#i’m well aware that i know exactly how to spell american but it just looks so wrong

[still-not-a-cat]

“why do you spell and act british despite being raised in america”

bad parenting. next question.

[yutaholic]

Jungwoo/Mark’s tweet earlier got me sooo mad I was heated again like so quick after the nj concert the very next day you’re like “back to koreaaaaa💚” like I’m upset bc i am into 2 other groups, all of which I’ve supported since their respective debuts (except for the fact that I’d been around and waited for neos since 2014 smrookies…since their fucking name sounded like a citation in a legal contract, SR14B! That’s right, all the way from Florida, I’ve been down for them since before THEY WERE EVEN “THEM”, THEIR DAMN SELVES!! I remember when Haechan spelled his birth name without a ‘c’ in it, you little muskrats, i— anyway ) but 80% of my attention time and money for the last few years has been to nct, including superm. First it was it was like 50-55%, then it progressed a couple years ago to 65-75, now here we are. To the point that I still care about my favs but all I talk about & most of I listen to & only I voted for, has been nct. On top of that, I’m Black. And was most active on Twitter. Do y’all know how hard it is to be a black ifan to these mfs for over half a decade, sometimes I wonder if im in my right mind cus part of me lookin in the mirror like “bitch u sure u good over there?🤨” 😭

The confidence…the gall, the audacity, the mf TEMERITY of these people to either not gaf enough about the majority of their fans that they’ll pussyfoot around and kiss the feet of Korean nctzens so much that they are actively disrespecting us. A few of them lurk, I know they do, esp Ty. ik cus he’s my bias & what he texts in bubble proves he knows things he wouldn’t be aware of without looking at our tweets. I am so upset with him & I have never been mad enough about anything he’s done as I am rn. If you’ve seen anything Tyongf have said, you know we are a little shocked and a lot disappointed. I’d planned to say sumn but that video showing he was insecure in his position came out so I used my allotted texts on that but the minute he sends smth (3 replies allowed per message of the artist) it’s ON, on.

I remember superhuman era quite well but what strikes me is how large the treatment gap has widened since then. There came to a time where we were lowered another peg (cus we knew we weren’t equal) to please and appease kfans. Then it’s gotten worse and worse when their fandom size jump quite a bit with Kick It but EXPONENTIALLY abroad with Sticker & favorite last year. But the acknowledgement has been less! How long does sm think we will sit & take this from them before we find another group that doesn’t mistreat their fans abroad lmao. One of those I’m into is BTS. Do you think I would’ve been calling radio stations regularly to get & then keep their songs on there, buying the albums in store to help with physicals and doing all the other projects if they treated intl army like NCT treats nctzens outside of Korea🧐?!?? Does NCT and sm think GRAMMY NOMINATIONS came to BTS twice by intl armys getting treated like second class citizens?! LMAOOO chile they have bumped their damn heads.

Atp I want Chris Lee and some other people’s heads on pikes!! Whoever make them type of decisions to shun us!! They really bending over backwards for people who tanked their entire era in anger bc American fans got fan service like taking pics with them on the street & shit?? That just shows how shallow they can be! Clown asses! Usually I’m like “Bubu don’t go on Twitter there aren’t good things there” but rn I’m sooo close to going off that it got me boutta text him to go on Twitter & exactly what to search if he wanna see whats really good in the fandom rn. I’m tired of being understanding & acting like I’m fine and is being the bigger person. I want to evoke emotions, I want them feel upset and worry and FEAR👹 It sounds unhinged and petty but I want them for even just a MINUTE, to have a bodily experience of fright and sadness and the realization that we very can leave in droves! But not boycotting an era and cursing them out, oh no, by legitimately just dropping them. That we CAN leave their asses silently and put another group on the map. We can drop not just the unit but the whole brand, ending that nct Hollywood bullshit RIGHT NOW if they don’t appreciate us being around. We don’t expect to be superior just at least toe the mf line??

It’s funny, they call us grass sometimes bc of our light sticks. I’m all about not feeling insecure or conflicted in the past but…These days? I’d thoroughly enjoy them having an “oh shit…” feeling of despair, and epiphany that if they don’t water ALL the “grass” in their yard, there WILL be noticeably large patches of nothing but dirt and dead plants.

I need you to know that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this ask. You have a way with words. I could feel the rage through my screen. I also felt like I was being scolded even though I did nothing wrong. You know how like when you're in the room and your friend is getting chewed tf out by their mom? That's how I felt for a hot minute lol

I said in an earlier ask that all this ncity discourse has me feeling like I'm on the couch with a bag of popcorn watching my bestie fight with her boyfriend. You are now that bestie and I will cheer you on while you read our men to filth. 👏 also hell yes kill nct hollywood early so we never gotta deal with that shit! hahahaha

[holycatsandrabbits]

Love’s Endless Light: A Good Omens serial romance

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Chapter 8: One in Hope of Heaven’s Blessing

1863, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, United States

Crowley had never thought it would really come to this. But Crowley had thought a lot of things that had turned out to be wrong.

The way Aziraphale looked at him sometimes— with heavy hunger, with sweet affection, with absolute misery— Crowley looked at Aziraphale exactly the same way. For Crowley, it was love. And so why shouldn't it have been love for Aziraphale? Crowley had thought it was.

He’d learned how wrong he was a year ago in St. James Park, when he’d come to Aziraphale with a plan of protection. They were together, as friends, as more than friends, as close as they could be without being blatant about it. No actual kissing, of course, or speaking of love. No touching. But Crowley could accept that. It was more than he thought he’d ever get.

But of course, even that level of closeness wasn’t safe. Yet when Crowley had asked Aziraphale to set in motion the first part of Crowley’s plan of defense by getting him holy water— Aziraphale had come apart.

Crowley had never seen Aziraphale so terrified, or so angry. Aziraphale had made a practice of saying a lot of things that he thought an angel should say: calling Crowley a demon, Fallen, reminding him they were hereditary enemies. But he’d never spoken of their relationship like that, their friendship. Calling it fraternizing, when Crowley had been calling Aziraphale his best friend for centuries.

Over the last six millennia, they’d argued nearly every time they’d met, but they’d never actually fought. Crowley hadn’t ever thought they would. And yet here was Aziraphale right now standing in a foggy field, with the American Civil War going on all around them, looking lost, and worse— looking like he’d rather be lost than ask Crowley for help. Crowley had the sinking feeling that they were going to be just one more battle on this field today.

“My assignment is in the tent over there,” Aziraphale said, pointing to where the pale canvas of a human dwelling rose up out of the mist. The human war was so close that they could hear rifle fire and screaming, and the fog was partly made up of the smoke from cooking fires and cannons.

“Mine too,” Crowley said. “Have to tempt General Lee to—” He stopped, unsure of whether he should tell his enemy his orders.

Aziraphale looked at his feet. He was in pale clothes as usual, and Crowley thought that if humans saw him in this place of death, they’d take him for a wraith. “Yes, well,” the angel said. “I think we can assume that my assignment is to sway him in the opposite direction.”

“Probably.”

If the Arrangement was still in effect, this would normally be the point at which they’d laugh, because neither of them was in the habit of doing the work anymore if they’d only cancel each other out. They’d write up reports and then spend the evening together, drinking wine and reminiscing and bickering. In this case, though, the assignment was a little more complicated.

“Listen,” Crowley said, “I”m not the only agent they sent. There are demons all over here. You need to go.”

It nearly cut Crowley in two to see Aziraphale look at him with suspicion. How many thousands of years had it been since he’d seen his eyes narrow like that? “Are there?” Aziraphale asked.

“When,” Crowley spat, “was the last time I lied to you?”

Aziraphale at least looked remorseful. “I can’t go,” he said. “I have my assignment.”

“Our orders will cancel out. I just need to put in an appearance—”

“I can handle demons,” Aziraphale said darkly. “And we both know it.”

“Right. Demons like me.”

And so there they were. Crowley didn’t take his eyes off Aziraphale, watching him look indignant and anxious, and knowing it was all about to get far worse. Under his breath, Crowley mumbled a few words, while he waved one hand in a specific gesture.

Aziraphale felt the effects of it immediately, Crowley could see that. But the angel kept mostly calm, just looking down, where there was now a harsh red line burned into the grass between them, one that an angel could not cross. “Crowley,” he whispered. In six thousand years, he’d never said his name quite like that.

“For your own good,” Crowley told him, around the nausea rising up in him.

“This is against the Arrangement.” Aziraphale still sounded so impassive, but Crowley could see wetness in his eyes.

“I wasn’t the one who broke it first. You refused to lend me a hand when I asked you to. Now stop arguing. There are a lot of demons in that tent and you’d be at risk there.”

“You could be too!”

Crowley shrugged. “If you want to protect me so badly, give me something I can use against them.”

“Crowley, do you understand how dangerous— they used holy water in the War in Heaven to kill demons!”

“Yes, I’m aware, that’s the whole point! But you don’t trust me to know what I need for protection. So fine, then, I’m going to make decisions about your safety for you too.”

“Crowley, God damn it!” Aziraphale’s face flushed red. “Let me through. Now.”

Crowley waved his hand to dissolve the spell. Aziraphale at least didn’t look surprised to have his request honored.

“Go on then,” Aziraphale growled. “I’ll wait here. If you’re not back in ten minutes—”

Crowley nodded. When he did return, Aziraphale looked relieved. And quietly heartbroken.

“I didn’t do my assignment,” Crowley told him. “So you can tell Heaven you did yours, and they canceled out.”

Aziraphale was looking down again at the line that had been burned in the grass. “I’m not sure there’s much use to our meeting anymore,” he said. “Without the Arrangement, I mean.”

“There’s not,” Crowley said, and the words were bitterly cold in his mouth.

“Be safe,” Aziraphale whispered, and then he snapped his fingers and was gone. Crowley stood in the field by himself until night fell.

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Want to create fic, art, or other works based on this series? Please do! Just dm or tag me.

Coming August 20: "Tollense," my next serial romance. A history professor falls in love with his best friend, a 3000-year-old vampire.

My previous Good Omens serial: Mr. Fell’s Bookshop

My Carrd

*********

Image text: Love’s Endless Light by Dannye Chase (HolyCatsAndRabbits) Chapter 8

As Aziraphale and Crowley slowly fall in love over the millennia, Crowley discovers that Aziraphale is keeping a very dangerous secret.

[kangaroo-sniper-imagine]

Mercs who didn’t pay attention to their family trees

-I’m only doing a few mercs, cuz otherwise this would be huge-

Scout and Spy

When Miss Pauling introduced their newest recruit, The Thief, everyone was at least interested with the new blood. They were useful on the field; fast, silent, deadly, quickly able to steal the info case and dashing back to safety in record time. They were closed off at first, like many are in a new environment, but quickly opened up as soon as they were settled in.

The only person who didn’t quite connect with them was Spy (shocker). There was something about the new recruit that stuck him odd, something familiar about them that he couldn’t just put his finger on. The Frenchman’s son felt similarly.

“It’s like I already know ‘em; which is weird ‘cuz I’m dead certain we’ve never met before.”

It wasn’t until several weeks later, as the ten of you all were joined in the rec room, just enjoying each other’s company after a successful match. Jacque sat in the corner with Mick {not to derail but I totally think that they’re secret best friends who roast each other on the field}, both sipping at their drinks and idly talking as Jeremey sat with them, having a loud conversation with Jane from across the room.

Then they heard it. A deep, throaty chortle that was extremely unattractive, coming from across the room, coming from you

Both Jacque and Jeremy froze, the sound too familiar for it to be comfortable, eyes snapping to you, where you were wildly laughing with Travish. The Scotsman was sloshed and laughed along with your, his thundering laughter almost drowning out your own. Almost.

The sniper took a slow sip of his beer as he as well looked upon the commotion. He hummed in thought, and turned to the frozen spy. “Izzit jus’ me,” he drawled, gesturing with is beer can to you, “or do their laugh sound a lot like yours?”

Scout slowly turned to his father, rage in his eyes, but all Spy could do was watch you laugh that awful laugh. His brain slowly connected the evidence, memories of 20+ years ago invaded his mind, a dalliance with a woman who looks shockingly like you, the nose that you share with him and Jeremy, your strange obsession with your appearance, and most damning of all; the shitty laugh that you’ve seem to inherit from Jacque.

With a deep breath, the Frenchman stood up, determined to get out of the room and hide in his abode so he could scream in peace, but the sudden influx of the realization, rather, caused him to faint.

He awoke, what he assumed, several hours later, in a familiar camper bed. In his peripheral, Jacque could see Mick smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper with one hand, a mug of coffee in the other. Without even looking up to confirm that the Frenchman was awake, the sniper spoke.

“Your kids are right pissed at you, mate.”

Jacque cursed.

Heavy and Soldier

Pauling was ecstatic to introduce more help, probably under the impression that this person to pick up the slack the other leaves so that her evenings won’t be filled with killing and covering up murders and thefts. Some young thing with a thick, almost indiscernible accent who spoke rarely and quietly. You were called the Electrician, for your… odd choice of weaponry.

Your gun was one of your own design, one you were very proud of, that rather than bullets shot out electrical charges, either stunning your opponent to help assist another teammate in a kill or give off a charge so intense it kills. You spent most of your free time in your assigned work shop improving your gun’s design and creating new weapons.

More than once, the team would hear a loud scream and the sound of a loud thud, only to come and find your door blown wide open and you stuck in the adjacent wall, hair shocked to stiffness and a new white streak added to your hair. Needless to say, you kept the team on their toes with your eccentricities. For some reason, your antics made Mikhail exceptionally worried. It was a weird knee jerk reaction he had, something that hadn’t flared up since he was younger, watching over his sisters.

About a month after your arrival, Jane caught you in his raccoon infantry pen, cooing over the animals that flocked to you. It was the first time he saw you smile since you’ve gotten there, and the first time he’s seen you out of your combat gear, now you wore a too large tee shirt and denim shorts, toes in the Arizona sand, scratching the chins of the furry animals. Deciding to try his luck, Jane approached you with a bellowing welcome, startling you, but you greeted him back regardless.

Jane noticed how much you liked watching the raccoons play with each other, but noticed you looked sad too.

“What’s the long face for, private?”

Your face pinched. When you spoke your words were slow, not used to English. “They have… family. I do not.” With a heavy sigh, you tried to elaborate. Jane didn’t mind waiting for you to collect your thoughts or your thick accent. Years of hanging out with Travish and Ludwig extremely sloshed had taught Jane patience in regards to others when they’re trying to speak an unfamiliar language.

“Mother was from… Russia? But father was from Norway, and mother went to there with him. When mother and father… died,” Jane’s heart twinged at the way your face fell, “I do not know how to find mother’s family in Russia, and father had no family in Norway. So I stay in Norway.” A beat of silence passed as you scratched the head of a curious baby raccoon that strayed closed to you. “I stay alone.”

Jane busted out crying, pulling you into a bear hug and vowing to be your surrogate family for as long as you want. He made it his mission to figure out who your family is. The first thing he did was write down the name of your parents, fully planning on hunting down your relatives after some good old fashioned American bonding.

