#ok let's focus COME ON MATTEO | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

maleoventlover · 5 months

Text

The Corner Store Case

Prologue

Warning: Religious content and Anxiety Attack

I stand in front of the grand door with sweaty palms. I could hear the small orchestra playing some wedding song, familiar yet distant. The once loud room in front of me went dead silent and I could hear everyone stand up. My body instantly started to back away. I couldn't do this, no this was all wrong.

"No. No, I can't I-"

A hand gripped my arm gently. I turn to my side and see my mother looking at me with concern.

"Violet, Violet honey are you ok?" Mama grasps my hand gently, she runs her thumb over my knuckles in a soothing circular motion. We could both feel my hands start to shake.

"I'm fine just nervous," The makeup on my face feels suffocating, I want to wash it off. But the sweat on my face seems to absorb into the makeup making it unbearable, almost as of a second tighter skin formed over me. My dress feels like it's clinging to my skin and tightening itself around me. It was practically squeezing the air out of me. This hair, these extensions, they cling to my face and neck like snakes waiting to swallow their prey. The white heels on my feet start to pinch and twist.

I can hear the impatient chatter of the guest beyond the door. The music slowly comes to a stop. My heart beats faster, my breath gets thinner, and I lean on my mother's shoulder. My body starts to shake as I struggle to breathe. Tears start to stream down my face as I let out a muffled sob. Face hurried into her shoulder. I couldn't go out there. Matteo and his brother worked so hard to pull this together and I looked and felt like a mess. I would be an embarrassment to the family. To their family.

"Violet, baby breath, it's your special day! You shouldn't cry..."

My mother tries her best to calm me down but it isn't working.

"I'm sorry mama...what if he doesn't want to get married? What if he gets tired of me? What if I don't please him? I am not ready to be a wife."

Mother pulls me close and looks me in the eyes. Her face is serene and graceful, the woman I wish I could be.

"If he didn't want to marry you he wouldn't have proposed baby, stop worrying and calm down. It's time for you to take your next step in life, it's time to start a family of your own."

"Also Your makeup is runny honey."

I can feel her staring at me with such love and happiness. I try to hold back the tears but a few more slipped out, I wasn't ready.

She gives me a disappointed expression.

"I can't help it, mama. So many possibilities of this going wrong. What if he falls out of love? Maybe he will find other women to love-"

"Violet York!"

I get quiet. She grabs my face.

"You can't go forward in life if you keep focusing on the future. Focus on the now and live in the moment."

She was right. It's my wedding day, I should focus on getting ready to walk down that aisle and marry the man who's been by my side nonstop since day one.

My breath returns to its normal pace. My heartbeat slows down. Tears stop running down my face. It's time.

"Thank you, mama. I'm ready."

"Good baby. Now go get that man before one of those women snatch him up. Some of your cousins have been eyeing him up like a piece of meat since we got here."

She chuckles and offers me a tissue.

A giggle escaped my lips as I dab sweat and runny makeup off my face.

A sniffle escapes me as I straighten my posture. Walking back towards the door I grab my bouquet from a nearby table and position myself. I glanced at my mother once more. She flips over my veil and puts my hand on her arm.

I smile as my mother and I swing open the doors.

Music starts to play. The flower girl is in the middle of the row throwing assorted flower petals. She is picked up by her mom and sat down.

I take my first step, then my second. Next thing I know I'm standing in front of the man who changed my life. He looks at me with a questioning expression but smiles nevertheless. Taking my hand in his, his eyes filled with love and his face is in bliss.

Matteo Del Sordo, is a simple man, with a simple life, in a simple world.

"Dearly beloved, you have come together into the house of the Church so that in the presence of the Church's minister and the community, your intention to enter into Marriage may be strengthened by the Lord with a sacred seal. Christ abundantly blesses the love that binds you.”

The Priest begins, licking his lips slightly as he continues to the next phrase.

Through a special Sacrament, he enriches and strengthens those he has already consecrated by Holy Baptism, that you may be enriched with his blessing you, so that you may have the strength to be faithful to each other forever and assume all the responsibilities of married life. And so, in the presence of the Church, I ask you to state your intentions."

I look at Matteo, narrowing my eyes at him slightly through the veil. His hands squeezed mine reassuringly, his way of telling me to just roll with it. Good thing his brother couldn't see my face.

We practiced these traditional vows but I still wanted to have our little twist on things. But Matteo says traditions are important in his family, so I guess I should honor them.

"Matteo Del Sordo and Violet York, have you come here to enter into Marriage without coercion, freely and wholeheartedly?"

"I have."

"Are you prepared, as you follow the path of Marriage, to love and honor each other for as long as you both shall live?"

"I am."

"We shall now bear witness to the vows"

Matteo looks at me. He cocks his head slightly and gives me a soft smile.

"I, Matteo Del Sordo, take you, Violet York, to be my wife. I promise to be faithful to you, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love you and to honor you all the days of my life."

I almost wanted to cry hearing him say that. Even though I thought we agreed on making our vows, this was equally as emotional, because I knew he meant every word.

"I, Violet York, take you, Matteo Del Sordo, to be my husband. I promise to be faithful to you, in good times and in bad, in sickness and health, to love you and to honor you all the days of my life."

Matteo looks away for a second to wipe his eyes. I could hear some people laugh in the audience.

"And as your wife..."

He looks up in surprise, assuming I was done.

"I promise that every day will be like the last. Full of love, happiness, and closeness. You not only become my husband on this day but my best friend. I promise that no matter the circumstances, I will always be honest, open, and reliable. Matteo, you're my partner in crime, and I wouldn't have it any other way."

Matter looks at me with wide eyes and a stupid grin. His eyes water up, and before he could say anything the priest decided to start talking again.

"May the Lord in his kindness strengthen the consent you have declared before the Church and graciously bring to fulfillment his blessings within you. What God has joined, let no one put asunder.

May the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God who joined together our first parents in paradise, strength and bless in Christ the consent you have declared before the Church, so that what God joins together, no one may put asunder. Let us bless the lord."

"Thanks be to God."

The audience replies.

After a few songs and prayers, we continue with the wedding.

A little boy with curly hair and big green eyes saddles up to the priest presenting him with two rings. He then hurries off stage to his parents. I watch him smile, one day.

"Bless and sanctify your servants in their love, O Lord, and let these rings, a sign of their faithfulness, remind them of their love for one another. Through Christ our Lord."

"Amen"

The audience replies.

The priest proceeds to sprinkle our dings in holy waters, then presents us with the rings.

Matteo takes my ring in hand. It was very...expensive looking. A big bright round-cut diamond with marquise and pear-shaped amethyst surrounding it...in the shape of a purple flower, so creative.

"Violet, receive this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

I hold his ring in my hand.

"Matteo, receive this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

I slide a silver band onto his finger. The smooth metal wraps around his finger perfectly. Like it was always supposed to her there. My heart flutters at the thought of a long happy life with this man.

"Now let us humbly invoke God's blessing upon this bride and groom, that in his kindness he may favor with his help those on whom he has bestowed the Sacrament of Matrimony."

With the dumbest smirk, possible Matteo turns to me, I couldn't help but smile as well. We both knew what was coming next. Carefully he lifts the veil from my face.

It felt as if time slowed down, it was just the two of us. I giggled as his eyes shinned with love and that stupid grin retiring to his face once more.

"In the sight of God and these witnesses, I now pronounce you husband and wife! You may now kiss!"

With a swift movement, my newfound husband grabs me by the waist, sweeps me off my feet, and kisses me. His soft lips gently on mine as our families clap and cheer with our official union in the house of God.

He pulls away and whispers.

"Amore Mio, my love, my life, I will never let you go."

"I know you'll do me right Del Sordo, you always have."

Oh if only I knew how wrong I was. Once a naive young girl, now a hurt woman .

You, Mr. Del Sordo, Ruined my life.

And I will bring you to justice.

#thecornerstorecase #original writing #orginal story #black writblr #black writers #part 1 #story #beginner writer

0 notes

countessofravenclaw · 2 years

Note

Ok I picked a random number now: 26 :)

Finally, after so long, it happened

Okay, let's go and do some Au stuff again as we do. This is happening at S3E31 when Matteo is in the hospital and Luna has just watched the video. This is a S3 Au where Gastina never broke up

Gastón was sitting in his dorm trying to finish his physics homework. The time was nearing 10 pm, and he really should get to sleep soon, not to mess up his sleep schedule.

He finished the last equation -the normal force was 23 newtons- and close his book and picked up his phone.

Strange. Matteo hadn't responded to any of his messages. Maybe he had finally figured this out with Luna, and was ignoring him because he had some other, better things to do.

Then his phone started ringing, and he saw that it was Nina calling. They had already talked in the morning but he would never complain about talking to her again, he'd rather fail any class than not pick up her call.

"Hi. Did I wake you, I'm sorry." Nina voices rang from the other end. Gastón wondered for a moment why she had called instead of calling him a videocall, hed rather also see her face.

"No, you didn't wake me" he laughed, "And even if you did, it would matter. How many times do I need to tell you, that you can call me in the middle of the night if you want. It is always worth it to hear your voice. What's up?"

"There is something you need to know." He heard her take a breath before talking. Now he realized why she hadn't called a video call. She was trying to hide how worried she was, and her face would have definitely given it away. He of course could pick it up from her voice as well.

"What's going on?" fact that she was worried and was trying to hide was making him extremely worried.

"Are you sitting down?"

The alarm bells rang in his head at once. Something bad had happened. His heart picked up its pace, as his blood ran cold.

"What's wrong? Are you okay? Are you safe? What has happened?" If something had happened to her, he would never forgive himself.

"No, I'm okay..." His heart rate slowed down, and he let out a breath that he had been holding.

"It's Matteo."

"What?" Matteo? What had Matteo done now?

"I am sure he told you about the stuff with Emilia." Yes, he definitely had. Matteo had messed up big time this time, but gastón couldn't blame him fully, he was on his side after all.

"Well, Luna has been really mad at him... and them Matteo found evidence for that he didn't kiss her, but Luna didn't wanna listen to him..." Gastón couldn't quite understand why the Lutteo drama had made Nina so worried. They usually just joked about it, affectionately of course, since they knew they'd figure it out someday.

"...and you know the gate in front of the mansion."

"Yes, but I am not really following. Matteo messes up every other day, it is not that serious."

"Well, this is. Matteo tried to climb over the fence in order to show her the video. He fell off. To the concrete, I mean, and he is at the hospital."

Now Matteo had really done it. After everything, it had finally happened. Matteo had lost all of his common sense. How had he really thought that he could have climbed over a 10-meter fence? But he couldn't focus on that right now,

"How is he?"

"No one knows, but he at least has a concussion. He's in a coma."

It didn't take long for Gastón to make the decision.

"I am coming there."

"You can't leave your studies."

"Nina, you know how important Matteo is to me." He stopped for a moment and took his laptop out and started rolling through available flights. "I am not gonna just sit here and wait to hear the worst. Matteo is my brother, I need to be there. It would be the same id this would be Mom or Dad, or even worse you."

"So you are actually coming here?" He thought he heard some joy in Nina's voice. He couldn't lie, even with Matteo's situation, though of getting to see her made him extremely happy.

"I'll update you on the departure and landing times. I see you soon, love you."

Okay, I have actually wanted to write this very long time, since it has always bothered me that no one told Gastón about Matteo being in the hospital. This is how his return would have happened if they could have gotten Agus to shoot half of the season.

#Soy Luna #Gastina #Gastteo #Soy Luna fanfiction

5 notes · View notes

waste-the-nite · 5 years

Text

You over anyone

Ao3 link : https://archiveofourown.org/works/18556756

Matteo understood the concepts of soulmates, he understood why people were excited to meet the person they were destined to end up with. He also understood that you didn’t have to live the rest of your life with your soulmate, but most chose to. What Matteo didn’t understand is how you could date a person for months or years, find out who your soulmate is and leave the person you were dating for them. He didn’t understand how you could love someone and leave them for another person just because a name on your wrist appears. He didn’t understand why his dad left his mom because another woman’s name, Heidi Wagner, appeared on his wrist.

When Matteo was fourteen, he met David, it was Carlos birthday party. Most of their classmates were there, some of Carlos family, and a few other friends he had that didn’t go to school with them. He had known Carlos for a while, through Jonas really. As much fun as the part was, Matteo got bored very fast, it didn’t help that the only thing Jonas, Carlos and Abdi were talking about were girls. Apparently, Jonas and Carlos have a double date they were going on tomorrow, with Kiki and Hanna, two girls he sorts of considered his friends. Honestly, Matteo wasn’t even sure if he liked girls, at least not the way Jonas and the guys did. Don’t get him wrong, girls were cute and nice, but so were boys. But Matteo was only fourteen he didn’t have to figure it all out right now.

He had gone outside to the backyard, there was a swing set there for Carlos younger siblings. Matteo sat down on one of the seats, pushing himself back and forth lightly with his feet. Pulling out his phone from his pocket, he opened one of the many game apps he had and started playing it. He had been so into the game he didn’t hear the footsteps that were walking towards him.

“To cool for parties?”

Matteo looked up, almost dropping his phone from the surprise of another person being out here. A boy stood in front of him, in a black jacket and a dark blue beanie covering his hair. The boy raised an eyebrow, making Matteo realize he hadn’t responded yet.

He shrugged his shoulders, “Just got bored of hearing my friends talk about their date tomorrow”

“Oh, so you’re jealous then” The boy said, sitting down in the swing next to Matteo

“It’s more that I’d rather have a conversation with someone that didn’t focus on girls all the time”

Matteo wasn’t sure why he was telling this boy that he didn’t want to talk about girls. The boy next to him probably did want to talk about girls. He didn’t even know the boy. Who was he and how did he know Carlos? More importantly why was he out here talking to Matteo when there was a party full of people inside?

“Well why don’t you talk to them about something else?” He asked, “Maybe they’re tired of talking about girls too, you just don’t know it”

Matteo snorted, “I doubt it, girls are their favorite topic”

The boy didn’t get a chance to reply, Carlos came out the back door, letting it slam shut behind him.

“Dude there you are we’ve been looking for you everywhere” It was directed at Matteo, “Oh you met David, good I was going to introduce you two at some point tonight”

Carlos started talking to the boy, David, but Matteo wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying. He was looking at David, his dark hair curling into the beanie, the way he leaned against the pole of the swing set, and how his eyes keep darting back to Matteo. Carlos didn’t seem to notice, to caught up in telling David something his mom had said. Matteo was really wondering where Carlos had met David.

“- Anyways, my moms about to do the cake in a few minutes so you guys should come inside” Carlos said, turning to walk back to the house, not bothering on waiting for them.

Matteo looked back at David, who was already looking at him with a small smile, “So are you to cool for cake too?” He asked.

“No” Matteo replied; he didn’t move from the swings though.

David tilted his head to the left and began to walk backwards, towards the house, “You know if you ever want to talk to someone about something that isn’t girls, I’m pretty good at keeping a conversation going”

Matteo raised both of his eyebrows, because did David just offer to spend time with him? A boy he just met only ten minutes ago. He’s doesn’t say anything; he wants to say ‘yes’ but the words just don’t come out. Eventually David turned around and walked into the house, Matteo let out a breath. He looked around the yard, empty and dark, he could hear the people in the house start singing to Carlos. Sighing, Matteo stood up and walked to the house, pausing when he got to the back door. Mentally preparing himself for when he goes back into the party, knowing his friends will be asking what girl at the party he thought was cute.

The next time Matteo saw David, he was with Jonas and Carlos, or well he was supposed to be. They had been at the park, Carlos and Jonas only wanted to go so they could see the girls. Matteo knew this but he still allowed them to drag him to the park. So, while they were off somewhere doing who knows what with the girls. Matteo was sitting at a table with his earphones in. Once again, he was playing a game on his phone, he had music playing.

Someone sat across from him, assuming it was one of the guys he didn’t bother looking up. It wasn’t until he was finished with the level of his game that he did. He glanced up, then quickly did a double take. The boy sitting in front of him was not Carlos or Jonas, it was David. David from Carlos party. David who offered to sit and talk to him about anything other than girls. David who Matteo hadn’t seen since the party almost a month ago. Matteo pulled his earphones out when he saw David’s mouth moving.

“Sorry what?” He asked.

David smiled, “I said ‘hey’”

“Oh” Matteo looked down, “Hi”

“I’m David”

“I Know” Matteo looked up, David raised his eyebrow, “I mean I remember you, from the party” David didn’t say anything, just looked at Matteo, “Uh, I’m Matteo”

He smiled again, “I know”

“Oh”

David nodded, looking around the park once before looking back at Matteo, “What’re you doing here?”

“Um Carlos and Jonas wanted to come”

“And, where are they?”

Matteo shrugged, “Not sure, someone with the girl I guess”

“The girls?”

“Hanna and Kiki, the ones they had a date with” Matteo wasn’t sure If David even remember the conversation, they had a month ago, but he nodded like he did.

“They just left you here?” David asked, “Why’d you even come if you knew they were going to be with them?”

“Actually, I left them, watching them attempt to flirt was giving me second hand embarrassment”

Matteo decided not to answer the second question, not wanting to tell David that being the third wheel on their date was better than sitting at home alone.

“Do you think you could do better?”

“Do better at what?”

“Do you think you could flirt better than them?” A small smirk laid on David’s mouth.

They stared at one another, not saying anything. Matteo blinked slowly; eyes concentrated on David’s eyes. Even though they were a dark brown color they sparkled more than Matteo’s blue ones. He had long eyelashes, long ones that brushed against his cheek when he blinked. Matteo’s eyes dropped down to the table, David had a book and a pen in his hand, his fingers had smudges on them.

“Do you draw?” Matteo asked instead of answering his question

“A bit yeah”

“Could I see?”

“I don’t usually show them to people” Before Matteo could tell him it was ok, he said, “But I guess I could show you”

Matteo nodded silently as David put his pen in his bag, opening the book to the first page and handing it to him. He held David’s gaze for a few more seconds before finally looking down at the book. There were many drawings on the pages, some of birds, trees, people. A drawing of David himself, he drew himself with spikey hair and boots.

“These are cool” Matteo said, not able to think of another word for his amazing art, “I like how you draw yourself”

“Thanks” David said softly.

There were a couple of pages stuck together, Matteo picked at them for a second. He looked up at David with his eyebrows furrowed together. Before he could ask why they were stuck together, a hand clapped down on Matteo’s shoulder, making him jump. Jonas sat down next to him, Carlos on the other side next to David. Matteo closed David’s book, placing it down next to him.

“Hey dude why’d you leave?” Jonas asked.

“Yeah, Kiki told Sara you were coming, she showed up and you weren’t there”

Matteo resisted the urge to roll his eyes, “Just felt like coming here”

“What’re you doing here?” Carlos asked David.

“I was just out walking around when I ran into Matteo”

“Oh man, Matteo guess what?” Jonas asked, “Carlos and I got another date with the girls, you should ask Sara out and we could all go on a date”

Humming, Matteo shrugged, “Maybe”

“It’s going be great dude”

The conversation shifted from there, Carlos and Jonas talking about where they and the girls should go on their date. Matteo looked over to David, who was already looking at him. He seemed to do that a lot, already looking at Matteo when he looks at David.

“Are you coming?” Carlos asked, Matteo looked away from David, and at Carlos

“Where?”

“Jonas house to play video games” Carlos gave him a weird look

“Oh, um yeah” Matteo said

“Alright, David I’ll see you later, yeah?” Carlos looked over to David, Matteo watched as David nodded.

Jonas and Carlos stood up and began walking away from the table, down the path. Matteo looked down and picked up David’s book. He handed the book over, then stood up from the table.

