#and i’m so grateful i get to share that w all of you who stayed

[anakinsbaee]

𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞 - m.s

Summary: In which you are hanging out w/ the triplets and your abusive dad texts you to come home

WARNINGS!: abusive parents, cussing, use of y/n, remarks of physical abuse, sad-ish?, i thinks thats all

a/n: this is my first fic, if u have any feedback pls share !!!

From Dad

“Come home, now.” 

You read the text, your heart instantly dropping. Your palms start sweating and you look around the living room. Nick's beside you, Chris and Matt and your other side of the couch. You don’t even bother telling them because you have to explain why you don’t get along with them, and that’s a whole different story. The triplets didn’t know about the situation of your family, they didn’t know how you weren’t close with your parents at all, constantly fighting them, having to hide things from them. They don’t even know about Nick, Matt and Chris at all.

You start typing fast trying not to cry at the thought of getting yelled at when you come home.

I don’t wanna go home. 

I don’t feel safe there.

“Are you alright?” 

Nick asks, looking down at your phone with a worried face.

“Who is that?” you hesitate telling him, “Oh my dad.. He wants me to come home” you laughed dryly. Matt and Chris heads turn at you. 

“What happened?” Chris asks. 

Fuck.

I don’t want to tell them at all.

“She has to go home, but it’s like literally only 8pm?” He told them

They nodded

I feel like shit whenever I have to go home early, especially because of my fomo.

“Jus’ ask him to go at like 10?”

The problem between their parents and mine is that my parents are strict, especially ‘cause I’m a girl. They don’t want me hanging out with people they don’t know either. Sometimes I feel like I envied their parents' bond with each other and their kids. They all loved each other, my parents couldn’t give less of a fuck. 

“Um, yeah I could ask. I doubt I can stay that long though.”

I threw my head into my hands, sighing loudly.

“Are you sure that’s all that happened?” Matt asked 

“Yeah, don’t worry” I smiled

Nick looks at his brothers with a suspicious look.

I got up leaving my phone, grabbing something to drink. I had to get my mind off it.

A few minutes went by and I was up against a counter drinking out of a juicebox thinking about how I can avoid coming home.

Matt comes into the kitchen with my phone.

“Here, um..”

“What?” I looked at him

“I saw your phone” He says looking down at his feet

“Yeah you always do?” I laughed a bit confused.

“No like your messages, you left it unlocked.”

No.

He didn’t.

No fucking way.

“Yeah your dad left like 8 other messages”

You snatched the phone out of his hand

“Oh my god.”

Dad

“Come home right fucking now.”

“Where are you?”

“Are you fucking slut now? Not telling us where you went?”

“I swear, are you with a guy? better not catch you with them or else I’ll fucking break your skull.”

“You’re grounded.”

Mom

“Y/N where are you? I’m serious, if you don’t come home, I won’t EVER let you inside our house again.”

“This is why I wish I never had a daughter.”

I teared up looking at the messages, although it’s nothing new, they act almost as if they care. Wanting me to come home. They just don’t want to lose someone that does everything you ask them to do.

“Is that why you couldn’t stay?” He asked quietly.

I nodded, my throat felt like it was closing up, I couldn’t breathe. 

I can’t believe he saw that.

“I’m sorry.” That's all I could say, warm tears falling out of my eyes.

“Sorry.. For what?”

“For what you saw.. And crying.”

“Don’t be sorry for anything you are completely valid in this situation. I can’t believe you’ve been dealing with them and you haven’t told us.”

“It's a burden. You can’t really help me” I said exhaling. 

“I could. You can stay here. My parents wouldn’t mind.” Matt says smiling a bit.

I smiled back.

They care about me.

Why was it so hard for my parents to?

What did I do?

I was grateful, insanely grateful.

Matt stepped closer to me and wrapped his arms around me. "I'm so sorry."

I hummed

"Thank you so much." I looked up at him as we hugged

I squeezed Matt as hard as possible like he was going to slip out of my grasp.

I can’t leave.

I don’t want to.

"I'll have to text them." I said stressed again. "We can make my dad call your parents or something?"

"Okay so like do you wanna die?" We both laughed

"We can focus on that tomorrow, I just want you to know that you're safe here. Does he know us?"

"Umm, no." I said embarrassed.

"Thats fine I understand, they are fucking insane." "Just, don't worry. Okay?" He smiled.

What is this feeling?

I felt like I was melting inside, he was so kind.

Chris and Nick entered the kitchen.

“Is she okay?” Chris mumbled.

“I mean we kinda heard everything..” Nick said awkwardly.

I wasn't even mad that they heard the whole conversation, that’s all I ever wanted.

I wanted someone to hear me

To listen to me.

i reallyy hate this!

sparkles from @bebanie

[treedaddymcpuffpuff]

Excessive Force : Tom Ludlow x Fem Nurse Reader (COLLAB W/ THE INCREDIBLE @johnwickb1tsch) - Chapter One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven

TW: angst, fighting, discussion of nsfw topics

The alcohol you ingested certainly does not help with your coordination. You nearly bump into several club-goers, as if you are a salmon struggling to make your way up stream. You feel as though you can’t breathe, your skin crawling on your bones.

Once you finally burst out the doors you gasp for breath, grateful for the outside, if not polluted, air. You do not stop moving, your feet mindlessly carrying you down the sidewalk, away. All you can think, is that you want to get away.

You don’t really pay attention to your surroundings in your manic dash. Julian’s face keeps flashing in your mind. Of all the men in your life who had hurt you, none of them had been half so beguiling as Julian. None of them so fucking clever at hiding the monster inside. 

You have been a fly caught in his web, baited by his puppy dog eyes and his kindness in his doctor’s persona–you cannot understand how that man can share the same body with the dom who literally licked your blood from your palm earlier, and loved it. He lured you but now you know the only way you can be intimate with that man is through playing dangerous games with his darker side. Maybe some of them you could have enjoyed, but this? He would tease you with the crumbs of his sweetness, his kisses and caresses, but he would make you pay for them with your pain, your blood, and your submission.

It can only end in your ruin.

You would destroy yourself, trying to heal this man, while he just kept taking pieces out of you and swallowing them whole. 

As your feet slow you look around, and you realize you have no fucking idea where you are.

Well done, you fucking little idiot. Filled with crippling despair, you sink to the cracked concrete curb, ruining the seat of your silk dress, hanging your head in your hands. Asking Julian to take you home is out of the question. You can’t really afford a taxi. You could call an Uber, but the thought of getting in a car with a total stranger right now makes you feel ill. And you are way too drunk to try to navigate the Byzantine bus system of LA.

You stare at your phone, and your fingers swipe and tap of their own volition, as though to say we know what to do, you messy bitch. The phone only rings twice before a familiar, deep voice comes over the line. “Hey baby.”

“Tom?”

“What’s wrong?” 

The sleepy warmth in his tone immediately sharpens, and the fact that he hears the distress in your voice after just one word fills you with a relief that maybe you have no right to.

“Can you come get me?”

“Yes. Where are you?”

You laugh a little at that, a brittle sound you have not heard in your own voice in a long time. “I don’t know?” Your voice cracks, your throat tight, on the verge of tears. “I’m somewhere in Venice.”

There’s a silence on the other end that communicates he has an inkling of what you’ve been up to. “Are you hurt?” There’s an undertone of something dangerous in his question, but you don’t think it’s directed at you. 

“No. Just…” Scared. Embarrassed. Stupid. Heartbroken. Drunk.

You can’t bring yourself to say any of these things aloud. You settle for, “Lost.” 

It was the understatement of the century.

“Ok, honey. I’m on my way. Tell me what you see.”

You describe your surroundings as best you can, and it’s enough for this man who knows this city like the back of his hand. He has you stay on the line, asking you little questions you hardly even think about the answers you give. You’re in a different place, in your mind, and like the forever original creature that you are, you sit there and cry quietly while Tom tries to keep you talking. Meanwhile, you cannot stop picturing Julian’s face, the hunger in his eyes as he watched that poor girl being lit on fire.

By the time you hear the bass growl of Tom’s Charger swing up to the curb, you don’t know how long it’s been, only that you’re grateful for the sight. Moments later he’s kneeling in front of you, his big hands cradling your tear-streaked face like you are something precious and breakable.

At least the last part is true.

“Y/n? You ok, sweet girl?” He wipes your tears with his thumb, sweeping your damp hair back from your face. You can only imagine how terrible you must look. Waterproof mascara has its limits.

Bravely you nod, though your chin quivers tellingly. “Thank you for coming.” 

“I’ll always come for you, y/n,” he tells you with a frown, and goddammit if you don’t believe him. He’s looking you over, inspecting you for damage you’re too in shock or too embarrassed to disclose. When he finds the bandage on your hand his expression turns murderous. “What the fuck is this?”

“I cut myself,” you assure him, certain that if you don’t convince this dangerous man of the truth, Julian’s not days, but hours, are numbered. “With scissors. Opening a plant.”

Tom narrows his eyes, glaring down at the bandage like he’s not sure he believes you. “What happened then? Why are you out here alone like this?”

“Julian wanted to show me the club,” you try to answer as vaguely as possible. “But I…couldn’t handle it.” You shake your head, unable to meet his eyes. He wants to hurt you. Julian had outright told you so, but somehow before tonight, maybe you didn’t really believe him.

“Do you need to go to the hospital?” Tom asks, his voice low and pointedly gentle. You realize, a beat later, that he’s asking if you need a rape kit. You never imagined, for some reason, that this man could be as equally gentle with victims as he is harsh with perps. That warms your heart for some reason. 

You shake your head slowly. “No, nothing like that.”

He searches your face with those sharp black eyes, and you imagine that stare is probably just as effective as a lie detector. You almost didn’t even register it, maybe because it feels so natural, but his hands are on you. His hands have been on you this entire time, and his touch makes you feel anchored, like just maybe you won’t get blown away in this shitstorm.

He looks at the matching bangles around your wrists next, the thin bands of gold bearing Julian’s monogram in that delicate slanted script.

“Fucking asshole, really thinks he owns you,” Tom growls, sliding one from your hand, and crushing the soft high karat gold in his fist.  

“Hey.” Your protest is half hearted at best, and all you do is watch as he does the same to the other one, bending it beyond recognition. Destroying the precious little objects that weighed on your wrists with such heavy meaning seems to make him feel better. 

Maybe you feel lighter too.

“Trade ‘em at a pawn shop for scrap value, honey. That’s all they’re good for.”

“They were Tiffany,” you tell him with a half smile and a raised eyebrow.

“They were Bullshit & Co, baby girl.” He might just be right about that. “Didn’t really think you cared about stuff like that?” 

You shrug, because you don’t, but you’d never owned anything so fine. The novelty of it was enchanting, but maybe the real price for them was far too high.

“Can you take me home?” You think you probably look as pathetic as you sound.

He nods, pulling you to your feet with those strong hands, lifting you like you weigh nothing. You lean on him, more than you have to, and it takes all your self control not to wrap your arms around his solid torso and not let go. You realize, this is the first time all night you actually feel safe. “I’ve got you, honey. Come on.”

He walks you to the passenger side of the Charger, tucking you down into the seat, even fussing over the seatbelt. “I can do it,” you tell him softly with a brittle smile. You only see it for a flash of a second, but the rawness in his expression wipes that stupid smile right off your face. You realize that he was scared, for you, and the unlikelihood of it all makes you reach for him. 

He freezes as you touch his cheek, your thumb tracing his high cheekbone. Only belatedly do you remember it's the hand with the bandage, because you really have had too much to drink, and you start to withdraw. Not before he turns to press his lips to your palm, his hand dwarfing yours. “You’re safe now. Alright?” 

You nod, and your heart hammers in your chest as his gaze drops for a telling moment to your lips. In this vulnerable, inebriated state, safely ensconced in his car, you decide there’s nothing you would like more than to kiss Tom Ludlow, your unlikely knight in shining armor. It seems like the least you can do. You even start to lean towards him, but with a small growl he’s suddenly gone, shutting your door, and striding around to the driver's side. You almost can’t believe it.

But then again, you’re a fucking mess. Why would he want to kiss you?

Julian chooses this moment to start blowing up your phone. You send it to voicemail. As Tom pulls away, the Hemi snarling down the streets of Venice, your doctor demands,

WHERE ARE YOU?!

In answer you tap out, I can’t do this, Julian. I’m sorry. I left. You look over at Tom, a small warmth blooming in your chest, before adding, I’m safe.

Julian tries to keep talking to you, but you decide to just turn off your phone entirely, tossing it down on the floormat with your little clutch purse.You close your eyes, and sit back in the seat. Even then, you can feel Tom looking over at you.

