#Same scenario basically but it's worse because my co worker and I are the ones flirting

[myfriendsseemylikesonmain]

Scenario where Mashita and Yashiki were basically flirting, and one of the kids says "Oh, they're dating" to another one and it somehow circulates back to Yashiki and he's stressing about it because they haven't truly talked about what they are, and he's scared the mark bearers will hate them for being gay bc time era.

Mashita hears about it after a couple days of Yashiki angsting and goes to comfort him and they talk it out. Mark bearers are supportive obv. and yay happy ending

Am I projecting the definitely-non-issue I'm having right now? Absolutely not.

[ceruleanchillin]

141 x American Reader

141 x American Fem!Reader

Note -

I was trying to do some quick scenarios and got caught up. I still have yet to figure out how to get in and get out with my writing.

I had to do some research to see if they had a PX (The Exchange) in the UK, and they do! They even have a Charley’s.

I need so much more practice until I'm more confident in these characters (and their accents...)😩

Simon:

Boston wasn’t terrible in Simon’s eyes, but he would still rather be home. He wasn’t really on leave, he had business on behalf of the task force with some American contacts. However, it was a lot of downtime and waiting, and it was twisting his head around to be working and resting so frequently together. He liked most things separate, easier that way.

He’d certainly been in worse places to wait in. Worse safe houses, more unfamiliar environments where his anti-social quirks made trouble, no chance at a decent pub like the one he’d taken to frequenting a few blocks from the safe house.

He was approaching the very same pub at the moment. Mind racing to mentally prepare for his next briefing with Price and Laswell. He didn’t have much, the contacts seemed to be dragging their feet, and Simon was in a daily battle not to just go gather the intel himself and be done with it.

He went to pull the door, but through the glass, saw you behind the counter. That was strange, you worked on weekends. He knew, because once he connected his increased heartbeat and uncomfortably hot cheeks to you, he started avoiding the place. 

It may have been the most authentic pub he’d encountered in America so far, but you were the prettiest woman he’d ever seen, and only one of these things made him sweat like he was back in basic.

He started to back away, but you’d seen him through the age-warped glass and were waving him in.

“You stupid pint-addict bastard.” he muttered, unnecessarily triple checking to make sure his mask was in place. 

He’d honored his promise to Price, and kept to a half mask instead of his usual balaclava. At first he was tense, short when spoken to, and constantly running a hand through his hair to momentarily shield his face. The half mask helped, but not much. It just reminded him he wasn’t where he felt he should be. He wasn’t the one to play the diplomat

However, on your first meeting, you’d complimented the contrast between his eyelashes and his dark eyes. Between that, and you pouring his Guinness at an angle, the right way, he’d had to clear his throat twice before he felt it was safe to respond. He couldn’t remember what he said, his ears had rung like a flashbang went off too close.

It must have been smooth, because you ducked your head and quickly turned so he couldn’t see you grin. Too slow, for all the vistas and colorful fabrics he’d seen in his travels, your smile had taken the prize.

“Hey! Saved your seat!” you called out over the din, pointing to the rounded corner of the bar where there was only stool and a column to block him from most patrons. “Even though I shouldn’t have. You’ve been avoiding me, and don’t deny it. My co-workers have no filter.”

He winced, you’d caught him red handed. “Not avoiding you. Just working.”

“At avoiding me.” you stuck your tongue out at him.

It was surprisingly packed for a weekday, and as he got closer to the bar, he noticed there was some sort of event going on. Drink specials, a pool tournament, and calls to tourists. He cursed, and considered how fast he could down his drink and fake a work call.

“Sit.” you pinned him with a look. “I need another sane adult around me, now.”

“Sane?” he snorted. “You’ve got the wrong bloke in mind.”

“Yeah? You wanna go up against the kid who’s pledging and has been wearing that chicken suit for two weeks, or the “actress” who keeps switching characters with every drink?” You raised an eyebrow, pointing out your subjects without a care about looking rude.

“I wanna get on the first thing flying or floating out of here.” 

“Take me with you, or I’ll steal your passport.” you slid the Guinness towards him, before leaning on your elbows, and closing some of the distance between you.

Simon had been tortured, beaten, and had given his fair share of the same back. He’d stared hardened terrorists in the eyes and made them back down every time. It was pretty silly of him, and he certainly felt it, to falter under your gaze, and yet he did. 

His fingers danced around the bottom of the glass, letting the drink settle, before he lowered his mask and took a big sip. “You don’t have to bribe me love, just say the word and we’re gone.”

He wasn’t often embarrassed. Sometimes, Johnny made him cringe, but he was usually too removed from a situation, and the people in it, to allow for such an emotion. He’d long stopped caring about the looks he, as a masked behemoth, received and whatever thoughts were behind the eyes on him.

Of course, he couldn’t do that with you. He didn’t want to, but he literally couldn’t anyways. So he had to sit there, heat rising to his cheeks, and a mental mantra of ‘shoot me’ ringing through his head on a loop.

To his barely noticeable relief, your gaze somehow grew warmer, a smile spreading across your pretty face. “I’m holding you to that Si. You don’t get to blame the alcohol either, you’ve barely touched your drink.”

It was comfortably quiet between the two of you after that. You returned to work as your co-workers got less and less professional. Things got crazier, but it did allow for him to be mostly ignored in his corner, which he was thankful for. He felt for you though.

He had to play bouncer once when a guy got behind the bar, thinking you denied his number because you couldn’t hear him.

The look in your eyes as you sought distance made Simon act purely on instinct. His speed, size, and training ended the situation quickly. You’d given a relieved exhale of air, and ran a hand down his arm before you ran off to respond to a glass crisis. It occurred to him right then how far he’d go for you. As far as he would for his team, whom he considered something around the range of family.

It frightened him that he’d only known you a few weeks, yet your connection had gotten him this far, but there was nowhere to run from the truth internally. If there was, he wasn’t sure he even wanted to.

By closing, he was the last customer, and he’d offered to stay while you close up. It wasn’t the first time.

“You better.” you grinned, wiping down the bar.

He started to help you by turning the chairs up on to the tables, and junking miscellaneous trash. He laughed when he heard you shouting about how someone got vomit on the ceiling in the bathroom.

“Fuck it lovie, make the layabouts earn their keep tomorrow.” he called out in response.

He was deep in thought about where he was and what he was doing when he turned and saw you standing by him. You got the rare jump on him.

“Don’t think I’m crazy, or do, because maybe I am. I know you were joking earlier, but I really wish you weren’t.” you threw the formerly white rag in your hand in the trash, smiling, but your eyes held the same vulnerability he always felt around you.

He blinked owlishly, processing your words before standing up to his full height. “I wasn’t joking.”

—

Kyle:

You’re a party girl to your core, but you can’t help it. You run your own bath products company, and it’s hard work. No one should blame you for playing hard to match.

Gaz certainly didn’t blame you, in fact, your vibrant social media is what drew him in. He’d been constantly checking his phone on base, to the annoyance of his partner-in-crime Soap when their pranks and game time started to lack, because Gaz had to check what your new post alert was about. 

It took him a minute, but he figured out your page was what Gaz was looking at (and so secretive about). He figured it out when Gaz started watching your live streams, and became so engrossed, Price would have to literally clap him on the back to get him on task. 

Soap knew he could forget any plans made if you started a live.

Damnit, he wanted to know who was stealing one of his best mates.

Once he saw you in full, and not glancing around Gaz’s big head, he got it. You were beautiful, vibrant, obviously in the city’s in-crowd. You would’ve fit in perfectly with him and his mates as far as your ability to sniff out a good time went. He couldn’t be mad at you anymore, and it wasn’t just because he had a minor crush on you himself, he knew his friend was gone, and decided to help him out.

He swiped Gaz’s phone and sent him on a wild goose chase so he’d have time to act. Soap put everything he had into that first message, though it wasn’t until after he sent it, he realized it was full of Scots lingo, and he cringed trying to clean it up in the following message. He realized he’d made it worse, and the DM thread looked like a tweaker got hold of the phone.

“What are you doing?” Gaz sounded both panicked and furious, causing Soap to freeze in real time.

“Uh.., I needed…to order food?”

“Bruv, with my phone?!”

“I…also..wanted to find out where you got..that hat.”

Gaz blinked at him, with an expression that clearly asked if Soap’s last brain cell had finally found a better job.

“You were there with me, it was at The Exchange. Give me my phone.”

Soap instinctively yanked the phone out of reach. “Uh, well..wait.”

Gaz’s eyes widened, voice rising. “Mate, hand the phone over or-“

The DM message notification rang out loud enough to silence Gaz immediately. His eyes somehow got wider, his lips forming a tight line.

Soap’s eyes mirrored his own, and his fight or flight instinct was triggered. “I swear…I did this for ye, not to ye this time. Ye cannae be mad about it.”

A beat passed, and Soap tried to ease the incoming meltdown a little more.

“I may have messed the introduction up a little, but I bet she went for the follow up.”

Gaz said nothing, opting instead to lunge for the device. Soap, confused and thinking Gaz was going to strike him, wasn’t fast enough, and though he outmatched Gaz in muscle, said man still took him down.

“Who are you messaging?!”

They rolled, and Soap tried to simultaneously keep Gaz from punching him, while he kept the phone stretched away from them. Another *ding* rang out, and Gaz glanced up to see a notification that contained your user name, and that you had responded. He assumed twice.

He felt his heart drop out of his ass, his eyes locking with Soap’s.

His next punch struck like a snake, fast and quick to Soap’s throat. Said man’s eyes crossed up, and Gaz took the time to try and grab the phone. He was surprised to find Soap’s grip as tight as ever.

“I’ll hand it over when ye promise not to blow up!”

“I promise to crack your chest!”

They continued to roll on the floor, Soap getting his second-wind after Gaz’s threat. Gaz, driven by what he knew had to be the biggest embarrassment of his life coming his way, and Soap by the need to explain his attempt at a good deed.

Two polished boots came into view and a sharp bark of “Knock it the fuck off!” ended the tussle immediately. 

Both men sat up, hair and clothing askew, chests heaving with adrenaline.

“What the hell is going on here?” John Price’s infamous gravel inflection hit the both of them, stiffening their spines pole straight.

Nothing came out though. It wasn’t exactly a thing you wanted to tell your captain. Both assumed he thought social media was the Yahoo homepage anyways.

He looked between them, neither meeting his gaze. “Right. Hand it over then.”

Gaz choked. On what, he couldn’t say, probably his dwindling pride. “Just uh…a little sport Captain.”

Soap glanced between them before his blue eyes settled on Price. “Yeah. What’s it gonna be Cap? Run laps, scrub latrines, we’ll take the worst.”

“Don’t worry about that, that’s a given and then some. The phone MacTavish.”

John Price rarely had to demand anything a second time, and neither Soap nor Gaz wanted to be responsible for making him do it a third. Soap gave him an apologetic side glance as he handed over the phone. Gaz cringed, feeling like a kid in class again, getting busted for swapping gross drawings of teachers.

“One of you, open it.” Price held the phone out between the two of them. Gaz sighed and input the code locking down the device.

Price pulled the phone back, and, much too efficiently for Gaz’s taste, began swiping. 

Price’s eyes scanned back and forth, and Gaz had to assume he was reading what he still hadn’t had a chance to.

After a beat, Price looked up in disbelief. “All this over a posh little beauty queen? Do you two want the one-four-one to be synonymous with a joke?”

Gaz would serve the mole-people through infinity if it meant they’d make the ground swallow him up right there. How his day had advanced to this was beyond him.

“Captain-“

Price turned to him, brows raised. “You better be glad she likes you and it wasn’t a total waste, or I’d rent you out to the circus like the clowns you two are.”

Gaz stepped back on one foot, his head snapping in disbelief. “Wait..she wha-“

“So it worked then yeah?!” Soap grinned, a breathy laugh supporting his exclamation before quickly straightening up. “I mean, I knew that it would. That’s why I did it.”

“It worked in spite of you spike strip.” Price tossed the phone to Gaz as Soap ran a hand over his treasured mohawk, pouting at the dig. “For whatever reason, that pretty little thing is interested in him.”

Hearing Price confirm your response was positive didn’t make it any easier to believe than the first time he heard it. He had yet to read whatever his dumbass friend sent your way, but…you liked it?

Gaz brought the phone to his face, and started to open the app so he could finally see for himself.

“I don’t think so.” Price warned with a sharp shake of his head. “That goes in your locker, now, and the two of you meet me out on the track.”

Gaz and Soap both hung their heads.

“Hopefully she comes to her senses by the time you’re able to even hold that thing again, let alone use it.”

“Yes sir.” Gaz locked the phone again, but he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face.

You must’ve looked at his page, and no matter what crazy thing Soap had sent you, you liked him. 

That knowledge carried him through so many laps on the track he vomited up things he swore he hadn’t eaten since he was 5, scrubbing bunks and latrines on his hands and knees until a hole opened in his pants over one knee, and endless up-downs until he and Soap had to literally pull each other up and help each other down.

When he finally collapsed in the locker room later, swearing he’d make it to the shower before he even thought of climbing in bed, he managed to dig his phone out of his locker first.

He was suddenly nervous, you were so gorgeous to him, and if your response was some pitying virtual head pat, he’d jump in front of the next Humvee he saw.

Then again, it was Price who said you liked him, and the man had no reason to or interest in making him feel better about the matter.

He unlocked the phone and quickly opened the app before he lost his nerve. 

You: ‘Um excuse me???’

He winced.

You: ‘Oh wait, I checked out your page. You’re from the UK? I didn’t know what you were saying😅. I still kinda don’t, but now I don’t think you’re creepy…you’re actually pretty cute. Thanks for your service.😘🫡’

His heartbeat sped up, and all his aches and bodily gripes were forgotten as he leaned forward on the bench. You had all his attention, and you quite possibly didn’t mind that.

He smirked, proud of his carefully curated page and the body his job helped him maintain. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how silly he was for worrying. Of course you had some interest in him, he could match your energy with ease.

He opened the keyboard ready to respond when all his short-lived bravado fell down around him. What the fuck was he supposed to say back?

—————

Johnny:

It made the two of you somewhat uncomfortable when you thought about how much chance it took for you guys to meet. The thought of not being together felt more foreign than you two ever had to each other. Johnny chose not to dwell on it, accepting how lucky he was often overshadowed the thought.

Your best friend since college was getting married, and you were not only maid of honor, but the wedding planner. Scotland was the homeland of your friend, and you knew on a good day she missed it with her whole heart. 

You did your best to incorporate her culture and her friends and family abroad into the ceremony.

This, it turned out, included her brother’s best friend John “Soap” MacTavish, who was also a family friend.

“Is Soap a um…traditional Scottish name?” you’d asked, holding up the name list she’d given you, and thinking your friend was setting you up for a joke.

“He was Johnny for years, but he came back from his dream job, built like a house, and was like ‘They call me Soap now.’.” she deepened her accent and voice to mock what you assumed he sounded like. “Don’t pay it any mind, he’s still our Johnny.”

So John “They call me Soap now” MacTavish was sent an invitation too. What you did not expect was her family to come into the country as quickly as they did. You still had a few weeks of planning, and from the moment they flooded her townhome, you were swept into their familial hurricane.

They couldn’t have been sweeter to you, but they all had input. You were overwhelmed within 30 minutes of being with them, despite your friend reeling them in repeatedly.

Johnny became your touchstone when, based on his energetic introduction, you expected him to be part of the chaos.

As you took notes and suggestions, he was the one who translated when the accents got too thick, or they slipped into Scots.

Someone got a little too aggressive with their suggestion, or talked over you? Johnny was calling out over the din and restoring the closest thing to order that he could.

His helpfulness didn’t end that evening. He became your living official Scotland handbook. 

The work you’d dreaded being added on top of what you already had to do found a partial home on his shoulders. Every choice you brought before your friend and her family received loud approval, and Johnny refused your credit every time. Claiming it was your beautiful, quick, and organized mind making the magic happen.

He was at your place bright and early every morning, the two of you forgetting you were virtually strangers who’d been thousands of miles apart the majority of your lives.

In the process of planning and arranging, you showed Johnny your neck of the woods, and the culture in Atlanta. He was fascinated by everything and you’d never been happier, having his complete and utter interest.

He loved your accent, he loved how friendly the people in the mom and pop places you took him to were, he loved how proud you were to be a Georgia girl.

He would always be a proud son of Scotland, so he got it.

“You’re really eatin’ the third one now?!” you laughed watching Johnny go through his third hot chicken sandwich. “Boy, you’re crazy!”

“And well fed too yeah.” he grinned around the huge bite he’d taken. “I’d punch Ghost square in the back of his head if they’d bring a Hattie B’s to Scotland. Of course, I’d have to stand on a stool.”

“Ghost?” you raised an eyebrow, swallowing the fry you’d been chewing.

“Oh yeah, my best mate in the service. He’s like a fuckin’ tree….if trees hit really hard and were just generally terrifying.”

Your eyes widened. “You’re in the service, that’s so cool. Is that the dream job?”

His eyes widened, his chest puffing out in pride at your words. “I am, youngest member to make it into my unit too. Got lucky with a pretty good team.”

“That where you get the name Soap? What is that about by the way?” 

He stopped chewing, swallowing hard. Visions of what his nickname referred to came to mind, and he felt like a wall was coming between the two of you. He wasn’t ashamed of his career, or most of the things he’d done to maintain it, but it’d been nice to almost be a civilian again. He hadn’t been just John or Johnny in a long time.

The distance from home, and the crush he wasn’t even going to pretend he didn’t have, helping the fantasy.

 “Yeah.” 

You senses the tone change, and started to withdraw your curiosity. “We can drop it.”

“Nah, it’s not a bad thing Bonnie, it’s just…” he furrowed his brow in thought, and you resisted the hard urge to touch him. “This is the first leave I’ve had in…maybe ever that I don’t feel a thin wall ‘tween me and my people. It’s just nice for a little bit.”

“Say less.�� You pushed your seasoned fries towards him, snorting at his excited expression. “Let’s talk about how much I love it when you call me Bonnie instead.”

He choked, and your small hands found his back, pounding on what felt like a stone wall. “Jesus hen, you can’t just drop somethin’ like that when a man’s mid swallow.”

You brushed your hand over the back of his neck as you retracted it back to your person. Lowering your voice to a soft decibel. “I like when you call me that too.”

——

John Price:

How he’d let himself be talked into a cruise of all things, John would never know. 

….

That wasn’t true.

The pretty American office worker flagged him down when he went in for his briefing with the higher ups. She looked distressed, and John could feel that protective nature of his rear up in his chest and stiffen his spine. Before he could even register that he’d spoken, he’d told her whatever his help could provide, it was hers.

She’d flustered at that, tucking some hair behind her ear, and gave a sheepish smile. Her reaction sent a shock of pride from his brain to his cock.

She explained how she and a friend group back home had made plans for a week-long cruise out of Florida. She’d been looking forward to it, missing her home country, and having planned it out very carefully in the group chat. Then, earlier that week, it was brought to the light that one of the girls slept with the husband of another one. 

Sides were taken, she was attacked for being out of the country and unaware of the nuanced changes in the group, and then all the girls pulled out, essentially leaving her holding four tickets and the shreds of a perfect vacation.

That was you. A mess who’d been arguing with the travel agency, trying to wrangle all of your friends, and figure out how you wound up wasting several thousand dollars at that point.

John just stood there, like a coat rack with a bucket hat on top. Stiff, and unsure of what to do, say, or even what expression he should school his shocked features into. 

He stood there long enough for you to become embarrassed and wave him off and return to your desk.

“I’m so sorry I bothered you. God, you’re a Captain! It’s just, my momma and daddy have been on me from the beginning about how much of waste a trip like this is…‘girl why would you spend that much to float in the ocean with a bunch of strangers, you can borrow our boat and fish in the lake for free’.” you trailed off, realizing you were rambling and shoved your face in your hands.

He thought you were adorable. Most days, he wanted to find the nearest surface and have you on it, only to be embarrassed that at his age, he was thinking like a teenager. 

However, right then you were just plain adorable, accent in full swing because you were upset. John knew you were from somewhere in the southern US. Louisiana? Texas?

He approached your desk, hands splayed as he leaned his weight forward. “Love, it’s not a problem. I’m just not sure what I can do about it…aside from hunting down the husband and siccing Laswell on the other girl.”

You gave a full belly laugh. “That could work.”

He grinned, sitting on the edge of the desk, deciding he wanted more of the laugh and soon.

You quieted and started fiddling with a pen that’d been nearby. “But seriously…I would never ask you this if I thought I had other options. It’s just…you’re the person I’ve gotten closest to so far here, and um..I spent so much on those tickets. I even saved from my first paycheck into this last one..”

Your words were coming out fast and close, but John could pick them out. Admitting he was closer to you than anyone in the country warmed him so much, he didn’t care if the next words out of your mouth were asking him to reimburse you. He couldn’t imagine what else you could ask for, but at that point he’d do it.

“Do you mind filling in those spots for me with your team? It’s a perfect amount of tickets, and then I won’t be all alone, and it won’t be a waste, and just ugh! I need you to save my ass Captain Price.” you looked up at him with wide pleading eyes.

For a fraction of  second, Price wondered if you knew what you did to him, and that you could use that look to take over the mind of a weapon western governments spent a small fortune to train.

Then your request hit him like a train. You wanted him, and the adult nursery school he’d wrangled into the formation of the 141 to crash your vacation? Your sanity was up for debate.

“At any given time I’m working with half a shared brain cell between two muppets, and their long-suffering murder pet. I don’t think you’ve thought this through.”

“Oh.”

“In fact, their jackets read like the instructions for taking care of a Gremlin. No cruises is pretty high up there.” John tried to humor his way out of the suggestion until he caught sight of your face. 

You looked so disappointed, but then your expression shifted to one he couldn’t quite read.

“But you’d be there wouldn’t you?” wide pleading eyes just for him, trained on him.

He flushed, reluctantly stepping around what may have been the flirtatious tactic.  “Spending my leave pulling duty as a zoo keeper.”

“Work on your tan then Casper, I’m worried about you. You’d disappear in a snow storm.” You switched up your tactic again, hoping to amuse him into helping.

Price gave a full-belly laugh of his own, the kind he’d rarely even consider letting out at work.  “Negging me isn’t going to work love, I’d stick with begging.”

“Damn.” John watched you rise up again, slipping around your desk in heels he couldn’t stare at too long if he wanted to remain professional. “John Price, I swear if you don’t say yes after this, I don’t care where you are on this base I will find you. There, I will salt your coffee and unravel your cigars.”

You inhaled.“Johncanyouandtherestofthe141takethesdamnticketsbeforeIsnap?”

