#i made kebabs last year

[birdietrait]

i’m so excited to make my dishes for christmas dinner <33

[bibleofficial]

went to the beach w kp & 4 other indian friends & 3 of us had NEVER surfed before girl WHEW it’s SO fun literally only 20quid to rent a wetsuit & board & i fucking smashed my toes on the sand so much, but also we 1) got the wrong tickets so we got off 1 stop early 2) went to find a bus & the bus that was supposed to be 15 min turned into an HOUR 3) on our way to find a bus back everyone’s phones are dying or dead bc it took us 3hrs longer to get there, cigarettes are out 4) all of the shops in town are closed & the town seems to have ONLY a tesco extra & 1 off license that sells a PACK FOR 15.65 A PACK WHICH IS FUCKING CRIMINAL ITS CHEAPER TO BUY IT FROM TESCO ARE U INSANE 5) the bus back to the other town kept skipping us bc the bus stop wasn’t the ACTUAL bus stop - i had 1 bowl since literally 11a & we got back at fucking 11p 😭😭😭

[odinsblog]

“I first started noticing the journalists dying on Instagram. I'm a journalist, I'm Arab, and I've reported on war. A big part of my community is other Arab journalists who do the same thing.

And when someone dies, news travels fast. Recently, I pulled up the list that the Committee to Protect Journalists has been keeping and looked at it for the first time. There are 95 journalists and media workers on it as of today.

Almost everyone on it is Palestinian. Scrolling through, I started to get angry. These were the people carrying the burden of documenting this whole war.

Israel is not allowing foreign journalists into Gaza, except on rare occasions with military escorts. These people's names are being buried in a giant list that keeps growing. What I want to do is lift some of them off the list for a moment and give you a glimpse of who they were and the work they made.

I'll start with Sadi Mansour. Sadi was the director of Al-Quds News Network, and he posted a 22-second video on November 18. That was a report from the war, but it also gave me a picture into his marriage.

Sadi's wearing his press vest and looks exhausted. He's explaining that cell service and the Internet keep getting cut off, and it's often impossible to text or call anyone, including his wife. So they've resorted to using handwritten letters to communicate while he's out reporting, sending them back and forth with neighbors or colleagues.

He ends the video with a picture of one of these letters from his wife. In it, she writes,

‘Me and the kids stayed up waiting for you until the morning, and you didn't come home. We were really sad.

I kept telling the kids, Look, he's coming. But you didn't show up. May God forgive you.

Come home tomorrow and eat with us. Do you want me to make you kebab or maybe kapse? Bring your friends with you, it's okay.

And give Azeez the battery to charge. What do you think about me sending you handwritten letters with messenger pigeons from now on? Ha ha ha.

I'm just kidding. I want to curse at you, but we're living in a war. Too bad.

Okay, I love you. Bye.’

A few hours after he shared that letter, Sadie and his co-worker Hassouna Saleem were at Sadie's home, when they were killed by an Israeli air strike that hit his house.

His wife and kids, who weren't there, survived.

Gaza is tiny, and the journalist community is really close. Reading the list, you can see all the connections between people. Like with Brahim Lafi.

Brahim was a photojournalist, one of the first journalists to die. He was killed while reporting on October 7. He was just 21, still new to journalism.

On his Instagram, you can see that in his posts just a few years ago, he was still practicing his photography, taking pictures of coffee cups and flowers. Then he started doing beautiful portraits and action shots. You can really feel him starting to become a journalist.

Clicking around on Instagram, I found a tribute post about Brahim from his co-worker Rushdie Sarraj. In this photo, Brahim staring intently at the back of a camera, his face lit up by the light from the viewfinder. He looks so young.

The caption reads, My assistant is gone. Brahim is gone. Rushdie himself was a beloved journalist and filmmaker.

And I know that because he's also on the list. He was killed just two weeks after Brahim. I read the tribute post to him too.

I saw this over and over again. Journalists posting tributes, who were then killed themselves soon after. And a tribute goes up for them.

And then the pattern continues.

Thank you.

Something else I saw over and over on the list, journalists later in the war who had become aware that they could be making their last reports. They'd say it at the beginning of their videos. And those were the hardest to watch, especially when it was true.

One video like that was posted by Ayat Hadduro. Ayat was a freelance journalist and video blogger. Her videos before the war covered a wide range from what I can tell, interviews about women in politics.

She even appeared in a commercial for ketchup-flavored chips. She clearly liked being in front of the camera. Once the war started, Ayat's pivoted to covering bombings and food shortages.

On November 20, she posted a video report from her home. You can hear the airstrikes hitting very close to where she is. It's scary.

‘This is likely my last video. Today, the occupation forces dropped phosphorus bombs on Beit Lahya area and frightening sound bombs. They dropped letters from the sky, ordering everyone to evacuate.

Everyone ran into the streets in the craziest way. No one knows where to go.

But everyone else has evacuated. They don't know where they're going. The situation is so scary.

What's happening is so tough, and may God have mercy on us.’

She was killed later that day.

Targeting journalists, in case you didn't know, is a war crime. So far, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found that three of the journalists on the list were explicitly targeted by the IDF, the Israeli military. Investigations by the Washington Post and Reuters, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations have also raised serious questions in these three cases.

And the Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating 10 other killings. When we reached out to the IDF for comments, they said, quote, the IDF has never, and will never, deliberately target journalists. That's the answer they always give in these situations.

Meanwhile, dozens of seasoned reporters have fled Gaza. Journalists who worked for Al Jazeera, the BBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Reuters, Agence France-Presse. So many media offices were demolished in Israeli airstrikes that the Committee to Protect Journalists stopped counting.

It's not just individual lives that have been destroyed. It's an entire infrastructure.

Thank you.

The name on the list that was hardest for me to look at was Issam Abdullah, because I'd crossed paths with him once. Issam was a Lebanese journalist, a video journalist for Reuters for many, many years. He had just won an award for coverage of Ukraine.

I'm Lebanese and still report there sometimes, and I'd worked with Issam a couple of summers ago. He helped me film a sort of random story in Beirut. I was interviewing this entrepreneur who had started a sperm freezing company after an accident where he spilled a tray of hot coffee on his private area, burning himself.

I know, ridiculous. It was a really silly shoot. Right after we said cut and started to rap, Issam started this whole bit about being in his late 30s, reconsidering his own sperm quality and everything he now realized he was doing to hurt it, and no one could stop laughing.

It was a really good day that felt good to remember and to remember him that way. Issam was killed by the IDF on October 13. His death was one of the three that the Committee to Protect Journalists has identified as a targeted killing.

He was fired upon by an Israeli tank while standing in an empty field on the Lebanon-Israel border with a small group of other journalists. Everyone was wearing press vests with cameras out. They were covering the Hezbollah part of this war.

A few other journalists were injured in the attack, which was captured on video. The IDF says they were responding to firing from Hezbollah, not targeting the journalists. But multiple investigations, including by Reuters, the United Nations, Amnesty International and the AFP, found no evidence of any firing from the location of the journalists before the IDF shot at them.

The journalists in the group and video footage confirmed that there was no military activity near them. I had only met Issam once, barely knew him, but it affected me so much when he died. I know that he understood the risks of his job, but somehow it still felt so random and unfair that he would be struck down like that, following the rules, wearing his press vest and helmet, and a pack of reporters on a sunny day in an open field.

I find myself thinking about him all the time. His last Instagram post was commemorating another journalist, this iconic reporter Shereen Abou Aql who had been killed by the IDF. When I first saw that post in October, I thought how ironic because a week later, Isam also was killed by the IDF.

But then, after spending time reading the list, I realized how common this had become. I still haven't finished going through the list and looking up the people on it. I keep finding things that stick with me, like the funny way this one radio host would cut off a caller who was rambling on for too long.

A tweet from reporter Al-Abdallah that quoted Sylvia Plath. It read, What ceremony of wars can patch the havoc? I'm going to keep going down the list, even though this story is over now.

Just for myself. My own way of bearing witness. Which is, in the end, all that these journalists were trying to do.”

—DANA BALLOUT, The 95. Dana sifts through a very long list—the list of journalists killed in the Israel-Hamas war, and comes back with five small fragments of the lives of the people on it. Dana is a Lebanese-American, Emmy-nominated documentary producer.

[luveline]

Hii

Whenever you have time could you please do more single dad!Spencer. It’s just too cute and it really warms my heart how you write it.

tysm ♡ dad!spencer and his daughter amanda find their reunion unexpectedly interrupted when you need a place to stay the night. fem!reader, 3.4k

Spencer doesn't mind how tactile Amanda is. If anything, he loves it, content to have her sitting in his lap or on his hip, anywhere he goes and anywhere she wants to be. He tries to get in as much affectionate time with her as he can when he's home to make up for his days away. 

He doesn't like missing her, but he loves coming home. Amy sits on his stomach while Spencer lays on the couch, using his thighs as a backboard while they both fail to pay attention to the kids cartoons on their TV. 

"Were you good for Mrs. Gomorrah?" he asks, though he knows she was. He had to live through the agony that was teaching Mrs. Gomorrah how to text on a cell phone he bought for her years ago, but it was worth it to get those incremental updates that he relies on every day to get to the next without catching a flight home.

Amy had pizza 

Amy misses you. She said she is kissing you through my phone

Wants a new dress for school party tonight, emergency money OK to use? said she loves you 

Aaskkk k k o 

Sorry, accidentally texted you, Amanda made dinner tonight [photo]

The text messages help being far away feel less like torture. Spencer loves his job but he wonders if he should love it less, sometimes, when Mrs. Gomorrah remembers how to send photos, or when he can make it back to the hotel before bed time and call Amy.

But here she is in the flesh. Spencer doesn't worry about work when she's holding his hand. 

"I was good," she confirms, wiping hair from her face with a blue sleeve. She's in her pyjamas at three thirty. Spencer's in his matching set, blue long sleeve t-shirts with two dogs —a grown up and a puppy, seemingly a dad dog and his daughter— on the shirt and miniature dogs on the pants. "Promise. We did fruit kebabs last night." 

Spencer saw photos, but he still says, "Yeah? What fruits did you have? You know, strawberries will be extra yummy again soon because they're back in season." 

"We had strawberries, and bananas, and the green one, kiwi." She puts one of her feet up on his chest. He makes wide eyes at it to hear her giggle. "And with chocolate and maple syrup, it was really yummy." 

"We should make Tanghulu." 

This is a new word for Amy. "Tanghulu?" 

"It started with a berry called Chinese hawthorn, but now people use lots of different fruits. You make a fruit kebab, but instead of chocolate, you dip the fruit into hot sugar and it goes hard as it cools like rock candy, and you have good strong teeth, so you could eat it no problem." 

"It turns the fruit into candy?" she asks, wiggling her toes. 

"Kind of." Spencer covers her foot with his hand unthinkingly. She looks tired already though it's only the afternoon. She gets very tired when Spencer comes home, like she'd been waiting. "Do you want to have a nap with me, sweetpea?" 

"No, I don't think so."

Spencer made a mistake when she was younger. He thought leaving while she was sleeping would make it easier to say goodbye. It was for him, but Amy didn't sleep or eat right for days, and Spencer had to come home before the case was over to stop her from making herself sick. They've worked on it, Spencer never ever leaves without saying goodbye, but she still gets scared to sleep when they're together sometimes. 

He ushers her forward. "Come here," he says, "quick, give me a hug." She flops forward and Spencer arranges her into a cuddle, hand against her hair, his nose pressed to her forehead. "I missed you." 

"Missed you more," she says. 

"Not true. I missed you so much." 

"Don't go away again for a day," she says. 

