#i got really into parks and rec a while ago

[do-you-know-this-adhd-character]

Do you know this (noncanon) ADHD character?

Evidence below the cut!

Hear me out: no one on god's green earth has ever overcompensated for her undiagnosed ADHD as hard as Leslie Knope. The aggressive systems of color-coded binders are a coping mechanism. She hyperfixates on the new Problem/Topic of the Week like it's her job (it usually is but sometimes definitely is not). The rejection-sensitive dysphoria she gets every time someone vaguely does not like her? Plot of multiple entire episodes. High energy with occasional DRAMATIC crashes. Definitely impulsive. The entire inciting incident of the show is "I have never heard of this problem (the pit) before, but I suddenly have an exciting idea related to my hyperfixation (build a park), and I will immediately commit myself to doing so." Hello?????

[roosterforme]

It Won't Be Long | Rooster x Reader

Summary: How are you supposed to tell your family that you have to leave? Especially when everything still feels new and flawless and beautiful? Bradley knows it will be rough to break the news to you, but telling Everett will be so much worse.

Warnings: Swearing, fluff, angst, adult language

Length: 3600 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female single!mom Reader

This is a Batting Practice one-shot but can be read alone! Check out my masterlist for more!

"Oh, shit."

Bradley's heart sank as he read the paperwork that Maverick just handed to him. "Fuck," he groaned, fighting the urge to crumple up the pages. The sounds of conversation buzzing around him in the rec room faded to a dull noise that set his teeth on edge as he thought about how he was going to explain this to you. And even worse....how he would tell Everett. 

"Sorry, Rooster," Maverick replied, cuffing him on the shoulder, but Bradley didn't move except to shake his head a fraction of an inch. He should have known this was coming. He should have been prepared for this, but it felt like a slap in the face. You and he had only been married for less than six months, and he still felt like this was very much the honeymoon phase. How the hell was he supposed to spend a single day without you and Everett, let alone one hundred of them?

He'd been planning to take the three of you up to Disneyland for a little overnight trip during spring break. Kind of a precursor to a longer vacation to Disney World in Orlando in the summer. Well, now he'd be missing all of spring break. And he was going to miss opening day at Petco Park, too.

He vaguely registered that Maverick dismissed him early, and he heard Bob calling his name as he headed for the door. He stopped but didn't turn around as he told his future brother-in-law, "I'll call you later." He'd have to tell Bob and Molly soon, because you and Everett would need them if anything happened while Bradley was deployed, but he didn't want to talk about it with anyone until he told you himself. 

When he got home before you, it gave him plenty of time to mope while he got dinner in the oven. He decided to take a long shower, suddenly wanting nothing more than to change out of his fucking uniform. The Valentine's Day card he gave you a few days ago was still propped up on your dresser, and he sighed when he looked at the pretty flowers still blooming beautifully in the vase next to it. When he opened the card and read what he'd written, he wasn't surprised to find that he had it practically memorized after spending hours agonizing about what to say to his wife on a day dedicated to being in love.

Kitten, 

You changed my life and everything in it for the better last spring, and not a minute goes by that I'm not thinking about you. I hope you'll let me love you every Valentine's Day for the rest of my life. I hope you'll love me back for all of them. I'm so happy you're my wife.

Love,

Bradley

P.S.- How do you feel about wearing your collar, leash and your bodysuit tonight?

He set the card down again with a soft groan and stripped out of his uniform. The shower felt amazing, and he treated himself to your expensive body wash before he rinsed himself off. When he put on his sweatpants and started looking for a tee shirt, everything in his drawer seemed to have Top Gun or Navy Waves printed on it. He just wasn't in the mood for any of it since he knew he was about to have two conversations he'd really rather skip, so he pulled on the Phillies shirt that he got for Christmas from you and Everett.

The kitchen timer started going off at the same time he heard your car in the driveway, and Bradley ran back downstairs to get dinner out of the oven. "You're home early!" you said, bursting through the front door with Everett by your side, and for the first time since this morning, everything seemed more colorful and loud in a good way.

"Dad! I aced my math test!" Everett said as he came running into the kitchen, waving a sheet of paper in the air. "A hundred percent!"

Bradley's heart clenched as he picked Everett up in a hug and buried his face against him. "I'm proud of you, kiddo. That's what happens when you stop rushing through your homework."

He held onto his son a little longer than he normally would before kissing his cheek and setting him down. You eyed him closely as you dumped your work stuff on one of the chairs. He must have done something to give himself away, because a second later, you said, "Ev, you promised you'd take ten minutes to clean your room before dinner."

"Fine," he replied, his voice right on the edge of whining. Normally Bradley would remind him not to talk to you that way, but he let it slide right now. Everett headed for the stairs, and once he was out of sight, you were in Bradley's arms. 

"What's wrong, Coach?" you asked, running your fingers along his cheek before pushing them through his damp hair. "What's bothering you?"

When you gently kissed him, he didn't stop you. And when it took him a minute to reply, you didn't rush him. "Baby... I'm being deployed."

Your grip on him grew incrementally tighter as you whispered, "Oh. When?" 

His forehead met yours as he forced out the sentence, "I have to leave mid March, and I'm due back on Ev's birthday."

When you nodded, he could tell you were still letting his words settle in your mind. You took a deep breath and huffed out a little laugh as you whispered, "That's a long time."

Bradley swallowed down his guilt. "It's too damn long. I don't want to go fourteen weeks without you and Ev. I don't even like going a whole day when I can help it. I'm supposed to be here with you."

You nodded, and when you spoke, he could hear the tears in your voice. "We managed without you before, we can do it again. At least you'll get home on his birthday."

He collected you tighter against his body as he groaned. He would rather do almost anything other than miss his son's eighth birthday. "Kitten. Sometimes the dates aren't accurate. Sometimes the carriers run behind schedule. One time I returned a week later than I anticipated." 

You made a soft sound that left him reeling. "Well, if that happens, then I'll explain it to him. And we'll deal with it."

"Fuck," he grunted, slipping out of your grasp and gripping the edge of the countertop with both hands as his anger flared. "I don't want the two of you to have to deal with me missing out on celebrations. I already bought tickets for Ev and I to go to see the Padres on opening day! I was going to let him skip school! If I miss his birthday, I swear I'll be fucking sick, Kitten! And if Molly doesn't have the baby before March fifteenth, then I won't get to meet him until he's three months old!"

"Bradley," you whispered, ducking under his arm so you were right there between him and the counter. "Listen to me," you said, taking his face in your hands and kissing him. "This is why we love you so much. Because you love us so much."

You had tears in your eyes that matched his as he muttered, "I still feel like we just got married. Like every day with you is so exciting. And Ev didn't grow up with a military dad. He's not used to my lifestyle. I..." Bradley paused and dipped his head down, staring at your work shoes as he said, "I feel important every day because both of you rely on me for things around here. More than just my income. Ev and I do his homework together, and I like helping you cook meals. And I live for taking him to the park to play baseball. I live for it, Kitten."

With two firm hands under his chin, you shifted him so he was looking at you. "I said we would be able to manage without you because we did it before. We know how to do it. Not that we would enjoy ourselves, Bradley. My heart will hurt with worry every day that you're gone, and Everett will miss you because you're essential to his happiness. But this is part of your career, and you're very good at it."

Bradley knew he was crying now as he said, "I'll miss the beginning of his baseball season. He's the only one from his old team who is going to play real ball again this spring instead of tee ball."

You smiled and kissed his cheek. "All thanks to you. And I'll take a million videos for you to watch. I'll email them so you can scrutinize his technique, and then I'll help him improve. I mean, look how much more I know about baseball since I first met you."

Of course your words made him feel a little better. They always did. You always validated his place in this family when he started to doubt himself. "You've come a long way, Kitten. And it's a good thing, too, because I don't think Ev is going to lose interest in baseball any time soon."

You smiled as your lips skimmed his. "I really hope not since the two of you turned the extra bedroom into a Phillies shrine."

"Why are you both crying?"

Bradley's gaze snapped toward Everett who was halfway between the bottom of the stairs and the kitchen with a concerned look on his face. "Ev," he started, unsure how to handle this conversation. Part of him wanted to wait until after the three of you had eaten dinner, but right now, he looked very upset.

"Is Aunt Molly okay?" he asked softly. "She was crying the other day when she said the baby was hurting her back."

When Bradley still hesitated, you said, "Aunt Molly is fine. She texted me a picture of her swollen feet at lunchtime." Then you leaned in closer and whispered, "Do you want me to talk to him?"

"No," Bradley replied immediately. "No, I'll do it." But it was harder than he thought it would be to get the words out in a way that would make sense to a seven year old. Why had he convinced himself that he'd be good at this parenting thing? He didn't even know what the hell to say right now. "Grab our gloves," he told his son. "Let's go out back and toss a ball around before we eat dinner."

Everett perked up immediately and ran off, only to return with two well worn baseball gloves and a baseball. "Okay."

Bradley slipped on a pair of shoes. "Okay."

Wordlessly, they threw the ball around for a bit, the quiet space soothing the part of Bradley that was terrified of fucking this up. "Hey, Kiddo?"

"Yeah, Dad?" Everett asked as he threw a scorcher to Bradley.

"You remember how we talked about deployments before?"

"Yeah." His voice was softer this time, and his face fell a little bit. "I remember. It's when you have to go way out into the ocean and fly off of an aircraft carrier."

"Yeah," Bradley croaked, squeezing the ball as hard as he could in his right hand. "I'm going to have to leave to do that in a few weeks."

He watched as his son tried to be strong and keep it together, but then Everett's face crumpled as he started crying. "But you said that lasts for months," he said as he looked at the ground, and Bradley rushed toward him. "And I heard Jayden in my class say deployments are really dangerous."

"Ev," he replied, dropping the ball and his glove and kneeling right in front of him. He swiped at the tears with his fingers as he said, "I can't stand it when you cry. It breaks my heart." 

But Everett just cried more. "I don't want you to leave now. You just got here!"

"Kiddo," he whispered, wrapping him up in a hug. "I'll be back soon. It won't be long. Nothing we can't handle."

"But what if something happens to you?" 

Bradley's heart shattered and was immediately put back together. He hated making you and Everett worry about him, but the fact that you both loved him enough to care made him feel whole. He kissed his son's tear streaked cheeks and said, "The only thing that's going to happen is me flying around in my jet for a few weeks before I come right back home. Sounds pretty boring, right?"

He nodded against Bradley's shoulder. "Yeah, I guess so."

Bradley kissed his forehead and whispered, "I'll be so bored without you. I'm going to need you and Mom to take a bunch of photos and videos and email them to me all day long. And I'll need you to ace all your school assignments and be well behaved for everyone except your Aunt Molly. You think you can do that?"

Everett shrugged, but when his glove slipped off of his hand, he hugged Bradley around the neck. "I'll try, Dad. But I'll miss you."

A tear slipped down Bradley's cheek as he managed to say, "I'll miss you, too."

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

"It's not time yet," you told Everett as he sat on the couch with the iPad on his lap, staring at it longingly. "Ten more minutes. Why don't you finish your math homework while you wait?"

"Because I like doing my math homework with Dad," Everett explained as he looked at you like you were absolutely ridiculous for even suggesting such a thing. "I want to solve the problem with him."

Even though it meant you would have less time to talk to your husband about other things, you'd let Everett do math homework with him over FaceTime. It wasn't like Bradley was going to complain. They were two peas in a pod. Everett even had the Phillies current pitching stats printed out and ready to share. 

"You'll have to show him your countdown, too. We're getting closer."

Before Bradley left, he and Everett cut up countless strips of paper and wrote numbers on them so Everett could conduct a countdown until his eighth birthday. Until the day Bradley was supposed to return home. There had been a gigantic paper chain snaking through the house, but now you were down to your final ten loops. Just ten more days without Bradley.

When the iPad rang, Everett nearly dropped it in his excitement, and you ran in from the kitchen. "Dad!" he said as Bradley's handsome face filled the screen.

"Hey, Ev," he said, sounding exhausted and relieved. "I miss you, Kiddo. Where's Mom?" 

"She's right here." 

Your son tilted the screen, and Bradley sighed. "Kitten."

"Bradley! We miss you. Ten more days!"

A crooked smile broke out on his face, and he kept his eyes on you for a beat longer while Everett started telling him all about baseball practice with his new coach and how his baby cousin Charlie threw up yesterday and about how the Phillies won three games in a row. You lost him to your son just like you knew you would as soon as Everett asked him for help with his homework. 

You sat quietly on the couch while Bradley looked at the math sheet and helped him work through the problem. Then Everett showed him the remaining length of the paper chain countdown, and as soon as that was finished, Bradley said, "Great job, Kiddo. Now why don't you go clean your room up before bed while I talk to Mom?"

"Okay. Love you, Dad!"

"I love you, too," he promised. "And I'll see you on your birthday."

Everett handed you the iPad and ran upstairs to his bedroom. "After all that, I only get three minutes alone with my husband this week," you said with a little smirk.

Bradley groaned and shook his head. "I can guarantee when I get home, I'll be on you nonstop. Don't worry about that, Baby. We won't sleep for days."

You bit your lip and laughed as he groaned. "What do you want for your birthday, Coach?"

He glanced around the small room where he was sitting before he said, "You can find that information written in your Valentine's Day card. Maybe throw in some vanilla frosting, and I'll be all set."

"Sounds good," you replied, and his smile grew. "We'll count down to Ev's birthday, and then we'll count down to yours."

"Speaking of which, did you get his present ready? All wrapped up in a box?"

You nodded as your heart fluttered. "Exactly to your specifications," you promised, picturing the package you had stashed in the linen closet.

"Perfect. I need to make it up to him for missing opening day for the Padres. I hated disappointing him."

As you glanced around your living room at the remaining countdown numbers and Everett's completed math homework, you said, "Something tells me you could never truly disappoint him. See you in ten days, my love."

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

"Dad!"

Bradley rushed through the crowd on the dock and headed for his family. You looked beautiful, and somehow Everett looked like he grew six inches in three months, but everything was perfect again once he had an arm wrapped around each of you. He kissed your lips and squeezed you to his side. "I missed you, Kitten," he murmured, knowing you wouldn't be too mad if you weren't his main focus until later tonight. "Happy birthday, Kiddo," he said with a smile as he released you to hug his son. "I missed you, too."

Everett clung to him when Bradley knelt down, and he stood up again with him in his arms. "Last week, my new coach said I have a heck of an arm. And school's already over. Mom took a video of my last day on Friday. You have to watch seventeen new videos from last week. We can watch them together tomorrow before we go out for pizza with baby Charlie and Aunt Molly and Uncle Bob."

Bradley buried his face against Everett's shoulder, excited to hear him talking a mile a minute in person. "Absolutely. But first, let's get home and open your birthday present."

The ride in your car was filled with your voice and Everett's, and Bradley sat back with a smile on his face and his fingers laced with yours. "How was the aircraft carrier?" Everett asked.

"Boring, loud and uncomfortable. And they never showed the Phillies games on TV."

"We can watch the game recaps!"

Bradley was already daydreaming about taking a few days off work, lounging on the couch with Everett until lunchtime, going to the park to play baseball, and then making love to you all night.

"We can definitely watch the game recaps," he promised as you pulled into the driveway next to Bradley's prized Bronco. "But first, I really want you to open your birthday present."

He didn't change out of his uniform. He didn't even remove his boots. He just gave Everett the box wrapped in red and white paper after you handed it to him, and he watched his son tear into the paper while your hands came to rest on his chest. "You are the only birthday present that kid wanted," you whispered.

Bradley felt the flush rising in his cheeks as you kissed his neck, but Everett had the lid off the box now. "I don't know about that, Kitten. I think he'll like this one," Bradley replied as Everett put the Phillie Phanatic hat on his head and read the paper he found in the box out loud.

"Three tickets for the Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park! On the Fourth of July! Behind the dugout! That's where the Phanatic dances! We can see the Phanatic for real! In Philadelphia!"

"Told you," Bradley whispered against your lips as Everett ran around the living room, already thrilled for his first trip to Philly.

But you were shaking your head and looking up at him with the most sincere expression as you said, "Just wait for it."

And you were right. A few minutes later, after Everett's excitement for his Phillies tickets tapered off a bit, he asked, "Dad, can we build a blanket tent and watch Toy Story and eat popcorn?"

Bradley paused where he was unlacing his boots and smiled. "Under one condition."

Everett smiled back and shrugged. "Okay. What is it?"

Bradley tossed his boots aside and said, "We change into our matching baseball pajamas and grab the stuffed Phanatic from your bedroom. And Mom gets to join us, too."

"Deal."