John pretended to think, enjoying watching you literally squirm from the corner of his eye. Despite the jokes, John wasn’t truly an old man, but you did make him feel much younger than he was and he liked it.

He liked the tiny carefree moments he spent with you throughout the day, and he supposed that’d be nice for one sunny week. 

“I’ll toss it to the lads, see what they say, and I’ll get back to you.”

“Meaning you’re going to make them do it.”

“Precisely.”

——-

As he stood before his men, he cursed his gentlemanly nature when faced with a woman in need. Well, if he was being entirely honest, he wasn’t being gentlemanly, and maybe this was what he deserved.  

It wasn’t chivalry alone, it was pure, unadulterated thirst. He wanted you the way a very hungry man wanted a woman, and he was thinly veiling it behind a tip of the top hat and cane.

Gaz and Soap made him feel like the 141 father the higher ups teased him about being. They reacted as though daddy came home with a promise of DisneyLand.

“The last time you told us to pack, I was picking small snakes out of my pack for over an hour. Gotta say, I want this to be a habit Captain.” Gaz was grinning, phone already in hand as he searched for vacation clothes.

“Yeah. Didn’t expect this when I woke up this mornin’. You’re not tryin’ to infringe on my prank brand right sir?”

Ghost reacted as predicted. Posture stiff, arms crossed, and his eyes doing all the talking. They said a number of ways Price should die, an even greater number of ways he could go fuck himself, and that he’d try whatever he could to get out of it.

“You’re not getting out of it.” Price dashed that dream immediately, but he’d let him fantasize about killing him all cruise long if it helped.

“Why would you want to L.T.?” Soap looked up from where he’d been trying to add items he wanted into Gaz’s cart. “Mud in yer boots, or bikinis and a pint? Pretty hard choice.”

“I don’t wanna see you in a bikini, mate.” Gaz quipped, a grunt leaving him when Soap punched his shoulder.

Price ignored that, and interrupted on the off chance that Ghost would entertain Soap with an answer. “Everyone’s going, It’s one week and you’ve all seen worse. You will be on time, you will behave and represent this unit accordingly, and by god you will all be gracious for the opportunity.”

The last line was meant specifically for Ghost. 

Said man smirked behind the mask, tiny details revealed this if you knew what to look for. “Don’t worry sir, I’ll be on my best behavior for your pretty little office bird.”

Price swallowed hard, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling as he counted to ten, and ignored Soap and Gaz’s aggressive inquiries. He was definitely being punished.

[miraclesnail]

What do you think travis do after collage? And Connor? Will they go back to camp?

I havent read the trials of apollo, so I dont have clue if something was mention on it.

I was thinking that people always say that Will would be a doctor (kind of a surgeon) but I was being delulu and I believe that he wouldnt choose such place to work again. And also the trauma from camp has a weight on him that he would probably never overcome.

I picture him as a pediatrician (kids think that magic is real and no one would believe them if will uses his powers.) Maybe a kinesiologist too.

But, i think that later in his life he would feel like he can do so much more with his powers and he has the feeling that he is managing better his ptsd (he is not), so he would study surgery and became one of the greatest of all times.

((If this would be a Willvis fic, Travis would ask himself if he did right by encouraging him to follow his dreams when he is comforting (or after comforting) Will when he has night terrors and flashbacks and ptsd about their teenage time mixed with their adult life.))

Its bittersweet im sorry but i cant help it.

You have incredible works!

My headcanon (that has zero basis on canon) changes every single month about what Travis and Connor's profession would be lol. It varies between:

youtubers that travel the world vlogging popular sites and less known sites

Farmers who raise cattle/sheep and a side business of raising working breed border collies

youtube channel dedicated to a bunch of random stuff like pickpocketing tutorials and how to handle a live mine and 'Learning how to speak [insert whatever language] lesson 1'

social workers/therapist to help others like how they did as co-counselors at camp

dog trainers that work specifically with the dogs breed for herding and guarding

stunt actors in films/movies

I just always picture them working in the same field together. Can't really imagine them being separate to be honest.

(I know the easy and probably most likely scenario if Rick ever make a sequel where they are all adults is that Travis and Connor make a pranking youtube channel but I hate those channels with a burning passion because it's just all scripted as well as some going way too far and I'm sure Travis and Connor would want authentic reactions. But then they'll be sued/put in jail so...)

I also don't think Will would be a surgeon. But it would be funny to see how the Mist will try to cover this up if he's working in a normal hospital. Like, is Will going to not use his power and do it like any other mortal surgeon? Or if he uses his powers and get what should have been a 1/2/3/15 hour surgery done in 10 seconds, how does the Mist convince the nurse and anesthesiologist who's monitoring and recording the vitals that nothing abnormal happens?

Also I'm just imagining Will having these shit awful aseptic technique and the entire medical staff losing it because he can just say a hymn to prevent/heal infection and also the techniques he learned at camp is probably really lax and loose on the rules since ambrosia and nectar fixes near everything.

[I picture him as a pediatrician (kids think that magic is real and no one would believe them if will uses his powers.) Maybe a kinesiologist too.]

That's so cute 🥹 Will would be so good with kids. But diagnosing kids with cancer or some other terminal illness though... that's like one of the worse pains in the world. And it'll remind Will of the days of the war where his friends/family die young too.

I'm positive Will can save them. But then it becomes another Ascelpsius situation where Will is saving those who should have definitely died. (I guess not really because he's not bringing them back to life like his half-brother did ... but there are conditions/illnesses that cannot be cured by modern medicine so if Will saves them isn't that basically the same?)

A kinesiologist or physical therapist is also really cute!! And not a lot of death involved too since it's just helping/motivating/teaching patients how to get their range of motion back. My old anatomy teacher joked a lot of it being 'legal torture' lol

((If this would be a Willvis fic, Travis would ask himself if he did right by encouraging him to follow his dreams when he is comforting (or after comforting) Will when he has night terrors and flashbacks and ptsd about their teenage time mixed with their adult life.))

Willvis oh man. That would make for such a good angsty fic. I can just picture them travis spooning will in his arms after helping him fall back asleep from a nightmare and travis just pressing his face against Will's neck wondering if he had said something different, if this would still be happening.

You have incredible works!

thank you so much!! 🥹 It really means a lot ❤️

[deuterosapiens]

Serious life diary post time, I guess. Weird to think that it's only been like a week since my last personal history post. I hope this doesn't become a habit.

So, not a very good day at work. Had a rude altercation with one of my co-workers. Spent the entire shift in a weird funk about it, then had another altercation with the same employee at the end of the night. Since returning home, I have imagined a half-dozen scenarios and conversations I might have with them tomorrow, which I admit I likely won't have. Took a long bath, during which I spent just a significant amount of time thinking: what if I was incorrect in their intentions and found myself angry at behavior on their part that was not intended to aggravate me? Did I completely misunderstand our interactions and find myself angry over nothing, and will confronting them make things worse?

I've found myself becoming more and more aware that I don't really get people. That I cannot understand how to really communicate or even understand the social game very well. Emotionally, I mean. I can talk and convey ideas and understand ideas conveyed but when that extra element of navigating what are or are not emotional cues are brought it, I'm clueless.

So the short of it is that I've decided, I think I want to start looking for a therapist. I've joked about this stuff in the past, always playing the punchline and being okay with it. But the briefest bit of online research basically amounts to Chrome screaming "call a professional or a doctor or something", so I think I'm going to finally do that.

That's like the first step, right? Realizing there's a problem? Confronting that, and doing something about it. Unfortunately it's the weekend, and two in the morning, so I can't really do anything now. But I feel like a want to.

Because this is not okay.

I do not feel okay.

I am not okay.

...

I want to fix this, you know?

On a happier note, I can hear a small cat playing with a bottle cap or something outside. Cats are weird little goblins and they make everything better.

[luxekook]

when fire meets frost | kth

as part of the christmas with bangtan: secret santa collab

❅ pairing: kim taehyung x reader

❅ genre: second chance romance, exes to lovers, angst, smut, fluff

❅ summary: just like a bad holiday song, you gave taehyung your heart last christmas. only in this scenario, he broke it eight months later. now you’re both back at that same damn holiday party where you first met one year ago and you’re just praying for you and your heart to leave in one piece.

❅ word count: 5.8k

❅ warnings: 18+, cursing, suggestive comments, drinking, DIY mistletoe, light violence, random ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ references, drunk tae (TM), break-up flashbacks, weird humor, hella tension, hella groveling, making out, smut [oral (m to f)], the fluffiest of fluff (borderline cheese...actually...full-on cheese)

❅ banner by: the almighty and powerful maggie @kimtaehyunq​ - who also is the collab host!

Present Day: The Christmas Party, 8:00PM

Taehyung is staring at you. Again. Though you're facing slightly away from him, you know that if you give even the slightest glance over, your suspicions will all but be confirmed. The heated gaze you feel skimming over your body continues as you take a much needed sip of your mulled wine and pray that you get out of his line of vision soon with your dignity still intact.

Seokjin, your best friend and current partner in conversation, notices your predicament and scoffs, “You really should just put that boy out of his misery, (y/n). Scrooge himself would be down to have a foursome with the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future if he was around all this pent-up sexual tension.”

Your red-painted lips curl in a surely unattractive manner that resembles something between a grimace and a grin. You’ve heard variations of this argument about a dozen times from just as many sources, but Seokjin’s might just be the most absurd.

“I don’t know how or why your brain went right to a ghost-fucking analogy, but I’ve long since given up trying to understand your thought processes.”

Seokjin’s chest puffs up at your words like they incite something he should feel proud of. You sigh and shake your head at him, feeling a mix of exasperation and endearment - a constant haze of comfort you feel around your best friend.

“I’m just saying,” Seokjin continues, completely undeterred by your attempts to divert the conversation onto him, “He’s hot. You’re hot. He’s still into you. You’re still into him. I don’t see the problem.”

“I never said–!” You cut yourself off. He’s baiting you. “You son of a nutcracker. You know full well what the problem is. I’ve told you more times than Yoongi has yelled at someone for getting too close to his precious sound system.

At your words, you both look over to your left where Yoongi is currently chewing out a sheepish Namjoon with a death-grip on his expensive ass speakers.

“And I’ve told you that your reasons are shaky at best, (y/n),” Seokjin sighs, placing his chin in his palm and leaning over to you. He continues with a conspiring whisper, “Just because you’re scared you’ll get hurt again doesn’t mean you should never put yourself back out there.”

“Oh yeah,” You scowl, “That’s easy for you to say. You’ve never been dumped by the boy you love because he ‘wants to explore other options’. And then have to keep being around said-boy because you’re in the same friend group. And then fast forward a few months to when that same boy shows up drunk at your doorstep asking for you to take him back because you’re ‘the only one for him’. Spoiler alert: that’s fucking bullshit. And then–”

Seokjin slaps a palm over your mouth, effectively cutting you off mid-rant. “Babe, you have to stop rehashing this. Taehyung clearly is still in love with you. He looks at you like he wants to fucking eat you for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Besides, Tae hasn’t even hooked up with anyone since he asked for another chance.”

“That we know of,” You mumble darkly behind Seokjin’s palm - your words only a barely audible jumble of syllables.

“Are you accosting my date, Jin?” The voice of your co-worker and close friend Felix meets your ears as you shove Seokjin’s hand off of you. When you invited Felix to come to Jimin’s annual holiday party, you briefed him on the situation - like any good friend would. You needed him there as an extra buffer. While you love Seokjin, he definitely can get swept up into petty drama - namely baseless arguments with Jungkook.

As your closest work friend, Felix knows all about you and Taehyung, and therefore he agreed to be your “date” in exchange for your help in getting him a date with Alicia, the new accountant in your office. You’ve spent countless hours sitting next to each other as desk neighbors and coworkers. Felix is quiet, cute and respectful - not to mention his voice is to die for.

Felix’s hand settles on the middle of your back in completely friendly territory, but you can’t help but feel the eyes on you have ramped up in intensity. You wonder if Felix can feel his hand burning from the heat and almost think he does when Felix drops his hand a second later.

It’s one thing to make you uncomfortable. You’ve learned to stomach that. But it’s another thing to make your friends uncomfortable. And for that you turn and level a glare at that beautiful asshole, sitting at a nearby table with Jimin and still looking at you with those goddamn eyes.

Taehyung shamelessly stares back at you as Jimin prattles on about something in his ear before noticing Tae’s mind is elsewhere. Following his gaze to you, Jimin groans and shoves Taehyung’s shoulder before strutting away towards the kitchen. You watch as Jimin saunters by and roll your eyes when he winks at you when your eyes meet. That one has always been trouble.

When you turn back around, Taehyung is still staring at you. No, this time he’s staring at your body - namely, your ass. You ignore the burst of heat that runs through you and make a face somewhere between a scowl and a glare. He looks up at you without the least bit of remorse.

Your eyes narrow. Your ass isn’t even out! Your green ugly Christmas sweater adorned with real ornaments basically falls to your knees. But then again, Taehyung has always had a vivid imagination - and an even better memory. His mind is like a goddamn vault.

You tug your attention away from your ex and back to the current conversation. But your thoughts wander. You still feel that pull towards Taehyung - that same damn pull that’s been there since you first met him. And that scares the shit out of you.

Flashback: The First Meeting, Last Christmas

You’re perched on the arm of Namjoon’s black pleather sofa (“It doesn’t stain! Can you believe that?” “Namjoon, it’s ripped in seven places.”). Surveying the flurry of friends scattered throughout the cozy apartment, you only see a few people that you don’t know. But something feels different tonight, and you just can’t figure out why.

Did Namjoon rearrange his plants? Did Jimin part his hair differently? Did Hoseok change his outfit - again?  

“A-yo, (y/n)!” Seokjin yells over to you from clear across the room. You’re always baffled at how clueless that boy is to social cues. “Come meet Taehyung!” Your friend continues to yell, practically pinwheeling his arms to beckon you over to his side of the room. You can vaguely make out an unknown figure standing with their back to you, facing Seokjin in conversation.

You sigh. Might as well get this over with before Seokjin decides to start pretending to lasso you over to his side of the room. Or worse - get his actual lasso that he has for some unknown reason. A natural performer that boy is. Getting to your feet, you cross the room. Your heartbeat thuds in your chest and you rub a hand over your heart absentmindedly.

What is wrong with you? Meeting new people always brings nerves, but you never usually feel this out of sorts. You step into Seokjin’s outstretched arm and into the embrace of your best friend. And then you look up at the newcomer.

Hooded dark eyes. Curly black hair. Perfect pink lips. Jawline chiseled by the gods.

Your breath catches in your throat. Words buzz in the air around you but you can't distinguish one from the next. You’re pretty sure Seokjin is making some sort of joke because his sides start to shake and the beautiful stranger looks exasperatedly amused. Yet, his eyes never stray from yours.

His lips part like his breath is caught in his throat.

“Taehyung-ie, don’t be rude! Say hi!” Seokjin shoves Taehyung, jolting you both out of your little staring contest.

“Hi,” Taehyung repeats. Your stomach flips at the depth of his voice. “I’m Taehyung. Kim Taehyung. You can call me Tae. Or V. Or just Taehyung.”

Your smile widens at his ramblings and the rising color of his cheeks. “Hi, Tae,” You can't help but grin up at the adorable, beautiful boy. He really looks angelic under the kitchen lights. His halo of curls frames his face in such a way that makes you want to curl your finger around one and tug.

Vaguely, you can tell that Seokjin is shooting rapid looks between you and Taehyung, looking like some sort of bobblehead in 100mph winds. Suddenly, a Grinch-like grin takes over his face. “Why don’t you crazy kids get some more wine? I need to talk to Yoongi...” Seokjin slips away.

In hindsight, you should have immediately been tipped off that Seokjin was up to no good. Seokjin seeking out Yoongi? Nothing good ever comes from that.

And you were right. Not twenty minutes later, you and Taehyung are both stuttering messes underneath a hastily tapped up branch of mistletoe - at least that’s what Seokjin’s calling it. You think it looks like a clump of grass with a grape thrown in there.

Just as you start to tell Taehyung that he doesn’t have to feel pressured by your lame friends, he cups your face in his hands and lowers his lips to yours.

Fucking magic.

There aren’t fireworks or sparks. There’s a whole blazing inferno between the two of you.

Your hands slide up his back, tangling in the curls at the nape of his neck. Taehyung lets out a small gasp as your fingers tug on his locks, and you slowly slide your tongue across his lower lip.

“Uh, okay… Hello? Hey, guys!”

Finally, Yoongi slams together two pans from the kitchen, jolting you both away from each other in fright.

“Break that shit up,” Yoongi shoots a glare at a grinning Seokjin. “I did not sign up for that level of PDA, Jin.”

“I can’t predict love, Yoongi-ah. I can only bring lovers together,” Jin sighs, clasping his hands over his heart dramatically. Yoongi pinches Seokjin in the side, immediately instigating a fight.

Taehyung reclaims your attention, shyly intertwining his pinky with yours. In the midst of all the chaos around you, he just looks at you like you are the only thing that matters.

Present Day: The Christmas Party, 9:02PM

“I don’t know how you survive when he looks at you like that. I’m practically melting just being in proximity of the two of you.”

Your friend Ciana’s comment pulls your attention away from your demon of an ex as he strides by, leveling you with a calculated smolder.

It’s a look that says he’s going to fuck you up in the best way - the way that used to leave you weak in the knees and covered in hickies. Taehyung’s fuck me eyes are your kryptonite. He knows it. You know it. The whole party knows it. Hence, it makes sense how he’s shamelessly using them any fucking chance he can just to mess with you.

It’s practically a fulltime job pretending it doesn't affect you. And it's a job you are failing at miserably.

You sigh and take a big sip of your drink. “Oh, I'm not surviving,” You confess, “This is just a hologram image of me. I’m practically clear across the country by now.”

Ciana laughs, “Girl, I don't blame you, but I have to say… He looks like he would follow you anywhere.”

You scoff. There was a time where you would wholeheartedly agree. Since your first meeting, Tae made you feel like you were the center of his universe.

After talking all night at Seokjin’s party, you exchanged numbers and within a few days Tae asked you out.

Your first date was to an art gallery. The two of you spent hours there, studying art and exchanging soft murmured interpretations. You would often catch Taehyung staring at you instead of at the paintings decorating the walls, and it made you feel all warm and fuzzy.

The dates continued until Taehyung managed to gather up the courage to ask you to be exclusive - his words, not yours. You hadn’t believed that he could ever have doubted your answer. But in hindsight, you probably should have doubted him.

Things were great for a while. No - they were better than great. They were the best eight months of your fucking life. Until they weren’t.

“Why did y’all break up again?” Ciana asks, pulling your attention to her once more.

You let a bitter laugh escape. “You’ll have to ask him that.”

Flashback: The Break-Up, August

“I want to see other people.”

The words strike you like a serrated blade. The plate you’re washing falls into the sink with a clatter. Your heart stills in your chest.

“What?” For a second you believe that you must have misheard him. Only he crushes that hope into dust within seconds.

“I said I want to see other people.” Taehyung repeats, a bit louder.

“You mean like taking a break?” You refuse to turn around and face him. You refuse to believe that your relationship is crumbling down. Your mind tries to grasp at straws. “Or trying ethical non-monogamy?”

“No, (y/n),” Taehyung sighs, “I mean that I want to break up.”

“But why? I don’t understand.” The tears begin to sting your eyes as you blink rapidly, trying to make sense of the blindside that Taehyung just threw at you. “What did I do? How can I fix this?”

“You can’t, okay?” The exasperation in his voice is palpable. “I’m bored here. I feel tied down. We’re both so young... How can we know we’re right for each other when there’s so many other people out there?”

“Where the hell is this coming from?” You seethe, finally whirling to face him. Taehyung flinches when he sees your tearstained face but you persevere and continue, “I bore you? That’s sure not what it seemed like two days ago when you were fucking me against the wall of that club bathroom.”

“Things change,” Taehyung scowls, “I need to explore other options, (y/n), and I think you should, too.”

Your heart is breaking, a fissure splitting it right down the middle. “You want to explore other options,” You repeat, in a deadpan voice. “Do you already have someone in mind?”

The split second pause Taehyung takes is all you need to know the answer to that.

“Get out.”

“(Y/n), it wasn’t the only reason!” Taehyung scrambles to explain. “We haven’t even done anything yet!”

“Oh, you’re a ‘we’ already? Fuck you, Kim Taehyung.”

“No! That’s not what I meant!”

“Well, I hope you’re happy with them. I hope they don’t bore you or tie you down. I hope you’re right for each other. I hope youre fucking happy with yourself and your decision.”

“Can’t we still be friends?”

You don’t deem that question worthy enough of an answer and slam your front door in the face of the person who ten minutes ago had been the love of your life.

Present Day: The Christmas Party, 10:21PM

The amount of love in the room is making your stomach turn. You watch as your coupled up friends exchange presents and kisses. You’re so happy for each and every one of them, don’t get you wrong. You just can’t help but feel increasingly alone with each passing minute.

Felix notices the dip in your mood and nudges you, “Hey. You okay?”

“Yeah,” You snuggle deeper into his side. Thank god for Felix. “Thanks for coming with me to this shindig. It would have been hard to be alone this year.”

“No worries, babe. Besides, how else am I gonna get Alicia to go out with me?”

You laugh at Felix’s words. The boy was oblivious to the fact that Alicia had already approached you to ask if he was single. Sometimes you enjoy your diabolical mind. “Oh, she’ll definitely go out with you,” You reply, pinching his cheek, “Who could resist this face?”

“You did. Three years ago,” Felix whines, shoving your hand away from him playfully.

“Sadly you’re not my type, pretty boy,” You sigh. It truly was sad. Felix is the nicest human you know - besides Seokjin. The fact that you're not interested just reinforces the idea that you have terrible taste in men.

“You’re thinking about him again, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know who you could possibly be referring to,” You sniff, turning away.

“Oh, I don’t know… Maybe the guy that hasn’t stopped circling you like a fucking shark in water since we got here?”

“He has not,” You retort, rolling your eyes.

“A-ha! So you do know exactly who I’m referring to, you little liar!”

“Goddamnit,” You laugh. “I need another drink to put up with you. You want a refill?” You gesture towards his cup.

“Nah, I’m good,” Felix shakes his head. You nod and head over to the kitchen, thankfully seeing no sign of ‘Shark Boy’.

But you spoke too soon, because just as you’re reaching up for a new mug you feel him.

“Is that little boy out there your boyfriend? I didn’t think you were dating anyone,” A rough voice growls from entirely too close to your ear.

