#(the football AU where we surprised ourselves when it was about football that one time)

[lovecanbesostrange]

Welcome to another installment of random RRCAU fic, from the big, big universe that lives on the Ruby Lucas Harem Discord, because konako got that one random ask that time. (ask us about the insane College AU now, I dare you, we have answers you don’t even want)

So, if you follow that, have another scene. But this one is, heavy, because it’s all about the big dramatic death around the end of the second year. konako made me cry with the short snippet, so I will now repay that favor with the aftermath in a bit of a long form.

(this is towards the end of Ruby’s sophomore year at college, Granny has just died)

Ruby felt numb. If she could even call it feeling. But it’s either this or crying. And this is more helpful to get through tasks on auto-pilot. Sometimes there was the anger, now like an old friend. But it’s snapping at her friends, pounding the sandbag at the gym, running like mad on the field (Coach is a human after all, didn’t even make her do laps after clearly running the wrong plays). The last few days were a hazy blur. Food, hugging, a bit of sport, people, asking for an assignment extension.

And the phone call with Anita.

She was numb during that, too. And it was for the best. They both knew Granny wanted to be cremated. Just like her husband. But Ruby knew that she also wanted her ashes to be scattered like his. And Anita had said no. She had made arrangements for the urn to be buried. A small service and a burial. Ruby had said she’d be there.

“Whatever.”

A response Ruby knew well.

Regina and Mary Margaret had brought her to the airport. She was using up Regina’s miles again. But she didn’t argue. When she landed she thought she’d get herself to the trailer park somehow, maybe a car rental. Ruby hadn’t thought about that. There was something though. And yes, there was, Mary Margaret had told her - Eva was already waiting at the exit.

Another hug. Long. Warm. Welcoming. It brought Ruby out of the haze a bit, so new tears fell. Tears for Granny. Dead. The last bit of happy memories tied to that place her mind kept insisting on calling home.

“... you can sleep in Mary’s room and I’ll take you to the airport day after tomorrow of course.” Eva already had it planned out, telling her in the car. “Ruby? Is that all okay with you?” Ruby tore off her gaze from the scenery outside, pulling her head away from the glass of the passenger’s window.

“Can we go to the Terrace?” Suddenly the name sounded hollow. “I’d like to get a couple of things.” Maybe she would be too late. Maybe Anita had thrown everything out already.

“Right away?”

“If you don’t mind, please.”

“Of course not, honey.” Eva held the steering wheel with her left hand and put her right on Ruby’s knee, squeezing. Comfort. Reassurance. “Tell me what I can do and consider it done.”

The hint of a smile pulled on the corners of Ruby’s mouth. This was Eva. This had always been Eva, even when she didn’t understand it. She got things done for her.

Pulling up at the trailer park felt strange. For one it was because Ruby was sitting in a nice car. Not rushing through the side entrance on her bike. It was also because Ruby could count the times she’d been here in the almost past two years and every time she got away from it, the place seemed smaller and further away. But mostly, without Granny this was just a glorified parking lot with a bit of green.

Eva parked and waited. Ruby unfastened her seat-belt, but she couldn’t get out. She looked over. Ruby didn’t know if she wanted to go in alone. If she could. Was it better to have Eva there as back-up? Or was that disrespectful?

“I… would you… can you maybe come with me? I don’t know if…” She didn’t know if she could even step a foot inside or would crumble at the front door the way she had days ago in front of her dorm.

“I’m right behind you.” Eva smiled. The warm mom-smile.

Ruby didn’t know if Anita would be here now. She didn’t bother knocking though and didn’t need a key. Nobody needed a key to get in, when you knew the lock wasn’t working properly and all you needed to do was lift the front door at the right angle and push hard.

Ruby opened her mouth, but closed it immediately to not say hallo into the void. Everything looked mostly as expected. There were a few empty alcohol bottles stacked next to the kitchen sink, Anita had been digging in. But she still got herself together to not let them lie around. Maybe that was good. Maybe that was something to care about.

Suddenly her home - the trailer - looked depressing. More than usual. Granny wasn’t sitting outside or lying in bed. The tiny tv was not running. That specific background noise missing was a big deal. Sure, Granny had been in and out of the hospital, but the finality was felt.

Ruby breathed in, the hitch alerted Eva and she touched her on her back, steadied her. The smell. Oh the smell was home. The mix of the cheap laundry detergent, the sharp air freshener, the lingering scent of Granny mixed with Anita’s aggressive perfume. It smelt a bit different than she remembered, but that was probably herself missing from this equation for a long time now.

Slowly Ruby stepped towards the bedroom. The smell of Granny got stronger. Without thinking about it she sat down on the bed. The linens crisp and clean, waiting for someone to sleep here again. There were pills on the nightstand. The little tub with daily doses already in order. Ruby picked it up. Monday and Tuesday were empty, she looked at Wednesday and the morning was missing. Right, after that Granny had called an ambulance. Thursday’s pills were untouched. Thursday had been the last time she had seen her. Ever.

Anita hadn’t touched anything in here as far as Ruby could tell. It was a surprise. Maybe she didn’t know what to do with all the stuff. And maybe, just maybe, there was more emotional baggage inside of her and she couldn’t let go of her mother. She had never left either. She could have. She could have let Granny rot alone in here and not just disappear a few days at a time, but forever. And yet Anita had always come back. Despite everything.

Ruby put the pill box back down and grabbed the framed photo. It was Granny’s wedding picture. She had never stopped loving that man that barely had time to get to know his own daughter and who never knew that his memory lived in a granddaughter he never met at all. They were a handsome couple. This was one of three pictures she knew she wanted above all else.

Her hand was already under the bed, searching the shoe box stashed there. Yes. She opened it and was greeted with all the letters she had sent home the last two years. It felt like so little, but she knew it had meant much. Granny had taken the photos from some of these out and put them on the wall next to the tv. But the pictures Ruby was searching were underneath it all.

An old black and white photograph. More brownish actually, genuine sepia, grainy, worn on the edges. It was Granny as a child with her three older brothers. It was the only thing Ruby knew of, that even proved they once had been alive. Before that fateful accident. Three brothers and their father, all gone in one go.

This family was cursed. Mothers and daughters left. And Granny’s mother hadn’t made it much longer on her own. Maybe Granny and Ruby got along, because they skipped a generation between. Mothers and daughters gave each other plenty of resentment.

And then there was the third picture. Granny with her dear husband and a fancy new car. The red Camaro had been out of their price range, but on their anniversary they had gone to the dealership, got a long test drive out of it and made that a date. Granny had talked about that day a lot. Grandfather promised them a brighter future where they would be able to afford a car like that. Not just stealing fake moments, but creating happy ones for real.

That had never happened.

Granny had deserved more and yet life had rejected her. But she had held on. Despite her heart condition, the many losses of family members around her, the slipping into poverty. Granny had always held on. For over 80 years. Nobody had thought that would even be possible. So maybe it was okay to say goodbye now. Now that Ruby understood how Granny could look at a picture of her dead husband for hours and feel nothing but love.

Ruby put the frame into the shoe box, then her gaze fell onto the chair. Granny’s knitted cardigan hung over the back. She’d always worn that grey monstrosity, though it was unflattering even on her. Ruby got to her feet and picked it up. She buried her face in the fabric. Granny. Yes, she wanted this. The pictures, her own letters, the cardigan. It meant something.

Tears began to fall again. Ruby wasn’t numb at all. Breathing in all the memories came rushing back. Sitting on Granny’s lap during Christmas story time; teaching her the sacred lasagna recipe; listening to unimportant happenings at school; the encouraging words when Anita’s indifference turned into vile insults; daydreaming of long trips with fingers on the maps of an old atlas; sitting in front of Granny’s bed, eating something from the microwave and letting Granny catch her up on her soaps. There had been love.

Eva had been silent all this time and given Ruby space. Now she stepped closer and wrapped her up in her arms. Ruby hugged the cardigan and felt Eva kissing her on the head. This was goodbye. But she wouldn’t be alone.

The service was lovely, but what really got to Ruby was seeing people attending. She had thought she’d be there alone with Anita, maybe Eva in the back. But there were a few neighbors. Mrs. Johnson even gave her a quick hug, she had come by like once a month to do Granny’s hair for free, but really it was about the conversation. Nurse Wilcox had retired herself three years ago, but before she had worked at the doctor’s office Granny got her subscriptions from. She had seen the tiny ad in the paper and wanted to pay her respects, remembering one of her favourite patients.

A part of Ruby wanted to scream, because she knew burying the urn in the dirt was wrong. Even though Anita had picked a nice little headstone. Ruby knew this was money she couldn’t really afford to spend. But causing a scene in the cemetery was the last thing she would do. She’d rather run away and not attend at all, while more than a dozen people paid their respects.

There wasn’t much said between Ruby and Anita. Who cared about one more argument and hollow questions about their current living situations? Ruby would remember the way Eva kept holding her hand, let her ramble through incoherent memories and tugged her into Mary’s bed. (Something Ruby rejected by getting up at night to sleep in the treehouse, the cardigan close to her chest.)

And when summer came around, Ruby would clean a whole week out of her schedule. No summer class, no work, not anybody around. Maybe it was irresponsible to blow through a portion of her savings, but she found a car rental that could get her that red 1975 Chevrolet Camaro. And maybe it was called grave robbing, but she dug up Granny’s urn and put her on the passenger’s seat. A week on the road right up to the beach where Granny had scattered her husband’s ashes.

That would be Ruby’s last goodbye. When she finally could let go of the woman, who had mostly raised her. The road trip they had talked about in giggling voices.

Turning into the parking lot was hard. And just when Ruby doubted she could scatter these ashes alone, she spotted Regina waiting for her. She had send so many texts to her friends and called to let them know she was okay, that Regina knew when she would arrive at her destination. Regina, who had been there when Ruby had last spoken to Granny. Fitting. Granny’s final blessing.

[highladyof-erilea]

Rowaelin Month, Day Two

A/N: Day two of #rowaelinmonth is officially here! I hope you enjoy and keep reading! See you tommorow!

follow my writing blog @highladyof-erileawrites

TW: Minor language

Word Count: 999

Prompt: College/University AU

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Throwing the blanket over her shoulder, Aelin huddled under the bleachers with Lysandra and the other cheerleaders while they waited for all the players to come out. They showed up before the football players were ready to start warmups, causing everybody to to have to huddle together from the winds. It wasn’t necessarily a bad day for a game, but it also wasn’t one of those days where the weather was just right and it felt perfect. There were a few clouds in the sky, but it wasn’t enough to make the officials cancel the game or worry about precautions.

Today Doranelle State played Wendlyn in the annual “battle of the bloods” football game. (Battle of the bloods referred to the two founders having a feud with each other) It was a big deal all throughout both schools and Aelin had been waiting for her chance to cheer at it ever since she was a little girl. Today was even more important than normal though. Not only was this her first year cheering as captain of the squad, but because her boyfriend, The Rowan Whitethorn, was finally the starting quarterback. She was proud of him, how hard he had worked to get there, working his was up from a walk-on his freshman year to a full scholarship and the end of last year. Aelin was also proud of herself too, as she had been there to support him every step of the way, never faltering when things seemed to be too hard. And today was no different.

Seeing that people were making their way into the stands and the players were gravitating toward the field to warm up, Aelin got the attention of all the girls. “All right ladies, it’s showtime! Remember what I told you! You will be dancing non stop for the next four hours so I hope you went to the bathroom and had some food. Don’t forget your poms, lineup, and let's go support our Wolves!!”

Aelin made her way up to the front of the lineup and took a deep breath, preparing her biggest smile and ran out to the sidelines cheering all the way.

---

The entire stadium held their breath in anticipation as the ref blew their whistle. After cheering on the team for so long, Aelin was ready to go relax but this was the moment everybody had been waiting for the whole game.

Doranelle was down by four with only 10 seconds left on the clock and needed as much luck as they could get. Not daring to break her concentration, Aelin kept her focus on Rowan and he was about to do. Although, maybe they didn’t need luck. They had Rowan Whitethorn.

--

Receiving the ball, Rowan drew his arm back preparing for a throw. As soon as he saw Lorcan running, he gave no hesitation when he let go of the ball, throwing it with everything left in him. They were thirty yards away from the goal line and couldn’t waste any time with hesitation. The game depended on it. When Lorcan caught the ball and ended behind the goal line, the crowd erupted in cheers and elation as the buzzer went off like the final call was already made. The Doranelle Wolves had won.

Before he could process what had just happened Rowan was lifted above a pile of sweaty bodies and he couldn’t contain his laughter. Looking around the stadium, Rowan took in the never ending cheers and chants with the biggest grin on his face.

He finally stopped when he was met with the most beautiful face he had ever seen with a matching form that may have been even bigger than his. Climbing down of his teammates' backs, Rowan made his way towards Aelin. He scooped her off the ground and spun her around as he crushed his lips to hers.

Rowan tried to break away from her but before he even got the chance to put her down and pull away from her, Aelin was bringing her lips right back onto his. They were almost like magnets that couldn’t be pulled apart.

Finally breaking apart, Aelin smiled against his lips. “You looked amazing out there Buzzard.”

Rowan couldn’t help himself. “Not as much as you did from the sidelines.” Rowan wrapped an arm around her waist, tugging her into his side.

Aelin tilted her head upwards replying, “I think our luck has run out.”

Rowan didn’t get a chance to understand what she meant before sheets of rain began pouring down on everyone. Their were shouts of surprise and dismay from players and patrons alike, but all he could focus on was how Aelin looked with her wer hair plastered to her body. Rowan kissed her again. “I think my luck just got even better. No practice tomorrow,” he said smiling against her lips. “We have all weekend to ourselves.”

Rowan heard a grunt behind him before Coach started yelling at him. “Whitethorn! If you don’t get your ass over here in the next ten seconds, everybody will be coming in tomorrow to run sprints.” There were groans around him audible enough to hear through the rain. His teammates started yelling at him to get over there too. Rowan scowled to Aelin. Coach could be a real asshole sometimes. He tried to grab Aelin harder around her waist, but instead she put her hands on his chest and pushed him away.

“You better get going otherwise it would seem that you got some karma instead,” Aelin smirked. “I’ll be waiting at home.” Aelin turned away from him, strutting off the field. Before she could get to far from him, Rowan slapped her ass causing a surprise , and cute, squeak to come from her. Her cheeks were bright red when she turned around to give him a death glare. It drew an even bigger smile on his face. Jogging back to the locker room, Rowan couldn’t help but imagine what was waiting for him at home.

[sweetsubharry]

do have any mpreg fics? (harry gets pregnant ofc)

Yes I do!!  💖 also of course ;) there’s about 54 in this list if I counted correctly!! so it’s a long one! 

Please stay safe and read the tags everyone!!

Worth the Wait by lovelarry10

“Harry, you’re scaring me. Why did you need me to come home? I don’t mind, not if you need me, but… tell me what’s happening, love.” “I…” Harry cleared his throat, but still the words wouldn’t come. His shaking hand reached down and pulled out the picture, his breath coming in shallow pants as he handed it to Louis, who took it from him, frowning down at it.

“Whose is this?”

Louis’ blue eyes met Harry’s green then, and Harry knew he had to tell the truth.

“It’s mine. Ours. I’m pregnant, Louis.”

*****

Louis and Harry had long ago come to terms with the fact they couldn’t have children. Rapidly approaching their forties, they’re settled at work, and more than happily married.

Life, however, has other plans for the Tomlinsons.

Fill My Heart With Sweetness by loopdelouis

Harry's a late bloomer, but since his luck is shit, it's no surprise that he'd be the last to get a heat, but the first to get pregnant. In high school.

Count The Wolves And We'll Sleep Tonight by scribblewrite

Louis's the Alpha of a powerful pack and Harry's his omega.

When Harry's taken by rogue alphas, Louis will do anything to bring him home safely.

yes, you make my life worthwhile by orphan_account

Harry whispers to him that this feels like every dream he’s had for the last three years and Louis kisses his temple, behind his ear, across his cheeks and by the edge of his jaw. He runs the back of his finger across Winnie’s sleep-warm cheeks and sighs, the weight of the world finally off his shoulder.

Louis' a pediatrician, Harry's a preschooler teacher, and they're having a baby.

Weigh Us Down (We're In Love) by orphan_account

Harry’s eyes widen slightly at that. “We’re friends?”

Louis nods eagerly, smiling even wider. “Of course we are! You’re like, my first ever friend here. We just moved in, you see. Did I already tell you about that? Anyway! Maybe you can stay for dinner and I can show you my toys?”

Harry smiles. “You’ll let me play with you?”

Louis nods again, excited. “Of course!” He looks thoughtful for a moment, and then he’s slipping off the couch and crouching in front of Harry. “Oh, and Mum always kisses my wounds after she fixes them up. It makes me feel loads better all the time, so.” He leans forward and puckers his lips, pressing them over the bandage on Harry’s knee.

(harry and louis first meet when they’re eight and ten. this is their story throughout the years.)

love is so good when the love is young by drunkonyou

Louis falls for his pregnant best friend who has a bit of baggage. They make it work though.

fell in love in the morning sun by lumineres

“I'm going to die,” he wails. After about ten minutes of being in the car the discomfort got to be too much and Louis had to pull over so he could get on his hands and knees in the back seat, the only position that seemed to appeal to him. He let's out another pained cry, then grits out, “But not before I fucking kill you. This was your idea, I swear, what the fuck Louis.”

Louis does not correct him this time, he'd made that mistake two contractions ago and nearly lost his head. It had actually been Harry's idea, he'd told Louis that he hadn't forgotten the condoms, he wanted a baby. It really wasn't any trouble at all for Louis to oblige. Within a month of trying (what a wonderful month, honestly), Harry was full of Louis' baby. Like magic.

or, harry's in labor for 30 hours. louis believes in magic.

Vanished by FicNess

Harry loved Louis, Louis loved Harry. It was perfect. But after a small slip-up during some rather poorly planned sexytimes, Harry made the decision to run away. He was pretty good at hiding but Louis was also pretty good at seeking. And when Louis found him he also found a little surprise.

resolutions and lovers in the kitchen by orphan_account

Their dinner’s probably going cold, but this feels monumental. So instead of sitting them down on the table and talking about it face to face over chicken and pasta, Harry just puts his hands over Louis’ where they’re settled on his lower stomach, not letting the moment slip past them. He takes a deep breath, carefully arranging his thoughts. “She looks really lovely, Louis. Positively glowing. Her bump’s so big, and…” he trails off, breath hitching slightly when Louis lifts his hand higher, settling it right over Harry’s stomach, and that’s—

“And what, baby?” Louis asks, voice now dropped to a whisper, and Harry has to take a moment to collect his thoughts.

“She, um. She knows about you, of course, and she asked me when we’re—when we’re having a baby of our own.”

(harry teaches little kids and louis writes sports articles. they're trying for a baby.)

I'll Stand By You by harrystanslouis

Harry and Louis have been hooking up for two years. What happens when an unexpected surprise is thrown into their world?

-An mpreg, A/B/O AU featuring stupid boys in love, lots of pining, and a happy ending.

So Long I've Been Waiting by kikikryslee

Niall held up his glass in a toast. “Cheers.” Harry stared at Louis as he brought the glass up to his lips, unsure of what to do. It wasn’t like he could refuse the drink, but he certainly didn’t want to have any champagne. Louis monitored everyone else, and as soon as they all had their heads tilted back, drinking their mimosa, he reached out and knocked Harry’s glass right out of his hand, sending it crashing to the floor. “Oh, no!” Louis pretended to be shocked at what had just happened. “Harry, you’re so clumsy. You dropped your glass.” “Yes,” Harry said seriously. “I am very clumsy.” --- Or, the one where Harry and Louis are having their first baby, and keeping it a secret until the end of the first trimester is a lot harder than they thought it would be.

We Made These Memories for Ourselves by supernope

Breath held, Harry squints his eyes open and focuses on the first stick. A blue line. Harry breathes out an unsteady breath. He’s pretty sure he read that one blue line is a negative, but he fishes the box from the bottom of the pile just to make sure.

“Negative,” he confirms, voice echoing around the small room. “Next.”

Now that he’s feeling a little less shaky, he scans the rest of the tests at once, is met with a headache-inducing mixture of pink plus signs and blue double lines. His heart rate picks up until it’s pounding triple-time in the base of his throat and the pit of his stomach, thundering in his ears and throbbing in his temples. He flips over the rest of the boxes slowly, but he knows what they’re going to say before he even looks.

[or, Louis is a footballer, Harry owns a bakery, and they're having a baby.]

Nothing I'm Running From by swallowsmateforlife

The odds are one in a million. Chances are it's not going to happen to them.

or

It does happen to them and Harry Styles is pregnant.

deep in my heart i know there's only you by ballsdeepinjesus

"Will you do it?” Harry whispers. Louis has to lean closer just to hear him. He furrows his brows and shakes his head, not knowing what Harry means. “Would you donate for me?”

Louis is dumbfounded. “I’m sorry, I thought you just asked if I’d donate my sperm. Can you repeat yourself?”