“I guess I’ll see you” Matteo said.

“Yeah I guess”

Matteo started walking the same direction Jonas and Carlos did, but stopped, turning back to David.

“Do you remember when you said if I ever wanted to talk to someone about anything other than girls?”

“yeah”

“Do you want to hang out sometime?” Matteo asked, David looked surprised.

“Sure” He said, opening his book, taking his pen and writing something down. He ripped the paper out and closed the book.

David stood up and walked over to Matteo, “Here” He put the paper in Matteo’s hand, “Text me when”

Matteo stood there staring at the paper in his hand. David walked down the path going the opposite direction the boys did. Matteo turned and watched as David made his way down the side walk. When he was finally out of sight, Matteo started walking towards Jonas house.

-- “So, soulmates?”

“Yeah?” “How do you feel about them?”

David and Matteo had hung out many times at this point. They go to the park. They listen to music. They ride bikes. They do everything but talk about girls. The first time they hung out it was a bit awkward, mostly because they didn’t know anything about one another other, other an each other’s name. Eventually they got used to each other, learning stuff about the other, David easily became one of Matteo’s best friends.

They were currently on Matteo’s bed, David sitting up back pressed against the wall, Matteo laying on his back looking at the ceiling. Matteo’s mom had been at his aunt’s house, so he had the smart idea to invite David over.

“I don’t know” David said, “I think its weird that someone is destined to you, like you don’t have a say in who you get to be with”

“People don’t always choose their soulmate” Matteo said, even though he didn’t believe it.

“Yeah but then there is probably always doubt in the back of your mind whether or not you’re making the right choice of not choosing your soulmate”

Matteo didn’t say anything. He wondered if his dad thought twice before choosing Heidi over him and his mom. He doubted it, his dad hadn’t even cared when he was born, didn’t bother to show up.

“What about you, what do you think of it?”

Matteo closed his eyes, “I think its complete shit”

“Why?” David asked.

“So many things could go wrong” He sighed, “You could be with someone and find your soulmate, then you’ll have to decide whether you want the person you been with or this random person that’s supposed to be the one for you. Your soulmates could be in love with someone else or they could have died and then what? Then there are those rare cases where someone Is your soulmate but you’re someone else’s soulmate, what the hell is that?”

“You’ve thought about this a lot” David said, Matteo opened his eyes, tilted his head towards David.

“Yeah I had fifteen long years”

“Is that what happened to your parents?”

Matteo pursed his lips and looked back up at the ceiling. He wasn’t expecting David to ask that. No one has ever bothered to ask that. Matteo hardly ever talked about his parents, other than the fact that Matteo’s mom wasn’t always completely there, mentally. Matteo didn’t want to talk about his parents, what happened to them, what his dad did. So, he did what he does best, he ignored the question.

“Do you want to go play video games?” He asked, standing up already walking towards his bedroom door.

David followed him out into the living room, where Matteo’s game system was. He lent against the back of the couch as Matteo went and turned on the tv.

“You don’t have to do that, you know”

Matteo paused, “Do what?”

“Act like you don’t feel or care about things”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”

“Whenever I ask you a question, sometimes they aren’t even personal questions, you ignore it” David moved to sit down on the couch, “You’re allowed to feel things and state your opinions, especially with me”

It was weird, Matteo often found himself wanting to tell David about his parents. But not only about them, about a lot of stuff he has never wanted to tell people. Matteo moved to sit down next to David, staring at him for a moment before leaning back, “My parent got together when they were sixteen, my mom got pregnant with me a few months before she turned eighteen, when she told my dad it was his birthday, he had said he was happy and that he’d support her” He let out a breath, blinking away the tears he could feel forming in his eyes, “He lied, his soulmate was some other lady and he left my mom”

“I’m sorry”

“Yeah well who needs him anyways, I’m perfectly fine without him”

“You can tell me stuff Matteo, you can trust me, I’ll listen if you ever need someone”

“Thanks” Matteo sat up and turned on the game, “But I rather not talk about my parents anymore”

“Okay so we’ll talk about anything else other than your parents” David grabbed the other controller from the table, “And girls”

Matteo couldn’t help but smile at that. He’s only ever told one person what happen with his parents before. But it felt nice for someone else to know, to feel just as confused as he was as to why his dad picked the lady over them. The fact that it was David who he told felt even better, David was easy to talk to, easier than his other friends.

They were at the park, David wanted to come so he could get some inspiration to draw. Matteo just wanted to hang out with David. So, they were back at the table from the second time they met. David drawing and Matteo watching a video on his phone. Matteo found it weird how comforting it was to just be in David’s presence, they weren’t even talking, just enjoying each other’s company.

Matteo looked up at David, he was so concentrated on whatever he was drawing. His bottom lip was pulled between his teeth, his hair falling in front of his eyes. His hand moved smoothly and quick along the page, it made Matteo wonder if David was this good at everything he did. David dragged his eyes away from the page, looking over to Matteo. He hadn’t expected Matteo to already be looking at him.

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” David asked

Matteo dropped his gaze “Like what?”

“I don’t know, you just had this look on your face”

“There was no look on my face”

“If you say so” David mumbled, looking back down

“What’re you drawing?”

“Nothing”

“Mm, very convincing” Matteo said, “Can I see it?”

“No”

“What, why not?”

“Because its private”

Matteo rolled his eyes, “You always show me your drawings”

“The ones that aren’t private”

That made Matteo frown, he didn’t realize David had private drawings. Ones that David hadn’t shared with him. It made him wonder if there were any other things David didn’t share with him. It also made Matteo kind of self-conscious because of how much of himself he had shared with David.

Sighing David looked back up at him, “Okay fine you can look at it”

Matteo smiled slightly, holding his hands out for the book. David hesitated before placing it in Matteo’s opened hands. Matteo brought it closer to him, turning it around so it was facing the right way. Matteo expected many things, another bird, some artist or filmmaker David liked, or even a random object David found when he was on one of his adventures. What Matteo didn’t expect was to be looking at a drawing of himself. Matteo realized it was of him just a few minutes ago, playing the game on his phone. The drawing was very detailed, the table Matteo had been resting his arms on, Matteo’s hands that were holding his phone.

Matteo looked over to David, who was staring at Matteo, “This is um,” Matteo glanced back down at the drawing, “Amazing”

“it’s okay, I need to work on my hands” David said, placing his chin on his palm.

“Well I think it’s amazing” Matteo mumbled; David gave him a smile.

Matteo would be lying if he said his heart didn’t beat a little faster at David’s smile. He’d also be lying if he said that didn’t freak him out. He could not like David. He was Matteo’s best friend; you’re not supposed to like your best friends. Not only that, Matteo had made it his personal goal not to like or date anyone before he turned eighteen, before he could find out who his soulmate was.

“What’s wrong?” David asked when he saw Matteo mouth fall into a frown

“Nothing” Matteo answered, a little too quickly, “Um, I have to go”

“What, why?”

“I uh, I promised my mom I’d be home by six” Matteo said, giving David his book back.

“Do you want me to walk with you?”

“No” Matteo replied, loudly, “I mean no, it’s ok I’ll see you later”

He turned and started walking to the exit of the park, not giving David a chance to say goodbye. He paused when he made it out of the park and sat down on the bus bench. Placing his head in his hands he let out a breath, you cannot like David, you cannot like David. Matteo groaned as he stood up and began walking in the direction of his house. David’s smile flashed through his head for a second, you cannot like David, repeating over and over in his head.

Matteo is sixteen when he breaks his promise to himself not to date anyone before he knew who his soulmate was. He had been sitting at his desk trying to study for the upcoming test he had. Except everything he was reading was very boring, he kept getting distracted by the notifications pinging on his phone. A knock on his window startled him, causing his phone to fall from his hand and onto the desk. Looking over he saw David, motioning for him to open his window.

“What’re you doing here?” Matteo asked, holding his window open for David to climb through

“I expected a bit more excitement” David said, throwing himself onto the bed, “Especially since I’m your favorite person and all”

Matteo hummed, not agreeing but not disagreeing with what David said. Matteo sat back down at his desk, trying to focus on the words in front of him. He could feel David’s eyes on him, Matteo desperately wanted to turn and look back at him.

“So, do you notice anything different?” David asked, giving Matteo a reason to turn towards him

Matteo stared at him, eyes tracing over David’s face. Nothing looked different, he still had long eyelashes and his hair was the same. He was ready to tell David everything was the same when he saw it. The piercing in David’s nose, it was small and round. Matteo’s mouth parted slightly, David had talked about getting a septum piercing before, but Matteo never thought he’d go and do it.

“Whoa dude” Matteo moved to sit next to David on the bed, “Did it hurt?”

“Well I was getting a needle shoved through my nose to yeah kind of” David laughed, rolling his eyes at the question

Matteo shoved him lightly, a small smile on his face, “It looks good” you look good, He wanted to say

“Yeah?” David asked, his cheeks turning a light of shade of red

Nodding Matteo leaned closer, staring at the piercing. David really did look good with it, nothing about it stood out, just a tiny silver circle, but somehow, he made it look amazing.

Breaking the silence, David asked, “Do you want to go out with me?”

“Sure, where’re you going?”

David laughed, “No Matteo” David sat up, “I meant do you want to go out with me, like on a date”

Matteo’s eyes widen as he looked up at David, “W-what?”

“I mean unless I’ve totally read this wrong” David ran his hand through his hair, resting it on his neck.

“This?” Matteo was starting to wonder if he was broken

“I was getting these feelings that you liked me, and I’ve liked you for- “David let out a breath, “-for a while now, but we can forget this ever happened if I was wrong- “

Matteo stopped listening. What the hell, David liked him? Matteo hadn’t expected this. Everything in his brain was telling him to say no, there was a huge chance David was not his soulmate. Also, what if it didn’t work out between them and they broke up, would they be able to stay friends after that? But then there was everything else in Matteo’s body that was telling him to say yes. He has liked David for almost a year now, it’d be so stupid of him to say no.

“No” Matteo said, cutting off David causing his face to fall, “Wait no! I meant no you didn’t read the anything wrong”

“Okay” David said slowly, “So you will go out with me?”

Matteo smiled, nodding his head, “Yes David I will” --

“David and I are dating”

They were at Carlos house, playing video games and eating pizza. It had been a couple of months since David asked Matteo out on a date. Matteo figured it was time to tell Jonas, Carlos and Abdi about them. There was no better way to do that than to just blurt it out at a random time. It was surprisingly easy being around the guys without them finding out they were together. The only thing that really changed in their relationship since they got together was that they held hands and kissed.

“About time” Carlos said, frantically the button on the game controller

“Honestly I thought you guys would never figure out you liked one another” Jonas added

“What?” Matteo asked, looking between the two

“I thought you two were secretly dating this whole time” Abdi said, not even looking up from his phone

Matteo looked at David, eyebrows drawn together in confusion, because what the hell?

David laughed, shrugging his shoulders, “Well that was easier than we thought”

Laying back into the couch, Matteo rolled his eyes and let out a small laugh, because wow his fucking friends.

Matteo sat on his bed; legs crossed facing David. There were fifteen minutes left until David’s eighteenth birthday, fifteen minutes until they knew who David’s soulmate was. Matteo remembered what he told himself, no dating before eighteen, but then that flew out the window. He remembered telling himself not to fall in love, not that he thought David would want to keep dating him for longer than six months. But then six months passed, and Matteo had been so far gone for David at that point. Now it’s been almost two years since David had asked Matteo out, and if he were being honest, Matteo wasn’t sure what he would do if he and David weren’t soulmates.

“How is it my birthday but you’re more nervous than me?” David asked, poking Matteo with his pen

Matteo shrugged, thinking back to all those times his brain told him how stupid he was for falling for the boy in front of him. David who was incredibly kind and always offering to help other. David who never got annoyed at Matteo for his endless complaining. David who made Matteo’s heart beat faster whenever he gives Matteo that beautiful smiles of his.

“There’s no reason for you to be nervous, you know”

“David there is a chance that my name won’t appear on your wrist!” Matteo exclaimed, immediately remembering his mom is asleep in the other room, whispering, “That’s a perfect reason to be nervous”

“Your name will appear on my wrist, don’t worry” David said calmly, Matteo rolled his eyes at how sure he sounded.

“Luck and fate have never been very fond of me, so I doubt they’ll let me have one good thing”

Matteo knew that even if his named didn’t appear on David’s wrist, David could still choose to be with him. But then Matteo thought back to when he first asked David about soulmates, how he said that if you didn’t choose your soulmates you’d always wonder if it was the right choice. Matteo didn’t want David to question his choice if he had to pick between his soulmate and him. He didn’t want David to resent him if he did pick Matteo over whoever he was meant to be with. He didn’t want to go through the pain of David realizing that his soulmate was much better than Matteo. He also knew that even if he was David’s soulmate, David could still easily get tired of him, nothing was set in stone.

David wiggled his fingers as he felt a weird tingle shoot throughout his right arm. His phone read three minutes past midnight. He lifted his arm, bringing it closer to his face. David stared at the letters slowly making their way onto his wrist, in possibly the ugliest, sloppiest hand writing he had ever seen.

“Is it there yet?” Matteo asked, not sounding as excited as David was currently feeling.

David nodded, a smug look on his face, “I told you it’d be your name on my wrist” He turned his arm so that Matteo could see, “I’m always right”

Letting his body relax a smile made its way to his face, “Oh my god” Matteo grabbed his wrist, holding It close to his face.

Matteo pulled David into a hug, one that was probably entirely to tight. David wrapped his arms around Matteo’s waist, letting out a laugh. They stayed like that for a few minutes, just holding each other. David rested his head on Matteo’s shoulder, his heart was pounding.

David pulled away first, “So Matteo, Mr. Soulmate” He laughed again, “That is some beautiful hand writing you have here”

“Shut up, I was like seven when I wrote that”

They laid down on the bed, Matteo’s head on David’s chest, staring at Matteo’s horribly written name on David’s wrist. David’s other hand ran through Matteo’s hair, pausing to twirl a strand around his finger.

“You know, I would’ve chosen you whether it was your name or not, right?” David mumbled, “It was always going to be you over anyone”

“I know” Matteo replied, because he did, “I love you” he did.

“I love you too”

David was late, he was twenty-three minutes late. Matteo sat on his bed cross legged, just like he did a few months ago. The only difference this time is that It was Matteo’s eighteenth birthday, twenty-three minutes in. Matteo sighed and leaned his head back against the wall. He had felt the weird tingle run through his arm, but he didn’t look. Not yet. Not without David. It didn’t really matter whose name was on Matteo’s wrist, because it was always going to be David over anyone else. So, it didn’t matter, well maybe it did a little. Even though it would always be David, the thought of someone else’s name on him weirded him out.

Matteo was weak, he couldn’t wait any longer. He removed the band aid he placed over his wrist to prevent himself from seeing the name. Tears immediately sprung to his eyes. In all its glory, nice and neat, was written David Schreibner. Matteo ran his finger over the name, he pursed his lips, a smile threatening to break through. A tap on the window brought him out of his daze. David sent a tiny wave to him through the glass. Matteo got up and opened the window for him.

“sorry Laura wouldn’t stop talking about som-“

Matteo cut him off with a kiss, throwing his arms around David’s shoulders. David made a sound of surprise, his hands instantly going to Matteo’s waist. Matteo kissed him once more before pulling away.

“It doesn’t matter, look” He said, holding his arm up to David’s face.

David’s eyes crossed because of how close Matteo’s arm was, “Jesus what’re you-“He stopped, pulling his arm away and reading the name, “Oh shit”

“Yeah ‘oh shit’” Matteo laughed, “We are officially soulmates”

“My official, one and only, soulmate” David said, leaning in and kissing Matteo again.

“That’s me”

David smiled at Matteo, that smile that made his heart beat a mile a minute. Matteo still had his doubts about soulmates and forever. It wasn’t perfect, there were many people in the world who didn’t get the person they thought they would. But he got David in the end, so someone, somewhere was doing something right. Someone somewhere finally decided to let something great come into Matteo’s life and stay.

“I would have chosen you too, no matter whose name was I had” Matteo said, remembering what David had said to him a few months ago, “It was always going to be you over anyone”

Another kiss, “I love you” David did.

#druck #skam druck #skam germany #matteo florenzi #david schreibner #matteo x david #davenzi #datteo #skam remake #davenzi fics #fanfic #soulmates #soulmate au #jonas augustin #carlos schmidt #friends to lovers

135 notes · View notes

lightsandlostbells · 5 years

Text

Druck season 3, episode 1 reaction

WE DID IT, KIDS. When Druck’s first season aired, I knew shortly after Matteo’s introduction that I could not wait for his season. But with that came a lot of apprehension that we would ever get Matteo’s season - Druck S1 got less attention than some of the other remakes, and for a long time, the fandom didn’t know if the show would get a S2, let alone S3. Months went by with no official news of when the show would return. Many people thought the show had been quietly cancelled.

And then, finally, Mia’s season was announced. Ratings and subscribers grew substantially. Druck trended frequently on YouTube and Tumblr. Then finally, we got confirmation that S3 was in the works. So here we are, and to put it politely, my ass is on fire.

Episode 1

Clip 1 - Matteo’s miserable night

Party time! This opening is pointedly sexual, with the music (”You’re turning me on”) and the dancing, with the closeups of boobs and butts and writhing bodies. Sara gets freaky with a banana. The presence of sex makes sense to highlight Matteo’s alienation, as we see him sitting on the couch, not participating. He’s disengaged from the flirtation and seduction, this isn’t something he wants to be a part of.

Is the guy dancing with Hans the turtleneck dude, or is that someone else? PLOT TWIST: he was never Matteo’s love interest, despite fan theories. He was Hans’ love interest all along!

Matteo gets up, trying to escape this scene that makes him uncomfortable. But Sara pulls him into a dance (much like she’s going to be playing the role of Emma this season, pulling Matteo back into an attempt at a straight relationship). They kiss, and he’s soooo not into it, hugging her and staring over her shoulder into space like she’s his great-aunt who smells like mothballs and he can’t wait to get the fuck out of this family reunion.

He escapes into the bathroom where the boy squad is smoking weed. Carlos showing the boys a sex position on his phone. I’m sure Matteo loves hearing about that. He’s getting high as the boys debate the mechanics of this man-woman sex position. The proper response, honestly.

Oh my God, Carlos just called Kiki a catheter. He meant cathetus. I don’t think you’re ready to integrate catheters into your sex life, dude.

Matteo looks dead. I know he’s getting high, but this kid looks fucking deceased. Someone revive him already.

When he realizes he has three calls from Kiki, Carlos pulls up Jonas and Abdi, saying they’re going to go hook up with girls. An activity that I’m sure Matteo wants to participate in. Matteo lingers behind. He just seems so wiped. He looks at himself in the mirror and it’s as if he’s disappointed in what he sees. (The way it’s shot makes his mirror image divided down the middle, like he’s a fractured person.) I’ve seen some later episodes by this point and Matteo seems like he’s really struggling with anxiety, like he just needs to escape sometimes, it all gets overwhelming.

The girl Jonas is dancing with kinda reminds me of Sonja (similar-ish haircut).

HOLY FUCK DID MATTEO JUST PUT THE WEED IN AMIRA’S BACKPACK???? Matteo, that is TOTALLY the worst an Isak has been about this, planting weed on on a person rather than a vase. I guess he assumes a Muslim girl in hijab seems like an unlikely candidate to have drugs, but ... dude. Asshole move. And I wouldn’t trust the authorities not to search the Muslim girl’s belongings for discriminatory reasons, anyway, which would have made it even worse.

