#It was a late birthday present and I am just crying like the nerd I am

[exhausted-archivist]

So I mostly just wanted to yell about this cool book I got today. To no one's surprise its a cookbook, Scents and Flavors: A Syrian Cookbook to be exact. Thanks to a friend I was able to get this and I've been under the weather today reading it with small breaks of me creeping on tumblr.

But this book is everything I hoped for and love, it is a translation of the 13th century Syrian cookbook that was popular when cookbooks really took off. Which, fun fact, cookbooks as we conceptualize them weren't really a thing until Arabic speakers started compiling them in the 10th century. They reached peak popularity in the 13th century, however in comparison Europe didn't start compiling cookbooks till the 14th century. Before that there are only a few Babylonian and Roman texts.

Something about historical cookbooks I've noticed is they're rarely just a collection of food recipes. Most include either manners, medicinal recipes, medical texts, hygiene, or a combination of them. It's always fun for me to see how these things evolved over time.

Also if you have any recommendations, drop me some titles. I want to learn about more foods.

[dylanhawth]

[ LORENZO ZURZOLO, CISMAN, HE/HIM ] shh ! DYLAN HAWTHORNE, the TWENTY year old SECOND year ANTHROPOLOGY major from HARTFORD, CT is known as a TOURMALINE  around here. HE was invited to join because HE PUBLISHED A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES ANONYMOUSLY THAT GARNERED A BIT OF FOLLOWING AND RECENTLY STEPPED FORWARD AS THE AUTHOR, and now, they’re here to stay. HE reminds me of THE NERVOUSNESS OF A FIRST KISS, LEAVING SECRET MESSAGES IN LIBRARY BOOKS, DRIVING AIMLESSLY WITH THE WINDOWS ROLLED DOWN ON A WARM SUMMER NIGHT WHILE THE RADIO HUMS A PLAYLIST CURATED FOR YOU BY YOUR BEST FRIEND.

[ big ass bio ] | [ connections ] | [ pinterest ] | [ playlist ] 

ooc. 

omfg hello. i can’t tell you how excited and happy i am to be here. i was too nervous to apply for the last three months but i decided to stop being a Coward and just try. im SO happy to be here, it’s the highlight of my week tbh lmao. anyway i am mar, she/her, 24, est. i live in nyc and all i do is visit the planetarium and cry. i’m so fucking bad at these so im just gonna LIST things and hope you get the vibe. i am a pisces sun, scorpio moon. i prob have a napoleon complex a little bit lmao. my favorite social media site is goodreads and i get rlly sad when my friends rate books i love poorly dfljskdfs. i can touch my tongue to my nose. i eat a lot of persimmons. i have a favorite rock at my local park that i visit a lot. idk dfskjls. i’m v friendly tho so pls hmu. i send a lot of memes, and love making meme edits for the chars so im rlly sorry in advance if you guys hate that. 

01.      basics.

NAME.   dylan h. hawthorne. ALIASES. dyl, hawth.   AGE.  twenty. HOMETOWN. hartford, ct. GENDER.  cismale. PRONOUNS.   he/him.

 02.      appearance.

EYES.   green. HAIR.   brown. HEIGHT.   6”0 BUILD.   lean. BIRTHMARKS   /   BURNS   /   SCARS.   a birthmark the shape of australia on his left thigh. TATTOOS.   n/a. PIERCINGS.   n/a.

03.      habits.

ALCOHOL   ?  socially. SMOKING   ?  socially. HABITS.  fidgets in chairs. cracks knuckles and back often. nervous laughter. chewing on pencils. talking to his plants. dogearing books. staring off into space and applying chapstick for a prolonged period of time. getting overly competitive about boardgames. stress cleaning. carries a book in his bag always. night owl. incredibly impatient when the internet is slow. creature of habit when it comes to menus, orders the same shit over and over again. LIKES.   feeding the ducks at the local pond. the smell of the earth after a rainstorm. the way music sounds coming from another room. kissing. watering his plants. inside jokes. making wishes in fountains. discussing a recently finished book with someone. making handmade cards for friends on their birthday. fireworks. coming of age films. packages wrapped in twine. jogs. the way friday nights feels when you’re with someone you love. the feeling you get leaving the movie theatre. DISLIKES.   being late. having too many coins on him. coffee with no sugar. when people speak loudly in the library. doing laundry. handshakes with too much squeeze. receiving voicemails. untidiness. golf. charles dickens. lectures with no student input. hot weather. confrontation. being caught in a lie. losing his umbrella. people who cheat during games. rainboots. bad table manners. humidity.

04.      personality.

MYERS-BRIGGS.   infp. ENNEAGRAM. the helper. ZODIAC.   pisces. TEMPERAMENT.   melancholic. ALIGNMENT.   neutral good. ARCHETYPE.   the lover. POSITIVE.   empathetic. sensitive. intelligent. charismatic. easygoing. gentle. loyal. passionate. romantic. humble. supportive. gregarious. playful. diligent. NEGATIVE.   deceitful. gullible. finicky. naive. obsessive. perfectionistic. secretive. timid. possessive. weak-willed. indecisive. cynical. indulgent. summary: basically, dylan is a love starved, people pleasing nervous wreck. big ass nerd who wants to be everyones friend, wants to be liked SO BAD. very charming and charismatic, comes off as fairly confident and comfortable at first. is able to make everyone feel loved and like they’re the most important person in the world, however lacks a backbone. is both romeo and juliet, and just as dumb as both of them too. 

05.      hc’s.

dylan was a football player in high school, believe it or not. he was rather good at it too, which is sort of jarring considering his pacifistic nature. however, he DID land on someone incorrectly at some point during his senior year, and broke their wrist. he quickly abandoned the sport altogether because of how guilty he felt. 

touched on this briefly but dylan really… loves indiana jones lmao. like, it’s quite ironic given his absolutely inability to be a badass, and lack of suaveness. however, he admires indy’s lust for adventure. he also was obsessed with the mummy as a kid. both of these were incredible sources in his very irrational decision to sudden anthropology. however, he does really love and admire anthropology. his favorite ethnography is the spirit catches you and you fall down, which makes him cry like a little bitch every time he even thinks about it. 

he’s the second oldest, but he is also baby. he is SUCH a big momma’s boy. he misses his mom so much. he writes to her often, and of course calls her even more. despite being six-foot tall, he still goes home and rests his head on his mother's lap, falls asleep as she runs her fingers through his hair. he often tries to find native english plants and flowers to press, and mail back to his mother in the form of bookmarks. has nEVER STEPPED ON A CRACK IN HIS LIFE, BABY.

just leaves a shit ton of notes in books in the library. some are riddles, some are poetry, some are commentary on the book, some are doodles. just depends on how he’s feeling for that book. he doesn’t tell anyone he does it, but he’s waiting for someone to connect the dots with his handwriting and writing style. 

speaking of plants, his room is basically a big greenhouse. he has so many plants, and takes serious care of them all. he has a little humidifier in his space for them, marks down when he waters what plants, and has a label maker to label them all with a name. they are all named after shakespeare characters. 

dyl is a doodler, so much so that he contributes to the school paper as a cartoonist. his cartoons are usually just random thoughts he has, but sometimes they get political and he works marxism into them. (this man loves marx.) 

[ suicide implied tw, death mention tw ] he dresses like a victorian boy in love with his roommate who has recently died of scarlet fever and in his mourning, plans to disappear in the bog by the school by mysterious circumstances and become a ghost that haunts the college with his lover. like lots of gray and slacks and ties ands ties and sweaters, lol. also he has glasses that he never wears because he can never find them! catch him squinting in your classroom because he can’t see SHIT. too shy to ask you for your notes though, doesn’t wanna inconvenience you! but when he’s Out on the Town®, he fucking wears like, tacky patterned shirts that are expensive but ugly. someone please help him. 

all about fun socks! he loves owning socks that have dumb little images on them. if you get him a pair of fun socks, he’d absolutely go nuts. his entire week: made. 

he leaves his roommate limericks when he senses they are sad. tapes em to the bathroom mirror or leaves them in the fridge. also loves buying people presents. tiny ones. like haunted looking things from second hand stores, or your favorite chocolate. also is the sort of friend that has EVERYTHING in his bag, in case someone cuts themselves or has a headache. can be a bit of a mom himself. it’s the little things, y’know? 

prob still in his emo phase. listens to way too mcr to not be lmao.

eco-friendly king, will not stand for you not recycling. 

if you will allow him, he will attempt to have a secret handshake with you. he’s a child. is dying for someone to memorize the parent trap handshake and indulge him. 

cannot sit still in a chair. fidgets an excessive amount, the bobbing of his knee and the squirming around. it just never ends. 

bi. that’s the hc.

he’s a little bit in love with everyone he meets if you couldn’t tell, and it’s fucking disastrous. 

he is based loosely off: patroclus ( the song of achilles ), ponyboy curtis ( the outsiders ), laurie laurence ( little women ), eduardo saverin ( the social network ), remus lupin ( hp ), oliver marks ( if we were villains. ) 

( @opalsmedia​ )

[jiminspjm]

Blanket Kick + J. Jungkook 01

❋ a series of events between you and jeon jungkook. [based of bangtans song, blanket kick/embarrassed]

❋ a/n: am i the worst moot ever? yes. this is a late birthday present for @yoonsgiggle my amazing moot, i hope you like this hehe. the parts are very short but i will be updating every other day hopefully hehe, im not sure how many parts this will have but definitely no more than 5!!

⇢ [characters] : jeon jungkoon x oc ft. ot6

⇢ [rated] : NC-17 (strong language)

⇢ [glossary]: fluff, smut (future), roomates!au, childhood friends to lovers, humor, and a whole side of sexual tension ;)

⇢ [index]: 2.2k

⇢[preface]: none.

“I was too shy to become your sun so I became a cold moon.”

-

“I think Jungkook is mad at me, but I can’t tell.” You sighed, pushing around the broccoli on your plate. Jimin and Yoongi both looked up at you, watching as your face fell into a deep frown.

“Why would he be mad at you? Isn’t that like, against best friend code?” Jimin teased, trying to lighten the mood. Your lips turned up for a moment before going back into a thin line. Jimin sighed, looking at Yoongi and shrugging.

“He lost is blanket his mom gave him.” Yoongi said, biting into a fry. You heard Jimin’s fork screech against his plate, causing you to whip your head up towards Yoongi.

“He what?” You said, leaning towards the blonde man. Yoongi nodded, rubbing his hands together and nodding.

“Yeah, he can’t find it. So that’s probably why he is being distant.” Yoongi finished. You groaned inwardly. The blanket Yoongi is referring to is Jungkook’s baby blanket, that his mom gave him. His mother passed away a few hours after he was born, due to some health complications. Him and his father lived in your neighborhood when you were children, and your parents and you had just moved into the neighborhood. You can remember the day your mom told you to bring some brownies to your new neighbors, and a boy, a bit taller than you opened the door. Wide brown eyes, and a head of fluffy hair was the first thing you saw. The shy smile morphed into a distinct toothy, bunny smile once you showed the desert. After that day, you and Jungkook never left each other's side.

You went to the same elementary, and secondary school. Jungkook was a year older than you, but because of your proficiency you got to skip a grade. Even in high school as you two navigated life together, through all the pains that were breakups, school work, periods, and friends. You will never forget the day that you cried for about two hours, because you wished your boobs were bigger. Jungkook’s response was, “At least you have a nice ass.” Which made you cry even more.

You both got into the same university, and bought an apartment together. Three years later, you 21 and him 22, nothing has changed. Well, except you’re hopeless pining for your best friend that was definitely way out of your league. But that’s besides the point. You have never left his side, and weren’t planning too. This situation though, was worrisome.

“Hey, isn’t it both of your birthdays this week?” Jimin asked. You nodded, a small smile on your face. You and Jungkook were born on the same day, different years. Which he always teases you about, feeling relieved about the whole formality thing. He just didn’t want to have to call you noona. Not like you would have made the nerd anyway.

“Yeah, and that’s why I need to find his blanket,” You said, sliding out from the booth. Shuffling through your backpack you found your wallet and threw some money on the table. “That should cover mine, and please bring Jungkook something?” You asked, zipping your backpack.

“Yeah sure, but where the hell do you think you are going? It’s gonna rain soon!” Yoongi shouted at you.

You were already out the door.

-

“I’m not a pencil but I keep getting dark thoughts toward you.”

Maybe you should have listened to Jimin when he said it was going to rain, and maybe you should have driven your own car to the cafe, but we all make mistakes right. Mistakes such as you running across campus to the baseball field while it was pouring rain. Was catching a cold worth it for Jungkook? Absolutely. Was digging through bright red dirt to find his blanket worth it? Yes. And was finding that blanket buried in the sand worth it just to possibly see the look on his face worth it? Always. I bet you are wondering how the hell his blanket ended up on the baseball diamond across campus.

Well, usually you attend his games and use said blanket when it’s cold. You, being an idiot, left the blanket on the bleachers to run onto the dirt to congratulate him on a win. How said blanket ended up in dirt, no clue. Probably the devil punishing you for leaving Jungkook’s prized possession behind.

All in all, you jogged half a mile in the rain back to you and Jungkook’s apartment. You were hoping he had class so you could quickly wash and dry the blanket, and leave it on his bed and act like nothing happened. But that wasn’t the case when you open the door, and see Jungkook sitting on the counter in the kitchen, spooning peanut butter from the jar. Your eyes widen at the same time his does, as he drops the spoon on the floor with a clatter. Luckily you were smart enough to chuck your backpack at your friends Mimi’s dorm before you went on your blanket hunt. So the only thing ruined was your dignity was the fact you were dripping wet, and had red sand all over you.

Before you could speak, Jungkook hopped off the counter, his black, curly, fluffy hair bounced as he rushed over to you. His silver earrings swung slightly as he looked you up and down, eyes zoned in on the material clutched in your hand. Looking down as well, a shy smile came across your face.

“I’m really-!” Your apologies were cut short when Jungkook wrapped his arm around your waist, the other gripping onto your wet hair as he pulled your smaller frame into his embrace. Immediately your senses were overwhelmed by laundry detergent and the faint smell of peanut butter. Confused, you wrapped your arms around him slowly.

“I was so worried, Jimin and Yoongi said they head no clue where you were.” Jungkook muttered into your hair. You relaxed into him, leaning into his hold.

“I’m sorry, my phone was in my backpack and I didn’t have it with me.” You spoke softly, fingering at the material of his hoodie. Jungkook, didn’t say anything as he held you for a few more moments. The only sound present is the gentle rainfall heard outside.

Jungkook, began to pull away and he examined you for any damage. Not meeting his gaze, you extended the soiled blanket to him.

“I’m sorry for forgetting it. It’s my fault, I’m really sorry Guk. That was super irresponsible of me,” You muttered, guilty tears brimming in your eyes. You felt his fingers brush against yours as he took the blanket from you. Stepping forward, he gripped his fingers beneath your chin to look at him. His face was slightly distorted through the tears, as he gently brushed away the tear that went down your jaw. He smiled gently and leaned down and pressing a kiss against the corner of your mouth.

Cheeks heating up furiously, even though you were crying, was only something Jungkook is capable of. You blinked a few times, looking up at him a grin is plastered on his stupid face.

“Thank you for finding it, sweetheart.” Jungkook said, smiling gently. Sniffling a few times, from the cold, and the tears you smiled at him. Sighing, you sniffled and became very aware of the fact you were still wet and dirty. Literally.

“As much as I would love to cry some more, I’m dirty and cold, and I’m gonna get the floors dirty.” You joked, trying to make yourself feel better. Jungkook snorted, and walked towards you before dipping down and picking you up by the back of your thighs.