You turn your head and shoot your best side-eye at the asshole who’s heated stare is aimed straight down at you. You internally curse at the unfortunate fact that Kim Taehyung somehow still can manage to look gorgeous in a bright red sweater with a whole-ass Santa beard stitched to its collar. You have never hated him more given that you look like a hot mess of a Christmas tree that no one wants to climb.

“I don’t see how that is any of your business, Kim,” You retort, turning around again and grabbing a glass from the cabinet. You can feel his warmth surrounding you as he grabs the mug for you instead, his body pushed up against yours.

“Move,” You order, your voice shaking slightly. But instead of listening, Tae grabs your hips and turns you around, caging you in between his arms.

“See, you’re wrong, (y/n),” His eyes dart from your own to your lips, “Everything that concerns you is my business. It has since the moment I met you, and it hasn’t stopped since.”

The incredulous snort escapes you before you can attempt to rein it in, “Taehyung, you broke up with me! I’m pretty sure that means you consider me old news and - above all - none of your fucking business.”

“And I told you I made a mistake!” Taehyung leans closer, his jaw ticking.

“You were drunk!” You stab a finger into his admittedly toned chest that you can feel even through that abominable Santa beard, “And it took you two fucking months to say that, only to never bring it up again. So excuse me if I find your argument lacking.”

“Fuck,” Taehyung curses softly, running a hand through his mess of curls, “I miss that smart mouth.”

“Yeah?” Your response flies out too fast for your brain to check your words, “Well I miss being enough for you.”

Taehyung looks stricken. “Baby…” He reaches for you but you duck past him and beeline straight for Jimin’s bathroom. Locking yourself inside, you slide to the floor and contemplate your chances of sneaking out the tiny bathroom window just like you did that night some months ago.

Flashback: A Streetcar Named WTF, October

A harsh banging sound jolts you awake. “What the fuck,” You mumble, fumbling around blindly trying to find your phone amidst the blankets and pillows surrounding you.

Finally, your hand locates the small metal device and you switch your screen on. Your eyes immediately shut at the brightness and you muster up the will to peek at the time.

3:12AM.

Who the hell dares to pound on your door at this hour? What is this - A Streetcar Named Desire? Well, slap your ass and call you Blanche because this asshole is about to feel your wrath.

Stomping over to your door, you swing it open and say, “There’s no Stella here, Stanley. Fuck off.”

While you don’t find a drunk Marlon Brando on your doorstep, you do find a drunk Taehyung.

“Who the fuck’s Stanley?” Tae glares, trying to cross his arms but failing somehow.

“Good lord, Taehyung,” You groan, grabbing his arm and dragging him inside your apartment, “You smell like a whole goddamn brewery. How did you even end up here?”

“Walked,” He says proudly while smiling down at your hand on his arm like an idiot. “Who’s Stamplee? I mean, Stangfree.”

You pinch your nose with your free hand. This boy… Ignoring his idiocy completely, you question, “You walked?” You push him down onto your couch and head into your kitchen to grab him some water.

“Yup! All by myself! Are you proud of me? Sandflea could never!”

You jump. Somehow Tae still managed to sneak up behind you while drunk out of his mind.

“Kim Taehyung, sit your drunk ass down.” You jab a finger in the direction of the couch he just vacated.

“But you’re so far away when I sit all the way over there, baby,” He pouts, giving you puppy dog eyes. “And I’m not drunk!”

You don’t dignify his words with a response. Handing the glass of water to the problem currently sprawled out on your couch, you sigh. What are you going to do with him? He can’t stay here… But he’s in no shape to walk back to wherever the fuck he came from.

“Tell me, Kim, why did you think that walking to my apartment of all places was a good idea? I could have moved!” Disdain drips from every syllable, “Is anything going on in that brain of yours? If so, it’s clearly not making any sense.”

“I beg to differ,” Taehyung has the audacity to grin up at you as he continues, “My brain makes perfect sense, baby. You plus me equals three.” His eyebrows wiggle up and down as he swings his hands out, showering you with the glass of water you just handed him.

“Maybe I’ll call you a math tutor along with your Uber,” You mumble as you fight the urge to laugh at the mess of a boy staring up at you from your couch. Grabbing a kitchen towel, you dab the water off of you as best you can. Glancing back down at Tae, you notice his attention has fallen to your chest, where the water he practically threw at you has plastered your tanktop to your skin.

“Hey, eyes up here,” You slap his arm with the damp towel, but he doesn’t even flinch.

“One more minute,” He says, absentmindedly rubbing his arm.

His attention gives you butterflies for a split second before you lock that shit down. You aren’t a fool; you’re fully aware that Taehyung’s the farthest thing from available, but he’s still hot as hell with his muscular stature, his wicked brown eyes, and his full pink lips. And that deep voice… it has shamefully been the fuel of your fantasies for the past few weeks. But that is neither here nor there.

So while his undivided attention always did make you feel fucking incredible, now he’s just a drunk boy who’s acting like he’s never seen nipples before.

“I’m calling you an Uber, okay?” You finally say, grabbing your phone and pulling up the app.

“Can’t I stay here?” Taehyung pouts, “Or will Surley get mad?”

“His name is Stanley,” You automatically reply and then curse as Taehyung lurches to his feet.

“I knew it! Where is he? Where is my replacement? I challenge him to a duel!”

“A duel?” You can’t help but laugh, “On what grounds?”

“For your hand, of course!” Taehyung rapidly glances around your apartment before his eyes land on the broom tucked in the corner of your kitchen. “There’s my sword!”

Before he can take a step towards his ‘sword’, you grab his arm and push him back down onto your couch.

“Wow, you’re strong!” Tae stares up at you adoringly, “And so-o cute. Wanna date?”

“You’re drunk, Tae. Don’t say things like that.” God, he’s going to give you a complex. You had just started getting over him and now he does this? Why is life deadset on fucking you over?

“But I do wanna date you!” Taehyung insists, “Don’t you miss me? Miss us? I still love you. I never stopped.”

“Tae, please stop.”

“I made a mistake, baby, and I wanna fix it. Can you give me a chance? Please?” His brown eyes blink up at you slowly. His lids practically fight to stay open as his words slur together.

The boy is falling asleep. Sighing, you close the Uber app. Looks like you’re housing your ex for the evening.

“I wanna marry you,” He mumbles, “Bought the ring last week. If you can just love me again I’ll be the luckiest…” His words get more and more inaudible. Mumbles about Stanley and revenge and kisses and altars filter through as you place a blanket over his form.

“Goodnight, Tae.” You can’t resist brushing your fingers through his hair. Your heart stutters as he practically leans into your touch like a cat, smiling contentedly.

“We’ll see if you remember this in the morning,” You mutter, setting another glass of water and a bottle of ibuprofen on the coffee table for him when he wakes up.

After making sure Taehyung’s on his side with a bucket for potential incidents, you head back to bed.

When you wake up, he’s nowhere to be found.

Present Day: The Christmas Party, 10:23PM

“(y/n)... baby, please let me in.”

The underlying meaning of those six words is not lost on you. Could you let him in again? Taehyung once held your heart and then he basically smashed it on concrete and backed over it with his car - twice.

“Go away.” Your words sound weak even to your own ears.

“No, I need to talk to you… Please.” His voice breaks on the last word and you cave. Standing you unlock the door and back up. You could have a logical and reasonable discussion with Tae and get some closure, leaving all feelings out of it. Maybe...

“Two minutes,” You declare, “Nothing more.”

“But–”

You cut him off, “1:55…” You tap your foot and smile as Taehyung shoots you a look.

“Fine,” He rubs the back of his neck, peeking up at you under his lashes. “I got scared, okay?”

Your disbelief must show all over your face because he continues.

“Yeah, I was scared - fucking terrified of how much I feel for you. How in love with you I am. How can it be that easy to find your soulmate? It didn’t make any sense to me. And then Pia began to show an interest in me and I convinced myself it was a good idea to distance myself from you. To see other people. To try to make sense of my feelings.”

You hold up a hand. “So, you’re saying that you broke up with me because you were ‘too in love with me?’ What the fuck kind of selfish bullshit is that, Taehyung? You broke my fucking heart for someone you didn’t even like because you were scared I was your soulmate? Don’t you see how that just makes me feel like shit?”

Taehyung sinks to his knees. “(Y/n), baby, please. I am so sorry. I fucked up in the worst, most selfish way possible. It kills me that I broke your heart.”

“Ugh, get up, you drama king.” You pull him to his feet, continuing, “Why did you leave after that night? You said all those things when you were drunk and then just left.”

“Yeah, I kind of don’t remember what I said or how I even ended up at your place.” A blush takes over his face, “It’s so embarrassing you had to see me like that and I kind of just wanted to forget it happened. And I really hoped that you forgot it did, too. I didn’t expect you to just keep acting like you forgot my existence altogether.”

“What does that mean? I see you all the time, Tae! We’re in the same friend group for god’s sakes. We’re around each other all the time… Maybe even too much.” You mumble the last few words, but he catches them.

“Too much? You avoid me at all costs! You don’t smile at me anymore. You don’t even look at me most times! It kills me that all I get from you now is ice, when I know you have so much fire.”

His words confuse you. So he does want you back? Your friends weren’t exaggerating? A small burst of hope swells inside you, but the memory of the break-up outweighs it. “You don’t even know me though, Taehyung. Not anymore.”

“No. You’re wrong,” Taehyung leans closer to you, and you take a step back. Your back bumps up against the sink, your plastic ornaments adorning your sweater clinking awkwardly.

Tae brushes a stray hair behind your ear, his eyes begging you to listen, “I do know you. I know that you still take your coffee black with caramel. I know that you started doing yoga but are too proud to admit you hate it. I know that you came to my art show last month but left before I could talk to you alone. I know that you–”

“Stop,” Your voice trembles, “Please, I can’t. Taehyung, you hurt me so fucking much. Don’t you get that? I just started feeling whole again. So if I let you back in and you hurt me, I might shatter completely.”

His hands cup your face gently, wiping away a tear you hadn’t even realized had fallen. “I won’t ever hurt you again, baby. Please give me one more chance. That’s all I need. I want to keep you forever, (y/n)... I bought you a ring, did I tell you that when I was drunk? I think I did. I still have it. It’s yours - just like my heart.”

“God, you’re still so fucking cheesy,” You can’t hold back your smile even though more tears are falling down your cheeks.

And then his lips are on yours.

Taehyung kisses you like you're the most precious thing in the universe. Like you might break in the palm of his hand if he’s not careful enough. And maybe you will. But for right now, you melt into him.

He tastes like home.

Taehyung’s touch is tentative at first. His hands slide into your hair, tugging you even closer. You feel like you might burst, feeling so many emotions. Love. Fear. Confusion. Hope. You hook your leg around him, wanting him pressed against you everywhere.

Taehyung groans and one of his hands drops down to grab your thigh, wrapping it more securely around his waist. “Jump, baby,” He mumbles into your lips, and you listen automatically.

He perches you on the edge of the sink, kisses you deeply, and then sinks back down to his knees.

“Tae–” You protest, as he runs his hands slowly up your calves.

“I haven’t tasted you in so long, baby,” His dark eyes burn into yours, “Please don’t let me go another minute without you on my tongue.”

Fuck. Well, you can’t argue with that. When Tae sees you open your legs a bit more, he grins up at you and places a quick kiss on the inside of your knee.

His touch becomes more frantic as he moves up, his mouth placing hot kisses higher and higher.

When he sees the lacy red panties you have on, he snaps, lunging forward and hitching your thigh over his shoulder. Pushing your underwear to the side, his hot mouth is on you, closing over your clit without warning. You gasp as he sucks your bud into his mouth, lapping at it with his tongue.

Your hand winds its way into his curls, pushing him harder against you. He moans into your pussy. “So fucking wet for me, baby. God, I love you.”

Taehyung places a soft kiss on your inner thigh before his tongue returns to lick at your pussy, up and down. His tongue sinks into you, making your hips buck against his face. His hand shoots up to steady you as his tongue continues to flick in and out of you.

The sight of the boy you never stopped loving tongue deep in your pussy almost pushes you over the edge already. “Ta-ae,” You moan, hand tugging at his hair, “Harder, baby, please.”

Your words have their desired effect as he replaces his tongue with two of his fingers and places his mouth back on your clit. You moan as his fingers curl inside you, brushing your walls.

The first few strokes of his fingers are slow. Too slow for your liking, “Taehyung, fuck me with your fingers.”

A rumble moves up his chest as he obeys, pushing another finger deep inside of you. “Fuck, baby,” He curses and begins to thrust his fingers in and out of your pussy, “You feel even better than I remember, so goddamn wet.”

His mouth finally returns to your clit, his tongue flicking over it every so often. You’re hurtling towards your orgasm as his long fingers continue to pound into you and his mouth continues to lick at your pussy.

You feel the heat building up and you come with a gasp. Taehyung continues to fuck you with his fingers and his mouth, carrying you through your orgasm until you slump back against the mirror above the sink.

Taehyung grins up at you, licking up everything you gave him. Finally, you gently push him off you. Still licking his fingers clean, Taehyung’s eyes sparkle up at you, “Well? Wanna get married?”

“Oh my god,” You burst out laughing, hopping off the sink onto shaky legs. “Why don’t you start by wooing me? We’ll go from there.”

“Challenge accepted.”

You blink.

Taehyung smiles. His wild dark curls are sticking up in random places - courtesy of your hands. His eyes are full of their usual sinful promises, but this time they also hold excitement and a tiny spark of hope. “Prepare to be wooed, wifey.”

“Fuck off,” You laugh, quickly fixing your hair in the mirror before smoothing down your sweater dress.

Nodding at your semi-acceptable reflection, you swing the door open to reveal just about every person from the party collectively gathered just outside.

“I knew it!” Seokjin shrieks. “Where’s my mistletoe?”

“My poor bathroom!” Jimin cries, “Defiled! Desecrated!”

“Why am I friends with you all?” Yoongi asks no one in particular.

“Well,” Tae whispers in your ear, “At least we won’t have to tell them, right?”

You smile despite the embarrassing situation and nod. This Christmas might just be your best yet.

a/n: sorry that this is late and severely unedited LOL plz be kind, this is my first fic back and YA GIRL IS RUSTY

© luxekook do not repost, edit or translate as protected under this license

[achubbydumpling]

Consider this: slightly chubby office worker bucky and lean, muscular steve who has a huge crush on him.

They work in the same department so Steve is always sneaking him food and rubbing his belly for him. Poor bucky keeps outgrowing his shirts and his pants barely go over his ass anymore but he doesn't wanna stop.

Bucky finally has to work from home when he gets too big for his office chair and his belly is almost constantly hanging out. All thanks to steve, of course.

Hello! I'm sorry for only answering this now, buuuuut this ask made me think of a very specific scenario for some reason? So, I hope you'll enjoy reading this... imagine? ficlet? this is neither edited nor proofread, so I apologize for any mistakes

Alright, I immediately jumped to Bucky working from home because he's outgrown his office chair. Maybe he hit the weight limit, maybe he's just gotten too wide to comfortably fit between the arm rests. Maybe he’s a gainer in this? In any case, he applies to work from home, and they grant him the request (anything to facilitate the kink, right? :D)

Rating: Mature Words: 1638 Relationship: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers Additional Tags: Stuffing, Belly Kink, nicknames (pig), allusions to masturbation, mutual pining, maybe slight dub-con (Bucky doesn't know he's unmuted and Steve doesn't tell him right away)

The only requirement is that he has to be "on call" the entire workday. So, the next week on Monday Bucky sits down at his desk at home and logs in to the program his company makes him use for those calls.

And of course Steve picks up. The guy Bucky has had a not so subtle crush on since basically his first day. The blue eyed, blond haired subject of all of Bucky’s dreams, who is also the guy that Bucky has been eating his weight in junk over, because Steve keeps bringing in baked goods and Bucky can never say no to Steve.

On the other end of the call Steve is nervously chewing on his pencil until he finally hears Bucky’s warm voice say “Good morning.” A huge grin appears on his face without him wanting it to, but this is Bucky. So, of course he’s grinning like a maniac.

Bucky is just… Steve had tried to explain it to Nat once, but all he’d gotten out was a stupid “wow”, while grinning the same way he was right now. So, maybe he had a bit of an office crush, it’s normal when you spend 8h a day together, right? Bucky’s video feed is off and Steve is glad he didn’t stupidly turn his own camera on. He was debating it while he waited for Bucky’s call.

“So, do I just do my work, while I stay on this call or…?” Bucky asks when Steve didn’t respond. Steve scrambles out of his daydreams and nods. Then he remembers to actually say “Yes.”

“Alright,” was all that Bucky said and then the little red mute symbol pops up. Steve groans and rubs his hands over his face to get rid of that stupid smile.

“What’s up?” Bucky chimes back in, when Steve yelps in surprise, he adds, “you didn’t mute yourself. I could hear you… being annoyed, I think.”

“Sorry, Mondays.”

“Yeah,” Steve hears something crunching, “though my day has actually been pretty good so far.”

“Are you eating breakfast right now?” Steve looks at the clock—9:03 am.

“Nah, post-breakfast snack. I was craving something crunchy like those pig's ears you brought in on Friday.”

“That just sounds disgusting. Just call it a palm heart or a palmier.” Steve said the name of the pastry in a French accent in an effort to make Bucky laugh and when he did, his heart fluttered with a burst of warmth.

“Well, I’m having some cereal to make up for not having any pastries around.”

“Some?” Steve asked. He sobered quickly at the mention of what Bucky was actually eating, he hated how badly he was hiding his excitement at hearing what Bucky was eating. He’d been “subtly” pushing food on him since Bucky had first started working at the office. Steve doesn’t know a lot about flirting, but providing food seemed like a natural place to start.

Except he’s been stuck there for close to a year now. Every day he’d promise himself to finally ask Bucky out when he brings him one of the pastries, he brought in from that bakery on his way to the office, but when he’s actually looking at Bucky’s face, that lights up when he sees the sugary treat, Steve can never work up the courage and just slinks back to his own desk. And now Bucky wasn’t even in the office anymore.

Because you’ve fattened him up too much, a traitorous voice whispers in the back of Steve’s mind. It not like Steve was forcing Bucky to eat what he brought in, but all those treats right there in the break room surely weren’t helping with Bucky’s expanding waistline. Or those lunches they started taking together, where Steve always suggested they go out to eat instead of sharing a packed lunch in the break room. So, yeah, Steve wasn’t really at fault. Then why did he feel so goddamned proud whenever he saw Bucky’s shirts getting too small and the armrests on his chair digging into his plush sides?

Steve snaps back to reality when Bucky starts talking again.

“Just a bowl-full. Well, this is my second bowl, but cereal is pretty much mostly air, right?” They talk (argue) about what’s the best cereal after that, then what Bucky had for breakfast and then they somehow spend the entire morning talking like Bucky was still in the office and not all the way across town. Bucky refills his bowl twice before lunch rolls around at noon.

“Well, I’ll see you after lunch.” Steve reluctantly leaves his desk.

“I’ll be here!” Bucky calls before Steve takes of his headphones and heads into the breakroom to scarf down his lunch. He knows Bucky will probably only get back on the call once he has to work, but some small part of Steve hopes that if he eats fast enough he’ll get to spend at least part of his break chatting with Bucky.

When he makes his way back to his desk, Steve pops his headphones back on, plops down on his chair and immediately freezes at what he’s hearing. Bucky isn’t muted. Steve is listening to Bucky eat some kind of pasta dish, a very saucy pasta dish from the noises he can hear every time Bucky takes a bite and sucks the spaghettis he missed into his mouth. This is Steve’s personal hell, he thinks, it can’t get any worse than this.

Steve is just about to tell Bucky he’s unmuted when he hears him say, unmistakably, “Fucking pig.” It can get worse.

“Such a fat fucking pig.” Bucky muffles his moan with another mouthful of food. He must be close to finishing his food Steve thinks, then he blushes at realising he knows what Bucky sounds like when he’s getting full.

Bucky’s headphones must be lying on the desk, because they pick up the slide of skin on skin perfectly and Steve leans closer to his monitor even though there isn’t an image. He presses his hands over his headphones to make sure he hears all the little sounds Bucky is making and then he jolts back when Bucky burps loudly.

Steve’s eyes scan the office to make sure no one saw him jumping around on his chair like a scaredy cat, but no one is around. No one is around to see Steve listen very intently to his co-worker eating lunch. Stuffing himself.— Brain.Steve scolds himself, but then Bucky moans again and Steve can’t help but scoot his chair closer. One, to hide his growing erection and two, because logic has left his brain and he needs to get closer to hear better apparently. Steve turns up the volume and then takes his headphones off to make sure it’s no so loud that anyone walking by could hear the sound.

“Fuck, so good,” Bucky groans and Steve can hear his cutlery cluttering onto the desk. He can hear clothes rustling and suddenly the sound of Bucky rubbing his hands over the taut skin of his belly is back. It overtakes the connection for a long moment, that and Bucky’s shallow breathing.

“Best penne and pizza? Yeah, I can believe that.” Steve can hear Bucky’s chair groaning under him. Three suffering clicks from the chair and another pained belch from Bucky.

“If you keep eating like this you’re gonna get fat, Barnes.” Bucky chuckles to himself, “well, fatter.” Bucky exhales heavily, Steve can hear him shift again and his breathing gets heavier.

“Only thing missing is dessert. That’d make a real glutton outta me, not just overeating at lunch, but eating more sugar after,” Steve hears the familiar sound of Bucky popping his button to get comfortable, but Bucky doesn’t stop there, Steve hears the zipper being pulled down too. Steve’s heart skips a beat. Is he gonna—

“Get some feeder to bring it to me, some rich chocolate cake. No, ah, those little cake pops, that— that Steve brought in.” Steve holds his breath when he hears his own name in Bucky’s voice, the emphasis Bucky puts on his name.

“Steve—” He hears a bottle cap being snapped open. Ok, nope, this is too far, Steve decides and reaches for the mouse.

“Oh, my God, Bucky. You’re unmuted!” Steve just about shouts into the microphone. He immediately hears something clatter to the floor and then Bucky swearing.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry. I was just— This isn’t what it looks like. I’m— I was— How long were you listening?” The tips of Steve’s ears are burning and the blush is working it’s way down over Steve’s face.

“A few— just a bit. You said my name.” Steve adds, hopeful, even though Bucky was probably more worried about his co-worker almost catching him jerking off. Listening to him jerk off.

“Great, are we going straight to HR or is tomorrow fine?” Bucky asked resigned.

“How about dinner?” Steve didn’t know where he plucked the courage from, but when Bucky didn’t answer right away whatever ounce of courage had possessed him left just as quickly.

“I’m sorry—"

“No. No, yeah, that’s fine. Great! That sounds good.” Bucky floundered a bit but Steve couldn’t wipe that grin of his face again.

