#Return to schools post covid

[redgoldsparks]

My very last comic for The Nib! End of an era! Transcription below the cut. instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my book / redbubble

The first event I went to with GENDER QUEER was in NYC in 2019 at the Javits Center.

So many of the people who came to my signing were librarians, and so many of them said the same thing: "I know exactly who I want to give this to!" Maia: "Thank you for helping readers find my book!" While working on the book, I was genuinely unsure if anyone outside of my family and close friends would read it. But the early support of librarians and two American Library Association awards helped sell two print runs in first year.

Since then, GENDER QUEER been published in 8 languages, with more on the way: Spanish, Czech, Polish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portugese and Dutch.

It has also been the most banned book in the United States for the past two years. The American Library Association has tracked an astronomical increase in book challenges over the past few years. Most of these challenges are to books with diverse characters and LGBTQ themes. These challenges are coming unevenly across the US, in a pattern that mirrors the legislative attacks on LGBTQ people. The Brooklyn Public Library offered free eCards to anyone in the US aged 13-21, in an effort to make banned books more available to young readers. A teacher in Norman, Oklahoma gave her students the QR code for the free eCard and lost her job. Summer Boismeir is now working for the Brooklyn Public Library. Hoopla and Libby/Overdrive, apps used to access digital library books, are now banned in Mississippi to anyone under 18. Some libraries won’t allow anyone under 18 to get any kind of library card without parental permission. When librarians in Jamestown, Michigan refused to remove GENDER QUEER and several other books, the citizens of the town voted down the library’s funding in the fall 2022 election. Without funding, the library is due to close in mid-2024. My first event since covid hit was the American Library Association conference in June 2022 in Washington, DC. Once again, the librarians in my signing line all had similar stories for me: “Your book was challenged in our district" "It was returned to the shelf!" "It was removed from the shelf..." "It was moved to the adult section."

Over and over I said: "Thank you. Thank you for working so hard to keep my book in your library. I’m sorry you had to defend it, but thank you for trying, even if it didn't work." We are at a crossroads of freedom of speech and censorship. The future of libraries, both publicly funded and in schools, are at stake. This is massively impacting the daily lives of librarians, teachers, students, booksellers, and authors around the country. In May 2023, I read an article from the Washington Post analyzing nearly 1000 of the book challenges from the 2021-2022 school year. I was literally on route to a festival to talk about book bans when I read a startling statistic. 60% of the 1000 book challenges were submitted by just 11 people. One man alone was responsible for 92 challenges. These 11 people seem to have made submitting copy-cat book challenges their full-time hobby and their opinions are having an outsized ripple effect across the nation. WE NEED TO MAKE THE VOICES SUPPORTING DIVERSE BOOKS AND OPPOSING BOOK BANS EVEN LOUDER. If you are able too, show up for your library and school board meetings when book challenges are debated. Send supportive comments and emails about the Pride book display and Drag Queen story hours. If you see a display you like– for Banned Book Week, AAPI Month, Black History Month, Disability Awareness Month, Jewish holidays, Trans Day of Remembrance– compliment a librarian! Make sure they feel the love stronger than the hate <3

Maia Kobabe, 2023

The Nib

[tomorrowusa]

Don't risk a rerun of the 2000 election.

In the first presidential election of the 21st century many deluded progressives voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.

Their foolishness gave us eight years of George W. Bush who plagued the country with two recessions (including the Great Recession) and two wars (one totally unnecessary and one which could have been avoided if he heeded an intelligence brief 5 weeks before 9/11).

Oh yeah, Dubya also appointed one conservative and one batshit crazy reactionary to the US Supreme Court. Roberts and Alito are still there.

Paul Waldman of the Washington Post offers some thoughts.

Why leftists should work their hearts out for Biden in 2024

Ask a Democrat with a long memory what the numbers 97,488 and 537 represent, and their face will twist into a grimace. The first is the number of votes Ralph Nader received in Florida in 2000 as the nominee of the Green Party; the second is the margin by which George W. Bush was eventually certified the winner of the state, handing him the White House. Now, with President Biden gearing up for reelection, talk of a spoiler candidate from the left is again in the air. That’s unfortunate, because here’s the truth: The past 2½ years under Biden have been a triumph for progressivism, even if it’s not in most people’s interest to admit it. This was not what most people expected from Biden, who ran as a relative moderate in the 2020 Democratic primary. His nomination was a victory for pragmatism with its eyes directed toward the center. But today, no one can honestly deny that Biden is the most progressive president since at least Lyndon B. Johnson. His judicial appointments are more diverse than those of any of his predecessors. He has directed more resources to combating climate change than any other president. Notwithstanding the opposition from the Supreme Court, his administration has moved aggressively to forgive and restructure student loans.

Three years ago the economy was in horrible shape because of Trump's mishandling of the pandemic. Now unemployment is steadily below 4%, job creation continues to exceed expectations, and wages are rising as unions gain strength. The post-pandemic, post-Afghan War inflation rate has receded to near normal levels; people in the 1970s would have sold their souls for a 3.2% (and dropping) inflation rate. And many of the effects of "Bidenomics" have yet to kick in.

And in a story that is criminally underappreciated, his administration’s policy reaction to the covid-induced recession of 2020 was revolutionary in precisely the ways any good leftist should favor. It embraced massive government intervention to stave off the worst economic impacts, including handing millions of families monthly checks (by expanding the child tax credit), giving all kids in public schools free meals, boosting unemployment insurance and extending health coverage to millions.

It worked. While inflation rose (as it did worldwide), the economy’s recovery has been blisteringly fast. It took more than six years for employment rates to return to what they were before the Great Recession hit in 2008, but we surpassed January 2020 jobs levels by the spring of 2022 — and have kept adding jobs ever since. To the idealistic leftist, that might feel like both old news and a partial victory at best. What about everything supporters of Bernie Sanders have found so thrilling about the Vermont senator’s vision of the future, from universal health care to free college? It’s true Biden was never going to deliver that, but to be honest, neither would Sanders had he been elected president. And that brings me to the heart of how people on the left ought to think about Biden and his reelection.

Biden has gotten things done. The US economy is doing better than those of almost every other advanced industrialized country.

Our rivals China and Russia are both worse off than they were three years ago. And NATO is not just united, it's growing.

Sadly, we still need to deal with a far right MAGA cult at home who would wreck the country just to get its own way.

Biden may be elderly and unexciting, but that is one of the reasons he won in 2020. Many people just wanted an end to the daily drama of Trump's capricious and incompetent rule by tweet. And a good portion of those people live in places that count greatly in elections – suburbs and exurbs.

Superhero films seem to be slipping in popularity. Hopefully that's a sign that voters are less likely to embrace self-appointed political messiahs to save them from themselves.

Good governance is a steady process – not a collection of magic tricks. Experienced and competent individuals who are not too far removed from the lives of the people they represent are the best people to have in government.

Paul Waldman concludes his column speaking from the heart as a liberal...

I’ve been in and around politics for many years, and even among liberals, I’ve almost always been one of the most liberal people in the room. Yet only since Biden’s election have I realized that I will probably never see a president as liberal as I’d like. It’s not an easy idea to make peace with. But it suggests a different way of thinking about elections — as one necessary step in a long, difficult process. The further you are to the left, the more important Biden’s reelection ought to be to you. It might require emotional (and policy) compromise, but for now, it’s also the most important tool you have to achieve progressive ends.

Exactly. Rightwingers take the long view. It took them 49 years but they eventually got Roe v. Wade overturned. To succeed, we need to look upon politics as an extended marathon rather as one short sprint.

Republicans may currently be bickering, but they will most likely unite behind whichever anti-abortion extremist they nominate.

It's necessary to get the word out now that the only way to defeat climate-denying, abortion-restricting, assault weapon-loving, race-baiting, homophobic Republicans is to vote Democratic.

[buttl0rd]

I'm watching like a hawk for that new kid 🤲 THE BABY

ALRIGHT HERE HE IS!! lemme introduce you to the new kid 👉👉

this is carroway - he's the best 😎👽

this is gonna be a long post cause i have so much art and content to gush about. i love this kid 👇

Some fun character details:

he was originally supposed to be like the 90's movie tough bully kid but he's ended up just being a stupid asshole. he probably likes to think he's really cool and tough 💪

has 3 younger sisters, hates being outnumbered by girls

huge foodie and finishes whatever you don't eat. not fussy at all

always leaving his mittens outside. they get all wet and gross in the snow

affectionately ripping on everyone he loves. he's a total asshole but most people know he doesn't mean half the shit he says. the real ones tolerate him 😔🤙

he doesn’t know he’s bisexual (don’t tell him, he’ll find out on his own)

Hobbies & Interests

Aliens. Carroway is a firm believer in alien life and has an immense interest in UFO sightings, alien communication and all things outer-space. He often brags to his classmates that he has been abducted and probed, and is friends with the Martians that visit South Park sometimes (do any of them believe him?). He has a telescope that he set up in his friend Dante’s treehouse which he uses to spot UFOs in the night.

FUN FACT: His probe is linked with Cartman's. It's the connection that makes it possible for OCs to exist in the same universe as canon characters.

Drums. He has a drum set in his garage on which he practices every day after school. He has exceptional rhythm and is very talented. He keeps drumsticks in his backpack just in case he encounters a drumset or anything he can make a beat with (tables, benches, trashcans, etc.) Neighbors complain to his parents about the noise, so his garage is sound-proofed to the best of Mr. Carroway’s ability. 

Snowboarding. Carroway goes snowboarding every few weeks. His family do snowboarding trips and he LOVES it. He also skateboards and rides his bike when he’s not up in the mountains, kid just likes to go fast. He dreams of being a professional snowboarder when he’s older.

TFBW: Boarderline

Boarder is a special flying support unit, part of Coon & Friends. He delivers high-impact quick attacks with his hoverboard and can heal/cure status conditions with his awesome space beams. As a speedster he utilizes the whole battlefield and is constantly moving, making him difficult to hit.

Origins:

He was a human that got abducted and genetically modified by Martians to serve and protect the alien race. After battling in many galactic wars he returned to his home in Colorado. His abilities were noticed by the superhero organization, Coon & Friends and Boarder was recruited to join their alliance. He provides support to Coon & Friends in battle.

Design:

Inspired by the gear he wears when he goes snowboarding.

His superhero costume consists of a white bodysuit with black tape accents and a big old metal zip. There's reflective blue strips on the gloves, boots and around the edge of his signature spaceboard. He's got these iconic space goggles that protect his face when he’s flying at the speed of light.

His name is a play on words - board (from his hoverboard) and borderline (being only just good enough for Coon & Friends). Allies call him Boarder for short.

SOT: Skullrogue

Skullrogue is Carroway’s Stick of Truth character.

He is a rogue-class unit and is quick and sneaky on the battlefield. He has a long black hooded cloak and a skull mask. His main weapon is a pair of daggers that are enchanted with flame magic. He cannot use magic himself but he is proficient with weapons, especially the daggers. He throws them and uses them to stab enemies in the back.

Skullrogue has an undisclosed edgy backstory, like any rogue player. He is mysterious and broody and so cool. He is loyal to the Wizard King and thinks Princess Kenny is hot.

Post-COVID

As a young adult, Carroway becomes a professional snowboarder and competes nationally in competitions. He becomes famous and earns a lot of money from his career, travelling the world for competitions. He makes it all the way to the Winter Olympics, representing the USA in the snowboarding category

After a career-ending injury in his mid-30's, he had to retire from snowboarding early and now lives off his sponsors and used-to-be-a-big-shot money. Despite being wealthy, he moved back to South Park and lives in a trailer (it’s easier than having a huge house). 

He sometimes needs a walking aid to get around and is medicated for chronic back pain.

He was too busy with his career to find love when he was younger, so he stays single and lonely in his 40s. He still goes out and does sport events, commentaries and sponsorships - he remains famous even though he cannot compete anymore. He’s like a living legend in the winter sports community. 

I'm still working on a PCOV design for him so stay tuned for that...

Anyway that's it for now!! I hope you love him 😘

[trippinsorrows]

10 things + r. reigns

authors note: so, a lot of this stems from convos with the lovely @fearlesschimera where one tree hill was brought up. and i loved me some nathan and haley. plus, i'm loving everything about this otc era and needed to write something about it now vs having to wait with my other stories cause we ain't there yet lmao

might be a part two. idk if this even makes sense tbh

words: 3.1k

warnings: none, really? some language? kayfabe story.

There are exactly two sides to Roman Reigns.

The good side and the bad side. 

And Nova Reigns has experienced them both with an unfortunate increase in the latter versus the former. 

She can pinpoint exactly when it started, too. 

When things started to get difficult again.

2020. COVID. While the world was an absolute mess, chaos and death occurring globally every day, her husband of over ten years wasn’t much better. He’d decided to stay home, not wanting to risk bringing home anything that could put her pregnancy with their first daughter, Arabella, Bella as they affectionately called her, at risk. 

It was also so he could figure out just what the hell he was doing with his career. Roman was frustrated. Tired of going along with what was always told of him instead of doing it his way. And it’s why when he returned back to work that summer, he came back a completely changed man. Bigger, stronger, meaner.

This was a different Roman Reigns. The likes of which the WWE had never seen.

And it’s been a ride ever since.

Up and downs along the way. 

A lot of ups up until WrestleMania 40 where after 1,316 days as the undisputed universal champion and unable to let go of a betrayal from so many years ago, Roman lost. He lost his title and something so much deeper that night.

His sense of self.

Nova did the best she could in the months he’d been off to keep his spirits lifted, to support him, often encouraging Bella to ask her dad to do stuff with her even when Nova technically could. Asked him to care for their two year old daughter, Camillia, Cami, as she worked from home, something she’s done for almost the entirety of her post college career. 