"I'm staying home for a whole week. Maybe longer, okay? But I promise you, seven whole days no matter what." And he means it. The only thing that could change his mind is a mass murder situation, but otherwise, they'll have to make it work without him. He hates to say that kind of thing, but he has to say it, because Amy is his first priority. 

She relaxes into his arms. "Okay." 

His phone rings, because of course it does. Amy frowns her displeasure with tears shining silver in her eyes. Spencer shakes his head at her, "I'm not going, Ames. I promised. I won't answer anybody, this week is just going to be me and you." 

She glares at the phone and rests her chubby cheek on his chest. Spencer wonders if it's uncomfortable considering his lack of padding and sits up with an arm behind her seatbelting her to his front. "Let's go watch TV in bed." 

Her hands grab at the back of his shirt. "Bring your phone, dad," she says. 

Spencer kisses the side of her head. "No, I told you already, I'm not going." 

"What if Mrs. Gomorrah wants to come for dinner?" she asks, her voice smaller, sleepy. She rubs her face into his front. 

It's a good point. Spencer picks up his phone to check if it was her and frowns at the missed call. It's you. You've texted him too. 

"It's Y/N," he says. 

Amy knows you because whenever he's had to bring her with him (not often, but occasionally on regular work days when there's school reset days), you're very, very kind to her. You're not sure of yourself around kids but it doesn't matter, you let Amy sit with you if she wants to and you always talk to her with care, offer her snacks, anything that you can share. 

It's why he calls you back. That, and you're a nice friend. 

— 

You're feeling about as ashamed and sheepish as a girl can be as you take the elevator up to Spencer's floor. You don't want to impose on anybody, but you'd rather have died than ask Hotch, JJ's taking a vacation in Santa Monica, Penelope's on a conference with Kevin, Emily chose to use her week on an undisclosed trip, and Morgan was similarly off the radar. 

And you know Spencer has Amanda, you know they've been apart for longer than they've been together this month, and you hate interrupting their time together, but… you couldn't stay home no matter how badly you wanted to. Stupid landlord. Stupid cockroaches and stupid fumigation tents.

You carry your go bag with nothing but a week's worth of dirty clothes and your wallet. Your phone is about to die and you'd really wanted, more than anything, to crawl into bed and sleep the daytime away. 

You've never been to Spencer's apartment despite knowing him well, and liking him more. You knock on the door, apartment 305B. You're dead on your feet at this point, exhausted by the jet ride home, the commute to your apartment, the subsequent ten minutes spent crying on the sidewalk, and the next half hour debating if you could bother Spencer. Maybe you should've got a hotel, but it was already getting late and you just needed something familiar. Selfishly, you needed someone you knew after such a shitty case. 

"Hello," Spencer says, opening the door with a familiar girl held in his arms, "don't mind my jacket." 

Amy's clearly sleeping, tiny snores echoing from near his neck. It's cute, but it makes you feel much worse. "I'm sorry–" 

He doesn't let you apologise, "Are you kidding? What were you gonna do? We're excited to have you." He's kind of talking to you like Amy's still awake, enthusiastic whisper-shouting as he pulls you inside. 

"It's just for tonight, I promise. They said I'll be able to  back in by evening tomorrow," you say, holding your bag to your chest. You blink at him as you follow him to the kitchen. "Are you wearing matching pyjamas?" 

"You came over last minute!" he defends with a laugh. 

Spencer opens his hand for your bag and puts it behind a steaming bowl of soup. "Oh, were you guys eating dinner?" you ask. 

"No, that's for you. I'm gonna put Amy in bed and then I can do your laundry. Did you need a hug?" 

"What?" 

Spencer smiles at you. "I thought maybe you're having a bad day." He offers his empty arm and you don't know how to say no, don't want to, careful not to bump into Amy as you curl your arm behind his back. "We're happy to have you. You could stay all week and that would be fine. Did they really give you no warning?" 

"I called my landlord and he laughed and then kind of got quiet. I think he forgets that I live there." 

Spencer pulls away and puts a hand on Amy's back. She's very slight like Spencer but if she were any older he'd struggle to carry her for as long as he has. You can see the fatigue trembling in his left arm. "It's not legal for him to leave you with nowhere to stay, and without any notice. You could ask Hotch–" 

"It's okay." You gesture to Amy's face. "She's getting so big." 

"And heavy. Be back in a few. Eat on the couch if you want to." 

You wouldn't. Spencer takes Amy into one room off of the main room, and then comes back to grab your laundry before disappearing into another. His apartment is a fun but odd layout, the door leading into a living room slash kitchen with a dining table, then opening out left and right, bedrooms toward the back of the apartment and a bathroom behind. It reminds you of a flower, that central hub of life and the petals curling outward. 

You pick up your spoon cautiously. He definitely said the food was for you, but it's so strange to be greeted with a meal, you can't remember the last time someone made sure you had something to eat. 

Spencer doesn't attract your attention until he's pulling up a chair next to you with two glasses set on the table. "I put your pyjamas on quick wash. And your, uh, your grey bag." 

Your grey bag is a little net bag full of delicates. You try to be adult about it, but it's so super awkward that you end up laughing aloud, "Oh, shit, I'm sorry." 

"Don't be. It doesn't bother me if it doesn't bother you. I just put the entire bag in, like, intact." 

You believe that, but you infer from the tightness of his voice that he's worried you'll think he's weird. Honestly, he's just nice, even if it's awkward. Everybody wears underwear. "That's what it's for," you say. 

"Do you think they make those in a bigger size? Amy's vests get tangled sometimes because the straps are skinny, that would be useful." 

"I'm sure they do," you say, toying with your spoon. "I… really don't know how to say thank you. I know we're friends, but it's different. To let me stay."

"When I was a kid I didn't have many friends. By high school I didn't have one. So I never got to have sleepovers until Amanda. And she's my best friend, but she's six, so…" 

You both laugh suddenly, beaming at one another in your wrinkled, mismatched clothes. 

You finish your meal through lighthearted conversation. Spencer takes your dish for the sink and you both move to the couch to watch TV. 

Clifford the Big Red Dog plays on mute. "I know you're thrilled to watch something this intellectually tantalising, but maybe we should watch a movie. There's a guide under the cushion," Spencer says. 

You dig for the guide but wherever he thinks it is, it isn't. 

"Doesn't matter. Mrs. Gomorrah will have one, I'll take her some dinner at the same time. Would you keep your ear on Amy? She might wake up."

He makes a tray for Mrs. Gomorrah, a neighbour and good friend of his. You've met her once when she brought Amy into the office, an Italian-American woman who's black and silver hair bounced when she talked. Beside his mother living in a sanitarium in Nevada, and his small daughter, Mrs. Gomorrah is Spencer's only family. He treats her accordingly. 

The washing machine starts to beep a few minutes after he's left. You spring from the couch and track down his washer and dryer, transferring your damp wash into the dryer and frowning at the machine's strange settings.

"Daddy?" a small voice calls. Sharper, unhappy, "Daddy?" 

"Amy!" you say, moving from your crouch to stand in the doorway. "Hi, honey! Your dad just went to give Mrs. Gomorrah some dinner." 

Amy squints at you. "Miss Y/N?" 

"Hi," you say tentatively. "My house is kind of broken for a bit and I asked your dad if I can stay the night." You bend to meet her eyes properly. "Would that be okay with you?" 

"Yeah," she says, smiling. "Yeah, please stay. Daddy's friends never come over." 

"Did you need something, honey? I can help." 

"No… You're sure he's at Mrs. Gomorrah's?" 

"Definitely one hundred percent positive. He can't go to work without me, can he?" 

Amy shrugs little shoulders. "I guess not." 

You can't help laughing at her. With the sound of the dryer bumping behind you, you meet Amy near the dining table and touch her shoulder gently to prompt her toward the couch. She jumps up onto the seat with the most cushions and you sit beside her. You and Spencer never managed to pick a movie, so the kids channel still plays on mute. 

"How do you turn it up?" you ask, offering her the remote hopelessly. 

Amy sidles against your side and points. You click the small white speaker button, greeted by the barks of another episode of Clifford. 

"Is this one okay?" you ask. 

"I love Clifford."

It can't be two minutes before she rests her head against your arm, her hand locking over the crook of your elbow. 

You're not sure what to do. She's Spencer's kid, so she probably does. "Do you want a cuddle?" you ask her. You'd be happy to give her one, but you don't know what's okay with her. 

"Please." 

You hang your arm across her shoulders and behind her back, stroking a tentative and short line into her arm, just once. "These are nice pyjamas, Amy. I saw your dad has the same ones." They're soft under your arm. Her hair brushes your wrist as she turns her head to crinkle her nose at you. 

"Thank you. Me and dad have all matching pyjamas," she says proudly. 

"All?" 

"Well, maybe not all. But lots." 

She hums and shuffles closer to your chest. It felt odd at first —although Amy has sat in your lap at your desk at work, and even given you a hug on her birthday to say thank you for the books and candies, you're not used to children or the things that they want. But it feels less foreign the longer she sits there, and you find yourself relaxing for the first time that day. 

Spencer comes back with a shiny TV Guide Magazine and a bundle of Amy's clothes under his arm. His eyes light up as her head peeks over the back of the couch. 

"Sorry, I was just at Mrs. Gomorrah's," he says, quickly putting everything down to take her into his arms. 

"I know," Amy says into his shirt. 

He kisses her head. You almost miss it, the affection quiet and swift. "Was your nap okay? Or do you need another one?" 

"Dad! Y/N's here." 

"Y/N doesn't care that you take naps, she takes naps too." Snoozing up against his shoulder with drool running down your chin. 

"No, I can't sleep because we're having a slumber party!" 

"We are?" he asks. 

"But she needs matching jammies." 

"Well, I don't have anything matching, but it won't be long for all my clothes to dry. I can wear jammies, then, at least," you assure her, sending Spencer a squinting smile that says, She's the cutest thing on planet Earth. 

He smiles back, as if to say, She really is. "Maybe Y/N wants a nap." 

Amy's concern lands on you. She climbs out of Spencer's arms, pressing her hand to your shoulder. "Please don't nap, I want to play games." 

"I'll play games, babe," you say. "Any game you want." 

"Yes! And, and maybe we can make, um–" Puzzled, Amy quirks her mouth into a frown and bounds back to Spencer. He rounds the couch and leans down at her gesturing. "What's it called, the fruit candy?" she whispers.

"From earlier?" he whispers back. "It's tanghulu. Tang-who-loo." 

She whispers a sweet thank you, spinning on the spot with her hands held behind her back. "We can make tanghulu, it's fruit kebabs turned to candy! Do you want to?"

Spencer smooths her hair back from her face. "You don't have to," he mouths, already squeezing her arm like he's prepared to talk her down. 

"Well, if it's okay with your dad I'd love to."

She gasps happily, jumping down off the sofa to race into the bathroom. "I'll wash my hands!" 

Spencer snorts and sits on the couch arm. "Notice how she didn't even ask me?" 

"You know that's a good thing." Spencer's probably read every parenting book there is. "She's so smart, Spencer. So smart, it's incredible. You're amazing." 

He scratches the collar of his sleep shirt, his curls moving as though woken by a gentle breeze as he nods to one side, "She shows some signs of an eidetic memory. Not like mine, but most children who have eidetic memories don't have them like I do. I can't take the credit for that, you know, beyond genetics." 

"Of course you can, someone had to teach her these things for her to remember them. You're never as nice to yourself as you should be, Spence. Everybody knows you're a great dad." You slouch back into the couch. "And I'm not just saying that because you're letting me stay for free." 

"There's no version of this situation where I would ever charge you. Thank you, Y/N. Having her by myself has been hard– it's hard. She's easy and I love her and she's better for me than she probably should be." He winces, his talking rushed, like he's listing statistics. "I haven't really been by myself. Mrs. Gomorrah. The team. We've known each other for a year but you act like Amy's family whenever you see her, and that means a lot to me. That's why I'm glad you called. You can always call me if you need help." 

