, almost giggling at the nickname before taking a sip from the glass of champagne in your hands. “If you want, we can sneak out of here and explore the city.” It’s a suggestion but, from the way you’re smiling, Rin picks up that he can’t wiggle his way out of it.

But he tries anyway.

“Do you even know your way around?” He sounds vaguely concerned.

Sure, it’s been approximately two months since you’ve crashed and turned his life a complete 180, but you’re still new to the area and very much new to the country. Rin’s heard you picked up basic phrases from his brother to get around but it’s still nearly not enough to go and explore, especially late at night. And, rightfully so, he doesn’t plan on babysitting while you waltz around half tipsy off your mind after winning first place.

You fake a wound over your chest and gasp, hiccuping soon after. “I have maps on my phone! I already pinned and favorited a bunch of cute stores we can check out.”

Rin doesn’t know why you even bother throwing him into the equation considering it’ll clearly be stores you’ll like.

“And where exactly do you think you’re going?” Sae’s sauntering over, a half empty glass of wine in hand, and his movement is a little sluggish, but he’s probably the only few sobered up person in the room aside from Rin.

“Out,” you reply with a casual shrug, as if Sae’s supposed to be satisfied with the answer.

“Out...” Sae echos before flickering his sudden sharp gaze over to Rin. He feels himself straightening up before he realizes. “You guys still have to make your statements to the press, you know that, right?”

“Can’t we do it after we get back?” You quickly dismiss Sae’s annoyed scrunch with a quick waft of a hand.

Rin really doesn’t want to stand in front of a bunch of drunken and overly zealous journalists right now if he doesn’t have to. The idea of visiting a few late night street vendors might just be his highlight for today.

“Hey,” Sae’s agitated voice snaps him out of his daze. “Are you seriously going out?”

Instead of providing his brother a proper answer, Rin takes a hold of your hands and throws his jacket over your bare shoulders. You were complaining earlier about losing yours, and the last thing he wants is a drunk and cold skating partner in the middle of the streets of Nagano.

2024 — NAGANO: JAPAN FIGURE SKATING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Posted 16 hours ago 278,293 views

Comments 543

[niCOnii] - 10 hours ago All these rin haters from earlier can eat my socks because i knew he would comeback!!! his partner ain’t half bad either tbh View 30 replies [klnen2003] - 9 hours ago GO TO THE VIDEO AT 4:45 and see how Rin looks at Y/N!!! There’s definitely something there, right??? View 12 replies [YOICHISAGI OFFICIAL] - 9 hours ago Can’t wait to see Rin Itoshi and Y/N L/N compete at the Grand Prix this year!! Let’s catch up sometime! View 154 replies [jiroMark8734] - 8 hours ago I dunno… isn’t it weird how they swept everyone else tho? Can’t tell me that they’re both not taking anything lmao [my_skates_my_life] - 7 hours ago Congrats to everyone for winning!! And thank you so much for posting this. LOVE FROM ARGENTINA!! [merhaba234] - 7 hours ago Rin’s always doing the same level type program both in technique and artistic. It’s refreshing to see something new!

TAGLIST - OPEN

@anurst @blissblossom @genneii @wooasecret @chaosinanutshell @kaiserkisser @rroxii @takotakigum @jaynawayna @peachesncats @sseishiross @izumi-astra-123 @sereniteav @pokkomi

a/n: im crawling on the ground,,, if anyone knows me: i love making rin suffer but please know its in a loving way. is his brother hotter? yeah. but does his brother have a sad backstory? yeah probably. either way, i love working w men with sibling complexes and his whole design basically oozes with melodrama. rin!!! you are gonna be in it for a surprise next chapter!! also apologies for the late update everyone hehe i dont have a set schedule for everything ;-; and my mind runs either at 500 miles an hour or 0 miles. as of late, life has gotten in the way of things and maybe i do need to stick with some sort of plan to make myself ... less stressed when creating content :> anyways, i love you guys!!

#blue lock #bllk #blue lock imagines #bllk x reader #blue lock x reader #itoshi rin #rin itoshi #itoshi rin x reader #rin itoshi x reader #blue lock x female reader #cw: depression #cw: mental health

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thebellearchives · 9 months

Note

i swear you're getting almost exclusively solomon prompt requests and i wish i could say im different but im not. i AM like the other girls (gender neutral). im sorry.

anyway i'd love to see number 26 "I want to move in with you" with sol, if it's not been requested already! i am in love with how you write him like actually.

congrats on the follower milestone, you totally deserve it omg!!

𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄

~ solomon ; obey me [nightbringer]

✧˚ · . S Y N O P S I S : when you and Solomon arrive to your new place you reveal something that will give him hope for the future

‧₊˚ c o n t e n t s : gn!mc, fluff, solomon’s crushing on mc ~

‧₊˚ a / n : bestie I AM LIKE THE OTHER GIRLS TOO Solomon was the character with more entries in my masterlist even before the requests 😵‍💫 thank you for the kind words too!

this was SO hard for me to write, i just couldn’t come up with an scenario for this prompt that wasn’t like the one in Domesticity since it’s basically the same prompt, so i came up with this! it’s not exactly mc proposing the idea to Solomon but if that’s what you’re looking for you can check Domesticity ~

Two pairs of footsteps stopped right in front of Cocytus Hall’s frontal walkway. Solomon’s eyes studied the huge residential mansion, too big for even a family like the brothers. You were standing right next to him, your surprised expression and the curious undertones of your gaze made his heartbeat quicken.

All sorts of thoughts flooded his mind: laughing and snacking in the main living room, casually chatting about the day as you folded laundry together and carrying it back upstairs, maybe dancing in the kitchen before dinner and constant calls to let you know he was coming home.

“I hope you’re okay with coming here...” he cleared his throat, trying his best not to look too nervous “I know Diavolo didn’t really ask for your opinion in the matter, and you’re so used to living in the House of Lamentation…”

“No, it’s okay. This is okay.” you looked up at him with those eyes, those adorable eyes that could bring the strongest sorcerer down to his knees, and that smile, that lovely smile…

“Really?” a small spark of something unknown faintly flickered in his chest.

“Yeah… to be fair, i’ve always wanted to move in with you.”

No other words could’ve ever taken him by surprise like those did. He was sure he was staring at you like an idiot, and he was thankful you were now inspecting the building once again because he had to force his jaw to shut close.

“Really?” he repeated, for an instant it felt like he had ran out of words, his brain ran through every single word of the dictionary in every single language he had ever learned in his life and yet he couldn’t quite find himself speaking any other word.

“Yes” you chuckled, eyes once again resting on him as you turned his way “I thought about it during those times where I’d visit you at purgatory hall for magic lessons. Everything would’ve been so much calmer and easy going, and having you right there to keep teaching me? It would’ve been perfect. It didn’t happen back in our timeline, but I’m happy there’s a place and time where we can find somewhere to make our home.”

Home was a difficult word for someone like him to fully comprehend, specially when it referred to such a huge place, but he figured that as long as you were there with him any place could be home.

“Yes” he inhaled with a smile, finally being able to recognize that spark in his chest was hope, hope that maybe this was going to be the time and place where he’d finally win your heart “home.”

#; fluffy belle #obey me #obey me nightbringer #obey me swd #obey me nb #obey me x mc #obey me x reader #obey me x you #obey me x y/n #obey me solomon #solomon obey me #solomon x mc #solomon x y/n #solomon x you #solomon x reader #gn!mc #gn!reader

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epelletea · 1 year

Text

TWST Dorm Leader reacts to you having Ridiculously Long Hair

A/n: Im listening to the Rapunzel soundtrack. Y’all know the drill time to write a headcanon based off it. I’m also running out of ideas so this is going to be quick and short. Also Merry Christmas to anyone who celebrates it! My gift to you!!

Context: Basically the Dorm Prefect has long hair like Rapaunzel.

Includes: Riddle Rosehearts Azul Ashengrotto Vil Schoenheit

♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡

Riddle Rosehearts

He knew your hair was long…

But he didn’t think it was this long.

You usually always had it braided up in one big braid and it practically dragged behind you wherever you walked.

He was the one who suggested to help you wash your hair because since it was dragging behind you in the floor it was getting quite dirty.

Watching you unravel your hair from you braid and seeing more hair come fall out of it… it was quite a fascinating sight to see.

How do you managed to do your hair everyday? Especially by yourself!

He suggested that you should perhaps cut it so it can make your life more easier.

Quite surprised at your sudden deny, he sighs knowing that there will be no used in trying to persuade you. He decided to help you out.

With only two of you the process of washing was going to be a long one. So he ordered Ace and Deuce to come over and help using the washing a sort of punishment for them earlier for breaking the rules.

After a few tangles, whining , complaining and even more de-tangling. You all managed to get it done!

Riddle decided to give you a schedule on when your next wash day should be so the next time you do it he can come over and help and use another of his unlucky students that needed punishment.

♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡

Azul Ashengrotto

At first he didn’t understand what was taking you so long to finish your hair.

You had promised to meet up with Azul as the Monster Lounge and well. It’s been 30 minutes now and you haven’t appeared yet.

So obviously he sent Jade and Floyd to go retrieve you but when they suddenly come back empty handed and wide eyed at the sight they saw. He had to go check it out himself.

Opening the door, he was immediately greeted by a long trail of hair that lead all the way upstairs to your room.

Was… all of this.. your hair?

Now he knows what was taking you so long. You were basically brushing out an entire ocean of hair.

He decided to cut you some slack for being late for your meeting with him.

He suggested on cutting your hair but you refused profusely and asked him to just help you braid it back up.

He agreed to help speed up your process. Getting Jade and Floyd in to help along with some of the students he had made contracts with to help you out.

It did speed the process up but it did take the entire day.

He still thinks it would be better off if you just cut your hair. But he decided to wait until the opportunity was right and perhaps.. make a deal out of it. Maybe he could sell your hair? But alas that would be secret future plan for when the time comes.

♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡

Vil Schoenheit

He didn’t mind when you asked him to help brush your hair.

He assumed it looked difficult to maintain it due to the huge braid you wore.

But oh my…

This was extremely long.

Oh he’s going to need all hands on deck for this. He had his work cut out for him.

He called a emergency dorm meeting getting all most of the Pomefieore students to help out.

How were you able to manage this all by yourself?! He’s completely in shock and even impressed you have some dedication to keep your hair this long.

Not only that. You kept it in such good condition. It was soft, silky and quite easy to brush through. Little to no knots. He’s very proud of your management.

As much as he loves how long your hair is... He does recommend cutting it.

Obviously you refused the suggestion. But Vil wasn't going to take no as an answer especially if you had no reason behind it. He's already showing you many different hairstyles at different lengths.

Still refusing all of his suggestions. He sighs and leaves it alone for now.

The main priority right now is to brush and braid everything back into perfect order.

Once the session was done. He added little accessories to your hair to make it pop out more.

Despite the very long process, he quite enjoyed himself and having this little time with you.

Next time you need some help with some brushing, give him a call. He’ll gladly come help out again if he has the time.

♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡

#twisted wonderland #twst wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #disney #twisted wonderland x reader #twst fanfic #twst headcanons #twst imagines #headcanon #writing #vil schoenheit #riddle rosehearts #azul ashengrotto #twst

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munsonsreputation · 10 months

Note

ok, ok, envision it, #4 taylor prompt:

steve harrington; i wish you would

congrats on reaching that milestone love! 🫶🏻💖

elizabeth!!!!

my apologies that it took me so long to get to your request 😭😭 i hope i was still able to do it justice and i hope you love it!!

"i wish you would" is one of my fave tracks off 1989 and im so ready for the rerecord of it!! it's also sooo steve harrington encoded -- i hope you like my twist of angsty fluffiness!!!

It was 2AM — too late of a time for either of you to be awake right now.

But Steve was on the other side of the door.

And you were also on the other side of the door.

Just an old wooden door separating the two of you but no one daring to make the first move and open it all because it came down to one thing—pride.

You and Steve had a hell of a lot of pride, which often led to stupid arguments over the dumbest things. Usually, the fight would resolve in a matter of minutes, if not maybe hours. Arguments never exceeded days or weeks—that was until now.

It was safe to say that outside your relationship, you each had lives consisting of managing a VHS store and yours filled with busy days at college completing a very stressful internship. The only time the two of you would get to kick back and relax is when you came home to each other. Spending the winding days in bed or lazily making dinner before falling asleep in each other arms on the couch.

Either way, it was both your and Steve’s preferred way of living.

That is until life got a bit too real and hectic, leading the two of you to spend less time together and more time on different schedules.

Family Video had incorporated a new tracking system which caused Steve to need to stay back later, trying to work through the stupid software so that the opening shift didn’t call him the next morning complaining about it not working.

Your internship was taking a toll on you mentally, requiring you to get up earlier than usual and head to campus in order to get work done before the day ended. Your colleague in the program had totally ghosted you, leaving you to pick up the slack when you weren’t quite sure how much of it you could carry alone.

By the time Steve got home, you were already asleep.

And by the time he woke up you were already gone.

The place you two shared didn’t even feel like a home anymore. Just simply a place where you two were in passing of each other before going off to live completely closed off lives. Suddenly, the energy just shifted, as if the two of you were now a crooked love with no idea where this was headed.

It was brutal for both of you, but of course it was always easier to blame each other instead of figuring out how to work past it. It didn’t help that the both of you were quick with your words, always biting back at one another with insults that neither of you really meant, just being used in the moment to deflect.

It blew up last week when you and Steve had both woken up late. The home phone blaring with calls from Family Video and Robin paging Steve every second. The alarm clock in your bedroom ringing sharply jolting the two of you awake.