But most importantly, Nova worked to help Roman repair the relationship with their oldest son, Roman Jr., RJ, as they’ve called him since the day he was born.

To say the relationship is awful would be an exaggeration. No, it’s just…..fragile.

A fragility that Nova has tried so hard over the past couple of years to strengthen to no avail. A large part of the issue being the fact that her twenty year old son is just as stubborn as his father. Twins, she often calls them. Similar heights, build, personalities, etc. 

Great when they want to be. A pain in the ass when they don’t need to be.

A painful situation all around though, especially when she thinks back to how this all started, to how someone like Nova ended up with someone like Roman.

And it’s a simple answer, really.

He was an idiot.

Well, when it came to English, that was.

Once upon a time ago, Roman wasn’t the massive WWE superstar that he is now. He was just Roman Reigns. The typical, popular jock of their high school. A football player with the stereotypical ego to match. And she was just Nova, the geeky underclassmen who always had a secret crush on the boy she never thought in a million years would look her way.

And truth be told, if not for the fact his coach threatened to bench him if he didn’t raise his English grade, he probably never would have. Hell, she’s certain the only reason he knew she existed was because she was the best and smartest kid in class, so of course their teacher would recommend her for a tutor. 

The answer was initially no. Not necessarily because she was opposed, but more because her crush on him was too big to not get distracted. Even though his jerkish tendencies should have done just that. 

But Roman has always been charismatic and persistent, and before she knew it, she’d agreed. And that agreement changed everything because it showed her for the first time the nice side of Roman, the side that secretly loved music and was surprisingly good at math. The side that struggled with feeling like he’d never be good enough or live up to his family’s athletic reputation both in football and wrestling.

It made her realize and see that Roman was just as human as everyone else. 

It made her fall in love with him.

And that was rocky, too. Navigating his constant struggle of wanting to admit his feelings for her while also being embarrassed about her and wanting to hide their relationship. It created a fair set of conflict, and Nova shed her fair share of tears.

Especially as she sat on the floor of her bathroom, plush, purple rug cushioning her bottom but not the blow that was the two lines on the pregnancy test in her hands. But, seven months later, with her mom on one side and Roman on the other, she shed a different set of tears. Different kinds of tears.

Happiness.

Happiness at welcoming her first child into the world, Roman Reigns Jr. 

RJ

Being teen parents, especially at the tender ages of 16 and 18 was most definitely nothing like it was depicted on the reality shows. It was rough, especially as Roman started college, opting to stay local to help her raise their child as she finished her senior year. They fought, they argued, they disagreed, but at the end of the day, they still loved.

And it was that love that carried them through the rocky years of Roman trying to figure out just what he wanted to do with his life as Nova worked a job and raised their son while pursuing her degree in software engineering. She also stayed local to benefit from the help of her family while chasing her dream. It was rough, it was hard, but they did it.

Even with having to be on food stamps and financial assistance at times to take care of their child, Nova struggling to enter the male dominated workforce of tech and Roman not always having consistent income, they did it. 

And they were happy.

They still are. Just….not like it used to be. 

Nova still loves her husband with all of her heart and soul. They’ve been through too much together for her to ever really leave him, but she’d be lying if she said it didn’t cross her mind from time to time. Especially over the past four years, watching him almost revert back to that bully from high school as he manipulated and mentally abused his family, his cousins, his lifetime best friends so much so that the Bloodline he worked so hard to create crumbled right before him.

And it’s only deteriorated since he lost the title to Cody Rhodes. Solo had turned on Roman, brutally kicked Jimmy out of the Bloodline and invited in non-family. Week after week, taking shot after shot at her husband, his cousin, his flesh and blood. 

Going so far as to take the sacred ula fala and declare himself the tribal chief. An honor that was bestowed upon Roman by the elders of his family. It finally reached a point where Roman had enough, making his grand return at SummerSlam and preventing his once enforcer from taking the very title Roman still believes is rightfully is. 

He’s made intermittent returns since then, each one proving just why Roman Reigns is being considered one of the greatest of all time, even while still in the middle of his career. His aura is unmatched. The sales don’t lie. The numbers don’t lie. 

The OTC is WWE. 

But, Roman has been a bit on edge since he was unexpectedly jumped by his other cousin, Jacob, Solo’s latest dangerous addition to the Bloodline.

Nova especially knows he was even more pissed because she’d taken the girls to his show that night, at his request.

He hates looking ‘weak’ in front of him, despite the fact that both were too consumed in kids' devices to pay attention. But, she was. And if anything, it was hard for her to see him be attacked like that, all alone. 

No one in his corner.

Jey’s moved to Raw.

Jimmy is still trying to figure out if he even wants to come back.

Solo has lost his damn mind. 

Sami…..no comment.

And Paul is still recovering from his brutal assault by the new Bloodline. 

The island of relevancy has a population of one. And while that one is formidable as all outdoors, he’s still just a man.

Granted, as much as it pains her to see Roman go at this alone, it’s hard for her to feel all the way bad for him. He did this. His actions drove his family away. 

Well, not all of them.

“Game!” Bella’s soft voice pulls Nova from reflecting on memory lane as she redirects her attention to where her son sits on the sofa in Roman’s locker room, Cami on his lap, grabbing his phone.

RJ chuckles, unlocking the iPhone and asking, “what you wanna play?”

Cami gasps and claps her hands. “Cookie!”

“Cookie Kingdom?” RJ asks, clicking around on his phone and handing it to her. “There ya go, lil’ bit.”

Nova’s smile is warm as she reflects on what feels like so long ago. “I remember when you were that little.”

RJ looks up at her, and it never ceases to amaze her how much he looks like his father. Complexion a little deeper, melanin he inherited from her, but outside of that, Roman could never deny paternity. 

He sucks his teeth. “Mama, don’t start that.”

“What?” Nova pouts, leaning back into the sofa, Bella tuned out of the conversation as she watches Bluey on her tablet. It’s always a bit funny to her how uninterested these kids just are when it comes to seeing Roman at work.

At least, not until he’s actually in their line of vision.

“You’ll always be my baby.” Because he will. Twenty and over 6ft tall or not, he’s her baby boy. “And speaking of baby, what’s going on with you and that girl you been dating?”

RJ rolls his eyes and adjusts Cami on his lap. He’s so good with his little sisters. “Nothing.”

Nova smirks knowingly, picking up on the faint hit of redness on his cheeks. “Sure don’t seem like nothing.”

“Mama, she’s just a friend.”

“So ya’ll aren’t sexually active?”

RJ turns up his nose, clearly disgusted. “Ma, how you just gon’ ask me that?”

“Because I’m your mama and not ready to be a grandma, and your daddy would kill you if you were to get a girl pregnant halfway through college.”

It’s not missed upon Nova how the mention of Roman seems to completely dampen his mood. RJ rolls his eyes. “Like he cares at all.”

His comment hurts her. Deeply. “RJ….”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to upset you.”

She ignores that apology, wanting to focus on the initial comment that has her stomach knotting for all the wrong reasons. “Your dad loves you, Junior. You have to know that.”

There’s a slight delay in his answer, and that alone is enough to make Nova know she needs to talk to Roman again tonight about actually talking with his son. A below the surface level conversation. A heart to heart.

“I know that, mama. I do. It’s just….” RJ blows out a breath and shakes his head. “You know how he is.”

She does. Very well. “You can say it. He’s an ass sometimes.” She’s so grateful for the headphones on Bella’s ears and the deep infatuation Cami has with her brother’s phone.

“You said it. Not me.” Mother and son share a laugh, RJ admitting, “I know he means well.”

“He does,” she agrees. “But, that doesn’t mean he can’t do better. I’ll talk to him again.”

RJ immediately looks like he feels bad, which only makes Nova’s chest ache more. “You don’t have to—”

She lifts her finger to silence him. “You’re my son. He’s my husband. I love you both, and it kills me to see ya’ll like this. I’m gonna do what I can.” And that’s a vow. The three of them have been through too much shit over the years for her to just allow the relationship between the two most important men to fall apart. She won’t let that happen. 

She can’t.

And speaking of, the door to Roman’s locker room opens, her husband walking in looking every bit as strong, powerful, and determined as he looked when he interfered yet again with Solo’s match and especially as he closed the door of that cage and challenged Jacob. 

Nova shifts in her seat, the memory bringing up other kinds of feelings which are entirely inappropriate given the presence of her children.

Cami is the first girl to notice him, lifting up her little arms and reaching for him, nearly dropping RJ’s phone in the process if not for his quick reflexes.

He most definitely got that from Roman as well, because Nova has not an athletic bone in her body.

Roman walks over and takes her from RJ, kissing her cheek, gaze almost reluctantly falling on RJ. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

Nova starts to scold Roman for such a cold introduction to their son they haven’t seen since he left for his sophomore year of college over a month ago. “Mom asked me to.”

She’s good at reading between the lines, picking up on the fact that he’s essentially saying he’s only here because of Nova.

Not Roman.

Roman notices this, she’s sure. He’s a perceptive bastard. But, he says nothing. “How’s school?”

“Fine.” 

“RJ.” And her son can be a petty bastard. Like father, like son. She directs her statement to Roman, “I was thinking we could go to his game tomorrow—”

RJ, however, is quick to dismiss this. “You don’t have to.”

Nova’s gaze on Roman allows her to see the hurt that flashes in his eyes at the rejection. But as has been the case lately, he pushes it aside, replacing it with indifference. “You heard what he said. He doesn’t want us there, so we wo—”

“That’s not what I said.” RJ leans back against the chair and shrugs his shoulders, shaking his head, clearly frustrated. “You always do this. Always hear what you want to hear.” He scoffs, head turned, muttering, “I see why everybody left you.”

Nova gasps. “RJ!” She sees it, the hurt that’s just tripled and is about to be expressed in anger, leading to another big blowout between the two of them. Thankfully, this is the moment Bella finally becomes aware of Roman’s presence.

“Daddy!” She pulls off her headphones, climbs off the sofa and runs over to him, hugging his legs. 

Roman doesn’t hesitate to pick her up, both daughters in his arms as Nova leans over, running her hand through her fresh silk press. This. This is what she wanted to avoid. These are the kinds of situations that leave her in tears as she vents to her therapist about her ever growing stress levels, how torn she feels in what to do in moments like this. 

Roman is her husband, but RJ is her son. Neither is fully right, but neither is fully wrong either. How does one handle that?

Thankfully, it’s not long after that Roman is being called to prepare to get back out in the ring. This means a probably needed separation from the two titans in her life. Nova holds Cami this time, while Bella hangs onto RJ as they’re escorted ringside. 

It takes a bit of persuasion to get RJ to agree to come with her. She can see he’s ready to just leave.

But, reminding him of how big a help he is with the girls seems to win him over because while he’s certainly not in the best of places with his dad, RJ is a mama’s boy through and through. He loves him some Nova and would do anything to help her. 

Even if it means helping her with the two siblings that came as a complete shock to him.

It still makes Nova laugh a little as she recalls the horrified and almost disgusted expression on his face as she and Roman broke the pregnancy news to him.

“I didn’t even know ya’ll still did that.” And if his statement wasn’t bad enough, he just had to add insult to injury as the blunt almost 16 year-old he was at the time. “Ain’t ya’ll kinda old to still be freaking?”

No. 

Never that.

“Daddy!” This time it’s Cami who’s calling out to Roman, recognizing his new music before he even emerges from the back looking as badass as he always does. Nova is temporarily in a state of awe, overhearing Bella asking RJ to hold her so she can see better. 

Roman has come so far, done so well for himself, even with things with his family being a hot ass mess, there’s still no denying he is it. That he has it. It’s undeniable. She almost feels bad for Cody.

He’ll always be stuck in Roman’s shadow. 

The thought makes her suddenly curious about what could be one of the reasons behind the strife between her firstborn and husband. Nova tucks this in the back of her mind, planning to discuss it further in therapy.

As Roman moves into the ring, Nova stands on the sidelines, holding her baby girl on her hip, smiling back and forth between the two. She watches Roman move around the ring on their commercial break

And when his gaze falls on the set of them, her heart swells as he mouths ‘I love you’ before seamlessly transitioning back into that hardened, determined expression.

And this is why there’s two sides to Roman Reigns. The good side being the one that she sees in that brief, vulnerable exchange. The one that used to kiss her pregnant stomach as he confided in her his fears about not being a good dad, about feeling not ready, about worrying about failing in life. 

Failing her. 

Failing himself.

Failing their child.

The man who worked so hard and gave everything his all to prove he was someone, becoming that someone, yet somehow losing something in the process.

Nova knows it’s still in there though, knows that he is still the boy he fell in love with many moons ago. She knows that as frustrated as he makes her, as cold he can be, as disconnected he can seem, that love is still there and just as strong. 

And she’ll fight for it. 

For him. 

For their son.

For their family. 

She has to.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

So, recently found someone tried pressing charges on me for this. However, cops laughed at him for it.

Am I the AH because I reported my manager?

I(F24-27) met this manager(M 27-30) when I worked at my last job. This manager was being lovely and started dating a newly high-school graduate. His girlfriend got fired for stealing not just merchandise, but money from the register. She was promptly fired and he claimed they broke up for it, but got back together. The summer after she was fired, an employee's dumb ass fell for a phone scam and the store lost thousands of dollars. She was fired too, but it was under his authority that she did the phone scam since he was "too busy" to do it. It was apparently some register program maintenance? Yeah, a manager is suppose to do that, but he didn't. My manager went on vacation for the entire month of his birthday, during that time I sent him a happy birthday and told him he was missed and we awaited his return. Months later at the end of the year, his girlfriend saw the messages, and when I arrived at work he basically threatened my job and called me some colorful things. I cried then and there and he refused to apologize to me cause he was so happily taken and blah blah.