Just as he was about to reunite with you after grabbing a baseball form his room, the American ran into Mikhail, who seemed pissed off

“You touch Sasha?” He accused, one large finger jabbing into the soldier’s chest. Jane couldn’t find it in himself to get mad at the accusation, he was a man on a mission to cheer up a sad kid and no angry Red was gonna stop him.

“No time,Sputnik! There’s a sad private who needs a moral boost and a good old game of catch!”

Rage quickly turned to confusion, then mild understanding. “Electrician is sad?”

Soldier gave a speedrun version of your sad backstory, even going as far to show the names of your parents to the Heavy. The Russian surveyed the sheet and he sighed. “That is not how name of mother is spelled.” He informed.

Jane scoffed. “And how would you know?”

Mikhail threw the American an unimpressed look. “Because family name is mother’s name before marriage.”

There was a second of realization.

“... is it a common last name?”

“... nyet.”

“... you might want to call your mother to confirm something.”

“... Heavy just might.”

—-

The next morning, Mikhail knocked on Jane’s door so early in the morning, the vet wasn’t even awake yet already doing his morning exercises.

The American looked up blearily to the Russian, one hand scratching his buzz cut head.

Mikhail looked grim. “Heavy call mother. Mother says that Electrician’s mother is cousin to her.”

Soldier mulled over the information. “So… your mama’s cousin is Private Zappy’s mama, so that makes us-

“Makes ME second cousin.” Mikhail insisted.

With an air of smugness, Jane flashed his left hand, displaying a wedding band. “Then I’m their second cousin in-law.”

Mikhail grumbled in annoyance and rolled his eyes, complaining in Russian. “Right. Sister Zhanna’s big mistake.”

With a sense of new found energy, Soldier stuck his chin up high and began marching towards your room, seemingly not aware that he was in only a pair of his tighty whiteys.

Mikhail sighed again but followed Jane regardless to tell you the news of your newfound family.

Medic (italics is German cuz lets be honest, who wants to translate all that)

After months of complaining to Pauling, asking for more on field medical help, upper management finally relented and hired a new mercenary, some bright young thing going by The Nurse.

You were studious, and compared to Ludwig you were very tamed. You saw this opportunity as a job to perform and not a way to finally experiment legally on people without getting arrested the way Ludwig does. You took your work seriously, dutifully dressing every wound, handing out pain medication, assisting Ludwig in his surgeries. You certainly helped lessen his work load during battle, helping with minor injuries so that the doctor could focus on his Ubercharge and on more serious injuries.

You two were professional to each other; despite showing you weren’t exactly sadistic you never chastised Ludwig for his somewhat cruel experiments, and you were always respectful to him and everyone else around you, which is something that impressed him (considering how noting the rest of the team is).

One day while experimenting on Heavy, you solemnly standing next to the doctor with your face covered like the good little health professional you were, the Medic fuzzed in German, adding, “I need a bone saw.”

Without him translating, you turned to your side and snatched the instrument off the tray, passing it to the doctor.

After a moment of thought, Ludwig spoke again. “You speak German?”

“Ja, I am from Germany after all.”

The russain’s rib finally took the blade and now was slicing easily. “What a coincidence. Which part?”

“Munich, but I left while I was very young when my family moved.” After another brief pause, you add, “I actually wanted to become a nurse because of Munich.

Ludwig didn’t mention that he, as well, came from the same city, rather, he decided to prod you and learn more. It was so rare to meet someone he could have a conversation in his mother tongue with.

“What in Munich made you want to become a nurse?” Reaching into Heavy’s chest with a scalpel, Ludwig began to sever the arteries attached to the heart.

“The University. My family lived nearby, and seeing the students come and go made me want to join them… actually a relative went there. My family was very proud of him and I wanted to go with him, but, ah, I was only a child.” Without being asked, you held out a silver pan that Ludwig deposited the heart.

The doctor started the timer, watching the mutilated chest cavity, waiting for the oregano to regrow due to his most recent experimental ‘medicine’. “Hmm, which relative?”

“Oh, my father’s brother’s wife’s…. something.” You replied idly, fetching a notebook and pencil to record the time. “Nephew or cousin’s nephew or something. It is a distant relation. Lost his license though.”

“Really? How?”

“He removed someone’s skeleton if you can believe it.”

Ludwig’s fist clenched so hard that the stopwatch broke. Dammit, now he has to start the experiment all over again.

[rainydayhogwartsimagines]

Hey so I really don’t know how to request stuff, but like I love your posts and I love Freddie so here we go

Freddie and the weasleys go visit the muggle world but the States and meet this amazing girl (aka y/n) while at a carnival. He falls head over heels the moment he sees her and they talk for a while, he believes she’s a muggle, however when they go back to hogwarts, she ends up being the new transfer student :o

But it’s okay if you don’t do it! It’s just a little idea maybe you can take some inspo off it ❤️

America was a lot bigger than Charlie told the Weasleys... And Harry. It was massive as they stood on the side walk. "airplanes. How fascinating!" Arthur said making all of the kids groan in response. "We. Know." Ginny sighed. "You talked about it for three hours on the plane!" Ron whined.

"Mum! Dad!" Someone said from across the street. He ran over and waved. "You guys made it!" Charlie said. "Yes and we're quite tired, where are we staying?" Molly asked. "Oh, it's two blocks from here, come on." Charlie said. The group walked, looking around at the scenery. "A carnival is in town tomorrow, you guys are totally going." Charlie said. Fred rose a brow. "Carnival? Like something from the movies?" He asked. "What expecting a summer romance?" Charlie asked jokingly. "No I--" Fred then noticed the long haired girl walking down the steps of the subway, face looking focused as you walked. "No." He cleared his throat. "Ohh he saw something pretty." Ginny teased. "Shut it." He said, roughing up her hair.

Fred didn't think much about the carnival idea. In fact this trip over all wasn't very exciting to him. Ron and Harry shared a room, Fred and George shared one and Ginny was the lucky one on her own. Fred looked out the window and Charlie walked in. "You guys ready to goooo?" He asked. "Yeah. Tell me this won't be dull." Fred said. "It won't be dull." Charlie assured.

So there Fred stood, screams of citizens going on as they rode rides, attractions that muggles of course found interesting with their naive minds and then... You. Fred didn't think much of this but you sat at a picnic table talking to someone. Your hair was in a ponytail, pulled back by a black ribbon and you wore a red cardigan despite the warm weather. Your smile was something he was captivated by, his lips parting as he saw it. Charlie rose a brow, following his brother's gaze before you looked over. "Charlie!" You said running over. Fred blinked.

"Y/n! Hi!" Charlie greeted. You gave him a small hug and you chuckled. "Glad to see you came, Sam's over there if you wanna talk to her." You said with finger guns. He chuckled and shook his head. "This is my brother Fred. Keep his sane will you?" Charlie asked. "I got it! Go go!" You shoved him to the table and ran back over. "What was that about?" Fred asked. "Charlie has a thing for my friend. This was a set up." You chuckled. You turned to Fred. "So you're Fred. Where's George?" You asked, cocking your head to the side like a confused dog. "...You know about George?" Fred asked. "Yeah, Charlie talks to me all the time." You nodded. "George is with Ginny." Fred said slowly, looking at you. "What's wrong?" You asked. "I... How do you know Charlie?" He asked. "My dad owns a coffee shop that I work at during the summer and Charlie is a regular." You said. Oh... So you were... A muggle.

Fred nodded and you rose a brow. "So, you wanna do something?" You asked curiously, bouncing back and forth on the balls of your heels. "uhh... Sure.. I don't know anything here though." He admitted. "Well in two hours there's going to be a banana derby." You said. Fred blinked. "A what?" He asked. "Spider monkeys riding on the back of dogs like it's a derby." You said. He blinked and gaped slightly. "What the hell are you Americans on?" Fred asked. "Freedom.... Too much freedom. But freedom." You answered. Fred snorted and you both started laughing.

"Well what's there to do now?" Fred finally asked. "Well there's rides but they're way too fucking loud and have a tendency to break down." You said. "No." Fred shuddered at the thought. Course he could easily fix something. "There's food that will cause you to probably die by thirty." You said. Fred rose a brow before seeing a kid walk by with a deep fried oreo. "I am understanding this 'too much freedom' comment you made." Fred said with a shudder. "There's games that are totally rigged but still kind of fun." You said. "That sounds kind of appealing compared to rotting your insides and potentially having a hospital trip." Fred said. "Rigged games it is!" You chuckled.

Fred followed you around, watching you laugh at many failed attempts with a baseball and hitting targets. "God your bad at this." You laughed. "Okay, you try it then!" Fred laughed. You picked up a baseball and hit the target making Fred raise a brow. "America's favorite pastime." You said, throwing the next ball up, it falling back into your hand and you hitting the next target. "How are you doing that?" Fred asked. You chuckled and stood behind Fred. "straighten your legs a little." You instructed. "Now pull your arm back." You said, guiding his arm with your hands. God they were so soft and small. "Wow..." You muttered, feeling the muscle that Fred had. Quidditch was a God send in this moment. "Like something?" He asked with a chuckle. "Throw the ball idiot." You blushed, letting go. He hit the target. "Pick your prize." The attendant said in a monotone voice. "What do you want?" Fred asked. "....Uuuh.. that weird ass mole platypus looking thing." You said pointing to the unidentifiable stuffed animal. "It's also a backpack." The attendant muttered. "BRO THAT'S SO COOL" you gaped, pulling it onto your back. Fred snorted, seeing you hop around with the creature on your back. If Fred weren't at a muggle based carnival he would almost call the backpack a niffler.

Fred spent most of the evening with you, talking to you and discovering you actually were moving to Scotland soon. Charlie befriended you so you'd know at least one person out there. "Why are you moving?" He asked. "Mom got a new job out there. She's an archeologist." You said. "Ah." Fred nodded. "what about you, what do your parents do?" You asked. "Uhm." Fuck, how should he answer that? "Mum's a stay at home mother and my dad... Works a desk job." He said. Not technically a lie. "Hmm." You nodded. "What do you want to be exactly?" Fred asked. "Welll... That's a little hard to explain." You admitted. "I'm used to weird." Fred chuckled. You smiled slightly. "Uhm... I want to study--" "Y/N!!!!!" someone called making you sigh. "I'll be right back." You huffed.

The girl from earlier was talking to you, smiling and you rolled your eyes. You came back over and snorted. "What was that?" Fred asked. "Charlie asked Sam out. Officially." You laughed. "and she needed to tell you?" Fred asked. "Sam tells me everything. I'm really going to miss her when I move." You said with a sigh. Fred put his hand over yours and you looked up, Fred giving you a reassuring look. You smiled at him and he kissed your knuckles. "On the bright side... I can see you in Scotland." Fred said. You smiled at that comment and laughed. "I suppose that is true."

The evening carried on, you and Fred watching the insane event of a 'Banana derby' before spending time in a photo booth. Fred had never taken muggle pictures that stayed still. He was smiling at you in most of them. But something crazy happened. You smiled back at him once you realized he was looking at you and before either of you knew it, his lips were on yours. The last flash made you two aware of where you were. You let out a breathless laugh against his forehead. "This is absolutely wild." You said. "I tend to like wild." Fred said. "Well clearly, you just kissed me." You snorted. You climbed out, handing him a photo strip. Fred smiled and you put another strip in your wallet.

"Fred! Time to go!" Someone called. You shifted and he pressed a kiss to you one last time. You savored that feeling. The warmth, the hold he made sure he had on you to make you feel secure, his breath. All of it. "Fred!" Someone called again. "I'll get your address and write to you from Charlie." You said. "okay." He said with a slightly pained smile. He ran off and you shook your head with a smile.

Fred was positive he wasn't going to see you again though. After all... You weren't a wizard. You wouldn't be walking the halls of Hogwarts, you'd be somewhere in Scotland with your family. Fred seemed disappointed as he thought about it more. He wasn't going to see you again.

The day finally came when he sat at the breakfast table in the burrow. Charlie was there to spend time at home for a little while. "So I heard from a little bird that you got along with Y/n." Charlie said. "Yeah." Fred said, seeming sad at the mention. "She's a crazy girl that one, she wants to do what I do." Charlie said. "What fake job did you give her?" George asked. Charlie rose a brow confused. "Wait, she's not--" "Get the car ready Arthur, they've got to go soon." Molly said. "God I miss hogwarts." Charlie said. "Honestly, me too." Bill agreed. Fred got up, getting dressed and finishing packing.

The train ride was long and silent, his thoughts of course drifting to you. What was Charlie going to say before Molly cut him off? He swore for a couple of seconds he saw you on the platform. He knew that wasn't possible. He sat in the great hall, head on his hand. "Oh my God, Fred. Stop moping." George sighed. "Sorry." Fred said not thinking. Dumbledore went through the sorting of first years and he applauded in silence. "And before we begin the opening feast I'd like to introduce Gryffindor's newest member." The door opened behind Dumbledore and Fred's eyes widened as you brushed ash off your cloak. "Y/n L/n.... Uhm... What happened?" Dumbledore asked as you coughed out smoke. "Charlie Weasley happened." You said making a few people laugh.

Dumbledore used a quick cleaning spell and you were as good as new before you saw Fred. He swallowed, looking at you and you stepped down, him getting up and practically sprinting to you. He scooped you into his arms and you laughed. "Surprised?" You asked. "When the hell were you going to tell me you were a wizard!?" Fred asked, cupping your face. You furrowed your brow. "Charlie never told you-- I am kicking your brother's ass." You said making him laugh. "I work part time with your brother during the summers. I'm on a scholarship for dragon studies. You seriously haven't heard about the girl who has the weird friendships with the dragons?" You asked. "Oh my God that was you!?" Fred asked. "Yes!" You laughed before Fred scattered kisses across your face. You smiled and George blinked. "SHE'S REAL!?" he asked making Fred look over. "YES YOU MORON!" Fred said making you laugh hard.

He spent his morning showing you around, him keeping an arm around you, or holding your hand the entire time. Fred would sometimes just look at you. No talking. No comments. Just look. And he knew instantly by listening to you that you were the one.

Taglist: @amhyeah @newtaholic-staygold @bbeauttyybbx @fleurho @yodeadxss @mariah-can-dream

[mimzy-writing-online]

Hi! I just wanted to say thank you for writing the 'How to Write a Blind or Visually Impared Person'. I myself am not Blind or Visually Impared and i am in the process of writing the basis for such a character and your guide really helps. (And will help as well as be shared to those I know whom also need to see this.) I do have one question though: What about writing people blind from birth?

So, with writing characters who are blind from birth, it’s important to remember that there are both real people who have been completely blind from birth and people who have been legally blind or VI from birth. So, with blindness from birth, it doesn’t necessarily have to be no sight at all. It’s also important to note how small a minority that is in the blind community. 

Statistics

2.4% of Americans are living with visual disabilities. (Total (all ages): 7,675,600)

0.8% of school age Americans (ages 4-20) are living with a visual disability. ( Total: 706,400). This accounts for 9.2% of the entire blind community in the country.