[harry and louis are best friends who engage in some platonic baby-making. very platonic.]

hard to confess by hereforlou

One, they only did it without a condom once (and a half) and not during his heat. Never during his heat. Two, he never once forgot to take his birth control (he’s almost sure). Three, his plan is to be married for a year before he even starts trying for a baby, and not only is he very, very single, him and Louis aren’t even sleeping together anymore. Which brings him to reason number four why this can’t be happening: Louis. Louis doesn’t want a baby with Harry.

(Or, the one where Harry knows he messed up and Louis knows nothing.)

Piece by Piece by SadaVeniren

He rubbed his hand over his lower stomach and closed his eyes. Louis was going to lose his fucking mind.

(aka Harry tells Louis he's pregnant and it goes as expected)

Fallen Far From the Tree by SadaVeniren

“I’m so excited.”

“Me too,” Louis said. “Just think, it’s gonna be you and me forever.” He even managed to sing song the end of the sentence.

Harry snorted. “That’s not how the line goes. And besides, it’s not gonna be you and me forever. It’s gonna be you, and me, and this little one.”

He could see the smile stretch across Louis’ face. “Yeah. You’re right.”

(aka Harry and Louis go through the ups and ups of pregnancy)

Right Here Waiting by lovelarry10

Louis and Harry are expecting a baby. Harry's heavily pregnant and nesting madly, determined to make their home ready for their baby.

(i didn't mean to) fall in love tonight by zouisclimax

Harry texts him back a thumbs up emoji before leaning forward and throwing up again. He groans, but stands after he’s done, wiping his mouth with toilet paper, and flushing the toilet.

He washes his mouth out as best as he can before steeling himself and heading back to class, trying his best not to cry. He tells himself that there is no point in worrying when he doesn’t even know if there is anything to worry about yet.

He still feels sick.

[or, the American boarding school AU where Harry's infatuated with Louis and one night flips his whole world upside-down]

you fit me better than my favourite sweater by brightbluelou

Harry didn't mean to fall in love with his best friend, and he definitely didn't mean to get pregnant. Despite that, it’s probably still the best thing that’s ever happened to him. And after that, well. It just kept getting better.

or; the one where Harry and Louis are friends-with-benefits and Harry unexpectedly gets pregnant. Harry never wants to stop getting pregnant after that, but Louis thinks seven kids is probably enough.

Running Down To The Riptide by sweaterpawstyles

"I can't give you your present yet, Lou."

Louis furrowed his brows. "And why is that, my love?"

Harry smiled at his lap. "Because your present is under my sweater," he pulled his free hand that wasn't laced with Louis' and gently laid it on his stomach. "I'm pregnant."

Or

It's New Year's Eve and Harry has a surprise under his sweater

When I'm Lost I feel so very Found by sweaterpawstyles

Louis posted a picture a few minutes later of Harry kissing his cheek and captioned it as "My baby is having our baby :)"

It ended up getting almost a million likes in just a few hours and Louis' phone was blowing up with texts of congratulations from his friends. Harry couldn't stop blushing.

Or, the one where Harry is an average university student who winds up pregnant with rising actor Louis Tomlinson's child

Gasoline Stars by galacticlourry (orphan_account)

It reminded him of stardust, of the history of suns, and he supposed that was what the boy asleep on his shoulder had been created out of. The history of suns.

...

Or, an AU where it's all nice and innocent until someone ends up pregnant. (That would be Harry.) Also known as the Mpreg AU I've doubt you've read before.

Answer All Your Wishes by SadaVeniren

Harry and Louis met when Harry was thirteen and as first impressions go theirs was memorable enough to start a life long romance.

AKA a Tom Fletcher/Giovanna Fletcher AU where Louis is part of One Direction, Harry is the love of his life who blogs, and they have many, many children.

Claire de lune by Neondiamond

"We're having a baby Lou." he heard him say softly.

"We are babe, we are." Louis whispered into his husband's curls. "We're having a baby."

OR: Harry and Louis have wanted a baby for a while now, and now Harry's finally pregnant.

we've got a lifetime to kill by louislovesharry

harry and louis have a three year old daughter, evie, who is their whole world, and another little girl on the way. when harry falls and is put on bedrest for the remainder of the pregnancy, louis and evie must adjust - but it is all worth it for their newest addition to the tomlinson family.

Dirty Little Secret by therogueskimo

“Can’t let Gemma … she can’t find us,” Harry gasped against Louis’ lips, kicking his jeans off.

“Why?” Louis breathed against his mouth, working his lips down along the line of his jaw and onto his neck.

“Just … I don’t want to – god, Lou – don’t want to deal with her reaction. Just want it to be us.”

“Our dirty little secret, eh?”

_____________

Or the one where Harry and Louis fall in love, but can’t figure out how to tell Gemma. That is, until Harry gets pregnant, and they don’t have much of a choice.

Come In and Change My Life by lightswoodmagic (sarah_writes)

He’d had the same neighbours since he’d moved into the building, a lovely, wealthy couple in their late sixties who had always invited him around for tea on Sundays. Martha had dropped off homemade biscuits the day he’d moved in, so Harry figured he may as well repeat the sentiment. He could hear someone getting closer to the door just as a flush ran through his body; oh fuck. His heat was close, too close to be knocking on a potentially unknown alpha’s door, but it was too late. The door swung open, and Harry’s mouth dropped. He’d never been overly interested in football, couldn’t find the fascination in watching men run around after a ball for hours aside from their uniforms, but he knew who this was. Louis Tomlinson, alpha, captain of Manchester United, star in a number of Harry’s heat addled fantasies, was his new next-door neighbour.

Or, Harry and Louis become friends when Harry looks after Louis' cat during away games, until one night at a party changes everything between them. It's just a shame Louis' going to be away for the FIFA World Cup for three months.

Put It Into Words by orphan_account

“It’s a good storm though, our families,” Louis says, flopping down on to the bed and cuddling close to Harry. He tucks his arm around Harry’s waist, kissing his temple. “The Cheshire house is perfect to raise the baby; your mum’s close, and my mum can stay in the guest bedroom when she visits.”

“And until then we have the long weekend to ourselves.”

Or, Harry and Louis go on a babymoon.

I Get To Love You by lovelarry10

A one night stand leaves Harry with a permanent reminder of the night he spent with a stranger.

Louis has no idea who the handsome stranger he took to bed is... until his friends make a shocking discovery.

A baby is on the way, and Louis and Harry have nine months to get to know each other before they become a family...

Dancing Shadows by SadaVeniren

The house was quiet by the time Louis walked up to it. He’d been away for a week and while it wasn’t the longest he’d ever been away from the pack, it was the longest he’d been away from Harry and the kids.

A Perfect Reason by Chelsea Frew (chelseafrew)

During a visit to a charity he'd like to support, Prince Louis--next in line to the throne of the United Kingdom--meets Harry, the man of his dreams. Trouble is, Louis is not out, and the law says his heirs can only be born of a woman. Louis is determined not to let that stop his pursuit of Harry. His determination doubles when Harry accidentally becomes pregnant. He and Harry will have their little family--and change the monarchy while they're at it.

Another Constellation to Trace by screwstyles

Louis wiggles his eyebrows. “I’m winning that bet.”

“What bet?” comes Niall’s excited voice from behind them, followed by footsteps. “I wanna be in on the bet!” he shouts, prompting Harry to quickly roll down his shirt sleeve and straighten his shirt where it’s still crinkly after Louis’ hands.

Niall takes one look at them and purses his lips in a tight line. “Were you guys making out again? Isn’t the fire meant to die down a bit after eight years?”

“Trust me, the fire is still very much alive,” Louis winks at Harry. “One could even say it’s cooking something.”

-

Mpreg AU: Louis and Harry bet on who can keep Harry's pregnancy a secret for longer. Neither of them is particularly good at it, and it doesn't help that their soulmate tattoos make it even harder.

Made From Love by lovelarry10

It's almost Christmas, and amongst the preparations, Louis' realised something about his husband Harry.

Harry, however, seems to be oblivious.

Louis' determined to open Harry's eyes and make him realise the real magic that's happening this Christmas...

years go by, whether you want them to by louislovesharry

A girl. They were having a little girl, and Harry couldn’t be happier. He had dreamed of having a daughter for as long as he could remember. A tiny little angel that he could dress up, have tea parties, pick flowers with. And if that wasn’t her thing, Louis could play footie with her, they could teach her how to play guitar and play with toy trucks. There was nothing Harry wanted more than to have and hold this beautiful creature that they had made together out of pure love, and nurture and cherish her for always.

The 'Oh my God it's twins!" Drabble. by FicNess

The 'Oh my God it's twins!" Drabble.

another pair of feet by honey_beeing

where Harry is pregnant and Louis is an oblivious idiot.

I will Only have these eyes for you by Dysia

Harry's pregnant and Louis' more in love with him than ever.

Don't ever let this day stop by Dysia 

Louis comes back home earlier than he was suppose to and he's surprised with the best present ever. 

i will rearrange the stars (pull 'em down to where you are) by orphan_account

Except-- the antibiotics. They'd fucked to celebrate Harry finally feeling better and not being contagious after his fight with strep-- but the antibiotics had likely still been present. And everyone knew suppressants and birth control didn't work when on antibiotics.

"Lads," Harry repeated once again, blinking slowly as his eyes filled with tears. Liam and Niall were staring at him in bewildered silence. "Lads. I'm, like, ninety-eight point seven percent sure I'm up the duff."

Alternatively, the one where Omega!Harry gets pregnant

To Carry Love by dimpled_halo 

During One Direction's hiatus, Harry becomes unexpectedly pregnant, and Louis does his best at becoming the most supportive husband he can be.

Fists Alongside Hearts by mpregharryqueen

Louis is a superhero protecting New York City. He never planned on having a sidekick and especially never planned on having a baby with said sidekick.

AU based very loosely on the cinematic masterpieces, Sky High and The Incredibles.

On His Way Home by denisemuriel

“Ehm, yeah.” Harry looked down onto his lap, fumbling with his fingers. “It’s Louis’.” He replied quietly. “Oh my god.” A voice that didn’t belong to his sister Gemma replied. When Harry looked up from his lap, he saw Lottie standing across the room in the door frame and his eyes grew as wide as hers. She was Louis’ fucking sister, damn it. And now she knew that he was pregnant with her brother’s baby. “Lottie, your fucking brother got my baby brother pregnant!” Gemma exclaimed.

Or the one where Harry is set up on a blind date with his sister's best friend's brother

We Were Made to Love by supernope

“Everything all sorted? Need help with the buckles? I know they’re a bit tricky in this compartment.”

The voice startles Louis out of his daze, and he turns toward the voice to let him know he figured it out. When he catches sight of the owner of the voice, though, his response dies in his throat. Whatever he had imagined the conductor of a children’s train that rides around the shopping centre in Leeds would look like, this is certainly not it.

Leaning through the window, arms folded across the sill, is a green-eyed angel with cherry red lips stretched wide in a smile and dimples flirting in his cheeks. A black conductor’s hat is the only confirmation that this is not some gorgeous stranger who’s come to flirt with Louis through the window of a children’s train, but is just a man doing his job.

[or, Harry drives a kiddie train in the shopping centre for the summer and is obsessed with babies, and Louis never stood a chance.]

Baby, What a Big Surprise by kiwikero

As Harry settles into his seat, self-consciously adjusting his shirt over his slightly distended stomach, he can’t help but wonder how he got himself into all this. But he knows, of course he knows. It isn’t exactly easy to forget the moment that changed his entire life forever.

It all started with a party.

Or, the one where shy, quiet Harry has no idea he's a carrier, and a one night stand with the most popular boy in school shows him just how wrong he was.

Featuring Lottie as Harry's best friend, Niall as her boyfriend, and, of course, Louis as the popular boy with a soft spot for his little sister's quirky friend.

here comes the sun by orphan_account

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Louis promises, his pink, chapped lips moving slowly in the cold. It matches the beanie on his head—pink, because they found out this morning that they’re having a girl and that’s just.

Harry’s going to be a dad. To a little girl. Five months from now he’ll be holding her in his arms, and she’ll be so lovely and small.

They’re going to have a spring baby and she’s probably going to have Louis’ eyes. What a blessing that would be. Harry crosses his fingers on the hand inside his pocket, hoping that she does. He’ll love her either way—blue or green or even brown eyes, it doesn’t matter—but he’d really like them to be blue, he thinks.

[Harry is a pediatric specialist, Louis is a neurosurgeon. All they want is a baby.]

and the sun shines upon your face by rosegarden

“It's just – it feels weird. To tell her that her twenty year old closeted son got knocked up in the middle of a stadium worldwide tour.” Louis laughs and Harry's heart squeezes at that beautiful sound. “Well it does sound weird when you put it like that.” “I don't 'put it like that'. It's the truth.”

or

the one where Harry really, really likes making plans but plans don't really like him, Louis is an overprotective-future-dad-to-be and Niall, Liam and Zayn race to be the godfather.

everywhere (i wanna be with you) by itiswhatitisbutterfly

Harry and Louis meet because they have terrible friends, they fall in love because something feels right in a world of uncertainty and shifting grounds. Louis is an actor and Harry is a model at the top of his game, the best things in life are the most unexpected ones and the things that hit you when you are least expecting it.

Featuring winter in London, nights in Paris, early mornings in New York, burning heat in Monte Carlo and an enduring love spent transcending four corners of the globe.

kiss full of color, makes me wonder where you've always been by louislovesharry

after a rough day dealing with his three kids and louis being gone, a very pregnant harry is exhausted. louis helps make things better, always.

you make my whole world feel so right when it's wrong by orphan_account

“Curly?” Louis says, stepping into Harry’s sight. “You okay?” Harry looks up from where he has two things in his hands, a thick winter coat sized for a newborn, and a sweatshirt fitting a grown man such as himself. He looks up at Louis, stricken, and holds them out for him to see. “They’re the same price,” he says. “They’re both forty dollars! Forty dollars for such little material.”

(or, Harry is pregnant and stops at the mall to buy cheap baby clothes. Louis has extra money from working a long shift, and he can't think of a better way to spend it than on him.)

i'll be your sunflower by scagnetism

“What do you think’s gonna stop us now?” Harry says cheekily, laughter in his voice as he looks up at Louis. “Something’s gotta get in our way like always, doesn’t it?”

“Ha,” Louis grins, kissing his cheek and holding open the door for him as they make their way toward the car. “Nothing’s gonna interrupt us this time. ‘S gonna be perfect, just like Pumpkin.”

Or, a few interruptions aren't going to stop Harry from having a perfect pregnancy and having the family he and Louis have always dreamed of.

The Original Mpreg!Harry by Chelsea Frew (chelseafrew)

series

i'll put my future in you by louislovesharry

series

Picture Perfect by LittleBubbleStyles

an AU where Louis Tomlinson is a misunderstood football player, and Harry Styles is a misunderstood photographer. Somehow, they're understood together.

*just a note to say this is a wip but it is almost completed and updated regularly!

[flufflepuffle296]

Heathers au: Beautiful Songfic

This is more centred around Veronica/Marinette so not really any mentions of Heather/Heather/Heather. Sorry if someone’s done this before I apologise I just got into Heathers like two days ago. Also I changed some lyrics and took others out to make it more “realistic”. Sorry I suck at endings, it’s 5:30am rn and this is my first fic so be nice please! (I’m on mobile so I can’t add the keep reading tag so sorry if you don’t like this) xxx

I brushed down my dress: I couldn’t give them anything to criticise me over. Everything had to be perfect. I had to be perfect. Chloé sat next to me, my beautiful fiancée, slipping on her kitten heels. She may be 3 months pregnant but no Bourgeois woman would be seen wearing flats. I was in a red floor length a line dress — I grew out of my childish pink years ago, before it even went out of fashion! My hair was twisted into two plaits that were knotted together into a stylish bun at the back. Chloé meanwhile had stuck to her white and gold aesthetic, currently in a slim fitting white dress, showing off her small baby bump, decorated with gold jewellery. I rummaged through my drawers, trying to find a lipstick, when a thin book toppled out. I picked it up, and laughed fondly when I saw what it was.

My old Collège and Lycée diary.

I flipped through it, landing on the page that stuck most clearly in my mind. It was the day my class reminded me of my current reality at that time, shocking me out of a bubble that had surrounded me during the summer holidays that year.

September 1st, 1989.

Dear Diary: I believe I'm a good person. You know, I think that there's good in everyone, but—here we are! First day of senior year!

And uh... I look around at these kids that I've known all my life and I ask myself—what happened?

I bit my lip. What happened? I knew darn well what happened. Lila Rossi. She came in, flaunting her friendships and connections, a new disability every other week to cry about, another rumour about me coming out every 3 days.

Alya ended our friendship, Adrien continued to cry about Lila’s feelings. Lila just kept doing what she did best. The class gave up on changing my mind and instead decided that calling me names would be better. Because logic?!

“Freak!” “Slut!” “Burnout!” “Bug-eyes!” “Poser!” “Lard-ass!” Were the insults they liked to yell daily. Yeah, they weren’t the most creative...

We were so tiny, happy and shiny. Playing tag and getting chased. Singing and clapping, laughing and napping. Baking cookies, eating paste.

Nino and Kim used to come over to the bakery when we were kids, where we’d gorge ourselves on sweets, before celebrating our sugar rushes by chasing each other in the park and then crashing on my sofa, cuddled in blankets and laying on top of each other.

Then we got bigger, that was the trigger. Like the Huns invading Rome. Welcome to my school, this ain't no high school: This is the Thunderdome. Hold your breath and count the days, we're graduating soon. College will be paradise, if I'm not dead by June!

But I know, I know, life can be beautiful. I pray, I pray for a better way. If we changed back then, we could change again. We can be beautiful...Just not today.

I scoffed at my optimism back then. Them changing? They never did, I don’t know why I bothered trying at that point. I should’ve moved on but hey! We all make mistakes. It’s just that sometimes you make 11 friendships worth of mistakes.

“Freak!” “Slut!” “Cripple!” “Homo!” “Homo!” “Homo!”

I cringed as I read their old “insults”. They would write homophobic messages across my locker, getting Alix to spray paint a few slurs across my work after I came out as bisexual.

Things will get better soon as my letter comes from Harvard, Duke, or Brown. Wake from this coma, take my diploma. Then I can blow this town. Dream of ivy-covered walls, no smoky French cafés. Fight the urge to strike a match and set this dump ablaze!

I had purposefully sent out applications to universities far away from these people, from Paris. All three schools accepted me, something I can’t say about my classmates, most of whom were rejected for essays on false information (sourced by Lila) and a quick scan over the Ladyblog meant not a single newspaper would even consider my ex-best friend. Gabriel Agreste, as I later found out through my internship in America, had to bribe several schools with double tuition to get even one to accept Adrien, after he got exposed as sexual harasser and disgraced hero “Chat Noir”. I turned back to my diary, having to peel off rock hard gum from the page that someone had smeared in “revenge”.

Le Chiên Kim. Third year as linebacker and eighth year of smacking lunch trays and being a huge dick.

“What did you say to me, skank?” He would yell, his fist raised in the hallway.

“Aah, nothing!” I then cowered. I may be Ladybug, but he was 150lbs of pure rage. No one can compete with that!

But I know, I know... Life can be beautiful. I pray, I pray, For a better way. We can be beautiful...

“Marinette! Wide load! Honnnnnk!”

He was the smartest guy on the football team. Which is kind of like being the tallest dwarf.

“Hey! Pick that up! Right now!”

“I’m sorry, are you actually talking to me?” He used to snarl, his hands covered in sauce from knocking my tray.

I stood my ground, I had been practising for this moment. “Yes, I am. I wanna know what gives you the right to pick on me. You're a high school has-been waiting to happen. A future gas station attendant.”

Kim then smirked, crouching down to eye level and pressing a finger to my forehead. “You have a zit right there...” he pointed out, causing the cafeteria to laugh at my expense.

I used to ask myself “Why... Why do they hate me?”

And hear Adrien whisper “Why don't I fight back?”

Watch as Max Googled “Why do I act like such a creep?”

Listen in on Lila stamping her feet in the bathroom asking “Why won't he date me?” Clearly frustrated.

Kim panicking as he wondered “Why did I hit him?”

And Chloé sob down the phone “Why do I cry myself to sleep?”

I would stay up late, screaming, begging. At my lowest points I would cry out “Somebody hug me! Somebody fix me! Somebody save me! Send me a sign, God! Give me some hope, here! Something to live for!”

I remember when I first met my real friends. The famed trio had gone into the bathroom and I followed after them, clearly my throat.

“Who are you?”

“Uh... Marinette Dupain Cheng. I crave a boon”

“What boon?” Chloé asked, filing her nails.

“Um. Let me sit at your table, at lunch. If our class think that you guys tolerate me, then they'll leave me alone...”

Chloé threw her nail file out and began circling around me, running her hands through my hair, commenting that “For a greasy little nobody, you do have good bone structure!” Before coming to a conclusion.

“And ya know, ya know, ya know? This could be beautiful. Mascara, maybe some lip gloss, and we're on our way. Get this girl some blush; and Kagami, I need your brush. Let's make her beautiful.” Sabrina and Kagami, chimed in, echoing her words.

“Let's make her beautiful...”

“Let’s make her beautiful...”

