#and a second house which my sister lives in rent free

[obstinatecondolement]

Wish my parents would take the "not swearing at me and shouting about how they own the house I live in" challenge every time I push back mildly against them treating me like a literal child challenge.

[a-ikuoliver]

me vs over sharing

[gadriezmannsgirl]

Hi! Love your work could you write a gavi × reader where reader is on vacation in Spain and gavi sees her from afar and he can't stop looking at reader like live at first sight and his friends see him watching you and tell him to make a move and he does and his friends tease him bc he finally found someone

Celebration fic for the 1K followers✨

Vacations with Love at First Sight -P.G6

Summary: At vacations the last thing you both thought was falling in love.

You were in delight when you got your vacations after studying so hard for five months and two weeks straight, Uni was kicking your calm, patience and sleep hours and now you were done, you were finally getting them back for another two weeks. And it may not be the whole time you'd like but it was what you get and you were going to take the best of it.

You and your friends wanted and decided (After a lot of begging to your parents), that you were going to spend the two vacations week in Ibiza, you have rented the house you were staying in for, you have the food, the restaurants, everything.

And now after three days of being there already, you were loving the idea of coming next summer to Ibiza, the place was so nice and quiet enough to reload your batteries and have a great time with your girls.

What you didn't know was that you had a little admirer looking at you three tables away.

Pablo Gavi, who was also in Ibiza with his friends after a hardworking season with the Barcelona and the National Team, had his eyes on you since the moment you walked through the door with a smile on your face.

"Would you stop looking like a creep?" Adbe, one of Pablo's friends said

"I'm not a creep"

"Please, you have been looking at the girl ever since she came here" Javi joined besides him as Pablo gave him a look "You're not even trying to hide anything" Pablo rolled his eyes as his friends laughed lightly "She's pretty"

"Yes, she is" Aurora nodded agreeing with her boyfriend

"C'mon, Pablito" Fermín smiled at his friend "Go talk to her"

"She's pretty but I don't like her. I can't distract myself with girls, I need to focus for the next season. Besides, she's with her friends, she won't pay attention to me or will just think I'm stupid"

"She won't" Aurora replied "You obviously like her, season is over now, you can relax yourself and have a great time Pablo. Girls won't distract you from anything"

"I won't go"

"Fine. I'll go"

"Aurora, what are you doing?"

"Making friends" And that's how the seven guys watched how Aurora walked over to your table and a few seconds later, you stood up grabbing a chair from the empty table besides you and invited her to sit, which she gladly did

"Oh fuck" Carlos said laughing "Your sister's amazing"

The guys were laughing while Pablo was shaking his head softly looking at you, wondering how easy was for his sister to engage a conversation, he couldn't believe it.

"Aurora's calling me" Javi said standing up

"You're leaving?"

"My girl calls" The guys laughed before Aurora appeared

"The girls are okay with you sitting with them, if you'd like"

"This is your chance, Pablito" Mario said smiling and standing up "It's okay to have someone, you know?"

"Yes, Pablo" Fermín nodded "Stop with those things going on your head, be free and happy"

Pablo sighed watching his friends go around your table, watched how you got two tables together for all of you and slowly let himself stand and walk towards you.

"Hello" He tight smiled and inmediately he was received with your smile and a wave "Where can I sit?"

"There's a seat next to Y/N" Javi said inmediately and it was as if he knew who you were, his eyes went to yours and you smiled moving your chair to the side leaving a seat free for him.

He instantly went to sit next to you with his nerves at the top of his head and actions

"Hello" He heard your voice and instantly fell in love with it, he smiled at you "Y/N Y/L/N" You stuck your hand out and he shook it

"Pablo Gavi" He smiled

"You're Aurora's brother, right?" He nods

"Sorry if she came out a bit too much" You shake your head

"She's lovely"

And that was the start of a conversation with Pablo. Both of you, hitting it off instantly, no one, not even your girl friends, dared to disrupt your conversation with the Sevillano.

"I'm gonna go and bring me another drink" You said standing up "Guys... You want a refill?"

A few "yes" came through the table as you picked their drinks

"I'll help you, girl" You best friend, Pamela said standing up

"Don't you worry, Pamela" Fermín said "Pablo can help her"

Looks were directed to Pablo "Yes, of course!" Pablo said standing up and helping you with the drinks.

You walked over and asked for the refill and as you waited, you and Pablo were in silence for the first time of the evening.

"Y/N" You heard your name being called and you turn to Pablo "What are you doing later?"

"Um- I don't know... Maybe later with the girls go to our room and watch some movie or go to the beach, why?"

"I was wondering if you'd like to go out?" He asked and you smile softly nodding

"Sure, where are we going? Are the guys coming as well?"

"I meant just you and me" Pablo said nodding while pointing to him and you

"Oh! Yes, of course!" Your nods and smile calmed him down "Where are we going?"

"Wherever you want to" You laugh nodding

"What time?"

"Does 5pm sound good?" You nod "Perfect. Make yourself prettier than you already are"

"You think I'm pretty?"

"I don't think you are pretty. You are pretty, I'm just lucky to see it"

"You're a charming one, Pablo" He smiled feeling the blush come to his cheeks "And a very shy one as well"

"Ay, cállate" (Oh, shut up) You laughed carefree as you were being watched by Javi, Aurora, Mario and Fermín

"Told you he was gonna do it" Mario said happily

"I'm happy for him" Fermín said

"So are we" Javi replied for him and for his sister. You came back with the drinks and instead of sitting, you remained up

"Seat's free to sit" One of your friends, Melisa joked as you laughed lightly

"I know it is but we won't sit right now"

"Why?"

"We are going on a walk" Pablo answered smiling softly "I'll bring her back before 9pm"

"You better" Your best friend, Pamela said with a smile "Take care guys"

With a smile, Javi opened his phone and went inside their group chat "Distracted already?🥴 You left your glasses"

And with that text a lot of teasing came through to the poor Sevillano, who couldn't care less about his phone at the moment, he was happy he followed his friends advice.

°°° °°° °°° °°°

Taglist: @gaviypedrisbride @stuckinaf4nfiction @elijahslover @azzpenswrld @http-isabela

[ralibo14]

TPN Brainrots part 1:

Another TPN manga panel redraw, but this time everyone goes down with me (because it's sad).

Also part one of my 'wonderful' tpn theories and head canons. It'll be long😅. There will be manga spoilers so please, read at your own risk😊.

First character I go through is... Ray.

He is one of the most complicated characters I ever saw (all tpn characters are, tbh). I always thought that people who have photographic memory are so lucky. Ray showed me that it's both a blessing and the curse.

Like in the picture above. You can clearly see that the first 2 kid waving at his direction. It's strange to know that there was a time when the Trio were one of the young kids and not the older ones. My first head canon is that Ray tried to save more kids, not just Emma and Norman when he was younger. When the blond haired boy leaves (first panel) he looks like he is about to cry (also the Trio is around 4 or 6) but when the other kids get 'adopted' Ray keeps his head low most of the frames (I'm convinced that when the second kid left he was already working as Isabella's spy.)

Ray coloration explained:

Purple eyes are self explanatory to me. I started draw him with purple eyes as soon as I found out he is Isabella's son. Purple in the hair and freckles? Well... I'm still very, very convinced that Leslie didn't die (at least not when he left the House). I always think about his situation, like what Norman got into with Lambda. The Ratri-clan is big but they need outsiders, to be soldiers, scientists, etc. And since girls from the Houses can only become Sisters and Moms... maybe some boys can become scientists and soldiers. (I can't believe I'm writing this but think about Andrew🤢... he was 100% not Ratri yet he could become an adult). So by this logic I believe Leslie could grow up too and (because I'm a sucker for happiness) he met Isabella again at some point.

Ray turning away:

On the second frame he is not looking at the girl who is leaving, but to the opposite direction. Why? Notice something else? Yes, Norman is missing too. Gilda has her winter jumper on so I figure Norman got sick again. Ray priorities his friends safety over everything else.

Also notice how Emma and Norman slowly get into the middle of the frame while Mom/Isabella get out of it? Pretty strong metaphor. It's the perfect example of 'Blood related family ≠ real family'. And while I'm a RayEmma shipper (obviously aged up version) I would never forget about Norman. He is as important to Ray as Emma. This Trio sticks together no matter what.

(older manga colouring ⬇️)

Now onto the hearth breaking stuff:

Ray's relationship with Isabella:

This deleted scene with Ray and Ayshe lives rent free in my head. Like there are two people with similar family situations and the one who lived int the middle of nowhere with a demon parent thinks positively about their parent, while the other, who grew up in a comfortable home like space with a human parent, thinks the opposite.

