#i would like a veteran’s discount

[here-comes-the-moose]

When I’m writing my Modern AU but then try to figure out and calculate how the life I gave the Batch is financially possible:

[carlyraejepsans]

i was thinking about that ask i received the other day and how uncharacteristically upset the topic had made me when i usually just think "mh. gross!" and move on, and after mulling it over a while i realized it wasn't about the topic at all, it was the ask itself that freaked me out. i've mentioned sporadically before (for obvious reasons lol) that i used to be involved in fandom discourse when i was younger and that!! fucked me up quite a lot. between exacerbating my ocd and straight up getting cyber stalked (i almost feel guilty using that word, like i don't deserve it but. yeah that is 100% what happened to me), the topic is something I have very complex and personal opinions on but that i hate talking about in public because it still sets off my fight or flight response.

i know some people in the fandom are like "let me know if i ever rb someone who wrote/drew gross stuff" and that's entirely their choice and i respect it. but for the record, i am not one of these people. please, for the love of god, i am asking this genuinely do NOT come into my DMs about this, I don't want to know. assume I'm either living in blissful ignorance or my blacklist already covers me quite nicely & i wanna keep it that way. i vastly prefer the discomfort of stumbling into something unprepared and deciding what to do about it on my own, to the utter pit of dread i get whenever i open a message that starts with "hey just so you know-". i have blocked multiple people in the past over it. i WILL block more. be warned.

[note. this doesn't apply to people who have either hurt or behaved inappropriately with other members of the fandom, or spread bigotry and discrimination like racists and transphobes. please do let me know in those cases]

does this make sense? idk I'm kinda feverish you guys figure it out. I'm going to sleep.

[sillysadduck]

for those who didnt know my previous accounts, or even those who do, in 2020 I was also SUUUPER harassed for a fnaf fanart where my humanized bonnie and mangle LOOKED AT EACH OTHER.

I'M TELLING YOU, I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO BACK THEN. NOW I CAN LAUGH BUT BOY DID I SUFFER.

so I may redraw that fanart for the good old times, here's to me being the black sheep of every fandom for no reason😭 lmaooo

[deathsbecome]

When I die the outxsmarted url will be in my will

[petrichal]

You know what would be really cool? If instead of fillers, Toei would animate One Piece Gakuen or One Piece Party just like Strawhat Theater all those years ago to pad out the pacing and have it be at the end of an episode

[jewishrizahawkeye]

im at the point in the parks and rec rewatch where they got really really big and it kinda loses some of its charm

[yangjeongin]

was going back through some posts for something and found these tags of mine on a post during hyunatus (hyunjin hiatus) era and i just want to say the manifestation worked

[mind-intheclouds342]

A new ladder - Reader x Curly

Previous - Part 2 - Next

"Those were the words of the former captain of the Tulpar ship, owned by Pony Express, Grant Curly, who miraculously was the only survivor even in his condition after going through a series of murders on the ship, completely vulnerable, by the same person who caused the crash, his co-pilot Jimmy-"

You turned off the television while they were broadcasting Curly's testimony on all channels.

"I'll go buy a few things" you mentioned, getting up from your seat and putting on a jacket to go out. "Wanna come with me?"

Curly turned to look at you curiously, thinking you were going to leave him there on his own until you returned, or that you would take him without asking to keep him close.

Curly: "Please"

He sighed and you took his chair to start pushing him to the store.

They could notice the looks of the people passing by, all recognizing the man, but none able to approach him to ask a question.

"Do you like peas? Lin told me that you could eat without any problem as long as your pieces are small." 

Curly: "I have no problem with the food... I just don't like sweets."

"Okay"

You nodded, adding things to the cart, checking the prices, and thinking about what you could cook.

He stood gazing into the distance at the chocolate aisle, remembering the boxes of chocolates he used to buy for Linda, sighing at the thought that those days were in the past.

He found it strange to think that she was already over 50, while he remained at the age of 34, now being cared for by the younger sister of the woman who had once been his fiancée, who must now be around 32.

Curly: "Your birthday... It was a few months ago, right? I remember Linda used to say that she liked spring because it was when you were born."

"...No, my birthday hasn't happened yet, there's still some time left. But I don't really celebrate it, I just treat myself and that's it."

You shrugged even while looking at the products on the shelves.

Having everything you needed, you went to the cash registers to pay. The woman had seen Curly on television and gave him a discount as if he were some kind of veteran or senior.

That didn't please the man very much.

You stopped halfway back to his home, the streets were no longer so busy, after all, you had left a bit late after all.

"Would you like to feel something different?"

You asked him while firmly holding the wheelchair, there was a slight slope on that street, the man immediately turned to look at you, you looked excited to do something, like a child about to pull a prank.

Curly: "Sure?..." he said without being very convinced

And he let out a scream when you climbed onto the chair's wheel tubes and let the slope of the street make you go down, he could only hear a mix of his screams and your laughter as you went down.

He feared crashing into something or flying off, he didn't want to experience more pain, but the chair kept moving even after the descent was over. Curly was grateful for the good quality of the chair, and that it didn't fall apart when you got on it too. He was able to breathe easy when they stopped after a few seconds.

"And we arrived! Much faster, right?"

You patted his shoulder, ready to get off and push him inside the house, the man could feel the rapid beating of his heart at that moment.

Curly: "Do you do things like this often?" he asked, trying to have a conversation to calm down.

"Didn't you feel more alive?"

He fell silent as he thought about your question, while they descended, the only thing he could feel was his heart racing, the wind on his face, and he heard your laughter close to him, but at no moment was there sadness, remorse, or any of those emotions he constantly felt.

Just adrenaline.

Curly: "You could say that... yes..."

You put the groceries in their place and left out only what you were going to use, you ended up making some fried rice with chicken, egg, onion, and peas.

You could see how the man struggled to use his prosthesis to hold his utensils and eat, everything falling onto the table several times.

You moved your chair closer to him, making him look at you.

"Do you want to keep trying or would you prefer that I help you?"

Curly: "I give up for today..." was his only response, sighing.

You took food on your fork and brought it to his face, he opened his mouth and finally managed to take a bite, enjoying the taste of that simple food, he had missed homemade meals after so much time eating the provisions on the ship and then the bland hospital food.

"And? How is it?"

Curly: "Delicious," he replied, opening his mouth, hoping you would give him more.

You couldn't help but compare it to a baby bird begging for food, but you held back your laughter to keep feeding it.

Curly: "Mm.. So, when is your birthday?"

It was a very bad idea to talk to his implant while eating, causing him to start coughing as he choked on the food. 

"Well... It's exactly in 5 weeks," you smiled, making him raise his arms and you patted his back.

He was surprised at how quickly he was able to stop coughing when you did that, you immediately handed him a glass of water.

"I'll be right back, I'm going to get a cloth to clean the food scraps off the table."

You mentioned standing up to go to the kitchen.

While you were away, he kept trying to eat on his own, managing to get a small amount of rice on his fork and being able to eat that.

While he chewed, he kept watching out the window; that orange and reddish color appearing in the trees was tinting the whole place.

Her birthday... It's in autumn...

[year2000electronics]

you showed it the other way around, but what would billford with your reverse bill and regular ford be like? will seems a little less evil than regular bill, but fundamentally he's still a dream demon.

first of all. if anyone remembers ever hearing the phrase “pure billford” you may be entitled to a veteran’s discount.

second off i feel like ford would naturally wanna keep will at arm’s length, meanwhile will just sees a nicer booksier version of mr gleeful and clings to him like a koala

i think ford pities him but in a “wow this is sad even for you” way. and also his caution does NOT go unfounded!

will is nothing if not consistent!

