#i dropped out of school when i was 14/15

[z0mbiefrank]

you GUYS i am officially enrolled in my degree i am so unbelievably happy!!!!! i have been fighting for my life to get here. i had to turn down all my uni offers when i was a teen (had to move out independantly bc of domestic violence and disability/health complications). i've always known exactly what i want to do with my life but everything got put on hold whilst i desperately tried to sort my shit out. BUT IM DOING IT NOW!!!!!

[isa-ah]

yall ever end up thinking back on periods of ur life and ur like. bro what

[clockwayswrites]

Cozytober Day 14 & 15: Unexpected family gathering Getting comfort after a bad day at school

masterpost CW: referenced abalism

It was a Bad Day.

It had started as a so-so sort of day. The sort of day where words were a little slower and harder to find. Danny could work through those days, he always had to, after the accident. But then, of course, it had been a day that his sociology professor had actually shown up instead of just leaving the teaching assistant to do his work for him.

Of course he had called on Danny. And being a so-so sort of day, Danny had fumbled through the answer. Apparently, that meant the fucking jack-ass decided to use Danny as ‘an example’ right there in front of the whole class. As if public speaking was Danny’s issue. As if sometimes struggling with words meant that he couldn’t do social worker. As if he was worthless.

Danny made himself close his eyes and just breathe. He’d contact his ADA rep tomorrow. There were avenues to deal with this. It was just… it was so much effort and was probably going to be a fight over it. The professor as there for research reason, he didn’t actually care about teaching. Danny would probably have to go in front of a committed and tell his side and—

Tomorrow.

He’d deal with that tomorrow.

Right then Danny just wanted Jason.

Uncovering the hidden panel, Danny typed in his code, popped open the covered door, and swung himself down through it and onto the steal beam.

“Who the fuck?”

Danny froze. Very slowly he looked down. Below him, Jason’s table was expanded out into an oval and surrounded by people. People who were looking up at Danny with a frankly frightening amount of attention and suspicion.

The person closed to Danny stood. Their hand went to something on their belt in a move that Danny was sure was intended to be casual, but wasn’t actually. It made the hairs on the back of Danny’s neck stand up. That person was dangerous. All these people were dangerous.

“So who exactly are you?” They asked.

“Jay wasn’t inviting anyone else, right?” Someone at the table asked rest of of the people.

“Jason didn’t even invite us,” one of the other redheads answered.

“Oh, right.”

“Hey,” the redhead glaring at Danny barked. “I asked who you were!”

He was Jason’s boyfriend. He was allowed to be there. Jason had given him the code. Jason wanted him there! Words that Danny couldn’t manage to speak piled up in the back of his throat.

The redhead’s hand tightened around something.

Danny leaned back.

The rest of the table tensed.

“I swear to fuck Roy, if you throw something at my boyfriend you are not welcome back here!”

The room froze and slowly all eyes shifted to look towards the bedroom where Jason was walking out of it and into the main space.

“Boyfriend?” Someone at the table repeated in a near squeak.

Danny ignored them. Jason was there. Jason was there and knew who he was and that he was welcome even when he didn’t have the words for it. He dropped to hang of the edge of the rafter for just a moment before he flung himself at Jason, trusting the other to catch him.

And Jason did. Jason wrapped Danny up in one of his warm hugs and spun them so that his back was to the group and Danny was hidden.

“Hey, boo,” Jason said and pressed a kiss to Danny’s temple. “They sort of all just showed up. Apparently they decided to have a game night and that this was the place to have it. I was going to text you a warning later. I thought you still had class right now?”

Danny scowled and tapped a sequence against Jason’s hand. S.O.S. Something that Jason had suggested they use as a sign for when Danny was having a Bad Day.

“Shit, yeah?” Jason dropped his voice to keep his words more between them. “What do you need? I can kick them all out if you need me to.”

“Hey!” Someone at the table protested, followed shortly by a omph and a wheeze. “Ow! Fuck, keep those elbows to yourself.”

Danny quirked a little bit of a smile despite himself and shook his head. He pointed over his shoulder before running the same hand through his hair as if washing it.

Jason nodded. “Okay. You know where the bath salts and things are. I’ll check on you in a bit.”

Danny pressed a grateful kiss to Jason’s lips and practically dashed to the bedroom without a single glance towards the table full of Jason’s friends and maybe even family. That was… it was just too much right then.

-

By the time that Danny was settled into the warm, scented water he had managed to calm down a great deal. He still couldn’t find his words, they were still stuck down deep under his ribs, but he wasn’t in a panic anymore.

(Not having someone about to attack him helped with that, go figure.)

Danny sunk a little further into the luxuriantly large tub and rolled his head slowly this way and that. The rest of the world could wait until tomorrow. All that mattered was what was inside of Jason’s apartment.

Of course, inside the apartment meant Jason’s friends right then, but Danny knew that Jason would let him hide in the bedroom if he wanted to. For the moment, Danny tried not to be worried with figuring out what he wanted. Right then was about relaxing.

[mayearies]

… ꒰ঌ ໒꒱

.. ❛ nailed it ❜

genre: suggestive | warnings: implied making out, suggestive speech ->summary: miles gives you a prize

꒰ঌ a/n ໒꒱ needed to spice up shi a little bit since i havent in a while lmao i didnt feel like adding pictures to this one (ty @/q2ie for letting me steal ur format 😊 i might not keep it tho LMAO)

miles and you were doin' your nightly routine—facetiming each other for 3 hours before you actually went to sleep. you two would talk about anything and everything. drama at school, shit at work, etc. but you wanna see him in person. you would drop that in the convo for a while.

"then this bitch down the street was lookin' at me sideways n' shit, i swear to god-" "i wanna come see youuuu"

he broke, bursting out in full on laugher and rolling around in his bed out the frame. all your other attempts landed in him letting out a breathy laugh or a small chuckle.

"okay but no seriously! you haven't came over in foreverrrr" "we saw each other last week, mi vida?" "that's too long! what can i do to make you come over?"

it didn't take him long to think about a possible challenge. the smirk on his face told you all you needed to know. "you can try that one filter goin' around."

"which one? the hammer one?" "yeah." "hmm. you make it seem like it's that big of a challenge." "knowing your timing skills, yes. yes it will be a challenge for you." "what's in it for me?"

miles held his face in his palm while he looked to the side, making a humming noise. "i'll come over and kiss you."

"make out, you mean?" "i mean... it depends if you pass or nah."

you sucked on your teeth as you moved over to tiktok and got ready to win the little prize he had for you. you didn't even tell him that you started. you just went at it. he saw your focused ass self through your camera and he was snickerin a whole lot. "yo, shut up or i swear to god."

miles sat up and took a deep breath before saying in a mocking tone: "yo, shut up or i swear to g-"

"STOP"

once the timer hit zero, you had landed around 14. still bein' salty about not being able to get at least two because of his sabotagin' ass. you mumbled a curse under your breath which he knows for certain was for him. "awww.. you mad, ma? estás molesto conmigo?

"shut up." "you're too cute, i can't." "you didn't even tell me how many i had to get!" "... 15."

you stared at him with unamused which only made him feel amused. you swear, this boy plays too much. but that's one of the reasons you love him. the other reasons? well... that's another story.

"i'm jokin', ma. unlock your window."

once you heard your window slide up, you stopped shaking your leg. you had been waiting a whole 10 minutes. far too long. he came in his prowler pajamas, which was cute and it matched your spiderman one. "took you long enough."

miles held your chin with a playful smirk on his face. tilting it upward a little so he could plant a little kiss on your neck. "y'know. i wonder if you taste as salty as you talk, ma."

"just kiss me already."

and so he did. rather passionate, you would say. he knew everything you liked when he kissed you. what you didn't like, and what you loved. what made your face warm. what made your heart flutter. all of it. it's one of the other reasons you love him.

"i know just how to make your knees weak, amor." "sad but true." "what is that supposed to mean?" "you always make me fold. it hurts my back."

he let out a small giggle while cuddling up under the covers with you. he was proud to be able to tease you so much. even if you might get sick of him. "i love you so much."

"wish i could say the same." "damn. you still got that salty ass mouth after all that? thought i carried all my sweetness over to you. you want me to do it again?"

©hiimayee

[therandompagesblog]

SKZ Mate: Chapter 5

Warnings: Childhood trauma, communes, assault, verbal threats

"Hollow Woods is where I grew up. On the Eastbank near Wraithwood. I grew up in a relatively large pack, there were about twenty other werewolves. Some alpha. Some beta and some omega. The majority of them, all had children. I was one of the children. There were roughly 15 or 18 children, there may have been more. It was more like a commune. The children of the pack would go to school in the morning and learn how to be a werewolf. You would learn the basics of hunting and survival skills. The older children, like myself, would learn how to be what we are. In my case, learn about being an omega...

You were incredibly unlucky if you were an omega in our pack. It was the worst thing to ever be. If you were an omega you were fated to downfall. As a female omega, your job was to be a concubine for an alpha. To produce an Apex. Yet, it was never possible for them. The majority of omegas that were born were male in our pack. The ones who were female lost their lives because they were succumbed to mistreatment. Omega's had little rights in our tribe. They were subjected to their alphas most of the time, meaning when an alpha wanted something an omega did it. If an alpha had a rut they needed an omega. If an alpha was angry they needed an omega to take the pain away. Despite all that, an omega was not allowed near an alpha nor a Beta. They were only allowed near them if the called upon them or sent them to a beta. It was tough for all of us. Even for my mother!

My mother was an omega, conceived by two omegas that rebelled against their alphas. Before they were sentenced to death they pleaded with the alpha at the time to take my mother in. My mother was 14 at the time when she watched her parents die. My mother swore she would never make the same mistake her parents made. Instead, my mother was forced to be with our head alpha as his mate in hopes of producing an Apex, but sadly it never happened. My brothers Joshua, Samuel and I were born as Omega. Even my younger brother Milo came out as an omega. We watched our mother for years get slandered and beaten by our alpha for never conceiving an Apex. What was funny to us was our mother conceived an Alpha with Jiyong! Turns out our head alpha cannot conceive other alphas because they were not soul mates. Poor Alpha Jackson! He never got what he dreamed of.

That was until our head alpha committed a heinous act. He forced an omega to conceive an apex through necromancy. This led to an upral with neighbouring packs, particularly one pack. They threatened our pack and told them they would be reported to the elders and the council. So they had to make a pact, or a trade, if you will. They will keep the secret of the apex being born through necromancy if my pack hands over a virgin omega! Well, you see, that was easy for our head alpha because I was the only virgin female omega. The only reason I was a virgin omega is because I hated half of the beta boys in our back. They were flamboyant casanova peacocks."

"So what happened to the apex and their mother did they survive? I've never heard of the omega mother surviving a forced apex pregnancy?" Changbin interrupted her novella out of curiosity. He had heard the story of an apex being born but he didn't think it was true. "From what the pack I was given to told me, they both didn't survive. The mother died during childbirth and the apex died because he went into a sub-drop too early on." Y/N answered with a shrug. "That's crazy. What were they thinking." Changbin stated. He couldn't believe an infant could go through a sub-drop. It was near enough impossible. "Not to disrespect your pack nor your family, but was it more like a breeding farm?" Seungmin asked, causing everyone in the room to freeze. They all thought the same thing but no one wanted to say anything to offend her as she was opening up for the first time with them. "Ah. Yes. Yes it was. They breed to create omegas in hopes that omega would be an alpha's soul mate. Yet it never happened or the omega rebelled and fled"  Y/N answered sadly as she looked down at the wooden floor. "That's fucked up," Seungmin stated. He was about to continue when Chan stopped him with a warning glare. "Please continue Y/N. If at any point it gets too much we can stop and talk about it another day." Chan reassured with a promise.

"Going back to what I was saying. I was basically given to-" "It was Ateez wasn't it? You were given to Hongjoong." The red-haired alpha interrupted with a low growl. His eyes narrowed in on her. "How di-" "I can smell him all over you. Such a disgrace." Hyunjin spat before walking out, leaving the room with an icy feeling. None of them knew what to say at Hyunjins outburst. "Please don't mind Hyunjin little wolf. Hyunjin has quite the history with Ateez." Chan explained with a sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Chan realised this might complicate things as Chan had already stolen from Hongjoong before. "It makes sense," Seungmin added as he watched the omega drop her head in shame. "What does hyung?" The younger alpha asked as he pulled on Seungmin's jumper. "Why our omega was so afraid of us? Look at her Innie. Look at the state of her. You can tell what they've done to her. It was probably that demonic little alpha." Seungmin growled making the omega shrink into the sofa even more. "Seonghwa isn't an alpha," Y/N muttered. "What?" They all said. "Seonghwa is a beta. He just pretends to be an alpha. They only have one other alpha, Wooyoung. It's only because Hongjoong gives him the power that he acts like a fucking alpha." Y/N growled, her eyes sparkling in anger. "So the other six are Betas?" Chan asked in confirmation causing Y/N to stare at him in bewilderment. "You mean the other four are betas. Two of them are omegas. Three including me." Y/N said. "Wait what!" Jisung and Changbin shouted. "Those fucking liars. They're corrupted." Changbin screamed. "Yeah, and you guys are not corrupt," Y/N answered as she rolled her eyes. As far as she was aware Straykids was as bad. "I guess that means we have a lot to think about, but for now let's hold that thought. We can think about Ateez's politics later." Chan looked around the room before continuing. " Minho can you go and check on Hyunjin he will need your guidance. Changbin take Jisung and Seungmin to the border and patrol for the next few hours. They will have realised Y/N-"

Everything sped up for Chan in an instant. One minute his omega was opening up about her background and the next minute she was on the floor withering in immense pain. He knew within seconds it was her previous alpha trying to track her down. He was trying to communicate with her through his bond and mark, but it was only resulting in her suffering. It was clear to Chan that her old alpha, Hongjoong, was trying to make her suffer. Chan knew he needed to remove the mark from her, both of them, but it would be too obvious. He needed Hyunjin to help him and he needed him to act now, regardless of the consequences!

"Hyunjin!" A panicked Chan called out. Within seconds of calling Hyunjin, Chan had his mouth over the top of Hongjoong's mark and bit down on top of it at the same time Hyunjin bit down on the mark on her ass. Both of them could feel the power of the two Ateez marks as they tried to override it by forcing their power onto her. The problem with overriding an alpha mark is it could result in death for that omega. Wolves knew it was rare to have a soul mate which was why they heavily branded and marked their omegas so they wouldn't go missing. Ateez was aware of that. They knew she wasn't really theirs, but they had to lie to her so she wouldn't leave them. What neither of the Alphas realised was how much power the two Ateez alphas had. Chan and Hyunjin were struggling to break the bond as they assaulted her neck, forcing submission. It was an awful sight to see and quite frankly frightened the other forgotten wolves who were witnessing the assault. They had never seen either of the alphas in such an aggressive sadistic state. They couldn't believe how quickly Chan ripped her jumper to sink his fangs straight into her. His eyes glowed a dark shade of ruby as blood poured down her neck. Hyunjin, wasn't any kinder as he bit down on her ass with a deep growl, is hands dug into her calf while the other dug into her waist, leaving nail marks.