Photoshop Markus is at this party and Matteo tells the cops Markus is the renter, LMAO GOD. Matteo is just snaking all over the place tonight. The cops tell everyone to turn the music down, which is pretty reasonable and not nearly as bad as them telling people to break up the party. Or maybe I’m just old. Carlos salutes as the cops leave, heh.

Amira just walks out with her backpack … and the weed. Lol, she might’ve just left because the cops showed up and she figured better to bail now, not wanting to get in trouble, or because she had a curfew or something, but part of me wants to believe she knew Matteo stuck weed in her backpack and she’s walking out to make him suffer. In that case: he deserves it, make him suffer.

Mia wasn’t at the party. I guess she and Alexander were making their own fun, but her presence is missed.

Clip 2 - Survival camp

Matteo’s new room is already a little messy, with beer bottles and remnants of the party. He wakes up and checks his phone, he’s got a Bible verse from mom. One that sounds normal and non-threatening enough, not like it’s about sin and hellfire, but you know. All religious texts are probably loaded coming from Matteo’s mom.

Matteo rolls over and Jonas is conked out in bed next to him. Oh nooooo, my heart. Matteo watches him and then reaches out and slooooowly lowers his hand to lightly touch Jonas’ curls, closing his eyes a little. GODDAMMIT.

If he doesn’t do this to Gereven at some point, touch his hair without having to be secretive about it, then I’m suing Druck.

You can tell Matteo is indulging in this fantasy that Jonas is his boyfriend and he’s waking up next to him, and the fantasy is broken when he looks down and sees that Jonas has a phone number with a little heart written on his arm. A girl. Jonas will never be his boyfriend.

Although I almost don’t think this is specifically about Matteo pining over Jonas - I think there’s definitely some lingering feelings, enough to be disappointed that Jonas might have a girl, but I also think it’s just the wish that Matteo can have this experience with a guy at all, he can wake up next to a boy who’s not just a friend, who he can touch and show affection to.

The fantasy is further interrupted when Hans walks in (the dreamy music cuts off) and Matteo rolls on his back like he’s totally not staring wistfully at Jonas. Hans throws himself on the bed between them in a perfect face plant, lmao.

Hans asks Matteo to buy rolls, saying Mia would’ve done that. Hans, if you are expecting Matteo to be a Mia substitute, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. I don’t think Matteo will lovingly wipe your vomit off the tub. (I mean. Maybe when he falls in love and is in just that good of a mood.)

Jonas asks why Hans is in Matteo’s bed, and Hans says he could ask Jonas the same question (DAMN) but Jonas is like … I’ve waited for you. He and Hans stare into each other’s eyes. Lmao, the way their gaze holds without comment or them breaking it off. I’m sure Matteo just loves seeing them “flirt.” But I don’t think the fantasy of Jonas in his bed involves Hans, sorry Hans. Matteo gets up to buy rolls, just to get away from the JoHans lovefest, I guess.

Linn comes in and says she wants to make pancakes but doesn’t know where the pans are, and she doesn’t know how to make pancakes either. Everyone in this flat is screwed without Mia. But Jonas offers to make pancakes, so all is saved! Matteo grumpily leaves Jonas, Hans, and Linn to take a selfie of their “survival camp” to send to Mia, showing they’re totally making it on their own. They look so perky, heh. They won’t be so perky when Jonas leaves and takes his pancake-making skills with him.

Matteo steps outside and gets a text from Sara about whether he slept well. I feel bad for Sara. She’s not just the Emma equivalent, she’s a character we’ve seen in the past who has been entertaining and likable. I don’t want to see her either make Emma’s mistakes like outing Matteo OR get her heart broken by him.

Hans throws Matteo’s wallet out of the window, beaning him in the head, which is truly the perfect gif.

Clip 3 - Will you surrender?

Matteo goes into school on a rainy Monday morning. We start with some passionate straight kissing in the foreground, coupled with a pic and text from Sara, just to show the kind of shit Matteo is dealing with. A heterosexual assault from all angles.

He meets up with the boy squad. Jonas is looking to get with Linn’s friend, who is “Emma Watson but blonde.” Sucks for Matteo to hear yet more girl talk, and girl talk from Jonas specifically. The heterosexuality strikes from another corner.

Adding another unwanted conversation topic, Abdi asks about the weed. Matteo seems like he wants to get the hell out of there, so he bails and goes up to Hanna and Sam, asking where Amira is. She’s out sick, so solving the weed dilemma will have to wait another day.

Hanna glances over at Jonas, who finally seems to have snapped out of his S2 funk as he talks about his new girl … does Hanna know yet Jonas has a new flame? Or is she just suspicious?

Man, I keep saying it, but Matteo seems like he’s sleepwalking through life, like this kid is just. Legit depressed. He has no energy for anything. Not even to fake being OK.

Continuity snarl: Matteo puts up his hood as he rounds the corner after leaving the girls, but it’s down a moment later.

The music is kicking in and there’s still almost a minute of clip left, is Matteo going to like … literally run into Beanie Boy/Gereven?

YEP

Well, they didn’t do a rom-com Meet Cute collide into each other or anything, but they passed each other in the hallway! In slow motion!

The big moment: Matteo and Gereven are coming at each other from different sides (like different ~walks of life? ooooo). They lock eyes and then look back at each other once after they’ve passed.

The scene goes into slow motion as soon as Matteo lifts his head and sees Beanie Boy. Matteo is just ambling his way to class and meandering through life, but when he sees that guy, that’s when he starts to feel present in the world, like it’s not just around him but including him. And then Gereven comes into focus as they pass each other.

I adore the music choice for this moment. It’s beautiful, and the lyrics are so lovely. “Will you surrender?” when we see Gereven and Matteo looking at each other, because Matteo’s seeing the boy who will make him give in and stop hiding who he truly is, who will make him surrender to love. And I suspect the same is true for Gereven, that Matteo will make him surrender as will, let go of his fears.

So I reaaaaally don’t think Beanie Boy was trying to get Matteo’s attention like Even was. There’s nothing about it that suggests so. My prediction is that Beanie Boy, like Matteo was trying to keep his head down and get through life, and they just happened to walk by each other. I mean, Matteo’s just walking down a school hallway, it’s not like Beanie Boy parked his ass deliberately somewhere so Matteo could see him, he couldn’t predict Matteo was going to walk down that hallway at that particular time. I feel like Beanie Boy is very much like Matteo in that he’s lonely and an outsider. He’s not trying to attract attention, he’s not seen smiling or laughing at someone at the beginning. Our first glance at Even was his brightness. Our first glimpse of Gereven (from Matteo’s POV, not the brief moment of him last season which is more of an Easter egg, really) has him in dark clothes, headphones on. I feel like he and Matteo are just checked out of life. And I think that’ll be an interesting take on Even, not so much that Beanie Boy has Even’s confidence and swagger in drawing Matteo to him, but that Matteo and Gereven are both outsiders and recognize their loneliness in each other.

That’s what really makes me love this scene. It’s just a mundane occurrence. Two boys walking by each other. Something that happens all the time. Something that Matteo no doubt does every day, walk by other boys whose faces don’t register. But this time, there’s ... something. Physical attraction? Sure, that’s part of it. But even more I think it’s a sense of connection, something inexplicable that draws them to look back at each other even when the moment should have ended. A gut feeling that this person is also lost, that he would understand.

Clip 4 - Everyone’s favorite reluctant friendship begins

It’s the first remake to focus on the teacher’s nipples! Matteo is staring at them instead of listening to her talk about their exams.

Amira comes in and Matteo just gets up from where he was sitting and sits next to her while the teacher is talking. Lol, is that allowed? Is this a study session or something?

Amira coolly ignores Matteo even when he tries to get her attention. Eventually she says she found his weed and how fucked up it was for him to do that, she could have gotten in trouble. A bit of a change because Sana was upset that Isak almost fucked over Eva, causing a demonstration of Sana’s loyalty to her friends. With Amira, it was personal, a risk to herself. Matteo acts shitty too, he’s just like come on, it wasn’t personal, it wasn’t a big deal. Dude! If you want your weed back, that’s not the best course of action. You need to grovel.

The teacher calls on Matteo and Jonas shoots him an entertained look, like ha ha, you got in trouble. Or probably, more ha ha, check out our teacher’s nips. Nice display of Jonas going for that hetero bro bonding that Matteo would love to avoid.

LMAO, when Matteo asks for the week back and Amira says, “What will I get for it?” Matteo is like “IDK, blowjob?” THIS KID. His mind went to that, huh. Remember Even was all “yeah, we had to suck dicks” without two minutes of meeting Isak? And then later Eskild told Isak that talking about sucking dick when you meet someone is a sign someone’s gay? Yeah.

Amira says she’ll give the weed back if Matteo and his boys join the abi-prank committee. Didn’t they do that last season? The copies of the boobs and butts and Jonas’ dick, didn’t that count as the prank?

The teacher makes them study partners. So far, she’s not a racist, at least? Anyway, Amira and Matteo look positively thrilled to be paired together; meanwhile Jonas is flirting with his seat partner. Oh, maybe that’s what the Look was about. Matteo continues to be pelted with heterosexuality like rotten fruits and vegetables.

Clip 5 - Matteo gets a prom date

Matteo and Sara sit on opposite sides of the bed, texting their friends, on their phones. LMAO, sounds about right, tbh. Truly scorching chemistry. Nah, it’s very Isak and Eskild.

The boys’ group chat has Jonas saying he’s getting laid on Friday. That rotten hetero produce comes in the form of eggplant emojis. Matteo sure loves hearing about Jonas banging chicks! He’s like, yeah, I’m totally having sex with a girl as well.

Sara asks his opinion about a dress. Subtle (“subtle”) hint about the prom? Yes, as it turns out. But she suddenly leans over and kisses him after he’s like yeah, that looks nice. He looks as excited as you’d expect. He was actually staring into space before she did that.

Sara gets a text, Matteo wants to know what they’re talking about, and there’s some “flirting” until Sara caves and tells him that Leonie likes the new guy from their PE class. GEE I WONDER WHO THAT COULD BE. Matteo offers to investigate for her. Yeah, I’ll bet he’s gonna enjoy that more than he knows. He’s going to become one of the Hardy Boys.

Sara somewhat nervously asks if they should go to prom together, and when Matteo is agrees, she asks whether they’re a thing. It makes me sad how clearly vulnerable she is right now, like she really likes him and is hoping to say yes, but she isn’t sure. Matteo says they’re a thing. Not conveying how utterly miserable this must make him, but not exactly jumping for joy, either. Like Isak tried hard to impress Emma, he could turn on the charm, but Matteo is just sleepy about it.

Sara kisses Matteo again, but before they go further, he asks if she wants to watch a movie with him. Smart move.

I’m sure Matteo will end up going to prom with Gereven. Sara and Leonie can go together? Realizing their love for each other at last. Or just as friends. (But preferably girlfriends.)

Clip 6 - Make a wish

Matteo goes to the abi-prank meeting, looking like he gives nary a fuck. Amira shoots him a nod and he gives her a “what more do you want from me” look. The girls are at the meeting, the rest of the boy squad is not, obviously. I see Photoshop Markus but not Beanie Boy.

All the girls are looking beautiful by the way. Look at Amira, she’s radiant!

Kiki literally goes Fight Club on this meeting. I have to say, if you asked me which Druck character would be a member of Fight Club, it would be Kiki. Her clumsy nervousness is a total front for bloodlust.

Matteo is being rude as hell just taking out his phone while Kiki is talking. The boys text why they aren’t there: Jonas has a date, Kiki is still mad at Carlos (dude, that’s why you need to come, it’s a way to get back on her good side) and Abdi just forgot.

They suggest a flash mob. Lmao, good luck getting Matteo to dance. Or they suggest just randomly hugging teachers. That could get all kinds of awkward, judging by the last teacher we saw with the power nipples. I’m just imagining some short kid going for a hug and getting their face mashed into the teacher’s areola.

Photosohp Markus has a suggestion. I love this dude, sorry. He loves hugging! He wants to practice with Kiki. Kiki realizes in an instant why the hugging prank might not be the best idea. But she’s like, we can group bond instead. Kiki wants everyone to hold hands and Matteo just peaces the fuck out. This prank meeting is pretty depressing, honestly. Way more so than kosegruppa. Kosegruppa might have been uncool or whatever but I got the sense the people involved enjoyed it. This meeting was just excruciating, and barely anyone is there. Look at that tiny circle.

Oh shit! As Matteo exits the room, Beanie Boy is going into it, and Matteo stops him. No, don’t go in there, it’s dangerous! Or actually it just sucks and they’re doing a trust circle where they hold hands. Beanie Boy obviously does not want to hold hands in that room, since Matteo is out here and not in there.

Aww, I love that Matteo has a slight smile? Just the tiniest when he talks to Beanie. Beanie is kinda doing the talking with his eyes, he’s definitely considering Matteo.

Shit, it’s Matteo who offers weed! Matteo is the one being the initiator! The bolder one. I love the idea of maybe having a shyer Even, like it does drastically change their dynamic, but I’m fine with that as long as the show does a thorough job of adapting their interactions, not just a cut and paste. Beanie Boy is the new kid and probably didn’t expect someone to make overtures of friendship (or more…).

And I love Matteo doing this when we’ve seen him sleepwalking through his interactions with Sara and … everyone else, kinda. He’s actually found some courage. Like he could have just let Beanie Boy go off and do his own thing, there was no real reason to offer a joint once he’d warned him off the meeting. But he somehow just felt the need to keep talking to this dude.

Holy fuck, MATTEO putting the joint behind his ear. This role reversal is so much fun already. And it’s even more amusing if you think that this is how some of Evak played out from Even’s POV? We thought Even was this charming, suave, mysterious dude when he stuck that joint behind his ear, because we were in Isak’s POV and Even was some handsome stranger. Later we realize what a huge dork Even is and that he was super desperate to get Isak’s attention and had been pining since the first day of school. So this is like how Even actually was - we know Matteo is a big dork and not a suave dude, but maybe that’s how he comes across in Beanie Boy’s eyes.

HIS NAME IS DAVID. A perfectly excellent name, tbh. I was worried they were going to call him something like Daniel or Noah, names that already exist in the Skam universe, which would be confusing as hell when those Noorhelm seasons are concurrently airing. “I can’t believe that thing Noah just did in this clip.” Uhhhh which Noah are you talking about, untagged post? Or God forbid, another Lucas, although David’s actor is named Lukas so I figured we would dodge that bullet.

Although it does occur to me that we have do have a David, the Skam France director, soooo … fuck.

I want to make a disclaimer: as fandom knows, David is played by a trans actor. There’s no guarantee that this character will be trans yet, but I think it’s unlikely that they won’t bring it up. The nature of this show seems like they’ll incorporate it into the story rather than let the opportunity pass to talk about trans issues, and I know that trans Druck fans campaigning for a trans Even had a ton to do with this decision, so I believe their input would weigh on the story itself beyond the casting. So I’m going to make speculation and comments with the assumption that David is trans and how that will affect the plot. There are things in this conversation that are potentially relevant to that, for instance. I don’t want to overstep, but I also don’t want to ignore moments of possible foreshadowing or pieces that might be relevant to his characterization.

So for instance, I don’t know if they have replaced Even being bipolar with David being trans. To be clear, NOT because being trans is a mental illness but more as an area of societal marginalization that the character has to deal with, that might be hidden from the other characters and the audience. We don’t know when we will learn that David is trans; while I write this we’re several episodes in, but I don’t know if we’ll learn three clips from now or three episodes from now. I don’t know if David will be trans and bipolar, or just one of the two. I don’t know if the reveal will end up being casual and non-dramatic, or if it will be a big thing like the end of episode 8. I have some guesses about where the story might go, but I’m keeping in mind that there’s a new element that none of the Evak seasons have tackled before, and that may cause big changes to the story.

Matteo asks David about being new so close to Abi, and David says he killed someone and had to go into hiding. That could be a reference to his dead name. I don’t know if that term is the same in German, but seems like a possible hint. He does say he killed his parents, but that’s after Matteo asks if he had stress with them, so he’s just riffing off what Matteo said. Or just the fact that when Matteo asks about him being new, David wants to know why - maybe he’s wondering if Matteo knows something or heard a rumor.

Isak asking about Even transferring in his final year got cut off because Emma showed up. Here Matteo just kinda accepts David’s joke and doesn’t question him further.

Matteo is super into him, of course. Look at that body language, he’s all angled toward David. David, too. Tarjei and Henrik had masterful body language so this is very promising.

David points out an eyelash on Matteo’s face and you fucking KNOW later in the season he probably won’t ask, he’ll just brush it off himself. Matteo is like, can I make a wish now? JFC, Matteo is flirting so much, he is intensely looking at David when he says that. Honestly, it’s really exciting to see this dynamic kinda flipped, mixing and matching Isak and Even elements between Matteo and David. David says it was just an eyelash. Maybe he’ll be more of the realist rather than the romantic? God, if Matteo is the more romantic one, I will lose my mind (in a good way).

David does ask what Matteo’s wish would have been, and Matteo is like, IDK, go on holiday or something. David says he knows the feeling and Matteo asks where he would go. Matteo would get in a car and just drive away. David says to go directly to Detroit. David, I’m fond of you already but unless your car turns into a submarine that is not gonna work.

David has been pretty chill so far, but he perks up and smiles when mentioning Detroit at the very end, so Matteo gets hit with the ray of charm. That’s when the music kicks in, too, because Matteo has seen David smile. No turning back now. I presume we are going to be hearing music from Detroit artists this season?

LMAO, I was like oh, Sara’s not there at the meeting so she can’t interrupt their moment, and yet SOMEHOW she managed to anyway. And she kisses Matteo so David knows Matteo has a girlfriend right off the bat. David takes this as his cue to exit.

Why was Sara there, anyway? Did she show up late for the Abi prank meeting? Didn’t she just do a big prank where she photocopied her boobs for the school to see? Or did she just know that’s where Matteo was headed tonight and she waited around for him?

For Matteo, Sara’s arrival cuts into this charged moment with David. With David, it’s a little less intense than Isak finding out about Sonja? Because he’s only shared a few minutes now with Matteo instead of stalking him for a week and then spending hours at his house, although obviously he could be crushing on him for a while already. Though personally I think they might eliminate that part of the story. Anyway, this is like … a spark of hope getting extinguished REALLY early and it makes me wonder how the rest of this story is gonna go. Matteo is the one with the girlfriend, the “obstacle.” Is he going to run hot and cold, go back to Sara after getting with David?

Matteo looks sad as David goes, obviously. Making it worse is that of course that’s the dude Leonie likes. Matteo takes a drag of the joint before replying that he thinks it’s somebody else. Well, David was someone somebody else liked (ahem), so I guess that does make him somebody else. But clearly David is going to be so much more to Matteo than just “dude Leonie likes.”

Anyway, I love how quiet and down to earth that scene was, how it wasn’t instant smiles and conversational bliss but a little rough, testing each other out. And I think it’s good that Matteo seems to be more proactive around David, because they both seem kinda like chill stoner/emo kids, and two sleepy guys is not going to be that exciting of a dynamic, honestly. Matteo being the instigator gives the story a fresh take, and the contrast between Matteo with David and Matteo with everyone else is really, really important. We can already see that David is the person, the one who makes Matteo slip into a different mode of his being, one that’s happier and more comfortable. The one who makes him wake up.

Social Media/General Comments:

Jonas says he’s better about the Hanna situation than he was before. We’ll see how long that lasts. I hope his S2 attitude leaves a trace this season, like it was such a big deal and had an affect on Matteo feeling adrift from his best friend, so it should play a role in their relationship.

Abdi refuses to get on Instagram, which is convenient for the show’s social media content creators, lol.