Maybe it was the morning grumpiness combined with the exhaustion you two were facing, but either way it resulted in an early morning argument that was like a train running off the tracks.

“When’s the last time we even had dinner together?” You asked sharply as you combed your hair in the bathroom mirror.

Steve lifted his head after he spat out the toothpaste, glaring at you in the reflection. “It’s not my fault that by the time I get home you’re already passed out on the couch. What do you want me to do? Haul your half asleep body into the kitchen and force you to make spaghetti with me?”

You rolled your eyes, throwing your comb back into the drawers, slamming it shut as you walked away from him, though he was hot on your heels, still going on.

“Or wait do you want me to take you to Enzo’s so you can sleep in a booth while I eat never ending breadsticks?”

He watched you fling open the closet doors, grabbing a jacket and throwing it over your outfit, before you stared pointedly at him, “You’re such a fucking dick, Steven!”

“Oh, so I’m the dick now? How about the last time we had an actual conversation with each other that wasn’t just hi, hello, and bye?”

You brushed past him, bending to pick up your backpack and sling it over your shoulder. He reached into the closet, grabbing his vest and throwing it on before following you down the hallway and into the living room.

“Seems like we’re having one right now.” You muttered, grabbing your keys on the coffee table.

“Sure does,” He sighed, reaching for his own car keys.

That morning the two of you went your separate ways, starting off the day on a bad foot with nothing but hatred. But the two of you could never ever hate each other.

That wasn’t what your love was.

It was never formed from hate or thrived off of it.

It was supposed to be the kind that was always understanding and working together, but that was a standard that you knew you and Steve just weren’t capable of all the time.

The two of you were bringing less than a hundred percent to the table combined. There had to be some kind of compromise, a way for it to be settled, but of course, this was just something that was going to get dragged on until you both felt like putting your pride aside and taking the first step.

That fight was the catalyst that led the two of you here. Still standing on the other side of the door—your shared bedroom door that is.

For the past week, Steve was out on the couch while you occupied the bedroom. Not that you kicked him out or banned him from sleeping in bed with you, but you had gotten home the night after the fight and he was already home, knocked out asleep on the couch.

So you left him there, and since then that’s where he slept.

You couldn’t say you felt good about it because you didn’t. His back was probably all sorts of fucked up from cramming himself to sleep somewhat comfortably on that couch. And you had certainly missed his presence beside you in the middle of the night.

Steve didn’t know why he kicked himself out, probably just so you could both get some space and cool off, but he hadn’t meant for it to go on for this long. He missed kissing your forehead goodnight when he finally got home, and he certainly missed the way you’d do the same when you had to leave in the morning.

Right now, it just felt like a lot of yearning for one another because neither of you could remember what you were fighting for in the first place.

For pride?

For ego?

For what?

All you both wanted to do was just give each other the tightest hug and longest kiss because you missed each other that much.

You wanted to cry to him, to tell him that your stupid internship was driving you insane and all you really wanted was for him to hold you and tell you everything was going to be ok.

Steve wanted to vent to you over how stupid that damn tracking system was and how it was driving him up the walls and all he really needed right now was your encouragement to keep going.

He was probably asleep.

You were probably asleep.

Maybe it could wait until morning?

If either of you opened the door to see the other sleeping, it would just make you both want to turn back around and run from actually waking the other to apologize. It was best to just run back under the blankets and wait until you were both awake.

But honestly, the both of were just too exhausted and missing each other to even be mad anymore.

Fuck it…this couldn’t wait and neither of you was going to let it drag on.

“Baby,”

“Babe,”

The two of you stared at each other dumbfounded as if you were ghosts, but it didn’t last long as Steve quickly wrapped his arms around your back, pulling your body into his as you draped your arms around his neck, gluing yourself to him.

“I missed you.” You murmured into the juncture of his jaw and neck.

He could feel the heat of your breath fanning against his skin, a trickle of tears following suit only making him hold you tighter.

“I missed you more…and I’m sorry for being a dick.” He said, breathing in the smell of your hair and he whispered into it.

You sniffled, shaking your head the best you could in his hold, before he loosened, allowing you to look up at him through your watery eyes.

“I’m sorry too…I didn’t mean to take it out on you. I was just so stressed and I missed you too much to tell you how I was really feeling and I—”

He smiled softly at you, letting his thumb brush your tears away as he shook his head, “I did the same, baby. I just wished we didn’t solve it that morning…it would’ve prevented whatever the fuck happened last week.”

You laughed quietly, nodding your head in agreement. “I know. I wished we would have.”

“We can now.” Steve suggested, holding your face in your hands.

You smiled, sniffling once more before letting one of your hands rest on his cheek, “Yeah we can.”

Your lips finally connected after what seemed like a lifetime away. A reminder that while the love you and Steve shared wasn’t always picture perfect, it was certainly something that you both were always going to come back to.

You were each other’s person.

The other half you wanted to go to with all of life’s joys and upsets.

Together.

Sure, maybe you both pushed each other’s buttons way too easily, but it was the love that made the two of you come rushing back to each other.

Because when it mattered and came down to it, you and Steve could never live without each other — no matter the distance or even the stupid internship or job you each had.

Right here and right now, it was all good.

let me know what you think: reblogs, tags, comments, and likes are greatly appreciated!!!

leave a comment and let me know if want to be added to my taglist!!

taglist: @translatemunson @kennedy-brooke @manda-panda-monium @tvserie-s-world @givemeth @steveharringtonswife @astolenkiss @loving-and-dreaming @awkotaco24 @engenelxver @elfiaaaa @pbs-theundeadmaggot

#munsonsreputation #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington angst #steve harrington fic #steve harrington blurb #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve x y/n #steve harrington #steve stranger things #steve harrington x taylor swift #taylor swift x stranger things #kay's answered requests 💌#stranger things imagines #stranger things imagine #stranger things x you #stranger things x reader

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bubblesxo · 19 days

Note

i dont know if you will see this but i am a big fan of your g!bruce meets the batfam!!!! I literally have tumblr just for this series (and now that I’ve tried it im beginning to love it ngl) . Annyywaayy ive just read the new chapter and it’s so good!?? Like i am really excited for the next chapter!!!

Oh and I haven’t watched gotham ( im planning too ) but i sometimes mix the twins????? Like your explanations are good dont get me wrong but yk when your reading and you need to check which ones which? Yeah … and like i want to fix that idk how .do i just like memorize the twins personalitys??

also in this au is theres 2 jokers??????? I saw you once mention Jerome(?) being revived or something

ps .im that great at English sorry .

oh wow wow wow thank you so so much!! i'm really glad that you're enjoying my story so much! it really means a lot to me. <33 i think your english is good! but if you need/want me to clarify anything i say here, just let me know and i'll try to rephrase it for you!

okay, so in the Gotham tv show (this has spoilers for all 5 seasons, so read on if you're okay with that) the way that they approached writing the joker was actually really up in the air in the beginning. this is because they didn't have the rights to use the name "joker," and so fox (the company that made the show) planned on making a bunch of smaller characters in the show as a kind of easter egg as people who could be the joker or who resemble him in some way.

this changed when cameron monaghan (the actor for both jerome and jeremiah) guest starred in s1e16 "the blind fortune teller." in it, the character of jerome is introduced as a 17/18 year old boy who travels with the circus with his mother, who is a snake dancer. he is meant to be one of the aforementioned joker-like characters in the show and wasn't actually supposed to be included again after that episode, if i am not mistaken.

however, the viewers LOVED his performance and jerome came back in season two as a member of the maniax, a group of arkham inmates who were broken out of the asylum. i won't go too into detail about the actual plot, but in seasons two, three, and four, jerome shows up in at least a few different episodes with very memorable storylines each time.

it isn't until season four of the show that jeremiah is even revealed at all! jeremiah and jerome are identical twin brothers, however, jeremiah has been in hiding for years under the fake name "xander wilde" in an attempt to escape jerome, who wants to get revenge on him for lying to their mother about what he (jerome) did when they were children. basically, jeremiah lied to their mother (lila, who jerome is revealed to have killed in 1x16) that jerome tried to kill him, causing jeremiah to be sent away and be adopted by rich people and get to go to a well-funded private school where he could live out his best life as a child prodigy (which was jeremiah's end goal to this), whereas jerome was left behind in the circus that they lived at (haly's circus, the same one that dick grayson later was raised in before being adopted by bruce). during this time, jerome was horrifically abused by his mother, his uncle, and his mother's many romantic partners. this eventually caused him to crack, which creates the character we see in the show.

here's an easy way to remember the difference in their personalities:

in the standard american deck of cards, there are two jokers: one that is black and white and one that is in color. in this analogy, jeremiah is the black and white joker and jerome is the one in color.

this is jerome:

he's got a *very* boisterous personality. he's outgoing and charismatic and, of course, severely messed up in the head. he *enjoys* the pain he causes people and does it with little to no reservations. he thinks things through less thoroughly than jeremiah but jerome always has a plan and is actually quite smart. i couldn't do him the disservice of calling him the dumb twin, despite some points about jeremiah that i'll get back to later.

anyway, jerome has a grand plan for all of gotham: he believes that, fundamentally, everyone in the world is like him and is also at least a bit crazy inside. he wants everyone to tap into their inner selves and let themselves run free / go crazy. he successfully ensnares huge hoards of gothamites with his persuasive way of speaking and interesting flare to his words. he amasses a large cult following, all of whom are very similar to him in the sense that they all demonstrate similar signs of instability.

here's some more gifs of him.

jerome kind of invented the iconic "HAHAHA" signature joker laugh in the gotham universe, even though he isn't the one who goes on to become "mr. j" (gotham's version of the joker) in the end (that's jeremiah, though i have a lot to say about that).

jerome's always smiling, a genuinely creepy smile that throws people off at first but can be really scary once you know what you're looking at. he single handedly turns gotham into a madhouse on multiple occasions and is the one who basically spread the "crazy" to the general population (for short: genpop).

he's a classic cult leader in the sense that he can mesmerize a whole room with his magnetic presence but also will ruthlessly cut down any of his followers if they so much as upset him (or even if they're just being annoying or could have a greater purpose, like when he stabbed a follower in the gut to take their blood to draw a frowney-face on bruce).

that reminds me, another important thing to know about jerome is that he has an iconic stapled-on face! this is because he died once (in season two, though he came back to life for season three onwards) and one of his followers tried to revive him using some insider medical knowledge from doctor hugo strange (who is just... a whole thing. ew.). he thinks that he failed at doing this and steals jerome's face so that he can wear it on television in an attempt to control jerome's followers (spoiler: this doesn't work).

however, it turns out that jerome *was* revived from this, and he's pretty upset that some dude stole his face! so he uses a staple gun to re-attach it after he gets it back (and kills the guy who did it). his face is later punched off by jim gordon but reattached more properly during his time at arkham afterward (the carnival scene happened in season 3 and jerome came back with a kind-of healed face in season 4).

here's some gifs with jerome's messed up face!

jerome is the colorful joker because he's very much expressive. he lets out every single emotion he feels---unless he's trying to deceive someone, at which point he is a phenomenal liar. (in season 1 when we are first introduced to him, he almost successfully gets away with the murder of his own mother.)

jerome is funny and laughs a lot and is *loud.* he's also absolutely insane and incredibly cruel, as well as impulsive, but he's able to curb his instincts if he feels like he can pull off a big plan.

jerome is a showman by nature. he's a product of the circus and it *shows.* everything he does is like an act, something that is acknowledged by many people in the show.

he's a funky lil dude. totally crazy, but kind of adorable at times.

he's also SEVERELY traumatized from his horrible past and has huge trust issues.

so, yeah. jerome is colors! remember that.

unfortunately, pookie died in season 4 and doesn't seem to have been revived this time </3

now, onto his twin brother jeremiah!

jeremiah is, at least at first, presented to be the complete opposite of jerome. he's calm, collected, and seemingly sane---at least at first. bruce trusts him at first and he even befriends him for a period of time before jeremiah betrays him.

jeremiah is a genius engineer, and, when looking into his past, we can assume that he was a child prodigy. he worked with thomas wayne before he died and designed the wayne plaza building under the aforementioned alias "xander wilde." he also locked himself in an underground maze for ~6 years (i believe?) and never went outside, instead sending his proxy (ecco) out to act in his place during business transactions.

as seen here, jeremiah seems to be the complete opposite of showboat jerome:

when we first meet jeremiah, we are told that he is totally sane, but we can later see that this is not the complete truth.

i'll use jeremiah's project as a metaphor for this. jeremiah was building a set of generators which could make energy harvesting and usage much less expensive and much more bio-friendly (if i remember correctly). bruce promised to fund his project and jeremiah accepts his offer quickly.

after jerome dies in season 4 after kidnapping bruce and jeremiah, he left behind a concoction of chemicals that seemingly make jeremiah go insane. this is a play on joker toxin / joker venom from the greater dc universe.

however, after jeremiah reveals his new self

he says that the spray did not actually change who he actually is, but just gave him an altered appearance. there are a lot of fan theories about this, but the general consensus is that the spray likely lowered his inhibitions, which gave him the kick needed to reveal his true self.

even his complexion resembles the joker he corresponds with: black and white. he is the black and white joker because he isn't as expressive, is way more calculated, and is more cruel and less happy. even his skin is paper white.

here's some gifs of what he looks like after those "slight cosmetic changes" :

that looks a lot more like the joker we know and love today, right? bleach-pale skin, red painted lips, green hair. he's instantly recognizable as the stereotypical joker now.

