#and we both still live on the same estate my grandparents moved to to raise my dad and his mum. so that probably changes things)

[which-hospital]

one of my favourite things I ever saw happen was when the Holby Wiki seemed to suddenly be like “TEDDY AND ROSS ARE COUSINS” when Gethin died and they both got added to each other’s Familial Information sections on their pages

maybe it’s just funny to me because Gaynor was already on Ross’ as his aunt??

[breaniebree]

Sneak Peek ASC 223

Excerpt from the next upcoming chapter...

Harry stepped into Black Cottage after leaving Ted and Andy’s and let out a slow sigh.  He wasn’t sure what to do now.

Zee squeezed his hand as she closed the front door behind them.  “Why don’t you go upstairs and change into something more comfortable?  Remus and Tonks are going to come by in a bit and stay the night with us.”

He nodded and made his way upstairs, his eyes on the picture frames that decorated the wall leading up to the second level.  They hadn’t changed the photos in a few years, he noted.  Remus holding him as a baby; Sirius in front of his bike; Remus, Sirius, and Harry in the treehouse; baby Harry in between James and Lily; Harry riding the child-size motorbike in his leather jacket and sunglasses next to Sirius in the same; Sirius and Zee standing by Zee’s motorbike and laughing… the photos made him smile and made his heart hurt at the same time.

He continued his path upstairs and smiled when he saw the little end table in the hall that held a picture of Harry, Sirius, and Zee in Georgia by the waterfall.  The wall by his bedroom had a photo of Remus, Sirius, and Harry at Langjikull in the lava caves, and the wall on the other side of his bedroom door had a picture of Harry, Sirius, and Zee in front of the farmhouse in Georgia.  When he entered his room, his eyes found the many photos on his wall of him and his fathers, him and his friends, along with ones of him with Zee and Tonks.  There were also photos of his grandparents and the Marauders and he smiled at the sight of them.  He walked over to the memory chest that Sirius and Remus had given him and he carefully lifted the lid, eyes moving over the many vials there.  He had memories, he thought, he had memories of all of his parents in here and he would always have them.

Hedwig flew in through the open balcony doors and landed on his arm.  He stroked her wing affectionately and put her down on his desk before he rummaged through his dresser for something to wear.  He voted on a pair of blue jeans and a white tee shirt that said, ‘whatever’.  The shirt had belonged to Sirius when he was a teenager and Harry smiled at himself in the mirror.  

He tucked both of his wands into his jeans and made his way downstairs.  He found Zee sitting in the living room, still dressed in her attire from the funeral, holding her stomach.

“Are you all right?  I thought that you were over that flu?”  he asked her, moving to sit next to her on the sofa.  

Lady Godiva, who had been lying beneath her mistress’ feet, put her head in Zee’s lap.  Zee reached out to stroke the panther behind the ears.

“Harry, there’s something that I need to tell you,” Zee said slowly.  “I was going to wait to tell you in a few days, after everything… settled, but… I need to tell you now.”

Harry only raised an eyebrow.  “Er, okay.”

“I was sick, as you know, but... it’s not a flu,” Zee said carefully, her eyes meeting his.  “I mean, it was a flu, I think at first anyway, but now I’m experiencing morning sickness, which apparently can happen anytime of the day that it wants to.”

“Morning sickness?”  Harry asked, staring at her in puzzlement.  “What’s that?  Another kind of flu?”

Zee shook her head and let out a slow breath.  “As Sirius so eloquently put it in his will — I’m up the duff.”

Harry’s eyes widened.  “What?  Really?”

“And not just one, of course, but twins.  I’m pregnant with twins.”

Harry stared at her, his eyes wide.  “Did Uncle Sirius know?”

She nodded, biting her bottom lip.  “I suspected and the day he... the day he died, Remus confirmed it for me.  He could hear the babies heartbeats.  Siri was so happy and we just... we had to go to the Ministry.  You needed us and… he was really happy.”

“I’m sorry.”

Zee shook her head, pulling him into her arms.  “Harry… we didn’t plan this.  It was a surprise — a good surprise.  It’s not how I imagined doing things.  But I’m going to have these babies and I know that they’d love to meet their big brother when it’s time.”

Harry’s gaze dropped to her flat stomach.  “There’s really two babies in there?”

She chuckled and nodded.  “There really is.  I went to a healer last week.  The babies are the size of plums right now and by this time next week, they will be the size of lemons.  I’m due at the beginning of January.”

“Wow,” Harry whispered.

Zee took his hands in hers.  “I know that it’s a shock.  It surprised me as well, but this is a gift, Harry.  Siri, he... he left me a part of him.  He left us a part of him.  These babies are going to be so loved.”

“I... what do you need me to do?”

Zee kissed his cheek.  “Nothing, sweetie.  We’re just going to love them.”

“I can do that,” he said, surprising himself.  “Wow, babies.”

Zee grinned widely.  “I know.  I think that I’m still slightly in shock myself.  So, if I’m puking my guts out, don’t worry about it, is essentially what I’m saying.”

Harry chuckled.  “Er, all right.”

Zee kissed his cheek again.  “You and me, we’re going to be okay.  I can feel it.”

He nodded.  “It still feels a bit like a dream.”

“I think so, too.”

Harry sat up a little.  “Zee, Uncle Sirius’ estate... it should be for the twins.”

Zee shook her head.  “No, sweetie.  He left that to you.”

“Only because when he made his will, he didn’t know about their existence.”

She smiled.  “Don’t you worry about us.  I can support myself and these babies, Mr Potter.”

A small grin curved his lips.  “I know that, Miss Zacarias — but I want them to have it.  We can open a new vault for them.”

Zee smiled and reached up to brush his hair out of his eyes.  “We have lots of time, Harry.  I’m only twelve weeks along.  And Sirius left that money for you.”

Harry rolled his eyes.  “Marquess, remember?  I don’t need it.”

She chuckled.  “We’ll be fine.”

Harry stared at her, seeing the look of determination in her eyes and he knew that she was right.  “Yeah, we will be.”

Zee smiled at him.  “Now, let’s talk about what we’re going to do this summer.”

Harry frowned.  “Do?”

She nodded.  “With everything that’s been going on here... I think that getting out of Britain for a few weeks is a smart idea.  We could both use the break.”

“Georgia?”

She nodded.  “I was thinking about it, yeah.”

“Can Ginny come?”

Zee smiled.  “Absolutely.”

“I’m in.”

She chuckled before she cleared her throat, her eyes sobering.  “There’s a lot going on here, Harry.  The Ministry is recuperating and the Defence System is still trying to figure itself out.  I’m due for a few weeks vacation and I thought that it would be good for us to go.  I want to see Grandma and Grandpa, too.  I want to tell them about the babies and take some time away from all of this, from the pain of losing Sirius.  I think that we need to go, the both of us.  Remus and Tonks can come along as well if they’d like, but I want to go maybe next week.  Mama and Papa will probably meet us there like last time.”

“Sounds brilliant,” Harry told her.

“I also want to go while I can still travel.  Once I hit my third trimester, I won’t be able to take an international portkey, so this summer is our chance for that.”

Harry stared at her.  “Third trimester?”

Zee chuckled.  “We’ll learn the baby stuff together, yeah?”

Harry grinned at her.  “Yeah, okay.  You’ll tell me if I can help in any way?”

Zee leaned in and kissed his cheek.  “Absolutely.”

Harry’s gaze dropped back to her stomach again.  “Twins.  Wow.”

Zee chuckled and linked her arm with his.  “Wow, indeed.”

~ ASC ~

[camillesfm]

。· . ˙ ⌈ alva bratt + cis female + she / her + the  intangible concept ⌋  yo ,  have  you  meet  that  KOOK  ,  camille 'cj' petersen ,  yet ?  — no ?  well ,  to  give  you  a  little  heads  up  before  you  do  ,  they’re  a  TWENTY   year  old ,  PRE-LAW STUDENT  ,  and  have  been  living  in  coston  for  TWENTY . since  i’ve  known  them  ,  they’ve  reminded  me  of PALE PINK POINTE SHOES , CHAINS MADE OF WHITE CLOVERS , A PURPLE SKY JUST BEFORE SUNRISE , STEADY WAVES CRASHING AT LOW TIDE , AND SHATTERED & SCATTERED GLASS . usually  they’re  quite  LEVELHEADED  &  THOUGHTFUL  but  just  make  sure  you  keep  an  eye  out  for  them  around  town  because  i  heard  can  be  quite  RETICENT  &  ALOOF  as  well  so  here’s  hoping  they  aren’t  the  ones  to  undo  this  whole  peace  pact  they  have  going  on  this  summer .  but  just  between  you  &  me ,  i  kinda  hope it  all  falls  apart .  the  rivalry  keeps  this  whole  boring  town  interesting . –– this is cj . . . let’s just . . . dive into this mess ! 

𝐁 𝐀 𝐂 𝐊 𝐆 𝐑 𝐎 𝐔 𝐍 𝐃 .

scarlett petersen is a name known statewide, as she’s the best corporate lawyer on the east coast, clever as the devil and twice as pretty with long blonde hair often pinned into a sleek ponytail. david petersen got his degree at vanderbilt university, moving on to get his phd at unc chapel hill where he could never quite shake that carolina blue. he’s been sitting chancellor for the past six years in tandem with a long term sports-medicine, neuroscience research project that studies the long term affects of brain damage in athletes in contact sports. they both hail from old money families, and long lines of success are continued in two people who hold appearance and accomplishment far above humility or even . . . . humanity lol. they’re good people, really . . . just not really the parenting type.

which is unfortunate! as.  well into their marriage, they had twins, caleb, first, and camille, ten minutes later. bright eyed and blonde haired, the perfect petersen babies were angels in their infancy, and it was easy to parent them . . . especially when they were paying someone else to do it.

caleb and camille grew up under the watchful eye of a rosy-cheeked nanny. think julie andrews as nanny in eloise. they were happy, but lonely, though you’d never guess it by their wide smiles in cuddled family portrait christmas cards. for all anyone else knew, scarlett and david were perfect parents, raising two beautiful children who they loved more than anything . . . but behind that iron gated entryway to a house on the coast was another story.

they liked their kids, sure, but whether or not they loved them was another question entirely. camille, growing up to be the spitting image of scarlett, was liked in the way a rare porcelain artifact was. she was a beautiful thing to behold; seen, not spoken to. shown off, not interacted with in anyway. held with delicate hands and passed around as a humble brag: look at this precious thing i’ve brought into the world. i bet mine’s better than yours. 

but as time passed, the novelty of having children seemed to wear off, and they were moving to the next big thing, the next big step in their careers. they weren’t around when camille began going by cj because it was easier for little voices to say. they weren’t around when blonde ringlets relaxed and grew darker. they weren’t around when she started to develop a personality of her own, interests of her own, talents of her own. christmas cards would go out, but rarely were they all together on christmas morning. thanksgivings were often spent with grandparents, as their parents worked through the holiday. they spent more and more time away from coston, leaving cj and caleb in nanny’s capable hands.

but life goes on, and sometimes it was easy to forget that it was abnormal not to have your parents around. as a youngin, cj was interested in everything. she took a liking to soccer and lacrosse, painting and drawing, piano and guitar . . . but somewhere in between a blue mat and pale pink pointe shoes, she found her thing.

it was obvious, from an early age, that cj was one hell of a dancer. disciplined and precise when she needed to be. creative and passionate when it called for it. gymnastics trained her strength, ballet trained her patience, contemporary pushed her limits with creativity, partner work taught her teamwork. dance was very clearly her best thing and her favorite thing.

her parents only ever attended recitals when it didn’t conflict with anything else on their schedules and when it was classical ballet. dance was a frivolous thing for them, but for cj it was everything. being a naturally shy kid, naturally timid in the shadow of her last name, she became a completely different person on stage who dominated a spotlight . . . without even needed a literal spotlight. ultimately, this is what she spent her life doing. monday through thursday evenings, dance. competitions and performances on the weekends. if neither were happening, you’d catch her teaching classes at coston’s local studio.

it’s what truly made her happy, but that wasn’t something her parents understood. caleb and nanny did, sure, but her parents? not one bit. someone would ask what she wanted to be when she grew up, and if dance was mentioned, she’d be cut off mid-sentence. they didn’t want to hear about it because it wasn’t logical. you can’t make a career out of it. it didn’t help much that her brother was the ideal child in that realm, charming and on a path to success in the medical field. they still had questionable motives, but they favored nonetheless.

sometimes it was a blessing; sometimes it was a curse. when she could slip under the radar, she was grateful, but it seemed that her parents had a keen eye for her screwups. any chance they had, they’d use to scold her or nudge her away from the pointe shoes.

so cj spent a lot of time being pristine in the way that was expected of her, never letting anyone know too much about her, only keeping a few friends close enough to really know her. she stayed out of trouble, kept up exceptional grades, smiled and nodded when necessary, and began catering to the idea that she’d go to law school, a fate pre-determined by her mother no doubt. 

nowadays, she attends brown university, pre-law. she’s a picturesque ivy league gal with a dark academia aesthetic when at school, but there’s a restlessness lingering under the surface. even she’s doing what her parents require of her, she never seems to live up to their unrealistic expectations. we rly do be . . . . waiting for her to have a complete breakdown . . . . aklsdfjha

𝐏 𝐄 𝐑 𝐒 𝐎 𝐍 𝐀 𝐋 𝐈 𝐓 𝐘 .

miss camille . . . better known around town as cj . . . is, above all else, the picture of serenity. she’s levelheaded and calm, and patient as all get out which is probably why she’s so damned accustomed to just going with what her parents thought of her. she’s really great to have in a crisis because very few things cause that steady nature of hers to crumble, and because she’s honestly. . . quietly very maternal. putting the needs of others before her own comes naturally.

she’s quiet and shy, yes, but just because she doesn’t speak doesn’t mean she doesn’t listen. she listens and sees and is . . . quite observant. there’s a way about her that notices the little things, which makes her quite thoughtful when it comes to the people she loves. if you’re lucky enough to be close to her, you can bet she quietly takes notes of little habits and favorites and carefully uses them to idk love ya better ya feel??

reticent comes from the fact that she doesn’t often let people get close to her. the way her parents treated her and caleb growing up has taken. .. . a toll for sure because honestly she’s terrified of disappointing people by shattering the mirror of perfection and revealing too much about herself that’s unexpected

aloof comes from the way she’s calm and quiet . . . and how that sometimes translates as apathy . . . on top of that she’s very daydreamy like she is That Bitch who is staring out of the window producing a whole move in her head which sometimes causes her to not hear when people are talking to her . . . cue the ‘hm? what?’ tuning back in

when i say cj is a different person when she’s dancing . . . . i mean it. like i REALLY mean it. she’s confident and expressive. her choreography tests the limits of tradition. she pushes boundaries when it comes to the physicality of performances. like u rly look at her being quiet and to herself in the corner at a country club event and then see her performing like she invented contemporary and ur like . .. . are u SURE that’s the same girl

people who know her most know her as warm. when she opens up, getting past the shy, she can be a little goofy, definitely has avery creative way about her, wants to know that you’re okay and if you’re not, how can she help ya know!! 

has a black cat named lucky because ya know . . . black cats are bad luck . . . ha ha ha ha . . . get it

the ‘j’ in cj is for her middle name . . . but no one really knows what her middle name is . . . except family and close, close friends 

absolutely hates the energy of the pogue/kook rivalry and thinks violence is most cERTAINLY not the way to go

often times found by the shoreline at night, just a little ways off from the petersen estate because she likes the way the waves sound as they roll in. it helps her think

is trying to make the best of law school by studying to become a defense attorney and she likes it! sort of! really, she just wants to dance for as long as she can and ultimately open up her own studio

definitely believes in wishing stars

bad case of insomnia

has a finsta dedicated to lucky

has a dance insta too . . . . but that’s lowkey bc her parents can’t know about it

please for the love of god watch this because charity and cj have the same energy

this also has cj energy

so does this . . . classical is fun when it’s telling a story and she loves a good pas de deaux but otherwise meh

my girl is physically . .. QUITE strong

says sorry WAY too often

incessant need to prove herself, prove her worth, since her parents never seem to find it

loves caleb sfm but will thump him in the forehead for mentioning he’s older

overachiever . . . . yikes

ABSOLUTELY burns the candle at both ends

idk if y’all watched high school musical the musical the series but gina . . . . . ..  minus the ‘mean girl’ plot they tried . . .. is v cj and bitch i hate to say it but neville longbottom??? also a cj mood LMAO

OK THAT’S IT THAT’S ALL THERE WE GO IT’S DONE I’M DONE GBYYYYYE BABIIIIE

[verai-marcel]

Request where low honor Arthur finds out that a bounty he has to collect has nipple piercings and decides to have fun with them, love your work btw!!

A Curious Experiment (RDR2 Fanfic, 18+, Low Honor Arthur x Fem!Reader)

Summary: A bounty hunter finally catches up to you, after you had been running from your uptight family for so long. He is intrigued, however, by a specific body piercing you got for shits and giggles, and decides to let you go… if you indulge his curiosity, that is.

Author’s Notes: As always, had to do a bit of research. Nipple piercings weren’t really prevalent in Western cultures in the 1890s, but supposedly they did it in France. Since this is just a fanfic, we’ll just go with that. Also there is both a male reader and female reader version of this.

Tags: smut, nipple piercings, nipple play, low honor Arthur Morgan, female reader (oral sex, vaginal sex)

AO3 Link is here.

