#i didn't find new photos but there are lots of lost chats

[blackthorndryad]

.

[oepionie]

—VOICELINES ABOUT YOU. various

Synopsis: Yuuken interrogates some of the boys on the campus about their special someone. Hearing their loving ramblings on you was certainly not what he expected.

Tags: Self-Indulgent, Fluff, Angst if you squint really hard, Reader is not Yuu, Tweels are a bit...too mad in love, I brainrotted so hard, You're Malleus' fiancee, Malleus doesn't know how to tell a joke someone help him

Cw. Riddle's Mother, Overworking, Hospitalizations, Poor living conditions, Illness, Bullying, Allusions to violence, Marriage, Tad bit of possesive behavior, Description of stabbing

WordCount: 2k+ | 💌Masterlist

R.R | RIDDLE ROSEHEARTS:

About: Riddle's Rose

"Rose? I see you've met that troublesome intern at the library. That's a nickname. Their name is (Y/N) and yes, they are my partner." "A-Ah? I'm so direct? Well, you asked me a question! Though...I would prefer that this discussion end here. I prefer to keep my relationship with them private.”

Chat: Childhood Memories

“Ever since we were young, (Y/N) was quite rebellious. The complete opposite of me as a child, really. They were always sneaking off during the night and coming over to visit me. Mother...didn't approve of them and often screamed in their face. I was quite terrified she would scare them away, though that didn't stop them at all. Haha, I think they got even more persistent afterwards. I am truly glad I met them.”

Personal Story: To the Hospital

“Again...? I see. Thank you, Trey. Hmph, I'll have to schedule another visit once more."

> "Riddle? What's wrong?"

"Ah, Yuuken—It's Rose. They've gotten admitted to the hospital...again. (Y/N) is quite impulsive and tends to bite off more than they can chew. On more than occasion, like now, I would find out about their hospital admissions via Trey days or even weeks after."

>"Aren't you dating? Why aren't they telling you?"

"They claim that they withhold the information from me out of concern for my workload or out of fear of being a burden. Though that is—a sentiment I don't understand. Nothing is more important to me than their health."

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R.B | RUGGIE BUCCHI

About: The Photo In His Wallet

"Where is it?! Man, I'm so fucked if I lost it—Oh?! Oi, Yuuken! That wallet's mine! Man, thanks a lot. I really would've been screwed over if it weren't for you." "Eh? The photo? Shishishishi curious, aren't cha? Hmmm...how 'bout this? You get me a steaming hot meat bun and I'll give you a story time about them."

Chat: A Hopeful Future

"My studies? Course I take them seriously! That's what's gonna' put food on the table one day. Plus, I wanna' give (Y/N) the life they deserve—What'd I mean? Well, if I'm going to be their husband, I want 'em to live comfortably. It's not like we need anythin' luxurious, anyways. As long as we're together and there's enough food to go by, it's going to be all right."

Personal Story: In Sickness and In Health

"....that's good to hear. Please look after 'em, granny. Love ya." The call ends and Ruggie sighs. "That's the best news I've received since."

>"News?"

"Guh-?! Man! What's with you and sneaking up on me!? Yeah yeah—you heard right...news. Granny just called me to talk about (Y/N), their health is looking up. Tell ya' what, I knew that deal with Azul was worth it. I managed to snag some medicine and send it home."

>"Oh? Medicine?"

"Yeah. Ever since my first year of high school, they were sick and bedridden. (Y/N)'s parents don't have enough money for a doctor, so there's not much they can do. Of course, I'm out here doin' my best to help too."

"I really...I really wanna see them up and runnin' again. Hey, who knows—maybe we'll get to make flower crowns for the village kids again...together."

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A.A | AZUL ASHENGROTTO

About: An Interrogation

"Yuuken, you’ve met (Y/N), I hear. Well, as their partner, it's only right that I ask you about it. I assume you don't mind. So, what is your opinion of them? Nothing short of perfection, I hope."

"Hm? You think they're nice? Good then."

Chat: Busy Octoboss

"With all the deals, my maintenance of my academic ranking, and my position as Monstro Lounge's manager, my workload is quite substantial compared to most. And, I regret to say that it does get in the way of my personal life, including quality time with my lover. It tears at my heart, yet I cherish how they're so understanding and patient. Still, sometimes I can't help but think I am undeserving of them..."

Personal Story: Deep Sea Bonds

"My childhood is not something that I appreciate or want to remember. Yet, despite everything I've been through, I do think it is pleasant to look back on the days when I met them. You see, (Y/N) was bullied too. They were just like me, relentlessly bad mouthed and hurt by the kids around us. However, they never failed to greet me every day with a bright smile on their face."

>"What a sunny person."

"They'd also always have the courage and bravery to stand up for me, often taking the brunt of the bullying. I wish I could say I did the same for them...but I was far too cowardly back then..."

>"Wow. You two must be really close, then."

"Of course. They've been through a lot.Which is exactly why I won't allow anyone to speak ill of them anymore." Azul pauses, smiling slyly. "Say, Yuuken. You'll tell me if anyone casts aspersions on my Angelfish, won't you?"

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J.L | JADE LEECH

About: A Helping Hand

"Hm? What's that? Ah, you’ve met my darling pearl. I see. I do notice how you’ve been frequenting Monstro Lounge lately…Have you perhaps acquired a romantic interest towards them? No? Hehe, Alright." "Now, to answer your question, yes, that is right; (Y/N) routinely comes over to visit and aid me in my Mountain Treks. I couldn't be more grateful for their assistance."

Chat: The Pearl Ring

"Oya? I see you're curious about the ring I've been crafting. Well, it's for (Y/N). You see, in merfolk culture, we create handcrafted jewelry to serve as a courting gift. This is one of many ornaments I plan on giving them. Though, this one is...particularly unique. Ah, well...(Y/N) Leech does have a nice ring to it, does it not?"

Personal Story: A Jaded Reaction

"Oya? (Y/N) is spending the night at Ramshackle? Whatever reason for?"

>"Grim wanted to have a game night."

"Ah. I see. How...lovely. What's that? My smile is frightening you? Oho, now is it? Hehe, my deepest apologies. We eels tend to be quite...protective. I so anticipate you to take good care of them. And fret not, as long as you keep them away from any harm, no disputes shall arise."

>"Uh...and if something happened?"

"What if something happened...? Well, I'm sure you wouldn't mind being hunted down the face of the earth, tied up, and pulled down to the deepest pits of the blue ocean, where no one can hear your anguished cries for help...Would you?" 

>"..."

"Just joking. I would never do that."

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F.L | FLOYD LEECH

About: A Sea Walnut

"(Y/N)? Aha~~~ You've heard of my little sea walnut? They're so adorable and squishy, yanno!—Is there a problem? If you got a problem with 'em, I'll squeeze you." "Oh? Not scared at all, huh? Ehe~ You sure are ballsy. Tread carefully now, shrimpy~!"

About: Ocean Currents

"Whenever a strong ocean current comes, sea walnut always huddles close to me and grabs my arm. They've always been afraid of being blasted away."

"They used to do that a lot when we were kids, but it never gets old. Hehe~ Sometimes, I lead them to places where the waves are strong, jus' so they can cling onto me! It's so funny to see 'em get afraid and scramble after me when I move too far away. "

Personal Story: Shark Attack

"Hmm~? Oh, what're these bite marks? Rad, aren't they? I got them after fighting a buncha' sharks."

>"Sharks?! Why would you do that?"

"To get these. It's shark teeth. Our anniversary is comin' up, and Jade suggested that I should make some jewelry for them. It's a merfolk courting thing. Azul 'n Jade told me to get them pearls, but I thought that was boring. So, I'm making one with shark teeth instead! Isn't that cool~?"

>"I-I guess, but what happened to the sharks?"

"Ugh. None of them were a fun hunt. The entire hoard swam away so fast. Can you believe it???… I’m not the typa eel who would let my prey get away that easily, though. And it’s not like I had anything better to do. Ehehe! There were so many of those sharks swarming around, but I managed to squeeze them all! Well, it was worth it in the end cuz I got what I wanted. I'll do anythin' for my little sea walnut~"

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J.V | JAMIL VIPER

About: A Hearty Meal

“What am i doing? Well, I'm making some Roast Chicken with Sumac Flatbread. Oh? Who's (Y/N)? Ah, Kalim must have told you, huh. (Y/N) is my partner. They are truly wonderful."

"For example—Though I like to think I'm skilled at disguising my true feelings, the moment I go to see them, they already know what I'm thinking. They have a keen sense of intuition and always seem to know what I need and when I need it. Truly, I'm grateful for such a caring—Ah, I'm sorry. I was rambling again."

Chat: Snake-Eyed Envy

"I can't dispute that a lot of people back home are vying for their affection.That bothers me at times. As Kalim's babysitter-ehem, retainer, I don't have enough time to check in on them every day...However, as cheesy as it sounds, I have yet to meet someone who is as smitten with (Y/N) as I am."

Personal Story: World Left Unsaid

"I soon understood that I was more than the circumstances of my birth, all thanks to (Y/N). In fact, My bond with Kalim has become stronger and more genuine thanks to them. I...realized my hatred for Kalim was just my desire for my circumstances to be different...I didn't hate him at all. Without (Y/N), I would never have understood it."

>"They must be very important to you, Jamil."

"Absolutely. I was terrified that I might lose them after my overblot. But to my surprise, they stayed with me. Naturally, it hurt them, but they were really compassionate towards me and about how much I had to go through."

>"Do they know of what you feel?"

"I...I don't think (Y/N) realizes just how much I cherish them. I don't think now's the right time for that though. I've hurt them too much and I still have a long way to go before I fix things."

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M.D | MALLEUS DRACONIA

About: He's Engaged?!

"I am, indeed, betrothed. Heh. Why are you looking so bewildered, Child of Man? If I'm going to be a king someday, it only makes sense that I would need someone to reign alongside me, no? At first glance, (Y/N) may seem aloof, but as you get to know them more, you'll see that they are actually incredibly lovely and warm."

"You never thought I was one for romance? My, my... What a bold statement, you best learn how to hold your tongue. Have you considered that I could use lightning to smite you where you stand?...Now, now—That was a joke. You don't have to cower in fear."

Chat: Safe And Sound

"My precious treasure tells me that I tend to get protective at times. Though can you really fault a lover for wanting to protect the one who is most important to them in this cruel, ruthless world. One where others will not hesitate to turn on you?"

Personal Story: The Art Of War

"I am actually the first of my lineage to wed someone who is not a noble. You see, (Y/N) is a knight-in-training. And, as you can probably guess, they served as my retainer. To see them at work was truly a magnificent sight to witness. They command attention and radiate strength. While I had always admired them, I could not bring myself to express my true feelings to them. Until...that night."

>"That night?"

"Yes. On the evening of Silver's 16th birthday, someone had rushed at me with a dagger in hand. (Y/N) was the first to respond and took the hit for me...The sound of their screams as the knife tore through their flesh was truly...horrifying."

>"That's horrible! What happened to the guy?"

"Worry not, he was taken care of accordingly....If there is anything I’ve learned from Lilia's many teachings, it’s that the worst calamities that befall an army arise from hesitation. To avoid further offensives, one must deal with and eliminate adversaries as soon as possible. Don't you think so?"

Likes and Reblogs are greatly appreciated and are very motivating on my end!

Taglist: @keedas @spadecentral @crypticbibliophile @pastellepastary @cassidycampfire @cocomollo @poisonioushearts @anonima-2 @kawaiipotatoghost @ramvuda @sweeneyblue1 @the-lost-anime-dad @chuuchuudreams @taruruchi

↳ want to be added?

[cloudsandpaws]

What if MC used the Night Dagger on themselves?

I've always wondered about what would happen if Simeon showed up a second too late? An AU.

Rest assured that I will make a happy ending 🥲

Spoilers: Lessons 35, 37-38

Warnings: intense emotions, bleeding, death

Characters: Lucifer, Mammon, Leviathan

A/N: This pained me so much to write 😭

Lucifer

Lucifer was right there when the dagger was thrusted into your chest.

He froze, shocked and saddened. He felt his memory returning, but at what cost? MC's life?

He stared down at your lifeless form at his feet, the floor spattered with red.

Luci collapsed onto his knees next to you. Tears started forming as he fought to keep them in. He looked at you and gave up, tears pouring like rain down his cheeks.

How long had it been since he cried? Why was it after MC's death?

Lucifer returned to his room after a while, eyes red from crying. MC was gone. You were gone.

He could never forgive himself. He was right there, holding your hand, but why didn't he stop you? "This is all my fault..."

The Morning Star, Avatar of Pride, Diavolo's right-hand man, Lucifer, had lost his one and only pride; you.

He couldn't bear face his brothers after what had happened, although no demon blamed him.

Lucifer buried himself in work, so he could focus on something else other than you. Or so he hoped.

He visits the underground tomb every single day, praying with all his heart that you could forgive him, and for you to find happiness wherever you go, just like Lilith.

Mammon

Mammon rushed over to your room after hearing the news.

His heart stopped when he saw you lying on the floor, red stained floor and all.

He could barely process everything. Just yesterday they were playing cards and having fun, now you were gone from his life.

"MC... MC!! No...no, nononono! This can't be happenin'! Ya can't leave me now! Ya can't! Ya just CAN'T!!"

No being in the three realms had ever heard Mammon scream so loudly. His whole body was shaking as he tried to shake you awake. As if some miracle would happen and you'd come back to life...

Nothing, you were gone.

He was devastated. He had no reason to keep making money if you weren't around. Who could he show Goldie to now? How could he be the Avatar of Greed?

Mammon locked himself in his room, the door never opened during the daytime since that faithful day.

Only at night would that very door be opened, silently making his way to the underground tomb.

He had taken your favorite flowers, and placed them beside your resting place.

"MC... I miss ya so much..."

He whispered those words every time he was leaving, after he told you about his day. Mammon puts a note in every bouquet of flowers he gives you, each one saying a similar sentence; "Please come back to me..."

Leviathan

Once Levi saw in the group chat that you were gone, he immediately froze.

What happened to you? How? What? Why?!

Why did it have to be you? His Henry, his Player Two, his Normie! It isn't fair!

He went over to Henry 2.0, whispering about what happened to the little goldfish.

"Henry, MC... You know them? That human who comes over sometimes. They're, gone..."

Leviathan sighs, and stares at his monitor. The script for "With Me" is on the screen. A photo of the one he gave you.

He hurries over to your room, picks up the script, and displays it on his favorite shelf.

Placing Ruri-chan figurines next to it, he sighs once more.

"I'm just a worthless shut-in otaku, MC wasn't. Why did it have to be them?!"

It takes Levi a lot of self-control not to summon Lotan, but he leaves a short remark on the script.

"To my Henry, my Player Two, my Normie. This one's dedicated to you."

[judy1926]

Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier met for the first time in 1939 after a theatrical performance of The Mask of Virtue.

From the first meeting, there was an attraction between the two

After their conversation, Vivien said to one of her friends “This is the man I will marry,” ignoring the fact that she is married and he is also married

After one of Olivier's performances, Vivien visited him in his room, and after chatting a little with a rising actress before she left, she kissed Olivier on the neck shyly and left.

Vivien was attracted to Laurence because of his charm and charisma, according to a biography written about Vivien Leigh Lawrence was attracted to her in a way he had never been to any other woman

Olivier said in Lord Larry: "I couldn't help myself with Vivian, no one could."

"I hated myself for cheating on Jill, but then I had cheated before, but this was something different. This wasn't just lust. This was the love I didn't really ask for but was drawn to."