You don’t know where you get the courage to speak, except maybe it’s just the liquid kind, and you’ll really regret it in the morning. “You’re a smart guy, Tom. Maybe you can tell me. What is it about me, that makes men want to hurt me? My whole fucking life…” Your courage does fail you then, and your mouth snaps shut.

There’s the regret. You knew it was there somewhere.

“Honey…” He reaches for you, engulfing your hand in his catcher’s mitt of a paw, squeezing. “I’ve seen a lot of bad shit over the years as a cop. The world is full of assholes. It’s full of evil. Maybe even more than good. It’s not your fault, when it finds you. Ok?”

You nod silently, but you still can’t help but think you’re like a fucking magnet for it. Julian had seemed like such a nice guy, but it turns out he literally wants to beat you with sticks–and maybe light you on fire? A bit of a roué. The understatement of the century.

And Tom seemed like an insufferable alpha asshole, but here he is, saving your ass when you had no one else to turn to.

Maybe the real lesson of the night is that you can’t trust your own judgment at all. 

You feel Tom looking over at you again, that evaluating gaze that you fear misses nothing. “You sure he didn’t hurt you?”

You shake your head again. “He just…wanted to,” you admit. “He told me about it. That’s as far as it got.” 

“Ok, sweetheart.” He squeezes your hand again, and you can’t help yourself from looking down at it in your lap, and imagining what it would be like if he slid those long fingers up your thigh, and into your panties while driving this powerful machine at breakneck speed down the road. His voice breaks you from your fantasy, leaving you blinking from the brightness of the passing headlights. “Look. Maybe that shit is all done up as something safe with all its rules and consenting adults and blah blah blah, but I’m a cop, and I know an abuser when I see one. If a man cares about you, he shouldn’t want to hurt you. Ok? Don’t let him mindfuck you, baby girl. Stay away from him. You don’t owe him anything, and he doesn’t own you.”

“You think you own me. By that logic, shouldn’t I stay away from you too?” 

He gives your thigh a little possessive squeeze. “I don’t wanna hurt you.” 

Maybe you’re a horrible judge of character, and maybe you should just listen to yourself every once in a while and stop getting into these situations, and maybe you’re just fucking stupid, but you believe Tom Ludlow. You believe him with every part of you. 

“Well, you’re sorta.” A big hiccup cuts off the middle of your sentence, and you cover your mouth. Oh, that’s how you absolutely know you’re too inebriated for your own good. 

Tom laughs. “Sorta what? Mean? Domineering? Bull headed?” 

“Cocky,” you add, using the hand on your mouth to cover your smile. Somehow, this man has already managed to cheer you up a little. 

“You can be dominant without hurting someone,” he tells you, tapping the side of your thigh with one chunky finger. You twitch a little bit, and it spreads a big grin on his face. The temptation exists to grab his hand and guide it right under the skirt of the dress, but you’re sadly not that drunk. 

“Maybe…I need a demonstration?” 

He looks so handsome when you catch him off guard, that rugged eyebrow quick and easy, raising in either confusion, humor, or a little bit of both. “Maybe I need to have dinner with you.”  

Nope. No more dates. No more, says panicking sober brain. 

“I was thinking maybe we just… skip the date?” 

“Why? So you can avoid all those feelings you have about me? This might surprise you, but I’m not much for one night stands.” 

Really? Fucking really? All his sexual innuendos and suggestions and poking and prodding and he’s suddenly the Virgin Mary? 

“Are you kidding me?” You ask, unable to hide your anger. Alcohol. It does wonders. And horrors. 

“I’d like to fuck you more than once, honey.” 

“I’m not saying it would only be once.” 

“Oh? And then the rest of the time, when we’re not fucking, you avoid me and ignore my calls?” Impenetrable Tom Ludlow seems a bit annoyed. Meanwhile, you are internally melting at his words. A man that wants to do more than just fuck you? Take advantage of you? Tom wants you? Fucking asshole. For making you feel…special. Wanted. Even if it is true.

“I don’t believe you.” 

“What?” His anger makes you flinch. 

You knock his hand off your thigh. “I said, I don’t believe you.” 

“Maybe you would if you’d give me a chance.”

“You don’t take no for an answer.” 

“Because I like you, and I’m not stupid enough to let you go.” Your internal monologue is screaming, resist. You’ve heard this shit before. 

That’s the mantra. 

You’ve heard it before.

“You just don’t get it.”

“Because you won’t let me. For Christ’s sake, it’s just one date. You wanna act all tough, but if you ask me, you’re being a coward.” 

His words hurt, and you shrink back from the deep bite of his tone. He must notice the withdrawal, because he’s reaching over to touch your cheek, to soothe you, to tame you easily with that big, warm touch. 

You smack him away. “Don’t touch me.” 

“Baby.” His voice is soft, now, and fuck him for plucking every single one of your heart strings with it. 

“No. Just let me out. I’ll walk home. I’ll call a fucking Uber.” 

“You’re not getting out of this car until I watch you walk into your apartment.” 

“You’re not the boss of me!” 

“No, but I’m bigger, stronger, and have double locks on these doors, so you’re getting home safe whether you like it or not.” 

So you stew in your frustration for the rest of the ride home, your arms crossed like a petulant child. When he pulls up to your apartment building you remember that you had not, in fact, told him where you live.

“How do you know where I live? See, this is why I didn’t go on a date with you. It’s weird that you know where I live. I didn’t even tell you, and you think I’m the one who’s doing something wrong here? You’re a real piece of work, Tom.” You’re babbling, rambling, trying to restrain drops of salty liquid from falling down your face and failing horribly.  

He turns toward you, calm and despondent. “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.” 

This is the second time he’s said sorry to you since the day you met him. No, maybe the third. He just swings that word around like he does his badge, and it’s so strange. People do not say sorry to you. That apologetic roll is usually yours and yours alone, and here he is just… Just saying it? Why does it piss you off even more? 

You get out of the car, slam the door shut, and punch the security buttons for your complex. It's only after you’re safely inside that Tom drives away. 

[doyou000me]

Love In The Big City series adaptation: Episodes 3 & 4

On Knowing The Story and Characters (and their trash) Beforehand

CW: homophobia and attempted suicide 

I am late in writing this (@lurkingshan I’m sorry if it’s any extra trouble) but… it took a while before I managed to get through episode 4. This week was heavy. I cried. Episode 3 and 4 hit hard, and deep, and I am so very grateful that I read the book beforehand. Even going in prepared, knowing more or less what’s to come, I wasn’t prepared enough. How do you watch this, you who have not read the book and cannot brace for impact? 

After watching episode 3, I thought I was going to write quite a light hearted reflection this week. I took notes on the characters, especially Hyeong/Young-Soo and Eomma/Go Young’s mom, and I thought I was going to write about how we who have read the book are able to see through these characters’ bullshit from the very beginning. I was going to ask how they come across to the viewers of the series who haven’t read the book, and wonder how different our understandings of events and characters turn out. 

Then I watched episode 4, and it derailed everything. 

As much as the prior knowledge of having read the book allowed me to brace for impact at times, I also believe it gave a deeper understanding of what’s going on below the surface - and that makes some scenes, some lines of dialogue, cut all the deeper. 

The focus of episodes 3 and 4 is, to a large extent, homophobia and the fear of how others will judge us. 

We have the mother, who is religious and makes her every move to look good in the eyes of her fellow church goers and God - but I get the impression that the judgement of those around her is what she fears the most. She fights against judgement when her husband, Go Young’s father, cheats on her. She works hard to become successful and prove herself. She sends her teenage son to conversion therapy. She doesn’t wish to meet the person that her son sees as most important in his life, because she doesn’t want to face the fact that, after everything, there is nothing she can do to change the fact that her son is gay. 

Then we have Young-soo, simply called Hyeong in the book. He is a deeply complex character with many layers, and we dug deeper into him after reading part 2 of the book. Long story short, due to his past, he has a very complicated relationship with western influences, religion—and his own sexuality. It all boils down to a deeply rooted homophobia that not only affects himself negatively, but seeps out of him in a toxic poison of mixed signals and harmful actions. 

Between them, we have Go Young. Go Young, who has graduated, has lost his deeper, more meaningful relationships where he was safe and accepted, is struggling to make a place for himself as an author, is forced into a role as carer for his ungrateful mother, and is trying to live his life true to himself as an out and proud gay man. 

Go Young is in a position in life where he needs someone by his side. He needs someone who can support him, help him, share his burden and shine some light in the darkness. He seeks purpose, meaning, understanding—and finds Young-soo Hyeong. 

In the beginning, in spite of all the bullshit he spouts, he gives off an aura of being someone who has a deeper understanding of life—or, perhaps more importantly, he’s handsome, fit, and (once they get to that point) good at sex. In spite of all the mixed signals, Go Young can’t stay away. 

But the more we as viewers learn about Young-soo along with Young, we understand that there is no deeper understanding of the universe and meaning of life. There is little difference between Young-soo and Young’s mother, in that they are both unable to see Young for who he really is. Instead, they see the version of him that they are willing to tolerate, while constantly (more or less actively) working to change him and put him on a course to an “acceptable” life. 

Throughout episode 3 and primarily episode 4, we see how this wears on Go Young and it finally becomes too much when Young-soo denies that there was ever any love between them. We see Go Young come home, and in the harsh light of the kitchen lamp, he makes himself an ice coffee. With efficient movements, he gets the ice from the fridge, then goes to find the pills. Swallowing them down with his coffee drink, he takes pill, after pill, after pill–

And black. 

This scene plays out similarly, if not exactly the same, in the book. His mother’s words, when he wakes up in the ICU, are the same: 

“Don’t try so hard. We all die someday, anyway.” 

These are the first words from a mother when her son wakes up after a suicide attempt. There is no happiness, no relief, no reassurance, in those words. There is no welcome back, no thank God you survived and there is no why would you do such a thing? And Go Young, strapped to the machine, just stares at her blankly, his eyes dry and expressionless, because he has given up and expects nothing else. 

The ones who do welcome him back, who are overjoyed at seeing him awake and remind him that he is loved and that there are reasons to live, are his gay friends. The T-aras are shut out of the room, on the other side of a glass. They’re not allowed to be there, and in the book, they aren’t there—but I am very grateful that the adaptation added them as a hint of light after such a heavy episode. 

It is thanks to them that Go Young finally cried and finally decided to move again. 

Similar to the book, we get a time skip. Young has moved on. He has aged. He still cares for his dying mother, but while the hurt isn’t gone, he knows now not to expect anything from her. And when his own manuscript gets sent to him, full with corrections that Young-soo has made in red pen in an attempt to correct the story of Go Young’s own life, Go Young throws it in the trash. 

“It is not my trash.” 

So move on. Get rid of the trash. Be weary of the trash that others carry with them, and do not make it your own. 

Even if that trash is homophobia, put it where it belongs. 

[plooto]

it broke your heart to watch the sully family leave. there was nothing you could do to help. help their family, help your best friends, help your mate.

neteyam’s breathing was fast, uneven. he wanted to tell you everything..and yet nothing at all. he cupped your face. your union was recent, only mates for the last few moons..

“ i will come back, if it is the last thing i do, tiyawn. ” your heart pounded in your ears, tear stained cheeks speaking more volume than yours words could ever have. you didn’t want him to leave..you could bear him to. his hands cupped your face, eyes never leaving yours as he clung to this moment—the moment that very well might be the last time he sees you. he rests his forehead against yours, sucking in a breath, encouraging himself to speak he has to get off his chest—no, needs. words that were no longer able to be said tomorrow. words he so desperately needed to change the outcome of his future—your future together..

“ neteyam. ” your ears rang as you watched neteyam’s lips move, you couldn’t hear anything. not over the sound of your heart sharing into millions—no, billions—of tiny little shards. neteyam pressed a longing kiss to your lips, wishing to freeze this moment forever. to stay in here with you, to stay with you, to grow old with you. his hands lingered, his father calling him again. he pressed a kiss to your forehead, hands gliding down your arms before he turned. begrudgingly stepping to his ikran, he glanced at you one last time before flying off, following his family.

“ you skxawng. i’m shot.. ”

even with growing anxiety for neteyam’s well being, the sully family pressed on. however, quaritch was the last of their problems.

meanwhile, your heart burned, body shaking with pain as you fell over. eyes barely open, you muttered,

“ neteyam.. ”

his mother cried as his eyes fluttered open. everyone—jake, tuk, even ronal, let out a sigh of relief. lo’ak’s eyes blurred, unable to hold back his emotions anymore, he hid his face in his hands as sobs shook his form. the injury he caused.

kiri’s arms wrapped around him, “ eywa has grated us another chance with him, brother. ” lo’ak nodded slowly, the image of his hands stained with his brothers blood slowly flowing into his mind. voices, shouts filled his head, overthinking at its worst.