The two younger betas, Felix and Jisung were in hysterics as they jumped straight into Minho's lap cuddling up to him. They didn't like to see their omega in such an awful position, they wanted to take it away. They wanted to rip the two alphas off of her and make it all better, but they couldn't. None of them appreciated what was happening. It was making their stomach churn the louder Y/N cried. Her cries were getting louder and it didn't seem like the alphas were going to stop. Jeongin couldn't take it either. A new alpha dealing with the heightened emotions in the room was overwhelming. He could smell the omegas pain. He could smell her blood and anxiety that was bleeding through the entirety of the house. It was too much for him, he had to leave before he acted out. The other two betas, Seungmin and Changbin were stress nesting. They had decided to rearrange their alpha's bedroom completely, ready for their omega to rest in. Seungmin ripped off the covers in a panicked emotional state, slightly sniffing to himself as he changed the pillows. He feared the omega was really going to hate them now. Changbin was aggressively moving the furniture around, cursing his ancestors for making his life hell.

They all felt conflicted. Some felt sick. Some felt remorse. Some felt anger and hatred. Some even felt let down by their ancestors. Except for one little beta, Jisung. He felt hope despite all the trouble she brought. Jisung believed she was the best omega for them. He could feel it deep down which was why he had to stop them. He didn't want her to suffer anymore. His poor omega was bleeding out to the point she had blood coming out her mouth and neither of the alphas realised they were taking it too far. Jisung plucked up the courage to slam straight into his head alpha, causing Chan to slide his teeth down the front of her chest, before falling into the wall. Jisung knew he was risking it all for an omega they barely knew but it felt right as he stood in front of his head alpha stupidly as he tried to challenge him. His heart thumped in panic as he knew he royally fucked up as he heard the little omega scream out in pain as Ateez tried to push the unidentified invasive werewolf out. "Go. Downstairs. Now." Chan alpha ordered out of anger. Jisung put his head down in shame as he headed towards Alpha Hyunjins room of torture, knowing he was going to spend however long in there. Jisung shamefully opened up the metal gate and headed towards the metal chains, wrapping them around his ankles waiting for his punishment that would only come when the omega was safe.

Moments later, Jisung heard Chan and Hyunjin's heavy footsteps coming down into the basement. He wasn't afraid. In fact, he was relieved they were down sooner than he thought. It meant she was safe and marked. Of course, Jisung wasn't happy about his upcoming punishment but it will suffice until he gets to see his omega. "Jisung look at me," Chan ordered. His harsh voice cut through his body. "You know why I sent you down here?". "Yes, because I threw you into the wall for hurting our omega." He said blankly. His answer stunned the alphas. "Because you threw me into the wall." Chan nodded his head, thinking about the sarcastic answer he gave. "Alright. Phase back and forth fifty times a day until I say stop." Chan stated as he headed out the door before stopping. "You can start when Hyunjin breaks one of your back legs."

[snowysosturn]

Speeding Car - Matt Sturniolo

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28 Part 29 Finale

Pairing : y/n x Matt Sturniolo

Summary : After six years with your boyfriend Alex, you start to mentally check out. At a UCLA party, Alex reconnects with his childhood friend Emily, who proposes a double date with her boyfriend Matt. Your attraction to Matt grows as he pays you the first real attention you've had in years, sparking a complicated emotional journey.

Warnings : MDNI, drinking, angst

a/n : This is my first ever piece of writing so please go easy on me. Since it is my first time writing and it is a series please be patient with me! I do intend of posting parts frequently, but I am also going on a 2 week holiday this weekend so i’ll try my best <3

��Y/n are you nearly ready?’ My boyfriend shouted from the bathroom.

‘Almost’ I replied, shoving one of my gold hoops in my left earlobe piercing.

We were going to an ‘End of summer’ party on the UCLA campus. One last blow out before the new school year began. My boyfriend, Alex, was in his junior year of school there, majoring in Economics. I decided college wasn’t for me within the first couple months of my senior year of high school, so following Alex wherever he went and picking up a shitty retail job for the foreseeable seemed to be the most logical thing for me to do at the time.

The sound of laughter and music filled the air as we stepped onto the packed UCLA campus. The summer heat was still present, even as the sun dipped below the horizon. I walked hand in hand with Alex, a touch I haven’t felt in a while. It felt nice to be shown off for once. Alex and I have been together for six years, but somewhere along the way, the spark that once defined our relationship had dimmed, atleast in my eyes. I had been feeling a sense of detachment, it had been growing in my chest for months. It was a weird feeling, being present and absent at the same time. Being exhausted from trying to get what I knew I deserved out of the relationship and grieving the way we were in the beginning, hanging onto the thoughts of what could’ve been. We never went on dates, the flirting had stopped, getting a compliment was very few and far between. The only time we would spend together was watching Netflix on the couch, so being invited along to this college party tonight struck me as effort on his behalf. I had begged him for months to make more of an effort with our relationship. So tonight, I promised myself I would try. For him, and for us.

“Want a drink?” Alex asked as he turned back to me, shouting over the music.

“Yeah, a vodka lemonade please ” I replied. He nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. I stood near the door, pulling up the waistband on my high waist jeans out of awkwardness, scanning the room for a familiar face but recognizing no one.

As I took in my surroundings, my eyes caught a girl with dark brown hair, who seemed to be making her way towards me. She had a wide smile that seemed oddly familiar. It made me question myself if I had ever met her before. Before I could piece it together in my head, Alex reappeared with two red solo cups, handing one to me.

“Oh my god? Alex!” the girl called, her voice slightly screeching. Alex turned, and his face dropping before lighting up with a mix of surprise and joy.

“Emily?!” he exclaimed. They embraced in an enthusiastic hug - more affection shown to a random girl in 3 seconds than I had received in 3 months. A slight irk of jealousy hit me.

“I knew it was you! What are you doing here?” Emily gushed, pulling back to look at him while both wrapped in each others arms.

“Wow, it’s been what, eight years?” Alex replied. “I’m majoring in Economics, what are you doing here?”

That’s when the penny dropped. Emily was Alex’s childhood best friend. I had heard multiple, multiple, stories about her over the years. They lived next door to each other since they were 3, until Emily and her family moved to Austin when they were 14, two years before Alex and I started dating. From this point on, I knew the relationship between them was strictly platonic, more of a brother/sister type of love.

“You’ve got to be kidding me! I’ve just transferred to here from TSU, I’m majoring in Economics too! she wept with joy. “And who’s this? Is this the girl you post sometimes on Instagram?” Emily said as she pulled her focus on to me, my eyes nearly twitching at the word sometimes.

“This is y/n, my girlfriend, we’ve been together six years now” Alex introduced us, as I flashed a smile.

“Nice to meet you, Emily,” I said warmly, extending a hand. She shook it, giving me a sweet smile. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“All good things, I hope,” Emily joked, as I took a sip of my drink. It was stronger than I expected, “Definitely,” I laughed while slightly wincing at the pungent wave of alcohol in my mouth. “Alex and I go way back. We were practically inseparable in elementary and middle school”

I nodded, as I knew I was about to listen to a relay of information i’ve already heard before. He had spoken of her often, his childhood best friend, lost to time and distance. Eight years apart, yet their bond seemed untouched. I watched as they fell into easy conversation, reminiscing about old times. Emily’s presence seemed to revive a part of Alex that I hadn’t seen in years. He was ecstatic, almost with a new sparkle in his eye, and his laughter seemed genuine. Although I knew they were friends it confused me how he couldn’t give this type of attention to his girlfriend.

I poured myself another drink as the two had made their way over to one of the couches in the living area so the pair could continue on their catch up. I sat physically on the arm of the two seater couch they were sharing. They shared memories about one of their middle school dances while I sat mentally in my own thoughts. I was really hoping tonight would rekindle a relationship of some form, not realising it wouldn’t be ours. Maybe i need to be a liiiiiittle more specific with this whole manifesting thing.

Eventually, Emily’s eyes met mine again. “y/n, why don’t you join in, tell me one of your favourite memories with Alex!” she called out, trying to get me involved in the conversation. “I should have invited my boyfriend, Matt, he’s quite quiet like you too, you’d get on like a house on fire!” Emily exclaimed.

“Sorry the alcohol has gone to my head a bit faster than I thought it would” I said, trying to come up with a valid enough excuse to cover up why i’m not speaking. I’m happy for Alex, I really am. I just wished this could have happened at a coffee shop or something, not when I’m trying to see if I can salvage something from our relationship.

Emily looked back to my boyfriend. “Al maybe you should get y/n home if she’s feeling too drunk right now, we can organise a double date sometime this week to continue our catch up and we can introduce our partners to eachother!”

"That sounds like a great idea! I’ll DM you sometime tomorrow on instagram" Alex suggested. I forced a nod. Somehow, pretending to be too drunk to get myself out of this situation has only landed me further into it. The idea of another couple entering our dynamic is both intriguing and daunting, maybe their relationship is like ours where it’s almost fizzled out? but what if I see they have an amazing relationship and it makes me resent mine even more.

Alex ordered us an Uber and we said our goodbyes to Emily, promising to arrange that double date soon. We weren’t walking hand in hand like we did when we entered the party. It made me feel as if there was something wrong with me. We both walked around separate sides of the Uber. I opened the door for myself and slid onto the back seat, leaning my head again the car window. Suddenly my phone lit up as I received a notification.

“Emily Johnson (@emmyjohns) has requested to follow you.”

I waited until we got home to accept the request, you know, trying to cling onto the whole too drunk to function act I had put on. Alex held my hand while walking up the stairs to our apartment, he must of fallen for my act too, since I was now getting attention again. "Wasn't that great? I can't believe we ran into Emily," Alex says as he unlocked our front door. “Yeah it was great to finally put a face to the name” I replied while I walk into our room to change into my PJs, leaving Alex in the kitchen. He pours me a glass of water and sets it on my bedside locker before he gets into our bed. “Come join me” Alex whispers, gesturing at the free space beside him. “Let me brush my teeth first” I replied. If it’s one thing about me drunk, fake drunk or sober, my teeth are being brushed before I get into bed. Alex rolled his eyes at my response and by the time I finished in the bathroom he was out cold. Shocker.

I turned off the lights in our room and slipped into bed beside him. I picked up my phone to check the time before I noticed a message on Instagram that came in 10 minutes ago.

“Hey girlie…”

a/n : sorry i’ve left a cliffhanger lol, we’ve met the idea of Matt but he’ll be fully introduced in the next chapter. I’ll post chapter 2 tomorrow bc I don’t want to leave it too long before properly introducing him.

taglist : @muwapsturniolo @anitahunt333 @sturnfannn @chrissfavhoe @jayde510

[persevereforahappyending]

A Legacies Secret |3|

Pairing: Tara Carpenter x Reader

Summary: You just wanted a happy life with your girlfriend but then Ghostface attacks, revealing long thought to be buried family secrets.

Warnings: Talks of injuries

Word Count: 3.7k+

Main Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15

“Run away with me?” you asked, staring into Tara’s eyes as she leaned in for a kiss.

“No,” Tara giggled, playfully shoving you.

“Why not?” you sighed, flopping back onto Tara’s bed.

“Cause I don’t want to be a high school drop out?” Tara draped herself over you, looking down at you with a loving smile.

“Ugh, fine, I guess that’s reasonable,” you grumbled, pouting up at her as you ran a hand through her hair.

Tara sucked in a breath, instantly wincing in pain, her hand went to her stomach, but she quickly pulled it away when the pain worsened. She tried to push herself up but quickly lowered herself back down when every movement sent waves of pain through her entire body. She blinked, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the unfamiliar lighting. She looked around seeing blank white walls, a thin white sheet over her, and a hospital bed. She scrunched her eyebrows, trying to remember what happened, she reached up feeling an oxygen tube around her nose.

She got flashes of bleeding out on the floor, a knife through her hand. She looked down to see her left hand bandaged up. She closed her eyes, feeling her leg snap, she winced at just the memory. When she opened her eyes again, she noticed the large black boot on her right leg. Then she saw it, the white mask, black cloak, she remembered getting the call, it had been Ghostface. Her heart rate picked up again, she ignored the pain as she pushed herself further up on the pillow. She whipped her head around, her eyes darting all over the room, only stopping when they landed on your sleeping figure.

She couldn’t help but give a small smile at you. Tears pricked the edge of her eyes as the attack fully came back to her. The only comfort she had was seeing you by her side, safe and sound. Part of her felt bad but the other part of her wanted to laugh at your position. You were curled up, one leg hanging off the chair, the other draped over the armrest, and the top half of your body curled in, so your head was resting on the back of the chair.

She relaxed back into the pillow, her heartbeat slowing back down. She never took her eyes off you though. Her mind went back to the dream she woke up from. It was a memory, it was the last time you spent the night, just two days ago. You always asked Tara to run away with you, ever since she turned eighteen. The two of you had plans to leave when Tara graduated but then she got held back a year, delaying your plans a year. She knew you didn’t mind, truly, but you still always asked to run away. Tara loved it, she loved knowing you wanted to spend the rest of your life with her. Tara just didn’t want to be a dropout before she ran away with you.

Tara laid her head on her pillow, just staring at you, you always looked so peaceful sleeping, even in a very uncomfortable position. You suddenly shot up, bracing yourself in the chair so you didn’t fall off. Your eyes instantly went to Tara, your eyes filled with tears as you let out a shaky breath. Tara could only describe the look on your face as one of relief, she had no idea how long she had been out and couldn’t begin to imagine what you had been going through this whole time. If you had been attacked and Tara was the one waiting by your bedside she surely would have been going out of her mind.

“You’re okay,” you sobbed. You were instantly out of the chair and at Tara’s side. You reached up to touch her but hesitated, your hand freezing just as you were about to graze her hair.

Tara gave a small nod, realizing you were terrified of hurting her. “It’s okay,” she rasped out.

