#<- honestly this statement applies to like. every response to my art ever

[remxedmoon]

Sees your infodumping reblog and comfortably slides in here. Not really an infodump but I just wanted to tell you that my friend bought me inscryption for my birthday (had played it before, borrowed) and I'm very excited to be playing it again— and its all kind of thanks to you I think bc you reminded me of the game with the isat crossover cards you drew (which are still insane btw. Just absolutely wonderful) and I added it to my wishlist and now I have it. Yay

WEH?? AUSGHS??? THANK YOU SO SO MUCH?????? AND ALSO HAPPY (late(?)) BIRTHDAY ????

[perpetuelledaydreaming]

Illicit affairs- Chapter 8

summary: imagine the met gala but ten times better and in stark tower, that’s it. felicia doesn’t have very good manners and sneaks away with y/n but peter and his friends are on the lookout. 

Listen to: Do I wanna know -Arctic Monkeys & bad idea- girl in red

word count: 12k

(author’s notes at the end now)

warnings: s m u t. 

series masterlist

(today we change and use a photo of Felicia, although it’s not too accurate in my head)

If there was someone who had an incredible hidden talent, it was MJ. You knew she liked to draw since you first met her, but as time passed you realized that a side effect of her hobby, even if she didn’t like it as much, was that she could do a mind-blowing make-up look without even trying. You had realized this one Halloween that you had spent with Peter and his friends, you had asked her where she had gone to do that makeup-look with glitter tears streaming down her cheeks but she simply shrugged, saying that she had used some of her art supplies and done it herself. After that it was more common than not that MJ would come to do your make-up to every important event that you had to attend, she had even done Pepper’s makeup and soon it became like a side job for her too.

She had such ability with the brushes, knew exactly which colors could match your skin and outfit that you almost became dependent on her, feeling a bit more insecure when you had to do your make-up or even hire someone different than MJ but tonight she was there.  

“Do you want me to do the wing?” you asked MJ, glancing at her and searching what was wrong but she simply huffed.

“Shut up, I’m an artist” she grumbled under her breath as she shook her hand a bit and dived right into your eye.

“You are so giddy today” you muttered, which earned you a glare from MJ.

“Well, I’ve never been to a Gala myself or done the make-up for the hostess of the Gala,” she said as she finished one eye and then adjusted her dress.

As always, you were in awe of how MJ looked. Her flawless black skin matched perfectly with the custom silk lame gown that she had decided to wear for the night, it was a halter top but with a nice cut on her middle part that showed a little bit of skin and a long skirt that almost touched the floor. With her tall slender body and perfect tone muscles, she looked like a supermodel.

“No, my dad and pepper are the hosts. I’m just here for the small talk with people they don’t want to talk to and to drink champagne” you answer back as she finished the wing on the other one and you finally managed to open your eyes and see yourself in the mirror.

She had done an exceptional job as always, only mascara missing to finish the look but she had done a great job with the nude eyeshadow with a dramatic wing, she had even added a bit of gold glitter surrounding your eyes so it could match the gold earrings that you decided to wear for the night. You walked towards the mirror and fixed the dress that you had decided to wear. It was a cream Jacquemus backless dress with a slit on the side of your leg, while this time you had decided to wear the charm that held your suit in a classic bracelet usually, you wouldn’t bother that much on dresses on how you looked for these types of events given that you disliked them but tonight was different.  

“That makes you the hostess, small talk with people that you don’t like” MJ answer back as she put a bit of blush on her skin and then walked over to you, leaning against your mirror.

“I’ll try to avoid it, especially when Felicia arrives” you answered with a shrug and started to apply your mascara, but not before you notice how MJ began to play with her hands uncomfortably.

You knew it was because you brought up Felicia but, in all honesty, you were more than elated that she had agreed to come.

The last weeks or so had been a rollercoaster. Although you somehow had assured your feelings for the other, you weren’t spending that much time together. Part of it was that you were ordered to stay in bed for a few days, knowing that your injuries were bad and needed time to recover, it wasn’t like Felicia wanted to simply burst on Stark Tower or ask you to move; she would sneak some nights sneak in to see how you were doing before you were officially discharged by Bruce. But then, when you were able to go to her apartment, she would cancel a bit too often for you, arguing that a girl needs to pay the bills (which you assumed was a way to say that she was going to do some work that you didn’t like). 

So, you let her be.

Though, the days you did spend together, she was as loving as she had ever been with you. She would cook for you all the healthy foods that she hated but she would eat them with you, even your annoying quinoa salad and green smoothies, which you appreciated. You would spend time watching movies and listening to music together, curating playlists depending on a situation, and talk until early morning hours. She would kiss you too, sweetly and carefully, Felicia even freaked out when you complain after a kiss got a little bit too heated a few days after you had been ‘discharged’; after that she had tried, really hard, to keep the kisses to a PG-rating (much to her dismay).

But then this week had come and she had become a kind of a nervous wreck thinking about the Gala, which for you seemed so out of character for her. She would ask for the program of the night again, and again and who would be there, trying to know how to dress and where everything was. You attributed her behavior to the fact that she was -probably- going to meet Tony and Pepper, and you were coming out to the circle of people you would be surrounded by. Part of her was relieved when she heard that the other Avengers weren’t going to make it to the Gala and you thought it was sweet, she was nervous about how serious you had become.

To ease her nerves, you had insisted to her to go shopping together for a dress or told her to go earlier that day so she could know where everything was, if she was too worried about it, even gave suggested if she would like to come to dinner first with Tony and Pepper so she wouldn’t be too freaked out the day of the Gala. But she had refused, especially regarding the dress; saying that since she was older than you (only two years), therefore the sugar mommy feeling was a little bit off.

You had blushed at her statement but decided to let her be, knowing it was the best thing you could do for Felicia.

���y/n?”

Peter’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts and you turned around to watch him, and it felt like you had almost stopped breathing for a second.

You had seen Peter in a suit a couple of times before but never like this. He seemed taller and also leaner, the sharp suit he was wearing fitted him perfectly, his messy curls were settled down with a little bit of hair gel that pulled them back and to the side but you could tell that the curls would be let loose sooner rather than later. He had a small watch on his wrist, a gift from you and Tony, it had an engraved message “with great power, comes great responsibility” which honored his Uncle Ben. Peter didn’t use it often but when he did, it caused your heart to squeeze on your chest.

And Peter was mesmerized too. Your hair had been pulled down behind your ears, it was sleek and it looked perfectly styled. He could see the blush on your cheeks, the reflection of the glitter on your eyes, and he was, as always, so captivated by how your eyes seemed like constellations accompanied with your long lashes that he felt like he had zoned out. Plus, the dress fitted your body perfectly. It was showing more skin than you usually showed with a small side-boob showing thanks to the asymmetric form of it along with your exposed back. He felt his mouth drying as you turned around shyly towards him, but for him, you looked breathtaking.

“Are you ready?” Peter asked, stammering a bit as he looked away from you towards MJ who was giving him a look. “Tony and Pepper are waiting downstairs for you,” he said silently before looking at you for a second and then at the floor.

MJ snickered a bit before she took her purse and made her way to the door. “Don’t you look dapping” MJ said as she patted Peter on his shoulder and walked out of your room, you guessed she was already looking for Harley.

You both stayed silent for a moment, as you gazed at the other, you blinking owlishly while Peter drilled you with his eyes. Although you weren’t saying anything, you knew what he was thinking about: last time you were dressed this nicely, it had been the last night before you had run away. You would’ve like to avoid the memories, but it seemed inevitable to connect this moment to your last; even more knowing that although it seemed like everything had changed, your heart was still beating for Peter and his was beating for you.

“You look beautiful,” Peter whispered as you walked towards him, he couldn’t even stop himself, and the two of you flushed at his comment.

“Tha-thanks, MJ did the makeup because I have no idea,” you spoke coyly as you ordered HAPPY to turn off the lights and you and Peter walked outside the room, the door closing behind you.

You tried to shake it off, the obvious nervousness that you felt around Peter but it didn’t seem to work as he offered you his arm, so you could hold onto it as you always did.

“Well, she did a great job, you look amazing” Peter said honestly as he glanced at you while you walked towards the elevator. “She’s a lucky girl.”

It had taken all his willpower to actually say those words but he was being truthful, no matter how much it could pain him because, as he had realized the last few days, it only mattered to him that you were safe and happy. The bad thing was, that he didn’t believe you would be safe with Felicia.

For you, the comment hit a nerve. Not only because you knew how Peter felt about Felicia, and you dislike that it might have hurt him to see you with her but also because Felicia had been MIA since early in the morning. You had texted her a good morning text, asking her if she needed anything but she had declined the offer and simply stating that she would see you tonight.

Hours had passed and there was no sign that Felicia was actually coming but you deeply hope she would.

“Yeah…” you muttered with a long sigh, but you quickly changed the topic as the elevator’s doors opened. “I’m surprised you decided to bring Flash as your date.”

“What!?”

“See, MJ is with Harley and Betty with Ned,” you explained to him while you fixed your hair and watch Peter’s bug-eyed expression at your comment “Which leaves you with Flash.”

“That’s not funny.” Peter quickly answered with a glare.

“Oh, because he’s a guy?” you chuckled and placed your hands over your chest, raising an eyebrow and waiting for his answer.

“No!” Peter protested, a little bit offended at your question and then the doors to the elevator opened. “It’s because he’s Flash!”

You both laughed as you exited the elevator and walked towards where the Gala was through a small hallway that Pepper had arranged for only you two enter the building. 

The Gala had become an emblematic even for the city, Pepper had come up with it after you had moved from LA and Tony had made the respective and adequate changes to Stark Industries. It was an annual fundraising gala for the benefit of technological advances and charities and it always happened at Stark Tower.

The whole first and second floor of the building were remodeled to fit the event. On the first floor, you would find the red carpet and exhibitions of the work done by the different companies, known scientists, and young people who had the opportunity to present their ambitious ideas and work. It was also a social event, celebrities, journalists, CEO’s and more people would be invited as well. Then, the second floor was where the dinner and the after-party would usually take place. 

It wasn’t a wild evening, I mean although Tony would make it as wild as he wanted, it always went nicely and calmed. Even some  Avengers would make surprise appearances once in a while, mostly Nat, Steve, Bucky, Sam, and Bruce; Thor had been technically banned after he had too much to drink once. This drew huge media attention for the projects which were extremely important for the fundraiser that took place at the event and so, it had become also somehow the Met Gala of the science community. 

It was also the only time that paparazzi would take your photos willingly, although you hated it.

Today was no different, you had to pose with Tony and Pepper on the red carpet that was prepared at the main entrance to the event. The commotion of flashing lights and excited reporters was almost something that you couldn’t get used to after so many years, and although you would normally be complaining to Pepper as Tony did sometimes when he would get bored; Peter would usually woosh in and take photos with you, so paparazzi wouldn’t use the photos with him because magazines didn’t think much of Peter back then, so it was a nice way to ruin some shots. But today was different, Peter was now known to be one of the Star Interns of Tony and he was called on by a reporter, and you were ushered off to take more photos and then by Tony who was excited to see Pepper’s speech.

And as a sea of people separated you and Peter, you decided to focus on Pepper’s speech and Felicia’s whereabouts.

But she was nowhere to be found, disappointed you quickly blended into the crowd and began to do your work. You started saying ‘hi’ and ‘welcoming’ the various people that were invited from celebrities to renowned scientists, you talk to a journalist giving them small interviews and also watch almost every one of the projects from the young students who were allowing presenting that year.

You even talked to people you didn’t like.  

You were already saying goodbye to an important human rights lawyer, that was a role model to you since you had started to think about studying law and had been asking her some questions when you heard his taut voice.

“Lovely to see you again Miss Stark, heard you got shot?”

You turned to see Norman Osborn, giving you a tight smile while Harry was behind him winking his eyes and quickly nudging to his dad and rolling his eyes. You knew you weren’t dear on Norman Osborn’s heart, especially when it came to your dad, and you ever wondered why Pepper insisted on inviting him and why he even insisted on coming to the event of someone he hated that much.

But you knew it all came back to business.

Although now, that you knew for a fact -thanks to Felicia and the events lately- that Norman had willingly given Kingpin the formula to his poisonous serum and that Harry had no idea about it; you were even more snarky and irritated to see his face than before.

“Yes, I’m fine now.” You stated curtly as you glanced at Harry for one second, you quickly took a swig of your drink. Mentally begging for this interaction to be over.

“Of course, you are dear,” He snapped with a glare. “With your father’s technology, you wouldn’t respect the hand of destiny. Such a waste of time and resources to play hero” he said as he rolled his eyes.

You gripped your drink a bit tighter and you felt like a vein on your neck had just popped off your neck. It was predictable from your past encounters with Norman Osborn that he would say something like that but as he had so seriously stated that he thought saving your life or being an Avenger was a waste? Was he being fucking serious?

Jerk.

“Careful Norman, your jealousy is showing,” you smirked as you glanced at him uninterested. “Now kindly fuck off”

Norman gapped at your answer, completely blown away that you had actually said that since you usually had been quiet about his usual remarks. His face was red with bulging eyes as the cords of his neck became rigid, completely astound and angry at your comment. You were thankful that you weren’t staying silent anymore as, in a blink of an eye, Norman spun on his heels and walked away from you, leaving you with Harry.

“Always a pleasure!” you yelled at him as he walked away, you couldn’t help the tugging on the sides of your lips and then your attention turned to Harry, who was chuckling. “Your father’s lovely”

Harry looked as good as always and sometimes you wondered how on earth someone could look like that. His sharp jaw and sleek black hair with his almond eyes made him look like a model, a smirk worth a thousand dollars and his chiseled cheekbones made girl’s and boy’s knees weak. Even when he looked as put together as he was at the moment, you could still see a mischievous gleam in his eyes, you guessed the bad boy look couldn’t fade away easily and you couldn’t help to think about the possible rumors on the tabloid if they saw you dancing with him at the party.

“Don’t tell me about it,” Harry stated as he leaned over and pressed a kiss to your cheek, slowly and seductively.  “It’s nice to see you again, y/n”

He was always extremely smooth and charming, and always managed to get your heart beating someway although you knew that you weren’t really interested, it was just this aura about him.

“It’s good to see you too, H.” you answered back as you took another sip of your drink while he offered to cheer, you did the same.

As he finished taking a sip of his drink, he walked closer to you. “I’ve missed you in these events, it’s …”

“Draining?”

Harry chuckled, mostly for himself as he often did. “I was going to say annoying as fuck but yeah, that works too.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at his comment because it was true if you would like to summarize the feelings for these kinds of events -especially for your role on them and how the media would portray it-, they were annoying as fuck. But honestly, the science part and the charity part were your favorite thing in the world.

You knew that Harry felt the same way as you, the pressure to be the golden child and do everything right, but there was where Harry’s charm laid. Although he could be all of those things because he had everything in his favor, he disliked his father and the pressure so much that he rebelled against it.

And now, it had become part of him to be the bad boy.

So, it didn’t surprise you what he said next.

He leaned over to you, whispering directly on your ear and you couldn’t avoid but to feel a shiver running on your back as he whispered on your ear. “You know, you in that dress is making me think of champagne, strawberries, a bed, and us playing strip poker”

You gave a step back at him, a bit surprised by how confident his statement was, your eyes widened slightly and your cheeks flushed before you shook your head, ready to play it off casually.

But then, you heard Felicia’s characteristic silvery voice behind you.

“Get in line pretty boy,” Felicia stated, her fingernails trailing your back as she defensively wrapped her arm around your waist, glaring a bit at Harry, who rapidly blinked as if he was trying to understand the nature of your relationship with Felicia but it didn’t take him long. “Stark,” Felicia said with a smoky voice.

If you were being truthful, you were always a bit nervous around Felicia, a bit too in awe with her beauty and essence. Sometimes you were worried about how she could suck you in so easily with just a pout but then moments like this reminded you why.

Felicia’s outfit left you breathless, although you recognized it was from Versace and wondered where she had gotten it, you couldn’t avoid feeling tingles through your body. Felicia stunned with the silky lace-trimmed camisole-like minidress she was wearing, she had a dramatic smokey eye with a mate-nude lipstick that suited her perfectly, and to your surprise, she had decided to let her silver hair down and she fixed it in an almost Barbarella-like style but less dramatic that made her look like she belonged to a runway.