A year later, a movie brought them together Fire Over England They spent all their time together, but they succumbed to each other's attraction and their secret relationship began

After a period of time, their relationship was secret, and when Vivien played Ophelia on stage in Hamlet, she suffered a brutal bipolar attack. When Laurence Olivier entered the dressing room, Lee suddenly started shouting at him. This incident shook Olivier, as he later described how it was like a switch had been flipped. Lee started yelling at him, then immediately stopped as if nothing had happened. Unfortunately, her illness will get worse.

During their separation in order to expand their professional life, the two exchanged scandalous and romantic letters, dating back to between 1938 and 1939.

After a dispute over my role as Scarlett in the movie Gone with Profit, I was surprised by the difficulty of the work and everyone’s fear of the failure of the assigned project. She wrote to Olivier explaining how she felt. He responded to her You have to be very smart to succeed in your photo career, which is essential for your self-esteem." "…I'm afraid you might become boring. Never for me…but for yourself and because of that for others. It seemed that Olivier's letters were what kept Lee going

After much struggle, the two finally married in 1940

Vivien contracted tuberculosis in 1944 while she was on a trip to South Africa and Olivier was afraid that his wife would die.

“Please, my angel, send me word of what the doctor said, + if I may ask him to send me a report.”

“You are the only person in the world who can make me so hideously selfish love someone else more than I love myself.”

In 1947, Lee's mental state became worse and Olivier's professional life became better.

In 1948, Lee and Olivier went on a six-month tour in Australia and New Zealand to perform and raise money for the theater. Lee's health condition was poor, and severe quarrels occurred between the two due to Lee's sharp fluctuations and Olivier's lack of knowledge of how to deal with her. The strongest quarrel was when Vivien refused to go on stage with Olivier. Because she could not find her shoe, Olivier could not bear her childish behavior and slapped her in the face in front of everyone. She responded to Lee by hitting him on the back hard. However, at the end, the two of them went up on stage with smiles on their faces, but Olivier learned that he lost her in Africa.

Their professional lives were putting a lot of pressure on their relationship and there were constant comparisons, and she was taking the issue seriously and with great fear

The two still wrote letters when apart, but even that romance was beginning to fade

Lee's mental state was devastating for the two

In 1958, I was introduced to Jacques Merivale, who was aware of all his psychological and physical problems. When Olivier found out about this, he asked Jacques to take care of Vivian, and he promised him that.

The instability in their romantic relationship worsened Lee's emotional and mental condition.

By 1960, Vivien was threatening suicide. “Vivien is several thousand miles away, trembling on the brink, even when she sits quietly in her drawing room,” Olivier once said. Olivier and Lee filed for divorce in May 1960. The divorce was finalized later that year and Olivier married again.

Although they were no longer together, Olivier and Vivien continued to write to each other every now and then.

“I want to thank you for understanding all of this for me,” Olivier wrote in a letter to Lee regarding their divorce, according to The Guardian. “You did a noble, brave, beautiful thing, and I'm so sorry, so sorry, because it must have been a hell of a lot for you.”

But she once said to newspaper, “I would rather have a short life with Olivier than a long life without him.”

Her husband, Jack Merivale, left her at home while he went to perform in a play in Eaton Square. When he returned around midnight, he found Lee asleep in bed. Half an hour later, he entered to find her body on the ground. Leigh apparently tried to walk to the bathroom and collapsed due to her lungs filling with fluid, according to Vivien Leigh: A Biography of Anne Edwards.

Merival alerted the Vivien family and then Olivier

He attended and participated in Vivian's funeral even though he was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer

Olivier Merival helped make funeral arrangements and stayed with Lee until her body was removed.

1967 On July 8, Vivien Leigh's death was announced, and all theaters in London's West End turned off their lights for one hour in her honour. A memorial service was held at St Martin-in-the-Fields and Lee's cremated ashes were spread on the lake at her summer home, Tickerage Mill in East Sussex, England.

In a final letter to Vivien just five weeks before her death, Olivier signed, “Sincere love my dear, your Larry.”

In 1989, on July 11, Olivier died of kidney failure

Even after his marriage to Plowright, Olivier held Lee dear in his heart for the rest of his life. It is said that shortly before his death, he found Olivier watching a film starring Lee, with tears in his eyes, “This, this was love,” he said

[literaticat]

I don’t have any social media and there’s virtually no sign of me on the web. This might make agents and publishers suspicious. I just never got into it, I had a Facebook page years ago and shut it down or lost the login, can’t find it anyway. Twitter never seemed appealing to me and I feel told for the other ones lol. I would be open to seeing something up on request if I get an offer and I’ve thought about setting up a website but I think new social media might also make things look suspicious, so in the meantime how do I answer questions about why I’m not online when in 2024 people seem to think it makes you look like a weirdo. I also don’t feel comfortable having random photos of me online when it’s just not my style, I’m over 40 and just feel it’s not for me.

I am cracking up about "over 40" -- baby, you think that's old or something? LMAO. I'm probably older than you, and I muddle through somehow. Social media or whatever may or may not be for you -- but it's not about your AGE, it's about your personality.

It's OK if social media is not really your thing, nobody is asking you to be a social media superstar -- but it wouldn't hurt you to have SOME kind of social media presence once you have a book out, and you might as well start sooner than later, because that takes time to build.

IF you decide you want to dip a toe into social media, pick ONE platform. (I'd suggest BlueSky, probably -- there are lots of kidlit people on there, it's a very welcoming and easy community). Here's a post about how to get started for a Social Media Newbie. (Note that BlueSky didn't exist when I wrote it, so I don't mention that -- but if you want tips on BlueSky specifically, follow Debbie Ohi there, she is all about boosting kidlit people. And there is a whole feed that is all kidlit authors and illustrators, and there's a kidlit chat on Tuesdays -- there's stuff, is what I'm saying!) As I say in that post -- it doesn't have to be something that takes over your life. Try spending 15 minutes a day checking in, follow and boost authors you are interested in. If you read a great book, post about it. IF you have a cute cat, post about it. It doesn't have to be a source of stress, you don't need to post videos of yourself doing makeup tutorials or whatever -- just befriend some book people. They are nice!

The other good thing about starting a BlueSky account now is -- the whole site is very new. So it won't look weird AT ALL if you have a new account -- almost everyone has a new account!

[eepop-stuffs]

So, because i have a love for media preservation, and recently got a VPN, I figured I could compile some stuff from websites I couldn't visit before, like the Minmie website. The Minmie website is region-locked for the US, so I'm on a Japanese server. I chose Japan because this is a region that I know Minmie products were sold in. Like the Fulla website, it's partially lost. For the same reasons as the Fulla site, too. Ruffle simply can't open a lot of the archived pages. However, because Minmie was smart, we can actually see the home page due to the site not opening on a flash-based loading screen.

Much more after the cut!

This capture is from February of 2006, two years after the site was launched and six before it would be taken down. The 2004 capture's flash elements are inaccessible (but still there!), and for some odd reason the animation of Minmie and her man(?)* on the Vespa is inaccessible on every later capture.

*Edit: It's her brother. I was writing this as I was going along, I had no clue who he was at first😭

That blue part of the background is animated, and the text scrolls. I forgot to capture it in the video I think, but the red mailbox hops up and down when you hover on it.

The top animation seems to restart after a certain amount of time.

The 10 squares at the bottom bring you these images, and they're the same in every capture.

Slightly problematic "Attack Gangster" caption aside...

It's kind of weird how low quality these are, right?? This is the official website. These images literally come directly from the page those squares lead to. Also that last one of the boy character terrifies me. Also....does the seventh image imply that the boy's name is Min and the girl's name is Mie?? It would be hella weird if it did, considering that after the DJ Min image, the name Minmie was exclusively used to describe the girl in merchandising. Because they never used the boy again. I didn't even know he existed until now.

I love Minmie's art style so I'm kind of disturbed by the way male characters look in it-

I find it really interesting the way they draw her jawline sometimes, it's very round. They only seemed to do this in the 2000s, after 2011 she had an exclusively sharp jaw.

It's surprisingly low effort on everything but those little animations and transitions, there. The pages listed on the buttons are inaccessible no matter what capture you're on, although in the October 2008 capture, the "Character" button leads to a different page with content that Ruffle can't run. This is different from the others in which the buttons don't do anything at all when you click on them on the front page's archive. The "mail" option leads to an error page in the 2006 capture, although similar to the Character page, in every other capture it doesn't do anything at all. The "Shop" option leads to a site to purchase the Minmie domain instead of an archive for some reason. The "board" button seems to have lead to either a chat room or image board, but it's not accessible from the main menu and the URL is a swf, which I can't access. There's an "about me" page in the URL tab on the archive, but nothing loads.

HOWEVER!

We still have the site map, and the site map actually gives us the pages the buttons led to.

The shop page looked like this. I don't find it necessary to screenshot all of the options on the menu because all of them are pretty much the same, just with a different title, sometimes a longer page, and different inventory (the photos of which were not archived). Although I think it's very amusing how one of the shop pages is just named "bunch of keys". The "New Product" gif's background would rapidly flash black and white.

Here's the New Product pages (there's two for some reason).

New Product 1

New product 2

Like I said earlier, the pages look mostly the same. Because of this I only screenshotted the pages that had a different layout. Sadly the shop page is the only part archived through the site map.

Now we look to the URL tab. There's several gifs that are unavailable, and while it was also unavailable there's two gifs with the word "avatar" in their titles. This might also be nothing, though. The domain squatting sites were and continue to be archived even after the original site went down, so a majority of the URLs are from those. A lot of the old Minmie files lead to a blank or unavailable screen, however.

But back to what I did find:

There's this strange part of the site I found, and it's a menu with some futuristic graphics. It has a lot of moving parts, and buttons.

I have no clue what any of these lead to, the URLs that have names relating to some of these buttons just lead to the menu, again. The image to the side is blocked, and there's only one date of capture for the three URLS, so for now that's a mystery. I assume the background was a repeating pattern based on the order of the missing images in the back. Green binary over a black background, perhaps?

I found parts of the index page from 2012/11. Any other captures of this iteration of the site are fully unavailable, with many of the assets meeting the same fate as the right image in the futuristic menu page. These are super cute.

The red text is an error message. The catalog has the same layout. I think the most interesting thing about this version of the site is that one of the catalog pages has an option that says "Minmie doll". I would love it if anyone could give me any insight about that.

There's two images here that show the site when it was active during the early 2010s.

Both are from @tmgc's blog.

The 2011/12 site also has Wallpapers listed. They are all unavailable. there's multiple game pages (for both versions of the site, actually) but they both have nothing at all archived.

There's some more from this version of the site, I'll reblog with those images though. There's this huge image gallery of images from several events that I won't be able to fit in here

And now, we have some comic pages! They confirm the boy and girl are named Min and Mie respectively. I refuse to ever give that idea any credibility. I put them in a webtoon-adjacent order for more convenient reading :)

[page 3-6 are missing]

[Pages 9-14 are missing]

I have a feeling I know why these pages in specific were archived...

I'm kind of pissed about this comic??? Like why put Mie all over the marketing and merch and then....do this??? I was wondering why the brand failed so bad and the site died so quick, but now I think I may have my answer? I seriously think the 2010s cutting Min out of the picture was a good thing, if he acted like this.

As stated earlier I'll be reblogging this with more images, specifically from the 2011/2012 version of the website's event image galleries.

[loorain]

Sims 4 Fontenot Legacy - The End Calls for New Beginnings

The following day, Sabrina has a busy day at the restaurant. Running a business is not for the faint of heart, and there's a lot to consider, but generally, all seems to be going well. They're making a profit, albeit still a small one, but their customers are satisfied with the food and service. Sabrina is constantly thinking about ways to enhance the service and food quality, perhaps if they invest in a different vendor for their spices-

Juno: Surprise!

Oh, just then, as some of the last customers finish up for the day, Scarlett and little Juno make an appearance!

Sabrina: Oh, well look who it is! Hey there Junebug!

Juno: Hi, Bibi! Grandma brought me for our special photo!

Sabrina: I can see that! You're wearing the outfit I picked out for this special occasion! Looking snazzy, by the way.

Juno: Oh, this old thing?

The two laugh and are so caught up in their own banter that they don't even notice Scarlett make her way over.

Scarlett: Well, good to see everyone thought about me in this conversation.

Sabrina immediately pulls their mom in for a hug.

Sabrina: Aww, don't be like, Mom. It's good to see you too.

Scarlett: I'm just teasing. This moment is about the two of you. It's a big day in an ongoing tradition!

Juno: So are we gonna take the picture now?

Sabrina: I'm ready if you are!

Juno: Oh, I was born ready. Let's do this.

Both Scarlett and Sabrina laugh at this.

Sabrina: All right champ. Time for your closeup.

After the picture is taken, Grandma Scarlett directs Juno to the play area to keep himself occupied and sits Sabrina down for a chat. Sabrina is a little surprised by this move, but seeing the calm seriousness on their mother's face tells them that they should just comply. They're not sure how to feel-- scared? Worried?

Scarlett: Firstly, relax. I can see the nervousness on your face.

Classic Scarlett. She knows her kid so well.

Sabrina: Dang, Mom. You didn't have to read me so well for once.

Scarlett: Hey, what can I say? I know that look you get on your face. Anyway, there's no need to panic. I just wanted to chit-chat with you about something.

Sabrina: Well, that doesn't exactly put me at ease. Spill.

Scarlett: Well... now that Juno and the twins are bigger kids now, things are shifting. They don't need as much help, nor do you, Robin, and Sigrid. You guys have started successful careers and businesses with potentially more things to come.

Sabrina: Mom, just say it. Whatever it is.

Scarlett sighs, but there's a resigned smile on her face.

Scarlett: I think it's finally time for me to move on. Leave the Legacy House to you guys.

Sabrina: You're... moving out?

Scarlett: Well, not tomorrow, but yes. Eventually. It's been something I've been thinking about for some time.

Sabrina: But... you're going to have your elder birthday soon! Don't you want some assistance as you get older?

Scarlett: I've taken plenty good care of myself. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, and I doubt reaching elderhood will have such adverse effects that I can't live on my own.

Sabrina: But, you'll miss Juno's milestones! When he learns to ride his bike! First sleepover! First loose tooth!

Scarlett: You'll both just have to tell me all about it. I'm sure I'll be around for at least some of them.

Sabrina: What about the house? Upkeeping that big house all by ourselves?

Scarlett: I've taught you and Robin well, and Sigrid is also a great homemaker. You'll be fine.

Sabrina: But-

Scarlett: Sabrina. I'm moving out. That's that.

Sabrina sighs.

Scarlett: My life has been a rollercoaster. I lost my mother when I was a little girl, lost my father as a teenager, lost my sister in young adulthood, and worked tirelessly with her widower to raise Anya, Robin, and you until he died. I watched Anya build her own family and move away, Robin find true love and build a family with Sigrid, and witnessed the birth of my own grandchild. I've helped you, Robin, and Sigrid raise three children close in age, and now they have grown more independent and wonderful. I've juggled a variety of jobs, finished college, achieved fame and success in multiple fields, and, most importantly, raised a pretty great sim. I'm proud of my accomplishments, and I'm ready to live quietly.

Sabrina: Softening the blow by trying to butter me up, huh?

Scarlett: Hey if it works! No, but seriously Sabrina, I know what this is. You're scared.

Sabrina: Scared? Why would I be scared?

Scarlett: Because I've always been here. Always able to bail you out. If I leave, things will change. You'll be on your own in a way you've never been before. You'll still have Robin and Sigrid, yes, and Marquise will still be a great co-parent as well as Juno's other male figures stepping up in his life, but at the very core... you'll be all alone with him. It was the same setup for me.

Sabrina: Mom, come on, that was very different.

Scarlett: Well, I did have my sister Kira for a brief amount of time, and Armani through it all, but he was busy caring for Robin and Anya most of the time. Especially Anya at that time, because she was going through her own rebellious stage and dealing with being pregnant with Colt. You were solely my responsibility, and I didn't rely on him to care for you much. I chose to have you and I accepted that responsibility. Now... it's your turn to do the same.