Your hand gently caressed her cheek. You leaned in, resting your forehead against hers. Your eyes were pinched shut but tears still managed to spill out of them. Tara let out a shaky breath, trying to contain her own sobs, she reached up with her good hand, resting it on the back of your neck.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered in between sobs. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Tara tightened her grip on you, quietly shushing you. “I’m okay. I’m okay.” She wanted to offer you any comfort she could give, she was making sure you felt her, that you heard her, that you knew she was there, and she was okay.

When you finally pulled away from her you quickly wiped your eyes, sniffling a little. You cleared your throat as you walked across the room, Tara’s heartbeat spiked for a second until she realized you were just going to the sink. Her eyes never left you as you filled a glass with water and instantly went back to her side, you handed her the glass of water and then dragged the chair you had been sleeping in next to her bedside. She took a few sips, the water instantly soothing her dry throat.

Tara looked down at your hand resting on her bed, she could feel your fingers barely grazing her leg through the blanket. She started to move her hand to hold your hand but stopped when she realized her hand was bandaged. She furrowed her brow, opening her mouth to ask you to move to her other side but the words died on her lips when she looked up, seeing your eyes not on her in the moment but on the door. She quickly shut her mouth, she couldn’t help but smile at your determined look, as if you were daring someone to walk through that door.

When you took your eyes off the door and looked back at her, she was still staring at you. You tilted your head, giving her the same soft look you always gave her, it was a complete 180 from the glare you had been giving the door. “What?” you asked softly.

Tara shook her head, blinking away the tears that had started to form. “I love you,” is all she said.

You smiled, for the first time since Tara woke up, you looked like you did any other day. If she didn’t know better, she would say you and her were just sitting on her couch about to watch a movie. “I love you too,” you reached up, brushing a few strands of hair out of her face. “Do you want me to text your friends?”

Tara opened her mouth ready to say yes but stopped. She couldn’t explain why she stopped. She loved her friends; she had known all of them pretty much her entire life. She couldn’t imagine any of them hurting her, couldn’t imagine that any of them would dress up like a psycho and attack her. There was a part of her that told her not to trust anyone though. Tara might not have remembered Stab too well, but she knew the story of the original Ghostface killings, Sidney’s boyfriend had been the killer, she had trusted him, and he ended up being the one to attack her and kill her friends. The truth was, anyone could be a killer.

The only person she didn’t doubt for a second was you. Maybe it was stupid and naïve but there wasn’t a doubt in her mind about you, she knew you’d never hurt her. And if anyone ever asked her about it, she’d say that you sitting there by her bedside completely guilt ridden over just not being there was proof enough. She saw you beating yourself up, blaming yourself, and it was all for something you had nothing to do with, for something couldn’t have controlled or prevented. As much as Tara had wanted you to come over that night, she was now glad you had work, she would never have forgiven herself if you had been there and you had gotten hurt trying to protect her.

“Not yet,” Tara finally decided on. “I’ll text them later. I’m not ready for all of them. I just want to sit here with you.”

“Okay,” you whispered. You tucked more strands of her hair that had gotten loose behind her ear. You didn’t even question Tara’s decision to not contact her friends yet, not that she ever thought you’d question her wanting to spend more alone time with you.

“How are you feeling?” you asked.

Tara looked down at herself, her eyes focusing on the large boot on her foot before trailing up to her hand. She lifted her hand off the bed, turning it over, it was covered in a wrap, but Tara could still see the knife sticking through it. “It hurts,” she said but it came out as more of a whimper.

“Do you want me to get the nurse? Maybe they can give you more drugs or up the dosage?” you were already moving to stand up.

“No.” Tara reached across her body with her good hand but didn’t have to strain herself before you noticed and were sitting back down. “I’m okay.” You didn’t look convinced. “Really, I think no matter what, I’m going to feel it at least a little bit.”

“Okay,” you whispered, dropping your eyes to the floor as you stared intensely at your clasped hands in your lap. “I should have been there,” you whispered. If you weren’t seated so close to Tara, she would have missed it.

“No,” she shook her head. “This isn’t your fault.”

“I should have just left work and come to you when you called.”

“You would have gotten fired.”

“But maybe you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.” You looked up at her, your eyes filled with tears once again. “I’m always there,” your voice cracked. “I should have been there.”

“Stop it,” Tara said, trying to keep her voice determined but it was hard with the tears she felt filling her eyes again as well. “Stop, please, you’re not allowed to blame yourself. I refuse to let you blame yourself. You didn’t cause this, you had nothing to do with this.” You buried your head in your hands but nodded, nonetheless.

After a little while you had turned on the TV and flipped through channels until Tara finally agreed to a channel that was showing some reruns. Tara wanted her laptop so she could watch whatever she wanted but that would mean asking you to go get it and she didn’t want you to leave. Tara watched you out of the side of her eye as you watched the TV, you had moved the side table over and pushed your chair against the bed. You had your arm propped up on the bed, absentmindedly playing with Tara’s hair. You were at an awkward angle and as much as Tara wanted you to, you couldn’t lay in bed next to her with her injuries, so this was the closest the two of you could get for the moment.

There was a long creak as someone opened the door to the hospital room without knocking. Tara’s eyes widened, she sat up in bed, ignoring the pain that shot through her. You were on your feet in seconds, glaring at the door, ready to attack whoever was entering.

Tara relaxed when she saw sheriff Hicks walk through the door, her eyes glued to her notepad. You were still tense, slowly relaxing as Judy put down her notepad and looked up at the two of you. Her mouth hung open, a greeting at the tip of her tongue, her eyes went from Tara, to you, to the door behind her, and back to Tara.

“I’m sorry!” Judy said sincerely. “I should have knocked. I was so caught up finishing up my notes,” she looked down at her notepad, flipping through pages as she rambled. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” Judy looked back up at Tara. “There is an officer right outside your room,” she pointed back to the door. “No one is getting in here unless they’re authorized.”

“Thank you,” Tara whispered. She flicked a glance at you to see you slowly lowering yourself back into the chair. “Sorry, we’re just a little jumpy after…”

“You don’t need to explain,” Judy said softly, walking up to the side of the bed. She reached down, grabbed Tara’s hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’m glad to see you awake.” Judy gave her a soft smile.

Judy was one of a kind, she was a little embarrassing at times and Tara and Amber certainly loved to pick on Wes in a loving way because of it. Judy was the most loving parent around though, the only other parent that seemed to love her kids as much as Judy loved Wes was Mindy and Chad’s mom. Whenever the kids went over to Judy’s house, even now as teenagers, she always made baked goods before she left for work or as soon as she got back.

Tara knew her sister got into a lot of trouble with Judy, Tara was glad Judy never held Sam’s actions against her though. Judy wasn’t a fan of Tara’s mother either, Tara always tried to hide her home issues, but Judy always seemed to know. There were so many times after Sam left and their mom got drunk or went away on long business trips that Judy insisted Tara spend the night and she always made sure Tara never went hungry, whether it was inviting her over for dinner or dropping by with a casserole or something she insisted she had so much fun making dinner she just had to make a second one. Judy never drew attention to what she was doing, she never pressed Tara to talk about it, the few times she did Tara had shut down completely, after that Judy settled for silently helping anyway she could.

Judy also wasn’t the biggest fan of you. She never directly came out and said anything, she knew deep down she didn’t have any right, but there were little comments here and there when Tara started dating you. Judy would always give a tight-lipped smile and her voice went even higher than usual when you were around or when Tara and yours relationship was brought up. When Tara first told Wes she had kissed you, Judy had overheard and made a comment about you being too old for her. Tara had just rolled her eyes saying you were only two years older, technically closer to three, but Tara wasn’t going to get into that with Judy. Judy had dropped it, but it was always obvious she didn’t approve of your relationship.

“I was wondering if you were up for answering some questions?” Judy asked softly.

“She just woke up,” you snapped. “Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, trying to catch the psycho that did this?”

You were glaring at Judy, but she just gave you a sympathetic look. “That’s what I’m trying to do,” she said softly. “If you aren’t up for it, I can come back,” Judy looked at Tara.

Tara wanted to tell Judy she was tired and to come back later, she had no desire to relive what happened to her. She didn’t think she’d want to relive it later in the day or the next day either so she might as well just get it over with.

“Can Y/N stay?” Tara asked, looking at you. You smiled softly, resting a hand on her arm as you lightly rubbed it.

“Of course,” Judy answered, glancing at you before pulling up a chair of her own. She was near the hospital bed, her back to the door, the perfect spot to look at Tara as they spoke.

“Can you tell me about your night?” Judy asked, flipping open her notepad to a new page. “What you did, anything and everything, just talk, anything can be important.”

Tara nodded, looking at you before she took a deep breath as best as she could. “I was making dinner and called Y/N. They were at work and their boss yelled at them to hang up,” she started.

“What did you talk about?” your eyes flicked to Judy, but you didn’t say anything, you just kept your hand on Tara’s arm, trying to bring her comfort in anyway.

“I was trying to convince her to blow off work,” Tara admitted, blushing lightly. She glanced at you to see a small smile on your own face, but it was quickly shadowed in sadness and guilt. “We talked about graduation, me going to college, us moving out of this town.” Tara shrugged, “Normal stuff.”

Judy nodded, writing a couple things in her notepad. “And after you got off the phone?”

“I was texting Amber, wanted to see if she wanted to watch some movies.” Tara furrowed her brow, shaking her head. “It wasn’t Amber,” she whispered, staring at a spot at the end of the bed. “The phone started ringing.”

“Your phone?” Judy asked but her voice sounded muffled.

Tara shook her head. “Landline,” she said mindlessly. “It was some guy.” She could swear she heard you suck in a breath, but she didn’t turn to look at you. “Said he knew my mom. Figured he was just a new boyfriend,” she shrugged with an eyeroll. “He asked me my favorite movie; I didn’t think anything of it until he specifically started talking to me about Stab.”

“What about it?”

“He asked me if I remembered the opening and then started telling me about the opening kill scene, a girl home alone who answers an unknown number and starts talking to the killer.” Tears slowly started to fill her eyes. “Just like me,” she whispered.

“We can stop if you want,” Judy’s voice came again, this time accompanied by a soft hand resting on her uninjured arm.

“I texted Amber,” Tara continued, shaking her head. “It wasn’t Amber.” She continued shaking her head, the tears slowly began to fall. “He-he-he started quizzing me on Stab.” Tara’s breathing started to become heavy, she was gasping more, the walls were closing in on her. “He-he-he-” she was gasping, her eyes wide as she couldn’t catch her breath.

“Breath,” your voice cut through. Tara tried to focus on your voice, hearing you softly whispering to her. Tara felt a puff of air enter her and she slowly started to be able to breath again. “There you go,” you whispered. Tara’s eyes found yours only to see you standing up, one hand resting on her shoulder while the other held her inhaler to her mouth.

“Thanks,” she whispered, taking the inhaler from you with her good hand.

You let out a shaky breath and slowly lowered yourself back down into your chair. Tara blinked a few times, taking another hit of her inhaler before she set it down at her side, making sure to keep her fingers around it.

“Why don’t we stop for now,” Judy said as she began to stand up from her chair.

“No,” Tara said, giving Judy a determined look. “No, I can do this.” Judy looked from Tara to you then back to Tara before slowly lowering herself back down. “I got a question wrong, and he said he was going to kill Amber. I ran to the door, intending to help her but he was there,” she continued, jumping back right where she left off.

“That’s how he got in?”

Tara shook her head. “No, I got the door closed and locked it. I made sure the system was armed when I called the police but…” Tara’s eyes went wide, the little robotic voice going back and forth saying armed and disarmed filling her mind.

“What?” you asked softly, giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze.

Tara turned to you, focusing on your red rimmed eyes, full of nothing but love and concern for her. “He disarmed the system.”

“What?” your face went white.

“We went back and forth. As soon as I armed the system, he would disarm it. He could have gotten in at any time,” she sobbed. “He just wanted to fuck with me!”

Tara was sobbing uncontrollably but you were sitting at her bedside in a second, wrapping your arms around her, making sure to be mindful of her injuries. Tara didn’t care about her injuries, she buried her head in your neck, throwing both her arms around you and pulled you as tightly as she could against herself.

“Sorry,” Tara mumbled, wiping her eyes once she pulled away from you.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Judy said, standing up from her chair again. She looked over her notepad before flipping it closed and tucking it back in her pocket. “I think we’re good. Thank you.” She gave Tara a pat on the arm before leaving, quietly shutting the door behind her.

Tara reached for her phone, opening her messages but her thumb hovered over Amber’s name. “What’s wrong?” you asked, looking at her with worry.

“Amber’s phone was cloned, I can’t know if I’m texting her when I text her,” Tara answered. She scrolled a little further down, selecting Wes’s name. She shot Wes a quick text saying she was awake. Judy was a professional, but Tara was sure Wes had heard about the attack and was just waiting to hear from her or to question his mom.

Not a second later her phone buzzed, showing Wes had already messaged back. “Wes and the others are on their way,” she said.

You nodded, before scooting your chair up further so you could rest your arm around her head. Tara leaned into you, relaxing as you gently played with her hair. She tried to focus on the TV again as she waited for her friends to arrive. Her mind was plagued by who she could trust, why she was targeted, which of her friends potentially did this to her. Whoever did this knew her alarm system, they were either very skilled with technology and could hack into her system or this was someone she trusted.

[ladykailitha]

Icarus Part 24

So, it pains me to say that there is only one more chapter after this. Yep. Just the one. But I have an epilogue all written up and a sequel partially written up. So you won't have dwell in sadness for long.

In this we have a wild Dustin appearing, Ellie be awesome, another asshole reporter shows up, and Gareth and Eddie finally have it out.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23

~

The Fallen were holed up in their trailer, Ellie showing off her fix for the hoods. She held up a small fan and battery pack.

“Since the hoods cover most of the neck,” she explained, “this will go on a collar that you can turn on and off, and even change the speed. This will help keep you cool so you don’t faint again.”

Spence took the fan from her. “That’s genius. How did you come up with that?”

“I convinced my dad to go as the Red Guardian with me to New York Comic Con a couple of years ago. I was dressed as Yelena from ‘Black Widow’ ,” she said with a grin. “But as you guys know leather is hot so we put a couple of these bad boys in the neck of the costume to keep him cool.”

“That’s amazing,” Shane breathed. “I mean the fans are neat, too, I guess.”

She giggled. “The blonde wig I wore wasn’t very fun, but the rest of it was.”

“Thanks, Ellie,” Steve said. “How long will it take you put them together for us?”

She cocked her head to the side. “About twenty minutes.”

They piled out of the trailer to find Dustin arguing with Eddie.

“I keep telling you,” Eddie huffed. “I don’t know who they are and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you! I don’t even know how you got past security in the first place.”

“I showed them pictures of us from your Instagram.”