90% of the entire blind community world wide has some remaining vision. People who are completely blind are a small minority.

Source: National Federation of the Blind

Molly Burke and her boyfriend Adrian (this post was written in 10/20/2020) are both people who have been legally blind from birth or a very young age (I can’t remember exactly when Adrian said he went blind, but it’s been his entire memorable life, though he still has remaining vision).

Most children are not diagnosed right away at birth. It heavily depends on the eye condition in question. Unless you had an easily observable symptom, such as nystagmus or pupils which don’t react to light or lazy eye, doctors and parents are unlikely to notice right away.

Most blind children don’t realize they’re blind until they’re a bit older and have developed enough communication skills to recognize that the visual experiences their family describes don’t match their visual experiences. Slowly small moments and situations begin to pop up where you realize there’s something everyone else seems able to do easily that you’re struggling with.

Particularly severe vision issues will be noticed by parents sooner than more subtle ones. The more usable sight a child has and the fewer visually observable symptoms they have, the longer they’re going to fly under the radar until the adults in their life realize something is different. Even then, it might not be until the child is able to communicate an inability to see what they’re describing that parents might realize something is wrong.

More severe vision issues will be picked up sooner. Parents realizing their children doesn’t respond to peek-a-boo or their eyes don’t follow moving items but sound will get their attention.

At this point in life, the economic situation of the child’s family will have a huge impact on how they grow up.

Families living below the poverty line or living in countries (America) where health care is expensive and treated as a privilege rather than a necessity and human right, or simply isn’t available at all, will have a much harder time getting their child diagnosed or treated.

Those families likely won’t have the education or knowledge needed to realize what is wrong and how they can help their child. Like health care, knowledge/education is treated like a privilege instead of a necessity and human right.

The education their children have access to will likely be lacking as well. Poorer communities have less funding for their students than wealthy communities. Those schools will have an even more restricted budget for accessible education, meaning they might not be able to pay the wages of a teacher’s aide to work one-on-one with that child in class, or have access to magnifiers and braille books/typewriters/education. Even though by legal law they must provide accommodations for disabled students, it doesn’t mean they will, and a financially disadvantaged family won’t have the resources to fight the school for their child’s rights (or even be aware of their child’s rights in the first place).

Children from middle class or wealthy families will (like all children in their community) have a huge advantage over their peers who attend schools with fewer resources. However, those blind children still have a disadvantage with their own peers.

Again, a school might refuse accommodations because administration can be jerks like that. It happens all the time. Parents may have to fight for their child’s rights to equal education through an aide, accessible school materials, and blind-friendly education.

Molly Burke made a video recently talking about her experiences with education as a blind child.

Learning Braille is a huge step in helping blind children, but it’s becoming less popular as audiobooks become more available. Audiobooks are amazing, and that method of reading is just as valid as any other, however a child reading solely with audiobooks will lose the literacy benefits. Like any writing system, Braille teaches spelling and grammatical rules necessary for educational and professional writing. While Braille is a writing system unique to itself, it still lives within the confines of whatever the native speaking language of the child is. Braille in English still uses the same spelling and grammatical function English uses. Braille in Spanish still bends to the rules of Spanish.

This is very different from different sign languages which can have grammar and syntax rules that completely differ from the native language of that country. Which is why you have languages called American Sign Language and British Sign Language and Canadian Sign Language that are using in English speaking countries but function very differently from both English and their fellow Sign counterparts. I’ve heard it said that ASL is more similar to the grammar structure of Chinese than it is to English, which gives the Deaf community a literacy disadvantage of their own when their native language and their reading/writing language are completely different languages.

Though there is a secondary system of Braille which uses shortened abbreviations. That is Grade 2 Braille, and it is learned after Grade 1.

This is Molly Burke’s video on Braille, which includes the history of Braille, how she personally learned it in school, and showing what a Braille Typewriter is and how it is used. 

I highly recommend it because Braille is something I only know from research and theory, not from personal experience.

Children who don’t learn Braille are statistically less likely to receive higher education and more likely to live below the poverty line.

Though blind adults are at a huge disadvantage in the work force with 80% of blind adults being unemployed but not by choice. Even though they have the same qualifications as other applicants, employers will almost always choose a sighted applicant over them, even if the sighted applicant is less qualified.

As adults, people who were born blind are just as affected by their upbringing, education, and family life as sighted adults are. The first eighteen years of their life shaped who they are as a person, so like any other character, you must consider what your character’s childhood must have been like for them to become the person they are now.

Once they reach adulthood, there isn’t much difference between people who were born blind or became blind early in life, compared to people who went blind as adults. But there are a few:

- Adults who were blind or became blind during their education are more likely to learn Braille than adults who went blind later in life.

-They are more likely to have O&M training. Though, only 10% of the blind community has a cane or guide dog, while the rest rely on remaining vision and sighted guides.

-O&M abilities (beyond mobility guides, there’s also learning how to use your remaining vision, your hearing and touch, and other senses to navigate without a cane/guide dog) are generally much better the longer you’ve been blind.

-Adults who have been living with blindness all their lives are more likely to be comfortable with their disability than newly blind adults, but that is not necessarily a rule. There is more confidence in living x-many years blind and knowing how to live your regular life without new major adjustments. 

-The fewer memories a person has of vision, the fewer visual things they are likely to miss. You can’t miss something you’ve never experienced or don’t remember. Doesn’t mean someone won’t wish they knew what stars and fireworks and the ocean looks like, but it won’t be as big a focus as it is for someone who went blind recently.

-People dream with whatever experiences they are living with now, meaning blind people dream with whatever their current vision is. Someone who has never seen or no longer retains any memories of sight will not have dreams with visuals.

(Note, memories of sight are something that fades with time, no matter when you went blind in life. After about 7 years of not seeing a particular image, you’re likely to have forgotten what that thing actually looked like, including color and other general vision things)

That is what I have for you. I’m going to link this to my masterpost so that it’s easily accessible for everyone and if you want to come back to it, you will be able to easily find it.

[catsandstrawberries]

Proud of You

Pairing: OT7 BTS x graduating reader PLATONIC! (also could be seen as 8th member)

Summary: Due to the coronavirus, your whole senior year has been destroyed, chewed, and spit out by the universe. You start to get depressed once your robes come, but the boys know just how to make you feel better.

Warnings: The reader kind of gets depressed, Americanized because American graduation and Korean graduation are a little different, like 2 swear words, but nothing else. Lots of fluff!

A/N: This is intended to be for high school seniors but words for college seniors as well, could be a stand alone read or a continuation of Real Family. 

“(Y/N), your package came!" 

I ignored Namjoon’s yell and cuddled back into the multitude of blankets that swaddled me in a large cacoon. 

Quarantine was not faring well with me. 

In retrospect, I had it a lot better than most people. I was surrounded by my seven brothers who I loved unconditionally and didn’t have any issues with food shortages or internet issues, but I wouldn’t be able to graduate. That was hard to come to terms with. After twelve long, hard years working at school, and only to be denied all of my senior privileges, seeing my friends, and the top of the cake, graduation. It honestly sucked. But, instead of facing my feelings, I’ve camped out in my bedroom listening to Lo-fi and pretending as if my mental health wasn’t suffering. 

”(Y/N)!“ I groaned with protest, rolling out of bed with no care about my ragged appearance. My hair stuck up at odd angles, and my baggy t-shirt and sweatpants weren’t the most attractive outfit I’ve worn. I trudged towards Namjoons shouting voice, ignoring the flambergasted look Jin gave me, and Yoongi’s voice shouting at me to take a shower and that I smelled like Hoseoks dirty socks. 

"Oh, you look…” I gave Namjoon an annoyed look, 

“dead to the world? Depressed? Annoyed? Sad?” I finally looked down at the package, a medium-sized box shipped from the school. 

I frowned, a sneaking suspicion about what it was creeping up on me. I picked up the box and carried it to the kitchen island, quickly grabbing a pair of scissors from the closest drawer and cutting open the top of the cardboard. My frown only grew as I spotted the robes and cap inside the box, the robe that I would never wear because my diploma was going to come shipped to me, like a useless piece of paper. 

I ignored the crowd watching me from the sidelines and crawled back to my dark hole of depression, otherwise known as my room. Little did I know the boys were setting a plan into motion before I even shut my door.

Netflix seemed to be my only saving grace. My little kid floaties as I attempted not to drown in the big kid pool. I was just about to finish one of the most important cinematic moments in history, Jane giving birth in the tv show Jane the Virgin. But the show all of a sudden started to buffer, and soon a notification on my computer was telling me the wifi connection failed. Aggravated, I tried to re-type the password only for my computer to tell me it was wrong. I stomped to my door, ready to scream at Jungkook for messing with the wifi only to find the exact boy and Jimin standing in front of my door.  

“Uh, hi?” The two looked very suspicious and both their hands were behind their back as if they were hiding something. 

“Is something wrong?” Jungkook asked, trying to bite back a smile as if he knew he was messing with me. Before I could interrogate him Jimin was elbowing him in the ribs, 

“don’t be a brat, Koo.” Jungkook grumbled, and suddenly Jimin was shoving a cardboard box into my arms, the same cardboard box with my graduation outfit. 

“Wha-" 

"You should try it on.” Jimin pushed, a gleaming look behind his eyes that told me he was planning something. 

“Why-" 

"If you don’t try it on and come show us, then we won’t tell you the new wifi password.” My jaw dropped as Jungkook let a sly smirk cross onto his face. Those sly dogs. I sent a harsh glare to the two of them, 

“fine, but I’m choosing dinner tonight.” Jimin exchanged a glance with Jungkook then ruffled my poor excuse of hair, patting down some of the large knots.  

“You drive a hard bargain, deal.” I couldn’t help but smile at their ridiculous antics but before Jimin could shove me back into my room Jungkook was adding, 

“be sure to brush your hair though, you look like the walking dead." 

The door shut before the hairbrush I threw could hit his head.

——–

The body length mirror in front of me only made me more anxious and sad as I looked over my uniform. The robes weren’t exactly attractive, but they fit, and the sad memories of never being able to walk with my friends or give a speech, fully appreciate the process of graduation only soured my mood. I ran a hand through my freshly brushed hair, I styled it slightly in preparation of being included in a V-live or some other event that showed my face to the public. I wasn’t an idiot, the boys wanted me out of my room, and to look nice so I assumed they would show me off to Army to try and lift my spirits. I didn’t want to do this. A part of me wanted to crawl back into my bed and snuggle under my fluffy blankets, call Jin and tell him that I wasn’t feeling well. They might buy it if I lie and say I’m on my period. Even though I was close with the boys, that was the one thing that always freaked them out, and got them off my back. Just mention blood coming out of their younger sister’s vagina and you’re no longer being teased, a full proof plan. I sighed and leaned against the cool wood of my door, my hand hovering over the metal doorknob. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad idea, just smile and take a few pictures then you can go back to your room, yeah 30 minutes tops, then I’d be out of there. 

With that final boost of confidence, I opened the door only to find Yoongi standing at the end of the hallway, dressed in the fancy blue sweater he only wore to important events. 

"Is this a blue sweater event?” I questioned jokingly, but his gaze was still locked on my outfit, and once I got close enough he fiddled with the tassel on the top of my cap.

“I’m so proud of you.” I snorted at his cheesy words, raising an eyebrow, 

“for what?” He shrugged as if it was no big deal and offered his arm out to me,  

“for being you.”

Yoongi led me into the dark living room, and my eyes barely had a moment to adjust before the lights were blasted on. My own eyes winced at the onslaught of light, but once they adjusted my heart did cartwheels at the sight in front of me. Gold and silver balloons and streamers hung around the room, inflatable letters spelling out graduation hung at the front of the room where Namjoon stood in front of a pedestal, the other boys lined against either side, creating a clear pathway for me. They were all dressed in nice clothes and once I got close enough they each handed me a slip of paper, diploma, written in crayon or colored pencil highlighted at the top of each paper. A personal message below each of them. I couldn’t help but laugh at that, especially after seeing Hoseok misspell graduation in crayon and have to cross it out to rewrite it. Once I was finally in front of Namjoon, he looked at me with one of the proudest and genuine smiles I had ever seen. 

“Wow, (y/n) looks so much better in her graduation robes then you did Jungkook,” Taehyung whispered cheekily and an embarrassingly loud laugh erupted from my chest at his words and the comedic look of betrayal that crossed Jungkooks face. Namjoon cleared his throat and then glared at the two before turning to face me, 

“Dear class of 2020, It is my greatest honor to be your commencement speaker as you head off to do great things in your lives, as you face graduation day, ready to take on a life full of brand new colors, a palette of opportunities and-” Namjoon filtered off and loosed the bow tie around his shoulder before walking around the pedestal and standing in front of me. “(Y/N), I am so proud of you. I can only imagine how hard this must be for you, balancing all the things you do, from school, to work, living with us, I know we aren’t the easiest family-" 

"Excuse you I’m fucking fantastic and (Y/N) appreciates me and our relationship,” Jin spoke up unashamedly, but a grin spread over his face and he was suddenly showing us two thumbs-ups which transferred into hearts. 

“As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, we just want you to know that we’ve seen how hard you’ve worked and that we will always be here for you. Even after you get your diploma, and face other big events in your life.”

I couldn’t hold back, and my arms were instantly wrapping around Namjoon in a bone-crushing hug, tears forming in the corners of my eyes as Namjoon spoke, 

“congratulations (y/n), you graduated." 

I’ve been through a lot with the boys, a lot of good memories. From concerts to hangouts, to awards, that time Jin got his tonsils out and thought Namjoon was Britney Spears, but this by far was my favorite memory with them. Or at least a close tie to the Britney Spears moment. Before I could wipe away the tears forming in my eyes Hoseok popped a confetti launcher, the loud bang scaring me out of Namjoons arms as Hobi attacked me in a hug. 

"Our strong girl graduated.” He wrapped his arms around me and jumped up and down excitedly, forcing my body to jump with him. 

“Let her go Hyung, I want a hug too.” I jumped into Tae’s arms as soon as Hobi let go of me, and smiled while he gently wiped away the tears trailing down my face. 

“You better be hungry (y/n), because I made every single dish you ever remotely mentioned you liked.” At the mention of food, I suddenly became aware of the onslaught of smells coming from the kitchen, sensations that made my stomach growl in hunger. Jimin pinched my cheek adoringly and I swatted his hand away, 

“I know we said you could pick dinner, but Jin-Hyung really wanted to cook for you-” I cut him off and stood on my tippy toes to kiss his cheek, 

“thank you Jimin, really." 

"Don’t thank Jimin, this was all my idea!” Jungkook shouted from the other room while Jin smacked him for trying to get into the food without the rest of us. 

“Excuse you! This was a joint effort, don’t try and get all the attention.” Yoongi joined in on the shouting while Namjoon sweated, 

“if anything I should get extra credit for giving the speech-" 

"You begged to do the speech!" 

I chuckled while Tae wrapped an arm around my shoulder, 

"Congratulations graduation girl, you deserve it.” Before I could thank him, shouting erupted from the kitchen, while Tae blanked in front of me. 