Sabrina: But, Mom...

Scarlett: Sabrina. I love you very much. I love little Juno very much. My entire life, I've been caring for someone in some capacity. First, it was my little sister, then her children, then you, then Juno and the twins. It's time for me to care for myself.

Sabrina wants to object further, stating how much Juno will miss having Grandma at home and how the girls will ask where Auntie Scarlett is. They want to insist that juggling a restaurant and then having to raise a kid and upkeep such a large house will be difficult without her. But soon enough, they realize all these points are selfish, and do not consider what Scarlett wants or needs. Sabrina sighs.

Sabrina: Well... I guess we better start house hunting, huh?

Scarlett's heart nearly bursts with love and pride at that very moment.

Scarlett: So you'll help me?

Sabrina: Well I'm not going to let my mom live in a dump! Consider it done.

Scarlett: I don't need a lot of space. Just enough for me and some space for the kids to play outside when they come to visit. I'm sure we can find something to accommodate that in no time.

Sabrina: We definitely will, with my help.

Scarlett: Thanks, sweetheart. I knew I could count on you. And you'll be fine. Trust me. I'll still be here whenever you need me.

Sabrina: I know. Thanks, Mom.

Scarlett: You're welcome.

[scribby-wibby]

I just completed The Talos Principle 2 100%, so it's time for an unsolicited review of the game. Bottom line(s) up front: I enjoyed this game and some of the narrative features that could be seen as "flaws" really helped characterize the world. There are a few things that I would nitpick though, given that it's a more character-driven game than its predecessor yet there are inconsistencies and a lot of moments that made me roll my eyes or dislike a character outside of the game's intentions.

More thoughts under the cut.

Starting with the good stuff:

The puzzles were far more streamlined than Talos 1, and while the difficulty was lowered, the learning curve was far smoother. Talos 1 started with very basic puzzles and then very quickly ramped up the difficulty and stayed like that for the rest of the game. Talos 2's puzzle progression was wonderfully linear (except for a few puzzles here and there which would be stupidly easy), with the first area having simple puzzles that can be solved in under 30 seconds, to the golden puzzles being the hardest in the game. I never used the flame mechanic (though heavily considered for one of the gold puzzles, Thrust Vector, which I had to redo three times because I couldn't run fast enough), but I think it is a good addition. It takes away some of the frustration for people who might be able to solve all the puzzles but are particularly struggling with just a few. 

The plot line felt complete and complex, with meaningful endings. I read another review here that mentioned that the dialogue fell flat as if the authors were trying to tell you their viewpoints rather than letting you figure out your own, as there weren't dialogue options to argue against ideologies. While I am a radical humanist, and enjoy a lot of Jonas Kyratzes' work, there were still some viewpoints (Miranda's in particular, which I found extremely childish and benign) I disagreed with. Unlike the first game, where you could argue and present evidence for and against claims with Milton, this game only lets you agree or disengage. It might come off as ostensibly lazy writing, but the fact that you can't argue with some of the characters helps characterize the functions of this new society. There is a terminal you can access in the interactive fiction exhibit called "Argument Simulator" that explains this exact thing. The simulator is an endless loop of "you're wrong because x" and the only way to escape is by selecting "let's find something we can agree on". The citizens of New Jerusalem have founded their society on the tenants of respect. Even characters with different views like Byron and Al are close friends because disagreement is not arguing against an idea, but choosing not to further it. I do wish there were more dialogue options for exploring character's viewpoints though (especially Yaqut, whose character I didn't fully understand except as someone confused about different ideologies and in staunch agreement with Miranda).

The small things in this game really made it stand out. The cat photos in Milton's rest, the text adventures in the Interactive Fiction exhibit, and especially the somnodrome plot line. The concept of the robots not being able to access their source code and creating a machine to circumvent said blackbox makes for a good side quest, even if it has little impact on the main story. Tom Jubert wrote the dialogue for Milton in the first game, and seeing a similar dialogue style in your chat with MILTOHIM was a cool throwback to the first game.

Now for the things I didn't enjoy:

The Theory of Everything plot point had no foreshadowing or lead-in, making it very difficult to conflate three-fourths of the way through the game. Let me clarify that I don't mean that it felt like a cop-out or retconned, just poorly introduced. In the lost labs, you can view updates on the experiment, but these are useless since they don't explain anything. Just "lack of power" or "unstable infrastructure". There isn't anything substantial that clues the player into the fact that what Athena is trying to solve is basically the universal equation. So when the game reveals The Theory of Everything, the player has to suspend a lot of disbelief. Furthermore, none of the other characters seem shocked enough by this, and you cannot engage them in conversation beyond their initial thoughts. Putting in a few extra files that show some preliminary research or philosophical texts on the "theory of everything" would have helped relieve this issue. 

The maps. Holy fucking shit why were they so large. I can understand that the developers wanted to create vivid landscapes and give the game an open-world feel, but there was just way too much running around. It quickly became annoying. The Prometheus stars (and really all the stars, to be honest) were more exhausting and tedious than challenging. At least this is consistent with the insanity of stars in Talos 1, where some of the stars were nearly impossible unless employing sheer luck or trial and error. 

The whole Athena, Miranda, and Cornelius storyline was just weird. I mean, Athena gets tired of people treating her like a prophet and the citizen's self-hatred, so instead of dealing with it naturally or listening to Byron (who warns her of the citizens' nihilism in a memory), she runs away to start a nuclear family? She then has a daughter (which I will discuss later in my confusion about why the robots have gender, or at least conform to some aspects of it without any explanation.) who Cornelius and her infantilize (even though we know that the concept of "children '' doesn't exist in New Jerusalem, as per a conversation with Yaqut, which makes sense given you are born with the same capacities as everyone else). She then acts surprised when the person she treated like her child, acts childish and blows herself up. This is never elaborated on, instead, Cornelius theorizes that Miranda thought herself above death as she perceived some special purpose in her design, likely a symptom of not being raised in society. Again, this might be nitpicky, but I was weirded out by the whole thing. 

This segues into my next nitpicky point: the robots are somewhat gendered, and it's never shown how or why? I get it, you're going, "Oh boy, another trans person is complaining about an innocuous detail in a game because it didn't match their viewpoint", but it's just strange that the game goes into detail about menial things like Atal and his cat, or the dome, or even Helga's whole shop for which she re-invented the concept of money, but doesn't explain this one reoccurring detail? We know that the robots can choose their name (shown when Byron explains that he named himself after Robert Byron, not Lord Byron), and their voice pack (shown when Ovis mentions that they can switch to Alexanda's voice and say whatever), but not this? Most likely their pronouns just come with their voice pack, and can be changed at will, but it would be cool to have some confirmation or discussion. The player character is also referred to as he/him and with the name 1k throughout the game, and you never get a chance to ask why. I know, I know, this is not a very salient point of dislike. It's just odd that the game discusses so many aspects of what makes society, but doesn't explain an extremely benign factor that heavily dichotomized the preceding society. But whatever, this didn't hinder my enjoyment of the game. 

Overall, Talos 2 was an amazing game and a worthy sequel to the first game. It has its shortcomings, but I was blown away by the game's ingenuity, both from a writing and design perspective. If anyone else has any other insights or opinions on the gameplay and storyline, I would love to hear them. Great game, 9.8/10. 

[katherinejblackwell]

Yours, Katherine #8.5 - Room Progress & Current Reads

Also read on my website! | Other Socials

Photo by Daniela Constantini

Dear Readers,

Well, for one, let's address the decimal-ephant in the room. 

Starting this month, I'm testing out a new posting schedule for the blog and YouTube. I've felt like both of the hobbies have been slipping lately, so I decided to try alternating every month if I focus on writing a blog post or making a video. That way, I'm giving attention to both and I have a small, achievable creative goal each month. But I also didn't really want the blog to stop being monthly, and I liked last month's format where I tried writing it more like a letter to fit the blog's theme. So, the blog will keep coming out monthly, but I'll have two different post styles. The months where the blog is the focus, I'll have a more formatted post that focuses on a specific topic and the number in the header will be a whole number. The months where the channel is the focus, I'll write a post that's more ramble-y and letter-like and the number will have a .5 after it to show that we're kind of in-between the "real" posts. Hope that makes sense! This might change again in the future as I get a feel for what works for me, but we'll stick with this for now.Now, an announcement, which I'm retroactively putting at the beginning of the letter because, in writing my first draft, I somehow managed to completely forget to bring it up.

I made a Discord server!Sort of.I did, in fact, make a server, but there are no public channels open for chatting. That might seem counterintuitive, but here's my train of thought. Even though I don't think anyone would be using them much any time soon, I believe moderating public chatrooms like that carries a big responsibility to do things correctly and fairly, and that's something a little more delicate than I'm willing to undertake at the moment. Also, the main motivation behind making the server anyway was that I wanted there to be one hub to get notifications and stay up to date about everything that I post. I do post on Tumblr and Instagram when I upload something new, but it's really easy for that to get lost in the feed. I thought a server would work well because if the notifications are contained to one specific channel, there's no feed of other posts to get lost in and it's really easy to scroll up a bit and see what you missed. I also like Discord as an option because, with a server, I can always add extra stuff for fun as I think of it, and I've already added a few extra channels. There's one where I'll post a song I like every week on Sunday, one where I'll post pictures of purple things that I find out and about, and one called #free-stuff where a Discord bot will share when it finds free games that are normally paid, and where I'll post when I find cool stuff that's free/discounted for a while. The invite link has been added to my 

social media tab, and after this post goes out I'll be adding the link to all my accounts!If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a DM on Instagram, or 

poke your head into the server to check it out yourself. 

​ Now, to actually get into it, not much has happened since my last letter. Or, at least it oddly doesn't 

feel like much has happened. A lot has happened, or at least one event that feels like a lot, though it's not something I can really share here. So, either way, as far as things you're allowed to know about go, not a lot has happened. I feel like I don't have much to update you on (the yapper will persevere, however). I haven't made good on my "surprise" that my room would be completely cleaned the next time I wrote. I didn't really think I would, honestly, but I did have a little bit of hope. That being said, I haven't made 

no progress. I get little bits done week by week. Last night, my project was going through my pen stash and picking just a handful to keep. The rest I'll be spending the next few days trying to find good homes for. My next goal is to sort through all of the paper clutter I have in my room. Mostly, it's old class materials from high school that I saved in case either I needed to look back at it or my younger friends needed help with a class I'd taken before, but it's been long enough that I'm past any of it being useful anymore. I also have an 

obscene amount of sheet music from doing band throughout high school and middle school. So, after I order 

these boxes I've been eyeballing, I'm gonna go through absolutely all of the old papers/notebooks I have in my room and by my desk downstairs and clear out as much as possible. The hope, at least for the school stuff, is to have only one box each for elementary, middle, and high school, which means a 

lot would have to get pitched. Fear not, though, I fully intend on recycling everything I don't keep. And, conveniently, I wanted to try making my own paper again soon, so I'll be setting aside plenty to get blended into pulp too.Very off topic, but I was thinking about Christmas last night. Being the kind of person who makes a lot of my Christmas gifts, it's way past when I should've started making things, so I was spending some time brainstorming ideas. I'm both excited for Christmas and not. I love making and wrapping presents. I get so much joy out of spending hours at my desk making art and customizing the wrapping - adding stamps and thrifted ribbons and tying little charms onto the bow. The lights are beautiful, I get to bury myself under a pile of blankets while I read, peppermint hot chocolate is in season, and I get a well-earned break from work and school. I'm looking forward to all of it. And yet, there's all this . . . 

Stuff I'm dealing with that does, in a roundabout way, relate to the holiday season. As much as I'm looking forward to it, I know there's also going to be a slight cloud hanging over my heart all the while. I don't mean to keep bringing up something I can't tell you about, it's just what's been on my mind recently, and I think it's kind of interesting how something that's meant to be wholly joyful can be a complex time of year for a lot of people, for plenty of different reasons. I did a found poem during my creative writing class last Winter about that, I'll add it to the letter so you can read it.

I didn't even really mean to be writing about it when I started the poem. Though, I'm not sure how easy it is to intend to write about something when you're making a found poem. You're kinda just stringing together the words you have available in a way that you hope sounds nice. You can do your best to look for words that follow a certain theme, but really, you're at the mercy of the materials you have. Which, feasibly, you could grab a few dictionaries and thesauruses and comb through them for all of the exact words that you want in your poem, but that kind of goes against the point, doesn't it? That's not a found poem anymore. You're not arranging a limited pool of words to make something new, you're just writing a poem like n0rmal and choosing to transport it from your brain to the physical world in an interesting way.

I wonder if anyone's ever completely rewritten a book using just the words contained in the original book. I wonder how you would even go about that. Lots of spreadsheets, I imagine. The closest thing I can think of is Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti (which I heard about through this amazing podcast). In it, the author took roughly 500,000 words from journals she'd kept over the years and organized the sentences alphabetically in a spreadsheet, then trimmed it down from there. Kind of a marble sculpture technique to writing. I haven't read it yet, but I'd really like to at some point just to see what comes out of a writing process like that. A Humument is also kind of similar (shoutout 2022 SAT), but that's still not quite what I mean. I mean taking literally every word from a book and rearranging them however you want (probably with some leftovers), and A Humument is a collection of found poetry created page by page. (Still can't wait to finally get my hands on a copy of the final edition though.)

Something else I've been doing that's vaguely in the spirit of getting my room under control: reading a lot more. The shelf I use for my current reads/library materials and my tbr shelf have been really out of control lately. The first shelf is mostly the fault of my recent cross stitch obsession; I have a ton of pattern books out. Right now, I'm on and off working on taking pictures of my favorite pages in books I know I won't get around to for a while and saving them to labelled folders in a Google Drive. That way, I can get the physical books off my shelf until I need them and still have my favorite patterns saved to look through when I'm ready for a new project. I've only gotten through three of them so far, but even that has helped a lot, those books are massive. I've also been trying to pick books from my tbr shelf to read when I can because, once I read them, I can get them on the big bookcase where they belong and hopefully clear out some of the overflow. I have a few books going right now: an audiobook I just started, a library book, and a novel from my tbr. 

The audiobook is Counting the Cost by Jill Duggar. I just earlier today finished listening to In the Form of a Question by Amy Schneider (which I gave four stars) and I was looking for something that had a slightly similar vibe. I thought Counting the Cost would work because there are, of course, religious themes in Duggar's book and that's something Schneider talks about a little here and there in hers. I'm not even a full chapter in yet, so I can't say much about how it is yet, but I'm at least interested.

The nonfic from the library is Make a Zine by Joe Biel and, even though it's short, I'm not confident yet that I'll actually finish it. I think the subject is interesting, but I'm finding more and more that audiobooks are a way better method of absorbing nonfiction books for me. I originally wanted this to be my next audiobook after getting stuck on the physical copy, but on Spotify it's not included in premium and my library doesn't have an audio copy on CD or through either of our apps, so I'm kind of out of luck. I might take another crack at it because I would really like to learn more about the history of zines, I'm just not 100% sure I feel like finishing it right now. If I don't finish it by the end of October, I think I'll dnf it for now and then come back to it later.

And, lastly, the novel is Deadfall Hotel by Steve Rasnic Tem. I was really, really skeptical starting this book because it's marketed as this chilling horror and I'm really so super bad with horror media, but so far (granted, only ~6o pages in), it's really not bad. It's a little creepy, but in the same way Welcome to Night Vale or The Magnus Archives are creepy. Like, don't get me wrong, TMA is bad enough to make me nauseous at times, but if the book doesn't get worse than that, I think I'll be able to handle it. The only reason I felt okay about trying to read it and not immediately donating it when I was going through my book collection was the fact that there were a lot of tepid reviews on Goodreads saying it really wasn't all that scary, so my hope is that it'll just fall into that kind of quirky/spooky spot somewhere between WTNV and TMA levels of horror and that I'll end up keeping it.