"You can always call me," you murmur back. 

Spencer bumps your thigh with his knuckles. "I'm glad we're friends. Are you sure you're not too tired? Tanghulu isn't easy if you've never made it." 

"Says who?" 

"East Asian Eating, issue 78. We have to find the sugar, water, glucose syrup sweet spot or the candy doesn't harden."

"We can do it. You're the smartest guy I know, and I've been known to be resourceful. Plus, we have a world class assistant." 

Spencer stands up and offers you his hand to help you come with him, his fingers brushing yours for a moment that seems to stretch for minutes. "Just curious," he says softly, to your heart's clear delight, "when was your last check up at the dentist?" 

Right. He isn't about to tell you something you want to hear. This is Spencer —you should've guessed an odd question was on the horizon. 

"I'll have to think about it," you say.  

Amy bounds out of the bathroom and paints a trail of water droplets from the table to the kitchen. "He thinks you have weak teeth!" she explains. 

"That is not what I think." 

[diremoone]

sweet dedication | g. satoru

a year after his fight with sukuna, satoru finally gets to enjoy his birthday in peace, with no one but his beloved wife.

w — fluff, post-canon, lots of food :3, i incorporated a doggo sue me, vv short but hopefully sweet 🥰

Happy Birthday, My Beloved Satoru ❤️❤️

[ line divider credit to @/saradika ]

The last thing Satoru expected to smell coming through the front door of his home was a mixture of cinnamon and cherries. He shrugged off the jacket from his shoulders and curiously stepped further into his home. Upon seeing the kitchen table and every counter, his eyes went wide and mouth fell open.

On the kitchen table was at least four boxes of pizza, chicken wings, fried chicken, and brisket. Towards the end of the table farther fell the front door were sides, like green bean casserole and corn. His mouth began to water, his inner food junkie rearing it’s hungry head.

Across the counters and clearly in the oven were desserts, desserts, and more desserts — apple and cherry pie, cheesecake, fruit kebabs, crepes, mochi, brownies, kikufuku from Sendai. Gosh, what was the occasion?

And then the man sees above the hallway entrance that leads to the other rooms: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Satoru gapes.

Was it really December 7th?

He checks his phone and his brows raise in surprise. How in the world did he forget?

But you didn’t. You would’ve been the only one available to have made such a feast for him (even if it was mostly sweets), since everyone else was out on missions, still trying to tidy up Japan after the Culling Games’ toll.

He feels his heart swell with love and happiness, happy that you’ve remembered a date that he’s thrown to the side for so many years. He’s happy that you’ve done so much here for him, a genuine showcase of how much you really loved him and knew him by cooking all of his favorites. This must’ve taken you hours and hours to do; this being a clear proclamation of how much you’ve dedicated yourself to him and to knowing him.

“Babe?” he calls out to open air. No response. He’s smart by checking the kitchen first; you’d never leave cooking food unattended.

Satoru’s mouth quirks up into a sweet smile at the sight of passed out, sitting on the kitchen floor with your inseparable corgi Maple snoozing away right next to you. Although he squints at the sight of your neck lolled to the side in the corner of the cabinets. That didn’t look comfortable at all.

He’s not sure if he should take you to bed or wake you up right now. After a moment, he decides the former. But as soon as you’re scooped up and secured against his broad chest, your eyes flutter open. Maple wakes up too, barking and wiggling her butt, happy to see her dad.

“Oh, my god. Satoru!”

He winks. “The one and only baby.”

Your brain has always been fast about remembering all of the events prior to any sort of sleep or nap you’ve had. This time was no different, and he chuckles when you begin to groan and complain about your surprise being ruined.

“God, I can’t believe I fell asleep! How does one even sleep on the kitchen floor. My ass hurts, Jesus,” you complain. You burrow your head into the crook of his neck in embarrassment as he carries you to the couch and sits down with you on his lap. Maple bounds up behind him and miraculously uses her little legs to hop up on the couch. Satoru chuckles and takes a moment to briefly give her belly rubs.

“Thank you for trying to make this day special for me,” your ‘Toru says. It’s sweet, the tone of his voice, filled with love and adoration. “Don’t feel bad. That looks like a lot of cooking you did, so it’s only natural you’d fall asleep at some point. So don’t beat yourself up over it, okay?”

You grumble but nod anyway. It was true. You’d been awake ever since he’d left earlier this morning, putting the pedal to the floor on your attempt to swamp the love of your life with all of his favorite foods made by hand.

“I love you, Satoru,” you mumble, still tired and sleepy from overextending yourself.

“I love you, too, baby.” His lips press a long kiss to the side of your temple. He pulls away to gaze down into your eyes, chuckles escaping him again at seeing the sleepy haze in them. “Thank you for trying to make my special day special.”

“But I still didn’t get to surprise you,” you complain.

“I wasn’t expecting it when I came home, especially now with everything going on. I think that’s a big enough surprise for me,” he argues. “So come on, cheer up! We have some delicious delicious food to eat made by my sweet, adorable, wonderful wifey-poo! Except the pizza of course!”

You deadpan. “Call me that again and I’ll smash the strawberry shortcake I made as your birthday cake in that expensive jacket you bought last week.”

Satoru gasps dramatically in horror.

“You wouldn’t!”

“Try me.”

“Not if I eat it first!”

taglist:

@vagabond-umlaut @heresan @4sat0ruu and @/all my satoru lovers also i shouldn’t have taken that nap otherwise this taglist would be longer lmaoo

let’s raise a glass to this man who deserves the entire fucking world

[allwaswell16]

A fic rec of One Direction fics that are hidden gems - amazing fics that have been a bit overlooked and as of the time I made this rec have less than 200 kudos - as requested in an ask that Tumblr has whisked into the abyss. If you enjoy the fics, please leave kudos and comments for the writers! You can find my other recs here. Happy reading!

- Louis/Harry -

💎 Into the Weeds by kair0sclerosis

(M, 87k, small town au) With the help of the captivating bartender, Louis, who he can’t seem to stop daydreaming about, and his enchanting group of friends; Harry remembers what it is to be alive. This is a story about small-town secrets, found family, queer identities, and the battle between fight and flight.

💎 don't be afraid to love (and love again) by localopa / @voulezloux

(E, 83k, angst) the one where louis is trans and afraid, harry is cis and brave, and being 100% yourself is easier said than done.

💎 When the Lights Go Out by thelarenttrap / @antidotetogo

(E, 79k, F1 au) In its near eighty years of existence, Formula 1 has never had an out gay driver. In 2017, Harry Styles signs a contract with Scuderia AlphaTauri alongside his childhood friend and competitor, Louis Tomlinson. The next decade of their careers is some of the most tumultuous press--on and off the track--Formula 1 has ever seen.

💎 Your A-Team, Your Endgame by @silverkiiwii

(E, 70k, reality show au) a Next In Fashion au where Louis and Harry are partnered in the competition but they do not get along when they have to if they want to win. Full of fashion, banter, misunderstanding and a whole lot of making each other blush.

💎  Suddenly Last Summer by @disgruntledkittenface

(E, 44k, mystery) Suddenly he has someone who listens to him and cares about what he thinks. Someone who really sees him. But their happily ever after is forever marred by an incident at a party during Labor Day weekend, and Louis is left with a choice to make.

💎 Train Tracks and Porcelain by @jaerie

(E, 41k, historical circus au) Shadows were forming into people and things and, there in the middle of it, Louis watched the humongous head of an elephant emerge from a box car right in front of his eyes. Or a Water For Elephants inspired AU

💎 Mind of Stone by amomentoflove / @daggerandrose

(M, 41k, mythology au) He needs to find a way back home, and then figure out what the fuck happened at the bar tonight.

💎 time to buy and time to lose by 5sexualhomos / @hogwartzlou

(T, 25k, time travel) Over the years, Harry’s father has played many pranks on him, but this is a whole new level. Where did he even come up with this idea? An AU based on the movie About Time.

💎 From Christiania with love by @sweariwouldnt

(NR, 18k, friends to enemies to lovers) It's Louis' first field training day as a future police officer. It doesn't quite go to his plan. Or, maybe, it goes exactly to some bigger plan.

💎 Camboy on Lockdown (series) by @reminiscingintherain

(E, 12k, camboy Louis) While Louis was working on the final draft of his thesis for his Master's, the world went into lockdown around him without him realising. Now he's trapped in student accommodation, and needs a way to earn some money...

💎 it's time to find your wings again by we_are_the_same / @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed

(T, 12k, prison guard Louis) His fascination for supernatural creatures had turned into something most closely resembling loathing over the years, due to the many stories of their evildoing, and although he still doesn’t believe in hanging them for their crimes, he does believe in keeping the town safe.

💎 Heart of a Lion (With Metal in His Teeth) by graceling_in_a_suit

(M, 8k, sci fi) Harry is an Android. Louis is his target: a revolutionary leader trying to free his people.

💎 Grow as We Go by @larryatendoftheday

(T, 7k, breakup) a fic about growing up and choosing each other.

💎 But he talks like a gentleman by fondlelarry / @fondofstyles

(NR, 7k, humor) “I had a few too many drinks, ate a bad kebab, rang a bunch of doorbells till someone let me in, vomited in his toilet, stole his orange juice and crashed on his sofa. He woke me up with breakfast though, so I’d say it’s alright.”

💎  What we parted ways with by louisismycat / @liminalkittyfics

(M, 6k, exes) Alpha Harry is surprised to see omega Louis at his matchmaker’s cocktail party for millionaires. Years ago when they were together, Louis loathed schmoozefests with rich people.

💎 Pretty and Preposterous by @brightlyharry

(NR, 5k, neighbors) Harry donates a copy of Pride and Prejudice to his little free library. He never expects what comes next.

💎 old macdonald had a farm by vintagehistories / @adoredontour

(NR, 5k, animal direction) Louis is a hedgehog, Harry is a fish, Niall is a parrot, Liam is a golden retriever, and Zayn is Zayn. It’s a crazy twenty-four hours.

💎 Dirty Diana by yeah_alright / @uhoh-but-yeah-alright

(E, 3k, kink) In the month leading up to his 30th birthday, Harry writes to his confidante Diana every day, sharing his fantasies about Louis.

💎 Pussy Juice by @homosociallyyours

(M, 3k, girl direction) While she manages to dodge the bar's "special" drink, the Pussy Juice shot, she can't avoid the feelings that come up when her former teacher (and teen crush), Louis joins her and her friends for the night.

💎 the blue never-ending sky by @justanothershadeofblue

(T, 3k, epistolary) “Arizona?” Louis asked, and Harry made an affirmative noise from his position on top of his twin bed. “Wouldn’t know, would I?”

💎 Harry, That Kills People by LadyLondonderry / @londonfoginacup

(T, 2k, organized crime/crack) If there’s one thing that Harry hates, it’s getting his clothes dirty. If there’s one other thing that Harry hates, it’s murder.

💎 As Luck Would Have It by @justalittlelouislove

(T, 2k, humor) We've all experienced the trials and tribulations of technology. Louis is sabotaged by a bit of unhelpful autocorrect, but maybe luck is on his side after all.

💎 If I Can't Have You by Janie_17

(T, 2k, fwb) After Harry turns him down, going out for Karaoke is the last thing Louis wants to do, but his friends are persuasive. When Harry shows up with Nick Grimshaw in tow, his evening goes from bad to worse. But will his choice of song manage to turn things around?

💎 Needle by @nouies

(NR, 666 words, fantasy) “You didn’t deserve this,” he muttered between hiccups. “She didn’t have the right.”

