Working in communications at the Resistance had it’s ups and downs–
Ups; it was quiet, secluded, dark, just how you liked it to be. Away from prying eyes and boisterous pilots who relished in one too many drinks and jokes after a shift.
Downs; you were assigned to Poe fucking Dameron. Every other day, for hours on end, he was the only person you were wired in to talk to, navigate, provide intel for. The only thing worse was what happened off-shift, whenever you ended up face to face with the pilot–
Because Dameron still has no fucking clue that it’s you on the other end of the headset.
This one shot is dedicated to @pinkotter, who won my 500 follower giveaway and picked the prompt for this baby!
Read and buy books on feminism, anti-racism, pro-lgbt
Attend drag shows
Don't skip any of your classes
Read and buy history books
Find your out-of-state networks
Learn to carry cash
Get birth control solutions
Support the Biden/Harris administration
Postpone large purchases and save money
Be careful of what you say online, like un-ambiguous attacks against the incoming administration, especially in spaces that contain your full name or personal information
wow! as a broke college kid, i wish there was a way to access books and movies as well as scientific articles that the new administration isn't necessarily a fan of. man. If only there was a free and trusted vpn ( up to 10 gigs of downloadable data) to use in conjunction with an anonymizing router (also free up to 10 gigs) to safely, er, permanently borrow media in an untraceable way as well as share files. Man, what's that browser that keeps your online activity anonymous? I'm awfully attached to firefox, personally. If only i had a browser extension that would throw a smoke screen over my browsing data while blocking ads at the same time.
This is insane, I knew he was dealing with some stupid shit but this just makes me so upset. He’s nothing but kind and loving to everyone and anyone, I don’t know how people can do anything like this to him. Like I genuinely don’t understand, he deserves the world </3
Why r Joost fans trynna start a witch-hunt for the “toxic” fans who make fanfiction or whatever. I can ASSURE U. That the mfs who post fics ARE NOT THE REASON JOOST HAS HIS MENTIONS TURNED OFF! Bro is NOT googling self insert fanfiction of himself- it’s these generic fan accounts screenshotting all that stuff and posting it to social media like it’s a PSA to be like “ew gross look how toxic the Joost fandom is” YOU’RE TOXIC! You’re spreading it across social media for anyone to judge or see. If you don’t LIKE IT. Let it float away into obscurity where it can circulate away from your orbit of interests and Joost’s orbit where it cannot hurt anyone. U are actively choosing to be hurt on behalf of someone you don’t know and then ur in effect painting the image of a very toxic- suspicious, lynching fandom. As well as making other fans uncomfortable with things they didn’t wish to see. U are actively making the situation worse. And it’s always like “we need to cleanse the fandom and protect Joost” like you sound insane.
Being the single friend AND the single family member fucking blows
don’t get me wrong, I value my alone time as well as my independence.
But all of my friends are in happy successful relationships. They’re all engaged, married, or in a long term relationship. And the same goes for my family. I’m the only single one on both sides of my family. THREE of my cousins are engaged at the moment. Everyone else is already married. And it sucks.
And whenever I express these feelings, my dad tries to make me feel better by saying “well at least you don’t want kids. so it’s not like you’re running out of time on that front” and he’s not wrong. But also just because my “biological clock” (ew) isn’t ticking doesn’t mean that I don’t want to find someone sooner rather than later.
Look, I know people sometimes don’t meet “the one” until they’re older. And that’s fine and great. But I don’t want that to be me. I don’t want to spend the next twenty years looking for my person. I don’t want to meet them when I’m 50.
My sister met her husband when they were 15. She’s only 30, so she has been with him for fifteen years already.
It just bothers me that I will most likely get less time with my eventual partner (if I find one). I will get fewer years with them. And yeah, I know, “quality over quantity” and all that. But it still sucks.
And if you’ve read all of this, do me a favor and keep your reply to yourself if you’re planning on saying “it’ll happen!” or “you’ll find them when you least expect it!” or “stop looking! That’s when you’ll find them!”. Because, even though I know you mean well, those phrases are the opposite of helpful. <3
warnings: depression (ish), burnout, reader character in some vague mental health funk
word count: 2k
a/n: slight prequel to blue is the colour of your eyes but can be read as stand alone. just same artist reader. vaguely romantic but just ramblings and getting feelings out haha. started this when I was in more of a bad mental state (lol) but im fine now so it got kinda tame by the end of it. still not proofreading anything
title from the song Love in the Time of Socialism by Yellow House
Rpf below the cut—
Normally Joost has to call you because its the only way you will actually look at your phone. Its more often that not you find yourself fixated on planning out your next project, and your friends have to force you back into reality. There was that one time no one had heard from you in over a week and thought you were dead, when you were just working. You hadn’t realized how many texts you missed and apologized for scaring your friends half to death. Especially Joost.