“Tonight?” Bucky added.

“It’s a date.”

[jaembby]

Lesson learned

pairing: nct dream x f reader

genre: fluff, angst (kinda but not really- its basically y/n having a breakdown that’s it), somewhat a roommates au

word count: 1.8k

requested: yes! request:  scenario where they try to prank you ignoring you like they're upset, but you had a really bad day and just breaks down in front of them (nct dream)

warnings: there’s really none unless you count possible grammar mistakes and shitty writing. also I only got to proof reading the first part so the second half probably has some mistakes but let’s just ignore them for now :)

a/n: thank you again for the request @nctvroomts! if anyone wants to request anything, send it in!

also, I hit 60 followers while writing this!! (i’m at 63 now) Thank you all so much!! I can’t believe there are actually over 60 people who read my writing y’all i- <3 <3 <3

preview:

You couldn’t take it anymore and let a small salty tear slide down your cheek as you turned and ran to your room.

Sneaky smiles quickly turned to looks of instant regret as the boys realized; they’d messed up.

-----

The second you entered into your shared flat, you knew something wasn’t right.

There are four of you who live in the flat but it feels more like eight. Jaemin, Jeno and Renjun lived with you but their friend group - who you had now become a part of - called “the dreamies” were always over. Your home was like a second home to Mark, Haechan, Chenle and Jisung aka the other half of the dreamies.

Every single day, without fail, you would come home to the group of overly affectionate boys bombarding you with hugs and questions about your day and stories about theirs. Today, however, was different.

You walked into the door only to be greeted with silence. Most of the boys were sitting and playing video games on the couches of your shared living room while Jaemin and Jeno were taking fresh muffins out of the oven for everyone. Not a single head had turned your way upon your arrival. Not a single greeting of “hi” or “how was your day?”. Not one person moved from where they were stationed nor paid any attention to you whatsoever. Did you do something? Do they suddenly not like you?

“Hello? Are any of you alive?” you called out but didn’t get a response.

You weren’t in the mood for this shit today. You’d had an argument with a co-worker which ended up with nearly everyone in the workplace turning against you for absolutely no reason then received hateful messages because of false rumours spread about you. Because of this, your boss had even threatened that “you’ll be fired if this rubbish continues” and “we can’t have someone like you causing trouble among our staff and bringing the company’s reputation down”! It wasn’t even your fault! But of course, no one listened to you.

“Did I do something? Am I a ghost?” you asked the boys but, once again, received no response. You looked over to where the dreamies sat on the couches eating their muffins which just so happened to be your favourite flavour. It also just so happened that there were none made for you.

“Hello? Please don’t ignore me, guys,” you said as you set your things down on a table, trying not to let them get the better of you.

You looked forward to coming home to the dreamies because they’re your best friends! They always managed to make you feel better and today, you really needed it.

“Did you guys hear anything?” Haechan asked the rest of the group. They all responded with a chorus of no’s and nope’s and that’s when you let go.

Well done. Whatever you boys hoped to achieve, I hope you’re happy, you thought as you felt isolated and alone. The day that you thought couldn’t have gotten any worse just did and it was too much for you.

You couldn’t take it anymore and let a small salty tear slide down your cheek as you turned and ran to your room.

Sneaky smiles quickly turned to looks of instant regret as the boys realized; they’d messed up.

You didn’t spare a glance back at the group of 7 boys downstairs as you slammed the door and flopped onto your bed before letting the tears fall. All of the pent-up anger, frustration and sadness from today’s events came crashing down like a tidal wave as you struggled to control your breathing.

Downstairs, the guys had started to panic.

“Haechan, this is all your fault for suggesting to prank y/n!” Renjun shouted.

“Me? You all agreed to it!” Haechan replied.

Soon enough, almost all of the dreamies were arguing over whose fault it was, a series of “you did this” and “you said that” was all that could be heard with each boy trying to get his say.

“Shut up! All of you!” Mark yelled, bringing an abrupt halt to the arguments.

“Thank you. Now, stop blaming each other. We all agreed to prank y/n and all came up with the plan together. Obviously, we’ve upset her because we’re all stupid and selfish so now we’ve got to work out how to fix this mess.”

“This is why Mark is our unofficial leader,” Haechan stated as Mark blushed. “now does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this mess that we all made?” He continued.

“Jeno and I made extra muffins that we were going to give to y/n after,” Jaemin said in a small voice.

“I feel so bad,” Jisung said as he suddenly found the ground very interesting.

“Me too”

“Me three”

“Same”

“I think we all do”

“Yeah”

“Yep”

“Alright, here’s the plan...” Mark said as he revealed what the group of boys were to do in order to apologize and fix their mistakes.

7 out of the 8 dreamies (you being the odd one out) were sitting in a circle and thinking of ways to make you feel better.

“I can go talk to her... see how she is?” Jisung suggested.

“That’s probably a good idea, ‘sungie, seeing as she doesn’t often get mad at you. While Jisung’s up there, Jaemin and Jeno, I want you guys to get the rest of the muffins out and put them on a plate and 9 glasses and a bottle of y/n’s favourite juice. Renjun and Haechan, help me set up a pillow fort and Chenle, pick out a few movies that y/n might like. Is everyone okay with that?” Mark said, his authoritative side showing once again. When everyone nodded in response, it was time to start.

Jisung walked quietly up the stairs towards your room but stopped a few feet away when he heard your uneven breathing and quiet sniffles being muffled by pillows. He quickly made a detour to the bathroom where he got a glass of water for you and a box of tissues and set out for your room once more.

“y/n?” Jisung asked hesitantly.

“what do you want?” You questioned, angry that the dreamies were ignoring you up until now.

“It’s Jisung, can I come in?”

“Oh, come in ‘sung.”

Jisung made his way into your room and sat down at the edge of your bed before pulling you into a gentle hug. For a while, it was just the two of you in comfortable silence. No words needing to be shared as Jisung let you cry onto his shoulder as he gently stroked your hair. When your breathing had returned to a somewhat normal pace with only small hiccups here and there, Jisung passed you a tissue.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, the gentle sound muffled by his face in your hair.

“Not only me... the rest of us. Y/n, we’re really sorry,” He said as he tightened his grip on you before pulling away to help you wipe some of the tears from your cheeks.

“I’m sorry too. I guess I overreacted. It’s not all your fault... I’ve just had a pretty rough day with work and coming home to my best friends acting like I wasn’t there was not the best end to it” you smiled slightly as you reached a hand up to play with Jisung’s hair. He always managed to calm you down. No matter what happened between you and the others, Jisung was always the one to not get involved.

“Y/n I’m so sorry, we didn’t know. It was just meant to be a prank but we took it too far.”

“It’s okay, ‘sungie. I’m fine now.” You gave him a reassuring smile as you pulled your hands away from his hair which was now slightly messier than it had been before.

“Do you wanna go downstairs? Let’s get you cleaned up a bit and head down because the others want to apologise, too.” Jisung said as he led you to your ensuite bathroom and gently took your hair out of it’s ponytail as you washed off your (now messed up) makeup. Soon enough, you had washed off the makeup, the red stains in your eyes from crying had reduced and you’d changed into comfier clothes as you headed downstairs with Jisung to meet the remaining 6 boys.

As soon as you’d got downstairs, Mark smothered you in a too-tight hug.

“Jisung probably already told you this but we’re so sorry. We really are, y/n. It was meant to be a stupid prank but we never intended to hurt your feelings. We’re really sorry.” He said as he pulled back and grabbed your hand, leading you towards the mess of pillows and blankets that the boys had turned into a fort big enough to comfortably fit all 8 of you.

You’d just sat down on one of the pillows when suddenly a tray of muffins was placed in front of you by a pouty Jaemin and Jeno.

“Sorry.” they both said as they took turns in giving you hugs.

Renjun, Haechan and Chenle followed after Jaemin and Jeno, apologizing and giving you tight comforting hugs.

After hugs and muffins being shared amongst you all, everyone had gotten into more comfortable positions in the pillow fort, ready to watch movies.

“Y/n, pick a movie,” Chenle said as he passed the remote in your direction from where he was seated next to Jisung. Haechan, who was to the left of you, grabbed it and gave it to you before resting his head gently on your shoulder and snuggling closer to you.

“Hyuck, stop moving. You nearly kicked over our cups.” Mark said as he reached down to move the half-empty cups away from the potentially dangerous area.

“Noo- the cups will be fine, Mark.” Haechan retorted tiredly and you laughed quietly at their banter.

The movie began and Jaemin, who was to your right, looped his arm with yours as he rested his head on your free shoulder.

Renjun leaned on Jeno, who leaned on Jaemin, who cuddled your right side while Mark was resting the weight of his head on Haechan’s lap and Chenle and Jisung were sat in front of the rest of you, side by side, leaning on each other and occasionally commenting on the movie to one another which would earn a playful slap from the other.

Things were peaceful (well, as peaceful as you can get with the dreamies) and all was well. You’d forgiven the boys and they’d learned not to pull dumb pranks in the future. Now here you all sat, the eight of you content and comfortable.

It was quiet apart from the movie playing in the background...too quiet.

Suddenly, the blanket that acted as the roof of the den fell down, along with two of the chairs holding them up, causing you all to laugh as Jaemin and Jisung screamed quietly, having been woken from their half-asleep state.

“Maybe someone else can be in charge of building the den next time,” Jisung mumbled grumpily as he lay on Chenle in an attempt to get comfortable once again.

“Hey!” Chenle said in an offended tone (though you all knew he was faking) and lightly hit Jisung in the arm which caused the rest of you to go into another laughing fit.

The group of overly affectionate boys had once again managed to make you smile and laugh again, despite everything that happened today.

Lesson learned: don’t prank y/n like that! 

-----

a/n: thank you for reading! I know this was very basic and boring with the shittiest plot but writer’s block doesn’t help when you’re trying to write a request nshdkj anyways not @ me trying to subtly put chenji markhyuck and norenmin in there i’m sorry if there’s mistakes I literally wrote majority of this at like 2am on multiple days so yeah. anyways i’m going to shut up now- thanks for reading and please continue sending in requests!! i’m so sorry @nctvrooms that this took so long to write I kinda forgot about it for like two weeks oops.

[crpslife]

Hi. My name is Complex Regional Pain Syndrome… some friends who have known me for a very long time call me RSD or CRPS…… I’m an invisible inflammatory disease that attacks your sympathetic nervous system.

I am now velcroed to you for life. If you have CRPS you hope for remission but there is no cure.

I’m so sneaky–I don’t show up in your blood work, in x-rays, MRI’s can’t detect me, basically there is no test to prove you have me. There are only test to rule out other things.

Others around you can’t see me or hear me, but YOUR body feels me.

I can attack you anywhere and anyway I please. And, I will. Constantly.

I can cause severe pain or, if I’m in a good mood, I can just cause you to ache all over.

Remember when you and energy ran around together and had fun?

I took energy from you, and gave you exhaustion. Try to have fun now.

I can take good sleep from you and in its place, give you brain fog and lack of concentration.

I can make you want to sleep 24/7, and I can also cause insomnia.

I can make you tremble internally or make you feel cold or hot when everyone else feels normal.

I can cause one limb to change color, look bruised, feel super sensitive randomly for seemingly no reason.

I can also give you swollen hands and feet, swollen face and eyelids, swollen everything.

OH, and just because I started off in one part of your body, don’t think I can’t travel and effect other limbs or any other part of your body I so choose to torment. I can, and likely I will.

I can make you feel very anxious with panic attacks or very depressed. I can also cause other mental health problems. You know crazy mood swings? That’s me. Crying for no reason? Angry for no reason? That’s probably me too. It is hard to not feel hopeless when you have me beating your body up constantly.

I can make you literally scream out loud, anytime of day or night, anywhere you are because I can create pain that makes you sure someone just stabbed you with a knife. Making you look crazy is fun for me.

I can make your hair fall out, your nails become dry and brittle, cause acne, cause dry skin, the sky’s the limit with me.

I can make you gain weight and no matter what you eat or how much you exercise, I can keep that weight on you. I can also make you lose weight. I don’t discriminate.

Some of my other inflammatory disease friends often join me, giving you even more to deal with.

If you have something planned, or are looking forward to a great day, I can take that away from you. You didn’t ask for me. I chose you for various reasons: That sports injury, needle stick,, or that car accident, or maybe it was the surgery to correct a bone problem.. Whatever the cause, I’m here to stay.

I hear you’re going to see a doctor to try and get rid of me. That makes me laugh. Just try. You will have to go to many, many doctors until you find one who can even try to help you effectively. Most of them will make you feel like you are to blame, or worse, it is all in your head. I’ll convince them that you are crazy because normal people know that you can’t have all those symptoms all over your body and still walk around looking normal.

You will be put on the wrong medication for you, pain pills, sleeping pills, energy pills, told you are suffering from anxiety or depression, given anti-anxiety pills and antidepressants.

There are so many other ways I can make you sick and miserable, the list is endless – If your body is all of a sudden dealing with things that were never issues before…yep…. that’s probably me.

Shortness of breath or “air hunger?” Yep, probably me.

Bone density problems?

Can’t regulate body temp and poor circulation?

Constant ‘electric jolts’? Yep, probably me.

I told you the list was endless.

You may be given a TENs unit, get massaged, told if you just sleep and exercise properly I will go away.

You’ll be told to think positively, you’ll be poked, prodded, and MOST OF ALL, not taken seriously when you try to explain to the endless number of doctors you’ve seen, just how debilitating I am and how ill and exhausted you really feel. In all probability you will get a referral from these ‘understanding’ (clueless) doctors, to see a psychiatrist.

I will make you question your own sanity at times. I will make you contemplate unthinkable scenarios.

Your family, friends and co-workers will all listen to you until they just get tired of hearing about how I make you feel, and just how debilitating I can be.

Even after explaining to those you interact with regularly that I’m the most painful disease known to man, and there is no cure, they will say things like “I hope you have a speedy recovery”. Those who don’t know me well have no idea how cruel and unusual my punishment can be.

Some of them will say things like “Oh, you are just having a bad day” or “Well, remember, you can’t do the things you use to do 20 YEARS ago”, not hearing that you said 20 DAYS ago.

They’ll also say things like, “if you just get up and move, get outside and do things, you’ll feel better.” They won’t understand that I take away the ‘gas’ that powers your body and mind to ENABLE you to do those things.

Some will start talking behind your back, they’ll call you a hypochondriac, while you slowly feel that you are losing your dignity trying to make them understand, especially if you are in the middle of a conversation with a “normal” person, and can’t remember what you were going to say next. You’ll be told things like, “Oh, my sister had that, and she’s fine on her medication” when you desperately want to explain that I don’t impose myself upon everyone in the exact same way, and just because that sister is fine on the medication SHE’S taking, doesn’t mean it will work for you.

They will not understand that having this disease impacts your body from the top of your head to the tip of your toes, and that every cell and every body system and organ can be effected.

The only place you will get the kind of support and understanding in dealing with me is with other people that have me. They are really the only ones who can truly understand.

Author Unknown 

[askdawnandvern]

WT: Well if we are going to go that far, literally anything could and has happened in terms of Dark AUs, but if you want my like...spin on some concepts, I can throw out some hypotheticals.

In terms of going full on dark outcomes, I feel like I would always have the worst timelines end by tragically blowing up in the schemers faces. Realistically, I feel that in every case, whether it was Dawn or Aster at the helm, it would catch up to them at some point, or backfire in a spectacularly unforeseen way.

Starting with Aster, let's say his plan hadn't been stopped. Instead of an exciting chase sequence where Vernon absconds with Dawn, the wolf takes the a different route, demanding to be taken into custody alongside Dawn. While they don't arrest him, the group of them go down to the station where it is impossible for them to intercepted by Aster's goons. However, Judy's fixation on Dawn and her presumed guilt wastes precious time cracking just what is actually being planned and who is planning it, and though they make enough progress to figure out what is coming and dispatch the ZPD to stop as many tankers as they can, a few get through and there are some casualties and serious injuries. Aster and his cronies are caught, but with more of a mess to clean up in the wake of the worst terrorist attack in Zootopian history, many more of the co-conspirators are able to flee or cover their tracks behind the veil of confusion and misery, and it takes Judy and Nick years to finally pin down every mammal involved.

Taking it to a worse degree, lets say Aster is completely successful. The kidnapping still happens and instead of using night-howler to deal with Dawn, Vern Judy and Nick, he simply elects to shoot them all. With no one else as close to the case as Nick and Judy were, there is no mammal to stop Aster and his goons. The districts are flooded in night-howler, and the city begins tearing itself apart. The unexpected turn of course is that the Night Howler doesn't kill everyone. Of course there are those mammals who escape the gassing, but they different methods of dispersal and the way it is diluted lead to a bulk of the mammals hit with it coming down with mild poisoning, (basically what we say in Dawn's original plot). Doug had made an incorrect calculation. Thus, while he, Aster and the others attempt to flee the city they are caught by a mob of savage mammals and meet a brutal end. Of course, with so few animals dead it's just a matter of catching them and giving them the antidote. And with many of them to act as witnesses, having seen what Aster's henchrams attempted to do first hoof, well, his efforts to hide his tracks would have quickly crumbled. It would take years after that to repair the city, and flush various water reservoirs and other areas where the diluted poison had pooled, and just as long to sniff out all the co-conspirators, but sadly many of them would have escaped.

With Dawn's death, as well as Nick and Judy's, public consensus would have settled on the idea that she must have had something to do with the plot, and that perhaps she had killed Nick and Judy as a final act of revenge, despite the lack of evidence and what little was found of their remains. As for the Hunter's, not only was there a good chance that Dorian, and Zach would have met grizzly ends at the paws of their co-workers,  but there's a good chance Wade would have also died in the chaos of trying to contend with a savage tundra town. And of course there would still be the mystery of just how Vernon died, and why what little of his remains were found alongside Dawn, Nick and Judy's.

Finally, rolling back further we have Dawn's original plot, and three different outcomes there. First is the less brutal outcome. Dawn notices the blueberries, and swaps them back out with night howler, tagging Nick and waiting for the chomp. But much to Dawn's complete shock, instead of pouncing on Judy, Nick coils around her protectively. This causes Dawn to completely snap, the madness and irritation reaching a boiling point as she begins to berate the fox, calling him a dumb pred, and lamenting that he can't even hunt right. This backfires horribly, with Nick making a surprisingly spry leap out of the pit and mauling Dawn to death.

Alternate path two, well that diverts from the Nick getting dosed with night howler point. Only this time, Nick does what was intended and violently mauls Judy. Unlike before though, Dawn's psyche breaks in an entirely different way. At this point the ewe had been running on Adrenalin and the fear of getting caught. But now, seeing a mammal she once saw as a friend be brutally murdered in front of her, and because of her, Dawn is immediately regretful and traumatized. The ZPD bursts in and shoots Nick with live ammunition hoping they can save Officer Hopps if the acted quickly enough, but it's too late. As for Dawn, she is too shocked to even speak, the ewe left mute as she stares back into the lifeless eyes of her once friend.

I've vaguely talked about the idea behind this before, a now remorseful and guilt ridden Dawn growing into a rapidly weak link in the entire operation from this point forward. Eventually the ewe makes the mistake of admitting to Doug that she intends to come clean and turn herself in, and this forces Doug's hoof to eliminate her. Naturally, this is done by staging a savage attack, and Dawn ironically meets her end the same way she had damned Judy to.

I guess the last one would be, for the sake of argument rolling it back enough to the point where Judy made the connection to the 'Night Howler' flower and simply nixing that whole realization entirely. Judy lives out the rest of her life in Bunny Burrow, memories of the case fading to the point when Night Howler finally comes up in discussion, she is no longer capable of making the connection. Meanwhile, in Zootopia the city plunges into chaos. After Gazelle is mauled at her peace concert by her own dancers, Zootopia becomes increasingly totalitarian. Nick and Finnick flee, as well as many other predators before Dawn announces the construction of a predator only zone called 'Happy Town” (Code named: Savage City). Predators that insist on staying in Zootopia are forced into the district, and eventually access to the outside districts is limited and suspended to all Happy Town residents. Eventually election privileges are suspended as well, until 'peacetime' returns to Zootopia, which of course never occurs as the increasingly mad Dawn begins planning creating new districts to further segregate the more dangerous populations in Zootopia. First the Mega-fauna for being to large and dangerous to more average sized mammals, then the Micro-fauna for 'their own protection' and so on until the City is split into a multitude of micro districts for a variety of other mammals, and the older, largely districts are left exclusively to caprid folks.

Of course, it was easy to keep the predators in check when it was only them Dawn had to worry about. Predators were outnumbered by prey by nine to one. But locking down pretty much every other mammal species aside from caprids created a massively growing tide of dissent and unrest, which would eventually lead to a full scale city wide riot. A riot that Dawn would be unable to contend with despite her best efforts. In this scenario Dawn would meet her fate at the end of an angry mob, made of both predator and prey, and united by their mutual hatred of one Dawn Bellwether.

So there's a heavy look into some dark AU's for you. I hope you like it, cause that went on way longer than initially intended.

[thehandydje]

No Time for Coronas At-The-Moment.

There’s no more denying that this pandemic outbreak of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) has taken over our world. Some people – including myself – have a YOLO (You Only Live Once) mentality, which encourages one to live every day to the fullest, and to not let anything hold one back. However, with all of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) stuff going on, this is a time to hold back and put the “living every day to the fullest” on the back burner for now. Our economy is at stake; our jobs are at stake; our lifestyles’ are at stake; our socialization with others is at stake: (mind you that humans need socialization).

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis has forced businesses to close and has put sports, entertainment, and other lifestyle activities on hold. Virtually every professional sports league has suspended their seasons for the time being.

This virus is non-discriminatory. If professional athletes all over-the-world – who have arguably the best workout and nutrition regiment plans in place to stay in good shape and stay fit in their respected sports - have tested positive for the Coronavirus (COVID-19) - then no one is safe. Anyone is vulnerable.

The government and other healthcare experts underestimated the severity of the spread and potential consequences of contracting this virus. The uncertainty of containment has forced the government to issue strong suggestions and warnings that we must self-quarantine, practice social distancing, refrain from gathering in groups above 10 people, and being more diligent and stricter in our hygienic practices. While some states are taking these suggestions to a whole new level - by making self-quarantine and social distancing a mandatory enforcement for the time being - other states have taken a more leisure approach to this enforcement. For those states, the lack of awareness for this public safety measurement has created a fearful state-of-mind for certain groups of people within the general public: such as individuals who have pre-existing health conditions – like myself.