💎 Insomnis by @kingsofeverything

(NR, 500 words, science fiction) Harry’s been having trouble sleeping. Louis makes everything better.

- Rare Pairs -

💎 Eight Days by LadyAJ_13 / @ladyaj-13

(T, 22k, Liam/Louis) Louis and Liam got hitched in Vegas, completely forgot about it for more than a decade, and it comes back to bite them. Sort of.

💎 You Are A Song by @lululawrence

(NR, 3k, Louis/Nick Grimshaw) To Louis, Nick felt like poetry in motion. He was a bit of chaos surrounding Louis’ otherwise monotonous days, and Louis was quickly becoming addicted.

💎 get my kicks like you by YesIsAWorld / @louandhazaf

(E, 3k, OT5) “Wait,” Liam had said. “You all jerked it at Niall’s?”

💎 Ink on Your Fingers, Ink on My Skin by Layne Faire / @laynefaire

(E, 1k, Zayn/Liam) Liam gets tattoos for the thrill of it.

[starrgaziinggg]

SEE ME AT MY WORST | hwang hyunjin

anon request: Hyunjin has food poisoning and yn takes care of him (1.7k words)

warning: mentions of vomit (to my fellow emetophobic people I got you), nakedness (but not smut lol), swearing

"Don't come in here!" Hyunjin groans, his voice muffled from inside the bathroom. You'd knocked on the door a couple times, waiting for his response, and you weren't surprised to hear he didn't want you to come in.

Your ever-perfect boyfriend had no intention of letting you see him at his lowest. Despite being together for almost a year, you hadn't so much as seen him have a bad hair day. Whilst you woke up after a sleepover with drool dried to your chin, your hair a birds nest atop your head and your clothes sticking to you from Hyunjin's over bearing body heat, he woke up flawless. Always.

It was daunting, your significant other being so damn put together all the time, but you'd grown to accept and expect it after all these months. However, truth be told, when Changbin had messaged to tell you Hyunjin was practically dying from food poisoning and rotting away in his bedroom, you were more shocked than worried. The worst you'd seen of him thus far was when he'd broken his hand, and he didn't even let that stop him from maintaining his perfect persona.

You'd made your way to his dorm straight away, wasting no time in packing together a 'get well soon' bundle containing all of his favourite foods. Changbin's text explained exactly why you hadn't heard from your boyfriend all day, which was more than unusual for him.

Despite you're hurried rush to make sure Hyunjin was alright, you'd been decidedly locked out the dorms bathroom, where Hyunjin had locked himself in.

"I'm all gross and disgusting," he whines, and you hear him flush the toilet and slump down onto the floor. "I refuse for you to see me like this."

"Cut the dramatics," you reply, raising your voice so he can hear you through through the closed door. You lower yourself so you're sitting against it, holding the package in your lap.

Hyunjin only whines before you hear the distinct sound of throwing up, making you cringe at the thought of your poor boyfriend being so unwell. The door to Changbin's room swings open and he walks out lazily, throwing you a grin.

"He's not letting you see him?" He asks, leaning against the wall opposite of you, smirking. You shake your head with a half smile. "Figures. When he had tonsillitis last year he locked himself in his bedroom for a week."

"Stop bitching about me!" You hear Hyunjin shout, making you chuckle. The toilet flush goes off again.

"Grow a set!" Changbin shouts back, a smirk etched on his features. "She's your girlfriend, not the mass media."

"Fuck off Changbin!" Hyunjin whines, and you tilt your head at Changbin in defeat.

"Good luck with that," is all he responds with, picking up his keys from the hook beside the main door and making a swift escape. It left you and Hyunjin alone in the dorm, the other guys out at Chan's studio.

"Hyunjin, please let me in," you say desperately, resting your head against the door.

"No way," he replies, and you can just see him shaking his head.

You sigh, pulling your hands through your hair. "How did you even get food poisoning in the first place?"

"Dodgy kebab street vendor," he answers, audibly gagging at the reminder. "Jeongin warned me against it, but I was starving."

"You're appetite might be the death of you one day," you say sincerely, smiling when you hear him laugh. "How are you feeling now?"

"Like I've been run over six times and buried," he replies, turning the dramatics on full throttle. You roll your eyes fondly, tapping your feet together absentmindedly.

"The guys are all out," you tell him, unsure if he knows the ongoings of his dorm mates after being cooped up in the bathroom for however long. "They won't see you if you let me come in."

"I don't care," Hyunjin responds firmly. "I don't want my pretty girlfriend seeing me in such a gross state."

You don't reply straight away, thinking about another angle to attack this from. "Remember when I got super drunk after Seungmin and Felix's birthday party and threw up everywhere and you took care of me?" You remind him, hearing him agree from the other side of the door. "Did you think I was disgusting then?"

"No," he says instantly. "But that was different."

"How is it different?" You fire back, feeling contempt when he stays silent. "I just want to help you, Hyun. Let me in."

You're about to give up when you hear the bathroom lock turn slowly, though Hyunjin makes no effort to actually open the door. Huffing, you stand up and push it open, tilting your head with a sad smile at your boyfriend. His blonde hair is tussled, sticking to his forehead from the beads of sweat covering it. It was obvious he had a fever, especially due to the fact he was shirtless, sporting only grey joggers as he sat slumped against the back wall.

"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes," you can't help but to tease.

"Get out," is all he says, looking at you with a deadly serious expression. You chuckle, closing the bathroom door and sliding down to lean against it. His eyes light up when you pass him the basket of goodies your brought him.

He takes it wordlessly, flicking through the items and looking up at you with his brown doe eyes. "You made this for me?"

"Thought it might cheer you up," you reply, smiling at him.

"Once this fucking food poisoning wears off I'll be devouring this shit," he says, making you laugh. He runs a hand through his hair, shaking it when it comes out soaked. "Gross. I'm literally gross. If you fall out of love with me after this I don't blame you."

"Don't be stupid," you say forwardly, leaning forward to swat him gently on the leg. "Do you know how amazing you are? You're only human, Hyun - you're still perfect in my eyes."

That makes him smile, though he tries his best to hide it. "I just feel all yucky and ugly."

"You literally have food poisoning," you remind him. "I'd be more worried if you didn't feel yucky. Do you feel like you're gonna throw up again?"

Hyunjin shakes his head. "I don't think I have anything left in me to throw up. I've not eaten anything since yesterday."

You pout at him, feeling more than sorry for your poor boyfriend. "Why don't I run you a cold shower, and when you're out I'll give you some antibiotics and I'll change your bedsheets, clean your room?"

"How did you know my rooms a mess?" He asks, ignoring everything else you've said. He had a tendency to focus on the most minuscule part of what you were saying.

"Cause your door was open when I came in - your sheets are visibly soaked from sweat and there's clothes all over the floor," you reply, smiling in a way that was all-knowing.

"Why are you so good to me?" He asks when you stand up to turn on the shower, making sure the temperature was cold but not too cold.

"Because you're my boyfriend," you respond simply. "And I love you and you'd do the same for me."

Once you deem the temperature suitable, you turn and grab Hyunjin's sweaty palms, helping him stand up. He sheds his clothes with your aid, stepping out of his joggers and boxers before stepping into the shower. You leave him to it, grabbing his clothes and bidding him a farewell.

It doesn't take you long to sort out his bedroom, putting his sheets and dirty clothes in the wash and tidying up anything else that was littering his usually immaculate room. You open the window and light some incense and candles too, since after a night of sweating Hyunjin's room had inevitably started to smell like a sewer. Once you were finished, his room was near enough unrecognisable, and you were pretty proud of your efforts.

The shower turned off a couple minutes before you'd finished, and just as you'd put a spare set of sheets on Hyunjin's bed, the man of the hour walked out with a towel wrapped around his torso. Despite it being entirely the wrong time, you couldn't help but think your boyfriend looked so handsome, his hair dripping onto his shoulders.

"Feeling better?" You ask, watching Hyunjin look around his room in awe. He walks up to you, placing his hands on your waist.

"A lot better," he mumbles, looking down at you lazily. "Thanks for cleaning my room and being an angel to me."

You giggle, tilting your head. "It's alright. Why don't you get changed and we can cuddle and watch a movie? Your antibiotics are sitting on your dresser with a glass of water," you tell him, pointing towards them before he squeezes your sides and heads towards his dresser, downing the pills with the water.

His bed had always been cosy, and now adorned with fresh sheets, you couldn’t help but snuggle into them. Flicking through Netflix, you put on Nevertheless; yours and Hyunjin’s comfort show. You’d never understood the hate it had received, though you could understand why people would rather watch an idolised and unrealistic version of a couple on screen.

Real life wasn’t happy montages and cheesy love scenes. People fall ill, people have bad days. True love, you thought, was being able to love and stick by someone even in their worst moments. When Hyunjin mopes over to you, flopping his lifeless body over yours and nestling himself between your legs, you thank every god above that you had the type of love that others can only dream of.

It doesn’t take long for Hyunjin to nod off, evident from his heavy breathing. His head rests gently on your thigh, and you can’t help but gently run your hand through his hair as he sleeps. Staring down at him, you knew you’d do anything for him. The stars and beyond.

[xhanisai]

Uhh marichat where Chat gets Mari away from an akuma and she accidentally forgets she’s not wearing the mask when she talks to him.

~(x)~

.

He didn't even take the time to breathe and before he knew it, Chat Noir pounced on Marinette's frozen form and rolled them away in the nick of time. The nasty Akuma's razor-sharp claws swiped the area she was at momentarily ago at lightning speed and had the hero not been quick enough, well...

In his arms, he'd be holding Marinette "I'm-In-So-Much-Du-FUCKING-PAIN" Cheng instead and it would have been a severely gruesome sight. Thank the kwamis from all around the world that some good luck shined on him for once (but most importantly, thank the lucky charm bracelet Marinette gave him a long while back which he wore religiously every day as a civilian).

The Akuma's warning growls and oncoming form were enough to snap the feline out of his thoughts and by instinct, he picked Marinette up bridal style and sprinted away as fast as possible. Though, the Akuma let out one last roar of anger which Chat Noir managed to hear even after putting a few good hundreds of metres between them.

"I WILL GET MY REVENGE ON YOU MARINETTE DUPAIN-CHENG! YOU WILL NEVER INSULT MY BRILLIANT FOOD EVER AGAIN YOU BRAT!"

Wide-eyed, Chat Noir directed his greens towards his huffing good friend, the girl rolling her eyes at the Akuma's words and looking very annoyed rather than scared for her life. As if the whole thing was just an inconvenience and the Akuma's claws weren't literally millimetres away from turning her into a sheesh kebab.

"Marinette? Est-ce vrais?" He asked as he continued to leap from rooftop to rooftop, noting in the back of his head that the Akuma was now busy arguing with le Papillon in their head a good distance away. They were safe for now.

"He was selling mouldy fruit tarts! And the sandwiches tasted like they were made ten thousand years ago!" She folded her arms and huffed childishly again when he set her down on her feet, his hands on his hips and a brow raised attractively under the mask. "I told him this politely and tried my best to not make a fuss. But no! He started yelling at me and got all the customers' attention!" Her blue eyes then turned beady with its glare. "Then that stupid man tried to insult Maman and Papa, saying how can a stupid kid like me with parents like them know any better? So I said his food sucked and that even a five-year-old could do a way better job! Hmmph!"

Ahh. No wonder he got akumatised and had a vendetta against the pouting girl. Chat Noir could only smile at her endearingly, always admiring the way Marinette could get so fired up and passionate on behalf of other people. It's one of the many, many things about her that made his heart flutter and try his best to match her energy when he can. It's just a shame that instead of getting a chance to de-escalate the argument, le Papillon reared his ugly head and took advantage of the fuming man's emotions.