So now you leave your ringer on, and now they call.
Tonight, however, Joost calls and you aren’t in your studio. You are in your bed, where you have been for the entire day. and also most of yesterday. There isn’t a reason in your head specifically why this has happened. you MEANT to get up. Theres a list of chores and things to do just sitting on your desk, but you woke up late, so now nothing will get done. At some point it just became too stressful to even get up and look at it. You roll over and stare at the contact picture of him, smiling with some dumb fish eye lens he thought was funny. You debate not picking up at all.
But you can’t ignore him.
“Hi Joost.” your voice came through the phone more hoarse than intended when you answered, you don’t remember the last time you talked to someone. “Whats going on?”
“the others wanted to go out for drinks tonight, you hadn’t responded so I wanted to check you were joining us.” You could imagine him rocking back and forth on his heels in the middle of his living room while he talked, it was either that or pacing around.
“uhh..” Drinks at a bar was the last thing on your mind. In any other situation you would have loved to be around your friends, but right now you just needed to avoided as much as possible. “Not a good night, tonight. Sorry, I’ll have to join you guys next time.”
Joost felt like something was off, you sounded tired. “Is everything okay?”
“I’ll be fine I just… shit brain day. bad brain thats all. It happens.” You did your best to summarize how you felt without actually admitting anything, you weren’t sure how to explain anything anyway.
“ Oh Im sorry, would it be good, if I came over? I can keep you company, if thats okay?”
“you don’t have to, I’ll be fine tomorrow. I want you to have fun. ” you insisted, but he pressed on.
“I don’t mind, the group would understand. Have you eaten today?”
“Like… a meal? yes, or well, no. I had a soda..” You glance at the half drunk soda from the night before, now flat. “and uhhh..”
“I’ll pick something up.” You could hear him on the other end gathering things together, keys, wallet, probably his ipad.
“.. thank you. I’ll see you in a bit, I guess.”
-
Joost knocked on your door about an hour later. In that time you were able to get out of bed and make your way to the bathroom to change and make yourself somewhat presentable in front of a guest, and to the kitchen to make coffee despite it being 8pm.
You opened it to see Joost with a sheepish smile as he extends his arms out for a hug. “Hi.”
“Hi Joost.” you take the step to hug him, feeling his body heat contrast with the cold nighttime. “I’m glad you’re here.” the two of you head inside to your living room where he empties his bag of take out to reveal a couple different thai dishes and egg rolls. It was hard to not admit you weren’t at least a little bit hungry.
The two of you ate in mostly silence, making small talk about different projects you two have going on, or the fact that the two of you were in between projects. He done with touring for the time being and in the process of working on a new album. You loosely avoiding talking about any current work plans but mentioned one or two paintings you finished for a private gallery commission last month.
“ Just some paintings of animals and nature-ish symbolism. Honestly my heart wasn’t really in that one, but it payed the rent so.” you shrug and shove noodles into your mouth.
“Well now you have the time to work on your own stuff, right?” he commented, leaning back into your couch and looking down at you sitting on the floor instead of any of your own furniture. “Draw whatever your heart desires.”
“I mean I guess.. Im just glad to be done with the oil paints for now. I swear i think I was gonna die in my studio from all the chemicals. I dunno, I finished that whole project last month, I haven’t really been very productive since then.” you trail off and Joost gets a concerned expression on his face.
He sinks down from his spot of the couch to join you in the floor. The fluffy rug brushing against his legs as he adjusts his new sitting position.
“Its okay to take a break, you know.”
“I know I know, I just get frustrated. I never seem to have my energy directed towards the right thing. Whenever I have all those big projects from other contractors, I can brainstorm and think of all these interesting ideas I wanna work on, but I can’t because then I would get behind on the art Im being paid to do.”
“mhm.” he nods, to indicate he’s following along.
“ And then whenever Im done with those projects, I just get… tired. and my focus is gone. and Everything just feels…” you gesture the last bit with your hands, scrambling your fingers, to imply your thoughts. You aren’t looking at him, but you can still see him nodding in your peripherals. Joost always seemed to understand your thinking and explanations to things, even if you thought they were messy.