remember when i mentioned the generators? let's go back to them. the entire time that the generators have been around, they've also been perfectly functional as powerful bombs. their ability to be used as bombs does not undermine the fact that they can also be used as generators, and both of these things were true at the same time *for the entire time they have existed.*

it is in this way that jeremiah's paradoxical nature has always existed. jeremiah is crafty, cunning, and absolutely vicious. he has no care or concern for human life in general and will sacrifice most people in his life if it means that he will get what he wants in the end.

this is shown both before and after the joker toxin in how he lied about jerome when they were children (which caused jerome to be heavily abused) and in how jeremiah willingly killed one of his most devoted and beloved followers, who was being ransomed, just because someone put him on hold and it was personally easier for him to just kill him than sit on hold on the phone for a while. (he also has a vicious streak, though, because he immediately moved the demolition of the bombs up to immediately once he was out of the blast zone because those people inconvenienced him.)

something that's important to realize about jeremiah is that he has an issue with being called crazy. jerome does, too, but he eventually comes to accept the term, almost like he's reclaiming it, but jeremiah is *violently* against it. that's one of the things that set him off in the previously mentioned interaction.

both jeremiah and jerome are obsessed with bruce, though in different ways. jeremiah sees bruce first as his best friend and later as the "brother [he] could never have, that jerome could never be." jerome just sees bruce as a particularly entertaining and interesting kid who he enjoyed tormenting who he would eventually kill.

anyway, despite jeremiah being crazy (or, depending on who you ask, just less inhibited) he is still crazy smart and calculating. he thinks through everything before he does it and his master plans seem like they go on forever with 10000 parts to them and backups and contingencies galore.

the only time that jeremiah ever really seems to break out of this is when he's fighting with bruce. while he still does have a greater point to make or something he's trying to accomplish, he thinks through things less with him and shows his impulsive and rash side a bit more, which is interesting because jerome showed his thoughtful and contemplative side when faced with the obstacle that is bruce thomas wayne. i love parallels and contrasts, especially in these two characters! i just love writing about twins, they're always so interesting.

some important things about their relationship to one another:

even though jerome kidnapped jeremiah and seemingly strapped a bomb to his neck (after breaking into his house and telling him that he would kill him), jerome doesn't seem to actually want jeremiah to die. instead, as we later find out, he wants jeremiah to unleash his true self and carry on his legacy of chaos and cruelty in gotham for him after his death. this is why he left behind the laughing gas for him.

(the fact that jerome thought to do all of that shows that he really was a smart character and that he truly did understand the world around him well. he knew exactly what would happen in the event of his death, i.e. bruce offering to fund jeremiah's work and jeremiah accepting, as is shown when jerome has the joker venom in a present box which claims to be sent from wayne enterprises.)

jeremiah *hates* to be compared to jerome in any way, as he thinks of himself as "the face of true sanity." he actually has an entire notebook full of jerome's ideas, which he says he will outdo and perfect, thus defeating his brother in the end, which i don't know if i agree with, but whatever.

i think that it's because of the reputation that jerome got at the circus. jeremiah wanted people to think of him as better than jerome and as the perfect child, which he succeeded at. to him, jerome is synonymous with crazy, which i've already mentioned that he hates to be called.

okay, just one more part to talk about. the infamous, much anticipated Mr. J!!!

in the series finale, it is revealed that jeremiah, after falling into a vat of acid, is horribly disfigured and pretends to be in a vegetative state for the whole ten years that bruce is on his quest to improve himself before becoming batman. he does this as a way of waiting for bruce to come back to gotham so he can continue to be obsessed with him.

however, though this is jeremiah, it seems that he has actually gone through immense mental trauma sometime during this time (perhaps during his fall into a vat of chemicals), which has caused him to sort of lose his sense of self. he once says that there was "another me" [another him] once, which is, of course, referring to jerome. this implies that jeremiah sees jerome as an extension of himself, almost, and almost makes it seem as if mr. j is a whole different entity of his own.

hopefully this clears everything up a bit for you!! let me know if you have any questions or want to know anything specific about the characters and i will be glad to oblige!

thank you once again for being so kind as to leave this ask!! it really made my day. thank you for enjoying my fic, i hope it continues to live up to expectations. i have a lot of fun things planned (and i am very happy that you decided to look into these characters more, because they are actually extremely important to the plot as we get more into the actual story!). <33

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gretavangroupie · 1 year

Text

Bloom

18+ ONLY. MINORS DNI!!

Warnings: None for now ;)

Chapter One

“She blooms wild and burns bright” - Butterflies Rising

Chapter Two

It had officially been three weeks since you moved to Nashville. Your best friend Amelia had finally convinced you to move in and be her roommate after many months of trying.

You visited her quite a bit as it was and figured you are still young and since you work remotely you had nothing to lose. It was the first time you had lived away from your family and that scared you, but in good way. You would have to learn to rely only on yourself knowing that there was no one coming to your rescue. Well other than Amelia.

Amelia had been your best friend since the 3rd grade. She was the fun and free spirit to your quiet, homebody. She was the sun to your moon. Vastly different but bonded through life.

Amelia not only had a different personality than you did, she was also more attractive than you, or so you and every boy in high school always thought. She was the one with the gorgeous boyfriends while you were always the one in the background. You didn’t mind though. You learned from her. Mistakes and successes, and knew what to look out for.

Amelia had spent much of this past year single, enjoying her new life in Nashville. You wished you could contain even an ounce of her carefree and outgoing spirit. Part of you thinks that it’s why you finally decided to move to Nashville.

She had always called you “penny girl” because in third grade you found a penny on the playground and gave it to her. From then on you became best friends. She called you Pen so often that sometimes you weren’t even sure if she remembered your actual name.

You hear the apartment door unlock, and realize she is home from work. It’s around 5:40, and you know she gets off right at 5:00 but Nashville traffic can be rough to say the least.

“Pen? Are you here?” Amelia said almost yelling.

“Hey! Im in here, as usual…” you replied trying to match her tone.

You spent a lot of time in the third bedroom which you had both decided to turn into a home office for you. Working from home was really nice, but you also felt a bit isolated. It was hard for you to make friends this way, but you figured Amelia’s friends would just become yours too.

A few seconds later she flitters into the room.

“Hey Penny girl how was your day? Traffic was a nightmare.” She said running her two sentences together, almost incoherently.

“Same as usual, too much work, not enough day.” You replied dully.

“Well, what do you say we make something good for dinner and then play on Raya all night?” She asks.

“Raya?” You reply.

“Uh, yeah? The dating app? It’s the one for creatives and influencers. You kind of have to have a big following to be invited to use it. I only have it because of my work social media account. It’s invite only so it kind of weeds out the weirdos. It’s so much fun to look through all the gorgeous men around us.” she says smiling questionably.

Nashville is definitely a hotspot as far as single, beautiful men go.

“Are you looking for a boyfriend? I thought you were enjoying the single life!” you said with air quotes.

“Ugh pen don’t be a party pooper” she said with an eye roll.

“Okay, okay, I’m not. Let’s do it.”

“Yay! I am so excited! Maybe we will even find you a man!” She said excitedly.

“Oh! No, Amelia, I just moved here, I need to settle in still!” You replied, frowning at her.

“We’ll see” she said with a smirk.

It was just past 9 o’clock, we made a delicious dinner and had polished off a bottle of red wine that she had bought for me when I moved in, to celebrate our new adult lives in Nashville.

We were perched on the couch sitting right next to each other. She had her phone in her hands, holding it right between us, and we were swiping left and right on Raya.”

Of course, half of the men she swiped right on were a match already. You both laughed out loud every single time she had a match and made up imaginary scenarios on how the guy would inevitably say or do something that would make you wish you had never swiped right in the first place.

You of course knew a gorgeous man when you saw one, but you weren’t into the overtly masculine types that she was into. After reading a few of the profiles out you realized that a majority of these men were aspiring musicians trying to make a name for themselves in Nashville.

She saw the look on your face when you made the realization.

“They are all like that babe. Every one of them. My advice? Stay away. They are all trouble.” She warned.

“Oh, they aren’t really my type. I don’t think I could ever date someone like that, you know?” You say, looking at her.

She turns up the corner of her mouth, “you never know Pen… you need to make yourself a profile! Oh! Can we, can we please?!” She exclaimed.

“I don’t know Amelia…I don’t have a big following or an invite..” you say with eyes begging her to drop it.

“I can send 1 invite a year! I pick now, and once you swipe through a few guys it will show you more people like what you’re interested in!” She says hopefully.

“Okay, I guess if you’re sure you want to use your invite on me, but it’s not serious and Im definitely not going on any dates.” you say sternly.

About 30 minutes later Amelia loudly exclaimed “It’s perfect!” A cue that your profile was done. She had taken it upon herself to fill out your details, and hand selected what she thought were your best photos. She had always been good at things like this, where it would take you ages to decide. After looking over her selections and making a few minor “about me” changes, you decided that it was good enough. This was just for fun anyways.

The main profile picture was a photo of you from back home, standing in a lush field of over grown weeds and wildflowers. You are smiling but not looking at the camera, just past it. You had on your favorite dress of that summer, a white bohemian Free People number that you paid way too much for. You look happy and carefree, two things you weren’t sure you actually were.

The second photo was a photo of you with Amelia at a concert a few months ago. You had driven down to see her and she roped you in to going to a show. Your hair was down and wavy and you had very minimal makeup on. You hardly wore make up as it is. You aren’t the best at it, so the more simple the better.

The final photo was a photo of you visiting Sedona, Arizona. You were standing on the peak of a mountain, what was arguably the most beautiful view you had ever seen in your life. Decked out in hiking gear and a large backpack, you looked happy and at peace.

Your “About Me” section read:

“Nashville Transplant”, 25, Artist, and a few of your interests and hobbies.

You both laugh a little and swipe through a few guys, none catching your interest just yet.

“Oh, well. Thanks Amelia, I think I am going to head to bed, that wine hit me harder than I thought. I am exhausted.”

“Night pen!”she said.

You do your night time routine, shower, brush your teeth, do your extensively long skin care routine that Amelia has forced you to start doing, you put your pajamas on and climb into your perfect fluffy bed.

You can’t help this nagging feeling that you should just swipe through a few more profiles before you fall asleep.

You reach over and grab your phone off of the nightstand and open Raya. Again you’re met with countless men who just aren’t your type, buff, chiseled and stunningly hot no doubt, just not for you. You didn’t feel like you belonged with someone who looked like that.

After about 10 minutes you find a handful of cute guys and swipe right nervously.

The first, a tall average build guy named Kyle, with blonde shaggy hair, blue eyes and works as a web developer.

The next an average height, moderately fit brunette baseball player with green eyes named Davis.

The last guy is named Josh. He seems on the shorter side, something that has never bothered you. He has brown eyes, curly brown hair and a stunning smile, however it says he is a musician. You take what Amelia had told you into account, but you realize that in Nashville everyone calls themselves a musician.

You bite the bullet and see what happens. You probably won’t even match with these guys to begin with. After a few more minutes of swiping and a few more cute ones swiped right on, you decide to go to bed.

You shoot up suddenly when you hear an alert on your phone. You glance at your alarm clock. 2:27AM.

You look at the offending message on your phone.

~ Congratulations! You Have A New Match! ~

You groan, damn Amelia making you get that app. You silence your phone and fall back asleep.

Next thing you know your alarm clock is going off, 7:00AM comes early. You lie in bed checking twitter for the latest news for a few minutes before you get up.

You slowly make your way to the kitchen to make coffee for Amelia and yourself. She’s already been up for an hour getting ready for work. She does the whole nine yards. Hair, make up, perfect outfit and doing it all before coffee. You wonder how she does it.

You deliver her cup to her in her bathroom and say your good mornings before walking back to your room.

About 20 minutes later Amelia is leaving for work and you are almost done getting ready for the day.

You spend most of the day completely over whelmed with work. You work as a virtual assistant and spend most of your time calling to confirm appointments, schedule meetings or order whatever item your boss needs that day. It’s a very fulfilling job that only someone extremely organized could handle.

Around 3 o’clock you hear your phone ding from the other side of your desk.

~You Have A New Message on Raya!~

You had completely forgot about your 2 in the morning match. You quickly open the app to see who you matched with. Josh. You click on the picture of his face, and it opens the message which reads:

Josh: I am so glad that we matched, you seem lovely! Was that photo of you taken in Sedona by chance?

You take a minute and scroll through the rest of his photos, you hadn’t looked at them before, just his profile photo. As you scroll you see a photo of him standing with what looks to be his friends all huddled up together. One of the guys in the photo could easily pass at his twin and you figure they must be related.

The next photo is of him but it looks to be a professionally shot photo, and you tell your self it must be related to the “musician” detail of his profile. In every photo he is wearing a smile that is one of the most genuine you’ve ever seen. You can tell he has a kind soul.

You think for a minute what you want to say back to him.

You: Hi! I am also glad we matched, I didn’t think I would get any matches to be honest. My friend made me sign up with her one invite. Yes it is in Sedona, good eye. Have you been?

A message jumps back within a minute, almost as if he was waiting for your reply.

Josh: Well I, for one, am I am very glad that she made you. Of course you are going to get matches, you are beautiful. I have been to Sedona once or twice. Do you get to travel much?

You blush a deep pink, and your chest heats up. You weren’t sure you could still do that. It had been a very long time since you had received a compliment from someone who wasn’t a friend or family.

You: That is really sweet of you. Thank You. I travel a normal amount, not as much as I wish I could though. How about you?

You try to keep the banter as light as possible, not revealing too much about yourself too soon.

Josh: I would say that I am afforded the luxury of traveling more than the average person. While I do love traveling, usually for work, and sometimes there is no greater feeling than sleeping in the peace of your own home. Speaking of home, what brought you to Nashville?