[littleststarfighter]

Sorry to have disappeared again. It's almost a year since my mum passed away, and I've been fighting a pretty bad depression/anxiety attack. Just really needed a break from social media and life honestly 😞 Feeling a bit better and more myself. So I will get around to sharing my art again soon here and on my Insta. Got a bunch of MCR work and Steddie as they are my main ones right now. Especially Frerard 😛

I’m also really sorry to my Patreon followers as I feel I've dropped the ball so much lately when posting. It’s just been a very rough few months. So I've only really been sharing WIPs, finished works and some discounts and goodies when selling the calendars. I wanted to offer so much more like other artists do. So I wanted to ask for those who follow others, follow me and are veterans of the site. I need your expert opinions. What else would people love to see from me or want from a Patreon? And what can I do better to give you things you want from me? I don't feel I'm offering enough or doing things worth following. I do want to offer commissions, add more store items like stickers and keychains. So I will offer some things like money off things in my shop in future and freebies to higher tiers like prints of what I've done so far or stickers ect. But any ideas would be amazing.

I should follow some artists I love to get an idea of what they offer, but I'm really skint right now.

Again sorry for vanishing.

[sometimesanalice]

I was wondering if you have a headcanon for the restaurant they went to in "Like I Can" part 3?

I might have one or two! 😊 This was a fun ask to get! I hope you enjoy this!

I Find Myself Wanting

Summary: Bradley has a couple surprises planned for you and one very important question to ask.

Warnings: Pure fluff

Length: 2k

Pairing: Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw X Female Reader

Bradley didn’t like to play up the fact that he was an active member of the Navy. Sure he was proud of what he did, but he didn’t always like the attention that came with it.

He wasn’t one to stand up and wave at baseball games when they celebrated active service members and veterans. He never took advantage of the military discounts when they were offered in stores.

He would rather get noticed for who he was, not what he did.

However, he was not above showing up to your favorite trendy restaurant by the beach with his flight suit half unzipped in order to sweet talk his way into getting a reservation for your six-month anniversary.

The reservations had opened up when he was on a two week training deployment. To no one’s surprise service was shitty on a carrier in the middle of the ocean and he couldn’t get to a computer to snag a table in time.

He might have been flexing a bit and wearing his most winning smile as he yes ma’am-ed, no ma’am-ed, just doing my duty ma’am-ed his way into getting that same table on the luscious outdoor patio where the two of you had had your first date.

The one where he had showed up and surprised you. The one where he told you he didn’t want to be just friends anymore. The one where he’d all but given you his heart, and had been lucky enough to have received yours in return.

He had taken you back there a couple times since then, but he wanted to night to be special.

It was a struggle to sit there and wait. As he tried to not let his leg bounce too much under the table, not wanting to accidentally bump the table and send the finely etched stemware crashing to the ground.

He definitely didn’t want that kind of attention. Not when he was already so anxious to see you.

All he wanted was you.

And you were running late.

Bradley didn’t know why he was so nervous, he already knew what your response would be. Could already imagine the winning smile on your face, could envision the exact spots your dimples would appear in his mind’s eye.

He’d known that smile for years, he loved that smile.

The waiter had stopped by earlier to check on him, and he took the opportunity to order a bottle of champagne to surprise you with once you got there.

Wiping his hands on his pant legs, he touched his pocket for the third time since he’d been seated. Making sure that the item he had tucked in there hadn’t mysteriously vanished since the last time he had checked less than five minutes ago.

There was nothing more he liked than finding little ways to you keep you on your toes.

He’d made sure to grab a change of clothes for himself when he had left his place that morning. And then stayed on base to shower and get ready after they finished training for the day. He didn’t want to risk running into traffic and having you arrive before him.

Bradley wanted to be there to see you as you made your entrance onto the outdoor terrace. To see you as the warm glow from the sunset hit you. He loved seeing the subtle release of your shoulders and the soft sigh that always seemed to leave your body whenever you saw him waiting for you.

He didn’t tell you what he had planned, just that you shouldn’t work late that evening.

During the one hour lunch break they got, he had made his way to your apartment and let himself in using the key you had given him instead of staying and eating there with the rest of the team.

It made his chest warm when he had seen how many boxes that were already lined up along one of the walls in your living room.

You were finally moving in with him.

It had only taken a few months of pleading, some strategic bribery, and a payment plan on his part to finally get you to stop being so practical, so logical. Your lease still technically wasn't up for a couple more months, but he wanted you for himself all the time. And he was lucky enough that you felt the same way about him too.

You never even officially told him of your plans to move in with him. He had been going through his mail one day while you were uncorking some wine in the kitchen, when he saw a letter addressed to you with his home address underneath it.

He thought his eyes might have been playing tricks on him. But when he had held it out to you between two fingers and a questioning raise of his eyebrow, you’d simply given him a teasing smile and a shrug of the shoulder. The gesture was nothing short of ok you win, Bradley.

Damn right he did.

He offered to order a U-Haul right then and there. Although you never got a chance to take him up on it because he had tossed you over his shoulder to celebrate properly in that dark wood canopy bed. The wine completely forgotten on the kitchen counter.

The two of you hardly spent a night apart, but this was the kind of official and permanent he had been longing for since you’d first kissed him against the Bronco all those months ago.

He didn’t let himself get too side tracked as he'd made his way to your mostly packed up bedroom, since he was there on a mission. He was pleased when he didn’t have to search too hard to find what he wanted in your closet. He had laid the garment on top of your bed and topped it with a note for where and when to meet him that night.

You hadn’t worn it since the first time you’d been there, and he wanted to see you in his favorite color again.

However, he couldn’t help himself and ended up grabbing a couple boxes on his way out to put in the Bronco to be unloaded at his place later. He was eager to do whatever it took to speed up the process, he wanted to see your place empty, wanted all your things to be nestled amongst his own.

Bradley knew you were it for him. And he knew you felt the same way too, even if you still were still being infuriatingly pragmatic at times. He saw it in your eyes when you looked at him, he recognized it because it’s the same way he looked at you.

He was about to check his phone to see if you had sent him a message, even though he had turned the ringer of his phone on so that he’d hear of his phone went off, when he felt your presence right before he saw you step out onto the terracotta tile of the oasis that was the restaurant’s outdoor patio.

And it’s like all the air has left his lungs.

You were a vision in emerald green as you made your way to him.

He wanted to feel your curves under the silky floral material. Wanted to unzip you slowly later that evening, to watch as your skin is revealed to him as that pretty dress slides down your body. To lay you out on that bed he bought specifically for you. To show you with his body just how much you meant to him, just how much he loved you.

He loved your pretty hair and how you styled it, just a little different from how he usually saw it. Like you tried something new, just for this date. Just for him. He couldn’t wait to brush aside the little tendrils that had escaped and were framing your face so sweetly. The soft make up you had done for the night really played up your beautiful eyes.

You were stunning. And you were his.

Almost in a daze he stands up and meets you half way to the table. Standing this close to you he can smell your perfume. Can see the little flecks in your eyes.

“Hi, Bradley,” you say with a gentle smile, almost bashfully. But clearly pleased with the effect you’re having on him.

God, he loves you so much.

He gives into the urge to brush away one of those tendrils brushing your cheek, and pulls your face to his.

Your mouth is soft under his. Mindful of your lipstick and the other people seated on the patio, he doesn’t let himself get too carried away as he kisses you in greeting.