A sound of protest came from your mouth, as he wrapped your legs around his lean waist. Heat burst through your whole body as you tried to balance yourself.

“Jungkook, what the fuck are you doing?” You cried, placing your arms on his shoulders. Jungkook ignored your cries and rested his warm palms on the skin of your hips beneath your crewneck.

“Your all wet, and you already dripped all over the foyer, I don’t want the wood floors dirty.” He hummed, smoothing his thumbs across your skin, causing heat to bloom on your goosebumped skin. Nodding, you allowed him to carry you into your shared bathroom.

Flicking the light on, Jungkook hummed to himself quietly. Setting you on the counter, he turned to the cabinets behind him and grabbed a towel and placed if on the hook behind the door.

“Okay, shower you nerd.” Jungkook teased, flicking your nose and walking out of the bathroom and shutting the door with a gentle click.

Releasing the breath you didn’t know you were holding, you got off the counter and turned to face the mirror. Red dirt was smudged along your cheeks and clothes, staining the fabric of your shoes as well. Huffing, you walked towards the shower and turned the crystal knob. A spurt of water echoed in the chamber, as you closed the glass door.

Pulling off your shoes, pants and hoodie, you balled them all together, and shoved them in the trash. Goosebumps surfaced along your exposed skin, as you peeled off your wet underwear and bra. Tossing those in the hamper behind the door, you stepped into the shower.

Scrubbing your skin with body wash, and thoroughly cleaning out the dirt from your hair you allowed the steam and hot water to warm your body. Eventually your skin began to prune, forcing you to get out. Opening the door, you stepped out and grabbed your towel. Wiping your body down, and slapping on some body lotion, you began to search for your clothes but came up empty handed.

“Fuck,” you muttered. The only option was to go out there into you and Jungkook’s room and get some clothes. Sucking in a breath, you grasped the handle to the door and opened it. Not expecting Jungkook to be on the other side, shirtless with some of your clothes neatly folded in his hands.

Was it hot in here? Or is it just Jungkook.

Shaking your head, your grip on the doorknob became extremely tight. You tried to not let your eyes wander along his toned abdomen. The golden skin rippled with tight muscles, ink trailing across the skin to create intricate designs. The black band of his armani boxers were peeking from the top of his sweats, which lead up to deep muscles around his hips, creating a distinct ‘V’ shape. You were pretty sure your face was a nice shade of pink, and it wasn’t from the steam of the shower.

“See something you like, sweetheart?” Jungkook’s low voice spoke. The statement made you snap your head up to meet his stare. He had a cocky grin spread across his face. What a little shit.

“You wish you dweeb. Give me my clothes.” You said, keeping your voice stable and holding out a hand. Jungkook smirked and shook his head, strands of his fluffy hair fell above his brow.

“Mmm, but you called me a dweeb, and that wasn’t very nice.” Jungkook teased, stepping into the bathroom. You took a step back, glaring at him.

“I can call you worse,” you bit back. Jungkook’s stupid, cocky grin was still plastered over his stupid, attractive face. You didn’t realise he lead you to the tub until the cold tile hit the back of your calves.

Catching yourself, you tightened your hold on your towel as you scowled at him. Jungkook set your clothes on the lid to the toilet, and took a step towards you. You audibly shuddered when his hands trialed across your bare arm, the touch leaving a trail of goosebumps behind. Jungkook hummed, fingers trailing down your arm till he reached your hand.

Before you could ask him what the hell he was doing, he yanked your hand to his bare chest, causing your body to press tightly against his. His arm wound around your waist, pulling your hips to his.

You audibly let out a sound as his larger palm engulfed your own. His skin was warm and hard beneath your fingers. You could feel practically every ridge and dip of his muscles even with a towel on. His fingers gripped roughly into your hips, as his lips skimmed across your bare shoulder- his warm breath ghosting over the skin.

You bit your lip hard, trying to hold back the groan that was threatening to escape your lips. Jungkook chuckled beneath his breath. Bastard.

“Don’t call me names, sweetheart. Where are your manners?” Jungkook whispered into your ear. You whined lowly, curling your fingers against his skin. The one hand that was holding up your towel was now on his chest as well. You felt the cloth begin to slip, the only thing holding it up was your sanity, which was practically thinning, and also the fact that your breasts were pushed against Jungkook’s chest. Jungkook hummed lowly before letting go of your body, and walking towards the door. Blinking a few times, you now became cold at the loss of body heat.

Jungkook was already outside the bathroom, hand on the knob. He winked at you, and then proceeded to close the door. Right as the click resonated through the bathroom, the thump of your towel hit the tile.

[dreamonminecraft]

oh yes, tell me more about this beautiful lesbian slowburn. I’m a sucker for a good love story

Okay so to start off, My sexuality fluctuates greatly throughout this story, but as of now I identify as a Bisexual lithsexual lesbian, which means that I am attracted to lots of people but lose attraction when the feelings are reciprocated, and I'll only date girls.

The story starts off August of 2018. I was starting 6th grade (middle school) and didn't really have any friends aside from a few people that I had last talked to in 3rd grade.

It's important to know that I'm a GT kid and so I almost always have the same group of about 20 kids. This started when I changed to an all GT class for 4th grade.

While it's nice to have a comfortable learning environment, it also means that there's no escape from any drama, and you get to pick friends from the very small pool of kids that you'll spend the rest of your education with.

This is a pretty long story as well and I'm not sure I'll be able to accurately retell many of the things because dates get mixed up and stuff. Anyway, I'm gonna try my best to explain but these are really only the things from my point of view and I don't remember a lot of the things. (This is also gonna be written like a fanfic because that's all I know how to write, I apologise)

So start of sixth grade, I don't really have any friends, I'm kind of this awkward nerd, there's 2 people in my class (we switch classes like normal middle school, but I'm with the GT kids for most of the day so that's what I'll refer to them as) that I've known for years, a few I've met before, but mostly new people.

I sit by some old friends from volleyball at lunch for the first few days but begin to feel unwelcome. One day I decide to sit by these two people that I know are in GT but haven't talked to before. I don't say anything, but I sit and they don't mind.

The next day we get new seats in English. I'm behind a boy named Owen, Inara, who is one of the girls I sat with at lunch, is to my right, and in front of her is a girl named Emilyse.

Inara and I hit it off immediately.

It's kind of crazy because we're both crazy anxious introverts, but we gel nicely. I'm a boyband-obsessed 11 year old and she's a mature and mysterious 11 year old.

She's a lefty. I'm a righty. The way we've been placed makes us bump arms everytime we try to write anything.

We have every class together. Somehow, we sit next to each other in every class as well, even in the ones where we didn't pick our seating chart.

It's September. I cry over boybands. She watches curiously.

For the next couple of months we casually talk. She spends every lunch period in the library. We text occasionally.

I have another friend who takes priority. His name is Logan. We got introduced by his friend Lennox when she asked for my phone number to give to him.

Lennox and I don't talk. Logan and I text nonstop for months. We discuss possibly dating in the future. I identify as bisexual and biromantic at this point.

I've been in this position before. Having mainly guy friends growing up puts me in a lot of awkward friendship/relationship situations. They always end the same.

I have an issue with dating in middle school. You're not dating if you don't go on dates, hold hands, kiss, or cuddle. But you can feel like you are.

In December Logan starts being mean. We start a game where we step on each other's shoes at lunch or in the hallway. It's fun.

Eventually, he recruits his friends to do it to me, too. It's a joke a first, but eventually there are 10 middle school boys chasing me and trying to hurt me.

I get kicked in the hallway and fall. Someone steps on my arm and people laugh. Logan watches. I tell Inara and she steps on his shoe for me.

Logan and I stop talking. Inara and I hang out more. By early January, Inara has stopped going to the library at lunch. We hang out with Emilyse in the field instead.

I text Logan one day in mid January and ask why we fell out. He says that I told someone that I was going to punch him in the face.

The person he said I told, only talked to me at the bus stop, and he didn't ride my bus. I had never said it in the first place, but his logic made it even more frustrating.

I tell him I got scared because I had a crush on him and didn't want to make things weird. It was a lie.

In February I came out to someone for the first time. They asked if I was bi and I said yes.

By March I had accepted that coming out didn't really make a difference. Inara and I hung out at school but not really anywhere else.

My birthday's in April. I invite her, Emilyse, and Rebekah. We paint rocks and draw on a table cloth. Emilyse feels distant.

Emilyse is homophobic. We find out in English one day. I don't remember how. Inara and I look at each other. We know we're both queer but haven't come out to each other.

I ask Emilyse if she would hate someone in GT for coming out. She says yes. Inara and I stop talking to her.

By May I've become obsessed with Marvel. Inara's interested in it and I decide to be, too. We talk about the movies. It gets awkward. She's not as interested when I get in on it.

By June we're best friends. We hang out fairly regularly, have all our classes together, and text all the time. Logan is forgotten.

School lets out at the start of June. We keep texting regularly. We make plans to see the new spiderman movie in early July with one of our other friends.

I have a complicated relationship with said friend. They're non-binary, although I didn't know it yet, and I've known them since Kindergarten. Inara met them in an advisory this year. I get jealous easily.

The day of the movie I shop at Kohl's. I buy the two of us matching shirts. We meet at the movie theater and it's awkward. I pay for popcorn and sneak in snacks that we share. Our friend's dad is there, but Inara and I don't have parents present.

We sit next to each other during the movie. At a certain scene, I start to get anxious. My stomach hurts and I can't breathe, I start to get sweaty.

I get up and rush out of the theater. I get to the women's bathroom and sit down on the floor of the very last stall. I'm panicing, dry heaving into the toilet, and trying not to cry. I try to text my mom that I'm having a panic attack but don't have reception.

I go back into the theater room after a few minutes. I'm still anxious, but better. Our friend is highly concerned, Inara just glances at me worriedly.

It's my first panic attack, and it sucked.

We leave awkwardly after it ends, trying to avoid the obvious elephant in the room. My mom is concerned when she picks me up. We don't talk about it. My dad and brother are watching it illegally when I get home.

We don't see each other until August of 2019, but continue to text through the rest of the summer.

When 7th grade starts, I'm still into Marvel. I've seen all the movies at this point, but there haven't been any new ones (even now) since FFH. Inara's interested, but not fully.

In late August/Early September we take BuzzFeed quizzes for fun and text each other the results. I take one about soulmates. I get her initials. I send her the link. She gets mine.

We take more and they all point to us being soulmates. We propose by sending pictures of rings over text. The wedding date is set for September 28th, 2019.

The time comes. It's Saturday and my brother has a double football game. We've planned to pick her up and take her there. It's a Christian league, so the games are at a church.

We go to the garden. There's a small white bench in some rocks, surrounded by flowers. We joke that we've had our ceremony. We wander around for a while longer.

My dad suggests that we go to the taco bell across the parking lot. We do. When we're done, we walk back to my house. Its not far, but we're alone. I carry her halfway back.

When we get to my house we pick things from my garden. We're barefoot and I'm wearing overalls. I joke that we're gonna get a farm one day when we're older.

She picks things while I stand back and watch. The sun hits her dyed-red hair just right. I vividly remember smiling at thinking "holy fuck she's pretty" you would think I'd put together my crush by then.

October rolls around and she cancels plans to go trick-or-treating with me. I'm upset but understand.

We "work" on a school project at her house. We don't actually get anything done before cuddling up on her bed and falling asleep to black panther.

In November, it's Emilyse's birthday party. We've gotten distant but still talk occasionally. Inara and I both go to the party.

We're watching Spiderman Far From Home because that's what Emilyse wanted. I've seen in twice, Ianra has too.

We're given candy and popcorn and then curl up on the couch. Inara and I sit next to each other.

(I forgot to mention this but at some point she stayed the night at my house. She slept on the floor in her swimming suit even though I asked if she wanted to sleep on the bed. Swimming was fun though. We also go to an arcade. We mini-golf and play laser tag. We also danced in the rain together at some point that day.)

Once we're no more than 15 minutes into the movie, I'm cuddled into her chest. It's important to mention that at this point I'm 5'6 and she's no more than 5'0.

We cuddle the entire movie. We share candy and pretend no one else is there. It feels great.

We don't talk about that night for months. Nobody brings it up. I come out to Rebekah around this time, saying no more than that I like girls. I still haven't told Inara.

By December, I've brought her to church a few times. I don't enjoy going to church, but my parents always encouraged it.

(I'd like to say at this point as well that I have been raised Christian and identify with the faith despite the fact that I despise Church and disagree with many of the common teachings. If I ever had to choose for some reason, my sexuality matters more to me than my religion. Regardless, I respect your beliefs if they differ from mine :) )

Inara's birthday is in mid December. Her party consists of us making gay jokes with our enby friend despite not being technically out to each other.

My church youth group plans ice skating. I invite her and she accepts. I'm worried about it. It's essentially a date. Neither of our parents will be there.

We carpool with the youth leaders, who are actually pretty cute for a hetero couple. Inara and I share awkward glances the whole time.

When we get there I learn that Inara took ice skating lessons as a child. She's much more confident than I am, but pretends she doesn't know what she's doing. I skate about once or twice a season, but also rollerblade.

There's a wet, sloped, melty part of the rink. I get nervous and grab her hand. She holds it until we're out of the melted ice.

Every lap around I grab her hand at that point. Eventually, we just keep holding hands for an entire lap.

By the end of the night, we've both fallen a few times but held hands the whole time. We drop her off and I say goodnight.

That night, I rant about the adventure to one of my (ex)friends, who excitedly listens to my talk about holding hands with a girl.

There's a GT Christmas party at Hannah's. Inara and I carpool there. It's an all together boring party with the exception of a few interesting truth-or-dare questions.

(side note, remember Owen? Well he's one of Inara and I's best friends and we were actually close enough that the three of us were basically cuddling on the couch during part of the party. Also the whole class knows about Inara and I's wedding and calls us wives.)

Paislie asks me if I wanted to "marry" Inara before we got "married". I mumble an answer that nobody hears. I don't repeat it. When it's time to leave, Inara and I have our legs intertwined on the couch. We don't mention that, either. We drop her off and I say goodnight.

January is good. There's a night, the 4th I believe, that we really connect. We officially come out to each other for the first time on that night, and it gets really real, really fast.

She says she's pan, I say I'm bi but confused.

In mid January she texts me that she's crying because one of her favorite YouTubers finally hit a million. She cries for hours but never tells me who. I pay it no mind.

A few days later, she mentions a YouTube channel called Unus Annus and tells me that it's super interesting. I text back but don't look it up.

A few more days pass and I'm randomly on the trending page for YouTube, which I never do. I see a video trending called "Mark and Ethan go casket shopping". The thumbnail is interesting enough that I check what the channel is. I notice it's the one Inara told me about.

I watch the video and subscribe within 5 minutes. I text Inara quotes from that video, Ethan Finally Becomes a Man, and the Lie Detector test videos, until she responds and is surprised that I found the channel.

I obsess quickly and depend on her to know the new video at 1pm everyday. She gets annoyed and we drift apart slowly.

In February things get rocky. We fight often. If I win a small argument she doesn't talk to me for hours. She gets pissed at refuses to tell me what the Unus Annus video is called if I ask too many times.

At some point I get fed up and confront her. I don't remember what about, but we stop talking all together.

Friends pick sides. I'm left alone. We don't talk for a month. She tells me that she pushed me away because she thought I'd react badly to her telling me she loves me.

I confess my crush. She tells me she feels the same.

We finally make up at about 8:30 on a Sunday night in March. It's not fixed but we plan to talk. And 9:00, the school district announces that it's shutting down until least after spring break.

We stopped trying to communicate, but eventually, slowly we started talking again. We text a few times a day now, mostly about UA and anxiety, the best combo.