So here's what happened. Because he refused to apologize to me, I cried the entire day. We had recently gotten a new store manager, and he was concerned and asked me what was wrong. I told him what happened and even showed him the messages I sent my manager from months back. He said he didn't see anything wrong with them, that even he himself would have sent similar messages if someone was gone for that long. So, he wrote him up for it. So, apparently I was the bad person for that? I mean, he said some messed up things to me. Keep in mind, this was the week before the new year. Ok, after the new year started, there was a lot of investigations going on, thanks to our previous store manager since someone blew the whistle on her and found out she did a lot of sketchy things. My manager was being investigated for this too, for dating someone who got fired for stealing and the phone scam thing (I think it's because the store lost more than 10,000, I seriously wish I was joking). So, apparently me reporting him for what he did to me was wrong by his logic. So, months went by of the several investigations, even some auditing company got involved (I know scary!), and by May, this manager went on a couple of week vacation. He had posted online him playing a drinking game and another employee who he worked under and was a minor too, was present in what he recorded and posted online. Now, my beef is he had admitted to me he provided alcohol for his gf when she was a minor and her friends, then I see that crap. I ended up reporting it and I guess I cost him his job? He literally went to another company after it happened. I know I'm not the moral police and other people aren't my responsibility, but I just didn't feel right seeing that. He was 29, what is he doing hanging out when 17-20 year olds? The only legal adult was his gf, these were her buddies she made when she was in high school. I'm not sure where the 17 year old came from tbh? I just know she was working at our store and was 17 at the time, but that's besides the point.

So, I found out recently a little before covid started when he contacted me he was trying to get evidence to press charges on me. I mean, it didn't happen and I'm still confused how I could have had charges pressed on me. When he contacted me I called him a POS, groomer, and other colorful things. Sorry, everything I knew about him and what he did to me made me feel bitter against him. I don't know if what I did may have broke laws? But who cares, this isn't what this is about. AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[feminist-space]

"“It’s not your fault,” I told 16-year-old Cara, whose mother died of a SARS-CoV-2 infection [Cara] gave her. To be clear, the doctor confirmed Cara (not her real name) had passed on the virus and Covid was entered on the death certificate as the cause of death.

Cara’s mother had not been outside their home in the weeks preceding her death.

When masks were dropped in the “Omicron’s mild” phase of the pandemic, Cara continued as the lone masker at school to protect her immunocompromised mother, who was undergoing chemotherapy. It was tolerable until a child psychotherapist said on the national airwaves that some girls would continue to mask anyway “to hide their acne”.

His words were used to bully her. Cara left, but without support from teachers she strugg­led. Her parents pleaded with the school to use the Hepa filter they bought. The school refused.

Cara eventually returned to school unmasked, caught Covid and infected her mam. It killed her. Cara self-harms because she blames herself. She hasn’t been to school since.

Research shows that more than 70pc of Sars-CoV-2 transmission in households started with a child.

The incidence was highest during unmitigat­ed in-person schooling. In a recent paper, Dr Pantea Javidan, of Stanford’s Centre for Human Rights, described the ways children’s rights to life, health and safety during the ongoing pandemic have been falsely rendered oppositional to education and development.

Methods used to manufacture consent to forcibly, repeatedly infect children, according to Dr Javidan, include minimising harms to children (“kids don’t get it or spread it”, “it’s mild”) and moral panic around mental health and educational attainment.

Regarding mental health, in August a study looking at paediatric psychiatric emergencies found school openings – not lockdowns – were associated with an increase in the number of emergency psychiatric visits.

In May, a study found that children with and without congenital heart defects showed increased risks for a variety of cardiovascular outcomes (including cardiac arrest, clots, palpitations) after Sars-CoV-2 infection.

In July, a study found that children and teenagers experienced cognitive impairment 12 months post-Covid infection, consistently correlated with poorer sleep and behavioural and emotional functioning.

Last month alone, several studies were published documenting Covid paediatric harms.

One found that children and adolescents experience prolonged symptoms post-Sars-CoV-2 infection in almost every organ system.

Study co-author Professor Lawrence C Kleinman said: “We have convincing evidence that Covid is not just a mild, benign illness for children. This is a new chronic illness in children. We need to be prepared to deal with it for a generation.”

Another study analysing paediatric and adult hospitalisations found teenagers were at greatest risk of severe disease among all children. Yet another study showed compelling connections between viral infection and subsequent autoimmune disease. Early in the pandemic, some children showed negligible Covid symptoms, only to later develop organ failure.

Researchers found the children’s immune systems had latched on to a part of the coronavirus that closely resembles a protein found in the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes and GI tract and launched a catastrophic attack on their own tissues. “Experts” who claimed asymptomatic paediatric Sars2 infections equals mild were catastrophically wrong.

Covid is consistently a leading cause of US child mortality. Paediatric mortality has increased markedly with each year of the pandemic in the US, UK and elsewhere. In 2022, over six times as many children died from Covid than from flu in the US."

[3liza]

something happened to my brain about ten years ago and shut off the "draw and paint compulsively" routines and I'm not sure what it was. I've had about six different medical-neurological events that were each individually disruptive enough to cause that kind of brain damage. so if you are a reader on this blog and really confused about why I have a CV full of professional art and art schooling but never post any drawings or paintings, that's why. I've been in scraping-in-the-dirt-level survival mode since around 2016 and then had a serious multi week near death experience in 2018 that I was statistically expected to die from, and then statistically expected to become paraplegic from, and then COVID happened and I got COVID and now I have long COVID AND the last dickhead I deigned to share my life and environment with retraumatized me (although not very severely).

I'm expecting to return to some sort of functional state within this year actually. if I can maintain my privacy and continue living alone and buy myself enough time and space I think it'll happen. my ongoing survival is entirely thanks to support from my audience, my friends, and my family.

[runawaymarbles]

9-1-1 fic recs

because if I do nothing but read 9-1-1 fic for a month solid I feel like I should. Since my bookmark notes are all spoilers. Buck/Eddie unless specified otherwise.

to your front door by hammersmiths | G | 3k

Buck and Pepa are bridge buddies and Pepa is happy to arrange everyone's lives.

i'm headed to the mountains by hammersmiths | 8k | G

a.k.a. Abby Clark does deserve rights

pick me, choose me, love me by trysetmeonfire | T | 9k

It is some kind of hell, it seems to me, to be forced to choose one irreplaceable thing over another. Buck and Chris get stuck and Eddie has to get one of them out first.

brick by spqr | E | 10k

9-1-1 fic I read and loved before I knew anything else about 9-1-1. Post lightning strike, Buck and Eddie are not at all on the same page.

i love you, ain't that the worst thing you've ever heard? by rarakiplin (gmontys) | T | 10k

"Because, Evan" is actually a love confession, but Buck's with Taylor. They handle it great.

the stick-around by derryfacts2 (winchysteria) | T | 10k

Buck is bleeding out. It's surprisingly funny.

Ace of Hearts by glorious_spoon | T | 10k

The poker night was a date but Buck doesn't realize it until later.

darlin', i'm just tryin' to tell ya by archerincombat | T | 10k

The station adopts a dog that has cancer and Ravi has some feelings about it.

still by brewrosemilk | T | 10k

Eddie is standing on a bomb.

the light's been out though, baby by hattalove | M | 15k

There's a video of the shooting.

like a hole in the ground by clytemnestra | T | 15k

Buck shares his feelings but they still don't know how to communicate.

maybe love won't let you down by sibylsleaves | M | 15k

Buck tells Eddie he loves him; Eddie thinks he himself is terrible at relationships and so he dodges the question. Things are OK until they aren't.

False Start (timing’s everything) by Morgane (smilla840) | E | 16k

Buck and Eddie hook up, and then Buck gets back together with Taylor. Ouches all the way down. It's great.

i would like a place i could call my own by maybeamystery | E | 17k

Buck and Eddie hooked up at the end of season 3. It does not make things better.

find a way to you (if it kills me) by foxwatson | M | 20k

Buck doesn't realize he has feelings for Eddie until Eddie lets Linda set him up. They both suck at coming out.

stay soft; get eaten by eddiediass | T | 20k

Ramon Diaz is dying.

every time we stop talking (the universe starts screaming) by withmeornotatall | M | 20k

Buck is being reckless, Eddie's pissed about it, and Natalia is asking a lot of questions about everybody's trauma.

where there's smoke, there's fire by wakeupnew | T | 24k

You're really not supposed to be secretly dating your coworker. Luckily, they have a union rep.

into the fire by brewrosemilk | E | 27k

Cheating fic (complimentary); Buck and Eddie sleep together. It's messy.

Tick Tick Boom by ChasetheWindTouchtheSky | 30k | T

Buck's having a breakdown; he's not talking to his parents; he doesn't tell Maddie this but he does go to drag brunch.

I Kinda Fell Half In Love (And You're To Blame) by orphan_account E | 33k

Eddie is dating Ana and Buck can't figure out why he doesn't like it. Also, Chris is trying to return to school after COVID and they're really stressed about it.

the going water and the gone by trysetmeonfire | T | 30k

Eddie is lost at sea and presumed dead. The logistics of death are complicated and custody isn't as easy as saying you want your platonic bro to raise your kid without telling anyone.

i don't swim and you're not in love by hattalove | T | 30k

Eddie is dating Ana, Buck tries to get over himself, and there's a sewer leak at Abuela's.

listen to you breathing (is where I wanna be) by Yavilee | T | 40k

Buck goes down in an earthquake and is missing, presumed. He and Eddie leave each other voicemails.

everything (nothing) has changed by bizarrestars | E | 50k

Buck goes to therapy, tells Eddie that he's in love with him but he's going to get over it, and Eddie has a meltdown for 50,000 words except this is from Buck's POV and Buck's an idiot.

across our great divide (a glorious sunrise) by catchingpapermoons | M | 50k

Buck and Eddie go to couples therapy in s5 and I? Cry.

a blaze in the dark by woodchoc_magnum | E | 117k

Buck gets caught up in Natalia, Eddie starts dating someone else, it goes about how you'd expect. Hurts in a delightful way.

tell me about despair by hattalove | M | 150k

THEEEEE Eddie Diaz fic.

just to be with you by woodchoc_magnum | M | 150k

Buck and Eddie keep their relationship secret for months and it turns out it's hard to come back from that.

The things we lost in the fire by SunSpell80

Buck's uncle molested him when he was a kid. Buck's relationship with his parents is complicated in a way that doesn't villanize them, but is still messy as fuck. I am rotating it in my brain. (Note: the author presumably wrote this before we met Buck's parents in canon, but got tired of changing the names a couple chapters in.)

[noellawrites]

Not Much of a Life - Yandere!Carmy Berzatto x reader

summary: on the run from your small town, you find a job waitressing at the newly reopened restaurant, The Bear. but you have no idea what's in store when the owner develops an obsession with you.

warnings: rape, breeding kink, stalking, obsession, domestic violence mention.

Armed with coffee in one hand and red-circled newspaper in the other, you made your way down Orleans Street. Right now, your mission was to check out two job listings: a vacuum store and a vape store. Online, they both looked a bit shabby, but you couldn’t be too picky.

As you looked around, a half-constructed storefront caught your eye. Even with the letters taken down, you could see the sun-bleached remnants on the sign: The Original Beef of Chicagoland.

Cupping your eyes, you stared through the glass. Two white men, one around your age and one a few decades older, argued as they worked together to move a countertop.

A girl around your age with long locs tied in a bandana stood on a ladder, laughing at the men as she painted over the dirty white walls.

You could see a flurry of activity in the kitchen, too. It looked like about ten people were working on various building and electrical pursuits in order to revamp The Beef.

Without a second thought, you banged on the glass and caught the attention of the two arguing men.

The older one with facial hair swung the door open, almost hitting you.

"Uh, hello! I saw you guys were working in here and I was wondering if you might be hiring?" you asked sheepishly, as the man frowned at you.

"No, sorry sweetheart," he said, pulling the door closed.

"Jesus, cousin, don't be an asshole," the other guy, with lots of tattoos and piercing blue eyes, said as he grabbed the door.

"You got any experience?"

"I waited tables in high school, I can make coffee and cook some basic stuff," you offered.

"We need a waitress. Come back next Saturday, we'll be getting ready to open. You got a phone?" He said all in one breath, running a hand through his hair.

"Yeah, here," you said, handing your phone to the man as he entered in his contact information.

"My schedule's open, I can basically work anytime. I could really use the money," you explained.

"Good, 'cause I'm sure as hell not lettin' Richie wait on customers anymore," he said, earning a "hey!" from the older man.

"Thank you--" you began, looking down at your phone as he handed it back to you, "Carmy. My name's (y/n), it's nice to meet you." You said, outstretching your hand to shake.

The moment your hands touched, you felt a jolt, almost like a spark. "I'll see you in a week," Carmy said, as you stared into his gorgeously blue eyes.

You nodded, stepping back and walking towards the L stop.

--

Carmy Berzatto had never felt like this, ever. He was always too busy to fall in love, moving from one thing to the next, perfecting his art, running the restaurant. Instead, he told himself he was perfectly fine with jerking off to meaningless porn on the nights he felt a little lonely. But that night, his mind was preoccupied with something entirely different: you.

He practically counted down the hours until you returned for your first day, the day before the grand opening of The Bear.

He found the perfect uniform for you at Goodwill. A professional dress in the same dark blue as the kitchen's aprons. It was the right size but he asked Sugar to hem it anyway, selfishly wanting to see the skin of your thighs as you carried out your duties.