Probably my last point before I send you off to go back about your lovely October: organizing my Goodreads. I haven't worked on it in a while (maybe I should sit down and get another chunk out of the way after this?), but for a few nights in a row last week I was going through about 100 books on my Goodreads every night and organizing them into different shelves based on genre. I thought this would be really helpful because, when I make my seasonal tbr lists, I like to pick a genre or two to focus on that fit the vibe of the season to me. Before, my only shelves on GR were the default want to read, read, and currently reading shelves, plus a couple others for like favorites and dnfs. I've been tagging every book as either fic or nonfic, then adding more specific genre tags after that. So far, aside from the general fic and nonfic tags, the biggest category is romance, surprising absolutely no one. I'm pretty sure most of it is YA fantasy romances. (I have a type, what can I say?) It's really, really tedious to work on and I get antsy after a little while, but I know it'll be worth it in the end. It's going to make everything so much easier to find. I also feel like having easier access to every fantasy or every mystery or et cetera when I'm making my reading lists is going to be really conducive to reading things I haven't before instead of clinging to the same books I normally reread every season. I think I'd like one of my reading goals next year to be specifically trying to pick books to read that I've never read before so I can broaden my horizons and find new favorites. ​ Well, I have officially talked your ear off (or . . . written your . . . eyes out?) for long enough. Is it cold where you are? It's finally getting cold here. Which, like most things in my life at the moment, has brought mixed feelings. I am glad I get to start wearing my favorite clothes without being at risk of heatstroke soon, though. I hope you're all staying warm. Make sure to take extra good care of yourself as Winter gets closer. I'll write to you again soon. Much love.

Yours, ​Katherine

[trying2cope]

I've taken a few days between this post and the last one. I wasn't sure why this one is harder to write, but it is. I've analyzed it and realized I don't want to relive it moment by moment the way I did my other posts.

So I'm going to tell the same story but weave together both what he told me that night and stuff we found out later. That is, there were a lot of unknowns that night we found out later. So still true, but telling you a more complete picture in retrospect instead of reliving every beat of wondering and worrying...

So he was obviously nervous and uncomfortable when he came on the screen. He gave me a strained smile and there was pain and probably fear in his eyes. And he told me the story.

So the previous Monday he had had his daughter and she was sick. I knew this, as we'd been texting the whole day as was our normal. She's a toddler and it was the first time apparently she'd had a stomach flu, so he was being a nervous nelly.

She'd vomited on herself, all over clothes, and he bathed her and changed her. And it happened again, so he bathed and changed her again and let her lie down for a nap naked on the couch, with a towel on her. It was also summer and warm and heat often makes nausea worse so he thought she'd be more comfortable.

He was worried she'd aspirate in her sleep, so he didn't want to leave the room. So he settled on the other side of his L shape couch, facing away from her and he texted with me.

And sexted with me, touching himself to the photos I sent him.

Then she stirred in her sleep, so we ended it and he zipped back up and that was that. No harm done to anyone, nothing sick going on. Just a horny single dad taking time to text his long distance girlfriend while he had a minute.

But, he had cameras in his living room. Because of his business, his insurance required them.

Back when his ex, his daughter's mom, lived with him she had access to these cameras. He hadn't immediately removed access when she moved out because he apparently worried what if something happened like a heart attack or something, living alone. And she liked to peek in and check on their daughter when she was there. But then when he got ready to move on from her, he did think about removing access-- but when he started to bring it up, she told him she'd lost access to it when she'd gotten a new phone. He accepted this and never gave it another thought.

As I'm sure you can guess, this was a lie.

He gave his daughter back to her and everything was fine. But that Tuesday night she decided to review the footage from the weekend. I mention that because she already knew her daughter was safely with her, she wasn't just like peeking in live because she missed her, like a parent tuning into a daycare's CCTV. No, this was a deliberate act of spying, done deceitfully because he had no reason at all to believe that anyone had access to those cameras but him.

And she'd had access to them for months now.

She flipped out when she saw the footage. Not, as one might think, because she was worried about her daughter. We know now, from her talking with his cousin weeks later, who is her friend, that it was purely jealousy. She hadn't really realized he'd truly moved on from her until that moment. Not that she wanted him. She was the one who ended it. But she didn't want anyone else to have him either. She wanted to have control over him.

She showed her mom and sister. And they told her to call CPS. So she did.

Then on Thursday she called him and told him what she'd did. And she spat out that he was jacking off to me. He'd not made my existence a secret, she knew he had a girlfriend. But he was worried, worried she'd find me online and go after me, so in the panic of the moment he lied and made up some story about how he and I had had a fight and he was sad so he was looking at porn to cheer himself up. It was late Thursday night when we were video chatting. He promised to keep me out of this, because he didn't want any of this to effect my own CPS case or bring her down on me.

I, especially after talking to a friend of mine who is a lawyer (though not in his jurisdiction), told him he absolutely should not lie to CPS or anyone else. That is, lying to his ex is fine, but not only would lying to CPS be wrong, but it would make him look worse to say he was looking at porn because CPS would assume it was the illegal variety and likely seize his electronics and it'd be a lot worse. Telling them he was consensually jacking off to his very adult girlfriend would make him look better, albeit none of this looked good.

He changed the password to the cameras.

On Friday his ex called him. She needed something from him (I forget what now, some item he had) and had him meet up in a town in between both their homes and they met for dinner at a restaurant-- with his daughter. She sat in his lap and played with him and she had no problem with this. I had told him before he went to take a photo of them together to show as evidence that she didn't actually think he was a danger to his child, but he thought it'd irritate his ex and he was trying to appease her so he didn't. He was hoping to get her to agree to drop everything, but she didn't. When they parted and his daughter realized she was leaving with her mom, not with him, when it was her normal to go be with him every Friday, she broke down into howling screams of "DADDY! DADDY!" And so he was trying not cry as he drove away.

The next day her sister, who was pregnant, had contractions. So his ex calls him and asks him to come and get his daughter so she can go be in the hospital overnight with her sister. He called me and told me, rejoicing. He was sure when the authorities found out she trusted him with the daughter overnight, everything would be dismissed, plus he was just relieved to get to see her.

He was heading outside to his truck when the phone rang. It was his ex telling him not to come. "I called CPS and they said it'd hurt my case."

Not that she thought he'd hurt her daughter in anyway. Just that it'd hurt her case.

She also told him she had a meeting with CPS and a lawyer on Monday.

[superblysubpar]

I am just smiling like a stupid idiot I cannot WAIT for the next two parts!!! Ugh, their flirty banter and then their quippy/mean/arguing and teasing and AHHHHHH I'm so excited. I love this version of Steve so much and I kind of hate that I do 🫣💛 Boy didn't blow our mind when we kind of needed it? Fumbling with his words and inadvertently slut-shaming us?! PIG BOY?! BETTER LUCK FINDING TRUFFLES. I can't. Ican'tIcantIcant 💛

“You are!” Robin squealed, “wow. I never thought I’d see the day. Little miss relationship just wants a one night stand, a fuck ‘em and chuck ‘em kinda—”

“Robin,” you groaned, hands rubbing at your face because the idea of it was so out of your wheelhouse that it was comical. But then Patrick Swayze started crawling across the floor on your TV screen. You paused, frowning. “Fuck, is that bad? Is it bad if I want that?”

The Dirty Dancing 👀, Robin 👌🏻, Ronance 🤌🏻 I just loved roommate/best friend Robin 💛 their interactions and banter were so good!

A new page popped up, a little chat box that was intimidatingly empty and you stilled, staring at it. What did you say? How did you begin?

‘Hey, I’ve looked at precisely five photos of you and I know you work at some video store and I think you’re hot. Wanna have sex?’

Just perfection 💛😂

All I could think of during her profile making process:

@INDIANAGIRL: Wow, you’re eager. 

@HARRINGTON98: like I said, you’re really fucking pretty

You watched the screen as he trailed off, smiling still, looking soft and too handsome in a plain, white T-shirt. “So. I’m Steve. S’nice to meet you.” He lifted a hand, endearing and only a little awkward, waving at you through the phone. 

Fuck, he's so hot. Such a dork. Thanks a lot Emmy. This image of him will live rent free in my brain.

You didn’t know hookup etiquette. Did you bring beers? Condoms? Your own pillow? Would you stay? Would he want you to leave? What if you couldn’t get a train back into the city if he kicked you out at three am?

The pillow got me SO good. Had to stop reading to get my laughter under control.

This was the part of the bad rom com movie where an early 2000’s pop punk song would play over a montage of you tearing the apartment apart as you tried to get ready. But Blink 182 didn’t start playing and instead, you could only hear the sound of your heart thudding in your chest. 

YES 💛💛💛💛💛🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻

Five hours later the snow was still falling and the sky had turned back into that dark pink-red that could only mean more to come. Steve had played through too many levels of Crash Bandicoot to count, laughing and throwing half hearted tips at you, because you were clearly a lost cause when it came to video games. 

God dammit. Why. Why of ALL the things people have written about Steve...why is Steve playing Crash Badicoot the hottest thing I've read about him?! I didn't think it was possible to be down so bad for a fictional man 🫣💛

A Couple Days In (I Call You Baby)

Modern!Steve Harrington x fem!reader [6.8K] 18+ the two night stand au no one asked for, or, the fic where you meet steve on a dating app and then a snowstorm ensures you can't sneak out the next morning. PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE

Being single was becoming boring. 

Boring in the way that seeing your friends in love and having fun in a way that you weren’t was starting to hurt. A full ache, settling in your chest until it bore a hole there and stayed, taking up space where the heartbreak used to live. 

You weren’t heartbroken. Not anymore. You were less sad, less angry. You were bored. And almost always perpetually turned on. You didn’t want love, you certainly didn’t want another relationship but you were at the stage of feeling that yearning pull when you watched a romcom on your sofa, slumped against your roommate with a frown on your lips. 

“I think I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be touched,” you said mournfully, your gaze fixed in the way Patrick Swayze’s hand trailed down Jennifer Grey’s side. 

“Babe, this is rated a fifteen,” Robin snorted in reply but she ran a hand over your hair anyway. “It’s that bad huh?” She grinned when you whined at the screen, watching with wide eyes as Johnny Castle took off Baby’s shirt. 

You sat up, taking the blanket with you and Robin huffed, dragging her half back. There was an empty bottle of red wine on the table, Chinese takeout cartons and a mess of charging cables, your laptop, Robin’s cell phone. 

“I just want some fun,” you grumbled. “Nothing serious, just— just someone to fool around with.”

“You want a fuck buddy?” Robin grinned salacious, the movie forgotten as she turned to face you, leaning against the arm of the couch. “Should I go through my Instagram? Give you the name of every boy I know?”

“You know like, seven boys,” you scoffed but Robin reached for her phone anyway. “And no, god, no fuck buddies. Even that’s too much commitment.”

She laughed and pressed a foot to your thigh, the touch familiar and friendly. “Shit, are you actually considering a hook up?”

You squirmed, too warm. 

“You are!” Robin squealed, “wow. I never thought I’d see the day. Little miss relationship just wants a one night stand, a fuck ‘em and chuck ‘em kinda—”

“Robin,” you groaned, hands rubbing at your face because the idea of it was so out of your wheelhouse that it was comical. But then Patrick Swayze started crawling across the floor on your TV screen. You paused, frowning. “Fuck, is that bad? Is it bad if I want that?”

Robin scoffed, leaning over to grab the bowl of popcorn you’d both forgotten about. “What? Dude, no. Of course not!” Her voice turned softer, kinder. “You can do whatever you want to do. You deserve to have some fun.”

“I don’t know how to,” you whispered and your chest felt tight again, like that well of boredom was filing again, spilling over with sadness and heartache. You hated it. 

“What, have fun?”

You frowned. “No - well, maybe - no, how to hook up with someone.” You chewed at your lip, confused and panicking despite the fact you were still firmly seated in yours and Robin’s apartment. “Do I just walk into a bar? Pick a guy and ask him if he wants to come home with me?”

Robin spluttered out a laugh, gasping into her wine glass and she looked at you over the rim of it, eyes filled with humour. “Jesus, if you do, can you make sure I’m there to watch it happen?”

You set her with a withering stare, pulling the blanket up to your chest and gazing back at the TV, wistful. You sighed, resigning yourself to the fact that you most definitely couldn’t march into a bar and claim a prize for the night, no matter how many glasses of wine you’d nursed. Robin seemed to understand this, because she nudged you again, a socked foot poking at your knee. 

“You could always try online dating,” she told you mildly.

You scrunched your nose, not taking your eyes off of the way Johnny Castle was thrusting his hips. “Ew,” you replied, voice flat. “Like tinder? Nancy told me I’d never be desperate enough for tinder.”

Robin snorted at the mention of her prim and proper girlfriend but she shook her head anyway. “Nah, go old school with it. Try a website or something, one that doesn’t rely on a carousel of shirtless photos and men holding up either a fish or a puppy in their profile.”

You laughed, draining the last of your wine as you eyed your friend, liking the way the buzz lingered over your tongue, your head. "I bet this would be easier if I were gay,” you replied mournfully. 

Robin cooed, making a soft noise that definitely wasn’t a protest and she grinned. “You’d definitely be Nance and I’s third,” she poked at your cheek, smirked when you bit at it and rolled your eyes. 

----------

Robin left the apartment the next night with her good boots on, a smudge of blush on her cheeks and sad eyes. She stood at the door with her coat on, fussing with her bag as she tried for the twentieth time to wheedle you into going out with her. Guilt laced the small apartment, something that made your chest ache, but you tried not to let it show on your face.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna come out with us? It’s Saturday,” Robin coaxed, “we can all get dinner, some drinks, go dancing…”

“Robs, I’m not crashing your date night with your girlfriend,” you told her again. “Go. I’m fine.”

The girl frowned, checking her hair one last time in the mirror, ‘cause she’d tried to curl it and you’d heard her cursing from the bathroom. “You know my girlfriend,” she replied, as if that was enough of a reason for you to join them. “Nance won’t mind.”

You smiled, a little sad, although you tried hard to make your eyes match your lips. You gestured to the TV, the soft blanket you’d pulled from your bedroom, the new bottle of wine on the coffee table. “Go,” you repeated again, this time more sternly. “I’m good. I’m great, in fact. I’ve got all the good ones.” You pointed to the lineup of films on your Netflix list, each cover showing off a different type of Hollywood boy of the month. 

“Top Gun?” Robin snorted, “that’s not even the new one, babe.”

You sniffed, mildly offended. “Young Tom Cruise has a certain je ne sai quois, alright?” 

Robin held her hands up, giving in. She smiled and backed towards the door. “Whatever does it for you. I’ve got my keys, ‘kay? Don’t wait up.”

“I won’t,” you called back, already hitting play on the movie. “Have fun!”

It took two glasses of rosé before you grabbed your phone, face feeling flushed, lips chewed to bits after you sat through scene after scene of handsome men, your mind wandering, your fingers drawing absentminded circles over your stomach, hand underneath your t-shirt. You groaned under your breath as you typed some buzz words into Google, hoping for a website that didn’t sound too terrifying, one that didn’t conjure up images of finding the love of your life, or a husband, one that left out religious words, ones that sounded too cult-like.

You hit the fifth result and quickly made a profile, one eye screwed shut in fear as you uploaded a photo, entering all the details they tried to glean from you, making it as vague as you possibly could. You hit submit, stared wide eyed at the loading screen and then within a blink, your own picture was staring back at you, one Robin had taken last year when you had very much been in a relationship. You were alone in it, in some corner of a party, the lights low, the shadows showing off the way your eyeshadow glittered, your lips a little glossy, your skirt short. 