We haven't seen each other since. We're probably going back to school in person in about a month, but I'm not sure. Nobody is.

I've called her my girlfriend on here before, simply because I don't know what we are. I joked the other day about how the youth leaders would react if I said I was texting my girlfriend.

Here's how that went:

So we're just jokingly married for now! It's a confusing pile of garbage but we both came out as lesbians the other day so that's a new development.

I don't know if any of that makes sense but I'll answer any questions anybody has :)

[wolfflock]

Please, Keep Love Hole (ch20/21)

What can one lonely nerdy teacher do when he just loves sucking cock? The lone bathroom stall in a gay bar seems like the perfect place for him.

What can one hyper college student with a sports scholarship do when his friends are jerks? The lone bathroom stall in a gay bar seems like the perfect place for him, too.

Chapter summary: Some light fluff before the last (smutty) chapter. I just felt the boys deserve nice things so here it is.

XXX

Over summer, things take on a new form of normal: Stiles works in the coffee shop five times a week, then goes for a run after each shift. Derek gives summer courses for high school students, tutors college students and runs a book club for little kids (which Stiles totally thinks is adorable as hell). All in all, it’s probably the best it has been in quite a while for Stiles. He is content with his routine, with being able to focus on his well-being, and all this provides enough time for the two of them to explore their relationship.

After they are done with work, they usually meet at the park to enjoy the sun and to just talk. Derek seems to be inclined to take things slow, and Stiles is totally fine with this. It might have been a surprising challenge to just slow down and not rush things, because honestly, that’s not what he was used to, but then again, he argued, Derek wasn’t a college student looking for a quick summer fling, so Stiles tried to match his pace. Taking it slow meant it’s been two weeks and he still hasn’t been to Derek’s place, and if anyone thought (Stiles included) that Derek would be willing to go over to Stiles’ dorm room, well, yeah, no, I’m a bit too old for that, Stiles. So, it was usually neutral ground, with plenty of people around, keeping things certainly PG. As far as Stiles is concerned, though, it is all good, great even, and it is no one’s business that most of the time after he walks Derek home and kisses him goodnight, he most definitely doesn’t even try to keep things PG while taking a cold shower to calm himself down. He is a healthy (and finally, he feels like he is) nineteen-year-old.

His friends seem to be relieved that he is doing better, which makes him appreciate them even more. He has caught Scott looking at him with a fond smile on his lips when he thinks no one is watching; and Danny is back to being more tactile with him, bumping into his shoulders, slapping him across the back, and just not treating him anymore like he might break by the slightest breeze. Jackson is still an ass but in an affectionate way, always ready to snarl at anyone who looks at Stiles the wrong way. Which happens, sometimes. People whisper when he walks by, gossiping about the popular (dumb) jock who couldn’t handle his drink and the smoking hot Prof Hale had to save his ass.

It’s a mixture of shadenfreude and envy, he knows, but it still hurts. He can only imagine what would happen if people actually knew about him and Derek. They never wanted to keep it a secret, which Stiles is really delighted about, because sexy Professor Hale doesn’t want to keep him a dirty secret! But they try to be as professional as they can be, so they usually don’t go to places where a lot of Derek’s students would be. It’s easier now that it’s summer and they don’t have to be on campus, and the town is sometimes like a ghost town because a lot of people have left.

To be with Derek over summer, Stiles decides against going home. When he tells his dad, he sounds pleased that Stiles is at a good place and tells him not to worry about him. He can visit his hometown whenever he wants to, but he should enjoy his summer with his new special friend. That comment makes Stiles groan and bang his head against his desk.

Scott, though, is planning on going home for the summer, so they decide to celebrate his last night there. It takes a lot of back and forth between Stiles, Danny and Jackson to decide what they want to surprise Scott with.

“We should go to that new arcade like place that opened by the swimming pool,” Stiles, resident nerd, says.

Jackson’s eye roll is so exaggerated that Stiles is surprised he didn’t sprain something.

“…or not, okay. What do you suggest then?”

“How about some cocktails and pool in MacTavish’s? I’ve heard that’s a hot spot for summer schoolers” Jackson supplies which earns him two sets of very judgmental eyes.

“Dude, they aren’t even allowed to drink,” Stiles replies.

“Neither are you, Stilinski,” Danny interjects, and Stiles can’t fault his logic there.

“Yeah, I’ll leave the fresh-out-of-highschoolers for you, Jackson,” Stiles shoves at Jackson, who just shakes his head. “I like my partners with some experience,” he smirks, and the other two just groan and ‘eww’ at him. They know about Derek, of course, and it provides endless source for them to tease Stiles about.

“Oh! Talking about experience,” Danny exclaims, “you remember that gay bar with the glory hole?”

Stiles has very vivid yet rather blurry memories of that place and the glorious head he received there. The thoughts make him blush and he wishes really hard that Derek would just not leave him with a serious case of blue balls every time they part ways because then maybe (big maybe) he wouldn’t be turned on by just the memory of a blowjob.

“Yeah,” Jackson confirms.

“Well… umm…” Danny fixes the collar of his shirt, “my sources say the guy hasn’t been there for a few weeks now.”

“Your ‘sources’, eh?” Jackson cackles and mimes a blowjob to Danny, who turns even redder and awkwardly smiles.

“Yeah, his regulars miss him,” he admits sheepishly, and that has both Jackson and Stiles break out into hysterical laughter.

In the end, they go to a pizza place for dinner, then to a 90s themed party. Scott seems happy with their choice and they all have a great time.

At the beginning of August, Stiles is having breakfast with Derek at their favorite pastry shop, when Derek looks at him, hesitant, unsure, and it makes Stiles’ heart painfully clench. He is both apprehensive and excited by that look. He reaches out and runs his hand down Derek’s (broad, muscular, very impressive - hey! mind out of the gutter!) back, which seems to relax him a bit.

“It’s Zoe’s birthday next weekend,” he says after a while and Stiles is just staring at him.

“Mhm,” he supplies eventually, when Derek seems satisfied with saying this much.

“I would like for you to come with me,” Derek says, hand reaching out to touch Stiles’. It takes Stiles a second to realize that Derek is actually asking him to meet his sister, not his niece. His sister, Laura, the only family he has.

Stiles swallows his apple strudel and fighting down questions like what am I going to do with a bunch of little kids around, I am not good with kids, he smiles at Derek.

“That sounds great. What is the plan?” he asks and is shocked by Derek’s beautiful smile. That smile alone is worth putting up with kids for a morning.

He only freaks out a little when Derek tells him that it is tradition in their family to cook and bake together with the birthday girl or boy, and then to play boardgames. The bigger freaking out comes when he realizes that he is a terrible cook and that he has never had to spend a whole day with a child around, let alone several.

“I can’t do this. I am nineteen! How am I expected to be able to handle this? Scott, heeeeelp!” He knows he is like a petulant child – maybe he should join the partying kids instead of cooking with the adults – but Scott is just laughing at him.

“Dude, louder, please, my speakers aren’t screeching just yet,” Scott laughs at him, but there is an affectionate and understanding look in his eyes, even through the pixelated image of his laptop.

“Sorry. But seriously, buddy, I am so not mature enough for this. I mean, I know that Derek is 26 and I should have expected, like, adult things, but not this fast, you know? Also, it’s not only that there will be kids, but his sister, who he hasn’t talked to for years. What if I fuck that up? What if I do something stupid and ruin their newfound bond?”

“Stiles. Trust me, you won’t. Derek likes you,” Scott says in a serious tone, the one that belies his youthful features and makes him sound really wise. “He believes it will be okay, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked you to go. Besides, he wants you to meet them. That’s a big thing.”

“I know,” Stiles groans. “I just don’t want to fuck this up, too. I have made quite a lot of mistakes lately, but this is something that I want to do well,” he confesses, although he suspects Scott knows all this, maybe knew it even before he himself did.

“And you won’t. Just be yourself, be nice to them and if you’re unsure about something, be honest with Derek.”

“Dude, when did you become so wise?”

Scott laughs, and looks at the camera. “I miss you, buddy.”

“Yeah, I miss you, too.” There’s a beat before Stiles continues. “Thank you. Honestly, dude, thank you for always being there for me. You’re the best.”

“Aww, dude, stop, you’re going to make me cry here,” Scott sniffles and waves at Stiles. “Now go and get something for the birthday girl.”

Stiles says goodbye, promises to call soon, and leaves his dorm to meet Derek and buy a present together.

They brainstorm over coffee and Stiles talks excitedly about games that are probably not even age appropriate for Zoe, but he likes the sound of them. Stiles is too excited to notice the adoration in Derek’s eyes as he watches Stiles gesticulate wildly, showing images on his phone to Derek, describing toys and games. In the end, they go with wooden blocks and a picture book – neither of which are princessy because Stiles is a firm believer of gender-neutral toys. Derek believes him and lets him call the shots. Stiles thanks him by giving him a long, slow kiss in the car that leaves Stiles’ insides tingling. Derek just looks dazed when he pulls back, and a small smile spreads across his face.

---

On the day of the birthday party, Stiles has to get up rather early which makes him grumpy. He stumbles to his kettle to make some tea – he decides that should be enough caffeine, he doesn’t want to end up too pumped lest he makes an ass of himself. After a quick shower, he picks up a dark blue and read plaid shirt and khaki pants, fixes his hair and heads downstairs. Derek is already waiting for him in the parking lot, eyes looking tired but glinting as he sees Stiles.

The drive to Laura’s is a peaceful one, they listen to some music, holding hands. Stiles’ palm is slowly getting clammier and clammier, but Derek doesn’t say anything, he just rubs circles into it.

Derek kills the engine in front of a lovely two-story building, and as they step out of the car, Stiles can already hear rowdy children running around in the backyard. He walks to Derek, takes a deep, steadying breath and nods at him. Derek wraps his arms around him in a tight hug and Stiles melts into it. With a soft kiss to his temple, they straighten and head to the door, hand in hand.

Stiles isn’t sure what he expected to see when the door opens, but he is greeted with… well, Derek if Derek was a few years older and a woman. Same dark hair, although Laura’s seems naturally wavy, expressive but sculpted eyebrows and the same twinkling eyes, which are just a shade or two closer to blue than Derek’s.

“Derek!” she exclaims and pulls her brother in a bear hug. “I’m so glad you could make it. And you must be Stiles,” she looks over at Stiles, who is standing there awkwardly, feeling like someone poured a bucket of water down his back, the fabric of his shirt sticking to his back. “I’ve heard so much about you,” she continues which makes Stiles quirk an eyebrow at Derek.

Derek just laughs a little and answers with his own expressive eyebrows that say “What? I do talk about you to my family” and that soothes Stiles’ nerves some.

“Hi Laura. It’s really nice to finally meet you,” Stiles extends his hand, but Laura wraps him up in another big hug. Seems like the Hales are huggers, which Stiles is more than okay with. He misses his dad’s hugs and this reminds him of home.

“Come on in, we are just getting ready to start cooking. Zoe is already helping her dad measuring out flour to make cookies.”

She leads them to the kitchen where a little army of kids are standing on kiddie steps to be able to reach the countertops and help their moms or dads.

Stiles is introduced to everyone as Derek’s partner, which makes him both embarrassed (they never said it out loud, he always just assumed they were there) and extremely proud. Laura’s husband, Zach gives him a knife and he’s tasked with peeling potatoes while Derek is chopping carrots. The kids are loud and messy, but Stiles wouldn’t trade this for anything. The adults are making jokes, the kids are signing and competing, trying to make the most impressive cookie shapes (there are dinosaurs, witches, sharks and dogs, too).

While the food is getting ready, Laura comes over to them to chat. She hands both Derek and Stiles a coke each, which makes Stiles what Derek has told her, but he decides he doesn’t mind if Derek told her about his previous alcohol problem. Derek is looking out for him and he appreciates it. Laura herself is drinking some juice, too.

“So Stiles. Tell me how you two met.”

Stiles almost chokes on his drink but composes himself quickly to reply “In school. Derek was my lecturer.”

Which is true, but not even half of the truth. Derek and Laura share some intense eyebrow-conversation that Stiles can’t even begin to understand, but he feels like this was a test.

“He isn’t anymore, by the way,” he clarifies.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Laura smiles at him, but it is a knowing smile. She looks to Derek then and ruffles his hair. Derek pulls a face, but Stiles can see nothing but love in his eyes.

The rest of the day is spent with a delicious lunch, board games and a lot of laughing. Surprisingly, Stiles bonds with Zoe quite easily over dinosaurs and cookies, and Derek just watches them, leaning against Laura, whispering into each other’s ears.

Stiles’ heart is light in his chest, fluttering excitedly when he sees Derek this happy and relaxed.

“I’m glad we went. I really needed this,” he whispers as he closes the distance to kiss Derek when he drops Stiles off that night at the dorm.

[spiderman-homecomeme]

Day One - Hidden Connections

AN: You guys!!! Spideychelle week is finally here!! Ahhhh I’m so excited to see what everyone else as written and to share my stuff! Here is my contribution to day one! It’s a little short and quick, and there’s a fair amount of non-romantic stuff in it, but I just thought this idea was really funny and had to write it down! A huge thank you to @spideychelleweek for putting this together! 

Prompt: Secret Relationship AU/College AU

Pls enjoy some 2.4k of humor, fluff, and a dash of angst.

.

.

“To whom it may concern,”

“Dear Sir or Madam,”

“Dear Mr. Bugle,”

“Hello,

I hope your day is going well.

My name is Peter Parker, and I happened to film the altercation between the criminal known as Rhino and the heroes Luke Cage and Spider-Man on the intersection of 42nd Street and 11th Avenue. I have some screencaps of it attached, if you are interested in the video for a blog post, let me know. I am willing to sell said footage for a discounted quick-sale price.

Sincerely,

Yours Truly,

Love,

Thanks,

Peter Parker

--

Releasing a puff of air through his lips, Peter hits send.

The clickable ad he’d seen while scrolling through Facebook said: SEND VIDEOS OF SPIDER-MAN. $1 PER SECOND*. It was only after he’d clicked did he notice the fine print: Spider-Man must be within the frame for the whole second, otherwise the dollar is void.

But that doesn’t matter. Peter has a full five minutes that Dronie had so graciously recorded for him of Luke Cage and him kicking Rhino’s ass.

And he really needs the money.

MJ’s birthday is four days away, a day which also coincides with his rent being due, so in other words: he’s essentially broke. While he does have money in his bank account, he only has enough for one of those things, not both, and he can’t really afford to be evicted at this point. He knows MJ won’t leave him if he doesn’t get her anything…

But she at least deserves something nice.

This video should net him roughly $300; he can take her out to a nice dinner, maybe buy her something actually decent for a change. Not another scarf.

And who knows? She might not even want to go out to a fancy restaurant, seeing as she’s turned down every offer he’s given to take her out in the six months they’ve been dating. Every date night, it’s either been take-out, a quick slice, or some kind of fast food. Not that he’s complaining about hanging out with his girlfriend; every minute spent with her was more than enough. And he’d be a liar if he said it wasn’t a little easier on the wallet.

But there was still that seed of doubt. Why did she never want to leave Queens? Why was it always such a rush to get back home? Why hadn’t she introduced him to her parents? The intrusive, relentless thought that her being embarrassed of him might have been a factor whispered darkly in the back of his mind. He knows he can be immature at times, both with his sense of humor and overall behavior, so, albeit shamefully, he could understand where she was coming from.

Maybe a nice present accompanied by a fancy dinner could help to prove that he can act like a grown-up.

Maybe.

--

The next morning, while happily munching on a bowl of Hulk O’s, he’s genuinely surprised to see a reply in his notification bar from none other than J. Jonah Jameson himself.