——————–

The door to your shack on the edge of town, practically in the forest, slowly creaked open. You were hiding underneath some floorboards, waiting for the bounty hunter to leave. You knew your family would send someone after you at some point, probably some desperate hunter looking for easy pickings. You didn’t think your family would put up that much money for you, so you didn’t expect anyone to actually have the skills to find you.

As you looked up through the cracks of the floorboards, you caught his voice.

“C’mon out. I ain’t gonna hurt ya. Just wanna take you back somewhere safe.”

You held back a scoff. Safe? Your parents yelled at you for not being good enough, your grandparents had trained you to take over the estate, riding crops hitting your back when you didn’t stand straight enough, speak well enough, walk balanced enough. You hated your life there; when you took your horse and fled one night, you vowed you’d never go back.

You eventually had to sell your poor horse to earn money to live, and you managed to eke out a meager living as a farmhand on a ranch far, far, from home. You made friends with a group of French immigrants, who had convinced you to pierce your nipples during a night of drunken revelry.

Listening to the boots make their way out of your shack, you waited another hour before coming out. Climbing up and putting the floorboards back in place, you checked your cabin to see if he had taken anything before making your way outside to look around.

“Knew you were still here,” the voice came from behind you as you stepped away from your home. You turned around, seeing him leaning against the side wall.

“Shit,” you mumbled.

The man looked you up and down. His opal colored eyes were sharp, observing the way you started to move backwards towards the path.

“I wouldn’t run if I were you,” he drawled as he sauntered towards you. He was a big man, and unfortunately, just your type, with his broad shoulders, rugged face with a shadow of a beard, and those hands… You almost wanted to run just to make him grab you. Your nipples tightened. Of all the times to be turned on, now was not one of them. This was serious!

He was so close now, and you still hadn’t attempted an escape. Move, dammit!

He was standing toe to toe with you now, towering over you. He tipped your chin up so he could look at you, through you. You started shivering slightly.

His eyes lowered to look at all of you, and his eyes widened when his gaze rested upon your chest. Your chemise was thin and nearly translucent from your sweat because of the afternoon heat. You hadn’t cared before, but now, the man could see your nipples… and their piercings.

“What have we here?” His hands went to your shoulders and slowly slid the chemise down. Exposing your breasts just enough to reveal your pierced nipples, you took a deep breath, accidentally puffing them out for his view. He reached out with one hand, skimmed your left nipple with his fingers.

You let out on involuntary moan. He raised an eyebrow at you.

He touched the other nipple, brushing lightly with one finger, and you let out a puff of breath, heat rushing to your core. Dammit.

Smirking at you, he took a step back.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said, confident you’d take it. “Give me your body tonight, and I’ll let you go.”

“Why?” you asked, your voice coming out far too husky for your liking.

“Because your, uh, decorations, interest me,” he said, gesturing at your breasts.

Reaching down to pull your chemise back up, you walked past him towards your house. After a few steps, you turned, noticing that he hadn’t followed you.

“What’s your name, hunter?”

“Arthur.”

“That all?”

“That’s all you need to know,” he replied. “It’s all you’ll be cryin’ out soon enough.”

Your pussy clenched in anticipation. You led him back inside.

***

The second the door shut, you felt his arms around you, his body warm against your bare skin. His tongue flicked out and tasted your pulse before he covered it with his lips, sucking on you, aiming to leave a mark. You moaned when his hands went to play with your nipples, gently teasing them with his fingers as he felt around your piercings. You just had simple rings, and with every caress, you let out a soft sound of pleasure.

“This’ll be fun,” he muttered into your neck as he walked you towards your bed. Turning you around, he shoved you onto the bed, and got to work taking your pants off. You lifted your hips so he could remove everything, baring all of you to this stranger’s gaze.

Arthur took off his shirt and gun belt before joining you on the bed. He filled his hands with your breasts, kneading them before lowering his mouth to your nipples, playfully licking them, then blowing on them, making you shiver. He sucked on them lightly, drawing out more delectable sounds from your throat.

“Yer sounds are too temptin’,” he mumbled as he reached down to caress you, starting with your knee, then your inner thigh, and then finally your folds, his fingers feeling far too good, much better than your own. “I’ve half a mind to keep ya to myself.”

You whimpered as he worked a finger, then two, inside of your aching slit, wrenching soft cries from you as he caressed you so intimately and so well that you felt like he had known you forever. His lips moved up to your collarbone, his tongue leaving a wet trail up your neck until he reached your earlobe. He captured your sensitive skin between his teeth, gently playing with the delicate skin before he laid a sloppy kiss on your cheek, and then ravaged your lips, forcing his tongue into your mouth.

Your muffled moans seemed to turn him on more as his strokes grew more insistent, his other hand beginning to tweak your nipples even harder as he rolled your clit with his calloused thumb. You nearly screamed when he bit your lower lip at the same time pinching one of your nipples, making you reach your peak. When he stroked you faster, staring down at you, you lost yourself in his intense eyes and let go, your head going back as a glorious ecstasy encompassed you, and you lost yourself to that high feeling.

“Arthur, Arthur!” you cried out, knowing nothing else but his hands on your body, his lips on your skin.

“Ya got me so hard, darlin’,” he growled as you came down and lay in the afterglow. He stood up and unbuttoned his fly. Pulling his thick cock out, he rubbed the head of it around your opening, wet with your juices. Looking you in the eyes, he pushed his way inside you, even as you pushed back, your clit and your pussy far too sensitive at the moment to be taking someone of his size. But still, he kept going, invading your body as you writhed below him, mewling as a twisted pleasure and pain spiral engulfed your senses.

“All the way in, darlin’,” he finally said, and began to move, short thrusts at first, but his lust overcame his caution and he fucked you wildly, losing himself in your wet heat, moaning and cursing. He grabbed your wrists and held you down as he pumped his shaft in and out of you in a frenzied rhythm, chasing that high that he so craved.

When you thought you’d pass out from his aggressive thrusting, he suddenly got up off you. He pulled you off the bed by your ankles and forced you to kneel in front of him. Pinching your nose to force your mouth open, he pulled your mouth over his shaft and moaned when you started to move your head along his length. You licked him all over, trying to please him, using one hand to stroke the base of his shaft, the other fondling his balls.

It didn’t take long for him to find his pleasure; the one hand in your hair tightened, and then thrust into your mouth with abandon. He grabbed your hand, entwining his fingers tightly with yours as he moaned and came down your throat.

“Oh, my, lord,” he huffed as you sucked every last drop from his now softening cock. “Yer somethin’ special.” His grip in your hair loosened, and he caressed your cheek. “Thank ya, darlin’. I needed that.”

You looked up at him hopefully. “So… will you let me be?”

“Shoah,” he drawled. “But only if I get to play with ya again if I come by here.”

You smiled. “Any time, Arthur.”

——————–

End Notes: Here ya go anon, some hot lovin’ from a bounty huntin’ Arthur. Hope that fulfilled your request?

[samwise-writes]

19. “I made a mistake.”

So this ended up much longer than I had anticipated. And I am unsure if I actually like it. But I figured I needed to explain at some point why Reah was acting like such a weirdo. Anyway, this take place directly after Names

annnnd I am really feeling this Reah and Rylen pairing, soooo I probably will be posting more of them very soon. 

History

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

Reah had come stomping into her younger sister’s chambers both out-raged and out-of-sorts. It was uncommon for Reah to lose her temper these days, and it took a great deal to shake the woman, so Eloise was instantly concerned by the sudden appearance and obvious foul mood her sister was in.

           “Good morning, Reah…” Eloise said cautiously. Her sister seemed lost in thought. Once Reah registered her sister’s words, she looked up and around herself as though she was seeing her surroundings for the first time. She hadn’t meant to come to Eloise’s room, she knew she was likely busy with Inquisition business, but it seemed her feet led her there anyway. She met her sister’s concerned face with an apologetic and slightly sheepish smile.

           “Oh, Eloise. Good morning. I apologize. I was… lost in thought and automatically came here...” She trailed off and took a few steps toward Eloise’s balcony.

“Do you mind if I stay here for a while?”

Eloise raised an eyebrow at her sister’s odd behaviour.

“Are you hiding from someone?” she asked, getting up from behind her desk, and moving over to stand beside her sister.

Reah winced at Eloise’s question. She looked guilty, as though she had been caught doing something wrong.

“Who are you hiding from?” Eloise asked gently, genuinely concerned.

Reah shook her head silently closing her eyes for a minute, taking a deep breath.

“It wouldn’t happen to be our very striking Knight-Captain Rylen, would it?”

Reah jumped. She hadn’t realized there was someone else in the room – she never would have asked to stay if she had realized, nor would she have even opened her mouth. She spun around to glare at the Tevinter mage.

Dorian was lounging on her sister’s chaise, smirking under his ridiculous mustache, the book he had been reading, tossed to the side. He met Reah’s gaze unflinchingly.

“Why would you be hiding from Rylen?” Eloise asked. Her curiosity was peaked now. She had observed her sister, and Cullen’s second-in-command circling each other for months now but she hadn’t realized anything had come of it.

Reah was still staring down Dorian, but his smirk only grew into a grin. Reah made a rude gesture at the mage before turning back to meet her sister’s eyes.

“I made a mistake,” Reah breathed out quietly, “I did something I promised myself I wasn’t going to do… but now that it has happened, I am not sure I can keep it from happening again.”

Eloise blinked at her sister a few times. Eloise was trying to process what exactly her sister meant, but only fully understood once Dorian piped in again with a coy: “Why would you? He is a positively delectable treat.”

“Oh!” Eloise cried out.

“Oh. Yes.” Reah said, her irritation at Dorian’s remark obvious in her voice.

Eloise hesitated. She knew her sister, and she understood now why Reah was not acting like herself.

“This doesn’t have to be a bad thing.” Elosie said softly, placing a hand on her sister’s shoulder, trying to catch Reah’s eye.

Reah shook her head vehemently.

“I said I wouldn’t let this happen. Not again. I can’t.”

Eloise sighed. “Rylen isn’t James, Reah.”

Reah visibly reacted to the mention of her past lover’s name. She shrunk away from Eloise’s touch, wrapping her arms around herself. She cursed the mage in her head, fully aware of how vulnerable she was.

Dorian was fully aware of the fact too, and he suddenly felt sorry for making his earlier comments. Clearly there was more going on than he understood.

“Who is James?” He asked quietly.

Reah’s head snapped up to look at him. This time, her eyes were not full of vitriol, but rather, tears.

“He was my fiancé” Reah breathed out, surprised at how willingly the words came to her lips in answer to the mage’s question.

“What happened to him?”

Reah walked slowly over to the chaise and collapsed down beside Dorian. She mulled over the words in her head for a few moments, before deciding to just tell it in the simplest way she could.

“As you already know,” Reah began, and Eloise moved over to sit on the edge of her bed, facing Dorian and her sister, “Eloise and I are half-sisters. We don’t talk much about our family for a reason.” She met her sister’s eye, and Eloise gave her an encouraging nod to continue. “We share the same father, Argonne Trevelyan. He had an illicit relationship when he was quite young, with an ‘unsuitable woman’” Reah paused to make a face and take a breath before continuing.

“His parents basically banished my mother, she had worked in the Trevelyan household as a stable hand for five years. That was before anyone, including my mother, realized that she was with child. Well, once she did realized, she wrote letters to our father to let him know. Of course, her letters were intercepted by our grandparents and my father didn’t learn about my existence until I was about seven years old. By that time he had married a suitable woman, who was pregnant with Eloise. He had grown hard, and cold; quite a lot had happened within the family to make him that way.” Reah sighed, looking incredibly tired.

“Anyway, once he found out he had another child, he felt it was his right to raise me as a Trevelyan, despite my status as a bastard. So, he found out where my mother and I were living, and he took me. There was nothing my mother could do to stop him. He was a Lord, and he had a great deal of power in the area that we had been living. She never really gave up on him. I think she had hoped one day he would get out of his parents’ control and come back to her.”

Reah shook her head, staring at her boots.

“Instead, he came back for me, and left her there with nothing.” She looked up to look Dorian in the eye. “I’m told after he left with me, she lost the will to live. She became ill and died within the year. I could never forgive Argonne for that.”

Reah expelled a long breath, trying to gather her thoughts to get back on track.

“For the remainder of my life, I lived at the Trevelyan estate. However, I was never quite accepted there. I found some friends in the staff, but Eloise’s mother never did like having me around. I can understand that, I was a threat to Eloise’s claim to the Trevelyan fortune and estate.”

“Not that I wanted it” snorted Eloise.

Reah ignored her sister.

“She was a good woman in spite of her concerns about titles and who deserved to be Argonne’s rightful heir. She tried to include me in most events, and she protected me as well as she could from our father’s wrath. And she loved Eloise dearly, who had become the most important person in my life, so for that I could respect her, and in a way, love her. She is the reason that I met James. He was a younger son of a decently wealthy merchant family, that was sometimes invited to the soirees that she put on. He was the only reason that I would agree to attend the parties. I wasn’t accepted, and frankly, I didn’t want to be. These were not my people. But, the first time I met James, I must’ve been sixteen, he walked right over to me, and insisted that I dance with him. I refused multiple times, and tried to slip away from the party, so that he would stop pestering me.”

Reah smiled at the memory.

“Unfortunately for me, I hadn’t quite gained all the sneaking skills of a decent rouge, and he followed me out to the stables. He found me there, grooming one of the horses. I was annoyed that he found me so quickly, but he stayed with me the rest of the night; he stayed quiet, just observing me. After the next two parties, it became an unspoken agreement that we would meet in the stables when he would come, I taught him how to care for horses, and sometimes we would go out for a ride. Eventually, I grew to like him, and somehow… that became love. He allowed me to just be me, and that was not something that I had experienced before, in a household where I was constantly observed by everyone, other than Eloise, with suspicion.  He asked me to marry him a few years later. I was only eighteen at the time, and a part of me knew that it was too soon. But I was suffocating. Our father had become… crueller… So, I agreed to the proposal, not realizing that there was a Blight just around the corner. James’ family had travelled to Ferelden on business about two weeks before King Cailan’s army was decimated by the horde. He was killed about a week after that. He tried to help what he thought was a small group of refugees, but they turned out to be bandits. They killed him.”

Reah gave herself a few seconds before continuing.

“So. I left home shortly after that, unable to stand our father’s treatment any longer. By that time I was nineteen, and I vowed that I would never allow someone to get close to me in that way again. It just hurt too much. I learned that the only person I could rely on was myself. And that was good enough for me. I didn’t need anyone other than myself, and Eloise.”

Silence fell over the three of them for a long few minutes.

Dorian finally broke the silence.

“So, what you are concerned about is…?” He held up a hand to Reah when she opened her mouth to speak. “Rylen is not James. He can defend himself. I also saw the way he was looking at you last night. And every night before that since we arrived at Skyhold. And for some time in Haven as well.”

Reah blinked in surprise at how forcefully Dorian was speaking to her.

“Just because you have been hurt in the past, doesn’t mean that you can just close yourself off from other people.”

Eloise and Dorain shared a momentarily meaningful look. Eloise recognized the words she had spoken to Dorian after they had met with his father. 

Reah shook her head.

“I have to protect myself.”

Eloise stared at her sister.

“Why?”

Reah met Eloise’s gaze but remained silent.

“Why must you insist on being an idiot? You have to let people in! It is the only way to survive, especially in a situation like this!” Eloise swung her arms out gesturing around the room.

“This is the way that I survive!” Reah sprung up and began pacing erratically around the room, her voice bouncing off the stone walls with urgency. “Why can’t you understand that? I am weak, and the only way I can protect myself is to prevent myself from becoming weaker by relying on, and needing others!” Reah stopped her pacing with a wild look in her eyes. Eloise had shrunk back looking visibly hurt by her sister’s words.

Dorian understood why Eloise looked hurt, but he also knew that Reah hadn’t meant Eloise to be a weakness.

“You are not your mother.”

Eloise and Reah both stared at Dorian. He met Reah’s gaze calmly.

“You are not your mother, and you will not crumble if someone else leaves you.”

Reah visibly deflated, coming back over to Eloise and Dorian. This time she perched beside her sister. Throwing an arm around Eloise’s shoulders she pulled the younger woman a bit closer.

“I’m sorry. You know I don’t mean that you are a weakness.”

Eloise sighed. “I know.”

Dorian was not ready to let the matter go.

“You need to talk to him.”

Reah’s eyes bugged out and she sat up a bit straighter.

“No. No way. It was a mistake.”

“You two are possibly the most hard-headed women I have ever met in my entire life!” Dorian exclaimed dramatically.

“Why do you care so much?”

“Because,” Dorian smiled, “as I said, I’ve seen the way that man looks at you. He could never leave you because he is so utterly devoted to you that he would follow you across Thedas if he could.”

Reah swiped a pillow from Eloise’s bed and tossed it at Dorian. He carelessly threw up a hand and the pillow burst into flames; Eloise stared at the smouldering pieces of fabric that remained on the floor for a moment.

“Hey, that was my pillow you brute!”

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Dorian said, while still staring down Reah.

“Talk. To. Him.” Dorian drew out the words, and Reah narrowed her eyes at him.

“Who are we talking to, now?”

They all jumped, no one had heard someone else enter the room.

There, standing at the top of Eloise’s steps was no other than the Knight-Captain himself.

Eloise and Dorian both stared at Rylen, Dorian’s face rearranging itself into possibly the smuggest face Reah had ever seen. Rylen found himself unable to keep his eyes from Reah, but she was set on continuing to glare at the mage.

After what felt like hours to Reah, Rylen spoke again, holding up a small stack of vellum in one hand.

“The commander needed these brought to you, Inquisitor, but was held up by some other matters. I told him I would ensure you got them.”