Once you put the dress on, you grinned and threw your arms around Carmy, telling him how much you loved it and couldn't wait to get to work.

At family meal, you learned about the employees' lives and they asked about yours. You confessed that you were currently sleeping on your friend's couch in her apartment downtown. You'd recently moved from a small Midwestern town, wanting to experience life in the city. Your money was running low, and it had been difficult to find a job in Chicago post-covid. But nonetheless, you were excited to be there.

You felt everyone's eyes on you, analyzing your words and behavior. You'd obviously been pulled in by the glamour of city life, but hadn't been ready for reality's smack in the face.

--

The first few months of work had lulled you into a routine. Wake up, get dressed, run to the L train, ride it to the east side, walk to The Bear, all while it was still pitch-black outside. In the evenings, you did it all again, sometimes stopping at a bar before heading back to your friend's apartment.

You'd just been approved for your own place, a cheap studio apartment in an area close to The Bear. You really did love your job, despite Carmy acting a bit odd towards you. You figured he was still adjusting to managing the restaurant.

You had no idea that you'd slowly consumed Carmy Berzatto's thoughts, his life, his very being.

His every waking moment was filled with thoughts of you. You, pulling your dress off for him. Stomach round from his seed, a new maternity dress, waiting tables while heavily pregnant. Raising his children, taking them to their Aunt Sugar's. Pinning you against the wall, screaming at you. Punching the drywall beside you, making you flinch. Tears running down your face as he takes what belongs to him. You didn't have much of a life anyways. A couch-surfing runaway with drugstore makeup and hair filled with dry shampoo. You only had a life because of his generosity.

--

Your first date with Carmy was at a bar down the street. It was after work but you'd both lied about it, not wanting everyone to know you both shit where you ate.

You didn't even make it to the bar, just to the alley next to it. The stench of garbage filled your nostrils as Carmy unbuckled his pants and unzipped his fly.

You started to protest but Carmy clamped a hand over your mouth as he fished his dick out of his underwear.

"I've wanted this since the day I met you. God, I can't believe I waited this long. Cousin told me I had to take what I fuckin' want, ‘n you're mine now.”

You tried to scream and push Carmy away, eyes wide with fear. Carmy stuffed his fingers in your mouth, pressing harder and effectively muffling you.

You choked on his fingers at the back of your throat as his penis entered your vagina with a violent push. It was one of the most painful things you'd ever experienced, and you were paralyzed with fear.

You could see the outline of his muscles and the tattoos on his arms as he jerked into you, violating you with every push. Tears clouded your eyes and you prayed that he would stop soon. Your stomach tightened with fear and unwilling pleasure as Carmy released inside of you with a groan. You came soon after, whimpering on his fingers in your mouth as you shuddered in pleasure.

"I knew you wanted me. Without me, you'd be on the fucking streets," he snarled into your ear in a cruel tone you'd never heard before.

You had seeped into the cracks between Carmy's nightmares from New York, filling his head with softness and pleasure. He couldn't just dream about you anymore, he needed the real thing. And now, you didn't have much of a choice.

[tkwrites]

Our Heroes Meet - Quinn Hughes x ofc

Photos from Pinterest

Title: Our Heroes Meet

Author: Tory / @tkwrites 

Relationship: Beginning: Quinn Hughes x Original female character 

Warnings: None? First dates, first meetings, so many firsts. 

Summary: When Quinn and Sarah meet, they’re pulled into each other's lives in a way neither one expected. 

Word count: 4,300

Comments: This is the beginning snapshot of Quinn & Sarah. 

I posted this earlier, and took it down less than 4 hours after. I felt that the ending, while cute, wasn’t true to character. After re-working it, here it is again. 

It’s so cute and earnest and I just love it so much. 

Thank you so much for all the support and love for these stories. I really can’t say it enough. 

Our Heroes Meet

A Quinn & Sarah Snapshot

On a rare free afternoon with the prospect of the following day off as well, Quinn found himself wandering Stanley Park. He hadn’t really set out with the park in mind, but after being home for a few hours, playing an hour or so of Call of Duty with Jack and Luke before their pre-game naps, he needed to get out of the house. Long stretches at home alone didn’t suit him anymore after COVID, when he'd been contractually stuck inside anytime he wasn’t at the rink. It reminded him too much of those long, lonely days.

The Park was touristy, but he liked it. He liked the water, and all the trails, and there was always something new and interesting going on. 

It began to drizzle as he wandered. Within minutes, as it so often did in Vancouver, the rain picked up, pounding into the pavement in sheets. 

Cursing himself for not checking the weather before leaving his apartment, Quinn darted under the awning of the aquarium to keep from getting soaked to the skin. His first thought was to turn away and run back to his car. He didn’t need to be with big crowds of people, especially when everyone was rushing to get inside. On the other hand, he'd never been to the aquarium, and the thought of returning to his empty apartment made him squirm more than the thought of a crowd. 

So, he bought a ticket and wandered into the building, keeping his distance from others, hat pulled low so less people would recognize him. 

He was wandering the BC exhibit when he stumbled upon a pretty young woman speaking to a group of school aged children, explaining to them how octopus camouflage worked. He'd missed most of her talk, but she had several graphics attached to the tank. A little girl in the front was holding a plastic model of an octopus like it was the best gift she'd ever been given. 

The woman's dark hair was pulled up into a bouncy, wavy ponytail. Something glinted in her ears, but she wore no other jewelry. She had a curvy figure, highlighted by the jeans and t-shirt she wore. She looked put together, but not overly so. 

The thing that really made him pause was the light in her eyes when she talked. She was obviously passionate about her work and it was infectious to watch. She answered every child with the same thoughtfulness and enthusiasm. From deeper questions about how the changing environment was affecting marine life, to the little girl holding the model, who asked why octopus have eight arms. 

“You know, we haven’t really figured out why eight is the magic number for them, but they use all of them, so I guess they got to eight and decided they were done.” 

Quinn found himself chuckling while the kids giggled. 

The classes wandered away,  and she began cleaning up her display, putting models and diagrams into a bucket before easing the graphics off the tank glass.

Something pulled him to her as if he'd been hooked in the navel and reeled in. Maybe it was because Millsy had just been chirping him about being too quiet to get a girl. Maybe it was the longing he felt wandering the park alone. Maybe it was fate. Whatever it was, he couldn’t seem to talk himself out of it. 

Standing there like a fool, he watched her work for a few heartbeats too long. 

Quinn didn't like to talk to strangers if he could help it. It’s not that he was scared, necessarily, but he was quiet and often just didn't know how to break the ice. Talking to someone when he didn’t have a middle man to bridge that first interaction made him nervous.

“Can I ask you a question?” he finally said. Lame. Lame. Could he be any more fucking lame? 

“Hi there,”  she said with a bright, friendly smile that took him off guard with its forced cheerfulness. It was such a different look than she’d just been wearing that he found it unnerving that she could flip that quickly. “Where can I direct you?” 

“Oh, no,” Quinn gestured at the place he’d been standing, “I missed part of your talk,” he said, feeling his cheeks begin to blaze. “I wondered if you could tell me more about their camouflage?”

The light that had been in her face came rushing back, as if someone had flipped a switch. She met his eyes and smiled. Something twisted in his stomach. 

He was even a few inches taller than her. More boxes checked off his list.

“Sure, what would you like to know?”

Mostly, he wanted her to keep talking. Finally, his brain came up with something semi intelligent, “do they have all those colors in their skin and just bring them up to the surface when they want to?” 

“Sort of. Their skin is full of chromatophores, which are basically specialized cells that have an elastic sac that’s filled with one of a few pigments, and as they expand and contract the muscles around those cells, more or less pigment is visible. Octopus, and other cephalopods have a nerve attached to every one of those cells, so they can change almost at will. Some scientists are trying to understand if they even need to think about changing, or if it’s just an autonomic nerve response.” She stopped abruptly, “I’m sorry, that’s probably more information than you were looking for. ”

“No, it’s really interesting,” he assured. “How do you know all this? Are you just in charge of the octopus tank?”

“I'm getting my masters degree at  UBC in marine zoology. I do research with one of the octopus we have named Walter, so they ask me to do these talks while I’m here working on that.”

He laughed, “Walter? That's quite the name for a fish.”

“Right?” she agreed, resisting the urge to correct him that Walter was a cephalopod, not a fish. They were two very different categories of animals. “I didn't choose it, but it suits him. He's kind of a curmudgeonly old man sometimes.” 

His phone buzzed, reminding him it was nearly time to eat lunch. 

“Hey, I swear I don't usually do this,” he said, more for his own benefit as he silenced the vibration on his phone, “but do you want to grab some lunch?” 

She glanced at her watch and he felt his face flame as the reality of what he’d just said sunk in. He'd asked her to lunch? While she was working? How out of touch was he? Not everyone worked in the morning for a few hours and basically had the rest of the day free. 

“I have a break coming up at 1, but I'm giving another talk at 2:30, so we couldn't go very far,” she said apologetically, hoping it wouldn’t put him off. 

Quinn felt like he'd won the lottery. He just wanted to keep talking to her. It didn't matter how far they went. For all he cared, they could go to the aquarium cafeteria. “That’s fine.”

A relieved smile spread over her lips. 

Pulling out his phone, he checked the time. “So, I’ll meet you out front in twenty?” he suggested, gesturing vaguely to where he thought the front of the building was.

She nodded. 

As Sarah headed backstage, Rick, one of the aquarium staff, saddled up beside her, waggling his eyebrows, “he was cute.”

She went to scoff and wave him away, but found that she couldn’t. Her mystery man was cute. Lovely brown eyes, a few inches in height on her (which if she was being honest, wasn’t all that difficult), dark hair along with a dark shadow of a beard on his jaw, and a prominent, interesting nose that was somehow distinctive and at home on his face all at once. On top of that, he came up to her, obviously interested in what she did, and that in itself was incredibly attractive. 

He hadn’t even paused when she threw out her graduate degree, a kind of douche litmus test she’d devised to tell right away who would be too intimidated by her education and who would be cool with it. 

“I know,” she said, a little surprised by her own sincerity.

“Did he get your number?” 

“No.”

“Please tell me you got his. It’s the twenty-first century, girl. You don’t let a man like that pass you by.” 

“He invited me to lunch,” she said, feeling that overwhelming sincerity wash over her again. It was a bold move on his part, making his intentions known right away. She wasn't sure she'd ever been asked out so quickly or decisively. 

“Well, I guess that works,” Rick shrugged, as if to say it wasn’t the route he would have taken.

Twenty five minutes later, Sarah rushed to the front, dodging the local hall so she wouldn’t be pulled away to answer a question, which happened more often than she’d ever anticipated after taking this research position.

He was standing near the entrance, looking at his phone with a kind of studied practice. Like he was trying hard to seem absorbed in whatever he was looking at, but the set of his shoulders made him look like he was bracing himself.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, halting her progress, “I got stuck talking with my research supervisor.” 

He smiled, finally lifting his head, “It’s cool. Glad you didn’t stand me up though.” 

A relieved smile took over her face. “I’m Sarah by the way, I didn't get your name.” 

“Quinn,” he said, extending his hand. 

He’d forgotten to introduce himself. He'd been so caught up in keeping her talking that he forgot the most basic part of polite conversation. Internally, he rolled his eyes. 

A small spark raced up her arm when their hands touched with the formal shake. 

“So,” he shoved his hands in his pockets, unsure of what else to do with them, “where do you wanna go?”

“Oh, I…” she paused, looking out to the park, “do you have a favorite place?” 

“I'm not down this way much, so I don't really know.”

“Do you like bao?” she asked. 

He just looked at her, so she continued, “they're like dumplings with different things inside. They're Asian. There's a great place just up the street I go to sometimes.”

“I've never had it, but sure?”

Leading the way, Sarah started out of the building in confident strides that spoke of someone who had little time to waste in getting from one point to another. The rain had let up to a light mist that would do little more than dew the grass. 

“So… are you from Vancouver?’ she asked, glancing over at him. He kept pace with her easily. 

“No, I'm kind of from all over, but mostly from Michigan.” 

“Oh, cool. I'm from Nevada.”

“That's a long way for school.”

“Well, it's a bit hard to study the ocean there,” she teased, “being landlocked and all.”

He laughed. “So, you're a student and you do research, what else do you do?”

“I honestly don't have a whole lot more time. Grad school is kind of a joke that way. I hang out with my roommates,” she added, feeling incredibly lame. “What about you? What do you do?”

He cleared his throat. This conversation always went one of two ways. “I play hockey.” 

“Like, for a job?” she asked, her eyebrows shooting up into her hairline. 

“Yeah. For the Canucks.” He gestured around himself, acknowledging the city as a whole. 

She looked at him, and he held his breath, hoping his gut reaction wasn’t about to be proven wrong. 

"That must be a wild job.”

A sigh let go in Quinn's chest. “It is. I feel really lucky.”

“So you're what, 20?”

“I hope I look older than that!”

"Sorry," She laughed. "I'm so bad with age. Especially with dudes. The facial hair always throws me off, so I usually aim low.” she said, gesturing to his jaw.

He grinned at her and her heart did a pitter pattery little jig against her ribcage. 

“In any case,” she said, flipping her hands, “aren't all the guys in the NHL really young? Like, you have to be drafted before you're 20 or something?”

“21, technically,” he said, looking very impressed. “Do you follow hockey?”

“Not really, but my roommate is obsessed with the Canucks, so I've picked up a few things." 

Quinn hoped she was the good kind of obsessed. 

“So how old are you then?”

“24. You?” 

“Twenty-six.” 

The guys were going to give him so much shit when they found out he took out another older woman. 

He couldn’t help it. He liked older women. They were more likely to have their lives together in the way he did. It was easier to be himself - a little more serious and quiet than his peers - with older women, who seemed to appreciate those qualities more. 