“Hi, sweet girl,” he says as he pulls away, having to clearly is throat a bit before continuing, “You look beautiful.” He raises your left hand to his mouth to kiss it.

“Well, someone did pick out a such a nice dress for me to wear,” you tell him as you smooth a hand down his chest, “You look very handsome yourself, I’m a very lucky girl.”

Placing a hand low on your back, finally getting a feel of your warmth and that silky fabric under his palm, he guides you to your perfectly curated table. Pulling out the chair for you to ease yourself into.

He thinks he might have gotten away with the way he checked out your exposed thigh as you sat down, but the knowing smile on your face he sees as he sits across for you tells him that he wasn’t as subtle as he thought he was.

Especially when your foot reaches out to stroke his calf under the table.

“Happy six month anniversary, sweet girl."

Sure, it felt a bit young to be celebrating this kind of milestone. But he has been so incredibly happy with you that he’d enthusiastically find any excuse to celebrate being yours.

He's already learned that Veuve tasted better on a random Tuesday evening with you on his couch than it ever had with anyone else.

The warm grin you give him makes his heart beat a bit faster in his chest. With you in front of him now, gazing at him with such adoration, he has no clue what he was so nervous about.

“Happy six month anniversary, Bradley,” you respond indulgently, still stroking his leg with your foot, “I have to say, this is a very lovely surprise.”

“Yeah?” he asks, feeling very proud of himself.

“Oh yes,” your voice already tinged with a teasing tone, “I can’t say I’ve ever had a boyfriend who has shown up in a flight suit to woo their way into a reservation before.”

“I, uh-" he starts feeling suddenly sheepish, bringing a hand up to rub at the back of his neck.

“The hostess was rather chatty when I arrived. I would have gotten to you sooner, but I was held up at the front as she told me how sweet my American hero boyfriend was when he showed up,” you tell him with a fond smile, reaching across the table for his hand. “And now I feel less guilty about the low cut shirt I wore to score you the Padres-Phillies tickets that I currently have in my purse.”

Still such a little hustler.

The two of you exchanged a look for a moment before breaking out in a fit of laughter. Reminded yet again just how similar the two of you were.

“God, I love you.”

“I love you too, Bradley. Thank you for such a perfect surprise.”

He would never get tired of hearing you say that.

You were moving in with him. You were going to wake up with him everyday. He was going to get to hold you every night as fell asleep. He was going to build a life with you.

He wanted you like this forever. He wanted you forever.

“I’ve got a question for you.”

“Lay it on me.”

Reaching into his pocket he grabs the item he had tucked away in there, sliding it across the table.

He watches as you pick it up, reading the information on the plane tickets he had purchased, watches as you take it in and look up at him eyes wide with disbelief and delight.

“What do you say, kid, want to go home?”

He knew you hadn’t been home since the holidays. Although he couldn’t remember the last time he had gone back. It had stopped feeling like home, rather just the place he had been raised. But now with you, home was wherever you were.

“Yes, Bradley,” you beamed, your dimples appearing just where he expected them to, “Let’s go home.”

Leaning forward he picks up your hand to kiss the back of it, before threading his fingers through yours. As he sees the waiter rounding the corner with the champagne that he had ordered earlier chilling in a bronze bucket.

The tickets were for two months from now. He had orders to ship out soon for a one month deployment, and you had a big project at work that was wrapping up around the time he got back. He had wanted to plan something that both of you could look forward to while you were apart.

Bradley was excited to revisit all the places that had helped form the two of you. He knew where you were going, but he wanted to go back to the place where you had started.

You were telling him about your day, as the waiter worked on uncorking the champagne. And he was trying very hard to pay attention, but his mind was buzzing with everything to come as he let his thumb smooth over the back of your left hand.

He was going home with you.

He wanted to visit the high school you both went to. He wanted to take you to that slightly questionable amusement park and ride the Tilt-A-Whirl with you. He wanted to buy you an ice cream at the shop where he had his first job, where he spent his first paycheck getting you the pair of rollerblades you had wanted for your birthday.

If he was lucky, he might even be able to sneak into your bedroom. He’d be your teenaged dream turned reality.

Bradley already had plans to play golf with your dad. And he had booked spa appointments for you and your mom. He was really excited to see her again in person, she had always made sure he’d felt welcomed in your family.

The timing of it couldn’t have been better. After all, he had a very important question he needed to ask their permission for.

He was looking forward to it, he wanted it all.

I wonder what question he has to ask her parents... 🥰

Here are some aesthetics and headcanons for their favorite restaurant!

This was a drabble for my 'Like I Can' series, you can read it here!

Taglist:

@gretagerwigsmuse @sehnsuchts-trunken @notroosterbradshaw @laracrofted @bradshawsbitch @starryeyedstories @top-hhun-main @itscheybaby @prettylittlelauraa @startrekfangirl2233 @marantha @callsign-viper @teacupsandtopgun @itsizzythebell @shanimallina87 @angelbabyange @boltgirl426 @oneelleandaneye @mizzzpink @cornishkat @torres-espana @uzumegui @dont-talk-me-down @fandomunite2107 @alana4610 @20th-centu-fairy-girl @pariahsparadise @pono-pura-vida @donttouchmycarrots @nina-sj @eg-dr3amer3 @whaledots-blog @a-beaverhausen @misty-inferno @angellwingsss @hangmanscoming @mandolin22 @theweekndhistorybook @lilpeekabooze @high-bi-imgonnacry @ahintofkiwistrawberry @mrsdaamneron @ruewrote @spiderman-stilinski @jayniebop @melllinaa @my-soulmate-is-mycroft @mandolin22 @imaginecrushes @soleilgrec @keyrani @chicomonks 

[qqueenofhades]

https://www.tumblr.com/qqueenofhades/742700762243727361/you-can-tell-you-work-in-academia-with-how-much

Hi, sorry, Asshole Anon here (I’m not giving myself that nickname to lash out, I’m saying it because I was an ass)

To clarify: I mean “I don’t know what to trust anymore” in that “people whom I normally respect and would otherwise agree with are now sharing material that I find either morally indefensible or overtly simplistic, and at the same time people on the ground in Gaza are saying that Hamas IS a liberation organization, so I trust their word, but there is also the existence of the “We Want To Live” protests, and the fact that there’s now apparently a protest against a child that got killed that isn’t widely reported, with an attached video of said protest from somebody on the ground in Gaza, but it’s in Arabic, there are no subtitles, I cannot speak Arabic, and I don’t trust Google Translate”

I just want an objective sense of what is happening on the ground. I want to know what is and is not propaganda, because I (white, raised in a liberal(?) household, surrounded by white people) am especially susceptible to it. Once I have that objective sense of what the people in Gaza want, then I will be able to effectively and efficiently advocate for shit. But that also necessitates listening to orgs like Standing Together, B’Tselem, people IN Israel who want this shit to stop, and hoo BOY that ain’t gonna fly with those people I mentioned because of:

1. BDS saying that the org “normalizes the occupation”, but they’re made up of Palestinian activists and anti-apartheid veterans, I can’t discount their statement, not fully.

2. Netenyahu’s… Netenyahu

3. Twitter’s doing a great job of asserting that everyone in Israel is a — quoting directly here from a half-remembered Tweet — “genocidal maniac”, or wants the bombardment to happen. (Which I know for a fact is not the case, if the protests calling for a new election are anything to go by)

That’s not even getting into the domestic stuff. I’m in an org rn and I’m getting the sinking feeling that they’re gonna drop this thing like a hot potato when a ceasefire gets called. Just sucks.