An hour and a half later, Bradley was watching one of his favorite movies with two of his favorite people. You were feeding him popcorn and teasing his hair as you lay with your head on his shoulder in the blanket fort. Everett was sound asleep, draped across Bradley's chest, and it felt so good to be home, he almost started crying. 

"I missed this so much," he whispered, kissing Everett's forehead. "Missed my family."

You hummed softly as you raked your fingers through his hair. "Like I said, going to the Phillies game will be great and all, but having you home today was the only thing he really needed for his birthday."

Bradley grinned and asked, "And does my Kitten need me, too?"

You popped up from his shoulder and whispered, "Why don't you carry Ev up to his bed, and then I'll let you find out."

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

I love emo Coach Bradley, and it was definitely time to check in with the three of them. He never wants to be the reason Everett cries, but that kid loves him so much, it's unavoidable. Let's check back in with them again soon. Thanks @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls

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[anthonys237thfreckle]

erm hey pookie, I have the memory of a goldfish and I can’t remember if I sent the request I wanted to or not so I’m so terribly sorry if I have but I’ve read literally everything in your account today and I’m in love BUT could you maybe possibly do either super fluffy with Javi like at home comforting him after a storm, cooking him a good meal, relaxing and unwinding in like a warm bath, helping take care of him

(and maybe a lil smoochy smooch and grabby hands ending but that’s totally up to you)

hey pookie! here’s your rec! i was thinking of doing this a while ago lol. but thanks for the req!! i love it sm!!

wait this is actually kinda bad guys beware

Twister-Love and Care - Javier ‘Javi’ x F! reader

‘with a storm in my mind, you would understand why

they all name hurricanes after us’

A Potion For Love by AURORA

—

prompt: today’s storm really took it out of Javi, but his girlfriend helps him relax

TW: mentions of storms, thunder, swearing, nightmares, some angst but its a fluff piece!!

The soft pitter-patter of the rain was a relaxing backdrop, contrasting the EF3 storm you two just chased. Javi parked the car in the driveway, ushering you to get inside so you wouldn’t get wet. That was the first thing he said since the chase was over, his eyes trained on the dirt road, darkening with each drop of water. His hands, both of them, gripped the steering wheel when he was driving home, not the usual one-hand-on-the-thigh thing he did, which you could never get enough of.

You flipped the switch to your warm-tinted lights, illuminating the once dark house. Everything looked warm and inviting - you made a rule for ‘no big lights’ in the house - especially if they were cool toned, and Javi thought it was ridiculous at first, but now he can’t imagine their home any different. You kicked off your shoes, hearing Javi do the same behind you. Looking over your shoulder, you saw his eyes out the window, the rain growing harder.

“What’s on that pretty, disgustingly educated mind of yours?” you chuckled, cupping his face and turning it to face yours.

“Scott’s the disgustingly educated one” Javi chuckled softly, a small smile forming on his face, his concerns momentarily washed away when he saw his girlfriend’s smiling face. “ ‘s just..” his face darkened again, a storm behind his eyes, a shuddering sigh escaped his lips.

“We- that storm. It felt really real. Too real, and-” he hesitated “I just, it’s a lot, I don’t really wanna talk about it”

You nodded, caressing his freckled cheek, his skin glowing in the low, warm light. You can’t imagine how hard it must have been for him, in the dark, not knowing anything about everyone’s conditions. It was only when you and Kate emerged, battered and bloodied from the raging storm, that he knew who lived and who left…

“You don’t have to, baby..” you said softly, your hands snaking to his shoulders, squeezing them softly. Javi leaned his body against yours, closing his eyes. “You’re really tense..” you remarked, kneading his knots in his toned muscles; Javi groaned.

“How about we take the night easy…” you whispered, rubbing his arms. He nodded, wrapping his strong arms around her waist, leaning on him. You laughed, bringing him to the couch.

“What do you want for dinner?” you asked softly snuggling up under his arm against his chest, your head tucked under his chin. One of your hands found his bicep, squeezing it in a comforting manner.

“Anything, really..” Javi sighed, drawing little stars on the skin of your waist. “Something warm…” He nuzzled your hair, breathing in the scent of your shampoo.

You smiled, cupping his cheek.

“Why don’t we make a date night out of this? Like a lazy night in?” She smiled up at him, pecking his cheek. Javi opened his eyes, meeting your own.

“That sounds.. amazing. It’s just what I need right now” He sighed softly, pressing a soft peck to your forehead in return.

Smiling, you got off the couch, leaving Javi whining for your warmth. You giggled, moving to the kitchen to see what they have.

“We have… feta cheese, tomatoes, half a zucchini, coleslaw..” You listed off the food in their kitchen, when she had a revelation “How does pasta sound?” She looked over at Javi, who was still on the couch.

“Like heaven” he said “wait, no, that’s you” he smiled tiredly. Even if he was mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted, he was still a flirt.

You walked over to the couch, pulling him to his feet and dragged him to the kitchen, which was essentially you silently saying ‘cook with me’. He was used to this, but loved it so, so much.

So you both chopped, diced, stirred, kissed in the kitchen - Javi was helping you with the alfredo sauce, you added some spinach for some iron. Pasta was always fun with you, because you never chose the boring, basic shapes. Who needs penne when you have star shaped tortellini? The farmers market was a wild place for artisan pasta shapes.

They boiled their pasta, Javi stirred the sauce, you pressed a kiss to his shoulder, moving in front of him, your body between his and the stove. One of his hands went around your waist, you held the spatula he set aside to wrap his arm around you,and stirred the sauce.

“This is nice..” he murmured into the shell of your ear, nuzzling your neck, pressing soft, chaste kisses to where your collarbone met your neck. You leaned your head back, to the side, giving him better access with a grin.

Once you set the pasta in the oven to bake, Javi picked you up bridal style, earning a squeal-like laugh from you. He brought you up the stairs and set you down on the bathroom counter, and you smiled.

You pecked his freckled button nose, turning on the hot water in the bathtub, and sat back down on the counter, wrapping your legs around his waist. The water running provided a nice ambience.

“You better hop in with me” Javi murmured, causing you to nod and chuckle as his hands rubbed your sides soothingly, tickling a tad bit.

You both just exchanged chaste kisses until the water was ready. Slowly stripping each other, you both got into the water, Javi settling you in his lap again.

It was this non sexual intimacy you both loved- there’s nothing purer than a bare body, and you both understood that. You relaxed against his chest as you straddled him momentarily, before lifting your head off his shoulder and running a hand through his curls. Meeting his eyes, he pulled you closer to him by bringing you nearer by the waist.

You both stared into each other’s eyes for a moment- the water still, only the occasional drop falling from the tap to the tub, causing a tiny splash. The silence was comforting to both of your bruised, yet healing souls.

“I’d be lost without you” Javi murmured, his voice holding a passion. “You’re the light in my storm”

You pulled him in for a soft, gentle yet passionate kiss. One that said everything you needed to.

After sitting in the bath for a good 20 minutes, you both got out, shivering slightly as you two reached for the bathrobes.

After you both got out of the water, changing into some bathrobes temporarily. You briefly did your skincare, lathering some moisturizer onto your boyfriend’s face.

Pulling him to your shared bedroom, he let the bathrobe fall to his lower back as he lay down on his stomach, leaving you to straddle him from behind.

You began kneading his knots out, which earned some quiet, satisfied sighs from Javi.

You smiled softly, seeing him go limp just so he could relax and unwind after a very exhausting day.

Once you were done, you lay down on his back and pressed a kiss to his freckled shoulder.

“Come on, dinner’s ready…”

Going downstairs, you spooned the pasta onto two plates, Javi brought the sweet tea out from the fridge, slicing some lemons and dropping them in the glasses full of the amber liquid. Sitting down, you both clinked your forks and started to eat your nourishing meal, warm food sliding down your throat leaving you two with smiles (and some remnants pasta sauce) on your lips.

Once dinner was done, Javi helped you rinse everything and pop it in the dishwasher, turning it on to let it run until it was done. The completists in you two were satisfied - the kitchen looked spotless.

Changing into some actual clothes, you stealing one of Javi’s shirts, you two settled in bed. The covers were warm, having put them in the dryer for a couple of minutes before to make sure they were comfortably toasty.

“Jesus Christ…” Javi sighed as he got under the covers with you, immediately seeking your body and pulling it closer to his own, strong, defined arms wrapping around your hips and lower back. He pressed a few kisses to your hair and forehead, you doing the same but with his cheeks, and nose.

Your hand ran through his curls, earning a noise of ecstasy from him. He pulled you impossibly closer, causing you to throw a leg over his waist - a casual business.

“Goodnight, (Y/N)” he murmured into your hair.

“Goodnight, Javi” you responded, voice muffled from your head nuzzling his chest “Love you”

“Love you too” he murmured, his voice sounding lazy and sleepy.

And with that, you both were too tired to go onto a conversation like you usually did at night. Instead, you both fell asleep to the soft pitter patter of the rain.

[oneforthemunny]

boy toys |dom!eddie munson x brat!reader|

​​prompt: after a week of not seeing each other, eddie comes over and sees what's been getting you through your time apart.

contains: 18+ themes, minors dni. dom!eddie, sub!reader, fem! reader, slightly mean!dom!eddie, vibrator, toys, overstimulation, slapping, orgasm denial, light bondage, oral male rec, p in v sex, language

You peeked out the window, grinning when you saw the familiar van in the parking lot, Eddie stomping his cigarette out beside it. You heard the heavy footsteps, boots against the creaking wood. Before he could knock, you had the door open, arms wrapped around his neck, pushing him against the wall by your door.

Eddie let out a sound of surprise, laughing lowly into the kiss, his hands finding your waist easily, pulling you flush against him. His lips were soft, full, sweetly devouring every part of your mouth, leaving your blushing and reeling. His eyes glimmered when he pulled back, giving you a deep dimpled grin that had you swooning.

"D'ya miss me that much, sweetheart?" Eddie chuckled, hands softly rubbing down your waist.

You giggled, shrugging gently, a blush still warm across your cheeks. "Yeah," You admitted, sweetly. "I really did. It's been a long week."

And it had been.

The week had been agonizingly busy with the boutique bustling with customers, new shipments, and changing the styles to fit the new season. On top of that, Eddie's schedule and your's was conflicting, making it near impossible to see each other all week, despite working across the street from each other. You'd passed him one night after closing, where he was bouncing outside of the Hideout, checking IDs and collecting covers.

He'd grinned at you, jogging when the line emptied, pressing you into a quick kiss. "I'll see you Sunday, alright? I'm off and so are you, and we can spend the whole day together. Whatever you want to do, sweet thing."

His promise had kept you going, pushing through the draining week until finally, it was Sunday. You'd woken up early, tidying the house and making sure everything was perfect for him; for Eddie. Not that he minded, he never did, but you wanted it to be perfect.

The two of you walked into your apartment, shutting the door before your neighbor, Mrs. Franklin, could scream at the two of you for being promiscuous again. Eddie's hand hadn't left you, smoothing down your back, entwining your hand in his, pulling you into his arms to kiss you again.

"So, what'd you have planned for the day?" Eddie asked, nose pressed against yours. "Wanna go to Starcourt? I think they're opening at one, but we could go look around. See if they had those shoes you wanted."

Your heart swelled, smitten that he'd remembered such a small detail you'd told him a few weeks ago. You sighed, contently, running your hands down his arms. "Mm, maybe not today." You hummed. "I was thinking we could stay in, together. I have some movies from Family Video we could watch. I got that new scary one you wanted."

Eddie smirked. "You spoil me, sweetheart." He pressed a kiss to the tip of your nose. "Too good to me."

You blushed, giggling. "I'm just going to change. I don't want to be in my pajamas all day." You said, his hand still lingering with yours when you pulled him to your bedroom.

"So, how did your gig go last night? I'm sorry I couldn't come." You opened your closet, flicking through the racks, while Eddie sat on your bed, the springs creaking under his weight.

"Eh, it was pretty good. Pretty good crowd, too, all things considered." Eddie looked around, taking in your room like he hadn't been in there dozens of time. He looked at the pictures, smiling at the framed one of you and him on your night stand.

"That's great." You smiled, pulling off your pajama top, and tossing it towards the hamper. Eddie picked the picture up, going to wipe a smudge when he paused, eyes widening gently. "I'll be at the next one, for sure. I just-"

"Baby," Eddie's voice purred. You turned around, brows furrowed before your face dropped. Eddie's grin was wide and salacious, eyes darkened. "Whatcha got here, huh?"

You blushed, heart jumping when you saw what he was holding. Bright purple with a long handle; your vibrator. Something a friend got you as a gag gift for a birthday years ago, but a very handy gift; especially after long weeks like this past one.

You shifted, biting your lip softly. His eyes were expectant, lifting a brow for an answer. You shrugged. "I told you it's been a long week." You said sheepishly.

Eddie chuckled darkly, standing as he examined the toy in his hand. You shrunk when he crowded you by the closet, his looming figure tall and dominant. Eddie pressed the button, the vibrator coming to life with a soft buzz. His eyes flashed down at you, a wicked, wolfish grin that had your heart hammering and center pulsing.

"Are you supposed to play with yourself without asking first?" Eddie asked. Your face dropped, eyes rounding up at him. "Hm?"

You shook your head, Eddie caught your chin in his free hand, tilting his head towards you. "I didn't think so." He tutted. "And, I just don't recall you asking me, baby."

Your heart hammered, a shiver spilling down your spine. Your stomach twisted at where the conversation was headed. "I'm sorry." You whispered. "I just... I-I-"

"Uh-uh-uh," Eddie's fingers dug harder into your jaw. "You broke my rule. You know what that means don't you, baby?"

You nodded slowly, palms sweating and shifting on your feet. Eddie turned to toy off, nodding towards your bed. "Strip. Go sit on the bed for me."

You fumbled towards the bed, pulling off your bra and pajama pants, throwing them in the hamper. Eddie looked through your closet, seeing your belts, cute and stylish, hanging on a hook. He smirked, grabbing two. Since he wasn't at his trailer, he didn't have his usual cuffs and restraints, so he'd have to make do with what he could.

You looked at him, wide eyed and awaiting. Eddie sighed heavily, shaking his head at you. "Go ahead and roll over. Hand behind your back." You obeyed, flipping over and wiggling your hips into position, clasping your hands at the small of your back.

Eddie tied them tightly, looping the belt around them, securing them firmly before lifting your hips up higher. "Legs apart." He barked, hand falling down hard on your left ass cheek.

You yelped, rocking until your legs were apart, hoping he couldn't see how wet you were already. He could, of course.

Eddie sighed, running a hand from your hip down your thigh. "I was really hoping I wouldn't have to punish you." He said, smirking at the pathetic whimper that fell from your lips. "But you just had to go and be a bad girl, didn't you, baby?" His finger slipped into you with ease, relishing in the little gasp and moan that followed.

"Is that what you are? Are you a bad girl?" Eddie asked, index finger pumping slowly in and out of you, feeling your walls flutter and clench around him.

You shook your head, cheek pressed into your duvet, eyes pinched together in pleasure. "No," You whined, high pitch and airy, just how he liked it.

"Oh, yes you are." Eddie tutted.

"Nuh-uh, I'm not, Eddie, 'M not." You cried, tears flooding your water line when his finger curled, grazing your sensitive spot.

"Are you arguing with me, baby?" Eddie asked, his mouth right by your ear, sending shivers down your spine. You whimpered when he pulled his fingers out of you, hand grasping your hair, pulling you up so you were cheek to cheek with him.

"I think you need to be taught a lesson." Eddie whispered, leaving you shuddering at his words, hot breath tickling your neck. "Need to learn you can't be breaking my rules."

He let you go with a thud, falling back onto the mattress with a small cry. You moved your cheek to the side, hearing him stalk behind you. He picked up your vibrator, flicking it back on, the taunting buzz filling the room, making you throb.

"I'm torn," Eddie sighed, moving so you could see him, veiny hands grasping the buzzing toy. It made your mouth water. "I'm not sure if I should just not let you come, and just keep teasing and teasing you until I'm sure you've learned your lesson." Your heart dropped, lips quivering and whimpering at the threat.

He dramatically sighed again, looking down at the vibrator, examining it carefully in his hands. He was putting on a show, like when he was playing the part of the Dungeon Master or working the crowd at a show. Exaggerated.

"Or," Eddie looked at you, eyes dark and lust blown. "If I should make you cum over and over and over again until you're begging for me to stop."

Your legs clamped, shifting out of position slightly at the threat. Eddie's eyes narrowed, moving so he was behind you again. He bit his lip at the sight, your ass in the air, exposed and aching for him, at his mercy. He was hard, his bulge pressed uncomfortably against the zipper of his jeans.