Eloise blinked a few times, trying to catch up with what Rylen was saying.

“Ah, yes.” She stood, smoothing out her clothes, “Right. The reports I asked for. Thank you, Knight-Captain.” She moved over to take the stack, just as Reah jumped up. Everyone paused to look at her.

“I…” Reah looked at a loss for words, “I need to go. I have another engagement I forgot about.”

“And what, pray tell, could that be?” Dorian asked slyly, needling Reah.

She glared at the mage as she made to leave, “I have to go beat up your boyfriend.”

Dorian’s laugh followed her down the stairs and out the door of her sister’s chamber.

[southside-vixen]

Fire and Ice (Sweet Pea) 10

Chapter 10: Growing Pains

AO3

Adrianna Rivera has just made a difficult move from Arizona to the southside of Riverdale. With the history of her life in Phoenix behind her will she be able to find a new family in the Southside Serpents? Or will a certain tall, dark, and rage inducing Serpent cause issues?

Taglist: @yxseminx @madaboutlili

Over a week had passed since the night at the Wyrm. Adria left the next day with Ness on a plane to Phoenix to get her father’s estate in order. Even with the sun shining down on them the day felt grim. The rest of her family followed soon after, at least the ones who weren’t on a watch list. The most she saw of either of her uncles were their lawyers, impatiently waiting for the reading of the will.

The service was beautiful. They held it in her childhood home, the same one that now felt foreign to her. She traced her fingers along the table where they had breakfast the morning they took him away. She cried in his closet filled with his suit jackets, all which still smelled faintly of his cologne. It felt like for a short time that time had stopped around her. But sure enough, most of the family departed back to Mexico. Leaving only the key players who were summoned for the will.

“First order of business is the division of assets” Her father’s lawyer sat behind his desk with a giant folder set out in front of him. In the same room stood both of her uncle’s lawyers as well as herself and Ness. “As you all already know most assets were seized due to the investigation of Alejando Rivera. The Phoenix estate as well as the remaining assets in Mr. Rivera’s account are to go to his sole heir, Adrianna.”

Adria gave a small nod before casting her eyes back down to her lap. She wasn’t entirely surprised that he left everything to her. Out of everyone she would need it the most. That and the pieces that would go to her uncles until she came of age, like the business, had already been seized.

“The next order of business is custody of Adrianna as she is still 16 years of age.”

Adria shot up in her seat. Shit. She never even considered that being with Ness wasn’t the permanent solution now that her dad passed. Adria glanced around the room to see both lawyers stone faced. Ness, however, looked determined. It looks like she was the only one who was taken by surprise.

Her father’s lawyer flipped to a new page and readjusted his glasses. The suspense was going to give her a heart attack. He pulled a piece of paper out of the folder and skimmed it again before reading it aloud to the group.

“Custody of Adrianna Rivera shall go to Miguel Rivera. Should something happen to Miguel then custody shall be passed to Javier Rivera.”

Adria sat in shock. They were going to uproot her again even though she only just became comfortable in Riverdale. Of course her father didn’t put Ness on the list, he always hated her. Adria looked over at Ness who could only give her a small, comforting smile in return before directing her attention back to the man reading the will.

“I would like to contest the will.” Ness stood up from her chair and pulled a folder of her own out of her bag, tossing it on the table “As you can see I have written documentation from Adrianna’s case worker and her psychologist that it would be best for her to stay in Riverdale.”

“That alone isn’t enough. She’ll be better off with her family in Mexico.” Miguel’s lawyer interjected “A state assigned case worker and a low income psychologist can’t compete with what her uncle can provide for her.”

“Then I’d like to direct you to the final document in that folder. The DNA test proving that I’m her birth mother. Surely the state wouldn’t want to take a girl away from her mother.” Ness turned to Miguel’s lawyer, giving him a look that could turn even the bravest man to stone. Adria sat in shock. Surely she must have heard that wrong.

“What?” Adria whispered. Ness put a strong hand on her shoulder and gave her a nod. Everyone was telling her about how much of a copy of Ness she was. She just assumed that somehow her mother’s genetics rigged her to look more like her aunt.

Her father’s lawyer picked up the document and spent minutes reading it before passing it on to each of her uncle’s lawyers to review as well. None had anything to say, standing in complete silence.

“I’m fully prepared to go to court over this.” Ness asserted to the group “Until then Adria will be going home with me. Where she belongs. Come on, Adria. We’re leaving.” She ushered her out of the room with her hand behind her back.

Adria still couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even think. All she could do was stare forward at the hallway in front of her.

Adria sat with her aunt, scratch that, birth mother at a table in a small Mexican restaurant. She ordered a giant plate of mole and maybe took 4 bites, most of the meal she spent moving around pieces of meat with her fork.

“I’m sorry, Adria.” Ness finally said “I never wanted to tell you that way. It was the only thing I could think of to keep them from taking you.”

Adria swirled her chip around in the salsa before taking a bite and chewing as slowly as she possibly could. The more she had food in her mouth the less she would have to talk. It had only been a couple of hours after Ness’ big reveal and Adria wasn’t any closer to coming to terms with the situation.

“Why?” She asked “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me? My dad never even told me I was adopted.” She didn’t bother to look up at Ness when she asked. She knew if she saw her right now she’d just run, and there was no one left to run to in Phoenix.

“I was 16, Adrianna.” Ness let out a heavy sigh. “I got pregnant with you at 15 and there was no way I could take care of a kid as a kid. Your grandparents weren’t going to let me regardless. Katie was having issues conceiving your grandma saw an opportunity. If I gave you to my successful, married, older sister who couldn’t conceive herself then all would be right in the world.”

Ness sniffled a little “I’m not surprised your dad didn’t tell you. He never wanted anyone to know that you weren’t his. Even when your mom insisted that she tell you when you got older. They both loved you dearly. No one did this to hurt you”

Adria looked up at her aunt, noticing the tears well up in her eyes. But no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t feel sympathetic. She was the one they lied to. Sure they might have been hurting but she was the one who lived her entire life in the dark. Her entire heritage now a lie.

Her father raised her to love her Latino heritage. She grew up bilingual. Would spend school breaks with her papá, her tios, her primos. If she wasn’t her father’s daughter did that mean she would lose her entire extended family too?

“If you’re my birth mother then who is my birth father?” She thought of the men Ness was around. The only one she could think of was FP. Oh God. She wasn’t Jughead’s half-sister was she?

“Someone from another life. He died years ago in a motorcycle accident.” Ness picked at her food, but it was clear neither of them were actually hungry.

“So…it’s not FP?” Adria asked

“What?” Ness asked, nearly spitting out her bite “Of course not! I was 15! He was already married to Gladys.”

There was a long silence before Ness spoke again.

“Adria. I’m so sorry about all of this. I know I said I’d go to court for you but if you want to be with your dad’s family I won’t fight it. But just know I want you to know that you have a home with me in Riverdale.”

                                                     ---------

In the end Adria went back to Riverdale, although the court proceedings for custody were just beginning. However, things weren’t looking good for the Rivera side of the fight. Between them living in a different country and some of them being on government watch lists, Vanessa Allen’s few misdemeanors made her look like an upstanding citizen.

She went to school that Monday hoping that with a set routine everything would start to feel normal again. But she was stuck in Bizzarodale. Everything was the same, yet somehow wildly different at the same time. She made polite small talk with the Serpents at lunch, thankful that none of them asked her about her week in Phoenix. It was the shortest school day in history as she was dreading to go back home.

“Hey”

Adria turned around to find Sweet Pea leaning against an adjacent locker.

“I was hoping you had some time to talk.” He fiddled with the hem of his sleeve.

Adria thought about it for a second. She didn’t really want to have a conversation with him about the state she was in before she left, but she probably owed him. That and nearly everything sounded better than going home to Ness’ trailer.

“Yeah, of course.”

Adria rode on the back of Sweet Pea’s bike to Pickens Park, her nerves on edge the whole ride. She’d always opted to ride with Fangs, feeling far more comfortable with him than the other Serpent. Their friendship had been a complicated one, always leaving her unsure of where she stood.

They made their way over to a swing set in silence. Pickens Park was never really busy, with the exception of Pickens day of course. Most days there was the occasional person throwing a ball for their dog and a couple making out under a pavilion.

“So what did you want to talk about?” Adria asked, moving herself her swing with her toes.

“I just…wanted to make sure you were okay. Last week was…well…a lot. With the two of us at the Wyrm and all….”

“Listen, Sweet Pea, I’m sorry about that night.” Adria cast her eyes toward the ground “I was stupid, drunk, and on jingle jangle and I threw myself at you. You don’t have to let me down easy.”

“Who said I was letting you down easy? I thought about it a lot the week you were gone. Hell, we all thought you weren’t coming back. When Toni texted me and said that you were back with Ness…Well I don’t think I can really explain how happy I was.”

Adria lifted her eyes up to meet his, looking for any sort of sign that he was bullshitting her. But there wasn’t any.

“What I’m trying to say, Ads, is that I care for you a hell of a lot more than I thought I did. I want to be there for you as…more than your friend.”

Adria was taken aback. This is definitely not how she thought this conversation would go. She was waiting for the part about how he was flattered that she tried to jump him but that he didn’t think of her in that way. How he was only there to be a friendly shoulder to cry on. She wasn’t entirely sure of how to react to this new development.

“I, um…definitely wasn’t expecting that” Adria laughed nervously “Sweet Pea, I like you and hearing that you feel the same should make me so fucking happy. But…I’m just not emotionally available right now.”

It broke her heart to say it out loud. Isn’t this what she wanted just a few weeks ago when she tried to convince herself that she didn’t have feelings for him?

“You’re right.” He let out a sigh “I shouldn’t have even said anything. Of course you’re not emotionally available. Your dad just died.” She could see how much he was beating himself up inside.

“Things in Phoenix were terrible.” She confessed “Worse than you could even imagine. We had my father’s funeral which was hard enough but then they had the will reading. My uncles tried to take me to Mexico but Ness fought.”

She took a long pause before she spoke again, Sweet pea still listening intently.

“I haven’t even told Toni this. The way Ness was able to keep me was because she’s my birth mother. No one even bothered to tell me I was adopted.” She felt the tears threatening to fall from her eyes again.

Sweet Pea sat there in stunned silence, mentally checking to see if his mouth was wide open. He wasn’t sure what to say. How do you console someone who was just told their family was a lie? He felt like an idiot for implying that he wanted more from her when she was clearly in no place to provide it.

“I do want to be with you, but I’m not going to tell you to wait for me.” She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear “I still want to be your friend right now. I’m hoping things don’t have to be weird.”

“Of course not. Friends it is.” He gave her a sincere smile “But if you ever find you want more, let me know.”

“Of course” she smiled back at him “But you better be there when I do my Serpent dance. I expect a better response than what you gave Betty.” She gave him a small push

“Finally joining, huh? Welcome our big, incestuous family, Rivera.”

Sure enough, Sweet Pea was the loudest one in the room when she did her dance a couple weeks later. It was good to know that there were no hard feelings between them and that if anything their time spent at Pickens Park brought them closer. She even found herself texting him more than she even texted Fangs. Though neither of the two told a soul about what happened that night at the White Wyrm.

After her dance and a few drinks Adria made her way home with Toni, laughing as they linked arms and walked back to their trailer. When they arrived Toni set up her tattoo gun with some black ink and needles, carefully sterilizing everything in the area.

Even with the alcohol in her system she was extremely nervous. She’d never gotten a tattoo before but she was sure it would hurt like hell. She spent the whole week thinking about where she would want it, eventually deciding on a snake wrapped around her ankle.

“You’re gonna be fine.” Toni reassured her as she wiped her skin with soap “It just feels like a bunch of little stings. It’ll be over before you know it.”

“You better not be lying.” Adria laughed

The two were interrupted by Ness storming in, slamming the door behind her.

“You did your Serpent dance without even telling me?” She said “Christ, Adrianna. I’m trying to get full custody of you. You joining a gang under my care really doesn’t give the right impression of my parenting abilities.”

Adria groaned, sharing a look of disdain with Toni before she threw her hands up. She assumed Ness would have no issues with her joining the Serpents considering she was one. But then again ever since they got back from Arizona she had really tightened down on her life.

“Well considering they agreed to give you custody even though you’re in said gang I think we’ll be fine.” Adria snapped

“Do you know how much this lawyer is costing me? Why do you want to jeopardize or chances of winning this case?”

“Well, Vanessa.” She seethed “You may be my birth mother, but you are not my mom. You can let Toni do this here where everything’s already cleaned or I can go to Sweet Pea’s trailer and get tetanus. Maybe he’ll even get me pregnant while we’re at it. After all 16 is such a good age to have a kid and then abandon them.”

She watched Ness’ face drop and immediately wanted to take back what she just said. Ness slammed a couple papers on the table before moving back to the door and ripping it open.

“You are such an ungrateful little bitch.”

The door slammed behind her.

“Ouch.” Toni said quietly.

“Just do the tattoo already” Adria sunk down into her seat and ran a hand through her hair.

She really fucked up this time.

[etherealreveri]

➶ Mrs. Kim ➶ Chapter One

Hey guys! This is my return to writing in a long long time, it is not the best writer and I am planning on making this a large story so please enjoy the journey through Mrs. Kim. Also apologies for bad grammar. Let me know if you have any comments. Thank you and enjoy!

Characters: You/Miss Oh (Main), Junmyeon (Main), Naeun, Baekhyun and Jongin 

Genre:  Marriage/Romance/Fluff

Chapter One  ⦁  Chapter Two   ⦁ Chapter Three  

You weren’t by any means a billionaire but well enough to where you lived without too many problems. Your grandparents built a hotel that looked like a dream castle estate with their own two hands, they have since retired and passed it onto your parents who now take care of the hotel. The Grand Opera Hotel, the only place you would consider your second home, you practically grew up here and have befriended pretty much all of the staff, especially the door greeter who you considered a second father. The cool part about your family’s hotel is that you have rooms to rent out to others as permanent suites and then you have smaller rooms for traveling guests. 

“Good morning!” you greeted him with a big bear hug. “How have you been Myungsoo?”

“I’ve been well, it’s nice to see you after all this time,” he chuckled. “Myungsoo, I was only gone for 3 months.”

“I know, I know,” he chuckled again. “I’m glad to have you back, Grand Opera hasn’t been the same since. Your mother and father will be here in promptly an hour, they have a table reserved in the restaurant for you when the time comes.”

“Okay, it’ll be nice to have some Korean food, I’ve been missing it for a while,” you grab your bag and walked up to the reception desk to retrieve the keys to your suite and notice that something is off. Hana noticed you and bowed, “Welcome back Miss Oh, it is nice having you back,” she turned around and grabbed your keys and handed them to you.

“It's nice seeing you again Hana, I missed seeing you,” you grabbed the keys and bit your lip, “Hana, why did mom and dad install these,” you pointed at all of the newly installed computers and Ipads. “Oh, um, your parents just thought it was time for an upgrade. I believe your keys should work for the moment, ” You cocked your head to the side, this was strange, your parents vowed to never modernize the hotel too much because of the beautiful history of the hotel. You bowed to Hana, leaving her to attend other guests as you made your way up to your suite.

Right as the elevator dinged, you could see a maintenance worker fiddling with the door handles. “Excuse me, what are you doing to my door?” the maintenance worker gets up and bows to you, confused, you set your bag down and bowed to him. “Miss Oh,” he bowed once again. “What is going on?” you asked him. “We’re beginning to upgrade the hotel. Here is your key card to your suite,” he handed you a black card that had the Grand Opera Hotel written in silver, you looked at your hand with a key and then to the card in your hand, is this what Hana meant when my keys should work for the moment? You thanked him in confusion and used your key card to get into your suite.

“Home sweet home,” you sighed as you threw your bags on the ground and twirled around. “I missed this place, three months is too long but I’m glad I’m back.” You suddenly heard noises from your bedroom and went silent, tiptoeing to the door of your room you peeked inside but there was no one there. Opening the doors, someone pops up from behind you and you fall to the ground screaming, you hear a familiar chuckling and glared at the person. 

“Naeun, why you!” you pointed as you began to chase her around your suite, you finally catch up and tackle her down on the bed. You both laugh as you turned and poked your tongues out at each other. “I missed you,” you said as you sat up. “How do you think I feel,” she nudged you, “I haven’t seen you in like three months Miss Oh,” your eyebrow raises, “Miss Oh?” you said. Naeun laughed and hugged you. 

Naeun has been your friend since you entered high school, you both have been through a lot of things together, from breakups to broken bones and style changes. Though you and your family only have the Grand Opera Hotel, Naeun never looked down on you and you consider her like your own blood sister since you both were the only child in your family. Naeun’s family owns a large share in Samsung and they also own a chain of hotels and resorts along the coast, she never did like to flaunt her status too much and never seemed like all of those snobbish rich people you hear about on TV. You were just glad you were able to have a real friend.

“Guess what,” she turned to you. “What?” you asked her, she stood up and turned around, “You like my outfit?” you nodded. “Cool,” she went into your closet and pulled something out. “Ta-dah! I thought it’d be cute if we matched,” you laughed as she held the exact outfit next to her. “I bought you one too!” she pushes you into the bathroom and you change into the outfit she bought you, then the pictures began! You both take silly photos of each other and ended up posting the same one, captioning it, “Back with my better half! #twinning.”