"Well. It looks like he's itching to dice you up and put you on a tart. You should hide before the Akuma--"

"COME OUT, COME OUT WHEREVER YOU ARE, DUPAIN-CHENG!!!!"

Just as Chat Noir was about to scoop her back in his arms and dart away, Marinette did a complete one-eighty and took on a strong stance. Fists curled by her sides, eyes now narrowed with determination and she stared down at the Akuma who was still quite a distance away from them; his giant but clumsy form still looking for her with a nasty scowl on his face.

"Chat Noir. Get to the rooftop on the Akuma's left and have your catacylsme ready. I'll summon a lucky charm once I'm behind him. I guarantee that the butterfly is in his apron so hopefully I'll get a pair of scissors or something." She was completely blind to the way Chat Noir gawked behind her, his jaw comically dropping to the floor and his eyes bulging out of their sockets.

He couldn't even utter a word.

"Let's go!" She ordered and just as she ran and reached the end of the rooftop they were perched on, her hand automatically went to the side of her hip.

When she didn't feel her yoyo anywhere on her and realised that she was still decked up in her civilian attire, it was as if a bucket of icy cold water mercilessly poured on her head. In pure Marinette style, her face contorted into one that screamed 'I FUCKED UP' and slowly, she faced her Chaton who was still gaping at her.

.

"...I can explain." She rasped weakly. Instead of laughing it all off and pretending nothing happened like he should've (that stupid cat!), Chat Noir got down to one knee instead, pulled off his ring, revealing himself to be none other than Adrien Agreste and spoke.

"Marry me. Now. Please."

.

Of course, Marinette screamed like a dying monkey.

.

~(x)~

HOPE YOU ENJOYED!

[florenceafternoon]

━。゜✿ jily fic recommendations ✿ ゜。━

This post is just some of my current favourites because I don’t think I have the energy to make a master list right now. Personally, I like to read aus so if you're looking for canon stuff this isn't the post for you.

For reference, anything in italics is taken from the summaries on ao3.

in pursuit of the study of magic by @thequibblah

An immortal magician au or, "we had a really bad breakup three hundred years ago, but neither of us realised the other is immortal until we met today"

I recommend you listen to About You while reading this

Growing (in love) by casablancas21 (on ao3)

Uni au where "James Potter has a lot going on for him. His uni years have been the best he's ever had and his friendliness, popularity and charm go a long way to place him as the go-to bloke if one's looking for a good time. Nevertheless, his final year of school finds him struggling to keep up with the social energy that once enthralled him. He's having a hard time figuring out how to set his own boundaries and what to do about his future. He's also having a really hard time figuring out Lily Evans."

I must admit that Lily's comebacks are so good I've used some during class debates in sociology this year. Truly, the dialogue and dynamics between characters in this fic are so good. Pretty sure this is the one with the kebab

Golden Waltz by evanspotter (on ao3)

Lily Evans wants to be the best ice dancer in the world, which means she needs to find a dance partner ASAP. After two failed partnerships, her coach gives her one last option: James Potter.

This fic is the reason I neglected revising for midterms. It also caused me to go into a deep dive into watching tapes of Olympic ice dance programs specifically Virtue and Moir.

on the way home by keep_driving (on ao3)

Lily was living abroad and pinning from afar. After an abundance of "phone calls, mixtapes, and long waits," Lily is finally coming home. I believe this fic is inspired by the song You Are In Love.

When I say jily is friends first, and lovers second this is what I mean

Dancing With Our Hands Tied by @athenasparrow

But despite his best efforts, he couldn’t take his eyes off her figure as she moved effortlessly in rhythm with whatever song she had playing. He learned she was wearing more than a t-shirt when she slid across the kitchen on her socks, throwing her head back to sing words James wished he could hear.

OR: In a world where social distancing reigns supreme, two strangers find themselves confined to their apartments with love only a window away.

The way I binged this fic at school between classes. love love love

The Season by @missgryffin

This is a regency (Brighton) au where "James Potter, Duke of Peverell, has returned to London just in time for the season, where Miss Lily Evans is about to make her debut. Only, he’s not looking for a wife, and she’s not particularly interested in a husband."

I love the dialogue between Lily & James as well as Sirius & Lily's relationship (for those who know Brigerton, it reminds me of Ben and El's relationship).

A Misstep Of Fate by hogwartslivy (on ao3)

A muggle historical au where "he waited for her on the edge of ballrooms and in the shadows of parties. He waited to dance with her, to spin her in his arms, to be the one she laughed and smiled with. He thought he was doing the right thing, allowing time to pass them until they were ready, so he had waited. But it seems, he made a misstep. He's waited too long now she's slipping through his fingers."

My boy is stupid and in love but it's okay because she is too. Their idiots, but they’re my idiots

Let Me Love You by @thejilyship

A Princess Diaries au in which "with only a month until she's set to take the throne of Gryffindor, Lily is informed that she'll have to get married or choose to give up her throne. She never thought she'd have to even entertain the idea of an arranged marriage. Enter, James Potter."

chaos ensues and Emma deserves long service leave (the place would fall apart)

foreigner's god by clarewithnoi (on ao3)

answer to a Tumblr prompt: "we were lovers in a past life" but the current incarnations are enemies-to-lovers, and they don't remember anything from their past selves.

The back and forth between them is so good. low-key I teared up a bit but it has a HEA

An October of Unconventional Courtships by @ghostofbambifanfiction

Two phones. Thirty-one days. Eighteen tuxedos. A Jilytober texting fic.

A classic that everyone should read

Shelf Awareness also by @/ghostofbambifanfiction

Modern bookstore au where "It's too far out of her way and she's wasting so much money, but Lily can't help but return to the bookstore every weekend, where her passion for good literature has, perhaps, been unexpectedly reignited by the messy-haired, pun-making, rather handsome bloke who works there."

One of the first ever jily fics that I read and I fell in love with their dynamic straight away

Careless Texter also by @/ghostofbambifanfiction

Answer to the prompt, “I left my phone number on the bathroom stall wall and you text me about your day and your frustrations for a month & it’s really nice and cute but I still don’t know who you are,” with some twists and differences.

Trackside by @hogwartslivy

James Potter is Formula One’s most impressive young talent, making up one half of the championship winning team at Gryffindor Racing. He’s got a reputation for playing dirty on, and seemingly off, the track but when an article quoting a particularly vulgar comment made by him at last years final Grand Prix is released, it seems he may have pushed it too far. Potter faces two options; fix his public image or give up his seat.

When my two obsessions meet

it's (always) you by @kay-elle-cee

A multiverse of 31 meet-cutes for Jilytober 2023.

Honorable mentions to chapter 3 for high!Lily and chapter 7 for fulling my love for jily regency aus

Key Limes by cgner (on ao3)

Fame au "in which Academy Award winner Lily Evans discovers the periphery of internet fandom and the mysteries of Prince James’s gold star system."

Because James is actually just a giant build a bear and lily is an icon as always.

See You At the Next Stop by kayrma (on ao3)

Lily Evans meets a posh-looking bloke with messy hair on the way back to London, and for once in her life she actually enjoys a train ride. Maybe having a spontaneous seat partner isn't that bad after all.

Shoutout to the notes on this fic because whoever wrote it is a mood

Nom De Plume by @annabtg

James Potter, renowned potioneer, has a secret side career as an erotica writer under the pen name of Scarlett Goldwing. When his latest book starts to take off, and Scarlett is asked to promote it at a public event, he has no other option but to recruit his colleague Lily Evans to pretend to be Scarlett. The only problem is, Lily Evans hates his guts… or does she?

(Rated E for later chapters)

Like did you read that summery because personally I was waiting for the author to complete the story so I could binge it

victorem (requires an ao3 account ) by gryffindormischief (on ao3)

(Olympic) Ice dancing au. "When God closes a door, sometimes you have to jump out a window."

Lily and James (and Sirius) aka the dynamic duo

Phone Service by @confuded-gryffindor

Moddern muggel au "in which James and Lily meet twice, both through their phones."

some with arrows, some with traps by @isahorcrux

Fame au. "Then: James Potter was a beloved child star and the lead of a popular YA franchise. Lily Evans was just getting her big break as his romantic lead in the third installment. While their chemistry got rave reviews, if the rumors are to be believed the two actors can barely stand to be in the same room together.

Now: Lily’s paid her dues and ten years later she’s the most in-demand actress in Hollywood. And James...after back-to-back flops at the box office, he’s just looking for a break and a chance to prove he is the amazing actor everyone thought he was going to be."

Much Ado About Nothing, but make it Jily

The group chat is the level of chaos me and my friends extrude every free line we spend together

Charred Pineaple Margarita's and a Bagel by @chiechie97

The guy at the coffee shop was hot. Hot and he knew her order. But that didn’t mean ANYTHING. Especially when he seemed to know everyone’s order. And besides, Lily is far too busy to be thinking about the hot guy that always has her breakfast waiting for her. Right?

Lily and Remus are me

and i know you too well to say you're perfect by @ofmermaidsandmarauders

“Yeah, you were a pretty big moron.” “Hey, I said idiot!”

Lily's not really sure when James Potter, soccer extraordinaire, took over her life with Harry.

What the summery said

The next few fics are all by @wearingaberetinparis or ritaskeetered (on ao3) who is the reason I joined the jily fandom. Single handedly enabled my obsession and I've never been more thankfull.

The Very Regency (Un)Ladylike Guide To Fortune-Hunting

Regency au. "Without thinking highly either of men or matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want." (Jane Austen)

Lily Evans finds herself wanting, or: so her sister seems to believe. While out on the hunt for a fortune - again: that would be Mrs Dursley mostly - the affection of a number of suitors is most welcome. Especially when a young Viscount's heart is set aflame.

Screaming, crying, punch me in the face (Lily's version)

Jump (For My Love)

Royalty au "When you are the Prince of England, the last thing one might expect is to be jumped from behind by the most beautiful woman one has ever seen, who - in turn - seems to have no clue at all and mistakes one for someone else. Surely, Prince James has the right to be disproportionately upset about this. The question is; does he need to?"

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Olympic au. James, being half Greek, had always dreamed of one day going to the Olympics. Now, at his second Winter Olympics – having won a surprising bronze medal at his first one – James has been dubbed Team GB’s hero before the games have even started.

Lily, being the daughter of a waste collector, had always dreamed of one day making her parents proud by exceeding their expectations. Now, she finds herself on a plane to China together with her boss, Minerva McGonagall, and a crowd of winter athletes representing Team GB at the Winter Olympics of 2022.

The paths of James Potter – overenthusiastic snowboarding hero – and Lily Evans – passionate overachiever – cross at the 2022 Winter Olympics when James Potter is asked to be Team GB’s flagbearer at the Opening Ceremony (and quite a few times after that as well).

The repetition of "James, being half Greek..." worked so well for the flow. I don't know how to describe it

A Game Of Thrones

Modern royalty au. Lily Evans had never imagined she would meet Prince James, but when she does at St Andrews' annual Christmas Pub Crawl, her whole world is turned upside down. For who thought that a girl like her - with a sister that reads "Hello" magazine like it's the Bible - would end up with a prince like him?

Euphemia Potter you will always be famous

flowers

A musician au that hilights sexisim in the music industry. "Singer-songwriter Lily Evans has played gig after gig, has been the opening act to many a headliner, but her big break seems a million miles away. When one night – after playing in her friend Marlene McKinnon’s bar – she receives messily scrawled lyrics on a napkin by a certain Monty Python, her life and career are turned upside down, leading her all the way to the Grammy's."