It seemed he was naturally drawn to someone older, even when his basic instincts took over.

After 10 minutes of walking, they were seated in a cozy little restaurant, and Sarah made sure he was facing the middle, where the chef was assembling the dumplings. 

Quinn looked over the menu, feeling instantly overwhelmed. There were so many things he didn't know here. “What's good?” he asked, trying to calm his nerves. 

Truly, what the hell was he doing? He felt so out of his element. He dated, but never like this. Usually via set up and occasionally from an app, but he always knew something about his date before they met in person. 

This was all his least favorite parts of getting to know someone in a situation that felt too high-stakes. He wasn’t even sure why. Sarah was pretty. Not in the overly stunning instagram pretty way Jack usually favored, but more girl next door kind of pretty, in a way that made him interested to know her more, but he didn't feel intimidated or uncomfortable around her. Something about her tilted him off his axis enough to make him go out of his comfort zone enough to ask her to lunch. For the first time, he found himself thinking, this could really go somewhere, and that scared him shitless.

“Everything I've tried is good. You should at least try the rainbow dumplings. Then you can try all the flavors.”

He nodded and set the menu down. 

“We could split an entree too?” She suggested, sensing his unease. “The dumplings aren't really a total meal.”

“Sure. You pick.”

“Anything you don't like? Any dietary things?” 

Quinn shook his head, “no, I’m off tomorrow, so I’m not watching what I eat.”

They locked eyes over her menu, “do you have to do that a lot?” 

He nodded, “it comes with the territory. Gotta stay in peak condition, you know?” 

She didn’t, but she nodded anyway. 

He took off his cap and nervously ran his hand through his hair before replacing it. His hair was thick and a little wavy, she saw. It made her like him even more. 

After holding eye contact for a beat too long, she tore her eyes away to look at the menu again. “Do you mind if I do something a little weird?” she asked. 

When she dared to meet his eyes again, he was looking at her like he was bracing for something that was going to ruin his whole reputation. 

“I mean with ordering,” she said, laughing. 

“Oh,” Quinn felt his whole body relax, “sure.” 

“Were you worried I was going to ask for pictures of your feet or something?” 

Laughter burst out of his mouth, splitting his face into a natural, easy smile that suited him. The childish scrunch to his nose coupled with the wide, sure-of-himself smile made him look somehow younger and older at the same time.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “I’ve seen a lot of weird shit.” 

“I can’t even imagine,” she said, laughing. 

The waiter came up to the table then. 

Sarah glanced at Quinn, a smile still playing on her lips.

“You order,” he said, feeling childish. 

“We’ll have two orders of the rainbow dumplings, and whatever main dish you want to bring us.” 

Quinn choked a little on the water he was drinking. 

“Just no seafood.” 

The waiter nodded, like this wasn’t an unusual request, “spice level?” 

Sarah looked to Quinn for guidance. 

“Mild,” he said. 

“Mild, then.” 

“No allergies?” 

Sarah shook her head, and the waiter walked away. 

“Do you do that a lot?” he asked. 

“Sometimes. I have a friend who does it every time we go out. It’s a great way to try new things.” 

“And no seafood?” he asked, “has your work turned you away from it?” 

“No, not really, but I only get it if it’s sustainably sourced, and I didn’t want to have a whole conversation over who their seafood supplier is, and most waiters don't know that stuff anyway, so it’s just easier to say none.” 

Their conversation slipped into a silence that wasn't completely uncomfortable. 

“So,” she said, starting to fiddle with the things on the table, a soy sauce decanter and a square ceramic container with a tiny spoon in it. “Tell me more about yourself.” 

“Like what?”

“Like,” she paused, filtering through the questions that raced through her head, “what's your favorite movie?”

“Star Wars.”  

“Which one?”

“I like all of the original trio, but probably The Empire Strikes Back most.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. 

“Why?”

“Oh, I dated a guy a while ago who told me his favorite Star Wars movie was The Phantom Menace and I almost broke up with him on the spot.”

Quinn laughed. 

“What's your favorite?”

“Oh, I have so many,” she said, “For Star Wars: A New Hope. Overall, it kind of depends on the day, but I have some go-to comfort movies, like any of the original Marvel movies, Lord of the Rings, and this chick flick called In Her Shoes I used to watch a lot with my mom.”

Feeling more and more like he really had won the lottery, Quinn smiled at her. It was strange to think a girl like this existed and had been existing in the same city as him for some time. A woman that was cute and curvy and had so many of the qualities he always said he was looking for. Passionate about what she was doing, didn't take herself too seriously, was a bit of a nerd like he was, but not too nerdy, didn’t want to date him for clout or money.

People in his life had often wondered if the list was too long to find in a real person. He'd started to wonder the same thing over the past few months. Part of it was that it felt easier to have a long list so he didn’t have to worry about looking for someone while he was so busy. He'd always figured he'd meet someone later on in his career or even after it was done. Then he would have the time to dedicate to dating and marriage. 

Despite all that, here Sarah was, smiling at him over a lunch table like fate had just dropped her into his life. 

Their food came and they continued talking. Sarah could tell he was a quiet guy, always taking time to think before he spoke. Despite that, she didn't feel like she was carrying the conversation. It was a pleasant surprise for a first date. 

At one point, Quinn looked so lost at how to eat the dumplings that she took pity on him and gave him the instructional card from the table. “I was lost when I first came here, too,” she assured. 

When they finished, and Quinn had shut down her offer to pay for half of the food, she glanced at her watch, surprised to find that it was already 2:05. Their conversation had been so consistent and comfortable, she hadn’t realized how much time had passed. 

“Oh, shit,” she said. “I’m sorry. I have to get back.” 

“I’ll walk with you,” he said, standing and putting  a cash tip on the table. 

Sarah felt a little dizzy. Everything felt so sudden, like Karma had finally noticed all her pain and delivered her something good for a change. She’d gotten so used to slogging along, enjoying what she was doing, but not really looking forward to the future with any big hope or optimism. The sudden change had her reeling.

When they got back to the Aquarium, Quinn stopped at the entrance, tucking himself behind one of the pillars to provide a little more privacy. 

“I, uh,” he found himself saying. How did you end a date with a woman you were beginning to feel might just be your soulmate? 

“I had a really nice time,” she said. 

“Yeah, me too.”

He leaned in, trying to gauge if she wanted to be kissed, or if a hug would put him too much in the friend-zone. His brothers probably would have chastised him for not going in for the kiss right away, but the last thing he wanted was to make her uncomfortable. 

They did a short, awkward dance, neither knowing what, exactly, to do. It struck Sarah as the most uncomfortable thing on their date thus far. 

Finally, she took charge and wrapped her arms around his neck in an embrace. 

 Quinn sighed as he gathered her against him. 

His willingness to wait for her to dictate the level of physicality they shared ticked another box on her list. She wouldn’t have minded kissing him, but the fact that he respected that boundary right off the bat had game show-winner bells ringing in her mind. 

“I know you have to go, but can I get your number?” he asked, stepping back from the embrace, letting his left hand linger on her hip.

She giggled a little, thinking what a weird formality it was that he had to ask at this point. She gave him her number and he texted to make sure it was right. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she pulled it out, showing him. 

“I’ll see you later?” she asked. looking up into his face. She wasn’t surprised to find the same hope she felt reflected back at her. 

He glanced at her lips before meeting her eyes again, “yeah.”

Another glance at her watch had her stepping back from him. “I’m sorry, I’m late,” she said, turning away before turning back at the last second and brushing her lips over his cheek. “See you later.” 

He watched her run down the hall before turning around and heading back home, feeling like he could stomach an evening alone with Sarah on his mind. 

Later that night, studying in her room, Sarah finally pulled her phone from her backpack and typed out the message that had been pulling at her thoughts all day, making it impossible to really focus on anything else.

Some of her friends, she knew, would tell her she was putting too much out there too soon. Perhaps she was, but losing her mom had given her a fuck that attitude to many things - not expressing her true feelings being one of them. If it scared him off, that would tell her all she needed to know. 

She hit send, hoping she wasn’t wrong. 

Quinn was in his own apartment, not really paying attention to the Devils-Hurricanes game playing, mostly trying to figure out when it would be okay to text her. With the way everything had gone that day, he felt like any time would be the right time. The anxious part of his mind battled against that thought, worried about coming on too strong or seeming needy and messing things up. 

He pulled his phone out, finally deciding that he should just say something. 

It dinged in his hand, and her name flashed across his screen. Shocked, he dropped the phone and had to fish it out from under the couch before he could read her message. 

Thank you for today. You were such a welcome surprise. 

It was so heartfelt, he sat on the floor between the couch and coffee table for a while, re-reading their conversation.  

This is Quinn. 

Thank you for today. You were such a welcome surprise. 

The embarrassingly earnest part of him wanted to tell her all he was feeling, but he knew it was too soon to tell her he thought they could go the distance. It was too soon for him to be voicing those things to himself. He didn’t really even know her. Yet.

Sarah watched his text bubble appear and disappear several times before she clicked off her screen, unable to watch.

Her heart was rioting in her chest. Yes, fuck that, but also if he proved her wrong, she knew she would be crying herself to sleep. 

Finally - finally her phone buzzed. Hands shaking, she struggled to unlock it, eventually having to put her code in twice before it worked. His message slid onto the screen, and she released the breath she’d been holding. 

I feel the same way. I can’t wait to see you again.

Want more Quinn & Sarah? Check out the Snapshots Masterlist

To read all my fics, check out the Fanfiction Masterlist

[copperbadge]

Radio Free Monday

Good morning everyone, and welcome to Radio Free Monday!

Ways to Give:

Anon linked to a fundraiser for Davy, a fellow employee at Old Tucson amusement park, who was recently struck by a car while on his bike; he was already low-resourced, and was living in a homeless shelter with his wife and son at the time of the accident. One of the other staff at the park has started a gofundme to help support the family during his long recovery and hopefully get them a stable place to stay; you can read more and support the fundraiser here.

chibifukurou linked to a fundraiser for a fandom friend, Chroma, to get her back home so she can get help with health issues and housing. She's been stranded out of state with severe Long Covid, without access to a support network or adequate care; they're trying to get funds together to get her transportation and a month at an extended-stay hotel while she gets her feet under her. You can read more and support the fundraiser here.

Help For Free:

songspinner9 is running a Donor's Choose fundraiser for Teacher Appreciation Week, to get funds to stock her library with books that represent her students' communities and for art supplies to help her middle-school students express themselves in creative language arts and history projects. You can read more and vote for the fundraiser here!

News to Know:

soc_puppet linked to summerofthe69, an annual smut fest that is returning for 2024! You can vote here on what this year's themes should be; you need to have a Dreamwidth account to vote, but anyone is welcome to promote their favorites in the comments to the post.

Recurring Needs:

loversdoom is a college student from the Philippines, studying away from her family, and her parents are unexpectedly unable to support her education; she is dealing with a number of expenses and is now looking at costly medical procedures as well. You can read more and reblog here or give to the fundraiser here.

onedollopofsourcream is raising funds to help with food, transportation, medication for their family, and other expenses after a string of financial issues; you can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

rilee16 is raising funds to get out of an abusive home situation where their roommate has been aggressive and stealing from them; with irregular work hours and a tax debt due on top of chronic illness issues, they also need funds to repair their phone, which is dying, and cover utility bills. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can post items for my attention at the Radio Free Monday submissions form. If you're new to fundraising, you may want to check out my guide to fundraising here.

[tieflingkisser]

Biden, CDC silent as North Carolina lawmakers vote to ban masks

Biden's White House has made everyday survival hell for disabled people. Now the last tool in the toolbox is being targeted with zero pushback.

This week, North Carolina Republicans are voting to ban wearing masks in public. The bill passed in the State House easily, was amended and passed in the State Senate, and will next return to the House for a vote on the amended bill. The Republicans also hold a supermajority that could overturn a veto, and killed a Democratic amendment to allow masking for health reasons. Hot on the heels of student encampments demanding that universities divest from weapons’ manufacturers responsible for mass murder in Gaza, Republicans jumped at the chance to criminalize two of their favorite punching bags, leftists and medically vulnerable people. Disabled people and allies have met the news with chagrin, as Republicans carry out the long-predicted next step in their war on medically vulnerable people appearing in public and remaining alive. Unfortunately, as Joe Biden jokes about refusing to put his mask on after a known COVID exposure, and left/labor pundits ignore the topic altogether, “allies” are few and far between. This combination of aggressive targeting and utter lack of solidarity is leaving those who rely on one-way masking to survive more at-risk than ever before.

[...]

Since it became clear (2021-22) that vaccines would not halt COVID transmission, that the virus would quickly mutate around vaccine protection, and that herd immunity would never be achieved, our government and media have worked assiduously to normalize constant reinfections and stigmatize those who object. People who suggest that it is the governments’ role to mitigate disease are painted as annoying and weak, a narrative that came directly from libertarian think tanks. Those who attempt to protect themselves in the face of harsh abandonment are painted as paranoid and mentally ill. What happened in North Carolina today is the unsurprising result of that years-long propaganda campaign. Masks are a critical tool to protect disabled people from COVID, but many people either bought into anti-mask propaganda, or do not think COVID is dangerous. For a leftist- someone who expresses belief in community care and solidarity- being unmasked doesn’t only convey the sentiment “I don’t think I can be disabled by COVID,” it also broadcasts the accusation, “I don’t believe you can be disabled by COVID.” Being unmasked while COVID spreads unmitigated is an insistence on ones’ inalienable right to expose others to COVID without their consent. Meanwhile, the latest CDC Household Pulse Survey found 17 million Americans currently living with Long COVID, and approximately 3 in 10 reporting having had Long COVID symptoms at one point. Viral persistence is currently a leading hypothesis for the development of post-COVID disease, and “persistence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA or particles in multiple tissues for prolonged periods in patients following SARS-CoV-2 infection, particularly in patients with long COVID, is now well documented.” Mounting research shows that every COVID infection significantly damages cognitive function. Research led by Dr. Akiko Iwasaki at Yale School of Medicine continues to find immune dysregulation following COVID, and studies point to a 40% increased risk of developing autoimmune conditions after COVID. And it’s long been established that COVID substantially increases your risk of heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular complications.