Eddie took the vibrating toy, running it on the inside of your thighs. Your legs quivered, shaking at the touch he was trailing on you. Your breath caught every time he got close to your center, letting the tip of the toy touch just the edge of your lips before trailing back down.

You whined, pathetic. Your body was on fire, on edge with the way he was teasing you. Eddie pressed a hand on your back, pushing your ass up further for him.

"Either way, I think I'll just use this little toy on you." Eddie purred, pressing the vibrator to your folds. You jolted, gasping and writing as it passes over your clit, sending shock of pleasure through your body. "Since you love it so much."

You moaned, loud, pornographic. The kind of moan that Eddie usually only pulled from you when he used his tongue on you, working you open while you tugged on his hair. His brows raised at the reaction, sliding it slowly up and down your slick center, barely pushing it in at your entrance before dragging it back down to your clit.

"Hm, you really do love this, don't you, whore?" Eddie asked, eyes trained on your pussy. You ground your hips closer, fists closing and white knuckled on your back.

Eddie laughed to himself, palming himself through his jeans. You could feel yourself getting closer, toes curling, hips writhing as you gasped, whimpering, moaning closer and closer until...

Your eyes snapped open, the toy removed, pulled back and still buzzing in Eddie's hand. You whipped your head back, eyes wide with shock, betrayal.

Eddie smirked, brow raised. "Oh, baby, you didn't think I'd let you cum that easy, now did you?" He grinned, watching your face crumble slightly, whining and wiggling against the restraints.

"I think I've decided," Eddie started, moving so his knee was propped on your bed, hand pushing the hair out of your face. "I don't think you deserve to cum." You cried out, lips wobbling and pouting. He could've busted right there, your pathetic, begging face. "Not that easily anyway."

He kept you like that for what seemed like hours. Teasing you with your vibrator, expertly toying with you, building up your pleasure, getting you so close just to rip it away, leaving you achy and needy.

You were sobbing, babbling and begging for him to let you cum. Eddie laughed darkly, vibrator pressed firmly against your clit, watching the sweat drip down your hair line, mixing with the tears spilling down your face. Eddie was enjoying himself, hearing you beg and cry, smug that he was the only one who could get you like this.

You felt it coming, closer and closer, you clenched around nothing, screwing your eyes shut. That white hot pleasure was building so close you were dizzy, then, just like that, taken away.

"Please," You choked on a sob, shaky, broken inhales racking your body. "Please, Eddie, I'll be good. I'll be a good girl, I promise."

"Oh? Just like you promised to follow my rules?" Eddie asked, shaking his head. "You're not too good on your word, baby girl."

"Yes, I am." You sobbed, shoulders shaking. "I am!" It was bratty and much more demanding than you meant it to be, but you were tired, and so, so desperate for him.

Eddie raised a brow, turning the soaked vibrator off. It was hot in his hand, the heat from your cunt mixed with the batteries working overtime. He set it next to you, and you sniffled, turning your head away from it.

Eddie grinned. "You sure you're a good girl?" He asked, teasing, mocking. Reaching for his zipper, he pushed down his pants, stepping out of them slowly.

You nodded furiously, eyes round and desperate; submissive. He'd finally gotten you where he wanted you. "Please," You whimpered, lower lip wobbling. Your eyes raked down his skin when he took his shirt off, lingering on his newest piece on his thigh.

Eddie hummed, pulling himself from his boxers before they slid down his legs. He pumped his length in his head, tip angry and red, already oozing pre-cum down the link. You licked your lips.

"I think that you are a good girl, deep, deep down inside." Eddie cooed at you mockingly.

His fingers wrapped around your arms, you'd lost feeling in, and freed them. You didn't get a chance to rub them long, before he had each wrist in his hand, pulling you towards him. You could feel his erection on your tummy, hard and prodding between you two.

"But I think you made a bad, bad choice." Eddie hissed, eyes narrowing. You whimpered when his hands tightened firmly around your wrist. "And you need to make it up to me. Show me you really are a good girl." 

You nodded, standing while he sat on the edge of the bed. You waited obediently, your eyes trained on his, until he opened his legs. You shuffled forward on your knees, eyes finally dropping to his length that was flush up against his tummy.

Eddie nodded at you, and you reached out, pumping the length of him gently, thumb circling his tip, spreading around his spilling seed. Eddie groaned, hips clenching to keep from bucking into your hand. This was your expertise, he'd decided. Using your soft hands and mouth all over him, working him until he was seeing stars. It was even better when you did it as a punishment, desperate and tedious as to make it up to him, regain his approval.

Your soft lips pressed kisses on the underside of his shaft, up and down the vein that was so prominent, down to his balls. You kissed them gently, nuzzling your nose into them, pulling a low groan out of Eddie's throat. He fisted the sheets of your bed, eyes closing and head tipping back.

Finally, you circled the tip of him with your tongue, hand rolling and squeezing his balls lightly, while you moved your head down, stuffing him deeply until your nose touched the hair on his pelvis. You breathed slow and controlled out of your nose, keeping yourself from gagging, swallowing him slowly.

Eddie moaned, ringed hands finding your hair, guiding you as you bobbed on his cock. He was in paradise. Your mouth velvety and wet, tiny gags pulling out of the back of your throat when his length touched it. It had his grip tightening in your hair.

He was embarrassed with how close he was. He'd been hard since the two of you started, cock throbbing and uncomfortable with every orgasm he pulled from you.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, easy, baby, easy." Eddie groaned, feeling your lashes on his pelvis, nose nuzzling against him.

He pulled back on your hair, making you release him with a slurp. Eyes round and pleading, drool dripping down your chin. You knew better than to wipe it away, and deprive Eddie of seeing you so ruined.

Eddie smiled, leaning in to swipe at your mouth, spit mixed with his cum, gathering it on his thumb and pressing it into your mouth. You sucked on his finger obediently, eyes still on him.

"Hm," Eddie hummed with a sigh, long exhale out of his nose. "That was really good, baby." He smirked at the way your eyes lit up, posture straightening, his thumb still in your mouth, soft lips suctioning on the digit.

"You think you deserve to cum now?" Eddie asked, cocking his head to the side. "Think you can be a good girl for me? Learned your lesson?"

You nodded eagerly, and Eddie pulled his thumb away. He nodded at you, signaling he wanted a verbal response. "Yes," You said sweetly. You leaned forward, placing your hands on his knee, resting your chin on top of them. "Please? I'll be very good, I promise. I learned my lesson."

Normally, Eddie wouldn't allow you out of position, if it was a different scene. But the way your eyes rounded, begging and pleading, cheeks flushed and lips swollen. Eddie couldn't resist.

"Fuck," He breathed, running a hand down your face, cupping your cheek.

Eddie put two fingers under your chin, pushing up until you stood. You started to get on the bed, when he stopped you, a grin on his face. "Nuh-uh, baby," Eddie shook his head. "I think if you want to cum, you gotta do it yourself."

You blinked, confused, before Eddie laid back, propping himself up on your headboard, arms behind his head. You pouted, face falling slightly. You were hoping Eddie would finish you out, pounding into you so hard, you were convinced he was in your brain. Instead, he wanted you to ride him.

Eddie nodded towards his dick. "Don't tell me you're surprised, baby." Eddie laughed, in a tone that made your cheeks heat. "You were such a bad girl, and you expected me to make you cum?" He shook his head, tsking at you.

"No, no, you're doin' the work this time, sweetheart." Eddie grinned at you.

You sighed, climbing onto the bed with shaky legs, straddling your thighs over each of his. The stretch was a little uncomfortable in your groin, but the aching between your legs was worse.

You planted your hands on either side of his shoulders, his hands going to your ass, spreading your cheeks apart as you sank down onto his hard length. You whimpered, closing your eyes at the feeling, head tipping back.

You sunk slow until you were filled, his tip hitting your spongey walls making you clench. "Fuck, baby, you keep doin' that 'm not gonna last." Eddie groaned, hands gripping the meat of your ass hard.

You swiveled your hips, grinding into the coarse hair at the base of him for some friction before lifting, slow and calculated. You got into a rhythm, nails digging into his shoulders while his roamed your body, your legs, hips, thighs, ass, waist, grabbing and gripping at anything and everything.

Eddie dropped his head into your neck when you slammed down, rocking your hips in a figure eight pattern that had you both gasping, moaning out. Eddie's hips started thrusting up to meet yours, and by the look on his face, eyes pinched and neck flushed, he was close.

You whimpered when your hips collided, knocking the sensitive spot in you that had you seeing stars. Eddie noticed, hips meeting again with another hard thrust that had you crying out, nails biting down on his shoulders, and velvety wet walls clamping around him. When you lifted up, Eddie's cock was covered in your creamy spend.

Eddie thrusted a few more times up into you, holding your hips up and guiding them back down as you came down from your own high, tired and sloppy against him. Eddie thrusted one final time before you felt the familiar warmth inside you.

Eddie grunted, cursing and groaning out your name, emptying himself inside of you. His orgasm was big, thick ropes shooting out into you, each one deeper and harder than the last. Normally he'd be embarrassed, hiding in your neck and muttering some kind of excuse, but this time he didn't care. It had been a long week for him too.

You collapsed into his chest, his heaving matching yours, kisses stamped along your hair line, hands roaming your sweaty naked bodies. He was still in you, softening with every breath he took in his come down.

"Did s'good for me, baby." Eddie muttered into your hair, clinging you close to him. "Always s'good for me. My good girl."

You flushed with the praise, warmth filling your chest in the post-orgasm glow. Eddie helped you to the shower, the two of you cleaning each other gently, sharing soft touches and kisses that left you giggly and blushing.

Eddie watched you rummage through your drawers, finding him sweatpants and a t-shirt he'd left over. "You still wanna watch a movie?" Eddie asked, shaking his curly ringlets out, rubbing the towel on them.

You nodded, slipping on your panties on still wobbly legs. "If you want to," You looked at him with a smile. "We can order take-out, too, if you want. Taty says the new Chinese place is really good. I've got a coupla menus in the kitchen you can look at, if you want."

Eddie nodded, grabbing your towel out of the floor, tossing it towards your bathroom hamper. You sat down on the bed, hissing before sitting up, moving the sheets to see what you sat on. Your face flushed when you lifted the vibrator, holding it in your hand as you turned to Eddie.

He smirked, arms crossing over his bare, inked chest. "Now, what are you gonna do with that, little lady?" He asked in a drawl that had you giggling and blushing.

You moved towards the bathroom, setting it on the counter. "'M gonna clean it, then it's going away." You batted your eyes at him. "Promise."

Eddie grinned, stalking over to you, resting an arm on the doorway above you. "Maybe we could use it again." Eddie suggested. "I'll use it on you, but in the way you like. Maybe tie you up, blindfold you, and see how many times I can get you to cum. Whatdaya say?"

You blushed, grinning so yours matched his. "I think that sounds like a pretty good night." You winked at him, setting it on the counter and shutting off the light. Eddie followed you down the hall, pinching your ass just to hear you squeal.

"Ya know," You started, hunched into your drawer to get the menus. "Some guys use vibrators too." You had a wicked smile on your face, one that had Eddie's mouth running dry. "Maybe I could use it on you next time."

It was Eddie's turn to blush, running a hand down his face to try to hide it as you slid him the menu, turning to grab him a beer out of the fridge.

A few weeks later, Eddie was back in your apartment, hands tied to your bed post while you worked the purple vibrator on him.

He was beginning to become more and more fond of the toy.

[wonik1ss]

౨ৎ mrs. star girl ! — park minju

pairing — non idol!minju x reader song rec : magnetic - illit & favorite girl - vcha & I hate u - moon tang ( 1.0k ish idk ) ! none ᯤ ^ ㅇ ^ happy reading ! ⸝⸝・ᘏᘏ

prompt : one day while star gazing at your fathers lab you see a shooting star.. getting closer.. and closer.. and suddenly you have an alien friend park minju

[day 1018, observation 52]

“click it seems that as the eclipse gets closer star 382 cough other wise known as.. minju is getting brighter”

“anytime I try to zoom in to get a closer look my lenses just break.. 337 to be exact.. from my observations I assume in about five.. days? the star will..” another voice and be heard

“go boom!”

“yes y/n it will combu-“

“oh shit.. the brownies are done I’ll be back dad”. your father nodded and watched as you scurries up the stairs from the basement. you hurriedly grabbed the glove and opened the oven. you blew at the stove and coughed a bit. as you pulled the tray you were pleasantly surprised.

as you placed the tray on the counter something caught your eye. you opened the sliding door to your backyard and smiled. minju.. a few years ago your dad’s observations became actually interesting. with star 382 or minju to make it easier appeared. as the days went on she got brighter. your dad found it silly you gave the Star a gender and name but, let it happened since it meant you actually cared about his discovery’s.

ever since the big fight of 2008 you and your dad hadn’t been in good terms. after the big fight between your mom and dad at four you joined your moms side casting away your dad to the dark shadows of his basement. you and your mom moved away and you hadn’t had contact with your dad in nineteen years. but suddenly your mom cared for you to have a connection with your dad.

this just resulted in you like you are doing right now star gazing while your dad wasted the summer in his basement ‘observing things’. staring at the stars now you wish you could one yourself. maybe then your dad would actually pay attention to you.

you blinked twice.. a shooting star. as you payed down flat on your back your crossed your legs ever so slightly and intertwined your hands together to wish. ‘please get me out of this shit shack.. or atleast give me something interesting to do..�� as you finally opened your eyes they widened.

the star was shooting down.. straight at you ! your mouth ajar, you stunned you just shut our eyes and hoped for the best.

“oof!”

poke poke

you slowly opened your eyes and tries to jump up. to no avail.. you rubbed your eyes. you straightened up and the girl was still on your lap. she examined your face and then poked it again.

poke

poke poke

po-

“would you stop that ! “. the girl blinked twice and stared at your lips.

“w.. what.. what stop?”

“poking me ! “. as you pointed to your self the girl giggled. pinching your cheek.

“language you speak is very funny ! “

“what.. who..”. the girl bit her lip and smiled. she looked back from you and the sky and then took a deep breath.

“im an alien ! my name is.. is minju ! you gave it to me ! I think it’s really pretty !”. as the girl stopped her first sentence she smiled realizing you understood her. she got better as she rambled on. from what you could get she was a.. star girl? her planet went.. boom.. and she was sent out as a star.. she was sleeping for two years before a signal your father sent woke her up and now she finally came down.

“ok.. but why are you.. not like..”

“I wanted to blend in..”. minju smiled. she was wearing a dark denim skirt, a long sleeves white shirt and two twin pigtails.

“looks like you forgot shoes”. you pointed to the girls feet and she sighed.

“I had like five minutes.. then seconds to plan this”. five days.. was five minutes..

“what was that?”

“oh nothing we should..”

“y/n ! “. you and minju’s eyes dashed to your distraught father. now your sitting on your couch with minju cuddled up beside you. your dad sat on the floor scratching his head. your eyes turned to minju. she was would be suffocating your right arm if it could breath.

“let’s.. let’s just get you two to bed..”. your dad ushered you and minju to your room, but as you approached your room you stopped.

“please get some sleep dad..”. your dad nodded, but sighed and smiled as your saw your worried expression.

“yes yes.. just go to bed dear”. you nodded and got your bed ready. click

“I don’t like that human”. you chuckled.

“you and me both..”. as you got settled in your bed you felt a dip in your bed. looking on the floor to the make shift bed you made you sighed and smiled at minju.

“so how.. do you sleep?”. you laughed and then quickly ran through the basics of being a human. minju just nodded along and followed your lead as you both went to sleep.

[day 1019, observation 53]

yawn you rubbed your eyes, maybe it was just a dre-

“good morning love !”. not a dream then.

“love?”

“that’s what she calls her friend in this book of yours!”. you hurriedly got up and grabbed the romance book.

“that’s not..”

“what’s wrong love? I quite like it.. since I don’t know your name is pretty good for a fill in”

“it’s y/n”. minju nodded.

“loves it much better”. you cracked a smile and grabbed both of the girls hands.

“my dad should be up”. you saw minju’s chest rise faster.

“he’s not bad I promise.. you don’t even have to talk to him just sit down and he will.. just help you ok”. minju nodded and then gave you a kiss on the cheek and then left your room. and hour later you left your room ready for the day.

“your still wearing the same thing?”

“oh I took a shower! it only took three milliseconds!”. minju patted the seat next to her and then one finger each side of her temples.

a bowl flew from your cupboard, a spoon from a draw and a ceral box opened. the girl poured some milk and the ceral and smiled as the spoon dropped in the bowl. you jumped. your father jumped from behind the counter smiling.