To give a little context: I am a 24-year old male, who is disabled, in a wheelchair, and I use a ventilator to breathe. (Just a reminder: the ventilator I use to breathe is the same type of equipment in short supply right now across the nation.) My immune system is compromised and I have respiratory issues, which puts me at a higher risk of developing pneumonia and I am more susceptible to picking up illnesses from other people. I check all of the vulnerability boxes; the bottom line is this: If I contracted the Coronavirus (COVID-19), worst-case scenario is I could die like everyone else since we don’t have a cure for it yet.

I am a DJ, a producer, and do some other freelance work from home; but, like anyone else, I like to socialize with others, too. While our technological advancements allow us to telecommunicate and interact with others from the confines of anywhere – such as our homes – interacting and socializing with others, in-person, is a whole new dynamic.

Scientists, medical, and healthcare professionals are working around-the-clock to try to find a cure for this mystery virus. However, that takes time – and time is something that we don’t have.

With my compromised immune system, my pre-existing health conditions, and with the uncertainty of this virus, I haven’t left my house in weeks. The extent of activities that I’ve done over the last few weeks includes going out for walks in my yard and stuff, but that’s basically it. I’m cautious and fearful that the next person I come into contact with - aside from my immediate family (I live with parents) and some of my immediate caretakers - could pass along this virus that impacts me in a way that I don’t even want to think about. Therefore, I don’t want to take any risks because of what the potential could be if I go out.

We are lucky to be living in a world where we have the luxury of using technology to communicate with others anytime, anywhere. However, the unknown of this virus is making this world a pretty scary place right now.

The uncertainty makes the world a scary place right now; there are people out there that fit the more “at risk” category for this virus – such as myself; there are other people out there that may be more immune to contracting illnesses than others, but no one is safe.

Celebrities and professional athletics, who have tested positive for Coronavirus (COVID-19), have sent messages / posted videos on their social media accounts, updating their fans, the public, and the world on their status. There has been one person in particular, though, whose message stood out to me wholeheartedly: thewell-known sports figure, NFL Head Coach of the New Orleans Saints’, Sean Payton. He recently tested positive for the Coronavirus (COVID-19). While it appears that celebrities and professional athletics have sent consistent messages / posted videos on their social media accounts that tried to convey hope and optimism, Sean Payton’s reaction and response was firm, stark, and frankly a reality-check that should be a wake-up call to the world.

According to ESPN, “Payton was publicizing his case because he wants the public to heed warnings relating to attempting to limit the spread of the virus.” Payton told ESPN: “This is not just about social distancing, it’s shutting down here for a week to two weeks. If people understand the curve and understand the bump, we can easily work together as a country to reduce it. Take a minute to understand what the experts are saying. It’s not complicated to do what they’re asking of us. Just that type of small investment by every one of us will have a dramatic impact. “I was fortunate to be in the minority, without the serious side effects that some have. I’m lucky. Younger people feel like they can handle this, but they can be a carrier to someone who can’t handle it. So we all need to do our part. It’s important for every one of us to do our part.”

This was the first direct response I have heard from a high-profiled person that has urged the public to stop being selfish – and to just follow the suggestions and protocols.

My pre-existing health conditions; my immune system being compromised and vulnerable; the worst-case scenario that if I contracted this virus, I could die like everyone else since we don’t have a cure for it yet; and the fact of the matter that people aren’t taken the suggested public safety measurement protocols serious enough - So, what should be the conclusion on this? Well, let’s see: our economy is at stake; our jobs are at stake; our lifestyles’ are at stake; our socialization with others is at stake: (mind you that humans need socialization). People are dying, we are in short supply of medical supplies, and this is a predator / enemy that we have never encountered before.

I think the answer is really simple and it’s not rocket-science: for the sake of friends, families’, co-workers’, people “at risk”, and more - stay home and be more diligent and stricter in your hygienic practices. We’re a community and a family; we have to take care of each other and help people out. The bottom line is that if one of us falls, the whole community can fall - and then we’re in a crisis worse than we are in right now.

[b-rainlet]

Here it comes, the post that about two people have been waiting for:

Watching tua I saw a lot of parallels between Vanya and Luther, so much that I decided to make a little post about it (based on my knowledge after watching the show one time)

So let's look at them, shall we?

One of the first things I noticed is their clothing.

I saw a lot of people joking on how Vanya dresses like a gay (which I def support) but looking closer to her clothes, you can see that she mostly wears stuff that’s ill-fitting on her, baggy jeans and too big shirts. Plus, compared to for example Allison or Klaus she wears muted colours, nothing flashy or memorable (the only thing that stuck in my head was the suit and even that was -at first - a normal suit, nothing extra-ordinary. Someone else may have worn a dress, or even some jewellery with the suit, little things that catch the eye).

I think we can all agree that she doesn’t wanna attract any attention, she tries her best to hide herself, be it by blending into her surroundings by avoiding too colourful clothing or by actively hiding her form under too big clothes.

Luther tries more or less the same, although you can argue about how succesfull that is.

Luther is even more obvious about hiding his body, never taking of his coat and even wearing gloves to conceal his hands. He can’t really wear anything that’s big on him because he already is incredibly big (and probably has clothing made extra for him, made to fit) but I bet if he had the chance, he’d also wear baggy things to hide himself.

At the same time, his stuff also isn’t all too flashy (and as far as I remember, he always wears the same stuff? He doesn’t seem to have a big wardrobe).

In both Vanya and Luther’s case, their clothing style stems from low self-esteem. And they both have low self-esteem because of their father.

So while Vanya probably had to live with very low self-esteem since she was a child, due to being reduced to being ‘ordinary’ - and that being treated like it’s a bad thing - and Luther’s problems with his body most likely only started when he was transformed, both of those incidents were engineered and executed by their father.

(But you could argue that Luther seemed to have a very tense relationship with food even before that, binge-eating or not eating at all and feeling guilty about eatogn too much, so maybe he had body issues way before his transformation. But I’m not sure whether the show really intends to explore that, so I stuck to post-monkey body Luther).

(Also also Luther canonically hates his body enough to self-harm (the scars on his chest) and in an interview it was stated that he thought about suicide because of it, both of which are things Vanya can probably relate to but aren’t addressed in the show, so I’m leaving them out on her part).

The only other person I could see having similar problems with his body is Five (Allison and Klaus both seem to be comfortable and Diego calls his body a temple, so it’s save to say they are content how they are body-wise). Ben is dead so I don’t know whether you can say he even has a body. But Five - although surely not happy that his time traveling plans didn’t turn out as planned - seems to be more annoyed at people treating him like a child and not at himself for looking like that (Also his hair is really fly, I keep getting jealous of it)

Speaking of low self-esteem, did you notice something?

Looking back on the show I realized something: Luther and Vanya are both alone.

If you think about it, there aren’t a lot of people outside of their family any of them interact with. But the others do have people they know and they are close to that aren’t family.

Diego has Eudora and even though they don’t have a relationship anymore, they continue to be close to each other and Diego obviously trusts her a whole lot.

Allison had Patrick and Claire. Those two aren’t as prominent as Patch but nevertheless Allison shows that she loves her daughter a lot and at one point in life, seemed to have loved Patrick enough to marry him and have a child with him (there’s also the fact that they seem to have divorced because of Allison using her powers on Claire and not because they had problems as a couple).

Klaus....is a bit trickier. He doesn’t have anyone in the present timeline he seems to be really close to whose not one of his siblings, but he does seem to know a lot of people. He seemed to have a good relationship with the people in rehab, the paramedics seem to either already know him or took a liking to him real fast (I usually don’t high five my paramedics) and he seems to interact with loads of people and he’s had at least one boyfriend in the past (the guy who’s good at cooking).

Then there’s also Dave, who Klaus seems to have loved deeply, actively trying to get sober to summon him. Interesting how every non-familial relationship is immediately romantic

Five and Ben are a bit out of the loop but since one of them died and the other was alone for several years, they are definitely special cases.

And even then, Five had Delores to project a personality onto and have a relationship with to mimick the human interactions he sure as hell craved and he also spent some time working for the commission and it seems like he was well-liked there for his effiency (and the Handler seems to have a weird, creepy crush on him).

And what about Luther and Vanya? Well, Luther never left home and never had any contact with anyone except his father, Pogo and Grace (and even then, Reginald seemed to spend as little time as possible with his kids when it wasn’t about training and he seemed to have stopped training Luther at that point, Pogo is somehow only ever present to be a dick under the guise of mystery and I don’t remember any flashback with him really genuinely interacting with the kids or Luther and Grace may have been a good mom but she doesn’t really count as a human, does she now?)

(And from what you can see, she also doesn’t seem to interact with the kids a lot once they’re adults and mostly sticks to making food for them. Also Diego is obv her fave askalja)

And well, after the mission gone wrong Luther is supposed to spend the rest of his life on the moon, so there’s not a lot of possibility for him to socialize.

Vanya on the other hand has the best chances of starting a new and normal life with loads of friends since she was never required to dedicate her life to the academy like the others had to.

But what do we see of her before Leonard comes into the picture?

She lives alone, no mention of prior partners, no friends, the people who work with her in the orchestra don’t even know her name.....

(Granted, she does have a relationship with someone outside of her family during the first season but I don’t actually count that as a genuine relationship since Leonard only uses her).

The others also have all those added relationships established from the beginning, while Vanya has no one in the beginning and Luther continues to be completely dependant on his family concerning human interaction.

Which brings me to my next point: They both don’t have a real relationship with their family

The one who seems to get along best with everyone is Klaus. He has a good relationship with Diego, they have a lot of scenes together, he and Allison seem to get along, being the only two who actually hug each other and of course him and Ben are really close due to circumstances.

Diego has - as already mentioned - Klaus and also he’s close to Grace (something the others aren’t, even though they all are obviously very fond of her).

But Luther and Vanya are both kind of on the sidelines.

Vanya because she always was and her father encouraged that by not letting her train with her siblings (which I still think is stupid because she could’ve learned combat?? Both Klaus and Allison don’t have powers that grant them a lot of fighting skills and they were still trained how to to take out enemies, so why not Vanya, honestly). He didn’t let her get a tattoo, didn’t let her be on family portraits, her room was moved from being closer to her siblings to being up in the attic as far as I know, basically she was taught she isn’t part of this family.

And that shows in how little she really interacts with her siblings and how in all of those interactions she gets put down, mostly by Diego.

Then there’s Luther, who was part of the academy, who was granted all the things that Vanya couldn’t do and still he doesn’t have a better relationship with his family.

He was obviously closer to his father than his siblings and there’s a wedge between them based on the way his father favoured him over the others (good example is his relationship with Diego).

I personally also think that taking on the role of leader made him distance himself more from the others? Like, you obviously have a different relationship with your co-workers than your boss and I could see the others being cautious around him because what if he snitches on them? Also they obviously didn’t share his views on how good their Dad is and that obviously further divided them, although all of that is more of a hc since we don’t get a lot of general Luther flashbacks about him as a kid.

Notice how in all those scenarios Vanya is the one who deliberately chooses to push herself further away from everyone else whereas Luther doesn’t seem to have a choice about it. Even with their family, Luther doesn’t seem to get out of his role as the leader and genuinely tries to be there for his family even though it only makes matters worse whereas Vanya chooses to write her book (something that really breaks her relationship with Diego) even though she must’ve known about the consequences.

You can argue that Five and Vanya seems to have had a good relationship as kids but looking at the show Five really seems to not ‘belong’ anywhere, spending some time with Vanya, then Klaus, then Allison and Diego, then Luther and then he’s on his own again for some time....

He’s a bit like that one kid in school that doesn’t have a fixed freindgroup and just changes every other week, which makes sense considering that he spent a lot of time apart from his family (even longer than they spent without him) and he’s changed a lot due to that and probably needs to properly reconnect with the others first.

But who did I forget? Oh yeah, Allison.

See, I didn’t mention because Allison she’s another factor where Luther and Vanya parallel each other.

Allison is the only Hargreeves who seems to try and reach out for the two of them on several occasions.

We already see that both their relationships with Diego are tense but we also see that they both seem to click best with Allison.

Allison tries her best to include Vanya in the family again, telling her she belongs there and trying to be supportive when Vanya tells her she met someone (and later on going on a whole detective tangent because Leonard seems shady, that’s peak older sibling).

With Luther, there’s the romance subplot of course but even without that, Allison tries to comfort him about his body and the fact that everything he did was for naught (something none of the others by the way do when the chandelier drops on him. They all see his body, but only Allison tries to talk to him about it as far as I remember. Diego makes fun of it).

Seriously, Allison tries very hard to reach out to those two especially.

(And in the end, both of them end up pushing her out. Vanya by lashing out and hurting her and Luther by not listening to her repeatedly and locking up Vanya).

Both of them are also the most emotionally vulnerable.

Vanya is manipulated by Leonard easily because she desperate for love and approval, even though Leonard screamed ‘shady guy’ from a mile away, let’s be real.

And Luther was blinded so badly by his Dad’s teaching that even when he nearly died, he didn’t leave him and even when his father was dead, he kept acting exactly how Reginald would’ve wanted him to.

All the others don’t seem as perceptive, with Allison seeing through Leonard’s bullshit right away and Diego clearly stating what a monster their Father actually was (and even though all of them are affected by their childhood trauma, they all seem to realize that there was something traumatic happening at all, Luther never really got that far only after he found the unopened sample he had sent his Dad).

So basically, Luther’s and Vanya’s arcs have a lot of similarities that are probably 100% deliberate and they seem to go through a lot of the same stuff even though their original placement within the story (Number One versus Number Seven) seems to frame them as opposites.

And they are opposites, just thinking about how exactly they were isolated from their family shows that. But at the same time even though both their stories are happening on opposite sides, they always end up paralleling each other.

I like to say ‘Two sides of the same coin’

This is basically a long rambly post of me saying that I really think those two could help each other a lot and have an arc about growing closer together, especially considering something  @deweysdenouement has said:

Luther’s whole arc goes from believing your Father was just and always made the right decisions and being convinced that your life had a very specific purpose to learning that everything you thought was basically a lie and that you just wasted your time doing something completely useless because your Father couldn’t stand the sight of you (also your Father was abusive and what you suffered through was, in fact, abuse, and not justified in any way).

And Vanya goes from I am only ordinary and I will never be special in any way and therefore everyone is right to just brush over me and my feelings to I actually am the most powerful out of all of my siblings and I have a right to speak my mind.

(Basically from One to Zero and from Zero to One in one Season).

[taexual]

Rear View / WinWin x Reader

You aren’t able to juggle your studies, work, and a boyfriend at the same time, so Sicheng tries to put you both out of the misery of a neglected relationship.

pairing: Sicheng x Reader

warnings: ANGST! + strong language

words: 3.2k

disclaimer: please let me know if the gif belongs to you so i can give proper credit

ANON REQUEST: Hi my dear, could I request a NCT Winwin angst, the scenario can be anything you want!

Sicheng has never been in a similar situation before. He’s seen you late plenty of times in the two years that the two of you had dated, but it’s been over forty minutes now and you showed no signs of arriving at the restaurant that he was waiting for you in. You weren’t even answering your phone and he didn’t know whether something had happened to you or if you just forgot.

“Would you like to order, sir?” the waiter asked for the fifth time that night, trying not to show his impatience. Sicheng didn’t blame him, there were people waiting for a table and he was occupying one without bringing any profit.

“One minute,” he told the waiter, trying to give him an apologetic smile as he got his phone out to send you another text message. “I’m very sorry.”

“It’s alright,” the waiter replied, no longer sounding as polite as he did the first few times he’d tried to take his order.

After receiving no response from you yet again, – Sicheng didn’t know why he was still expecting you to reply, to be quite honest, – he sighed heavily before he finally gathered his things, left a lot more money than the glass of water he’d ordered cost, and walked out of the restaurant before the waiter could return.

He debated heading straight home but then he realized that he couldn’t live with himself if something had happened to you and he didn’t check, so he decided to go to your place first. It was likely that you were just busy working but he wasn’t willing to take the chance of the reason for your disappearance being something else.

Unsure if he was about to be disappointed or terrified, he rang your doorbell. He rang it again twenty seconds later just to be sure but the door wouldn’t open. It was clear that you weren’t home and yet Sicheng was still too concerned to leave so he dialed the phone number of your closest friend and co-worker. If she’d tell him you weren’t at work, he’d head straight to the police station.

“Sicheng?” your friend picked up on the first ring and, for the first time in his life, he was almost relieved to hear another girl’s voice.

“Yes, hi,” he said. “Listen, uh, have you seen my girlfriend today?”

“I—of course, she’s across the room from me,” she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “We’ve been working overtime the past few nights because our boss is a huge dick – but you know that – and I think her phone might have died. Is everything okay? Do you want to talk to her?”

“No,” he said with no hesitation. His mind decided to fill his entire being with unavoidable disappointment and he wasn’t sure if he could bear hearing your voice right now. He felt almost pathetic, really, so he chose not to reveal how long he’d waited for you at that restaurant, “can you tell her I’ve canceled the reservation? I tried to call her to tell her before but—”

“The reservation?” your friend interrupted and judging from the silence that followed, Sicheng concluded that she was looking at the calendar. “Oh my God, it’s your anniversary tonight!”

“Yeah, uh—”

“What?” Sicheng heard your voice in the background of the call. “What day is it today?”

“I have to go,” he said, his voice rushed. “Tell her that I have some stuff I need to do, so I, uh… I might be unavailable today, okay? Thank you.”

“Maybe I should—”

He hung up before your friend could say anything else – or worse, pass the phone to you – and headed towards the elevator and then out of your building.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to go home because he knew he’d spend the remaining night thinking of you and what was left of your relationship. He’d beat himself up and probably end up calling you in the middle of the night. Not to mention, he knew you might show up, guilt-ridden and teary-eyed, and he’d forget you everything as soon as he saw your tears.

So, needing to get himself together, he gave Yuta a call and then agreed to meet him at the bar of the nearest hotel. Perhaps Sicheng could stay there if he still didn’t feel like going home after a few drinks.

“And she didn’t mention that she was staying late, working?” Yuta asked as the two boys settled down in a booth at the very end of the too fancy of a bar in a hotel downtown.

“No,” Sicheng sighed. He seemed to sigh a lot since his friend got here and the first round of drinks came. They were only on their third now and yet both of their minds seemed to be buzzing. “I know she’s busy. She’s studying, she’s working, she has her family, her friends… but I asked her specifically if she wanted to go for dinner on our anniversary and she said yes.”

“When was this?”

“Two nights ago,” he said. “I made the reservations in advance, of course. I would have canceled if one of us wasn’t able to go. I wouldn’t have been pissed if she said she couldn’t make it or anything, it’s just—it’s shit now because she said she’d be there.”

Sicheng didn’t mean to make it sound as if he was annoyed he spent so much money and time on getting that restaurant reservation but Yuta understood. He knew you both well enough to understand that the two of you rarely ever worried about superficial things like money when it came to each other.

“Did you talk to her today?” Yuta asked.

“She texted me before she left for work,” Sicheng replied. “It was just a usual good morning text, though. I’m sure she doesn’t even feel herself texting me anymore, it’s become a habit. I replied, wanting to make sure she was really able to come tonight and she never answered. I called a few times, but I heard nothing back. Obviously, I didn’t want to stand her up, so I went to the restaurant anyway, thinking that maybe she’d show up after all, but…”

Yuta sighed, finishing his glass. “I’m sorry, man. This sucks.”

“Yeah,” Sicheng agreed, responding to his sigh with one of his own, but not finishing his drink just yet. With every glass he emptied, he could feel his stomach fill with an undesirable sense of sorrow that no amount of alcohol could drown. “I don’t know what to do. She’s probably worried now that she’s realized what’d happened.”

“Well, are you mad at her?” his friend tried to ask, hoping to help him understand his feelings better but, really, Sicheng had no clue what he was feeling.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “If I say I am, it’ll seem unfair: as if I don’t understand how busy she is while she's been putting up with my schedule just fine.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever left her hanging like this, though.”

“No, but—” Sicheng sighed again. “Does it matter? I’m not mad at her for not showing up. I’m… I’m mad because it doesn’t feel like we have a relationship anymore.”

“Have you felt like this for a long time?” Yuta asked.

“I think so,” he answered, uncertainty evident in every word he said. “I think I just pushed the thoughts that something was wrong away, you know? I didn’t want to admit it to myself but now it’s loud and clear. The last time we’ve gone out together–just the two of us–was two months ago. We talked on the phone a month ago. We just… text. Sometimes.”

“How have you gone so long without talking to her about this?” Yuta continued. He might have suspected that there were problems in your and Sicheng’s relationship but he wasn’t aware of how bad it really was.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Sicheng said. “I want things to go back to what they used to be. We’ve been together for a long time. We’ve gotten to know each other really well. She’s one of my closest friends but… it feels like I don’t know her at all anymore.”

Raising his hand to order another round of drinks, – tonight was going to be a long night, – Yuta patted Sicheng’s thigh, no longer wanting to ask him anything else because he could tell that Sicheng didn’t need any more questions. He was looking for answers.

“You’re going to have to talk to her eventually,” Yuta told him.

“I know that,” Sicheng agreed, his mind already conjuring up the image of you crying as he tried to confront you. He wasn’t sure if he could put either of you through this. “I-I just don’t know what to say.”

“I don’t want to be the third person here, so I can’t help you with that,” Yuta replied. “But honesty is usually the best policy. Especially in relationships.”

“Yeah,” Sicheng located his phone and absentmindedly tried to check the time before he realized that he’d turned his phone off, wanting to avoid all that was inevitable for just one night.

It hurt him to know that you were probably worrying about missing the date but he couldn’t dismiss all that happened and say that it’s fine, and he didn’t feel like arguing tonight, either. He needed some time.

“I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” Sicheng decided and felt his chest contract painfully as he continued, “I feel like I’ll break both of our hearts and I don’t think either one of us is ready for that.”

Even though he’d lost count of how many times the waiter stopped by their booth last night, Sicheng didn’t blame the hangover for his headache. He knew it wasn’t the night out that was causing him pain that no amount of aspirin could get rid of.

The clock barely showed nine on a Sunday morning and, even though Sicheng couldn’t remember falling asleep, he didn’t feel tired in the slightest. He was anticipating what was to come and chose to stop delaying the confrontation with you by turning his phone back on. Missed calls and text messages from you immediately poured in. He was surprised that his phone hadn’t died yet, despite being turned off.

However, before he got a chance to open a single text, he heard a knock on his door. He didn’t have to ask who it was to know. He’s been with you for so long, he could basically feel your presence already.

“Sicheng, please,” your voice behind the door rang through his room. “I know you’re home. I called Taeil, he told me you’d be here.”