[...]

But Democrats continue to stand behind their failed “vaccine-only” strategy (now, without vaccines!) because of the political impossibility of attempting to pivot. Plus, when you’ve had such blinding success mainstreaming far-right beliefs about illness building the immune system and public health being a personal choice, why change horses now?

[linghxr]

Tackling abbreviations in Chinese (简称)

Let's learn some abbreviations 简称! A common format you may encounter is ABCD -> AC. AB is one word, CD is another word, and the two can be abbreviated as AC. As a learner, these can be a bit tricky to figure out the first time, but I find that they're usually pretty easy to remember if you know both constituent words.

(1) 家庭教师 -> 家教

家教 jiājiào - private tutor 

家庭 jiātíng - family / household 教师 | 教師 jiàoshī - teacher

I mentioned 家教 in this recent post: Do you really know the meaning of a word?

(2) 环境保护 -> 环保

环保 | 環保 huánbǎo - environmental protection / environmentally friendly

环境 | 環境 huánjìng - environment / circumstances / surroundings  保护 | 保護 bǎohù - to protect / to defend / to safeguard / protection

(3) 科学技术 -> 科技

科技 kējì - science and technology 

科学 | 科學 kēxué - science / scientific knowledge / scientific 技术 | 技術 jìshù - technology / technique / skill

(4) 性别平等 -> 性平

性平 xìngpíng - gender equality

性别 | 性別 xìngbié - gender / sex  平等 píngděng - equal / equality 

(5) 限时动态 -> 限动

限动 | 限動 xiàndòng - stories (on Instagram)

限时 | 限時 xiànshí - to set a time limit / for a limited time / time-limited / limited period of time  动态 | 動態 dòngtài - movement / motion / development / trend

(6) 业务配合 -> 业配

业配 | 業配 yèpèi - writing an article or creating a video favorable to a business in return for payment from the business (Taiwan)

业务 | 業務 yèwù - business / professional work / service 配合 pèihé - to coordinate with / to act in concert with / to cooperate

(7) 客户服务 -> 客服

客服 kèfú - customer service 

客户 | 客戶 kèhù - client / customer  服务 | 服務 fúwù - to serve / service

(8) 新型冠状 -> 新冠

新冠 xīnguān - novel coronavirus (esp. SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19)

新型 xīnxíng - new type / new kind 冠状 | 冠狀 guānzhuàng - coronary / crown-shaped

Commonly see in: 新冠病毒

(9) 初级中学 -> 初中

初中 chūzhōng - junior high school / middle school

初级 | 初級 chūjí - junior / primary  中学 | 中學 zhōngxué - middle school / secondary school

高级中学 -> 高中

高中 gāozhōng - senior high school

高级 | 高級 gāojí - high level / high grade / advanced / high-ranking  中学 | 中學 zhōngxué - middle school / secondary school

And apparently 中学 itself is short for 中等学校!

(10) 国民小学 -> 国小

国小 | 國小 guóxiǎo - elementary school (Taiwan)

国民 | 國民 guómín - nationals / citizens / people of a nation  小学 | 小學 xiǎoxué - elementary school / primary school 

国民中学 -> 国中

国中 | 國中 guózhōng - junior high school (Taiwan)

国民 | 國民 guómín - nationals / citizens / people of a nation  中学 | 中學 zhōngxué - middle school

(11) 科学幻想 -> 科幻

科幻 kēhuàn - science fiction

科学 | 科學 kēxué - science / scientific knowledge / scientific 幻想 huànxiǎng - fantasy

(12) 超级市场 -> 超市

超市 chāoshì - supermarket

超级 | 超級 chāojí - super- / ultra- / hyper- 市场 | 市場 shìchǎng - marketplace / market

(13) 台湾大学 -> 台大

台大 | 臺大 táidà - National Taiwan University

台湾 | 臺灣 táiwān - Taiwan 大学 | 大學 dàxué - university / college

北京大学 -> 北大

北大 běidà - Peking University

北京 | 北京 běijīng - Beijing / Peking 大学 | 大學 dàxué - university / college

(14) 国家安全 -> 国安

国安 | 國安 guóān - national security

国家 | 國家 guójiā - country / nation / state 安全 ānquán - safe / secure / safety / security

(15) 刑事警察 -> 刑警

刑警 xíngjǐng - criminal police

刑事 xíngshì - criminal / penal 警察 jǐngchá - police / police officer

(16) 官方网站 -> 官网

官网 | 官網 guānwǎng - official website

官方 guānfāng - government / official 网站 | 網站 wǎngzhàn - website

(17) 公共安全 -> 公安

公安 gōngān - public safety / public security

公共 gōnggòng - public / common / communal 安全 ānquán - safe / secure / safety / security

(18) 双重标准 -> 双标

双标 | 雙標 shuāngbiāo - double standard

双重 | 雙重 shuāngchóng - double  标准 | 標準 biāozhǔn - standard / norm / criterion

(19) 人物设定 -> 人设

人设 | 人設 rénshè - the design of a character / image in the eyes of the public / public persona

人物 rénwù - person / personage / figure / character 设定 | 設定 shèdìng - to set / to set up / to install / setting / preferences

(20) 家庭暴力 -> 家暴

家暴 jiābào - domestic violence

家庭 jiātíng - family / household 暴力 bàolì - violence / force / violent

Definitions are adapted from MDBG. I initially only planned to include 5 or so abbreviations. Then I got a little carried away...!

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

By Julia Doubleday

Last week, Jason Gale of Bloomberg put out an excellent piece about post-COVID brain damage, titled “What We Know About Covid’s Impact on Your Brain.”

The piece is broad and draws on dozens of studies to paint a concerning picture of Your Brain on COVID. It’s not the first piece to do so in the mainstream press, but it’s one of a small handful over nearly half a decade. Gale’s piece gathers evidence pointing to increased risks of dementia, Parkinson’s disease, cognitive impairment, worsening of previous psychiatric conditions, and significant drops in IQ.

The piece goes on to mention viral persistence, immune system disruption and blood clots as linked to the cognitive impacts of COVID- all three are key targets of ongoing research into Long COVID. It’s a wonderful summary to help people get a picture of the enormous amount of research pointing to brain damage following COVID.

It also begs the question: why is the public learning potentially life-altering information about a virus they’ve almost certainly contracted multiple times now from the economics section of Bloomberg? (Or from The Gauntlet, for that matter?)

As politicians pushed us all “back to normal”, a common refrain from the top was that we “had the tools” to deal with COVID, and that individuals could now make their own decisions about what sorts of risks they were comfortable taking.

I’ve written at length about the absurdity of attempting to individualize what is a collective problem. What was once a libertarian, far-right wing idea - disease control should be the territory of individuals, not society at large- was first promoted by Republicans, then mainstreamed by liberals in order to paint Biden’s failed vaccine-only herd-immunity strategy as a success.

As we settled into a cycle of endless waves of disease driven by rapidly evolving new variants, our government and public health bodies continued to promote the fantasy that everyone can make their own decisions about whether or not to get infected.

Of course, anyone who does make the “risk assessment” that catching COVID is unsafe for them is functionally shut out of society. It’s hardly a choice freely made, as the social and economic punishments for failing to “return to normal” continue to intensify.

But it wasn’t enough to snatch away free tests, vaccines and COVID treatments, all but eliminate the isolation period for active infections, and push people to view disease control as a personal responsibility. Along with instructing people to make their own “risk assessments” about COVID, our government also downplays, minimizes, and flat out denies the risks of recurrent infections.

For example: COVID causes cognitive damage. That seems like an important piece of information to give the American public while you encourage them to make risk assessments about whether to contract it every year, does it not?

What about parents deciding to send their kids back to schools with zero precautions?

Should they be warned that COVID carries a significant risk of brain damage following infection, before deciding whether it’s a good idea to let their children catch it twice a year?

And if that information is quite deliberately kept from the public by the same bodies failing to provide collective mitigations, are you asking people to make “risk assessments”, or are you just pushing them to catch COVID?

Let’s review what the public has been told about cognitive damage after COVID by the CDC, the President, the administration, and prominent media figures.

The CDC’s twitter account has never tweeted the words “cognitive damage” or “brain damage” in reference to COVID. On March 23, 2023, the CDC twitter account posted its only reference to “brain fog”:

"Common symptoms of Long COVID include fatigue, shortness of breath, fast heartbeat, & brain fog. If several weeks have passed since you had #COVID19 & you still have symptoms that interfere with your daily activities, talk to your doctor."

The current CDC Director, Mandy Cohen, has never tweeted the words “cognitive damage,” “brain damage” or “brain fog.” Neither has former CDC Director Rachelle Walensky.

In interviews, Mandy, like the rest of the administration, likes to keep it vague. Brain damage is certainly not on the talking points menu; no specific outcomes are. We are “living with COVID”. We “have the tools”. She encourages vaccinations and not masks, the tool that can actually prevent infection. In a 2023 media tour about “rebuilding trust” with the public, she repeatedly refers to the pandemic in the past tense although the pandemic is ongoing according to the WHO.

Here’s an interesting one: former White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha has tweeted about COVID brain damage once: on June 17, 2021, ten months before he joined the administration. He’s since become a prominent minimizer who calls masking “fringe” and downplays post-COVID immune system dysregulation, but here’s what he had to say in June 2021:

"Important study out of UK

Worth your time

Researchers examined brain MRIs of people before and after they got COVID, matched with controls

What did they find?

Substantial loss of grey matter in those who had gotten but recovered from COVID

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.11.21258690v1 "

Wow! Seems like the kind of thing the White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator would want to share with people, rather than never mention again.

And of course, the most subtle propaganda the Administration, fellow politicians, and CDC leaders employ is their refusal to mask or appear to mitigate COVID in any way. If each COVID infection carries a risk of brain damage, surely the Director of the CDC wouldn’t constantly show up in public spaces - including airport terminals- maskless?

The President famously wouldn’t even mask after testing positive for COVID, shortly before dropping out of his re-election campaign. He, certainly, has never talked about COVID’s effects on the brain (if indeed, he’s aware of them), instead using airtime to brag about defeating disease mitigation tools. “The pandemic is over,” he incorrectly stated in the fall of 2022, “if you notice, no one is wearing masks,” he went on to say, correctly identifying his success at stigmatizing COVID prevention.

Perhaps no single outlet is more responsible for the dishonest normalizing of continual COVID reinfections than the New York Times newsletter The Morning in the hands of David Leonhardt. During the mass death event of Omicron Wave 1, Dave was the main party responsible for the “omicron is mild” narrative (a lie) that spread round the world. This February, he “both sides’d” vaccinating children because, quote, “children are extremely unlikely to become seriously ill from Covid”. As recently reported by CBS News, up to 5.8 million kids have Long COVID.

Of course, it’s fantastic that CBS News is reporting on the damage that has been done to children by returning them to classrooms without upgraded ventilation or other mitigations. It would have been better if major media outlets had conveyed this risk before millions of children were disabled.

It’s also great that Bloomberg is reporting about the brain damage that can follow COVID, deep diving the research and putting forward three of the most compelling explanations for Long COVID. But how many people, nearly five years into the crisis, know anything about this topic? How many people who are three, four, five infections in, consented to these risks when they took their masks off?

Who is responsible for this ignorance? Is it not the public health bodies and politicians charged with responding to the virus?

In interviews and speeches, it’s not only cognitive damage that our elected leaders and public health officials fail to mention. President Biden has said the words “Long COVID” a handful of times publicly. Vice President Harris has never said them. Is this not bizarre to anyone who expects the Democratic party to convey scientific facts about the pandemic to the public? Is it not clearly an attempt to hide those harmed by the ongoing “let it rip” strategy from view?

When tens of millions of Americans are disabled by a virus on your watch, never uttering the name of the disease they have is deliberate, and leaves sufferers of Long COVID struggling with stigmatization in their personal lives. By enforcing silence around Long COVID at the top of the Biden Administration, in the CDC, and among media talking heads, the public is encouraged to doubt and dismiss the condition entirely.

If this administration is so certain the public would freely choose to ignore the millions suffering from Long COVID, the risks of infection including brain damage, the high rates of transmission in our communities, and continue to opt out of mitigations and mask wearing, why do they work so hard to hide all of the above?

Why do they, along with most other electeds on the Hill, pretend they have never heard the words Long COVID, refuse to acknowledge the ongoing toll of mass infection, and continue to push testing and data out of reach? Is this the behavior of leaders who are confident that the public has freely chosen to cruelly and deliberately abandon millions of people to long-term chronic illness, and to repeatedly risk joining them?

Or is it the behavior of leaders who know they are on borrowed time, sweeping the ever-growing body of evidence and ever-higher pile of victims under the rug while stubbornly repeating that “nobody is wearing masks”?

Scientists, advocates and reporters face an uphill battle getting information about the risks of repeated COVID infections to the public. It is uphill not because of the lack of studies, resources, victims, or voices, but because those who could do the most good continue to use their platforms to do the most harm. As long as the public receives the message from our leaders that recurrent COVID infections aren’t dangerous, the truth has a high wall of propaganda to hurdle.