“she’s our own little matilda!”

“you were right love, father is very nice!”

your has quirked his head and your shakes yours. he nodded and placed some money in the middle of you two.

“I’m going to be busy updating my notes.. you two go out and.. have fun.. but also test minju y/n! “. before your could opens your mouth your dad had ran to his basement.

“arcade”

“what?”

“arcade!”. minju pointed to the space arcade on the ceral box and now you were somehow in one waiting in line.

“you know we could have just stay-“

“two badges please!”. the tired teen age boy handed the badges to you and minju, and minju dragged you to a claw machine.

“is that what you think I look like?”. minju clipped the badge to you skirt pocket and to her’s, and then pointed to the alien girl toy in the machine.

“ya..”

“well we don’t call look like that.. anyways win me it please!”. in the span of two hours you spent all of the coins your dad gave you and your legs felt like jelly.

“you hungry?”

“no I actually make my-“

“well I am”. you grabbed minju’s hand and walked over to the arcades small restaurant. as you were seated minju ran to sit in the booth. you ordered to slices of pizza and a drink and minju looked around star struck.

“father was right this world is very weird”

“I know right”. minju’s eyes darted to yours.

“but your very pretty”. your eyes darted to the table.

“you sure your pretty isn’t different from o-“

“no you very much look like the beauty standard”. minju put her face in your field of view. the food had arrived.

“so what next?”

[day 1020, observation 53]

“ahh ! that.. snort tickles !”. you giggled as bubbles of glitter left minju’s mouth.

[day 1025, observation 58]

“I am not sick !”

“minju your green ! just eat the medicine father made !”

“NO !”

[day 1032, observation 65]

“how is it glowing like that father?”

“well there is a thing called a projecter and it-“

“dad just watch the movie !”

“but it was getting interesting !”

[day 1068, observation 80]

“I like this style thought !”

“you look like a marchine”

“I do not !”

[day 1072, observation 99]

as the days.. turned into weeks.. into months you and minju got closer. physically because she had discovered was ‘cuddling’ was and she loved it, and emotionally through seasons of sad shows and popcorn. minju was reading one of your books and learned what prom was and needed to have one. so here you were applying lipstick for what felt like the 50th time.

“don’t like it if this time”

“but it taste like cherry’s love..”. as minju pouted you messily tried to fix your hair.

“let me help!”. minju jolted up and helped you. as you went to turn around when she was done you were pushed to look forward.

“what-“. you felt a cold sensation on your neck.

“it’s pretty right..”. as you turned around your eyes darted to minju’s neck. a big silver heart with big silver sphere’s supporting it we’re on the girl’s neck. with out a second to waste minju moved you to your mirror.

“it’s pretty right..?”

“defiantly”. as you stated at the necklace you felt a kiss on your cheek.

“pretty girls get pretty gifts”. minju winked at you as nudged her back. you eventually told minju her use of the word love and cheek kisses weren’t normal but she didn’t care. she actually just got bolder with them. from kisses on the cheek to the neck.. from incorrect usage of love to the tilting of your chin upwards to ‘what’s wrong love?”.

you had gotten really close to the star girl..

“girls it’s ready!”. you felt your hand pulled out your room to the backyard.

“wow mr. d this looks so cool !”. during a sad episode of on of your beloved series, minju went to the basement and the next day started calling your dad ‘mr.d’.

there were star shaped lights all over, balloons, glitter and a phone blasting some jaz song.

“now I’ll leave you two teens to your prom!”. your dad winked but you didn’t catch it.

“would you give me this dance..?”. you giggled as minju bowed lending her hand to you.

“ofcourse”. you giggled as you both swayed to the music. minju’s eyes darted from your’s to the floor.

“so this is why you wouldn’t let me into the basement..”. minju nodded and pulled you closer.

“love..”

“yes?”

“why do you think I started calling mr. d, mr. d instead of father?”. you shrugged.

“I never wanted to be your sister after he explained what me calling him that meant”. you but your lip. you didn’t like where this was going.

“why do you think I cling to you?”. you shrugged.

“I’m the only human you know.. other than my dad?”

“No..”. minju stopped dancing.

“why do I sleep in the same bed as you..? get so scared when you get hurt..? hate when you leave me alone..?”

“I-“

“I like you.. like a lot.. not cause your the only other human I know.. but because I actually like you.. I have read a lot of books since I’ve landed.. so I know I’m sure”. your hands dropped from minju’s neck and so did her’s from your waist.

“I.. I… like you too.. I just didn’t want to say it and then the next day you would be beamed home”. minju laughed.

“I would never leave you”. you felt her hands snake around your waist. yours went to her neck.

“love”. with that your heard fireworks. the stars for brighter and you both got closer. as minju kissed you, you shouldn’t help but smile. your little star girl was all yours.

[day 1073, observation 100]

[husbandhannie]

home, home, home, home

pairing: woozi x reader

word count: 1.1k

warnings: some relationship insecurity, but this isn't exactly angst, one(1) barely present sexual reference (no details at all)

a/n: svt's home is actually really inspiring when you're in the mood

taglist: @leejungchans @junhui-recs @itsveronicaxxx

jihoon’s distracted, and he knows it. given soonyoung’s concerned gaze, he knows it too.

“we can pick this up later”, his friend offers, “we have time”.

“no, it’s okay”, jihoon responds, not sounding nearly as sincere as he should, “i said we’d do this”.

it’s true. as much as he rolls his eyes at soonyoung’s “tiger agenda”, he promised his friend a tiger-themed song for International Tiger Day, and jihoon is a man of his word. he can’t just stop for today, as much as he desperately wants to.

“we have more than a month”, soonyoung insists, “how about we continue tomorrow? after gym?”

jihoon sighs. he knows his mind is focused on something else today, knows that he can’t help his friend today. he bids soonyoung goodbye as he leaves his studio, and it’s a testament to how preoccupied he is that he doesn’t roll his eyes at soonyoung’s illicit smirk.

you. he’s got you on his mind.

and no, it’s not the way soonyoung thinks.

you haven’t texted jihoon in the last 12 hours, and he’s losing his mind trying to figure out why.

to most people, this might not be a big deal. after all, most of those hours were in the night — the period of the day in which people generally sleep. but you almost never sleep before 2 AM, and neither does he — and the two of you always text during the night. always.

so understandably, jihoon is a little freaked out about the lack of messages from you. his texts and calls to you have gone unanswered, and he’s hoping it’s not on purpose.

as he manoeuvres his car through traffic, he tries to think of the last time the two of you met. it was two — no, three — no, wait, four days ago. you had dropped by his studio for dinner, and mentioned feeling overwhelmed with your master’s thesis. he was working on a track, he remembers.

maybe he was distracted. maybe it dawned on you that he wasn’t available enough, that he wouldn’t be there for you when you needed him the most. maybe you decided to cut your losses and ditch him.

the logical part of his brain knows that that’s very improbable. the two of you talk, and you have always told him when he did something that bothered you. the other part of his brain, however, has been almost waiting for this to happen.

yes, you’re busy too, and yes, you dislike big flashy dates as much as he does, and yes, you prefer night-ins spent just talking — but maybe you realized something, maybe you decided that you deserve better.

the significance of your presence in his life has never hit jihoon so hard, and he’s hoping that he hasn’t fucked this up.

he doesn’t think he’s ever made the journey from your building’s parking lot to your floor so fast — he’s racing through the stairs to the second floor, and for once he doesn’t dwell on how your landlord should cut down your rent because the elevator is somehow always under repair. actually, he’s not thinking about anything but you — and how he feels like the ground under him might give out any second.

he’s felt this way before, back when his group was new to the industry. he remembers the uncertainty, remembers the feeling of dread. he didn’t think he’d ever feel it again, least of all in a romantic relationship. this is what happens when you find a home, he thinks.

he has to stop himself from pressing your doorbell the second he stops in front of your apartment. he manages to wait for about twelve seconds while he catches his breath, before giving in, lightly panting.

the door opens and you emerge in your blue pajamas, your eyes squinting at his figure. he’s woken you up.

“jihoon?”, you blink, a confused smile making its way to your face, “what are you — “, you stand up straight, and he knows you’ve noticed his sweaty forehead and quick breaths, “everything okay?”

“yeah, i, uh”, he stutters for a moment, because he hadn’t thought about what to actually say to you, “you weren’t picking up my calls”.

seriously? he does a mental face-palm. “you weren’t picking up my calls?”

“just came to check if everything is okay” there. that sounds more reasonable.

“oh?”, you move to let him in, closing the door behind you while you answer, “ah yeah! i had a couple of drinks last night with my team, and came home and passed out. left my phone outside, i think”.

oh. jihoon feels the knot in his chest loosen up. he hasn’t fucked his up. you’re still here, he hasn’t lost his home.

“sorry about that”, you continue when he doesn’t respond, “didn’t mean to worry you”.

“no, it’s okay”, he offers, smiling when he notices that you’re wearing your pajama shirt inside-out, “i wasn’t that worried”.

it’s a lie, but you don’t need to know.

“anyway, i’m just going to chill out today”, you say as you pull out your coffee cup, “maybe cook a little, read a book”, you turn to him with another cup in hand, his cup. “wanna have coffee before you go off for work? it’s soonyoung’s tiger song for today, right?”

“he ditched me today”, jihoon pretends to be annoyed, but he can’t help the smile that grows on his face when you laugh, “i can hang around here, if that’s okay”.

“ofcourse”, you smile, and jihoon has to hold back from pulling you into a hug. you do it for him though, wrapping your arms around his waist and sighing into his shoulder. “i missed you”.

jihoon holds back from telling you the truth about his work today. and about the tensed car ride here. and how he ran up the stairs of your defective building. and how he hopes you’ll never get tired of holding him like this.

he’ll tell you later, he knows. later, when it’s not too freaky to tell you what you mean to him, when he’s sure he can say it out loud in words that make sense. later, when he’s sure he’s your home, too.

for now, he just wounds his arms around you and pulls you even closer.

“i missed you too”.

[libraford]

While I'm bitching.

I dont mean to make this a bitching blog, but with them leaving on monday I have time to reconfigure my brain about all of it.

We live in a suburb that butts up to a nature preserve. So we see all kinds of wildlife from coyotes to deer. Most of the wildlife pics from my photo blog are from a nearby park.

There are mice in the garage.

It's a garage. It's an unsealed part of the house that's safe from predators and snow. It's going to get mice.

She wants to live on a farm some day. But she sees a mouse in the garage and suddenly has to rearrange the entire space because the way 'we' store things is attracting rodents. But not the way she just leaves piles and piles of cardboard from chewy or her amazon purchases (seriously a $300 inversion table that she used once and used her partner's credit card to get).

And I dont have much choice in how i store my stuff because the day we moved in they had already decided there was no room for my craft storage (its ugly, basically.) And it all got shoved in the garage.

Where the mice are.

So she sees a mouse and spends the whole day freaking out and moving our stuff around because we're slobs who dont know how to organize our stuff.

And now we cant find anything.

About a year ago, she got on an exercise kick and demanded that I clear my stuff from the garage so they could have an exercise room for themselves. Me and pock are still sharing a small nook that serves as our craft room, and the is no space to really spread out. But she gets an exercise room.

She never exercises. She has a back injury that makes it difficult for her to sit up for long periods of time.

Like... I tried to clear the garage, but I got 4 bins in before I ran out of room in the craft room, and now there's no way for me to access the things in there, either.

So sorry she didnt get her exercise room. We have a porch. We have a living room where you can move the couch. You can go to the park. You have a rec center membership. Sorry you didnt get a poorly ventilated exercise room full of mice.

If I can do yoga three times a week in this house, you can figure it out.

Later, I overhear her talking to her mom on the phone about why she wants to move to North Carolina and she says it's because theres no nature here. Its barren. Nothing will grow in ohio because of the chemicals they use on the farms. Theres no wildlife.

I'm assuming the mice dont count. But our town literally calls itself 'the city of parks.' Theres over 5000 acres of green spaces including a waterfowl preserve and more than one refuge. My boss at parks and rec is a conservationist. My job is to water all the fucking trees we planted last year.

Youd see all kinds of nature if you'd get outside the house, but you never fucking leave.

Which is kind of a minor point in the scheme of things. But it really pisses me off like 'oh poor me I'm a fucking liar.'

I'm so lazy, I wont repurpose an entire room for her benefit while shoving all my shit in a 5×10 space. I'm so awful.

[v1nsmoke]

𝑮𝑼𝑵𝑺 𝑵' 𝑹𝑶𝑺𝑬𝑺 // 𝑪𝑼𝑳𝑻 𝑳𝑬𝑨𝑫𝑬𝑹!𝑳𝑨𝑾 𝑿 𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑫𝑬𝑹

spooktober week 1 - law as a cult leader in honour of oct 6th being his bday

tw: guns, hints about sb getting kidnapped

summary: in search of your missing sister, you head to a town in the middle of nowhere, where all clues lead to a mysterious man.

a/n: ITS HIS BDAY!!! i wasnt planning on making this, just came up w/ it this morning lol. But i really wanted to make something for his birthday, so take this! Inspired by the game Far Cry 5, i recommend it! im tired rn so i didnt reread this. I will check it later tho ♡ CHECK OUT PART 2!

wc: 1.1k

song rec: (aka a song that matches the story)

You take a deep sigh. The road here was everything but smooth, you were sure that nobody tried to fix it ever since they built it, not to mention that you travelled on it trough hours. It took you almost two days to get here, but it still wasn't the time for you to rest.

You have been stressing ever since you received the suspicous call from your sister who dissapeared without a trace the day right after it. Nobody could reach her, they also had no idea where she went. The last time you heard about her was when you called her a few days ago, but she said goodbye after telling you that she will be going to attend a sermon by a man that came to town that day. No word from her ever since.

So, you decided to pay her a visit yourself. Best if you check on your sister before something happens to her. And now here you are, sitting in your parked car in a slightly dried out field on the side of the road, the town just slightly further. There was white tarpaulin tent set up there, and people were slowly drifting towards it. it will probably be the same sermon that your sister went to the last time you talked to her. This was your last option in getting close to her. You went to her house some hours ago, but nobody was home. You waited to see if she was just out shopping, but time passed and she still didn't come home. The neighbours said that she left to check out the man who came to town saying that he is here to help the people, and never returned.

There was only one solution left: find the last person who saw her. If it was really the same thing, you might get close to finding out something about your sister's whereabouts. Her neighbours told you when this man will show his face again, so you thanked them, got in your car, and drove out to the location. Looks like they weren't lying, because the people slowly flocked to the tent while you sat in the comfy seat of your car.

You take a deep breath, mentally preparing yourself for whatever might occur. You open the car's door, stepping foot on the dry, yellowish grass. You stay close to a group heading towards the tent, hoping that you could blend in. To you, this all just started to look like a cult. The group enters the tent, you follow behind them. Inside were benches, all of them facing a low podium, a black haired man standing on it. He seemed confident in whatever he was preaching, but you weren't focused on him.

Though, he did catch your eye for a moment. And it looked like the same thing happened to him, his eyes scanning the crowd but stopping once his gaze lands on you. Those greyish blue orbs staring at you, his mouth still moving as the rest of the people watch him. He manages to turn away, looking everywhere but you after this. You stand still, looking trough the people present, hoping to find your sister here. Nobody matched her appearance, she wasn't here.

Your only chance left at finding her was the mysterious man, now leaving the stage that the sermon was over. The people flock away, leaving one by one. Almost everybody left now, and this was your chance. You see as he leaves the tent, some men with machine guns by his side, heading towards the car.

"Excuse me!" You shout after him, hoping he'll hear you. The man and his bodyguards (or whoever those armed men were) all stopped, turning their attention towards you, some even raising their weapons. You raise both your hand in defense, proving you are not a threat to them. Of course you weren't, you had no weapons and barely any knowledge about hand-to-hand combat.

The black haired motions for them with his tattooed hands to lower the weapons, and the men obey.

"I'm listening." He says after a short pause. The men and him stared at you, all creating an uneasy feeling inside you. The guns, slightly torn sweaters with the same symbol sewn into it, everything. And now you were totally alone with them, nobody would know if you just got shot on the spot. Not to mention that if anybody started looking for you like you looked for your sister, they might end up just like you.

"I'm looking for my sister. The last time I heard from her was just an hour before she attended your sermon a few days ago." You step closer to them, holding out your hand with a photograph in it. On the photo was your sister, it was taken before she left the country to live here, in this town in the middle of nowhere, far from you.

"Familiar face. I know her." He says in his deep voice, a very light, barely noticable appearing on his face as he speaks. Seeing this, you actually consider twice if you should follow him or try finding your sister on your own. But now you were so close to finding out something about her, because this man clearly knew a thing or two.