Eddie pressed his fingers into his eye in frustration. “Dustin...” he said warningly. “You can’t do that.”

“I just did,” he said smugly, crossing his arms and grinning at him.

“You are such a butthead,” Steve groused. “How are you even here in the first place? Don’t you have school?”

Dustin shrugged. “You’re touring in California right now, it’s not that hard to drive up here for the weekend.”

“Dustin,” Steve said, pinching the side of his nose. “It’s Tuesday!”

He pulled out his phone and looked at the date. “Huh. Oops.” He put it away. “Well, I’m here now. No use crying over spilled milk.”

Eddie surged forward to strangle him, but Steve stopped him.

“Why are you here?” Steve asked sternly.

Dustin’s shoulders slumped. “All right, I was feeling a little lonely. Mike and Will graduated last year and they moved back to Hawkins to figure out where they want to go from there. And Lucas and Max are on the other side of the country. I missed you guys.”

Eddie and Steve shared a glance over his head and sighed.

“I know, bud,” Steve murmured, putting his arm around him, “but you’ve got school if you want to make it into MIT.”

Dustin sighed. He was a late bloomer, college wise, because it took a lot of convincing Mrs. Henderson to let him go. She was really worried about him on his own. It wasn’t until Steve moved out to California that she was willing to let him go.

“It was a dumb idea,” he admitted. “I just wanted to see you guys.”

Just then the trailer door opened and Ellie stepped out. Dustin’s jaw dropped. Eddie lifted his his chin with his finger.

“Oh hey, Steve,” she said, “I have the cooling collars for the band, can you make sure they get them before they go on tonight?” She held out the four devices and Steve took them.

“I sure will,” he replied. “Dustin this Ellie Hopper, she designed The Fallen’s costumes this year and her dad is head of security.”

Dustin reached out to shake her hand which she took with a small smile.

“Ellie,” Steve continued, “this Dustin Henderson. I used to watch him and his friends when they were snot-nosed kids.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Dustin said with his winning smile.

“Same.”

“I was just about to bug these two into lunch,” Dustin said. “Care to join us?”

Steve and Eddie glared at him.

“I’d love to!” Ellie said brightly.

And now Eddie and Steve were caught. They had to go now, because it’d be rude to turn down the person that made the costumes for The Fallen.

So they all went out to lunch, but they had to be back for the sound checks.

“I don’t know hwy you have to be there,” Dustin whined. “You’re only a medic, it’s not as though you’re a rockstar, too.”

“Because I’m the medic for the band,” Steve huffed. “If something goes wrong at the sound check I have to be there.”

“Can we watch the sound check together?” he asked hopefully.

“Why don’t you take Ellie around,” Eddie suggested. “She’s never been this far north in Cali.”

Ellie immediately agreed and Eddie and Steve breathed a sigh of relief.

As they were walking off, Eddie got a text message and he grinned, hurriedly typing back.

“You cheating on your lover over there, Munson,” Steve teased.

Eddie threw back his head and laughed. “It’s just Chrissy. You know, the lesbian?”

Steve grinned wolfishly as they got into the car that would take them back to the venue.

~

A week later Corroded Coffin were doing their own press conference when some reporter from a gossip rag dropped a bombshell.

“A question for Eddie Munson.”

“Shoot.”

“What do you say to the rumors that you have a secret lover on this tour?”

The room went dead silent except the clicking of camera shutters going off.

“Do you want to repeat that?” Jeff growled into his mic.

She repeated the question with a smug expression.

“I wasn’t aware there was one,” Eddie hedged. “And all questions about my sex life are off limits.”

“Are you worried that with your past exploits on previous tours that this man will be labeled as just another notch in your bedpost and you’re trying to protect him from that?” she continued as if she hadn’t heard him.

“You heard the man,” Brian hissed. “He doesn’t want to talk about his sex life.”

“What about the rumors that you are fucking the frontman to The Fallen?” she asked a little louder as the other reporters started shouting their own questions.

“Unless your sucking my dick, you don’t get to know about my sex life!” Eddie snapped. He stood up and walked out.

Chrissy walked up to the front of the room, putting herself between the other band members and the now pressing throng of reporters.

“This press conference is now over.”

The woman who had started it all, crossed her legs and smirked at the chaos all around her.

~

Steve watched the YouTube video of the press conference over and over. Those same forty-seven seconds over and over again.

Who was the leak? Who told? Was it just speculation because that’s how Eddie usually played it on tours? Or was it something more sinister?

He decided if nothing else, he should at least go check on Eddie to see how he was doing.

He walked up to the door of Eddie’s hotel suite, but the door was partially ajar.

“Oh I get it now,” Eddie was saying. “The call is coming from inside the house.”

“You’re blaming me?!” Gareth cried.

“Oh yeah,” Eddie hissed. “This has you written all over it.”

“I’m on your side!”

“You’ve always been jealous of Steve,” Eddie snapped, “and now that we’re a couple, you couldn’t take it and went to the press.”

“I wouldn’t do that!” Gareth pleaded. “I know said some fucked up things last year. But I’ve been in therapy for that shit and I know it’s unhealthy. I don’t know who leaked it to the press, but it wasn’t me.” There was a brief pause. “Here, check my phone. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

There was silence for a long, tense moment so Steve took the liberty of the pause to knock on the door.

Chrissy went to go open it and saw Steve. With a single look she knew he’d overheard at least some their exchange. She winced and mouthed, ‘I’m sorry’.

“Come on in, Steve,” she said, opening the door wide enough to let him in. “Vickie’s on her way and will be here in about twenty minutes.”

Steve nodded and walked up to Eddie. “Hey,” he asked leaning down to look him in the eye, “are you okay?”

Eddie’s lips quivered as he nodded. He was still going through all of Gareth’s messages, DMs, and social media posts.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered to Gareth.

Gareth hugged him fiercely and Eddie hugged back. Soon they were both crying.

“I’m sorry I blamed Steve for everything wrong in the band,” Gareth murmured. “I was just scared he’d take you away from me.”

Steve snorted. “Dude, I would need a fucking crowbar to remove Eddie from you guys’ lives. He loves you like brothers. I’m not here to get in the way of that. Okay?”

“Yeah, man,” Brian said, “families grow and change, that doesn’t mean we don’t still love each other.”

Gareth nodded into Eddie’s neck.

“And I’m sorry I accused you without evidence,” he muttered back, “Uncle Wayne would kick my ass if he found out I did that.”

“I won’t tell,” Gareth said softly, “if you won’t.”

“Deal.”

They stood like that for awhile, just holding each other and muttering apologies.

Vickie came barreling into the room like a bull in a china shop.

“Fucking hell!” she growled and threw herself onto the sofa like a Victorian maiden. “That was such bullshit.”

They all turned to her, Chrissy closing the door tightly behind her to make sure no one in the hall could hear them.

“It was a completely unsubstantiated comment said off the cuff in the same vein as ‘I’ll kill you for that’,” she moaned, rolling over and putting her hand on her forehead.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Eddie said, “what was said?”

Vickie sat up drew her knees to her chest. “Someone overheard Steve teasing Eddie about cheating on his lover.”

Eddie and Steve looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Seriously?” Brian huffed. “That’s it? God. People must be hard up for news if that’s all it takes.”

“The reporter’s name was Heather Halloway,” she continued. “She works for the same gossip rag as the guy who brought up the spelling of Abbadon’s name in their press conference. His name was Billy Hargrove. He also has some conspiracy podcast he does that she’ll sometimes feature on. A regular Bonnie and Clyde.”

“So she was just trying to rile Eddie up to get a reaction?” Jeff asked.

Vickie nodded. “Which unfortunately worked.”

Eddie grimaced and scratched the back of his neck. “Sorry.”

“You’re only human,” Vickie said with a half shrug. “I’ll get out ahead of this and like with what happened with Steve, just call all your friends ‘lover’. Make it as uncomfortable for them as possible. Turn it around and throw it their faces.”

“In other words, ‘let Eddie be Eddie’?” Gareth asked.

Vickie grinned. “Perfect. Let Eddie be Eddie.”

Eddie blushed and shoved his hair in front of his face to hide his bashful smile. “Thanks, guys.”

“Now get out of here so I can cuddle with my boyfriend,” Steve huffed, making shooing motions with his hands.

Everyone laughed and they all shuffled out of the room.

Well all but Gareth. He held out his fist.

“We good?” he asked shyly.

Both Steve and Eddie fist bumped him.

“Not yet,” Eddie said softly. “But we’re getting there.”

Gareth smiled and slipped out of the room. A single step forward was better than a step back. They’d get there. They had the time now.

As soon as Gareth left, Eddie turned to Steve. “Cuddling, huh?”

Steve advanced on him like a tiger seeking his prey. “As I understand it, unless they’re sucking your dick they don’t get to know your sex life.”

Eddie’s tongue dragged slowly over his teeth, his drooping seductively. “I did say that, yeah.”

Steve started pushing him back to the bed. When they reached it, he pushed him on the bed and then began crawling up Eddie’s body.

“And since I’m the only one who gets to suck your dick,” he purred, “I wasn’t going to tell them shit.”

Eddie smirked. “You’re a bitch, Stevie. But you’re my bitch and I’m going to fuck you into this mattress.”

“Hmm,” Steve hummed. “Bring it on.”

~

Part 25

Tag List: CLOSED

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2- @gregre369 ​@a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @val-from-lawrence

3- @goodolefashionedloverboi @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog @irregular-child @blondie1006

4- @yikes-a-bee @bookworm0690 @anne-bennett-cosplayer @awkwardgravity1 @littlewildflowerkitten

5- @genderless-spoon @y4r3luv @dragonmama76 @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt

6- @disrespectedgoatman @eyehartart @dawners @thespaceantwhowrites @tinyplanet95

7- @iamthehybrid @croatoan-like-its-hot @papergrenade @cryptid-system @counting-dollars-counting-stars

8- @ravenfrog @w1ll0wtr33 @child-of-cthulhu @kultiras @dreamercec

9- @machete-inventory-manager @useless-nb-bisexual @stripey82 @dotdot-wierdlife @kal-ology

10- @sadisticaltarts @urkadop @chameleonhair @clockworkballerina @garden-of-gay

[icaruspendragon]

I got tagged in one of those "get to know me" tag games back in 2021 and I wanna see how 2024 me's answers compare!

2021:

1. Nickname: berk

2. Zodiac: Gemini

3. Height: 5’4

4. hogwarts house: it’s been years since I last took the test, but Gryffindor

5. Last thing I googled: yellow wallpaper. The short story haha.

6. Song stuck in my head: movement by hozier

7. Number of followers: 1021

8. Amount of sleep: 4ish hours recently

9. Lucky number: I don’t think I have one but my favorite is 27

10. Dream job: something where I get to help people

11. Wearing: mom jeans, black turtleneck, gray quater zip for the university of Mississippi chapter of delta gamma. Thrift store finds, ya know?

12. Favorite author: Kurt Vonnegut

13. Favorite instrument: cello

14. Aesthetic: someone once told me that I looked like “every kind of lesbian.” So whatever that means.

15. Favorite song: uhh, currently it’s probably “would that i” by hozier

16. Favorite animal noise: kitty cat purrs

17. Random: today at work some lady told me that everytime she comes in she looks for me because I make the best drinks. I haven’t stopped smiling bc of that :’)

2024:

1. Nickname: berk, professor alpha

2. Zodiac: gemini

3. Height: 5’4

4. hogwarts house: once again it's been years since i last took it, but my result that time was slytherin

5. Last thing I googled: "how does a pipe bomb work? I'm not gonna make one I'm just curious /gen"

6. Song stuck in my head: nothing at the moment, but according to receiptify my top ten most listened to songs for November so far are:

man or muppet - jason segel, walter

blue sky & the painter - bastille

marie & polonium - bastille

intros & narrators - bastille

eve & paradise lost - bastille

red wine & wilde - bastille

seasons & narcissus - bastille

fratelli d'italia - this is the italian national anthem lmao

the rattlin bog - seamus kennedy

nobody's soldier - hozier

7. Number of followers: 14,841

8. Amount of sleep: not enough

9. Lucky number: my original answer still stands. big fan of 27 still, too.

10. Dream job: I don't dream of being a laborer, but I still very much want to something that helps people.

11. Wearing: biker shorts and a 2024 gran premio dell'emilia romagna crewneck. welcome back princess diana

12. Favorite author: opal_bullets of ao3 fame

13. Favorite instrument: banjo

14. Aesthetic: on a spectrum that goes from academic queer to refined-button-up bisexual

15. Favorite song: it changes somewhat often. my all time favorite is icarus by bastille but my current is the don reno version of feudin' banjos

16. Favorite animal noise: when my cat groans like she's a blue-collar dad whose long day at work and just wants to decompress in his recliner

17. Random: I was very brave and also very sexy and I decided to go back to school after dropping out at the end of my senior years four years ago and I registered for classes this week and I am not going to let myself self sabotage and quit before I've even started because of anxiety-driven-fear-of-the-unkown-control-issues because it's okay to be scared. you just can't let that stop you and I'm done letting it stop me !!!

[mrinafria]

The person who saved my life, and the person who made me want to live again, were all you.

Writing this to echo what @thedeathdeelers said in her post. I'm a Seon Jae softie through and through, and yet, when anyone questions Im Sol's choices or calls her names, I want to flip a table pretty much because have you seen the effects her choices have had on people?

Because of Im Sol's choices her mom doesn't have a burn injury on her hand.

Because of Im Sol's choices their house didn't completely burn down.

Because of Im Sol's choices Hyun Joo finally has the best of both worlds, with no regrets about letting go of something for the other. Her brother who was struggling with no motivation or luck whatsoever is definitely better off now.

Because of Im Sol's choices we even have a Tae Sung in the story, otherwise all we knew at the beginning, in episode 1, was he was some guy who dropped out of school after getting into a fight over something. Not the best first introduction to a character (who goes on to become the best second ML ever). I am the most proud about Tae Sung's transformation, because you can see that even in high school, underneath the 'bad boy' facade, he craved some genuine care and attention and guidance, which Im Sol the haelmoni, the yeppo noona provided.

Im Sol's choices allowed Seon Jae in Alt 2023 to live guilt-free for 14 years (where they confess), instead of him suffering that mental anguish and longing for 15 years out of guilt which the OG Seon Jae had to go through. And we all know what my feelings are about that version of him.

Because of Im Sol's choices, Sonagi exists (/-ed). Because if the 19yo Im Sol had not held the umbrella over him, giving him that dazzling smile of hers that is sunburst and blinding and contagious, capable of stirring storms within the heart, our boy would not be smitten and a loser and a goner for life (well, lives). And now we all know what that means when she chooses not to do that.