"But to me, she was always a monster"– Ray.

Like ufff... This sentence hits real hard. And it's low-key true from Ray perspective. He studied and read all the books in the House, not because he was interested, but because he had to. Norman is a genius, Emma learns real fast, Ray does everything he can to always get max points on his tests. But he also secretly planning his friends excape. Collects scraps of technology to build the device which makes them able to excape, plans his own 💀 carefully, so no one else will get hurt and on a top of that he is 'spying' for Isabella. Sacrifices people he wanted to protect. I can't imagine that inside panic when he didn't get max scores to that one test. I'm sure he was happy because Norman and Emma got their regular scores, but deep down he felt like he failed.

My head canon here is that Ray always gets nightmares if he is alone or in an unsafe place. And 'thanks' to his perfect memory his nightmares build up from actual memories (like we see that in the Seven Wall Arc). Also he doesn't get sick often but when he does... it's like a memory fuelled fever dream, with hallucinations and etc.

Ray's healing journey starts after the Jailbreak Arc. As soon as Mom is not around anymore, he ever so slowly starts to let down his guard and starts to show more and more emotions. His relationship with Yuugo/Mister is like a greatest archivment in his case. The playful, sarcastic 'arguments' and the way he openly said his opinion on things in front of Yuugo and Lucas. Shows how much he changed and opened up.

Isabella on the other hand... her change of heart and feelings were a mistery almost to the very end. To be honest I hated her most of the time, until the Back to Grace Field Arc. (Older manga colouring again⬇️😅)

Two things in this page which are very important.

1: Ray's guard is up again in no time, when he sees Isabella, while her emotionless mask is cracking. This is the first time we get a little inside of how she really feels about Ray.

2: Flashback of the two most important things that connects them. The song and the way they were forced to sacrifice others to stay alive.

The lullaby is very important, because it's calming and feels very intimate (like a normal parent-child relationship should be).

You also can't convince me otherwise that Ray didn't hummed this lullaby at least once in the B06-32 shelter to help the youngest kids fall asleep.

And now... onto the last picture. Their goodbye.

Saddest part ever! Never forgiving for this decision.

Ray and Isabella were never allowed to talk even two short sentences with each other without any consequences. In the House they had to play their assigned roles. Then they didn't see each other for almost 2 years. Finally they had to save half of the team from getting unalived... And they moment they would have time the last twist happens... leaving us with a sad ending.

Epilogue and Human World Arc...does little to compensate. Although I can't get over the fact that Yuugo's, Conny's and Isabella's 'ghosts' helped Ray found Emma in the Human World.

Speaking of finding Emma. My last head canon for Ray is the following;

When they found out that Emma lost all of her memories from the Demon World. Ray couldn't help himself but whisper a "I wish this happened to me". And everyone looks at him with an understanding smile thinking he blames himself for this... But in reality he really just selfishly thought (only for seconds) that he could forget everything happened on the other side.

Okay. That's all. Sorry for the supper long post and I'm forever thankful if you read through my brainrots 🥰😘. Also let me know if I should cover more characters like this. I'll obviously do Emma and Norman but if there any other characters you want to see please let me know🥰🤩💖.

[copperbadge]

Radio Free Monday

Good morning everyone, and welcome to Radio Free Monday!

Ways to Give:

Anon linked to notaplaceofhonour, who needs to raise $1,500 to cover rent, a car repair, monthly car payment, and groceries for the month; you can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

queerdo-mcjewface linked to a Walmart wishlist assembled by sister-in-law Maria, a school therapist who put it together for low-income children she works with; you can view and purchase from the list here including games, dolls, sports and crafts equipment, and giftcards (on the second page).

nivchara-yahel and her sibling Hem are disabled and currently applying for SSDI and other benefits; they're currently need to raise $1495 to relocate to a friend's home out-of-state before their eviction is finalized. This will get them to a safe place to live while they continue to seek work and apply for social security and get better access to medical care. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

marveltrumpshate, a fandom charity auction focused on Marvel universes, is open for sign-ups until September 28th; you can offer various forms of fanwork or service (fic, art, betaing, podfics, videos, translations, and more), and auction winners donate their bid amount directly to one of the nonprofits on the list. There are no minimum work requirements and they are open to all corners of the Marvel fandom; they welcome a huge variety of fanworks and fan labor, and you can see a list of examples here. This is the seventh year for Marvel Trumps Hate, which has raised $215,652.53 since 2018! You can read more, reblog, and sign up here.

Recurring Needs:

secondalto was in a car accident in February that totaled her car, and she missed work through the end of the school year; insurance was slow to pay out and she didn't get another car (necessary for her job) until last month. She is raising funds for bills and is also offering fic beta services and handicrafts in return for donations; you can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

onedollopofsourcream is fundraising to help support a large family including young children during a difficult time; they particularly need funds for needed medication (including insulin), and hopefully eventually to get out of an abusive living situation. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

chingaderita has been trying to help their family get back on their feet after a house fire that left them in an unsafe living situation with black mold; they are now dealing with medical bills after being hospitalized, and may need surgery for their gallbladder while their family is still in a precarious situation. You can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

loversdoom has recently been diagnosed with PCOS and needs help to afford the prescribed birth control pills on top of living expenses and dental bills; you can read more, reblog, and find giving information here or give via paypal here.

memprime linked to a fundraiser for a friend, virtualalternative, who needs help with cat vet bills after their cat had several blockages; you can read more, reblog, and find giving information here.

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

[saintsenara]

this piece was written for the second @ladiesofhpfest monthly minis, this time focusing on lily evans. you can read the first piece i did for this challenge - on andromeda tonks - here, and find the masterlist of all the pieces written for andromeda here.

today, even though we're looking at lily, the perspective is someone else's: her much maligned and often overlooked sister, petunia.

petunia's letter to dumbledore, written just before her sister starts at hogwarts, is one of those incidental details which are dropped into canon and then never addressed again and which now live rent-free in my mind. i've always wondered what she said. i've always wondered why she wanted to follow her sister - with whom, from what we see of snape's memories, she doesn't seem to be particularly closely aligned in terms of personality, sense of daring etc. - to a castle in the middle of nowhere. i've always wondered why she wanted to be magic.

this is what i think she said.

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

My name is Petunia Evans.

I am thirteen years old and I live in Cokeworth with my parents and my sister, Lily. We are ordinary people - Muggles, your deputy headmistress called us - with a normal house and normal clothes. My father has a normal job, my mother keeps a normal home, my sister and I squabble like normal girls.

I am writing because, in ten days time, you will be taking my sister away from me.

We were supposed to go to school together - to St Andrew’s High School, where everyone we know goes - which is the normal thing to happen. But now Lily is going to your school, and I won’t be there to show her what you do at lunchtime or how to take books out of the library or to tell her which teachers are creepy and which ones are nice. I did that when she started in the infants and it's something I should be doing again. It's my job as her big sister, and I believe in doing things properly.

But instead people like you are taking Lily somewhere where everyone says I can’t follow. And nobody’s explained to me what I should say when people at school ask me why my little sister isn’t in the first form this September. Because if I just say that she’s gone to a boarding school, then people will ask why I’m not there too. Things might be different in your world, but in ours sisters go to the same school, and it's not right if they don't.

Lily rolls her eyes when I say this. Since she found out that she was a witch, she has taken to pretending that we were never the best of friends. Having been best friends with your sister isn't special enough, I suppose.

But we were. Totally inseparable, mummy called us. Never saw one without the other.

So I know that, when she gets to your school, Lily will probably pretend that she’s not related to someone like me. How could she be? After all, people have always stopped mummy to say that she’s pretty and sweet, with her red hair and her big eyes. They never stop her to talk about me. I’m just plain old Petunia, with yellow hair. Lily thinks I cry all the time and when we’re fighting she says that I look like a horse.

And now you’ve made that even worse. Because she thinks how can I be related to someone like Petunia? After all, Lily’s a witch, Lily’s magical, Lily will want to stick with her own sort, to have magical friends.

And I’m just a Muggle.

But - the thing is - I showed her magic first. Maybe it’s not as impressive as the sort of magic your lot can do - I can’t fly or make flowers bloom - but I was the first person who showed her that things are not what they seem, that everything can be transformed if you just know how. I was the first person who showed her how you can change boring things into fun ones by making them a game. I showed her how you can change flour and eggs and butter and sugar into a cake. I showed her how you can turn the black-and-white lines of a colouring book into a real picture. I taught her that snow melts and the garden comes alive again. I taught her that grazed knees scab and then the scab falls off and they’re healed. 