As explained in the texts, a pipe broke in the apartment, so Mia, Hans, and Linn had to move out, and Linn found them a new apartment but one with an extra room, so they needed another roommate fast. Mia suggested Matteo as she heard through the grapevine that he wanted to move out. It’s pretty sad because he was looking to leave, so we can assume things are very bad at home. At least it didn’t escalate to him sleeping in a basement.

I’m glad they found a way to move Matteo into the apartment neatly and quickly with the small gap between S2 and S3. I think Matteo living on his own is a pretty big contributor to his feelings of isolation and instability, and assuming Hans plays a similar role as Eskild with his “guru” advice, it helps a lot if they’re living under the same roof. However, it does create a different setup for the two, though, because Hans didn’t “rescue” Matteo like Eskild did with Isak. Living with Hans will give them more opportunities to bond than living apart would, but Hans didn’t nurture and shelter Matteo to the degree that Eskild did for Isak. Hans is like a new acquaintance, and it will take more effort to build them to a point where Matteo feels like he can trust Hans and go to him for advice. Unless it’s solely like “well, he’s the only other gay guy I know” which would be understandable but a bit underwhelming. Hans has a depressing family life, as shown in S2, with relatives who don’t accept his personality, to the point where he adopts a “straighter” persona to interact with them, and it would be amazing to bring in his background to the Pride clip.

LET’S GET SOME MIA/MATTEO CONVERSATIONS ABOUT SEXUALITY GOING, TOO. They made Mia bi but many people think they could’ve done a better job of addressing it, so this is their chance! Don’t just sleep on it by following the OG story structure - make use of those changes.

The only non-confirmed LGBT person in the flat is Linn and you know, they could remedy that this season.

Linn apparently took care of a lot of the move, so that’s progress for her, she got something done for once, lol.

With the other girls, Hanna and Mia are furtive about why they don’t think it’s serious between Matteo and Sara. I love them for keep their mouths shut about his sexuality.

Seeing Matteo flirt with Sara and make plans to go to the movies with her has me yelling like I’m in the movie theater for a horror film. DON’T GO UPSTAIRS! GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!

There are pictures of Matteo and Amira looking smiley and happy because The Incident happens, heh. Matteo looks like he was having a decent time earlier in the evening and then descended into sadness and fatigue. And, you know, getting drunk and high.

Sara posts a pic with Leonie being like #theonewhounderstandsme and if that isn’t screaming for a Sara/Leonie endgame...

Linn super loves flamingos.

Kiki and Carlos fight because he was in the bathtub getting high and ignoring her texts.

Mia is absent a lot because she’s hanging with Alex, that’s why she missed the housewarming party. The girls miss her. Come back soon, Mia! Don’t just disappear because Noora went to London!

We got a sappy chat between Mia and Alex to remind us that they’re around, at least. Alex misses Mia even though she’s sitting across from him. I guess they’re in their little couple bubble now.

Matteo checks in with Amira and asks if she’s feeling better or still sick, and Amira’s answers make me suspect she knows exactly what bullshit Matteo pulled on Saturday.

When Matteo invited Sara to study at his place on Thursday, I found myself wishing that maybe Hans could save the day and just be so intrusive and annoying that he drove Sara away without Matteo having to make out with Sara or blow her off rudely or whatever. Alas.

I’m laughing how Markus is “Photoshop Markus” even in the group chat. No one else appears to have a nickname, just him.

Leonie and Sara chat; Leonie has her eye on Gereven and Sara is trying to figure out where she and Matteo stand as a couple. I’m really fond of them and I hope they don’t become Emma and Sonja, honestly. Again, just ... nip those relationships in the bud. Let them go to prom with each other, not the boys. Even if they aren’t together romantically, they seem to be the most important people in each other’s lives.

Matteo zips his lips when Jonas asks if he banged Sara, which conveniently doesn’t mean he has to say no. A very Isak technique.

Mia wasn’t in this episode at all, which is strange when she, you know, lives with Matteo and goes to school with him and we saw all the other girls. In-universe the explanation is that she’s with Alexander, but I wonder if they were filming parts of S2 at the same time, maybe? Reshoots? And that’s why we haven’t seen either Mia or Alexander, because the actors were busy. The other explanation is just that Mia is not here because Noora was not there, and Druck felt the need to follow that story. I’d find that really disappointing.

This is a really promising start to the season, and I already love the tone. It has a very down-to-earth, painfully vulnerable feel. Matteo’s misery is palpable in basically every scene, except the ones with David, where we get glimpses of his better self. I can sense this kid’s internal struggle all the time. There’s also pining and longing in the simplest moments, from Matteo brushing Jonas’ hair while he’s sleeping, to that one look in the hallway with David causing a spark, to the way they look at each other while smoking, David pointing out the eyelash on Matteo’s cheek. It’s quiet, raw, and real. And that is exactly the atmosphere I want from a S3 remake.

I’m not German so feel free to correct me on translations or cultural notes.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

#druck reactions #druck

71 notes · View notes

notebookfilledwithscrabbles · 5 years

Text

Worlds 2019 - 6 minutes warm-up before group 4 in Men's FS by J SPORTS

Translation post 21

Original language: Japanese

Translator’s note: This is not a word-for-word translation. I paraphrased some of the things said in the broadcast to clarify the main point.

Announcer: Chizuru Kobayashi. She is a freelancer who has been working for figure skating programs on J SPORTS for years.

Commentator: Makoto Okazaki. ISU Technical Specialist and a coach. He won a bronze medal at 2001 Winter Universiade as a singles skater and has been contributing figure skating columns titled "岡崎真の目 (Eyes of Makoto Okazaki)" to Sponichi.

(Skaters for the final group take the ice)

Kobayashi: Here comes the group 4, the final group. The arena is filled with loud cheers. First, they introduce each skater. Vincent Zhou of America, who finished 4th in the short program. Shoma Uno of Japan, who finished 6th in the short. Matteo Rizzo of Italy, who finished 5th in the short. Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, the winner of two consecutive Olympic titles. He finished 3rd in the short. The defending champion, Nathan Chen of America, who finished 1st in the short. The last skater is Jason Brown of America, who finished 2nd in the short.

(Starting order is on the screen)

Kobayashi: These are the 6 skaters to skate in the final group. Now, we are showing the starting order on the screen. This group consists of 3 American skaters, 2 Japanese skaters, and an Italian skater.

Okazaki: Finally.

Kobayashi: Yes, finally. Our commentator today is Mr. Makoto Okazaki.

PA announcer: We are now introducing the skaters for group 4 in the order of skating. Skater No. 19, Mr. Vincent Zhou of America. After moving up to the senior level last season, he survived the fierce domestic competition and proceeded to PyeongChang Olympics. At PyeongChang, he fought bravely and finished 6th in total earning the second-best technical score in the free skating. This season, he finished 3rd in 4CC and won his first senior ISU championships medal.

Kobayashi: OK, we are going to introduce the skaters one by one. This is Vincent Zhou of America who finished 4th in the short program. He has many types of quads in his repertoire.

Okazaki: Yes, but this time, he is planning to do only 3 types of them, doing each of them once.

Kobayashi: Yes.

Okazaki: I guess his plan is to do what he can do and to do it properly. You know, his jumps often get called under-rotated, so he is going to stick to what he can do cleanly, I guess.

Kobayashi: Uh-huh.

(Vincent lands 4S)

Okazaki: His quad Salchow looks good today.

Kobayashi: Yes.

PA announcer: Skater No. 20, Mr. Shoma Uno of Japan. The silver medalist from PyeongChang Olympics. This season, he won at GP Canada and NHK Trophy and won a silver medal in GPF. At Japanese Nationals, he achieved a three-peat, and at 4CC, he came back from 4th after the short program and won the long-desired title of a major senior competition.

Kobayashi: Next up is Shoma Uno of Japan. He is planning to do three quads of four different... no, he is planning to do 4 quads.

Okazaki: Yes, he is going to do four quads of three types. I hope he will nail the quad Flip since he fell on it in the short program.

(Loud cheers in the arena)

Kobayashi: When you hear this kind of cheers, it means that someone has landed a good jump somewhere.

Okazaki: (Laughs) Right.

PA announcer: Skater No. 21, Mr. Matteo Rizzo of Italy. This season, he stood up on a GP podium at NHK Trophy as a first Italian men's singles skater and won a bronze medal at European Championships as well. At Universiade held recently, he won the title with his high-quality performances.

Kobayashi: Now, this is Matteo Rizzo of Italy. He is planning to do one type of quad once in the program as a solo jump. He finished 5th in the short with a clean program.

Okazaki: I figure that he is aiming to nail the quad securely and execute other elements cleanly.

Kobayashi: Uh-huh. He is the champion of Winter Universiade.

PA announcer: Skater No. 22, Mr. Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan. He won the Olympic titles consecutively in Sochi and PyeongChang. He also won the Worlds titles in 2014, here in Saitama, and in 2017. This season, he won gold medals in 2 GPs. After that, he got forced to sit out due to injury but has made a comeback here in this World Championships.

Kobayashi: And now, this is Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan.

(Hanyu lands a 4Lo)

Okazaki: Oh, a quad loop. Very nice.

Kobayashi: Yes, it was! Mr. Okazaki, how do you think about his jump layout?

Okazaki: He is planning to do four quads of three types. However, he has the potential to earn huge GOEs... (Hanyu lands a 4S) Ah, that was nice. A quad Salchow.

Kobayashi: That was very nice.

Okazaki: (Goes back to the previous subject) ...So his jumps can totally compete with more difficult quads such as Lutz and Flip. Let's hope for the best.

Kobayashi: Yes.

PA announcer: Skater No. 23, Mr. Nathan Chen of America. He is the defending World Champion. At PyeongChang, he skated strongly in the free skating and finished 5th. This season, he entered the prestigious Yale University and won two-consecutive GPF titles trying to balancing study and training.

Kobayashi: And now, this is the defending champion, Nathan Chen. He is the only one who scored over 100 points in the short program. His score was 107.40.

Okazaki: He is also planning to do four quads of three types.

Kobayashi: Right, including Lutz and Flip.

(Nathan lands a 4Lutz)

Okazaki: Hmmm... That was nice.

Kobayashi: He landed it.

Okazaki: Somehow.

PA announcer: Skater No. 24, Mr. Jason Brown of America. He is loved by the audience for his prowess to express the music delicately and for his cheerfulness. This season, he moved to Canada and has been training under coach Brian Orser. After winning a silver medal at GP France, he came back on the podium at U.S. Nationals for the first time in two years.

Kobayashi: There is 10.59 points difference between Nathan Chen and Jason Brown who was 2nd in the short program. The third-place finisher Yuzuru Hanyu is 12.53 points away from Nathan. Here is the last skater, Jason Brown. He is going to do only one quad.

Okazaki: Yes. Hope he will go for it.

Kobayashi: I hope so, too. Until last season, he has been incorporating a quad toe-loop, but this season, he has been tackling with quad Salchow. He has not landed it successfully yet, right?

Okazaki: Hmmm, I think so.

(Loud Cheers)

Okazaki: Ah, looking good. Uno has landed a quad Flip and then Hanyu landed a quad loop. Let's expect good performances from our skaters.

Kobayashi: Yes. ...You know, it is hard to decide who to focus on in these 6 skaters.

Okazaki: Indeed. It is kind of distracting in a good way...

Kobayashi: (Laughs) Yes.

Okazaki: This situation does not allow us to focus on a skater.

Kobayashi: Indeed. This men's free skating is the last event of this competition. We have already known who are the medalists in the other three disciplines.

Okazaki: Vincent Zhou has landed a quad-Lutz-triple-toe combination too. (t/n: Nathan Chen is on the screen and lands a combination when Okazaki says this, so there is a possibility that he confused Vincent with Nathan, or he thought he was saying "Nathan Chen" instead of "Vincent Zhou.")

Kobayashi: Yes. You know, every skater has been training hard for this season's last competition.

Okazaki: Hope everyone can show what they've got.

Kobayashi: Indeed.

(Hanyu falls on 4Lo)

Kobayashi: Oops...

(The standings after group 3 is on the screen)

Kobayashi: Now we are showing the current standings. Boyang Jin is currently in the 1st place.

(ISU President is on the screen)

Kobayashi: And this is ISU President Mr. Jan Dijkema.

(Nathan lands a 4Lz)

Okazaki: Quad Lutz.

(End of 6-minute warm-up)

Kobayashi: 6 minutes warm-up has ended.

(Hanyu goes back to the board doing shuuu-pa)

#Figure skating commentary #worlds 2019 #yuzuru hanyu

4 notes · View notes

huffletiika · 6 years

Text

About late studying sessions and presumably haunted corridors.

Ok, peeps, I have decided to take part of this year’s Lutteo ficweek… even if I have no time, or whatsoever. I might skip some days, tho, as there are some prompts that didn’t inspired me #tja. Anyway, I hope you like this one.

Anyway, just some info before you start reading: this OS is at the same universe as my Gastina multi-chapter “Hello, stranger.” So, if anyone is interested on reading it before (or after) getting into this, I will leave you the link RIGHT HERE. But, don’t worry, there’s no need to read it to understand the OS, as this is a prequel that takes place way before the events of my multi-chapter. However, there might be a little wink for those who read it.

Words count: 2.4K.

DAY 1 – “it’s 3 am and I’m still in the library studying for finals and I’m losing my grip on reality and I think I just saw a ghost”.

Finals are going to be the death of her.

Seriously, it’s like no matter how much she tries to keep her studying schedule going, she will just not gonna make it, not even with the very well done graphics an diagrams her best friend made for her. Days doesn’t have enough hours for her to have enough time to learn all she has for her exams, and at the same time training for the skating competition, and going to all those social events her grandfather told her she must go in order to keep the Benson’s inversions safe and sound.

She can’t wait for summer vacations.

The next day (correction, that day, as it’s already three in the morning) she has one of the most important exams for her career, and she really need a high grade on this one in order to pass.

She tried studying in her dormitory, she really did, but she gave up at 10pm as the girls from the dormitory next to hers and Nina’s had decided to throw a party for the end of the semester, and the music was so loud she thought the walls would break at any moment. So, she had to walk all her way to the library in order to find a quiet place, internally grateful for living in a dorm inside the campus. Her parents would kill her if they find out about her having to walk down the street in the middle of the night.

Since the finals started, the library has remained 24hrs open as an incentive for students to use it to prepare for their exams instead of the many outdoor places on campus, as the benches outside the buildings, or the dark gardens. It might sound crazy, but just a week ago they found a student sleeping in a picnic mat outside the engineering faculty, hugging his advanced calculus book, mumbling something about going late for his exam while on his sleep. There were memes with his picture all over the campus app, it got viral.

The library has become the second home for many.

Surprisingly, that day the library doesn’t seem to be as popular. Well, there were many students when she arrived but, as midnight arrived, she noticed she was the only one at that specific section, and that the rest of them were practically empty. That’s just so great. She tried to focus on the words from her text book, on solving the problems, on getting all that info into her head, but as it started getting later her eyes started to burn, and the words became blurry, so she finally realized that what she didn’t learn in the whole semester, she wouldn’t learn in those five hours she had left before having to go comply her death sentence. Come what may, her father is always telling her, and she believes him.

She is so gonna fail.

When she stands to leave the study cubicle she notices it’s darker than she expected. There are some light spots, of course, but many of these seem to have gotten damaged. She walks toward the shelves to put the books back at the place they belong, and as she gets deeper at those dark aisles, she starts to have the feeling that she is not alone.

She looks around, but there’s nothing either on her left or her right, and she tells herself that it’s just her head playing games. She has never believed in ghosts, even after her biological parents appeared in her dreams, and she wouldn’t start doing so now.

She leaves the last book at the right shelf, having to get on her tiptoes for that hard mission, and then sighs looking at the time on her phone’s screen. If she leaves now she will be at home at 3:40, and so she would have a couple of hours to sleep. A sound coming from her left calls her attention, putting her on alert. But there’s nothing. There’s no such thing as ghosts, she reminds herself, you are just tired from studying, and it’s all in your head. But there were stories, many indeed, of a student that died in the library years ago, crushed by a shelf that fell on her as she tried to reach a book that was on the top, and other who took his life on the 90s after losing all his finals.

Those are just stories, she reminds herself as she tries to breathe in and breathe out to calm herself, and get her backpack from the floor, but as soon as she gets up she finds someone standing right in front of her.

She screams.

Someone from the distance shushes.

Throwing her backpack at the mysterious figure she tries to run away, but it grabs her wrist, and she is not able to get away from its grip no matter how hard she tries.

Her heart is racing inside her chest, she is scared, much more than after waking up from one of those terrible nightmares about the fire where her biological parents died. Her mind isn’t thinking in other thing than running away, than getting into her room and hiding under her blankets, maybe hugging the very cute teddy bear her grandpa gave her when they found out she was the granddaughter he thought he had lost years ago.

“Calm down, Chica Delivery. It’s me,” a male voice she knows pretty well gets into her ears, calming her down, throwing all fear away from her body. She looks back at him, stopping her intends to scape, and as soon as their eyes meet, she manages to let go of his grip with a swipe.

“Are you crazy, Matteo?! You scared me to death!” she claims, wishing to have something to throw at his stupid face when she sees him grinning. He’s just- Ugh! She can’t stand him, or his stupid smile, or his perfect eyes, or that hair of him where she wants to dig her hands in, and…

Enough.

“Ouch, I didn’t know I was that ugly,” he teases, and then bends down to pick up the backpack, and then offers it back to her. “Let’s make it a tie. I mean, you almost killed me with this,” he adds, as she gets her belongings back.

“I didn’t meant to… it was your fault for scaring me,” she fires back.

“Oh right, keep blaming me,” he rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest. Oh shit, she thinks, he’s wearing one of those stupid vests that look way too good on him. Her sanity decides to submit her resignation, there’s no way she could handle him. “What are you doing here at these hours, anyway?” he asks. “I thought your roommate was the kind of person who would be okay with you studying in your room no matter what time.” She has to look away when he carelessly supports his side on the shelf.

How does he always looks so good?

“She is,” she defends her, frowning at him. Nina is one of the few people she has met in Buenos Aires that she can confidently call a true friend. “But our neighbors finished their finals today, and threw a party to celebrate,” she explains, with a shrug.

He puts a grimace.

“Whoa, that sucks,” he says, and for once he agrees with him.

“Tell me about it!” she replies, and another shush comes from an undetermined place in the library. She lowers her voice. “And you? What are you doing here at this hour? I thought you had a fancy flat with enough space to study, even if you have the loudest roommate, which you don’t,” she asks, and his stupidly attractive grin gets wider.

“Can I ask how you know that?” he rises his eyebrows, and she swears under her breath. She can’t tell him that her roommate has a crush on his roommate, that’s practically breaking all the rules of friendship.

She goes for a better excuse.

“You seem to forget that your ex-girlfriend is my cousin.”

“And it seems like you have paid too much attention to what she says about me,” he fires back with a cocky smile. His fresa attitude drives her insane. “But, don’t worry, it’s normal to want to know more about me, you are not the only girl who does that at the campus.” She rolls her eyes.

“Whoa, Chico Fresa, I thought your ego couldn’t grow bigger,” she replies, sarcastically. Then reminds him: “You still haven’t answered my question.” He shrugs.

“This is just a really nice puns-free environment to study,” he briefly answers, looking away as if something has ashamed him. How come? She frowns, and he changes his attitude in a click. “Anyway, are you going back at your dorm now? I can give you a ride.” She’s about to reject his offer, but he interrupts her. “I know you live inside the campus, but it’s still dangerous to walk there alone at this hour, so please let me take you there.” How could she refuse his offer after those words? She ends up accepting.