At this point you have completely forgotten about the work that you are supposed to be doing. After reading his message you decide that you will answer him back after you finish your work tasks for the day.

Those last two hours went by extraordinarily slow for a Friday, and you couldn’t help it that your mind kept wandering back to this mystery guy, Josh. You kick yourself for letting this happen since you promised yourself this was just for fun and that you weren’t going to take it seriously.

You decide to message him back and explain how your best friend convinced you to move in with her and how the rest is history. You and Josh message back and forth for quite a while exchanging questions and getting to know each other a little better.

Your last message to him was sent 6:17PM, and he usually replied to you fairly quickly since you began chatting this afternoon. You asked about his family and what brought him to Nashville. Two or three hours pass and you continually check your phone but, there is nothing there. You and Amelia finish up dinner and you suggest that you watch a movie to take your mind off of it. Throwing your phone onto your bed, you walk back to the living room and watch the entirety of ‘Legally Blonde’, Amelia’s suggestion of course.

After the movie had ended you both decide to turn in for the night. You walk back to your room, pretending that you’re not dying to check your phone to see if you have any new messages from Josh. You pick it up and turn it over. You have three messages from Josh.

Josh: My brothers and I recently moved here from Michigan. We all live pretty much walking distance from each other so it is really nice.

Josh: I am so sorry to leave you hanging earlier, my phone died right as I got to the studio, and I think one of my brothers must have taken my charger out of my car, the one time I need it of course.

Josh: I know this seems forward but would you like to exchange numbers?

His last message was sent well over 45 minutes from the previous two and an hour had passed since this last message. You thought about how you wanted to respond. Of course you wanted to give him your number, but you didn’t want to seem too eager either. Begrudgingly, you decided that you needed to ask Amelia. You slowly walked to her door and knocked quietly.

“Come In!” She said.

“Hey, I have a… question for you, but please don’t laugh at me.” You said embarrassingly.

“Oh my god what?!” She exclaimed.

“So I matched with someone on Raya and…”

“I KNEW IT!” She interrupted. “You were checking your phone all night! I knew something was up. Oh my gosh tell me, what’s going on? Who is it! Show me!” She bursted out.

“No way, I am not showing you anything yet. I just need your advice on how to respond to this message” you say sternly.

You explain the situation and read out his last few messages, hoping that she would know what to do. After all she does this all the time.

“You need to message him back like, right now! Give him your number! It’s obvious you kinda like him Pen, and he is clearly feeling you right back! What is the worst thing that could happen, I mean you can always block him if you need to” she says. She puts her hand on your shoulder to reassure you that it’s not as big of a deal as it feels. You thank her, say goodnight, and gather up your courage to type a response back to him. Its nearly midnight at this point so you’re sure he won’t see it until the morning.

You: Siblings, gotta love em I guess. Don’t worry about it, I had a movie night tonight anyways. Sure we can exchange numbers!

You type in your number and hit send, heart beating out of your chest. Why do you feel this way?

You set your phone down and do your usual night time routine. It is late so you try to hurry so that you can still try to get 6 or 7 hours. After you finish up you get in bed and turn off your lamp. 15 minutes is your new record. Just as you begin to get drowsy you hear your phone vibrate on your nightstand.

Your heart begins to beat rapidly at the realization that it’s probably him since your friends and family know not to text you this late. You pick up your phone and on the screen is a message from an unknown contact.

Unknown: Hey pretty girl, I’m sorry, I know its late but I just wanted you to have my number too. Rest well.

You could have died right then and there. Pretty girl?! You’re fairly positive that no one in your life has called you such a cute name before. You quickly text back.

You: Thank you, you too. With a smiley emoji.

You set your phone back on the nightstand and doze off dreaming of what could be.

#josh kiszka #fanfic #greta van fleet #greta van fic #greta van fleet fan fiction #greta van fleet smut #greta van smut #josh kiszka smut #gvf smut #gvf fic #josh kiszka fanfiction

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safety-pin-punk · 8 months

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Hi!

I’m sort of still getting into punk and learning about everything. You’re blog has been really helpful with resources and everything. Plus your cool.

Okayyy, now my question. I’m a junior in high school and I want to go to college. Pursue further education and all of that stuff. Learn more about the world and critical thinking. But I don’t want to pay a ton of money to a bunch of old ivy dudes.

What’s the right direction to go in for this? Is college a good option if I want to learn? What schools are good places? Where do I learn more about this stuff?

Sorry if this is a lot. Thank you though!

Hey! Thank you for your kindness!!

First off, Im going to stress that you are a junior and you have PLENTY of time to think about this. So dont stress too much right now.

Secondly, I want to preface this with the simple fact of college isnt for everyone. There are SO many ways to survive and thrive in life without it. And thats okay, good even! That being said, this post is just gonna be me talking about college. Under the cut of course

OKAY! So, is college a good option if you want to learn? My answer is yes! I learned a lot at college, both inside and outside my classes. I learned a lot of life lessons, I met people from all over the country (and a few international students). And I learned how to challenge my own beliefs and try to see things from perspectives that I didnt even know could exist prior to college.

But Im sure you were referring to the educational aspect. And truth be told, this heavily depends on both your school and you. Some examples: My school had a phenomenal chemistry program. You couldnt walk out of that program without having learned things if you made it through. But my school also had a very poor fine arts program. And to be quite blunt, I often wondered why any art student chose to stay. But going even further, it depends a lot on the individual as well. I was admittedly not the best student. I wasnt that interested in lab or research compared to some of my classmates, nor did I apply myself as much. And the difference is clear to see when others could rattle off different solvents and what reactions would occur from memory and I would be sitting there dumbfounded.

Next question, what schools are good places? Again, that fully depends on what you want to go to school for. But I’ll tell you what I did and how I chose my school. When I was a junior in high school, I found a list of every 4 year university in my state (I knew I wanted to stay in state, but you can do this for wherever you want to go). I then went through and gave each school a ranking out of 5 (based on vibes, chemistry program, education program, cost, and surrounding area). Once I had it narrowed down to only a few schools, those were the ones I toured. And I chose where to send applications from there.

Though, I cant stress enough how beneficial community college can be. A lot of people get all their gen eds out of the way either before they enroll in a university or over summers. Doing this will save you money and time. Literally not a single person on a university campus would look down on you for this. If anything, they will praise you for being smart. I took a few classes over the summers between semesters just to get them out of the way (and also avoid certain professors).

Where to learn more? Google. Google schools near you. Google schools where you want to go. Google schools ranked nationally in xyz. Google affordable universities. Google universities that have good financial aid programs. Just google so many things. From there, spend time exploring university websites. Read about their community and their academic programs. See if they have virtual tours uploaded. Check out their student activity board social medias to see what it would be like to be there as a student. Sign up for tours. Do an overnight visit if you can!! Or even, just walk around the campus without a tour guide

Best of luck to you on your academic journey! Hope I was a little helpful here

#mail tag

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nipahnan · 2 months

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realistically , how is it like living in japan ? i am a POC so our experiences would definitely be different .. but are you fluent in the language ? how is everyday life for you ? do you have a job there or remote work overseas in the US ? sorry for all the questions !! i'm hoping to move to japan myself eventually . ♡

Aaah I’m so happy to finally get a question, I’ve been waiting to be able to ramble about myself on here thehe :) This is gonna be a long one, so I’m sorry in advance, but I want to try and be as transparent as possible!♡

I don’t live in Tokyo, yet I have a bunch of friends who live there and who talk about their experiences very openly, so I’ll also talk about things they went through and that they observed. In general people of course need to make sure not to romanticize a country. Japan is a country like any other and a lot of people forget that. I’ve been interested in Japan since I was around 11 years old and I came to Japan knowing about it’s good and bad sides because I did research about it for years. So coming here with very realistic expectations and not thinking I’m gonna live in a fairytale, I’d say it’s great so far! :)

Of course I’ve only been here for 1 year now, but it’s definitely so much better than living in Germany. It just suits my lifestyle and general personal behavior so much better. I never felt connected to people in Germany with the way they behave and so I’m having it way easier here. I definitely aim to obtain permanent residence status one day because I really believe that I want to enjoy my life here. I definitely feel like foreigners who move to Tokyo have it so much easier than people who move somewhere else in Japan, because there’s so much more English writing or people who try and speak English since it’s full of tourists too, so it’s easier to navigate without learning any Japanese. When I first landed in Japan I literally only spoke English and I was kinda shocked since I didn’t expect that at all tbh. I actually know a few people who have lived in Japan for years without learning any Japanese and it kinda baffles me sometimes lol. I definitely recommend coming here with at least some basic Japanese and then trying to gradually learn more, that’s how I did it and it’s been working very well. Im not fluent at all yet, but im able to have conversations and I’m learning every day and that’s what counts :)

I also know a lot of people who realized how fake Tokyo can be and decide to move away from it quickly because of them getting mental problems or their mental problems worsening, considering how awful mental help in Japan is. They’re feeling very lonely, overworked, and even get bullied. It definitely depends on the workplace of course. But as long as you make sure to make genuine friendships and realize that Japanese people can be extremely blunt and that their behavior is overall quite different, you’ll have no problem with them. There’s a lot of rules and there’s no way you’re always able to remember them, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Definitely try and act according to how they act and you will be welcomed with open arms I’d say :)

I currently don’t have a job because I got hit with a very hard illness right after 3 months of living here which resulted in me almost dying that I’m still recovering from. So I didn’t have time to work with how many times I was in the hospital, yet I’m having an interview soon and I’ll hopefully be able to start work in the next month if everything works out :)

I have a spouse visa after finally marrying my partner that I’ve been with for 4 years, so that made immigrating here way easier for me of course and I definitely realize that I was very lucky to get here that way. I only had to wait 15 minutes and immediately had my visa, meanwhile a lot of people say how long they had to wait because they had a different visa and of course because the Tokyo immigration is so much fuller than the one in Nagoya.

Everyday life is very chill, it’s very quiet so as a person who is very easily irritated and overwhelmed by loud noises it’s so much better for my mental health. yet again I don’t live in Tokyo and in a very tiny town (13.11 km² big lmao) so I have to drive to Nagoya for some of the „fun“ parts.

Now for some of the VERY annoying parts.

Stares. People stare at you ALL the time. Even tho I’m white, they love staring at me like I’m some alien because I have blonde hair and stick out like a sore thumb here in my city where there’s such a tiny amount of foreigners(basically 0 lol) I’ve noticed that people usually say that old people are kind of rude to them and how nice young people are, yet for me it’s the complete opposite at times. Old people, especially old women, love randomly talking to me and are generally very nice to me. There’s this older lady who works at my local family mart and she is sooo nice to me, always giving me compliments and everything, she is so cute♡ Meanwhile young people love staring and making fun of me because they often think I don’t understand them. I get comments like „she looks cute but she’s kinda fat.“ „do you think she even understands Japanese?“ and they giggle all the time. Sometimes they also take pictures of me in the train and it feels very rude. As someone who never stood out in her hometown and always trying her best to not get any attention, it definitely hurts to suddenly hear comments like that and basically feeling like a zoo animal at times. Yet I knew this would happen so I was prepared for it and I know I just shouldn’t care about comments like that. Now idk how bad it is in Tokyo but I can imagine it’s not as awful since it’s way more diverse? Yet you still hear stories about how this also happens very often to POC and sometimes even white foreigners who just happen to have a different type of style. So it’s definitely something to keep in mind.

Also about the topic of getting called fat. Japanese people LOVE to call you fat in your face. As soon as you’re over 50kg no matter your height they will probably consider you fat. One time I had to state my weight at the hospital for a scan and the lady literally yelled „…kg???“ and then proceeded to giggle to her male coworker. Considering that coming from the hospital staff, it was definitely shocking. Especially since I was literally about to die that day? I was so shocked and felt so bad considering I gained 10kg during that time only due to steroid medication which I literally had no control over. So I’d definitely say it’s another thing to be prepared for.

Their clothing style is also pretty different from the west, you’ll see a lot of long skirts and blouses or sweaters. Tight fitting clothes or clothes showing of a lot of skin aren’t as common here and it definitely makes you stick out. One time I was wearing a tank top under a jacket and didn’t close the jacket all the way while going to get takeout and some school boys sitting at the table loudly made a comment about how giant my boobs are and didn’t stop staring and it made me insanely uncomfortable to which I immediately just closed my jacket. Most uncomfortable encounter I’ve ever had and made me stop wearing shirts that show cleavage lol.

Also there’s of course a lot of sexual harassment here, especially in Tokyo. There’s literally guys just staring at 🌽 that you can see in the reflection of the train window (I even saw that in person one time, absolutely insane) or just straight up jerkin off. They literally have posters at my train stations telling women to pay attention to their skirts because there could be someone taking pictures of your panties. So if you intend to wear short skirts you always have to wear shorts under it if you don’t want some pervert to take a panty shot of you. At this point they even have hidden cameras in their shoes which is just insane to me…

Overall, don’t believe most things those tiktok or YouTube videos from tourists tell you. They often times don’t have any knowledge about Japan or how it is to live here, often give misinformation or are just straight up romanticizing this country to the max. All my friends and me even absolutely hate these travel vloggers at this point because of how much bs they’re saying :,)

To sum it up: if you have enough knowledge about the country and the people, prepare yourself as much as possible and realize that it’s very different from what you’re probably used to, and most of all, that it’s just another country that you’ll be living in, you’ll definitely love it here! :)

I definitely could tell even more because I had so many crazy encounters already and so many cool places to talk about, but I think I’ve been talking long enough now :D

Hope my ramble was a bit helpful for you（╹◡╹）♡

#nipahnan #ramble #Personal #Q&A💕#live in Japan #Japan #living in Japan #q&a

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2braincellslz · 1 year

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Eddie or Billy with a southern reader who's teaching them to line dance, yes just yes

Southern Dance

Ship: Eddie Munson x Gn!reader

Desc: eddie is stubborn but weak to y/n. So, when y/n wants to teach him how to dance, he cant say no.