I was going to show her all the magic which grown ups get to have. We were going to move to London - or Manchester, or Liverpool, or Birmingham, anywhere, really - and go to restaurants and the cinema every night. We were going to get good jobs and trade silly stories about our bosses. We were going to get married, and be each other’s maid-of-honour, and have children, and be the favourite aunt. We were going to live next door to each other and gossip over the garden wall, and our children were going to grow up and be the very best of friends.

Aren’t those things magic too?

I think so. But Lily has already stopped thinking of them that way. She already looks down at the magic we used to have, and I want to stop that and let everything be as it should be. With me as the big sister.

I know that I could learn magic too, because I’ve already done so much of it. Please offer me a place at your school. I enclose my latest reports, so you can see that I’m clever and well-behaved. I look forward to your letter.

Yours sincerely,

Petunia Evans

[light-miracles]

Please share some fav frelma moments or headcanons? The fandom is so quiet ahaha

Sure!

Canon from the books trilogy (spoilers duh) (shot out to my friend Clei for getting me the books)

1) When Daphne makes Velma accidentally admit she has a crush on Fred and her reaction is just 'Damn Velma I didn't know you were so traditional'

2) When they dance together in Shaggy's house in the second book

3) Fred shamelessly flirting by touching her hair at school and Velms' almost heart attack.

4) Really, Velma's pining in the books is delicious.

5) The almost kiss in the third book.

6) When Fred almost dies in that fire and Velma just starts to cry out of pure relief when she sees him alive

7) Fred telling the journalists next thing he's doing is asking 'the girl he likes' out when he leaves hospital.

8) Their last scene together at the end. Which lives rent free on my head. I even wrote a little continuation/expansion of that scene in a drabble.

(Overall, the books aren't perfect. The focus is Daphne and Velma's friendship and that means too little focus on Shaggy and Freddie. But it was absolutely worth it. It was like the best Frelma fanfic but actually canon in its verse. Clinging to those books forever)

Honorific mentions of other versions: the "DORKY CHICKS LIKE YOU TURN ME ON TOO" line in the live action (lmfao) (Linda Cardellini and Freddie Prinze's chemistry was awesome), Fred going all the way to show her he appreciates everything she does in Be Cool Scooby Doo, and their scenes together in The Mystery Begins. Also every moment they share the screen in 'Mystery Incorporated: Welcome to Coolsville'. That version of the characters was the best one in recent years.

..

Headcanons now:

1) Has anyone watched that animated short horror video parodying the totally awful Velma show? The one with eldritch monster Scooby? Yeah they're together the next time Scooby reboots reality. Both of them are aware of what's going on and try to scape the time loop (confusing if you don't know the story of the video 'Velma Meets The Original Velma' on YouTube, plz watch it)

2) Moving on to greener grasses, eventually they have twin boys, Ricky and Roger (named after Fred and Shaggy). Obviously Daphne and Shaggy are the godparents.

3) Shaggy let's them adopt 3 puppies from the Doo family years in the future.

4) Scrappy lived with them for some time. Velma was the only one who could boss him around. Fred spoiled him.

5) Velma sends him food to his work out of nowhere because sometimes she's sure he's forgotten to eat. He does the same plus flowers. Both of them are right: they forget to have dinner. Shaggy never shuts up about it.

6) (I usually go with Archeologist!Fred and Astronomer!Velms. They travel a lot) (The kids are homeschooled until they can leave for a boarding school)

7) Ricky and Roger are mama boys

8) Fred does the taxes. Velms always forgets.

9) Shaggy is a chef (duh) and Daphne a private detective and they're never too far away. Their kid is a little older than the twins but they hang out a lot. Sometimes Velma refers to Daphne as 'her sister' so the boys don't figure out Daphne isn't their 'actual aunt' until they're older.

10) Velma has a photo of him on her wallet. Fred is the little spoon.

[thewardenofwinter]

Writeblr Introduction | Morana Warrin

I have finally created a Tumblr for my writing. I haven't been on here since I just got internet access (around 2013 so you can probably guess the things I saw) but I need a place to throw all my ideas at a wall and watch as they trickle down into a puddle of lost nights of sleep and aesthetic pinterest boards.

▸ About

▸My name is Morana, I would prefer they/them pronouns but, to be frank, I do not care what you refer to me as. I have been writing for a long time (too long if you ask some people) but in the past three years, I have been taking the profession much more seriously in hopes of starting a career. Besides being a writer and a threat to modern society, I also dabble in drawing/graphic design and character design.

▸I adore 19th-century Russian literature (Mikhail Bulgakov is my personal favourite) and absurdist texts. There isn't a moment of my day when I'm not listening to some sort of music, I do not discriminate genres in the slightest but I am partial to rock and its many subgenres. I love any 90s and early 2000s movies, early Hollywood horror flicks, and Soviet films from the 80s.

▸ Current Projects

(I am horrible at summaries so please take pity on me. also check TWs)

The Resurrectioners

You only live twice.

(TW: Mentions of s*icide)

After the deaths of her two sisters in a car crash, twenty-seven-year-old Samara Dombroski decides that her life is no longer worth living and makes a successful attempt at her own life. Only there's one problem:

She doesn’t stay dead for very long.

An indeterminate amount of time later, Samara wakes up in a strange, vast estate plagued by visions of the past that she can’t control. She learns that this place is run by a man known only as The Resurrectionist, a necromancer armed with a group of assassins possessing strange abilities called Resurrectioners, an eclectic group of individuals who all share her story: people who found death by their own hand or by some other tragic means.

Now a resurrectioner herself, Samara must repay the debt of her second chance at life to The Resurrectionist by disposing of cadavers for him: violent, ghoulish beings that result from misused necromancy who feast on flesh and bone. Once she has killed enough to satisfy The Resurrectionist, she will be released from the estate she is trapped in and free to live the rest of her life.

genre: dark fantasy, thriller

What We Undertake

Some things are better left undead.

Guillermo Del Toro's Crimson Peak meets Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow in this paranormal mystery and gothic romance set in the late 19th century.

Our tale follows one Dolores Clive, resident medium and the daughter of the late Warren Clive, Boston's most beloved undertaker. After her father's death and subsequent take over of the family business, Dolores has become a recluse haunted by ghosts of her past and near future which all comes to head when her step-sister arrives in town with her newly acquired fiancé and his rather strange but beautiful brother in tow following a string of murders.

Genre: horror/supernatural fiction, gothic fiction

The Stray Girls

It's not drugs that are killing these teens.

(TW: Mentions of drugs and alcohol)

Set in the fictional city of Maynard, The Stray Girls is a retelling of The Lost Boys centred around a cast of troubled teen girls set 10 years later in 1997'.

After once again deciding to move across the country with her daughters, Magdelena's mother decides that cheap rent is worth more than her daughter's lives when she moves to Maynard, Washington— which currently boasts the largest missing girl population in the country. While settling into their new home, Magda notices her elder sister Roxanne is beginning to act strange: leaving the house in the middle of the night, wearing sunglasses indoors, and sleeping all day. First suspecting it to be drugs, Magda thinks nothing of it, but as time goes on and her sister's personality makes a sudden shift in the wrong direction, she can no longer pretend like everything is alright. Meeting the group of troubled girls that her sister now calls 'friends' slowly leads her down a path of crime, thrill and peer pressure. But it's not booze that these girls are drinking: it's blood.

Genre: Teen Adventure/Horror

▸ LINKS

pinterest // spotify // instagram

Though my aesthetic and writing style may scream morbid academic pretentiousness, I assure you my online presence and writing greatly contrast with my personality (and looks for that matter) so please do not be alarmed by my frequent buffoonery, general bastardness, and bombastic vulgarity.

Thank you for reading! (or skipping to the end)

— M. Warrin

[gaywiththesauce]

Crashed (Hammered, Wasted Even) (RenGiyuu, KNY)

When Giyuu thought of his life, he figured he was lucky.

He thought he was lucky to live under a house with a roof, to go to college, to land a teaching job at a high school, and go to college for his Master's in the summers and loosely in the spring seasons. For the last two years, that's how his life has been. Satisfied, that's how he would describe his life. He got up in the mornings with quick breakfasts, had unremarkable lunches, and ate takeout four days a week for dinner. He liked this life, or at least he convinced himself he did.

"Really? That sounds boring," Shinobu Kocho, one of his students, commented when he mentioned his simple life. She had lockpicked his door after refusing to get it for her on his lunch break. Even having her in here was a risk to his perfect teaching record, but she sat stubbornly in the front row. This is the seventh time she's done this, but classes had only been in session for three weeks.