----

His car seat is the most comfortable thing she has ever sit on, she thinks, as she closes her eyes and lets the sound of the engine, and the delicious smell of his cologne (the one that seems to dominate the place) lull her, to the point of even falling asleep for a few seconds.

She hears him chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” she asks, her eyes still closed.

“Nothing,” his response comes quickly, but then it seems like he gives up. “It’s just… you almost look inoffensive right now.” She sticks her tongue out at him, and he giggles.

Then they stay silent for a couple of minutes, in whose she nervously drums with her fingers.

“So, I went to the Jam & Roller last night and saw the Roller Band playing,” he casually says, as if taking those words out of his mouth wouldn’t have cost all of his courage. “Your boyfriend and his bandmates are really good,” he adds, as he parks in front of her building.

“Yeah, they ar… wait, boyfriend?” She looks at him, confused.

“Yes, the guitarist is your boyfriend. Isn’t him?” he frowns.

He saw them being very affectionate with each other some weeks ago, at the skating rink, and that restrained his attempts to get closer to her, to let her know how much he likes her. Gastón wouldn’t leave him alone since then, of course, bugging him about how an idiot he was for letting those assumptions stop him from getting the girl, as if he wasn’t MATTEO BALSANO, the king of the rink, the one who always gets everything he wants, and throwing bad puns and references about Luna at any given opportunity.

“No, we are not,” she replies. “He’s my best friend, I know him since I lived in Cancun, why would you think we are dating?” She asks, and he glances away, looking kind of ashamed.

“I just supposed it as you seem to be so close,” he answers, with a shrug. Internally, he is dancing la Macarena, and opening a bottle of tequila. He might indeed do that as soon as he gets to his flat.

Luna and Simon aren’t a couple.

He has a chance.

He needs to make a plan, and fast, step up his game and get a date before she leaves the car. He isn’t going to miss any more time, not after the disaster the past month has been.

“But I guess I was wrong,” he adds, turning off the engine of the car. She makes an overacted face of surprise, and takes her hand to his forehead, as she’s testing if he has fever.

“Are you ok, Chico Fresa?” she asks, her really bad acting making him smile. “You just admitted you were wrong about something, so this is either you dying from some sickness or a miracle,” she teases, and he cackles.

“Ha-ha, Very funny, Chica Delivery,” he takes her hand out of his forehead, even if he would have wanted it to stay there for a little longer. He casually forgets to release it, tho. “Then, if he is not your boyfriend, I guess there wouldn’t be a problem if I invite you out for a milkshake one of these days… like, for example, tonight?” he suggests, knowing he’s risking a lot with this proposal. He slowly releases her hand. After her response he will have either a date with the girl he fancies since they met, or the biggest rejection of his whole life. The only one that would have mattered. “I mean, I owe you that for scaring you today.” Yes, he thought, make it sound as casual as possible.

She frowns.

“I thought we were even after I almost killed you with my backpack,” she replies, and he’s almost sure she will say no, he could feel it in his bones, or maybe those were just his insecurities kicking in. Since he met her, he knows how it feels to be afraid of not being enough for someone, of being rejected. She takes what seems like an eternity to consider his offer. “But, who am I to refuse such an invitation?” He felt his own smile growing on his face, as the cloud of doubt fades away. “Tonight is perfect, I will need lots of sweet after failing my exam,” she confesses.

“You won’t fail it, Chica Delivery. Stop being so negative,” he tries to cheer her up, bopping on her nose, making her wrinkle it. “I’ll pick you up around seven, is it okay for you?” he asks, and she nods with a bright smile.

“It’s a dat…” she interrupts herself, getting as red as a tomato. “I mean, it’s a… a deal,” she stutters and then bites her lower lip. He laughs and nods, but in his mind he is the one doing it.

“It’s a deal,” he agrees, and then both of them say goodbye. He might have intentionally missed her cheek while kissing her goodbye, touching the corner of her lips instead.

“Hey,” she tells him, putting half of her body through the window after closing the door, as her height wouldn’t help her much. “Send me a message when you get home, ok?” she asks him, and he couldn’t help but smile back at her and nod. If he wasn’t before, now he is sure that he is deeply in love with her.

You (sent 3:40am)

I’m home, Chica Delivery.

ChicaDelivery (sent 9:31am)

I’m so sorry, I fell asleep.

And I’m running late for my final!

Thanks for not forgetting about the message.

See you tonight?

You (sent 9:38am)

It’s ok. I hope you get there on time.

And I’m glad you didn’t forget about our deal.

See you tonight, Chica Delivery ;)!

#Soy Luna #lutteoficweek #lutteo #lutteo fanfic #Luna Valente #Matteo Balsano #Soy Luna Fanfic #Written by me #UniversityAU

46 notes · View notes

graequeen · 3 years

Text

La Mia Ragazza Rockey

Chapter 27

‘I think there are perverts that live around us.’ I said to myself. I kept looking around the backyard wondering who exactly was looking at us. But no matter where I looked, I couldn’t see anyone.

It was a warm Saturday afternoon, with most of the neighbors out enjoying the weather. But for some reason, I couldn’t shake the feeling someone was staring at us...in particular...staring at me.

“Rockey, are you ok?” Bianca asked me. Her and Matteo were enjoying the pool, while Gio and I remained fifteen feet away, lounging on chairs. Ever since I found out that Gio was afraid of swimming, I’ve been trying to work on his fear. I have no idea what Gio and Raffa went through, but I could tell they wanted nothing to do with the pool.

“Yeah, everything is fine.” I said cheerfully. I didn’t want to worry them with my paranoia, especially if it was nothing. She returned back to Matteo, who was throwing water at her.

I turned my attention to Gio, who sat next to me. His eyes were glued to the pool as if it was an enemy, and he was waiting for it to make its first move. This was the closest I was able to get Gio to the pool. A week ago, when I suggested my idea, he bursted out crying.

“Are you enjoying the nice weather?” I asked. I knew it was a stupid question to ask, but I NEEDED to distract him from the pool.

He looked at me and faintly nodded; he then returned his stare to the pool. I felt so bad for him; the poor thing obviously suffered from something traumatic.

“You know, I will never let anything happen to you.” I said, trying to reassure him. Though he nodded his head, I could tell he was a bit hesitant.

“In fact!” I exclaimed, having suddenly come up with an idea. I got off of the chair and ran to the side of the house. I grabbed the hose, and walked to Gio. After a few minutes of tampering with the hose, I fixed it to an oscillating sprinkler.

I placed it beside the chairs, and turned it on. Almost immediately Gio let out a playful scream, running around to avoid the water. Within minutes, Matteo and Bianca were out of the pool, chasing Gio around the sprinkler system. It was the first time in days that Gio laughed and smiled.

Something was still nagging me though...the feeling of eyes on me never left. Who was watching us?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“Raffaele, how long are you going to be looking outside for?” Celia asked as she handed me another invoice. The charity event we were putting together was only a few weeks away, and there were plenty of things that still needed to be done. Yet, my attention and focus remained on one burning question: WHY AM I STARING AT THE RAGAZZA?!

She walked in two hours ago, informing me that she was taking off from her other job to go swimming with the kids. She wanted to work on Gio’s fear of the pool.

I had to do a double take when she walked in. She was wearing one of my tuxedo shirts (don’t know when she stole it), and her curly hair let loose. It was unbuttoned, revealing the black bikini she had on.

To be honest, she looked like she just had rough sex. There was something appealing to her appearance; she wasn’t trying to be sexy. She didn’t flash herself like Celia, and yet, she didn’t act as if she didn’t know she was BUILT.

I had never ONCE seen Rockey in anything revealing. Her normal attire consisted of sweats and very large shirts. It was like I accidentally saw TOO much, and despite my best efforts, I remained impressed (to say the least).

She had THICK legs, and muscular arms. Her waist was the perfect shape: not too big or small. From what I saw, she had a few tattoos that were barely visible underneath my shirt.

I found myself staring at her for a few minutes, though I didn’t really understand why. At the moment, she was lounging with Gio on some chairs. She kept my shirt on...and I liked how she looked in it.

“Raffa?” Celia said, breaking me from my trance. ‘What the hell did she just call me?’

“Did you just call him Raffa?” Antonio teased. He walked up to her, stifling the urge to laugh.

“Well Rockey calls him Raffa, so I thought I’d call him Raffa too.” she said innocently.

Antonio walked behind her, so that only she could hear what he said. “You’re trying too hard. You sound DESPERATE.”Celia punched him, and swiftly turned her attention back to me. I, however, returned my eyes to Rockey. She had turned the sprinkler system on, and was currently running around with the kids.

“Need a napkin?” Nicoló asked me. He stood beside me, and had a full view of who exactly I was looking at. I ignored him, and went back to my desk.

“It would take a miracle to get Gio inside the pool.” Nicoló said, staying glued to the window.

“I never knew it was that bad.” Celia added. “When I heard Rockey made Gio cry, I was livid.”

“The Ragazza didn’t say anything to make him cry.” I said in annoyance. “Besides, he’s ok. He doesn’t need to get inside a pool.”

Celia kept quiet for a few seconds, before asking, “What exactly happened to you and Gio?”

I remained quiet, attempting to forget the particular abuse Gio and I went through with our dad. Instead, I grabbed the invoice and began reading it.

“Ok, break time is over. Let’s get back to work.”

#romance #writers on tumblr #my writing #good reads #short story #short fiction #author

0 notes

fossadeileonixv · 3 years

Text

WTF Friday

And that’s his happy face!

A quick thought on where we watch our games:

Here in the States Serie A has been on ESPN for 3 years now. Three pretty good years. Before that the rights were held by BeInSports. BeIn showed the big games but not all the games. They had something called BeIn Connect that was supposed to show all the games but it never really worked. Their main focus was La Liga which I get. It was the era of Ronaldo and Messi. That being said they did a good job on the games they did show.

Then the Serie A rights went to ESPN. Change was scary but it turned out to be good. Honestly we had no idea what we were missing. Every game is on. EVERY SINGLE GAME. If you stopped right there we would have been happy. The second year they bought the Coppa rights too. BOOM. Add to that a stellar in house announcing team in Steve Donaldson and Matteo Bonetti. BOOM. Stellar pods with the likes of Gab Marcotti, Mina Rzouki and Nicky Bandini. BOOM BOOM BOOM. More daily coverage than you could shake a stick at on ESPNFC and we really have been spoiled here in the states these last 3 years. It has been a veritable endless Ponderosa buffet of Serie A.

Now there are whispers of a bidding war as the rights are up again. Paramount is pushing HARD and ESPN is fighting back. I’m hoping ESPN keeps them as they’ve really put in the effort and I think there’s a lot more they can do. If Paramount does get them I will be sad but I will follow. Wherever they end up I think it will be good for the league and more than anything good for us fans.

Does make me wonder though. How do you guys consume the league where you are at? Is it easy to get? Is it expensive? Are you still mostly using free streams online?

Enough of that! Now for a thought or two on each player as we head off into the weekend. Let’s go!

KEEPERS

- Despite Donnarumma’s brain fart on Sunday I’m not worried about him... and I’m certainly not worried about him going anywhere either. Stay off twitter my friends. He’s still our starting keeper come the fall of 2021.

- Will we see Tatarusanu again this season? Maybe if we win the first leg at Old Trafford 5-0?? Maybe.

- Have we seen Donnarumma 2.0 yet this year? No. And that’s ok. He can remain undefeated for life!

FULLBACKS

- PSG comes calling and they are offering 40 million for Theo. Maldini comes back asking for 50. Who blinks first?

- ManU calls and they are willing to reduce the price for Dalot to 12 million. If you are Maldini what do you do? Offer 8 million or pack Diogo’s bags for him?

- It is truly amazing how over the last 8 months Calabria went from Plusvalenza candidate to indispensable starter at RB. Not many players got the spine to make that turnaround. He’s a long term keeper.

- I’m still floored by the potential we are seeing from Kalulu considering the purchase price. They have value meals at McDonald’s that cost more than him.

CENTER BACKS

- Is Gabbia dead or what? You’d think with the recent pile up of fixtures we would have seem at some point, no?

- I’m still not falling in love with Tomori. The Chelsea thing is too much. I don’t care how good he looks. Nope. Not interested. Not at all.

- Kjaer is still Danish for wall.... but that wall doesn’t run real well anymore.

- Don’t be in such a hurry to give up on R13 any time soon. Tomori might be the new hotness but Kjaer isn’t that far from being old and busted. He will be 32 in a few weeks. Chasing R13 outta town so quickly would not be a wise move.

MIDFIELD

- Kessie is easily in the team of the season for Serie A. It’s him, SMS and Barella in the midfield. If you got a problem TR will fight you.

- Tonali is gonna be in that team of the season by the end of 2022-2023. Mark it.

- Bennacer has not been Bennacer since probably the Napoli game in November. That was 3 months ago. His last few appearances have been dreadful and I’m starting to think this season will be a wash for him. Silver lining? No one is buying him after a crap year and he hopefully will be ready to go next year.

- Krunic is fine for the jack of all trades that he is. If he could only rip the random banger like Kucka used to. I still miss him.

- I think Meite has to be very clear on what his role is to have an impact. His first few games he was a little too free and just kind of wandered all over. Last game we saw some glimpses.

WINGS AND STUFF

- Our ‘attackers’ have 1 goal in our last 6 games and that was from Rebic against Roma.... his first good game in months.

- I have irrational love for Saelemaekers. It’s true. Even I can see that he’s tailed off a lot though. I really just think our wings are being asked way too much as of late. That goes for all the wingers. He hasn’t scored in 75 days.

- Castillejo hasn’t scored in 89 days.

- Hauge hasn’t scored in 85 days.

- Hakan hasn’t scored in 72 days

- Diaz hasn’t scored in 92 days. That’s a long way of saying that our attack stinks. It really stinks. Yet somehow we still lead the league in ‘Expected Goals’. Really? Is any of you watching this team and ‘expecting’ a whole lot of goals of late? The stat heads need to explain this. What stats are they compiling that compels them to believe we can score goals?

- Leao has actually scored a goal for Milan this calendar year. Yes! I can say that. One of only 3 attacking players on the team that has a goal since January 1st. Wonderful. Outstanding.

There. I said something nice about him.

- has Ibra lost his damn mind? First he’s ripping on LeBron. Then he skips out on his team to go to a music festival. While he’s there he says a bunch of dumb insensitive shit. And now he thinks he’s gonna get 7 million next year? Whatever man. We had a good thing going here. If you wanna walk on your team to have a 2 week bender in the countryside that’s on you man. Stay onside. Score a goal. Or get lost.

- Did we actually sign Mandzukic or was I dreaming?

FORZA

Lisi

0 notes

somethingmustbreak-project · 7 years

Photo

“You would like that we were not here. But we are too emotionally absorbed by the homesickness of places that we’ll see only from the windows of our Bentleys”

An environment seemingly unreachable: familiar to us as much as distant.

Paul Barsch Pierre Clement Michele Gabriele Andrew Birk Nuno Patrício Lucia Leuci Monia Ben Hamouda

With text contributions by Keiu Krikmann and Matteo Mottin. Concept, documentation, curation: Michele Gabriele.

She is driving, angry. She is driving, sad. She’s been driving for hours, nowhere in particular – post-fight. Highway, industrial landscape – in transit. By now, together with fading daylight her mind is turning soggy and dropping off, out of focus. Her eyes are on the road, thoughts floating around her; some circling back, again and again.

She’s worn out from the fight, her emotional state and the smothering synthetic smell in her car are stirring up something; the spiralling thoughts are gathering, she’s driving into a vortex.

Barely acknowledging it, she glimpses things she isn’t really sure are there, objects or images she can’t place – superfluous and not part of the landscape. A flash of blue sky, when it’s clearly getting dark. A round pattern, a bit detached and too close – what – doesn’t matter. The bitterness and chafed vibes from before and the stuffiness of the car are closing in on her – leaving little room for anything outside – pickled, probed and gray – ugh, can she even be??

All the fights she’s had in this car! Why do arguments always happen in the car? And then you are stuck in a wildfire in a tin box with no escape – that is just the worst.

With mom it had been long passive-aggressive streaks. Their fights were thick, like expired plasticine or shit, you couldn’t get it off of you, you couldn’t get the smell out. And the level of pettiness was unreal.

Something registered – like – she doesn’t – umm no.

And then, with her – heavy screaming, fights so intense they were physically exhausting. It had obviously not always been like that, but eventually she had grow to resent everything about her, she had grown to hate her hair in particular, sometimes at night she had thought she’s gonna cut her fucking hair off in a clump. Cut and run – just leave it – just –. Heavy beats, gasping for air. Get – get the – fuck – fuck – out – out of – my car. I don’t get mad!

A story so cliché she was embarrassed to admit it. Another unplaceable object faintly flickered in corner of her eye, or in her mind’s eye, or somewhere in-between.

She now knows for sure, this car is a vehicle of fights – she can’t get the exhaust fumes of confrontations out, everything is drenched in it. She needs a new car to vanquish the spirits. Somewhere along the road she has become like all those women laughing alone with salad, quietly gone mad – and she – will go off – blow off – up – and beyond. The neon letters are all fucked up, she can’t read the signs anymore. This one’s gone to the vortex.

– Keiu Krikmann

___________________________

Facebook THU 12.01.2017 – 2:14 PM

MG: Hello Matteo, I wanted to ask you if you could come visit me one of these days. There’s something I’d like to show you. MM: Sounds good! What’s that about? Where do you wanna meet? MG: Let’s meet at the Seregno’s trains station, early in the morning. Catch the first train you can. And let me know by what time you’ll be there. MM: I could be there next Wednesday. I’ll catch the train in Turin at 5.50 AM and I’ll be in Seregno by 7.30. How about that? MG: That’s great Matte! MM: What is this all about? MG: I’ve got a few things to show you. Telling you wouldn’t be the same. You must see them yourself.

Seregno WED 7:32 AM

MM: Hello there Michele, it’s so good to see you here, just like the first time we met, when I came for the studio visit. MG: There you are, of course I remember! Seregno never changes, like all these area actually. It waits for you but it never helps. MM: On that matter, what’s awaiting me in Seregno today? MG: We’re just leaving, we’re going to Milan. Please, get in the car. That’s no Bentley, some call it my wheelchair, but it’s still carrying me around. MM: Why are we going to Milan? Did you change your mind? I’d have waited for you there if you told me. MG: We must go there together. Shall we leave? MM: Do you mind if I keep this recorder on? MG: Not at all.

WED 7:48 AM

MG: Look at this tunnel here, it connects Brianza and Milan. I used to get stuck in traffic for hours to get to the city center before this was built. I believe it has had a strong influence on my production, esthetically speaking. Look at the colors. It’s new but still it looks like it’s been here forever. It’s one of the longest urban tunnels in Europe. It repeats itself over and over, same doors, same streetlights. This makes it look shorter but it’ll be around two kilometers long. MM: Wait a minute, what’s that? Did you see that? Just at the entrance of the tunnel. They looked like dreadlocks. MG: They are dreadlocks, tied up and thrown there. They recall a sitting person, if you’ve got that type of imaginary need. Still it looks like they fell there by chance. Has if someone threw them away, forgotten… MM: As if someone threw them from a running car. Can we go back to get a better look? MG: It’s better not to stop here, we must go on. Cars should be going at 90 km/h, but who’s driving that slow? MM: When we first met you used to have dreadlocks. I remember coming across Rastamen, they were always saluting you, beating their fist on their chest. It’s interesting how we found those dreadlocks right here in this tunnel, almost as if you left them behind to move faster to the city center… MG: Yes, I remember my dreadlocks! I didn’t think about that! You know Paul Barsch is keeping them? He made an artwork out of them and he exhibited them for the project Cielo Milano curated by him and Tilman Hornig months ago. Come on, let’s get out of here, let’s catch the first exit.