Anyways, back to improvement. Just closing this out

I agree that we're currently in a paradoxical state where there is simultaneously ALL THE INFORMATION EVER and ACTUALLY NO INFORMATION AT ALL, and that's what makes it difficult to sort out true from false. It's also what contributes to compassion fatigue, where we are able to get extensive real-time information and/or eyewitness accounts about pretty much any tragedy or catastrophe anywhere in the world, and social media has created a space where we are expected to both immediately react to all that information and to do so in the "right" and "correct" way. Which is basically impossible, and is also what burns out young well-meaning people so hard, where they insist that there's nothing to be done except The Revolution, because they have been so inundated with this torrent of human suffering and it seems like small steps are in fact useless. I am a historian and I can tell you upfront that humans are simply not made to process that volume of information about ALL THE BAD THINGS EVERYWHERE. It's also impossible to have an informed opinion on all or sometimes any of it, but there is still the pressure to visibly do so and to do it in a way that fits in with what everyone in your peer group is saying, even if you don't understand it. So yes -- that is absolutely very difficult, and it's hard to filter or parse it.

That said, I don't think we actually need to have painstaking piece-by-piece analysis of every single piece of information out there, because there are in fact so many competing narratives, perspectives, fake news, disinformation campaigns, opinions, etc., and it will lead you to the same information paralysis: there's just too much of it to even start processing, and so your brain just gives up and reverts to those same simplistic cliches and things that "feel" right, regardless of whether or not they are. When you're trying to decide on the fine details of something, it helps to have an overall sense of the context and narrative that they're operating in. So for reference, these are some broad and basic analytic paradigms that I personally use when reading or thinking about any material in regard to the Israel/Hamas situation in particular:

No person of basic good faith and human decency wants the current situation in Gaza to be happening. However, the person/group that has the power to call it off -- i.e. Netanyahu and the current Israeli government -- has not done so despite increasing pressure from Western allies, because the situation is beneficial to Bibi personally and he sees more use in continuing it than making the decision for it to stop.

The governments of Western allies, therefore, can voice disapproval of Israel's actions (which they have been doing more and more frequently) but unless Netanyahu himself makes the choice to end the war, it will not stop. The West has recently given more and more signals that they are not prepared to countenance the ongoing destruction and genocide of Gaza, but yet again, Israel is its own sovereign country with its own powerful government, military, intelligence services, etc. The "anti-imperialists" who think the collective West can just reach in and turn off the violence whenever they please, and have just refused to do so because they're "bad people," are not being realistic. Western allies can exert pressure and leverage, but as long as Netanyahu himself wants to keep going, he will.

"People in Gaza" and "people in Israel" are not homogeneous blocs who think exactly alike. Some people in Gaza support Hamas. Some people do not. Hamas support has recently grown as a result of Israel's post-October 7 response, but it is not unanimous or unquestioned.

Hamas is the entity that started the current war by attacking Israel on October 7 and murdering/raping/kidnapping 1,000+ Israeli civilians. Hamas is also associated with Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, and other terrorist regimes/states, which are often defended by Online Leftists simply for being "anti-Western," regardless of how heinous their actions also are.

Netanyahu was wildly unpopular in Israel for MONTHS before this current war, due to his autocratic attempts to neutralize the Israeli Supreme Court and make the country even more of his personal fiefdom. There were huge, massive, ongoing protests against his naked power-grab for almost all of 2023, and he was so preoccupied with pushing it through that he ignored warnings from the Israeli and Egyptian intelligence services that Hamas was planning a major attack. These anti-Netanyahu demonstrations have continued and ramped up in intensity even in the middle of the war/attacks on Gaza.

As such, painting every single Israeli as mindlessly supporting the current actions of Netanyahu and the Israeli government is antisemitic nonsense and reflect the current Western Leftist tendency to assume that "all Israelis" and "all Zionists (read Jews)" are evil and personally responsible for this.

Israeli Jews have a right to exist and to reside on the land currently called Israel. Modern Israel was founded in 1948, three years after the end of WWII and the Holocaust, the greatest incidence of antisemitic mass murder in history, which is a fact that cannot be ignored and which western leftists eagerly calling for its total eradication and treating it as an illegitimate "white western settler colony" nonetheless do in fact repeatedly ignore.

This is why many Jews do not feel safe in other countries, because there has literally been thousands of years of history proving that they often aren't, and which the rabidly antisemitic response to the current conflict is doing nothing to dissuade.

Jews have had a presence in the land alternately called Palestine, Israel, the Holy Land, Judah, etc., for over 2,000 years, and their entire religion and history is founded around the exile from Jerusalem. That is the history that the current state of Israel is drawing on. It does not vanish just because it is inconvenient for western leftists to acknowledge.

Israel currently has a militant far-right government (after tending toward rightist/right wing domestic politics more generally, partially due to post-Holocaust trauma) that has deliberately erased, ignored, and violated the equally valid claims of Palestine and Palestinian people to that same land, and which is currently committing full-scale genocide against them.

Palestine and Palestinian/Muslim people have the same right to exist on that land as Israel and Israeli/Jewish people (and Christian people, and none-of-the-three people). They both have equally long and historically relevant claims to this land and one of them (in an ideal world, which we do not live in) should not be artificially prized over the other.

However, this land is some of the most bitterly and violently contested in the entire world, for the last two thousand years and counting, and there is no one good guy, simplistic answer, or quick way to stop it. The three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) have fought bitterly over Jerusalem and its associated territories for a cool few millennia, and human nature being what it is, there is no way for one person, group, organization, government, etc to just step in and make it stop.

The Western/American leftist response to the current conflict has often made absolutely no attempt to take into account any of this troubled and complex history, and has reduced the whole thing down to whichever antisemitic and/or anti-Democratic Party soundbites will get them the most traction on social media. This often rests on whitewashing any moral responsibility belonging to Hamas and defending them no matter what, labeling all Israeli Jews as "evil genocide supporters," and assuming that if Biden wanted to magically shapeshift into Netanyahu and give the order to make it stop, he would, but he's "just not doing it," ergo something something Trump Would Totally Be Better!

These people also often call themselves "anti-imperialist" while thinking/demanding that America swoop in and play Big Global Policeman Daddy (as it indeed has often done in the past) and spank all its naughty children (but if it actually did do this, etc etc it would be evil). Biden could very much do more and has not necessarily done enough, but he has also done more than any other American president in history to shift away from unconditional unquestioning support of Israel only, and to advocate for a Palestinian state, a lasting ceasefire, and other basic precepts of Palestinian self-determination and dignity of personhood. These two things can be true at the same time.

I don't necessarily expect everyone to agree with every single fine detail of these statements, but I do expect them to at least make a basic effort to let all of these facts to inform their response, and not just the ones that they most agree with and which most fit their ideology or preferred conclusion. So that's one way to approach the situation, even if we obviously can't wring every single drop of meaning out of every single competing piece of information or evidence, because there is just too much of it. When we have a broader understanding of the space that we are operating in and the precepts that are factually true, we are able to make better judgments about who is trustworthy, who is worth listening to, what message they are pushing, and whether it corresponds with reality.

Good luck. I'm sure you'll continue to think about this and take the steps that you feel are best. It is all any of us can do.