“I want to see that video. Will talk about your payment after I have it analyzed by my team.

Your appointment is today at 9am. Don't be late.

J.J. Jameson

Editor for the Daily Bugle Heralding Your Daily News │Tel [212] 555-7109│Fax [877] 555-0971

Sent from my iPhone.”

Peter only allows himself a moment to be put off by the the informality of Jameson’s response, brows crinkled as he turns to check the time.

8:30 AM.

He drops his spoon into the bowl, milk and soggy cereal splashing.

Well, shit.

He stuffs whatever clothes he can find into a backpack before roughly yanking his suit on; he flings himself out of his fifth story window, cereal bowl abandoned on the kitchen counter. Phone in hand, following along on Google Maps, he wonders how super heroes were able to find their way around big cities before GPS.

The next thirty minutes fly by in a blur, and Peter honestly doesn’t know how he’s able to put enough brain cells together to find a place to change into his civilian “interview” clothes. It’s a wonder he made it there in one piece.

The lobby doesn’t have any kind of directory, or any indication of where J. Jonah Jameson is supposed to be. In fact, Peter isn’t even sure where he’s supposed to meet the guy, unable to recall if there’d been anything like that in the email.

He gingerly approaches the front desk, ducking his head down slightly as he offers a smile to the receptionist. “Uhm, hello! I’m here to see Mr. Jameson?”

The woman gives him the the quick once over, visibly unimpressed. “You got a delivery, kid?”

“Uh, n-no.” Peter shifts awkwardly, smile fading. “He, uh, he sent me an email. To meet him at nine? Today? Right… Right now?”

“Hold on,” she says, her voice monotone, turning to the phone on the desk and dialing a four digit number with freshly manicured nails.

Peter starts to say, “Thanks,” but is cut off by the woman holding a finger up.

“Hey Ted, I’ve got a kid down here. Says he’s supposed to meet with Jameson. Do you know anything about it?”

She listens for a moment, nodding. “Okay, thanks.”

Click.

“Okay, kid, go over to that elevator. 17th floor. Someone will meet you.”

Peter smiles again, throwing a quick, but polite, “Thank you,” over his shoulder as he moves.

He’s met by who he assumes to be Ted, a slight middle-aged man with tired eyes. “Peter Parker?” He asks.

Peter nods.

“Alright, follow me.”

Peter isn’t taken directly to the office at first, only being seated in the waiting area just outside.

For thirty minutes.

9 AM, he said. Don’t be late, he said.

The door to the office is ajar, the sound of Jameson yelling at and berating some poor unfortunate soul over the phone almost as loud as the clacking of Ted’s typing on his keyboard.

“I don’t care what that weasel said, I want it done right this time! And if you had done what I’d told you to, we wouldn’t be having this conversation!” There’s a pause as Jameson presumably listens to the person on the other line begging for mercy. “Fine. Go with the lilac. It’ll clash with your comforter, you’ll see. Don’t come crying to me when you have to buy a whole new bed set.”

Another beat of just Ted’s typing passes.

“Okay. Love you, Mom. Buh-bye.” Jameson hangs up, before yelling out the door. “HOFFMAN!”

“Yes, sir?” Ted answers quickly.

“MY 9:00 IS LATE. IT’S 9:30!”

“No, sir, he’s here sir. He’s been here since 9.”

“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME? I COULD’VE HAVE ENDED THIS CONVERSATION SOONER. MAKE A NOTE OF THAT, HOFFMAN.”

“Yes, sir. Will do, sir.”

“NEXT TIME, INTERRUPT MY PHONE CALL. STICK YOUR HEAD IN HERE. GIVE ME A SIGNAL.” He sighs. “Okay. Send him in.”

Ted looks over. “You can go on in. Good luck.”

Peter falters for a moment, wondering if he’s really willing to go through with this.

No. He is. MJ was more than worth it.

He says a quick, “Thank you,” before walking in to the lion’s den.

Jameson sits at his desk, looking up briefly, chewing on an unlit cigar. “Well, quit your dawdling, get in here.”

Peter picks up the pace.

The man glares at him for an uncomfortable few moments, sizing him up, before extending his hand. “You got the video?” He asks, skipping introductions entirely.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah.” Peter swallows, handing him the drive.

Jameson hums. “I was expecting someone… More… professional.”

It’s then that Peter realizes he’d left his apartment without even combing his hair or brushing his teeth. He hadn’t even bothered put on deodorant or to change out of his The Mighty Thorgi t-shirt. He’s wearing a pair of the day before yesterday’s and yesterday’s jeans, and to make matters worse, he’s wearing two different shoes; one grey converse and one blue.

“You homeless or something? Because there’s a soup kitchen around here.” Jameson spends the next few moments trying to plug in the USB to his computer, flipping it over and over. “Damn thing. HOFFMAN!”

Ted practically sprints in. “Yes, sir?”

Peter tries to speak. “I can do it if you—”

“—Don’t patronize me, kid,” Jameson snaps. “Hoffman. Plug this in.”

Peter watches in silence as Jameson’s expression never changes as the video plays out on his computer. Peter knows what’s on the video, he knows it by heart, in fact. He fought in it. When the video ends, Jameson leans back, his blank expression now seems thoughtful.

“I’m gonna give it to you straight kid,” He says. “It’s a good video. Now I can send this down to my lab nerds. They can calculate the exact amount of time that Spider-Man’s in a full frame. I’m guessing it’s gonna be around $120 to $150. But, that’s if we give you credit, of course. If you wanna sign the rights of this video over to us, we’re looking at, say, $350 upfront. You won’t be credited, though.”

To Peter, that actually sounds pretty good; he gets a good amount of money, more than he thought, and his name won’t be tied to his alter-ego. It’s a win-win. “Oh, yeah! That sounds great!”

Jameson’s smile is shark-like. “Great. HOFFMAN! GET ME CONTRACT A27!”

“Do you mean A63, sir?” Ted asks from the door, contract already in hand, placing it on the desk.

“Yes, yes of course. A63.” Jameson shakes his head. “Can’t get decent help around here,” he mutters.

Peter signs where Ted indicates. Jameson signs the last page and hands back the contract.

“I’ll be back with your copy,” Hoffman says as he exits the room.

Jameson then opens his drawer, retrieving a thick check book and grabbing a pen. “Parker Peterson, right?”

“No, no. Just… Peter… Parker.”

As Jameson writes the check, Peter takes the time to take in the office around him, his eyes drawn immediately to the portrait on the desk. His stomach drops as he realizes who it is.

No doubt about it.

That’s a picture of his girlfriend.

Why is there a picture of MJ… on Jameson’s desk?

“Pretty, isn’t she?”

Jameson’s voice startles Peter, and he looks over, the older man glaring right into him. “Huh?” Peter asks.

“She’s pretty, right? It’s okay. You can say she’s pretty. Beautiful even.”

Peter nods, voice soft. “Yeah. Really beautiful.” And he means it, more than anything, nervous as he is; MJ is the most beautiful person he’s ever known.

With the flick of his wrist, Jameson deliberately flips the portrait away from Peter.

In the amount of time Peter’s been in the office, Jameson has had two volumes: Loud and VERY LOUD. There seems to be a third setting, however. In a hushed, threatening tone, Jameson seethes. “Listen here, kid. I don’t need no smelly, grubby, unemployed jackass drooling all over my daughter.”

Wait, what?!

Fuck.

“I don’t know what thoughts were going through your sick little mind, but that’s my little girl, and I will be damned if she fuels your pervy little spank bank! Do I make myself clear?”

Oh, if only he knew...

Even though Peter could easily take down the older man, he still finds himself shrinking back slightly.

He nods profusely. “Yes, sir, of course sir.”

“Good.” Jameson roughly shoves the check at Peter. “Now get the hell out of my office.”

Peter doesn’t need to be told twice as he dashes through the door, nearly running past Hoffman who expertly passes him the contract copy.

“Have a nice day!” Hoffman calls as Peter disappears down the hallway.

--

Omw, the text read from MJ.

Luckily, Peter had already planned for arrival; the apartment’s clean, the floors vacuumed, Febreez has been sprayed. Conditions were perfect. All he needed to do now was sit and wait, mindlessly tapping his fingers against his thigh, the events from earlier replaying in his head on some kind of torturous loop.

The sound of the key turning the lock fifteen minutes later had his pulse quickening. She was here. “I brought Chinese!” She called as she set the bags down on the dining room table.

Peter cuts right to the chase, barely lasting a second. “So. I met your dad today.”

MJ nearly drops the lo mein, her eyes blown wide. “Oh my God.”

Peter shrugs.

“I am so. So. Sorry.”

He tilts his head a fraction, brows wrinkling in confusion. “Why?”

“I don’t know how he find out,” She says, almost to herself. “I tried to keep this— us— hidden from him. He chases away any guy who comes close to me; friend, colleague… One time a teacher said I was a remarkable student and he— It doesn’t matter. I’ve tried explaining this hetero-normative, misogynistic bullshit to him, but it just goes right over his head. He’s always had this… toxic paternity complex. Like, I know that he loves me, I guess, but that’s no excuse.” She folds her arms across her chest, glancing away, her eyes welling in frustration. “And I just didn’t want him to scare you away.”

Peter puts his hands on her arms. “Woahwoahwoahwoah. Hey. It’s okay.” She looks up at him. “He doesn’t know about us. I just went to the Bugle today to sell a video of Spider-Man… and I saw your picture on his desk.”

Relief washes over her, and she puts a hand on her chest. “Oh, thank God.”

“Nothing to worry about.” Peter grins, before growing confused again, expression crinkling. “I thought your last name was Jones?”

“It is.”

“Then…?”

“So’s my Mom’s,” she elaborates. “They just never got married. Or stayed together, really.”

“Ah, gotcha,” Peter nods.

A comfortable silence fills the room, the food on the table surely getting colder by the minute. But MJ finds that her curiosity is growing too strong. She has to know.

“What did he say?”

Peter snorts, face scrunching as he scratches the back of his neck. “A lot. He totally freaked out when I said you were pretty.”

“He yelled at you for saying I was pretty?”

“Well… It wasn’t really yelling. Just angry whispering. And...” Peter turns bashful. “I said you were beautiful.”

A small smile cracks MJ’s expression, and she looks back down at their now intertwined hands. “Gross.”

“I know.” He cups her cheek, thumb caressing the soft skin there as he stares deeply into her eyes. He leans in, placing a loving, lingering kiss against her lips. As he pulls away, they both sigh. “Just so you know…” He starts, voice barely above a whisper.

Her eyes gaze adoringly into his; she’s not even trying to hide how mushy she feels at this moment.

“You’re always the star of my spank bank.”

“Wait, What?”

[magicallygrimmwiccan]

They Raise You Up (Just To Cut You Down)

Summary: Everyone is acting… odd today. Well, even odder than normal. No matter how hard Logan tries, they can’t figure out what is going on. This might be a problem, especially considering what day it is… 

Written for Inktober Day 12: Celebration.

Notes: Welp… My Internet is officially not getting fixed for a while. So… have this at least a day late. I’m sorry guys. Anyway, thank you for reading! Enjoy!

I woke up that morning to the sound of complete and utter chaos. This puzzled me greatly. Today was not an important holiday, Thomas had no pressing matters to attend to today, and as far as I knew, Roman was not due for another brainstorming session for another week or so. So why, then, did it sound like a hurricane was going through the Commons? I pulled myself out of bed and went to get dressed before pausing in front of my wardrobe. I knew that we were not filming a video today; as such, I was not required to wear my usual ensemble. And… well… the others probably would not mind if I were to wear the new article of clothing I had worked on for the past few weeks… right? Shoving down my trepidation, I slipped into my latest project, taking comfort at the soft, flowy feeling around my legs. I slipped into the matching tights that I’d conjured with great difficulty a week or so earlier, and completed the outfit with my matching pair of Converse that Roman had given me for a birthday present a couple years ago. I did something a little different with my hair than I normally did, applied eyeliner for the first time in a few months, and, with a final breath to steel my nerves, opened my door and walked down the stairs, fully prepared to face whatever the day would throw at me.

“Roman! No, you can’t eat that!” Patton yelped from somewhere in the kitchen.

“You can’t control my life! I do what I want!” Roman yelled back, and a metallic clang sounded right after. I stifled a groan and walked into the kitchen, bracing myself for the insanity I was sure to encounter.

I hadn’t even set one foot into the kitchen when Lucas appeared next to me, nervousness painting his face. “Logan! Don’t come with me please, I don’t need you for something.” Without even giving me a chance to speak, Lucas dragged me off into the Imagination, leaving me utterly baffled.

“Lucas, what are you doing? Roman is destroying the kitchen. I have to assist Patton,” I exclaimed, finally tugging my arm out of Lucas’s grip. Lucas sighed and rolled his eyes but ultimately let me go, which confused me greatly. He had just said that he needed me for something, but now he was letting me go without a fight? Strange.

I reemerged in the kitchen to see… that it was spotless. What? Patton was making a salad as I entered, and he glanced up when he heard my footsteps.

“Hey, Lo! I love the star dress,” he squealed, looking like he wanted to lunge at me and give me a hug. Luckily, he didn’t; his hands were coated in pieces of lettuce, spinach, and salad dressing.

“Thank you, Patton. What was Roman doing in here earlier?”

“What? Roman wasn’t in here,” Patton answered, giving me a confused head tilt. I blinked, also confused. I could have sworn that I heard Roman in here only a minute or two ago…

“Losing your mind, Teach?” Roman’s voice called from behind me as he swept into the kitchen.

“Good morning, Roman! How’d you sleep?” Patton chirped, already forgetting me. My mind spun as I tried to puzzle out what was going on, but eventually I gave up. I had no idea what was happening, and trying to figure it out would only make my head hurt.

Patton and Roman had started chattering, and Lucas and Virgil had just wandered in to grab food and coffee. Virgil pecked me on the cheek as he walked past, but other than that, he practically ignored me. A pang of… some negative emotion… hurt my chest, and I quickly poured myself a cup of coffee before excusing myself for the day. I did have a lot of work to get done, and if everyone was willing to ignore me, then I may as well get it done today.

“Hey, Lo? Would you mind coming out for a while? Thomas needs us for something,” Virgil mumbled behind me. I jumped in my chair, startled. I chanced a glance at my clock, and saw that I’d been working for almost six hours straight. (Ha, straight. As if.)

“Of course. Is this a video problem or something else?” I asked, biting my lip. I did not want to change, but if it was a video problem… I probably should.

“Oh, no, Logan, you don’t need to change. It’s not a video problem. Thomas just wants to hang out, that’s all,” Virgil replied, probably picking up on some of my anxious feelings. I nodded, relieved, and followed my boyfriend down into Thomas’s apartment, wondering what Thomas could possibly want with us. I rose up into the living room, and when my eyes finally adjusted, I saw a dark blue banner stretched across the room, which was also decorated with blue, black, and white balloons and streamers.

“Surprise! Happy birthday, Logan!” the others all chorused, except for Lucas, who signed it instead. I felt tears start to well in the corners of my eyes, and everyone paused, concerned.

“Uh, Logan? You gucci, nerd?” Roman asked, taking a hesitant step forward. I sniffed and nodded, wiping the tears from my eyes, hoping that my eyeliner hadn’t smudged.

“I am perfectly fine, thank you Roman. I was merely… overwhelmed by the unexpected turn of events,” I sniffed, giving my family a watery smile. Virgil wrapped me in a hug from behind, smiling fondly.

“Aw, Lo, we just wanted to surprise you. We didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said, pulling me closer to his side. I giggled and went along willingly, elation filling my chest.