If Im Sol's choices have made anyone's life harder, it's Im Sol herself. She carries around the memories of THREE++ timelines, with the love of her life dying/almost dying in EVERY one of them. She goes through life as if she really didn't live through all that trauma that is enough to drive someone insane. She knows her Seon Jae is gone, for good, and all she has are memories that don't even exist in this timeline, memories that not even a single person can corroborate. You know how utterly helpless and hopeless that sounds like? She has a person in this timeline that resembles her Seon Jae, but she has to constantly remind herself he is not her person, her Seon-Jae, he better not be if she wants to see him alive. Going around in the city and seeing his posters/ads with his face on it, or stumbling onto him and seeing him staring at her with no recognition whatsoever? It's not easy. Becoming a complete stranger to someone who was once your everything, who could've been your everything. Not easy.

And she decides to carry on with life still because deep down she knows that's what Seon Jae would want, that's what Seon Jae had taught her: to live for the people who are thankful to have her around, to live to see another day, rain or shine. She loves life, lives life, as a token of gratitude to Seon Jae. She lives because when she says You saved my life, and you made me live to him, those are not just words she is casually throwing around. She is thankful that he made her find reasons to live one more day, and she is going to pay him back by living a worthwhile life. Because Seon Jae truly wants/ed that. He literally died wanting that, putting her life before him, because he wanted her to live, and by living, I mean not just breathing and spending the remainder of her life with survivor's guilt. Going back to this epic confession scene, he says all that because he is afraid of how Im Sol would go on with her life if he's no more. Here, he wants her to know that she doesn't need to blame herself, or suffer, because it is his choice to save her, and it'll all be worth it to him if she gets to live the best life she possibly can.

Just like Seon Jae in any timeline never stopped living or appreciating the good things in life despite longing for Im Sol for more than a decade, she will live and keep her love for him alive through herself. Even if she comes back home at the end of the day to cry in secret, or breaks down in tears in public places.

If Im Sol didn't make the choices she did, we won't have a Seon Jae to begin with.

[explosionkatsu]

“Age doesn’t matter” 7

Dad!Bakugo x F!Babysitter!Teacher!Reader

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

The next day arrived and Katsuki behaved toward Y/n as if nothing occurred in her apartment.

After what he witnessed yesterday, Katsuki decided to entrust Y/n. He decided to rely on her concerning Kazui. He wouldn't acknowledge it of course but she's a huge benefit to him. The only thing he should do is to make Y/n officially Kazui's babysitter. He didn't mind her tutoring him as well. But he's confident Kazui didn't need tutoring knowing how intelligent his son is.

Y/n on the other hand was feeling frightened when she hasn't seen Katsuki drop Kazui. He probably took him away from her. But when she caught the same car Katsuki used, her heart pounded happily.

"Ms. Y/n! Ms. Y/n!"

Y/n beamed and rushed to Kazui providing him with a tight embrace. She thought she won't be able to see him again.

"Too tight, dumbass."

She heard Katsuki say.

She looked up at him happily causing Katsuki to be surprised. He has never seen that look from her before so it took him off guard but maintained his composure.

"Thank you." Y/n mouthed wiping a small tear from her eyes.

"Ms/ Y/n? Are you okay?" Kazui asked confusedly once Y/n let him go.

"I am, sweetie." Y/n smiled softly at him. "Now go inside, you want to have your first late attendance, right? It'll ruin your record."

Kazui looked at her terrified. "Nooo!!" He yelled dashing towards the school entry.

Both adults watched him make his way inside without stumbling or tripping.

When Kazui faded from their view, Y/n turn in Katsuki's direction.

Katsuki on the other hand was bewildered. Why wasn't he leaving? Was he waiting for Y/n to say something to him?

"Thank you for bringing him today, Katsuki," Y/n said softly as she shift her gaze to her feet.

"The hell are you saying? It's his school. Fuck off." Katsuki reacted looking away.

Y/n chuckled before responding, "W-well, after what occurred yesterday. I-

"What?" Katsuki questioned shifting his gaze towards her. "What happened yesterday was my fault. I should've known your side before jumping to conclusions." Katsuki confessed. What the hell was happening to him?

Y/n just smiled. "W-well then. If you're going to pick him up. You know where to go."

"Tch. You don't have to tell me!"

And with that, Katsuki left the smiling Y/n behind.

They both didn't notice the camera concealing from the trees around the school.

..

The night began to fall bringing Y/n’s shift to an end.

Like how she usually does, she would pack up the things she needed to do at home with Kazui’s belongings as well and flee the school before the sky dimmed.

It was a normal day and nothing interesting happened. And boy she was glad she’ll get her work ID anytime now since she’s a new employee and all.

Well like I said before, she was a babysitter, right?

Nonetheless, as they both reached her apartment, Kazui zoomed in instantly to turn the tv on while Y/n just put his stuff in her bedroom, along with hers.

When she came back dressed in comfortable clothes, she watches Kazui's eyes fixed on the tv. What was so interesting?

Out of curiosity, you take a glimpse at what he was watching.

There was his papa being interviewed. All bruised up. Catching this caused your eyes to widen.

Katsuki will pick Kazui soon, so that means he’ll be here at any moment now.

So what did you do? You headed to the bathroom and collected your aid kit.

Well, why do you need this when your quirk is healing?

Lemme tell you.

Y/n’s quirk is like any ordinary healing quirk. Broken bone? No problem. Destroyed muscle tissue? You got it. But the only drawback in her quirk is that whatever injury she heals, she’ll be the one suffering. If her body doesn't seize the pain, wounds, and scratches would appear everywhere on her body.

As much as possible, she tried and use it less due to the actuality that she knows it’ll come in handy. Just like today.

As soon as Katsuki messages her he’ll come over, she’s unpacking the contents from her kit.

She waited for him to come while preparing dinner and just to be sure, she prepared a meal good for 3 people because she kinda felt like he’ll be starving.

Then she heard a knock. Almost immediately, she patted her hands on the apron she was wearing and scurried to the front door. She even saw Kazui from her peripheral vision getting up from being seated comfortably and peering from the sofa, displaying only his eyes gazing curiously at the entrance.

When you unlock the door, reveals a Katsuki being held by a nervously grinning Eijiro.

“Hey.” Eijiro greeted. “Bakubro here said I should bring him here. Sorry about this though.”

“Uncle Kiri!” Kazui beamed, running towards him and giving him a big from his legs.

“Hey, there kiddo. I didn't know you’d be here.” Eijiro smiled.

“Red riot!” You exclaimed covering your mouth.

“Kirishima is fine. Hehe.” Eijiro said. “So uh, may we can in?”

“Oh my, please do!” You stepped aside letting Eijiro get in with Katsuki, almost dragging him to the sofa.

“Uncle, what happened to Papa?” Kazui instantly sat beside his unconscious father.

“Don’t worry kiddo. He’s just resting.” Eijirou assured before turning his gaze to you. “Do you have any med kit we can use?”

Y/n just smiled. Before she moves a chair near them, she first switched the fire from her stove and went back to them holding a chair.

“Let me help-

“No, please. You are injured as well. Just rest, okay?” Y/n smiled and place the chair in front of them and then went back to the kitchen to grab the med kit from the counter.

Once she got everything, Eijiro was about to thank her for bringing the kit they both needed, but Y/n halted him causing Red Riot to look at her confused.

“I have a healing quirk.” Y/n smiled softly at Eijiro.

“Really!?” Eijiro smiled feeling a bit better.

You nodded in response. “May I tend him first, Red Riot?”

“Please. Just Kirishima.” Eijiro sweatdropped making him scratch the back of his head.

“O-oh! Apology! Kirishima.” You said a little embarrassed.

Eijiro grinned saying it's not to worry about. He watches how Y/n’s demeanor turned serious.

He gazes at her intently seeing her closing her eyes as if focusing on her surrounding. Minutes now, Eijiro saw Y/n take a deep breath before slowly opening her eyes revealing a bright blue color.

Kazui, seeing this hid behind his father’s limp arm, as if scared.

Y/n saw this. She gave Kazui a closed eye smile. “Don’t be afraid sweetie. This is still me.”

Her focus went back to Katsuki. She held his hand gently and a small circle of light came out of her hand and visibly ran under Katsuki’s skin.

Eijiro and Kazui watched in amazement.

Once the light found where Katsuki was wounded, it slowly disappears.

Y/n though closed her eyes, slightly wincing.

The same scenario happened, the comforting light passing through Katsuki’s body, slowly healing him.

The scrapes, wounds, and bruises had been lost to sight from Katsuki’s skin. No scars or marks were left.

Eijiro’s eyes were wide. “That was. Awesome!”

Y/n chuckled at his childish reaction.

“You’re so cool- uh. What’s your name?”

“(First Name) (Last Name)” You smiled at him. “You can call me Y/n.”

“You’re so cool, Y/n!” Eijiro beamed at her.

“Thank you, Red- Kirishima.” You chuckled. “May I hold your hand?”

Eijiro blinked but nodded right away. He slightly reached his hand out to Y/n who held it.

She’s so gentle. What Eijiro thought. He watches her do what she did to Katsuki, only this time, it's his turn.

The light coming from her was comforting, almost like it was lulling him to sleep. He can even feel the pain from his injuries vanishes.

Minutes passed after Y/n finished healing both heroes.

Eijiro excitedly stood up and stretched. “Wow. Not even the Medic from our agency can do this. Thank you so much, Y/n! It really helps! If you need anything, you can just message me!” Eijiro said showing Y/n the result of her quirk. Although, his eyes turn to worry when he saw Y/n rubbing her arms as if wincing. “Are you okay?” he asked worriedly and slowly approach her.

Y/n’s iris went back to its original form. She gave Eijiro a strained smile before responding. “Don’t worry. It's just the drawbacks of using my quirk.” You assured.

“Ms. Y/n! You have bruises!” Kazui got up beside his father who was stirring slightly as if waking up and rushes to his teacher’s side.

“What do you mean?” Eijiro asked worriedly, sitting back to where he was seated before.

Y/n was hesitant at first. But she knows sooner or later, they’ll know. So it's best if she just informs them. “Well, every time I use my quirk on someone, the pain taken out from them will be transferred to me. If my body couldn't deal with the pain, bruises would usually emerge,” she said smiling at Eijiro before showing the big purple bruise on her arm.

Eijiro’s eyes once again widen. “W-what!? Why would you use it on us t-then?!”

“Because you’re heroes,” Y/n said making Eijiro silent. “People need heroes. So you should be at your best.”

“The fuck is going on.”

“Papa!”

Y/n and Eijiro stopped conversing once they heard the familiar voice and shift both their faces to him.

Kazui tackled his father who was slowly sitting up. “Euf.”

“Papa! I’m glad you’re awake!” Kazui said embracing his father.

Katsuki let the sofa take all of his body weight. He raised a hand and placed it on Kazui’s head, patting it. “Tch. As if something like that could kill me.”

Y/n turns her gaze back to Eijiro looking at him worried. “Please don't tell him.” You mumbled.

Eijiro blinked. Why wouldn't you want Katsuki to know this?

Eijiro’s shoulder suddenly slumped making him sigh quietly. He then looked back at Y/n and just smiled before nodding his head.

..

Heroes' job was the hardest. That's what most all people would say. They would even sacrifice their lives just to maintain peace.

For Y/n, being a hero was the most common dream every student she has. She would watch them play, even argue because they don't want to play be the villain. She would only giggle every time one of her students ended up going to her just because they don't want the role their playmates assigned them.

But sometimes, Y/n would question herself.

Was it worth it?

Was it worth it seeing the people smile once they knew they were finally safe?

Was it worth it seeing the people rely on you for peace?

Was it even worth it?

No, she's not a villain. But sometimes these questions would cross her mind. Why now though?

Because of the scene in front of her.

Bakugo resting on the sofa watching Kirishima and Kazui interact. She would see Kirishima and Kazui laugh while Bakugo would smirk. Even hide a smile.

The scene in front of her was heart melting. Like normal family time.

..

"Now for our latest news. It seems that our no. 2 was now involved in a romantic relationship."

This statement made Katsuki and Kirishima flinched causing their attention to shift to the news.

"What?" Katsuki growled.

"Around 7 am this morning, Dynamight was found with a lady near the kindergarten school."

"It is said that Dynamight has been acting rather close to this kindergarten teacher."

"Based on the images we gathered. It shows Dynamight in his usual work outfit and the teacher having a conversation."

"Don't you think we're looking too deep into this, partner?"

"Well, they do seem like just having a normal conversation me." The newscaster laughed.

Pissed off, Katsuki flipped through the channel while glaring at the tv.

Eijiro was quiet though. He knows not to bother Katsuki when pissed. But the news surprised him causing him to divert his attention to his friend.

The media does this to spread false humor which Katsuki hated the most. Why can't they just mind their own business?

Although, his gaze shifted to Y/n who was taking her time preparing dinner for them.

Wait.

Since when did he let her prepare their meal?

And the fuck happened to his wounds?

[kindaasrikal]

I got bored so now I’m slapping you all with Lloyd headcanons from someone who percieves him as a stupid teenager. Yippe.

Lloyd, despite everything, is the BEST when it comes to money. Especially with negotiations. If the original price of something is ‘unfair’ to Lloyd, he will make sire that price of 300 drops down to 20 bucks. No one understands how he does it, least of all Ronin who feels like he just got robbed of 280.

Lloyd’s hair is naturally blonde, the same shade as Wu’s, whose hair was exactly like Lloyd’s grandfathers, the Fsm. Misako, Garmadon, and Wu all already knew that Lloyd got the blonde from the Fsm, but Lloyd, oh poor innocent dumb 10/15 year old (early seasons, so right after the tea and after they met Misako) Lloyd, had a crisis over it. After finding out Misako and Wu were almost a thing, and having no idea how the Fsm looks like, he waddled over to Wu one night, tears in his eyes, and asks his uncle why he has blonde hair. Wu, not thinking much of it, was prepared to start explaining science to him as well as show a picture of the Fsm. Until, he saw the rhetorical worry and the accusation in Lloyd’s eyes.

“Ah…nephew. What are you really asking me right now?…”

“Wu…Garmadon is my dad, right?????” And Lloyd’s about to start sobbing. Wu had to sit him down, explain he would never, and bombard Lloyd with photo’s of the Fsm and young Garmadon, who looks exactly like Lloyd. Safe to say that the next day Zane began teaching Lloyd everything he should’ve learnt in school. Specifically science.