“Do you want to try painting right now?” he asks. you just shrug your shoulders.
“I don’t know what I would paint.”
“You can paint our dinner, or, or yourself, or your plants maybe?” he suggested and stands up. “Can I paint too?”
“Oh we’re actually doing this?” Not that you didn’t want to, but this self doubt had creeped into your mind again. That failing to produce something decent would prove that you’ve lost all your talent, your skill.
“yea we can have a little painting party!” he chimed, but he hesitated walking over to your studio to grab stuff, still giving you the space to reject his idea.
you looked away and started nervously tapping your fork against the table.
tap tap tap tap
“…sure. We can use my watercolors, Ive been wanting to use them more often anyway.”
the coffee table became a little more cluttered as you set up the paints for the two of you. Joost using an old set 24 pans and you using a newer set of watercolor tubes you were gifted last year and never opened. You watched as Joost immediately dipped his brush in water and started activating the blue paints, spreading it onto his paper in big random strokes.
“what are you painting?”
“not sure yet, maybe im painting you.” he looks up and smirks. you scrunch your nose up.
“why are you using so much blue. am I a smurf?” you joke and he just shrugs and points to your own paper.
“Just mess around, can’t be any worse than what im doing.”
tap tap tap tap tap tap
you fidget with your own brush for a few seconds lo get before grabbing a big mop brush and wetting your paper with clean water. Taking your smaller brush again, you pour out a small amount of yellow and mix it up with some more water. You hesitate for a moment longer before letting the brush lightly touch the surface, creating a burst of colour on the paper as the colour seeps onto the page. You make a few more random marks before switching to another warm colour and repeating the process, now watching the colours bleeds and mix into each other. You look at Joost paper and see that he is actually now trying to paint you, the blue fortunately was able to be mostly contained to the background.
“Do you ever think about what you would do if you weren’t a musician?” you ask.
“I dunno I think after this I could have a pretty successful art career.” he teases but sees in your face the question is more serious. “I don’t know. I started off with youtube, but if I wasn’t doing that… its hard to think about what my life would be like if I didn’t follow this path.”
“I always have this feeling deep down, that I made a wrong choice somewhere along the line. I was thinking about going to school for psychology, I also wanted to work with animals at one point, be a vet. I enjoy art, don’t get me wrong, but I just worry that in making it my job Ive just drained all the passion I had for it.”
You let the paper dry before staining the page with lines of dark burgundy, creating hands and a human heart. he hums as he listens, not adding anything, but simply letting you vent. beginning to piece together your mood from earlier. “I don’t have any jobs lined up right now, which is what Ive been waiting for, to work on my own stuff, yknow? I haven’t had the time ive wanted to make something for myself for a while. But now I just feel, I feel like ive been frozen.”
“things seem to be okay right now. I like what youve made. ” you look down and see the scribbles youve made with your paint. hands clasped over a broken heart. you shrug and smile softly, signing the bottom.
“Just a scribble, you can have it if you want.” You hand the paper over to him. “thank you for coming by, its… its nice being around you. Helps a bit.”
Joost takes the paper and studies it for a second. “I really like it, maybe I should come by more often.”
“If you bring the food we can have art nights whenever you want.” he holds up his paper. The blue bleeding into your skintone and hair since he didn’t wait for anything to properly dry. “I might stick to my ipad though, I don’t know why you like this paint.” he scrunches his nose at it. you laugh and it makes him smile.
You notice for the first time how bright his eyes look when he smiles, but you brush the thought away.
-
“Feeling a bit better?” he asks as he lingers by the door on his way out.
“a bit. like I said It was just a mood, I was gonna be fine tomorrow most likely… I still appreciate you coming over.”
“Don’t ever be afraid to call or text okay? Im always here to talk if you need. or just to listen.”
“definitely. Ive been meaning to uh, talk to someone about all this stuff anyway, you’re not a professional but ill keep it in mind.”
he grins and goes in for one last hug. you feel him slightly squeeze you and linger a little longer than usual before letting go. With one last glance he waves and head off. You see him pull out a cigarette for the walk back. It takes you a second to close the door. standing there watching him walk off until he turns a corner and disappears. Closing the door you sigh and go the clean up your living room.
You notice he left the portrait he drew of you. signed at the bottom with a smiley face next to his name.