“Shit, they got into the silly string.”

[tealin]

Temperatures

As always, when you see one of these posts pop up you can head straight over to twirlynoodle.com/blog to see it properly formatted and with pictures. Tumblr didn't even take the crosspost last time so I don't know what's going on!

It’s all well and good to share photos of Antarctica – after all, it is a beautiful place, and we are predominantly a visual species. The photos can give you a sense of what it looks like, but not what it feels like. If people know anything about Antarctica, it’s that it’s cold. But how cold? And what kind of cold?

I cannot speak to the full range of Antarctic weather.  I was down for exactly a month, in early summer, and aside from the first week, the weather was unusually calm and mild.  To my great disappointment, I didn't see a single blizzard!  But I did get enough to compare the feel of Antarctica with other places I have been, and I hope that by making those comparisons here, I will bring you a little closer to understanding quite literally what it feels like to be there. 

Temperatures are misleading.  A number can only give you an impression of what one might actually feel when one steps out the door.  Humidity, sunshine, and wind are external factors that affect the perception of temperature; this can be further influenced by how much sleep or food you've had, BMI, resting metabolism, your accustomed climate, where you've just come from – so, 6°C can feel different from one day to the next, or to two different people standing side by side.

There are roughly two types of cold: dry and damp. The influential factor is water, because it takes a tremendous amount of energy to make water change temperature – this is why it takes so much power to boil a kettle, and why we bring hot water bottles to bed instead of hot gravel bottles. In dry environments, there is less water vapour in the air to suck up the heat coming off your body, so you get to keep more of it for yourself. It may be well below freezing, but you will feel the cold merely as a sensation on your skin, where it meets the air, and not something that goes right through you. Damp cold, because of the energy-hungry water in the air, feels a lot colder. It’s not enough merely to cover your skin, you need layers of fabrics that have moisture-repelling properties (wool is key; cotton is useless). Your precious body heat will leak out through any weak point in your clothing. Because of their different properties, dry air can be much colder than damp air and yet feel more comfortable. In my experience, damp cold is the worst when it’s above freezing, because below freezing the air can’t hold so much water. Damp climates, however, tend not to get much below freezing, so when people from damp climates imagine very cold temperatures, they imagine the insidious cold they know, only much much worse. It’s not necessarily like that.

Even the objective numerical value of a temperature presents a problem: my historical sources, and the United States of America, report temperatures in Fahrenheit, while the rest of the world operates in Celsius.  Scientists prefer the metric system, but McMurdo is an American base, so it's functionally bilingual.  I tend to think in Celsius, but as the historical record was in °F and I wanted to be able to compare what I was experiencing with what my guys experienced, I paid more attention to °F while I was down there.  In this post, I will report actual temperatures in both, so you can look at whichever one you understand best. 

When I left Britain in mid-October, we had been having a very mild autumn, after a hot summer.  My hopes for hardening up a little on the way to Antarctica were dashed when Vancouver, though objectively colder, felt merely fresh and delightful, I assume because it was unseasonably dry.  LA is always dry in the autumn and usually hot, so that was no surprise; Christchurch however was much warmer than expected, and because it wasn't as dry as LA, felt even hotter.  After several days' delay there, I feared my blood was much too thin to be hurtled into ice and snow. 

It is regulation to wear one's Extreme Cold Weather gear on the plane to McMurdo.  Aware that I'd just had a fortnight of heat to thin my blood, and that they were just coming out of a cold snap down there, I was only too happy to take this precaution.  When the plane landed, everyone piled on their balaclavas and tuques, and when the door opened, an icy-looking fog formed as our pent-up breaths met the cold air from outside.  Here we go, I thought.  As I approached the gangway I braced myself for the smart of cold air on exposed skin and the stiletto keenness as I inhaled, but . . .   

. . . it was fine. 

In fact, it was so fine that when I was allowed to change out of my ECW, I put on my street shoes, not even my cold-weather hiking boots.  I knew dry cold from Utah and Alberta, but I was coming to understand that in an Antarctic context, “well it was -20, but it was a dry cold” isn't a joke, it's just a statement of fact.  +6°C(42°F) would be miserable in damp Cambridge, but -6°C(21°F) was quite comfortable at McMurdo – if it wasn't windy, one could happily go about without a coat.

One always had a coat to hand, though, because the wind could turn up at any time, and it made a big difference.  The first time I went to Cape Evans it was so mild as to be balmy – I was in snow pants because they were required for the snowmobile, but on top I stripped down to just my base layer and a medium-weight sweater, and was even a bit warm in that.  It was -1°C/30°F, but I could happily have sat down to a picnic. 

Before we left, I wanted to make a quick trip up Wind Vane Hill.  I got hot climbing it, but while on top, a breeze kicked up, and before long I was wishing I hadn't left my jacket at the bottom.  The reason I have my hands tucked in my snow pants bib in the above photo is because they were beginning to feel quite nippy.  I always had a jacket with me after that, even if I cursed its dead weight the whole time.  (It was usually my trenchcoat, not the big red parka, for this reason.  I will go into more depth on clothing in a future post.) 

A similar thing happened on my Basler flight.  I'm afraid I don't know the actual temperatures where and when we landed – we were at the inland extremity of the Barrier, though, so everything I'd read told me it ought to be noticeably colder than McMurdo.  It might well have been.  But the only clue that it wasn't a perfectly warm summer day was that the slightest stir in the air breathed ice on my hands.  It felt much the same at the much higher altitude site of CTAM.  The interior of the continent is even drier than the coast: apparently, in the absence of wind and on a bright sunny day, this makes temperature barely perceptible at all. 

A windless day is a vast exception in the case of Antarctic weather, though, and besides chilling a human body, the direction of the wind makes a big difference to the objective air temperature.  A north wind, arriving from over the open sea, was comparatively mild.  Most of the time, however, the wind was from the east to south, coming cold off the icy interior.  This sends it funnelling through The Gap straight at Hut Point. The Hut Point Wind was infamous in the Heroic Age; even now it can be a pleasant day at the station, but one must remember to kit up just to walk around the corner to the Discovery Hut. 

It did make for some great photos, though, because if the conditions were just right – which they were a few times in my month there – the wind would kick up some freshly fallen snow and things would look so very Antarctic.  The funny thing was, on the days when it looked quintessentially polar, it was actually comparatively warm.  The snow was so powdery that a fairly light wind could lift it, so it didn't have to be brutally windy to look brutally windy.  The cold really sets in when a high pressure system stays in place for a while and keeps the air still; if there is turbulence, there is warmth, and if a weather system moves through – such as the kind that delivers snow – the temperature rises considerably.  So in order for there to be fresh snow to blow around, there will have been a recent warm spell, whereas if it's starting to get cold again, the new snow will have compacted enough not to blow around.  The strongest winds I encountered in Antarctica were at Cape Crozier, but you'd never guess it from my photos, which haven't a speck of drift.  I am sure there are exceptions to this, but this was a dependable pattern in my time there. 

Above: two images of light snow blowing off just after a snowfall, when it was comparatively warm. Below: 30-knot winds at Cape Crozier, but you'd never guess.

One of my oddest temperature memories was in one of those balmy drifty situations.  I had been asked to give my history lecture over at Scott Base, and I was to wait for the Kiwi truck at a designated pickup point on the road coming over from The Gap.  There are three official categories for weather in Antarctica: Condition 3 is when everything can operate as normal: it can be cold, it can be windy, but visibility is fine and the ordinary precautions will see you through.  Condition 2 is when things are starting to get serious: drift and/or winds are reaching dangerous levels, extra precaution is necessary, and venturing outside is discouraged.  Condition 1 is when everyone is required to stay indoors except on vital business as merely venturing outside is a life-threatening risk.  During my month there it was always Condition 3, but within the hour of my pickup a Condition 2 had been declared on the Scott Base side of The Gap.  My ride said she would be coming anyway, as she would be overwintering and needed the practice of driving in Condition 2, so I went up to meet her.  I was hoping I would finally get a blast of Antarctica, but it gave me a surprise.  For one, it was warm.  And, yes, it was windy, but not desperately so, and the wind had a damp sweetness that, weirdly, made me think of swelling streams and crocuses.  The Condition 2 had been called purely because of the drift, which was obscuring the road and therefore made driving more hazardous than usual.  It was surreal to hear my driver checking in with her radio operator as if she were chasing tornadoes when it was really quite pleasant out.

My first few days at McMurdo were by far the coldest of my whole visit.  When I first visited the Discovery Hut it was -18°C, or just below 0°F, and rather windy on the way back.  That was when I learned that one can be feeling really quite cosy all over but one's outermost extremities can still suffer the cold – I distinctly remember wondering why my fingertips were tingling when I felt so warm, and a little while later my toes went numb and I had to stamp them back to life.  The dryness, not sapping your core heat, can lure you into a false sense of security, and nab your digits while you're not looking. 

After that, daily highs mostly hovered around the freezing point, and lows rarely dipped as low as -10°C/+14°F.  This was really very mild – indeed, the people who'd been down since September could often be seen flitting about in t-shirts – and was an amusing irony for me personally.  Twice in the past I'd visited Calgary in search of 'Antarctic' cold and hit, instead, a relatively mild spell; it turned out that in Antarctica I was getting exactly the same weather that I had thought un-Antarctic in Calgary.  Not only was it the same weather on paper, but it felt exactly the same as well – the light, fresh kiss of frosty air on one's cheeks, surprising warmth in the sunshine but a breeze to keep you honest, and even the same granular texture to old snow.  Altitude can give you the same feeling, as the thinner air cannot hold as much moisture as it can at lower levels, so if you've not been to the Prairies but have been on a ski holiday, you can use that as a reference point as well. 

It is much harder to draw parallels with damper climates.  At home in Cambridge, I have a sort of 'misery zone' between 4°-10°C (40°-50°F) where it's too cold to be warm, but not cold enough to be crisp, and the damp seems to seep through every layer to reach in and chill. As the thermometer plunges towards freezing and below, it is, ironically, more comfortable weather, because the colder the air is, the less moisture it can hold.  In Britain I have sometimes found myself taking off layers as the mercury falls.  When imagining Antarctica, people often extrapolate from their own experience of cold temperatures: If your base measure of cold is the 'misery zone' in a damp climate, such as Europe or the Eastern US, then you may think 'If 6°C feels like this, then -6° must feel that much worse' when in fact all the other factors at play can make it preferable.  Even the cold days on my arrival at McMurdo were nicer, experientially, than a misty morning in deepest February back home.  At one point, Cherry describes Antarctic summer weather as resembling a crisp sunny morning in September, and indeed from a British perspective Antarctica often felt more like a bright and breezy 13°C (55°F) than anything closer to freezing.

This gave me some perspective on the early explorers.  If they had spent their lives on this chilly island, and then travelled to Antarctica over a chilly sea, they would be coming at it with all the assumptions one acquires from experience with humid cold.  Finding not an amplification of your worst experiences, but instead a wonderland where the thermometer seemed to exist in a different reality – certainly the case when they arrived in midsummer – would encourage some overconfidence that we might consider reckless.  Some, like Scott, had been down before and knew how deceptive the weather could be; his journals are full of chiding his team for not taking Antarctica seriously.  But there were many who were new to it, and even after an Antarctic winter, sheltered as they were in an insulated hut by the sea, they did not fully grasp how dangerous things could get inland and how narrow the margins were.  A breeze may be thrilling when it brings the truth of -10 to exposed skin warmed by the sun; when the truth is -40 it's instant frostbite.  While I didn't get temperatures that low, my experience with higher ones can, I hope, help me imagine how that would go. 

The dryness that made the cold so bearable granted me a reprieve from an opposing worry.  Outside of Britain I generally find buildings overheated in the winter – I have to remind myself to pack light 'inside clothes' or else I suffocate.  This is especially the case in the States, and McMurdo being an American base I foresaw having to strip five layers off and put them back on again every time I entered or exited a building.  They may have been overheated, but I don't know – dry air saps the potency of heat as well as cold, so it was as comfortable to wear three layers as one, and that saved me a lot of time in the cloakroom.  Thanks, Antarctica! 

I had got so used to the nip in the air that I thought I'd be inured to cold for the rest of the winter, but once I was back on this cold damp North Atlantic island, the misery zone was as potent as ever.  I may not have picked up thermoregulation superpowers in Antarctica, but I did come back with two secret weapons: merino wool base layers, and an utter disregard for my appearance so long as I was warm.  I highly recommend both to anyone in a disagreeable climate. 

[spatort]

I’m at my parents’ house and I have too much time on my hands apparently, so it’s time for a trip down memory lane! More specifically, a trip into the weird world of 1990s for-profit teen idol RPF, such as this beauty:

No, I did not find this at my parents’ house, I bought it second-hand specifically in order to make this post because I’m a person who enjoys studying fan culture in her free time. So, if you’re wondering what the hell the monstrosity pictured above is, and why it exists, don’t worry, I’m about to answer that question extensively.

LONG (AND HOPEFULLY FUN & INTERESTING) POST UNDER THE CUT

Let’s start with a bit of history: In the pre-internet era, fan culture differed from today in a few key regards. Although fanfiction existed, without the internet it was much harder for fans to share their stories with each other. Large fandoms such as Star Trek did have fanzines where fanfic could be printed, but all in all it was a much more niche thing than it is today with millions of fics accessible on AO3.

Fan culture in general, however, was a big thing in the 90s – particularly when it came to pop acts that appealed to teen (and tween) audiences, such as the Backstreet Boys, the Spice Girls, or (mostly in Europe) the Kelly Family. When I was in elementary school, you basically had to pick whether you were a BSB or an NSYNC fan – and god forbid you were a Kelly fan like me, then you were the lowest rung on the social ladder and the target of relentless mockery. Like many German kids in the 90s, me and my sister would religiously read teen magazine BRAVO, cut out every single bit of material about our faves and collect them in folders and self-made fanzines. We created fan art and fanfiction without having words for these things. Without the internet and social media, fans did not have a constant stream of content about their idols, and were left with no other choice but to cling to every bit of information they could find in magazines, on TV shows, or on the radio.

Enter a savvy businessperson who comes up with the perfect merchandise product to sell to these popstar-obsessed teens: fan novels! These books, featuring taglines such as ‘The novel for all Backstreet Boys fans’, typically revolved around a relatable female teenage protagonist who is a fan of the celebrity or music group in question, and usually ends up meeting their idol or, gasp, even becoming romantically involved with them. As far as themes go, they look pretty much exactly like your classic self-insert RPF. Except there is a big difference setting these books apart from ‘actual’ fanfiction: Rather than being written by real fans to express their ‘fannish’ feelings about the subject, fan novels were most likely commissioned works created by professional romance authors purely to profit off of actual fans. There is very little background information available about this ‘genre’, but I did stumble across an academic work on Google Books which featured a passage about these fan novels (translated into English by me):

There are several commissioned works by professional authors, which could be mistaken for fanfiction. Especially in the 1990s, when lots of boy bands were on the market, many books of this kind were published. […] These are fictional stories for fans [redacted].