After half an hour of giggling and catching up Naeun pouts, “I have to go now,” she pouted. “I have a date, but we definitely need to schedule more hangouts now that you’re back,” you smirked at her and nudged her shoulder. “When is he going to pop the question,” you wiggled your hands and pointed to your ring finger. “Shut up,” she laughed, “That man can’t commit even 2 years later, we’ll probably just date for the rest of my life. Well if my parents ever approve of him,” Your phone suddenly rings, scaring you, you get off the phone with your mom saying they are almost to the hotel. “It looks like I’m going down with you too,” you stand up and bow to her, “And he awaits,” she laughs and you two begin to make your way downstairs.

You laugh and joke throughout the whole ride down in the elevator, you hear a ding and Naeun moves closer to the wall so you guys could make room for people coming in. It dings and it opens on the 12th floor, still laughing at each other, your smile drops the moment you see who it is. You slightly backed up and held Naeun’s hand that was next to you, and suddenly it was dead silent in the elevator. He stands right next to you since you were the one in the center but you couldn’t bring yourself to look up. His hand accidentally brushes yours and you turn your back on him by facing Naeun. The whole ride down the elevator is so quiet you feel like you could hear your heart thumping. Once the elevator opens, you pull Naeun to make a B-Line away from him but before you get the chance to do so he grabs your wrist and stops you. “Naeun, can I talk to her alone?” she turns to look at you but her boyfriend suddenly lights up and waves for her to come over, you sigh and tell her to go and that you should be fine. You didn’t want to drag her into whatever was coming. 

“Let go Junmyeon, I have legs to walk.”

[incorrectdeceptionquotes]

A Bundle of Secrets Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Kay opened her eyes as the pain of the beat down she received kicked in. She clutched her right side when she felt something in her right jacket pocket. She placed her hand in her pocket and pulled out a bracelet with a small charm on it. The charm was styled to look like an ace of hearts. Kay smiled, shaking her head slightly; Cameron must have snuck it in her pocket at some point.

She had to get out of here, wherever here was. She made a painful attempt to get up but did manage to succeed in getting up when the door opened again. Kay quickly placed the necklace back in her pocket. The mystery woman came back in, “Hello Kay.”

Kay scoffed, “What do you want?”

“Simply to say hello, see how you’re doing.”

Kay rolled her eyes, “Look, I’m not telling you anything. I would never betray Cameron’s trust.”

The mystery woman shook her head, “So loyal. I do wonder about that loyalty.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, I can’t help but wonder just how far you’re willing to go for Cameron. How much you’re willing to do for him.” Kay didn’t answer, “I mean, when you think about it, he’s really not worth it. He can be pretty selfish.”

Kay scoffed and shook her head, “You have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve never met anyone more stupidly self-sacrificing than him. It’s only fair that I try to do the same for him.”

“Would you even be willing to take this?” The mystery woman pulled out a small vial with some sort of clear liquid inside.

“What is that?” Kay asked.

“Just a simple serum.”

“A serum... Like the one Jonathan has?”

“Do you know what it does?”

“I-it creates a sort of vegetable state in the person who takes it.”

The mystery woman raised an eyebrow, “Not just that. You see you may be in this locked-in state but you are fully aware of what goes on around you. You’d sleep and wake up like anyone else but you just wouldn’t move... and then one day... your heart will just... stop. The autopsy would rule it as a heart attack.” She holds it out towards the agent.

“Why are you giving it to me?”

“I want you to take it.” She grinned, “And drink it.”

Kay’s eyes widened, “Why would I do that?” The FBI agent couldn’t see any reason as to how she would willingly take that serum.

“Because I’m willing to make a deal. You take the serum and I leave Cameron, Jonathan and their little family alone. Forever. If anything happens to them, I will not be responsible for it.”

“And if I refuse to do it?”

“Then by my orders, you will die execution style. We will leave your body for Cameron to find and will continue to pick off each of his little deception group including Jonathan until he is left all alone.”

“Cameron wouldn’t abandon Farrah... even if all that happened.”

“But it would break him. So much so that I doubt any reasonable judge wouldn’t accept that Farrah would be better off with her grandparents.”

Kay sighed, “Why do they want Farrah so badly? They hadn’t spoken to Shawn for years and-wait.” Kay’s eyes widened with realization, “That’s why... They want her to be their... their do-over, don’t they?”

“Shawn was going to have a very important role in their family and he abandoned them before it could be a done deal.”

“They’re want to raise her-”

“Raise her right.”

Kay shook her head, “But even if you don’t hurt them, that won’t stop the Blancs from doing what you would have done.”

The mystery woman chuckled, “See that’s where you’re wrong. Without me... they never would have found Shawn and Fiona in the first place.”

Kay’s eyes widened with anger, “No.”

“Oh yes.”

“Do you even have a moral conscious?”

“Of course. It just differs from your own.” She smirked, “So what’ll it be Kay?” Kay just glared at the woman, “You know what? I’ll come back. Give you some time to... rest up?” She joked.

Just as the mystery woman stepped out the door, “I take that serum and everyone lives? That’s the deal you want to make?”

“With all my heart.”

“Why? What did I ever do to you? What did Cameron or Jonathan ever do to you?”

The mystery woman turned around, “They lied their whole lives. As for you...” Kay could have sworn she saw a flash of emotion, possibly... hatred or... jealously in the mystery woman’s eyes, “You helped them.” With that, Kay was left alone in the cold room with a decision to make. She pulled on the chain still attached to her arm, if only she had something to break the lock of the chain with. She had to get out here. Just then, she saw something in the corner of her eye by the window.

Back at the FBI building, Mike was in the interrogation room with the glaring woman from the photo. Cameron and Jonathan were both behind the mirror with Agent Deakins as they looked on. “So... Roma Van Wesel.”

Roma raised a perfectly formed eyebrow, “That’s me.”

“Do you know why you’re here?”

“Don’t know.” She shrugged, “Don’t care.”

“You’re here about Shawn Blanc and Fiona Jonbroni.”

“Shawn Blanc I know.” She thought for a moment, “Oh, is this Fiona girl that little whore he was seeing?”

Both Cameron and Jonathan felt their blood boil at that comment. Mike shook his head, “You were engaged to Shawn at one point?”

“Pre-engaged. The ass-hat backed out.”

“Must have made you angry.”

“Hell yeah it did.”

“It’s terrible when the person you thought you could trust turns out being somebody else.” Mike said.

“Yes!” Roma exclaimed, falling for Mike’s trap, “That bastard chose little orphan Annie over me. I mean look at me!”

“You wear red lipstick correct?”

Roma became confused, “Yes?”

“When did you last see Shawn?”

“I don’t know. Why does that matter?”

“Were you aware Shawn had a daughter?”

“What?”

Mike repeated his words, “Did you know Shawn had a daughter?”

Roma paused for a moment, “No. I didn’t.”

“Someone killed Shawn and Fiona” Mike said showing her the crime scene pictures. He then showed her a picture of them with Farrah, “And now this little girl doesn’t have her parents anymore.” He then noticed her crack a small smile that could have been missed had he not been paying attention, “And someone drew a heart around his bullet wound using lipstick. The same lipstick that you are currently wearing.”

“You think that I killed him.”

Mike raised his eyebrows, “Well, you have motive, means and opportunity. Plus I’m sure that if we check the DNA on the lipstick, it’ll be a match for your DNA”

“You won’t find any DNA, it was a new tube!” Roma’s eyes widened as she realized what she said then smirked, “Bravo... I was wondering when you people would figure it out.”

“So you’re saying-”

“Yes, I killed Shawn... and I enjoyed every minute of it. You see if I can’t have what I want-”

“No one else can.”

“When Bennett Blanc said he needed my help in bringing his son home, I just knew that I had to see for myself that a member of the Blanc family had actually given up their luxury lifestyle to be with some orphan. When I agreed, some woman met me at the Bennett Estate after having dinner with them, handed me the address and a gun, just in case Shawn tried to be difficult.”

Jonathan noticed Cameron clench his fists in anger, “Cameron.” Cameron didn’t answer so Jonathan place a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder, “We got Shawn’s killer. You can relax.”

Mike couldn’t believe this woman, speaking so casually about ending a life, “Who was this woman? What happened?”

Roma shrugged, “I don’t know, some weird lady with different coloured eyes.” Cameron and Jonathan eyes widened at the statement, “I called him. He said he didn’t want me to come over, said that it would never happen between us. So naturally, I had to go over there and remind him on what he was missing out on. I got there and when I saw those photos on the wall in that tiny apartment, I lost it. I pulled out my gun and then his little orphan whore walked in wearing the ugliest outfit I had ever seen and looking a little chunky I might add while carrying a bunch of blankets. They weren’t even folded properly.”

“You chased after her?”

“No. Shawn told her to take what she was holding and run... he told her he loved her and that’s when I readied the trigger. Little bitch ran out like they had opened the door to a Black Friday sale.”

Mike tired to keep his composure. He had never met a killer this... nonchalant before, “I see.”

“I only have one regret. I didn’t shoot the orphan bitch first. Would have loved to see Shawn’s reaction to that.”

“Then you chased after Fiona?”

“Nope” She said, popping the ‘P’, “I kicked him around a bit, then shot him in the head, drew the heart on Shawn’s forehead and then left to clean myself up. Didn’t waste my time with her. I took the man she loved because he didn’t love me.”

“Roma Van Wesel, you are under arrest for the murder of Shawn Blanc.”

Roma smirked, “You know, you’ll never make it stick.” She laughed, “My family has far too much money for you to be able to keep me to jail.”

Mike cuffed her from behind, “At the very least, I can put you a holding cell.”

Cameron let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Agent Deakins spoke up, “We have his killer Cameron.”

Cameron nodded, “I know... but we don’t have Fiona’s killer... and Kay’s still missing.” Just then Gunter walked in carrying a crying Farrah. She was usually calm and she liked Grandpa Gunter but she started crying a little while ago and wasn’t stopping. When Gunter saw Mike lead Roma out of the interrogation room in cuffs, he came in. “Gunter?”

“Look, I really bonded with this kid but I don’t know how to deal with a crying baby.” Gunter said, handing her to Jonathan.

Jonathan took the crying baby and tried bouncing her up and down to calm her down, “Hey Pudding Sack, what’s wrong?” Farrah’s crying subsided for a moment but started to wail again.

“Hand her to me.” Cameron said. Jonathan passed her over to him but Farrah still didn’t stop crying, “I wish she could tell us what wrong.” He tried getting her to relax, “Come on Farrah, what wrong?” Tears just kept rolling down her face; it broke everyone’s hearts to see this sweet little girl in distress. “I wish Kay was here... she’s really good with her.”

“We’ll find her Cameron.” Deakins said.

Just then Mike walked in, “Hey guys, I got a hit on Kay’s phone.”

Cameron’s eyes widened as Farrah seemed to have cried herself out and was now just resting her head on Cam’s shoulder while lazily hitting him with her tiny hand, “And?”

Mike sighed, “You’re gonna wanna see this.”

So... they caught Shawn’s killer. I know that it might feel a little anti-climatic but to be honest, that’s what I was going for because while it was important, Shawn and Fiona’s murders were not the central theme of the story. Farrah was the central theme... if that makes sense... I’m not sure if it makes sense... but I think you guys get what I mean. I just hope that you guys didn’t see who the killer was coming and if you did... cool! Good for you! :)

Fiona’s killer is still on the loose and Kay is still kidnapped... or is she?

Hope you enjoyed this chapter and I hope you will come back for the next one.

[killian-whump]

I saw the pizza post today too. It could support my theory that he cancelled the ChicagoCon because he was moving back home to Ireland. I even kinda hope he did. I'll be visiting Ireland at the end of the month and I have this ridiculous daydream where we ditch our respective spouses for each other and raise our kids together Brady Bunch style. (I jest! I have no actual desire to break up either of our marriages!) That said, too much time away from the spotlight can't be great for his career. -J

I’ll just say... that’s a very solid theory. The only thing negating that theory is the report of a fan meeting him in Vancouver on the 27th... but that could be a goof or even, given how strange some folks are in this fandom, a purposeful misdirect or flat-out lie. It could also be a last hurrah he did in Vancouver to settle up real estate issues or other concerns. Who knows? At this point, I’m now aware of more signs of him being in Ireland than of him being elsewhere, so that’s where I’m guessing he is.  But, as is my way, I speculate wildly for fun, but pretty much take nothing as fact until I see proof.

Regardless, I think we should all pitch in and send him a family set of red and white striped sweaters and bobble hats, including a set for his dog, and a wizard pal, so he can be the new Waldo. Or perhaps Sean could become a wizard. Wow. What a good idea. I really do have the best ideas, you know.

As for the spotlight... You’re right, of course. It’s generally not good for celebrities to spend too much time out of the spotlight... but his show’s still on the air for two more weeks and he’s got a film coming out sometime this year. It’s much too soon to be worrying about him being forgotten about ;)

And I don’t buy into the fandom’s wild beliefs that a move back to Ireland means he’s leaving acting or opting for obscurity. I don’t think Vancouver was ever intended to be their permanent home. They just lived out there during Once during a time when they had no kids, or young enough kids, and permanency wasn’t really an issue.

But once kids start attending school, parents generally want to keep them in one place, so they can attend the same school year after year, make friends and start becoming their own little people in a steady, dependable environment. And given that Colin and Helen both grew up in Ireland, and both of their extended families are in Ireland, it’s not really a wild idea that they might want to raise their kids there, in the place they both will always consider home, and surrounded by the kids’ grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and all that jazz.

And the fact is that there’s no reason for him to be based in Vancouver. Yeah, a lot of TV shows and TV movies are filmed in Vancouver due to its affordability as a location, but tons of shows and films, particularly higher budget ones, are filmed all around the world. Limiting himself to Vancouver isn’t really a great career move, and if he’s going to be open to filming in other places, why tie his entire family to a random city he has no real roots in?

[teachersofbeestonls11]

Background Story - Nursery years and “Big School”

So firstly to give you some background to the author.

I was born Jonathan Lee Hart September 21st 1982 at Hyde Terrace Hospital, The Eldest of  2 children on my Mothers side and Third born of 11 on my Fathers.   Both my parents lived in Beeston. I was raised at 3 Cardinal Square on the council estate where I lived initially with My Mother, Grandad and Grandma and 2 of my Aunts who then moved out in my early primary years as they went about their adult lives.   My family have lived on Cardinal Square since the day the houses were first to complete, something which is true in the case of both grandparents I grew up with, My grandfather Les lived on the “Little Square” just 5 doors down from where he then made his Marital home with Hetty, who grew up at 105 Cardinal Square with her parents, one of my earliest memories is going up the street with her to see my great-grandma Young every now and then, in later years my Aunt Janet moved into 103 and My mother Carol still lives at number 3 to this very day, where she previously grew up with her Brother Ronnie and her sisters Susan, Janet, Diane and Linda. Janet still also works in the area at Cardinal Court just behind where she grew up. My Grandfather on my Dads side also spent his final years on the neighbouring streets following his retirement from the city centre pub trade.

I spent much of my early working life in the area, from evenings on the phone at Weatherlite Windows,  Abbseal and then later Royal Mail at Holbeck Delivery office,  I can still be seen in the area usually playing the guitar at one of the local pubs or clubs with The Mercs many times a year when we are not in the midst of a Global Pandemic. Beeston is in my blood.

My closest friends from the street the Richmond, Giles and Naismith families go back 3 generations, our parents and grandparents were friends since childhood, the estate has been called a few names over the years but in my history growing up it was a close-knit area, many friends from there I have kept to this day, it made me who I am and I would not have changed that for anything.

This page is more focused on my memories of school days, less so on individual pupils but more the type of education we got and the teachers we encountered,  I hope when complete others can contribute theirs from their times, most prominently on the teachers at the schools who helped to shape the lives we now live and the ways we learnt and types of lessons.  

Tied into this also will be the local clubs I got to take part in and the many great volunteers who gave up their time for us in and out of school, So let’s get cracking and go to Beeston Primary School Nursery. Starting with Key Stage one for today's episode, one thing I am short on is photos of the days, I am in the process of tracking them down and then will update the page as I get them to hopefully create a bit of an archive, the idea of this is to recognise the efforts of the teachers and people in the area who invested the time in ourselves our education but also to allow our future generations to have an idea of how school life has changed so much in a few decades.

If people want to send photos to add to the page from the time feel free to put them in the comments or drop me a Facebook message with them.

Nursery

As far as nursery goes from memory it felt like one day I was spending days watching tv, going out on the Cardinal Field or playing with my pals round at the twins Duane and Danny’s house, then suddenly I was told “you’re off to nursery tomorrow” by my mother, so off I went, I remember first seeing the building, much of which has remained the same to this day with its dark brick oblongs with the white frames and fascias, I used to come up past the old Convent of The Most Holy Cross and Passion on Town Street, where you could see the building in the distance then we would go up the winding path by the terminus to the nursery. In those days we used to be scared of the Nuns as some of them almost had a ghostly appearance but in later life whenever we said a good morning to them they were always found to be most polite.

At this point that was the only “Hut” at the school, the portakabins were still to be dropped in. Of course, the first job of the day was getting your pumps on duly brought in our pump bags, I had the same one all through primary school hand made by my Aunty Diane.   We were taught by Miss Holgate and Mrs Allen, Miss Holgate had a patient calm and welcoming manner, at nursery I don’t think I ever had a day when I didn’t want to bound in and look forward to it.  

Miss Holgate was one for engaging the group in creative activities, most of which used to involve those old little white gluesticks and pots of glitter, or plenty of scribbling with crayons, Mrs Allen's forte was in storytelling, she was at both that school then Hugh Gaitskell all through my primary years, she had a preference for dressing in trouser suit/waistcoat combos when at Beeston Primary, with her short cut and tinted glasses, we must have been one of her early classes before she moved into single class teaching.  She could be calm and soft-spoken with a slight depth to her voice but did not take any nonsense and the tone she used if there was any made that clear to not go too far.  