“Make her beautiful...Okay?” Chloé ordered, dragging me out with Kagami and Sabrina, driving me to her hotel. They sat me down, taking my hair out of its bunches and brushing it out. Kagami painted my nails a deep navy with surprising precision, manning my cuticles. Sabrina twirled my hair into a high bun, leaving a few pieces at the front to frame my face. Chloé came back from her wardrobe, throwing a blue blazer and grey skirt at me. I changed into my outfit for them, to which they clapped their hands in glee. They dragged me back to school, taking in everyone’s reactions to the new and improved me. This became my new daily outfit for the rest of the year — the class couldn’t find anything bad about it, and even if they did Chloé would threaten them with her father’s power.

I was happy with my squad. Kagami taught us Japanese and Chloé taught us American English that she’d picked up from her mother. I taught them self defence, under the guise of learning it from my mum, unknowingly training them for the day I would rip Chat Noir’s miraculous from him, before slamming it into Kagami’s palm. I needed help that day, so thrust them bee and the fox miraculous at Chloé and Sabrina respectively. They became permanent heroes, Kagami under the name “Noirette”, Chloé under the new guise of “Buttercup” and Sabrina “Renard Rouge”. Akuma attacks have never lasted more than 15 minutes since we got rid of that alley cat, and we’ve been closing in on Hawkmoth recently.

I shook my head, snapping the crude book shut, throwing the diary in the bin. Today was going to be the day I made peace with all that happened, our 10 year school reunion. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna make up with anyone, just that I will finally leave everything behind. I found my lipstick and smeared on the crimson lip, smacking my lips together. I grabbed my clutch and helped Chloé stand up, though she wobbled a little in her heels. I slid her miraculous into her updo, blowing a kiss at her as to not ruin her makeup.

We met up with Kagami and Sabrina in the hallway, Kagami in a wine red suit with gold jewellery, and Sabrina was in emerald green to compliment her red hair. We stepped into the limo awaiting us outside and set off, arriving at the school 10 minutes later. We walked up the steps, hitching up our dresses and arrived in the courtyard. It had been lit up with fairy lights, with stands of food and drinks scattered around the court. Our old classmates were huddled in small groups, whilst Mlle. Mendeleiev’s was in a large group, enjoying each other’s company after 10 years apart.

No one noticed us, until Rose pointed at me and whispered “Who’s that with Chloé?” The group turned to stare at us, trying to place my face. Adrien looked up from talking to Lila, who seemed to be flaunting a rather tacky Gabriel engagement ring, and whispered,

“Marinette?!”

The class began gossiping amongst themselves, “Marinette? Marinette? Marinette?!”

I ignored them, their childish ways were behind me, and walked up to Aurore and Mireille, fawning over their relationship. They turned Kagami, asking her about her life and squealing over her Olympic medal for fencing. I grinned as I watched my old class, happy that they had moved on from each other — well apart from Alya and Adrien, who were still hooked on Lila. I was finally, content! I thought back on my diary, one particular paragraph standing out to me at this time.

And you know, you know, you know, life can be beautiful. You hope, you dream, you pray, and you get your way! Ask me how it feels, lookin' like hell on wheels...My God, it's beautiful! I feel so beautiful... And when you're beautiful...It's a beautiful frickin' day!

Chloé boasted my achievements, my business, my awards, and the entire of Mendeleiev’s class started chanting “Marinette! Marinette! Marinette!”, much to my embarrassment. I boasted her’s in return, Sabrina revealed how far she’d come as a lawyer, Kagami swung her prized sword from side to side as she listened to us all catching up, laughing at the memories.

It really was a beautiful day.

[theladyofdeath]

The Ranch {18}

An A Court of Thorns and Roses, Nesta x Cassian, Modern AU, fanfiction.

Collaboration: @snelbz​ x @tacmc​

Summary: Nesta had spent years in Paris, living her dream and drowning in riches as a gourmet chef, capturing the hearts of the city and its people. But, after her father passes away unexpectedly and leaves his cozy, countryside B&B to his oldest daughter, Nesta is moving back home to the tiny town of Velaris, where the ranch, her sisters, and her father’s unfulfilled dream, awaits.

Sidenote: Being posted between two blogs, it is too chaotic to keep up with a tags list, so all chapters will be tagged with “#TheRanchNessian” & “#SharaCollab”.

The Ranch Masterlist

Nesta was overwhelmed by all the love, and the shower hadn’t even started yet. Elain had put her planning skills to use, once again. The B&B’s living room was covered in streamers and banners and delicate pink and gold decor. A table was set up, full of snacks and desserts, and Cassian and the other men had been ordered to stay away.

Which meant that they were out back, drinking.

Every time Nesta asked if she could do something to help or even tried to get out of her seat, she was ordered to sit back down, put her feet up and relax.

She was doing just that when Viviane and Mor flopped down on the couch to her left.

“So,” Mor asked, sipping her mimosa through a pink-and-white striped straw. “Do we have any names picked out yet?”

Nesta looked at the mimosa longingly, but she blinked, coming back to the conversation and smiled. “We have a few, but we haven’t decided yet.” She rubbed her hand over her belly, gazing fondly at it, at the perfect, little girl growing inside her.

“And?” Viv asked, just as sweet as she was the day Nesta had met her. “What are they?”

She blushed, thinking of what Cassian had told her while they’d laid in bed last night.

Everyone is going to want to see and know every little thing about her as soon as she’s here, he’d said, his finger drawing long lines up and down her spine. Let’s keep them to ourselves for now.

“It’s a secret,” Nesta said, and when Mor groaned at the given answer, Nesta only smiled.

“She won’t even tell us, so don’t feel too bed,” Feyre said, sitting on Nesta’s other side. “Your fiancé is drunk by the way.”

“Already?” Nesta asked, gazing out the back window with narrowed eyes. He was laying in the green, lush grass in the back yard with a bottle to his lips while Rhysand and Azriel threw a football over him, back and forth. 

Feyre chuckled and held up a mini cupcake. “Here, snuck one when Elain wasn’t looking.”

“I’ve never loved you so much,” Nesta muttered, popping the cupcake into her mouth in one bite. They were ordered to keep hands off the food until all guests arrived.

Nesta glanced up at the grand clock as she chewed.

They still had twenty more minutes before it truly began.

Elain had invited anyone Nesta had ever been close to and she was surprised when she’d told her there had been over thirty confirmed yes RSVP’s. And as the pile of gifts in the corner, Nesta’s heart became more and more full.

The back door opened and they heard, “Uh, Nes… can you come here for a second?”

Nesta and Elain’s eyes locked as her boyfriend’s tense voice floated to them. All three sisters made their way out into the backyard. Azriel was the only one there, although the football had been left behind, as well as Rhys and Cassian’s shirts.

Feyre began, “Where are-.”

“On the way down do the roping pen,” Azriel interrupted. “Because the two of them started talking about the old days and they’re drunk and now they're going to try and rope the herd.”

“We left you out here to stop them from making stupid decisions,” Feyre groaned.

He threw his hands in the air. “There’s two of them, one of me, and they’re both drinking. And then they took their shirts off and at that point, it was out of my hands.”

“One of them is going to get hurt.” Nesta began to rub small circles into her belly. She’d begun to do so when she was stressed out, trying to make sure her sweet girl knew everything was okay. She knew when she was freaking out, she flooded her with the hormones as well.

Elain smiled sweetly, kissed Azriel’s cheek and said, “I’ll handle it, you two go back inside.” She hurried her sisters back inside and they watched from the window as she began walking in the direction of the round pen.

Nesta said, “What is she-?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to,” Azriel mumbled, grabbing a handful of trail mix, overloaded with pink and white m&m’s. “She’s persuasive when she wants to be and terrifying when she needs to be.”

Feyre blinked. “You may want to keep that in mind while you eat the food she ordered no one to touch.” 

Azriel hesitated before popping the handful into his mouth. “If you say anything,” he began, mouth full, “I will destroy you.”

Nesta snorted as Azriel walked to the front porch and sat in a rocking chair while guests continued to arrive. WIth a shake of her head, Nesta was looking back out of the back window, where Elain had disappeared to. A moment later, she returned with her chin held high, Cassian and Rhysand trailing behind, looking like two children that were being dragged to timeout.

Nesta was pulled into conversation after conversation after that. They pretty much were all the same.

Yes, they were so excited for her to be here.

No, they weren’t announcing her name yet.

Yes, she'd be having an epidural.

“Some people have no boundaries,” Viviane muttered, saving Nesta from a conversation where she’d been asked if she and Cassian still had an “aggressive sex life”.

Nesta was still laughing from the look on the woman’s face when she informed her she’d have to wait to find out if he’d gotten her throat pregnant the night before.

“You know she goes to the local church, right?” Feyre asked, nibbling on the brownies Nesta had baked when she couldn’t sleep this morning.

Nesta shrugged. “Then she shouldn’t have been asking such intrusive questions.”

An hour passed and guests were beginning to leave. Nesta found herself exhausted as she fell back into the couch with a plate of mini cupcakes. The back door swung open and Cassian stumbled inside, still shirtless, grinning at an older woman with a wink - the same woman that Nesta appalled with her sex life details. She looked him over, once, shook her head and walked away. 

“Hi, baby mama,” Cassian said, a slight slur to his words as he leaned over the back of the couch and put his sweaty arms around her.

“Hi,” she said, taking a bite of her cupcake. “You stink.” 

He muttered a reply as he pressed his lips to the side of her neck. “Did we get a lot of cute shit?”

Nesta pointed to the long table on the other side of the room, where the opened gifts sat - diapers, clothes, headbands, shoes, socks, bibs, blankets, and the list went on and on and on. She had received both things that were necessary and things that were not, and although she was incredibly grateful, she had no idea where the hell it would all go.

Cassian whistled as he observed the gifts. “That’s a lot of cute shit.”

“Yeah,” Nesta said, quietly, picking up another cupcake.

Cassian blinked, then frowned as he looked at Nesta and caught her expression. “What’s wrong?”

Her lip began to wobble.

“What? No, no no,” he began, coming around the couch and kneeling before her, He took the plate off her lap and took her hands in his. “Don’t cry. Why are you crying? It’s a happy day.”

“Where are we going to put all of this stuff, Cass?” she asked, quietly. “We have enough shit to fill two nurseries, and we don’t even have one.”

The look on his face told her that she wasn’t the only one who’d been thinking about that. They had discussed building a new home, like Cassian had wanted, but knew that ultimately, they’d always end up back in the ranch house, so it would be a colossal waste of both time and money. They’d discussed adding onto the cabin or her little house by the river, but again, they knew where they’d end up.

Cassian had found her standing in the doorway of her old bedroom when it was unoccupied by guests, on more than one occasion. He knew what the best resolution was for both of them, but knew neither of them wanted to admit it.

He cupped her face in his hands, using his thumbs to brush away the few tears that had slipped over. “I think we need to sit down and have a talk with your sisters soon.”

She nodded, the tears starting a new, knowing exactly what conversation he meant.

He sat next to her on the couch and wrapped an arm around her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

She sniffled again and said, “Seriously, you stink.” He chuckled, but didn’t have a chance to reply before Elain’s frantic voice filled the nearly empty house.

“Why is she crying?” She asked, coming into the living room, eyes narrowing on Cassian. “What did you do?”

He shrugged. “Knocked her up?”

Rhys shoved a mini cupcake in his mouth and said, “Well, you’re not wrong.”

Feyre nudged him in the side with her elbow and Nesta chuckled, wiping at her eyes. “I’m fine.”

Elain’s eyes narrowed further. “You’re lying.”

Yes, she was, but she wasn’t about to have this conversation while there were still guests in the house. To save her from lying, once more, Cassian sighed, loudly and dramatically. “Well, if you’re all staying around for a while, I guess I should run into town and get more shit for dinner. I’m drunk, so one of you has to drive me.”

“Might wanna put a shirt on first,” Elain muttered, still uneasy.

“I’ll drive you,” Azriel said, but Cass shook his head.

“I think Feyre needs to come with me.”

Rhys had popped another cupcake into his mouth, so he mumbled, “What? Why?”

“Hush, and stop talking with your mouth open.” Feyre leaned down and kissed his cheek. “That’s fine, Cass. But you’re changing first, you really do stink. Let’s stop at the cabin.”

He so badly wanted to protest, but didn’t. Instead, he followed Feyre down to his cabin, who was eyeing him suspiciously for the entire walk.

“At what point during this outing are you going to tell me why it had to be me to accompany you?” Feyre asked, when they reached the cabin’s porch.

“Can I not simply enjoy your company?” Cassian asked, one brow arched.

“You can, but I also know you better than that,” Feyre said, amused.

He chuckled. “That’s fair. I’ll tell you when we leave. I just...need a second perspective on some things.”

Her expression didn’t ease as she looked at him though, it got more worried.

Cassian hustled up the stairs and went in to quickly wash down and change, while Feyre stayed out on the porch. It was brisk outside, the middle of October and the crisp fall day was beautiful.

Feyre leaned against the porch rail, looking out into the woods behind the cabin. She’d grown up, running through these woods, and she loved everything about it. She had painted every scene you could see on this land. When she was-.

Something caught her eye, and Feyre stared into the wooded area, trying to discern exactly what she was seeing. Or who.

The door of the cabin opened and Cass said, “Alright, much better. Want to smell?”

He lifted up his arm and Feyre rolled her eyes, pushing him away. “Shut up, let’s go.”

She decided that what she’d seen in the woods was just a shadow of a tree, as the sun was beginning to go down, and not a figure in the distance.

Cassian and Feyre walked to the truck where he, like the gentleman he was, opened the passenger door for Feyre before helping himself behind the wheel.

“So?” She said, as he pulled onto the road.

Cassian hesitated, then went with, “I want to give your sister the world.”

Feyre blinked. “I know. You are, surprisingly, very sweet to her. Go on.”

Cassian rolled his eyes but continued, “We don’t have enough room, Feyre, for a baby. Even then, it’s too much, you know? A ranch, a B&B, a newborn? Fuck, one of those is enough, but juggling all three?”

Feyre watched him, then turned her eyes toward the road as she said, “I know you, Cass, so stop dancing around the subject and spit it out.”

“Nesta doesn’t want to reopen the bed and breakfast when she’s done with maternity leave.”

The words hung between them. Feyre didn’t say anything, which almost terrified Cass more.

They pulled into the parking lot of the diner and he put it in park, turning to look at her. “Say something, anything, please.”

She gnawed on her lip. “I’m trying to decide what to say.”

“Are you mad or are you surprised?” He asked.

“I’m...in shock,” she said.

He nodded, slowly. “Why?”

Feyre laughed, breathlessly. “At first, I was surprised that she wanted to open the B&B to begin with. Then, she put so much work into it, put her whole heart into it...it hasn’t even been a year, and y’all want to close it?”

Cassian sighed. “It’s not that we want to, but it’s more of a necessity. Nesta has been scared to close it down...but, I think it’s for the best. We need the main house, and we make enough money on the ranch without it. We have no room for the baby, Feyre, no time. And...I don’t know. Raising the baby in the main house? She’ll have her own room, Nesta will have her own kitchen….It makes more sense. Right?” He added the question at the end, hoping for Feyre’s approval, but unsure of what she’d say.

She didn’t say anything, she just sat there, tapping her foot.

“I’m gonna go get the food, I’ll be right back, just…” Cassian sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “I just want to do what’s best for my family.”

He got out of the truck and headed inside and Feyre was…floored.

After Nesta had sacrificed so much, after she’d given up everything she’d ever known, she was already willing to quit. She had sold her restaurants, her life’s work, all to come back to Velaris and reopen the B&B. And just like that, she was done?

The more Feyre thought it over, the more angry she was getting and by the time Cassian was carrying the food to the truck, Feyre wasn’t even sure what she wanted to speak to him.

The drive back home was silent, she stared out the window, and Feyre was trying to calm her breathing before they returned home. She’d slapped Nesta on her first day here. She was pregnant, but if she was going to destroy their father’s dream-.

Feyre closed her eyes and sighed.

Their father’s dream.

Not Nesta’s.

Nesta’s dreams were back in Paris, London, Rome. And she’d left them.

To come back home.

She leaned her head back, letting it fall against the headrest, and a single tear rolled down her cheek.

Cassian noticed it, too.They were close to pulling into the driveway, but not quite. Cassian finally broke the silence by saying, “You know it breaks my heart, don’t you? I know how much work Nesta has put into this, Feyre, and your dad was a good friend.” He had been, Feyre knew. Cassian was one of her father’s favorite people in the end. “I wanted him to succeed. I wanted them both to succeed, and this decision isn’t easy, but we’re having a baby, Feyre. A fucking kid. It’s not just about me, and it’s not just about Nes...it’s not about either of us, it’s all about this baby, and I…”

His words trailed off, and he was still staring at the road as he ran his hand down his face in frustration. Feyre pretended not to notice how his eyes welled up with tears.

“I’m so fucking scared, Feyre. That I’ll fuck up somehow.” His voice broke. “I didn’t have a father, I don’t know how to be a father. I’ll mess this kid up or I’ll do something and she’ll get sick of me.”

There was Tomas again, always in the back of his mind. Even if they hadn’t seen him in weeks, he still haunted nearly every thought.

“If Nesta wants to give up the B&B, I’m going to support her in that.” His jaw was set and Feyre knew it wasn’t for a fight. “I just… I have to do what’s best for my family.”

She noticed the change from his earlier statement, saw the determination and devotion in his eyes. Feyre never been so thankful that her big sister had found someone so absolutely devoted to her than she was in that moment.

After a deep breath, Feyre reached across the center console and took her friend’s hand in hers. “We will support you, too, in whatever you decide to do, whatever you feel you need to do. And you’re going to be a good husband, and a good father. I know it.”

Cassian didn’t look in her direction and he took his hand off the wheel for a split second to wipe at his face as he nodded, shortly. 

“Nesta’s stressed,” he said, at last. “I don’t know how to help her. Nesta was a pain in the ass to begin with, but pregnant Nesta? I feel helpless.”

Feyre chuckled and patted his hand before wiping away her tears. “You’re doing better than you think you are, Cass. That woman loves you. I have never seen her love anyone, anything, the way she loves you.”

Cassian did though. He knew one thing that Nesta loved as much as him, as much as her sisters, as much as their unborn baby.

And he knew what they could do.

When they pulled up to the house, all cars except those belonging to their family were gone. As they made their way up the stairs, they could hear the laughter of their families inside.

“This,” he breathed, stopping.. “This is what I want to come home to after a long day. My family, laughing, living, just being together. Not- not strangers in my living room.”

Feyre’s eyes softened. “I know, Cass. I get it.”

He nodded, and took a deep breath before pushing open the front door and holding up the bags of food. “Let’s eat!”

He was met with a round of hollers, all but from Nesta, who was watching him, wistfully. She knew him too well. Knew that something had happened, something had been talked about in their absence. 

He gave her a gentle smile before making his way to the kitchen and unloading the to-go boxes for everyone to choose from. 

He set out plates and napkins, and everyone came through and loaded up their plates, Nesta being last.

She met Cassian’s stare and said, “You talked to her about it, didn’t you?”

“I-.” He looked to the living room where Feyre was laughing at something Azriel had said. “How did you know?”

Nesta rolled her eyes. “What did she say?”

He was quiet for a minute and while he made plates for them, and as he opened his mouth to say something, Rhys hollered, “You guys know you can’t make another baby until Nesta pops that one out, right?”

Cass chuckled and kissed Nesta’s forehead. “Come on. We’ll talk later. Let’s go spend time with our family.”

A few hours later, the six of them ended up around a bonfire, and Cassian cleared his throat. “There’s something Nes and I want to talk to you guys about.”

Feyre didn’t look surprised. She simply folded her hands in her lap and waited, along with the others. Nesta was staring at her hands.

Cassian took a long, slow drink from his bottle before meeting Nesta’s gaze. She nodded, slowly, and after a breath, Cassian said, “Nesta and I are going to discontinue the B&B.”

Elain, Azriel, and Rhysand stared at him, open-mouthed, but Feyre just nodded, slowly.

“And before anyone says anything, yes, we have thought about it,” Cassian continued. “We need room for the baby, and we need privacy… We realize the B&B was Isaac’s dream, and we’re glad we were able to make it successful, but as we’re starting a family...we just need to do this. So, we’re going to shut down the B&B and continue the ranch...and, Nesta’s going to open her own restaurant.”

The circle went silent.

Nesta, included. 

In fact, she was the first to say, “What?”

He nodded. “It’s your passion, sweetheart. I get to do what I love every single day. I get to live my passion.” He took her face in his hands. “You left your passion behind in your restaurants, in your food. You can keep doing that though. You can do what you love.”

“Where?” She asked, tears already spilling over. “The house?”

“If you want, some nights,” he said. “Or we can find you a place. Or I’ll build you one, on the property, I don’t care.”

Nesta was floored. “I- Are you- Really?”

He almost looked taken about. “Of course, really.” He didn’t care that the others were around, that they were watching, listening. “You’re giving me a baby, Nes. A family. And I just want you to be happy, and I will do everything in my power to make sure that you’re happy.”

He wiped at the tears falling down her cheeks, knowing full well they were happy tears, not tears of sadness. 

“Cass,” she breathed, shaking her head slowly.

“If we close the B&B, tell me what you want and I’ll make it happen,” he whispered. “Tell me what you want, and it’s yours.”

She nodded, unable to form the words needed to express to him her love, her gratitude, her thanks.