Lloyd, after losing his element by almost dying, learnt how to manually make his eyes glow. So sometimes it’s a dim light, other times he rivals a flash light. He loves using it in staring contests, he cackled the first tike he used it on Jay who yelped back and couldn’t see anything other than a weird shadow light thing for the rest of the day. Jay then bribed Zane to do that to Lloyd, who learnt his lesson to only ever flash his eyes at Kai.

Lloyd used to read fanfiction on Wattpad years ago in Darkley’s, so sometimes when he’s captured or in a situation, he starts narrating like a 14 year old girl with a crush on BTS/Harry Styles/One Direction. “My glowing green emerald eyes stared deeply into the abyss, hoping someone, anyone would come save me…and slowly, as my lean and strong body wiggled for freedom, I saw Fritz Donnegan-” “LLOYD I SWEAR WHEN WE GET OUT-”

Lloyd knows how to tap dance. To doom.

Once, Lloyd tried to be Spider-Man by using his element to make green lasso’s or smth. Little did he know he almost blew up half of Ninjago city when everything he grabbed with them started blowing up. You learn something new everyday. Though, the Commissioner didn’t like that excuse all that much.

Lloyd enjoys growing his extras two arms out and then hanging off of Cole’s back like how baby’s do with the baby carriers. He didn’t like that comparison all that much, Kai.

Lloyd is the type of person to do things so reckless, especially when it comes to emotionally attached villains. He will happily cuss out his dad when he’s on a oni rampage, yes he will go out and have coffee with Harumi, the girl who is knows to all of Ninjago city as the quiet one and call her “Salumi” the whole time, yes he will summon Morro and tell him all the cool stuff he did as the real green ninja, yes he will visit Pythor and give him snake food as a present. All of them are concerned and/or annoyed.

Not many people realised how much Lloyd looked like Misako until he wore her glasses as a joke. She started lecturing him about how bad his eye sight could get if he kept doing that, and all he said was “I’m not even human, i don’t count.”

Once Lloyd went to a place that prides itself for its inclusivity, and then had no idea if he should go to the mens bathroom, the dragons bathroom, or the oni’s bathroom. After taking a peak into the latter two, he quickly decided the mens bathroom is safer. Much safer. He dragged Nya to help him complain to the restaurant about there being no dragoni bathrooms around here and got free food out of it. So worth the embarrassment of saying “How am i supposed to reach the toilet??? HOW????”

[tin-wufborf]

Tin's Favorite Sterek Fics (Part 14)

Hello, and welcome back to Tin's Favorite Sterek Fics! I truly cannot believe we've reached part 14 of this series, but I have had a lot of fun along the way and am so happy to be able to share all of these wonderful fics with you all!

As ever and always, thank you all so much for your continued support of this series. It continues to blow me away how many of you have liked and shared the previous parts. We'll probably be coming to the end of this series in the relatively near future, but I'm thinking of maybe doing some themed rec lists if anyone would be interested in that? Idk, we'll have to see how I feel when this series is all said and done.

Okay, that's all from me today. I hope you all have as good a day as you can, if not a great one. Oh, and don't forget about that Bad Friend Scott McCall warning.

Smoochies and squeezies!

List and links to previous/next part(s) below the cut.

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DISCLAIMER: This is me warning you all that some of the fics I've included in this list may cover explicit, dark, and/or "taboo" subject matters. I cannot express enough how little I care what anyone thinks about any of that; all I want is for you to use caution when reading anything I've listed here and to please review and heed whatever tags the authors have provided in order to keep yourselves safe. Your experience from this point on is your own responsibility, not mine and not the authors'.

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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19

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Consigliere by neil4god (NR | 5/5 | 7,042)

It's been years since Danny left Beacon Hills behind and everything that happened in it. He moved on, joined the FBI and forgot all about his junior year of High School. At least he tried, but with Stiles Stilinksi leering at him from the FBI's most wanted board, well that makes it kinda hard to forget, and now they want to know all about it. They want him to talk to Stiles, worse still, they want him to wear a wire while he does it.

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Stilinski Orphanage by pineneedlepants (M | 1/1 | 10,514)

Throughout the short months Derek has been spending at the Stilinski Orphanage, he's come to a few conclusions. One, for the Stilinski's, bullying is a zero tolerance thing. There are hundreds of kids staying under their roof and they want things to be peaceful.

Of course, with that many children in one place, with different backgrounds and ethnicities, not everyone follows this rule. The thing is that because the Stilinski Orphanage is actually very popular and well respected, kids circle in and out in a decently fast cycle. Enforcing the strict no bullying rule isn't always as effective, and so sometimes, these bullies get called to the headmaster's office and then transferred to another orphanage, in a place that's far, far away from Beacon Hills.

Except Derek knows better.

He's pretty sure the Stilinskis eat the 'transferred' bullies. Not that he really cares.

-- Happy Early Halloween!

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Snow Flirting by thepsychicclam (M | 1/1 | 11,396)

As Beacon Hills get pounded with foot after foot of snow, single dad Stiles can't quite keep up with his four year old, his job, and shoveling his driveway. Derek makes his teenage son shovel Stiles' walk, and that just leads to Derek helping Stiles out with a whole bunch of other tasks. That's okay with Derek, though, cause any chance to be with Stiles is okay with him.

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stop, drop, and roll by thepsychicclam (M | 1/1 | 12,237)

Stiles knows he's in trouble when he invites the Beacon Hills Fire Department into his third grade classroom and he can't stop staring at a certain scruffy fireman. But after the third graders take a field trip to the fire station and participate in the fire department's holiday canned food drive, Stiles can't ignore his crush any longer.

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Would You Like to Make a Deal? by the_sporadic_writer (NR | 4/4 | 14,180)

Stiles never meant for everything to spin this far out of his control, never thought it would turn out this bad. Never thought that he would enjoy playing as the resident human and enjoy spending time with a pack of wolves. Never expected to get tangled up with Derek Hale of all people, and never thought that he would have enjoyed their time together.

OR, the story where Stiles is a demon and got more than he bargained for when his boredom got the better of him.

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A Tiny Bit of String by bunnymaccool (T | 1/1 | 14,382)

The pulling of a single bit of string can sometimes, perhaps, unravel the entire piece of knitting.

Sometimes the universe decides it has taken too much... and chooses to give back.

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little boy lost by crazyassmurdererwall (smartalli), smartalli (T | 1/1 | 14,862)

If someone asked Stiles to write a parenting book, Stiles would say the best and most important rule is to love your kid. Just love the hell out of them, and make sure they know it.

The second most important rule would be don’t turn your back on a curious three year old with supernatural speed.

Stiles is currently failing at the second rule. Badly.

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Claudia's Puntastic Life series by JoMouse (6 works | G | 15,410)

1. Holy Guacamole (G | 1/1 | 4,278) Derek runs into an old friend on Halloween. Inspired by that scene of Derek with the kids on Halloween - you know that one. 2. Kiss You Instead (G | 1/1 | 3,712) Derek has been invited to join Stiles and his pun-loving daughter, Claudia, for Christmas cookies and present wrapping. 3. The Happy Couple (G | 1/1 | 2,492) Derek and Claudia decide to surprise Stiles with breakfast in bed, but that's not the only surprise in the works. Day 2 of Sterek Valentine Week 2020. Theme: Breakfast in Bed. 4. It's Lit (G | 1/1 | 2,550) Claudia is scared of fireworks; Derek tries to help out. 5. Full Moon Ficlet #140 - Stir (G | 1/1 | 704) Stiles comes home to a flour-coated kitchen. 6. Spring has Sprung! (G | 1/1 | 1,674) It's Spring and Derek is thinking about the future.

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Keep It Together by ravingrevolution (T | 1/1 | 23,129)

“What if I guess what you are?” Derek asked.

Stiles sighed. “Why do you even think there’s something to guess?”

Derek cocked an eyebrow at him. “You’re taking a cold bath and showing no signs of being chilled. A normal human would be shivering by now and your body temperature hasn’t dropped at all.”

Which, okay, fair point.

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Start Small, Like Oak Trees by SmallBirds (M | 1/1 | 24,237)

The months following Allison's death have passed Stiles by in a haze of monotony. He sleepwalks through days that seem to lose their color, an unwilling passenger in a body he no longer trusts. Eventually, he thinks, he'll just fade away. He isn't sure anyone would notice. Then, during a spur of the moment grocery run, he stumbles upon Derek Hale attempting to console a lost child, and for the first time in recent memory the world doesn't seem so awful. He's not sure what he'd been expecting when he eventually convinces Derek to move into the Stilinski's spare bedroom, but a newfound passion for weeding and topsoil certainly isn't it.

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I found you hidden in plain sight (why'd I take so long?) by Gorgeousgreymatter (E | 7/7 | 25,419)

Stiles is pretty sure he’s hallucinating. He’s got to be. There’s no other plausible explanation, he thinks, as he sits on the sidelines of the lacrosse field and feels the cold, hard bench underneath him, the roar of the crowd at his back like the worst white noise machine in the world.

There’s no other reason why he sees it, the hulking, black figure of a wolf peering at him from the treeline behind the bleachers. Its eyes flare in the glaring glow of the stadium lights, but they’re the wrong color, he thinks: blood-moon red instead of cobalt blue, but the familiarity of it all makes his stomach roll and clench.

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Between Dogs and Wolves by artemis69 (T | 1/1 | 25,934)

"This is…not four million in cash,” remarks Stilinski.

“Isaac. Did you fail to get my money back and decided to pick up a stripper on the road to bribe me? Because let me make this perfectly clear: this would totally work. Well done.”

Or

The mafia!AU where the Hales owe four million to the Stilinskis, Laura rents Derek (but not as a stripper), Stiles gets a new favorite, Derek gets a new boss, a new puppy and a new family.

Sometimes they break people, but mainly, they just snark at each other.

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I've Lived A Better Day by HelloWhyTheFuckAmIHere (NR | 18/18 | 32,819)

When Stiles comes across a rogue Alpha during his first year at Berkeley, the ensuing fight doesn't exactly go his way. He calls an unlikely ally to help him with his transition, and finds out his new pack isn't quite who he might have thought it would be.

Stiles is now left with the task of trying to figure out how his old life will fit in with his new, but that is not without its challenges.

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It's A-Boat Time! by Fae_vorite, isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella) (T | 1/1 | 33,681)

He could hear the others talking outside, Scott and Isaac freaking out over something and Stiles snapping at them to shut up and help him get inside.

“Dude, how the fuck can you expect me to stay calm right now! Seriously, that’s a fucking tail!”

“We can talk about it later, just get me inside before someone fucking sees me! I don’t want to end up in a fucking aquarium!”

“Christ, you’re heavy!” Isaac grunted. “How much does this thing weigh?!”

“Shut up and walk,” Stiles snapped.

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Blindsided by AClosedFicIsNeverRead (E | 16/16 | 39,664)

Derek exhaled tremulously and tried to stay calm. He called several more times, growing steadily more frantic each time, before allowing the truth to settle in: Stiles’ phone was off. “No. No, no, no, please, no,” Derek whispered to himself, barely able to see the screen through his tearful eyes. What had he done? Had he been so blinded by rage that he dismissed Stiles' call for help?

- OR -

Fuming over Scott's betrayal, the Alpha is out of his mind with anger. When he receives a call from Stiles in that incredibly inopportune moment, he does not even let the teen speak - just screams at him, blames him for everything, and hangs up. But then Erica and Boyd show up, frantically insisting that Stiles is out there somewhere, likely hanging onto life by a thread after being tortured for hours... Will they be able to find Stiles before it's too late? And just how much of the Stiles they know will be left if they do manage to track him down?

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The More That I Know You (the more I want to) by LadySlytherin (M | 1/1 | 43,656)

When death, in the form of hunters, comes for a family of Kelpies seeking refuge in the Preserve - in Hale territory - the Hale Pack is too late to save them. Before he dies, the male Kelpie presses a precious bundle into Stiles’ arms and begs the Emissary to take responsibility for it, which an initially reluctant Stiles does. When he agreed, Stiles had no idea what the sight of him with a baby would do to his esteemed Alpha, Derek. If he’d known, he might not have been so reluctant to agree.

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let's get lost by hot_damn_louis (NR | 12/12 | 57,232)

Stiles was used to hiding things from those close to him. He hid his grief from his dad, his anger from Scott, and the deep sadness from everyone else. Somehow, he can't seem to hide anything from Derek, who is now acting more and more like a real person. Maybe even a friend. All Stiles wants is to feel normal, and Derek seems to be the most normal thing in his life.

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Intention by AlliDee12, ReadablePlot (E | 14/14 | 125,612)

The idea of making things better clings to Stiles: He needs to undo even a fraction of what he did, stop it from happening again, make something around him better in a way he can't for himself.

And things do get better, for all of five minutes.

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A Teenage Love Song by HaleHathNoFury (My_Trex_has_fleas) (E | 26/26 | 155,834)

Stiles is sick and tired of how much he fucks up. His dad is disappointed, his step-mom judges and his step-brother can do no wrong. It's not that he doesn't love them, he just gets so tired of being different. Now he's being moved lock, stock and barrel to Beacon Hills aka the town his mom grew up in so they can go live in his grandma's house and his father can get him back on the straight and narrow.

It's going to suck.

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You're stronger than you know by Littleredridinghunter (NR | 15/15 | 234,195)

Set at the end of season 2, Stiles survives his encounter with Gerard and his goons, but it isn't easy.

The pack are letting him down again, his dad is not speaking to him, his life is just generally falling apart.

Until he has to get a bronze dagger to kill a siren and his whole world gets flipped on it's head!

My summaries are rubbish but I hope you'll still give it a chance!