Playtimes were spent between us all either trying to cram ourselves into the little wendy house in the playground, throwing coits on to poles, playing with the rocking horse or other similar toys or trying to get first dibs on an old fashioned metal tricycle so we could dash around doing circles of the yard, it was much faster than all the other plastic bikes and push cars and made you feel a bit more grown-up. The days were always finished off with a little story on the carpet and it was just a really enjoyable introduction to school life. 

The one-story I remember in particular then we were read a few times was "Funnybones" with the opening line of “in a dark dark house on a dark dark night” Mrs Allen did a great interpretation of it. Some of my longest and oldest friends were in this class including  Ben Woodburn, Shayn Thomas and Phil Mitchell, we all grew up on the Cardinals and Waincliffes and in Ben and Phil's case spent our entire school years in the same schools. Some of the other kids locally would go to the nursery in Cottingley at that time, who would then come and join us for “Big school”.

Beeston Primary Reception Class 0W / RW

For my introduction to mainstream schooling reception I was taught by the then Miss Harriet Wood (later to be Mrs Ansell-Wood), she was a fantastic teacher, she had a very calming presence, Tall with a blonde bob, a smile for everyone and welcoming manner about her, in later life she also then moved on to what became Hugh Gaitskell primary after the middle schools were abolished in the area, in what has become a recurring theme over the years some of my friends who came from different parts of Yorkshire, and even Europe became work colleagues with her in their early teaching days and every one of them has nothing but kind words to speak of her.

One particular time I was falsely accused of filling a crisp packet full of water and throwing it on my older mate Duane's head, a likely story indeed I wouldn’t even know how to do that back then, despite being an unproven allegation I was taken inside for a dressing down,  At first I was just defensive and angry in my reaction to the point of being hysterical due to knowing I'd not done this. I remember Miss Wood did a marvellous job of calmly settling me back down, giving a reassuring hand until I could explain myself and all was forgiven. Kindness and understanding always live long in the memory.

We would work our way through the colours and levels of our maths books, learning to read via the Collins “one two three and away” books, learning about the Village with 3 corners and its inhabitants Roger Red Hat, Billy Blue hat and Jonathan and Jennifer Yellow Hat (The first Hart to Hart reference in this series).

We learnt to put words and sentences together using “Letra sets”  that were in giant binders and looking back on it reminded me a bit like a more word-based version of having your scrabble letters out but filling in the words!  

We would go to the main hall and take part in “music and movement” which involved  sort of classical piece from the sound system playing while we would attempt various shapes or swop from hopping to trotting, skipping or other such movements to the soundtrack. With a few games of musical statues thrown in at the end for good measure!  

If we did PE then the old blue mats would be brought out for doing little forward rolls and the old balance beams with the hooks on and various other bits of apparatus would appear, all the time this was carried out barefoot which in winter was freezing as well as being very sore on your feet and not so fun a landing if you took a wrong step.

On my little table, I was sat with Richard Leach (who met his wife at the school who are happily together to this day), Matthew Jeffers, James Ratcliffe, Sophie Grant and Stephen Hullock.  

Stephens grandfather was the school caretaker for many years, there were a lot of days you would see him when we were out in the playground, he would be on the roof of the school retrieving various footballs and items that had been dispatched to the roof the night before by the kids from the Heathcroft estate during their football games or whatever other antics they chose to partake in, he would be greeted by a cheer as some of the balls were thrown back down into the playground. Talking of which Ste’s Grandfather on his dads' side was none other than Leeds United legend Jimmy Dunn, his other grandkids also went to our school and you can find his name on Bremner Square at the ground, check it out and if he is a player from before your time read him up and learn about his career he was a top player.

From those days to I can still visually picture how we all looked and were, the top music star of the time was Michael Jackson and Shayn Thomas is always shocked to remember that when I can still picture that he used to have his “thriller” T-Shirt on at school (no uniform at BPS in those days we could wear what we wanted).  

The year group was based at the back end of the school that faces the Heathcroft Estate, the classrooms would usually have one wall separating them at the side with a large curtain at the end of each classroom being our way in and out which would then be closed for privacy at reading times our more “creative” play and lessons took place in what was known as the “Wet Area” where we would be able to get up to the more messy types of play, such as sandpits and making Papier Mache items by sticking bits of old newspaper to balloons, the area was overseen by Miss Barker (she still had her maiden name then) who also had the job of patching us up if we fell in the playground complete with that yellow spray that used to sting like mad and leave you smelling like TCP.  Miss Barker always had a bit of glam and somehow managed to work in the messiest part of school yet always be dressed immaculately and still end the day still resembling Joan Collins.

The neighbouring class was Mr Johnson's class (later to be the Husband of the aforementioned Miss Barker).  Mr Johnson was a big part of the school for many years, he had a great positive influence on many of us growing up, he was keen on his sport and football which i will go into more in later chapters, in his younger days, he had a moustache to rival Nigel Mansell but a lot more hair on top, at playtimes our year group had the little playground facing down towards the hill where we would run around playing “What time is it Mr Wolf” or trying to do the hops skips and jumps on the painted sections on the playground floor, recreate our favourite superheroes by buttoning our coats into capes battling whichever poor soul was nominated to be the baddie. It was also in this playground where I first found out about one of my lifelong passions, before then I only knew of Everton and Liverpool as football teams (I was only 4 years old so only ever saw the cup final up to then, which you may recall was played out by those two teams in 1986), we always saw the old gigantic floodlights and stadium down the hill, you couldn’t miss them, then one day in the distance I noticed some men were running up and down Fullerton Park in white tops, when it was still the training ground, I asked Mr Johnson who was on Duty, in his normal attire of polo shirt and jeans with this white winter coat and coffee in hand, “what's that down there sir” to which he then told me it was a football team called Leeds United, I asked him if they played Liverpool but he said they played in division two, so I credit him with the introduction as from there I looked out for them on the local news or tv when football was mentioned and along with the encouragement of my neighbours from the Wales family i was set to be a fan for life. Nice one sir!

This fact was also further made clear to us throughout the years by Mrs Robinson, one of the teachers who lived locally, she was a class teacher of many of my friends over the years and occasionally took the odd lesson of mine, she was notably famous in school for having an array of Leeds United artefacts both in her car and in the classroom, she would also wear the Leeds Hats or Scarves if on duty in winter, She also had a fondness for collecting items relating to Owls, another symbol of the city, she had a great rapport with all the students in the school and was seen as being very cool, in those days everyone at school still supported Leeds and any other team was out of the question, much like it hopefully will again in this new rebirth we are seeing at the moment.

Going back to the “wet area”  this is also where the younger year groups would be served lunch as we had our first experience of “school dinners” the dinners at BPS were generally very good, the kitchen led by Mrs Willens and her team, which at then included Mrs Slight (who I now know as Gill, my classmate Amy’s mum and a good friend of my family Sunday afternoon pub trips and Darts and Dominoes) who later also then became a lunchtime supervisor.

We were served dinners on giant plastic trays that were split into segments, one for the main meal, one for your drink and biscuit (the second one after the then customary little bottle of milk in the morning part of the day) and one for the dessert or pudding as we say in LS11.

I used to love the puddings, Jam sponge or Chocolate Cake, always followed with a generous ladle of custard served from giant metal urns, and the top one which was the Lemon Meringue, which was like a new world to me in terms of food but I loved it, however, I was never as fussy about the main meal, which would get me into trouble from time to time, This is how we would also first encounter the famous Lunchtime Supervisor Miss Mary and her cohorts which at this point in time included Mrs Preston and Mrs Shipman (whose son Damian was also in my class) .

Once we had all dutifully lined up to get our dinners and then take them back to our places, in what became commonplace at the school the dinner ladies would circle the tables armed with their dishcloths, in between wiping up they would be checking first to make sure that no one was misbehaving or throwing food around, but their key function at that time seemed to be to ensure that we all ate properly or as much as possible, once we had reached however far we could manage with our main we would have to sit with our hands up and then ask their permission to “turn round” aka “I've had enough of that can I have my dessert please” in our inner thinking. t was at their discretion if we were permitted to do this unless you had eaten all the lot which meant you could turn round anyway.  

One of these particular times had a lasting impression on my food habits for many years. Pizza was on the menu, I'd never had it before, didn’t like the look, smell or taste of it (nothing like the ones you get in a shop) I couldn’t face it. Asked to turn round, Mrs Preston with her dark bob and circular glasses was not having any of it, neither was I, so 15 minutes later I was still sat there, in tears being told I could not leave my seat until I ate it, everyone else was in the playground by this time, it was a battle of wits and in the end, I was defeated and had to sit there and eat every mouthful of it until it was gone, at which point I was done in, had my pudding then got to join my friends for about 5 minutes before we had to go back in, red-faced puffy-eyed, it must have had a lasting effect, it was noted in future by my parents that I didn't like pizza and it put me off eating it until my mid-20s, it goes to show that some of Sigmund Freud's theories definitely hold some gravitas!

Although that encounter with her was a bit more traumatic, Mrs Preston was only doing what all the dinner ladies then would do, a few friends have told me they had similar encounters with the other dinner ladies with the foods they were not keen on, they were trying to ensure we eat and try different foods, she never held it against me as the rest of the time she was always a very approachable and had a neighbourly manner about her, she has been a stalwart and mainstay of the school for decades and moved into working in the school offices in later years. She has given decades of her life to that school and is to be applauded.  

A true servant to the school on every level.

[delhi-architect2]

Journal - 8 Demands for All Future Architects

Michael Riscica is a Licensed Architect, Speaker and Thought Leader, who is deeply committed in helping the NEXT Generation of Architects succeed in their careers. Michael has helped thousands of ARE Candidates pass their exams and creates ARE 5.0 study materials at The Young Architect Academy.

Dear Future Young Architects,

First and foremost, I want you to know that I love and support each and every one of you! I get really excited about architecture when I look at what is happening with younger generations.

This is partly what inspired me to start the Young Architect blog. I got bored with all the Old Architect blogs. I mean, yeah, all those old white guys are really, really nice people. But I just thought the world needed a Young Architect blog.

I have a few important things I would like to discuss in my letter to “Future Young Architects.” So let’s get started …

1. Please do some soul-searching before you start working on your architecture license.

I don’t believe a vegan diet is universally healthy for everyone on the planet. Sure, many people thrive on it, but everyone has different habits, beliefs, upbringings, lifestyles and (most importantly) physiologies. A vegan diet may be the very worst diet for some people. But a diet is a personal decision: Who am I to tell anyone what’s right or wrong?

I also don’t believe everyone who graduates architecture school needs to become a Licensed Architect. In full disclosure, I’ll admit that at this point in my life I have accidentally stumbled into the business of architectural licensing and I would appreciate it if everyone going through this process would read my very popular book, appropriately titled How To Pass The Architecture Registration Exam. Despite this, I wholeheartedly believe that architecture licensing is not a requirement for “being successful.”

The profession has collectively been fostering the belief that there is only one path: Everyone with an architecture degree needs to become a Licensed Architect. If you don’t get your architecture license, you’ve wasted your expensive education, and you’re basically a loser.I couldn’t disagree more.

Please do some soul-searching before you start working on your architecture license. Make sure licensing is the right thing for you. It may or may not be. Architectural licensing is a very personal decision. It’s as personal as the diet or religion you choose to adhere to. I completely support you in whatever decision you arrive at. Both decisions can and will have positive and negative impacts in the long term depending on what your personal life goals are.

Most importantly, stop letting architects from another generation bully you into thinking you must have an architecture license and that expensive AIA membership, because you really don’t need it — IF they’re not aligned with what you want to accomplish in your life. I have zero patience with this “You’re either with us or against us” approach to inspiring Young Architects toward licensing.

Via Arch Student

2. Please stop waiting for permission.

We all went to architecture school so we could learn how to make cool shit happen.

Then after school was over, you quietly sat and waited for permission from a company, a boss, a client or some other outside force or circumstance to give you permission to share your unique gifts with the world.

Have you ever realized how self-absorbed everyone is? No one is ever going to pay attention to you, unless you grab their attention. No one is ever going to ask you to put yourself out there and share whatever value you have to offer the world.

I’ll say that again … If you’ve been waiting to be asked to put yourself out there, it’s never going to happen. Everyone is way too busy checking how many Instagram followers they have.

STOP WAITING FOR PERMISSION!

JUST DO IT!

3. Please honor and respect the past.

Our parents and grandparents’ generations blazed a fantastic trail that will help us take the profession to the next level. There is sooo much value in analyzing them and seeing what we can learn from their careers — good and bad. Sometimes, finding bad examples can be more powerful than finding good ones.

Study them, learn from them, ask them a lot of questions, use them as a resource and thank them for their contributions to the profession. Apply what you’ve learned to help you figure out what you want to do, how to be successful or how to see the mistakes you never want to make.

Either way, alwaysappreciate and acknowledge their hard work. Tell them how thankful you are to have them as a teacher.

Via JUMO

4. Please volunteer your time.

Society needs your help. Architecture may be a service profession, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to volunteer your time without getting paid.

We became architects so we could make a difference and make the world a little bit better. And yes, we’re doing that. But you still need to take your architect hat off for a minute: Turn off the computer and volunteer as a citizen contributing to society.

I don’t care how, but you must volunteer. Service means giving your time, energy and attention to someone who needs it. The “I’m too busy” argument is old and tired. You’re always going to be too busy. There will never be a better time, which is why you need to start right now.

Your time and attention is more valuable than your money. Volunteering doesn’t mean throwing money at a problem. And it doesn’t mean donating time to build some silly, glossy art exhibit inside your local AIA office — that no one will ever see. Volunteering means giving time to a person or a cause that genuinely needs your focused attention.

5. Please be yourself … And find situations that allow you to be yourself!

NOTHING is unhealthier than putting on uncomfortable clothes you don’t enjoy wearing, showing up at a job you don’t like and working with people who don’t acknowledge or appreciate you. Day after day, year after year.

Every day you do this, it is the equivalent of feeding your soul a McDonald’s and cheap generic diet soda!

It’s not easy finding an employment situation that is aligned with who you are and how you want to be an architect.

Be realistic with yourself. Do you want to work 50 to 60 hours a week pushing projects and your career? Or do you want to work a maximum of 40 hours a week so you can spend time raising a healthy family? There is no right or wrong answer. Both are definitely noble pursuits. You need to find a firm that is aligned with who you are, how you want to work, spend your time and live your life.

There are a million different types of firms and jobs. It’s often significantly easier to find a new architecture firm that understands what you’re looking for, rather than change the existing culture of an office. It’s a lot like dating, you just have to figure out what you want first.

Image © 2013 – 2014 thehobosapien

6. Please don’t contribute negativity without taking positive action.

The profession of architecture gets thrown under the bus all the time. There is no shortage of bad news or problems in architecture. It doesn’t help that Architects are trained and given college degrees in sniffing out problems or recognizing how things could be always better.

The profession of architecture isn’t fair. It’s not only a big gender or diversity issue, it’s an issue for everyone. Architecture leaves people behind who can’t compete and adapt to change. The profession is supposed to reward hard work and those who can execute. The same time it often treats those same people unfairly.

The truth is: Every single person who has found success with architecture has been burned by this profession at one time or another. People get lied to, not paid and sued. At the same time, the successful ones have taken those setbacks and used them as opportunities for inspiration to keep moving forward. This profession isn’t easy and is highly competitive.

There is way too much complaining about the profession. If architecture has burned you and you can’t use that to take positive action, then maybe you should find another profession. No one wants to be around a person who is complaining all of the time.

Try to connect with the positivity in the profession and people doing great things and making changes within architecture. While we’re not perfect as a profession, only focusing on how terrible it is, without pairing it to positive action, isn’t helping us move forward.

The very last thing I’ll say about negativity is that every industry has its own problems. Nurses, lawyers, doctors, astronauts, golfers, scientists, firefighters, politicians, real estate agents and definitely teachers all have their fair shares of issues in their own industries. I recently listened to a physician tell me about all the trauma she went through in medical school. The grass isn’t greener. The Architects and the AIA aren’t special.

Via Klear

7. Please don’t let architecture ruin your health.

Pretty self-explanatory.

Did you know: Spending one hour each day exercising your body will have a significantly larger impact on your success as an architect than if you spent it sitting in front of that AutoCAD/Revit machine for another hour? You need to get your blood moving, eat REAL food and breathe every day. If your belly isn’t moving, you’re not breathing.

One hour a day isn’t a big commitment for your health and well-being. Unfortunately, your architecture career will do everything it can to try to prevent or rob you from taking this time. Your #1 job is to defend this time and take care of yourself first. Your life, career and everyone you take care of all depend on how well you can take care of yourself. I sound pretty dramatic, but this is the truth.

8. Screw around!

I am the King of Screwing Around. I have the five-year bachelor’s degree in architecture … and a Ph.D. in screwing around and jackassery.

If architecture didn’t give me permission to screw around, I would have ended this relationship many years ago. I don’t care what your Boss or Professor tells you … Design, project management and making money is mentally exhausting work. We’re humans, not architecture machines. So I’m going to screw around a little.

Screwing around is an important part of my creative process — If I didn’t screw around, I wouldn’t learn anything. By taking my mind off the problem to fool around, it helps me focus when it’s time to be serious. This is why I get more work done than everyone else. It’s because I laugh more, while everyone else is serious.