But he didn’t need any of those. He could see the truth in her eyes, the amazement and the devotion there. So he kissed her, knowing that they were on the right path to their future. 

___

It was getting late. They had all piled into the little house outback once the bonfire began to fade away. Then, Rhysand and Feyre took off, leaving Elain and Azriel snuggling together on the couch. A movie had been playing, and the couple were soon sleeping soundly.

Nesta and Cassian crept into the bedroom,  Beau just behind.

Nesta crashed into the bed, her eyes dropping. It had been a long day and she was so over it.

“You look like you need a massage,” Cassian said, kicking off his boots and slipping his shirt over his head.

“A massage, a drink,” she muttered. “The list is long.”

“I can’t exactly condone the latter,” he said, laying down behind her, one hand covering her stomach, as it did every night, and pressing a kiss to the back of her neck. “But I can help with the former for sure.”

He let his other hand knit into her hair and scratched at her scalp. Nesta’s head lulled back, giving him better access to her neck and he kissed the delicate column of her throat before he whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she breathed.

“I’m drunk,” he muttered.

Nesta snorted. “You’ve been drunk since three.”

“Not true,” he said, trailing his kisses across her shoulder. 

“So true,” she protested, but didn’t push him away, only closed her eyes as he slipped the strap of her tank top down her arm. 

“You know, in a few months, I won’t be able to fuck you whenever I want.”

Nesta rolled her eyes and snorted. “How romantic. The father of my child, ladies and gentleman.” 

But Cassian was grinning, his mouth against her skin. “I’m not wrong.”

“Hmmm.” She pretended to be unaffected by his advances, but Cassian turned her face towards him and kissed her. Nesta giggled and turned over, wrapping her arms around him.

“So what did I hear about our aggressive sex life today?” Cass asked, kissing her jaw.

Nesta laughed and said, “Remember the woman that you scandalized earlier?” Cassian blinked, clearly not recalling. “You were drunk, remember?”

“No, but I’ll take your word for it,” he mumbled, his attention redirected to more important things as his face planted between her breasts.

“Well, I basically told an elderly woman that I suck you dry, so..” Nesta trailed off.

Cassian snorted, propping himself up on his elbows. “You scandalized an old woman?”

“It makes me mad when people ask stupid things,” she said, shrugging.

Cassian blinked. “Is it weird that I’'m completely turned on right now?”

Nesta took his face into her hands. “When are you not turned on?”

Cassian grinned. “Fair point.”

He kissed her hard, his tongue sweeping along her bottom lip. She opened up, giving him access and moaned quietly as his tongue brushed against her own.

“Make love to me,” she breathed. “Make love to me in our home.”

Cass pulled back, gazing down at her. 

Our home.

She watched as his eyes filled up with tears, but before one could fall, she pulled his lips back down to hers and kissed him, pouring everything she wanted to say into it.

He pulled himself over her but was careful for her belly. She kept telling him that a little bit of weight was okay, but he was overly protective of what that bump held. 

A few more months, and they would go from being a couple to being a family of three. They would close the B&B and make the big house their home. They would raise their daughter within those walls. 

And Cassian couldn’t wait.

[made-me-deep-blue]

high school au! poppy x bea - bea wants a kiss from poppy

based on this post by @somewillwin 

taglist: @poppy-sin-clair @uhh-the-green-thing @stanzoeywade

-

When Poppy Min Sinclair and Bea Hughes had started dating, both of them made a promise that they would not be seen with each other until they’ve reached their meeting point.

However, ever since that football incident a few months back, Poppy started worrying less about being seen with Bea, even taking pride in walking next to the female quarterback. Her head usually makes excuses in return to combat her ego, but whenever Poppy looks up at Bea next to her, hands tucked into the pockets of her jeans and looking forward with an unreadable expression, it lets Poppy’s heart rest in ease a little.

On this particular day though, Poppy could literally feel eyes on her as she and Bea walked through the campus towards their favourite spot in school; the large oak tree behind the football stadium. The cheerleading captain writhed nervously under the intent gazes of the student population.

“What’s wrong?” Bea asked. “You look...tense.”

Poppy’s face flushed pink. “N-Nothing,” she tightened her grip on her bag. “I just feel...uncomfortable.”

Bea’s eyes scanned the vicinity, and although there’s no one within sights, if this were an anime series, there would be literally gleaming eyes in the shadows of the unoccupied rooms. The quarterback hesitated as she reached her hand out, but still got the courage to grab the fair-skinned hand of her girlfriend.

“C’mon, let’s go before we become a shoujo manga ourselves.”

“H-Hey!”

Bea weaved through the hallways and different buildings with expertise, and Poppy only realised that they had slipped through parts of the school that were out of bounds to them when they had reached their spot within five minutes when it would usually take them longer if they took their usual route.

“What’re you waiting for?” Bea looked behind at Poppy and nodded over to the shade underneath the oak tree, raising the packed lunch in her hand. “Lunch’s gonna get cold.”

“Alright.”

With the absence of an audience, both of them started cosying up to each other. Poppy shared the kimbap that her family’s private chef had made for her, while Bea shared her mom’s homemade Mexican pinwheels. After their lunches were cleared, both of them looked into the distance at the main school building, sipping on their juice boxes (Bea’s mom had packed two juice boxes because she just knows her own daughter).

Bea turned her head slightly and admired Poppy’s side profile. Spending more time with her when I found out about her family really made her more radiant.

“Is there something on my face, Hughes?”

Now it was Bea’s turn to get flushed. But in frustration.

“N-Nothing! Nothing at all…” Bea’s words trailed off as she looked away.

Poppy looked at Bea quizically, pausing her drinking to try to get Bea to look her in the eyes. “You don’t get to hide anything from me, Bea. You remember what we promised that day, don’t you-”

Bea’s lips were on hers before she could even finish the last syllable of her sentence. 

The kiss was chaste, but it was something that Bea always cherished whenever they were alone together. The little moments they shared; when they were cramped in the janitor’s closet when Bea couldn’t wait for a moment alone, or when Poppy had attempted to corner Bea in the locker room because Bea had looked so hot when she had taken off her helmet to drench her hair with her water bottle. Bea cherished all of them.

The air between them felt charged, heard it crackle with energy before both of them visibly went red and pulled away instantly.

Poppy patted on her red, heated cheeks with surprise. “W-What was that for, you dummy?!”

“I-” It took all the mental capacity that Bea had left to sputter out what she wanted to say. “I just wanted to kiss you!”

While Bea sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck whilst looking the other way, sizzling, Poppy touched her lips. God, she’ll never get over the feeling of kissing that himbo of a quarterback whom she’s stupidly into.

“...you wore my favourite chapstick flavour.”

“Huh?”

Bea turned over and her eyes were still on the grass, bottom lip jutting out. “I said...you wore my favourite chapstick flavour.” The words slowly went silent towards the end.

Poppy’s face right at that moment could compete with the colour of cherries.

“W-Why did you have to state the obvious like that?!” She shoved Bea’s head away with her hand, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Because it’s true!” Bea retorted. “That means you remembered, Poppy.”

Poppy tried to look up at Bea. Her face was exactly as red, but her hazel brown eyes were gleaming. It definitely wasn’t the afternoon sun since they were under the shade, but it was a look of...commitment. The commitment to love the complex woman Poppy is. The commitment to be with Poppy no matter where she came from.

The commitment to love Poppy.

There will be a time where that word will come out of Poppy’s mouth, but she’d known better than to not ruin what they have between them.

“Of course, you dummy. Of course, I did.”

The silence was about to stretch on, before Bea huffed and made herself comfortable, laying her head on Poppy’s lap. “Now if you would excuse me, I’ll be taking my nap.”

The cheerleading captain then proceeded to stroke her fingers through Bea’s blonde hair to a familiar, calming rhythm and pace that would usually send Bea to her nap within minutes. As she twirled a strand of Bea’s hair around her finger, she smiled to herself.

Maybe someday, someday...I can properly convey my feelings to you.

[hlcreators]

AUTHOR REC:  creamcoffeelou / @2ofusmp4 

Be sure to show some love by leaving kudos and comments!

last blues for bloody knuckles (34k)

“Hi, love,” A too-familiar voice greeted him from the other side of the door. He had a cigarette dangling from his lips that he brought between two fingers as his eyes raked over Louis. All Louis could do was stare, wide-eyed at the alpha that he’d left behind so many years ago. “Harry?” His voice felt far away, like it wasn’t him that was speaking. On the other side of the door stood the one man he never thought he’d see again, and maybe the only man he never wanted to see again. A few steps behind him stood Liam and someone else he didn’t recognize, with guns tucked into their front pockets. “I need you to come with me.”

OR

Styles was a name everyone knew. It had evolved into something of a fairy tale, a far away problem that normal people didn’t have to deal with. Louis never thought he’d find himself falling in love with him. When he finds himself pregnant with Harry’s child, he knows he has to leave the life, and Harry, behind. For her sake.

He never expected Harry to show back up on his doorstep five years later.

A mob au.

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When they’d first come into this lifestyle, the being in their roles in their day to day lives, Louis had struggled with it. He’d found it hard to distinguish between what Harry was doing because he thought he had to, with Louis as his dominant, and what he wanted to do just because of them being partners.

Being ‘twenty-four-seven’ in the traditional sense wasn’t exactly realistic in their life, no matter how much they tried to make it work. They could do small things within their power dynamic, they could try their best to keep it going, but more or less, it wasn’t a constant thing. Harry called it submission with weekends and bank holidays, and it worked for them.

As different as it was from what he expected, no matter what, in the end, it worked for them – and that was all that mattered.

“Can I… take care of you?” Harry had asked, his eyes looking everywhere but at Louis. Louis had just turned twenty-three, they’d been exploring things, doing new things for years, and Harry still managed to surprise him. “Like… Just do things for you like you take such good care of me.”

OR: A canon-compliant fic where Harry wants nothing more than to take care of Louis.

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Harry had a plan for his life. Work his dream job, raise his family, and settle down one day. He thrived in the ordinary. But when tragedy strikes, he has to see exactly how far hes willing to go to help the person he cares for most. Louis was never a part of that plan.

technicolor (81k)

When the small town of Twin Lakes begins experiencing a string of serial murders, a team of detectives is called in to help. Louis is the head of the team and meets a hard-headed psychic who everyone else seems to believe is the one who will solve the case. Louis isn't so sure.

OR The slow-burn, hate-to-love, crime au where Harry is a psychic, Louis is a detective, and the world is against them.

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Louis has long since been following the same schedule, the same program, the same everything. He works hard towards his goals and gives everything to those that mean the most to him. Harry was never a part of the plan, but Louis finds he loves unplanned changes.

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There’s something so uniquely captivating to being on stage - to being the center of attention. Louis has always craved it, always craved the feeling of being desired by all only to have his own pick at the end of the night. He knows people come to see him specifically - has been told time and time again - and maybe that’s why he’s so in love with what he does. He knows he’s wanted and he loves being able to manipulate the attention of the men and women sitting in the crowd around him. 

Break Me Dow, Build Me Up (16k)

America, as it’s been told, is the world of riches. Men and women alike can come to the land of the free and achieve the American dream, regardless of their background. He wanted nothing more than to create a better life for his sisters, for himself, and perhaps for his future. Harry Styles was never a part of the plan.

[or: Louis moves his family to America to try and find a better life. Harry finds him instead.]

Just A Whisper (11k)

Strange things have happened around the castle since Louis was young. No one has ever been able to explain them and they've long since gone ignored. As the hauntings become more frequent, Louis finally reaches his last straw and calls a professional to help him.

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After being left at the alter by his boyfriend of five years, Louis goes on a vacation to try and clear his head and fill the empty spaces in his heart. On the way, he meets a new group of life-long friends, and maybe a little more than that.

Just To Feel (4.1k)

Reason #17: Your car's already at their place and you're too lazy to move it.

When he wakes up, his back hurts, his head is pounding, and his mouth is extremely dry. There’s too much light around him and he doesn’t remember falling asleep at all the night before, let alone getting home. But as soon as he opens his eyes, he realizes very quickly that he’s not home.

He’s managed to fall asleep on the floor of Harry Style’s flat.

The Brightest Star Shines Through The Dark (16k)

Harry and Louis build their life together from the beginning - but even losing everything can't tear them apart.

What A Feeling (2.9k)

“You know I don’t kiss and tell.” Louis says with a slightly forced laugh. “Yeah, cause there’s nothin’ to tell!” Liam replies with a grin, getting a cackle from Niall, and making Louis’ face flame. He can feel Harry’s soft chuckle, just because their bodies are touching. “Like you have room to talk, mate.” He bites back, but all three of them are still laughing. He really needs to get laid.

Across The Lines (28k)

With a camera in hand, Louis sets off on the road trip of his life to explore the most famous haunted houses of the UK. Things don't exactly go to plan.

End Game (54k)

Harry styles is the most feared man in London, notorious for always getting everything he wants. All of that changes when Louis comes around and opens his eyes to a new, beautiful side of the world.

Beneath These Sparkling Lights (Forever you’re mine) (5.1k)

"After years of being called a couple teasingly by both our families and friends alike, I know it was nerve wracking for the both of us when it finally actually happened. But for our entire lives we’ve always been HarryandLouis, never apart, whether we called ourselves best friends or best friends and fiancés or now best friends and husbands.” Harry’s smile is so gorgeous that Louis feels a little shake in his knees, “Through everything, the good, the sometimes weird, and the bad, I’m so glad it was you at my side. I know life is ugly sometimes, but you’re the beauty in the fight that is life, for me. My rose to my dagger."

Last Day Alive (42k)

Harry Styles was born to the leader of the Following - the organization that keeps their world peaceful and just. Without the Following, the world would only return to the ways of the Old Times and all of them would come to an untimely end. Or, so he thought, until he meets Louis, the leader of the Rebellion.

Gentle Autumn Rain (57k)

Louis Tomlinson moved to London with a big heart and a big dream. Harry Styles moved to London, fresh out of the police academy, with the hopes of helping as many people as he could in his eyes. When a deranged alpha forces their paths to cross, their ideas of what is meant to be will never be the same.

Down the Field (9k)

Louis, a pro football player of Chelsea, is forced to retire after a severe injury to his foot. After he recovers and is told the news that he'll never play professionally again, he decides to go coach at his old secondary school. Harry, the health teacher, loves to let him know how big of a fan he is.

I Promise (3.5k)

Harry has a promise to keep and a pair of arms to go home to.

[Loosely based on the drowning scene from Dunkirk's trailer. ]

I Chose You (13k)

When he wakes up, the room is much brighter than when he’d fallen asleep. He has to blink the sleep from his eyes and eventually he just tosses an arm over his face to try and ignore the brightness, but then he realizes that the bed has a decent sized dent in it that forms perfectly to his body and he’s comfortable. It’s – weird. He can’t remember leaving the blinds open, and it wouldn’t have made much sense for Zayn to have opened them, either, but he doesn’t think about it. Maybe he just hadn’t realized that he’d had such a nice bed when he’d fallen asleep.

After a moment, he groans and takes his arm away from his eyes and – wait. This is – this is not his hotel room. This is a bedroom.

[Or: Louis wakes up in another life.]

As We Are (48k)

Louis doesn't think much when he's asked to meet up with the alpha of the pack two hours from his own - he figures it's business as usual. But Harry Styles is anything but usual.

Written In The Stars (71k)

It was so different - the complete opposite of everything Louis had ever expected about finally being placed into the real world. Zayn defied every single thing he'd ever been told about vampires, about how he was supposed to be treated. This was nothing like what he'd expected.

[or: Zayn's the third oldest vampire in the world and found himself searching out the company of a human, so he took Louis as his keep. His maker Harry doesn't approve.]

Running (28k)

Louis was never ashamed of who he was - never had been never would be. But he never really was himself.

In The Heat of The Moment (36k)

The first thing that came to Zayn’s mind when he read Liam Payne’s file was that he was certainly, definitely going to die before he was thirty. The word they used in The Office for such a case was reckless; reckless meant that, perhaps, the person wasn’t at fault, but the universe and said person’s energy didn’t happen to match. That made terrible things happen to that person.

Liam Payne was a classic case of recklessness.

[or: A modern times AU where Zayn is a guardian angel and he's been sent down to protect the most reckless human he's ever met.]

[oohfluffy]

TIHM Ch.1 | BBH

Group: EXO

Member: Byun Baekhyun

Theme: Angst | Fluff | Rated M | University!AU | Football!AU

Word Count: 1,750

chapter 1

"Have you watched the new series on Netflix?"

"Omg! Yes! The one with the hot guy?!"

"I just bought this new phone with three cameras on it, and it's just so cheap."

"Oh! I will buy five later."

"Five?"

"Yes, I'll give them as gifts."

"I'm so gonna break up with this guy. He's so boring!"

"The blondie is hotter than the raven-haired, girl! I told you, you should have slept with him instead!"

You internally groaned as you squint your eyes at your book, totally disturbed by the noise but was keeping it in. You looked up at your so-called new group of friends and sighed.

They were all having their own businesses with each other, buzzing non-stop like bees surrounding their honey.

And you?

Seated at the corner of the rectangular table, where an empty cup of iced mocha sat in front of your unmoving state. You gripped on your book, eyebrows twitching at the high-pitched voices of the girls.

"What the hell are you even wearing, girl? Is that a rag?" Irene squealed, tugging on Yeri's new skirt. She had her beautifully arched eyebrow raised in disgust, her lips in a disappointed straight line.

"Damn you. This is a new trend by my stylist!" The youngest argued as she slapped Irene's hand away, offended by the claim of the oldest.

"Leave our young one alone, Joo. She's growing!" Wendy chuckled as she nudged the sleeping Seulgi on her side. Joy laughed out loud as she watched Seulgi almost rolling down the couch in surprise.

You tsked silently as you closed your book, giving up on trying to read in peace with these girls. You stood up and looked over the noisy group, waiting for the right time to say goodbye.

"You bitch, I'm gonna kill you." Seulgi grunted as she tried to get up from the floor.

"As I was saying, he's not even worth the risk, you know?" Joy continued her story, glancing at Wendy, who listened eagerly. "My dad would have cut me off from the family if he heard I was dating him."

"I seriously don't know why you like these kinds of clothing." Irene shook her head as she looked over Yeri's clothing, who frowned at her.

You sighed in defeat, realizing that saying goodbye or not will only be useless and irrelevant to these people. You could be dead by now and they wouldn't know or care about it.

I mean, you're not even part of this group. You were just tugged in for a while and you thought you were.

"What were you even thinking?" You thought to yourself as you silently closed the door. "I shouldn't have gone here."

You greeted goodbye the househelpers of Irene before you went outside of her house. Thankfully, they were a lot friendlier than their master.

Maybe they were indeed friendly, but only with their group. Not everyone else.

Especially not you.

Why did you even try making friends? Didn't you learn from the past?

You looked around the street and slouched your shoulders in exhaustion.

You're gonna walk for about 3 kilometers to get back to the coffee shop near your apartment. Again. Why? They invite you, but you don't get to ride with them.

"Stupid." You mumbled at yourself, kicking small pebbles as you started walking.

Why do we always try to fit ourselves with people who obviously do not want to welcome us with open arms? Why force ourselves? Why do we become so desperate?

Is it fear that controls us or is it us wanting to control our fear?

You reached out for your best friend with a smile, and she smiled back.

"You know, school was boring. Same things happen everyday, and it's getting tiring." You complained to her, your hand caressing her head. She just stared at you with her twinkling eyes as she leaned on to your touch.

"The same pairs of eyes glaring at me. The same mouths laughing at me. The same hands pushing me down." Your lips trembled as you looked into her eyes. Her sincere eyes. "The same people who I trusted." You let out a humorless laugh as you looked up at the darkening sky.

"I'm getting tired." Your voice cracked as you pulled her closer to you, hugging her small furred body. "Poppy, I'm so tired of it." The 3-month-old golden retriever whined at your cries, as if she felt your pain.

"I'm hurting." You cried. "I'm hurting so so much."

You blinked your tears away as you stared at the old house in front of you. You smiled bitterly as you see the house that you used to love so much. The house that used to be so full of love. The house that watched you grow. The house that gave you warmth whenever you were cold.

Now it's just an old house with brittle wood, waiting to be destroyed.

It's been a two years since you left this house and went to live on the apartment near the university. It's a few blocks far from it, so you get to visit it once and awhile.

"I miss you." You whispered, your eyes drifting to the window where you usually watch the stars. "It's been awhile, huh? How are you guys?" You talked as if you were getting an answer. You must look like crazy, talking by yourself. "I'm good, you don't have to worry."

I've been alone for years, what is there to fear?

"Grandma." You smiled. "I'll get going."

She was your only family, and she was more than enough. She was your home.

Until she was gone.

—

"Where do you guys want to eat?" Seulgi excitedly asked as she picked her bag up from her table. Then they started chatting loudly as they went out of the room. The class buzzed as the professor went out after a short consultation.

You just continued packing your things, ignoring the noise irritating your ears. It was just the second day of school, but everyone's friends already.

Wow.

You always wonder if you were the only one who does not manage to make friends in a snap. Or  who is not fond of being plastic in front of other people in order to fit in.

"Hi! Do you want to come with us for lunch?"