“ lil bro, i am fine. ” neteyam mumbled, slowly listing his arm to place it on lo’ak’s shoulder. the younger brothers eyes darted to neteyam’s, clouded with tears of doubt. neteyam’s chest throbbed, not just from healing pains, but feeling his brothers pain. neteyam pulled lo’ak in for a hug, gently, not to put a halt to healing the holes in his body.

“ i- i’m sorry, neteyam..it- it’s all my f- fault. ” neteyam choked on a laugh, wincing in pain. moving a hand to the back of his brothers head, he spoke again, sighing.

“ why must you always make things so hard..? ” he asked, tugging on his younger brother’s kuru with three of his four fingers. lo’ak hissed in return. the family laughed, relieved that their relationship has not changed a bit.

“ y’n will be happy to see you again, son ” jake rested a hand on neteyam’s left shoulder, long fingers resting at the base of his shoulder blade, giving it a reassuring squeeze. neteyam’s eyes flickered to his father, grown out braids swaying to the side as the tilted his head in confusion.

“ y’n, w- who’s y’n? ” neteyam stuttered, eyes blinking rapidly. the sullys fell silent, ronal even excusing herself to avoid the tension. the family’s silence lasted longer, growing louder as no one spoke up, too surprised from the words he just spoke. neteyam’s eyes scanned the room, waiting for someone to explain just what was happening.

“ guys..seriously, who is this y’n person? ” neytiri drew a sharp breath in, the reality of the situation finally sinking in as she glanced up at her mate.

kiri broke the silence, voice sure but wavering as she explained, “ brother..y’n is your mate back home.. ”

ext . 2

published . october 22 , 2023

[magma-frog0]

Tell me- Re4 Leon S Kennedy x Fem Reader.

Warnings: Cussing, hurt/comfort, jealousy, Luis is your bestie, confession, chill Ada, non proof read, NOT CANNON WHAT SO EVER 💀 Luis is a love therapist in this 😀 smut, p in v, no protection, begging, Luis is done with their bs.

Summary: You and Leon had just gotten done fighting off a pretty big group of zombies, he’s fine, but you weren’t.

You and Leon were set on a mission to save Ashley Graham. You and Leon had to fight off a huge group of zombies, in the end he was fine, maybe a scratch or two but nothing fatal. He was so focused on Ada, and you couldn’t blame him, they had history together and she was kind to you, but it’s taking him too long to notice she’s not interested in him. At least not anymore.

“Leon, are you okay?” You asked, he wasn’t listening to you though, he was too focused on Ada. Talking to her, it made you upset but you couldn’t be mad.

“Ada, are you okay?” He asked her to make sure she was okay.

“I’m fine.” She responded and looked back at you, her face dropped when she saw you had a huge gash in your shoulder. Before she could speak you were heading inside to see Ashley and Luis to make sure they were okay.

You walked into the abandoned house where Luis was watching Ashley while you, Leon, and Ada fought. “Woah- hey you okay?” Luis asked, walking up to you seeing the bleeding gash. Ashley looked and automatically got worried.

“What the hell?!” She walked up to you pulling a chair for you to sit on. “Where’s Leon I’m sure he could help-” she was about to go get him but you pulled her arm and shook your head.

“He’s talking to Ada, they’re planning.” You’d lied, you just didn’t want to bother them. Luis walked beside you with a cloth and gauze.

“Here I’ll patch you up.” He smiled, you were so grateful to meet him, he was so nice to you and wanted you to hit it off with him. He was a great friend. He started to wipe and clean up the wound when Leon walked in, Ada was gone. He looked at you confused.

“You didn’t tell me you were injured.” He said looking at Luis and you while he cleaned your wound.

“You were busy talking to Ada.” You scoffed, why would he care so much. He ignored you whenever Ada came around. “By the way, where is she?” You asked, you liked Ada, you thought she was nice and pretty.

He was taken aback by your first comment. “She got busy… she’ll be back later…” He looked outside, seeing that there was a bad storm, usually a bit of rain wouldn’t stop him from going forward but this storm was just too dangerous for us to keep moving. “We’ll stay here for tonight.” He said looking at everyone.

You sighed out of annoyance. “Okay me and Ashley will room together Leon, you and Luis will room together.” You told them with no argument. “Ashley let’s go.” You smiled at her.

“Okay!” She said excitedly and we went upstairs and picked a room to stay in.

Leon and Luis were still downstairs, Leon was confused about why you were being ruder than usual. Luis whistled, “Damn bro you messed up.” He patted Leon’s shoulder catching on to what was happening.

Leon, still confused, looked at him, “what are you talking about?” He asked him and Luis just looked at him and sighed.

“Of course you wouldn’t notice you’re always too focused on Ada.” He clicked his tongue and walked up the stairs and knocked on the door you and Ashley were staying in. “Can I come in?” He asked gently.

“Yeah sure!” Ashley said, he came in and we started to talk and laugh. Leon walked past the room and saw you and Luis talking and laughing together, he felt his chest tighten as he watched you while he walked into his own room.

Luis saw Leon’s reaction to it and his face lightened. “I fucking knew it!” He said and saw you and Ashley were confused. “I need to talk to Leon. I'll see you all later.” He smiled and walked to the room he and Leon shared and closed the door. “Hey I saw you looked a bit down while you walked past the room, you okay?” He asked Leon who was currently laying on the bed.

“Why is she being so distant with me but so touchy and comfortable with you?” He asked, his voice laced with confusion and a bit of sadness.

“Maybe because you haven’t been even trying to pay attention to her, I mean her shoulder was literally gashed open and you didn’t even notice.” He said leaning against the wall.

Leon sat up quickly and saw you being wrapped up but he didn’t know the severity of the wound. “What?! Why didn’t you tell me?” He was concerned now, how couldn’t he have noticed his own teammates' injury?

Luis shrugged. “You didn’t ask and how did you not notice? The bandage was bleeding through, speaking of which I need to go help her switch it out-“ he said about to leave. Leon spoke up.

“Don’t, I’ll do it. I need to talk to her anyway.” He said sitting up. Luis just smirked.

“Okay go ahead,” he said slyly as he watched Leon leave.

Leon knocked on the bedroom door that you were in, you opened it and looked confused when you saw him. “What’s up?” You asked him and he saw your shoulder and how it’s bleeding through the bandage. His eyes widened for a second.

“I’m going to replace your bandage, come on.” He said with barely any emotion. You shrugged and followed him down to where the first aid kit was. “Sit.” He demanded, you sat down and he knelt down next to you. Blush crept throughout your face. He unwrapped your bandage and you winced, it was still sore. “Jesus Christ, why didn’t you tell me?” He already knew the answer, Luis already told him but he wanted to hear from you.

“You were busy with Ada, I tried to, but you didn’t hear me.” You said, you were being honest and he knew it. His heart dropped as he heard how soft and sad your voice was, he was gentle while cleaning and tending to your wound.

“I’m sorry.” He said quietly looking up at you, he meant his apology and he felt so stupid for not noticing and ignoring you. His heart tightened again when he looked into your eyes. He didn’t know how to explain the feelings he felt around you, it wasn’t the same as Ada. No it was completely different, he knew Ada didn’t love him and never really did. But he looked at you and felt something different. “I’m sorry.” He said again this time softer, heat found its way to your cheeks.

“It’s fine-” you began to speak but he cupped your cheeks in his hands and made you look at him.

“No it’s not,” he said, holding your face, caressing your cheek with his thumb. Your eyes went wide as you looked at him, he was being sweet and caring. “I should’ve paid more attention to you.” He said looking into your eyes softly. “If I’d paid better attention to you you wouldn’t have been hurt.”

Your heart ached when you heard his words, he cared you knew he cared. “It’s not your fault I should’ve been more careful.” You tried to stop him from berating himself.

“That’s not a good enough excuse,” he said his voice turned stern. His heart started to race. “I should’ve protected you, you’re my responsibility.” He said getting closer to you.

Your breath hitched as he got closer to you, your noses were centimeters away from touching. “Leon.” You said quietly looking into his deep blue eyes.

“What?” He chuckled. “Come on don’t tell me you don’t like it?” He whispered to you. “I may have not paid attention but don’t think I don’t think of you every second, it doesn’t matter if I’m talking to Ada or not.” He looked at you reassuringly.

You blushed at his words he thought of you. You looked into his eyes and wrapped your arms around his neck breathing heavily. “I thought you liked her?” You were confused, why was he acting like this with you?

“I did, but she didn’t like me ever. She’s changed, yes, and she’s a good friend, but you are special.” He held your hips and got closer to you and whispered in your ear. “And what about Luis hmm? Don’t act like you and him aren’t having fun right in front of me.” His grasp on your hips tightened and your breath hitched again.

“We’re just friends.” You said quietly as he got closer to you. “He knows that I liked you he’d never try and get with me.” You told him and he smiled softly bit your earlobe.

“Oh you like me?” He said in a teasing manner and smirked. He started to kiss and nibble on your neck. “Well I guess you’re in luck huh?” He said as he kept biting and kissing your neck. “Because I like you too.” He chuckled and looked at you.

Your face was red with blush trying to hide soft moans and whimpers. You pulled him closer to you and you kissed him softly. It was a deep kiss. He kissed back deeply, his tongue slowly making its way in your mouth, he wrapped your legs around him and pulled away. “What are we going to do?” You asked softly.

He continued to kiss your neck and smirked. “Well we are going to tell Luis to room with Ashley then we’ll see what I want to do with you after.” He whispered in your ears and stood up. You stood on your legs a bit wobbly but he put his hand on your back to stable you. “Knees giving out already? I haven’t even done anything yet.” He chuckled and he followed you up the stairs.

You went to the room you were originally staying in and opened the door to see Luis and Ashley talking. “Hey um change of plans me and Leon are going to bunk together tonight.” You smiled and grabbed your stuff and closed the door. They laughed but didn’t argue. Leon smiled and took you to the room farthest down the hall. You placed your stuff down on the floor and he closed the door.

He walked up to you with one of his hands on your cheek the other on your back, he kissed your lips deeply and you let out soft whimpers and moans. “Don’t hold back your voice.” He groaned in the kiss.

Your breath hitched. “But what about Luis and Ashley?” I asked embarrassed about what’d they’d say if they heard this? He looked into your eyes.

“Then let them hear, they can plug their ears. I don't give a damn.” He said sternly. He picked you up and put you on the bed, he got on top of you and started kissing you again. Your hands made their way to his shoulders, gripping them and you wrapped your legs around his waist. “Fuck you’re driving me crazy.” He groaned in the kiss and started kissing your neck again, your moans got louder and higher pitched as he kept touching and kissing you. “You sound so fucking pretty.” He murmured and started kissing your collar bone. Your shirt was in the way of him touching you more. “I’m taking this off. I want all of you.” He started to take off your shirt and he saw the injury on your shoulder again in better view with the shirt off. “My poor little girl.” He said his voice deep and raspy as he gently kissed the wound.

You let out a soft whimper as he kissed the wound and he looked back up at you. “It hurts.” You whimpered as he kissed it again lightly.

“I know baby I’ll make it up to you I promise.” He started kissing your chest, he reached and took off your bra and started to knead your tits in his hands, gently kissing and licking your nipples. You threw your head back and ran your fingers through his hair.

“L-Leon!” You gasped and he smirked looking up at you.

“Ohh someone’s sensitive.” He cooed in your ear. He could tease you all night if he wanted. You had to bite the back of your hand to keep yourself from screaming. He moved your hand away, “what did I say about hiding your voice?” He growled in your ear.

“Stop teasing please-” you begged and he kissed your neck again. “Leon please fuck me- I want you to fuck me.” You begged more tears in your eyes. He sighed and kissed your tears away.

“I’ve got you honey, I’ll take care of you don’t worry.” He reassured you and took off his shirt. His body was toned and bruised. You traced your fingers on his chest and abdomen, small scars, cuts, and bruises lined his body. He groaned when you touched him and you pulled your hand away.

“I’m sorry-“

“Don’t be.” He grabbed your hand and put it back on his abdomen where his injuries reside. You could feel his chest heaving. His body looked like it had been sculpted by Greek gods. You felt so small and self conscious under him, you covered your body and he looked at you confused. “Why are you hiding from me?” He asked gently to move your arms from your body. “Don’t hide yourself please, you’re beautiful.” He kissed your cheek.

You blushed and lifted yourself up on your elbows and took off your pants and underwear leaving yourself completely naked and vulnerable under him. He smiled and kissed your body up and down, it was filled with so much love as he kissed you. “Your whole body is so beautiful.” He groaned, feeling himself getting harder, his clothed cock straining through his pants. “God I love you so much.” Your eyes went wide as he said this to you he looked up at you still kissing you. “What do you say doll, do you love me?” He asked slyly. You smiled and nodded your head.

“Of course I love you.” You blushed and he sat up kissing your lips softly.