Sicheng groaned. He should have warned Taeil not to say anything to you beforehand.

Not having prepared what he was going to say to you once he saw you, Sicheng opened the door and inhaled deeply in a last-ditch attempt to prepare himself for everything that was about to happen.

You looked beautiful. Your eyes were red, you had no make-up on, your hair was everywhere, – clearly, your night was as rough as his, – and he still couldn’t help but feel his heart swell.

He loved you. So much more than he probably should have.

“I’m so sorry,” you said as soon as your eyes met. “God, you have no idea how sorry I am.”

Walking away from the door, he opened it wider. “I think you should come in.”

You were in the middle of another hasty apology but you closed your mouth at the sound of his stern voice and chose to walk into the room instead of saying anything else.

Perhaps your apologies had to wait, Sicheng looked like he had a lot to say to you. However, he did not speak for the first few minutes after he closed the door, the two of you – and the thick, painful silence – being the only ones in the room.

“Have you eaten?” were the first words he finally allowed himself to say.

“No,” you replied. “I’m not hungry.”

He nodded thoughtfully, not quite liking the answer but not having an appropriate response to it ready. It was difficult to switch the topic to something that was very literally life-altering, and Sicheng spent a good minute considering if he should just forget all that happened last night – and all the months leading up to it – and just move on. That’d surely spare you both the pain of having to discuss your relationship.

“We should probably talk,” you ended up saying after he stayed quiet. “I-I’m very sorry about last night.”

“I know,” he said, exhaling slowly as he tried to get his thoughts to stop running through his mind. “I’m sorry, too. I should have called you. I guess I just needed some space.”

“No, I understand,” you said although you didn’t really understand. You nearly ran out of tears last night after you realized what you’d done. You just needed to explain yourself to him and he wasn’t willing to listen. “It’s my fault. I’m very sorry. Work has been overwhelming lately and I have finals coming up, you know what it’s like.”

“Yeah, of course,” Sicheng nodded, sounding understanding but looking distant. “I’m sorry if I’ve put pressure on you by forcing you to make time for me, I—”

“You’ve never forced me to do anything,” you disagreed and, although he stopped talking, you could tell that he wasn’t hearing you. “I want to spend every minute of every day with you, you know that. I just—I can’t right now.”

“I get it,” he said. “Maybe you need a break. From me. From… us.”

It was easy to say it, after all. The difficult part was looking at you after the words left his lips.

He felt like he wasn’t being fair by staring at the floor, though, so he dared to look up at you and immediately started to wish he hadn’t done that. You looked almost feverish. Your red eyes glistened under the flourescent lights of his room and your entire body was starting to shake.

“Are you saying we should break up?” you asked slowly, every word twisting the knife Sicheng had inserted into both of your hearts deeper.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, choosing to follow Yuta’s advice and be as open and honest with you as it was possible. Perhaps you two could find a solution together because, clearly, dating wasn’t really working for you. “I don’t know what the right thing to do here is. I’ve never been in a similar situation before.”

“Well, I haven’t either,” you replied, not noticing how high-pitched your voice was getting. “But I’m sure that breaking up is rarely ever the right choice.”

“What is, then?” Sicheng asked. “We don’t see each other anymore. And you know I’m not exaggerating. Last time I saw you was when I brought you lunch two weeks ago. And I only got to hang out with you for ten minutes. I can barely even remember our last  proper date because it was so long ago.”

You found this rather unfair.

“I wait for you,” you said, unsure what would come first – the anger or the tears. “Every time you’re busy, I wait for you. We’ve gone months without seeing each other when you’re promoting. What’s different now?”

“Everything!” he countered. “It was never like this. We talked on the phone every night when I was away. We stayed awake long enough to Facetime with each other even if we were in different timezones. None of that is happening right now.”

“I-I don’t have the ti—”

“I know!” Sicheng said and then lowered his voice when he noticed the first tears fall from his eyes. It took him everything to restrain himself from crossing the room and wrapping his arms around you. “I don’t blame you. I don’t think you’re doing this on purpose. I know you’re busy. And that’s exactly why I feel like we need a break.”

You shook your head, wiping the tears away from your cheeks. “There’s no such thing as ‘a break.’ It’s just a prequel to a break-up.”

“Okay,” he nodded, biting his lip as he looked away from you, his heart tearing itself apart inside of his chest. “So be it.”

You sniffled, trying to keep the tears in. A part of you saw this coming – every night you spent alone, counting the hours and then the days since you’ve last seen your boyfriend, you had a feeling your relationship was headed towards its end – but his words still seemed to take you by surprise. Evidently, you couldn’t really prepare yourself for an end to one of the most important chapters of your life.

“So, this is it?” you asked quietly, not finding enough strength in yourself to put up a fight because, deep inside, you knew you’d have been fighting for a lost cause. “We’re giving all of this up?”

“I love you,” Sicheng said closing his eyes as the next words burned his throat, “but I don’t think there’s anything left to give up anymore.”

You couldn’t look away from him – your eyes were glued to him as if you were afraid that this would become real as soon as you looked away – but tears were slowly starting to cloud your vision, bringing you back to the cruel reality: your relationship had fallen apart and there were no words—no apologies—that could have saved it. If relationships had an expiration date, yours was already way past it.

Admitting that you were essentially powerless against time and could not go back to the old days when everything was still fine—when both of you still managed to find time for each other—was the most difficult thing you’ve ever had to do. You’d never wish for anyone to give up when all they wanted to do was fight because your entire being hurt from the utter helplessness.

“I’m sorry,” you said for the last time, “I should have tried harder.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Sicheng agreed, his eyes losing its shade and slowly turning empty. “Maybe the timing wasn’t right for us.”

“Is it ever?” you asked, trying to smile and failing miserably. You had a feeling you weren’t going to genuinely smile in a long time after you left. “Time isn’t very generous with perfect opportunities.”

“That’s true,” he said. “But I still hope for an opportunity to see you again.”

The hidden meaning of his words was that he was hoping for another chance with you. Perhaps neither of you would grow out of this love. Perhaps your love could endure the test of time and allow you to try this again.

Or perhaps both of your hearts were so desperate for any kind of comfort that they were willing to believe anything.

“Yeah,” you said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky for once.”

Silence – so cold and unfamiliar – seemed to engulf you both when there was nothing left to be said. The only noise in the room was the sound of your heart tearing itself in two and leaving one half of it on the floor of Sicheng’s room. You’d never ask for it back.

“I love you,” he reminded you as you headed for the door. His voice broke as he spoke, the change in octave stomping on your already exhausted heart. “Despite everything. I really do.”

“I know,” you whispered, not turning around to face him anymore. “I love you, too.”

You knew that we all got only one shot at first love and you were afraid that this was the only bullet life had given you. You’ve made your shot already. It took two years for the bullet to travel – and it never reached the target.

You didn’t know if you’d ever get a chance at another shot again because you’d wasted this one. You didn’t know how long it’d take for you to fix the damage you’ve done. How long it’d take for you to mend your broken heart. To stop loving him.

It was ironically sunny on the worst Sunday of your life and your eyes were the ones that provided the rain, attempting to wash away the truth: the once promising future with your first love had ended before it even began.

[dwightkschrute]

In 2014 and 2015 I did a my year in review kind of thing where I, of course, reviewed it and accompanied it with a picture from that month. I somehow forgot to post 2016 (until now) and forgot to do it at all for 2017 but unfortunately, I am back with a really disappointing year. I was debating not putting myself through the legit pain of “reviewing” this year but I think of how I love going through my 2009-2010 posts and seeing how much I’ve grown so this is for you, successful and cooler future me.

2016 and 2017 were amazing but 2018 was my most promising year. My boyfriend and I were going to move in, I was going to start my dream job; everything was perfect. It definitely started out as one of the best years of my life! Then exactly halfway through the year everything changed and I was left having to pick up the pieces and completely restart, making it one of the worst years of my life.

I started January in Mexico, which was the best, but my family and I got home early in the month. I had quit my job the month before so I dedicated the entirety of this month to job hunting. Our friend (my bf’s bff who became mine and my brother’s bff early on)’s dad got a boat so it was like we got a boat too because despite the cold, we lived on it. (My boyfriend couldn’t go on the trip with us, which he was super bummed about (and that we had to spend like 10 days apart which was killer then), so he was the one to pick us up at the airport and he greeted me with a bouquet of flowers. Out of the many gifts/gestures he gave me, that was one of my favorites.)

February I started my amazing new job so life was back to 40 hour work weeks and not having much time for much else. I was always attached to the hip to my bf so almost every day after work entailed going out with him or having dinner with my family or his. That was my month. My favorite part of every February is Valentine’s Day and this one was as amazing as the rest. I don’t even have enough space (of the allotted space I give myself for each entry at least!) to describe that day. (My bf at our Valentine’s Day dinner. We finished our long day at this restaurant (so, so cool, once popular with Old Hollywood stars) on Hollywood Blvd and it was dreamy and romantic and amazing.) Oh man, I don’t have a lot of interesting things to say about March. Oh, my parents got Influenza (A/B/idk tbh), so it was two weeks of my brother, bf, and I taking care of them. My dad has a serious chronic disease so it was especially dangerous for him so it was a stressful time. Once we weren’t in hazmat suits anymore (no but really, we were gloved and double masked around them and kept them quarantined), I’d be at work or with my bf. I also started to get close with a co-worker, who I quickly became close friends with! (My bf’s two huskies. I’ve just loved that picture since I took it! I’ve never been loved by a dog more than the one in the back of this pic. Not even by my own! He has a special place in my heart.)

April was barbecues at my house or my bf’s, trying every brewery and bar around, hikes, bike rides, beach visits, baseball games, boat rides, late night cooking and baking. It was lots and lots of love and happiness and I would give absolutely anything to go back to those days. (My brother and bf grilling on Easter. This was a familiar scene, I have so many pictures of this exact scenario, yet looking at it just now made me so emotional! Stop! They’re just grilling!) May was so exciting! Very first day I got a new car! I was so happy! It was long overdue because my finicky, expensive Volkswagen had to go and I’d fallen in love with the new Honda Civic (I’ll admit I have basic taste but I don’t care!) so I finally bit the bullet and did it. This month my bf and I, after a long time of “oh wouldn’t it be nice!”, bit the bullet as well and decided to finally get serious about finding a place together. So the apartment search started, but we soon realized our home, Orange County, was super expensive. My bf, in that “ha ha jk but I’m down if you are” way, suggested we pick up and move to Oregon and I immediately agreed. It just felt right and despite us being the most careful and non-spontaneous people ever, we decided to do it! So we began to research, look for apartments but most importantly, jobs. (My car the day I took it home!)

Uhhhhhh, well, June hurts to think about! We went to visit Portland, where we decided we’d want to live because that’s where the jobs were, on a quick trip since it was strictly “business.” Portland was everything I imagined and more. We loved it and I think we loved playing house in our airbnb more than anything about the city. Back in LAX we came to the easy conclusion that though we lived Portland, that’d require a lot and for our first time moving out we’d like to stay close to home and above anything else, we just wanted to live together as soon as possible. We immediately started to look for places in LA, we spent the month apartment hunting, and towards the end of it, decided on one we really liked, one he begged me to please say yes to so we can move in already. I was so, so, so happy this month but what made me happier was seeing my bf, I swear, even happier than me. I seriously felt unstoppable and was beyond excited for our future. (I had a lot of Portland pictures to choose from but my bf and I liked this one because it reminded us of Always Sunny for some reason.)

In July, everything changed. To start, I left my job. I thought, new chapter in my life, new job coming, I’ll live really far, I should leave now. So I did. My last day was an emotional day because I loved my job so much and every single person I worked with. That very same day, my bf and I broke up. For unrelated reasons to my last day, to our moving in, to our relationship, etc. We had an amazing, amazing relationship but he has a lot of demons and issues/insecurities he has to deal with and conquer, and though I was aware and was there for him and would continue to be by his side no matter what, he decided that this was a battle he had to handle by himself and I figure before he got into a more committed situation. It didn’t have to happen, though. I hadn’t talked about the specifics of the breakup on my blog so  sorry for changing the mood of the post, but yeah, July happened and it felt like my world stopped. Really regret quitting my job now, huh? I was hit by two huge losses and changes right at the same time.  (I took this on my friend’s boat 20 tequila shots in, drunk and sad as fuck. Not to get fake deep but how sad. Literally on a boat, beautiful sunset, would rather die.)

August was a blur and I’m still not convinced I didn’t just dream it. God, alright, here we go, the rest of the year is a mess so get ready. I fell into a deep depression fast. It also didn’t help that my dad had to start getting radiation/infusions for his illness shortly after the breakup. I couldn’t believe how much my life had changed. I started dating someone else and then I dated another guy shortly after. I wanted to replace and/or forget and I really thought that’d be the solution. I was miserable when I was with them. I took absolutely any opportunity to get really drunk or high, and the opportunity came often so I spent most of my days desperately trying to not feel anything. The only time I’d feel okay was when I was extremely high and I couldn’t even think. Since I had a lot of savings for my out of state move, I had a lot of money to blow, which I did. I realized I even liked the feeling of the temporary “high” of spending a lot and receiving the stuff. I’d hang out with any friend who offered (out of boredom? loneliness?) and even ended up on a mess of a Vegas trip. Worst month ever. Maybe. (Here’s a positive! I like that bathing suit and my tiddie looks so round!)

When September came I realized two months had passed and all I had done was be a huge depressed mess. I no joke forgot about work. I just straight up forgot. I started to look for a new job, which hurt me so bad because I had to face the fact that it wouldn’t be my Cool LA Dream Job anymore. I stopped dating. Most importantly, I completely stopped drinking and smoking because it’d almost always make me sadder but also it scared me that I had no self control nor did I care. I saw a whole lot of my close friends and they, along with my immediate family, kept me afloat this month because time felt like it was going so fast. I couldn’t believe that at a blink of an eye it was night again and then a new day. Time had no mercy for me, please let me hold on. (Me at a baseball game. Tbh I’m looking at this thinking, did this really happen?)

October started out nice because my best friend of years, who I unfortunately had a falling out with three years ago, reached out to me. I’ll always give her all of the credit for doing that. I can’t begin to explain what this meant to me. It was a nice, bright shine of light that managed to shine through the dark clouds. Having my best friend is exactly what I needed. I’m a big believer in the universe acting in mysterious ways and though I had grown disappointed in its little surprise for me lately, this was the kind I always appreciate. I spent a good part of that month with her, catching up and doing things just like we did back then. It was like nothing had changed. That’s all I remember about this month, and a super fun Halloween! That day was probably one of the best days in months. (My best friend Rylee and me the first time seeing each other in 3 years. We’ve had our blogs for 8-9 years so please follow her for quality content)

November was rough. I was frustrated because surely things should had been better by then. I was still feeling so low, I was going to job interviews to no avail, I “relapsed” and had a high/drunk off my ass on a boat messy moment.. To make matters worse, I accidentally drove up on a cement divider in a parking lot and my airbags deploy, which is so expensive to fix, so my car was out of commission for a month. Then I got so sick and I rarely ever get a small cold. I seriously felt like I was cursed, even the smallest thing felt like an insult towards me. The one good thing is that since July I had been forcing myself to go to the gym five times a week. My mom said exercising was the only thing that’d help her feel that sweet release of seretonin, endorphins, dopamine, and all that good stuff when she was depressed so, though I enjoyed going to the gym before, I did it just for that reason alone. It worked and as another result I got like pretty fucking fit. Revenge body, you’re one of the few good things in my life right now. (I literally had no idea what to choose so I said fine, here’s a pic of the scene of the crime. Whatever.)

In December I turned 26. Which I hate, naturally. I went to a million more job interviews. I’m seriously so embarrassed to admit that but whatever, it’s the truth. (I have a degree, experience, and an awesome cover letter..I’ll keep blaming the curse!) What kept me sane was that we had different family members visiting from the very beginning of the month. Playing with an energetic, adorable baby kept me distracted and happy. Having so much company around also distracted me (slightly, but it helped!) from the fact that the holidays and my birthday would be quite different now. I’m one of those annoying Christmas lovers, usually at least. This year everything just happened and I didn’t care. But I survived December! (I don’t care. This is the appropriate representation of 2018 and how I feel at the end of it.)

Jesus if you’ve read all of this.. I’m sorry you had to read about the mess of my year but really more like the mess that is ME. Yknow those like “people my age I went to HS with vs me” memes? I seriously went from being that bitch with a good paying job, brand new car, a serious, great relationship with a promising future together (Like. We would color coordinate outfits! LMAO. We would have dinners with both of our families together. We were obsessed with each other. You’d roll your eyes if you saw any of this. I can’t get over how perfect we were, it’s hilarious what happened to us.) and then at the blink of an eye I went to not having absolutely any of that, casually dating (something I’d NEVER done) anyone who resembled my ex and sadly and drunkenly puking off the side of a pier. Who is she? I don’t know, I got whiplash. (Queen of parentheses and side notes, I know. But another thing about me is... I’ve never been affected by people leaving my life. I’m used to it. I’ve never been anywhere as affected as I was when my ex and I broke up. This isn’t normal for me, my ENTJ/Capricorn ass doesn’t know what this feeling is.)

Please curse that has been put on me, release me. Whoever is attacking my voodoo doll, calm down! Please! I’ve gone through enough sadness and loss. If 2019 is even slightly as bad, I’m going to be like that pigeon I reblogged the other day that’s like “fuck this I’m just going to sit here.” I can’t even make a cute but corny, hopeful “hope 2019 is great!” comment. I’m literally begging you...pleading you... I don’t believe in karma but after all of this shit, I better have something much better in stock for me. “Good things are coming!” I fucking hope so. Like, I’ll be even more annoying right now and say that it’s not fair that I didn’t get to have the future I was about to have. I don’t care about any cliche you may have for me. One door closes, everything happens for a reason, God has a plan, etc. No. Why did all of this have to happen? What can be better than the future I was going to have? I felt so unlucky. It all feels like a nightmare and I’m just waiting to feel whole again. Oh shit I got really intense. I know I’ll get over it and life will be good again eventually but for now, I am still so mad. I would have never in a million years guessed this is how my 2018 would go. 

So fine, I’ve accepted things now, so now I’m impatient and say please prove me wrong, 2019. I’m THREATENING you to be amazing!

[cannedapricot]

Police Officer! Hwang Minhyun

happy one month of scenarios from cannedapricot!! i can’t believe it’s been a month already! here’s a super short and hopefully sweet police officer! hwang minhyun. no one has gifed minhyun in the police uniform yet bUT IT’S OK I LOVE THIS GIF TOO

welcome to hongdae’s main police station

if you enter and head down the hallway, then turn right, you’ll be met with the sight of a couple dozen cops buzzing around the office

some interrogating sleasy looking men

some annoyed that they have to deal with the same crowd of teenagers again.

minhyun worked as a senior inspector at this very station

it wasn’t super high on the ranks but it was certainly impressive for this age (i think,,,, don’t quote me on it)

his co-workers loved calling him the emperor of the station because reALLY THAT’S WHAT HE’S LIKE

he sank back into his chair, tired eyes gazing over the hectic office

and downed his nth cup of coffee for the evening

this was a normal sight in the station

people talking in hushed tones, phones ringing, someone from thaT ONE SQUAD OF TEENAGERS THROWING UP

OVER THE NEWLY CLEANED FL O O R

MINHYUN LOWKEY WANTS TO THROW UP HIMSELF

INH A L ES

IT’s ok

it was worse on a friday night

or saturday early morning

minhyun was just,,,,, ready for a nap

and so without knowing, his eyes end up closing by themselves

until he was woken by junior inspector! jaehwan

“lol hyung if your that tired we could change spots-”

“as long as i’m breathing, you’re not getting promoted”

he has no idea how jaehwan even made it thus far 

“what do you need now?”

minhyun says as he sits up in his chair

“we finaLLY GOT YOU AN ASSISTANT!!!!”

“what”

“all of us thought that you were working way too hard,,,, sOOOOooOoOO WE GOT YOU A GIFT!!!”

“i’m not a thing to be given, kim jaehwan”

you said, popping into minhyun’s sight from behind jaehwan

“oops??”

you ignored jaehwan lol

“hi!! i’m y/n! i’ll be assisting you from now on!!!!”

“oh,,,, uh,,,, hi,,,,, are you trained?”

trained???

what are you???? a dog????

jk

honestly,,,,

you were just looking for a job to earn some extra money while you look for a stable job

and as if it was a miracle!!!11!!111

your old friend fromm high school, kim jaehwan, rang you up and asked if you were interested in working with a good looking dude

aka him

you shot him down

“ok how about a more average looking dude”

you agreed because wow you were running out of instant noodles

and real quick too

hE NEVER TOLD YOU ANYTHING ABOUT THIS JOB????

HE JUST CAME OVER ONE DAY AND SORTA KIDNAPPED YOU OVER TO THE STATION

YOU WERE NOT DRESSED PROFFESSIONALLY

to this day, you’re still suspicious about how jaehwan knew you needed a job

he said that he had magical powers

in reality though

he saw your snapchat story

ft. your cat and you complaining about how much your wallet was crying

and thought about how tired minhyun looked everyday

anD CONNECTED DOTS

back to your awk asf meeting with your boss

“ha,,,, tr a in e d????”