You halted zipping your backpack for a second, eyebrows furrowing before realizing that...

that question is certainly not for you.

No one wanted you in their group, even just for lunch.

"Sure! I'm Heize, by the way."

You let out a breath, before wearing your bag and leaving the room.

The hallways were filled with people, conversing with each other. Talking about the upcoming football game of the seniors this Friday, about the newly opened resto across the main university building, and blah blah. You can't keep up with how every person here can talk along with a hundred of students in one enclosed area.

You managed to squeeze yourself into the sea of people, and rushed to the empty elevator. You quickly closed the doors before anyone could even follow. You hated being around with so much people. It wasn't just because you liked being alone, it was suffocating.

It was better when you were free.

You leaned your head on the elevator wall, watching as the red numbers increase as the ride ascends. Fortunately, everyone is having their lunch outside or at the canteen. No one should bother you at this period.  

The ting sound of the elevator indicated that you have arrived at your desired floor, the Composition Studies of Music Department. This building is under the Arts and Theatre department, which has been your safe haven for the past two years in the university. Every floor is aesthetically designed and suited for every course department, it is pleasing to relax in. Not everyone appreciates the look though, so here you are.

You stepped out of the elevator and smiled at the paintings outside of the studios and practice rooms. You haven't sneaked inside of the rooms as you settled for the soft carpeted floor near the staircase on the corner. It wasn't prohibited to be seen outside the corridors, but it was embarrassing. You cannot go inside the rooms without permission or if you don't have classes there, but it is the silence that you wanted here not anything else so it's fine out here.

"Hmm." You hummed as you sat on the carpeted floor, placing your bag on the side. You silently took out your lunch box from your bag as you looked around the empty 4th floor. You've been eating lunch here for numerous times, so no one would catch you, right?

With a short reassurance to yourself, you started eating your stir-fried noodles slowly.

"I think I should have added more soy sauce in this." You mumbled as you chewed on your food. You've been living by yourself for quite a long time, but still haven't grasped the cooking skills. But your food is edible, don't worry. "I should buy some later."

You were half-way finishing your food when you heard something coming from one of the rooms in the hallway. You munched on your lunch quick, almost panicking as you packed your lunch box back to your bag.

"Tonight I look into"

Your hands stopped packing as the first line of a familiar song rang through the hallway. The piano keys were played gently but with certainty, complementing the tone of the voice.

"The moon is so blue"

Your eyes drifted to the last door near the elevator, noticing the light under the door. Your mouth gaped in awe.

"You too lonely like me, living with empty heart"

You admit that you were not a fan of music, and you don't enjoy them that much. But hearing this introduction of a song, with that kind of voice, you were drawn to it. The high-pitch sounded so effortless as if the singer was merely breathing, and the melody of the instrument suited the smoothness of the voice.

"Lay down on empty room"

Instead of leaving, you found yourself sitting back down and leaning against the wall.

"It won't hurt to stay for a while." You bit your lip as you closed your eyes, just letting the voice take you to places.

"By these thoughts, those thoughts"

"Long, long sigh"

"Cigarette smoke"

"One more day has gone again"

It was more peaceful with that voice accompanying your loneliness.

♫ ♡ ♫ ♡ ♫ ♡ ♫ ♡ ♫

A/N:

ACKKK. I'm back.

I won't count how many months I went on hiatus, I would cry in guilt.

If anyone wants to know the song I used as an inspiration for the piano piece, it's "Moon of Seoul" by Kim Gun-mo. And if you're not informed, Baekhyun even showed off a glimpse in JYP Party People before (I placed the vid on the multimedia, you can check it out) and he even sung a full version in his IG live two years ago. You can search for it in Youtube. :))

I hope you look forward to this new series of mine! 

— 

♫ Ch. 2

[arcticdementor]

“Hey bro! Check out this Nike ad!” This was my entry point into a new world.

…

Since Carlos had lived mostly outside the United States, he was able to follow soccer on a level I’d never encountered in my hometown. Back then, before social media and the advent of scarf-wearing Northwestern fútbol hipsters, big-time European soccer was like the metric system: Known to almost all but ourselves. But Carlos knew, and immediately used LimeWire to curate me a massive archive of 1990s through early 2000s soccer highlights. What was I doing in the world without them?

Oddly enough, in trying to inculcate me in soccer fandom, he started not with game highlights, but with the advertisements. Yes, Carlos was an educator and a voluntary footsoldier for Big Apparel. Going in, I had no clue about high-quality, internationally popular Nike soccer ads. The ads, written by the legendary Wieden+Kennedy firm, were miniature movies, films that were often creatively daring but also quite funny. The most popular of these ads might be “Good vs. Evil,” from 1996, where Nike’s best soccer players team up to play Satan’s literal army. The blending of sacrilege, theology and comedy just worked, like a more ambitious version of Space Jam that somehow took itself less seriously than Space Jam.

…

Yes, I know ads aren’t supposed to be high art. I understand that they are the purest distillation of manipulative greed. And yet, they sometimes are culturally relevant generational touchstones. While Nike was weaving soccer into enduring pop culture abroad, it was having a similar kind of success with basketball and baseball stateside. These ads weren’t just pure ephemera. Michael Jordan’s commercials were so good that, as he nears age 60, his sneaker still outsells any modern athlete’s. “Chicks dig the long ball” is a phrase (a) that can get you sent to the modern HR department and b) whose origins are fondly remembered by most American men over the age of 35.

Modern Nike ads will never be so remembered. It’s not because we’re so inundated with information these days, though we are. And it’s not because today’s overexposed athletes lack the mystique of the 1990s superstars, though they do. It’s because the modern Nike ads are beyond fucking terrible.

…

They’re bad for many causes, but one in particular is an incongruity at the company’s heart. Nike, like so many major institutions, is suffering from what I’ll call Existence Dissonance. It’s happening in a particular way, for a particular reason and the result is that what Nike is happens to be at cross-purposes from what Nike aspires to be.

…

For all the talk of a racial reckoning within major industries, Nike’s main problem is this: It’s a company built on masculinity, most specifically Michael Jordan’s alpha dog brand of it. Now, due to its own ambitions, scandals, and intellectual trends, Nike finds masculinity problematic enough to loudly reject.

This rejection is part of the broader culture war, but it’s accelerating due to an arcane quirk in the apparel giant’s strange restructuring plan, announced in June. Under the leadership of new CEO John Donahoe, Nike is moving away from its classic discrete sports categories (Nike Basketball, Nike Soccer, etc.) in favor of a system where all products are shoveled into one of three divisions: men’s, women’s and kids��. Obviously Nike made clothing tailored to the specificities of all these groups before, but now, Nike is emphasizing gender over sport. Gone is the model of the product appealing to basketball fans because they are basketball fans. It’s now replaced by a model of, say, the product appealing to women because they are women.

And hey, women buy sneakers too. Actually, women buy the lion’s share of clothing in the United States. While women shoppers are market dominant in nearly every aspect of American apparel, the clothing multinational named after a Greek goddess happens to be a major exception. At Nike, according to its own records, men account for roughly twice as much revenue as women do.

You might see that stat and think, “Well, this means that Nike will prioritize men over women in its new, odd, gendered segmentation of the company.” That’s not necessarily how this all works, thanks to a phenomenon I’ll call Undecided Whale. The idea is that a company, as its aims grow more expansive, starts catering less to the locked-in core customer and more to a potential whale which demonstrates some interest. Sure, you can just keep doing what’s made you rich, but how can you even focus on your primary business with that whale out there, swimming so tantalizingly close? The whale, should you bring it in, has the potential to enrich you far more than your core customers ever did. And yeah yeah yeah, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, but those were birds. This is a damned whale! And so you start forgetting about your base.

You can see this dynamic in other places. For the NBA, China is its Undecided Whale. It could be argued that the NBA fixates more on China than on America, even if the vast majority of TV money comes from U.S. viewership. The league figures it has more or less hit its ceiling in its home country, so China becomes an obsession as this massive, theoretical growth engine.

…

Here’s the main issue for Nike in this endeavor: The company, as a raison d’être, promotes athletic excellence. While women are among Nike’s major sports stars, the core of high-level performance, in the overwhelming majority of sports, is male. Every sane person knows that, though nobody in professional class life seems rude enough to say so. Obviously, there’s the observable reality of who tends to set records and there’s also the pervasive understanding that testosterone, the main male sex hormone, happens to give unfair advantages to the athletes who inject it.

Speaking of which, there’s a famous This American Life episode from 2002 where the public radio journos actually test their own testosterone levels. The big joke of the episode is just how comically low their T levels are. Sure, you would stereotype bookish public radio men in this way, and yet the results are on the nose enough to shock.

As a nerdy media-weakling type, I can relate to the stunning realization that you’ve been largely living apart from T. Before working in the NBA setting, I was an intern in the cubicles of Salon.com’s San Francisco office, around the time it was shifting from respectable online magazine into inane outrage content mill. Going from that setting to the NBA locker room was some jarring whiplash, like leaving the faculty lounge for a pirate ship. To quote Charles Barkley on the latter culture, “The locker room is sexist, racist, and homophobic … and it’s fun and I miss it.”

…

The “Good vs. Evil” ad boasts a “Like” to “Dislike” ratio of 20-to-1 on YouTube. On June 17th of 2021, Nike put out an ad ahead of the Euro Cup that referenced “Good vs. Evil” as briefly as it could. In this case, a little child popped his collar and used Cantona’s catchphrase. As of this writing, the new ad has earned a thousand more punches of the Dislike than of the Like button.

When you see it, it’s no surprise that the latest Euro Cup ad is disliked. I mean, you have to look at this shit. I know we’re so numb to the ever-escalating emanations of radical chic from our largest corporations, but sometimes it’s worth pausing just to take stock and gawk.

…

But today we are in the land of new football, where we take dictatorial direction from less-than-athletic minors. After her announcement, we are treated to a montage of different people who offer tolerance bromides.

“There are no borders here!”

“Here, you can be whoever you want. Be with whoever you want.”

(Two men kiss following that line, because subtlety isn’t part of this new world order.)

Then, a woman who appears to be breastfeeding under a soccer shirt, threatens, in French, “And if you disagree …”

And this is when the little boy gives us Cantona’s “au revoir” line before kicking a ball out of a soccer stadium, presumably because that’s what happens to the ignorant soccer hooligan. He gets kicked out for raging against gay men kissing or French ladies breastfeeding or somesuch. Later, a referee wearing a hijab instructs us, “Leave the hate,” before narrator girl explains, “You might as well join us because no one can stop us.”

Is that last line supposed to be … inspiring? That’s what a movie villain says, like if Bane took the form of Stan Marsh’s sister. Speaking of which, was this ad actually written by the creators of South Park as an elaborate prank? It’s certainly more convincing as an aggressive parody of liberals than as a sales pitch. Why, in anything other than a comedic setup, is a woman breastfeeding in a big-budget Euro Cup ad?

It’s tempting to fall into the pro-vanguardism template the boomers have handed down to us and sheepishly say, “I must be getting old, because this seems weird to me,” but let’s get real. You dislike this ad because it sucks. You are having a natural, human response to shitty art. This a hollow sermon from a priest whose sins were in the papers. Nobody is impressed by what Nike’s doing here. Nobody thinks Nike, a multinational famous for its sweatshops, is ushering us into an enlightened utopia. Sure, most media types are afraid to criticize the ad publicly. You might inspire suspicion that what you’re secretly against is men kissing and women breastfeeding, but nobody actually likes the stupid ad. No college kid would show it to a new friend he’s trying to impress, and it’s hard to envision a massive cohort of Gen Z women giving a shit about this ad either.

Now juxtapose that ad not just against the classics of the 1990s but also the 2000s products that preceded the Great Awokening. Compare it to another Nike Euro Cup advertisement, Guy Ritchie’s “Take It to the Next Level.”

…

Here’s the problem, insofar as problems are pretended into existence by our media class: The ad is very, very male. Really, what we are watching here is a boyhood fantasy. Our protagonist gets called up to the big show, and next thing you know he’s cavorting with multiple ladies, and autographing titties to the chagrin of his date. He can be seen buying a luxury sports car and arriving at his childhood home in it as his father beams with pride. Training sessions show him either puking from exhaustion or playing grab-ass with his fellow soccer bros. This is jock life, distilled. Art works when it’s true and it’s true that this is a vivid depiction of a common fantasy realized.

Nike’s highly successful “Write the Future” ad (16,000 Likes, 257 Dislikes) works along similar themes.

…

The recent Olympic ads were especially heavy on cringe radical chic, and might have stood out less in this respect if the athletes themselves mirrored that tone on the big stage. Not so much in these Olympics. It seems as though Nike made the commercials in preparation for an explosion of telegenic activism, only to see American athletes mostly, quietly accept their medals, chomp down on the gold, and praise God or country. Perhaps you could consider Simone Biles bowing out of events due to mental health as a form of activism, but overall, the athletes basically behaved in the manner they would have back in 1996.

But Nike forged onwards anyway. This ad in celebration of the U.S. women’s basketball team made some waves, getting ripped in conservative media as the latest offense by woke capital.

…

“Today I have a presentation on dynasties,” a pink-haired teenage girl tells us. “But I refuse to talk about the ancient history and drama. That’s just the patriarchy. Instead, I’m going to talk about a dynasty that I actually look up to. An all-women dynasty. Women of color. Gay women. Women who fight for social justice. Women with a jump shot. A dynasty that makes your favorite men’s basketball, football, and baseball teams look like amateurs.”

When she says, “That’s just the patriarchy,” the camera pans to a bust of (I think) Julius Caesar. At another point, the girl says, “A dynasty that makes Alexander the Great look like Alexander the Okay.” Fuck you, Classical Antiquity. Fuck you, fans of teams. You’re all just the patriarchy. Or something.

Nike could easily sell the successful American women’s basketball team without denigrating other teams, genders and ancient Mediterranean empires that have nothing to do with this. Could but won’t. The company now conveys an almost visceral need for women to triumph over men because … well, nobody really explains why, even if it has something to do with Undecided Whaling. In Nike’s tentpole Olympics ad titled “Best Day Ever,” the narrator fantasizes about the future, declaring, “The WNBA will surpass the NBA in popularity!” ​

…

There are theories on the emergence of woke capital, with many having observed that, following Occupy Wall Street, media institutions ramped up on census category grievance. The thinking goes that, in response to the threat of a real economic revolution, the power players in our society pushed identity politics to undermine group solidarity. Well, that was a fiendishly brilliant plan, if anyone actually hatched it.

I’m not so convinced, though, as I’m more inclined to believe that a lot of history happens by happenstance. If we’re to specifically analyze the Nike Awokening, there is a recent top-down element of a mandate for Undecided Whaling, but that mandate was preceded by a socially conscious middle class campaign within the company.

This isn’t unique to Nike, either. Given my past life covering the team that tech moguls root for, I’ve run into such people. They aren’t, by and large, ideological. Very few are messianically devoted to seeing the world through the intersectionality lens. They are, however, terrified of their employees who feel this way. The mid-tier labor force, this cohort who actually internalized their university teachings, are full of fervor and willing to risk burned bridges in favor of causes they deem righteous. The big bosses just don’t want a headline-making walkout on their hands, so they placate and mollify, eventually bending the company’s voice into language of righteousness.

…

All the guilt and atonement transference make for bad art. And so the ads suck. There’s no Machiavellian conspiracy behind the production. It’s just a combination of desperately wanting female market share and desperately wanting to move on from the publicized sins of a masculine past. So, to message its ambitions, the exhausted corporation leans on the employees with the loudest answers.

There’s a lot of interplay between Nike and Wieden+Kennedy when the former asks the latter for a type of ad, but the through line from both sides is a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Based on conversations with people who’ve worked in both environments, there’s a dearth of personnel who are deeply connected to sports. In place of a grounding in a subculture, you’re getting ideas from folks who went to nice colleges and trendy ad schools, the type of people who throw words like “patriarchy” at the screen to celebrate a gold medal victory. The older leaders, uneasy in their station and thus obsessed with looking cutting edge, lean on the younger types because the youth are confident. Unfortunately, that confidence is rooted in an ability to regurgitate liturgy, rather than generative genius. They’ve a mandate to replace a marred past, which they leap at, but they’re incapable of inventing a better future.

…

Ironically, Nike mattered a lot more in the days when its position was less dominant. Back when it had to really fight for market share, it made bold, genre-altering art. The ads were synonymous with masculine victory, plus they were cheekily irreverent. And so the dudes loved them. Today, Nike is something else. It LARPs as a grandiose feminist nonprofit as it floats aimlessly on the vessel Michael Jordan built long ago. Like Jordan himself, Nike is rich forever off what it can replicate never. Unlike Jordan, it now wishes to be known for anything but its triumphs. Nike once told a story and that story resonated with its audience. Now it’s decided that its audience is the problem. It wouldn’t shock you to learn that Carlos hated the new Nike ads I texted to him. His exact words were, “I don’t want fucking activism from a sweatshop monopoly.” He’ll still buy the gear, though, just not the narrative. Nike remains, but the story about itself has run out. Au revoir. 

[matrixaffiliate]

Christmas in Quarantine

New Story! FFN and AO3

Quarantine has a way of making us want to have the best things in life, the things we can't have now. For Harry and Ginny, this involves hauling out the holy, playing carols, holiday treats, and a little of Christmas, right this very minute. Modern Muggle AU.

This little story was requested and prompted by several wonderful people on Tumblr. @gryffindormischief named the fic and wanted it written for Hinny. @petals-to-fish (who put up so many wonderful fics in one day for all of us and it really was Christmas) wanted to see a snowball fight, baking cookies, and mistletoe kissing. @inakindofdaydream (who adores Christmas after my own heart) wanted to see them almost getting caught by Santa Clause. And @shining-jul-of-hope who pointed out that it's nowhere near Christmas right now. :P I'm so grateful to these lovely people for sharing in the magic with me, and trusting me with their fabulous ideas!

For those of us not part of the UK, cornflour, apparently is what we call corn starch.

Christmas in Quarantine

It was strange, how little Harry Potter's life changed with the Pandemic, but as a blockbuster author who spent most of his time in his office writing the next installment of his fantasy novels, he was more or less socially distanced to begin with. What changed the most was that Ginny was home now. The football leagues were all canceled and that meant Ginny's professional career had been put on hold until further notice.

For the first week or so, it was fun. Harry put off the manuscript in exchange for keeping Ginny company in all the best ways. But then his publisher was emailing him about maybe getting more done since the world had shut down, and his editor started calling and so Harry reluctantly went back into work mode.

He figured Gin would be alright. She had the treadmill and other assorted workout equipment and her team did daily Zoom meetings now. When she wasn't goofing around with the team - he's walked into the kitchen when she's in those meetings, he knows what they're talking about - both their mothers liked to call and check-in, Marlene hosted a Kindle book club now, and Luna taught painting lessons through live videos, so Harry felt confident that Ginny didn't need him to be underfoot trying to "entertain" her.

But he started to wonder if he had underestimated what social distancing would do to his wife when Harry walked out of his office for a snack and heard the sound of... show tunes?

"Gin?" Harry poked his head into the sitting room.

"Alright, Potter?" Ginny was lounging on the sofa in front of the telly, watching something that looked horrendous on their high def screen.

"What's this?" Harry gestured to the telly.

"My mum always said I should watch the musicals she loved as a kid." Ginny shrugged. "And I've got time now, so I thought I'd give a few a go."

Harry chuckled, "You had me worried there. I've never heard you listen to show tunes and I wondered if you'd gone stir crazy."

Ginny rolled her eyes at him. "Don't let that book keep you past dinner again."

Harry shoved his hand in his hair. "I've got an alarm today, I'll be all yours the moment it goes off."

Ginny's returning smile left him wondering if maybe he ought to move that alarm up an hour.

After a week of Ginny watching the musicals her mum grew up with, Harry became accustomed to the show tunes playing from the sitting room. Gin would put on whatever one he assumed her mum had recommended and Harry would come out to assorted big band songs playing. It reminded him of going to his dad's parents' home when he was little, which felt oddly comforting given the way the world was attempting to implode upon itself.

And that was probably why Harry didn't think to question Gin's newfound obsession.

And when she started watching the same one at the start of every day, well Harry just figured that she really liked the music or the story, after all, the bits that Harry had seen were set during the Great Slump and he was starting to wonder if the world wasn't heading for another 21st-century repeat.

Harry was a bit taken aback after a week of her starting the day with the musical Auntie Mame to walk into the kitchen to grab lunch and find Ginny baking mince pies.

"Alright, Gin?"

Ginny grinned up at him from the pie crust she was rolling out.

"Thought I'd make us a bit of a treat."

Harry brushed some of the flour from her cheek.

"Mince pies?"

"You love mince pies." She set the rolling pin down to smear a floured hand across his cheek.

Harry tried to pull back but wasn't quick enough and laughed as he reached for a towel.

"You're right, so I guess the proper response should have been more along the lines of 'thank you' or maybe enthusiastic snogging?"

"I'll take the thank you now and the enthusiastic snogging after these pies are baked and cooled." Ginny kissed him and Harry moved closer to her, letting his lips move slowly against her, loving the way she melted against him.

"Thank you for making mince pies in April. I'll make sure that you get far more than enthusiastic snogging once I'm done working on this blasted novel."