“Good.” He growled in the kiss, his cock was so hard it hurt, you felt it on your inner thigh. You undid his pants and tugged them down. He kicked them off and took off his boxers. He was huge, bigger than you’ve ever seen. He saw your concern and chuckled. “I’ll go slow.”

Your breath hitched at his words and you nodded your head. You could barely speak, he lined himself up with you and slowly pushed himself in. He drew a sharp breath as he went in, you threw your head back with a loud moan. “Fucking hell your so wet.” He groaned as he bottomed out. “How long have you wanted my cock? You’re so wet it’s like your pussy was made for me.” He said with a sly smirk.

“So long!-” you moaned out you were so loud, you felt so bad for Luis and Ashley you bit your lip hard and your eyes rolled back as he started thrusting slowly. Your tight walls pulsed around his cock, you were so slick and wet, your pussy made disgusting squelching noises but he loved it. He couldn’t get enough.

“Fuck you’re so good-” his breath hitched. “God you’re sucking me in! Shit shit!” He groaned out loudly. You could feel yourself throb around his cock. “Do you want to be filled up? Is that what you want? For me to fill up your tight pussy? Fuck!”

Your eyes rolled back again as his cock hit that gooey spot in you that made you claw at his shoulders. “Yes Leon please!” You moaned in his ear, he lost all control he had before. His hips slamming against yours as he drilled into your g spot, you were so close as you tightened around him more. “Fuck I’m going to cum!” You moaned out to him.

“Cum baby, please cum all over my cock.” He was a moaning groaning mess as he felt you pulse around him as you felt absolute bliss, your back arched as he helped you ride out your orgasm, not even seconds later thick ropes of his cum lined your womb. He kissed your hot sweaty skin, some of his hair was sticking to his forehead and you felt his moist body against yours. “Good job honey you’re so fucking amazing.” He pulled out and sat up.

You laid there your eyes fluttering trying your best to stay awake, he rinsed himself off and got a rag with cool water and started wiping down your sensitive body, he kissed your bandaged shoulder again and asked. “Tell me, does it feel better now? Do you forgive me?” His gaze was soft on your body. You smiled at him gently.

“Yes I forgive you, I love you.” You confessed again, he smiled at you and laid down next to you.

“Get rest my love,” he held you against him and fell asleep with you in his arms.

Leon was downstairs making some food before they went back on their mission. Luis came downstairs. “Where is she at?” He asked, he was now generally concerned for your health because he knew that you were smaller than him and he had a lot of stamina.

“Upstairs, I might have to carry her a bit today, her legs are a bit sore.” He chuckled and finished making the food.

“Oh, for fucks sake.” Luis groans.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[Langston Hughes]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 3, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 03, 2024

I’m home tonight to stay for a bit, after being on the road for thirteen months and traveling through 32 states. I am beyond tired but profoundly grateful for the chance to meet so many wonderful people and for the welcome you have given me to your towns and your homes.

I know people are on edge, and there is maybe one last thing I can offer before this election. Every place I stopped, worried people asked me how I have maintained a sense of hope through the past fraught years. The answer—inevitably for me, I suppose—is in our history.

If you had been alive in 1853, you would have thought the elite enslavers had become America’s rulers. They were only a small minority of the U.S. population, but by controlling the Democratic Party, they had managed to take control of the Senate, the White House, and the Supreme Court. They used that power to stop the northerners who wanted the government to clear the rivers and harbors of snags, for example, or to fund public colleges for ordinary people, from getting any such legislation through Congress. But at least they could not use the government to spread their system of human enslavement across the country, because the much larger population in the North held control of the House of Representatives. 

Then in 1854, with the help of Democratic president Franklin Pierce, elite enslavers pushed the Kansas-Nebraska Act through the House. That law overturned the Missouri Compromise that had kept Black enslavement out of the American West since 1820. Because the Constitution guarantees the protection of property—and enslaved Americans were considered property—the expansion of slavery into those territories would mean the new states there would become slave states. Their representatives would work together with those of the southern slave states to outvote the northern free labor advocates in Congress. Together, they would make enslavement national. 

America would become a slaveholding nation. 

Enslavers were quite clear that this was their goal. 

South Carolina senator James Henry Hammond explicitly rejected “as ridiculously absurd, that much lauded but nowhere accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson, that ‘all men are born equal.’” He explained to his Senate colleagues that the world was made up of two classes of people. The “Mudsills” were dull drudges whose work produced the food and products that made society function. On them rested the superior class of people, who took the capital the mudsills produced and used it to move the economy, and even civilization itself, forward. The world could not survive without the inferior mudsills, but the superior class had the right—and even the duty—to rule over them. 

But that’s not how it played out. 

As soon as it became clear that Congress would pass the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Representative Israel Washburn of Maine called a meeting of thirty congressmen in Washington, D.C., to figure out how they could fight back against the Slave Power that had commandeered the government to spread the South’s system of human enslavement. The men met in the rooms of Representative Edward Dickinson of Massachusetts—whose talented daughter Emily was already writing poems—and while they came to the meeting from all different political parties, often bitterly divided over specific policies, they left with one sole purpose: to stop the overthrow of American democracy.

The men scattered back to their homes across the North for the summer, sharing their conviction that a new party must rise to stand against the Slave Power. They found “anti-Nebraska” sentiment sweeping their towns; a young lawyer from Illinois later recalled how ordinary people came together: “[W]e rose each fighting, grasping whatever he could first reach—a scythe—a pitchfork—a chopping axe, or a butcher’s cleaver.” In the next set of midterm elections, those calling themselves “anti-Nebraska” candidates swept into both national and state office across the North, and by 1856, opponents of the Slave Power had become a new political party: the Republicans. 

But the game wasn’t over. In 1857, the Supreme Court tried to take away Republicans’ power to stop the spread of slavery to the West by declaring in the infamous Dred Scott decision that Congress had no power to legislate in the territories. This made the Missouri Compromise that had kept enslavement out of the land above Missouri unconstitutional. The next day, Republican editor of the New York Tribune Horace Greeley wrote that the decision was “entitled to just so much moral weight as would be the judgment of a majority of those congregated in any Washington bar-room.”

By 1858 the party had a new rising star, the young lawyer from Illinois who had talked about everyone reaching for tools to combat the Kansas-Nebraska Act: Abraham Lincoln. Pro-slavery Democrats called the Republicans radicals for their determination to stop the expansion of slavery, but Lincoln countered that the Republicans were the country’s true conservatives, for they were the ones standing firm on the Declaration of Independence. The enslavers rejecting the Founders’ principles were the radicals.  

The next year, Lincoln articulated an ideology for the party, defining it as the party of ordinary Americans defending the democratic idea that all men are created equal against those determined to overthrow democracy with their own oligarchy.

In 1860, at a time when voting was almost entirely limited to white men, voters put Abraham Lincoln into the White House. Furious, southern leaders took their states out of the Union and launched the Civil War.

By January 1863, Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation ending the American system of human enslavement in lands still controlled by the Confederacy. By November 1863 he had delivered the Gettysburg Address, firmly rooting the United States of America in the Declaration of Independence. 

In that speech, Lincoln charged Americans to rededicate themselves to the unfinished work for which so many had given their lives. He urged them to “take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

In less than ten years the country went from a government dominated by a few fabulously wealthy men who rejected the idea that human beings are created equal and who believed they had the right to rule over the masses, to a defense of government of the people, by the people, for the people, and to leaders who called for a new birth of freedom. But Lincoln did not do any of this alone: always, he depended on the votes of ordinary people determined to have a say in the government under which they lived.

In the 1860s the work of those people established freedom and democracy as the bedrock of the United States of America, but the structure itself remained unfinished. In the 1890s and then again in the 1930s, Americans had to fight to preserve democracy against those who would destroy it for their own greed and power. Each time, thanks to ordinary Americans, democracy won.

Now it is our turn. 

In our era the same struggle has resurfaced. A small group of leaders has rejected the idea that all people are created equal and seeks to destroy our democracy in order to install themselves into permanent power. 

And just as our forebears did, Americans have reached for whatever tools we have at hand to build new coalitions across the nation to push back. After decades in which ordinary people had come to believe they had little political power, they have mobilized to defend American democracy and—with an electorate that now includes women and Black Americans and Brown Americans—have discovered they are strong. 

On November 5 we will find out just how strong we are. We will each choose on which side of the historical ledger to record our names. On the one hand, we can stand with those throughout our history who maintained that some people were better than others and had the right to rule; on the other, we can list our names on the side of those from our past who defended democracy and, by doing so, guarantee that American democracy reaches into the future. 

I have had hope in these dark days because I look around at the extraordinary movement that has built in this country over the past several years, and it looks to me like the revolution of the 1850s that gave America a new birth of freedom. 

As always, the outcome is in our hands. 

“Fellow-citizens,” Lincoln reminded his colleagues, “we cannot escape history. We…will be remembered in spite of ourselves.”  

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[benjen-mormont]

⚔︎ KICK ME ONCE AGAIN, AND SAY WE’LL NEVER PART ⚔︎

(Collaboration with @theredripper)

The Ironmen and the Greybeards had already crossed swords a few times since arriving in King’s Landing, each fight ignited by pettier reasons than the last. So, naturally, they decided to meet at a tavern—to catch up, settle their differences, maybe drink away their bad blood. A terrible idea. Benjen should’ve left the moment Cregan walked out.

“Are you here to follow him around?”

No, Benjen wasn’t anyone’s shadow anymore. He’d outgrown the days of trailing after Cregan, doing as he was told. He sneered, his words slurred with drunken defiance. “You talk too much.”

Toron smirked, just as inebriated, the edge of a blade in his smile. Cregan, waiting impatiently at the far side of the tavern, refused to sit through yet another silent clash of glares. “I’m not staying to watch this nonsense,” he muttered, and stalked out. Benjen shrugged. His loss.

“Oh, I can back up my talk with a sword,” Toron taunted, fingers lazily resting on the hilt.

“We’re here for a wedding, not a funeral. Don’t push it.”

“And what’s to stop me? You?” Toron sneered, mockingly glancing him up and down. “I didn’t see any bears on the way in. You planning to stomp me to death by possessing a horse, Mormont?”

Benjen tossed back his drink, rising slowly from the table. “No man has to die tonight.”

Toron laughed, voice oozing with malice. “Who cares if a few men die? Men die every day. I’ll make sure yours get proper rites, like you did for mine.”

Benjen’s jaw tightened, swallowing the bitterness in his throat. Walk away, walk—

“Aw, is Cregan pulling your leash all the way from over there? Go, dog, roll over and play dead for him and his wife.”

Enough.

Before his brain could catch up, Benjen’s axe thudded into the table, mere inches from Toron’s hand. Toron didn’t flinch. Instead, he looked amused.

“Oh, what’s wrong? Can’t handle a few words about your master? Or is it his wife that has you riled up?” Toron giggled, the little bastard. “Maybe you two share the Targaryen w—”

Benjen grabbed him by the hair, slamming his face down onto the table. Something cracked—nose, wood, or maybe both. The heat of blood pounding in his veins drowned out the commotion around him.

“Neither Cregan nor his wife are my type, bastard,” Benjen growled, laughing through the sting in his own jaw. “But you… with that pretty face… should be careful. Heard you’re the spitting image of your mother.”

For the first time, Toron’s smirk faltered.

“Don’t you dare—”

“Oh, I do dare.” Benjen leaned in close, grip tightening, savoring the glint of rage in Toron’s eyes. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll finally give your mother a son she can be proud of. Sounds like she could use a strong shoulder to cry on… maybe a warm bed, too.”

Toron’s hand shot to his sword, pressing it to Benjen’s throat, but Benjen didn’t flinch. “And what did you learn after killing your own father?” Toron snarled.

“How easily powerful men die.”

With that, the tavern exploded into chaos as their weapons clashed, sending tables and tankards flying. Benjen laughed—a wild, guttural sound. Toron fought like a knight, too clean, too cautious.

“Are you trying to fight or dance?” Benjen taunted, smashing a bottle against Toron’s shoulder. Toron hissed, plunging his blade into Benjen’s ribs.

“Who’s the one prancing now?” Toron sneered, landing a cut on Benjen’s leg, only to receive a swift kick between his legs in return. No knight, indeed.

Toron’s sword slid out of his grasp as he went down. Benjen tossed his axe aside, intent on pummeling him bare-fisted. Should Toron be grateful he hadn’t gone for the kill?

“I hear drowning’s the greatest honor for an ironborn,” Benjen panted, their bodies tangled as they rolled across the floor, fists swinging. “Does it count if you choke on your own blood?”

“You wish… Burn or bury, Stark dog?” Toron spat, twisting them over, even as Benjen’s hands found his throat and squeezed. “Planning to choke me, mutt?”