[foundtherightwords]

As the Sun Will Rise - Chapter 1

Pairing: Grunauer (Overlord) x OFC, Beauty & the Beast retelling

Summary: After losing most of his unit in a disastrous D-Day mission, Derwin Grunauer returns to his hometown near Miami, body riddled with scars and heart heavy with guilt, only to find his neighbors shunning him due to his German name. He retreats into his family mansion and remains there, unwilling to rejoin the living, until the day Alba Reyes turns up at his door with a basket full of warm bread. As the daughter of a Cuban immigrant, Alba knows something of being an outsider, and when she offers to work for Derwin as his housekeeper, it is not only to pay off her father's debt to the Grunauers, but also because she feels some connection to the reclusive young man. When that connection develops into something more, they must overcome both the town's prejudice and their own doubts to find happiness.

A/N: My inspiration for this came from these lovely artworks that reimagine Beauty and the Beast in a 1950s setting. The idea of making the Beast a World War II veteran jumped out at me, and given that "Overlord" is a World War II movie, I immediately knew I'd write this for Grunauer. I based this on the original screenplay more than the movie itself (Grunauer's full name and the fact that he's from Miami are both in the script), since Grunauer actually survives in that. The title is, of course, a lyric from "Beauty and the Beast".

Warnings: period-typical attitudes (sexism, racism, prejudice), PTSD, some violence, non-explicit smut

Chapter warnings: period-typical sexism and prejudice

Chapter word count: 5.2k

Chapter 1

"I'm so glad the sugar ration is over, aren't you?" Mrs. McLeish said, peering at the rows and rows of cakes and pastries behind the glass.

"We all are, Mrs. McLeish," replied Alba, handing the gray-haired lady her purchase neatly wrapped in paper bags. "That'll be a dollar and sixty-three cents."

"Are you sure, dear?" Mrs. McLeish felt the bags, trying to remember what she'd bought.

"Of course. Ninety cents for half a dozen loaves of bread, fifty-two cents for ten ham croquetas, and twenty-one cents for three cheese pasteles," counted Alba. There had been no mistake—Alba knew this was only Mrs. McLeish's way to weasel some discount out of her.

Mrs. McLeish started counting out her money with excruciating slowness. "My Ted has been so looking forward to your bakes ever since he came back from the Pacific, you know."  

Alba smiled and reached into the display case again. "Well, here's a slice of tres leches cake, to thank Ted for his service. On the house," she quickly added. Mrs. McLeish's wrinkles immediately relaxed, just as Alba knew they would. Papi wouldn't like it, but they couldn't afford to alienate a customer now.

Mrs. McLeish was barely out of the door when the cheerful chime of the shop bell was drowned out by an obnoxious roar. Alba looked up to see a bright red Aston Martin screech to a halt across the street.

"¡Mierda!" she muttered under her breath. This bit of profanity earned her a stern look from the statue of La Cachita, the patroness of Cuba, on her altar set in a corner of the bakery. "Sorry," Alba mumbled to the statue. She tried to dip behind the counter, but it was too late. The driver, a tall, broad-shouldered man with raven hair slicked back, wearing a leather flight jacket that was too heavy for Miami in late June, was already striding toward the door. He pushed it open with unnecessary force, making the bell chime furiously in protest.

"Allie!" he declared, flashing a grin that showed his white teeth to perfection. "Just the girl I want to see."

Alba tried to pull her lips into the semblance of a smile and ended up with something more like a grimace instead. "Mr. Grant, good morning," she said. "What can I get you today?"

"Call me Gastin, dearest Allie," replied Grant, leaning against the counter. "How many times do I have to ask you again?"

"As many times as I've asked you to call me Alba, not Allie, Mr. Grant," Alba said smoothly. Grant's smile faltered, but only for a moment, before returning to full blast.

"But Allie sounds so much nicer! Allie Grant. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?"

Ignoring his suggestive leer, Alba repeated, "What can I get you today? A pastelito, perhaps, or some croquetas?"

Grant shuddered. "God, no. Do you have any idea how fattening those can be, with all that cheese and butter and frying oil?"

It was on the tip of Alba's tongue to snap that he was in a shop that thrived on cheese and butter and frying oil, but she bit back the retort and simply said, a little impatiently now, "Then what do you want?"

"You know what I want, my dear Allie." Grant was now leaning so far over the counter that a bystander may think he was trying to reach into the till. "A date with you."

"I'm afraid I'm very busy at the moment," Alba said automatically.

Grant let out a derisive laugh. "Busy with what?" He gestured around the empty bakery. It was after eight; the first waves of customers had gone, which meant Grant had timed his visit to catch her specifically. He certainly hadn't driven all the way here from his swanky family mansion on Millionaire's Row for one of La Perla del Sur's pasteles.

Mierda.

"Come now, Allie," Grant continued, seizing her hand in a tight grip. "I don't understand why you keep working in this dump. When we're married, you'll have the biggest mansion on Miami Beach and never have to deal with all this misery..."

Alba's face tightened. For six months now, Grant had been hovering around the neighborhood and pestering her into going out with him, despite her making it clear that she had no time for him. She knew she was the minority in this. Most people would consider him a great catch. A war hero and the heir to a real estate empire, courting the daughter of a lowly baker, a Cuban immigrant at that? She should have been over the moon. It was true that she had been flattered by his attention at first. But she wasn't interested in finding a boyfriend, and she'd treated him the same way she did all customers, polite and friendly. Only when Grant started harping on about marriage, as if they were already engaged, that she firmly shut it down. Even then, he couldn't seem to take a hint, whether because he was too arrogant or too dim, Alba wasn't sure. So her politeness had turned into grudging tolerance and finally into barely concealed dislike. Still, he refused to leave her alone.

"Maybe I like the misery," she bit out.

Grant opened his mouth, but before he could come up with a response, an angry voice rose from the street. It was Mr. Olson, whose grocery store was across the street from the bakery, and whose front door was currently being blocked by Grant's monster of a vehicle.

"Who's the schmuck that parked his car in front of my store?" Mr. Olson shouted, waving his broom. "Move it before I smash your headlights in!"

Grant flung Alba's hand aside and ran out of the bakery without another word. Seizing the opportunity, Alba ducked through the swinging door that separated the front of the bakery from the sweltering back room, where two enormous ovens were constantly belching out steam and heat. She almost collided with her younger sister, Beatriz.

"Alba!" Beatriz exclaimed. "Where do you think you're going?"

"I need you to man the counter for me," Alba said.

"Why?"

"He's here."

"Who?"

"You know who. Señor Slick." Alba's lips curled in distaste.

"Really?" Beatriz craned her neck to look through the curtain. Alba glanced behind her. Grant was busy arguing with Mr. Olson, but she grabbed Beatriz's shoulders and positioned herself so Beatriz would hide her from view anyway.

Alba couldn't understand why Grant was so determined to woo her. She definitely wasn't as pretty as Beatriz, though they shared the same features and coloring. The same hazel eyes on Beatriz were bright and clear, while Alba's eyes couldn't seem to decide which color they wanted to be and ended up as a sort of muddy brownish green. The same dark curls on Beatriz were glossy and bouncing with her steps, while Alba's had a tendency to frizz maddeningly in the humid Florida air, so she mostly kept it under a headscarf. Beatriz's figure was all soft curves, while Alba's was straight and flat as a pond cypress.

And most of all, Beatriz, like other girls in their neighborhood, was always making sheep's eyes at Grant. He never paid attention to any of them though. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps he only set his sights on Alba because he liked a conquest.

But Alba had no time to dwell on all of that now. "Yes," she told Beatriz, "and you can ogle him to your heart's content if you man the counter for me."

Beatriz's face fell. "But Papi told me to make the delivery." She gestured to a basket, packed with loaves of bread in paper bags, a box of ham and cheese croquetas, and a box of pasteles filled with guava jam, still warm from the oven.