You could feel the burning heat on your body.

“Thought you would never come”, you whispered with a smile and before she could even respond, you pressed your lips against hers.

It was a firm but soft kiss, as if you were showing her off finally and claiming Felicia yours, as she had done with you so many times before. But now, you both were as purposeful as you could’ve been, the kiss was so sweet and it seemed like just kissing her that way, you would get a toothache. When you finally pulled apart with a shy smile while Felicia simply smirked, your foreheads pressed together, you felt like you were the only people in the world.

And then Harry spoke.

“That’s so hot” he whispered, you figured it was mostly to himself as he looked at you two wide-eyed and surprised about it.

You could see Felicia rolling her eyes in irritation as you laced your hands together but as soon as she turned around to Harry, she was displaying the cat-like grin that characterized her.

“Would you like to join us?” Felicia purred as she got a little closer to Harry, who seemed like he was about to pass out with Felicia’s words.

“Felicia!”

Peter shook his head and walked away, not wanting to listen to the end of that conversation, knowing that it would just make him break the cup of champagne that he had been holding tightly as he listened to Harry and you even before Felicia arrived. His jaw was still twitching when he walked up to Ned and Betty, whose main spot was the exhibitions that were presented, while Flash would guard the entrance and MJ with Harley would be staying on the drinking station (per Harley’s request) and Peter would be on the dance floor where most of the action would be happening.

But even with a whole plan laid out, Felicia had still managed to fool them.

“Guys she’s here” he whispered through the com as he saw all of his friends snap their gazes as they tried to look for Felicia and you, in the middle of the main floor, talking with Harry.

“How!?” Flash cried through the com. “I’ve been patrolling this entrance all night, what the hell?”

“She’s sneaky, I already told you!” Peter grumbled under his breath, loud enough for a couple of rich old people to stare at him bug-eyed, which he simply answered with an awkward smile and made his way towards where Ned and Betty were.

“What are we going to do now?” Harley asked, Peter could already tell that Harley was tensing up.

For a genius, he wasn’t good at handling his emotions under pressure.

“Just keep an eye on her.” Peter glowered as he finally arrived at where Ned was, trying to find some consolation or ideas that came from Ned who always had some positive thing to say or a good idea to add.

But Ned’s eyes were focused on something behind Peter and the wince he did, as well as Betty, tipped Peter that he should turn around.

“That’s not hard, I think that she just stepped on Harry’s Osborn foot and made him cry” Ned mused as he took a sip from his drink.

Peter watched as you dragged Felicia away from Harry, giving him an apologetic look before you were walking towards the drinking area, where Harley and MJ were.

“Harley, MJ she’s coming your way” Peter whispered, hoping that they wouldn’t be too awkward that you would realize the plan.

Not that there was any serious plan, Peter still wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He wasn’t sure what Felicia would do or if she would even do something, but he knew that she wasn’t good news, he just could feel it in his bones and hoped that at the end of the day, you wouldn’t need to find out if something happened.

He just wanted to keep you safe.

Harley turned around with MJ just in time and he gave a small smile to Felicia and you, who were walking hand-in-hand together. You were bickering a bit because of her reaction to Harry’s comment and how she had stomped on his foot with her sharp heel and she hadn’t even said ‘sorry’ arguing why she would say that to someone that sexualized you. So, you were thankful when your eyes caught MJ and Harley on the drinking station, hoping it could distract Felicia from going back and scratching Harry’s eyes.

“I know you’ve met before but this is Felicia,” you said as Felicia put on a new smile and offered her hand to Harley and MJ. “I wanted you to meet her, officially”

Harley and MJ shook Felicia’s hand cheerily, but you could feel how Harley and MJ tensed up. You could feel their anxiousness dripping from Harley’s eyes and you knew that it wasn’t normal. Harley, for a scrawny boy like him, was a bit too smug, too smooth, too relaxed for him to be acting this way.

“It’s so nice to meet y/n friends,” Felicia said playfully as she wrapped an arm around your waist and smirked up to Harley and MJ, who barely gave her a genuine smile.

“Yeah, sa-same” Harley let out, words stumbling against one another as they left their mouths.

MJ simply nodded and added a small ‘for sure’ with a honeyed voice that you knew didn’t quite fit MJ and something felt off. You frowned at their interaction, surprised mostly by how stiff they were. Did they have a problem with Felicia? You knew that Harley was certain about Felicia’s identity, not that you had discussed it but he wasn’t dumb and it made you wonder if he was feeling the same thing that Peter had told you about.

But you brushed it off, knowing that it wouldn’t be a good thing to keep Felicia there.

“I’m going to take you dancing” you offered to Felicia who gave you a gleaming smile, her cheeks tainted by a cloud of small pink dust, and you quickly dragged her off from your friends.

Your mind started whirling, wondering what was wrong with Harley and MJ? Harley had always been nothing but supportive regarding your relationship with Felicia, hell he was supportive of everything you did. MJ too, she never judged but you’d seen her acting strange since the start of the day.

“What’s wrong?” Felicia said a little bit unsettled as you turn to look at her.

But you simply shook your head, muttering a small ‘nothing’ but you couldn’t help yourself and you looked back at your friends, noticing them whispering something to themselves and you wished that you could put your suit right there and then to listen to their thoughts but knowing it was unreasonable, you decided to turn around, just in time to bump into Tony and Pepper.

You stopped dead in your tracks, your heels barely squeaking in the hallway as the two heads snapped in your directions. The first being Tony’s and the second being Peppers, who seemed to be discussing something together but the conversation immediately ended when they saw you.

“Oh,” you muttered as Tony and Pepper’s gaze down to see you, hand in hand with Felicia.

“Oh?” Tony answered back as he curved his eyebrows while he watched Felicia for a second and then his gaze went to you.

It wasn’t like you brought Felicia by surprise, you had been told weeks ago that she could come. Either way, this was a newfound territory, Peter seemed to be the only possible person you would introduce to your parents in that manner and it didn’t even count because they had known him before. Charlie was a no-go from the start, knowing deep down that you wanted to keep that friendship or relationship for yourself since you both knew it wouldn’t go pass that. But then Felicia seemed to be someone where you could, maybe, go to the next step.

“Well, y/n aren’t you going to introduce us?” Pepper said, her startled look brushing off and giving entrance to the characteristic warm smile she always wore.

Before you could even answer, Felicia’s charm was on.

“It’s so lovely to meet you Mrs. And Mr. Stark”, she smiled brightly at Pepper as she shook her hand and give her two kisses on her cheek, slightly making her voice higher than what it usually was.

“Lovely to meet you too, it’s so nice to finally meet you.” Pepper said, completely charmed by Felicia’s attitude and she quickly nudged Tony with her elbow on his ribs so he could say ‘hi’ as well, for some reason he had to stare at Felicia as if he was trying to figure out something.

You hoped it was just a parental instinct.

“We are so glad you are here; we’ve been trying to meet you but missy here was keeping you under wraps.” Tony offered Felicia his hand and she shook it firmly, with a bright smile but with the same intense gaze that Tony had in his eyes.

You chuckled at Tony’s comment, hoping it would dissipate any kind of suspicion, not that it seemed to be very successful. Pepper followed your lead and so did Tony and Felicia.

“Can’t imagine why” Felicia muttered between laughs and you feel your cheeks flushing at her comment, giving her a warning look, which she just shrugged off by kissing you on the cheek.

It made you smile.

“Okay, we are going to dance so, I’ll let you be” you announced as you realized that Tony and Pepper were still staring, quickly dragging her to the dance floor.

It wasn’t a huge dance floor, tables were surrounding the small space that was farther from the reception where everyone was and there was a small stage set up in front of you, at the moment there was just a talented pianist taking the lead. A few people were dancing, much of them were way older than you and the ones that were old enough to care about what you were doing (especially journalist) as they saw you entering the dance floor, widened their eyes.

You quickly offered Felicia your hand and she reached out, accepting your hand before you were pulling her out onto the dance floor. You caught a few people watching you but you didn’t care, you quickly placed your hands-on Felicia’s shoulder and she placed her cold hands against the skin that showed from your torso and hips. You began to sway together to the soft music playing from the piano.

“You think they notice?” Felicia asked you softly, pulling you a bit closer.

“Not at all” you lied, knowing that there might’ve been something that Tony was suspicious of, but you didn’t want to scare Felicia.

“Your dad seemed a little bit weird out,” she continued. “But I couldn’t tell if it’s because I’m a girl or because he recognized me”

“He didn’t” you assured her looking at her firmly, but you melted as she smirked at you, her eyes gleaming as you played with a strand of her hair. “Okay, but the silver hair doesn’t help”

Felicia gasped jokingly, causing you to chuckle a bit.

“Hey” Felicia complained, as she pulled you a bit closer while biting her lip. “You love the silver hair and more when it’s down”

Which was true.

“My bad” you answered with a fond smile, pressing your forehead against hers.

You kept swaying to the music, bodies pressed together as Felicia held you and guided you to the music. It felt like you were the only two people in the room, you mostly tried to keep your eyes closed, not wanting to disturb your daydream, although it was hard with the whispers of some surprised observers as they arrived on the dance floor and saw you dancing with a girl. Nonetheless, you stayed focused on Felicia’s touch on your skin, on the music that was overflowing your senses, and to the smell of cotton candy.

The only thing that woke you up from the trance you were in was Felicia’s fidgeting, you finally opened her eyes on the third time she had removed her hands from your body for about ten seconds.

“What’s wrong?” you asked her with a frown, to see Felicia’s lips pinched into a fine line.

“Everyone’s watching”

You turned around and it was true, it seemed like the majority of the party were whispering from the tables and looking into the dance floor, even Tony and Pepper seemed a bit stunned by how close you were with Felicia. You could feel Felicia’s shoulders tensing up as she watched everyone, you knew this wasn’t part of the deal when Felicia had agreed to come with you.  

“Hey, it’s okay. Let’s go and eat something” you muttered as you carefully place your hand on her jaw and pulled her gaze back to yours.

Felicia shook her head and gave a step back, as she swallowed hard and then look down. It seemed as if the hairs on the nape of her neck had standup and although you could seem a gleam of regret, she was visibly done.

“Do you mind if I go to the bathroom really quick?” she asked, with a small voice and not looking at you.

You couldn’t hide your disappointment but you couldn’t blame Felicia and her discomfort. You sighed, mentally cursing everyone in the room who was making Felicia feel uncomfortable, and you felt your stomach twisting with guilt for putting her in the spotlight, something that she had never asked.

“Sure, I’ll wait for you” you answered with a slight smile, but looking at her with worried.  

Felicia didn’t stutter or doubted, she quickly let go of you and walked off, some people were still looking at her as she exited the dance floor and then the room, but the gazes were still on you who remained on the dance floor. It felt a bit awkward as you stood there, all alone, and you felt kind of ridiculous.

You looked down for a second and decided that getting a drink was your best bet for not feeling dumb or guilty but before you could give another step, you bumped into Peter.

“Want to dance?” Peter offered, looking at you expectantly and you faltered.

Your eyes linked with Peter’s, who had his eyes twinkling as he looked at you with a warm smile and you felt like melting right then and thereby all means. You didn’t even felt the need to say anything to Peter, you simply took his hand and he stepped towards you, reaching to the small of your back and you held your breath as his fingertips touched your exposed skin. Then, he firmly took one of your hands in his, which he placed on his chest while you started to sway to the music. You wrapped one of your arms around his neck and felt the heat coming from Peter’s body.

As always, you felt at home in his arms with the smell of honey and cinnamon wrapping you in.

“You look really good today” you finally said to Peter, as you looked up to him.

Peter had been looking behind you and your voice snapped you out of it, he was trying to figure out where Felicia was or if she was coming back, but there were no signs of her. So, he decided to simply enjoy having you in his arms and smiled.

“Just today?”

You smiled. “You know what I mean,” you muttered as you laid your head on his chest, so he couldn’t see the small sprinkling of red to dust across your cheeks.

“Well, you look especially beautiful today,” Peter added before he stepped away and let go of your back, spinning you around under his arm before he pulled you in.

You laughed as you looked at Peter dreamily, as you remember that a part of you had wanted this to happen for a long time when you were younger. It would be almost two years since you had skipped town but there you were, harboring feelings for Peter Parker and his caramel curls with chocolate eyes, trying to push them down but now it was because you had a relationship.

“Are you having a good time?” you asked him, trying to keep your thoughts in line.

Peter nodded as he looked around. “Yeah, food is nice and some people wanted to talk to me when they realized I’m Tony’s intern”

“Well, you are the best intern,” you answered honestly with a shrug, causing Peter to give you a smug smile to which you replied almost immediately with a roll of eyes.  “Don’t tell Harley I said that”

“I won’t,” Peter promised as he pulled you closer to him, he could feel he was getting overwhelmed by the characteristic vanilla smell that always surrounded you, he had you in his arms and he couldn’t help himself to ask. “Do you really think that?”

You looked at him while tilting your head as if he had asked something so obvious to you that you were surprised that Peter didn’t already know.

“You know how I feel about you,” you found yourself saying before you could stop yourself.

Peter stared at you for a minute as if you’d lost your mind by saying what you had said. He seemed so confused by the sudden second of honesty, that it made you wondered if you had screwed up again and you felt panic washing your body. But as Peter saw how alarm you’d gotten, he decided to change the topic.

“And you?” he asked before spinning you around again.

You thanked him mentally for that and give him a small smile, which he nodded to it.

“What about me?”

Peter sighed, not wanting to bring Felicia up to this moment after you had said that but he felt like he had no other choice. He groaned and then dipped his head down to your shoulder. You chuckled and placed your hand in the back of his neck, playing with his baby curls before he stood back up straight.

“Are you having a good time, with…” Peter said but his words tapered off, not wanting to say her name.

You could see how his jaw clenched but you simply rolled your eyes, thinking that Peter was somehow just being dramatic.

  “You can say her name, you know?” you joked but as you look at Peter and how to set his jaw was, you felt like he was being serious.

And he was. 

“I know, I just don’t want to,” Peter said bluntly and you frowned at him. “My Spidey sense just goes off.” He said with a shrug.

“Well, that’s uncalled for,” you shot at him with a haughty expression.

Peter cocked his head as he looked at you, and you felt the anger bubbling up on your chest. He seemed condescending and you hated it, you hated that he was watching you from this pretend high road.

“It’s not,” Peter grumbled.

You didn’t say anything right away as you glared at Peter, you knew Felicia was a sensitive topic but you hadn’t witness Peter this pressed or being so blunt about your relationship with Felicia. You wondered if it was because he had seen you dancing with her or just because he still didn’t like her but you didn’t need this at the moment.

“Are we going to do this again Peter?” you asked him while raising your eyebrow as if challenging him.

And Peter, who feel sheer annoyance at Felicia that stemmed from his bad feeling about her was ready to go.

“I think we need to,” Peter answered bluntly. “I just don’t trust her, y/n.”

You chuckled ironically and looked away before your eyes came back to his, the audacity. “Well, I do Peter and if I remember correctly, no one’s asking you.”

Peter shook his head at your response, feeling a bit more annoyed at how stubborn you were being. Not that he wasn’t aware that you were already stubborn.

“I know you make fun of my senses,” Peter started, as he gave you another spin, you followed his lead but you were glaring at him under your lashes. “But I’m telling you there’s something wrong and dangerous with her.”

“Peter you need to stop,” you growled under your breath as Peter rolled his eyes and tried to spin you again but you pushed him back a bit.

Peter winced at the gesture and you could feel your heart aching at Peter’s behavior, part of you felt guilty but another part of you was just hurt that he didn’t try to keep his comments to himself. Peter was the kindest person you knew, but the jealousy or whatever he was feeling about Felicia and how he tried to just throw rocks at your relationship with Felicia, simply felt just mean.

“y/n, you know I can’t let you be in danger” Peter answered honestly, and yes, you could sense the fright in his voice and see the gleam of uneasiness in his eyes, but it wasn’t fair to you.

“I’m not!” you snapped at him; a little bit louder than what you would’ve liked.

“But you are!” Peter answered with the same strength and you hoped that no one had heard you. Both of you were breathing heavily and by that point, the tension could be cut with a knife as you glared at the other but then Peter simply sighed, letting go from your body and watched you sheepishly. “and I can’t stay silent while I watch you get-what?”