"That's your opinion," he said calmly, eating out of his premade bento box. He was tired of the tuna flavor. He will buy a different kind tomorrow.

"My opinion is correct! Do you even go out?"

The lunch period was already wrapping up, so he finished what was left, "I shouldn't discuss my personal life with a student, you know." That got a groan out of Shinobu. She had something homemade with her. Curry rice, or what was left of it after she was finished. Shinobu ate faster than him, which gave her ample time to question every damn thing about him.

"C'mon," she stood to throw away her dirty napkins, "I'm not just a student."

Giyuu laughed through his nose. Yes, she was also an employee at the library he visited twice a month. The first time to rent books that won't be finished, and the second time to return them so there wasn't a fee on his card. Oh, and she was in one (1) of his classes this summer. Biology. For some reason, she took a college class as a junior going on to senior. Despite him never asking about it, she explained it anyways. It was something about wanting to be ahead of her classmates and something about her sister he didn't catch. She talked to him the entire course and was his lab partner, so it was ironic when he saw her sitting in one of his afternoon classes. She has insisted that Giyuu is her equal, even going as far as demanding more respect and being treated as an "adult." He had no idea what that meant because his behavior was the same for everyone.

"Fine, I'll drop it, Tomioka-san. I won't pry into your personal life," she said irritatingly.

"That's Tomioka-sensei here, Shinobu-chan," he scolded her. He could bring it up to the principal and have her called in on her manners, but that would be extra paperwork he did not feel like dealing with.

Giyuu threw away the rest of his pathetic lunch. Admittedly, that was one of the worst lunches he's ever bought. He thought for a moment that he might have gotten the wrong brand. He looked at the clock on the wall and looked back at Shinobu. She had been talking to him this entire time, just now realizing he hadn't been listening. "Tomioka-san," she whined, "You are hopeless, you know that?"

Ouch.

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

Hello! It's Saucy here. This is a WIP that I'm working on. I only have chapter one up right now but there's at least 11 that I plan to have in the story, maybe more!

I also plan to post updates here about the fic and other fics so feel free to follow along! And here is the link to the rest of the chapter!

Chapter Two - Three - Four

[evilelena]

I'm so weird, I fill out three-year-old Cobra Kai surveys on tumblr.

Karate Kid/Cobra Kai survey

---

It’s the year 2021 and you’re obsessed with The Karate Kid. How are you feeling?

Well, it's now the year 2024 and...fine? I was never really "obsessed" with the Miyagi universe until October 2022 when I started going through all the episodes for my so-called "fan fixion". it's not really fanfic; intentionally bad recaps with fictionalized elements are just something my sister and I used to do ages ago for the lulz. We actually did them for Beverly Hills, 90210 and The Shield. The Cobra Kai ones are done by me; but my sister remains my one consistent reader. She's also the one who challenged me to incorporate the phrases "practice dumby" (yes, spelled that way), "Why is this happening to me?!", and "Ouch, ouch, oh, ouch!" (a line from one of my old childhood stories) into all of my recaps -- or whatever you want to call them. (In case anybody ever looks at those and thinks wtf?.) Despite not being "obsessed" until a year and a half ago, I still really liked CK and re-watched many episodes even before October 2022!

Did you grow up with TKK or are you new to the series?

Kind of both? I was born...uh, long enough ago that I was alive when TKK was released, although I don't remember its release because I was a very young child. I did see parts of all three first movies here and there over the years growing up -- and I watched that masterpiece The Next Karate Kid in the late 90's or early 00's while going on a Walton Goggins movie binge -- but I never appreciated them until my ex-on-good-terms recommended Cobra Kai. (I'm pretty new to the "fandom" but have been watching CK since May 2018.)

We gotta do the basics. Favorite character:

Johnny, for sure. Second favorite is Terry Silver.

Favorite ship:

Johnny and Daniel when they're bickering and squabbling like an old married couple.

Underrated character:

Stiven. Too bad he left, or he and Hawk could've become pals. I like how Stiven bravely tried to start a fight with Tory during the LaRusso house brawl, and she punched him away like she was batting away a pesky fly.

Underrated ship (don’t say therapy, lol):

Johnny and Ali? I (gasp) prefer them to Johnny and Carmen.

Wax On, Wax Off or Sweep the Leg?

Sweep the leg!

Which of Daniel’s dumb little outfits is your favorite?

Any where he incorporates the color blue. Bonus points if it includes his special blue-and-white karate headband.

Character from the films you most want to return, who’s not Terry Silver:

Charlie -- that minion of Ned, or whatever the main bully's name was in TNKK. (Charlie, played by Walton Goggins, was Ned's Rickenberger.)

Scene that lives in your head rent-free:

Oh, there are so many. Way too many to name in a three-year-old survey.

Will Anthony LaRusso ever be relevant?

Technically, he was one of the most relevant characters in 5x10. Without him, Kenny Payne might still be Terry Silver's prize pupil. (And Silver might not have been arrested. Stupid Anthony!)

You live in The Valley and are forced to join the karate gang war. Which dojo do you join?

Eagle Fang, but I'm not leaping from one building to another. (Sensei Lawrence is more than welcome to call me pathetic, though.)

What’s your training montage song?

"Gonna Fly Now"?

It’s the crossover event of the century! Which TV show are you combining with Cobra Kai for an hour-long Saturday night special?

Beverly Hills, 9010. Mel Silver can be Terry's cousin.

Tagging:

Nobody, because this is three years old.

[mygainyear2024]

I will call this day 0 otherwise I’ll confuse myself, so 1 April in Europe can be Day 1, except I fell asleep while trying to edit this last night, so I will confuse myself posting it on 1 April!

I feel very well equipped for this solo trip and future ones. I bought Keely’s old iPhone. This is the first phone I’ve owned! I’ve just had the work one, fearing I’d lose a second one! I have a portable mobile phone charger that appears to work well, AirTags attached to 3 items (as I did leave my new Apple Mac on a seat at the gate at Brisbane Airport last year)! I researched neck supports, and it was quite effective, and given the weather looked a bit rubbish in the Algarve on the advice of friends I raced out to MacPac and got a vest and I also invested in a Travelon cross body anti theft bag.

Today is a travel day. Brisbane to Dubai to Lisbon. Interestingly both Emirates Lounges were so quiet, as was Dubai airport mid morning. Is this cozzie lives? I asked a staff member in Dubai if it was due to Ramadan and he said no.

I met the lovely Tracey from seat 31D during the first flight. We were both up the back drinking cups of tea and stretching. She lives in Australia, originally from the UK, travelling back to Bristol to see her dying 62 year old sister 😢 She had an interesting story about terrible bosses, sea changes to Port Macquarie from Sydney and now due to her partner’s redundancy, three weeks after he achieved residency sponsorship from his employer, they are having several sea changes around Brisbane house and pet sitting while their place in Port Macquarie is listed on airbnb.

It gave me an idea about options for when I return as the beautiful 21 year old Anna, from the UK, has just signed the lease to rent my room for 3 months from 14th May 🤩 She’s studying forensic science and has a project at UQ. I have a feeling her and Rose are going to enjoy each others’ company.

I’d like to consider exploring house sitting locally and build up my references ahead of some potential overseas options💡 Any offers? Preferably modern, well appointed, comfortable, no pets and no gardening 😂

Now onboard the 7.51 hour flight to Lisbon. The lovely Calisa (flight attendant) came to my seat and welcomed just me back on board 😂 She said “let me know if there’s anything I can do to make your flight more comfortable”. I was too slow to say “upgrade me?” or “can you remove the crying babies and toddlers” This flight is very full.

Back to Netflix while I have access to my daughter’s account to download stuff. Just finished season 3 of Dead to Me, about to watch the last episodes of One Day. And started season 3 of Emily in Paris.

Usually I’d navigate public transport straight up but decided to order an Uber to the hotel and it worked really well. Felipe, the driver, was very surprised at how bright I was after all the travel.

I’m staying at Masa Hotel & Spa (it has a free gym which was great to use to shake off hours of sitting), near the airport (luckily flight didn’t start until around 6am) for 2 nights before heading to “home” in the Algarve for the rest of the month.