Not proofread.

Y/n grew up in the south. The whole nine yards sort of speaks. A small farm with many different kinds of farm animals. Some form of party during the weekends at the big red barn down the street. Horse riding. Mama's home cooked meal. And dancing.

Boy from Y/n's family loves dancing. At the parties, they were always the best on the floor. Line dance, square dance, swing, two steps, and a little bit of waltz. Y/n knew it all.

Their life was perfect. Y/n wouldn't trade it for the world. So, you can imagine their displuser when Y/n´s parents sold the farm, all the animals too, and moved into a trailer park. A bloody trailer park.

They had a house and a farm and friends, and now they live in a trailer park.

It wasn't all bad though, some people in the park were quite nice. They were very welcoming folk. Y/n mourned not being able to go to those parties, but Y/n still would take their free time to do a little shimmy in their (very small) room.

y/n liked the school. They liked how it didn't take hours to get there. Y/n liked their new friends that were quick to take in the new kid. Y/n liked the silly game they roped them into. y/n liked their time with their nabor, Max, who was trying to teach Y/n how to skate. But, most of all, Y/n adored that lovely Dm, as they called him.

Eddie Munson. A heavy metal enthusiast. A very creative guy. A very sweet man.

After about a week in school, Y/n started hitching rides from Eddie. He would ramble on about the going ons in the rock world or DMing or school while Y/n listened carefully.

On Fridays, when Eddies and Y/n´s gardens were both at work, they would crash at Eddie's trailer. Watching movies, eating snacks, what not. Sometimes, they would just chill out and listen to music on Eddie's bed.

Tonight was one of those Friday nights. Y/n was laying on Eddie's bed and Eddie was sitting on the floor.

¨wanna pick the next song?¨ Eddie asked, looking up at Y/n.

¨I have my own cassette with me, if you don't mind me playing that?¨ Y/n sat up, reaching over for their book bag. They grabbed it and unzipped the front pocket, pulling out a closet full of country dance music.

¨its not country, right?¨ eddie asked. He watched as Y/n stepped over him and squated infront of the speaker.

¨bluegrass.¨ Y/n corrected him.

Y/n pulled out the rock caset and replaced it with their music. Dance music quickly replaced the heavy metal.

¨Its is country!¨ Eddie groaned, flopping on the floor. ¨turn it off! My ears! Its killing my ears!¨

Y/n rolled their eyes, getting up and going over to Eddie. They stood over him with their hands on their hips. ¨get up, im going to teach you how to dance.¨

y/n had to pull Eddie up on his feet. Eddie flopped on to Y/n, leaning in to them.

¨you cant make me! It would break the code!¨

¨what code?¨

¨the code of metal! Im not allowed to enjoy country!¨

¨get up! Humor me a bit!¨

Eddie whined but stood up straight.

¨ok, now. Stand with your feet together and follow what i do.¨

Y/n steped out to the right, then crossed their leg behind the right one, taking another step. Y/n looked over to Eddie, watching his copy.

Y/n took another step then stood with their feet back together. Eddie copyed.

The pair repeated the steps back to the left.

Then a step forward. Then another step forward. Then another step forward with their left foot.

Y/n showed eddie the next step and Eddie followed to the best of his ability. There was a bit of stumbling, ofcoures, but the laughter and joy that filled the room made up for Eddies awful dancing skills.

They ran through the whole dance one or two more times, slowly getting faster with each attempt.

¨now, at tempo. Do you think you are ready?” y/n asked.

“I was born ready!” y/n rolled their eyes, turning up the music.

Eddie and Y/n followed the steps one last time, with minimal fumbling.

“See! See i told you i was born ready!” Eddie smiled wide, ear to ear. He flopped on to his bed, pumping his firsts in to the air as a silent victory.

“What happened to the code? Not being able to enjoy southern music?” Y/n asked, sitting next to their friend.

“Code smode. The code dosnt matter!” eddie threw his arm over his eyes.

“You are terrible.” y/n layed down.

“You love me.”

“sadly.”

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gabessquishytum · 10 months

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i thought about tennis au and tossed that idea through the filth filter and went in a very different direction so. another take on a tennis au for you: star tennis player dream and coach hob. maybe hob was a major competitive player as an under-18 but got injured (fucked up knee!hob my beloved) and turned to coaching instead. and maybe dream is a bit older than him, approaching the end of his professional sports career, and appreciates hob's approach to injuries and respecting one's body. dream may look younger than he is, but he can't walk off a sprain the way he way he used to, and hob won't let him try.

but. for the filth side of this. hob is dream's coach during the training season, but during tournaments? he's dream's stress relief. if dream's anxious before a match, hob will hold his hips still and give him the longest, slowest blowjob of his life until he calms down. if dream wins they'll head back to dream's hotel room, order room service, and dream will sit hob on his cock and feed him sweets as a reward for doing such a good job as dream's coach.

but if he's frustrated after a loss, well... that's when things get interesting. hob makes a point of knowing exactly where the closest room with a lockable door is, because that's the only limit he insists on for dream's post-loss catharsis (he'll let dream fuck his throat in the locker room sometimes, though. if they have to go back to the hotel to get privacy and dream really needs to take the edge off)

because once they're alone? he's dream's to do with as he will, and dream takes full advantage of that. if dream's feeling generous he might start off opening hob up with his fingers. if not, he'll cut right to the chase and start working the lubed handle of his tennis racket into hob's hole.

after a particularly bad loss -- and after he's made hob come once already by grinding the handle into hob's prostate -- he starts working fingers into hob alongside the racket. he gets up to what hob thinks must have been three or four before he pulls them out and takes the racket with them, and then rummages in his bag for a minute. the next thing that presses at hob's hole is... pretty unmistakably a tennis ball. it's covered in lube but that doesn't change the fact that it's textured and rough and big, but dream tells him quite clearly that it's the ball that lost him the match, so he may as well get some enjoyment from it.

(it's not. it's a ball that dream had prepared days ago, had carefully cut holes in so he could thread a cord through it for safe removal later, because he adores hob and also does not want to have to bring him to a hospital to get a tennis ball out of his ass, thanks very much. but, well. hob doesn't need to know that just yet, now does he?)

-🐈‍⬛

Asdfhjl I'm having THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS ABOUT THIS OK partly because my favourite tennis player retired last year and im still mourning him. roger please come back, for my mental health.

Taking this in a similar-but-different direction. Maybe Hob was the junior number 1 and he was literally just about to start competing in the senior ranks and then boom, catastrophic knee injury. Dream was a few years younger and Hob was his inspiration so he's totally devastated that they're not going to have a big sexy senior rivalry :/// the solution? He hires Hob as his coach.

Hob has never coached anyone, doesn't have a clue what he's doing, doesn't know why Dream would hire him when he comes from money and could literally pay for anyone... but he's kind of out of a career so he says yes! And that's how they end up spending Dream’s entire professional career together.

Hob sits in the players box with chanel sunglasses and a iced coffee, looking like a damn supermodel while Dream sweats his way through the competition. Obviously on the inside Hob is literally shitting himself with nervousness but he only lets the emotion out when the match is over. Hob literally jumps down from the stands at one point when Dream wins the US Open (terrible for his knee, brilliant for the photographers).

As for the filth... Well, as an athlete, Dream has to be careful with his body. This means that Hob takes the brunt of the physical side of the relationship. If Dream has a good training session he gets to sit down all comfy on the bench in the locker room while Hob does his job and bounces up and down on his cock. If Dream doesn't have a good session, he gets to take his frustrations out by spanking Hob's pretty arse with his tennis racket. Dream’s physical and mental health is Hob’s top priority, and he can and will sprint to the bathroom during a break in play to give the world's quickest, sloppiest blowjob.

Dream just wishes that they would make more trophies with pointy ends. So many of them are shaped like plates! How's he supposed to use them as dildos! It's Hob’s reward to have his hole filled up after he's helped Dream win the tournament.

Maybe he'll just have to take two tennis balls instead.

#🐈‍⬛ anon #the sandman #dreamling #nsft #tennis au

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badnew2005 · 11 months

Text

rehashing this post from right before s15 like. hm !!!!! first half of the post died like hoodie gate and dennis in macs room turned to be Nothing. i’m still maintaining they fucked over quarantine (SINGING HAPPY SILLY LITTLE COUNTRY LOVE SONGS ?????? country mac vs mac) but. dennis is still emotionally in north dakota. he’s still fight or flight. he’s learnt he can’t survive without mac without the gang and still had to come crawling back to philly But he’s not emotionally back. he’s not accepted he’s back and this is Who He Is. that he couldn’t survive as someone else once again. he’s terrified mac and the gang can see through him. he still wants to run. the gang go on holiday. go where PURPLE ??? that’s not a place !!! vocal stim of all time. they go to ireland back to their Roots. they’re an Irish bar. macs so aggressively american irish. let’s tell him he’s dutch. to shut him up. need to confuse him, spin him around, give him a different focus other than Me.

mac and dennis barely interact in ireland. dennis’ obsession with authenticity almost killing him. he’s trying so hard to be Real to be a Real Person. not Himself of course. someone real here. s14 health scare dennis NOT vigilant about covid ???? REFUSING to admit he had it. because it wasn’t authentic. wasn’t Real. because he spent 2020 hiding away with mac, slowly falling back into old routines, back in love back to being see through. fuck. that’s Not what ireland was for. dennis being the one to point out charlie’s dad died from covid. weird washy vision. dennis the “Only One” who didn’t get vaccinated. s14 health freak out dennis more about mac than anything else. he wanted Everything to be The Same back to when they could read eachother BUT he’s terrified of being Seen by mac. by mac who can Now see himself as gay, what the fuck is he finally going to be able to see in dennis. macs been spun around by dennis so he just goes to i’ll look after dennis Directly when he asks. i don’t want him running away from me again. also pizza poisoning. building back up that codependency. dennis needing anything else than Mac to blame all his mac problems on. Macs priest journey he’s thinking about Himself he’s Looking After Himself. not dennis. big mo should we quit the game. if you’re not having fun anymore. he’s not. everything with dennis is more Pain than anything else. being suffocated by his own love. sorry about the delusional maccricket hopes. mac and cricket ex boyfriends i’ll never stop believing in you though. macden using cricket as a middle man instead of just fucking eachother. den and charlie trying to spin him around confuse him saying he’s not irish. okay. next aspect of my identity is catholic. i’ll just go Full into that. the wars over. the storm has stopped raging. maybe. it’s complex. but it’s easier than dennis. feeling unfulfilled by the church though. this isn’t what i wanted this isn’t filling my dennis shaped hole. coming back together on the mountain. to help charlie. finding the truth. they lied to me told me i wasn’t irish just because they thought i was annoying? heartbreaking. DEVASTATING honestly. fuck you im leaving. i don’t have to help you. you’ll never help me. all i’ve been DOING is trying to Look After Myself so you wouldn’t have to. macs whole LIFE trying so desperately for someone to Love him. fuck man.

but back in the pub. mirror of paddys. we’re never escaping paddys. but why would i want to. we’re always running out into the world looking for treasures when everything we need is right here in the bar. their own ecosystem. and we carry out country (us. giggling like yeah the United States US and just. Us as a relationship) with us wherever we go! BECAUSE WE LOVE HER! and when you love someone , you can’t BEAR TO LEAVE EM BEHIND” watch dennis. face journey. he realises before mac. he loves philly he loves paddys he loves the gang he loves mac. HE CANT KEEP RUNNING AWAY. it’s okay to stop and be stationary. it’s okay to be who you are. “not ever” he’s ran away so many times. even this holiday with the gang he’s running from them. mac looks at him. mac knows. it’s okay that mac can read me that he can see through me like this. it’s good. i missed it. i’m weak and tired of running and I’m Sorry. everything i’ve done to you because i hated myself because i was scared of myself. they go to charlie. it’s the big game. they’ve embraced who they are (american) (Who They Are) and that’s when you WIN. dennis was in north dakota during the big game. wasn’t part of it. was still running. i’ve said it a thousand times sure he’s physically back in philly for years but emotionally he was still running. he’s stopped. laid down to rest.

i don’t want to hypothesise about s16 too much but after the first two eps are out i feel confident saying. the cat is poking his head out of the wall. he’s missing mac. i’ve said before end of clip show SINISTER “we’re back to normal” it’s dennis’ fantasy he wants so badly to become reality. he’s the best at monitoring reality and pulling one over on the gang. because that’s all he Ever does. that’s all he’s been doing. they’ve only just caught on or directly challenged him or tried to live in their own fantasies. i don’t know if dee’s cat is fully coming out of the wall but he’s poking his head. barely saw macden apartment last season because they were running away from her. sterile. in the season Opener we saw Her Insides. the fridge. casual domesticity. throwing out all of their furniture and sleeping on a blow up bed together. he’s stopped running. when you embrace who you are then you WIN. but. macs moving on. it’s been too long. took dennis too long to adjust. that happens. i’m so scared to tinhat about johnny but. i’m still your leading man. macs got another leading man. he’s being replaced maybe. it’s me it was always me. i think we’re gonna see more of that. i have always trusted the structure. i don’t think it’s going to be fruitless. yeah i think i’m out now. he’s BACK from north dakota he’s working on himself. macden doorway in inflates mirroring macdenbreakup. we don’t need to tell you our business. he’s protecting himself protecting their relationship. he’s not getting angry anymore. working to be a person. not letting small things blow up anymore. but it’s not going to be enough. he needs to Show Mac he cares More. it’s going to be difficult but. i trust the structure

#trusting the structure #omg i deleted the screenshots and it’s not letting me link the post #brb #okay the link should b there and i’ve added a keep reading

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johannestevans · 10 months

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Do you have any experiences you feel comfortable sharing around realizing through self dx and/or prof diagnosis being adhd and/or autistic? i have a strong suspicion i have both or one, but the symptoms make it hard to actually do some substantial research to come to an actual conclusion.