"Could you... perhaps tell me where she is, maybe lead me to her if you can?" You ask, trying to sound as polite as possible, though you were shaking inside.

"Oh, don't worry." He chimes. "You'll meet her soon enough." His tone shifts, sounding darker, lower, more menacing.

"Wait, wha- who are yo-" you try to question him, but you are hit in the back of your head with the back of a machine gun by one of his men.

You hit the dry grass with a thud, the boots of the guard on your back, holding you down, pointing the barrel of his gun at you. It's like you can feel the world spinning as you lay on your stomach, the grass tickling your face. It takes all your will and strength to keep your eyes open.

"It's Law. Trafalgar Law." He looks down on you, standing in front of your body.

You would love to ask him more questions, to fight back, but after receiving another hit just like the one you got some seconds ago, you can't keep your eyes open, blacking out.

trafalgar law belongs to eiichiro oda, i do not own him.

© v1nsmokes 2023. Do not modify, translate or rewrite.

[blysse-and-blunder]

in lieu of a quiet sunday night

sunday, 11pm, September 22, 2024 ~ cider close to hand, both alcoholic and non; hozier playing in the background; evidently it's the first day of fall

reading since i skipped doing one of these last week, both of my reading picks tonight are actually from a little while ago. both were so, so compelling, but for different reasons. one an award-winning piece of twentieth-century canadian literature set in 1970s india, the other a scandalous semi-autobiographical account of drinking, dating, and divorce in roaring twenties new york.

i think that drew me into both of these first was their dialogue-- both authors are so good at writing distinctly unique, distinctly not-what-i-usually-hear character dialogue, without it sounding at all affected. i got the feeling that both authors were working from life, describing societies they knew inside and out, and had observed intimately. so much detail about the, like, material and sensory details of these two different settings-- what everyone wore out to dinner in the twenties, and what they were eating and drinking; what shopping for a chicken or going to the doctor was like in mid-seventies bombay, what school was like, how people were discussing the government... beyond that, these two feel so dissimilar that comparing them is going to do a disservice to both. though i guess both have, at different points in their histories, been the subject of some scandal. listening shout out to my 'for you' playlist last week, which was one hit after another-- but opened with this, and introduced me to rachel chinouriri! whose sound i really like. that first slow build up to the guitar bursting in? got my attention immediately. the lyrics to this one are, admittedly, wild to be singing while trying to write job apps, but it's melancholy in enough of an upbeat way that it almost feels calming?

No point in trying to prove yourself to them Why question who you are from deep within? No matter what, your youth is gonna end My god it’s sinking in There’s no point in anything

the whole album goes down so smooth, and is rewarding repeat listens. i love her voice. i love how late i am to discovering her, since she's opening for sabrina carpenter now apparently.

watching no shogun time this week, but the gang and i sat down to experience the first episode of a new series, which i cannot stop thinking about. imagine like. australian broadchurch, but only one of the main characters and all the victims are actually in a bleak crime drama, and every other character is doing like parks & rec. also it's extremely gay. and rude. and funny. favorite characters are dulcie, and sven the guy who keeps asking who he can delegate stuff to. also dulcie's wife, who i'm so worried about the world crushing somehow, she seems too optimistic to survive undamaged!

playing did i mention finishing act ii of pentiment? now that @blue--period is playing it, i realized i wanted to get further and be able to discuss. i was devastated by the end of act i, but the end of act ii feels... bleak in a way i wasn't expecting, at all. i'm already planning a second play-through using my other save file, since i failed a bunch of checks in act ii (a few i think based on the background i had chosen, aggravating since it was helpful in other ways) and no spoilers, but in other ways, i failed by succeeding. saving act iii for now, since i have a busy next couple of weeks. much love to caspar, my best boy.

making fallow week. check back soon for experiments with medieval ink making, though!! i have sourced ingredients, and parchment scraps, from kind friends and colleagues who won't ask me to pay for them, and will shortly be (i hope) benefiting from someone else's paper-making budget. stay tuned.

working on prepping for my students' quiz on thursday, and the following assignment due in early oct, by brainstorming what i want to ask them to do and then not actually writing the rubric or instructions. alternating with staring at the descriptions of various job openings and trying to pick up lots of detail about the hiring departments. wrote up a 2-page dissertation summary, which sucked. feeling more chill about the process than i thought, which is also because it doesn't feel like it's happening to me, exactly. writing sample and finalized cover letter this week?

[undead-moth]

Okay I thought I could let this go and just leave it at this post I wrote a bit ago but I can't.

Everything about how the Faks were written this season, including how much screentime they got, can be attributed to fatphobia.

The Faks exemplify a really common fatphobic stereotype that gets heavily relied on in comedy shows. I call it The Lovably Childish Fat Man trope, though there's much more to it than that. Some examples are Scully and Hitchcock from Brooklyn 99, Teddy from Bob's Burgers, Andy from Parks and Rec, and Kevin from The Office.

These characters are dopey, incompetent, clumsy, dumb, sloppy, childish and self-unaware. All of these attributes are used for comedic affect within the story. While these characters are lovable, they are lovable in a, "Isn't it just so endearing how dumb and clumsy and gross they are?" way. It is in the most condescending way possible. These are characters who aren't allowed to be serious and are required to play into the comedy of their fatness, often wearing ill-fitting clothes, overeating, or having their weight become an obstacle in a setting. This is how fat characters can still be made into a joke, and not just a joke, but THE joke, without a single comment ever being made about their weight from any of the thin characters in the story.

Now, when it comes to The Bear, Neil Fak was always an example of this trope - but in the first two seasons it wasn't as egregious. Neil was incompetent in general, but when it came to his job as a maintenance man, he was very competent. He was childish in general, but he was allowed to participate in conversations like any other adult without the sole purpose of his presence being that he was going to say something childish or dumb.

On top of that, all of his incompetence and childishness was balanced out by Richie, who was also immature, incompetent, and self-unaware.

But in the third season, a lot changes.

The biggest change is that the restaurant opens, and so now there is no need for a regular maintenance man who is going to take mold seriously, insist on moving the lockers before painting, and figure out that Michael fucked with the fire alert system to prevent it from going off when he tried to burn The Beef down.

Now, instead, Neil becomes a server in the restaurant, which is something he's woefully incapable of doing, and his incompetency in serving is highlighted for comedic affect.

At the same time, Richie has gone through real character development, and he's no longer unprofessionally dressed. He doesn't lack self-awareness. He's not as outspoken or willfully rude. When he is angry or immature, it is not comparable to a teenager's anger, much less a child. He no longer balances Neil out as a thin character with a lot of the same flaws.

What's worse, is that another Fak was introduced as a character, and he's also fat. Ted Fak becomes a regular rather than someone who's made an appearance or two, and his personality is virtually indistinguishable from Neil's. The only real difference that I can tell between them is that Ted's maturity is closer to on par with a thirteen or fourteen-year-old, while this season especially, Neil's maturity was more on par with a nine or ten-year-old.

When I say they're childish, I mean they are literally portrayed like children. They engage in the same conversations you could expect from children. Neil routinely refers to Carmy as his best friend unnecessarily, which is something a child would do, but on top of that the joke is, "Ha ha - can you believe Neil thinks he's Carmy's best friend?" even though Carmy outright admitted that Neil was probably his best friend in season one (which was also intended to be a ha ha funny joke). Ted and Neil also talk about Neil's wall of food critics, and Neil asserts that he would have already been able to tell whether or not one of the food critics had come in, and insists that he's memorized all their faces in a very child-like way. Any time the two of them are engaging in conversation, it's made apparent that the two of them both think they're geniuses exchanging profound wisdom, when in reality everything they say is stupid and uses the logic of children who don't yet understand how complicated everything is.

I really hit my limit when they went to see Claire to tell her Carmy says he's sorry - an act that no two grown ass men would ever decide to do, nor think was appropriate to do, nor helpful to do, nor would they fucking think it's their business, or if they did decide to talk to Claire, they wouldn't bombard the E.R without permission and wander into an operating room in the process. On top of this, they speak too loudly for the indoors, and Neil stammers through saying Carmy is sorry in very simple words, no different than a child saying sorry on the playground, and Claire even responds to them like children, trying to quiet them down, lecturing them about going places they shouldn't, talking them down from apologizing for Carmy because she recognizes it's not as simple as these children think it is, and she even explains it in simple terms to them, while routinely saying, "My love," and, "I love you," and trying to manage their excitement and expectations again - the exact same way you would with a hyper, overly enthusiastic child. With Ted she implies that he gave one of her friends an STD, and gives him a very maternal look and a, "You know what I'm talking about," comment while Ted continues to act obliviously (Ha ha the gross fat man has an std funny joke.)

Literally, you could easily replace these characters with a ten-year-old and a teenager and you wouldn't have to change anything. In fact, it would work better. It would make more sense.

It is possibly the most egregious example of this trope that I have ever seen. It turned a show that was previously actually better than the average TV show when it comes to fatphobia into a show that's actually more fatphobic than most shows I've watched.

And as for why the Faks were so heavily relied on, why they got so much screentime despite there being so many other characters they could have chosen to develop or focus on instead - I think the writers chose to do that because they knew this season was going to be heavier than past seasons.

They knew that the A Plots (Primarily Carmy's worsening behavior in the restaurant, but also Natalie giving birth, and Tina's search for a job after being let go) were all going to be really heavy, serious storylines. But they knew that even if this season was going to be more serious, this show was still a comedy. Not only do they need to keep it in line with its category, but they also had to try to keep the tone consistent with past seasons even though the plots in the past two seasons were not as serious. And particularly with the main storyline, with Carmy's character arc, I don't think Storer wanted to make that comedic at all. Previously, even really heavy moments could be humorous. The humor was dark, sure, but it was there, and so the comedy was threaded seamlessly throughout episodes, and no one character was more responsible for comedy than any other, even in heavy moments. But with this season, it was crucial that Carmy's state of mind feel as serious as it was. It was crucial that the alienation the other characters felt was palpable to us. In order for that to be the case, they couldn't be the ones providing comedic relief. Those moments had to remain incredibly tense, and awkward, and uncomfortable.

So - enter The Faks as Shakespearian-esque Fools.

In order to keep the A Plots properly serious, The Faks provided comic relief in between A Plot scenes. They're fools in intermissions. That's all. This works because Ted and Neil aren't supposed to be real characters. They don't have character arcs. They aren't ever going to be developed in any meaningful way, and so Storer can afford to include numerous empty scenes with them that do nothing to complicate them or reveal anything about them - and this isn't true of most other reoccurring characters in the show.

It's also worth noting that relying on this trope, using this trope as a crutch really, provides endless low-hanging fruit. Most people who had problems with The Faks this season had a problem with them in part because even though they were given so much screentime, and even though they were always being used comically - they were never funny.

This is where Storer fucked up - you know, beyond being a huge fatphobe. Storer was relying on the fact that most people find fatphobia hilarious. It is an easy way to get some laughs. It requires almost no thought. And okay - I understand that there are scenes in which something more is clearly meant to be getting through, particularly with the discussions of "the haunt" - but the Faks are so annoying that whatever was meant to get through doesn't anyway, or if it does, we don't fucking care anymore.

I'm not going to argue that The Bear fandom isn't fatphobic, because they very much are - However - That is not the kind of humor that first drew them to The Bear. The humor in this show previously was dry, dark, clever, absurd - many things, but all very sophisticated and often subtle. That is not only the humor we expected to return this season, it's obviously the humor we like! Since we're returning for season three!

But Storer didn't understand this about his own audience, and so he didn't think it would matter if he relied on a fatphobic stereotype for comedic effect. Honestly, I think it was probably a blind-spot for him, because he doesn't even know that's what he was doing - he just genuinely thinks this fatphobic trope is hilarious, and so do the other writers. It didn't occur to them that the audience wouldn't too. As a result, it is possibly the weakest part, and most universally hated parts of this season.

[sesamestreep]

Crozier/Fitzjames, fake amnesia

from this list of reverse tropes for fic writers. i told @firstelevens I wasn’t sure I had it in me to write fic for these two and then I went and washed my hair and while I did that, this idea popped into my head fully formed and I was bound by honor to write it down. Also it’s the first thing my brain has wanted to write in like two months, so I took that as a good sign?? Anyway, here’s…something. Kind of a Parks and Rec AU?? but also not in any serious way? It’s like…what if these dudes from The Terror worked in local government or whatever… don’t worry about logistics, I mostly wanted to write Blanky and Crozier being best friends and also talk about sobriety feelings a bunch. AND THEN I DID. only fits the prompt if you squint super hard but, regardless, please enjoy… on ao3 because why not

“So, you feel ready to go back to work tomorrow?”

Francis removes his gaze with considerable effort from the perfect red orb that is the sun sinking steadily under the horizon line across the lake and shifts it reluctantly back to Tom, who’s sitting back in his chair with his booted foot propped up on a milk crate that he got from God knows where. The sight of the boot that encases the lower half of his left leg does push a wave of guilty bile up the back of his throat but he’s already been told that if he apologizes for causing Tom to have need of it one more time, he’ll be drowned in the aforementioned lake, so he resists. Tom knows Francis is sorry about what happened and he’s chosen to forgive him, even if Francis still thinks it’s a stupid choice, second only to him befriending Francis in the first place all those years ago. Francis doesn’t know where he himself would have ended up if that hadn’t happened, though, so it all comes out in the wash he supposes.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Francis says, tracing a hairline fracture in his coffee mug with his thumbnail just for something to do. “If I take any more time off, I’ll just never go back, so it’s now or never, really.”

“Attaboy,” Tom says before taking a long, thoughtful drink from his own mug. Out of solidarity, or maybe sensitivity, he hadn’t had anything to drink tonight either, despite Francis’s assurances that it wouldn’t bother him and might even be a good idea, just for him to get used to it. It’s not like he could reasonably expect to go the rest of his life without ever seeing alcohol again. He’d seen four different ads for light beer alone this afternoon while watching reruns of ‘Bones’ on the couch and imagining every possible way his first day back in the office after rehab could go wrong and that hadn’t sent him into a tailspin, so he’d probably survive watching his best friend drink in his presence. Still, Tom had chosen to just drink decaf coffee with him after dinner like the ancient relics they are, because he is, without a doubt, the best person Francis has ever known. “You talk to anybody about it? I mean, besides me…”

“What, you mean like a therapist? Of course. I’ve got, what, six of them now, for Christ’s sake!”

“No, I mean, from the office. Have you talked to anyone about coming back?”

“Well, John, obviously.”

“I suppose you’d have to, yeah,” Tom says, running a ponderous hand over his chin. “Anything interesting from that quarter?”

“Just about what you’d expect,” Francis says, trying to be generous. John had been kind enough to let him keep his job, after all, despite how bad things got in the end, but Francis’s issues with the man remain, even with his newfound sobriety. Francis had sent him a long, downright obsequious email apologizing for the damage he’d done with his drunken theatrics both over the years and in the very recent past and explained in detail all the ways he was going to do better in the future, while expressing gratitude for the unprecedented amount of grace everyone, but particularly John, had shown him during this stressful time. It was, in no uncertain terms, the most embarrassing thing Francis has ever had to do, and he has, in his life, proposed to the same woman three separate times with absolutely no success, so it’s not like he’s lacking in options for that top spot.

John is, thankfully, the sort of man who likes to breeze past unpleasantness wherever he can and is also, more importantly, a deeply entrenched bureaucrat who’d just as soon do no work as do even a little work and therefore could not be bothered to hire a replacement for Francis. In fact, if he had to guess, John was probably clever enough to frame it as some sort of protection against a discrimination lawsuit somewhere down the line, despite the fact that several things Francis did at the staff Christmas party right before hitting rock bottom were definitely fireable offenses. John’s unflappable dedication to the status quo has worked in Francis’s favor for once, and while he certainly doesn’t deserve the break, he’s going to take it where he can get it on the off chance it never happens again.

“And the staff? Your team, I mean.”

“I got coffee with a few of them individually, just to clear the air and apologize, so that if anyone wanted to take a swing at me, they could do it outside of work,” Francis says, scuffing his shoe against the porch.

“Well, that’s considerate of you. Any of them try it?”

“No. The cowards,” Francis scoffs, which makes Tom laugh. “Jopson and Edward both seemed like they might be sick at the prospect of anyone in charge actually deigning to apologize to them, which was…humbling, to say the least. Then I got an extremely nervous monologue from Harry about the history and relative efficacy of Alcoholics Anonymous, which I think was his way of saying we’re square. And Silna told me if I tried to meet up with her outside of work hours again, she’d block my number and quit without notice, so...”