“Now, let’s get this party started! Happy birthday, nerd!” Roman yelled, brandishing his sword at the cake.

“No! Roman, we are not cutting the cake with your sword!” Thomas yelped, diving to intercept the creative side before he could hack into Patton’s cake. Virgil and I just looked at each other before snorting at the ridiculous antics of the more emotionally-inclined members of their little family. Well, we stood there until Roman almost knocked over the cake. Then the two of us jumped in to intervene. I wouldn’t trade this for the world, though. This had to be one of the best birthdays I’d ever had.

Notes: Thanks for reading, guys! Sorry about my Internet, but I’ll try to get it fixed ASAP. Love you all, and see you tomorrow!

[alexwinfield-blog1]

Digital Footprints: Put YOUR stamp on it.

It’s Monday morning. A new day. Another week of school. You turn off your alarm and head straight over to Twitter. “Monday already !!!!!!! (Crying emoji X10) Can’t w8 to get back into bed”. Your phone pings. It’s Lizzie. Your BFF. She never lets you down. Except not today it seems. “Soz bbe. Sooooo ill. Grab any hw sheets for me plzzzz (blowing kiss emoji) xxxx”. Mum shouts up the stairs “Are you getting up at any point today? The dog needs walking and you need to take your brother to school!” You slam your phone into the duvet, roll your eyes and take a deep breath. You’re annoyed and the day has only just begun. Toast in one hand and dragging your brother out the door by the other, you smile at the postman. “Morning”, you say. Knowing full well he loses your packages ALL THE TIME.  Be nice mum always tells you. Manners cost nothing.

You get to school. The mean girls stare you down as you walk to your English lesson. You try to look cool. You tell yourself that one day they’ll take you in as one of their own, but maybe today just isn’t that day. You find your seat, unpack your books, your pencil case, tucking your phone under your hideous plaid skirt. Silly really. Illuminating skirts aren’t exactly the school uniform market’s latest innovation. You’re top of your class. You know you shouldn’t be scrolling through Instagram in a lesson, but everyone else does, and you for sure don’t want to stick out any more than what you already do. You get A’s in nearly every assignment and you compete in nearly every extra-curriculum sport in the school, but you can’t help but fantasise about that Instagram #gymbod. Your parents are immensely proud, and your teachers? You can’t do enough to please them. You love school. Never too shy to raise your hand in class, never too eager to stand in front of the WHOLE of year 11 to deliver a speech about the school’s litter policy, and never too embarrassed to admit to your friends that you’ve not even kissed a boy.

It’s lunchtime. You and your best friends of 12 years gather around the canteen table.They tell you about their exciting weekends. How their heart throb boyfriends distracted them from getting any work done. How they got ridiculously drunk at a family party and how their mum grounded them for coming home at 10:33 – 3 minutes later than expected. And you? You just listen. For the most part, you spend your break and lunch times talking in the hockey team WhatsApp group chat. They’re a laugh. Sometimes you tell the girls about your boring weekend, or even fluff it up slightly by telling them you actually got out of your pyjamas. They would never believe you. You’re well and truly the plain Jane out of the bunch. The new boy in your year asks if the seat next to you is taken. The girls think he’s a nerd but you think he’s quite cute. You say no. The girls sigh as if to say “you’re such a loser”, but you don’t care. You have to pretend you don’t know his name, that you don’t have an unhealthy obsession with checking his Facebook. You know his cat goes by the name of Clive, but you pretend you don’t know that. You know he plays for the local rugby team, but you’re not supposed to know that either. You don’t know that his birthday is the 6th of June, and most importantly, you must NOT show any bitterness towards his girlfriend of 3 years.

Home time at last. You’re loosening your tie as you get closer to the front door, eager to jump straight back into bed. PING. It’s the girls group chat. “House (girl dancing emoji) Sat nite. 8.30. B there or b (square emoji)”. NOOO. You promised mum you’d have a film night with her. Saturday night rolls around. You’ve been plotting all week how you could get away with this one, but she’s a mum. They find out everything. Not this time. You divert from the party situation. It’s now a revision sleepover situation with the girls. You ask to go and of course you’re allowed. School first, partying second. It’s 10pm. You’re having the best time but you assured mum updates on the revision sesh. So, as promised, you load up Instagram stories. On your second Instagram account, obviously. By second, you mean the only Instagram account your mum thinks exists, right? You locate the photo album named “revision”. You browse this until you find the most colourful, most mind-map-ful, most hard working-esque photo you can find. And voila! A little later, in comes a text from mum. “Wonderful stuff. Looks like you’re really working hard. See you in the morning :)” . Little does she know, over on what might as well scream @yourerliar101, several stories and photos were posted of your amazing night with your besties. In the morning it seems the party was a huge success. Tweets and Instagrams raving about the night – “Can’t believe Josh taught every1 to do the (worm emoji) (cry laughing emoji)”. “Had the best nite EVAAAAAA (tongue out emoji)”. “Me and the gals last night!!!!!!! (cocktail emoji) (heart eye emoji) #lovethem”.

Sound familiar? Well, this may not be too dissimilar to a day in the life of your late teenage years. (Millennials, this one is for you!) Through this artificial account, we learn that in just 24 hours, you are likely to perform a variety of different roles. You’re a reliable friend and a caring sibling. You’re also studious, a potential lover and occasionally a liar. But sometimes it’s for the best, right? So, quite literally, how can these personalities become transparent online?

Just like this teenager, the average social media user, whatever you may define this to be, can be traced online. Social media can speak volumes about a person. Not just what they get up to on the weekend, but the finer details. For example, they’re obsession with their house rabbits, how much they can’t stand their boss, and more recently, how they’ve jumped on-board Facebook’s latest bandwagon, “rate my meal”. 

Social media, such as Instagram and Twitter allow me to present the most favourable, or sometimes least favourable, versions of myself.  If you were to rewind to old school Alex on Twitter, you would definitely find tweets containing homophones, such as “u”, with my favourite acronym, still to this day, being “lol” – only used sarcastically of course. As well as this, I was a sucker for, and admittedly still am, a cluster of exaggerated punctuation, but mostly “!!!!!!!”.  Although Crystal (2008) claims that young users of social media, especially in SMS, will use abbreviations such as “GTGMIW” (Got to go, mum is watching), this wasn’t necessarily the case when I was growing up with social media. Nowadays, it’s all about filtering what you put online. This screening allows you to hide your online activity, for example by disguising your wild Friday night shenanigans by deselecting your mum from viewing your Snapchat story. Or, creating a separate Instagram just for your friends’ entertainment. You can be as embarrassing as you like and you won’t have 800 followers judging you.

Goffman (1974) refers to this online social interaction as “audience segregation”. We ultimately filter aspects of our lives from certain people in order to curate and maintain a multitude of personalities depending on the context we are in. So, for me, this means presenting a sensible, family-friendly Alex on Facebook, an interesting and good-humoured Alex on Twitter, and an exciting, adventurous Alex on Instagram. Let’s take a look…

So, 2017 A-Level Results day. Here, we’ve got a definite exaggerated use of punctuation and excitable capitalisation. Not only this, I clearly thought the use of the extreme smiley emoji X2 wasn’t enough, resulting in going the extra mile with a #. What am I doing here? Looking back on this, this for sure could have been Facebook worthy. This could have bagged me a gushing army of comments from overjoyed family members bursting with pride. But why Twitter? My friends would see this. People I know, but don’t really know, would see this. Those 23 likes - those 23 people thought this was worthy of a tweet and that’s all that mattered. In this moment, I. Was. Clever.

Evidently, over the years, I desired to either be desperately funny or desperately embarrassing. You decide this one.

Would I have found any of these tweets to be bland if I weren’t to use homophones? Or exaggerated punctuation? Or hashtags? Were these attempts for me to moan about how busy my life was? Did I want sympathy or just someone to relate to?

Here’s Instagram Alex. Holidaying in the Dominican Republic, Lanzarote and Greece. Eating Wagamamas at least once a week. Being overly obsessed with a French Bulldog, attending fancy-dress parties and the occasional festival. This is what I choose to share online. Not very exciting, but a fairly accurate representation of me. You can guarantee nearly every other caption incorporates an excessive use of emoticons, sarcasm and most definitely a little too much of this “!!!!!”.

What do these linguistic features allow me to achieve?

If I asked a complete stranger to read my Twitter, browse my Facebook and scroll through my Instagram, they would probably argue that my presence across these social media platforms doesn’t really differ that greatly. You could say that for the most part, I present the most authentic version of myself online. I’m not one to shy away from no-make up selfies, or tell the world about how groggy I feel after waking up from that 3- hour nap, or in fact how much I moan about going to my 20 hours a week part-time kitchen job.

However, for some people, this is not the case. Without audience segregation there would be a context collapse. Employees would start saying “lmao” when their boss asks for a coffee. Students would use inappropriate emoticons to sign of their “sorry I can’t make it to the lecture today, I’m ill” email. Parents would text, or even worse, tag you in their FB status announcing “#DINNERISREADY” instead of actually calling you down for dinner, and we definitely don’t want to live in a world full of parents who hashtag EVERYTHING.

So, what can we learn from this?

For both professional and personal matters, it’s important to present yourself online in a way that is consistent. You don’t want people to think you have 25 different personalities. Keep this for the real-life stuff. No one likes a catfish. After all, if 70% of employers screen candidates’ social media before they consider hiring, it’s important to avoid branding yourself as a fool online. Keep those drunken night out videos OFFLINE and maybe consider deleting those 2012 “Like for a rate <3” cringey Facebook statuses. However, don’t go erasing yourself offline completely in fear that you’ll never get a decent job. After all, 47% of employers argue that having an online presence allows them to learn a bit about who they’re hiring. So, be open, but not TOO open. Be YOU. However, if “you” means writing Facebook statuses about how much you love playing Angry Birds at work, or how you’re easily persuaded to go clubbing on a Monday night, maybe it’s best you don’t share the real you online. Be mindful about the digital footprint trail you’re leaving behind. 

References:

Driver, S. (2018, October, 7). Keep It Clean: Social Media Screenings Gain In Popularity. Retrieved from: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2377-social-media-hiring.html

Jones, R. H., & Hafner. C. A. (2012). Undersatnding Digital Literacies. London: Routledge.

[murasaki-roll]

It dawned on me that I rarely ask anyone to hangout with me anymore and I spent a long time thinking about it.

I realized that whenever I asked someone (a friend, my sibling, etc.) to spend time with me they either had plans or was just kinda burnt out too much so I just kinda stopped because I thought that if they wanted someone to hang out with they’d know to ask me because even though I do a lot of stuff I still make sure to make time for people.

So I spent years just kinda floating around to different people, never having a specific friend group or a best friend for that matter and one day I just stopped floating and spent time by myself day after day.

I came to hate group projects or depending on people to help me because I never had a set friend or even a person in my class that I could be comfortable with. I hated asking my sister or mom or dad to give me a ride to a from somewhere and anticipated the day I could drive by myself. I hate asking anyone to help me understand what the fuck we did in class or what we were supposed to do on the assignment or to explain something in detail so I can understand. I hate asking how to apply to jobs or submit college applications because google is too confusing. I hate asking my dad for money to get something I wanted so badly and for so long because I feel like we could use that money somewhere else and it’d be a waste to spend it on me. And I hate it when something great, funny, sad, or terrifying happens and I have no one to tell because I don’t want to be a bother to the list of contacts in my phone that I barely know anymore. I hate other peoples birthdays because I feel like the presents I make or give are ugly or aren’t good enough or useful enough or meaningful enough because someone else’s presents will forever be better than mine so they just pass it over even though I know they’re just trying to get through all of them (I don’t give people presents anymore). I hate my birthday because the last party I had no one showed up to and I feel bad when people feel obligated to give me gifts solely because it’s my birthday like it’s a chore for them. I hate being hugged or being comforted and I hate people seeing me cry or having a bad day because no one should have to put up with me and my problems and feelings.

And lately I’ve been wondering if anyone misses hanging out with me. If they miss me more than I miss them, but I know deep down that they don’t. I have peculiar and boring interests and isolation has become such a habit of mine it’d feel weird if I had another person with me.

But I can’t help but miss the random coffee dates that me and my sister went on all the time, whether it be at 4 am or 9 pm. I miss texting a specific friend late into the night about a new anime that I just watched or a new cosplay that my dad just bought me. I miss asking my mom if we could watch nerd shows and to make me tea when my insomnia is bad. I miss when my dad pulled me out of my room to look at a guitar he was building or to show me a funny video on YT. I miss going to church with my friends and making light fun of the choir for being off key. I miss being able to order my food without saying “sorry” and feeling like I’m taking up precious space that should belong to someone else. I miss showing people my drawings or my achievements and I miss boasting about my birthday and annoying everyone with the fact that I was a year older and receiving presents. I miss giving people presents and having their eyes light up like I just gave them something they found amazing or something they wanted for so long. I miss not feeling like a chore.

I miss not being and feeling like a second or third choice.

I miss having someone to willingly hangout with me.

[alexiela73]

Just read the McCree and s/o that is a total weeb. Can i request Genji and s/o that are weebs? How about a date at an anime con? Would they cosplay and if so, who would they cosplay?

Yes you can :P

“I can‘t believe we‘re here!” you whispered excitedly, staring into the massive crowd of people cosplaying. It was so incredible: you’d never been surrounded by so many people interested in the same kind of thing!

This was your first convention, of course, and you had never experienced anything like it. This was an early birthday present from your outstanding cyborg boyfriend, Genji Shimada. While the man might be a hero, he was still just a weeb in a metal suit and when the call for nerdism had rung, he had answered.

Of course, the two of you had to share this call. Genji was so proud that he’d managed to get a lover who was as into anime and manga as he was. 

Now that the two of you were here, you were a little bit overwhelmed, but in a good way. For so many people to gather here for this one common goal was amazing...it shocked you how many nerds existed in the world, but it was also exhilarating. 

“Are you happy?” asked your boyfriend, who took your hand. Genji stood there beside you, wearing an extremely good Kakashi Hatake cosplay from Naruto. He was wearing the whole Shinobi outfit, and the mask he needed for the cosplay covered most of his face. He did have both eyes showing: he’d gone to the trouble of getting a Rasengan contact and a wig.

The fact that your boyfriend really was a ninja, even if no one else knew, made it even more authentic and cool. You were so proud of him and honestly, totally ready to jump Kakashi’s bones.

“I really am,” you whispered, hugging his arm and staying close. You were pretty proud. You were wearing Gaara cosplay, and you’d even managed to make a realist enough gord to go on your back. You’d put perhaps a small cups with of sand inside so that when you walked it sounded like sand was in it.

You’d even gone to the trouble of dying your short, boy-ish hair bright red and painting on the very thick lines around your eyes like Gaara had. Today, Gaara had a crush on Kakashi though.

‘Kakashi’ leaned in, brushing his hand across your cheek. “I must say, Gaara is pretty cute when he smiles,” Genji said playfully, and reached up to pull the mask down, wanting to steal a kiss.

Except then there were squeals and you both blinked and looked over to see a small horde of girls there, looking at the two of you and gasping in awe and giddy excitement. Only one or two of them were in cosplay, but all of them were staring at you both.

Genji straightened, admittedly sad that the two of you had been disturbed but at the same time, he took pride since so much effort had been put into making both of your costumes.

“Can we take pictures, please?!’ asked one girl, her voice pleading.

Another piped up, “Is there any way we can do group and individual pictures? Please? Your costumes look SOOOO good!” 

The two of you exchanged a look, knowing that you both had an hour and a half before the panel of one of your favorite voice actors was to begin. The line always started early, and the sooner you got there the better chance there was of getting front row seats. But...they seemed nice...