Ginny bit down on his lip. "I can't wait."

Harry was surprised by Ginny baking mince pies. But the next morning he was downright floored to find their Christmas decorations out and mostly up when he stepped out to refill his tea.

"Gin? What on Earth?"

"We need a little Christmas, Harry." Ginny adjusted where she hung an ornament on their tree.

"It's April…" Was all he managed to say as he realized how much she'd managed to get done in the roughly three hours he'd been writing.

"Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!" Ginny laughed and smiled at the telly where Lucille Ball's character was talking about building a home for Jewish refugees.

"Right…"

Ginny moved back to the last couple of boxes of their Christmas decorations.

"I have a surprise at lunch. So don't work through it."

Harry blinked. "This isn't a surprise?"

"We need a little Christmas, Harry!" Ginny pulled the Santa hat or if the box and stuck it on her head.

And then it clicked.

"Are we in that musical?" He gestured to the telly.

Ginny huffed and dug into the box closest to her. "Well, I thought it looked like fun!"

"I can't sing," Harry grinned and moved to the boxes with Ginny. "But we could haul out the holy, maybe fill the stockings, turn on the carols."

Ginny's eyes filled back up with hope, "Bake Christmas cookies, have a snowball fight, watch for Santa?"

Harry slipped his hand into the box next to him as he smiled down at Ginny.

"I have no idea how we'll have a snowball fight, but yes, I'll go close out of my document for today and we'll have ourselves a little Christmas."

Then he lifted out what he'd been digging through the box for.

"But shouldn't we start our Christmas off right?" Harry held up the mistletoe over their heads.

Ginny chuckled, "Very smooth, Potter."

"I had to write a few romance pieces at university." Harry leant closer to her.

"Why have I never seen them?" Ginny smirked, leaning back away from him.

"They were rubbish. I tossed them the moment I had the grade." Harry finally pulled her close enough to capture her lips.

She laughed against him. "Go tell your boss you're out for the day while I go hang this above our bed."

Ginny snatched the mistletoe from his fingers and skipped to their bedroom.

By the time Harry had finished saving everything and putting a few ideas down in his notebook, Ginny was standing at his office door in her bikini with his swimming trunks in hand.

"What happened to Christmas?"

"I figured out how to have a snowball fight!" Ginny tossed him his trunks. "Come on!"

Then she headed for their balcony.

Harry couldn't change fast enough.

"Here," Ginny shoved a bowl at him as he stepped out the door to join her. "This is your ammunition, use it wisely because I'm not using any more of our cornflour for it."

"Cornflour?"

"Yes, and hair conditioner, which I've already told Amazon to send more of."

Harry laughed at how Ginny had moved their two patio chairs to make a battle line.

"I can't believe you managed to get us snow when it's 19 degrees out." Harry stuck his hand in his bowl of fake snow and grimaced at the texture.

"YouTube," Ginny shrugged and then jumped to one side of the chair battle line she'd created.

The moment Harry shut the door, she threw a ball of the 'snow' at this bareback and he grimaced at the way it felt sliding along his spine.

"This is an awful cross between that wretched Halloween slime we made in primary and store-bought decor snow."

"Wouldn't know," Ginny shrugged, "seeing as I haven't been hit by any of it."

Harry didn't move fast enough as she threw another 'snow ball' at him and it slid down his side. He groaned as the feeling of it crawling along his side sent shivers across his skin before reaching into his own bowl and tossing a large handful back at Ginny. She ducked and it splatted against the wall behind her.

There wasn't really much 'snow' between the two of them and when he missed Ginny by a hair for the third time, Harry decided to go all in. He jumped up on the patio chairs and pushed his foot on the back of the chair, tipping it over and taking his wife by surprise as he dumped his bowl over her head.

Ginny yelled and shoved him back onto the toppled chair as she threw the last of her snow at his face. Then she collapsed on top of him and laughed as they tried to keep the 'snow' from their eyes.

"I think a shower is in order." Harry pushed his caked glasses up into his hair. "And then what would you like to do next?"

"I have everything out for some Christmas cookies, icing and all." Ginny wiped some snow from her forehead before it could slide completely into her eyes.

"Baking and Christmas carols?"

"And maybe a bit of something else…" Ginny moved to kiss him but immediately backed away when more 'snow' tried to sneak into her eyes.

Harry laughed and pushed them to stand. "Lead a blind man to the shower, won't you?"

After a long shower, Harry wrapped his arms around Ginny's waist as carols played through her phone and she measured out the flour.

"Aside from the tank top, this feels like Christmas."

"Maybe we should spend Christmas in a warmer climate from now on," Ginny brushed a bit of flour on his nose.

"Our mums would probably hunt us down for something like that."

"Ooo, adventure and a holiday, sounds like a book waiting to be a bestseller."

Harry laughed and helped with the cookies and icing. Slipping his phone out here and there to jot down a few notes.

"I thought you told the boss you were off for the day." Ginny pouted as Harry set his phone down to ice another cookie.

"Just writing a few ideas down," Harry leant over and kissed her cheek.

"Typing, not writing," she teased.

"You said you had a surprise for me and to not work through lunch." Harry redirected their conversation.

"Well, I was going to use it to convince you to go along with having a bit of Christmas in April. But since you decided to jump on board without it, I'm saving it for tonight." She bit her lip.

"Tonight, eh?" Harry stood and moved to the fridge.

"Alright, Potter?" Ginny frowned.

"I know that look," Harry started pulling out sandwich fixings. "I'm going to need more than sugar cookies and icing for lunch if you've got that look."

Her laughter felt more genuine in that moment than it had since the world hit pause, and Harry grinned.

They really did need a little Christmas.

They spent the rest of the day 'virtual caroling'. For which his parents not only thanked them but joined in, taking the phone along as they dug up all the Christmas boxes and argued if they could thaw the ham overnight or if they should just make whatever they had on hand for a family Christmas dinner the next day hosted via Zoom meeting.

Harry scrounged up everything for a shepherds pie dinner and they put on A Christmas Carol after as they ate the iced cookies and drank hot chocolate for dessert.

It felt like Christmas.

Harry felt light and he felt happy and he could see the happiness and lightness in Ginny as well. They definitely needed a little Christmas in all of this pandemic insanity.

"Thank you," he kissed her hairline.

Ginny smiled up at him, snuggling closer to his side. "Thank you for being on board. This has been so much fun. I forgot about how awful it is out there."

Harry kissed her, letting himself indulge in the softness of her lips, the taste of chocolate and sugar on her lips.

"Do I still get to see that surprise?" Harry kissed along her jawline to the spot behind her ear that made her breath catch.

Ginny laughed, "Wait here."

She pushed up and slid out of the room with a confidence that made it a strenuous exercise in self-control for Harry to not follow her out of the sitting room.

To distract himself he took out his phone and jotted down a few more notes.

"I might just throw your phone in your office and lock the door."

Harry quickly locked said phone and tossed it on the side table.

Then he looked up.

Ginny had on a Father Christmas cloak, white wig, and a set of glasses that had the white beard attached.

"Wow…"

Ginny laughed and undid the belt that held the robe shut.

Harry's initial confusion dropped instantly as his wife's body was revealed, no imagination needed.

"We're losing the beard," he smirked and moved to gently pull the glasses-beard combo off Ginny's face.

"What Father Christmas doesn't have a long white beard?" She teased as her fingers moved along his waistband.

Harry kissed her slowly as his hands moved slower against her freckled skin.

"The one who is actually my wife," he pulled back before sweeping Ginny into his arms and carrying her back to their bed, and the mistletoe hanging over it.

The sun long set and the moon high in their bedroom window, Harry waited patiently until Ginny's breathing became even and he was sure she was fast asleep. As quietly as he learned to move when he was a child spying on his Christmas gifts, Harry snuck out of their bed and down to his office.

It took the better part of an hour to get it how he wanted it. Then it took another half-hour to get the printer to print it the way he wanted. And another half-hour after that to find the freaking wrapping paper. But after roughly two hours of trying to be silent, Harry snuck into the sitting room to set the gift under the tree.

He went to grab this phone from the side table when a cloaked image came into his peripheral vision and he almost cried out as all the anxiety of a child being caught by Father Christmas came rushing up at him from years as a boy trying to spy on Christmas gifts.

"Why are you out here?" Ginny's groggy voice sounded and Harry felt relief rush through him like a tidal wave.

"Just grabbing my phone. I forgot to plug it in to charge while we slept."

"Come to bed, you're how I don't freeze to death at night."

Harry slipped his arms around Ginny and led them back to bed with a smile on his face.

He hadn't been caught by Father Christmas, but more importantly, his wife would still get her surprise on Christmas morning.

And just like childhood, Harry awoke far too early, and far too excited to go back to sleep. Though rather than for what he would receive, it was for what he was giving.

"Gin," he nuzzled her hairline and kissed her cheek.

Ginny made a sound that was a cross between a moan and a grunt.

"Don't you want to see what Father Christmas left for you?"

"I'm Father Christmas and I didn't leave anything out because it's not actually December the 25th." She mumbled into her pillow.

Harry chuckled. "Let's just go have a look."

Ginny blinked her eyes open and frowned. "Only if I get to come right back to bed."

Harry put his hand over his heart. "I promise, well go see if there are any surprises and then come right back to bed."

"Fine," Ginny pushed up from the bed, her Father Christmas robe slipping from her shoulders. "But if this is how you're going to be with children then we're rethinking our future plans."

Harry laughed and forced himself not to run full tilt down the hall and leave his adorably sleepy wife in the dust.

He held his breath as Ginny moved to the tree and his lone gift that sat wrapped below its branches.

She turned to look up at him, bewildered, "What's this?"

"Open it," he shrugged.

Ginny pulled the wrapping away and slid the booklet from the manilla envelope he'd used to hold it.

"A Holiday and an Adventure," She read aloud. "Harry, what is this?"

Harry stuck a hand in his hair. "Well since you're not on the team for the foreseeable future, and you've always got the best ideas when I'm stuck in a story, I thought maybe, maybe you'd like to write a book together, you and me. All those pages in the booklet are the notes I was jotting down all day yesterday. And I've organized them out the way I do with my novels. If you like the idea and we finish the story, we could send it over to my editor. See what she thinks."

Ginny looked up from the booklet, eyes wide. "You want to write a book with me?"

Harry smiled, "I kind of already do. You're my sounding board and you find more of my plot holes than my editor does. So I guess I'm really asking you to be an active participant so we can put your name on the cover too."

Ginny looked back down at the booklet before launching herself at him. Harry caught her and managed to spin them around so he fell on the sofa and not his back.

"So is this a yes?" Harry chuckled as he kissed her hairline.

Ginny kissed him enthusiastically before jumping up. "Come on! I want to start right now!"

Harry snagged her around the middle before she could go running off. "What happened to wanting to go right back to bed?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Ginny laughed, "do you have any idea how badly I've wanted some real control in your novels?"

"Now you have a story to be in control of." Harry kissed her. "Happy Christmas, Gin."

Ginny's smile shone like the rising run out their sitting room window. "Happy Christmas, Harry."

[didanawisgi]

written by Terry Newman

“Remember when the scariest kid in your neighborhood was the football jock who terrorized the high school with his minions in tow, and got bailed out by his rich parents when he went too far? Or it was the gothic malcontent with the switchblade and the swagger. Either way, what made these high-status alphas so terrifying was that they came at you in numbers. They travelled in packs. This has been our narrative, in the stories we tell—from Henry Bowers in Stephen King’s It, to Biff Tannen in Back to the Future, to Billy Hargrove in Stranger Things, central-casting bullies attracted followers. They belonged.

As any grade eight schoolgirl who’s been bullied off Instagram can attest, this stereotype still holds. But when it comes to the most dangerous and sociopathic actors, the opposite is true. All three of the young mass shooters who terrorized the United States in recent nationally reported scenes of carnage—Connor Betts in Dayton, Ohio; Patrick Crusius in El Paso, Texas; and Santino William Legan in Gilroy, California—acted alone. The old image of the bully as locker-room alpha or goth leader now seems passé. Often, it is the kid who used to be the fictional protagonist, the social outcast, the member of the Losers Club from It, whose face now appears on our screens with a nightmarish empty stare.

These recent shooters fit a similar profile. They were outsiders, all seemingly socially awkward, who became emboldened through fringe online communities that act as mutual-support societies for violent malcontents. This phenomenon is fuelled by hate, guns, mental illness and ideological extremism. But there is another factor at play here, too. Before a youth makes the decision to murder, before the gun is stashed in his backpack, before his state of mental health is so deteriorated that he commits the unthinkable, what has happened to him? It’s important to remember that these murders are also, in most cases, suicides.

In his 2008 article School Shooting as a Culturally Enforced Way of Expressing Suicidal Hostile Intentions, psychiatrist Antonio Preti summarized existing research on school shootings to the effect that “suicidal intent was found in most cases for which there was detailed information on the assailants.” The research also indicated that “among students, homicide perpetrators were more than twice as likely as their victims to have been bullied by their peers, and also were described as loners and poorly integrated into school activities…In most of the ascertained cases, perpetrators prepared a well-organized plan, and often communicated details about it to acquaintances or friends, who failed to report threats because they did not consider them serious or were embarrassed or ignorant of where to go for help. The most antisocial peers sometimes approved the plan, sharing the same anger against the stated target of violence.”

Preti’s article predated the rise of some of the most notorious web sites—including 8chan, which was shut down this week after several mass shootings were linked to its users. But the nihilistic phenomenon these killers represent predates modern social-media culture. Indeed, it predates digital communication, and even broadcast media more generally.

In 1897, French sociologist Émile Durkheim noted that suicides overall were increasing in society. But there were differences among the affected populations, he noticed. Men were more likely than women to commit suicide—though the chances decreased if the man was married and had children. Durkheim observed that social groups that were more religious exhibited lower suicide rates. (Catholics were less likely to commit suicide than Protestants, for instance.) Durkheim also noted that many people who killed themselves were young, and that the prevalence of such suicides was linked to their level of social integration: When a person felt little sense of connection or belonging, he could be led to question the value of his existence and end his life.

Durkheim labelled this form of suicide as “anomic” (others being “egoistic,” “altruistic” and “fatalistic”). Durkheim believed that these feelings of anomie assert themselves with special force at moments when society is undergoing social, political or economic upheaval—especially if such upheavals result in immediate and severe changes to everyday life.

Durkheim came from a long line of devout Jews. His father, grandfather and great grandfather had all been rabbis. And so even though he chose to pursue an academic career, his experiences taught him to respect the mental and psychological support that religious communities supplied to their members, as well as the role that ritual plays in the regulation of social behavior. In the absence of such regulation, he believed, individuals and even whole societies were at risk of falling into a state of anomie, whereby common values and meanings fall by the wayside. The resulting void doesn’t provide people with a sense of freedom, but rather rootlessness and despair.

Durkheim’s thesis has largely stood the test of time, though other scholars have reformulated it for modern audiences. In his 1955 book The Sane Society, for instance, Erich Fromm wrote that, “in the nineteenth century, the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century, the problem is that man is dead.” He described the twentieth century as a period of “schizoid-self alienation,” and worried that men would destroy “their world and themselves because they cannot stand any longer the boredom of a meaningless life.”

In her 2004 book Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings, Katherine Newman described findings gleaned from over 100 interviews in Arkansas and Kentucky. The male adolescent shooters at the center of her study, she concluded, “shared a belief that demonstrating strength by planned attacks on their respective institutions with (too) easily available guns would somehow mitigate their unbearable feelings of inadequacy as males and bring longed-for respect from peers.” Ten years later, in a 2014 article titled The Socioemotional Foundations of Suicide: A Microsociological View of Durkheim’s Suicide, sociologists Seth Abrutyn and Anna Mueller set out to update Durkheim’s theory about how social integration and moral regulation affect suicidality. “The greater degree to which individuals feel they have failed to meet expectations and others fail to ‘reintegrate’ them, the greater the feelings of shame and, therefore, anomie,” they concluded. “The risk of suicidal thoughts, attempts, and completions, in addition to violent aggression toward specific or random others, is a positive function of the intensity, persistence, and pervasiveness of identity, role, or status-based shame and anomie.”

Writing in the 1890s, Durkheim was highly conscious of all the ways that industrial capitalism corroded traditional forms of social regulation in society, often at the expense of religious—and even governmental—authorities. (“Depuis un siècle, en effet, le progrès économique a principalement consisté à affranchir les relations industrielles de toute réglementation. Jusqu’à des temps récents, tout un système de pouvoirs moraux avait pour fonction de les discipliner…En effet, la religion a perdu la plus grande partie de son Empire. Le pouvoir gouvernemental, au lieu d’être le régulateur de la vie économique, en est devenu l’instrument et le serviteur.”) But if he were to visit us in 2019, Durkheim would be surprised at the extent to which once-dominant ideas with no connection to economics have been marginalized as regressive and hateful—such as nationalism, patriotism and even masculinity.

This is one reason why so many people now feel unmoored. As Canadian science fiction writer Donald Kingsbury eloquently put it in his novel Courtship Rite, “Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution and you get the problem back.” Faith in god, country and manhood might be seen as regressive by modern lights. But insofar as they were holding back male anomie, we perhaps neglected to consider what damage would be done if we discredited those ideas before finding replacements.

In the history of our species, there has never been (to the knowledge of modern scholars) a human society that did not express belief in some sort of supernatural force—which suggests that we are programmed by a need to believe in something bigger than ourselves. Sociologist Max Weber warned in 1919 that “science deals with facts. It can’t tell us what to do or what’s important.” This is to say that while the scientific revolution did a good job of helping us explain and harness the natural world, it did nothing to fill the god-shaped hole that Blaise Pascal identified in the 17th-century: “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”

If we are to resign ourselves to the fact that “God himself” isn’t going to intercede any time soon, then we are left with the ordinary tools of policy, such as Robert Putnam outlined in his famous 2000 book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of the American Community, in which he pointed to the value of “the connections among individuals’ social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.” These connections could be strengthened, Putnam argued, through improved civics education, more extra-curricular activities for youth, smaller schools, family-oriented workplaces, a more enlightened approach to urbanism, technology that reinforces rather than replaces face-to-face interaction, as well as a decentralization of political power. These recommendations were written 19 years ago, before Facebook, Twitter or 4chan existed. It would be interesting to know how he would revise his recommendations now that we have a better appreciation for the massive effects of digital culture on our social dynamics.

In a 2017 article I wrote, titled Towards a Theory of Virtual Sentiments, I argued that real-time empathy generation often requires some degree of eye contact—which is hard to generate through online interaction. Moreover, it is shockingly easy to get worked up into a rage when you are interacting with an online avatar of a person you have never met. Simply put, the more we physically see each other, the less likely we are to be awful to each other. As Louis CK said in an interview about youth and technology, “They don’t look at people when they talk to them and they don’t build empathy. You know, kids are mean, and it’s cause they’re trying it out. They look at a kid and they go, ‘You’re fat,’ and then they see the kid’s face scrunch up and they go, ‘Oh, that doesn’t feel good to make a person do that.’ But when they write ‘You’re fat’ [online] then they just go, ‘Mmm, that was fun, I like that.’” Even putting aside the extreme cases of forums that cater to homicidal shooters, I remain unconvinced that any community that exists primarily in online form can be a force for long-term good. Perhaps more time offline is a good start for anyone seeking to enhance “the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness.”

Do we need a new nationalism? A new religion? What common human project can we collectively embrace that gives a sense of mission to everyone, regardless of skin color, religion, economic class or ideology? It would be presumptuous for me to suggest I have the answers. All I know is that men who see human life as meaningless are symptoms of a larger sense of anomie that, in less dramatic and destructive form, increasingly grips us all.”

Terry Newman is currently an MA student in the Sociology Department at Concordia University in Montreal. Her SSHRC-funded research is on the candidate controversies that took place during the 2015 Canadian federal election. She is also a Teaching Assistant in Concordia’s Engineering Department. She tweets from @tlnewmanmtl. She is the author of the Quillette article Through the Looking Glass at Concordia University.

[azrielsiphons]

Feysand Vigilante AU

Nobody asked for this (just kidding three people did and that’s all it takes for me) but here it is:

The Feysand Vigilante AU one-shot with angst and ... yeah that’s about it, just angst. Enjoy! 

~~~~~~~~~~

Feyre tried not to cry out as the thug with the mustache whose name she didn’t remember made contact with her already cracked ribs. Tried and failed, but tried all the same. 

Trying is what matters, her father used to say to her and her sisters. Fail as many times as you have to. But don’t you ever stop trying. 

“Try ’til you die,” she muttered under her breath as she staggered backwards against the wall. 

“What was that?” Mr. Mustache Thug asked in his thick Italian accent. 

Feyre chuckled lowly, spitting red at his feet. A dark smile she could hardly recognize herself spread out across her face. It sent a thrill through her that Mustache Thug looked thoroughly disturbed at the sight of her bloodied teeth, wild smile, and masked face. 

“I said it’s time for you to shut up and die.”

“I thought you were one of the ones that doesn’t kill.”

Feyre laughed once again as she stood to her full height, willing away the pain in her ribs, jaw, and left shoulder. Pain didn’t last, and none of her injuries were fatal.

“I guess you’ll have to find out,” she answered, throwing herself into the air and swinging a hard right hook right at the thug’s stupid mustache. 