“Planning to like it?” Benjen lunged forward, tearing Toron’s shirt and sinking his teeth into his shoulder. The sharp gold caps of Benjen’s teeth jewelry bit in, drawing blood, leaving a raw wound that painted his lips a savage red. “A souvenir to match the other side.”

A punch to the face, a kick to the knee, both men bloody and laughing like madmen. The whole tavern erupted around them, Ironmen and Greybeards slugging it out as their generals went to war.

“Enough!” Cregan’s voice cut through the din, sharp as a wolf’s howl. “If this stupidity continues, I’ll speak with Lord Dalton himself!”

Breath ragged, Benjen finally let Toron go, wiping his blood-streaked face with the back of his hand and smearing it across Toron’s mouth in a mocking gesture. His grin, smeared with battle-lust, was feral, gold painted red.

“See you later, pretty boy.”

It had been a terrible idea, and Toron knew it. He should have walked away the moment he felt the drink hit him, but pride—or maybe foolishness—had kept him in place. Now, with the streets dark and shadowed beneath the keep's towering walls, he trudged forward, his ironmen trailing behind him like silent shadows. One thing was certain: this wasn’t over between him and Benjen Mormont. No, whatever fate had bound them together, it was forged in one of the Seven Hells.

[grntaire]

Yoooo I really love the choral music you’ve recently shared. I’m not really that familiar with it as a genre of music and don’t normally seek it out? but occasionally a piece will find its way to me (like at a funeral or now your blog), and I find it arrestingly beautiful. maybe partly because it’s a strange and unfamiliar medium to me. Do you have any favorites you would recommend for further exploration? 🩷

hi this is maybe the most hyped i've been for an ask ever bc i go fucking crazy for choral music so YES i do have recs for you. i will try to limit my little thoughts however i am very annoying so it will not go well

gibbons' hosanna to the son of david goes insanely hard. so jovial and fun and i had a blast singing this in undergrad! i love renaissance polyphony and this is a prime example of it!

poulenc's o magnum mysterium is truthfully wacky in the best most french way ever. and imo poulenc's queerness is so clear and present in his music so anything by him i love. my beautiful fruity catholic with a disorder <3

chesnokov's spaseniye sodelal is russian orthodox perfection fr. when my choir in undergrad read thru this i was stood between two low basses and at THAT part (1:32) i felt like i was being punched from the inside out. also the text means "salvation is created in the midst of the earth" and i think that's like. so fucking sick

stacey gibbs' arrangement of ezekiel is THE american spiritual arrangement to me. i once sang this in an italian church under a mexican conductor and then later we all sang it drunkenly for the owner at the hotel we were all staying at it was wild and so so so fun. such a beautiful and massive example of a joyful american spiritual also it's straight up a banger honestly. could talk ad nauseum abt how badass black choral scholars are and how grateful i am for all of the work that they've done and for inviting ppl to learn abt and experience it <3

holst's i love my love is one of my favs of all time. unfortunately england fucking devours when it comes to their choral tradition and this piece does one of my fav things where the way the composer sets the text changes its meaning! it's abt a woman named nancy who is in bedlam bc her love died at sea and it effectively broke her. while there, he comes to her, alive, breaks her out and they get married. while the poem itself shows a happy ending, the way holst plays w tempo and texture makes me go hmmm. 90% sure he did not show up and she's experiencing a delusion of sorts to cope w her grief (the i love my love's in the sopranos & altos at 1:24 kind of emulate a rocking motif, almost as if she's rocking herself back and forth in a soothing gesture, or the rocking of the ship he died on) and that tenor entrance in the melody after almost emulates her love coming to rescue her. god this whole piece makes me feel like my skin is on fire and i think it's a devastating portrayal of mental illness and you can rip it from my cold dead hands

stanford's beati quorum via is literally just gorgeous front to back. again unfortunately the english stay slaying

jake runestad's a silence haunts me literally does fucking haunt me and it changed the way i think about choral music. it's a setting of an unsent letter of beethoven's where he talks about losing his hearing and how afraid he is of losing it. this one you def have to watch bc there's a visual element to it! no spoilers but holy shit it shuts my brain down it's brutal and beautiful. i saw its premiere in 2019 and the entire hall was sobbing. like i have the words "be well" tattooed on me bc of it. the way the piano quotes moonlight sonata and his 9th symphony and the tensions emulating his tinnitus. OUGH

[shmaptainwrites]

[CH. 2] New Doctor on the Block

Chapter 2: Confessions

Pairings: Hawkeye Pierce x fem!Reader

Characters: Hawkeye Pierce, Sherman Potter, Father Mulcahy

Summary: Reader goes to Father Mulcahy to get something off her chest

Warnings: Reader is like implied to be Christian I guess?, mentions of death, angst

Note: I honestly love Father Mulcahy so much he’s literally always so soft and gentle with everyone

Series Masterlist - NDotB Masterlist

“Pierce, could you just shut up for one second? I’m the surgeon on this patient and you’re the anesthesiologist. I cannot concentrate with you constantly yammering in my ear about what I should and shouldn’t do,” you huffed while picking out shrapnel from yet another young boy sent off to fight a war that wasn’t his. 

“I’m only saying it because it’s true, look-,” 

“No, you look, come on,” you pointed to the abdominal region and explained why you couldn’t go about it the way he was previously suggesting. “I am a trained trauma surgeon, this is what I live and breathe even when I’m stateside. Today you work under me, is that clear?”

“That’s normally how I prefer it, Captain,” he winked at you and you scowled. “What, you don’t want me to come over to your tent tonight so you call tell me what a terrible partner I’ve been, maybe teach me a lesson or two about human anatomy while you’re at it?” 

“Easy Hawkeye,” Potter warned and he finally gave you an inch’s worth of breathing room. 

You were able to complete the surgery, and then some without much fuss and switching things up with every other patient so you could both get breaks from operating. By the end of it, you were both scrubbing your hands and arms from any stray blood that may have made its way on you. 

“Plans?” Hawkeye asked, leaning against the wall and drying his hands. 

“None that involve you, Captain.”

“Are you sure? I’m told that I’m a blast in the supply room, especially in the dark.” 

“I think I’ll pass,” you shook your head and pulled your wedding ring out of your pocket and placed it on your ring finger. 

“Wait, you’re married?”

It wasn’t a question you expected to hear from him, nonetheless, you didn’t want to let the conversation go any further. You’d shot him down enough for a lifetime. 

“Yes, but I don’t believe it’s any of your business. Now if you’ll excuse me I have a date with the showers.” 

You pushed past the surgeon and walked off to your shared tent with Major Houlihan to grab your things and leave. 

—

It was a warm Thursday afternoon, the sun was finally coming out to say hello to South Korea and the 4077th M*A*S*H couldn’t be more grateful. You had a bit of a break on your hands that day, casualties were low and post-op duty was minimal, but you had another idea on your mind. 

You walked up to the outfit’s chaplain’s quarters and knocked gently on the door. A soft, kind voice greeted you,

“Come in,” 

“Father?” you peeked your head in. 

“Yes, my child?”

“W-Would you be able to take my confession?” you asked, now stepping inside his tent. 

“Of course,” he nodded and stood up to bring another chair for you to sit next to him. “It seems like something is weighing on you.” 

“There is something Father, I-,” you swallowed thickly. “I’ve seen you with the others, you’re very understanding Father a-and I might need a hand after this.”

“Anything I can do,” he assured you and you took a deep breath and nodded. 

“I’m not actually married,” you confessed. 

The chaplain looked confused so you gathered up all the courage you could to explain. 

“I was married. Past tense. I-I’ve been telling everyone in camp who asks that my husband wasn’t able to be drafted due to a medical condition and that he’s staying with our two children back home, but the truth is he’s…he’s dead,” your voice broke slightly with your last words and you tried so desperately hard not to cry. “M-My husband was drafted when the war started and ended up dying on the front before he could be discharged. He left me and our son, and our little daughter-,” you had to stop yourself, tears now streaming down your face at the thought of your kids growing up without a father. 

“There, there, it’s alright, let it out,” the priest held your hand and gently patted your back, consoling you as you admitted everything. 

“I-It’s just easier to pretend he’s alive,” you sniffed. “At home with Grant and Julia, waiting for me to come back.” 

“I understand,” he assured you. 

“But I feel bad for lying to everyone else in the process. The Colonel knows because it’s in my file, but I asked him to keep it between us,” 

Father Mulcahy sat thoughtfully for a moment, still holding your hand and trying to see what advice was best for him to give at that moment. 

“Captain, I believe it is quite obvious I’m not a psychiatrist, but what do you expect when you go back home?” he asked. 

You hadn’t thought of that. This small lie that was giving you comfort at the moment, maybe it would do more bad than good, even for you. 

You shook your head. 

“I can only recommend you tell the truth, on your own terms of course, but I believe it will help you grieve, even if it is painful.” 

“Thank you, Father, I-I think you’re right. I just need more time.” 

“Of course,” he nodded. He then said a prayer and blessed you and before you left the tent you gave the man a tight hug. 

“Thank you again,” you sniffed, wiping away a few more tears. “It’s nice that at least another person knows.” 

“I can only imagine,” he smiled. “Now go and enjoy the day, it’s beautiful outside, not often we get days like this out here,”

“Will do, Father,” you smiled back and left his quarters and decided to heed his advice and soak up as much sun as you could before it hid behind the clouds once more. 

Tags: @montyfandomlove

[raccoonfallsharder]

tiny lil violet anon here!! hh second guessing is really common w creatives (i would know.. i'm a digital artist) but i want you to know that you're probably one of my favourite fic writers and you actually inspired me to start working on a rocket x reader fic of my own a while back!!! (would you mind if i sent you my fic if i ever finished it?)

honestly, i dont think you have to worry about how well you capture rocket's voice bc honestly you're one of, if not the best i've read— your triptych day 17 fic was genuinely mindblowing for example?? your understanding of how different people write rocket is so in depth and the way you made all three renditions of rocket different but so clearly still rocket got me awestruck (do you have any tips on writing the 3 different rockets btw? i'd love to understand more about how you differentiate them! ><)

i remember reading the boring adventures of space pilot and sweatshirt girl for the first time after reading the rocket comics and thinking that helping rocket out on that ferry was exactly what i was hoping someone would write?? it was the fic i needed and didn't deserve LMAO literally every thing you've written has always filled a gap that i didn't know was there & didn't know i needed ♡♡

sorry for the ridiculously long ask ^^; your work genuinely means so much to me and im totally in love with how you write rocket— while ik every artist doubts themselves, i want you to know that the work you create is so much better than you give yourself credit for!

tiny little violet nonnie!! (⸝⸝o̴̶̷᷄‸o̴̶̷̥᷅⸝⸝) you precious sweet little flower. please don’t apologize for long asks - i love them (they just take a while for me to respond to). this was also so, so sweet, and the idea that any of my writing means a lot to you kinda makes me teary ♡

i would love to read your fanfic! even if you don’t finish it! you can always send it my way via dms or share via ask if you wanna stay on anon. or post it and tag me ♡ the fact that i was able to inspire you a little bit is honestly one of the most lovely compliments i could receive and it is truly an honor

(｡•́︿•̀｡)

i’m also so grateful that you enjoyed sweatshirt girl ♡ one of my favorite things about fanfiction is that it can give us the stories we need and deserve (or give us the opportunity to write them!). honestly reading grounded all i wanted to do was pick up that raccoon and take him home and feed him warm food and that’s how sweatshirt girl happened ♡o(╥﹏╥)o♡

so part of the reason i took a long time to respond is because i was trying to really think about how i write the different rockets. and i decided i only have one “tip” for you (or rather, one thing that worked for me and which i hope might also work for you.

but you know im gonna take ten paragraphs to get there!

tbh even though i refer to them by their respective authors, i don’t think “i need to write rocket like skottie young” or “i need to write rocket like james gunn.” i think “i need to know rocket, and understand him, and figure out how he would react & interact in skottie young’s galaxy” or “in the mcu.”

my short tip for writing any character is understand what makes them tick. what drives them? what do they long for? how do they hurt? what do they fear? in what ways do their insecurities and survival mechanisms weave together and impact the way they see the world, interact with friends, protect themselves from enemies?

your best tool as a writer of characters is your ability to empathize with them.

know and love your characters the same way you do your best friends. as authors we are playing god with their world and their lives and it’s a little bit of a sacred responsibility to at least make sure we understand them as well as we can ♡

so for rocket specifically…

fundamentally, my personal interpretation of rocket in any universe is someone with profound empathy, who feels pain very deeply. and since he hasn’t had the opportunity to like, see & practice healthy coping mechanisms lol, he has learned to survive by trying to hide that empathy and that pain under layers of calcification and sarcasm and spikes and blades. and it like, kinda works?? but sometimes it ends up hurting people who don’t deserve to be hurt and when he realizes that, the hidden empathy kicks in and he hates himself all over again.