You frowned at Peter’s behavior. “Peter?”

Peter swallowed hard and then his eyes traveled to the entrance, where Flash was shaking his head as he looked anxiously at Peter. He closed his eyes, knowing that after this you might even get angrier with him, probably more than what you’d ever been but at that moment he didn’t care.

Felicia had disappeared and it was a risk.

“Where’s the last time you saw her?” Peter asked as he placed his fingers on his ear, trying to listen better at the com and he watched as it dawned on you what he had been doing.

The disappointment in your eyes and then how they were washed with anger made Peter winced.

“Are you kidding me?” you snapped at him, trying to take the com out of his ear so you could talk but Peter grabbed your hands strongly, you cursed to yourself that you couldn’t overpower him at the moment or take out your suit.

People began to stare at the both of you, as you twisted your wrists to get off from Peter’s hold but it was getting harder and harder, Peter trying to listen through the com to whatever Harley was saying.

“What do you mean she isn’t here?” Peter growled under his breath and then looked back at the edge of the dance floor where Flash was, you followed his gaze and quickly groaned, annoyed that all of your friends were in this together.

“Let. Me. Go!” you said as you gritted your teeth while turning to him with eyes blazing with heat, and Peter, who was gazing at you regretfully, took his hold off of you.

You pushed Peter aside and then walked towards Flash, who had this haunted expression on his face as he saw you coming his way, clearly intimidated by you.

“Give me that Flash,” you growled at the boy who was looking at you sheepishly. “I don’t want to ask twice” you threaten while raising your eyebrow and wiggling your fingers so that Flash could give you the com.

He didn’t hesitate, and you quickly put the earpiece on your ear and pulled out the wire from his shirt so you could talk to them.

“All of you need to back off, now.” You growled at them, clearly angry at what your supposed friends were doing. It seemed so extreme for them to have this whole spy thing going on to keep you away from Felicia, and it hurt. It hurt that after everything, after how much you had grown, it seemed like no one really cares about or trusted you and your choices. And you wanted to only be angry -you really did- but the words that Peter told you and how sincere they were, you felt trepidation as you thought about Felicia being loose at Stark Tower; you couldn’t help to ask. “Where was the last time you saw her?”

Peter turned from his place on the dance floor, a frown on his face and he felt somehow relief that he could hear that you were concerned about Felicia’s whereabouts too.

“She was in the bathroom,” you heard Betty’s voice in the com. “But then she just disappeared”

“I followed her there but she wasn’t on the stalls, she just sneaked out,” MJ followed but then Harley interrupted them.

“Just saw her at the edge of the entrance to the elevators,” Harley added and before he could say anything else, you walked away.

You didn’t know what you were going to catch Felicia in as you tried to move through the crowd of people on the gala, as you walked outside and glared at Harley and MJ who were watching you sorrowfully, clearly feeling shitty about what they had done but you passed by them as you walked towards the entrance to the elevators. The thing about Felicia was that most of the time, you did trust her -most of the time- but no matter how much you tried to assure yourself the same thing, you knew there was always Peter’s voice in the back of your head, saying you that she was trouble.

And you knew that it would always somehow hunt your relationship with Felicia. It’s not like she had said anything or anything she did, it was the feeling that came along with it. Her world moved too fast and her love seemed to burn too bright, but for you, how on earth is someone that was basically the opposite of what you were pulled in like she did? Even if sometimes it felt off.

“What are you doing here?” you asked Felicia, louder than you expected as you caught her against the wall while she was fixed her shoe. She was at the edge of the private entrance that Pepper had made for you to go to your apartment, it was supposed to have a guard but the person was nowhere to be found.

Felicia seemed a bit stunned as she heard you and quickly straightened herself, placed her small bag on her shoulder, and fixed her skirt. “Didn’t know it would take you so long to realize I was gone, it’s even upsetting, you know?”

You cut her game off quickly as you placed your hands on your hips and glared at her. You knew she liked to play games; it was rather obvious by now that she wouldn’t give you a straight but either way you still gave it your best shot.

“Why aren’t you at the party?” you asked her again and Felicia, who didn’t answer immediately, though the expression in her eyes grew hard to read. Her hands quickly settled on your waist and tugged you forward.

“Isn’t it obvious?” she breathed out as she gazed at your lips, but you were still glaring at her. Felicia simply rolled her eyes and before you knew it, Felicia threw you back against the wall into a bruising kiss.

You felt a bit stunned for a second but then you just let go. There was something about the kiss that was so intoxicating. Her lips were softer than ever, she tasted like champagne and cotton candy. You could feel how her hands were wondering your body and before you knew it, she was raising your skirt and pulling one of your legs up so you could wrap it around her waist. Her hands trailed then under your dress, the cool of her fingers on your inner tight made goosebumps dance across your skin. It was right then when you felt the spark of heat between your legs, you knew you were getting turned on too.

And for some reason it made you snap.

You pulled away from her and Felicia let out a soft whine of protest. Both were breathing heavily, and you could see Felicia’s lipstick all over her mouth but she was watching you with a cat-like gaze. It was right then and there were you realized that things were about to go a lot farther than what was usually intended,

“Are you drunk?” you asked her with a frown.

But Felicia shook her head. “No,” she answered honestly and her eyes flickered to your lips, her gaze darkened. “I just want you”

Before you knew it, she had her lips against yours again, tongues dancing as you let out small whimpers. You tangled your hands in her hair, nearly moaning at the feeling of her breasts against yours, you were so incredibly pressed together as you’d ever been. Felicia started to play with the rest of your dress, almost wanting to take it off and you smiled into the kiss as you tried to stop her but it was getting too hot. How her hands were loosely trailing your exposed torso, electricity dance under her skin, and then Felicia placed her knee up between your legs, nearly making you moan extremely loud.

You didn’t know if it was the champagne or the fact that the anger that you’d felt minutes ago was somehow fueling the encounter, how somehow you wanted to show that Peter was wrong. Felicia was yours and you were Felicia, there was no reason to think otherwise, and so, why you needed to wait longer?

Therefore, you didn’t hesitate when Felicia said something else.  “Can we go up to your room?” she asked, it almost sounded like a whine as she touched your body.

And you simply nodded before you took her hand and pulled her into the elevator, continuing to kiss and moan and giggle as you pressed her against the elevator. It felt like something shifted as you entered the penthouse and walked her to your room.

The moment you were inside, Felicia pressed had you pressed against the wall, hands tangled in your hair as she kissed your back and began to undo your dress as quickly as she could, without ripping it. You moaned loudly as the dress finally pooled down on your feet and Felicia pressed hot open-mouth kisses to your back until she reached the small of your back and played with the thong that you had decided to wear.

“Such a pretty girl,” Felicia muttered, mostly to herself and you moaned at the thought of Felicia liking dirty talk. “And all mine”

You just whimpered at her comment, you wanted it so badly. So, you turned around and pulled Felicia by her neck up and began to undress her, leaving a trail of clothes on the floor while you drove her back to your bed. You both were just on your thongs by the time you fell onto your bed, and you quickly take the lead as you kissed her while you placed yourself on top, you then decided to press your tight between her legs this time, immediately pressing upwards and making her groan against your mouth but she quickly ground on your tight while you watched her in wonder.

Felicia’s body was perfect, you had seen her with little clothes on but this was a whole different thing. Having her on your bed, exposed as she whimpered and moan, because of your actions was a completely new feeling. Her skin was soft and dark, her hair was tousled and falling haphazardly across her face and spread on the bed, her plump breasts were bouncing by the way she was moving against you, the curve of her hips encased in the tiny black panties she was wearing, made you feel like you wanted to cry.

It would be your first time with a girl and somehow you froze, maybe just because you were just awe-struck by Felicia’s beauty or just because of the sheer fear that you could fuck this up. Felicia realized it soon and quickly raised from her place in the bed and stood from the place where she was, taking your hand and holding it tightly.

“y/n, don’t be afraid”

You simply shook your head, swallowing. “I just really want you,” you panted breathlessly and Felicia winced at your comment but before you could ask her what was wrong, her eyes shifted to your exposed breast and began to hungrily kiss them.

You massaged her scalp as she administered all the attention and devotion to your chest and you quickly fell backward, your head hit the pillows behind it as Felicia pressed herself against you. You couldn’t help to squirm and yelped as Felicia’s lips latched onto your right nipple, sucking it harshly before she changed over to the other. You were heaving and letting out small sighs as Felicia dig her fingers into the flesh of your hips and thigh, your core was dripping as you looked down to see Felicia’s eyes trained on your reaction.

She smirked as heard you whining about her stopping, she quickly pressed her lips firmly against you, her tongue playing with yours before she spoke.

“Tell me how bad you want it,” she whispered as her lips ghosted over yours but you only moaned as you felt her hardened nipples against yours.

“Hardy, don’t tease.” You complained as you cupped her face and pulled her down roughly for another kiss but she quickly pulled away with a mischievous smile.

“Come on Stark,” she panted as she looked at you. “I want to watch you beg”

You were pretty sure your mind snapped after that.

Before you knew it, Felicia pressed her digits to your clothed clit and you couldn’t help but to roll your eyes to the back of your head and opened your mouth at the sensation, but you wanted more. But you simply whined, not wanting to actually say anything but Felicia shook her head.

“Say it” she rasped.

“Please, touch me” you finally begged as you squirmed under her touch.

It was such an unbelievable turn on to hear Felicia’s dark laugh before she slipped her hand into your panties, stroking your entrance with her fingers as she nipped your earlobe. Your breath hitched, and you moaned, holding onto the sheets of your bed as she pumped a finger, and then two inside of you as she worked on your wetness. You gasped in bliss and soon you were arching your hips to get closer to her hand as waves of fire passed through your body, she was so good to you.

She was pressing against all your sensitive spots as she placed hot kisses on your mouth and wherever she could, it didn’t take too long for you to scream her name, your walls flittered around her fingers and your breath began to come in ragged pants. You didn’t know exactly how it happened since you were feeling so busy as she administered all the attention to your core, but soon your mouth found Felicia’s shoulder and before you knew it you bite into her skin, she whimpered and moaned at your reaction.

“Fuck…” she moaned as she dipped her head onto your shoulder, having to stop one second.

And you felt able to breathe again and before Felicia could protest, you switched positions and quickly took Felicia’s arms and placed them over her head.

She giggled.

“Didn’t take you for a top, y/N!” she screamed at the end as you placed two fingers on her core without much anticipation and began to administer the same care to her as she had done for you.

You pushed Felicia’s panties off her legs and spread her legs wider, you wanted to watch how she came undone under you. It was almost hypnotic how your fingers would get lost on her core and how you would be touching her in all the right spots, you then pressed on her clit with your thumb and it just made her moan louder, you went deeper and incomprehensible noises left Felicia’s lips. It was just too much and before you knew it, you simply dived down between her legs.

Felicia tasted like candy and you hummed into her core as you buried your mouth inside of it, tongue on her entrance and making her scream your name. You quickly placed your hands under her legs and grabbed her hips tightly as you continued administering attention to her core, with so much love and care that it seemed like you would die if you weren’t pleasuring her. Then you wrapped your lips around her clit and flicked it with your tongue before you continue to kiss her and in that second one of her hands flew to your head, tugging your hair.

You smiled as you watched her edging, you quickly decided to touch and grab her butt, pulling her in even closer. But before you knew it, Felicia was raised from her position ad pulling away from you, she grabbed you by your chin and captured your lips into a vulgar kiss, her tongue tangling sensually with yours.

But you pulled away. “I wanted to make you cum,” you panted as she licked her lips, tasting herself before she shook her head.

“I’ll make you cum first,” she whispered before she threw you against the bed, a little bit too harsh. “It’s an order,” she said and you felt a shiver ran down your spine because of the anticipation.

Felicia smiled, you could see her cheeks flushed pink and her cat-like grin as she placed a peck against your lips and began to kiss your body, from your chest to your middle to your core. The way Felicia was licking you, sucking you, seemed like too much. You might’ve screamed, moaned, gasped, or all three at once, maybe you whined but you couldn’t remember. It almost seemed like you had blacked out by how she was kissing you down there, how she was pressing on your clit and fucking you with her mouth.

It wasn’t like when Peter had already done it but for obvious reasons, this seemed more intense. The way Felicia was so purposefully working on you, had you gasping for air. It was wild, just like Felicia was, it was pure heat and fire, sweat dripping from your naked skin as Felicia held you down so hard that she probably left bruises. She knew what she was doing to you and it became more than obvious that she wanted to keep going as you felt the fire pooling on your stomach and your legs began to shake, it didn’t take long for you to feel yourself clenching and shuddering around Felicia’s tongue or fingers and you started to come apart at the seams.

Felicia smiled as she felt it and look at you screaming her name, everything exploding with fire as wave after wave of your orgasms seized your body. White light danced on your vision and ripples of blinding pleasure erupted through your body. Your breath was labored as Felicia came back up and pressed her lips against yours, while you tried to catch your breath and slowly drifted back to earth after your release.

“You were so good,” Felicia whispered as she placed small kisses over your body and then quickly stood from the bed into the bathroom of your room.

You were still trying to recover as you watched her naked body entering the bathroom and then heard how she used the sink before she came out with a towel and carefully cleaned you. You smiled at Felicia who quickly put her underwear on and began to look for her dress while you watched her from the bed.

It was such a completely new experience for you, that you were still a bit in awe about what had happened, you quickly put on your underwear and wrapped the towel around your torso while Felicia looked at herself in your large mirror while she fixed her make-up and her dress. Part of you was extremely happy that it had finally happened but then, another part of you wished that Felicia could just stay in bed and talk to you about it.

“That was…” you started, hoping that it would pull her in.

But both of your heads snapped at the loud noise coming from your door. There was knocking a loud, knocking on your door and as the seconds passed it became almost violent.

“y/n?” Felicia asked as she took her jacket and her pursed and walked back to one of the corners of your room, the one farther away from your door.

You frowned at the incessant knocking and quickly took the towel off, running to get your dress and putting it on as the pounding continued. You were still trying to zip your dress and jumped when you finally got close to the door and ordered HAPPY, your AI, to open the door.

As the door opened your eyes widened as you looked at Peter barging into the room. Peter glanced at you and he stayed still for a moment, he could tell almost immediately and it felt like someone had just punched all the air out of his lungs. He saw your disheveled hair and how your dress wasn’t fully zipped, he could also see the messy blankets behind you on your bed and he had to close his eyes for a second, otherwise, he was sure he would’ve broken something at the moment.

He hated it, Felicia had been successful at sucking you in and now Peter knew why.

He finally opened his eyes and decided to get back to what he was doing, he shot a glare at Felicia.

“Felicia,” Peter growled as he walked closer to her while Felicia took a defensive stance.

Before he could get somehow closer, you walked in front of Peter and stopped him. Firmly placing a hand on his chest and pushing him back, defending Felicia.

“What do you want, Parker?” you growled at him but Peter didn’t place the attention on you, instead he stared at Felicia disdainfully.

Peter didn’t want to talk to you about it, if his wishes came true, you wouldn’t even be in the room right now. It was taking all his willpower not to drag you out of the room and lock you out before he began to try to capture Felicia, he just didn’t want to hurt you in the process.

“Give it back, Felicia.” He growled once more and you could see his hands forming into fists, he was holding it so tightly that you were sure that Peter would get moon marks on his palms.

But you brushed the thought off as the words of Peter dawned on you. You frowned at Peter’s comment and you turned towards Felicia, who was giving another step back as she defensively looked at you.

“What are you talking about?” you asked Peter coldly, while your eyes were still linked to Felicia’s greyish-purple eyes.

“Your girlfriend stole the repulsor prototype!” Peter snapped at her and you felt your heart sinking on your chest. “I checked the security footage; she stole it and she’s going to give it to-”

“Shut up!” Felicia’s angry scream cut off Peter as you could feel your head shaking automatically at Peter’s accusation.

There was no way Felicia had done it, otherwise, it would mean that nothing that had happened with you was true, that the feelings that you were harboring with Felicia were based on a lie, that she had never cared or loved you, that Peter was right, that she was only using you.

And then your eyes fell onto her hands and how hard and tight she was holding her small bag.