You looked pretty, not too sweet, not too boring. 

Immediately, requests flooded in. Anonymous looking profiles with no photographs, empty descriptions and usernames like: ‘pu$$yworshipper69’ and ‘callmedaddy1982’.

You wrinkled your nose in disappointment, hitting delete on the messages that spammed your inbox, requests for feet pics, men wondering if you had more photos of your tits, bots that wanted to know if you were looking for love and, could you send your social security number?

Defeat was bitter on your tongue and you sighed, exiting out of your inbox only to be greeted with a new page that displayed singles in your area. One photo caught your interest, a boy with wild hair, kind brown eyes and a smile that seemed genuine. He wore a red shirt over a white tee, tanned in the setting sun, sitting on a beach and looking pretty. 

You clicked, the movie forgotten but the glass of wine lingering at your lips as you scrolled through his page, eyes flicking over details of his likes and dislikes, his age, his job. His name. 

Steve Harrington. Living in Hawkins, Indiana. You swallowed, wine glass left on the coffee table as you curled into the sofa and brought your phone closer to your nose. He had more photos in his gallery, all seemingly taken by someone else instead of the usual topless selfies that had bombard you at first. 

The boy and some other people - friends, you assumed - swimming in a lake in the sun, smiles brighter than the sky. Steve outside, sunglasses covering his eyes and dressed in an old faded band tee. He looked like he’d smell nice, like he’d give good hugs. Another, the last one, where the boy was shirtless. But someone else had taken it as he stood at the edge of a lake again, smiling like he’d been caught off guard. 

You hit the button at the top of his profile, the one that said: “send a message.”

A new page popped up, a little chat box that was intimidatingly empty and you stilled, staring at it. What did you say? How did you begin?

‘Hey, I’ve looked at precisely five photos of you and I know you work at some video store and I think you’re hot. Wanna have sex?’

You cringed, eyes squeezing shut as you quickly deleted the words, groaning at the empty space once more. You remembered what Robin had said, about how wanting to hook up with someone was okay. Loads of people did it. It was fine. 

It was fine. 

@INDIANAGIRL: Hey, how’s it going?

The response took a minute or two, but the wait was agonising, time stretching too slow. A speech bubble appeared on the screen, a sign that pretty boy was replying. 

@HARRINGTON98: hi.. i can't lie, it's going a lot better now. you're really pretty. you sure you clicked on the right profile?

You snorted, trying to remain unaffected by the harmless flirting. But a smile pulled at your lips and you pushed yourself further into the cushions, knees bent and phone resting close. You took a breath and typed back. 

@INDIANAGIRL: Ooh, self deprecating and daddy issues? You’re lucky you’re cute.

You stilled, letting out a groan that you smothered with a pillow after you hit send, ‘cause you were never this forward and it made your insides curl around each other, your heart beat too fast for you to keep up with it. 

There was a pause before his reply and you breathed out a sigh of relief at the little bubble of text.

@HARRINGTON98: haha, what can I say, I’m a catch. honoured to know that you actually took the time to read my profile though. 

@HARRINGTON98: so, apart from your friends and the bottle of wine persuading you, what’re you doing on this on a saturday night?

You smiled, knowing he’d taken the time to read through your page too, as short as your answers were. You tucked your bottom lip between your teeth, nails tapping on your phone screen as you tried to think of the best way to reply. 

@INDIANAGIRL: Like you said, it’s a Saturday night. I’m definitely not here looking for love, if that answers your question. But I’m free, if you are?

You held your breath, waiting, eyes wide as the bubble appeared again, three dots dancing across your screen. It stopped, disappeared and started again. 

@HARRINGTON98: cool. do you wanna get drinks or something? 

@HARRINGTON98: it’s no pressure if you don’t. i’ve never done this before? can you tell? but we could hang out. if you wanted. 

You smiled when the second message came through almost immediately after the first. The boy’s obvious nerves settled your own and there was a sense of familiarity in his words, his ramblings. 

It made you feel bolder. 

You typed quickly, as if tapping out the letters faster made it easier to send. You looked around your shared apartment, at Robin’s half open bedroom door. She’d be back in a few hours, maybe less, with Nancy in tow and they’d take up residence on the sofa, Netflix on and another bottle of wine opened. 

@INDIANAGIRL: Neither have I but, we could skip the bar? Maybe hang at yours. 

Oh my god, you thought to yourself. I’m going to get murdered. This is how people end up murdered. Karen and Georgia would be so disappointed. And then:

@HARRINGTON98: 82 rowan street, BLDG A, unit 26

@INDIANAGIRL: Wow, you’re eager. 

@HARRINGTON98: like I said, you’re really fucking pretty

Your heart thundered. 

@INDIANAGIRL: Wait!

@INDIANAGIRL: Can we FaceTime or something? Before? 

@INDIANAGIRL: So I know you’re not a murderer. Or 80. Or both. 

You panicked then, realising what was happening, eyes scanning over the address this Steve Harrington had sent. It wasn’t too far from you, a subway ride out of the city and maybe a ten minute walk at best. You chewed your lip, cheeks burning as you scanned back through his photos. Cute smile, kind eyes, hair you wanted to pull on. 

Your phone buzzed and you swore. A cell number,  a smiley face.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” you chanted to yourself as you typed the digits into the FaceTime app, stopping with a curse when the front camera showed your wide eyes and couch mussed hair. 

You flung the phone onto the cushions, jumping up so you could straighten out your sweater, smoothing down the flyaway strands that stuck to your forehead. You caught sight of one of Robin’s lip balms on the table, swiped some over your lips and you dabbed a little on your cheeks for good measure. 

Taking a deep breath, you picked up the phone again and hit the call button. Maybe the boy was panicking too, maybe he’d backed out, maybe he was standing in front of a mirror as well, swiping hand through his hair and checking his shirt for stains ‘cause it rang and rang and rang. 

Then, he picked up. Fuck. 

@Harrington98 wasn’t eighty years old. In fact, he looked exactly like his photos. He was really pretty. Really, really pretty. Jesus Christ. 

Tanned skin, brown eyes, wild hair, freckles scattered across his cheeks and jawline, creeping down to disappear under his shirt. He had the nicest lips you’d seen on a boy, pink, soft looking, smiling at you. 

“Uh, hey!” The boy greeted brightly, “I'm here for the murder test? Have I passed?”

You grinned, laughing a little nervously as you tucked your hair behind your ear and cleared your throat. “I mean, I haven’t seen your place yet. Any red string boards on the walls? Black and white photos of the same person? Jars of body parts in the fridge?”

He laughed, a nice sound, soft and throaty and warm. “Nah, nah,” the boy shook his head, his smile playful, brows furrowed. “Not in the fridge. The freezer, however…”

You watched the screen as he trailed off, smiling still, looking soft and too handsome in a plain, white T-shirt. “So. I’m Steve. S’nice to meet you.” He lifted a hand, endearing and only a little awkward, waving at you through the phone. 

You waved back, fingers wiggling. “Hi,” you felt shy, nervous. Flustered. You told Steve your name, smiling when he repeated it, trying it out on his tongue and it sounded a lot nicer on his lips than yours. 

“So, this is my place,” Steve announced, spinning his phone around to show you the apartment. It looked loved in, boyish, some old movie posters on the walls in frames, a clock that was showing the wrong time, exposed brick and a big leather couch. “There’s no bodies to be seen, but that’s ‘cause they’re under the floorboards. Obviously.” He turned the camera back to himself, eyes glittering, smile full of trouble. 

“Obviously,” you agreed, grinning, ‘cause it was hard not to. Not when he looked like that. “So shall I, um, bring anything with me or?”

You didn’t know hookup etiquette. Did you bring beers? Condoms? Your own pillow? Would you stay? Would he want you to leave? What if you couldn’t get a train back into the city if he kicked you out at three am?

God, would he kick you out at three am?

Steve glanced down at his watch and smiled sheepishly. “Uh, well. It’s almost eleven at night so I’m gonna guess you’ve had dinner. But I have some buds in the fridge, if you like beer.”

He said it like a secret, like you were both still skirting around the edge of the truth. But he looked down the camera at you with the right amount of flirt and confidence that let you know that he knew what you both wanted out of tonight. 

It wasn’t dinner. It wasn’t a date. It was just sex. And that was okay with the both of you. 

You nodded, fingers skimming across your lip out of nerves, out of curiosity, staring at the boy’s own mouth and wondering if he’d be nice to kiss. He looked like he would. You’d not kissed someone new in so long. 

Years. 

Fuck. 

“Okay, yeah, great!” You said it too brightly and you winced. “I’ll uh, I’ll probably be there in like, half an hour?”

Steve smiled and nodded, told you to call him if you needed directions but you waved him off, noncommittal, too busy wondering if you needed to shave your legs and I’d you’d be able to find your last good pair of black underwear. 

This was the part of the bad rom com movie where an early 2000’s pop punk song would play over a montage of you tearing the apartment apart as you tried to get ready. But Blink 182 didn’t start playing and instead, you could only hear the sound of your heart thudding in your chest. 

So when you hung up the phone, you launched it onto the table, almost sliding past the bathroom door as you ran to it, shedding off your comfy clothes as you went. You took the worlds fastest shower, ran your razor over all the parts you declared not smooth enough and drowned yourself in peach scented body wash. 

Deciding what to wear was difficult, ‘cause dresses were easier to take off but it was below zero outside and you weren’t fucking around with tights and extra socks. So you stole a pair of Robin’s jeans, ankles tripping over the hem of them as you struggled to pull them on at the same time you yanked a brush through your hair. Some concealer, a smudge of blush, mascara, more lip balm and you grabbed your bag on the way to the door, keys and phone in hand as you texted the group chat. 

‘82 rowan street, BLDG A, unit 26. I’m about to get dicked down. I think. Don’t wait up. But call the cops if I’m not home in the morning. Do I bring a gift to a hook up?’

Your phone pinged once, twice, three times. 

#1 gay friend: ‘bitch, what the fuck?’

gay friend’s girlfriend: ‘Babe, no. No gifts. Be safe though. Do you know this guy? Do we know this guy? Share your location rn.’

eduardo: ‘GEDDIT’

You sighed but did as Nancy asked, not bothering with a real reply but sending the link to find your iPhone. Your hands shook as you swiped your metro card and you weren’t sure if it was from the cold or nerves. Did you spray perfume? You couldn’t remember. But you were wearing your best bra, the one that made your tits sit up pretty but god, the wire was pressing into your ribs. 

And when you got out into the streets, out of the city where it was quieter and the sky held more stars, you revelled in the cold and the silence of it all. The world seemed lighter, a little rosy, in that way that only snow in the night could mean but the roads were still clear and the threat of it seemed weak. 

Still, you hurried, arms crossed to your chest, chin tucked into your coat as you followed the directions your phone gave you, Steve’s address a bright red pin on the map, a neon beacon, a big, fat booty call. 

His building came into view after a walk through a quiet Main Street, past the line of spruce trees and locked up businesses, a sweet town hall, a trailer park that vibrated with the hum of generators. The roads led you away from the middle of Hawkins, the map telling you which left and which right until an apartment block rose up between the parks and cafes, new looking and with shiny buzzers at the front door. 

You wondered if you should text him. You wondered if you should go home. You blew out a breath, a shaky one, watched how it lingered and  froze in the air in front of you and before you could stop yourself, your finger was pressing the button for number twenty six. 

--------

Steve Harrington’s apartment door had an alarm. It was loud and shrill and incessant - and it completely ruined your escape plan. 

There was a quiet countdown as you wrestled with the front door lock, keys jingling, chain clinking and then a beepbeepbeep begun, counting down like a ticking time bomb until it blared through the rest of the apartment. You’d managed to make it back into the bed in time, just as Steve jerked awake, shirtless and messy haired. 

“Wha—?” He grabbed a bat from the side of his bed and stumbled out the bedroom door, still half asleep. And when he seemed confident no one was breaking in, he dropped the bat and fell back into the bed with a soft thwack as his face hit the pillow. “Mornin’.”

You startled, still on edge, ‘cause the night before was… fine, but you hadn’t meant to stay the night. That wasn’t the plan, that wasn’t the idea. You were lying with your coat on, wide eyed with the duvet up to your chin and you yawned, all over exaggerated drama as you stretched out. 

“Oh, good morning,” your voice was too quiet. You felt nervous all over again. “Did your alarm go off? Weird. Well, I guess I should head home.”

You were already out of bed before you’d finished talking and Steve sat up, eyebrow quirked as he took in the way you were already fully dressed, searching for your shoes. 

“Did you sleep with your jacket on?” 

“I got cold,” you lied.

He snorted, easing himself back into the sheets and he watched you with careful eyes. Steve was just as pretty in the morning as he was in the dark. “Right. Do you always leave your hookups this quick?”

You turned, frowning at the obvious amusement in his voice. “I told you last night,” you reminded him. “I haven’t done this before.” The reminder of your lack of experience made your skin itch, heat flushing over your chest. 

The sex had been okay. Nice. It was good. Nothing mind blowing, but who was expecting that from a stranger they just met? And yeah, maybe you had to fake it, ‘cause you’d been on the edge of coming so many times that eventually it refused to return. Steve had spilled into a condom, tied it off and chucked in the trash and fallen asleep before you’d come back from peeing. 

Maybe you just weren’t cut out for one night stands. Maybe that was the problem. 

Steve laughed again and it wasn’t unkind, but it still set your teeth on edge. You shoved your foot into your boot and straightened up, staring at him. “What?” He laughed again, “c’mon, you’re fully dressed and tryin’ to sneak out my apartment before it’s even time to have breakfast. You have your escape plan down pat, I respect that.”

Again, you bristled. “Um, no, I clearly don’t,” you huffed out a laugh but there wasn’t any humour in it. You gestured to the front door down the hall, still closed and locked. “I told you. This is my first time doing— this.” You saved vaguely at him and the bed. 

Steve sighed and got out of bed, a small smile playing on his lips that were still a little swollen and red from where you’d bit and kissed them the night before. He pulled on a shirt, shrugged and padded barefoot to the hallway. 

“Listen, s’nothin’ to be ashamed of,” he drawled, leading you to the front door where he punched in the code to switch off the alarm. “Girls get horny too, everyone has needs. I, for one, have absolutely no problem with a girl that knows what she wants and if that’s all you’re after then—”

“Oh my god,” you scoffed at him, lips parted, eyes wide. Suddenly escaping the apartment wasn’t as high on your list of concerns as before. “You’re totally slut shaming me!”

Steve looked at you, bewildered, face scrunched up. “What? No I’m not!”

“You are!”

“No, I’m not!” He shot back. His hand left the chain on the door, your departure forgotten about. “I’m jus’ sayin’, that it’s totally okay for you to, you know, wanna get your rocks off.”

You spluttered, incredulous. “Okay, one: rocks off? What is this, 1986? And two, I know it’s okay for me to wanna have sex with a complete stranger! I don’t need a man to confirm that for me.”

The boy stared, lips parted and a look of genuine confusion overtaking his pretty features. He grimaced and then waved a hand at you, an unfortunately dismissive gesture that had your back up even further. You set your shoulders. 

“No, no, look,” he explained. “You’re taking this the totally wrong way.”

“Oh I am?” You grinned, sharklike, edging closer for a fight. He still smelled like last night's cologne, like your perfume and sex. “Want to tell me how I should be taking it? Wanna explain it to me?”

Steve narrowed his eyes, lips lifting, a sardonic kind of smile that made your heart race too fast. “That feels like a trap.”

“Wow, ten points for the smart guy,” you snarked. “If only you were as patient as you were clever.” You jostled around him, a hand on the door. 

“What does that mean?” Steve snapped, the door clicking shut as he leaned his weight onto it, too close to you, staring down as you gazed up, chin lifted, still defiant. “Patient about what?”