Nevertheless, the truth continues to emerge via studies, articles, the people who’ve been harmed, and those who care. It’s unfortunate that our public health officials and politicians will be remembered for hiding the facts about COVID, rather than disseminating them.

[redhairedwolfwitch]

In Sickness - Aitana Bonmatí x Reader

A/n: this fic is covid heavy and based on my personal experiences, so there is content involving covid, hospitals, detiled medical stuff, anxiety (because i felt a lot of it on that lovely day where i was in a&e for nearly two days...) so read at your own risk because i probably overshared. take care of yourselves. @grapefruit-personified enjoy:) especially because i wrote this months ago and part 2 is mainly written, i just lost motivation to finish anything.

do not repost this anywhere, i only post on this tumblr so unless it's a reblog, it was stolen.

///

You could remember the day you met her. You had just moved to Spain, knowing zero Spanish made you shy and you were struggling with school, not understanding much. She spotted you sitting on the grass, tying together daisies into chains one lunch time, eventually she went over to join you instead of playing her usual lunchtime football.

The on hold music finally stopped as the clinician returned to the phone, advising you to get to the closest A&E department within the hour, after asking you if you had some way to get there.

Checking the time on your phone, you grimaced at the 12% and decreasing battery before admitting you had no way to get to A&E, resulting in advice for an ambulance, but a taxi would be quicker.

Your teammates were already at training, so none of them would be answering their phones, and your partner, she was where you left her. Barcelona.

Her last message to you was a good morning one, a message you had mirrored before the stabbing pain in your ribs had gotten worse.

You’d been able to withstand the pain yesterday, but it was stabbing more and more, getting more intense and making it hard for you to do anything. Now you were masked up in the back of a taxi, your breathing laboured as you waited for the Manchester hospital you’d been given the address to to come into view.

Leila frowned as she looked around the Manchester City training ground, wondering where you were and if you were stuck in traffic or something.

It was ‘or something’. Sitting in the emergency department, it took over an hour for you to be moved from A&E to the major emergency department, but your blood pressure and heart rate were high enough that they did an ECG. The nausea from before had stopped, but the hot and cold flashes hadn’t.

Your phone was on 8% as you checked the notifications, having no internet connection meant you didn’t have many, but Leila had texted along with the staff asking where you were.

You were barely able to send a pin of your location to Leila before the 5% battery warning lit up your phone, but you were cut off as a healthcare worker approached, wheeling over the machine to check your vitals.

Vitals that were circling the toilet, especially after a sweet old woman had spotted you swaying in your half asleep state in the waiting room chair, helping you move to a recliner that enabled you to lean back safely.

The back and forth to and from the waiting room was draining, after emerging again to return to the waiting room with a cannula in your arm.

They’d taken blood to grow some blood cultures, apparently to see if it was bacterial or viral, before leaving you in the waiting room again, attaching a small bag of fluids to the cannula to hydrate you after taking more blood to check on your general functioning. It was the nasal swab that gave them all the information they needed though.

Your COVID test was positive, but that wasn’t the only concerning factor to your vitals. They were too high, even for an individual fighting a virus. They offered you paracetamol to try to bring your temperature down, but your blood pressure had dropped slightly, your heart was still racing and your d-dimer was slightly higher than normal. 

You couldn’t fight back the tears after that, the waterfalls hidden behind your mask as they discussed keeping you in observation even longer, asking about if you had a family history of blood clots in lungs or legs.

At this point you’d only had a couple of small packets of random biscuits to eat, eventually heading into the waiting room that you had been isolated from to protect other patients, to quickly grab a packet of crisps and some more water, but it was all too much.

You didn’t know Leila had gotten your location update once in the changing room after training, and when she got no response, she began to ask questions.

The club staff had no answers after discovering your emergency contact you had written down for the club knew nothing, and the hospital told Leila nothing after being given a name she hadn’t heard of for your emergency contact.

So Leila contacted someone who would know. Your partner. Even in Barcelona, Aitana would know who your hospital emergency contact was, Aitana knew everything about you, except that you were in hospital.

It was getting closer to dinner time, you had nothing with you but your wallet, nearly dead phone and your zip up hoodie that was one of Aitana’s old Barcelona ones. Your legs and bum were going numb under the crappy waiting room chair you’d been moved to, your vitals still far too high for anyone to be comfortable sending you home.

They’d talked about giving you a blood thinning medication but a change in doctor later had you recalling all of your family health history instead. This doctor said it was sounding unlikely that you had a blood clot in your lungs, but they still sent you for a chest x-ray.

Aitana hadn’t heard from you all day. The panic inside her kept restrained by the knowledge you were probably training and having fun with your team.

Until Leila called, asking about a family member who had been out of your life for years now. A family member who was apparently still your emergency contact in NHS systems. It didn’t take long for Aitana to read through what Leila had sent, realising immediately you were in hospital and nobody had heard from you since.

It was closer to 8pm when they gave you the blood thinning injection in your stomach, keeping you hydrated with more water and trying to control your fever with more paracetamol.

You had all of the notices on the walls of the hospital waiting rooms memorised at this point, but the ‘one visitor per patient’ in the hospital policy was useless when you had come to the hospital alone.

Your arms were freezing cold, but you couldn’t get your sleeve on over the cannula without almost crying in pain, so you wrapped the shoulders of the hoodie around your shoulders and hoped your hands wouldn’t feel so cold so much longer.

The next flight to Manchester from Barcelona would arrive at Manchester airport past 11pm, but Aitana had made it to the airport in time for it, especially after asking her teammates for help.

They didn’t move you far, but once you had curled up across the two waiting room chairs, you were moved into an isolated room with a small view through the door of the nurse’s station outside.

The walls were bare minus plug sockets for machinery, a table near the recliner you were able to set up for the night, a sink in the corner and a bin for clinical waste in the other. It was past 10pm when a healthcare worker came in, attaching a bag of fluids to the cannula in your arm and leaving you alone in the dark.

Exhaustion washed over you but the cold feeling of the fluids being administered into your arm kept you half awake. Your phone is barely holding on with its 5% battery but the message Aitana sent when it was closer to midnight gave you hope.

She had rented a car from Manchester airport, getting her spare key from Leila to sort of your home for the night. A home that she had helped you pick out when it was clear Barcelona’s A team had no room for you, and you had outgrown Barcelona Team B.

One glance around your Manchester home was all it took for her to calm her anxieties. You weren’t there. Your bed was a mess, bedding all but tossed on the floor as she moved to pick up the bedding, finding some pyjamas for your return.

You were going to be okay.

She convinced herself of such as she checked your fridge, rolling her eyes at the nearing emptiness of your fridge and cupboards. She’d have to figure out how to do an online food shop.

It was closer to midnight when the first big bag of fluids was finished, sticking your head out of the door to have the tubing removed from the cannula, you headed towards the toilet for what was one of many trips there during the night.

You’d stopped looking at your phone hours ago, but getting a glance at the time after each toilet trip, it was nearly 2am when the next bag of fluids was administered, once again leaving you laying on the recliner in the dark, listening to every beeping alarm and footsteps passing by.

You probably should have called Aitana and told her what was going on, but every time you got an update, it was from a different healthcare professional and they kept changing their minds. For example, the blood thinning injection had been talked about hours before it was eventually given. You had managed to send out a short text though. 

You were COVID positive.

It was after 4am that you finished the next round of fluids, two bags that looked like they were cloudier, perhaps full of nutrients but the writing on the bags were small and you were more interested in going to the toilet again after flagging down someone to detach the tubing from the cannula again.

Your temperature and heart rate were fluctuating throughout the night, going from 39 point something degrees celsius to an apparent normal of 37 degrees, before rising again to 38.1 degrees celsius.

Waiting until 8am, another doctor came in, explaining the goal to get you a CT scan of your chest early this morning to check for blood clots, and if there were none, they planned to discharge you to ride out the COVID at home. It was only then that you were able to request something to eat, since your last meal yesterday was a three pack of digestive biscuits.

One bowl of cornflakes and milk later, you were offered more paracetamol and left to wait until it was time for your CT scan.

Your arms were freezing despite attempts to keep warm under the one blanket you were given, plus a smaller blanket to act as a pillow for your head.

They didn’t want to increase your temperature by giving you another, so you worked with your hoodie, the softness of the fabric working to keep you calm as you waited, and waited.

Aitana hadn’t been able to sleep much. The worry of you still being in hospital consuming her, so she stayed up, using a multi-surface cleaner to wipe down the surfaces in your place, gather your medical supplies in case you needed them to fight off the COVID virus.

You didn’t hear from anyone until noon, but the CT scanner was ready for you, and after a quick check that you were okay to walk, you followed the healthcare worker to the CT scanner room, a different location entirely to where the emergency x-ray rooms were located.

They checked you weren’t allergic to the contrast dye they would administer via the cannula, before warning you of the warm feeling that often overtakes your body once administered, and how it would feel like you had wet yourself, even though you would not have actually wet yourself.

Your arms ached as you held them above your head for the chest CT, slamming your eyes shut at the horrid feeling of the scanner moving, you remained still as you were informed what was happening, and when they were administering the CT contrast dye.

The warm feeling was too hot to feel like you had actually wet yourself, but it was a horrid feeling that didn’t help the nausea at the CT scanner moving to get the required imagery of your chest. You just wanted to go home, but it would be a lot worse if you did in fact have blood clots on your lungs.

Walking back to your isolation room, you were playing a waiting game as you managed to send another text to Aitana, updating her that you had had the CT scan. 

It was getting towards 1pm when the vitals machine was wheeled into your room, checking your temperature (38.1 degrees celsius), your heart rate which had decreased from 140 beats per minute to 128 beats per minute.

Your oxygen levels had maintained high throughout but when it came to the healthcare worker checking your pulse, your wrists were still freezing to the touch.

There were no signs of your CT scan results, but the healthcare worker had been kind enough to ask if anyone had spoken to you about food, something you had not had since being brought the cornflakes hours ago.

The result of the conversation turned into a sandwich, some more water, and a yoghurt as you continued to play the waiting game for your scan results and whether you did or did not have blood clots in or on your lungs.

It was nearing 2pm when the doctor from this morning entered your room again, but the key piece of information you needed was given. Your CT scan was clear, you could be discharged and have your cannula removed. You could go home and ride out the COVID in your own bed.

Your phone was somehow holding on as you texted Aitana that your scan was clear so you could go home if she or someone else could pick you up from the main reception carpark, your phone sending the message and getting a thumbs up response before finally the battery dropped to 0%.

Sticking your head out of the door, the mask you had been wearing since yesterday felt damp and close to your face, but you did not remove it yet. Waiting for a nurse to come remove the cannula in your arm, you went for your final toilet break before the final hospital waiting game.

It was warm outside, and despite the clouds in the sky making it seem greyer than that one moment where you saw out a window when waiting for the CT scan, it was sunny too. Your phone was long dead, but you were alive.

Holding your hoodie in your arms, your phone and wallet in your pockets as you made the trek across the main reception disabled car park, lingering near the out of use bus stop that gave you a perfect vantage point of the entrance into the hospital from the main road.

You weren’t entirely sure who you were looking for, who would be your saviour and get you home until a car you didn’t recognise pulled up in front of you. The window going down to reveal a pair of eyes you had not seen in person since the two of you were in Italy together during the winter break.

“Mi dulce flor!” you exclaimed, shock in your tone but your throat felt like you were swallowing knives, barely getting into the passenger seat before you were almost hacking up your lungs into your mask.

“Cálmate, estoy aquí mi amor.” Aitana cooed, her hand lingering on your back as you coughed, eventually settling enough to put your seatbelt on so Aitana could drive you home.

“Are you hungry?” Aitana paused, going over the English in her head as she watched you walk over to your couch, appearing with several blankets before digging through your living room cabinets for something.

“Bebé?” Aitana broke the silence as you froze before letting out a hoarse cheer of victory.

“Found it!” Revealing the old box set that left Aitana smiling softly, watching as you went to play the series from the beginning, then disappearing to your room.

It was getting dark when Aitana realised your phone was charged, allowing you to finally message your teammates and staff at Manchester City with an update of what had happened. But it also gave Aitana a chance to message her teammates and the staff at Barcelona, sending a photo of you wrapped in blankets, half asleep as you watched the TV.

It was Alexia, Patri and Laia that messaged back first, Alexia having helped Aitana get to the airport the night before whilst Patri and Laia had held down the fort when Aitana had to leave.

“What happens when you miss training? You have the game against Atleti… and the game against Chelsea-”

“Shush, mi amor. You were alone in the hospital for more than a day, I am not leaving you again.” Aitana replied, passing you your drink as you began to cough.

“They worried you had, what did you call it? Blood clots on your lungs! Era serio!” Aitana exclaimed before quietening her voice as you grimaced at the loudness.

“Lo siento.”

“It is not your fault. The virus…” Aitana fell quiet, brushing away a tear as you reached for her hand, holding it gently, “I thought I would lose you, mi dulce flor. I cannot lose you.” Aitana admitted, feeling your fingers draw patterns in the back of her hand. Your eyes were glassy with exhaustion but the love for Aitana in them was undeniable. 

She wouldn’t admit it, but Aitana listened to your breathing for most of that night. It was heavier, but you kept breathing which was a relief to her. The windows were opened enough to air out the room from germs, your fear of giving Aitana the dreaded virus which was wreaking havoc on your body and mind overwhelming you.

You didn’t want to get out of bed, the way your body ached was not helping you but Aitana needed your help for an online order of food. You were running a fever that was kept at bay by paracetamol, tapping away on the touch screen to add things to the order, much to Aitana’s amusement at how quickly you were doing it.