[ladyinrainbowglasses]

Poverty with Training Wheels

Or: How I Learned to Stop Trying and Just Accept Financial Abuse The relevant facts before I start ranting: - My father was born into and grew up on the poverty line. His father was a property manager in a tenement - they got free rent for labor and my dad began working when he was 5. He is very intelligent (don’t want to deny the good that did him) and also pretty dang lucky (he survived his childhood for one, but he also got lucky in the stock market and actually had a decent lucky streak as a gambler). He currently owns 4 houses and about 60 various acres of land. His own house is a five bedroom, three bath neo-Colonial in Northern Virginia that just underwent extensive remodeling (it’s hideous, which I will rant about at some other point). - I am disabled and have been to some extent my whole life. It got much, much worse in my teens and twenties, and when I graduated with my Bachelors in 2010, I was only really semi-functional. My list of diagnosed or waiting-on-official diagnosis disabilities are: paroxysmal dyskinesia, PCOS, adenomyosis, migraines, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, multiple anaphylactic allergies, c-PTSD and original flavor, gallstones (removed), propensity to kidney stones, severe tonsillitis (removed after 8 months, causing permanent ear damage), ADHD, plantar fasciitis, tendonitis of the hands, bronchial scarring from whooping cough, IBS, sleep apnea, anxiety, depression, and obesity.  When can you start calling it financial abuse? I grew up with wealthy parents who are also both stingy and poverty-informed. My mother passed when I was 5 and, from what I have gathered, she was as frugal as you’d expect an English teacher climbing towards a doctorate married to a bright young airman climbing the ranks to be. I have never been given an indication that she was “weird” about money, but I logically have no way of knowing. My father’s backstory has been given. My stepmother grew up incredibly rich (the daughter of an ambassador) and then lost everything. She survived poverty and abuse as a young adult and became deeply weird about money.  I grew up in a big house on 2 acres of land in the Blue Ridge Mountains, about an hour from Washington, D.C. My dad worked for Air Force Communications and Intelligence. My sister and I attended private school, complete with uniforms. Dad always insisted we buy our uniforms second-hand, because of how expensive they were. At the same time, we had live-in nannies for most of my childhood. These were not professional caretakers of children - they were young women who applied for the position because it included room and board, so I imagine that was done on the cheap. My sister took horseback riding lessons, but I never got to, because Dad decided it was too expensive and too big a hassle a bit before he remarried. My family has never owned fewer than four cars at a time.  As a kid, I did not realize we were wealthy, because my dad has gone between frugal, stingy, and spendthrift my entire life. In his frugal stages, we would do things like go dumpster-diving behind Costco, going to the dump and asking for stuff that looked useful, and stocking up on frozen goods, so that the primary meal I remember from ages 6-10 is TV dinners. In stingier cycles, Dad would tell us off for anything that “wasted” money. Like getting a hole in your uniform skirt (Don’t you know how expensive these are!? You can wear that until you outgrow it and if you don’t want it to have holes, don’t put holes in it.) My sister’s horse riding lessons. I got to play violin and flute, but during stingy cycles, Dad would call me out for not practicing enough, when he was “paying so much” to rent these instruments for me. My dad is also a hoarder, so his spendthrift cycles usually involve buying absolutely whacking amounts of movies in whatever format is popular, books, and power tools that he has no use for. My father’s DVD and Blu-Ray collection is somewhere in the range of 5,000+ and his book collection is at least 12,000 volumes. The foundations of the house were literally starting to crumble because of the weight of the books he was storing throughout the house. He threw away around 2,000 books from our basement that had become water-damaged. My dad, who is 82, has emphysema and a heart murmur post-heart attack, owns a top-of-the-line truck, two tractors that never work, a riding mower, and dozens of expensive power tools. During renovations, roughly $10,000 worth of those power tools were destroyed because of improper storage, so Dad bought replacements for a bunch of them. The renovations included the construction of a three-car garage, the installation of a backup generator, the complete remodeling of the previous garage into a library with built-in bookshelves and the installation of a new half bath with shower, the painting of every one of the 15 rooms and two hallways (all the same shade of mental hospital grey), the installation of track lighting in every room in the house, the conversion of the old, rotting screen porch to a sun room (complete with working sink and three permanent islands), the tearing down of the wooden deck and its replacement with concrete stairs and a concrete patio, the cutting of two skylights, the sealing of the old attic, and the creation of a mudroom in place of our former front porch. I currently work in windows and he said he is very, very interested in the 47% employee discount for replacing the 19 windows originally installed at the building in the 70′s.  Part of the roof blew off at the townhouse that he owns that I live in. Our home insurance gave him $17k towards fixing it. I saw the original quotes, which were between $8-$9k (the original emails also included him straight up saying he was an elderly disabled veteran and asking if they had any discounts for any of that). He said with the material the HOA is demanding we use the price has gone up to $13k. As I work in windows and the windows at my house are garbage that drastically raise my energy bills, I told him I wanted to use whatever was left over in replacing windows. He instantly snapped, “I’m not MADE of money! I’ve got my own expenses, kiddo.” As if he hadn’t told me he had been making plans for replacing all of his own windows with his own money three days before. He also started insisting that I try to finagle a raise at work and told me not to tell my stepmother about my planned heritage trip to Norway, because she will then insist that I give all of the money I am saving for it to them. He already agreed to a scheme that I proposed somewhat tongue-in-cheek that now that I have a steady job, he garnish 30% of every paycheck I receive to pay back rent and loaned money back. For Christmas, he and my stepmother gave me $150. My boyfriend’s grandma, who I have only met twice, gave me $75, in contrast.  Ever since I was 15, I have been living in poverty with training wheels. My parents are wealthy. They are not going to let me starve to death (though they will and do encourage me to go on SNAP whenever I am struggling, on the basis that they already paid for it through taxes). They let me live, mostly rent-free, in a decent townhouse in a nice city, though I must have at least one paying roommate. I pay all utilities. I have a Costco credit card and my dad pays for my cell phone, my car insurance, and the HOA fees. I hear a lot about it. Not every time I go home, but the majority of the time I go home, my dad or my stepmother lectures me about money. They insist that I work harder and keep my nose to the grindstone. One of them bemoans how hard they had it in their youth. They both tell me they are struggling financially. My stepmother, who was the head counter worker of Elizabeth Arden at a Macy’s near D.C., and who is now head counter worker at Lancome at the same Macy’s. My father, retired Colonel, with investment portfolios, a pension, Social Security, and three rental properties. Me, who has never made more than $20 per hour and was hired for my first full-time job ever at age 35. The most I have ever made in a year was $19k, and that was having a 15 hour a week early AM gig, a 35 hour a week online teaching aid job, proofreading, and pet-sitting. I currently make $16.50 per hour, despite having a master’s degree and having worked since I was 15.  Starting when I got my first part-time job at age 15, the “This is your responsibility to pay for” has expanded, starting with, “You can buy your own clothes now”, in addition to the house chores I already did (including taking over the cooking almost entirely at age 16, because my stepmother started making food I couldn’t eat deliberately or started making too little food for me to eat). I have a fair amount of clothes from high school still, because I wasn’t going to mess up what I had worked hard to get.  It really started ramping up when I went to college. I got a scholarship and applied for grants, but most of the money was supposed to come out of a college fund my parents had set up, and that Dad apparently put an inheritance from our grandma into our college funds. Dad complained throughout college that me living in an apartment instead of the dorm was so expensive and that he needed me to forgo pretty much every extraneous activity that would cost money. I was expected to keep working. This wouldn’t be too unreasonable, except I had begun having mystery seizures (later diagnosed as paroxysmal dyskinesia, apparently comorbid with tardive dyskinesia caused by my anti-depressants). I would go to work, have a dystonic episode, then go to class and have a dystonic episode. I also caught whooping cough. I ran up about $12,000 in medical debt. I successfully was able to appeal for financial aid to get rid of most of it, but I still had plenty left over. I also ate out on credit way more than I should have immediately after graduation, but I was struggling with bulimia made worse by a traumatic breakup with an abusive partner.  My parents tried to insist that I move back in with them after college, so that I could cook for them, watch their dog and cats whenever needed, and do whatever else they wanted while I tried to find a job. I pointed out that my stepmother and I would do each other grievous harm. Dad agreed to let me live in the townhouse he had bought for my stepbrother and sister-in-law, since they had moved. The expectation remained that I would come up at least once a month and every holiday to cook and clean, come up whenever I was needed to animal sit (to the point that when the whole family went to Galaxy’s Edge, I, the biggest Star Wars nerd in the family, was left home to dog-sit because I couldn’t possibly afford the tickets and they didn’t want to pay someone else to come do it. Dad slipped me a hundred and told me to keep it quiet), and to do all of the holiday present shopping for every person in the family, as well as wrapping those presents, setting up the tree and doing the decorating myself. About 1/2 of the time, I am expected to do the shopping for holiday meals as well. My stepmother still requires me to pick presents for Dad’s birthday and Christmas, because she has no idea what he would like. This has been the state of affairs for the last 11 years. I have a house, which I must share. When I came to Dad in my mid-20′s, crying about how rotten my roommates were, he basically told me to suck it up as long as they paid rent. At one point, there were five adults living in a three-bedroom townhouse with a very small kitchen. One was an addict who was not ready to start working on recovery and another was a legit dealer who had started dating the roommate I had actually approved, so she moved him in and he immediately started fooling around with the addict, who was my adopted cousin’s fiance. I approved two people moving in, both brought plus-ones.  When I finally got them out, my chosen brother moved in. He is a lovely man in many ways, but he is also disgusting. His depression and executive dysfunction make living with him a nightmare, because he rarely cleans and often does not clean himself. But he paid the rent, so he stayed, turning my house into garbage. Another roommate also contributed to this - neither young man contributed a fair share to the chores. I was a substitute teacher at the time, but I only made $65-$70 a day for doing that, and I was still having dystonic attacks all over the place. Dad would listen to me crying about how miserable it was living with these men who were basically fine living like animals and forcing me to clean up after them (on coming back from dog-sitting, I was greeted with mold in the sink and the catboxes). He never even suggested I look for new roommates, because these guys were paying. In 2015, I was assaulted in a hate crime. I am allergic to lavender and I was doing my student teaching in a high school. One student decided to spray me with lavender perfume on three separate occasions. I went into a prolonged hyperimmune response and had to stop working outside the house, because I kept going into anaphylactic shock in public. I started wearing filter masks in early 2016, so that I could go grocery shopping without risking anaphylaxis. I was never offered help with my mounting medical bills. I was told to go on SNAP and pressured to apply for SSDI. I was rejected from SSDI four times. Around when I was 30, my dad finally released my college fund/inheritance from Grandma to me. This was after my second third-hand car had finally died of old age, and after he withdrew $24k from this fund to buy myself a fairly new car. I was only partially consulted on this. After this stock portfolio was released to me, Dad immediately started telling me I couldn’t take money out of it, because I should defer to him in financial planning. Until I was 35, I humbly asked permission before I took any of my own money out of the fund that was set up for me. After all, Dad said it was for me in my old age. I successfully argued to him that I needed to make it to old age first, but he insisted that I only take out drips and drabbles, lest I make my taxes more complicated. He insists on doing my taxes - I know there are a bunch of documents labeled as being “portfolio” or “inheritance”, but I am not supposed to look at any of them. I suspect that he doesn’t have me involved in my taxes in part to hide how much wealth I technically own that he doesn’t think I deserve to have yet.  The last time I mentioned my stock portfolio being an inheritance from Mom and that I didn’t think she would mind if I took a bit out to finance a life-changing trip and to have fun. He shot back, “Your mom and *I* put that money aside for you”, with a palpable hint that I should give him the money I am planning to spend.  I am already discouraged from talking about my trip with my stepmother, because she will insist that I not go and instead give all the money to them, to pay them back for the rent and groceries that kept me above-ground until now.  I don’t deny that I do owe them money. I don’t think it’s financially abusive to expect money loaned to be paid back. But I do think it is financially abusive to know for certain that your adult child is living in poverty through no fault of their own and to keep throwing just enough of a lifeline to keep them off the streets. All of the complaining about every nickel and dime is financially abusive. Garnishing your own child’s wages is financially abusive. Denying me the money that insurance paid out to fix the house that I will own when my father passes is financially abusive. Doing that a mere five days after talking excitedly about how great it will be to utilize my excellent employee discount to replace his own windows out of pocket is financially abusive and weird.  The title sums up what this feels like. Every time the actual poverty I am in ever-present threat of experiencing happens, my parents give me a boost. They then lord it over me, bemoan their own impoverished state, and insist that I just work smarter in my broken body and I will have enough money to give them. In fairness to them, I probably owe them about $75k in unpaid rent, gas for my car, and groceries. In fairness to me, they are rich. I am supposed to inherit a lot. Dad seems to have become obsessed with how much money he will leave behind. Instead of trying to acclimate me to the wealth that we all know is coming, my parents have chosen to let me live the knife-edge of poverty experience, all while telling me about how close they are to cutting me off entirely. My father has access to my bank account and my investment portfolio and can look at them any time he pleases, while I certainly can’t get a look at his finances, let alone his will.  I know this is long and rambly, but it needed to be got out.