"Delivery? Where to?" La Perla del Sur Bakery did not do deliveries. Those who knew of their bread and pastries would line up outside its door before the opening time of six o'clock, come rain or shine. 

"The Grunauer place," said Beatriz.

Alba smacked her forehead. Of course. How could she forget?

The late Dr. Grunauer had been their landlord. When they first arrived in Miami from Cuba thirteen years ago, Alba's parents, Mauricio and Ana, had found a nearly dead town, brought to its knees by two great hurricanes and the Great Depression. They had rebuilt their lives alongside the city. They had found this place for cheap, and Dr. Grunauer, a professor at the university, had only been too glad to let them have it after the crash of the land boom. Mauricio had traded his suit and tie for an apron and worked tirelessly next to his wife to open this bakery. But it was difficult to curb the ambition of a high-ranking government official, even if the coup d'état of 1933 had stripped him of his power. Mauricio had borrowed from Dr. Grunauer to buy a vacant beachfront store, hoping to open another La Perla, to be run by Alba's older brother, Rafael. Then came the war, and Rafael joined the Air Force and never came back from the Pacific, and Ana soon followed him, so that was the end of that. The beachfront property was left to languish through the war, and in the end, Mauricio had to cut his loss and sell it for cheap.

Dr. Grunauer, too, had passed away a year before the end of the war. Mauricio was not one to ever forget a debt, and although Dr. Grunauer's only son, who had come home last year, never mentioned it, Mauricio had been sending him bread and pastries and even fresh fruits sometimes, hoping that he would not call in the debt any time soon.

Now Alba snatched the basket out of Beatriz's hand. "I'll go," she said. "You man the counter."

"But—but—" Beatriz glanced at the back, where Mauricio and the assistant baker, young Frank, were busy loading trays of shaped dough into the ovens. Alba knew Papi didn't like Beatriz to be at the front alone, despite the fact that she always drew a crowd, mostly of young men—or perhaps precisely because of that.

"Bea's too busy flirting," he'd once said to Alba. "She'll mistake flan for croquetas and sell her own shoes as pastelitos next. I need you there, to keep an eye on the till and tell me when we're running low on things." And so Alba had no choice but to grin and bear it, though she didn't have Beatriz's natural charm and ease with the customers, and a day working at the till always left her with crescents of sweat under her arms, sore cheeks from having to stretch them into unnatural smiles for so long, and a raging headache.

"The breakfast rush's over, you'll be fine," Alba assured her sister. "I'll be back before lunch." She rushed out the side door before Beatriz could raise further protest and draw Papi's attention.

"Be careful," Beatriz called after her. Alba wondered if the warning was meant to be about Grant or the Grunauer place.

As she wheeled her bicycle out the back gate and down the lane, Alba saw her best friend, Claudia Barron, watering her garden, the hose curving over her pregnant belly. Claudia had spent her whole life in their neighborhood of Cypress Grove. She'd grown up down the street, dated a literal boy next door, Marty, and after Marty came back from the war, they had gotten married and moved into a house on the same street. Sometimes Alba thought she would go crazy if she were Claudia, never going further than a few miles from where she grew up. Other times, she envied Claudia her straightforward life.

"How's Marty Junior?" Alba nodded at Claudia's belly.

"Kicking up a storm last night. It's this heat, I don't think he likes it." Claudia raised a quizzical eyebrow at the bread basket. "Where are you going with those?"

"Delivery to the Grunauer place."

"Some sweetener for Gruesome Grunauer, eh?"

"Don't call him that," Alba said, rolling her eyes.

"It fits him, though. Like father, like son. He's been back for what, a year? Yet nobody's seen him. He's locked himself away in that mansion with all those snakes and gators." Claudia shuddered. "I wonder at your dad, letting you go there alone. Why can't he or Frank go?"

"They're busy," Alba said shortly. "I have to go now."

Without waiting for Claudia's goodbye, she got on her bike and rode away. Claudia was a good friend, but she could be an awful gossip sometimes. "Gruesome Grunauer", indeed! Yes, it was true that Dr. Grunauer had always been rather strange. With his balding head, owlish eyes, and quiet, mumbling voice, he reminded Alba of a mad scientist, like Victor Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll, and she, like the rest of the neighborhood kids, had been slightly afraid of him. The nickname had started when they found out he raised snakes and other reptiles on his land, and it stuck. There was a rumor that he even kept an alligator. Every Halloween, the kids always dared each other to go to the Grunauer place to get a glimpse of this alligator.

And then there was Mrs. Grunauer too. Apparently she had been bedridden, and nobody had ever seen her. When she passed away, shortly after Alba's family moved to Cypress Grove, people had whispered that Dr. Grunauer had poisoned his wife.

During the war, those childish rumors had persisted and taken on a more malicious tinge. The war hadn't been easy for Dr. Grunauer with his German name and German accent, and some people had even turned against the Reyes for their association with him. And now, with the old man dead and his son back at the mansion, more rumors had surfaced. They said young Grunauer had been badly injured in the war, and those injuries had left him disfigured. It didn't help that he never set foot outside of his home.

Alba never subscribed to the local rumor mill, but she couldn't help feeling a slight sense of trepidation as she rode her bike down the back lane that followed along the Tamiami Trail. Alba preferred this shortcut, which ran right through the cypress swamp west of the city. She had always loved the swamp, loved seeing the bald cypresses rising from it like majestic giants, their trunks dripping with ferns and orchids, loved watching the herons and egrets that waded amongst their roots, loved the thrill of sighting an alligator floating lazily over the dark water. Even with the occasional blare of a truck horn from the interstate in the distance, it still provided a quiet spot in the busy city.

This morning, though, Alba paid no attention to the beauty of nature. Leaning on the pedals, she only hoped that she'd made enough of a head start that Grant wouldn't be able to follow her in his car. She wondered how the Grunauer place had changed. She knew where it was, of course, though she'd been too much of a wimp to come right up to its gate. In her childhood memory, it was the grandest house she'd ever seen, as grand as the Palacio del Valle in her hometown of Cienfuegos back in Cuba. She also wondered what young Mr. Grunauer would be like. Though they were roughly the same age, young Grunauer had never been a part of the Cypress Grove gang—he had been sent to a boarding school in Jacksonville even before Alba arrived, and none of the kids in the neighborhood knew him.

Soon, the lane branched off into two even smaller trails, little more than footpaths lined by willow and cocoplum bushes. Rolling her bike down the right trail, Alba finally came to a clearing. The willows and cocoplums gave way to magnificent oaks covered in Spanish moss that stood on either side of the path like sentinels, guarding the mansion of her memories. It stood back from the path, a little aloof, a little wary, a queen surveying her empire, its white walls shining like a mirage against the dark canopies of the trees surrounding it. A porch held up by tall columns ran around the house, shielding it from the sun and prying eyes. A beautiful frangipani stood in the back, its branches, dotted with star-like blooms, reaching toward the house as if in adoration. If those oaks were the sentinels, then the frangipani was an attendant bowing down to the queen.

Alba shook her head. Such flights of fancy were usually Beatriz's purview; Alba herself was more likely to notice that the yard was overgrown, the porch needed sweeping, one of the window shutters was sagging, and the paint was chipping. A swing full of dead leaves creaked on rusty chains on the porch, adding to the overall abandoned air of the place. As she drew closer, she also saw a sign hanging crooked on one of the oaks, with "BEWARE OF DOG" scrawled across it. This mundane little detail dispelled any fanciful impression she had of the house, and instead of the palace of her childhood, now she only saw a sad, neglected place.