~~~~

Feyre reminded herself to tip Amren especially well that night as she shrugged off her bloodied black and gray suit in the bathroom. She carefully stood on the toilet seat, wincing as she reached up to push a ceiling tile to the side and grab her bag of spare, clean clothes. 

She traded out the clothes, using toilet paper to wipe off the barely dried blood on her face and hands. There was a reason she kept her nails painted red. 

It wasn’t the safest setup, and certainly not the most efficient, but it had to do. There wasn’t exactly a how-to-become-a-vigilante self-help book in the public library, and Amren was good people. 

Well, as good as one could be when they were actively aiding criminals. The good kind of criminals, but… still criminals. 

Shouldering her bag to take home and restock, Feyre did one last look around for blood she may have missed cleaning up before exiting the stall. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and winced. The bruise on her jaw had yet to stop turning deeper purple, and her busted lip from two nights prior had reopened. 

Not to mention, mask hair was way worse than hat hair. 

One messy ponytail and a splashed face later, Feyre finally unlocked the bathroom door and exited, ignoring the glares and complaints of the three women waiting outside. 

“Dare I ask?” Amren asked dryly as Feyre took her usual corner spot at the bar, trying not to wince. 

Trying and failing, but trying all the same. That was the story of Feyre’s life. 

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t,” she replied. 

Amren said nothing, glancing at Faye’s jaw briefly before reaching under the counter for a towel that she then filled with ice cubes. Feyre accepted it with a barely audible thanks. 

“Whiskey or vodka?”

“Are drinks on you tonight?”

If looks could kill, Amren would be the number one most wanted homicide suspect in the whole city. 

“You come into my bar every night after kicking butt all over town, bloody up my bathrooms, take my ice—”

“You offered it willingly.”

“—and expect the drinks to be on me?” Amren demanded, eyes wide. Feyre met her gaze evenly, poking out her busted bottom lip. “Just because that works on Rhys doesn’t mean it works on me. Drinks are on you until you develop a sense of self-preservation.”

“So… drinks are on me forever then?” Feyre asked, making Amren curse under her breath as she poured the drink. “Where is Rhys, by the way?”

She tried to make the question casual, but Amren’s knowing look told her she failed. 

“Oh you mean the other equally danger-prone idiot who also likes to run around in spandex?”

“It’s not spandex, Amren.” 

Feyre jumped at the rumble of Rhys’s voice as he seemed to appear out of nowhere. She then couldn’t help but groan and clutch her side as she disturbed her ribs. Rhys cast her a wary look but said nothing as he sat down on the empty stool next to her. His own face slightly matched her own, though the spreading purple bruise was under his eye and not on his jaw. 

“My suit is one-hundred percent cotton, because this is the twenty-first century and also not a comic book. Can I have a beer?” 

Amren muttered a couple expletives under her breath, but crossed the bar all the same to serve two other customers and get Rhys a beer. 

When she was gone, Rhys turned to get a better look at Feyre. She elected to keep her eyes down on her now empty glass. He was silent for a few seconds. 

“You okay?”

Feyre chuckled wryly. “Depends on today’s definition of okay.”

“Anything broken?”

“On them, not me. Just some cracked ribs for the time being.”

“Any of them dead?”

Feyre hesitated. “No. No, not tonight.”

Rhys inhaled deeply, nodding his head as he reached over the counter for another bottle. They were silent as he poured her another shot. 

“You’re paying for that!” Amren shouted across the bar as she simultaneously slid a bottle down Rhys’s way. He caught it without looking. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he muttered. He popped the top of his own drink on the edge of the counter in a single smooth motion. 

“What about you?” Feyre asked, finally finding her voice. She downed the glass in one-go, annoyed with how dry her mouth suddenly felt. “How’d it go?”

“Well I’ve got another headache and our boys in blue will have a surprise waiting for them waiting down at the docks. Tied up with a bow and everything.”

Feyre chuckled, trailing her finger around the rim of the glass. “How considerate of you.”

“Yeah well,” Rhys shrugged and took a long pull from his drink, “I’m a nice guy.”

“What was going on at the docks?”

“Drugs. Mainly heroin, they’re going after high school kids with the stuff. Where were you?”

“Over at the construction site near 45th. A group of sorority girls caught up with me, told me they were being blackmailed with pictures. I thought it was just some punk frat boys, but turns out it was none other than our friends the Italians.”

Rhys inhaled sharply. “Shit, Feyre. What did they want with the college girls?”

“Access into the Dean of Finance’s office. He’d worked with them before apparently and had some dirt they were afraid of being leaked. Embezzlement and the like.”

Feyre finally mustered the courage to glance over at Rhys. He was staring at her intensely with that worried look that never left his face when they talked work. She rolled her eyes and went back to scratching the bar surface with her nails, chipping away the red polish in the process. 

“It happens, Rhys, relax. Not to mention I took care of it just fine on my own.”

“You should have called me.”

“And played a part in some high school football players starting to deal heroin in a couple weeks? No thanks.”

“I can multitask.”

“Not in this line of work, you can’t.”

Rhys huffed, turning forward and taking another drink. Feyre could tell that there was more he wanted to say, but thankfully he remained silent. She didn’t think she could handle anymore of his second-hand guilt. 

She was just getting ready to leave when he spoke up again.

“We started this thing together,” he murmured. So much for no more guilt. “What happened?”

“You know what happened.” Feyre didn’t mean for her voice to come out so sharply, but it did all the same. “You knew where the line was and you jumped it anyway. And you made me a part of it.”

“There was no other way and you know it.”

“There is always another way.”

“He would have killed you if I let him get away.”

“Then you should have let me die.”

The words were out before she even consciously thought them. Rhys stared at her, shock written all over his stupidly perfect face. She forced herself to meet his gaze, finding it more difficult with each passing second. 

“We drew a line, Rhys,” she whispered, mentally cursing herself when her voice wobbled. “We drew a line and you basically pole vaulted it. Our job is to protect people, to fight for those that can’t fight for themselves. You and I, we can fight for ourselves. And you went after Tamlin anyways, without even telling me.”

“I couldn’t tell you because—”

Rhys froze, his mouth hanging open with words he couldn’t bring himself to say. 

“That’s what I thought,” Feyre murmured, standing to her feet and shouldering her bag. “Just like always, you’re still keeping secrets from me. Goodnight, Rhys.”

“Wait.” Rhys grabbed Feyre’s wrist with such gentleness she wanted to cry. She froze, eyes shut as she savored the familiarity of his touch for that brief moment. “There is so much I want to tell you. About that night, about what happened with Tamlin.”

“Then tell me.” Feyre met his eyes — those stunning blue eyes, so recognizable that he had to wear purple contacts when he was on the job. “Just spit it out Rhys, because it seems to me that you went out that night with all intents and purposes to kill Tamlin without saying a word to me about it. That wasn’t defending me, that was disrespecting me.”

“Disrespect?” Rhys snapped, dropping her wrist and standing to his feet as well. “You’re calling me disrespectful when you were with that prick for years and he didn’t so much as give one fuck about your feelings or well-being? He practically threw you to the wolves Feyre! He let your sisters be kidnapped!”

“He didn’t let—”

“Yes he did!” Rhys shouted, garnering plenty of attention from the other bar-goers. “He let them be taken just like he let you wither away. It was me that helped you get out of that hellhole he trapped you in.”

“I know that!” Feyre screamed right back, her face heating with pent up rage.

“Simmer down, guys,” they heard Amren murmur behind them, but they paid her no mind. 

“I know that I have you to thank, I know that!” Feyre shouted. “Tamlin was an asshole but you killed him, Rhys, you killed him!” Her breathing was uneven, tears streaming down her cheeks as she tried and failed to look away from his stupidly perfect face, bruises and all. “You killed him, and not only that, but you made me a part of it. That’s on my conscious now, Rhys. Mine. So quite frankly, I don’t care if we started this gig together. We’re separate now. You stay on your side and I’ll stay on mine.”

With that, Feyre reached around him and slammed a ten dollar bill on the bar in front of Amren, who was watching them with a hint of sympathy in those secretive eyes of hers.

“Feyre please—”

“Don’t touch me.” Feyre dodged out of reach as she marched out of the bar. 

“There’s still more to the story!”

She made sure the door slammed on her way out. 

[carraville]

 year in fic review (2017)

using the wonderful @neyvenger​ ‘s template! everyone should do this i wanna read <3

Year at a glance:  Total number of completed stories: 25 (26 if u count hockey) Total word count:  146929

Overall Thoughts:

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted?  LOTS MORE it’s probly bc i wrote a hella lot while jumping from train to train traveling all of Europe, and probly bc i gave up on school by mid-sem last year, and probly bc the only thing i can do at work that looks like i’m still doing work when i’m not is write 

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? The fuCKING GERMS i blame it on germs like i 100% would never have thought i’d write 16k of thomasfips who does that also joemilly??? but i luff

What’s your own favorite story of the year? i dont have one i love and hate them all equally... i guess strangeways here we come just bc i took so damn long to write it and tbf i didn’t write a lot of carraville this year so it was kind of like my One and Only 

Did you take any writing risks this year?

writing a lot of people I didn’t know how to write, writing about a lot of Big Things (particularly on the bridge between starshine and clay) that i wasn’t sure about, writing a lot of aus i’d never done before, writing ??? PORN???? even tho ive never banged anyone in my life

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the new year? all 12 months of football prompts! hopefully! and writing more new ships and meeting more people and reading good fic  also finally doing all my historical aus bc if there’s one thing i’ve learnt this year, it’s not to give a shit what other people want and just write what u want even if no one is going to read it xoxo

From my past year of writing, what was…

My best story of this year: from a writing perspective i think an die nachgeborenen just bc it was the most? complete, i guess? and plotty? like if i changed the names and pretended it wasn’t creepy i could probably send it for rejection 

My most popular story of this year:  strangeways, here we come i guess cos i published it around that time the r*dditors were sneaking around lmao

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:  the wonder of my world cos it’s niche and manc but!!!!!!! i love my mancs

Most fun story to write: fuckin.  30 Shades Of Red

Story with the single sexiest moment: The Anonymous Present That Appeared For Sab’s Birthday That Doesn’t Exist 

Most “holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story: Again, The Anonymous Present that Doesn’t Exist 

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: I’m pretty set when it comes to characters, I guess, because I only like writing when I understand them, but maybe Aubade bc I’d never written Iker till then and I really liked how it turned out

Hardest story to write:  summer sang in me a little while bc it was a) wrestling with a Lot of Football feelings that I didn’t know how to talk about, b) wresting with trashbag xabi alonso and what I thought of him vs. what other people thought of him, c) writing ships and people I had 0 idea about

Biggest surprise:  i like germs! wtf

Highlights + Wrap-up:  ok I TRIED TO PICK DIFFERENT ONES FROM ALL FIC 

Favorite Opening Lines (3):

when the world was ours

There's a crunch. There's a crunch and it's over. 

the setting sun is sweetest last

When all the hands have been shaken and hugs exchanged someone presses a microphone into his hands and he fumbles, not quite sure how to put what he's feeling into words. Eventually he settles for something about looking towards the final on Saturday and he sees David from the corner of his eye shaking his head, almost as if to say: god, Gaz, how do you manage to make everything about United when this should be about you.

In the end, it's simple.

cheesed to meet you

Philipp calls Thomas first, because he always calls Thomas first.

"I didn't do it," Thomas says immediately, with the kind of well-practiced plausibility that only comes from doing the things he says he hasn't done.

Favorite Closing Lines (4):

yes, yes, we are magicians

You jog back to the halfway line. Your face must be shining under the lights, and you wonder if mum's in the crowd, smiling. Let's go to Wembley some day. Rooney rolls the ball to you and you're off again, no marcus's ball scribbled into the patchy leather, no divots and pot-holes in a sandy, well-worn pitch.

You're nineteen years old and going to the Euros.

Every blade of grass here is the exact same height.

in this story we belong to ourselves

Liverpool is. A river that runs before two men who used to have numbers on their backs and now have a house no longer empty. A stream of memories and breaking apart and going again. The Mersey, quiet, grey, flowing gently through the Narrows and out into the great big sea, ever so slightly out of reach.

Variation IX

He says I've missed you, mate.

I say You know, I thought you might.

He says I hope you missed me too.

I say Well of course, otherwise where would I go for Christmas this year?

And then he starts laughing and I start laughing and we laugh and laugh and don’t stop until he kisses me again.

yes, there will be song

You step back and turn, take the steps two at a time. Somewhere outside Anfield there's a man with a shirt that's as as red as the names on the back. He's got a scarf around his neck like a docker, and he presses his face to the Shankly gates like he's kissing a trophy. Make us dream, he whispers, a secret he's never told anyone else, his heart heavy and his eyes tired but his body trembling with a belief too full for words. Above him, the sky is golden.

Favorite Lines From Anywhere (5):

strangeways, here we come

It's weak against Paraguay, it's tired against Paraguay, but the England fans are singing and they have to listen. Countries are not clubs. This sinks deeper than loyalty, at once more insular and more ubiquitous than Liverpool or United could ever be. There are little flags hung up in Sainsbury's, strangers with their arms round each other in pubs, the radios of an electronics store tuned in to Radio 5 Live. Come on England. Bandied about like a mantra, a swear word, a secret password offered by old hands who brace themselves for more disappointment with a nudge and a wink. England always - a host of words go here, crash out , fuck up , lose , but -

Believe rises above them all. Maybe it's delusional. Maybe it's arrogant. Beckham takes a free kick that delights and astonishes the way his free kicks do and it ends up in the back of the net. Every four years St George goes back up and people who still remember '66 are bought a pint, and for every we'll go out at the group stages there's an underlying thread of god help me, we might win this yet, because what is hope if not alive?

Come on England. The cup awaits you and is yours.

sekrit yuletide fic

In his dreams he doesn't leave. Salvador Iglesias Sr. doesn't die and Chava doesn't become a dickhead. He keeps the number on his back and the band around his arm. He doesn't cheat on Ximena, but he tells her, and they part as best friends. In his dreams they win the championship. And again the next year, and again the one after that. Each time Potro scores the winning goal and Moi runs to him to celebrate and Potro kisses him for the whole world to see, over and over, until their lips are numb and all they know are themselves.

summer sang in me a little while

Why are you still here? you ask him. It is easier that way. He turns to you, dark circles under his eyes, and doesn't reply. Only reaches over to tangle his calloused fingers in your hair, rests his forehead against yours.  This time you are the one who leans forward to kiss him, immersing yourself in the warmth of his skin. You taste his blood. You taste the salt and iron of his blood.

the wonder of my world

What makes a club? Love, belief, hope - and someone to attach it to, the player everyone grows up watching, whose name is instantly recognisable to the point that you don't have to mention who he plays for next. Who pours his soul into the game and hammers his heart onto the crest. You don't get that kind of player very often. United were lucky to have three.

So here. The last musketeer. He's not looking at the crowd anymore, just the middle distance. Still the thousands sing. Love, belief, hope, and memories. Ryan might never run again but Paul realises that it doesn't matter. It's that he's already run. And in a hundred years from now someone might pull up a grainy youtube video and watch the number eleven on the left wing and fall in love, all over again. The way he was meant to be loved. Ball at his feet. Red.

an die nachgeborenen

"I don't need a plan," Thomas says, like he's talking to a child. "That's the beauty of it. All I have to do is wait and see what happens. It's only – " he smiles again, wan, quiet. "Well. You know."

The refrain arcs, jagged, through Philipp's head.

"I promised you wouldn't die."

"I won't." Thomas stands up, leaves a hand on Philipp's shoulder. His palm is still warm. "I'm invincible, didn't I tell you?"

And with a single, chipper whistling note, he hits the exit button and slips out, the door closing immediately behind him with a gentle click .

Fic Goals for 2018:

i wna write gifts that people will like :> aka MORE NICHE BULLSHIT 

[lil-nct-scenarios-11]

NCT- A Strange Ignition || Gang au- part.11

Group: NCT- all members 

Theme: Gang AU

Type: series- fluff + angst 

*Warning- this series will cover some dark themes such as abuse, drugs, and crude language so please read at your own discretion, if these themes make you uncomfortable at all, please do not read this

Plot: 4 days after the outbreak, everyone finds out that you are actually dating someone. In your new AP chemistry class, you just stuck next to Haechan and you end up causing an explosion. Kun comes home late as usual but his face is anything but usual this time.

Previous parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 

4 Days Later 

“Oh my gosh, Jeno hyung it’s Y/N.” Chenle whispers as you walk in the cafeteria with a mean look and an enraged stride.

“No shit. Why else would everybody’s jaws be dropped?” Haechan sasses.

“Ugh, can you guys just shut up for once? This isn’t a football game or something where you gotta comment and announce everything that’s going on. Oh god, I wonder what he/she is up to this time?” Jeno worries.

-

“Renjun hyung are you gunna apologize to him/her?” Jisung asks.

“No..” Renjun replies, his voice quivering. “Ahem, I mean no. Why should I? He/she made things very clear and I’d like to go home in one piece today.”

“Renjun,” Jaemin starts, placing his hand on Renjun’s shoulder. “He/she’s your best friend, you gotta talk to him/her at one point. The sooner you do it, the quicker you can resolve issues instead of letting them build up.” 

“Yea, you’re right but I’m not ready right now. I don’t know what to say and Y/N hates it when people don't get straight to the point so I’ll wait until I come up with something. Oh lord, what is he/she gunna do?” Renjun tenses. 

--- 

The two groups, along with half the cafeteria, watch with curiosity as you grab your condiments and now have to decide who to sit with: the ‘Color Pop’ or the ‘Fresh Death’ gang. Countless pair of eyes follow as you go to sit by a girl with a flower in her hair who sat all the way in the corner of the cafeteria and you greet her with a short kiss on her lips. 

--

“Oh my god Jeno, that’s the girl you sit next to in English,” Haechan points out excitedly. 

“No shit Haechan,” Jeno says with his jaw dropped. 

-

“Holy, I didn’t know he/she was dating someone. See I bet you didn’t even know if your best friend was dating. Well you can’t talk to him/her even if you wanted ‘cuz he/she seems occupied to say the least,” Jisung gushes. 

Mark jogs up to the ‘Fresh Death’ gang and pokes his head in between Jaemin and Renjun and breathlessly says, “Damn Renjun, looks like your friend wasted no time after leaving you losers. And he/she landed him/herself a fine girl, what’s her name? It’s starts with an M, ugh what is it?”

“Mina. Is that so hard to remember?” Jaemin scoffs. 

Renjun and Jisung look at each other in shock because they weren't sure what they just heard was real. 

“Di.. Did you just talk back?” Mark asks, equally if not more surprised then duo. 

“If that’s what you call talking back then I suppose,” Jaemin says nonchalantly. 

Now Mark just looks at the duo to really make sure this was happening. Never in the history of ever did Jaemin ever talk back, sass, or even stand up for himself but now he’s speaking like this like it’s nothing. 

“Ha ok bud,” Mark says uncertainly patting Jaemin’s back, not sure if he should be mad or proud. 

___

“Good afternoon class, today we’re gunna have a quick seat change then we will get into the lab we didn’t have time to start yesterday. So to prevent that from happening again let’s get straight into the seating change,” your chemistry teacher announces. 

--

“Ok over here in the front we have Jiwoo and Hyeon then the station behind them are Haechan and Y/N. Following them will be...” your teacher lists.

You slump into your seat with aggression causing Haechan to move his chair to the edge of the desk space. You let out an audible sigh as you get settled into your seat reluctantly and preparing the station for the lab.

“Hey Y/N uhm, I know you don’t talk to us anymore bu-” Haechan starts. 

“Good. Let’s keep it that way,” you cut him off with a feign smile. 

“Ummm actually. You’re gunna wanna hear this and in the future I’d appreciate it if you don’t cut me off,” Haechan puts in, adding a feign smile of his own. 

“Ah but you see, I’d reallllly appreciate it if you just stop trying to talk to me that way I won’t have to cut you off,” you point out as you add a light shrug. 

“What happened to you? I know you like to sarcastic that’s borderline rude but that doesn’t give you an excuse to be a bitch,” he retorts, crossing his arms. 

“Um excuse me? What did you just call me?” you ask a little too loudly. 

“Haechan and Y/N, I know you two sass queens like sitting next to each other but I’m gunna ask you to be quiet and we’re dealing with explosive substances here so it’s best to have your attention up here,” your teacher warns. 

You and Haechan sit in compliance as you two follow the instructions given by the teacher. As you pour the liquid base into the beaker, Haechan decides to try speaking to you again. “Y/N, look I know you’re dealing with a lot right now but there’s something going on at-” 

“Haechan, shut up. There’s a time and place for everything and right now I’m trying to make sure we don’t get ourselves blown up so-” 

“FIRE!” you hear a voice shout from behind you as they point towards your beaker. 

You instantly look down to see that there was a fire indeed and before you could do anything, you feel Haechan grab your shoulders in disarray and pull you down under the table and you hear a loud and mild explosion go off above you. 