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************************************************************************

[davidchiemcore]

started thinking about how much money each of the characters likely makes

(DRDT SPOILERS AHEAD - for character and story backgrounds)

basic information I'm going off of: drdtdev stated that everyone except Teruko and Min make their living from their talent. the hope's peak academy they attend is located in the US, and they're specifically part of the east class, so implying its somewhere on the eastern side of the us. While they don't have to live where the school is, there is a western branch of Hope's Peak, so the fact that they attend the eastern branch suggests that they're closer to that side. The series takes place sometime in the future, but given the world had a major tragedy and seems to be on the same level as the world we live in, I'm gonna assume inflation is roughly the same as now

teruko: She does mention having to choose between rent and food, meaning she makes some sort of money, and enough to rent a place at times. I assume she works some sort of minimum wage job, given she doesn't have full schooling experience. a lot of the eastern us has minimum wage at 7.25, but places in the northeast have it a bit higher, from 10-15. If she earned something like 13 dollars an hour, worked 40 hours a week, and worked every week, she would make around 27k. However, with her bad luck and lack of legal documents as mentioned when she talks about her schooling, I assume she probably loses jobs quite frequently. Assuming she's unemployed for about a fourth of the year, she would' earn roughly 20k

xander: This one confuses me a bit. He's basically an activist, so I'm not sure what kind of job he would have consistently. Additionally, he lived in the UK from at least age 14 until he started attending Hope's Peak, so I had to look for jobs there. Looking it up, it seems that the pay ranges from 23k-49k, averaging at 33k (all in pounds). Converting that, the average salary would be 43-44k. He's living with no family, and who were poor enough to likely not leave anything behind, so he probably has to work a lot to pay for his overseas school. However, he did do school at the same time, so I'll take 3/4s of the total salary to give him 33k a year.

charles: Given that being even an entry-level chemist requires at least a four year degree, I assume he may work as an assistant to one at the moment. They still make quite a bit of money, however, most making 37k-49k a year. The average is 49k, but there's a chunk of outliers around 82k, mostly from California, which is in the western US. Therefore, I think it's reasonable to suggest he makes something in the middle of the range I gave, giving him a salary of 43k. However, given that he was likely doing school at the same time and has parents to support him, who also seemed to shelter him a lot, he likely works part time. For part time, I'll cut the salary by half and say he probably earns 22k a year.

ace: Horse jockeys get paid per race, both for winning and participating, so this is a little harder to calculate. Most horse jockeys earn 53k-67k, but given that Ace is the Ultimate Jockey, this is a job where being skilled can really help you rise in the ranks, both of how much you can charge, and how often you win. It's also something that he could reasonably have a couple years of experience in given that they only need to be 16 years old to start professionally racing. Therefore, I would put him at the high end of the average or maybe even higher. I'll estimate 70k per year. Many horse jockeys drop out of school to focus on their job, so I'll leave him at that.

arei: This is also a little harder to calculate, because while you can bowl at any age, you can only join the Professional Bowlers Association once you turn 18. However, she could still compete for prizes in PBA Jr. and other smaller competitions. This year's PBA Jr. Competition gave 10k in scholarship money, but most competitions have at most a couple thousand dollars as the top reward, so I'll estimate she might make about 12k in a year? However, she lives with family still, so this is probably fine for her.

rose: rose is stated to have earned several millions doing forgery, so her previous salary would've been incredible. However, now she just does recreations of other paintings. None of the money goes to her, but if we still want to calculate it, the average reproduction artist earns 46k a year.

hu: I assume she likely does small venues where she plays the zither. According to a reddit post, the average earnings for a gig for a small musician is around $230, and assuming she does an average of one a week (some weeks she might do more, some weeks she might not do any), she'd earn about 12k a year.

eden: Eden is stated to both do clock making and clock repair. Most clock repairers make 36k-44k a year, averaging to 40k, and the average clock maker earns about 40k a year as well. She says that she can work 14 hours without breaks, implying she has some very long work days, possibly putting her slightly above the average at 42k.

levi: At first i thought Levi would make a lot because personal stylists sound like a rich people thing? But looking into it the average salary in the US ranges from 34k-50k a year, and since he states that he's relatively new to the field, he probably leans to the lower end of that. im gonna put him at 36k? He lives alone, so he likely works full time to pay for his living conditions.

arturo: Similar to Charles, he likely doesn't perform his actual job yet regularly. Half of all plastic surgeon assistants make somewhere between 22k-56k a year, with the halfway point at 37k. The median amount is around 44k. Given that he was likely working part-time, as he was probably in school at the same time, I'll cut that in half to give him a salary of 22k per year.

min: It's stated that her schooling up until this point was paid for by the spurling foundation, so i assume either the same is the case for her time in college, or her parents were able to save a lot of money to pay for it. Given this and how much time she puts into school, i assume she doesn't have a job.

david: This was a hard one to calculate. The average motivational speaker (I know he's called an inspirational speaker but in this case they're interchangeable) can make anything from 500 to 30k per speech, depending on their experience and skill. We know David is a well-known celebrity, being famous worldwide, but it's not to the degree that everyone in the class is shocked by his appearance, just Xander. If he work to make 10k a speech, and do one speech every two months, he'd be making 60k a year. In addition to this, many speakers have alternate sources of income, like book and channels. He's not stated to have these, but I'd assume he at least does smaller talks, maybe giving him another 10k a year?? As he's paid per speech, this doesn't require a lot of hours, so he probably is able to make full pay while also going to class. I'm not sure if this is a super accurate salary, but it's hard to get a gauge on it, so I'm going with 70k a year.

veronika: How does one make money as a horror fanatic? She mentions being a scholar in her field, so maybe she writes papers and small books on the subject. However, I'm a personal fan of the "deep dive youtuber" theory, so I'll calculate for both. For scientific papers, you can earn from a few hundred to a few thousand per paper. Given this kind of stuff takes at least a couple months of research, I'd say she would only make a few thousand a year. Maybe 10k if I'm being generous and giving her a 2k article every other month? Now, for the other idea, youtubers make about 2.5-7.5 dollars per thousand views on a video. If she gets an average of 800k views per video (with a couple million on some and a few hundred thousand on some), and makes 5 dollars per thousand, she'd be getting about 4k per video. Again, if she puts out a video every other month, this would be getting her 20k.

j: Special Effects artists make anywhere from 44k to 86k a year. The average is 68k, but most make either a bit more or a bit less, and given J's influence from her mother, I'd assume she's in the higher range. The highest category is 23% of people making 78k-86k, so I'll give her 80k. I'm not sure about whether she'd work fulltime or part time, because she definitely has the money to work part time because of her mother, but she might also try to make all her own money herself to spite her? I'm leaning that she works part time, so if I cut that in half she still makes 40k a year.

whit: The average professional matchmaker makes 42k-46k a year. The average is a clean 44k a year. Again, I'm not sure if he'd work part time or full time because we don't know much about his living situation. It's possible he needs to help support his single dad, so I'll put him at 3/4s of that, 33k.

nico: Most animal behavior specialists, which is what Nico says they are in their conversation with Xander, make 46k-53k a year, with an median of 48k. However, given they don't have a degree yet, I'll assume they make on the lower end of that, so 46k. They mention going to school, so they likely work part time, cutting that in half to give them a salary of 26k.

if anyone read this far thank you this took me like three hours HAHA

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

What a February

Well...what a great couple of days to be stuck in the office, amiright? (I work mostly from home but on occasion I have to go into the office and of course some nice little royal bombs get dropped when I can't be here.)

I've gotten some anons about what's happened but I won't be posting them (sorry, everyone!). Because so much has happened, I think it would just be confusing to rehash some of it, and other asks were also sent to Empress and Sassy (nothing wrong with that! They were doing answers in real-time and they've said pretty much the same things I'd have said).

So to recap recent events:

2/5/24: Buckingham Palace announced King Charles has cancer. Fortuntely it was caught early, Charles is doing/feeling well, he's beginning treatment immediately.

2/6/24: Harry catches a last-minute flight to London. Clarence House puts out a story "business as usual, nothing to worry about, King can still work and he is still working" (i.e., Harry go home).

2/7/24: Harry arrives in London. He goes directly to Charles, who is delaying travel to Sandringham to see him. Harry's PR says they met for an hour, Meghan wanted to say hello/wish him well via Facetime but Charles declined, and Harry went to BP for the evening. The Daily Mail tracked the comings and goings from Clarence House and realized the meeting lasted less than 15 minutes, from the time of Harry's convoy entering the grounds to Charles's helicopter leaving. It is further revealed that Harry spent the night in a hotel, William didn't return Harry's calls, Harry didn't want Camilla involved in the meeting, and none of Harry's "friends" offered to host him for the night. Also, William makes his first public engagements since mid-January when Kate's treatment began; Tom Cruise is there.

2/8/24: Harry flies home. He's papped at Heathrow entering the VVIP suite (as one does). Wait, Harry's not at home! He's in Las Vegas for the Super Bowl (or the Superb Owl) and makes a surprise appearance to present the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award. Sussex PR immediately begins telling everyone that Harry and Meghan will be attending the Super Bowl.

2/9/24: Lambrook School begins half-term break and the Wales family travels to Anmer Hall/Sandringham estate. Harry's appearance in Vegas gets picked up by the media.

2/10/24: Meghan's PR starts walking back their own rumors that they'll be in Vegas for the Super Bowl, citing the need to prepare for their Canada IG trip.

2/11/24: Super Bowl Sunday. No Harry and Meghan to be seen.

2/12/24: Meghan's PR reveals she spent the weekend cooking with Afghan immigrants in an Archewell initiative.

2/13/24: Harry and Meghan launch their newest rebranding effort with their new Sussex website with Meghan's coat of arms (rather than their joint coat of arms). Meghan announces a new podcast deal with someone no one has really heard of.

2/14/24: Harry and Meghan arrive in Vancouver for the "one year to 2025 Invictus Games." Meghan coordinates a photoshoot with outdoor activities; merches two outfits; and virtue-signals their "we're still royal" demands with Kate cosplay, a coat called Kensington, and a 'you can call us Sir/Ma'am' exchange caught on camera. In the evening they're papped going to a super-romantic Valentine's Day dinner date.

2/15/24: Day 2 of the Vancouver IG kickoff visit. They visit wheelchair basketball. Meghan gives her signature full-body contact-hugs. Sussex PR announce that the family has changed their surname to Sussex (from Mountbatten-Windsor) and this is the first time all family members have the same surname. Meghan also claps back at mounting criticism by saying "We will not be broken."

2/16/24: Day 3 of the Vancouver IG kickoff visit. Harry gives an interview to GMA's Will Reeve (son of the late Superman actor Christopher Reeve and his wife, Dana) in which he blabs about Charles's cancer and reiterates how much he loves his family, hinting that he's available to come back. Sussex PR also drops an article in the afternoon (with BP collaboration) announcing Harry and Meghan's plan to return with half in/half out; this is very clearly one of Charles's trial balloons from Clarence House.

(Today) 2/17/24: Backlash to the trial balloon is swift, so Clarence House backtracks immediately and does damage control. Kensington Palace announces that William will attend the 2024 BAFTAs tomorrow. Half-term break for Lambrook School ends on February 19th so the Waleses are traveling back to London/Windsor this weekend. And Hollywood has fought back by leaking about their Netflix deal, which contradicts a ton of Meghan's PR from 2020/2021.

Since some of you have asked for my thoughts, here you go. I am warning you now it's probably going to be my usual essay.

On the new website:

The new Sussex website is a problem. It conveys a legitimacy to the public that Harry and Meghan do not have, which The Queen and Edward Young made very sure was publicly known back in 2020. In particular, it's the use of Meghan's coat of arms, which signals palace support or endorsement. IMO, Buckingham needs to force them to take the coat of arms down.

I suspect they are using Meghan's coat of arms because a) Meghan believes it was personally awarded to her and is hers to use as she wants, whereas Harry's coat of arms probably comes with strings from the BRF and b) it's CYA if ever there's a divorce - if you look at it from a business standpoint, this is nothing more than Meghan branding the company with her name so she can prove ownership when they're splitting assets in a divorce, increasing her chances of getting the "company."

What about Archewell?

They're probably phasing out Archewell. It doesn't have the same visual connection to Harry and Meghan that Sussex does. I think they struggled so much with Archewell and were never able to get it off the ground in terms of a brand or an identity, in part due to the COVID-era launch. Sussex is a much stronger association for them and connects them more tightly to the royal identity. Archewell will probably be either their nonprofit arm or their content creator arm but it won't be as important going forward as it's been in the past.

Frankly, I would be surprised if Archewell v Sussex branding didn't come up in the brand analysis that WME did when Meghan first signed with them. We know they did a brand analysis because there was a ton of PR in August 2023 about Harry and Meghan becoming separate brands, which didn't work at all and they were back together as a "Sussex" brand in September 2023 with Dusseldorf Invictus Games. Seeing the success of "Team Sussex" in Dusseldorf definitely informed the website and the rebranding attempt.

What about the timing of all this?

They're taking advantage of the quietness from the royal family. They do this every year like clockwork when 1) the BRF is on summer holidays (July through early September) and 2) the BRF is on winter holidays (late December through early February). What is unusual about this timing is that it's taking place in mid-February and possibly well into March, which is a clear signal that it's the Sussexes taking advantage of Kate's absence to draw attention to themselves because Kate isn't there to steal their headlines.

And that it was a whole week of Sussex PR is not unusual either. It's their usual pattern when they have something big they want to promote and dominate the news with. It's cyclical at this point: first is a reminder of their royal status (Harry flying to Charles's bedside), then it's a reminder of their celebrity status (the Super Bowl appearance), then it's a big announcement (Sussex website), culminating in a set of public engagements/appearances (Invictus Games) with media attention. And to keep the attention coming, they drop breadcrumbs about the royal family to look like they're still "in," which buys them a few extra days of coverage because Charles falls for the bait every time.

The more interesting bit of timing in all of this is the Netflix article. Netflix wouldn't randomly give comments like this, so something must have happened behind the scenes for them to be pushed to this particular breaking point. I feel like perhaps the Sussexes may be trying to renegotiate their deals - maybe they asked for more money or maybe Meghan is trying to get more out of this 'Meet Me at the Lake' production than was agreed - and this is Netflix making it clear that it's over and done. I also have a niggling feeling that it might be connected to the upcoming film awards (BAFTA Film Awards tomorrow, Oscars on March 10th) - maybe they're trying to score tickets to parties using Netflix's name?

Are they really going to come back? Will Charles let them work again?

Analytically, the evidence points to 'no.' The trial balloon failed quickly faster than any other I've seen recently, which is and isn't surprising. It's surprising how quickly Charles backtracked since it had his implicit endorsement. It's not surprising that Charles pulled it down - he's as thin-skinned as Harry and Meghan both are when it comes to criticism.

But it's also more than just the trial balloon. It's everything else.

Charles wants them back on the family side. That's always been pretty clear. I think he waffles on having them back on the "work" side: on the one hand, the BRF needs the help since 10 of The Queen's 14 working royals are elderly (all 5 Kents, the 2 Gloucesters, Charles and Camilla, and Anne) and 2 of the remaining 4 are dealing with a signficant health issue and are temporarily out of commission - in the business sense, this is unsustainable and untenable succession planning. But on the other hand, no one wants Harry and Meghan back, for a litany of reasons including how much shit they've talked about the family (collectively and individually), the petty PR games they play for attention, and the Sussexes' general toxicity. And by 'no one,' I mean family members, courtiers/staff, others in the aristocracy (not getting invites to the Grosvenor wedding is a huge reflection of what "their kind" thinks of teh Sussexes), and the at-large general public.