WED 8:11 AM

MM: Wait, slow down, there’s a small mouse! MG: Fuck that’s true! MM: Don’t squash it! MG: Yes, I’ll be careful. The Lambro river runs around here, that’s why it’s full of rats. MM: Ok, it crossed the road. Now it’s under those, ehm, twelve antennas? What are those twelve antennas on the wall for? MG: In this time of the year and this time of the day the light comes in a particularly white shade, desaturated and the objects outdoors look white just for a few minutes. Then the sky changes color and so do they. MM: That’s true, those objects usually keep a strong relationship with the sky, the weather and the light, even if placed like that, at that height, they look like they’re trying to show us a will to be listening and receiving in a place were, perhaps, there’s nothing interesting to be listening to. MG: I don’t know Matteo, surely antennas are usually above us, we all know them but we rarely get to see them close. Assembled with shamanic aesthetics, with bamboo canes and plumes, it look like they are ironically showing us two different clichès.

WED 8:23 AM

MM: The traffic is getting more intense, where are we? MG: We’re in the northernmost part of Milan. Let’s see if I can pull over. MM: Careful, the car in front of you is stopping, there’s something on the road. It looks like… is that salad? Wait, is that the work you made for the Bubble Tea show? MG: Yes, I better move it today or I’ll get in trouble. MM: What’s it doing hanging from the traffic divider? MG: Well, Matte… consider this as a guided tour. This is “You would like that we were not here. But we are too emotionally absorbed by the homesickness of places that we’ll see only from the windows of our Bentleys”: a group show. MM: You curated a group show setting up the works on the road from Brianza to Milan? MG: In a certain way, yes. Paul Barsch’s work is in the tunnel that, for me, links my house to Milan. But all the others are in the city. MM: Your works always have a lot to do with observing what surrounds them, and from that you develop them in a very sincere way, without being even bothered by the fact that the result might be disappointing. This work reminds me of the eating sculpture by Gianni Anselmo, only it looks faster: the lettuce is not withering, it’s being squeezed by the passing cars. What’s its title? MG: “Whity-Trashy vol.3 (I stay if you hold me tight)”. Lately, it’s as if I felt a lot more freedom in formally using the elements in my work almost carelessly.

WED 4:12 PM

MM: We’ve been driving all afternoon, but we haven’t come across any work for quite along time now. Is the show over? It’s almost sunset. MG: No, it’s not over yet but I thought we should have waited a little to see this one. Look up there! That’s “Clouds” by Andrew Birk. MM: It may be the time or the way you set it up, or maybe both, but that work looks extremely delicate and melancholy to me, as if it wanted to save an intimate and fleeting moment without telling us about it. MG: It’s been months now I’ve been observing the relationship between Andrew Birk and his work and I’m entranced by it. MM: Can you tell me more about it? MG: It’s the feeling I get, the number of canvases, the different ways of painting them. An erupting volcano. And every time he’s stripping himself down completely. Watching him working is amazing to me.

WED 6:35 PM

MM: Are you sure we can go this way? Isn’t it a private road? MG: Who cares. I’ve never seen anybody here. It gets you to a subway station. Can you hear the noise? MM: Yes, I must tell you it makes me shiver. These orange streetlights, they always made me claustrophobic. MG: Do they make you feel trapped even if we are outdoors? MM: Yes they do, they make me feel so… wait, there’s something next to that gate. Is it a painting? MG: Yes, a digitalized painting by Nuno Patricio. Its got a metal structure holding it to the ground. MM: It reminds me something I probably saw in a movie, but I can’t recall what it is now… MG: To me as well. Maybe it reminds me of a whole movie genre. When I was young I used to buy the weekly magazine “UFOs and Aliens”. Do you remember that? Buying it made me feel better than the others, one step closer to secret knowledge. MM: I was very fascinated by it as well, but then I remember thinking “if this stuff is that secret, then why can I get it so easily at the news-stand?”.

WED 10:36 PM

MG: The heating in my car comes and goes. Sorry about that, Matteo, I know it’s getting cold. Usually, it doesn’t work when it’s cold while it works perfectly when you don’t need it. MM: That’s what we’re gonna do: pull over as soon as you can, I’ll smoke a cigarette, I’ll be cold so that when we get back in the car it’ll be almost warm. MG: That sounds just about right.

WED 10:40 PM

MG: Alright, I’ll stop here. MM: Look, there’s something in the grass. They looks like tiny dolls. Hey, they’re Lucia Leuci’s from the exhibition at Tile Project Space! MG: I’ve chosen to exhibit some of the works from Lucia Leuci’s latest solo show. “Mamme Cattive e Bambini Creoli”. I’ve set them up here, among the grass in the dark. The concept of being creole upon which she’s been reflecting, the way in which she touches things. To me this really was one of last year’s most inspiring art works. Seeing them here, as if they were left behind, forgotten, moves me. MM: That may be because they’re so delicate. Seeing them here, in such an anonymous lawn, so close to the highway, conveys a strange feeling of danger, as if they were the ones in charge. MG: Probably, I’ve always felt as if they were the ones in danger, you know? MM: Maybe it is so. Maybe, because of how they were made, it’s very hard for them to find somewhere where they belong. Maybe they really don’t belong anywhere. MG:I feel represented. MM: Be careful, you’re getting too romantic. MG:Let’s go, there’s just one more work I want to show you. After that I’ll take you back to the station, it’s very late already and you might miss the last train back. MM: Will we make it or is it too dark allredy? MG: Of course we’ll make it. Everybody passing through the highway will see it with us.

WED 11:04 PM

MM: What song is this? I like it, can you turn the volume up? MG: “Reason” by Spooky Black. I’ve been listening to this kind of music a lot, lately. It’s called “sadboy music”, I think. MM: It really sounds like that.

WED 11:07PM

MM: Is that up there the work? I can’t really read what’s written upon it. MG: Yes, you to look at it for a while to understand it. You should get closer. MM: But now we’ve already moved past it, I couldn’t read it all. It’s a bit like it happens with songs, you get some of the words but you can’t understand it as a whole. MG: The font it’s written in is an art work by Monia Ben Hamouda, while the text is the verse from a song. “…Searching for wrong, so you can point your stubborn finger at me again, at me again…” MM: I see why it’s at the end of the show, it’s like the credits. MG: Yes, the credits. MM: When it comes to emotions, it’s always hard to keep the focus on who’s feeling them. It’s easier to identify with the emotion itself. And this has been a very emotional trip. MG: Thanks Matteo. MM: Thank you.

2 notes · View notes

gadgetsrevv · 5 years

Text

Arsenal and Tottenham entertain but aren’t a threat. PLUS — Juve and Napoli dazzle in Serie A title preview

Gab Marcotti is here to recap another busy, dramatic weekend in soccer. Welcome to Monday Musings.

Derby lessons: Arsenal, Spurs miles off the pace

What struck you most about the North London Derby was how ragged and stretched these two teams became in the second half. When the distance between the back line and the attackers expands like it did on Sunday, it’s usually the result of a tactical breakdown. You could chalk some of it up to fatigue, I guess, but it’s not what you expect from coaches like Mauricio Pochettino and Unai Emery. The former has had plenty of time to build a side with a distinct tactical identity, while the latter is in his second season and has a reputation as a tactical savant.

The result was a 2-2 draw that left little doubt that these two teams aren’t where their managers want them to be. Tottenham in particular look a shadow of themselves not just tactically, but physically as well: maybe it’s the result of the summer training regimen, which is notoriously taxing under Pochettino but yields dividends later. At least Jan Vertonghen and Christian Eriksen seem to be off the naughty step, Dele Alli is close to full fitness and, when Tanguy Ndombele returns, there will be more options.

Pochettino put a rather more positive spin on it — “I am so optimistic that we have the quality to build again” he said, adding that “the good feelings” had returned — but you wonder how much of that was “managerspeak.” It’s going to take more to convince most that Spurs have turned the corner.

Arsenal and Tottenham let it all hang out on Sunday, but the 2-2 draw just showed how far behind the top two they are.

As for Emery, he praised his team’s hard work to get a point after being 2-0 down at home, while also complaining about their tactical foibles in the first half. You wonder, though, what his game plan was to begin with. Going with a 4-3-3 formation while leaving out Dani Ceballos at home is a statement that screams: “we’re going to sit and counter,” which is fine even if a bit humdrum. But if you’re going to do that, at least do it well.

– Ogden: Fightback will buy Emery more time – Spurs ratings: Son stands out – Arsenal ratings: Aubameyang, Lacazette 8/10

The biggest concern, though, has to be down the spine. In midfield, for the bright spot that was Matteo Guendouzi, there was the nasty blot that was Granit Xhaka. And at the back, David Luiz had one of those “switch-off” games, while Sokratis Papastathopoulos was at fault for the first goal.

Was it a one-off? Do we expect these two thirty-somethings to markedly improve at the season wears on? And if they don’t, are we comfortable with Rob Holding (who hasn’t played since 2018), Calum Chambers (who mostly played midfield last year) and Shkodran Mustafi (who is, well, Shkodran Mustafi) to step up?

Nope, me neither.

This was the season many hoped the North London clubs would close the gap on Liverpool and Manchester City. Instead, the chasm still looks huge.

Juventus, Napoli flaws exposed in seven-goal thriller

For a minute, Carlo Ancelotti must have been thinking he was living his own personal Istanbul, only in reverse. His side were 3-0 down away to Juventus and stormed back to equalize. (OK, nitpickers: I know the difference as I was there. Liverpool’s turnaround took six minutes, this one took 15, but still …) And then, deep in injury time, Kalidou Koulibaly sliced a clearance into the back of the net in the cruelest twist to give Juve a 4-3 win.

For the neutral, it was captivating. For the two clubs, a sign that there is still work to do.

Ancelotti questioned the defensive mistakes — not so much Koulibaly’s own goal, but what came before — and why his team “only started playing in the second half.” He has a point, although sending on Hirving “Chucky” Lozano and Mario Rui at half-time undoubtedly rattled Juve and illustrates the range of attacking options at his disposal: it’s up to him to find the right mix in the right game.

– Horncastle: Juve, Napoli show Serie A is wide open

Juventus didn’t look much like a Maurizio Sarri team — possibly because his illness means he hasn’t taken training in several weeks and watched from a luxury box — but rather, for more than an hour, like a version of last season’s. They were stout defensively and devastating on the break, with plenty individual quality. Then came the collapse, and while fingers will be pointed at Matthijs De Ligt, it’s worth remembering the obvious. He only turned 20 last month — at his age Leo Bonucci had played a single minute of league football and Giorgio Chiellini had yet to make his debut in Serie A and both turned out OK — and he’s dealing with massive changes like a new league, a new language and a new culture.

Plus, with all due respect to the Eredivisie, you can probably count on two hands the number of opponents of Napoli’s quality that he has faced, and that includes Champions League and internationals. That said, De Ligt is a very different player from the injured Chiellini: for all his skills, he lacks the freakish athleticism that can help a young player paper over tactical cracks. Juventus will need to make adjustments while he develops.

Beyond that, there were plenty of positives for both managers to focus on. Gonzalo Higuain may not last 90 minutes, but he looked sharp and motivated and poised for a comeback season. The formation switch — 4-3-3 when attacking, 4-4-2, with Douglas Costa sliding into midfield and Blaise Matuidi going wide — also worked relatively well and might be the answer to carrying Cristiano Ronaldo and Higuain in a Sarri system. Napoli showed tons of personality and Fabian Ruiz, again, showed his quality and leadership, while Alex Meret made some key saves.

There’s plenty more to work on — Juve could use more width, Napoli’s center-backs need to get back to where we expect them to be — but the foundations are there.

Barcelona drop points amid Neymar drama

Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez will supposedly return after the international break. When they do, they’ll find a Barcelona side five points off the pace in La Liga after the weekend’s 1-1 draw with Osasuna. Not much to cheer then, apart from the contributions of homegrown youngsters Carles Perez and, in particular, 16-year-old Ansu Fati, who came on and became the third-youngest goal scorer in the history of La Liga.

Much of the past week has been marked by Barcelona’s pursuit of Neymar. As I said before, this never felt like a football move (they already have Messi, Suarez and Antoine Griezmann up front) or, indeed, a rational one (Barca aren’t a bottomless pit of cash, and Neymar breaks the bank wherever he goes). Now, I’m wondering if it was ever real.

The rumour going around Monaco at the Champions League draw was that it more a case of Barca wanting to appear to be doing something in order to appease somebody. (Who? Fans? Media? Messi? Who the heck knows?)

The fact that PSG say they only received the first written offer on August 27 and that the only way this deal would ever get done was as a player-plus-cash swap, which is always complicated and time-consuming and suggests this was never the cards. And maybe both clubs knew it all along.

Cagliari, Italy must step up against racial abuse

It happened again at Cagliari. You’d rather talk about Inter’s 2-1, victory but the actions of the few imbeciles who racially abused Romelu Lukaku make it tough to do, especially since a whole string of players of color have been abused there, most recently Moise Kean and Blaise Matuidi.

Lukaku, to his credit, called for unity on Monday among players against this issue and there will be, rightly, calls for the authorities to act. But this illustrates neatly what the problem is and what Cagliari — both club and fans — can and must do right now. It’s not just about apologising and condemning; it’s about identifying (name and shame, let’s see what their families/employers think about this) those responsible and making it clear they’re not welcome at their ground. That applies to the supporters in the Curva Nord who heard the abuse and the stewards in that area of the ground.

The former ought to be encouraged to step forward (yes, there are cameras and microphones, but eyewitness accounts — even relayed anonymously — go a whole lot further in getting things done), the latter ought to be told to do their jobs.

Expect a long, difficult season for Man United

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer felt Manchester United “should have won” instead of drawing 1-1 with Southampton, blaming the fact they did not on “finishing” and “final passes.” To each his own. I’d be more concerned about how extraordinarily one-dimensional they look. It’s true that you can have success by doing the same thing over and over if you do it extraordinarily well; it’s just that much harder.

With Alexis Sanchez, Matteo Darmian and Chris Smalling leaving this past week, the first team is down to 25 outfield players. It sounds like a lot until you consider that six of them are relatively untested youngsters, another two (Marcos Rojo and Eric Bailly are long-term injury absentees) and another is Phil Jones.

It’s obvious that this will be a long transition season with more players leaving by attrition: Juan Mata, Nemanja Matic and Ashley Young aren’t getting any younger. The question is: transition to what? And should worse come to worse — say, a mid-table finish — will they stick with it or embark on their umpteenth change of direction?

Is Bale a key player again for Real?

Right now, it feels as if Zinedine Zidane is simply throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. The 2-2 draw at Villarreal saw him again switch systems and personnel (4-4-2, with Gareth Bale and Lucas Vazquez out wide) and we caught our first glimpse of the Karim Benzema–Luka Jovic partnership. But while they had plenty of possession, there were also jitters — and downright howlers, like Sergio Ramos‘ blunder — at the back and often chaos up front.

Bale’s two goals were his first in the league since March, although he rather put a dampener on his night by picking up two yellows in injury time. Does it mean he cares and isn’t actually just interested in playing golf? I’ll let others psychoanalyse him, since it seems to be a favorite leisure pursuit in and around Madrid.

Meanwhile though, you wonder how clear Zidane’s thinking is, particularly vis-a-vis Bale, given he spent the summer pushing him out the door only to then start him in every game this season. You hope things will come into focus after the break, when Eden Hazard finally returns.

Dortmund aren’t winning titles like this

Let Borussia Dortmund’s 3-1 bloody nose away to Union Berlin serve as a wake-up call. This was a horrid performance that can’t be explained away by the enthusiasm of playing away to a newly promoted club.

The summer spending, coupled with Bayern’s rebuild, had many thinking it could be Dortmund’s season. But that’s not going to happen with performances like this.

No worry about Mane, Salah drama

I like the fact that even winning 3-0 away to Burnley, Sadio Mane got angry that Mohamed Salah didn’t pass him the ball, despite that you’d imagine he’d be used to the Egyptian’s foibles after two years together. You want to see players holding teammates to account and putting the team first.

I’m not sure it’s greed on Salah’s part as much as it is tunnel vision in the final third. It’s something he’s had his entire career — and, possibly, what hurt his finishing early on — and it has long frustrated managers and teammates. Klopp has done a bang-up job of papering over it, but the reality may be very simple: with Salah you just have to take the good with the bad.

And as long as the former far outweighs the latter, you’ll put up with it.

Simeone’s magic working on new Atletico

The only perfect side in La Liga are Atletico Madrid. And while they had to huff and puff to come back from two goals down to win 3-2 against Eibar, they’re not just getting results, they’ve evolved and are more multifaceted (read: less “Cholistas“) than before.

I said on the FC TV show and I’ll say it again. When you consider the upheaval this summer with the departures of Griezmann, Rodri and, of course, Diego Godin, if they do win La Liga, they might as well rename their ground “Cholo” Metropolitano.

Whether it’s the reinvention of Thomas Lemar, the faith in Joao Felix, the fact that Mario Hermoso looks like he’s been there for five years or the belief in Renan Lodi‘s front-foot style, there is little question that Diego Simeone is earning his bacon this year.

Rome derby a real thrill ride

So much for the old trope whereby derbies are hard-fought, tight, fingernail-chewing affairs. Lazio and Roma finished 1-1, hitting the woodwork no fewer than six times between them and putting on a pulsating show.

Lazio look more like a team right now, which is what you expect given that this is Simone Inzaghi’s fourth season and they made very few changes over the summer. Paulo Fonseca’s side is a work in progress and they are going right down to the wire in the transfer market: Nikola Kalinic and Smalling arrived last week and Henrikh Mkhitaryan is his way. There’s more to come from both.

Lampard’s trust in youth leads to Chelsea draw

I’m all for giving youngsters a chance, but there’s a time and a place. On Saturday, Chelsea were 2-0 up at half-time and flying at home to Sheffield United. They conceded a goal immediately after the break and suffered through most of the second half. With six minutes to go, Frank Lampard replaced Mateo Kovacic with Billy Gilmour, an 18-year-old midfielder making his debut.

Gilmour wasn’t great, but he wasn’t the reason Chelsea gave up the equalizer (you can blame successive mistakes from veterans for that) but those are far from ideal conditions in which to make your debut. You assume Lampard knows him best and that the kid has the personality and guts to bounce back, but what Lampard’s choice shows most of all is that he feels zero pressure to do things according to conventional wisdom. This may or may not be a good thing.

A big statement by Bayern

Bayern got just what they wanted in their 6-1 walloping of Mainz. Ivan Perisic and Philippe Coutinho made their debuts in the starting XI, Robert Lewandowski scored again (what’s new?) and even the much-maligned Alphonso Davies got on the score sheet.

You can’t read too much into it because Mainz are awful and Robert Kovac was clearly shuffling his deck. But six different goal scorers feels good …

And finally…

Bas Dost came on at half-time and scored on his debut for Eintracht Frankfurt in their 2-1 home win over Fortuna Dusseldorf, leaving them fifth in the table. With one goal every 45 minutes, he’s on pace to score 63 goals this season.

This concludes the latest instalment of #BasDostWatch.