“She’s got the right of it,” Tom says, with a crooked grin.

“Yeah, that was my favorite of the lot,” Francis replies. “We’ll have a team meeting tomorrow and we’ll get someone in from HR so everyone can talk about feelings, God help us, but I think it might be okay. Which I could not have predicted when all this started, but here we are.”

“I could have,” Tom says. “You’ve made plenty of mistakes, I grant you, but you’ve also done right by these people in a lot of ways. They’re not going to forget that in a hurry. They’re a loyal bunch.”

Francis nods, looking out over the water again. The pinks and golds of the sunset a few moments ago have already faded into purples and blues as night creeps in. The nocturnal chorus of frogs croaking and insects trilling is rising in the nearby woods. He’s already said his piece about how absurd it is that they’re sitting comfortably outside on the porch after dinner—with jackets on and a fire going, sure, but still—and it’s only the beginning of March. Tom doesn’t need to hear any more ranting about global warming right now; it’s no fair repayment of his generosity. What Francis really should do is head for home soon and let his friend have some peace and quiet. He could use some of that himself, but he somehow doubts that he’ll get much rest once he’s home for the evening. At least he can panic about tomorrow properly there, though, by himself.

“Speaking of throwing punches,” Tom says, carefully, after they’ve been quiet a moment, “have you spoken to James at all?”

Francis winces with what feels like his entire body. “I haven’t had the chance,” he says, as lightly as he can manage.

It isn’t precisely true. If he found the time to contact everyone else who’d been affected by his spectacular fall from grace during his leave of absence, he could have found the time to reach out to James too, but he hadn’t. The apology he owes James Fitzjames is too big for an email, which he’d, in a truly cowardly fashion, gotten away with for almost everyone else, and the presumption and humiliation of asking for any of his free time as he’d done with some of his subordinates was a bridge too far. Besides, if they’d met up at a coffee shop to talk things out, Francis has no doubt James would have ordered his drink with oat milk or stevia instead of sugar or mentioned a cleanse he was on and Francis would have rolled his eyes and said something awful and then he probably would have had to go to rehab all over again, which would have defeated the point. Francis has been told by outside observers—professionals in the field, for what it’s worth—that he’s making progress, but he’s even more sure that he’s still, at his core, a miserable old bastard. He’s just less miserable than he was before, by a small margin. Unfortunately, he’s not any less old, though. In fact, he’s older, but that’s beside the point.

“You’ll have to face him sooner or later,” Tom says, not quite gently but not as bullying as he could be either.

“I know,” Francis says, covering his face with his hands. “I’ll do it tomorrow. I mean, if anyone’s entitled to an in-person apology, it’s James, surely.”

“After you punched him in front of everyone at the Christmas party and verbally berated him? Yeah, I think something more than a text message might be in order.”

“You accepted an apology text,” Francis says, scowling into his mug. “And I broke your leg. You needed surgery and everything. I don’t even think I broke James’s nose.”

“Only because your aim sucks when you’re wasted,” Tom replies, unbothered. “Gave him quite the shiner, though, if you want to compare wounds.”

Francis sighs. “I already said I’d talk to him. You have my word.”

“What am I? Your bloody father?”

“No, and I like you a great deal better for it.”

“Good, then what do I need your word for?”

“I was just trying to convey my sincerity.”

“I don’t doubt your sincerity, Francis. Never have. It’s everyone else you need to convince.”

“I don’t know what to say to James,” Francis says, into his hands. “I mean, with you at least, we’ve known each other for ages. We can bounce back from quite a lot, it turns out. James, he’s—I’ve never known how to talk to him in the first place. Now I’ve got to do it sober? I don’t know where to start.”

“How about, ‘James, I’m sorry for trying to knock your lights out with an audience present while I was drunk off my ass on the company dime’ to start?”

Francis closes his eyes and leans back in his chair, letting the shame wash over him like a wave and then, more importantly, letting it recede like waves do. He sighs loudly and shakes his head.

“You know, I’ve always regretted I wasn’t the sort of drunk who forgets what he does when he’s wasted. Feels like it might be easier, ultimately. Like, I could say, ‘oh, sorry for whatever I might have done to you, James. The trouble is I don’t remember any of it, but I’m sure it’s nothing I would have done sober, all the same.’”

“Feigning amnesia?” Tom barks, laughing and looking at him sideways. “What’s that? The thirteenth step?”

“Leave me alone,” Francis replies, waving him off but laughing himself despite his best efforts. “I’ve done a lot of owning up to things lately. Can’t I keep one petty grievance for myself?”

“You could probably get away with it, if you’d left it as a petty grievance rather than escalating to violence. And your resistance to dealing with James should tell you making amends there is your highest priority. Discomfort is a good thing here, a signal you’re heading in the right direction. If it were all easy, everyone would do it, you know.”

“That’s lovely, Tom. Will you be cross-stitching any of these aphorisms onto pillows to remind me to stay the course, or shall I just memorize them for when times get tough?”

“Fuck off, you dusty old prick,” Tom laughs. “Hey, what about this? ‘James, I’m ever so sorry for getting plastered and calling you out in front of everyone and then attempting to rearrange your pretty face with my fist! I do think some of the blame lies in you being so pretty and in me having some unresolved issues around my masculinity and my self-esteem, all of which you can blame on my waste of a father figure growing up, but in this case, I suppose I have to shoulder some of the responsibility for my actions myself. Forgive me?’”

“There’s no one else on earth who could get away with saying even half those things to me, you know,” Francis says, even as his blood doesn’t boil or even heat in the slightest hearing them. It rushes to his face instead, no doubt resulting in a fierce blush that the gathering darkness mercifully hides from view.

“I earned it the hard way, my friend,” Tom says, patting his boot.

“That you did,” Francis says, and rises from his seat. “I’d better be going, then. Much to do, after all: apologies to draft, laundry to fold, worst case scenarios to spin out.”

Tom gets up with effort, clunky and inelegant in his boot, but not so proud as to decline Francis’s hand when it’s offered. “I wasn’t trying to scare you off,” he says once he’s vertical.

“You didn’t. It’s like I said, I’ve a lot to do before the big day.”

Tom nods and, after a moment of deliberation, puts a hand on Francis’s shoulder. “You’re a good man, you know.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Francis replies, shifting away from the praise. “More of a bad man trying to be better.”

Tom gives him a long look at that and then shakes his head, smiling. “All that work on yourself and you still don’t get it,” he says, not unkindly. “What else do you think a good man is?”

Francis doesn’t know, but he spends the whole ride home and the rest of the night thinking about it all the same.

*

Francis’s plan of attack, such as it even exists, takes form more easily than he could have predicted. Once he starts thinking about how best to approach James at work and make amends on that front, he finds he knows a lot more about the man than he originally thought. A few years working together, however contentiously, has been enough to pick up on each other’s habits and quirks well enough that Francis can reasonably predict when he’ll be able to get a moment of James’s time without anyone else around. The fact that he can do this and yet never thought to do it before under any other circumstances is the cause of another wave of shame that passes less quickly than Francis would like.

Francis arrives at the City Planner’s office just before 8:30 in the morning with the certainty that he won’t run into John—the man has many flaws but his dedication to never showing up to work any earlier than he absolutely needs to is not one of them, in Francis’s opinion—but that he will, in all likelihood, find James already there and more than likely already working. He also arrives with the materials for a bribe, should that prove necessary.

He’s so worked up, going through everything he’s planning to say one last time in his mind before he actually sees James, that he doesn’t think to knock on the outer door, which is sitting half-open anyway, and just barges in instead. It’s not a great start, he realizes a second after it’s too late to do anything else, and it’s made even worse by the fact that James is there, as expected, and he’s only partially in his shirt, which is not so expected. Francis stops and gapes for a moment with all the grace of someone who’s been tased.

“God, sorry,” he says, and tries to step back, only to collide with the door jamb. “I should’ve—”

“Francis, it’s—good morning, I—this isn’t—I’m the—I’m sorry,” James says, managing to sound crisp and self-possessed even when he’s stammering his way through an apology. “I don’t normally…do this…in the office, I mean.”

“No, of course not,” Francis says, behaving like a teenager in a romantic comedy for some reason and averting his eyes, even though there’s nothing to see. James was in the process of buttoning his shirt when he came in, so it’s really the sight of his clavicle that’s made Francis so uncomfortable. Was he always this much of a ninny? Is that why he started drinking, to cover it up? It’s the only explanation that makes any sense now.

“I went for a run this morning and I neglected to pack a shirt with my work clothes, so I had to use the spare I keep in my desk for emergencies.”

The old Francis (of several weeks and easily a thousand group sessions ago) would have rolled his eyes at any number of things in that small explanation: running to work, keeping a spare shirt in one’s desk, referring to anything related to fashion as an ‘emergency’ and meaning it. Now, he nods thoughtfully and tries to think of it all as part and parcel of what he respects and admires about James: his dedication and planning, his ability to anticipate and address future challenges. The fact that he looks nice in blue. Whatever. It turns out it’s easier to do than he imagined it would be.

“I don’t think you have a habit of undressing in the office for fun, James,” Francis says, instead of any of those nice things. “Don’t worry.”

“Right,” James says, lightly, even as his shoulders remain tense. He does up the last few buttons and his clavicle disappears under the taut poplin fabric of his dress shirt. “Well, what can I do for you, Francis?”

Francis has heard—and, in turn, mocked—James on any number of occasions start conversations with a smooth, ‘to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?’, which is not an expression Francis himself has been treated to in a long time and for good reason. He doesn’t know why he thinks of it now, except that he’d take even a sarcastic reference to the pleasure of his company (of which there is none and never has been for James in particular, he thinks) over the idea that James should do anything for him, at this point.

“You’re training, then?” Francis asks, skirting gracelessly around the question James actually posed. “For another one of the what-do-ya-call-em’s? Not a marathon. The thing you did last year…?”

“The Ironman,” James suggests, looking slightly pained. “It’s a triathlon.”

“Yeah, that sounds right. Another one of those?”

“God, no,” James replies, nose wrinkling slightly before he seems to catch himself doing it and intentionally blanks his expression. “I’m not likely to do another one of those. I already have my bragging rights, after all. Today’s run was just for health.”

“Oh, sure,” Francis says, tapping a fingertip nervously against the cardboard sleeve of his coffee cup. “I’m meant to be doing that now.”

“Running?” James asks, betraying some surprise, which is fair enough.

“Exercising. For my health. To keep me…”

“Fit?”

“Well, distracted,” Francis replies, with a shrug. “There seems to be some thought of it helping to keep me away from drink, though I’m not sure what the logic is there. But I’m meant to be thinking of something I’d enjoy, anyway.”

“Not running, then,” James says, brow crinkling like he’s giving the matter serious thought. James is a fixer by nature—and by profession, of course, being paid mostly to follow John around and make sure the grand promises that flow from his mouth actually happen somehow. He thrives with a problem to solve. If Francis were even marginally less stupid and less proud, he might have thought to come to James sooner. He’s nothing if not several very large problems wrapped in a trench coat. Or a wind breaker, in actuality. The point is, Francis could use all the fixing he can get his hands on.

“Not likely. Never enjoyed it, really. Hard on the ankles, I’ve found.”

“Yes, it can be quite stressful on the joints. You’ve got to take all sorts of precautions,” James says, in the tone he gets when he’s working his way up to a long treatise of some kind, but he stops abruptly and his face betrays that he’s seemingly caught himself. He clears his throat. “So, it’s not for everyone. I understand.”

“Yes, well, my sponsor was saying that I might try tennis or racquetball, but then I’d have to find a regular partner or group, and I’m not sure I have it in me.”

“There’s a club nearby, actually, and they could help you arrange—” James pauses and shakes his head, once again stopping himself from expounding on the different options available the way he normally would. It’s an uncharacteristic amount of restraint coming from James, who loves recommending things to other people almost as much as he loves the sound of his own voice. Francis sees some of his own handiwork in this new display of shame and feels the need to make amends even more keenly than before because of it. “Well, you can Google it, I imagine, and it would be faster than listening to me. It is, uh—it’s in Eagleton, however, so I suppose that won’t do.”

“No,” Francis replies, frowning. “Thanks all the same, though. I imagine I’ll end up doing water aerobics with the rest of the senior citizens at the community center and call it a day.”

“You’re not a—you’re barely fifty, Francis!”

“I’m fifty-two, actually.”

“Oh, well, in that case, I hope you have your affairs in order,” James gripes, as he messes with something entirely unnecessarily on his desk. Francis smiles at the strange comfort of annoying him, which should not be reassuring to him at all but he’s a messed up sort of fellow even on his best days. The smile grows when James clears his throat again and adds, like he can’t quite stop himself, “Swimming’s rather good for the joints, actually.”

“Swimming?” Francis asks.

“Yes, swimming. As in, laps…in a pool. Something else the community center offers, if you were interested. It’s solitary—meditative, even—and good exercise. In—that is, in case you were wondering.”

“If this is you trying to talk me into a triathlon, James—”

James sniffs, more performatively haughty than genuinely haughty, Francis suspects. “I’d never,” he says. “I was merely recommending an activity that you might enjoy more than water aerobics, and that might spare the elderly of our community from dealing your obvious personality disorder early in the morning, when those classes tend to be held.”

Francis, much to James’s surprise from the look on his face, laughs at that. “I’ll take that under advisement,” he says, while James continues to regard him like he’s wild animal exhibiting signs of rabies who’s suddenly appeared in his path, which is maybe a common occurrence in town, depending on who you ask. “Thank you.”

James nods, distracted. “Sure.”

“Well, I—I…listen, I didn’t come here to talk about exercise regimes, which I figure you could have guessed,” Francis says, in a rush, because anything less than a headlong dive into the subject they need to discuss will hurt much worse than just getting it over with, he suspects. “And I don’t want to presume anything about your life, but I also figure there’s a non-zero chance that you’re already familiar with the famous 12 step program, maybe just through cultural osmosis, and I don’t want to over explain any of it to you, but, well, there’s a pretty important part about identifying people you’ve wronged through your addiction and the resulting behavior and making direct amends to said try people and—”

“I’m familiar,” James interrupts, softly. “Not directly, of course, or, um, anything like that—I don’t want to detract—but—”

Francis waves him off. “No need to explain. I just—well, obviously, that list of people, for me, had to include you, because of what transpired between us at the end of last year and how I behaved. The things I said to you, then—how I’ve always spoken to you, really—and of course, I—God, I’m so sorry. It feels absurd to say out loud but I’m sorry for lashing out at you and hitting you, I should never have—”

“It’s fine, Francis,” James says, starchily. He’s got a nervous hand pressed to his ribcage, so intently that it’s almost shocking to look and see no actual knife sticking out from there, somehow. With that, it’s hard to believe the breeziness of his words. “Really, this isn’t necessary.”

“And I’m telling you it is,” Francis explains, as carefully as he can manage. “Maybe it isn’t for you, I don’t know, but it’s necessary for me. Do you—can you understand that?”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” James says, after a deep breath. “Of course. Is there…more?”

“You tell me. Is there any other ways my drinking harmed you that I haven’t thought of?”

“No, I wasn’t—”

Francis holds up a hand to stop him. “That probably read as very sarcastic, given our…history, let’s say, but it was a genuine question. I think I’ve raked myself over the coals for every possible slight I can imagine but if there’s anything I did that I can address for you now, I’d have you tell me.”

“No, it’s fine, really,” James replies, shakily. “I only meant, I don’t really know what goes into all this. Is amends just an apology or is there more to it? I don’t need there to be, I was just curious. That’s all.”

“Well, you’re meant to endeavor to show you’ve changed your ways, I suppose. To indicate that you won’t be perpetuating the same harm in the future. Which, in this case, is tough, because…well, I mean, all I can give you is my word I won’t try to knock you out at work ever again.”

“Outside of work hours, however…” James muses, with a small, mirthless smile.

Francis winces, but otherwise doesn’t react. “I’ll never behave that way towards you again. On my honor, for whatever that’s worth.”

James folds his arms over his chest and looks down at the carpet, appearing like a sullen youth for a brief moment before he raises his gaze and becomes a grown man once more. Francis remembers when he’d shown up with John that first time, how he’d called James an infant to Tom when they finished their initial meeting with him about the town’s budget crisis all those years ago. Tom had laughed at him, wheezing ‘he’s a decade younger than us, if he’s anything, Francis. He’s our bloody peer now, and if you don’t see it, you’re cracked!’ Francis thought—still thinks—Tom is the one who’s cracked, in this case. James looked young, then; he looks young now, everywhere except the eyes, which contain a stormy sea’s worth of disappointment. Francis can be self-centered with the best of them but he knows he’s not the one who put that feeling there in the first place. He’s not that important. For the first time, however, he feels protective of the man in front of him because of it and takes it as his very solemn duty to never be the cause of his disappointment again, so long as it can be helped. All that and it’s not even 9 in the morning yet.