Charles probably has entertained the idea of half in/half out now that he's in charge and the Sussexes are now lovebombing him (vs in 2020 when they were lovebombing The Queen) but his biggest opposition is public support - it took Charles 30 years and 4 significant deaths (Diana, Queen Mother, Philip, and her own forthcoming death) to get The Queen's support for Camilla to become 'Queen Camilla and, in turn, the public's support or the public's indifference.

Charles doesn't have that kind of time to get the institutional and public support to bring Harry back. He's got 10 years at best, which is now handicapped by a cancer diagnosis.

Beyond that, he doesn't even have Harry and Meghan's cooperation the same way he had Camilla's cooperation. Camilla cooperated with a 10-year wait to be liked well enough that no one would object to her marrying Charles. Camilla then cooperated with a further 17-year wait to be liked well enough that the institution would support her becoming Queen.

Can Harry and Meghan wait that long? No. They can't. They couldn't wait an extra year to get engaged. They couldn't wait to have their first child. They couldn't wait out the criticism from Fall 2018. They couldn't wait out the criticism from Summer 2019. Harry couldn't wait for the phone-hacking settlement. When they want something, they want it now. They buy completed projects and slap their branding on it vs. developing their own programs.

Can Harry and Meghan cooperate with anyone? No. They can't. They couldn't cooperate with William and Kate on the Royal Foundation. They couldn't cooperate with the courtiers for Archie's birth. They couldn't cooperate with the family on Megxit. They couldn't cooperate with the rota for tour coverage. They need to be totally and fully in control of absolutely everything. Their idea of cooperation is 'I tell you what to do, you do it.'

And because they're too impatient and because they refuse to cooperate, there's no way they'll support a 10-years long PR drive for Charles to rehabilitate their public image and get William's support. Heck, they can't even last a 3-month media rebrand. Charles knows that, which I suspect is why he may be trying to fast-track it but 1) when has fast-tracking something ever gone well for the BRF and 2) William is the linchpin holding it all together. Charles can't do anything without William's support. Yes, William is that powerful now - the public does pay attention to what he and Kate signal and the public would support them more than they would support Charles. Charles can't risk losing William's favor any more than he already has.

The third reason stopping Charles from taking Harry and Meghan back as working royals is Camilla and that Harry doesn't want her involved. He admitted it last week when he didn't contradict her leak about it. IMO, this reveals Harry's hand: he wants to position himself (or Meghan and himself) as Camilla's alternate, the way Charles often stood in as Philip's alternate. They want Camilla to retire so they can take her place in prestige, wealth, and attention. It's the only way they can "be better" than William and Kate, and they probably think it's how they can get "more" in the inheritance than William. Unfortunately for them, Camilla is Charles's line in the sand so no way will Charles let that happen after he spent 30 years getting Camilla to be able to sit next to him, and on top of all that, Camilla herself didn't wait 30 years to be Queen just for a pair of narcisstic glassbowl shitheads to usurp her at the last second.

That's the "working royal" side of it.

When you look at the "family" side of it, we know that Charles is more accepting of allowing the Sussexes back as family members, albeit with two strict rules:

No Meghan

No royal work

We know these are Charles's rules because it's already been communicated to us, most especially in the events around the Queen's funeral and his own coronation.

We also know these are Charles's' terms because Harry is publicly fighting against them this week, which suggests that these may have been reiterated (or relitgated, perhaps) during the <15-minute visit on February 7th.

"We all finally have the same surname for the first time as a family" and "maybe I'll become an American' is Harry's way of telling Charles and the courtiers that all four of them are a package deal and they all move together (like Archie's salt and pepper shakers). Meaning that if Charles wants Harry back, Charles must also take Meghan, Archie, and Lili too.

The Vancouver trip being such a royal rip-off is Harry's way of demanding royal work. His position is that he and Meghan must have the exact same lifestyle now that they had back in 2018: a palace residence, glamorous patronages, military honors, gushy praising media coverage, carriage processions, and equal precedence to the entire Wales family.

All this to illustrate that the dividing line is over the work aspect.

On one side is everyone saying "no, they can't work, they're just family." On the other side is Harry and Meghan saying "we're not just family, we're also working royals." And Charles is there smack in the middle saying "don't make my last years miserable" begging someone to give in. It's clear that Charles hopes it will be the institution (i.e. William) that gives in so he can fast-track the rehabilitation.

So no, I don't think Charles and the Sussexes will succeed in being part-time working royals. I think we'll see a lot of negotiating in the coming weeks and months (like Sussex demands for Trooping) and it may get loud and it may look frighteningly real, but that's only because William and Kate are on leave from work and their absence lets Harry and Meghan play offense. Once the Waleses are working again, or a new picture of Kate is released (I'm still hedging my bets for something celebrating Mother's Day next month), the Sussexes go back to playing on defense, and playing poorly.

We only need to worry if William, Kate, and Camilla appear to be changing their minds. They represent "the institution" to Charles, as well as public support (William) and establishment media (Camilla). William continues to tell everyone he isn't speaking to Harry. Kate's body language at the Windsor Walkabout keeps resurfacing. Camilla has leaked that Harry doesn't want to see her when he visits Charles and that she doesn't support the Sussexes coming back. There's nothing to worry about for now.

[detentiontrack]

hi there, hope you're doing well! do you have any survival tips for freshmen starting their first semester at college? thanks!

Hello! Yes I do! Up until this Tuesday, all of my experience has been at a community college, but I have some universal advice!

Sage's supercool freshman survival guide:

You don't need expensive and a wide variety of school supplies. Here is a list of what you need:

A notebook for each class

A good pack of pens (i like gel pens)

A pack of pencils (+ sharpener) or mechanical pencils

Either colored pens, thin tip markers, or highlighters for notes

Ruler and calculator if you are taking math/science classes

A binder or folder for loose papers

GRAPH PAPER. Even just a pack of loose graph paper. It sucks when you need it and don't have it

2. it's better to take notes on paper vs on a computer unless you have some sort of reason (like dyslexia, visual impairment, or other physical disability etc) Taking paper notes forces your brain to pay attention better, and you can reference them easier than if you take them on a computer. (plus a lot of professors don't allow laptops in lectures unless you have an accommodation with the school)

3. GET A PLANNER! A PHYSICAL ONE!!!! Online calendars and planners are okay, but it is MUCH easier to forget assignments if they're out of sight. Get a paper planner, fill it out each week so you know what you're doing, and keep it opened on the current week somewhere you can see it. I personally like the planners intended for teachers because it divides the days up with individual subjects! This is the one I got for this school year

4. Get a giant ass water bottle. If you are going from class to class, you most likely won't have time to refill your water bottle. Get a huge one, fill it up at home or at your dorm or whatever, and carry it with you. I promise you it is worth adding an extra thing to carry (mine is a 1/2 gallon)

5. No one at college cares about stuff like in high school. No one cares what you're wearing or how you're doing your hair. In fact, individuality is ENCOURAGED. Wear bright colorful makeup or weird earrings. Do what makes you happy.

6. Pack yourself lunches and snacks that you can easily stuff in your face while walking to your next class. I'm a big fan of protein shakes and granola bars.

7. Ask questions! No one will think you're annoying for asking "too many" questions. It's better to over ask than under ask and not understand the topic. Chances are, at least one other person in the room has the same question as you.

8. Similar to number 7, most professors will gladly go back and explain a topic again or in a different way! Just politely and respectfully ask for them to briefly go over it again, or define a word you don't understand.

9. Unlike high school, most professors don't care, and will actually get annoyed if you interrupt their lesson to ask to go to the bathroom or take a phone call or even leave class early. Unless they explicitly say you can't leave (like during a test) you can just walk out, no questions asked.

10. Do every extra credit assignment you can. Even if you have a good grade in the class. You never know when you'll forget an assignment or lose points for something small. It's good to have backup.

11. Just like in a good relationship, communication with professors is everything.

12. Make connections with people in your classes. You don't have to be besties, but introduce yourself to a few people in class, make small talk, and get their phone numbers. That way you can discuss assignments or get notes if you miss a class.

13. DO NOT slack on first week assignments. Most professors WILL drop you if you A. Don't attend the first week of classes and/or B. Don't turn in the first few assignments.

14. Register for classes as soon as you possibly can. Like if your group is able to register at 9am, be in front of your computer with the registration site open at 8:55am, just to be ready.

15. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS CHECK RATEMYPROFESSOR BEFORE REGISTERING FOR CLASSES!!! NEVER IN YOUR LIFE REGISTER WITHOUT CHECKING. IF YOU ARE LATE TO REGISTER AND A GENERAL EDUCATION CLASS AT THE PERFECT TIME SLOT IS COMPLETLEY OPEN, IT IS FOR A FUCKING REASON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rate my professor is really accurate because people are able to submit honest reviews anonymously after the class is over. If someone says the teacher is a hard ass who is flakey and assigns a lot of reading, BELIEVE IT. Ideally you want a professor that has above a 3.5/5 rating.

16. There is no shame in needing accommodations for a disability, and getting accommodations in college is a lot easier than in k-12 school. You just need to make a request and submit proof of disability, and you'll meet with someone to give you accommodations.

17. DO NOT buy textbooks until the first week of class is over. This is for 2 reasons. 1. you might need to drop the class and 2. most professors will just give you a link to the textbook for free or post individual chapters every week. There is no point in spending $200 for a textbook you might not even use.

18. I think at every college, you can drop a class with no consequences or anything on your record as long as you drop it within the first week or so (the exact time differs depending on the college, but it's always on their website)

19. Colleges very often have events with free food or free merch. Even if you have no interest in the event, a free hot dog is a free hot dog yk?

20. If you're a freshman, literally no one knows each other and everyone is worrying about making new friends. Literally everyone. Find someone who seems cool, compliment their outfit or say something about the class/the college, and boom. New friend.

21. If you have time, join a club! Colleges have clubs for EVERYTHING and it's an easy way to connect with people who have the same interests.

22. Before your first day of class, if you're neurotic like me, take time to think of a few things: 2 truths and a lie, 3 fun facts about yourself, your favorite __, etc. Just so you can be ready for icebreakers (I actually don't know if other people are as scared of first day icebreakers as me.... Every semester I prepare 2 truths and a lie and fun facts about me so I'm ready. Just in case. This just might be my specific flavor of autism though...)

23. Colleges are big, even community colleges. Make yourself a playlist and bring headphones for walking from class to class

24. Jumping off 23, when you're choosing your classes, pull up a map of your campus. Learn how long of a walk it is from building to building, so you can make sure you have enough time to walk to your next class. This goes double if you have a physical disability. I personally need some extra time so I can drink water and walk slowly.

25. Prioritize comfort over style. Most people by the third week will just be wearing tshirts/sweaters with jeans/sweatpants. There also usually isn't a super strict dress code at college. I had a girl in my astronomy class that exclusively wore bikini tops and booty shorts, and she never had any problems.

26. It's easy to tunnel vision and schedule your classes back to back, but try to give yourself at least one gap for lunch, to stretch, or to just hang out. I have 3 on campus classes this semester and my morning class ends at 11:45am and my second class doesn't start until 1:00pm. You're (most likely) an adult, close to an adult, or have adult responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is to take initiative to take care of yourself.

27. College professors, unless they're abnormally strict, literally don't care about anything, as long as your ass is in the chair and you're not being disruptive to others. Drinking water in class? Fine. Doodling on your notes? Fine. Doing homework for another class? Fine, as long as you look up like you're paying attention occasionally. I wrote amphibia fanfiction in my classes, and I had a girl in my public speaking class who literally brought yarn and a crochet hook and crocheted stuff in class.

28. OH that's another thing! Literally no one cares about your public speaking skills. In college, it is inevitable that you'll have to take one class with speeches. People aren't waiting for you to slip up to mock you. Most people are too focused on their own speeches. I took a public speaking class last year, and I genuinely could not tell you the topic of even ONE other student's speech. It is very likely that 90% of the people won't even be paying attention to your presentation because they're worrying about if they're next.

29. In group projects, be a bitch. I'm serious. DO NOT do all the work. If people in your group aren't moving, assign them their share of work. If they still don't participate, threaten to leave. If they still don't, ask the teacher to work alone. You NEED to stand up for yourself.

30. Most colleges have a lot of services for free (or included in tuition) you should use. The library is a great resource, I'm typing this on the laptop I rented for free from my school, and I believe my college has completely free STD checks and birth control options available through their health services.

31. Expand your horizons! In college, you get a LOT of options for electives and classes. Take the fun classes or a topic you've never heard of! I'm taking a philosophy of disability class this semester for my extra humanities credit.

32. Build a good relationship with your professors. It never hurts to go up to them before or after the first class and introduce yourself.

33. DO NOT leave things for the last minute. I like to write down all my assignments for the week in my planner, sorted by due date, color coded, and plan which assignments I'm going to do on what days.

34. Take advantage of professor's office hours, especially if it's a subject you're not strong in. Personally, I'm not the best at math, and the summer I took statistics for psych, I was at my professor's office hours every single Tuesday. Even if you think you understand the subject perfectly, you never know when you're making a mistake without realizing it. It can just be a less than 5 minute zoom visit of like "hey, this is my answer to question 5 and here's my work/process. Is this correct? Yes? Okay thanks see you in class"

35. Summer classes, especially in community colleges, are a great way to get extra credits and make it so you don't have such a heavy load during the regular school year. A lot of summer classes are online, so it's really easy to do at home. But.....

36. ...NEVER IN YOUR LIFE TAKE A SUBJECT YOU ARE NOT STRONG IN OR A SUBJECT WITH A LOT OF WORK IN A CONDENSED SUMMER CLASS. Summer classes are always more work per week because you have less time to go through the curriculum, so be sure it's a light class. I took my world religions class as an 8 week summer class and oh my god.... I am being 100% serious and not exaggerating when I say I had to read 500-750+ pages a week......... be careful

37. Make time for other things! Even if you're full time school and work, let yourself watch an episode of your favorite show after homework or during a break. Rest and recreation is important too.

38. Treat yourself! When I was a kid, my mom would let me and my brother pick out a little candy at the grocery store for a "friday treat" during the school year. I still do that. It can be as simple as buying a $2 chocolate bar or finally trying that bath bomb you got as a gift.

39. You are inevitably going to get a low grade on something. You're going to struggle with a subject or misunderstand an instruction. Not one single person has made it through all of college without getting anything less than a 100%. Ask for feedback from your professors. Don't beat yourself up.

40. You don't have to have a backpack. I use a green messenger bag with embroidered mushrooms on it :3

Hope this helps!