I wholeheartedly give you permission to screw around if it’s going to help you work hard, be focused and do better work. In fact, here are a few stupid blog posts I wrote to encourage your screwing around.

The Architect’s Postmodern Thanksgiving!

The ARE Book Reviews

Gifts and Toys For Architecture Students

Cheezy Architecture Videos

Thank You!

I want to give a shoutout to all of my good friends in the American Institute of Architecture Students. You know who you are. I see all of your conversations and everything you’re working on come across my social-media feeds. The rest of the profession has absolutely no idea how well-networked and supportive of each other you are. I am inspired and excited to watch your careers unfold.

Thank you for being great leaders, helping others and giving unconditionally to make the world a better place.

You all have the power to make massive change across the board. And you’re already doing it! We’ll get there by working hard and staying positive, committed and disciplined!!

Sincerely, your biggest cheerleader,

Michael Riscica AIA

Architects: Showcase your next project through Architizer and sign up for our inspirational newsletter.

The post 8 Demands for All Future Architects appeared first on Journal.

from Journal https://architizer.com/blog/practice/details/dear-future-young-architects-please-quit-screwing-around/ Originally published on ARCHITIZER RSS Feed: https://architizer.com/blog

[mayalaen]

stop spending money :(

I’m so frustrated over my uncle. I can’t get him to stop spending money. He’s bringing in less money than he’s spending, has been for years now, but he and his wife just don’t seem to get it.

I just found out that when they went down to Mexico to get work done on their teeth (which they told us about before they went and that’s fine) they got his wife’s teeth whitened, which cost $500!! I looked at his eBay account and he’s spent $2000 on car parts and stuff for his phone in the last month.

We put his wife on a budget of $1000 a month (groceries, gas, entertainment for my cousin’s kid who we’re STILL FUCKING RAISING), and she’s already spent it and wants us to put another $200 in her account for “groceries.” What that means is they don’t want to eat the food already in the house (their freezer is stuffed full of food as well as their separate fridge and pantry) and she wants money to buy MORE food after spending the $1000 by only the 22nd of the month!

They don’t get that the things they spend money on are completely unnecessary expenses and shouldn’t be spent when you make less than what your basic living expenses are.

As it is, we as a family put all our money into the same accounts, and because he helps out at the shop (so does his wife), I let him use the money for his living expenses.

He recently sold a house, which he hasn’t done in a long time, and got $40,000 for it between commissions and cost vs. selling price. I told him not to touch the money because we needed to pay off his credit cards and get some work done on his house that needed to be done. He also has his house on a credit loan (and that was stupid in the first place), which is up this year and we need to go through a bank for the loan this time, which means he has to put down a big chunk of money or the bank won’t give him the loan on his HOME!! Like, he could lose his house if he doesn’t do this!

Instead he and his wife just keep using the money, and I don’t know what to do about it. My mom and I have both talked to them so many times, and it doesn’t seem to get through to them. They’ll agree to things and it looks like they get it, but then they just keep fucking up!

I don’t know if separating our money so that when they try to spend money they literally can’t would work. They both pick up stuff for the shop and also use the accounts to pay for repairs on the houses that my grandparents owned and we rent out for income, so they have to have access to those accounts too.

I thought it would get better after my grandparents died and my mom took more control over the money, but she can’t get them to stop spending money either.

I’m just really frustrated over it and the whole thing just feels like a slap in the face because he doesn’t really have a job (real estate agent who doesn’t sell houses), and he doesn’t want his wife to work, but my 73-year-old father works, my 62-year-old mother works, and I work, all of which brings money into the accounts, but my uncle barely does shit (he has a lot of down time because of his migraines from the brain injury) and then they won’t stop spending money!

The thing that makes this difficult is he had the traumatic brain injury a few years back, and before that he was the breadwinner, Mr. Bigshot real estate agent who flipped homes and brought in a lot of money. Now he still has that mindset where he thinks he can bring in large amounts of money in a short period of time but he can’t, and he doesn’t want to give up control and he’s having depression issues over the whole “I’m not the bigshot who takes care of everybody anymore” thing.

But it’s like I’m sorry you aren’t what you used to be and you’re upset, but damn, quit fucking spending all the money you don’t have that’s coming out of the rest of your family’s pocket!!

It’s times like these when I’m extremely jealous of people who move away from their family and either call them once in a blue moon or never contact them again and just move on with their lives. I feel so crushed by my family because I’m helping my parents out with their health problems, running the shop with less and less help from my uncle, mom, and uncle’s wife, and it feels like I don’t get to do a lot of the stuff I want to do because it never ends with them. I steal time away from my family when they think I’m sleeping.

Yeah, I know -- Boo-hoo! I’m healthy and make enough money to pay for my living expenses and live in my own home, own my own vehicle, own a thriving business. I really don’t have much to complain about, and I just wanted to vent because I’m frustrated and stressed. I need to stop sucking my thumb and do something about it.

[verai-marcel]

A Curious Experiment (RDR2 Fanfic, 18+, Arthur x Male!Reader)

Summary: A bounty hunter finally catches up to you, after you had been running from your uptight family for so long. He is intrigued, however, by a specific body piercing you got for shits and giggles, and decides to let you go… if you indulge his curiosity, that is.

Author’s Notes: As always, had to do a bit of research. Nipple piercings weren’t really prevalent in Western cultures in the 1890s, but supposedly they did it in France. Since this is just a fanfic, we’ll just go with that. Also there is both a male reader and female reader version of this.

Tags: smut, nipple piercings, nipple play, low honor Arthur Morgan, male reader (anal sex)

AO3 Link here!

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

The door to your shack on the edge of town, practically in the forest, slowly creaked open. You were hiding underneath some floorboards, waiting for the bounty hunter to leave. You knew your family would send someone after you at some point, probably some desperate hunter looking for easy pickings. You didn’t think your family would put up that much money for you, so you didn’t expect anyone to actually have the skills to find you.

As you looked up through the cracks of the floorboards, you caught his voice.

“C’mon out. I ain’t gonna hurt ya. Just wanna take you back somewhere safe.”

You held back a scoff. Safe? Your parents yelled at you for not being good enough, your grandparents had trained you to take over the estate, riding crops hitting your back when you didn’t stand straight enough, speak well enough, walk balanced enough. You hated your life there; when you took your horse and fled one night, you vowed you’d never go back.

You eventually had to sell your poor horse to earn money to live, and you managed to eke out a meager living as a stable hand on a ranch far, far, from home. You made friends with a group of French immigrants, who had convinced you to pierce your nipples during a night of drunken revelry.

Listening to the boots make their way out of your shack, you waited another hour before coming out. Climbing up and putting the floorboards back in place, you checked your cabin to see if he had taken anything before making your way outside to look around.

“Knew you were still here,” the voice came from behind you as you stepped away from your home. You turned around, seeing him leaning against the side wall.

“Shit,” you mumbled.

The man looked you up and down. His opal colored eyes were sharp, observing the way you started to move backwards towards the path.

“I wouldn’t run if I were you,” he drawled as he sauntered towards you. He was a big man, and unfortunately, just your type, with his broad shoulders, rugged face with a shadow of a beard, and those hands… You almost wanted to run just to make him grab you. Your nipples tightened. Of all the times to be turned on, now was not one of them. This was serious!

He was so close now, and you still hadn’t attempted an escape. Move, dammit!

He was standing toe to toe with you now, towering over you. He tipped your chin up so he could look at you, through you. You started shivering slightly.

His eyes lowered to look at all of you, and his eyes widened when his gaze rested upon your chest. Your shirt was thin and half open because of the afternoon heat. You hadn’t cared before, but now, the man could see your nipples… and their piercings.

“What have we here?” His hands went to your shirt and unbuttoned it the rest of the way. Exposing your torso completely, you took a deep breath, accidentally puffing out your chest for his view. He reached out with one hand, skimmed your left nipple with his fingers.

You let out on involuntary moan. He raised an eyebrow at you.

He touched the other nipple, brushing lightly with one finger, and you let out a puff of breath, heat rushing to the lower parts of your body. Dammit.

Smirking at you, he flicked your shirt off your shoulders, and you felt it slide to the ground.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said, confident you’d take it. “Give me your body tonight, and I’ll let you go.”

“Why?” you asked, your voice coming out far too husky for your liking.

“Because your, uh, decorations, interest me,” he said, gesturing at your chest.

Reaching down to grab your shirt, you walked past him towards your house. After a few steps, you turned, noticing that he hadn’t followed you.

“What’s your name, hunter?”

“Arthur.”

“That all?”

“That’s all you need to know,” he replied. “It’s all you’ll be cryin’ out soon enough.”

Your cock twitched in anticipation. You led him back inside.

***

The second the door shut, you felt his arms around you, his body warm against your bare skin. His tongue flicked out and tasted your pulse before he covered it with his lips, sucking on you, aiming to leave a mark. You moaned when his hands went to play with your nipples, gently teasing them with his fingers as he felt around your piercings. You just had simple rings, and with every caress, you let out a soft sound of pleasure.

“This’ll be fun,” he muttered into your neck as he walked you towards your bed. Turning you around, he shoved you onto the bed, and got to work taking your pants off. You lifted your hips so he could remove everything, baring all of you to this stranger’s gaze.

Arthur took off his satchel, shirt, and gun belt before lowering his mouth to your nipples, playfully licking them, then blowing on them, making you shiver. He sucked on them lightly, drawing out more delectable sounds from your throat.

“Yer sounds are too temptin’,” he mumbled as one hand reached lower on your body, grazing your skin gently with his fingertips, starting with your knee, then your inner thigh, and then finally he gripped your shaft, slowly stroking you until you were fully hard. His fingers felt far too good, much better than your own.

“I’ve half a mind to keep ya to myself,” he whispered in your ear as his hand went from your shaft to your balls, gently caressing them, making you lift your hips up slightly and spread your legs a bit more to give him better access. He chuckled. “Haven’t had someone touch you like this before?”

“Not by someone like you,” you replied breathily. You had realized you had a desire for men pretty early on, and though you had never told anyone, you suspected that at least your sister had figured it out and told your parents, who forced meeting after meeting with potential marriage partners. After those meetings, escaping to the tobacco fields, you had found your eyes drifting towards some of the workers, with their muscles and their soft smiles when they had seen you escape from your parents, and you wished for something more.

“Well then,” Arthur said, his voice breaking you out of your reverie, “always a first time for somethin’.” He stepped away from you for a moment, reaching for something in his satchel. You watched as he pulled out a jar of some kind of oil. Then he stepped forward, lifting your legs onto his shoulders. He poured a bit of the oil onto your ass, and with one finger, gently started pushing into you.

“Ah!” you cried out, but he just hushed you as kept stretching you out, slowly getting you relaxed and ready for him. You whimpered as he worked your asshole, slipping another finger inside, wrenching soft cries from you as he caressed you so intimately and so well that you felt like he had known you forever. His lips moved up to your collarbone, his tongue leaving a wet trail up your neck until he reached your earlobe. He captured your sensitive skin between his teeth, gently playing with the delicate skin before he laid a sloppy kiss on your cheek, and then ravaged your lips, forcing his tongue into your mouth.

“Ya got me so hard, darlin’,” he growled between fervent kisses. He removed his fingers, leaving you feeling empty. Then you watched, fascinated, as he stepped back and unbuttoned his fly. Pulling out his thick manhood, he slathered it with some of the oil, his strokes hypnotizing you as you watched, your body heating up with desire. He grinned as he folded your legs over, grabbing your hands and making you hold your legs up and apart. Then he leaned forward and slowly penetrated your ass with his hard cock, making you moan as he filled you, stretching you, until he was all the way in.

“So tight,” Arthur gritted out as he waited for you to adjust; your breaths were deep and slow as you relaxed your muscles and got used to his intrusion.

Then he moved.

It was a strange feeling at first, but it became pleasant, and then addictive as he angled his movements to hit a spot inside that made your insides burst with pleasure.

Your moans seemed to turn him on more as his thrusts went faster, his other hand beginning to tweak your nipples even harder. You nearly screamed when he bit your lower lip at the same time pinching one of your nipples, making you reach your limits. When he reached down and stroked your cock, staring down at you, you lost yourself in his intense eyes and let go, your head going back as a glorious ecstasy encompassed you, and you lost yourself to that high feeling.

“Arthur, Arthur!” you cried out, knowing nothing else but his hands on your body, his lips on your skin. He kept fucking you even as you came, his cock hitting you in just the right way, giving you the most intense orgasm that you had ever felt in your life. Then Arthur grabbed your hair and crushed your body, coming hard inside of your ass, moaning and puffing like a big bad wolf, taking everything of yours and leaving you nothing but a sweaty, heaving mess.

“Oh, my, lord,” he huffed as he pumped one last time into your ass before slowly sliding out of you. “Yer somethin’ special.” His grip in your hair loosened, and he caressed your cheek. “Thank ya, darlin’. I needed that.”

You looked up at him hopefully. “So… will you let me be?”

“Shoah,” he drawled. “But only if I get to play with ya again if I come by here.”

You smiled. “Any time, Arthur.”

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

End Notes: So I had originally wrote this as a gender neutral, then the anon who requested this sent another ask saying that they forgot to mention it was for a fem!reader... but since I had already written it this way, I figured, let’s branch out and write a male/male fic, get back to my fanfiction ROOTS (I started off writing Gundam Wing yaoi fanfics, waaaaaay back in the day). Hope you enjoyed this, and please give me feedback if it isn’t accurate in the biological sense. Happy Pride Month!

[96thdayofrage]

RACIAL RECKONING

The country's first municipal reparations program is off to a rocky start

A few months into a reparations program, Evanston, Illinois, is facing pushback from community members and legal pressure from conservative nonprofits.

June 2, 2021, 5:00 AM CDT / Updated June 2, 2021, 10:15 AM CDT

By Michela Moscufo

Recently, Priscilla Giles, a retired teacher of English as a second language in Chicago Public Schools, said she has been feeling something “between sad and angry.”

Three months ago the city of Evanston, Illinois, where Giles was born and raised, approved the first local reparations program in the country. The city announced its first phase would pay Black Evanston residents who experienced housing discrimination $25,000 in the form of home improvement costs, down payment and closing cost assistance, and mortgage payments.

Since Giles is Black and lived in the city from 1919 to 1969, she is automatically eligible, but she said she is reluctant to apply. “It’s not reparations,” she said. “And that’s for sure.”

Evanston residents have been debating the details of its current reparations program for more than three years. When the legislation passed, it was deemed a “blueprint” for the rest of the country. Yet a few months into the first initiative, frustration and legal pressure have clouded the city’s pioneering vision.

Hundreds of Black residents have rallied behind the online group Evanston Rejects Racist Reparations to demand that the program be paused and re-evaluated. Meanwhile, the conservative nonprofits Judicial Watch and Project on Fair Representation have threatened legal action against the city.

The reparations program that began with great optimism has divided the small city, thrusting it into the national spotlight.

'We were very excited'

Former Alderman Lionel Jean-Baptiste first proposed a reparations plan to the City Council nearly two decades ago, as part of a resolution supporting a federal bill concerning reparations.

When Aldermen Robin Rue Simmons, Ann Rainey and Peter Braithwaite reintroduced a reparations bill to the City Council in 2019, this time, there was a new source of funding, which had been a point of contention when Jean-Baptiste made his proposal in 2002. A cannabis sales tax would go into effect in 2020, providing a source of funding for reparations. The aldermen who developed the reparations proposal suggested the city earmark $10 million of this revenue for reparations over the next 10 years.

Chicago suburb taxes marijuana sales to fund reparations program

The city gathered community input on a local reparations plan. A resolution passed in November 2019, making Evanston the first city to approve a local reparations program, prompting other cities like Amherst, Massachusetts, and Asheville, North Carolina, to consider doing the same.

“We were very excited,” local retiree Rose Cannon, 73, said.

Simmons, who recently left the City Council, said in the two years since the initial meeting of the reparations subcommittee, “there was robust community engagement.”

A celebratory town hall after the vote brought actor and political activist Danny Glover to Evanston, as well as representatives from the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America and National African American Reparations Commission. All 700 seats in the First Church of God were full, Cannon said.

“I’d never seen a turnout in Evanston that big in my whole life,” she said.

'Fake reparations'

Residents voiced their opinions on how the reparations should be distributed during monthly subcommittee meetings.

The city-led discussions quickly turned away from cash payments to a housing assistance program. Cannon said from the community’s standpoint, it seemed the program was being shaped without locals’ input.

The proposal for the first phase eventually presented to the City Council was called the Restorative Housing Program. It would have a $400,000 budget, and the aldermen insisted it would be the first of many different projects.

“This is a housing voucher program, not reparations — and calling it that does more harm than good,” A. Kirsten Mullen and William Darity Jr., authors of “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century,” wrote in an opinion piece for The Washington Post.

Darity, an economist at Duke University, has said proper reparations would cost the federal government at least $11 trillion.

Reparations can only come from the federal government, the authors told NBC News in an email. Local reparations programs “cannot meet the bill for Black reparations,” they said. A congressional bill, H.R. 40, which calls for studying the potential of a reparations program, only advanced from the House Judiciary Committee for the first time in its 32-year existence this year.

Residents opposed to Evanston’s plan say it puts too many restrictions on how they can use the money. Renters, for example, can’t use the housing assistance because it is only for current and future homeowners. Cannon’s opposition began when she contacted her broker about potentially purchasing a home using the allocated $25,000. She learned it wouldn’t be enough to cover a standard down payment on an average-priced home in Evanston, which is currently above $400,000.

Another problem residents point out is that because banks and real estate companies would have to be involved, the program privileges institutions that have historically been the agents of discrimination.