“It’s worth plenty,” James says, eventually, clearly just as uncomfortable with this much emotion so early in the day as Francis is and eager to be done with it. “Thank you, Francis.”

“Yes, well, I won’t take up any more of your time, I’ve been nuisance enough for one morning, but if there’s ever anything you want to discuss or clear up between us, my door’s always open. To you, that is. Well, to anyone, but just in case your particular welcome was unclear, I mean, you should—”

James sweeps a hand out wide in a graceful gesture like he’s literally clearing the air. “Understood,” he says, sincerely, “and appreciated.”

“Great,” Francis says, too cheerily and then winces again. “I mean, uh—right, I’ll just be going then.”

As he pivots back towards the door, the sloshing noise of the ice shifting in one of the cups he’d forgotten he was holding draws his attention. Christ, right. The whole point was—Francis really is starting to lose his mind. He contemplates just leaving anyway, like nothing’s amiss, but he’ll have to explain the two drinks to his team, absolutely none of whom will buy that the iced chai is for him. He’s gone on too many rants about how coffee shouldn’t be iced and tea only on certain occasions. He’s the type to drink hot, black coffee even on the most brutal summer days, though his sponsor did warn him that a lot of alcoholics do turn to sweets as a coping mechanism for replacing alcohol in their daily lives and not to be surprised if he found himself needing additional sweetener in his morning coffee as a result. Francis hadn’t credited it at the time, but he had found himself momentarily tempted at the coffee shop this morning by a sign advertising something called a ‘death by chocolate latte’ as the daily special before he’d gotten a hold of himself, so maybe there’s some truth to it. The point is, dragging this extra drink back to his office will be more humiliating than turning around and giving it to James like he originally planned, no matter how awkward it feels right now.

“Okay,” he says, turning back, “I promise this is the last thing and then I will let you get back to work. There’s, uh—it’s not a bribe, mind you, just an extension of the apology for what happened and for the fact that you’ll have to continue working with me for the foreseeable future and—you don’t have to forgive me, you don’t owe me that, I just thought—”

James looks at him, utterly perplexed, fingertips gently steepled on the top of the desk like he’d already been going back to whatever he was working on when Francis interrupted again. “What is it?” he asks, somehow still not betraying any annoyance at the interruption, hiding it well under an open tone of curiosity.

“The—this,” Francis finally spits out with considerable effort, holding the cup out towards James, rather than try to explain himself further. “It’s for you.”

“Oh,” James replies, with an expression like Francis is trying to hand him a live gerbil and not an upsettingly overpriced beverage like the ones he’s seen James drink on dozens of occasions. “I, uh—that’s really not necessary.”

“You must take it, James. Please. I said you’re not obligated to forgive me, I’m not trying to sway you, really. It just felt wrong to show up empty handed, after everything.”

“I understand, but, really—”

“You’re not on another one of your cleanses, are you? Giving up sugar or…calories before noon or something?” Francis ventures, imbuing his tone with more patience than he normally would, even though he still feels very little towards this thing in particular.

James is already so annoyingly healthy and brisk and handsome, it does take extraordinary amounts of patience to tolerate his talk of intermittent fasting and green juice with the goal of making himself even more annoyingly perfect. Surely, there’s got to be a limit to that sort of thing, but Francis doesn’t know; he’s on the opposite end of the spectrum it seems, having to re-learn the fundamentals of barely looking after himself in middle age without the aid of alcohol. It’s pretty grim, if he’s being honest. It really is no wonder that James has been so consistently earning the gold medal spot in the competitive sport of getting on Francis’s nerves, with that in mind.

His intentional gentleness does seem to pay off in this case, though, since James smiles at him in only mild embarrassment. “Uh, no, I’m not. I just—you’re not obliged to—”

“I know, but—listen, James, I already committed my penance by having to say the phrase ‘dirty chai’ with a straight face to a college student with a lip piercing at eight in the morning, okay? The damage is done. You might as well enjoy the spoils of my humiliation.”

James’s smile widens at that, looking for all the world like he can’t really stop himself. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but that mental image might be worth more to me than the entirety of your apology.”

“No offense taken,” Francis says, finally succeeding in handing off the cup, slick with condensation by now, into James’s care. “I hope it will sustain you for a while yet.”

“Oh, it shall,” James says, placing the cup gingerly onto his desk.

“Right, well,” Francis replies, “that’s all, then. I’ll see you…later, I suppose.”

James nods. “We have a meeting set for Tuesday—tomorrow. It should be on your calendar. Thomas said he—”

“If Jopson says it’s there, it’s there.”

“Great,” James says, easily. “Until then.”

“Yes. ‘Til tomorrow.”

Mission completed, Francis turns once more towards the door and is only interrupted in leaving by the sound of James clearing his throat behind him. He pauses, and looks over his shoulder, raising his eyebrows in question when he meets James’s eye.

“It’s only—forgive me if this is the wrong thing to say, under the circumstances,” James offers, fidgeting with the edge of the notepad lying open on his desk, “but you do—that is, you look well, Francis.”

Francis doesn’t allow himself the liberty of moving even an inch, not to fiddle with his collar or brush back his hair or otherwise indicate he gives so much as one singular damn about his appearance. “Do I?” he asks, tone purposely vague, like James has just told him the weather forecast and it’s only interesting to him in theory, really.

“Yes, very well,” James says, putting his hand flat on the desk very deliberately, like it was giving him away before. At what, who knows, but he’s got it under control now. “This change, it suits you.”

“Well, thank you, I guess.”

James now looks at his computer screen, absently. The next words he says might be something he was reading off of there, if they were anything else. “You look good, is what I meant.”

“How—?” Francis pauses, feeling immense pressure to say this right, somehow. “Sorry, but how would that be the wrong thing to say?”

“I wouldn’t want you to think, well—” James interrupts himself by laughing, just a little and rather joylessly. “It’s not that you didn’t look good before.”

“Oh, right,” Francis says, even as those words continue to make no sense to him in that particular order coming from this particular person. “Wait, you’re saying—I did?”

James meets his eye again, finally, but only to give him the most impatient, long-suffering look in human history. “Is it too much to hope that one of the twelve steps involves learning to take a compliment?” he asks, sounding depleted by the effort. “Because it is one of your most exhausting qualities that you can’t do so without endless interrogation first.”

“And it’s got a lot of competition,” Francis replies, feeling himself smile and choosing to do nothing to stop it, “what with all my other exhausting qualities.”

“You’re really only proving my point here, you know.”

“Thank you, James,” Francis says, dutifully. “It’s very kind of you to say. Better?”

“Much,” James sighs. “You’re showing remarkable improvement already.”

Francis leaves him, then, because to stay any longer would just be exposing himself to further ridicule and he’d absolutely deserve it, what with the stupid smile he now can’t seem to get rid of.

[princecharmingwinks]

Sterek Fic Rec - December 2022. Is it still December? Yes, for about 5 more hours, oops! Here is the final monthly rec list for the year. I hope everyone is doing something nice to bring in the new year (snuggling into bed absolutely counts!). 

Many times, Many ways by Jmeelee (1/1 | 3K | Mature)

He turned around and stormed toward his Jeep. Derek called out his name, but Stiles flipped him off over his shoulder. He jabbed the key into the ignition, roared the engine, and smoked the tires as he peeled out of the parking lot, but not before he cranked down the glass and screamed at Derek from the driver’s side window, “Merry Christmas, motherfucker!”

OR

Five times Stiles and Derek ruined Christmas, and one time they fixed it.

Build A Wolf by PalenDrome (nerdherderette) (1/1 | 5K | Teen)

Derek is a romantic. He dreams of finding his mate, of connecting with that special someone who will make his heart swoon.

[Excerpt]: "Who says I need to be in a relationship to be happy?" Derek asks, his hackles rising. Besides, Boyd has it all wrong. Derek has Die Hard on his Christmas queue.

Yippee ki yay.

Boyd holds up both hands. "Not me. If you want to be a bachelor forever, I'm not one to judge."

"But I am," Erica says. "You don't date anymore. Hell, when's the last time you even got laid? Which would also be fine, except it's not, because you're miserable and it's obvious that's not what you really want."

Sometimes Derek has a hard time following Erica's logic. Unfortunately, this is not one of those moments.

"It doesn't matter," he says, digging the excess rice out from his wrap. "I'm better off alone."

Mint Condition by fairytalesandfolklore (1/1 | 955 | Teen)

He checks the clock, frowning in concern. Stiles had said he was going to change and that he'd be right back, but that was over twenty minutes ago. He's about to get up and go check on him, when the all-too-familiar tune of his least favorite song in the entire world starts playing on the stereo, and out comes Stiles wearing nothing but a jauntily perched Santa hat and a pair of the tiniest shorts Derek has ever seen — bright red satin to match his hat — and when Stiles twirls around to give Derek the full effect, he can make out the words naughty elf emblazoned across his asscheeks. Derek can do little more than stare open-mouthed as Stiles saunters toward him, sucking on the end of a candy cane in what he probably imagines is a seductive way, shaking his ass in time to the music — which, ugh. (As far as Derek is concerned, if hell had a soundtrack, it'd be an endless loop of Santa Baby…but it's Stiles, so he'll make an exception.) Overall, the effect is actually quite charming, and Derek would be lying if he said it wasn't doing something for him. And then Stiles starts talking.

lube and determination by bleep0bleep (2/2 | 4K | Explicit)

It's a holiday classic: homesick boy wants to make a pumpkin pie while studying abroad, boy realizes the only place to find vegetable shortening is a sex shop, and boy makes fool of himself in front of other boy.

Little talks by Vendelin (1/1 | 5K | Mature)

“Your favourite is here,” Danny says, smirking. “I tried to steal him away by giving him some extra attention, but he just looked uncomfortable.”

Stiles snorts, though he’s secretly pleased by his regular rejecting Danny. “He always looks a bit uncomfortable. I bet he’s married with a kid and a permanent guilty conscience when he’s here.”

It had been quite the surprise for Stiles to realise that he had a regular. A pretty young, hot regular, on top of that.

In which Stiles is a stripper, and Derek is the always-polite regular at the club where he works.

Depth of Field by midnitekween (1/1 | 7K | Explicit)

Stiles loves taking pictures of his pack.

Kiss It Better, Kiss It Back Together by crossroadswrite (1/1 | 3K | General)

For the tumblr prompt: stiles is cursed by a witch to forget the person he loves the most so everyone thinks it's Lydia but it's not and the only way to get the memories back is through a kiss

i see forever in your eyes by hufflepuffbaby (1/1 | 1K | Teen)

Stiles looked at his big bad Alpha, with his blush and his thumbhole sweater, and Stiles found he didn’t care if it was a bad idea, he was going to relationship the fuck out of Derek for as long as he was allowed.

Flufftober Day 5 : "Oh, no, you're a morning person"

Make You See It by sparkandwolf (thatnerdemryn), thatnerdemryn (1/2 | 2K | Mature)

Stiles didn’t say anything and Derek was grateful for leaving him speechless.

“Your mind, the way it pieces together every last puzzle piece, the way it connects dots that the rest of us didn’t even know were there, it’s--” Derek let out a breath against Stiles’ ear and reveled in the chill it sent through Stiles. “You are the most powerful of all of us.”

no matter how far away you roam by elisela (1/1 | 2K | General)

Stiles regrets not getting a tree.

He hadn’t been feeling very festive—decorations were reminders that he was spending the holidays alone, so he’d decided not to put them up, but now it’s Christmas Eve and there’s not even a strand of lights around the room to cheer him up. Watching Die Hard hadn’t worked, neither had The Grinch, and Derek hadn’t answered his phone the last three times Stiles had called him today.

It’s 7:34pm on Christmas Eve, and Stiles is ready to give it up and call it a night.

princecharmingwinks special mention (Oh my gosh I love the smut in this and the humour and everything else.)

Come Fly With Me (Or Don't) by stilinskisparkles (1/1 | 15K | Mature)

Stiles is overworked and stressed out when his flight home gets delayed due to copious amounts of snow. He finds entertainment with one Derek Hale, whom he hasn't seen since high school but really doesn't mind getting reacquainted with.

Especially when it turns out Derek is surprisingly hilarious and will reluctantly play snap with him. And can walk on his hands.

Made it through another year team, well done one and all. Happy holidays and see you in the new year ;)

[fandomshatefatpeople]

I've been fat my whole life. Ever since I was a kid. And ever since I was a kid I've been mocked, bullied, ridiculed, insulted and even physically assaulted for being fat. To the point I ended up with an eating disorder and lost a lost of weight. Way too fast. In a way that wasn't healthy at all. But I still wasn't happy. Because I couldn't recognize myself anymore. And I felt like i was just doing this for other people. But it's just so hard for me to accept my body. It just feels like I'll never be happy with it no matter what

I'm so sorry we haven't answered this. I know that this is a triggering ask so I'm gonna add all the tags i possibly can followers.

I'm actually a lot like you Nonny. I was a chubby kid, then got my period at 10 because I was so fat. I had an eating disorder by 14 and while it didn't last long (the bulimia at least) I kinda got comfortable in my skin even though I slowly crawled back up to my previous weight I got diagnosed with depression and anxiety. So the meds they put me on made me gain weight (50 pounds in 6 months). There after I did yoyo dieting and exercising flirted with bulimia again but it didn't work this time.

I'm not telling you this to trauma dump. I want you to consider my age and experience. I'm in my early forties. And its like... part of the reason I wasn't happy with my body was because I grew up with magazines and tv and movies constantly showing me thin ppl.

i don't think I stopped yoyo dieting until the cycle of yoyp dieting made me hit 250 lbs (I'm only 5'2) by then i was like 28/30ish. And like I think what changed was that I was watching media with like Donna from Parks and Rec, Shirley Bennet from Community. And they were never made to feel ugly for being fat. It was eye opening. (spoiler alert even though I'm not black Ugly betty was like more of the same thin ppl are the only that matter).

I don't think I really got comfortable in my skin until I joined pinterest about 7 or 8 years ago and got fed a steady stream of fat people in cute outfits.

Its still hard to find fat representation though. And I started looking into romance novels with chubby and fat protagonists about 5 years ago. Most notably the Brown sisters trilogy. They're all overweight and they all have these handsome men falling head over heels with them.

But like its one thing to admire people on pinterest with cute outfits. its a complete other thing to actually shop for yourself and give yourself permission to buy cute clothes.

One strange thing that happened about 3 years ago was that I gained like 40 pounds and all of my boring clothes didn't fit me anymore.

So this time shopped on lane bryant for cute dresses and jeans. and torrid, and hot topic. I started playing with makeup. (before I had like a uniform of jeans).

I'm not gonna lie people will *always* praise you for losing weight even if its because you're literally sick with an eating disorder or having health problems. (a friend of mine who did belly dancing lost like 30 pounds like really fast because all of the sudden she couldn't process meat anymore everyone fawned over her weight loss). she was literally starving and people wouldn't stop cooing over her skinniness.

I don't know what to think about society at large and their obsession with thinness. I've tried telling my family that I no longer want to keep clothes from when I was 250ish and they're all like "oh don't worry you'll lose the weight!!!"

I'm like bitch please. But its exhausting having people encourage you to lose weight. If you want you can message us off anon!!!

*hugs*

mod laina

[birdkeeperklink]

10 characters 10 fandoms

I was tagged by @salsedine ages ago (thank you! 👋🥰) and finally getting around to it!

So these are in no particular order even though they're numbered, but here we go:

1. Leonard McCoy from Star Trek: The Original Series

I love his gruff exterior coupled with how much he cares really deeply. He's passionate and full of fire, but he's also so compassionate and caring. He's a healer, but instead of embodying the "saint-like" version of that trope, he's all too human and flawed. I adore him.

2. Joan Watson and Sherlock Holmes from Elementary

Yes, I am cheating, but they are sold as a set do not separate 🤷

I just love both of them. I love the way they interact, and their partnership in every sense of the word. They're funky and unapologetic about it, and they can be sharp and vindictive, but they can also be so, so soft and caring, both to each other and to others.

3. Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones

He's slick and snarky and talented. He's in a nasty codependent romance with his sister. He's incredibly insecure yet incredibly cocky. He's so so brave and stupid. He's in love with Brienne and shows it by giving her a sword. He's a hot mess. Just a complete disaster of a human. I love it. I want to study him in a jar.