Jennie Hermann: Backstreet Girl. Projektionsfläche Popstar - Wenn der Fan zum Schriftsteller wird (2009) [Popstar as Projection Surface – When fans become writers]

One of the things I find most intriguing about this type of commercially published fanfiction is the question of personal rights. Obviously, the celebs in question or their management must have consented to using their names in the story, their pictures on the cover and so on – because a profit could be made with this. Especially with the fan debate around RPF allegely being unethical, I wonder if the celebrities themselves were aware someone was writing these stories about them, putting words in their mouth, and if they had any clue what exactly happened in these novels. Now, I’ve read a couple of them in my own youth. Some of them deal mostly with the state of being a fan, e.g. I recall a novel about a girl who is so obsessed with Leonardo Di Caprio that she doesn’t pay attention to real life guys at all, only to learn that her actual dream boy has been in her life all along! This story did not feature Di Caprio himself as a character, it was more about the protagonist’s arc of realizing your idols are not all that matters in life. Others do describe fan encounters with teen idols, and some even feature (hints at) romance with a celebrity. When I decided to purchase a vintage copy of one of these books, I opted for one of the latter category, precisely because of the popular argument that writing romance stories featuring real people is somehow ‘wrong’. For only a couple of euros, I was able to get my hands on a weird and wonderful relic of fan culture: Mein Frühling mit Nick (My spring with Nick) by the likely pseudonymous Maxi Keller, heralded on the book cover as ‘the novel for all fans of the Backstreet Boys’.

The story revolves around 16-year-old musical prodigy and designated wallflower Katharina, who lives in a German small town and cares about nothing else than playing the organ – certainly not about boys, let alone ones that are super-famous American pop stars. This means she is not initially a fan of the Backstreet Boys, which I guess is something of a trope itself – the protagonist meeting a celebrity by chance without knowing who they are and the celeb being thrilled that someone doesn’t just like them for their fame. Anyway, the boys visit Katharina’s hometown while on tour in Germany because band member AJ is doing some research on his German ancestors who happened to live in this very town. Katharina runs into them, she and Nick (who was only 17 himself when this was published in 1997, so it’s legal) fall in love at first sight, she helps them dig up information on AJ’s ancestors and finds out the two of them are related, the boys invite Katharina and her friend Saskia backstage after their show and … nothing happens. The book is 200 pages long and Katharina doesn’t even get one kiss with her boy band sweetheart, even though they mutually crush on each other right away. Perhaps that’s as far as the band or their management agreed for the novel to go – a hint at romance, but no trace of any on-page action, no matter how innocent.

That said, the book is so hilariously poorly written that it was still very entertaining to read. Although I could not find out anything about the author Maxi Keller, and therefore assume this might be a pseudonym, their writing style very much suggests that their are a professional romance author who usually writes for an older audience (plus, the book was published by Bastei Lübbe, who also publish a range of cheap romance novels known as ‘Romanhefte’). The language is extremely flowery at times, and even teenage characters speak with an eloquence that is hardly age-appropriate, with some 90s teen slang peppered in at unfitting times (such as the overuse of the English word ‘girl’). Often the novel loses itself in pointless detail that does nothing to move the plot forward (such as an extensive description of a house party hosted by Saskia’s rich parents, with minute details of their luxurious lifestyle and assets, even though Saskia is only a supporting character in the overall plot). It appears as if the author is desperately trying to fill the pages with meaningless drivel so they don’t need to write too many scenes featuring the presumed main attraction, the boys themselves.

If Keller was indeed merely hired to write this, and is not a fan themselves, one must still admit that the author did their research when it comes to the band. Whereas fanfiction typically assumes that the audience is already familiar with the characters and often skips any introductory descriptions of their appearance or personality, Keller makes sure that even a reader who is completely unfamiliar with the Backstreet Boys can keep up. The author delivers extensive descriptions of the boys’ appearance and demeanor, even spelling out their full names repeatedly, and frequently peppers in ‘fun facts’ such as ‘Kevin was raised on a farm in Kentucky’. While an actual fan might do so to prove how knowledgeable they are, and earning their status as a ‘true fan’, in this case it only seems like Keller really wants to show off how much research they did – as if not a single piece of information they took in must go to waste by not being used in the novel.

When it comes to the question how realistically the non-fannish author replicates the way the boys act and speak, there are two barriers to delivering a well-founded answer: Firstly, I was personally very young when BSB were popular and I really don’t remember too well what each member was like. Secondly, the elephant in the room: the language barrier. All of the aforementioned fan novels were written in German, and the problems posed by writing about an English-speaking band interacting with German OCs (and teenage ones at that) are addressed poorly, if at all. Pretty much all dialogue is written in German, and the audience is left to assume that everyone is actually speaking English whenever the boys are involved – except the novel does nothing to explain why two 16-year-old German girls would be able to express themselves so effortlessly in a foreign language. (Remember, the internet was not a thing, so German kids were not exposed to the same amount of English in everyday life as they are these days.) It would have been easy to make one of them a language nerd who gets straight A’s in English class, and give the other a British parent and make them bilingual. Instead, Katharina initially even worries about the prospect of having to talk to boys at all, and in English on top of that! But when she actually does, the language barrier never comes up again. The suspension of disbelief expected from the reader is therefore immense. The language barrier also gives the author an easy way out when it comes to imitating the way the boys speak in real life – there is no need to take into account idiolects or regional differences (such as ‘you guys’ vs. ‘y’all’) if the boys’ speech is essentially translated into a foreign language. However, I wanted to give you guys (or y’all, if you will) a taste of how Keller attempts to write a scene where AJ and Nick discuss the latter’s crush on Katharina:

I would argue that this sounds realistic enough for what it’s worth, if a little cheesy, which is excusable in this genre. Perhaps a true 90s BSB fan would beg to differ, so if you happen to be one, feel free to drop me a message. But in my semi-professional opinion, this most likely holds up for readers.

So, to answer the initial question that drove me to purchase this book: Do fan novels like Mein Frühling mit Nick count as fanfiction?

If we assume that something is only a fanfic if the author themselves is a fan of the subject matter, then I would argue no, Maxi Keller is probably not a fan themselves and therefore this work of for-profit real-person fiction does not qualify as fanfic. However, fan novels definitely have a (however small) place in the history of fan culture and fan-adjacent works, and I personally found reading this relic both entertaining and insightful!

[samanthadalton]

Everything has changed

Based on the VIP book A Very Scandalous Proposal (I recommend reading it if you have vip!) 

pairings: Ava Montjoy x Sophie Macdonald 

(based on chapter 6 and 7 but rewritten bc we shouldve gotten a kiss in chapter 7) 

You requested and I’ve delivered @thedaft1 I hope you enjoy! 

taglist: @thedaft1 @cloud9in (idk any Ava Montjoy stans but if I do write more for her in the future and you wanna be tagged let me know 😊)

word count: 1.6k 

After asking Ava to stay with you for the night, platonically of course, you sit in comfortable silence, eyes glued to the tv screen, entranced by the show that’s playing. As you laugh along to the jokes, you see in your peripheral vision Ava sneaking glances at you, a hint of a smirk playing across her lips. You conspicuously try not to gaze at her, fixating your focus to the tv, but you begin to feel your cheeks burning as you recollect about the kiss you shared earlier, the very fake real kiss you shared in front of her friends. Considering how much you had to drink tonight, you barely remember what happened after but your mind lingers on the kiss, the way Ava’s lips felt against yours, how her tongue slipped into your mouth setting your entire body alight. How the intensity of the kiss left you feeling weak in the knees as her toned arms slipped around your waist, steadying you. Ava blamed it on the alcohol, presuming you had too much to drink but what she didn’t realise was how much of a physical impact the kiss had on you. How it had left you dizzy and craving more, but as your mind drifts off, assessing and analysing every moment of the kiss, Ava’s voice breaks you out of your trance and you clear your throat, wishing away all your unbridled thoughts about the Brit as she give you a small smile. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” 

You turn your head slightly to gaze at her, your body sobering up as the moments pass but you definitely still feel the alcohol in your system. “Just thinking.” 

“About?” You raise a playful eyebrow at her, “come darling, I’m your fiancee you should be able to share stuff with me.” And there it was, her absolutely infuriating but somehow incredibly charismatic personality shining through and you can’t help but laugh. 

“I guess I’m still embarrassed by tonight. I didn’t say anything out of order in front of your friends right?” Your voice is laced with a bit of insecurity as your gaze nervously burns into Ava’s. 

Ava gives a sinister grin that is anything but innocent. “Well…..I will say that you are a right cheeky bugger when you’ve had a proper chin wag.” 

“Ava, real english please.” You know you sound like a dumb American in this moment but after a few weeks you’re still trying to wrap your head around the absurdity that is British slang.

Ava lets out a small airy laugh, “god you’re so hopelessly American.” Her smile broadens, as she slightly shakes her head. “You tend to say some things which are quite barmy, while under the influence of alcohol.” 

You groan, your hand raises as you give yourself a physical and mental facepalm, “just rip it off like a band-aid, what did I say?” 

“Let’s just say you were very persistent in me taking you to bed,” Ava trails off her cheeks dusted red as you pointedly glances away from you, her eyes boring into the telly but not fully focused on the screen. 

“Oh god.” 

Ava turns back to you, her lips quirked into a toothy grin, “well you’ve already enticed me into your bed so I say you’ve done a bloody good job.: Her voice chirps with playfulness as her accent strengthens when pronouncing certain words and you feel as if you’ve fallen under her spell. What started off as an innocent agreement between the two of you is beginning to grow into something more, however you’re unsure if the feeling is unrequited or if Ava feels the same way. She leans forward slightly, her gaze slightly darkens as she takes you in, “I can’t exactly blame you, you’re not made out of stone. I know how…” she pauses, contemplating for a few seconds before giving you a devilish grin, “alluring I can be.” You facetiously swat at her arm, your cheeks reddening by the second. The sounds from the tv become a background noise as you stare intensely at her, all rational thoughts thrown out of the window as your gaze involuntarily darts down to her lips. Ava notices your wandering eyes and subconsciously runs her tongue along her bottom lip, the wetness of it glistening under the dim glare of the television. 

“Sophie,” your name leaves her lips in a low breathless manner, whether it’s a come on or a warning you’re still internally debating as you edge closer to her, but Ava retracts her gaze from yours pulling you out of the moment. 

“We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow, we should get some sleep.” She shifts in the bed leaving a wide gap between the two of you which suddenly feels like a chasm. Hyper aware of the awkward shift in the atmosphere,  you cover up the look of disappointment flashing across your face with an exaggerated yawn before turning to face the other way. 

“Goodnight Sophie.” 

“Goodnight Ava.” You close your eyes and let the sleep that you tried so hard to subside earlier take you. 

…..

After spending the day researching for your book, you begin getting ready for dinner after Ava has promised to take you out to dinner after criticizing the lack of public exposure to your relationship. After indulging in a dinner, where you catch a glimpse of Ava’s hedonistic nature in the way in which she takes the reins, teaching you about the art of eating oysters she offers to take you to a small private club called Firefly. 

“I’d much rather entertain you somewhere more...intimate than regale this stuffy lot.” She holds out her hand which you cordially accept and as your hand slips into hers, she lifts it to her lips, gently pressing a kiss across your knuckles, sending shivers down your spine. Ava tenderly strokes her thumb over your knuckles, and you can’t help but feel the butterflies in your stomach even though you know it’s for show. 

Temporarily stunned, you’re at a loss for words as you take in the mischievous glint in Ava’s eyes. “I-,” 

“Cat got your tongue?” Ava teases as her hand still remains on yours, her fingertips ghosting around your knuckles. 

Seeing the smug look on Ava’s face strengthens your resolve as you assertively raise an eyebrow before leaning in close to whisper, “I’d love to go.”

Ava breaks out into a wolfish grin, “Marvellous. I’ll just grab the check and then we will be on our way.” 

…. 

Ava leads you into a glamorous setting, the sultry old timey music washing over you as she leads you to a table near the front of the stage. 

“Ava, this place is beautiful. I feel like I’ve been catapulted back into the 1920s.” 

“Yes, Mitzie has always taken a liking to this place and I guess she has passed it down onto me. Whenever I feel like I need an escape, I like to come here and lose myself in the music.” 

You indulge in some more conversation with Ava in which she lets some juicy gossip about her grandmother being a lounge singer in this very place when she was younger, after making you promise not to add it to your book, fearing her wrath. A slow romantic song begins to play as couples begin drifting towards the dance floor. Ava holds out a hand, “indulge me?” You take her hand and let her lead you into the middle of floor. Her hands hang loosely around your waist while you find yourself doing the same with your arms around her neck. 

You dance in content silence for a few moments, but you feel Ava’s gaze boring into you as she softly speaks out, “I have to say Sophie, I’m… pleasantly surprised.” 

“About what?” 

“Everything I suppose. I know it must have not been easy when I propositioned you with the devil’s bargain so to say, but I have to say, this has been unexpectedly delightful.” You draw your head back, slightly started by Ava’s admission, catching an amorous glint in her eye which momentarily takes your breath away. 

“I-. I have to admit, this has been more enjoyable than I thought it would be. When you first approached me I thought you were a pompous, stuffy, self-centred upper crust girl.” 

“You wound me.” Ava brings a hand over her hand, exaggeratingly clutching at it before moving her hand back around to your waist, her hands gripping your hips slightly firmer than before. “So what do you think of me now?” You see a flicker of vulnerability in her eyes as her half-lidded gaze roams your facial features as if she’s searching for something. 

“Oh I still think you’re incredibly pompous,” your jesting tone elicits a few laughs from the Brit before she gleams languorously at you, “but you’ve been nothing but kind to me. Sometimes a giant pain in my ass but you’re different than what I expected.”

You feel a surge of adrenaline rush through you at the spike of your admittance as the air between the two of you suddenly feels dense, heavy with anticipation as you close the gap between the two of you, her soft plush lips easing into yours. You moan softly as your arms around Ava’s neck tighten, surging yourself against her. Your kiss grows warmer, as you explore the depths of her mouth, forgetting about the people around you. Unlike the kiss you shared last night, this one feels more authentic, as you begin to lose yourself in her. Ava pulls away as the music shifts into something more spirited and she rests her forehead against yours, her darkened eyes staring deeply into yours, as the feel of her lips still lingering on yours. 

As you glare into each other’s eyes you know that everything has changed. 

[barnesandco]

Carnations

A love story told through the four seasons of the year.

Pairing: Winter Soldier x Reader, Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Angst. Descriptions of violence and injury, especially in the first few paragraphs.

A/N: Look at me, ignoring my two on-hiatus series while I indulge in thematic one-shots! I had this idea that I couldn’t let go of until it was out her so I hope you like it!