“Felicia…”

The way Felicia’s eyes were almost tearing up, how she glanced away from you wanting to avoid your gaze and her chin began to tremble. It was almost palpable the regret on her, the guilt seemed to be eating her alive and you felt like you wanted to vomit.

“Felicia, tells me it’s not true,” you whispered once more as you looked at her, you felt your tears pooling in your eyes but Felicia didn’t move. “Answer me!” you screamed at her, it ripped through your chest and it was so loud that both, Felicia and Peter, jumped at your reaction.

Peter could feel the weight of your emotions on his shoulders, he knew that he had fucked up by bringing you into this but there was no other way, Felicia was on a mission and Peter couldn’t allow her to finish it.

“Felicia, you don’t have to go to Kingpin,” he offered while he stepped forward to where you were standing but Felicia simply chuckled ironically.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about Spidey” she spat at him while she quickly took a defensive stand and let her heels on the floor, she was ready to fight.

But Peter wanted nothing of the sort.

“We don’t want anyone getting hurt,” he insisted but before he could add something, both Felicia and you spoke.

“Too late for that,” Felicia’s silvery and wobbly voice said at the same time with your wavery and soft voice.

You looked at each other with so much hurt in your eyes that you wanted to explode into tears right there and then but the anger and the rage were too much. The feeling of betrayal ran through your body like fuel and before you knew it, you were tapping your breacelet and the nanobots began to spread on your arm and before you knew it, you were shooting your repulsors at Felicia.

Felicia, as talented as she was, quickly dodge your shots but soon Peter took out his webs and began to fire them as Felicia tried to avoid both of your attacks on her in your room. You tried not to care as you would blow up a part of your room, simply wanting to catch Felicia before she did something stupid but before you knew it, she was placing the sleeves of her suit. Her claws appearing from one moment to another as she secured the bag across her body and began to perform a serious act of gymnastics while she tried to avoid you.

Peter managed to get one of Felicia’s ankle’s as she finished performing a backflip to dodge one of your repulsors shots but when she fell onto the floor, she swiftly glanced down at the web and cut it with her nails before she was avoiding your hits too, in one second you fire your window, destroying part of your room and also allowing the cold wind of November to hit you, but Felicia smirked at your mistake.

“Don’t go Felicia”, you growled at her but she simply glanced at you with red eyes.

Before you knew it, she was taking the repulsor out of her bag, the gauntlet where Harley and Tony had decided to place the repulsor for more standard trials on her hand. She placed it on hers and before you knew it, she was pointing at you.

You weren’t wearing your full suit at the moment, simply your arms but Felicia just closed your eyes and looked away, then she fired at you. Peter realized it and quickly tried to grab you so he could avoid you getting blown up but he was too late, your fingers brushing before the explosion sent you off to different parts of the room. Your body hit the wall, hard, you felt your head bouncing against it and then you fell onto the floor that was filled with debris and broken glass.

Your vision turned blurry and the last thing you remembered was Felicia watching you from the window before she quickly jumped out, then everything turned black.

***

taglist: @spideylovin @fandomtrash100 @soullessbabee @liljennyx3

***

i’m so sorry for the delay and like for the typos you might find in this chapter bUT IT’S FINALLY UP AND WE HAVE ONLY TWO CHAPTERS LEFT. I had to cut this chapter so I could make the next one a bit longer and this one shorter, next one we are getting a reveal and also tears and post break up glow. 

Last chapter didn’t got any reblogs or notes but it was okay because it allowed me to take my time to write this one and part of the next one. Although Im really excited to see what are your thoughts about the smut with Felicia and Felicia in general. Only one of you saw it coming I think hehe. But i’m really happy about the fact that we only have to chapters left. I love to hear your theories. and i’m always really happy that you are enjoying this with me and i hope you are happy with this chapter, either if you are team felicia or team peter.

as always, the new sneek peak for the next chapter is going to be on. the masterlist if you want to see what’s coming next!

please please please let me know your thoughts and opinions on this chapter and if you have ANY theories or comments I would love to see them!!! I’m already so happy with the love you have given to the last chapters, I really hope you like it!  any feedback is well received and thank you so much!

[dragons-bones]

For the writer meme: 15 & 18 please ✨

15) why did you start writing?

oooooh that’s a doozy. per my mom, I’ve been writing since at least elementary school, so it’s hard to say exactly why other than a bit of a twee “I’ve always had stories to tell” statement. I love exploring character concepts, I love creating worlds and settings and the rules that apply to them (and how those rules can be bent or broken).

I suppose for fanfic, looking at the vast majority of stuff I’ve written over the years, I like to explore the spaces between canon; what happens during the lull in the plot, in the space between side quests, in the time we don’t see on screen. I like what ifs, too, and certainly I read plenty canon divergence and fixit fics, but I really enjoy the opportunity to also work with canon; I find it a really fun exercise and a different way to stretch my creativity.

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

oh gosh, that’s another doozy. I mean, I’d argue that every author one reads can and will influence one’s writing; for me, there’s plenty of books and fic where I went, “oh, I love that turn of phrase!” or “I really like how they use description to convey small bits of characterization” or “how did they make that so creepy I love it.” basically, I note, subconsciously and not, what I like, and I’ll either consciously see if I can incorporate it to evolve my style, or sometimes it sneaks in.

authors and works off the top of my head that have stood out to me and have influenced at least how I try to write:

The Firebringer Trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce (there’s a rhythm and lyricism to her prose that I always adored, and this is probably the biggest source for why I’m generally very comfortable writing non-humanoid characters)

The Dragon Chronicles by Susan Fletcher (my first conscious memory of foraying into fantasy, with memorable heroines, none of whom fall into the “Strong Female Character” stereotype now that I think about it. absolutely responsible for my love of dragons. with the Firebringer Trilogy, the reason why so many of my lady OCs have green eyes)

Aaron’s Allston X-Wing series books (why do I love Shenanigans? this man. why do I love Shenanigans that turn around into heartbreak not long after? THIS MAN! RIP, sir, I still sob over Ton Phanan.)

Ursula Vernon (I was an avid reader of her Digger webcomic and her humor and unique worldbuilding has always stuck in my head; I loved reading the accompanying descriptions to her art when she uploaded on DA back in her freelance days, and there’s an irreverent but sincere, heartfelt quality of her characters that I just adore.)

Brandon Sanderson (HIS WORLDBUILDING. HIS MAGIC SYSTEMS. THE LOGIC, THE FORESHADOWING, THE DEFT MANAGEMENT OF A HUGE CAST, I JUST--*tugs at hair*--SIR HOW.)

Seth Dickinson (okay I still haven’t gotten around to reading his Baru Cormorant books but he did do the Book of Sorrows codex entries for Destiny: The Taken King and just *SHAKING EYE EMOJI*. also, just, anything the Bungie staff in general write about the Hive and the Darkness. it hits me real good in the eldritch-loving part of my brain, but most of the inspo from this tends to go towards my original ‘verse Mistwrought rather than my fanfic)

Yoon Ha Lee (JUST. THE DESCRIPTIONS. THE WORLDBUILDING. THE CHARACTERS. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN OF NINEFOX GAMBIT IS PERMANENTLY SEARED INTO MY BRAIN. THE PRECISION OF LANGUAGE. DID I MENTION HIS CHARACTERS. “Thank you for the light.” SIR, HOW DARE YOU. I REALLY NEED TO READ PHOENIX EXTRAVAGANT ALREADY.)

Tamsyn Muir (this woman’s ability to ping-pong memes between fucking memes and heartwrenching prose is both enraging and awe-inspiring. her ability to foreshadow is insane, like Sanderson is great at it but I would argue Muir may be better. the way she DESCRIBES things is incredible. “pole-axed” is generally how I felt after finishing Gideon the Ninth and then Harrow the Ninth and honestly that’s what I would like to leave someone feeling one day with my own words.)

there’s...definitely more but I’m already frothing at the mouth and getting dangerously unhinged so I’m gonna cut it off there. please feel free to drop into my askbox or DMs if you ever want me to scream more or in detail, i have Many Feelings about books ‘n things.

[bangtan-madi]

All Of Our Lifetimes — Five: Requiem

Pairing — Taehyung x Reader

Tags — boyfriend!Taehyung, husband!Taehyung reincarnation au, lovers to strangers and to lovers again, established relationship, implied soulmate au

Genre — fluff, angst, crime (ish)

Word Count — 2.5k

Summary — Does love ever truly end, or does it simply take another form in a new life? The cycle is like clockwork: your lives end and you’re reborn again. You’ve lived it over and over. Each cycle, one of you loses your memories and is tragically unaware until the other finds and awakens their lover. After all these eons, all these lifetimes, is it possible to find each other again—even when neither of you awakens with your memories?

Part — 5 / 15

Warnings — language

A/N — Taglist is open! Comment, message, or ask and I’ll add you to the roster :) (Also I’m a freakin’ moron and forgot to post on Wednesday night like usual, which was yesterday. So enjoy this late chapter lol!)

Previous — Next

The first person you text is Namjoon. To you, he was the obvious choice. Friendly, open, and the first of the members to accept you into their enclave. It wasn't anything in particular, just saying hi and reminding him of who you are and that you were looking forward to tomorrow.

Not two minutes later, he replies and invites you to join a group chat he'd just created for you and all seven members.

"This way, we can all keep in touch!" he says. "DMs are fine, of course, but if we all wanna get to know each other, group chats can be a lot of fun."

He wasn't wrong. The remainder of Sunday evening is spent texting the members. On the way home, while you cook a quick dinner, and when you're relaxing before bed. They're flooding your messages with all kinds of hilarity. Jungkook and Hoseok are a fan of memes, while Yoongi seems to prefer the straightforward communication that gifs provide. Jimin and Namjoon adore emojis, and Jin sticks to his usual bad dad jokes. Taehyung replies to a question every now and then, but for the most part, he's absent from the conversation.

"You're awfully quiet, Taehyung-ssi," Jimin teases half-way through a conversation on whether or not mint ice cream is edible.

"I'm working, but you guys are blowing up my phone so it's hard to concentrate."

A sigh slips out as you reply, "You can put your phone on vibrate, Taehyung. Really, we won't mind. Or at least I certainly won't."

His response is speedy. "Okay. I'll talk to you all tomorrow."

Namjoon sends you a private message. "Don't let him bother you. He can get like this when he's focused. He doesn't do well with things distracting him."

"Yeah...you're probably right."

"Oh, I definitely am!"

"Hey, thank you again for everything. Except for Kim Taehyung, I really feel at ease with everyone. I feel like we're going to get along great at the set tomorrow."

"My pleasure, [Y/n]. I really wanted to avoid you feeling like more of an outsider than you probably already do. Being in a new country, even if you speak the language, can be scary. I've been to enough of them to know that there's no place like home...but maybe we can make it a bit easier."

A smile spreads across your face at his genuine spirit and pure kindness. "You have, big time! Each of you is really fun to be around. Honestly? I can't wait for 'Run' tomorrow! Can I ask where we're going? I didn't see a production report yet, and Director Hyeon hasn't responded to my email."

"We'll probably knock out a few episodes in one night, and I think we're closing down the Seoul Museum of Art. They're going to close a bit early so we can have it to ourselves. The games we have planned will happen there!"

You turn your eyes away from your cell phone at the mention of the museum. Recalling what happened over the weekend, returning to that place doesn't seem like a terrific idea. But then again, if you are there with Taehyung, maybe the two of you can finally talk about what you see in your dreams.

Maybe, just maybe, you can get those answers.

Your resolve strengthens a little bit, and a new message comes through, one not from the group chat or Namjoon. You click out of your conversation with the leader and check the notification.

"Who are you?"

The question is blunt and straightforward, coming from the second-youngest member via a private chat. You open the message, and your fingers hover above the keyboard for a few moments.

"Hi Taehyung. What do you mean?"

"I know we've met before. I can't remember where."

You bite your lip at his statement. So you were right; he does have some sort of familiarity with you, too. Now, to figure out just how much.

"Have you been to a concert before? Or a fan-sign? Maybe you worked on the set of Hwarang?"

"None of those. I actually didn't listen to much of your music before recently, and I've never been to a concert or fan-sign. And I've never worked on any set before."

"You weren't a fan of BTS? Even though you applied to Big Hit?"

"Nope. Actually, my roommate Milo was the Bangtan superfan. I heard of you guys through her, and then of Big Hit. I applied because I wanted to live in Seoul. It's been my dream all my life. Big Hit just happened to have the job I wanted in the ideal location. Call it fate, I guess."

A half-truth, but it will have to do for now.

"I know. I remember. Your gut feeling."

You pause, your fingers halting mid-type. How did he already know about that? You hadn't mentioned it in either the group chat or in the earlier conversation. In fact, the only person you'd mentioned the gut feeling about Seoul to was—

"I have to go, sorry. I'll see you at the museum tomorrow. I think you know the way."

The museum looks almost spooky after the sun begins to set over the buildings that touch the sky. Downtown Seoul is as beautiful as ever as the bright oranges and pastel pinks bathe the exteriors of each in brilliant colors. If it weren't for the thirty or so Big Hit employees rushing about, you might've stood at the entrance for much longer than thirty seconds.

But the moment you're on-scene, you go to work. One of the producers flags you down, offers a brief introduction, and tells you where to hide the English words.

"Have you seen what we did a few episodes back, eighty-seven and eighty-eight?" he asks, shoving a stack of stickers into your hands. "When we put Hangul all over the Oil Tank Culture Park?"

You shake your head, offering a sheepish smile. "I haven't...exactly watched too much 'Run.'"

The producer waves it off. "Just run around the building and stick these wherever you think seven boys may or may not find them. Feel free to go crazy. We have fifteen minutes to get everything set before filming starts. The boys should be here soon. So, go! Once you're done, come back here. While they're running around, you can help me with the grading system."

"Grading system?"

"They're going to make sentences with the words they find. Since you know English the best, you can award points to each word based on difficulty in using."

A smile spreads across your face. "Got it! Sounds fun."

You speed off into the museum, weaving past the sound and lighting crew that are attempting to set up. Several of the museum staff have also stayed behind to give guidance, and you're relieved that the boys and company have the entire building to themselves. This wouldn't be possible during daytime hours when the public is here.

You begin sticking several dozen stickers along the walls, on the frames of pieces of art, on the marble floor. Basically, anywhere you can reach. You cover the Van Gogh exhibit with difficult words like "effervescence" and "halcyon," along with colorful words like "lilac" and "vermilion."

The further into the building you move, the fewer and fewer people you see. Once you've passed the room of modern art and approach the Winged Victory of Samothrace, there's no one in sight. Down to your last few words, you slip into the dimmed hallway and turn the corner.

Winged Victory is just as you remember. Tall and beautiful and haunting. The statue is still so familiar to you. Looking at the base, you can almost see the body of the woman from your dream. Right before you and Taehyung started running for your lives, this was where a murder occurred.

You flinch at the memory of the blood, but something else inside you is pulling you out of the room and towards the fountain. Last time you saw it, you ran from the room and left the friendly acquaintance behind. Part of you wonders what he must've thought. Surely, you looked like you'd seen a ghost.

But you might as well have.

Your feet tip-toe on the marble. The boys have most certainly arrived, and the filming has started from the sound of it. Their crazed and excited laughter fills the echo-y halls. Seeing as there aren't any stickers this far into the museum, you take your chances and continue moving deeper in. The producer could wait just a few more minutes, couldn't he?

The last of the sunlight ricochets across each panel of glass in the dome ceiling, greeting you with shards of light skewed in every direction. Like fireflies dancing together, they bring an almost magical aura to the open space, one very different from the horrors of your nightmares. The columns are made of ever-moving fire, and the fountain is made of glittery stars.

As you stand in the doorway, your throat drys and tightens. Seeing this place again, no matter how different, brings back the memories you can't explain. Are they even memories? Surely, that has to be what they are. But from when or from whom, you can't explain. They're a requiem for someone you hardly know.

Does Taehyung know the answers? Does he know more than you about this event you keep playing over and over in your mind? He's been in your dreams ever since you were a child, as a version much older than you were then and even older than you are now. Who has just one dream their whole lives, unless the explanation is that he has that dream, too?

You shake your head at the absurdity of it all. "What am I doing here?" you murmur, running your hand through your hair.

"Are you okay?"