You laughed, humourless and mean, ‘cause you just wanted to go home. You raised your brows, still giving the handle a jiggle despite the way Steve blocked your exit, frowning. “Yeah, okay jackhammer,” you grinned, “maybe give a girl some time to try and come before you seal the deal and pass out.”

Steve gaped at you, offended and full of shock, and you felt a little bit guilty. Sure, you hadn’t come, but only ‘cause of a timing issue, not a skill issue. But still— 

“Yeah? You wanna play it like that?” Steve shot back, pushing off of the door so he could stomp into the kitchen. He rattled in his cupboards, pulling out a coffee mug that he slammed on the worktop. “What about you? Huh? Lights off, shedding all your clothes like a damn snake person and like, what’s with the whole—” he made a lewd motion with his fingers, mimicking rubbing at the air. “Way to make a guy feel benched, sweetheart. Got me fumblin’ around in the dark like a damn blind pig.”

You scoffed, eyes narrowing to slits, the door forgotten - again. 

“Yeah, well, points for enthusiasm pig boy, maybe next time you’ll find some truffles.”

“Oh, fuck you, man.”

“Fuck you too!” You said it cheerily, despite the anger that made your throat and cheeks feel too hot, the sneer that was on your lips. “It was so nice to meet you Harrington98!” And with that, you left, door slamming shut so hard your hand vibrated, and something on Steve’s kitchen wall fell to the floor. 

You heard him swear and you smiled, the most satisfied you’d felt. 

The stairwell was freezing as you stomped down it, more frigid than the night before. All you could think about was your own bed, that didn’t smell like a pretty boy with a bad attitude, where your sheets were softer and you could watch reruns of Schitt’s Creek until you forgot Steve Harrington’s name. You were never doing this again. In fact, you were deleting the damn app. 

You scowled, rooting around your handbag for your phone, huffing when your screen stayed back, no matter how many times you tapped angrily at it. You could only imagine the texts and missed calls that would be waiting on it for you, the shrieks that would greet you when you finally got home. You hoped Nancy had made waffles. Or pancakes - Nancy made good pancakes. 

And as you were trapped in a daydream about strawberries mixed in sugar, maple syrup and cream, you shoved your shoulder mindlessly against the front door of the apartment block, wincing when it didn’t give under your weight. You frowned, trying again, both hands shoving at the wood. It budged, just a little, leaving enough of a gap for you to see the whiteout that was on the other side of it. 

You made a sound of indignation, shock making your mouth fall open and you peered out through the gap. 

No. No, no, no, no. 

Snow crept up the door like an icy landslide, covering almost half of it, the rest of the parking lot covered in what you deemed to be a couple of feet of snow. Cars were half hidden and the sky was white, blending into the ground, a blank landscape that was just barely broken up by the still falling snow. The flakes were thick and heavy, dropping down over the town with an urgency rhat told you this wasn’t letting up anytime soon. 

Fuck. 

“—dude, I’m telling you, it was like falling asleep next to a princess and waking up to a raging dragon. She was like stupid hot and all, but then she started yelling at me? And I don’t know what I’d apparently done but… Jonathan, I’m gonna have to call you back.”

Steve stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking handsome and awfully guilty as he pulled his phone from his ear and ended the call he was on. He cleared his throat and tried to avoid the narrow eyed stare you were sending him, clutching the basket of dirty clothes he was seemingly talking to the laundry room. 

“You’re still here,” he noted and his voice was overly casual. “Interesting.”

“I can’t leave,” you replied, sounding as frosty as the weather outside. “Snowstorm. Can’t get the door open.”

“What?” Steve scoffed and shoved the basket into your hands. You tutted, moving out of his way when he jostled into your space. “You’re just not doing it right.”

You made a face, disgruntled and tried not to stare at the way the boy’s arms flexed with muscle when he strained at the door. You huffed out a laugh, smug, when it still didn’t move. 

“What was that?” You smirked, more haughty that you would like to admit. “You’re not doing it right, Steve.”

The boy smiled sarcastically, narrowed eyes and annoyance on his features. He took his basket from you and tutted. “Well. Good luck.” And then he walked away. 

“You’re kidding me?!” You were almost yelling, the sound making the boy stop and turn. “You’re not just gonna leave me here, it’s like the North Pole out there, I could be here for days.”

“That seems dramatic.” Steve walked back to you, too close, his laundry basket pressed between you. He made a show of thinking it over, lips twisted, humming. “So, what? You wanna come back to mine, is that it?”

You glared at him. “Unless you want me to sit in the freezing cold hall, I don’t have any other choice.”

“You called me pig boy,” he reminded you. He was smiling. He was enjoying this. “Among other names. You’re mean, sweetheart. Why should I help you?”

You resisted the urge to smack at his shoulder, bringing your hands to your lips in a prayer position as you took a deep breath and counted to three. Smiling - albeit tightly - you took your time to also remind him: “you were literally inside of me six hours ago.”

So you found yourself back in Steve’s apartment, grudgingly, and with nowhere else to go. You rolled your eyes when he brushed past you as you stood by the door, aimless and wishing you could be anywhere else. You showed him your phone with it’s blank screen. 

“You got a charger?”

Steve pointed to a cable that was plugged in by the couch and he ignored you as you moved through the living room. He clicked on the TV, groaning when he landed on the news and saw live footage of the city, the streets covered in marshmallow soft looking snow, untouched, ‘cause nobody could get out of their damn home. The train lines were empty, the streets deserted, and the local weatherman Richard Raines was standing in a blizzard, yelling at the camera. 

“Well, folks, I hope you’ve got enough food and someone to keep you warm at night, because this snowstorm isn’t done yet!”

Steve groaned at the same time you did. 

“We’ve got more arctic winds pushing in from the east and we’re expecting more snow over the coming days. Stay home, stay safe and keep warm! We’ll do our best to update you as more news comes in from across the State. I’m Richard Raines, live from Indi—”

The TV screen blinked and blacked out as Steve chucked the remote on the couch, letting himself slump down after it. Still, you stood, coat and shoes still on, bag still over your shoulder like you had somewhere to be. 

“Make yourself at home, I guess,” Steve muttered, waving a hand at the armchair across from him. “Fuck knows when you’ll get to go your own.”

Hell. You were in hell. 

“Okay. Right. I guess… shit.” You fell down onto the armchair, head in your hands and bag clattering to the floor by your feet. Your phone was still dead, charging slowly. “I need to tell my friend where I am. She’ll be worried.” You chewed at your lip and imagined Robin, pacing the apartment, calling your cell and yelling at the voicemail.

“About the possibility of you being murdered? Or will she be devastated to know her bestie had bad sex?”

You scowled at the boy’s surly tone, hating that he still looked good as he said it. Sprawled out on his sofa, legs spread, cotton sweats low, his T-shirt covering broad shoulders and strong arms. His hair was still a riot, deliciously so and now that he’d opened his blinds, you could see the faint purple mark you must’ve sucked onto his neck. You flushed. 

“I didn’t say it was bad,” you grumbled. “Just— shut up. If we’re going to be trapped in here, can we at least agree to pretend we didn’t sleep together? For sanity’s sake?”

Steve sighed, his expression unreadable, and he stood. Chucking his phone into your lap, you watched his face soften, if only just. “Sure we can, sweetheart. Call your friend, tell her you're safe.” And then he walked into the kitchen. 

The next few hours went by in relative silence, the buzz of the TV, the whirr of Steve’s coffee machine, the two of you sitting on either end of his sofa. You’d given in and taken off your shoes and jacket after calling Robin, the girl only quietening down after she yelled about how she’d planned your funeral, her words cutting off into a hush when she realised you were still at your hook-ups house. 

“Is he hot? Was the sex mind blowing? Oh my god, this is like, insane! Are you gonna have sex all day?”

You cut off her rambling with a noise of desperation, wary of Steve nearby. You promised you’d text her when your phone came to life, that you’d fill her in on the details when you got yourself home. 

By noon, Steve asked if you were hungry, his voice a little hoarse from pointedly not speaking to you and you nodded, feeling awkward when he went to the kitchen and started clattering around. So you sheepishly followed, taking up residence on a stool at the breakfast bar. He opened his fridge and you both cringed at the lack of contents inside. 

“D’you like ramen?” He asked instead, closing the door and heading for the cupboards instead. Steve pulled out two packets of instant noodles and shook them enticingly. 

“I do,” you answered, sounding way too polite and proper, but you were starting to feel increasingly guilty about your anxiety led argument that morning. “Thank you,” you added. 

He smiled and it seemed less forced than before. “S’not like I’m gonna let you starve.”

“I wouldn’t have blamed you if you did,” you replied quietly, and you met his gaze a little reluctantly. “I was kind of a bitch.”

Steve snorted but it wasn’t as mean as his laughter earlier. He dumped the noodles in a pot and winced when the hot water bubbles angrily at him. “Kind of?”

“I was a bitch,” you confirmed, nodding with pursed lips. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Look, I wasn’t exactly nice either,” Steve waved off whatever words you were going to say next. “I’m grumpy as fuck in the morning. And stupid, like, most of the time. I didn’t mean to imply that you were—” 

He gestured vaguely, the words dying on his lips, ‘cause he was more awake now to know not to say it again. 

“Slutty?” You said for him and Steve groaned before he realised you were grinning. 

“No! No, yeah, well, fuck,” he laughed, self depreciating and low. “You’re not a slut. But if you are, good for you! You know? And I guess that would make me a slut too… so, shit, cheers to that.” He slid your bowl of noodles, hot and spicy smelling and he grinned when you clicked the offered chopsticks against his own. 

“Cheers to that,” you agreed and it felt a little like a truce. 

————

Five hours later the snow was still falling and the sky had turned back into that dark pink-red that could only mean more to come. Steve had played through too many levels of Crash Bandicoot to count, laughing and throwing half hearted tips at you, because you were clearly a lost cause when it came to video games. 

Switching from his Xbox back to the TV, you were both unsurprised to find Richard Raines back in front of Indianapolis City Hall, red nosed and standing in a flurry of white. 

“Bunker down folks! This storm is here for the night! With another sixteen inches expected by eleven o’clock, we can all—”

The TV blanked out, Richard Raines cut off once again mid speech and Steve let his head fall back onto the couch cushions. There wasn’t much room between you both now, not nearly as much as there had been early in the afternoon and as you looked over at him, you were reminded of why you hooked up with him in the first place. 

God, he was stupidly pretty. 

He huffed out a tired sigh and pushed the gaming controller to the side, blinking before turning to look over at you, cheek pressed to the couch cushions. Steve was all floppy hair and honeyed eyes, five o’clock shadow and sharp cheekbones, a sharper jaw. 

You regretted not kissing him more when you had the chance. 

“Hey,” he murmured. “Wanna get high?”

....

[brews-and-pubs]

Derive Brewing, Columbus OH

26 March 2023

I'm in Columbus for a long "mental health" weekend and this was the first place I've visited on this trip that I haven't been to before. I found them through a Google search of brewpubs near me, and I'm glad I did! It was especially nice because I was there earlier and had a nice chat with the bartender before other people began to arrive.

Derive has a little spot on the end of a tiny strip mall near a grocery store (behind me as I'm standing to take the outside photo). As you can see, it's an interesting interior, sort of a cross between homey and industrial.

They specialize in IPAs plus all sorts of unusual beer styles, as will be seen by my descriptions! From left to right, this flight is:

Not Making Centz - a 5.2% Saison brewed with Rye and Wheat and hopped with NZ Nelson Sauvin. If there hadn't been so much else to try, I would have greatly enjoyed a pint of this one -- it would be a great session beer with a delightful but not overpowering flavor.

Lost Leatherman - a 4.2% English Dark Mild. I hadn't even heard of this style before last year when I saw a recipe and made a batch of it, and I was pleased to find that my batch tasted very much like this one. It's not one that I'd want a lot of, but the taste was enjoyable.

Routeburn - a 6.8% "American IPA with New Zealand flare." Brewed and double dry hopped with Nelson, Nelson Cryo, Waimea, and Nectaron hops. It was good, but was probably my least favorite of the four. The others were just so much more interesting; this one was too "normal" by comparison.

Scratchy Green Sweaters - an 8.0% Double Dry Hopped Oat Cream Double IPA, brewed in collaboration with Sixth Sense Brewing of Jackson OH. What a winner!! If it hadn't been 8%, I would have wanted a full pint of this one for sure. Wow!

Derive has a small but interesting food menu, not surprising given their unusual beers. I went with a somewhat normal lunch, a Smashburger (very tasty and surprisingly filling for just a 1/3 pound burger).

Then it was time to think about wrapping things up, so I decided on a pint of something that looked just amazing:

This is their Heavy Snuggz and I'm just going to quote verbatim from their description as this is just all sorts of crazy:

"Oatmeal Blonde Ale 6.0%. A collaboration with our good friends at Forbidden Root (Columbus) and made an oatmeal blonde ale and hit it with the ultimate Valentines Day treatment, full of raspberry, cocoa nibs, and marshmallow for a delicious treat for you and your significant other."

Well, there was a lot of raspberry and sweetness going on in this one, for sure! I didn't dislike it, but maybe a pint was a bit too much of a good thing ...

And finally, another beautiful specimen, but just 6oz this time:

Once again, quoting from their description: "Thunderkiss Morning Froth, Coffee Cream Ale 5.0% - a Coffee Cream Ale brewed with lactose and conditioned on Thunderkiss Bourbon Finished Ethiopia Sidama Coffee, Saigon Cinnamon, and vanilla."

It's amazing how much coffee kick one gets from an ale of this color! That part was very enjoyable. I'm not such a huge fan of cinnamon and vanilla in beer, though; fortunately, the vanilla was a very light touch ... the cinnamon was just a wee bit too much for my taste.

All in all, I really enjoyed the visit and the chance to try such unusual and well-made beers.

[suckerfordylansstuff]

Our new normal - Steve Harrington Imagine

Request: Hey could you pls do a Steve Harrington x reader where the reader gets attacked in the vines and falls unconscious (season 2) and Steve gets really worried. ~ @lilxp03

Warning: voilence, blood, swearing

Word count: 2.4k

Notes: Thank you so much for the request! I forgot how fun it was to write these. Maybe i'll start making more oneshots with characters, or add some more parts in my Stranger Things series "A New Journey", but i'll ask people about this in another post. I hope you enjoy this one shot. I put a 'little' backstory to the character, since it didn't feel right to start at the tunnel scene. Hope it helps more with the narative and the characters. Stay safe out there and enjoy! 💕

Masterlist

Gif not mine

Y/N P.O.V.

You never imagined that babysitting Dustin Henderson, would get you in an interdimensional tunnel with three of his friends and an 'idiot' called Steve Harrington.

You started looking after Dustin when his mom wanted to find someone to stay with him at home while she was working. Jonathan recommended you. You weren't that close back then, but you shared a common hobby, photography. Sometimes you would chat about your ideas and photos. You became pretty good friends after a couple months and he found out that you and your family could use the money Mrs. Henderson was offering, so you agreed to help out.

You thought it was going to be more hard that it actually ended up being. Dustin was a fantastic kid, sometimes you thought he was more than capable to take care of himself, but you never said it out loud. You had a lot of fun the first few times you were together. You helped him with his homework, you watched movies or shows that were playing on the tv and he even got you interested in d&d. The fifth time Mrs. Henderson called you to look after him was when you also met his friends. Of course you knew all of them (Hawkins was a small town), but you never realised how fun they were. They had come to Dustin's to finish a game of d&d and it was exciting to see them so focused on something. You made them popcorn and enjoyed the entertainment.

You were devistated when Will dissapeared. Such a sweet kid, always kind to you and everyone. You didn't know how to comfort Dustin or Jonathan.