[collectionbelladonna]

one day at a time.

I know what I have to do to turn my life around. I know that I'll have to make sacrifices and I'm willing to do so, I just wish it didn't feel like I'm scraping my way into a black hole. I owe so much money it's painful. I'm not out of any of my debt and I'm accruing interest like no one's business. It really sucks when I can't afford to do anything I want to do, or anything I planned to do. I'm trying to make some money on the side but it's slow going. I've only ever sold three paintings in my life and this one (while worth the most) is being sold to my sister. I fear she won't actually pay for the painting and will want is as a gift. I'm going to charge $300 for it. I'm spending a lot of time and a lot of effort on this thing when I also have a dozen other projects I'm intending to work on.

Suffice to say, I have a lot of work to do. I plan on doing a no-spend month. Starting yesterday, I am not going to spend a single dollar that isn't extremely essential. Namely, gas. I am not going to drive anywhere except work for the next two weeks. I have faked being sick the last couple of days to avoid having to drive anywhere. My car needs gas desperately and I have some cash to cover it, but only it. I can't afford anything other than gas right now. Until I get paid again on the 21st, I'm shit out of luck. And I refuse to ask Hutch for more help. He's already paid my car insurance (which I thankfully cut in half earlier this month), but I do not want him to pay for anything else if I can avoid it. I already life for free under this roof. I pay for my bills and little else. I've been the one who's decorated our apartment, and I pay for majority of the TV subscriptions we use on a regular basis, but other than that I don't pay for anything. Rent, utilities, groceries (most of the time) are completely covered by Hutch. And it sucks when I'm left feeling like I can't do anything but pay for bills. I need to start saving my money. As soon as this next paycheck comes through, I'm paying for my government loan, and putting $300 into my savings. Every second paycheck I think I can do that. Logically, I should have around $975 left over once all bills and expected expenses go through. So where has that money gone? Well, I was atrocious in August. I spent so far over my means it's actually embarrassing. Now my credit card is maxed out, I'm late on one loan, and I'm barely scraping by for this month. I am paying for my recklessness. I shouldn't have flown to Louisiana. I shouldn't have splurged so much on coffee. I also shouldn't have spent so much on supplies for the Renaissance fair costume I'm making for Hutch (which I have yet to start, btw.) I made such poor decisions that I am suffering now because of them.

So, to combat this, I've decided to do a no-spend month this month. Which means what isn't already allocated for bills and/or the single going-out day I have planned, I am not spending a dime. I've unsubscribed to most of the subscriptions I had. I am not planning on going anywhere but work. I have to get my car inspected and renew my registration, but other than that, I'm doing *nothing*. I'm not paying for coffee, I'm not going to Walmart or Target unnecessarily, I'm not going to Adele's every other weekend like I used to (only to spend so much money in gas and food), and I'm certainly not going to do any online shopping. No Amazon, no app purchases, nothing. I am going to fix this situation if it's the last thing I do. I have to be more disciplined if we ever expect to move in a house or if I expect to be able to take care of myself without needlessly needing Hutch's financial help.

I can do this. Honestly I need to. I don't have much choice in the matter because my entire situation has been nothing short of embarrassing for years. And it ends now. It ends with me saying enough. It ends with me finally seeing the light that I can live a good and fulfilling life without all the extra crap in the way. I can do this.

[allthingsdarkanddirty]

Grumpy Moon by Tess Thompson is available now!

FREE with Kindle Unlimited

He’s the rugged brother of my boss. A grumpy rancher who cares more for horses than people. Not this city girl’s cup of tea. At all.

After my twin sister’s betrayal, I started fresh in America working on a dude ranch in the middle of nowhere. The last thing I need is a cantankerous rancher with an attitude looking at me with disapproval in his eyes.

My chattiness and optimism clearly irritate him, so I take the high road and choose to ignore him.

But when Soren Moon offers to rent me a room in his house, I can’t refuse. A broke English girl doesn’t have that many options in Bluefern, Montana. Even though that leaves me alone with him way too often.