“We can do a few,” you agreed reluctantly, and immediately the pictures began. First it was the two of you with each of them, which went pretty fast.

The next few included a big group picture, or pictures of them all individually with Kakashi. As you watched from the sideline, you realized the girls were taking more pictures with Kakashi then you and immediately, you grimaced. It didn’t surprise you: who could resist that hunk of hotness?

Certainly not any nerds you knew.

Other people started joining in, hoping for a picture with both or one of you. As much as you tried, losing track of time was much easier then the two of you had thought. Before you knew it, almost thirty minutes had passed.

One of the girls was flirting with Kakashi and asking about how long it took to make his costume. Genji, being him, was really wrapped up into it because he always got really excited when people asked about just the cosplay.

At this point, one person took a photo and you couldn’t help blinking as you remembered the two of you had a place to be. Asking someone the time, you were astonished by how late it was. “Genji!” you cried.

Immediately your person Kakashi blinked up at you in surprise, confused by your outcry and when he saw you tapping your wrist, his eyes filled with understanding.

“Sorry, everyone. We have to go. It was nice meeting you all!” he called, even as they groaned and asked you both to stay. Genji just pretended not to hear, sliding his arm around your waist and leading you off. The two of you had places to be.

On the way there, Genji kissed the top of your head. “Well, that was pretty cool. How did it feel to be popular?” he asked you, grinning and he meant it as something fun. 

“Oh, it would have been fine,” you grinned, “If they could all stop ogling you.”

Genji snorted and waved it off. “They weren’t ogling me,” Genji said, and you rolled your eyes. It figured he was that oblivious, but it didn't matter. He was yours, and anyone could fight him for you.

“Whatever you say, ninja boy. Lets go meet Sailor Moon!” you cried, and Genji immediately let out a similar cry of triumph as you guys headed for where the line would start.

[drawbauchery]

(fic by cate-geo!)

(I’ve had a weird and crummy night, mostly from that good shit called depression, so I’m gonna punish everyone with some angst >:) Enjoy! 

Warning, this is 8XA so there’s some abusive shit, verbally, sexually, physically, emotionally, you name it. Please read at your own risk. Also I took some liberties with the already proved group headcanon stuff for Human 8XA, but eh. Whatever. Have fun! )

Peridot sat on her bed with all of her possessions scattered around her, trying to figure out what would be worth bringing to her dorm, and what would just be clutter. She heard her biological mother in the other room on a phone meeting or something or other. Her phone constantly going off because her friend who had deemed herself her mother, despite only being a couple years older, Bell, was helping her pack by sending her nicely made checklists and giving her advice by telling Peridot what she did in her first year.

Peridot was staring at two alien printed shirts trying to decide which would be better when all of a sudden a shadow loomed over her. She looked up, annoyed, but smiled when she recognized her best friend’s sister.

“Oh! Hey Alexa. You startled me. What brings you to my humble abode?”

A very wide toothy grin that was very common in that family came on the taller girl’s face as she plopped herself down next to Peridot, making her grumble about how she was crushing her clothes, and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Oh well, you know. I was giving my baby sister some advice for the next 4 years and then I remembered that you’re heading off to college too and I figured you could use my help. Now, I know you got that big brain and all. And yeah sure, maybe that’ll help you get through the boring stuff. But I’m gonna teach you how to live. What do ya say?”

Peridot sighed and placed one shirt in the suitcase, pulled it out, then finally decided and put it back down “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll be alright. I know you may not like it, but I’m rather excited for the studying part.”

“Of course you are ya big nerd.” Alexa ruffled up Peridot’s hair, making her grumble and try to fix it “But you won’t get anywhere with just good grades. Come on. What will you do if a pretty girl asks you out?”

Peridot went stiff and flicked her eyes to the door, then tried to glare at the taller woman, but her face just gave away her worry and fear “Please Alexa, you know I’m not out to my biological family yet.”

“So? You’re going away to college tomorrow. Even if it makes them hate you, what are they gonna do? Kick you out?”

“That’s not the part I’m worried about. There’s just a time and a place for everything. This sort of thing needs to be treated with more of a…finesse with my mother.”

“Yeah ok. Whatever.” Alexa reached into the suitcase and pulled out an alien plushie, making a few other things fall out “You seriously are bringing this guy to college?” Peridot took a deep breath and grabbed her alien and put it back before rerolling on the clothes “Of course. Piercy goes wherever I go.”

“Dude, you’re going to be a legal adult. You can’t have an alien plushie.”

“I already am a legal adult. And as an adult, I say I can have him.”

“Wait, you’re 18?”

“Mhm, my birthday was a couple days ago.”

“Oh. Well then. Happy belated birthday then. Sorry I didn’t get you a gift.”

“It’s  alright. Honestly.”

“No no. I feel wrong. You’re an adult now. This is too important to just let it slide by.”

Peridot rolled her eyes a playful smile donned her face “Well, if you really feel all that guilty, I suppose I won’t reject a gift.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You probably know the drill. Anything alien, tech, or Camp Pining Hearts related will be perfectly acceptable.”

Alexa pulled Peridot closer so she was almost on her lap and grabbed her shoulder while shaking her “Aw come on. I can’t give you the same old junk everyone else has gotten you since you were born.”

“Why not? I like those things.”

“It just feels weird. Not only am I late, but it was also an important milestone. I gotta go above and beyond.”

“Honestly Alexa, it’s fine. You really don’t have to.”

“But I want to.”

“Fine. I’ll humor you. What do you want to get me?”

“Well, since you’re so insistent.” Peridot was suddenly laying back on her bed with Alexa hovering over her.

“Uh…what are you doing?”

“Come on, you’re 18. It’s totally legal.”

“I hardly think this is a good idea. I mean my mother is in the other room, and, like I said, she doesn’t know yet. This is even a worse way to come out to her.”

Alexa huffed and pushed Peridot harder into the bed, smirking when she made her squeak “Come on. She’s super wrapped up in her phone call. I walked through the front door and right past her, and she didn’t even notice my existence. And with how heated her arguing is getting, I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to get pretty heated ourselves.”

“Really Alexa, I have to pack. This really isn’t a good time.”

“So, what? You don’t like me now?” Her raising volume and harshness made Peridot flinch “Is that it?”

“O-of course I like you. You’re my friend and-“

“Some friend! You care more about packing than hanging out with me! This is even a birthday present and you won’t accept it!”

“Alexa, please don’t be mad. I swear I’m not against you. It’s just-“

“Then just let me give you my present.” Alexa let a few tears drop onto Peridot’s face “Please. I’ve just liked you for a long time, and now that you’re a legal adult…” She brought her hand down under the hem of Peridot’s shirt and started to pull it up “…it just seems like the perfect time.”

“Please don’t cry.” Peridot brought her hand up to wipe away her tears, which Alexa took as an invitation to kiss her. “Wait wait wait.”

“Oh, so you don’t want me to cry but you’re literally doing the thing that’s making me cry? You’re such a fucking tease!”

“Alexa please. I’m just really confused right n-“

“What’s so confusing? I like you. You know, I thought you would be smart enough to get that.”

“I-I’m a certified genius.”

“Some genius.”

“You know that I am!”

“Then do something useful and put two and two together. I like you. You’re 18. You need a gift. It’s as simple as that.”

“But…I don’t…want this gift.”

“Because you hate me.”

“No no, not at all. I just-“

“Please Peridot.” Alexa started kissing her neck, making Peridot squeeze her eyes shut. “Please.”

Peridot didn’t know how to respond without hurting her friend’s feeling. So she just kept her eyes and mouth shut and listened to her phone go off as Bell sent her packing advice after packing advice.

(I do have a happy ending in mind, but I highly doubt anyone would want that. Ever. >:))

[oohy5]

questions tag

thanks for tagging me @penseuls​!!!

LAST: 1. drink: water 2. phone call: my dad :D 3. text message: my friend about chemistry homework 4. song you listened to: bts “serendipity” 5. time you cried: my heart cries everyday :’)

HAVE YOU: 6. dated someone twice: no 7. kissed someone & regretted it: nope 8. been cheated on: nono 9. lost someone special: yes 10: been depressed: yes? I’m sad a lot T^T 11. gotten drunk & thrown up: nonononono LIST 3 FAVOURITE COLOURS: 12. light blue 13. yellow 14. pale pink IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU: 15. made new friends: yes thank goodness 16. fallen out of love: hmm 17. laughed until you cried: ahhh I think? I hope..? 18. found out someone was talking about you: yes I cry 19. met someone who changed you: yes yes 20. found out who your friends are: yeah! 21. kissed someone on your facebook list: um no GENERAL: 22. how many of your facebook friends do you know in real life: I don’t use facebook :o 23. do you have any pets: my sister has a bird (tooo! @penseuls​) and we used to have fish but i think they died 24. do you want to change your name: embrace yourself..including your name 25. what did you do for your last birthday: i didn’t do much on my actual birthday but my friends did give me a present thREE MONTHS LATE 26. what time did you wake up: 6:40 am 27. what were you doing a midnight last night: on my phone -_- 28. name something you can’t wait for: bTS COMEBACK 29. when was the last time you saw your mom: ten minutes ago? she went out with my sis 30. what is one thing you wish you could change in your life: stop being so self-pitying and sad about everything 31. what are you listening to right now: gdragon “crooked” 32. have you have talked to a person named tom: yes he helped me with my math homework last year 33. something that is getting on your nerves: my sister barging into my room while i am trying to be productive (and then she doesn’t even cLOSE THE DOOR 34. most visited websites: tumblr, youtube, gmail LOST QUESTIONS. I JUST PUT IN RANDOM INFO ABOUT ME: 35. mole(s): yes i have too manyyy 36. mark(s): yes? this weird thing on my stomach? idk where it came from 37. childhood dream: i wanted to be a singer but then my mom said no T~T 38. hair color: it’s blackish brownish? 39. long or short hair: long 40. do you have a crush on someone: ….no? 41. what do you like about yourself: I like my taste in music 42. piercings: no 43. blood type: um..is it bad that i dunno? 44. nickname: amal, amalyona, omelette (pls don’t actually call me these they’re joke names from my nerd friends) 45. relationship status: nonexistent 46. zodiac: gemini   47. pronouns: she/her 48. favourite tv show: hmmmmmmm i dunno but i watch a lot of korean shows 49. tattoos: nono 50. right or left handed: right 51. surgery: i think i had stiches on my head bc i tried to copy my brother’s flip trick thing 52. hair dyed different color: no but i want toooo 53. sport: swim! 54. no question? no answer. what 55. vacation: hmmm i dunno i don’t really travel much but I want to go back to korea sometime 56. pair of trainers: nikes MORE GENERAL: 57. eating: I ate some ramen thirty minutes ago 58. drinking: water 59. about to: read some webtoons 60. waiting for: me to get my life together 61. want: infinite sleep and maybe some chocolate 62. get married: yes..? 63. career: umm.. 64. hugs or kisses: hugs WHERE IS QUESTION 65 what 66. shorter or taller: taller 67. older or younger: older 68. nice arms or nice stomach: stomach 69. sensitive or loud: loud 70. hook up or relationship: relationship 71. troublemaker or hesitant: hmmmmmmmmmmm

HAVE YOU EVER: 72. kissed a stranger: nono 73. drank hard liquor: nonono 74. lost glasses/contact lenses: no but almost once in the lake 75. turned someone down: ..yes.. 76. sex on first date: nonononononononono 77. broken someone’s heart: hmm 78. had your heart broken: hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 79. been arrested: nope 80. cried when someone died: yes? 81. fallen for a friend: no DO YOU BELIEVE IN: 82. yourself: do i?  83. miracles: yeshh 84. love at first sight: maybe? in like fairytales? 85. santa claus: yessssss of courseeee TOUCHED ME: 86. kiss on first date: nononoo OTHER: 87. current best friend name: no comment bc what if someone finds me and things get tricky (mO are you reading this) 88. eye colour: dark brown 89. favourite movie: hmm i don’t watch many movies but i like castle in the sky

i’ll tag: @angxlastudies @fsstudies @studiousbarb @jordans-studyblr @hannybstudies @bsrua @studyinglola and whoever else wishes to participate

yay!

[in-the-name-of-styles]

Sweethearts.

REQUEST - Can you do an harry styles imagine where the reader is shy and just so innocent and always wants to be around harry because she feels protected and harry does everything he can do to protect and make her happy and she doesn’t talk much but he doesn’t mind then some of Harry’s friends mention how cute they are? Love your work! - @baileyhizzle

I’M SO SORRY FOR THE DELAY. But it was only because my main focus was on The Divorce Series AU. Now, This is a fan-fiction, I have no idea how Harry is in real life. I’ve tad bit changed the storyline. This is just a part of my imagination. ENJOY! :) xx

-

You slide your glasses  back up the bridge of your nose as you opened your locker. You could hear the light snickers of giggles beside you, but chose to ignore it. You removed all your art supplies which you needed for your next class. You were looking down to collect all your brushes, when your locker door slammed shut and you jumped up in fright.

“Morning, baby!” Harry appeared in front of you with his wide dimpled smile, “Look at yeh, got yourself a new pair of glasses!” You smiled and once again rearranged the glasses on your nose.

“They suit yeh, and they’re more modern than the ones yeh had before too!” he chuckled and pulled you close to him by your waist as he leaned flat against your locker.

“Harry, I’m gonna be late for my class if I don’t leave right now.” you said in a soft tone. He hummed and dropped his hands from your waist. You felt his warmth leave your body at the drop of his hands and automatically a pout appeared on your lips.

“Well? M’not stopping yeh… Go on…” he smirked at your pout. You slowly turned around to walk away, feeling upset that he was letting you go so easily, but soon enough he was pulling you right back into his arms.

“Changed my mind. Want yeh here, with me.” You must’ve only gotten a chance to blink before he leaned in and gave you a proper snog in front of everyone in the corridor. You blushed and pull away from him slightly.

“You can’t just kiss me like that, H” you whispered.

“Why not? You’re m’girlfriend. Can kiss yeh anytime I want.” He teased and pulled you closer.

“What if some teacher sees us?” He laughed and pulled your arms around his neck to give you a hug.

“What am I gonna do with yeh, pet?” He sighed and looked back at you, “ I think I love yeh too much to leave yeh alone in this school.”

You and Harry had been now dating for a whole year. He wasn’t a popular kid but girls sure did enjoy his attention and loved giving him their attention. He was a very charming, kind and good looking guy. You had no idea how he fell for you, a nerd who had her head deep buried into the books all day long. Harry didn’t have a reputation but you sure did. A reputation of being a geek. He hated every second of it, if it was up to him, he would love punch every person who ever hurt you in your life to pulp. But scaring you off was the last thing he ever wanted to do.

“I can take care of myself, babe.” you kissed his cheek and pulled your bag towards your shoulder. He nodded, “I know, but m’always gonna worry. Yeh know that.”

You smiled at him and his heart skipped a beat. Even after being together for a year, you still managed to make his heart jump.

“Now shoosh, off yeh go. Don’t wan’t yeh blaming me later about how yeh were late for your class because of me..” He patted your bum lightly and you gasped. His eyes crinkled as he laughed at your expression. He quickly pecked your lips, “See you in an hour? We have the next class together..”

You nodded and he turned to walk away.You walked into your art class, and took a seat on a chair right at the end corner of the room, you removed your new box of water paints, which you were excited to use and started working on your portrait. Half way through the class you heard a psst, looking up you found Georgia staring at you with a smirk on her face. Not the smirk you were used to getting from your man. You especially hated the smirk she gave you.

“I really need to borrow your paints, YN. You see, mine are all mixed up and not even one colour has it’s original colour. So I’m taking yours, okay?” she said in a sickly sweet voice and snatched your paints.