Lily my love, you deserve everything you've worked for

If You Knew Who Was Talking

hopelessly_devoted and genuinely-conflicted form each other’s support system online, cheering one another on as they battle their way through an unrequited (and most definitely unwanted) crush on the person their parents are trying to set them up with.

In the real world, James Potter and Lily Evans find themselves hopelessly devoted and genuinely conflicted when battling their persistent infatuation with the last person they would have ever liked to fall for, stubbornly fighting their family’s and friends’ convictions that they were born to be together.

If only they knew who was talking.

FOOLS the both of them.

glitter in the sky, i’m spinning out waiting for ya

For her thirtieth birthday, Marlene McKinnon and Mary McDonald gift Lily Evans the thrill of a lifetime: a tandem skydive. What no one expected? For Lily to end up in the hospital as a result with her ankle covered in soul marks.

everybody is a sexy baby, and i'm a monster on a hill

Ficwriter au. "James Potter and Lily Evans are fandom famous. Both are prolific and popular writers within the Marauders fandom, but they have completely ignored the other's existence for two years after a Tumblr misunderstanding. Now, they are paired up for the Valentine's Marauders Challenge and - forced to interact - they find out that they may be more compatible than they ever could have imagined."

Is this not the dream?

fastening myself to you with a stitch

Fame au. "Anyone who has never heard the names Lily Evans and James Potter before must be a boomer. The two actors have dominated the box office with their films in the past nine years, more often than not starring opposite one another. Whether tasked to portray mutual pining, passionate hatred or fiery love, Potter and Evans make the screen positively buzz with the taste of opportunity."

it's all happening without me

Normal People (Sally Roony) au. "At school, James and Lily pretend not to know each other. James is wealthy, popular and the star of his school’s football team, while Lily wears second-hand school uniforms, is the school pariah and resented for her smarts. At James’ house, however – meeting there due to Lily’s mother’s housekeeping job – they form an intense connection they desperately try to conceal to the outside world.

A year later, James and Lily both attend Hogwarts University where James has found his feet and made friends he had longed for his entire life, while Lily remains uncertain and haunted by her problematic past.

Throughout their years at university, James and Lily circle each other, trying to resist the magnetic pull between them, whilst coming to the realisation that the both of them may be more religious than they ever thought they were."

Mother knows best. Mary, never question your writing skills because this fic proved that you are a phenomenal writer. The emotions you evoked coverered the entire range of human emotions

It's Coming Down, It's Coming Down Series -

Weird, But Fuckin' Beautiful

When Lily Evans is invited to spend Christmas with the Potters, she finds that she can simply not refuse. It’s an offer she cannot resist for several reasons, the most important one being that she would much rather spend the holidays with Fleamont and Euphemia than she would with Vernon and Petunia.

So what if she had conveniently forgotten (or has she?) about the fact that the Potters have a son - a Formula 1 driver at that - who she can’t seem to get off her mind? (Mightily annoying that, seeing as he has made clear exactly how he feels about her and it’s not exactly giving her any hope.) It’s not as if she can’t control herself.

Or so she very dearly hopes…

Tonight Feels Impossible

But after a night spent together in a hotel's honeymoon suite, she doubts she ever will and fears it might be her downfall.

To All The Kudos I've Left Before

Ficwriter au set in university. "Fanfiction is the guiltiest of pleasures that Lily - twenty years old and studying at Hogwarts University - freely and happily indulges in. She reads fanfiction whenever she has a moment to herself and goes crazy whenever her favourite author - Artemis - updates or uploads another one of his works to Archive Of Our Own. Leaving them comments and the ensuing banter between them back and forth - however fleeting - makes her heart race and preoccupies a fair amount of her thoughts, which - in turn - angers her best friend.

James Potter has never had to suffer from an inferiority complex. His parents and friends are supportive of his every endeavour and this includes his habit to write fanfiction and put his written work out there in the void for his readers to enjoy. His readers are highly supportive too - Lilium being his absolute favourite - that is, until he starts to receive the vilest of comments from a number of guest accounts and starts to question his entire online existence.

What Artemis and Lilium don’t know? That they might know each other a little better than either of them ever bargained for."

The title says it all ❤ ❤❤

[lemon-natalia]

Nona the Ninth Reaction - Chapter 24

ok so i’ve not been paying too much attention to the specific skulls appearing in each chapter header BUT i recently rearranged my bookshelf and so noticed that this chapter skull is the same one on the GtN book spine 👀👀

ok i don’t think bandages alone are gonna do much good for being shish kebabed with a rapier

i can’t blame Camilla here, your closest loved one being in the body of Naberius Tern is a nightmare scenario quite frankly

i feel like Nona comparing Corona to Noodle is the highest compliment Nona could have bestowed upon her

Ianthe clearly took ‘Necromantic Interior Decorating 101’ from Harrow sometime last book, covering the hallway with an inventive ‘blood filigree’. how charming 

hah I would kill for Ianthe to be around to hear Pyrrha say that her work was a shit version of Mercymorn’s

i'm Very intrigued by Pyrrha’s comment that she apparently tried to trick Wake into loving her somehow, i do wonder if we’ll ever get a more in-depth look at how exactly their whole fling started

oh poor Nona, she’s really beating herself up just for wanting the only body that she has to actually belong to her

GIDEON NAV THE LOVE OF MY LIFE IS BACK! or at least her corpse is but i’m taking what i can get here okay

Nona’s mild disgust for redheads and being so critical of Gideon’s appearance is so very funny, it reminds me of how Gid described Harrow for a good chunk of GtN

'her face had that half-past-a-dream expression’ i’m probably reading wayy too into this, but amajor theme throughout this book has been dreams - the John chapters being dreams, Nona’s dreams of Gideon, so i’m curious if there’s anything significant about this description in regards to where Gid’s soul is

this has become very Sleeping Beauty suddenly with the unconscious kiss. or more accurately given Gid’s actually dead, Snow White. with the glass coffin containing the Sleeper in Harrow’s mindscape, that’s an interesting parallel between Gideon and Wake

umm i’m sorry what the fuck do you mean her eyes opened. and now she’s totally dead again?? is Nona’s hallucinating or what?? these books solidly going into mindfuck territory once again

an awful chunk of this book is made up of characters with very strange feelings about the corpse of Gideon Nav huh

MILITARY WING OF DISCO 🕺🪩🕺🪩

'imagine the hopes and fears of the whole universe contained in one dead little red star’ close enough, welcome back Ortus Ninegad’s unfairly hated poetry

oh jeez Gideon’s wounds are intense. i thought she just got impaled once right down the middle but nope she also has a neck wound as well. Nasty

christ please leave Bab’s and Gideon’s dead bodies alone. they keep getting possessed and tossed in rivers left and right

GIDEON NAV THE LOVE OF MY LIFE IS BACK!!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ somehow idk what’s going on i’m not questioning it at all, i’m just happy about it

evil cougar is a very apt description of Cytherea. also from what i recall this the first time Pal and Gideon have actually interacted since he literally blew himself up over a year ago, which is wild

[vodika-vibes]

Hi! I was wondering if you could write a fic about CX-2, because he needs some love and maybe a reader or S/O could rescue him from tantiss and take care of him and feed him good food and make sure he’s happy and healing

Idk if he is tech or dogma or anyone we’ve met before cause nameless clones deserve so much love and idk why I feel lowkey emotional, but it made me so sad when he got turned into a kebab, after all the torture and stuff he went through, I just wanted to hug him

Anyways, I hope you have a wonderful day!

In The End

Summary:  It’s been a year, 12 long months, since the last time that you saw CX-2. You went on a date with him, and then he vanished, with only a simple message saying that he had to work and that he’d contact you when he could. And then he fell off the face of the map. And now, almost a year later, and with the able assistance of a group of Wookie Mercenaries, he’s back with you, safely on your ship headed for the haven you’ve arranged beforehand.

Pairing: CX-2 x F!Reader

Word Count: 1359

Warnings: None

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni @imabeautifulbutterfly

A/N: So as much as I love Tech and Dogma, I love the idea more that CX-2 is someone else entirely. So, here you have CX-2 being happy with his family. I just needed to take a break from my AU event, I have so many ideas for them, but it's like there's a traffic jam in my brain, I can't get the words to word.

Your knuckles are white as you grip the sleeves of your jacket. You’re very, very stressed. But then, you’ve been stressed for the better part of a year.

Hopefully, now that CX is safe, your stress levels will drop to a more reasonable level. And your medical droid will stop chiding you to practice yoga. That would be nice.

Speaking of said medical droid—

The door to the infirmary slides open and the silver droid hovers out and over to you, “The Patient is awake and aware. There seems to be no lasting damage due to his year-long confinement.”

“So I can see him?” You ask.

“He needs his rest.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

The Droid sighs heavily, a very human reaction you can’t help but notice, but then he nods his head. “You brought him food, I take it.”

“Uh, yeah,” You gesture to the small tray of some of CX’s favorite foods. A pasta dish, with some roasted veggies, and a proper dessert. 

The droid eyes the food critically, and then nods, “That is all acceptable.” He says, “I am returning to my charging dock.” And then, abruptly, he hovers off.

You watch him fly into another room, and then slowly stand and grab the tray of food. Hopefully, he’ll be happy to see you. It’d be heartbreaking if you went through all of this trouble, and he wasn’t happy to see you.

Lightly, you knock on the door and then press the control to allow the door to slide open when you hear an answer from inside. You step into the room, making sure to shut the door behind you before you focus your attention on him.

He looks…well, he doesn’t look well.

Oh, sure, he’s still the handsome man that you fell in love with. Only he’s lost a lot of weight, his abdominal muscles are clearly defined, not protected by the thin layer of fat that gave him a very pleasant squish. He also has bags under his eyes, and you’re pretty sure that there’s a hint of grey in his dark curls.

But he’s still CX.

Your name falls from his lips, he looks astonished to see you, and then he averts his gaze, as if ashamed of something.

And that just won’t do.

You cross the small room and set the tray of food on an open table, and then you reach out for him, stopping just shy of touching him. “I missed you,” You say, your voice soft.

His dark eyes snap to meet yours, and the smallest smile crosses his face. “I missed you more,” CX replies, his voice slightly raspy, and for once, you believe it.

He reaches up and takes your hands in his and pulls your hands to his face, and you eagerly cup his face, content to feel his warm skin against your hands again. You don’t fight him when his arms snake around your waist and he pulls you as close as he can without pulling you onto the bed.

He buries his face against your chest and just breathes.

You gently card your fingers through his curls, your other hand moving from his cheek to wrap around him, holding him as tightly as you can. Just enjoying him.

You lightly drop a kiss on the top of his head, “I thought you were dead,” You murmur against his hair.

He trembles slightly, “I’m sorry. I never meant to disappear.”

“I’m not mad.”

“You should be.”

“Never.”

He pulls back, and looks up at you, “Cyare,” this time his hands come up to cup your face, “You don’t understand, I’ve hurt so many people—”

“It doesn’t matter.” You reply, “Not to me. You didn’t have a choice, CX. I know that.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

You shush him gently, “We’re going somewhere else. Somewhere where the Empire can’t touch you ever again. You have brothers there.”

CX looks baffled for a moment, “Brothers?”

“I think they called themselves Nil…or null?”

He blinks at you, “We’re staying with the Nulls?”

“Yeah, when I was looking for you, I managed to stumble over them. We’ve been offered a place with them. They have a whole settlement for clones and their families.”

“Even clone assassins?”

“All clones,” You reassure, “What do you think?”

He looks uncertain for a moment, “I suppose we can try it out, and see if it works.” CX finally agrees, and then he pulls you in so he’s able to press his face against your chest again, “cyare?”

“Hm?”

“What scent are you wearing?”

“What scent am I—?” You pause and your face flushes, “Oh, right. I’m not, not really.” You gently push him back and lean in to kiss his forehead, “There’s actually something I need to get for you, I left it in my room.”