//due to VPPA compliance we can not send keywords through URLs implicitly in the US var countryValue = $.cookie("country"); if(!!countryValue && countryValue !== "us") {

$.ajax({ url: '//pixel.mathtag.com/event/js?mt_id=694557&mt_adid=137010&v1=&v2=&v3=&s1=&s2=&s3=', dataType: 'script', cache: true }); } (function(d, s, id) {var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if (d.getElementById(id)) return;js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_GB/all.js#xfbml=1&appId=116656161708917";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, "script", "facebook-jssdk")); Source link

via wordpress https://ift.tt/2zGvGCO

#Uncategorized #Arsenal and Tottenham entertain but aren Arsenal and Tottenham entertain but aren’t a

0 notes

walmartkaligaris · 7 years

Text

greetings, fellow ppl. it is i, vina, bringing another trash character to your dashes- and this time, she comes from a long line of trash. you can read her full biography here & check out her plot page here (sike i dont have one but i WILL so keep an eye out for that), but i’ve put some of the more important points under the cut for you all to read at your leisure ( edit its long but u know what.. its important let me live )

if u would like to plot with her, she is here. if u would like to rp with her, i can make that happen. i will prob not reply to starters / post one tonight just bc its late but.. ill be around tomorrow and she will prob be my main focus so

this is andrea pyrena kaligaris ( i like her middle name i am going to say it a lot ) ( she goes by drea - pronounced dray, like, drea de matteo - and not andy but.. someday mayb )

she is eighteen ( soon to be 19 bc i truly dont feel alycia can play so young- she was born oct 25th and she will prob throw herself a big party of one to which no one else will b invited so maybe dont jot that down )

she is hercules and megara’s youngest, their only daughter, alex kaligaris’ ( yes, that alex. i know. even after the first one, they went and made another ) lil sister who conveniently has never been mentioned in ... 4 yrs

the one thing u rly gotta know abt her is

drumroll, please

she is an asshole

ok first off. she is not here to replace alex. nor do i wish for her to become anotHER alex, so, pls keep that in mind moving forwards

but she is kinda awful and i, personally, believe that its just written in her genes

ok so very seriously- u may be asking what kinda person andrea is so, here we go. she’s confident. like. that’s the one big thing i will say about her and it’s going to be the one thing i struggle with moving forward. she isn’t faking this confidence she has- she is sure of herself, her looks, her intelligence, her abilities, her everything, u name it, and she is sure of herself in regards to it. and she’s a lot because of it.

when i was tryna think of negative traits the only one i could think of for a long time ( dont get me wrong she has many, but this was the one that kept popping up ) is she’s really dominating. she’s the kind of girl who walks into a room and immediately commands peoples attention to her, bc she likes having all eyes on her. she likes being the center of attention, and more than that, she feels as if that’s where she should be.

she was a rly big mummy’s girl, too, which is where i feel this confidence comes from but also where her sharp tongue comes from- bc yes, she’s got one. this is another thing which will b difficult for me

basically.. she’s just v confident, v ambitious, v snarky, v smart ( she rly is dont let anything ever fool u she’s maybe too smart for her own good ), v attention seeking, v self sufficient like u wont find her lusting after ppl here to the point she cannot function she is her own woman first last & always. she’s a lot of very’s, clearly, but i also gotta work out the ins and outs of her personality so pls forgive i cant give u everything

also before i forget she’s 100% the kinda person who does that whole chuck bass thing, of, “i’m andrea kaligaris”. and she’s also the kind of person who throws out her fam like ‘yeah pal dont do that my granddad will literally smite u’

and then onto history bc that’s important- andrea doesn’t know this, but she rly should not be here. she is not supposed to be alive- but after her birth (and death), megara made a(nother) deal with hades to give her life. long story short, she gets 21 yrs and then she either serves him, or he claims her soul bc its rightfully his anYWAY. there’s a way around it, but.. imma keep that hush hush, bc it’s rly not going to play a huge role in her as of yet since she doesnt know abt it. but its a thing. and its going to be important, someday, so.. keep it in mind

she’s v close to her mum bc of this ( we’re back @ her being a mummys girl )

she’s not so close to her dad tho its sad

much how i dont want her to become alex 2.0, she also does not want to b rly.. living in his shadow?? its a big thing for her. he’s obvs had a big influence and she wants to be her own person, here, so.. the quickest way to make her :/ @ u is to be like “wow ur alex’s sister!!” she might scream

anyway i think that’s all u rly gotta know

she’s been here since september last yr bc she’s going into sophomore year and thus.. if u wanna plot, we can plot her having met characters before shes by no means new

pls plot with me i am needy

#*・° ♛ － ❛ ₂ sᴛᴏʀᴍs ᴏғ ᴄᴀғғᴇɪɴᴇ ﹠ ɢᴇɴᴇᴛɪᴄs — ooc.#*・° ♛ － ❛ ɢɪʀʟs ʟɪᴋᴇ ʜᴇʀ ᴡᴇʀᴇ ʙᴏʀɴ ɪɴ ᴀ sᴛᴏʀᴍ — headcanon.#*・° ♛ － ❛ ʜᴀʟғ ɢᴏᴅᴅᴇss ; ʜᴀʟғ ʜᴇʟʟ — andrea pyrena kaligaris.#pls love her #i gave her everything i had

5 notes · View notes

youmustbestrongernow · 4 years

Note

4, 10 and 15 for the writer thing! 🌼

10. How would you describe your writing process?

Ok so i have two processes because the way i write prompts is a bit different to my other fics.With the prompts usually i get an idea of what i want to write about it and i jot that down then kind fo leave it alone to formulate if that makes sense like i add to it over a few days until i’m sure of my idea and then i sketch out a plot and draft it

With my other fics i am usually thinking about it for a long time before i even write anything, i usually have a full outline of the story before i get started, by the end that outline probably doesn’t resemble how it started but it helps take me through the story. Then i write out the plot broken down chapter by chapter and then finally i write and it is messy i just go for it i just write and write. Sometimes out of order whatever scene i want to focus on i just write until i have at least the whole story drafted. Then i edit and i don’t know what editing is supposed to be like but for me usually that’s when my story gets long. Would you believe the first draft of every version of me was only 60k and somehow in editing it it ending up well over 220k, not gonna lie this is also happening with nobody gets left behind

But yeah that’s my process and it works for me

15. Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)?

Summaries, hands down summaries every time, titles aren’t that easy but i just don’t think i’ve ever been able to write a summary that does my fic justice. I think perhaps because brevity is not my strong point, and i’m just not good at enticing readers but i try. Tags are ok on tumblr but on AO3 i mess them up a lot

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

This is so hard, in part because i have so much written now and i’m so bad at remembering specific things, I’m proud of so much of it and i know there is definitely stuff but i can’t recall it and also i always feel like i’m showing off.

But i’ve definitely felt super proud several times while writing my latest fic, i think because it’s a kinda delicate topic in parts and i’m kinda proud of how i’ve handled it. Also i will say it’s more scenes than paragraphs because it’s hard to take just one paragraph so here’s a bit of a scene i particularly was proud of

i think the bit i’m proudest of is my OC in this fic, Alex, she feels so real to me and this scene between her and matteo made me emotional, writing it made me cry and i just love all their interactions so here’s a little bit of it. the whole scene is really long (i don’t know how much is too long here it only says paragraph but i’m never short with anything!), it’s a bit of a spoiler so i’ve done a read more:

Alex shrugged so he waited, watching her shuffle her feet. He hated this, she seemed so angry but it was just because she was so unsure, and he just wanted to take it all away, make her feel confident and able to speak up for herself. Because despite the anger she was so quiet and he was pretty sure that wasn’t really who she was. So even though it annoyed her he was going to have to double-check things with her to make sure if she couldn’t speak up at first she knew she did have a space to speak.

“Alex?” he asked gently, “if you don’t like stir fry I can make something else or you can use the kitchen if you don’t trust me,” he joked, “but I promise I’m not bad or-”

“Just get mad!” she yelled, making him jump, “just get mad! Don’t ask me what I want, just tell me! If we’re having stirfry then that’s what we’re eating. Stop pretending like I have a fucking choice!”

She was close to tears trying so hard not to let it show, she was shaking where she stood, her hands were fists at her sides as she tried to hold it together.

“Need a minute?” Matteo asked gently.

She slammed the door in his face.

“Papa?” Jamilah asked from the bottom of the stairs.

“It’s all ok, don’t be scared,” he assured her.

“I’m not scared,” she said, “is Alex ok? Does she need a hug?” she asked.

“Not right now, and I think with Alex we should only do hugs if she asks for one, otherwise please give her space ok? We’re going to have a family chat about this in a bit. Are you three ok?”

“Matty’s playing and I’m teaching Jake times tables but he won’t listen to me,” she said.

“Ok, well I'll be down in a minute,” he said, he listened to her run off then turned back to Alex’s door, “Alex, can I open the door?” he asked.

“Please go away,” she whispered.

He really wanted to, wanted to give her the space she wanted but she was clearly crying now.

“Alex? I’m not going to come in. I’m not going to open this door without your permission but I am going to wait because I need to know that you’re ok,” he explained.

He heard her shuffling and then she slowly opened the door. He stayed on his side.

“I’ll eat your stupid food, please just leave me alone,” she said tiredly.

He smiled sadly at her.

“Ok… well I'm an ok cook so try it but if you don’t like it I'll make you something else, I can make curry, burgers, anything you want, pasta is my speciality because I'm Italian, pizza too but if there’s anything fancier I'm sure we can figure it out. Or there’s sandwich stuff, I lived on sandwiches when I was your age,” he told her, with a smile.

She didn’t smile back, just nodded.

“Ok,” she said.

#answered asks #oh i wanted to share more of this #i took the whole scene but it crashed so i figured it was too long #also it goes on to be very heavy #but it's from the chapter after next so it won't be long #rikotin #also i bet the read more won't work again #ask theo

2 notes · View notes

graequeen · 4 years

Text

Chapter 9

“So, what is your name?” I asked as the black 2020 Cadillac Escalade turned the corner. Matteo’s sister sat right across from me with bright wide eyes, and her lovely smile. Since we got in the car, twenty minutes ago, she has not stopped staring at me. Matteo, who sat behind us with Gio, tried to ask her to stop, but she insisted on making me feel slightly uncomfortable. Gio decided to join her.

“My name is Bianca.” She finally said. I noticed the kids didn’t have the same strong accent as their two older brothers. And they all seemed incredibly smart...minus Raffaele. I guess that is what money brought them: an expensive education.

“Why hello Bianca! You may call me Rockey.” I said, extending my hand to her.

She took it almost immediately, shaking with all her might. Her eyes never left mine. “I am sorry for staring, but you are just as pretty as my brother said you were.”

The thought of Nicolò complimenting me had my face turning to the shade of a ripe tomato. Despite the fact that I was currently in the car, I began to fantasize about a wedding…

“We have arrived at the first school.” Arthur said a little louder, snapping me out of my trance. Apparently I had been day dreaming for a few minutes.

“Who goes first?” I asked, trying to get everyone to stop gawking at me.

“I do…” Bianca said reluctantly. The excited energy she had before had quickly vanished from her. She gave me the same look of panic Matteo had when he was confronted by his bullies.

I grabbed both of her hands, and gave her the best smile I could muster. “Your day is going to be great. Keep that sweet smile you have. I promise I will be here to pick you up after school, ok?”

She still seemed unsure about leaving, so I gently took her hand, and guided us out of the car. Once outside, I knelt right beside her, and began to encourage her.

“Whatever challenges you go through today, remember you are a strong young lady, and have strength to overcome it with grace and class. Don’t you ever forget it, ok?”

“I’ll try to remember that…” She said quietly. She gave me a quick hug before running down the lush green walkway. There were kids everywhere, running to the entrance with their expensive bookbags, cell phones, and lunch boxes.

Bianca walked past a group of girls who looked slightly older than her. They were murmuring something under their breath and laughing. I could tell she was feeling down; her posture began to drop.

“Bianca!” I yelled as loud as I could. Apparently too loud, cause everyone turned to face me. But my focus remained on her. As she turned around, I mouthed, “You got this! Chin up!”

She smiled back, and fixed her posture. She held her chin up and walked past the group of girls with a small degree of confidence. I hope that it lasts the full day.

“That’s my girl.” I said, unaware I had company.

“Are you the nanny, or are you her sister?” A male voice asked from behind me. I turned to see a handsome (not Nicoló handsome, but none-the-less handsome) man behind me. He looked to be Hispanic, dark gorgeous skin, and a wonderful smile. But I could tell what type of man he was: a fuck boy. Some of the mothers and female nannies around us were ogling him.

“Well, that is for me to know, and for you to never find out.” I said politely. I began walking past him, but he stopped me before I had a chance to get to the car.

“Forgive me. Let me start from the beginning. My name is Christopher Rivera. I am the teacher for Miss Bianca.” He said professionally.

“Hello Mr. Rivera, nice to meet you.” I said curtly.

“What is your name?” He asked. I don’t know why, but the entire conversation put me off. Definitely reminded me of how Danny and I met.

Before I could think of something slick to say, Matteo jumped out of the SUV. “Come on Rockey, we need to go!” If looks could kill, Mr. Rivera would be DEAD. It was obvious Matteo did not like this man.

The next two stops were fairly smooth. Matteo refused to let me see him off. When questioned, he said, “I don’t want you falling for my teacher.”

Gio, however, insisted upon giving me a silent, tiny tour of the outside grounds. All he did was point to certain landmarks. I had to fill in the rest with, “That looks cool!”, “Is that your hang out spot?”, and “That’s amazing!” Thankfully, he didn’t need a pep talk before going inside.

The car ride back to the Estate was uncomfortably quiet. Arthur remained focused on driving, while I sat playing with my fingers. It was an odd habit I picked up whenever I was nervous.

After a few minutes of silence, I gave in. I had so many questions that needed answers. “Ok Arthur! I need you to spill everything!” I demanded. He looked at me as if I spoke another language.

“What do you mean Miss Rockey?” He asked But I knew he understood my request. He had to have known some dirty secrets, or at the very least, tell me something juicy.

“Oh, come on Arthur! You must know everything about the family!” I pleaded.

He started laughing. “Miss Rockey, there are things that I don’t even know.”

“Well, tell me what you do know.” I demanded.

“Well...where do I start?” He began.

#my writing #writers on tumblr #good reads #romance #short story #short fiction

0 notes

huffletiika · 7 years

Text

Hello, Stranger.

GASTINA / UNIVERSITY AU

There’s a new app at the campus that allows you to chat with some other student it matches you with according to your hobbies and likes. Nina logs in this app to prove Luna wrong and ends up talking all night long with a very interesting stranger. Little she knows this guy is Gaston, her high school crush, who is also Matteo’s (Luna’s boyfriend) best friend.

It has been a busy week as I’m traveling, but I’ve been using every free time to work on this chapter, and I’m positive in the fact that this is one of my favorites. I’m really trying hard to keep up with my fics xD! which reminds me that I posted a chapter of my twins au last week, so if you want to check it, it’s HERE. Hope you like this chapter as much as I do. This is helping me to deal with show gastina these days.

[Other Chapters]

CHAPTER 8 - ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY LESSONS AND MISSING CINDERELLAS

Gastón was in a really bad mood, the worst he has ever been, and everyone around him could sense it. He has gone from his classes directly to his bedroom during the last couple of days, avoiding unnecessary conversations, and being the best impersonation of the grumpy cat according to his best friend. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t’ what kind of response was that? There was no further explanation, even if he has been asking for it, she just kept ignoring his messages.

He didn’t know if he had made something to scare her away, or if all this was a stupid joke, was she laughing at him right now? She could be talking with her friends about how she had managed to fool a guy to go to a date she never went to. The last time he felt offended about something was when Delfina spread those lies about him, and even then he didn’t feel half as vexed as now.

He rolled on his bed to get his phone from his nightstand to see the time, he had been on his bedroom since he arrived from his classes from the day before, and didn’t even leave it to have dinner. Now, it was almost 10am, and it was Saturday, so he expected to stay in bed for the rest of the day, even if he had signed up himself for the photography lessons. He just wasn’t in the mood to go, and there would be other classes, this was just the first one.

“Ok, I’m tired of seeing you act as a zombie just because some girl stood you up,” Matteo stormed into his bedroom without even knocking. “Don’t you have photography elective like in half hour?” his best friend shout, going to open his curtains.

“I’m not going,” he replied, covering his head with the blankets, but Matteo went to the bed and pulled them until they weren’t covering him anymore.

“Thank God you wear briefs to sleep,” his best friend said relieved, after throwing the blankets on the floor, and then went to open his closet. “Now, stand up and take a shower. I will make breakfast, so you better eat something before leaving. You won’t miss that class, I won’t let you stay in this state of...” he pointed at him, as he didn’t have any other way, rather than his appearance, to make his point clear. “I expect to see you at the kitchen in 15 minutes, less if possible, if you are not there, I will come back here and won’t be as friendly as I just have been to make you leave this stupid bedroom. Got it?” his friend threw on his mattress some clothes he had taken from his closet and, in the same way he went into the bedroom, he stormed out of it.

Gastón looked up at the ceiling completely motionless for almost five minutes, and then decided that he didn’t want to take the risk of having his best friend to fulfill his threat, so he stood up from his bed and went to take a freaking shower. He would go to his class, listen to whatever the professor said, and then he would be free to go back to his bed and stay there for the rest of the weekend.

God bless Sundays.

Matteo was on the counter serving scrambled eggs for the two of them, wearing a freaking apron that said Italians cook best, when Gastón went out from his bedroom and sat on one of the tall benches. He was wearing the clothes his friend had chosen for him, as he wasn’t in the mood to look for something else on his closet.

“Very good! One minute, and I would have gone back there for you,” his friend put a plate and a cup of coffee in front of him. He had the brightest smile ever, and Gaston kind of hated the guy at the moment for making him leave his bed, so he just replied with a shrug before starting to eat. “You are gonna thank me later,” his friend stated, before sitting as well, and starting to eat.

The photography classes where held at the arts faculty, a part of the university he rarely stood at, as his classes were mostly at the other side of the university, at the administration building. He sighed, looking at the building with sincere curiosity, he felt like he was in a different universe, like he had entered into an alternative universe. For that reason, he had it difficult to find the classroom, as they had a way of numbering them different from the one he was used to, so when he got to find the right one, he realized that the class had already started.

“I’m sorry, I got lost. I don’t know this building,” he excused himself for being late, and the professor just nodded.

“Take a seat,” he said, pointing at some empty chair on the right side of the classroom, so Gastón went there without hesitation. He didn’t want to have any problem with the teacher since his first day.

His sight went to the brown haired girl with glasses who was sit at the seat next to the one the professor had pointed at, and a smile grown on his lips for the first time in the last couple of days. Somehow, seeing her made him feel better. He sat down and winked at her, and she shyly smiled, before looking down to his camera, as if she was trying to find the entrance to Narnia on it lens. He tried to pay attention to the topic of the class, but somehow she got to distract him by just being there, so he found himself staring at the girl more times than he got to count. She didn’t see at him, not even once, she was very focused on each word the teacher told, and somehow it made him feel like some kind of creep.

“Now, get in pairs.” The professor asked, and that was the moment when Nina looked back at him and their sights met. Their classmates started to do the assignment, and they just stared at each other what looked like a century, before she broke the silence.

“I guess we will work together,” she said, and he nodded. He didn’t know anyone else in that class, and even if he did, he wouldn’t prefer to work with anyone else than her. “Okay,” she added after his response, and then looked back at the teacher.

Somehow, he had the feeling something was bothering her that day.

“Is everything fine?” he whispered, because the teacher was back at explaining the activity, and she looked back at him.

“Yeah, why?” Nina asked.

“I don’t know, I feel you kinda… distant,” he said, after struggling to find the right word. “Are you mad at me?” His question made her giggle, and then she shook her head.

“I’m not mad at you,” she told him. “I would never be.” She bit her lip after murmuring those last words, and looked away, a soft pink tone coloring her cheeks as she did so.

He stared at her as the teacher continued explaining the activity, barely listening to him, because for a moment he got this strange thought that she looked really cute when she blushed. Correction: she looked cute, in general.