The deep voice behind you causes you to jump and spin, eyes wide as you spot a familiar face at the entrance to the fountain. Taehyung stands with his hands in the pockets of his pants, his head tilted as he observes you.

"Holy shit, don't sneak up on people!"

The brunet smirks a little and shrugs. "Didn't mean to, sorry. You were staring off into space and didn't even hear me walk down the hallway. And it's hard to be quiet on marble floors."

"God, sorry, I didn't mean to snap." You run your hands over your face. "This museum has...some strange memories for me. I thought coming back here would help, but I think I've made it worse."

"How do you mean? I thought you hadn't been to Seoul before?"

"I haven't. It's complicated." Your eyes flicker to the corridor behind him. "Where's your cameraman?"

"I ditched him, told him I was running off to the restroom. But I didn't see you anywhere, so I figured you'd be back here."

Eyebrows pulling together, you reply, "How'd you figure that?"

"Well, you seemed really freaked out last weekend. You ran out of here like a ghost was chasing you. I was honestly worried until I saw you at Big Hit the next day, and you seemed fine, so..."

He trails off, and the realization of his words hits you. "Wait...shit, were you the one I was talking to both times I visited here this week? The one in the hoodie and mask?"

Taehyung nods, though there's a tiny line between his brows that shows he's as confused as you are. "Yes? I thought you knew that from day one, when you spoke to me at the Van Gogh exhibit."

Shaking your head fervently, you spout, "No! Not at all. I had no idea, honest to god. I just thought you were shy or introverted or maybe had a tough time talking to girls. I never, ever thought you were..." You gesture to all of him.

His brown eyes widen as he steps closer and out of the doorway. "Wait, really? You had no idea."

"None!"

He chuckles softly, turning to gaze at the fountain as the sunlight fades to soft blues of night. "I'd assumed you knew who I was. You were so open and friendly to a perfect stranger. I thought you'd recognized me."

"Not at all," you retort. "I was being nice and friendly because there was something about you that was so damn familiar. Kind of like this whole place, actually. I don't know. I can't explain it."

Taehyung nods and runs a hand through his curly locks. "I won't lie, there's something off about this place for me, too." He shifts his attention from the fountain to you. "You weren't lying about anything you said before, were you? About you being called to Seoul and not knowing why?"

You lock eyes with him as you reply, "I promise, everything I said was true."

"Then why did you run away?"

A heavy sigh slips out, and you sit down on the water fountain's edge. Looking into the water to your side, you run various ways to go about this disclosure. Blunt truth? A comforting lie? A bit of both?

"[Y/n]?"

"I've had this...nightmare, ever since I was a little girl. Ever since I could remember. It's always the same. I'm running for my life with someone I know that I care deeply about. We're trying to escape a murderer who's closing in behind us. He's just slaughtered one of our friends and he's coming for us."

You pause to take a breath, and Taehyung takes that pause to sit beside you. He doesn't say a word, only waist patiently for you to continue.

"We're eventually trapped. The man with me tells me to run while he distracts the murderer. Of course, I don't listen. There's a fight. We're both injured. And we both die."

There's a pregnant pause in the air before Taehyung hangs his head and murmurs, "That sounds horrible."

"I haven't told you everything," you reply. "I'm afraid I shouldn't...but what the hell." You gesture to the space around you. "In my dream, the entire thing is set here, in the Seoul Museum of Art. Our friend was killed at the base of Winged Victory. The fight happens among these columns. And the man and I, we die in this very fountain, bleeding out from gunshot wounds."

You turn to face the man beside you, seeing his eyes shift from his feet to yours as his head tilts slightly. "And every time, it's the same three people besides me. The same woman at the base of Winged Victory, the same murderer with a gun, the same man that this nightmare-version of me loves. I have no idea who the first two are..."

In your hesitation, Taehyung says, "But you know the last one."

Nodding, your knuckles turn white as you drip your knees. Here it goes. All or nothing. No turning back now.

"I do. He's—"

"—Me."

Taglist — @just-call-me-trash-can​, @jaienn​

[arabellaflynn]

Hello, all. It has been a rough pandemic.

As you may have figured, since I am in the performing arts, I have been completely out of work since this shitshow began. The earliest venues will open up here in MA is September, which is not helpful for me, because I need to be out of my current place by 8/31. No one will rent to me on my Patreon income, so I've been trying to figure out how to supplement that with other online work.

My first thought, frankly, was camming. I'm attractive and I know that, and I don't care about being naked in "public". I have a lot of opinions on the legitimacy and legalization of sex work, but making a statement would be a convenient bonus; I'd be in it for the tips. As the appliance menagerie on the Flintstones used to say, "Eh. It's a living."

The best camera I currently have is attached to the slightly-less ancient laptop. You know, the one with the broken hinge that won't hold the screen up on the right. Only the wifi on that computer has quit working. The onboard chip was always kind of flaky, but for some reason it has chosen now to deteriorate to the point where it no longer acknowledges a router on the other side of the goddamn wall. Shooting in the living room with an ethernet cable is not an option, because another housemate is already doing that.

I bought a dual-band USB wifi adapter with antenna. It's a Realtek chip -- not gold-plated, but also not total junk. I specifically checked to make sure it worked with Ubuntu Bionic before I ordered. I have now installed three separate sets of drivers in three completely different ways, read everything ever written about this on AskUbuntu, and still the computer refuses to acknowledge its existence. Not even if I blacklist the onboard chip to keep it from falling back into previous bad habits.

The other elderly laptop (with the working wifi) has a cam that tops out at 640 x 480, which I suppose might squeak by as a tiny facecam on Twitch, or for tutoring where no one cares about pixelization. The microphone, however, is crap. It's a tinny omni on the screen bezel that likes room noise more than my voice. I don't have an external microphone, and there's no onboard Bluetooth for my wireless headset. So I bought a USB Bluetooth adapter, which this computer is ignoring as hard as the other one is the wifi dongle. I have a wired headset with a mic, but because this computer is probably mere months too old to know what to do with an inline mic on the same jack as the output signal, it doesn't register at all.

The camera on my phone is potato quality, because that is honestly about how much the phone cost. Ditto the refurb Kindle. Neither is smart enough to keep up with streaming video, which I found out when I tried to do a video rehearsal for something months ago. 

I have no place to do any kind of professional non-entertainment streaming work (e.g., tutoring) with my terrible equipment in any event. I don't own a desk. If a free desk appeared on my doorstep tomorrow, I would have nowhere to put it. My bedroom is small enough to contravene the Geneva Convention requirements for POW cells and I'm basically stuck in here, for reasons of both air conditioning and not having to interact with a house full of people who very much want me gone.

What I do have is a set of working emulators and some free video editing software, so I decided to take a stab at a subtitled Let's Play. I can certainly ramble on for 30 or so hours of Final Fantasy II. At the very least it'll give me something scheduled to do. So I pulled everything out and set it up, only to find that my controller was "pining for the fjords" -- no lights, no acknowledgement from RetroArch, no response to any button presses.

...

...okay, well, at least we're down to a level of equipment I can afford to replace. So I am waiting for the mail carrier to bring me another $10 gamepad, whilst stuck in bureaucratic hell. I'm down to emergency public assistance, which keeps asking me to send them random documents, inconveniently one at a time. Even when I can submit them online I'm required to wait a minimum of 2-3 business days before a human can look at them. I'm trying to not be mad -- they are clearly horribly overworked -- but it also leaves me with a lot of time to do nothing but busy-wait. They've finally decided I'm destitute enough for food stamps, so now I have to sit on my hands until the card arrives in the mail.

The chronic, crushing lack of resources is not helped by (or helping) the fact that I'm just not functioning very well. I was already on the edge of disintegration when the lockdown orders hit anyway; I was taking every piece of work I could find in an effort to scrape together enough for first/last/deposit on a new apartment, and honestly that's more than I can handle. I can consistently get to about 20 hours of "stuff that can't be done while in bed, wearing pajamas" per week, with occasional spikes up to about 30, before I start losing the ability to take care of myself. I skip showers, let my living space become a complete disaster area, and go to bed without dinner because the whole process of choosing something to eat, preparing it, eating it, and cleaning up after myself is so overwhelming that I just burst into tears and don't do it. I fed the rats twice a day and cleaned their cage once or twice a week, but couldn't manage to do the same for myself.

It's difficult to explain to people the state of being physically and mentally exhausted without also being sweaty and shaky from muscle fatigue. Perhaps the single most salient example I can give is lying in bed at night and realizing I kind of vaguely needed to pee. Not like urgently -- just enough that I knew if I didn't, I'd wake up the next day with an uncomfortably full bladder. Then just lying there anyway, not because I thought suffering was noble or I deserved it or anything idiotic like that, but just because taking care of it would involve standing up, walking into another room, and initiating a new task, and I did not have the capacity to do any of those things.

If you suggest I start making a to-do list, I will sit down right now and invent a brand new Blunt Object Transfer Protocol (botp://) expressly for the purpose of punching you, personally, in the face over the goddamn internet. I will even credit you in the patent application. I will not share the licensing profits, which judging from social media right now, would be approximately all of the money on the face of the Earth. I do not need "life hacks". 

What I really need is a case worker, or possibly a babysitter, or just to have shown up at the ER about two months ago, because that is the only way I have ever found to get people to pay attention when I ask for help. Otherwise I get triaged out of sight and out of mind -- they ask if I'm suicidal, I tell them no, they tell me 'okay, here's a prescription for six Xanax and a packet of resources, go home and fix it yourself'. I'm just like, you sons of bitches, do you think I don't know how to Google things? If I could fix this on my own, I wouldn't be talking to you. Except I can't right now, because plague.

Everyone wants to fob me off on someone else. I was referred to an SSDI attorney by a friend, because frankly that's where I'm at right now. I wrote to them, specifically mentioning his name and the associate who helped him, and explained that I was basically a vegetable and I needed help applying for disability. I'm a college-educated suburban white girl, who grew up hearing her parents make rude jokes about welfare queens -- I have no idea how any of this works and I'm so broken I kept losing my place in a blanket whose pattern was literally "knit-purl-knit-purl to end of row; turn work over; repeat". Their response was "Sounds like you need some help applying for SSDI/SSI disability. Here's the website for the Boston Bar Association, good luck!" Crisis lines of both the psychiatric and financial varieties keep directing me to one of two national clearinghouse sites for social support services, both of which direct me to each other, because neither has any programs in my area.

I am trying really, really hard not to resent the ever-loving fuck out of anyone who has any sort of support system right now. One housemate has almost the exact same list of medical problems that I do, and is also completely out of work right now. She is married to the one who has a grown-up salaried WFH IT job, and will never have to worry about having a roof over her head or food in the cabinets. The single housemate has supportive family literally a five minute walk down the street; if she ever gets her feet kicked out from under her, she can stay with them temporarily while she scrambles back up. Another friend yote out to California right before lockdown to stay with his family. A local offered to help me with paperwork, then ghosted me intermittently before explaining that he was having a hard time himself right now and barely had the capacity for his own life. I have an elderly rat, no more savings, and no options.

I don't even know how I'm going to move the little I own. How do you even ask people to do that in the middle of a pandemic? If I don't have the money to move, I definitely don't have the money for a moving company, and I'm envisioning all of my community-minded friends pursing their lips in judgement and declining because like all the good people they are diligently social distancing.

I have also discovered, while hauling an empty suitcase out to Watertown and a full one back home again, that I do not cope well with face masks. It's fine if I'm not doing much, especially if I'm in a climate-controlled space like a store or the T, but as soon as I exert myself at all, I see spots. And no, it is not a matter of "just get used to it"; I have tested this by trying to wear a mask during my home workouts. It is just stuffy enough under there, and there is just enough reduction in air flow, that the world keeps going all film-grainy and dark on the sides, which I know from experience is the first step on a very short path to the Magical Land of Syncope. I had to stop during the outdoor trek and sit on the suitcase about twice a block through the commercial district, where it stayed on because there were people. This was when it was 72 whole degrees out (and the AC is generally on 74°F inside) which doesn't bode well for moving my heavy shit around in late August. 

I'm normally good at catching things at the weird-vision stage, although enough random strangers and T employees have asked me if I'm okay that I have to assume I look as ill as I feel at that point. And I have an absolutely tragic talent for talking people out of calling emergency services when I do actually keel over, but everyone is so health-panicked that I don't think it would work right now. I know what's happened and why, but I can't exactly communicate that to bystanders when I'm unconscious. As nice as EMS is, I don't feel like waking up to a round of Twenty Questions ("How many fingers am I holding up? Who's the President? Do you have a seizure disorder?"). So I just don't go out.

Alison over at Ask A Manager got a question about this the other day that suggests this is considered legitimate can't-(always-)wear-a-mask territory, and I am able to wear a mask where required in MA, which is indoors/during interactions with other people when it's actually useful, so I don't have any qualms on the scientific or legal front. I have just never been a good judge of how much potential peril/damage it's "reasonable" to put up with, and I don't have the capacity to explain myself over and over again a million times a day. 

I'm fucking tired. I'm tired of covid, I'm tired of living in a big glitzy continent-spanning banana republic, I'm tired of anxiety, I'm tired of other people carping at me to do things I can't in order to fix their anxiety for them, I'm tired of not having the space to dance, I'm tired of asking for help before things fall apart and being told 'well, come back when it is an emergency', and most of all I'm tired of this cycle where I tell myself "I'm going to stop being lazy! I'm going to put on my big-girl pants and wake up early and work 40 hours a week and support myself like an adult!" and then fail at it again because I just do not have the capacity to do that. I do not know how to make the system understand that I need some kind of support right now. 

Sorry for yet another depressing update, but that's where I am right now.

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[hope-for-olicity]