Alba looked around cautiously. There was no sign or sound of the dog she should beware of. Emboldened, she wheeled her bike past the rank of oaks and leaned it against the porch. The front door had no bell—Dr. Grunauer probably had gotten rid of it after the kids played too many games of ding dong ditch, and nobody came out here now—so she knocked instead.

No answer. She knocked again, louder, calling out, "Hello? Anybody home?" From somewhere deep inside the house, there was a bark. Although it was deep and rumbling, it wasn't the bark of a dog one should beware of. It was not ferocious or angry, only rather annoyed, like that of a dog that had been wakened up from a nap.

Alba reached for the door handle. It turned with some protest. She pushed the door open and stepped into a cool, dark front hall. Something crunched under her foot, and Alba looked down to find more dead leaves strewn across a hardwood floor that hadn't been swept in God knew how long. A door on her left was ajar, showing what looked like a living room overlooking the oak-lined drive. Next to this door was a staircase, its top disappearing into the dimness of the second floor. On the top of the stairs were some strange, pale shapes that looked like logs or a rolled-up carpet that somebody forgot to put away. Sunlight from the open door behind Alba couldn't penetrate the gloom, and thoughts of snakes and gators swirled around her head, making her hesitant to step beyond the little patch of light.

"Hello?" she called out again, her voice lost in the profound stillness of the house. "I'm from the bakery. Is there anybody here?"

There was that bark again, more excited than annoyed this time. In the hallway beyond the staircase, a huge shape emerged, silhouetted against the darkness. It was a dog, she could see that. The biggest dog she'd ever seen.

Alba stood rooted to the spot. She only had the presence of mind not to scream. Screaming would only agitate it further.  

The shape came into view. It was a great boarhound, so dark and glossy that it appeared little more than patches of shininess in the dark. It stalked toward her on paws as big as dinner plates, eyes glinting, nose sniffing, tail lifted in alert.

Then, slowly, that tail moved side to side.

Alba couldn't believe her eyes.

The huge dog was wagging his tail. He'd stopped by the bottom of the staircase, seemingly trying to make up his mind about her, but clearly he didn't see her as a threat.

"Here, boy," Alba said shakily, reaching out a hand.

The dog ran to her and almost bowled her over in his eagerness to sniff the bread basket she was carrying. She tried to lift the basket out of reach, but it was quite difficult—when stood on his hind legs, the dog could easily reach her shoulders. "Down, boy," she said. The dog sat and looked up expectantly at her with his liquid black eyes. Alba gave him her hand. He licked it. "Oh, you're just a big softy, aren't you?" she said, laughing in relief and kneeling to rub his ears.

"He's an idiot," said a voice above her.

Startled, Alba looked up. What she'd thought was a roll-up carpet turned out to be a leg encased in khaki pants, and the logs were the arms. A person was lying on the top of the staircase.

"Who are you?" he said. She couldn't see his face, but she could hear the scowl in his voice.

"Alba Reyes," she replied. "I'm from La Perla del Sur."

"La what?"

"The bakery. I'm Mauricio Reyes' daughter. We rent your store in Cypress Grove?"

There was a groan, and the shapes moved. The man was sitting up. The dog gave a little woof and bounded up the stairs to join him. Alba involuntarily craned her neck, trying to get a better look. His face was still half-hidden in the gloom, and in the light shining through the window at the landing, she could just make out a shock of sandy brown curls and a pair of dark, dark eyes. There was no sign of those disfiguring injuries that she could see.

As those eyes met hers, fragments of memories flitted through her mind—a pair of brown eyes, schoolyard noises, the sudden, bright pain of a split lip, and a voice, asking, Where did you learn to punch like that?

Before she could grasp it, the memory was gone, like the reflection on the surface of a pond being broken up by a pebble. The eyes on the top of the stairs were scowling at her again.

"Good morning," she said uncertainly.    

***

Derwin Grunauer was not having a good morning.

He'd woken at five, as usual. Even though he could now sleep in as late as he wanted, the habit developed after eight years of boarding school and three years in the army was hard to shake. He hadn't gotten up though. What would be the point? He had nowhere to be, nobody to see, nothing to do.

But Otto, who seemed to have a sixth sense of when his master was awake, had scratched at the door and whined, demanding to be let out, so Derwin had reluctantly gone downstairs, opened the door, and gave the dog his breakfast. For himself, he hadn't wanted any. His pantry had been empty since the day before, but he loathed picking up the phone to call the grocer. He knew he had to, eventually. Either that or starve to death, and Derwin didn't think he was brave enough or desperate enough for that. And so he'd made himself a cup of coffee with the dregs left in the pot and gone upstairs to mentally prepare himself, otherwise he would start panicking and stammering on the phone like an idiot.

Then his treacherous leg had tripped at the top of the stairs, making the cane fly out of his hand and sending him sprawling face-first across the steps. The fall hadn't hurt that bad—he'd been climbing as fast as his leg allowed, which was not very fast at all—but it had drained him of whatever energy he had, and left him angry and despondent. Angry at himself, at his throbbing leg, at the world in general. And despondent at life. He'd turned over and remained there, ignoring Otto's attempts to pull him to his feet. There was no point in getting up. There was no point to anything. He wished he could have stayed there until he melted in the heat and dissolved into the floor. Eventually, Otto had given up and returned to the kitchen to clean up the remnants of his breakfast.

He hadn't heard the knocks.

It was the smells that hit him first. The heavenly, warm, yeasty smell of freshly baked bread, the rich, savory smell of fried ham, and the buttery, sugary smell of pastries. His stomach growled.

Great. He was so hungry that he'd started hallucinating.

Then he heard the voice. Olfactory and audio hallucinations might be a bit much, so he cracked open an eye and looked for the source of the sound.

Somebody was standing in the front hall. No, not just somebody. A young woman. Wearing a sleeveless blouse and a sensible pair of slacks and sandals, with strands of her dark hair falling out of her headscarf. Sunlight was streaming in through the open door behind her, framing her like a halo as she looked up at him, her mouth falling open in surprise. She was too far away for him to make out the color of her eyes, but he could see that they were light and bright, fixed on him with none of the suspicion and hostility he was used to from other people, only curiosity.

Otto was licking her hand too. Traitor.

Still, Derwin refused to let himself be taken in. A lack of animosity didn't necessarily mean kindness. When he came home last year, after several months in St. Mary's Hospital in Portsmouth and a longer stint at the VA Hospital up in Bay Pines, where they'd tried and failed to get his leg back to working conditions, Derwin hadn't expected much. His father was gone, killed by the strain and loneliness of the war, and they had never been popular in town to begin with. He'd only hoped to settle down and have a quiet life. Yet somehow, what he found was even less than what he'd expected. People turned their backs on him in stores and restaurants, whispering to each other and pulling their children close wherever he went past, calling him Kraut and Jerry and worse. All because he had the misfortune of bearing a German name.

This young woman, whoever she was, probably hadn't heard much about him. The moment she did, she would turn and run, like all the others. And when she said she was renting the old store in Cypress Grove, it fell into place. She was his tenant. No wonder she was friendly. She couldn't afford not to.

"My father asked me to bring you some bread," she was saying.

Derwin's stomach growled again, so loudly that he was sure the young woman heard it from all the way at the bottom of the stairs. He grimaced, mortified.