When my past comes knocking on my door, everything I’ve worked to rebuild comes crashing down around me. Strangely enough, it’s Soren who offers to help. Even stranger? It’s him I turn to, and the sparks between us are impossible to ignore.

Will Finley’s past destroy her newfound peace, or can Soren’s unexpected support save her heart?

From USA Today Bestselling Author, Tess Thompson comes a grumpy/sunshine romance about a rancher and a city girl with a tragic past. Fall in love with Soren and Finley in the fifth book in the Crescent Moon Ranch Series for a clean and wholesome tale of family, redemption, and the power of community.

About the Author:

Tess Thompson is the USA Today Bestselling and award-winning author of contemporary and historical Romantic Women’s Fiction with over 50 published titles. Her books are emotional and heartwarming with themes of second chances, redemption and the power love has to change lives and create community.

She lives in the Pacific Northwest in a house on a small lake with her husband and kitties. Her four children are now young adults exploring their own paths and adventures, leaving an empty nest and a lot more time to write. She and her husband enjoy a quiet life, obsessed with birds and the other wildlife on their property, which makes them officially old. On any given day their yard could be visited by deer, bears, coyotes and squirrels.

Most days, she can be found curled up in her favorite chair reading or in her office writing while keeping an eye out for hummingbirds in the feeder outside of her office.

Follow Her Everywhere!

Website -- https://tesswrites.com/

Facebook Group -- https://www.facebook.com/groups/PatioChatwithTessThompson/

Bookbub -- http://bit.ly/2esOcrn

Instagram -- https://www.instagram.com/authortessthompson/

Tiktok -- https://tiktok.com/@tesswrites/

Facebook -- https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTessThompson

[eviesessays]

3. What is one of your favorite trips that you've taken? What made it great?

Being born at the end of the Depression in a small village in Canada just south of the tundra would not seem to give one travel aspirations. We did not even have television to inspire us. But aspire I did.  I longed to see the exotic places pictured in National Geographic. I wanted to see a real castle and visit places where people looked, dressed and spoke differently than we did.

  This penchant to see things that were new to me came early. My mother took my two brothers and I to Winnipeg to visit her oldest sister, my aunt, Caroline Sitter.  I saw a sight I will always remember.  The novelty was a neon sign which we had never seen, and this one moved.  It had three little pigs jumping into a can of Klik, Canada’s equivalent to Spam.  We loved that sign and marveled at such ingenuity. I was ready to see the rest of the world.

We had many vacations to Canada to visit family.  On one trip to Sioux Lookout for Christmas our car froze and we spent most of the next day dealing with the car.  My first trip abroad was to Germany..My second husband was an Air Force officer and we were able to fly free when space was available..Just before Easter of 1974 we flew to Germany.  We rented a car.  We visited castles on the Rhine and experienced the autobon..at speeds that terrified us.  We flew on to Madrid, Spain and while attempting to visit the presidential palace we found ourselves adrift in the middle of a Good Friday procession in a very Catholic country.  It was an experience.  We went North to Segovia to see a great aquaduct still in use.  We visited Queen Isabella’s castle from where she bid Columbus “Goodbye”. Peter who was 10 at the time remembered the old lady dressed all in black.  She had a long nose with a wart on the end.  She sold trinkets outside the palace wall.  When we returned home  and Peter’s friend David asked what he saw in Europe Peter told him about this woman. We went on to Malaga where we picked fresh oranges off the tree.  We went on to Fuengirola where we swam on the Costa del Sol.  It was April and we welcomed the warmth.

When Jaylyn was in College she did a semester in the South of England. I paid her a visit during that time and we spent a couple days in London experiencing the pigeons in Trafalger Square, and Harrods where we could afford only the smallest treasures. We watched the guard change at Buckingham palace.  We took the train to Stonehenge and absorbed the mystery of that place. We returned to Salisbury for the end of evensong. The young choir boys  all in their robes with Elizabethan collars looked angelic. We visited Bath and went to a puppet show there.  

In 1988 I took a solo trip to Scotland and England. I had not planned to go alone but shortly before our planned trip my husband revealed to me that he had been having a long standing affair with a “friend” from our church in Bedford with whom he frequently played tennis..I decided to go alone to Scotland and decide what to do about my marital situation when I returned.  I was visiting a cousin of my first husband.  The family  had always stayed in touch with me and the children after our divorce. The cousin I was visiting, Maurice Paterson and his wife Avril had visited us in Warner. Maurice showed me the houses in Glasgow once occupied by relatives now long deceased. We took a trip North with his Mother,  aunt Nancy Paterson to visit places the early Joss family lived and worked.  An uncle, Peter Joss, and his wife Leslie, took me to Edinburgh and a visit to the castle. I had bought a Brit rail pass and proceeded to head across England. I went to York and visited the cathedral there . ��Restorations had just been completed. I visited Oxford and went down to Penzance.  I made my way back to London for a bit more sightseeing.  I went to St Pauls  and Westminster Abby.  There I stood where kings  and queens and heads of state had also stood. I flew home. Along my travels I considered the state of my marriage and the knowledge that i could not overlook such a betrayal.  I would, and did divorce Philip Miller Pahl

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My neighbors in Warner, Janet and Spence Danby had a villa in the Praia de Salema in Portugal.  They spent winters there. We were good friends and Janet invited me to visit.  I made the trip in Spring when all the olive trees were at the end of their bloom and the earth was covered in their fallen blossoms referred to as Algarve snow.  We visited Sintra.  We watched fishermen sit on small rock ledges and reel in large fish without falling. They were lowered to their ledges by rope and a very trusted friend I presume.  We watched the fishermen in Lagos bringing their catch to the market on the shore.We hiked daily and sipped very good but inexpensive wine in the evening. It was a beautiful time.

My first trip to Tuscany was with friends from Warner.  Our hotel was within easy walking distance to the National Gallery, the Uffizzi, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the market, the Ponte Vecchio and the train station.  I saw Michaelangelo’s ,”David” at the National Gallery,  Titian’s, “Birth of Dawn” was at the Uffizzi.  There seemed to be an endless number of great paintings there. We took a bus tour to Sienna, a  town of many steeples competing to be the highest. The narrow cobblestone streets were used for an annual horse race which seemed like madness incarnate to me. My friend, Fran and I took the train to Arezzo, the birthplace of Guido, who in 990 invented the musical scale.  We went to Pisa with its incredibly leaning tower..  Years later when Hillary graduated from High School, I did this same trip with her.  This time she persuaded me to climb every step to the top of the dome of the Cathedral de Santa Maria del Fiore.  It was her first trip to Europe and she too loved Florence. In Feosole we witnessed a vigorous conversation between a policeman and an Italian woman double parked outside a bakery.  We could not understand what was said but no neon lights were necessary to understand the meaning of the event.

My next adventures was again with Fran Brown, a realtor from Warner and a neighbor couple .. We were on our way the the French Riviera. I was the only one of the four of us who had our drivers license with us.  I was designated. The hotels in Nice on the beach were impressive but the beach was not the sand to which we are accustomed. It was pebbles,  loose pebbles difficult to navigate. It was March and we came with no plans to be swimming.  We decided to visit Monaco.  It was a series of switchbacks to get there and the same in reverse to get out. I was more than ready to be in the countryside.  We drove to Aix en Provence..I walked to the atelier of Paul Cezanne and his famous still life with the blue tablecloth and bowl of onions was set just as it is in his famous painting. I trust someone changes the onions at regular intervals. My most favorite part of that trip was our trek through Avignon and Arles.  In Avignon we sang the song we learned in eighth grade French class, “Sur la ponte, D’Avignon”. Van Gogh painted 187 paintings in Arles.  His art lives on there in many ways.  Our hotel room was decorated like his four room yellow house in Arles.  The house was bombed in WWII but the replica is accurate. Coffee shops have his influence in their cups and napkins.The yellow of his fields, haystacks and house were evident everywhere. Arles was worth the whole trip.