Crushing the romance stigma once and for all Romance novel sales tally in the billions of dollars every year. (That's right: billions. With a "b".) And still, literary critics and other various bookish snobs continue to malign the genre, loudly and with great disdain. Why is that? If you ask these folks, they'll tell you romance novels are nothing but badly written trash. So, y'all have read a bunch of romance novels before forming that opinion, I assume? ​Oh, no, they'll say, noses tipped heavenward. They don't read romance (with all the contempt in the world placed on the word "romance"). Huh. Now I'm confused. Why would people be so openly hostile to a genre they've never read? I think I can tell you why.​The romance stigma and genre misconceptions are so deeply ingrained in us as a society that we have trouble overlooking them, even with glaring examples to the contrary. Heck, even bestselling romance authors like Nicholas Sparks hesitate to admit they write romance. Mr. Sparks insists that he writes “love stories”. On his website, Sparks lays out the difference between “love stories” and romance as follows: “It’s equivalent to the difference between a "legal thriller" and a "techno-thriller." In that instance, both novels include many of the same elements: suspense, good and bad forces pitted against each other, scenes that build to a major plot point, etc. But aside from the obvious, those novels are in different sub-genres and the sub-genres have different requirements. For instance, legal thrillers generally have a court room scene on center stage, techno-thrillers use the world or a city as their setting. Legal thrillers explore the nuances of law, techno-thrillers explore the nuances of scientific or military conflict. ​ The same situation applies with romance novels and love stories. Though both have romantic elements, the sub-genres have different requirements. Love stories must use universal characters and settings. Romance novels are not bound by this requirement and characters can be rich, famous, or people who lived centuries ago, and the settings can be exotic. Love stories can differ in theme, romance novels have a general theme—‘the taming of a man.’ And finally, romance novels usually have happy endings while love stories are not bound by this requirement. Love stories usually end tragically or, at best, on a bittersweet note.” I’m sorry, no disrespect intended, but if you’ve written a story in which the romantic relationship between two characters is the focus, you’ve written a romance novel, Mr. Sparks. The rest is just splitting hairs and can probably be construed as you protesting a bit too much. Throwing in a depressing ending doesn’t completely excuse you from the genre. Sorry. So, let’s take a look at the most common romance complaints and see if there’s actually anything to them: Romance novels are badly written I don’t know if y’all picked up on the implied “all” in that sentence, but I sure did. I don’t know of any genre outside of romance where people feel comfortable saying “all” of it is badly written. Are there some stinkers in the bunch? Absolutely. But I’ve also read plenty of stinkers in the sci fi, horror and mystery genres. I suppose my response to critics who say romance novels are badly written would be: have you read all romance novels? No? Well…there you go. And further...if they’re so badly written, why are they selling so well? Romance novels are formulaic I suppose this might depend on how broadly you define “formula”. For example: 1 person + 1 person = love and happiness Is that how a formula is defined? Because if that’s the definition, it could be argued that romance novels are formulaic. It is a somewhat unspoken “rule” that romance novels end with a HEA (happily ever after). But in my opinion, there’s A LOT that can happen in the middle of that particular formula, and there’s about a gazillion ways that particular equation can be worked out. I’ve read romance novels about everyday people with typical problems, and I’ve read romance novels about vampires and witches and angels. All the lovely variations in which the “formula” can be worked out and twisted about sure can make for some entertaining reading. Romance novels are predictable Again with the implied “all”. Sigh. I’m pretty hard to surprise. I knew that Darth Vadar was Luke’s father well before Luke did. I knew that one of the dead people Haley Joel Osment was seeing was Bruce Willis way before Bruce Willis knew. I knew what was going on at The Red Wedding well before Talisa took that knife to the gut. But I can honestly say that more than a few romance authors have managed to throw me for a loop with their plot gymnastics. (I’m looking at you, J.A. Redmerski!) So, are there some predictable romances out there? Sure. Can it be argued that the HEA is predictable? Absolutely. But to those still arguing this point, I have to ask: is your enjoyment of a book dependent on your inability to predict the story’s ultimate direction? Even if you know where the story will end up, can you not just enjoy the ebb and flow of the story, the writer’s word choices, the snap of the dialog and crackling chemistry between characters? If not...well, that’s kind of sad! Why bother reading at all if that’s the case?     There’s no plot; it’s all just about sex This is another one of those all-inclusive statements that should just be ignored. Are there some romance novels that are all about sex? Sure. And there are plenty of others that are intricately plotted (author Tarryn Fisher comes immediately to mind here) and meticulously researched. Beyond that, there’s even an entire subcategory of sweet and clean romances (even some Amish romances) that don’t contain any sex at all. Lesson to be learned here: As a rule, “all” and “never” statements are crap. “Real” writers don’t write romance Who gets to define what a “real” writer is? Was there some kind of specially appointed task force for this that I wasn’t aware of? As it turns out, writing is an art. So, just like any other art form, opinions on what is “good” and what is “real” will tend to vary greatly. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and there are no wrong answers. And just for the record, Jane Austen wrote romance novels. Anyone care to tell her—and her legions of rabid fans—that she wasn’t a real writer? No? Didn’t think so. Romance novels are unrealistic The “unrealistic” criticism usually exists in a couple of different forms: 1. The heroes and heroines are all perfect looking It’s true that as a society, we like pretty stuff. For that reason, you will find an abundance of pretty, seemingly perfect people in romance novels (especially on the covers). But, you’ll also find plenty of people who don’t fit into a perfect Barbie-and-Ken mold. I’ve read romances about a paraplegic hero, a heroine with CP, and a heroine so unattractive the hero is uncomfortable around her until he gets to know and love her.   2. HEAs don’t happen in real life You know who doesn’t believe in HEAs? Unhappy people. It’s true that no one is happy all the time, but to assume that no one ever gets a HEA is insane. There’s plenty of happiness out there for those who are willing to reach for it. And on a less philosophical note, I think romance readers generally understand that “HEA” is just a phrase. No one assumes that the main couple in the story continued to live out their lives without ever having another care in the world. The HEA is just where the story ends. Romance novels are just “bodice rippers” This one stems from a trend in the 70s and 80s that had innocent virgins (mostly in historical novels) on book covers being accosted by burly, half-dressed dudes (often Fabio) who were pretty much forcing themselves on them. Much like clothing and hairstyles, romance novel trends have also changed quite a bit since the 70s and 80s. For anyone who believes that all romance novels are “bodice rippers”, I encourage you to change out of your velour leisure suit, shut off your 8-track player and lava lamp, and venture to your local bookstore’s romance section. You’re in for a big surprise.   Romance novels promote abusive relationships I’ll let you in on a little secret, folks. (Come closer…wouldn’t want this one getting out to just anyone) Women sometimes fantasize about being overpowered by a man. It’s a pretty standard fantasy, actually. Some dude (who looks like Thor or Wolverine) overcomes all of her good-girl protests and better judgement with nothing more than the raw animal power of his overwhelming manly hotness. No consequences, no one gets hurt. Does reading about such a fantasy make women prone to asking their husband/partner/lover to abuse and overpower them on a regular basis? No more so than reading To Kill a Mockingbird makes people prone to becoming lawyers, or reading The Bourne Identity makes people prone to amnesia. Typically, readers are capable of distinguishing between fantasy and reality. Critics who spew drivel about romance novels promoting abuse against women seem to think otherwise, though. And further, as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve read a lot of romance novels. A. Lot. The portion of those novels that featured a man overpowering a woman amounts to maybe 2% of the total. It’s hardly fair to assume that all romance novels—or even a majority of romance novels, for that matter--promote that kind of relationship.   It’s just “mommy porn”       Sorry, but it’s just not statistically possible that all of the billions of dollars’ worth of romances sold each year were read by mommies. Women and men (yes, men read romance, too) of all ages enjoy romances. This statement is just a desperate attempt by critics to shame readers into buying the types of books theythink everyone should be reading. It’s like trying to convince people they should be watching PBS all the time. PBS is a great channel, but sometimes, you need a little HBO. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just an egocentric bully trying to promote his/her own agenda. Romance novels are silly fluff     I’m not going to argue that romance novels are doing their part to cure cancer or end world hunger. (And truthfully, neither are any novels) Some romances are about light subject matter, and others cover much deeper topics such as the grief of losing a spouse, kidnapping and child abuse, murder and even survival in a post-apocalyptic world. And those are just a few examples of the not-so-silly-fluffy topics you can find in romance novels today. There’s plenty more where those came from. Long-story-short, it would appear that nothing is wrong with the romance genre that isn’t also a problem for any other genre, other than what ignorant critics think of it. So, what can romance lovers do to help crush the romance stigma once and for all? Well, the first step is to admit, out loud and to anyone who asks, that you love romance novels. No more sheepishness. No more hiding your romance novels in speculative fiction dust jackets. No more refusing to let anyone see your Amazon browsing history or your Kindle’s contents. Be PROUD of what you read. The second step is to promote the books you read that help crush these myths. That’s what we’ll be doing here at Romance Rehab. What about all of you proud romance readers out there? What other romance misconceptions piss you off? Let’s talk.

[trashkweeen-blog]

Class with the Countess - LuAnn de Lesseps

Oh, sweet LuAnn. Where do I start?

I have a love for the Countess that I truly cannot explain. I’m struggling to think of an instance where I was ever on her side. Literally every cool thing she does is almost immediately undone by an equal or greater uncool thing. 

Fucking a Jack Sparrow look alike on vacation was pretty cool. Trying to cover it up with the worst French i have ever heard come out of a French Canadian Mi’kmaw with parents from New Brunswick and Quebec was pretty uncool. I can’t really decide whether forcibly inviting herself on Bethenny’s Mexico trip that never happened, while wearing a white Armani suit, then leaving Bethenny with the bill was cool or not. I mean, it was objectively uncool, but I’m kinda here for anyone who pulls a power move on Bethenny. 

She called Carole a pedophile, then couldn’t spell it to apologize over text. Like, she just can’t help herself. She’s just self-aware enough to realize the moments in which we root for her, but not quite self-aware enough to carry them through. Like the fact that she literally sends this gif to people over text when they call her out on being the worst.

You give her one inch of approval and she will use it to the worst ends. She’s at her best when she’s raw and vulnerable and decidedly un-countess, but then she’ll invariably use those cool points to do something very countess. She’s like a snake eating her own tail, and I honestly can’t figure out why I love her so much for it. 

The best I can determine is that she’s like the Tony Soprano of the Real Housewives franchise. Not for obvious reasons - because our Lady Guidice wins there - but because she is such a compelling anti-hero that you kind of hate to love. 

Like Tony, she’s trapped in this inescapable delusion that romanticizes a golden age she caught glimpses of during her rise. She can’t keep from referencing royalty and high society she met and idolized in her youth, skiing in Gstaad, and dining with kings. Instead of seeing the absurdity and temporariness of it all, she bought right in. She saw her trash ass husband cycle through a handful of wives before her, but thought she was bulletproof. And now she coasts on the fantasy. 

And there’s hardly a moment that your sympathies don’t lie with whoever LuAnn is mistreating at any given time. You’re watching a character who can’t help but fuck up and hurt people, but who manages to mitigate our condemnation with rare moments of vulnerable confessionals. 

She’s a tragic anti-hero; you can watch her get arrested while threatening to kill cops, but when she shows up in an open robe and makes you laugh, you’re like well, maybe that cop deserved it.

So, i love LuAnn, and Class with the Countess was the book I was looking forward to reviewing the most. It was published right as the second season of #RHONY was airing, so we’re in a pre-Countless era here. We’re at peak Countess, getting advice from a woman who thinks she’s locked it all down, and who has yet to bang a pirate. 

I have no intention of going after low-hanging fruit here, by the way. I’m not going to count the ways that LuAnn doesn’t practice what she preaches. That’s tedious. So here’s what I learned from my “crash course in manners from New York’s favourite countess”.

The first section of the book, The Art of Being Yourself, is all about confidence, adventure, and casually moving to Milan to appear on Italian TV as a Sharon Stone impersonator? I don’t know. The first thing I truly loved about this section was LuAnn’s stated purpose for appearing on #RHONY - to expose her children to how technicians make television happen. I’m sorry, no. No, you didn’t. You absolutely did not agree to #RHONY so your kids could learn lighting and sound production. If Bravo has any footage of Victoria and Noel taking notes behind the scenes, please, I would love to see this. 

As long as I’m calling bullshit (and this is, like, the last time I will), I gotta address how LuAnn insists on referring to herself as American Indian. Carole has already schooled her on the preferred nomenclature (LuAnn’s iconic response below), so I’m not touching that. 

No, my beef is that the bitch is Canadian. Her father was from NEW BRUNSWICK. Sorry, countess, but I’m now claiming you. ONE OF US. ONE OF US. ONE OF US. 

Anyway, here are the highlights of the Canadian Countess’ advice for being your best self:

get a hobby (Jill Zarin!), preferably tennis or cabaret singing

don’t ever brush your hair in public. who was doing this? No, you know what, probably Ramona. 

when wearing Jimmy Choos, take “normal-length strides”. this is very key and very helpful. do not walk in lunges. you will never be elegant if your strides are not of normal length

have healthy gums????????

literally chew your food. I’m 100% serious, this book for real says that while in a “monastic Austrian spa”, LuAnn learned that chewing your food “thoroughly” makes it taste better. She spent the money on monastic chewing lessons so you don’t have to. stop swallowing your food whole, there’s a better way!

dramatize your look with an “eye-catching belt buckle”. i hate this so much.

The majority of this section reads like a Cosmo article that spans 82 pages, and contains about 3 pages of useful information. I’m down to hear your favourite makeup products and your go-to weekend bag staples. Why I also had to read 79 pages of LuAnn teaching me how to walk and eat like a person, as if i’m some sort of cursed beast recluse is beyond me. It is my sincere wish that we send this book to space as a reference guide for visiting aliens. 

The second section - The Art of Making People Comfortable - is my favourite. It somehow covers the gamut of social scenarios from like, eating at your friend’s house, to how you should address a king when in casual conversation for the second time. I now know not to wear gloves in the presence of a king, and that you can call a queen ma’am, which, like, does not sound right. 

Royal greetings aside though, this section is actually pretty legit. 

Which countries air kiss, and how many kisses to give? 

What are you sniffing for when the sommelier brings you a bottle of wine to taste? (cork)

How much should you tip a restroom attendant? ($1)

Which fork is the salad fork?(the leftmost one)

Where do you put your napkin when you get up from the table, but you’re coming back? (the chair)

There are checklists for dinner parties, cocktail parties, and overnight guest hosting. There are go-to dinner party menus. There are gift ideas for hostesses. There are even template diplomatic answers to awkward questions, opening lines for cocktail small talk, and conversation-enders. 

This section is actually super useful and I loved it. I’m not even touching the chapter on children. I’m saving all my capacity to judge parenting advice for Alex McCord’s book. 

The last section, though. Ugh. The Art of Seduction. 

I guess, first of all, I wanna say that LuAnn was a way hotter model than I expected. Whenever she talks about her modelling days, I always picture something like the cover of this book - a Wal-Mart portrait studio, waist-up shot of LuAnn in a statement necklace and a sensible blouse, selling me like, grapefruit spoons, or something. But this section opens with this photo:

and she was actually such a babe! good for you, Countess!

Anyway, this section made me barf into my hands. Here are some of LuAnn’s tips for catching your man:

have the kind of sex appeal that makes strangers on vespas pinch your ass as they drive by. This is not at all a chilling example of sexual harassment, but rather aspirational, and a sign that you’re doing something right. thank you, vespa man for validating my femininity!

find a good man by playing damsel in distress at tech shops. Listen, my boyfriend is a walking tech shop, and i can tell you for 100% certain that (a) he would not recognize a damsel in distress if his life depended on it, (b) his peripheral awareness while comparing gaming keyboards is slim to none, and (c ) he wants to explain RAM to me like my ex wanted to explain football scoring to me, which is zero amount. Do not do this. 

you can also find a good man in upscale men’s stores by discussing ties with them. Please do not walk alone aimlessly in clothing stores, telling men about ties. They will literally just assume you work there. I cannot fathom a scenario in which this is not weird. 

Maintain the romance in your relationship by surprising your husband on his business trip by showing up dressed as a Moroccan princess in disguise????? Maybe when the Count cheated with that Ethiopian princess, he just thought it was LuAnn again?????

Keep your grooming a mystery from your husband. Apply your skin care and makeup in private, and don’t let him see you pluck your eyebrows. How large of a house do you need in order to maintain this level of mystique? What if your husband finds your secret room filled with tweezers and lotion??? 

Don’t try to be emotional with your man, that’s what girlfriends are for!! Men aren’t as emotional as women, so don’t burden them with your hysterics. Do like they did in olden times, and get your hysteria cured by a doctor who gives orgasms. (also, like, that’s bananas, but I do very much wish that basic health insurance still covered getting beat off by a professional for emotional release)

make friends with doormen, including those at buildings you don’t live in, because you never know when they’ll lend you a helping hand. If this isn’t the most ho tip I’ve ever heard. I love it. 

Overall, this book is much like the Countess herself: there are moments of sweet, new money Molly Brown gently helping you use the right fork to keep from embarrassing yourself in front of Billy Zane.

But there are also several moments of your status-hungry mother smothering your kidneys with a girdle, and telling you to speak softly, polish your jewels and get to fucking Billy Zane. 

Quick Stats:

Pages: 258

Did it need to be that many pages: good sweet god, no

Did it change my mind about the housewife? It was better than I expected, but there’s no way to change my mind about LuAnn anyway. I’m a Countess apologist for life. 

Real-ass book rating: 📖📖/5

Junk food book rating: 💎💎💎/5

[teenwolimagines]

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

A/N: So no title cards for a little bit and in other news I sadly won’t be posting as much due to work but this is not a hiatus. 

Waking up Theo felt...normal.

More normal than he had felt since the Dread Doctors crept into his life, he wasn’t waking up in some dank tunnel on a rickety cot he dared not ask the origin of. 

He wasn’t waking up to a two strangers he had to constantly terrify and  keep in line, and he certainly wasn’t waking up to cop shining a light in his eyes.

He was waking up in a warm bed, in a house where he had nothing to do. No life or death situations.

He sat up and looked over at (Y/N) who was half on the floor, looks like someone fell out of bed.

He should wake her up, sleeping like that couldn’t possibly be comfortable. So he gently shook her foot.

‘Mmm you rat... get outta here.’ she mumbled kicking her foot, Theo easily avoided the attack with a laugh.

‘(Y/N).’ he said a bit loudly.

She shot up and looked around frantically.

‘Where’d ya go you-you...heeey Theo.’ she started off angrily but eased into a more relaxed tone once she realized where she was.

‘Morning, so what rat were you talking about?’ he smirked.

‘I was in some market and all the stuff was free and delicious then this rude rat jumps in my basket.’ she yawned as she explained her dream.