Honestly, I've know since as long as i remember that something was 'up' but my kid logic was just like 'ohhhhh if i watch enough people, ill do it just like they do, i wouldn't be different anymore :))' but whoop who would have guessed you cant logic your way out of feelings, or symptoms or disability. like i kinda stalled facing the fact by just saying; 'oh im neurodivergent but ill be undiagnosed out of respect that's good enough for me'.

But finally finishing school and talking to peers outside of school made me realize that what's 'up' with me hasn't been alleviated or fixed. that all the stress of being different hasn't faded. that i just learned to manage it to survive. that maybe an even more uncomfortable fact, that i wasn't even managing it WELL and the people around me knew the teachers knew but i was black and a 'girl' so they'd just treat me like i was lazy or didn't want to learn or i just wasn't intelligent enough to learn. did i have a difficult home life? was there a reason i wouldn't finish assignments? why id act out? why i'd always avoid eye contact? nope this kid didn't finish the assignment/is fidgeting/is RUDE, and they'd send me to the hallway and id try not to breakdown. wash rinse repeat until the end of the year and suddenly the teach was so warm and so happy to have taught you!

Nothing changes i made it though elementary, middle and high school and i didn't get a badge or pat on the back just the worst burnout at 18. i held out so much hope that oh ill work it all out and school will someday be a breeze. id just been holding onto a pipe dream for 12 years.

so when i type in "tips for keeping a tidy room"...."for adhd" or "are binders uncomfortable for people with sensory issues?" or "binder for sensory issues" and these all come up with answers that actually speak to me, i kind of start reeling! Dude this shop from singapore i ordered from sent me a binder no sensory issues, perfect fit! after trying multiple bras cuz 'binding is uncomfortable' but this binder man no chest dysphoria, all the comfort that people would signal to me whenever id say "ugh bras are uncomfortable right?"

the cold authority figures i had as a kid don't deal with the fallout of 12 years of shame and discomfort with next to no explanation. but you cant really pin it on someone. its all the culmination of systemic '-isms'. THAT's hard to make peace with.

so ill finally admit that "ill just be undiagnosed out of respect :)" is just internalized ableism. that a lot of what i thought about myself was just internalized ableism. ill give every other person the benefit of the doubt regardless of professional diagnosis status, why don't i afford myself that same compassion the answer is obviously internalized ableism now that i write it out. but I've got to heal everybody does.

But damn if healing isn't bitter! medicine that can only be sweetened up with artificial strawberry, lest it loses its potency. so ill take the first step and round back to the beginning of what i was saying;

hey! pursuing a professional diagnosis as a black, young,trans person in the us south is daunting. do you have any autism and/or adhd self dx resources, neurodivergency resources or have any anecdotes about living with both that are fun i never hear about enough fun ppl have! anything would be helpful!

Hey there!

My experiences were pretty wild, honestly, I wasn't diagnosed through school and university even though I was a pretty classic case, and then I did pursue my Dx as an adult a few years ago.

It was pretty expensive, and because I'm self-employed and set my own hours that are quite intuitive and based off of my own needs and limits, I actually found that the medication I was prescribed made my workload harder to handle.

It's not that the medications for ADHD are bad - if I ever go back to university or enter more traditional employment again, I do want to keep meds in mind as an option - but that they're really intended to get you focused and adjusted for a 9 to 5 or other traditional job structure, and that's just not what my life looks like.

I will say that like...

It's not that a diagnosis is bad, but I actually do have some concerns about it in terms of receiving medical care - some bigoted doctors use ADHD and autism diagnoses as a reason to withhold medical care or otherwise to deny healthcare and assistance; some countries actually stipulate in their immigration policies that a condition like autism will negatively impact your ability to immigrate there.

If you want to try medication and you feel like you need it, official diagnosis might be a good route for you, but if you don't want medication, official diagnosis might be a hindrance as much as it could be a help.

There's nothing wrong or bad about having a diagnosis, what I'm saying is more that like... If you have ADHD or autism, then you have it whether a doctor agrees or not. You only need that doctor's piece of paper if you want to seek out medical treatment - lots of people seek out other resources while being self-diagnosed, especially because seeking out clinical diagnosis can be so expensive, and you can avail of any online resources without being "officially" ADHD or autistic, you know?

I don't have a huge amount of resources, but a few recs I have are:

ADHD Alien's comics - Pina's comics are very cute and I find a lot of them very relatable, but they almost always also have resources linked in the replies by Pina themselves or somebody else, specifically for the issue addressed in each comic.

HowToADHD - Jessica's videos are really comprehensive and go through a lot of ADHD experiences from different angles, especially looking at the day-to-day issues of the workplace or the domestic sphere with lots of little tips!

I was on Jeremy Sachs and Katherine Cox's podcast this month with my friend Ashleigh Wilder, and we talked about the impact of autism and trauma, which might be helpful. Ashleigh is an actor and poet, but he's got a background in psych, and they post a lot of resources around autism and other neurodivergence like OCD.

Healing sucks big time, and it takes a lot of time to unpack a lot of that internalised pain and fear - and also just like... recognising the things in you which might be to do with neurodivergent traits, and realising you can seek out resources or things to make your life easier.

It's a long journey for any of us, but I wish you luck, and I hope some of these resources make it easier to seek out more!

In general, I would absolutely remind you to always tack on "for adults" when searching for a lot of resources, simply because so many of them assume ADHD is a kid's condition and a kid's concern.

#musings #anonymous

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bonesandthebees · 3 months

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chapter six time!

and you are excited because its not going where we would expect

im not quite sure what i expect, i dont think it will go perfectly, i think perhaps something will happen that will change force their dynamic to change in a sense theyre going to this abandoned area, lots can happen they could get stuck, they could experience something crazy, a lot could happen and any one of them should realistically either drastically change their relationship or lead to a change that will eventually force their relationship to change but yk

anyways time to read!

he left the ferro thing (i cant bother to look at how to spell it right now my bad) which is you know interesting

i like this little flashback because niki obviously realizes that wilbur will do what his dad says and its obvious his father wants him to play into tomys. and thats the game of politics niki knows there arent truly friends here, but its hard to watch someone youve trusted and had on your side for so long suddenly be pulled in a different direction due to this game and i think its also just niki’s own game in a way as she figures out what she must do and yeah its a balance

and thats another thing because they know each other the way friends do but they cannot be truly “friends” because of how this works

be careful on the mountain roads… somethings going to go wrong there and itll probably be wilbur who pays the price

i think ive seen this film before and i didnt like the ending

a bad feeling…

oh my goodness shouts!

bandits!!! this is going to go terribly!

and theyre here for tommy so of course wilbur is going to protect him (right…) yeaaaa get behind him (this is going to go terribly)

oh lord we’re going off roading i dont think this carriage has four wheel drive

and crashed

PRETEND TO BE DEAD

oh god his leg is broken isnt it

yes! play dead!

A BROTHERHWHEHEHEH

the contract? someone paid for tommy’s death and i have a sneaking suspicion its one of the potential heirs quackity would make sense with his warning and schlatt probably would i wouldnt be shocked

oh lord i got so distracted it is significantly later than when i started writing this

they lived! big shock!

but uh oh! now they have to try and survive in the winter in the wilderness alone! i wonder how that will drastically change their relationship!

anyways this chapter was great im very excited for the upcoming arcs and whatnot and im very invested in wilburs broken leg and all because ive taken one too many medical courses that have made me a tad too aware of how to properly care for a good chunk of injuries but thats besides the point! hope you have a good day and i cant wait for the next chapter :]

- 🪿

the thing with niki is that her and wilbur's friendship is very real and has existed for longer than they've been aware of the political games. it's a matter of is that friendship going to continue through all of this? how far can their relationship bend until it breaks completely? niki in no way thinks her friendship with wilbur is fake or over. but she's trying to figure out what matters more to him—is it loyalty to his father, or loyalty to her? is she ever going to be the most important person to him? or is she always going to be one step behind?

"oh lord we're going off roading I don't think this carriage has four wheel drive" this made me laugh out loud thank you for that the carriage does NOT have four wheel drive

lol knew the brother line would get you guys

hmm who paid the contract for tommy's life... so many options...

wow now they're stranded alone in the wilderness together! surely this won't have any lasting impact on their relationship!

don't hold your breath for proper medical treatment tommy and wilbur are 1) trapped in the wilderness and 2) this is technically a medieval-ish era so. medicine ain't exactly up to modern standards lmao

#ask #goose anon #rose ch 6

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psyduckappears · 1 year

Note

Homesickness for stoncy? PLS ik you've written the last two prompts for it, so im sorry if you get sick of writing stoncy 😭😭

read it on ao3

no but honestly i don't think that getting sick of these three idiots is even possible!!! this was such a blast and also this got away from me again so BADLY ..... hope you like it :)

It's a twist-of-fate kind of coincidence, how it all comes together.

After Vecna, after another brush with death, and world-death, and all-encompassing devastation, Hawkins goes back to normal.

Small-town people are a species beyond comprehension – a tight-knit family that will stab each other in the back at the first opportunity but hold your hand through the next crisis as though nothing happened, a steaming casserole or a rich, sweet pie ready to end all your worries – a community of shared knowledge and shared identity that doesn’t welcome difference but values togetherness over honesty; it’s alright to be different as long as we don’t acknowledge it – a microcosm of shared-experience who will help each other through their trauma as long as nobody calls it trauma.

Hawkins goes back to town-festivals in the summer and caring too much about high school basketball games and exchanging gossip on Main Street when you’ve just run into your neighbor after checking off the last of your grocery list.

The kids go back to school. Robin, Nancy, and Jonathan graduate high school and, only a blink of an eye later, move away for college. Joyce finds a new job, one that pays marginally better than the one at Melvald’s, when one of the school’s secretaries retires. She has more than enough experience making phone calls thanks to that awful telemarketing gig, and nobody doubts that she’ll be able to manage any parent that might try to cause trouble just fine. Even Hopper goes back to his small-town Chief job, now sharing households with Joyce, and together neither of them need to pull as many hours as they did before.

Steve is … well, Steve is Steve. Does he spend too much of his time off work alone at home, watching on the news as the world at large goes to ruins around him that from this rural exile stay distant silhouettes on the horizon? Absolutely. Does he feel a little left behind, here in Hawkins, while the others have left him for the wide, wide world, where life happens every day, right before your eyes? Sure. Sure, he does, but it’s more than that.

He misses Robin, who moved to Boston with Nancy. They promised each other he’d follow her there as soon as he has some money saved and an eye on a job, but so far, it’s all felt a little hopeless. Besides, he doesn’t think he’s quite ready to leave Hawkins, yet, despite everything. After everything over the past couple of years, he probably should be running without a single look over his shoulder, but the thought of leaving still makes him uneasy, invokes this violent urge to radio Dustin, or El, or any of the kids just to see that everything is still looking calm. It’s hard to trust the peace.

Robin, the absolute saint that she is, understands. He thinks they all do, to some extent, even the ones of them who’ve left and sworn up and down they wouldn’t miss the place in the least.

He misses Nancy, too, who he’d just started getting closer to again after Vecna, and Jonathan, who he’d just started to really get to know before they moved away, leaving him behind, too.

So yeah, again, he does feel left behind, and he wants to be out there, but sometimes he thinks in the privacy of his own mind that he feels homesick, and it’s more like … he misses the home Hawkins used to be, before. When they were all still here, and when another apocalypse wasn’t fresh behind them all, and even (though he’d never say it to anyone) those moments facing down hell, where at least it felt like his lacking prospects for a meaningful future wouldn’t matter for much longer. Who cares if you ever got into college when you’re already dead?

He misses, most of all, a time where he wasn’t always looking over his shoulder, not always checking if all his ducks are still in a row, are still alive. He misses sleep without dreams where people he loves die like it means nothing, alive one second, gone the next. He misses a town where every shadow doesn’t feel like a warning, and he longs for a place where everything isn’t predictable, even the crises. Maybe, he thinks, he just misses somewhere he’s never been.

Nancy fills her time between classes with extracurriculars until she doesn’t have time to miss anyone, or at least that’s what she tells herself even while she’s already realizing that it doesn’t work. She joins the campus paper, a group of girls who run together twice a week, and a progressive feminist student organization that Robin invites her along to, but she still feels her fingers itch for her car keys all the time, ready to drive to New York, to Hawkins. It helps to know that Jonathan is the same way.

They schedule phone calls whenever neither of them has class or anything else – mostly when Robin does have class or something else, not because they desperately need the privacy but because she spends most of her time and the money she doesn’t need for rent to call Steve.

Sometimes, when Nancy comes home during one of those calls, Robin will grin and greet her and force the phone into her hand. Nancy kind of loves her for it, if she’s honest, and Robin’s expression says that she knows it even without her saying it.

Calls with Steve always make her smile too wide, and more often than not, she holds him up for way too long, trading news from college and stories about Robin for anything going on back in Hawkins, the more mundane the better. He always has something good about her brother and his friends, at the very least, something light that will make her laugh and that Mike would never tell her himself.