“The beneficiaries of this program would be those who initially did the harm of redlining here in Evanston,” said community organizer Sebastian Nalls, 21.

Nalls and fellow organizers Kevin Brown, Jersey Shabazz and Cannon created the Facebook group Evanston Rejects Racist Reparations in February, which has since amassed more than 600 followers.

The organizers held demonstrations in front of a cannabis dispensary in Evanston, hosted webinars about reparations and lobbied city officials to halt the March 22 City Council vote on the Restorative Housing Program. They were unsuccessful.

Nalls said they will continue expanding their reach, educating and connecting with Black residents over reparations.

“Black Evanston residents need to be determining their own repair,” Nalls said.

‘This is just how it was’

Priscilla Giles’ grandparents, like so many other Black families, moved northward during the period known as the Great Migration in search of more economic opportunities and to escape the racist climate of the South. Yet when they finally settled in Evanston, they found the racism and discrimination was still present, just less overt.

Both sides of Giles’ family lived on Bauer Place. They shared the block with seven other Black families in a predominantly white neighborhood in northern Evanston during the 1920s. When the city began to enforce a commercial zoning ordinance, all of these families were forced to leave their homes. The entire block, filled with homes of Black families, was completely demolished.

Giles recalled that none of the white families in the neighborhood had to give up their homes. Their block is now a parking lot.

“My mother and my grandmother always said this is what they were told and this is just how it was,” she said. “There seemed to be no recourse.”

Giles grew up in the Fifth Ward, a neighborhood with vacant lots the city offered to sell to the Black residents that were being displaced. The majority of Black residents in Evanston already lived in the Fifth Ward because of formal and informal race-based zoning being practiced, according to research compiled by the city’s Shorefront Legacy Center.

Four houses on Giles’ old block had been literally picked up and moved from other parts of the city, an option for Black families that could afford the cost of moving their house.

When Giles sought houses to buy in Evanston in the 1970s, she found that real estate agents were still discriminating based on race.

They would agree to let her visit the house over the phone, she said. But when she would go to the office to sign paperwork, “they would tell me the house was sold.” This happened three or four times, she said, always with white real estate agents.

The house she finally bought, and now lives in, was sold by a Black real estate agent.

Although she is planning to apply for the $25,000 funds, Giles said she believes reparations should benefit the whole community. During the town hall meetings, residents have advocated for building affordable housing and community land trusts, in addition to cash payments. Giles talked about building a vocational school for young people in Evanston.

“I don't want to benefit personally from it,” she said. “I want the city to move in a way that future generations would benefit from it.”

According to the City Council, at least 144 out of 198 residents surveyed said they would consider applying for the Restorative Housing Program.

Legal pressure

Meanwhile, conservative activists have also zeroed in on Evanston. Project on Fair Representation, a conservative organization that was recently involved in the affirmative action lawsuit brought against Harvard University by a group of Asian American students, was the first to threaten legal challenges.

In a letter sent before the first initiative was brought to a vote, the organization’s lawyers threatened to challenge the legislation, calling it discriminatory and unconstitutional.

In mid-April, the conservative nonprofit Judicial Watch sued Evanston for public records. The group has built a reputation around filing Freedom of Information Act requests, notably targeting Hillary Clinton’s emails and most recently attempting to substantiate evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 election.

“This is a group, race-based benefit, based on a tenuous historical analysis,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “It’s an extremist program.”

Both Judicial Watch and Project on Fair Representation cite the equal protection clause to argue the program is unconstitutional because it discriminates based on race.

Former alderman Simmons said the council expected the legal challenges. The Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University has offered pro bono legal services.

Black Evanston residents who oppose this reparations proposal have found themselves holding the same position as political activists who would seek to stymie reparations legislation entirely.

“When I first read the letter, I thought to myself, ‘God has stepped into this,’” Cannon said.

Although the intention of these legal challenges is “not a good thing,” she said, “it might deliver to us what we want to do, which is to stop them in their tracks.”

Stopgap measures

Giles said she is concerned about how the reparations program will take shape, even beyond the housing phase.

“I don’t know where it’s going from here,” Giles said. “I don’t think it’s going anyplace. I really don’t.”

Part of the concern is related to the absence of Simmons, who left the City Council and now works with NAARC. She had announced early in her first term that she would not seek re-election to focus on local and national reparations efforts.

“I have worked about 80-hour workweeks for the last four years,” Simmons said, “and I've decided that I will work on reparative justice, specifically in the Black community focused on reparations both in Evanston and beyond.”

Meanwhile, a local branch of UpTogether, with the endorsement of the City Council, has started issuing $300 cash payments to some Evanston residents who are eligible for reparations according to the city’s criteria.

“I was surprised,” said Giles, who heard about the program through word-of-mouth. “But I can't say that I was any more angry or surprised than when I first heard that the reparations were going to be given for people to buy houses, rather than for something benefiting the whole Black community. Because whoever got the money, it did not benefit me or mine.”

[lodelss]

Aimée Lutkin | Longreads | November 2019 | 15 minutes (3,262 words)

“Hello?” my grandmother’s cigarette-seasoned voice would always answer the phone immediately. I pictured her sitting directly beside it in her motel room, waiting to see which of her three daughters or four grandchildren was checking on her.

“Hi, grandma! Just calling to see if you and Papa are OK in the storm,” I’d say cheerfully, assuming they were basically fine, as they always were. They had evacuated their house, a flimsy four-room hut built atop cement blocks, that was set inconveniently close to the Narrow Bay, right on Mastic Beach in Long Island. All that stood between their home and a body of water that could consume it was a dirt road and a rustling wall of reeds that created a marshy barrier and the illusion of distance. That illusion was regularly washed away by storm flooding, sending them skipping backward like sandpipers.

“Well, we’re all settled in here,” she’d answer, sounding pleased to have evacuated for the night to an artless motel next to a barren parking lot. “Your father is watching the news. Looks like we’ll be back tomorrow!”

“Oh, that’s good,” I’d say, ignoring that she had confused me for my mother as she often did after passing her 80th birthday.

“Yeah, not too bad, not too bad,” she’d say, though there were a few times that did get bad. The year their cars were washed away and they were trapped in their house, years where the power went out. But they always bounced back and during the next storm I’d call to check in again, repeating the same familiar pattern.

For years, visiting my grandparents involved a two- to three-hour train ride on the LIRR from New York City; I went by myself once every summer or spring, and I visited with my mom and aunt and uncle who lived in Montauk every Thanksgiving and Christmas. Montauk is on the eastern tip of Long Island, so Mastic was where we met in the middle until my mother refused to go back. Then I’d go by myself for one winter holiday, alone on the cold, empty train, traveling back and forth on the same day. A six-hour train ride was preferable to spending the night in the drafty house, making conversation around my mother’s absence.

Most of my memories of dinners in Mastic were of the escalating tension between my mother and her father. At some point, Papa had been banned from direct criticism, so he substituted the word “Democrats” for her name. One of his favorite pointed sayings was “An open mind is like a sewer — all the garbage falls in.”

On the trip home, no matter how enraged she had become, my mother would say he hadn’t always been like this. He’d been a teacher. A philosopher. He used to build things and volunteer and not watch Fox News. 

Before my mother’s boycott began, managing the volatile atmosphere was my job; the open hostility in the air bothered me, but it was easier to handle with a generation of distance between us. I learned quickly that one of the safest conversational topics was always the view.

“Look how beautiful it is,” I would say, and the group would repeatedly comply, turning to stare out the wide picture window over the dilapidated second-story porch. Any time of day was lovely, in any weather, but a clear sunset would flood the room with a warm apricot glow. The water caught and refracted the end of the day, allowing its goodbye to sweetly linger. My grandmother’s table, too big for the space, trapping us against the walls, would become a map of the world. Every person with their face tilted out toward the sun was trapped in amber light, frozen momentarily by warmth instead of cold. 

***

I spent most of Superstorm Sandy drunk. At some point the internet went out. My roommates — who were also drunk — and I sat around our living room checking our phones again and again. I lay on my back watching the bare trees whipping outside my window. To us, hurricane preparedness meant having enough wine in our apartment. We’d been responsible. Born and raised in New York City, I’d weathered many hurricane seasons and had found that the danger warnings were always over the top, at least for the five boroughs. 

Lack of internet in our Brooklyn neighborhood gave us some hint of the extremity of the situation, but it still took a little while before we understood that this hurricane was different. Reports of destruction filtered in as we sobered up and got back online. The lights were out in Manhattan, Red Hook was underwater, the Rockaways were a disaster zone, and Breezy Point was on fire. 

They returned when the water receded. At first it seemed to me that that was that. Another storm survived.

In the following weeks, I volunteered, making sandwiches in a church basement, sorting clothes and other donations, traveling out to the Rockaways to help people find what they needed at an auditorium that had been transformed into a relief center. I went with a group of volunteers to knock on doors in apartments that still had no heat or power, finding people who hadn’t left or who had nowhere to go. I met a woman who was running out of insulin, which we didn’t have, and another whose antibiotics for a MRSA infection had been ruined in her water-damaged car. A father and daughter were boiling a kettle on their gas stove to keep their apartment warm, which another volunteer warned was dangerous. They nodded politely. Most of the people we met appeared very calm in the dark hallway, as though they were certain that things would soon snap back into normalcy. Walking down below their complex, seeing how the boardwalk had been pulled into twisted spikes by the waves, how sand spilled everywhere, gobbling up the streets, it seemed impossible that anything would be normal again.    

Since Sandy, new condos have gone up in many of the hardest hit areas, even those still in flood zones. Writer Sarah Miller has investigated for Popula the cognitive dissonance required to move real estate into Miami Beach, purchases that essentially boil down to buying a house for 50 years, tops. Real estate development has mutated to work in tandem with climate change: Destruction levels an area, driving out residents; developers move in, their projects subsidized by government relief efforts. Gentrification accelerates and the people who left can’t afford to come back — yet, this all happens in an area that remains threatened by further climate destruction. The very wealthy can afford to buy the last 50 years of river views, as the people who once lived there search for a place that is not only affordable, but also doesn’t teeter constantly on the edge of ruin. The land shrinks.

***

After Sandy hit, it took a while to get in touch with my grandparents and my aunt and uncle, who said they’d briefly been cut off entirely by rising waters around the Montauk peninsula, which knocked out phone service. My grandparents’ home had flooded, but they’d made it to their usual motel. They returned when the water receded. At first it seemed to me that that was that. Another storm survived. 

The seasonal challenges of my extended family’s geographic location hadn’t been something I thought about much, just as I hadn’t worried too much about a hurricane even though I grew up on an island. New York contains many mythologies and most of them are connected to the city’s relentless ability to continue, no matter what. This is basically the definition of hubris — the confidence that because you survived something the last thousand times, you will survive it the next thousand. 

My grandparents were also both born in New York; my grandmother was an only child. Her mother and father worked as a cook and a chauffeur, respectively, and rented an apartment close to St. John the Divine, in Morningside Heights. In her childhood photos, she looks like a little doll, solitary and posed in patent leather shoes. She grew to be almost six feet tall and gorgeous. She once showed me a photo of herself looking dashing in a headscarf, seated high on a fence.

“Look at me,” she cough-laughed. “I knew what I was doing there.”

Any time of day was lovely, in any weather, but a clear sunset would flood the room with a warm apricot glow. The water caught and refracted the end of the day, allowing its goodbye to sweetly linger.

My grandfather was one of many children of an Irish immigrant mother and an Italian mobster, whose name he wasn’t allowed to speak. I’ve never seen a picture of him before his days as a soldier in WWII, stationed in France after surviving D-Day. His family lived on the Lower East Side, then Williamsburg. He would sometimes tell stories about collecting lost bits of coal that fell from the delivery truck and hollering up at his mom to drain the bathtub full of gin when the cops walked down the street. These were colorful tales meant to make growing up poor sound much more fun than it ever actually was, but he enjoyed telling them. Once when he came to visit my mom and me at our East Village apartment, he spent the day pointing at rooftops, saying he used to jump from one to the other as a kid.

My grandparents met at a funeral. They were cousins of each other’s cousins.

New York City starts to feel very small if you’ve lived there all your life, so by the time they were married with children they’d moved further out, then further out again when the kids were gone. They’d wanted a small, manageable place by the beach for their retirement. They drove past the house in Mastic and a man was standing outside. They asked him if he’d like to sell it, and he miraculously said yes. 

I’ve been told the house washed away once, during a storm in the 1920s, then got hauled back to the same spot and put up on those cement pylons. The story was suspect, but to me it said something about what used to pass for hurricane preparedness.

***

A few weeks before Christmas 2012, less than two months after Sandy, my grandfather fell down the stairs. The staircase leading up to the livable floor of the house was curved and uneven, twisting in at two points. I’m not sure how far down he went, but he broke his hip on the journey and was taken to the hospital, then a rehab center.

My grandmother eventually went to stay with her eldest daughter in Maryland. She was behaving erratically. She didn’t notice that her swollen legs were leaking clear fluid until my aunt pointed it out. She sounded strange when we talked.

“I think I’m about to die,” she told me on the phone. This was something she’d been implying for years, giving away her most cherished wicker-frame mirrors and seashell-covered jewelry boxes until her shelves emptied, explaining she “didn’t need them anymore.” But that was the first time she’d said it so explicitly. She didn’t sound scared. She delivered the news like she was discussing the weather — a little bored, a little distracted. It was the voice of someone going through a transition so huge they couldn’t possibly be bothered to talk about anything else. 

My grandfather was moved to an assisted living home that was difficult to get to from the city. My mother traveled there alone and discovered he’d been sleeping in a wheelchair because it was too hard for him to get in and out of bed. He’d immediately fallen into an intense enmity with his roommate, who had an electric Lazy Boy he wouldn’t let my grandfather nap in. She started to look for homes in Brooklyn, somewhere she could check in on him every day.

And then my grandmother did die.

*** 

After holiday dinners, the younger folks would usually go on a walk around the block before dessert. My grandmother accepted a very limited amount of help from us. We could clear the table, but she wouldn’t allow anyone into her rapid-fire cutlery shuffling over the small sink. Everything she did was set to a higher speed and we would only slow her down.

We walked to digest her butter-soup mashed potatoes and to release a little of the tension into the fresh, salty air. Before we left, my grandfather often called out to insist we bring his walking stick by the door, warning, “Take it with you to beat off the wild dogs. They run in packs out there!”

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I never saw a single dog without a fence penning it in, but I did once ask my aunt if we should bring the stick.

“If you see a dog, are you going to hit it?” she asked.

The answer was no, so we went silent and empty-handed down the rutted road, past the reeds to a small slope of empty shore. Water lapped the edge, which was covered in blue mussel shells and seaweed, plastic bottle caps, broken glass, the occasional dead fish, and a thin crust of ice, which became thinner every year, as the weather grew milder in winter. 

Past the ripples, Pattersquash Island created a dark line on the horizon. The island was originally part of the tribal land of the Unkechaug Nation, who live on the smallest reservation in New York state, set along the shore a 10-minute drive from my grandparents’ house. It covers less than a mile, which includes water. Shinnecock artist Jeremy Dennis has been compiling stories of indigenous Long Island for his project On This Site, and he writes that Pattersquash is historically considered a sacred site for vision quests. It appeared so still and desolate from a distance. 

During Sandy, more than 100 homes on the Poospatuck reservation were damaged. There has been some attention paid to the reservation’s recovery from missionaries and PR companies, but there has not been much media coverage of the incipient creep of rising sea levels, stealing yet more territory from Indigenous people year by year. Mastic and its residents have been living under the threat of both weather and gentrification for decades, resisting a transformation that almost no other beach town on the East End has managed to avoid. Stories about the area over the past 20 years are a whiplash of wonder and warnings.

In 2001, the New York Times touted Mastic as the island’s “Best Kept Secret,” citing its proximity to Fire Island and the relative affordability of real estate compared to the Hamptons. It was suggestively dubbed a “working class stronghold,” but several political and financial mishaps, including a series of racial housing discrimination suits, almost drove the area into bankruptcy, and they were obligated to rejoin the Town of Brookhaven after an attempt at self-governance that began in 2010. In 2018, Newsday heralded another Mastic renewal, pointing out that real estate was still comparatively cheap, and many of the decrepit buildings that had given the area a bad rep were being torn down by new management. 

Damage in the Hamptons after Sandy redirected vacationers to Montauk, transforming a quieter part of the island into a party hotspot that is barely navigable from June to September. My aunt and uncle, who work in the lighthouse and laying tile, were evicted from their home of more than 25 years after its owner died and a fashion photographer bought the property. They’ve been looking for somewhere to move they can afford. They’re thinking out of state.

New York contains many mythologies and most of them are connected to the city’s relentless ability to continue, no matter what.

Bad housing and “slumlords” have been a continuing point of contention in the area, as the New York Times also reported in 2008, seven years after recommending it as summer getaway. A number of sexual assaults brought attention to the high rate of registered sex offenders in the area, whether they were responsible for the attacks or not. In 2006, a man was arrested for planning to set fire to a building occupied by four tenants on the registry. While some of these units have been torn down via legal means, issues around infrastructure, especially inadequate sewage systems, seem to be holding greater change back. 

Visiting only briefly and driven from the train station to the edge of the world every time, I was largely unaware of these issues before Sandy, except for general observations about the number of beer emporiums we drove by to get to the bay. My grandfather built a homemade security system. It felt absurd to be deafened by sirens out on that otherwise quiet corner, and toward the end of their time there, the system was perpetually offline. The house was empty for a week before it was broken into. 