--

You sit across from Haechan and glare at him intensely as you hold an ice pack against your cheekbone. “Look I’d thank you but it's your fault that this happened so it’s just a basic ‘cause and effect’ situation. And honestly, I thought you were smarter than that considering that you got yourself into an AP class but-” 

“Y/N!” you hear a familiar voice call out. “Y/N? Are you ok?” Yuta asks worriedly as he holds your shoulders to see if you had gotten hurts. 

“Wow thanks for caring about me,” Haechan says bitterly as he shifts away, holding the blanket over his shoulders tighter and looks at the ground. 

“HAECHAN! OH MY BABY! WHAT HAPPENED? ARE YOU OK?” Taeyong shouts loudly as he runs and engulfs Haechan in a bone-crushing hug.

“Babe, loosen up. You’re gunna kill him if you continue to hold him like that,” Yuta jokes as he puts a hand on Taeyong’s shoulder. 

“Oh my bad, my bad. What happened, I just heard that there was a fire so I ran over here right away. Did you get burned any where? Let me see,” Taeyong says frantically as he searches Haechan’s body for any burn marks. 

“Hyung, I’m ok I swear. It’s Y/N that got burned,” Haechan points out. 

“Oh really? Y/N how are you feeling? The nurses put some cream and antibacterial stuff on right?” Taeyong asks in the same worried tone, this time directing it at you. 

“Yea they did and I’m ok too, really. And I deserved it, I wasn’t paying attention and I blew everything up-” you ramble. 

“Nonsense! It was an accident, that’s all. Don't you dare blame this on yourself. Your mind is occupied with all that’s going right now. And speaking of which, why did you just leave us? Do you know how worried I was? I was waiting all night for you to come home then I come to find out that you don’t even care to stay with us anymore. No that won’t do. I’ll have Yuta pack your clothes and you’re gunna stay with us no questions asked. And don't say that you don't want to live with Jeno anymore that’s why you won't stay ‘cuz you’re not in any shape to be making any decisions, do you understand?” Taeyong says sternly, pointing his finger at you. 

You keep your head down and nod, then you feel Yuta rubbing your back to comfort you.

“Babe, he/she actually can’t stay with us anymore,” Yuta says quietly as he’s continuing to rub your back. 

“And why’s that?” Taeyong asks furiously, his hands on his hips. 

Yuta retracts his hand to retrieve a folded piece of paper which he unfolds before handing it to Taeyong. Taeyong reads just the title and gasps then promptly folds the paper to return to Yuta. 

Taeyong nods, “Ok so I suppose I can’t ‘legally’ make you stay with me but I know for a fact that those last 10 months meant something to you so I’ll just leave you with that. Well I think we gotta head home now but take care of yourself Y/N, and don't go around trying to blow yourself up.” Taeyong shakes your head with a smile and you get up and give him a tight hug. Your eyes flood with tears so Taeyong holds your face and says, “Hey, you’re gunna be alright. Your dad is finally coming home and he’s here to look after you now. After all he did do something right if he’s kept you alive all these years huh. Well you just say hello to him for me please. Imma miss having you around, in a way you help keep things sane at home and I’m surprised you’re the only one who doesn’t find me kissing my beau at the dinner table revolting. Anyways, I know I really gotta let you go cuz I’ll just talk forever but I’ll see you around peaches.” 

Taeyong and Yuta leave the nurses’ office and Haechan turns on his feet to face you before he walks out, “Don't turn your back on family Y/N, don't forget that.”

_____

“Kun. Why are you home so late?” Ten’s groggy voice asks in the darkness as Kun stumbles into the room. 

“Oh. I was with a friend. Same as always,” Kun says with slight difficulty but enough for Ten to notice. Ten reaches for his nightstand lamp and Kun exclaims, “NO!”, cowering and covering his face. 

Ten doesn’t say anything but just narrows his eyes at Kun to observe something that was off. “Let me see your face.” 

Kun reluctantly brings his hands down, away from his face and Ten immediately gasps. “Kun... what happened to your face!” 

“I don’t want to tell you.” 

“Just tell me, who did this to you?” 

“It was Johnny,” Kun whispers with his head low. 

“Oh, I’m gunna bring an end to him,” Ten growls, clenching his fists in the bedsheets. 

Part 12

*hey sry for the late update as usual and I swear I was all set to post this yesterday but I hit one wrong button and it was all gone so I rewrote it to the best of my ability and if there are any lil holes or punctuation errors plz lemme know cuz I didn't have time to edit it today

*and as always comments, questions, or concerns are always welcome and thanks for reading! 

[auburnfamilynews]

Photo by Jeffrey Vest/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Some of us are starting to admit there might be a real need for change.

Well, we lost to Georgia yesterday, and for all of the reasons that it normally sucks, this one sucks even more because it seems as if some of us have realized that major changes are needed after trying to hold off on that talk for quite some time.

SNAP JUDGMENTS

I feel like the staff here at College and Mag has been some of Gus’s biggest supporters over the last two years. I think most of us are off now. The players executed well *enough* to keep this game close, but it’s clear we are a in a purgatory of being better than most of the conference but definitively less talented than the elites. It’s frustrating, because Gus deserves a ton of credit for turning Auburn into a consistent top 15 team. But there are clear, definitive decisions you can point to that have kept Auburn from getting over the hump. Tonight, the timeout before half was the backbreaker. Absolutely inexcusable. In the larger scheme, it’s mind-boggling that the guy who championed a unique, specific offense refuses to run it until his back is against the wall. At that point, it’s too late. I don’t know guys. I love this team and the players on it. But the relationship between Gus and the alumni/fan base is beyond repair. I wish him all the best, but I don’t think it will be here.

Time to go drink.

-Ryan Sterritt

We didn’t play well enough to win, and yet these ******* ****s get every ******* call again. Big surprise.

-James Jones

We can gripe about the officiating and it was highly suspect at the end but you can’t get into a 21-0 hole at home and expect to win. The two key plays I’ll remember from this game are Gus sending Anders out to attempt a FG on the first drive when he was going to go for it which turned into 0 points. And second, with the offense doing nothing, he calls a timeout that gave Georgia’s offense some time to go down the field and score right before half. Our defense forced NINE 3 and outs!! As usual, they played their tails off and have nothing to show for it.

I thought this was a game Gus had to win and I’ve defended Gus for a long time but I don’t think I can do that anymore. It’s gonna be a longgg few weeks on the Plains.

On the plus side, Bruce and basketball are 4-0 on the court and getting it done in recruiting! Welcome Chris Moore!

-Will McLaughlin

Time for some soul searching, folks.

-Josh Dub

I dunno man, this sport has way too high of stakes. Wish I didn’t care so much about it. Georgia shouldn’t feel good about this, but they should feel better than us.

-Son of Crow

I am damn proud of the players on this football team. They ain’t perfect. Bo Nix isn’t yet good enough to beat the best teams in the country but he’s showing more & more flashes every chance. Boobee Whitlow fights his butt off on every carry. Seth Williams was THAT DUDE tonight. Every single player on that defense should pay for nothing the rest of their lives in the city of Auburn. There’s a lot of special football players but more importantly special people in that locker room. They have my full support & I will be cheering my ass off for them in Jordan-Hare in a couple of weeks.

But they deserve better. Not every failed play is Gus Malzahn’s fault but the trend has been there for too long. For the 4th straight year AU has been good enough on the defensive side of the ball to play with anyone. Consistently the point of failure has been Malzahn’s offense. His scheme is predicated on running the football yet he’s built a program better fit for the Air Raid. The biggest flaws upon his resume isn’t what he’s done against Bama like the national media wanna say. It’s what he’s done against UGA & LSU.

2015 UGA

2016 UGA

2017 LSU

2017 UGA SEC Championship

2018 LSU

2019 UGA

Win half of those games & I can be bummed about tonight but still on the bus. But he didn’t. He continually loses against any team with remotely similar talent. Winning on the road against top team is hard but you better at least protect your own house. He’s not doing that.

I like Gus Malzahn. I still think there’s a good coach inside there. I WANT him to be a success because that’s what’s best for Auburn. But we are 7 years in now with the same consistent afflictions. We are ramming our head against the same ceiling. Making a change is risky & could set the program back but not making a change traps AU in purgatory.

I hopped off the bus after Tennessee in 2018 but hoped I would see an opportunity to hop back on board. Tonight felt like the final blow, at least to me. Maybe AU comes out & takes down Bama in 2 weeks vs a backup QB. Maybe they get the bowl win & finish with 10 wins. That would be awesome! I would love that. But right now, on November 16, 2019, count me as one of those who is done with the Malzahn era

-AU Nerd

You can’t call that timeout before the half knowing the opposition gets the ball to start the second half. They looked completely fine with going to the locker room and making adjustments, but if you’re willing to roll the dice, so were they. The game turned when Georgia went up 14-0. Our defense played outstanding and deserves so much better than 3 losses at this point in the season. Our offense was so out of sorts for 3+ quarters that we get routed without their effort. Derrick and Marlon laid their guts on the line and came away empty handed. And their ain’t a damn thing they can do about it but go on out there and lay them on the line again. And again. And again. But man, what a discouraging feeling to know Georgia crossed our 40 yard line 3 times and we crossed theirs 7 and we muster 14 points in a touchdown loss. People with much more authority, influence, and money have got some hard things to look at. And no matter my disagreements and/or agreements, we can all see this coming. Steve Spurrier I think said it best when he left Florida that you tend to lose 10% of your fanbase with each year you’re at a school. Well we’ve seen this for 10 years total now and I think that statement has at least some truth to it.

This team is capable of beating Alabama in 2 weeks because this defense is too good and has too much pride to do anything but leave it all on the field. But the optics of this, with a flurry at the end, are only something to build upon when it’s your first year in Baton Rouge and you wonder what might’ve been if you had another 15 minutes. In year 7, it’s showing a real crack in the foundation. At least one side of the football has been broken for the better part of 10 years, with some wild success and major failings included along the way. But the feeling of seeing the defensive side build something consistently for 4 straight seasons and to come away with your _best_ season to date in that time frame netting you 4 losses is something I’m not willing to be OK with.

Auburn should’ve been a playoff team at least once since 2014. They should be on their way to at least 1 more division title. They should have at least 1 more conference title. Instead we’re regulated to a postseason destination that’s nothing more than hopefully a reward to somewhere warm for a group that has fought their guts out and deserves to have some fun, but a trip that will ultimately mean nothing meaningful, and be a source of contention.

I’ve never thought this was a year where Auburn would make a coaching change for the sheer size of the buyout. I still believe that. What I’ve hoped is that we could do enough to calm the waters in 2020, when you essentially replace both sides of the line of scrimmage. Maybe there is enough by beating Alabama in 2 weeks. Maybe not. But as we move forward, I think it’s a fair question to ask ourselves what the expectation is at Auburn. At Alabama it is to win national championships. At Georgia it is now to just win 1. At LSU it was to beat Alabama and get back to a competitive standing in the SEC every year. What about us? What do we expect? Because I think it depends on who you ask, and if we can ever get on the same page with that answer I think it will help us all figure out what we need to do to get there.

-Josh Black

I’ve been one of the ones that wanted to keep Gus Malzahn for multiple reasons. He’s never missed a bowl. None of his predecessors can say that. He was the architect of an offense that got us to two national championship games. None of his predecessors can say that. For the most part, we’ve been in most games that we’ve played while he’s been at Auburn. Getting blown out is, by and large, a thing of the past. Is that a direct result of his offense or the other elements around the team? It’s tough to tell. The last four years, Kevin Steele’s defense has been a huge part of that, but Gus hired him. He made a great decision there.

However, were his successes on offense in 2010 and 2013 due to the guys who we’ll come to cherish more and more as time passes? Cam Newton was the best college football player I ever saw, and Nick Marshall was perhaps the perfect zone read quarterback. Did Gus benefit from them more than they benefitted from him? In hindsight it seems like a yes.

As for the game itself, we got screwed in some aspects — the missed facemask on the last drive that would’ve given us a first down and momentum, the Seth Williams overturn, the onside kick — but maybe we shouldn’t have waited three-plus quarters to start playing offense. That’s on Gus. I still don’t really know what our gameplan was, and I don’t know what it was in Gainesville or Baton Rouge either. For a season in which Gus bet on himself, there needed to be some wild stuff happening on that side of the ball and we just haven’t seen it. It’s really hard for me and others to rationalize why the innovator of the HUNH doesn’t want to run it until he has to, and then it’s successful. Why won’t that work earlier? There’s no real answer.

Maybe it is time to move on. At this point it’s probably best since the trust factor between Gus and the fanbase is gone. It sucks, because we’re obviously griping about a season in which we’re 7-3 with losses to two teams currently in the Playoff top four, and another top ten team at their place. What will satisfy us? For this season at least, a win over Bama and the promise of something more in the future.

-Jack Condon

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2019/11/17/20968999/snap-judgments-4-georgia-21-12-auburn-14

[alivingfire]

Can you make a fic rec where Harry is the one who fuck up? Please? I haven't read many fics (I joined the fandom in September) but the ones I did its mostly Louis doing something wrong, and that doesn't sit well with me, I feel like that's why I haven't read many fics here yet. Do you know some good ones? One fic I liked a lot was Into The Blue so something like that should be fine.

how about we try something else, is that okay? because it’s totally understandable to get tired of fics where louis fucks up, just like it’s totally understandable to get tired of fics where harry fucks up. some of my favorite fics are the ones where the drama isn’t in the relationship, it’s the situation or other characters or something where it can be harry and louis vs. the world, so i’ll give you some of those and we’ll see if you prefer that! 

non-relationship drama fics: 

→ Here in the Afterglow“If you hadn’t noticed, I don’t have many friends,” Louis whispers, the blossom of insecurity in his stomach unfurling and clawing its way into his throat.

Harry is silent for a long time, and then he speaks; a soft, slow uncurl that makes Louis’ stomach shake. “I’ll be your friend.”

1970’s AU. In a tiny town in Idaho, Louis’ life is changed forever by the arrival of a curious stranger.

→ Cameras FlashingWith his breakout single platinum three times over and his second album still selling out in stores around the world, Louis Tomlinson has made it to the top. However, his position as Pop Heartthrob of the Decade is threatened by the edgier, more artistic Zayn, who happens to be releasing an album a week after Louis’ upcoming third. Louis needs something groundbreaking- scandalous, even- to push past him in the charts. Much to Louis’ dismay, his PR team calls in The Sexpert.

Consulting with PR firm Shady, Lane and Associates pays the bills so that Harry Styles can spend his down time doing what he really loves: poring over data. On weekends and late into the evenings, he researches gender, presentation, and sexual orientation, analysing the longitudinal study that is his father’s life’s work. That is, until his newest client, the popstar with the fascinating secret, drags him off his couch and frighteningly close to the spotlight.

As the album’s release date approaches, will Tomlinson and Styles be able to pull off the most risky PR scheme of the millennium and beat Zayn in sales or will the heat of their feelings for each other compromise everything?

→ the impossible nowA wish on Christmas Eve sends Louis to an alternate dimension where Harry is a member of One Direction.

→ They Never Quite LeaveWhen Liam Payne inherited his great aunt's mansion, he never expected it to be haunted. With the help of famous ghost hunters Harry and Niall, Liam is hoping to evict the ghost and sell the house once and for all.

There's just one problem: Louis has been in that house for a hundred years, and he doesn't much feel like leaving.

→ I No Longer Feel I Have to be James DeanThe tale of how Harry married Louis, the bartender that's nursing his sorrows, three days after getting dumped by his fiance.

→ Run Like the DevilHarry stops pouting, but his frown is still fixed in place. “Are you sure?” he asks. “You know it’s your soul you’re signing away.” He sounds…sad? No, that’s not right, but there’s something.

Christ. This is the most incompetent demon Louis’ ever met. If he hadn’t seen the red of his eyes he wouldn’t believe he was a demon at all. How’d he get this job if he isn’t trying to convince Louis to deal? Or is it just another trick? A ploy for sympathy?

“I’m sure,” Louis says. “Come over here and kiss me.”

*Supernatural AU. Louis hunts demons; Harry's the strangest demon he's ever met, and he keeps fucking meeting him.

→ break open the skyBeing a werewolf isn't always easy. Especially if you have no idea what you're doing.

→ Long Before We Both Thought the Same Thing“So are you admitting you love Harry yet?”

Louis pauses in the middle of his story about the movie he and Harry went to see last night to raise an incredulous eyebrow. “What are you on about? Of course I love Harry.”

Has Zayn lost his mind? He’s been friends with Louis for nearly seven years and Harry for six, under what circumstances did it appear like they didn’t love each other?

“Okay, let me rephrase,” Zayn says, an amused little quirk to his mouth like he knows something Louis doesn’t. “Are you admitting you’re in love with Harry yet?”

Louis stares at him in bewilderment, mouth working as he tries to form a response. “I…what?”

Or, Louis maybe, sort of realises he's in love with his best friend of almost twenty years and he maybe, sort of thinks that said best friend could love him back? A prequel to If You Asked Me If You Love Him (I'd Lie).

→ Coax the ColdEngland, 1897. 

English Professor Louis Tomlinson’s passion for the occult has been a source of mockery and derision for most of his life. When he hears whispers of a travelling freak show newly established in London claiming the existence of a monstrous sea hybrid, half-man, half-fish, Louis sees it as his ticket to credibility amongst his peers. The summer he spends undercover working on the show, however, gives him much more than that.

→ wings to break your fall“I’m glad you like my clothes,” Harry whispers, sliding his arms further along the couch until he’s speaking directly into Louis’ ear. “Would you like me to take them off?”

or: strip club AU. Harry’s work and family are keeping him busy. He really isn’t looking for a relationship, doesn’t want one. He just wants Louis. Problem is, Louis has other plans.

→ domestic monsters seriesHarry is a witch from a long line of power, an ancient line that’s one of the strongest left alive in their hemisphere. He can cast spells without a word if need be, fly on a broomstick, and has a black cat (a kitten, really) named Felix that is his animal familiar. He can shape galaxies in his cupped hands and can destroy them just as easily. He can choose exactly how to use his power, for encouragement and support, or for more nefarious causes if he wishes to.

And as fate would have it, he’s scared of haunted houses.

(Harry is a witch who carries around a stuffed pumpkin, Louis is a vampire with too much time on his hands, and their best mates Zayn & Niall aren't exactly what they seem...)

→ I would name the stars for you (I would take you there)"Harry Styles is a poem waiting to happen, Louis thinks, eyes tracing peach flesh and the undercurrent of blue veins. He wants to write him all down, to capture the image of green eyes and red lips and skinny wrists... dark ink spilled across the page."

Or a vaguely Notting Hill-like AU (or that made for TV Disney movie Starstruck if you’ve seen it… no? Just me?) starring popstar!Harry and bookkeeper/soulful poet!Louis; and including guest appearances by Fate, a wise elderly aristocrat, and lots and lots of pining.

→ Two Hearts Drawn TogetherLouis Tomlinson is 1/3 of a world-famous boy band. Harry Styles is a deaf university student. When they meet each other at a book signing, they experience an instant connection. They soon discover, however, that bridging the divide of their differences is easier said than done.

→ We Made These Memories For OurselvesBreath held, Harry squints his eyes open and focuses on the first stick. A blue line. Harry breathes out an unsteady breath. He’s pretty sure he read that one blue line is a negative, but he fishes the box from the bottom of the pile just to make sure.

“Negative,” he confirms, voice echoing around the small room. “Next.”

Now that he’s feeling a little less shaky, he scans the rest of the tests at once, is met with a headache-inducing mixture of pink plus signs and blue double lines. His heart rate picks up until it’s pounding triple-time in the base of his throat and the pit of his stomach, thundering in his ears and throbbing in his temples. He flips over the rest of the boxes slowly, but he knows what they’re going to say before he even looks.

[or, Louis is a footballer, Harry owns a bakery, and they're having a baby.]

→ FugueHarry falls asleep a 17 year-old who lives in Cheshire and is probably rockstar Louis Tomlinson's biggest fan. He wakes up 24 with a wedding ring on his finger, two kids, and Louis Tomlinson attempting to wake him up with a blow job. The doctor calls it organic retrograde amnesia, says he might never get back the last seven years of his life. The only thing that feels the same is how he feels when Louis touches him, and maybe that's enough to make him fall in love all over again.

→ The Dead of JulyBeing an Avenger means continuing to be Captain America and smiling and being honorable for the public and Harry does his best. But it doesn’t give him time to figure out who he is supposed to be once he takes off his uniform and puts the shield to the side. Just being Harry had always involved Louis, and Harry fears he doesn’t know how to exist without him.

or: Harry is Captain America, and Louis’ been dead for 70 years.

→ Hold Me CloserLouis Tomlinson is one of the most promising dancers of the English National Ballet, on track to become the youngest principal dancer in the company's history. That is, until forces conspire to significantly complicate his life, including: a surprise ballet, an unfairly attractive guest choreographer, and being pushed into a rivalry with his best mate. Featuring lots of wine, dancing, pining, and a happy ending.

→ Celebrity DiscountLouis fell for Prince Harry when he was ten and Harry was eight and peeked behind the Queen’s elegant gown for his first public appearance—a shy smile and a mess of curls. He fell for him when he caught Lottie putting up a magazine cover of Harry on her wall and all she had to say for herself was, “He’s such a good person, yeah?” and, yeah. He fell for him when Harry gracefully accepted his demotion. He fell for him when Harry came out and stayed out.