The bakery... yes, he remembered now. In the past few months, he'd been finding bread and pastries outside his front door with a note saying "Compliments of La Perla del Sur Bakery". He'd been wary, but then he'd come across the name on his monthly bank statements and realized they were just trying to be nice to their landlord. The bread was good, and the pastries were phenomenal. Plus, it saved him from having to go to the store. They had tried knocking at first, and when he never answered them, they just left everything on the porch, like a silent offering to some faceless deity. Once, he hadn't found it until days afterward, when the bread had gone soggy in the humidity and the pastries stale. He'd eaten them anyway.

His love for pastries didn't stop him from feeling annoyed with this young woman for invading his space, however.

"Are you OK?" she asked after a while, when he didn't say anything or make any move. "Do you need help getting up?"

He grunted a refusal.

"Should I bring these into the kitchen for you?" she continued, lifting a wicker basket to show him. The mouthwatering smell intensified.

"No need," he mumbled. "Just set them down there."

"Where?" The woman looked around the front hall. There was no place to put anything, except for a side table piled high with mail that Derwin couldn't bring himself to open.

"Anywhere."

"Your dog may get into them."

"I don't care."

"I'm going to put them in the kitchen," she said in a voice that invited no further argument, and before he could stop her, she was walking briskly down the corridor. She tossed a piece of pastry to Otto, and he immediately followed her, tail wagging. Traitor.

Grumbling under his breath, Derwin pulled himself up by the banister and limped his way downstairs. If he didn't catch her in time, this woman may go through the entire house, and he couldn't have that.

He stumbled off the last step and almost ran straight into the woman, who was coming back from the kitchen.

"Sorry!" she exclaimed, catching his arms and helping him stand up straight.

Their eyes met, and Derwin found his breath caught in his throat for a moment. He'd been right—her eyes were light, bright green, gleaming like a forest pool in the shade, where the leafy canopy above is reflected in the quiet depth of the water.

Those eyes flicked briefly to the scar on his left cheek, before turning away, not out of disgust as Derwin had expected, but rather of embarrassment. She took a step back and let go of his arms.

"I've put the bread in your bread box," she said (I have a bread box? though Derwin). "I'm not sure when you want the pastries, so I've put them in your fridge. Heat them in the oven before you eat them, they'll taste better. The guava pastries will go great with some coffee."

That was probably the most anybody had ever said to him in over a year. Derwin stared at the young woman, not knowing what to say. She gave him a smile—quick and uncertain, but a smile nonetheless—and walked out with that same brisk, graceful stride, still followed by Otto, who was gazing at her adoringly.

"Otto, stay," Derwin said sternly when the dog looked like he wanted to follow the woman out the door. Otto reluctantly obeyed.

"Oh and, don't set the oven higher than two hundred degrees when you warm the pastries, or they'll get burned," the woman said over her shoulder, before closing the door behind her. A moment later, Derwin heard her bike rattling down the drive.

He glanced at Otto, who met his eyes with a wistful, reproachful look. "Don't look at me like that," Derwin said. "I didn't chase her off."

Leaving Otto in the front hall to whine and watch the figure on the bike disappear behind the oaks, Derwin limped into the kitchen to retrieve the pastries. She was right; they tasted much better warm, though he wouldn't offend them by pairing them with his dishwater coffee. Otto soon gave up his vigil and came into the kitchen as well, looking inconsolable. Derwin took pity on the dog and shared the ham croquettes with him.

"Just because she gave you pastries doesn't mean that she's your friend," he told the dog.

Otto always fell in love with anyone who showed him the smallest bit of attention. It was a terrible habit.

Chapter 2

So here's the Grunauer fic that I promised! It's my longest to date (82k, 20 chapters plus an epilogue), so I'm going to post it twice a week. If you want to be tagged when I update it, let me know, or you can just check back here every Tuesday and Saturday!

[angelictaffy]

i think that i deserve a veteran’s discount to shifting because i remember when my phone battery would be overheating from using amino and you had to prove you werent an anti shifter to get in 😭 the panicking of when dracotok blew up and when shifttok became a thing. i feel like an old person saying “back in my day” but it was revolutionary when i found out about notion because we were all using google docs. or we used amino pages where every person who clicked on your account could see everything about your script

[starshower1215]

AOT Veterans: Modern AU HCs

Hange would learn a lot about engineering and building stuff. They'd have the messiest garage full of tools for metal fabrication, welding, woodworking. They'd also have the oldest car to have ever existed, a comically unreliable one in fact, and perhaps one that they'd bought cheap and fixed up themself.

The oldest car and then a motorcycle they share with Mike. The motorcycle is probably old, too, though.

Erwin would work as a private investigator. He has the intelligence and intuition for such things, and I think he would truly enjoy the challenges of analyzing clues and fitting pieces of information together. He'd be able to utilize his ability to be one step ahead very thoroughly.

Hange probably went to university or is in university, studying something crazy cool like astrobiology. I think they would love astrobiology, actually, considering the incredible number of layers of science you'd need to learn to major in something so complicated.

Erwin loves to sit down with Hange and listen to them drone on and on about what they're learning. He is probably the only one who does, but he just loves the idea that they aren't alone on Earth, that life could be out there somewhere even if we don't see or know it yet. They love theorizing about aliens, wondering late at night if they have eyes or if they have senses that humans don't, if they can detect dark matter or not. The two of them can stay up the whole night like this.

In all universes, Levi works in a cafe. He likely didn't attend school, or didn't pay attention much because his family was in debt due to his mother's medical bills. He had bigger problems, but he does enjoy his life in a cafe.

Nanaba works as a hairdresser. She just really loves the feeling when she brings out an entirely new side of a person, or encourages them be more like themselves. She finds it to be a very caring job, and she loves when her customers leave the shop satisfied with a fresh new style.

She struggles with money a little bit because she gave up wealth in favor of pursuing something she likes.

Nanaba definitely does not accept help when it comes to finances, though, no matter how much her friends offer it to her. She's stubborn, and everyone knows it. So some days, Mike will invite her out to eat with him to spare her the trouble of dinner. It's a win-win, too, because he likes her a lot.

Levi only takes taxis. He doesn't like to drive or bike or take the bus, especially not the bus due to its unclean environment. He also carries sprayable hand sanitizer around, along with a tube of Lysol wipes. He offers Lysol wipes and hand sanitizer for free at his cafe because he always appreciates when they have such things available in public. They just sit on the counter, ready for usage.

Hange is always studying at Levi's cafe on the weekends. Sometimes they drag Nanaba along to sit there with them. Levi gives Nanaba a free muffin purely out of bias, then makes Hange pay for whatever they want to eat.

But he secretly gives them a discount.

Maybe Mike works as a health coach. Not sure where this one came from, but he has the motivation and the attitude for it. He's the therapy friend of the group, but with less emphasis on emotion and more emphasis on finding the solutions.

Mike always wears athletic clothes.

The five of them have a five-way dinner date type of thing, where they meet up at the end of every week, at one of their houses usually, to cook together, eat food, play music and games, watch movies, and just unwind and have a fun time. A lot of weeks, they'll make a party out of it. The five of them will invite the others: Nifa, Moblit, Petra, Oluo, Eld, Gelgar, and other obscure characters.

It is here that Levi, Petra, and Nanaba often don their matching sweatpants (there's another post about this)

The veterans may also get drunk, depending on who it is. It's a given for Gelgar, but Levi has shown preferences for tea.

Usually, they all sleep on the floor together, or split the house into the bedrooms and the sofas. Erwin and Mike are big, so they hog beds all to themselves. The rest of them make do; Nanaba and Eld make pillow forts on the carpet and camp there while Hange sprawls out to the side, and Levi and Petra stuff themselves into the crevices because they're small.