and like many people, rocket also doesn’t really want to give up his pain. people tend to fight to keep their most hurtful memories or vulnerabilities locked inside. they build so much of their identities around them.

so the real question comes down to, what is each rocket’s source of pain? how does that impact how he interacts and thinks? what is his support system at the point in time that i’m like, crashing his party? how does that impact his interactions and thoughts?

skottie young’s rocket gets laid, so he’s not going to be worried about seducing anyone tbh. he’s probably got the most confidence out of all the rockets, at least on the surface. geez, the 2014 run? it’s like. all about his copious ex-girlfriends and about he’s the only one of his kind in the whole universe. if i were gonna write a full fic based on skottie young’s rocket, i’d base my foundation on the idea that the reason rocket has so many exes is because he’s constantly searching for something that he doesn’t believe exists (basically, someone who can make him feel not-alone) and he probably ends up sabotaging his chances every fuckin time he gets close.

ewing’s or rosenberg’s rocket? still canonically gets laid but has gotten treated like dirt enough times — including being betrayed by people he trusts at various points — that he’s always waiting for that to happen. and mcu rocket? that boy is so insecure about his worth on every level that if he has any pleasant interaction with anyone, he’s probably baffled about why the fuck it’s happening.

all this to say: how do you see (each) rocket? how does he move through the galaxy his authors creates for him? and how does that change when you step in and make something different for him?

it’s late here and my brain is foggy so i’m sorry if i didn’t fully and properly answer your question, sweet little violet .｡༅:*ﾟ*:✼✿ all this to say that if i am successful at all in effectively communicating rocket, it’s more about studying (my interpretation of) who he is in each setting than studying a writer’s style, if that makes sense.

ahhh good night, little love. i am an old baba yaga and i must sleep

[yourreddancer]

Heather Cox Richardson 11/3/24

Heather Cox Richardson 11/3/24

I’m home tonight to stay for a bit, after being on the road for thirteen months and traveling through 32 states. I am beyond tired but profoundly grateful for the chance to meet so many wonderful people and for the welcome you have given me to your towns and your homes.

I know people are on edge, and there is maybe one last thing I can offer before this election. Every place I stopped, worried people asked me how I have maintained a sense of hope through the past fraught years. The answer—inevitably for me, I suppose—is in our history.

If you had been alive in 1853, you would have thought the elite enslavers had become America’s rulers. They were only a small minority of the U.S. population, but by controlling the Democratic Party, they had managed to take control of the Senate, the White House, and the Supreme Court. They used that power to stop the northerners who wanted the government to clear the rivers and harbors of snags, for example, or to fund public colleges for ordinary people, from getting any such legislation through Congress. But at least they could not use the government to spread their system of human enslavement across the country, because the much larger population in the North held control of the House of Representatives. 

Then in 1854, with the help of Democratic president Franklin Pierce, elite enslavers pushed the Kansas-Nebraska Act through the House. That law overturned the Missouri Compromise that had kept Black enslavement out of the American West since 1820. Because the Constitution guarantees the protection of property—and enslaved Americans were considered property—the expansion of slavery into those territories would mean the new states there would become slave states. Their representatives would work together with those of the southern slave states to outvote the northern free labor advocates in Congress. Together, they would make enslavement national. 

America would become a slaveholding nation. 

Enslavers were quite clear that this was their goal. 

South Carolina senator James Henry Hammond explicitly rejected “as ridiculously absurd, that much lauded but nowhere accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson, that ‘all men are born equal.’” He explained to his Senate colleagues that the world was made up of two classes of people. The “Mudsills” were dull drudges whose work produced the food and products that made society function. On them rested the superior class of people, who took the capital the mudsills produced and used it to move the economy, and even civilization itself, forward. The world could not survive without the inferior mudsills, but the superior class had the right—and even the duty—to rule over them. 

But that’s not how it played out. 

As soon as it became clear that Congress would pass the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Representative Israel Washburn of Maine called a meeting of thirty congressmen in Washington, D.C., to figure out how they could fight back against the Slave Power that had commandeered the government to spread the South’s system of human enslavement. The men met in the rooms of Representative Edward Dickinson of Massachusetts—whose talented daughter Emily was already writing poems—and while they came to the meeting from all different political parties, often bitterly divided over specific policies, they left with one sole purpose: to stop the overthrow of American democracy.

The men scattered back to their homes across the North for the summer, sharing their conviction that a new party must rise to stand against the Slave Power. They found “anti-Nebraska” sentiment sweeping their towns; a young lawyer from Illinois later recalled how ordinary people came together: “[W]e rose each fighting, grasping whatever he could first reach—a scythe—a pitchfork—a chopping axe, or a butcher’s cleaver.” In the next set of midterm elections, those calling themselves “anti-Nebraska” candidates swept into both national and state office across the North, and by 1856, opponents of the Slave Power had become a new political party: the Republicans. 

But the game wasn’t over. In 1857, the Supreme Court tried to take away Republicans’ power to stop the spread of slavery to the West by declaring in the infamous Dred Scott decision that Congress had no power to legislate in the territories. This made the Missouri Compromise that had kept enslavement out of the land above Missouri unconstitutional. The next day, Republican editor of the New York Tribune Horace Greeley wrote that the decision was “entitled to just so much moral weight as would be the judgment of a majority of those congregated in any Washington bar-room.”

By 1858 the party had a new rising star, the young lawyer from Illinois who had talked about everyone reaching for tools to combat the Kansas-Nebraska Act: Abraham Lincoln. Pro-slavery Democrats called the Republicans radicals for their determination to stop the expansion of slavery, but Lincoln countered that the Republicans were the country’s true conservatives, for they were the ones standing firm on the Declaration of Independence. The enslavers rejecting the Founders’ principles were the radicals.  

The next year, Lincoln articulated an ideology for the party, defining it as the party of ordinary Americans defending the democratic idea that all men are created equal against those determined to overthrow democracy with their own oligarchy.

In 1860, at a time when voting was almost entirely limited to white men, voters put Abraham Lincoln into the White House. Furious, southern leaders took their states out of the Union and launched the Civil War.

By January 1863, Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation ending the American system of human enslavement in lands still controlled by the Confederacy. By November 1863 he had delivered the Gettysburg Address, firmly rooting the United States of America in the Declaration of Independence. 

In that speech, Lincoln charged Americans to rededicate themselves to the unfinished work for which so many had given their lives. He urged them to “take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

In less than ten years the country went from a government dominated by a few fabulously wealthy men who rejected the idea that human beings are created equal and who believed they had the right to rule over the masses, to a defense of government of the people, by the people, for the people, and to leaders who called for a new birth of freedom. But Lincoln did not do any of this alone: always, he depended on the votes of ordinary people determined to have a say in the government under which they lived.

In the 1860s the work of those people established freedom and democracy as the bedrock of the United States of America, but the structure itself remained unfinished. In the 1890s and then again in the 1930s, Americans had to fight to preserve democracy against those who would destroy it for their own greed and power. Each time, thanks to ordinary Americans, democracy won.

Now it is our turn. 

In our era the same struggle has resurfaced. A small group of leaders has rejected the idea that all people are created equal and seeks to destroy our democracy in order to install themselves into permanent power. 

And just as our forebears did, Americans have reached for whatever tools we have at hand to build new coalitions across the nation to push back. After decades in which ordinary people had come to believe they had little political power, they have mobilized to defend American democracy and—with an electorate that now includes women and Black Americans and Brown Americans—have discovered they are strong. 

On November 5 we will find out just how strong we are. We will each choose on which side of the historical ledger to record our names. On the one hand, we can stand with those throughout our history who maintained that some people were better than others and had the right to rule; on the other, we can list our names on the side of those from our past who defended democracy and, by doing so, guarantee that American democracy reaches into the future. 

I have had hope in these dark days because I look around at the extraordinary movement that has built in this country over the past several years, and it looks to me like the revolution of the 1850s that gave America a new birth of freedom. 

As always, the outcome is in our hands. 

“Fellow-citizens,” Lincoln reminded his colleagues, “we cannot escape history. We…will be remembered in spite of ourselves.”  

[misfitwashere]

November 3, 2024 

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

NOV 4

I’m home tonight to stay for a bit, after being on the road for thirteen months and traveling through 32 states. I am beyond tired but profoundly grateful for the chance to meet so many wonderful people and for the welcome you have given me to your towns and your homes.

I know people are on edge, and there is maybe one last thing I can offer before this election. Every place I stopped, worried people asked me how I have maintained a sense of hope through the past fraught years. The answer—inevitably for me, I suppose—is in our history.

If you had been alive in 1853, you would have thought the elite enslavers had become America’s rulers. They were only a small minority of the U.S. population, but by controlling the Democratic Party, they had managed to take control of the Senate, the White House, and the Supreme Court. They used that power to stop the northerners who wanted the government to clear the rivers and harbors of snags, for example, or to fund public colleges for ordinary people, from getting any such legislation through Congress. But at least they could not use the government to spread their system of human enslavement across the country, because the much larger population in the North held control of the House of Representatives. 

Then in 1854, with the help of Democratic president Franklin Pierce, elite enslavers pushed the Kansas-Nebraska Act through the House. That law overturned the Missouri Compromise that had kept Black enslavement out of the American West since 1820. Because the Constitution guarantees the protection of property—and enslaved Americans were considered property—the expansion of slavery into those territories would mean the new states there would become slave states. Their representatives would work together with those of the southern slave states to outvote the northern free labor advocates in Congress. Together, they would make enslavement national. 

America would become a slaveholding nation. 

Enslavers were quite clear that this was their goal. 

South Carolina senator James Henry Hammond explicitly rejected “as ridiculously absurd, that much lauded but nowhere accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson, that ‘all men are born equal.’” He explained to his Senate colleagues that the world was made up of two classes of people. The “Mudsills” were dull drudges whose work produced the food and products that made society function. On them rested the superior class of people, who took the capital the mudsills produced and used it to move the economy, and even civilization itself, forward. The world could not survive without the inferior mudsills, but the superior class had the right—and even the duty—to rule over them. 

But that’s not how it played out. 

As soon as it became clear that Congress would pass the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Representative Israel Washburn of Maine called a meeting of thirty congressmen in Washington, D.C., to figure out how they could fight back against the Slave Power that had commandeered the government to spread the South’s system of human enslavement. The men met in the rooms of Representative Edward Dickinson of Massachusetts—whose talented daughter Emily was already writing poems—and while they came to the meeting from all different political parties, often bitterly divided over specific policies, they left with one sole purpose: to stop the overthrow of American democracy.

The men scattered back to their homes across the North for the summer, sharing their conviction that a new party must rise to stand against the Slave Power. They found “anti-Nebraska” sentiment sweeping their towns; a young lawyer from Illinois later recalled how ordinary people came together: “[W]e rose each fighting, grasping whatever he could first reach—a scythe—a pitchfork—a chopping axe, or a butcher’s cleaver.” In the next set of midterm elections, those calling themselves “anti-Nebraska” candidates swept into both national and state office across the North, and by 1856, opponents of the Slave Power had become a new political party: the Republicans. 

But the game wasn’t over. In 1857, the Supreme Court tried to take away Republicans’ power to stop the spread of slavery to the West by declaring in the infamous Dred Scott decision that Congress had no power to legislate in the territories. This made the Missouri Compromise that had kept enslavement out of the land above Missouri unconstitutional. The next day, Republican editor of the New York Tribune Horace Greeley wrote that the decision was “entitled to just so much moral weight as would be the judgment of a majority of those congregated in any Washington bar-room.”

By 1858 the party had a new rising star, the young lawyer from Illinois who had talked about everyone reaching for tools to combat the Kansas-Nebraska Act: Abraham Lincoln. Pro-slavery Democrats called the Republicans radicals for their determination to stop the expansion of slavery, but Lincoln countered that the Republicans were the country’s true conservatives, for they were the ones standing firm on the Declaration of Independence. The enslavers rejecting the Founders’ principles were the radicals.  

The next year, Lincoln articulated an ideology for the party, defining it as the party of ordinary Americans defending the democratic idea that all men are created equal against those determined to overthrow democracy with their own oligarchy.

In 1860, at a time when voting was almost entirely limited to white men, voters put Abraham Lincoln into the White House. Furious, southern leaders took their states out of the Union and launched the Civil War.

By January 1863, Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation ending the American system of human enslavement in lands still controlled by the Confederacy. By November 1863 he had delivered the Gettysburg Address, firmly rooting the United States of America in the Declaration of Independence. 