One night you had gone to check on Dustin. Not because you were called to babysit him, but because you wanted to try and make him feel a little bit better. As you were approaching the door, Dustin got out. He told you, after you wouldn't stop asking him where he was going at this hour, that he was going to help Mike and Lucas look for Will. You tried to stop him, but somehow ended up helping him and his friends take care of an abandoned girl, fight some creatures they decided to call demogorgons and expole what the upside down was.

After that crazy and wild ride, you thought it was over and you could get back to your 'normal' life. Will was found, back together with his family, safe and sound. Unfortunately, Eleven was gone, lost in the upside down. The boys, especially Mike, were pretty beat down about that. She was a sweet girl. Another dissapearence had happended after Will's, Barbara a girl from your class, but unfortunately she didn't have the same luck as Will. The upside down definitely left its mark in your small town and its people, but only a few of you knew what had actually happened. Others just tried to find peace in something unknown.

It has been almost a year and what you thought had ended, just started once again with you and your group at the center of it. One day when you went to babysit Dustin you found him trying to fight something he had rescued from the garbage. Apparently it was just a slug at the beggining, but now it had grown so much that it ended up killing poor Mews. On your journey of fighting it and later on trying to chase it down, Steve, Lucas and a new kid, Max joined you. She was nice, a bit distant since she was new to this whole madness. You knew her brother from school, fortunately she was nothing like him.

Steve on the other hand you knew. You never realised why or how Dustin got him to help you, but you were glad he did later on. He ended up saving your asses from Dustin's 'little' slug and its friends, that you figured out were smaller versions of the demogorgons. You really didn't feel like doing this all over again.

You ended up coming across Nancy, Jonathan, Joyce, Hopper and Will, who were all involved in this once again. You helped Will get better and also found out Eleven was okay. Mike ran to hug her and Hopper revealed he was taking care of her all this time. None of you could catch a break. Eventually you had the opportunity to take a breath and relax, when you, Steve and the kids were assigned to not do anything or go anywhere while the others were trying to save you. The kids weren't happy about doing nothing but you just wanted to calm down. That's when Steve sat down next to you.

" How you holding up?" he asked you, Mike's voice in the background complaining about this horrible plan.

" Barely." you both chuckled at your words for a moment before you spoke again "I really thought it was over.."

" Yeah, me too. At least we're safe now."

" Only if the plan works." you looked down at your hands in your lap.

" It will work." Steve's voice made you look up to him. You were so close to each other "I promise you."

You gave him a weak smile "Thank you for saving us back there." you refferenced back when the 'demodogs', as Dustin calls them, attacked you.

" Me? Thank you for coming to help my ass." you giggled "At least this whole thing brought us back together. We kinda lost touch after everything that happened last year."

" Yeah.. I guess we wanted to return back to 'normal' and our normals didn't include one another in it." after last year you started liking Steve. He wasn't the jerk you originally thought he was. But your 'status' around school was very different and you only chatted a couple times when Nancy would come to talk to you.

" Let's not let that happen again. We're gonna make a new normal." he smiled at you. You didn't know if it was an empty promise, but you agreed with him. Unfortunately, this nice moment didn't last long.

Billy, Max's brother decided to show up and torment you all. Steve picked a fight with him, which by the end left them both on the floor unconcious. You had no idea what to do as the last grown up that was still standing. Eventually the kids persuaded you to go along with their plan, so that's how you ended up in this tunnel.

Mike had the idea to go to the center of it and burn it down, that way it will slow down the demodogs and help Eleven. When Steve woke up he was pretty mad at all of you for coming here, but he wasted no time to help you. You silently thanked him and passed him a pair of goggles and a bandana.

You finally reached the hub. You all started soaking it with gasoline. When everything was done and all of you were far enough, you nodded at Steve to light the whole thing up "Do it."

You watched as the flames get bigger and bigger, while Steve was shouting to all of you to move. You made sure the kids were the first to get away as you and Steve ran behind them. Suddenly you saw Mike fall down "Help!"

You approuched him and saw that a vein was attached to his leg, not letting it go. You knelt down next to him "Mike, relax, it's gonna be okay. Steve! Your bat!" you yelled for him to come and help with the situation. He took out his bat and started beating the shit out of the vein. After a couple seconds the vein left Mike's leg "Are you okay?" Mike was barely able to nod at your question from the shock.

" Guys, we gotta go! We gotta go, now!" you heard Dustin shout. As you were helping Mike get up froom the ground quickly, you all heard something that made you freeze.

Growling.

You turned around and saw a demodog aprouching you. You and Steve took a defence stance in front of the kids, Steve sticking out his bat ready to hit it. But apparently Dustin had a death wish. You told him to come back to you guys, but he ignored your protests and asked you to trust him. You realised it wasn't any demodog, but Dart, the one Dustin had taken care of. He started reassuring the creature, talking to him and also feeding him like it was a house pet. Your anxiety and concerns were all over the roof.

" He's insane." you heard Lucas say from beside you and you nodded in agreement. You watched as Dustin distracted Dart as much as he could so you all would be able to slowly get away from it.

After that weird exchange, you continued your search for the exit. Suddenly, the ground beneath your started shaking " Woah!" you exclaimed as the others questioned what was happening.

" They're coming! Run! Run!" Mike yelled and you all understood that the fire had done its job, made the demodogs stay far away from Eleven, but they were now coming for you.

You ran as fast as you could, making sure the kids were the first to reach the exit. You could see the rope that you had used to get down here, Steve was already helping Max get up there. You were closing in on them, but the shaking of the ground was getting stronger and stronger and the veins ahead of you were too big and it was too dark for you to clearly see them. Your leg got trapped in one of them, making you lose your balance and falling to the ground. The last thing you remember was your aching head.

Steve's P.O.V.

" Come on, come on, come on!" Steve said as he helped the kids to climb up the rope " Here, Dustin, quick." he said turning to look at the young boy he had grown to like. At the corner of his eye though, he saw a sight that made his heart drop to his stomach. Your body lying still on the ground. His brain stopped working for a second, before he left Dustin and started running towards you.

" Steve! What the hell?" Dustin shouted for him, he hadn't seen you.

" Get up quickly! I have to help her.." he yelled back to him, his eyes only focusing on you. He knelt down to take a look at you. He turned you to your back and saw the blood. There was a big cut on your forehead, caused by the rock you on. He quickly ripped the vein off your leg with his hands, tossing it away. He was scared shitless, but before he could get you to wake up, the demodogs were here.

" Shit. Fuck!" he didn't know how to protect you. There were so many of them and they ran fast. The only thing he was able to do was throw himself on you, try and cover your body with his, so you wouldn't get more injured. He couldn't let that happen.

He was getting ready to feel the demodogs' legs walk all over him, the kids' voices in the distance asking if you were all okay could be heard. 'At least they're safe' he thought. He felt movement from both of his sides, but nothing came close enough to harm you or him. Steve looked up, watching the demodogs run beside you both. He didn't know why they weren't attacking at all, but he definitely was grateful.

The moment they were gone, his eyes fell on your face. You were still unconsious "Y/n? Y/n!" he took your face on his hands, shaking you a bit so you could wake up "Come on.. Please wake up. You have to wake up." he wiped some of the blood off your face.

" Steve! Are you guys okay?" Dustin's voice echoed through the tunnels.

" Yeah! We're okay!" he responded "We're okay, Y/n. Get up, please." he shook you on more time and his soul almost left his body from the relief he felt as he watched your eyes slightly open "Hey! That's it, wake up. You're safe." he smiled, tears filling his eyes, but blinking them away quickly.

" Steve?" your voice sounded hoarse, immediately focusing your eyes to his. Steve never felt more happy than to see you awake and well.

" I'm here." he placed one hand on your cheek and the other on one of your hands. You took a deep breath, cringing as you felt the cut on your forehead.

" Are you okay? Where're the kids? Dustin?" you wanted to call out for him, but only Steve could hear you.

" It's okay, they're okay. Everyone's safe. They are waiting for us. Can you get up?" you looked relieved when he said those words. You nodded at his question and, mostly with his help, you were able to get back on your feet.

He steadied you, but before he could walk you back to the exit, your arms fell around his shoulders as his made their place the small of your back "Thank you, Steve. For making sure we were okay." you pulled back and looked at him. At that moment Steve was lost in your eyes. He didn't know if it was from the heartbreak of the break up or the adrenaline from the whole plan, or even because of just you, but he felt a strong urge to get even closer to you.

" Are you ever going to get up here?" Mike's question made you both come back to reality, slowly but surely getting out of there. He made sure you were strong enough to climb up on your own, Dustin and Lucas reaching down to help you as much as they could. When you got out the kids wouldn't stop asking what happened. Dustin looked worried sick, but your smile was enough to ease him. You were catching your breath and your hand fell to Steve's. He didn't hesitate to give you the comfort you were looking for, as you both smiled at each other. It was over. You all knew it.

In the end, what Steve did know was that his new normal definitely had to include you.

[hiddles-and-skittles]

News Flash

Pairing: News Anchor!Bucky x Reader 

Word Count: 2,161

Summary: Blowjob under a desk? Classic.

Warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI, IF YOU DON’T HAVE YOUR AGE IN YOUR PROFILE DESCRIPTION I WILL BLOCK YOU, smut/oral (m rec), a little angst but it's fluffy, mentions of cheating (no actual cheating), the nickname ‘pumpkin,’ reader being a little insecure, also Sharon is a biatch trying to steal yo man, please tell me if there's any more!

Notes: Aaaaaand we’re back! This might not be the most original idea, but I've had this photo saved since the start of my Seb obsession last year, and all I see is newsanchor!Bucky. Not sure if that's an AU that's been done, but it's something I wanted to try. I don't have my own and I've been dying for something new! 

***PLEASE READ Something I’ve noticed a lot when I copy from Word and paste into Tumblr; my paragraphs paste out of order? If something doesn’t make sense, let me know. It always looks different on my laptop vs my phone. I’m a perfectionist so I make sure fifty or so times everything’s good on my end, but tumblr doesn’t agree sometimes. In my last fic the banter was out of order and wedged between paragraphs and it didn’t make sense. The ending paragraph was also at the beginning. So I’m begging you to tell me if something doesn’t make sense. Thank you <3

You might have stolen your boyfriend's spare key to the broadcasting station he works at a few nights ago while he was fast asleep, slithering out of bed and tiptoeing around him in hopes he wouldn't wake up. Or 'maybe you lost it in your car somewhere,' you told him, giggling when he couldn't find it. It took three days to hatch this nefarious plan and now it was finally time to execute it.

You made sure to get to the station early; before anyone else could spot you and before the cameras turned on. The lights from several TVs and other equipment were the only things visible in the dark, so your phone light guided you to where the anchors' desk was. This was one of the wildest plans you'd ever concocted, and the thrill of getting caught turned you on that much more. Hell, this is illegal. You might get Bucky fired if you're not careful enough.

But you're sneaky. You know the setup.

The underside of the desk was a deep enough hole to hide your full body and then some, so you push yourself underneath and scoot backwards until your back hits the front panel. You have enough room to stretch your legs all the way out and still not be seen, and if you didn't know better you'd think these desks were built for times like these.

You slide his chair in front of you before returning to situate yourself and read on your phone to pass the time. About thirty minutes and a broken neck later, lights flicker on, the smell of coffee hits your nose, and a whole slew of people briskly walk in with only their bottom halves visible. Immediately you sit up and make sure your phone is on silent, moving out of the way of the chair when he pulls it out to sit his cute little ass down.

You're giddy as a school girl ready to jump his bones but you tear yourself away from misbehaving, knowing the build up would be far more satisfying. He clears his throat to rehearse his intro but cuts himself off to fake laugh at what his co-anchor Sharon says, causing you to roll your eyes knowing damn well you're funnier than she is. You get lost in his raspy, early morning voice, the one that always oozes sex and makes you gush without him ever having to touch you, and moments later Sharon says the routine good morning. He follows her.

"Coming up: A fire wreaks havoc in the city but an unexpected hero saves the day.  And are these the warmest temperatures ever recorded for a New York's winter? Stay tuned." The camera cuts and the next spot is cast to a reporter who stands in the street in slacks and a t-shirt. Bucky leans back in his chair and adjusts his tie then takes a sip of water, oblivious that you're under his desk.

He and his co-anchor chit chat and you decide to test the waters by tugging ever so slightly on his shoe laces, but when you get no reaction you pull on the bottom of his pants. His knee immediately jerks up and hits the desk and he mutters a pained ‘shit’ under his breath upon impact. She asks if he's okay and he says something about not quite being awake yet, so she volunteers to get more coffee for him. The second she leaves his chair rolls back and your heart pounds violently in your chest. Curious steel blue eyes widen in shock when he notices your seated form, causing him to nearly topple backwards but saving himself when his coworkers turn their heads to the commotion.

"What are you doing here?!" He whisper-screams, trying not to get anyone's attention. A wicked grin appears on your face as you gaze up at him but before you could even think of a response, Sharon brings the coffee to him and he quickly rolls himself back to the desk. His leg stretches out and his foot lands on your chest, softly pushing you back from the potential line of sight.

They resume talking and the spotlight is brought back to them as they pick up their stories for the morning. You crawl back towards him on your knees and rest your hands on his boots. His entire lower half is completely at your mercy and you'd be fucking stupid not to seize the moment.  

Sharon laughs and coos at a video in the background. “In case you missed it, late last night at the Central Park Zoo a baby red panda was born! They named him Roscoe! Isn't he just adorable?” She playfully elbows Bucky in the arm, but seems offended when he doesn’t respond with equal enthusiasm. “Ahem, I said, isn't he adorable, Buck?”

Running your deft fingers under his pants and up his legs, you rake your nails through the hairs that adorn them. His breath hitches at your touch. You continue outside of his dress pants, kneading up his toned calves and sliding over his knees, wandering slowly over the insides of his thighs until he adjusts himself by opening his legs for better access. He then clears his throat to try and focus on his story. One of his gloved hands disappears from the cameras' view and grips onto his chair beside him and he taps his foot as a warning, one you pay no mind to.

You rim your fingers along where his shirt is tucked in and tug him closer by his empty belt loops. You force his legs apart wider and pop his pants button open, leisurely dragging the zipper down and licking your lips when he sucks his stomach in.

You hook a finger in his boxers and pull down, springing out his semi-hard cock, then kiss the inside of his thigh, watching his cock twitch. Grinning like a Cheshire, you huff out a warm breath to tease him, his thighs flexing at the sensation.

Before you proceed you double check to make sure you've got enough headspace below the desk that you don't accidentally knock yourself out giving your boyfriend a secret blowjob.

You wrap your hand around his length and pump until precum starts to drip from the head. What I'd give to ride him in front of all these people, all these cameras, you think to yourself, lifting up to lap at him. The hand gripping the chair moves to your wrist, begging you with a gentle squeeze. You repay the light squeeze on his cock and immediately hear him gasp. You just know how red his face must be as you hear Sharon ask if he's okay, and he responds with a squeaky 'just fine!' You laugh in your head, returning to lick up the thick vein on the underside of his cock. Though it’s impossible to gauge his reaction, his faint, delicious whimpers make up for it as you take more of him in your mouth.

“Uh yeah, Rascal's cute,” he grits out with a fake smile, shifting to sink a little lower in his chair.

“It's Roscoe,” she corrects him stiffly.

“Of course it is.” You see Sharon on the tv behind them shooting him a death glare, cocking her eyebrow in confusion. She straightens her papers and rolls her eyes away from the camera with a smile still plastered to her face. Your hand slides down to roll his balls between your fingers and you kitten lick the slit of his head. "B-back to Steve with the-ah-weather!" He chokes out, shooting straight up in his chair.

As soon as the cameras pan, he's biting down on a gloved hand to stifle a moan while the other is white knuckling the desk right above your head. You can't help but hum in satisfaction, the small vibration causing his hips to jolt forward and the tip of his cock to hit the back of your throat. You gag at the abrupt intrusion but begin to relax your jaw, taking in all you can and pumping your hand around what your mouth leaves out.  