She also learns, this way, that he and Jonathan talk on the phone sometimes, too. It’s usually when Jonathan gets anxious about being so far from home, and he doesn’t really trust Will or his mom to tell him if anything was up because they know he’d be right on his way back home. Nancy can’t say she blames him, and she’s grateful, really, that Steve can do that for Jonathan, now. Be a link back home to take off the edge. Be a friend at all, after all their history. It’s just that it makes her miss them both so much more.

They go home for Christmas, but it’s just a few days before they have to head back to study for some upcoming exams, and they spend the holidays with their families. Only Robin begs off most of the time before and after Christmas dinner to spend with Steve, and then they’re gone again, after just barely a glimpse of the other two.

Calls and calls and calls pass between the three of them, and suddenly it’s a Friday night in early spring, just about 10pm, and Nancy can’t stand it anymore. She calls Jonathan.

“If I leave now, I can pick you up in about four hours,” is what she opens with. She’s met with a few seconds of silence.

“My roommates are out,” Jonathan finally replies. “You can ring the doorbell. I’ll sleep until then and take over.”

Smiling to herself, she starts a pot of coffee. He always knows exactly what she’s thinking. “Power nap halfway there.”

“One or two hours. Maybe near Pittsburgh.”

“We’ll be in Hawkins by afternoon. You have class on Monday?”

“Nothing I can’t skip this one time. I feel like we won’t want to haul ass back to campus after just one night.”

Jonathan is already awake again when Nancy rings the bell, an overnight bag, leftover pasta, and a thermos of coffee ready to go. At 2am, even the city that never sleeps has that eerie quality to it, though it isn’t really silent. Especially not on a Friday night. Still … even though he thinks it’s comforting, in a way, the thought of Nancy standing out in front of his door in the middle of the night, entirely unprotected, has him rushing down the stairs. He doesn’t exactly live in a nice part of town, and judging from past experience, even that can’t save you, sometimes.

“Hi.” Nancy grins when he bursts out the door, the momentum from the stairs still in him as he pushes against the door a little more forcefully than necessary.

Nancy looks tired but happy, messy but beautiful. She looks like she was already halfway to bed when she called him and barely took the time to get dressed before hopping into her car; hair tied up hazardously, sweatpants that he’s pretty sure are his tied fastened with a tight knot so they won’t slip from her waist and looking oddly discordant with her street shoes, and a sweater that is frayed at the sleeves from where she worries them while studying.

He kisses her hello, met with something hi, there you are, and I missed you, too, and then she barely leaves him the time to catch his breath before she’s dragging him back to the car.

There’s a laugh on his lips when he takes the keys from her and slips into the driver’s seat.

“Alright, Jitterbug, how much coffee have you had on your way here?” he asks as they start down the street. They should always leave in the middle of the night, he thinks; the traffic is way less awful at this time.

“Oh my god,” Nancy says, already digging through his backpack for one of the tapes he – predictably, apparently – brought. “Did you just make a Wham! reference?”

He gasps, only half-pretending to be offended. “You know exactly that I wasn’t –“

“I need to tell Steve.” She’s giggling, now, which is definitely a sign that she should probably get those few hours of sleep in, soon. Drunk Nancy has never been a fun time, but sleepy Nancy? She’s a blast. She loves everyone, and she thinks everything is hilarious, and Jonathan loves her, but he really needs to focus on getting them out of the city and onto the right interstate. “I swear, Jonathan, the first thing I will tell him when we see Steve is that you, Jonathan Byers, made a Wham! reference after being all high and mighty when you found out he listened to them.”

“You know they – you know they didn’t invent the word ‘jitterbug’, right?”

Nancy just keeps laughing at him until he knocks her over a little at the shoulder, which has her grin over at him tiredly. He feels unfathomably fond, but he just gives her a roll of his eyes, gluing his eyes back to the road in front of him.

“Take a nap,” he tells her. “I’ll wake you up when it’s time to take a break.”

“You mean you’ll wake me up before you go-go,” she grins, but she dodges his swatting hand and closes her eyes, resting her head against the window.

The drive isn’t half bad, even though the sentimental part of him wishes they were driving east so he could watch the sun come up. This way, the further they get into the morning hours, his gaze keeps slipping to the rearview mirror, not wanting to miss it.

He drives, drives, stops for gas, stretches his legs, and keeps driving. Before he knows it, Nancy wakes on her own, and they’re well past Pittsburgh. In fact, they’re almost at Zanesville, and it’s nearing ten in the morning.

When Nancy realizes this, she gasps and smacks his shoulder several times. “Jonathan!”

“What?”

“You’ve been driving almost eight hours.”

“I wasn’t tired,” he defends, even though he knows it’s still not exactly reasonable. He’s had, what, three and a half hours of sleep? She gives him a look, like god, why do I love this idiot, and it makes him grin sheepishly in a way that makes them both think of Steve, somehow.

Which makes sense because he swears, Steve makes him a little bit stupid.

He will not examine this fact right now, though.

“At the next stop, we’re switching,” she tells him, glaring a little. He can tell she’s reluctantly well-rested, though, and they both know she is much happier about it than she will ever admit when she says, “I guess at least now we can skip that power nap, get there a little earlier. I need to … walk around a bit first, though. My bones feel like I’ve been stuffed into a moving box for two days.”

Rather than agreeing, Jonathan just cracks his stiff neck, laughing when the sound makes her crinkle her nose in disgust. He needs a stretch, too, he really does; his gas foot feels like he’s been flexing it for hours, and he’s pretty sure his ass has fallen asleep. He can’t feel the right half, anymore, and it’s decidedly not a pleasant experience.

“Also, we’re getting breakfast. Gas station food sucks, but I am starving.”

“There’s a box of pasta salad in my backpack,” he offers, even though pasta salad is really just a fancy way of referring to yesterday’s cold lunch. “Knock yourself out. I had some before we left, so I’ll probably just get a donut, or something.”

“You ate pasta salad at two in the morning?” Nancy asks, scandalized as if they haven’t done the same thing with leftover pizza after sharing his last bit of pot or staying up too long studying and … studying. He raises his eyebrow at her, and her judgmental expression melts into a knowing quirk of her lip, an admission of complicity. She starts looking for the box, then, and calls him an idiot for forgetting to bring a fork.

She eats it with her free hand instead of waiting to see if they’d have any at the rest stop, and he falls a little bit more in love with her when she drops a bit of pasta, it falls right into her hoodie, and she begins laughing so hard that she almost chokes.

Robin starts calling at seven and manages to shake Steve out of bed by eight, when he stumbles to the phone with a big yawn and a world of annoyance.

“’lo?” he mutters into the phone, the absolute most anyone could expect of him at this ungodly hour on a Saturday.

“Steve! God, finally –“

“Robin, what the fuck?” He keeps the phone by his ear and drags the chord to the kitchen, where he turns on the coffee maker. “Why are you calling me at –“

“It’s Nancy,” she interrupts him, and only then does he recognize that tone in her voice. It isn’t angry Robin, or excited Robin, even though both sound just as frantic as she does now. It’s terrified Robin. And she’s scared because of Nancy.

He stills.

“What? What do you mean –“

“She’s – not here! I was out late last night, I don’t know if she was still here then because I figured she was in bed, and you know she always has to park super far away from the building, but this morning I realized her keys were gone, and so were her shoes, and she doesn’t have class or any of her other stuff today because she has this big paper due next Thursday, and she cancelled all her clubs and shit for that.”

“I – Robin,” he interrupts, trying to be calm, even though it feels counterintuitive. “Don’t you think she could have just … gone out? To … to the library, or to go shopping, or …?”

“She never takes the car for that. She only uses it when she’s leaving the city.”

“So maybe she went to see Jonathan.”

“I tried calling him. His roommate says he hasn’t seen him, but he ‘took all the food’, which is probably an overstatement, knowing that guy, but – anyway, Jonathan is also gone. I just – I don’t have a good feeling about this, Steve.”

The truth is, neither does Steve. Steve is, in fact, freaking the hell out as he’s standing there in his kitchen, not at all tired, anymore. He tries grasping for logic, that they might have just … gotten together to have a picnic, or something, but …

But suddenly it occurs to him that while he’s been hesitating to leave Hawkins unprotected, he’s been doing the exact same thing to them.

“She didn’t leave a note? Anything to say where she’s going?” Robin’s silence speaks volumes, and Steve feels the dread growing like a shadow in him, looming and dark, always behind him.

Nancy wouldn’t just disappear without telling anyone. Neither would Jonathan. Not after everything that’s happened. He takes the little bit of coffee the machine has produced from the pot and mentally starts looking for his car keys. “I’m coming over there.”

He makes decent progress, despite the little bit of morning traffic that actually affects Hawkins, but breaking every speed limit he can get away with costs gas, and he has to stop a little over half an hour outside of Columbus to fill up the tank. He uses the payphone outside to call Robin to see if there have been any news, but now she isn’t answering, and he feels himself panic even more.

Maybe she’s just in the bathroom, or something, he tells himself. He should call again in a few minutes, maybe get something to eat in the meantime. He hasn’t eaten at all since last night.

His mind switching between Boston and New York, he walks back inside, finding a couple of things he normally enjoys in the snack aisle. He doesn’t feel particularly hungry, but he still goes through the motions of picking them out, swiping his card at the register, and lodging them under his arm to carry back to the car.

When he turns away from the cashier, he bumps into the guy behind him and drops all of it.

“Shit, sorry,” he mutters, already crouching down to pick up his good. He feels like he should get a pass for being clumsy under the circumstances, but it’s not like this guy knows that, and –

“Steve?” the guy says, having joined him on the ground to help him out, and when Steve’s head snaps up, yeah, sure thing, that’s Jonathan Byers right there in front of him. Steve almost thinks he’s hallucinating, but he doesn’t think he’s imaginative enough to come up with such an accurate image of that perplexed expression.

He drops everything he’s picked up right back down again and squishes Jonathan into a hug that probably surprises Steve himself just as much as it does Jonathan.

“Uh, hi?” Jonathan’s voice is muffled against the fabric of Steve’s sweater, but he’s slowly reciprocating the hug, so it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s Jonathan. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I – oh god, is Nancy with you? Please tell me she’s –“

“Yeah, yeah, she’s outside,” Jonathan says, and then he’s pulling away, aiming a worried frown at Steve. “What’s wrong?”

“What are you doing here?” Steve exclaims, then, jumping up from the ground and realizing they’re still right in front of the register, right in the middle of that gas station. At least it’s not a popular one; their only audience is the guy who just rang Steve up a minute ago, and he looks like his job has long bored him to death, and he is now just a corpse with a mysteriously acquired ability to stand more or less upright.

“We’re – we wanted to see you.” The way it comes out is an almost indignant kind of stammer, but clearly embarrassed. Jonathan is looking at Steve but only kind of, and Steve can’t remember when he stood up, even less so when he crossed his arms over his chest so defensively.

Steve would tease him about it if he wasn’t so busy staring at him, open-mouthed, confused, and a little bit angry in the wake of the whole scare. And then there’s that other feeling, the one he’s gotten so incredibly good at ignoring.

Steve seems to be taking too long to reply because eventually, Jonathan goes back to stammering. Which is weird because Jonathan has never, ever been bad at silences.

“It’s just – Nancy called last night, and it was kind of insane because I was just hanging out at the apartment and being kind of miserable about how much I missed her and how … long it’d been since I’d seen you, and then she called and said we should drive back to Hawkins because apparently she was the same way, so …“

“So you just … took off in the middle of the night to – visit me?”

If Steve thought Jonathan looked embarrassed before, he doesn’t know what to call this. He only knows he’s never seen him this red in the face.

“I guess…”

It’s then that they’re interrupted, again not by a new customer but by Nancy, this time. She’s got her wallet out, is looking for something in it, and speaking as she walks into the gas station.

“Are you having trouble with your card again?” she asks, probably because she’s been wondering why on earth Jonathan has been taking so long to pay for their gas. “I keep telling you, you need to call the bank to get you a new one, this is getting – Steve?”

And, okay, so Steve already knew that she was fine, Jonathan already told him, more or less, what’s going on, but he swears, Nancy is still the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his entire life right then. He barely knows what to say, and then Nancy helps him out.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, and only then does it occur to him that he never answered Jonathan when he asked him this a minute ago.

Priorities need to be set, though. Rather than answer her question, he does the same thing he did with Jonathan and pulls her into a big, extended hug. She goes a lot more willingly than Jonathan, even though she still seems beyond confused, and even when she pulls back, she leaves her arms around him.

“I – Robin called me,” he finally says, and he can watch every muscle in her face transform from pleasant surprise into some kind of horror.

“Shit,” she says. “Oh god, I – I didn’t leave a note!”

He snorts at that. “Yeah, no shit. You know how scared we’ve been?” He looks over his shoulder at Jonathan, who’s wearing a similar expression. “How is it both of you just decided to disappear without telling a single soul where on earth you’re going?”

“Shit, she didn’t call my mom, did she?”

Steve shakes his head, even though that’s really not what he wants to talk about, right now. “I radioed Will to check if he knew anything and told him not to tell her until I called. But he’s definitely going to be pissed when he finds out about this. Actually, so am I – what were you thinking? What if something had happened to you, and nobody would have known where to even start looking?”

Nancy’s hands around him land on his shoulders, then, squeezing reassuringly just like she used to do, eons ago. He wants to keep catastrophizing, but she stops his last resolve with a small smile. “I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to worry anyone, really. We just … really wanted to see you.”

And really, who could expect Steve to be mad about that? When they keep saying it like that? Part of him wants to resent the easy way Nancy’s echo of Jonathan’s words melts him into something warm and far more relaxed than he’s felt since he woke up this morning, but even that he can’t really hold onto.