In that speech, Lincoln charged Americans to rededicate themselves to the unfinished work for which so many had given their lives. He urged them to “take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

In less than ten years the country went from a government dominated by a few fabulously wealthy men who rejected the idea that human beings are created equal and who believed they had the right to rule over the masses, to a defense of government of the people, by the people, for the people, and to leaders who called for a new birth of freedom. But Lincoln did not do any of this alone: always, he depended on the votes of ordinary people determined to have a say in the government under which they lived.

In the 1860s the work of those people established freedom and democracy as the bedrock of the United States of America, but the structure itself remained unfinished. In the 1890s and then again in the 1930s, Americans had to fight to preserve democracy against those who would destroy it for their own greed and power. Each time, thanks to ordinary Americans, democracy won.

Now it is our turn. 

In our era the same struggle has resurfaced. A small group of leaders has rejected the idea that all people are created equal and seeks to destroy our democracy in order to install themselves into permanent power. 

And just as our forebears did, Americans have reached for whatever tools we have at hand to build new coalitions across the nation to push back. After decades in which ordinary people had come to believe they had little political power, they have mobilized to defend American democracy and—with an electorate that now includes women and Black Americans and Brown Americans—have discovered they are strong. 

On November 5 we will find out just how strong we are. We will each choose on which side of the historical ledger to record our names. On the one hand, we can stand with those throughout our history who maintained that some people were better than others and had the right to rule; on the other, we can list our names on the side of those from our past who defended democracy and, by doing so, guarantee that American democracy reaches into the future. 

I have had hope in these dark days because I look around at the extraordinary movement that has built in this country over the past several years, and it looks to me like the revolution of the 1850s that gave America a new birth of freedom. 

As always, the outcome is in our hands. 

“Fellow-citizens,” Lincoln reminded his colleagues, “we cannot escape history. We…will be remembered in spite of ourselves.”  

–-

[starjxsung]

Babe is such a universal thing, I think I’m going to start calling you honey! Honey is one of my personal favorites heheheh

I’m so sorry you went through so much star I hope you’re doing well and I can’t wait for you to be able to make that cake ahhh please send me pics! Also on the applying it’s best to stay in the job your in because it’s so true it’s hard to apply and see if you even get the job especially me as someone who’s still trying to apply and no luck ugh

What’s your love language??? Mine is words of affirmations I love telling people I care that i appreciate them so much

I don’t remember if someone had asked this before but has an anon actually tried to get with you like I know most of anons flirt with you a lot and you flirt with us and we made a mutual connection by even talking out of tumblr but like has an anon actually tried to take your flirting to the next level ie actually thought you were trying to get into a relationship????

A little life update on my end: anxiety really sucks, it’s making me lose sleep by waking up every hour and it’s messing with me a lot making me feel like my friendships are just one sided and that they rather be with other people than me. It’s not helping either that this anon on my tumblr has been saying mean things about me and criticizing the way I write ( it usually doesn’t affect me but rn with how I am mentally it kinda is) but it’s getting so bad that opening my phone and seeing notifications just makes me want to puke

🩶

NO BC HONEY IS SOOO CUUUUUUTE it feels like marriage vibes frfr I love it 🤞🥹

I WILLLL POST PICS OF JILIX CAKE TOMORROW PROBABLY I actually bought one of those mini birthday cakes and it’s been sitting in my fridge for like 3 days so it probably tastes like shit now but it’s SOOOO CUTE IM SO EXCITED 💓 Ughhhhh I know exactly what you mean the job market sucks ASSSSSS rn I just know it’s gonna be an ordeal but I’m definitely still looking at what’s out there and seeing if there’s anything I can transition into that might be a little easier bc my work load right now is the fucking worst :(

Love language HMMMM I think it’s words of affirmation for myself, and then for others I’m really partial to gift giving 💞 I loooove being the kind of person who just finds something cute online and sends it to someone or surprises them w it! I order my sister little desserts sometimes since she lives in another city or sometimes I get random shit for my parents or friends bc it reminds me of them I just love seeing people’s reactions to gifts 🥹

The anon question hahaha yesssss I was in a kinda long situationship type thing w an anon on here and it ended really badly. I truly wish her nothing but the best now and we’re no longer on talking terms, but I’m always grateful for the people I have the pleasure of being in romantic relationships/situationships with even if they end badly ! I hope she finds what she’s looking for eventually

Also I’m so sorry to hear about your anxiety :((( I’m kind of in the same boat rn (literally just picked up my antidepressants today slayyy) but holy fuck wym there’s an anon sending you hate?? Hello?????? That is so fucked up oh my god I’ve gotten my fair share of anon hate on here but please just delete any messages you get and don’t even give them the time of day. It’s so fucked up they’d stoop so low and hide behind an anonymous profile to send hate to random people. What have they even been saying to you? If you need to send me anything privately on discord pls feel free to do so :( I’m so sorry this is happening my love you don’t deserve this at all and it’s gross people would think to do that. I love you so so much please ignore those losers

[magnoliamyrrh]

just in case i don’t want to talk abt this any more tw incest u could just delete this

horrific n downright wrong. i wanna say u n everyone else includin that anon did not deserve this n the collective u deserves so much more but i am so grateful seein people talk abt this. i was raised w the extreme pressure that my gen was goin to break the cycle of that type of abuse n i have to come to terms that we didn’t n that’s ok at least to me. it’s so hard to admit to n so impactful to say out loud but it’s what has to b done. it a type of trauma that’s been in my fam for many many yrs n i gaslight myself into believin that we broke it. i stayed in denial n tbh still am in denial bcuz it’s so hard to blame a fam member. esp for me a girl n a teenage girl at that. this isn’t always the universal reaction so there is no guilt if this isn’t the case or if it is but u still luv them no matter what they did it’s so hard to blame them. but sexual abuse is sexual abuse. i hope to god every day that when i have children that will b when the cycle is broken n it all stops but i will never put the verbal pressure on them the way my parents did. one of them was a victim of smthn v extreme so i do not blame them (there it is again) but it’s torture to feel like u let them down when u did nothin wrong. admitting is always the first step to healin. i’m so proud of u for talkin abt this n that anon n everyone else.

ya! i think even though its uncomfortable as hell and disturbing its important that we talk about it. thank you <3 im proud of everyone who pitched in too, and of you, thank u for sharing; its really not easy. i dont think this is the sort of thing we can heal from individually, you know? especially when its a cultural thing. theres so much shame and fear and repression surrounding this kind of stuff, and the only way were gonna heal from it is if, like u said, well start accepting it and talking about it

and yea youre right it is really hard. like my father crossed any possible line with what he did and he abuses his wife too and. i really just want him dead like i dont give a damn, i have to try to calm myself bc i get too focused sometimes on how much i actually want him to suffer. but even with him at times im like,,,, ,, eh but i still care abt him? i went through a whole phase where i felt like it was my responsabilites to help him or like heal him from how deranged he is lmao. but it doesnt last long. but with everyone else its different. (?) like. i realized like idk a year ago that uh yea my grandma did lowkey molest me and it actually made me feel fucking insane. i had no idea what do with it and i still dont?? and its fucked and definitely not ok but like...,,, we all pretend like its fine or just didnt happen i guess bc its,, normal? acceptable??? its weird as all hell, most of the time i just kinda try to not think abt it because i have no idea how to even feel abt the woman when i do. if anything as much as it definitely kinda fucked me up, im frankly way more pissed abt the physical abuse/beatings and endless insults and yelling and shit - like that actually probably did more damage to me. but still like idk yea i .. idk if i excuse it but i definitely explain it like oh she didnt know better etc etc etc. but that doesnt.. ugh it doesnt excuse it?? but i still love her and care for her?? its a fucking nightmare to try to detangle all that. and the shit w my mom too and other family members like uh yea it grosses me out and definitely got to me, this combination of being raised as property + controlling parents + sexualized + actually being whored out by father has k.o.d whatever mental sanity i could have had and it took me many years to.... idk. even start remotely working through all that. but. i still care abt them...?? i think the fact that its no longer happening and dont rly consider it on the same level as the shit w my dad makes it kinda different in my head but its still not fucking ok

and yea. definitely one of the hardest parts of it is being blamed for being uncomfortable/grossed out or even punished for being so when rly thats such a normal reaction to have to this shit. it is psychologically torturous and it is gaslighting and it rly fucks u up in the head..... and its really hard to get to the point where u dont feel like u did anything wrong or you werent to blame. i do presume that w this particular kind of shit tho a lot of it is that they probably went through similar stuff, internalized and repressed it, never dealt w it, and then just proceed to do the same

i hope to god too ill be different. i want to believe in both of us and this new generation that we'll do a better job. i think the fact that were even talking abt it shows some progress u kno. my mother and grandmother told me for many years that i wont do a better job than them and its just normal for kids to be raised w beatings and yelling and insults and controlling behavior and all that shit,,,, but. ive always been terrified of that. since i was little i knew if i ever had a kid i wouldnt want to put them through any of this. if i cant break the cycle id rather not raise a kid at all. at least for the past like year or two my mother has actually accepted that some of the shit she did wasnt okay and that she was abused by my grandmother too and..... apologized??? which was insane. so. idk. its been a long and weird fucking process. but. i dont think its hopeless

[lovelovex]

x

[ventihonklightice]

Clingy || Wilbur Soot

word count: 3.5k

~~~

Y/N had been lounging around the flat all day as her boyfriend filmed videos with his fellow Minecraft friends. Wilbur had currently been recording with Tommy and Quackity, another one of their wild Minecraft mod videos. She knew her love was busy and had his responsibilities with his own videos alongside the ones made with his friends, but she had been scrolling through Twitter and saw that he had just gotten verified. There was no way he knew about the news as he had been busy all day doing his job.

A smile grew on her face as she rushed to his bedroom door to share the great news, however she paused as she heard the nature of his current discussion with his friends.

“- but she’s been good. We’ve been really good,” Y/N smiled at his words, seemingly knowing it was about her. That smile quickly disappeared at the words her boyfriend was about to spew. “Just, she’s been kind of needy and clingy or something,” Wilbur shook his head not fully understanding his own words, looking at the wall behind his monitor too lost in his thoughts. He couldn’t quite understand his own thoughts half of the time, especially today as all he has done was played Minecraft. Slowly, the hate he has been receiving has been catching up to him, forcing him into this pit he’d never thought he’d be in which added to the stress that fueled his words. “Like she thinks she always has to be with me. Right now even, she’s at the flat.” Wilbur ran his fingers through his messy brown hair as he proceeded to explain his relationship. “I love her, I do, but I can’t even be with her right now so I don’t understand why she has to be here,” he confessed, mind clouded with tiredness masked by the wine he downed in an attempt to calm his nerves.

Y/N furrowed her brows leaning forward to listen further. “Well, she loves you, so what do you expect her to do? Not want to be with you?” She heard an American accent, likely belonging to Quackity.

“I-I don’t know. It’s just- I’m not used to this. It’s been a while since I’ve seriously been with a girl like this before. I just need space, but she wants to be around me constantly. It’s annoying.” The anger, the annoyance, and the frustration were all evident in his voice, making Y/N second guess a lot of her choices the past few days. She looked down at her hands, the mustard sleeves reaching past her palms belonging to the man behind the door she leaned on.

She closed her eyes in an attempt to push back her tears before she walked away, not being able to listen to him any further. Her eyes began to water more and more as bothering him was the very last thing she had ever wished to do. She sat on the couch before pulling the jumper off of her body, folding it neatly in her hands before pulling on her shoes.

Fanning her face quickly to reduce any possible puffiness or redness, Y/N timidly knocked on the door to Wilbur’s room. “Hold on guys,” he spoke to his friends, muting himself on discord. “Yeah?” She heard his deep voice call from the other side, taking it as her cue to push the door open. His hair fluffed about as he turned to face her. “Hey what’s up?” He asked with a soft smile.

“I uh think I’m gonna head home, got an early shift tomorrow and all,” she spoke softly while avoiding his gaze. Y/N wasn’t one to lie so she felt guilty for doing so but she didn’t know what else to do.

He furrowed his brows, confused at her words. She almost always stays the night, especially when she works early because he lives closer to her job.

“You sure? You’re more than welcome to stay the night. Y-You always do,” he muttered with slight concern in his words as he took his headset off.

She shook her head lightly, “nah it’s alright. Gotta water the plants,“ Y/N fiddled with the door handle as her other hand traced the sweater, knowing full well she doesn’t have any plants.

“Alright, I’ll walk you out,” he stood up, adjusting the chair in order to do so. Y/N reached out to him, his jumper resting in her hand, “where’d you like me to put this?”

He stood up, increasingly getting confused at her actions because he knew that she loved wearing his clothes and stealing them any chance she got. “I-I’ll um, just toss it on the bed,” he pointed to the made bed, slipping on his shoes to walk her out.

She felt his form loom over her as he walked with her out of the flat and to her car. They walked in silence, uncharacteristically. Wilburs’s hands were stuffed in the pockets of his pants lost in his thoughts as he heard her car alarm He walked to the driver’s side, lost in his thoughts while he opened the door for her.

She approached the door, getting ready to sit in the driver’s seat before turning to Wilbur to bid goodbye. He leaned down to kiss her, standard for all of their farewells, but she turned her head at the last second, his lips crashing onto her cheek. His heart dropped at the odd situation he was placed in, wondering why this was happening.

“I-I’ll see you later,” she smiled softly before sitting down and preparing to drive.

He could let her go like this. He had to know if things were good, okay even. Before he shut the door, he leaned down a bit to get closer to her. “Is everything okay? You seem a bit off, darling.”

“Y-yeah I’m just really tired,” she chuckled humorlessly, placing a hand on her forehead. “Sorry, it’s just been a weird day.”

“If you’re that tired you could stay here,” his voice practically pleaded, assuring her once more that she always had a place there.

“I-I’ll be fine, I promise.” Her words were soft along with her eyes, but she just wanted to give him what he desired; space.

“You sure?” He asked once more, extremely concerned, but what answer was he really expecting? Y/N nodded her head, “positive.”

“Alright, text me when you get home,” he leaned back, preparing to shut the door for her. She nodded her head, pushing her keys into the ignition. “I love you,” he spoke sincerely, bending down so that she’d be able to see him better once more. There was an emotion in YN’s eyes that he couldn’t recognize, but the smile on her face was sad. “I-you too, I’ll see you later,” she fiddled with her keys before meeting his gaze.

His heart shattered at the words. You too? What the hell is that suppose to mean?

He gave a tight smile before shutting the door for her. You too, the words echoed in his mind as he began walking back to the front door, pausing his steps on the pavement to watch her pull out of the driveway. He sighed before turning back to his path home. Upon returning, the place felt dimmer without her presence and he quickly took note of that.

Letting out a huge sigh, he plopped down at his desk, unmuting himself on Discord. “Sorry bout that, I’m back. J-Just walking Y/N out,” he spoke, taking the only opportunity his friends quieted down to speak.

“Wilbur!” Tommy yelled as the rest of the VC, which now had Niki, Jack and Fundy, errupted in chaos. “W-What? What the fuck happened?”

“Dude you got verified on Twitter,” Quackity shouted. His eyes went wide, opening the light blue app to see if it was true. Sure enough, a small check mark emphasized his name. He beamed at the sight of it, rushing to make a tweet about how grateful he was.

He went back to his feed, noticing that Y/N had made a tweet about ten or so minutes prior.

y/n✨| @yourusername

so proud of my favorite boy getting verified <3 love you @WilburSoot !!

His heart clenched at the tweet, being drawn back to the events that occurred moments beforehand. He liked and retweeted it, watching his fans swoon at the couple’s interaction without knowing what was happening behind closed doors, before getting back to his friends being completely distracted by thoughts on the girl he loves.