‘What did you dream about?’ she asked while standing up.

‘I didn’t have a dream.’ Theo was surprised by the truth in that statement.

His sister didn’t tear his heart out last night.

‘Well better luck next time, come on lets go make breakfast. After we brush our teeth of course, there is an extra toothbrush in the medicine cabinet.’ she said as she stood up and went to the bathroom.

Theo sat up and stretched looking at her as she walked away.

Who was this girl?

She came out of nowhere and in less then two days had already the best thing to happen to him since he was ten.

While he was grateful, endlessly grateful for her letting him stay here, but last time someone came from nowhere promising him a better life he had to kill his sister.

Deciding to shake that thought away, and just enjoy this as the good thing it seemed to be.

She hadn’t asked him for anything, or given him any ultimatums so maybe this was just as it seemed.

His way out of that life.

Sadly, as Theo had finished that thought his phone chimed with a message.

No one, literally no one, had his number...other than the McCall Pack Members. 

And they didn’t exactly send Theo trendy memes, they only texted him if they were short handed and desperately needed help. Even then he wasn’t fully trusted and after they just cut him loose.

Theo had half a mind to just ignore the call and let Liam and his weird friends handle it alone, but he couldn’t.

Because if there was something running around killing people again, that meant (Y/N) wasn’t safe. If Theo ever wanted to do anything good for anyone, it was gonna be for her.

So he opened the text.

Meet us at the library ASAP

Theo groaned internally as he threw the phone onto the bed, he sighed as (Y/N) exited the bathroom.

‘What did the phone do?’ she smiled.

‘Nothing...just a friend that doesn’t realize I’m not in High School anymore.

‘Trust me you won’t be out of place, its amazing how many people who don’t attend that school...go to that school! No security at all, I’m telling you the place just isn’t safe.’

‘Tell me about it.’ Theo chuckled as he headed to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

‘If you are going to the school, do you mind me catching a ride, I’ve been wanting to stop by and talk to some of my old teachers to write letters of recommendation.’

Theo paused his teeth brushing and looked over her.

‘What school are trying to get into?’

‘Well, I’m trying not to put all my eggs in one basket, applying all over the place honestly, but NYU is the goal. They have an amazing art program, I spent almost all last year on college tours and no one compared.’ she rambled excitedly. 

Theo nodded and went back to brushing his teeth.

College.

He hadn’t finished high school, he’d have to go online and aim for a GED.

‘I’ll give you a ride, we can stop for food on the way.’ Theo said.

‘Nope.’

‘What?’

‘I can only assume your body is seventy percent McDonald's, do all the push ups you want, but that food isn’t good for you. I have some fruit salads we can have on the way.’ (Y/N) said sternly.

‘Fine, let me get some clothes from my car.’ 

‘Cool I’ll get dressed.’

Ten minutes later they were in his car on there way to the most dangerous place in Beacon Hills.

‘Hand me a fruit salad.’ Theo requested, glancing at two packaged salads in her lap.

‘Hey you are the driver, and I’m a passenger, my life is in your hands. So keep them on the wheel.’ (Y/N) said as she opened one.

Theo rolled his eyes, believing that she was gonna make him wait til they were at the school.

‘Here.’

Theo looked down at the strawberry that (Y/N) was holding out to him.

‘Say ah.’ she smiled.

Still a bit confused Theo opened his mouth and accepted the berry that was offered to him, and every other fruit she held out for him.

This is weird, she is weird, anyone just being nice to him was weird.; good weird.

The pulled into the parking lot and Theo parked in the visitors area.

‘I’ll be in the library.’ Theo said as they got out of the truck.

 ‘Alright, I’ll meet you there after I’m done OK.’

Theo watched as she headed toward the main building, sighing as she disappeared behind the double doors.

He stood there a second longer before heading to the library, Mason was waiting by the door to let him in since he didn’t have a school ID badge to get in anymore.

‘What took so long?’ Liam asked.

‘Some of us care about our appearance.’ Theo smirked.

Liam rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything.

‘What do you want?’ Theo asked seriously.

‘Things have been quiet.’ Liam started.

‘Like suspiciously quiet, considering how bad things were not too long ago. Like maybe someone is plotting something, kinda quiet.’ Mason added.

‘Well the Anukite was responsible most of that madness, but not all of it. I think Monroe took her heavy hitters with her when she ditched town.’ Theo replied as he sat down.

‘It would explain the sudden surge in vacant houses.’ Mason said.

‘That and the fact that everyone knows this town is horror show and they’d have better luck surviving at the Bates Motel.’ Theo added.

‘So the bad guys left because they lost and everyone else is leaving because they’re scared of us?’ Liam asked.  

‘Pretty much, look I know you’re ready to prove you’re ready to take charge as an alpha. That doesn’t mean looking for trouble when there isn’t any.’ Theo advised.

Liam’s muscles tensed the way they always did when he was struggling to control his anger.

‘Maybe he’s right man, maybe things are just good for now.’ Mason suggested.

'What if he’s wrong and there is something going on?’ Liam argued.

‘Then he’s wrong, what are we gonna do? Go around driving yourself nuts over a problem with no clues, leads or confirmation that there even is a problem?’ Mason reasoned.

‘Fine, but keep your eye out for anything suspicious, I mean anything.’ Liam conceded.

‘Cross my heart.’ Theo smiled.

‘Do you even have one?’ Liam glared.

‘If I did you’d be breaking it.’ Theo said in mock hurt.

‘Theo?’

The chimera turned and saw (Y/N) walking into the library.

‘How’d you get in without-��

‘I actually follow rules and get a visitors badge when I come here.’ she interrupted holding up the badge.

‘Who is this?’ Liam asked, eyeing (Y/N) suspiciously.

‘I’m (Y/N), Theo’s friend.’

‘Theo doesn’t have friends.’ Liam replied.

‘Okay, that was a real dick thing to say kid, I don’t know what your beef is with him, but Theo has been nothing but nice to me. And you clearly  don’t dislike him too much since you called him here.’ she sassed.

Liam looked taken back, clearly not expecting her to talk back or defend Theo.

‘Are you done here Theo?’ she asked, turning her back to Liam and Mason.

‘Uh yeah.’

‘Good let’s go home.’ she said pulling Theo out of chair and out of the library.

‘Rude little shit, why did he call you if all he was gonna do was put you down? I almost kicked him, and I never hit people! Not even in bumper carts.’ she angrily grumbled as the reached the car.

‘Did...did you just defend my honor?’ Theo asked.

‘Yeah, you got a problem with that?’ she snapped.

‘Nope.’ he smiled.

‘Good.’

[hyperballadofthesenses]

some other interesting tales from the green man

SO. I mentioned the professor earlier who basically poured out his personal life to me, right? Well, we had those final presentations today for the art theory class, and all the chairs were set up in a kind of like a thrust stage near the projector and a table where people could put up props, objects, and whatever they needed for their presentations. The chairs were rollable, so everyone was kinda slipping around. I was sitting in one of the first rows, and this guy was in the second row but like 4 chairs to my left. 

So, as the presentation goes on, he gets closer and closer and closer to me until he’s directly behind me a bit on the left. Whenever we have to do anything interactive with people next to us, or whenever I’d talk to anyone, I could just FEEL his eyes on me. Whenever we had to get up to participate in a project or anything, he was ALWAYS in my general vicinity and... do you know that thing where you can just feel the distance between you and another person? Yeah, that was me, and I’m not sure if it is some weird mutual thing, but there’s some kind of tension going on and it’s actually kind of maybe alarming? But yeah, there is tension in general, and I’m honestly not very sure how to take it or feel about it. I should also mention that whenever we made eye contact he would kinda blush and grin and I would too and it was all really weird. Also, during every single break, he would find a way to talk to me.

Anyways, so the projects are all over and we’re still in the lecture hall, and we’re in the general vicinity and he’s looking at me, so I go over and have a farewell conversation. After all, he was a really good teacher and a nice guy in general, and (I seriously hate to admit it) I think he’s really cute. That being said, it’s a no, and this ain’t the best situation, though it might help my grade later on, which sounds awful I know, but that’s beside the point. 

So I kind of wanted to see his reaction to something vaguely rude, so I said, “You know this might be the last time we ever see each other, maybe?” since I wasn’t sure if I would be taking his class. Although it’s a general education requirement, it’s in my major, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t be assigned to a different one to complete the requirement. Well, as a response to my statement he told me how I was sure to see him around, and I could come to visit him, and how I really should take his class. I said that there was a chance I wouldn’t get into the class even if I applied, and he said that he would “make sure” to get me into the class, even though earlier he just gave me a ton of application info and said it was entirely up to the department but I should just write a good application. 

He told me that I would make a really good filmmaker and then asked what I’ll be doing this summer (for the fourth time now), and what films I’ll be watching. I showed him a list, and since this guy is a fucking encyclopedia, he had seen pretty much all of them (it’s a list of like 40 films, which is so mindblowing to me). He then told me that he had been thinking about recommendations for me and would email me throughout the summer, which also was a bit strange. Like... throughout... the summer... 

He also had recently returned from a conference in (my hometown), and he said, “When I was in (my hometown) I thought about you.” which honestly is A LOT. He then told me about his summer plans, and then I realized he has never once mentioned his wife to me. What the fuck. All the other professors who I’m close with casually mention their spouses because they’re comfortable with the fact that they’re close with their spouse... it’s like he’s hiding something. I swear I’m not making that up.

But yeah, moral of the story is that the guy seems to like me QUITE A LOT and really wants to see me... he also did say something about seeing how I’m doing for all 4 years or something... but I can’t remember what he said explicitly.

Anyways, I need to go rest in peace.

[loveashley3]

Snitches Get Stitches....Literally

Usually, I would be writing to talk about my works, creative brain, and current things I'm working on; or I’ll be talking about anything related to art and fashion, but today, I’m taking a break to talk about a writer who felt recently felt the wrath of Black Twitter!!! Let’s meet Natasha Tynes, a Turkish-born author in Washington, D.C. who calls herself a “champion for all people of color.” 😒

Natasha was on the Washington D.C. Metro train on Friday only to find..gasp….an African American woman in a Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority uniform sitting in front of her, alone, eating breakfast on the train. Now, of course it is against the rules to eat on public transit (this is for any public transit in the U.S.), but most of us normal people would have assumed, “Hey! This woman is in uniform, and she’s eating breakfast. She’s probably trying to eat this because her shift is about to start soon.” NOT Natasha!!! She confronted this woman, who was busy minding her business and eating her breakfast to tell her that she’s not supposed to be eating on the train. The woman’s response? “Worry about yourself!” Instead of Natasha doing that, she went into instant snitch mode!

WMATA responded, and of course, she replied. She was adamant about getting Sis reported and fired! Thankfully, there was a public servant who saw this, and happily shared it with Black Twitter!

Black Twitter saw this, and drug her for filth (she was drug for filth on Facebook as well) !!! Here are some of the comments (please excuse the harsh language):

Not only that, someone even took the liberty of changing her book cover for her!

Not only did Black Twitter give her the proper dragging that she deserved, but they also found the publishing house/PR marketing firm that was distributing her book, Rare Bird. Let me just say that Rare Bird doesn’t play around. When they found out about Natasha’s lovely actions, they dropped her immediately, halted distribution of her book, and issued this statement.

Unfortunately, California Coldblood are not living up to its name.

Within 12 hours, Natasha went from being an author to being dropped from distribution, and having all ties severed with her PR agency. She also has a one-star review on Goodreads. As for sis on the train:

Black Twitter knows how to hit people where it hurts. The book will be available on Amazon sometime in June. I just checked, and no one has given a review yet. Somehow, I think that's going to change by later today. Anyway, after Natasha realized her actions caused her to lose everything that she worked hard to accomplish, she issued this bland apology.

Girl! You are an author! You couldn’t write anything better than that? This is garbage, just like your actions and that book! Here’s Black Twitter with more:

Usually, I would read stories like this, and chuckle with excitement to myself, but today, I felt the need to share this. I can honestly say that I’ve somewhat been in the shoes of the WMATA worker simply because you’re just trying to work and live. Not only have I felt what it was like for another person of color to try to report you, but there have also been times where I tried to better myself with job opportunities, only for me to be shunned by another person of color, simply because something I did while minding my business, or just being my authentic self (I even had a black person to do this, but that’s another story).

Years ago, when I was a newly college graduate, I had applied as a night auditor at a hotel in my hometown. My friend had just left the position, and he encouraged me to apply for it. I had applied in the past, but never received a call back, so since my friend was encouraging me, I decided to give it a second try. I had just become natural (for those of you who don’t know, this is when your hair is free from chemicals, and you style it in its natural state), so I was still trying out different hairstyles, products, etc. At the time, I wore my hair in two-strand twists, but sometimes, I would take the twists down, and it would look like curly dreads. I had seen the ads for the night auditor position in several local newspapers, as well as on the websites of those newspaper companies (this was before Google). Not only did I apply (again), but I also added my resume with it.

The manager at this hotel was a Latina. I came in, professionally dressed, with my application and resume in hand. I introduced myself, and when I told her what position I was applying for, the manager immediately said, “WE’RE NOT HIRING AT THE MOMENT!” I paused, and I asked was she sure because I was told by more than one source that they were hiring for this position. She repeated herself even louder. I said, “Ma’am, not only did three different sources tell me this position is open, but it is posted in several newspapers, as well as on local websites.” She continued to say they weren’t hiring. I asked if I could still give her my application and resume. Not only would she not take it, she continued to say the hotel wasn’t hiring. I simply thanked her for her time, and I left. I was so confused as to why she would act like that. When I told my friend about it, he immediately asked how I wore my hair. I told him it was in two-strand twists, and in an up-do. Then, he said, “that’s why she told you they weren’t hiring. It was your hair!” He proceeded to tell me this manager was known for being discriminatory against black people, even though she was a person of color herself. He continued to tell me that if she was hiring for a position, and a black woman applied, if that black woman’s hair was not straight, or in a smooth ponytail, she would not hire her. He also told me that if a black man applied for a job there, and he had dreads or braids, she would not hire him. He also told me that she fired a young man that she didn’t even hire, simply because he had dreads. She told him to cut his hair, or don’t come back. He chose not to come back. When someone threatened to report her for racial discrimination, she would immediately cry and says that she was not racist. I tried to report her, but it didn’t go anywhere.

I still feel a certain way about the actions of that manager because it’s one of the many things we black women go through. Mind you, that was not the first time something like that happened to me, and sadly, it may not be the last. I hate that we go through things like this simply because we’re seen as a threat. It hurts, but it hurts even harder when it is another person of color who performs those discriminatory actions. There’s a difference between the outcome of that manager, and the outcome of Natasha. As stated previously, that hotel incident happened way before social media, so there was no way to record what happened and report it online. I had to find and call the number for corporate, go through hoops to get to the proper party, only to wait for someone to listen to what happened. I left several messages, only for no one to ever contact me. In Natasha’s case, she’s in the social media age, where everyone pulls out their phones to record everything, as well as reporting everything online. It was easily shared on every platform, website, and blog you can imagine, and she immediately went viral. As the saying goes, the internet is forever, so this is going to haunt her for the rest of her life.

What Natasha did to that woman was horrible, and she deserved everything that happened to her. Hopefully, she has learned her lesson to never bother anyone who’s minding their business because it can really hurt you in the end.

If you want to read more about this, just Google it. It’s everywhere, but you can also find it on The Root:

https://www.theroot.com/natasha-the-snitch-black-twitter-savages-dc-metro-tatt-1834682147

https://www.theroot.com/dc-metro-snitch-may-lose-book-deal-because-karma-is-rea-1834691795 (outcome).

[scholaarblog]

Hope is Not a Strategy

In high school, I played football for four years and loved the game.  I had a chance to play at the post-secondary level, but an injury to my knee and a lack of passion for the game when compared to basketball, led me to some different choices.

After high school, my friends and I would play Tecmo Bowl, and eventually, Madden on the Sega Genesis.  It is amazing how much I didn’t know about the game when I actually played it in person (clock management, when to call plays and why, and other fundamental coaching games). But when I played the video game, it actually taught me a lot about the strategy that I didn’t know about. For the first two years of my teaching career, I coached football, which I know I wouldn’t have had a clue to do if I didn’t play football as a video game.