He's brought to you in the dead heat of hellish midsummer, on a stretcher carried by barking Hydra guards, orders being delivered like slaps to the face. You're a trembling leaf on weak knees, so used to only the walls for company when you're bombarded by this explosion of noise, as they demand that you fix him. He - the Soldat - has been struck by a RPG, thigh torn to shreds, white bone glinting between the mauled flesh and you almost vomit. The only thing holding your stomach down is the knowledge that your food is as valuable as gold, not to be wasted with how little you receive.

They're pushing you towards him, cruel hands and crueller words against the tattered fabric covering your skin, and you step closer. Let your own hands - frail and itchy with what they hold within - hover above the mauled flesh of his thigh. You have never healed an injury of this extent, and you wonder if you are capable of it, until actions silence your doubt. The bloody muscle lifts, like magic, to return to its original place, skin drawing itself taut over him like a band-aid. All that is left is a thin gash, as if from a shallow knife wound, blood pippling out. The guards look at you sceptically, before calling for medical supplies and instructing you to dress the wound.

He wakes up mere moments after the minions have left, eyes blank and lifeless like everything else around you. Does not pay any mind to how your hands have frozen where they were pressing the gauze over the wound, and how you now stare at him, a deer in headlights.

"You're the American, right?" You have no idea what possesses you to say this, fractured Russian slipping from your tongue. Sand between fingers.

"I don't know," He answers, voice softer than carnation petals. Perfect English, broken mind. Nobody who walks through these halls is a stranger to heartbreak, but few of them are sympathetic to it. Surprisingly, you don't flinch when he moves to sit up, because the movement is mechanical and self-aware instead of malicious, as you are accustomed to. 

"Does it hurt?" You ask in his native tongue this time, and only then does he notice the wound you are dressing. Shakes his head and you nod yours, securing the dressing. Eyes meet icy blue that unthaws slowly under the heat of your gaze.

---

Autumn is settling, a deep, weary ache in your body as you prepare for the pain that winter pushes like needles into your bones. The only way you know this is by the humid, earthy scent of petrichor, for there are no falling leaves here with which to estimate the time of year. Your hands shake, fingers running across your forearms as you wait.

The Soldat is expected to return from a gruelling mission - the kind nobody escapes whole from - in a matter of minutes. The doctors determined, after your prior success, that your healing was beneficial to the body, strengthened their weapons - their soldiers - further, and so he is your patient. Sometimes, weeks will pass before you seek him, and sometimes months, but one thing remains constant.

The electricity in your veins sparking like a live wire at the touch of your skin on his, not from these powers, but from something greater. Whatever elicits that spark, makes your heart beat staccato, it gives him a color in his cheeks you have only heard of, only dreamt of. Vague memories of pink carnations planted in the boundaries of the neighborhood park come to mind when you recall his blush. Young and pink but having endured vicious pests and survived more years than you would think, blossoming season after season. 

There will be no carnations, now, however, in the dawn of autumn. Falling leaves and petrichor sunshine intermingling with rainbows framed by grey clouds wade through your memory like a sepia-tinted haze. You were eleven when Hydra found you, took you for their own and made you more powerful than you were, yet somehow smaller. The girl who growled back at stray dogs can only whimper at guards years later. 

Those guards break your silence, your reverie, as they guide in the Soldier - James, you've managed to learn - and dump him on the pile of straw they call a bed, along with the first aid kit. You won't need it tonight, so you push it aside and trail a smoldering fingertip along the gash on his cheek, desperately ignoring the softening of his concrete stare. 

Every time, the first word spoken from your chapped lips lets the spell fall away like silk down glass - smooth and quick - but you need to ensure that he is stable. The usual signal is the slowing of his heartbeat, and you settle two fingers over his wrist, letting the pulse thrum through you. His vitals are steady, as is to be expected, super-soldier strength doing its job. Your job - the healing - is but a formality, or a greed for more and for better, as he does fine without you.

"James?" You whisper, pushing a strand of hair behind his ear. It doesn't work. "James? It's me. You got hurt on your mission and I'm patching you up. I need to check your torso for fractured ribs. Can you please take your jacket off?" He complies, God how you hate that word, and you're soon looking at his mostly spotless torso, defined muscles and strong structure interrupted by a single blue bruise. You prod gently, can tell by the color that it's nothing to worry about. Help him back into the jacket.

"I don't want to go back," He says suddenly, eyes downcast and the statement a sad declaration rather than a protest. As if he is surprised that he knows what he wants, or rather doesn't want, when, for as long as he can remember, he hasn't wanted anything. Weapons don't have desires, but this one is broken. This one is faulty.

"What do you mean, James?" You ask anyway, well aware of exactly what he means, just as surprised as he is that he voiced such a thing. 

"The tube. It's cold and you're warm. I don't want to go," He says, meeting your eyes, and you don't have words that encapsulate the gravity of the moment. He has become a bluebell, growing between rain-washed sidewalks, rare as can be and just as beautiful, but oh so lonely.

---

The Winter Soldier's lips are as cold as his bionic hand against the small of your back, as the concrete wall he pushes you against. Everything is quiet, as it often is when the world is numbed by snowfall, and you need not be able to see it to know that it is there. Right now, you see nothing, eyes closed, muted gasps escaping from your mouth as his moves lower to your neck, your collarbone. His teeth scrape like howling December winds against your skin, pins and needles sending trails of fire through your abdomen. His hands hold you steady while yours find solid ground between the unkempt strands of his dark hair. Arms surround your waist, a protective fortress as you desperately try to keep your eyes from fluttering shut and instead focus on the closed panel in the door that guards can open to check on you.

Deciding that your attention has been diverted for too long, he returns to full height from where he was worshipping your pulse point with that pink tongue, and holds your face gently, softly in his hands. Tilts his head forward, letting his forehead meet yours with an elegant bump, before his lips slant over yours again. You drink him in like he's the last taste of water you'll ever get, like you are sick and he is the cure. His hands are roaming, roaming, roaming, inhaling these last few breaths of freedom to do as they please before they're frozen again or obligated to do worse than reduce a woman to warm sighs.

"James, please," You say, moving those hands lower, lower to pause above your navel, and he pulls away with a stifled groan. Presses his forehead to yours, trembling hands splayed out across your lower abdomen, transferring heat and cold in equivalent waves. When you shudder, it is not from the temperature, but from the power of all the words you want to say. The words you want to spill like a waterfall emerging from a burst dam, swirling and raging and dangerous, just as this is is. 

Your secret rendezvous, these post-mission meetings that turn into something more after you have done your job healing him. Dangerous doesn't even begin to cover it - it's outright foolish, asking for death. Lack of hope makes people do crazy things, such as finding love where there should be none. Love, in turn, heals in ways that your hands never can, drawing this man, this soldier, out of the mold they have put them in, the bullet casing that he is. 

He pulls back with a heavy sigh, hands moving to grip your waist and pull you upright as he looks at you, swirling blues thunderous October storms.

"I should go, shouldn't I?" He asks with a nervous glance to the door behind him. You rest your hands over his biceps, massaging the stiff muscle on your left and stroking the cold metal on your right as you answer.

"If it was up to me, you'd never leave. But yeah, I guess you should."

"It's been too long already. I'm surprised they haven't come looking yet," He says, still making no move to leave. You smile, a sad, tearful thing, and let your hands rise to cup his cheeks. He tilts his head to kiss your palm, delivers a smile softer than a carnation against your powerful skin. 

"We'll get out of this, doll, I promise," And the spell is broken as your hands slide down to grip the collar of his vest, anger and fear bubbling like lava under the heat of his kisses, of his love.

"If you're planning something-"

"I'm not. Not now, at least," He reassures, but your concern is not so easily assuaged.

"James…" You begin to warn, brows knitting together. Having grown stronger, more stable, more able to recover from the programming - even having certain moments where he breaks free of it entirely - he's growing confident. Confidence breeds free will, and free will could get them killed in a place like this. 

"Doll, I'll be fine. I'm just- I'm getting better, and they don't have the same hold on me that they used to. One of these days, baby, one of these days," He says, enveloping you in a warm embrace, lips embedding the words into your temple, a promise and a threat in equal measure wrapped like a Trojan horse he's preparing for Hydra. 

Your own arms clutch his waist tight, eyes open, steely gaze on the door as you pray he never gets the chance. You pray that Hydra self-destructs before James has a chance to do himself any harm, because you don't know if you'll survive that for long enough to heal him. There is no cure for death - it is only treated by tears.

---

Carnations bloom in the singular pot on the windowsill, a luxury the two of you have decided to afford yourselves amongst the stifling dreariness and humid gray of your Bucharest apartment. The lumpy mattress is stiff and awkward beneath you, but James' lap does a good job of shielding you from it. He sits, back against the wall and arms around you, metal hand holding the journal he is writing in, and rests the brown suede against your ribs that rise and fall with every breath you take. To anyone else, it might be irritating to have to shift and adjust in order to write, but to him, it is a valuable reminder that you're alive, you're together.

After his escape from Triskelion and the catastrophic fall of Hydra, he knew nothing, was nothing but a shell of a man scrambled like crossed wires, short-circuiting and sparking in the confines of his mind. There were two things his broken psyche held onto like a lifeline: Steve Roger's battered face in that helicarrier telling him something he's supposed to recognize, and your rare smile. 

He found you, afterwards. It took two weeks of hellscape recollections and more courage than he had any idea that he possessed, but he found you. In the abandoned ruins of a devastated Hydra base - his devastated Hydra base - he found you, eyes closed and near-dead, but no. You limped out on glowing limbs, healing yourself as he let his first tear in a century fall down his dirt-smeared cheek, yours pressed to his shoulder like a drying leaf between the pages of a cherished book.

Now, he cherishes you, relishes in you and your touch, the finest comfort he has ever had. This - your washed hair against his cheek, your legs a warm blanket straddling his, and your hands stroking a whispered song against his chest - this is a luxury. The pillow of your lips grazes the stubble on his face, a distraction, a reminder, and he let's himself smile against your mouth. Puts down the book and shifts so you're above him, his red Henley slipping down one of your shoulders to reveal the skin he would die to save. Pink lips skimming your collarbone, dainty fingers in his hair, his own clenching and releasing your hips like spring flowers blooming in time-lapse.

"Someone's in a good mood, today," You whisper against his gentle lips, tilting his jaw to plant a peck against them before waiting for his answer.

"Hard not to be when you're treatin' me like I'm made of diamonds," He quips with a swift brush of his thumb over your cheekbone, hand sliding back and down to rest above the small of your back.

"Never seen a diamond, wouldn't know what to do with one," You shoot back playfully, reminding him that you have no use for material items, however valuable. 

"Well, I wouldn't know what to do without my diamond," He says, referring to you, bumping noses and laying a chaste peck against your grinning lips.

These moments - between your gruelling jobs and worse nights, the ones where you wake up sweaty and tear-sodden and disoriented - these moments are all you have to live for. The notion that he might not have you some day is a scary one, especially because you fear how much you need each other.

"We've talked about what would happen if we got separated. We have a plan, in case something happens to me-" You remind him gently before he lays a forefinger across your lips and you resist the urge to nip at it.

"Nothing's going to happen to you, honey. Nothing, I swear," He promises solemnly, honeyed gaze severe under the weekend afternoon sunshine illuminating your otherwise gray apartment. For now, just now, you push away the niggling thought of if something could happen to him, and pick up the notebook that holds the secrets he doesn't yet want to burden you with. You watch him spill the ink left over from the cruel tattoos on his mind into those yellowing pages. Watch him free his past as you try not to worry about your future.

Taglist: @suz-123​ @mermaidxatxheart​ @buckyreaderrecs​ @shield-agent78​ @corneliabarnes​ @readerandcinephileingeneral​ @stevieboyharrington​ @notsomellowmushroom​ @veganfangirl5​ @mood-pancakes​ @lbuck121​ @redhairedfeistynerd​ @geeksareunique​

[found--family]

‘Supernatural’ season 15, episode 15 screener secrets: We’re ‘Highway to Heaven’-ing this bitch

[everything is from this Hypable article] 

This week on Supernatural, Amara returns and are angels solving people crimes now? Hypable previewed Supernatural season 15, episode 15 “Gimme Shelter,” so read on to find out more.

After a sweet and fun return to ease us back into the world of Supernatural last week, things are heating up pretty dramatically – I knew there wouldn’t be much more time for messing around.

“Gimme Shelter” sees Supernatural dip its feet into what the Winchesters currently believe is their big plan – eliminating Chuck by also taking down Amara, resulting in what they believe will be a cosmic-being-free balanced world. But first, they have to find her. Sam and Dean get a pretty good lead on her location, which results in a very interesting conversation between Amara and the boys – especially with her most favoritest Dean, of course.

Meanwhile, Castiel is persuaded into taking Jack to investigate a nearby case in Missouri – which all three adults suspect is probably the work of a human criminal – for the sake of humoring Jack and keeping him both busy and supervised. On the way home, they have a very interesting conversation of their own.

Spoiler Warning: This article contains generalized spoilers for Supernatural season 15 episode 15, “Gimme Shelter.” If you do not wish to be spoiled at all, do not read this article in advance of the airdate.

The official synopsis for Supernatural season 15, episode 15 reads:

MATT COHEN DIRECTS — Castiel (Misha Collins) and Jack (Alexander Calvert) work a case involving members of a local church. Meanwhile, Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) go off in search of Amara (guest star Emily Swallow). Matt Cohen directed the episode written by Davy Perez (#1515). Original airdate 10/15/2020.

If you want to know what to expect from this week’s Supernatural, here’s 10 teasers plus 15 single word clues from our advance viewing of Supernatural season 15, episode 15 “Gimme Shelter.”

‘Supernatural’ season 15, [10] episode 15 screener secrets 

1️⃣ During the filming of this episode (27 January – 5 February) Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles both spent much of the week at home with their families in Austin, a detail which was made clear on their and their wives’ public social media accounts – possibly the result of scheduled time off as they’ve mentioned occasionally requesting? The result is that the episode is weighted much more towards Cas, Jack and the murder investigation they’re chasing than towards Sam and Dean, but on the flip side, the Sam and Dean arc is more crucial to the long game of the show, so what it lacks in minutes, it makes up for in impact. 

2️⃣ However, the episode still begins and ends in a grounded family group way, at home in the Bunker – one of those “we know we should be doing this together but there are Reasons we have to split up” situations. This detail, in my opinion, really speaks to the motivation of the creative team towards honoring the four leads as parts of a whole – in earlier days, this kind of episode would have been two entirely non-touching threads. This one is, if not a tapestry, at very least a braid – tied up together at both ends, and intertwined in the middle.

3️⃣ You might have seen pictures or ominous trailer footage of Castiel and Jack digging a hole at the crossroads. We all know what that means! However, don’t worry. They simply want to talk – and the demon they summon has some really interesting – and dare I say positive? – news about the state of Hell under Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Rowena. Let’s just say the demon is actually pretty friendly… and extremely bored.