~~~

Y/N never texted him to tell him that she was home. She woke up late that morning seeing a few texts from him about twitter, how his stream went and so on.

As she looked at the time on her phone, realizing the lie she told him about working early and chose not to answer quite yet.

She spent the rest of her day around the house, cleaning, cooking or watching TV. She wasn’t in any mood to go on social media, not wanting to interact with Wilbur quite yet. Y/N sighed thinking about yesterday, thinking that it would be a better idea to just give him some space.

And so she did, for several days before Wilbur’s worry consumed him.

He sat on Discord with his friends, days after his last interaction with his girlfriend. “It’s just weird because she’s never like this. She always calls or texts me whenever she gets the chance regardless of whether or not I ask,” he expressed to his friends as they were fucking around on their own Minecraft world. He wasn’t even paying attention to what he was doing in the game, just aimlessly pressing buttons and moving his mouse as he thought of Y/N.

Tommy chuckled shortly, “now look whos being needy.”

“Shut up Tommy,” Wilbur explained, running a hand across his chin, fingertips gracing his incredibly overgrown stubble. “Look I’m just saying,” the blond furthered, “there’s no need for you to say she’s clingy or whatever when your freaking out over a text! Like you saw her less than what, two, three ago?”

Wilbur shook his head, fuming now, “Oh my god, shut the fuck up Tommy! How would you, a literal child, know anything about what’s going on? You’ve barely hit puberty!” His outburst caused his friends to quiet down, them not being used to anger being directed in such a way.

“Wilbur,” Tommy started once again, becoming more serious, “I know you. You worrying over a few short days almost disproves everything you said the other day. I think you don’t know how to handle affection well, not that she’s clingy or whatever.” Hearing Tommy acting serious and not childish for this one second made something snap within Wilbur, knowing that the child was right.

He sighed, “I-I’m sorry for snapping at you. Everything is happening at once in my life right now and Y/N not talking to me has me worried. This isn’t what’s normal between us. It’s strange.”

“But isn’t this what you wanted? She isn’t being as ‘needy’ now. You got your wish, didn’t you?” George chimed in, hoping to help even though his own experiences with relationships hasn’t always been the best.

“Yeah, and I fucking hate it, I don’t know why I even said that. I don’t mean it. I love when she’s around, I hate when she isn’t,” Wilbur went on, his thoughts focusing on the good memories he has with his girlfriend.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Dream spoke ominously, feeling as if now was the most appropriate time to speak.

“I-I’m gonna call her,” the distressed twenty year old expressed, whipping out his phone to go to her number. As the phone rang, he became more and more nervous.

“What if she got in an accident? Or someone kidnapped her or something?”He rushed before him and his friends heard “please leave a message for 3-“

“Wilbur, she’s probably fine. She probably had a long day at work or something,” Niki spoke, hoping to add a small but of optimism to the situation.

“Yeah but she would’ve told me that. She would’ve called me to rant about her day, and tell me how much she wanted to see me, but she didn’t.” He leaned back in his chair, getting more and more stressed out over this.

“I-I think I’m gonna head to her flat.”

~~~

The drive was long as his anxiety slowly but surely began to increase with every green light. He pulled into her complex, parking and building up the courage to confront her.

“It’ll be fine. Things are fine,” he muttered to himself as he walked up the steps to the familiar doormat.

He knocked on the door, wiping his sweaty palms on his pants. After a minute, there was no response so he knocked again with more ergency.

“Just a minute,” he heard her soft voice yell out, flooding him with relief. The voice wasn’t as warm as it typically was, only increasing his nervousness.

Before he knew it, Y/N opened the door, eyes meeting his chest before trickling to his eyes. “Wilbur? What are you doing here?”

He froze, shocked at the situation that he forced upon himself without realizing it. “I-You weren’t answering any calls or texts. I was worried,” he mumbled, immediately taking note of her puffy eyes.

“Have you been crying?” He stepped closer to her with concern lacing his voice. He reached out to hold her waist, caress her cheek, anything, but she stepped away slighted. Y/N blinked, “y-yeah, it’s just allergies.”

“You don’t have allergies like that Y/N. May I please come in?” Wilbur knew her better than that, probably even better than she knew herself. She nodded shortly opening the door wider for him to enter, looking down at her sock clad feet.

He entered the tiny flat, taking not that the once welcoming space has become littered with turmoil. The tissues by the sofa didn’t go unnoticed and neither did the pile of dishes in the sink. “What’s been going on? These past few days you’ve been acting strange,” he asked sincerely.

Y/N looked around, finding something and pretending to be busy with it. “I’ve just been busy,” she mumbled looking over the pile of mail she refused to actually look through. “Oh gosh, I’m so sorry, would you like some tea?” She asked, realizing her manners.

“Y/N,” he spoke defeated, “come on talk to me, please.” He practically begged as he followed her steps into the kitchen to start the kettle, even though he didn’t give her an answer.

“Everything’s fine, Wilbur,” she replied absentmindedly as she searched for her various teas. “We got chai tea, black tea, Engli-“

“Y/N, I dont fucking want tea right now I want you to talk to me,” he shouted, approaching her in the kitchen and forcing her to face him by pulling her waist gently. She gasped at the loudness of his words, not used to him yelling at her.

“Wilbur,” Y/N whispered, her hands on his chest as he looked down into her eyes. Desperation was clear in his before being mimicked in his words, “this is the longest you’ve gone without calling me Wil. Come on Y/N, please.” His voice cracked towards the end, the shakiness not leaving.

She closed her eyes tightly before she pulled herself out of his arms, turning to grab two mugs out of the cupboard, “you’re getting chai tea.”

“Love, I just want us to be okay,” he spoke passionately, pleading for things to be right.

“We are okay Wilbu- Wil,” she corrected, more so forcing the nickname to combat his complaint. As she prepared each cup, putting Wilbur’s desired amount of sugar into his cup and respectively her own.

He shook his head, not believing her words as his own eyes began to turn red, “there’s something wrong and I can tell. Please just-please Y/N.” His voice was completely broken and she knew she had to express her concerns. She paused her motions, staring at the jar of sugar she just placed onto the counter.

“I-I didn’t want to bother you,” she muttered softly, examining the mugs before her.

The man sniffed, confusion growing within him. “W-What do you mean? You could never bother me Y/N,” his voice soft, approaching her once again.

She shook her head, moving to put sugar in each cup, forgetting that she already did so, “but that’s not true. We both know that.” The water remained on the stove while copious amount of sugar occupied each cup. Wilbur gently grabbed the hand holding the spoon that shoveled the sugar into the mugs, making her stop her own actions.

“Yes it is, love.” Wilbur whispered softly as she put the spoon into the jar, coming back to reality. Y/N let out a shaky breath, facing the counter while Wilbur occupied her side, facing her.

“So why’d you tell all of your friends that I’ve been clingy and needy and overbearing and everything under the sun?” She whispered as her voice wobbled, indicating that tears would soon come falling down.

Wilbur furrowed his brows, confused at the words she expressed. He scavenged his mind, not understanding what she was stating. “What are yo-“ he cut himself off, taking his hand from hers as he remembered that conversation.

Guilt washed over his soul as he realized the greater impact of his words. She thought she had to change....for those idiotic meaningless words expressed in a fit of stress and exhaustion. He shook his head lightly, refusing to look at her, refusing to look at the damage he’s caused.

“I didn’t mean it Y/N. I just-there was a lot on my plate and I just had to complain about something. A-And you were there to complain about.” He spoke honestly, knowing that it doesn’t excuse his behavior. The sound of the kettle went off, the whistle tones attacking his ears while Y/N ignored it to focus on the conversation at hand.

“I just didn’t want to be a burden,” she muttered with a wobbling bounce that made the tall idiotic man pull her into his arms.

“No,no,no don’t ever ever think that again. You are not a burden. You never were Y/N. This is on me, I shouldn’t have said what I had said,” he muttered into her hair, repeating apologies like a mantra while kissing her hairline.

She let go, allowing her pent up feelings from the past few day flow out through tears while in the comfort of his arms, “my biggest fear is bothering people. I-I didn’t want to upset you.”

“You didn’t,” he pulled away to hold her tear stained cheeks in his hands, regret prominent in his gaze, “you have been nothing but patient with me these past few months and that is something I don’t even have the words to express, love.”

“You, Y/N L/N, are not a burden, not now, not ever,” he whispered lovingly. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. I’m sorry I even said it. I didn’t mean it, but fuck I shouldn’t have. Look at what I’ve done to you,” his voice wavered as he pulled away to assess the damage. “Fuck,” he shook his head as a sob escaped his lips before he could pull her into his arms again.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, holding her tight while the whistle pierced his ears. She leaned back slightly, pressing her forehead against his while closing her eyes, “I know, I know. It’s okay. I know you. I know you wouldn’t mean it.”

“I love you,” he whispered, holding her head in one of his hands. “I love you too, Wil,” she whispered back, pulling his lips onto hers, sealing their words with this actions.

As much as he loved the feeling of her soft lips on his once again, he pulled away. “Okay, okay, as much as I don’t want this to stop, that damn kettle is driving me mad,” he expressed, making Y/N chuckle before kissing him on the cheek and going to turn off the stove.

He watched fondly as she was about to pour the water into the mugs, stoping to see the plethora of sugar in each. “Oh shit,” she paused, laughing at the mess she had made. Wilbur snapped out of his gaze, examining the scene that caused her words.

He shook his head lightly, grabbing the kettle from her hands before placing it back onto the stovetop. “You,” he turned to face her, poking her cheek, “go to bed, get all comfy and put on a film. I will finish the tea and bring it to you.” His eyes got soft towards the end of his statement as he went to assess the mug situation.

“Then,” he spoke gently, grabbing her waist once again, littering her face with kisses that trailed down her neck, “I’ll spend the whole day making it up to you.”

Y/N laughed, running her fingers through his soft hair, “can’t wait.” His lips stayed pressed onto her neck, before they made their way back to her own.