“I-I was working with them-” you stuttered softly, but she cut you off.

“Thanks, YN.” She ignored you and you looked back at your incomplete painting. It was a drawing Harry. His birthday was coming up and you were really excited to give him the drawing along with his other presents.

“Oops!” You snapped your head back at her, only to gasp when you see the condition of your new paints. Every colour was now ruined. There was red mixed in white paint and black in pink. You swallowed the lump in your throat and smiled at her apology.

“Well that’s unfortunate. Here, I don’t need them anymore..” she extended her hand towards you, but before you could get a hold of it she tilted the paints and all the water droplets and colour splashed across your painting.

“No!” You gasped and tried to pull away. You tried to remove the mess but it was too late.The whole painting was ruined too.

“Gosh, I’m so sorry, YN.. But I’m sure you can make another one for him.” she said and got back to her painting. You felt a tear flow down your cheek but you quickly wipe it off. Soon enough the bell rang and you ran towards the bathrooms.

You slide down the locked door and cry. You knew you hadn’t been in there for long time, so you jumped at the loud banging on the other side of the door. You quickly stood up, wiped your eyes and opened the door. There stood Harry with an angry expression on his face.

“What happened? Who did this to yeh?” He entered the toilet without a second thought. Seeing him there made you drop the facade you had put on and break down just as you were about to drop down on to your knees he pulled himself and kneeled on the floor along with you.

“Tell me, baby. I promise I’ll make it right. Just tell me who made you cry.” he urged and hugged you as you nuzzled your head in his neck and sobbed. 

You shook your head, “G-G-Georgia, she r-ruined..” You cried and tighten your hold on his next.

If one thing was very important to you aside from your family and Harry. It was your art. No one messed with it. Since it was your passion, it became one of his favourite passions. 

His body tensed after hearing Georgia’s name. She had always been jealous of his relationship with you. It was only because last year you were the new girl in their school, and before you, he and Georgia had something going on. It wasn’t serious at all. Maybe a kiss or two. It didn’t mean anything to either of them.

But one look at you and Harry felt the world around him changing, he knew he would never be the same after meeting you. One look at you and he felt the need to protect you from every bad and hurtful thing, one look and he wanted you to be his, and he wanted him to be yours.

“Ruined what, baby? I swear to god, if she hurt yeh..” he threatened pulling you closer than ever.

You met his sad gaze, and let out a hiccup, “s-she ruined my paints and the painting I was making f-for you, as a g-gift for your b-birthday..” he hushed you and wiped the tear that fell down your cheek. He gentle kissed the cheek that wasn’t pressed against his shoulder.

“M’so sorry she did that, pet,” he muttered and then pulled you up with him. The anger he felt inside was aching to explode. But he was trying not to show it in front of you. The two of you didn’t know for how long you were in there, but then you heard two bells ringing, declaring it was time for lunch break.

He wrapped his arm arm around your waist and kissed your forehead, “I forgot my watch in the classroom. Can yeh please go sit with the boys and wait for me in the cafeteria?” he dropped his forehead against yours.

You nodded and the two of you packed up your stuff back into your bag. He watched you leave and enter the cafeteria doors before he walked back to the direction of the locker. He found the person he was looking for and got a hold of their hand and roughly pulled them into a secluded, silent area of the school.

“Couldn’t stay away, could you?” She smirked and leaned against the old metal non-working vending machine, with hands behind her back.

“Why did you do it?” he whispered, walking towards her slowly.

“Do what?” she sassed, raising her eyebrow. He towered over her letting out heavy breaths. Their chests were almost touching each other. He was itching to move away from this disgusting atmosphere and her.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. So let’s try this again. Why the fuck did you do it?”

“It as just a pathetic little drawing. It wasn’t even that great, I did you a favour. I saved you from lying about how you love the painting. You’re little bitch was just overreacting as usual.” she spat.

He punched the machine beside he and she jumped with fright. Georgia was scared, for sure. She was worried she had crossed the line. She knew not to mess with his temper, especially not to mess with the people he loved. But she couldn’t help it. She was jealous. She wanted him, but you snatched him away from her. He was hers before he was yours.

“You’re a girl that’s why I’m containing myself. I’m warning you Georgia, if I ever see you near my girl again, the outcome won’t be nice..” he whispered threateningly, looking at her dead in the eyes. He walked away from her and she gasped not realizing she had stopped breathing for a second. She watched him disappear, and decided that it was better if she stayed away.

Harry entered the cafeteria and saw you laughing with the boys. His shitty mood turned into a happy mood as he skipped towards you. He slide beside you and surprised you with a loud kiss on the apple of your cheeks.

“Here comes the man of your dreams, YN…I see how you still haven’t minimized the PDA like I told you to, Haz! Give her a bit of space, ey?” Lou  teased and sassed as the other boy and their girlfriends laughed. Harry wrapped his arms around you and pulled you to him.

“You’re just jealous because the only companion you have in your life at the moment, is your hand…” he joked. The boys let out an ooh and the girls laughed, including Louis

“Touche, mate.”

You looked at Harry to find him already looking at you. You smiled at him, “You okay, baby?” he asked. You nodded and hugged his side.He rested his head on top of your head. He felt content.

The two of you were happy. That’s all that mattered. Nothing could come between Harry and his sweet creature.That’s how it was going to be. Forever.

-

A/N Hope you enjoyed reading this! This is my humble request, if you liked it please HEART and REBLOG it, so others can read my stuff too! REQUEST FOR MORE HERE.

Checkout my other writings HERE. I love you guys! :) xx

[podcastmecaptain]

ars PLACEMENT: helen

part of advanced PLACEMENT: an ars PARADOXICA high school au about a gang of queer teen nerds, by @estherroberts​ , @podcastmecaptain , and @lizzieraindrops

all three of the aformentioned dorks are responsible for the hijinks found in this post. today’s, @podcastmecaptain especially. 

click here for the au masterpost | track _#ars placement_ for updates!

ALSO: things aren’t always showing up in the tags, so your most reliable bet is the aforementioned masterpost.

helen is grace incarnate.

she is human. but if god was a human, this is what she’d be.

helen is very confident in everything about herself

very aware of how she’s viewed and doesn’t act like she cares but she’ll definitely bring it up to you

probably takes a little bit more of it than she should because she has the grace of saint sebastian

and then she BITES BACK AND IT WILL SLAUGHTER YOU BECAUSE SHE WILL DO IT WITH THE VENGEANCE AND CASUALNESS OF HERA

“phenomenal woman-

that’s me.”

helen figured it out pretty early

she was one of those rare kids who transitioned really young and got a lot of support

she started hormone blockers around twelve but she was pretty much “I am a princess now.” around eight

helen’s parents are like “k so we ended up with divinity for a child, so"

HELEN’S PARENTS ADORE HER

(they pay for her transition because they’re good parents who don’t make their child pay for medical procedures)

(she supplements it with her gigs tho)

she used to be in the children’s sunday choir and the only thing she’s sad about is having to leave that group but she found a KID’S JAZZ GROUP

she still volunteers there on the weekends

she doesn’t have much of an interest in teaching in her future but she does like guiding the kids from the sidelines and demonstrating pitch and posture for them

the only time anthony’s workaholic ass has ever thought about children is when watching her with them and he gets super embarrassed about it and never brings it up

speaking of she has perfect queen’s posture and anthony slumps out of habit of bending over his notes in coffee shops and she’s always doing that thing where she pokes a knuckle into the middle of his shoulder blades to get him to jolt up straight, it’s practically a greeting at this point

helen, out of habit or affirmation, not because she thinks her parents doubt her

says “still a girl!” every time she blows her candles out on her birthday

everyone present whoops happily

on her SEVENTEENTH

YOU BET YOUR ASS SHE GIVES A KARAOKE ABBA PERFORMANCE

SHE IS THE DANCING QUEEN

YOUNG AND SWEET

ONLY SEVENTEEN

OH YEAAAH

on her eighteenth though she stands up after the candles

and announces triumphantly

“today!

I am a WOMAN!”

the resounding cheer rattles the windowpanes.

helen figures out the poly thing the latest

she is with both anthony and, of all people, and of course, june barlow

helen’s got love in spades to give

anthony, his story is further down

now, june

helen and june sip lemon spritzers by fountains and judge passerby together but helen is much more sweet about it and june is just like “look at that hunty with the denim on denim and the ‘may i speak to the manager’ haircut screeching like some kinda bug into her fucking samsung ugH”

then they talk about how men are pigs and how the IMF has failed the world

because those girlfriends are viciously anti capitalist/anti war

they hold hands while talking about dreams for the world

and also hold hands while talking about crushing those who wrong them under their heels

june is a ball of sparks and red eyes

and helen can understand a bit of this

helen is sweet and elegant and so  kind that she’ll give you more patience than you deserve

but she’s also passionately righteous. and not in the surfer dude way. the moral code of a damn justice fury.

helen has a lot of Greece in her, its in the name and in her being

if she realizes something is wrong there will be hell to pay.

helen is something else.

she is gentle and she doesn’t stop until she’s content, she won’t SIT DOWN and let someone else be responsible for the world she sees

if she wants something CHANGED she gets up and won’t be subdued until she has reached the culmination at all costs, no matter how long it takes. she doesn’t let go of something she disagrees with, won’t leave something she doesn’t like

helen is elegance but she is also a goddamn rottweiler? she will clamp her jaws on what she sees as wrong or even just disquieting and won’t let go until it’s collapsed enough that she can destroy it or fix it

and the thing is june changes that. june, angry bitter snarling june, not through sweetness or a delicate hand but through just being her, lets her accept that. okay. this is flawed. but i’m FINE with it. all things are flawed. you can let life be human, work to change it, don’t let go of your passion for compassion, but expand that compassion to include “this can breathe”

june is DEEPLY flawed. no shit. but she’s working on it constantly. she won’t change herself, she crosses line without a lot of regard, and she matches helen in having no lenience. but her response is immediate and harsh.

she lets herself have love, for quentin, for helen, for herself, to get excited and get passionate and know that EVERYTHING has something wrong with it, and you can CHANGE that but you will wind up making mistakes while you change it

and you can’t accept other’s flaws without acknowledging your own

(this logic adds to the strange, begrudging half friendship anthony and june will neither admit exists)

so helen and her can see what happens with this, in each other, and reflect on it. they both respond well to the other and work together in when to bare their teeth and why, but they can relax with someone else on their side.

and see what they need to change in themselves as much as the world, and be okay with that

sometimes they talk about the colors they find in people

in helen, june finds soft sage, warm rich brown

helen sees magenta in june, and faint traces of yellow (or teal? or royal blue?) its debatable, what the end result is, but whatever it is,

she burns bright.

and that is june to helen.

helen did some casual exploratory stuff the early years, late middle school, freshman-sophomore year

she gets her shit together pretty quick and then a like OK noW i can be more serious about it instead of poking, not that it meant nothing but now i know what i’m about and can do it responsibly

because she’s not sciencey but she’s sure as hell sharp in matters of the heart

she considered becoming a social worker at one point but she knows she has a problem with taking on project problem people when it’s not her job and she doesn’t want that to BE her job, because she knows she’d wind up on tough cases, and her passion is music and song anyway

that was more of a “hey your counselor thinks you should logically check this path”

but she realizes people don’t seem to realize that seemingly further reaching dreams are work too, and often take more dedication and spirit and responsibility than settling for what people THINK you should do for money, even though she certainly thinks higher of that work than that, she knows why she was recommended it and she knows what she wants

helen knows the importance of dreams. of that you shouldn’t have to be settling for less.

sometimes she does. but no one can achieve the level helen OWNS. let’s be realistic.

her hands are soft and loving but her nails are short and a little sharp

(anthony paints them for her)

(mostly metallics)

(occasionally little smudgey flowers)

helen doesn’t cry a lot but lets herself cry over things that matter. a lot of things matter, but she’s very good at sorting out what she doesn’t want to fret over

it’s a healthy cry, for all emotions

helen gets emotional about events but cries mostly over people

good people, people important to her

specifically

her parents

josephine baker

martha p. johnson

sylvia rivera

ella fitzgerald

maya angelou

her anthony and her june

she laughs it off a little bit afterward

for all that she is shaky and sentimental when she’s done

cupping porcelain mugs of hot tea in her hands and blinking slowly up at the posters on her wall, the chiffon drapes blowing a little over her bed and brushing against her

she washes her face and moves around her room, dancing a little bit until the faces of her heroes on the walls blur with motion instead of water

and overall feels better when she’s done

ok so helen actually first seriously dates a girl, its the first two serious times actually. they both meet her parents. the first goes off to boarding school and they tried to keep it up in letters, but the longer they wrote to each other the more they realized the other had very different opinions and like. helen just stopped replying. the second one was the person she lost her virginity to, they met at band camp. they’re still friends, but agreed that’s how they were better off.

helen describes herself as “loosely bi”, meaning she isn’t a big label girl for THAT aspect of herself but if she had to tap it with a moniker that would be it.

she meets anthony very similarly to how she met him on canon because THAT CANNOT GET BETTER

so she’s gotten a job at a place called the Soft Note

which is one of the only two close by queer bars

this one is the less club one. this is more wine and sashimi sushi and hipster brick walls

she sees someone in the back a Lot

which is weird

because he’s got a cheap laptop and notes and what looks like… a screwdriver and a circuit? one of those little box things with all the oddly gendered ports and wires

which is also weird because this is a bar where old queens hustle round and chatter about this new-fangled ellen and whisper sweet nothings in each other’s ears and toast to those lost to the aids crisis

otherwise her parents wouldn’t let her play that venue

so it never found good wifi or convenient outlets to be a. necessity.

or. checking for ids on young boys who don’t order alcohol and peek out from the booth at her and Oh. this kid’s spectacles just slipped down his nose and he has eyelashes off the wazoo.

so she says okay bill nye jr. i’m gonna test a hypothesis.

she looks him dead in the eye for the WHOLE of What A Wonderful World.

the timbre of her voice never falters, soaking into the dark wood paneling on the bar and skipping across the bottles on the wall

she is, for lack of better words, magnificent

she tries to go over afterward but a bunch of old queens stop her trying to compliment her in the Olde Gayest way

and by the time she’s hugged every one of them and has a bra now stuffed with Old Gay’s cash instead of tissue

he’s got a worried bouncer hovering over him asking to call his parents because he’s crying quietly

AND SHE LIKE FREEZES AND JUST KINDA

BREathes in, out, waves the bouncer off politely and

tips anthony’s chin up with two fingers

and she just looks so concerned for him

and he just doesn’t know what to say

BECAUSE WHO FUCKING WOULD

so he doesn’t say anything, he just swallows and sits up

anthony gets the deer in the headlights moment where he is. in awe

(SHESTOUCHINGMESHESTOUCHINGMESHESTOUCHINGMESHES)

and she just kinda sits on the counter and says “Hey there. I didn’t mean to sc- intimidate you or the like. ”

anthony: ….

helen: yeah okay that probably was a guarantee wasn’t it.

she taps his chin up again till his mouth closes and eyes him over, tilts his computer screen back, checking the non existing wifi, notes the two words and a couple of slight key smashes in his document, looks at his drink, sniffs it- “boy, is this apple juice?”

anthony:

anthony:

she steals his apple juice and sits on the counter, nursing it

“oh. damn, damn. nice nails.” he’s got glittery tarot cards on them.

snaps out of it slightly, looks down, proceeds to slowly wipe his cheeks and sit on his hands.

“…hey. i didn’t break you did i?”

nothin.

gives him back the drink

he kinda unconsciously slots his lips over where the lipstick is on the glass.