“What is going on with you?!” Sharon hisses at him. You take him out of your mouth and listen.

“J-just havin’ an off day,” he lies breathlessly, his eyes glossed over.

“Well I’m worried,” she whispers, standing up and bending over enough for her lips to brush the shell of his ear. “You know you can talk to me.” She kisses his cheek and rests a hand on his thigh far too high up for your liking, then reaches her other hand up to thumb his chin dimple. You see red. As she walks away you can see that Bucky is uncomfortable and right now it isn’t from his compromising position.  

You angrily go back to him and hollow out your cheeks, closing your mouth tighter around him with your teeth encased in your lips, sucking harder as your head bobs faster. The clicking of joints is heard as his toes curl in his shoes, a clear indication he’s nearing his release. Your focus shifts completely to getting Bucky off. His legs shake and his hips jerk of their own volition in a silent plea to keep going, but you know the best way to drive him crazy is to slow down to the point he thinks he won’t finish. You slowly twist your hand up and down his shaft while sucking his balls into your mouth and his hips stutter twice more, his cock aimed towards your open mouth, eager to collect his release on your tongue. He grunts out a final time as his cum shoots into your mouth, and you smile in victory as you swallow every drop.

From this angle you see him relax, his breathing shallow as he finds your cheek and gently runs a gloved thumb over it. You nuzzle into his palm and quickly reach to stuff him back into his pants, but your mind is brought back to the way Sharon touched him and you try not to grip him in frustration. He intentionally drops a pen and jumps down from his chair.

“How are you getting out of here?” he asks you, grabbing his pen. Your brain can’t even form a response with how upset you are. Is he cheating? Or is she just a bitch? “...pumpkin?”  

“Fire alarm,” you snap, not meeting his eyes. He looks dejected with his brows furrowed and eyes searching yours, but he shakes himself out of it.

“Got it,” he nods. He makes a quick adjustment to his pants and stands up, tucking his shirt back in and excusing himself to the bathroom. You finally sit down on your ass and relax your legs, but the thought of Sharon and Bucky together gets so deep under your skin it brings tears to your eyes. The obnoxious sound of the fire alarm pulls you from your anxious addled brain and you harshly wipe at the falling wetness from your cheeks. The office lights flash and the news crew panic and gather their things, but you stay under the desk until the entire room is emptied out.  

The door flies open to reveal a freshly disheveled Bucky, who practically leaps over to you and reaches his hand under the desk for you to take. You refuse his offer and get yourself up. “Let’s go,” you tell him, brushing yourself off. Once outside you’re met with the crisp morning air and the sun rising enough to cast a hazy orange reflection on the building’s windows. He takes you to a spot that’s hidden from his coworkers.

“You're gonna pay for that later," he laughs as he tries to pull you close but you shrug him off and fold your arms over your chest.  

“Good,” you sniffle, leaning into him.

"What's the deal with Sharon?” you blurt. “Do you...like her or something?" You finally look him in the eyes and he notices how red your face is, your eyes brimming with tears. His mouth hangs open and he fights the urge to hug you as tight as humanly possible.  

"What? No, I swear, I've told her I'm not interested, she already knows I'm with you. It makes me uncomfortable, but she just won't stop.” His hands rest on your hips. “I would never even consider it, pumpkin, especially not with how good your lips feel around my cock." He blushes and smiles shyly as he whispers the dirty word, his eyes following yours to look at you earnestly. "Never." You stutter out a sigh and blink away your tears and he tugs you closer, wrapping his arms around you and kissing your temple.  

“You know I love you. She can never make me feel the way you do.” He kisses down your face and you snort, smirking up at him.

“I know she can’t. You just wait till you get home tonight.”

@loricamebackyetagain​ @jobean12-blog​

[ichigoromi]

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐞 | 𝐌𝐒𝐁𝐘 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬 | 𝐇𝐚𝐢𝐤𝐲𝐮𝐮 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧

Chaotic vibes only!

Hope y'all enjoy reading!

Pairing (s): MSBY Four - Bokuto Koutarou, Miya Atsumu, Hinata Shoyo and Sakusa Kiyoomi x gn! reader

Genre: fluff!

Warning (s): None!

Enjoy!

Bokuto Koutarou

The grocery store is packed during the weekend, and the two of you are only free during the weekends to do your grocery shopping.

You knew that you would easily lose him during such busy days, so you insisted that he never let go of your hand.

Obviously, he is more than happy to hold your hand because he loves how big his hand is compared to yours.

You pushed the trolley around, filling it with fresh vegetables and fruits while he looks around the mart.

While you were busy choosing the watermelon, unknowingly, Bokuto decided to explore the supermarket on his own.

He just went to the snack aisle and got a few snacks and heads back to the fresh produce section, and you were not there.

Bokuto reached out to his pocket to find it empty.

His phone was with you, and you were nowhere to be found.

So, what does he do?

"The caretaker of Bokuto Koutarou, your child is currently at the customer service counter. Please come and pick him up." A loud announcement rang through the store, and you wanted to hide your face.

Everyone around you started whispering about the professional athlete Bokuto Koutarou really lost, or was it another child with the same name as him?

You asked a kind soul for you to help you look after your trolley while you went and go collect your lost child.

"Baby! You're here!" He ran up to you and threw his arms around, slightly lifting you up.

Your cheeks were flushed with embarrassment, and you apologised profusely to the receptionist at the counter while pulling your giant boyfriend away.

The young kid that was waiting with your trolley was excited when he saw Bokuto with you. He was a big fan of your boyfriend. You helped them take a picture, and he wraps his arms around you.

"That was so embarrassing...Kou, can you just hold onto my shirt and never let go?" He shook his head, and you tilt your head in confusion.

Did he want to get lost again?

"Nope, I'm going to hug you and never let you go!" He got behind you and wrapped his arms tightly around you.

Miya Atsumu

Normally, you did the grocery shopping alone since he is tired after training and doesn't drive.

So, the grocery shopping chore became yours.

He has a rest day and offered to pick up the groceries with you on this rare occasion.

It was a pleasant surprise, and you were glad to have a helping hand to help you.

You brought him to Costco, and it's going to be easy to lose him, a new-timer who has never been to Costco.

You warned him and told him to stay close to you and don't stray away from you.

He just nods his head and proceeds to ignore your warnings.

Atsumu was kind of upset that you were treating him like a child, but he overestimates himself.

Because within 15 minutes of entering the store, he has already lost you.

So, instead of calling you and asking where are you, he got another trolley and proceeded to do his own shopping.

Since you were busy with the shopping list, you didn't even notice your boyfriend was not following you anymore.

He was fascinated by the big store and got lots of stuff, ones that you two don't really need.

After a while, he realised that you have actually forgotten about him and literally went and did your own shopping.

When he was about to make a quick call to you, his phone died.

So, he went and paid for his stuff first and head to the customer service counter.

"Y/l/n Y/n, your child Miya Atsumu is currently at the customer service counter; please come and pick him up." Everyone heard it, so did you, but you continue your shopping.

This man, even after you warned him, still went and got separated from you.

So, you deliberately took your own sweet time and went a few rounds around a particular aisle.

You purposely lined up at the longest queue for your payment.

By the time you were done, he has been waiting with other lost kids for an hour or two.

"That was mean of ya! It was so embarrassing!" He buried his face in the crook of your neck; you awkwardly apologised to the cranky receptionist that was grumbling about how youngsters were so irresponsible.

Atsumu recounts his tale of how the lost kids there were laughing at an adult who got lost and has to be sent to the customer service, but he voluntary went himself.

"Serves you right. I told you to stick right next to me. Tsumu, why did you buy all of these? We have it at home..." You gaped at the amount of stuff that he bought.

"Really? I didn't see it. Oh well, it's just more stocks then." He grinned playfully, expecting you to laugh, but you let out a deep sigh.

"This is why I have a shopping list for a reason; it is so that we don't overbuy! Tsumu, you're such a hoarder!" He opened his mouth and tries to explain himself, but nothing came up.

You loop your arms around his neck and kisses his cheeks.

"It's fine; I can deliver some to Samu. Don't worry." You reassure him when you notice his crestfallen expression.

"Stop pouting. You did well today, but next time, just stick close to me?" He nods his head and you two head to your car.

Hinata Shoyo

It was all a small mistake that leads to you two in the current situation.

Hinata knows the danger of losing you in the grocery store because your purse has his phone and his wallet.

But he holds your hand tightly as you two entered the store.

At first, it was going well, there were not many people in the store, and you two were out on a date.

Until the sudden increase of patrons in the store.

Hinata was sure to hold your hand tightly, but you heard of some discount from the housewives nearby; you let go of him and head towards the frozen aisle.

Oh no, he is left alone, and there was nothing he could do.

His fans came up to him and asked for photos and autographs, so he stayed and interact with them, hoping that you would come back for him.

Yeah, you were definitely not going back to find him as you made friends with the housewives as they give you tips about discounts.

Even the butcher chatted with you for a while.

So, he went to the customer service counter and requested them to make an announcement.

"The guardian of Hinata Shoyo, please proceed to the customer service counter to pick up your child." That was when you realised that Hinata was no longer beside you.

You picked up the remaining items on the lists and head to the register to pay for the groceries. Gosh, you felt like an awful significant other, losing him and not realising earlier.

But, the new knowledge and tips that you've gotten might be worth it, just kidding.

You were going to make a delicious meal for him to make up for your mistake earlier.

He looked relieved when he saw you walking towards him.

"Sho-chan! I'm so sorry! I lost you and even forgot about you. Can you forgive me?" You apologised profusely, and he chuckles, seeing your guilty expression.

You buried your face into his chest, and he pats your head to tell you to not blame yourself. It was all good, but still, you felt awful.

"Let's go home. I have picked up some good cuts of beef; I'll cook a good meal for you!"

"Sure, let's go." He kisses the top of your head and you two head towards the parking lot.

Sakusa Kiyoomi

Alright, Sakusa would make the perfect housewife. He is good at household chores, cooking? He is the perfect husband in the making.

He does the grocery shopping, and you would stay at home.

But, you felt like accompanying him to the store, so he allowed you to follow him.

You were wearing one of his hoodies and a pair of black sweats, and he was wearing similar attire to you.

He made sure you held his hand since you were short and could easily blend into the crowd. (a/n - omi is just a giant.)

It's been a while since you came out shopping with him, and it was fun getting out once in a while.

You can't help but want to explore the supermarket on your own.

So, you went on your own; after all, you're a grown adult. Nothing bad would happen.

Right?

Oh ho ho, Sakusa turned around, and you were gone.

He starts to panic because you were not behind him, and he couldn't see you in the crowd.

Sakusa calls you and felt his left pocket buzzing.

It was your phone buzzing in his pocket.

He sighs and decided to finish his list before finding you.

Meanwhile, you had enough money for a popsicle, and you got your favourite flavour and head to the customer service counter.

"Excuse me, can you please make a lost child announcement?" The receptionist immediately sat up in her seat and apologised for not noticing you earlier.

"Where's the lost child?" You pointed at yourself. She nodded her head blankly.

"Yeah, Sakusa Kiyoomi is my guardian. Thank you." This whole situation was bizarre, but she made the announcement for you anyways.

"Sakusa Kiyoomi, your child is at the customer service counter; please come and pick up your lost child."

You were literally chatting with the receptionist when he rushed over to the customer service counter. He sighed, relieved that you were safe. He apologised for the inconvenience he caused.

"You got me worried. Just stay at home, okay?" He kisses your forehead. You shook your head.

"Nope! I'm coming with you from now on!"

Oooh, my first headcanon where I did four characters at once! It was quite fun and I might write more of these in the future!

I hope y'all enjoy this!

Stay safe and healthy!

With love,

Rosalie🍓

[loorain]

Sims 4 Fontenot Legacy - Sabrina's Upswing

Sunday was stormy so the family stayed in and focused on quality time together. While Sigrid and Robin spent time with the girls, Sabrina and Juno worked on reaching his crawling milestone, and Juno successfully crawled for the first time! As he's days away from his birthday, this is perfect timing! Sabrina could not have been more proud!

(In between the photos of Juno he had a diaper blowout so Sabrina had to bathe and change him lol)

The next day, Sabrina was back in the restaurant where they managed their team well. Business is slow as it's a new business but they're making a steady profit that improves a little more each day.

Toward the end of the day, as the team started wrapping up for the day, Sabrina got a visitor.

Sabrina: Beau! I didn't expect to see you!

Beau: Surprise! I was in the neighborhood and figured I'd stop by. Business going well?

Sabrina: Slow and steady. We're building up gradually.

Beau: That's good to hear. See, I'd always said you'd be successful at this. Things are looking good.

Sabrina: Yeah. You've always been supportive of me. Thanks for that.

Beau: You don't have to thank me.

Sabrina: I do. I've struggled to find myself most of my life, but you've always been there for me. I always pushed you away, and yet you still care for me.

Beau: You know how I feel about you. Despite everything, I still think you're pretty great. Maybe that'll lead to my own

Sabrina: Yeah, about that...

Beau's face fell hearing Sabrina's tone, worried about what they were going to say.

Sabrina: I know I haven't made much sense lately. It's been up and down. But I meant what I said after our last chat. I want to build back up to where we once were. I know it can take a little time. I haven't been the best partner. For that, I'm really sorry. I want to be better. Now that the restaurant is up and running and Juno's aging up soon, I can refocus some of my energy on different areas of my life, and I want to make you a priority again. So...

Sabrina dramatically grabs Beau's hand, bowing like a gallant knight.

Sabrina: Would you honor me with a date tomorrow night?

Beau's solemn expression reversed, a smile growing on his features.

Beau: I'd be honored.

And in the late afternoon, after returning to the Legacy House and picking up Juno, Sabrina decided to make a visit to their older cousin's house.

Anya: Sabrina! Good to see you! And you brought little Juno!

Sabrina: Figured we were overdue for a visit!

Anya: Well you know we're always happy to have you over. We've got some new additions to our family too!

Sabrina: I see! I never saw you as a dog Mama!

Anya: Ugh, it was all the boys' idea. I'll tell you all about it.

So to treat the Machidas for their hospitality, Sabrina cooked up something nice for dinner while Juno napped in his carrier. The peacefulness of cooking with their son on their back made Sabrina feel at ease. It provided them a feeling that they are slowly finding their purpose.

And after a successful dinner, Sabrina got to talk to the Machidas about any and everything, including the extended break they were taking from their relationship with Beau, though things seem to be on the upswing between them now.

Sabrina: ...There was just a lot going on, you know? It's been a lot of "right person, wrong time".

Anya: I'm so sorry to hear about your separation... These are difficult times, but in the end, it may be for the best - and all hope may not be lost, either! It sounds like you two are communicating again, which is a great positive. And that date sounds promising! I wouldn't be surprised if you were fully back in things by the end of all of this.

Sabrina chuckles.

Sabrina: You sound super optimistic about things. I don't know, I feel good, but I also worry, you know? Maybe things will fall apart again.

Anya: Well you can't live in fear, Sabrina. If Beau is as special to you as he seems to be to me, then you have to take the leap. It sounds like he's ready to meet you in the middle. Just see how you feel after the date, yeah?

Sabrina takes in Anya's advice with a calm nod of their head. After all, she's right. There's only way to find out if this relationship will work out, and that's tackling the situation head-on. So with that, Sabrina looks towards their date with a newfound determination to see what their future holds.

So after a bit more time, including letting Juno have some time out of his carrier with the dogs, Sabrina bids their cousin farewell after a successful visit.

Anya: Thanks for coming, it's so nice having you both around.

Sabrina: Thanks for having us. We'll see you at Juno's birthday party in a couple days?

Anya: Wouldn't miss it for the world.