She found you on the couch later, curled up under your blankets and clad in your dressing gown over your pyjamas. You were breathing heavily but you remained in deep slumber, the tv stuck replaying the menu music over and over as you’d gotten to the end of the disc. 

Feeling your forehead to check your temperature, Aitana froze as it sounded like you whimpered in your sleep, eyes cracking open as you smacked together your dried lips. “Your hands are cold.”

Aitana rolled her eyes playfully before disappearing for a moment, dropping something in your lap as she returned.

“Lip balm? Gracias mi dulce flor.” Your voice was laced with sarcasm but Aitana ignored it in favour of heading to your kitchen to make something that didn’t irritate your mouth.

You hadn’t admitted it at first, but you had been trying to hide the grimace at the toast you had this morning, the rough texture hurting the hard palate of your mouth.

Staring up at the ceiling of your living room, your eyes fluttered shut as memories flickered in your mind. The first time you met Aitana, the flower crowns the two of you would make together, and the dynamic duo the two of you became on the football pitch, despite the boys picking on Aitana for her height, and you for existing.

Aitana was 13 when she joined Barcelona’s youth team, whilst you took longer to join, the two hour rides by public transport to get to practice were not in your favour until you were travelling with Aitana and her father.

The two of you were moved up to Barcelona B close together, but when Aitana was 17, she was promoted by the manager to the first team, whilst you remained with Barcelona B. It didn’t take long for you to figure out why.

You had the talent, but Barcelona were full of talented players, they had no room for you. No matter how well you and Aitana played together, you would not get to play with Barcelona’s first team.

It broke your and Aitana’s heart to leave, but Manchester City gave you an offer that was better than any other club in Spain. Manchester City were not Barcelona, but you flourished there. You flourished into a player that Barcelona kept an eye on, until your contract with City began to run out in the summer and the talks to renew were at a stalemate.

And now you have covid. A virus that you’d seen and heard of other players getting back during the height of the pandemic, but none were so affected as you were now. None had to be hospitalised despite being clinically healthy. They bounced back, but despite Aitana’s remarks that you would be back stronger, you doubted it.

The exhaustion hadn’t left you alone, even days later. Your temperature was kept at bay by paracetamol, your coughing grew worse before it was better, your gums so sore that eating crunchy foods still hurt, and you felt like you had cotton wool in your ears and wrapped around your brain.

Even after you were testing negative, your energy levels remained low but Aitana had to leave for London for the match against Chelsea before returning with the team to Barcelona.

She had tested negative throughout somehow, and it broke her heart to leave you, but it wasn’t long until the end of the season and the two of you would be reunited again.

The match against Chelsea ended on good terms for Barcelona, with a 1-0 advantage in the first leg thanks to Caro, and whilst you watched Aitana struggle to get on the ball in the first half, the second half enabled your partner to have more of the ball, despite the lack of goals.

You weren’t the only player who wasn’t on the Manchester City squad list for the match against West Ham the day after though.

Sandy and Laia were both out with injuries, and you were still weak and recovering from the virus that rampaged your body and mind. You sat with the two of them as you observed the game against West Ham, City winning 6-2 against the Hammers.

Your cough didn’t fully leave you alone, but that wasn’t the only issue. Your joints hated you enough that your knee joints felt like cement, your ears felt like they had cotton wool stuffed in them, and because of this, you were more wobbly on your feet than you had ever been before.

Manchester City had ruled you out for the rest of the season too quickly for you to feel comfortable, but it wasn’t what was bothering you. The talks that were previously at a stalemate had fallen through. Manchester City had decided not to renew your contract, and you couldn’t help but blame yourself.

“City don’t want me anymore. They took me in when Barcelona had no place for me, but now… I feel like a broken toy cast away when I’m no use anymore.” You left a voicemail for Aitana, she was busy training for the next leg of the semifinals against Chelsea.

Your hands tingle as you begin to type up what you had to, what you needed to say, to get control over something in your life.

Although some people may be excited by the prospect of a player who originated from Barcelona’s youth teams being a free agent who could come home, you knew the reality was much worse.

City were still at least trying to help you with your recovery but your hopes of returning to your pre-covid state were fading, especially after they ruled you out for the remainder of the season.

‘It’s a bitter feeling. Realising that the last game I played would be my final game at Manchester City. A club that took me in when I was lost, you have taught me so much and I will always be grateful. Thank you for changing my life, but my part at Manchester City is over. I won’t forget any of it.’

It was an early goodbye, City still had four matches left, two at home and two away. You would get to attend the home matches in the crowds, but you wouldn’t get to step on the pitch in City colours again.

Your lungs were fine according to the staff at City, your cough coming and going but it was your joint and fatigue issues that were the problem.

Your energy levels came and went, and even though they had had you training alongside your teammates some days, you would be wiped out after.

You had even fallen asleep in the dressing room at one point, using a hoodie that Aitana had worn whilst she stayed with you as a makeshift pillow. Leila was the one who found you,  but it was Steph that convinced you to let her drive you home, your body too sore to walk this time.

Steph remained silent as you sat in her passenger seat, tears falling down your face as you sobbed, venting your feelings of everything.

How your illness had wrecked your body and mind, how much you missed the old you, how much you missed playing and how much it hurt to leave Manchester City at the end of the season.

How afraid you were for what was to come, and how far away you felt from your partner, the love of your life you’d known since you were both children.

Steph, who knew what it was like to be away from a team due to injury, then dropped from the squad, but instead of her club, it was her national team.

You hadn’t even thought about the World Cup, but you knew deep down you would not be called up. You could barely stay standing after training, you would not be able to play a full ninety minutes in your current state at all.

“Do you know where you’ll go in the transfer window? Will you go back to Spain?”

“My love is in Spain, and I have nothing here outside of Manchester City. I’m lucky that City helped me with my coaching qualification before I got sick. I hoped that I wouldn’t need it immediately, but I’ll be a free agent in the transfer window, and I don’t know if anyone wants a player recovering from covid. Everyone else bounced back from it so quickly, but the simplest of things hurt me now. Please, I just want to go home and sleep.” You vented, swiping at your eyes to get rid of the tears, but Steph frowned at the last sentence you said.

“Don’t shut yourself away from us, little one. You may be leaving the club but you’re not leaving our hearts or our thoughts. So please don’t shut yourself away.” Steph begged, hoping you would make some sort of promise, but you didn’t.

It was a promise you could not keep.

/// translations hopefully ///

mi dulce flor - my sweet flower

Cálmate, estoy aquí mi amor - calm down, i'm here my love

Bebé - baby

lo siento - i'm sorry

gracias - thank you

[redgoldsparks]

July reading and reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Reviews below the cut.

Practical Anarchism: A Guide For Daily Life by Shuli Branson 

I picked this up after listening to the author's excellent interview on Gender Reveal. I'd never read an explanation of anarchy before and found this one accessible, intersectional, and rich with references to follow up on. Branson's basic argument is for recognizing that the state exists only to perpetuate its own power, and aids citizens only incidentally and when doing so doesn't conflict with maintaining control. In light of this, citizens should seek to gain as much freedom in daily life as they can by supporting community and mutual aid, by refusing hustle culture and separating self-worth from productivity, by spending as much time as they can on things that bring pleasure, joy, peace, and stealing from corporate workplaces among other things. Many sections of this book I found myself simply agreeing with, while other chapters (especially the sections on Work and Art) really challenged a lot of my internalized beliefs. I'm very glad I read this and imagine I will return to it in the future, especially when I'm able to read more on this topic.

How I Attended An All-Guy’s Mixer vols 1-6 by Nana Aokawa (fan translated) 

College students Tokiwa, Asagi, and Hagi are invited to a mixer with some college girls, but when they arrive they are greeted by three handsome boys at their reserved table. It turns out the girls they planned to meet at all work at a cross-dressing bar! Suo is a devastatingly charming and confident prince; Kohaku has a prickly exterior but a soft, shy interior; and Fuji draws smutty fan comics in her free time and is constantly on the lookout for new models. This goofy premise turns into a very sweet and funny slice of life comic as three couples with very different dynamics begin to develop. Sadly, I cannot find these books available in English so I am reading them at a sketchy online site, lol. I hope they get translated at some point because I've been completely sucked in and read four volumes in like 24 hours :3

Barda by Ngozi Ukazu

Barda is the captain of a soldier unit from a torture/hell world called Apokolips. Her backstory includes being kidnapped as a child and tortured into serving as the perfect weapon in a very black and white interplanetary war. Her torturer is an old woman named Granny Goodness. They work for a classic evil emperor named Darkseid, who has the son of his major enemy locked in his dungeons. At the beginning of the book, Barda is told to investigate how this guy, named Scott Free, keeps managing to almost escape. This is challenging material to make something out of. It feels so ridiculous, so campy, so over the top, I had a hard time taking the premise seriously- especially as this torture world has to obey PG-13 movie rules about not showing any blood or actual human mutilation. All that being said, I think Ukazu wrote about the best modern take as you possible could with these characters. The writing is quippy, smart, empathetic; I enjoyed the page layouts, color palette choices, and the emotional arc she takes Big Barda on through the book, even though I wanted it to go a little farther at the end.

We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds

Avery is a queer biracial teen, uprooted from her DC home just before senior year of high school by a family emergency which relocates her and her parents to Bardell, Georgia. Avery's grandmother, Mama Letty, has cancer and the prognosis isn't good. Avery is also fresh from a breakup with her first ever girlfriend. Her early years of high school were ruined by Covid, and she doesn't want to waste her last year as well in a back-woods town. But despite herself, Avery is drawn towards the people of Bardell and the ways she learns their histories tangle with her own. There's Carol, the woman next door, who was Avery's mom's best friend in high school but who know barely speaks to her. There's Carol's daughter, Simone, whose colorful locs catch Avery's eyes immediately. There's Jade, Simone's best friend at school whose family is linked to more than one tragedy in the town's history. And there's Mama Letty herself, who Avery wants to get to know, but time is running out. I read this book in just under a week while on vacation and really enjoyed it! It felt refreshingly grounded and real after some of the YA I've tried and DNFed recently.

Yotsuba vol 10 by Kiyohiko Azuma

Utterly charmed by the entire chapter that's just Yotsuba learning how to cook pancakes. What a good reminder that fine motor control is a learned skill! I also liked how Yotsuba's dad handled a lie about some broken dishes. This is such a great series.

Sunhead by Alex Assan 

In Tel Aviv, teenage Rotem spends her free time hanging out with friends and obsessively re-reading her favorite book, Sunrise, a vampire romance. She doesn't know anyone else into the series and has to wait for the next book to come out in Hebrew. But she does meet another reader, Ayala, who sits out of gym class every single week, sometimes with a Jane Austin novel. Rotem lends Ayala the vampire book and suddenly she has a fandom friend. This book very delicately, and at times wordlessly, explores the way a fictional story can act as a lens for teen questioning of gender and sexuality. The book feels almost memoir like with its groundedness in very real teen emotions and relative lack of external conflict. It's a simple story but beautifully illustrated and relatable.

Witch Hat Atelier vol 12 by Kamome Shirahama

This is an action packed volume that sticks more closely to Coco, which is what I want out of the series. I'm still frustrated by the overload of new characters who I'm struggling to keep tract of. But the art is so stunning I'll probably keep reading.

Otonari Complex vol 1 by Saku Nonomura (fan translated)

Akira is a tall tomboy who befriended a shorter, prettier boy named Makoto in elementary school. In college, they are still inseparable, and many people mistake them for a straight couple- though usually they think Akira is the boy and Makoto the girl. Makoto only adds to this confusion by frequently cross-dressing. I enjoyed the friendship and gender mix-ups, but I don't love how every single secondary character either wants to date one of the two leads, or whats to separate the two leads because their close friendship might prevent them from dating in the future. Get out of their business, randos! They are clearly on a very slow friends to lovers arc, leave them alone to figure out their shit.

Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen read by Vikras Adam 

At the start of this book, in 1959, Andy Mills is at rock bottom. The former San Francisco cop was fired after being discovered in flagrante with another man at a gay bar. He is seriously considering suicide because he can't see any other options. Then a well dressed older woman, Pearl, sweeps into his life and asks him to solve a weeks old murder that occurred on her private Marin estate. Pearl is a lesbian and widow; her wife was the owner of a well known floral soap company and she died under mysterious circumstances. Pearl was unable to call in the police at the time because nearly everyone who lives on the soap flower farm estate is queer. A small group of biological and found family has made a safe, gated community for themselves- safe, that is, until one woman fell to her death from a second floor balcony. Andy isn't too hopeful about solving a case with little to no evidence, but he gives it a try, and he is blown away by seeing multiple queer couples living opening together in the same household. This was a solid story, though it didn't have that magic spark that sometimes captures me in murder mysteries. I was all ready to say I probably wouldn't continue the series, and then a 15 minute sample of the second book played after the end of the first in the audiobook. The second one already sounds MUCH more fascinating than the first, in part because Andy starts the sequel in touch with an intriguing queer community and setting up a new PI business. So I might try the next book after all!

Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream by Greg Sarris 

A wonderful, lively memoir of Pomo basket weaver and medicine woman Mabel McKay, as written by Greg Sarris, who knew her for most of his life until she passed in the early 1990s. Sarris is currently the chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria based in Sonoma County which serves the local Pomo and Miwok populations. Sarris is very much also a character in this story, which lays out many conversations had on long car rides up and down the California coast, while Sarris drove McKay to give talks at universities and museums or to visit her relatives. The story is non chronological but still immersive, telling of McKay's childhood, her early years doctoring and making baskets, and her life-changing friendship with Essie Parrish, another basket weaver and important figure in Sonoma county. I'd highly recommend this book, especially to anyone interested in West Coast history, and very especially if you grew up in California.