As I had done for Hillary I planned to take Anne to Europe for her High School graduation gift but her Mom took her to Paris and Switzerland so my trip came much after the fact.  In 2012 AAA offered a 10 day vacation in Ireland for a set price.  We received a booklet listing all the participating Bed and Breakfast establishments and we made our plans with all our reservations confirmed before we left.  We flew to Dublin and were transported to our hotel downtown which was lovely.  We toured Guinness Beer and for our participation were treated to a pint.  Anne had hers and mine.  I have not one taste bud that can tolerate beer no matter how good or famous it is claimed to be.  We were to pick up our car the next morning.  This was our first, but only glitch in the entire trip.  Since neither Anne nor I had driven a standard shift for years I did order an automatic shift.  We were given (with profuse apologies) a standard shift Opal.with no instructions.  We hopped to a start and I drove about 6 blocks to find a place to make a u turn with this vehicle.  I could not drive on the “wrong” side of the road on streets that seemed  too narrow for two bicycles to safely pass.  We went back to the car rental and the Irish man oozing Irish charm from every pore.  He would now set us up with a,” lovely car”, and with a grand flourish of papers and charm he set down the paperwork and keys to a new Jaguar.  Anne was thrilled.  I was consumed with the dread of debtors prison if we harmed this car.  We were on our way.  I drove to Cork.  Anne drove the rest of the trip.. She loved it and did a fine job.  We visited Waterford and watched the glassblowers and etchers.  We went on to the Dingle Peninsula.  People everywhere were kind, helpful and very friendly.  Meals were hardy and huge.  We frequently laughed at the enormous servings.Our B&B’s were always clean and some were very elegant.  We drove along the Hills of Moher.  The rich, lush greenness is everywhere.  We joined the cue but only watched as others contorted their bodies in order to kiss the Blarney Stone.   We drove on roads we shared with sheep and cows.  We ferried across Galway  Bay and drove on to Kylemore Castle.  It continued at that time to be occupied by Benedictines.  They are unbelievable gardeners.Every blade of grass and every petal and bough was in its proper place.  We visited ruins of very old churches .  We saw more Ankh crosses  than we thought existed.  We were making our way to our B&B near the airport..  We both admitted to feeling sad that it was coming to its end. It is a most beautiful country. and we both hoped very much that we would be back one day. Ireland has been a most favorite trip but I have to admit that there are many exotic and wonderful places I’ve never seen and like Ireland, I cannot fathom the beauty until I experience it.

It is not possible to compare one vacation trip to another.  They all have their individual history, charm and mystique. Dbrovnik, Croatia was one of those places. We swam in the Adriatic Sea. Our hotel was just outside the ancient wall The old city within the wall had cobblestone streets.  The antiquity of the place was slightly disturbed by the presence of modern movie equipment filming the TV show, “Game of Thrones”.  It was all interesting.  The shop keepers were very helpful and friendly.  We walked the entire length of the wall,  It was high above the sea and obviously very advantageous to interfere with any threat from the sea.  We visited Montenegro and saw salt being retrieved from the sea.  Montenegro also has a great wall  that predates that of China.. We went  to Mostar in Bosnia Herzegovina and there I saw more minarets than I will likely see for the rest of my life. We saw men walking into the mosques while the women knelt on the concrete outside with their faces to the ground.  Mostar is known for its iconic arched bridge, Stari Most, a reconstructed arched bridge.  We were accosted by beggars as we crossed the bridge who felt free to slap us if we did not give them money.  Our group was turned out of one restaurant because one woman in our group was wearing a sundress and her shoulders were bare.  I was glad to have experienced that place but  also very happy to be away from there and safely back in Croatia..  Dubrovnk was a great trip and given my age and infirmities, it will have been my last trip overseas.

Aside from my travels in Europe, I loved the Virgin Islands and Bermuda .  The Canadian Rockies remain one of my favorite destinations.I made one trip with Anne, Diggs and Jaylyn..  I returned to the Rockies with Pete, Jenn and Kalote before Kalote was even walking.. Pete, Kalote and I returned when Kalote was older.  I made the trip once with Kip and Bobbie. The mountains are magnificent.  The greenness of Lake Louise is unforgettable.. On one trip as we left the parking lot we heard eery unfinished strains of, “:Amazing Grace” .  As we approached the lake we could clearly see an older gentleman in lederhosen giving tips to a visitor on playing an alpine horn surrounded by mountains.  I have photographed Kalote as a baby and in later years with Takakah Falls in the background.  We have stopped on the highway for rock slides to be cleared and to allow the ring horned sheep pass in droves.  We have had elk grazing at our motel window in Banff.  Anne,Diggs, Jaylyn and I rode the gondola to the top of Sulphur Moubtain.    I have driven through the Frazier Canyon. in British Columbia and  have visited the Maritime  provinces on the other end of Canada.  i have returned to Sioux Lookout and Thunder Bay for class reunions. I have traveled in the United States . I have never needed any provocation to travel and have found something to enjoy and admire everywhere I visited .

To choose one travel  experience over another as a favorite is an impossible exercise.  They cannot be compared. Each enlarges ones experience of life.  Each arouses a curiosity about something  or some place previously unexplored. Every adventure has the potential to allow us to see a broader picture, to think a new way, to align our views in new order.. Then again, it may just be that three little pigs jumping into a can of Klik provoke those curiosities that make you want to see and experience what you have not known before .

[labcrowndiaries]

House of Usher AU (Eng)

Something that's been on my mind lately is an AU based on the Mike Flanagan series The Fall of the House of Usher. So far, I have in mind a few of the family dynamics in this AU.

So far, this is the cast:

Roderick Usher - Clay Fermin

Madeline Usher - Kazarina

Frederick Usher - Keith Fermin

Tamerlane Usher - Mira Fermin

Victorine LaFourcade - Soleil Fermin (OC)

Napoleon Usher - Asher Fermin (OC)

Camille L'Espanaye - Lucine Fermin (OC)

Prospero Usher - Dylan Fermin (OC)

Leonore Usher - Kentatzu (OC)

Juno - Hydron

Arthur Pym - Barodius (TENTATIVE)

Changes to the original series:

Clay and Kazarina aren't twins. They're actually half-siblings who were born on the same day, and both ended up in social services, which is where they met and started being close friends.

All the "bastards" are Hydron's kids. Clay married Hydron when he was 15 and he impregnated Hydron 3 times (Soleil and Lucine are twin sisters) when he was between 15 and 19. He wasn't even 20 and he already had 4 kids, poor Hydron. Oh, btw, in this AU Hydron is transgender (I'm personally not too keen on A/B/O dynamics and, for me, it's easier to just make him AFAB and that's the end of it, that's how he got pregnant, he has a pussy, the end), he went under an experimental hormone treatment that Clay's pharmaceutical developed, but that was after having his kids.

Kentatzu is Barodius and Kazarina's son, but he was born through an artificial womb to which both Kazarina and Barodius gave their DNA. Kazarina pretty much raised Kentatzu alone since she only asked for Barodius' genes as a favor bc she trusts Barodius that much. Kentatzu does know who his father is but doesn't talk much about it. He's the one that actually manages to talk Hydron into leaving Clay once and for all after Clay ruined Hydron's whole youth.

Mira and Keith have some kind of incestous relationship. Gus finds out and he himself kills Keith out of jealousy. I think I'll dispose of a Morilla Usher in this AU since the change Kentatzu does to the world is motivating Hydron to leave Clay, which completely erases a Morilla here. Besides, I don't think Gus would be capable of betraying Keith and the idea of Keith abusing Gus out of jealousy is so OOC for me. Canonically, Keith only shows interest in Gus when he finds there's no one there to do the stuff Gus did. He only cared about Gus in an utilitarian manner, and I want to respect that one-sided relationship Keith and Gus have where Gus worships Keith and Keith just gives him crumbs of affection. Besides, I don't think Keith is as mad as Gus to torture someone with his own hands, but Gus is actually crazy, so I do believe him capable of killing Keith bc he found out Keith bangs with his sister in secret. Ace also knows this, but he pretends it doesn't bother him.

The order of the deaths changed to respect the way they went from the youngest of Roderick's kids to the oldest in the series. Dylan dies first and Lucine dies second, of course, but Soleil is the third one to die and Asher the fourth one before Mira and Keith die in that respective order.

Hydron is 50 by the time the events of the story take place (his kids are in their 30's when they die). However, he still looks kinda young bc Clay subjected Hydron to an experimental anti-aging treatment his pharmaceutical was doing. Hydron only accepted it for the sake of his kids. Hydron has wanted to leave Clay since day one, but when he had his kids, he started fearing the quality of life he could give them, so he stayed with Clay to ensure a good life for his kids. His kids always told him to leave Clay, but he always said no to that proposal bc he actually believed he couldn't raise his kids without Clay's money. It's until they die and Kentatzu talks with Hydron that Hydron finally does what's best for him: Leaving Clay's ass.

That's what I have of this AU for now. I'll make another post talking about Clay and Hydron's kids, they've been living in my head rent-free. I admit they're probably my laziest OCs ever when it comes to their physical appearance, but I'm having lots of fun building their lore (which differs somewhat from the original series). I hope you enjoy reading every now and then of this AU as much as I enjoy writing about it 💖