these are the words he murmurs into your skin, language of prayer, language of divinity, language of WORSHIP. holy, holy, holy. he whispers it into the c r o o k of your neck, rolls the words into the hollow of your throat, into your bones, into your SHARP edges holy, holy, holy. a mantra. a litany. a PRAYER.
sorry this is late babes ! i got busier than i thought i was going to so without further ado i’ll put the cliff notes version of sy shelby’s starling existence under the cut and you know what to do from there ! 🖤 but if you’re gonna slide into my dms do it on scarlet bc that’s where i am on mobile !
jack gilinsky. cismale. he/his. ／ josiah shelby just pulled up blasting st tropez by post malone — that song is so them ! you know, for a twenty - four year old center fielder for the los angeles dodgers, i’ve heard they’re really -abrasive, but that they make up for it by being so +audacious. if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say the creak of a well - worn leather glove, shotgunning another cheap beer just to feel alive, and the taste of copper on your tongue. here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble !
. ⊹ ┈ › 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐒 .
NAME : josiah david shelby .
BREAKDOWN : josiah ( god supports , heals ) david ( beloved )
NICKNAMES : sy , jd , josie ( finn only tbh ) , shelbz , shel-bay , bay .
AGE : twenty - four .
BIRTHDAY : november twenty - third .
ZODIAC : scorpio & sagittarius cusp .
GENDER : male .
PRONOUNS : he / him .
NATIONALITY : american .
ETHNICITY : english , french , italian .
HOGWARTS HOUSE : hufflepuff .
MBTI : estp ( the persuader )
INSPIRATIONS : lucas scott ( one tree hill ) , adam parrish ( the raven cycle ) , nick miller ( new girl ) , ron swanson and andy dwyer ( parks & rec ) , adam groff ( sex education ) .
HOBBIES / SPECIAL SKILLS : baseball , procrastination , midnight snacks , getting the last word , saucy brow lifts , sleeping in , running away from his problems , hitting first and asking questions later , developing newer and more creative defense mechanisms .
VIRTUES : athletic , challenging , charismatic , curious , debonair , forthright , fun - loving , intrepid , invulnerable , jocular , loves his sister so much he could die , loyal , passionate , playful , protective , witty .
PINTEREST : xx
˚ . ⊹ ┈ › 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 .
sy was born poorer than poor and spent his formative years watching his grandmother do her very best to keep the dust from coating everything in their ramshackle little trailer in oklahoma .
his mother wasn’t around much . after running away to chase after one band or another and coming home with her waistline significantly thickened , she didn’t much take to motherhood , not when running off to the nearest dive bar or casino to spend whatever meager paycheck she could scrounge up was just so tempting .
in fact , sy’s memories of her are often fleeting . she was a whirlwind of a woman , beautiful despite the hard life she led , but in and out the door too fast for him to ever really get to know her . and after some of his grandmother’s jewelry ended up in the pawn shop twenty miles up the road she didn’t come around the house anymore when she found the locks changed .
sy’s grandmother , affectionately known as nan , did her best to raise her grandson better than she had raised her daughter . though truth be told , the practice wasn’t much different , his mother had just been a bit of a bad seed .
religion and discipline were a staple and so every sunday found the pair walking to the church in their parish to give thanks and receive the blessing , a tradition that sy hasn’t kept up with since her death but i’m getting ahead of myself .
his nan made a modest living for where they lived , she wasn’t spoiling the boy but it was enough to put food on the table and get them to and from where they needed to go .
he had a few close friends in the neighborhood and they usually got together in the evenings to play whatever games they could , sometimes soccer with a ball that looked like you could put your foot through it , or basketball on the single hoop with no net that was somehow still standing in the local “ park ” . summers were spent walking down to the pond that passed for a swimming hole to get some sort of relief from the heat .
he picked up a job at one of the local motor shops to help with the bills , though his nan insisted he spend his time working on his schoolwork first . he’d still slip a portion of what he came home with into her purse when she wasn’t looking .
he played sports in school , their community doing what they could to scrounge up funds for a ramshackle team for each sport . he primarily ran track and cross country ( in a uniform that looked like it was straight out of an 80′s movie and felt like it too ) . he was a decent hurdler and the fact that he usually walked everywhere he needed to get gave his stamina a certain edge on the kids who were better off . but his true passion was baseball . sy could write poetry about the diamond , and most of the assignments he managed to turn in involved the sport somehow . ( he almost got caught cheating once when he turned in a paper that wasn’t about it but he’s always been lucky af )
their school team wasn’t anything special . they played with heart and had fun doing it but they were never going to make it to state with nothing short of a miracle even though it was clear sy ( and a couple of his buddies ) had the potential to be more than just has - beens who got stuck living in their hometown for the rest of their lives . during sy’s eighth grade year , his junior high team made a pretty valiant push and made it to the regional championship but they were simply out - spent by some of the other teams and came home disappointed .
someone must have recognized sy though , because a few weeks later a letter arrived from one of the elite baseball camps in the country stating that he had been sponsored to attend for the summer . his friends were excited for him and it was probably the best summer of his life , but tensions rapidly grew sour when he returned home , after all , none of them had been granted such an opportunity and they wondered what made him so special where they weren’t .
it certainly didn’t help that he got home and noticed their trailer was a little refurbished , they had a new ( ish ) television and a cable antenna on the roof without the pieces of foil sy had stuck to it at an attempt for better service . and then little gifts started to arrive here and there , new cleats , a better glove , all things with the sheen of wealth attached to them and all in the name of this new sponsor he seemed to have attracted . it didn’t go over well with his friends and he could see the jealous glint in their eyes which led sy to hide away the new treasures , or take them out back and absolutely destroy that gleam that came with new gear .