“so. you like jazz or just me.”

he chokes.

there is no more eye contact. she has an answer. she is smiling. he gathers his notes, nods to her jerkily, SCUTTLES OUT.

“See you tomorrow!” she calls after him. doesn’t yell cause she’s a lady. he trips anyway.

minute the bar door swings shut, the old queens start CACKLING. she throws a napkin at them and calls them mean, and looks into getting a business card so she can kiss it with her lipstick and slot it into his keyboard next time. it’ll be three weeks before he can look her in the eye.

[nanshe-of-nina]

Incorrect Crusades Quotes

Raimond IV de Tolosa: the fool tries to make one million dollars.... but the wise man knows that its much easier to make $0.000001 dollars one trillion times

Guglielmo Embriaco: Arrives 15 minutes late with siege towers.

Pope Urbanus II: UNITED NATIONS: ah!! please help us! we need just a normal man's opinion!! we got you a seat ME: How'm I to trust you, while God is bleeding

Étienne Henri, comte de Blois: Hell Yes;. the army is putting me and my guns on a plane back to iraq. Thius is like real life DLC

Matilde di Canossa: disappointed by lack of respect for the pope by the goofus brigade. i on the other hand respect the mans ass cheeks. i respect the mans legs

Alexios I Komnenos: I am Mediterranean Man! Hear my cry: TZATZIKIIIIIIiiiiiii and tremble with fear.TZATZIKIIIIIIiiiiiii and away!

Pierre l’Ermite: me and a bunch of stupid assholes are going to start a community in the middle of the desert to either die or prove a very important point.

Baudouin Ier de Jérusalem: im gay too and i love shit and im a nerd.

Bohémond de Hauteville: THERAPIST: your problem is, that youre perfect, and everyone is jealous of your good posts, and that makes you rightfully upset. ME: I agree

Hugues Ier, comte de Vermandois: i may be a dim-witted narcissist but at least i hafve really good opinions about life and other things

Morphia of Melitene: I AM VERY BAD ARMENIAN LADY ! I AM SO BAD THAT EVEN DEVOL IS AFRAID OF ME ! I WILL TEAR ENYBODYS SPIRIT & GIVE IT TO HIM ; WHO PUT DISLIKE !

Hugues de Payens: girlsl... i shall virtuously employ the expansive breadth of my tech wisdom to protect you all from Daesh... even if you dont follow me...

Danishmend Gazi: prince hussein…wheres my goodboy bailout

Tancrède de Hauteville: my romantic girl friend sees the super blood moon reflected in my greased back hair and pledges then and there to bow to christ our master

Thomas de Marle, seigneur de Coucy: I wanna live inside a castle built of your agony. AND I WANT TO CRUMBLE IT WITH AN AXE TO YOUR CAROTID ARTERY!

Kilij Arslan I: @danishmend pass the savings onto me mother fucker

Al-Mustazhir: "buckwild" or "hogwild"?? im writing a poem for my gf

Anna Komnēnḗ: He was so sexy that my body went all hot when I saw him kind of like an erection only I’m a girl so I didn’t get one you sicko.

Imad ad-Din Zengi: each 'Ridge' in your crinkle-cut potato chip costs 4 gallons of precious slave blood to create and adds a satisfying "Cruntch" to every bite

Thierry d'Alsace, comte de Flandre: this post is 2 years old. ive since lost custody of my children and my wife left me. still wild about candles

Anfós Jordan de Tolosa: my followeres, who all hate me, and wish to kick my ass, are nobodys, and they lack the combat training to injure me, because theyre infants

Enrico Dandolo: Everything happens for a reason, little one. And that reason is me.

Hodierne de Jérusalem: 12 year slave huh? sounds like my marriage. which I dont enjoy. to the degree that it is succinctly described by that particular movie title

Alix de Jérusalem: announcin,g in 2016 my new brand alliance with cool arab man

Sybille d’Anjou: im moving to israel, where the boys are nice, as soon as i get confirmation that they use the same kind of toilet paper that we use here

Raimon de Peitieus: im sorry to Wawa for attempting to behead myself in one of their restrooms. i promise to take the Wawa experience more seriously from now on

Andrónikos I: If a billion people have to be impaled to prove it, my worthiness as a Komnēnós will be DEMONSTRATED.

Louis VII de France: in another life... i would make U stay...

Renaud de Châtillon: i put years of hard work into getting my torture degree at torture college & now everyones like "oh tortures bad","its ineffective" fuck off

Friedrich I, Holy Roman Emperor: the conflicted supersoldier stares over the horizon as he smokes a cigarette. "war is the most fucked up thing ever." he takes a sip of beer

Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani: what happens when kirby swallows the qur'an and is granted its considerable power. my 81 chapter fanfic explores this issue -- and more

Heinrich der Löwe, Herzog von Sachsen: Wow, I do not care about that problem.

Henry II of England: i said im sorry. ive taken my lashes upon the cross. my brand is still good and anyone who cant see that is worthless

Agnès de Courtenay: looks like im forced to address false rumors that i own 3 dildos on a shelf labelled "breakfast" "lunch" & "dinner". this is an absurdity .

Amaury Ier de Jérusalem: MarioGodKenneth is stuck in prison again and ive received $0 in donations towards his bail.

Salah ad-Din: We ran in with our wands out just as we heard a croon voice say. “Allah Kedavra!”

Bertran de Bòrn: Im a monk in real life, the matrix is real and hummingbirds and other really fast animals are proof positive that bullet time eixists

Corrado del Monferrato: if a sniper shot me i would run over to where he is and kick the gun out of his hand and kill him because hes not specialized in melee fight

Guy de Lusignan: Our only hope now is that the enemy kills so many of us, they become slightly depressed.

Bonifacio del Monferrato: This is a Bulgar hunt, man! A Bulgar hunt! Game over, man! Game over!

Richard I of England: cant wait to get back to iraq and blast some ragheads-- itll be just like halo but with less lag #tcot #nowTHATSghetto #nowplaying #bun

Leopold V., Herzog von Österreich: (in really quiet, barely audible voice) hope your dick falls of bitch

Philippe II de France: wish Obama would authorize some drone strikes against my ex-wife!

Baudouin IX, comte de Flandre: "i wish they got, WiFi down here" - guy who died in the paris catacombs

Simon IV de Montfort: I love the smell of heretics in the morning. You know, one time we set an entire town on fire, for 12 hours. The smell, you know that burning flesh smell, the whole town. Smelled like victory.

Alexios IV Angelos: Local man ruins everything

Raimon-Rogièr, comte de Fois:  bigmouth fake priest telling me to "drink a shitload of holy water and kill yourself" as penance? this has happened at three churches now

Friedrich II, Holy Roman Emperor: I will tell you this right now: I’m from hell. Im highly fucked up. Ive been known to say rude things and watch the carnage unfold brutally

Thibaut Ier de Navarre: i do enjoy spending my weekends "Joining the Army". oh how i hate when monday rolls around & i must say goodbye to all of my soldier friends

Shajar Al-Durr: i ruminate over a scrapbook full of middle finger pics to keep myself demure, respectful and humble. "i deserve these", i utter shitheadedly

Louis IX de France: the nile river is red with blood and your fucking birthday present won't cleanse it. perspective, you fucking rat

Robert Ier, comte de Artois: Leeeeeeeeeeeeeroy!

Charles Ier de Naples: welp, time to rescue egypt from muslims. asomebody please carry all 900 pounds of me to the site of the protests. wait nevermind im good

Beatritz de Provença: What is the point of being married to a prince if he can't wield unfettered power to crush my enemies!?

Baibars: my name is Destyn. i build crossbows and sell weed to all your dads and im 15

Edward I of England: i am going to plunge a sword into our bed and officially end outr 40 yr marriage if you do not stop yelling while i am recording my stream's

[nagitolovebug]

Star Asks

I’m answering these all for my silly wife whom i love this is for you @angeltendou

-Mercury: What’s your full name? Lmao I know I have like 30 million last names but as far as what most people (and I) know it’s AnaSofia Gonzalez.

-Venus: What’s your first language? Spanish lmao there are videos of me singing as a child in Spanish and I’m just like damn ok

-Earth: Where’s your home? Idk I guess it’s just a feeling but I feel at home wherever I’m safe, warm, and happy and I think I’ve found that with certain people which both terrifies me and makes me wanna cry but thanks to those people

-Mars: What’s your sexuality? Lol, I’m gay as fuck

-Jupiter: Do you have any siblings? Technically, I have one, by blood. If I’m speaking from the heart, I have a person who I consider no less, if anything much more than a sibling, so I’m going to say 2.

-Saturn: Any pets? Yes, a silly little cocker spaniel named Dobby (bc I’m a nerd)

-Uranus: What’s your hobby? Writing, which I do love, but haven’t done much of lately, I’m sad to say

-Neptune: When’s your birthday? September 23

-Pluto: What time is it right now where you are? 11:43 pm

-Moon: What are you currently studying/hope to study? I’ve always wanted to major in writing and write my own novels, although, as of late, I’ve taken to a deep fascination of space and the sky and what lies beyond, and though science is not my forte I may look towards studying that as well. I’m also yearning to learn Italian.

-Sun: Have you ever had alcohol? Once, at a party at my grandparents house, I thought this mysterious drink on the counter was one my favorite sodas, Colombiana, but I wasn’t sure; so, to make sure it was before I poured myself some, I put my finger to the nozzle where there was a drop of it and tasted it. It was disgusting, and certainly not Colombiana. As it turns out, it was beer. Other than that, no.

-Sirius: Have you ever failed a class? Nope

-Rigel: Have you ever gone on a rollercoaster? Yes, several, and I find them quite fun, although the sever anxiety I have before riding them could be left out, preferably. 

-Deneb: Have you ever been out of your home country? Yes, several times. I spent a month in Colombia with my cousins, then returned a year later for a wedding. Also, as a baby, I’ve been told I went to the Dominican Republic. I’m going to England in the summer.

-Arcturus: Have you ever cried out of something other than sadness? Tears are second-nature to me, as free flowing as the blood in my veins. I’ve cried of fear, anger, frustration, happiness, guilt, out of being overwhelmed, out of feeling trapped, out of loss, out of complete gratitude and vulnerability to another person. Yes.

-Betelgeuse: What’s something you can never forget about? I still have petty grudges for people I’ll never see again, real grudges for what someone has done to hurt me. I suppose a profound memory and the one that comes to mind when presented with this question is when I locked myself in the bathroom out of a paralyzation of fear and cried.

-Aldebaran: What’s something you care desperately about? My friends, and their well-being and happiness.

-Canopus: Have you ever broken a bone? No sirree

-Bellatrix: Have you ever been forced to lie/keep a secret? Oh, all the time.

-Alphard: Have you ever lost a friend? Yes, we were incredibly close, and although we still talk it’s like there’s a big cloud above us and you know it’ll never be quite what it once was.

-Vega: What’s something you’ve done that you wish you hadn’t? At the moment I can’t think of any Profound Regrets, but I do wish I were less shy and spoke my mind more often than I do.

-Centaurus: Favorite holiday? Halloween!

-Orion: Favorite month? Honestly, every month past August is Party Time; I particularly love October 

-Cassiopeia? Favorite book? Hoo boy ok. I love all the Harry Potter books and most everything Rick Riordan writes but apart from that (which goes on my Pedestal of Incredible); The Song of Achilles broke my heart but it was gorgeous and I’m in love; also, Rainbow Rowell’s novels sweep my soul away and they too are lovely.

-Delphinus: Favorite study? I love space and the stars + Greek/Roman/Egyptian/Norse/etc myths captivate my soul and I’m infatuated with them

-Hercules: Favorite instrument? Hoooo bOy, ok: the drums are incredible and I love the rhythm and beat they provide, b u t, the violin is incredibly gorgeous and elegant, the piano is hypnotizing, and basically those are my faves.

-Gemini: Favorite song? Idk?? Honestly, it changes depending on what I’m listening to, but as of now I love Dear Theodosia 

-Pegasus: Favorite place to be? I love the space on top of my roof + the warm happy feeling of wherever I am w a friend

-Libra: Favorite color? All colors are beautiful but as of late I love green and mint green and every shade of green; I’m also in love with the infinite blue of the sky

-Phoenix: Favorite thing to wear? Jeans, sweater, socks (if shoes are required, then sneakers)

-Aries: Favorite movie? I don’t really have one because every movie I watch that I like I go “tHIS IS MY FAVE!!” but Captain America; Civil War broke my heart and I loved it, accompanied with Rogue One so I’m going with that

-Cyngus: Favorite weather? I like it when it’s really cold and windy, and light rain with no thunder or lightning is good. I also like cloudy and sunny, or just bright and sunny but not too hot; raining while the sun is shining is perfect

-Hydra: Favorite sound? Friend’s laughter is gorgeous, really pretty music, rain

-Milky Way: Who’s your oldest friend? My (unbiological but still) sister of 9 years

-Andromeda: Do you consider yourself social? Hell no, but with certain people I’ll chat your ear off and they’re the ones who matter

-Black Eye Galaxy: Do you believe in love at first sight? I mean...no? It takes me to get to know someone first and be friends before I develop any sort of remotely romantic feeling, so at least not for me

-Cartwheel Galaxy: When was your first kiss? I’ll get back to you when it happens ;D

-Cigar Galaxy: How’s your flirting skills? I’ve recently discovered that I actually do flirt without realizing, but through texting, so I suppose I’m rather decent,,(?) In a verbal conversation, however, absolute rubbish I guarantee it (not that I’ve tried)

-Comet Galaxy: Have you ever had to leave a relationship because someone changed too much? I’ll get back to you once i’m in or have been in a relationship ;D

-Pinwheel Galaxy: Would you date the last person you talked to? Absolutely

-Sombrero Galaxy: Do you have a crush right now? ;D

-Bode’s Galaxy: Have you ever had a secret admirer? Not that I know of

-Sunflower Galaxy: Would you date/make friends with someone out of pity? Fuck no

-Tadpole Galaxy: Would you deny a relationship/friendship? Does this mean turn someone down? Yes?

-Whirlpool Galaxy: Have you ever cried over a breakup? Yes, but not one of romantic kind

-Comet: What’s your big dream? I have several, however unrealistic they may be. I want to grow up to be happy, to be in a committed, healthy, and loving relationship with another person, and for them to be happy too. I want to write a book, or books, that inspire people and mean something to them, something they love and cherish with characters they’ll fall in love with, something that will make them love reading and do what many authors have done for me. I also wanna make a change in the world, somehow do something profound that’ll make life better for people in need. Lastly, and perhaps the most far-fetched of all, I wanna explore space? Not just our solar system or Mars, but full-on Star Trek explore; I want to be alive when/if portals are made to explore deep space and learn more about what’s out there and contact alien life.

-Meteor: What’s something you wish you could tell, but can’t? I wish I could tell my family, more importantly my immediate family, that I’m gay

-Nebula: if you could undo one thing in your life, what would it be? My birth idk

-Shooting Star: If you could bring back one thing what would it be? Um idk, my motivation to do things? Happiness?

-Pulsar: What do you hope to do in the next 10 years? Experience things and learn more things about myself and who I am, go through my Angsty Teen Discovery moment, and just enjoy life. Vote, drive, fall in love, get into college, graduate highschool.

-Supernova: What’s one thing you want to do before you die? See the world/explore space

-Quasar: If you could spend the rest of your life with only one person, who would it be? nOPE

-Wormhole: What’s something you wish would happen, but know won’t? Portals are invented and my Space Princess and I become astronauts and explore space!

-Black Hole: What’s the last thing you want to see? Everyone safe and happy, no hate, everyone living harmoniously regardless or race, religion, gender or lack thereof, or sexuality