CX peers at you, “Can it wait?”

“It’s a surprise. And I think, well hope, that you’ll like it.”

CX watches you for a moment, and you smile at him reassuringly, “I’ll be right back, I promise.”

He unwraps his arms from around you, “Alright,”

You beam at him and quickly drop a chaste kiss against his lips before you turn and hurry out of the room. You’re vaguely aware of him sitting up in the medical bed and swinging his legs off the edge as the door slides shut behind you.

You walk the short distance to your room, and don’t bother shutting the door behind you. There’s no need, you’ll only be in here for a moment, after all. You walk around your bed (big enough for you and CX to share), and lean over the much smaller bed, a loving smile crossing your face as you look at the face of your sleeping daughter.

CX’s daughter.

He vanished before you even found out that you were pregnant, so hopefully, she’s a good surprise.

You scoop Eli into your arms, adjusting her weight so she’s comfortably nestled against you, and you head out of the room. The scent that CX asked you about was baby powder, which you seem to always smell like since giving birth to Eli.

You step back into the infirmary, and CX opens his mouth to say something but stops when he sees Eli.

“...cyare?”

You sit on the bed next to him, “This is Eli, she looks like you.” You lightly brush a dark curl off your daughter's forehead, “Luckily, can you imagine if she got stuck with my hair color and your skin tone?”

CX doesn’t say anything, you glance at him and notice that he’s staring at Eli, wide-eyed.

“I found out that I was pregnant 2 weeks after you vanished,” You explain, “She’s 5 months old now. Would you like to hold her?”

“Can I?” He asks, his gaze darting to your face, “Am I allowed?”

“She’s your daughter, you silly man. Here.” You pass the baby over to CX, and adjust his arms so that he’s cradling her properly, “She’s a very calm baby, she doesn’t fuss a lot.”

Cx stares at Eli, mesmerized, “Was the pregnancy easy?”

You shrug, “Unimportant, I had plenty of help.”

“Cyare—”

You smile at him adoringly, “Next time, we’ll do it properly.”

He blinks at you, “Next time?”

“Um, well…if you want a next time.” You correct sheepishly.

You watch as he brushes a finger down Eli’s nose, “I’d like there to be a next time.” CX murmurs, “I can’t believe you gave me a baby.”

“Well, you gave her to me first,” You say with a soft laugh, “I’m just returning the favor.”

He glances at you and a genuine smile, the first one since you’ve been reconnected, crosses his face. “We’re going to be okay,”

“Of course we will.” You lightly lay your head on his shoulder, “We’re going to be better than okay, we’re going to be great.”

You feel him press his head against yours, “I love you,” The words are soft as if he’s not sure he has the right to say them, and you smile. 

You turn your head and press a kiss against his bare shoulder, “I love you too, CX.”

[octuscle]

Last day I found out my boyfriend had cheated on me multiples times, so now I want to use Chronivac for revenge to transform him into something hot for me and humiliating for him.

I don't know your taste now… But if you give me free choice, I'll just run one of my favorite presets. Transformation duration two days. Start during the morning meeting of your cheating boyfriend.

Your friend stands at the flipchart and explains the status of the current sprint of the software development project he is leading. Confident as always. A seasoned man in his early 40s, but suddenly he keeps losing the thread. He is unfocused. After the meeting, he runs into his office, takes a pack of cigarettes from his jacket and smokes a cigarette outside the building. And another. And plays with his cell phone. He surfs through porn sites he's never heard of before. Only when a colleague calls him and asks where he is, does he get back to work.

During the lunch break, his colleagues all go out for sushi. He says he's not in the mood for that shit. Drinks a beer at the food truck in the supermarket parking lot and eats a kebab with fries. Your friend spends the rest of the afternoon surfing the Internet in his office. He doesn't even go outside the building to smoke, he does it in the toilet.

On the way home, your friend looks at his reflection in a shop window. Fuck, he urgently needs a new haircut. Half an hour later he comes out of a 5-pound hair salon. And happily strokes his short hair. When you get home, your boyfriend is sitting half naked in front of the TV and jerking off. He asks if you can give him a blowjob. He would also immediately return the favor. There is no dinner. But you fuck like rabbits.

The next morning your friend gets up at 05:00. A round of running before work. He saves showering afterwards. He's been working for the security service for almost 10 years now, whether he's showered or not in his polyester uniform doesn't matter anyway after a few hours in the summer. That he wakes you up after the run with a blowjob is really sweet. But to be honest, the smell of cigarettes during the final French kiss with his cum-glutted tongue bothers you a bit.

You have made extra early closing time today. Your friend makes you so horny. The crisp young body this morning, his greedy tongue… In fact, his change has also rubbed off on you… You also had your hair cut short today. And you have also started to smoke. Nevertheless, the sight of your boyfriend almost knocks you over when he comes home at 4:00 pm. After the shift, he was working out. He stinks of smoke and sweat. He sees you lying on the sofa. And when he drops his pants, his hard-on jumps out at you like a jack-in-the-box.

Fuck, it's 10:00 o'clock when you wake up the next morning. Totally overslept! But the transformation is complete. Next to you lies an 18-year-old chav with a sneaker fetish and a sex drive that can hardly be satisfied. It is Friday. Take the day off. And let me know if you want me to adjust you a bit to your friend. In any case, have fun this weekend!

[ladykailitha]

All My Roads Lead Back to You Part 17

Welp. We are in the home stretch. I’m almost done writing the last chapter and then there will be a small epilogue. Thank you so much for sharing this ride with me on this one.

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

*

Edie isn’t exactly sure when it started happening, but she began to notice little changes in her dad’s eating habits. Some times he would go for seconds if he liked it or he would keep some kind of fruit on hand to snack on.

But knowing her dad’s past also helped her notice when he would get that thousand yard stare or when he would jump at certain sounds. Knowing that he had walked through hell, not just once, but multiple times was like slotting in a piece of the puzzle you didn’t know was missing. And just watching all the other pieces that didn’t make sense before form a complete picture.

She knew that they had told her was only scratching the surface. Things they weren’t directly involved in but didn’t want to know. After she was told about their past Mr Munson gave her permission to dig into the incident surrounding the actual fucking lynch mob that was led by a psychotic basketball star.

What made her the angriest was that the asshole died in the earthquake and never had to deal with the consequences of his actions. That the town took that as liberty to just sweep it under the rug. The police chief quietly resigned two years later. No one that was involved in the witch hunt was actually punished for what they did to Mr Munson.

So she decided she was going to make a long distance phone call. A very long distance phone call.

“Miss Thing!” Lily Byers greeted cheerfully. “To what do I owe this totally awesome pleasure?”

“Cousin Itt!” Edie greeted back. “How’s it rocking, girlie?”

“You know,” Lily said, “as much as I love traveling the world, I got soo super jelly of your prom pictures. I’m trying to convince Mom to let spend the last year of high school with you.”

“Just say the word, Cousin Itt,” Edie said seriously, “I will deploy the puppy dog eyes.”

Lily laughed. “I’m not quite that desperate. Yet.”

“Duly noted,” Edie said. “Hey, I need a favor. But first how much do you know about your parents’ high school days?”

“You talking normal angst filled love triangles?” Lily ask slowly. “Or are we talking about nightmare fuel?”

“Nightmare fuel.”

Lily let out a slow breath. “I got ‘read in’ last year.” Edie could feel the air quotes from here. “I’m guessing you’re new to the ‘my parents are fucked up’ club?”

“About a month I guess,” Edie said with a sigh. “Me and Harri Munson. They tell you about what happened to his dad? Eddie Munson? Not the monster shit, but the normies fucking shit up stuff?”

Lily let out another long sigh. “Yeah. The witch hunt of the century.”

“Can you please explain why your mother and father didn’t expose the fucking town the way they did the Lab?” Edie asked pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration.

“That is a really good question, Miss Thing,” Lily said. “And I think you just gave me new leverage against my parents over the whole high school senior year dealio. I’ll get back to you.”

“Love you lots!” Edie said.

“Love you more!” Lily replied and then hung up.

“You know,” a voice said from behind her, “that’s a pretty low blow, weaponizing your cousin that way.”

Edie whirled around to see her dad leaning against the doorframe of her bedroom. His arms were crossed over his chest, but he had an easy smile on his face.

“Don’t you know it’s rude to eavesdrop,” she said glaring at him.

“I just came to ask if you wanted pizza or kebabs tonight,” he said, his smile turning into a grin. “I did knock. A couple times in fact. But you were the one plotting world takeover with your bedroom door open.”

Edie flopped on her bed. “Is that one of the reasons we rarely get together, because we’d take over the world?”

Steve laughed. “One of many. One of many.”

Edie grinned. “I’m just correcting a miscarriage of justice is all.”

“Oh, is that all?” he asked grinning back at her. “Knowing Lily Byers like I do, I fully expect an expose by the end of the week and formal apology from the city of Hawkins and the state of Indiana to Eddie by the end of the month.”

Edie pretended to toss non-existent long hair over her shoulder. “Good.”

Steve pulled her in for a hug. “I think the reason she didn’t is because of me.”

Edie pulled away slightly. “What do you mean?”

“I think she didn’t want to stir up feelings for Eddie after he left.”

“But he left three months after,” Edie insisted. “Why didn’t she say something then?”

“Our town was nearly destroyed,” Steve reminded her. “And the government had found a scapegoat in Henry Creel, got Eddie off and all this while Eddie was still in a coma from being nearly ripped to bits. She had a lot on her mind those first three months. We all did. And then he got a record deal, he was going to be famous. She probably didn’t want to make waves for him and ruin his chances.”

“Damn it,” she sighed. “Those are all really good reason not blow up the biggest scandal since the ‘gas leak’.”

“So maybe tell Lily to ease up a bit on her mom?” Steve asked.

“Not a snowball’s chance in hell, Dad.”

Steve sighed. He figured that was the answer, but felt he had to try. At least a little.

*

School was ending and Edie and Harri both had summer school. Mandy and Kenny were free, but then they were good in school and mostly liked by the teachers.

Their rich school was a bit backwards. Probably because it had only been built in the last decade, but Mr Pearson wasn’t the only teacher that turned their noses up at old money students like Edie. She had the misfortune to be old money, too. Her family’s wealth went back as far a century at least.

She wasn’t third or even fourth generation wealthy. Her great-great grandparents were stinking rich. They were among the few families to come out of the stock market crash and Great Depression relatively unscathed. It’s why Dad’s trust fund was so sought after.

A trust fund that only grew because he may not have had a head for numbers, he had a head for business. He knew when to pull out if something was failing and when to pour more money in if they looked on the verge of discovery.

But it meant that all the teachers thought that her dad didn’t earn having his daughter at their school. So they always went a lot harder on Edie then they did her friends. All three of which had parents that came from nothing or very little to make their wealth. Mandy and Harri were both children of rock stars. Kenny’s mom invented some kitchen gadget that had taken the world by storm and now was in nearly every house in the country.

Harri was only joining her in summer school hell because two of the credits he needed to graduation next year didn’t transfer over and he had zero desire to sit with sophomores and juniors his last year of school.

“They should standardize the curriculum across the country,” Harri grumbled, kicking at a rock on their way into school.

Edie sighed. She agreed with him, but if they had she wouldn’t have a summer school buddy to be miserable with.

“I hear that,” was what she said instead. “And you should be allowed to skip a class if you don’t want to take it. As long as you get two years of math, who cares if it’s just basic math. It’s like judging a fish by its ability to climb or however that quote goes.”

“Right?” Harri agreed. “Like if what you want to go into takes heavy math that sure, you do the advanced math, but if you’re going into art and the only math you’re going to need is fractions they shouldn’t have to force you into bullshit like that.”