4️⃣ The two main guest stars on Cas and Jack’s side of the episode are both actors who have been briefly featured on the show before, in a couple of pretty famous episodes – one from season 2 and one from season 5. I don’t think there’s meant to be any meta or Easter Egg element to this, just the usual Vancouver casting industry cycle (see the ‘Weren’t You In Another Episode‘ reference page on the SuperWiki) but one of them is one of those cute “I appeared on Supernatural as a child and now I’m here as an adult” situations, and the other, well… the original character’s very name has become the stuff of Supernatural legend, and if I were in charge of this episode I would have put the actor in a particular piece of footwear and made sure we got a shot of it, just for kicks.

5️⃣ Castiel steps into a prayer circle when the church group members are meant to give a testimony – presumably of their journey so far and their relationship with faith. That’s what Cas chooses to share, at least – in a non-specific, humanized way – and fans of the character will be moved to hear the ways he verbalizes his own growth.

6️⃣ Speaking of growth, some of Dean’s is spelled out for him in the most miraculous way by Amara. After Sam and Dean meet up with her and have a conversation about Chuck that’s ultimately a bit of a non-starter, Dean returns to ask her another, more personal question. Her response gave me legitimate chills. It’s a very weighty mic drop and the combination of the level of impact and the level of clarity (it’s entirely airtight, no room for interpretation) feels like the culmination of all the self-actualization work the show has been doing on Dean in the last four years. (I wish I could tell you Sam got a big special moment like this in the episode, but he doesn’t. Amara’s return was always going to be Dean’s thing.) Amara’s speech to Dean… it doesn’t feel isolated, like the idea of it was invented just for this episode. It feels more like concrete evidence of what the show has been trying to prove for ages. And the funny thing is, Amara is the anti-Chuck, right, and all season, we’ve learned about the version of the story Chuck thinks is good, and we’ve been told to root against that. Chuck’s version of Supernatural isn’t how the writers really feel. But I think Amara’s might be. Dean has obviously struggled to see what she tells him, all in one piece, but here it is – this was the point, laid out on the table, from the entity behind the curtain – both onscreen and off. Amara knew what she was doing, and so did the writers. This was always, always the point.

7️⃣ Even before this massive scene, Amara’s return is just great. Emily Swallow does such an incredible job with this character – she really is the anti-Chuck even without the whole writer comparison. Swallow imbues this character with such an incredible peace and stillness in comparison to Chuck’s histrionics – this was true in the way she spoke and behaved even in season 11, but this Amara also feels kindness and patience and tolerance. She radiates power, even when she’s also slightly goofy. There’s no fight, there’s no antagonism, but the boys in her presence are like little fish in a vast ocean – they quickly realise they have no real control in this conversation. The way that we leave her indicates she’ll be back and has more to say or do, and what she shared during her reunion with Sam and Dean makes me really curious about the role she’s due to play in the show’s endgame.

8️⃣ I’m not very religious but I really like the version of a church group or ‘faith-based community,’ as they say, featured in “Gimme Shelter.” Supernatural has a shaky history in terms of how the show portrays people in-universe who believe. Sometimes they’re treated like a joke, or stupid, or dangerous, or hypocrites, but occasionally civilian acts of faith are shown as great and powerful things, even in a world where we know that what they believe in isn’t strictly accurate. That concept became an even bigger question mark for me when we got the reveal that Judeo-Christian God is not only absent, but our actual villain. However, this was a really nice look at why faith can still be a framework for a good way of life – loving thy neighbor – for some people, no matter the truth about Chuck. The episode also features a callback to writer Davy Perez’ very first Supernatural episode “American Nightmare” in terms of the way that some people have weaponized faith and religion to the detriment and harm of others or even themselves, but this factor does not negate the positive point mentioned above.

9️⃣ Supernatural alum and newly minted director Matt Cohen really got the full old-school Supernatural episode experience when it comes to leaning into the spooky horror element. The murderous case-of-the week featured in this episode is heavy and lingering on the gore and even contains a little bit of a jump scare, so view responsibly.

🔟 So, um, you know that line, in this week’s teaser trailer? The line that a lot of people are freaking out about because it seems to pertain to something important that we know about Cas’ fate that Dean and Sam aren’t aware of? Yeah, it is 100% absolutely not about that at all. It is about something super important, but it’s not that. It’s also the last line of the episode, but trust me – it’s not a cliffhanger and it’s not a red herring and it’s not a twist. The information is gleaned within the episode and you’ll know exactly what Cas is telling Dean about after seeing it – narratively, that’s the reason it isn’t in the episode, because the show clearly assumes you’ll get the picture and can skip a rehash of information. But what you were probably expecting – maybe even hoping for – it’s not that. You’re gonna have to hang on for that one.

Finally, have 15 random yet significant words from this week’s episode without any context whatsoever: Gaia, Ronald, mother, pierogies, cats, philosophy, target, blind, permission, lockdown, Kool-aid, buffet, gift, trial, choice.

‘Supernatural’ airs Thursday at 8/7c on The CW

[vivxwrites]

Lovers Quarrel

*not my gif*

Word Count: 1625

Warning(s): None? Some injuries. Ca:cw spoilers (lol)

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader

A/N: hi! i sincerely apologize for the wait so here’s this! It was requested by an anon here and i hope whoever that whoever it was gets to read it! 

The scene painted out before you reminded your idle mind of those that occurred during the times of ancient history, tales recorded on wooden tablets and later translated into a world of empires and invasions. Tales of kings and commanders and armies, tales of power struggles and barbaric actions. Where city-states were just barely discovering copper and iron and steel and metal and where one-hundred-year-old super soldiers didn’t magically freeze and thaw out, only to wake up seventy something years later. Where there was no Iron Man, or Hawkeye, and where there were certainly no Black Widows. No Black Widows that slowly extended their long legs over your heart and nestled down deep, deep enough to just nearly become one with the genetic coding of the cells that made up one of the most vital organs in your body. You furtively wished that you weren’t part of the timeline filled with superhumans and ex-Russian assassins and men that flew around in suits engineered by a certain genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.

Despite your desperate wishes here you were, lined up in an airport hanger with half of the avengers that you had chosen to align yourself with. Across from you stood your friends, your family, and your- well, you weren’t quite sure what exactly Natasha was to you.

You could feel her eyes fixated on you, and whether fury or concern were being directed at you, you weren’t too sure, especially seeing as you refused to even flick your own eyes in her general direction. 

Her tiny huff of annoyance didn’t go unnoticed by you and you cursed whatever government officials deemed the Accords an appropriate measure of action. If splitting the Avengers into two was the reaction they were oh so kindly hoping to achieve, then their overpriced bottles of champagne were most certainly cork-less by now.

Your whole body ached with the primal need to see the love and adoration that you had grown used to in the now familiar jade-green eyes of one Natasha Romanoff. Your bones had long since endured the weight of sorrow and regret and by this point, the precipice of this protracted conflict, you were feeling the full weight and brunt of a word solely known as exhaustion. 

You were pulled from your period of self-awareness by the start of the fight, the war, between two forces that had been nearly unstoppable when combined. What the outcome would be, you hadn’t the slightest clue and you were whole-heartedly not looking forward to finding out.

And so you did your best to avoid the stunning red-head who made your head swim with thoughts that you were definitely not supposed to be thinking while tossing punches at some guy in a panther suit. As the battle dragged on, however, you were unpleasantly forced to find out that your attempts to avoid that certain someone were meaningless.

She looked as good as ever in her sleek combat gear and good god what you wouldn’t give to smash your body against hers in a hug tight enough to crack the pistachio nuts you had deemed ‘breakfast’ just this morning.

“(Y/N).” She spoke with a tone of indifference and you flinched at the fact that it was being directed at you. Of course you felt immense guilt for not sticking by Natasha’s side but how could you when your beliefs lay with the opposite team? How could you sit back and sign a contract that basically handed over your freedom and everything that you had worked so very hard to achieve when you were something of a Hydra experiment yourself? How could you possibly be able to sign your life away to the sleazy, wrinkly men that called themselves the American Government when you had been in Bucky’s shoes not too long ago? And if you had deserved a chance to change then god fucking dammit so did he.

Needless to say, this was the biggest lovers quarrel in history.

“Nat,” you bit down hard on your lip in an attempt to stop its trembling, “I-“

Thought you loved me, you wanted to say, thought you would understand how much this meant to me, thought you would stand up for me. Your throat bobbed up and down as you swallowed the vowels and consonants of the phrases thickly, their bitter aftertaste more unpleasant than that of the tangy salt water that she made you gargle when you got sick.

You could only stare wordlessly at Nat and she, you. The entire fucked up situation made you feel sick, a constant state of unsettlement rushing through your veins alongside the anger and hatred that you felt for the so-called ‘higher ups.’ And then finally, Clint, bless that man, intervened and off he and Nat went, twisting and turning as if they were the cats and dogs you used to mindlessly watch on television when a nightmare of yours was particularly bad.

The telltale shink of Steve’s shield meeting its target had you cringing inwardly. You heard him holler your name and off into the fray you went, ducking under a stray metal suit and jumping over the cracks in the concrete that made up the hanger. 

“Cap. You called?” You dragged your gaze from him to the hulk of a man next to him and as hard as the soldier tried to remain stoic, you saw the guilty look that hid away in the top corner of his eyes. 

“Buck and I need to get to that hanger over there, can you cover us?” When Steve spoke, your gaze remained on Bucky. You gave him a small, reassuring smile before turning back to Steve.

“It’s what I do best, Captain.” He nodded stiffly and you could tell that something was bothering him. “What? You worried about lil ‘ol me or something?”

He sighed deeply, “You know Natasha would kill me if you get hurt.” 

You felt your nostrils flare in annoyance, “Natasha’s not exactly here right now, is she?” Of course that wasn’t one hundred percent true but from what you could see of her, flashes of red and black every so often, it seemed she was quite busy with problems of her own.

“(Y/N)-“ 

“Steve please. Do you want my help getting across this airport or not?” He finally nodded again and you nodded back.

The three of you took off towards the destination and were about halfway there when the sound of thrusters drew nearer. You cursed to yourself and kept running until Tony dropped down in front of you, the face-plate on his mask retracted as if he wanted the three of you to see just how angry he really was.

“Stark,” You drawled, “how nice to see you.”

“You too sweetheart.” He growled and you sneered at him.

You waved Steve and Bucky forward, signaling that you could handle Tony. They threw you reluctant looks before finally taking off. “You don’t want to tango with me hun.”

A self-satisfied smirk crawled onto your face, “Oh but I do.”

He fired a blast at you and you dodged with a perfectly placed combat roll, positioning yourself behind some loading crates. When Tony flew closer to you, you reached up and clamped your arm onto the arm of his suit and held tight as he swore and flew about, trying to knock you off. When bucking you about like a bronco didn’t work he retracted the faceplate again and smirked at you, “Hope you’re not afraid of heights.”

Tony flew skyward and you held on with all the upper body strength you had as he reached a dangerous height, wherein if you fell you wouldn’t necessarily die, but the impact wouldn’t be the nicest experience.

Your arms burned with the exertion of holding your body weight up and you could feel your fingers beginning to slip on the cool metal of the suit.

“Rhodes, get ready to catch this lovely package.” After Tony’s statement your grip finally gave out and you went tumbling to the ground, a view of smoke and the blue cloud-ridden sky accompanying you.

Rhodey was nowhere to be seen as you fell, ten feet left, then five, until you landed on the ground with a sickening crunch and pain shot up your spine. You tried to scream in agony but the sound wouldn’t come out, as if your vocal chords themselves were feeling the vibrations of the tight, coiling pain. 

Distantly you could hear screams and yelling but you couldn’t make out whom the sounds belonged to. Your eyelids felt heavy and your body twisted and writhed every which way on the ground in an attempt to fight the pain in your system. The ground shook with the approaching footsteps of someone but then again you were too out of it to comprehend if it was instead the violent shaking of your spine beneath you that you were feeling.

“Moya lyubov,” Nat panted desperately and reached over to cup your cheeks in her warm hands, “are you okay?”

“Nat,” you cried, “M’ sorry baby.”

She shushed you and leaned down to press her forehead against yours, the first few tears rushing down her face, “Shh. No, (Y/N), honey it’s not your fault.”

“I’m sorry,” you whimpered desperately. “I’m so sorry.”

“Baby please, stay with me. Keep your eyes open for me.” Her voice sounded distant even with her close proximity and your eyelids were just so heavy and you could feel yourself giving in, succumbing to the black just visible at the edge of your vision. You took one last peak at Natasha until you finally closed your eyes.

When you woke up you were all alone, cuffed to a hospital bed in an unfamiliar room.

A/N: Listen, I don’t know what this is or why I have inserted some weird world history shit into the fic but please just accept it for what it is. I’m satisfied as hell that I managed to throw this together and have it out to y’all by today so I beg of you to be proud of me for finally putting out some content, regardless of its questionable grammar and spelling and odd facts. Have I done good or have I done goofed, please let me know. Love always, Viv <3

Permanent Tag List: @autumnjackson4 @captainwonderwidow @5aftermidnight @blushycarol @pruemania @lesbian-x-blackwidow @taramitch96 @fansanctuary @envy-adamss

[liskantope]

[Warning: good old gratuitous rant describing really bad SJ/wokeness ahead.]

Over the past 4-5 years or so, I’ve had exactly one person on my Facebook newsfeed who is both a PoC and talks on a personal level about racial issues. Plenty of my white Facebook friends (predominantly from academia) constantly demonstrate wokeness on racial issues there, but this is the one PoC Facebook friend (an African-American, who grew up with white parents and mostly away from African-American culture to the best of my knowledge, isn’t academic, and isn’t liberal or even particularly woke on other issues) who does it.

(Well, for the sake of honesty, that’s not entirely true. For a few of those years I had another PoC friend (not black) who effusively espoused woke views on race, and who disturbed me from a psychological standpoint on an even deeper level than the person I’m focusing this post on. But a while back I had to cut her off completely for entirely personal reasons some of which involved third parties. I’m pretty sure she’s somewhere on Tumblr, considered her a friend once, and don’t care to talk about her here.)

I was Facebook friends with the subject of this post for longer than the 4-5 years I’ve mentioned; we were originally friendly acquaintances (she seemed like a super nice and fairly functional person at the time) and I haven’t seen her since well before the time around 2015 or 2016 (can’t remember exactly when) she very abruptly went down a certain ideological rabbit hole.

Anyway, since she’s really my only PoC Facebook friend talking about these things and writes really well, and I’m at least woke enough to acknowledge that it’s the job of white people like myself to listen to the experiences and points of view of PoC on race, I do try to get what I can out of her posts.