“Well, it’s still stupid,” he mutters petulantly, but he pulls her back into another quick hug and lets go feeling a lot less wound up. “I’m gonna go back outside and call Robin.”

Jonathan finds him outside a minute later with Steve’s forgotten snack haul piled up in his arms, leaning against the wall as Steve talks to Robin.

“I know, they’re idiots,” he says, pointedly, which gets him one of those funny little Jonathan-smiles that make him feel all mushy and stupid. Considering the fact that they just nearly caused some sort of national search because they wanted to see him, he lets himself feel the mush for once and grins back. “But they’re really, really sorry and will totally make it up to us.”

“Did they say that or is it just wishful thinking?” Robin asks, but she sounds a hundred times better than when they last spoke, so it’s alright.

“They may not have said it in words, but it’s not like this doesn’t give us a lot of leverage. Anyway, apparently, I’m so incredibly awesome that they both just hadto up and –”

“Oh, hi, Robin,” Jonathan cuts in, snatching the phone from Steve. “Yeah, we’re really sorry about all this. It was pretty late, and it was kind of, uh, an impulsive thing. So we weren’t thinking straight. We didn’t mean to worry anyone, really.”

Steve watches him talk, even though he can’t hear Robin’s replies anymore. He can fill in her parts in his head, more or less accurately, but he doesn’t know what she says to make Jonathan go all pink in the face again.

Finally, Nancy joins them and demands her turn, by which time Steve has to put the third quarter into the phone’s coin slot. She talks to Robin for a little while, apologizing yet again for the scare and promising she’ll bring her back a truck’s load of those knock-off Heath bars she insists are so much better than the real deal, and Steve opens a bag of cookies while they wait for her to finish, offering one to Jonathan.

When Nancy hangs up the phone, all three of them stand silently by the phone for a minute, hovering around the inevitable what now.

“So…” Steve eventually breaks into the quiet.

“So?” Nancy echoes, something amused but not fully self-assured in her smile. Jonathan, beside her, suddenly looks even more nervous, so Steve gives both of them what he hopes is a somewhat reassuring grin.

“You two have any plans tonight?”

They end up at Steve’s place, on account of Nancy and Jonathan both being worried that if their families know they’re in town, they’ll ‘monopolize all of their time again’.

Steve has to stop himself from smiling when Nancy says that. She still blushes a little.

“I mean, I love them! And I miss them, and all that, but – we didn’t really get to see you when we were here for the holidays.”

“You know, Robin said you had some big paper due,” Steve says, looking between the two people on his couch. “Cleared your schedule for it and all. Not that I’m complaining, but – you know. You’re you.”

Miraculously, this makes her blush even more. After some prodding, she admits that she finished it all up yesterday in a productive streak, and that she might have wildly overestimated the amount of work it would be, which honestly sounds about right. He always knew she would continue overkilling it in college the same way she did in high school.

“Oh, so you only came here because you didn’t have anything better to do,” he sniffs, anyways, and she swats at him but still has to smile at the overstated pout that his laughter really wants to break through. “No, no, I see how it is.”

“Oh, shut up!” she laughs. Jonathan, pressed against her other side, watches the scene with something like fond exasperation until Nancy turns on him, her face suddenly taken over with a grin like she’s only now remembering he’s here, and she snaps her head back to Steve in excitement. “Oh my god, I almost forgot. You won’t believe what Jonathan did last night!”

“What did he –“

“Nothing, don’t believe anything she says!”

“No, no, this is gold because – when I picked up Jonathan last night –“

“Libel!” Jonathan squeaks, wrapping an arm around Nancy’s waist and pressing the other down on her mouth as she keeps laughing. She tries licking his hand, wriggling in his arms, but she isn’t really fighting him. He isn’t holding onto her nearly strong enough to keep her in place if she was really trying. “Lies, slander, I - Steve, Nancy is trying to defame me, and I want you to know that you cannot believe anything that comes out of her mouth. She’s – she’s turned over to the yellow press, she’s –”

But Steve doesn’t respond. When Jonathan looks over at him, he’s watching them with a grin, like he isn’t even aware of it, and Nancy seems to notice it too because she stops squirming and stares back at Steve as well.

“What?” Jonathan eventually asks, suddenly self-conscious again. He isn’t usually like this in front of anyone but Nancy.

Steve’s eyes snap to his, but the smile doesn’t dim at all.

“Nothing,” he says, though his tone of voice suggests otherwise. “Just ... it's good to see you two.”

In his arms, Jonathan can feel Nancy soften, leaning back until her back is flush against his chest, his hands now both loose around her middle. There's been this understanding between them for a while. This understanding that means that Nancy knows exactly that he, too, is looking at Steve, and that he knows with just as much certainty that Nancy feels a similar warmth stirring in her at Steve’s words.

And maybe it's obvious. By all means, it really should be, if not from their calling at any given opportunity just to hear his voice, then from today, from the way they drove for hours and hours just because they couldn't stand missing him anymore.

But Steve was there too, several hours out of Hawkins, ready to cross state lines after they went missing for just a few hours. Worried out of his mind, embracing them with an inevitability like he's a compass and they’re north, and really, can there be an explanation for them finding each other like this that is any less significant than the earth's magnetic field?

Steve looks at them like that, now, like it’s a law of nature. Like he knows he can’t turn away, and he doesn’t mind at all. Jonathan thinks that the space that this look is taking up under his sternum might kill him, and he’d let it.

It’s Nancy who eventually braves the silence between them, reaching her hand out for his wrist and tugging him closer. She smiles, and Steve looks so openly hopeful that Jonathan frees one of his own hands to put on top of Nancy’s.

“It’s good to see you, too, Steve.”

The tension isn’t uncomfortable, but something has shifted, and it stays. Still, they spend the rest of the afternoon catching up, and it feels easy, just talking like that. Nancy talks about the adventures of living with Robin, the things they’re finding they have in common the more time they spend with each other. Jonathan talks about this impossibly pretentious guy in one of his classes and lets Steve tease him about it like, see, now you know how we feel.

Steve, for his part, gives them the weekly highlights of town gossip (Mrs. Baker left her bastard husband, good for her; the new mayor proposed another attempt at a mall and was unanimously shut down; a senior from Hawkins High was caught selling weed behind the school, only for Hopper to let him off with a warning because fuck Reagan, and I’m not ruining some idiot kid’s future over some fucking weed, Harrington, who do you take me for?). They ask him how he knows all that, which is how he realizes he hasn’t told them about his new job.

“Shit, that’s right! You know Flo? From the police station?” The question earns him two equally confused glances, which he willfully ignores because he knows they know her, and they’ll get why he’s talking about her in a minute, either way. “Anyway, she got sick a few weeks back, and I guess they never realized how much she was actually doing because once she wasn’t there anymore, everything kind of erupted into chaos. Hop knew I was looking to make some extra money, so he asked me if I wanted to be her stand in.”

“That’s … cool,” Jonathan says, like he doesn’t know if he’s supposed to think it’s cool. It makes Steve laugh, which makes Jonathan blush, which makes Steve’s cheeks hurt.

“It’s alright. Turns out I’m pretty alright at talking –“ Nancy gives him a no shit kind of look for that. “– and the hours aren’t bad. Besides, now that Flo’s back, it’s nowhere near as stressful.”

“They kept you on?” Nancy asks, surprised. “Even though she’s back?”

Steve shoots her a wry grin, like, see, I can keep a job. “Bunch of apocalypses are bound to make people paranoid, so there are a lot of calls to take. We got, like, several lines now. All the paperwork on top of that …”

“Sounds like you’re having a good time.”

The weird thing is, he really is. And he’s still saving money, and he's still planning to up and follow Robin into that wide, wide world, but for the first time in a very long time, he’s letting himself feel like it’s some idea of where he’s going.

Not that he wants to spend the rest of his life behind a desk. God, no. It's all the people that call, that come and go every day, looking for help. On some rare occasions, Steve is the one who gets to help them, in some small way, and he's realized that that's kind of the one thing he's really good at.

“You know that kid?” he says, by the way of nothing at all. Nancy cocks her head, that curious expression in her wide-as-the-sea eyes, and Jonathan frowns at him softly, nothing like the way he used to. “Ryan White, some middle schooler from up in Kokomo. Non-Hawkins news weren’t really top priority for a while with everything that was ... going on, last year, but Robin told me about it, and then I started following it … You’ve heard of him, right?”

There’s a short silence, and for that moment, Steve gets weirdly nervous. He tries to focus on Jonathan’s teeth pulling at the skin of his lower lip, but it only makes him nervous for a different reason, until he nods, slowly. “He’s the one who got sick, right?”

Steve hums, yes, that’s one way of putting it. “The one they wouldn’t let back into school. Someone shot through their living room window, did you know that? Just put a bullet through it.”

“God,” Nancy whispers.

“Nobody was home. They’re moving to Cicero, now that he’s finished with middle school. But I swear, the kid is what – fifteen? And he’s dying, and he has to deal with all of this bullshit on top of it all. And … it all makes me so mad when I think about it, which I do too much because I have way too much free time – ‘cause it’s not fair, right? And what else is not fair is that probably tons of other people are having the exact same issues but get none of the help or the – national fucking attention, whatever, none of that support and nobody cares. It makes me so angry, I could –“

Maybe they’re staring again. Maybe Steve has talked himself into half a rampage and gotten off-track from where he was originally going with this. Nancy is staring, and Jonathan is staring, both with those soft frowns that should be infuriating, should feel infuriating because they should be screaming of dear god, look at Steve, he really has been cooped up in here for too long. He’s turning into some Murray Baumann of obsessing over civil rights.

But it isn’t. They’re both looking at him like that, but it doesn’t feel condescending or pitying or even like they don’t understand. Which makes sense because – who is he talking to? There are two of the most empathetic and socially aware people he knows, even if he wouldn’t even have been able to identify them as that until Robin taught him what on earth that means.

“Yeah,” Jonathan finally mutters. “Yeah, no, I know what you mean. It’s – well, New York is bad. People out here are still pretending it isn’t happening, mostly, but back there, you can’t. … Sometimes you walk past an apartment building in a certain part of town, and you see a whole – a whole life in the dumpster behind it. Just thrown out because there was nobody who would or could claim it.”

The soft, warm tone of his voice has Steve deflating a little from the rigid stance he’s worked himself into. Nancy reaches out her right foot to nudge him with her socked toes. He sighs.

“I just – I want to do something. To help people, to – ” Steve manages. It’s the first time he says it out loud; he hasn’t even talked this over with Robin, not that there’s much to talk about, not that she isn’t the one who got him here in the first place, in a way. “I mean, I want to do something where I can help people like that, you know? People who don’t have anyone to back them up. I just … don’t know how.”

“Have you thought about …” Nancy begins. “I mean, maybe Hopper could help you –“

“Oh, no, no,” Steve cuts in. Maybe, maybe he’s gotten up by now, pacing back and forth in front of the couch like they can solve the whole question of his future right here, right now. “No offence to Hopper, the guy is a saint, but – well, for one thing, everything in the past couple years hasn’t really got me jumping up and down to work for the government in like, any way or form. And then – everything that Hopper’s done that makes him a great guy is also what kind of makes him a shitty police man? I mean, the police don’t exactly protect people, do they? They protect – I don’t know, the law? And the law doesn’t usually protect the people who really need it, so I just don’t –“

A hand on his wrist cuts him off, and he’s a little surprised that it’s attached to Jonathan, this time. In his endless mental list of maybes, Steve finds himself wondering if he’s staring at Jonathan, now, if turning to face him has left them just the slightest bit too close to one another.

“Uh,” he says, eloquently.

“I’m saying this in the kindest possible way – because you going all anti-establishment is weirdly, unfairly hot – and don’t you dare tell her I said this, but meeting Robin really is the best thing that ever happened to you.”

“She knows,” Steve replies, almost automatically, then clamps his mouth shut and abruptly lets it drop open again. “Wait, did you –“

Jonathan snatches his hand away like he's burned himself, so maybe he himself didn't realize what just came out of his mouth. He really does blush so drastically. It’s a little bit addictive to look at. There are a few seconds where both of them just sort of ... gape at each other, lost for words in this inane situation.

Nancy, fortunately, has always been rather impatient with them and cuts through their silence with an exasperated groan.

“For God's sake,” she says, with both of the others now staring at her instead, like waiting for her to tell them what happens next. “Will you just –“

She doesn't get to finish. She doesn't need to finish, really, because apparently her and Jonathan still share that strange psychic connection between them, so that Jonathan gets the message just fine.

They're kissing, and Steve never even saw it coming.

It somehow just happens like this. One moment, Steve is rambling about the … evils of the world, and the next, Jonathan Byers is kissing him like he doesn't know if it's allowed, and he'll give it his all just in case it's all that he's going to get. Maybe, Steve is kissing back the way he is for the same reason, or maybe it's just to prove that Jonathan is wrong. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Before he knows it, they’re pulling apart, breathless like marathon runners, but more from the shock than from exertion. More like the adrenaline of having slain the monster and lived rather than the endurance it took to get there.

Nancy doesn't give him the chance to catch his breath before she takes over from where Jonathan left off, and yes, he thinks dizzily, maybe this is that homesick feeling he's been having. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Well, he doesn't have to miss them tonight, or even tomorrow. And maybe, just maybe he is finally ready to come with them, find a place somewhere that can be a home they can all come back to, eventually. Hawkins has Hopper, Joyce, El, and the other kids there to look after it, look after each other. From the way the two of them keep looking at him after they part, he gets the feeling that he might be needed elsewhere.

#stranger things fic #stranger things #stoncy #prompt fill #jonathan x steve x nancy

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