“o H,,,,, UM IT’S OK,,, I’LL JUST TEACH YOU HOW TO DO THE PAPERWORK”

cue jaehwan wiping invisible tears

“ah,,,, minhyun finally gets to relax a little *fake sobs*”

“you can leave now”

you and minhyun say at the same time

and you figured that the two of you would get along just fine

skip forward a few weeks

you and minhyun weren’t the stiff pair from two weeks ago

in fact, you two didn’t seem like just co-workers

after taking off some of the weight from minhyun’s shoulders, minhyun seemed more energetic 

instead of sitting at his desk tiredly after a day of work, he’d bring in two cups of hot coffee and meet you with a bright smile

you would return his smile of course

you and minhyun had this system were you would take most of the paper work and minhyun would take care of anything that requires him to physically be there lol

and he would return every evening with two cups of coffee and his 1000000 watt smile

iT WAS ADORABLE

ALL THE OTHER OFFICERS LOWKEY COO OVER YOU TWO

IT WAS LIKE YOU GUYS WERE AN OLD MARRIED COUPLE TO BE HONEST

IT SEEMED LIKE YOU’VE DONE THIS JOB TOGETHER FOR YEARS

also,,,, they’ve seen the way minhyun looks away from his share of the work just to stare at you

he loves how hard working you are

of course, you were adorable normally buT SOMEHOW

YOU GET 10x MORE WHEN YOU’RE CONCENTRATING

but uh

minhyun was hopeless with girls

his co-workers figured that out

with a helpful tip off from jaehwan lmao

they legit have a group chat dedicated to playing cupid for you two

mostly gossips though

“heY JAEHWAN HAVE THEY COME BACK FROM THEIR STROLL YET???”

by stroll they mean the night duties minhyun has around the block 

he takes you along with him soooooo 👀👀👀👀

you’d be lying if you said that minhyun didn’t look 10x as good under the streetlights at night

you’d also be lying if you said that you had no feelings for him

YOU LOWKEY GET A HEART ATTACK WHENEVER YOU LOOK AT HIM

HOW DOES SOMEONE SO ETHEREAL EXIST

and his cute actions don’t help either

he openly complains to you whenever some drunk person throws up on the tiles he cleaned personally  h o u r s before

spoiler

he looks cute whining

you didn’t think he cared as much about you as you care for him

untilll ll ll lllllll  👀 👀 👀 👀

one day

you weren’t feeling 100%

so you rang up the station and told them that you were gonna take a day off

but for some reason cough the other officers purposely didn’t say anything cough minhyun didn’t get the message

when he arrived at the station, he expected you to be at your desk (less than three meters away from his own) like you were every day

bUT YOU WE R EN ‘T

enter: panic mode

he thinks that you had enough of him and quit without telling him

minhyun gets your address from jaehwan 

who was totally ready and even had your address written down on a piece of paper

minhyun didn’t even think about it lol

he zoomed over to your place

you were just lounging on your couch, your roommate gone to work for the day

you were trying your best to not let snot flow out of your nose l ma o

while going through your phone

until you heard,

frANTIC KNOCKING

your phone dropped onto your face

thAT SHIT HURTS

YOUR CAT RAN AWAY FROM YOU FROM THE NOISE IT MADE LMAO

wincing, you shuffle towards the door

not looking through the peephole, you open the door, still rubbing your nose lol

there stood hwang minhyun, emperor of the hongdae police station, trying his best to catch his breath

THE BOY RAN ALL THE WAY HERE

PROPS TO YOU MY MAN

“what- minhyun? what are you doing-”

minhyun suddenly holds you in a tight ass hug

“i’m so sorry for whatever i’ve done to offend you,,,, please don’t hate me”

you’re confused™

“what are you talking about? i took a day off because i wasn’t feeling well”

 O H

W E L L   

I S N ’ T T H I S A W K W A R D

clears throat awkwardly

also releases you awkwardly

rubs neck awkwardly

“i thought that,,,, maybe i did something,,,,, and you quit the job,,,”

he said his voice getting smaller with each word

yOU LAUGHED

“YOU’RE ADORABLE”

minhyun becomes mintomato 

“a-anyway,,, you said you weren’t feeling well? i guess i’ll make you some soup then.”

he pushes you aside and lets himself in

iNHALES SHARPLY

THE MESS YOU HAVE MADE WITH YOUR TISSUES

“y/n. what is this?”

“ah shit”

minhyun turns to you with the creepiest smile

you immediately ran to chuck the used tissues away

minhyun somehow digs out your rubber gloves and sanitizer in the meantime 

and starts spraying e v e r y t h i n g

makes you sit on the couch and not do anything

after he’s satisfied that everything was spotless

he turns to make you soup

you sigh in relief because thaNK THE HEAVENS YOUR ROOMMATE WENT GROCERY SHOPPING YESTERDAY 

so you sit on the couch, on your phone, as minhyun slaves away in the kitchen

you look over once in a while 

you saw him cutting vegetables (bOYF MATERIAL RIGHT THERE LADIES)

you also saw him ringing up the station presumably making some excuse that he couldn’t make it anymore (the co-workers know exactly what he was doing tho 👀👀)

then you saw him mucking around on his phone

seemingly like he was texting???

jaehwan perhaps

bUT UNKNOWN TO YOU

MINHYUN WAS GOING OVER WHAT TO SAY FOR HIS GREAT CONFESSION PLAN™

while the soup was taking it’s time obviously

he was typing out phrases in his messaging app

the contact being you

y/n i like you. date me

too straight-forward. no

y/n your honestly the most prettiest girl i’ve ever met lets go on a date

ew too cheesy. no

y/n i like you and your dumb quirks. even though your sick right now, you’re still the most adorable human being i’ve ever seen

lol too dumb. no-

oH SHIT

HIS THUMB BRUSHED THE SEND BUTTON

AND

IT

SENT

HE HEARS THE DING FROM THE OTHER ROOM

OH SHI-

“hey minhyun did you just send me a message?”

“y ea h ?”

he squeaked

you chuckle

“hey,, come here for a bit”

he shuffles over

you pull him by the collar and press a small kiss on his cheek

“i like you and your dumb clean freak self as well”

minhyun squeaks again

in happiness

“so,,,,,, are we,,,,, you know,,,,, a thing now?”

“if you want us to be”

yOU WERE SMILING SO BRIGHT

MINHYUN COULDN’T HELP BUT LET OUT A CUTE GRIN

“what excuse did you tell the station?”

you asked

“i said that my girlfriend was sick and i had to take care of her”

???????????

LIES

minhyun actually said something about his dog being sick

was he implying that you were a dog????? because minhyun doesn’t own a dog??????

you’re a trained dog now

minhyun grows red in embarassment

whAT DID HE JUST SA  Y

and he withers in it until you realize something

“um minhyun?”

“yeah?”

“the soup,,,,, it’s boiling and spashing out,,,,,”

MINHYUN BASICALLY FLASHED HIS WAY INTO THE KITCHEN

YOU’VE NEVER SEEN SOMEONE RUN SO FAST IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE

ENJOY THE REST OF YOUR LIFE WITH AN IDIOT POLICE OFFICER YOU NOOB

wow isn’t minhyun lowkey kinda ooc here. this is the shortest thing i’ve ever written at 1.6k,,,,, but it still took fo r ev er. DISCLAIMER: i have no idea about how the police work,,, everything here is from my imagination and the dramas i’ve watched sodufbvsb

in other news, wanna one has wrecked apricot, she is no longer alive. i juST WANT ONGNIEL TO BE HAPPY SOBS

in other, other news, happy one month kiddos!!! i love you all and stay healthy!! full length scenarios will be back after my exams!!! wait for me <3333

[stephicness]

A long rant in case you want to read, because I quit my job today! C:

So I think some of you guys may have known this before, but I had started this job in around July. Applied, got recommended by a worker there who had gone to high school with me, and boom, the job was mine as soon as I met the boss. It’s not a particularly hard job, to be honest. We get the overstocked/returned items from Costco, process and check them to see if they’re quality enough to resell, and then sell it online or at our store base. Simple enough!

Upon being hired, I was promised some pretty basic things as apart of the job: $10/hr fulltime, a really good raise and a manager position as I worked with the company, my own office space, and at the most basic of it all, respect for being a college graduate and a great worker. It was simple demands, 

I specialized in inventory oversight and listings for online products for sale on Amazon and Ebay, but I was hired mostly to just help out the manager and assistant manager at the time. Grunt work like picking inventory to help with shipping, cleaning and folding clothing, and eventually listing products for online sales. It was an easy job to do, and fun at first.

But then little things added that just made it worse as momentum picked up.

First off, despite being promised fulltime hours, I was docked immediately to parttime. Not by much, as instead of 8-5, I’d work 8-4. But when I eventually lose 50$ a week, which I could be dedicating to my student loans, it definitely adds up as time passes. So she compromised with me for 8-4:30, but nothing over 40 hours. If I work any more, I’d get in trouble. If I work any less, I’d also get in trouble. So to compensate, it was hour-long lunches to remedy my lack of break at this job.

So then time rolls around, and within the three months that I worked there, a grand total of five people were fired or left the business. One because of differences in management, one because of better opportunities (and a dispute over her time to spend with her newborn child), one because she was stealing from the business, one because of work ethic being shoddy, and another because she received no benefits after two years of working there (and because college was a more important calling. Good for her!). Already that seemed to be alot of warning signs. One person in a few months is understandable. But five? And one of them being fired the day I got hired? Well then!

So then amongst the five people, the assistant manager and manager left/got fired, leaving me and my co-worker of a month less than me, to take on the duties of managing the inventory, listing products, doing online customer service, shipping assistantship, and alot more. I figured because the manager was gone and my boss was often busy that maybe I could help a bit more. Check-in with people during the morning to see what needs to be done, what I need to get done, and if anyone needed help throughout the day. General things that a good worker would do, I hope?

But no. Instead, I gave off the vibe that I was trying to become the boss in place of my boss. For showing leadership traits and for wanting to know what my co-workers needed in the warehouse. Instead, that came off as too boss and as if I was superior than everyone else. And I’ll admit that I’m slightly guilty of it because I know for a fact that I work hard and do my best to be an optimal worker. Take it into perspective too VIA these scenarios:

1) In the time it takes me to take inventory out of our system for shipping -- through three - five aisles (depending on help that day) and a hundred products -- it takes my co-worker that same time to get through one aisle picking the same things.

2) I can list up to 300 products (AKA 15-20 boxes worth of products) in a day with the right focus. This includes having helped with shipping and tending to other tasks for the day. My co-workers before could only do somewhere between 5-10 boxes a day.

3) I am one of the only people who knows how to navigate the new system products and locate them under their skews and tags. I am also one of the only people (sans the boss) to recognize a product’s look with you just telling me the name of it.

4) When receiving inventory and inspecting it for listing, a palette containing 40-50 apple boxes can be processed by me in just a single day -- if it’s a good day. On average, it takes the rest of our team two days to do such if I’m not helping.

It’s little things in the warehouse, but all tasks that you can be good at if you’re efficient at your job and you work hard.

But instead, it felt like the work that I put in was only demeaned each day. Mundane issues were blown out of proportion, and I wouldn’t even have been there to make the mistake. But alas, it was often blamed on me. It was the whole ‘You’re not the manager, but you should assume more responsibilities like one.’

All while my co-worker, the one whom worked less time than me, was revered as the one who could do no wrong. Given tasks and radiating an air of superiority because his tasks were ‘harder’ in comparison to me. Work is gauged differently, and his work was no less hard or easier than mine. And yet, it felt as if he could tell me what to do when I couldn’t. As if he could brag about his successes in the warehouse and be praised, as I state mine and be told that I could do better.

Perhaps the sad tragedy of showing too much work ethic and being expected to show more than that.

But what really irked me wasn’t that I was forced into a position without benefits of cushion time, or that I was scolded for trying to be a good worker and leader -- it was the lack of respect that I got as not only just a worker, but a human being as well.

The least a person can do is keep their promises once they made them. But she took away my hours, she denied me any opportunity for this ‘management’ position that she eagerly encouraged, she took away my office because she viewed my isolation as something that made it harder for her to peek over and see what I’m doing (micromanaging, but she just calls it ‘being in the loop’). And worst of all, if I try to object to it and voice my concerns of the matter, I’m seen as ungrateful. Someone with attitude. 

Oh, I’m not even going to deny that I have an atrocious attitude. When you see my in real life and I’m having a bad day, boy howdy do you know I’m having a bad day. But when you wake up every morning and go to a job that you know doesn’t treat you well, that doesn’t pay you enough, that causes you so much mental exhaustion to where you can’t even bring yourself to smile anymore -- even the kindest or fakest of people can’t keep that facade up for long. The flat-out favoritism of my co-worker over me is exasperating, the petty things I get in trouble for, the potential of ‘doing better’ even though you’re trying to hardest. It really wears you down. Especially when you consider that your boss only views you as a slave, unwilling to help you if you need help, and hell -- unwilling to pay their employees on a national holiday out of courtesy.

Not to mention, as my added little salt, I worked there for almost six months now. Out of those six months, I only requested one day off. One. Unpaid time off on a Friday after completing the rest of my tasks for the week and helping my co-worker set-up for his workday in my absence. And during that single day off, according to another co-worker who tells me the juicy gossip, I was...

Accused of wrongly listing products on purpose.

Accused of doing my job wrong, again, on purpose.

Accused of misplacing items that should have been found VIA the new system with ease.

Complained about for not being there a total of 5 times throughout the day.

Dissed for having such an easy job at listing products with UPC codes over my co-worker, who specializes with products without one.

And then the days coming back, I was then complained to for not being there a total of 3 more times and then accused of ‘not asking for the day off properly,’ after having given my boss a week and a half-worth’s notice before ultimately taking the day off.

And this is one day out of the five months there. In comparison to my co-worker, whom has taken at least two every month.

Perhaps it’s petty of me to complain about a bad boss, because ultimately, it’s not the last job I’ll ever have. But it’s nice to be able to get it off my chest and finally quit this job. Now it’ll let me find a new job in a field that I hopefully can do well in. If not that, perhaps I can focus back on my artwork and make a profit from that once more. Because one thing I noticed while working for this company is that I lost my creative drive... Have you noticed it too? I don’t make as much content, I’m so unmotivated and unhappy that I just can’t bring myself to write, or draw, or make graphics -- and it’s detrimental to a person who strove to make a career out of being able to do all of this.

But now, I’m free from this job and able to get my footing once again and focus on finding a job that I will enjoy and pursue my intended career goals for the future. Who knows? Perhaps now I can focus on my commissions and working on those stories/games once more!

I have high hopes for the future ahead now. But one step at a time until then, right?

[arplis]

Arplis - News: “Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world, yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky

There have been as many plagues as wars in history, yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.” — Albert Camus, The Plague Time is cruelly elastic. When March began, Joe Biden was celebrating the resurgence of his presidential campaign after a win in the South Carolina primary. When March began, downtown Atlanta was packed with marathon runners, while the Hawks were, reliably, scraping the bottom of the Eastern conference. When March began, we were going to restaurants, and to school, and to soccer games and concerts and plays and funerals and weddings. When March began, we were going to work. When March began, dozens of Georgians were walking around with absolutely no idea that within a matter of days they would be dead from a virus that had traveled across the world only to alight on them. How many more of us will step into its crosshairs? Each day feels like a month. So much news is compressed into 24 hours—thousands more infected, ICUs at capacity, unemployment rates reaching heights not seen since the Great Depression, our 401ks decimated—that our brains seize up. Grocery store visits are planned with the precision of a wartime raid. Kids’ days are ostensibly scheduled—Reading! Enrichment! FaceTime with the teacher!—but how do you homeschool and telework at the same time? You don’t. The screens you once cursed are now free childcare. That’s, of course, if we even can work from home. Some of us can’t. Many of us have been laid off or furloughed as restaurants close their doors, as nonprofits’ funding dries up, as fitness studios go dark. Others of us who have been deemed “essential”—nurses, doctors, first responders, grocery-store workers, mail carriers, truck drivers, delivery people—come home late at night and shed our clothes outside so as not to bring the virus near our loved ones. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This was guaranteed to happen. But to us? Now? We spoke with our neighbors about the world we’ve left behind, and the one that awaits. Interviews edited for length and clarity. Tap on each person’s name to read their full interview. • • • Dr. Michelle Au | anesthesiologist at Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital I first started hearing about the virus after Christmas. But the news still felt like something distant. It was in China, so you’re watching with this detached interest. I am in the unusual position of being a Chinese American physician with a public-health degree who also happens to be running for office [Au is a Democratic candidate for the 48th state Senate district, which incorporates parts of Fulton and Gwinnett counties]. I was talking with voters in the Chinese community who said that I should be speaking out on the issue more. I probably should have paid more attention. I should have taken it more seriously. Dr. Meria Carstarphen | superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools Right after Valentine’s Day, one of my friends was going to Venice, Italy. While my friend was there, they shut down Carnival [due to coronavirus]. That was my reality check. I said to our team, “We need to prepare for the day when we have to shut down the district.” There were moments where I felt I was pushing a wet noodle up a mountain. As things started escalating, we had to make decisions. I said, “We have to prepare a contingency plan that starts with the worst-case scenario.” Devon Clinkscales | senior at Booker T. Washington High School This year was my senior season of high school baseball, my last year. I was really excited about going out strong and getting ready for travel ball. It was my best opportunity to get some scouting. Hugh Acheson | owner of Empire State South in Midtown and 5 & 10 in Athens and operator of By George in the Candler Hotel The real canary in the coal mine was [in early March], reading about restaurants in Shanghai. Shanghai to Wuhan [where the virus is said to have originated] is an immense amount of distance. [Restaurants in Shanghai] were saying that they didn’t know how long they could stay open. Their sales were down 80 to 90 percent, and it was just a ghost town. We’re not an industry with deep pockets. Everybody’s like, “Oh, Hugh, you’ve been on TV. You must be rich.” I’m like, “You have no idea how this works, do you?” Kathy Weeks Lowery | self-employed travel agent in Marietta [A client] was supposed to leave on March 28 out of Tokyo for a 12-day cruise. That was her son’s college graduation gift. Holland America held tight. They said if she cancels now, she’s losing 50 percent of her money. That was January 24. Travel insurance doesn’t cover a pandemic. Since then, they canceled the cruise and gave her the rest of the money. Cruise lines are offering as much as 225 percent of your refund toward a future booking. For me, it’s been everything. I had 117 kids going to D.C. for a field trip, 10 people going to the Grove Park Inn, a busload going to Mary Mac’s and Hamilton. All canceled. I only get paid after clients travel. I figure this year’s income will be 20 percent of last year’s. Amy Phuong | vice president of government relations for the Atlanta Hawks My wedding was set for March 28. We had everything planned. I even had a final walkthrough at the venue on March 4. We’d invited 200 people. Mike Gallagher | co-owner of Brick Store Pub and Leon’s Full Service in Decatur, Good Word Brewing in Duluth, and partial owner of Kimball House. Together, the four restaurants employ approximately 200 people. 2019 was a tough year. We had opened [Good Word Brewing]. The contractor had gone belly up when we opened. We lost our chef and sous-chef. We had a lot of money invested in Duluth. But 2020 was starting great. We’d put down a sizeable amount of money on a redo of Brick Store. On February 26, after seven years running the pop-up restaurant Eat Me Speak Me, Jarrett Stieber opened his first permanent restaurant. The build-out took months. Jarrett Stieber | chef-owner of Little Bear in Summerhill We had inspectors tell us we had to change things, and we covered the cost. So, like every restaurant, we ran way over budget. We opened with $285 in our checking account after buying products for the first week and just prayed that we were busy. We, thankfully, were. On March 2, five days after Little Bear opened, Governor Brian Kemp announced the first two confirmed cases of coronavirus in Georgia—two members of the same household in Fulton County. Nationwide, only 90 cases had been confirmed, six of whom were fatalities. “Georgians should remain calm,” Kemp said. Stieber We had one customer who said that she couldn’t believe that a place like Little Bear was here, that it reminded her of restaurants in San Francisco. That’s exactly what I had in my head when I planned this restaurant, that small-capacity hole-in-the-wall that basically is a neighborhood restaurant in terms of how it feels but has food as good as any high-end restaurant. We were hitting our stride. Jarrett Stieber: “My focus is keeping the business open any way I can.” Photograph by Audra Melton Clinkscales On March 2, we were evicted from our apartment, but they didn’t change the locks. If they’d changed the locks, we’d have nowhere to go. Our stuff would be out on the street. My dad and my mother had a couple of disagreements on how to maintain. I have an older sister who has an apartment in a project, so my mother, my other sister, and my niece all moved in with her. But I stayed with my dad. He didn’t finish high school. He needs someone. He doesn’t understand how things work. I love my dad, and I have to be with him. Belisa Urbina | founder/executive director of Ser Familia, a nonprofit that provides services to Latino families My husband’s family is from Spain, so we knew what was going on there. We knew what was going on in other places. I knew that if this was happening in all these other countries, it was going to happen to us because we are connected. Flights are coming in and out. People are moving around. Shawn Ware | owner of Vibe Ride cycle studios When the news about the coronavirus first came out, I was taking a break at home, between working at the Westside studio in the morning and Grant Park in the afternoon. I thought, Okay, well, this is just a flu. I’ve always been a gym rat, and I’ve always joked that I’ve been a germophobe since I was in the womb. I’m always washing my hands, using hand sanitizer. I thought, So, now you all are jumping on board for what I’ve been doing my whole life? But then, as the hours and days went on, I realized this was serious. On Friday, March 6, President Trump, wearing khakis, a windbreaker, and a Keep America Great baseball cap, visited the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for a photo op and press conference, where he referenced his “natural ability” at understanding the complexities of virology and addressed the sluggish pace of testing for the virus. What he said wasn’t even a complete sentence: “As of right now, and yesterday, anybody who needs a test—and that’s the important thing.” While other countries were ramping up their tests to include even those who were asymptomatic—results which indicate who is contagious and who is not—the United States was (and as of late March remained) unequipped to test any but those suffering the most extreme symptoms. By Monday, March 9, the number of Georgians who’d tested positive for the virus had climbed to six, with 11 more presumed positive. Kemp announced that space at Hard Labor Creek State Park in east Georgia would be outfitted to accept COVID-19 patients who needed to be isolated. Phuong Even that week [of March 9], I started out feeling like, Okay, our wedding is so soon there’s no way it’s going to be impacted. Even though Italy at that time had made a turn for the worse, [my fiance] Kerry’s family is from Spain, and we felt good because they weren’t impacted the way Italy was. Then, we got to Wednesday, and that’s when it dramatically switched. That’s when the Hawks had their final game. That was the same evening that Trump instituted the travel ban from Europe. Kerry’s family would not be able to make it. Carstarphen The day when I said to my fellow superintendents that I’m considering closing the district even though we don’t have any cases—that was a bit of a shock. Even to myself. I work with children. So, the idea that I would even put on the table this notion that they might not have a prom, they might not be able to play for the state championship, they might not be able to get closure after 12 years of public school, that their moment gets snatched away from them? It’s sobering how your decision can change the direction of people’s lives. Dock Hollingsworth | senior pastor at Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church Wednesday, March 11, was a turning point. We were here for the Wednesday night services. There was still a lot of levity. A 94-year-old man came up to me and said, “Boy, I was relieved that this is targeting people 60 to 80 since it’s been so long since I was 80.” By Thursday morning we were in a whole different mode. I was in a peer group with other Atlanta pastors. Everyone was asking, “What measures are you taking?” Keisha Lance Bottoms | mayor of Atlanta I went to Sam’s Club on Thursday. A woman asked me what I was doing there. “The same thing you’re doing.” I have four kids at home. My husband makes grocery runs on his way home from work. But I knew we needed to stock up with a family of six. I’m now cooking three meals a day. But my personal adjustment pales in comparison to what’s happening. People are dying. Urbina We provide services to about 4,500 people. The services that we provide are very difficult to find. To give you an idea, there are 700,000 Latinos in metro Atlanta but there are less than 70 counselors who are fully licensed that can speak Spanish. There are four psychologists in the state of Georgia who can speak Spanish, and there are five psychiatrists who can speak Spanish. Latino children have twice the chance of having anxiety and depression compared to other teens. Our Latina girls, almost 20 percent of them attempt suicide. Joey Camp | cook at Waffle House in Canton who also drives a party bus part-time I started getting pneumonia [in early March]. I felt like I was drowning. The chills had gotten so bad that I could not keep my teeth from chattering. If my teeth weren’t chattering, I was coughing. [On March 12,] I went to the emergency room. They did all these tests—a CT scan with contrast, x-rays, everything. They were like, You got really bad pneumonia. We’re going to put you in a room and monitor you for a few days. Well, I was in there for probably nine hours when they hung the isolation box on my door. Which is where they keep all these gloves, smocks, and masks that everybody has to put on before they’re allowed into the room. I got a little nervous.   Photograph by Audra Melton Phuong It hit me Friday night. We’d been planning so long, and now, our wedding is not going to happen. It was emotional. Dr. Laurence Busse | medical director, critical care, Emory Johns Creek Hospital On March 13, it was profound the amount of people coming into the ER. That was a scary day, and we all finished that day thinking, What are we in for? Dr. Jessica Nave | hospital medicine, Emory University Hospital I was hoping that, by early April, we’d peak. But now, my projection is we’ll peak at the end of April. And that’s still optimistic. It’s just the numbers. If you look at Seattle and New York, they’re still going. We didn’t start getting cases until the second week of March. We have to have a solid month of getting hit really hard before we peak. Marshall Rancifer | homeless advocate and relief worker There are 4,000 homeless people out there on the streets. Youth and adults. Homeless people share everything: food, clothes, hygiene products, blunts, crack pipes, needles sometimes. I brought a bunch of crack pipes to them so they wouldn’t share pipes. Some don’t know there is a virus outbreak in the city. They don’t have access to social media or the news. If you’re not in a shelter, you’re walking around in suspended animation all day. I saw people starting to light cigarettes and pass them around. I knocked the cigarettes out of their hands. I said, “You can’t share cigarettes, can’t share food, don’t touch nobody, don’t shake nobody’s hand. Don’t hug nobody.” Had to explain to the mothers in a park on Proctor Street what they can and can’t do. We’re not just educating the homeless; we are educating poor people and marginalized folks. They just don’t know. The weekend of March 14-15 was surreal. Social media and television were talking about nothing else, and school districts across the state, including Atlanta Public Schools, were announcing or had just begun indefinite closures. But for many Atlantans, life went on as normal. Bars were full. Restaurants were open. The BeltLine was packed. At Brick Store in Decatur, the owners decided to go ahead with a planned St. Patrick’s Day celebration, which included a short parade to the bar, scheduled for Saturday. Their decision, announced on the bar’s Facebook page the day before, brought out the knives. “You are encouraging people to make a very selfish decision,” wrote one of the more restrained commenters. “Public health providers are telling us to behave AS IF WE HAVE THE VIRUS, because many of us likely do.” Gallagher Calling it a “parade” is a stretch, because there were about 15 to 25 people. There were more people congregated in front of retail stores than there were in the parade. But we did it, and we had our event. We removed some tables. We put some tables spread out outside. We removed some barstools. I think people were clustering with whom they felt safe, their own household member or a family member, and then they spread out otherwise. It wasn’t six feet apart in the whole place, for sure. But our staff was militant about sanitizing bartops, tabletops, stools, chairs, menus in between their reuse, faucets. I got a lot of feedback from staff and guests about how meaningful it was to them and how they viewed it as a beacon of hope in an otherwise bleak moment in time. So we certainly got a lot of great feedback. But the bashing on social media was unfortunate and unnecessary, quite frankly. Carstarphen I always believed we would be here at mitigation—not prevention, not containment. Mitigation was probably the only way we’d go given the spirit of our country, given we’re a democracy, given that people love their personal freedoms and their individual decision-making. Stieber This is the first time that social media and the general public have been able to kind of force people’s hands in a business sense, beyond just what is recommended from a health standpoint. We live in an era where people are so polarized and proselytizing of everything from behind their screens that whether you want to stay open right now, to fight for your business, you don’t really have much of a choice because of the stigma associated with doing so. As new restrictions kept restaurants from opening to guests, they pivoted to takeout operations. They started GoFundMe accounts for furloughed staff. At Brick Store, owners reduced their menu to soups and sandwiches. Donations to the “soup kitchen”—meant to compensate workers—were encouraged, but if you couldn’t pay, you could still grab a bag. Acheson My real worry is for all the people that I promised to provide for and can’t. That’s very hard, because I want on my tombstone to be remembered as a good employer, and a good human, and a good dad. The people who are going to get hit worst by this are undocumented. It’s not like we have a huge number of them on the payroll, but across the country, there are. They can’t get unemployment. They pay taxes through payrolls, but they don’t get taxes back. They are screwed. But we’re all screwed. Everybody’s like, Well, we’ll recover. No. Fifty percent of the restaurants that just shut down across this country will never reopen. Gallagher Most restaurants are lucky to have two full weeks’ worth of financial runway, and employees, probably even less. A lot of these guys are paycheck-to-paycheck. We are taking the money from the GoFundMe, the money from the gift cards, and any additional monies that have been given, and we’re divvying them up among staff on this upcoming payroll. We’re going to try to find an hourly threshold. For instance, if you worked 24 hours or less, you’ll get this pay rate. If you’re 25 or more, you’ll get that pay rate. We felt that was the most equitable, least cumbersome way to do it. I’ll be honest, it was tough. Do you pay more because they make more? Do you pay more because they need more? Do you pay more because they worked with you longer? Acheson I’m really happy that people are buying gift certificates. If we sell $2,000 of to-go food today, I’ll be impressed. That does not equate to being able to pay $16,000 in rent next month that Empire State owes and payroll costs of $44,000 every two weeks. Urbina Our community works in hospitality, restaurants, construction. Those are the first industries that are affected. We have already had clients who have lost their jobs. They know that they’re probably not going to be able to pay rent at the beginning of April. While most coronavirus infections don’t require hospitalization, roughly 15 percent do. Usually, though not always, the person needing hospitalization is elderly or immunocompromised. The infection ravages the lungs, leading often to pneumonia. Patients can’t get enough oxygen on their own. Some require a ventilator, a machine that augments the patient’s respiration through forced exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Busse I’m critical care. So, when patients get to me, they’re in dire straits. The typical thing that’s seen down in the emergency room is fever, some increased work of breathing, some hypoxia [low levels of oxygen in tissue], and some malaise or body aches. Those folks who have, let’s say, a little bit of increased work of breathing or need some oxygen would be admitted to have supportive care while they get through their illness. But if they have a higher degree of oxygen needs or they’re in septic shock or they’re in kidney failure, then they come to me. And those folks can be exquisitely ill, anywhere from just needing a few extra liters of oxygen to having multiorgan failure and needing a full bevy of life support. Dr. Laurence Busse: “When patients get to me, they’re in dire straits.” Photograph by Audra Melton Nave Sometimes illness is difficult to define by objective measures. We’ll get a call from the ER physician saying, “I think this patient needs to get admitted.” I’m looking at their chart and saying, “Well, they’re not hypoxic, they’re fine.” They’ll say, “Just come and lay your eyes on them.” So, I do, and it’s, “Oh yeah, this person is not going to do well.” They have a look about them. Their breathing pattern is abnormal. They’re using more accessory muscles. Au The act of intubating a COVID-19 patient is essentially the highest-risk procedure you can do. As you’re putting in that tube and they’re breathing out through this channel you’re putting in, it gives an opportunity for the virus to be in the air. Usually, it’s in droplets. Aerosolized virus can float around. It’s one of the most infectious potential procedures you can do on a COVID patient. The person who is best and most senior and experienced at doing intubations should do it. They take the least amount of time possible. Put in the tube, quick, hook up the ventilator, and minimize exposure to everyone. Nave Some of our sickest patients have been in their late 20s to late 30s and otherwise healthy. We don’t know why. Camp On Saturday [March 13], they tested me for COVID-19, and I got positive affirmation on Monday. How in the world did I get this? I have not been to Italy, I haven’t been to China, I haven’t been around people, to my knowledge, that have been to those places. I live a very boring life. When they finally told me on Monday, they also released me from the hospital to self-quarantine. The house I was living in had an infant in it. I didn’t want to take the chance of getting that infant sick. So, I was like, “I need options.” Camp was brought to Hard Labor Creek State Park and put in a camper to recuperate until he was no longer contagious. He was there for six days. Camp It had a nice bed in it. There were cookies. The state health officials were super helpful. I asked them to go on a grocery run because a diabetic cannot live on chips and cookies. And they went and got me some bananas, some apples, some cucumbers—all this stuff for me to snack on. I offered to pay for some of the stuff, and they wouldn’t have it. They paid for my medicine. They got me a new blood-sugar meter. The first few days were rough. The coughing was the worst part at that point. I had stopped having chills, I had stopped having a fever, but I was still coughing my brains out. It was like starting a car. Just whoop, whoop, whoop, just constant. And it just slowly went away. One day, I was coughing every three or four minutes; the next day, it was every half hour; the next day, it was every hour. And by the time I was done, I was only coughing very, very rarely, when I got a tickle in the back of my throat. It wasn’t even in my lungs anymore. Au We know that some of the sick are going to be our colleagues. We know that the more we are going to engage, the more people are going to be sick. Over the weekend, I started sleeping in the guest room in the basement because it’s separate from the rest of the house. I have my own bathroom because I don’t want to share a bathroom with anyone. I’m very meticulous about hygiene now—I mean, I always was because I work in the hospital—but now it’s like, shower and change into clean clothes before I leave the hospital. And then, I shower and change clothes again [once I’m home]. Rancifer I wasn’t scared before, but I’m scared now. My father and mother always taught me not to run away from trouble—run toward it, because you can be the person who can change something or save someone’s life. But once this gets out of hand, I’m not going to run toward someone that can kill me. I’m 63. I fall under the category of major at-risk. After I meet with big groups of folks, I skim down to my skivvies. I wear two pairs of gloves. When I get in the car I take my clothes off and throw them on the ground. I take the top pair of gloves off and put them in a disposable Ziploc bag. Then, I take the sanitized clothes out, get dressed, and then move on back home. Au Yesterday I cried talking to a high-school friend. When you’re at home, because the kids are there, you want to be like, Everything’s cool. It is so disruptive for them, so you put on the cheerful face. And at work, since I’m an attending physician, you want to put forth that “everything’s under control.” You get accustomed to trying to keep other people calm. But talking to someone that I’ve known before this, it was just an unguarded moment. What if I get sick? [My husband and I are] rewriting our wills right now. He’s a doctor, too. One of us has to stay well. Clinkscales My mom is worrying about what we’re going to do. She is part of a housecleaning business, but people haven’t been allowing them into their homes because of precautions. My dad works in building services for a hotel, and his income has been dropping. Because of the pandemic, baseball has been canceled, five games in. Colleges aren’t recruiting. Some schools aren’t even accepting students. Ware I spent most of the day today on the phone with our creditors and sending emails to landlords and to the people we lease bikes from, and they’re like, We get it. They’ve been extremely understanding, but it is a very, very scary time. One of our creditors said, We can defer for three months but we’ll still collect interest. Our largest creditor, Wells Fargo, is deferring payments with no late fees and no interest and no reporting to our credit bureau. But a community bank is going to charge us interest. They said, That’s just what we have to do. When we sent the email that we were going to suspend everyone’s membership, we had 35 to 40 people call and say, Don’t cancel. Don’t suspend our accounts. We want to continue to pay because we know you are hit hard, and this is our gym. We want to help and support you as much as we can. Some of these people have been members since the beginning. They’re not clients or strangers; they opened the doors with us. That has been so amazing. Shawn Ware: “I spent most of the day today on the phone with our creditors.” Photograph by Audra Melton Acheson I had $26 in my checking account last week, last week, before this all happened. I’m borrowing personal funds from people I know to pay payroll. Small business is being abandoned. It’s been abandoned for a long time in this country. Nobody has any inkling about how much hurt this is going to do. Lobbyists are on the Hill right now getting every meeting that they want to bail out Delta Air Lines yet again, and the auto industry is going to get bailed out. One in 10 people in the States work for the hospitality industry. Nobody’s bailing us out. We bail out all the wrong people in this country, consistently, over and over again. These are the same people who don’t want Medicare for All, yet they want a socialist handout when they make bad decisions in business, and they go broke. When the coronavirus closed Atlanta Public Schools, the district implemented a massive effort to continue offering free meals to its 52,416 students. Working with the Atlanta Community Food Bank, APS offers a bag of free groceries every Monday at four locations around town. The district hosts an additional giveaway on Tuesdays and is offering meal service at 10 sites around town, including delivery of meals via the school bus system. Carstarphen Our goal as of yesterday was to be at 40,000 meals on any given day in a school district. We let everyone eat. As food supplies diminish or are late, and as staff continue to self-quarantine and find other challenges trying to come to work every day, we’ll have staffing shortages. Bottoms I drove to my mother’s house, and she stood outside my car. I hadn’t seen my mother in a few weeks. Which isn’t normal. My grandmother would quote the Bible: “Be anxious for nothing.” You hear from people all the time, “This, too, shall pass.” I had to write that on the wall in the mayor’s office to remind myself. We’re going to be alright. When I need to take a breath and clear my mind, I’ll go and sort some shoes. This too shall pass. Camp I work in the service industry. Half of my income has been wiped out by this. The party bus industry is on hiatus because all the bars are shut down, proms were shut down, all of that. That’s killing my income. I still have bills. Part of me feels like the government shouldn’t be telling businesses to close their doors. I feel like that should be a case-by-case basis. Busse The preparation [by the federal government] has been poor, but I didn’t really expect it not to be. Do you plan for the worst-case scenario? Or do you put resources elsewhere? So, the response in general has not been great. And I think that’s sort of what I expected. And frankly, if I was in that position, I’m not sure I would’ve done it differently. I mean, it’s really hard to plan for something like this. I’ve never had this in my lifetime. And I’ve been here for Ebola, for H1N1 influenza, and I was here for the first SARS illness back in 2003. We’ve seen these things erupt on a regional level but never really become a global pandemic. This is new in our generation. Urbina My nightmare is that one of my employees gets sick, and I have to close my office, and our families have nowhere to go. At the moment, what we need most are donations or gift cards. One donor asked if she could bring baby formula, and I said yes, that would be fantastic. We have another person who asked if they could bring baskets of food. Yes, whatever you think you can do. We are very grateful. Busse When we run out of ventilators, that’s not something that we can just pull out of the closet. So, we’re relying on and hoping for support from the government to get more ventilators. We’re relying on and hoping for support from industry to get us more resources. We’re using what we have now, and once that’s it, once we’re out, we’re going to have to get creative. We don’t have enough N95 masks. We don’t have enough personal protective equipment. We’re using what we have, and we are hoping that we don’t get the virus. Nave We’ve started rationing our personal protective equipment. We’re trying to be very, very smart about when to use it and on which patients. It’s kept under lock and key because there’s panic even in the healthcare system when something like this hits. People start hoarding. Ware My husband is 60 and has heart disease, so we want to make sure he is extra-protected. I’m a breast-cancer survivor. We live in a condo downtown. We are in and out of the parking garage, touching that door all the time. Those are the things we have to be conscious about. We’re here, and we’re in the house more now, obviously. But it’s fine, it’s family time. We’ve got a puzzle. I got me some wine. Brad Levenberg | rabbi at Temple Sinai So many of us have relied on physical gatherings to provide comfort when we’re going through difficult times. When it’s joyous, we gather to celebrate. In the days after 9/11, we gathered in homes and apartments to watch the news. Now, this kind of support is all being challenged. We need to find other ways. Busse Right now we’re not seeing the normal volume of patients that show up needing care at the hospital. And is that because patients are being more careful and taking their medicine and having telehealth visits with their primary-care doctors? Are they no longer using the emergency room as a sort of a primary-care outlet? And it makes me think: Is this what healthcare could be if we were sort of using the system appropriately? Now, of course, the pessimist in me worries that when this is all said and done, we’re going to look at mortality and morbidity of people that were not infected with COVID-19 and we’re going to see that go up. Nave Italy had so many cases that all presented at once that it overwhelmed their entire system, and they’re having to choose who’s going to live and who’s going to die. They’re looking at two patients who are actively dying and there’s one ventilator, and they’re saying “You get it.” That’s probably the most horrific experience for a physician. I can’t even imagine. That’s what we don’t want. Hollingsworth We are in the holy season of Lent right now. It’s already designed to be a season of introspection and asking the big questions. So, in many ways, this makes the Lenten questions more real and more pressing because the ground is shaky under people. But personally the ground doesn’t feel that shaky to me. Because I have a different kind of existential hope. We may see people turning to the church to ask, Are there answers there that perhaps I’ve been making fun of for a long time? This is an opportunity to live inside a hope that is not built on markets or how many widgets you can sell. Carstarphen This is going to have a huge and disproportionate impact on black and brown and poor children. When you’re in a city that has the label of being the most unequal city in America when it comes to income disparity, and you’re working with people who are already fragile and incredibly strained in the healthiest of economies, this is crushing. If you’re wealthy, you can still get the access to the things you need for your family. Our kids weren’t getting that at the outset. It took a pandemic to wake up some people to know that we have to support our marginalized brothers and sisters. Clinkscales I don’t have money to pay for college on my own. Scholarships have been taken away. I’ve been thinking about starting a business. I have always wanted to own a sports bar. Now, I’m scared about what I’m going to do after I graduate. I was working hard, doing extracurricular activities, filling out scholarship applications, playing sports, trying to do something better for my family. And it all got taken away because of the virus. Devon Clinkscales: “I’m scared about what I’m going to do after I graduate.” Photograph by Audra Melton Urbina This pandemic has proved how connected we are. Nobody can say that they have not been touched by this. I am Latina, but if something is happening to my friends in the black community, it’s my problem. I have to do something about it because they’re my people. With everything that’s happening to the Asian community, I feel so sad that people have made them feel they are to blame for the situation, which, they’re not. We need everybody’s help so we can survive. There will be repercussions from this that we can’t even imagine right now. Do whatever you can, but just do something. Stieber My main focus is keeping the business open any way I possibly can, which right now means switching to a to-go–only format this week. But we have to do what we have to do, and I’m doing whatever I can to make sure I pay my staff and keep their jobs. If you have the ability to stay home and still get paid and you’re willing to share with the people who need it, then do so. Just stop posting the same memes—pony up and do something legitimate to help. Nave I don’t leave my house a lot [when I’m not at the hospital]. We have gone to the grocery store. We do not bring our children. I keep hand sanitizer in my purse. The second I get in my car, I sanitize my hands again. We bring all the groceries in, unload then, and immediately wipe every single food item down: boxes, milk jugs, whatever. Then, we take a wipe and retrace our entire steps from the time we entered the house—every doorknob, every baby gate, every counter. Levenberg This is a time when you don’t have to put your life on the line to be a hero. You’re a hero when you pay your yard people to not show up. When you pay your cleaning people to stay home. When you send a gift card to teachers who are learning new tools to teach your children. These are all heroic measures. Bottoms I’ve been thinking a lot about the Holocaust and the diary of Anne Frank, how people’s lives changed and they had to go in hiding. When I think about that, this is a minor inconvenience. There are people who live across the globe with disease and war. I’m in a house with AC and a backyard and two dogs who get to run around and play. It’s made me grateful just about the little things—going to a restaurant, getting your nails done, going to the store. These conveniences we take for granted our entire lives. It’s given me a perspective, another layer of empathy. Nave This is a different infectious agent than we have ever seen in most of our lifetimes. This truly is unprecedented. I was at Emory when we dealt with Ebola. Ebola’s mortality is way worse than this, and it’s very infectious—but not as infectious as this. This is crazy: You start with one city in China, and now, the whole world has it because we’re so interconnected. This is such an unprecedented infectious agent that we have to be more diligent and cautious, even at the cost of some of the economics of this country. Because how do you put value on a life? Hollingsworth If we have a death in our community, it’s our practice to come together as a community and tell stories. We can’t do that now. But an interment can’t wait. The staff here will do small graveside services, and we’ll encourage families to push a memorial service into the future. Gallagher [My wife and I have] had some difficult talks about the greater good. Is it being available as a soup kitchen, or selling food to raise money for our staff, or closing down and keeping the highest level of social distancing? This morning, she shared a dream she had where she was in the grocery store and there was too many people and she could see the hand sanitizer and she couldn’t get to it. Levenberg I hope we have a renewed understanding of those who are more marginalized than we are and of the privileges we claim by default. Maybe that sense will be awakened in people who are seeing that there are a lot of people who are worse off, who are seeing that they’ve milked the existing system for their families at the expense of others. Amy Phuong and Kerry O’Brate Photograph by Audra Melton Phuong We thought, What’s preventing us from still getting married? So, we went to the courthouse to get our marriage license the last day the court was open. We pulled up the weather app to look for a date when it wasn’t going to rain. Bill Bolling [the founder of Atlanta Community Food Bank, who was officiating] said, “Pick a pretty spot.” I thought, let’s just pick our neighborhood park, Cabbagetown Park. When Kerry and I first started dating, it was midway between our houses. My parents came, my sister. We had to keep it under 10. We had hand sanitizer. I picked up pastries from Alon’s that morning. We used Kerry’s Zoom account to do some livestreaming. We wanted to make sure family and friends got to be a part of it. On the virtual stream, somebody wore pearls, somebody put on a dress and makeup, someone wore a tuxedo T-shirt, one of the bridesmaids who couldn’t be there even wore her dress. There was a beautiful moment in the ceremony where Bill was addressing the virtual crowd. His remarks almost made the park feel like it was full. He did an affirmation: “Will you guys support this couple?” That was a beautiful moment, looking over at an iPhone on a tripod and hearing everyone say, “We will.” Expanded interviews: These Georgians had so much more to say than we had space to print. To read their full stories, click on the names below. Dr. Michelle Au | Dr. Meria Carstarphen | Devon Clinkscales | Hugh Acheson | Amy Phuong | Mike Gallagher | Jarrett Stieber | Belisa Urbina | Shawn Ware |Dock Hollingsworth | Keisha Lance Bottoms | Joey Camp | Dr. Laurence Busse | Dr. Jessica Nave | Marshall Rancifer | Brad Levenberg This article appears in our May 2020 issue. The post 21st Century Plague appeared first on Atlanta Magazine. #JarrettStieber #EmpireStateSouth #KeishaLanceBottoms #MichelleAu #Coronavirus

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