Gaston forced himself to pay attention to the rest of the class, he even took notes of some tips the teacher gave them to deal with the focus option of the cameras, and when the teacher called it a day and dismissed them, he looked back at Nina with a soft smile. She was putting her materials in her backpack.

“Do you want to go and take the pictures the professor told us?” he asked her.

The activity they had to do for the next class was simple: they would have to go and find a place that inspired them, and then take a picture of their partner in that place. Gaston wasn’t still sure about the place he wanted to use for it, but for some reason going to scout locations with Nina sounded more appealing than going back to hide under his blankets, his best friend was right about how depressing he had been the latest days, and he didn’t want to go back to that state.

She stared at him, looking surprised.

“I–” she bit her lip, and then nodded. “Yeah, is better if we do that today… I guess,” she agreed, and then they both left the classroom together.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked, making some fashion model pose laying his back against one of the shelfs, and she giggled.

They were at the library, surrounded by tall shelfs filled with books, as when he asked her about a place that inspired her the most she told him it would be there. He liked the library as well. Not as much as she did, though, as he usually went there just to get books to read them somewhere else. But he liked the smell of books, it was one of his favorites, besides the smell of wet grass. He also was starting to like the smell of Nina’s perfume, was it vanilla? He needed to know. For science, of course.

“Just… act natural,” she said, putting one of her hair tufts behind her ear. “Do what you would normally do in a library.” He thought about her instructions for a couple of seconds, and then nodded.

He started to wander around the place, looking at the titles printed on the book molds, until he found one that caught his eye, and took it on his hands to read the description on the back. He smiled and opened the book, it was a science fiction novel, so he started reading the first page, getting so into it he didn’t remember Nina was taking pictures until she spoke again.

“I think I have enough picture to choose one for the assignment.” He glanced back at her after closing the book and putting it under his arm, he was going to take it with him, and she was focused on the screen of the camera, scrolling through the pictures she has taken. “You are a great model,” she remarked, and a cocky smile appeared on his lips.

“Of course I am,” he said, and she rolled her eyes in response.

You spend too much time with your best friend,” she replied, and Gastón couldn’t help but laugh at her words, even if they were at the library, and they were supposed to be quiet there.

As they were leaving the library he was thinking about a place to use for his picture, there were some places that inspired him, the rink at the Jam & Roller was one of them, but somehow he was sure she wouldn’t want to go there and put skates on. Maybe the cafeteria, he liked to go there and read, and somehow he felt that being in such familiar place would inspire him to take a great picture.

They turned around the corner of the library, and then he saw the beautiful garden he was supposed to meet Felicity at, and suddenly the smirk on his lips faded. Nina noticed it, and looked at him with concern and something else that he couldn’t fully identify, like if she knew what was at his head. Something impossible, as she didn’t know what had happened there.

“Gastón?” she spoke, and he took a deep breath, his sight still fixed on the place he stood while reading Felicity’s message. “What’s the place you chose? We could go there,” she urged him, pulling him by his wrist to get his attention, and so it did. He looked down at her hand on his wrist, and she released it immediately, as if just know she had noticed what she has done. “I’m sorry,” she said, crossing her arms. He was still confused by the whole situation.

“No, it’s ok… you’re right,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought about taking it at the J&R, is the only place that comes to my mind, so we should go there.”

She nodded, and they started walking towards said place.

When they arrived at the J&R the band was rehearsing. Gaston had promised Simon to go see him and his mates playing someday, so arriving there and finding them on the stage brought a smile to his face, as his classes didn’t allow him to accomplish his promise before. Simon noticed them as they walked to a table close to the stage, and waved at them. He did the same, before seeing the guy telling something to his bandmates and walking towards them.

“Hey, guys! What are you going to order?” he asked them, with a bright smile.

“I thought you were rehearsing with the band,” Gaston said, and Simon laughed.

“I am,” he shrugged. “But I told the guys to hold it for a while so I can get your orders. We are a little out of staff right now, but at the same time there are not many clients who come at this time, so it’s good for rehearsing.”

“We didn’t mean to bother you,” Nina said.

“You are not bothering, it’s my job… I get paid for this.” Simon smiled. “Besides, my best friend’s friends are always a priority.” He blinked. “So, tell me, what you are going to order?”

“A frozen cherry lemonade would be cool” Nina answered, and then Gaston asked for an iced coffee. He needed some caffeine in his veins. He stared at Simon’s back as he walked towards the counter, and then looked back at her when he heard her voice.

“So… the picture?” she asked, and he shrugged.

“I will take it later, I just need the perfect moment,” he answered, with a bright smile, and then they stayed silent. “You don’t like very excited about me taking a picture of you, though,” he murmured after a while.

She bit her lip. “I don’t like to be in front of cameras.”

“Why? You are gorgeous,” he sincerely answered, without even thinking. Her cheeks turned completely red, and her jaw dropped as she tried to say something, and failed on doing so.

Right in that moment Simon came back with their drinks, and then went back to the stage. Gaston looked at the guys as they started rehearsing, fascinated by the chords that came out of their instruments, tapping on the table to follow the rhythm.

“Can I ask you a question?” her voice made him look back at her, noticing the nervousness on her expression, which confused him. He nodded. "Are you okay? I mean, I’m sorry if I’m too… if I'm getting into something that shouldn’t concern me, but I heard Luna and Matteo talking, and he was telling her you were having a hard time about a girl,” she started talking too fast. “I know, I know… I shouldn’t overheard people, but it was an accident, and I got worried. I didn’t expect you to go to the photography class because of that, but you went, so I thought you were fine and Matteo was exaggerating. He is kinda extra sometimes, you know. But then when we were leaving the library you looked a little off, and I got-” she bit her lip, and he thought it was the most cute thing he had ever seen. “And I got worried,” she whispered, after a while.

He didn’t say a word, he didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she finally said, shaking her head. “I shouldn’t have asked you about this, it’s none of my business, just… forget I mention it, I–” He reached her forearm, and squeezed it, making her stop rambling. She looked down at where his hand was touching her skin, and blushed.

“It’s ok,” he said, releasing her arm. “I’m fine, I just have to get used to being rejected by a girl I like,” he shrugged. Somehow, it felt really strange to talk about Felicity with Nina, but he didn’t know why. “I’m pretty sure most people have to deal with it, so I guess I have to stop being a cry baby about it. Life must go on.”

“You like her?” she asked.

“A lot,” he admitted.

“Are you sure she rejected you?” she was looking sad, and somehow he felt guilty. He didn’t like to see her like that, and it was his fault for talking about his failed relationship with Felicity, he should change the topic.

“Well, I told her to meet me at some place, and she didn’t show up, so that made it very clear,” he looked away. “And now, she disappeared like a modern Cinderella, without leaving any trace. At least, the prince at the tale got a glass slipper to try on every girl at the kingdom, but I’ve got nothing… she just evaporated into thin air.” he shook his head, and then smiled. “But it’s okay, I don’t want to bother you with this… stuff,” he sighed. “Let’s forget about it.”

She didn’t let him kill the topic. On the contrary, this time it was her hand that squeezed his arm, a she looked at him with a soft smile.

“I’m so sorry if you feel that way,” she told him. “I’m pretty sure that girl didn’t mean to hurt you. Maybe she is just too shy and felt overwhelmed by the situation, maybe she only needs a little more of time to show up… to find the courage to show herself in front of you without any mask. That’s the scariest thing to do for most of the people.”

“Yeah, you may be right,” he smiled, and put his hand over the one that was holding his forearm. “Thank you.” A soft pink covered her cheeks again when she looked down at their hands, and he had to use all his will power to let her hand go.

They spent the rest of the day at the Jam & Roller watching the band rehearsal, chatting with its remaining members every time one of them went to serve customers, until the moment Simon openly admitted that Nina had helped them with the lyrics of most of their songs, as he always looked for Luna for her advice, and the shy girl was always around to contribute with her writing skills. That was the moment when he took his picture, and it was so perfect he knew he wouldn’t need another take. It was her, looking down at her drink, her cheeks red because of the compliments, and a shy smile on her lips. She didn’t even notice he was taking the picture, until it was already done, and he was putting his camera back at its liner.

#Soy Luna #Soy Luna Fanfic #Gastina #Gastina Fanfic #Nina Simonetti #Gastón Battan #Gastón Perida #Matteo Balsano #Gastteo #StrangerFic #Written by Me #UniversityAU

40 notes · View notes

huffletiika · 7 years

Text

hello, stranger.

GASTINA / UNIVERSITY AU

I know it took me so long to update, but I’ve been traveling, and then Lutteo Ficweek happened and I had to be part of it this time, as last year I had a lot of problems during those days and couldn’t participate. The chapter is not proofread, so there could be some mistakes of redaction, but I hope there are not so terrible xD! Hope you like it.

[Other Chapters]

CHAPTER 7 - ABOUT IMPULSIVE DECISIONS AND SURPRISING DISCOVERIES

She feels her hands shaking as soon as she presses send. What the hell she just did? She just accepted to meet the guy she has been chatting with during the last couple of weeks, like meeting him in the real life, like a freaking date with a flesh and blood male human being. Oh God, what was she thinking? The reality is, she wasn’t thinking, she wasn’t thinking at all. After spending her whole life over thinking things, she chose that exact moment to not think, to be impulsive.

But, let’s explain what just happened so everybody can understand it.

Since the day before, when Rollertrack’s message appeared on her phone screen, she has been freaking out, like out-of-her-mind freaking out. She enjoys talking with the guy, she really does, and it has been nice to have someone with whom she could talk, without the complications of real human interaction. Something great to do when you have social anxiety, indeed, as you don’t have to really tell words with your own mouth to the other person, just write words on the screen on your phone and send them, something she was good at. But he wanted to meet her in person, and at first she didn’t know what to do, so she decided to wait and have some time to think about it.

Many thing have changed in her life during the latest week as well. Having real conversations with the guy she likes without fainting and making a fool of herself has been an improvement she has to recognize herself. They have become closer and closer as the days have passed. He goes to talk to her about books and photography, he tells her about those things he likes, and she has slowly got used to his attention and kindness.

Long ago, when she used to stare at him on the hallways of the school as in love teenagers do, she convinced herself that her feelings would fade away as soon as she got to meet the guy. He couldn’t be as perfect as her mind pictured him. And she was right about one thing, he wasn’t that perfect, no one is, but knowing the real person with flaws and all that comes with being a human being didn’t make those feeling fade, it just have made them stronger.

But that doesn’t mean that there’s a love story starting between them. She is sure he just likes the fact he can talk with her about all those things he likes, that he doesn’t feel the same way about her, even if at first she had let her hopes grow. He is just being nice with her, enjoying to have someone to talk with as their best friends go full PDA in the couch in front of them, so he could ignore their presence. That doesn’t mean that she thinks he is being hypocritical or something, she cans see in his eyes that he truly enjoys their friendship, but that’s all, he could never see her as something more than a friend, and what Luna told her that evening has convinced her about that.

According to her best friend, she was talking with Matteo and Gastón when her boyfriend mentioned that the latest liked a girl who was ignoring him, and that it was making him feel miserable. He must like that girl so much to feel that way about it, so the possibilities of him liking her in the same way were back at zero, and that´s what made her open Rollertrack’s conversation and accept his invitation. She couldn’t just stay behind and wait for Gaston to change his feelings for her, he liked other girl, and even if said girl was ignoring him in the moment Nina was sure she would change her mind eventually, because if it was her she would give him as many opportunities as possible. God! Forgetting him would be hell.

RollerTrack: Yeah! Tomorrow afternoon’s great! What do you say about meeting at the garden next to the library? Not many people go there, so it wouldn’t be hard to find each other.

She bit her lip. The guy looked excited, and she felt a little better than before, because even if she wasn’t still much sure about this, he was making her feel like this may be a good idea.

Felicity: Yeah, that place would be great. How do you think we could recognize each other?

She waited for a couple of minutes for his response, her heart beating faster than usual, her hands shaking so she had to sit in her bed and put the phone in front of her.

RollerTrack: what do you say about telling each other a piece of clothing we are going to wear? For example, I will wear a green jacket. –she smiled.

Felicity: Yeah, that’s a good idea. I like green, by the way… I mean, it’s one of my favorite colors. I will wear a purple sweater. –she liked that sweater, her father had given it for her on her birthday, along with a book written by her favorite author.

RollerTrack: then, it’s a date.

She smiled.

Felicity: It’s a date.

“You are going to have a date,” her best friend was mouth-opened. “A date with a real flesh and blood guy,” she leaned closer and put the palm of her hand on Nina’s forehead. “Who are you, and what did you do to my best friend?” Luna’s disbelief was very alike to her own. She couldn’t still believe she had said yes to meet this guy.

“I guess I’m changing” it was the only response she could make, and her friend sighed with concern.

“Just tell me you didn’t do this because of what I told you yesterday about Gastón?” her friend was smart, she thought, but shook her head as response. Her friend, of course, didn’t believe her. “Don’t lie to me, Nina. I thought we were best friends.”

“We are!” she replied, and then sighed when her friend stared at her as if she expected her to speak out. “Ok, maybe you are right, at first I did it moved by a little of spite, but that’s not everything.” She hugged her own legs, which were covered by her long pajama pants, and rested her head on her knees. “I really like this guy, I like writing to him, and I believe I have to give me a chance to meet him and know if I feel something for him...” she wanted to believe her own words, but the truth is she knew she could never like a guy as much as she liked Gastón.

Luna nodded.

“Do you want me to go with you?”

Nina thought about it for a minute, then shook her head. “It’s ok, it’s going to be inside the campus so I guess I will be safe.” She answered. Truth be told, she was sure she wouldn’t be able to approach the guy if her friend was around. “But I guess I can text you if I feel like I need an excuse to run away,” she smiled, and her friend did the same.

“Agent 00 Luna on duty,” she said, doing a secret agent pose using her hands as guns, and Nina couldn’t help but laugh. Her best friend always had that superpower of making her feel less anxious with her jokes and comments. “Now, do you know what you’re going to wear?” her friend asked, getting up from the foot of Nina’s bed to go to her closet.

“I told him I would wear my purple sweater,” she replied, and her friend nodded.

“Good, I like that sweater,” her friend approved, and then started looking at her clothes. “What do you say about this dress? Is really cute, and it combines with the sweater.” Nina bit her lip.

“Isn’t it too much?” she asked. “I mean, is just the first date, and we are going to be at the campus, I don’t think a dress would be appropriate.”

“It’s totally appropriate,” Luna replied, walking back to the bed with the dress on her hands. “It’s just a summer dress, and it will look really cute with the sweater and some cute sandals, I could lend you some of my accessories.” She left the dress on the mattress. “As you said yourself, it’s a first date, you have to dazzle him from the beginning.”

Her friend smiled at her, and Nina couldn’t find an argument to contradict her.

“Ok, I will wear the dress.”

Nina looked at herself in the mirror, flattening the skirt of her dress with her hands. She was feeling her legs like jelly, and her belly like if she was almost throwing up, she has never been more nervous. Well, yeah… doing presentations for her classroom is as terrifying, but there she has notes and facts to focus on and avoid the awkwardness, here she was going to the battlefield without a plan or a help resource. It would be just her, just being her in front of someone she didn’t really know, and it made her feel too anxious to find some chill.

She was going to make a fool of herself in front of him, she was sure, and he would be the one to make up some excuse to run away as soon as he felt bored. It would be shameful, but she is used to that, no guy could talk with her for more than five minutes before running away, except Gastón, but she was sure he only talks to her to get a distraction from their best friends’ public demonstration of affection, and she had promised herself not to think about him, not during that day at least.

It was kind of windy when she left the dorms building, so she was glad she got to convince Luna to let her wear tights under her dress, and that her purple sweater was warm enough. She was also glad that she didn’t have to walk a big distance, the library was just a couple of building away, something she liked about the place where she and Luna lived, even if sometimes she wondered if they could get a bigger apartment outside the campus, as the one her best friend’s boyfriend and his best friend had. She won’t mention his name today. They needed a little bit more of space, maybe having their own rooms, as sometimes Nina feels kind of anxious looking at Luna’s bed and seeing it undone at the afternoon. She also needed more space for her books, some of them were on the shelf her dad had built for her on the corner of the room, but the rest were placed on her closet and under her bed, and she really felt bad about having to let them there. She had had that conversation con Luna recently, and her friend agreed with her, but they hadn’t found any empty apartment close to the university that they both liked.

Nina sighed when she saw the library building, and then looked at her phone, checking if she was at the right time. She was scared, there was a huge hole where her stomach should be, but she couldn’t back down now. Feeling her hear racing on her chest she surrounded the building to get to the garden he had mentioned, and then she saw him.

He was with his back to her, the green jacket making him stand out, she felt some kind of familiarity while looking at him, as if she had seen him somewhere before. With trembling legs she walked towards him, she could feel her hands sweating, and her breathing getting harder. She tried to convince herself there was nothing to be afraid of, it was just a guy, a really nice guy she had spent full nights talking by message, so she just had to be herself and get the worries behind.

Then he looked to his right, and she saw his face.

Her heart stopped working.

“Oh my God, oh my God…” she hid herself behind a bush. Nina started hard breathing, and some black points appeared on her vision, was she going to faint or something like that? She couldn’t control it anymore. “Breathe, breathe,” she reminded herself, closing her eyes and hugging her own legs. Her mother had taught her an exercise to control her panic attacks, and so she tried to do as she had told her. It was all on the respiration, just focus on that, just try to make it slower counting the seconds while inhaling and exhaling. Just as she got to count to 10 between each action she opened her eyes again, and then spy through the bush just to see him looking around, and then down to his phone.

Gastón was RollerTrack.

She turned around again, panic growing back on her chest, and she did her best to calm it down. Then a message appeared on her phone, and she talked the goddess she didn’t have a tone for messages on it. She looked down and read the words on her screen.

RollerTrack: Felicity? I'm already where we agreed to meet.

She didn’t know what to answer.

RollerTrack: Are you coming?

Nina looked back at him through the leaves, he was staring at his phone, probably waiting for her answer. She couldn’t write him back, not seeing at him, so she walked in a squat until she got to hid herself behind one of the corners of the library, before taking her phone out again.

Felicity: I’m sorry, I can’t.

She wrote and then turned off her phone, she didn’t want to see his answer to that, not yet. Then, she ran back to her dorm and throw herself on her bed hugging her pillow. One part of herself, the most rational one, was telling her that there was no reason to feel and act like that, because if Gastón was RollerTrack, that meant he liked her, that she was the girl he was talking about with Luna and Matteo.

She closed her eyes. But he didn’t like Nina, he liked Felicity, what if he is disappointed after knowing they are the same person? She wouldn’t bear it! It would be her worst nightmare. A tear fell down from her closed eyes, and she hugged her pillow tighter. She didn’t want to leave her bed anymore, how could she look at him since now knowing he was the guy she had been talking with all the time, that he was the guy who encouraged her to talk with his alter-ego during the party. She left a soft laugh abandon her lungs after thinking in such irony. She knew she should face him and tell him the truth, but not that day, that day she only wanted to curl in her bed and stay there as long as possible.

Luna arrived hours later. She saw her in bed and shout something about how she should always have her phone on, as she was freaking out thinking the guy from internet had done something to her, but Nina did as if she was sleeping and didn’t hear her. Her best friend didn’t try to wake her up. She would tell her everything about what had happened that afternoon, but maybe the next day, she didn’t know how to explain it in that moment.

#Soy Luna #Gastina #Soy Luna Fanfic #Gastina Fanfic #Gaston Perida #Gaston Agüero #Nina Simonetti #Nilu #Luna Valente #strangerfic #Written by Me #UniversityAU

37 notes · View notes