*** 

My grandfather died about nine months after my grandmother, while living in an assisted living home in Brooklyn. I’d like to say he was happy to be back in his old borough, but he most definitely was not. Every time I visited, he practically begged me to move back to Mastic with him, to live in that house, and take care of him there. It was both an outrageous and completely understandable request.

“We were happy there,” he told me one afternoon, tears in his eyes, though by then my mother was pretty convinced he hadn’t fallen down the stairs. She thought, based on the comments he’d let slip, that my grandmother had maybe pushed him during a fight, but that was just her theory. She guessed that the stress of the storm hastened my grandmother’s mental deterioration, maybe even that the new hurricane molds growing in their dirt-floor basement infiltrated her brain somehow, and my grandmother didn’t recognize the danger as their argument escalated. Not exactly a scientific diagnosis, and there’s no proof, but it was hard not to see some connection between Sandy and their deaths — how many storms had they survived before one rose too high and their whole survival system collapsed? All it took was for something they’d lived through over and over to hit a little harder, in a moment of vulnerability, a moment of unpreparedness.

I went by the house before it was sold to see if there was anything that should be retrieved. The people who broke in hadn’t found much of any value, but they appeared to have had a fun afternoon trashing the place. All the familiar knick-knacks and books and worn blankets had been strewn with abandon across the living room, then pissed on. It felt like the destruction from Sandy had been here since the night it happened and had only now become visible. I looked for the ashes of my grandmother’s favorite cat, but only managed to find my grandpa’s dog tags and a few old pictures in the debris and a piece of paper documenting my mother’s first communion. I took my grandmother’s tarnished silver spoons and a collection of vinyl records that had sat so long their grooves were almost flat. I played them later, trying to imagine her listening to them when she was young and felt much sadder than I did on the day of her death.

Then I walked out onto the old porch, stepping over holes, past a long beam that had once served as a ladder for a cat named Squeaky. I turned the corner around the dining room to look one last time at the view. The bay stretched out below as the blinding white light of the late afternoon sun swallowed the hard borders of the land. It seemed like the waves were rolling all the way to their door.

***

Aimée Lutkin is a freelance writer who has written for Jezebel, Glamour, Marie Claire, Popula, and others. She is currently working on her first book for Dial Press on the current societal trends around loneliness titled The Lonely Hunter; you can follow her on Twitter @alutkin.

Editor: Kelly Stout Fact checker: Sam Schuyler Copy editor: Jacob Gross

[themoneybuff-blog]

Questions About HELOCs, Vegetables, Old Papers, Scams, and More!

Whats inside? Here are the questions answered in todays reader mailbag, boiled down to summaries of five or fewer words. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question. 1. Is HELOC the best option? 2. UTMA and UGMA 3. Second job or career advancement? 4. Buying scissors 5. Fresh vegetables and grocery shopping 6. Financially responsible television? 7. Disposing of old financial papers 8. Realities of job applications 9. Financial independence scam? 10. Physical tracking of Triggers questions 11. Thoughts on secular Buddhism 12. Financial advisor One of the strangest things about exercise, at least to me, occurs when you work a muscle that hasnt really been worked in a while. Youll finish and youll feel fine for the rest of the day, but then tomorrow youre really sore in a bizarre place in your body and, often, youre even more sore the following day. I spent most of this weekend walking around with my arms in an awkward position because it hurt to swing them as I normally do when I walk. It was uncomfortable, but it was a reminder that I had worked hard and improved myself. I think this is true of any meaningful improvement in your life. Yes, it will probably hurt a little. Yes, it might leave you feeling a little sore in some way or another. The question is what you take away from that soreness. Is it a sign that youre on a good path? Or is it something to be avoided? On with the questions. Q1: Is HELOC the best option? I live in one of the most expensive areas in the country, in Northern California. My husband and I have an almost-4 year old, and now our second baby due in August. Moving out of the area is not an option for a number of reasons, most importantly that we want our kids raised near family, all of which live in this immediate area. We both have full-time jobs that pay decently well, and are trying hard to eliminate any non-essential expenses. However, just the cost of the mortgage on our small condo, childcare for two kids, and health insurance will be more than were earning. So, we need a way to pay the bills until both kids are in public school, at which time well again be earning more than were spending. Our home has accrued a decent amount of equity since we purchased it two years ago, so our mortgage consultant recommended a Home Equity Line of Credit. What are your thoughts, though? Would any other type of loan be a better option for us? Julia Without a fuller picture of your financial state, I cant guarantee you dont have other options. However, a HELOC is probably the best option available to you with a reasonable interest rate attached to it. Im sure youre aware of the core problem with this situation: you are riding a financial and professional tightrope. If anything happens to either of your jobs, you are almost immediately falling into a seriously perilous financial state. My suggestion, along with the HELOC, is to leverage your family as much as possible right now to help with this. Accept every possible family invitation you get to share a meal or for free/cheap babysitting. Ride-share with them as often as possible. More than probably any point in your life, you need to be very careful with your spending. Any situation in which youre spending more than you earn is one that is fraught with risk. Q2: UTMA and UGMA My wife and I had our first son a couple weeks ago, and are trying to figure out the best savings options for him. He has started to receive some gift checks written out to his name, so we need to set up some type of bank account for him. Can you help explain the difference between at UTMA and an UGMA? He has separate 529 plans already being set-up by his grandparents, but we wanted him to have some experience with a regular bank and interstates that well be able to teach him with once he gets old enough. Charlie Theyre very similar. There are two big differences between the two that really matter and which one you choose depends on which factors you care the most about. With a UGMA, youre restricted to paper assets cash, stocks, bonds, insurance policies, and so on. A UTMA can hold other kinds of assets in addition the one that most people care about is real estate. A UTMA allows the account custodian to control the assets up to age 25 (depending on specific state rules), while UGMA accounts mature at age 18. If you anticipate your child ever having to apply for financial aid for college, I probably wouldnt use a UGMA or a UTMA. The FAFSA assumes that 20% of the balance of the UGMA/UTMA will be used for college education each year, whereas it only assumes that about 6% of a 529 balance will be used in that way. In other words, theyll be able to receive more financial aid if their college savings is in a 529 rather than a UGMA/UTMA. If you think that paying for college is fully in hand without paying for student loans, a UGMA/UTMA can be a very flexible tool that enables you to gift money to a child while still keeping a hand on the wheel until theyre reasonably mature. Q3: Second job or career advancement? I currently have M-F job in a research lab. On the weekends I work for my uncles construction company that I have worked for since I was 17. He has encouraged me to use the weekends in other ways but I always felt like I needed the money. Lately I have been wondering if I would be better off long term spending the weekends building skills, going to conferences, and building professional relationships. Short term I definitely lose income but long term? I cant decide. Jameson Your uncle sounds like a good guy, and hes probably correct that you can be using the weekends in better ways. If youre in a situation where youre financially stable and able to keep paying off any debts and saving for the future with just your M-F job and youre pretty confident you want to be in that career for the long haul, Id lean toward spending weekends building skills and going to conferences and building relationships and such. Take it seriously, though; dont fall into a rut of using that time for idle things. (Theres nothing wrong with thoughtful leisure, though.) If youre not sure what you want to do, then Id keep the construction job and give some serious thought to your future while getting rid of debt just a little faster. In either case, Id loop your uncle into the decision and use him as a mentor. Not only does he seem like a sharp guy, you may want to keep that door open for the future in case things go awry and you need to go back to construction work. Q4: Buying scissors Whenever I buy a pair of scissors they always seem like they get so dull they cant even cut through paper after like 20 uses. Where can I get a decent pair of scissors that arent junk in three months? Bonnie Rather than just buying new scissors all the time, just sharpen the ones you have. Its not a hard process. Get some coarse sandpaper at the store and then cut through a sheet several times with the sand side down. Then, take a piece of aluminum foil, fold it in half four times so its 16 layers thick, then cut through it several times with the scissors. Then, take a piece of steel wool and cut through it several times with the scissors. Your scissors will be sharp after doing that, probably sharper than when you bought them. You just need to do that every several months or whenever you notice the scissors getting dull. Even super cheap scissors will be quite good if you do this. Q5: Fresh vegetables and grocery shopping How do you balance trying to not go shopping as much with buying fresh vegetables and fruits? On the one hand frugal advice is to minimize your trips to the grocery store but on the other hand healthy fruits and vegetables can go bad so quickly. Macey I cant speak for everyone, but heres what we do. First, if something requires genuinely fresh ingredients, we make those meals within a few days of our grocery store visit. They become a priority. Second, we treat flash frozen vegetables and fruits as being the equivalent of fresh for most purposes. We buy quite a lot of frozen vegetables and fruit. Third, we often do a lot of meal prep, meaning that our fresh vegetables and sometimes fruits make it quickly into meals that are popped in the freezer. Ill buy a ton of fresh spinach, for example, but a lot of it will go into four pans of frozen lasagna. Fourth, a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables dont go bad all that quickly. Most root vegetables last and last. Many fruits last for a long time, too. Finally, we store some of the most perishable stuff in the fridge, following directions on how to best store them to maximize life. If we can stretch something that should only last a few days into lasting for a week, thats a big win. Those steps enable us to buy a ton of fruits and vegetables without them going bad. If we notice something starting to become overripe, to the point where we dont want to use it but its not quite inedible, well throw it in the freezer and use it for making stock or for making fruit bread in the near future. Q6: Financially responsible television? It seems like everything on television outside of a few hokey reality shows is centered around people living way beyond their means or else rich people. Everyone is just spending tons of money and living in fabulous houses and buying tons of stuff. I never really noticed this until you pointed it out. Its such a strong subtle nudge to do the same. What can a person watch that isnt about spending money? Mary I completely agree. Depicting expensive lifestyles on television seems to be the norm everywhere, and knowing the the median American household income is around $60,000, the truth is that most Americans cant live like that. It either becomes something to try to emulate, which is a road to financial ruin, or something to try to ignore, which is hard, or else youre watching shows that revel in values that run in opposition to your own. To tell the truth, I dont watch much television at all any more. What I do watch is generally fantasy or sci-fi or documentaries. I mostly read or play tabletop games instead of turning on the television. Q7: Disposing of old financial papers Im following standard advice and keeping old papers for seven years, but what do you do with them after that? The advice seems to be to shred them but the idea of shredding a box of papers seems like a lot of work with a home shredder where you have to unfold everything and it only takes a few sheets at a time. Maxwell One thing you can do is see if theres a community paper shredding day or one sponsored by your bank. Theyll bring in a HUGE industrial shredder that can shred your whole box of documents in a few seconds you literally toss things in there by the fistful and they get utterly decimated by the blades. Another option is to burn them. Just go camping, use those documents for kindling, and then toss them in there while youre getting a few logs burning. One of my friends likes to rip them up by hand, then put them in a big tub of water so that they turn into this giant paper pulp chunk, then he dries that out, then he takes that big paper pulp brick on his camping trips and breaks off pieces for kindling. Q8: Realities of job applications I am a hiring officer for a Fortune 500 company. There are some popular misconceptions floating around about getting a job at a large corporation. I hope you will be able to share this with your readers. Youll often see media reports that open jobs get hundreds and hundreds of applications for a single job. That is true but it is not the whole story. What actually happens is that if we list a job opening, we will get 500 or so applications, but 480 of them are garbage and irrelevant. Probably 400 of those applications dont meet any of the requirements for the job. Another 60 or so only meet one or two of the requirements. Another 20 might be viable for the job but theyve presented themselves so poorly that we can easily disqualify them. This covers things like resumes with several misspellings or cover letters that use offensive language. That leaves 20 people that are legitimate candidates. Do not be intimidated out of applying for a job that youre completely or even mostly qualified for. Just put in enough effort to submit an accurate resume without spelling or grammar errors and a respectful cover letter that actually addresses this specific position. Thats probably enough for you to make it through the cut of 480 applicants to the final 20. It doesnt mean youll make the next cut, but youll be in that discussion. Mark This is really good advice and its something Ive told many people applying for jobs. Make sure your resume is well edited and matches the job youre applying for and also make sure your cover letter actually addresses the position in question. Thats usually enough to make the first big cut because the vast majority of applications dont even make that threshold. Remember, many job applications are just tossed out there like email spam, just sent to anything even vaguely close. Many other people dont have any idea how to present themselves as someone you might ever want to hire. If you can beat those thresholds, youll probably find some success. Yes, some jobs are filled internally and some others are filled thanks to personal recommendations, but there are many that are filled via open job searches. Dont give up. Q9: Financial independence scam? I was at a store in town minding my own business when this guy in a suit comes up to me and starts chatting. I knew him vaguely as I had seen him a time or two before. He eventually starts talking about financial independence and at first I thought he was talking about financial responsibility but then he really wanted to meet me for coffee to talk about it and gave me a business card. Is there a financial independence scam out there? What was going on? Tim This seems way off to me and I wouldnt follow up with it. Theres a very high likelihood that this individual is involved with a network marketing or a multi-level marketing business think Amway or something like that. Part of the pitch to many people centers around the idea of being financially independent because you run your own business, when youre mostly just trying to sell unwanted stuff to family members. I would in general be wary of a person I barely knew coming up to me, striking up a conversation about something like my finances, and then trying to get me to go get coffee with them. Id simply decline the offer and walk away. If I ever did end up accepting an invite and then someone started mentioning anything like that, Id politely get out of there as fast as possible. Q10: Physical tracking of Triggers questions As per your recommendation from late last year I read the book Triggers in January and am excited to dig into these questions. I spent some time thinking about some personal behaviors I wanted to develop and curb and came up with a list of 12 questions to ask myself each day. How do you physically do these twelve questions and record the answers? Could you walk me step by step through exactly what you do? Marie I use a grid-paper notebook (this one, to be specific, though any grid paper notebook would do just fine) and a black pen. I devote a two page layout per month to this. On the left page, I write out the questions I want to answer as a numbered list. So, it might look something like this: 1. Did I do my best today to be an involved parent with my oldest son? 2. Did I do my best today to be an involved parent with my youngest son? 3. Did I do my best today to be an involved parent with my daughter? 4. Did I do my best today to build a lasting and loving marriage? 5. Did I do my best today to create and write meaningful material for my readers? [] My current list of questions for this month numbers 22. It varies month to month. At the end of each month, I give some careful thought to what I want to work on in the next month, and that might mean deleting some questions and adding others. At the start of each day, I review the questions for that month and think about each one for a bit. I try to visualize what I can do today to make that habit happen. On the other page, I simply have a big grid. Each row is simply numbered with the number of the question 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on. Each column is a date 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on. At the end of each day, I score each question from 0 to 10 based on how I felt about my effort for the day, not the results. So, if I sat down with my daughter and had a really good conversation with her and then later on also did something fun with her, Id probably score that an 8 or a 9. Some people find it hard to give an exact number here, but I just trust my gut on it. I find it hard to give myself a 10 I do occasionally, but not very often. (The individual numbers are fairly arbitrary just find a system that is meaningful that works for you.) I record that number in the square where the row for that question and the column for that date intersect. Then, at the bottom of each column, I average the days scores. For me, a day where I have an average of a 7 or above is a pretty good day (and I usually know it it has felt like a good day). Anything below a 5 average is usually a bad day unless something really unusual and disruptive has happened (and I usually know that, too). At the end of a month, I will average all of the scores for that month. Questions with an average score of an 8 or above are usually removed as I view that as something Ive firmly adopted and am doing well. Questions with an average score of 4 or below are often removed, too, as its obviously not something Im committed to sometimes it comes back as a refactored question. The other questions usually stick around unless I decide I need a priority change. The whole point of this is to keep new habits and behaviors in the front of my mind all the time and to really keep an eye on my efforts to improve those behaviors. It really seems to work when I take it seriously. However, its worth noting that you wont see giant transformative life effects from changing a few behaviors. It takes time for those to build up in your life. Its like a quarter of a degree difference in an airplane flight it only seems like a big change after a lot of time. Q11: Thoughts on secular Buddhism I cant believe you would share information about Buddhism. I thought you were a Christian. Disappointed. Amy I dont see them being in much conflict at all. I find far more conflict with Christianity in many of the articles I write on strict financial issues than I do in secular Buddhism. Buddhism has absolutely no reference to a singular, personified deity like the Abrahamic God. None. As far as I can tell, Buddhism basically puts the idea of a deity into an area of beyond human understanding and really doesnt worry about things in that category. I would describe Buddhism as non-theist. My understanding is that Buddhism is basically a set of tools to make your own character and values stronger, which is literally how the Dalai Lama describes it. The tools that Buddhism provides can strengthen ones Christian beliefs, or whatever beliefs they might have. To me, its little different than reading about any school of philosophy and using what it can teach in ones life. If you want to dig into this more, I suggest this article. Q12: Financial advisor Do you use a financial advisor? Why or why not? Jerry I do not use a financial advisor. Sarah and I met with one once, partially because I wanted to actually interact with one and also partially because we hoped that a financial advisor could address or at least reaffirm our answers to a few financial questions we had. I felt like the advisor was not explaining anything to me that I didnt already understand from reading a few good books on investing and he was also trying really hard to sell me on products that did not seem like good investment options to me. This was a fee-based advisor; he wasnt even getting a commission from this sale. We just ended up trusting our own research and did things on our own. I would far rather spend several hours reading up on a financial topic and understanding it myself than paying a financial advisor to explain it and recommend options that I may or may not even want. Im going to end up making a lot of money from that invested time. Got any questions? The best way to ask is to follow me on Facebook and ask questions directly there. Ill attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive many, many questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours. https://www.thesimpledollar.com/questions-about-helocs-vegetables-old-papers-scams-and-more/