Do I believe every video game will always push your thinking? No, but I don’t think it has to. Sometimes, it is okay just to check out and do something for the sole purpose of fun.  I love playing video games to this day, although I don’t do it as much as I once did.  But I also know that the “flow theory” implemented in game design is something that we can learn from in education. Finding that point of being too hard students give up, or too easy that students get bored, is something that is obvious in many games.

I recently read the book, “Screen Schooled: Two Veteran Teachers Expose How Technology Overuse Is Making Our Kids Dumber,” and by the title, you can see the authors have a clear view on technology in education.  I read it knowing that I wouldn’t agree with a lot of it, but that it would a) push my thinking and b) help me think deeper about my arguments. I am a firm believer in the idea that if I can’t make your case for you, then I probably don’t understand your position or mine.

This quote stuck out to me:

And it’s not as though teens are using their phones for learning, creating, or other productive pursuits. I can honestly say I’ve never taken a phone from a kid who was in the middle of exploring a cyber art museum. I’ve never had a parent complain that she walked in on her son having a late-night FaceTime session with a group of school children in Nigeria. Pretty much all I ever see kids do on their technology is text and Snapchat friends, play games, take pictures of themselves, check Instagram for likes, watch silly videos, and play more games.

In my notes, I  wrote the following; “So why don’t you teach them something different?”  Do we simply hope that kids use technology for meaningful things, or are we teaching them the opportunities that lie in front of them? I have been saying this often; hope is not a strategy.  If we want something different, we can’t just hope it happens. We have to do something.

Understand this…I see negatives with technology use, but I also see positives.  I have really been trying to focus on the positives while acknowledging the negatives. An “all-or-nothing” mentality is not helpful in education, or elsewhere.

This quote is also from the book:

To put this in context, when the elderly discover social media, they apply their real-life understanding of social interaction to it. My eighty-five-year-old grandfather just recently got on Facebook. He did this not to replace existing social interactions but to enhance these interactions. He continues to write, call, and see his family and friends with the same regularity as he did before. However, Facebook allows him a chance to increase the frequency of interaction in a way that is more dynamic and timely than writing a letter, but not as fulfilling as actually being with the people with whom he chooses to interact. He brings his lifetime of knowledge acquired through face-to-face interactions to every type of social interaction he has. Whether it’s a phone call, text, e-mail, or Facebook post, he can accurately predict what type of remark will elicit what type of response from the recipient. He can also differentiate what setting is appropriate for a formal or informal tone. Despite being new to the technology, he picked up the nuances of Facebook instantly.

I love what was written here, and in my notes, I wrote, “Why aren’t we teaching kids more of this?”  I have said this often, “technology is not meant to replace face-to-face interaction, but it can be used to enhance it.”  That is precisely the point the authors are making with adults, but who is going to teach the students?

I have been thinking about this statement a lot lately; are we serving the score or the student?  A lot of times when I hear about schools (or countries) wanting to ban devices from students in schools, I wonder if they are focusing on “doing school” well, or helping serve kids in the world we live in now? Maybe it is both, or perhaps it isn’t. Either way, we have to find more ways to read the stuff we don’t agree with, find common ground, and figure out ways we can serve our kids.  The answers are rarely in the extremes, but often somewhere in the middle.  We can’t just hope for good things to happen, or hope bad things don’t. Education (and learning) in all facets of the world is always part of the solution.

April 3, 2015 The Game of School

December 7, 2016 “A Blessed Unrest”

November 16, 2015 The Relentless Pursuit of What Is Possible

February 4, 2018 “We call them leaders because they go first.”

January 19, 2017 Is leadership an innovative endeavour?

Hope is Not a Strategy published first on https://profitinfomastery.tumblr.com/

[andrewinireland-blog]

Blog Post #1: A New Destination

Here it is... my first blog post. 

I arrived to Dublin at around 8ish this morning. I am currently sitting in the hotel lobby typing this because I don’t really have anything else to do at the moment. I’m pretty much stranded here until tomorrow... well I guess I’m not really stranded, but I’ll probably be by the hotel for the day. But I’m in Dublin for crying out loud... so I shouldn’t even be complaining. 

Anyways, welcome to my travel blog! Whether it is because you saw this on Facebook or because I told you to look at it, any views are appreciated.  From now until July 29th, I will be in Ireland studying film, television and sports broadcasting. I am super excited that I can apply what I have learned so far in my media classes to a society I know little about. 

For anyone who doesn’t go to my university, TCU’s mission statement is “to educated individuals to think and act as ethical leaders and responsible citizens in the global community.”

The last two words, “global community,” are, in my opinion, imperative to the statement. It is very easy for one to act as an “ethical leader” and “responsible citizen,” but what is difficult is applying these characteristics to the “global community.” We (and by we I mean U.S. college students) are so accustomed to our own society that we can sometimes be blinded by other’s beliefs. As someone who had never gone abroad until the summer before his first year of college, I was honestly unaware of what the world was like beyond the U.S. People are different and every country has it’s own story. I want to uncover those stories and learn about different communities. 

Moving on, I am going to post a list of goals I am hoping to accomplish while I am in Ireland. Some of these goals are short term and some might not happen until I get back to the U.S.:

Do well in my classes. The first part of the term “study abroad” is the word “study.” Therefore, I believe it is important for me to do well in my classes. I would love to get As, but overall I just want to do well and learn something from my classes. 

Get to know my classmates. I think this one will be easy because I’ll be hanging out with them often, but regardless a goal is a goal. 

Take the Guinness Tour. I have a feeling that everyone is going to ask me when I get back from this trip if I went to Guinness. So hopefully after this trip I can say yes to that question. 

Go to the Cliffs of Moher. See Guinness Tour.

Try something new. Heck, I am in Ireland. This is the perfect opportunity for me to discover something new. Whether it is trying new food, new game or activity. This goal is vague and I think I will find something. 

Go to a festival. This one may be tough, but Ireland is known to have many different festivals. It would be really cool to run into one. I know there is a music festival, and art festival, a film festival, etc. So fingers crossed. 

Find Synge Street because I loved the movie. I would add Game of Thrones tour on this list, but we are already signed up for one and I am HYPED. 

Try and take a weekend trip to either London or Scotland. While it is nice to be in Ireland, I think it would be cool to check out another country.

 Do at least three blog posts a week (so 12 total). Travel blogs are either a success or a flop, so I am really hoping that this one is not a flop.

Okay, this last one seems obvious... but have a fun and positive outlook on this experience. Who knows if I will ever be back, so I should enjoy it while it lasts.

BONUS: Figure out how the light switches work in this hotel. 

I’ll probably be checking some off my list and adding some as the trip progresses, but I think this is a good list to work with for now. I am really excited to start this four-week journey. It’s a long time, but I know it will go by quick. Hopefully I’ll be able to check off as many goals as possible, but if not that is totally okay too. 

Here’s to hoping another blog post will happen soon!

[mrandyzavala]

Hi! I'm Back!

Hiiiiiiii Oh god, it's been so long.  So first: I AM SO SORRY.

I'm on my knees! Or sitting in a swivel chair.  

Second, there's a reason I took a hiatus....and then continued to write and rewrite the next blog....and then procrastinated. So first let me thank two dear friends who have been actively involved in marine mammal training for helping me get this latest blog out to the universe.  It was seriously like a gigantic poop that needed to come out, but just wouldn't no matter how many trips to the ol' W.C. it took. (Look, you are all zookeepers so I feel like you can handle this analogy.)

God that feels good

For those of you who don't know, I left the field to pursue the equally amazing field of forensic science.  Yes, I voluntarily put myself in FAFSA debt so I could hopefully one day be gainfully employed dealing with delicious science.  Mostly, I just wanted a lab coat and to use pipettes every day.  Anyways, I've been working hard at getting my M.S. in forensic science.  I LOVE it but it has completely taken over my life.  And I've been doing a lot of thinking about the marine mammal community....what it was like to leave it, what it's like to be on the outside, and what overlap there'll be in my new chosen field with the old one.  There are a few things I want to talk about.

The pipe really drives it home

First, some of the reason why it took me so long to publish this blog is because - honestly- I was pretty angry.   Was it at animal rights activists?  Or did I turn anti-captivity?

Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.  ...but candy. 

No and no.  While there have been a few incidents that have really upset me that have had to do with animal rights extremists (Vancouver Aquarium, anyone?), the thing that really hurt me was the belief some of you had that I "went to the other side."  That sentiment started happening around the time I started at National Aquarium, and it seems like it kind of spiraled into a sad little story.

It doesn't have to be this way

So let's just make sure you all know, I am NOT anti-zoo.  You know what I am? I am pro-animal, like all of you.  I believe in the incredible work that many zoos and aquariums do.   Those are the places that put their animals first, and the ones who are willing to take feedback (no matter how critical) and use it to make themselves better.  That was something I thought I'd find at National Aquarium; they want to do something different for their animals.  And you know what? Their dolphins are AMAZING.  Their vet and training staff are some of the most dedicated I've ever seen, both towards the animals and towards the staff.  I thought it was a really cool idea to think about building a state of the art facility for the animals.  Here's something really interesting I've come across since starting my new journey: the forensic science field -especially fingerprint and firearms comparison- has been pretty heavily scrutinized by not just the media, but institutions like the National Institute for Justice.  I mean, reading this stuff made me think, "Oh my god, the marine mammal community knows what this feels like."  It's the same song you guys know: a combination of smart people and people with strong opinions but with basically no real world experience make some pretty sweeping, damning statements about things they really don't seem to understand.

Because I has strongish feelings

But what's interested me the most in this parallel situation is not so much how the criticism (or its delivery...including documentaries, websites, official reports, etc.) is similar.  It's how drastically different the forensic science community handled (handles?) it as compared to the marine mammal community. I love you guys, seriously.  But what we collectively are not doing very well is responding scientifically to our critics.  Yes, I know a handful of you have, which is awesome. But collectively, we still basically dig our heels in the sand and declare that we are the "experts"....without actually acting like experts in our response to our critics. If you're super mad at that last paragraph, you're proving my point.  We have a really distracting emotional response to Blackfish, Ric O'Barry, or the disgruntled guest who thinks our dolphins should have bigger habitats.  We respond with buzz words, but not with empirical evidence.  Let's look at an example I encountered quite a bit at one of my former facilities. When we were discussing building a larger habitat for the dolphins, who live in a 60 year old exhibit, these are actual replies we got from those who had the power to change the situation: "There's no evidence supporting the notion that larger habitats are better for dolphins." "Saying you want a bigger dolphin habitat is what an animal rights activist would say." "Saying we need a better habitat means the one we have is not adequate, and it's plenty adequate.  It far exceeds the USDA requirements."

Look what we did to this poor pup

Sigh.  Okay.  Do you see the problem yet?  I know some of you do, because I've talked to you on the phone, via email, or in person about this issue.  And it seems to be pretty standard at most (not all!!) places.  And the problem seems to be a combination of the following: 1) Lots of newer generation trainers do not tend to agree with management in terms of ethics of habitats, treatment, and focus of their animal programs. 2) Saying there is no evidence supporting that larger habitats are better is....a circular argument.  There is no evidence because there is very little true research on this topic.  Guys, that doesn't count.  YES of course there are quantifiable facts we can share with the world; bottlenose dolphins tend to live well past their average life span in human care.  They reproduce very well.  That is a testament to great care, but it is not the same as saying we have "research" to prove our habitats are the best they can be.   To be fair, we have cranked out a LOT of fantastic veterinary/physiological research.  We even have a good chunk of cognitive research out there, which is fantastic.  But we need more behavioral and "welfare" research.  We need to define how we scientifically define wellness, and then measure that within our various populations.  

Marry me.

You know what forensic science did when they got nailed on not having enough true research?  When a Obama's presidential committee said, "Uh, your science like, isn't valid and you don't have any research to prove it"?  They did research.   They said, "We really disagree with this statement, raaaahhh we are so mad!! WE ARE SO MAD WE ARE TOTALLY GONNA DO RESEARCH TO SHOW YOU!" and they did.  There was an EXPLOSION of research and publications.  And many of these institutions did not have a lot of funding.  They had to apply for grants, or do some magical things with their budgets.  They knew they had to make it happen not just for their critics, but for their field of discipline as well. Let me tack on here that one common argument against conducting research in marine mammal facilities I've encountered a lot is that we don't have time in between shows and interactions.  I understand we have to make money to spend it on the animals. But that cannot be the end of the conversation. If we want to make our animal care the best it can be, and we call ourselves experts in a scientific field, we HAVE to make time for research. That means we have to get creative with our daily programming.  Other places have done this successfully, and there are a lot of really smart, creative people in this field.  If you are not interested in finding time to do research, then let people on your team who are motivated to do so find a way.  It is absolutely possible in most cases. 

Everything I've ever learned, I've learned from Will Ferrel movies

3) Wanting something NEW and "better" does not automatically mean you suck right now.  Change is a good thing.  Change is not giving in to animal rights activists.  It's being the zoological scientists we are and saying, "Hmm, this aspect of our care is going well.  But this one isn't.  Or it could be better."

Be like Rafiki. 

Lastly, I think it's important to be careful how we handle trainers and zookeepers who have these different ideas.   It's not as simple as "if you're not with us, you're against us."  SO many of you guys have told me that's how you feel it is.  Many of you have left jobs hoping to find a place that shares your morals when it comes to marine mammal care.  Many of you say you're sticking around where you work so you can work your way up the ladder to get into a position to change things.  Many of you bite your tongue because you don't want to be labeled as an animal rights activist.  I totally get that, because I've been in that position too. For example, one of the biggest criticisms I heard about National Aquarium's decision?  That the dolphins would be put in sea-pens.  Sea pens.  Like, the kind they have at Dolphin Quest.  DRC.  The Navy.  Okay, are we sure that we don't like sea pens?

Cool!

Wait, maybe we don't like animals going from a manmade environment to natural sea water.  How we will acclimatize the animals?  Um, why don't we ask those questions when we transport dolphins from similar conditions? From natural and/or outdoor habitats to indoor, manmade ones and vice versa? Guys, we do this ALL the time.   I've literally dumped a dolphin who made a transcontinental transport into a pool with two other male dolphins with zero acclimation.  He was fine.  The others were fine.   What I'm saying is, we can't just freak out because a facility decides to try something different.  Our arguments become really emotional, and really hypocritical.  UNLESS.  Unless we say, "Hey, you know what, maybe if we're uncomfortable with transport protocol, we should collectively study this.  And you know what? Let's pair up with that place we're not totally in agreement with to work together to gather some information, swap some ideas." 

But not on Saturdays.

But we keep getting hung up on "letting the activists win" or "we have to stick together" and shut down new ideas.  Guys.  Stop.  The marine mammal community has got bigger goals to achieve.  We've got to look at our facilities and say, "Let's do some research" and "What's working really well here...and what's really NOT."  We have got to stop criticizing other facilities for stupid things like....maintaining natural social groups, phasing out shows, whatever.  Those facilities are not dolphin huggers or weaklings who caved to Blackfish.  Those facilities are managing their animals a) the way most zoos manage their animals....in natural situations and b) those facilities are cranking out some amazing research.  Let's not make fun of them.  What are they doing that is working?  It may not be exactly what you want to do, and that is okay.  What's even more okay is sharing info with each other without passing harsh, sophomoric judgment.  Come on! Let's have some fun! Let's dream!!! What is YOUR dream facility? What kinds of things would you do there?  Start really asking yourself those questions, no matter what level you are.  And if you're in a managerial level, be open to new ideas.  Those are what make us BETTER.  They are not dangerous.  And let's do some RESEARCH guys!!! Get those training brains to work: if you love research, design some ideas.  If you hate the idea of research but love training, you've got endless opportunities to train some amazing behaviors.    Oh my god, there are so many incredible things you can do.  I know a lot of you....so I can only imagine what you guys can do with a little support from your institution.

With a gif like Bill Murray, you know I'm serious. 

I've got some cool content coming up, and some interesting forensic-y stuff, too.  So this isn't the end of the Middle Flipper, it just needed a breather.  Thanks for sticking with me! I heart you guys, no matter if you agree with this blog :). Feel free to reach out to me if you need to talk, whether you're supportive of my opinion or you want to have a mature discussion exploring our different perspectives!  from The Middle Flipper http://ift.tt/2punnEc