high school was not a time he wanted to spend ostracized , especially when everyone in town always looked back on it like it was the golden time of their youth before they settled down into the daily grind of adulthood . he was nothing short of angry and miserable , his loneliness that festered into rage finding a nice outlet in smashing his fists into the noses of whoever crossed his path or looked at him wrong .
it was around that time that a girl showed up on his doorstep , all knees and elbows and with a big smile insisting she was his sister . judging from the own sparkly state of her attire , sy managed to put two and two together as to just who his new sponsor was and promptly shut the door in her face . ( the fact that his mother had suddenly come out of the woodwork and ran into him around town on occasion to ask for money was another clue . she could sniff out money anywhere )
finnley buchanan was a revelation to him . persistent to the extent of climbing in through his window to press her point home until sy was forced to accept that this nonsense story she was spinning about his father and her mother had a certain ring of truth to it . he didn’t want a new family , he was content in his small town with his nan and his friends and everything would go back to normal just as soon as he tossed all his shiny new stuff in the trash .
his nan wasn’t having it , plain and simple . she wasn’t going to force him to reconcile with a father he had never known , but she certainly wasn’t going to allow him to pass up an opportunity to get out of their tiny little town . and so sy kept going to those baseball camps every year , and after keeping in touch with his new sister to a point where he was forced to accept the unlimited texting plan she forced upon him just so his nan would stop good naturedly grumbling about the amount of time he spent tying up their landline .
he’d spend a few weeks a year with her family , a holiday here and there , his eyes almost falling out of his eyes the first time he walked into a house with an honest to god foyer . he didn’t exactly see eye to eye with his new - found father and step mother and they didn’t seem to want to get to know him much beyond tossing money at a problem to solve it ( not that he allowed them to really know him )
he didn’t even accept their money for college , stubbornly insisting on getting in on his own merit . and thus shipped himself of to north carolina upon accepting a scholarship . the guitar skills he’d picked up in his lazy weeks spent with the buchanans and his classic good looks made him immensely popular which didn’t bode well for the state of his ego as we know it . between classes he managed to further perfect the art of binge drinking and beer pong and with his scholarship only covering tuition and board , he found himself employing his fists at night to earn some cash for incidentals . something that very nearly got him kicked out of school when he showed up to practice with a split lip and bruised knuckles a few times too many .
but luck was on his side and he was drafted after his sophomore year before they could start a more thorough investigation into his extra - extra - curriculars .
sy spent about a year working his way around the farm system of the minors while they tried to refine his issues before getting called up to play for the baltimore orioles . he played for them for about a year but after a run - in with one of the batting coaches that was rather hush hush he was unceremoniously traded to the los angeles dodgers .
˚ . ⊹ ┈ › 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 .
being a cusp baby, he kind of bounces back and forth between his moods . most of the time he’s all jokes and sarcasm . but catch him at the right time and he can be broody AF .
he is a lot smarter than he looks , but that’s an incredibly well kept secret because on the outside he is a Professional Idiot.
makes the worst decisions i have ever seen anyone make ever . highly impulsive and should never be allowed to give someone any sort of advice .
unless you’re asking what to put in your solo cup or if you’re craving a midnight snack . then he is 10 / 10 your guy .
he is incredibly loyal , so long as it serves his purpose . because at the end of the day he’s still an impulsive idiot and that devil on his shoulder made the angel tap out years ago .
bought his nan a new house with his signing bonus and sent her money to take care of her with what he had but since her death he’s doing his best to spend it on the dumbest shit possible and acting out in one way or another because he’s still a child .
tldr : he’s a piece of shit
˚ . ⊹ ┈ › 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 .
just going to add a little disclaimer that i am the biggest hoe for anything angsty and painful . i also love love love when people slide into my dms with a hc or two .
𝐞𝐱 - 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 ; for whatever reason there was a huge falling out and now things are just super awkward . half the time at parties they’re just on opposite sides of the room mean mugging each other until booze and tempers flare .
𝐟𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 ; these two were never supposed to be a thing . in fact , before this past summer they hardly ever spoke and when they did the discourse wasn’t exactly pleasant . but there’s a fine line between love and hate and all it took was a couple of drinks before the dynamic took a turn .
𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐬 ; i’d sell my soul for something that’s just angsty and messy . maybe they were at the point of saying the l word .
𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 ; all that sneaking around , taking the back doors in and out of places . meeting up in darkened corners 👌 👌 👌 that’s that shit i do like
𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 ; i’m such a sucker for a good bromance or two where the gc is just filled with memes and dragging each other up and down the wall . but at the end of the day they’re you’re boys and no one else can talk shit about them but you
𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐮𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐬 ; a fwb here and there , the odd one night stand , someone who you just look at and want to punch them in the face for some inexplicable reason , an unrequited crush ( on either side )
Meaningless sex is great. I mean it. It really is. Don’t get all conservative on me, it’s just an opinion. It’s nice to forget the heaviness in your heart and replace with a light pressing in the small of your back. It’s easy to get high off someone else’s lips, and ignore that thudding in your stomach, that constant reminder that you’re far from normal. It’s nice to have dark bruises down your neck than on your heart. I don’t even like using that word, because I don’t think I even fucking own one anymore. Or do I? Just fuck me. I mean it. Fuck me and get me out of here.
pixelskylines
turnnoffyourmind
germansingergirl
titsay
discoholicmusic