Therefore, it’s unfortunate that she

went from 0 to 100 in the direction of modern wokeness on racial issues so fast that her brains flew out of her head and her hyper-awareness of race-related dangers clearly mixes in a really unhealthy way with her anxiety (clinically diagnosed and very apparent outside of racial issues); for an example see the story I described at the end of this post

considers all of her extreme opinions on race objective knowledge that she (alone of my African-American friends) feels forced to disseminate (or maybe it’s out of her purely generous nature?) and writes about how generously she’s “educating” white people with the most subtle yet exquisite condescension I can possibly imagine or would have the writing skills to convey myself if I wanted to, while complaining how exhausting it all is, eventually reaching a point that she’s charging money for her “emotional labor”* in meeting white friends for coffee to give them her “education” and occasionally advertises this minor side-business in Facebook statuses

seems to analyze every single everyday activity in terms of what race everyone is classed in to an extent that to my thinking would logically lead to complete cultural segregation rather than increased diversity; to take a minor example she wrote a rueful diatribe against a black woman on the bus who didn’t meet her attempt to make eye contact because “we black women are supposed to stick together”

occasionally espouses the (to my ears very-pseudoscientific-sounding, and anti-black racist!) theory that African-Americans’ genes were permanently damaged by slavery however many generations ago and talks about the collective trauma she has directly suffered because of slavery -- when she briefly wrote about it in a status she got comments that thanked her for (exact words) “giving us this education”

frequently shares posts of Ally Henny, a prominent writer who comes out with mini-essays on a daily basis some of which (at least the ones I see shared) sound exactly like conservative everyone’s-an-irredeemable-sinner Catholicism with certain words replaced, as if she’s not even making the slightest effort not to sound that way -- one (from the end of last year that I’m not up for hunting down right now) even described what in essence sounds like a second coming!

is surrounded by (mostly white) worshippers and sycophants who immediately dogpile anyone who posts a disagreeing comment (to be fair, the quality of dissenting comments is not high and often comes from an ignorant or obtuse place, making the discussions on her wall even less beneficial to me) in a vicious, vindictive manner

loves to make posts deriding “mediocre white men” (e.g. paraphrased from memory “Maybe the reason so many white men refuse to acknowledge their privilege is that they just don’t want to acknowledge their own mediocrity”, and just the other day, “To have the boldness of a mediocre yt man. That is my goal in life!”) which promptly get applauded by her big group of snickering (mostly white) sycophants; I don’t even want to try to get into the layers of abusive this tactic is (and again she came across, both in-person and online, as a super sweet person prior to 2015-ish)

(and oh yeah, for some reason my white privilege blinds me from seeing, she can no longer actually spell out the phrase “white person”; following Ally Henny she has to write the modifier as “wight” or “yt” or “wh*te” or use “person of whiteness” [EDIT: just found out this, at least on Henny’s part, apparently has something to do with too much use of the phrase “white people” setting off red flags for Facebook’s “community standards” algorithms])

the other day described a conversation on black friend’s wall (which I can’t see) about a representation issue where a white guy politely disagreed; she proudly reports that she told him that “disagreeing with a black woman is not a Good Look, even if done respectfully” at which point the guy angrily left the conversation; she holds this up as an example of white fragility

and finally, tonight’s post which was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me: she complains that in her “largely unproblematic” cooking group online forum a black woman asked if any other PoC could share a recipe for banana pudding with her and several white people replied, “I’m not a PoC but...” and provided a recipe; she decries this as white people taking space away from PoC... in a NON-RACIALLY-SEGREGATED ONLINE FORUM. FOR COOKING. Because apparently the need to acknowledge race in each and every daily activity extends keeping the taint of whiteness out of BANANA PUDDING RECIPES**, and anyone who fails to respect this by giving her unsolicited white-person recipe suggestions is oppressing her.

Of course, when I say “straw that broke the camel’s back” I don’t mean that it will necessarily cause me to un-follow this person -- no, that would be much too responsible and sensible of me! -- I just mean that it caused me to stay up past my bedtime ranting on Tumblr. (And yes, at this point I probably should un-follow her. And go back to staying away from Facebook altogether.)

I guess if this post actually had a point, it would be that my social media sphere has not exactly served me well in providing PoC voices that I can actually learn from (and yes, I’m aware of the laziness and disingenuousness this comment implies, but I’ll leave it here as a tongue-in-cheek conclusion).

*Her implication that this falls under the umbrella of “emotional labor”, even taken in a broader pop activism social context, is on shaky ground in my opinion.

**This would be significantly different if we were talking about a dish coming from a nonwhite culture, e.g. jambalaya, but as far as I know you can’t get much more culturally white than banana pudding.

[happy-hollow-rpg]

Last Dance | RJ + Rada | One Month Later

“...That’s all I have to report.”

Chief Mendez shifts in his chair, seemingly satisfied with RJ’s story. As ridiculous as it sounded, Mendez had no reason to not believe him. RJ’s information was always reliable, even if it wasn’t exactly what he wanted.

“Very well. Keep watch on the witches, and notify me if you come across any new information.”

“Yessir.”

With that out of the way, Chief Mendez looks past RJ at his unexpected guest.

“Now, this girl. She’s a fellow apprentice, correct? What is it that you want, Miss?”

Rada, who has been anxiously wringing the tassels at the end of her scarf for the duration of the meeting, chews on her bottom lip as she’s addressed. 

“Y-Yes… th-that’s… correct… U-Um…” She starts before trailing off. She glances over to RJ for a moment, looking to gather strength from his presence. “I-I have… i-information… a-about a f-few… members of… th-the Russian mafia… a-and someone… wh-who needs… t-to be protected…”

As soon as she mentions the mafia, Chief Mendez starts rummaging through his desk for a few documents. He makes a couple of marks on them, before handing them over to Rada.

“I suppose it may be better for you to submit that information in writing, Miss.” That stutter sure is gonna get in the way of any meaningful conversation. “My contact information is there as well, if you require any help with the forms.”

Rada takes them gingerly, holding them closer to her chest. “Th-Thank you… I-I’ll… try to get them… b-back quickly…” She’s far faster writing than she is speaking, after all.

RJ looks...honestly relieved at how well this is going. He steps in front of Rada again. “By the way, I got some non-witch related info for you.”

“...” Mendez lets out a long sigh, before pulling out more documents. “Give it to me.”

“You know The Swallows? The drug cartel from America. They’re holding a woman hostage in Vietnam. Her name is Thuy Ngoc Tran. Could you guarantee her safety?”

The Chief doesn’t look up from his writing. “Simple enough. We’ve already been working with American officials to crack down on those Swallows, although we weren’t aware they were active in Vietnam as well.”

“Well, you do now. Also got a hit for the Lepresi family in Italy. Their children are looking for a way out of the family business.”

Mendez has to think about it for a bit. “That’s not quite our department, but I can notify the appropriate authorities.”

RJ just sighs. “Good enough, I guess. That’s all.” He pulls a Location card out of his pocket and turns to Rada. “You ready?”

She pauses, looking around him to the man at the desk. “U-Um… Th-Thank you… Mister Mendez…” She bows at the waist, holding it for a second longer than necessary before straightening back up.

That out of the way, Rada nods to RJ. “I’m ready…”

“Before you go.”

RJ sighs and looks back to Mendez. “What.”

“There’s been talk of adding a new department to the NBI. A Magic Crimes Division. They’re requesting your assistance in training agents with them.”

“...” RJ looks away, although Rada can clearly see the annoyance in his face. “I’ll consider it. Teleport.”

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

As the mansion materializes around them, RJ lets out a sigh of relief. “Can’t believe them...Should just leave magical affairs to the witches.”

Rada wobbles briefly on reentry. Teleportation was always a little dizzying. 

“I can’t… s-say that I’m… surprised…” She says with a slight smile. “People a-are… u-usually scared… o-over what… they don’t know… o-or understand… It… p-probably makes them… f-feel more in control… kn-knowing they… have something in place...”

“Whatever. They can try, but I don’t want any part of it. Maybe I should just quit once the stuff with your dad and everything else is done with.” Be his own man, free from the NBI…

Rada carefully adjusts the papers in her hands. “Well… W-We should… be pretty busy… a-as apprentices… a-anyway… I don’t think… a-anyone could… blame you for… going into retirement early…”

“Maybe. Chief probably won’t get off my ass if I do, though...” RJ just sighs. “...Anyway, you gonna head back to Granny Beacon’s place? ‘Cause, uh, that was my last location card.”

She nods. “A-Ah… Y-Yes… I sh-should… go back… soon… Th-There’s, um… a-a lot to… write down… and I should… get started…” She pulls a caster card free from her pocket. “I-I have… a card of… m-my own… s-so there’s… n-no problem there… a-at least...” And an extra, just in case she failed miserably on her first attempt. 

Although she could easily say goodbye now and leave, Rada hesitates. 

“M-Mister Mendoza… I kn-know I’ve… said it a lot… but…” She stands up a little bit straighter, daring to meet his gaze for a change. “Thank you… I n-never thought… I’d have this chance… t-to try and… set things right… I-It means… everything to me...” “I wasn’t… a-as much help as… I’d wanted to be… f-for you and… M-Mister Treat… but… if th-there’s anything… y-you ever need… please, tell me… a-and I’ll be there… Okay…?” Despite the watery shimmer in her crimson eyes, Rada smiles.

RJ chuckles. “Don’t worry about that. I still got this job, so I’m just gonna keep doin’ it. Though I’ll probably take you up on your offer at some point anyway.” Who knows what sort of magical messes RJ’s gonna get himself into in the future…

"Okay…" She'll still worry, but if she wasn't worrying about something, she wouldn't be Rada, would she? "I-I'll, um… g-get going then… Please s-say hello… t-to everyone… f-for me…"

“I’ll do that. Take care.” And with that, he waves her off as she repeats the sentiment and disappears into the spell.

He ought to get going, too. Can’t leave Maui waiting forever...

[matermcrtis]

GENERAL DETAILS.

Full Name: Mary Morrigan Davis, usually goes by Morrigan

Nickname: Bloody Mary, Morr ( only Marr’s allowed, she will bite anyone else who tries )

Age: 32

Gender & Pronouns: Cisfemale, She/Her

Ethnicity: Caucasian (russian/english)

Sexual & Romantic Orientation: Pansexual/panromantic

Occupation: Forensic Pathologist

Affiliation: Law Enforcement

Faceclaim: Megan Fox

CHARACTER INFO.

tw: drug/alcohol addiction mentions, psychological abuse implied, death, drowning.

Looking back on her life, Morrigan sometimes wonder just how she ended here, doing what she does; she thinks back on how many curves and shortcuts she had to take to make it, and all the horrible and wonderful things that made her into the person she is. She made a promise to herself: never regret anything. Everything that happened has led her to this town, to this job, to this path, and she wouldn’t change a single thing.

She was born Oksana Kuznetsov ,  into the care of Mary Davis, an american starlet actress and Alexei Kuznetsov, a very wealthy influential “business man” who handled primarily with money washing and drug dealing for the russian mob through his coorporation.

Oksana grew up in a peculiar household, you could say- though she fathoms it’s more ordinary than people would care to believe. Her mother was frequently popping pills in front of the fireplace, swinging a glass of wine, and her father was off dealing with his private affairs.

In the early years of her life she was taught everything a high society girl should be: ballet, piano, violin, you name it - she even took singing lessons, which much to her mother’s dismay were a complete waste of money, she was barely passable in the shower

For most of her childhood, she was oblivious as to how they had their wealth, and spent her evenings riding horses and by the poolside, contemplating her future as if she’d had a choice. For awhile, she toyed with the idea of being a nurse.

But with time, the so called “normalcy” of their lifestyle started to spark red flags for young Oksana. First she noticed the bruises on her mother’s arm, the screams muffled between walls, and the conversations overhead between old men that’d come by the house every so often

As she grew older, the bruises on her mother’s arms became hers --- his father lashed out on whoever was nearest and she made sure that wasn’t her mother.

She lost her passion for playing instruments, and the days by the pool became far and between all the arguments and fights. By then she was severely aware of what was happening under that roof, and how everything they had was obtained illegally one way or another. She didn’t want it- any of it. She tried to escape into a world of fantasy through books but none of it worked, reality was always waiting eagerly by her bedside.

At school, her fascination for death and macabre didn’t go unnoticed - although Oksana was what you’d consider an averagely beautiful girl, she was a recluse, and mocked for her clothes, the way she carried herself, her peculiar interests. 

She was at some point named “Bloody Mary”, and she didn’t care for it at all

Things escalated the day she tried going to the cops ---- they didn’t listen, had no interest in the word of such a young girl, and were probably in her father or her father’s bosses pockets. She just wanted everything to stop, but what she got instead was a beating, and being locked in her room for two days straight without food.

She never disobeyed them again.

And then, when she was 15, everything changed --- just not exactly for the better.

The story goes as follow: 15 year old Oksana Kuznetsov was found alone in a boat in the middle of a remote river in Peru's back country. Both her parents are presumed dead.

Two days later, they found their bodies, the cause of death is ruled inconclusive. Although both Mary and Alexei had ties to the russian mob, the FBI was hellbent on pinning this case on young Oksana, the sole heir of the Kuznetsov’s fortune.

The media was relentless, and her life became a circus until the day of her trial. She was found not guilty due to lack of evidence, and her record was sealed given her young age, but that didn’t mean she was innocent in everyone else’s eyes ----- once a suspect, your name is never really clear.

So she gave that up too. Oksana vanished off the map and social media, and insisted on being homeschooled. 

When she resurfaced like a phoenix from the ashes, in her 18 birthday, she was no longer Oksana, but Mary Morrigan Davis.

She graduated with honors from the University of California, San Francisco, in forensic pathology, and became a well known name in her field.

Morrigan is driven and dedicates all of herself to each individual case she handles; the way she sees it, it’s never just about the body --- there’s always a story to be uncovered, and just because they can no longer speak doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to have it told. It’s about giving a voice to those who were ripped too early from this world. Not a job, a calling -- a mission. They deserve justice, and she’ll do everything in her power to make sure they get it.

Morrigan tends to be very steely and aloof when it comes to new acquaintances --- she has her walls up for obvious reasons. It’s rare for anyone that’s not Mr.Midnight (her cat) to get too close. 

She does have a bias against the feds...... sorry pals and gals. I promise she’ll warm up 2 u if you’re nice tho. She’s just... Skittish at first.

Likes to drink, likes to read, and most of all ------ likes to be left alone.

Morrigan is a wiccan and she very much gives off gothic chick/i put a spell on you/elvira vibes. It’s the only religion she’s ever felt comfortable practicing, besides, she’s really into nature, so it just feels right.

Don’t touch.

She has a lot of tattoos, mostly on her back & arms (not a full sleeve tho). 

pinterest can be found here, and spotify playlist here (i might make a graphic and post it properly one day who knows).

CONNECTIONS.

obvs i’m down for anything these are just a couple basic suggestions to kick things off!

ex(es) / morrigan does her fair share of dating, but most of the time things end abruptly because she doesn’t feel comfortable with people getting too close fwb / fooling around is easier for her, and morrigan’s very capable of separating feelings from sex so yano - wink wink nudge nudge partner in crime /  morrigan often goes the ... ahEM. extra mile to solve her cases. sometimes she might or might not cross the line between legal and illegal to get some information. this person is fully aware and supportive of her craziness drinking friend / she loves a drink at the end of a tough night, none of this applejuice shit and this is her favorite person to drink next to, probably because they’re as tired and fed up with the world as her one time hookup / for some reason she was feeling vulnerable, they slept together and ... shockingly talked about stuff? maybe she caught feelings? maybe they did or both? either way she’s now avoiding them thanks