4. Sam from Lord of the Rings

He's a cinnamon roll, does this need more explanation? 🤷

5. Leslie Knope from Parks and Rec

She never, ever gives up, and she believes so hard in making the world a better place, and she loves her friends so much, and.... She's just inspiring. She's a character who gives me energy and makes me feel like things can get better and good people can make a difference.

6. Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit

My boy 🥹 He is fierce and loyal and cunning, and he's got a temper and can somehow get away with scolding people twice his size. The bitch energy is at epic levels, and yet he's also somehow so caring. He is an icon, a legend. We can only aspire to such sass and love as is packed in this tiny man.

7. Basil from The Great Mouse Detective

He's ridiculously cute and smart. I love how he pretty much adopted Dawson as His within like 5 seconds of meeting him. He's also a secret softie, getting all testy with Olivia only to pretty much immediately cave when she starts crying. Plus he's Sherlock Holmes as a mouse. Only wins here.

8. Richard from Galavant

He's a pathetic noodle of a man who's committed horrible atrocities by his own admission, yet he still manages to make you want to give him a hug. What a disaster man. I adore him.

9. Alan Grant from Jurassic Park/World

He's got a PhD but can't figure out a seat belt. He's clearly madly in love with Ellie but takes like 30 years to admit that he'd rather have her than his career. Yet again, a complete disaster. Are you sensing a pattern?

10. Bek from Gods of Egypt

Yes, I know this movie has problems, first and foremost the whitewashing, but I can't help it 🙈 Bek in particular is just 👌 He's so determined and spunky. He says cheesy one-liners to himself while stealing from literal gods. He's blasphemous to the gods' faces. The love of his life is killed and his immediate response is to blackmail a god into bringing her back to life. He's lucky and brash. I love him.

No pressure tagging:

@the-chickenshit-oddity @lassiesspanishaccent @lenievi @figsandfandoms @51kas81 @mourningroutine @underture @lovethistoomuch

You don't have to if you don't want to, but if you do - tag! You're it!

[alister312]

hi... i just joined sp tumblr a few days ago and found your blog and im looking for blogs here to follow? is there anyone you would recommend? any ships are ok!

hey anon!! i think tumblr is so much about personal curation and taste, especially within the sp community, but i'm more than happy to rec a bunch of the blogs i personally follow <3

to start, i clearly love gregstophe and if you also like them (or are looking to become a fan), i highly recommend @pnjrnk, @xyrothmuse, @cheesymorgue, @advisinghat56, @avemariaholic, @r0b2n, and @fox1well1 in terms of relatively active artists. not all of them are consistently gregstophe or even south park, but they're all so incredibly talented and kind <3 there's not that many active fic writers out there for the pair, but @stupidintrders, @revoleotion, and @hellsonlyrose are all active posters who have written for the pair that i have had wonderful conversations with. there’s absolutely more people who i could include here who are gregstophe shippers, but i don’t want to be TOO overwhelming.

for probably my #2 ship (style), i can't not highlight my pal @allymumu who not only has the most gorgeous art style but also writes meta posts from time to time! @prichiyot is another double threat of incredible art and quality writing, gotta give her a look. i've been super into @anddersun and @marshwayle's art lately also?? definitely check them out. and style nation would be NOWHERE without the incredible art that comes from icons like @bunytime, @sn33z3s, @pononoin, @emilyartstudio-s, and @adriabun. on the writer side of things, @amporella writes both fics and meta usually centered around stan and/or kyle and she's got such a good grasp on them as characters. there's a good chance you already know her, but @fayoftheforest writes fic for various pairs but her big one is style and she always has nice things to say. @lyingmakesyousterile has this really intriguing ground hog day-esque fic right now and @tullievolf's fic cosmonauts is life-altering to say the least.

struggling to think of blogs who lean towards/specialize in other ships... but i've got a few! there's countless talented catg artists that lean towards creek out there, but my personal beloveds are @honey-creek (also essential for all clyde lovers), @craigrights, @tweekbroscoffeeshop, and @messtyrion. for fic, obviously @wintergrew if you don’t already know them. for k2, you need to check out @candyunicornsateme, @herbietales, @halwo, and @5ftkyle. all incredible artists as well as general enjoyers of the characters.

AND i've got a number of just general artists and bloggers i really love. @south-park-dimensions is a really cool webcomic with kickass designs and concepts that EVERYONE needs to get on board with now. @imaginationlandtrilogy writes incredible meta, in particular about ike right now. @michuyox has been putting out nothing but bangers lately. @hachichimitsu has neat art and also made this wild mbti quiz (paired with sp character analysis) a while ago that lives in my head rent free. @spinthetags is a really fun blog to help generate some conversation amongst fans. i’m in an artist server that leans heavily sp with a bunch of people who are just some of nicest, funniest, and most talented artists and i could go on and on about them but this rec list is already SO LONG that i’m just gonna close out by tagging a bunch of them: @ghostlykermode, @fantadrawsstuff, @infernoartcorner, @cricket-teeeth, @tuckerrrrr, @sun-sunny, @sp-pitch-park

[creatorofuniverses]

Day 17 – Size Swap

Today's prompt is size swap! For this I decided to go with a size-swap AU for In Deep Waters (regular story here), because it's a thought I've had for a while now and this is as good an excuse as any to write some of it. Enjoy!

____________________

My name is Jeremy Waters, and I have never left New Mexico.

I say this just to point out how mundane my life should be. I don’t take risks, I don’t put myself in dangerous situations. I’m not the kind of person who would, say, go hiking through the Alaskan wilderness. The most excitement I normally get is going out to happy hour with some friends.

I’m fine with that. Really. I don’t need or want much more excitement- I get anxious when there’s more traffic than usual. Boring suits me just fine. Hence why I live in the same town I grew up in, less than an hour from my aunt and uncle, in an apartment owned by a friend of a friend. The college I recently graduated from is a few blocks away, and my upcoming job as a court stenographer only necessitates a fifteen-minute drive.

My life, by all rights, should be entirely normal. Yet, recently it’s been nothing but strange.

Strange, and dangerous. 

It started with a walk in the park.

Well, not really, I’m sure it started in some other strange place with a much more unusual set of circumstances, but for me it started then and there. The park was a familiar one to me, being on the walk from my current apartment to the college I’d just graduated from a few weeks ago. Now, in the decent chunk of summer I had between graduation and the start of my new job, I often wound up at the park just to relax. It had a few trees for shade, as well as a retention pond, where ducks liked to hang out. Sometimes I would come and feed them lettuce, just for something to do.

I actually had brought lettuce that day – there was some in my backpack, flat and nearly-empty given that I had no plans for the day and no classes to go to anymore – but there were no ducks in the pond. Looking back, I think that’s why I wandered over rather than staying in the shade of the trees. It was kind of strange to not see even one bird there. The day was hot and dry enough that they would surely seek out the water.

I stepped off of the paved sandstone path and into the scraggly grass, which was doing its best to be green but had only reached a sort of parched greenish yellow. They didn’t waste much water on a sprinkler system for a park that was mostly rocks and benches. The grass got a little greener near the edge of the retention pond, and I stopped there, looking out at the relatively small body of water.

The surface was still. There wasn’t much wind that day, and no birds, so that didn’t strike me as odd at the time. What did seem odd was the amount of wood floating on top of the water, like some rotted old tree branch had crumbled into the pond. Only, there weren’t any trees close enough to do that, and all the trees in the park seemed perfectly healthy. Weird.

I crouched down near the edge of the water, watching the pieces bob slowly. One of the larger bits of wood, a few feet away, seemed to have something on it. I squinted for a few moments before realizing that it was a… doll? Must be. It was only about four inches long, though it was curled up with its eyes closed, as if it were sleeping. It was probably made to look that way. It was all wet, from its short black hair to its little boots, and I looked around with a furrowed brow, wondering if some kid had lost it here or if it had somehow been washed into the pond with the rest of the debris. There had been a bad storm the night before, though I hadn’t heard about anything drastic happening.

Maybe there was a parks and rec lost-and-found I could turn it in to or something. I leaned forward and reached for it, my arm outstretched and my fingers barely brushing against it before I managed to snag the edge of the wood and drag the whole thing closer.

Then it opened its eyes.

I yelped, caught by surprise with my own eyes wide, and then the little not-a-doll shrieked in return. It scrambled to its hands and knees – dexterously, way too naturally, oh my god it must actually be alive – and skittered away.

And fell right off the edge of the wood and into the pond with a quiet plop!

“Oh shit,” I breathed, at a loss for anything else to say for a long moment. Too long, my brain clamored at me, what if it couldn’t swim? I pushed past the impossibility of it all, which was conspiring with my anxiety to grab my full attention, and after only a moment of twitchy hesitation I plunged my hand into the water after the little thing.

I waved my hand around in the water blindly for a moment before feeling some movement, and I managed to cup my hand around something small and flailing and pull it up out of the water. I had barely managed this, my hand and wrist dripping water and my fingers loosely holding onto the little whatever-it-was, when a tentacle – yes, you read that right – shot up out of the water after me and wrapped itself around my wrist.

I shrieked. It was an embarrassing shriek, far from manly, but in my defense I was thoroughly freaked out by this point. I waved my arm madly, trying to dislodge the slimy, completely unwanted grip of the tentacle even as I tried to backpedal further from the edge of the water. It clung to me, slick, sucker-covered muscle squeezing my wrist with shockingly strong tension, until I’d pulled enough that a good length of the tentacle was stretched out of the water. I caught a glimpse of something, a shadowy suggestion of some larger body coming towards the surface, before it finally let me go. The tentacle whipped back into the water, which rippled with the motion before falling still again, as if nothing had ever happened.

 Rubbing my wrist with my other hand, I scrambled to my feet and made it all the way back to the benches before I remembered why I’d been reaching into the water in the first place. Peeling open my fingers, which had clenched up in a loose sort of cage around the little doll-thing, I looked down and tried to assess what the fuck was even going on. My heavy breathing and pounding heart settled a bit as the confusion of this new mystery overwhelmed my previous panic.

Whatever it was, it was definitely alive. It pushed against my fingers with weak little hands and feet, struggling to sit up in my palm. Upon closer look, it seemed to be dressed in teeny furs, which were drenched after being submerged in the pond. It had short black hair, dripping with the tiniest droplets of water I’d ever seen, and its features looked vaguely indigenous. When it finally managed to sit up, it looked up at me – with a little face so round and babyish that it must be young, whatever it was – and babbled out something miserably. “Na’awa eren al? Eren al an ch’itok?” I didn’t recognize the language at all, much less the strange clicking sound the little thing added right in the middle, and my confusion must have shown because that tiny expression only got increasingly distressed. The little thing sniffled, face contorting into pure childlike dismay, before it burst into tears. “Il ta-impi ilo nani!” it wailed, before curling up even smaller and sobbing as noisily as something that small could.

When I say I was both heart-stricken and shocked, both are an understatement. No matter how impossible the situation, the fact remained that for all intents and purposes I had a four-inch-tall child crying in my hand, and there was nobody and nothing around to help or explain. A quick glance showed that no other regular people were around, and there weren’t even any other impossible, tiny people floating on the pieces of wood that remained in the pond. This was up to me, and I had absolutely no idea what to do.

So I did what I do whenever any situation gets strange and unpredictable- I went home.

I tucked the sobbing little kid close to me, hoped like hell nobody would notice, and walked on home at the fastest casual power-walk I could manage. It probably didn’t look casual at all, but thankfully nobody looked at me twice (even if they did look at me once, something my social anxiety couldn’t help but clock, and the fear of being asked what I was doing chased me all the home).

My brain raced even faster than my feet along the way. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Tiny people weren’t supposed to exist, and the retention pond in a city park sure as hell wasn’t supposed to have anything in it with tentacles like that. The storm last night couldn’t explain that. I’d heard stories about creatures in the ocean getting picked up and put somewhere else during hurricanes, but the storm had hardly been a hurricane, and besides, this was New Mexico. We were way too far from the ocean for that to be a thing. Had an octopus escaped from the local aquarium? Did we even have an aquarium in town? I was positive we didn’t, actually.

I arrived home with a lot of questions and a total of zero answers. Still, shutting and locking the door behind me was a huge relief. I might still have a reality-breaking little kid in my hand, but at least no zoo-escapees were about to lunge out at me here. We were safe.

Looking down, I carefully pulled my hand away, peeking in at the tiny anomaly. The miniature child looked back up at me with obvious fear and hesitation; they’d stopped crying, but their expression still held all too much misery, their dark little eyes watery and their cheeks flushed with emotion. Poor thing. I hadn’t exactly made the best impression.

“It’s okay,” I told them softly. They startled at my voice, flinching back against my fingers, but still stared up at me. Maybe they were trying to understand; I had no doubt that they understood my language about as well as I understood theirs, but I was hoping my tone might come across all the same. “I’m not going to hurt you.” They kept staring for a moment before sniffling and rubbing their eyes with the back of one teeny hand.

They were still soggy – holding them so close had made a little wet spot on my t-shirt – so I figured the first order of business was to get them dried off. I hurried to the bathroom and rummaged around in the linen closet for a washcloth (a whole towel would obviously have been overkill). Setting them down carefully on the bathroom counter, I watched them get to their feet before hesitantly offering the washcloth. “Do you… want to get dry?” I asked, hoping at least the question would come across. It suddenly felt awkward. This was a kid, impossibly teeny or not, and they weren’t my kid. I was hoping they were old enough to be able to do stuff for themself, like drying off, because I suddenly very much didn’t want to come across as some weird stranger trying to do that for them.

To my extreme relief, they looked at me quizzically but reached out for the washcloth with two teeny little hands. I let them take it, though the moment I let go their arms fell down with the weight of it, and they had to work hard to wrangle it enough to wipe their little face with. They were just so small. How was this even possible?

I ruminated on that as I took a seat on the edge of the nearby bathtub, putting me a little closer to their level but far enough away that I didn’t feel like I was hovering weirdly. The tiny kiddo barely seemed to notice anyways. They gave me a few little glances – more curious than scared, though that might have just been me projecting my own hopes there, as the miniature expressions were hard to see to begin with – and started toweling off their hair.

They then plunked themselves down to a seat, with a motion that only enforced my idea that they were just a kid, and pulled off their little boots. They emptied the water (barely a droplet) out of one with a small “egch!” of disgust and I couldn’t help but smile at the tiny theatrics. Once their boots and socks had been peeled off – revealing the tiniest little toes I’ve ever seen – they set them next to each other with fastidious perfectionism. They then patted down their hair, attempting to get it into order, before unfastening their leathered fur jacket with little toggles that were almost too teeny for me to see. They had on a little fabric shirt on underneath, a deep red in color, that they then dabbed at with the edge of the washcloth. They’d been soaked through, poor thing, but at least they seemed content to get dry now. Children were pretty resilient about that sort of thing; my entire day would have been ruined for sure. The jury was still out on whether my day had already been ruined by a sudden octopus attack.

The careful way in which the tiny kiddo arranged their jacket to dry and the little ways that they kept taming their drying hair made me guess that this was a little girl rather than a little boy. I leaned forward a bit, trying to see if the features of their face matched this assumption, and they turned toward me with wide, dark eyes and a look of surprise on their tiny face. It was hard to tell with kids, but I was pretty sure I was right. I could at least go on that assumption until we figured out enough communication for them – her – to tell me otherwise.

Once she seemed to have dried herself off as much as she wanted to, I reached over to grab the washcloth. The tiny girl flinched, looking alarmed, and I suddenly realized that she probably thought I was going to grab her up again. Whoops. “It’s okay,” I assured her, making my voice as gentle as I could. I tried to move more slowly, curving my hand around her to pick up the washcloth. “All done?” I asked, gesturing with the cloth as much as I dared.

She tilted her head a little, looking between me and the washcloth with utmost concentration, before nodding. “Tyo,” she announced. I took that as a yes. I pulled away the washcloth slowly, giving her time to protest, but she didn’t.

Well, that was our very first tally mark under “successful communication”. Here’s to hoping we could keep that up.

I stood, eliciting a wide-eyed stare from the teeny girl on my counter, and hung the washcloth on the shower curtain rod to dry. A strange smell wafted towards me from it, and I sniffed the washcloth a bit to double-check. It smelled like… salt. Like seawater. Brow furrowed, I lifted up my own shirt, smelling the damp spot that had been formed when I carried the drenched little girl home from the park. Saltwater again.

That made no sense at all. It was a retention pond in the middle of a landlocked state, it shouldn’t have any salt in it, much less smell like the ocean. I stared down at the little girl on the counter, and she looked up at me, tiny and impossible and unable to give me any answers even if she knew them.

Just what on earth was going on?