They both had to take a math class and a science class, so they took the same ones so that they could at least have a study buddy.

“I hate that I have to do this,” Edie groused as she flopped down in a desk somewhere near the back of the class. “It means I can’t go to the gala this year.”

“Gala?” Harri asked, sliding into the desk next to hers. “What gala?”

“The biggest event my dad does all year,” she explained, resting her head on her hands and staring off into the distance dreamily. “He’s involved in a shit ton of charities, but this is his biggest. It’s like the it party of the year and everyone foams at the mouth for an invite.”

“So why can’t you go?” Harri asked.

“Because for everyone else it’s a one night event,” Edie said, “but for my dad it’s a week long thing just prepping for it. And because I have summer school, I can’t help him. His rule has always been that I’ve been too young and that was supposed to change this year. I was going to help out and get to go. But because I have this stupid shit, I have to spend the week at Mandy’s.”

“You’re nearly eighteen,” Harri protested. “Can’t you be left home alone?”

Edie sighed. “If it was about Dad being gone all the time, sure. But it’s not. It’s held at the house. Or rather the backyard. There are people coming and going all hours of the day and night. Setting up lights, preparing food, setting up tables. It’s a whole thing. And if I want to actually pass these classes...”

Harri winced. “You can’t be around all that shit...Point well and truly taken. So what are you going to do instead?”

Edie shrugged. “Normally Mr Lawrence lets Mandy have a party that night and we stay up late watching movies, but I think the Lawrences are going this year, so I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Harri opened his mouth to ask another question, but the teacher chose that moment to walk in and they were forced to pay attention to the class.

***

Part 18 Epilogue

@spectrum-spectre @estrellami-1 @zerokrox-blog @artiststarme @swimmingbirdrunningrock @gregre369 @pyrohonk​ @trashpocket @goodolefashionedloverboi @chaoticlovingdreamer @maya-custodios-dionach @messrs-weasley @val-from-lawrence @plyerice27 @mightbeasleep @thedragonsaunt @chaoticlovingdreamer @trashpocket @sapphirecobalt-1 @a-little-unsteddie @i-must-potato @danili666  @carlyv @rozzieroos @wonderland-girl143-blog @itsall-taken @steddie-as-they-go @lillemilly @callas-shitshow @bisexualdisastersworld @renaissan-vvitch @immortal-iratze @bookbinderbitch @cardigangoth @lilacrobin @nightmareglitter @nerdsconquerall @stxrcrossed186

[wormsngods]

Monday Morning

• Offered 2 units of Fajr

• Took a 40 minute nap

• Did my CTM routine and applied sunscreen made a mental note to shave

• Reheated and packed a Kebab from last night

• Made myself shilajit tea and packed it in the portable mug my cousin in law got me 3 years ago that I had forgotten existed after burning my tongue on coffee once

• Left 20 minutes earlier than my regular leaving time

Improvements:

Sleep earlier so I can stay up after Fajr and pray/read/exercise/Read Quran

🎧 : Demolition Lovers - My Chemical Romance

[carionto]

Light the Fuse and Step Forth

At the Old Delhi Institute of Natural Science and Engineering, after a bit of a panic over a missing student who had merely went on an unannounced diving trip, Professor Iorvan Hal'Ahmat Garaamhan was having some trouble.

His life was boring.

He's 46, single, no kids, a cat, tenure, routine hobbies, and going bald. All his friends are about as boring as him. Except for Ruth, she usually gets the group together for an excursion to touch grass, but she volunteered to help establish a new branch of the institute in East Egypt over the next two years, and she's kind of the glue for their whole friend group.

Maybe he should take a vacation? But where... Earth is Earth - been there, done that; and he's not a fan of space travel either, too many weirdos up there, and really does not agree with all this moon cracking and harvesting business. Seeing footage of them smushing three moons together for that idiotic Death Kebab project really turned him off from all of that space and aliens nonsense.

Noticing a small notebook that had apparently fallen beneath one of the desks, he picked it up to see who it belonged to. It was an unassuming thing with no distinct markings on the outside. As he flipped the cover over, he saw it belonged to a freshmen named Cintra Valkeim, and was about to close it, but a strange line of symbols caught his eye.

"Professor? Is everything alright?" a voice suddenly interrupted his browsing. When did he get to the last page? When did he move closer to the window? Closing the notebook by impulse as he looked up at the voice, it was Cintra. She appeared a little nervous and worried. Putting his professional smile back on, he walked towards her and held out the notebook.

"I believe this is yours. I noticed it had fallen down. Be more careful next time, the cleaning drones don't check ownership themselves and simply dump anything they don't recognize as trash into the lost and found bin." he said as she took the notebook back.

"I will, thank you." She appeared to consider saying more, but closed her mouth and turned to briskly walk away.

Not thinking about it any more, Professor Garaamhan started to pack up his things and head out for lunch, when students for his next class, not due for another hour, started pouring in. Confused, he checked for the time and to his dismay found it had already been over an hour since the previous class ended. Did he really stand around for an hour, transfixed on

What was he doing for an hour?

He picked something up, then said goodbye to a student, but everything in between is hazy. Something was strange, and he didn't like it.

His stomach growled, and he didn't like that either.

Making an executive decision, he quickly scribbled an overly complex task meant for senior students, said anyone who correctly solves this gets extra credit, which immediately got almost all of the sophomores to shut up, sit down, and start working, then he walked off to have a meal.

The next day, as Iorvan was heading for the staff room, he noticed a strange light coming from beneath the closed door of an empty classroom. It was pulsating slightly, like a heartbeat. Without thinking, he put his hand on the handle, but froze before turning it open.

For the briefest of moments, every cell in his body screamed to not open the door. The fear that engulfed him dissipated just as quickly, as a student approached him with a question. They asked something, he answered, both said their goodbyes, and he could not remember what he was doing. Snapping back to reality, he went to the staff room and had a normal day.

That night, going through tomorrows assignments, a notebook with no markings seemed to appear in his stack of documents.

He opened it, noticed a student named Cintra Valkeim was the owner, looked at the scribbles on the side

He awoke in a hospital bed. He felt anemic. His eyes were burning, mouth parched, lips like sand, and a splitting headache made him wish somebody would knock him out cold.

A nurse rushed in as soon as the automated system informed the staff he was awake, delivered the painkillers, and gave him some water. She explained that they found him unconscious in his apartment after the institute and his friends failed to make contact with him for three days in a row. He had been sitting at his desk, and the muscle damage indicated he had remained almost unmoving for the entire time, but fully tensed up.

Three days? What was he doing? He couldn't remember anything out of the ordinary, and when the paramedic who arrived on the scene came by, what she described to him gave no impression of anything different either.

Over the next week, fellow staff, some students he had worked closely with on their thesis projects, and one of his friends came over to see how he is, what happened, etc. Nobody became wiser from any of this. Everything was normal.

After being discharged, he decided to not think too hard about the incident. The stress of a mundane existence got to him, is the explanation he went with.

As he went about his day back at the institute as normal, he walked by a empty classroom that had a strange pulsating light coming from beneath the closed door. He was about to open the door, but noticed he was holding an unassuming notebook in his hand.

"Open the door, please."

A young female voice spoke softly from behind.

He used his other hand to reach for the handle and opened the door and stepped forth into the light.

His world ended. The universe ended. Then it began.

Fast forward to the present.

He is underwater.

The pressure crushes him before he can recognize what is happening.

Then he is underwater again. Not crushed this time.

A voice that is not a voice, more like a decree from existence itself, embeds into his mind. His mind goes blank, and he dies, again.

Once more underwater. The voice is a voice this time.

L E A R N

is all Iorvan understands before passing out, once again.

He steps out of the dark empty classroom and greets Cintra, who was standing behind him earlier.

"I believe this is yours. Third time now, you really need to be more careful about leaving your things behind, Ms Valkeim." he gently reprimands her as she takes the notebook from him again.

"I promise I will, truly. Sorry, Professor Garaamhan. See you later!" are the last words out of her before rushing off to her next class.

Flipping through his own notebook, Iorvan jots down a series of impossible symbols as he walks down the hall to his own next lecture.

[related context]

[whumpshaped]

First of all, I am equal parts amazed and terrified of your severe brainrot rn. Surely you don't sleep at night, eat or drink, just rotate those two like döner kebab and write? I binge-read it all yesterday (some pieces I read twice or thrice 😌) and I am overjoyed that the chapters keep coming but please don't write yourself into exhaustion 🥺

Second of all, Shadows for the vampire bingo! I imagine Helle likes dining out from time to time... Finds some other poor soul and is disappointed when they aren't as entertaining as Beck; or maybe they take beck somewhere, some park full of shadows - as enrichment 😊

i mean ur not wrong.. i do nothin but write recently.. but dont worry i'll be forced not to write for a good while starting saturday bc im going home :/ but until then its kebab time. heres how helle went about feeding while beck was out w the flu <3 not their best night

masterlist bingo card

tw vampire whumper, mind control, noncon biting of a married couple i feel like thats a special offence, noncon drugging, past trauma, death mention

Helle left the apartment feeling sick to their stomach. It was a dumb thing to still be so hung up about, it was merely the worst and last few days of their mortal life that gave way to a century torment right afterwards. Nothing monumental.

"This is ridiculous," they muttered to themself, quickly pressing the button that opened the front door of the building. The fresh air against their skin was definitely a welcome sensation — it made them temporarily forget about how suffocating their coffin had been.

They immediately spotted a couple on the bench by the playground, being all cute with each other. They thought about ruining yet another date night, but... no, they needed to get away for a bit. Just for half an hour or so. Take a walk, maybe, be around some other people so they could forget about the sight of their human lying on the bed with his face flushed.

'It's just the flu,' he'd said. Right. Because influenza was absolutely incapable of killing anyone, right? Because they weren't supposed to be thinking about the stupid outbreak, because it was three hundred years ago, because medicine had advanced since then, because it was just one human– Fucking hell, they had been that one human before. And if Beck was dying, they wouldn't even have the guts to turn him. Not like this.

They stopped and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. It was fine. Everything was fine. Beck wasn't dying, they weren't dying anymore, and Lady Marie was dead. What they needed to do was find an unfortunate, stupid human, have dinner, and go back to check on their unfortunate, stupid human.

They stuck to the shadows around buildings, places that the streetlights didn't quite illuminate. They looked around the area for any fresh meat, eventually bumping into yet another couple. What was it with them? Well, whatever. They would do.

It took all of two seconds for the women to notice them once they amped up the charm a bit, and suddenly they were walking towards the danger zone, compelled to be around such an alluring stranger. Helle didn't wait for either of them to strike up a conversation.

"Stay right there for me," they said softly, enthralling one of the women while they grabbed her... girlfriend? Wife? They glanced down and caught a glimpse of the matching rings they were wearing. Yes, definitely her wife.

They grabbed the woman and bit down, steadying her with one hand and covering her mouth with the other. She tasted fine, they supposed, but everything felt like a downgrade after Beck. They used enough venom to keep her discomfort to a minimum, but hopefully not enough that she would come knocking on their door a couple days later for round two. It was hard to tell whether the charm was even broken, or she still thought she was getting randomly bitten by someone she'd met five seconds ago and didn't even get to greet.

They pulled away and lifted the enthrallment, just in time for the first woman to see her wife slump against them like a giggly little ragdoll. "You should probably bring her home," they suggested helpfully. "I am no doctor."

~

taglist: @whumpsday @the-scrapegoat @hidden-dreamland @dismemberment-on-a-tuesday-night @delicateprincepaper @whumppmuhw @florissimps @nicolepascaline @oliversrarebooks @the-cyrulik @pirefyrelight